The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume II Part 31

I don't well know. I like to be out of the sh.e.l.l--but much of that kind of thing could only result in the blue devils. After seeing men like you and the other Guardsman,--the dear doctor,--one is beset with a foolish wish to get back into the world which produced you both, back to the U. S. A.,--out of Government grind, out of the unspeakable abomination and dulness and selfishness and stupidity of mere officialism. And I can't afford that feeling often--not _yet_. I have too many little b.u.t.terfly-lives to love and take care of. Some day, I know, I must get back for a time. Meanwhile I must face the enemy and stand the music.

Now I want you to tell me that Highbinder romance when I next meet you.

Perhaps your solitary experience could give me more than one good story.

Every good man's life is full of romances. The trouble is to get him to tell them, and to understand them properly when told. Your "Prussian officer" is delicious; but I fear my talent is not quite up to the mark of telling it as it ought to be told. Maupa.s.sant--Kipling--they would delight the world with such a thing. Never mind!--I am sure, _if_ you want me to write stories, that you can give me all the material you want or that I need. I shall sit again at the table, supporting that beautiful cap with its silver-eagle,--and I shall talk and talk and talk until you tell me more stories.

Won't you be glad to hear that my new book will be finished this month,--perhaps this week? Then for the "Stories from Many Lips"--or something of that kind.

Ever affectionately yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, January, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--I got your kindest reply to my note of the other day,--actually apologizing for not writing sooner. But I told you never to bother yourself about writing me when you do not feel like it or when you are in the least busy; and I shall never feel neglected if you be silent, but only think that you have business on hand, and hope that you will have good luck in the undertaking.

Why, yes: I must get down some Sat.u.r.day, or Friday afternoon--that would be still better--so as to return to Tokyo Sunday night: for my Sat.u.r.days are free. But not _too_ soon. It is only about two weeks since I was with you--though I acknowledge that it seems to me like three months. I wish I could see you more often;--then again, I think, you would be tired of my chatter soon. (I know what you would protest; but it doesn't matter.) Well, not to argue too much, I promise to make a visit during February,--though I shall scarcely be able to name an exact day in advance.

I have never been in San Francisco, unfortunately. But that matters little, if I can ask all the questions I want. The value in a literary way of the scenes would be less the scenes themselves than the impression which they made upon your own memory. I antic.i.p.ate much pleasure in asking you about it, as well as delight in hearing the story itself.

What will you think of my wickedness? I am going to tell you a bad story about myself. The other day (I mustn't try to pretend it was long ago, like I did about the Club-Hotel story in your carriage, for fear of being questioned as to direct facts) my publishers sent me some rather nasty newspaper clippings, together with what affected to be a ma.n.u.script history of my personal eccentricities and weaknesses.

They suggested that I should correct, amend, or reject, but that they should be glad to publish it with my approval. (About 19 pp. I think.) Having read it with considerable anger, I laid it aside for a couple of days,--during which time I effectually restrained the first impulse to write a furious letter. Then I most effectually amended that MS.; I corrected it as thoroughly as it could possibly be corrected--but not with pencil or pen: such instruments being quite inadequate for the purpose. In short, I corrected, amended, and rejected it all at the same time--with the a.s.sistance of a red-hot stove. They shall never know; but as murder will out, I must tell somebody, and that somebody shall be you. With best regards to the doctor,--ever with hopes to see you _soon_,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, January, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--It would do me a great deal of harm if I could believe your appreciations and predictions; but I am quite sure you are mistaken about both. As to success, I think my greatest good fortune would consist in being able occasionally to travel for about six months,--just to pick up strange or beautiful literary material. If I can ever manage that much--or even if I can manage to get so far independent that I can escape from officialdom--I shall be very fortunate indeed. Want to get to Europe for a time, in any case, to put my boy there. But all this is dream and shadow, perhaps.

Literary success of any enduring kind is made only by refusing to do what publishers want, by refusing to write what the public want, by refusing to accept any popular standard, by refusing to write anything to order. I grant it is not the way to make money quickly; but it is the way--and the only way--to win what sincerity in literary effort ought to obtain. My publishers have frankly gone over to the Philistines. I could not write for them further even if they paid me $100 per line.

What a selfish letter I am writing! You are making me talk too much about my own affairs, and you would really spoil me, if you could.

Talking to me of fame and hundreds of thousands of dollars! Of course I should like to have hundreds of thousands, and to hold them at your disposal; but I should also like to live in the realization of the life of the Arabian Nights. About the truth of life seems to be this: You can get what you wish for only when you have stopped wis.h.i.+ng for it, and do not care about keeping it.

I see your name in the papers often now, and in connections that fill me with gladness. You are a power again in the land--wish you could be here for longer than you are going to stay. But, after all, that would not be best for you--would it?

Affectionately ever, LAFCADIO.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, January, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--_After all_, instinct isn't a bad thing. Your just-received excellent advice is precisely what my "blind instinct"--as scientific men call it--told me. No: I shall do nothing without consulting you.

