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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Concerning Lafcadio Hearn, by George M. Gould
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Concerning Lafcadio Hearn
+       With a Bibliography by Laura Stedman
+
+Author: George M. Gould
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2011 [EBook #36783]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCERNING LAFCADIO HEARN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Ernest Schaal, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONCERNING LAFCADIO HEARN
+
+
+
+
+                [Illustration: LAFCADIO HEARN.
+                _From a Photograph by Gutekunst, 1889._]
+
+
+_Frontispiece._
+
+
+
+
+                    CONCERNING LAFCADIO
+                    HEARN. By GEORGE M. GOULD, M.D.
+
+
+                          WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY
+                            BY LAURA STEDMAN
+
+
+                       _WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS_
+
+
+                            T. FISHER UNWIN
+
+                        LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
+                        LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
+                                  1908
+
+
+
+
+                        [_All rights reserved_]
+
+
+
+
+    CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAP.                                               PAGE
+
+      I.  HEREDITY AND THE EARLY LIFE                          1
+
+     II.  IN PERSON                                            7
+
+    III.  THE PERIOD OF THE GRUESOME                          13
+
+     IV.  THE NEW ORLEANS TIME                                33
+
+      V.  AT MARTINIQUE                                       57
+
+     VI.  "GETTING A SOUL"                                    65
+
+    VII.  "IN GHOSTLY JAPAN"                                  81
+
+   VIII.  AS A POET                                           93
+
+     IX.  THE POET OF MYOPIA                                 103
+
+      X.  HEARN'S STYLE                                      119
+
+     XI.  SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION                             137
+
+    XII.  APPRECIATIONS AND EPITOMES                         143
+
+          BIBLIOGRAPHY                                       247
+
+
+
+
+    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                 _To face page_
+
+    LAFCADIO HEARN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY GUTEKUNST
+    IN 1889                                       _Frontispiece_
+
+    HEARN AT ABOUT THE AGE OF EIGHT, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH         5
+
+    REDUCED FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST ISSUE OF "YE
+    GIGLAMPZ"                                                 21
+
+    LAFCADIO HEARN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT MARTINIQUE,
+    AUGUST 24, 1888                                           61
+
+    HANDWRITING OF HEARN IN 1889                              68
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+THERE are as many possible biographies of a man as there are possible
+biographers--and one more! Of Lafcadio Hearn there has been, and there
+will be, no excuse for any biography whatever. A properly edited volume
+of his letters, and, perhaps, a critical estimate of the methods and
+development of his imaginative power and literary character are, and
+still remain, most desirable. That some competent hand may yet be found
+to undertake this task is still hoped by those who recognize the value
+of a man's best work. To furnish material and help toward this end is my
+object in collecting the following pages. The life of a literary man
+interests and is of value to the world because of the literature he has
+created. Without a bibliography, without even mention of the works he
+wrote, his biography would be useless. To correct many untrue and
+misleading statements and inferences of a serious nature that have been
+published concerning him and his life, should it ever be undertaken,
+will prove a labour so difficult and thankless that it will scarcely be
+entered upon by one who would do it rightly. That it will not be
+hazarded comes, as I have said, from the fact that it is not needed,
+because neither Hearn himself, nor his real friends, nor again, a
+discriminating literary sense, have been, nor can be, under any illusion
+as to his "greatness." He has been spoken of as "a great man," which, of
+course, he was not. Two talents he had, but these were far from
+constituting personal greatness. Deprived by nature, by the necessities
+of his life, or by conscious intention, of religion, morality,
+scholarship, magnanimity, loyalty, character, benevolence, and other
+constituents of personal greatness, it is more than folly to endeavour
+to place him thus wrongly before the world.
+
+The irony of the situation is pathetically heightened by the fact that,
+supposing him to be very great, "the weaknesses of very great men,"
+which he said should not be spoken of, are amazingly paraded in the
+letters. Had he ever dreamed that his letters would be published, he
+would not, and could not, have so unblushingly exposed himself and his
+faults to the public gaze. The fact has now been writ exceeding large,
+or it would not be, and should not be, corrected and contradicted. A
+word to the wise suffices.
+
+There remains the question, truly pertinent, concerning the nature and
+progress toward perfection of his imagination, and of his literary
+execution.
+
+We know nothing, and doubtless we may never know anything definite,
+accurate and of value about the character either of his father or of his
+mother. Any attempt, therefore, to estimate what effect heredity had in
+handing down the strange endowment we find in his early manhood is
+wholly futile. We may not be too sure concerning either the parentage or
+nationality ascribed to him.
+
+Moreover, in the last analysis, Hearn was no "product of his
+environment." In a certain sense, he was of the school of Flaubert,
+Gautier, Maupassant, Loti, and Zola, but with such differences and
+variations that these teachers may not take much credit or flattery to
+themselves. The great, the distinctive, the dominating force which
+controlled and created Hearn's literary makings, his morbid vision, was
+not "environment" as the critics and scientists mean by the term. These
+have not yet learned that Art and Life hang upon the perfection and
+peculiarities of the senses of the artist and of the one who lives, and
+that intellect and especially æsthetics are almost wholly the product of
+vision. Conversely, the morbidities and individualisms of Art and Life
+often depend pre-eminently upon the morbidities of vision.
+
+Character, lastly, is the action or reaction of personality against
+circumstance, not under and dominated by circumstance. To have character
+is to control circumstance; Hearn was always its slave. Except in one
+particular, the pursuit of literary excellence, Hearn had no character
+whatever. His was the most unresisting, most echolike mind I have ever
+known. He was a perfect chameleon; he took for the time the colour of
+his surroundings. He was always the mirror of the friend of the instant,
+or if no friend was there, of the dream of that instant. The next minute
+he was another being, acted upon by the new circumstance, reflecting the
+new friend, or redreaming the old and new-found dream. They who blame
+him too sharply for his disloyalty and ingratitude to old friends do not
+understand him psychologically. There was nothing behind the physical
+and neurologic machine to be loyal or disloyal. He had no mind, or
+character, to be possessed of loyalty or disloyalty. For the most part,
+he simply dropped his friends, and rarely spoke ill of them or of his
+enemies. There was nothing whatever in him, except perhaps for the short
+time when he said his friend had given him a soul, to take the cast and
+function of loyalty or disloyalty, gratitude or ingratitude. One does
+not ask originality or even great consistency of an echo, and, of all
+men that have ever lived, Hearn, mentally and spiritually, was most
+perfectly an echo. The sole quality, the only originality, he brought to
+the fact, or to the echo, was colour--a peculiar derivation of a maimed
+sense. He created or invented nothing; his stories were always told him
+by others; at first they were gruesome tales even to horror and disgust.
+He learned by practice to choose lovelier stories, ones always distant,
+sometimes infinitely distant, and he learned to retell or echo them with
+more artistic skill and even a matchless grace. His merit, almost his
+sole merit, and his unique skill lay in the strange faculty of colouring
+the echo with the hues and tints of heavenly rainbows and unearthly
+sunsets, all gleaming with a ghostly light that never was on sea or
+shore. So that, fused as he was with his work, he himself became that
+impossible thing, a chromatic voice, a multicoloured echo.
+
+We must, therefore, accept the facts as we find them, the young man as
+we find him, uneducated, friendless, without formed character, with a
+lot of heathenish and unrestrained appetites, crippled as to the most
+important of the senses, poverty-stricken, improvident, of peculiar and
+unprepossessing appearance and manners, flung into an alien world in
+many ways more morbid than himself. That he lived at all is almost
+astonishing, and that he writhed out, how he did it, and the means
+whereby he finally presented to the best artistic and literary
+intellects of the world prized values and enjoyments, is indeed worthy
+of some attention and study.
+
+From letters written to me just prior to his death by that veteran and
+discriminating critic, Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, I quote a few sentences to
+show that the appreciation of Hearn has by no means reached its full
+measure:
+
+"I passed an evening with your Hearn manuscript and the supplementary
+matter by my granddaughter, and found them both well done and of deep
+interest. Some of your passages are beautifully written and make me
+think that if you will give us more of the style which is so plainly at
+your command, you will gain, etc.... The publishers do not understand,
+as I do, that Hearn will in time be as much of a romantic personality
+and tradition as Poe now is. I strongly urged one publisher to buy those
+copyrights owned by three other firms on any terms and in the end bring
+out a definitive edition of his complete works."
+
+As to Miss Stedman's workmanlike bibliography, it should be said that
+the rule which has been followed in excluding less valuable reviews and
+notices, was based upon the effort to include doubtful ones only when of
+exceptional value, by a personal friend of Hearn, etc. Files of ordinary
+newspapers are not preserved even in local libraries, and, therefore,
+references to them have been excluded except under peculiar
+circumstances of authorship, opinions stated, etc.
+
+For their kind permission to make extracts from Hearn's published works,
+grateful acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Little, Brown and Company,
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Harper Brothers, and The Macmillan
+Company.
+
+Should this volume bring in more money than the necessary expenses of
+compiling it, the excess will be sent to Mrs. Hearn through the Japanese
+Consul, or in some other way.
+
+                                                    GEORGE M. GOULD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--HEREDITY AND THE
+    EARLY LIFE
+
+
+            [Illustration: HEARN AT ABOUT THE AGE OF EIGHT.
+                         _From a Photograph._]
+
+
+_To face page 1._
+
+
+MANY conflicting accounts have been given concerning Hearn's parents and
+childhood. From his own statements made in 1889, the notes of which,
+taken down at the moment, are before me, he was born on June 27, 1850,
+at Leucadia, in Santa Maura, one of the Ionian Islands. His father, he
+said, was an Irishman, Charles Bush Hearn, Surgeon-Major in the 76th
+English Infantry Regiment, which had been stationed at Madras, Calcutta.
+The regiment was later merged into the 22nd West Riding Battalion. His
+mother was a Greek from Cerigo, another of the Ionian Isles; her name he
+had forgotten. He spoke of his father and mother as having been married,
+and of a subsequent divorce, about 1857 or 1858. Allusion was made to a
+younger brother, named Daniel, who was brought up by an artist, a
+painter, Richard Hearn, a brother of Charles Bush Hearn, who lived in
+Paris.[1] Hearn thought this brother was educated as a civil engineer.
+After the divorce his mother remarried, her second husband being a
+lawyer, a Greek, name unknown, and living at Smyrna, Asia Minor.
+Lafcadio's father also remarried, taking his wife to India. Three
+daughters were said to have been born there. Lafcadio was put under the
+care of his aunt, Mrs. Sarah Brenane, of Dublin, No. 73 Upper Leeson
+Street. She was a widow without children. In a letter to me, written
+prior to 1889, Hearn says: "As for me, I have a good deal in me _not_ to
+thank my ancestors for; and it is a pleasure that _I cannot_, even if I
+would, trace myself two generations back, not even one generation on my
+mother's side. Half these Greeks are mixed with Turks and Arabs--don't
+know how much of an Oriental mixture I have, or may have." And again, "I
+do not know anything about my mother, whether alive or dead. My father
+died on his return from India. There was a queer romance in the history
+of my mother's marriage." He told me later that this romance was said to
+have been that Surgeon-Major Hearn was once set upon by the brothers of
+the young Greek woman to whom he was paying attention, and that he was
+left supposedly dead, with about a score of dagger-made wounds in his
+body.
+
+    [1] In _The Bookbuyer_, May, 1896, Hearn's friend, Mr. J. S.
+        Tunison, speaks of the existence of a brother, "a busy
+        farmer in Northwestern Ohio."
+
+In the Dayton, Ohio, _Journal_, of December 25, 1906, Mr. Tunison speaks
+authoritatively of the discrepant accounts given by many writers, and by
+Hearn himself, concerning his parents, birth and early years. "Hearn
+himself had misgivings, and sometimes associated his baptismal name with
+the not uncommon Spanish name, Leocadie." The boy, of course, could only
+repeat what he had been told by his relatives or friends. Physiognomy
+can help little perhaps, but here its testimony is assuredly not
+confirmatory of the more common story. Any attempt to secure definite
+information in Ireland would scarcely be successful. One possibility
+remained: There is still living an Irish gentleman to whom Lafcadio was
+sent from Ireland, and in whose care, at least to a limited extent, the
+boy was placed. I have not the right to mention his name. He was living
+in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1870, and through his brother-in-law in Ireland,
+Lafcadio was, as it were, consigned to my informant. The subject is an
+unpleasant one to him, and he answered my questions with reluctance. He
+did not like the boy and did not feel that he had any obligation toward
+him; in fact, he did not feel that he was in any way responsible for his
+care. Besides, he had heavy duties toward his own children that absorbed
+all his energies. "I never had a letter from him. He came to the house
+three times. Mrs. Brenane sent me money, which I gave to him to pay his
+bills with. When he got work, he never came near me again." He was not
+sure that Mrs. Brenane was, in truth, Hearn's aunt, and upon being
+pressed, answered repeatedly, "I know nothing, nobody knows anything
+true of Hearn's life. He may have been related to my wife's family, but
+I never knew." Asked why the lad was "shipped" to him, he replied, "I do
+not know." Inquiries concerning the boy's schooling brought no more
+than, "I only know that he could never stay long in one school." "His
+father was Irish, was he not?" "Yes." "And his mother was Greek?" "O
+yes, I suppose so," but with an indefinite inflection.
+
+The mystery, therefore, of Hearn's parentage and boyhood years is
+probably not to be cleared up. He was, perhaps, a "bad boy," and
+expelled from several schools; his lifelong hatred and fear of Catholics
+and Jesuits doubtless dates from these youthful and irrational
+experiences; but it is useless to inquire whether or not they were in
+any sense justifiable. A little reflected light is thrown upon this
+period by an apocryphal anecdote in a letter to me, written while Hearn
+was at my house, and which Miss Bisland in her "Life and Letters" kindly
+failed to put in its proper place,[2] as well as omitted to say whence
+she obtained it:
+
+        [2] Vol. I, pp. 459-460, just prior to the last
+            paragraph.
+
+    This again reminds me of something. When I was a boy, I had
+    to go to confession, and my confessions were honest ones.
+    One day I told the ghostly father that I had been guilty of
+    desiring that the devil would come to me in the shape of
+    the beautiful woman in which he came to the Anchorites in
+    the desert, and that I thought that I would yield to such
+    temptations. He was a grim man who rarely showed emotion,
+    my confessor, but on that occasion he actually rose to his
+    feet in anger.
+
+    "Let me warn you!" he cried, "let me warn you! Of all things
+    never wish that! You might be more sorry for it than you can
+    possibly believe!"
+
+    His earnestness filled me with fearful joy;--for I thought
+    the temptation might actually be realized--so serious he
+    looked ... but the pretty _succubi_ all continued to remain
+    in hell.
+
+The necessary inference, therefore, is that the lad was an unwelcome
+charge upon those Irish relations or friends of his father, in whose
+care he was placed. It is said that he always spoke with bitterness of
+his father, and with love of his mother. Beyond a certain amount of
+money allotted (by his father?) for his support, neither parent was
+evidently concerned about his upbringing and welfare, and all who should
+have been interested in those things made haste to rid themselves of the
+obligations. If the stories of his boyish "badness" were true, the lad
+could not be blamed for putting into practice his inherited instincts,
+so that the pathos of his early misfortunes only increase our sympathy
+for the youth and his tragedies. (I reproduce a photograph of Lafcadio
+and his aunt, Mrs. Justin, or Sarah, Brenane. The lad must have been at
+the time about eight years of age.) The "consignment" of the
+nineteen-year old youth to the distant relative of the family, who was
+then living in Cincinnati, explains the reason why, landing in New York,
+he finally went to Cincinnati. How long he lived in New York City and
+any details of his life there before he went West, may be held as beyond
+investigation. Mr. Tunison incidentally speaks of him during this time
+as "sleeping in dry-goods boxes on the street, etc.," and I have heard
+that he acted as a restaurant waiter. There have been published stories
+of a period of want and suffering endured in London before the
+emigration to New York City. Others concerning great scholarship and the
+intimate knowledge of several languages, especially French, are surely
+not true. Even in 1889, after the New Orleans and Martinique periods,
+Hearn could not speak French with ease or correctness. In Cincinnati he
+secured the help of a French scholar in translating Gautier's "Émaux et
+Camées." His want of knowledge of the Latin language is deplored in his
+letters and, to the last, after a dozen or more years in Japan, his
+inability to read a Japanese newspaper or speak the language was a
+source of regret to himself, of errors too numerous to mention, and of
+grievous limitations in his work as an interpreter. In the one field of
+which his taste, aptitude and function dictated a wide and stimulating
+acquaintance, folk-lore, he was lamentably wanting. It might seem
+unfitting to allude to this were it not well to be discriminating in all
+cases, and had not Hearn sought to reach authoritativeness in a
+department wherein he had not gathered the fundamental data.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--IN PERSON
+
+
+WHEN, in 1889, Hearn appeared in my reception room, although I had not
+seen any photograph of him, and had not even known of his coming, I at
+once said, "You are Lafcadio?" The poor exotic was so sadly out of
+place, so wondering, so suffering and shy, that I am sure he would have
+run out of the house if I had not at once shown him an overflowing
+kindness, or if a tone of voice had betrayed any curiosity or doubt. It
+was at once agreed that he should stay with me for awhile, and there was
+no delay in providing him with a seat at my table and a room where he
+could be at his work of proof-correcting. His "Two Years in the French
+West Indies" was then going through the press, and an incident connected
+with the proof-reading illustrates how impossible it was for him, except
+when necessity drove, to meet any person not already known. He wished to
+give his reader the tune of the songs printed on pages 426-431, but he
+knew nothing of music. I arranged with a lady to repeat the airs on her
+piano as he should whistle them, and then to write them on the
+music-staff. When the fatal evening arrived, Hearn and I went to the
+lady's house, but as we proceeded his part in our chatting lapsed into
+silence, and he lagged behind. Although he finally dragged himself to
+the foot of the doorstep, after I had rung the bell, his courage failed,
+and before the door was opened I saw him running as if for life, half a
+square away!
+
+Even before this adventure I had learned that it was useless to try to
+get him to lunch or dinner if any stranger were present. I think he
+always listened to detect the possible presence of a stranger before
+entering the dining-room, and he would certainly have starved rather
+than submit to such an ordeal. It may be readily imagined that my
+attempt to secure his services as a lecturer before a local literary
+society was a ludricrous failure. He would have preferred hanging.
+
+I allude to this attitude of his mind from no idle or curious reason,
+but because it arose from logical and necessary reasons. When, later, he
+was in Japan, I was once importuned, and should not have yielded, to
+give a friend, who was about to visit Tôkyô, a note of
+introduction. As I warned my friend Hearn refused to see visitors.
+
+That his extreme shyness depended upon his being unknown, and that it
+was united to a lack of humour, may be gathered from the fact that, when
+he came from Martinique, he wore a clothing which inevitably made the
+passers-by turn and look and smile. Long and repeated endeavours were
+necessary before I could get his consent to lay aside the outrageous
+tropical hat for one that would not attract attention. How little he
+recked of this appears from the tale I heard that a lot of street gamins
+in Philadelphia formed a _queue_, the leader holding by Hearn's
+coat-tails, and, as they marched, all kept step and sang in time,
+"Where, where, where did you get that hat?"
+
+At once, upon first meeting Hearn, I instinctively recognized that upon
+my part the slightest sign of a desire or attempt to study him, to look
+upon him as an object of literary or "natural" history, would
+immediately put an end to our relations. Indeed, it never at that time
+entered my mind to think thus of him, and only since collections of his
+letters and biographies are threatened has it occurred to me to think
+over our days and months together, and to help, so far as advisable,
+toward a true understanding of the man and his art.
+
+In 1889 Lafcadio was 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighed 137 pounds, and had a
+chest girth of 36-3/4 inches.
+
+The summer of 1889 made noteworthy changes in Hearn's character. I
+suspect it was his first experience in anything that might be called
+home-life. To his beloved _pays des revenants_, Martinique, his mind
+constantly reverted, with an _Ahnung_ that he should never see it again.
+There are truth and pathos and keen self-knowledge, frankly expressed
+in the letters he would write me in the next room, immediately after we
+had chatted long together, and when he felt that the pen could better
+express what he shyly shrank from speaking:
+
+    Ah! to have a profession is to be rich, to have
+    international current-money, a gold that is cosmopolitan,
+    passes everywhere. Then I think I would never settle down
+    in any place; would visit all, wander about as long as I
+    could. There is such a delightful pleasantness about the
+    _first_ relations with people in strange places--before you
+    have made any rival, excited any ill wills, incurred
+    anybody's displeasure. Stay long enough in any one place
+    and the illusion is over; you have to sift this society
+    through the meshes of your nerves, and find perhaps one
+    good friendship too large to pass through.
+
+    It is a very beautiful world; the ugliness of some humanity
+    only exists as the shadowing that outlines the view; the
+    nobility of man and the goodness of woman can only be felt
+    by those who know the possibilities of degradation and
+    corruption. Philosophically I am simply a follower of
+    Spencer, whose mind gives me the greatest conception of
+    Divinity I can yet expand to receive. The faultiness is not
+    with the world, but with myself. I inherit certain
+    susceptibilities, weaknesses, sensitivenesses, which render
+    it impossible to adapt myself to the ordinary _milieu_; I
+    have to make one of my own wherever I go, and never mingle
+    with that already made. True, I love much knowledge, but I
+    escape pains which, in spite of all your own knowledge, you
+    could wholly comprehend, for the simple reason that you
+    _can_ mingle with men.
+
+    I am really quite lonesome for you, and am reflecting how
+    much more lonesome I shall be in some outrageous equatorial
+    country where I shall not see you any more;--also it seems
+    to me perfectly and inexplainably atrocious to know that
+    some day or other there will be no Gooley at ---- St. That I
+    should cease to make a shadow some day seems quite natural,
+    because Hearney boy is only a bubble anyhow ("The earth hath
+    bubbles"),--but you, hating mysteries and seeing and feeling
+    and knowing everything,--you have no right ever to die at
+    all. And I can't help doubting whether you will. You have
+    almost made me believe what you do not believe yourself:
+    that there are souls. I haven't any, I know; but I think you
+    have,--something electrical and luminous inside you that
+    will walk about and see things always. Are you really--what
+    I see of you--only an Envelope of something subtler and
+    perpetual? Because if you are, I might want you to pass down
+    some day southward,--over the blue zone and the volcanic
+    peaks like a little wind,--and flutter through the
+    palm-plumes under the all-putrefying sun,--and reach down
+    through old roots to the bones of me, and try to raise me
+    up....
+
+The weakness and even exhaustion which the West Indian climate had
+wrought in Hearn were painfully apparent. His stay in Philadelphia, warm
+as that summer was to us, brought him speedily back to physical health.
+The lesson was not unheeded, nor its implications, by his sensitive
+mind.
+
+I reproduce two photographs of Hearn: the first taken in 1888 (facing
+page 61); and the second, by Mr. Gutekunst, at my urgent solicitation,
+in 1889, while Hearn was stopping at my house (_Frontispiece_).
+
+The first photograph, taken in Martinique, brings out the habitual
+sadness and lack of vivacity in his physiognomy. In my picture of 1889
+(the second) I was unable, despite all effort, to get Hearn to present
+to the camera his entire face with naturally open eyes, and the
+customary expression. He resolutely refused, and consented to the
+compromise of a two-thirds view _with closed eyes_. And this to me is
+still the most truthful and hence the most expressive of all his
+photographs. It is so suggestive because of its negations, so expressive
+because non-expressive. But it indicates, silently and by inference, the
+most significant fact about the man.
+
+To those who are expert in such things, the stare of the highly myopic
+eye is known to be not that of mental action and seeing, but of not
+seeing. When we walk, we are forward-looking beings, and what goes on
+within the eye or brain and what may be behind us is totally ignored.
+But for a highly myopic person there is no outward or forward looking.
+Hearn's closed eye gives, therefore, a decidedly more truthful lesson in
+physiognomy than does the open and protruding one, which cannot see the
+coming or future scene, or which sees it so vaguely that its hint of the
+scene is perhaps more useless than the imagined picture of the totally
+blind. His inability to see the presenting world had resulted in a
+renunciation of outlook and an absolute incuriosity as to the future.
+With weaklings this might have brought about introspection, the mental
+eye--the product of the physical eye--turned in upon itself. Hearn was
+too much of an artist to fall into that Death Valley of all æsthetics,
+and there was a quick acceptance of the logical and inevitable, whence
+arose the wonder of poetic retrospection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--THE PERIOD OF THE GRUESOME
+
+
+WHEN Hearn arrived in Cincinnati, in 1871 or 1872, he was twenty-one or
+twenty-two years of age. All other methods of making a livelihood except
+that by his pen had failed, or were soon to fail, and it is not long
+before the literary way is exclusively and permanently adopted. There
+was a brief first time of service with Robert Clarke and Company as
+proof-reader. The exact uses of punctuation, the clearness which the
+proper marks give to writing, soon earned for him the sobriquet "Old
+Semicolon" among his fellow reporters. All his life Hearn clung
+meticulously to his theories concerning the necessity and precise rules
+of punctuation. Some of his later quarrels with periodical editors and
+proof-readers arose from differences of opinion in these things. There
+was a short engagement of Hearn by the librarian, Mr. Thomas Vickers, as
+private secretary or helper. Among his early friends was a printer, Mr.
+Henry Watkin, now residing at 1312 McMillan Street, who was kind to him,
+and who taught him to set type.
+
+"In 1874," Mr. O. P. Caylor[3] writes, "Col. Cockerill of the _World_
+was managing editor of the Cincinnati _Enquirer_. A few weeks previous
+to the 'Tan-Yard Murder' Mr. Hearn came to the _Enquirer_ office to sell
+a manuscript. Upstairs he ventured, but there his courage failed him. It
+was not enough to induce him to brave the awful editorial presence. So
+he paced up and down the hall with his velvet restless tread until the
+awful door opened and the terrible giant came forth. Hearn would, no
+doubt, have run away had he not been at the rear of the hall when Mr.
+Cockerill came out into the other end, and the stairway was between.
+
+    [3] A quotation in the _Author_, January 15, 1890, from an
+        article by Mr. Caylor in the Philadelphia _North American_.
+
+"Thus it occurred that the author of 'Chita' submitted his first
+manuscript. He came with others later, but never could he persuade
+himself to knock at that editorial door for admission. Up and down, up
+and down the hall he would pace or glide until Colonel Cockerill came
+forth, whether the time consumed in waiting was ten minutes or two
+hours."
+
+In _Current Literature_, June, 1896, Colonel John A. Cockerill, writing
+of Hearn, tells the story thus:
+
+"Some twenty years ago I was the editor in charge of a daily newspaper
+in a Western city. One day there came to my office a quaint,
+dark-skinned little fellow, strangely diffident, wearing glasses of
+great magnifying power and bearing with him evidence that Fortune and he
+were scarce on nodding terms.
+
+"In a soft, shrinking voice he asked if I ever paid for outside
+contributions. I informed him that I was somewhat restricted in the
+matter of expenditure, but that I would give consideration to what he
+had to offer. He drew from under his coat a manuscript, and tremblingly
+laid it upon my table. Then he stole away like a distorted brownie,
+leaving behind him an impression that was uncanny and indescribable.
+
+"Later in the day I looked over the contribution which he had left. I
+was astonished to find it charmingly written....
+
+"He sat in the corner of my room and wrote special articles for the
+Sunday edition as thoroughly excellent as anything that appeared in the
+magazines of those days. I have known him to have twelve and fifteen
+columns of this matter in a single issue of the paper. He was delighted
+to work, and I was pleased to have him work, for his style was beautiful
+and the tone he imparted to the newspaper was considerable. Hour after
+hour he would sit at his table, his great bulbous eyes resting as close
+to the paper as his nose would permit, scratching away with beaver-like
+diligence and giving me no more annoyance than a bronze ornament.
+
+"His eyes troubled him greatly in those days. He was as sensitive as a
+flower. An unkind word from anybody was as serious to him as a cut from
+a whiplash, but I do not believe he was in any sense resentful.... He
+was poetic, and his whole nature seemed attuned to the beautiful, and he
+wrote beautifully of things which were neither wholesome nor inspiring.
+He came to be in time a member of the city staff at a fair compensation,
+and it was then that his descriptive powers developed. He loved to write
+of things in humble life. He prowled about the dark corners of the city,
+and from gruesome places he dug out charming idyllic stories. The negro
+stevedores on the steamboat-landings fascinated him. He wrote of their
+songs, their imitations, their uncouth ways, and he found
+picturesqueness in their rags, poetry in their juba dances."
+
+In January or February, 1874, there was a horrible murder, "the famous
+Tan-Yard case," in Cincinnati, and Hearn's account of it in the
+_Enquirer_, from the newspaper and reportorial standpoint was so graphic
+and so far beyond the power of all rivals that he was henceforth assured
+of employment and of a measure and kind of respect. His friend, Mr.
+Edward Henderson, formerly city editor of the _Commercial_, now City
+Clerk in Cincinnati, says that because of his startling report of this
+murder "his city editors kept him at the most arduous work of a daily
+morning paper--the night-stations, for in that field mostly developed
+the sensational events that were worthy of his pen. In these days his
+powers would be held in reserve to write up what others should
+discover.... His repertory was strongest in the unusual and the
+startling. He was never known to shirk hardship or danger in filling an
+assignment or following up his self-obtained pointer."
+
+The beginning of Hearn's literary career was his report of the Tan-Yard
+Murder case. It was published in the Cincinnati _Enquirer_, November,
+1874. I shall quote some parts of it in a footnote to illustrate his
+innate and studied ability to outfit with words and expressions of the
+most startling and realistic picturing quality, the most horrible and
+loathsome facts. Keeping in mind the comparison with the illustrations
+from his later work in which he was equally capable of painting noble
+and beautiful things (all except those of a spiritual or religious
+nature), one is filled with admiration of a faculty so rare and perfect.
+Those who are sensitive should not read the excerpts which I append, and
+which are given in obedience to a sense of duty.[4]
+
+    [4] "An _Enquirer_ reporter visited the establishment some
+        hours later, accompanied by Dr. Maley, and examined all so
+        far discovered of Herman Schilling's charred corpse. The
+        hideous mass of reeking cinders, despite all the efforts of
+        the brutal murderers to hide their ghastly crime, remain
+        sufficiently intact to bear frightful evidence against them.
+
+        "On lifting the coffin-lid, a powerful and penetrating
+        odour, strongly resembling the smell of burnt beef, yet
+        heavier and fouler, filled the room and almost sickened the
+        spectators. But the sight of the black remains was far more
+        sickening. Laid upon the clean white lining of the coffin,
+        they rather resembled great shapeless lumps of half-burnt
+        bituminous coal than aught else at the first hurried glance;
+        and only a closer investigation could enable a
+        strong-stomached observer to detect their ghastly
+        character--masses of crumbling human bones, strung together
+        by half-burnt sinews, or glued one upon another by a hideous
+        adhesion of half-molten flesh, boiled brains and jellied
+        blood, mingled with coal.
+
+        "The skull had burst like a shell in the fierce furnace
+        heat, and the whole upper portion seemed as though it had
+        been blown out by the steam from the boiling and bubbling
+        brains. Only the posterior portion of the occipital and
+        parietal bones, and the inferior and superior maxillary, and
+        some of the face bones remained,--the upper portion of the
+        skull bones being jagged, burnt brown in some spots, and in
+        others charred to black ashes. The brain had all boiled
+        away, save a small waste lump at the base of the skull about
+        the size of a lemon. It was crisped and still warm to the
+        touch. On pushing the finger through the crisp, the interior
+        felt about the consistency of banana fruit, and the yellow
+        fibre seemed to writhe like worms in the Coroner's hands.
+        The eyes were cooked to bubbled crisps in the blackened
+        sockets, and the bones of the nose were gone, leaving a
+        hideous hole.
+
+        "So covered were the jaws and the lower facial bones with
+        coal, crusted blood and gummy flesh, that the Coroner at
+        first supposed that the lower maxillary had been burned
+        away. On tearing away the frightful skull-mask of mingled
+        flesh and coal and charred gristle, however, the grinning
+        teeth shone ghastly white, and the jaws were found intact.
+        They were set together so firmly that it was found
+        impossible to separate them, without reducing the whole mass
+        to ashes. So great had been the heat that the Coroner was
+        able to crumble one of the upper teeth in his fingers.
+
+        "Besides the fragments of the skull, have been found six
+        ribs of the right side and four of the left; the middle
+        portion of the spinal-column; the liver, spleen, and
+        kidneys; the pelvic bones, the right and left humerus, the
+        femoral bone and the tibia and fibula of both legs. The body
+        had burnt open at the chest, and the heart and lungs had
+        been entirely consumed. The liver had been simply roasted
+        and the kidneys fairly fried. There is a horrible
+        probability that the wretched victim was forced into the
+        furnace alive, and suffered all the agonies of the bitterest
+        death man can die, while wedged in the flaming flue. The
+        teeth were so terribly clinched that more than one spectator
+        of the hideous skull declared that only the most frightful
+        agony could have set those jaws together. Perhaps, stunned
+        and disabled by the murderous blows of his assailants, the
+        unconscious body of the poor German was forced into the
+        furnace. Perhaps the thrusts of the assassin's pitchfork,
+        wedging him still further into the fiery hell, or perhaps
+        the first agony of burning when his bloody garments took
+        fire, revived him to meet the death of flames. Fancy the
+        shrieks for mercy, the mad expostulation, the frightful
+        fight for life, the superhuman struggle for existence--a
+        century of agony crowded into a moment--the shrieks growing
+        feebler--the desperate struggle dying into feeble writhings.
+        And through it all, the grim murderers, demoniacally
+        pitiless, devilishly desperate, gasping with their exertions
+        to destroy a poor human life, looking on in silent triumph,
+        peering into the furnace until the skull exploded, and the
+        steaming body burst, and the fiery flue hissed like a
+        hundred snakes! It may not be true--we hope for humanity's
+        sake it cannot be true; but the rightful secrets of that
+        fearful night are known only to the criminals and their God.
+        They may be brought to acknowledge much; but surely never so
+        much as we have dared to hint at."
+
+"When his city editor, in compliance with the urgency of a
+steeple-climber, consented to send a reporter to take observations of
+the city from the top of the cross surmounting the spire of St. Peter's
+Cathedral in Cincinnati, Hearn was the man selected. In mentioning the
+assignment to him, the city editor handed him a valuable field-glass,
+with the suggestion that he might find it useful. On taking his
+departure with the climbers, Hearn quietly handed back the glasses with
+the remark in undertone, 'Perhaps I'd better not take these; something
+might happen.' He made the trip to the top of the spire, though the men
+found it necessary to haul him part of the way in mid-air and to bodily
+place and hold him on top of the cross. And he produced an account of
+that thrilling experience that went the round of the newspaper
+world."[5]
+
+    [5] Our wonder at the performance is heightened by the fact
+        that Hearn, of course, saw nothing of what he so vividly described.
+
+It is little wonder that his "Vocabulary of the Gruesome" became famous,
+since I have learned from his friend and associate, the artist, Mr.
+Farney, and also from others, certain facts which demonstrate that this
+vocabulary was gathered not only or chiefly because of the exigencies of
+his work as a reporter, or to express the revolting in thrilling words,
+but because he had a spontaneous lickerishness for the things
+themselves. He positively delighted in the gruesome. With his fingers he
+dug into the scorched flesh and the exuding brains of the murdered man's
+body when it was taken from the furnace, and in another murder case he
+slid on the floor, as if on ice, in the congealed blood of the victim.
+"He even drank blood at the abattoirs with the consumptives when that
+craze had fallen upon the people of Cincinnati." There is more than an
+excuse for mentioning these things; it is necessary to do so in order to
+understand the origin and transformation of Hearn's chief endowment as a
+writer.
+
+Even more convincing, perhaps, than these offensive gloatings as
+regards his native love of the gruesome, is the unconscious testimony
+given in the history of an illustrated paper established by Mr. Farney
+and Mr. Hearn. Mr. Henderson has said of Hearn that "very rarely was he
+known to throw a _soupçon_ of humour into his work." The newspaper
+venture demonstrates that even when humour was planned Hearn had none to
+give.
+
+Number One, Volume One, of _Ye Giglampz_ was issued in Cincinnati, Ohio,
+on June 21, 1874, and describes itself on the title-page as, "A Weekly
+Illustrated Journal, Devoted to Art, Literature and Satire." The size of
+the pages was 14-1/2 × 10-3/4 inches. The subsequent issues were larger,
+about 16 × 11-1/4 inches. There were eight pages in each number, the
+first, third, fourth and eighth were illustrated by Mr. H. F. Farney;
+the others were made up of reading matter. The heading of the editorial
+page did not exactly repeat that of the title-page, but read as follows:
+
+                            "The Giglampz."
+                   Published Daily, except Week-Days.
+                        Terms, $2.50 per annum.
+                   Address, "Giglampz Publishing Co."
+                           150 West Fourth St.
+
+
+         [Illustration: REDUCED FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST ISSUE.]
+
+
+With the issue of Number Seven (August 2, 1874) appeared a notice that
+H. F. Farney and Company had purchased the _Giglampz_ from its former
+proprietors, the new office being henceforth at the North-west corner of
+Fourth and Race Streets. Number Eight was the last furnished
+subscribers. Probably the only existing set of this periodical is that
+kindly lent to me by Mr. Farney at the request of Mr. Alexander Hill of
+The Robert Clarke Company, Cincinnati. Among the many significant things
+suggested in looking over the pages, is the fact that this bound file
+was Hearn's personal copy, his name being written on the cover-leaf by
+himself--"L. Hearn, 1877"--and just below, this: "Reminiscences of An
+Editorship under Difficulties."
+
+It is noteworthy that nowhere is it publicly announced that Hearn was
+the editor, although the fact was probably an open secret in Cincinnati
+at the time. The truth of the foregoing inscription in his handwriting
+is confirmed by the acknowledgment of his authorship of most of the
+articles, contributed as well as editorial, conveyed by his customary
+signature, penciled at the end or beginning of each paragraph or column
+which he had written. The very title of the paper itself was a witness
+in the same way, and shows that at that time, although Hearn kept his
+name concealed, he was not, as later, sensitive concerning his ocular
+defect.[6] It is plain that the word _Giglampz_ refers to the large and
+conspicuous spectacles or eye-glasses which at that time (not later)
+were worn habitually by Hearn. The proof of this comes out in the
+illustration occupying the full first page of the initial number, and
+entitled:
+
+                  "A Prospect of Herr Kladderadatsch,
+                              Introducynge
+                      Mr. Giglampz tu ye Publycke."
+
+    [6] In the first number is an editorial paragraph, written by
+        Hearn, reading as follows:--"The public has indulged in
+        speculation and no little levity, in regard to our name. In
+        this as in the future conduct of this extraordinary sheet,
+        we seek only to please ourselves. Whether the Publishing
+        Company will declare 'Irish Dividends' in six months, or
+        not, does not concern us. We (the editorial corps) being on
+        a salary, look on public favour with serene indifference.
+        The name pleases us. We look upon it in the light of a
+        conundrum, calculated to induce reflection in simple minds.
+        We hope some one may solve it, as we have incontinently
+        given it up."
+
+The scene is that of the stage of a theatre, and Kladderadatsch proudly
+presents Mr. Giglampz to the wildly applauding audience. The head of the
+obsequious Mr. Giglampz is very large compared with his body, but most
+conspicuous is the enormous _pince-nez_ astride a nose of fitting
+proportions. Mr. Farney was even permitted to give a mere hint of the
+editor's facial expression.
+
+A curious and suggestive, even a pathetic, light is thrown upon Hearn's
+character by the fact that this personal file of his journal with his
+own inscriptions, signatures, etc., was found in a second-hand
+book-store by Mr. Farney after Hearn left Cincinnati.
+
+Although it is as much too long for our quoting as it was for
+introducing the journalistic venture, I cannot help reproducing Hearn's
+first editorial, the "Salutatory, By a Celebrated French Author, a
+Friend of Giglampz":
+
+    It was a dark and fearsome night in the month of June,
+    1874; and the pavements of Fourth Street were abandoned to
+    solitude.
+
+    The lamps, dripping huge water-drops fire-tinged from their
+    lurid glare, seemed monstrous yellow goblin-eyes, weeping
+    phosphorescent tears.
+
+    It was raining, and the funereal sky flamed with lightning.
+    It was such a rain as in the primeval world created verdant
+    seas of slimy mud, subsequently condensed into that
+    fossiliferous strata where to-day spectacled geologists find
+    imbedded the awful remains of the titanic _iguanodon_, the
+    _plesiosaurus_, and the _icthyosaurus_.
+
+    We sat motionlessly meditative in the shadows of a Gothic
+    doorway of medieval pattern, and ruefully observed the
+    movements of a giant rat, slaking his thirst at a
+    water-spout. Suddenly we were aware of a pressure--a gentle
+    pressure on our shoulder.
+
+    A hurried glance convinced us that the pressure was
+    occasioned by the presence of a hand.
+
+    It was a long, bony, ancient hand, dried and withered to the
+    consistency of India-rubber. It might have been compared to
+    the hand of a mummy embalmed in the reign of Rameses III,
+    but we felt a living warmth in its pressure, penetrating our
+    summer linen.
+
+    The Oriental wizards occasionally need the assistance of a
+    magic candle, in their groping amid ancient tombs--a candle
+    which burns with a fuming stench so foul, that hungry ghouls
+    flee dismayedly away. This candle is made of green fat--the
+    fat of men long dead. For such a candle it is of course
+    necessary to have a candlestick. To procure this candlestick
+    it is necessary to cut off the right hand of a murderous
+    criminal executed by impalement, and having carefully dried
+    it, to insert the candle in its ghastly grasp. Now the hand
+    laid on our shoulder strongly resembled such a hand.
+
+    The living warmth of its pressure alone restrained us from
+    uttering a shriek of hideous fear. A cold sweat ravaged the
+    starched bosom of our under-garment.
+
+    Suddenly a face peered out from the shadow, and the sickly
+    glare of the flickering gas-lamp fell full upon it.
+
+    The aspect of that face immediately reassured us.
+
+    It was long to grotesqueness and meagre even to weirdness.
+    It would have been strongly Mephistophelic but for an air of
+    joviality that was not wholly saturnine. The eyes were deep,
+    piercing, but "laughter-stirred," as those of Haroun
+    Alraschid. The nose was almost satanically aquiline, but its
+    harsh outline was more than relieved by the long smiling
+    mouth, and the countless wrinkles of merriment that
+    intersected one another in crow's-feet all over the ancient
+    face. The stranger's complexion was that of caout-chouc; and
+    his long lank locks were blacker than the plumage of those
+    yellow-footed birds that prey upon the dead. His whole
+    aspect was that of one who, by some eerie, occult art of
+    self-preservation, had been enabled to live through the
+    centuries.
+
+    "Am I not addressing the celebrated author----?" said the
+    voice of the uncouthly-featured.
+
+    It was a half-merry, half-mocking voice--a deep voice that
+    sounded as though conveyed from a vast distance through the
+    medium of a pneumatic tube.
+
+    It therefore resembled in its tone the dreamily-distant
+    voices never-slumbering Fancy hears in the hours devoted to
+    darkness and slumber by moral people.
+
+    An enormous drop of soot-tinged water fell upon our nose,
+    incontestably proving that we were awake; and we murmured
+    monosyllabic assent to the stranger's query.
+
+    "It is well," replied the Unknown, with a latitudinarian
+    smile of joy. "I have been seeking you. I need your
+    assistance, your talent, your mental vigour so enormously
+    manifested in your cyclopean[7] phrenological development."
+
+        [7] The contrast of this allusion to his large
+            single eye with his morbid shyness about it of
+            late years is noteworthy.
+
+    "_Sapristi_, monsieur!--permit me to inquire the nature
+    of----"
+
+    "Attend a little, friend, and your curiosity shall be sated
+    with ample satisfaction. I have existed as you see through
+    all ages. I have lived under a thousand alias names, under
+    the various régimes of a thousand civilizations, which
+    flourished on ancient soil now covered by the mile-deep
+    waters of foaming oceans. I have made my dwelling-place in
+    the mighty palace-halls of Egyptian kings, in the giant
+    cities of dead Assyria, in the residences of Aztec monarchs
+    and Peruvian Incas, in the snow-columned temples of the
+    Greek, and the lordly homes of the luxurious Roman. In fact,
+    I am rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; and have been
+    worshipped as a genius in far-sparkling planets ere this
+    mundane sphere was first evolved from that flaming orb. In
+    all time when individualized intelligent thought existed, I
+    have inculcated in living beings the truth of that sublime
+    and eternal maxim--Laugh and grow fat. To-day men must be
+    taught this glorious truth by the Bullock Press rather than
+    the Tongue. I want your pen, not your tongue. Write me a
+    salutatory for my new illustrated weekly--only five cents a
+    copy."
+
+    With these words he pressed a glazed Bristol-board card into
+    our trembling hand, and disappeared.
+
+    By the light of the weeping street-lamps we read thereon
+    this weird legend:
+
+                                GIGLAMPZ
+
+The title itself, the Introduction by "Kladderadatsch," and the
+character of the contributions and cuts make it plain that the third
+object of the publication, called "Satire," was designed to be much more
+prominent than "Art" or "Literature." Unquestionably an American
+_Kladderadatsch_ was planned, and by Hearn and his friends it was
+supposed that the editor had a sense of humour sufficient to carry on
+the undertaking. I have quoted the Salutatory to show that with the
+favouring of youth, ambition, opportunity and the best encouragement,
+Hearn's mind from the first line drifted inevitably to the fearsome, the
+weird, the unearthly and far-away. By no power or necessity could his
+imagination be forced or bound to the task of producing things comic or
+even satiric, especially such humour and jokes as the Cincinnati
+newspaper reader wanted in 1874. Of the twelve columns of reading in the
+first number of _Giglampz_, Hearn contributed about eight, made up of
+fifteen or twenty distinct paragraphs. In the second number his
+contributions number seven; in the third, six; in the fourth, three; in
+the fifth, four; in the sixth, two; in the seventh, one; in the eighth,
+one. In about a dozen of the first number, he somewhat unsuccessfully
+tried to be humorous or satiric, while six were frankly tragical,
+critical, bitter, etc. In the succeeding numbers Hearn made little
+effort to be humorous; in the fifth number he describes with startling
+power a picture of "a hideous scene in the interior of a seraglio;" in
+number six he returns to the Orient and in "The Fantasy of a Fan" mixes
+poetry, prose and fancy with a hinting of the subtle soft witchery of
+the Hearn of twenty-five years later.[8] In the second number is a
+full-page cut, in which Beecher is depicted as standing before a crowd
+of jeerers prior to being placed in the stocks, with the scarlet letter
+"A" upon his breast. Hearn especially requested Mr. Farney to make him
+one of the conspicuous spectators. The bespectacled face is easily
+recognizable in the copy given me by the artist. In the seventh number
+Hearn describes in two columns the story he supposes behind the pictured
+Gabriel Max, called "The Last Farewell" (now in the Metropolitan Museum,
+New York). It shows so early suggestions of the manhood strength of the
+wordmaster that I copy it:
+
+    [8] Mr. Farney tells me that he had to compel Hearn, even then,
+        to moderate the boldness of sentences which would by their
+        sensualism and licence shock their Cincinnati readers.
+
+                        THE TALE A PICTURE TELLS
+
+                 "_Butchered to make a Roman Holiday_"
+
+    The remarkably fine engraving from Gabriel Max's picture,
+    "The Last Farewell," in a late issue of the Berlin
+    _Illustrirte Zeitung_ (and which the New York _Graphic_ a
+    few days since stole to spoil in the stealing), is worthy of
+    the celebrated original at Munich--a painting which will
+    never be forgotten by those who have once beheld it. Among
+    modern painters, probably Max has no superior in the art of
+    harmoniously blending the horrible with the pathetic; and in
+    none of his works is this peculiar power exhibited to better
+    advantage than in "The Last Farewell:" a marvel of colour
+    and composition, one of those rare pictures which seem to
+    reflect the living shadows of a dead age with the weird
+    truthfulness of a wizard's mirror.
+
+    A beautiful Roman girl is exposed in the Flavian
+    amphitheatre, to be devoured by wild beasts. She can
+    scarcely be eighteen years old, judging from the slender
+    delicacy of her limbs and the childish sweetness of the
+    pretty little brown face which she has vainly been striving
+    to screen from the rude gaze of the shameless populace with
+    the remnants of a rich black veil--probably torn by the
+    rough hands of some brutal lanista. She leans with her back
+    to the great wall of stone, calmly awaiting her fate without
+    any signs of fear, although the hot, foul breath of a
+    panther is already warm upon her naked feet. To her right,
+    but a few feet away, a leopard and a huge bear are tearing
+    each other to pieces; on her left, another den has just been
+    thrown open, and at its entrance appears the hideous head of
+    an immense tiger, with eyes that flame like emeralds.
+
+    You can almost feel the warmth of the fierce summer sun
+    shining on that scene of blood and crime, falling on the
+    yellow sands of the arena, drying the dark pools of human
+    blood the wild beasts have left unlapped. You can almost
+    hear the deep hum of a hundred thousand voices above, and
+    the hideous growlings of the contending brutes below. You
+    wonder whether there is one heart in all that vast crowd of
+    cruel spectators wherein some faint impulse of humanity
+    still lingers, one tongue charitable enough to exclaim:
+
+    "Poor little thing!"
+
+    No: only wicked whispers followed by coarse laughter;
+    monstrous indifference in the lower tiers, brutal yells of
+    bloodthirsty impatience from the upper seats.
+
+    Two Roman knights relieve the monotony of the scene by
+    strange speculation.
+
+    "One hundred sesterces that the tiger gets her first!"
+
+    "Two hundred on the panther!"
+
+    "Done, by the gods! Where are the lions?"
+
+    "Why, that cursed barbarian killed the last three this
+    morning, one after another. The finest lions of the lot,
+    too."
+
+    "Who are you talking about?--that tall, dark Thracian?"
