Chapter IV: The Last Stage (4)

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--Much as it pleased me to hear from you, I assure you that your letter is shocking. It is shocking to hear of anybody being compelled to work for seventeen hours a day. You have neither time to think, to study, to read, to do your best work, or to make any artistic progress--not even to hint of pleasure--while working seventeen hours a day. Nor is that all; I believe it injures a man's health and capacity for endurance, as well as his style and peace of mind. You have a fine constitution; but if once broken down by over-straining the nervous system you will never get fully over the shock. It is very hard for me to believe that it is really necessary for you to do reportorial work and to write correspondence, unless you have a special financial object to accomplish within a very short space of time. The editorial work touching upon art matters which you are capable of doing for the _Tribune_ might be done in the daytime; but what do you want to waste your brain and time upon reportorial work for? D--n reportorial work and correspondence, and the American disposition to work people to death, and the American delight in getting worked to death! Well, I have nothing more to say except to protest my hope that the seventeen-hours-a-day business is going to stop before long; for the longer it lasts the more difficult it will be for you to accomplish your ultimate purpose. The devil of overworking one's self is that it renders it impossible to get fair and just remuneration for value given,--impossible also to create those opportunities for self-advancements which form the steps of the stairway to the artistic heaven,--impossible to maintain that self-pride and confident sense of worth without which no man, however gifted, can make others fully conscious of it. When you voluntarily convert yourself into a part of the machinery of a great daily newspaper, you must revolve and keep revolving with the wheels; you play the man in the treadmill. The more you involve yourself the more difficult it will be for you to escape. I said I had nothing further to observe; but I find I must say something more,--not that I imagine for a moment I am telling you anything new, but because I wish to try to impress anew upon you some facts which do not seem to have influenced you as I believe they ought to do.

Under all the levity of Henri Murger's picturesque Bohemianism, there is a serious philosophy apparent which elevates the characters of his romance to heroism. They followed one principle faithfully,--so faithfully that only the strong survived the ordeal,--never to abandon the pursuit of an artistic vocation for any other occupation however lucrative,--not even when she remained apparently deaf and blind to her worshippers. The conditions pictured by Murger have passed away in Paris as elsewhere: the old barriers to ambition have been greatly broken down. But I think the moral remains. So long as one can live and pursue his natural vocation in art, it is a duty with him never to abandon it if he believes that he has within him the elements of final success. Every time he labours at aught that is not of art, he robs the divinity of what belongs to her.

Do you never reflect that within a few years you will no longer be the YOUNG MAN,--and that, like Vesta's fires, the enthusiasm of youth for an art-idea must be well fed with the sacred branches to keep it from dying out? I think you ought really to devote all your time and energies and ability to the cultivation of one subject, so as to make that subject alone repay you for all your pains. And I do not believe that Art is altogether ungrateful in these days: she will repay fidelity to her, and recompense sacrifices. I don't think you have any more right to play reporter than a great sculptor to model fifty-cent plaster figures of idiotic saints for Catholic processions, or certain painters to letter steamboats at so much a letter. In one sense, too, Art is exacting. To acquire real eminence in any one branch of any art, one must study nothing else for a lifetime. A very wide general knowledge may be acquired only at the expense of depth. But you are certainly right in thinking of the present for other reasons. Still, there is nothing so important, not only to success but to confidence, hope, and happiness, as good health and a strong constitution; and these you must lose if you choose to keep working seventeen hours a day! It is well to be able to do such a thing on a brief stretch, but it is suicide, moral and physical, to keep it up regularly. The rolling-mill hand, or the puddler, or the moulder, or the common brakeman on a railroad cannot keep up at such hours for a great length of time; and you must know that even hard labour is not so exhausting as brain-work. Don't work yourself sick, old friend,--you are in a fair way to do it now.

Your friend,
L. H.

TO JEROME A. HART

NEW ORLEANS, May, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--Thanks for your kindly little article. I suppose it emanated from the same source as the charming translation of Gautier's "Spectre de la Rose"--which we reproduced here, comparing it with the inferior translation--or rather mutilation--of the same poem which appeared in the ----.

Your translation of the epitaph seems to me superb as far as the first two lines go; but I can hardly agree with you as to the last. "La plus belle du monde" cannot be perfectly rendered by "the loveliest in the land"--which is a far weaker expression, by reason of the circumscribed idea it involves. "La plus belle du monde" is an expression of paramount force, simple as it is; it conveys the idea of beauty without an equal, not in any one country, but in the whole world. But I think your second line is a masterpiece of faithfulness; and, as you justly remark, my hobby is literalism.

Very sincerely yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO JEROME A. HART

NEW ORLEANS, May, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--I am very grateful for your kind letter and the pleasure of making your acquaintance even through an epistolary medium.

We have the same terrible proverb in Spanish that you cite in Italian; but it certainly can never apply to the _Argonaut's_ exquisite translations--preserving metre, colour, and warmth so far as seems to be possible. Still, I must say that I do not believe the poetry of one country can be perfectly reproduced in corresponding metre in the poetry of another: much that is even marvellous may be done,--yet a little of the original perfume evaporates in the process. Therefore the French gave _prose_ translations of Heine and Byron: especially in regard to the German poet they considered translation in metrical form impossible. Nevertheless it is impossible also to refrain from attempting such things at times,--when the beauty of exotic verse seems to take us by the throat with the strangulation of pleasure. I have felt impelled occasionally to make an essay in poetical translation; the result has generally been a dismal failure, but I venture to send you a specimen which appears to be less condemnable than most of my efforts. I cannot presume to call it a translation,--it is only an adaptation.

