Chapter XII: Appreciations and Epitomes (1)

TAKEN as a whole, the criticisms upon Hearn's work are complimentary. He has his warm admirers, and some who are not so enthusiastic; but those who criticize adversely do so with a gentleness,--I may say, almost a reluctance that is perhaps the reflection of the spirit of his work. And whatever else these may offer, all agree that his writings have a unique charm.

Following are a few excerpts which should give an average of opinions:--

"One great secret of his success in interpreting the Japanese mind and temperament lay in his patience in seeking out and studying minutely the little things of a people said to be great in such. As Amenomori says of Hearn's mind, it 'called forth life and poetry out of dust.'" (327.)[20]

[20] The numbers refer to the corresponding items in the
Bibliography.

"As an interpreter of the Japanese heart, mind, hand and soul, Mr. Hearn has no superior. But he will not convert those who in health of body and mind love the landmarks of the best faith of the race. It is very hard to make fog and miasmatic exhalations, even when made partly luminous with rhetoric, attractive to the intellect that loves headlands and mountain-tops. The product of despair can never compete in robust minds with the product of faith." (357.)

"Sympathy and exquisiteness of touch are the characteristics of Mr. Hearn's genius. He is a chameleon, glowing with the hue of outer objects or of inward moods, or altogether iridescent. He becomes translucent and veined like a moth on a twig, or mottled as if with the protective golden browns of fallen leaves. We may not look for architectonic or even plastic powers. His is not the mind which constructs of inner necessity, which weaves plots and schemes, or thinks of its frame as it paints. He attempts no epic of history. The delver for sociologic or theologic spoil must seek deeper waters....

"In his later books the all-potent influence of Japanese restraint seems to have refined and subdued his wonderful style to more perfect harmonies....

"His chapters are long or short as are his moods. There is little organic unity in them; no scientific aim or philosophic grasp rounds them into form. Even his paragraphs have little cohesion. Speaking of the forming of his sentences, he himself has compared it to the focussing of an image, each added word being like the turn of a delicate screw." (306.)

"The secret of the charm that we feel to such a marked degree in Mr. Lafcadio Hearn's volumes is that, in contrast to other writers, he does take the Japanese very seriously indeed." (316.)

"To the details of life and thought in Japan Mr. Hearn's soul seems everywhere and at all times responsive. He catches in his eye and on his pen minute motes scarcely noticeable by the keen natives themselves." (367.)

"He has written nothing on Japan equal in length to his tales of West Indian life. But while we deplore this reserve of a writer who possesses every quality of style, except humour, we have reason to be grateful for whatever he gives us." (307.)

"The matchless prose and the sympathy of Mr. Hearn." (324.)

"Mr. Hearn has the sympathetic temperament, the minute mental vision, the subdued style peculiar to all that is good in Japanese art and literature, needed for the accomplishment of a labour which to him has been a labour of love indeed. Here we have no mawkish sentimentality, no excessive laudation, on the one hand; on the other, no Occidental harshness, no Occidental ignorance of the sweet mystery of Eastern ways of life and modes of thought. What this most charming of writers on Far Eastern subjects has seen all may see, but only those can understand who are endowed with a like faculty of perception of unobtrusive beauty, and a like power, it must be added, of patient and prolonged study of common appearances and everyday events." (295.)

"A man has just died, intelligent and generous, who had succeeded in reconciling in his heart, the clear, rational ideas of the West together with the obscure deep sense of Extreme--Asia: Lafcadio Hearn. In the hospitality of his recipient soul, high European civilization and high Japanese civilization found a meeting-place; harmonized; completed, one in the other....

"In English-speaking countries, especially in the United States, Lafcadio Hearn already enjoys a just reputation. The lovers of the exotic, esteem him as equal to Kipling or Stevenson. In France, the _Revue de Paris_ has begun to make him known, by publishing some of his best articles, elegantly and faithfully translated. His budding fame is destined to increase, as Europe takes a greater interest in the arts and the thoughts of the Extreme-Orient. His prose, exact and harmonious, will be admired as one of the finest since Ruskin wrote: his very personal style, at the same time subtle and powerful, will be noted: he will be especially admired for his delicate and profound intelligence of that Japanese civilization which, to us, remains so mysterious. What characterizes the talent of Lafcadio Hearn, that which gives it its precious originality, is the rare mixture of scientific precision and idealistic enthusiasm: his work might justly be entitled Truth and Poesy: 'In reading these essays,' says one of our best existing Japanese scholars, Professor Chamberlain, 'one feels the truth of Richard Wagner's statement: "_Alles verstaendniss kommt uns nur durch die Liebe._" (All understanding comes to us only through Love.) If Lafcadio Hearn understands Japan best, and makes it better understood than any other writer, it is because he loves it best.'

"Lafcadio Hearn describes with intelligence, with love all aspects of Japanese life: Nature and inhabitants; landscapes, animals and flowers; material life and life moral; classic Art and popular literature; philosophies, religions and superstitions. He awakens in us an exquisite feeling of old aristocratic and feudal Japan: he explains to us the prodigious revolution that modern Japan has created in thirty years....

"Hearn has consecrated to the study of Japanese art some of his most curious psychological analyses.

"Lafcadio Hearn takes a deep interest in the religious life of the Japanese. He studies with the minutest exactness the ancient customs of Shintoism, high moral precepts of Buddhism, and also the popular superstitions that hold on, for instance, to the worship of foxes, and to the idea of pre-existence." (393.)

"To a certain large class of his adopted countrymen, his hatred of Christianity, which was pronounced long before he went to Japan, and his fondness for Oriental cults of all kinds, was recommendation. But it is still an open question whether he did harm or good to the Japanese by his advocacy of their superstitions....

