had a holiday; I was never sick; I never went to a circus; and I never
even had a proposal.

One night I went to church and heard a missionary from Japan speak. My
goodness! how that man could say words! His appeal for workers to go to
the Flowery Kingdom was as convincing as the hump on his nose, as
irresistible as the fire in his eyes. The combination ended in my coming
as a teacher to the eager Nipponese, who were all athirst for English.
Japan I knew was a country all by itself, and not a slice off of China;
that it raised rice, kimonos and heathen. Otherwise it was only a place
on the map. Whatever the new country might hold, at least, I thought,
it would open a door that would lead me far away from the drab world in
which I lived.

My appointment led me to the little city of Hijiyama, overlooking the
magical Inland Sea. It is swung in the cleft of a mountain like a
clustered jewel tucked in the folds of a giant velvet robe. It is a
place of crumbling castles and lotus-filled moats. Here progress
hesitated before the defiant breath of the ancient gods. For centuries a
city of content, whispers of greater things finally reached the
listening ears of eager youth, fired ambition, demanded things foreign,
especially the English language, and I came in on this great wave.

I found near contentment and sober joy in my work and my beautiful old
garden. But deep down in my heart I was waiting, ever waiting, for
something to happen--something big, stirring, and tremendous, something
romantic and poetical; but it never did. Year after year I wore the
groove of my life deeper, but never slipped out of it, and one day was
so like another it was hard to believe that even a night separated them.