Chapter IV: The Last Stage (5)

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I trust you will be able to read the hideously written music I sent you in batches,--according as I could find leisure to copy it. The negro songs are taken from a most extraordinary book translated into French from the Arabic, and published at Paris by a geographical society. The author was one of those errant traders who travel yearly through the desert to the Soudan, and beyond into Timbuctoo occasionally, to purchase slaves and elephants' teeth from those almost unknown Arab sultans or negro kings who rule the black ant-hills of Central Africa. I have only yet obtained the great volume relating to Ouaday; the volume on Darfour is coming. Perron, the learned translator, in his "Femmes Arabes" (published at Algiers), gives some curious chapters on ancient Arab music which I must try to send you one of these days. The Japanese book--a rather costly affair printed in gold and colours--is rapidly becoming scarce. I expect soon to have some Hindoo music; as I have a subscription for a library of folk-lore and folk-lore music of all nations, of which only 17 volumes are published so far--Elzevirians. These mostly relate to Europe, and contain much Breton, Provençal, Norman, and other music. But there will be several volumes of Oriental popular songs, etc. Some day, I was thinking, we might together get up a little volume on the musical legends of all nations, introducing each legend by appropriate music.

I have nearly finished a collection of Oriental stories from all sorts of queer sources,--the Sanscrit, Buddhist, Talmudic, Persian, Polynesian, Finnish literatures, etc.,--which I shall try to publish. But their having been already in print will militate against them.

Couldn't get a publisher for the fantastics, and I am, after all, glad of it; for I feel somewhat ashamed of them now. I have saved a few of the best pieces, which will be rewritten at some future time if I succeed in other matters. Another failure was the translation of Flaubert's "Temptation of Saint Anthony," which no good publisher seems inclined to undertake. The original is certainly one of the most exotically strange pieces of writing in any language, and weird beyond description. Some day I may take a notion to print it myself. At present I am also busy with a dictionary of Creole Proverbs (this is a secret), four hundred or more of which I have arranged; and, by the way, I have quite a Creole library, embracing the Creole dialects of both hemispheres. I have likewise obtained favour with two firms, Harpers', and Scribners'--both of whom have recently promised to consider favourably anything I choose to send in. You see I have my hands full; and an enormous mass of undigested matter to assimilate and crystallize into something.

So much about myself, in reply to your question.... Your Armenian legend was very peculiar indeed. There is nothing exactly like it either in Baring-Gould's myths ("Mountain of Venus") or Keightley's "Fairy Mythology," or any of the Oriental folk-lore I have yet seen. The ghostly sweetheart is a universal idea, and the phantom palace also; but the biting of the finger is a delightful novelty. Many thanks for the pretty little tale.

I don't think you will see me in New York this winter. I shudder at the bare idea of cold. Speak to me of blazing deserts, of plains smoking with volcanic vapours, of suns ten times larger, and vast lemon-coloured moons,--and venomous plants that writhe like vipers and strangle like boas,--and clouds of steel-blue flies,--and skeletons polished by ants,--and atmospheres heavy as those of planets nearer to the solar centre!--but hint not to me of ice and slush and snow and black-frost winds. Why can't you come down to see me? I'll show you nice music: I'll enable you to note down the musical cries of the Latin-faced venders of herbs and _gombo fève_ and _calas_ and _latanir_ and _patates_.

If you can't come, I'll try to see you next spring or summer; but I would rather be whipped with scorpions than visit a Northern city in the winter months. In fact few residents here would dare to do it,--unless well used to travelling. Some day I must write something about the physiological changes produced here by climate. In an article I wrote for _Harper's_ six months ago, and which ought to appear soon (as I was paid for it), you will observe some brief observations on the subject; but the said subject is curious enough to write a book about. By the way, I have become scientific--I write nearly all the scientific editorials for our paper, which you sometimes see, no doubt. Farney ought to spend a few months here: it would make him crazy with joy to perceive those picturesquenesses which most visitors never see.

