Sick, unhappy, and unpopular, flight to other scenes naturally suggested itself. Mr. Tunison thus describes the influences determining the move to New Orleans, which occurred in 1877:—
“As Hearn advanced in his power to write, the sense of the discomforts of his situation in Cincinnati grew upon him. His body and mind longed for Southern air and scenes. One morning, after the usual hard work of an unusually nasty winter night in Cincinnati, in a leisure hour of conversation he heard an associate on the paper describe a scene inthe Gulf State. It was something about an old mansion of an ante-bellum cotton prince, with its white columns, its beautiful avenue of trees; the whitewashed negro quarters stretching away in the background; the cypress and live-oaks hung with moss, the odours from the blossoming magnolias, the songs of the mocking-birds in the early sunlight.”
Hearn took in every word of this with great keenness of interest, as was shown by the usual dilation of his nostrils when excited, though he had little to say at the time. It was as though he could see, and hear, and smell the delights of the scene. Not long after on leaving for New Orleans he remarked:—
“I had to go, sooner or later, but it was your description of the sunlight, and melodies, and fragrance, and all the delights with which the South appeals to the senses that determined me. I shall feel better in the South, and I believe I shall do better.”
Though nostalgia for Southern warmth had given a purpose to his wanderings, the immediate cause of his leaving the paper on which he was employed in Cincinnati was his assignment to deal with a story of hydrophobia, in which he suspected he had been given some misleading information by his superiors; and though his suspicions were possibly unjust, he announced that he had lost his loyalty to the paper and abruptly quitted it.
It is said that he went first to Memphis on leaving Cincinnati, but no proof of this remains save an anecdote he once related, placing the scene of it in Tennessee.
The question of essential wrong and right being under discussion, his companion advanced the theory that morals varied so much with localities and conditions that it was impossible to decide that there was any act of which one might say that it was essentially wrong or essentially right. After thinking this over in his brooding manner, he said:—
“Yes, there is one thing that is always wrong, profoundly wrong under any conditions.”
“And that?” he was asked.
“To cause pain to a helpless creature for one’s own pleasure,” was his answer; and then, in illustration, continued: “Once I was walking along a road in Tennessee, and I saw a man who seemed intoxicated with rage—for what cause I don’t know. A kitten was crossing the road at the moment. It got under the man’s feet and tripped him. He caught it up and blinded it and flung it from him with a laugh. The act seemed to soothe his rage. I was not near enough to stop him, but I had a pistol in my pocket—I always carried one then—and I fired four times at him; but, you know my sight is so bad, I missed him.” After a few moments he added, “It has always been one of the regrets of my life that I missed.”
Sometime in 1877—the time of the year is uncertain—Hearn arrived in New Orleans, and from this date the work of a biographer becomes almost superfluous, for then was begun the admirable series of letters to H. E. Krehbiel, which record the occupations and interests of his life for the next twelve years, setting forth, as no one less gifted than himself could,the impressions he received, the development of his mind, the trend of his studies, the infinite labour by which he slowly built up his mastery of the English tongue and the methods of work which made him eventually one of the great stylists of the Nineteenth Century. These letters make clear, as no comment could adequately do, how unflinchingly he pursued his purpose to become an artist, through long discouragement, through poverty and self-sacrifice; make clear how the Dream never failed to lead him, and how broad a foundation of study and discipline he laid during his apprenticeship for the structure he was later to rear for his own monument. They also disclose, as again no comment could do, the modesty of his self-appreciation, and the essentially enthusiastic and affectionate nature of his character.
The first work he secured in New Orleans was on the staff of theDaily Item, one of the minor journals, where he read proof, clipped exchanges, wrote editorials, and occasionally contributed a translation, or some bit of original work in the shape of what came to be known as his “Fantastics.” Meanwhile he was rejoicing in the change of residence, for the old, dusty, unpaved squalid New Orleans of the ’70’s—the city crushed into inanition by war, poverty, pestilence, and the frenzy of carpet-bagger misrule—was far more sympathetic to his tastes than the prosperous growing town he had abandoned.
The gaunt, melancholy great houses where he lodged in abandoned, crumbling apartments,—still decorated with the tattered splendours of a prosperous past,—where he was served by timidunhappy gentlewomen, or their ex-servants; the dim flower-hung courts behind the blank, mouldering walls; the street-cries; the night-songs of wanderers—all the colourful, polyglot, half-tropical life of the town was a constant appeal to the romantic side of the young man’s nature. Of disease and danger—arising out of the conditions of the unhappy city—he took no thought till after the great epidemic of yellow fever which desolated New Orleans the following summer, during which he suffered severely fromdengue, a lighter form of the disease. But even the cruelties of his new home were of value to him. In the grim closing chapter of “Chita” the anguish of a death by yellow fever is set forth with a quivering reality which only a personal knowledge of some phases of the disease could have made possible.
Always pursued by a desire to free himself of the harness of daily journalism, he plunged into experiments in economy, reducing at one time his expenses for food to but two dollars a week; trusting his hardly gathered savings to a sharper who owned a restaurant, and who ran away when the enterprise proved a failure. On another occasion he put by everything beyond his bare necessities in one of the mushroom building-loan societies which sprang up all over the country at that time, and with the collapse of this investment he finally and forever abandoned further financial enterprises, regarding them with an absolutely comic distrust, though for some years he continued to dwell now and then on the possibility of starting second-hand bookshops in hopelessly impossible places—such as the thenmoribund town of St. Augustine, Florida—and would suggest, with lovably absurd naïveté, that ashrewdman could do well there.
Meanwhile his gluttony for rare books on recondite matters kept him constantly poor, but proved a far better investment, as tools of trade, than his other and more speculative expenditures. Eventually he gathered a library of several hundred volumes and of considerable value, together with an interesting series of scrapbooks containing his earlier essays in literary journalism, and other clippings showing his characteristicflairfor the exotic and the strange.