+
+    "No: he was killed the day before by the same gladiator that
+    killed the lions. I mean that golden-haired giant--that
+    Goth. Says he was chief in his own country, or something.
+    He's killed everybody and everything pitted against him so
+    far. And this morning they put him naked in the arena, with
+    nothing but a mirmillo's shield, and a sword; and let the
+    lions loose on him one after another. I bet a thousand
+    sesterces on that little Numidian lion; but the rascal
+    killed him as he sprang, with one sword-thrust, and I lost
+    my thousand sesterces. By Hercules, that Goth is a match for
+    a dozen lions!"
+
+    "Brave fellow, by all the gods! Did they give him the wooden
+    sword?"
+
+    "Julius Cortonus says they did. I didn't stay to see the
+    rest of the games, for I was too angry about my thousand
+    sesterces."
+
+    "Furies take that tiger!--I believe the brute's afraid of
+    the girl!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Why, it is madness to throw such a fine-limbed girl as that
+    to the lions!" cries a Greek merchant, lately arrived in
+    Rome. "Eyes and hair, by Zeus, like Venus Anadyomene. I
+    could sell her for a fortune in a slave-market."
+
+    "Aedepol! not in a Roman slave-market, you fool. Why, I've
+    known Lucullus to throw better-looking girls than that into
+    his fishpond, to fatten his lampreys with. May Cerberus
+    swallow that cursed tiger!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The tiger has not yet moved; his vast head and flaming green
+    eyes are just visible at the door of the den. The leopard
+    and the bear are still tearing one another. The panther is
+    gradually, stealthily, noiselessly approaching the poor,
+    helpless girl.
+
+    Suddenly a fresh, bright-red rose is thrown from the seats
+    above: it is the last earthly greeting, the last farewell
+    token of some old friend--perhaps a brother, perhaps (O
+    God!) a lover! It falls on the blood-stained sand,
+    shattering itself in perfumed ruin at the maiden's feet.
+
+    She starts as the red leaves scatter before her. She
+    advances from the wall, and boldly withdrawing the fragments
+    of her poor, torn veil, looks up into the mighty sea of
+    pitiless visages--looks up with her sweet, childish,
+    cherry-lipped face, and those great, dark, softly sad Roman
+    eyes--to thank him by a last look of love. "Who can it be?"
+
+    No one the maiden knows. She only sees a seemingly endless
+    row of cruel and sensual faces, the faces of the wild beast
+    populace of Rome,--the faces which smile at the sight of a
+    living human body, torn limb from limb by lions, and
+    scattered over the sands in crimson shreds of flesh....
+
+    Suddenly a terrible yet friendly eye meets and rivets the
+    gaze of her own--an eye keen and coldly-blue as a blade of
+    steel. A sternly handsome Northern face it is, with flowing
+    yellow hair. For an instant the iron lips seem to soften in
+    a smile of pity, and the keen blue eyes become brighter. So
+    do the soft dark ones they meet in that piteous farewell.
+
+    She has found her unknown friend.
+
+    ... A crash--a fierce growl--a faint, helpless cry--a spray
+    of warm, bright blood.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Ah, Caius! you've lost your hundred sesterces. The Fates
+    are against you to-day!"
+
+    "Curse the Fates! Did you see the fool who threw her the
+    rose?"
+
+    "That great tall Titan of a fellow, with the yellow hair?"
+
+    "Yes. That's the Goth."
+
+    "What! the gladiator who killed the lions?"
+
+    "The same who won his freedom this morning. See! the fool's
+    wiping his eyes now. These Goths can fight like Hercules,
+    but they whine like sick women when a girl is hurt. They
+    think up in the North that women are to be worshipped like
+    the immortal gods. I wish they'd make the great red-headed
+    brute go down and kill that cursed tiger!"
+
+Hearn's single contribution to the last number of the fated _Giglampz_
+was a four-column retelling of "the weird story of Loki's evil children
+from the strange folk-lore of Ancient Scandinavia."
+
+It was thus blood, sensualism and fiendishness that still aroused
+Hearn's interest when not only not compelled to the choice, but when
+they were contraindicated and wholly illogical. But it was all a little
+less revolting, less real, more artistic, than the tan-yard reporting,
+and it was drawn from more remote sources. Mr. Henderson suggests the
+same when he writes:
+
+"But it was not in this slavery for a living even to crush out of him
+the determination to advance and excel. In the small hours of morning,
+into broad daylight, after the rough work of the police rounds and the
+writing of perhaps columns, in his inimitable style, he could be seen,
+under merely a poor jet of gas, with his one useful eye close to book
+and manuscript, translating 'One of Cleopatra's Nights.' ...
+
+"An Oriental warmth and glow pervaded him. While his lines were hard
+ones in the grime and soot and trying weather of Cincinnati, from which
+his frail body shrank continually, his trend of thought was largely
+tropical. Perhaps he saw beyond the dusky faces, rolling eyes and broad
+noses of the people of the Cincinnati levee, the mixed people of the
+West Indies and the beautiful little ones of Japan, with whom he was
+destined to live before long. However that may be, his greatest
+pleasure, after a translation from Gautier or an original tragedy where
+he could in his masterful way use his vocabulary of the gruesome, was to
+study and absorb the indolent, sensuous life of the negro race, as he
+found it in Cincinnati and New Orleans, and to steep them in a sense of
+romance that he alone could extract from the study. Things that were
+common to these people in their everyday life, his vivid imagination
+transformed into a subtle melody of romance. The distant booming upon
+the midnight air of a river steamer's whistle was for him the
+roustabout's call to his waiting mistress at the landing, and his
+fruitful pen drew the picture of their watching and coming and meeting."
+
+The words _indolent and sensuous life_ are also significant. The
+tropics, their fatalism and the kind of life there lived were drawing
+him with secret but irresistible force. Now begins to mix with and
+mollify the gruesome a softer element, also Oriental, or what is much
+the same thing, tropical--sympathy with and study of the simple and
+unlettered, those who are the improvident slaves of fate, thoughtless
+impulse or heedless desire. To them, as we shall see, Hearn's mind
+turned more and more. His was essentially an Oriental mind and heart, an
+exotic weed (and weeds may become the loveliest of flowers) dropped by
+some migrating bird upon the strange crabbed soil of the crudest of
+Occidentalism. Never did Hearn stop yearning for the warmth, the
+fatalism and the laziness of tropic semi-barbarism. The gruesome was not
+being killed, but was being modified and tamed by civilization.
+
+Hearn had been discharged from the _Commercial_, where his salary was
+$25 a week, "on an ethical point of policy which need not be discussed
+here. The _Commercial_ took him on at $22." Judge M. F. Wilson, of
+Cincinnati, tells me that his discharge was caused by his seeking a
+licence for and an open marriage with a coloured woman. The licence was
+refused, because illegal at that time. The law was repealed a little
+later. The marriage did not take place.[9]
+
+    [9] Mr. George Mortimer Roe, at that time a friend of Hearn, now
+        living at Long Beach, California, writes me: "Hearn was
+        quite persistent in his efforts to persuade me to assist him
+        in getting the licence, but I told him I could not aid him
+        in his ambition to be guilty of miscegenation. For many
+        years we had been the best of friends, but from that time on
+        he always avoided me, scarcely speaking to me if by accident
+        we did meet."
+
+Mr. Henderson continues thus:
+
+"As Hearn advanced in his power to write, the sense of the discomforts
+of his situation in Cincinnati grew upon him. His body and mind longed
+for the congeniality of southern air and scenes. One morning, after the
+usual hard work of an unusually nasty winter night in Cincinnati, in a
+leisure hour of conversation, he heard an associate on the paper
+describe a scene in a Gulf State. It was something about a grand old
+mansion of an antebellum cotton prince, with its great white columns,
+its beautiful private drive down to the public road, whitewashed
+negro-quarters stretching away in the background, in the distance some
+cypress and live-oaks and Spanish moss, and close by a grove of
+magnolias with their delightful odours and the melody of mocking-birds
+in the early sunlight. Hearn took in every word of this, though he had
+little to say at the time, with great keenness of interest, as shown by
+the dilation of his nostrils. It was as though he could see and hear and
+smell the delights of the scene. Not long after this, on leaving
+Cincinnati for New Orleans, he remarked: 'I have lost my loyalty to this
+paper, and change was inevitable. Perhaps it isn't so much the lack of
+opportunity here or a lack of appreciation of associations as this
+beastly climate. I seem to shrivel up in this alternation of dampness,
+heat and cold. I had to go sooner or later, but it was your description
+of the sunlight and melodies and fragrance and all the delights with
+which the South appeals to the senses that determined me. I shall feel
+better in the South and I believe I shall do better.'"
+
+Some of his Cincinnati acquaintances speak of his obsequious, even
+fawning, manner ("timid and feline of approach," says Henderson), of his
+"washing his hands with invisible water"--characteristics not dictated
+by the parentage ascribed to him, not consonant with his photographs,
+and not wholly with his gruesome traits. He wore heavy myopic spectacles
+at this time, not to see (because they were wholly discarded later), but
+probably in order not to be seen--_i.e._ to hide the double deformity of
+his eyes. One must remember that with or without spectacles the world a
+foot or two away was much of a mystery to Hearn, and that one fears a
+surely existent and near-by mystery. One approaches it or comes within
+its power with doubt, dislike and caution. The play of facial expression
+was not to be seen by Hearn. All Uriah Heeps may not be myopic, but all
+highly myopic persons will have slow, stealthy, careful, even catlike
+attitudes and manners; every step they take must be done with
+hesitation, bowed head and great care, in order not to fall or stumble
+against something. The wholly blind walk with more decision and
+quickness. Of course this slow, soft carefulness of manner, "the velvet
+feline step," was Hearn's all his life. It followed inexorably that,
+though possessed of a healthy and athletic body, there was possible for
+him no athletics which required accuracy of sight or sequent precision
+and celerity of movement. That with good eyes he would have been an
+utterly different man in character and in literature, is as certain as
+that he would have had a very different manner, movement and style of
+physical existence. With good eyes he would have been strong, athletic,
+bold, as is admirably illustrated by the fact that in the single sport
+in which little vision was required--swimming--he was most expert, and
+that he enjoyed this exercise to the fullest degree.
+
+To scale a steeple in order to describe the city from that unusual point
+of view was a task worthy of yellow journalism which cared little for
+accuracy but much for "scare" headlines. Hearn saw little or nothing of
+the city, of course.
+
+The only letters written during the Cincinnati period, known to exist,
+are those of 1876, called, "Letters to a Lady," published in the volume,
+_Letters from the Raven_, Milton Bronner, editor.[10] One other work,
+the origins of which date from this period, is "One of Cleopatra's
+Nights," and with this is demonstrated the beginning of the influence of
+the modern French school of story-writers. Hearn was tiring of the worst
+brutality and coarseness of Occidentalism, and seeking a way to the true
+home of his mind. The ghastly must become the ghostly. The Frenchman's
+art was to become his half-way house.
+
+    [10] Brentano's, 1907.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--THE NEW ORLEANS TIME
+
+
+I HAVE somewhere read of a nomad child of the desert, born and rocked
+upon a camel, who was ever thereafter incapable of resting more than a
+day in one place. Whether or not the wandering father gave the homeless
+son his illogical spirit of unrest, matters less than that Hearn had it
+to a morbid degree. Any place rather than Cincinnati would have been
+better for the happiness and success of the emigrating boy, but his
+relatives had ridded themselves of the burden by assenting to his wish.
+Excepting that to Japan, the only sensible move he made was from
+Cincinnati toward the tropics, to the half-way house thither--New
+Orleans. The desire to seek the _au delà_ was present, his friends tell
+me, throughout the stay in Cincinnati. Perhaps the single city in the
+world which would satisfy his dream more nearly than could any other,
+was New Orleans. Being psychologically for the most part of degenerate
+Latin stock, and especially of the French variety, with the requisite
+admixture of exotic and tropical barbarism; bathed, but not cooked, in
+the hot and brilliant sunshine he loved and hated; touched and energized
+by too little Teutonic blood and influence, New Orleans offered to the
+unhappy man the best possible surroundings for the growth of his
+talents. Adding to this fortunate concensus of circumstance and partly a
+corollary of it was the most fortunate of all accidents that could have
+occurred to him--that is, the existence of a daily newspaper such as the
+_Times-Democrat_; of a paying mass of subscribers relishing Hearn's
+translations from the most artistic French writers of the short-story;
+and, most important of all, the presence on the bridge of the noble
+Captain of the Newspaper enterprise, the veteran editor, Mr. Page M.
+Baker. One shudders to think what would have been Hearn's later career
+had it not been for the guidance and help of this wise, sympathetic and
+magnanimous friend. For the one thing needed by Hearn in those who would
+be his friends rather than their own was magnanimity. It was his
+frequent misfortune in life to come under the influence of those as
+incapable of true unselfishness and real kindness as it was natural for
+them to be cunning and to use an assumed friendship for hidden
+flatteries and purposes of their own. Most of these would not have
+dreamed of associating with the man for any reason other than to stand
+in the reflected light of his literary fame. Most of them had as little
+care for his poetic prose, and as little appreciation or knowledge of
+good literature as they had of "the enclitic _de_." They had no
+magnanimity, only wile instead of it. As Hearn was also deprived of
+large-mindedness in all affairs of the world, he was unhappily prone to
+accept the offered bribe. He wanted above all things to be flattered and
+to do as his imperious impulses and weak will suggested. Any one who
+recognized these things in him and seconded the follies, remained his
+permitted "friend," but those who withstood them in the least and ran
+counter to his morbid trends and resolves--these were speedily
+"dropped," and insulted or grieved to silence. If they had magnanimity,
+they bore with the man in pity and answered his insults with kind words
+and kinder deeds. They recognized that they were responsible not to the
+man but to the carrier of a great talent, and although they might not
+forget, they gladly forgave, if possibly they might speed him on his
+predestined way.
+
+Of this number was Baker. Directly or indirectly through him, came a
+long and happy period of life; came the congenial, educating work,
+without slavery, of the translations and other easy reportorial
+services. Of equal importance were the financial rewards. Before and
+after the New Orleans time not the least of Hearn's misfortunes was his
+intolerable and brutalizing improvidence and impecuniousness. Under
+Baker's friendship he came to what for such a person was affluence and
+independence. He found leisure to read and study and think outside of
+the journalistic pale, and better still, perhaps,--better to his
+thinking, at least--he secured the means to indulge his life-long desire
+for curious and out-of-the-way books. During this time it grew to
+consciousness with him that in everything, except as regards his beloved
+Art, he had a little learned to recognize the worth of money.
+
+But within him grew ever stronger the plague of the unsatisfied, the
+sting of unrest, and he was compelled to obey. In a letter to me from
+Martinique, after he had recognized his mistake, he admits and explains
+as follows:
+
+    I seldom have a chance now to read or speak English; and
+    English phrases that used to seem absolutely natural
+    already begin to look somewhat odd to me. Were I to
+    continue to live here for some years more, I am almost sure
+    that I should find it difficult to write English. The
+    resources of the intellectual life are all lacking
+    here,--no libraries, no books in any language;--a mind
+    accustomed to discipline becomes like a garden long
+    uncultivated, in which the rare flowers return to their
+    primitive savage forms, or are smothered by rank, tough
+    growths which ought to be pulled up and thrown away. Nature
+    does not allow you to think here, or to study seriously, or
+    to work earnestly: revolt against her, and with one subtle
+    touch of fever she leaves you helpless and thoughtless for
+    months.
+
+    But she is so beautiful, nevertheless, that you love her
+    more and more daily,--that you gradually cease to wish to do
+    aught contrary to her local laws and customs. Slowly, you
+    begin to lose all affection for the great Northern nurse
+    that taught you to think, to work, to aspire. Then, after a
+    while, this nude, warm, savage, amorous Southern Nature
+    succeeds in persuading you that labour and effort and
+    purpose are foolish things,--that life is very sweet without
+    them;--and you actually find yourself ready to confess that
+    the aspirations and inspirations born of the struggle for
+    life in the North are all madness,--that they wasted years
+    which might have been delightfully dozed away in a land
+    where the air is always warm, the sea always the colour of
+    sapphire, the woods perpetually green as the plumage of a
+    green parrot.
+
+    I must confess I have had some such experiences. It appears
+    to me impossible to resign myself to living again in a great
+    city and in a cold climate. Of course I shall have to return
+    to the States for a while,--a short while, probably;--but I
+    do not think I will ever settle there. I am apt to become
+    tired of places,--or at least of the disagreeable facts
+    attaching more or less to all places and becoming more and
+    more marked and unendurable the longer one stays. So that
+    ultimately I am sure to wander off somewhere else. You can
+    comprehend how one becomes tired of the very stones of a
+    place,--the odours, the colours, the shapes of Shadows, and
+    the tint of its sky;--and how small irritations become
+    colossal and crushing by years of repetition;--yet perhaps
+    you will not comprehend that one can become weary of a whole
+    system of life, of civilization, even with very limited
+    experience. Such is exactly my present feeling,--an
+    unutterable weariness of the aggressive characteristics of
+    existence in a highly organized society. The higher the
+    social development, the sharper the struggle. One feels this
+    especially in America,--in the nervous centres of the
+    world's activity. One feels it least, I imagine, in the
+    tropics, where it is such an effort just to live, that one
+    has no force left for the effort to expand one's own
+    individuality at the cost of another's. I clearly perceive
+    that a man enamoured of the tropics has but two things to
+    do:--To abandon intellectual work, or to conquer the
+    fascination of Nature. Which I will do will depend upon
+    necessity. I would remain in this zone if I could maintain a
+    certain position here;--to keep it requires means. I can
+    earn only by writing, and yet if I remain a few years more,
+    I will have become (perhaps?) unable to write. So if I am to
+    live in the tropics, as I would like to do, I must earn the
+    means for it in very short order.
+
+    I gave up journalism altogether after leaving N. O. I went
+    to Demerara and visited the lesser West Indies in July and
+    August of last year,--returned to New York after three
+    months with some MS.,--sold it,--felt very unhappy at the
+    idea of staying in New York, where I had good
+    offers,--suddenly made up my mind to go back to the tropics
+    by the same steamer that had brought me. I had no
+    commission, resolved to trust to magazine-work. So far I
+    have just been able to scrape along;--the climate numbs
+    mental life, and the inspirations I hoped for won't come.
+    The real--surpassing imagination--whelms the ideal out of
+    sight and hearing. The world is young here,--not old and
+    wise and grey as in the North; and one must not seek the
+    Holy Ghost in it. I suspect that the material furnished by
+    the tropics can only be utilized in a Northern atmosphere.
+    We will talk about it together.
+
+That he never thought to return to New Orleans is demonstrated by the
+fact that when he left, he shipped his books to another good friend and
+great editor, Mr. Alden, to keep for him. When he came to the United
+States in 1889, he fully intended returning to some tropical land. But
+it was otherwise ordered, and most fortunately, for a year or two more
+of life under such conditions would have killed both mind and body.
+
+Upon Hearn's arrival in New Orleans, he began sending a series of
+charming letters to the Cincinnati _Commercial_, signed "Ozias
+Midwinter."[11] They are, indeed, exquisite, and as certainly of a
+delicacy and beauty which must have made the reader of that time and
+newspaper wonder what strange sort of a correspondent the editor had
+secured. The first letter was about Memphis, passed on his way South. I
+cite some parts to show how the gruesome was merging into or being
+supplanted by something larger and better, and also to illustrate
+Hearn's growing interest in colours.
+
+    [11] Kindly secured by Mr. Alexander Hill, of Cincinnati, Ohio,
+         from a friend and lent to me.
+
+    The stranger, however, is apt to leave Memphis with one
+    charming recollection of the place--the remembrance of the
+    sunset scene from the bluffs across the river over
+    Arkansas. I do not think that any part of the world can
+    offer a more unspeakably beautiful spectacle to the
+    traveller than what he may witness any fair evening from
+    those rugged old bluffs at Memphis. The first time I saw it
+    the day had been perfectly bright and clear,--the blue of
+    the sky was unclouded by the least fleecy stain of white
+    cloud; and the sun descended in the west,--not in a yellow
+    haze, or a crimson fog, but with the splendour of his fiery
+    glory almost undimmed. He seemed to leave no trace of his
+    bright fires behind him; and the sky-blue began to darken
+    into night-purple from the east almost immediately. I
+    thought at first it was one of the least romantic sunsets I
+    had ever seen. It was not until the stars were out, and the
+    night had actually fallen, that I beheld the imperial
+    magnificence of that sunset.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    I once thought, when sailing up the Ohio one bright Northern
+    summer, that the world held nothing more beautiful than the
+    scenery of the Beautiful River--those voluptuous hills with
+    their sweet feminine curves, the elfin gold of that summer
+    haze, and the pale emerald of the river's verdure-reflecting
+    breast. But even the loveliness of the Ohio seemed faded,
+    and the Northern sky-blue palely cold, like the tint of
+    iceberg pinnacles, when I beheld for the first time the
+    splendour of the Mississippi.
+
+    "You must come on deck early to-morrow," said the kind
+    Captain of the _Thompson Dean_; "we are entering the Sugar
+    Country."
+
+    So I saw the sun rise over the cane-fields of Louisiana.
+
+    It rose with a splendour that recalled the manner of its
+    setting at Memphis, but of another colour;--an auroral flush
+    of pale gold and pale green bloomed over the long fringe of
+    cottonwood and cypress trees, and broadened and lengthened
+    half-way round the brightening world. The glow seemed
+    tropical, with the deep green of the trees sharply cutting
+    against it; and one naturally looked for the feathery crests
+    of cocoanut palms. Then the day broke gently and slowly--a
+    day too vast for a rapid dawn--a day that seemed deep as
+    Space. I thought our Northern sky narrow and cramped as a
+    vaulted church-roof beside that sky--a sky so softly
+    beautiful, so purely clear in its immensity, that it made
+    one dream of the tenderness of a woman's eyes made infinite.
+
+    And the giant river broadened to a mile--smooth as a mirror,
+    still and profound as a mountain lake. Between the vastness
+    of the sky and the vastness of the stream, we seemed moving
+    suspended in the midst of day, with only a long, narrow
+    tongue of land on either side breaking the brightness. Yet
+    the horizon never became wholly blue. The green-golden glow
+    lived there all through the day; it was brightest in the
+    south. It was so tropical, that glow;--it seemed of the
+    Pacific, a glow that forms a background to the sight of
+    lagoons and coral reefs and "lands where it is always
+    afternoon."
+
+    Below this glow gleamed another golden green, the glory of
+    the waving cane-fields beyond the trees. Huge sugar-mills
+    were breathing white and black clouds into the sky, as they
+    masticated their mighty meal; and the smell of saccharine
+    sweetness floated to us from either shore. Then we glided by
+    miles of cotton-fields with their fluttering white bolls;
+    and by the mouths of broad bayous;--past swamps dark with
+    cypress gloom, where the grey alligator dwells, and the grey
+    Spanish moss hangs in elfish festoons from ancient
+    trees;--past orange-trees and live-oaks, pecans and
+    cottonwoods and broad-leaved bananas; while the green of the
+    landscape ever varied, from a green so dark that it seemed
+    tinged with blue to an emerald so bright that it seemed shot
+    through with gold. The magnificent old mansions of the
+    Southern planters, built after a generous fashion unknown in
+    the North, with broad verandas and deliciously cool porches,
+    and all painted white or perhaps a pale yellow, looked out
+    grandly across the water from the hearts of shadowy groves;
+    and, like villages of a hundred cottages, the negro quarters
+    dotted the verdant face of the plantation with far-gleaming
+    points of snowy whiteness.
+
+    And still that wondrous glow brightened in the south, like a
+    far-off reflection of sunlight on the Spanish Main.
+
+    "But it does not look now as it used to in the old slave
+    days," said the pilot, as he turned the great wheel. "The
+    swamps were drained, and the plantations were not overgrown
+    with cottonwood; and somehow or other the banks usen't to
+    cave in then as they do now."
+
+    I saw indeed signs of sad ruin on the face of the great
+    plantations; there were splendid houses crumbling to decay,
+    and whole towns of tenantless cabins; estates of immense
+    extent were lying almost unfilled, or with only a few acres
+    under cultivation; and the vigorous cottonwood trees had
+    shot up in whole forests over fields once made fertile by
+    the labour of ten thousand slaves. The scene was not without
+    its melancholy; it seemed tinged by the reflection of a
+    glory passed away--the glory of wealth, and the magnificence
+    of wealth; of riches and the luxury of riches.
+
+    O fair paradise of the South, if still so lovely in thy
+    ruin, what must thou have been in the great day of thy
+    greatest glory!
+
+    White steamboats, heavily panting under their loads of
+    cotton, came toiling by, and called out to us wild greeting
+    long and shrill, until the pilot opened the lips of our
+    giant boat, and her mighty challenge awoke a thousand
+    phantom voices along the winding shore. Red sank the sun in
+    a sea of fire, and bronze-hued clouds piled up against the
+    light, like fairy islands in a sea of glory, such as were
+    seen, perhaps, by the Adelantado of the Seven Cities.
+
+    "Those are not real clouds," said the pilot, turning to the
+    west, his face aglow with the yellow light. "Those are only
+    smoke clouds rising from the sugar mills of Louisiana, and
+    drifting with the evening wind."
+
+    The daylight died away and the stars came out, but that warm
+    glow in the southern horizon only paled, so that it seemed a
+    little further off. The river broadened till it looked with
+    the tropical verdure of its banks like the Ganges, until at
+    last there loomed up a vast line of shadows, dotted with
+    points of light, and through a forest of masts and a host of
+    phantom-white river boats and a wilderness of chimneys the
+    _Thompson Dean_, singing her cheery challenge, steamed up to
+    the mighty levee of New Orleans.
+
+The letters descriptive of New Orleans scenes and life deserve
+republishing had I space for them here. In a brief paragraph, a
+sentence perhaps, almost in a word, is given the photograph, chromatic
+and vitalized in Hearn's unrivalled picturesque style, of the levees,
+the shipping, the sugar-landing, the cotton-shipping, the ocean
+steamers, the strange mixture of peoples from all countries and climes;
+the architecture, streets, markets, etc. The Vendetta of the Sicilian
+immigrants is described with a strength and vividness which bear
+eloquent witness to Hearn's innate pleasure in such themes. There is
+also shown his beginning the study of Creole character, grammar, and
+language. A peculiarly striking picture is painted of the new huge
+cotton-press, as a monster whose jaws open with a low roar to devour the
+immense bale of cotton and to crush it to a few inches of thickness. I
+cannot exclude this excerpt:
+
+    Do you remember that charming little story, "Père Antoine's
+    Date-Palm," written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and published
+    in the same volume with "Marjorie Daw" and other tales?
+
+    Père Antoine was a good old French priest, who lived and
+    died in New Orleans. As a boy, he conceived a strong
+    friendship for a fellow student of about his own age, who,
+    in after years, sailed to some tropical island in the
+    Southern Seas, and wedded some darkly beautiful woman,
+    graceful and shapely and tall as a feathery palm. Père
+    Antoine wrote often to his friend, and their friendship
+    strengthened with the years, until death dissolved it. The
+    young colonist died, and his beautiful wife also passed from
+    the world; but they left a little daughter for some one to
+    take care of.
+
+    The good priest, of course, took care of her, and brought
+    her up at New Orleans. And she grew up graceful and comely
+    as her mother, with all the wild beauty of the South. But
+    the child could not forget the glory of the tropics, the
+    bright lagoon, the white-crested sea roaring over the coral
+    reef, the royal green of the waving palms, and the beauty of
+    the golden-feathered birds that chattered among them.
+
+    So she pined for the tall palms and the bright sea and the
+    wild reef, until there came upon her that strange
+    homesickness which is death; and still dreaming of the
+    beautiful palms, she gradually passed into that great sleep
+    which is dreamless. And she was buried by Père Antoine near
+    his own home.
+
+    By and by, above the little mound there suddenly came a
+    gleam of green; and mysteriously, slowly, beautifully,
+    there grew up towering in tropical grace above the grave, a
+    princely palm. And the old priest knew that it had grown
+    from the heart of the dead child.
+
+    So the years passed by, and the roaring city grew up about
+    the priest's home and the palm-tree, trying to push Père
+    Antoine off his land. But he would not be moved. They piled
+    up gold upon his doorsteps and he laughed at them; they went
+    to law with him and he beat them all; and, at last, dying,
+    he passed away true to his trust; for the man who cuts down
+    that palm-tree loses the land that it grows upon.
+
+    "And there it stands," says the Poet, "in the narrow, dingy
+    street, a beautiful dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign
+    lady, whose grace is a joy to the eye, the incense of whose
+    breath makes the air enamoured. May the hand wither that
+    touches her ungently!"
+
+    Now I was desirous above all things to visit the palm made
+    famous by this charming legend, and I spent several days in
+    seeking it. I visited the neighbourhood of the old Place
+    d'Armes--now Jackson Square--and could find no trace of it;
+    then I visited the southern quarter of the city, with its
+    numberless gardens, and I sought for the palm among groves
+    of orange-trees overloaded with their golden fruit, amid
+    broad-leaved bananas, and dark cypresses, and fragrant
+    magnolias and tropical trees of which I did not know the
+    names. Then I found many date-palms. Some were quite young,
+    with their splendid crest of leafy plumes scarcely two feet
+    above the ground; others stood up to a height of thirty or
+    forty feet. Whenever I saw a tall palm, I rang the doorbell
+    and asked if that were Père Antoine's date-palm. Alas!
+    nobody had ever heard of the Père Antoine.
+
+    Then I visited the ancient cathedral, founded by the pious
+    Don Andre Almonaster, Regidor of New Orleans, one hundred
+    and fifty years ago; and I asked the old French priest
+    whether they had ever heard of the Père Antoine. And they
+    answered me that they knew him not, after having searched
+    the ancient archives of the ancient Spanish Cathedral.
+
+    Once I found a magnificent palm, loaded with dates, in a
+    garden on St. Charles Street, so graceful that I felt the
+    full beauty of Solomon's simile as I had never felt it
+    before: "Thy stature is like to a palm-tree." I rang the
+    bell and made inquiry concerning the age of the tree. It was
+    but twenty years old; and I went forth discouraged.
+
+    At last, to my exceeding joy, I found an informant in the
+    person of a good-natured old gentleman, who keeps a quaint
+    bookstore in Commercial Place. The tree was indeed growing,
+    he said, in New Orleans Street, near the French Cathedral,
+    and not far from Congo Square; but there were many legends
+    concerning it. Some said it had been planted over the grave
+    of some Turk or Moor--perhaps a fierce corsair from Algiers
+    or Tunis--who died while sailing up the Mississippi, and was
+    buried on its moist shores. But it was not at all like the
+    other palm-trees in the city, nor did it seem to him to be a
+    date-palm. It was a real Oriental palm; yea, in sooth, such
+    a palm as Solomon spake of in his Love-song of Love-songs.
+
+    "I said, I will go up to the palm-tree; I will take hold of
+    the boughs thereof." ...
+
+    I found it standing in beautiful loneliness in the centre of
+    a dingy woodshed on the north side of New Orleans Street,
+    towering about forty feet above the rickety plank fence of
+    the yard. The gateway was open, and a sign swung above it
+    bearing the name, "M. Michel." I walked in and went up to
+    the palm-tree. A labourer was sawing wood in the back-shed,
+    and I saw through the windows of the little cottage by the
+    gate a family at dinner. I knocked at the cottage-door, and
+    a beautiful Creole woman opened it.
+
+    "May I ask, Madame, whether this palm-tree was truly planted
+    by the Père Antoine?"
+
+    "Ah, Monsieur, there are many droll stories which they
+    relate of that tree. There are folks who say that a young
+    girl was interred there, and it is also said that a Sultan
+    was buried under that tree--or the son of a Sultan. And
+    there are also some who say that a priest planted it."
+
+    "Was it the Père Antoine, Madame?"
+
+    "I do not know, Monsieur. There are people also who say that
+    it was planted here by Indians from Florida. But I do not
+    know whether such trees grow in Florida. I have never seen
+    any other palm-tree like it. It is not a date-palm. It
+    flowers every year, with a beautiful yellow blossom the
+    colour of straw, and the blossoms hang down in pretty
+    curves. Oh, it is very graceful! Sometimes it bears fruit, a
+    kind of oily fruit, but not dates. I am told that they make
+    oil from the fruit of such palms."
+
+    I thought it looked so sad, that beautiful tree in the dusty
+    woodyard, with no living green thing near it. As its bright
+    verdant leaves waved against the blue above, one could not
+    but pity it as one would pity some being, fair and feminine
+    and friendless in a strange land. "_Oh, c'est bien
+    gracieux_," murmured the handsome Creole lady.
+
+    "Is it true, Madame, that the owner of the land loses it if
+    he cuts down the tree?"
+
+    "_Mais oui!_ But the proprietors of the ground have always
+    respected the tree, because it is so old, so very old!"
+
+    Then I found the proprietor of the land, and he told me that
+    when the French troops first arrived in this part of the
+    country they noticed that tree. "Why," I exclaimed, "that
+    must have been in the reign of Louis XIV!" "It was in 1679,
+    I believe," he answered. As for the Père Antoine, he had
+    never heard of him. Neither had he heard of Thomas Bailey
+    Aldrich. So that I departed, mourning for my dead faith in a
+    romance which was beautiful.
+
+Next to his best Japanese studies, I suspect it will finally come to
+recognition that Hearn's greatest service to literature is his
+magnificent series of translations during the New Orleans years. As a
+translator there were given him his data by creative minds. His own
+mental equipment prevented creation, and his clearly set limits as a
+translator added power to his ability and function as a colourist and
+word-artist. His was almost a unique expertness of entering into the
+spirit of his models, refeeling their emotions, reimagining their
+thought and art, and reclothing it with the often somewhat hard and
+stiff material of English weaving. All of their spirit philologically
+possible to be conveyed to us, we may be sure he re-presents. For his
+was the rare power of the instant, the iridescent, the wingèd word. I
+think it was innate and spontaneous with him, a gift of the inscrutable,
+illogic, and fantastically generous-niggard Fates. All his studies and
+conscious efforts were almost unavailing either to hinder or to further
+its perfection. If to Fate we may not be grateful, we can at least thank
+the weird lesser gods of life for the mysterious wonder of the gift. The
+wealth of loving labour silently offered in the 187 or more translations
+published in the _Times-Democrat_ is marvellous. Hearn brought to my
+house the loose cuttings from the files, and we got them into some order
+in "scrapbooks." But the dates of publication and other details are
+often characteristically wanting. Elsewhere in the present volume the
+titles, etc., of the stories are listed. Preceded by those of "One of
+Cleopatra's Nights," they form a body of literary values which should be
+rescued from the newspaper files and permanently issued in book-form for
+the pleasure and instruction of English readers. To do this I have most
+generously been given permission by Hearn's ever helpful and
+discriminating friend, Mr. Page M. Baker, editor of the
+_Times-Democrat_.
+
+Hearn knew well the difficulties of the translator's art. "One who
+translates for the love of the original will probably have no reward
+save the satisfaction of creating something beautiful and perhaps of
+saving a masterpiece from less reverent hands." So anxious was he to do
+such work that he was willing to pay the publication expenses. As
+pertinent, I copy an editorial of his on the subject, which was
+published in the _Times-Democrat_, during the period in which he was so
+busy as a translator:
+
+    The New York _Nation_ has been publishing in its columns a
+    number of interesting and severe criticisms upon
+    translations from foreign authors. These translations are
+    generally condemned, and with good specifications of
+    reasons,--notwithstanding the fact that some of them have
+    been executed by persons who have obtained quite a popular
+    reputation as translators. One critic dwells very strongly
+    upon the most remarkable weakness of all the renderings in
+    question;--they invariably fail to convey the colour and
+    grace of the original, even when the meaning is otherwise
+    preserved. Speaking of the translators themselves, the
+    reviewer observes: "There is not one _artist_ among them."
+
+    All this is very true; but the writer does not explain the
+    causes of this state of affairs. They are many, no
+    doubt;--the principal fact for consideration being that
+    there is no demand for artistic work in translation. And
+    there is no demand for it, not so much because it is rare
+    and unlikely to be appreciated as because it is dear.
+    Artistic translators cannot afford to work for a
+    song,--neither would they attempt to translate a
+    five-hundred-page novel in three weeks or a month as others
+    do. Again, artistic translators would not care to attach
+    their names to the published translation of a fourth-or
+    fifth-class popular novel. Finally, artistic translations do
+    not obtain a ready market with first-class American
+    publishers, who, indeed, seldom touch domestic translations
+    of foreign fiction, and depend for their translations of
+    European literature upon transatlantic enterprise. Thus the
+    artistic translator may be said to have no field. He may
+    sell his work to some petty publisher, perhaps, but only at
+    a price that were almost absurd to mention;--and the
+    first-class publishers do not care to speculate in American
+    translations at all. We might also add that the
+    translator's task is always a thankless one,--that however
+    superb and laborious his execution, it can never obtain much
+    public notice, nor even so much as public comprehension. The
+    original author will be admired,--the translator unnoticed,
+    except by a few critics.
+
+    Moreover, the men capable of making the most artistic
+    translations are usually better employed. The translator of
+    a great French, German, or Italian masterpiece of style,
+    ought, in the eternal fitness of things, to be a man able to
+    write something very artistic in his own tongue. No one
+    seems to doubt that Longfellow was the man to translate
+    Dante,--that Tennyson could parallel Homer (as he has shown
+    by a wonderful effort) in the nineteenth-century
+    English,--that Carlyle re-created Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister"
+    by his rendering of it,--that Austin Dobson was the first to
+    teach English readers some of the beauties of Gautier's
+    poetry,--that Swinburne alone could have made François
+    Villon adopt an English garb which exactly fitted him. But
+    the same readers perhaps never gave a thought to the fact
+    that the works of Flaubert, of Daudet, of Droz, of Hugo, of
+    at least a score of other European writers, call for work of
+    an almost equally high class on the part of the translator,
+    and never receive it! What a translation of Daudet could not
+    Henry James give us!--how admirably John Addington Symonds
+    could reproduce for us the Venetian richness of Paul de
+    Saint Victor's style! But such men are not likely to be
+    invited, on either side of the Atlantic, to do such
+    work;--neither are they likely to do it as a labour of love!
+    A splended translation of Flaubert might be expected from
+    several members of what is called "The New England School;"
+    but what Boston publisher would engage his favourite
+    literary man in such pursuits? It is really doubtful whether
+    the men most capable of making artistic translations could
+    afford, under any ordinary circumstances, to undertake much
+    work of the kind, except as a literary recreation. At all
+    events, the English-reading world cannot hereafter expect to
+    obtain its translations from other European languages
+    through the labour of the best writers in its own. The only
+    hope is, that the recklessness shown by publishers in their
+    choice of translators will provoke a reaction, and that such
+    work will be more generously remunerated and entrusted to
+    real experts hereafter.
+
+    It is unfortunately true that the translators who work for
+    English publishers are far more competent than those who do
+    similar work in the United States; forasmuch as
+    transatlantic firms are glad to print cheap popular
+    translations, while only inferior American firms care to
+    undertake them. Another obstacle to good translations in the
+    United States is that none of the great literary periodicals
+    will devote space to them. The English and the French
+    magazines and reviews are less conservative, and some very
+    wonderful translations have been published by them. Artistic
+    translation might be admirably developed in this country by
+    the establishment of a new magazine-policy.
+
+The wise reader, if he is also a sincere friend of Hearn, must wish that
+the correspondence published had been limited to the first volume. Room
+aplenty in this could have been made for the dozen valuable paragraphs
+contained in the second. It is not strange that the letters of Hearn
+worth saving were written before his departure for Japan. He repeatedly
+had urged that letter-writing both financially and mentally was
+expensive to the writer. In Japan he was so incessantly busy, much with
+his teaching and more with his real literary work, that time and will
+were wanting for that sort of letters which are of interest to the
+general reader. The interest of the person addressed is another affair.
+The dreary half-thousand pages of the correspondence of the Japanese
+time are most disappointing to one who has been thrilled by almost every
+page of the incomparable letters to Krehbiel and to a few others.
+Besides the two reasons for this which I have suggested, there are
+others which may perhaps be evident to some judicious readers, but which
+at this time may scarcely be plainly stated. At present the trees are so
+thick that the forest cannot be seen, but some day an amused and an
+amusing smile of recognition and disgust will curl the lips of the
+literary critic. There are two other considerations which should be held
+in mind: One of them was brought to me by a correspondent of Hearn who
+had frequently noted it; sometimes (has it happened before?) Hearn used
+his "friend" to whom he was writing, as a sort of method of exercising
+his own fancy, as a gymnastics in putting his imagination through its
+paces, or for a preliminary sketching in of notes and reminders to be of
+possible use in later serious work. Moreover, the plan was of service in
+rewarding his correspondents for their praise and appreciation. Of a
+far more substantial character were the letters sometimes written in
+gratitude for money received. Hearn flattered himself, as we know, that
+he was without "cunning," but there is at least one exquisitely
+ludicrous letter in existence which shows an inverted proof of it, in
+the execution of an Indian war-dance, because of "the ways and means"
+furnished.
+
+As published, Hearn's letters may be classified as follows: To
+
+    Krehbiel                1887 (3); 1878 (5);  1879 (2);
+                            1880 (3); 1881 (4);  1882 (4);
+                            1883 (4); 1884 (13); 1885 (8);
+                            1886 (6); 1887 (4)                    56
+    Hart                    1882 (3); 1883 (1)                     4
+    Ball                    1882 (2); 1883 (4);  1885 (3)          9
+    O'Connor                1883 (4); 1884 (2);  1885 (2);
+                            1886 (2); 1887 (2)                    12
+    Albee                   1883 (1); 1898 (2)                     3
+    Gould                   1887 (5); 1888 (4);  1889 (8)         17
+    Bisland                 1887 (8); 1889 (11); 1890 (3);
+                            1900 (1); 1902 (3);  1903 (9);
+                            1904 (1)                              36
+    Tunison                 1889 (1)                               1
+    Chamberlain             1890 (7); 1891 (13);
+                            1895 (22)                             42
+    Nishida                 1890 (2); 1891 (2); 1892 (2);
+                            1893 (9); 1894 (2); 1895 (3);
+                            1896 (3); 1897 (2)                    25
+    Hirn                    1890 (1); 1902 (5); 1903 (1)           7
+    Baker                   1891 (1); 1892 (1); 1894 (1);
+                            1895 (3); 1896 (2)                     8
+    Hendrick                1891 (2); 1892 (4); 1893 (10);
+                            1894 (6); 1895 (6); 1896 (9);
+                            1897 (7); 1898 (2); 1902 (2)          48
+    Otani                   1891 (1); 1892 (1); 1894 (1);
+                            1897 (1); 1898 (2); 1900 (1)           7
+    Ochiai                  1893 (2); 1894 (2); 1896 (2)           6
+    McDonald                1897 (10); 1898 (25); 1899 (19)       54
+    Fenollosa               1898 (3); 1899 (2)                     5
+    Blank                   1898                                   1
+    Foxwell                 1899                                   2
+    Yasuchochi              1901                                   1
+    Tanabe                  1904                                   1
+    Crosby                  1904                                   1
+    Fujisaki                1904                                   1
+                                                                 ---
+                                                                 347
+
+Besides these, the valuable series of "Letters from a Raven," and the
+sixteen in the same volume "To a Lady" are noteworthy. The latter are of
+little value either for biography or literature. But the letters to
+Watkin are so sincere, often childlike, indeed, that they will be prized
+by the discriminating. Another admirable series, copies of which I have,
+is made up of letters to Professor R. Matas, of New Orleans. To these it
+is hoped will sometime be added those which must exist, to Mr. Alden,
+who was an early and sincere friend. There are a number of unpublished
+letters to Gould, and the published ones have been so mutilated that
+they should be correctly republished. Almost anything written by Hearn
+before he went to Japan, or in some instances reflecting friendships and
+feelings existing before he sailed, may prove of as inestimable value as
+most letters written thereafter will probably be found valueless.
+
+It is noteworthy that the first series, edited by Miss Bisland, was
+commenced in 1877, when Hearn was twenty-seven years of age, and that
+for many years Mr. Krehbiel was almost his sole correspondent. But the
+inimitable perfection and preciousness of these fifty-six letters! They
+are well worth all his other set productions, published or burned, of
+the same years. Many are singly worth all the rest of our letters. Here
+the dreamer--and a dreamer he always was until he got out of his
+cocoon--was sincere, hopeful, planful, as playful as his sombre mind
+would permit, but always magnificently, even startlingly, unreserved.
+Remembering that Hearn's mind was essentially an echoing and a
+colouring mechanism, it is at once a glorious tribute to, and a
+superlative merit of Mr. Krehbiel to have given the primary and
+stimulating voice to the always listening dreamer. To have swerved him
+out of his predestined rôle so much as to make these pages so
+astonishingly full of _musical_ reverberations, is a tribute to his own
+musical enthusiasm and power as it is also a demonstration of the
+echo-like, but fundamentally unmusical, nature of his friend's mind. If
+only in the final edition of Hearn's works, these letters with
+selections of some pages from a few others, could be made into a handy,
+small, and cheap volume for the delighting of the appreciators of
+literature and of literary character! Comparison of the spiritual and
+almost _spirituelle_ flashings of these, with the ponderous and banal
+sogginess of hundreds upon hundreds of other pages of his letters,
+arouses the profound regret that Hearn to the world was "impossible,"
+that, as he says, he "could not mingle with men," that no other voices
+ever so intimately reached the heart of him, or of his dreaming. Even
+here the amazing coloration furnished by "The Dreamer," as he calls
+himself, makes us at times feel that the magic of the word-artist and
+colour-mixer was almost superior to the enduring and awakening reality
+of Mr. Krehbiel. To this friend, as he writes, he spoke of his thoughts
+and fancies, wishes and disappointments, frailties, follies, and
+failures, and successes--even as to a brother. And that was not all he
+saw and heard in "his enchanted City of Dreams."
+
+The slavery to ignoble journalism, what he calls a "really nefarious
+profession," was to be resolutely renounced from the day of his arrival
+in New Orleans. It is "a horrid life," he "could not stand the
+gaslight;" he "damned reportorial work and correspondence, and the
+American disposition to work people to death, and the American delight
+in getting worked to death;" he rebelled against becoming a part of the
+revolving machinery of a newspaper, because "journalism dwarfs,
+stifles, emasculates thought and style," and he was bound to "produce
+something better in point of literary execution."
+
+There was also a not frankly confessed resolve to become respectable in
+other ways, and to be done with a kind of entanglement of which he was
+painfully conscious in the Cincinnati life. "I think I can redeem myself
+socially here! I have got into good society;" "it is better to live here
+in sackcloth and ashes, than to own the whole State of Ohio," he writes,
+and he is proud of living in a Latin city. He recognizes what Mr.
+Krehbiel calls his "peculiar and unfortunate disposition," and which he
+later sets forth as "a very small, erratic, eccentric, irregular,
+impulsive, variable, nervous disposition." Hearn visits a few friends
+awhile and then disappears for six months, so that he wishes to be
+hidden in New York except to Krehbiel and Tunison; he will pay a visit
+to the others he must see just before leaving town--for he is a
+"demophobe." He tried a secret partnership in keeping a restaurant, and
+thought to carry on a little French bookstore. He resolved at different
+times to go to Europe, to Cuba, to Texas, to Cincinnati, and planned all
+sorts of occupations.
+
+The indications soon multiply that in more ways than in worldly matters
+he is at variance with his world. He "regards thought as a mechanical
+process;" he has "no faith in any faith;" "individual life is a particle
+of that eternal force of which we know so little;" "Soul = Cerebral
+Activity = Soul;" Jesus is a legend and myth; he is "not a believer in
+free will, nor in the individual soul," etc. Think of a man writing to a
+Christian minister, think of a Christian minister receiving without
+protest a personal letter with this in it: "Nor can I feel more
+reverence for the crucified deity than for that image of the Hindoo god
+of light holding in one of his many hands Phallus, and yet wearing a
+necklace of skulls, etc."
+
+And Hearn, as to ethics, has the courage to write his friend of his
+convictions: "Passion was the inspiring breath of Greek art and the
+mother of language; its gratification the act of a creator, and the
+divinest rite of Nature's temple." In other letters, unpublished, that
+exist, Hearn is morbidly frank as to sexual licence and practices. In
+tropical cities there is "no time for friendship--only passion for
+women, and brief acquaintance for men." Without the influence of
+sexualism there can be no real greatness; "the mind remains arid and
+desolate," and he quotes approvingly:--"Virginity, Mysticism,
+Melancholy--three unknown words, three new maladies brought among us by
+the Christ," etc. "I do not find it possible to persuade myself that the
+'mad excess of love' should not be indulged in by mankind," introduces a
+brilliant page upon the theme, ending with, "after all what else do we
+live for--ephemeræ that we are?" To my protest he wrote, "'Moral'
+feelings are those into which the sexual instinct does not visibly
+enter;" and again, "The sexual sense never tells a _physical_ lie. It
+only tells an ethical one." There is, to be sure, no answer to a man who
+says such things.
+
+It is astonishing, how conscious and at the same time how careless Hearn
+was of his characteristics and trends. In 1878 he could coldly prepare
+to attempt a get-rich-quick scheme, "a fraud, which will pay like hell,
+an advertising fraud," etc., because "there is no money in honest work."
+At this time also he knew that his own wandering passion was "the
+strongest of all," and that his deepest desire was "to wander forever
+here and there until he should get old and apish and grey and die." His
+misfortunes he confessed were of his own making because it was
+absolutely out of the question for him to "keep any single situation for
+any great length of time," hating the mere idea of it, "impossible to
+stay anywhere without getting into trouble." "No one ever lived who
+seemed more a creature of circumstance than I," he correctly avows. He
+recognizes that "the unexpected obstacle to success was usually erected
+by himself."
