Chapter II: The Artist's Apprenticeship (2)

Yet so weary of his life had the Wanderer been, that the repose of the
dead was not for him. And while the body shrank and sank into dust,
the phantom man found no rest in the darkness, and thought dimly to
himself: "I am even too weary to find peace!"

There was a thin crevice in the ancient wall of the tomb. And through
it, and through the meshes of the web that a spider had woven athwart
it, the dead looked and beheld the amethystine blaze of the summer
sky,--and pliant palms bending in the warm wind,--and the opaline glow
of the horizon,--and fair pools bearing images of cypresses
inverted,--and the birds that flitted from tomb to tomb and sang,--and
flowers in the shadow of the sepulchres.... And the vast bright world
seemed to him not so hateful as before.

Likewise the sounds of life assailed the faint senses of the dead
through the thin crevice in the wall of the tomb:--always the far-off
drowsy murmur made by the toiling of the city's heart; sometimes
sounds of passing converse and steps,--echoes of music and of
laughter,--chanting and chattering of children at play,--and the
liquid babble of the beautiful brown women.... So that the dead man
dreamed of life and strength and joy, and the litheness of limbs to be
loved: also of that which had been, and of that which might have been,
and of that which now could never be. And he longed at last to live
again--seeing that there was no rest in the tomb.

But the gold-born days died in golden fire; and blue nights unnumbered
filled the land with indigo shadows; and the perfume of the summer
passed like a breath of incense ... and the dead within the sepulchre
could not wholly die.

Stars in their courses peered down through the crevices of the tomb,
and twinkled, and passed on; winds of the sea shrieked to him through
the widening crannies of the tomb; birds sang above him and flew to
other lands; the bright lizards that ran noiselessly over his bed of
stone, as noiselessly departed; the spider at last ceased to repair
her web of silk; years came and went with lentor inexpressible; but
for the dead there was no rest!

And after many tropical moons had waxed and waned, and the summer was
deepening in the land, filling the golden air with tender drowsiness
and passional perfume, it strangely came to pass that _She_ whose name
had been murmured by his lips when the Shadow of Death fell upon him,
came to that city of palms, and even unto the ancient place of
sepulture, and unto the tomb that bore his name.

And he knew the whisper of her raiment--knew the sweetness of her
presence--and the pallid hearts of the blossoms of a plant whose blind
roots had found food within the crevice of the tomb, changed and
flushed, and flamed incarnadine....

But she--perceiving it not--passed by; and the sound of her footstep
died away forever.

To his own, and perhaps other middle-aged taste "A Dead Love" may seem negligible, but to those still young enough, as he himself then was, to credit passion with a potency not only to survive "the gradual furnace of the world" but even to blossom in the dust of graves, this stigmatization as "Gush" will seem as unfeeling as always does to the young the dry and sapless wisdom of granddams. To them any version of the Orphic myth is tinglingly credible. Yearningly desirous that the brief flower of life may never fade, such a cry finds an echo in the very roots of their inexperienced hearts. The smouldering ardour of its style, which a chastened judgement rejected, was perhaps less faulty than its author believed it to be in later years.

It was to my juvenile admiration for this particular bit of work that I owed the privilege of meeting Lafcadio Hearn, in the winter of 1882, and of laying the foundation of a close friendship which lasted without a break until the day of his death.