I thought I would go to Cincinnati next week or so; but I'm afraid it's too cold now. If I do go, I'll write you.

As to your protest about correspondence, I think you're downright wrong; but I won't renew the controversy. Anyhow I suppose we keep track of each other, with affectionate curiosity. I am quite sorry you missed my friend Page Baker: he is a splendid type,--you would have become fast friends at once. Never mind, though! if you ever come down here, we'll make you enjoy yourself in earnest. Please excuse this rambling letter.

Your Creolized friend,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

P. S. By the bye, have you the original music of the Muezzin's call,--as called by the first of all Muezzins, Bìlâl the Abyssinian, to whom it was taught by Our Lord Mohammed? Bìlâl the black Abyssinian, whose voice was the mightiest and sweetest in Islam. In those first days, Bìlâl was persecuted as the slave of the persecuted Prophet of God. And in the "Gulistan," it is told how he suffered. But after Our Lord had departed into the chamber of Allah,--and the tawny horsemen of the desert had ridden from Medina even to the gates of India, conquering and to conquer,--and the young crescent of Islam, slender as a sword, had waxed into a vast moon of glory that filled the world,--Bìlâl still lived with that wonderful health of years given unto the people of his race. But he only sang for the Kalif. And the Kalif was Omar. So, one day, it came to pass, that the people of Damascus, whither Omar had travelled upon a visit, begged the Caliph, saying: "O Commander of the Faithful, we pray thee that thou ask Bìlâl to sing the call to prayer for us, even as it was taught him by Our Lord Mohammed." And Omar requested Bìlâl. Now Bìlâl was nearly a century old; but his voice was deep and sweet as ever. And they aided him to ascend the minaret. Then, into the midst of the great silence burst once more the mighty African voice of Bìlâl,--singing the _Adzan_, even as it has still been sung for more than twelve hundred years from all the minarets of Islam:

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

And Omar wept and all the people with him.

This is an outline. I'd like to have the music of that. Sent to London for it, and couldn't get it.

L. H.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

I'm so delighted with that music that I don't know what to do.

First, I went to my friend Grueling, the organist, and got him to play and sing it. "It is very queer," he said; "but it seems to me like chants I've heard some of these negroes sing." Then I took it to a piano-player, and he played it for me. Then I went to a cornet-player--I think the cornet gives the best idea of the sound of a tenor voice--and he played it exquisitely, beautifully. Those arabesques about the name of Allah are simply divine! I noticed the difference clearly. The second version seems suspended, as a song eternal,--something never to be finished so long as waves sing and winds call, and worlds circle in space. So I thought of Edwin Arnold's lines:--

"Suns that burn till day has flown,
Stars that are by night restored,
_Are thy dervishes_, O Lord,
_Wheeling_ round thy golden throne!"

I believe I'll use both songs. The suspended character of the second has a great and pathetic poetry in it. Please tell me in your next letter what kind of voice Bìlâl ought to have--being a woolly-headed Abyssinian. I suppose I'll have to make him a tenor. I can't imagine a basso making those flourishes about the name of the Eternal.

Next week I'll send you selections of Provençal and other music which I believe are new. My library is very fine. I have a collection worth a great deal of money which you would like to see.

If you ever come down here, you could stay with me nicely, and have a pleasant artistic time.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H.E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, October, 1883.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--I have been too sick with a strangling cold to write as I had wished, or to copy for you something for which I had already obtained the music-paper. Nevertheless I am going to ask another favour. I hope you can find time to copy separately for me the Arabic words of the _Adzan_: I prefer Villoteau. As for Koran-reading, it would delight me; but please give me the number of the _sura_, or chapter, from which the words are taken.

My article on Bìlâl is progressing: the second part being complete. I am dividing it into four Sections. But I do not feel quite so hopeful now as I did before. Magazine-writing is awful labour. Six weeks at least are required to prepare an article, and then the probability is that the magazine editor will make beastly changes: my article on Cable suffered at his hands. The Harpers change nothing; but they keep an article over for twelve months and more. One of mine is not yet published. I have been hoping that if my "Bìlâl" takes, you might follow it up with an article on Arabic music generally: the open letter department of _Scribner's_ pays well, and the Harpers pay even better. I would like to see you with a series, which could afterward be united into a volume: you could copyright each one. This is only a suggestion.

