CHAPTER VIII.—AS A POET

[13]Mr. Percival Lowell's book soon reached me containing the inscription: "To George M. Gould, with best love of his spiritual pupil, L. H." I have intentionally retained colloquialisms in these excerpts, the indications of our familiarity, etc., to give a glimpse into the heart of the affectionate and sweet-natured man.

There is not much to say about the Japanese period. The splendid books speak for themselves. There is little in the almost valueless letters that interest the literature-lover and give him concern about the literature-maker. There is one short page[14]which is worth the remainder of the book. The development of inborn characteristics goes on, despite the grafted soul, almost as fatalistically as Hearn would have wished, and in this instance in accordance with his theory of the unalterability of character. But this period is of surpassing interest solely because of the beautifulbooks and articles written. To analyze them is both impossible and undesirable. They are for our enjoyment, and after us generations will be delighted by them.

[14]Life and Letters, Vol. II, pp. 337 and 338.

Hearn's views and practices as regards love and the feminine are not of sympathetic interest to those who think that monogamy is good and advisable. He hopes his son will not follow in his father's footsteps as regards every damozel in his path, and in this respect become the "disgraceful person he [the father] used to be." He "half suspects" the Oriental husband is right in loving his wife least of all others related to or dependent upon him, and quotes approvingly unquotable things about the laws of (sexual) nature, managing,more suo, to make beautiful the pursuit of beauty "in vain." Than the other, the woman-beauty of soul is the lesser. "It doesn't make a man any happier to have an intellectual wife. The less intellectual the more lovable,—for intellectual converse a mancan'thave with women." When contemplating legal marriage with "his wife" in 1892, he calculates shrewdly the advantages of the plan. He arrived in Japan in 1890 and in less than two years "my little wife and I have saved nearly 2,000 Japanese dollars between us." When he has made her independent he will quit teaching, and "wander about awhile and write 'sketches' at $10.00 per page." In 1893 he found difficulties in registering the birth of his son. Hearn was still a British subject. If the boy should be a Japanese citizen, the registry must be in the mother's name; if in the father's name, he would become a foreigner. To become a Japanese citizen would mean for Hearn a great reduction in his salary as a teacher under Government pay. "Why was I so foolish as to have a son?" "ReallyIdon't know." In 1895 he "cuts the puzzle" by becoming a Japanese citizen, "losing all chance of Government employment at a living salary." Immediately Hearn "hopes to see a United Orient yet bound into one strong alliance againstour cruel Western Civilization," "against what is called Society and what is called Civilization."

For those who boasted of being his friends, it seems an astonishing thing that they should make Hearn portray his vices, his moral nakedness, so publicly. Of course he did not dream of theexposé. It is to his merit, however, that he would place the truth boldly and baldly before his friends. He confesses that the scandalous parts of a book are what he likes best, that he is "a Fraud," "a vile Latin," etc.,—"Vive le monde antique!" He is "not respectable." "Carpets—pianos—windows—curtains—brass bands—churches! how I hate them!! Would I had been born savage; the curse of civilized cities is upon me." He admits that he "cannot understand the moral side, of course," and urges that "the most serious necessity of life is not to take the moral side of it seriously. We must play with it, as with anhetaira." It is needless to add that in this composition and resolve lay Hearn's weakness, his tragedy, and his missing of "greatness." A man so willed must finally see that it is the source of pitiful instabilities and waywardness. "I have been at heart everything by turns." He learns the old trick of blaming "Fate" and "the other fellow;" he is hard-pushed, ignored, starved, morally humiliated:—"the less a man has to do with his fellow-men the better;" "it becomes plain why men cannot be good to one another;" character may not be bettered or changed; "no line exists between life and not-life;" "likes and dislikes never depart;" if Spanish, Italian, or French (instead of English, German, or American) he "can be at home with a villain," etc. Finally there comes that burst of frankness:—"I have more smallness in me than you can suspect. How could it be otherwise! If a man lives like a rat for twenty or twenty-five years, he must have acquired something of the disposition peculiar to house-rodents,—mustn't he?"Then increase the complaints of "treachery," the wish for "justice," the desire to go away, somewhere, anywhere; and the limit of the amazing is reached in praisingThe ConservatorandThe Whimfor bravery and goodness, and in hating Virchow thoroughly. Was Virchow so loathsome because this great scientist found an impassable demarcation between life and the not-life?—"all cells are derived from cells." Is it surprising that his old imagined enemies, the Jesuits, are believed to be hidden in every place, lurking to thwart every ambition or success, even to kill him?[15]

[15]Those who care may see how this suspicion obfuscates his mind in an article against some of Hearn's statements, by Henry Thurston, inThe Messenger, January 1906.

No man is wholly bad who loves children, none wholly good who does not love them. In a nation of child-lovers, as Hearn's Japanese writings bear witness, he began to catch glimpses of truth hitherto unrecognized. Concerning his eldest son (a fourth child was expected in 1903) Hearn wrote: "No man can possibly know what life means until he has a child and loves it. And then the whole Universe changes,—and nothing will ever again seem exactly as it seemed before." Naturally he was drawn to the rich child-lore and fairy tales of Japan. With great difficulty I have secured copies of a number of fairy stories edited by him and published in Japan by T. Hasegawa, Tōkyō, in a style beautiful and dainty beyond superlatives. As mine are probably the only ones in our country, I have ventured to copy herewith two of the tales:—

