TO PAGE M. BAKER
Kumamoto, 1894.
Dear Page,—Though I never hear from you directly, the T.-D. brings me occasionally very emphatic proof that I am not forgotten, and am perhaps forgiven. So I venture a line or two, hoping you will not show the letter to anybody.
I told you some years ago I was married; but I did not tell you I had a son,—who is, of course, dearer than my own life to me. Curiously, he is neither like his mother nor like me: he takes after some English ancestor,—for he is grey-eyed, fair-haired (curly chestnut), and wonderfully strong: he is going, if he lives, to be a remarkably powerful man; and, I hope, a more sensible man than his foolish dad.
Well, now two perils menace me. First, the immense reaction of Japan,—reasserting her individuality against all foreign influence, which has resulted in the discharge of most of the high-paid foreign employees; secondly, the war with China. The Japanese—essentially a fighting race, as Bantams are—will probably win the battles every time; but if China be in dead, bitter earnest, she will win the war. (Probably her chances will be snatched from her by foreign intervention.) But whatever be the end of this enormous complication, Japan is going to empty her treasury. The chances for Government employees are dwindling: my contract runs only till March, and the chances are 0.
Of course, I can peg along somehow,—getting odd jobs from newspapers, etc., doing a little teaching of English, French, or Spanish. I can’t help thinking I would do better to go abroad—especially at a time when every American 100 cents is worth nearly 200 Japanese cents.
Here goes. Could you get me anything to do if I started in the spring for America? I mean something good enough to save money at. I am past all nonsense now, and for myself only would need very little. But it would not be for myself that I should go. I should want to be sure of being able to send money to Japan, by confining my own wants to good living and an occasional book or two. If you could get me something anywhere south of Mason and Dixon’s line, I should try to be practically grateful in some way. I am not in the least desirous of seeing Boston or New York or Philadelphia—or being obliged to exist by machinery. I would rather infinitely be in Memphis or Charleston or Mobile or—glorious Florida.
Or can you get me anything educational in Spanish-America? I could scarcely take my people to the U.S.,—but to South America I might try later on. I am now 44, and all grey as a badger. Unless I can make enough to educate my boy well, I don’t know what I am worth,—but I feel that I shall have precious little time to do it in. Add 20 to 44,—and how much is left of a man?
Perhaps you will think—if I am worth thinking about at all: “Well, why were you such a d——d fool as to go and have a son?” Ask the gods! Really I don’t know.
Ever faithfully—or, as the Japanese would say, unfaithfully,—yours,
Lafcadio Hearn.