DEAR MRS. WETMORE,--I have your kindest note of June 16th, and am
returning, with unspeakable thanks, the letters forwarded. I have
written also to President Remsen and to President Taylor, as you wished
me to do, directly.
You will be glad to hear that I am almost strong again; but I fear that
I shall never be strong enough to lecture before a general public.
Before a university audience I could do something, I believe; but the
strain of speaking in a theatre would be rather trying. The great and
devouring anxiety is for some regular employ--something that will assure
me the means to live. With that certainty, I can do much. Lecturing
will, I fear, be at best a most hazardous means of living. But it may
help me to something permanent. I have now nearly completed twenty-one
lectures: they will form eventually a serious work upon Japan, entirely
unlike anything yet written. The substantial idea of the lectures is
that Japanese society represents the condition of ancient Greek society
a thousand years before Christ. I am treating of religious Japan,--not
of artistic or economical Japan, except by way of illustration. Lowell's
"Soul of the Far East" is the only book of the kind in English; but I
have taken a totally different view of the causes and the evolution of
things.
I am worried about my boy--how to save him out of this strange world
of cruelty and intrigue. And I dream of old ugly things--things that
happened long ago, I am alone in an American city; and I have only ten
cents in my pocket,--and to send off a letter that I must send will
take three cents. That leaves me seven cents for the day's food. Now,
I am not hard up, by any means: I can wait another six months in Japan
without anxiety. But the horror of being without employ in an American
city appalls me--because I remember. All of which is written in haste
to catch the mail. How good you are! I ought not to tell you of any
troubles of mine--but _if_ I could not, what would have happened me?