It is pleasant to know that the sickness was not very severe. Still, I am inclined to suspect that you underrate it. Naval men always call a typhoon “a gale,” or “a smart breeze”—don’t they?
I did receive a book and various letters, and I have had by this mail four requests for autographs—two from England. The book I would send you if it were worth it, but it is a very stupid attempt at an anti-Christian-Spiritist-Theosophico-Buddhist novel, written anonymously. I don’t like this kind of thing, unless it be extremely well done, and does not meddle with “astral bodies,” “luminiferous ether,” and “sendings.” There has been so much disgusting nonsense written about Buddhism by Theosophists and Spiritists that ridicule is unjustly sprinkled upon the efforts of impartial men to explain the real beauties and truths of Eastern religion.
Affectionately,
Lafcadio.
TO MITCHELL McDONALD
Tōkyō, February, 1899.
Dear McDonald,—Now don’t give yourself all that trouble about coming up to Tōkyō. It would have been an ugly trip for you last Saturday or Sunday, anyhow: wait till the fine days, and till you don’t know what else to do. I think I shall see you before you go to the U. S. anyhow, in Tōkyō; but I don’t think you will be able to manage the trip very often. If I telegraph, “Dying—quick—murder:” then I know that you will even quit your dinner and come;—isn’t that pleasant to be sure of?
I was thinking the other day to ask you if you ever knew my dead friend,—W. D. O’Connor (U. S. Signal Service), Washington. He was very fond of me in his way—got me my first introduction to the Harpers. I believe that he died of overwork. I have his portrait. He was Whitman’s great friend. Thinking about him and you together, I was wondering how much nationality has to do with these friendships. Is it only Irish or Latin people who make friends for friendship’s sake? Or is it that I am getting old—and that, as Balzac says, men do not make friends after forty-eight? Coming to think of old times, I believe a man is better off in a very humble position, with a very small salary. He has everything then more or less trustworthy and real in his surroundings. Give him a thousand dollars a month, and he must live in a theatre, and never presume to take off his mask.
No, dear friend, I don’t want your book. I should not feel comfortable with it in hand: I cannot comfortably read a book belonging to another person, because I feel all the time afraid of spoiling it. I feel restrained, and therefore uncomfortable. Besides, your book is where it ought to be doing the most good. Nay! I shall wait even until the crack of doom, rather than take your book.