Chapter XIII: Part II: Spanish. Creole music and the history of its formation (1)

(359 examples of Havanese and other West Indian airs
are given).

Vol. IX-X-XI. Melodies of African Races. (This highly important
work contains no less than 5000 different melodies,
and a complete description of all African musical
instruments known, illustrated with numerous
engravings.) Price per vol., $27.50.

Vol. XII. RECONSTRUCTION OF ANTIQUE MELODIES AFTER THE
IRREFUTABLE SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF THE GERMAN SCHOOL OF
MUSICAL EVOLUTIONISTS. (By this new process of
anthropological research, it is now possible to
reconstruct a lost melody, precisely as it was
previously possible to affirm the existence of an
extinct species of mammal which left no fossil record
of which we know.)

Vol. XIII. MAGICAL MELODIES. The music of Apollo and
Orpheus.--The Melodies of Wäinamöinen.--The
Harp-playing of Merlin the Great.--Exhumation of the
extraordinary Wizard-music referred to in the
Kalewala.--Melodies that petrify.--Melodies that
kill.--Melodies which evoke storms and tempests.--The
Hávamál of Odin.--Scandinavian belief in chants which
seduce female virtue.--The Indian legend of
Amaron.--Polynesian magic song.--The thief's song that
lulls to sleep: a musical "hand-of-glory."--The
invocation of demons by song.--Examples of the
melodies which fiends obey.--Songs that bring down
fire from heaven.--Strange Hindoo legend of the singer
consumed by his own song.--The melodies of the greater
magic.--The chants that change the colour of the
Moon.--Deva-music: the conch-shells sounded at the
birth of Buddha.--Notes on the Kalewala legends of
singers who made the sun and moon to pause in heaven
and changed the courses of the stars.

Vol. XIV. THE MELODIES OF MIGHTY LAMENTATION. Isis and
Osiris.--Demeter and Persephone.--"By the Rivers of
Babylon."--Jeremiah's knowledge of music.--Lamentation
of Thomyris.--The musicians of Shah Jehan, etc.

Apocalyptic music of the Bible.

Vol. XV. MOURNING FOR THE DEAD. History of cries of mourning in
all nations.--Description of ancient writers.--Howling
of the women of the Teutoni and Cimbri.--Terror of the
Romans at the hideous sounds. (With 1300 examples of
musical wailing among ancient nations.)--Modern
wailing.--Survival of the Ancient Mourning Cry among
modern peoples.--The Corsican _voceri_.--African
funeral-chants.--Negro-Creole funeral-wail. (_Tout
pití çabri--ça Zoé non yé_).--Irish keening.--Gradual
development of funeral-music, etc., etc.

Vol. XVI. SONGS OF TRIUMPH.--"Up to the everlasting Gates of
Capitolian Jove."--Triumphal Chants of Rameses and
Thotmes.--Assyrian triumphal marches.--A Tartar
triumph.--Arabian melodies of war-joy, etc., etc.

KOROL AR C'HLEZE (The Sword-Dance)

Ancient dialect of Léon (Bretagne)

Goad, gwin, ha Korol.
D'id Heol!
Goad, gwin, ha Korol.

_Tan! tan! dir! oh! dir! tan! tan! dir ha tan!
Tann! tann! tir! ha tonn! tonn! tir ha tir ha tann!_

Ha Korol ha Kan,
Kan, ha Kann!
Ha Korol ha Kan.
Tan! tan!...

Korol ar c'hleze,
Enn eze;
Korol ar c'hleze.
Tan! tan!...

Kan ar c'hleze glaz
A gar laz;
Kan ar c'hleze glaz.
Tan! tan!...
Kann ar c'hleze gone
Ar Rone!
Kann ar c'hleze gone.
Tan! tan!...

Kleze! Rone braz
Ar stourmeaz!
Kleze! Rone braz!
Tan! tan!...

Kaneveden gen
War da benn!
Kaneveden gen!

_Tan! tan! dir! oh! dir! tan! tan dir ha tan!
Tann! tann! tir! ha tonn! tonn! tann! tir ha tir ha tann!_

LITERAL TRANSLATION

Blood, wine, and dance to thee, O Sun!--blood, wine and dance!
And dance and song, song and battle! dance and song!
The Dance of Swords, in circle!--the dance of swords.

Song of the Blue Sword that loves murder!--song of the blue sword!
Battle where the Savage Sword is King!--battle of the savage sword!
O Sword!--O great King of the fields of battle!--O Sword! O great King!
Let the Rainbow shine about thy brow!--let the rainbow shine!

(The chorus is literal in my own translation, or rather metrification!)

(Rude metrical translation by your most humble servant.)

CELTIC SWORD-SONG

Dance, battle-blood and wine,
O Sun, are thine!
Dance, battle-blood, and wine!
_O Fire!--O Fire!
O Steel!--O Steel!
O Fire!--O Fire!
O Steel and Fire!
O Oak!--O Oak!
O Earth!--O Waves!
O Waves!--O Earth!
O Earth and Oak!_

The dance-chant and the death-lock
In battle-shock!--
The dance-chant and the death-lock!
_O Fire!--O Fire!
O Steel!--O Steel!..._

The Sword-dance, circling
In a ring!--
The Sword-dance, circling!
_O Fire! O Fire!
O Steel! O Steel!..._

Sing the Slaughter-lover blue
Broad and true!
Sing the Slaughter-lover blue!
_O Fire!--O Fire!
O Steel!--O Steel!..._

Battle where the savage Sword
Is sole Lord,--
Battle of the savage Sword!
_O Fire!--O Fire!
O Steel!--O Steel!..._

O Sword! mighty King!
Battle-King!
O Sword! mighty King!...
_O Fire!--O Fire!
O Steel!--O Steel!..._

Let the Rainbow's magic rays
Round thee blaze!--
Let the Rainbow round thee blaze!
_O Fire!--O Fire!
O Steel!--O Steel!
O Fire!--O Fire!
O Steel and Fire!
O Oak!--O Oak!
O Earth!--O Waves!
O Waves!--O Earth!
O Earth and Oak!_

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1884.

