I slept with the other last night. I squeezed my ear to the dolly, fancying I might hear a few scratches of human voice. I kissed it. I laughed, saying that the doll was the thing for my starting to learn how to kiss. “Sleep till mamma comes back, darling!” I said in the morning when I stepped down for my breakfast. I left the table before I had half-finished, on account of my anxiety lest the upstairs girl might tattle of my childishness, if she found the doll in my bed. Thank Heavens! The girl hadn’t come around yet. I locked it up in my trunk. What name shall I give it? Charley? I was disgusted at the thought, because every Chinee—ten thousand Mongols in all—is named one Charley. Merry Christmas, all of you! 26th—It rained. I implored Mother Schuyler to select a book from her library. All the literature was packed in there, beginning with Socrates, sane as a silver dollar. Every book was without finger-marks. Book without finger-mark is like bread without brown crust. Dear finger-mark! The fashion is to buy books and to glance at their covers, I suppose, but not to read them. Modern publications aren’t meant to be read, are they? The authors have degenerated to the place of upholsterers. Isn’t it a shame? Mrs. Schuyler picked out for me “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” My uncle said: “American woman can’t keep away from Omar and chicken-salad.” I began to peruse it. The raindrops by my window tuned: “Tap, tap, tip, tap, tap!” I thumped the book on the floor, and exclaimed: “Mr. Khayyam!” Rubaiyat is a menace against civilisation. Americanism is nothing but the delight in life and the world. I wonder why the wise government of Washington does not oppose its pagan circulation. It is leprosy. But I thought how truly true was his “I came like Water, and like Wind I go.” I took up the book and opened it again. Then I shut it. I listened to the “Tap, tap, tip!” Doesn’t it sound like a wan voice of Omar? Yes! 27th—A lady whom I met at Mrs. Schuyler’s reception sent me a mass of distinguished roses. Loving American! I said I would arrange them in Japanese cult. My style is the enshin. Amerikey is destitute of flowers. Nippon is known as a paradise of botanists. The “scientists” of flower decoration (if I may call them so) are given a great advantage in their craft of delineating beauty. The rose is not much of a flower to the Jap mind. They never employ it in their work. It has no grace of line. Its perfume cannot indemnify for its being thorny. Things not qualified to convey charm are declined from the tokonama. I love roses awfully well myself. I will make the best of them in my art. Is there any proper vase in Schuyler’s house? Mother Schuyler fetched me two pieces. One was a silver vase and the other a china one. I couldn’t use them, I was sorry. Silver was commercial-looking. The painting on the china a hodge-podge of a joss house. Then I was seized with a thought. I ran down to the kitchen.