TO MITCHELL McDONALD
Tōkyō, October, 1899.
Dear Mitchell,—No news up here, to interest you.
I am not doing anything much at present. Don’t know whether I shall appear in print again for several years. Anyhow, I shall never write again except when the spirit moves me. It doesn’t pay; and what you call “reputation” is a most damnable, infernal, unmitigated misery and humbug—a nasty smoke—a foretaste of that world of black angels to which the wicked are destined. (Thanks for your promise not to make any more introductions; but I fear the mischief has been done; and Yokohama is now for me a place to be shunned while life lasts.)
Six hundred pages (about) represent my present quota of finished manuscript. But I shall this time let the thing mellow a good deal, and publish only after judicious delay. While every book I write costs me more than I can get for it, it is evident that literature holds no possible rewards for me;—and like a sensible person I am going to try to do something really good, that won’t sell.
In the meanwhile, however, I want not to think about publishers and past efforts at all. That is waste of time. I shall prepare to cross the great Pacific instead,—unless I have to cross a greater Pacific in very short order. I should like a chat with you soon; but I am not going down to Yokohama for an age. It is better not. When I keep to myself up here, things begin to simmer and grow: a sudden change of milieu invariably stops the fermentation. Wish you were anywhere else that is pleasant except—at the G. H.
Affectionately ever,
Lafcadio.
TO MITCHELL McDONALD
Tōkyō, October, 1899.
Dear Mitchell,—I cannot quite tell you how sorry I felt to part from you on the golden afternoon of yesterday: like Antæus, who got stronger every time he touched the solid ground, I feel always so much more of a man after a little contact with your reality. Not more of a literary man, however; for I try to shut the ears of my mind against your praise in that direction, and I close the door of Memory upon the sound of it. If I didn’t, I should be ruined by self-esteem.