He was at this time a most unusual and memorable person. About five feet three inches in height, with unusually broad and powerful shoulders for such a stature, there was an almost feminine grace and lightness in his step and movements. His feet were small and well shaped, but he wore invariably the most clumsy and neglected shoes, and his whole dress was peculiar. His favourite coat, both winter and summer, was a heavy double-breasted "reefer," while the size of his wide-brimmed, soft-crowned hat was a standing joke among his friends. The rest of his garments were apparently purchased for the sake of durability rather than beauty, with the exception of his linen, which, even in days of the direst poverty, was always fresh and good. Indeed a peculiar physical cleanliness was characteristic of him--that cleanliness of uncontaminated savages and wild animals, which has the air of being so essential and innate as to make the best-groomed men and domesticated beasts seem almost frowzy by contrast. His hands were very delicate and supple, with quick timid movements that were yet full of charm, and his voice was musical and very soft. He spoke always in short sentences, and the manner of his speech was very modest and deferential. His head was quite remarkably beautiful; the profile both bold and delicate, with admirable modelling of the nose, lips and chin. The brow was square, and full above the eyes, and the complexion a clear smooth olive. The enormous work which he demanded of his vision had enlarged beyond its natural size the eye upon which he depended for sight, but originally, before the accident,--whose disfiguring effect he magnified and was exaggeratedly sensitive about,--his eyes must have been handsome, for they were large, of a dark liquid brown, and heavily lashed. In conversation he frequently, almost instinctively, placed his hand over the injured eye to conceal it from his companion.

Though he was abnormally shy, particularly with strangers and women, this was not obvious in any awkwardness of manner; he was composed and dignified, though extremely silent and reserved until his confidence was obtained. With those whom he loved and trusted his voice and mental attitude were caressing, affectionate, and confiding, though with even these some chance look or tone or gesture would alarm him into sudden and silent flight, after which he might be invisible for days or weeks, appearing again as silently and suddenly, with no explanation of his having so abruptly taken wing. In spite of his limited sight he appeared to have the power to divine by some extra sense the slightest change of expression in the faces of those with whom he talked, and no object or tint escaped his observation. One of his habits while talking was to walk about, touching softly the furnishings of the room, or the flowers of the garden, picking up small objects for study with his pocket-glass, and meantime pouring out a stream of brilliant talk in a soft, half-apologetic tone, with constant deference to the opinions of his companions. Any idea advanced he received with respect, however much he might differ, and if a phrase or suggestion appealed to him his face lit with a most delightful irradiation of pleasure, and he never forgot it.

A more delightful or--at times--more fantastically witty companion it would be impossible to imagine, but it is equally impossible to attempt to convey his astounding sensitiveness. To remain on good terms with him it was necessary to be as patient and wary as one who stalks the hermit thrush to its nest. Any expression of anger or harshness to any one drove him to flight, any story of moral or physical pain sent him quivering away, and a look of ennui or resentment, even if but a passing emotion, and indulged in while his back was turned, was immediately conveyed to his consciousness in some occult fashion and he was off in an instant. Any attempt to detain or explain only increased the length of his absence. A description of his eccentricities of manner would be misleading if the result were to convey an impression of neurotic debility, for with this extreme sensitiveness was combined vigour of mind and body to an unusual degree--the delicacy was only of the spirit.

Mrs. Lylie Harris of New Orleans, one of his intimate friends at this time, in an article written after his death, speaks of his friendship with the children of her family, with whom he was an affectionate playfellow, and with whom he was entirely confident and at his ease. An equally friendly and confident relation existed between himself and the old negro woman who cared for his rooms (as clean and plain as a soldier's), and indeed all his life he was happiest with the young and the simple, who never perplexed or disturbed him by the complexities of modern civilization, which all his life he distrusted and feared.

Among those attracted by his work in the _Times-Democrat_ was W. D. O'Connor, in the marine service of the government, who wrote to enquire the name of the author of an article on Gustave Doré. From this grew a correspondence extending over several years. Jerome A. Hart, of San Francisco, was another correspondent attracted by his work, to whom he wrote from time to time, even after his residence in Japan had begun. Mr. Hart in contributing his letters says that this correspondence began in 1882, through the following reference in the pages of the _Argonaut_ to "One of Cleopatra's Nights":--

"Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, a talented writer on the staff of the New Orleans _Times-Democrat_, has just translated some of Gautier's fantastic romances, under the name of 'One of Cleopatra's Nights.' The book comprises six fascinating stories--the one which gives the title, 'Clarimonde,' 'Arria Marcella, a Souvenir of Pompeii,' 'The Mummy's Foot,' 'Omphale, a Rococo Story,' and 'King Candaule.' Mr. Hearn has few equals in this country as regards translation, and the stories lose nothing of their artistic unity in his hands. But his hobby is literalism. For instance, of the epitaph in 'Clarimonde,'--

'Ici-gît Clarimonde,
Qui fut de son vivant
La plus belle du monde,'

he remarks: 'The broken beauty of the lines is but inadequately rendered thus:--

'Here lies Clarimonde,
Who was famed in her lifetime
As the fairest of women.'

Very true--it is inadequate. But why not vary it? For example:--

Here lieth Clarimonde,
Who was, what time she lived,
The loveliest in the land.

The fleeting archaic flavour of the original is not entirely lost here, and the lines are broken, yet metrical. But this is only a suggestion, and a kindly one."

This book--his first--travelled far before finding a publisher, and then only at the cost of the author bearing half the expense of publication.

Other notices had been less kind. The _Observer_, as he quotes in a letter to Mr. Hart, had declared that it was a collection of "stories of unbridled lust without the apology of natural passion," and that "the translation reeked with the miasma of the brothel." The _Critic_ had wasted no time upon the translator, confining itself to depreciation of Gautier, and this Hearn resented more than severity to himself, for at this period Gautier and his style were his passionate delight, as witness the following note which accompanied a loan of a volume containing a selection from the Frenchman's poems:--

DEAR MISS BISLAND,--I venture to try to give you a little novel
pleasure by introducing you to the "Emaux et Camées." As you have told
me you never read them, I feel sure you will experience a literary
surprise. You will find in Gautier a perfection of melody, a warmth of
word-colouring, a voluptuous delicacy which no English poet has ever
approached and which reveal, I think, a certain capacity of artistic
expression no Northern tongue can boast. What the Latin tongues yield
in to Northern languages is strength; but the themes in which the
Latin poets excel are usually soft and exquisite. Still you will find
in the "Rondalla" some fine specimens of violence. It is the song of
the Toreador Juan.

These "Emaux et Camées" constitute Gautier's own pet selection from
his works. I have seen nothing in Hugo's works to equal some of
them.... I won't presume to offer you this copy: it is too shabby, has
travelled about with me in all sorts of places for eight years. But if
you are charmed by this "parfait magicien des lettres françaises" (as
Baudelaire called him) I hope to have the pleasure of offering you a
nicer copy....

Mr. John Albee wrote to him in connection with the book, and also the Reverend Wayland D. Ball.

"Stray Leaves from Strange Literature"--published by James R. Osgood and Company of Boston--followed in 1884 and was more kindly treated by the critics, though it brought fewer letters from private admirers, and was not very profitable--save to his reputation. In 1885 a tiny volume was issued under the title of "Gombo Zhêbes," being a collection of 350 Creole proverbs which he had made while studying the patois of the Louisiana negro--a patois of which the local name is "Gombo." These laborious studies of the grammar and oral literature of a tongue spoken only by and to negro servants in Louisiana seemed rather a work of supererogation at the time, but later during his life in the West Indies they proved of incalculable value to him in his intercourse with the inhabitants. There the patois--not having been subjected as in New Orleans to that all-absorbing solvent of the English tongue--continued to hold its own alongside the pure French of the educated Creoles, and his book would have been impossible had he not had command of the universal speech of the common people.

"Some Chinese Ghosts" had set out on its travels in search of a publisher sometime earlier, and after several rejections was finally, in the following year, accepted by Roberts Brothers. In regard to some corrections which they desired made in the text this reference has been found in a letter to his friend Krehbiel, a letter in which, however, time and the ruthless appetite of bookworms have made havoc with words here and there:--

1886.

DEAR K.,--In Promethean agony I write.

