TŌKYŌ, December, 1898.
MY DEAR PROFESSOR,--I have been meditating, and after the meditation I
came to the conclusion not to visit your charming new home again--not at
least before the year 1900. I suppose that I am a beast and an ape; but
I nevertheless hope to make you understand.
The situation makes me think of Béranger's burthen,--_Vive nos amis les
ennemis!_ My friends are much more dangerous than my enemies. These
latter--with infinite subtlety--spin webs to keep me out of places where
I hate to go,--and tell stories of me to people whom it would be vanity
and vexation to meet;--and they help me so much by their unconscious
aid that I almost love them. They help me to maintain the isolation
indispensable to quiet regularity of work, and the solitude which is
absolutely essential to thinking upon such subjects as I am now engaged
on. Blessed be my enemies, and forever honoured all them that hate me!
But my friends!--ah! my friends! They speak so beautifully of my work;
they _believe_ in it; they say they want more of it,--and yet they would
destroy it! They do not know what it costs,--and they would break the
wings and scatter the feather-dust, even as the child that only wanted
to caress the butterfly. And they speak of communion and converse and
sympathy and friendship,--all of which are indeed precious things
to others, but mortally deadly to me,--representing the breaking-up
of habits of industry, and the sin of disobedience to the Holy
Ghost,--against whom sin shall not be forgiven,--either in this life, or
in the life to come.
And they say,--Only a day,--just an afternoon or an evening. But _each_
of them says this thing. And the sum of the days in these holidays--the
days inevitable--are somewhat more than a week in addition. A week of
work dropped forever into the Abyss of what might-have-been! Therefore
I wish rather that I were lost upon the mountains, or cast away upon a
rock, than in this alarming city of Tōkyō,--where a visit, and the
forced labour of the university, are made by distance even as one and
the same thing.
Now if I were to go down to your delightful little house, with my
boy,--and see him kindly treated,--and chat with you about eternal
things,--and yield to the charm of old days (when I must confess
that you fascinated me not a little),--there is no saying what the
consequences to me might eventually become. Alas! I can afford
friends only on paper,--I can occasionally write,--I can get letters
that give me joy; but visiting is out of the possible. I must not
even _think_ about other people's kind words and kind faces, but
work,--work,--work,--while the Scythe is sharpening within vision.
Blessed again, I say, are those that don't like me, for they do not fill
my memory with thoughts and wishes contrary to the purpose of the Æons
and the Eternities!
When a day passes in which I have not written--much is my torment.
Enjoyment is not for me,--excepting in the completion of work. But I
have not been the loser by my visits to you both--did I not get that
wonderful story? And so I have given you more time than any other person
or persons in Tōkyō. But now--through the seasons--I must again
disappear. Perhaps _le jeu ne vaudra pas la chandelle_; nevertheless I
have some faith as to ultimate results.
Faithfully, with every most grateful and kindly sentiment,