The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume I Part 28

MY DEAR BALL,--I regret my long silence, now broken with the sincere pleasure of being able to congratulate you upon a grand success and still grander opportunities. The salary you are promised is nearly double that obtained by the best journalist in the country (excepting one or two men in highly responsible positions of managers); it far exceeds the average earnings of expert members of the higher professions; and there are not many authors in the United States who can rely upon such an income. So that you have a fine chance to acc.u.mulate a nice capital, as well as ample means to indulge scholarly tastes and large leisure to gratify them. I feared, sensitive as you are, to weigh too heavily upon one point before, but I think I shall not hesitate to do so now. I refer to the question of literary effort. Again I would say: Leave all profane writing alone for at least five years more; and devote all your talent, study, sense of beauty, force of utterance to your ministerial work. You will make an impression, and be able to rise higher and higher. In the meanwhile you will be able to mature your style, your thought, your scholarship; and when the proper time comes be able also to make a sterling, good, literary effort. What we imagine new when we are young is apt really to be very old; and that which appears to us very old suddenly grows youthful at a later day with the youth of Truth's immortality. None, except one of those genii, who appear at intervals as broad as those elapsing in Indian myth between the apparition of the Buddhas, can sit down before the age of thirty-five or forty, and create anything really great. Again the maxim, "Money is power,"--commonplace and vulgar though it be,--has a depth you will scarcely appreciate until a later day. It is power for good, quite as much as for evil; and "nothing succeeds like success," you know. Once you occupy a great place in the great religious world of wealth and elegance and beauty, you will find yourself possessed of an influence that will enable you to realize any ambition which inspires you. This is the best answer I can now give to your last request for a little friendly counsel, and it is uttered only because I feel that being older than you, and having been knocked considerably about the world, I can venture to offer the results of my little experience.

As you say, you are drawing nearer to me. I expect we shall meet, and be glad of the meeting. I shall have little to show you except books, but we will have a splendid time for all that. Meanwhile I regret having nothing good to send you. The story appeared in _Harper's Bazar_.

Sincerely your friend, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, July, 1885.

MY DEAR BALL,--Your welcome letter came to me just at a happy moment when I had time to reply. I would have written before, but for a protracted illness. I am pa.s.sionately fond of swimming; and the clear waters of that Florida spring seduced me into a plunge while very hot.

The water was cold as death; and when I got back to New Orleans, I had the novel experience of a Florida fever,--slow, torpid, and unconquerable by quinine. Now I am all right.

The language of "Stray Leaves" is all my own, with the exception of the Italic texts and a few pages translated from the "Kalewala." The Florida sketch I sent you, although published in a newspaper, is one of a number I have prepared for the little volume of impressions I told you about. I sent it as an ill.u.s.tration of the literary theory discussed in our previous correspondence, which I am surprised you remember so well.

Apropos of your previous letter, I must observe that I do not like James Freeman Clarke's work,--immense labour whose results are nullified by a purely sectarian purpose. Mr. Clarke sat down to study with the preconceived purpose of belittling other beliefs by comparison with Christianity,--a process quite as irrational and narrow as would be an attempt in the opposite direction. My very humble studies in comparative mythology led me to a totally different conclusion,--revealing to me a universal aspiration of mankind toward the Infinite and Supreme, so mighty, so deeply sincere, so touching, that I have ceased to perceive the least absurdity in any general idea of worship, whether fetish or monotheistic, whether the thought of the child man or the dream of h.o.a.ry Indian philosophy. Nor can I for the same reason necessarily feel more reverence for the crucified deity than for that image of the Hindoo G.o.d of light, holding in one of his many hands Phallus, and yet wearing a necklace of skulls,--symbolizing at once creation and destruction,--the Great Begetter and the Universal Putrifier.

A n.o.ble and excellently conceived address that of yours on Thos.

Paine,--bolder than I thought your congregation was prepared for. Yes, I certainly think you are going to effect a great deal in a good cause, the cause of mental generosity and intellectual freedom. I almost envy you sometimes your opportunities as a great teacher, a social emanc.i.p.ator, and I feel sure what you have already done is nothing to be compared with what you will do, providing you retain health and strength.

I don't know just what to say about your literary articles; but I can speak to the editor-in-chief, who is my warm personal friend. The only difficulty would be the bigotry here. Even my editorials upon Sanscrit literature called out abuse of the paper from various N. O. pulpits, as "A Buddhist Newspaper," an "Infidel sheet," etc. If published first in the Boston paper, I could get the lecture reproduced, I think, in ours.

If you expect remuneration you would have to send the MS. first to us and take the chances. I think what you best do in the interim would be to write on the subject to Page M. Baker, Editor _T.-D._, mentioning my name, and await reply.

You asked me in a former letter a question I forgot to answer. I have no photograph at present, but will have some taken soon and will send you one.

Very sincerely yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1885.

