TO PAGE M. BAKER.
Kōbe, July, 1895.
Dear Page,—Your kindest letter has come. Of course my mention of the postage-payment was only playful spite; for I should be glad to get letters from you upon those conditions. The Japanese P.O. people don’t seem to do things after our fashion just now, since discharging all their foreign employés. The new clerks get about $10.00 a month ($4.50 American money), and most of them are married on that!
No: I do not see the newspapers. The clubs have them; but I take infinite care to avoid the vicinity of clubs. Sometimes a friend sends me a paper (the Herald, for example); and the publishers sent me only a few notices this time,—about three, I think. That Herald I saw, through kindness of a man whom I don’t even know.
I don’t know that you are wrong about not ordering the dress just now. The taller the little Constance gets, the better she will look in one. I fancy that the summer dress will be best,—it shows the figure a little: the winter dress, for a cold day, makes one look a little bit roly-poly. Perhaps a little school-girl’s dress would please you;—though it is not very dear, but rather very cheap, it is pretty,—quite pretty and of many colours. The Japanese robes bought in Japan by foreign ladies are especially made for them;—they are not the real thing. No pretty grown-up American girl would feel comfortable in the Japanese girdle, which is not tied round the waist, but round the hips,—so that Japanese women, well dressed, look shorter-limbed then they really are, and they are short of limb compared with the women of Northern races. Much stuff has been written, however, about the short-legged Japanese. I have seen as well-limbed men as one could care to see:—they are shorter of stature than Northern Europeans or Americans, but they would make a very good comparison with French, Spanish, or Italians—the dark types. They are heavily built, too, sometimes. The Kumamoto troops are very sturdy; and the weight of the men surprised me. But the finest men, except labourers, that I have seen in Japan are the men-of-war’s-men,—the blue-jackets. They are picked from the sturdiest fishing population of Southern Japan, where the men grow big, and I have seen several over six feet.
But I have been digressing. It was very sweet,—your little picture of home life with the darling fillette. She is much more advanced than my boy. He is younger, of course; but girls mature intellectually so much quicker than boys. He is puzzled, too, by having to learn two languages,—each totally different in thought construction; but he knows, when the postman gives him a letter, which language it is written in. I think, though it is not for me to say it, that the whole street loves him;—for everybody brings him presents and pets him. At first he worried me a little by calling out to every foreigner,—some rough ones into the bargain,—“Hei, papa!” But the old sea-captains and the mercantile folk thus addressed would take him up in their arms and pet him; and there is a big captain with a red face who watches for him regularly, to give him candies, etc. We are going soon to another house; and we shall miss the good kind captain.
I’m still out of work, and going to stay out of it. I think I can live by my pen. I am not sure, of course; but I can hang out here a couple of years more, anyhow,—and trust to luck. My publishers seem to be all right.
Infinite thanks about the syndicate project. I can certainly undertake the matter for the figure named,—for I won’t be away more than six months. I have written my publishers to ask if I can get certain proofs of a new book (not quite finished yet—so please don’t mention it) early enough to start about October. I should like one provision,—that I may choose another point, such as Java, in preference to Manila or Ryūkyū,—supposing ugly circumstances, such as cholera, intervene. I might try a French colony,—Tonkin, Noumea, or Pondicherry. At all events this would not hurt the syndicate’s interests. I should hope to be back in spring; and I would not disappoint you as to quality. Perhaps the more queer places I go to, the better for the syndicate.
I don’t know what to tell you about war-matters. The unjust interference of the three powers has to be considered, though, from two points of view. The first is, that the anger of the nation may create such a feeling in the next Diet as to provoke a temporary suspension of the constitution. The second is that most of us feel the check to Japan was rather in the interest of foreign residents. The feeling against foreigners had been very strong, not without reason, as the foreign newspapers, excepting the Mail and the Kōbe Chronicle, had mostly opposed the new treaties, and criticized the war in an unkindly spirit. Besides, there never had been any really good feeling between foreigners and Japanese in the open ports. Now there was really danger that after a roaring triumph, without check, over China, the previous feeling against foreigners would take more violent form. The sympathetic action of England improved the feeling very much; and really I think the check will in the end benefit Japan. She will be obliged to double or triple her naval strength, and wait a generation. In the meantime she will gain much in other power, military and industrial. Then she will be able to tackle Russia,—if she feels as she now does. The army and navy were furiously eager to fight Russia. But Russia has enormous staying power; and the fleets of three nations stood between the 150,000 men abroad and the shores of Japan. Of course it was a risk. England might have settled the naval side of the matter in Japan’s favour. But war would have had sad consequences to industry and commerce. The Japanese statesmen were right. Besides, what does Japan lose?—Nothing, except a position; for the retrocession must be heavily paid for. The anger of the people is only a question of national vanity wounded;—and though they would sacrifice everything for war, it is better that they were not suffered by the few wise heads to do so.
I was sorry about your having to slap that fellow. But you will always be the old-style Knight—preferring to give a straight-out blow, than simply to sit down at a desk and score a man every day, unwearyingly, as Northern editors do.