THE OLD WOMAN WHO LOST HER DUMPLINGLong, long ago, there was a funny old woman, who liked to laugh and to make dumplings of rice-flour.One day, while she was preparing some dumplings for dinner, she let one fall; and it rolled into a hole in the earthen floor of her little kitchen and disappeared. The old woman tried to reach it byputting her hand down the hole, and all at once the earth gave way, and the old woman fell in.She fell quite a distance, but was not a bit hurt; and when she got up on her feet again, she saw that she was standing on a road, just like the road before her house. It was quite light down there; and she could see plenty of rice-fields, but no one in them. How all this happened, I cannot tell you. But it seems that the old woman had fallen into another country.The road she had fallen upon sloped very much; so, after having looked for her dumpling in vain, she thought it must have rolled farther away down the slope. She ran down the road to look, crying:"My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?"After a little while she saw a stone Jizo standing by the roadside, and she said:"O Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"Jizo answered:"Yes, I saw your dumpling rolling by me down the road. But you had better not go any farther, because there is a wicked Oni living down there, who eats people."But the old woman only laughed, and ran on farther down the road, crying: "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?" And she came to another statue of Jizo, and asked it:"O kind Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"And Jizo said:"Yes, I saw your dumpling go by a little while ago. But you must not run any farther, because there is a wicked Oni down there, who eats people."But she only laughed, and ran on, still crying out: "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?" And she came to a third Jizo, and asked it:"O dear Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"But Jizo said:"Don't talk about your dumpling now. Here is the Oni coming. Squat down here behind my sleeve, and don't make any noise."Presently the Oni came very close, and stopped and bowed to Jizo, and said:"Good-day, Jizo San!"Jizo said good-day, too, very politely.Then the Oni suddenly snuffed the air two or three times in a suspicious way, and cried out: "Jizo San, Jizo San! I smell a smell of mankind somewhere—don't you?""Oh!" said Jizo, "perhaps you are mistaken.""No, no!" said the Oni, after snuffing the air again, "I smell a smell of mankind."Then the old woman could not help laughing, "Te-he-he!"—and the Oni immediately reached down his big hairy hand behind Jizo's sleeve, and pulled her out,—still laughing, "Te-he-he!""Ah! ha!" cried the Oni.Then Jizo said:"What are you going to do with that good old woman? You must not hurt her.""I won't," said the Oni. "But I will take her home with me to cook for us.""Very well," said Jizo; "but you must really be kind to her. If you are not I shall be very angry.""I won't hurt her at all," promised the Oni; "and she will only have to do a little work for us every day. Good-bye, Jizo San."Then the Oni took the old woman far down the road, till they came to a wide deep river, where there was a boat, and took her across the river to his house. It was a very large house. He led her at once into the kitchen, and told her to cook some dinner for himself and the other Oni who lived with him. And he gave her a small wooden rice-paddle, and said:"You must always put only one grain of rice into the pot, and when you stir that one grain of rice in the water with this paddle, the grain will multiply until the pot is full."So the old woman put just one rice-grain into the pot, as the Oni told her, and began to stir it with the paddle; and, as she stirred, the one grain became two,—then four,—then eight,—then sixteen,—thirty-two, sixty-four, and so on. Every time she moved the paddle the rice increased in quantity; and in a few minutes the great pot was full.After that, the funny old woman stayed a long time in the house of the Oni, and every day cooked food for him and for all his friends. The Oni never hurt or frightened her, and her work was made quite easy by the magic paddle—although she had to cook a very, very great quantity of rice, because an Oni eats much more than any human being eats.But she felt lonely, and always wished very much to go back to her own little house, and make her dumplings. And one day, when the Oni were all out somewhere, she thought she would try to run away.She first took the magic paddle, and slipped it under her girdle; and then she went down to the river. No one saw her; and the boat was there. She got into it, and pushed off; and as she could row very well, she was soon far away from the shore.But the river was very wide; and she had not rowed more than one-fourth of the way across, when the Oni, all of them, came back to the house.They found that their cook was gone, and the magic paddle too. They ran down to the river at once, and saw the old woman rowing away very fast.Perhaps they could not swim: at all events they had no boat; and they thought the only way they could catch the funny old woman would be to drink up all the water of the river before she got to the other bank. So they knelt down, and began to drink so fast that before the old woman was half way over, the water had become quite low.But the old woman kept on rowing until the water had got so shallow that the Oni stopped drinking, and began to wade across. Then she dropped her oar, took the magic paddle from her girdle, and shook it at the Oni, and made such funny faces that the Oni all burst out laughing.But the moment they laughed, they could not help throwing up all the water they had drunk, and so the river became full again. The Oni could not cross; and the funny old woman got safely over to the other side, and ran away up the road as fast as she could.She never stopped running until she found herself at home again. After that she was very happy; for she could make dumplings whenever she pleased. Besides, she had the magic paddle to make rice for her. She sold her dumplings to her neighbours and passengers, and in quite a short time she became rich.THE BOY WHO DREW CATSA long, long time ago, in a small country-village in Japan, there lived a poor farmer and his wife, who were very good people. They had a number of children, and found it very hard to feed them all. The elder son was strong enough when only fourteen years old to help his father; and the little girls learned to help their mother almost as soon as they could walk.But the youngest child, a little boy, did not seem to be fit for hard work. He was very clever,—cleverer than all his brothers and sisters; but he was quite weak and small, and people said he could never grow very big. So his parents thought it would be better for him to become a priest than to become a farmer. They took him with them to the village-temple one day, and asked the good old priest who lived there, if he would have their little boy for his acolyte, and teach him all that a priest ought to know.The old man spoke kindly to the lad, and asked him some hard questions. So clever were the answers that the priest agreed to take the little fellow into the temple as an acolyte, and to educate him for the priesthood.The boy learned quickly what the old priest taught him, and was very obedient in most things. But he had one fault. He liked to draw cats during study-hours, and to draw cats even when cats ought not to have been drawn at all.Whenever he found himself alone, he drew cats. He drew them on the margins of the priest's books, and on all the screens of the temple, and on the walls, and on the pillars. Several times the priest told him this was not right; but he did not stop drawing cats. He drew them because he could not really help it. He had what is called "the genius of an artist," and just for that reason he was not quite fit to be an acolyte;—a good acolyte should study books.One day after he had drawn some very clever pictures of cats upon a paper screen, the old priest said to him severely: "My boy, you must go away from this temple at once. You will never make a good priest, but perhaps you will become a great artist. Now let me give you a last piece of advice, and be sure you never forget it: 'Avoid large places at night;—keep to small.'"The boy did not know what the priest meant by saying, "Avoid large places,—keep to small." He thought and thought, while he was tying up his little bundle of clothes to go away; but he could not understand those words, and he was afraid to speak to the priest any more, except to say good-bye.He left the temple very sorrowfully, and began to wonder what he should do. If he went straight home, he felt sure his father would punish him for having been disobedient to the priest: so he was afraid to go home. All at once he remembered that at the next village, twelve miles away, there was a very big temple. He had heard there were several priests at that temple; and he made up his mind to go to them and ask them to take him for their acolyte.Now that big temple was closed up, but the boy did not know this fact. The reason it had been closed up was that a goblin had frightened the priests away, and had taken possession of the place. Some brave warriors had afterwards gone to the temple at night to kill the goblin; but they had never been seen alive again. Nobody had ever told these things to the boy; so he walked all the way to the village, hoping to be kindly treated by the priests.When he got to the village, it was already dark, and all the people were in bed; but he saw the big temple on a hill at the other end of the principal street, and he saw there was a light in the temple. People who tell the story say the goblin used to make that light, in order to tempt lonely travellers to ask for shelter. The boy went at once to the temple, and knocked. There was no sound inside. He knocked and knocked again; but still nobody came. At last hepushed gently at the door, and was quite glad to find that it had not been fastened. So he went in, and saw a lamp burning,—but no priest.He thought some priest would be sure to come very soon, and he sat down and waited. Then he noticed that everything in the temple was grey with dust, and thickly spun over with cobwebs. So he thought to himself that the priests would certainly like to have an acolyte, to keep the place clean. He wondered why they had allowed everything to get so dusty. What most pleased him, however, were some big white screens, good to paint cats upon. Though he was tired, he looked at once for a writing-box, and found one, ground some ink, and began to paint cats.He painted a great many cats upon the screens; and then he began to feel very, very sleepy. He was just on the point of lying down to sleep beside one of the screens, when he suddenly remembered the words: "Avoid large places;—keep to small."The temple was very large; he was all alone; and as he thought of these words—though he could not quite understand them—he began to feel for the first time a little afraid; and he resolved to look for a small place in which to sleep. He found a little cabinet, with a sliding door, and went into it, and shut himself up. Then he lay down and fell fast asleep.Very late in the night he was awakened by a most terrible noise,—a noise of fighting and screaming. It was so dreadful that he was afraid even to look through a chink of the little cabinet: he lay very still, holding his breath for fright.The light that had been in the temple went out; but the awful sounds continued, and became more awful, and all the temple shook. After a long time silence came; but the boy was still afraid to move. He did not move until the light of the morning sun shone into the cabinet through the chinks of the little door.Then he got out of his hiding-place very cautiously, and looked about. The first thing he saw, lying dead in the middle of it, an enormous monster rat,—a goblin-rat,—bigger than a cow!But who or what could have killed it? There was no man or other creature to be seen. Suddenly the boy observed that the mouths of all the cats he had drawn the night before, were red and wet with blood. Then he knew that the goblin had been killed by the cats which he had drawn. And then, also, for the first time, he understood why the wise old priest had said to him: "Avoid large places at night;—keep to small."Afterwards that boy became a very famous artist. Some of the cats which he drew are still shown to travellers in Japan.

THE OLD WOMAN WHO LOST HER DUMPLING

Long, long ago, there was a funny old woman, who liked to laugh and to make dumplings of rice-flour.

One day, while she was preparing some dumplings for dinner, she let one fall; and it rolled into a hole in the earthen floor of her little kitchen and disappeared. The old woman tried to reach it byputting her hand down the hole, and all at once the earth gave way, and the old woman fell in.

She fell quite a distance, but was not a bit hurt; and when she got up on her feet again, she saw that she was standing on a road, just like the road before her house. It was quite light down there; and she could see plenty of rice-fields, but no one in them. How all this happened, I cannot tell you. But it seems that the old woman had fallen into another country.

The road she had fallen upon sloped very much; so, after having looked for her dumpling in vain, she thought it must have rolled farther away down the slope. She ran down the road to look, crying:

"My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?"

After a little while she saw a stone Jizo standing by the roadside, and she said:

"O Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"

Jizo answered:

"Yes, I saw your dumpling rolling by me down the road. But you had better not go any farther, because there is a wicked Oni living down there, who eats people."

But the old woman only laughed, and ran on farther down the road, crying: "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?" And she came to another statue of Jizo, and asked it:

"O kind Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"

And Jizo said:

"Yes, I saw your dumpling go by a little while ago. But you must not run any farther, because there is a wicked Oni down there, who eats people."

But she only laughed, and ran on, still crying out: "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?" And she came to a third Jizo, and asked it:

"O dear Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"

But Jizo said:

"Don't talk about your dumpling now. Here is the Oni coming. Squat down here behind my sleeve, and don't make any noise."

Presently the Oni came very close, and stopped and bowed to Jizo, and said:

"Good-day, Jizo San!"

Jizo said good-day, too, very politely.

Then the Oni suddenly snuffed the air two or three times in a suspicious way, and cried out: "Jizo San, Jizo San! I smell a smell of mankind somewhere—don't you?"

"Oh!" said Jizo, "perhaps you are mistaken."

"No, no!" said the Oni, after snuffing the air again, "I smell a smell of mankind."

Then the old woman could not help laughing, "Te-he-he!"—and the Oni immediately reached down his big hairy hand behind Jizo's sleeve, and pulled her out,—still laughing, "Te-he-he!"

"Ah! ha!" cried the Oni.

Then Jizo said:

"What are you going to do with that good old woman? You must not hurt her."

"I won't," said the Oni. "But I will take her home with me to cook for us."

"Very well," said Jizo; "but you must really be kind to her. If you are not I shall be very angry."

"I won't hurt her at all," promised the Oni; "and she will only have to do a little work for us every day. Good-bye, Jizo San."

Then the Oni took the old woman far down the road, till they came to a wide deep river, where there was a boat, and took her across the river to his house. It was a very large house. He led her at once into the kitchen, and told her to cook some dinner for himself and the other Oni who lived with him. And he gave her a small wooden rice-paddle, and said:

"You must always put only one grain of rice into the pot, and when you stir that one grain of rice in the water with this paddle, the grain will multiply until the pot is full."

So the old woman put just one rice-grain into the pot, as the Oni told her, and began to stir it with the paddle; and, as she stirred, the one grain became two,—then four,—then eight,—then sixteen,—thirty-two, sixty-four, and so on. Every time she moved the paddle the rice increased in quantity; and in a few minutes the great pot was full.

After that, the funny old woman stayed a long time in the house of the Oni, and every day cooked food for him and for all his friends. The Oni never hurt or frightened her, and her work was made quite easy by the magic paddle—although she had to cook a very, very great quantity of rice, because an Oni eats much more than any human being eats.

But she felt lonely, and always wished very much to go back to her own little house, and make her dumplings. And one day, when the Oni were all out somewhere, she thought she would try to run away.

She first took the magic paddle, and slipped it under her girdle; and then she went down to the river. No one saw her; and the boat was there. She got into it, and pushed off; and as she could row very well, she was soon far away from the shore.

But the river was very wide; and she had not rowed more than one-fourth of the way across, when the Oni, all of them, came back to the house.

They found that their cook was gone, and the magic paddle too. They ran down to the river at once, and saw the old woman rowing away very fast.

Perhaps they could not swim: at all events they had no boat; and they thought the only way they could catch the funny old woman would be to drink up all the water of the river before she got to the other bank. So they knelt down, and began to drink so fast that before the old woman was half way over, the water had become quite low.

But the old woman kept on rowing until the water had got so shallow that the Oni stopped drinking, and began to wade across. Then she dropped her oar, took the magic paddle from her girdle, and shook it at the Oni, and made such funny faces that the Oni all burst out laughing.

But the moment they laughed, they could not help throwing up all the water they had drunk, and so the river became full again. The Oni could not cross; and the funny old woman got safely over to the other side, and ran away up the road as fast as she could.

She never stopped running until she found herself at home again. After that she was very happy; for she could make dumplings whenever she pleased. Besides, she had the magic paddle to make rice for her. She sold her dumplings to her neighbours and passengers, and in quite a short time she became rich.