Well, I imagine that not _next_ Friday, but the Friday after will be most convenient to you. I'll try the later date, therefore. (Friday need not be a Black Friday in j.a.pan--I used to hate to do anything on that day--landed in j.a.pan on Good Friday (!) but now I belong to the Oriental G.o.ds.)

Wonder if you know that the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ has sent a poet here to write up j.a.pan--M. Andre Bellesort. He is a man of big literary calibre, and has a rare wife--who speaks Persian. About as charming a Frenchwoman as one could wish to know. She speaks English, Italian, and Spanish besides. Trying to get them interested in Amenomori. They are at the Hotel Metropole,--perhaps on account of the Legation.

Faithfully and affectionately yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, February, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--I _ought_ to have answered you about the subject of investment the other day; but I thought it would be better to wait.

However, now I think (I have just received your telegram, and I confess it made me uncomfortable) that I had better write my feelings frankly.

I suppose that, being naturally born to bad luck, I shall lose my small savings in the ordinary course of the world's events; but I would prefer this prospect to the worry of mind that I should have about any investment. In fact, rather than stand that worry again (I have had it once) I should prefer to lose everything now. The mere idea of business is a horror, a nightmare, a torture unspeakable. The moment I think about business I wish that I had never been born. I can a.s.sure you truthfully that I would rather burn a five hundred dollar bill than invest it,--because, having burned it, I could forget all about it, and trust myself to the mercy of the G.o.ds. Even if I had Jay Gould behind me, to pull me up every time I fell, I should not have anything to do with business. Even to have to write you this letter makes me wish that all the business in the world could be instantly destroyed. I am afraid to explain more. I think I won't go to Yokohama on Friday next--but later,--well, what's the use of writing more--you will understand how I feel. Ever most faithfully,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, February, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--When I saw that big envelope, I thought to myself, "Lord! what a _lot_ of h--l I am going to get!" You see my conscience was bad. I was wrong not to have told you long ago of my peculiar 'phobia. And inside that envelope there was only the kindest of kind letters,--proving that you understood me perfectly well, and forthwith putting me at ease.

I read the prospectus with great interest (by the way, I am returning it, because, as it is still in the state of a private doc.u.ment, I think it is better that I do not keep it); and I am proud of my friend. _He_ can do things! "Canst thou play with Leviathan like a bird? Or canst thou bind him for thy handmaidens?" No, I can't, and I am not going to try; but I have a friend in Yokohama--an officer of the U. S. Navy--_he_ plays with Leviathan, and makes him "talk soft, soft words"--indeed he even "presses down his tongue with a cord." Well, I should like you to be as rich as you could be made rich, without having worry. But as for _me_!--the greatest favour you can ever do me is to take off my hands even the business that I have--contracts, and the like,--so that I need never again remember them. Besides, if I were dead, you are the one I should want to be profiting by my labours. Then every time you set your jaw square, and made them "fork over," my ghost would squeak and chipper for delight,--and you would look around to see where the bats came from.

Well, next week I'll try to get down. In fact I feel that I must go to Yokohama, for various reasons besides imposing upon a certain friend there. To-day I have been packing up my book all the time from morning until now--so as to send by registered letter.

About "the best." You are a dreadful man! How could you think that I had got even halfway to the bottom. I have only drunk three bottles yet; but that is a shameful "only." Three bottles in one month is simply outrageous; and I look into the gla.s.s often to observe the end of my nose. That "best" is too seductive.

With affectionate thanks for kindest letter,

Faithfully ever, LAFCADIO.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, February, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--Your telegram made me feel comfortable. I had been a little uneasy,--especially because you never told me what really was the matter;--and when a man like you cannot bend his back, the matter could not have been a joke. Also the telegram convinced me that you were really thinking about coming up, and possibly might come up during the spring or the summer or the coming autumn season, and that I could squat on the floor and talk to you--which made me comparatively happy.

I have been otherwise disgracefully blue. When I want to feel properly humble, I read "Glimpses of Unfamiliar j.a.pan"--about half a page;--then I howl, and wonder how I could ever have written so badly,--and find that I am really only a very twenty-fifth-rate workman and that I ought to be kicked. Then the weather has been trying;--the mails are behind;--the afflictions of Tokyo manifold. Also I have been provoked to think that there is no other person like you known to me in the entire world,--and that you are by no means immortal,--and that, even as it is, you think ever so much more of me than I deserve.

Also I have been meditating on the unpermanency of the universe, and considering the possible folly of making books at all.--This must be the darkness before the dawn: at least I ought to think so.

I have partly in mind the plan for making the best part of number eight out of stories adapted from the j.a.panese. Not sure that I can carry the plan out satisfactorily;--but I am resolved that number eight must be worthy of your hopes for me,--and that it shall prove an atonement for the faults of the first book dedicated to you.

Take all care of yourself, and believe me most grateful for that telegram.

Affectionately, LAFCADIO.