o be
studied like an artist's masterpiece to take it all in. The arsenal
factory fumes have killed many of the old trees and much of the glory
has departed.

Probably Mamma has written you that she has one young woman, Japanese,
coming on the ship with us under her care, to New York to study; and
to-day another young lady called, and said she wanted to go back to
America. About the young women going home with us, Y---- said we would
have to be careful, as one time his mother was offered seventeen damsels
to escort when she was going over, of whom she took three. You may not
appreciate the fact that going to America to study means practically
giving up marriage; they will be old maids and out of it by the time
they return--also those who have been in America do not take kindly to
having a marriage arranged for them. At a lecture I listened to
yesterday, a Japanese woman, close to thirty, was pointed out to me as
about to get married to an American architect here. There are
exceptions, but this case is evidently a famous romance. The lecture was
on Social Aspects of Shinto; Shinto is the official cult though not the
established religion of Japan. Although nothing is said that wasn't
scientifically a matter of course to be said--I mean supposing it was
scientifically correct--one of the most interesting things was the
caution that was taken to avoid publication of anything said. On one
side the Imperial Government is theocratic, and this is the most
sensitive side, so that historical criticism or analysis of old
documents is not indulged in, the Ancestors being Gods or the Gods being
Ancestors. One bureaucratic gentleman felt sure that the divine
ancestors must have left traces of their own language somewhere, so he
investigated the old shrines, and sure enough he found on some of the
beams characters different from Chinese or Japanese. These he copied and
showed for the original language--till some carpenters saw them and
explained that they were the regular guild marks.

KAMAKURA, Thursday, March 27.

This weather beats Chicago for changeableness. Monday, at midnight, it
was storming rain; when we got up the next day it was the brightest,
warmest day we have had. We spent it sightseeing and went out without an
overcoat. The magnolia trees are in full bloom. Yesterday and to-day are
as raw March days as I ever saw anywhere; there would have been frost
last night but for the wind. Tuberculosis is rife here and n