As for the lines in "Clarimonde," if the book ever reaches a second edition, I think I will be able to remedy some of their imperfections. Skaldic verse, I suppose, would be anachronistically vile; but something corresponding to the metre of "La Chanson de Roland," unrhymed, what the French call _vers assonances_. This corresponds exactly with your lines in breadth; also in tone, as the accent of the assonance is thrown upon the last syllable of each line.

Very gratefully yours,
L. H.

P. S. Just received another note from you. Have seen the reproduction; I am exceedingly thankful for the compliment; and you know that so far as the copyright business is concerned, the credit must do the book too much good for Worthington to find any fault. I suppose you receive the _Times-Democrat_ of New Orleans. I forward last Sunday's issue, containing a little compliment to the _Argonaut_.

Very sincerely yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO JEROME A. HART

NEW ORLEANS, December, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--I venture to intrude upon you to ask a little advice, which as a brother-student of foreign literature you could probably give me better than any other person to whom I could apply. I am informed that in San Francisco there are enterprising and liberal-minded publishers, with whom unknown authors have a better chance than with the austere and pious publishers of the East. It would be a very great favour indeed, if you could give me some positive indication in this matter. I desire to find a publisher for that excessively curious but somewhat audacious book, "La Tentation de Saint Antoine," of Flaubert, of which I have completed and corrected the MS. translation. You who know the original will probably agree with me that it would be little less than a literary crime to emasculate such a masterpiece in the translation. I have translated almost every word of the Heresiarch dispute, and the soliloquy of the god Crepitus, etc.

Consequently I have very little hopes of obtaining a publisher in New York or Boston. Do you think I could obtain one in San Francisco? I would be willing to advance something toward the cost of publishing,--if necessary.

Trust you will pardon my intrusion. I think the mutual interest we both feel in one branch of foreign literature is a fair excuse for my letter.

With thanks for previous many kindnesses,

I remain, truly yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO JEROME A. HART

NEW ORLEANS, January, 1883.

DEAR SIR,--Writing to San Francisco seems, after a sort, like writing to Japan or Malabar, so great is the lapse of time consumed in the transit of mail-matter, especially when one is anxious. I was quite so, fearing you might have considered my letter intrusive; but your exceedingly pleasant reply has dispelled all apprehension.

I am not surprised at the information; for the difficulty of finding publishers in the United States is something colossal, and my hopes burned with a very dim flame. I do not know about Worthington,--as he is absent in Europe, perhaps he will undertake the publication; but I fear, inasmuch as he is a Methodist of the antique type, that he will not. Now the holy _Observer_ declared that the "Cleopatra" was a collection of "stories of unbridled lust without the apology of natural passion;" that "the translation reeked with the miasma of the brothel," etc., etc.,--and Worthington was much exercised thereat. Otherwise I should have suggested the publication in English of "Mademoiselle de Maupin."

I regret that I cannot tell you anything about the fate of "Cleopatra's Nights," but the publisher preserves a peculiar and sinister silence in regard to it. Perhaps he is sitting upon the stool of orthodox repentance. Perhaps he is preparing to be generous. But this I much doubt; and as the translations were published partly at my own expense, I am anxious only regarding the fate of my original capital.

Yes, I read the _Critic_--and considered that the observation on Gautier stultified the paper. If the translator had been dissected by the same hand, I should not have felt very unhappy. But I received some very nice private letters from Eastern readers, which encouraged me very much, and among them several requesting for other translations from Gautier.

"Salammbô" is the greatest, by far, of Flaubert's creations, because harmonious in all its plan and purpose, and because it introduces the reader into an unfamiliar field of history, cultivated with astonishing skill and verisimilitude. It was twice written, like "La Tentation." I translated the prayer to the Moon for the preface to "La Tentation." I sincerely trust you will translate it. As for time, it is astonishing what system will accomplish. If a man cannot spare an hour a day, he can certainly spare a half-hour. I translated "La Tentation" by this method,--never allowing a day to pass without an attempt to translate a page or two. 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. I pray you may translate "Salammbô,"--a most difficult task, I fancy,--but one that you would certainly succeed admirably with. In my preface I spoke of "Salammbô" as the most wonderful of Flaubert's productions.

"Herodias" is another story which ought to be translated. But I would write too long a letter if I dilate upon the French masterpieces.

I will only say that, in regard to recent publications, I have noticed some extraordinary novels which have not earned the attention they deserve. "Le Roman d'un Spahi" seems to me a miracle of art,--and "Le Mariage de Loti" contains passages of wonderful and weird beauty. These, with "Aziyadé," are the productions of a French naval officer who signs himself Loti. Think I shall try to translate the first-named next year.

