Only two and one half miles from the university. Seas of mud between. One hour daily to go, and one to return by jinrikisha!—agony unspeakable. But I have one joy. No one ever dreams of coming to see me. To do so one should have webbed feet and be able to croak and to spawn,—or else one should become a bird. It has rained for three months almost steadily;—some of the city is under water: the rest is partly under mud. And to increase the amphibious joy, half the streets are torn open to put down Western water-mains. They will yawn thus, probably, for years to come.

The professors I have seen few of. I send you two books; notice the charming pictures to “Inoshima.” Florenz is a Magister Artium Liberalium of Heidelberg, I think,—fat and good-natured and a little—odd. There is a Russian professor of philosophy, Von Koeber,—a charming man and a divine pianist. There is a go-and-be-damned-to-you American professor of law.... There is a Jesuit priest, Emile Heck,—professor of French literature. There is a Buddhist priest, professor of Buddhism. There is an anti-Christian thinker and really great philosopher, Inoue Tetsujirō,—lectures against Western Christianity, and on Buddhism. There is an infidel,—a renegade,—a man lost to all sense of shame and decency, called Lafcadio Hearn, professing atheism and English Literature and various villainous notions of his own.

The Jesuit I did not want to know. I am afraid of Jesuits. Out of the corner of mine cyclops-eye I looked upon him. Elegantly dressed,—with a beard enormous, bushy, majestic, black as hell,—and a small keen bright black caressing demoniac eye. The Director, who knows not, introduced me!—oh! ah! Embarrassed at the thought of my own thoughts contrasted with the perfect courtesy of the man. Blundered;—spoke atrocious French; gave myself away; got questioned without receiving any idea in return except an idea of admiration for generous courtesy and very quick piercing keenness. Felt uncomfortable all day after—talked to myself as if I had still before me the half-shut Jesuit eye and the vast and voluminous beard. Et le fin au prochain numéro,—ou plus tard.

L. H.

TO PAGE M. BAKER
Kōbe, January, 1896.

Dear Page,—What a pleasure your letter was—in spite of the typewriting! How shall I answer it? From the end backwards,—as the last was the most pleasant.

Of course it was really long ago that we used to sit together—sometimes in your office, sometimes upon a doorstep, sometimes at a little marble-topped table somewhere over a glass of something,—and talk such talk as I never talked since. It is very nearly ten years ago. That is quite true. But you say that my flitting has been my gain, and that I have made myriads of friends by my books. That is not quite so true as you think. You think so only because you have still the heart of the old Southern gentleman,—the real aristo. and soldier,—the man who said exactly what he thought, and expected other people to do the same, and lived in a world where people did so. That is why also you remain for me quite distinct and different from other men: you have never lost your ideals—therefore you can remain ideal to others, as you will always do to me. But you are enormously mistaken in supposing that I have made myriads of friends, or gained anything—except what one gains by disillusion, and the change that comes with the care and love of others: this, of course, is gain. But book-success! No: it seems to me just the reverse. The slightest success has to be very dearly paid for. It brings no friends at all, but many enemies and ill-wishers. It brings letters from autograph-hunters, and letters enclosing malicious criticisms, and letters requesting subscriptions to all sorts of shams, and letters of invitation to join respectable-humbug societies, and requests to call on people who merely want to gratify the meanest sort of curiosity,—that which views a fellow creature only as a curiosity. Then, of course, there are uncounted little tricks and advertising dodges to be avoided like pitfalls,—and extravagant pretences of sympathy, often so clever as to seem really genuine, made for utilitarian purposes. Then there are all sorts of little snobberies and patronizings and disappointments. And after the work is done, it soon begins to get shabby and threadbare in memory; and I pick it up and wonder how I could have written it, and marvel how anybody could have bought it, and find that the criticisms which I didn’t like were nearly all true. Sometimes I feel good, and think I have really done well; but that very soon passes, and in a day or two I find I have been all wrong, and sure never to write anything quite right.

The fact seems to be that when ideals go away, writing becomes mere downright hard work; and the reward of the pleasure of finishing it is not for me, because I have nobody to talk to about it, and nobody to take it up, and read it infinitely better than I could do myself. The most delightful criticisms I ever had were your own readings aloud of my vagaries in the T.-D. office, after the proofs came down. How I should like to have that experience once more—just to hear you read something of mine quite fresh from the composition-room,—with the wet sharp inky smell still on the paper!

But I suppose I have gained otherwise. You also. For there is something in everybody—the best of him, too, isn’t it?—which only unfolds in him when he has to think about his double,—the other self to which he has given existence; and then he sees things differently. I suppose you do. I imagine you must now be ever so much more lovable than you used to be—but that you have less of yourself proportionately to give away. If I were in New Orleans I don’t think that I could coax you to talk after a fixed hour: you would say, “—! it’s after twelve o’clock: I must be off!”