TŌKYŌ, November, 1897.
DEAR McDONALD,--I can only very poorly express my real feeling at the
true goodness shown me, not only in coming out to my miserable little
shanty, over that muddy chaos of street,--but in making me feel so
free-and-easy with you, in the charming way you accepted the horrid
attempt at entertainment, and in the hundred ways by which you showed
your interest and sympathy. It was more than nice--that is all I can say.
But you set some mental machinery at work too. I believe almost your
first remark was your desire that I should write fiction,--and I believe
I understand why you wish this. It is because you wish me to make some
profit out of my pen; and, being well informed on all business matters,
you know, just as well as we literary men do, that fiction is about
the only material that really pays. And now I am going, after a little
thinking about the matter, to answer you in kind.
Why do not men like myself write more fiction? For two reasons.
The first is because they have little knowledge of life, little
_savoir-vivre_, to help them in the study of the artificial and complex
growth of modern society. The second is that, unless very exceptionally
situated, they are debarred, by this very want of knowledge and skill,
from mixing with that life which alone can furnish the material. Society
everywhere suspects them; common life repels them. They can _divine_,
but they must have rare chances to do that. Men like the genius Kipling
belong to the great life-struggle, understand it, reflect it, and the
world worships them. But dreamers who talk about preëxistence, and
who think differently from common-sense folk, are quite outside of
social existence. But--I can do this: You know all about the foreign
life of these parts,--the shadows and the lights. You can give me,
perhaps, in the course of three years, _suggestions_ for six little
stories--based upon the relations between foreigners and Japanese in
this era of Meiji: studies of the life of the "open ports." I should
need only real facts--not names or dates--real facts of beauty or
pathos or tragedy. There are hosts of these. All the life of the open
ports is not commonplace: there are heroisms and romances in it; and
there is nothing in this world nearly as wonderful as life itself. All
real life is a marvel--but in Japan a marvel that is hidden as much as
possible--especially hidden from dangerous chatterers like Lafcadio
Hearn.
Of course I could not make a book in a few months,--not in less than two
or three years; but I _could_ make one, with the mere help of hints from
a man who knows. And if that book of short stories (six would be enough
to make a book) should ever be so written, I should certainly make a
dedication of it to M. McD. as prettily as I could.
There is an answer to your wish so far as I can make one for the
present. I shall be down to see you the next month, probably, and we can
chat over matters if you have time. And I shall take care not to come
when you are _too_ busy.
Faithfully, with affectionate regards and thanks,