In haste to give a lecture on _ballad_ literature(!).
DEAR HENDRICK,--I have had several delightful letters from you, some of which were not answered in detail, though deserving to be. Let me see about my deficiencies in acknowledging your letters during recent hurry and flurry:--That sermon, belonging to the 13th--or perhaps the 10th century--was really an amazement. Thanks for kindly note about Lowell's words of praise....
As for the university. Because the shadow of the Jesuit, broadening back through the centuries, is very black, and because I saw stake-fires in it, I didn't relish the idea of his acquaintance. But that _had_ to come, you know. There was a weary matriculation ceremony at which all of us had to be present; and it was purely Japanese, so that we could not understand it. We had to sit for three hours and listen. So I and the Jesuit, for want of anything else to do, got into a religious discussion; and I found him charming. Of course, he said that every thought which I thought was heresy,--that all the philosophy of the 19th century was false,--that everything accomplished by free thought and Protestantism was folly leading to ruin. But we had sympathies in common,--the contempt of religion as convention, scorn of the missionaries, and just recognition of the sincerely and profoundly religious character of the Japanese,--denied, of course, by the ordinary class of missionary jackasses. Then we were both amused by the architecture of the university. It is ecclesiastical, of course,--and the pinnacles and angles are tipped with cruciform ornaments. "C'est tout-a-fait comme un monastère," said my comrade of the beard;--"et ceçi,--on en fera une assez jolie église. _Et pourtant ce n'est pas l'esprit Chrétien qui_," etc. His irony was delicious, and the laughter broke the ice.
Now comes a queer fact. The existing group of professors in the Library college who keep a little together are the Professor of Philosophy (Heidelberg), the Professor of Sanscrit and Philology (Leipsig), the Professor of French Literature (Lyons), and the Professor of English Literature--from the devil knows where. There is little affiliation outside. Now all this group is--including myself--Roman Catholic by training. Why it is, I can't say, except the Jesuit, we are not believers,--but there is a human something separating us from the _froid protestantisme_, or the hard materialism of the other foreign professors,--something warmer and more natural. Is it not the _Latin_ feeling surviving in Catholicism,--and humanizing paganly what it touches?--penetrating all of us--the Russian, the German, the Frenchman, and L. H., through early association? Really there is neither art nor warm feeling nor the spirit of human love in the stock Protestantism of to-day.--I regret to say, however, that I have no Spencerian sympathizer. In my beliefs and tendencies I stand alone; and the Jesuit marvels at the astounding insanity of my notions. He, like all of his tribe, does not quite know how to take the American. The American Professor of Law--enormously self-sufficient, and aggressive--rather embarrasses him. I saw him wilt a little before him; and I like him all the better for it,--as he is certainly very delicate, and his shrinking was largely due to this delicacy. But all these are only impressions of the moment.