The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume I Part 34

S. C.--"Miss E-liz-a-beth Bisland--?"

C.--"No, sir!"

S. C.--"Isn't this 136 Madison Avenue?"

C.--"Yes.--Used to live here.--Moved."

S. C.--"Do you not know where--?"

C.--"No, sir."

S. C.--"None of her friends or relatives here, who could tell me?"

C.--"No!"

The sudden closing of the door here made a Period and a Finis.

Then I wandered away down a double row of magnificent things that seemed less buildings than petrifactions,--astonishments of loftiness and silent power,--and wondered how Miss Elizabeth Bisland must have felt when she first trod these enormous pavements and beheld these colossal dreams of stone trying to touch the moon. And reaching my friend Krehbiel's house I made this brief record of my vain effort to meet the grey eyes of E. B.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

SAINT-PIERRE, MARTINIQUE, 1887.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I was delighted to get your letter, the first which reached me from America during my trip. My own correspondence has been irregular, though I have written a good many short letters; but the amount of work on my hands has been something enormous,--and I have only had five idle days, caused by a fever due to imprudence. I got into a marshy town, got wet, and came home with a burning headache. The result was not serious except that I had to stop all writing for a while.

You ask me to send you a hint about my work; but I think it were best to say nothing about it. I have a very large ma.s.s of MS. prepared, and don't yet know what I am going to do with it: it is not polished as I should wish, but I hope to work it into proper shape in a few days more.

It consists simply of a detailed account of impressions, sensations, colours, etc. I have tried to put the whole _feeling_ of the trip on paper. Then I have about $60 worth of photos to ill.u.s.trate it. My photo set is very complete;--I have also a rich collection of Coolie and half-breed types, including many nude studies.

Strange as you may think it, this trip knocks the poetry out of me! The imagination is not stimulated, but paralyzed by the satiation of all its aspirations and the realization of its wildest dreams, The artistic sense is numbed by the display of colours which no artist could paint; and the philosophical sense is lulled to inactivity by the perpetual current of novel impressions, by the continual stream of unfamiliar sensory experiences. Concentration of mind is impossible.

It pleases me, however, to have procured material for stories, which I can write up at home; and for romantic material the West Indies offer an unparalleled field of research. I shall return to them again at my earliest opportunity;--the ground is absolutely untilled, and it is not in the least likely that anybody in the shape of a Creole is ever going to till it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAINT-PIERRE AND MT. PELeE BEFORE THE ERUPTION]

By this time you will have seen the doll. I want to remind you that this is more than a doll; it is really an artistic model of the dress worn by the women of Martinique,--big earrings and all. The real earrings and necklaces are pure gold; the former worth 175 francs a pair; the latter often running as high as 500, 600, even 900 francs.

In case this reaches you before leaving New York, I hope you will be able to make some arrangement with Joe or somebody, so that I can put my things in a place of safety for a day or two, until I can try to arrange matters with the Harpers. I will be obliged to stay a short while in New York,--and shall want a room badly, until my MS. and photos have been disposed of, and my proof-reading has been done on "Chita." With affectionate regards to all,

Very truly yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

P. S. I return with the Barracouta.

My inquiries about the Marimba and other instruments have produced no result except the discovery that our negroes play the guitar, the flute, the flageolet, the cornet-a-piston! Some play very well; all the orchestras and bands are coloured. But the civilized instrument has killed the native manufacture of aboriginalities. The only hope would be in the small islands, or where slavery still exists, as in Cuba, There are one or two African songs still current, but they are sung to the tam-tam--

Welleli, welleli, hm, hm!

Papa mon ce papa mon hm, hm!

Welleli, welleli, hm, hm!

Maman mon ce maman mon hm, hm!

Welleli, etc.

TO ELIZABETH BISLAND

GEORGETOWN, DEMERARA, July, 1887.

DEAR MISS BISLAND,--I suppose you will have just a tiny little bit of curiosity to know about my impressions here? They have been all flavoured with that enchanting sensation which artists term _surprise_.

The effect upon me has been such that I think the North will always look torpid to me,--as a benumbed and livid part of our planet. Nearly all these isles are volcanic; and this largely accounts for the green and purple symmetry of their shapes. The colours are of the kind called "impossible;"--and the days have such an azure expansion, so enormous a luminosity that it does not really seem to be _our_ sky above, but the heaven of some larger world.

That's all I can attempt to say about it now (in a general way) without wearying you.

Imagine old New Orleans, the dear quaint part of it, young and idealized as a master-artist might idealize it,--made all tropical, with narrower and brighter streets, all climbing up the side of a volcanic peak to a tropical forest, or descending in terraces of steps to the sea;--fancy our Creole courts filled with giant mangoes and columnar palms (a hundred feet in height sometimes); and everything painted in bright colours, and everybody in a costume of more than Oriental picturesqueness;--and astonishments of half-breed beauty;--and a grand tepid wind enveloping the city in one perpetual perfumed caress,--fancy all this, and you may have a faint idea of the sweetest, queerest, darlingest little city in the Antilles: _Saint-Pierre_, Martinique. I hope it will be my residence for the next two months,--and for the latter part of my wretched little existence. I love it as if it were a human being.