Roberts Brothers, Boston, have written me that they want to publish
"Chinese Ghosts;" but want me to cut out a multitude of Japanese,
Sanscrit, Chinese, and Buddhist terms.

Thereupon unto them I despatched a colossal document of supplication
and prayer,--citing Southey, Moore, Flaubert, Edwin Arnold, Gautier,
"Hiawatha," and multitudinous singers and multitudinous songs, and the
rights of prose poetry, and the supremacy of Form.

And no answer have I yet received.

How shall I sacrifice Orientalism, seeing that this my work was
inspired by [fragment of a Greek word] by the Holy Spirit, by the Vast
... [probably Blue Soul] of the Universe ... but one of the facets of
that million-faceted Rose-diamond which flasheth back the light of the
Universal Sun? And even as Apocalyptic John I hold--

"And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this
prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out
of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

Thy brother in the Holy Ghost of Art wisheth thee many benisons and
victories, and the Grace that cometh as luminous rain and the Wind of
Inspiration perfumed with musk and the flowers of Paradise.

Lafcadio.

This suggestion was peculiarly afflicting because of his love of exotic words, not only for their own sake, but for the colour they lent to the general scheme of decoration of his style. It was as if a painter of an Oriental picture had been asked to omit all reproduction of Eastern costumes, all representation of the architecture or utensils germane to his scene. To eliminate these foreign terms was like asking a modern actor to play "Julius Caesar" in a full-bottomed wig.

At about this period a friendship formed with Lieutenant Oscar Crosby exerted a most profound and far-reaching influence upon Hearn--an influence which continued to grow until his whole life and manner of thought were coloured by it.

Lieutenant Crosby was a young Louisianian, educated at West Point, and then stationed in New Orleans, a person of very unusual abilities, and Hearn found him a suggestive and inspiring companion. In a letter written to Ernest Crosby from Japan in 1904, but a month before his death, he says:--

"A namesake of yours, a young lieutenant in the United States Army, first taught me, about twenty years ago, how to study Herbert Spencer. To that Crosby I shall always feel a very reverence of gratitude, and I shall always find myself inclined to seek the good opinion of any man bearing the name of Crosby."

To Mr. Krehbiel in the same year that he began the study of "The Principles of Ethics" he wrote:--

"Talking of change in opinions, I am really astonished at myself. You know what my fantastic metaphysics were. A friend disciplined me to read Herbert Spencer. I suddenly discovered what a waste of time all my Oriental metaphysics had been. I also discovered for the first time how to apply the little general knowledge I possessed. I also found unspeakable comfort in the sudden, and for me eternal reopening of the Great Doubt, which renders pessimism ridiculous, and teaches a new reverence for all forms of faith. In short, from the day when I finished the 'First Principles,' a totally new intellectual life opened for me; and I hope during the next few years to devour the rest of this oceanic philosophy."

He seems not, in these positive assertions, to have overestimated the great change that had come upon his mental attitude. The strong breath of the great thinker had blown from off his mind the froth and ferment of youth, leaving the wine clear and strong beneath. From this time becomes evident a new seriousness in his manner, and beauty became to him not only the mere grace of form but the meaning and truth which that form was to embody.

The next book bearing his name shows the effect of this change, and the immediate success of the book demonstrated that, while his love for the exotic was to remain ingrained, he had learned to bring the exotic into vital touch with the normal.

"Chita: A Story of Last Island" had its origin in a visit paid in the summer of 1884 to Grande Isle, one of the islands lying in the Gulf of Mexico, near the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Bay of Barataria. A letter written to Page Baker while there may be inserted at this point to give some idea of the place.

