TŌKYŌ, December, 1898.
DEAR McDONALD,--Do you know we talked uninterruptedly the other day for
ten hours,--for the period that people are wont to qualify when speaking
of the enormity of time as "ten _mortal_ hours"? What a pity that they
could not be made _im_mortal! They will be always with me,--though I
really fear that I must have tired you, in spite of protests. Every time
I can get such a chat with you, you become much dearer to me--so that I
really cannot feel as sorry as I ought for keeping you engaged that long.
Well, I don't quite know what I shall do about the "Ghostly Japan." I
shall think a little longer. My duty, I feel, is to sacrifice it: only
I don't want to have any tricks played upon me,--just because tricks
annoy. Nevertheless I ought to accept the annoyance cheerfully: it is
part of the price one must pay for success. Huxley says that one of the
things most important for anybody to learn is that a heavy price must be
paid for success.
I got a letter from a Yale lad, which I enclose, and a magazine which
I am sending you. The wish is for an autograph; but there the case is
meritorious and I want the sympathy of boys like that--who must be the
writers and thinkers of 1900. So I wrote him as kind a letter as I
could,--assuring him, however, that I am not a Buddhist, but still a
follower of Herbert Spencer. It is a nice little magazine. I suppose
that H. M. & Co.'s advertisement had something to do with the matter;
but from the business point of view, it is an excellent idea to try to
work a book through the universities. Those lads are thinkers in their
own way. See the poem on page 90,--also on page 83: both show thinking.
I ventured to advise the writer of "Body and Soul" to make a new
construction of the thought. The conditions might be reversed. First the
man is the body; the woman the soul. But the woman's soul is withered
up by the act of the man; and the body only remains. Then the man gets
sorry, and gets a soul through the sorrow of the wrong that he has done.
Then _she_ becomes the Flesh, and _he_ the Ghost. I did not explain all
this--only suggested it. A case of vicarious sacrifice. How many women
have to lose their own souls in order to give souls to somebody else!
Wish I was with you to-day, and to-morrow, and many days in succession.
But if we have plum pudding every day--! I mean not _you_ by the plum
pudding, but the circumstantial combination. I wanted to say that
pleasure spoils the soul for working purposes,--but I am afraid to
attempt to carry the simile further, lest you should turn it round, and
hit me with it. I shall see you erelong, anyhow.
Affectionately,
LAFCADIO.
[Illustration: MR. HEARN'S LATER HANDWRITING]