In 1881 he, by great good fortune, was brought into contact with the newly consolidatedTimes-Democrat, a journal whose birth marked one of the earliest impulses towards the regeneration of the long depressed community, and whose staff included men, such as Charles Whitney, Honoré Burthe, and John Augustin, who represented the best impulses toward new growth among both the American and Creole members of the city’s population. Of Page M. Baker, the editor-in-chief, he drew in after years this faithful pen-picture:—
“You say my friend writes nicely. He is about the most lovable man I ever met,—an old-time Southerner, very tall and slight, with a singular face. He is so exactly the ideal Mephistopheles that he would never get his photograph taken. The face does not altogether belie the character,—but the mockery is very tender play, and queerly original. It never offends. The real Mephistopheles appearsonly when there are ugly obstacles to overcome. Then the diabolic keenness with which motives are read and disclosed, and the lightning moves by which a plot is checkmated, or a net made for the plotter himself, usually startle people. He is a man of immense force,—it takes such a one to rule in that community,—but as a gentleman I never saw his superior in grace or consideration. I always loved him—but like all whom I like could never get quite enough of his company for myself.”
It was an unusual and delightful coterie of men with whom chance had associated him. Men peculiarly fitted to value his special gifts. Honoré Burthe was the ideal of the “beau sabreur” of romantic French tradition, personally beautiful, brave to absurdity; a soldier of fortune under many flags; withal the pink of gentle courtesy, and a scholar. John Augustin—with less of the “panache”—inherited also the beauty, courage, and breeding of those picturesque ancestors, who had made the French gentleman-adventurers the most ornamental colonists of North America. Charles Whitney, by contrast, had fallen heir to all the shrewd, humorous, amiable vigour of the rival race which had struggled successfully for possession of the great inheritance of America, and which finally met and fused with the Latins in Louisiana.
Among these four rather uncommon types of journalists Lafcadio Hearn found ready sympathy and appreciation, and a chance to develop in the direction of his talents and desires. He was treated by them with courtesy and an indulgent consideration of his idiosyncrasies new in his experience, and was allowed to expand along the natural line of his tastes and capacities, with the result that he soon began to attract attention, and was finally able to find his outlet in the direction to which his preparatory labours and inherent genius were urging him.
He was astonishingly fortunate to have found such companions and such an opportunity. At that period the new journalism was dominant almost everywhere, and perhaps nowhere in the United States, except in New Orleans,—with its large French population and its residuum of the antebellum leisurely cultivation of taste, and love of lordly beauties of style,—could he have found an audience and a daily newspaper which eagerly sought, and rewarded to the best of its ability, a type of belles-lettres which was caviare to the general. His first work consisted of a weekly translation from some French writer—Théophile Gautier, Guy de Maupassant, or Pierre Loti, whose books he was one of the first to introduce to English readers, and for whose beautiful literary manner he always retained the most enthusiastic admiration. Long years afterward in Japan he spoke of one of the worst afflictions of a recent illness as having been the fear that he should die without having finished Loti’s “L’Inde sans les Anglais,” which he was reading when seized by the malady. These translations were usually accompanied—in another part of the paper—by an editorial, elucidatory of either the character and method of the author, or the subject of the paper itself, and these editorialswere often vehicles of much curious research on a multitude of odd subjects, such as the famous swordsmen of history, Oriental dances and songs, muezzin calls, African music, historic lovers, Talmudic legends, monstrous literary exploits, and the like; echoes of which studies appear frequently in the Krehbiel and O’Connor letters in this volume.
From time to time he added transferences, and adaptations, or original papers, unsigned, which found a small but appreciative audience, some of whom were sufficiently interested to enquire the identity of the author, and who grew into a local clientèle which always thereafter followed the growth of his fame with warm interest. Among these “Fantastics” and translations was published the whole contents of his three early books—“One of Cleopatra’s Nights,” “Stray Leaves from Strange Literature,” and “Some Chinese Ghosts”—but these books were made only of such selections as an ever increasing severity of taste considered worthy of reproduction. Much delightful matter which failed quite to reach this standard lapsed into extinction in the files of the journal. Among these was one which has been recovered by chance from his later correspondence. Replying to a criticism by a friend of the use of the phrase “lentor inexpressible” in a manuscript submitted for judgement, he promises to delete it, speaks of it as a “trick phrase” of his, and encloses the old clipping to show where he had first used it, and adds “please burn or tear up after reading ... this essay belongs to the Period of Gush.”
Fortunately his correspondent—as did most of those to whom he wrote—treasured everything in his handwriting, and the fragment which bore—my impression is—the title of “A Dead Love” (the clipping lacks its caption) remains to give an example of some of the work that bears the flaws of his ’prentice hand, before he used his tools with the assured skill of a master:—
... No rest he knew because of her. Even in the night his heart was ever startled from slumber as by the echo of her footfall; and dreams mocked him with tepid fancies of her lips; and when he sought forgetfulness in strange kisses her memory ever came shadowing between.... So that, weary of his life, he yielded it up at last in the fevered summer of a tropical city,—dying with her name upon his lips. And his face was no more seen in the palm-shadowed streets, ... but the sun rose and sank even as before.And that vague Something which lingers a little while within the tomb where the body moulders, lingered and dreamed within the long dark resting-place where they had laid him with the pious hope—Que en paz descanse!...Yet so weary of his life had the Wanderer been, that the repose of the dead was not for him. And while the body shrank and sank into dust, the phantom man found no rest in the darkness, and thought dimly to himself: “I am even too weary to find peace!”There was a thin crevice in the ancient wall of thetomb. And through it, and through the meshes of the web that a spider had woven athwart it, the dead looked and beheld the amethystine blaze of the summer sky,—and pliant palms bending in the warm wind,—and the opaline glow of the horizon,—and fair pools bearing images of cypresses inverted,—and the birds that flitted from tomb to tomb and sang,—and flowers in the shadow of the sepulchres.... And the vast bright world seemed to him not so hateful as before.Likewise the sounds of life assailed the faint senses of the dead through the thin crevice in the wall of the tomb:—always the far-off drowsy murmur made by the toiling of the city’s heart; sometimes sounds of passing converse and steps,—echoes of music and of laughter,—chanting and chattering of children at play,—and the liquid babble of the beautiful brown women.... So that the dead man dreamed of life and strength and joy, and the litheness of limbs to be loved: also of that which had been, and of that which might have been, and of that which now could never be. And he longed at last to live again—seeing that there was no rest in the tomb.But the gold-born days died in golden fire; and blue nights unnumbered filled the land with indigo shadows; and the perfume of the summer passed like a breath of incense ... and the dead within the sepulchre could not wholly die.Stars in their courses peered down through the crevices of the tomb, and twinkled, and passed on; winds of the sea shrieked to him through the widening crannies of the tomb; birds sang above him and flew to other lands; the bright lizards that ran noiselessly over his bed of stone, as noiselessly departed; the spider at last ceased to repair her web of silk; years came and went with lentor inexpressible; but for the dead there was no rest!And after many tropical moons had waxed and waned, and the summer was deepening in the land, filling the golden air with tender drowsiness and passional perfume, it strangely came to pass thatShewhose name had been murmured by his lips when the Shadow of Death fell upon him, came to that city of palms, and even unto the ancient place of sepulture, and unto the tomb that bore his name.And he knew the whisper of her raiment—knew the sweetness of her presence—and the pallid hearts of the blossoms of a plant whose blind roots had found food within the crevice of the tomb, changed and flushed, and flamed incarnadine....But she—perceiving it not—passed by; and the sound of her footstep died away forever.