DEAR PAGE,--I wish you were here; for I am sure that the enjoyment
would do you a great deal of good. I had not been in sea-water for
fifteen years, and you can scarcely imagine how I rejoice in it,--in
fact I don't like to get out of it at all. I suppose you have not been
at Grande Isle--or at least not been here for so long that you have
forgotten what it looks like. It makes a curious impression on me: the
old plantation cabins, standing in rows like village-streets, and
neatly remodelled for more cultivated inhabitants, have a delightfully
rural aspect under their shadowing trees; and there is a veritable
country calm by day and night. Grande Isle has suggestions in it of
several old country fishing villages I remember, but it is even still
more charmingly provincial. The hotel proper, where the tables are
laid,--formerly, I fancy, a sugar-house or something of that
sort,--reminds one of nothing so much as one of those big English or
Western barn-buildings prepared for a holiday festival or a
wedding-party feast. The only distinctively American feature is the
inevitable Southern gallery with white wooden pillars. An absolutely
ancient purity of morals appears to prevail here:--no one thinks of
bolts or locks or keys, everything is left open and nothing is ever
touched. Nobody has ever been robbed on the island. There is no
iniquity. It is like a resurrection of the days of good King Alfred,
when, if a man were to drop his purse on the highway, he might return
six months later to find it untouched. At least that is what I am
told. Still I would not _like_ to leave one thousand golden dinars on
the beach or in the middle of the village. I am still a little
suspicious--having been so long a dweller in wicked cities.

I was in hopes that I had made a very important discovery; viz.--a
flock of really tame and innocuous cows; but the innocent appearance
of the beasts is, I have just learned, a disguise for the most fearful
ferocity. So far I have escaped unharmed; and Marion has offered to
lend me his large stick, which will, I have no doubt, considerably aid
me in preserving my life.

Couldn't you manage to let me stay down here until after the
Exposition is over, doing no work and nevertheless drawing my salary
regularly?... By the way, one could save money by a residence at
Grande Isle. There are no temptations--except the perpetual and
delicious temptation of the sea.

The insects here are many; but I have seen no frogs,--they have
probably found that the sea can outroar them and have gone away
jealous. But in Marion's room there is a beam, and against that beam
there is the nest of a "mud-dauber." Did you ever see a mud-dauber? It
is something like this when flying;--but when it isn't flying I can't
tell you what it looks like, and it has the peculiar power of flying
without noise. I think it is of the wasp-kind, and plasters its mud
nest in all sorts of places. It is afraid of nothing--likes to look at
itself in the glass, and leaves its young in our charge. There is
another sociable creature--hope it isn't a wasp--which has built two
nests under the edge of this table on which I write to you. There are
no specimens here of the _cimex lectularius_; and the mosquitoes are
not at all annoying. They buzz a little, but seldom give evidence of
hunger. Creatures also abound which have the capacity of making noises
of the most singular sort. Up in the tree on my right there is a thing
which keeps saying all day long, quite plainly, "_Kiss, Kiss,
Kiss!_"--referring perhaps to the good young married folks across the
way; and on the road to the bath-house, which we travelled late last
evening in order to gaze at the phosphorescent sea, there dwells
something which exactly imitates the pleasant sound of ice jingling in
a cut-glass tumbler.

As for the grub, it is superb--solid, nutritious, and without stint.
When I first tasted the butter I was enthusiastic, imagining that
those mild-eyed cows had been instrumental in its production; but I
have since discovered they were not--and the fact astonishes me not at
all now that I have learned more concerning the character of those
cows.

At some unearthly hour in the morning the camp-meeting quiet of the
place is broken by the tolling of a bell. This means "Jump up,
lazybones; and take a swim before the sun rises." Then the
railroad-car comes for the bathers, passing up the whole line of white
cottages. The distance is short to the beach; Marion and I prefer to
walk; but the car is a great convenience for the women and children
and invalids. It is drawn by a single mule, and always accompanied by
a dog which appears to be the intimate friend of the said mule, and
who jumps up and barks all the grass-grown way. The ladies'
bathing-house is about five minutes' plank-walking from the
men's,--where I am glad to say drawers and bathing-suits are
unnecessary, so that one has the full benefit of sun-bathing as well
as salt-water bathing. There is a man here called Margot or
Margeaux--perhaps some distant relative of Château-Margeaux--who
always goes bathing accompanied by a pet goose. The goose follows him
just like a dog; but is a little afraid of getting into deep water. It
remains in the surf presenting its stern-end to the breakers:--