"Hearn's books are little known to the multitude. But they are familiar to an influential class the world over. In him Japan has lost a powerful and flattering advocate, and the English world one of its masters in style." (332.)

"Mr. Hearn was not a philosopher or a judicial student of life. He was a gifted, born impressionist, with a style resembling that of the French Pierre Loti. His stories and descriptions are delicate or gorgeous word pictures of the subtler and more elusive qualities of Oriental life." (293.)

"His art is the power of suggestion through perfect restraint.... He stands and proclaims his mysteries at the meeting of three ways. To the religious instinct of India,--Buddhism in particular,--which history has engrafted on the aesthetic sense of Japan, Mr. Hearn brings the interpreting spirit of Occidental science; and these three traditions are fused by the peculiar sympathies of his mind into one rich and novel compound.... In these essays and tales, whose substance is so strangely mingled together out of the austere dreams of India and the subtle beauty of Japan and the relentless science of Europe, I read vaguely of many things which hitherto were quite dark." (308.)

"He brings to the study of all aspects of Japanese life, intelligence, and love; he also sets sail in his descriptions and analyses towards a general theory on life; he is a Japanizing psychologist: he is also a philosopher....

"At all events, Lafcadio Hearn has the merit of recalling powerfully to the Europeans of Europe the importance, often misunderstood, of Eastern civilization. No one better than this Japanizing enthusiast to make us feel what there is of narrowness in our habitual conception of the world, in our individualistic literature, misunderstanding too much the influence of the Past in our anthropocentric art, neglecting Nature too often, penetrated too 'singly' in our classic philosophy with Greco-Latin and Christian influences. 'Till now,' says Lafcadio Hearn very forcibly, 'having lived only in one hemisphere, we have thought but half thoughts.' We should enlarge our hearts and our minds by taking into our circle of culture, all the art and all the thought of the extreme East.

"From the philosophical view-point, Lafcadio Hearn has the merit of calling attention to the high value of Shintoism, and above all of Buddhism. His work deserves to exercise an influence on the religious ideas of the West. If religion can no longer occupy any place in the intellectual life of humanity, more and more invaded by science, she can subsist a long time yet, perhaps always, in her sentimental life." (392.)

"For that role [as interpreter of Japan] he was eminently unfitted both by temperament and training. Indeed he was not slow to recognize his lack of the judicial faculty, and on one occasion acknowledged that he is a 'creature of extremes.' ... But Hearn often succeeds in reaching the heart of things by his faculty of sympathy, in virtue of which alone his books deserve perusal; when he fails it is because of a lack of the unimpassioned judicial faculty, a tendency to subordinate reason to feeling, an inclination to place sympathy in the position of judge rather than guide." (359.)

"Lafcadio Hearn not only buried himself in the Japanese world, but gave his ashes to the soil so often devastated by earthquake, typhoon, tidal wave and famine, but ever fertile in blooms of fancy which lies under the River of Heaven. The air of Nippon, poor in ozone, is overpopulated by goblins. No writer has ever excelled this child of Greece and Ireland in interpreting the weird fancies of peasant and poet in the land of bamboo and cherry flowers.... Hearn's life seemed crushed under 'the horror of infinite Possibility.' Hence perhaps the weird fascination of his work and style." (348.)

EPITOMES

AVATAR (281).--It was during the Cincinnati period that Hearn made this--his first translation from the French. Writing of it in 1886, he says:--

I have a project on foot--to issue a series of translations of
archaeological and artistic French romance--Flaubert's "Tentation
de Saint-Antoine"; De Nerval's "Voyage en Orient"; Gautier's
"Avatar"; Loti's most extraordinary African and Polynesian
novels; and Beaudelaire's "Petits Poemes en Prose."

But three years later, he writes:--

The work of Gautier cited by you--"Avatar"--was my first
translation from the French. I never could find a publisher for
it, however, and threw the MS. away at last in disgust. It is
certainly a wonderful story; but the self-styled Anglo-Saxon has
so much--prudery that even this innocent phantasy seems to shock
his sense of the "proper."

LA TENTATION DE SAINT-ANTOINE (282) was probably translated at about the same time. Hearn failed to find a publisher who would take it, but the manuscript is still in my possession. Hearn's own complete _scenario_, together with a description of the manuscript, is given on another page. I quote from Hearn about this work:--

The original is certainly one of the most exotically strange
pieces of writing in any language, and weird beyond description.

Of his own translation, he writes:--

The work is audacious in parts; but I think nothing ought to be
suppressed. That serpent-scene, the crucified lions, the
breaking of the chair of gold, the hideous battles about
Carthage,--these pages contain pictures that ought not to remain
entombed in a foreign museum.

The winter of 1877, the year Hearn arrived in New Orleans, he corresponded with the Cincinnati _Commercial_ under the name of "Ozias Midwinter" (219). Excerpts from this series of letters are given in the chapter, "The New Orleans Period."

ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS (20) was the first book to be published. The translations were made during the latter part of the Cincinnati period, but the volume did not appear until some years later, while Hearn was in New Orleans. It was prepared at the hour when his craving for the exotic and weird was at its height. From the opening word to the last the six stories are one long Dionysian revel of an Arabian Night's Dream, and within their pages it is not difficult to feel that "one is truly dead only when one is no longer loved." What an exotic group of names it is:--Cleopatra, "she that made the whole world's bale and bliss;" Clarimonde,

"Who was famed in her lifetime
As the fairest of women;"

Arria Marcella; the Princess Hermonthis; Omphale; and the one "fairer than all daughters of men, lovelier than all fantasies realized in stone"--Nyssia. It is a tapestry woven of the lights and jewels and passion of an antique world. "You will find in Gautier," Hearn writes, "a perfection of melody, a warmth of word colouring, a voluptuous delicacy;" "Gautier could create mosaics of word jewellery without equals." Hearn's "pet stories" are "Clarimonde" and "Arria Marcella." Is it strange that he should delight in these beautiful vampires?

