The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume II Part 48

I am not sure whether you would care for Nitobe's book "Bushido"--a very small volume, or rather treatise upon the _morale_ of Samurai education. From a literary standpoint it would not tempt you: it is only a kind of "apology." But it is to some extent instructive....

I suppose that Dr. Hirn will meet Domenico Comparetti, the author of "The Traditional Poetry of the Finns." I gave a lecture lately on the poetical values of the "Kalewala," and I found that book of great use to me.

Please excuse my loquacity, and let me wish you and the doctor every happiness and success. Perhaps I shall write you again--from America.

Only the G.o.ds know.

Sincerely yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MRS. WETMORE

TOKYO, August, 1903.

DEAR MRS. WETMORE,--I am sorry for my dismal letter of the other day. I feel to-day much braver, and think that I can fight it out here in j.a.pan. Anyhow, I have discovered that I have a fair chance of being able to live by my work--providing my health is good; and if I _must_ live by my pen, there is no place in the world where I can do so more cheaply than here. When my boy is bigger, I may be able to send him abroad. Unless I could make money in America, it were little use to drop two thousand dollars (j.a.panese money) for going and coming. Besides, out of those lectures in book-form I shall make some money....

For the present, I think that I shall simply sit down, and work as hard as Zola,--though that is to compare a gnat to an eagle. It only remains for me to express to you all possible devotion of grat.i.tude. If I had dreamed of the real state of things, I should long ago have begged you to do nothing for me in high places. I have tried to break out of my chrysalis too soon,--but, with the help of the G.o.ds, my wings will grow.

To have even one well-wisher like you in America, is much;--and I have a friend or two in England, some in France, some in Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. _Non omnis moriar_ thus.

You will hear from me in print:--there I can give you pleasure, perhaps: I am not fit to write letters. But I am getting very strong again.

With reverential grat.i.tude, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MRS. WETMORE

TOKYO, 1903.

DEAR MRS. WETMORE,--I have your kindest note of June 16th, and am returning, with unspeakable thanks, the letters forwarded. I have written also to President Remsen and to President Taylor, as you wished me to do, directly.

You will be glad to hear that I am almost strong again; but I fear that I shall never be strong enough to lecture before a general public.

Before a university audience I could do something, I believe; but the strain of speaking in a theatre would be rather trying. The great and devouring anxiety is for some regular employ--something that will a.s.sure me the means to live. With that certainty, I can do much. Lecturing will, I fear, be at best a most hazardous means of living. But it may help me to something permanent. I have now nearly completed twenty-one lectures: they will form eventually a serious work upon j.a.pan, entirely unlike anything yet written. The substantial idea of the lectures is that j.a.panese society represents the condition of ancient Greek society a thousand years before Christ. I am treating of religious j.a.pan,--not of artistic or economical j.a.pan, except by way of ill.u.s.tration. Lowell's "Soul of the Far East" is the only book of the kind in English; but I have taken a totally different view of the causes and the evolution of things.

I am worried about my boy--how to save him out of this strange world of cruelty and intrigue. And I dream of old ugly things--things that happened long ago, I am alone in an American city; and I have only ten cents in my pocket,--and to send off a letter that I must send will take three cents. That leaves me seven cents for the day's food. Now, I am not hard up, by any means: I can wait another six months in j.a.pan without anxiety. But the horror of being without employ in an American city appalls me--because I remember. All of which is written in haste to catch the mail. How good you are! I ought not to tell you of any troubles of mine--but _if_ I could not, what would have happened me?

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MRS. WETMORE

TOKYO, October, 1903.

DEAR MRS. WETMORE,--I have had a charming letter from Va.s.sar,--indicating that the president must be a charming person.

I have also--which surprised me--the most generous of letters from Sir William Van Horne, President of the C. P. R. R., agreeing to furnish me with means of transportation, both ways, to Montreal and back to j.a.pan.

I shall have to do some writing, probably; but that is a great chance, and I am grateful.

French friends have taken up the cudgels for me against the j.a.panese Government--unknown friends. The _Aurore_ had a 2-col. article ent.i.tled "_Ingrat.i.tude Nationale_," which somebody sent me from Italy. I am too much praised; but the reproach to j.a.pan is likely to do me good. For I have really been badly treated, and the Government ought to be made ashamed.

I am _nearly_ quite well, though not quite as strong as I should wish. My lectures, recast into chapters, will form a rather queer book--perhaps make a quite novel impression.

I have a little daughter; and all that anxiety is past. (If I could only get quite strong, I could make a good fight for myself later on.) Anyhow, I see no great difficulty about an American trip, once the sharp cold is over; and I think you will be glad of this note from your troublesome but always grateful

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MRS. WETMORE

TOKYO, December, 1903.

DEAR MRS. WETMORE,-- ... Of course your critics have been kind.

