Mrs. Hearn insisted on us staying to a meal, which we could not avoid doing without positive rudeness, though we had only expected afternoon tea. It was a “first-class” Japanese meal, with nearly all the things I like (sometimes the things are quite uneatable, as, for example, the “sea-cucumbers” in a raw salad, which are also first-class things), and I enjoyed it, but I got home at 8 instead of 5 as I expected.
The children were with us most of the evening, showing Brownie picture-books, of which they had a fine stock. Hearn evidently liked Andrew Lang’s fairy books, for they were nearly all there.
In his study, where we had supper, was the little family shrine, built rather like a miniature temple of plain wood; within was Hearn’s photo, and before it burnt a tiny lamp and stood dainty vases of small flowers. According to Japanese ideas, the spirit of the departed inhabits this dwelling and needs the love and attention of his kindred, and takes part in their life. Is Christianity more consoling to the bereaved than this? From the window by the shrine could be seen the grove of the tall bamboo Hearn loved, and in the room floated one or two of the mosquitoes with which he had such sympathy.
To see the eldest son, after having read that tender, wonderful letter of Hearn’s about his birth, was, I believe, a mistake. Hearn’s words had made me love the child—but he isn’t a child any longer, and is now a thin lanky youth, shy of manner and slow in English speech. But perhaps—for there is promise in his face—I shall like him well as a man in the years to come. How Hearn wove words into an opalescent cobweb! I could imagine him feeling intoxicated with the beauty of words—nay, he must have been, for as a reader I am intoxicated by words of his, which must have affected him a thousand times more strongly.
December 16.—It has been blowing a perfect hurricane, and is blowing still, so that I panted on my cycle to the University, but enjoyed the ride back, for by a most unusual chance the wind didn’t turn and face me on my home way also, as it generally does, but stopped respectfully behind me and blew me gaily at full speed up hills which always make me dismount on usual days. The sky was brilliantly clear, and Mount Fuji shone blue-and-white in the morning, and purple-black in front of a copper-and-gold sky at night. Wonderful mountain! “The only thing in Japan that is not overrated,” as some one told me he felt it was.
December 20.—Writing all the early part of the day, but went along to tea with the D——’s and met Ambassador O——. We had a cosy time; in the course of conversation the Ambassador told me to listen,—and then said that it was not necessarily the cleverest people who made the most mark in the world, but the people who wrote what they knew, who gave to the world of their knowledge, instead of letting it die with them, as so many of the truly great have done. The D——’s house is peculiarly charming—it is not, of course, a “salon” in any sense of the word, but more there than anywhere I know people really converse and sometimes say things that the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table might pop straight into his book. Though what they actually are I cannot record, the after effect is much the same as reading a chapter of a light, well-written book.
And the rooms too are so pretty, a charming mixture of Japanese and Western daintiness, like a black-eyed rosy-cheeked Eurasian, who sparkles with the beauty of both the parent countries.
December 21.—I worked hard all day. Professor F—— is back and we got quite a lot done. In the evening I went to some pretty tableau from Pride and Prejudice, arranged by a number of people I know, and at 10 went into the Opera House, where I met a party of friends. This Opera House merits a word of description. As in the newspaper it said—“For the first time we in Tokio can sit in a foreign theatre, listen to a foreign orchestra, and see a foreign play played by foreigners all at one time.” The theatre, or Opera House, built partly on the Vienna model, was opened only a few days ago, and is now playing Dorothy, by amateurs, but many of them have professional talent and training. The white-and-gilt interior, the brilliant lights without, and the real “home” effect of the piece were delightful after all these months without the possibility of anything of the sort. To permanent residents here it will be a very great boon, and is already patronised by all the Legations and many of the best Japanese. Outside were panting motors, and—I discovered that the smell of petrol is delightful in its reminder of home!