Lafcadio Hearn Part 17

"_Tetorihomnatu_ 34, "_k.u.mamoto, Kyushu, "j.a.pan._"

Mrs. Atkinson replied immediately, thus beginning a series of delightful letters, which alas! relate, so many of them, to intimate family affairs that it is impossible to publish them in their original form.

"My sweet little sister," he wrote in answer, "your letter was more than personally grateful: it had also an unexpected curious interest for me, as a revelation of things I did not know. I don't know anything of my relations--their names, places, occupations, or even number: therefore your letter interested me in a peculiar way, apart from its amiable charm. Before I talk any more, I thank you for the photographs. They have made me prouder than I ought to be. I did not know that I had such nice kindred and such a fairy niece. My wife stole your picture from me almost as soon as I had received it, to caress it, and pray to Buddha and all the ancient G.o.ds to love the original: she has framed it in a funny little j.a.panese frame, and suspended it in that sacred part of the house, called the Toko, a sort of alcove, in which only beautiful things are displayed. Formerly the G.o.ds were placed there (many hundred years ago); but now the G.o.ds have a separate shrine in the household, and the Toko is only the second Holy place...."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mrs. Atkinson (Hearn's Half-sister).]

The next letter is dated June 27th, '92, 25th year of Meiji.

"Dear sister, I love you a little bit more on hearing that you are little. The smaller you are the more I will be fond of you. As for marriage being a damper upon affection between kindred, it is true only of Occidental marriages. The j.a.panese wife is only the shadow of her husband, infinitely unselfish and nave in all things....

"If you want me to see you soon, you must pray to the Occidental G.o.ds to make me suddenly rich. However, I doubt if they have half as much influence as the G.o.ds of j.a.pan,--who are helping me to make a bank account as fast as honest work can produce such a result. I have no babies; and don't expect to have, and may be able to cross the seas one of these days to linger in your country a while. But really I don't know. I drift with the current of events.

"As for my book on j.a.pan,--my first book,--there is much to do yet,--it ought to be out in the Fall. It will be called "Glimpses of Unfamiliar j.a.pan," and will treat of strange things.

"I would like to see you very much; for you are too tantalizing in your letters, and tell me nothing about your inner self. I want to find out what the angel shut up in your heart is like. No doubt very sweet, but I would like to pull it out, and stroke its wings, and make it chipper a little. As for the little ones, make them love me; for if they see me without previous discipline, they will be afraid of my ugly face when I come--I send you a photo of one-half of it, the other is not pleasant, I a.s.sure you: like the moon, I show only one side of myself. In Spanish countries they call me Leucadio--much easier for little folk to p.r.o.nounce. By the way, you never gave me your address,--sign of impulsive haste, like my own.

"With best love, "LAFCADIO HEARN."

Then in January, 1903, he writes again, "Your kind sweet letter reached me at Christmas time, where there is no Christmas. Don't you know that you are very happy to be able to live in England? I am afraid you do not. Perhaps you could not know without having lived much elsewhere....

Your photo has come. The same eyes, the same chin, brow, nose: we are strangely alike--excepting that you are very comely, and I very much the reverse--partly by exaggeration of the traits which make your face beautiful, and partly because I am disfigured by the loss of an eye--punched out at school.... Won't you please give my kindest thanks to your husband for the pains he has taken to please me! I hope to meet him some day, and thank him in person, if I don't leave my bones in some quaint and curious Buddhist cemetery out here...."

The wonderful series of letters to Professor Hall Chamberlain, recently published by Miss Bisland, are also written from k.u.mamoto and Kobe, and to a great extent run simultaneously with those to his sister. He had a habit of repeating himself; the same expressions, the same quotations, appear in both series, and sometimes are again repeated in his published essays. When struck by an idea or incident, it seems as if he must impart it as something noteworthy to every one with whom he was holding communion. He gives, for instance, the same account to his sister of the routine of his j.a.panese day as related to Professor Hall Chamberlain and Ellwood Hendrik.

We can imagine his rigidly Protestant Irish relations amidst the conventional surroundings of an Irish country house, following minutely the services of the established church as preached to them by their local clergyman, utterly bewildered in reading the description of the outlandish cult to which he, their relation, subscribed in j.a.pan. The awakening to the rising of the sun with the clapping of hands of servants in the garden, the prayers at the _Butsudan_, the putting out the food for the dead, all the strange, quaint customs that mark the pa.s.sing of the day in the ancient Empire of Nippon. Not by thousands of miles only was he separated from his occidental relations, but by immemorial centuries of thought.