THE BOY WHO DREW CATS

A long, long time ago, in a small country-village in Japan, there lived a poor farmer and his wife, who were very good people. They had a number of children, and found it very hard to feed them all. The elder son was strong enough when only fourteen years old to help his father; and the little girls learned to help their mother almost as soon as they could walk.

But the youngest child, a little boy, did not seem to be fit for hard work. He was very clever,—cleverer than all his brothers and sisters; but he was quite weak and small, and people said he could never grow very big. So his parents thought it would be better for him to become a priest than to become a farmer. They took him with them to the village-temple one day, and asked the good old priest who lived there, if he would have their little boy for his acolyte, and teach him all that a priest ought to know.

The old man spoke kindly to the lad, and asked him some hard questions. So clever were the answers that the priest agreed to take the little fellow into the temple as an acolyte, and to educate him for the priesthood.

The boy learned quickly what the old priest taught him, and was very obedient in most things. But he had one fault. He liked to draw cats during study-hours, and to draw cats even when cats ought not to have been drawn at all.

Whenever he found himself alone, he drew cats. He drew them on the margins of the priest's books, and on all the screens of the temple, and on the walls, and on the pillars. Several times the priest told him this was not right; but he did not stop drawing cats. He drew them because he could not really help it. He had what is called "the genius of an artist," and just for that reason he was not quite fit to be an acolyte;—a good acolyte should study books.

One day after he had drawn some very clever pictures of cats upon a paper screen, the old priest said to him severely: "My boy, you must go away from this temple at once. You will never make a good priest, but perhaps you will become a great artist. Now let me give you a last piece of advice, and be sure you never forget it: 'Avoid large places at night;—keep to small.'"

The boy did not know what the priest meant by saying, "Avoid large places,—keep to small." He thought and thought, while he was tying up his little bundle of clothes to go away; but he could not understand those words, and he was afraid to speak to the priest any more, except to say good-bye.

He left the temple very sorrowfully, and began to wonder what he should do. If he went straight home, he felt sure his father would punish him for having been disobedient to the priest: so he was afraid to go home. All at once he remembered that at the next village, twelve miles away, there was a very big temple. He had heard there were several priests at that temple; and he made up his mind to go to them and ask them to take him for their acolyte.

Now that big temple was closed up, but the boy did not know this fact. The reason it had been closed up was that a goblin had frightened the priests away, and had taken possession of the place. Some brave warriors had afterwards gone to the temple at night to kill the goblin; but they had never been seen alive again. Nobody had ever told these things to the boy; so he walked all the way to the village, hoping to be kindly treated by the priests.

When he got to the village, it was already dark, and all the people were in bed; but he saw the big temple on a hill at the other end of the principal street, and he saw there was a light in the temple. People who tell the story say the goblin used to make that light, in order to tempt lonely travellers to ask for shelter. The boy went at once to the temple, and knocked. There was no sound inside. He knocked and knocked again; but still nobody came. At last hepushed gently at the door, and was quite glad to find that it had not been fastened. So he went in, and saw a lamp burning,—but no priest.

He thought some priest would be sure to come very soon, and he sat down and waited. Then he noticed that everything in the temple was grey with dust, and thickly spun over with cobwebs. So he thought to himself that the priests would certainly like to have an acolyte, to keep the place clean. He wondered why they had allowed everything to get so dusty. What most pleased him, however, were some big white screens, good to paint cats upon. Though he was tired, he looked at once for a writing-box, and found one, ground some ink, and began to paint cats.

He painted a great many cats upon the screens; and then he began to feel very, very sleepy. He was just on the point of lying down to sleep beside one of the screens, when he suddenly remembered the words: "Avoid large places;—keep to small."

The temple was very large; he was all alone; and as he thought of these words—though he could not quite understand them—he began to feel for the first time a little afraid; and he resolved to look for a small place in which to sleep. He found a little cabinet, with a sliding door, and went into it, and shut himself up. Then he lay down and fell fast asleep.

Very late in the night he was awakened by a most terrible noise,—a noise of fighting and screaming. It was so dreadful that he was afraid even to look through a chink of the little cabinet: he lay very still, holding his breath for fright.

The light that had been in the temple went out; but the awful sounds continued, and became more awful, and all the temple shook. After a long time silence came; but the boy was still afraid to move. He did not move until the light of the morning sun shone into the cabinet through the chinks of the little door.

Then he got out of his hiding-place very cautiously, and looked about. The first thing he saw, lying dead in the middle of it, an enormous monster rat,—a goblin-rat,—bigger than a cow!

But who or what could have killed it? There was no man or other creature to be seen. Suddenly the boy observed that the mouths of all the cats he had drawn the night before, were red and wet with blood. Then he knew that the goblin had been killed by the cats which he had drawn. And then, also, for the first time, he understood why the wise old priest had said to him: "Avoid large places at night;—keep to small."

Afterwards that boy became a very famous artist. Some of the cats which he drew are still shown to travellers in Japan.

At once upon reaching Japan (it is plain Hearn never forgave me for compelling him to go) begin the complaints of the downright hard work of writing, consequent upon the loss of ideals. He breaks with publishers—an old-time story; he is losing his inspiration, and his only hope is that it will return to him again; in any Latin country he could at once, he thinks, get back the much coveted "thrill," orfrisson. He would at last even relish the hated United States. From the beginning he tires of the Japanese character, and grows more and more tired the longer he stays; it has no depth, this thin soul-stream; it is incapable of long-sustained effort, prolonged study; he cannot much longer endure Japanese officialism; and the official "is something a good deal lower than a savage and meaner than the straight-out Western rough." He would wish never to write a line again about any Japanese subjects. Things finally came to such a pass that the only successful stimulus to work was that some one should do or say something horribly mean to him, and the force of the hurt could be measured in the months or years of resultant labour. As none ever did a mean thing to him, one may suspect that the psychology of his sudden enmities towards others was that he must perforceimaginethat he had been "horribly" treated.

The oldWanderlust, never wholly absent, returns strongly upon him; in less than a year he dreams of leaving Japan and his wife, and of "wandering about awhile;" he projects "a syndicate" whereby he may go to Java (rather than Manila, where the Jesuits were), or, "a French colony,—Tonkin, Noumea, or Pondicherry." A tropical trip is planned for six months of every year. But the "butterfly-lives" dependent upon him prevent, of course. He always spoke of returning often. At the last there is a savage growl that after thirteen years of work for Japan, in which he had sacrificed everything for her, hewas "driven out of the service and practically banished from the country."

Hearn's nostalgia for the nowhere or the anywhere was only conquered by death. In 1898 the logic of his life, of his misfortune, and character, begins to grow plainer, and he "fears being blinded or maimed so as to prove of no further use." It seems that if he had been able to do what he tried so often, and longed so fervently to do, he would have run away into the known or unknown, leaving children, wife, and all the ties that bound him to any orderly life. His vision had become almost useless; he had lost his lectureship; more and more it grew impossible to coax or force out of his mind such beautiful things as in younger days; the Furies of his atheism, pessimism, and lovelessness were close on his track; the hope of lectureships in the United States had failed,—nothing was left, nothing except one thing, which, chosen or not, came at the age of fifty-four.

Lessing has said that "Raphael would have been the great painter he was even if he had been born without arms," and Burke has told of a poet "blind from birth who nevertheless could describe visible objects with a spirit and justness excelled by few men blessed with sight." What irony of Fate it is that one almost blind should teach us non-users of our eyes the wonder and glory of colour; that the irreligious one should quicken our faith in the immaterial and unseen; that a sensualist should strengthen our trust in the supersensual; that one whose body and life were unbeautiful should sing such exquisite songs of silent beauty that our straining ears can hardly catch the subtle and unearthly harmonies! For Hearn is another of many splendid illustrations of the old truth that a man's spirit may be more philosophic than his philosophy, more scientific than his science, more religious than his creed, more divine than his divinity.

THAT Hearn was a true poet none will deny, but it was one of the frequent seeming illogicalities of his character that he had no love of metric or rhymed poetry. I doubt if there is a single volume of such poetry in his library, and I never heard him repeat a line or stanza, and never knew him to read a page of what is called poetry. I suspect the simple reason was that his necessities compelled him rigidly to exclude everything from his world of thought which did not offer materials for the remunerating public. He had to make a living, and whence tomorrow's income should come was always a vital concern. Poetry of the metric and rhymed sort does not make bread and butter; hence there was no time to consider even the possibility of "cultivating the muses on a little oatmeal."

Of poetry he once wrote:—"The mere ideas and melody of a poem seem to me of small moment unless the complex laws of versification be strictly obeyed." The dictum, considering its source, is exquisitely ludicrous; for Hearn poetry could not be coined into dollars, even if he had had the mind and heart to learn anything of "the complex laws of versification." Elsewhere he excused his manifest utter ignorance of poetry and want of poetic appreciation by saying that there is so little really good poetry that it is easy to choose. He confessed his detestation of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, preferring Dobson, Watson, and Lang. "Of Wordsworth—well, I should smile!" "Refined poetry" he held of little or no value, but he found the "vulgar" songs of coolies, fishermen, etc., very true and beautiful poetry. He vainly tried to translate some of Gautier's poems. He attempted original verse-making but a few times, and from my scrap-book I reproduce one of the results, kindly furnished me by Mr. Alexander Hill, of Cincinnati, to whom it was given by Mr. Tunison. Perhaps it was printed inForest and Stream.