In this work, and in the tales to follow, we already perceive that colour is to become a sort of a fetich to be worshipped. Here in the studio of another artist, he serves his first apprenticeship, and from the highly toned palette of Gautier he learns how to mix and lay on the colours that he himself is later to use so richly.

In speaking of this book, a critic says:--

"His learning and his inspiration were wholly French in these productions, as also in what was his first and in some ways his best book, "One of Cleopatra's Nights," and other tales translated from Theophile Gautier. While Hearn was faithful to his original, he also improved upon it, and many a scholar who knows both French and English has confessed under the rose that Gautier is outdone." (332.)

Of his work, Hearn writes:--

You asked me about Gautier. I have read and possess nearly
all his works; and before I was really mature enough for
such an undertaking I translated his six most remarkable
short stories. The work contains, I regret to say, several
shocking errors, and the publishers refused me the right to
correct the plates. The book remains one of the sins of my
literary youth, but I am sure my judgment of the value of
the stories was correct.

While preparing his next book, Hearn published in the _Century_, "The Scenes of Cable's Romances" (220). In this article he vivifies the quarters and dwellings that Mr. Cable in his delightful stories had already made famous.

THE FIRST MUEZZIN, BILAL (405), was written in the fall of 1883, during the New Orleans period. It is a beautiful, serious piece of work, and is written with the fine, sonorous quality that such a theme should inspire. That it was a labour of love is shown in Hearn's letters written at its inception to Mr. Krehbiel, who was an invaluable aid to him in compiling its musical part. "Bilal" was probably published finally in the _Times-Democrat_, after being refused by _Harper's_, the _Century_, and some others.

The traveller slumbering for the first time within the walls of
an Oriental city, and in the vicinity of a minaret, can scarcely
fail to be impressed by the solemn beauty of the Mohammedan Call
to Prayer. If he have worthily prepared himself, by the study of
book and of languages, for the experiences of Eastern travel, he
will probably have learned by heart the words of the sacred
summons, and will recognize their syllables in the sonorous
chant of the Muezzin,--while the rose-coloured light of an
Egyptian or Syrian dawn expands its flush to the stars. Four
times more will he hear that voice ere morning again illuminates
the east:--under the white blaze of noon; at the sunset hour,
when the west is fervid with incandescent gold and vermilion; in
the long after-glow of orange and emerald fires; and, still
later, when a million astral lamps have been lighted in the vast
and violet dome of God's everlasting mosque.

In four parts Hearn tells the history of Bilal, who

was an African black, an Abyssinian,--famed for his fortitude as
a confessor, for his zeal in the faith of the Prophet, and for
the marvellous melody of his voice, whose echoes have been
caught up and prolonged and multiplied by all the muezzins of
Islam, through the passing of more than twelve hundred years....
And the words chanted by all the muezzins of the Moslem
world,--whether from the barbaric brick structures which rise
above "The Tunis of the Desert," or from the fairy minarets of
the exquisite mosque at Agra,--are the words first sung by the
mighty voice of Bilal.

Bilal was the son of an Abyssinian slave-girl, and himself began life as a slave. The first preaching of Mahomet had deep effect upon the slaves of Mecca, and Bilal was perhaps the earliest of these to become a convert. Even under the tortures of the persecutors, he could not be made to apostatize--always he would answer, "_Ahad! Ahad_:" "_One_, one only God!" Abu Bekr, the bosom friend of the great Prophet, observing Bilal, bought him, and set him free. Then Bilal became the devoted servant of Mahomet; and, in fulfilment of a dream, he was made the First Muezzin to sound the _Adzan_, the Call to Prayer.

God is Great!
God is Great!
I bear witness there is no other God but God!
I bear witness that Mahomet is the Prophet of God!
Come unto Prayer!
Come unto Salvation!
God is Great!
There is no other God but God!

* * * * *

After the death of Mahomet, Bilal ceased to sing the
_Adzan_:--the voice that had summoned the Prophet of God to
the house of prayer ought not, he piously fancied, to be
heard after the departure of his master. Yet, in his Syrian
home, how often must he have prayed to chant the words as he
first chanted them from the starlit housetop in the Holy
City, and how often compelled to deny the petitions of those
who revered him as a saint and would perhaps have sacrificed
all their goods to have heard him but once lift up his voice
in musical prayer!... But when Omar visited Damascus the
chiefs of the people besought him that, as Commander of the
Faithful, he should ask Bilal to sing the Call in honour of
the event; and the old man consented to do so for the last
time....

To hear Bilal must have seemed to many as sacred a privilege
as to have heard the voice of the Prophet himself,--the
proudest episode of a lifetime,--the one incident of all
others to be related in long afteryears to children and to
grandchildren. Some there may have been whom the occasion
inspired with feelings no loftier than curiosity; but the
large majority of those who thronged to listen in silent
expectancy for the _Allah-hu-akbar!_ must have experienced
emotions too deep to be ever forgotten. The records of the
event, at least, fully justify this belief;--for when, after
moments of tremulous waiting, the grand voice of the aged
African rolled out amid the hush,--with the old beloved
words,--the old familiar tones, still deep and clean,--Omar
and all those about him wept aloud, and tears streamed down
every warrior-face, and the last long notes of the chant
were lost in a tempest of sobbing.

STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE[21] (I) is the second book. It was written also during the period in New Orleans, many of the stories first appearing in the _Times-Democrat_, and the little volume is dedicated to its editor--Mr. Page M. Baker.

[21] Copyright, 1884, by James R. Osgood and Company.

These tales, as Hearn tells us in his Preface, are "reconstructions of what impressed me as most fantastically beautiful in the most exotic literature which I was able to obtain." In a letter he writes, "The language of 'Stray Leaves' is all my own, with the exception of the Italic texts and a few pages translated from the 'Kalewala.'"

The tapestry he is weaving is of the same crimson threads as that of the earlier tales, but the colours of sunset are softening to the gentler hues of the after-glow, and interwoven sometimes are strands of pure moonlight.

We read of the great Book of Thoth which contains a formula whosoever could recite might never know death, and we learn how the cunning magician Noferkephtah obtained the book, which caused the wrath of the gods to fall upon him; later, how Satni, of whom "there was not in all Egypt so wise a scribe," yearned for the book, and took it from the tomb of Noferkephtah, and of the magic wrought and the penance done.

There is the exquisite tale of the Fountain Maiden, whom Aki caught in his own fish-net, and whom he grew to love more than his own life.

The story lingers of the sea-bird which fell into the hunter's hand, and when he looked more closely he found it had become transformed into a beautiful girl, "slender ... like a young moon," and pity rose in the hunter's heart, and then love. One day, when their children had become strong and swift, and while they were all hunting together, the Bird-Wife called to the little ones to gather feathers: then she covered their arms and her own shoulders with the feathers, and far away they flew.

Passing onward, we read of Tilottama, and that by reason of her beauty "the great gods once became multiple-faced and myriad-eyed"; and that this beauty brought punishment to the wicked Sounda and Oupasounda.

There is Bakawali, for "whose history of love, human and superhuman, a parallel may not be found." For her great love of the mortal youth Taj-ulmuluk each night she sacrificed herself to the fiercest purification of fire. And then to appease the gods, she suffered herself to be turned for ten long years into marble from her waist to her feet. Her lover ministered to her and watched by her side through the terrible years until she was reincarnated for him.

Then we see the statue of Natalika, who avenged the death of her people.

And who shall answer the riddle of the Corpse Demon? And which one may not profit by the wisdom of the youth who knew nothing of science? Perhaps our hearts stir with a soft regret for the atonement of Pundari. And so we wander through a maze of colour and of magic, tarrying to listen to the voice of Kalewala, for--

As he sang the fair Sun paused in her course to hear him; the
golden Moon stopped in her path to listen; the awful billows of
the sea stood still; the icy rivers that devour the pines, that
swallow up the firs, ceased to rage; the mighty cataracts hung
motionless above their abysses; the waves of Juortana lifted
high their heads to hear.

"Slender she was as the tulip upon its stalk, and in walking her feet seemed kisses pressed upon the ground. But hadst thou beheld her face unveiled, and the whiteness of her teeth between her brown lips when she smiled!" Alas, she was a good Christian maiden and he a good Mussulman, and so in this Legend of Love each loyal heart dies pronouncing the faith of the other, lest they should not meet at the Day of Judgment.

As we draw near the last figures on the tapestry, we find those two tender pictures of which Hearn himself speaks: "Your preference for Boutimar pleases me: Boutimar was my pet. There is a little Jewish legend in the collection--Esther--somewhat resembling it in pathos." These stories afford a glimpse into that gentle heart, which was later to respond to the exquisite faiths and loyalties of the Japanese.

Now the Creator sent unto Solomon a cup which contained some of the waters of youth and of life without end. And Solomon was asked: "Wilt thou drink hereof and live divinely immortal through ages everlasting, or wilt thou rather remain within the prison of humanity?" And Solomon dreamed upon these words; and he assembled in council a representative of all those over whom he held dominion. Then Solomon asked Boutimar, the wild dove, most loving of all living creatures, whether he should drink of the magic waters, and thus learn the bliss of earthly immortality. When Boutimar, the wild dove, learned that the cup held only enough water for one person, he made answer in the language of birds:--

"O prophet of God! how couldst thou desire to be living alone,
when each of thy friends and of thy counsellors and of thy
children and of thy servants and of all who loved thee were
counted with the dead? For all of these must surely drink the
bitter waters of death, though thou shouldst drink the Water of
Life. Wherefore desire everlasting youth, when the face of the
world itself shall be wrinkled with age, and the eyes of the
stars shall be closed by the black fingers of Azrael? When the
love thou hast sung of shall have passed away like a smoke of
frankincense, when the dust of the heart that beat against thine
own shall have long been scattered by the four winds of heaven,
when the eyes that looked for thy coming shall have become a
memory, when the voices grateful to thine ear shall have been
eternally stilled, when thy life shall be one oasis in a
universal waste of death, and thine eternal existence but a
recognition of eternal absence,--wilt thou indeed care to live,
though the wild dove perish when its mate cometh not?"

And Solomon, without reply, silently put out his arm and gave
back the cup.... But upon the prophet-king's rich beard,
besprinkled with powder of gold, there appeared another glitter
as of clear dew,--the diamond dew of the heart, which is tears.

Esther, whose comeliness surpassed even that of Sarah, and her rich husband had lived together ten years, but there was no happiness in the soul of the good man, for "the sound of a child's voice had never made sunshine within his heart." So Esther and her husband sorrowed bitterly. And they brought the burden of their grief to Rabbi Simon ben Yochai, and when they had told him, a silence as of the Shechinah came upon the three, only the eyes of the Rabbi seemed to smile. And it was agreed that the twain should part; thus the Israelite could be known as a father in Israel.