On May 21st, 1893, there is another letter to his sister, Mrs. Atkinson, in which he first announces his expectation of becoming a father. It is so characteristic of Lafcadio to take it for granted that the child would be a boy, and already to make plans for his education abroad.

"_Tsuboi, Nichihorabata_ 35, _k.u.mamoto, "Kyushu, j.a.pan.

May_ 21_st_, '93.

"MY DEAR MINNIE:

"(I think 'sister' is too formal, I shall call you by your pet name hereafter.) First let me thank you very, very much for the photographs.

I was extremely pleased with that of your husband;--and thought at once, 'Ah! the lucky girl!' For your husband, my dear Sis, is no ordinary man.

There are faces that seen for the first time leave an impression which gives the whole of the man, _ineffaceably_. And they are rare. I think I know your husband already, admire him and love him,--not simply for your sake, but for his own. He [is] all man,--and strong,--a good oak for your ivy. I don't mean physical strength, though he seems (from the photograph) to have an uncommon amount of it, but strength of character.

You can feel pretty easy about the future of your little ones with such a father. (Don't read all this to him, though,--or he will think I am trying to flatter either him or you,--though, of course, you can tell him something of the impression his photo gives me, in a milder form.) And you don't know what the real impression is,--nor how it is enhanced by the fact that I have been for three years isolated from all English or European intercourse,--never see an English face, except that of some travelling missionary, which is apt to be ign.o.ble. The Oriental face is somewhat inscrutable,--like the faces of the Buddhist G.o.ds. In youth it has quite a queer charm,--the charm of mysterious placidity, of smiling calm. (But among the modernised, college-bred j.a.panese this is lost.) What one never--or hardly ever--sees among these Orientals is a face showing strong character. The race is strangely impersonal. The women are divinely sweet in temper; the men are mysteries, and not altogether pleasant. I feel myself in exile; and your letters and photographs only make me homesick for English life,--just one plunge into it again.

"--Will I ever see you? Really I don't know. Some day I should like to visit England,--provided I could a.s.sure myself of sufficient literary work there to justify a stay of at least half-a-year, and the expense of the voyage. Eventually that might be possible. I would never go as a mere guest--not even a sister's; but I should like to be able to chat with the sister occasionally on leisure-evenings. I am quite a savage on the subject of independence, let me tell you; and would accept no kindnesses except those of your company at intervals. But all this is not of to-day. I cannot take my wife to Europe, it would be impossible to accustom her to Western life,--indeed it would be cruel even to try.

But I may have to educate my child abroad,--which would be an all-powerful reason for the voyage. However, I would prefer an Italian, French, or Spanish school-life to an English one.

"--Oh yes, about the book--'Glimpses of Unfamiliar j.a.pan' is now in press. It will appear in two volumes, without ill.u.s.trations. The publishers are Houghton, Mifflin & Co., of Boston,--the best in America.

Whether you like the book or no, I can't tell. I have an idea you do not care much about literary matters;--that you are too much wife and mother for that;--that your romances and poetry are in your own home. And such romance and poetry is the best of all. However, if you take some interest in trying to look at ME between the lines, you may have patience to read the work. Don't try to read it, if you don't like.

"--But here is something you might do for me, as I am not asking for certain friendly offices. When the book is criticised, you might kindly send me a few of the best reviews. Miss Bisland, while in London, wrote me the reviews of some of my other books had been very kindly; but she never dreamed of supplementing this pleasant information by cutting out a few specimens for me.--By the way, she has married well, you know,--has become awfully rich and fas.h.i.+onable, and would not even condescend to look at me if she pa.s.sed me in Broadway--I _suppose_. But she well deserved her good fortune; for she was certainly one of the most gifted girls I ever knew, and has succeeded in everything--against immense obstacles--with no help except that of her own will and genius.

"--And now I must give you a lecture. I don't want more than one sister,--haven't room in my heart for more. All appear to be as charming as they are sweet looking. I am interested to hear how they succeed, etc., etc. But don't ask me to write to everybody, and don't show everybody my letters. I can't diffuse myself very far. You said you would be 'my favourite.' A nice way you go about it! Suppose I tell you that I am a very jealous, nasty brother; and that if I can't have one sister by herself I don't want any sister at all! Would that be very, very naughty? But it is true. And now you can be shocked just as much as you please.

"--Yes, I have lost an eye, and look horrible. The operation in Dublin did not cause the disfigurement, but a blow, or rather the indirect results of a blow, received from a play-fellow.

