The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume II Part 43

(This letter goes to you in its first spontaneous form--so much the worse for me!)

"Indifferent" you say. But you ought to see my study-room. It is not very pretty--a little j.a.panese matted room, with gla.s.s sliding windows (upstairs), and a table and chair. Above the table there is the portrait of a young American naval officer in uniform--he is not so young now;--that is a very dear picture. On the opposite wall is the shadow of a beautiful and wonderful person, whom I knew long ago in the strange city of New Orleans. (She was sixteen years old, or so, when I first met her; and I remember that not long afterwards she was dangerously ill, and that several people were afraid she would die in that quaint little hotel where she was then stopping.) The two shadows watch me while the light lasts; and I have the comfortable feeling of monopolizing their sympathy--for they have n.o.body else to look at. The originals would not be able to give me so much of their company.

The lady talks to me about a fire of wreckwood, that used to burn with red and blue lights. I remember that I used to sit long ago by that Rosicrucian glow, and talk to her; but I remember nothing else--only the sound of her voice,--low and clear and at times like a flute. The G.o.ds only know what _I_ said; for my thoughts in those times were seldom in the room,--but in the future, which was black, without stars. But all that was long ago. Since then I have become grey, and the father of three boys.

The naval officer has been here again in the body, however. Indeed, I expect him here, upstairs, in a day or two,--before he goes away to Cavite,--after which I shall probably never see him again. We have sat up till many a midnight,--talking about things.

Whether I shall ever see the original of the other shadow, I do not know. I must leave the Far East for a couple of years, in order to school a little son of mine, who must early begin to learn languages.

Whether I take him to England or America, I do not yet know; but America is not very far from England. Whether the lady of the many-coloured fires would care to let me hear her voice for another evening, sometime in the future, is another question.

Two of the boys are all j.a.panese,--st.u.r.dy and not likely to cause anxiety. But the eldest is almost altogether of another race,--with brown hair and eyes of the fairy-colour,--and a tendency to p.r.o.nounce with a queer little Irish accent the words of old English poems which he has to learn by heart. He is not very strong; and I must give the rest of my life to looking after him.

I wish that I could make a book to please you more often than once a year. (But I have so much work to do!) Curiously enough, some of the thoughts spoken in your letter have been put into the printer's hands--ghostly antic.i.p.ation?--for a book which will probably appear next fall. I cannot now judge whether it will please you--but there are reveries in it, and sundry queer stories.

I think that you once asked me for a portrait of my boy. I send one--but he is now older than his portrait by some two years. I shall send a better one later on, if you wish. I should like to interest you in him--to the simple extent of advising me about him at a later day; for you represent for my imagination all the Sibyls, and your wisdom would be for me as the worth of things precious from the uttermost coasts.

Perhaps something of _me_ lives in that collie you describe: I think that I can understand exactly what she feels when the Invisible gathers about,--that is what she feels in regard to her mistress. A collie _ought_ to recognize the ghostly, anyhow: her ancestors must have sat at the feet of Thomas of Ercildoune. By the way, my poor dog _did_ get murdered after all,--killed by men from a strange village. They were chased by the police; but they "made good their escape." She left behind her three weird little white puppies. We fed them and nursed them, and saved two. It is painful being attached to birds and dogs and cats and other lovable creatures: they die before us, and they have so many sorrows which we cannot protect them from. The old G.o.ds, who loved human beings, must have been very unhappy to see their pets wither and perish in a little s.p.a.ce.

Good-bye for the moment. It was so kind to write me.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MASAn.o.bU OTANI

TOKYO, January, 1900.

MY DEAR OTANI,--I suppose that, when you ask me to express my "approval"

or non-approval of a society for the study of literature, etc., you want a sincere opinion. My sincere opinion will not please you, I fear, but you shall have it.

There is now in j.a.pan a mania, an insane mania, for perfectly useless organizations of every description. Societies are being formed by hundreds, with all kinds of avowed objects, and dissolved as fast as they are made. It is a madness that will pa.s.s--like many other mad fashions; but it is doing incomparable mischief. The avowed objects of these societies is to do something useful; the real object is simply to waste time in talking, eating, and drinking. The knowledge of the value of time has not yet even been dreamed of in this country.