Verily the path of the translator is hard. The Petersons and Estes & Lauriat are deluging the country with bogus translations or translations so unfaithful to the original that they must be characterized as fraudulent. And the great American public like the stuff. One who translates for the love of the original will probably have no reward save the satisfaction of creating something beautiful, and perhaps of saving a masterpiece from desecration by less reverent bards. But this is worth working for.

With grateful thanks, and sincere hopes that you will not be deterred from translating "Salammbô" before some incompetent hand attempts it, I remain,

Sincerely,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--I am very grateful for the warm and kindly sympathy your letter evidences; and as I have already received about a half-dozen communications of similar tenor from unknown friends, I am beginning to feel considerably encouraged. The "lovers of the antique loveliness" are proving to me the future possibilities of a long cherished dream,--the English realization of a Latin style, modelled upon foreign masters, and rendered even more forcible by that element of _strength_ which is the characteristic of Northern tongues. This no man can hope to accomplish; but even a translator may carry his stone to the master-masons of a new architecture of language.

You ask me about translations. I am sorry that I am not able to answer you hopefully. I have a curious work by Flaubert in the hands of R. Worthington (under consideration); and I have various MSS. filed away in the Cemetery of the Rejected. I tried for six years to obtain a publisher for the little collection you so much like, and was obliged at last to have them published partly at my own expense--a difficult matter for one who is obliged to work upon a salary. As for "Mademoiselle de Maupin," much as I should desire the honour of translating it, I would dread to work in vain, or at best to work for the profit of some publisher who would have the translator at his mercy. If I could find a publisher willing to publish the work precisely as I would render it, I would be glad to surrender all profits to him; but I fancy that any American publisher would wish to emasculate the manuscript.

I am told that an English translation was in existence in London some years ago, but I could not learn the publisher's name. Chatto & Windus, the printers of the admirable English version of the "Contes Drolatiques," might be able to inform you further. But I am afraid that the English version was scarcely worthy of the original, owing to the profound silence of the press in regard to the matter. An American translation was being offered to New York publishers a few years ago. It was not accepted.

Although my own work is far from being perfect, I think I am capable of judging other translations of Gautier. The American translations are very poor ("Spirite," "Captain Fracasse," "Romance of the Mummy"), in fact they are hardly deserving the name. The English translations of Gautier's works of travel are generally good. Henry Holt has reprinted some of them, I think.

But out of perhaps sixty volumes, Gautier's works include very few romances or stories. I have never seen a translation of "Fortunio" or "Militona,"--perhaps because the sexual idea--the Eternal Feminine--prevails too much therein. "Avatar" has been translated in the New York _Evening Post_, I cannot say how well; but I have the manuscript translation of it myself, which I could never get a publisher to accept. Then there are the "Contes Humoristiques" (1 vol.) and about a dozen short tales not translated. Besides these, and the four translated already ("Fracasse," "Spirite," "The Mummy," and possibly "Mademoiselle de Maupin") Gautier's works consist chiefly of critiques, sketches of travel, dramas, comedies--including the charmingly wicked piece, "A Devil's Tear,"--and three volumes of poems.

My purpose now is to translate a series of works by the most striking French authors, each embodying a style of a school. I tried in the first collection to offer the best novelettes of Gautier in English, relying upon my own judgement so far as I could. Hereafter with leisure and health I shall attempt to do the same for about five others. I can understand your desire to see more of Gautier, and I trust you will some day; but when you have read "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and the two volumes of short stories, you have read his masterpieces of prose, and will care less for the remainder. His greatest art is of course in his magical poems; except the exotic poetry of the Hindoos, and of Persia, there is nothing in verse to equal them.

I must have fatigued your patience, however, by this time. With many thanks for your kind letter, which I took the liberty to send to Worthington, and hoping that you will soon be able to see another curious attempt of mine in print, I remain,

Sincerely,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

I forgot to say that in point of archæologic art the "Roman de la Momie" is Gautier's greatest work. It towers like an obelisk among the rest. But the American translation would disappoint you very much; it is a poor concern all the way through. It would not be a bad idea to drop a line to Chatto & Windus, Pub., London, and enquire about English versions of Gautier. You know that Austin Dobson translated some of his poems very successfully indeed.

In haste,
L. H.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, November, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--I translate hurriedly for you a few extracts from "Mademoiselle de Maupin," some of which have been used or translated by Mallock, who has said many very clever things, but whose final conclusions appear to me to smack of Jesuitic casuistry.

Gautier was not the founder of a philosophic school, but the founder of a system of artistic thought and expression. His "Mademoiselle de Maupin" is an idyl, nothing more, an idyl in which all the vague longings of youth in the blossoming of puberty, the reveries of amorous youth, the wild dreams of two passionate minds, male and female, both highly cultivated, are depicted with a daring excused only by their beauty. I think Mallock wrong in his taking Gautier for a type of Antichrist. There are few who have beheld the witchery of an antique statue, the supple interlacing of nude limbs in frieze or cameo, who have not for the moment regretted the antique. Freethinkers as were Gautier, Hugo, Baudelaire, De Musset, De Nerval, none of them were insensible to the mighty religious art of mediævalism which created those fantastic and enormous fabrics in which the visitor feels like an ant crawling in the skeleton of a mastodon. With the growth of æstheticism there is a tendency to return to antique ideas of beauty, and the last few years has given evidence of a resurrection of Greek influence in several departments of art. But when the first revolution against prudery and prejudice had to be made in France, violent and extreme opinions were necessary,--the Gautiers and De Mussets were the Red Republicans of the Romantic Renaissance. Gautier's poems utter the same plaints as his prose; mourning for the death of Pan, crying that the modern world is draped with funeral hangings of black, against which the white skeleton appears in relief. But the dreams of an artist may influence art and literature only; they cannot affect the crystallization of social systems or the philosophy of the eye.