I will not make much use of the Koran-reading in "Bìlâl:" I want to leave that wholly to you. I feel even guilty for borrowing your pithy and forcible observation upon the _cantillado_.

If you have a chance to visit some of your public libraries, please see whether they have Maisonneuve's superb series: "Les Littératures populaires de toutes les nations." I have fourteen volumes of it, rich in musical oddities. If they have it not, I will send you extracts from time to time. Also see if they have _Mélusine_: my volume of it (1878) contains the music of a Greek dance, older than the friezes of the Parthenon. Of course, if you can see them, it will be better than the imperfect copying of an ignoramus in music like me.

I grossly offended a Creole musician the other day. He denied _in toto_ the African sense of melody. "But," said I, "did you not tell me that you spent hours trying to imitate the notes of a roustabout-song on your flute?" "I did," he replied, "but not because it pleased me--only because I was curious to learn why I could not imitate it: it still baffles me, but it is nevertheless an abomination to my ear!" "Nay!" said I, "it hath a most sweet sound to me; and to the ethnologist a most fascinating interest. Verily, I would rather listen to it, than hear a symphony of Beethoven!" ... Whereupon he walked away in high fury; and now ... he speaketh to me no more!

Yours very thankfully,
L. HEARN.

TO H.E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--There is nothing in magazine-work in the way of profit; for the cent-a-word pay does not really recompense the labour required: but the magazines introduce one to publishers, and publishers select men to write their books. Magazine-work is the introduction to book-work; and book-work pays doubly--in money and reputation. I hope to climb up slowly this way--it takes time, but offers a sure issue. You could do so much more rapidly.

I find in my Oriental catalogues "Villoteau--_Mémoire sur la Musique de l'antique Egypte._--Paris: Maisonneuve & Cie, 1883 (15 fr.)." Wonder if you have the work in any of your public libraries. If you have not, and you would like to get it, I can obtain it from Paris duty-free next time I write to Maisonneuve, from whom I am obtaining a great number of curious books.

You must have noticed in the papers the real or pretended discovery of an ancient Egyptian melody,--the notes being represented by owls ascending and descending the musical scale. Hope you will get to see it. I have been thinking that we might some day, together, work up a charming collection of musical legends: each legend followed by a specimen-melody, with learned dissertation by H. Edward Krehbiel. But that will be for the days when we shall be "well-known and highly esteemed authors." I think I could furnish some singular folk-lore.

Meanwhile "Bìlâl" has been finished. I wrote to _Harper's Magazine_;--the article was returned with a very complimentary autograph letter from Alden, praising it warmly, but recommending its being offered to the _Atlantic_, as he did not know when he could "find room for it." Find room for it! Ah, bah!... I am sorry: because I had written him about your share in it, and hoped, if successful, it would tempt him to write you. It is now in the hands of another magazine. I used your Koran-fragment in the form of a musical footnote.

I notice you called it a "brick." Are you sure this is the correct word? Each _sura_ (or chapter) indeed signifies a "course of bricks in a wall;" but also signifies "a rank of soldiers"--and the verses, which were never numbered in the earlier MSS., are so irregular that the poetry of the term "brick" could scarcely apply to them. However, I may be wrong.