... No rest he knew because of her. Even in the night his heart was ever startled from slumber as by the echo of her footfall; and dreams mocked him with tepid fancies of her lips; and when he sought forgetfulness in strange kisses her memory ever came shadowing between.... So that, weary of his life, he yielded it up at last in the fevered summer of a tropical city,—dying with her name upon his lips. And his face was no more seen in the palm-shadowed streets, ... but the sun rose and sank even as before.
And that vague Something which lingers a little while within the tomb where the body moulders, lingered and dreamed within the long dark resting-place where they had laid him with the pious hope—Que en paz descanse!...
Yet so weary of his life had the Wanderer been, that the repose of the dead was not for him. And while the body shrank and sank into dust, the phantom man found no rest in the darkness, and thought dimly to himself: “I am even too weary to find peace!”
There was a thin crevice in the ancient wall of thetomb. And through it, and through the meshes of the web that a spider had woven athwart it, the dead looked and beheld the amethystine blaze of the summer sky,—and pliant palms bending in the warm wind,—and the opaline glow of the horizon,—and fair pools bearing images of cypresses inverted,—and the birds that flitted from tomb to tomb and sang,—and flowers in the shadow of the sepulchres.... And the vast bright world seemed to him not so hateful as before.
Likewise the sounds of life assailed the faint senses of the dead through the thin crevice in the wall of the tomb:—always the far-off drowsy murmur made by the toiling of the city’s heart; sometimes sounds of passing converse and steps,—echoes of music and of laughter,—chanting and chattering of children at play,—and the liquid babble of the beautiful brown women.... So that the dead man dreamed of life and strength and joy, and the litheness of limbs to be loved: also of that which had been, and of that which might have been, and of that which now could never be. And he longed at last to live again—seeing that there was no rest in the tomb.
But the gold-born days died in golden fire; and blue nights unnumbered filled the land with indigo shadows; and the perfume of the summer passed like a breath of incense ... and the dead within the sepulchre could not wholly die.
Stars in their courses peered down through the crevices of the tomb, and twinkled, and passed on; winds of the sea shrieked to him through the widening crannies of the tomb; birds sang above him and flew to other lands; the bright lizards that ran noiselessly over his bed of stone, as noiselessly departed; the spider at last ceased to repair her web of silk; years came and went with lentor inexpressible; but for the dead there was no rest!
And after many tropical moons had waxed and waned, and the summer was deepening in the land, filling the golden air with tender drowsiness and passional perfume, it strangely came to pass thatShewhose name had been murmured by his lips when the Shadow of Death fell upon him, came to that city of palms, and even unto the ancient place of sepulture, and unto the tomb that bore his name.
And he knew the whisper of her raiment—knew the sweetness of her presence—and the pallid hearts of the blossoms of a plant whose blind roots had found food within the crevice of the tomb, changed and flushed, and flamed incarnadine....
But she—perceiving it not—passed by; and the sound of her footstep died away forever.
To his own, and perhaps other middle-aged taste “A Dead Love” may seem negligible, but to those still young enough, as he himself then was, to credit passion with a potency not only to survive “the gradual furnace of the world” but even to blossom in the dust of graves, this stigmatization as “Gush” will seem as unfeeling as always does to the young the dry and sapless wisdom of granddams. Tothem any version of the Orphic myth is tinglingly credible. Yearningly desirous that the brief flower of life may never fade, such a cry finds an echo in the very roots of their inexperienced hearts. The smouldering ardour of its style, which a chastened judgement rejected, was perhaps less faulty than its author believed it to be in later years.
It was to my juvenile admiration for this particular bit of work that I owed the privilege of meeting Lafcadio Hearn, in the winter of 1882, and of laying the foundation of a close friendship which lasted without a break until the day of his death.
He was at this time a most unusual and memorable person. About five feet three inches in height, with unusually broad and powerful shoulders for such a stature, there was an almost feminine grace and lightness in his step and movements. His feet were small and well shaped, but he wore invariably the most clumsy and neglected shoes, and his whole dress was peculiar. His favourite coat, both winter and summer, was a heavy double-breasted “reefer,” while the size of his wide-brimmed, soft-crowned hat was a standing joke among his friends. The rest of his garments were apparently purchased for the sake of durability rather than beauty, with the exception of his linen, which, even in days of the direst poverty, was always fresh and good. Indeed a peculiar physical cleanliness was characteristic of him—that cleanliness of uncontaminated savages and wild animals, which has the air of being so essential and innate as to make the best-groomed men and domesticated beasts seem almost frowzy by contrast.His hands were very delicate and supple, with quick timid movements that were yet full of charm, and his voice was musical and very soft. He spoke always in short sentences, and the manner of his speech was very modest and deferential. His head was quite remarkably beautiful; the profile both bold and delicate, with admirable modelling of the nose, lips and chin. The brow was square, and full above the eyes, and the complexion a clear smooth olive. The enormous work which he demanded of his vision had enlarged beyond its natural size the eye upon which he depended for sight, but originally, before the accident,—whose disfiguring effect he magnified and was exaggeratedly sensitive about,—his eyes must have been handsome, for they were large, of a dark liquid brown, and heavily lashed. In conversation he frequently, almost instinctively, placed his hand over the injured eye to conceal it from his companion.