They were all pantheists, these characters of Romanticism, some vaguely like old Greek dreamers, others deeply and studiously, like De Nerval, a lover of German mysticism: nature, whom they loved, must have whispered to them in wind-rustling and wave-lapping some word of the mighty truths she had long before taught to Brahmins and to Bodhisatvas under a more luxuriant sky. They saw the evil beneath their feet as a vast "paste" for which the great Statuary eternally moulded new forms in his infinite crucible, and into which old forms were remelted to reappear in varied shapes;--the lips of loveliness might blossom again in pouting roses, the light of eyes rekindle in amethyst and emerald, the white breast with its delicate network of veins be re-created in fairest marble. The worship within sombre churches, and chapels, seemed to them unworthy of the spirit of Universal Love;--to adore him they deemed no temple worthy save that from whose roof of eternal azure hang the everlasting lamps of the stars; no music, save that never-ending ocean hymn, ancient as the moon, whose words no human musician may learn.

I do not know whether Mallock translated Gautier himself, or made extracts; but Gautier's madrigal pantheistic alone contains the germ of a faith sweeter and purer and nobler than the author of "Is Life Worth Living?" ever dreamed of, or at least comprehended. The poem is a microcosm of artistic pantheism; it contains the whole soul of Gautier, like one of the legendary jewels in which spirits were imprisoned.

Speaking of the "Decameron," Petronius, Angelinus, and so forth, I must say that I think it the duty of every scholar to read them. It is only thus that we can really obtain a correct idea of the thought and lives of those who read them when first related or written. They are historical paintings, they are shadows of the past and echoes of dead voices. Brantôme or De Châteauneuf teach one more about the life of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries than a dozen ordinary historians could do. The influence of sex and sexual ideas has moulded the history of nations and formed national character; yet, except Michelet, there is perhaps no historian who has read history fairly in this connection. Without such influence there can be no real greatness; the mind remains arid and desolate. Every noble mind is made fruitful by its virility; we all have a secret museum in some corner of the brain, although our Pompeian or Etruscan curiosities are only shown to appreciative friends.

I have read your enclosed slip and am quite pleased with the creditable notice given you by way of introduction, and quite astonished that you should be so young. You have fine prospects before you, I fancy, if so successful already. Of course _Congregational_ is so vague a word that I cannot tell how latitudinarian your present ideas are (for people in general), nor how broadly you may extend your studies of philosophy. Your correspondence with a freethinker of an extreme type would incline me to believe you were very liberally inclined, but I have often noticed that clergymen belonging even to the old cast-iron type may be classed among warm admirers of the beautiful and the true for their own sakes.

Very sincerely yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

P. S. Have just been looking at Mallock, and am satisfied that he made the translation himself because he translated the "virginity" by "purity." No one but a Catholic or Jesuit would do that; only Catholics, I believe, consider the consummation of love intrinsically impure, or attempt to identify purity with virginity. Gautier would never have used the word--a word in itself impure and testifying to uncleanliness of fancy. I have translated it properly by the English equivalent. I suppose you know that Mallock's aim is to prove that everybody not a Catholic is a fool.

ENCLOSURE

"Mademoiselle de Maupin," petite édition, Charpentier, 2 vols.; vol. ii, page 12.

"I am a man of the Homeric ages;--the world in which I live is not mine, and I comprehend nothing of the social system by which I am surrounded. Never did Christ come into the world for me; I am as pagan as Alcibiades or Phidias. Never have I been to Golgotha to gather passion-flowers; and the deep river flowing from the side of the crucified, and making a crimson girdle about the world, has never bathed me with its waves."

Page 21: "Venus may be seen; she hides nothing; for modesty is created for the ugly alone; and is a modern invention, daughter of the Christian disdain of form and matter."

"O ancient worlds! all thou didst revere is now despised; thine idols are overthrown in dust; gaunt anchorites clad in tattered rags, gory martyrs with shoulders lacerated by the tigers of the circuses, lie heaped upon the pedestals of thy gods so comely and so charming;--the Christ has enveloped the world in his winding sheet. Beauty must blush for herself, must wear a shroud."

Pages 22, 23: "Virginity, thou bitter plant, born upon a soil blood-moistened, whose wan and sickly flower opes painfully within the damp shadows of the cloister, under cold lustral rains;--rose without perfume, and bristling with thorns,--thou hast replaced for us those fair and joyous roses, besprinkled with nard and Falernian, worn by the dancing girls of Sybaris."

