Your letter was—well, I don’t just know what to call its quality:—there was a bracing tenderness in it that reminded me of a college friendship. Really, in this world there is nothing quite so holy as a college friendship. Two lads,—absolutely innocent of everything wrong in the world or in life,—living in ideals of duty and dreams of future miracles, and telling each other all their troubles, and bracing each other up. I had such a friend once. We were both about fifteen when separated, but had been together from ten. Our friendship began with a fight, of which I got the worst;—then my friend became for me a sort of ideal, which still lives. I should be almost afraid to ask where he is now (men grow away from each other so): but your letter brought his voice and face back,—just as if his very ghost had come in to lay a hand on my shoulder....
Kōbe is a nice little place. The effect on me is not pleasant, however. I have become too accustomed to the interior. The sight of foreign women—the sound of their voices—jars upon me harshly after long living among purely natural women with soundless steps and softer speech. (I fear the foreign women here, too, are nearly all of the savagely bourgeoise style—affected English and affected American ways prevail.) Carpets,—dirty shoes,—absurd fashions,—wickedly expensive living,—airs,—vanities,—gossip: how much sweeter the Japanese life on the soft mats,—with its ever dearer courtesy and pretty, pure simplicity. Yet my boy can never be a Japanese. Perhaps, if he grows old, there will some day come back to him memories of his mother’s dainty little world,—the hibachi,—the toko,—the garden,—the lights of the household shrine,—the voices and hands that shaped his thought and guided every little tottering step. Then he will feel very, very lonesome,—and be sorry he did not follow after those who loved him into some shadowy resting-place where the Buddhas still smile under their moss....
Ever affectionately,
Lafcadio.
TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN
Kōbe, January, 1895.
Dear Chamberlain,—I’m able now to write and read a little every day—not much, as to reading: writing tires the eyes less. Glad you like “Glimpses,” as I see by your last kind letter. Of course it is full of faults: any work written in absolute isolation must be. It’s taking, though: the publishers announce a third edition already, and the notices have been good—in America, enthusiastic. The Athenæum praised it fervidly; but a few English papers abuse it. The mixture of blame and praise means literary success generally.
The earthquakes are really horrible. I can sympathize with you.
The sensation of foreign life here is very unpleasant, after life in the interior. A foreign interior is a horror to me; and the voices of the foreign women—China-Coast tall women—jar upon the comfort of existence. Can’t agree with you about the “genuine men and women” in the open ports. There are some—very, very few. (Thank the Gods I shall never have to live among them!) The number of Germans here makes life more tolerable, I fancy. They are plain, but homely, which is a virtue, and liberal, which commercial English or Americans (the former especially) seldom are. They have their own club and a good library. But life in Yunotsu or Hino-misaki, or Oki, with only the bare means for Japanese comfort, were better and cleaner and higher in every way than the best open ports can offer.