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446

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915 Union Trust Building, 
Detroit, Michigan,
November 24th,1899.

Mr. Y. Nomura, 
#20 Honcho, 
Yokohama, Japan.

My dear Mr. Nomura

Your young friends, Yoshida and Takagawa reached Detroit some two or three weeks ago during my absence. As soon as I returned home they called upon me and I have had the pleasure of seeing considerable of them since that time. 

They are men of very gentlemanly manners and evidently of unusual artistic temperaments, and I am glad indeed to know them. 

Their pictures are nowbeing exhibited in the Detroit Museum of Art and the exhibition has thus far proved very successful, not only for the sake of the artists, but also as an introduction of modern Japanese painting to the Detroit public. You will doubtless be surprised to know that already about twenty-five of their pictures have been purchased by Detroit people. This I can assure you is an unusual average. It is rare indeed that so large a percentage of paintings are sold at one exhibition. 

I have advised the young men to go from here to Boston and have an exhibition in that city: then to New York, and later to Washington. I can also arrange for an exhibition at St. Louis and Buffalo if it should be wise to do so.
I am also planning to have Yoshida and Takagawa meet some of our leading American artists in New York, so that you can see that your friends are being well cared for and they will have an opportunity to see the best that there is in this country.

Whether or not they will go to Europe I do not know, but I shall advise them to spend say six months here and then return to Japan. I believe they will get on very much better in their profession if they avoid Europe for the present. Let them go there later.

The personal remarks conatined [[contained]] in your letter please me greatly. Your success in business is phenomenal and I congratulate you most heartily. Let nothing interfere with your steady advance in business and also in the higher things of life outside of business.

It is not unlikely that during the coming winter or early next spring you will receive a call from Captain Alger, a friend of mine and a son of General Russel A. Alger, late Secretary of War of the United States. I have given my friend Alger a letter of introduction to you and have advised him to consult you as soon as he reaches Yokohama. You can tell him what to do and how to do itand [[it and]] I am sure can help him to a guide and give him valuable pointers of many kinds. I want you to treat him the same as you would me.

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