+
+He acknowledges his ignorance and escapes from it and from the labour,
+expense, and duty of scholarship by flying, as many others have done, to
+the world of Imagination, which alone is left to him. "It allows of a
+vagueness of expression which hides the absence of real knowledge, and
+dispenses with the necessity of technical precision and detail." He
+"never reads a book which does not powerfully impress the imagination."
+Knowing that he has not true and real genius, he "pledges himself to the
+worship of the Odd, the Queer, the Strange, the Exotic, the Monstrous.
+It quite suits my temperament," and he "hopes to succeed in attracting
+some little attention." The monstrous, the enormous, and the lurid, is
+sought in the letters. The sentence at the bottom of page 226, Volume
+One of the "Life and Letters," and the ghastly story, pages 322-323,
+show the gruesome still much alive, and page 306 that blood, fury, and
+frenzy haunt his nightmare dreams. "In history one should only seek the
+extraordinary, the monstrous, the terrible; in mythology the most
+fantastic and sensuous, just as in romance," And yet he defends himself
+as a lover of Greek art, detests "the fantastic beauty that is Gothic,"
+yet prides himself on being Arabesque. Even the love of Beaudelaire
+creeps in, and the brutal, horrible photograph of Gautier is "grander
+than he imagined." Of course to such a mind Matthew Arnold is a
+"colossal humbug"--and worse.
+
+With increasing frequency are repeated the complaints of
+disillusionment; he is frightened at the loss even of the love of the
+beautiful, and his friend tries in vain to rouse him from his ghost-life
+and dreaming. There are absurd excuses why he cannot work; when among
+beautiful things he cannot write of them, when he is away he is longing
+for them; there are months when he cannot do anything, and a little
+thing is produced with great pain and labour. "The old enthusiasm has
+completely died out of me." The people and the city are adequately
+cursed, and upon the debilitating climate is laid a proper and
+ever-repeated anathema. He loathes the North, especially New York City,
+"shudders at the bare idea of cold;" he yearns and pines for a still
+more tropical country which he knows may kill him, and which came near
+doing so. The _Wanderlust_ is upon him as passages on pages 183, 193,
+196, 197, 207, 215, 223, 224, 398 of Volume One of the "Life and
+Letters" illustrate. At last he is off for Martinique, where work and
+even thought are still more impossible because of the benumbing heat.
+
+Here follows a list of the unsigned editorials contributed by Hearn to
+his paper. It is made up from two of the scrap-books left me, and is
+entitled:
+
+SUNDAY AND SPECIAL EDITORIALS BY LAFCADIO HEARN FOR THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT,
+1885-1887.
+
+    1. The "Peronospora Ferrani" and Cholera Vaccination.
+    2. Literary Pessimism.
+    3. "The Song Celestial."
+    4. The Canonization of the Mahdi.
+    5. "Successor of Tamerlane."
+    6. The World's Journalism.
+    7. A Scientific Novelty.
+    8. The Jewish Question in Europe (Suppressed by the management).
+    9. Russian Literature Abroad.
+    10. The European Trouble.
+    11. Missionaries as Linguists.
+    12. Courbet.
+    13. Poetry and Pay.
+    14. The Present and Future of India.
+    15. An Archaeological Novel.
+    16. An Evolutional History.
+    17. A New Pompeii.
+    18. Archæology in Cambodia.
+    19. The Great "I-Am."
+    20. A Terrible Novel.
+    21. The Latin Church in the East and Bismarck.
+    22. English Policy in China.
+    23. The Fear of Death.
+    24. A Danger to Egypt--The Senousiya.
+    25. Archaeological News from China.
+    26. Icelandic Prospects.
+    27. A Great English Physician.
+    28. Academical Triumphs.
+    29. The Magician of Paris.
+    30. Tolstoi's Vanity of Wisdom.
+    31. "Minos."
+    32. Newspapers and Religion.
+    33. Minos.
+    34. A Concord Compromise.
+    35. De Mercier on Dante.
+    36. The Origin of Christmas.
+    37. "Immortality" according to Dr. Holland.
+    38. The Future of Idealism.
+    39. "Solitude."
+    40. Dr. Holland's Defenders.
+    41. The Religion of Suffering.
+    42. The Ruins of Carthage.
+    43. A Defence of Pessimism.
+    44. Over-Education in Germany.
+    45. Decadence as a Fine Art.
+    46. Use of the Eye or the Ear in Learning Languages.
+    47. The Shadow of the "Light of Asia."
+    48. The Jew upon the Stage.
+    49. Some Theosophical Iconoclasm.
+    50. "Hamlet's Note-Book."
+    51. The Invasion of the Desert.
+    52. Resurrected Æstheticism.
+    53. Translations.
+    54. Nihilistic Literature in the United States.
+    55. Some Human Frailty.
+    56. An Art-Reformer.
+    57. Some Notes on Creole Literature.
+    58. The Scientific Value of Creole.
+    59. "l'OEuvre."
+    60. A Havanese Romance.
+    61. Some Supposed Sanscrit Translations.
+    62. The Omnivorous Newspaper.
+    63. A Religious Nightmare.
+    64. Joaquin Miller.
+    65. Pictures vs. Text.
+    66. "Follow the Donkey Path."
+    67. A Sketch of the Creole Patois.
+    68. In Spain.
+    69. Chinese Belief in God.
+    70. "Towards the Gulf."
+    71. Tennyson's Locksley Hall.
+    72. "Doesn't Want Any Progress."
+    73. The Howard Memorial Library--A Letter from Charles Dudley Warner.
+    74. A Definitive Rossetti.
+    75. The Chinese Future.
+    76. Artistic Value of Myopia.
+    77. Colours and Emotions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--AT MARTINIQUE
+
+
+THE lure of the Sea and of the Unknown was upon Hearn during the entire
+stay at New Orleans. How deeply it entered his heart is shown in a
+fragment rescued by his friend, Dr. Matas, which has been kindly sent
+me. The copy is in print, but when and where it was published we have
+been unable to learn. It was probably written in 1885 or 1886. As it
+gives glimpses at once into Hearn's mind, of his fateful desire to roam,
+of his Nature-love, and, better, of his growing mastery of technic and
+imagery, I reproduce herewith the fragment, which he entitled:
+
+                               GULF WINDS
+
+    Golden oranges piled up in bins,--apples of the Southern
+    Hesperides;--a medley of meridional tongues,--silky Latin
+    tongues and their silkier patois; Chinese buyers yellow as
+    bananas, quadroons with skin like dead gold; swarthy sailors
+    from the Antilles; sharp odours of fruit freshly
+    disembarked;--all the semi-tropical sights and sounds of the
+    French market. I stood beside an orange-bin; and priced the
+    fruit. Fifty cents a hundred! While wondering how much the
+    fruit-vender's profit could possibly be, I was insensibly
+    attracted by something unusual in his face--a shadow of the
+    beauty of the antique world seemed to rest upon it. "Are you
+    not a Greek?" I asked, for there was no mistaking the
+    metoposcopy of that head. Yes; he was from Zante--first a
+    sailor, now a fruit-vender; some day, perhaps, he would be a
+    merchant.
+
+    It is among those who sell, not among those who buy, that
+    the most curious studies of human nature and of the human
+    face are to be made in the French market. These dealers are
+    by no means usually French, but they are mostly from the
+    Mediterranean coasts and the Levant--from Sicily and Cyprus,
+    Corsica and Malta, the Ionian Archipelago, and a hundred
+    cities fringing the coasts of Southern Europe. They are
+    wanderers, who have wandered all over the face of the earth
+    to find rest at last in this city of the South; they are
+    sailors who have sailed all seas, and sunned themselves at a
+    hundred tropical ports, and finally anchored their lives by
+    the levee of New Orleans. The Neapolitan Italian, the
+    Spaniard, the Corsican, the Levantine Greek, seek rest from
+    storm here, in a clime akin to their own and under a sky as
+    divinely blue, and at a port not far distant from their
+    beloved sea. For these Levantine sailors hate dusty inland
+    cities and the dry air of the Great West.
+
+    If you, O reader, chance to be a child of the sea;--if, in
+    early childhood, you listened each morning and evening to
+    that most ancient and mystic hymn-chant of the waves, which
+    none can hear without awe, and which no musician can
+    learn;--if you have ever watched wonderingly the far sails
+    of the fishing-vessels turn rosy in the blush of sunset, or
+    silver under the moon, or golden in the glow of sunrise;--if
+    you once breathed as your native air the divine breath of
+    the ocean, and learned the swimmer's art from the hoary
+    breakers, and received the Ocean-god's christening, the
+    glorious baptism of salt,--then, perhaps, you know only too
+    well why these sailors of the Levant cannot seek homes
+    within the heart of the land. Twenty years may have passed
+    since your ears last caught the thunder of that mighty ode
+    of hexameters which the sea has always sung and will sing
+    forever, since your eyes sought the far line where the
+    vaulted blue of heaven touches the level immensity of
+    rolling water,--since you breathed the breath of the ocean,
+    and felt its clear ozone living in your veins like an
+    elixir. Have you forgotten the mighty measure of that mighty
+    song? have you forgotten the divine saltiness of that
+    unfettered wind? Is not the spell of the sea strong upon you
+    still?
+
+    So that when the long, burning summer comes, and the city
+    roars dustily around you, and your ears are filled with the
+    droning hum of machinery, and your heart full of the
+    bitterness of the struggle for life, there comes to you at
+    long intervals in the dingy office or the crowded street
+    some memory of white breakers and vast stretches of wrinkled
+    sand and far-fluttering breezes that seem to whisper,
+    "Come!"
+
+    So that when the silent night comes,--you find yourself
+    revisiting in dreams those ocean-shores thousands of miles
+    away. The wrinkled sand, ever shifting yet ever the same,
+    has the same old familiar patches of vari-coloured weeds and
+    shining rocks along its level expanse: and the thunder-chant
+    of the sea which echoes round the world, eternal yet ever
+    new, is rolling up to heaven. The glad waves leap up to
+    embrace you; the free winds shout welcome in your ears;
+    white sails are shining in the west; white sea-birds are
+    flying over the gleaming swells. And from the infinite
+    expanse of eternal sky and everlasting sea, there comes to
+    you, with the heavenly ocean-breeze, a thrilling sense of
+    unbounded freedom, a delicious feeling as of life renewed,
+    an ecstasy as of life restored. And so you start into
+    wakefulness with the thunder of that sea-dream in your ears
+    and tears of regret in your eyes to find about you only heat
+    and dust and toil; the awakening rumble of traffic, and "the
+    city sickening on its own thick breath."
+
+    And I think that the Levantine sailors dare not dwell in the
+    midst of the land, for fear lest dreams of a shadowy sea
+    might come upon them in the night, and phantom winds call
+    wildly to them in their sleep, and they might wake to find
+    themselves a thousand miles beyond the voice of the
+    breakers.
+
+    Sometimes, I doubt not, these swarthy sellers of fruit,
+    whose black eyes sparkle with the sparkle of the sea, and
+    whose voices own the tones of ocean-winds, sicken when a
+    glorious breeze from the Gulf enters the city, shaking the
+    blossoms from the magnolia-trees and the orange-groves.
+    Sometimes, I doubt not, they forsake their Southern home
+    when the dream comes upon them, and take ship for the
+    Spanish Main. Yet I think most men may wake here from the
+    dreams of the sea, and rest again. It is true that you
+    cannot hear the voice of the hoary breakers in the
+    moonlight,--only the long panting of the cotton-presses, the
+    shouting of the boats calling upon each other through the
+    tropical night, and the ceaseless song of night-birds and
+    crickets. But the sea-ships, with their white wings folded,
+    are slumbering at the wharves; the sea-winds are blowing
+    through the moon-lit streets, and from the South arises a
+    wondrous pale glow, like the far reflection of the emerald
+    green of the ocean. So that the Greek sailor, awaking from
+    the vision of winds and waves, may join three fingers of his
+    right hand, after the manner of the Eastern Church, and
+    cross himself, and sleep again in peace.
+
+Hearn left New Orleans in July, 1887, and was soon settled at St.
+Pierre, Martinique. His letters to Dr. Matas form the principal sources
+of information concerning himself and his work during his stay there.
+From them I choose a few selections which bear upon his literary
+labours. At first, of course, all is perfection:
+
+    I am absolutely bewitched, and resolved to settle down
+    somewhere in the West Indies. Martinique is simply heaven
+    on earth. You must imagine a community whose only vices are
+    erotic. There are no thieves, no roughs, no snobs.
+    Everything is primitive and morally pure--except in the
+    only particular where purity would be out of harmony with
+    natural conditions. As for the climate, it is
+    divine--though this is the worst season.
+
+    And I have begun to hate all that is energetic, swift, rapid
+    in thought or action, all rivalry, all competition, all
+    striving in the race of success. It is just enough to live
+    here: no, it is too much!--it is more than any ordinary
+    human being deserves to enjoy. It makes one feel like crying
+    for joy just to look about one.
+
+    Couldn't I induce you to abandon the beastly civilization of
+    the U. S., and live somewhere down here forever
+    more,--where everybody is honest and good-natured and
+    courteous, and where everything is divine? Man was not
+    intended to work in this part of the world: while you are
+    here, you cannot quite persuade yourself you are awake,--it
+    is a dream of eternal beauty,--all the musky winds, all the
+    flower-months of Paradise! New Orleans is the most infernal
+    hole in the entire Cosmos. Don't live in it! Confound fame
+    and wealth and reputation and splendour. You don't need any
+    of these things here; they are superfluous; they are
+    obsolete; they are nuisances; they are living curses. Settle
+    here. Humming-birds will fly into your chamber to wake you
+    up. What on earth you can find to live for in the U.S. I am
+    now at a loss to see. You'll get old there;--here you will
+    remain eternally young: the palms distil Elixir Vitæ.
+
+    But it is simply foolishness to write to you--because I
+    can't write about this place. All ambition to write has been
+    paralyzed--let Nature do the writing--in green, azure and
+    gold!
+
+[Illustration: LAFCADIO HEARN. _From a Photograph taken at Martinique,
+August 24th, 1888._]
+
+                (Letter from St. Pierre, July 30, 1887.)
+
+    I am not at all sure of my literary future,--I do not mean
+    pecuniarily, for I never allow that question to seriously
+    bother me: to write simply to make money is to be a d----d
+    fraud, so long as one can aim at higher things. But I do
+    not feel the same impulses and inspirations and power to
+    create;--I have been passing through a sort of crisis,--out
+    of enthusiasm into reality and I do not feel so mentally
+    strong as I ought. The climate had much to do with it in
+    the beginning, causing a serious weakness of memory;--that
+    is now passed; but I feel as if _mon âme avait perdu ses
+    ailes_. Perhaps something healthier and stronger may come
+    of it; but in the meanwhile I suffer from great
+    disquietude, and occasional very black ideas; and praise
+    sounds to me like a malicious joke, because I feel that my
+    work has been damnably bad. The fact that I _know_ it has
+    been bad, encourages me to believe I may do better, and
+    find confidence in myself.
+
+    I have enough MS. for a volume of French colonial sketches,
+    and do not think I will be able to do much more with
+    Martinique for the present; but I also have accumulated
+    material out of which something will probably grow. I would
+    now like to attempt some Spanish studies.
+
+    Northern air will do me good, though I do not like the idea
+    of living in it. But when, after all this stupid, brutal,
+    never-varying heat, you steam North, and the constellations
+    change, and the moon stands up on her feet instead of lying
+    on her back lasciviously,--and the first grand whiff of cold
+    air comes like the advent of a Ghost,--Lord! how one's
+    brain suddenly clears and thrills into working order. It is
+    like a new soul breathed into your being through the
+    nostrils--after the Creator's fashion of animating his Adam
+    of clay.
+
+    Perhaps you think I have been a poor correspondent. You can
+    scarcely imagine the difficulties of maintaining a friendly
+    chat by letter while trying to do literary work here. Most
+    people who attempt literature here either give it up after a
+    short time, or go to the graveyard: there are a few
+    giants,--like Dr. Rufz de Lavison (who never finished his
+    Études nevertheless), Davey the historian; Dessalles who
+    suddenly disappeared leaving his history incomplete. But I
+    fear I am no giant. At 2 or 2.30 p.m. if you try to write,
+    your head feels as if a heated feather pillow had been
+    stuffed into your skull. To write at all one must utilize
+    the morning;--that is given to make the pot boil: one can
+    write letters only at intervals, paragraph by paragraph, or
+    between solid chapters of downright wearing-out work.
+
+    Nevertheless, one learns to love this land so much as to be
+    quite willing to abandon anything and everything to live in
+    it. As in the old Sunday-school hymn, "only man is vile:"
+    nature and Woman are unspeakably sweet.
+
+    I suppose I will not be able to meet you in New York this
+    fall: you will be too busy. Next summer it will be possible,
+    I hope. Perhaps you will have the pleasure of a little book
+    or two from me during the cold weather: I will revise things
+    in New York. It has been a horrible agony to have my stuff
+    printed without being able to see the proofs, and full of
+    mistakes. "Chita" has been a great literary
+    success--contrary to expectation. I find success is not
+    decided by the press, nor by first effect on the public:
+    opinions of literary men count much more, and these have
+    been better than I imagined they could be. (1887)
+
+    Well, I am caught! The tropics have me, for better or worse,
+    so long as I live. Life in a great northern city again would
+    be a horror insupportable. Yet I have had great pain here. I
+    have been four months without a cent of money where nobody
+    would trust me: you know what that means, if you have ever
+    had a rough-and-tough year or two: otherwise you could not
+    imagine it. I have had disillusions in number. I find worst
+    of all, there is no inspiration in the tropics,--no poetry,
+    no aspiration, no self-sacrifice, no human effort. Now, that
+    I can go where I like, do as I please--for I have won the
+    fight after all,--I still prefer one year of Martinique to a
+    thousand years of New York. What is it? Am I demoralized; or
+    am I simply better informed than before? I don't really
+    know. (1887)
+
+                               New York, September 29, 1887.[12]
+
+        [12] Written during a brief stay in New York,
+             whither he had gone in the fall of 1887.
+
+    Dear Friend Matas:--I am going back to the
+    tropics,--probably for many years. My venture has been more
+    successful than I ever hoped; and I find myself able to
+    abandon journalism, with all its pettinesses, cowardices,
+    and selfishnesses, forever. I am able hereafter to devote
+    myself to what you always said was my _forte_: the study of
+    tropical Nature--God's Nature,--violent, splendid, nude, and
+    pure. I never hoped for such fortune. It has come unasked. I
+    am almost afraid to think it is true. I am afraid to be
+    happy!
+
+                          _c/o_ Dr. George M. Gould,
+                                  119 South Seventeenth St.,
+                                      Philadelphia, June 5, 1889.
+
+    Dear Friend Matas:--Your letter of March 21 only reached me
+    to-day, June 5th; but made me very glad to get it. I have
+    been back from the West Indies about three weeks--do not
+    know how long I shall stay. It seemed like tearing my heart
+    out to leave Martinique; and though I am now in one of the
+    most beautiful cities in the world, among dear friends, and
+    with the splendid spectacle before me of man's grandest
+    efforts--not a wild cyclone of electricity and iron like New
+    York, but a great quiet peace--the tropical Nature with all
+    its memories haunts me perpetually,--draws my thought back
+    again over the azure sea and under the turquoise sky to the
+    great palms and the volcanic hills and the beautiful brown
+    women. I know I shall have to go back to the tropics sooner
+    or later.
+
+    The effect of the climate, as you know, is deadly to mental
+    work. Physically, however, I felt better in it,--less
+    nervous than I ever was before. Only one's will to work is
+    broken down; and it is better only to collect material there
+    to work up elsewhere. That sort of work I am busy at just
+    now. I have a signed contract for publication of "Chita" in
+    book-form; and the result of my two years' absence will be
+    forthcoming in a volume of larger size.
+
+    You know Philadelphia, I suppose, the beautiful city; and I
+    suppose you know that physicians here form the leaders of,
+    and give the tone to, social life. It seems to me but just
+    that they should,--representing the highest intellectual
+    rank of civilization when they are really worthy of the
+    profession.
+
+    ... As for other people wondering what has become of me;
+    that is just what I want. I do not care to have any one know
+    what I am doing till it is done.... I have happily got over
+    a sort of crisis, however, which isolated me more than I
+    would have liked to be isolated from the world at large: the
+    distrust of myself.
+
+[Illustration: HANDWRITING OF HEARN IN 1889. _face page 63._]
+
+Concerning the value of Hearn's Martinique work, I am permitted to quote
+from a letter written to him on May 24, 1890, by the late Edmund C.
+Stedman,--and there could be no better judge and critic:
+
+"I will not leave without telling you how much I am your debtor for the
+fascinating copious record of your life in the Windward Islands, and for
+your 'Youma'--both of which I take with me to 'Kelp Rock'--and which we
+shall know by heart ere long. The 'Two Years' came when I was 'moving'
+in New York, etc.,--so that books and letters, unacknowledged, perforce
+have piled up on my table. I am grateful for your remembrance and your
+gifts. _No_ book could please me more than your 'Two Years.' Those
+Islands are my Hesperides--I had begun a series of poems and lyrics,
+cast in the Caribees, but your prose poems put mine to shame--and I am
+glad to listen to your music and leave my own unsung."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.--"GETTING A SOUL"
+
+
+SHORT though it was in time, the Philadelphia visit in 1889 has a value
+long in significance, that deserves epitomization. To begin with, it was
+Hearn's first experience of anything that might be called home-life. Its
+result was a softening and normalizing of him both as to character and
+as to manner, which was most evident. Secondly, and as he chose to put
+it, I "gave him a soul." By this poetic paraphrase he meant that I had
+succeeded in bringing to his recognition the existence of Freedom in
+what he thought determinism;--that intelligence, purpose, and
+beneficence lie behind biology, and that human beings are not always,
+and may never be wholly, the slaves of the senses, and the dupes of
+desire. Beauty itself, which he so widely sought, I asked him to note,
+is a needless, harmful, and even impossible thing in a world of
+adamantine logic and necessity. Above all, I demonstrated the existence
+of Duty, "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God," not only in the abstract,
+but in concrete lives, in social and historic exemplifications, and that
+only by means of men and women who obey conscience is social and
+historic progress brought about. They who have not seen that can have no
+"soul;" they who do see it, have soul, durable or great according to the
+clearness of the seeing and the obedience to the implication. Fully and
+freely Hearn acknowledged the vision, and never afterward could he be
+wholly the same as he had been before. But the Providence of the
+Oriental and semi-barbarous is Improvidence, and their God is Fate.
+Hearn came to hate, or to pretend to hate, the truth which had now
+slipped through his spiritual eyes, but he could not undo or outroot it
+entirely; "henceforth by the vision splendid is on his way attended."
+Thirdly, this new viewpoint, this new spirit or soul, I got incorporated
+in a little art-work, or ethical study--"Karma," published in
+_Lippincott's Magazine_, May, 1890, after Hearn had gone to Japan. To
+the world and without the knowledge of its making, "Karma" must have
+seemed an illogical and even impossible thing for Hearn to have written.
+It is apparently the sole work which he ever wrote, created _de novo_
+and without the data having been found or brought to him from without.
+But it was only a seeming creation. It was only the telling, the
+colouring, that was his, as in his other tales before or after. In our
+long walks and talks in the Park at night, we wrought out the title, the
+datum, and the whole trend of the story. He rebelled, but I held him to
+the task, which he finally executed with frank and artistic loyalty. The
+pride or indifference, even the dislike, of its readers, the writer, or
+inspirer, is as nothing compared with the fact that by it and from it
+Hearn learned something of love and duty that had never before been a
+living reality to him. What an infinite distance it was removed from
+anything dreamed during the Cincinnati period, or to be derived from
+Flaubert, Gautier, or Beaudelaire! After that his future work could
+never be, and never was, what it was from the writing, "_Everything you
+feel you would not like me to know._" I do not think there is
+exaggeration of the importance of the story, and what led up to its
+writing, in saying that it was the greatest of the turning-points in his
+life, and that directly because of it the magnificent works of the
+Japanese period were profoundly influenced through the attitude of mind
+thereby gained.
+
+Concerning the heroine of the tale Hearn wrote me:
+
+    Your objection to my idea is quite correct. I have already
+    abandoned it. It would have to be sexual. Never could find
+    in the tropics that magnificent type of womanhood, which in
+    the New England girl, makes one afraid even to think about
+    sex, while absolutely adoring the personality. Perfect
+    natures inspire a love that is a fear. I don't think any
+    love is noble without it. The tropical woman inspires a
+    love that is half compassion; this is always dangerous,
+    untrustworthy, delusive--pregnant with future pains
+    innumerable.
+
+But, fourthly, that in which I feel as great a pride, is compelling him
+to go to Japan. Others could have reported for lurid yellow journalism,
+others might possibly have translated as well as he, others could have
+told the West Indian stories, but--not even his beloved Lowell--only
+Hearn could have written of the Japanese life and soul as Hearn has
+done. He had no thought of the journey when I showed him his duty and
+his opportunity. By argument, pleading, almost compulsion, I at last
+wearied his opposition, and he went, with reluctance, after months of
+halting in detested New York City in which he learned by bitter
+experience that it was no place for him, and that his beloved tropics
+should not be again sought.
+
+How disappointed he was in his New York friends and prospects may be
+gathered from the following excerpt taken from one of his letters to me.
+I had used all my influence to keep him from a stay in the city. He
+wrote as follows:
+
+    Dear Gooley, your advice is good from your way of looking
+    at it; but I am much stronger in New York than you imagine,
+    and my future in it is plain and perfect sailing if I keep
+    good health. I am only embarrassed for the moment. I am
+    quite a lion here, and could figure in a way you would
+    hardly guess, if I were not such a man of tentacles. I am
+    not afraid of the cold--though it disheartens fancy a
+    little; but I shall leave fancy alone for a while. No,
+    Gooley, dear Gooley, I shall make my way in New York--don't
+    be afraid for me.
+
+He soon became convinced that I was right and finally resumed the
+journey unwillingly. The end has justified the means and the sacrifices.
+It is plain that the Japanese period and work crown his life-labours
+splendidly, and that his masterful pictures of Japanese characters,
+traditions, and religion now constitute one of our most precious
+literary treasures. They have also been of profound service to Japan.
+
+When he left my home, he, of his own accord, asked me to care for his
+library, then in the home of Mr. Alden at Metuchen, New Jersey, who two
+years previously had consented to take charge of it, and had paid
+shipping expenses, insurance, etc. None can imagine anything ungenerous
+or unkind in Mr. Alden. An old Cincinnati acquaintance characterizes
+Hearn's action in the matter as "a swindle." I have no knowledge or hint
+how it was or could be of that nature. Hearn wrote all the letters, and
+made all the arrangements to have the books sent to me. Mr. Alden
+authorizes me to say:
+
+"I was perfectly convinced at the time of the transfer of the library to
+Dr. Gould that he had no desire for its possession, and that the
+transfer was made solely in accordance with Mr. Hearn's request. I am
+quite sure that Dr. Gould fully explained the matter to me at the time.
+I feel sure that Dr. Gould acted precisely as I should have done if I
+had retained possession of the library; that is, readily giving it up to
+any legitimate claimant." I found the books of no value to me, and they
+surely have been an expense. I tried, later, to prevail upon Hearn to
+allow me to ship them to him in Japan, but I never received any replies
+to my letters. He asked for the catalogue, some of the old books, and
+beside these, at his request, a number of expensive new books were at
+various times bought and sent to him. I suspect that as there was not a
+book on Japan in the collection, and as he had a plethora of data at
+hand such as he wanted, the library gathered with so much love and
+enthusiasm was no longer of use to him, especially under the conditions
+of his life there.
+
+Hearn gained strength and power as regards both truth and art, in so far
+as he was true to the better in himself; all his trouble and his
+weakness were born out of the lower self he would not, or could not,
+sacrifice. His worship of the blood-curdling and revolting gave him some
+temporary vogue among the readers of yellow newspaperdom, but not until
+that was renounced for the compromise of the "odd and ghostly" did he
+begin to show an ability to reach something more worthy in human nature
+than the degenerate reporter catered to. The next step in advance was
+the cultivation of the artistic pornography of the sensualistic French
+story-writer. Not until he renounced this did he once more come to the
+something of more use to the reading world which fills the Martinique
+epoch. His disinclination to go to Japan, I more than suspect, was owing
+to a half consciousness that there was in that nation too much
+civilization, too good character, and even too much religion to suit the
+tastes which had been uppermost in motiving his past literary labours.
+His going into utter, illogical, and absurd captivity to the atheistic
+and materialistic philosophy of Herbert Spencer was a sorry sacrifice of
+his nobler office and better destiny to the fate that relentlessly
+dogged his footsteps. He was forced into all the humanity and
+beneficence possible to him by Japanese restraint, art, and truth. His
+cries of disillusion over the Japanese were largely the anger of the
+semi-barbaric wanderer held by family ties, paternity, etc., when he
+found himself prevented from again seeking the faraway tropical
+pseudo-paradises of peoples but one remove from savagery.
+
+In the pre-Japanese periods only the lurid, the monstrous, the enormous,
+only hot crime, and sexual passion, could excite his liveliest interest,
+and all great literature was as much ignored as if it did not exist.
+There is not a hint in all he did that he had read a line of the great
+creators of literature,--the Greek dramatists, Dante, Goethe,
+Shakespere, and a hundred more; he could not give time to read, much
+less study them. His pretension of ability to teach English literature
+was soon recognized even by the Japanese, and it is well that
+over-zealous friends did not secure him a lectureship at Cornell
+University. To be sure, he never had time to study even the history of
+his own science and art,--but he never would have done so, it is plain,
+if leisure and opportunity had been offered him. The ideal and the
+rewards of scholarship never entered his mind. Perhaps it was best for
+his peculiar office and proficiency that he allowed all erudition to go
+unlooked-upon. And yet if he had been possessed of sufficient virility
+and objectivity of mind to have learned the Japanese language, what
+would the labour not have been worth? That he could not read a Japanese
+book or newspaper after fourteen years of life among the people is most
+disconcerting. It is a tribute to the amazing delicacy and receptiveness
+of his mind that while he could not speak to his wife or children in
+their own tongue, he should still have so accurately caught the Japanese
+spirit and so admirably conveyed it to us.
+
+The history of Hearn's ghoulish pleasure in the gruesome and
+sensualistic, runs from the tan-yard horror and Cincinnati reportorial
+days, through the translated stories of the New Orleans epoch, to his
+"St. Anthony." In "Stray Leaves" it is but little softened, and yet the
+atmosphere is brightening. It glitters and flashes like vengeful
+lightning about the clouds of his mind with the Martinique epoch, etc.;
+but in the Japanese writing even the "Mountain of Skulls" and other
+stories are so far removed from reality that our disgust sinks to a
+smile of sighing wonder that the gruesome could still be so loved by
+him. It is only a few of the brutal and a small brutalized public that
+seeks such _contes drolatiques_ (without Balzac's wit, satire, and
+power, of course), and so again perforce, Hearn was weaned from his
+morbidities. Dominated by his developing art and also by the need to
+sell his writings, he thus rose, partly by the command of his readers,
+to the choice of less and less repulsive themes and methods, and, awed
+by the Japanese spirit of gentleness and beauty, he finally endowed
+their national soul-life with a prismatic glory which they themselves
+had hardly suspected.
+
+Hearn deserted the god of religion, and, except in one respect, he was
+faithless to the god of ethics. He was, therefore, without any divinity.
+For a mind that had no creative ability, that _must_ have its _subjects_
+furnished to it, a mind whose sole function was to colour the data
+chosen or given from without,--this inner emptiness could only be
+deceived by but could not be satisfied with the inner emptiness of
+Spencerism. He acknowledged that religion was the mother of all
+civilization, arts, and laws, and that all social systems, arts, and
+laws, antique or modern, were begotten and nurtured by ethics,--and yet
+there was no reality in, no reason for the existence of either religion
+or ethics in this world of mechanics and of fatalism, grim and
+inexorable.
+
+Hearn speaks somewhere of his aspiration to be considered a "thinker,"
+and once he praises "science" as a source of data for working into the
+art forms of his beloved poetic prose. But science to him was as
+impossible as was he to polite society; Spencer gave him leave, he
+thought, to consider his atheism, irreligion, and sensualisticism as
+scientifically authorized, and logically justified. He was always
+hankering after the old heathen, even savage, gods of his father and
+mother; and every time he went Fantee with them, he came back to a saner
+world weakened and still more at war with himself. He always sought an
+impossible world where Teutonic worth and honour could supply a decadent
+Latin, with half-savage languor and never failing delights of the senses
+and of art,--art which, in the last analysis, was his only god. But his
+tragedy was that he always hastened to turn his god into a fetich, while
+even his mind caught disquieting glimpses of the awful truth that all
+genuine worship abjures fetichism. As sensualism is the superstition of
+love, so fetichistic art is the superstition of true æsthetics.
+
+For the most part, minds are mechanical not chemical compoundings, or if
+chemic, they are in very unstable equilibrium. There are strange and
+wayward traits, illogic and unfused to unity with the others. There may
+be psychopathic and isolation wards in the psyche, "retreats," and all
+manner of diseases of individual organs. Most people go Fantee, often or
+seldom, and are able to hide their fetichisms from even their best
+friends. If we observe ourselves at all, most of us wonder at the
+curious mix of self-contradictories in ourselves. The few whose souls
+and bodies are fused to clear-cut unity, the component metal melted to
+harmony in the foundry of Fate and of Purpose,--these clang loyally in
+absolute and precise tone-colour. In commoner folk the failure of the
+flux, and the flaws in the casting, have only a social significance, but
+with the Hearns, with thinkers and writers, the affair has an infinite
+purport.
+
+Hearn could never make his writings and his art impulses square with his
+beloved materialistic, deterministic philosophy. He did not believe in
+soul or in souls, and yet his soul was always treating of souls, and
+showing the invisible thread of continuity which links souls to Soul.
+Therefore he is always happiest when his _daimon_ breaks from the
+restraint of theory and fate and pictures the play of free spirit, of
+soul unconquered by fate, of life victorious over death in some sad way
+or bright.
+
+Concerning Hearn's treatment of friends, editors, and publishers, as it
+bears sharply upon his literary character and productivity, as little as
+may or must be said: He was under bonds to Fate to abuse worst the
+majority of his friends who were most magnanimous, helpful, and kind to
+him personally, or who were most discriminating and encouraging toward
+his art and artistic ideals. To his former Cincinnati comrades, except
+the old printer-friend, he scarcely ever wrote after he left them, and
+the most faithful of these recently writes me: "I never pretended to be
+a friend to him; I was merely one to whom he resorted when all the rest
+cast him out. He never found me wanting, but he got few letters from me,
+and none that were flattering." "I used to love Matas" are Hearn's
+pitiful words. It is with sorrow and pain that we note the sudden
+cessation in 1887 of the letters to Krehbiel. This noble friend had
+drawn from Hearn a beautiful world of play and enduring memories, and
+one may be more than sure that it was not Krehbiel who should be blamed.
+Baker had been his most helpful and best friend, and yet for a fancied
+wrong Hearn wrote him a letter filled with insult and ruffianism which a
+gentleman could not answer, hardly forgive, and never forget. Did Hearn
+know anybody of character in the West Indies? To the greatest of
+American editors, the one who "discovered" him and introduced him to a
+national and international audience, who treated him with a sweet and
+gracious benignity, even after a shamelessness that is indescribable--to
+this good man there is not a published letter, although many, and many
+more, must exist. One day while at my house, Hearn rushed to his room,
+seized the man's picture on the wall, tore it in a hundred pieces, and
+danced and spat upon it in a furious rage. In subsequent letters to me
+he explained his hatred--how he broke his engagements, how he borrowed
+money from his loathed and insulted friend, how he got credit through
+him from his tailor, etc. Gently the abused one bore it all and without
+the least remonstrance, writing me, "Hearn has utterly cast me off; I
+was loath to part with him." Professor Chamberlain and others kindly
+explain the curious morbid psychology which Hearn had exhibited towards
+them. To the last, love and trust breathed from Hearn's letters to me,
+and yet I learn that to others long afterward he wrote of me with
+bitterness and malevolent injustice. And yet he had written me after I
+saw him for the last time, in this way: "Please don't write me at all,
+or expect me to write, for some months. I do not need any money. I have
+a good deal on my mind, and am apt, in consequence, to do very stupid or
+very unkind things in an unlucky moment." And then he wrote: "No, dear
+Gooley, I will never be indifferent to you! Never think that; I
+understand better than you suppose. If I am silent at intervals, never
+doubt me, dear teacher and brother; and you will find everything come
+right." How often is the pathos of life sadly exaggerated by giving way
+to foolish, needless, and degrading inherited instincts at the expense
+of the higher life and usefulness! As to some who ludicrously boast of
+the long continuance of an intimate friendship, there are many letters
+of Hearn extant and unpublished which blow out that vanity with an
+amusing smile. The matter, generally, might not have so real an
+importance were it not that the publishing of literature has a vast deal
+to do with literature, and, closely examined, Hearn's quarrels with
+editors, publishers, and the public, is a matter that reaches out
+astonishingly both as regards himself, his books, and the interest in
+him, as well as beyond the question of Hearn or of any or all of his
+friends. Until one silent man consents to speak--which may never be--the
+discussion of the essence of the affair cannot be set forth in any
+detail. Passages in Hearn's letters relating thereto should never have
+been published, or a hundred other things should have been as frankly
+published. When such publicity shall exist the reasons will be manifest
+why one publisher destroyed an entire fresh edition of one book of
+Hearn, why another acted differently, why one is praised or praises
+himself, why others are blamed, why some are silent although a word
+would end the injustice, etc. One phase may be noted in
+passing:--Whatever Hearn's rights or wrongs as to the author's relations
+with publishers and editors, it was beyond the ken of his mind that one
+who may gloriously sacrifice all his own temporal blessings in striving
+after artistic excellence, has no right to ask the same altruism of
+those engaged in the publishing business. Hearn blamed the crude world,
+and, for him, its representatives in the persons of editors and their
+masters, the publishers, for wishing a certain kind of literature. As
+well blame the bookseller for not sending the book you had not ordered.
+He who deliberately chooses to give the world a literature he knows it
+does not want, must accept the rejection and editing of his manuscripts,
+and the absence of the world's cheques. He chose poverty and may not
+abuse them who allowed his choice to be realized. It is sad enough, but
+it is more than childish to grumble, more than ignoble to rail.
+
+The search for "inspiration," as he called it, was with Hearn constant
+and lifelong. Thus, early in his career, he wrote to his friend, Dr.
+Matas:
+
+    So I wait for the poet's Pentecost--the inspiration of
+    Nature--the descent of the Tongues of Fire. And I think
+    they will come when the wild skies brighten, and the sun of
+    the Mexican Gulf reappears for his worshippers--with hymns
+    of wind and sea, and the prayers of birds. When one becomes
+    bathed in this azure and gold air--saturated with the
+    perfume of the sea, he can't help writing _something_. And
+    he cannot help feeling a new sense of being. The Soul of
+    the Sea mingles with his own, is breathed into him: the
+    Spirit that moveth over the deep is the Creator
+    indeed--vivifying, illuminating, strengthening. I really
+    feel his Religion--the sense of awe that comes to one in
+    some great silent temple. You would feel it too under this
+    eternal vault of blue, when the weird old Sea is touching
+    the keys of his mighty organ....
+
+And again he wrote:
+
+    I think I _must_ get inspiration. The real secret of art is
+    feeling. The highest form of that feeling is that which the
+    splendour of Nature gives--the thrill and awe of terrible
+    beauty. This is that inexplicable communication of the
+    mind with the Unknowable that has created the religious
+    sense. Said a friend to me yesterday, who is not a
+    believer:--"I stood in the Alps at sunrise, and I knew what
+    religion meant." And I think that passage in Wilson on
+    Fetichism superb where he says that the sight of the
+    splendid sky first created the religious sense. Terribly
+    perverted this sense has been, no doubt; but it belongs, I
+    fancy, to those things which are eternal, and will have
+    many a glorious avatar before our planet floats off into
+    the cemetery of dead worlds. It is, I believe, the most
+    powerful possible motive for true modern poetry--in harmony
+    with science and scientific faith; and that is what I am
+    going to look for.
+
+Such quotations could be multiplied indefinitely, but toward the end
+they become begging, and moaning in character. The "inspiration" is
+diligently hunted, hungrily waited for; at last the failure in its
+coming grows pitiful and tragic. For what is inspiration? If, with the
+fatal fashion of our fashionable fatalism, we think "we have outgrown
+all that," all that which was real and genuine inspiring, we at least
+cannot outgrow that which bred the belief in the inspiring, the trust in
+spirit and in spiritual truths and forces. Is it all primitive
+childishness, this faith in a real breathing-in of the higher life into
+our more carnal hearts and minds? Far from it! It is the veriest of
+verities, and the _deniers_ of the conditions of inspiration dry up the
+springs of that "inspiration" which they so hungrily seek. The semblance
+cannot be without the reality. It will not come, lasting and
+inexhaustible, by any trick of literary technic. Out of the light of
+common day is not born that which never was on any sea or shore. Place,
+time, circumstance, are not, as Hearn thought, the gods of
+"Inspiration." "The wind bloweth where it listeth," and even a heathen
+god would hardly visit the altar with his sacred fire if the priests
+mocked at the power and the very existence of the deity. It is most
+plain that Hearn early and zealously studied the Bible--hundreds of
+allusions bear witness of the fact--and that he learned from it the
+revivification of words, the use of phrase, metaphor, belief, something
+of the art of reaching in toward the depths of men's moral and religious
+nature and experience: but all, just so evidently, as a literary art, a
+_tour de force_, the skill of the expert workman, handling them as
+symbols for the sake of the skill, while smiling scornfully at any
+belief in their reality. Language is the most spirit-like creation of
+man's mind, the thing nearest him, woven out of his own soul-substance,
+instinct with his life, haunted with his love, his hate, his suffering.
+Playing with words, using them as art-stuff, regardless of the
+experience and love and suffering which gave them conceiving and gives
+them quickening, is likely to bring upon the artist a sad revenge.
+Pleading in vain for "inspiration," Hearn died a score or more of years
+before he should have died.
+
+It should be emphasized that Hearn had but one possible way, chosen or
+compelled, to make a living. His terrible myopia shut him out from every
+calling except that of a writer. Moreover, leaving aside the danger to
+his little vision from so much ocular labour, he had other and almost
+insurmountable handicaps as a poet or maker of literature: He had no
+original thing to say, for he was entirely without creative power, and
+had always to borrow theme and plot. Then he had never seen form, knew
+almost nothing of it as it exists out there, so that his sole technic
+was that of a colourist, and also to endow our dead and dying words with
+life--a "ghostly" life it was, and as he chose it to be--but living it
+assuredly was. That he over-coloured his pictures, that he
+over-sensualized his words, of this there is no question--but monotones
+and senescents that we are, let us not smile too superciliously! Let us
+learn; and above all let us enjoy!
+
+For, his alone was the palette of the painter of the afterglow of
+Earth's last sunset. And his the unique miracle of clothing with the
+hues of a hopeless rainbow, the faint reverberations of bells far sunk
+in the wreck and wrack of ruined centuries; of reintoning the prayers of
+Nirvâna-entering souls; of remoaning dear ancient and expiring griefs;
+of seeing with shut eyes the sad smiles of never-answered loves and
+never-meeting lovers. With him, hushed, we hearken to Muezzin Bilâl's
+call from his tower, to the broken sobs of a dancing-girl's passion, or
+to the plaintive beggings of dying babes for the cold breasts of dead
+mothers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.--"IN GHOSTLY JAPAN"
+
+PERHAPS I should not have succeeded in getting Hearn to attempt Japan
+had it not been for a little book that fell into his hands during the
+stay with me. Beyond question, Mr. Lowell's volume had a profound
+influence in turning his attention to Japan and greatly aided me in my
+insistent urging him to go there. In sending the book Hearn wrote me
+this letter:
+
+    Gooley!--I have found a marvellous book,--a book of
+    books!--a colossal, splendid, godlike book. You must read
+    every line of it. Tell me how I can send it. For heaven's
+    sake don't skip a word of it. The book is called "The Soul
+    of the Far East," but its title is smaller than its
+    imprint.
+                                                 HEARNEYBOY.
+
+    P.S.--Let something else go to H--, and read this book
+    instead. May God eternally bless and infinitely personalize
+    the man who wrote this book! Please don't skip one solitary
+    line of it, and don't delay reading it,--because something,
+    much! is going to go out of this book into your heart and
+    life and stay there! I have just finished this book and feel
+    like John in Patmos,--only a d----d sight better. He who
+    shall skip one word of this book let his portion be cut off
+    and his name blotted out of the Book of Life.[13]
+
+        [13] Mr. Percival Lowell's book soon reached me
+             containing the inscription: "To George M. Gould,
+             with best love of his spiritual pupil, L. H." I
+             have intentionally retained colloquialisms in
+             these excerpts, the indications of our familiarity,
+             etc., to give a glimpse into the heart of the
+             affectionate and sweet-natured man.
+
+There is not much to say about the Japanese period. The splendid books
+speak for themselves. There is little in the almost valueless letters
+that interest the literature-lover and give him concern about the
+literature-maker. There is one short page[14] which is worth the
+remainder of the book. The development of inborn characteristics goes
+on, despite the grafted soul, almost as fatalistically as Hearn would
+have wished, and in this instance in accordance with his theory of the
+unalterability of character. But this period is of surpassing interest
+solely because of the beautiful books and articles written. To analyze
+them is both impossible and undesirable. They are for our enjoyment, and
+after us generations will be delighted by them.
+
+    [14] _Life and Letters_, Vol. II, pp. 337 and 338.
+
+Hearn's views and practices as regards love and the feminine are not of
+sympathetic interest to those who think that monogamy is good and
+advisable. He hopes his son will not follow in his father's footsteps as
+regards every damozel in his path, and in this respect become the
+"disgraceful person he [the father] used to be." He "half suspects" the
+Oriental husband is right in loving his wife least of all others related
+to or dependent upon him, and quotes approvingly unquotable things about
+the laws of (sexual) nature, managing, _more suo_, to make beautiful the
+pursuit of beauty "in vain." Than the other, the woman-beauty of soul is
+the lesser. "It doesn't make a man any happier to have an intellectual
+wife. The less intellectual the more lovable,--for intellectual converse
+a man _can't_ have with women." When contemplating legal marriage with
+"his wife" in 1892, he calculates shrewdly the advantages of the plan.
+He arrived in Japan in 1890 and in less than two years "my little wife
+and I have saved nearly 2,000 Japanese dollars between us." When he has
+made her independent he will quit teaching, and "wander about awhile and
+write 'sketches' at $10.00 per page." In 1893 he found difficulties in
+registering the birth of his son. Hearn was still a British subject. If
+the boy should be a Japanese citizen, the registry must be in the
+mother's name; if in the father's name, he would become a foreigner. To
+become a Japanese citizen would mean for Hearn a great reduction in his
+salary as a teacher under Government pay. "Why was I so foolish as to
+have a son?" "Really _I_ don't know." In 1895 he "cuts the puzzle" by
+becoming a Japanese citizen, "losing all chance of Government employment
+at a living salary." Immediately Hearn "hopes to see a United Orient yet
+bound into one strong alliance against our cruel Western Civilization,"
+"against what is called Society and what is called Civilization."
+
+For those who boasted of being his friends, it seems an astonishing
+thing that they should make Hearn portray his vices, his moral
+nakedness, so publicly. Of course he did not dream of the _exposé_. It
+is to his merit, however, that he would place the truth boldly and
+baldly before his friends. He confesses that the scandalous parts of a
+book are what he likes best, that he is "a Fraud," "a vile Latin,"
+etc.,--"_Vive le monde antique!_" He is "_not respectable_."
+"Carpets--pianos--windows--curtains--brass bands--churches! how I hate
+them!! Would I had been born savage; the curse of civilized cities is
+upon me." He admits that he "cannot understand the moral side, of
+course," and urges that "the most serious necessity of life is not to
+take the moral side of it seriously. We must play with it, as with an
+_hetaira_." It is needless to add that in this composition and resolve
+lay Hearn's weakness, his tragedy, and his missing of "greatness." A man
+so willed must finally see that it is the source of pitiful
+instabilities and waywardness. "I have been at heart everything by
+turns." He learns the old trick of blaming "Fate" and "the other
+fellow;" he is hard-pushed, ignored, starved, morally humiliated:--"the
+less a man has to do with his fellow-men the better;" "it becomes plain
+why men cannot be good to one another;" character may not be bettered or
+changed; "no line exists between life and not-life;" "likes and dislikes
+never depart;" if Spanish, Italian, or French (instead of English,
+German, or American) he "can be at home with a villain," etc. Finally
+there comes that burst of frankness:--"I have more smallness in me than
+you can suspect. How could it be otherwise! If a man lives like a rat
+for twenty or twenty-five years, he must have acquired something of the
+disposition peculiar to house-rodents,--mustn't he?" Then increase the
+complaints of "treachery," the wish for "justice," the desire to go
+away, somewhere, anywhere; and the limit of the amazing is reached in
+praising _The Conservator_ and _The Whim_ for bravery and goodness, and
+in hating Virchow thoroughly. Was Virchow so loathsome because this
+great scientist found an impassable demarcation between life and the
+not-life?--"all cells are derived from cells." Is it surprising that his
+old imagined enemies, the Jesuits, are believed to be hidden in every
+place, lurking to thwart every ambition or success, even to kill
+him?[15]
+
+    [15] Those who care may see how this suspicion obfuscates his
+         mind in an article against some of Hearn's statements, by
+         Henry Thurston, in _The Messenger_, January 1906.
+
+No man is wholly bad who loves children, none wholly good who does not
+love them. In a nation of child-lovers, as Hearn's Japanese writings
+bear witness, he began to catch glimpses of truth hitherto unrecognized.
