"I suppose you know that in this Orient the construction of the family is totally different to what it is in Europe.... We are too conceitedly apt to think that what is good for Englishmen is good for all nations,—our ethics, our religion, our costumes, etc. The plain facts of the case are that all Eastern races lose, instead of gaining, by contact with us. They imitate our vices instead of our virtues, and learn all our weaknesses without getting any of our strength. Already statistics show an enormous increase of crime in Japan as the result of 'Christian civilisation'; and the open ports show a demoralisation utterly unknown in the interior of the country, and unimaginable in the old feudal days before 1840 or 1850...."
In the next letter he gives his sister a minute account of his Japanese manner of life on the floor without chairs or tables. It has been described so often by visitors to Japan, and by Hearn himself, that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. He ends his letter:—
"I am now so used to the Japanese way of living, that when I have to remain all day in Western clothes, I feel very unhappy; and I think I should not find European life pleasant in summer time. Some day, I will send you a photograph of my house.
"I wish you much happiness and good health and pleasant days of travel, and thank you much for the paper.
"This letter is rather rambling, but perhaps you will find something interesting in it.
"Ever affectionately,
"Lafcadio."
In September comes another letter to Mrs. Atkinson: "You actually talk about writing too often,—which is strange! There is only this difficulty about writing,—that we both know so little of each other that topics interesting to both can be only guessed at. That should be only a temporary drawback.
"The more I see your face in photos, the more I feel drawn toward you. Lillah and the other sister represent different moods and tenses pictorially. You seem most near to me,—as I felt on first reading your letter. You have strength, too, where I have not. You are certainly very sensitive, but also self-repressed. I think you are not inclined to make mistakes. I think you can be quickly offended, and quick to forgive—if you understand the offence to be only a mistake. You would not forgive at all should you discern behind the fault a something much worse than mistake,—and in this you would be right. You are inclined to reserve, and not to bursts of joy;—you have escaped my extremes of depression and extremes of exultation. You see very quickly beyond the present relations of a fact—I think all this. But of course you have been shaped in certain things by social influences I have never had,—so that you must have perfect poise where I would flounder and stumble.
"But imagining won't do always. I should like to know more of you than a photograph or a rare letter can tell. I don't know, remember, anything at all about you. I do not know where you were born, where you were educated,—anything of your life; or what is much more, infinitely more important, I don't know your emotions and thoughts and feelings and experiences in the past. What you are now, I can guess. But what were you,—long ago? What memories most haunt you of places and people you liked? If you could tell me some of these, how pleasantly we might compare notes. Mere facts tell little: the interest of personality lies most in the infinitely special way that facts affect the person. I am very curious about you,—but, don't take this too seriously; because though my wishes are strong, my disinclination to cause you pain is stronger; and you have told me that writing is sometimes fatiguing to you. It were so much better could we pass a day or two together.
"You must not underrate yourself as you did in your last. Your few lines about the scenery,—short as they were,—convinced me that you could do something literary of a very nice sort had you the time and chance to give yourself to any such work. But I do not wish that you would—except to read the result; for literary labour is extremely severe work, even after the secret of method is reached. I am only beginning to learn; and to produce five pages means to write at least twenty-five. Enthusiasms and inspirations have least to do with the matter. The real work is condensing, compressing, choosing, changing, shifting words and phrases,—studying values of colour and sound and form in words; and when all is done, the result satisfies only for a time. What I wrote six years ago, I cannot bear the sight of to-day. If I had been a genius, I wonder whether I would feel the same.