Galgenberg, Jan. 14th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--I see no use whatever in a friend if one cannot
tell him about one's times of gloom without his immediately proposing to
do the very thing one doesn't want him to do, which is to pay one a
call. Your telegram has upset me, you see, into a reckless use of the
word one, a word I spend hours sometimes endeavoring to circumvent, and
which I do circumvent if I am in good bodily and spiritual health, but
the moment my vitality is lowered, as it is now by your telegram, I
cease to be either strong enough or artful enough to dodge it. There are
four of it in that sentence: I fling them to you in a handful, only
remarking that they are your fault, not mine.
Now listen to me--I will drop this playfulness, which I don't in the
least feel, and be serious:--why do you want to come and, as you
telegraph, talk things over? I don't want to talk things over; it is a
fatal thing to do. May I not tell you frankly of my moods, of my downs
as well as of my ups, without at once setting you off in the direction
of too much kindness? After I had written that letter I was afraid; and
I opened it again to tell you it was not your comfortings and pityings
that I wanted, but the sterner remedy of a good scolding; yet your
answer is a telegram to ask if you may come. Of course I telegraphed
back that I should not be here. It is quite true: I should not if you
came. I will not see you. Nothing can be gained by it, and everything
might be lost,--oh everything, everything might be lost. I would see to
it that you did not find me. The forests are big, and I can walk if
needs be for hours. You will think me quite savagely unkind, but I can't
help that. Perhaps if your letters lately had been different I would not
so obstinately refuse to see you, but I have a wretched feeling that my
poor soul is going to be pruned again, pruned of its last, most pleasant
growth, and you are on the road to saying and doing things we shall both
be for ever sorry for. I have tried my best to stop you, to pull you up,
and I hope with all my heart that I may not be going to get a letter
that will spoil things irreparably. Have not my hints been big enough?
Let me beg you not to write foolishnesses that cannot, once sent, be got
back again and burned. But at least when you sit down to write you can
consider your words, and those that have come out too impulsively can go
into the fire; while if you came here what would you do with your
tongue, I wonder? There is no means of stopping that once it is well
started, and the smallest things sets it off in terrible directions. Am
I not your friend? Will you not spare me? Must I be forced to speak with
a plainness that will, by comparison, make all my previous plainness
seem the very essence of polite artificialness? Of all the wise counsel
any one could offer you at this moment there is none half so wise, none
that, taken, would be half so precious to us both, as the counsel to
leave well alone. I offer it you earnestly; oh, more than
earnestly--with a passionate anxiety lest you should refuse it.
Your sincere friend,