tunately
they had to telephone to-day that they couldn't come to-night.

To-day has been comparatively calm; we have only had four Japanese
callers and two American ones. Of the two Japanese, one is a woman who
is the warden of the Girls' University, and the other is a teacher in
it, a young woman of a wealthy and aristocratic family who has become
too modern, I judge, for her family. I hope all you children will make
a bow to every Japanese you meet and ask him what you can do to be of
service to him. I shall have to spend the rest of my life trying to
make up for some of the kindnesses and courtesies which so abound
here.

I am afraid much of this is more interesting to me to write about than
it is to you to read, to say nothing of being more interesting to go
through than to read about. But you can then save the letter for us to
re-read when we get old and return from our Odysseying, and wish to
recover the memories of the days when people were so kind that they
created in us the illusion of being somebody, and gave us the combined
enjoyments of home and being in a strange and semi-magic country;
semi-magic for us. For the mass of the people, one can only wonder at
their cheerfulness and realize what a really old and overcrowded
country is and how Buddhism and stoic fatalistic cheerfulness develop.
Don't ever fool yourself into thinking of Japan as a new country; I
don't any longer believe the people who tell you that you have to go
to China and India to see antiquity. Superficially it may be so, but
not fundamentally. Any country is old where birth and death are like
the coming and dropping of leaves on a tree, and where the individual
is of as much importance as the leaf. Old world and New world are not
mere relatives; they are as near absolutes as anything.

We heard a whistle making its cry outside and Mamma thought it was the
bank messenger, so I rang the bell for the boy to bring him in--but
alas, it was much less romantic; it was the call of the macaroni
peddler.

TOKYO, February.

Here we are, one week after landing, on a hill in a beautiful garden of
trees on which the buds are already swelling. The plums will soon be in
bloom, and in March the camellias, which grow to fairly large trees. In
the distance we see the wonderful Fuji, nearby the other hills of this
district, and the further plains of the city. Just at the foot of our
hill is a canal, along which is an alley of cherry trees formerly