Greenwich,
Aug. 19, 1905.
Dear Mr. Sharp,
I was deeply touched by your kind letter about my little book [A Mainsail Haul]. If it should go to a second edition I will make use of your suggestion. I prepared the book rather hurriedly, and there is much in it that I very much dislike, now that it cannot be altered.
The mood in which I wrote the tales you like, has gone from me, and I am afraid I shall be unable to write others of the same kind. In youth the mind is an empty chamber; and the spirits fill it, and move and dance there, and colour it with their wings and raiment. In manhood one has familiars. But between those times (forgive me for echoing Keats) one has little save a tag or two of cynicism, a little crude experience, much weariness, much regret, and a vision blurred by all four faults. One is weakened, too, by one’s hatreds.
I thank you again for your very kind and cordial letter.
Yours very sincerely,
John Maesfield.
To an unknown correspondent F. M. wrote:
Sept. 15, 1905.