DEAR K.,--Charley Johnson's coming down to spend a week with me. I shall be soon enjoying his Rabelaisian mirth, and his Gargantuesque laughter. He is going to Havana, and I shall ask him to get, if possible, the music of the erotic mime-dance,--the Zamacueca of the Creoles.

I see they are offering prizes for a good opera. Why don't you compose an opera? I can suggest the most tremendous, colossal, Ragnarockian subject imaginable--knocks Wagner endwise and all the trilogies: "THE WOOING OF THE VIRGIN OF POJA," from the "Kalewala." The "Kalewala" is the only essentially _musical_ epopea I know of. Orpheus is a mere clumsy charlatan to Wainamoinen and the wooers. The incidents are more charmingly enormous than anything in the Talmud, Ramayana, or Mahabharata. O! the old woman who talks to the Moon!--and the wicked singer who turns all that hear him to stone!--and the phantoms created by magical chant!--and the songs that make the stars totter in the frosty sky!--and the melodies that melt the gates of iron! And then, too, the episode of the Eternal Smith, by whose art the blue vault of heaven was wrought into shape; and the weird sleigh-ride over the Frozen Sea; and the words at whose utterance "the waters of the great deep lifted a thousand heads to listen!" And the story of the Earth-giant, aroused by magical force from his slumber of innumerable years, to teach to the Magician the runes by which all things are created,--the enchanted songs by which the Beginning was made to Begin. If you have not read it, try to get a _prose_ translation: no poetical version can preserve the delightful goblinry and elfishness of the original, whereof the metre rings even as the ringing of a mighty harp.

I have also a delightful Malay poem which would make a much finer operatic subject or dramatic subject than the European _féeries_ modelled upon the Hindoo drama of Sakuntala, or, as my French translator writes it, _Sacountala_. I have an inexhaustible quarry of monstrous and diabolical inspiration.

Yours truly, etc.

I spend whole days in vocal efforts--vain ones--to imitate those delicious arabesques about the Name of Allah in the Muezzin's Song,--and do suddenly awake by night with a Voice in my ears, as of a Summons to Prayer. Bismillah!--enormous is God!

(Punishment No. 2)

_Monograph upon the Music of the Witches' Sabbath._

_Dictionary of the Musical Instruments of all Nations._

With 50,000 wood engravings.

_The Musical Legends of All Nations._

By H. Ed. Krehbiel and Lafcadio Hearn. Seven Vols. in 8vo, with 100 chromolithographs and 2000 eau-fortes. Price $300 per vol. 24th edition.

_On the Howling Dervishes_, and on the melodies of the six other orders of Dervishes. With music.

_The Song of the Muezzin in All Moslem Countries._ From Western Morocco to the Chinese Sea. Nine hundred different Notations of the Chant--with an Appendix treating of the Chant in the Oases and in the Soudan, as affected by African influence. Price $8000.

_Dance-Music of the Ancient Occident_, 1700 Ex.

_Temple-Melodies of the Ancient and Modern World._ Vol. I, China. Vol. II, India. Vol III, Rome. Vol. IV, Greece. Vol. V, Egypt, etc.

(To be continued.)

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--Please don't let my importunacy urge you to write when you have little time and leisure. I only want to hear from you when it gives you pleasure and kills time. Never mind if I take a temporary notion to write every day--you know I don't mean to be unreasonable.

Now, as I have your postal card I'll cease the publication of my imaginary musical library, and will reserve that exquisite torture for some future occasion when I shall think you have treated me horribly. Just so soon as this beastly weather changes I'll go to New York, and hope you'll be able--say in April--to give me a few days' loafing-time.

I'm afraid, however, I shall have to leave my Ideas behind me. I know I could never squeeze them under or over the Brooklyn Bridge. Furthermore, I'm afraid the Elevated R. R. cars might run over my Ideas and hurt them. In fact, 't is only in the vast swamps of the South, where the converse of the frogs is even as the roar of a thousand waters, that my Ideas have room to expand.

Your banjo article delighted me,--of course, there is a great deal that is completely new to me therein. By the way, have you noticed the very curious looking harps of the Niam-Niams in Schweinfurth? They seem to me rather nearly related to the banjo in some respects. I am glad my little notes were of some use to you. I will take good care of the proof. Every time I see anything you'd like, I'll send it on. The etymology of the banjo is a very interesting thing; perhaps I may find something fresh on the subject some day.

Yours enthusiastically,
L. HEARN.

I know you would not care to hear about "the thousand different instruments to which the daughter of Pharaoh introduced King Solomon on the day he married her," because the names of the instruments and the melodies which were performed upon them and the various chants to all the idols of Egypt which the daughter of Pharaoh taught Solomon are utterly forgotten. Yet, by the Kabbalistic rules of Gematria and Temurah might they not be exhumed?