Though he was abnormally shy, particularly with strangers and women, this was not obvious in any awkwardness of manner; he was composed and dignified, though extremely silent and reserved until his confidence was obtained. With those whom he loved and trusted his voice and mental attitude were caressing, affectionate, and confiding, though with even these some chance look or tone or gesture would alarm him into sudden and silent flight, after which he might be invisible for days or weeks, appearing again as silently and suddenly, with no explanation of his having so abruptly taken wing. In spite of his limited sight he appeared to have the power todivine by some extra sense the slightest change of expression in the faces of those with whom he talked, and no object or tint escaped his observation. One of his habits while talking was to walk about, touching softly the furnishings of the room, or the flowers of the garden, picking up small objects for study with his pocket-glass, and meantime pouring out a stream of brilliant talk in a soft, half-apologetic tone, with constant deference to the opinions of his companions. Any idea advanced he received with respect, however much he might differ, and if a phrase or suggestion appealed to him his face lit with a most delightful irradiation of pleasure, and he never forgot it.
A more delightful or—at times—more fantastically witty companion it would be impossible to imagine, but it is equally impossible to attempt to convey his astounding sensitiveness. To remain on good terms with him it was necessary to be as patient and wary as one who stalks the hermit thrush to its nest. Any expression of anger or harshness to any one drove him to flight, any story of moral or physical pain sent him quivering away, and a look of ennui or resentment, even if but a passing emotion, and indulged in while his back was turned, was immediately conveyed to his consciousness in some occult fashion and he was off in an instant. Any attempt to detain or explain only increased the length of his absence. A description of his eccentricities of manner would be misleading if the result were to convey an impression of neurotic debility, for with this extreme sensitiveness was combined vigour of mindand body to an unusual degree—the delicacy was only of the spirit.
Mrs. Lylie Harris of New Orleans, one of his intimate friends at this time, in an article written after his death, speaks of his friendship with the children of her family, with whom he was an affectionate playfellow, and with whom he was entirely confident and at his ease. An equally friendly and confident relation existed between himself and the old negro woman who cared for his rooms (as clean and plain as a soldier’s), and indeed all his life he was happiest with the young and the simple, who never perplexed or disturbed him by the complexities of modern civilization, which all his life he distrusted and feared.
Among those attracted by his work in theTimes-Democratwas W. D. O’Connor, in the marine service of the government, who wrote to enquire the name of the author of an article on Gustave Doré. From this grew a correspondence extending over several years. Jerome A. Hart, of San Francisco, was another correspondent attracted by his work, to whom he wrote from time to time, even after his residence in Japan had begun. Mr. Hart in contributing his letters says that this correspondence began in 1882, through the following reference in the pages of theArgonautto “One of Cleopatra’s Nights”:—
“Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, a talented writer on the staff of the New OrleansTimes-Democrat, has just translated some of Gautier’s fantastic romances, under the name of ‘One of Cleopatra’s Nights.’ The book comprises six fascinating stories—theone which gives the title, ‘Clarimonde,’ ‘Arria Marcella, a Souvenir of Pompeii,’ ‘The Mummy’s Foot,’ ‘Omphale, a Rococo Story,’ and ‘King Candaule.’ Mr. Hearn has few equals in this country as regards translation, and the stories lose nothing of their artistic unity in his hands. But his hobby is literalism. For instance, of the epitaph in ‘Clarimonde,’—
‘Ici-gît Clarimonde,Qui fut de son vivantLa plus belle du monde,’
‘Ici-gît Clarimonde,Qui fut de son vivantLa plus belle du monde,’
‘Ici-gît Clarimonde,
Qui fut de son vivant
La plus belle du monde,’
he remarks: ‘The broken beauty of the lines is but inadequately rendered thus:—
‘Here lies Clarimonde,Who was famed in her lifetimeAs the fairest of women.’
‘Here lies Clarimonde,Who was famed in her lifetimeAs the fairest of women.’
‘Here lies Clarimonde,
Who was famed in her lifetime
As the fairest of women.’
Very true—it is inadequate. But why not vary it? For example:—
Here lieth Clarimonde,Who was, what time she lived,The loveliest in the land.
Here lieth Clarimonde,Who was, what time she lived,The loveliest in the land.
Here lieth Clarimonde,
Who was, what time she lived,
The loveliest in the land.
The fleeting archaic flavour of the original is not entirely lost here, and the lines are broken, yet metrical. But this is only a suggestion, and a kindly one.”
This book—his first—travelled far before finding a publisher, and then only at the cost of the author bearing half the expense of publication.
Other notices had been less kind. TheObserver, as he quotes in a letter to Mr. Hart, had declared that it was a collection of “stories of unbridled lust without the apology of natural passion,” and that“the translation reeked with the miasma of the brothel.” TheCritichad wasted no time upon the translator, confining itself to depreciation of Gautier, and this Hearn resented more than severity to himself, for at this period Gautier and his style were his passionate delight, as witness the following note which accompanied a loan of a volume containing a selection from the Frenchman’s poems:—
Dear Miss Bisland,—I venture to try to give you a little novel pleasure by introducing you to the “Emaux et Camées.” As you have told me you never read them, I feel sure you will experience a literary surprise. You will find in Gautier a perfection of melody, a warmth of word-colouring, a voluptuous delicacy which no English poet has ever approached and which reveal, I think, a certain capacity of artistic expression no Northern tongue can boast. What the Latin tongues yield in to Northern languages is strength; but the themes in which the Latin poets excel are usually soft and exquisite. Still you will find in the “Rondalla” some fine specimens of violence. It is the song of the Toreador Juan.These “Emaux et Camées” constitute Gautier’s own pet selection from his works. I have seen nothing in Hugo’s works to equal some of them.... I won’t presume to offer you this copy: it is too shabby, has travelled about with me in all sorts of places for eight years. But if you are charmed by this “parfait magicien des lettres françaises” (as Baudelaire called him) I hope to have the pleasure of offering you a nicer copy....
Dear Miss Bisland,—I venture to try to give you a little novel pleasure by introducing you to the “Emaux et Camées.” As you have told me you never read them, I feel sure you will experience a literary surprise. You will find in Gautier a perfection of melody, a warmth of word-colouring, a voluptuous delicacy which no English poet has ever approached and which reveal, I think, a certain capacity of artistic expression no Northern tongue can boast. What the Latin tongues yield in to Northern languages is strength; but the themes in which the Latin poets excel are usually soft and exquisite. Still you will find in the “Rondalla” some fine specimens of violence. It is the song of the Toreador Juan.