A CREOLE BOAT SONGHot shines the sun o'er the quivering land,No wind comes up from the sea,Silent and stark the pine woods stand,And the mock-bird sleeps in the Mayhaw tree,Where, overhung with brier and vine,The placid waters slip and shineAnd dimple to thy lover's view—La belle rivière de Calcasieu.Under the bending cypress trees,Bedecked with pendulous cool grey mossThat woos in vain the recreant breezeAnd silently mourns its loss.With drowsy eye, in my little boatI dreamily lie, and lazily floatLulled by the thrush's soft Te-rue—On La belle rivière de Calcasieu.A heron stands, like a ghost in grey,Knee-deep 'mongst the bending water lilies,And yellow butterflies lightly play'Midst the blooms of fragrant amaryllis;The swift kingfisher winds his reel,Saying his grace for his noonday meal,And a hawk soars up to the welkin blueO'er La belle rivière de Calcasieu.Across the point, where the ferry plies,I hear the click of the boatman's oar,And his Creole song, with its quavering riseRe-echoes soft from shore to shore;And this is the rhyme that he idly singsAs his boat at anchor lazily swings,For the day is hot, and passers fewOn La belle rivière de Calcasieu."I ain't got time for make merry, meI ain't got time for make merry;My lill' gall waitin' at de River of DeathTo meet her ole dad at de ferry.She gwine be dere wid de smile on her face,Like the night she died, when all de placeWas lit by the moonbeams shiverin' trooLa belle rivière de Calcasieu."O sing dat song! O sing dat song!I ain't got time for make merry!De angel come 'fore berry long,And carr' me o'er de ferry!He come wid de whirlwind in de night—He come wid de streak of de morning light—He find me ready—yass, dass true—By La belle rivière de Calcasieu."Den who got time for make merry, eh?Den who got time for make merry?De fire burn up de light 'ood tree,De bird eat up de berry.Long time ago I make Voudoo,An' I dance Calinda strong and true,But de Lord he pierce me troo and trooOn La belle rivière de Calcasieu."

A CREOLE BOAT SONG

Hot shines the sun o'er the quivering land,No wind comes up from the sea,Silent and stark the pine woods stand,And the mock-bird sleeps in the Mayhaw tree,Where, overhung with brier and vine,The placid waters slip and shineAnd dimple to thy lover's view—La belle rivière de Calcasieu.Under the bending cypress trees,Bedecked with pendulous cool grey mossThat woos in vain the recreant breezeAnd silently mourns its loss.With drowsy eye, in my little boatI dreamily lie, and lazily floatLulled by the thrush's soft Te-rue—On La belle rivière de Calcasieu.A heron stands, like a ghost in grey,Knee-deep 'mongst the bending water lilies,And yellow butterflies lightly play'Midst the blooms of fragrant amaryllis;The swift kingfisher winds his reel,Saying his grace for his noonday meal,And a hawk soars up to the welkin blueO'er La belle rivière de Calcasieu.Across the point, where the ferry plies,I hear the click of the boatman's oar,And his Creole song, with its quavering riseRe-echoes soft from shore to shore;And this is the rhyme that he idly singsAs his boat at anchor lazily swings,For the day is hot, and passers fewOn La belle rivière de Calcasieu."I ain't got time for make merry, meI ain't got time for make merry;My lill' gall waitin' at de River of DeathTo meet her ole dad at de ferry.She gwine be dere wid de smile on her face,Like the night she died, when all de placeWas lit by the moonbeams shiverin' trooLa belle rivière de Calcasieu."O sing dat song! O sing dat song!I ain't got time for make merry!De angel come 'fore berry long,And carr' me o'er de ferry!He come wid de whirlwind in de night—He come wid de streak of de morning light—He find me ready—yass, dass true—By La belle rivière de Calcasieu."Den who got time for make merry, eh?Den who got time for make merry?De fire burn up de light 'ood tree,De bird eat up de berry.Long time ago I make Voudoo,An' I dance Calinda strong and true,But de Lord he pierce me troo and trooOn La belle rivière de Calcasieu."

Under the bending cypress trees,Bedecked with pendulous cool grey mossThat woos in vain the recreant breezeAnd silently mourns its loss.With drowsy eye, in my little boatI dreamily lie, and lazily floatLulled by the thrush's soft Te-rue—On La belle rivière de Calcasieu.

A heron stands, like a ghost in grey,Knee-deep 'mongst the bending water lilies,And yellow butterflies lightly play'Midst the blooms of fragrant amaryllis;The swift kingfisher winds his reel,Saying his grace for his noonday meal,And a hawk soars up to the welkin blueO'er La belle rivière de Calcasieu.

Across the point, where the ferry plies,I hear the click of the boatman's oar,And his Creole song, with its quavering riseRe-echoes soft from shore to shore;And this is the rhyme that he idly singsAs his boat at anchor lazily swings,For the day is hot, and passers fewOn La belle rivière de Calcasieu.

"I ain't got time for make merry, meI ain't got time for make merry;My lill' gall waitin' at de River of DeathTo meet her ole dad at de ferry.She gwine be dere wid de smile on her face,Like the night she died, when all de placeWas lit by the moonbeams shiverin' trooLa belle rivière de Calcasieu.

"O sing dat song! O sing dat song!I ain't got time for make merry!De angel come 'fore berry long,And carr' me o'er de ferry!He come wid de whirlwind in de night—He come wid de streak of de morning light—He find me ready—yass, dass true—By La belle rivière de Calcasieu.

"Den who got time for make merry, eh?Den who got time for make merry?De fire burn up de light 'ood tree,De bird eat up de berry.Long time ago I make Voudoo,An' I dance Calinda strong and true,But de Lord he pierce me troo and trooOn La belle rivière de Calcasieu."

In the Watkin letters, Hearn transcribes a poem of six stanzas written by himself for the decoration of the soldiers' graves at Chalmette Cemetery in 1878.

Far more successful, for obvious reasons, was an attempt at echoing a bit of Eastern fancy. A strange, gruesome, Oriental being had caught his eye at New Orleans, who translated for him some characteristic Eastern verses. Hearn thus rendered them in English:[16]

[16]From Hearn's manuscript copy through the kindness again of Mr. Tunison and Mr. Hill.

THE RUSEFromAmaron SatacumLate at night the lover returns unlooked-for,Full of longing, after that cruel absence;—Finds his darling by her women surrounded;Enters among them:—Only sees his beautiful one, his idol,Speaks no word, but watches her face in silence,Looks with eyes of thirst and with lips of feverBurning for kisses.Late it is; and, nevertheless, the women,Still remaining, weary his ears with laughter,Prattling folly, tantalizing his longing—Teasing his patience.Love weaves ruse in answer to gaze beseeching;—Shrill she screams: "O heaven!—What insect stings so!"And with sudden waft of her robe outshaken,Blows the vile light out.

THE RUSE

FromAmaron Satacum

Late at night the lover returns unlooked-for,Full of longing, after that cruel absence;—Finds his darling by her women surrounded;Enters among them:—Only sees his beautiful one, his idol,Speaks no word, but watches her face in silence,Looks with eyes of thirst and with lips of feverBurning for kisses.Late it is; and, nevertheless, the women,Still remaining, weary his ears with laughter,Prattling folly, tantalizing his longing—Teasing his patience.Love weaves ruse in answer to gaze beseeching;—Shrill she screams: "O heaven!—What insect stings so!"And with sudden waft of her robe outshaken,Blows the vile light out.

Late at night the lover returns unlooked-for,Full of longing, after that cruel absence;—Finds his darling by her women surrounded;Enters among them:—

Only sees his beautiful one, his idol,Speaks no word, but watches her face in silence,Looks with eyes of thirst and with lips of feverBurning for kisses.

Late it is; and, nevertheless, the women,Still remaining, weary his ears with laughter,Prattling folly, tantalizing his longing—Teasing his patience.

Love weaves ruse in answer to gaze beseeching;—Shrill she screams: "O heaven!—What insect stings so!"And with sudden waft of her robe outshaken,Blows the vile light out.

I find the following verses in his scrap-book of the New Orleans period:[17]

[17]Dated July 11, 1885.

THE MUMMY(After the French of Louis Bouilhet)Startled,—as by some far faint dinOf azure-lighted worlds, from sleep,The Mummy, trembling, wakes withinThe hypogeum's blackest deep,—And murmurs low, with slow sad voice:"Oh! to be dead and still endure!—Well may the quivering flesh rejoiceThat feels the vulture's gripe impure!"Seeking to enter this night of death,Each element knocks at my granite door:—'We are Earth and Fire and Air,—the breathOf Winds,—the Spirits of sea and shore."'Into the azure, out of the gloom,Rise!—let thine atoms in light disperse!—Blend with the date-palm's emerald plume!—Scatter thyself through the universe!"'We shall bear thee far over waste and wold:Thou shalt be lulled to joyous sleepBy leaves that whisper in light of gold,By murmur of fountains cool and deep."'Come!—perchance from thy dungeon darkInfinite Nature may wish to gainFor the godlike Sun another spark,Another drop for the diamond rain.'"Woe! mine is death eternal! ... andI feel Them come, as I lie alone,—The Centuries, heavy as drifted sandHeaping above my bed of stone!"O be accursed, ye impious race!—Caging the creature that seeks to soar;Preserving agony's weird grimace,In hideous vanity, evermore!"Aux bruits lointains ouvrant l'oreille,Jalouse encor du ciel d'azur,La momie en tremblant s'éveilleAu fond de l'hypogée obscur.Oh, dit-elle, de sa voix lente,Etre mort, et durer toujours.Heureuse la chaire pantelanteSous l'ongle courbé des vautours.Pour plonger dans ma nuit profondeChaque element frappe en ce lieu.—Nous sommes L'air! nous sommes l'onde!Nous sommes la terre et le feu!Viens avec nous, le steppe arideVeut son panache d'arbres verts,Viens sous l'azur du ciel splendide,T'éparpiller dans l'univers.Nous t'emporterons par les plainesNous te bercerons à la foisDans le murmure des fontainesEt la bruissement des bois.Viens. La nature universelleCherche peut-être en ce tombeauPour de soleil une étincelle!Pour la mer une goutte d'eau!Et dans ma tombe impérissableJe sens venir avec affroiLes siècles lourds comme du sableQui s'amoncelle autour de moi.Ah! sois maudite, race impie,Qui le l'être arrêtant l'essorGardes ta laideur assoupieDans la vanité de la mort.

