Dear McDonald,—I do not feel pleased at your returning to me the money and giving me your own copy of the book. I feel mean over it. But what can one do with a man who deliberately takes off his own coat to cover his friend during a nine minutes’ drive? I shall remember the feeling of that coat—warmth of friendship must also have been electrical in it—until I die.

Affectionately and somewhat reproachfully,—in haste,

Lafcadio Hearn.

I write in haste, so as not to keep your man waiting.

TO MITCHELL McDONALD
Tōkyō, March, 1898.

Dear McDonald,—Just got your letter,—your more than kind letter. Happily there is no occasion to send the telegram. I am getting well fast, and think I shall be lecturing on Monday. No: I did not minimize things. I have been laid up, but it was more painful than serious. Can’t tell what it was—a painful swelling of one side of the face, and nose. My picturesque nose suffered most. That a square mile of solid pain could be concentrated into one square inch of nose was a revelation! Anyhow, it felt just like a severe case of frost-bite; but I suppose it was only some sort of a cold. Going to Yokohama had nothing to do with it; but the weather must have had. It was rather trying, you know, last Tuesday.

You are the one who tries to minimize things, my dear friend, by assuring me that there are thousands of ... people like yourself. I am glad to think that you can believe thus well of the world; but I can’t, and I should not be glad to think you were right. I prefer the exceptional. Then you will remember my philosophical theory that no two living beings have even the same voice, and that it is the uniqueness of each that has value. I should have to abandon my theories to accept your opinion of things in general, and I am prejudiced in favour of my theories.

Perhaps next week I can run down, and if that be not a good time for you, the week following. Anyhow the term will be over in about two weeks more, and—I hope—the cold. Tuesday deceived even the creatures of the spring. Hundreds of little frogs began to chant their song of birth, and flowers were opening everywhere. Now there is no sound of a frog. They woke up too soon, the creatures,—and the flowers look as if they were dying of consumption. In your hotel you don’t know all this—because you keep up the atmosphere of the Bermudas under that roof. In Ushigome we are practically in the country, and observe the seasons.

Affectionately,