Kyosintei Hotel, Hakata, Kyushu, September [18th?]
Mother darling―
Tomorrow early we leave for Nanking. I'll never catch up in letters. I wanted to tell about the unofficiai things in.Tokyo. The fun I've had with Mrs. Neville, wife of an Embassy staff member, in having a lesson in Japaneses garden-making, in flower arrangement and it's philosophy, a visit to the museum, being told about the tea ceremony by the very charming and cultured curator. Mother, please get and read in half an evening The Book of Tea, by Okakura Kakuzo. It is the essence of the Japanese philosophy. To read this and and also to learn it from some of the people I've met here has been most thrilling thing to me about this trip.
And then a morning through a park, where we watched the little boys chasing dragonflies with bamboo poles (stickum on the end) and crickets that they catch and sell in the stores for music (like canaries!). I have written down a very poignant poem told me about a mother whose boy is dead. It runs over and over in my mind.
How far in chace today,
I wonder, has gone my hunter
Of dragonfly ?
手紙は1931年9月、博多の共進亭ホテルから母のエリザベス・カッター・モロウに宛てたもの。
岡倉覚三の『茶の本』に感銘を受けたというのは North To The Orient にはあったか。
あと最後に紹介されている a very poignant poem というのは加賀の千代女の句で1935年の North To The Orient にもあるのだが、幼子を失った母の言葉であるから私はてっきり1932年の誘拐殺人事件を経験したアンが後に記したものかと思っていた。
tyurico.hatenablog.com