In treatise Shekalim of Seder Mo'ed of the Talmud of Jerusalem it is related on the authority of Rabbi Aha, that Hogrus ben Levi, who directed the singing in the temple, "knew a vast number of melodies, and possessed a particular talent for modulating them in an agreeable voice. _By thrusting his thumb into his mouth he produced many and various sorts of chants, so that his brethren, the Cohanim, were utterly amazed thereat._"

Hast read in Chap. XII of the Treatise Shabbat (Seder Mo'ed) concerning that lost Hebrew musical instrument, unlike any other instrument known in the history of mankind?...

TO H.E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, March, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I was quite glad to get your short letter, knowing how busy you are. Johnson changed his mind about Havana, as the season there has been very unhealthy; and for the time being I am disappointed in regard to the Spanish-Creole music. But it is only a question of a little while when I shall get it. I sent you the other day some Madagascar music. You will observe it is arranged for men and women alternately. By the way, speaking of the refrain, I think you ought to find it scientifically treated in Herbert Spencer's "Sociology;" for in that giant summary of all human knowledge, everything relating to the arts of life is considered comparatively and historically. I have not got it: indeed I could not afford so immense a series as a mere work of reference, and life is too short. But you can easily refer to it in your public libraries. This reminds me of a curious fact I observed in reading Tylor--the similarity of an Australian song to a Greek chorus at Sparta,--at least, the construction thereof. You remember the lines, sung alternately by old men, young men, and boys:--

(OLD MEN) "We once were stalwart youths."
(YOUNG MEN) "We are: if thou likest, test our strength."
(BOYS) "We shall be, and far better too!"

Now Tylor quotes this Australian chant:--

(GIRLS) "Kardang garro."--Young-brother again.
(OLD WOMEN) "Manmal garro."--Son again.
(BOTH TOGETHER) "Mela nadjo Nunga broo."--Hereafter I shall see never.

And it is also odd to find in Jeannest that in certain Congo tribes there is a superstition precisely like the Scandinavian superstition about the hell-shoon"--a strange coincidence in view of the fact that these negroes do not allow any save the king and the dead to wear shoes.

I am happy to have discovered a new work on the blacks of Senegambia--home of the Griots; and I expect it contains some Griot music. I have sent for it. It is quite a large volume. I am beginning to think it would be a pity to hurry our project. The subject is so vast, and so many new discoveries are daily being made, that I think we can afford to gain material by waiting. I believe we can pick up a great deal of queer African music this summer; and I feel convinced we ought to get specimens of West Indian Creole music.

I am afraid my imagination may have outstripped human knowledge in regard to negro physiology. You remember my suggestion about the possible differentia in the vocal chords of the two races. I feel more than ever convinced there _is_ a remarkable difference. I heard a negro mother the other day calling her child's name--a name of two syllables--Ella;--the first syllable was a low but very loud note, the second a very high sharp one, with a fractional note tied to its tail; and I don't believe any white throat could have uttered that extraordinary sound with such rapidity and flexibility. The Australian _Coo-eee_ was nothing to it! Well, I have been since studying Flower's "Hunterian Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy of Man;" and I find that the science of comparative anatomy is scarcely yet well defined--what, then, can be said about the Comparative Physiology of Man? Nevertheless Flower is astonishing. He indicates extraordinary race-differences in the pelvic index--(the shape of the pelvis)--the length and proportion of the limbs, etc. I have been thinking of writing to him on the subject. Tell me,--do you approve of the idea?

I have also sent to Europe for some works on Oriental music.

Your affectionate friend,
L.H.

Charley Johnson spent a week with me. He is the same old Charley. We had lots of fun and talk about old times. He was quite delighted with my library; nearly every volume of which is unfamiliar to ordinary readers. I have now nearly five hundred volumes--Egyptian, Assyrian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, African, etc., etc. Johnson seems to have become a rich man. The fact embarrassed me a little bit. Somehow or other, wealth makes a sort of Chinese wall between friends. One is afraid to be one's self, or even to be as friendly as one would like toward somebody who is much better off. You know what I mean. Of course, I only speak of my private feelings; for Charley was just the same to me as in the old days.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, MARCH, 1884.

MY DEAR O'CONNOR,--What a delicious writer you are!--you do not know what pleasure your letter gave me, and how many novel combinations of ideas it evoked. I like your judgement of the _Musée Secret_; and yet ... I do not find it possible to persuade myself that the "mad excess of love" should not be indulged in by mankind. It is _immemorial_ as you say;--Love was the creator of all the great thoughts and great deeds of men in all ages. I felt somewhat startled when I first read the earliest Aryan literature to find how little the human heart had changed in so many thousand years;--the women of the great Indian epics and lyrics are not less lovable than the ideal beauties of modern romance. All the great poems of the world are but so many necklaces of word-jewelry for the throat of the _Venus Urania_; and all history is illuminated by the _Eternal Feminine_, even as the world's circle in Egyptian mythology is irradiated by Neith, curving her luminous woman's body from horizon to horizon. And has not this "mad excess" sometimes served a good purpose? I like that legend of magnificent prostitution in Perron's "Femmes Arabes," according to which a battle was won and a vast nomad people saved from extinction by the action of the beauties of the tribe, who showed themselves unclad to the hesitating warriors and promised their embraces to the survivors,--of whom not over-many were left. Neither do I think that passion necessarily tends to enervate a people. There is an intimate relation between Strength, Health, and Beauty; they are ethnologically interlinked in one embrace,--like the _Charities_. I fancy the stout soldiers who followed Xenophon were far better judges of physical beauty than the voluptuaries of Corinth;--the greatest of the exploits of Heracles was surely an amorous one. I don't like Bacon's ideas about love: they should be adopted only by statesmen or others to whom it is a duty to remain passionless, lest some woman entice them to destruction. Has it not sometimes occurred to you that it is only in the senescent epoch of a nation's life that love disappears?--there were no grand loves during the enormous debauch of which Rome died, nor in all that Byzantine orgy interrupted by the lightning of Moslem swords.... Again, after all, what else do we live for--ephemeræ that we are? Who was it that called life "a sudden light between two darknesses"? "Ye know not," saith Krishna, in the Bhagavad-Gita, "either the moment of life's beginning or the moment of its ending: only the middle may ye perceive." It is even so: we are ephemeræ, seeking only the pleasure of a golden moment before passing out of the glow into the gloom. Would not Love make a very good religion? I doubt if mankind will ever cease to have faith--in the aggregate; but I fancy the era _must_ come when the superior intelligences will ask themselves of what avail are the noblest heroisms and self-denials, since even the constellations are surely burning out, and all forms are destined to melt back into that infinite darkness of death and of life which is called by so many different names. Perhaps, too, all those myriads of suns are only golden swarms of ephemeræ of a larger growth and a larger day, whose movements of attraction are due to some "mad excess of love."

