Japan -- History -- Meiji period, 1868-1912 -- Fiction
All you say about Dr. Leet fills me with joy. He does not need any
higher commendation in this world nor the next than that you are
willing to marry him! Isn't it dandy that he is going to back the
hospital scheme?
When I think of the way Jack has worked for ten years without a
vacation, putting all his magnificent ability, his strength, his
youth, his health even into that project, I don't wonder that men like
Dr. Leet are eager to put their money and services at his disposal.
You say Dr. Leet does it upon the condition that Jack takes a rest.
Make him stick to it, Mate, he will kill himself if he isn't stopped.
I have read your letters over and over and traced your love affair
every inch of the way. Why are you such an old clam! To think that I
am the only one that knows your secret, and that up to to-day I have
been barking up the wrong tree! Never mind, I forgive you, I forgive
everybody, I am drunk with happiness and generous in consequence.
My little old lane is glorified, even the barbed wire fence on either
side scintillates. The house is too small, I am going out on the River
Road, and see the cherry blossoms on the hill sides and the sunlight
on the water, and feel the road under my feet. I feel like a
prospector who has struck gold. Whatever comes of it all, for this one
day I am going to give full rein to my fancy and be gloriously happy
once more.
HIROSHIMA, May, 1905.
There is a big yellow bee, doing the buzzing act in the sunshine on my
window, and I am just wondering who is doing the most buzzing, he or
I? His nose is yellow with pollen from some flower he has robbed, his
body is fat and lazy, all in all he is about the happiest bee I ever
beheld. But I can go him one better, while it is only his wings that
are beating with happiness, it is my heart that is going to the tune
of rag-time jigs and triumphal alleluias all at the same time.
My chef, four feet two, remarked this morning "Sensei happy all same
like chicken!" He meant bird, but any old fowl will do.
Oh! Mate, it is good to be alive these days. For weeks we have had
nothing but glorious sunrises, gorgeous sunsets, and perfect
noondays. The wistaria has come before the cherry blossoms have quite
gone, and the earth is a glow of purple and pink with the blue sky
above as tender as love.
Each morning I open my windows to the east to see the marvel of a new
day coming fresh from the hands of its Maker, and each evening I stand
at the opposite window and watch the same day drop over the mountains
to eternity. In the flaming sky where so often hangs the silver
crescent is always the promise of another day, another chance to begin
anew.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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