MISS NUMÈ OF JAPAN.
ONOTO WATANNA.
A Japanese-American Romance
BY
ONOTO WATANNA
Author of "Natsu-San," "Yuri-San and Okiku-San,"
"A Half Caste," etc.
Chicago and New York:
RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY.
PUBLISHERS.
Copyright, 1899, by Rand, McNally & Co.
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO MY FRIEND,
HELEN M. BOWEN
BECAUSE I LOVE HER SO
The fate of an introduction to a book seems not only to fall short ofits purpose, but to offend those whose habit it is to criticise beforethey read. Once I heard an old man say, "It is dangerous to write forthe wise. They strike warm hands with form, but shrug a cold shoulder atoriginality." I do not think, though, that this book was written for the"wise," for the men and women whose frosty judgment would freeze thewarm current of a free and almost careless soul. It was written for theimaginative, and they alone are the true lovers of story and song. OnotoWatanna plays upon an instrument new to our ears, quaintly Japanese, anair at times simple and sweet, as tender as the chirrup of a bird inlove, and then as wild as the scream of a hawk. Mood has been herteacher; impulse has dictated her style. She has inherited the spirit ofthe orchard in bloom. Her art is the grace of the wild vine, under noobligation to a gardener, but with a charm that the gardener could notimpart. A monogram wrought by nature's accident upon the golden leaf ofautumn, does not belong to the world of letters, but it inspires morefeeling and more poetry than a library squeezed out of man's tiredbrain. And this book is not unlike an autumn leaf blown from a forest in Japan.
OPIE READ.
Chicago, January, 1899.
CHAPTER. | PAGE. | |
I.— | Parental Ambitions, | 5 |
II.— | Cleo, | 10 |
III.— | Who Can Analyze a Coquette? | 15 |
IV.— | The Dance on Deck, | 20 |
V.— | Her Gentle Enemy, | 24 |
VI.— | A Veiled Hint, | ...