The study of literature or art is never accompanied by societies of this kind. The study of literature and of art requires and depends upon individual effort, and original thinking. The great j.a.panese who wrote famous books and painted famous pictures did not need societies to help them. They worked in solitude and silence.

No good literary work can come out of a society--no original work, at least. Social organization is essentially opposed to individual effort, to original effort, to original thinking, to original feeling. A society for the study of literature means a society organized so as to render the study of literature, or the production of literature, absolutely impossible.

A literary society is a proof of weakness--not a combination of force.

The strong worker and thinker works and thinks by himself. He does not want help or sympathy or company. His pleasure in the work is enough. No great work ever came out of a literary society,--no great original work.

A literary society, for the purpose of studying literature, is utterly useless. The library is a better place for the study of literature. The best of all places is the solitude of one's own room.

I should not say anything against a society organized for the translation and publication of the whole of Shakespeare's plays,--for example. But translation is a practical matter--not original work, nor even literary study in the highest sense.

Even in the matter of making a dictionary, no society, however, can equal the work of the solitary scholar. The whole French Academy could not produce a dictionary such as Littre produced by himself.

I have said that I think these j.a.panese societies mean a mischievous waste of time. Think of the young scholars who go from j.a.pan to Europe for higher study. They are trained by the most learned professors in the world,--they are prepared in every way to become creators, original thinkers, literary producers. And when they return to j.a.pan, instead of being encouraged to work, they are asked to waste their time in societies, to attend banquets, to edit magazines, to deliver addresses, to give lectures free of charge, to correct ma.n.u.scripts, to do everything which can possibly be imagined to prevent them from working.

They cannot do anything; they are not allowed to do anything; their learning and their lives are made barren. They are treated, not like human beings with rights, but like machines to be used, and brutally used, and worn out as soon as possible.

While this rage for wasting time in societies goes on there will be no new j.a.panese literature, no new drama, no new poetry--nothing good of any kind. Production will be made impossible and only the commonplace translation of foreign ideas. The meaning of time, the meaning of work, the sacredness of literature are unknown to this generation.

And what is the use of founding a new journal? There are too many journals now. You can publish whatever you want without founding a journal. If you found a journal, you will be obliged to write for it quickly and badly; and you know that good literary work cannot be done quickly,--cannot be made to order within a fixed time. A new journal--unless you choose to be a journalist, and nothing but a journalist--would mean not only waste of time, but waste of money.

I am speaking in this way, because I think that literature is a very serious and sacred thing--not an amus.e.m.e.nt, not a thing to trifle and play with.

Handicapped as you now are,--with an enormous number of cla.s.s-hours,--you cannot attempt any literature work at all, without risking your health and injuring your brains. It is much more important that you should try to get a position allowing you more leisure.

And finally, I have small sympathy with the mere study of English literature by j.a.panese students and scholars. I should infinitely prefer to hear of new studies in j.a.panese literature. Except with the sole purpose of making a new _j.a.panese_ literature, I do not sympathize with English or French or German studies.

There is my opinion for you. I hope you will think about it,--even if you do not like it. Work with a crowd, and you will _never_ do anything great.

Many years ago, I advised you to take up a scientific study. It would have given you more leisure for literary work. You would not. You will have future reason to regret this. But if you want advice again, here it is: _Don't_ belong to societies, _don't_ write anything that comes into your head, _don't_ waste the poor little time you have. Take literature seriously,--or leave it alone.

Yours very truly, Y. KOIZUMI.

TO YASUKOCHI

TOKYO, November, 1901.

DEAR MR. YASUKOCHI,--Not the least of my pleasure in looking at the fine photograph, so kindly sent to my little son, was in observing how very well and strong you appear to be. Let me also have the privilege of thanking you--though my boy, of course, sends his small recognition of the favour.

