TŌKYŌ, January, 1898.
DEAR McDONALD,--It would do me a great deal of harm if I could believe
your appreciations and predictions; but I am quite sure you are mistaken
about both. As to success, I think my greatest good fortune would
consist in being able occasionally to travel for about six months,--just
to pick up strange or beautiful literary material. If I can ever manage
that much--or even if I can manage to get so far independent that I can
escape from officialdom--I shall be very fortunate indeed. Want to get
to Europe for a time, in any case, to put my boy there. But all this is
dream and shadow, perhaps.
Literary success of any enduring kind is made only by refusing to do
what publishers want, by refusing to write what the public want, by
refusing to accept any popular standard, by refusing to write anything
to order. I grant it is not the way to make money quickly; but it is the
way--and the only way--to win what sincerity in literary effort ought to
obtain. My publishers have frankly gone over to the Philistines. I could
not write for them further even if they paid me $100 per line.
What a selfish letter I am writing! You are making me talk too much
about my own affairs, and you would really spoil me, if you could.
Talking to me of fame and hundreds of thousands of dollars! Of course
I should like to have hundreds of thousands, and to hold them at your
disposal; but I should also like to live in the realization of the life
of the Arabian Nights. About the truth of life seems to be this: You can
get what you wish for only when you have stopped wishing for it, and do
not care about keeping it.
I see your name in the papers often now, and in connections that fill me
with gladness. You are a power again in the land--wish you could be here
for longer than you are going to stay. But, after all, that would not be
best for you--would it?
Affectionately ever,
LAFCADIO.