These “Emaux et Camées” constitute Gautier’s own pet selection from his works. I have seen nothing in Hugo’s works to equal some of them.... I won’t presume to offer you this copy: it is too shabby, has travelled about with me in all sorts of places for eight years. But if you are charmed by this “parfait magicien des lettres françaises” (as Baudelaire called him) I hope to have the pleasure of offering you a nicer copy....
Mr. John Albee wrote to him in connection with the book, and also the Reverend Wayland D. Ball.
“Stray Leaves from Strange Literature”—published by James R. Osgood and Company of Boston—followed in 1884 and was more kindly treated by the critics, though it brought fewer letters from private admirers, and was not very profitable—save to his reputation. In 1885 a tiny volume was issued under the title of “Gombo Zhêbes,” being a collection of 350 Creole proverbs which he had made while studying the patois of the Louisiana negro—a patois of which the local name is “Gombo.” These laborious studies of the grammar and oral literature of a tongue spoken only by and to negro servants in Louisiana seemed rather a work of supererogation at the time, but later during his life in the West Indies they proved of incalculable value to him in his intercourse with the inhabitants. There the patois—not having been subjected as in New Orleans to that all-absorbing solvent of the English tongue—continued to hold its own alongside the pure French of the educated Creoles, and his book would have been impossible had he not had command of the universal speech of the common people.
“Some Chinese Ghosts” had set out on its travels in search of a publisher sometime earlier, and after several rejections was finally, in the following year, accepted by Roberts Brothers. In regard to some corrections which they desired made in the text this reference has been found in a letter to his friend Krehbiel, a letter in which, however, time and the ruthless appetite of bookworms have made havoc with words here and there:—
1886.Dear K.,—In Promethean agony I write.Roberts Brothers, Boston, have written me that they want to publish “Chinese Ghosts;” but want me to cut out a multitude of Japanese, Sanscrit, Chinese, and Buddhist terms.Thereupon unto them I despatched a colossal document of supplication and prayer,—citing Southey, Moore, Flaubert, Edwin Arnold, Gautier, “Hiawatha,” and multitudinous singers and multitudinous songs, and the rights of prose poetry, and the supremacy of Form.And no answer have I yet received.How shall I sacrifice Orientalism, seeing that this my work was inspired by [fragment of a Greek word] by the Holy Spirit, by the Vast ... [probably Blue Soul] of the Universe ... but one of the facets of that million-faceted Rose-diamond which flasheth back the light of the Universal Sun? And even as Apocalyptic John I hold—“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”Thy brother in the Holy Ghost of Art wisheth thee many benisons and victories, and the Grace that cometh as luminous rain and the Wind of Inspiration perfumed with musk and the flowers of Paradise.Lafcadio.
1886.
Dear K.,—In Promethean agony I write.
Roberts Brothers, Boston, have written me that they want to publish “Chinese Ghosts;” but want me to cut out a multitude of Japanese, Sanscrit, Chinese, and Buddhist terms.
Thereupon unto them I despatched a colossal document of supplication and prayer,—citing Southey, Moore, Flaubert, Edwin Arnold, Gautier, “Hiawatha,” and multitudinous singers and multitudinous songs, and the rights of prose poetry, and the supremacy of Form.
And no answer have I yet received.
How shall I sacrifice Orientalism, seeing that this my work was inspired by [fragment of a Greek word] by the Holy Spirit, by the Vast ... [probably Blue Soul] of the Universe ... but one of the facets of that million-faceted Rose-diamond which flasheth back the light of the Universal Sun? And even as Apocalyptic John I hold—
“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
Thy brother in the Holy Ghost of Art wisheth thee many benisons and victories, and the Grace that cometh as luminous rain and the Wind of Inspiration perfumed with musk and the flowers of Paradise.
Lafcadio.
This suggestion was peculiarly afflicting because of his love of exotic words, not only for their own sake, but for the colour they lent to the general scheme of decoration of his style. It was as if a painter of an Oriental picture had been asked to omit all reproduction of Eastern costumes, all representation of the architecture or utensils germane to his scene. To eliminate these foreign terms was like asking a modern actor to play “Julius Caesar” in a full-bottomed wig.
At about this period a friendship formed with Lieutenant Oscar Crosby exerted a most profound and far-reaching influence upon Hearn—an influence which continued to grow until his whole life and manner of thought were coloured by it.
Lieutenant Crosby was a young Louisianian, educated at West Point, and then stationed in New Orleans, a person of very unusual abilities, and Hearn found him a suggestive and inspiring companion. In a letter written to Ernest Crosby from Japan in 1904, but a month before his death, he says:—
“A namesake of yours, a young lieutenant in the United States Army, first taught me, about twenty years ago, how to study Herbert Spencer. To that Crosby I shall always feel a very reverence of gratitude, and I shall always find myself inclined to seek the good opinion of any man bearing the name of Crosby.”
To Mr. Krehbiel in the same year that he began the study of “The Principles of Ethics” he wrote:—
“Talking of change in opinions, I am reallyastonished at myself. You know what my fantastic metaphysics were. A friend disciplined me to read Herbert Spencer. I suddenly discovered what a waste of time all my Oriental metaphysics had been. I also discovered for the first time how to apply the little general knowledge I possessed. I also found unspeakable comfort in the sudden, and for me eternal reopening of the Great Doubt, which renders pessimism ridiculous, and teaches a new reverence for all forms of faith. In short, from the day when I finished the ‘First Principles,’ a totally new intellectual life opened for me; and I hope during the next few years to devour the rest of this oceanic philosophy.”
He seems not, in these positive assertions, to have overestimated the great change that had come upon his mental attitude. The strong breath of the great thinker had blown from off his mind the froth and ferment of youth, leaving the wine clear and strong beneath. From this time becomes evident a new seriousness in his manner, and beauty became to him not only the mere grace of form but the meaning and truth which that form was to embody.
The next book bearing his name shows the effect of this change, and the immediate success of the book demonstrated that, while his love for the exotic was to remain ingrained, he had learned to bring the exotic into vital touch with the normal.
“Chita: A Story of Last Island” had its origin in a visit paid in the summer of 1884 to Grande Isle, one of the islands lying in the Gulf of Mexico, near the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Bayof Barataria. A letter written to Page Baker while there may be inserted at this point to give some idea of the place.
