I know how to do it, but it is so much _life_ thrown away--so much thought-time made sterile. In this case the chief compensation would be opportunity to study the phases of Japanese art,--the _esprit_.
DEAR MISS BISLAND,--A small creature rang the bell at 136 Madison Avenue. A large and determined concierge responded, and the following converse ensued:--
S. C.--"None of her friends or relatives here, who could tell me?"
The sudden closing of the door here made a Period and a Finis.
Then I wandered away down a double row of magnificent things that seemed less buildings than petrifactions,--astonishments of loftiness and silent power,--and wondered how Miss Elizabeth Bisland must have felt when she first trod these enormous pavements and beheld these colossal dreams of stone trying to touch the moon. And reaching my friend Krehbiel's house I made this brief record of my vain effort to meet the grey eyes of E. B.
DEAR KREHBIEL,--I was delighted to get your letter, the first which reached me from America during my trip. My own correspondence has been irregular, though I have written a good many short letters; but the amount of work on my hands has been something enormous,--and I have only had five idle days, caused by a fever due to imprudence. I got into a marshy town, got wet, and came home with a burning headache. The result was not serious except that I had to stop all writing for a while.
You ask me to send you a hint about my work; but I think it were best to say nothing about it. I have a very large mass of MS. prepared, and don't yet know what I am going to do with it: it is not polished as I should wish, but I hope to work it into proper shape in a few days more. It consists simply of a detailed account of impressions, sensations, colours, etc. I have tried to put the whole _feeling_ of the trip on paper. Then I have about $60 worth of photos to illustrate it. My photo set is very complete;--I have also a rich collection of Coolie and half-breed types, including many nude studies.
Strange as you may think it, this trip knocks the poetry out of me! The imagination is not stimulated, but paralyzed by the satiation of all its aspirations and the realization of its wildest dreams, The artistic sense is numbed by the display of colours which no artist could paint; and the philosophical sense is lulled to inactivity by the perpetual current of novel impressions, by the continual stream of unfamiliar sensory experiences. Concentration of mind is impossible.