Volume II Part 36 (1/2)

My back feels to-day as if those little sand-crabs were running over it; but the pain is nearly all gone I shall be ready for another swim in a day or two

And that supper at the Grand Hotel! I aloriously well, but not in a working mood A week more of holidays would ruin me! Discomfort is absolutely necessary for literary inspiration Make ashall disturbthe friends hom I yesterday imposed upon the patience of certain crabs,--who suddenly found the a problem for which all their inherited experience had left them supremely unprepared

Too soon we shall have winter upon us again; and I shall be struggling with problems of university-student peculiarities;--and I shall be working wonderfully hard at a new book There will be all kinds of dull, dark, tiresome days; but whenever I want I can call back the suht, between sand and sea-line, I shall discern a US naval officer in Cape May costu little holes in the beach,--sapping andthe habitations of small horrified crabs

Also I shall see a leainst it And old

Affectionately ever, LAFCADIO

TO MITChell McDONALD

TOKYO, Septeo last night; but we had only two trees blon this time, and the fence lifted in a southwesterly direction Truly I ise not to go to shi+nano as I intended: it would have been no easy thing to get back again And you did well not to try Fuji It erous work indeed When a typhoon runs around Fuji, A rocks away like a powder-explosion Judging from the extraordinary ”protection-walls” built about the hut at the mountain-top, and frohted down, I fancy this ions goes down like a bounding shot from a cannon; and I should just about as soon stand in front of a 50-lb steel shell

The japanese papers to-day are denouncing so to the Gods for bad weather! The Gods do wisely not to answer anybody's prayers at all City-dwellers would pray for fine weather, while farmers pray for rain;--fellows like me would pray for eternal heat, while others would pray for eternal coolness;--and ould the Gods do when begged by peace-lovers to avert war, and byit about? Think of twenty people praying for afor his life Think of ten different irl! Why, really, the Gods would in any event be obliged to tell us to settle our own little affairs in our own little way, and be d--d! One ought to write so some day about a dile of the sort; but he did not exhaust the subject

Affectionately, LAFCADIO

TO MITChell McDONALD

TOKYO, October, 1898

DEAR McDONALD,--I have your delightful letter and throw all else overboard for theand chatter

I have sent word to Mr ---- that I can receive no foreign visitors I run away froer from calls,--and nevertheless I cannot entirely escape Yet you would have me enter like Daniel into that lions' den of the Grand Hotel, because you are the Angel of the Lord Well, I suppose I et down soon,--but I cannot say exactly a day Better let elad to hear you are well again

Don't knohat my book will turn out to be after a fewanyhow: the japanese part will be interesting enough; but the personal-impression parts do not develop well And I must work very hard at it You think that a day or two in the Grand Hotel is good for ine what difficulty it is to find any ti is still in pupa-condition

But what most injures an author is not ations, waste of tih to stand the life of society, and to write I can think of but one of importance,--that is Henry James;--but his special study _is_ society

And now for a lecture (In haste)

Affectionately, LAFCADIO

TO MITChell McDONALD

TOKYO, October, 1898

DEAR McDONALD,--I find myself not only at the busiest part of the term, the part when professors of the university don't find ti portion of the work of getting out a book,--the last portion, the finishi+ng and rounding off

And I a to ask you simply _not_ to come and see your friend, and _not_ to ask him to come to see you, _for at least three months more_

I know this seems horrid--but such are the only conditions upon which literary work is possible, when combined with the duties of a professor of literature I don't want to see or hear or feel anything outside of my work till the book is done,--and I therefore have the impudent assurance to ask you to help me stand by my wheel Of course it would be pleasant to do otherwise; but I can't even think of pleasant things and do decent work at the same time Please think of a helh weather, with breakers in sight

Hate to send you this letter--but I think you will sympathize with me in spite of it

Affectionately, LAFCADIO