I was delighted with your delight, as expressed in your beautiful letter upon the Hebrew ceremonial. Hebrew literature has been my hobby for some time past: I have Hershon's "Talmudic Miscellany;" Stauben's "Scènes de la Vie Juive" (full of delicious traditions); Kompert's "Studies of Jewish Life," which you have no doubt read in the original German; and Schwab's French translation of the beginning of the Jerusalem Talmud (together with the Babylonian Berachoth), 5 vols. I confess the latter is, as a whole, unreadable; but the legends in it are without parallel in weirdness and singularity. Such miscellaneous reading of this sort as I have done has given new luminosity to my ideas of the antique Hebrew life; and enabled me to review them without the gloom of Biblical tradition,--especially the nightmarish darkness of the Pentateuch. I like to associate Hebrew ceremonies rather with the wonderful Talmudic days of the Babylonian rabbonim than with the savage primitiveness of the years of Exodus and Deuteronomy. There are some queer things about music in the Talmud; but they are sometimes extravagant as that story about the conch-shell blown at the birth of Buddha--"where of the sound _rolled on unceasingly for four years_!" The swarthy fishermen of our swampy lakes do blow conch-shells by way of marine signalling; and whenever I hear them I think of that monstrous conch-shell told of in the Nidānakathā.

As I write it seemeth to me that I behold, overshadowing the paper, the most Dantesque silhouette of one who walked with me the streets of the far-off Western city by night, and with whom I exchanged ghostly fancies and phantom hopes. Now in New York! How the old night-forces have been scattered! But is it not pleasant to observe that the members of the broken circle have been mounting higher and higher toward the supreme hope? Perhaps we may all meet some day in the East; whence as legendary word hath it--"lightning ever cometh." Remember me very warmly to my old comrade Tunison.

But I think it more probable I shall see you here than that you shall see me there. New York has become something appalling to my imagination--perhaps because I have been drawing my ideas of it from caricatures: something cyclopean without solemnity, something pandemoniac without grotesqueness,--preadamite bridges,--superimpositions of iron roads higher than the aqueducts of the Romans,--gloom, vapour, roarings and lightnings. When I think of it, I feel more content with my sunlit marshes,--and the frogs,--and the gnats,--and the invisible plagues lurking in visible vapours,--and the ancientness,--and the vast languor of the land. Even our vegetation here, funereally drooping in the great heat, seems to dream of dead things--to mourn for the death of Pan. After a few years here the spirit of the land has entered into you,--and the languor of the place embraces you with an embrace that may not be broken;--thoughts come slowly, ideas take form sluggishly as shapes of smoke in heavy air; and a great horror of work and activity and noise and bustle roots itself within your soul,--I mean brain. Soul = Cerebral Activity = Soul.

I am afraid you have read the poorest of Cable's short stories. "Jean-ah Poquelin," "Belles-Demoiselles," are much better than "Tite Poulette." There is something very singular to me in Cable's power. It is not a superior style; it is not a minutely finished description--for it will often endure no close examination at all: nevertheless his stories have a puissant charm which is hard to analyze. His serial novel--"The Grandissimes"--is not equal to the others; but I think the latter portion of "Dr. Sevier" will surprise many. He did me the honour to read nearly the whole book to me. Cultivate him, if you get a chance.

Baker often talks with me about you. You would never have any difficulty in obtaining a fine thing here. Perhaps you will be the reverse of flattered by this bit of news; but the proprietors here think they can make the _T.-D._ a bigger paper than it is, and rival the Eastern dailies. For my part I hope they will do it; but they lack system, experience, and good men, to some extent. Now good men are not easily tempted to cast their fortunes here at present. It will be otherwise in time; the city is really growing into a metropolis,--a world's market for merchants of all nations,--and will be made healthier and more beautiful year by year.

Good-bye for the present.

Your very sincere friend,
L. HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

MY DEAR O'CONNOR,--I felt the same regret on finishing your letter that I have often experienced on completing a brief but delightful novelette: I wanted more,--and yet I had come to the end!... Your letters are all treasured up;--they are treats, and one atones for years of silence. My dear friend, you must never trouble yourself to write when you feel either tired or disinclined: when I think I have the power to interest you, I will always take advantage of it, without expecting you to write. I know what routine is, and what weariness is; and some day I think we shall meet, and arrange for a still more pleasant intimacy.

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.