DEAR BALL,--I regret extremely my long delay in writing you--due partly to travel, partly to work, for I have considerable extra work to do for the Harpers, and for myself. You ask me about literary ventures. I suppose you have seen the little book Osgood published for me last summer--"Stray Leaves from Strange Literature," a volume of Oriental stories. Since then I have had nothing printed except a dictionary of Creole proverbs which could scarcely interest you,--and some Oriental essays, which appeared in newspapers only, but which I hope to collect and edit in permanent form next year. Meantime I am working upon a little book of personal impressions, which I expect to finish this summer. Of course I will keep the story you want for you, and mail it; and if you have not seen my other book I will send it you.

Your project about a correspondence is pleasant enough; but I am now simply overwhelmed with work, which has been acc.u.mulating during a short absence in Florida. In any event, however, I do not quite see how this thing could prove profitable. I doubt very much if Christ is not a myth, just as Buddha is. There may have been a teacher called Jesus, and there may have been a teacher Siddartha; but the mythological and philosophical systems attached to these names have a far older origin, and represent only the evolution of human ideas from the simple and primitive to the complex form. As the legend of Buddha is now known to have been only the development of an ancient Aryan sun-myth, so probably the legend of Jesus might be traced to the beliefs of primitive and pastoral humanity. What matter creeds, myths, traditions, to you or me, who perceive in all faiths one vast truth,--one phase of the Universal Life? Why trouble ourselves about detailed comparisons while we know there is an Infinite which all thinkers are striving vainly to reach by different ways, and an Infinite invisible of which all things visible are but emanations? Worlds are but dreams of G.o.d, and evanescent; the galaxies of suns burn out, the heavens wither; even time and s.p.a.ce are only relative; and the civilization of a planet but an incident of its growth. To those who feel these things religious questions are valueless and void of meaning, except in their relation to the development of ethical ideas in general. And their study in this light is too large for the compa.s.s of a busy life.

In haste, your friend, LAFCADIO HEARN.

I read your sermon with pleasure and gave a copy to our editor-in-chief.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, July, 1885.

MY DEAR O'CONNOR,--Your kind little surprise came to me while I was very ill, and, I believe, helped me to get better; for everything which cheers one during an attack of swamp-fever aids convalescence. As you know, I made a sojourn in East Florida; and I exposed myself a good deal, in the pursuit of impressions. The wonderful water especially tempted me. I am a good swimmer, and always crazy to enjoy a dive, so I yielded to the seduction of Silver Spring. It was a very hot day; but the flood was cold as the grip of old Death. I didn't feel the effect right away; but when I got back home found I had a fever that quinine would take no effect upon. Now I am getting all right, and will be off to the sea soon to recruit.

Well, I thought I would wait to write until I could introduce myself to you, as you so delicately divined that I wanted you to do to me; but I delayed much longer than I wished or intended. Photographs are usually surprises;--your face was not exactly what I had imagined, but it pleased me more--I had fancied you a little stern, very dark, with black eyes,--partly, perhaps, because others of your name whom I knew had that purplish black hair and eyes which seems a special race-characteristic,--partly perhaps from some fantastic little idea evolved by the effort to create a person from a chirography, as though handwriting const.i.tuted a sort of _track_ by which individuality could be recognized. I know now that I should feel a little less timid in meeting you; for I seem to know you already very well,--for a long time,--intimately and without mystery.

I send a couple of little clippings which may interest you for the moment,--one, a memory of Saint Augustine; the other, a translation which, though clumsy, preserves something of a great poet's weird fancy.

I am sorry that I have so little to tell you in a literary way. As you seem to see the _T.-D._ very often, you watch me tolerably closely, I suppose. I have been trying to complete a little volume of impressions, but the work drags on very, very slowly: I fear I shan't finish it before winter. Then I have a little Chinese story accepted for _Harper's Bazar_, which I will send you, and which I think you will like.

Otherwise my plans have changed. With the expansion of my private study, I feel convinced that I know too little to attempt anything like a serious volume of Oriental essays; but my researches have given me a larger fancy in some directions, and new colours, which I can use hereafter. Fiction seems to be the only certain road to the publishers'

hearts, and I shall try it, not in a lengthy, but a brief compa.s.s,--striving as much as possible after intense effects. I think you would like my library if you could see it,--it is one agglomeration of exotics and eccentricities.

And you do not now write much?--do you? I would like to have read the paper you told me of; but I fear the _Manhattan_ is dead beyond resurrection--and, by the way, Richard Grant White has departed to that land which is ruled by absolute silence, and in which a law of fair play, unrecognized by our publishers, doth prevail. Do you never take a vacation? If you could visit our Grande Isle in the healthy season, you would enjoy it so much! An old-fashioned, drowsy, free-and-easy Creole watering-place in the Gulf,--where there is an admirable beach, fishing extraordinary, and subjects innumerable for artistic studies--a hybrid population from all the ends of heaven, white, yellow, red, brown, cinnamon-colour, and tints of bronze and gold. Basques, Andalusians, Portuguese, Malays, Chinamen, etc. I hope to make some pen drawings there.