"The antique world knew thee not, O fruitless flower!--never wert thou entwined within their garlands, replete with intoxicating perfume;--in that vigorous and healthy life, thou wouldst have been disdainfully trampled under foot! Virginity, mysticism, melancholy,--three unknown words, three new maladies brought among us by the Christ. Pale spectres who deluge the world with icy tears and who," etc., etc.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

SECRET AFFINITIES
(A PANTHEISTIC MADRIGAL)
"_Emaux et Camées--Enamels and Cameos_"

For three thousand years two blocks of marble in the pediment of an antique temple have juxtaposed their white dreams against the background of the Attic heaven.

Congealed in the same nacre, tears of those waves which weep for Venus,--two pearls deep-plunged in ocean's gulf, have uttered secret words unto each other;--

Blooming in the cool Generalife, beneath the spray of the ever-weeping fountain, two roses in Boabdil's time spake to each other with whisper of leaves;--

Upon the cupolas of Venice, two white doves, rosy-footed, perched one May-time evening on the nest where love makes itself eternal.

Marble, pearl, rose, and dove--all dissolve, all pass away;--the pearl melts, the marble falls, the rose fades, the bird takes flight.

Leaving each other, all atoms seek the deep Crucible to thicken that universal paste formed of the forms that are melted by God.

By slow metamorphoses, the white marble changes to white flesh, the rosy flowers into rosy lips,--remoulding themselves into many fair bodies.

Again do the white doves coo within the hearts of young lovers; and the rare pearls re-form into teeth for the jewel-casket of woman's smile.

And hence those sympathies, imperiously sweet, whereby in all places souls are gently warmed to know each other for sisters.

Thus, docile to the summons of an aroma, a sunbeam, a colour, the atom flies to the atom as to the flower the bee.

Then dream-memories return of long reveries in white temple pediments, of reveries in the deeps of the sea,--of blossom talk beside the clear-watered fountain,--

Of kisses and quivering of wings upon the domes that are tipped with balls of gold; and the faithful molecules seek one another and know the clinging of love once more.

Again love awakens from its slumber of oblivion;--vaguely the Past is re-born; the perfume of the flower inhales and knows itself again in the sweetness of the pink mouth.

In that mother-of-pearl which glimmers in a laugh, the pearl recognizes its own whiteness;--upon the smooth skin of a young girl the marble with emotion recognizes its own coolness.

The dove finds in a sweet voice the echo of its own plaint,--resistance becomes blunted, and the stranger becomes the lover.

And thou before whom I tremble and burn,--what ocean-billow, what temple-font, what rose-tree, what dome of old knew us together? What pearl or marble, what flower or dove?

L. HEARN.

DEAR BALL,--Hope you will like the above rough prose version--of course all the unison is gone, all the soul of it has exhaled like a perfume;--this is a faded flower, pressed between the leaves of a book,--not the exquisite blossom which grew from the heart of Théophile Gautier.

L. H.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

DEAR BALL,--So far from your last being a "poor letter," as you call it, I derived uncommon pleasure therefrom; and you must not annoy yourself by writing me long letters when you have much more important matters to occupy yourself. To write a letter of twelve pages or more is the labour equivalent to the production of a column article for a newspaper; and it would be unreasonable to expect any correspondent to devote so much time and labour to letter-writing more than once in several months. I have always found the friends who write me short letters write me regularly, and all who write long letters become finally weary and cease corresponding altogether at last. Nevertheless a great deal may be said in a few words, and much pleasure extracted from a letter one page long.

I should much like to hear of your being called to a strong church, but I suppose, as you say, that your youth is for the time being a drawback. But I certainly would not feel in the least annoyed upon that score. You have all your future before you in a very bright glow, and I do not believe that any one can expect to obtain real success before he is thirty-five or forty. You cannot even forge yourself a good literary style before thirty; and even then it will not be perfectly tempered for some years. But from what I have seen of your ability, I should anticipate a more than common success for you, and I believe you will create yourself a very wide and strong weapon of speech. And your position is very enviable. There is no calling which allows of so much leisure for study and so many opportunities for self-cultivation. Just fancy the vast amount of reading you will be able to accomplish within five years, and the immense value of such literary absorption. I have the misfortune to be a journalist, and it is hard work to study at all, and attend to one's diurnal duty. Another misfortune here is the want of a good library. You have in Boston one of the finest in the world, and I believe you will be apt to regret it if you leave. Speaking of study,--you know that science has broadened and deepened so enormously of late years, that no man can thoroughly master any one branch of any one science, without devoting his whole life thereunto. The scholars of the twentieth century will have to be specialists or nothing. In matters of literary study, pure and simple, a fixed purpose and plan must be adopted. I will tell you what mine is, for I am quite young too, comparatively speaking, and have my "future" before me, so to speak. I never read a book which does not powerfully impress the imagination; but whatever contains novel, curious, potent imagery I always read, no matter what the subject. When the soil of fancy is really well enriched with innumerable fallen leaves, the flowers of language grow spontaneously. There are four things especially which enrich fancy,--mythology, history, romance, poetry,--the last being really the crystallization of all human desire after the impossible, the diamonds created by prodigious pressure of suffering. Now there is very little really good poetry, so it is easy to choose. In history I think one should only seek the extraordinary, the monstrous, the terrible; in mythology the most fantastic and sensuous, just as in romance. But there is one more absolutely essential study in the formation of a strong style--science. No romance equals it. If one can store up in his brain the most extraordinary facts of astronomy, geology, ethnology, etc., they furnish him with a wonderful and startling variety of images, symbols, and illustrations. With these studies I should think one could not help forging a good style at least--an impressive one certainly. I give myself five years more study; then I think I may be able to do something. But with your opportunities I could hope to do much better than I am doing now. Opportunity to study is supreme happiness; for colleges and universities only give us the keys with which to unlock libraries of knowledge hereafter. Isn't it horrible to hold the keys in one's hands and never have time to use them?