"--You ask me if I should like a photograph of father. I certainly should, if you can procure me one without trouble. I hope--much more than to see England,--to visit India, and try to find some tradition of him. I did not know positively, until last year, that father had been in the West Indies. When I went there, I had the queerest, ghostliest sensation of having seen it all before. I think I should experience even stranger sensations in India! The climate would be agreeable for me.

Remember, I pa.s.sed fourteen years of my life south of winter. The first snow I saw from 1876 to 1890 was on my way through Canada to j.a.pan.

Indeed, if ever I become quite independent, I want to return to the tropics.

"Enough to tire your eyes,--isn't it?--for this time.

"Ever affectionately, "LAFCADIO HEARN.

"In the names of the eight hundred myriads of G.o.ds,--do give me your address. The only way I have been able to write you is by finding the word _Portadown_ in _Whittaker's Almanac_. You are a careless, naughty 'Sis.'

"I enclose my name and address in j.a.panese.

"YAk.u.mO KOIZUMI, "_Tsuboi, "Nichihorabata 35, "k.u.mamoto, Kyushu_."

All the women are making funny little j.a.panese baby-clothes, and all the Buddhist Divinities, who watch over little children, are being prayed to.... "Letters of congratulation," he said, "were coming from all directions, for the expectation of a child is always a subject of great gladness in j.a.pan.... Behind all this there is a universe of new sensations, revelations of things in Buddhist faith which are very beautiful and touching. About the world an atmosphere of delicious, sacred navete,--difficult to describe because resembling nothing in the Western world...."

Hearn's account of his home before the birth of his son throws most interesting lights on j.a.panese methods of thought and daily life. He refers to the pretty custom of a woman borrowing a baby when she is about to become a mother. It is thought an honour to lend it. And it is extraordinarily petted in its new home. The one his wife borrowed was only six months old, but expressed in a supreme degree all the j.a.panese virtues; docile to the degree of going to sleep when bidden, and of laughing when it awakened. The eerie wisdom of its face seemed to suggest a memory of all its former lives. The incident he relates also of a little Samurai boy whom he and his wife had adopted is interesting as showing the Spartan discipline exercised over j.a.panese children from earliest youth, enabling them in later life to display that iron self-control that has astonished the world; interesting, also, as showing how nothing escaped Hearn's quick observation and a.s.siduous intellect. Hearn, at first, wanted to fondle the child, and make much of him, but he soon found that it was not in accordance with custom. He therefore ceased to take notice of him; and left him under the control of the women of the house. Their treatment of him Hearn thought peculiar; the little fellow was never praised and rarely scolded. One day he let a little cup fall and broke it. No notice was taken of the accident for fear of giving him pain. Suddenly, though the face remained quite smilingly placid as usual, he could not control his tears. As soon as they saw him cry, everybody laughed and said kind things to him, till he began to laugh, too. But what followed was more surprising.

Apparently he had been distantly treated. One day he did not return from school until three hours after the usual time; suddenly the women began to cry--they were, indeed, more deeply affected than their treatment of the boy would have justified. The servants ran hither and thither in their anxiety to find him. It turned out that he had only been taken to a teacher's house for something relating to school matters. As soon as his voice was heard at the door, every one was quiet, cold, and distantly polite again.

On September 17th he writes again to his sister, thanking her for a copy she had sent him of the _Sat.u.r.day Review_. "You could send me nothing more pleasing, or more useful in a literary way. It is all the more welcome as I am really living in a hideous isolation, far away from books, and book-shops, and Europeans. When I can get--which I hope is the next year--into a more pleasant locality, I shall try to pick out some pretty Oriental tales to send to the little ones." He was not able, he goes on, to go far from k.u.mamoto, not liking to leave his little wife too long alone; so his vacation was rather monotonous. He travelled only as far as Nagasaki. It was quaint and pretty, but hotter than any West Indian port in the hot season. He was economising, he said, and had saved nearly three thousand five hundred dollars. Once he had provided for his wife, he hoped to be able to make a few long voyages to places east of j.a.pan. "You are much to be envied," he goes on to his sister, "for your chances of travel. What a pity you are not able to devote yourself to writing and painting in a place like Algiers--full of romance and picturesqueness. If you go there, don't fail to see the old Arab part of the city--the Kasbah, I think they call it. How about the Continent? Have you tried Southern Italy? And don't you think that one gets all the benefit of travel only by keeping away from fas.h.i.+on-resorts and places consecrated by conventionalism? Nothing to me is more frightful than a fas.h.i.+onable seaside resort--such as those of the Atlantic Coast. My happiest sojourns of this sort have been in little fis.h.i.+ng villages, and little queer old unknown towns, where there are no big vulgar hotels, and where one can dress and do exactly as one pleases.