THE MUMMY

(After the French of Louis Bouilhet)

Startled,—as by some far faint dinOf azure-lighted worlds, from sleep,The Mummy, trembling, wakes withinThe hypogeum's blackest deep,—And murmurs low, with slow sad voice:"Oh! to be dead and still endure!—Well may the quivering flesh rejoiceThat feels the vulture's gripe impure!"Seeking to enter this night of death,Each element knocks at my granite door:—'We are Earth and Fire and Air,—the breathOf Winds,—the Spirits of sea and shore."'Into the azure, out of the gloom,Rise!—let thine atoms in light disperse!—Blend with the date-palm's emerald plume!—Scatter thyself through the universe!"'We shall bear thee far over waste and wold:Thou shalt be lulled to joyous sleepBy leaves that whisper in light of gold,By murmur of fountains cool and deep."'Come!—perchance from thy dungeon darkInfinite Nature may wish to gainFor the godlike Sun another spark,Another drop for the diamond rain.'

Startled,—as by some far faint dinOf azure-lighted worlds, from sleep,The Mummy, trembling, wakes withinThe hypogeum's blackest deep,—

And murmurs low, with slow sad voice:"Oh! to be dead and still endure!—Well may the quivering flesh rejoiceThat feels the vulture's gripe impure!

"Seeking to enter this night of death,Each element knocks at my granite door:—'We are Earth and Fire and Air,—the breathOf Winds,—the Spirits of sea and shore.

"'Into the azure, out of the gloom,Rise!—let thine atoms in light disperse!—Blend with the date-palm's emerald plume!—Scatter thyself through the universe!

"'We shall bear thee far over waste and wold:Thou shalt be lulled to joyous sleepBy leaves that whisper in light of gold,By murmur of fountains cool and deep.

"'Come!—perchance from thy dungeon darkInfinite Nature may wish to gainFor the godlike Sun another spark,Another drop for the diamond rain.'

"Woe! mine is death eternal! ... andI feel Them come, as I lie alone,—The Centuries, heavy as drifted sandHeaping above my bed of stone!"O be accursed, ye impious race!—Caging the creature that seeks to soar;Preserving agony's weird grimace,In hideous vanity, evermore!"

"Woe! mine is death eternal! ... andI feel Them come, as I lie alone,—The Centuries, heavy as drifted sandHeaping above my bed of stone!

"O be accursed, ye impious race!—Caging the creature that seeks to soar;Preserving agony's weird grimace,In hideous vanity, evermore!"

Aux bruits lointains ouvrant l'oreille,Jalouse encor du ciel d'azur,La momie en tremblant s'éveilleAu fond de l'hypogée obscur.Oh, dit-elle, de sa voix lente,Etre mort, et durer toujours.Heureuse la chaire pantelanteSous l'ongle courbé des vautours.Pour plonger dans ma nuit profondeChaque element frappe en ce lieu.—Nous sommes L'air! nous sommes l'onde!Nous sommes la terre et le feu!Viens avec nous, le steppe arideVeut son panache d'arbres verts,Viens sous l'azur du ciel splendide,T'éparpiller dans l'univers.Nous t'emporterons par les plainesNous te bercerons à la foisDans le murmure des fontainesEt la bruissement des bois.Viens. La nature universelleCherche peut-être en ce tombeauPour de soleil une étincelle!Pour la mer une goutte d'eau!

Aux bruits lointains ouvrant l'oreille,Jalouse encor du ciel d'azur,La momie en tremblant s'éveilleAu fond de l'hypogée obscur.

Oh, dit-elle, de sa voix lente,Etre mort, et durer toujours.Heureuse la chaire pantelanteSous l'ongle courbé des vautours.

Pour plonger dans ma nuit profondeChaque element frappe en ce lieu.—Nous sommes L'air! nous sommes l'onde!Nous sommes la terre et le feu!

Viens avec nous, le steppe arideVeut son panache d'arbres verts,Viens sous l'azur du ciel splendide,T'éparpiller dans l'univers.

Nous t'emporterons par les plainesNous te bercerons à la foisDans le murmure des fontainesEt la bruissement des bois.

Viens. La nature universelleCherche peut-être en ce tombeauPour de soleil une étincelle!Pour la mer une goutte d'eau!

Et dans ma tombe impérissableJe sens venir avec affroiLes siècles lourds comme du sableQui s'amoncelle autour de moi.

Ah! sois maudite, race impie,Qui le l'être arrêtant l'essorGardes ta laideur assoupieDans la vanité de la mort.

In one of Hearn's letters to the CincinnatiCommercial, written soon after his arrival in New Orleans, he writes:

Here is a specimen closely akin to the Creole of the Antilles. It is said to be an old negro love-song, and I think there is a peculiar weird beauty in several of its stanzas. I feel much inclined to doubt whether it was composed by a negro, but the question of its authorship cannot affect its value as a curiosity, and, in any case, its spirit is thoroughly African. Unfortunately, without accented letters it is impossible to convey any idea of the melody, the liquid softness, the languor, of some of the couplets. My translation is a little free in parts.IDipi me vouer toue, Adèle,Ape danse calinda,Mo reste pour toue fidèle,Liberte a moin caba.Mo pas soussi d'autt negresses,Mo pas gagnin coeur pour yo;Yo gagnin beaucoup finesses;Yo semble serpent Congo.IIMo aime toue trop, ma belle,Mo pas capab resiste;Coeur a moin tout comme sauterelle,Li fait ne qu'appe saute.Mo jamin contre gnoun femmeQui gagnin belle taille comme toue;Jie a ton jete la flamme;Corps a toue enchene moue.IIITo tant comme serpent sonnetteQui connin charme zozo,Qui gagnin bouche a li prettePour servi comme gnoun tombo.Mo jamin voue gnoun negresseQui connin marche comme toue,Qui gagnin gnoun si belle gesse;Corps a toue ce gnoun poupe.IVQuand mo pas vouer toue, Adèle,Mo sentt m'ane mourri,Mo vini com' gnoun chandelleQui ape alle fini:Mo pas vouer rien sur la terreQui capab moin fait plaisi;Mo capab dans la rivièreJete moin pour pas souffri.VDis moin si to gagnin n'homme;Mo va fals ouanga pour li;Mo fais li tourne fantome,Si to vle moin pour mari.Mo pas le in jour toue boudeuse;L'autt femme, pour moin ce fatras;Mo va rende toue bien heureuse;Mo va baill' toue bell' madras.TRANSLATIONISince first I beheld you, Adèle,While dancing thecalinda,I have remained faithful to the thought of you:My freedom has departed from me.I care no longer for all other negresses;I have no heart left for them:You have such grace and cunning:You are like the Congo serpent.III love you too much, my beautiful one:I am not able to help it.My heart has become just like a grasshopper,It does nothing but leap.I have never met any womanWho has so beautiful a form as yours.Your eyes flash flame;Your body has enchained me captive.IIIAh, you are so like the serpent-of-the-rattlesWho knows how to charm the little bird,And who has a mouth ever ready for itTo serve it for a tomb!I have never known any negressWho could walk with such grace as you can,Or who could make such beautiful gestures:Your body is a beautiful doll.IVWhen I cannot see you, Adèle,I feel myself ready to die;My life becomes like a candleWhich has almost burned itself out.I cannot, then, find anything in the world,Which is able to give me pleasure;—I could well go down to the riverAnd throw myself in it that I might cease to suffer.VTell me if you have a man;And I will make anouangacharm for him;I will make him turn into a phantom,If you will only take me for your husband.I will not go to see you when you are cross;Other women are mere trash to me;I will make you very happy,And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief.

Dipi me vouer toue, Adèle,Ape danse calinda,Mo reste pour toue fidèle,Liberte a moin caba.Mo pas soussi d'autt negresses,Mo pas gagnin coeur pour yo;Yo gagnin beaucoup finesses;Yo semble serpent Congo.

Mo aime toue trop, ma belle,Mo pas capab resiste;Coeur a moin tout comme sauterelle,Li fait ne qu'appe saute.Mo jamin contre gnoun femmeQui gagnin belle taille comme toue;Jie a ton jete la flamme;Corps a toue enchene moue.

III

To tant comme serpent sonnetteQui connin charme zozo,Qui gagnin bouche a li prettePour servi comme gnoun tombo.Mo jamin voue gnoun negresseQui connin marche comme toue,Qui gagnin gnoun si belle gesse;Corps a toue ce gnoun poupe.

Quand mo pas vouer toue, Adèle,Mo sentt m'ane mourri,Mo vini com' gnoun chandelleQui ape alle fini:Mo pas vouer rien sur la terreQui capab moin fait plaisi;Mo capab dans la rivièreJete moin pour pas souffri.

Dis moin si to gagnin n'homme;Mo va fals ouanga pour li;Mo fais li tourne fantome,Si to vle moin pour mari.Mo pas le in jour toue boudeuse;L'autt femme, pour moin ce fatras;Mo va rende toue bien heureuse;Mo va baill' toue bell' madras.

TRANSLATION

Since first I beheld you, Adèle,While dancing thecalinda,I have remained faithful to the thought of you:My freedom has departed from me.I care no longer for all other negresses;I have no heart left for them:You have such grace and cunning:You are like the Congo serpent.

I love you too much, my beautiful one:I am not able to help it.My heart has become just like a grasshopper,It does nothing but leap.I have never met any womanWho has so beautiful a form as yours.Your eyes flash flame;Your body has enchained me captive.

III

Ah, you are so like the serpent-of-the-rattlesWho knows how to charm the little bird,And who has a mouth ever ready for itTo serve it for a tomb!I have never known any negressWho could walk with such grace as you can,Or who could make such beautiful gestures:Your body is a beautiful doll.

When I cannot see you, Adèle,I feel myself ready to die;My life becomes like a candleWhich has almost burned itself out.I cannot, then, find anything in the world,Which is able to give me pleasure;—I could well go down to the riverAnd throw myself in it that I might cease to suffer.

Tell me if you have a man;And I will make anouangacharm for him;I will make him turn into a phantom,If you will only take me for your husband.I will not go to see you when you are cross;Other women are mere trash to me;I will make you very happy,And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief.

I think there is some true poetry in these allusions to the snake. Is not the serpent a symbol of grace? Is not the so-called "line of beauty" serpentine? And is there not something of the serpent in the beauty of all graceful women?—something of undulating shapeliness, something of silent fascination?—something of Lilith and Lamia? The French have a beautiful verb expressive of this idea,serpenter, "to serpent"—to curve in changing undulations like a lithe snake. The French artist speaks of the outlines of a beautiful human body as "serpenting," curving and winding like a serpent. Do you not likethe word? I think it is so expressive of flowing lines of elegance—so full of that mystery of grace which puzzled Solomon; "the way of a serpent upon a rock."

