... As to when I shall have another MS. I don’t know. To-day, I am hesitating whether I ought or ought not to burn some MS. My work has lately been a little horrible, a little morbid perhaps. Everything depends upon exterior influence,—inspiration; and Tōky=[o] is the very worst place in all Japan for that. Perhaps within a year from now, I shall have a new book ready; perhaps in six months—according to what comes up,—suggestions from Nature, books, or mankind. At the very latest, I ought to have a new book ready by next spring.
But there is just one possibility. In case that during this year, or any year, there should come to me a good idea for such a story as I have been long hoping to write,—a single short powerful philosophical story, of the most emotional and romantic sort,—then I shall abandon everything else for the time being, and write it. If I can ever write that, there will be money in it, long after I have been planted in one of these old Buddhist cemeteries. I do not mean that it will pay because I write it, but because it will touch something in the new thought of the age, in the tendencies of the time. All thought is changing; and I feel within myself the sense of such a story—vaguely, like the sense of a perfume, or the smell of a spring wind, which you cannot describe or define. What divine luck such an inspiration would be! But the chances are that a more powerful mind than mine will catch the inspiration first,—as the highest peak most quickly takes the sun. Whatever comes, I’ll just hand or send the MS. to you, and say, “Now just do whatever you please—only see that I get the proofs. The book is yours.”
Ever so many thanks for kind advice, and for everything else.
I read that war has begun. Hope it will soon end. Anyhow Uncle Sam does not lose time: he knows too well that time is money. And after it is over, he will probably start to build him the biggest fleet in creation; for he needs it. Ever affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO MITCHELL McDONALD
Tōkyō, April, 1898.
Dear Friend,—Your kindest letter is with me. I cannot quite understand your faith in my work: it is a veritable Roman Catholic faith,—for it refuses to hear adverse arguments. I only say that I can see no reason to suppose or even hope that I can ever be worth to publishers nearly as much as the author of a blood-and-thunder detective story contributed to a popular weekly.
About getting killed:—I should like nothing so much if I had no one but myself in the world to take care of—which is just why I would not get killed. You never get what you want in this world. I used to feel that way in tight places, and say to myself: “Well, I don’t care: therefore it can’t happen.” It is only what a man cares about that happens. “That which ye fear exceedingly shall come upon you.” I fear exceedingly being burned alive slowly, in an earthquake fire,—being eaten by sharks,—being blinded or maimed so as to prove of no further use;—but dying is probably a very good thing indeed, and as much to be desired for one’s self as dreaded for one’s friends.