Speaking of T[=o]ky[=o] reminds me to tell you that my engagement with the university is not yet assured. Day before yesterday I had a letter from Professor Toyama that my becoming a Japanese citizen had raised a difficulty "which," he wrote, "we must manage to get over somehow." I wrote him that I was not worried about the matter, and had never allowed myself to consider it very seriously,--hinting also that I would not accept any low salary. What he will next write I don't know, and don't very much care. If Matsue were a little warmer in winter I should rather be teaching there. Indeed I think that even after a few years in T[=o]ky[=o], I should be asking to get back to Matsue; and in any event I hope to make a home there. If I can get such a _yashiki_ as I had--I mean buy one for my own home--Matsue would be a very happy place to work and study in. Besides, if my health keeps fair, I can hope eventually to be able to travel in the coldest winter months, and then the Matsue climate would make no difference for me. In summer it is delicious. Even Setsu now thinks it better to live in the interior; and I shall be glad to escape from the open ports. I have seen enough of the foreigners here, and like them less than ever.
I should certainly like Mr. Asai very much, from your charming account of him; and, at any rate, I expect to see both you and him within forty days from this writing. If you think he would like a copy of "Kokoro" it will make me very happy to send him one. As he has studied philosophy, however, I don't know what he will think of the chapters on the Idea of Preëxistence and the Worship of Ancestors. You know the school of thought that I follow is bitterly opposed; and I believe it is not honestly taught in any English establishment. In one or two American universities it is partly taught; but only the French have given it really fair attention abroad.
P. S. It made me feel queer to be addressed by Prof. Toyama as "Mr. Yakumo Koizumi"!
DEAR HENDRICK,-- ... Somebody (who, I do not know) has been sending me books. Did you send me a book by Richard LeGallienne? I thought Mrs. Rollins had sent it, and I wrote to her nice things about it, which vexed her into sending me a very sharp criticism of it (she _is_ a critic), and proving me to have praised a worthless book out of liking for the sender! Where am I? I am certainly wrong. I did think the book nice because of my belief that she sent it; and I am now equally convinced that it isn't nice at all, because she proved that it was not. I should certainly make a bad critic if I were acquainted with authors and their friends. One sees what does not exist wherever one loves or hates. As I am rather a creature of extremes, I should be an extremely crooked-visioned judge of work. I have not tried to answer Mrs. Rollins's letter--fact is, I _can't_.