The allusion to Voudooism in the last stanza especially interested me, and I questioned the gentleman who furnished me with the song as to the significance of the words: "I will make him turn into a phantom." I had fancied that the termfantomemight be interpreted by "ghost," and that the whole line simply constituted a threat to make some one "give up the ghost."

"It is not exactly that," replied my friend; "it is an allusion, I believe, to the withering and wasting power of Voudoo poisons. There are such poisons actually in use among the negro obi-men—poisons which defy analysis, and, mysterious as the poisons of the Borgias, slowly consume the victims like a taper. He wastes away as though being dried up; he becomes almost mummified; he wanes like a shadow; he turns into a phantom in the same sense that a phantom is an unreal mockery of something real."

Thus I found an intelligent Louisianan zealous to confirm an opinion to which I was permitted to give expression in theCommercialnearly three years ago—that a knowledge of secret septic poisons (probably of an animal character), which leave no trace discoverable by the most skilful chemists, is actually possessed by certain beings who are reverenced as sorcerers by the negroes of the West Indies and the Southern States, but more especially of the West Indies, where much of African fetichism has been transplanted.

Ozias Midwinter.

THE dependence not only of the literary character and workmanship of a writer, but even his innermost psyche, upon vision, normal or abnormal, is a truth which has been dimly and falteringly felt by several writers. Concerning "Madame Bovary," and his friend Flaubert, Maxime du Camp reflects some glintings of the truth. But these and others, lacking the requisite expert definiteness of knowledge, have failed to catch the satisfying and clear point of view. To illustrate I may quote the paragraph of du Camp:

"The literary procedure of Flaubert threw everybody off the track and even some of the experts. But it was a very simple matter; it was by the accumulation and the superposition of details that he arrived at power. It is the physiologic method, the method of the myopes who look at things one after the other, very exactly, and then describe them successively. The literature of imagination may be divided into two distinct schools, that of the myopes and that of the hyperopes. The myopes see minutely, study every line, finding each detail of importance because everything appears to them in isolation; about them is a sort of cloud in which is detached the object in exaggerated proportions. They have, as it were, a microscope in their eye which enlarges everything. The description of Venice from the Campanile of St. Mark, that of Destitution in 'Captain Fracasse,' by Gautier are the capital results of myopic vision. The hyperopes, on the other hand, look at theensemble, in which the details are lost, and form a kind of general harmony. The detail loses all significance, except perhaps they seek to bring it into relief as a work of art.... Besides, the myopes seek to portray sensations, while the hyperopes especially aim at analysis of the sentiments. If a hyperopic writer suddenly becomes myopic, his manner of thinking, and consequently of writing, at once is modified. What I call the school ofthe myopes, Gautier names the school of the rabids. He said to Mérimée: 'Your characters have no muscles,' and Mérimée answered, 'Yours have no draperies.'"

But there is one consequence, common both to Flaubert and to Hearn, a most strange unity of result flowing from a seemingly opposed but really identical cause in the two men. I have elsewhere set forth the reasons for my belief that the secret of Flaubert's life, character, and literary art consisted in an inability to think and write at the same time. He was one of the most healthy and brilliant of men when he did not read or write, but his mind refused to act creatively whenever he wrote or read. From this resulted his epilepsy. Fathered by the fear of this disease, mothered by opium, and reared by unhygiene and eye-strain, came the miserable "St. Anthony" of the second remaking. In the failure of this pitiful work there was naught left except bottomless pessimism, the "cadenced phrase," and all the rest, called "Madame Bovary" and "art for art's sake."

There never was a greater sufferer from eye-strain than Flaubert, whose eyes were strikingly beautiful, and seemingly of extraordinary perfection as optical instruments. From this fact flowed the entire tragedy of the man's life and of his life-work. His friend du Camp says that had it not been for his disease he would have been, not a writer of great talent, but a man of genius. Hearn had the most defective eyesight, he was indeed nearly blind; but physically he suffered little from this cause,—and yet his choice of subjects and methods of literary workmanship, and every line he wrote, were dictated and ruled by his defect of vision. Opium, with the impossibility of writing and creating at the same time, dominated Flaubert's work and working, and the similar result was begot by Hearn's enormous monocular myopia.

From Martinique, before I had met him, Hearn wrote me:

I am very near-sighted, have lost one eye, which disfigures me considerably; and my near-sightedness always prevented the gratification of a naturalpenchantfor physical exercise. I am a good swimmer, that is all.In reply to nearly all the questions about my near-sightedness I might answer, "Yes." I had the best advice in London, and observe all the rules you suggest. Glasses strain the eye too much—part of retina is gone. The other eye was destroyed by a blow at college; or, rather, by inflammation consequent upon the blow. I can tell you more about myself when I see you, but the result will be more curious than pleasing. Myopia is not aggravating.

In reply to nearly all the questions about my near-sightedness I might answer, "Yes." I had the best advice in London, and observe all the rules you suggest. Glasses strain the eye too much—part of retina is gone. The other eye was destroyed by a blow at college; or, rather, by inflammation consequent upon the blow. I can tell you more about myself when I see you, but the result will be more curious than pleasing. Myopia is not aggravating.

In "Shadowings," the chapter on "Nightmare-Touch," Hearn describes with his gift of the living word the dreams and hauntings he endured when as a boy he was shut in his room in the dark. It is a pitiful history, and shows how a child may suffer atrociously from the combination of an abnormally exuberant fancy and eye-strain, probably with added ocular disease. The subjective sensations and images were alive and Hearn's innate tendency to the horrible and hideous gave them the most awful of nightmarish realities.

I have already given (facing page 5) a copy of a little photograph of Hearn at about the age of eight, standing by Mrs. Brenane. It will be seen that the right eyeball was at this time about as large and protruding as in later life. This leaves a doubt whether the destruction of the left was due to the blow at college at the age of sixteen. In one of my letters he uses the word "scrofulous" in alluding to himself.

It was not only during the last years of his life, that, as he says, "it was now largely a question of eyes." It was always the most important of all questions; first, physically and financially, because all hung upon his ability to write many hours a day. How his little of visual power was preserved under the work done is a marvel of physiology. So unconscious was Hearn of the influence of eye-strain in ruining the health of others (he himself had no eye-strain in the ordinary meaning of the term) that he wonderswhy the hard students about him were inexplainably dying, going mad, getting sick, and giving up their studies. This is hardly to be considered a fault of Hearn when educators and physicians and oculists the world over, never suspect the reason.

Moved by sympathy, and perhaps by the vaguest feeling that to Hearn's poor vision were due, in part at least, both his personal and literary characteristics, I early besought him to make use of scientific optical helps in order to see the world better, and to carry on his writing with greater ease, and with less danger to the little vision left him. He had but one eye, which was evidently enormously nearsighted. The other had been lost in youth. I found that he had about 25 diopters of myopia, to use the jargon of the oculist, and that consequently he knew little about the appearance of objects even a few feet away. In writing he was compelled to place the paper or pen-point about three inches from his eye. With the proper lens it was possible to give him vision of distant objects about one-fourth as clear as that of normal eyes. For a minute my disappointment was equal to my surprise when I found that he did not wish to see with even this wretched indistinctness, and that he would not think of using spectacles or eyeglasses. Later I found the reason for his action. He sometimes carried a little lens or monocle in his pocket, which somewhat bettered his vision, but in the several months he spent with me I saw him use it only once or twice, and then merely for an instant. I am almost sure that the reason for this preference for a world almost unseen, or seen only in colours, while form and outline were almost unknown, was never conscious with Hearn, although his mind was alert in detecting such psychologic solutions in others. In studying his writings, this reason finally has become clear to me.

When one chooses an artistic calling, Fate usually, andto the artist unconsciously, dictates the kind of art-work and the method of carrying it to realization. The blind do not choose to be painters, but musicians; the deaf do not think of music, though nothing prevents them from being good painters. The dumb would hardly become orators or singers, but they might easily be sculptors, or painters, or designers. It is as evident that the poet is largely a visualizer, if one may so designate this psychic function, and without sight of the world of reality and beauty, poetry will inevitably lack the charm of the real and the lovely. Every great writer, in truth, shows more or less clearly that the spring and secret of his imagination lie preponderantly in the exceptional endowment, training, or sensitiveness of one of the principal senses of sight, hearing, or touch. A thousand quotations might be made from each of a dozen great writers to prove the thesis. The man born blind, however, cannot become a poet, because true poetry must be conditioned upon things seen—"simple, sensuous, and passionate" demands the great critic; but interwoven and underrunning the simplicity, the passion, and the sense, is and must be the world as mirrored by the eye. All thinking, all intellectual activity, is by no means of the image and the picture; all words are the product of the imagining, and the very letters of the alphabet are conventionalized pictures.

