69
It was about that time that he received a letter filled with admiration from a girl named Yokoyama Yoshiko who was a student at a girls' school in Kobe; her birthplace was Niimi-Chō, in Bitchū, and she was an admirer of his work. As the pen name of Takenaka Kojō who wrote ornate styled novels was more or less known in society, he had received a fair amount of letters from his admirers in the provinces before. Since many people requested that he improve their compositions or allow them to become his pupils, he could not take care of their individual requests. Therefore, even though he had received the girl's letter he did not send a reply as her letter did not stir his curiosity. However, now that he had received three ardent letters from the same person, even such a person as Tokio could not but take note. She was nineteen years old, but judging by the word phrasing of her letter, her skills of expression were very amazing, and her wish was to engage in literary work as her lifetime vocation after becoming by all means and conditions his pupil. Her handwriting was elegant and it seemed that she was very stylish. He wrote his reply in the above-mentioned upstairs-room of the factory. On that day he left off writing his daily quota of two-pages on geography and sent Yoshiko a letter which was more than two feet in length. In this letter he warned her of the inadvisability of a woman engaging in literary work giving as his reason that a woman should fulfill her physiological duties of motherhood. He also explained in detail about the danger facing an unmarried woman who aspires to work in the literary field and wrote a few abusive words as to her ambitions. After writing the long letter Tokio smiled,