The account your friend gave you of De Nerval's suicide is precisely like the details of M. de Beaulieu's picture exposed in 1859--and, I _think_, destroyed by the police for some unaccountable reason. It is described in Gautier's "Histoire du Romantisme," pp. 143-4 (note).... I am glad you notice my hand once in a while, and that you liked my De Nerval sketch and the "Women of the Sword." You speak of magazine-work. I think the magazines are simply _inabordables_. My experiences have been disheartening. "Very good, very scholarly--_but not the kind_ we want;"--"Highly interesting--sorry we have no room for it;"--"I regret to say we cannot use it, but would advise you to send it to X--;" "Deserves to be published; but unfortunately our rules exclude"--etc. I have an article now with the _Atlantic_--an essay upon the _Adzan_, or chant of the muezzin; its romantic history, etc. This has already been rejected by other leading magazines. Another horrible fact is that after your article is accepted, the editor rewrites it in his own way,--and then prints your name at the end of the so-created abomination. This is the plan of ----. I would like to see the ideal newspaper started we used to talk about: then we could write--eh?

So you think Doré's Raven a failure! I hope you are not altogether right. I thought so when I first looked at the plates; but the longer I examined them, the more strongly they impressed me. There is ghostly power in several. What do you think of "The Night's Plutonian Shore;" and the "Home by Horror haunted"? I must say that the terminal vignette with its Sphinx-death is one of the most terrible ideas I have ever seen drawn--although its force might be augmented by larger treatment. I would like to see it taken up by that French artist who painted that beautiful "Flight into Egypt," where we see the Virgin and Child (in likeness of an Arab wanderer with her baby), slumbering between the awful granite limbs of the monster.

Your Gautier has just arrived. If you had sent me a little fortune you could not have pleased me so much. I never saw the photo before: it not only pleased, it excelled anticipation. You know our preconceived ideas of places we should like to visit and people we should like to know, usually excel the reality; but the head of Gautier seems to me grander than I imagined. One can almost hear him speak with that mellow, golden, organ-toned voice of his which Bergerat described; and I like that barbaric luxury of his attire,--there is something at once rich and strange about it, worthy some Khan of the Golden Horde.... I really feel quite enthusiastic about my new possession.

I am glad to hear you dislike Matthew Arnold. He seems to me one of the colossal humbugs of the century: a fifth-rate poet and unutterably dreary essayist;--a sort of philosophical hermaphrodite, yet lacking even the grace of the androgyne, because there is neither enough of positivism nor of idealism in his mental make-up to give real character to it. Don't you think Edwin Arnold far the nobler man and writer? I love that beautiful enthusiasm of his for the beauties of strange faiths and exotic creeds. This is the spirit that, in some happier era, may bless mankind with a universal religion in perfect harmony with the truths of science and the better nature of humanity.

You ask about this climate. One who has lived by the sea and on the mountain-tops, as I have, must spend several years here to understand how this intertropical swamp-life affects the unacclimated. The first year one becomes very sick--fevers of unfamiliar character attack him; the appetite vanishes, the energies become enfeebled. The second summer one feels even worse. The third summer one can just endure without absolute sickness. The fourth, one begins to gain flesh and strength. But the blood has completely changed, the least breath of really cool air makes one shiver, and energy never becomes quite restored. After a few years in Louisiana, hard work becomes impossible. We are all lazy, enervated, compared with you Northerners. When my Northwestern friends come down here, it seems to me like a coming of Vikings and Berserkers; they are so full of life and blood and vital electricity! But when it is cold to me, it seems frightfully warm to them; and yet we used once to work together as reporters with the thermometer 20 below zero.

Sorry to say that Leloir died before completing the illustrations; and I suppose the subscribers to the edition will be the losers. It was to be issued in parts. Perhaps ten numbers were out. But I am not sure whether any of the engravings were printed. I based my error upon the critique of Leloir's work in _Le Livre_. It is dangerous to anticipate!

I believe I have the very latest edition of W. W. [Walt Whitman]--1882 (Rees, Welsh & Co.), which I like very much. You did not quite understand my allusion to the Bible. I wished to imply that it was when W. W.'s verses approached that biblical metre in form, etc., that we most admired him. I agree with all you say about slang,--especially nautical slang; also about the grand irregularity of the wave-chant. Still I'll have to write some examples of what I refer to, and will do so later.

