I am at home to all commencing, continuing, and concluding authors--that is
my rule, and apart from your authorship and mine, I regard a visit from you
as a great honour to me. Even if it were not so, even if for some reason I
did not desire your visit, even then I should have received you, as I have
enjoyed the greatest hospitality from your family. I did not receive you,
and at once asked my brother to go to you and explain the cause. At the
moment your card was handed me I was ill and undressed--forgive these
homely details--I was in my bedroom, while there were persons in my study
whose presence would not have been welcome to you. And so--to see you was
physically impossible, and this my brother was to have explained to you,
and you, a decent and good-hearted person, ought to have understood it; but
you were offended. Well, I can’t help it....
But can you really have written only fifteen stories?--at this rate you
won’t learn to write till you are fifty.
I am in bad health; for over a month I have had to keep indoors--influenza
and cough.
All good wishes.
Write another twenty stories and send them. I shall always read them with
pleasure, and practice is essential for you.