Your observation about my knowledge is something I cannot accept; for in positive acquirements I am even exceptionally ignorant. By purchasing queer books and following odd subjects I have been able to give myself the air of knowing more than I do; but none of my work would bear the scrutiny of a specialist; I would like, however, to show you my library. It cost me only about $2000; but every volume is _queer_. Knowing that I have nothing resembling genius, and that any ordinary talent must be supplemented with some sort of curious study in order to place it above the mediocre line, I am striving to woo the Muse of the Odd, and hope to succeed in thus attracting some little attention. This coming summer I propose making my first serious effort at original work--a very tiny volume of sketches in our Creole archipelago at the skirts of the Gulf. I am seeking the Orient at home, among our Lascar and Chinese colonies, and the Prehistoric in the characteristics of strange European settlers.

The trouble kindly taken by you in transcribing the little words of praise by a lady was more than compensated by the success of its purpose, I fancy. The only pleasure, indeed, that an author derives from his labours is that of hearing such commendations from appreciative or sympathetic readers. Your sending copies "hither and thither" was too kind; I could scold you for it! Still, the consequences indicated that the book may some day reach a new edition; and I receive nothing until the publisher pockets $1000.

Have you seen the exquisite new edition of Arnold's "Light of Asia"? It has enchanted me,--perfumed my mind as with the incense of a strangely new and beautiful worship. After all, Buddhism in some esoteric form may prove the religion of the future. Is not the cycle of transmigration actually proven in the vast evolution from nomad to man,--from worm to King through innumerable myriads of brute form? Is not the tendency of all modern philosophy toward the acceptance of the ancient Indian teaching that the visible is but an emanation of the Invisible,--a delusion,--a creature, or a shadow, of the Supreme Dream? What are the heavens of all Christian fancies, after all, but Nirvana,--extinction of individuality in the eternal interblending of man with divinity; for a bodiless, immaterial, non-sensuous condition means nothingness, and no more. And the life and agony and death of universes, are these not pictured forth in the Oriental teachings that all things appear and disappear alternately with the slumber or the awakening, the night or the day, of the Self-Existent? Finally, he efforts of Romanes and Darwin and Vignoli to convince us of the interrelation--the brotherhood of animals and of men were anticipated by Gautama. I have an idea that the Right Man could now revolutionize the whole Occidental religious world by preaching the Oriental faith.

Very affectionately,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

If Symonds praises Whitman, I stand reproved for my least doubts; for he is the very apostle of _classicism_ and _form_.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, December, 1883.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I greatly enjoyed that sharp, fresh, breezy letter from Feldwisch, which I re-enclose with thanks for the pleasure given. While I am greatly delighted with his success, I cannot say I have been surprised: he possessed such rare and splendid qualities of integrity and manliness--coupled with uncommon quickness of business perception--that I would not have been astonished to hear of Congressman Feldwisch,--always supposing it were possible to be a politician and an upright member of modern American society,--which is doubtful. Please let me have his exact address;--I would like to write him once in a while.

After all, I believe you are right in regard to magazine-work. I fully appreciated the effect upon a thoroughbred artist of being asked to write something flimsy,--ask Liszt to play Yankee Doodle! Our magazines--excepting the _Atlantic_--do not appear to be controlled by, or in the interest of, scholars. Fancy how I felt when asked (indirectly) by the _Century_ to write something "SNAPPY"!--even I, who am no specialist, and if anything of an artist, only a word-artist in embryo!... I also suspect you are correct in your self-interest: your _forte_ will never be _light_ work, because your knowledge is too extensive, and your artistic feeling too deep, to be wasted upon puerilities. It has always seemed to me that your style gains in solid strength and beauty as the subject you treat is deeper. To any mind which has grasped the general spirit and aspect of a science, isolated facts are worthy of consideration only in their relation to universal and, perhaps, eternal laws: anecdote for the mere sake of anecdote is simply unendurable.