Yours very warmly and gratefully,
L. HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, March, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I am sorry to be in such a hurry that I have to write a short letter; but I must signal my pleasure at seeing you coming out in public, and I have a vision of future greatness for you. As for myself, I trust I shall in a few years more obtain influence enough to be able to return some of your many kindnesses in a literary way. Eventually we may be able to pull together to a very bright goal, if I can keep my health.

I think that Osgood will announce the book about the 1st of April, but I am not sure. It would hardly do to anticipate. I send you his letter. The terms are not grand; but a big improvement on Worthington's. Next time I hope I will be able to work _to order_. You can return letter when you are done with it, as it forms a part of my enormous collection of letters from publishers--(199 rejections to 1 acceptation).

I expect I shall have to postpone my visit until the book is out, as I must wait here to receive and correct proofs. I have dedicated the book to Page Baker, as it was entirely through his efforts that I got a hearing from Osgood. The reader _had already rejected_ the MS. when Baker's letter came.

From the _Atlantic_ I have not yet heard. If I have good luck (which is extremely improbable) I would make the Muezzin No. 1 in a brief series of Arabesque studies, which would cost about two years' labour--at intervals. I have several subjects in mind: for example, the lives of certain outrageous Moslem Saints, and a sketch of the mulatto and quadroon slave-poets of Arabia before Mahomet; "The Ravens," as they were called from their color;--also the story of the _Ye monnat_, or those who died of love.... But these are beautiful dreams in embryo! Yours affectionately,

L. HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, March, 1884.
Postal-card.

... It is related by Philostratus in his life of Apollonius of Tyana, that when Apollonius visited India, and asked the Brahmins to give him an example of (musical) magic, the Brahmins did strip themselves naked and dance in a ring, each tapping the earth with a staff, and singing a strange hymn. Then the earth within the ring rose up, quivering, even as fermenting dough,--and rose higher,--and undulated and was lost in great waves,--and elevated the singers unto the height of two cubits....

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, April, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I read your leader with no small interest; and "the gruesome memories" were revived. The killing of the man in the Vine Street saloon, however, interested me most as a memory-reviving interest. That murderer was the most magnificent specimen of athletic manhood that I ever saw,--I suspect he was a gipsy; for he had all the characteristics of that race, and _was not a regular circus-employee_,--only a professional rider, now with one company, now with another. Did you see him when you were there? He was perhaps 6 feet 4; for his head nearly touched the top of the cell. He had a very regular handsome face, with immense black eyes; and an Oriental sort of profile:--then he seemed slender, in spite of his immense force,--such was the proportion of his figure. A cynical devil, too. I went to see him with the coroner, who showed him the piece of the dead man's skull. He took it between his fingers, held it up to the light, handed it back to the coroner and observed; "Christ!--_he must have had a d--d rotten skull_." He was ordered to leave town within twenty-four hours as a dangerous character. It is a pity such men should be vulgar murderers and ruffians;--what superb troopers they would make! I shall never forget that splendid stature and strength as long as I live....

I don't know whether I shall ever be living in that terrible metropolis of yours. It will be impossible for me ever again to write or read by night; and hard work has become impossible. If I could ever acquire reputation enough to secure a literary position on some monthly or weekly periodical where I could take it easy, perhaps I might feel like enduring the hideous winters. But I am just now greatly troubled by the question, What shall I work for?--to what special purpose? Perhaps some good fortune may come when least expected.

Now I want to talk about our trip. I think it better not to go now. Page wants me to take a good big vacation this summer,--a long one. If I wait till it gets warm, I will be able to escape the feverish month; and if you should be in Cincinnati at the Festival, or elsewhere, I would meet you anyhow or anywhere you say. Were I to leave now I could not do so later; and I am waiting for some curious books and things which I want to bring you so that we can analyze them together. A month or so won't make much difference.

Will write you soon. Had to quit work for a few days on account of eye-trouble.

Yours very truly,
L. HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, May, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I have been so busy that I have not been able to answer your last. They are sending me proofs at the rate of twenty pages a day; and you can imagine this keeps me occupied in addition to my other work. Alas! I find that nothing written for a newspaper--at least for an American newspaper--can be perfect. My poor little book will show some journalistic weaknesses--will contain some hasty phrases or redundancies or something else which will mar it. I try my best to get it straight; but the consequences of hasty labour are perpetually before me, notwithstanding the fact that the collocation of the material occupied nearly two years. I am thinking of Bayard Taylor's terrible observation about American newspaper-work. It seems to be generally true. Still there _are_ some who write with extraordinary precision and correctness. I think you are one of them.

What troubles my style especially is ornamentation. An ornamental style must be perfect or full of atrocious discords and incongruities; and perfect ornamentation requires slow artistic work--except in the case of men like Gautier, who never re-read a page, or worried himself about a proof. But I think I'll improve as I grow older.

I won't be away till June. Then I'll have some queer books in my satchel, and we'll talk the book over. I fear it is no use to discuss it beforehand, as I shall be overwhelmed with work. Another volume of the Talmud has come, and some books about music containing Chinese hymns. By the way, in Spencer's last volume there is an essay on musical origination. I have had only time to glance at it. Your Creole music lecture cannot fail to be extremely curious; wish I could _hear_ and see it. The melodies will certainly make a sensation if you have a good assortment. Did you borrow anything from Gottschalk?--I hope you did: the Bamboula used to drive the Parisians wild.

Thanks for the musical transcription. I'm afraid the project won't pan out, however. Trübner & Co. of London made an offer, but wanted me to guarantee the American sale of 100 copies--that means pay in advance. I would not perhaps have objected, if they had mentioned a low price; but when I tried to get them to come down to about 5s. per copy they did not write me any more.

