Ghosts! After getting your letter last night I dreamed. Do you remember that splendid Creole who used to be your city editor--whose voice seemed to come up from a well, a lover of music and poetry and everything nice? John----? Is it not a sin that I have forgotten his name? Next to yourself I see him, however, more distinctly than any other figure of the old days. He recited "The Portrait" of Owen Meredith in that caressing abysmal voice of his. Last night I was talking to him. He sat in a big chair in the old office, and told me wonderful things,--which I could not recall on waking; but I was vaguely annoyed by the fact that he "avoided the point." So I interrupted, and said: "But you do not tell me--you are dead--is there ..." I only remember saying that. Then the light in his eyes went out, and there was nothing. I woke up in the dark and wondered.
For six years in Japan I have been walking up and down--over matted floors--by myself, just as I used to do in that room you wrote me from. Curiously, my little boy has the same habit. It is very difficult to make him keep still at meal-time. He likes to take a nibble or sup of something, then walk up and down, or run, then another nibble, etc.--I hope the gods will save him from adopting other former habits of mine, which are less innocent, when he grows up:--for example, if he should take a foolish fancy to every damozel in his path. However, I expect that his mother's strong common-sense, which he seems to inherit, will counterbalance the fantasticalities bequeathed him by me.... It has only been since his entrance into this world that I fully realize what a "disgraceful person" I used to be.
I live pretty much alone--have no foreign friends and very few Japanese friends outside of my family, which numbers, however, a good many dear souls. How isolated I have managed to be you can imagine from the fact that sometimes for months no one sees me except home-folks. I work when I can; and when I cannot I bury myself in studies--philosophical studies: you can scarcely believe how they interest me now, and I find worlds of inspiration in them--new perceptions of commonplace fact. I try not to worry, and let things take their course. Probably next year I shall be leading a busier life; but I don't know whether Japanese officialism can be endured for any great length of time. I had one dose of it too much already. The people are the best in the world; the military and naval men are _men_, and generally _braves garçons_....