The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume II Part 19

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--I never liked any letter I got from you more than the last--which brings us closer together. I suppose I have often misread you--being more supersensitive than I ought to be,--and also finding certain of my best friends so differently soul-toned that I am often at a loss to understand hows and whys. But it is curious that we are absolutely at one, after all, on sociological questions, as your letter shows. Undoubtedly the "coming slavery," predicted by Spencer, will come upon us. A democracy more brutal than any Spartan oligarchy will control life. Men may not be obliged to eat at a public table; but every item of their existence will be regulated by law. The world will be sickened for all time of democracy as now preached. The future tyranny will be worse than any of old,--for it will be a regime of moral rather than physical pain, and there will be no refuge from it--except among savages. But, for all that, the people are good. They will be trapped through their ignorance, and held in slavery by their ignorance; and made, I suppose, in the eternal order, to develop a still higher goodness before they can reach freedom again.

I believe there is no point of your letter in which we are not thoroughly at accord. I have also been inclined to many schools of belief in these matters: I have been at heart everything by turns. It is like the history of one's religious experiences. And just as when, after emanc.i.p.ating one's self from the last mesh of the net of creeds, one sees for the first time the value-social and meaning of all, and the moral worth of many,--so in sociological questions, it is by emanc.i.p.ation from faiths in politics that one learns what lies behind all politics,--the necessity of the Conservative vs. the Radical, of the pleb. vs. the aristo. Then, if sympathetic with popular needs one still recognizes the aesthetic and moral value of ranks and orders; or, if belonging to the latter, one learns also to understand that the great, good, unhappy, moral, immoral, vicious, virtuous people are the real soil of all future hope,--the field of the divine in Man.

But for all that, when conditions jar on me, I sometimes grumble and see only evil. What matter? I never look for it as a study. My work--though "no great shakes"--must show you that. At the end of all experiences, bitter and pleasant, I try to sum up good only.

What I said about the Germans you may not have understood. I did not explain. There is, I think, a particular German characteristic which has its charm. Accustomed for generations to a communal form of life--totally different from that of the English--there has been developed among them a certain spirit of tolerance and a social inclination essentially German. Also the poverty of their country has nourished a tendency to sobriety of life, while the causes developing their educational system on a wonderful level of economy have brought the race, I believe, to a higher general plane than others. I don't mean that the top-shoots are higher than French or English; but I think the middle growth educationally is. At all events a German community in America or in j.a.pan, while it remains German--has a peculiar charm--an independence of conventions, as distinguished from the religious and social codes,--and an exterior affability,--quite different from the individualism of other communities. Perhaps, however, the friendship never goes quite as deep as in those isolated natures so much harder to win.

The essay by Spencer you will find in a volume sent you by mail, and sent to me by my American friend. It did not appear in the old editions.

Perhaps I may try the feat some day of a j.a.panese study on those lines,--though I must acknowledge that I now perceive several of my views entirely wrong. I also perceive how closely Lowell reached the neighbourhood of truth without being able, nevertheless, (or willing?) to actually touch it. My conclusion is that the charm of j.a.panese life is largely the charm of childhood, and that the most beautiful of all race childhoods is pa.s.sing into an adolescence which threatens to prove repulsive. Perhaps the manhood may redeem all,--as with English "bad boys" it often does.

I fear I can scarcely finish "Occult j.a.pan," and that I praised it too much in my late letter, after hasty examination. It strikes me only as a mood of the man, an ugly, supercilious one, verging on the wickedness of a wish to hurt. When my eyes improve, I should like better to see his work on Mars. I don't wish to say that my work is as good as Lowell's "Soul of the Far East;" but it is a curious fact that in at least a majority of the favourable criticisms I have been spoken of as far more successful than Lowell. Why? Certainly not because I am his equal, either as a thinker or an observer. The reason is simply that the world considers the sympathetic mood more just than the a.n.a.lytical or critical. And except when the critic is a giant like Spencer or his peers,--I fear the merely critical mood will always be blind to the most vital side of any human question. For the more vital side is feeling,--not reason. This, indeed, Spencer showed long ago. But there was in the "Soul of the Far East" an exquisite approach to playful tenderness--utterly banished from "Occult j.a.pan."