Very truly yours,
L. HEARN.

Don't write again until you have plenty of time;--I know you must be busy. But whenever you would like to hear anything about anything in my special line of study, let me have a line from you, as I might be able to be of some use in matters of reference.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

MY DEAR BALL,--I suppose you are quite disgusted with my silence; but you would excuse it were you to see how busy I have been, especially since our managing editor has gone on a vacation of some months.

I was amused at your ideal description of me. As you supposed, I am swarthy--more than the picture indicates; but by no means interesting to look at, and the profile view conceals the loss of an eye. I am also very short, a small square-set fellow of about 140 pounds when in good health.

I read with extreme pleasure your essay, and while I do not hold the same views, I believe yours will do good. Furthermore, if you familiarize the public with Buddhism, you are bound to aid in bringing about the very state of things I hope for. Buddhism only needs to be known to make its influence felt in America. I don't think that works like those of Sinnett, or Olcott's curious "Buddhist Catechism," published by Estes & Lauriat, will do any good;--they are too metaphysical, representing a sort of neo-gnosticism which repels by its resemblance to Spiritualistic humbug. But the higher Buddhism,--that suggested by men like Emerson, John Weiss, etc.,--will yet have an apostle. We shall live, I think, to see some strange things.

I am sorry I cannot gratify you by my reply about your projected literary sketches. The policy of the paper has been to give the preference to lady writers on such subjects, with a few exceptions to which some literary reputation has been attached. You would have a much better chance with theosophic essays; but you would be greatly restricted as to space. You did not write, it appears, to Page; and he is now at Saratoga, where he will remain about two months. Anyhow, I would personally advise you--if you think my advice worth anything--to devote your literary impulse altogether to religious subjects. By a certain class of sermons and addresses you can achieve in a few years much more success than the slow uphill work of professional journalism or literature would bring you in a whole decade. With leisure and popularity you could then achieve such literary work as you could not think of attempting now. As for me, if I succeed in becoming independent of journalism in another ten years, I shall be luckier than men of much greater talent,--such as Bayard Taylor.

Believe me, as ever, yours,
L. HEARN.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, June, 1883.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--You have been very kind indeed to give me so pleasant an introduction to your personality;--I already feel as if we were more intimate, as if I knew you better and liked you more. A photograph is generally a surprise;--in your case it was not;--you are very much as I fancied you were--only more so.

I read with pleasure your article. The introduction was especially powerful. I must now, however, tell you frankly what I think would be most to your interest. When I wrote before I had no definite idea as to the scope or plan of your essay, nor did I know the _Inter-Ocean_ desired it. Now I think it your duty to give the next article to that paper,--as the first is incomplete without it. It does not contain more than the parallel. However, the publication of your writing in the _Inter-Ocean_, even though unremunerative, will do you vastly more good than would the publication in our paper at a small price. The _Inter-Ocean_ circulation is very large; and you must be advertised. It is not necessary to seek it, but it would be unwise to refuse it. In the mean time I shall call attention to you in our columns occasionally,--briefly of course. I only proposed _T.-D._ with the idea you might have need of a medium to publish your opinions and ideas. But so long as the _Inter-Ocean_ takes an interest in you,--even without compensating you,--you have a right to congratulate yourself, as you are only beginning to make your voice heard in the wilderness. I shall bring your paper to Page Baker to-night,--who has just returned to town. Will send photo when I write again.

I would scarcely advise you to quote from my book. I am still too small a figure to attract any attention; and I think it would be best for you only to cite generally recognized authorities. Needless to say that I should feel greatly honoured and very grateful; but I think it would not be strictly to your interest to notice me until such time as I am recognized as a thinker, if such time shall ever arrive. With you it is very different;--your _cloth_--as we say in England--gives every gamin the right to review and praise you as a public teacher.

Yours very affectionately,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1883.

DEAR SIR,--Mr. Page M. Baker, managing editor of the _Times-Democrat_, to whose staff I belong, handed me your letter relative to the article on Gustave Doré--stating at the same time that it seemed to him the handsomest compliment ever paid to my work. I hasten to confirm the statement, and to thank you very sincerely for that delicate and nevertheless magistral criticism; for no one could have uttered a more forcible compliment in fewer words. As the author of a little volume of translations from Théophile Gautier I received a number of very encouraging and gratifying letters from Eastern literary men; but I must say that your letter upon my editorial gave me more pleasure than all of them, especially, perhaps, as manifesting an artistic sympathy with me in my admiration for the man whom I believe to have been the mightiest of modern artists.

Very gratefully and sincerely yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, March, 1883.