Physiologically, or normally, the perfection of the artist and of his workmanship thus depends upon the all-round perfection of his senses, the fulness of the materials and of his experience which these work on and in, and the logical and æsthetic rightness of systematization. Conversely, a new pathology of genius is coming into view which shows the morbidizing of art and literature through disease, chiefly of the sense-organs of the artist and literary workman, but also by unnatural living, selfishness, sin, and the rest. As Hearn was probably the most myopic literary man that has existed, his own thoughts uponThe ArtisticValue of Myopiaare of peculiar interest. In 1887 one of his editorials in theTimes-Democratruns as follows:—

Probably more than one reader, on coming to page 15 of Philip Gilbert Hamerton's delightful book, "Landscape," was startled by the author's irrefutable statement that "the possession of very good eyesight may be a hindrance to those feelings of sublimity that exalt the poetic imagination." The fact is, that the impressiveness of natural scenery depends a great deal upon the apparent predominance ofmassoverdetail, to borrow Mr. Hamerton's own words; the more visible the details of a large object,—a mountain, a tower, a forest wall, the less grand and impressive that object. The more apparently uniform the mass, the larger it seems to loom; the vaguer a shadow-space, the deeper it appears. An impression of weirdness,—such as that obtainable in a Louisiana or Florida swamp-forest, or, much more, in those primeval and impenetrable forest-deeps described so powerfully by Humbolt,—is stronger in proportion to the spectator's indifference to lesser detail. The real effect of the scene must be ageneralone to be understood. In painting, the artist does not attempt miscroscopicminutiæin treating forest-forms; he simply attempts to render the effect of the masses, with their characteristic generalities of shadow and colour. It is for this reason the photograph can never supplant the painting—not even when the art of photographing natural colours shall have been discovered. Mr. Hamerton cites the example of a mountain, which always seems more imposing when wreathed in mists or half veiled by clouds, than when cutting sharply against the horizon with a strong light upon it. Half the secret of Doré's power as an illustrator was his exaggerated perception of this fact,—his comprehension of the artistic witchcraft ofsuggestion. And since the perception of details depends vastly upon the quality of eyesight, a landscape necessarily suggests less to the keen-sighted man than to the myope. The keener the view, the less depth in the impression produced. There is no possibility of mysterious attraction in wooded deeps or mountain recesses for the eye that, like the eye of the hawk, pierces shadow and can note the separate quiver of each leaf. Far-seeing persons can, to a certain degree, comprehend this by recalling the impressions given in twilight by certain unfamiliar, or by even familiar objects,—such as furniture and clothing in a half-lighted room. The suggestiveness of form vanishes immediately upon the making of a strong light. Again, attractive objects viewed vaguely through a morning or evening haze, or at a great distance, often totally lose artistic character when a telescope is directed upon them.In the February number ofHarper's Magazinewe find a very clever and amusing poem by the scholarly Andrew Lang upon this very theme. The writer, after describing the christening-gifts of various kindly fairies, tells us that the wicked one——Said: "I shall be avenged on you.My child, you shall grow up nearsighted!"With magic juices did she laveMine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.Well, of all the gifts the Fairies gave,Her'sis the present that I treasure!The bore, whom others fear and flee,I do not fear, I do not flee him;I pass him calm as calm can be;I do not cut—I do not see him!And with my feeble eyes and dim,Whereyousee patchy fields and fences,For me the mists of Turner swim—My"azure distance" soon commences!Nay, as I blink about the streetsOf this befogged and miry city,Why, almost every girl one meetsSeems preternaturally pretty!"Try spectacles," one's friends intone;"You'll see the world correctly through them."But I have visions of my ownAnd not for worlds would I undo them!This is quite witty and quite consoling to myopes, even as a cynical development of Philip Gilbert Hamerton's artistic philosophy. Still, it does not follow that the myope necessarily possesses the poetic faculty or feeling;—neither does it imply that the presbyope necessarily lacks it. If among French writers, for example, Gautier was notably nearsighted, Victor Hugo had an eye as keen as a bird's. It is true that a knowledge of the effect of shortsightedness on the imagination may be of benefit to a nearsighted man, who, possessing artistic qualities, can learn to take all possible advantage of his myopia,—to utilize his physical disability to a good purpose; but the longsighted artist need not be at a loss to find equally powerful sources of inspiration—he can seek them in morning mists, evening fogs, or those wonderful hazes of summer afternoons, when the land sends up all its vapours to the sun, like a smoke of gold. Beaudelaire, in hisCuriosités Esthétiques, made an attempt to prove that the greatestschools of painting were evolved among hazy surroundings—Dutch fogs, Venetian mists, and the vapours of Italian marsh-lands.The evolutionary tendency would seem to indicate for future man a keener vision than he at present possesses; and a finer perception of colour—for while there may be certain small emotional advantages connected with myopia, it is a serious hindrance in practical life. What effect keener sight will have on the artistic powers of the future man, can only be imagined—but an increasing tendency to realism in art is certainly perceptible; and perhaps an interesting chapter could be written upon the possible results to art of perfected optical instruments. The subject also suggests another idea,—that the total inability of a certain class of highly educated persons to feel interest in a certain kind of art production may be partly accounted for by the possession of such keen visual perception as necessarily suppresses the sensation of breadth of effect, either in landscape or verbal description.

In the February number ofHarper's Magazinewe find a very clever and amusing poem by the scholarly Andrew Lang upon this very theme. The writer, after describing the christening-gifts of various kindly fairies, tells us that the wicked one—

—Said: "I shall be avenged on you.My child, you shall grow up nearsighted!"With magic juices did she laveMine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.Well, of all the gifts the Fairies gave,Her'sis the present that I treasure!The bore, whom others fear and flee,I do not fear, I do not flee him;I pass him calm as calm can be;I do not cut—I do not see him!And with my feeble eyes and dim,Whereyousee patchy fields and fences,For me the mists of Turner swim—My"azure distance" soon commences!Nay, as I blink about the streetsOf this befogged and miry city,Why, almost every girl one meetsSeems preternaturally pretty!"Try spectacles," one's friends intone;"You'll see the world correctly through them."But I have visions of my ownAnd not for worlds would I undo them!

The bore, whom others fear and flee,I do not fear, I do not flee him;I pass him calm as calm can be;I do not cut—I do not see him!And with my feeble eyes and dim,Whereyousee patchy fields and fences,For me the mists of Turner swim—My"azure distance" soon commences!Nay, as I blink about the streetsOf this befogged and miry city,Why, almost every girl one meetsSeems preternaturally pretty!"Try spectacles," one's friends intone;"You'll see the world correctly through them."But I have visions of my ownAnd not for worlds would I undo them!

This is quite witty and quite consoling to myopes, even as a cynical development of Philip Gilbert Hamerton's artistic philosophy. Still, it does not follow that the myope necessarily possesses the poetic faculty or feeling;—neither does it imply that the presbyope necessarily lacks it. If among French writers, for example, Gautier was notably nearsighted, Victor Hugo had an eye as keen as a bird's. It is true that a knowledge of the effect of shortsightedness on the imagination may be of benefit to a nearsighted man, who, possessing artistic qualities, can learn to take all possible advantage of his myopia,—to utilize his physical disability to a good purpose; but the longsighted artist need not be at a loss to find equally powerful sources of inspiration—he can seek them in morning mists, evening fogs, or those wonderful hazes of summer afternoons, when the land sends up all its vapours to the sun, like a smoke of gold. Beaudelaire, in hisCuriosités Esthétiques, made an attempt to prove that the greatestschools of painting were evolved among hazy surroundings—Dutch fogs, Venetian mists, and the vapours of Italian marsh-lands.

The evolutionary tendency would seem to indicate for future man a keener vision than he at present possesses; and a finer perception of colour—for while there may be certain small emotional advantages connected with myopia, it is a serious hindrance in practical life. What effect keener sight will have on the artistic powers of the future man, can only be imagined—but an increasing tendency to realism in art is certainly perceptible; and perhaps an interesting chapter could be written upon the possible results to art of perfected optical instruments. The subject also suggests another idea,—that the total inability of a certain class of highly educated persons to feel interest in a certain kind of art production may be partly accounted for by the possession of such keen visual perception as necessarily suppresses the sensation of breadth of effect, either in landscape or verbal description.

Thus, according to Flaubert, the myope looks at things one after another and describes details, while Hearn says the exact opposite. Both are wrong. The oculist will feel constrained to differ somewhat from Hearn in the foregoing article.

In May 1887 he reviews editorially an article of my own which I had sent him during the preceding year. Again, because there has never been a literary artist with a colour-sense so amazingly developed as that of Hearn, I venture to copy his commendation of my views:

COLOURS AND EMOTIONS(May 8, 1887)The evolutionary history of the Colour-Sense, very prettily treated of by Grant Allen and others, both in regard to the relation between fertilization of flowers by insects, and in regard to the æsthetic pleasure of man in contemplating certain colours, has also been considered in a very thorough way by American thinkers. Perhaps the most entertaining and instructive paper yet published on the subject was one in theAmerican Journal of Ophthalmologylast September. It has just been reprinted in pamphlet form, under the title of "The Human Colour-Sense as the Organic Response to Natural Stimuli;" and contains a remarkable amplification of these theories, rather suggested thanlaid down by the author of "Physiological Æsthetics." Of course, the reader whom the subject can interest, comprehends that outside of the mind no such thing as colour exists; and that the phenomena of colours, like those of sound, are simply the results of exterior impressions upon nerve apparatus specially sensitive to vibrations—in the one case of ether, in the other of air. Everybody, moreover,—even those totally ignorant of the physiology of the eye—know that certain colours are called primary or elementary. But it has probably occurred to few to ask why,—except in regard to mixing of paints in a drawing-school.The theories of Gladstone and Magnus that the men of the Homeric era were colour-blind, because of the absence from the Homeric poems of certain words expressive of certain colours, have been disproved by more thorough modern research. The primitive man's sense of colour, or the sensitiveness of his retina to ether vibrations, may not have been as fine as that of the Roman mosaic-worker who could select his materials of 30,000 different tints, nor as that of Gobelin weavers, who can recognize 28,000 different shades of wool. But the evidence goes to show that the sense of colour is old as the gnawing of hunger or the pangs of fear,—old as the experience that taught living creatures to discern food and to flee from danger. There is, however, reason to suppose, from certain developmental phenomena observed in the eyes of children and newly-born animals, that the present condition of the colour-sense has been gradually reached—not so much in any particular species, as in all species possessing it,—just as vision itself must have been gradually acquired. Also showy colours must have been perceived before tints could be discerned; and even now we know through the spectroscope, that the human eye is not yet developed to the fullest possible perceptions of colour. Now the first colours recognized by the first eyes must have presumably been just those we call primary,—Yellow, Red, Green, Blue. Yellow, the colour of gold, is also the colour of our sun; the brightest daylight has a more or less faint tinge even at noon, according to the state of the atmosphere;—and this tinge deepens at sunrise and sunset. Red is the colour of blood,—a colour allied necessarily from time immemorial with violent mental impressions, whether of war, or love, or the chase, or religious sacrifice. Green itself is the colour of the world. Blue,—the blue of the far away sky,—has necessarily always been for man the colour mysterious and holy,—always associated with those high phenomena of heaven which first inspired wonder and fear of the Unknown. These colours were probably first known to intelligent life; and their impressions are to-day the strongest. So violent, indeed, have they become to our refined civilized sense, that in apparel or decorationthree of them, at least, are condemned when offered pure. Even the armies of the world are abandoning red uniforms;—no refined people wear flaming crimsons or scarlets or yellows;—nobody would paint a house or decorate a wall with a solid sheet of strong primary colour. Blue is still the least violent, the most agreeable to the artistic sense; and in subdued form it holds a place, in costume and in art, refused to less spiritual colours.It might consequently be expected there should exist some correlation between the primary colours and the stronger emotional states of man. And such, indeed, proves to be the case. Emotionally the colours come in the order of Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. Red still appeals to the idea of Passion,—for which very reason its artistic use is being more and more restrained. Very curious are the researches made by Grant Allen showing the fact of the sensual use of the red. In Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads "(the same suppressed work republished in this country under its first title, "Laus Veneris"), the red epithets appear 159 times, while gold, green and blue words occur respectively 143, 86 and 25 times. In Tennyson's beautiful poem, "The Princess," the red words occur only 20 times, the gold 28, the green 5, the blue once. With all his exquisite sense of colour, Tennyson is sparing of adjectives;—there is no false skin to his work; it is solid muscle and bone.Next to Red, the most emotional colour is Yellow—the colour of life, and of what men seem to prize next to life,—Gold. We fancy we can live without green sometimes; it comes third; but it is the hue associated with all the labours of man on the earth, since he began to labour. It is the colour of Industry. Blue has always been, since man commenced to think, and always will be, until he shall have ceased to think,—associated with his spiritual sense,—his idea of many gods or of One,—his hopes of a second life, his faith, his good purposes, his perception of duty. Still, all who pray, turn up their faces toward the eternal azure. And with the modern expansion of the Idea of God, as with the modern expansion of the Idea of the Universe, the violet gulf of space ever seems more mystical,—its pure colour more and more divine, and appeals to us as the colour of the Unknowable,—the colour of the Holy of Holies.

