“This will be a bad letter” ought to have been “I fear this is ... etc.” But you and I and everybody learn best by making mistakes.
With best remembrance from your old teacher, believe me
Ever truly yours,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA
Kumamoto, December, 1891.
Dear Friend Nishida,—Your letter has just reached me. I am more sorry than I can express to hear of the death of Yokogi. Nature seems strangely cruel in making such a life, and destroying it before the time of ripeness. And the good hearts and the fine brains pass to dust, while the coarse and the cunning survive all dangers....
The name of the delightful old Samurai who teaches Chinese here, I think you know,—Akizuki. He was at Aizu, and made a great soldier’s name; and he is just as gentle and quiet as Mr. Katayama,—and still more paternally charming in his manner. He is sixty-three years old....
I have made no friends among the teachers yet. I attended my first Japanese dinner with them the night before last; and, because you were not there, I think I made some queer mistakes about the dishes—when to use chopsticks, etc. There were no geishas: the former director had forbidden their employment at teachers’ dinners; and I don’t think that Mr. Kano is going to revoke the order. The reason for it was not prudery; but the opposition paper used to take advantage of the presence of geishas at the teachers’ banquets to print nasty things against the school. So it was determined not to give the paper a chance to say anything more....
I have been very cautious in writing you about the climate, because I wanted to be very sure that, in case you should come here, it would be for the best. So far the climate is like this: every morning and night cold, with white frost; afternoons so warm that one can go out without an overcoat. Very little rain. No snow yet; but I am told that it will come.