TŌKYŌ, June, 1902.
DEAR MRS. HIRN,--I have received the copy of _Euterpe_, so kindly sent
me, containing your translation,--which gave me much pleasure.
What a nice little paper _Euterpe_ is! Long ago we used to have good
papers like that--real literary papers, in nearly the same format--in
America. Now, alas! they have become impossible. The taste for good
literature in America is practically dead: vulgar fiction has killed
the higher fiction; "sensationalism" and blatant cheap journalism have
murdered the magazines; and poetry is silent. I wish there could be
another paper in America like _Euterpe_....
I have been wondering, in reading your translation, whether there is no
better word for the English "ghostly" than _mystika_--surely, they are
not alike in meaning. The old English name for a priest, you know, is
"a _ghostly_ father." And I am wondering whether "_ewigt_" really has
the sense of "infinitely." The Buddhist thought is that the innermost
eternal life in each of us becomes "infinite" by union with the One,
when the shell of Karma is broken. Individuality and personality exist
only as passing phenomena: the Reality is One _and_ infinite.
Please pardon these little observations, which are not intended as
criticisms, but only as suggestions.
Believe me ever most sincerely yours,