Ever yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, February, 1895.

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--Thanks for the curious historical envelopes. My eyes are nearly well: there is still one small black spot in the centre of the field of vision; but I trust it will go away as soon as the weather becomes warm.

I am delighted to know you like the book. A curious fact is that out of fifty criticisms sent me, in which the critics select "favourites,"

I find that almost every article in the book has been selected by somebody. It thus seems to appeal to persons of totally different temperament in different ways, and this fact suggests itself,--that perhaps no book written entirely in one key can please so well as a book written in many keys. However, the work must be unconscious. If you are curious about any of the "inside facts," I shall be glad to tell you. The "Teacher's Diary" is, of course, strictly true as to means and facts; and the artistic work is simply one of "grouping." The cruiser at Mionoseki was the Takachiho,--since become famous. Hino-misaki and Yaegaki ought to contain something you would like,--so I trust you will peep at them some time. The Guji of Hino-misaki is my wife's relative, and the story of his ancestor is quite true.

As for j.a.panese words, you might like "Out of the East" better. I don't think there are five j.a.panese words in the book. But it is chiefly reverie--contains little about facts or places. Perhaps you will be less pleased with it in another way.

As for changing my conclusions,--well, I have had to change a good many.

The tone of "Glimpses" is true in being the feeling of a place and time.

Since then I've seen how thoroughly detestable j.a.panese can be, and that revelation a.s.sisted in illuminating things. I am now convinced, for example, that the deficiency of the s.e.xual instinct (using the term philosophically) in the race is a serious defect rather than a merit, and is very probably connected with the absence of the musical sense and the incapacity for abstract reasoning. It does not follow, however, that the same instinct may not have been overdeveloped in our own case. To an Englishman, it would appear that such overdevelopment among Latin races would account for the artistic superiority as well as the moral weakness of French and Italians in special directions;--and the fact that even certain cla.s.ses of music are now called sensual (not sensuous), and that there is a tendency to abjure Italian music in favour of the more aspirational German music,--would seem to show that the largest-brained races are reaching a stage in abstract aesthetics still higher than the highest possible development of the aesthetics based on the s.e.xual feeling. That the j.a.panese can ever reach our aesthetic stage seems to me utterly impossible, but a.s.suredly what they lack in certain directions they may prove splendidly capable of making up in others. Indeed the development of the mathematical faculty in the race--unchecked and unmollified by our cla.s.s of aesthetics and idealisms--ought to prove a serious danger to Western civilization at last. At least it seems to me that here is a danger. j.a.pan ought to produce scientific, political, and military haters of "ideologists,"--Napoleons of practical applications of science. All that is tender and manly and considerate and heroic in Northern character has certainly grown out of the s.e.xual sentiment: but the same cla.s.s of feelings in the far East would seem to have been evolved out of a different cla.s.s of emotional habits, and a cla.s.s bound to disappear. Imagine a civilization on Western lines with cold calculation universally subst.i.tuted for ethical principle! The suggestion is very terrible and very ugly. One would prefer even the society of the later Roman Empire.

I am sorry your eyes are not all you could wish. Do you not think it may be the weather? The doctor tells me my eyes will be all right in summer, but that I have to be careful in cold weather. And the tropics did me wonderful good. I want to get to the warm zones occasionally--perhaps shall be able to. There are some tropics bad for the eyes,--lacking verdure. I have been unable to get facts about tropical conditions on this side of the world,--except through Wallace. Ceram suggests possibilities. But one must be well informed before going. Then there are the French Marquesas. A French colony ought to be full of romance, and void of missionaries. But all these are dreams.

Ever faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, March, 1895.

