"1130 East 15th St., Jan. 5/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:

". . . I have written probably one hundred and ten thousand this [past] year, against your ninety-odd; but I think that I loafed or did other things less, and that each thousand took me longer than each of your thousands did you.

To tell you the truth, Cloudesley, I haven't had any decent work published recently—work which I would care to have you read—socialistic essay excepted, and that I was unable to get a whack at in the proof sheets.

". . . Christmas is just past. Further a friend has taken up writing with seven children and an undeveloped ability, which said friend I have been helping to finance. Another, both ankles broken badly some time since. Then my mother, to whose pension I add thirty dollars each month, got back in her debts and I have just finished straightening her out. And my Mammie Jennie (negro foster mother) came down upon me for December quarterly payment of interest on mortgage, and delinquent taxes. Furthermore, within a week I expect my wife to be confined. . . . January check non est, and I have been going along on borrowed money since before Christmas."

"Sunday Morning, Jan. 6/01.

"Dear Anna:—

"I had intended writing you yesterday, asking you to come over Monday evening and go with me to that equal suffragist club

before which Whitaker was to read. Then Tuesday I could have taken your picture. But I had forgotten Mrs. Gowell's lectures. . . . Also found out that Monday was not the night and that we would have our regular boxing bout.

"So Saturday, but come early . . . so that I may take advantage of the sun. This, then, be the qualification: if I do not telephone you otherwise. Possibly ere that time, the boy—I do pray for a boy—shall have arrived. In which case, you must come. So Saturday, early. . . . My birthday. A quarter of a century of breath. I feel very old.

"Of the New Comer, I thank you for what you say. It will be in itself a dear consummation. Then must come the patient determining. And, O Anna, it must be make or break. No whining puny breed. It must be great and strong. Or—the penalty must be paid. By it, by me; one or the other. So be.

"I shall be glad to go in for the Ibsen circle. I need more of that in my life."

"Feb. 4/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:—

"Not dead, but rushed as usual. Have got down to my regular five hours and a half sleep again and running by the clock. Am just answering a whole stack of letters.

"Well, there's no accounting for things. I did so ardently long to be a father, that it seemed impossible that such a happiness should be mine. But it is. And a damn fine, healthy youngster. Weighed nine and a half pounds at birth, which they say is good for a girl. Up to date has shown a good stomach and lack of ailments, for it does nothing but eat and sleep, or lie awake for a straight hour without a whimper. Intend to call her 'Joan.' Tell me how you like it, what associations it calls up.

". . . As regards 'bumming by force from peoples inhabiting lands we cannot thrive in?' Does not our modern slavery serve to deteriorate us, affecting our own government? While counting the profit you must not ignore the loss. . . . Do you not realize that whatever is 'is right and wise.' Certainly it may be made wiser and more right in the natural course of evolution (and then again it mayn't), but the point is that it is the best possible under the circumstances. Given so much matter, and so much force, and

beginning at the beginning of things as regards this our world, do you not know that it could not have worked out in any other way, nay, not in the least jot or tittle could it have been other than it was. We may make it better; and then again we may not.

"As Dr. Ross somewhere says: 'Evolution is no kindly mother to us. We do not know what moment it may turn against us and destroy us.' Don't you see; I speak not of the things that should be; nor of the things I should like to be; but I do speak of the things that are and will be. I should like to have socialism; yet I know that socialism is not the very next step; I know that capitalism must live its life first. That the world must be exploited to the utmost first; that first must intervene a struggle for life among the nations, severer, intenser, more widespread, than ever before. I should much more prefer to wake to-morrow in a smoothly-running socialistic state; but I know I shall not; I know it cannot come that way. I know that a child must go through its child's sicknesses ere it becomes a man. So, always, remember that I speak of the things that are; not of the things that should be.

"Find enclosed Cosmopolitan letters. I stood off first one and wrote to McClure's. They have agreed to go on with me, giving me utter freedom. So you see, at least they have not bought me body and soul. Honestly, they are the most human editors I ever dealt with. When I think about them, it is more as very dear friends, than people I am doing business with. However, in refusing Cosmopolitan offer, which meant giving up freedom, I think I have acted for the best. What think you?"

