Getting Acquainted 251 



magic I have discussed has been the magic of 

 real friendship, my sympathies always on the side 

 of the hunted and always protesting against the 

 killer who killed for fun. 



Here is the general law that governs all ac- 

 quaintance with animate things; from an intimate 

 acquaintance with individuals of a race we ar- 

 rive at a general acquaintance with all the mem- 

 bers of that race. Thinking of members of the 

 human race, for instance, as Japs, Slavs and 

 Orientals, is conclusive evidence that intimate ac- 

 quaintance with members of those races has not 

 enabled us to sink out of sight the big blur of 

 Nationality. Personality and friendship quickly 

 efface the mere tag of racial distinction and aloof- 

 ness. We only know them when we know their 

 mentality, their place in the scheme of Nature, 

 their possible comradeship and affection. 



John Sawyer, a Jap in my class in the Uni- 

 versity, whose name we could never learn to pro- 

 nounce, and so called him that stands to me for 

 all his race. Intellectually brilliant, gentle, kind- 

 ly, his personality, over enormous handicaps, car- 

 ried him forward to popularity, and though none 

 of us had seen his like before, he won the friend- 

 ship of all. After going back to his own country 

 he wrote me, I presume as a joke, quite a long let- 

 ter in his own language, not one word of which I 