Gentlemen’s bathing houses
Dear Page,—I wish you were here; for I am sure that the enjoyment would do you a great deal of good. I had not been in sea-water for fifteen years, and you can scarcely imagine how I rejoice in it,—in fact I don’t like to get out of it at all. I suppose you have not been at Grande Isle—or at least not been here for so long that you have forgotten what it looks like. It makes a curious impression on me: the old plantation cabins, standing in rows like village-streets, and neatly remodelled for more cultivated inhabitants, have a delightfully rural aspect under their shadowing trees; and there is a veritable country calm by day and night. Grande Isle has suggestions in it of several old country fishing villages I remember, but it is even still more charmingly provincial. The hotel proper, where the tables are laid,—formerly, I fancy, a sugar-house or something of that sort,—reminds one of nothingso much as one of those big English or Western barn-buildings prepared for a holiday festival or a wedding-party feast. The only distinctively American feature is the inevitable Southern gallery with white wooden pillars. An absolutely ancient purity of morals appears to prevail here:—no one thinks of bolts or locks or keys, everything is left open and nothing is ever touched. Nobody has ever been robbed on the island. There is no iniquity. It is like a resurrection of the days of good King Alfred, when, if a man were to drop his purse on the highway, he might return six months later to find it untouched. At least that is what I am told. Still I would notliketo leave one thousand golden dinars on the beach or in the middle of the village. I am still a little suspicious—having been so long a dweller in wicked cities.I was in hopes that I had made a very important discovery; viz.—a flock of really tame and innocuous cows; but the innocent appearance of the beasts is, I have just learned, a disguise for the most fearful ferocity. So far I have escaped unharmed; and Marion has offered to lend me his large stick, which will, I have no doubt, considerably aid me in preserving my life.Couldn’t you manage to let me stay down here until after the Exposition is over, doing no work and nevertheless drawing my salary regularly?... By the way, one could save money by a residence at Grande Isle. There are no temptations—except the perpetual and delicious temptation of the sea.The insects here are many; but I have seen nofrogs,—they have probably found that the sea can outroar them and have gone away jealous. But in Marion’s room there is a beam, and against that beam there is the nest of a “mud-dauber.” Did you ever see a mud-dauber?It is something like this when flying;—but when it isn’t flying I can’t tell you what it looks like, and it has the peculiar power of flying without noise. I think it is of the wasp-kind, and plasters its mud nest in all sorts of places. It is afraid of nothing—likes to look at itself in the glass, and leaves its young in our charge. There is another sociable creature—hope it isn’t a wasp—which has built two nests under the edge of this table on which I write to you. There are no specimens here of thecimex lectularius; and the mosquitoes are not at all annoying. They buzz a little, but seldom give evidence of hunger. Creatures also abound which have the capacity of making noises of the most singular sort. Up in the tree on my right there is a thing which keeps saying all day long, quite plainly, “Kiss, Kiss, Kiss!”—referring perhaps to the good young married folks across the way; and on the road to the bath-house, which we travelled late last evening in order to gaze at the phosphorescent sea, there dwells something which exactly imitates the pleasant sound of ice jingling in a cut-glass tumbler.As for the grub, it is superb—solid, nutritious, and without stint. When I first tasted the butterI was enthusiastic, imagining that those mild-eyed cows had been instrumental in its production; but I have since discovered they were not—and the fact astonishes me not at all now that I have learned more concerning the character of those cows.At some unearthly hour in the morning the camp-meeting quiet of the place is broken by the tolling of a bell.This means “Jump up, lazybones; and take a swim before the sun rises.” Then the railroad-car comes for the bathers, passing up the whole line of white cottages. The distance is short to the beach; Marion and I prefer to walk; but the car is a great convenience for the women and children and invalids.It is drawn by a single mule, and always accompanied by a dog which appears to be the intimate friend of the said mule, and who jumps up and barks all the grass-grown way.The ladies’ bathing-house is about five minutes’ plank-walking from the men’s,—where I am glad to say drawers and bathing-suits areunnecessary, so that one has the full benefit of sun-bathing as well as salt-water bathing.Miss B. B. through our lorgnetteThere is a man here called Margot or Margeaux—perhaps some distant relative of Château-Margeaux—who always goes bathing accompanied by a pet goose. The goose follows him just like a dog; but is a little afraid of getting into deep water. It remains in the surf presenting its stern-end to the breakers:—The only trouble about the bathing is the ferocious sun. Few people bathe in the heat of the day, but yesterday we went in four times; and the sun nearly flayed us. This morning we held a council of war and decided upon greater moderation. There are three bars, between which the water is deep. The third bar is, I fear, too “risky” to reach, as it is nearly a mile from the other, and lies beyond a hundred-foot depth of water in which sharks are said to disport themselves. I am almost as afraid ofsharks as I am of cows.... Marion made a dash for a drowning man yesterday, in answer to the cry, “Here, you fellows, help! help!” and I followed. We had instantaneous visions of a gold-medal from the Life-Saving Service, and glorious dreams of newspaper fame under the title “Journalistic Heroism,”—for my part, I must acknowledge I had also an unpleasant fancy that the drowning man might twine himself about me, and pull me to the bottom,—so I looked out carefully to see which way he was heading. But the beatific Gold-Medal fancies were brutally dissipated by the drowning man’s success in saving himself before we could reach him, and we remain as obscure as before.
Dear Page,—I wish you were here; for I am sure that the enjoyment would do you a great deal of good. I had not been in sea-water for fifteen years, and you can scarcely imagine how I rejoice in it,—in fact I don’t like to get out of it at all. I suppose you have not been at Grande Isle—or at least not been here for so long that you have forgotten what it looks like. It makes a curious impression on me: the old plantation cabins, standing in rows like village-streets, and neatly remodelled for more cultivated inhabitants, have a delightfully rural aspect under their shadowing trees; and there is a veritable country calm by day and night. Grande Isle has suggestions in it of several old country fishing villages I remember, but it is even still more charmingly provincial. The hotel proper, where the tables are laid,—formerly, I fancy, a sugar-house or something of that sort,—reminds one of nothingso much as one of those big English or Western barn-buildings prepared for a holiday festival or a wedding-party feast. The only distinctively American feature is the inevitable Southern gallery with white wooden pillars. An absolutely ancient purity of morals appears to prevail here:—no one thinks of bolts or locks or keys, everything is left open and nothing is ever touched. Nobody has ever been robbed on the island. There is no iniquity. It is like a resurrection of the days of good King Alfred, when, if a man were to drop his purse on the highway, he might return six months later to find it untouched. At least that is what I am told. Still I would notliketo leave one thousand golden dinars on the beach or in the middle of the village. I am still a little suspicious—having been so long a dweller in wicked cities.
