Memoirs of an American Prima DonnaKellogg, Clara Louise
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Memoirs of an American Prima Donna
Kellogg, Clara Louise
Kellogg, Clara Louise, 1842-1916; Singers -- United States -- Biography
The Spirit of Unrest chases me northward. Dresden glided dimly
before me. Holbein was a disappointment. The Sistine Madonna was
divine beyond my expectation. I saw Raphael in his purity and was
delighted. None of his pictures is so inspired as this. Still my
thoughts wandered amid these grand creations. They flitted past in
a shower of colours and shadows and I have drifted hither through
the hazy forests of Heine and the troubled grey of Millet's
twilight....
To me your friendship is the boat that bears me proudly home. I
wait with pleasure any line you may send me there. Wishing every
good to you, I remain yours respectfully.
KAISERHAUF, July 28th, 1887.
MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG:
Ten thousand thanks for your kind letter. My address in Japan is
Monbusho, Tokio, and if you will write to me there I shall be so
happy! The task which I have imposed upon myself--the preserving of
historical continuity and internal development, etc.,--has to work
very slowly. I must be patient and cautious. Still I shall be
delighted to confide to you from time to time how I am getting on
with my dream if you will allow me to do so. You say that you have
a hope of finding what you long for in Buddhism. Surely your lotus
must be opening to the dawn. European philosophy has reached to a
point where no advance is possible except through mysticism. Yet
they ignore the hidden truths on limited scientific grounds. The
Berlin University has thus been forced to return to Kant and begin
afresh. They have destroyed but have no power to construct, and
they never will if they refuse to _see_ more into themselves....
Hoping you the best and the brightest, I am
Yours faithfully,
OKAKURA KAKUDZO.
And so I come to one of all these who was really a "sincere admirer,"
and a faithful lover, although I never knew him. It is a difficult
incident to write of, for I feel that it holds some of the deepest
elements of sentiment and of tragedy with which I ever came in touch.
I was singing in Boston when a man sent me a message saying that he was
connected with a newspaper and had something of great importance about
which he wanted to see me. He furthermore said that he wished to see me
alone. It was an extraordinary request and, at first, I refused. I
suspected a subterfuge--a wager, or something humiliating of that sort.
But he persisted, sending yet another message to the effect that he had
something to communicate to me which was of an essentially personal
nature. Finally I consented to grant him the interview and, as he had
requested, I saw him alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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