TŌKYŌ, May, 1899.
DEAR MITCHELL,--I am sending you the address of the great silk house,
or rather dry-goods house, in Tōkyō; but a word in addition. If
you and the consul are not afraid of taking cold by walking about in
stocking-feet awhile, I strongly advise you to visit also the Japanese
show-rooms,--just to see the crêpe-silks, spring goods, embroidered
screens, etc.,--the things made to suit Japanese taste, according
to real art principles. You will find them much more interesting, I
imagine, than the displays made to please foreigners. Even the _towels_
and the _yukata_ stuffs ought to tempt you into a trifling purchase or
two in spite of yourselves; but nobody will grumble even if you do not
buy at all. It is just like a bazaar, you need only go upstairs and walk
through, from room to room, looking at the cases.
I was delighted with the little book which good Consul Bedloe so kindly
gave me--I read it in the train. Please thank him with the best thanks
in your capacity (which is practically unlimited) for the picture:
it will be always a souvenir for me of one of the most, if not the
absolutely most, delightful days that I passed in Yokohama. If you
think he would care for the enclosed shadow of this old owl, please
kindly give it him. I would I had at the moment some better way of
acknowledging the rare pleasure which his merry good fellowship and his
inimitable stories and everything about himself filled me with. I can't
help feeling as if I had made a new friend--though that would not do to
say, you know, upon such short acquaintance, to him. I only want to tell
_you_ just how the experience affected me.
I shall not thank you for my happy two days with you, and all the
beautiful things that you "so beautifully _did_." But I felt as if the
sky had become more blue and the grass more green than could really be
the case. You know what that means.
With hope to see you soon again,
LAFCADIO.