DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--In one of your recent letters, which charmed me by its kindness,--though I did not dwell on the pleasure given me, because I was so immediately occupied in discussing my psychical hobby,--you asked me: "How could I expect to hit the public more than I have done?"
Well, not with a book on Japan, perhaps; but I must do better some day with something, or acknowledge myself a dead failure. I really think I have stored away in me somewhere powers larger than those I have yet been able to use. Of course I don't mean that I have any hidden wisdom, or anything of that sort; but I believe I have some power to reach the public emotionally, if conditions allow.
One little story which would never die, might suffice,--or a volume of little stories. Stories, fiction: that is all the public care about. Not essays, however clever,--nor vagaries, nor travels,--but stories about something common to all life under the sun. And this is just the very hardest of all earthly things to do. I might write an essay on some topic of which I am now quite ignorant,--by studying the subject for the necessary time. But a story cannot be written by the help of study at all: it must come from outside. It must be a "sensation" in one's own life,--and not peculiar to any life or any place or time.
I have been studying the "will" and "shall" carefully, and think that I shall be able to avoid serious mistakes hereafter. It is difficult, however, for me to get the "instantaneous sense"--so to speak--of their correct use. The line between "intention" and "future sequence" I can't well define.
I can't help fearing that what you mean by "justice and temperateness" in writing means that you want me to write as if I were you, or at least to measure sentence or thought by your standard. This, of course, would render frank correspondence impossible,--as it does even now to some extent. If I write well of a thing one day, and badly another--I expect my friend to discern that both impressions are true, and solve the contradiction--that is, if my letters are really wanted. For absolute "justice and temperateness," one can find them in the pages of Herbert Spencer--but you would then discern that even _la raison peut fatiguer à la longue_. I should suppose the interest of letters not to be in the text, but in the writer. Am I wrong?