The only trouble about the bathing is the ferocious sun. Few people
bathe in the heat of the day, but yesterday we went in four times; and
the sun nearly flayed us. This morning we held a council of war and
decided upon greater moderation. There are three bars, between which
the water is deep. The third bar is, I fear, too "risky" to reach, as
it is nearly a mile from the other, and lies beyond a hundred-foot
depth of water in which sharks are said to disport themselves. I am
almost as afraid of sharks as I am of cows.... Marion made a dash for
a drowning man yesterday, in answer to the cry, "Here, you fellows,
help! help!" and I followed. We had instantaneous visions of a
gold-medal from the Life-Saving Service, and glorious dreams of
newspaper fame under the title "Journalistic Heroism,"--for my part, I
must acknowledge I had also an unpleasant fancy that the drowning man
might twine himself about me, and pull me to the bottom,--so I looked
out carefully to see which way he was heading. But the beatific
Gold-Medal fancies were brutally dissipated by the drowning man's
success in saving himself before we could reach him, and we remain as
obscure as before.

_Interlude_

A No 2
Miss Bisland's Creole Chaperone

A No 3
Miss Bisland's Pickwickian Chaperon

I will now resume the interrupted text of my narration]

The proprietor has found what I have vainly been ransacking the world
for--a civilized hat, showing the highest evolutional development of
the hat as a practically useful article. I am going to make him an
offer for it.

Alas! the time flies too fast. Soon all this will be a dream:--the
white cottages shadowed with leafy green,--the languid rocking-chairs
upon the old-fashioned gallery,--the cows that look into one's window
with the rising sun,--the dog and the mule trotting down the
flower-edged road,--the goose of the ancient Margot,--the muttering
surf upon the bar beyond which the sharks are,--the bath-bell and the
bathing belles,--the air that makes one feel like a boy,--the pleasure
of sleeping with doors and windows open to the sea and its
everlasting song,--the exhilaration of rising with the rim of the
sun.... And then we must return to the dust and the roar of New
Orleans, to hear the rumble of wagons instead of the rumble of
breakers, and to smell the smell of ancient gutters instead of the
sharp sweet scent of pure sea wind. I believe I would rather be old
Margot's goose if I could. Blessed goose! thou knowest nothing about
the literary side of the New Orleans _Times-Democrat_; but thou dost
know that thou canst have a good tumble in the sea every day. If I
could live down here I should certainly live to be a hundred years
old. One _lives_ here. In New Orleans one only exists.... And the boat
comes--I must post this incongruous epistle.

Good-bye,--wish you were here, sincerely.

Very truly,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

This jesting letter makes but little reference to the beauties of this tropical island, which had, however, made a profound impression upon Hearn, and later they were reproduced with astonishing fidelity in the book. Some distance to the westward of Grande Isle lies L'Isle Dernière, or--as it is now commonly called--Last Island, then a mere sandbank, awash in high tides, but thirty years before that an island of the same character as Grande Isle, and for half a century a popular summer resort for the people of New Orleans and the planters of the coast. On the 10th of August, 1856, a frightful storm swept it bare and annihilated the numerous summer visitors, only a handful among the hundreds escaping. The story of the tragedy remained a vivid tradition along the coast, where hardly a family escaped without the loss of some relation or friend, and on Hearn's return to New Orleans he embodied a brief story of the famous storm, with his impressions of the splendours of the Gulf, under the title of "Torn Letters," purporting to be the fragments of an old correspondence by one of the survivors. This story--published in the _Times-Democrat_--was so favourably received that he was later encouraged to enlarge it into a book, and the Harpers, who had already published some articles from his pen, issued it as a serial in their magazine, where it won instant recognition from a large public that had heretofore been ignorant of, or indifferent to, his work.