+Concerning his eldest son (a fourth child was expected in 1903) Hearn
+wrote: "No man can possibly know what life means until he has a child
+and loves it. And then the whole Universe changes,--and nothing will
+ever again seem exactly as it seemed before." Naturally he was drawn to
+the rich child-lore and fairy tales of Japan. With great difficulty I
+have secured copies of a number of fairy stories edited by him and
+published in Japan by T. Hasegawa, Tôkyô, in a style beautiful and
+dainty beyond superlatives. As mine are probably the only ones in our
+country, I have ventured to copy herewith two of the tales:--
+
+                  THE OLD WOMAN WHO LOST HER DUMPLING
+
+    Long, long ago, there was a funny old woman, who liked to
+    laugh and to make dumplings of rice-flour.
+
+    One day, while she was preparing some dumplings for dinner,
+    she let one fall; and it rolled into a hole in the earthen
+    floor of her little kitchen and disappeared. The old woman
+    tried to reach it by putting her hand down the hole, and
+    all at once the earth gave way, and the old woman fell in.
+
+    She fell quite a distance, but was not a bit hurt; and when
+    she got up on her feet again, she saw that she was standing
+    on a road, just like the road before her house. It was quite
+    light down there; and she could see plenty of rice-fields,
+    but no one in them. How all this happened, I cannot tell
+    you. But it seems that the old woman had fallen into another
+    country.
+
+    The road she had fallen upon sloped very much; so, after
+    having looked for her dumpling in vain, she thought it must
+    have rolled farther away down the slope. She ran down the
+    road to look, crying:
+
+    "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?"
+
+    After a little while she saw a stone Jizo standing by the
+    roadside, and she said:
+
+    "O Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"
+
+    Jizo answered:
+
+    "Yes, I saw your dumpling rolling by me down the road. But
+    you had better not go any farther, because there is a wicked
+    Oni living down there, who eats people."
+
+    But the old woman only laughed, and ran on farther down the
+    road, crying: "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that
+    dumpling of mine?" And she came to another statue of Jizo,
+    and asked it:
+
+    "O kind Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"
+
+    And Jizo said:
+
+    "Yes, I saw your dumpling go by a little while ago. But you
+    must not run any farther, because there is a wicked Oni down
+    there, who eats people."
+
+    But she only laughed, and ran on, still crying out: "My
+    dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?" And
+    she came to a third Jizo, and asked it:
+
+    "O dear Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"
+
+    But Jizo said:
+
+    "Don't talk about your dumpling now. Here is the Oni coming.
+    Squat down here behind my sleeve, and don't make any noise."
+
+    Presently the Oni came very close, and stopped and bowed to
+    Jizo, and said:
+
+    "Good-day, Jizo San!"
+
+    Jizo said good-day, too, very politely.
+
+    Then the Oni suddenly snuffed the air two or three times in
+    a suspicious way, and cried out: "Jizo San, Jizo San! I
+    smell a smell of mankind somewhere--don't you?"
+
+    "Oh!" said Jizo, "perhaps you are mistaken."
+
+    "No, no!" said the Oni, after snuffing the air again, "I
+    smell a smell of mankind."
+
+    Then the old woman could not help laughing, "Te-he-he!"--and
+    the Oni immediately reached down his big hairy hand behind
+    Jizo's sleeve, and pulled her out,--still laughing,
+    "Te-he-he!"
+
+    "Ah! ha!" cried the Oni.
+
+    Then Jizo said:
+
+    "What are you going to do with that good old woman? You must
+    not hurt her."
+
+    "I won't," said the Oni. "But I will take her home with me
+    to cook for us."
+
+    "Very well," said Jizo; "but you must really be kind to her.
+    If you are not I shall be very angry."
+
+    "I won't hurt her at all," promised the Oni; "and she will
+    only have to do a little work for us every day. Good-bye,
+    Jizo San."
+
+    Then the Oni took the old woman far down the road, till they
+    came to a wide deep river, where there was a boat, and took
+    her across the river to his house. It was a very large
+    house. He led her at once into the kitchen, and told her to
+    cook some dinner for himself and the other Oni who lived
+    with him. And he gave her a small wooden rice-paddle, and
+    said:
+
+    "You must always put only one grain of rice into the pot,
+    and when you stir that one grain of rice in the water with
+    this paddle, the grain will multiply until the pot is full."
+
+    So the old woman put just one rice-grain into the pot, as
+    the Oni told her, and began to stir it with the paddle; and,
+    as she stirred, the one grain became two,--then four,--then
+    eight,--then sixteen,--thirty-two, sixty-four, and so on.
+    Every time she moved the paddle the rice increased in
+    quantity; and in a few minutes the great pot was full.
+
+    After that, the funny old woman stayed a long time in the
+    house of the Oni, and every day cooked food for him and for
+    all his friends. The Oni never hurt or frightened her, and
+    her work was made quite easy by the magic paddle--although
+    she had to cook a very, very great quantity of rice, because
+    an Oni eats much more than any human being eats.
+
+    But she felt lonely, and always wished very much to go back
+    to her own little house, and make her dumplings. And one
+    day, when the Oni were all out somewhere, she thought she
+    would try to run away.
+
+    She first took the magic paddle, and slipped it under her
+    girdle; and then she went down to the river. No one saw her;
+    and the boat was there. She got into it, and pushed off; and
+    as she could row very well, she was soon far away from the
+    shore.
+
+    But the river was very wide; and she had not rowed more than
+    one-fourth of the way across, when the Oni, all of them,
+    came back to the house.
+
+    They found that their cook was gone, and the magic paddle
+    too. They ran down to the river at once, and saw the old
+    woman rowing away very fast.
+
+    Perhaps they could not swim: at all events they had no boat;
+    and they thought the only way they could catch the funny old
+    woman would be to drink up all the water of the river before
+    she got to the other bank. So they knelt down, and began to
+    drink so fast that before the old woman was half way over,
+    the water had become quite low.
+
+    But the old woman kept on rowing until the water had got so
+    shallow that the Oni stopped drinking, and began to wade
+    across. Then she dropped her oar, took the magic paddle from
+    her girdle, and shook it at the Oni, and made such funny
+    faces that the Oni all burst out laughing.
+
+    But the moment they laughed, they could not help throwing up
+    all the water they had drunk, and so the river became full
+    again. The Oni could not cross; and the funny old woman got
+    safely over to the other side, and ran away up the road as
+    fast as she could.
+
+    She never stopped running until she found herself at home
+    again. After that she was very happy; for she could make
+    dumplings whenever she pleased. Besides, she had the magic
+    paddle to make rice for her. She sold her dumplings to her
+    neighbours and passengers, and in quite a short time she
+    became rich.
+
+                         THE BOY WHO DREW CATS
+
+    A long, long time ago, in a small country-village in Japan,
+    there lived a poor farmer and his wife, who were very good
+    people. They had a number of children, and found it very
+    hard to feed them all. The elder son was strong enough when
+    only fourteen years old to help his father; and the little
+    girls learned to help their mother almost as soon as they
+    could walk.
+
+    But the youngest child, a little boy, did not seem to be fit
+    for hard work. He was very clever,--cleverer than all his
+    brothers and sisters; but he was quite weak and small, and
+    people said he could never grow very big. So his parents
+    thought it would be better for him to become a priest than
+    to become a farmer. They took him with them to the
+    village-temple one day, and asked the good old priest who
+    lived there, if he would have their little boy for his
+    acolyte, and teach him all that a priest ought to know.
+
+    The old man spoke kindly to the lad, and asked him some hard
+    questions. So clever were the answers that the priest agreed
+    to take the little fellow into the temple as an acolyte, and
+    to educate him for the priesthood.
+
+    The boy learned quickly what the old priest taught him, and
+    was very obedient in most things. But he had one fault. He
+    liked to draw cats during study-hours, and to draw cats even
+    when cats ought not to have been drawn at all.
+
+    Whenever he found himself alone, he drew cats. He drew them
+    on the margins of the priest's books, and on all the screens
+    of the temple, and on the walls, and on the pillars. Several
+    times the priest told him this was not right; but he did not
+    stop drawing cats. He drew them because he could not really
+    help it. He had what is called "the genius of an artist,"
+    and just for that reason he was not quite fit to be an
+    acolyte;--a good acolyte should study books.
+
+    One day after he had drawn some very clever pictures of cats
+    upon a paper screen, the old priest said to him severely:
+    "My boy, you must go away from this temple at once. You will
+    never make a good priest, but perhaps you will become a
+    great artist. Now let me give you a last piece of advice,
+    and be sure you never forget it: 'Avoid large places at
+    night;--keep to small.'"
+
+    The boy did not know what the priest meant by saying, "Avoid
+    large places,--keep to small." He thought and thought, while
+    he was tying up his little bundle of clothes to go away; but
+    he could not understand those words, and he was afraid to
+    speak to the priest any more, except to say good-bye.
+
+    He left the temple very sorrowfully, and began to wonder
+    what he should do. If he went straight home, he felt sure
+    his father would punish him for having been disobedient to
+    the priest: so he was afraid to go home. All at once he
+    remembered that at the next village, twelve miles away,
+    there was a very big temple. He had heard there were several
+    priests at that temple; and he made up his mind to go to
+    them and ask them to take him for their acolyte.
+
+    Now that big temple was closed up, but the boy did not know
+    this fact. The reason it had been closed up was that a
+    goblin had frightened the priests away, and had taken
+    possession of the place. Some brave warriors had afterwards
+    gone to the temple at night to kill the goblin; but they had
+    never been seen alive again. Nobody had ever told these
+    things to the boy; so he walked all the way to the village,
+    hoping to be kindly treated by the priests.
+
+    When he got to the village, it was already dark, and all the
+    people were in bed; but he saw the big temple on a hill at
+    the other end of the principal street, and he saw there was
+    a light in the temple. People who tell the story say the
+    goblin used to make that light, in order to tempt lonely
+    travellers to ask for shelter. The boy went at once to the
+    temple, and knocked. There was no sound inside. He knocked
+    and knocked again; but still nobody came. At last he pushed
+    gently at the door, and was quite glad to find that it had
+    not been fastened. So he went in, and saw a lamp
+    burning,--but no priest.
+
+    He thought some priest would be sure to come very soon, and
+    he sat down and waited. Then he noticed that everything in
+    the temple was grey with dust, and thickly spun over with
+    cobwebs. So he thought to himself that the priests would
+    certainly like to have an acolyte, to keep the place clean.
+    He wondered why they had allowed everything to get so dusty.
+    What most pleased him, however, were some big white screens,
+    good to paint cats upon. Though he was tired, he looked at
+    once for a writing-box, and found one, ground some ink, and
+    began to paint cats.
+
+    He painted a great many cats upon the screens; and then he
+    began to feel very, very sleepy. He was just on the point of
+    lying down to sleep beside one of the screens, when he
+    suddenly remembered the words: "Avoid large places;--keep to
+    small."
+
+    The temple was very large; he was all alone; and as he
+    thought of these words--though he could not quite understand
+    them--he began to feel for the first time a little afraid;
+    and he resolved to look for a small place in which to sleep.
+    He found a little cabinet, with a sliding door, and went
+    into it, and shut himself up. Then he lay down and fell fast
+    asleep.
+
+    Very late in the night he was awakened by a most terrible
+    noise,--a noise of fighting and screaming. It was so
+    dreadful that he was afraid even to look through a chink of
+    the little cabinet: he lay very still, holding his breath
+    for fright.
+
+    The light that had been in the temple went out; but the
+    awful sounds continued, and became more awful, and all the
+    temple shook. After a long time silence came; but the boy
+    was still afraid to move. He did not move until the light of
+    the morning sun shone into the cabinet through the chinks of
+    the little door.
+
+    Then he got out of his hiding-place very cautiously, and
+    looked about. The first thing he saw, lying dead in the
+    middle of it, an enormous monster rat,--a
+    goblin-rat,--bigger than a cow!
+
+    But who or what could have killed it? There was no man or
+    other creature to be seen. Suddenly the boy observed that
+    the mouths of all the cats he had drawn the night before,
+    were red and wet with blood. Then he knew that the goblin
+    had been killed by the cats which he had drawn. And then,
+    also, for the first time, he understood why the wise old
+    priest had said to him: "Avoid large places at night;--keep
+    to small."
+
+    Afterwards that boy became a very famous artist. Some of the
+    cats which he drew are still shown to travellers in Japan.
+
+At once upon reaching Japan (it is plain Hearn never forgave me for
+compelling him to go) begin the complaints of the downright hard work of
+writing, consequent upon the loss of ideals. He breaks with
+publishers--an old-time story; he is losing his inspiration, and his
+only hope is that it will return to him again; in any Latin country he
+could at once, he thinks, get back the much coveted "thrill," or
+_frisson_. He would at last even relish the hated United States. From
+the beginning he tires of the Japanese character, and grows more and
+more tired the longer he stays; it has no depth, this thin soul-stream;
+it is incapable of long-sustained effort, prolonged study; he cannot
+much longer endure Japanese officialism; and the official "is something
+a good deal lower than a savage and meaner than the straight-out Western
+rough." He would wish never to write a line again about any Japanese
+subjects. Things finally came to such a pass that the only successful
+stimulus to work was that some one should do or say something horribly
+mean to him, and the force of the hurt could be measured in the months
+or years of resultant labour. As none ever did a mean thing to him, one
+may suspect that the psychology of his sudden enmities towards others
+was that he must perforce _imagine_ that he had been "horribly" treated.
+
+The old _Wanderlust_, never wholly absent, returns strongly upon him; in
+less than a year he dreams of leaving Japan and his wife, and of
+"wandering about awhile;" he projects "a syndicate" whereby he may go to
+Java (rather than Manila, where the Jesuits were), or, "a French
+colony,--Tonkin, Noumea, or Pondicherry." A tropical trip is planned for
+six months of every year. But the "butterfly-lives" dependent upon him
+prevent, of course. He always spoke of returning often. At the last
+there is a savage growl that after thirteen years of work for Japan, in
+which he had sacrificed everything for her, he was "driven out of the
+service and practically banished from the country."
+
+Hearn's nostalgia for the nowhere or the anywhere was only conquered by
+death. In 1898 the logic of his life, of his misfortune, and character,
+begins to grow plainer, and he "fears being blinded or maimed so as to
+prove of no further use." It seems that if he had been able to do what
+he tried so often, and longed so fervently to do, he would have run away
+into the known or unknown, leaving children, wife, and all the ties that
+bound him to any orderly life. His vision had become almost useless; he
+had lost his lectureship; more and more it grew impossible to coax or
+force out of his mind such beautiful things as in younger days; the
+Furies of his atheism, pessimism, and lovelessness were close on his
+track; the hope of lectureships in the United States had
+failed,--nothing was left, nothing except one thing, which, chosen or
+not, came at the age of fifty-four.
+
+Lessing has said that "Raphael would have been the great painter he was
+even if he had been born without arms," and Burke has told of a poet
+"blind from birth who nevertheless could describe visible objects with a
+spirit and justness excelled by few men blessed with sight." What irony
+of Fate it is that one almost blind should teach us non-users of our
+eyes the wonder and glory of colour; that the irreligious one should
+quicken our faith in the immaterial and unseen; that a sensualist should
+strengthen our trust in the supersensual; that one whose body and life
+were unbeautiful should sing such exquisite songs of silent beauty that
+our straining ears can hardly catch the subtle and unearthly harmonies!
+For Hearn is another of many splendid illustrations of the old truth
+that a man's spirit may be more philosophic than his philosophy, more
+scientific than his science, more religious than his creed, more divine
+than his divinity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--AS A POET
+
+
+THAT Hearn was a true poet none will deny, but it was one of the
+frequent seeming illogicalities of his character that he had no love of
+metric or rhymed poetry. I doubt if there is a single volume of such
+poetry in his library, and I never heard him repeat a line or stanza,
+and never knew him to read a page of what is called poetry. I suspect
+the simple reason was that his necessities compelled him rigidly to
+exclude everything from his world of thought which did not offer
+materials for the remunerating public. He had to make a living, and
+whence tomorrow's income should come was always a vital concern. Poetry
+of the metric and rhymed sort does not make bread and butter; hence
+there was no time to consider even the possibility of "cultivating the
+muses on a little oatmeal."
+
+Of poetry he once wrote:--"The mere ideas and melody of a poem seem to
+me of small moment unless the complex laws of versification be strictly
+obeyed." The dictum, considering its source, is exquisitely ludicrous;
+for Hearn poetry could not be coined into dollars, even if he had had
+the mind and heart to learn anything of "the complex laws of
+versification." Elsewhere he excused his manifest utter ignorance of
+poetry and want of poetic appreciation by saying that there is so little
+really good poetry that it is easy to choose. He confessed his
+detestation of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, preferring Dobson,
+Watson, and Lang. "Of Wordsworth--well, I should smile!" "Refined
+poetry" he held of little or no value, but he found the "vulgar" songs
+of coolies, fishermen, etc., very true and beautiful poetry. He vainly
+tried to translate some of Gautier's poems. He attempted original
+verse-making but a few times, and from my scrap-book I reproduce one of
+the results, kindly furnished me by Mr. Alexander Hill, of Cincinnati,
+to whom it was given by Mr. Tunison. Perhaps it was printed in _Forest
+and Stream_.
+
+
+                           A CREOLE BOAT SONG
+
+    Hot shines the sun o'er the quivering land,
+      No wind comes up from the sea,
+    Silent and stark the pine woods stand,
+      And the mock-bird sleeps in the Mayhaw tree,
+        Where, overhung with brier and vine,
+        The placid waters slip and shine
+        And dimple to thy lover's view--
+        La belle rivière de Calcasieu.
+
+    Under the bending cypress trees,
+      Bedecked with pendulous cool grey moss
+    That woos in vain the recreant breeze
+      And silently mourns its loss.
+        With drowsy eye, in my little boat
+        I dreamily lie, and lazily float
+        Lulled by the thrush's soft Te-rue--
+        On La belle rivière de Calcasieu.
+
+    A heron stands, like a ghost in grey,
+      Knee-deep 'mongst the bending water lilies,
+    And yellow butterflies lightly play
+      'Midst the blooms of fragrant amaryllis;
+        The swift kingfisher winds his reel,
+        Saying his grace for his noonday meal,
+        And a hawk soars up to the welkin blue
+        O'er La belle rivière de Calcasieu.
+
+    Across the point, where the ferry plies,
+      I hear the click of the boatman's oar,
+    And his Creole song, with its quavering rise
+      Re-echoes soft from shore to shore;
+        And this is the rhyme that he idly sings
+        As his boat at anchor lazily swings,
+        For the day is hot, and passers few
+        On La belle rivière de Calcasieu.
+
+    "I ain't got time for make merry, me
+      I ain't got time for make merry;
+    My lill' gall waitin' at de River of Death
+      To meet her ole dad at de ferry.
+        She gwine be dere wid de smile on her face,
+        Like the night she died, when all de place
+        Was lit by the moonbeams shiverin' troo
+        La belle rivière de Calcasieu.
+
+    "O sing dat song! O sing dat song!
+      I ain't got time for make merry!
+    De angel come 'fore berry long,
+      And carr' me o'er de ferry!
+        He come wid de whirlwind in de night--
+        He come wid de streak of de morning light--
+        He find me ready--yass, dass true--
+        By La belle rivière de Calcasieu.
+
+    "Den who got time for make merry, eh?
+      Den who got time for make merry?
+    De fire burn up de light 'ood tree,
+      De bird eat up de berry.
+        Long time ago I make Voudoo,
+        An' I dance Calinda strong and true,
+        But de Lord he pierce me troo and troo
+        On La belle rivière de Calcasieu."
+
+
+In the Watkin letters, Hearn transcribes a poem of six stanzas written
+by himself for the decoration of the soldiers' graves at Chalmette
+Cemetery in 1878.
+
+Far more successful, for obvious reasons, was an attempt at echoing a
+bit of Eastern fancy. A strange, gruesome, Oriental being had caught his
+eye at New Orleans, who translated for him some characteristic Eastern
+verses. Hearn thus rendered them in English:[16]
+
+    [16] From Hearn's manuscript copy through the kindness again of
+         Mr. Tunison and Mr. Hill.
+
+                                THE RUSE
+
+                         From _Amaron Satacum_
+
+    Late at night the lover returns unlooked-for,
+    Full of longing, after that cruel absence;--
+    Finds his darling by her women surrounded;
+                  Enters among them:--
+
+    Only sees his beautiful one, his idol,
+    Speaks no word, but watches her face in silence,
+    Looks with eyes of thirst and with lips of fever
+                  Burning for kisses.
+
+    Late it is; and, nevertheless, the women,
+    Still remaining, weary his ears with laughter,
+    Prattling folly, tantalizing his longing--
+                  Teasing his patience.
+
+    Love weaves ruse in answer to gaze beseeching;--
+    Shrill she screams: "O heaven!--What insect stings so!"
+    And with sudden waft of her robe outshaken,
+                  Blows the vile light out.
+
+I find the following verses in his scrap-book of the New Orleans
+period:[17]
+
+    [17] Dated July 11, 1885.
+
+                               THE MUMMY
+
+                  (After the French of Louis Bouilhet)
+
+    Startled,--as by some far faint din
+      Of azure-lighted worlds, from sleep,
+    The Mummy, trembling, wakes within
+      The hypogeum's blackest deep,--
+
+    And murmurs low, with slow sad voice:
+      "Oh! to be dead and still endure!--
+    Well may the quivering flesh rejoice
+      That feels the vulture's gripe impure!
+
+    "Seeking to enter this night of death,
+      Each element knocks at my granite door:--
+    'We are Earth and Fire and Air,--the breath
+      Of Winds,--the Spirits of sea and shore.
+
+    "'Into the azure, out of the gloom,
+      Rise!--let thine atoms in light disperse!--
+    Blend with the date-palm's emerald plume!--
+      Scatter thyself through the universe!
+
+    "'We shall bear thee far over waste and wold:
+      Thou shalt be lulled to joyous sleep
+    By leaves that whisper in light of gold,
+      By murmur of fountains cool and deep.
+
+    "'Come!--perchance from thy dungeon dark
+      Infinite Nature may wish to gain
+    For the godlike Sun another spark,
+      Another drop for the diamond rain.'
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Woe! mine is death eternal! ... and
+      I feel Them come, as I lie alone,--
+    The Centuries, heavy as drifted sand
+      Heaping above my bed of stone!
+
+    "O be accursed, ye impious race!--
+      Caging the creature that seeks to soar;
+    Preserving agony's weird grimace,
+      In hideous vanity, evermore!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Aux bruits lointains ouvrant l'oreille,
+      Jalouse encor du ciel d'azur,
+    La momie en tremblant s'éveille
+      Au fond de l'hypogée obscur.
+
+    Oh, dit-elle, de sa voix lente,
+      Etre mort, et durer toujours.
+    Heureuse la chaire pantelante
+      Sous l'ongle courbé des vautours.
+
+    Pour plonger dans ma nuit profonde
+      Chaque element frappe en ce lieu.
+    --Nous sommes L'air! nous sommes l'onde!
+      Nous sommes la terre et le feu!
+
+    Viens avec nous, le steppe aride
+      Veut son panache d'arbres verts,
+    Viens sous l'azur du ciel splendide,
+      T'éparpiller dans l'univers.
+
+    Nous t'emporterons par les plaines
+      Nous te bercerons à la fois
+    Dans le murmure des fontaines
+      Et la bruissement des bois.
+
+    Viens. La nature universelle
+      Cherche peut-être en ce tombeau
+    Pour de soleil une étincelle!
+      Pour la mer une goutte d'eau!
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Et dans ma tombe impérissable
+      Je sens venir avec affroi
+    Les siècles lourds comme du sable
+      Qui s'amoncelle autour de moi.
+
+    Ah! sois maudite, race impie,
+      Qui le l'être arrêtant l'essor
+    Gardes ta laideur assoupie
+      Dans la vanité de la mort.
+
+In one of Hearn's letters to the Cincinnati _Commercial_, written soon
+after his arrival in New Orleans, he writes:
+
+    Here is a specimen closely akin to the Creole of the
+    Antilles. It is said to be an old negro love-song, and I
+    think there is a peculiar weird beauty in several of its
+    stanzas. I feel much inclined to doubt whether it was
+    composed by a negro, but the question of its authorship
+    cannot affect its value as a curiosity, and, in any case,
+    its spirit is thoroughly African. Unfortunately, without
+    accented letters it is impossible to convey any idea of the
+    melody, the liquid softness, the languor, of some of the
+    couplets. My translation is a little free in parts.
+
+                                   I
+
+    Dipi me vouer toue, Adèle,
+      Ape danse calinda,
+    Mo reste pour toue fidèle,
+      Liberte a moin caba.
+    Mo pas soussi d'autt negresses,
+      Mo pas gagnin coeur pour yo;
+    Yo gagnin beaucoup finesses;
+      Yo semble serpent Congo.
+
+                                   II
+
+    Mo aime toue trop, ma belle,
+      Mo pas capab resiste;
+    Coeur a moin tout comme sauterelle,
+      Li fait ne qu'appe saute.
+    Mo jamin contre gnoun femme
+      Qui gagnin belle taille comme toue;
+    Jie a ton jete la flamme;
+      Corps a toue enchene moue.
+
+                                  III
+
+    To tant comme serpent sonnette
+      Qui connin charme zozo,
+    Qui gagnin bouche a li prette
+      Pour servi comme gnoun tombo.
+
+    Mo jamin voue gnoun negresse
+      Qui connin marche comme toue,
+    Qui gagnin gnoun si belle gesse;
+      Corps a toue ce gnoun poupe.
+
+                                   IV
+
+    Quand mo pas vouer toue, Adèle,
+      Mo sentt m'ane mourri,
+    Mo vini com' gnoun chandelle
+      Qui ape alle fini:
+    Mo pas vouer rien sur la terre
+      Qui capab moin fait plaisi;
+    Mo capab dans la rivière
+      Jete moin pour pas souffri.
+
+                                   V
+
+    Dis moin si to gagnin n'homme;
+      Mo va fals ouanga pour li;
+    Mo fais li tourne fantome,
+      Si to vle moin pour mari.
+    Mo pas le in jour toue boudeuse;
+      L'autt femme, pour moin ce fatras;
+    Mo va rende toue bien heureuse;
+      Mo va baill' toue bell' madras.
+
+                              TRANSLATION
+
+                                   I
+
+    Since first I beheld you, Adèle,
+    While dancing the _calinda_,
+    I have remained faithful to the thought of you:
+    My freedom has departed from me.
+    I care no longer for all other negresses;
+    I have no heart left for them:
+    You have such grace and cunning:
+    You are like the Congo serpent.
+
+                                   II
+
+    I love you too much, my beautiful one:
+    I am not able to help it.
+    My heart has become just like a grasshopper,
+    It does nothing but leap.
+    I have never met any woman
+    Who has so beautiful a form as yours.
+    Your eyes flash flame;
+    Your body has enchained me captive.
+
+                                  III
+
+    Ah, you are so like the serpent-of-the-rattles
+    Who knows how to charm the little bird,
+    And who has a mouth ever ready for it
+    To serve it for a tomb!
+    I have never known any negress
+    Who could walk with such grace as you can,
+    Or who could make such beautiful gestures:
+    Your body is a beautiful doll.
+
+                                   IV
+
+    When I cannot see you, Adèle,
+    I feel myself ready to die;
+    My life becomes like a candle
+    Which has almost burned itself out.
+    I cannot, then, find anything in the world,
+    Which is able to give me pleasure;--
+    I could well go down to the river
+    And throw myself in it that I might cease to suffer.
+
+                                   V
+
+    Tell me if you have a man;
+    And I will make an _ouanga_ charm for him;
+    I will make him turn into a phantom,
+    If you will only take me for your husband.
+    I will not go to see you when you are cross;
+    Other women are mere trash to me;
+    I will make you very happy,
+    And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief.
+
+I think there is some true poetry in these allusions to the snake. Is
+not the serpent a symbol of grace? Is not the so-called "line of beauty"
+serpentine? And is there not something of the serpent in the beauty of
+all graceful women?--something of undulating shapeliness, something of
+silent fascination?--something of Lilith and Lamia? The French have a
+beautiful verb expressive of this idea, _serpenter_, "to serpent"--to
+curve in changing undulations like a lithe snake. The French artist
+speaks of the outlines of a beautiful human body as "serpenting,"
+curving and winding like a serpent. Do you not like the word? I think it
+is so expressive of flowing lines of elegance--so full of that mystery
+of grace which puzzled Solomon; "the way of a serpent upon a rock."
+
+The allusion to Voudooism in the last stanza especially interested me,
+and I questioned the gentleman who furnished me with the song as to the
+significance of the words: "I will make him turn into a phantom." I had
+fancied that the term _fantome_ might be interpreted by "ghost," and
+that the whole line simply constituted a threat to make some one "give
+up the ghost."
+
+"It is not exactly that," replied my friend; "it is an allusion, I
+believe, to the withering and wasting power of Voudoo poisons. There are
+such poisons actually in use among the negro obi-men--poisons which defy
+analysis, and, mysterious as the poisons of the Borgias, slowly consume
+the victims like a taper. He wastes away as though being dried up; he
+becomes almost mummified; he wanes like a shadow; he turns into a
+phantom in the same sense that a phantom is an unreal mockery of
+something real."
+
+Thus I found an intelligent Louisianan zealous to confirm an opinion to
+which I was permitted to give expression in the _Commercial_ nearly
+three years ago--that a knowledge of secret septic poisons (probably of
+an animal character), which leave no trace discoverable by the most
+skilful chemists, is actually possessed by certain beings who are
+reverenced as sorcerers by the negroes of the West Indies and the
+Southern States, but more especially of the West Indies, where much of
+African fetichism has been transplanted.
+
+                                                    OZIAS MIDWINTER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.--THE POET OF MYOPIA
+
+THE dependence not only of the literary character and workmanship of a
+writer, but even his innermost psyche, upon vision, normal or abnormal,
+is a truth which has been dimly and falteringly felt by several writers.
+Concerning "Madame Bovary," and his friend Flaubert, Maxime du Camp
+reflects some glintings of the truth. But these and others, lacking the
+requisite expert definiteness of knowledge, have failed to catch the
+satisfying and clear point of view. To illustrate I may quote the
+paragraph of du Camp:
+
+"The literary procedure of Flaubert threw everybody off the track and
+even some of the experts. But it was a very simple matter; it was by the
+accumulation and the superposition of details that he arrived at power.
+It is the physiologic method, the method of the myopes who look at
+things one after the other, very exactly, and then describe them
+successively. The literature of imagination may be divided into two
+distinct schools, that of the myopes and that of the hyperopes. The
+myopes see minutely, study every line, finding each detail of importance
+because everything appears to them in isolation; about them is a sort of
+cloud in which is detached the object in exaggerated proportions. They
+have, as it were, a microscope in their eye which enlarges everything.
+The description of Venice from the Campanile of St. Mark, that of
+Destitution in 'Captain Fracasse,' by Gautier are the capital results of
+myopic vision. The hyperopes, on the other hand, look at the _ensemble_,
+in which the details are lost, and form a kind of general harmony. The
+detail loses all significance, except perhaps they seek to bring it into
+relief as a work of art.... Besides, the myopes seek to portray
+sensations, while the hyperopes especially aim at analysis of the
+sentiments. If a hyperopic writer suddenly becomes myopic, his manner of
+thinking, and consequently of writing, at once is modified. What I call
+the school of the myopes, Gautier names the school of the rabids. He
+said to Mérimée: 'Your characters have no muscles,' and Mérimée
+answered, 'Yours have no draperies.'"
+
+But there is one consequence, common both to Flaubert and to Hearn, a
+most strange unity of result flowing from a seemingly opposed but really
+identical cause in the two men. I have elsewhere set forth the reasons
+for my belief that the secret of Flaubert's life, character, and
+literary art consisted in an inability to think and write at the same
+time. He was one of the most healthy and brilliant of men when he did
+not read or write, but his mind refused to act creatively whenever he
+wrote or read. From this resulted his epilepsy. Fathered by the fear of
+this disease, mothered by opium, and reared by unhygiene and eye-strain,
+came the miserable "St. Anthony" of the second remaking. In the failure
+of this pitiful work there was naught left except bottomless pessimism,
+the "cadenced phrase," and all the rest, called "Madame Bovary" and "art
+for art's sake."
+
+There never was a greater sufferer from eye-strain than Flaubert, whose
+eyes were strikingly beautiful, and seemingly of extraordinary
+perfection as optical instruments. From this fact flowed the entire
+tragedy of the man's life and of his life-work. His friend du Camp says
+that had it not been for his disease he would have been, not a writer of
+great talent, but a man of genius. Hearn had the most defective
+eyesight, he was indeed nearly blind; but physically he suffered little
+from this cause,--and yet his choice of subjects and methods of literary
+workmanship, and every line he wrote, were dictated and ruled by his
+defect of vision. Opium, with the impossibility of writing and creating
+at the same time, dominated Flaubert's work and working, and the similar
+result was begot by Hearn's enormous monocular myopia.
+
+From Martinique, before I had met him, Hearn wrote me:
+
+    I am very near-sighted, have lost one eye, which disfigures
+    me considerably; and my near-sightedness always prevented
+    the gratification of a natural _penchant_ for physical
+    exercise. I am a good swimmer, that is all.
+
+    In reply to nearly all the questions about my
+    near-sightedness I might answer, "Yes." I had the best
+    advice in London, and observe all the rules you suggest.
+    Glasses strain the eye too much--part of retina is gone. The
+    other eye was destroyed by a blow at college; or, rather, by
+    inflammation consequent upon the blow. I can tell you more
+    about myself when I see you, but the result will be more
+    curious than pleasing. Myopia is not aggravating.
+
+In "Shadowings," the chapter on "Nightmare-Touch," Hearn describes with
+his gift of the living word the dreams and hauntings he endured when as
+a boy he was shut in his room in the dark. It is a pitiful history, and
+shows how a child may suffer atrociously from the combination of an
+abnormally exuberant fancy and eye-strain, probably with added ocular
+disease. The subjective sensations and images were alive and Hearn's
+innate tendency to the horrible and hideous gave them the most awful of
+nightmarish realities.
+
+I have already given (facing page 5) a copy of a little photograph of
+Hearn at about the age of eight, standing by Mrs. Brenane. It will be
+seen that the right eyeball was at this time about as large and
+protruding as in later life. This leaves a doubt whether the destruction
+of the left was due to the blow at college at the age of sixteen. In one
+of my letters he uses the word "scrofulous" in alluding to himself.
+
+It was not only during the last years of his life, that, as he says, "it
+was now largely a question of eyes." It was always the most important of
+all questions; first, physically and financially, because all hung upon
+his ability to write many hours a day. How his little of visual power
+was preserved under the work done is a marvel of physiology. So
+unconscious was Hearn of the influence of eye-strain in ruining the
+health of others (he himself had no eye-strain in the ordinary meaning
+of the term) that he wonders why the hard students about him were
+inexplainably dying, going mad, getting sick, and giving up their
+studies. This is hardly to be considered a fault of Hearn when educators
+and physicians and oculists the world over, never suspect the reason.
+
+Moved by sympathy, and perhaps by the vaguest feeling that to Hearn's
+poor vision were due, in part at least, both his personal and literary
+characteristics, I early besought him to make use of scientific optical
+helps in order to see the world better, and to carry on his writing with
+greater ease, and with less danger to the little vision left him. He had
+but one eye, which was evidently enormously nearsighted. The other had
+been lost in youth. I found that he had about 25 diopters of myopia, to
+use the jargon of the oculist, and that consequently he knew little
+about the appearance of objects even a few feet away. In writing he was
+compelled to place the paper or pen-point about three inches from his
+eye. With the proper lens it was possible to give him vision of distant
+objects about one-fourth as clear as that of normal eyes. For a minute
+my disappointment was equal to my surprise when I found that he did not
+wish to see with even this wretched indistinctness, and that he would
+not think of using spectacles or eyeglasses. Later I found the reason
+for his action. He sometimes carried a little lens or monocle in his
+pocket, which somewhat bettered his vision, but in the several months he
+spent with me I saw him use it only once or twice, and then merely for
+an instant. I am almost sure that the reason for this preference for a
+world almost unseen, or seen only in colours, while form and outline
+were almost unknown, was never conscious with Hearn, although his mind
+was alert in detecting such psychologic solutions in others. In studying
+his writings, this reason finally has become clear to me.
+
+When one chooses an artistic calling, Fate usually, and to the artist
+unconsciously, dictates the kind of art-work and the method of carrying
+it to realization. The blind do not choose to be painters, but
+musicians; the deaf do not think of music, though nothing prevents them
+from being good painters. The dumb would hardly become orators or
+singers, but they might easily be sculptors, or painters, or designers.
+It is as evident that the poet is largely a visualizer, if one may so
+designate this psychic function, and without sight of the world of
+reality and beauty, poetry will inevitably lack the charm of the real
+and the lovely. Every great writer, in truth, shows more or less clearly
+that the spring and secret of his imagination lie preponderantly in the
+exceptional endowment, training, or sensitiveness of one of the
+principal senses of sight, hearing, or touch. A thousand quotations
+might be made from each of a dozen great writers to prove the thesis.
+The man born blind, however, cannot become a poet, because true poetry
+must be conditioned upon things seen--"simple, sensuous, and passionate"
+demands the great critic; but interwoven and underrunning the
+simplicity, the passion, and the sense, is and must be the world as
+mirrored by the eye. All thinking, all intellectual activity, is by no
+means of the image and the picture; all words are the product of the
+imagining, and the very letters of the alphabet are conventionalized
+pictures.
+
+Physiologically, or normally, the perfection of the artist and of his
+workmanship thus depends upon the all-round perfection of his senses,
+the fulness of the materials and of his experience which these work on
+and in, and the logical and æsthetic rightness of systematization.
+Conversely, a new pathology of genius is coming into view which shows
+the morbidizing of art and literature through disease, chiefly of the
+sense-organs of the artist and literary workman, but also by unnatural
+living, selfishness, sin, and the rest. As Hearn was probably the most
+myopic literary man that has existed, his own thoughts upon _The
+Artistic_ _Value of Myopia_ are of peculiar interest. In 1887 one of
+his editorials in the _Times-Democrat_ runs as follows:--
+
+    Probably more than one reader, on coming to page 15 of
+    Philip Gilbert Hamerton's delightful book, "Landscape," was
+    startled by the author's irrefutable statement that "the
+    possession of very good eyesight may be a hindrance to
+    those feelings of sublimity that exalt the poetic
+    imagination." The fact is, that the impressiveness of
+    natural scenery depends a great deal upon the apparent
+    predominance of _mass_ over _detail_, to borrow Mr.
+    Hamerton's own words; the more visible the details of a
+    large object,--a mountain, a tower, a forest wall, the less
+    grand and impressive that object. The more apparently
+    uniform the mass, the larger it seems to loom; the vaguer a
+    shadow-space, the deeper it appears. An impression of
+    weirdness,--such as that obtainable in a Louisiana or
+    Florida swamp-forest, or, much more, in those primeval and
+    impenetrable forest-deeps described so powerfully by
+    Humbolt,--is stronger in proportion to the spectator's
+    indifference to lesser detail. The real effect of the scene
+    must be a _general_ one to be understood. In painting, the
+    artist does not attempt miscroscopic _minutiæ_ in treating
+    forest-forms; he simply attempts to render the effect of
+    the masses, with their characteristic generalities of
+    shadow and colour. It is for this reason the photograph can
+    never supplant the painting--not even when the art of
+    photographing natural colours shall have been discovered.
+    Mr. Hamerton cites the example of a mountain, which always
+    seems more imposing when wreathed in mists or half veiled
+    by clouds, than when cutting sharply against the horizon
+    with a strong light upon it. Half the secret of Doré's
+    power as an illustrator was his exaggerated perception of
+    this fact,--his comprehension of the artistic witchcraft of
+    _suggestion_. And since the perception of details depends
+    vastly upon the quality of eyesight, a landscape
+    necessarily suggests less to the keen-sighted man than to
+    the myope. The keener the view, the less depth in the
+    impression produced. There is no possibility of mysterious
+    attraction in wooded deeps or mountain recesses for the eye
+    that, like the eye of the hawk, pierces shadow and can note
+    the separate quiver of each leaf. Far-seeing persons can,
+    to a certain degree, comprehend this by recalling the
+    impressions given in twilight by certain unfamiliar, or by
+    even familiar objects,--such as furniture and clothing in a
+    half-lighted room. The suggestiveness of form vanishes
+    immediately upon the making of a strong light. Again,
+    attractive objects viewed vaguely through a morning or
+    evening haze, or at a great distance, often totally lose
+    artistic character when a telescope is directed upon them.
+
+    In the February number of _Harper's Magazine_ we find a very
+    clever and amusing poem by the scholarly Andrew Lang upon
+    this very theme. The writer, after describing the
+    christening-gifts of various kindly fairies, tells us that
+    the wicked one--
+
+              --Said: "I shall be avenged on you.
+            My child, you shall grow up nearsighted!"
+              With magic juices did she lave
+            Mine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.
+              Well, of all the gifts the Fairies gave,
+            _Her's_ is the present that I treasure!
+
+            The bore, whom others fear and flee,
+              I do not fear, I do not flee him;
+            I pass him calm as calm can be;
+              I do not cut--I do not see him!
+            And with my feeble eyes and dim,
+              Where _you_ see patchy fields and fences,
+            For me the mists of Turner swim--
+              _My_ "azure distance" soon commences!
+            Nay, as I blink about the streets
+             Of this befogged and miry city,
+            Why, almost every girl one meets
+              Seems preternaturally pretty!
+            "Try spectacles," one's friends intone;
+              "You'll see the world correctly through them."
+            But I have visions of my own
+              And not for worlds would I undo them!
+
+    This is quite witty and quite consoling to myopes, even as a
+    cynical development of Philip Gilbert Hamerton's artistic
+    philosophy. Still, it does not follow that the myope
+    necessarily possesses the poetic faculty or
+    feeling;--neither does it imply that the presbyope
+    necessarily lacks it. If among French writers, for example,
+    Gautier was notably nearsighted, Victor Hugo had an eye as
+    keen as a bird's. It is true that a knowledge of the effect
+    of shortsightedness on the imagination may be of benefit to
+    a nearsighted man, who, possessing artistic qualities, can
+    learn to take all possible advantage of his myopia,--to
+    utilize his physical disability to a good purpose; but the
+    longsighted artist need not be at a loss to find equally
+    powerful sources of inspiration--he can seek them in morning
+    mists, evening fogs, or those wonderful hazes of summer
+    afternoons, when the land sends up all its vapours to the
+    sun, like a smoke of gold. Beaudelaire, in his _Curiosités
+    Esthétiques_, made an attempt to prove that the greatest
+    schools of painting were evolved among hazy
+    surroundings--Dutch fogs, Venetian mists, and the vapours of
+    Italian marsh-lands.
+
+    The evolutionary tendency would seem to indicate for future
+    man a keener vision than he at present possesses; and a
+    finer perception of colour--for while there may be certain
+    small emotional advantages connected with myopia, it is a
+    serious hindrance in practical life. What effect keener
+    sight will have on the artistic powers of the future man,
+    can only be imagined--but an increasing tendency to realism
+    in art is certainly perceptible; and perhaps an interesting
+    chapter could be written upon the possible results to art of
+    perfected optical instruments. The subject also suggests
+    another idea,--that the total inability of a certain class
+    of highly educated persons to feel interest in a certain
+    kind of art production may be partly accounted for by the
+    possession of such keen visual perception as necessarily
+    suppresses the sensation of breadth of effect, either in
+    landscape or verbal description.
+
+Thus, according to Flaubert, the myope looks at things one after another
+and describes details, while Hearn says the exact opposite. Both are
+wrong. The oculist will feel constrained to differ somewhat from Hearn
+in the foregoing article.
+
+In May 1887 he reviews editorially an article of my own which I had sent
+him during the preceding year. Again, because there has never been a
+literary artist with a colour-sense so amazingly developed as that of
+Hearn, I venture to copy his commendation of my views:
+
+
+                          COLOURS AND EMOTIONS
+
+                             (May 8, 1887)
+
+    The evolutionary history of the Colour-Sense, very prettily
+    treated of by Grant Allen and others, both in regard to the
+    relation between fertilization of flowers by insects, and
+    in regard to the æsthetic pleasure of man in contemplating
+    certain colours, has also been considered in a very
+    thorough way by American thinkers. Perhaps the most
+    entertaining and instructive paper yet published on the
+    subject was one in the _American Journal of Ophthalmology_
+    last September. It has just been reprinted in pamphlet
+    form, under the title of "The Human Colour-Sense as the
+    Organic Response to Natural Stimuli;" and contains a
+    remarkable amplification of these theories, rather
+    suggested than laid down by the author of "Physiological
+    Æsthetics." Of course, the reader whom the subject can
+    interest, comprehends that outside of the mind no such
+    thing as colour exists; and that the phenomena of colours,
+    like those of sound, are simply the results of exterior
+    impressions upon nerve apparatus specially sensitive to
+    vibrations--in the one case of ether, in the other of air.
+    Everybody, moreover,--even those totally ignorant of the
+    physiology of the eye--know that certain colours are called
+    primary or elementary. But it has probably occurred to few
+    to ask why,--except in regard to mixing of paints in a
+    drawing-school.
+
+    The theories of Gladstone and Magnus that the men of the
+    Homeric era were colour-blind, because of the absence from
+    the Homeric poems of certain words expressive of certain
+    colours, have been disproved by more thorough modern
+    research. The primitive man's sense of colour, or the
+    sensitiveness of his retina to ether vibrations, may not
+    have been as fine as that of the Roman mosaic-worker who
+    could select his materials of 30,000 different tints, nor as
+    that of Gobelin weavers, who can recognize 28,000 different
+    shades of wool. But the evidence goes to show that the sense
+    of colour is old as the gnawing of hunger or the pangs of
+    fear,--old as the experience that taught living creatures to
+    discern food and to flee from danger. There is, however,
+    reason to suppose, from certain developmental phenomena
+    observed in the eyes of children and newly-born animals,
+    that the present condition of the colour-sense has been
+    gradually reached--not so much in any particular species, as
+    in all species possessing it,--just as vision itself must
+    have been gradually acquired. Also showy colours must have
+    been perceived before tints could be discerned; and even now
+    we know through the spectroscope, that the human eye is not
+    yet developed to the fullest possible perceptions of colour.
+    Now the first colours recognized by the first eyes must have
+    presumably been just those we call primary,--Yellow, Red,
+    Green, Blue. Yellow, the colour of gold, is also the colour
+    of our sun; the brightest daylight has a more or less faint
+    tinge even at noon, according to the state of the
+    atmosphere;--and this tinge deepens at sunrise and sunset.
+    Red is the colour of blood,--a colour allied necessarily
+    from time immemorial with violent mental impressions,
+    whether of war, or love, or the chase, or religious
+    sacrifice. Green itself is the colour of the world.
+    Blue,--the blue of the far away sky,--has necessarily always
+    been for man the colour mysterious and holy,--always
+    associated with those high phenomena of heaven which first
+    inspired wonder and fear of the Unknown. These colours were
+    probably first known to intelligent life; and their
+    impressions are to-day the strongest. So violent, indeed,
+    have they become to our refined civilized sense, that in
+    apparel or decoration three of them, at least, are
+    condemned when offered pure. Even the armies of the world
+    are abandoning red uniforms;--no refined people wear flaming
+    crimsons or scarlets or yellows;--nobody would paint a house
+    or decorate a wall with a solid sheet of strong primary
+    colour. Blue is still the least violent, the most agreeable
+    to the artistic sense; and in subdued form it holds a place,
+    in costume and in art, refused to less spiritual colours.
+
+    It might consequently be expected there should exist some
+    correlation between the primary colours and the stronger
+    emotional states of man. And such, indeed, proves to be the
+    case. Emotionally the colours come in the order of Red,
+    Yellow, Green, Blue. Red still appeals to the idea of
+    Passion,--for which very reason its artistic use is being
+    more and more restrained. Very curious are the researches
+    made by Grant Allen showing the fact of the sensual use of
+    the red. In Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads "(the same
+    suppressed work republished in this country under its first
+    title, "Laus Veneris"), the red epithets appear 159 times,
+    while gold, green and blue words occur respectively 143, 86
+    and 25 times. In Tennyson's beautiful poem, "The Princess,"
+    the red words occur only 20 times, the gold 28, the green 5,
+    the blue once. With all his exquisite sense of colour,
+    Tennyson is sparing of adjectives;--there is no false skin
+    to his work; it is solid muscle and bone.
+
+    Next to Red, the most emotional colour is Yellow--the colour
+    of life, and of what men seem to prize next to life,--Gold.
+    We fancy we can live without green sometimes; it comes
+    third; but it is the hue associated with all the labours of
+    man on the earth, since he began to labour. It is the colour
+    of Industry. Blue has always been, since man commenced to
+    think, and always will be, until he shall have ceased to
+    think,--associated with his spiritual sense,--his idea of
+    many gods or of One,--his hopes of a second life, his faith,
+    his good purposes, his perception of duty. Still, all who
+    pray, turn up their faces toward the eternal azure. And with
+    the modern expansion of the Idea of God, as with the modern
+    expansion of the Idea of the Universe, the violet gulf of
+    space ever seems more mystical,--its pure colour more and
+    more divine, and appeals to us as the colour of the
+    Unknowable,--the colour of the Holy of Holies.
+
+That Hearn wrote not from his own experience, out of his own heart, and
+with its blood, was due to the fact that life had denied him the needed
+experience; the personal materials, those that would interest the
+imaginative or imagining reader, did not exist. He must borrow, at
+first literally, which for him meant translation or retelling. The kind
+of things chosen was also dictated by the tragedy and pathos of his
+entire past life. But as if this pitiful tangling of the strands of
+Destiny were not enough, Fate added a knot of still more controlling
+misfortune. His adult life was passed without the poet's most necessary
+help of good vision. Indeed he had such extremely poor vision that one
+might say it was only the merest fraction of the normal. A most hazy
+blur of colours was all he perceived of objects beyond a foot or two
+away. There was left for him the memory of a world of forms as seen in
+his childhood; but that fact throws into relief the fact that it was a
+memory. It needs little psychologic acumen to realize how inaccurate
+would be our memories of trees, landscapes, mountains, oceans, cities,
+and the rest, seen only thirty years ago. How unsatisfying, how
+unreliable, especially for artistic purposes, must such memories be! To
+be sure, these haunting and dim recollections were, or might have been,
+helped out a little by pictures and photographs studied at the distance
+of three inches from the eye. The pathos of this, however, is increased
+by the fact that Hearn cared nothing for such photographs, etchings,
+engravings, etc. I never saw him look at one with attention or interest.
