They dry here at a quite wonderful rate, and in the most terrible weather one has always the consolation of knowing that when it clears it will do so thoroughly and completely.
=May 14.=--After the day’s work I called round to see how Professor _F----_ was, as I had heard nothing of any kind for a fortnight. I saw him for a short time--his face was rather swollen, for they have been injecting strychnine, but otherwise he _looked_ all right, only he could see so little. The cure seems to make almost no progress.
As I was near, I called on the _S----s_ as a duty (and pleasure) call, and came away with a lovely bunch of roses, the Professors, when caught unawares like this, are always in true Japanese dress--and look so nice in it.
In the evening was the last Cinderella--and a very nice dance it was.
=May 16.=--I stopped at home to-day--as the great Debate began at 3, and I had to borrow chairs from several neighbours. I hope to-day to found a Debating Society in Tokio (there is such a dearth of anything more than dances and gossip, you at home couldn’t believe!), and have been raking people out--I have got Miss C---- and Miss H---- to oppose each other on the subject, “Chaperons should be abolished.” Frivolous enough--but one must put the pill in jam here in Tokio, and I hope gradually to get sober and instructive. The Debate was really more of a success than I had dared to hope, and I got nearly every one to speak by the little device of drawing numbers by lot, even Baroness d’A---- and Mrs. P----, who swore they wouldn’t. I had thought, after founding it to-day, to leave it till the hot season passed, but people are keen to have one in June--so it is encouraging. The use of a Japanese house came out strikingly to-day--when I took out my sliding partitions and made nearly my whole house one big room. The weather and the garden behaved themselves--and mercifully everything went off well. Of course the motion was lost, only two people wishing to abolish chaperons.
=May 18.=--A nice bright day. I bicycled home by the library and got some books of Hearn’s; I am thinking of getting up a Debate on Lafcadio Hearn next time, if I can; most people here knew him personally--and so few seem to realise that he was great, and almost all run him down! So I expect a very interesting time of it; there will be no difficulty in getting speakers to condemn, but who is going to stand up for him!