Oscar Wilde once declared that life and nature constantly plagiarized from art, and would have been pleased with the confirmation of his suggestion afforded by the fact that nearly twenty years after the publication of "Chita" a storm, similar to the one described in the book, swept away in its turn Grande Isle, and Les Chenières, and a girl child was rescued by Manila fishermen as Hearn had imagined. After living with one of their families for some time she was finally recovered by her father (who had believed her lost in the general catastrophe), under circumstances astoundingly like those invented by the author so many years before.

The book was dedicated to Dr. Rodolfo Matas, a Spanish physician in New Orleans, and an intimate friend,--frequently mentioned in the letters to Dr. George M. Gould of Philadelphia, with whom a correspondence was begun at about this time.

It was because of the success of "Chita" that Hearn was enabled to realize his long-nourished dream of penetrating farther into the tropics, and with a vague commission from the Harpers he left New Orleans, in 1887, and sailed for the Windward Islands. The journey took him as far south as British Guiana, the fruit of which was a series of travel-sketches printed in _Harper's Magazine_. So infatuated with the Southern world of colour, light, and warmth had he become that--trusting to the possible profits of his books and the further material he hoped to gather--two months after his return from this journey, and without any definite resources, he cast himself back into the arms of the tropics, for which he suffered a life-long and unappeasable nostalgia.

It was to St. Pierre in the island of Martinique--the place that had most attracted him on his travels--that he returned. That island of "gigantic undulations," that town of bright long narrow streets rising toward a far mass of glowing green ... which looks as if it had slid down the hill behind it, so strangely do the streets come tumbling to the port in a cascade of masonry,--with a red billowing of tiled roofs over all, and enormous palms poking up through it. That town with "a population fantastic, astonishing,--a population of the Arabian Nights ... many coloured, with a general dominant tint of yellow, like that of the town itself ... always relieved by the costume colours of Martinique--brilliant yellow stripings or chequerings which have an indescribable luminosity, a wonderful power of bringing out the fine warm tints of tropical flesh ... the hues of those rich costumes Nature gives to her nearest of kin and her dearest,--her honey-lovers,--her insects: wasp-colours." Here, under the shadow of Mt. Pelée "coiffed with purple and lilac cloud ... a magnificent _Madras_, yellow-banded by the sun," he remained for two years, and from his experiences there created his next book. "Two Years in the French West Indies" made a minute and astonishing record of the town and the population, now as deeply buried and as utterly obliterated as was Pompeii by the lava and ashes of Vesuvius. Eighteen centuries hence, could some archæologist, disinterring the almost forgotten town, find this book, what passionate value would he give to this record of a community of as unique a character as that of the little Græco-Roman city! What price would be set to-day upon parchments which reproduced with such vivid fidelity the world, so long hid in darkness, of that civilization over whose calcined fragments we now yearningly ponder!

One English commentator upon the work of Lafcadio Hearn speaks of "Chita" and "Two Years in the French West Indies" with negligent contempt as of "the orchid and cockatoo type of literature," and passes on to his Japanese work as the first of considerable importance. Other critics have been led into the same error, welcoming the cooler tones of his later pictures as a growth in power and a development of taste. It is safe to say that the makers of such criticisms have not seen the lands and peoples of whom these books attempt to reproduce the charm. Those who have known tropic countries will realize how difficult is the task of reproducing their multi-coloured glories, and that to bring even a faint shadow of their splendours back to eyes accustomed to the pale greys and half tints of Northern lands is a labour not only arduous in itself, but more than apt to be ungratefully received by those for whom it is undertaken. A mole would find a butterfly's description of an August landscape exaggerated to the point of vulgarity, and the average critic is more likely to find satisfaction in "A Grey Day at Annisquam" than in the most subtly handled picture of the blaze of noon at Luxor.