Then I abandoned the pursuit of the Ignis Fatuus of Success, and withdrew into the Immensities and the Eternities, even as the rhinoceros withdraweth into the recesses of the jungle. And I gave myself up to the meditation of the Vedas and of the Puranas and of the Upanishads, and of the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead,--until the memory of magazines and of publishers faded out of my mind, even as the vision of demons.

Yours very truly,
L. HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, May, 1884.

MY DEAR O'CONNOR,--I did not get time until to-day to drop you a line; and just at present I am enthusiastically appreciating your observations regarding The Foul Fiend Routine. I wish I could escape from his brazen grip; and nevertheless he has done me service. He has stifled my younger and more foolish aspirations, and clipped the foolish wings of my earlier ambition with the sharp scissors of revision. It is true that I now regret my inability to achieve literary independence; but had I obtained a market for my wares in other years, I should certainly have been so ashamed of them by this time, that I should fly to some desert island. These meditations follow upon the incineration of several hundred pages of absurdities written some years back, and just committed to the holy purification of fire....

I am not, however, sorry for writing the fantastic ideas about love which you so thoroughly exploded in your letter; they "drew you out," and I wanted to hear your views. I suppose, however, that the mad excess is indulged in by every nation at a certain period of existence--perhaps the Senescent Epoch, as Draper calls it. What a curious article might be written upon "The Amorous Epochs of National Literatures,"--or something of that sort; dwelling especially upon the extravagant passionateness of Indian, Persian, and Arabic belles-lettres,--and their offshoots! Not to bore you further with theories, however, I herewith submit another specimen of excess from the posthumous poetry of Gautier. It has been compared to those Florentine statuettes, which are kept in shagreen cases, and only exhibited, whisperingly, by antiquaries to each other....

There is real marmorean beauty in the lines,--their sculpturesqueness saves them from lewdness. I think them more beautiful than Solomon's simile, or the extravagances of the Gita-Govinda.

June 29.

You see how busy I have been. And my brain seems so full of dust and hot sun and feverish vapours that it is hard to write at all.... I am thinking of what you said about Arnold's translating the Koran. There are two English translations besides Sale's--one in Trübner's Oriental Series, and one in Max Müller's "Sacred Books of the East" (Macmillan's beautiful edition). Sale's is chiefly objectionable because the _suras_ are not versified: the chapters not having been so divided in early times by figures. But it is horribly hard to find anything in it. The French have two superb versions: Kazimirski and La Beaume. Kazimirski is popular and cheap; the other is an analytical Koran of 800 4to pp. with concordance, and designed for the use of the Government bureaux in Algeria. I have it. It is unrivalled.

My book is out; and you will receive a copy soon. If you ever have time, please tell me if there is anything in it you like. It is not a gorgeous production,--only an experiment. I have a great plan in view: to popularize the legends of Islam and other strange faiths in a series of books. My next effort will be altogether Arabesque--treating of Moslem saints, singers, and poets, and hagiographical curiosities--eschewing such subjects as the pilgrimage to the _ribath_ (monastery) of Deir-el-Tiu in the Hedjaz, where fragments of the broken _aidana_ of Mahomet are kissed by the faithful....

I'm sorry to say I know little of Bacon except his Essays. Those surprised and pleased me. I started to read them only as a study of Old English; but soon found the ideas far beyond the century in which they were penned. You will be shocked, I fear, to know that I am terribly ignorant of classic English literature,--of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Not having studied it much when at college, I now find life too short to study it,--except for style. When I want to clear mine,--as coffee is cleared by the white of an egg,--I pour a little quaint English into my brain-cup, and the Oriental extravagances are gradually precipitated. But I think a man must devote himself to one thing in order to succeed: so I have pledged me to the worship of the Odd, the Queer, the Strange, the Exotic, the Monstrous. It quite suits my temperament. For example, my memories of early Roman history have become cloudy, because the Republic did not greatly interest me; but very vivid are my conceptions of the Augustan era, and great my delight with those writers who tell us how Hadrian almost realized that impossible dream of modern æsthetes, the resurrection of Greek art. The history of modern Germany and Scandinavia I know nothing about; but I know the Eddas and the Sagas, and the chronicles of the Heimskringla, and the age of Vikings and Berserks,--because these were mighty and awesomely grand. The history of Russia pleaseth me not at all, with the exception of such extraordinary episodes as the Dimitris; but I could never forget the story of Genghis Khan, and the nomad chiefs who led 1,500,000 horsemen to battle. Enormous and lurid facts are certainly worthy of more artistic study than they generally receive. What De Quincey told us in his "Flight of a Tartar Tribe" previous writers thought fit to make mere mention of.... But I'm rambling again.

I don't know whether I shall be able to go North as I hoped--I have so much private study before me. But I do really hope to see you some day. Couldn't you get down to our Exposition?...

Did you ever read Symonds's "Greek Poets"? The final chapters on the genius of Greek art are simply divine. I mention them because of your observation about our being or not being ephemeral. I feel fearful we are. But Symonds says what I would have liked to say, so much better, that I would like to let him speak for me with voice of gold.

Very truly your friend,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H.E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, June, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I'm expecting every day to get some Griot music and some queer things, and have discovered an essay upon just the subject of subjects that interests Us:--the effect of physiological influences upon the history of nations, and "the physiological character of races in their relation to historical events." Wouldn't it be fine if we could write a scientific essay on Polynesian music in its manifestations of the physiological peculiarities of the island-races? Nothing would give me so much pleasure as to be able some day to write a most startling and stupefying preface to some treatise of yours upon exotic music--a preface nevertheless strictly scientific and correct. By the way, have you any information about Eskimo music? If you have, tell me when I see you. I have some singular songs with a _double-refrain_,--but no music,--which I found in Rink. Why the devil didn't Rink give us some melodies?