"Feb. 13/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:—

"Well, I am on the home stretch of the novel, and it is a failure. This is not said in a fit of the blues, but from calm conviction. However, on the other hand, I have learned a great deal concerning the writing of novels. On this one which I have attempted, I could write three books of equal size showing wherein I failed, and why, and laying down principles violated, etc. 0, it's been a great study. I shall be at work finishing it for the rest of the month—you know I always finish whatever I begin. I never leave a thing in such a state that in the time to come haunting thoughts may creep in—'If I only had gone on,' etc.

"McClure's are getting ready to bring out a second collection of Klondike stories—not so good as the first, however.

"March I shall take a vacation, and April I intend writing my long-deferred 'Salt of the Earth.' . . .

"I see you laugh at me and my optimistic philosophy. So be. I only wish you would study up the materialistic conception of history, then you would understand my position."

"1062 First Avenue,
"Oakland, Calif.,

"March 15/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:—

"Note by address that I have moved. Last seen of old house there was a foot and a half of water under it, and the back yard a lake. Am much more finely situated now, nearer to Oakland, with finer view, surroundings, air, etc., etc. Do you remember Lake Merritt?—a body of water which you might have seen from the electric cars on the way to my place from down town. I am located right near it, and believe, with a sling shot from the roof of the house, that I could throw a stone into it.

"Shall have the novel done in ten days, now—N.G. ["No Good"]. But I know I shall be able to do a good one yet.

". . . Mr. Whitaker is selling some of his work,—now Ainslie's, The S. S. McClure, Munsey's, etc., etc. He's picking up.

"Jack."

"April 1/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:—

"The novel is off at last, and right glad am I that it is. . . .

"I send herewith a letter from Town Topics. They are paying two dollars for jokes now, and if you have any it would n't be a bad idea to send them along. I do not know much about joke writing, but I wouldn t send jokes in a bunch. I sent four triolets (the only four I ever wrote), to Town Topics. They took one, and

sent three back. Later I resent one of the triolets: they took it. Later I resent another: they took it. But they balked on the fourth. ". . . By all means . . . come somewhere and live in the center of things. In this day one cannot isolate one's self and do anything. Get you a big city anywhere, and plunge into it and live and meet people and things. If you believe that man is the creature of his environment, then you cannot afford to remain way off there on the edge of things."

"April 3/01.

"Dear Anna:—

"Did I say that the human might be filed in categories? Well, and if I did, let me qualify—not all humans. You elude me. I cannot place you, cannot grasp you. I may boast that of nine out of ten, under given circumstances, I can forecast their action; that of nine out of ten, by their word, or action, I may feel the pulse of their hearts. But the tenth I despair. It is beyond me. You are that tenth.

"Were ever two souls, with dumb lips, more incongruously matched! We may feel in common—surely, we ofttimes do—and when we do not feel in common, yet do we understand; and yet we have no common tongue. Spoken words do not come to us. We are unintelligible. God must laugh at the mummery.

"The one gleam of sanity through it all is that we are both large temperamentally, large enough to often misunderstand. True, we often understand but in vague glimmering ways, by dim perceptions, like ghosts, which, while we doubt, haunt us with their truth. And still, I, for one, dare not believe; for you are that tenth which I may not forecast.

"Am I unintelligible now? I do not know. I imagine so. I cannot find the common tongue.

"Largely temperamentally—that is it. It is the one thing that brings us at all in touch. We have, flashed through us, you and I, each a bit of the universal, and so we draw together. And yet we are so different.

"I smile at you when you grow enthusiastic? It is a forgivable smile—nay, almost an envious smile. I have lived twenty-five years of repression. I learned not to be enthusiastic. It is a hard lesson to forget. I begin to forget, but it is so little. At the best, before

I die, I cannot hope to forget all or most. I can exult, now that I am learning, in little things, in other things; but of my things, and secret things double mine, I cannot, I cannot. Do I make myself intelligible? Do you hear my voice? I fear not. There are poseurs. I am the most successful of them all.

Jack."

"April 8/01.

Dear Cloudesley:—

I am sending you herewith pictures of the youngster at three weeks and two months.

