TŌKYŌ, February, 1898.
DEAR McDONALD,--Your telegram made me feel comfortable. I had been a
little uneasy,--especially because you never told me what really was
the matter;--and when a man like you cannot bend his back, the matter
could not have been a joke. Also the telegram convinced me that you were
really thinking about coming up, and possibly might come up during the
spring or the summer or the coming autumn season, and that I could squat
on the floor and talk to you--which made me comparatively happy.
I have been otherwise disgracefully blue. When I want to feel properly
humble, I read "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan"--about half a page;--then
I howl, and wonder how I could ever have written so badly,--and find
that I am really only a very twenty-fifth-rate workman and that I
ought to be kicked. Then the weather has been trying;--the mails are
behind;--the afflictions of Tōkyō manifold. Also I have been
provoked to think that there is no other person like you known to me
in the entire world,--and that you are by no means immortal,--and
that, even as it is, you think ever so much more of me than I deserve.
Also I have been meditating on the unpermanency of the universe, and
considering the possible folly of making books at all.--This must be the
darkness before the dawn: at least I ought to think so.
I have partly in mind the plan for making the best part of number eight
out of stories adapted from the Japanese. Not sure that I can carry the
plan out satisfactorily;--but I am resolved that number eight must be
worthy of your hopes for me,--and that it shall prove an atonement for
the faults of the first book dedicated to you.
Take all care of yourself, and believe me most grateful for that
telegram.
Affectionately,
LAFCADIO.