Affectionately,
Lafcadio.
TO ERNEST FENOLLOSA
Tōkyō, December, 1898.
My dear Professor,—I have been meditating, and after the meditation I came to the conclusion not to visit your charming new home again—not at least before the year 1900. I suppose that I am a beast and an ape; but I nevertheless hope to make you understand.
The situation makes me think of Béranger’s burthen,—Vive nos amis les ennemis! My friends are much more dangerous than my enemies. These latter—with infinite subtlety—spin webs to keep me out of places where I hate to go,—and tell stories of me to people whom it would be vanity and vexation to meet;—and they help me so much by their unconscious aid that I almost love them. They help me to maintain the isolation indispensable to quiet regularity of work, and the solitude which is absolutely essential to thinking upon such subjects as I am now engaged on. Blessed be my enemies, and forever honoured all them that hate me!
But my friends!—ah! my friends! They speak so beautifully of my work; they believe in it; they say they want more of it,—and yet they would destroy it! They do not know what it costs,—and they would break the wings and scatter the feather-dust, even as the child that only wanted to caress the butterfly. And they speak of communion and converse and sympathy and friendship,—all of which are indeed precious things to others, but mortally deadly to me,—representing the breaking-up of habits of industry, and the sin of disobedience to the Holy Ghost,—against whom sin shall not be forgiven,—either in this life, or in the life to come.
And they say,—Only a day,—just an afternoon or an evening. But each of them says this thing. And the sum of the days in these holidays—the days inevitable—are somewhat more than a week in addition. A week of work dropped forever into the Abyss of what might-have-been! Therefore I wish rather that I were lost upon the mountains, or cast away upon a rock, than in this alarming city of Tōkyō,—where a visit, and the forced labour of the university, are made by distance even as one and the same thing.
Now if I were to go down to your delightful little house, with my boy,—and see him kindly treated,—and chat with you about eternal things,—and yield to the charm of old days (when I must confess that you fascinated me not a little),—there is no saying what the consequences to me might eventually become. Alas! I can afford friends only on paper,—I can occasionally write,—I can get letters that give me joy; but visiting is out of the possible. I must not even think about other people’s kind words and kind faces, but work,—work,—work,—while the Scythe is sharpening within vision. Blessed again, I say, are those that don’t like me, for they do not fill my memory with thoughts and wishes contrary to the purpose of the Æons and the Eternities!
When a day passes in which I have not written—much is my torment. Enjoyment is not for me,—excepting in the completion of work. But I have not been the loser by my visits to you both—did I not get that wonderful story? And so I have given you more time than any other person or persons in Tōkyō. But now—through the seasons—I must again disappear. Perhaps le jeu ne vaudra pas la chandelle; nevertheless I have some faith as to ultimate results.