So I would like to suggest that poor O-Kuni have a kind word said for her. And I am sure we would both think very highly of her if she were alive.
There is a little Japanese book about her history; but I do not know the title. With best regards,
Lafcadio.
TO PAGE M. BAKER
Matsue, August, 1891.
Dear Page,—I answer your dear letter at once, as you wished me to do. It reached me to-day, on my return from Kizuki, the Holy City of Japan,—where I have become something of a favourite with the high pontiff of the most ancient and sacred shrine of the land,—which no other European was ever permitted to enter before me. And I am travelling now,—stopping at home only on my way to other curious and unknown places. For this part of Japan is so little known that I was the first to furnish Murray’s Guidebook editors with some information thereabout....
But I had unknown friends here who knew me through my “Chinese Ghosts”—so they applied to the Government for me, and I got an educational position under contract. The contract was renewed last March for a year—the extreme term allowed by law. My salary is only $100 per month; but that is equal here to more than double the sum in America. So that I am able to keep up nearly the nicest house in town,—outside of a few very rich men,—to have several servants, to give dinners, and to dress my little wife tolerably nicely. Moreover, life in Japan is something so placid and kindly and gentle—that it is just like one of those dreams in which everybody is good-natured about everything. The missionaries have no reason to like me,—for one had to be discharged to secure me; and I teach the boys to respect their own beautiful faith and the gods of their fathers, and not to listen to proselytism. However, the missionaries leave me alone. We have a tiff about Spencer in the Japan Mail sometimes; but as a rule I am completely isolated from all Europeans. It is only at long intervals one ever gets so far,—with the exception of an austere female stationed here in the vague hope of making a convert.
Of course I will send you a photograph of my little wife. I must tell you I am married only in the Japanese manner as yet,—because of the territorial law. Only by becoming a Japanese citizen, which I think I shall do, will it be possible to settle the matter satisfactorily. By the present law, the moment a foreigner marries a native according to English law, she becomes an English citizen, and her children English subjects, if she have any. Therefore she becomes subject to territorial laws regarding foreigners,—obliged to live within treaty limits, and virtually separated from her own people. So it would be her ruin to marry her according to English form, until I become a Japanese in law;—for should I die, she would have serious reason to regret her loss of citizenship.
As for going abroad—I mean back to you all—I don’t know what to say. Just now, of course, I could not if I would; for I am under legal contract. Then my plans for a book on Japan are but a quarter finished. Then, my little woman would be very unhappy, I fear, away from her people and her gods;—for this country is so strange that it is impossible for any who have never lived here for a long time to understand the enormous difference between the thought and feeling of the Japanese and our own. But, later on, perhaps I must go back for a time to see about getting out a book. Then I will probably appeal to you for a year’s employ or something. The Orient is more fascinating than you may suppose: here, remember, the people really eat lotuses: they form a common article of diet. But no human being can tell exactly what the future has in store for him. So I cannot for the life of me say now what I shall do....