I was in hopes that I had made a very important discovery; viz.—a flock of really tame and innocuous cows; but the innocent appearance of the beasts is, I have just learned, a disguise for the most fearful ferocity. So far I have escaped unharmed; and Marion has offered to lend me his large stick, which will, I have no doubt, considerably aid me in preserving my life.
Couldn’t you manage to let me stay down here until after the Exposition is over, doing no work and nevertheless drawing my salary regularly?... By the way, one could save money by a residence at Grande Isle. There are no temptations—except the perpetual and delicious temptation of the sea.
The insects here are many; but I have seen nofrogs,—they have probably found that the sea can outroar them and have gone away jealous. But in Marion’s room there is a beam, and against that beam there is the nest of a “mud-dauber.” Did you ever see a mud-dauber?It is something like this when flying;—but when it isn’t flying I can’t tell you what it looks like, and it has the peculiar power of flying without noise. I think it is of the wasp-kind, and plasters its mud nest in all sorts of places. It is afraid of nothing—likes to look at itself in the glass, and leaves its young in our charge. There is another sociable creature—hope it isn’t a wasp—which has built two nests under the edge of this table on which I write to you. There are no specimens here of thecimex lectularius; and the mosquitoes are not at all annoying. They buzz a little, but seldom give evidence of hunger. Creatures also abound which have the capacity of making noises of the most singular sort. Up in the tree on my right there is a thing which keeps saying all day long, quite plainly, “Kiss, Kiss, Kiss!”—referring perhaps to the good young married folks across the way; and on the road to the bath-house, which we travelled late last evening in order to gaze at the phosphorescent sea, there dwells something which exactly imitates the pleasant sound of ice jingling in a cut-glass tumbler.
As for the grub, it is superb—solid, nutritious, and without stint. When I first tasted the butterI was enthusiastic, imagining that those mild-eyed cows had been instrumental in its production; but I have since discovered they were not—and the fact astonishes me not at all now that I have learned more concerning the character of those cows.
At some unearthly hour in the morning the camp-meeting quiet of the place is broken by the tolling of a bell.This means “Jump up, lazybones; and take a swim before the sun rises.” Then the railroad-car comes for the bathers, passing up the whole line of white cottages. The distance is short to the beach; Marion and I prefer to walk; but the car is a great convenience for the women and children and invalids.It is drawn by a single mule, and always accompanied by a dog which appears to be the intimate friend of the said mule, and who jumps up and barks all the grass-grown way.The ladies’ bathing-house is about five minutes’ plank-walking from the men’s,—where I am glad to say drawers and bathing-suits areunnecessary, so that one has the full benefit of sun-bathing as well as salt-water bathing.Miss B. B. through our lorgnetteThere is a man here called Margot or Margeaux—perhaps some distant relative of Château-Margeaux—who always goes bathing accompanied by a pet goose. The goose follows him just like a dog; but is a little afraid of getting into deep water. It remains in the surf presenting its stern-end to the breakers:—
The only trouble about the bathing is the ferocious sun. Few people bathe in the heat of the day, but yesterday we went in four times; and the sun nearly flayed us. This morning we held a council of war and decided upon greater moderation. There are three bars, between which the water is deep. The third bar is, I fear, too “risky” to reach, as it is nearly a mile from the other, and lies beyond a hundred-foot depth of water in which sharks are said to disport themselves. I am almost as afraid ofsharks as I am of cows.... Marion made a dash for a drowning man yesterday, in answer to the cry, “Here, you fellows, help! help!” and I followed. We had instantaneous visions of a gold-medal from the Life-Saving Service, and glorious dreams of newspaper fame under the title “Journalistic Heroism,”—for my part, I must acknowledge I had also an unpleasant fancy that the drowning man might twine himself about me, and pull me to the bottom,—so I looked out carefully to see which way he was heading. But the beatific Gold-Medal fancies were brutally dissipated by the drowning man’s success in saving himself before we could reach him, and we remain as obscure as before.
Interlude
Miss Bisland through our lorgnette
Miss Bisland’s A No 1. Chaperone
The Agricultural Editor of the T.D.—pursued by his family
A No 2 Miss Bisland’s Creole Chaperone
A No 3 Miss Bisland’s Pickwickian Chapero
The proprietor has found what I have vainly been ransacking the world for—a civilized hat, showing the highest evolutional development of the hat as a practically useful article. I am going to make him an offer for it.Alas! the time flies too fast. Soon all this will be a dream:—the white cottages shadowed with leafy green,—the languid rocking-chairs upon the old-fashioned gallery,—the cows that look into one’s window with the rising sun,—the dog and the mule trotting down the flower-edged road,—the goose of the ancient Margot,—the muttering surf upon the bar beyond which the sharks are,—the bath-bell and the bathing belles,—the air that makes one feel like a boy,—the pleasure of sleeping withdoors and windows open to the sea and its everlasting song,—the exhilaration of rising with the rim of the sun....And then we must return to the dust and the roar of New Orleans, to hear the rumble of wagons instead of the rumble of breakers, and to smell the smell of ancient gutters instead of the sharp sweet scent of pure sea wind.I believe I would rather be old Margot’s goose if I could. Blessed goose! thou knowest nothing about the literary side of the New OrleansTimes-Democrat; but thou dost know that thou canst have a good tumble in the sea every day. If I could live down here I should certainly live to be a hundred years old. Oneliveshere. In New Orleans one only exists.... And the boat comes—I must post this incongruous epistle.
The proprietor has found what I have vainly been ransacking the world for—a civilized hat, showing the highest evolutional development of the hat as a practically useful article. I am going to make him an offer for it.