+Paintings, water-colours, etc., were as useless to him as the natural
+views themselves.
+
+Another way that he might have supplemented his infirmity was by means
+of his monocle, but he made little use of this poor device, because he
+instinctively recognized that it aided so meagrely. One cannot be sure
+how consciously he refused the help, or knew the reasons for his
+refusal. At best it could give him only a suggestion of the accurate
+knowledge which our eyes give us of distant objects, and not even his
+sensitive mind could know that it minimized the objects thus seen, and
+almost turned them into a caricaturing microscopic smallness, like that
+produced when we look through the large end of an opera-glass. What
+would we think of the world if we carried before our eyes an opera-glass
+thus inverted? Would not a second's such use be as foolish as continuous
+use? There was an optical and sensible reason for his refusal. With the
+subtle wisdom of the unconscious he refused to see plainly, because his
+successful work, his unique function, lay in the requickening of ancient
+sorrows, and of lost, aimless and errant souls. He supplemented the
+deficiencies of vision with a vivid imagination, a perfect memory, and a
+perfection of touch which gave some sense of solidity and content, and
+by hearing, that echo-like emphasized unreality; but his world was
+essentially a two-dimensional one. To add the _comble_ to his ocular
+misfortunes, he had but one eye, and therefore he had no stereoscopic
+vision, and hence almost no perception of solidity, thickness, or
+content except such as was gained by the sense of touch, memory,
+judgment, etc. The little glimpse of stereoscopic qualities was made
+impossible by the fact of his enormous myopia, and further by the
+comparative blindness to objects beyond a few inches or a few feet away
+from the eye. The small ball becomes flat when brought sufficiently near
+the eye. Practically the world beyond a few feet was not a
+three-dimensional one; it was coloured it is true, and bewilderingly so,
+but it was formless and flat, without much thickness or solidity, and
+almost without perspective.[18] Moreover, Hearn's single eye was
+divergent, and more of the world to his left side was invisible to him
+than to other single-eyed persons. Most noteworthy also is another
+fact,--the slowness of vision by a highly myopic eye. It takes it longer
+to see what it finally does see than in the case of other eyes. So all
+the movements of such a myopic person must be slow and careful, for he
+is in doubt about everything under foot, or even within reach of the
+hands. Hearn's myopia produced his manners.
+
+    [18] I have gathered, but must omit, a hundred illuminating
+         quotations from Hearn's writings, illustrating the truth of
+         the formlessness and non-objectivity of his world, and how
+         colour dominated his poorly seen universe.
+
+Intellect, one must repeat, is largely, almost entirely, the product of
+vision,--especially the æsthetic part of intellect. And intellect, it
+should not be forgotten, is "desiccated emotion"; which brings us up
+sharply before the question of the effect upon æsthetic and general
+feeling, upon the soft swirl and lift and flitting rush of the emotional
+nature, in a psyche so sensitive and aerial as that of Hearn. In this
+rare ether one loses the significance of words, and the limitations of
+logic, but it may not be doubted that in the large, the summarized
+effect of thirty years of two-dimensional seeing and living, of a flat,
+formless, coloured world, upon the immeasurably quick, sensitive plate
+of Hearn's mind, was--well, it was what it was!
+
+And who can describe that mind! Clearly and patently, it was a mind
+without creative ability, spring, or the desire for it. It was a mind
+improcreant by inheritance and by education, by necessity and by
+training, by poverty internal and external. To enable its master to
+live, it must write, and, as was pitifully evident, if it could not
+write in obedience to a creative instinct, it must do the next best
+thing. This residual second was to describe the external world, or at
+least so much of the externals of all worlds, physical, biological, or
+social, as romance or common-sense demanded to make the writing vivid,
+accurate, and bodied. Any good literature, especially the poetic, must
+be based on reality, must at least incidentally have its running
+obligato of reality. For the poet, again emphasized, vision is the
+intermediary, the broad, bright highway to facts. Prosaically, local
+colour requires the local seer. Barred from this divine roadway to and
+through the actual universe, the foiled mind of Hearn could choose but
+one course: to regarment, transform, and colour the world, devised and
+transmitted by others, and reversing the old [Greek: o logos sarx
+egeneto] rewrite the history of the soul as [Greek: sarx o logos
+egeneto], for in Hearn's alembic the solidest of flesh was "melted" and
+escaped in clouds of spirit; it was indeed often so disembodied and
+freed that one is lost in wonder at the mere vision of the cloudland so
+eerie, so silent, so void, so invisibly far, and fading ever still
+farther away. But, chained to the _here_ Hearn could not march on the
+bright road. He could never even see the road, or its ending. If freed
+to go, _there_ became _here_ with the intolerable limitation of his
+vision, the peculiarity of his unvision. The world, the world of the
+_there_ must be brought to him, and in the bringing it became the
+_here_. In the process, distant motion or action became dead, silent,
+and immobile being; distance was transformed to presence, and an
+intimacy of presence which at one blow destroyed scene, setting, and
+illumination. For, except to passionate love, nearness and touch are not
+poetical or transfiguring, and to Hearn love never could come; at least
+it never did come. Except in boyhood he never, with any accuracy of
+expression or life, saw a human face; at the best, he saw faces only in
+the frozen photographs, and these interested him little.
+
+With creative instinct or ability denied, with the poet's craving for
+open-eyed knowing, and with the poet's necessity of realizing the world
+out there, Hearn, baldly stated, was forced to become the poet of
+myopia. His groping mind was compelled to rest satisfied with the world
+of distance and reality transported by the magic carpet to the door of
+his imagination and fancy. There in a flash it was melted to formless
+spirit, recombined to soul, and given the semblance of a thin
+reincarnation, fashioned, refashioned, coloured, recoloured. There, lo!
+that incomparable wonder of art, the haunting, magical essence of
+reality, the quivering, elusive protean ghost of the tragedy of dead
+pain, the smile of a lost universe murmuring _non dolet_ while it dies
+struck by the hand of the beloved murderer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.--HEARN'S STYLE
+
+
+"THE 'lovers of the antique loveliness,'" wrote Hearn, "are proving to
+me the future possibilities of a long-cherished dream--the English
+realization of a Latin style, modelled upon foreign masters, and
+rendered even more forcible by that element of _strength_ which is the
+characteristic of the northern tongues." "I think that Genius must have
+greater attributes than mere creative power to be called to the front
+rank,--the thing created must be beautiful; it does not satisfy if the
+material be rich. I cannot content myself with ores and rough jewels,
+etc." "It has long been my aim to create something in English fiction
+analogous to that warmth of colour and richness of imagery hitherto
+peculiar to Latin literature. Being of a meridional race myself, a
+Greek, I _feel_ rather with the Latin race than with the Anglo-Saxon;
+and trust that with time and study I may be able to create something
+different from the stone-grey and somewhat chilly style of latter-day
+English or American romance." "The volume, 'Chinese Ghosts,' is an
+attempt in the direction I hope to make triumph some day, _poetical
+prose_." "A man's style, when fully developed, is part of his
+personality. Mine is being shaped to a particular end."
+
+Hearn advised the use of the etymological dictionary in order to secure
+"that subtle sense of words to which much that _startles_ in poetry and
+prose is due." But although always remaining an artist in words, he, at
+his best, came to know that artistic technique in ideas is a more
+certain method of arousing and holding the readers' interest. He also
+strongly urges a knowledge of Science as more necessary to the formation
+of a strong style. In this, however, he never practised what he
+commended, because he had no mind for Science, nor knowledge of
+scientific things. He spoke with pride of writing the scientific
+editorials for his paper, but they were few and may quickly be ignored.
+
+Flaubert was Hearn's literary deity; the technique of the two men was
+identical, and consisted of infinite pains with data, in
+phrase-building, sentence-making, and word-choosing. With no writer was
+the filing of the line ever carried to higher perfection than with both
+master and pupil; fortunately the younger had to make his living by his
+pen, and therefore he could not wreck himself upon the impossible task
+as did Flaubert. For nothing is more certain to ruin style and content,
+form as well as matter, than to make style and form the first
+consideration of a writer. Flaubert, the fashion-maker and supreme
+example of this school, came at last to recognize this truth, and wished
+that he might buy up and destroy all copies of "Madame Bovary;" and he
+summed up the unattainableness of the ideal, as well as the resultant
+abysmal pessimism, when he said that "form is only an error of sense,
+and substance a fancy of your thought." His ever-repeated "Art has no
+morality," "The moment a thing is true it is good," "Style is an
+absolute method of seeing things," "The idea exists only by virtue of
+its form," etc., led Flaubert and his thousand imitators into the
+quagmire which Zola, Wilde, Shaw, and decadent journalism generally so
+admirably illustrate. That Hearn escaped from the bog is due to several
+interesting reasons, the chief being his poverty, which compelled him to
+write much, and his audience, which, being Anglo-Saxon (and therefore
+properly and thoroughly cursed), would not buy the elegant pornography
+of Flaubert and the gentlemen who succeeded, or did not succeed, in the
+perfection of the worship and of the works of the master of them all.
+And then Hearn was himself at least part Anglo-Saxon, so that he shrank
+from perfection in the method.
+
+There is a pathetic proof of the lesson doubly repeated in the lives of
+both Flaubert and Hearn. "St. Anthony" was rewritten three times, and
+each time the failures might be called, great, greater, greatest. There
+lies before me Hearn's manuscript translation of the third revision of
+the work, in two large volumes, with a printed pamphlet of directions to
+the printer, an Introduction, etc.,--a great labour assuredly on Hearn's
+part. No publisher could be found to give it to the world of English
+readers![19] Moreover, there was never in his life any personal
+happiness, romance, poetry, or satisfaction which could serve as the
+material of Hearn's æsthetic faculty. Almost every hour of that life had
+been lived in physical or mental anguish, denied desire, crushed
+yearnings, and unguided waywardness. Born of a Greek mother, and a
+roving English father, his childhood was passed in an absurd French
+school where another might have become a dwarfed and potted Chinese
+tree. Flung upon the alien world of the United States in youth, without
+self-knowledge, experience, or self-guiding power, he drank for years
+all the bitter poisons of poverty, banality, and the rest, which may not
+shatter the moral and mental health of strong and coarse natures. By
+nature and necessity shy beyond belief, none may imagine the poignant
+sufferings he endured, and how from it all he writhed at last to manhood
+and self-consciousness, preserved a weird yet real beauty of soul, a
+morbid yet genuine artist-power, a child-like and childish, yet most
+involuted and mysterious heart, a supple and subtle, yet illogical and
+contentless intellect.
+
+    [19] Particulars concerning the manuscript translation of "St.
+         Anthony" are given in the Bibliography of Miss Stedman,
+         Hearn's "Argument" of the book being reprinted in full.
+
+The most striking evidence of the pathetic and unmatched endowment and
+experience is that, while circumstance dictated that he should be a
+romancer, no facts in his own life could be used as his material. There
+had been no romance, no love, no happiness, no interesting personal
+data, upon which he could draw to give his imagination play, vividness,
+actuality, or even the semblance of reality. So sombre and tragic,
+moreover, had been his own living that the choice of his themes could
+only be of unhealthy, almost unnatural, import and colouring. He
+therefore chose to work over the imaginings of other writers, and
+perforce of morbid ones.
+
+A glance at his library confirms the opinion. When Hearn left for Japan,
+he turned over to me several hundred volumes which he had collected and
+did not wish to take with him. His most-prized books he had had
+especially rebound in dainty morocco covers, and these, particularly,
+point to the already established taste, the yearning for the strange,
+the weird, and the ghost-like, the gathered and pressed exotic flowers
+of folklore, the banalities and morbidities of writers with unleashed
+imaginations, the love of antique religions and peoples, the mysteries
+of mystics, the descriptions of savage life and rites--all mixed with
+dictionaries, handbooks, systems of philosophy, etc.
+
+Under the conditioning factor of his taste, it is true that his choice,
+or his _flair_, was unique and inerrant. He tracked his game with fatal
+accuracy to its lair. His literary sense was perfect, when he set it in
+action, and this is his unique merit. There has never been a mind more
+infallibly sure to find the best in all literatures, the best of the
+kind he sought, and probably his translations of the stories from the
+French are as perfect as can be.
+
+His second published volume, the "Stray Leaves from Strange Literature,"
+epitomizes and reillumines this first period of his literary
+workmanship. The material, the basis, is not his own; it is drawn from
+the fatal Orient, and tells of love, jealousy, hate, bitter and burning
+vengeance, and death, sudden and awful. Over it is the wondrous mystical
+glamour in which he, like his elder brother Coleridge, was so expert in
+sunsetting these dead days and deathless themes. His next book, "Some
+Chinese Ghosts," was a reillustration of the same searching, finding,
+and illuminating.
+
+Flaubert's choice of subjects, as regards his essential character, was
+of the most extreme illogicality; his cadenced phrase and meticulous
+technique were also not the product of his character or of his freedom.
+In the Land of Nowhere, Hearn was likewise compelled to reside, and it
+was necessarily a land of colour and echo, not one of form. The
+suffering Frenchman emptied of inhabitants or deimpersonalized his alien
+country, while the more healthy Anglo-Saxon peopled it with ghosts.
+"Have you ever experienced the historic shudder?" asked Flaubert. "I
+seek to give your ghost a ghostly shudder," said Hearn. Flaubert
+wrote:--
+
+"The artist should be in his work, like God in creation, invisible and
+all-powerful; he should be felt everywhere and seen nowhere.
+
+"Art should be raised above personal affections and nervous
+susceptibilities. It is time to give it the perfection of the physical
+sciences by means of pitiless method."
+
+And Hearn's first and most beloved "Avatar," and his most serious "St.
+Anthony"--works dealing with the mysteries and awesomeness of
+disembodied souls and ideals--"could not get themselves printed."
+Moreover, in all that he afterwards published there are the haunting
+far-away, the soft concealing smile, and the unearthly memories of pain,
+the detached spirits of muted and transmuted dead emotions, and denied
+yearnings, the formless colourings of half-invisible and evanishing
+dreams.
+
+For with Hearn's lack of creative ability, married to his inexperience
+of happiness, he could but choose the darksome, the tragical elements of
+life, the [Greek: pathos] even of religion, as his themes. His intellect
+being a reflecting, or at least a recombining and colouring faculty, his
+datum must be sought without, and it must be brought to him; his
+joyless and even his tragic experience compelled him to cull from the
+mingled sad and bright only the pathetic or pessimistic subjects; his
+physical and optical imprisonment forbade that objectivation and
+distinctive embodiment which stamp an art work with the seal of reality,
+and make it stand there wholly non-excusing, or else offering itself as
+its own excuse for being. True art must have the warp of materiality,
+interwoven with the woof of life, or else the coloration and designs of
+the imagination cannot avail to dower it with immortality.
+
+Working within the sad limits his Fates had set, Hearn performed
+wonders. None has made tragedy so soft and gentle, none has rendered
+suffering more beautiful, none has dissolved disappointment into such
+painless grief, none has blunted the hurt of mortality with such a
+delightful anæsthesia, and by none have death and hopelessness been more
+deftly figured in the guise of a desirable Nirvâna. The doing of this
+was almost a unique doing, the manner of the [Greek: poiêsis] was
+assuredly so, and constitutes Hearn's claim to an artist's "For ever."
+He would have made no claim, it is true, to this, or to any other
+endless existence, but we who read would be too indiscriminating, would
+be losers, ingrates, if we did not cherish the lovely gift he brings to
+us so shyly. Restricted and confined as was his garden, he grew in it
+exotic flowers of unearthly but imperishable beauty. One will not find
+elsewhere an equal craftsmanship in bringing into words and vision the
+intangible, the far, fine, illusive fancy, the ghosts of vanished hearts
+and hopes. Under his magic touch unseen spirit almost reappears with the
+veiling of materiality, and behind the grim and grinning death's-head a
+supplanting smile of kindness invites pity, if not a friendly whisper.
+
+As to literary aim, Hearn distinctly and repeatedly confessed to me that
+his ideal was, in his own words, to give his reader "a ghostly
+shudder," a sense of the closeness of the unseen about us, as if eyes we
+saw not were watching us, as if long-dead spirits and weird powers were
+haunting the very air about our ears, were sitting hid in our heart of
+hearts. It was a pleasing task to him to make us hear the moans and
+croonings of disincarnate griefs and old pulseless pains, begging
+piteously, but always softly, gently, for our love and comforting. But
+it should not be unrecognized that no allurement of his art can hide
+from view the deeper pathos of a horrid and iron fatalism which to his
+mind moved the worlds of nature or of life, throttled freedom, steeled
+the heart, iced the emotions, and dictated the essential automatism of
+our own being and of these sad dead millions which crowd the dimly seen
+dreams of Hearn's mind.
+
+It may be added that, accepting the command of his destiny, Hearn
+consciously formed an ideal to which he worked, and even laboured at the
+technique of its realization. I have talked with him upon these and
+similar subjects for many long hours, or got him to talk to me. The
+conversations were usually at night, beneath trees, with the moonlight
+shimmering through and giving that dim, mystic light which is not light,
+so well suited to such a poet and to his favourite subjects.
+
+As to technique, there was never an artist more patient and persistent
+than he to clothe his thought in its perfect garment of words. Sometimes
+he would be able to write with comparative ease a large number of sheets
+(of _yellow_ paper--he could write on no other) in a day. At other times
+the words did not suit or fit, and he would rewrite a few pages scores
+of times. Once I knew him to labour over six lines an entire day, and
+then stop weary and unsatisfied. I had to supply a large waste-basket
+and have often wished I had kept for comparison and a lesson in
+practical æsthetics the half-bushel or more of wasted sheets thrown away
+nearly every day.
+
+Just as those outfitted with good eyes must find Hearn's world too
+formless and too magnificently coloured, so normal civilized persons
+will find it altogether too sexually and sensually charged. Whenever
+able to do so he turns a description to the ghostly, but even then
+_c'est toujours femme!_ A mountain is like a curved hip, a slender tree
+takes the form of a young girl budding into womanhood, etc. Colour, too,
+is everywhere, even where it is not, seemingly, to our eyes, and even
+colour is often made sensual and sexual by some strange suggestion or
+allusion.
+
+Viewing merit as the due of conscious, honourable, unselfish, and
+dutiful effort, Hearn's sole merit rises from his heroic pursuit of an
+ideal of workmanship. Like glorious bursts of illuminating sunshine
+through the fogs and clouds of a murky atmosphere shine such sentences
+as these:--
+
+    What you want, and what we all want, who possess devotion
+    to any noble idea, who hide any artistic idol in a niche of
+    our heart, is that independence which gives us at least the
+    time to worship the holiness of beauty,--be it in harmonies
+    of sound, of form, or of colour.
+
+    What you say about the disinclination to work for years upon
+    a theme for pure love's sake, without hope of reward,
+    touches me,--because I have felt that despair so long and so
+    often. And yet I believe that all the world's art-work--all
+    that which is eternal--was thus wrought. And I also believe
+    that no work made perfect for the pure love of art, can
+    perish, save by strange and rare accident....
+
+    Yet the hardest of all sacrifices for the artist is this
+    sacrifice to art,--this trampling of self under foot! It is
+    the supreme test for admittance into the ranks of the
+    eternal priests. It is the bitter and fruitless sacrifice
+    which the artist's soul is bound to make,--as in certain
+    antique cities maidens were compelled to give their
+    virginity to a god of stone! But without the sacrifice, can
+    we hope for the grace of Heaven?
+
+    What is the reward? The consciousness of inspiration only! I
+    think art gives a new faith. I think--all jesting
+    aside--that could I create something I felt to be sublime, I
+    should feel also that the Unknowable had selected me for a
+    mouthpiece, for a medium of utterance, in the holy cycling
+    of its eternal purpose; and I should know the pride of the
+    prophet that had seen God face to face.
+
+    * * * * Never to abandon the pursuit of an artistic
+    vocation for any other occupation, however lucrative,--not
+    even when she remained apparently deaf and blind to her
+    worshippers. So long as one can live and pursue his natural
+    vocation in art, it is a duty with him never to abandon it
+    if he believes that he has within him the elements of final
+    success. Every time he labours at aught that is not of art,
+    he robs the divinity of what belongs to her.
+
+And the greatest of our satisfactions with Hearn's personality is that
+these were not mere words, but that he consistently, resolutely, and
+persistently practised his preaching. This was the only religion or
+ethics he had, and praise God, he had it! That alone binds us to him in
+any feeling of brotherhood, that only makes us grateful to him.
+
+Style has been too frequently and too long confounded with content.
+There is the matter, the thing to be said, the story to be told; and
+quite apart from this there is the method of telling it, which, properly
+viewed, is style. So long as the teller of the tale has only borrowed
+his message or story from others, there cannot be raised much question
+of originality, or discussion of the datum, except in so far as pertains
+to the _choice_ of material. And so long as the stylist fingers
+etymological dictionaries for "startling words," so long will his style
+remain of the lower kind and etymologically unstylish. When the
+technique becomes unconscious and perfect, there is style, or the art,
+merged into the content, and then, _le style c'est l'homme_, or, as
+Hearn translated it, style becomes the artist's personality. In the best
+Japanese works Hearn accomplished this, and with his consummate choice
+of material there was the consummate art-work. Subject, method, cunning
+handiwork, psychologic analysis, generous and loyal sympathy, colour
+(not form)--all were fused to a unity almost beyond disassociation, and
+challenging admiration. But it is not beyond our perfect enjoying.
+
+It is true that Hearn has ignored, necessarily and wisely ignored, the
+objective and material side of Japanese existence. Mechanics,
+nationalism, economy, the materialism of his material, had obviously to
+be untouched in his interpretation, or in his "Interpretation." It would
+have been absurd for him to have attempted any presentation or valuable
+phasing of this important aspect. That for him was in a double sense
+_ultra vires_. Such work will not want for experts. But what Hearn has
+done was almost wholly impossible to any other. His personal heredity,
+history, and physiology, highly exceptional, seem to have conspired to
+outfit him for this remarkable task.
+
+There is still another reason, at first sight a contradicting one, for
+both Hearn's fitness and his success in giving us a literary incarnation
+of the spirit or soul of Japan in the subjective sense: To his readers
+it must have appeared an insoluble enigma why this superlatively
+subjective and psychical "sensitive" should have been such an unrecking,
+_outré_, and enthusiastic follower of Herbert Spencer's philosophy, or
+that part of it given in the "First Principles." It is told of an
+English wit that when asked if he was willing to subscribe to the
+Thirty-nine Articles, he promptly replied, "Oh, yes, forty of them if
+you wish." Hearn was similarly minded--minus the fun,--and most
+unphilosophically he went into utter captivity, seemingly, to the
+unphilosophic philosopher. And yet the spirit of Spencer's "First
+Principles" was in reality as different from that of Hearn as was the
+spirit of St. Francis from that, for instance, of Cecil Rhodes. The
+contradiction and ludicrousness of this mismating is so easy of
+explanation that the incongruity is missed. The forest is not seen
+because of the trees. Hearn did not have true scientific instinct,
+animus, or ability. Neither had Herbert Spencer--so far as his "First
+Principles" is concerned, and as regards an improved inductive method as
+shown in the "Psychology," "Biology," etc., Hearn, according to a
+letter, found he could not interest himself enough to read one of these
+later works. The clear and well-drilled scientific intellect admits that
+if Spencer had not published his "First Principles," but had gathered
+the facts of his later works before publishing an epitomizing Last
+Principles, the matter would have been as differently phased as night
+and day. Spencer cared infinitely more for the systematization than he
+did for the facts systematized. Reduced to its last analysis, the "First
+Principles" was the reverse of a close induction from the facts of
+nature and life. It presented the glitter of generalization without the
+logic. The reverberating echoes of its illogic, sweeping sonorously over
+the universe with an indiscriminate ignoring of the world-wide
+difference between matter and life, caught the fancy of the imprisoned
+poet soul; he thoughtlessly yielded a homage which, from his standpoint,
+was unjustified, and which objectively was an unscrutinizing
+lip-service. Subjectively Spencerism gave Hearn warrant for an inborn
+atheism and materialism which had been heightened immoderately by the
+bitter teachings of experience into a pessimism so horrid that one
+shuddered when looking into the man's soul depths. _Morne_ was a
+favourite word with Hearn, and Spencer's was a fateful philosophy for
+one whose birth and education were desolation, and whose sight of the
+world was more than _morne_, was the abomination of desolation, was in
+truth the sheer awfulness of despair. Blindness were vastly preferable
+to Hearn's affliction, but if that splendid poet St. Francis had been so
+cursed, his face and his soul would have been ecstatic with smiles, with
+joy, with faith, with hope, and with love. So strange is the
+unaccountable allotment of Fate in her endowments, gifts, and orderings.
+There is and there can be no blame--only a pity wholly beyond
+expression.
+
+The aloofness, far-awayness, the inapproachable distance and detachment
+of Hearn's spirit is one of the characteristics felt in reading his
+best pages. Everything is infinitely beyond our senses. To him
+everything was distant: the near was far, the far was at infinity. He
+thus truly became the poet of the _au delà_. His voice, itself an echo,
+comes to us as from the hush of an eerie height above the beat and wreck
+of the waves of our noisy shore. His personality as revealed in his
+writings is an echo, a memory, almost the memory of a memory, the thrill
+of the day-dream of a soul retreating from sense.
+
+            Each day the quiet grew more still
+            Within his soul, more shrank the will
+              Beyond the jar of sense, serene,
+            Behind the hurt of world or ill,
+              Where sleep hushed silences unseen.
+
+He ever insists on a haunting glimpse of the pain and the renunciation
+of others, of wasted and long-dead faces and loves, always shrinking
+from our gaze, pallid in the darkling light of the setting moon, of
+vanishing loves, grievous story, forgotten myth, and ruined religion.
+
+And yet, and yet, all that works to make Hearn immortal in literature
+is, at last, not art _per se_. One might quote freely showing that his
+"filing of the line," like that of Flaubert, led to nothing, if the
+thought and feeling to be put into the lines were not there. They were
+not there with his masters, Flaubert, Gautier, Maupassant, and others,
+and so these men will not inherit literary immortality. They had no
+soul, and only the soul, the spirit, can be immortalized. Hearn's good
+fortune is that unconsciously, even almost against his will, he was more
+than they, more than an artist as such. He had something else to do. If
+it had not been for his poverty, the necessity to sell what he wrote, he
+would surely have gone the same road to Avernus as his masters. Then,
+too, he had no original message to write, because he had no real soul,
+only a borrowed one. Japan gave him her soul to rematerialize and
+recolour with literary life. Without his Japanese work Hearn would have
+died as _littérateur_ in the year he died as a physical body. To tell
+her "ghostly" stories was his great office and function. When these were
+told his work was done. His old gloating over the clotted villainies of
+mediæval horror had been much outgrown, and it had no chance to be used
+in Japan. The Japanese character would not tolerate such things. The
+ghastly was transformed into the ghostly, and his Oriental fancy was
+luckily turned to better duties and pleasures. This more than Flaubert
+was something not to be got from modern atheistic French "Art for Art's
+sake," nor from modern Levantine nonentity of character. How marvellous
+is his sympathy with his subject, loyalty to his literary duty, and to
+his literary ideal! His despised Irish father perhaps had slipped into
+the otherwise invisible and limp threads of his Fates a little mesh of
+spiritual reality, which, dormant, unrecognized, and even scorned by
+him, came finally to give him all his valour and worth. He could dower
+the insubstantial sigh of a long dead soul or people with the wingéd
+word. It was a word of colour, only,--and colour has no objective
+existence,--the rainbow is not out there. And because it is spiritual,
+not objective, the most beautiful, if the most evanescent of all earthly
+things, is colour. The hearers of soundless music, and the lovers of
+"the light that never was on sea or shore" will understand what is
+meant. For them Hearn really wrote: they are few, and scattered far, but
+Hearn will magnificently multiply the number. His amazing merit is that
+while without the great qualities which make the greatest writers, he
+wrought such miracles of winning grace and persuading beauty.
+
+That he wrought against his will, and by the overcoming of a seemingly
+cruel Fate, puts him almost outside of our personal gratitude. We take
+the gift from a divinity he did not recognize, one that used the
+rebellious hand and the almost blind eye as a writing instrument. The
+lover of the gruesome, the Spencerian scientist, the man himself, must
+have wondered at the message when he came out from under the influence
+of the pitiless inspiration.
+
+One of Hearn's dangers was discursiveness, or want of conciseness and
+intensity. "Chita" showed it, and the West Indian work lost in value
+because of it. It is the danger of all those writers who lack creative
+ability, and who depend upon "local colour," and "style" for their
+effect. The story's the thing, after all! In Hearn's translations, and
+especially in "Stray Leaves," he for the moment caught the view of the
+value of the content, saw how the fact, dramatic, intense, and
+passionate is the all-desirable; the art of its presentation is the art
+of letting it flash forth upon the reader with few, apt, and flamelike
+words, which reveal and not conceal the life and soul of the act and of
+the actor. He tended to forget this. In "Karma," besides, or rather by
+reason of, the moral,--his newly got psyche,--he returned to a reliance
+upon essentials, upon the datum of the spirit, and not upon its
+reflections, refractions, and chromatics. The beautiful spectrum was
+there refocused into white light, and the senses disappeared to reveal
+behind them the divinity of soul. That art-lesson was never forgotten by
+Hearn, and his Japanese work had a purity and a reality, a white heat,
+which make his previous stories and sketches seem pale and weak.
+
+Questions of style and form sometimes run inevitably into those of
+content and of logic. Essentially wanting the rigorous training of form,
+without the content and method of the scientific intellect, all Hearn's
+work shows a lack of system, order, and subordination of parts. In any
+single one of the Japanese volumes the absence of logic is lamentably
+evident. He constantly repeats himself, and the warp of some of his
+themes is worn threadbare. His most ambitious work, "Japan," is, in
+truth, a regathering and a restatement in more objective style, of his
+previous imaginative studies. Almost the only added thought concerns the
+difference between Shintôism and ancestor-worship and the truism that
+Japan is to-day ruthlessly sacrificing the life of the individual to
+that of the nation. The lack of scholarship and of the scientific animus
+(even in a field, folk-lore, more nearly his own than any other) comes
+to view in his mistake of supposing Spencer an authority on the subject
+of the origin of religion, and in the blunder that assumed
+ancestor-worship to be original in Japanese history and religion.
+Ancestor-worship, according to Griffis, Knox, and other distinguished
+authorities, was unknown to the ancient writers of Nippon and was
+imported from China. How threadbare--and yet how deftly, even charmingly
+concealed!--was the wearing of his favourite themes, is shown by Hearn's
+fateful return to the gruesome, especially in the later books, "Kott"
+and "Kwaidan." These stories of the dead and of morbid necrophilism are
+witnesses of Hearn's primitive interest in the ghastly, impossible to be
+renounced or sloughed, not to be replaced by desire for the
+supersensual, or by resolve to transform the loathsome into the ghostly.
+Hearn should never have been seduced into the delusion that he could
+become the spokesman of any scientific animus, methods or results.
+Erudition, logic, systematization, were to him impossible. His function
+was another and of a different nature, and his peculiar ability was for
+other tasks. If we are adequately to appreciate the exquisiteness of the
+earlier Japanese works, we will forget the "Japan, an Interpretation."
+
+If we look upon Hearn as a painter, almost the sole colour of his
+palette was mummy brown, the powdered flesh of the ancient dead holding
+in solution their griefs, their hopes, their loves, their yearnings,
+which he found to sink always to pulselessness, and to end in eternal
+defeat! But the pallor and sadness for the brief moment of their
+resuscitation was divinely softened and atoningly beautified. Then they
+disappeared again in the waste and gloom from which love and poesy had
+evoked them.
+
+Felled in the struggle and defeat of the eternal battle with death, the
+vegetation of untold ages long ago drifted to an amorphous stratum of
+indistinguishable millionfold corpses. Compression, deferred combustion
+and over-shrouding transmuted and preserved it for a long-after-coming
+time, for our warming, lighting, and delighting. This has a perfect
+analogy in the history and use of tradition, myth, folk-lore, custom,
+and religion, those symbolic and concrete epitomes of man's long
+ancestral growths and strivings, those true black diamonds of humanity's
+experiences, its successes and failures, of its ideals and
+disappointments. Hearn's artistry consisted in catching up these gems,
+these extinguished souls washed from a world of graves to the threshold
+of his miracle-working imagination, and in making them flush for an
+instant with the semblance of life. With what exquisite skill and grace
+he was able to concentrate upon them the soft light-rays of a fancy as
+subtle and beautifying as ever has been given to mortal!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.--SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
+
+
+CONCERNING Hearn's outfitting of character by his parents little or
+nothing is known. It is of comparative unimportance because only a
+slight judicial familiarity with his works, especially those of the
+pre-Japanese periods, demonstrates that so far as concerns substratum
+and substance of character he had neither. There was an interior void,
+an absence of psychic reality, which mocked his friends and which
+likewise baulked at true creativeness. He never made a plot or blew the
+breath of life into a character; his datum was always provided from
+without and by another. He was a reflector only,--plus a colourist--but
+a colourist of unrivalled excellence and power. Form he knew not, had
+never seen, and that is also his second conditioning weakness as an
+artist. Even much of his philosophy was to justify the sensualism,
+sensualisticism, pessimism, and godlessness which are early manifest.
+But it was a product taken over from another, a hastily devoured meal
+without mastication, digestion, or assimilation. The interior emptiness
+was pathetically emphasized by the fact of a contentless experience
+which also worked to deprive his mind of spontaneous originality. He
+never loved, except in one sorry way, never suffered much, never lived
+much, for he was a hard worker, and he was always seeking the
+ever-postponed, ever-unsatisfying Paradise, so vainly hunted for, and
+which none ever finds except in himself. _Ihm fehlt die Liebe,_ was said
+of Heine,--how much truer is it of Hearn! Conspiring with a native lack
+of originality and want of normal experience, his enormous
+near-sightedness made his choice of material and method of handling it
+what we know. If anything was "inherited," it was a pseudo-Orientalism,
+a love of the monstrous and gruesome, an astonishing indifference to
+Occidental history and its conclusions as to sexual and social laws, a
+spontaneous faith in faithlessness, a belief in irreligion, and an
+almost hopeless trend toward fatalism and its inevitable consequent,
+pessimism. Improvidence, financial as well as moral, and disloyalty, to
+his friends as well as to his higher nature, were his life-long,
+crippling, and condemning sins. Two mysteries seem almost inexplainable.
+We know why others had to give him his themes, and whence and how he
+became a mirror, or an echo; and we understand how the echoing became
+also wondrously, even exaggeratedly, but beautifully, coloured. We can
+almost see why he was foolishly and absurdly disloyal to personal
+friends, often treating worst those who were the most kind to him; best,
+those who were sometimes most cunningly selfish. We may explain his
+ridiculous _Wanderlust_. But two attributes are beyond all
+analysis:--one was a thing illogical with his character, his cleaving to
+an ideal of literary workmanship at the cost of selfishness,
+friendships, and temporary success; and the other was his marvellous
+literary and psychologic sympathy with whatever mind, people,
+circumstance, story, or tradition, accident or choice brought before the
+echoing or mirroring mind. If it were faint, ghostly, and far away, he
+was a true thaumaturgist in loving it into life, and living it into
+love.
+
+This beautiful sympathy and literary loyalty made it possible for Hearn
+to use the words of faith and of religion, even of morality, as if they
+were his own, while with them he had no personal sympathy whatever. For
+instance, he could speak, as if from his heart out, of "a million astral
+lamps lighted in the vast and violet dome of God's everlasting mosque."
+He could praise as a sublime exhortation the command, "O ye that are
+about to sleep, commend your souls to Him who never sleeps!" It is, of
+course, true that in Hearn's mind, doubtless, the poorest heathen or
+savage virtue was sublimely virtuous, and any barbaric vice had more of
+virtue in it than of viciousness. Surely the most paltry Oriental
+excellence was far lovelier to him than any Occidental heroism or
+beauty, however splendid. We are thus helped to understand how his mind
+could seem to flush with religious or ethical enthusiasm, while the
+mosque of his real heart was only a chasm of gloomy negation or a chaos
+of hideous death. This was due to the fact that he had no constructive
+mind, and as only one kind of doing, writing, was possible to him,
+because of his near-sightedness, he must needs hate Occidentalism, and
+exalt with a somewhat ludicrous praise the vapid, and even pitiful
+childishness of semi-barbaric Orientalism. The illogicality reaches its
+acme when Hearn, atheistic, disloyal, and unethical, was compelled, as
+in some of his Japanese pages, to put a morality and a religion behind
+the acts and in the hearts of his characters, which with his and with
+their atheism, was, dramatically, so out of place that the incongruity
+would make us smile if it were not all done with such a sweet and
+haunting grace. The culmination of the contradictory trends is in
+"Karma." To put it bluntly, Hearn had no spark of practical sexual
+virtue, and yet praise one shall, marvel at one must, the literary and
+dramatic honour which could, as in "Karma," so sympathetically describe
+the almost unscalable summits of virtue,--there where in holy silence,
+Passion gazes with awe at her divine Master, Duty.
+
+A negative condition of this sympathy was the interior voidness of his
+character, the non-existence of reality within him, which thus allowed
+the positive loyalty to his subject free play; yet that which gave it
+leave to be, did not explain the genesis or quality of life of the
+being. But have a care! Do not ask the interest in any one subject to
+last for more than a fleeting moment! Early and always he possessed the
+rare, the wonderful gift of the instant, the iridescent, the wingéd
+word. At last was presented to him what he called a "soul," and that, in
+conjunction with his growth in artistic technique, in his handling of
+colours, and in procuring nobler data, helped to give the Japanese work
+a content and an enduring substance which distinguishes it from that of
+all others. This atones for all the hurt that precedes, and it is a
+benefaction and a delight to the entire world. In reward Literature will
+place upon his head one of her loveliest crowns.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.--APPRECIATIONS AND EPITOMES
+
+
+TAKEN as a whole, the criticisms upon Hearn's work are complimentary. He
+has his warm admirers, and some who are not so enthusiastic; but those
+who criticize adversely do so with a gentleness,--I may say, almost a
+reluctance that is perhaps the reflection of the spirit of his work. And
+whatever else these may offer, all agree that his writings have a unique
+charm.
+
+Following are a few excerpts which should give an average of opinions:--
+
+"One great secret of his success in interpreting the Japanese mind and
+temperament lay in his patience in seeking out and studying minutely the
+little things of a people said to be great in such. As Amenomori says of
+Hearn's mind, it 'called forth life and poetry out of dust.'" (327.)[20]
+
+    [20] The numbers refer to the corresponding items in the
+         Bibliography.
+
+"As an interpreter of the Japanese heart, mind, hand and soul, Mr. Hearn
+has no superior. But he will not convert those who in health of body and
+mind love the landmarks of the best faith of the race. It is very hard
+to make fog and miasmatic exhalations, even when made partly luminous
+with rhetoric, attractive to the intellect that loves headlands and
+mountain-tops. The product of despair can never compete in robust minds
+with the product of faith." (357.)
+
+"Sympathy and exquisiteness of touch are the characteristics of Mr.
+Hearn's genius. He is a chameleon, glowing with the hue of outer objects
+or of inward moods, or altogether iridescent. He becomes translucent and
+veined like a moth on a twig, or mottled as if with the protective
+golden browns of fallen leaves. We may not look for architectonic or
+even plastic powers. His is not the mind which constructs of inner
+necessity, which weaves plots and schemes, or thinks of its frame as it
+paints. He attempts no epic of history. The delver for sociologic or
+theologic spoil must seek deeper waters....
+
+"In his later books the all-potent influence of Japanese restraint seems
+to have refined and subdued his wonderful style to more perfect
+harmonies....
+
+"His chapters are long or short as are his moods. There is little
+organic unity in them; no scientific aim or philosophic grasp rounds
+them into form. Even his paragraphs have little cohesion. Speaking of
+the forming of his sentences, he himself has compared it to the
+focussing of an image, each added word being like the turn of a delicate
+screw." (306.)
+
+"The secret of the charm that we feel to such a marked degree in Mr.
+Lafcadio Hearn's volumes is that, in contrast to other writers, he does
+take the Japanese very seriously indeed." (316.)
+
+"To the details of life and thought in Japan Mr. Hearn's soul seems
+everywhere and at all times responsive. He catches in his eye and on his
+pen minute motes scarcely noticeable by the keen natives themselves."
+(367.)
+
+"He has written nothing on Japan equal in length to his tales of West
+Indian life. But while we deplore this reserve of a writer who possesses
+every quality of style, except humour, we have reason to be grateful for
+whatever he gives us." (307.)
+
+"The matchless prose and the sympathy of Mr. Hearn." (324.)
+
+"Mr. Hearn has the sympathetic temperament, the minute mental vision,
+the subdued style peculiar to all that is good in Japanese art and
+literature, needed for the accomplishment of a labour which to him has
+been a labour of love indeed. Here we have no mawkish sentimentality, no
+excessive laudation, on the one hand; on the other, no Occidental
+harshness, no Occidental ignorance of the sweet mystery of Eastern ways
+of life and modes of thought. What this most charming of writers on Far
+Eastern subjects has seen all may see, but only those can understand who
+are endowed with a like faculty of perception of unobtrusive beauty, and
+a like power, it must be added, of patient and prolonged study of common
+appearances and everyday events." (295.)
+
+"A man has just died, intelligent and generous, who had succeeded in
+reconciling in his heart, the clear, rational ideas of the West together
+with the obscure deep sense of Extreme--Asia: Lafcadio Hearn. In the
+hospitality of his recipient soul, high European civilization and high
+Japanese civilization found a meeting-place; harmonized; completed, one
+in the other....
+
+"In English-speaking countries, especially in the United States,
+Lafcadio Hearn already enjoys a just reputation. The lovers of the
+exotic, esteem him as equal to Kipling or Stevenson. In France, the
+_Revue de Paris_ has begun to make him known, by publishing some of his
+best articles, elegantly and faithfully translated. His budding fame is
+destined to increase, as Europe takes a greater interest in the arts and
+the thoughts of the Extreme-Orient. His prose, exact and harmonious,
+will be admired as one of the finest since Ruskin wrote: his very
+personal style, at the same time subtle and powerful, will be noted: he
+will be especially admired for his delicate and profound intelligence of
+that Japanese civilization which, to us, remains so mysterious. What
+characterizes the talent of Lafcadio Hearn, that which gives it its
+precious originality, is the rare mixture of scientific precision and
+idealistic enthusiasm: his work might justly be entitled Truth and
+Poesy: 'In reading these essays,' says one of our best existing Japanese
+scholars, Professor Chamberlain, 'one feels the truth of Richard
+Wagner's statement: "_Alles verständniss kommt uns nur durch die
+Liebe._" (All understanding comes to us only through Love.) If Lafcadio
+Hearn understands Japan best, and makes it better understood than any
+other writer, it is because he loves it best.'
+
+"Lafcadio Hearn describes with intelligence, with love all aspects of
+Japanese life: Nature and inhabitants; landscapes, animals and flowers;
+material life and life moral; classic Art and popular literature;
+philosophies, religions and superstitions. He awakens in us an exquisite
+feeling of old aristocratic and feudal Japan: he explains to us the
+prodigious revolution that modern Japan has created in thirty years....
+
+"Hearn has consecrated to the study of Japanese art some of his most
+curious psychological analyses.
+
+"Lafcadio Hearn takes a deep interest in the religious life of the
+Japanese. He studies with the minutest exactness the ancient customs of
+Shintôism, high moral precepts of Buddhism, and also the popular
+superstitions that hold on, for instance, to the worship of foxes, and
+to the idea of pre-existence." (393.)
+
+"To a certain large class of his adopted countrymen, his hatred of
+Christianity, which was pronounced long before he went to Japan, and his
+fondness for Oriental cults of all kinds, was recommendation. But it is
+still an open question whether he did harm or good to the Japanese by
+his advocacy of their superstitions....
+
+"Hearn's books are little known to the multitude. But they are familiar
+to an influential class the world over. In him Japan has lost a powerful
+and flattering advocate, and the English world one of its masters in
+style." (332.)
+
+"Mr. Hearn was not a philosopher or a judicial student of life. He was a
+gifted, born impressionist, with a style resembling that of the French
+Pierre Loti. His stories and descriptions are delicate or gorgeous word
+pictures of the subtler and more elusive qualities of Oriental life."
+(293.)
+
+"His art is the power of suggestion through perfect restraint.... He
+stands and proclaims his mysteries at the meeting of three ways. To the
+religious instinct of India,--Buddhism in particular,--which history has
+engrafted on the æsthetic sense of Japan, Mr. Hearn brings the
+interpreting spirit of Occidental science; and these three traditions
+are fused by the peculiar sympathies of his mind into one rich and novel
+compound.... In these essays and tales, whose substance is so strangely
+mingled together out of the austere dreams of India and the subtle
+beauty of Japan and the relentless science of Europe, I read vaguely of
+many things which hitherto were quite dark." (308.)
+
+"He brings to the study of all aspects of Japanese life, intelligence,
+and love; he also sets sail in his descriptions and analyses towards a
+general theory on life; he is a Japanizing psychologist: he is also a
+philosopher....
+
+"At all events, Lafcadio Hearn has the merit of recalling powerfully to
+the Europeans of Europe the importance, often misunderstood, of Eastern
+civilization. No one better than this Japanizing enthusiast to make us
+feel what there is of narrowness in our habitual conception of the
+world, in our individualistic literature, misunderstanding too much the
+influence of the Past in our anthropocentric art, neglecting Nature too
+often, penetrated too 'singly' in our classic philosophy with
+Greco-Latin and Christian influences. 'Till now,' says Lafcadio Hearn
+very forcibly, 'having lived only in one hemisphere, we have thought but
+half thoughts.' We should enlarge our hearts and our minds by taking
+into our circle of culture, all the art and all the thought of the
+extreme East.
+
+"From the philosophical view-point, Lafcadio Hearn has the merit of
+calling attention to the high value of Shintôism, and above all of
+Buddhism. His work deserves to exercise an influence on the religious
+ideas of the West. If religion can no longer occupy any place in the
+intellectual life of humanity, more and more invaded by science, she can
+subsist a long time yet, perhaps always, in her sentimental life."
+(392.)
+
+"For that rôle [as interpreter of Japan] he was eminently unfitted both
+by temperament and training. Indeed he was not slow to recognize his
+lack of the judicial faculty, and on one occasion acknowledged that he
+is a 'creature of extremes.' ... But Hearn often succeeds in reaching
+the heart of things by his faculty of sympathy, in virtue of which alone
+his books deserve perusal; when he fails it is because of a lack of the
+unimpassioned judicial faculty, a tendency to subordinate reason to
+feeling, an inclination to place sympathy in the position of judge
+rather than guide." (359.)
+
+"Lafcadio Hearn not only buried himself in the Japanese world, but gave
+his ashes to the soil so often devastated by earthquake, typhoon, tidal
+wave and famine, but ever fertile in blooms of fancy which lies under
+the River of Heaven. The air of Nippon, poor in ozone, is overpopulated
+by goblins. No writer has ever excelled this child of Greece and Ireland
+in interpreting the weird fancies of peasant and poet in the land of
+bamboo and cherry flowers.... Hearn's life seemed crushed under 'the
+horror of infinite Possibility.' Hence perhaps the weird fascination of
+his work and style." (348.)
+
+
+                                EPITOMES
+
+AVATAR (281).--It was during the Cincinnati period that Hearn made
+this--his first translation from the French. Writing of it in 1886, he
+says:--
+
+    I have a project on foot--to issue a series of translations of
+    archæological and artistic French romance--Flaubert's "Tentation
+    de Saint-Antoine"; De Nerval's "Voyage en Orient"; Gautier's
+    "Avatar"; Loti's most extraordinary African and Polynesian
+    novels; and Beaudelaire's "Petits Poemes en Prose."
+
+But three years later, he writes:--
+
+    The work of Gautier cited by you--"Avatar"--was my first
+    translation from the French. I never could find a publisher for
+    it, however, and threw the MS. away at last in disgust. It is
+    certainly a wonderful story; but the self-styled Anglo-Saxon has
+    so much--prudery that even this innocent phantasy seems to shock
+    his sense of the "proper."
+
+LA TENTATION DE SAINT-ANTOINE (282) was probably translated at about the
+same time. Hearn failed to find a publisher who would take it, but the
+manuscript is still in my possession. Hearn's own complete _scenario_,
+together with a description of the manuscript, is given on another page.
+I quote from Hearn about this work:--
+
+    The original is certainly one of the most exotically strange
+    pieces of writing in any language, and weird beyond description.
+
+Of his own translation, he writes:--
+
+    The work is audacious in parts; but I think nothing ought to be
+    suppressed. That serpent-scene, the crucified lions, the
+    breaking of the chair of gold, the hideous battles about
+    Carthage,--these pages contain pictures that ought not to remain
+    entombed in a foreign museum.
+
+The winter of 1877, the year Hearn arrived in New Orleans, he
+corresponded with the Cincinnati _Commercial_ under the name of "Ozias
+Midwinter" (219). Excerpts from this series of letters are given in the
+chapter, "The New Orleans Period."
