The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume II Part 44

I am happy in reading your words about the j.a.panese dances: as you have seen a living example of one kind, you will not judge them all severely hereafter. Of course there are dances and dances. I wish that you could see the dancing of a pair of _miko_,--little s.h.i.+nto maid-priestesses: it is a simple performance, but as pleasing as a hovering of b.u.t.terflies.

Your "Origins of Art" is a book that seems to have proved above the range of some small critics; but you have been felt and appreciated in higher spheres, I think. I was amused by the dullardism of some English critics, evidently incapable of perceiving that the sterling value of such a book is suggestive,--that it was intended to make men think, not to furnish some intellectual lazy-bones with ready-made ideas....

Finland I know only through Leouzon Le Duc's delicious prose-translation. I think of forests of birch, and lakes interminably opening into lakes, and rivers that roar in lonely places, and "liver-coloured earth." Wonder if the earth is really that colour?--the ground of my garden, after a shower, is exactly "liver-colour"--a rich reddish brown.

Please convey my humble thanks to Mrs. Hirn, and believe me

Yours most sincerely, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO YRJo HIRN

TOKYO, April, 1902.

DEAR PROFESSOR,--Many thanks for the archaeological treatise, and for your kindness in sending me the "critical" news. (I think that I can appreciate the good will that can impel so busy a professor to give me so much of his time.) And please to convey my thanks to Mrs. Hirn for her charming letter.

Concerning your project for another volume of "Exotica," kindly a.s.sure Mrs. Hirn that she is as fully authorized as I can authorize her to translate whatever she pleases to select from my books.

By the way, you appear to have been deceived by some bookseller; for none of my books are out of print, except "Some Chinese Ghosts," and that by my own will and desire....

Far from being uninterested in the social and political changes of Finland, I feel, as every generous thinker ought to feel, sincere regret at the probable disappearance of a national civilization, and the inevitable loss of intellectual freedom. I think of the "absorption"

as a great political crime.... Here in j.a.pan, I watch, day by day, the destruction of a wonderful and very beautiful civilization, by industrial pressure. It strikes me that a time is approaching in which intellectual liberty will almost cease to exist, together with every other kind of liberty,--the time when no man will be able to live as he wishes, much less to write what he pleases. The future industrial communism, in its blind dull way, will be much less liberal than Russian rule, and incomparably more cruel. By that time, Russia herself will be getting less conservative; and I imagine that the Englishman and the American of the future may flee to the new Russia in search of intellectual freedom!

At present, however, the United States offers great opportunity to merit, and every lat.i.tude to mental liberty. If you should ever have to leave your own beloved country, I think you would be most happy in America.

The Far East is not impossible--if you wish very much to visit it.

Government service anywhere is not a bed of roses; and Tokyo is said to be the most "unsympathetic" place in the world. But salaries are fair; and a three years' sojourn would furnish rich experience. If you ever want _very_ much to see j.a.pan, perhaps you may be able to obtain a Government post--especially if you have friends in legations, and "high places." Then I can write more to you about the matter. But at present you are fortunate enough to be envied in a brotherly way. I wish you every happiness on your European journey.

How much I should like to see Europe again!--I have three boys to look after, however, and all things are uncertain. I am glad that you have a bright little son;--you know what hopes and fears the possession involves. His travels with you will be of priceless advantage to him.

The best of all education is through Ear and Eye--while the senses are most fresh and plastic.

Sincerely yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO DR. AND MRS. YRJo HIRN

TOKYO, May, 1902.

DEAR FRIENDS,--I am a little disappointed in being able to send you to-day only "Kokoro" and "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields"--these being the only books of mine, not in your possession, that I could lay hands on. However, they are the best of the earlier lot; and I imagine that you will be interested especially in the latter. j.a.pan is changing so quickly that already some of the essays in "Kokoro"--such as the "Genius of j.a.panese Civilization"--have become out-of-date. By the way, have you seen Bellesort's "La Societe j.a.ponaise?"--a wonderful book, considering that its author pa.s.sed only about six months in j.a.pan!

A few days ago I had the delightful surprise of your alb.u.m-gift: I have lived in Finland! It is very strange that some of the pictures are exactly what I dreamed of--after reading the "Kalewala." In fact, the book ill.u.s.trates the "Kalewala" for me: even the weird expression in the eyes of the old Kantele-singers seems to me familiar. Of course, the views of city streets and splendid buildings were all surprises and revelations; but the hills and woods and lakes looked like the Finland of my reveries. Of all the views, that of Tmatia seemed to me most like the scenery of the Runoia: there was something in it of _deja vu_, most ghostly, that gave me particular delight. My affectionate thanks to you both. I shall ever treasure the book and remember the kind givers.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MRS. HIRN

TOKYO, June, 1902.

DEAR MRS. HIRN,--I have received the copy of _Euterpe_, so kindly sent me, containing your translation,--which gave me much pleasure.

