The American Diary of a Japanese Girl

“Don’t you bury your poems? The best poems are those not published. The very best are those not written. Dante Gabriel Rosetti buried his ‘House of Life,’ because they were not...

I put me in my bed, because my visionary mood was not to be stirred for the world, and because I wished to dream a romance without the delay of a moment.

“You are fitting me for a slightly better rôle, I fancy,” he said, venturing to add even one or two of his good-natured giggles. “The secretaryship of a cigar-stand is a rather...

I would rest myself on the hospitable chair of a barber shop—barber shop, drug store and candy store are three beauties on the street—like a prince of leisure, and dream somethi...

I felt that I was “sitting on needles,” when I slipped into the Meriken church without glancing at even one page of the Bible. It was as risky a venture as to face an examinatio...

“Uncle, I haven’t written a dozen lines yet. My ‘Lotos Eaters’ is to be equal in length to ‘The Lady of the Lake.’ Now, see, Oji San, mine has to be far superior to the laureate...

“Yesterday I passed by some labourers breaking massive stones. They lifted their hammers (O Oscar, look at their muscles!) and knocked them down to the sound of ‘Sara bagun!’ Th...

“Unfortunately! Japanese are accustomed from babyhood to depend on another’s back. The hereditary fashion of nursing the baby on the back has thoroughly taught them dependence....

_How often I watched thy august presence in happy amazement when thou didst pass along our Tokio streets! What a sad sensation I had all through me when thou wert just out of si...

The spectacle of the river reminded me of the Sumida Gawa of Tokio, mirroring the clouds of affectionate cherry blossoms which border its bank. It would be a remarkable idea, I...