I am especially interested just now in Arabic subjects; but as I am following the Arabs into India, I find myself studying the songs of the bayaderes. They are very strange, and sometimes very pretty--sweetly pretty. Maisonneuve promised to publish some of this Indian music; but that was in '81, and we haven't got it yet. I have found curious titles in Trübner's collection; but I'm afraid the music isn't published--"Folk-Songs of Southern India," etc.

I want you to tell me how long you will stay in New York, as I would like to go there soon. The vacations are beginning. Don't fail to keep me posted as to your movements. How did you like the sonorous cry of the bel-balancier man?

Am writing in haste; excuse everything excusable.

Yours affectionately,
L. HEARN.

A man ignorant of music is likely to say silly things without knowing it when writing to a professor; so you must excuse my faults on the ground of good will to you. I have just destroyed two pages which I thought might be waste of time to read.

TO H.E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, June, 1884.

DEAR K.,--I want you to let me hear about old Bìlâl for the following reasons:--

1. I have discovered that a biography of him--the only one in existence probably--may be found in Wüstenfeld's "Nawawi," for which I have written. If the text is German I can utilize it with the aid of a _bouquiniste_ here.

2. I have been lucky enough to engage a copy of Ibn Khallikan in 24 volumes--the great Arabic biographer. It containeth legends. The book is dear but invaluable to an Oriental student,--especially to me in the creation of my new volume, which will be all Arabesques.

And here is another bit of news for you. My _Senegal_ books have thrown a torrent of light on the whole history of American slave-songs and superstitions and folk-lore. I was utterly astounded at the revelation. All that had previously seemed obscure is now lucid as day. Of course, you know the slaves were chiefly drawn from the _West Coast_; and the study of ethnography and ethnology of the West Coast races is absolutely essential to a knowledge of Africanism in America. As yet, however, I have but partly digested my new meal.

Siempre á V.,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

NEW ORLEANS, June, 1884.

DEAR K.,--Your letter has given me unspeakable pleasure. In making the acquaintance of Howells, you have met the subtlest and noblest literary mind in this country,--scarcely excepting that prince of critics, Stedman; and you have found a friend who will aid you in climbing Parnassus, not for selfish motives, but for pure art's sake. Cultivate him all you can....

I got a nice letter from Ticknor. He actually promises to open the magazine-gates for me. And a curious coincidence is that the book is published on my birthday, next Friday.

I will write you before I start for New York in a few weeks more....

I will bring my African books with me, and other things.

Yours sincerely,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, October, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I sit down to write you the first time I have had leisure to do justice to the subject for a month.

Now I must tell you what I am doing. I have been away a good deal, in the Creole archipelagoes of the Gulf, and will soon be off again, to make more studies for my little book of sketches. I sent you the No. 2, as a sample. These I take as much pains with as with magazine work, and the plan is philosophical and pantheistic. Did you see "Torn Letters,"--(No. 1) about the _Biscayena_. The facts are not wholly true; I was very nearly in love--not quite sure whether I am not a little in love still,--but I never told her so. It is so strange to find one's self face to face with a beauty that existed in the Tertiary epoch,--300,000 years ago,--the beauty of the most ancient branch of humanity,--the oldest of the world's races! But the coasts here are just as I described them, without exaggeration,--and I am so enamoured of those islands and tepid seas that I would like to live there forever, and realize Tennyson's wish:--

"I will wed some savage woman; she shall rear my dusky race:
Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive and they shall run,--
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun,
Whistle back the parrot's call,--leap the rainbows of the brooks,--
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books."

The islanders found I had one claim to physical superiority anyhow,--I could outswim the best of them with the greatest ease. And I have disciplined myself physically so well of late years, that I am no longer the puny little fellow you used to know.

All this is sufficiently egotistical. I just wanted, however, to tell you of my wanderings and their purpose. It was largely inspired by the new style of Pierre Loti--that young marine officer who is certainly the most original of living French novelists.

All this summer Page could not get away; so you will not have the pleasure of seeing my very noble and lovable friend,--a tall, fine, eagle-faced fellow, primitive Aryan type. I only got away on the pledge to give the results to the _T.-D._, which is giving me all possible assistance in my literary undertakings.

I was glad to receive Creole books, as I am working on Creole subjects. Several new volumes have appeared. I have some Oriental things to send you--music, if you will agree to return in one month from reception. But you need not have expressed those other things--made me feel sorry. I expressed them to you for other reasons entirely.

I have a delightful Mexican friend living with me, and teaching me to speak Spanish with that long, soft, languid South American Creole accent that is so much more pleasant than the harsher accent of Spain. His name is José de Jesus y Preciado, and he sends you his best wishes, because he says all my friends must be his friends too.

Now, I hope you'll write me a pretty, kind, forgiving letter,--not condescendingly, but really nice,--you know what I mean.

Your supersensitive and highly suspicious friend,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, January, 1885.

DEAR FRIEND KREHBIEL,--Many, many happy New Years. Your letter came luckily during an interval of rest,--so that I can answer it right away. I have not been at all worried by your silence,--as your former kind lines showed me you had fully forgiven my involuntary injustice and my voluntary, but only momentary _malice_. (Please give this last the French accent, which takes off the edge of the word.)