Alas! the time flies too fast. Soon all this will be a dream:—the white cottages shadowed with leafy green,—the languid rocking-chairs upon the old-fashioned gallery,—the cows that look into one’s window with the rising sun,—the dog and the mule trotting down the flower-edged road,—the goose of the ancient Margot,—the muttering surf upon the bar beyond which the sharks are,—the bath-bell and the bathing belles,—the air that makes one feel like a boy,—the pleasure of sleeping withdoors and windows open to the sea and its everlasting song,—the exhilaration of rising with the rim of the sun....And then we must return to the dust and the roar of New Orleans, to hear the rumble of wagons instead of the rumble of breakers, and to smell the smell of ancient gutters instead of the sharp sweet scent of pure sea wind.I believe I would rather be old Margot’s goose if I could. Blessed goose! thou knowest nothing about the literary side of the New OrleansTimes-Democrat; but thou dost know that thou canst have a good tumble in the sea every day. If I could live down here I should certainly live to be a hundred years old. Oneliveshere. In New Orleans one only exists.... And the boat comes—I must post this incongruous epistle.
Good-bye,—wish you were here, sincerely.
Very truly,
Lafcadio Hearn.
This jesting letter makes but little reference to the beauties of this tropical island, which had, however, made a profound impression upon Hearn, and later they were reproduced with astonishing fidelity in the book. Some distance to the westward of Grande Isle lies L’Isle Dernière, or—as it is now commonly called—Last Island, then a mere sandbank, awash in high tides, but thirty years before that an island of the same character as GrandeIsle, and for half a century a popular summer resort for the people of New Orleans and the planters of the coast. On the 10th of August, 1856, a frightful storm swept it bare and annihilated the numerous summer visitors, only a handful among the hundreds escaping. The story of the tragedy remained a vivid tradition along the coast, where hardly a family escaped without the loss of some relation or friend, and on Hearn’s return to New Orleans he embodied a brief story of the famous storm, with his impressions of the splendours of the Gulf, under the title of “Torn Letters,” purporting to be the fragments of an old correspondence by one of the survivors. This story—published in theTimes-Democrat—was so favourably received that he was later encouraged to enlarge it into a book, and the Harpers, who had already published some articles from his pen, issued it as a serial in their magazine, where it won instant recognition from a large public that had heretofore been ignorant of, or indifferent to, his work.
Oscar Wilde once declared that life and nature constantly plagiarized from art, and would have been pleased with the confirmation of his suggestion afforded by the fact that nearly twenty years after the publication of “Chita” a storm, similar to the one described in the book, swept away in its turn Grande Isle, and Les Chenières, and a girl child was rescued by Manila fishermen as Hearn had imagined. After living with one of their families for some time she was finally recovered by her father (who had believed her lost in the generalcatastrophe), under circumstances astoundingly like those invented by the author so many years before.
The book was dedicated to Dr. Rodolfo Matas, a Spanish physician in New Orleans, and an intimate friend,—frequently mentioned in the letters to Dr. George M. Gould of Philadelphia, with whom a correspondence was begun at about this time.
It was because of the success of “Chita” that Hearn was enabled to realize his long-nourished dream of penetrating farther into the tropics, and with a vague commission from the Harpers he left New Orleans, in 1887, and sailed for the Windward Islands. The journey took him as far south as British Guiana, the fruit of which was a series of travel-sketches printed inHarper’s Magazine. So infatuated with the Southern world of colour, light, and warmth had he become that—trusting to the possible profits of his books and the further material he hoped to gather—two months after his return from this journey, and without any definite resources, he cast himself back into the arms of the tropics, for which he suffered a life-long and unappeasable nostalgia.
It was to St. Pierre in the island of Martinique—the place that had most attracted him on his travels—that he returned. That island of “gigantic undulations,” that town of bright long narrow streets rising toward a far mass of glowing green ... which looks as if it had slid down the hill behind it, so strangely do the streets come tumbling to the port in a cascade of masonry,—with a red billowing of tiled roofs over all, and enormous palms poking upthrough it. That town with “a population fantastic, astonishing,—a population of the Arabian Nights ... many coloured, with a general dominant tint of yellow, like that of the town itself ... always relieved by the costume colours of Martinique—brilliant yellow stripings or chequerings which have an indescribable luminosity, a wonderful power of bringing out the fine warm tints of tropical flesh ... the hues of those rich costumes Nature gives to her nearest of kin and her dearest,—her honey-lovers,—her insects: wasp-colours.” Here, under the shadow of Mt. Pelée “coiffed with purple and lilac cloud ... a magnificentMadras, yellow-banded by the sun,” he remained for two years, and from his experiences there created his next book. “Two Years in the French West Indies” made a minute and astonishing record of the town and the population, now as deeply buried and as utterly obliterated as was Pompeii by the lava and ashes of Vesuvius. Eighteen centuries hence, could some archæologist, disinterring the almost forgotten town, find this book, what passionate value would he give to this record of a community of as unique a character as that of the little Græco-Roman city! What price would be set to-day upon parchments which reproduced with such vivid fidelity the world, so long hid in darkness, of that civilization over whose calcined fragments we now yearningly ponder!
One English commentator upon the work of Lafcadio Hearn speaks of “Chita” and “Two Years in the French West Indies” with negligent contempt as of “the orchid and cockatoo type of literature,”and passes on to his Japanese work as the first of considerable importance. Other critics have been led into the same error, welcoming the cooler tones of his later pictures as a growth in power and a development of taste. It is safe to say that the makers of such criticisms have not seen the lands and peoples of whom these books attempt to reproduce the charm. Those who have known tropic countries will realize how difficult is the task of reproducing their multi-coloured glories, and that to bring even a faint shadow of their splendours back to eyes accustomed to the pale greys and half tints of Northern lands is a labour not only arduous in itself, but more than apt to be ungratefully received by those for whom it is undertaken. A mole would find a butterfly’s description of an August landscape exaggerated to the point of vulgarity, and the average critic is more likely to find satisfaction in “A Grey Day at Annisquam” than in the most subtly handled picture of the blaze of noon at Luxor.
“Chita” is marred occasionally by a phrase that suggests the journalism in which the hand of the writer had been so long submerged, but in “Two Years in the French West Indies” the artist has at last emancipated his talent and finished his long apprenticeship. Though the author himself in later years finds some fault with it, giving as excuse that much of it was done when he was physically exhausted by fever and anxiety, and “with but a half-filled stomach,” it remains one of his most admirable achievements.
The risks he had assumed in returning to the tropics proved greater than he had imagined. Publishers’ delays and rigid exactions of all their part of the writer’s pound of flesh left him at times entirely without means, and had it not been for the generosity and kindliness of the people of the now vanished city he would not have lived to return. It was some memory of humble friends there that is recorded in the sixth part of the autobiographical fragments, written after the disaster at St. Pierre.