A feast then was laid at the house, and before all the guests her husband spoke lovingly to Esther, and in token of his affection and his grief bade her to take from the house "whatever thou desirest, whether it be gold or jewels beyond price." And the wine was passed, and the people made merry, and finally a deep sleep fell upon them all. Then Esther gave command that her husband sleeping should be carried to her father's house. In the morning her husband awakened, and confused he cried out, "Woman, what hast thou done?"

Then, sweeter than the voice of doves among the fig-trees, came
the voice of Esther: "Didst thou not bid me, husband, that I
should choose and take away from thy house whatsoever I most
desired? And I have chosen thee, and have brought thee hither,
to my father's home ... loving thee more than all else in the
world. Wilt thou drive me from thee now?" And he could not see
her face for tears of love; yet he heard her voice speaking
on,--speaking the golden words of Ruth, which are so old yet so
young to the hearts of all that love: "Whithersoever thou shalt
go, I will also go; and whithersoever thou shalt dwell, I also
will dwell. And the Angel of Death only may part us; for thou
art all in all to me." ...

And in the golden sunlight at the doorway suddenly stood, like a
statue of Babylonian silver, the grand grey figure of Rabbi
Simon ben Yochai, lifting his hands in benediction.

"_Schmah Israel!_--the Lord our God, who is One, bless ye with
everlasting benediction! May your hearts be welded by love, as
gold with gold by the cunning of goldsmiths! May the Lord, who
coupleth and setteth thee single in families, watch over ye! The
Lord make this valiant woman even as Rachel and as Lia, who
built up the house of Israel! And ye shall behold your children
and your children's children in the House of the Lord!"

Even so the Lord blessed them; and Esther became as the fruitful
vine, and they saw their children's children in Israel.
Forasmuch as it is written: "He will regard the prayer of the
destitute."

GOMBO ZHEBES[22](2) followed in the New Orleans period. It is a compilation of 352 proverbs selected from six dialects. According to the indexes, there are 6 in the Creole of French Guyana; 28 in the Creole of Hayti; 51 in the Creole of New Orleans, Louisiana; 101 in the Creole of Martinique; 110 in the Creole of Mauritius; 52 in the Creole of Trinidad. Most of the proverbs are similar to our own, but are translated into the simple homely language of the Creole, reflecting its mode of thought. The same proverb often appears in the different dialects. Although a proverb is of European origin, "the character of Creole folk-lore is very different from European folk-lore in the matter of superstition." Many proverbs are direct from the African. Those in the Creole of Hayti are generally rough and coarse. The most popular subjects are, pot or kettle, rain, serpent or snake, of which there are six of each; devil, eggs, belly, horse, mothers, tail, of these there are seven of each; chicken, children, ox have eight of each; cat has nine; goat has eleven; talking has sixteen; monkey has seventeen; fine clothes has only four, idleness has five, and marriage has six.

[22] Copyright, 1885, by Will H. Coleman.

Hearn speaks of this book as a Dictionary of Proverbs. He made an extensive study of the subject and in later researches found it most helpful. "I have," he says, "quite a Creole library embracing the Creole dialects of both hemispheres."

Following are a selection of the proverbs chosen from the different dialects:--

No. 23. _Bel tignon pas fait bel negresse. (Le beau tignon ne
fait pas la belle negresse.)_ "It isn't the fine head-dress that
makes the fine negress." (_Louisiana._)

_Tignon_ or _tiyon_, the true Creole word, "is the famously
picturesque handkerchief which in old days all slave-women
twisted about their heads."

No. 44. _Ca qui boude manze boudin. (Celui qui boude mange du
boudin.)_ "He who sulks eats his own belly." That is to say,
spites himself. The pun is untranslatable. (_Mauritius_.)

_Boudin_ in French signifies a pudding, in Creole it also
signifies the belly. Thus there is a double pun in the patois.

No. 256. _Quand diabe alle lamesse li caciette so laquee. (Quand
le diable va a la messe, il cache sa queue.)_ "When the Devil
goes to mass he hides his tail." (_Mauritius._)

No. 352. _Zozo paillenqui crie la-haut, coudevent vini. (Le
paille-en-cul crie la-haut, le coup de vent vient.)_ "When the
tropic-bird screams overhead, a storm-wind is coming."
(_Mauritius._)

No. 267. _Quand milatt tini yon vie chouvral yo dit negress pas
manman yo. (Quand les mulatres ont un vieux cheval ils disent
que les negresses ne sont pas leur meres.)_ "As soon as a
mulatto is able to own an old horse, he will tell you that his
mother wasn't a nigger." (_Martinique._)

No. 324. _Toutt milett ni grand zaureilles. (Tout les mulets ont
des grandes oreilles.)_ "All mules have big ears." Equivalent to
our proverb: "Birds of a feather flock together."
(_Martinique._)

No. 291. _Si coulev oule viv, li pas pronminee grand-chemin. (Si
la couleuvre veut vivre, elle ne se promene pas dans le grand
chemin.)_ "If the snake cares to live, it doesn't journey upon
the high-road." (_Guyana._)

No. 292. _Si couleve pas te fonte, femmes se pouend li fair
ribans jipes. (Si la couleuvre n'etait pas effrontee les femmes
la prendraient pour en faire des rubans de jupes.)_ "If the
snake wasn't spunky, women would use it for petticoat strings."
(_Trinidad._)

No. 100. _Complot plis fort passe ouanga.[23] (Le complot est
plus fort que l'ouanga.)_ "Conspiracy is stronger than
witchcraft." (_Hayti._)

[23] _Di moin si to gagnin homme!
Mo va fe ouanga pouli;
Mo fe li tourne fantome
Si to vle mo to mari...._

"Tell me if thou hast a man (a lover) I will make a
_ouanga_ for him--I will change him into a ghost if thou
wilt have me for thy husband."