In a few days my Creole Dictionary will be published in New York; and I will not forget to send you a copy, just as soon as I can get some myself. I do not expect to make anything on the publication. It is a give-away to a friend, who will not forget me if he makes money, but who does not expect to make a fortune on it. This kind of thing is never lucrative; and the publication of the book is justified only by Exposition projects. As for the "Stray Leaves" I have never written to the publishers yet about them,--so afraid of bad news I have been. But I have dared to try and get a good word said for it in high places. I succeeded in obtaining a personal letter from Protap Chunder Roy, of Calcutta, and hope to get one from Edwin Arnold. This is cheeky; but publishers think so much about a commendation from some acknowledged authority in Oriental studies.

The prices are high; the markets are all "bulled;" and for the first time I find my room rent here (twenty dollars per month) and my salary scarcely enough for my extravagant way of life. Money is a subject I am beginning to think of in connection with everything except--art. I still think nobody should follow an art purpose with money in view; but if no money comes in time, it is discouraging in this way,--that the lack of public notice is generally somewhat of a bad sign. Happily, however, I have joined a building association, which compels me to pay out $20 per month. Outside of this way of saving, I save nothing,--except queer books imported from all parts of the world.

Very affectionately yours,

HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL.

NEW ORLEANS, January, 1885.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--I fear I know nothing about Creole music or Creole negroes. Yes, I have seen them dance; but they danced the Congo, and sang a purely African song to the accompaniment of a dry-goods box beaten with sticks or bones and a drum made by stretching a skin over a flour-barrel. That sort of accompaniment and that sort of music, you know all about: it is precisely similar to what a score of travellers have described. There are no harmonies--only a furious contretemps. As for the dance,--in which the women do not take their feet off the ground,--it is as lascivious as is possible. The men dance very differently, like savages, leaping in the air. I spoke of this spectacle in my short article in the _Century_.

One must visit the Creole parishes to discover the characteristics of the real Creole music, I suspect. I would refer the _Century_ to Harris's book: he says the Southern darkies don't use the banjo. I have never seen any play it here but Virginians or "upper country" darkies. The slave-songs you refer to are infinitely more interesting than anything Cable's got; but still, I fancy his material could be worked over into something really pretty. Gottschalk found the theme for his Bamboula in Louisiana--_Quand patate est chinte_, etc., and made a miracle out of it.

Now if you want any further detailed account of the Congo dance, I can send it; but I doubt whether you need it. The Creole songs, which I have heard sung in the city, are Frenchy in construction, but possess a few African characteristics of method. The darker the singer the more marked the oddities of intonation. Unfortunately most of those I have heard were quadroons or mulattoes. One black woman sang me a Voudoo song, which I got Cable to write--but I could not sing it as she sang it, so that the music is faulty. I suppose you have seen it already, as it forms part of the collection. If the _Century_ people have any sense they would send you down here for some months next spring to study up the old ballads; and I believe that if you manage to show Cable the importance of the result, he can easily arrange it....

You answered some of my questions charmingly. Don't be too sarcastic about my capacity for study. My study is of an humble sort; and I never knew anything, and never shall, about acoustics. But I have had to study awful hard in order to get a vague general idea of those sciences which can be studied without mathematics, or actual experimentation with mechanical apparatus. I have half a mind to study medicine in practical earnest some day. Wouldn't I make an imposing Doctor in the Country of Cowboys? A doctor might also do well in Japan. I'm thinking seriously about it.

This is the best letter I can write for the present, and I know it's not a good one. I send a curiosity by Xp to you.

The Creole slaves sang usually with clapping of hands. But it would take an old planter to give reliable information regarding the accompaniment.

Yours very truly,
L. HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1885.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I regret having been so pressed for time that I was obliged to return your MS. without a letter expressing the thanks which you know I feel. I scribbled in pencil--which you can erase with a bit of bread--some notes on the Cajan song, that may interest you.

The Harpers are giving me warm encouragement; but advise me to remain a fixture where I am. They say they are looking now to the South for literary work of a certain sort,--that immense fields for observation remain here wholly untilled, and that they want active, living, opportune work of a fresh kind. I shall try soon my hand at fiction;--my great difficulty is my introspective disposition, which leaves me in revery at moments when I ought to be using eyes, ears, and tongue in studying others rather than my own thoughts.

I find the word _Banja_ given as African in Bryan Edwards's "West Indies." My studies of African survivals have tempted me to the purchase of a great many queer books which will come in useful some day. Most are unfortunately devoted to Senegal; for our English travellers are generally poor ethnographers and anthropologists, so far as the Gold Coast and Ivory Coast are concerned. You remember our correspondence about the comparative anatomy of the vocal organs of negroes and whites. A warm friend of several years' standing--a young Spanish physician and professor here--is greatly interested in this new science: indeed we study comparative human anatomy and ethnology in common, with goniometers and Broca's instruments. He states that only microscopic work can reveal the full details of differentiation in the vocal organs of races; but calls my attention to several differences already noticed. Gibb has proved, for instance, that the cartilages of Wrisberg are larger in the negro;--this would not affect the voice especially; but the fact promises revelations of a more important kind. We think of your projects in connection with these studies.

I copied only your Acadian boat-song. What is the price of the slave-song book? If you have time to send me during the next month the music of "Michié Preval," and of the boat-song, I can use them admirably in _Mélusine_....

Your friend,
L. H.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, March, 1885.

Big P. S. No. 1.

I forgot in my hurried letter yesterday, to tell you that if you ever want a copy of "Stray Leaves," don't go and buy it, as you have been naughty enough to do, but tell me, and I'll send you what you wish. I hope to dedicate a book to you some day, when I am sure it is worth dedicating to you.