LtE in CMO
#266
From David STRAUSS
@ . . . . . . . . . . Dear Masatsugu and company:
As an experienced reader of Morse's rather illegible handwriting, I take
the liberty of transcribing his dedication to Lowell
which reads as follows:
To Percival
Lowell: I have dedicated this book to
you dear friend and now I add my esteem and admiration for your noble and
persistent study of the Red Planet and subscribe myself
faithfully
yours
Edw. S. Morse.
The appearance of this copy of "Mars and Its Mystery" in Anamizu is itself a
mystery! How did it make its way from
Lowell's library to the
Noto Peninsula?!
Regards,
(5 November 2002 at 22:40 JST email)
@ . . . . . . . . . .Dear Masatsugu,
I have been following your various journeys to the Noto Peninsula
and in pursuit of Lowell's route along the Japan Sea with a great deal of
interest and am looking forward to seeing your photographs once they are posted
on the website. I remember my own first visit to Noto in the
company of Prof. Miyazaki and Mr. Sakashita in 1988. Unhappily, it was pouring
rain, but I was very excited to be introduced to Lowell's route.
I was particularly struck by the beauty of the Arayama Pass and spent a wonderful afternoon and evening in Himi which
is quite a beautiful town.
However, I saw the route along the Japan Sea only from the train
window and always wished that I could have spent more time exploring this part
of Lowell's route.
I appreciated your comments on Fenellosa's telescope as well as
the illustration which accompanied them. Though I had not known about the
telescope, I am not so surprised that he should have possessed one. It would
appear that many wealthy, educated British and American amateurs had an
interest in astronomy and some of them owned their own telescopes.
I think I mentioned in my book that there is a record of Bigelow
visiting the Harvard College Observatory.
And speaking of Bigelow and the family relationship between Lowell
and Bigelow, Lowell's grandmother on his mother's side was a Bigelow and
Lowell's mother's maiden name was Katherine Bigelow Lawrence!
You mention the fact that Griffis is more famous than Lowell in
Fukui and perhaps that is as it should
be. In a footnote in my book, I mention that Basil Hall Chamberlain in his book
on "Things Japanese" considers the "Mikado's
Empire" to be the most important book in English written
during the Meiji period. Lowell's "The Soul of the Far East" is rated sixth, so certainly
Griffis played a very important role in disseminating information about Japan
to the Anglo-Saxon public.
Thanks so much for keeping me on your mailing list. I enjoy
receiving your emails even when I do not respond, but will try to be a more
regular correspondent!
Regards,
(5
November 2002 22:57 JST email)
@ . . . . . . . . . .Dear Masatsugu,
I forgot to ask you to please call me David!
Thanks very much for sending the photo of the plaque to W. E.
Griffis which I had not seen before.
Hopefully, someday I will be able to visit Fukui and see the real
memorial.
The plans for the 2004 meeting at KIT in Anamizu are very
exciting, especially the idea of taking a cruise boat from Nanao or Wakura to
Anamizu. I have a wonderful memory of our time in Anamizu with Mr. Sakashita in
the summer of 2001.
With warm regards,
(6 November 2002
email)
David STRAUSS
(Kalamazoo College, MI, USA)