P. S. What you wrote about Constance is very beautiful. No man can possibly know what life means, what the world means, what anything means, until he has a child and loves it. And then the whole universe changes,—and nothing will ever again seem exactly as it seemed before.
TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN
Kōbe, May, 1895.
Dear Chamberlain,—I received your kind letter shortly after returning from Kyōto, where I have been living in an old samurai yashiki transformed into a hotel.
I am quite sorry your eyes are troubling you; and indeed I should sincerely advise you to get away from all temptation to reading or writing for some months. Considering how much your translation of that ballad signified in the matter of personal kindness under such circumstances, I cannot but feel pain,—though you will not be sorry to hear that you made a sketch possible, entitled “A Street-Singer,” sent to H. M. & Co. towards the construction of a new book now under way.
I have not written you before because feeling under the weather—hungry for sympathy I cannot get, and have no reason really to expect. It is only long after one gets credit as a writer that one wins any recognition as a thinker. My critics are careful to discriminate. One assures me that as a poet I am impeccable, and “a great man,” but that I must remember my theories can only be decided by the “serious student.” Or in other words that I am never to be taken seriously. The men taken seriously get $10,000 a year for trying to do what I could do much better. Poor myself must try to live on “dream-stuff.”
I am sorry you cannot read. But still you are fortunate, because you are able to live without being at the mercy of cads and clerks. That alone is a great happiness. I am pestered with requests to do vulgar work for fools at prices they would not dare to offer, if they did not imagine me an object of charity. Happily I can get away from them all, and keep the door locked.
What a privilege to live in Kyōto. I should be glad of a very small post there. The Exhibition is marvellous—showing how Japan will revenge herself on the West. Artistically it is very disappointing. There are funny things—a naked woman (not a “nude study,” but simply a naked woman in oil) for which the artist insolently asks $3000. It is worth about three rin. The Japanese don’t like it, and they are right. But I fear they do not know why they are right.
Ever with best regards,