BD. Edmund Blunden

177. Nakayama, T. Editor’s Word. Postscript to Records of Friendship (70), 1950.

Evidence of the affection held for Blunden in Japan in the early post-war years, and of his importance as a cultural envoy. Nakayama writes of the ‘blessing’ brought by Blunden’s 1949 visits to ‘the war-devastated island of Kyushu’. The lectures he gave were of ‘depth and significance’ for both young and old, but equally important were the ‘genial atmosphere’ of his presence, the ‘sweetness and kindliness’ of his nature, and his ‘poetic temperament, seeing the beautiful in things poor or commonplace’ and ‘embracing all with a tolerant and loving heart’. The only repayment possible for such kindness and the ‘treasured verses’ Blunden left behind, Nakayama believes, is for the Japanese to undertake ‘incessant endeavours . . . to promote our English studies’ and to pursue ‘a deeper interest in English culture’.