Thursday.
My dear R.C.H.
Thanks for the lovely little verse and how wise of you to find a far lovelier sermon in the moon-flowers than in the musty words of half-forgotten creeds. Thanks too for the long letter which must have taken much of your time when you could not spare it. But I am sorry to disappoint you. I did not write "The Daughter of the Samurai," nor have I read it. Tell me who did write it and where I may find it for since you have paid it so high a compliment, and me a greater one in thinking it was mine, I must read it post-haste. Your letter makes my curiosity a burning one since you were so sure the story was mine. If only a line, let me know where I may find it.
I don't know if I can forgive you for asking the head of the Salvation Army in Japan about my "Silver Lotus" and her sisters of the dusk. Nor the missionary either. How could you expect them to say or to believe anything else with their effrontery in trying to force a God upon a race who have the decency with a few others to admit that they know nothing of what God is like or what he disposes. The more I read of the philosophy of the East, the more I know how infinitely wiser they are than the cocksure West who know all about God and even tell him what to do. Aside from that, my story was written in a time, thank God, when there were no Salvation Army workers nor any missionaries in Japan nor had the virtues of the Occident come in to poison the minds and morals of a simple race. That what they say of the Orient and the geisha of today is true, I will not question, but with the examle of commercialism that we have set them, who can blame them if they think that we are right. You see, I have known so much of my life that the thing your missionaries call virtue is only a relative thing. Perhaps you have read The Wind Bloweth by Donn Byrne. If not, do read it and ponder the Scandinavian lady who was a member of the sorry sisterhood in the Argentine. What I mean is that I have known of that class who had souls so virginal, so right, so strong, so free, so generous, that one wonders. And that's that.
What is your friend Dr. Wilson thinking of when beauty has become the new cult of our splendid nation along with miniature golf. No beauty or art in industry. Why, there is nothing else and if you will show him "The Ladies Home Journal," and the "Saturday Evening Post," I am sure he must be convinced that industry here thinks and acts only in terms of beauty. I am glad you have got a Lapis Lazuli chain. It is a jewel of great virtue, will protect your eyes, calm your manner and........ [Page missing - END POST]
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