"Chita" is marred occasionally by a phrase that suggests the journalism in which the hand of the writer had been so long submerged, but in "Two Years in the French West Indies" the artist has at last emancipated his talent and finished his long apprenticeship. Though the author himself in later years finds some fault with it, giving as excuse that much of it was done when he was physically exhausted by fever and anxiety, and "with but a half-filled stomach," it remains one of his most admirable achievements.

The risks he had assumed in returning to the tropics proved greater than he had imagined. Publishers' delays and rigid exactions of all their part of the writer's pound of flesh left him at times entirely without means, and had it not been for the generosity and kindliness of the people of the now vanished city he would not have lived to return. It was some memory of humble friends there that is recorded in the sixth part of the autobiographical fragments, written after the disaster at St. Pierre.

IN VANISHED LIGHT

... A bright long narrow street rising toward a far mass of glowing
green--burning green of lianas: the front of a tropic wood. Not a
street of this age, but of the seventeenth century: a street of yellow
façades, with yellow garden-walls between the façades. In sharp bursts
of blue light the sea appears at intervals,--blue light blazing up
old, old nights of mossy steps descending to the bay. And through
these openings ships are visible, far below, riding in azure.

Walls are lemon-colour;--quaint balconies and lattices are green.
Palm-trees rise from courts and gardens into a warm blue
sky--indescribably blue--that appears almost to touch the feathery
heads of them. And all things, within or without the yellow vista, are
steeped in a sunshine electrically white,--in a radiance so powerful
that it lends even to the pavements of basalt the glitter of silver
ore.

Men wearing only white canvas trousers, and immense hats of
bamboo-grass,--men naked to the waist, and muscled like
sculptures,--pass noiselessly with barefoot stride. Some are very
black; others are of strange and beautiful colours: there are skins of
gold, of brown bronze, and of ruddy bronze. And women pass in robes of
brilliant hue,--women of the colour of fruit: orange-colour,
banana-colour,--women wearing turbans banded with just such burning
yellow as bars the belly of a wasp. The warm thick air is sweet with
scents of sugar and of cinnamon,--with odours of mangoes and of
custard-apples, of guava-jelly and of fresh cocoanut milk.

--Into the amber shadow and cool moist breath of a great archway I
plunge, to reach a court filled with flickering emerald and the
chirrup of leaping water. There a little boy and a little girl run to
meet me, with Creole cries of "_Mi y!_" Each takes one of my
hands;--each holds up a beautiful brown cheek to kiss. In the same
moment a voice, the father's voice--deep and vibrant as the tone of a
great bell--calls from an inner doorway, "_Entrez donc, mon ami!_" And
with the large caress of that voice there comes to me such joy of
sympathy, such sense of perfect peace, as Souls long-tried by fire
might feel when passing the Gateway of Pearl....

But all this was and is not!... Never again will sun or moon shine
upon the streets of that city;--never again will its ways be
trodden;--never again will its gardens blossom ... except in dreams.

He was again in New York in 1889, occupied with the final proofs of "Chita" before its appearance in book form, preparing the West Indian book for the press, but in sore distress for money, and making a translation of Anatole France's "Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard" in a few weeks by Herculean labour, in order to exist until he could earn something by his original work. The half-yearly payment of royalties imposed by publishers bears hardly on the author who must pay daily for the means to live. For a time he visited Dr. Gould in Philadelphia, but after his return to New York an arrangement was entered into with Harper and Brothers to go to Japan for the purpose of writing articles from there, after the manner of the West Indian articles, later to be made into a book. An artist was to accompany him to prepare the illustrations, and their route was by way of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

His last evening in New York was spent in the company of his dear friend Mr. Ellwood Hendrick, to whom many of the most valuable letters contained in the second volume were written, and on May 8, 1890, he left for the East--never again to return.