Have you seen the revised Old Testament? How many of our favourite and beautiful texts have been marred! I almost prefer the oddity of Wickliffe.... And, by the way, I must tell you that Palmer's Koran is a fine book! ("Sacred Books of the East," Macmillan.) Sale is now practically obsolete.

Hoping I will be able, one of these days, to write something that I can worthily dedicate to you,

Believe me Very affectionately, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, October, 1885.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I would suggest as a t.i.tle for Tunison's admirably conceived book, "The Legends of Virgil," or, better still, "The Virgilian Legend" (in the singular), as it is the custom among folklorists to a.s.semble a cla.s.s of interrelated myths or fables under such a general head. Thus we have "The Legend of Melusine, or Mere Lusine;" "The Legend of Myrrdlium, or Merlin;" "The Legend of Don Juan"--although each subject represents a large number of myths, ill.u.s.trating the evolutional history of one idea through centuries. This t.i.tle could be supplemented by an explanatory sub-t.i.tle.

Of course you can rely on me to praise, sincerely and strongly, what I cannot but admire and honourably envy the authorship of. I wish I could even hope to do so fine a piece of serious work as this promises to be.

I am exceedingly grateful for your prompt sending of the Creole songs, which I will return in a day or two. Some Creole music of an _inedited_ kind--just one or two fragments--I would like so as to introduce your role well. I now fear, however, that I shall not be able to devote as much time to the work as I hoped.

As for my "thinkings, doings, and ambitions," I have nothing interesting to tell. I have acc.u.mulated a library worth $2000; I have studied a great deal in directions which have not yet led me to any definite goal; I have made no money by my literary outside work worth talking about; and I have become considerably disgusted with what I have already done.

But I have not yet abandoned the idea of evolutional fiction, and find that my ethnographic and anthropologic reading has enabled me to find a totally new charm in character-a.n.a.lysis, and suggested artistic effects of a new and peculiar description. I dream of a novel, or a novelette, to be constructed upon totally novel principles; but the outlook is not encouraging. Years of very hard work with a problematical result! I feel pretty much like a scholar trying hard to graduate and feeling tolerably uneasy about the result.

Since you have more time now you might drop a line occasionally. I hope to hear you succeed with the Scribners;--if not, I would strongly recommend an effort with Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the most appreciative publishers on this side of the Atlantic.

Yours very affectionately, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1885.

DEAR K.,--I was in hopes by this time to have been able to have sent you for examination a little volume by La Selve, in which a curious account is given of the various negro-creole dances and songs of the Antilles.

The book has been ordered for a very considerable time, but owing to some cause or other, its arrival has been delayed.

I find references made to Duveyrier (_Les Touaregs du Nord_) in regard to the music of those extraordinary desert nomads, who retain their blue eyes and blonde hair under the sun of the Timbuctoo country; and to Endemann (by Hartmann) as a preserver of the music of the Basutos (South Africa). Hartmann himself considers African music--superficially, perhaps, in the smaller volume--in his "Peuples d'Afrique;" and in his "Nigritiens" (Berlin: in 2 vols.). I have the small work ("Peuples d'Afrique") which forms part of the French International Scientific Series, but has not been translated for the American collection.

Hartmann speaks well of the musical "apt.i.tudes" of the African races, while declaring their art undeveloped; and he even says that the famous Egyptian music of Dendera, Edfu, and Thebes never rose above the orchestration at an Ashantee or Monb.u.t.too festival. He even remarks that the instruments of the ancient Egyptian and modern Nigritian peoples are almost similar. He also refers to the negro talents for improvisation, and their peculiar love of animal-fables--the same, no doubt, which found a new utterance in the negro myths of the South. The large work of Hartmann I have never seen, and as it is partly chromolithographed I fear it is very expensive. The names Hartmann and Endemann are very German: I know of the former only through French sources,--perhaps you have seen the original. He supports some of his views with quotations you are familiar with perhaps--from Clapperton, Bowdich, and Schweinfurth.

It is rather provoking that I have not been able to find any specimens of Griot music referred to in French works on Senegal; and I fancy the Griot music would strongly resemble (in its suitability to improvisation especially) the early music of the negroes here. Every French writer on Senegal has something to say about the Griots, but none seem to have known enough music to preserve a chant. The last two works published (Jeannest's "Au Congo" and Marche's "Afrique Occidentale") were written by men without music in their souls. The first publishes pictures of musical instruments, but no music; and the second gives ten lines to the subject in a volume of nearly 400 pp. Seems to me that a traveller who was a musician might cultivate virgin soil in regard to the African music of the interior. All I can find relating to it seems to deal with the music of South Africa and the west and north coasts;--the interior is unknown musically. I expect to receive La Selve soon, however,--and if his announcement be truthful, we shall have something of interest therein regarding the cis-Atlantic Africa.

L. H.

I saw a notice in the _Tribune_ regarding the negro Pan's pipe described by Cable. I never saw it; but the fact is certainly very interesting.

The cane is well adapted to inspire such manufacture.