This word, of African origin, is applied to all things
connected with the Voudooism of the negroes.

In the song, "_Dipi mo voue, toue Adele_," from which the
above lines are taken, the wooer threatens to get rid of a
rival by _ouanga_--to "turn him into a ghost." The victims
of Voudooism are said to have gradually withered away,
probably through the influence of secret poison. The word
_grigri_, also of African origin, simply refers to a
charm, which may be used for an innocent or innocuous
purpose. Thus, in a Louisiana Creole song, we find a
quadroon mother promising her daughter a charm to prevent
the white lover from forsaking her:

"_Pou tchombe li na fe grigri._" "We shall make a _grigri_
to keep him."

Simultaneously with the publication of "Gombo Zhebes," Hearn contributed a series of articles[24] to _Harper's Weekly._ (221-227, 230, 232.) These papers, which are commonplace newspaper work, tell of New Orleans, its Expositions, its Superstitions, Voudooism, and the Creole Patois. He feels that the Creole tongue must go, but while there is still time, he hopes that some one will rescue its dying legends and curious lyrics.

[24] Copyright, 1884, 1885, 1886, by Harper and Brothers.

The unedited Creole literature comprises songs, satires in
rhymes, proverbs, fairy-tales--almost everything commonly
included under the term folk-lore. The lyrical portion of
it is opulent in oddities, in melancholy beauties.

There are few of the younger generation of Creoles who do not converse in the French and English languages. Creole is the speech of motherhood, and "there is a strange naive sorrow in their burdens as of children sobbing for lonesomeness in the night."

There is an interesting account of Jean Montanet, "Voudoo John"--The Last of the Voudoos. He was said to be a son of a prince of Senegal. From a ship's cook he rose to own large estates. While he was a cotton-roller, it was noticed that he seemed to have some peculiar occult influence over the negroes under him. Voudoo John had the mysterious _obi_ power. Soon realizing his power, he commenced to tell fortunes, and thousands and thousands of people, white and black, flocked to him. Then he bought a house and began as well to practise Creole medicine. He could give receipts for everything and anything, and many a veiled lady stopped at his door.

Once Jean received a fee of $50 for a potion. "It was
water," he said to a Creole confidant, "with some common
herbs boiled in it. I hurt nobody, but if folks want to
give me fifty dollars, I take the fifty dollars every
time!"

It is said that Jean became worth at least $50,000. He had his horses and carriages, his fifteen wives, whom he considered, one and all, legitimate spouses. He was charitable too. But he did not know what to do with his money. Gradually, in one way or another, it was stolen from him, until at the last, with nothing left but his African shells, his elephant's tusk, and the sewing-machine upon which he used to tell fortunes even in his days of riches, he had to seek hospitality of his children.

Hearn devotes several columns to Voudooism, telling of its witchcrafts and charms and fetiches which work for evil, and also of the superstitions regarding the common occurrences of daily life.

In a paper on Mexican feather-work at the New Orleans Exposition, there is this paragraph which presages his later descriptions:--

As I write, the memory of a Mexican landscape scene in
feather-work is especially vivid--a vast expanse of opulent
wheat-fields, whereof the blonde immensity brightens or
deepens its tint with the tremor of summer winds; distance
makes violet the hills; a steel-bright river serpentines
through the plain, reflecting the feminine grace of palms
tossing their plumes against an azure sky. I remember also
a vision of marshes--infinite stretches of reed-grown ooze,
shuddering in gusts of sea-wind, and paling away into
bluish vagueness as through a miasmatic haze.

In conjunction with these articles, Hearn published in _Harper's Bazaar_ (228-229) two papers on the Curiosities to be found at the New Orleans Exposition.

SOME CHINESE GHOSTS[25] (3) was the next book of the New Orleans period. The first publisher to whom it was submitted did not accept it, but Roberts Brothers finally brought it out. "There are only six little stories," writes Hearn, "but each of them cost months of hard work and study, and represents a much higher attempt than anything in the 'Stray Leaves.'" The book is dedicated to his friend Mr. Krehbiel, and the Dedication, which is given in the Bibliography, is as unique as the tales themselves.

[25] Copyright, 1887, by Roberts Brothers.

In the Preface Hearn says that while preparing these legends he sought for "weird beauty." The era of fierce passions and horror is waning, and in these six perfect tales there is a new-found restraint, a firmer handling of the brush in more normal colours.

One of the earliest reviews of his work remarks:--

"In his treatment of the legend lore of the Celestial Empire, Mr. Hearn has, if possible, been even more delicate and charming than in the stories which go to make the previous volume, so much so, indeed, that one is persuaded to full belief in the beauty and witchery of the almond-eyed heroines of his pages." (322.)

The opening story is of the beautiful Ko-Ngai, daughter of Kouan-Yu, whose divine loyalty to her father never faltered even at a hideous death. He was a great bellmaker, and the Mandarin ordered that he should make a bell of such size that it would be heard for one hundred _li_, and further that the bell "should be strengthened with brass, and deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver." But the metals refused to mingle. Again the bell was cast, but the result was even worse, and the Son of Heaven was very angry; and this word was sent to Kouan-Yu:--

"If thou fail a third time in fulfilling our command, thy head
shall be severed from thy neck."