Outside are queer little French islands, with queer names--_Marie Galante_ is rather an old appellation for an island,--full of Cytherean suggestion.

We leave this very fantastic and unhealthy land--now smitten with Gold-fever as well as other maladies--to-morrow. Then will come Trinidad, with its Hindoo villages to see. Photos, bought at Demerara and St. Kitts, predict visions of Indian grace worth daring the perpendicular sun to see. I am now the only pa.s.senger. My last companion--a fine Northwestern man--goes, I fear, to leave his bones in the bush. From the interior men are being carried back to the coast to die, yet the stream pours on to the gold-mines. My miner thinks he can stand it: he has dug for African gold, under a fiercer sky. He was an odd fellow. Saw no beauty in these islands. "No, partner--if you want to see scenery see the Rockies: that's something to look at! Even the sea's afraid of them mountains,--ran away from them: you can see four thousand feet up where the sea tried to climb before it got scared!"

Sometimes the apes on board are taught the experiences of life, the advantages of civilization. Torpedoes are tied to their tails; fire-crackers surround them with circles of crepitation and flame. Also they are occasionally paralyzed by unexpected sensations of electricity;--they have made the acquaintance of a galvanic battery; they have been induced to do foolish things which resulted in sharp and unfamiliar pains and burnings. Their lives are astonishments, and prolonged spasms of terror.

The sea at night is an awful and magnificent sight. It looks infernal,--Acherontic;--black surges that break into star-spray;--an abyss full of moving lights that come and go.

Well, I can't write a good letter now;--wait till I get back to Martinique. I wanted you to _know_ I had not forgotten my promise to write. You must make a trip down here some day. It is not hotter than New York except in the sun.

_You can do whatever you wish._ You have force to do it. You have more brains in your finger-tips than some who have managed to get a big reputation. The little talk about Grande Isle that night was an absolute poem,--gave me a sense of the charm of the place such as I felt the first beautiful morning there. You don't know what you can do, _if you want to_.

I think I should do something with this novel material, it is so rich in absurd colour! But I don't feel enthusiastic now. Enthusiasm has been numbed by a long series of violent sensations and unexpected experiences. I have artistic indigestion;--going to try to dream it away at divine, paradisaical Martinique. There I will write you again. My address will be, care American Consul. But you mustn't write unless you have plenty of time;--I am only paying my debts, not trying to make you waste paper answering me.

I believe I am beginning to write absurdities: it is so hot that rain-clouds form in one's head.

Good-bye, believe the best you can of me.

Your friend, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO ELIZABETH BISLAND

SAINT-PIERRE, MARTINIQUE, 1887.

DEAR MISS BISLAND,--I am settled here for at least a month:--wish I could settle here forever. I love this quaint, whimsical, wonderfully-coloured little town,--all its ups and downs, vistas of azure harbour and overshadowing volcanic hills,--all the stones that whisper under the myriad naked feet of this fantastic population. It pleases me to find my affection for it is not merely inspiration: the place has fascinated more than one practical American,--persuaded them to abandon ambitions, contests, popular esteem, friends, society,--and to settle here for the rest of their days, in delightful indolence and dreamy content.

In my trunk I have something for you: a Coolie girl's bracelet. It will not look so well on your arm as on hers, because its effect depends on a background of dark colour; and all this clumsy Indian jewelry is inartistically wrought. It is indeed made chiefly for economical reasons. Coolies so carry their wealth;--I saw one Hindoo wife with some $900 worth of jewelry upon her.

In the little Coolie village near Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, I sat, and looked at rudely painted Indian G.o.ds, while waiting for the silversmith to sit down before his ridiculous little anvil. All the palm-shadows, intensely black, crawled outside like tarantulas; it was a glowing day,--blindingly blue: the light of a larger sun seemed to fill the world,--a white sun,--Sirius!

"Ra!" called out the Coolie smith when I told him I wanted to look at his jewelry;--and his wife came in. She wore the Hindoo garb without the long veils: a white robe like a Greek chiton, or rather like a lady's chemise,--leaving the arms and ankles bare, and confined about the waist. I thought her very lovely,--slender and delicate,--a perfect bronze-colour: the gold-flower attached to the nostril did not impair the symmetry of the face;--extraordinary eyes and teeth. She held out her pretty round arms for examination: there were about ten silver rings upon each: the two outer ones being round, the inner eight being flat.

The arm was infinitely prettier than the bracelets;--I selected one ring, and the smith opened and removed it with an iron instrument and gave it me. It had a faint musky odour: perhaps that was why the smith insisted on putting it into an absurdly small furnace, and purifying it after the Indian manner.