DEAR NISHIDA,--Your last kind letter came just after I had
posted mine to you. Since then I have been horribly busy, and upset,
and confused,--and even now I write rather because feeling ashamed at
having been so long silent, than because I have time to write a good
letter. We got a house only on the 29th, and are only half-settled now.
The house is large--two-storied, and new--but not pretty, and there is
no garden (at least nothing which deserves to be called a garden). We
moved into it _before it was finished_, so as to make sure of it. It is
all Japanese, of course--ten rooms. It belongs to a man who owns seven
hundred and eighty houses!--a very old man, a _Sakeya_, named Masumoto
Kihei. (Somebody tells me I am wrong,--that he has more than eight
hundred houses.) He buries poor people free of charge--that is one of
his ways of showing charity. He has one superintendent who, with many
assistants, manages the renting of the houses. The house is very far
from the university--forty-five minutes by _kuruma_--in Ushigome, and
almost at the very end of Tōkyō. But it was a case of _Shikata ga
nai_.
I teach only twelve hours. I have no text-books except for two
classes,--one of which studies Milton's "Paradise Lost" and the other
Tennyson's "Princess" (at my suggestion). I did not suggest "Paradise
Lost;" but as the students wanted in different divisions of the class
to study different books, made them vote, and, out of seventy-eight,
sixty-three voted for "Paradise Lost"! Curious! (Just because it was
hard for them, I suppose.) My other classes are special, and receive
lectures on special branches of English literature (such as Ballad
Literature, Ancient and Modern; Victorian Literature, etc.);--the
professor being left free to do as he pleases. Of course, the position,
as I try to fill it, will be an expensive one. I shall probably have
to buy $1000 worth of books before next summer. Ultimately everything
will be less expensive. The classes are very badly arranged (_badly_
is a gentle word); for the 1st, 2d and 3d years of literature make
one class;--the 2d and 3d together another class;--the 3d by itself a
third class. You will see at once how difficult to try to establish a
systematic three-years' course. I am doing it, however,--with Professor
Toyama's approval;--hoping that the classes may be changed next year.
The students have been very kind and pleasant. My old Kumamoto pupils
invited me to a meeting, and I made a speech to them. They meet in
the same temple where Yaoya-O-Shichi used to meet Kichizo Sama,--her
acolyte-lover. It is called Kichijōji.--I met some of my old pupils
who had become judges, others who were professors, others engineers. I
felt rather happy.
Professor Toyama I like more and more. He is a curious man,--really
a _solid_ man and a man of the world,--but not at all unkind, and
extremely straightforward. He _can_ be very sarcastic, and is very
skilful at making jokes. Some of the foreign professors are rather
afraid of his jokes: I have heard him make some sharp ones. But he does
not joke yet with me directly--seems to understand me very well indeed.
He knows a great deal about English authors and their values,--but says
very little about his own studies. I do not understand how he found time
to learn as much about the English and American authors as he seems to
know. He gave me some kind hints about the students--told me exactly
what they liked, and how far to humour them. I had only one long talk
with him,--that was at the house of Dr. Florenz one evening. The doctor
had invited five of us to dinner.
What else is there to tell you? I must not say too much about the mud,
the bad roads, the horrible confusion caused by the laying-down of those
new water-pipes. The weather is vile, and Tōkyō is hideous in
Ushigome. But Setsu is happy--like a bird making its nest. She is fixing
up her new home, and has not yet had time to notice what ugly weather it
is.
In Tōkyō we find everything _very_ cheap,--except house-rent. And
even house-rent is much lower than in Kōbe,--very much lower. I pay
only $25 for a very big house; but I expect to do even better than that.
Affectionate regards,