Five years of hard study here have resulted in altogether changing my own literary inclinations,--yet, unfortunately, to no immediate purpose that I can see; for I must always remain too ignorant to succeed as a specialist in any one topic. But a romantic fact--the possession of which would have driven me wild with joy a few years ago, or even one year ago, perhaps--now affects me not at all unless I can perceive its relation to some general principle to be elucidated. And the mere ideas and melody of a poem seem to me of small moment unless the complex laws of versification be strictly obeyed. Hence I feel no inclination to attempt a story or sketch unless I can find some theme of which the treatment might do more than gratify fancy. Unless a romance be instructive,--or inaugurate a totally novel style,--I think it can have no lasting value. The old enthusiasm has completely died out of me. But meanwhile I am trying to fill my brain with unfamiliar facts on special topics, believing that some day or other I shall be able to utilize them in a new way. I have thought, for example, of trying to write physiological novelettes or stories,--based upon scientific facts in regard to races and characters, but nevertheless of the most romantic aspect possible: natural but never naturalistic. Still, I am so fully conscious that this idea has been suggested by popular foreign novelists, that I fear it may prove merely a passing ambition.

Another great affliction is my inability to travel. I hate the life of every day in connection with any idea of story-writing: I would give anything to be a literary Columbus,--to discover a Romantic America in some West Indian or North African or Oriental region,--to describe the life that is only fully treated of in universal geographies or ethnological researches. Won't you sympathize with me?... If I could only become a Consul at Bagdad, Algiers, Ispahan, Benares, Samarkand, Nippo, Bangkok, Ninh-Binh,--or any part of the world where ordinary Christians do not like to go! Here is the nook in which my romanticism still hides. But I know I have not the physical qualifications to fit me for such researches, nor the linguistic knowledge required to make such researches valuable. I suppose I shall have to settle down at last to something horribly prosaic, and even devoid of philosophic interest.... Alas! O that I were a travelling shoemaker, or a player upon the sambuke!

I have two--nay three--projects sown: the seed has not yet sprouted. I expressed to Harpers' a little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs--a mere compilation, of course, from many unfamiliar sources; "Bìlâl" is under consideration at the _Century_ (where, I fear, they will cut up every sentence which clashes with Baptist ideas on the sinfulness of Islam); and my compilation of Oriental stories is being "seriously examined" by J. R. Osgood & Co....

This letter is getting wearisome; but I don't know how soon I can again snatch time to write.... Ah yes!--for God's sake (I suppose you believe just a small bit in God) don't try to conceive how I could sympathize with Cable! Because I never sympathized with him at all. His awful faith--which to me represents an undeveloped mental structure--gives a neutral tint to his whole life among us. There is a Sunday-school atmosphere.... But Cable is more liberal-minded than his creed; he has also rare analytical powers on a small scale.... Belief I do not think is ridiculous altogether;--nothing is ridiculous in the general order of the world: but at a certain point it prevents the mind from expanding;--its horizon is solid stone and its sky a material vault. One must cease to believe before being able to comprehend either the reason or beauty of belief. The loss is surely well recompensed by the vast enlargement of vision--the opening up of the Star-spaces,--the recognition of the Eternal Life throbbing simultaneously in the vein of an insect or the scintillations of a million suns,--the comprehension of the relations of Infinity to human existence, or at least the understanding that there are such relations,--and that the humblest atom of substance can tell a story more wondrous than all the epics, romances, legends, or myths devised by ancient or modern fancy.--Now I am getting long-winded again. I conclude with a promise soon to forward another little bit of queer music. Hope you like the last. Come down here and I will turn you loose in my library. I need hardly specify that if you come, your natural expenses will be represented by 0,--that is, if you condescend to live in my neighbourhood. It is not romantic; but it is comfortable. I'm sick of Creole Romance--it nearly cost me my life.

Bye, my friend.

Your old goblin,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I hope you may prove right and I wrong in my judgement of ----. As you say, I have a peculiar and unfortunate disposition; nevertheless I had better reasons for my suggestions to you than it is now necessary to specify.