When the lovely Ko-Ngai heard this, she sold her jewels, and paid a great price to an astrologer, and it was told to her:--

Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver and iron never
will embrace, until the flesh of a maiden be melted in the
crucible; until the blood of a virgin be mingled with the metals
in their fusion.

Ko-Ngai told no one what she had heard. The awful hour for the heroic effort of the final casting arrived.

All the workmen wrought their tasks in silence; there was no
sound heard but the muttering of the fires. And the muttering
deepened into a roar of typhoons approaching, and the blood-red
lake of metal slowly brightened like the vermilion of a sunrise,
and the vermilion was transmuted into a radiant glow of gold,
and the gold whitened blindingly, like the silver face of a full
moon. Then the workers ceased to feed the raving flame, and all
fixed their eyes upon the eyes of Kouan-Yu; and Kouan-Yu
prepared to give the signal to cast.

But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn his
head; and all heard the voice of Ko-Ngai sounding sharply sweet
as a bird's song above the great thunder of the fires,--"For thy
sake, O my Father!" And even as she cried, she leaped into the
white flood of metal; and the lava of the furnace roared to
receive her, and spattered monstrous flakes of flame to the
roof, and burst over the verge of the earthen crater, and cast
up a whirling fountain of many-coloured fires, and subsided
quakingly, with lightnings and with thunders and with mutterings.

Of the lovely Ko-Ngai no trace remained save a little shoe, which was left in the hand of the faithful serving-woman who had striven to catch her as she leaped into the flame.

And ever does the bell, whose tones are deeper and mellower and mightier than the tones of any other bell, utter the name of Ko-Ngai; and ever between the mighty strokes there is a low moaning heard, a sobbing of "_Hiai!_" and that they say is Ko-Ngai crying for her little shoe.

The next tale tells of Ming-Y and how it was that he did not heed the counsel of the words of Lao-Tseu, and so it befell that he was loved by the beautiful Sie-Thao, whose tomb had many years ago crumbled to ruins.

The Legend of Tchi-Niu is the queen flower of the nosegay of six. Tong's father died, and as they were very poor, the only way that Tong could obtain money to pay for the funeral expenses was to sell himself as a slave. The years passed, and he worked without rest or pay, but never a complaint did he utter. At length the fever of the ricefields seized him, and he was left alone in his sickness, for there was no one to wait on him. One noon he dreamed that a beautiful woman bent over him and touched his forehead with her hand. And Tong opened his eyes, and he saw the lovely person of whom he had dreamed. "I have come to restore thy strength and to be thy wife. Arise and worship with me." And reading his thoughts she said, "I will provide."

"And together they worshipped Heaven and Earth. Thus she became his wife."

But all that Tong knew of his wife was that her name was Tchi. And the fame of the weaving of Tchi spread far, and people came to see her beautiful work. One morning Tchi gave to her husband a document. It was his freedom that she had bought.

Later the silk-loom remained untouched, for Tchi gave birth to a son. And the boy was not less wonderful than his mother.

Now it came to the Period of the Eleventh Moon. Suddenly one night, Tchi led Tong to the cradle where their son slumbered, and as she did so a great fear and awe came over Tong, and the sweet tender voice breathed to him:--

"Lo! my beloved, the moment has come in which I must forsake
thee; for I was never of mortal born, and the Invisible may
incarnate themselves for a time only. Yet I leave with thee the
pledge of our love,--this fair son, who shall ever be to thee as
faithful and as fond as thou thyself hast been. Know, my
beloved, that I was sent to thee even by the Master of Heaven,
in reward of thy filial piety, and that I must now return to the
glory of His house: I AM THE GODDESS TCHI-NIU."

Even as she ceased to speak, the great glow faded, and Tong,
reopening his eyes, knew that she had passed away for
ever,--mysteriously as pass the winds of heaven, irrevocably as
the light of a flame blown out. Yet all the doors were barred,
all the windows unopened. Still the child slept, smiling in his
sleep. Outside, the darkness was breaking; the sky was
brightening swiftly; the night was past. With splendid majesty
the East threw open high gates of gold for the coming of the
sun; and, illuminated by the glory of his coming, the vapours of
morning wrought themselves into marvellous shapes of shifting
colour,--into forms weirdly beautiful as the silken dreams woven
in the loom of Tchi-Niu.

Another tale is that of Mara, who tempted in vain, for the Indian pilgrim conquered.

And still, as a mist of incense, as a smoke of universal
sacrifice, perpetually ascends to heaven from all the lands of
earth the pleasant vapour TE, created for the refreshment of
mankind by the power of a holy vow, the virtue of a pious
atonement.

Like unto the Tale of the Great Bell, Pu, convinced that a soul cannot be divided,

entered the flame, and yielded up his ghost in the embrace of
the Spirit of the Furnace, giving his life for the life of his
work,--his soul for the soul of his Vase.

And when the workmen came upon the tenth morning to take forth
the porcelain marvel, even the bones of Pu had ceased to be; but
lo! the Vase lived as they looked upon it: seeming to be flesh
moved by the utterance of a Word, creeping to the titillation of
a Thought. And whenever tapped by the finger, it uttered a voice
and a name,--the voice of its maker, the name of its creator: PU.

This same year, Hearn contributed to _Harpers Bazaar_ the valiant legend of "Rabyah's Last Ride"(234)--Rabyah upon whom no woman had ever called in vain, and who defended his women even after he was dead. This tale was copied in the _Times-Democrat_.

CHITA[26] (4), although published after Hearn left New Orleans, properly belongs to that period. It first appeared in much shorter form in the _Times-Democrat_ under the title of "Torn Letters." This version met with many warm friends, and the author was urged to enlarge it. He did so, and Harpers accepted the story, publishing it first as a serial in their magazine. With this book came Hearn's first recognition, and because of its success, he was given a commission by Harpers for further studies in the tropics, which eventuated in the volume, "Two Years in the French West Indies."

[26] Copyright, 1889, by Harper and Brothers.

"Chita" is the first glimpse of what Mr. Hearn could write from out himself; for whereas, as always, the plot must be given to him, the thread here is so frail that what we admire and remember is the fabric itself which only Hearn could have woven. In "Chita" he recreates elemental nature. In "Karma" he becomes the conscience of a human being. Then, for the first time he realizes the spiritual forces which are stronger than life or death, and without which no beauty exists.

A criticism of "Chita" at the time of its publication says:--

"By right of this single but profoundly remarkable book, Mr. Hearn may lay good claim to the title of the American Victor Hugo ... so living a book has scarcely been given to our generation." (342.)

Concerning the story, Hearn himself writes as follows:--

"Chita" was founded on the fact of a child saved from the Lost
Island disaster by some Louisiana fishing-folk, and brought up
by them. Years after a Creole hunter recognized her, and
reported her whereabouts to relatives. These, who were rich,
determined to bring her up as young ladies are brought up in the
South, and had her sent to a convent. But she had lived the free
healthy life of the coast, and could not bear the convent; she
ran away from it, married a fisherman, and lives somewhere down
there now,--the mother of multitudinous children.

This slight structure of plot gave Hearn the opportunity to paint a marvellous picture. Hundreds of quotations could be given. He is delighted with the rich glory of the tropics, and by his power of word imagery he so reproduces it that with him we too can see and feel it. In this glowing Nature the poisoned beauty of the Orient is forgotten. Take this description:--

The charm of a single summer day on these island shores is
something impossible to express, never to be forgotten. Rarely,
in the paler zones, do earth and heaven take such luminosity:
those will best understand me who have seen the splendour of a
West Indian sky. And yet there is a tenderness of tint, a caress
of colour, in these Gulf-days which is not of the Antilles,--a
spirituality, as of eternal tropical spring. It must have been
to even such a sky that Xenophanes lifted up his eyes of old
when he vowed the Infinite Blue was God;--it was indeed under
such a sky that De Soto named the vastest and grandest of
Southern havens Espiritu Santo,--the Bay of the Holy Ghost.
There is a something unutterable in this bright Gulf-air that
compels awe,--something vital, something holy, something
pantheistic and reverentially the mind asks itself if what the
eye beholds is not the [Greek: pneuma] indeed, the Infinite
Breath, the Divine Ghost, the Great Blue Soul of the Unknown.
All, all is blue in the calm,--save the low land under your
feet, which you almost forget, since it seems only as a tiny
green flake afloat in the liquid eternity of day. Then slowly,
caressingly, irresistibly, the witchery of the Infinite grows
upon you: out of Time and Space you begin to dream with open
eyes,--to drift into delicious oblivion of facts,--to forget the
past, the present, the substantial,--to comprehend nothing but
the existence of that infinite Blue Ghost as something into
which you would wish to melt utterly away for ever.

So it is told that into this perfect peace one August day in 1856, a scarlet sun sank in a green sky, and a moonless night came.

Then the Wind grew weird. It ceased being a breath; it became a
Voice moaning across the world hooting,--uttering nightmare
sounds,--_Whoo!_--_whoo!_--_whoo!_--and with each stupendous
owl-cry the mooing of the waters seemed to deepen, more and more
abysmally, through all the hours of darkness.

Morning dawned with great rain: the steamer _Star_ was due that day. No one dared to think of it. "Great God!" some one shrieked,--"She is coming!"

On she came, swaying, rocking, plunging,--with a great whiteness
wrapping her about like a cloud, and moving with her moving,--a
tempest-whirl of spray;--ghost-white and like a ghost she came,
for her smoke-stacks exhaled no visible smoke--the wind devoured
it.

And still the storm grew fiercer. On shore the guests at the hotel danced with a feverish reckless gaiety.

Again the _Star_ reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began to
drag away from the great building and its lights,--away from the
voluptuous thunder of the grand piano,--even at that moment
outpouring the great joy of Weber's melody orchestrated by
Berlioz: _l'Invitation a la Valse_,--with its marvellous musical
swing.

--"Waltzing!" cried the captain. "God help them!--God help us
all now!... The Wind waltzes to-night, with the Sea for his
partner." ...

O the stupendous Valse-Tourbillon! O the mighty Dancer!
One-two--three! From north-east to east, from east to
south-east, from south-east to south: then from the south he
came, whirling the Sea in his arms....

And so the hurricane passed, and the day reveals utter wreck and desolation. "There is plunder for all--birds and men."

At a fishing village on the coast on this same night of the storm Carmen, the good wife of Feliu, dreamed--above the terrors of the tempest which shattered her sleep--once again the dream that kept returning of her little Concha, her first-born who slept far away in the old churchyard at Barcelona. And this night she dreamed that her waxen Virgin came and placed in her arms the little brown child with the Indian face, and the face became that of her dead Conchita.

And Carmen wished to thank the Virgin for that priceless bliss,
and lifted up her eyes; but the sickness of ghostly fear
returned upon her when she looked; for now the Mother seemed as
a woman long dead, and the smile was the smile of fleshlessness,
and the places of the eyes were voids and darknesses.... And the
sea sent up so vast a roar that the dwelling rocked.

* * * * *

Feliu and his men find the tide heavy with human dead and the sea filled with wreckage. Through this floatage Feliu detects a stir of life ... he swims to rescue a little baby fast in the clutch of her dead mother.