MY DEAR MR. O'CONNOR,--My delay in answering your charming letter was unavoidable, as I have been a week absent from the city upon an excursion to the swampy regions of southern Louisiana, in company with Harpers' artist, for whom I am writing a series of Southern sketches. As I am already on good terms with the Harpers, your delicate letter to them cannot have failed to do me far more good than would have been the case had I been altogether unknown. I don't know how to thank you, but trust that I may yet have the pleasure of trying to do so verbally, if you ever visit New Orleans.

Your books came to hand; and do great credit to your skill--I am myself a compositor and have held the office of proof-reader in a large publishing house, where I tried to establish an English system of punctuation with indifferent success. Thus I can appreciate the work. As yet I have not had time to read much of the report, but as the Life-Saving Service has a peculiar intrinsic interest I will expect to find much to enjoy in the report before long.

You are partly right about Gautier, and, I think, partly wrong. His idea of work was to illustrate with a mosaic of rare and richly-coloured words. But there is a wonderful tenderness, a nervous sensibility of feeling, an Oriental sensuousness of warmth in his creations which I like better than Victor Hugo's marvellous style. Hugo, like the grand Goth that he is, liked the horrible, the grotesqueness of tragic mediævalism. Gautier followed the Greek ideal so potently presented in Lessing's "Laocoön," and sought the beautiful only. His poetry is, I believe, matchless in French literature--an engraved gem-work of words. Well, you can judge for yourself a little, by reading his two remarkable prose-fantasies--"Arria Marcella" and "Clarimonde"--in my translations of him, which you will receive from New York in a few days. Something evaporates in translation of course, and as the book was my first effort, there will be found divers inaccuracies and errors therein; but enough remains to give some idea of Gautier's imaginative powers and descriptive skill. Will also forward you paper you ask for.

I regret having to write very hurriedly, as I have a great press of work upon my hands. You will hear from me again, however, more fully. A letter to my address as above given will reach me sooner than if sent to the _Times-Democrat_ office.

Very gratefully your friend,
L. HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, August, 1883.

MY DEAR MR. O'CONNOR,--I had feared that I had lost a rare literary friend. Your charming letter undeceived me, and your equally charming present revealed you to me in a totally new light. I had imagined you as a delicate amateur only: I did not recognize in you a Master. And after I had read your two articles,--articles written in a fashion realizing my long-cherished dream of English in splendid Latin attire,--I felt quite ashamed of my own work. You have a knowledge, too, of languages unfamiliar to me, which I honestly envy, and which is becoming indispensable in the higher spheres of literary criticism--I mean a knowledge of Italian and German. As for your long silence, it only remains for me to say that your letter filled me with that sympathy which, in certain sad moments, expresses itself only by a silent and earnest pressure of the hand,--because any utterance would sound strangely hollow, like an echo in some vast dim emptiness.

Your beautiful little book came like a valued supplement to an edition of "Leaves of Grass" in my library. I have always _secretly_ admired Whitman, and would have liked on more than one occasion to express my opinion in public print. But in journalism this is not easy to do. There is no possibility of praising Whitman unreservedly in the ordinary newspaper, whose proprietors always tell you to remember that their paper "goes into respectable families," or accuse you of loving obscene literature if you attempt controversy. Journalism is not really a literary profession. The journalist of to-day is obliged to hold himself ready to serve any cause,--like the _condottieri_ of feudal Italy, or the free captains of other countries. If he can enrich himself sufficiently to acquire comparative independence in this really _nefarious_ profession, then, indeed, he is able freely to utter his heart's sentiments and indulge his tastes, like that æsthetic and wicked Giovanni Malatesta whose life Yriarte has written.

I do not think that I could ever place so lofty an estimate upon the poet's work, however, as you give,--although no doubt rests in my mind as to your critical superiority. I think that Genius must have greater attributes than mere creative power to be called to the front rank,--the thing created must be beautiful; it does not satisfy me if the material be rich. I cannot content myself with ores and rough jewels. I want to see the gold purified and wrought into marvellous fantastic shapes; I want to see the jewels cut into roses of facets, or turned as by Greek cunning into faultless witchery of nude loveliness. And Whitman's gold seems to me in the ore: his diamonds and emeralds in the rough. Would Homer be Homer to us but for the billowy roar of his mighty verse,--the perfect cadence of his song that has the regularity of ocean-diapason? I think not. And did not all the Titans of antique literature polish their lines, chisel their words, according to severest laws of art? Whitman's is indeed a Titanic voice; but it seems to me the voice of the giant beneath the volcano,--half stifled, half uttered,--roaring betimes because articulation is impossible.

