35, _Kumamoto,
"Kyushu, Japan.
May_ 21_st_, '93.

"MY DEAR MINNIE:

"(I think 'sister' is too formal, I shall call you by your pet name
hereafter.) First let me thank you very, very much for the photographs.
I was extremely pleased with that of your husband;--and thought at once,
'Ah! the lucky girl!' For your husband, my dear Sis, is no ordinary man.
There are faces that seen for the first time leave an impression which
gives the whole of the man, _ineffaceably_. And they are rare. I think I
know your husband already, admire him and love him,--not simply for your
sake, but for his own. He [is] all man,--and strong,--a good oak for
your ivy. I don't mean physical strength, though he seems (from the
photograph) to have an uncommon amount of it, but strength of character.
You can feel pretty easy about the future of your little ones with such
a father. (Don't read all this to him, though,--or he will think I am
trying to flatter either him or you,--though, of course, you can tell
him something of the impression his photo gives me, in a milder form.)
And you don't know what the real impression is,--nor how it is enhanced
by the fact that I have been for three years isolated from all English
or European intercourse,--never see an English face, except that of some
travelling missionary, which is apt to be ignoble. The Oriental face is
somewhat inscrutable,--like the faces of the Buddhist gods. In youth it
has quite a queer charm,--the charm of mysterious placidity, of smiling
calm. (But among the modernised, college-bred Japanese this is lost.)
What one never--or hardly ever--sees among these Orientals is a face
showing strong character. The race is strangely impersonal. The women
are divinely sweet in temper; the men are mysteries, and not altogether
pleasant. I feel myself in exile; and your letters and photographs only
make me homesick for English life,--just one plunge into it again.

"--Will I ever see you? Really I don't know. Some day I should like to
visit England,--provided I could assure myself of sufficient literary
work there to justify a stay of at least half-a-year, and the expense of
the voyage. Eventually that might be possible. I would never go as a
mere guest--not even a sister's; but I should like to be able to chat
with the sister occasionally on leisure-evenings. I am quite a savage on
the subject of indepen