DEAR HENDRICK,--I am in immediate and awful need of books, and
am going to ask you to put me into communication with a _general
book-dealer_ to whom I can send P. O. orders, and who will mail me books
directly on receipt of cash. It is hopeless ordering through local
book-dealers,--not simply because of charges and errors, but because
of enormous delays. On a separate sheet I enclose some titles of what
I badly want for the moment; and I am sending some cash. This said, I
promise not to trouble you further _except when I can't help it_. See
what a nuisance I am!
You may well believe me in a hurry when I send a letter with such
a beginning. Imagine my position:--a professor of literature
without books, improvising lectures to students without books. I
reached Tōkyō about seven days ago, and have not yet got a
house,--but am living in a hotel. At present I can give you no valid
impressions:--everything is a blur. But so far the position does not
seem disagreeable--rather the reverse. In fact I am afraid to express
my satisfaction,--remembering Polyxenes. The salary is 400 yen,--and in
Japan, a yen is a dollar though it is only fifty-odd cents in America.
Old pupils of Izumo and elsewhere gather round me, welcoming me,
delighted--some needing help and winning it--some needing only sympathy.
Professors far off, moving in separate and never-colliding orbits. I can
teach for years--if I please--without ever seeing any of my colleagues.
But Government favour, you know, is uncertain. The chances are that I
shall hold on for three years at least.
When I heard last from you I was in Izumo. There I became very strong by
constant swimming and starving,--Japanese diet takes all the loose flesh
from a man in short order. My lungs got quite sound, and my miserable
eye _nearly_ well.
I suppose that I partly owe this place to my books, and partly to
Professor Chamberlain's kind recommendation. The Japanese seldom notice
literary work,--but they have paid considerable attention to mine,
considering that I am a foreigner. My ambition, though, is independence
in my own home,--an old-fashioned _yashiki_, full of surprises of
colour and beauty and quaintness and peace. And a few years abroad
with my boy,--who is very mischievous now, and beats his father
occasionally.--Curious, how much better the Japanese understand children
than we do. You remember as a boy the obligatory morning _dip_ in the
sea, no doubt. This no Japanese parents would inflict on their child.
I tried it with mine, but the folks said, "That is wrong: it will only
make him afraid of the water." Which proved true. Moreover, he would not
allow me to come near him any more in the sea,--but used to order me to
keep away. "Go away, and don't come back any more." Then the grandmother
took him in charge; and in a week he was as fond of the water as I,--had
overcome his fear of it. But it requires great patience to treat
children Japanese-style,--by leaving them _almost_ free to follow their
natural impulses, and coaxing courage by little and little.
Awful weather,--floods, wreckings, ruinings, drownings. I think the
deforestation of the country is probably the cause of these terrible
visitations. In Kōbe just before I left, the river, usually a dry
sandbed, burst its banks after rain, swept away whole streets, wrecked
hundreds of houses, and drowned about a hundred people. Then you know
the tidal wave in the north--it was _only_ 200 miles long--destroyed
some 30,000 lives. A considerable part of East Central Japan is still
under water at this moment--river water. Lake Biwa rose and drowned the
city of Ōtsu.
Isn't it almost wicked of me to have fought for a foreign salary
under such circumstances?--especially while students come to tell
me: "My father and mother have educated me thus far by selling all
their property,--piece by piece,--even mother's dresses and our
lacquer-ware had to be sold. And now we have nothing, and my education
is unfinished--and unless it is finished I cannot even hope for a
position. Teacher, I shall work six years to pay the money back, if you
will help me." Poor fellows!--their whole expense is only about $120
(Japanese) a year. But if I did not take the salary, another foreigner
would ask even more; and I am working for a Japanese community of my
own. Buying books is rather extravagant, but my literary work pays for
that.
Well, here's love to you. (If the book-business does not bother you too
much, please tell the book-dealer to mail _everything_,--not to send by
express.)
Ever faithfully,
LAFCADIO HEARN.
(Y. KOIZUMI.)