TŌKYŌ, October, 1899.
DEAR MITCHELL,--I cannot quite tell you how sorry I felt to part from
you on the golden afternoon of yesterday: like Antæus, who got stronger
every time he touched the solid ground, I feel always so much more of a
man after a little contact with your reality. Not more of a _literary
man_, however; for I try to shut the ears of my mind against your praise
in that direction, and I close the door of Memory upon the sound of it.
If I didn't, I should be ruined by self-esteem.
And to think that you will be eight, ten or twenty thousand miles away,
after next year!
Woke up this morning feeling younger--not quite fifty years of age.
Gradually the sense of age will return: when I feel about sixty
again--which will be soon--I shall run down to see you.
Want to say that those cigars of the doctor's are too good for me:
luxury, luxury, luxury. The ruin of empires! But I like a little
of it--not _too_ often--once in a year. It makes me buoyant,
imponderable--fly in day dreams.
And I want to see Bedloe. Do not, if you can help it, fail to come up
again, once anyhow, before the good year dies. Only this word of love to
you.
In haste,
LAFCADIO.