TŌKYŌ, January, 1899.
DEAR McDONALD,--I suppose you have heard of a famous old drama which
has for its title, "The Woman Killed with Kindness." Presently, if you
do not take care, you will be furnishing the material for a much more
modern tragedy, to be called, "The Small Man Killed with Kindness." Here
I have been waiting three days to write you,--and have not been able
to write, because of the extravagant and very naughty things which you
have done. That whiskey! Those cigars! That wonderful beefsteak! Those
imperial and sinfully splendid dinners! Those wonderful chats until
ghost-time, and beyond it! And all these things--however pleasing in
themselves--made like a happy dream by multitudes of little acts and
words and thoughts (all observed and treasured up) that created about
me an atmosphere not belonging at all to this world of Iron Facts and
Granite Necessities. "Come soon again"--indeed! Catch me down there
again this winter! Steep a man's soul in azure and gold like that again,
and you will utterly spoil him for those cold grey atmospheres under
which alone good work can be done. It is all tropical down there at
No. 20 Bund; and I must try to forget the tropics in order to finish
No. 8. The last time I had such an evening was in 1889,--in a flat of
Fifth Avenue, New York, where a certain divine person and I sat by a
fire of drift-wood, and talked and dreamed about things. There was this
difference, however, that I never could remember what passed as we
chatted before that extraordinary fire (which burned blue and red and
green--because of sea-ghosts in it). _That_ was largely witchcraft, but
at No. 20 Bund, without witchcraft, there is more power than that. And
if I am afraid of it, it is not because I do not like it even more than
the magic of Fifth Avenue, but because--No. 8 must be done quickly!
You must really promise to be less good to me if you want to see me
again before the Twentieth Century. I wish I knew how to scold you
properly;--but for the moment I shall drop the subject in utter despair!
I hope what you say about my being still a boy may have a grain of truth
in it,--so that I can get mature enough to make you a little bit proud
of encouraging me in this out-of-the-way corner of the world. But do
_you_ please take good care of that health of yours, if you want to see
results: I am just a trifle uneasy about you, and you strong men have
to be more careful than midges and gnats like myself. Please think twice
over these little remarks.
I have no news at all for you;--there is no mail, of course, and nothing
interesting in this muddy place. I can only "report progress." I have a
very curious collection of Japanese songs and ballads, with refrains,
unlike any ever published in English; and I expect to make a remarkable
paper out of them.
By the way, I must tell you that such enquiries as I tried to make for
you on the subject of waterfalls only confirm what I told you. The
mere idea of such a thing is horribly shocking to the _true_ Japanese
nature: it offends both their national and their religious sense. The
Japanese love of natural beauty is not artificial, as it is to a large
degree with us, but a part of the race-soul; and tens of thousands of
people travel every year hundreds of miles merely to enjoy the sight and
sound of a little waterfall, and to please their imagination with the
old legends and poems concerning it. (The Japanese heart never could
understand American willingness to use Niagara for hydraulic or electric
machinery--never! And I must confess that I sympathize altogether with
them.) But that is not all: the idea of a _foreigner_ using a waterfall
for such a purpose would seem to millions of very good, lovable people
like a national outrage. The bare suggestion would excite _horror_. Of
course there are men like ---- who have suppressed in themselves all
these feelings,--but they represent an almost imperceptible minority.
They regard the ruin of Fairy-land as certain;--but the mass are still
happy in their dreams of the old beauty and the old gods.