KŌBE, May, 1895.
DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--I received your kind letter shortly after returning
from Kyōto, where I have been living in an old samurai _yashiki_
transformed into a hotel.
I am quite sorry your eyes are troubling you; and indeed I should
sincerely advise you to get away from all temptation to reading or
writing for some months. Considering how much your translation of
that ballad signified in the matter of personal kindness under such
circumstances, I cannot but feel pain,--though you will not be sorry to
hear that you made a sketch possible, entitled "A Street-Singer," sent
to H. M. & Co. towards the construction of a new book now under way.
I have not written you before because feeling under the weather--hungry
for sympathy I cannot get, and have no reason really to expect. It
is only long after one gets credit as a writer that one wins any
recognition as a thinker. My critics are careful to discriminate. One
assures me that as a poet I am impeccable, and "a great man," but that I
must remember my theories can only be decided by the "serious student."
Or in other words that I am never to be taken seriously. The men taken
seriously get $10,000 a year for trying to do what I could do much
better. Poor myself must try to live on "dream-stuff."
I am sorry you cannot read. But still you are fortunate, because you are
able to live without being at the mercy of cads and clerks. That alone
is a great happiness. I am pestered with requests to do vulgar work for
fools at prices they would not dare to offer, if they did not imagine me
an object of charity. Happily I can get away from them all, and keep the
door locked.
What a privilege to live in Kyōto. I should be glad of a very small
post there. The Exhibition is marvellous--showing how Japan will revenge
herself on the West. Artistically it is very disappointing. There are
funny things--a naked woman (not a "nude study," but simply a naked
woman in oil) for which the artist insolently asks $3000. It is worth
about three rin. The Japanese don't like it, and they are right. But I
fear they do not know why they are right.
Ever with best regards,
LAFCADIO HEARN.