work. Return to US Townsend returned to New York in 1861 after his eventful and successful period as envoy and ambassador to Japan. Author William Elliot Griffis had been in Japan from 1871 to 1874, invited to help modernize education there. Griffis met with Harris in New York in 1874. Harris asked of Griffis, "What do the Japanese think of me?" Griffis asked Townsend why he had not published his journals from those years. Griffis felt that Harris had not appreciated the extent of his favorable effect in Japan from his work in the five years as envoy, as Griffis later wrote in a 1919 article in The New York Times. Griffis obtained the journals from the niece of Harris in 1893, and had those journals published in 1895 by Houghton, Mifflin in New York, with additional biographical sketches and annotations. That book, Townsend Harris, First American Envoy in Japan, and translated into Japanese, was the basis for a play about Harris, written by Kido Okimoto and staged in Japan in 1919. The play was successful in Japan, reflecting how positively Harris was viewed in Japan. The actor playing Harris was made up to look like Harris, based on a photograph held in Tokyo. Masao Miyoshi, born and educated in Japan and later a teacher in US universities, asserts in his book As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States (1860) that the restrictive lifestyle for Townsend Harris as ambassador in Japan "had forever molded the opener of Japan into a hermit" for the rest of his life while in New York City. Death and legacy Harris died in New York City on February 25, 1878, at age 73. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. In 1986, the nation of Japan presented a gift of a refurbished gravesite including paving stones, a stone lantern, a cherry tree, a dogwood tree, and two commemorative stones, in commemoration of the continuing respect and affection of the Japanese people for Harris. Portrayal in fiction Harris was portrayed by John Wayne in the 1958 movie The Barbarian and the Geisha, directed by John Huston. Although the primary plot, dealing with Harris' attempt diplomatically to achieve détente between the U.S. and Japan, is essentially accurate, the subplot dealing with the love affair between Harris and Okichi is substantially fictional. See also Hotta Masayoshi List of Westerners who