TŌKYŌ, February, 1899.
DEAR McDONALD,--I have just got your dear letter: don't think me
neglectful for not writing to you sooner;--this is the heavy part of the
term; and the weather has been trying me.
Well, I am glad to hear that you have read a book called "Exotics and
Retrospectives." I have not seen it. Where did it come from? How did
you get it? When was it sent? Did the doctor get his copy? (Don't
answer these questions by letter in a hurry: I am not asking very
seriously,--as I suppose I shall get my copies by the _Doric_.)
I have been doing nothing to speak of lately: too tired after
a day's work,--and the literary jobs on hand are mechanical
mostly,--uninteresting,--mere ruts of duty. I hate everything
mechanical; but romances do not turn up every day.
Thanks for your interest in my lecture-work; but you would be wrong
in thinking the lectures worth printing. They are only dictated
lectures--dictated out of my head, not from notes even: so the form
of them cannot be good. Were I to rewrite each of them ten or fifteen
times, I might print them. But that would not be worth while. I am not
a scholar, nor a competent critic of the best; there are scores of men
able to do the same thing incomparably better. The lectures are good for
the Tōkyō University, however,--because they have been adapted, by
long experience, to the Japanese student's way of thinking and feeling,
and are put in the simplest possible language. But when a professor
in Japan prints his lectures, the authorities think they have got all
that he knows in hand, and are likely to look about for a new man. It is
bad policy to print anything of the kind here, and elsewhere the result
would be insignificant. I had better reserve my force for work that
other people _cannot_ do better,--or at least won't do.
Affectionately,
LAFCADIO.