+
+ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS (20) was the first book to be published. The
+translations were made during the latter part of the Cincinnati period,
+but the volume did not appear until some years later, while Hearn was in
+New Orleans. It was prepared at the hour when his craving for the exotic
+and weird was at its height. From the opening word to the last the six
+stories are one long Dionysian revel of an Arabian Night's Dream, and
+within their pages it is not difficult to feel that "one is truly dead
+only when one is no longer loved." What an exotic group of names it
+is:--Cleopatra, "she that made the whole world's bale and bliss;"
+Clarimonde,
+
+            "Who was famed in her lifetime
+            As the fairest of women;"
+
+Arria Marcella; the Princess Hermonthis; Omphale; and the one "fairer
+than all daughters of men, lovelier than all fantasies realized in
+stone"--Nyssia. It is a tapestry woven of the lights and jewels and
+passion of an antique world. "You will find in Gautier," Hearn writes,
+"a perfection of melody, a warmth of word colouring, a voluptuous
+delicacy;" "Gautier could create mosaics of word jewellery without
+equals." Hearn's "pet stories" are "Clarimonde" and "Arria Marcella." Is
+it strange that he should delight in these beautiful vampires?
+
+In this work, and in the tales to follow, we already perceive that
+colour is to become a sort of a fetich to be worshipped. Here in the
+studio of another artist, he serves his first apprenticeship, and from
+the highly toned palette of Gautier he learns how to mix and lay on the
+colours that he himself is later to use so richly.
+
+In speaking of this book, a critic says:--
+
+"His learning and his inspiration were wholly French in these
+productions, as also in what was his first and in some ways his best
+book, "One of Cleopatra's Nights," and other tales translated from
+Théophile Gautier. While Hearn was faithful to his original, he also
+improved upon it, and many a scholar who knows both French and English
+has confessed under the rose that Gautier is outdone." (332.)
+
+Of his work, Hearn writes:--
+
+    You asked me about Gautier. I have read and possess nearly
+    all his works; and before I was really mature enough for
+    such an undertaking I translated his six most remarkable
+    short stories. The work contains, I regret to say, several
+    shocking errors, and the publishers refused me the right to
+    correct the plates. The book remains one of the sins of my
+    literary youth, but I am sure my judgment of the value of
+    the stories was correct.
+
+While preparing his next book, Hearn published in the _Century_, "The
+Scenes of Cable's Romances" (220). In this article he vivifies the
+quarters and dwellings that Mr. Cable in his delightful stories had
+already made famous.
+
+THE FIRST MUEZZIN, BILÂL (405), was written in the fall of 1883, during
+the New Orleans period. It is a beautiful, serious piece of work, and is
+written with the fine, sonorous quality that such a theme should
+inspire. That it was a labour of love is shown in Hearn's letters
+written at its inception to Mr. Krehbiel, who was an invaluable aid to
+him in compiling its musical part. "Bilâl" was probably published
+finally in the _Times-Democrat_, after being refused by _Harper's_, the
+_Century_, and some others.
+
+    The traveller slumbering for the first time within the walls of
+    an Oriental city, and in the vicinity of a minaret, can scarcely
+    fail to be impressed by the solemn beauty of the Mohammedan Call
+    to Prayer. If he have worthily prepared himself, by the study of
+    book and of languages, for the experiences of Eastern travel, he
+    will probably have learned by heart the words of the sacred
+    summons, and will recognize their syllables in the sonorous
+    chant of the Muezzin,--while the rose-coloured light of an
+    Egyptian or Syrian dawn expands its flush to the stars. Four
+    times more will he hear that voice ere morning again illuminates
+    the east:--under the white blaze of noon; at the sunset hour,
+    when the west is fervid with incandescent gold and vermilion; in
+    the long after-glow of orange and emerald fires; and, still
+    later, when a million astral lamps have been lighted in the vast
+    and violet dome of God's everlasting mosque.
+
+In four parts Hearn tells the history of Bilâl, who
+
+    was an African black, an Abyssinian,--famed for his fortitude as
+    a confessor, for his zeal in the faith of the Prophet, and for
+    the marvellous melody of his voice, whose echoes have been
+    caught up and prolonged and multiplied by all the muezzins of
+    Islam, through the passing of more than twelve hundred years....
+    And the words chanted by all the muezzins of the Moslem
+    world,--whether from the barbaric brick structures which rise
+    above "The Tunis of the Desert," or from the fairy minarets of
+    the exquisite mosque at Agra,--are the words first sung by the
+    mighty voice of Bilâl.
+
+Bilâl was the son of an Abyssinian slave-girl, and himself began life as
+a slave. The first preaching of Mahomet had deep effect upon the slaves
+of Mecca, and Bilâl was perhaps the earliest of these to become a
+convert. Even under the tortures of the persecutors, he could not be
+made to apostatize--always he would answer, "_Ahad! Ahad_:" "_One_, one
+only God!" Abu Bekr, the bosom friend of the great Prophet, observing
+Bilâl, bought him, and set him free. Then Bilâl became the devoted
+servant of Mahomet; and, in fulfilment of a dream, he was made the First
+Muezzin to sound the _Adzân_, the Call to Prayer.
+
+
+                            God is Great!
+                            God is Great!
+        I bear witness there is no other God but God!
+        I bear witness that Mahomet is the Prophet of God!
+                        Come unto Prayer!
+                        Come unto Salvation!
+                            God is Great!
+                  There is no other God but God!
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    After the death of Mahomet, Bilâl ceased to sing the
+    _Adzân_:--the voice that had summoned the Prophet of God to
+    the house of prayer ought not, he piously fancied, to be
+    heard after the departure of his master. Yet, in his Syrian
+    home, how often must he have prayed to chant the words as he
+    first chanted them from the starlit housetop in the Holy
+    City, and how often compelled to deny the petitions of those
+    who revered him as a saint and would perhaps have sacrificed
+    all their goods to have heard him but once lift up his voice
+    in musical prayer!... But when Omar visited Damascus the
+    chiefs of the people besought him that, as Commander of the
+    Faithful, he should ask Bilâl to sing the Call in honour of
+    the event; and the old man consented to do so for the last
+    time....
+
+    To hear Bilâl must have seemed to many as sacred a privilege
+    as to have heard the voice of the Prophet himself,--the
+    proudest episode of a lifetime,--the one incident of all
+    others to be related in long afteryears to children and to
+    grandchildren. Some there may have been whom the occasion
+    inspired with feelings no loftier than curiosity; but the
+    large majority of those who thronged to listen in silent
+    expectancy for the _Allah-hu-akbar!_ must have experienced
+    emotions too deep to be ever forgotten. The records of the
+    event, at least, fully justify this belief;--for when, after
+    moments of tremulous waiting, the grand voice of the aged
+    African rolled out amid the hush,--with the old beloved
+    words,--the old familiar tones, still deep and clean,--Omar
+    and all those about him wept aloud, and tears streamed down
+    every warrior-face, and the last long notes of the chant
+    were lost in a tempest of sobbing.
+
+STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE[21] (I) is the second book. It was
+written also during the period in New Orleans, many of the stories first
+appearing in the _Times-Democrat_, and the little volume is dedicated to
+its editor--Mr. Page M. Baker.
+
+    [21] Copyright, 1884, by James R. Osgood and Company.
+
+These tales, as Hearn tells us in his Preface, are "reconstructions of
+what impressed me as most fantastically beautiful in the most exotic
+literature which I was able to obtain." In a letter he writes, "The
+language of 'Stray Leaves' is all my own, with the exception of the
+Italic texts and a few pages translated from the 'Kalewala.'"
+
+The tapestry he is weaving is of the same crimson threads as that of the
+earlier tales, but the colours of sunset are softening to the gentler
+hues of the after-glow, and interwoven sometimes are strands of pure
+moonlight.
+
+We read of the great Book of Thoth which contains a formula whosoever
+could recite might never know death, and we learn how the cunning
+magician Noferkephtah obtained the book, which caused the wrath of the
+gods to fall upon him; later, how Satni, of whom "there was not in all
+Egypt so wise a scribe," yearned for the book, and took it from the tomb
+of Noferkephtah, and of the magic wrought and the penance done.
+
+There is the exquisite tale of the Fountain Maiden, whom Aki caught in
+his own fish-net, and whom he grew to love more than his own life.
+
+The story lingers of the sea-bird which fell into the hunter's hand, and
+when he looked more closely he found it had become transformed into a
+beautiful girl, "slender ... like a young moon," and pity rose in the
+hunter's heart, and then love. One day, when their children had become
+strong and swift, and while they were all hunting together, the
+Bird-Wife called to the little ones to gather feathers: then she covered
+their arms and her own shoulders with the feathers, and far away they
+flew.
+
+Passing onward, we read of Tilottama, and that by reason of her beauty
+"the great gods once became multiple-faced and myriad-eyed"; and that
+this beauty brought punishment to the wicked Sounda and Oupasounda.
+
+There is Bakawali, for "whose history of love, human and superhuman, a
+parallel may not be found." For her great love of the mortal youth
+Taj-ulmuluk each night she sacrificed herself to the fiercest
+purification of fire. And then to appease the gods, she suffered herself
+to be turned for ten long years into marble from her waist to her feet.
+Her lover ministered to her and watched by her side through the terrible
+years until she was reincarnated for him.
+
+Then we see the statue of Natalika, who avenged the death of her people.
+
+And who shall answer the riddle of the Corpse Demon? And which one may
+not profit by the wisdom of the youth who knew nothing of science?
+Perhaps our hearts stir with a soft regret for the atonement of Pundari.
+And so we wander through a maze of colour and of magic, tarrying to
+listen to the voice of Kalewala, for--
+
+    As he sang the fair Sun paused in her course to hear him; the
+    golden Moon stopped in her path to listen; the awful billows of
+    the sea stood still; the icy rivers that devour the pines, that
+    swallow up the firs, ceased to rage; the mighty cataracts hung
+    motionless above their abysses; the waves of Juortana lifted
+    high their heads to hear.
+
+"Slender she was as the tulip upon its stalk, and in walking her feet
+seemed kisses pressed upon the ground. But hadst thou beheld her face
+unveiled, and the whiteness of her teeth between her brown lips when she
+smiled!" Alas, she was a good Christian maiden and he a good Mussulman,
+and so in this Legend of Love each loyal heart dies pronouncing the
+faith of the other, lest they should not meet at the Day of Judgment.
+
+As we draw near the last figures on the tapestry, we find those two
+tender pictures of which Hearn himself speaks: "Your preference for
+Boutimar pleases me: Boutimar was my pet. There is a little Jewish
+legend in the collection--Esther--somewhat resembling it in pathos."
+These stories afford a glimpse into that gentle heart, which was later
+to respond to the exquisite faiths and loyalties of the Japanese.
+
+Now the Creator sent unto Solomon a cup which contained some of the
+waters of youth and of life without end. And Solomon was asked: "Wilt
+thou drink hereof and live divinely immortal through ages everlasting,
+or wilt thou rather remain within the prison of humanity?" And Solomon
+dreamed upon these words; and he assembled in council a representative
+of all those over whom he held dominion. Then Solomon asked Boutimar,
+the wild dove, most loving of all living creatures, whether he should
+drink of the magic waters, and thus learn the bliss of earthly
+immortality. When Boutimar, the wild dove, learned that the cup held
+only enough water for one person, he made answer in the language of
+birds:--
+
+    "O prophet of God! how couldst thou desire to be living alone,
+    when each of thy friends and of thy counsellors and of thy
+    children and of thy servants and of all who loved thee were
+    counted with the dead? For all of these must surely drink the
+    bitter waters of death, though thou shouldst drink the Water of
+    Life. Wherefore desire everlasting youth, when the face of the
+    world itself shall be wrinkled with age, and the eyes of the
+    stars shall be closed by the black fingers of Azrael? When the
+    love thou hast sung of shall have passed away like a smoke of
+    frankincense, when the dust of the heart that beat against thine
+    own shall have long been scattered by the four winds of heaven,
+    when the eyes that looked for thy coming shall have become a
+    memory, when the voices grateful to thine ear shall have been
+    eternally stilled, when thy life shall be one oasis in a
+    universal waste of death, and thine eternal existence but a
+    recognition of eternal absence,--wilt thou indeed care to live,
+    though the wild dove perish when its mate cometh not?"
+
+    And Solomon, without reply, silently put out his arm and gave
+    back the cup.... But upon the prophet-king's rich beard,
+    besprinkled with powder of gold, there appeared another glitter
+    as of clear dew,--the diamond dew of the heart, which is tears.
+
+Esther, whose comeliness surpassed even that of Sarah, and her rich
+husband had lived together ten years, but there was no happiness in the
+soul of the good man, for "the sound of a child's voice had never made
+sunshine within his heart." So Esther and her husband sorrowed bitterly.
+And they brought the burden of their grief to Rabbi Simon ben Yochai,
+and when they had told him, a silence as of the Shechinah came upon the
+three, only the eyes of the Rabbi seemed to smile. And it was agreed
+that the twain should part; thus the Israelite could be known as a
+father in Israel.
+
+A feast then was laid at the house, and before all the guests her
+husband spoke lovingly to Esther, and in token of his affection and his
+grief bade her to take from the house "whatever thou desirest, whether
+it be gold or jewels beyond price." And the wine was passed, and the
+people made merry, and finally a deep sleep fell upon them all. Then
+Esther gave command that her husband sleeping should be carried to her
+father's house. In the morning her husband awakened, and confused he
+cried out, "Woman, what hast thou done?"
+
+    Then, sweeter than the voice of doves among the fig-trees, came
+    the voice of Esther: "Didst thou not bid me, husband, that I
+    should choose and take away from thy house whatsoever I most
+    desired? And I have chosen thee, and have brought thee hither,
+    to my father's home ... loving thee more than all else in the
+    world. Wilt thou drive me from thee now?" And he could not see
+    her face for tears of love; yet he heard her voice speaking
+    on,--speaking the golden words of Ruth, which are so old yet so
+    young to the hearts of all that love: "Whithersoever thou shalt
+    go, I will also go; and whithersoever thou shalt dwell, I also
+    will dwell. And the Angel of Death only may part us; for thou
+    art all in all to me." ...
+
+    And in the golden sunlight at the doorway suddenly stood, like a
+    statue of Babylonian silver, the grand grey figure of Rabbi
+    Simon ben Yochai, lifting his hands in benediction.
+
+    "_Schmah Israel!_--the Lord our God, who is One, bless ye with
+    everlasting benediction! May your hearts be welded by love, as
+    gold with gold by the cunning of goldsmiths! May the Lord, who
+    coupleth and setteth thee single in families, watch over ye! The
+    Lord make this valiant woman even as Rachel and as Lia, who
+    built up the house of Israel! And ye shall behold your children
+    and your children's children in the House of the Lord!"
+
+    Even so the Lord blessed them; and Esther became as the fruitful
+    vine, and they saw their children's children in Israel.
+    Forasmuch as it is written: "He will regard the prayer of the
+    destitute."
+
+GOMBO ZHÈBES[22](2) followed in the New Orleans period. It is a
+compilation of 352 proverbs selected from six dialects. According to the
+indexes, there are 6 in the Creole of French Guyana; 28 in the Creole of
+Hayti; 51 in the Creole of New Orleans, Louisiana; 101 in the Creole of
+Martinique; 110 in the Creole of Mauritius; 52 in the Creole of
+Trinidad. Most of the proverbs are similar to our own, but are
+translated into the simple homely language of the Creole, reflecting its
+mode of thought. The same proverb often appears in the different
+dialects. Although a proverb is of European origin, "the character of
+Creole folk-lore is very different from European folk-lore in the matter
+of superstition." Many proverbs are direct from the African. Those in
+the Creole of Hayti are generally rough and coarse. The most popular
+subjects are, pot or kettle, rain, serpent or snake, of which there are
+six of each; devil, eggs, belly, horse, mothers, tail, of these there
+are seven of each; chicken, children, ox have eight of each; cat has
+nine; goat has eleven; talking has sixteen; monkey has seventeen; fine
+clothes has only four, idleness has five, and marriage has six.
+
+    [22] Copyright, 1885, by Will H. Coleman.
+
+Hearn speaks of this book as a Dictionary of Proverbs. He made an
+extensive study of the subject and in later researches found it most
+helpful. "I have," he says, "quite a Creole library embracing the Creole
+dialects of both hemispheres."
+
+Following are a selection of the proverbs chosen from the different
+dialects:--
+
+    No. 23. _Bel tignon pas fait bel négresse. (Le beau tignon ne
+    fait pas la belle négresse.)_ "It isn't the fine head-dress that
+    makes the fine negress." (_Louisiana._)
+
+    _Tignon_ or _tiyon_, the true Creole word, "is the famously
+    picturesque handkerchief which in old days all slave-women
+    twisted about their heads."
+
+    No. 44. _Ça qui boudé manze boudin. (Celui qui boude mange du
+    boudin.)_ "He who sulks eats his own belly." That is to say,
+    spites himself. The pun is untranslatable. (_Mauritius_.)
+
+    _Boudin_ in French signifies a pudding, in Creole it also
+    signifies the belly. Thus there is a double pun in the patois.
+
+    No. 256. _Quand diabe alle lamesse li caciétte so laquée. (Quand
+    le diable va à la messe, il cache sa queue.)_ "When the Devil
+    goes to mass he hides his tail." (_Mauritius._)
+
+    No. 352. _Zozo paillenqui crié là-haut, coudevent vini. (Le
+    paille-en-cul crie la-haut, le coup de vent vient.)_ "When the
+    tropic-bird screams overhead, a storm-wind is coming."
+    (_Mauritius._)
+
+    No. 267. _Quand milatt tini yon vié chouvral yo dit nègress pas
+    manman yo. (Quand les mulâtres ont un vieux cheval ils disent
+    que les négresses ne sont pas leur mères.)_ "As soon as a
+    mulatto is able to own an old horse, he will tell you that his
+    mother wasn't a nigger." (_Martinique._)
+
+    No. 324. _Toutt milett ni grand zaureilles. (Tout les mulets ont
+    des grandes oreilles.)_ "All mules have big ears." Equivalent to
+    our proverb: "Birds of a feather flock together."
+    (_Martinique._)
+
+    No. 291. _Si coulev oûlé viv, li pas pronminée grand-chemin. (Si
+    la couleuvre veut vivre, elle ne se promène pas dans le grand
+    chemin.)_ "If the snake cares to live, it doesn't journey upon
+    the high-road." (_Guyana._)
+
+    No. 292. _Si coulève pas té fonté, femmes sé pouend li fair
+    ribans jipes. (Si la couleuvre n'était pas effrontée les femmes
+    la prendraient pour en faire des rubans de jupes.)_ "If the
+    snake wasn't spunky, women would use it for petticoat strings."
+    (_Trinidad._)
+
+    No. 100. _Complot plis fort passé ouanga.[23] (Le complot est
+    plus fort que l'ouanga.)_ "Conspiracy is stronger than
+    witchcraft." (_Hayti._)
+
+    [23]    _Di moin si to gagnin homme!
+              Mo va fé ouanga pouli;
+            Mo fé li tourné fantôme
+              Si to vlé mo to mari...._
+
+         "Tell me if thou hast a man (a lover) I will make a
+         _ouanga_ for him--I will change him into a ghost if thou
+         wilt have me for thy husband."
+
+         This word, of African origin, is applied to all things
+         connected with the Voudooism of the negroes.
+
+         In the song, "_Dipi mo voué, toué Adèle_," from which the
+         above lines are taken, the wooer threatens to get rid of a
+         rival by _ouanga_--to "turn him into a ghost." The victims
+         of Voudooism are said to have gradually withered away,
+         probably through the influence of secret poison. The word
+         _grigri_, also of African origin, simply refers to a
+         charm, which may be used for an innocent or innocuous
+         purpose. Thus, in a Louisiana Creole song, we find a
+         quadroon mother promising her daughter a charm to prevent
+         the white lover from forsaking her:
+
+         "_Pou tchombé li na fé grigri._" "We shall make a _grigri_
+         to keep him."
+
+Simultaneously with the publication of "Gombo Zhèbes," Hearn contributed
+a series of articles[24] to _Harper's Weekly._ (221-227, 230, 232.)
+These papers, which are commonplace newspaper work, tell of New Orleans,
+its Expositions, its Superstitions, Voudooism, and the Creole Patois. He
+feels that the Creole tongue must go, but while there is still time, he
+hopes that some one will rescue its dying legends and curious lyrics.
+
+    [24] Copyright, 1884, 1885, 1886, by Harper and Brothers.
+
+    The unedited Creole literature comprises songs, satires in
+    rhymes, proverbs, fairy-tales--almost everything commonly
+    included under the term folk-lore. The lyrical portion of
+    it is opulent in oddities, in melancholy beauties.
+
+There are few of the younger generation of Creoles who do not converse
+in the French and English languages. Creole is the speech of motherhood,
+and "there is a strange naïve sorrow in their burdens as of children
+sobbing for lonesomeness in the night."
+
+There is an interesting account of Jean Montanet, "Voudoo John"--The
+Last of the Voudoos. He was said to be a son of a prince of Senegal.
+From a ship's cook he rose to own large estates. While he was a
+cotton-roller, it was noticed that he seemed to have some peculiar
+occult influence over the negroes under him. Voudoo John had the
+mysterious _obi_ power. Soon realizing his power, he commenced to tell
+fortunes, and thousands and thousands of people, white and black,
+flocked to him. Then he bought a house and began as well to practise
+Creole medicine. He could give receipts for everything and anything, and
+many a veiled lady stopped at his door.
+
+    Once Jean received a fee of $50 for a potion. "It was
+    water," he said to a Creole confidant, "with some common
+    herbs boiled in it. I hurt nobody, but if folks want to
+    give me fifty dollars, I take the fifty dollars every
+    time!"
+
+It is said that Jean became worth at least $50,000. He had his horses
+and carriages, his fifteen wives, whom he considered, one and all,
+legitimate spouses. He was charitable too. But he did not know what to
+do with his money. Gradually, in one way or another, it was stolen from
+him, until at the last, with nothing left but his African shells, his
+elephant's tusk, and the sewing-machine upon which he used to tell
+fortunes even in his days of riches, he had to seek hospitality of his
+children.
+
+Hearn devotes several columns to Voudooism, telling of its witchcrafts
+and charms and fetiches which work for evil, and also of the
+superstitions regarding the common occurrences of daily life.
+
+In a paper on Mexican feather-work at the New Orleans Exposition, there
+is this paragraph which presages his later descriptions:--
+
+    As I write, the memory of a Mexican landscape scene in
+    feather-work is especially vivid--a vast expanse of opulent
+    wheat-fields, whereof the blonde immensity brightens or
+    deepens its tint with the tremor of summer winds; distance
+    makes violet the hills; a steel-bright river serpentines
+    through the plain, reflecting the feminine grace of palms
+    tossing their plumes against an azure sky. I remember also
+    a vision of marshes--infinite stretches of reed-grown ooze,
+    shuddering in gusts of sea-wind, and paling away into
+    bluish vagueness as through a miasmatic haze.
+
+In conjunction with these articles, Hearn published in _Harper's Bazaar_
+(228-229) two papers on the Curiosities to be found at the New Orleans
+Exposition.
+
+SOME CHINESE GHOSTS[25] (3) was the next book of the New Orleans period.
+The first publisher to whom it was submitted did not accept it, but
+Roberts Brothers finally brought it out. "There are only six little
+stories," writes Hearn, "but each of them cost months of hard work and
+study, and represents a much higher attempt than anything in the 'Stray
+Leaves.'" The book is dedicated to his friend Mr. Krehbiel, and the
+Dedication, which is given in the Bibliography, is as unique as the
+tales themselves.
+
+    [25] Copyright, 1887, by Roberts Brothers.
+
+In the Preface Hearn says that while preparing these legends he sought
+for "weird beauty." The era of fierce passions and horror is waning, and
+in these six perfect tales there is a new-found restraint, a firmer
+handling of the brush in more normal colours.
+
+One of the earliest reviews of his work remarks:--
+
+"In his treatment of the legend lore of the Celestial Empire, Mr. Hearn
+has, if possible, been even more delicate and charming than in the
+stories which go to make the previous volume, so much so, indeed, that
+one is persuaded to full belief in the beauty and witchery of the
+almond-eyed heroines of his pages." (322.)
+
+The opening story is of the beautiful Ko-Ngai, daughter of Kouan-Yu,
+whose divine loyalty to her father never faltered even at a hideous
+death. He was a great bellmaker, and the Mandarin ordered that he should
+make a bell of such size that it would be heard for one hundred _li_,
+and further that the bell "should be strengthened with brass, and
+deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver." But the metals refused
+to mingle. Again the bell was cast, but the result was even worse, and
+the Son of Heaven was very angry; and this word was sent to Kouan-Yu:--
+
+    "If thou fail a third time in fulfilling our command, thy head
+    shall be severed from thy neck."
+
+When the lovely Ko-Ngai heard this, she sold her jewels, and paid a
+great price to an astrologer, and it was told to her:--
+
+    Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver and iron never
+    will embrace, until the flesh of a maiden be melted in the
+    crucible; until the blood of a virgin be mingled with the metals
+    in their fusion.
+
+Ko-Ngai told no one what she had heard. The awful hour for the heroic
+effort of the final casting arrived.
+
+    All the workmen wrought their tasks in silence; there was no
+    sound heard but the muttering of the fires. And the muttering
+    deepened into a roar of typhoons approaching, and the blood-red
+    lake of metal slowly brightened like the vermilion of a sunrise,
+    and the vermilion was transmuted into a radiant glow of gold,
+    and the gold whitened blindingly, like the silver face of a full
+    moon. Then the workers ceased to feed the raving flame, and all
+    fixed their eyes upon the eyes of Kouan-Yu; and Kouan-Yu
+    prepared to give the signal to cast.
+
+But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn his
+    head; and all heard the voice of Ko-Ngai sounding sharply sweet
+    as a bird's song above the great thunder of the fires,--"For thy
+    sake, O my Father!" And even as she cried, she leaped into the
+    white flood of metal; and the lava of the furnace roared to
+    receive her, and spattered monstrous flakes of flame to the
+    roof, and burst over the verge of the earthen crater, and cast
+    up a whirling fountain of many-coloured fires, and subsided
+    quakingly, with lightnings and with thunders and with mutterings.
+
+Of the lovely Ko-Ngai no trace remained save a little shoe, which was
+left in the hand of the faithful serving-woman who had striven to catch
+her as she leaped into the flame.
+
+And ever does the bell, whose tones are deeper and mellower and mightier
+than the tones of any other bell, utter the name of Ko-Ngai; and ever
+between the mighty strokes there is a low moaning heard, a sobbing of
+"_Hiai!_" and that they say is Ko-Ngai crying for her little shoe.
+
+The next tale tells of Ming-Y and how it was that he did not heed the
+counsel of the words of Lao-Tseu, and so it befell that he was loved by
+the beautiful Sië-Thao, whose tomb had many years ago crumbled to ruins.
+
+The Legend of Tchi-Niu is the queen flower of the nosegay of six. Tong's
+father died, and as they were very poor, the only way that Tong could
+obtain money to pay for the funeral expenses was to sell himself as a
+slave. The years passed, and he worked without rest or pay, but never a
+complaint did he utter. At length the fever of the ricefields seized
+him, and he was left alone in his sickness, for there was no one to wait
+on him. One noon he dreamed that a beautiful woman bent over him and
+touched his forehead with her hand. And Tong opened his eyes, and he saw
+the lovely person of whom he had dreamed. "I have come to restore thy
+strength and to be thy wife. Arise and worship with me." And reading his
+thoughts she said, "I will provide."
+
+"And together they worshipped Heaven and Earth. Thus she became his
+wife."
+
+But all that Tong knew of his wife was that her name was Tchi. And the
+fame of the weaving of Tchi spread far, and people came to see her
+beautiful work. One morning Tchi gave to her husband a document. It was
+his freedom that she had bought.
+
+Later the silk-loom remained untouched, for Tchi gave birth to a son.
+And the boy was not less wonderful than his mother.
+
+Now it came to the Period of the Eleventh Moon. Suddenly one night, Tchi
+led Tong to the cradle where their son slumbered, and as she did so a
+great fear and awe came over Tong, and the sweet tender voice breathed
+to him:--
+
+    "Lo! my beloved, the moment has come in which I must forsake
+    thee; for I was never of mortal born, and the Invisible may
+    incarnate themselves for a time only. Yet I leave with thee the
+    pledge of our love,--this fair son, who shall ever be to thee as
+    faithful and as fond as thou thyself hast been. Know, my
+    beloved, that I was sent to thee even by the Master of Heaven,
+    in reward of thy filial piety, and that I must now return to the
+    glory of His house: I AM THE GODDESS TCHI-NIU."
+
+Even as she ceased to speak, the great glow faded, and Tong,
+    reopening his eyes, knew that she had passed away for
+    ever,--mysteriously as pass the winds of heaven, irrevocably as
+    the light of a flame blown out. Yet all the doors were barred,
+    all the windows unopened. Still the child slept, smiling in his
+    sleep. Outside, the darkness was breaking; the sky was
+    brightening swiftly; the night was past. With splendid majesty
+    the East threw open high gates of gold for the coming of the
+    sun; and, illuminated by the glory of his coming, the vapours of
+    morning wrought themselves into marvellous shapes of shifting
+    colour,--into forms weirdly beautiful as the silken dreams woven
+    in the loom of Tchi-Niu.
+
+Another tale is that of Mara, who tempted in vain, for the Indian
+pilgrim conquered.
+
+    And still, as a mist of incense, as a smoke of universal
+    sacrifice, perpetually ascends to heaven from all the lands of
+    earth the pleasant vapour TE, created for the refreshment of
+    mankind by the power of a holy vow, the virtue of a pious
+    atonement.
+
+Like unto the Tale of the Great Bell, Pu, convinced that a soul cannot
+be divided,
+
+    entered the flame, and yielded up his ghost in the embrace of
+    the Spirit of the Furnace, giving his life for the life of his
+    work,--his soul for the soul of his Vase.
+
+And when the workmen came upon the tenth morning to take forth
+    the porcelain marvel, even the bones of Pu had ceased to be; but
+    lo! the Vase lived as they looked upon it: seeming to be flesh
+    moved by the utterance of a Word, creeping to the titillation of
+    a Thought. And whenever tapped by the finger, it uttered a voice
+    and a name,--the voice of its maker, the name of its creator: PU.
+
+This same year, Hearn contributed to _Harpers Bazaar_ the valiant legend
+of "Rabyah's Last Ride"(234)--Rabyah upon whom no woman had ever called
+in vain, and who defended his women even after he was dead. This tale
+was copied in the _Times-Democrat_.
+
+CHITA[26] (4), although published after Hearn left New Orleans, properly
+belongs to that period. It first appeared in much shorter form in the
+_Times-Democrat_ under the title of "Torn Letters." This version met
+with many warm friends, and the author was urged to enlarge it. He did
+so, and Harpers accepted the story, publishing it first as a serial in
+their magazine. With this book came Hearn's first recognition, and
+because of its success, he was given a commission by Harpers for further
+studies in the tropics, which eventuated in the volume, "Two Years in
+the French West Indies."
+
+    [26] Copyright, 1889, by Harper and Brothers.
+
+"Chita" is the first glimpse of what Mr. Hearn could write from out
+himself; for whereas, as always, the plot must be given to him, the
+thread here is so frail that what we admire and remember is the fabric
+itself which only Hearn could have woven. In "Chita" he recreates
+elemental nature. In "Karma" he becomes the conscience of a human being.
+Then, for the first time he realizes the spiritual forces which are
+stronger than life or death, and without which no beauty exists.
+
+A criticism of "Chita" at the time of its publication says:--
+
+"By right of this single but profoundly remarkable book, Mr. Hearn may
+lay good claim to the title of the American Victor Hugo ... so living a
+book has scarcely been given to our generation." (342.)
+
+Concerning the story, Hearn himself writes as follows:--
+
+    "Chita" was founded on the fact of a child saved from the Lost
+    Island disaster by some Louisiana fishing-folk, and brought up
+    by them. Years after a Creole hunter recognized her, and
+    reported her whereabouts to relatives. These, who were rich,
+    determined to bring her up as young ladies are brought up in the
+    South, and had her sent to a convent. But she had lived the free
+    healthy life of the coast, and could not bear the convent; she
+    ran away from it, married a fisherman, and lives somewhere down
+    there now,--the mother of multitudinous children.
+
+This slight structure of plot gave Hearn the opportunity to paint a
+marvellous picture. Hundreds of quotations could be given. He is
+delighted with the rich glory of the tropics, and by his power of word
+imagery he so reproduces it that with him we too can see and feel it. In
+this glowing Nature the poisoned beauty of the Orient is forgotten. Take
+this description:--
+
+    The charm of a single summer day on these island shores is
+    something impossible to express, never to be forgotten. Rarely,
+    in the paler zones, do earth and heaven take such luminosity:
+    those will best understand me who have seen the splendour of a
+    West Indian sky. And yet there is a tenderness of tint, a caress
+    of colour, in these Gulf-days which is not of the Antilles,--a
+    spirituality, as of eternal tropical spring. It must have been
+    to even such a sky that Xenophanes lifted up his eyes of old
+    when he vowed the Infinite Blue was God;--it was indeed under
+    such a sky that De Soto named the vastest and grandest of
+    Southern havens Espiritu Santo,--the Bay of the Holy Ghost.
+    There is a something unutterable in this bright Gulf-air that
+    compels awe,--something vital, something holy, something
+    pantheistic and reverentially the mind asks itself if what the
+    eye beholds is not the [Greek: pneuma] indeed, the Infinite
+    Breath, the Divine Ghost, the Great Blue Soul of the Unknown.
+    All, all is blue in the calm,--save the low land under your
+    feet, which you almost forget, since it seems only as a tiny
+    green flake afloat in the liquid eternity of day. Then slowly,
+    caressingly, irresistibly, the witchery of the Infinite grows
+    upon you: out of Time and Space you begin to dream with open
+    eyes,--to drift into delicious oblivion of facts,--to forget the
+    past, the present, the substantial,--to comprehend nothing but
+    the existence of that infinite Blue Ghost as something into
+    which you would wish to melt utterly away for ever.
+
+So it is told that into this perfect peace one August day in 1856, a
+scarlet sun sank in a green sky, and a moonless night came.
+
+    Then the Wind grew weird. It ceased being a breath; it became a
+    Voice moaning across the world hooting,--uttering nightmare
+    sounds,--_Whoo!_--_whoo!_--_whoo!_--and with each stupendous
+    owl-cry the mooing of the waters seemed to deepen, more and more
+    abysmally, through all the hours of darkness.
+
+Morning dawned with great rain: the steamer _Star_ was due that day. No
+one dared to think of it. "Great God!" some one shrieked,--"She is
+coming!"
+
+    On she came, swaying, rocking, plunging,--with a great whiteness
+    wrapping her about like a cloud, and moving with her moving,--a
+    tempest-whirl of spray;--ghost-white and like a ghost she came,
+    for her smoke-stacks exhaled no visible smoke--the wind devoured
+    it.
+
+And still the storm grew fiercer. On shore the guests at the hotel
+danced with a feverish reckless gaiety.
+
+    Again the _Star_ reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began to
+    drag away from the great building and its lights,--away from the
+    voluptuous thunder of the grand piano,--even at that moment
+    outpouring the great joy of Weber's melody orchestrated by
+    Berlioz: _l'Invitatiòn à la Valse_,--with its marvellous musical
+    swing.
+
+    --"Waltzing!" cried the captain. "God help them!--God help us
+    all now!... The Wind waltzes to-night, with the Sea for his
+    partner." ...
+
+    O the stupendous Valse-Tourbillon! O the mighty Dancer!
+    One-two--three! From north-east to east, from east to
+    south-east, from south-east to south: then from the south he
+    came, whirling the Sea in his arms....
+
+And so the hurricane passed, and the day reveals utter wreck and
+desolation. "There is plunder for all--birds and men."
+
+At a fishing village on the coast on this same night of the storm
+Carmen, the good wife of Feliu, dreamed--above the terrors of the
+tempest which shattered her sleep--once again the dream that kept
+returning of her little Concha, her first-born who slept far away in the
+old churchyard at Barcelona. And this night she dreamed that her waxen
+Virgin came and placed in her arms the little brown child with the
+Indian face, and the face became that of her dead Conchita.
+
+    And Carmen wished to thank the Virgin for that priceless bliss,
+    and lifted up her eyes; but the sickness of ghostly fear
+    returned upon her when she looked; for now the Mother seemed as
+    a woman long dead, and the smile was the smile of fleshlessness,
+    and the places of the eyes were voids and darknesses.... And the
+    sea sent up so vast a roar that the dwelling rocked.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Feliu and his men find the tide heavy with human dead and the sea filled
+with wreckage. Through this floatage Feliu detects a stir of life ... he
+swims to rescue a little baby fast in the clutch of her dead mother.
+
+To Carmen it is the meaning of her dream. The child has been sent by the
+Virgin. The tale leads on through the growing life of Chita. Finally one
+day Dr. La Brierre, whose wife and child had been lost in the famous
+storm, is summoned to Viosca's Point to the deathbed of his father's old
+friend, who is dying of the fever. It is Feliu who brings him. But
+before they can reach the Point the man has already died. The Doctor
+remains at Feliu's fishing smack. He feels the sickness of the fever
+coming over him. Then he sees Chita.... Hers is the face of his dead
+Adèle. Through the fury of the fever, which has now seized him, the past
+is mingled with the present. He re-lives the agony of that death-storm,
+re-lives all the horror of that scene, when all that he held dear was
+swept away--until his own soul passes out into the night.
+
+The description of Dr. La Brierre in the throes of the fever is
+terrible. It is so realistic that one shudders.
+
+TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES[27] (6) was the _pièce de
+résistance_ of the sojourn in the tropics. Some of the papers appeared
+first in _Harper's Magazine_. They are marvellous colour-pictures of the
+country, its people, its life, its customs, with many of the picturesque
+legends and the quaintnesses that creep into the heart.
+
+    [27] Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.
+
+"There is not a writer who could have so steeped himself in this
+languorous Creole life and then tell so well about it. Trollope and
+Froude give you the hard, gritty facts, and Lafcadio Hearn the sentiment
+and poetry of this beautiful island." (387.)
+
+More and more is Hearn realizing the necessity of finding new colour. "I
+hope to be able to take a trip to New Mexico in the summer just to
+obtain literary material, sun-paint, tropical colour, etc." It is always
+the intense that his fancy craves, and indeed _must_ have in order to
+work. "There are tropical lilies which are venomous, but they are more
+beautiful than the frail and icy white lilies of the North." "Whenever I
+receive a new and strong impression, even in a dream, I write it down,
+and afterwards develop it at leisure.... There are impressions of blue
+light and gold and green, correlated to old Spanish legend, which can be
+found only south of this line." "I will write you a little while I am
+gone,--if I can find a little strange bit of tropical colour to spread
+on the paper,--like the fine jewel-dust of scintillant moth-wings."
+"Next week I go away to hunt up some tropical or semi-tropical
+impressions."
+
+He is bewitched by St. Pierre--"I love this quaint, whimsical,
+wonderfully coloured little town." On opening the present volume we at
+once feel how thoroughly sympathetic this whole Nature is to him, how
+ravished his senses are with all that she portrays.
+
+From Pier 49, East River, New York, we travel with Hearn through days of
+colour and beauty to the glorious Caribbean Sea, where we sail on to
+Roseau and St. Pierre. Here the colour is becoming so intense that the
+eyes are blinded.
+
+    The luminosities of tropic foliage could only be imitated in
+    fire. He who desires to paint a West Indian forest,--a West
+    Indian landscape,--must take his view from some great height,
+    through which the colours come to his eye softened and subdued
+    by distance,--toned with blues or purples by the astonishing
+    atmosphere.
+
+... It is sunset as I write these lines, and there are
+    witchcrafts of colour. Looking down the narrow, steep street
+    opening to the bay, I see the motionless silhouette of the
+    steamer on a perfectly green sea,--under a lilac sky,--against a
+    prodigious orange light.
+
+Over her memoried paths we wander with Josephine, and then we pause
+before the lovely statue which seems a living presence.
+
+    She is standing just in the centre of the Savane, robed in the
+    fashion of the First Empire, with gracious arms and shoulders
+    bare: one hand leans upon a medallion bearing the eagle profile
+    of Napoleon.... Seven tall palms stand in a circle around her,
+    lifting their comely heads into the blue glory of the tropic
+    day. Within their enchanted circle you feel that you tread holy
+    ground,--the sacred soil of artist and poet;--here the
+    recollections of memoir-writers vanish away; the gossip of
+    history is hushed for you; you no longer care to know how rumour
+    has it that she spoke or smiled or wept: only the bewitchment of
+    her lives under the thin, soft, swaying shadows of those
+    feminine palms.... Over violet space of summer sea, through the
+    vast splendour of azure light, she is looking back to the place
+    of her birth, back to beautiful drowsy Trois-Islets,--and always
+    with the same half-dreaming, half-plaintive smile,--unutterably
+    touching....
+
+"Under a sky always deepening in beauty" we steam on to the level,
+burning, coral coast of Barbadoes. Then on past to Demerara.
+
+We pass through all the quaint beautiful old towns and islands. We see
+their wonders of sky and sea and flowers. We see their people and all
+that great race of the mixed blood.
+
+With dear old Jean-Marie we wait for the return of Les Porteuses, and we
+hear his call:--
+
+    "_Coument ou yé, chè? coument ou kallé?_" ... (How art thou,
+    dear?--how goes it with thee?)
+
+And they mostly make answer, "_Toutt douce, chè,--et ou?_" (All
+    sweetly, dear,--and thou?) But some, over-weary, cry to him,
+    "_Ah! déchârgé moin vite, chè! moin lasse, lasse!_" (Unload me
+    quickly, dear; for I am very, very weary.) Then he takes off
+    their burdens, and fetches bread for them, and says foolish
+    little things to make them laugh. And they are pleased and
+    laugh, just like children, as they sit right down on the road
+    there to munch their dry bread.
+
+Again we follow on: this time to La Grande Anse, where we see the
+powerful surf-swimmers. With the population we turn out to witness the
+procession of young girls to be confirmed; we see the dances and games;
+we hear the chants, and the strange music on strange instruments.
+
+At St. Pierre once more we listen to the history of Père Labat, who in
+twelve years made his order the richest and most powerful in the West
+Indies.
+
+    "Eh, Père Labat!--what changes there have been since thy day!...
+    And all that ephemeral man has had power to change has been
+    changed,--ideas, morals, beliefs, the whole social fabric. But
+    the eternal summer remains,--and the Hesperian magnificence of
+    azure sky and violet sea,--and the jewel-colours of the
+    perpetual hills; the same tepid winds that rippled thy
+    cane-fields two hundred years ago still blow over Sainte-Marie;
+    the same purple shadows lengthen and dwindle and turn with the
+    wheeling of the sun. God's witchery still fills this land; and
+    the heart of the stranger is even yet snared by the beauty of
+    it; and the dreams of him that forsakes it will surely be
+    haunted--even as were thine own, Père Labat--by memories of its
+    Eden-summer: the sudden leap of the light over a thousand peaks
+    in the glory of a tropic dawn,--the perfumed peace of enormous
+    azure noons,--and shapes of palm, wind-rocked in the burning of
+    colossal sunsets,--and the silent flickering of the great
+    fire-flies, through the lukewarm darkness, when mothers call
+    their children home.... '_Mi fanal Pè Labatt!--mi Pè Labatt ka
+    vini pouend ou!_'"
+
+Then we see the lights of the shrines that will protect us from the
+Zombi and the Moun-Mo, and all the terrible beings who are filled with
+witchcraft; and we listen to the tale of that Zombi who likes to take
+the shape of a lissome young negress.
+
+By this time it is Carnival Week with its dances and games and maskers.
+But a little later we are shuddering at the horrible pestilence Vérette
+that has seized the city. A gleam of the old love of horror is caught in
+the following quotation:--
+
+    She was the prettiest, assuredly, among the pretty shop-girls of
+    the Grande Rue,--a rare type of _sang-mêlée_. So oddly pleasing,
+    the young face, that once seen, you could never again dissociate
+    the recollection of it from the memory of the street. But one
+    who saw it last night before they poured quick-lime upon it
+    could discern no features,--only a dark brown mass, like a
+    fungus, too frightful to think about.
+
+At the beautiful Savane du Fort our eyes and hearts are gladdened by the
+quaint sight of the Blanchisseuses with their snowy linen spread out for
+miles along the river's bank. Their laughter echoes in our ears, and we
+try to catch the words of their little songs.
+
+One warm and starry, and to us unforgettable, September morning we make
+the ascent of Mt. Pelée by the way of Morne St. Martin, and on our way
+we come to know the country that lies all around. Let me quote our
+sensation as we reach the summit:--
+
+    At the beginning, while gazing south, east, west, to the rim of
+    the world, all laughed, shouted, interchanged the quick delight
+    of new impressions: every face was radiant.... Now all look
+    serious; none speaks.... Dominating all, I think, is the
+    consciousness of the awful antiquity of what one is looking
+    upon,--such a sensation, perhaps, as of old found utterance in
+    that tremendous question of the Book of Job: "_Wast thou brought
+    forth before the hills?_"
+
+And the blue multitudes of the peaks, the perpetual congregation
+    of the mornes, seem to chorus in the vast resplendence,--telling
+    of Nature's eternal youth, and the passionless permanence of
+    that about us and beyond us and beneath,--until something like
+    the fulness of a grief begins to weigh at the heart.... For all
+    this astonishment of beauty, all this majesty of light and form
+    and colour, will surely endure,--marvellous as now,--after we
+    shall have lain down to sleep where no dreams come, and may
+    never arise from the dust of our rest to look upon it.
+
+Another day we are laughing at the little _ti canotié_ who in the
+queerest tiny boats surround a steamer as soon as she drops anchor.
+These are the boys who dive for coins. A sad tale is told of Maximilien
+and Stréphane. Again our hearts are moved by the pathos and the tragedy
+of La Fille de Couleur; and in this chapter we find that characteristic
+description:--
+
+    I refer to the celebrated attire of the pet slaves and _belles
+    affranchies_ of the old colonial days. A full
+    costume,--including violet or crimson "petticoat" of silk or
+    satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery and lace;
+    "trembling-pins" of gold (_zépingue tremblant_) to attach the
+    folds of the brilliant Madras turban; the great necklace of
+    three or four strings of gold beads bigger than peas
+    (_collier-choux_); the ear-rings, immense but light as
+    egg-shells (_zanneaux-à-clous_ or _zanneaux-chenilles_); the
+    bracelets (_portes-bonheur_); the studs (_boutons-à-clous_); the
+    brooches, not only for the turban, but for the chemise, below
+    the folds of the showy silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,--would
+    sometimes represent over five thousand francs' expenditure. This
+    gorgeous attire is becoming less visible every year: it is now
+    rarely worn except on very solemn occasions,--weddings,
+    baptisms, first communions, confirmations. The _da_ (nurse) or
+    "_porteuse-de-baptême_" who bears the baby to church, holds it
+    at the baptismal font, and afterwards carries it from house to
+    house in order that all the friends of the family may kiss it,
+    is thus attired: but now-a-days, unless she be a professional
+    (for there are professional _das_, hired only for such
+    occasions), she usually borrows the jewellery. If tall, young,
+    graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin, the effect of her
+    costume is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin. I saw one
+    young _da_ who, thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and
+    earthly;--there was an Oriental something in her appearance
+    difficult to describe,--something that made you think of the
+    Queen at Sheba going to visit Solomon. She had brought a
+    merchant's baby, just christened, to receive the caresses of the
+    family at whose house I was visiting; and when it came to my
+    turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice the child: I saw
+    only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange and purple,
+    bending over it, in an illumination of antique gold. What a
+    _da_!... She represented really the type of that _belle
+    affranchie_ of other days, against whose fascination special
+    sumptuary laws were made: romantically she imaged for me the
+    supernatural godmothers and Cinderellas of the Creole
+    fairy-tales.
+
+Still we have much to learn about the little creatures in the shapes of
+ants and scorpions and lizards. They form no small part of the
+population of Martinique. And still more about the fruits and the
+vegetables do we learn from good Cyrillia, Ma Bonne. One longs to have a
+housekeeper as loving and child-like and solicitous. We leave her gazing
+with love unutterable at the new photograph of her daughter, and
+wondering the while why they do not make a portrait talk so that she can
+talk to her beautiful daughter.
+
+    And day by day the artlessness of this exotic humanity touches
+    you more;--day by day this savage, somnolent, splendid
+    Nature--delighting in furious colour--bewitches you more.
+    Already the anticipated necessity of having to leave it all some
+    day--the far-seen pain of bidding it farewell weighs upon you,
+    even in dreams.
+
+But before we go, we must learn how Nature must treat those who are not
+born under her suns.
+
+Then at last reluctantly we board the _Guadeloupe_, and with
+Mademoiselle Violet-Eyes, who is leaving her country, perhaps for a very
+long time, to become a governess in New York, we realize that nowhere on
+this earth may there be brighter skies.
+
+    Farewell, fair city,--sun-kissed city,--many-fountained
+    city!--dear yellow-glimmering streets,--white pavements learned
+    by heart,--and faces ever looked for,--and voices ever loved!
+    Farewell, white towers with your golden-throated
+    bells!--farewell, green steeps, bathed in the light of summer
+    everlasting!--craters with your coronets of forests!--bright
+    mountain paths upwinding 'neath pomp of fern and angelin and
+    feathery bamboo!--and gracious palms that drowse above the dead!
+    Farewell, soft-shadowing majesty of valleys unfolding to the
+    sun,--green golden cane-fields ripening to the sea!...
+
+Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Pelée--so they vanish behind us. Shall
+not we too become _Les Revenants_?
+
+YOUMA[28] (5) was written in Martinique, and also belongs to the New
+Orleans period. "I think you will like it better than 'Chita.' It is
+more mature and exotic by far,"--so Hearn wrote of the story in one of
+his letters. Later on, when living in Japan, he wrote:--
+
+    [28] Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.
