I positively shall not bore you with an interminated screed this time.
But I thought you might like to know that I have recovered my health,
and hope to be able to remain here for a few months at least. And if I
remain well long enough to make me reckless I shall visit your town
some day, and maybe ask your mother to command you to let me drive you
to Berkeley. It makes me almost sad to think of the camp at the lake
being abandoned.
So you liked my remarks on the "labor question." That is nice of you,
but aren't you afraid your praise will get me into the disastrous
literary habit of writing for some _one_ pair of eyes?--your eyes? Or
in resisting the temptation I may go too far in the opposite error.
But you do not see that it is "Art for Art's sake"--hateful phrase!
Certainly not, it is not Art at all. Do you forget the distinction I
pointed out between journalism and literature? Do you not remember
that I told you that the former was of so little value that it might
be used for anything? My newspaper work is in _no_ sense literature.
It is nothing, and only becomes something when I give it the very use
to which I would put nothing literary. (Of course I refer to my
editorial and topical work.)
If you want to learn to write that kind of thing, so as to do good
with it, you've an easy task. _Only_ it is not worth learning and the
good that you can do with it is not worth doing. But literature--the
desire to do good with _that_ will not help you to your means. It is
not a sufficient incentive. The Muse will not meet you if you have any
work for her to do. Of course I sometimes like to do good--who does
not? And sometimes I am glad that access to a great number of minds
every week gives me an opportunity. But, thank Heaven, I don't make
a business of it, nor use in it a tool so delicate as to be ruined by
the service.
Please do not hesitate to send me anything that you may be willing to
write. If you try to make it perfect before you let me see it, it will
never come. My remarks about the kind of mind which holds its thoughts
and feelings by so precarious a tenure that they are detachable for
use by others were not made with a forethought of your failure.
Mr. Harte of the New England Magazine seems to want me to know his
work (I asked to) and sends me a lot of it cut from the magazine. I
pass it on to you, and most of it is just and true.
But I'm making another long letter.
I wish I were not an infidel--so that I could say: "God bless you,"
and mean it literally. I wish there _were_ a God to bless you, and
that He had nothing else to do.
Please let me hear from you. Sincerely,