Your syrinx discoveries seem to me of very uncommon importance. What is now important to learn is this: Is the syrinx an original instrument in those regions whence the American and West Indian slave-elements were drawn?--an account of which slave-sources is to be found in Edwards's "History of the West Indies." The Congo dances with their music are certainly importations from the West Coast--the Ivory Coast. Have you seen Livingstone's account of the multiple pipe (_chalumeau_, Hartmann calls it in French) among the Batokas? I would like to know if it is a syrinx. We have no big public libraries here; but if you have time to make some West African researches, one could perhaps trace out the whole history of the syrinx's musical migration. I send you the latest information I have been able to pick up. Just so soon as I can get the material ready, will send also information regarding the various West Indian dances in brief--also the negro-Creole bottle-dance, danced over an upright bottle to the chant--

"Ça ma coupé,--
Ça ma coupé,--
Ça ma coupé,--
Ça!

Ça ma coupé,--
Ça ma coupé,--
Ça ma coupé,--
Ça!"

I've reopened the envelope to tell you something I forgot--a suggestion.

I was quite pleased to hear you like my Chinese paragraph; and I have a little proposition. Do you know that a most delightful book was recently published in France, consisting wholly of odd impressions about strange books and strange people exchanged between friends by mail. Each impression should be very brief. Why couldn't we do this: Once every month I'll write you the queerest and most outlandish fancy I can get up--based upon fact, of course--not more than two hundred words; and you write me the most awful thing that has struck you in relation to new musical discoveries. In a year's time we would have twenty-four little pieces between us, which would certainly be original enough to elaborate into more artistic form; and we could plot together how to outrage the public by printing them. I would contribute $100 or so--if we couldn't find an enthusiastic printer. The book would be very small.

Everything should be perfectly monstrous, you know--ordinary facts, or ideas that could by any chance occur to commonly-balanced minds, ought to be rigidly excluded.

I don't think I can go North till April. March would be too cold for me. The temptation of hearing grand singers is not now strong,--I'm sorry to say,--for I never go to the theatre on account of the artificial light, never read or write after dark; and I anticipate no special pleasure except that of seeing an old friend, and talking much monstrous talk about matters which I but half understand.

Yours very affectionately,
L. HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1884.

Extra volume of the series: Price, $500. Large folio.

THE BATTLE-CRIES OF ALL NATIONS. With accompaniment of Barbaric
instruments. Arranged for modern Orchestral reproduction.

I. ARYAN DIVISION.--Battle-Shouts of Gothic Races.--Teutoni and
Cimbri--Frank and Alleman--Merovingian--The Roar of
Pharamond. Iberian.--The Triumph of Herman.--Viking
War-Chants.--The Song of Roland as sung by
Taillefer.--Celtic and Early British War-Cries, etc., etc.

II. SEMITIC DIVISION.--Hebrew War-Cries. "God is gone up with a
shout, the Lord with the sound of the Trumpet."--Arabs and
Crusaders.--"Allah--hu-u-u Akbar!" etc. Berber Cries.--The
Numidian Cavalry.

(The work also contains Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, and Scythian war-cries; war-cries of the Parthians and Huns, of the Mongols and Tartars. Sounds of the Battle of Chalons; Cries of the Carthaginian mercenaries; Macedonian rallying-call, etc., etc. In the modern part are included Polynesian, African, Aztec, Peruvian, Patagonian and American. A magnificent musical version of the chant of Ragnar Lodbrok will be found in the Appendix: "We smote with our swords.")

* * * * *

(This is not intended as a part of our private extravaganzas: but is written as a just punishment for your silence.)

Vol. I. MONOGRAPH UPON THE POPULAR MELODIES OF EXTINCT RACES.
XXIII and 700 pp.

Vol. II. MUSIC OF NOMAD RACES. Introduction. "Men of Prey; the
Falcon and Eagle Races of Mankind." Part I. The Arabs.
Part II. The Touareg of the Greater Desert. Part III.
The Turkish and Tartar Tribes of Central Asia. With
1600 examples of melodies, engravings of musical
instruments, etc.

Vol. III. MANIFESTATION OF CLIMATIC INFLUENCE IN POPULAR MELODY.
In Two Parts. Part I. Melodies of Mountain-dwellers.