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--It was very comforting to get a letter from you; for I wanted an impulse to write. I have been blue--by reason partly of the weather; and partly because of those reactions which follow all accomplished work in some men's cases. Everything done then seems like an Elle-woman,--a mere delusive sh.e.l.l; and one marvels why anybody should have been charmed.

Of course I did not ask point-blank for criticisms, because you told me long ago, "Every man should make his own book,"--and, although it is the literary custom in America to consult friends, I could see justice in the suggestion. The t.i.tle "Out of the East" was selected from a number. It was suggested only by the motto of the Oriental Society, "Ex Oriente lux." The "Far East" has been so monopolized by others that I did not like to use the phrase. "Out of the Uttermost East" would sound cacophonously,--besides suggesting a straining for effect. I thought of Tennyson's "most eastern east," but the publishers didn't approve it. The simpler the t.i.tle, and the vaguer--in my case--the better: the vagueness touches curiosity. Besides, the book is a vague thing.

Sound has much to do with the value of a t.i.tle. If it hadn't, you would have written "j.a.panese Things" instead of "Things j.a.panese"--which is entirely different, and so pretty that your admirers and imitators snapped it up at once. So we have "Things Chinese" by an imitator, and "Things j.a.panese" is a phrase which has found its recognized place in the vocabulary of critics of both worlds. Your criticism on "Out of the East," though, would have strongly influenced me, if you had sent it early enough. I noticed the very same suggestion in the _Athenaeum_ regarding the use of the word "Orient" and the phrase "Far East"

by Americans. For our "Orient" is, as you say, still the Orient of Kinglake, of De Nerval, etc. But why should it be? To Milton it was the Indian East with kings barbaric sitting under a rain of pearls and gold.

Manila was long my dream. But, although my capacity for sympathy with the beliefs of Catholic peasantry anywhere is very large,--the ugly possibility exists that the Inquisition survives in Manila, and I have had the ill-fortune to make the Jesuits pay some attention to me. You know about the young Spaniard who had his property confiscated, and who disappeared some years ago,--and was restored to liberty only after heaven and earth had been moved by his friends in Spain. I don't know that I should disappear; but I should certainly have obstacles thrown in my way. Mexico would be a safer country for the same cla.s.s of studies,--Ceram ought to be interesting: in Wallace's time the cost of life per individual was only about 8s. 6d. a year! A moist, hot tropical climate I like best. The heat is weakening, I know, but that moisture means the verdure that is a delight to the eyes, and palms, and parrots, and b.u.t.terflies of enormous size;--and no possibility of establishing Western conditions of life. I should like very much to see the book you kindly offered to lend me. It might create new aspirations: I am always at night dreaming of islands in undiscovered seas, where all the people are G.o.ds and fairies.

Of course I cannot know much about it now, but I am almost sure of having been in Malta as a child. At a later time my father, who was long there, told me queer things about the old palaces of the knights, and a story about a monk who, on the coming of the French, had the presence of mind to paint the gold chancel-railing with green paint. Southern Italy and the Mediterranean islands are especially fitted for cla.s.sical scholars, like Symonds; but what a world of folk-lore also is there still ungathered! I should think that, next to Venice, Malta must be the most romantic spot in Europe.

I see your paper on Loochoo must have been much more than what you said of it,--viz., that only some snuffy German would read it. Or was the London report about the paper on Loochoo which I have? (There must be a wonderful ghost-world in those islands,--though it would be quite hard to get at: probably three years' work.)

You can't imagine my feeling of reaction in the matter of j.a.panese psychology. It seems as if everything had quite suddenly become clear to me, and utterly void of emotional interest: a race primitive as the Etruscan before Rome was, or more so, adopting the practices of a larger civilization under compulsion,--five thousand years at least emotionally behind us,--yet able to suggest to us the existence of feelings and ideals which do not exist, but are simulated by something infinitely simpler. Wonder if our own highest things have not grown up out of equally simple things. The compulsion first--then the sense of duty become habit, automatic, the conviction expanding into knowledge of ethical habit,--then the habit creating conviction,--then relations,--then the capacity for general ideas. But all the educational system now seems to me farcical and wrong,--except in mere dealing with facts apparent to common sense. There are no depths to stir, no race-profundities to explore: all is like a j.a.panese river-bed, through which the stones and rocks show up all the year round,--and is never filled but in time of cataclysm and destruction.