Beauty there is, but it must be sought for; it does not flash out from hastily turned leaves: it only comes to one after full and thoughtful perusal, like a great mystery whose key-word may only be found after long study. But the reward is worth the pain. That beauty is cosmical--it is world-beauty;--there is something of the antique pantheism in the book, and something larger too, expanding to the stars and beyond. What most charms me, however, is that which is most earthy and of the earth. I was amused at some of the criticisms--especially that in the _Critic_--to the effect that Mr. Whitman might have some taste for natural beauty, etc., _as an animal has_! Ah! that was a fine touch! Now it is just the animalism of the work which constitutes its great force to me--not a brutal animalism, but a _human_ animalism, such as the thoughts of antique poets reveal to us: the inexplicable delight of being, the intoxication of perfect health, the unutterable pleasures of breathing mountain-wind, of gazing at a blue sky, of leaping into clear deep water and drifting with a swimmer's dreamy confidence down the current, with strange thoughts that drift faster. Communion with Nature teaches philosophy to those who love that communion; and Nature imposes silence sometimes, that we may be forced to think:--the men of the plains say little. "You don't feel like talking out there," I heard one say: "the silence makes you silent." Such a man could not tell us just what he thought under that vastness, in the heart of that silence: but Whitman tells us for him. And he also tells us what we ought to think, or to remember, about things which are not of the wilderness but of the city. He is an animal, if the _Critic_ pleases, but a human animal--not a camel that weeps and sobs at the sight of the city's gates. He is rude, joyous, fearless, artless,--a singer who knows nothing of musical law, but whose voice is as the voice of Pan. And in the violent magnetism of the man, the great vital energy of his work, the rugged and ingenuous kindliness of his speech, the vast joy of his song, the discernment by him of the Universal Life,--I cannot help imagining that I perceive something of the antique sylvan deity, the faun or the satyr. Not the distorted satyr of modern cheap classics: but the ancient and godly one, "inseparably connected with the worship of Dionysus," and sharing with that divinity the powers of healing, saving, and foretelling, not less than the orgiastic pleasures over which the androgynous god presided.

I see great beauty in Whitman, great force, great cosmical truths sung of in mystical words; but the singer seems to me nevertheless _barbaric_. You have called him a bard. He is! But his bard-songs are like the improvisations of a savage skald, or a forest Druid: immense the thought! mighty the words! but the music is wild, harsh, rude, primæval. I cannot believe it will endure as a great work endures: I cannot think the bard is a creator, but only a precursor--only the voice of one crying in the wilderness--_Make straight the path for the Great Singer who is to come after me!_... And therefore even though I may differ from you in the nature of my appreciation of Whitman I love the soul of his work, and I think it a duty to give all possible aid and recognition to his literary priesthood. Whatsoever you do to defend, to elevate, to glorify his work you do for the literature of the future, for the cause of poetical liberty, for the cause of mental freedom. Your book is doubly beautiful to me, therefore: and I believe it will endure to be consulted in future times, when men shall write the "History of the Literary Movement of 1900," as men have already written the "Histoire du Romantisme."

I don't think you missed very much of my work in the _T.-D._ I have not been doing so well. The great heat makes one's brain languid, barren, dusty. Then I have been making desperate efforts to do some magazine work. Thanks for your praise of "The Pipes of Hameline." I wish, indeed, that I could drag myself out of this newspaper routine,--even though slowly, like a turtle struggling over uneven ground. Journalism dwarfs, stifles, emasculates thought and style. As for my translation of Gautier, it has many grave errors I am ashamed of, but it is not castrated. My pet stories in it are "Clarimonde" and "Arria Marcella."

Victor Hugo was indeed the Arthur of the Romantic Movement, and Gautier was but one of his knights, though the best of them--a Lancelot. I think his "Emaux et Camées" surpass Hugo's work in word-chiselling, in goldsmithery; but Hugo's fancy overarches all, like the vault of the sky. His prose is like the work of Angelo--the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, the figures described by Emilio Castelar as painted by flashes of lightning. He is one of those who appear but once in five hundred years. Gautier is not upon Hugo's level. But while Hugo wrought like a Gothic sculptor, largely, weirdly, wondrously, Gautier could create mosaics of word-jewelry without equals. The work is small, delicate, elfish: it will endure as long as the French language, even though it figure in the Hugo architecture only as arabesque-work or stained glass or inlaid pavement.

Oh yes! you will catch it for those articles! you will have the fate of every champion of an unpopular cause,--thorns at every turn, which may turn into roses.

I hope to see you some day. Will always have time to write. Sometimes my letter may be short; but not often. Believe me, sincerely,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO JOHN ALBEE

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

DEAR SIR,--Your very kind letter, forwarded to me by Mr. Worthington, was more of an encouragement and comfort than you, perhaps, even desired. One naturally launches his first literary effort with fear and trembling; and at such a time kind or unkind words may have a lasting effect upon his future hopes and aims.

The little stories were translated five years ago, in the intervals of rest possible to snatch during reportorial duty on a Western paper. I was then working fourteen hours a day. Subsequently I was four years vainly seeking a publisher.

Naturally enough, the stories are not even now all that I could wish them to be; but I trust that before long I may escape so far from the treadmill of daily newspaper labour as to produce something better in point of literary execution. It has long been my aim to create something in English fiction analogous to that warmth of colour and richness of imagery hitherto peculiar to Latin literature. Being of a meridional race myself, a Greek, I _feel_ rather with the Latin race than with the Anglo-Saxon; and trust that with time and study I may be able to create something different from the stone-grey and somewhat chilly style of latter-day English or American romance.

This may seem only a foolish hope,--unsubstantial as a ghost; but with youth, health and such kindly encouragement as you have given me, I believe that it may yet be realized. Of course a little encouragement from the publishers will also be necessary. Believe me very gratefully yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, September, 1883.