The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume II Part 42

If this essay fails, I have the alternative of a widow's cottage. She is a good old soul--with the best of little boys for a grandson, and sole companion; the old woman and the boy support themselves by helping the fishermen. But there will be fleas.

Oh! d--n it all! what is a flea? Why should a brave man tremble before a nice clean shining flea? You are not afraid of twelve-inch sh.e.l.ls or railroad trains or torpedoes--what, then, is a flea? Of course by "a flea" I mean fleas _generically_. I've done my best for you--but the long and the short of it is that if you go anywhere outside of the Grand Hotel you _must_ stand fleas--piles, mult.i.tudes, _mountains_ and _mountain-ranges_ of fleas! There! Fleas are a necessary part of human existence.

The iceman offers you a room breezy, cool,--you eat with me; but by all the G.o.ds! you've _got_ to make the acquaintance of some fleas! Just think how many unpleasant acquaintances _I_ run away from! yet--I have Buddha's patience with fleas.

At this moment, a beautiful, shining, plump, gathered-up-for-a-jump flea is walking over my hand.

Affectionately, LAFCADIO.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, September, 1899.

DEAR MITCh.e.l.l,--I am sending you two doc.u.ments just received--one from Lowder's new company, I suppose; the other, which makes me rather vexed, from that ---- woman, who has evidently never seen or known me, and who spells my name "Lefcardio." (Wish you would point out to her somebody who looks small and queer,--and tell her, "That is Mr. Hearn--he is waiting to see you.") At all events, these folks have simply been putting up a job to amuse themselves or to annoy me; ---- has apparently been putting up a job to annoy _you_. We are in the same boat; but you can take much better care of yourself than I can. I do wish that you could find out something about those ---- people: I am very much ashamed at having left my card at the hotel where they were stopping.

One thing sure is that I shall not go down to the Grand Hotel again for ages to come--I wish I could venture to say "never"--nevermore. It is one more nail in my literary coffin every time I go down. If I am to be tormented by folks in this way, I had better run away from the university and from Tokyo at once.

That ---- woman is a most d.a.m.nable liar. I wonder who she can be.

Well, so much for an outburst of vexation--which means nothing very real; for I only want to pour my woes into your ear. I can't say how good I think you are, nor how I feel about the pleasure of our last too brief meeting. But I do feel more and more that you do not understand some things,--the immense injury that introductions do to a struggling writer,--the jealousies aroused by attentions paid to him,--the loss to him of creative power that follows upon invitations of any kind. You represent, in a way, the big world of society. It kills every man that it takes notice of--or rather, every man that submits to be noticed by it. Their name is legion; and they are strangled as soon as they begin to make the shadow of a reputation. Solitude and peace of mind only can produce any good work. Attentions numb, paralyze, destroy every vestige of inspiration. I feel that I cannot go to America without hiding--and never can let you know where I go to. I shall have to get away from Tokyo,--get somewhere where n.o.body wants to go. You see only one side--what you think, with good reason, are the advantages of being personally known. But the other side,--the disadvantages,--the annoyances, the horrors--you do not know anything about; and you are stirring them up--like a swarm of gnats. A few more visits to Yokohama would utterly smash me--and at this moment, I do wish that I never had written a book.

No: an author's instincts are his best guide. His natural dislike to meet people is not shyness,--not want of self-appreciation: it is empirical knowledge of the conditions necessary to peace of mind and self-cultivation. Introduce him, and you murder his power,--just as you ruin certain solutions by taking out the cork. The germs enter; and the souls of him rot! Snubs are his best medicine. They keep him humble, obscure, and earnest. Solitude is what he needs--what every man of letters knows that an author needs. No decent work was ever done under any other conditions. He wants to be protected from admiration, from kindnesses, from notice, from attentions of any sort: therefore really his ill-wishers are his friends without knowing it.

Yet here I am--smoking a divine cigar--out of my friend's gift-box,--and brutally telling him that he is killing my literary soul or souls. Am I right or wrong? I feel like kicking myself; and yet, I feel that I ought never again in this world to visit the Grand Hotel! I wonder if my friend will stand this declaration with equanimity. He says that he will never "misunderstand." That I _know_. I am only fearing that _understanding_ in this case might be even worse than misunderstanding.

And I can't make a masterpiece yet. If I could, I should not seem to be putting on airs. That is the worst of it.

Hope you will forgive and sympathize with

LAFCADIO.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, October, 1899.

DEAR MITCh.e.l.l,--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 d.a.m.nable, 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 ma.n.u.script. 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 MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, October, 1899.

DEAR MITCh.e.l.l,--I cannot quite tell you how sorry I felt to part from you on the golden afternoon of yesterday: like Antaeus, 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.

And to think that you will be eight, ten or twenty thousand miles away, after next year!

Woke up this morning feeling younger--not quite fifty years of age.

Gradually the sense of age will return: when I feel about sixty again--which will be soon--I shall run down to see you.

Want to say that those cigars of the doctor's are too good for me: luxury, luxury, luxury. The ruin of empires! But I like a little of it--not _too_ often--once in a year. It makes me buoyant, imponderable--fly in day dreams.

And I want to see Bedloe. Do not, if you can help it, fail to come up again, once anyhow, before the good year dies. Only this word of love to you.

In haste, LAFCADIO.

TO PROFESSOR FOXWELL

TOKYO, October, 1899.

DEAR PROFESSOR,--I had given up all expectation of seeing you again in j.a.pan,--as a letter received from Mr. Edwards gave me to understand that you were on your way back to England. To-day, however, I learned by chance that you were still in Tokyo,--though no longer an inhabitant of the Palace of Woe. Therefore I must convey to you by this note Mr. Edwards's best regards, and express my own regret that you will not again help me through with a single one of those dreary quarters between cla.s.ses. However, I suppose that the day of my own emanc.i.p.ation cannot be extremely remote.

I have had a number of pleasant letters from that wonderful American friend of ours. He has been in Siam,--where he sold to the King's people more than two tons of dictionaries without emerging from the awning of his carriage; and I suppose that the books were carried by a white elephant with six tusks. He has been since then in Ceylon, Madras, Calcutta,--all sorts of places, too, ending in "bad,"--doing business.

But he will not return to j.a.pan--he goes to the Mediterranean. He sent me a box of cigars of Colombo: they are a little "sharp," but very nice--strange in flavour, but fine.

No other news that could interest you. Excuse me for troubling you with this note--but the idea of seeking you at the Metropole would fill me with dismay. If you do go to England, please send me a good-bye card. If you do not go very soon, I shall probably see you somewhere "far from the madding crowd."

Best regards, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO PROFESSOR FOXWELL

NOVEMBER, 1899.

DEAR PROFESSOR,--Nay! I return into my sh.e.l.l for another twelve months at least. You see--I thought you were going away, and felt a little sorry, and therefore went to that dreadful hotel and let you hand me over for an afternoon to your American friend who quotes Nordau's "Degeneration," but that was really, for me, supreme heroism of self-sacrifice.... (By the way, I have seen too much of that type of man elsewhere to be altogether delighted with him: superficies of bonhomie, studied suggestions of sympathy, core hard as Philadelphia pressed brick: he _swarms_ in America; and I much prefer the Gullman brand.) As for a party of four,--"_Compania de cuatro, compania del diablo!_" The only way I can have a friend in these parts is to make this condition: "Never introduce me; and never ask me to meet you in a crowd." You ought to recognize, surely, that I couldn't afford to be known and liked, even if that were possible. I can "keep up my end"

only by strictly following the good maxim: _Tachez de n'avoir besoin de personne_. Now, really, dear Professor, why should I lose an evening of (to me) precious work, and tire myself, merely to sit down with Mr. G.

and Mr. M.? What do I care for Mr. G. or Mr. M.? What do I care for the whole foreign community of Tokyo? Why should I go two steps out of my way for the sake of men that I know nothing about, and do not want to know anything about? "Life is too short," as the Americans say. With thanks all the same,

Crankily yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

Next time--next two times we meet--it is my turn to play host, remember.

TO MRS. WETMORE

TOKYO, January, 1900.

DEAR MRS. WETMORE,--Memories of handwriting must have become strong with me; for I recognized the writing before I opened the letter.

And thereafter I did not do more than verify the signature--and put the letter away, so that I might read it in the time of greatest silence and serenity of mind. During the interval there rose up reproachfully before me the ghost of letters written and rewritten and again rewritten to you, but subsequently--I cannot exactly say why--posted in the fire!