Ever faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, March, 1895.

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--Of course send back the Taylor and Pater--if you don't care for them. I myself was very much disappointed in Pater.

Perhaps my liking for Taylor is connected with boyish recollections of his facile charm: even Longfellow cannot greatly thrill me now. And may I make a confession?--I can't endure any more of Wordsworth, Keats, and Sh.e.l.ley--having learned the gems of them by heart. I really prefer Dobson and Watson and Lang. Of Wordsworth Watson sings,--

"It may be thought has broadened since he died!"

Well, I should smile! His deepest truths have become plat.i.tudes.

This reminds me that I have wanted to talk to you about a magical bit of Hugo's, "Chant de Sophocle a Salamine." It is such a striking instance of Hugo's greatness and littleness. You know it, I suppose. It opens thus:--

Me voila! Je suis un Ephebe,-- Mes seize ans sont d'azur baignes, Guerre, Deesse de l'Erebe,-- Sombre Guerre _aux cris indignes_.

The italicized words make me mad. It is a bathos, the fourth line--shrieking bathos; while the first part of the verse is like a Greek frieze. But let us go on:--

Je viens a toi, la nuit est noire!

Puisque Xerces est le plus fort, Prends-moi pour la lutte et la gloire, Et pour la tombe,--mais d'abord,--

(Now for the magnificence!)

Toi dont le glaive est le ministre, Toi que l'Eclair suit dans les cieux, Choisis-moi de ta main sinistre Une belle fille aux doux yeux.

What makes the splendour of this verse? Not only the tremendous contrast,--apocalyptic. It is especially, I think, the magnificent dual use of "sinistre." How Hugoish the whole thing is!...

I fear that what I said long ago is likely to come true: the first fire is burnt out,--the zeal is dead,--the educational effort (one of the most colossal in all history, surely) having served its immediate purpose (the recovery of national autonomy) is dead. Hence there is a prospect of decay.

Now I should like to protest against this danger in a review-article: say, "History of the Decline and Fall of Education in j.a.pan;" or, "History of Foreign Teaching in j.a.pan." Could I get doc.u.ments?--just a skeleton at least; of statistics, rules, details, numbers. The article has been in my mind for two years. And I notice the j.a.panese don't object to healthy criticisms at all,--rather like them. They hate petting-talk, however,--and stupid misinterpretations. I should like to try the thing.

I think it is Amenomori who is writing rather savage things in the _Chronicle_ just now, about the Mombusho, and threatens to write more. There is a something unpleasant in the tone of j.a.panese satire to me,--however clever, it shows that they have not yet reached the same perception of sensibility as we have. Of course I refer only to the best of them--masters. The sympathetic touch is always absent. I feel unhappy at being in the company of a cultivated j.a.panese for more than an hour at a time. After the first charm of formality is over, the man becomes ice--or else suddenly drifts away from you into his own world, far from ours as the star Rephan.

You will be pleased to hear that I have not yet dropped money. I have made nothing to speak of, but have lost none so far. By fall I suppose I shall have made something, though no fortune, out of "Glimpses." If I can clear enough to justify a tropical trip, I shall be satisfied.

Malta must be delightful. But I am not enough of a scholar to use such an opportunity as Malta would give. I should do better with Spain and gipsies, or Pondicherry and Klings.

By the way, my child-tongue was Italian. I spoke Romaic and Italian by turns. In New Orleans I hired a teacher to teach me,--thinking memory would come back again. But it didn't come at all, and I quarrelled with the teacher, who looked exactly like a murderer and never smiled. So I know not Italian.

Ever faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN