Japan -- History -- Meiji period, 1868-1912 -- Fiction
I am so dead tired to-night that I could not tell what part of me
ached the most! But the spirit moves me to unburden my soul and I feel
that I must write you. For this is one of my _dream_ nights, and
I have so many in Japan, when my old shell is too exhausted to move,
and so permits my soul to wander where it will, a dream night, when
the moon is its silveriest and biggest and I want to hug it for I know
that twelve hours before it looked down on my loved ones, and now it
comes to make more beautiful this fairy land, hiding the scars and
ugly places, touching the pine trees with silver points, and
glorifying the old Temples, till one wonders if they _could_ have
been made by hands. A night when the white robed priests are doing
honor to some "heathen idol" and must needs call his wandering
attention by the stroke of the deep toned bell, which sends its music
far across sleeping Japan, out into the wonderful sea.
I don't know what comes over me such nights as these. I don't seem to
be me at all! I can lie most of the night, wide awake, yet unconscious
of my surroundings, and dream dreams. I live through all the joyful
days of childhood, then through the sorrowful days of womanhood when I
was learning how to live, through the years of heartache and
heart-break,--and through it all, though I actually suffer, there, is
such an unspeakable lightness and buoyancy, such a lifting up, that
even pain is a pleasure. I can't explain it all, unless it is the
influence of this mysterious country, lulling and soothing, but
powerful and subtle as poison.
My dear girl you say you feel too far away to help me! Now don't you
worry about that! If you never wrote me another line, you would help
me. Just to know that you are around there, on the other side of the
earth, believing in me, loving me, and _approving_ of me, means
everything. You were right to make me come, and while it cost me my
very heart's blood, yet I am learning my lesson as you said I would.
My little ship may never again sail into the harbor of happiness, yet
there are sunny seas where soft winds blow, and even if my ship is all
by its lonesome, yet it's such a frisky craft, warranted never to
sink, no matter what the weather, that it can sail over many seas,
touch many lands, and grow rich in experience. And hid away in the
locker where no eye save mine may see, are my treasures; your love is
one, and nothing can rob me of it.
What you write me of Jack makes me very unhappy. I am not worth his
worrying over. Tell him so, Mate. If I could ever care for anybody
again in this world, it would be for him, but if an occasional
sentiment dares to spring up into my heart, I pull it up by the roots!
I would give anything to write to him, but I know it would only bring
pain to us both. Be good to him, Mate, I can't bear to think of him
being miserable.
I am so tired that I can scarcely keep the tears back. I must write no
more.
HIROSHIMA, November 14, 1902.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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