What a nice little paper _Euterpe_ is! Long ago we used to have good papers like that--real literary papers, in nearly the same format--in America. Now, alas! they have become impossible. The taste for good literature in America is practically dead: vulgar fiction has killed the higher fiction; "sensationalism" and blatant cheap journalism have murdered the magazines; and poetry is silent. I wish there could be another paper in America like _Euterpe_....

I have been wondering, in reading your translation, whether there is no better word for the English "ghostly" than _mystika_--surely, they are not alike in meaning. The old English name for a priest, you know, is "a _ghostly_ father." And I am wondering whether "_ewigt_" really has the sense of "infinitely." The Buddhist thought is that the innermost eternal life in each of us becomes "infinite" by union with the One, when the sh.e.l.l of Karma is broken. Individuality and personality exist only as pa.s.sing phenomena: the Reality is One _and_ infinite.

Please pardon these little observations, which are not intended as criticisms, but only as suggestions.

Believe me ever most sincerely yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MRS. WETMORE

TOKYO, July, 1902.

MY DEAR MRS. WETMORE,--Perhaps you can remember having said, twelve years ago, "I want you to go to j.a.pan, because I want to read the books that you will write about it." As my tenth volume on the subject is now in press,--you ought to be getting satisfied.

I am writing--not without some difficulty--to ask whether you would or could play the part of a fairy G.o.d-sister, in helping me to find, for the time of a year or two years, some easy situation in America.

As my eyes are nearly burnt out, I should have to depend upon quality rather than quant.i.ty of work. Some post upon a literary weekly--where I could employ a typewriter--would be good. I doubt whether the universities would give me a chance at English literature.

So much for the want. I must bring my boy with me: it is chiefly for his sake. Once that he learns to speak English well, the rest of his education will not disturb me. I am his only teacher and want to continue to teach him for a few years more.--South or West I should prefer to East--"where only a swordfish can swim."

As you are a queen of fairies, you might touch with your wand the _only_ thing that would exactly help me. England is hopeless, of course: I have no chance of earning anything in that "awful orderliness." My family will be well provided for during my absence; but the provision will leave me under the necessity of earning something abroad....

What is worse still, I have been so utterly isolated here that I have no conception of the actual tone and state of things abroad. I do not know "how I stand."

You should try to think of your old acquaintance as a small grey unpleasant "old man." ...

Yours very sincerely, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MRS. WETMORE

YAIDZU, August, 1902.

DEAR MRS. WETMORE,--Your kindest letter of July 23d reached me on the 15th of August,--at this little fis.h.i.+ng-village of Yaidzu, where I am staying with my boy.

What you say about my finding you a "grey-haired woman of forty" is, of course, impossible. Even if my eyes said so, I should say that they were telling untruth. It is quite certain that you are a fairy,--capable of a.s.suming myriad shapes,--but I know the shapes to be each and all--_Maya_! I never really saw any of the magical forms but two--no, three--in photograph; and they were all different persons, belonging to different centuries, and containing different souls. About you I should not even trust the eyes of the X-rays. My memory is of a Voice and a Thought,--multiple, both, exceedingly,--but justifying the imagination of _une jeune fille un peu farouche_ (there is no English word that gives the same sense of shyness _and_ force) who came into New Orleans from the country, and wrote nice things for a paper there, and was so kind to a particular variety of savage that he could not understand--and was afraid.

I am half-sorry already for not having written you more fully. I fear you think that I am in a very _immediate_ hurry. No: if a fair chance can come to me in the course of a year, or even fifteen months, I can easily wait. My people have their own homes now, and I have some little means; and nothing presses. Even if the ----s should find ways and means to poke me out of the Government service (they have tried it--in oh! so many ways--for four years past), I should feel quite easy about matters for a twelvemonth. Please do not think that I would dream of giving you any hurry-scurry trouble. But, perhaps in a year's time, something might offer itself.

I am _afraid_ of New York City for my boy's sake. I should not like to let him risk one New York winter. Besides, what exercise can a boy have in New York--no trees, fields, streams. Awful place--New York. If anything were to happen to _him_, the sun would go out. I can't take risks--must be sure what I am doing.... Oh, if I were by myself--yes: twenty dollars a month in America would suit me anywhere. I have no longer any wants personal.

Every year there are born some millions of boys cleverer, stronger, handsomer than mine. I may be quite a fool in my estimate of him. I do not find him very clever, quick, or anything of that sort. Perhaps there will prove to be "nothing in him." I cannot tell. All that I am quite sure of is that he naturally likes what is delicate, clean, refined, and kindly,--and that he naturally shrinks from whatever is coa.r.s.e or selfish. So that he _might_ learn easily "the things that are most excellent"--and most useless--in the schooling of civilization.

Anyhow, I must do all I can to feed the tiny light, and give it a chance to prove what it is worth. It is ME, in another birth--with renewed forces given by a strange and charming blood from the Period of the G.o.ds. I must not risk the blowing out of the little lamp.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KAZUO AND IWAO, MR. HEARN'S OLDER CHILDREN]