"What will you do with your little man when he grows up? Army, or Civil Service? Whatever you do, never let him go to America, and lose all his traditions. Australia would be far better. I expect he will be gloriously well able to take care of himself anywhere,--judging by his father, but I have come to the belief that one cannot too soon begin the cultivation of a single aim and single talent in life. This is the age of specialism. No man can any longer be successful in many things. Even the 'general pract.i.tioner' in medicine has almost become obsolete.

"Nothing seems to me more important now for a little boy than the training of his linguistic faculties,--giving him every encouragement in learning languages by ear--(the only natural way); and your travelling sometimes with him will help you to notice how his faculties are in that direction. But perhaps it will be possible for him to pa.s.s all his life in England. (For me, England, Ireland and Scotland mean the same thing.) That would be pleasant indeed.... When I think of your little man with the black eyes, I hope that his life will always be in the circle of English traditions, wherever the English Flag flies, there remain.

"I suppose you know that in this Orient the construction of the family is totally different to what it is in Europe.... We are too conceitedly apt to think that what is good for Englishmen is good for all nations,--our ethics, our religion, our costumes, etc. The plain facts of the case are that all Eastern races lose, instead of gaining, by contact with us. They imitate our vices instead of our virtues, and learn all our weaknesses without getting any of our strength. Already statistics show an enormous increase of crime in j.a.pan as the result of 'Christian civilisation'; and the open ports show a demoralisation utterly unknown in the interior of the country, and unimaginable in the old feudal days before 1840 or 1850...."

In the next letter he gives his sister a minute account of his j.a.panese manner of life on the floor without chairs or tables. It has been described so often by visitors to j.a.pan, and by Hearn himself, that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. He ends his letter:--

"I am now so used to the j.a.panese way of living, that when I have to remain all day in Western clothes, I feel very unhappy; and I think I should not find European life pleasant in summer time. Some day, I will send you a photograph of my house.

"I wish you much happiness and good health and pleasant days of travel, and thank you much for the paper.

"This letter is rather rambling, but perhaps you will find something interesting in it.

"Ever affectionately, "LAFCADIO."

In September comes another letter to Mrs. Atkinson:

"You actually talk about writing too often,--which is strange! There is only this difficulty about writing,--that we both know so little of each other that topics interesting to both can be only guessed at. That should be only a temporary drawback.

"The more I see your face in photos, the more I feel drawn toward you.

Lillah and the other sister represent different moods and tenses pictorially. You seem most near to me,--as I felt on first reading your letter. You have strength, too, where I have not. You are certainly very sensitive, but also self-repressed. I think you are not inclined to make mistakes. I think you can be quickly offended, and quick to forgive--if you understand the offence to be only a mistake. You would not forgive at all should you discern behind the fault a something much worse than mistake,--and in this you would be right. You are inclined to reserve, and not to bursts of joy;--you have escaped my extremes of depression and extremes of exultation. You see very quickly beyond the present relations of a fact--I think all this. But of course you have been shaped in certain things by social influences I have never had,--so that you must have perfect poise where I would flounder and stumble.

"But imagining won't do always. I should like to know more of you than a photograph or a rare letter can tell. I don't know, remember, anything _at all_ about you. I do not know where you were born, where you were educated,--anything of your life; or what is much more, infinitely more important, I don't know your emotions and thoughts and feelings and experiences in the past. What you are now, I can guess. But what _were_ you,--long ago? What memories most haunt you of places and people you liked? If you could tell me some of these, how pleasantly we might compare notes. Mere facts tell little: the interest of personality lies most in the infinitely special way that facts affect the person. I am very curious about you,--but, don't take this too seriously; because though my wishes are strong, my disinclination to cause you pain is stronger; and you have told me that writing is sometimes fatiguing to you. It were so much better could we pa.s.s a day or two together.

"You must not underrate yourself as you did in your last. Your few lines about the scenery,--short as they were,--convinced me that you could do something literary of a very nice sort had you the time and chance to give yourself to any such work. But I do not wish that you would--except to read the result; for literary labour is extremely severe work, even after the secret of method is reached. I am only beginning to learn; and to produce five pages means to write at least twenty-five. Enthusiasms and inspirations have least to do with the matter. The real work is condensing, compressing, choosing, changing, s.h.i.+fting words and phrases,--studying values of colour and sound and form in words; and when all is done, the result satisfies only for a time. What I wrote six years ago, I cannot bear the sight of to-day. If I had been a genius, I wonder whether I would feel the same.