Your letter of September 3d interested me very much; for I had not heard anything about you at all since the last visit you made to my little house in Tomihisa-cho. For example, I had not heard of your going to k.u.mamoto Ken; and although I often wondered about you, I knew n.o.body who could inform me. (I had, indeed, one k.u.mamoto pupil, Mr. Gosho; but I quite forgot about his having been in my cla.s.s at k.u.mamoto, until he came to see me after graduating--to say good-bye.) The experience of army-life which you have had must have been somewhat hard as discipline; but I imagine that, after all those years of severe study and mental responsibility, the change to another and physical discipline must have been good from the point of health. I think that it probably made you stronger; and I am glad you were in the artillery-corps,--where one has an opportunity to learn so many things of lasting value. But I trust that many years will elapse before j.a.pan again needs your services in a military capacity.

It was kind of you to remember Numi. A curious thing happened after the last time we saw him. One in my household dreamed that he came back, in his uniform, looking very pale, and speaking of a matter concerning his family. The next day, the papers began to print the first accounts of the ship being missing. The coincidence was curious. The matter of which he seemed to have spoken was looked after, as he would have wished.

I have no doubt at all of good things to come for you, if you keep as strong as your picture now proves you to be. The rest will be, I think, only a question of time and patience. I look forward with pleasure to the probability of seeing you again. (Except that I have got greyer, I fear you will find me the same as of old,--somewhat queer, etc.) I have been working very steadily, rather than hard; but by systematically doing just exactly so much every day, neither more nor less, I find that I am able to do a good deal in the course of a year. I mean "good deal" in the sense of "quant.i.ty"--the quality, of course, depends upon circ.u.mstances rather than effort.

Thanks, again, for your kindness in sending the photograph, and for the pleasant letter about yourself. May all good fortune be yours is the earnest wish of

Y. KOIZUMI.

TO YRJo HIRN

TOKYO, January, 1902.

DEAR PROFESSOR,--About a week ago I received from Messrs. Wahlstrom and Weilstrand--how strangely impressive these Northern names!--the dainty "Exotica," with its sunrise and flying-swallows-design, and--my name and private address in j.a.panese thereon!... I have sent a book for Mrs.

Hirn. If there are any of my books that you do not know, and would like to have,--such as "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields" or "Youma"--I shall be glad to have them sent you from America.

Thanks indeed for the photograph. I had imagined a face with the same strong, precise lines, but in a blond setting. Yet some shades of fair hair come out dark in photographs--so that I am not yet quite sure how far my intuition miscarried. You are what I imagined--but a shade or two stronger in line.

As for myself, I have no decent photograph at present.... I am horribly disfigured by the loss of the left eye--so get photographed usually in profile, or looking downward. I am a very small person; and when young, was very dark, with the large alarming eyes of a myope.

I imagine that you have been tactfully kind in your prefatory notice of me. I could only guess; but your letter confirms a number of my guesses.

The article by Zilliacus, to which you refer, I do not know: I cannot read German in any event. The paper by Dr. Varigny in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ was a mere fantasy,--unjust in the fact that it accredited me with faculties and knowledge which I do not possess. The mere truth of the matter is that I have had a rather painful experience of life, for lack of the very qualities ascribed to me. (In American existence one must either grind or be ground--I pa.s.sed most of my time between the grindstones.)

As for the choice of the subjects translated, it gave me most pleasure to find some of my "Retrospectives" in that stern and st.u.r.dy tongue: it was a bracing experience. The selections from "Glimpses" I should not have advised; for the book is disfigured by faults of "journalistic"

style, and was written before I really began to understand, not j.a.pan, but how difficult it is to understand j.a.pan. Nevertheless your judgement in this particular was coincident with the general decision: the story of the Shirabyoshi has, for example, appeared in four languages. It is a story of the painter Buncho,--and the merit is in no wise mine, as I merely paraphrased a j.a.panese narrative. Don't think me ungrateful, please, because I express my preferences thus. Really the experience of trying to follow in Swedish the meaning of my "Serenade," etc., was more than a delight,--and I imagined that the translator had successfully aimed at reproducing in Swedish the rhythm of the English sentences.