+
+    It gave me no small pleasure to find that you like "Youma": you
+    will not like it less knowing that the story is substantially
+    true. You can see the ruins of the old house in the Quartier du
+    Fort if you ever visit Saint-Pierre, and perhaps meet my old
+    friend Arnoux, a survivor of the time. The girl really died
+    under the heroic conditions described--refusing the help of the
+    blacks and the ladder. Of course I may have idealized her, but
+    not her act. The incident of the serpent occurred also; but the
+    heroine was a different person,--a plantation girl, celebrated
+    by the historian Rufz de Lavison. I wrote the story under
+    wretched circumstances in Martinique, near the scenes described,
+    and under the cross with the black Christ.
+
+An English notice says:--
+
+"It is an admirable little tale, full of local characteristics with
+curious fragments of Creole French from Martinique, and abundance of
+wide human sympathy. It deserves reprinting for English readers more
+than three-fourths of the fiction which is wont to cross the Atlantic
+under similar circumstances." (294.)
+
+"Youma" is the tale of the exquisite devotion and loyalty of a _da_. (A
+_da_ is the foster-mother and nurse of a Creole child.) At the death of
+Aimée, Youma's playmate and rich foster-sister, little Mayotte, her
+child, becomes Youma's charge. An intimate description is given us of
+the Creole life of Mayotte and Youma. The love of this _da_ is very
+beautiful. Once with an extraordinary heroism Youma saves Mayotte from a
+serpent which has slipped into their room. With a still greater heroism
+she refuses to run away with Gabriel, who has opened the world to
+her,--Gabriel who has brought her love, and whom she can marry in no
+other way. No, above the pleadings of her lover, comes the voice of her
+dying mistress, begging, with such trust,--
+
+    "Youma, O Youma! you will love my child?--Youma, you will never
+    leave her, whatever happens, while she is little? promise, dear
+    Youma!"
+
+    And she had--promised....
+
+Then comes the final test of Youma's strength of devotion. There is an
+outbreak among the blacks, who have become inflamed by the dreams of
+coming freedom. The Desrivières with many other families are forced to
+flee for refuge in safer quarters. Under one roof all these people
+gather. Youma is urged to leave and save herself. But she will not
+forsake Mayotte or her master. The infuriated blacks surround the house,
+and horror follows. Presently the house is set on fire. Youma, with
+Mayotte in her arms, appears at an upper window. Gabriel, "daring the
+hell about him for her sake," puts up a ladder. Youma hands him Mayotte.
+"Can you save her?" she asks.
+
+    "Gabriel could only shake his head;--the street sent up so
+    frightful a cry....
+
+    "_Non!--non!--non!--pa lè yche-béké--janmain yche-béké!_"
+
+    "Then you cannot save me!" cried Youma, clasping the child to
+    her bosom,--"_janmain! janmain, mon ami._"
+
+    "Youma, in the name of God...."
+
+    "In the name of God, you ask me to be a coward!... Are you vile,
+    Gabriel?--are you base?... Save myself and leave the child to
+    burn?... Go!"
+
+    "Leave the _béké's yche_!--leave it!--leave it, girl!" shouted a
+    hundred voices.
+
+    "_Moin!_" cried Youma, retreating beyond the reach of Gabriel's
+    hand,--"_moin!_ ... Never shall I leave it, never! I shall go to
+    God with it."
+
+    "Burn with it, then!" howled the negroes ... "down with that
+    ladder! down with it, down with it!"
+
+The ladder catches fire and burns. The walls quiver, and there are
+shrieks from the back of the house. Unmoved, with a perfect calm, Youma
+remains at the window. "There is now neither hate nor fear on her fine
+face." Softly she whispers to Mayotte, and caresses her with an infinite
+tenderness. Never to Gabriel had she seemed so beautiful.
+
+    Another minute--and he saw her no more. The figure and the light
+    vanished together, as beams and floor and roof all quaked down
+    at once into darkness.... Only the skeleton of stone
+    remained,--black-smoking to the stars.
+
+A stillness follows. The murderers are appalled by their crime.
+
+    Then, from below, the flames wrestled out again,--crimsoning the
+    smoke whirls, the naked masonry, the wreck of timbers. They
+    wriggled upward, lengthening, lapping together,--lifted
+    themselves erect,--grew taller, fiercer,--twined into one huge
+    fluid spire of tongues that flapped and shivered high into the
+    night....
+
+The yellowing light swelled,--expanded from promontory to
+    promontory,--palpitated over the harbour,--climbed the broken
+    slopes of the dead volcano leagues through the gloom. The wooded
+    mornes towered about the city in weird illumination,--seeming
+    loftier than by day,--blanching and shadowing alternately with
+    the soaring and sinking of the fire;--and at each huge pulsing
+    of the glow, the white cross of their central summit stood
+    revealed, with the strange passion of its black Christ.
+
+... And at the same hour, from the other side of the world,--a
+    ship was running before the sun, bearing the Republican gift of
+    liberty and promise of universal suffrage to the slaves of
+    Martinique.
+
+There are two little bits of description which are so characteristic
+that I quote them:--
+
+    Then she became aware of a face ... lighted by a light that came
+    from nowhere,--that was only a memory of some long-dead morning.
+    And through the dimness round about it a soft blue radiance
+    grew,--the ghost of a day.
+
+Sunset yellowed the sky,--filled the horizon with flare of
+    gold;--the sea changed its blue to lilac;--the mornes brightened
+    their vivid green to a tone so luminous that they seemed turning
+    phosphorescent. Rapidly the glow crimsoned,--shadows purpled;
+    and night spread swiftly from the east,--black-violet and full
+    of stars.
+
+KARMA[29] (242) was written during the Philadelphia period, but was not
+published in _Lippincott's Magazine_ until after Hearn had sailed for
+Japan. The story is concentrated, with its every word a shaft of light,
+and it seems a wrong to attempt to epitomize it. Except in its entirety
+no adequate conception can be formed of this marvellous revelation of
+the anguish that a human soul may suffer; nor of the artistic power with
+which Hearn has developed and perfected his study. Many quotations could
+be gleaned from his subsequent books which reflect the inspiration of
+"Karma."
+
+    [29] Copyright, 1889, by Lafcadio Hearn; and, copyright, 1890
+         by J. B. Lippincott Company.
+
+Despite her unusual intellect, the heroine had a childlike simplicity
+and frankness which invited her lover's confidence, but he had never
+told her his admiration, for a dormant power beneath her girlishness
+made a compliment seem a rudeness. He was often alone with her, which is
+helpful to lovers, but her charm always confused him, and his
+embarrassment only deepened. One day she archly asked him to tell her
+about it.
+
+Is there one who does not know that moment when the woman beloved
+becomes the ideal, and the lover feels his utter unworthiness? Yet, if
+she is one of those rare souls, the illusion, however divine, is less
+perfect than is her worth. Do you know what she truly is--how she
+signifies "the whole history of love striving against hate, aspiration
+against pain, truth against ignorance, sympathy against pitilessness?
+She,--the soul of her! is the ripened passion-flower of the triumph. All
+the heroisms, the martyrdoms, the immolations of self,--all strong
+soarings of will through fire and blood to God since humanity
+began,--conspired to kindle the flame of her higher life."
+
+And then you question yourself with a thousand questions, and then there
+are as many more of your duty to her, to the future, and to the Supreme
+Father.
+
+She was not surprised when he told her his wish, but she was not
+confident that he really loved her, nor whether she should permit
+herself to like him. Finally she bade him go home and "as soon as you
+feel able to do it properly,--write out for me a short history of your
+life;--just write down everything you feel that you would not like me to
+know. Write it,--and send it.... And then I shall tell you whether I
+will marry you."
+
+How easy the task seemed, and his whole being was joyous; but the
+lightness lasted for only a moment, and gradually all that her command
+meant crept over him.... "_Everything you feel you would not like me to
+know._" Surely she had no realization of what she had asked. Did she
+imagine that men were good like women--how cruel to hurt her.
+
+Then for a period he was uplifted with the desire to meet her
+truthfulness, but his courage failed again after he had written down the
+record of his childhood and youth. It was no slight task to make this
+confession of his sins. And how pale and trivial they had seemed before.
+Was it possible that he had never before rightly looked at them? Yet why
+should he so falter? Surely she meant to pardon him. He must put
+everything down truthfully, and then recolour the whole for her gaze.
+But his face grew hot at the thought of certain passages.
+
+Hour after hour he sat at his desk until it was past midnight, but no
+skill could soften the stony facts. Finally he lay down to rest: his
+fevered brain tried to find excuses for his faults. He could forgive
+himself everything ... except--ah, how unutterably wicked he had been
+there. No, he could not tell her _that_: instead he must lose her for
+ever. And in losing her he would lose all the higher self which she had
+awakened. To lose her--when he of all men had found his ideal.
+
+"_Everything you feel you would not like me to know._" Perhaps when she
+had put this ban upon him, she suspected that there were incidents in
+his life which he dared not tell her. Could he not deceive her? No, he
+might write a lie, but he could never meet her fine sweet eyes with a
+lie. What was he to do? And why had he always been so humble before that
+slight girl? "Assuredly those fine grey eyes were never lowered before
+living gaze: she seemed as one who might look God in the face."
+
+Slowly his senses became more confused, and a darkness came, and a light
+in the darkness that shone on her; and he saw her bathed in a soft
+radiance, that seemed of some substance like ivory. And he knew that she
+was robing for her bridal with him.
+
+He was at her side: all around them was a gentle whispering of many
+friends, who were dead. Would they smile thus--_if they knew_?
+
+Then there arose something within him, and he knew that he must tell her
+all. He commenced to speak, and she became transfigured, and smiled at
+him with the tenderness of an angel; and the more he told the greater
+was her forgiveness. And he heard the voices of the others lauding him
+for his self-sacrifice and his sincerity. Yet as they praised a fear
+clutched him for one last avowal that he must make. And with the growing
+of this doubt all seemed maliciously to change, and even she no longer
+smiled. He then would have told her alone, but even as he tried to hush
+his voice, it seemed to pierce the quietude "with frightful audibility,
+like the sibilation of a possessing spirit." Then with a reckless
+despair he shouted it aloud, and everything vanished, and the darkness
+of night was about him.
+
+For many restless days and nights he harried himself with bitter
+self-analysis; and day by day he tore up a certain page; yet without
+that page his manuscript was worthless. As the days grew into weeks a
+new fear seized him that his silence had betrayed him, and that already
+she had decided against him. In the face of this danger he became
+terrified, and one morning he feverishly copied the memorable page, and,
+addressing the whole, dropped it in the first letter-box, before he
+might change his mind.
+
+Then an awful revelation of his act overcame him. Should he telegraph
+her to return the manuscript unopened. No, it was already too late. What
+was done--was done for ever. He now vaguely realized what he feared in
+her--"a penetrating dynamic moral power that he felt without
+comprehending." He tried to steel himself for the worst, but he knew
+with a premonition that behind his imagined worst there were depths
+beyond depths of worse.
+
+The single word "Come" which he received two days later confirmed his
+fears. When he reached the door of her apartment, she had already risen
+to take from a locked drawer an envelope which he knew was his. She
+proffered him no greeting, but asked in a cold voice if he wished her to
+burn the document. At his whispered _yes_, he met her eyes, and they
+seemed to strip him of the last remnant of his pride. "He stood before
+her as before God,--morally naked as a soul in painted dreams of the
+Judgment Day."
+
+The fire caught the paper, and he stood near, in fear of her next word,
+while she watched the flame.
+
+At last she asked if the woman was dead. He well knew to what she
+referred, and replied that almost five years had passed since her death.
+To the penetrating questions which followed he answered that the
+child--a boy--was well, and that his friend was still there--in the same
+place. She turned to him abruptly and coldly, angered that he could have
+believed that she would pardon such a crime.
+
+He must have had some hope, or he would not have sent the letter. Had he
+measured her by his own moral standard? Certainly he had placed her
+below the level of honest people. Would he dare to ask their judgment of
+his sin?
+
+Speechless, he writhed under the scorn of her words, and a knowledge of
+shame to which his former agony was as nothing burned within him. That
+in him which her inborn goodness had taught her, was now laid bare to
+himself.
+
+Again she spoke after a silence--perhaps he would think she was cruel;
+but she was not, nor was she unjust, for transcendent sin that denies
+"all the social wisdom gained by human experience" cannot be pardoned,
+it can only be atoned. And that sin was his; and God would exact his
+expiation. And that expiation she now demanded in God's name, and as her
+right. He must go to the friend whom he had wronged, and tell him the
+whole truth. He must ask for the child, and fulfil his whole duty; also
+he must place even his life at the man's will. And she would rather see
+him dead than believe that he could be a coward as well as a criminal.
+This she requested not as a favour, but as her right.
+
+At her words he grew pale as if to death, and for a moment she feared
+that he might refuse, and that she must despise him. No! his colour
+rushed back, and her heart leaped, as with a calm resolve he answered,
+"I will do it."
+
+"Then go!" she replied, betraying no gladness.
+
+A year went by. She knew that he had kept his promise. He wrote to her
+often, and passionately, but the letters were never answered. Did she
+doubt him still?--or was she afraid of her own heart? He could not know
+the truth, so he waited with hopes and fears, and the seasons passed.
+Then one day she was startled to receive a letter which told her that he
+was passing through her suburb, and he begged only to be permitted to
+see her. To his surprise the answer brought the happy words, "You may."
+
+From the shy, beautiful eyes of the child, whom he brought, there seemed
+to plead a woman's sorrow, until her own soul answered in forgiveness.
+And the boy and the father marvelled at the tenderness that had come
+upon her, and the father sobbed until her voice thrilled: that suffering
+was strength and knowledge, that always he must suffer for the evil he
+had wrought, but she would help him to bear the pain, and to endure his
+atonement. She would shield his frailty--she would love his boy.
+
+THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD (21) was translated in New York, while
+Hearn was finishing the proofs of "Two Years in the French West Indies."
+Of it he writes:--
+
+    As for the "Sylvestre Bonnard" I believe I told you that that
+    was translated in about ten days and published in two weeks from
+    the time of beginning it.... But the work suffers in consequence
+    of haste.
+
+After his departure for the Orient, two articles on West Indian Society
+appeared in the _Cosmopolitan_ (243-244). They give a sympathetic study
+of the sad and pathetic tragedy of the race of the mixed blood. These
+articles bear a similarity to the chapter upon and the references to
+this subject, in "Two Years in the French West Indies."
+
+GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN[30] (7) is the first of the series of
+Japanese books. It was published after Hearn had been in Japan for four
+years; since 1891 six of the articles had appeared in the _Atlantic
+Monthly_ (246-251). Also in 1890, an article, "A Winter Journey to
+Japan," was published in _Harper's Monthly_ (245). This was his initial
+paper on Japan.
+
+    [30] Copyright, 1894, by Lafcadio Hearn; and published by
+         Houghton, Mifflin and Company.]
+
+In many ways the present book on Japan is his happiest, for the charm
+over everything is fresh and radiant. It is here that we learn the old
+graceful customs, the touching child-like ways, and the sacred appealing
+rites and beliefs that so endear to us the Japanese. Later we are to
+have studies more philosophical, more erudite, but none more penetrating
+in virtue of the very simplicity of subject.
+
+It is difficult to believe that the writer, bewitched with the warmth
+and colour of the tropics, giving his pen an unlicensed flow of word
+colour and enthusiasm, in a few years could have matured into this
+quiet, gentle thinker equally absorbed by the East. One finds scarcely a
+trace of the Hearn of the tropics: therein lies his unique genius; just
+so admirably as he reflected the West Indian life, does he now reflect
+that of the Japanese.
+
+It is the old Japan that Hearn loves, and the passing of which he mourns
+even at the first. In his Preface, he says, "My own conviction, and that
+of many impartial and more experienced observers of Japanese life, is
+that Japan has nothing whatever to gain by conversion to Christianity,
+either morally or otherwise, but very much to lose." Also in one of his
+letters he writes, "I felt, as never before, how utterly dead old Japan
+is, and how ugly New Japan is becoming." It is old Japan that we find in
+the present volume. It is much as if we looked into a diary of his first
+days in the Orient, giving his impressions and conclusions, as well as
+portraying the pictures themselves.
+
+One of the reviews of the book contains the following:--
+
+"If Japan is all that he says; if the Japanese are so compounded of all
+the virtues, and so innocent of the ugly failings that mar our Western
+civilization, then the poet's dream of a Golden Age has actually been
+realized in the remote East. Much as we should like to believe that such
+a land and such a people actually exist, we cannot altogether conquer
+our doubts, or avoid the suspicion that the author's feeling sometimes
+gets the better of his judgment." (379.)
+
+And another says:--
+
+"In volume one he is still the outside observer, remote enough to be
+amused with the little pretty, bird-like glances of the Orient towards
+the Occident, pleased at the happy chance which makes a blind
+shampooer's cry musical as she taps her way down the street, instead of
+giving her a voice raucous as that which hurts and haunts the unwilling
+ears of wayfarers down Newgate Street and on Ludgate-Hill; or
+complimentary to the cunning fancy which paints a branch of flowering
+cherry in a cleft bamboo on a square of faintly-coloured paper and calls
+the cherry blossom 'beauty' and the bamboo 'long life.' He notices the
+shapely feet of the people: 'bare brown feet of peasants, or beautiful
+feet of children wearing tiny, tiny _geta_, or feet of young girls in
+snowy _tabi_. The _tabi_, the white digitated stocking, gives to a small
+light foot a mythological aspect--the white cleft grace of the foot of a
+fauness.'
+
+"A little further on the leaven of witchcraft is working, and he cannot
+write so airily. It is not as a mere spectator that he talks of his
+visit to the Buddhist cemetery, where the rotting wooden laths stand
+huddled about the graves, and one tomb bears an English name and a cross
+chiselled upon it. Here he made acquaintance with the god, who is the
+lover of little children, Jizô-Sama, about whose feet are little
+piles of stones heaped there by the hands of mothers of dead children.
+He is not quite as much in earnest as volume two will find him, or he
+could not call the gentle god 'that charming divinity'; but the
+sight-seer is dying in him nevertheless. It was with a friend's hand
+that he struck the great bell at Enoshima." (286.)
+
+But even here with a new world unfolding to his delighted eyes, it was
+colour that Hearn really wanted.
+
+    I am not easy about my book, of which I now await the proofs. It
+    lacks colour--it isn't like the West Indian book. But the world
+    here is not forceful: it is all washed in faint blues and greys
+    and greens. There are really _gamboge_, or saffron-coloured
+    valleys,--and lilac fields; but these exist only in the early
+    summer and the rape-plant season, and ordinarily Japan is
+    chromatically spectral.
+
+The opening chapter is his first day in the Orient, "the first charm of
+Japan is intangible and volatile as a perfume." Everything seems to him
+elfish and diminutive. "Cha," his Kurumaya, takes him past the shops
+where it appears to him "that everything Japanese is delicate,
+exquisite, admirable--even a pair of common wooden chop-sticks in a
+paper bag with a little drawing upon it." The money itself is a thing of
+beauty. But one must not dare to look, for there is enchantment in these
+wares, and having looked, one must buy. In truth one wishes to buy
+everything, even to the whole land, "with its magical trees and luminous
+atmosphere, with all its cities and towns and temples, and forty
+millions of the most lovable people."
+
+Before the steps leading to a temple he stops.
+
+    I turn a moment to look back through the glorious light. Sea and
+    sky mingle in the same beautiful pale clear blue. Below me the
+    billowing of bluish roofs reaches to the verge of the unruffled
+    bay on the right, and to the feet of the green wooded hills
+    flanking the city on two sides. Beyond that semi-circle of green
+    hills rises a lofty range of serrated mountains, indigo
+    silhouettes. And enormously high above the line of them towers
+    an apparition indescribably lovely,--one solitary snowy cone, so
+    filmly exquisite, so spiritually white, that but for its
+    immemorially familiar outline, one would surely deem it a shape
+    of cloud. Invisible its base remains, being the same delicious
+    tint as the sky: only above the eternal snow-line its dreamy
+    cone appears, seeming to hang, the ghost of a peak, between the
+    luminous land and the luminous heaven,--the sacred and matchless
+    mountain, Fujiyama.
+
+Passing to the temple garden he wonders why the trees are so lovely in
+Japan.
+
+    Is it that the trees have been so long domesticated and caressed
+    by man in this land of the gods, that they have acquired souls,
+    and strive to show their gratitude, like women loved, by making
+    themselves more beautiful for man's sake? Assuredly they have
+    mastered men's hearts by their loveliness, like beautiful
+    slaves. That is to say, Japanese hearts. Apparently there have
+    been some foreign tourists of the brutal class in this place,
+    since it has been deemed necessary to set up inscriptions in
+    English announcing that "it is forbidden to injure the trees."
+
+Of Hearn's first visit to a Buddhist temple, I quote what one of his
+critics has to say:--
+
+"The silence of centuries seems to descend upon your soul, you feel the
+thrill of something above and beyond the commonplace of this every-day
+world, even here, amidst the turmoil, the rush, the struggle of this
+monster city of the West, if you take up his 'Glimpses of Unfamiliar
+Japan,' and turn to his description of his first visit to a Buddhist
+temple. Marvellous is his power of imparting the mystery of that strange
+land, of hidden meanings and allegories, of mists and legends. The
+bygone spirit of the race, the very essence of the heart of the people,
+that has lain sleeping in the temple gloom, in the shadows of the temple
+shrines, awakes and whispers in your ears. You feel the soft, cushioned
+matting beneath your feet, you smell the faint odour of the incense, you
+hear the shuffling of pilgrim feet, the priest sliding back screen after
+screen, pouring in light upon the gilded bronzes and inscriptions; and
+you look for the image of the Deity, of the presiding Spirit, between
+the altar groups of convoluted candelabra. And you see:
+
+    Only a mirror, a round, pale disc of polished metal, and my own
+    face therein, and behind this mockery of me a phantom of the far
+    sea.
+
+Only a mirror! Symbolizing what? Illusion? Or that the Universe
+    exists for us solely as the reflection of our own souls? Or the
+    old Chinese teaching that we must seek the Buddha only in our
+    own hearts? Perhaps some day I shall be able to find out. (350.)
+
+Many more temples are visited in the following chapter. What impresses
+him the most is the joyousness of the people's faith: everything is
+bright and cheerful, and the air is filled with the sound of children's
+voices as they play in the courts. He sees the many representations of
+Jizô, the loving divinity who cares for the souls of little children,
+who comforts them, and saves them from the demons. The face of Jizô
+is like that of a beautiful boy, and the countenance is made "heavenly
+by such a smile as only Buddhist art could have imagined, the smile of
+infinite lovingness and supremest gentleness." There is also Kwannon,
+"the goddess of mercy, the gentle divinity who refused the rest of
+Nirvâna to save the souls of men." Her face is golden, smiling with
+eternal youth and infinite tenderness. And he sees Emma Dai-Ô, the
+unpitying, tremendous one. He learns many things of many gods and
+goddesses. There is the temple of Kishibojin--the mother of Demons. For
+some former sin she was born a demon and devoured her own children. But
+through the teaching of Buddha she became a divine being, loving and
+protecting the little ones, and Japanese mothers pray to her, and wives
+pray for beautiful boys. At her shrine what impresses the visitor are
+hundreds of tiny dresses, mostly of poor material, stretched between
+tall poles of bamboos. These are the thank-offerings of poor simple
+country mothers whose prayers to her have been answered.
+
+In another chapter Hearn writes of the Festival of the Dead, for between
+the 13th and the 15th day of July the dead may come back again. Every
+small and great shrine is made beautiful with new mats of purest rice
+straw, and is decorated with lotus flowers, _shikimi_ (anise) and
+_misohagi_ (lespedeza). Food offerings, served on a tiny lacquered
+table--a _zen_--are placed before the altars. Every hour, tea daintily
+served in little cups is offered to the viewless visitors. At night
+beautiful special lanterns are hung at the entrances of homes. Those who
+have dead friends visit the cemeteries and make offerings there with
+prayers, and the sprinkling of water, and the burning of incense. On the
+evening of the 15th the ghosts of those, who in expiation of faults
+committed in a previous life are doomed to hunger, are fed. And also are
+fed the ghosts of those who have no friends.
+
+For three days everything is done to feast the dead, and on the last
+night there comes the touching ceremony of farewell, for the dead must
+then return.
+
+    Everything has been prepared for them. In each home small boats
+    made of barley straw closely woven have been freighted with
+    supplies of choice food, with tiny lanterns, and written
+    messages of faith and love. Seldom more than two feet in length
+    are these boats; but the dead require little room. And the frail
+    craft are launched on canal, lake, sea, or river,--each with a
+    miniature lantern glowing at the prow, and incense burning at
+    the stern. And if the night be fair, they voyage long. Down all
+    the creeks and rivers and canals the phantom fleets go
+    glimmering to the sea; and all the sea sparkles to the horizon
+    with the lights of the dead, and the sea wind is fragrant with
+    incense.
+
+But alas! it is now forbidden in the great seaports to launch
+    the _shôryôbune_, "the boats of the blessed ghosts."
+
+In Kami-Ichi, in the land of Hôki, there is a glimpse into ancient
+Japan, for there the Bon-odori, the Dance of the Festival of the Dead,
+is still maintained. No longer is it danced in the cities. In the temple
+court, in the shadow of the tomb, with the moonlight as a guide, long
+processions of young girls dance a slow ghostly dance while the vast
+audience of spectators keeps a perfect stillness. A deep male chant is
+heard, and the women respond. Many songs follow, until the night is
+waning. Then this seeming witchcraft ends, and with merry laughter and
+soft chatting all disperse.
+
+Hearn spends a long happy day at Matsue, the chief city of the Province
+of the Gods, where he gathers legends and impressions. Of course it has
+its temples. The temple is the best place to see the life of the people.
+There it is that the children play all day long. In the summer evening,
+the young artisans and labourers prove their strength in
+wrestling-matches. The sacred dances are held there; and on holidays it
+is also the place where toys are sold.
+
+Often at night your attention will be drawn to a large, silent, admiring
+group of people standing before some little booth. They will be looking
+at a few vases of sprays of flowers--an exhibition of skill in their
+arrangement.
+
+Returning homeward, there is seen a poor woman scattering some white
+papers into a stream of water, and, as she throws each one in, murmuring
+something sweet in a low voice. She is praying for her little dead
+child, and these are little prayers that she has written to Jizô.
+
+Kitzuki is the most ancient shrine in Japan, and it is the living centre
+of Shintô. There the ancient faith burns as brightly as ever it did
+in the unknown past. Buddhism may be doomed to pass away, but Shintô
+"unchanging and vitally unchanged remains dominant, and appears but to
+gain in power and dignity." Many of the wisest scholars have tried to
+define Shintô.
+
+    But the reality of Shintô lives not in books, nor in rites,
+    nor in commandments, but in the national heart, of which it is
+    the highest emotional religious expression, immortal and ever
+    young. Far underlying all the surface crop of quaint
+    superstitions and artless myths and fantastic magic, there
+    thrills a mighty spiritual force, the whole soul of a race with
+    all its impulses and powers and intuitions. He who would know
+    what Shintô is must learn to know that mysterious soul in
+    which the sense of beauty and the power of art and the fire of
+    heroism and magnetism of loyalty and the emotion of faith have
+    become inherent, immanent, unconscious, instinctive.
+
+At Kaka is the Cave of the Children's Ghosts. No evil person may enter
+the Shin-Kukedo, for if he does, a large stone will detach itself and
+fall down upon him. Here in this great vault, lifting forty feet above
+the water, and with walls thirty feet apart, is a white rock out of
+which drips a water apparently as white as the rock itself. This is the
+Fountain of Jizô, which gives milk to the souls of little dead
+children.
+
+    And mothers suffering from want of milk come hither to pray that
+    milk may be given unto them; and their prayer is heard. And
+    mothers having more milk than their infants need come hither
+    also, and pray to Jizô that so much as they can give may be
+    taken for the dead children; and their prayer is heard and their
+    milk diminishes.
+
+    At least thus the peasants of Izumo say.
+
+In another cavern are countless little piles of stones and pebbles,
+which must have been made by long and patient labour. It is the work of
+the dead children. One must step carefully, for the sake of these little
+ones, for if any work is spoiled, they will cry. In the sand are prints
+of little naked feet, "_the footprints of the infant ghosts_." Strewn
+here and there on the rocks are tiny straw sandals, pilgrims' offerings
+to keep the baby feet from being bruised by the stones.
+
+In the temple of Hojinji of the Zen sect at Mionoseki, there is an altar
+which bears many images of Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy. Before the
+altar, and hung from the carven ceiling, is a bright coloured mass of
+embroidered purses, patterns of silk-weaving and of cotton-weaving, also
+balls of threads and worsted and silk. These are the first offerings of
+little girls. As soon as a baby girl learns how to sew or knit or
+embroider, she brings to the Maid-Mother of all grace and sweetness and
+pity, the first piece that she has made successfully.
+
+    Even the infants of the Japanese kindergarten bring their first
+    work here,--pretty paper-cuttings, scissored out and plaited
+    into divers patterns by their own tiny flower-soft hands.
+
+Among the many Notes on Kitzuki which interest, is the annual festival
+of the Divine Scribe, the Tenjin-Matsuri, to which every school-boy
+sends a specimen of his best writing. The texts are in Chinese
+characters, and are generally drawn from the works of Confucius or
+Mencius. And Hearn remarks that the children of other countries can
+never excel in the art of Japanese writing. The inner ancestral
+tendencies will not let them catch the secret of the stroke with the
+brush. It is the fingers of the dead that move the brush of the Japanese
+boy.
+
+At every temple festival in Japan there is a sale of toys. And every
+mother, however poor, buys her child a toy. They are not costly, and are
+charming. Many of these toys would seem odd to a little English child.
+There is a tiny drum, a model of the drum used in the temples; or a
+miniature sambo table, upon which offerings are presented to the gods.
+There is a bunch of bells fastened to a wooden handle. It resembles a
+rattle, but it is a model of the sacred _suzu_ which the virgin
+priestess uses in her dance before the gods. Then there are tiny images
+of priests and gods and goddesses. There is little of grimness in the
+faiths of the Far East; their gods smile. "Why religion should be
+considered too awful a subject for children to amuse themselves decently
+with never occurs to the common Japanese mind."
+
+Besides these, there are pretty toys illustrating some fairy-tale or
+superstition and many other playthings of clever devices, and the little
+doll, O-Hina-San (Honourable Miss Hina), which is a type of Japanese
+girl beauty. The doll in Japan is a sacred part of the household. There
+is a belief that if it is treasured long enough it becomes alive. Such a
+doll is treated like a real child: it is supposed to possess
+supernatural powers. One had such rare powers that childless couples
+used to borrow it. They would minister to it, and would give it a new
+outfit of clothes before returning it to its owners. All who did this
+became parents. To the Japanese a new doll is only a doll; but a doll
+that has received the love of many generations acquires a soul. A little
+Japanese girl was asked, "How can a doll live?" "Why," was the lovely
+answer, "_if you love it enough_, it will live!"
+
+Never is the corpse of a doll thrown away. When it has become so worn
+out that it must be considered quite dead, it is either burned or cast
+in running water, or it is dedicated to the God Kôjin. In almost
+every temple ground there is planted a tree called _enoki_, which is
+sacred to Kôjin. Before the tree will be a little shrine, and either
+there or at the foot of the sacred tree, the sad little remains will be
+laid. Seldom during the lifetime of its owner is a doll given to
+Kôjin.
+
+    When you see one thus exposed, you may be almost certain that it
+    was found among the effects of some poor dead woman--the
+    innocent memento of her girlhood, perhaps even also of the
+    girlhood of her mother and of her mother's mother.
+
+There is a sad and awful tradition in the history of the Kengyôs, the
+oldest of the noble families of Izumo. Seven generations ago the
+Daimyô of Izumo made his first official visit to the temples of
+Hinomisaki, and was entertained royally by the Kengyô. As was the
+custom, the young wife served the royal visitor. Her simple beauty
+unfortunately enchanted him, and he demanded that she leave her husband
+and go with him. Terrified, but like a brave loving wife and mother, she
+answered that sooner than desert her husband and child she would kill
+herself.
+
+The Lord of Izumo went away, but the little household well knew the evil
+that now shadowed it. And shortly the Kengyô was suddenly taken from
+his family; tried at once for some unknown offence, and banished to the
+islands of Oki, where he died. The Daimyô was exultant, for no
+obstacle was in the way of his desire. The wife of the dead Kengyô
+was the daughter of his own minister, whose name was Kamiya. Kamiya was
+summoned before the Daimyô, who told him that there was no longer any
+reason why Kamiya's daughter should not enter his household, and bade
+Kamiya bring her to him.
+
+The next day Kamiya returned, and with the utmost ceremony announced
+that the command had been fulfilled--the victim had arrived.
+
+    Smiling for pleasure, the Matsudaira ordered that she should be
+    brought at once into his presence. The Karô prostrated
+    himself, retired, and presently returned, placed before his
+    master a _kubi-oke_ upon which lay the freshly-severed head of a
+    beautiful woman,--the head of the young wife of the dead
+    Kengyô,--with the simple utterance:
+
+                         "This is my daughter."
+            Dead by her own brave will,--but never dishonoured.
+
+"None love life more than the Japanese; none fear death less." So it is
+that when two lovers find that they can never wed, they keep the love
+death together, which is _jôshi_ or _shinjû_. By dying they
+believe that they will at once be united in another world. They always
+pray that they may be buried together. (In other books are written
+additional stories illustrating the touching custom.)
+
+At the temple of Yaegaki at Sakusa, are the Deities of Wedlock and of
+Love, and thither go all youths and maidens who are in love. Hundreds of
+strips of soft white paper are knotted to the gratings of the doors of
+the shrine. These are the prayers of love. Also there are tresses of
+girls' hair, love-sacrifices, and offerings of sea-water and of
+sea-weed. In the soil around the foundation of the shrine are planted
+quantities of small paper flags.
+
+All over Japan there are little Shintô shrines before which are
+images in stone of foxes.
+
+    The rustic foxes of Izumo have no grace: they are uncouth; but
+    they betray in countless queer ways the personal fancies of
+    their makers. They are of many moods,--whimsical, apathetic,
+    inquisitive, saturnine, jocose, ironical; they watch and snooze
+    and squint and wink and sneer; they wait with lurking smiles;
+    they listen with cocked ears most stealthily, keeping their
+    mouths open or closed. There is an amusing individuality about
+    them all, and an air of knowing mockery about most of them, even
+    those whose noses have been broken off. Moreover, these ancient
+    foxes have certain natural beauties which their modern
+    Tôkyô kindred cannot show. Time has bestowed upon them
+    divers speckled coats of beautiful colours while they have been
+    sitting on their pedestals, listening to the ebbing and flowing
+    of the centuries and snickering weirdly at mankind. Their backs
+    are clad with finest green velvet of old mosses; their limbs are
+    spotted and their tails are tipped with the dead gold or the
+    dead silver of delicate fungi. And the places they most haunt
+    are the loveliest,--high shadowy groves where the _uguisu_ sings
+    in green twilight, above some voiceless shrine with its lamps
+    and its lions of stone so mossed as to seem things born of the
+    soil--like mushrooms.
+
+It is difficult to define the Fox superstition, chiefly because it has
+sprung from so many elements. The origin is Chinese, and in Japan it has
+become mixed with the worship of a Shintô deity, and further enlarged
+by the Buddhist belief of thaumaturgy and magic. The peasants worship
+foxes because they fear them. But there are good foxes and bad ones. The
+country holds legend after legend of goblin foxes and ghost foxes, and
+foxes that take the form of human beings. Every Japanese child knows
+some of them.
+
+Seldom is a Japanese garden a flower-garden: it may not contain a
+flower. It is a landscape garden, and its artistic purpose is to give
+the impression of a real scene. Besides, it is supposed to express "a
+mood in the soul." Such abstract ideas as Chastity, Faith, Connubial
+Bliss were expressed by the old Buddhist monks who first brought the art
+into Japan. Little hills, and slopes of green, tiny river-banks, and
+little islands, together with trees, and stones, and flowering shrubs
+are combined by the artist. All these things have their poetry and
+legend, and sometimes have a special name signifying their position and
+rank in the whole design.
+
+In the ponds little creatures such as the frog and water-beetle live,
+and they too have their legends. The children make all of these
+creatures and the insects their playmates. Then there are the _semi_,
+which are musicians, and lovely dragon-flies which skim over the ponds;
+and back on the hill above the garden are many birds. It is not
+necessary to have a garden outdoors, for there are indoor gardens too
+which can even be put into a _koniwa_, the size of a fruit-dish.
+
+The dead are never dead with the Japanese; they become even more
+important members of the family, for the spirits of the dead control the
+lives of the living. Each day there is some ceremony in memory of these
+blessed dead; and no home is so poor but it has its household shrine.
+And Shintô, ancestor-worship,
+
+    signifies character in the higher sense,--courage, courtesy,
+    honour, and above all things loyalty. The spirit of Shintô is
+    the spirit of filial piety, the zest of duty, the readiness to
+    surrender life for a principle without a thought of wherefore.
+    It is the docility of the child; it is the sweetness of the
+    Japanese woman. It is conservatism likewise; the wholesome check
+    upon the national tendency to cast away the worth of the entire
+    past in rash eagerness to assimilate too much of the foreign
+    present. It is religion,--but religion transformed into
+    hereditary moral impulse,--religion transmuted into ethical
+    instinct. It is the whole emotional life of the race,--the Soul
+    of Japan.
+
+Self-sacrifice, loyalty, the deepest spirit of Shintô, is born with
+the child. If you ask any Japanese student what his dearest wish is he
+will surely answer,--"To die for His Majesty, our Emperor." It is
+impossible in this limited space to give an adequate idea of all that
+Shintôism implies.
+
+The dressing of the hair is a very important part of a Japanese woman's
+toilet. It is dressed once in every three days, and the task takes
+probably two hours. The elaborateness of the coiffure changes with the
+growing age of the maiden. But when she is twenty-eight, she is no
+longer young, and so thereafter only one style is left, that worn by old
+women. Of course, there are many superstitions about women's hair. It is
+the Japanese woman's dearest possession, and she will undergo any
+suffering not to lose it. At one time it was considered a fitting
+vengeance to shear the hair of an erring wife, and then turn her away.
+
+    Only the greatest faith or the deepest love can prompt a woman
+    to the voluntary sacrifice of her entire _chevelure_, though
+    partial sacrifices, offerings of one or two long thick cuttings,
+    may be seen suspended before many an Izumo shrine.
+
+What faith can do in the way of such sacrifice, he best knows
+    who has seen the great cables, woven of women's hair, that hang
+    in the vast Hongwanji temple at Kyôto. And love is stronger
+    than faith, though much less demonstrative. According to an
+    ancient custom a wife bereaved sacrifices a portion of her hair
+    to be placed in the coffin of her husband, and buried with him.
+    The quantity is not fixed: in the majority of cases it is very
+    small, so that the appearance of the coiffure is thereby no wise
+    affected. But she who resolves to remain for ever faithful to
+    the memory of the lost yields up all. With her own hand she cuts
+    off her hair, and lays the whole glossy sacrifice--emblem of her
+    youth and beauty--upon the knees of the dead.
+
+It is never suffered to grow again.
+
+The "Diary of a Teacher" gives a careful picture of the school-life in
+Japan as Hearn finds it. At the Normal School, which is a state
+institute, the young man student has no expenses. In return for these
+kindnesses, when he graduates he serves as a teacher for five years.
+Discipline is severe, and deportment is a demand. "A spirit of manliness
+is cultivated, which excludes roughness but develops self-reliance and
+self-control."
+
+The silence of study hours is perfect, and without permission no head is
+ever raised from a book.
+
+The female department is in a separate building. Girls are taught the
+European sciences, and are trained in all the Japanese arts, such as
+embroidery, decoration, painting; and of course that most delicate of
+arts--the arranging of flowers. Drawing is taught in all the schools. By
+fifty per cent. do Japanese students excel the English students in
+drawing.
+
+There is also a large elementary school for little boys and girls
+connected with the Normal School. These are taught by the students in
+the graduating classes. Noteworthy is the spirit of peace prevailing at
+the recesses that occur for ten minutes between each lesson. The boys
+romp and shout and race, but never quarrel. Hearn says that among the
+800 scholars whom he has taught, he has never even heard of a fight, nor
+of any serious quarrel. The girls sing or play some gentle game, and the
+teachers are kind and watchful of the smaller scholars. If a dress is
+torn or soiled the child is cared for as carefully as if she were a
+younger sister.
+
+No teacher would ever think of striking a scholar. If he did so he would
+at once have to give up his position. In fact, punishments are unknown.
+"The spirit is rather reversed. In the Occident the master expels the
+pupil. In Japan it happens quite as often that the pupil expels the
+master."
+
+It takes the Japanese student seven years to acquire the triple system
+of ideographs, which is the alphabet of his native literature. He must
+also be versed in the written and the spoken literature. He must study
+foreign history, geography, arithmetic, astronomy, physics, geometry,
+natural history, agriculture, chemistry, drawing.
+
+    Worst of all he must learn English,--a language of which the
+    difficulty to the Japanese cannot be even faintly imagined by
+    any one unfamiliar with the construction of the native
+    tongue,--a language so different from his own that the very
+    simplest Japanese phrase cannot be intelligibly rendered into
+    English by a literal translation of the words or even the form
+    of the thought.
+
+And he studies all this upon the slimmest of diets, clad in thin clothes
+in cold rooms. No wonder many fall by the way.
+
+The students have been trained to find a moral in all things. If the
+theme given to them for a composition is a native one, they will never
+fail to find it. For instance,--a peony is very beautiful, but it has a
+disagreeable odour; hence we should remember that "To be attracted by
+beauty only may lead us into fearful and fatal misfortune." The sting of
+the mosquito is useful, for "then we shall be bringed back to study."
+
+There is nothing distinctive about the Japanese countenance, but there
+is an intangible pleasantness that is common to all. Contrasted with
+Occidental faces they seem "half-sketched." The outlines are very soft,
+there is "neither aggressiveness nor shyness, neither eccentricity nor
+sympathy, neither curiosity nor indifference.... But all are equally
+characterized by a singular placidity,--expressing neither love nor
+hate, nor anything save perfect repose and gentleness,--like the dreamy
+placidity of Buddhist images." Later, these faces become individualized.
+
+In another chapter Hearn tells of Two Festivals: one the festival of the
+New Year; and the other, the Festival of Setsubun, which is the time for
+the casting out of devils. On the eve of this latter festival, the
+Yaku-otoshi, who is the caster-out of the demons, goes around, to any
+houses that may desire his services, and performs his exorcism, for
+which he receives a little fee. The rites consist of the recitation of
+certain prayers, and the rattling of a _shakujô_. The _shakujô_ is
+an odd-shaped staff. There is a tradition that it was first used by
+Buddhist pilgrims to warn little creatures and insects to get out of the
+way.
+
+I quote from a French review for the description of one of Hearn's
+stories:--
+
+"But the most beautiful of all, 'A Dancing Girl,' is drawn from the
+chronicles of that far-off past, from which, say what one may, he is
+certainly wise in drawing his inspirations. It is the story of a
+courtesan in love.
+
+"At the height of her celebrity, this idol of a capital disappears from
+public life, and nobody knows why. Leaving fortune behind, she flies
+with a poor youth who loves her. They build for themselves a little
+house in the mountains, and there exist apart from the world, one for
+the other. But the lover dies one cold winter, and she remains alone,
+with no other consolation than to dance for him every evening in the
+deserted house. For he loved to see her dance, and he must still take
+pleasure in it. Therefore, daily, she places on the memorial altar the
+accustomed offerings, and at night she dances decked out in the same
+finery as when she was the delight of a large city. And the day comes,
+when old, decrepit, dying, reduced to beggary, she carries her superb
+costume faded with time, to a painter who had seen her in the days of
+her beauty, that he may accept it in exchange for a portrait made from
+memory, which shall be placed before the altar always bearing offerings,
+that her beloved may ever see her young, the most beautiful of the
+_shirabyashi_, and that he may forgive her for not being able to dance
+any more.
+
+"This _shirabyashi_, from the distance of time, appears to us here,
+clothed with I know not what of hieratical dignity, such as the modern
+_geisha_ could never possess. Lafcadio Hearn in no wise pretends in the
+pages he devotes to these latter, to idealize them beyond measure. They
+appear under his pen as pretty animals somewhat dangerous; but is it not
+their calling to be so? Whatever be the rank of the Japanese woman, he
+only speaks of her with an extreme discretion, and with a caution that
+one would look for in vain in the portrait of _Mme. Chrysanthème_. The
+subtle voluptuousness of his style is never extended to the scenes he
+reproduces; it is a style immaterial to a rare degree; he knows how to
+make us understand what he means, without one word to infringe those
+proprieties that are dear to the Japanese, even more than virtue itself.
+And to believe him, the young, well-brought-up girl, the honest wife,
+are in Japan the most perfect types of femininity that he has ever met
+in any part of the world;--he, who has travelled so much. Opinions
+formed superficially by globe-trotters on this subject that he scarcely
+glances at because of respect, arouse as much indignation in him as
+could they in the Japanese themselves. Evidently he has penetrated into
+their inner life, into the mystery of their thoughts, into their hidden
+springs of action, to the point of participating in their feelings."
+(390.)
+
+From Hôki to Oki there is much to learn about the landscapes of
+Western and Central Japan; and Hearn gives many legends, and many more
+impressions and intimate glimpses.
+
+As there are only walls of thin paper separating the lives of these
+Japanese people, no privacy can exist. Really everything is done in
+public, even your thoughts must be known. And it never occurs to a
+Japanese that there should be any reason for living unobserved. This
+must show a rare moral condition, and is understood only by those who
+appreciate the charm of the Japanese character, its goodness, and its
+politeness.
+
+    No one endeavours to expand his own individuality by belittling
+    his fellow; no one tries to make himself appear a superior
+    being: any such attempt would be vain in a community where the
+    weaknesses of each are known to all, where nothing can be
+    concealed or disguised, and where affectation could only be
+    regarded as a mild form of insanity.
+
+Hearn speaks of the strange public curiosity which his presence aroused
+at Urago. It was not a rude curiosity; in fact, one so gentle that he
+could not wish the gazers rebuked. But so insistent did it become that
+he had to close his doors and windows to prevent his being watched while
+he was asleep.
+
+Kinjurô, the ancient gardener, knows a great many things about souls.
+"No one is by the gods permitted to have more souls than nine."
+Kinjurô also knows legends about ghosts and goblins.
+
+An essay penetrating the very heart of the Japanese, is the chapter on
+the "Japanese Smile." It crowns Hearn's work as a superb interpretation
+of Japanese soul-life. This smile is the outward and visible sign of the
+inward and spiritual grace of self-sacrifice. It is metaphysically and
+psychologically exquisite. It is an etiquette which for generations has
+been cultivated. It was a smile, _in origin_, however, demanded by hard
+heathen gods of the victims they sacrificed; and, in history, it was
+demanded of the subject race by the early conquerors. If refused, then
+off came their heads! The smile is born with the Japanese child, and is
+nurtured through all the growing years.
+
+    The smile is taught like the bow; like the prostration; like
+    that little sibilant sucking-in of the breath which follows, as
+    a token of pleasure, the salutation to a superior; like all the
+    elaborate and beautiful etiquette of the old courtesy.
+
+The Japanese believe that one should always turn one's happiest face to
+people. It is a wrong to cause them to share your sorrow or misfortune,
+and so hurt or sadden them. One should never look serious. It is not
+only unkind but extremely rude to show one's personal griefs or anger:
+these feelings should always be hidden. Even though it is death one must
+face, it is a duty to smile bravely.
+
+It was with such a smile that the dying boy Shida wrote and pasted upon
+the wall over his bed:--
+
+Thou, my Lord-Soul, dost govern me. Thou knowest that I cannot
+    now govern myself. Deign, I pray thee, to let me be cured
+    speedily. Do not suffer me to speak much. Make me to obey in all
+    things the command of the physician.
+
+This ninth day of the eleventh month of the twenty-fourth year
+    of Meiji.
+
+From the sick body of Shida to his Soul.
+
+
+    The key to the mystery of the most unaccountable smiles is
+    Japanese politeness. The servant sentenced to dismissal for a
+    fault prostrates himself, and asks for pardon with a smile. That
+    smile indicates the very reverse of callousness or insolence:
+    "Be assured that I am satisfied with the great justice of your
+    honourable sentence, and that I am aware of the gravity of my
+    fault. Yet my sorrow and my necessity have caused me to indulge
+    the unreasonable hope that I may be forgiven for my great
+    rudeness in asking pardon." The youth or girl beyond the age of
+    childish tears when punished for some error, receives the
+    punishment with a smile which means: "No evil feeling arises in
+    my heart; much worse than this my fault has deserved."
+
+This quality, which has become as natural to the Japanese as the very
+breath of his body, is the sweet tonic-note of his whole character.
+
+_Sayônara!_ Across the waters echoes the cry, _Manzai, Manzai!_ (Ten
+thousand years to you! ten thousand years!). Hearn is leaving. He is
+going far away. His pupils write expressing their sorrow and regret. He
+sends them a letter thanking them for their gift of a beautiful sword,
+and in a loving farewell says:--
+
+    May you always keep fresh within your hearts those impulses of
+    generosity and kindliness and loyalty which I have learned to
+    know so well, and of which your gift will ever remain for me the
+    graceful symbol!
+
+    And a symbol not only of your affection and loyalty as students
+    to teachers, but of that other beautiful sense of duty
+    expressed, when so many of you wrote down for me, as your
+    dearest wish, the desire to die for His Imperial Majesty, your
+    Emperor. That wish is holy: it means perhaps more than you know,
+    or can know, until you shall have become much older and wiser.
+    This is an era of great and rapid change; and it is probable
+    that many of you, as you grow up, will not be able to believe
+    everything that your fathers believed before you, though I
+    sincerely trust you will at least continue always to respect the
+    faith, even as you still respect the memory, of your ancestors.
+    But however much the life of New Japan may change about you,
+    however much your own thoughts may change with the times, never
+    suffer that noble wish you expressed to me to pass away from
+    your souls. Keep it burning there, clear and pure as the flame
+    of the little lamp that glows before your household shrine.