"Every man, at the beginning of his career (whether laying bricks or writing books or anything else), has two choices. He may choose immediate happiness, or ultimate happiness. . . . He who chooses ultimate happiness, and has the ability, and works hard, will find that the reward for effort is cumulative, that the interest on his energy invested is compounded. The artisan who is industrious, steady, reliant, is suddenly, one day, advanced to a foremanship with increased wages. Now is that advance due to what he did that day, or the day before ? Ah, no, it is due to the long years of industry and steadiness. The same with the reputation of a business man or artist. The thing grows, compounds. 'He is not only paid for having done something once upon a time,' as you put it, but he has been paid for continuing to do something through quite a period of time. . . .

"O no. My 'incentive' is not the 'assurance of being able some day to sell any sort of work on the strength of a name.' Every year we have writers, old writers, crowded out—men, who once had names, but who had gained them wrongfully, or had not done the work necessary to maintain them. In its way, the struggle for a man with a name, to maintain the standard by which he gained that name, is as severe as the struggle for the unknown to make a name.

"Jack London."

"Harold, April 13, 1901.

"Dear Jack:—

". . . Thanks for photos: my mother asked a while ago if you had sent any of the 'small one' yet. They are woefully helpless

and stupid things—human infants—yet it is wonderful what expression they sometimes have. That of Miss London at two months impresses me as distinctly weird, as if she were perplexed by some weighty problem. I believe the mystery of existence agitates the mind at even so early a stage of its development as that.

"N.B. I think your machine needs boiling—try brushing the types for a starter though.

"Cloudesley Johns."

April 19/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:—

"I agree with you in some of your criticism of 'The Law of Life,' but not in all. For instance, 'What was that?' Remember, the words occur, not in the writer's narrative—in such a place your criticism would hold good. But the words do occur in the mind of the Indian. He thinks them. And that it is the most natural thing in the world for a person to so think when something unknown or unusual occurs, you cannot deny.

". . . Did I tell you?—novel is accepted to be brought out this fall. In the meantime immediate serial publication is being sought.

Have to go read a poem over a coffin to satisfy the whim of a man who was quick and is now dead; so so long."

"July 24/01.

"My Little Collaborator:—

"Yes, and the Yellow is dead—at least for some little time to come. For all I know, I may be doing prize fights next.

"Explanations are hardly necessary between you and me, but this case merits one I think. Didn't get home till the middle of the day, Monday. Went to see my mother, sister, etc. Tuesday went to Santa Cruz to speak. Came back Wednesday and pitched into work on back correspondence. All the time intending to take up reply to Dane Kempton's last and surprise you with it. But the Sunday Examiner rushed me Thursday to have a freak story in by Friday noon. And Thursday also the Daily Examiner clamored to see me instanter. Put daily off, finished Sunday work on time, and on Friday also went to see Daily Examiner. They proposed the Schutzenfest to me. Saturday I started reply to Dane Kempton and paid bills. And on Sunday took up the Schutzenfest and have been at it steadily for ten days, publishing in to-day's Examiner the last of that work. My whole life has stood still for ten days. During that time I have done nothing else. Why, so exhausting was it that my five and one-half hours would not suffice and I had to sleep over seven.

"And just now, to-day, as I sat down to send you greeting, along comes yours to me. I kind of looked for you to be over to-day, though little right had I to, and I have now given up that idea.

"And further, I find I must do something for McClure's at once, or they will be shutting off on me. So I am springing at once into a short story, which will be finished by end of week, and then the Letters. You know I have striven to be on time, so forgive me this once. Tell you what I'll do, if you don't expect to be out—see you on Friday afternoon. Won't be able to stop to dinner, though, for have to go to 6:30 supper. [This was the delightful 'Six-Thirty Club,' of San Francisco.] If I do miss the supper, will be dropped from the rolls, for it will have been my third consecutive absence.

"Haven't finished 'Aurora Leigh' yet, but it is fine, greater, I think, than Wordsworth's ('Excursion' is it?) from the little you read me of it."

"Jack London,
"56 Bayo Vista Avenue,
"Oakland, Calif.,
"October 9/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:

"Note change of address. Am now living out on the hills. . . .And how's New York? Are you going to settle down to writing for the winter? I nearly shipped across on a cattle boat when I was on the road, but somehow didn't.

"Am free lance again. Have just finished a 3700-word defense of Kipling against the rising tide of adverse criticism. Did you see the attack in current Cosmopolitan?