Other things of yours seemed to have a distinct quality; but this is your Self, the clearest and dearest best of you. It is so much alive that I cannot believe I have been reading a story: I thought that I knew and remembered all the people and all that they said--surely none of the life in those pages could have been imagined! I am puzzled by the brightness of the memories and the freshness of the feeling: the real world of self-seeking has such power to dull and numb that I cannot understand how you could have conserved the whole delightfulness of child-experience in spite of New York....

With me all the past is a blur--except the pain of it. It is not so much what one sees in your story, or what one hears folk say, that makes the thing so pleasing: it is rather the soft appeal made to one's moral understanding. I mean that I never imagined how good and brave and lovable those people were till you made me comprehend. And I felt about as "home-sick" as it is lawful for a j.a.panese citizen to feel.

But I am afraid that your very own South is now of the past:--wherefore we can appreciate it incomparably more than when it was our every-day environment....

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO TANABE

TOKYO, January, 1904.

DEAR MR. TANABE,--I received your kind New Year's greeting, and your good letter; and if I have delayed so long in replying, it has been only because, for some weeks past, I have not had five minutes to spare.

I was much touched by the sad news about your little girl,--and I can understand all that one does not write about such matters. Some nine years ago, I very nearly lost my little boy: we sat up with him night after night for weeks, always dreading that he was to be taken from us. Fortunately he was saved; but the pain of such an experience is not easily forgotten. As a general rule, the first child born to young parents is difficult to bring up. With the next, it is very different;--perhaps you will be more fortunate later on. One has to be brave about such matters. When Goethe was told of the death of his only son, he exclaimed: "Forward--over the dead!" and sat down to write, though the blow must have been terrible to him,--for he was a loving father.

I suppose that Mr. Ibaraki will soon be coming back to j.a.pan. He deserves much success and praise;--for he had great obstacles to overcome as a student, and triumphed over them. I do not know who told him that I was going to England; but several persons were so--incorrectly--informed. Whether I shall go or not remains for the present undecided.

Of course the real philosophy of "Undine" is the development of what Germans call "the Mother-Soul" in a young girl. By marriage and maternity certain beautiful qualities of character are suddenly evolved, which had remained invisible before. The book is a parable--that is why it has become a world-cla.s.sic.

What you tell me about your reading puzzles me a little. One must read, I suppose, whatever one can get in the way of English books at Kanazawa. Still, if my advice be worth anything, I should especially recommend you to avoid most of the current novel literature--except as mere amus.e.m.e.nt. The lasting books are few; but one can read them over so many times, with fresh pleasure every time. I should think, however, that Stevenson would both please and profit you,--the last of the great nineteenth-century story-tellers.

May all happiness and success come to you is the sincere wish of

Y. KOIZUMI.

TO ERNEST CROSBY

TOKYO, August, 1904.

DEAR MR. CROSBY,--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 grat.i.tude; and I shall always find myself inclined to seek the good opinion of any man bearing the name of Crosby.

I received recently a copy of _The Whim_ containing some strictures upon the use of the word "regeneration," in one of my articles, as applied to the invigorating and developing effects of militancy in the history of human societies. I am inclined to agree with you that the word was ill-chosen; but it seems to me that your general att.i.tude upon the matter is not in accordance with evolutional truth. Allow me to quote from Spencer:--

"The successive improvements of the organs of sense and motion, and of the internal coordinating apparatus, which uses them, have indirectly resulted from the antagonisms and compet.i.tions of organisms with one another. A parallel truth is disclosed on watching how there evolves the regulating system of a political aggregate, and how there are developed those appliances for offence and defence put in action by it. Everywhere the wars between societies originate governmental structures, and are causes of all such improvements in these structures as increase the efficiency of corporate action against environing societies."

The history of social evolution, I think, amply proves that the higher conditions of civilization have been reached, and could have been reached, only through the discipline of militancy. Until human nature becomes much more developed than it is now, and the sympathies incomparably more evolved, wars will probably continue; and however much we may detest and condemn war as moral crime, it will be scarcely reasonable to declare that its results are purely evil,--certainly not more reasonable than to a.s.sert that to knock down a robber is equally injurious to the moral feelings of the robber and to the personal interest of the striker. As for "regeneration"--the Reformation, the development of European Protestantism and of intellectual liberty, the French Revolution, the Independence of the United States (to mention only a few instances of progress), were rendered possible only by war. As for j.a.pan--immediately after her social organization had been dislocated by outside pressure,--and at a time when serious disintegrations seemed likely,--the results of the war with China were certainly invigorating. National self-confidence was strengthened, national discords extinguished, social disintegrations checked, the sentiment of patriotism immensely developed. To understand these things, of course, it is necessary to understand the j.a.panese social organization. What holds true of one form of society, as regards the evil of war, does not necessarily hold true of another.