Dear Krehbiel,—All that is now delaying me is news from the Harpers which I am waiting for. I have sent on my completed novelette,—an attempt at treatment of modern Southern life in the same spirit of philosophic romance as the “Ghosts” attempted to exemplify,—an effort to reach that something in the reader which they call Soul, God, or the Unknowable, according as the thought harmonizes with Christian, Pantheistic, or Spencerian ideas, without conflicting with any. Of course, I am a little anxious over this parturition;—have no idea how it is going to impress Alden. In a week from this date I expect to hear from him. Then I will be able to go.
Of course, New York is a horrible nightmare to me. I have been a demophobe for years,—dread crowds and hate unsympathetic characters most unspeakably. I have only been once to a theatre in New Orleans; to hear Patti sing, and I got out after she had sung one song. I can’t be much of a pleasure to any one. Here I visit a few friends steadily for a couple of months;—then disappear for six. Can’t help it;—just a nervous condition that renders effort unpleasant. So I shall want to be very well hidden away in New York,—to see no one except you and Joe. There are one or two I shall have to visit; but I shall take care to make those visits just before leaving town.
Your suggestion about the catalogue was so kind, that I don’t know how to thank you. What bothers me about it are the following points:—
1. If the collection is a large one, seems to me that each department should be entrusted to a specialist. Japanese armourers-work alone demands that. You know what Damascus-steel means in literary and scientific research; and the Japanese artisans surpassed the world in such work. Then porcelains, lacquers, inlaid work, pictured books, goldsmithery, etc. I know nothing about these things.
2. The Japanese expert may have simply confined himself to titles, dates, names;—or have made explanatory text as fitting and dry as possible. If he has, I don’t see how a unique catalogue could be made. The only way it could be made, I imagine, would be to make explanatory text picturesque and rich in anecdote; which would require immense reading, and purchase of many expensive books on the subject of art and history—De Rosny, Gonse, Metchnikoff, etc. Oriental art is one of the things I can never afford to study. It costs too much—the luxury of a rich dilettante.
3. Seems to me such a work would require at least six months to do at all, a whole year to do well. Don’t think I could afford to do it. I cannot write or read at night. If it were simply a question of translation and arrangement, it would be done soon; and I would need only a few technical and art treatises, some of which I already have....
I need rest and change a while,—not that I feel sick, but the continual fight with malaria leaves a fellow’s nerves terribly slack, like the over-strained chords of a—well, better leave the rest of the simile to you.... I don’t know whether the “Ghosts” walk; but I have been told it did me much good in Boston literary circles. The publishers voluntarily made a 5-years’—10 per cent—contract with me; but I have not heard from them. Notices were very contradictory outside of New York and Boston. Some said the stories were literal translations; others said they were fabrications, without any Chinese basis; others said the book was obscene; others called it “exquisitely spiritual,”—in short, the critics didn’t seem to know what to make of it. Three lines in the Atlantic consoled me amply for naughty Western criticism.
You may expect to hear definitely from me very soon,—at latest, I suppose, ten days
Affectionately,
L. Hearn.