of exultation. You see very quickly beyond the present
relations of a fact--I think all this. But of course you have been
shaped in certain things by social influences I have never had,--so that
you must have perfect poise where I would flounder and stumble.

"But imagining won't do always. I should like to know more of you than a
photograph or a rare letter can tell. I don't know, remember, anything
_at all_ about you. I do not know where you were born, where you were
educated,--anything of your life; or what is much more, infinitely more
important, I don't know your emotions and thoughts and feelings and
experiences in the past. What you are now, I can guess. But what _were_
you,--long ago? What memories most haunt you of places and people you
liked? If you could tell me some of these, how pleasantly we might
compare notes. Mere facts tell little: the interest of personality lies
most in the infinitely special way that facts affect the person. I am
very curious about you,--but, don't take this too seriously; because
though my wishes are strong, my disinclination to cause you pain is
stronger; and you have told me that writing is sometimes fatiguing to
you. It were so much better could we pass a day or two together.

"You must not underrate yourself as you did in your last. Your few lines
about the scenery,--short as they were,--convinced me that you could do
something literary of a very nice sort had you the time and chance to
give yourself to any such work. But I do not wish that you would--except
to read the result; for literary labour is extremely severe work, even
after the secret of method is reached. I am only beginning to learn; and
to produce five pages means to write at least twenty-five. Enthusiasms
and inspirations have least to do with the matter. The real work is
condensing, compressing, choosing, changing, shifting words and
phrases,--studying values of colour and sound and form in words; and
when all is done, the result satisfies only for a time. What I wrote six
years ago, I cannot bear the sight of to-day. If I had been a genius, I
wonder whether I would feel the same.

"Romances are not in novels, but in lives. Can you not tell me some of
yours when you are feeling very, very well, and don't know what to do?
What surprised me was your observation about 'sentimental' in your last
letter,--and that upon such a worthy topic! What can you think of me?
And here in this Orient, where the spirit of more an