INTRODUCTION.
The fate of an introduction to a book seems not only to fall short of its purpose, but to offend those whose habit it is to criticise before they read. Once I heard an old man say, "It is dangerous to write for the wise. They strike warm hands with form, but shrug a cold shoulder at originality." I do not think, though, that this book was written for the "wise," for the men and women whose frosty judgment would freeze the warm current of a free and almost careless soul. It was written for the imaginative, and they alone are the true lovers of story and song. Onoto Watanna plays upon an instrument new to our ears, quaintly Japanese, an air at times simple and sweet, as tender as the chirrup of a bird in love, and then as wild as the scream of a hawk. Mood has been her teacher; impulse has dictated her style. She has inherited the spirit of the orchard in bloom. Her art is the grace of the wild vine, under no obligation to a gardener, but with a charm that the gardener could not impart. A monogram wrought by nature's accident upon the golden leaf of autumn, does not belong to the world of letters, but it inspires more feeling and more poetry than a library squeezed out of man's tired brain. And this book is not unlike an autumn leaf blown from a forest in Japan.
OPIE READ.
Chicago, January, 1899.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER. | PAGE. | |
| I.— | Parental Ambitions, | [5] |
| II.— | Cleo, | [10] |
| III.— | Who Can Analyze a Coquette? | [15] |
| IV.— | The Dance on Deck, | [20] |
| V.— | Her Gentle Enemy, | [24] |
| VI.— | A Veiled Hint, | [27] |
| VII.— | Jealousy Without Love, | [30] |
| VIII.— | The Man She Did Love, | [37] |
| IX.— | Merely a Woman, | [43] |
| X.— | Watching the Night, | [47] |
| XI.— | At the Journey's End, | [52] |
| XII.— | Those Queer Japanese! | [54] |
| XIII.— | Takashima's Home-Coming, | [59] |
| XIV.— | After Eight Years, | [60] |
| XV.— | Numè, | [64] |
| XVI.— | An American Classic, | [68] |
| XVII.— | "Still a Child," | [73] |
| XVIII.— | The Meeting, | [76] |
| XIX.— | Confidences, | [79] |
| XX.— | Sinclair's Indifference, | [83] |
| XXI.— | "Me? I Lig' You," | [86] |
| XXII.— | Advice, | [92] |
| XXIII.— | Afraid to Answer, | [95] |
| XXIV.— | Visiting the Tea Houses, | [99] |
| XXV.— | Shattered Hopes, | [104] |
| XXVI.— | Conscience, | [108] |
| XXVII.— | Confession, | [110] |
| XXVIII.— | Japanese Pride, | [115] |
| XXIX.— | Seclusion, | [117] |
| XXX.— | Feminine Diplomacy, | [121] |
| XXXI.— | A Barbarian Dinner, | [124] |
| XXXII.— | The Philosophy of Love, | [126] |
| XXXIII.— | What Can that "Luf" Be? | [130] |
| XXXIV.— | Conspirators, | [133] |
| XXXV.— | A Respite for Sinclair, | [136] |
| XXXVI.— | Those Bad Jinrikisha Men, | [139] |
| XXXVII.— | Those Good Jinrikisha Men, | [141] |
| XXXVIII.— | Disproving a Proverb, | [144] |
| XXXIX.— | Love! | [148] |
| XL.— | A Passionate Declaration, | [152] |
| XLI.— | A Hard Subject to Handle, | [156] |
| XLII.— | A Story, | [160] |
| XLIII.— | The Truth of the Proverb, | [163] |
| XLIV.— | Numè Breaks Down, | [167] |
| XLV.— | Trying to Forget, | [171] |
| XLVI.— | An Observant Husband, | [173] |
| XLVII.— | Matsushima Bay, | [176] |
| XLVIII.— | A Rejected Lover, | [180] |
| XLIX.— | The Answer, | [184] |
| L.— | The Ball, | [187] |
| LI.— | The Fearful News, | [190] |
| LII.— | The Tragedy, | [192] |
| LIII.— | A Little Heroine, | [194] |
| LIV.— | Sinclair Learns the Truth at Last, | [198] |
| LV.— | Lovers Again, | [202] |
| LVI.— | The Penalty, | [206] |
| LVII.— | The Pity of It All, | [211] |
| LVIII.— | Mrs. Davis's Nerves, | [214] |
| LIX.— | Cleo and Numè, | [217] |