I got by the last steamer only two notices for you; they are amusing, because they represent two entirely different religious points of view in Methodist criticism. Perhaps you will think the favourable notice very kindly under the circumstances.
What to say about the Manila matter I don’t know. My notion is that you will not be likely to get the furlough so soon. Events are thickening, and looking very dark as well as strange. What most delights me is the prospect of an Anglo-American alliance. Then will come the world-struggle of races—British and Yankee against the Slav and his allies. Hope we shall not see that—it will be a very awful thing,—a vast earthquake in all the world’s markets. And the Latins, curiously enough, are being drawn together by the same sense of their future peril. Their existence is in danger. Loti offers his services to Spain, after having been dropt from the French navy,—not because the moral justice of the question is understood by him, or even felt by him; but because his blood and ancestral feelings naturally attract him to Spain rather than to America. I should be sorry to see the best writer of prose of any country in this world blown to pieces for his chivalrous whim; but he is very likely to get killed if he goes into this mess. All men of letters will feel then very sorry; and a marvellous genius will have been thrown away for nothing—since there is no ghost of a hope for Spain.
I shall get down to Yokohama unexpectedly, I suppose, very soon—if I feel well enough: the weather has been so atrocious that I had fire in my room up to last week. I hope you have not felt any the worse for these abominable changes of temperature. Another such “spring” would drive me wild! In spite of it I have nearly completed a sixth chapter or essay for book Number Six. I am full of projects and suggestions; but cannot yet decide which among the multitude are strong enough to survive and bear development.
Ever affectionately, with faint hopes of forgiveness,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Tōkyō, June, 1898.
Dear Wizard, Magician, Thaumaturgist,—Your letter was wonderful. It made things quite vivid before me; and I can actually see G. and M. and the others you speak of (including myself, under the influence of demophobia). Also you cannot imagine how much good such a letter does a fellow in my condition. It is tonicky,—slips ozone of hope into a consumptive soul. I must now keep out of blues for at least another seven years.
Anyhow, things are about right. My little wife is getting strong again; my eyes are all right; the examinations are over; the vacation begins; Little, Brown & Company send me heaps of books; and we go to the seaside as soon as I can manage it,—with an old pupil of mine,—an officer now of engineers.