". . . "Well, haven't much news. Am hard at it. That series of letters with Miss Strunsky is three-fifths through. That is to say, we have three-fifths of a book done. Though the Lord only knows what publisher will dare tackle it. Also, am hammering away at a series of Klondike tales, which I shall assemble under the title 'The Children of the Frost.' They are all to be done from the Indian approach, you know."

"Nov. 8/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:—

"Of course the painter has to quit painting bears, but he has first to gather together his itinerary and select his route. (Say, is that what they call a mixed metaphor?)

"Anyway, it's the same old story. A man does one thing in a passable manner and the dear public insists on his continuing to do it to the end of his days. O the humorists who try to be serious!

". . . that letter series Miss Strunsky and I are writing? Well, we've got past the forty-thousand mark and the goal is in sight.

Gee! I wonder how you'll jump upon it. My contention is the same as I heard you make once: That propinquity determines choice. Yet I am sure you will be after my scalp before you finish it—that is, if we can entice a publisher into getting it out.

"Whitaker has just sold a story to Cosmopolitan. Rah for Whitaker! 0, he's going it scientifically.

"I wouldn't mind being with you next spring when you pull out for the old countries.

"Cosgrave mentioned having several interesting conversations with you, and that he expected to get some tramp work from you. How is it coming on?"

"Dec. 6/01.

"Dear Cloudesley:—

"Nothing doing. Am hammering away in seclusion, trying to get out of Alaska. Guess I'll succeed in accomplishing it in a couple of years.

". . . Wyekoff is not a tramp authority. He doesn't understand the real tramp. Josiah Flynt is the tramp authority. Wyckoff only knows the workingman, the stake-man, and the bindle-stiff. The profesh are unknown to him. Wyckoff is a gay-cat. That was his rating when he wandered over the States.

"Well, good luck on the way to Cuba! Wish I were with you. I am rotting here in town. Really, I can feel the bourgeois fear crawling up and up and twining around me. If I don't get out soon I shall be emasculated. The city folk are a poor folk anyway. To hell with them."

"Dear Anna:—

"Your letter is a splendid, a delicately splendid addition to the book. I am anxious to see it in type. I want to see it shape up.

"Your letter impelled me to work, and find here my attempt at rewriting my first letter. I have been two whole days on it, and working hard. From the trouble I have had with it, and from its original horribleness, I now know that I shall have to write it a third time (at the general revision), ere it is worth looking at. However, I send it for what it is worth. How bad my first letters were I never dreamed. I know now.

"You will notice that I have devoted little space to Hester, and more space to other and unimportant things. I have described her mental characteristics, her intellectual constitution, that which appeals to the non-loving Herbert Wace. For the reader I have already opened the breach between you (Dane Kempton) and me. When the book opens we are both aware of the slipping away, vaguely aware; one certain function of the book will be to differentiate us so that the breach becomes sharply defined. I change my landlord to my friend Gwynne. I shall develop a love experience for him, which shall culminate in one of the inserted letters—naturally the love experience will be evidence on my side of the contention.

"Dear Anna:

"Find here letter No. 2. And I must plead guilty to the same feeling which you were under when you wrote me. I don't know what to make of it. Seem all at sea. Feel that I am all wrong, that I am not building characters as I should, or even writing letters as they should be written. But I suppose the whole thing will grow, in time. Anyway, it's a good method for getting a fair conception of one's limitations.

"What do you think of my making a poet of Hester? Should it be poet or poetess? I detest poetess. Is there such a word as 'lyricist'? There is the word 'lyrist', meaning the same thing, but I do not like it. Do you catch my new school possibly to be founded

by Hester?—Poetry of a Machine Age. I may exploit it in later letters. Do you, Dane Kempton, behold that I have not told you anything about Hester physically? I don't like the wind up, the treatment of the minor conflict. It seemed as though I begged the question, and yet I couldn't conceive a way of arguing it out. To me it seems almost unarguable. I do not know. Perhaps not. Can't tell.

". . . And please criticize unsparingly, especially in errors of taste."

"He held that love is only a trap set by nature for the individual. One must not marry for love but for certain qualities discerned by the mind. This he argued in 'The Kempton-Wace Letters' brilliantly and passionately; so passionately as to again make one suspect that he was not as certain of his position as he claimed to be."