1897.
DEAR HENDRICK,-- ... The idea of a set of philosophical fairy-tales
often haunts me. One doesn't need to go to the Orient for the material.
It is everywhere. The Elle-woman is real. So are the Sirens, Circe, and
the Sphinx and Herakles and Admetos and Alkestis. So are the Harpies,
and Medusa, and the Fates who measure and cut and spin. But when I try,
I find myself unable to create for want of a knowledge of every-day
life,--that life which is the only life the general reader understands
or cares about.
Then the philosophical fairy-tales might deal with personal experiences
common to all men,--impulse and sorrow and loss and hope and discovery
of the hollowness of things. But the inclination only is with me,--the
pushing sensation,--the vague cloud-feeling of the thing. Can you
help--suggest--define--develop by a flash or two? If you can, be sweet,
and tell me; and the fairy-tales shall be dedicated unto you. Indeed
they shall in any case, if I can ever write them. In haste, with love,