TŌKYŌ, April, 1898.
DEAR McDONALD,--Your letter came this morning (Sunday), and it rejoiced
me to find that you are not yet in likelihood of being allowed to attend
the Asiatic side of the smash; while, as you suggest, before you could
join ... on the other side, the serious part of the campaign would be
over. That torpedo squadron at Porto Rico is apparently stronger than
any force of the same kind possessed by the U.S.; and although Northern
seamanship must tell in a fight, machinery in itself is a formidable
thing, even without anything more than mere pluck behind it. But just
think how a literary narrative of a battle would sell in America!
Wouldn't L. B. & Co. make money!
How kind of you to send photo of Amenomori! (Yes; you returned the
little one.) This will not fade, and is a decided improvement. I need
scarcely tell you that out of a million Japanese heads, you could not
find another like this. It represents the cream of the race at its
intellectual best.
In writing hurriedly the other day, I forgot to answer your question
about the _Athenæum_ paper. Yes: the notice was hostile,--but not
directly so; for a literary work the book was highly praised. The critic
simply took the ground of denying that what I wrote about existed. I was
braced with a missionary, and while the missionary's book was accepted
as unquestionable fact, mine was pronounced a volume from Laputa. The
_Saturday Review_ knew better than that.
As to the royalties given to Kipling, they are fancy rates, of course,
and probably never twice the same. Publishers bid against each other
for the right of issuing even a limited edition. Macmillan & Co. hold
the ultimate right in all cases; but they do not often print the first
edition. Jas. Lane Allen probably gets only ten per cent. He may get
more; but not much more--there is no American to compare with Kipling
in the market, except Henry James and Marion Crawford. Kipling probably
outsells both together. James is too fine and delicate a writer--a
psychological analogist of the most complex society--ever to become
popular. In short, any writer's chances of good terms, in England or
America, must depend upon his popularity,--his general market value.
Once that he makes a big success--that is, a sale of 20,000 copies of a
book within a year and a half, suppose--he can get fancy terms for his
next book.
... As to when I shall have another MS. I don't know. To-day, I am
hesitating whether I ought or ought not to burn some MS. My work has
lately been a little horrible, a little morbid perhaps. Everything
depends upon exterior influence,--inspiration; and Tōky=[o] is the
very worst place in all Japan for that. Perhaps within a year from now,
I shall have a new book ready; perhaps in six months--according to what
comes up,--suggestions from Nature, books, or mankind. At the very
latest, I ought to have a new book ready by next spring.
But there is just one possibility. In case that during this year, or
any year, there should come to me a good idea for such a story as I
have been long hoping to write,--a single short powerful philosophical
story, of the most emotional and romantic sort,--then I shall abandon
everything else for the time being, and write it. If I can ever write
_that_, there will be money in it, long after I have been planted in
one of these old Buddhist cemeteries. I do not mean that it will pay
_because_ I write it, but because it will touch something in the new
thought of the age, in the tendencies of the time. All thought is
changing; and I feel within myself the sense of such a story--vaguely,
like the sense of a perfume, or the smell of a spring wind, which you
cannot describe or define. What divine luck such an inspiration would
be! But the chances are that a more powerful mind than mine will catch
the inspiration first,--as the highest peak most quickly takes the sun.
Whatever comes, I'll just hand or send the MS. to you, and say, "Now
just do whatever you please--only see that I get the proofs. The book is
yours."
Ever so many thanks for kind advice, and for everything else.
I read that war has begun. Hope it will soon end. Anyhow Uncle Sam does
not lose time: he knows too well that time is money. And after it is
over, he will probably start to build him the biggest fleet in creation;
for he needs it. Ever affectionately,