COLOURS AND EMOTIONS

(May 8, 1887)

The evolutionary history of the Colour-Sense, very prettily treated of by Grant Allen and others, both in regard to the relation between fertilization of flowers by insects, and in regard to the æsthetic pleasure of man in contemplating certain colours, has also been considered in a very thorough way by American thinkers. Perhaps the most entertaining and instructive paper yet published on the subject was one in theAmerican Journal of Ophthalmologylast September. It has just been reprinted in pamphlet form, under the title of "The Human Colour-Sense as the Organic Response to Natural Stimuli;" and contains a remarkable amplification of these theories, rather suggested thanlaid down by the author of "Physiological Æsthetics." Of course, the reader whom the subject can interest, comprehends that outside of the mind no such thing as colour exists; and that the phenomena of colours, like those of sound, are simply the results of exterior impressions upon nerve apparatus specially sensitive to vibrations—in the one case of ether, in the other of air. Everybody, moreover,—even those totally ignorant of the physiology of the eye—know that certain colours are called primary or elementary. But it has probably occurred to few to ask why,—except in regard to mixing of paints in a drawing-school.

The theories of Gladstone and Magnus that the men of the Homeric era were colour-blind, because of the absence from the Homeric poems of certain words expressive of certain colours, have been disproved by more thorough modern research. The primitive man's sense of colour, or the sensitiveness of his retina to ether vibrations, may not have been as fine as that of the Roman mosaic-worker who could select his materials of 30,000 different tints, nor as that of Gobelin weavers, who can recognize 28,000 different shades of wool. But the evidence goes to show that the sense of colour is old as the gnawing of hunger or the pangs of fear,—old as the experience that taught living creatures to discern food and to flee from danger. There is, however, reason to suppose, from certain developmental phenomena observed in the eyes of children and newly-born animals, that the present condition of the colour-sense has been gradually reached—not so much in any particular species, as in all species possessing it,—just as vision itself must have been gradually acquired. Also showy colours must have been perceived before tints could be discerned; and even now we know through the spectroscope, that the human eye is not yet developed to the fullest possible perceptions of colour. Now the first colours recognized by the first eyes must have presumably been just those we call primary,—Yellow, Red, Green, Blue. Yellow, the colour of gold, is also the colour of our sun; the brightest daylight has a more or less faint tinge even at noon, according to the state of the atmosphere;—and this tinge deepens at sunrise and sunset. Red is the colour of blood,—a colour allied necessarily from time immemorial with violent mental impressions, whether of war, or love, or the chase, or religious sacrifice. Green itself is the colour of the world. Blue,—the blue of the far away sky,—has necessarily always been for man the colour mysterious and holy,—always associated with those high phenomena of heaven which first inspired wonder and fear of the Unknown. These colours were probably first known to intelligent life; and their impressions are to-day the strongest. So violent, indeed, have they become to our refined civilized sense, that in apparel or decorationthree of them, at least, are condemned when offered pure. Even the armies of the world are abandoning red uniforms;—no refined people wear flaming crimsons or scarlets or yellows;—nobody would paint a house or decorate a wall with a solid sheet of strong primary colour. Blue is still the least violent, the most agreeable to the artistic sense; and in subdued form it holds a place, in costume and in art, refused to less spiritual colours.

It might consequently be expected there should exist some correlation between the primary colours and the stronger emotional states of man. And such, indeed, proves to be the case. Emotionally the colours come in the order of Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. Red still appeals to the idea of Passion,—for which very reason its artistic use is being more and more restrained. Very curious are the researches made by Grant Allen showing the fact of the sensual use of the red. In Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads "(the same suppressed work republished in this country under its first title, "Laus Veneris"), the red epithets appear 159 times, while gold, green and blue words occur respectively 143, 86 and 25 times. In Tennyson's beautiful poem, "The Princess," the red words occur only 20 times, the gold 28, the green 5, the blue once. With all his exquisite sense of colour, Tennyson is sparing of adjectives;—there is no false skin to his work; it is solid muscle and bone.

Next to Red, the most emotional colour is Yellow—the colour of life, and of what men seem to prize next to life,—Gold. We fancy we can live without green sometimes; it comes third; but it is the hue associated with all the labours of man on the earth, since he began to labour. It is the colour of Industry. Blue has always been, since man commenced to think, and always will be, until he shall have ceased to think,—associated with his spiritual sense,—his idea of many gods or of One,—his hopes of a second life, his faith, his good purposes, his perception of duty. Still, all who pray, turn up their faces toward the eternal azure. And with the modern expansion of the Idea of God, as with the modern expansion of the Idea of the Universe, the violet gulf of space ever seems more mystical,—its pure colour more and more divine, and appeals to us as the colour of the Unknowable,—the colour of the Holy of Holies.

That Hearn wrote not from his own experience, out of his own heart, and with its blood, was due to the fact that life had denied him the needed experience; the personal materials, those that would interest the imaginative or imagining reader, did not exist. He must borrow, at firstliterally, which for him meant translation or retelling. The kind of things chosen was also dictated by the tragedy and pathos of his entire past life. But as if this pitiful tangling of the strands of Destiny were not enough, Fate added a knot of still more controlling misfortune. His adult life was passed without the poet's most necessary help of good vision. Indeed he had such extremely poor vision that one might say it was only the merest fraction of the normal. A most hazy blur of colours was all he perceived of objects beyond a foot or two away. There was left for him the memory of a world of forms as seen in his childhood; but that fact throws into relief the fact that it was a memory. It needs little psychologic acumen to realize how inaccurate would be our memories of trees, landscapes, mountains, oceans, cities, and the rest, seen only thirty years ago. How unsatisfying, how unreliable, especially for artistic purposes, must such memories be! To be sure, these haunting and dim recollections were, or might have been, helped out a little by pictures and photographs studied at the distance of three inches from the eye. The pathos of this, however, is increased by the fact that Hearn cared nothing for such photographs, etchings, engravings, etc. I never saw him look at one with attention or interest. Paintings, water-colours, etc., were as useless to him as the natural views themselves.

Another way that he might have supplemented his infirmity was by means of his monocle, but he made little use of this poor device, because he instinctively recognized that it aided so meagrely. One cannot be sure how consciously he refused the help, or knew the reasons for his refusal. At best it could give him only a suggestion of the accurate knowledge which our eyes give us of distant objects, and not even his sensitive mind could know that it minimized the objects thus seen, and almost turned them into a caricaturing microscopic smallness,like that produced when we look through the large end of an opera-glass. What would we think of the world if we carried before our eyes an opera-glass thus inverted? Would not a second's such use be as foolish as continuous use? There was an optical and sensible reason for his refusal. With the subtle wisdom of the unconscious he refused to see plainly, because his successful work, his unique function, lay in the requickening of ancient sorrows, and of lost, aimless and errant souls. He supplemented the deficiencies of vision with a vivid imagination, a perfect memory, and a perfection of touch which gave some sense of solidity and content, and by hearing, that echo-like emphasized unreality; but his world was essentially a two-dimensional one. To add thecombleto his ocular misfortunes, he had but one eye, and therefore he had no stereoscopic vision, and hence almost no perception of solidity, thickness, or content except such as was gained by the sense of touch, memory, judgment, etc. The little glimpse of stereoscopic qualities was made impossible by the fact of his enormous myopia, and further by the comparative blindness to objects beyond a few inches or a few feet away from the eye. The small ball becomes flat when brought sufficiently near the eye. Practically the world beyond a few feet was not a three-dimensional one; it was coloured it is true, and bewilderingly so, but it was formless and flat, without much thickness or solidity, and almost without perspective.[18]Moreover, Hearn's single eye was divergent, and more of the world to his left side was invisible to him than to other single-eyed persons. Most noteworthy also is another fact,—the slowness of vision by a highly myopic eye. It takes it longer to see what itfinally does see than in the case of other eyes. So all the movements of such a myopic person must be slow and careful, for he is in doubt about everything under foot, or even within reach of the hands. Hearn's myopia produced his manners.

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