+
+OUT OF THE EAST[31] (8), followed "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." The
+charm of the first impression is waning.
+
+    [31] Copyright, 1895, by Lafcadio Hearn; and published by
+         Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+In a letter Hearn writes:--
+
+    Every day, it strikes me more and more how little I shall ever
+    know of the Japanese. I have been working hard at a new book,
+    which is now half finished, and consists of philosophical
+    sketches chiefly. It will be a very different book from the
+    "Glimpses," and will show you how much the Japanese world has
+    changed for me. I imagine that sympathy and friendship are
+    almost impossible for any foreigner to obtain,--because of the
+    amazing difference in the psychology of the two races. We only
+    guess at each other without understanding.
+
+In another letter, speaking of the title for this book, he continues:--
+
+    It was suggested only by the motto of the Oriental Society, "_Ex
+    Oriente lux._" ... The simpler the title, and the vaguer--in my
+    case--the better: the vagueness touches curiosity. Besides, the
+    book is a vague thing.
+
+The _Academy_, writing of "Out of the East," says:--
+
+"Each book marks a longer step towards the Buddhist mysticism, wherein
+we have lost our poet. 'The Stone Buddha,' in the first mentioned book,
+is a dreamy dialogue between the wisdom of the West; Science, with her
+theories of evolution, revolution and dissolution; Buddhism, with its
+re-birth on re-rebirth; and Nirvâna at the end. This thing also is
+vanity. As there can be no end, so there can be no beginning; even Time
+is an illusion, and there is nothing new beneath a hundred million
+suns." (286.)
+
+The old charm of word colour sparkles in "The Dream of a Summer Day."
+
+    Mile after mile I rolled along that shore, looking into the
+    infinite light. All was steeped in blue,--a marvellous blue,
+    like that which comes and goes in the heart of a great shell.
+    Glowing blue sea met hollow blue sky in a brightness of electric
+    fusion; and vast blue apparitions--the mountains of Higo--angled
+    up through the blaze, like masses of amethyst. What a blue
+    transparency! The universal colour was broken only by the
+    dazzling white of a few high summer clouds, motionlessly curled
+    above one phantom peak in the offing. They threw down upon the
+    water snowy tremulous lights. Midges or ships creeping far away
+    seemed to pull long threads after them,--the only sharp lines in
+    all that hazy glory. But what divine clouds! White purified
+    spirits of clouds, resting on their way to the beatitude of
+    Nirvâna? Or perhaps the mists escaped from Urashima's box a
+    thousand years ago?
+
+The gnat of the soul of me flitted out into that dream of blue,
+    'twixt sea and sun,--hummed back to the shore of Suminoyé
+    through the luminous ghosts of fourteen hundred summers.
+
+And Hearn tells with charm why "the mists escaped from Urashima's box a
+thousand years ago," and also of the old, old woman who drank too deeply
+of the magical waters of youth.
+
+Reviewing the present volume, the _Spectator_ remarks:--
+
+"The main drift of his books, however, is to bring into view not so much
+the glories of Japanese sunlight or the charms of animate or inanimate
+Nature, on which it falls, as the prevalence, at any rate in extensive
+sections of Japanese society, of modes of thought and standards of
+conduct which, though often widely apart from our own, demand the
+respect of every candid Englishman. And certainly in this endeavour he
+meets with a large measure of success. His account of the essays written
+and the questions asked by the members of his class in English language
+and literature at the Government college, or Higher Middle School, of
+Kyûshû, discloses not only what must be regarded as a very good
+development of general intelligence among those young men, but a moral
+tone which in many respects is quite as high, though with interesting
+differences in point of view, as would be expected among English boys or
+young men in the upper forms of our great public-schools or at the
+Universities. Of course, what boys or young men write for or say to
+their masters and tutors cannot by any means always be taken as sure
+evidence of their inner feelings or of the character of their daily
+life. But, so far as one can judge, Hearn's pupils appear to have given
+him their confidence, and what he tells us of them may therefore
+reasonably be taken without much discount. It certainly illustrates an
+attractive simplicity of character and thought, not untouched by poetic
+imagination, together with a high development of family affection and
+strong sense of family duty, and also a remarkably high level of
+patriotic feeling. This spirit is apparently inherited from the old
+military class of the island of Kyûshû, and it is not surprising
+to hear that rich men at a distance are keen to give their sons the
+opportunity of acquiring the Kyûshû 'tone.' Towards the close of
+his book Mr. Hearn gives an extremely interesting account of a farewell
+visit paid him in the autumn of 1894 by an old pupil who had entered the
+army after leaving college, and had been placed, at his own request, in
+one of the divisions ordered for service in Corea:--
+
+    "And now I am so glad," he exclaimed, his face radiant with a
+    soldier's joy, "we go to-morrow." Then he blushed again, as if
+    ashamed of having uttered his frank delight. I thought of
+    Carlyle's deep saying, that never pleasures, but only suffering;
+    and death are the lures that draw true hearts. I thought
+    also--what I could not say to any Japanese--that the joy in the
+    lad's eyes was like nothing I had ever seen before, except the
+    caress in the eyes of a lover on the morning of his bridal.
+
+"A beautiful thought, the reader will agree; but why could it not be
+uttered to a Japanese? A good deal will be found on this subject in Mr.
+Hearn's book, and, as we have indicated, we do not think it all holds
+together. His class of students, we learn, professed to think it 'very,
+very strange' that there should be so much in English novels about love
+and marrying; and then he tells us that--
+
+    Any social system of which filial piety is not the moral cement;
+    any social system in which children leave their parents in order
+    to establish families of their own; any social system in which
+    it is considered not only natural but right to love wife and
+    child more than the authors of one's being; any social system in
+    which marriage can be decided independently of the will of the
+    parents by the mutual inclination of the young people themselves
+    ... appears, to the Japanese student of necessity a state of
+    life scarcely better than that of the birds of the air and the
+    beasts of the field, or at best a sort of moral chaos.
+
+"Now, of course, it is known here that in Japan, as in other Oriental
+countries, it is a rule for marriages to be family arrangements, as
+regards which it is expected that the young persons will conform to the
+wishes of their respective parents.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But of course some inconsistencies are to be expected from an author
+enamoured of the whole country. He is very Buddhist, and is anxious to
+show that Buddhists have always held, in matters of faith, something
+very like the doctrines of modern science with regard to the perpetual
+sequence of evolution and dissolution. On this subject he argues
+cleverly and effectively; but when, by implication or expressly, he
+compares Buddhism with Christianity, it is evident that the latter faith
+has not received any very close study from him. None the less is his
+book, though dominated by a somewhat uncritical enthusiasm, full of
+interest and instruction as to the difference between the gifts, the
+motives, and the mental and moral attitude of the Japanese and the
+peoples of the West, ourselves in particular. It is well worth while to
+study that remarkable people as they are seen by one who is so much
+captivated by them, and believes in them so strongly, as Mr. Lafcadio
+Hearn." (380.)
+
+The _Athenæum_ does not speak so cordially, and a review in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ says:--
+
+"Mr. Hearn is not at his best as a metaphysician.... But we can forgive
+him in that he stands forth a staunch champion, defying the West from
+the heart of the Japanese people. He does this most clearly in his
+finest essay, 'Jiujutsu.' Here the very meaning of the martial exercise,
+to 'conquer by yielding' is taken as text to explain the phenomena or
+national awakening which foreign cities have denounced as a 'reversal.'
+Japan has borrowed weapons of force from the West, in order successfully
+to resist its insidious influence. True progress is from within. Mr.
+Hearn writes:--
+
+    However psychologists may theorize on the absence or the
+    limitations of personal individuality among the Japanese, there
+    can be no question at all that, as a nation, Japan possesses an
+    individuality stronger than our own." (306.)
+
+Hearn further brings out in a conversation with a young Japanese the
+fact that Japan, in order to keep pace with the competition of other
+nations, must adopt the methods which are in direct variance to her old
+morality, and all that which has made the Japanese what he is. Japan's
+future depends upon her industrial development, and the fine old
+qualities of self-sacrifice, simplicity, filial piety, the contentment
+with little, are not the weapons for the modern struggle. In a
+postscript to this essay, written two years later, after the war with
+China, Hearn adds that "Japan has proved herself able to hold her own
+against the world.... _Japan has won in her jiujutsu._"
+
+Japan holds infinite legends of ghostly significance, and it is no
+wonder that Hearn found so much that was sympathetic. Every new town or
+new temple reveals some aspect of the odd. In this second book the
+joyousness is gone; he is now a philosopher, and his philosophy reflects
+much of the ghostly. The gruesome has been buried, but it is not dead:
+it will return reincarnated, not of the ghastly of real life, but of the
+dim, far-away, always more distant ghostly in the lives of the dead.
+
+A revelation of the Nirvâna into which Hearn is being slowly drawn
+appears in "At Hakata." He has been telling the story of the sacred
+mirror that a mother in dying gave to her daughter, bidding her to look
+into it every morning and evening and there see her mother. And the girl
+looked and "having the heart of meeting her mother every day," knew not
+that the shadow in the mirror was her own face.
+
+    One are we all,--and yet many, because each is a world of
+    ghosts. Surely that girl saw and spoke to her mother's very
+    soul, while seeing the fair shadow of her own young eyes and
+    lips, uttering love!
+
+And with this thought, the strange display in the old temple
+    court takes a new meaning,--becomes the symbolism of a sublime
+    expectation. Each of us is truly a mirror, imaging something of
+    the universe,--reflecting also the reflection of ourselves in
+    that universe; and perhaps the destiny of all is to be molten by
+    that mighty Image-maker, Death, into some great sweet
+    passionless unity. How the vast work shall be wrought, only
+    those to come after us may know. We of the present West do not
+    know: we merely dream. But the ancient East believes Here is the
+    simple imagery of her faith. All forms must vanish at last to
+    blend with that Being whose smile is immutable Rest,--whose
+    knowledge is Infinite Vision.
+
+"The Red Bridal" is a story of _jôshi_--the joint suicide for love.
+These two young people had been playmates since their early school-days,
+and were deeply attached to each other. The girl's father, under the
+influence of an evil stepmother, agrees to sell his daughter to the
+richest and also the most disreputable man in the village. Hearing this
+awful command, the maiden only smiles the brave smile--inheritance of
+her Samurai blood. She knows what she must do.... Together she and her
+lover quietly meet the Tôkyô express. As its low roar draws
+nearer, they "wound their arms about each other, and lay down cheek to
+cheek, very softly and quietly, straight across the inside rail."
+
+We close the book with the memory of Yuko, heroic little Yuko, who, even
+as noble Asakachi, who had his beautiful wish to die for his country
+fulfilled, proves that the Japanese spirit of loyalty is far greater
+than our word implies. With all her country, Yuko, a humble little
+serving-maid, whose name signifies "valiant," is sorrowing because of a
+Japanese attack upon the Czarevitch of the Russians. Her soul burns with
+the desire to give something that will soften the sorrow of the August
+One; for the heart of the girl, being that of a true Japanese, grieves
+not alone for what has happened, but with a deeper sense of the grief
+caused to the August One. The cry goes from Yuko asking how she, who has
+nothing, can give; and from the lips of the dead within her comes the
+answer: "Give thyself. To give life for the August One is the highest
+duty, the highest joy." "And in what place?" she asks. "Saikyô,"
+answer the silent voices; "in the gateway of those who by ancient custom
+should have died."
+
+Does she falter? No.
+
+    For her the future holds no blackness. Always she will see the
+    rising of the holy Sun above the peaks, the smile of the
+    Lady-Moon upon the waters, the eternal magic of the Seasons. She
+    will haunt the places of beauty, beyond the folding of the
+    mists, in the sleep of the cedar-shadows, through circling of
+    innumerable years. She will know a subtler life, in the faint
+    winds that stir the snow of the flowers of the cherry, in the
+    laughter of playing waters, in every happy whisper of the vast
+    green silences. But first she will greet her kindred, somewhere
+    in shadowy halls awaiting her coming to say to her:
+
+"Thou hast done well,--like a daughter of Samurai. Enter, child!
+    because of thee to-night we sup with the Gods!"
+
+It is daylight when Yuko enters Kyotô. She finds a lodging, and then
+goes to a skilful female hairdresser. Her little razor is made very
+sharp. Returning to her room, she writes a letter of farewell to her
+brother, and an appeal to the officials asking that the Tenshi-Sama may
+be begged to cease from suffering "seeing that a young life, even though
+unworthy, has been given in voluntary expiation of the wrong."
+
+At the dark hour before dawn she slips to the gate of the Government
+edifice. Whispering a prayer, she kneels. Then with her long
+under-girdle of silk she binds her robes tightly about her knees, for
+
+    the daughter of a Samurai must always be found in death with
+    limbs decently composed. Then, with steady precision, she makes
+    in her throat a gash, out of which the blood leaps in a pulsing
+    jet....
+
+    At sunrise the police find her, quite cold, and the two letters,
+    and a poor little purse containing five _yen_ and a few _sen_
+    (enough, she had hoped, for her burial); and they take her and
+    all her small belongings away.
+
+KOKORO[32] (9), the next book, could well be a continuation of "Out of
+the East." Hearn speaks of it as "terribly radical," and "rather crazy";
+and he fears that his views, which are greatly opposed in the West, may
+not be well received.
+
+    [32] Copyright, 1896, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+"The fifteen chapters of which the book is composed," says a German
+review, "do not contain the results of any research into the domain of
+politics, art or religion. They are rather fragments from Japanese life,
+and so clear is the language that the pictures given are brought home to
+us with wonderful effect. Lafcadio Hearn is a journalist in the best
+sense of the word. He is a writer who has something striking and
+original to say upon the events of the day, upon the conditions and
+institutions of a land, upon the possibilities of development in a
+people, upon deep philosophical, social and religious problems, upon the
+'Idea of Pre-existence,' upon Buddhism and Shintôism, upon the
+difference between Occidental and Oriental culture, and who judges all
+things, all conditions that he sees, from lofty heights. He is besides a
+character, a man of great ideals; he has a fine artistic feeling and is,
+moreover, able to render in wonderfully sympathetic language tender
+moods which come to him at the sight of a landscape, a work of art.
+Extraordinarily capable of assimilation, he, to whom Japan has become a
+second home, has entirely fitted himself into the Japanese life. He is
+so delighted with the customs, with the political and social conditions,
+with the simple family life, with the religion, the ceremonies, the
+ancestor-worship, and with the business intercourse carried on among
+themselves--which he assures us is characterized by exceptional
+probity--in short, he is so delighted with all the activities of this
+people that he thinks them the best possible because they spring from
+the inmost life of an ethical and never intellectual temperament.
+Therefore he takes sides with them passionately against the modern
+tendencies of Europe." (395.)
+
+In the opening story, which I think will be found one of his best, is
+portrayed the manner of a Japanese crowd in dealing with a criminal; and
+how this criminal was brought to atonement by the gaze of a little
+child, the son of the man he murdered, while the little one was yet in
+his mother's womb.
+
+The next chapter is a discussion of Japanese Civilization. In 1903 Hearn
+wrote:--
+
+    "The Genius of Japanese Civilization" is a failure. I thought
+    that it was true when I wrote it; but already Japan has become
+    considerably changed, and a later study of ancient social
+    conditions has proved to me that I made some very serious
+    sociological errors in that paper.
+
+He shows that in the wonderful development of Japanese power, there is
+vitally no self-transformation. All that Japan is, she always has been.
+Nor is there any outward change. "The strength of Japan, like the
+strength of her ancient faith, needs little material display: both exist
+where the deepest real power of any great peoples exists,--in the Race
+Ghost." He contrasts the noise and confusion and vastness of Western
+cities. The construction of the West is endurance; of Japan
+impermanency. The very land is a land of impermanence. But in this
+impermanency Hearn finds the greatest excellence. He contrasts how
+little impedimenta the Japanese have--by that means alone how
+independent they are. He shows with what a quiet simplicity Japan has
+become a great commercial centre. He fears the new Western spirit which
+threatens her:--
+
+    I confess to being one of those who believe that the human
+    heart, even in the history of a race, may be worth infinitely
+    more than the human intellect, and that it will sooner or later
+    prove itself infinitely better able to answer all the cruel
+    enigmas of the Sphinx of Life.--I still believe that the old
+    Japanese were nearer to the solution of those enigmas than are
+    we, just because they recognized moral beauty as greater than
+    intellectual beauty.
+
+It is the old spirit which found infinite meaning--
+
+    in the flushed splendour of the blossom-bursts of spring, in the
+    coming and the going of the cicadæ, in the dying crimson of
+    autumn foliage, in the ghostly beauty of snow, in the delusive
+    motion of wave or cloud.
+
+The beautiful voice of a blind peasant woman fills Hearn with gentle
+memories and an exquisite delight. He muses upon what the meaning of
+this charm can be; and he realizes that it is the old sorrows and loving
+impulses of forgotten generations.
+
+    The dead die never utterly. They sleep in the darkest cells of
+    tired hearts and busy brains,--to be startled at rarest moments
+    only by the echo of some voice that recalls their past.
+
+The lovely spirit of showing only one's happiest face to the world is
+charmingly brought out in the little incident that, when in a railway
+carriage, a Japanese woman finds herself becoming drowsy, before she
+nods she covers her face with her long kimono sleeve.
+
+Sometimes one may recall the dead, and speak with them. So it happened
+that O-Tayo heard once again the voice of her little child who begged
+her not to weep any more, for when mothers weep, the flood of the River
+of Tears rises so high that the soul cannot pass, and must wander and
+wander.
+
+O-Tayo never wept again, but softly she herself became as a little
+child. Her good parents built a tiny temple and fitted it with miniature
+ornaments, and here all day long children came to play games with her.
+And when at last she died, the children still played there, for as a
+little girl of nine said, "We shall still play in the Court of Amida.
+She is buried there. She will hear us and be happy."
+
+The pathetic tale of Haru gives an interesting picture of the relation
+in Japan between man and wife; of the exquisite submission of the wife
+under the saddest conditions, even to the moment when the little grieved
+heart, which has never murmured, has the dying strength to utter only
+the single word, "_Anata_." (Thou.)
+
+"A Glimpse of Tendencies" analyzes many conditions in Japan, with
+various predictions for her future, and speaks of her lack of sympathy
+for her foreign teachers.
+
+In "A Conservative" Hearn gives a searching study of how the evils of
+our civilization appear to a Japanese youth.
+
+"In the chapter, 'The Idea of Pre-existence,' Hearn makes the
+interesting attempt of bringing the teachings of the Buddhistic religion
+and the conclusions of modern science into accord. The idea which
+differentiates the Oriental mode of thinking from our own, which more
+than any other permeates the whole mental being of the Far-East--'it is
+universal as the wash of air; it colours every emotion; it influences,
+directly or indirectly, almost every act'--which inspires the utterances
+of the people, their proverbs, their pious and profane exclamations,
+that is the idea of pre-existence. The expression, '_Ingwa_,' which
+signifies the Karma as inevitable retribution, serves as explanation for
+all suffering, all pain, all evil. The culprit says: 'That which I did I
+knew to be wicked when doing; but my _ingwa_ was stronger than my
+heart,' _Ingwa_ means predestination, determinism, necessity." (395.)
+
+In his chapter on "Ancestor-Worship" it is further proved how important
+a part of the household are the dead.
+
+Another delightful study is "Kimiko,"--the story of one who turns
+dancing-girl out of filial piety. In the height of her fame she falls in
+love with a rich young man, and he with her. Kimiko is so good a woman
+at heart, that the man's friends do not object to his marrying her. She
+refuses, however, for her life has made her unworthy to be wife or
+mother. The man hopes to change her, but one day she disappears and is
+utterly lost to sight. Years pass and he marries. At last Kimiko returns
+as a wandering nun, looks at her lover's little son, whispers a message
+for the father in his ear, and is gone once more. The grace with which
+the story is told is inimitable, and the sickly sentimentality that
+revolts us in the _Dame aux Camelias_ is absent. (381.)
+
+GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS[33] (10) is the third book of the Japanese
+period, and was written at Kobé. In this volume of essays, intermingled
+with sketches in lighter vein, Hearn continues his philosophical
+studies. There are the unmistakable signs that even this ardour is
+losing zest. The charm of Japan is going fast; and after this volume,
+until his final interpretation, which is a summary of all that has gone
+before, is reached, we find him seeking material in fairy-tales,
+legends, and even returning to old thoughts about the West Indian life.
+
+    [33] Copyright, 1897, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+Many of his critics feel that Hearn is becoming too subjective to be
+quite trustworthy; others feel that he is still too charmed by Japan to
+render a faithful picture. A review in _Public Opinion_ says:--
+
+"But, this feature of almost pardonable exaggeration pointed out, there
+is little for the critic to carp at in the majority of the eleven essays
+that compose the book. The opening paper, 'A Living God,' is a perfect
+specimen of the author's style, and evinces in a marked degree the
+influence of Oriental environment on a sensitive mind. It treats of the
+temples, shrines, and worship of the people, and tells by legend how
+even a living individual may come to be worshipped as a god by his
+friends....
+
+"The essay, however, that betrays most strongly the bent of the author's
+mental metamorphosis, and one, we venture to say, that will be generally
+challenged is that on 'Faces in Japanese Art.' The contention it
+embodies, which he boldly fathers, is a flat denial of the truth and
+worth of our accepted schools of art,--of drawing especially." (376.)
+
+Criticizing the chapters on Buddhism in the present book, the _Athenæum_
+says:--
+
+"They are finely written, but the Buddhism is the Buddhism of Mr. Hearn,
+not of China or Japan, or of anywhere else. Nevertheless, we think them
+the most attractive of these gleanings. Laputa is placed not very far
+from Japan; to a quasi-Laputa Mr. Hearn has gone, and his Laputian
+experiences are more interesting than any ordinary terrestrial
+experiences could have been." (298.)
+
+The _Spectator_ says:--
+
+"His chapter on Nirvâna, which he describes as 'a study in synthetic
+Buddhism,' will be read with very great interest by all who care for the
+problems involved. There have been plenty of studies of the doctrine of
+Nirvâna more elaborate and complete, but few more suggestive and more
+taking.... Mr. Hearn begins by combating the popular Western notion that
+the idea of Nirvâna signifies to Buddhist minds complete annihilation.
+The notion is, he declares, erroneous because it contains only half the
+truth, and a half of the truth which is of no value or interest or
+intelligibility except when joined to the other half. According to Mr.
+Hearn, and, indeed, according to 'the better opinion' generally, Nirvâna
+means not absolute nothingness or complete annihilation, but only the
+annihilation of what constitutes individualism and personality,--'the
+annihilation of everything that can be included under the term "I".'"
+(382.)
+
+Hearn makes an elaborate study of the varying stages of births and
+heavens that one must generally pass through before one rises into the
+"infinite bliss" of Nirvâna. The chapter closes with this significant
+sentence:--
+
+    The only reality is One;--all that we have taken for Substance
+    is only Shadow;--the physical is the unreal:--_and the outer-man
+    is the ghost_.
+
+There are two short chapters devoted to the Japanese Songs. The first
+songs, "Out of the Street," are, as Manyemon, who would not have the
+Western people deceived, tells us, the vulgar songs, or those sung by
+the washermen, carpenters, and bamboo-weavers, etc. The theme always
+holds some glint of love. Hearn has arranged certain ones in three
+groups forming a little shadow romance.
+
+    To Heaven with all my soul I prayed to prevent your going;
+    Already, to keep you with me, answers the blessed rain.
+
+    Things never changed since the Time of the Gods: The flowing of
+    water, the Way of Love.
+
+The second chapter is devoted to Folk-Songs with Buddhist allusions.
+Nearly all the arts and the greater number of the industries show the
+influence of Buddhism. A typical song is:--
+
+        Even the knot of the rope tying our boats together Knotted was
+        long ago by some love in a former birth.
+
+Another:--
+
+    Even while praying together in front of the tablets ancestral,
+    Lovers find chance to murmur prayers never meant for the dead.
+
+On the "Trip to Kyôto" there is more to be learned about poor little
+Yuko, who gave her life for her nation. To the Japanese all the small
+details of her story are of the greatest importance, and are carefully
+treasured. Hearn thinks that the Western "refined feeling" might not
+care for the poor little blood-stained trifles; if so it is to be
+regretted.
+
+In "Dust," with a dainty touch, he teaches again that we are but
+millions upon billions of dead people; that the cells and the souls are
+themselves recombinations of old welding of forces--forces of which we
+know nothing save that they belong "to the Shadow-Makers of universes."
+You are an individual--but also you are a population! This leads on to
+the end that
+
+    In whatsoever time all human minds accord in thought and will
+    with the mind of the Teacher, there shall not remain even one
+    particle of dust that does not enter into Buddhahood.
+
+The last chapter, "Within the Circle," is of a philosophy so impermanent
+that it seems but Shadow-play, and one may not behold a visible form,
+for--like all that which it symbolizes--it is but an illusion.
+
+EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES[34] (11) faithfully followed the ensuing
+year. The effort to write is manifest; even to himself Hearn is
+admitting that the _frisson_ which Japan gave him is passing. He is
+beginning to make copy; and the subjects are becoming more vague,
+vapoury, and ghostly.
+
+    [34] Copyright, 1898, by Little, Brown and Company.
+
+    I must eat some humble pie. My work during the past ten months
+    has been rather poor. Why, I cannot quite understand--because it
+    costs me more effort. Anyhow, I have had to rewrite ten essays:
+    they greatly improved under the process. I am trying now to get
+    a Buddhist commentary for them--mostly to be composed of texts
+    dealing with pre-existence and memory of former lives. I took
+    for subjects the following:--Beauty is Memory--why beautiful
+    things bring sadness;--the Riddle of Touch--_i. e._ the thrill
+    that a touch gives;--the Perfume of Youth;--the Reason of the
+    Pleasure of the Feeling Evoked by Bright Blue;--the Pain Caused
+    by Certain Kinds of Red;--Mystery of Certain Musical
+    Effects;--Fear of Darkness and the Feeling of Dreams. Queer
+    subjects, are they not? I think of calling the collection
+    "Retrospectives.
+
+The _Athenæum_, that wise critic, feels that in this book Hearn "shows
+himself at his best. He is more subdued," it says, "than is his wont,
+and indulges less freely in excessive laudation and needless
+disparagement. The chapters on 'Insect Musicians,' on the 'Literature of
+the Dead,' and--oddly as it may sound to us--on 'Frogs,' are among the
+most delightful of all his writings. The keynote of all is struck in the
+pretty stanza that heads the first of the three:--
+
+                        _Mushi, yo mushi,
+                            Naïté ingwa ga
+                        Tsukuru nara?_
+                            (Insect, O insect!
+                        Singing fulfil you
+                    Your fire-life and all life!)
+
+"The translation is ours. The fondness of the Japanese for many kinds of
+chirping insects, which they keep in little bamboo-cages, is one of the
+prettiest of the surviving echoes of the past. The plaintive little cry
+satisfies the curious melancholy that characterizes the reflective moods
+of the lieges of Mutsu. In the long series of changes that is to end in
+perfect Buddha-forms, there is hope always, but always tinged with the
+sadness of vague memories of past pains, and the resigned dread of
+sorrows to come, one knows not how oft to be repeated ere in 'Nirvâna'
+all earthly moods are lost. There is a regular trade in these tiny
+songsters, of the history of which Mr. Hearn tells the pleasant story."
+(299.)
+
+Hearn leads us to a cemetery in a quaint lonesome garden, and teaches us
+something about the wonderful texts and inscriptions that are chiselled
+into the stone of the tombs, or painted on the wooden _sotoba_, and go
+to form the important literature of the dead. A suggestive _sotoba_-text
+is:--
+
+    The Amida-Kyô says: "All who enter into that country enter
+    likewise into that state of virtue from which there can be no
+    turning back."
+
+From the Kaimyô which is engraved on the tomb, we may select:--
+
+    _Koji_--
+    (Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise, in the Mansion of
+    Luminous Mind.)
+
+    _Koji_--
+    (Effective-Benevolence-Hearing-with-Pure-Heart-the-Supplications
+    -of-the-Poor,--dwelling in the Mansion of the Virtue of Pity.)
+
+The frog is another favourite of the Japanese. There is one special
+variety called the Kajika, or true singing-frog of Japan, which is kept
+as a pet in a little cage. For over a hundred years the frog has been
+the subject of numerous poems. Many of these little verses are
+love-poems, for the lovers' trysting-hour is also the hour when the
+frog-chorus is at its height. Here is a quotation from the Anthology
+called "Kokinshû," compiled A.D. 905, by the poet Ki-no-Tsurayuki:--
+
+    The poetry of Japan has its roots in the human heart, and thence
+    has grown into a multiform utterance. Man in this world, having
+    a thousand million of things to undertake and to complete, has
+    been moved to express his thoughts and his feelings concerning
+    all that he sees and hears. When we hear the _uguisu_ singing
+    among flowers, and the voice of the _kawazu_ which inhabits the
+    waters, what mortal (_lit. "who among the living that lives"_)
+    does not compose poems?
+
+A charming frog poem is:--
+
+                             _Té wo tsuité
+                            Uta moshi-aguru,
+                             Kawazu kana!_
+
+(With hand resting on the ground, reverentially you repeat your poem, O
+frog!)
+
+And another:--
+
+                              _Tamagawa no
+                           Hito wo mo yogizu
+                              Naku kawazu,
+                           Kono yû kikéba
+                          Oshiku ya wa aranu?_
+
+(Hearing to-night the frogs of the Jewel River--or Tamagawa, that sing
+without fear of man, how can I help loving the passing moment?)
+
+A vivid chapter is Hearn's description of his ascent of Fuji-no-Yama.
+Here he may once again use his palette of many colours, but certainly
+not with the old _abandon_.
+
+    Brighter and brighter glows the gold. Shadows come from the
+    west,--shadows flung by cloud-pile over cloud-pile; and these,
+    like evening shadows upon snow, are violaceous blue.... Then
+    orange-tones appear in the horizon; then smouldering crimson.
+    And now the greater part of the Fleece of Gold has changed to
+    cotton again,--white cotton mixed with pink.... Stars thrill
+    out. The cloud-waste uniformly whitens;--thickening and packing
+    to the horizon. The west glooms. Night rises; and all things
+    darken except that wondrous unbroken world-round of white,--the
+    Sea of Cotton.
+
+A lurking of the gruesome flashes out when the snow-patches against the
+miles of black soot and ashes on the mountain make him think "of a gleam
+of white teeth I once saw in a skull,--a woman's skull,--otherwise burnt
+to a sooty crisp."
+
+"Retrospectives" is a group of gentle reveries, where we may muse with
+Hearn on such elusive themes as the "Sadness in Beauty," for beauty has
+no real existence, it is the emotion of the dead within us. Or there is
+the analysis of that favourite word _frisson_, "the touch that makes a
+thrill within you is a touch that you have felt before,--sense-echo of
+forgotten intimacies in many unremembered lives." "Azure Psychology" and
+"A Red Sunset" recall Hearn's earlier criticisms on colour.
+
+IN GHOSTLY JAPAN[35] (12) followed. The title is revelatory of the Japan
+that is to people this book and those which are to come. In the opening
+chapter Hearn crystallizes in a powerful sketch the sum of Buddhist
+lore. Of this the _Academy_ writes:--
+
+    [35] Copyright, 1899, by Little, Brown and Company.
+
+"Of Nirvâna one carries away this one picture, painted in words
+curiously colourless and intangible--the picture of a mountain up whose
+steep side toil two creatures--the soul and his guide--toiling,
+stumbling upwards over a brittle and friable chaos of skulls. Skulls
+crumbled into powder and skulls crumbling mark out the road; 'and every
+skull,' says the guide, 'is yours, and has been yours in some past
+incarnation; and the dust that rises round your present body is the dust
+of your past and deserted bodies that have served you well or ill as may
+be in your past lives.' In the fine and bewildering haze of this thought
+we lose our poet, and henceforward he is not a face nor a voice, but an
+echo of a living man's voice. We hear the echo, but the voice we do not
+hear. And we grudge the voice, even to Nirvâna where all silences are
+merged in one." (286.)
+
+In a beautiful chapter Hearn outlines all that might be written about
+the important subject of incense. He tells a good deal about its
+religious, luxurious, and ghostly uses. There is also a charming custom
+of giving parties where dainty games are played with it.
+
+Sometimes there can be love between the living and the dead, or so it
+appears in the ghostly story of "A Passional Karma," or O-Tsuyu, who
+died of love of Shinzaburô and returns to be his bride. Every night,
+by the light of their Peony Lanterns, she, accompanied by her maid,
+comes to keep the ghostly tryst. Shinzaburô does not know that
+O-Tsuyu is dead, but his servant Tomozô, overhearing voices, gazes
+through a chink, and sees--
+
+    the face of a woman long dead,--and the fingers caressing were
+    fingers of naked bone,--and of the body below the waist there
+    was not anything: it melted off into thinnest trailing shadow.
+    Where the eyes of the lover deluded saw youth and grace and
+    beauty, there appeared to the eyes of the watcher horror only,
+    and the emptiness of death.
+
+Now he whose bride is a ghost cannot live. No matter what force flows in
+his blood he must certainly perish. Shinzaburô is warned and an
+amulet to protect him from the dead is given to him, but treachery is
+played, and the amulet is stolen; so one morning Tomozô finds his
+master
+
+    hideously dead;--and the face was the face of a man who had died
+    in the uttermost agony of fear;--and lying beside him in the bed
+    were the bones of a woman! And the bones of the arms, and the
+    bones of the hands, clung fast about his neck.
+
+The gentle heart of the Japanese shines in the chapter on "Bits of
+Poetry." You might find yourself, Hearn says, in a community so poor
+that you could not even buy a cup of real tea, but no place could you
+discover "where there is nobody capable of making a poem." Poems are
+written on all occasions and for all occasions.
+
+    Poems can be found upon almost any kind of domestic
+    utensil;--for example, upon braziers, iron-kettles, vases,
+    wooden-trays, lacquer-ware, porcelains, chopsticks of the finer
+    sort,--even toothpicks! Poems are painted upon shop-signs,
+    panels, screens, and fans. Poems are printed upon towels,
+    draperies, curtains, kerchiefs, silk-linings, and women's
+    crêpe-silk underwear. Poems are stamped or worked upon
+    letter-paper, envelopes, purses, mirror-cases, travelling-bags.
+    Poems are inlaid upon enamelled ware, cut upon bronzes, graven
+    upon metal pipes, embroidered upon tobacco-pouches.
+
+A Japanese artist would not think of elaborating a sketch, and a poem to
+be perfect must also only stir one's fancy. _Ittakkiri_, meaning
+"entirely vanished" in the sense of "all told," is a term applied
+contemptuously to him who expresses all his thought.
+
+Japan is rich in proverbs. Hearn has translated one hundred examples of
+Buddhist proverbs.
+
+    _Karu-toki no Jizô-gao; nasu-toki no Emma-gao._
+
+(Borrowing-time, the face of Jizô; repaying-time, the face of
+    Emma.)
+
+_Sodé no furi-awasé mo tashô no en._
+
+(Even the touching of sleeves in passing is caused by some
+    relation in a former life.)
+
+A powerful relic of the old clinging love of the gruesome is the story
+of _Ingwa-banashi_. The _daimyô's_ wife knew that she was dying; and
+she thought of many things, especially of her husband's favourite, the
+Lady Yukiko, who was nineteen years old. She begged her husband to send
+for the Lady Yukiko, whom, she said, she loved as a sister. After the
+dying wife had told Lady Yukiko it was her wish that she should become
+the wife of their dear lord, she begged that Yukiko would carry her on
+her back to see the cherry-bloom.
+
+    As a nurse turns her back to a child, that the child may cling
+    to it, Yukiko offered her shoulders to the wife, and said:--
+
+    "Lady, I am ready: please tell me how I best can help you."
+
+    "Why, this way!" responded the dying woman, lifting herself with
+    an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko's shoulders.
+    But as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down
+    over the shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of
+    the girl, and burst into a wicked laugh.
+
+    "I have my wish!" she cried--"I have my wish for the
+    cherry-bloom, but not the cherry-bloom of the garden!... I could
+    not die before I got my wish. Now I have it!--oh, what a
+    delight!"
+
+    And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl,
+    and died.
+
+When the attendants tried to lift the body from Yukiko's shoulders, they
+found that the hands of the dead had grown into the quick flesh of the
+breasts of the girl. And they could not be removed. A skilful physician
+was called, and he decided that the hands could be amputated only at the
+wrists, and so this was done. But the hands still clung to the breasts;
+
+    and there they soon darkened and dried up like the hands of a
+    person long dead.
+
+    Yet this was only the beginning of the horror.
+
+Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not
+    dead. At intervals they would stir--stealthily, like great grey
+    spiders. And nightly thereafter,--beginning always at the Hour
+    of the Ox,--they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at
+    the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease.
+
+    Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun.
+
+Every day she prayed to the dead for pardon, and every night the torture
+was renewed. This continued for more than seventeen years until Yukiko
+was heard of no more.
+
+SHADOWINGS[36] (13) appeared the next year, 1900. Of this volume the
+_Bookman_ says:--
+
+    [36] Copyright, 1900, by Little, Brown and Company.
+
+"He gives us several essays upon matters Japanesque, which obviously
+involve no small amount of erudition and patient research. Such are his
+papers upon the various species of _Sémi_, or Japanese singing-locusts,
+and on the complicated etiquette of Japanese female names. But the
+distinctive feature of this volume is the first half, which is given up
+to a collection of curious tales by native writers, weird, uncanny,
+little stories, most of them, of ghouls and wraiths, and vampires, or at
+least the nearest Japanese equivalents for such Occidental spectres."
+(316.)
+
+The _Athenæum_ does not find "Shadowings" equal to the volume "Exotics."
+It thinks that Hearn is "perilously near exhausting his repertory of
+_Kokin_ [one-stringed fiddle] themes."
+
+"The stories with which the present volume opens have no particular
+merit: they have lost their chief and real advantage--their local
+colour--in Hearnesque translation, and seem to be little more than
+suggestions or drafts of 'nouvelles,' out of which skilful hands might
+perhaps have made something much better. A good example is the story of
+the Screen Maiden, which is a most lame presentment of a charming motif.
+The chapters on female names, on _sémi_, couplets and 'Old Japanese
+Songs' are more interesting, but only to those who possess a
+considerable knowledge of old Japanese life and literature.... Of the
+'Old Japanese Songs'--where is the proof of their antiquity?--much the
+best is the dance-ballad of the dragon-maid, who bewitched a
+_yamabushi_, and chased him over moor and hill and river, until the
+temple of Dojo was reached, under the great bell of which the trembling
+hill-warrior or outlaw (_yamabushi_ were such originally in all
+probability) hid himself, whereupon the dragon-maid wrapped her body
+round the bell once and again and the third time the bell melted and
+flowed away like boiling water. And with it, according to the legend,
+flowed away the ashes of the unwilling object of the dragon-maid's
+affections, consumed not through love, but through disdain." (300.)
+
+Strange things happen in the group of tales, and not the least is the
+tale of the maiden in the screen whose loveliness so bewitches a youth
+that he becomes sick unto death. Then an old scholar tells him that the
+person whom the picture represents is dead, but since the painter
+painted her mind as well as her form, her spirit lives in the picture
+and he may yet win her.
+
+So every day, Tokkei, following out the old scholar's injunctions, sits
+before the portrait calling softly the maiden's name. And finally after
+many days the maiden answered, "_Hai!_" And stepping down from out the
+screen, she kneels to take the cup of wine (which was to be so),
+whispering charmingly, "How could you love me so much?"
+
+Also there is the tale of the Corpse Rider, in which the husband had to
+ride for one whole night, so far that he could not know the distance,
+the dead body of his divorced wife; and this was to save him from her
+vengeance.
+
+The gruesome gleams here, and again in the tale of "The Reconciliation,"
+when the repentant husband found that the wife he was holding in his
+arms is "a corpse so wasted that little remained save the bones, and the
+long black tangled hair."
+
+There is no small amount of etiquette in the prefixes and suffixes of
+the Japanese female names. The majority of the _Yobina_, or personal
+names, are not æsthetic. Some are called after the flowers, and there
+are also place names, as for instance _Miné_ (Peak) _Hama_ (Shore); but
+the large proportion express moral or mental attributes.
+
+    Tenderness, kindness, deftness, cleverness, are frequently
+    represented by _yobina;_ but appellations implying physical
+    charm, or suggesting æsthetic ideas only, are comparatively
+    uncommon. One reason for the fact may be that very æsthetic
+    names are given to _geisha_ and to _jôro_, and consequently
+    vulgarized. But the chief reason certainly is that the domestic
+    virtues still occupy in the Japanese moral estimate a place not
+    less important than that accorded to religious faith in the life
+    of our own Middle Ages. Not in theory only, but in every-day
+    practice, moral beauty is placed far above physical beauty; and
+    girls are usually selected as wives, not for their good looks,
+    but for their domestic qualities.
+
+I give a few names gleaned from Hearn's
+lists:--_O-Jun_--"Faithful-to-death"; _O-Tamé_--"For-the-sake-of,"--a
+name suggesting unselfishness; _O-Chika_--"Closely Dear"; _O-Suki_--"The
+Beloved"--_Aimée_; _O-Taë_--"The Exquisite"; _Tokiwa_--"Eternally
+Constant."
+
+From the "Fantasies," we read of the Mystery of Crowds, and the horrors
+of Gothic Architecture, the joys of levitation while one is asleep--with
+a moral attached; of Noctilucæ. Also, as we gaze with the adolescent
+youth into a pair of eyes we come to know that
+
+    The splendour of the eyes that we worship belongs to them only
+    as brightness to the morning-star. It is a reflex from beyond
+    the shadow of the Now,--a ghost-light of vanished suns.
+    Unknowingly within that maiden-gaze we meet the gaze of eyes
+    more countless than the hosts of heaven,--eyes otherwhere passed
+    into darkness and dust.
+
+    Thus, and only thus, the depth of that gaze is the depth of the
+    Sea of Death and Birth, and its mystery is the World-Soul's
+    vision, watching us out of the silent vast of the Abyss of
+    Being.
+
+    Thus, and only thus, do truth and illusion mingle in the magic
+    of eyes,--the spectral past suffusing with charm ineffable the
+    apparition of the present;--and the sudden splendour in the soul
+    of the Seer is but a flash, one soundless sheet-lightning of the
+    Infinite Memory.
+
+A JAPANESE MISCELLANY[37] (14) was the next book. What does the memory
+hold of these stories and sketches? Surely that picture of Old Japan
+with its charming sentiment for Dragon-flies, to which such delicate
+poems were written.
+
+    [37] Copyright, 1901, by Little, Brown and Company.
+
+                               _Tombô no
+                          Ha-ura ni sabishi,--
+                             Aki-shiguré._
+
+    (Lonesomely clings the dragon-fly to the under-side of the
+    leaf--Ah! the autumn-rains!)
+
+And that verse by the mother poet, who seeing many children playing
+their favourite pastime of chasing butterflies, thinks of her little one
+who is dead:--
+
+                            _Tombô-tsuri!--
+                            Kyô wa doko madé
+                              Itta yara!_
+
+    (Catching dragon-flies!... I wonder where _he_ has gone to-day!)
+
+Then there are the children's songs about Nature and her tiny creatures,
+and all their little songs for their plays; the songs which tell a
+story, and the sweet mother songs that lull the babies to sleep.
+
+How we pity poor misguided O-Dai, who forgot loyalty to her ancestors to
+follow the teachings of the Western faith. At its bidding even the
+sacred tablets and the scroll were cast away. And when she had forsaken
+everything, and had become as an outcast with her own people, the good
+missionaries found they needed a more capable assistant. Poor little
+weak O-Dai, without the courage to fill her sleeves with stones and then
+slip into the river, longing for the sunlight, and so "flung into the
+furnace of a city's lust."
+
+We hear the gruesome tinkle of the dead wife's warning bell, and we
+certainly shudder before the vision of her robed in her grave-shroud:--
+
+    "Eyeless she came--because she had long been dead;--and her
+    loosened hair streamed down about her face;--and she looked
+    without eyes through the tangle of it; and spake without a
+    tongue."
+
+Then the hideous horror of the evil crime, as this dead wife in her
+jealousy tore off the head of the sleeping young wife. The terrified
+husband following the trail of blood found
+
+    a nightmare-thing that chippered like a bat: the figure of the
+    long-buried woman erect before her tomb,--in one hand clutching
+    a bell, in the other the dripping head.... For a minute the
+    three stood numbed. Then one of the men-at-arms, uttering a
+    Buddhist invocation, drew, and struck at the shape. Instantly it
+    crumbled down upon the soil,--an empty scattering of grave-rags,
+    bones, and hair;--and the bell rolled clanking out of the ruin.
+    But the fleshless right hand, though parted from the wrist,
+    still writhed; and its fingers still gripped at the bleeding
+    head--and tore, and mangled,--as the claws of the yellow crab
+    fast to a fallen fruit.
+
+Who but Hearn would have chosen this ghastly scene, and described it
+with such terrible reality?
+
+With the parents we have unravelled the mystery of Kinumé, whose spirit
+belonged to one family, and whose body was the child of the other.
+
+Perhaps we still see the famous picture of Kwashin Koji, which had a
+soul, for "it is well known that some sparrows, painted upon a sliding
+screen (_fusuma_) by Hôgen Yenshin, once flew away, leaving blank the
+spaces which they had occupied upon the surface. Also it is well known
+that a horse painted upon a certain Kakémono, used to go out at night to
+eat grass." So the water in the picture on the screen of Kwashin
+overflowed into the room, and the boat thereon glided forth, but not a
+ripple from the oar was heard. Then Kwashin Koji climbed into the boat,
+and it receded into the picture, and the water dried in the room. Over
+the painted water slipped the painted vessel until all disappeared, and
+Kwashin was heard of no more.
+
+And we remember too the strange brave way that Umétsu Chûbei won the
+gift of great strength for his children, and their children's children.
+
+The _Athenæum_ finds the story of Kwashin the best of this collection.
+Speaking of the study, "On a Bridge," it says:--
+
+"The author narrates a personal experience of a _riksha_ man who drew
+him across an old bridge near Kumamoto. It was in the time of the
+Satsuma _muhon_ (rebellion), some twenty-two years earlier, that the
+_Kurumaya_ (_riksha_ man) was stopped on the bridge by three men, who
+were dressed as peasants, but had very long swords under their
+raincoats. After a time a cavalry officer came along from the city.
+
+    The moment the horse got on the bridge the three men turned and
+    leaped:--and one caught the horse's bridle; and another gripped
+    the officer's arm; and the third cut off his head--all in a
+    moment.... I never saw anything done so quickly.
+
+"The seeming peasants then waited, and presently another cavalry officer
+came and was murdered in like manner. Then came a third, who met a
+similar fate. Lastly, the peasants went away, having thrown the bodies
+into the river, but taking the heads with them. The man had never
+mentioned the matter till long after the war--why? 'Because it would
+have been ungrateful.'
+
+"No doubt this is a true story." (301.)
+
+It was probably during the ensuing year that Hearn contributed to the
+Japanese Fairy Tale Series (15), published in Tôkyô, his
+renditions of four of these stories.
+
+KOTTÔ[38] (16) followed. Says the _Athenæum_:--
+
+"The gem of this volume is 'A Woman's Diary,' purporting to be 'the
+history of a woman's married life recorded by herself, found in a small
+_haribako_ (work-box) which had belonged to her.' It is an ordinary
+story, not in the least sensational, yet pitiful and even touching in
+its record of poverty and suffering, showing the hardships and small
+enjoyment--according to our notions, at least--of the colourless
+existence led by the bulk of the Japanese poorer classes upon a total
+family wage of twelve pounds a year or less." (302.)
+
+    [38] Copyright, 1902, by the Macmillan Company.
+
+Except for "A Woman's Diary" and "Fireflies" the tales in "Kottô" are
+fragmentary. Some are gruesome as the history of the Gaki; or as the
+story of O-Katsu-San, who was so bold as to go by night to Yurei-Daki,
+and who to win her bet brought back the little money-box of the gods.
+But when she came to give her baby his milk,--
+
+    Out of the wrappings unfastened there fell to the floor a
+    blood-soaked bundle of baby clothes that left exposed two very
+    small brown feet, and two very small brown hands--nothing more.
+
+The child's head had been torn off!
+
+There is also the story of O-Kamé, who returned each night to haunt her
+husband; of Chûgorô, who was bewitched by a beautiful woman whom
+he married beneath the waters. But he sickened and died, for his blood
+had been drained by his Circe, who was "simply a Frog,--a great and ugly
+Frog!"
+
+The literature and the significance of the fire-flies holds an important
+place with the Japanese, and for more than a thousand years the poets
+have been making verses about these little creatures.
+
+A sketch in which Hearn is most fortunate is "Pathological," where Tama,
+the mother-cat, dreams of her dead kittens--
+
+    coos to them, and catches for them small shadowy things,--perhaps
+    even brings to them, through some dim window ofmemory, a sandal
+    of ghostly straw....
+
+Beautiful is the "Revery of Mother-Love":--
+
+    Yet those countless solar fires, with their viewless millions of
+    living planets, must somehow reappear: again the wondrous
+    Cosmos, self-born as self-consumed, must resume its sidereal
+    whirl over the deeps of the eternities. And the love that
+    strives for ever with death shall rise again, through fresh
+    infinitudes of pain, to renew the everlasting battle.
+
+    The light of the mother's smile will survive our sun;--the
+    thrill of her kiss will last beyond the thrilling of stars;--the
+    sweetness of her lullaby will endure in the cradle-songs of
+    worlds yet unevolved;--the tenderness of her faith will quicken
+    the fervour of prayers to be made to the hosts of another
+    heaven,--to the gods of a time beyond Time. And the nectar of
+    her breasts can never fail: that snowy stream will still flow
+    on, to nourish the life of some humanity more perfect than our
+    own, when the Milky Way that spans our night shall have vanished
+    for ever out of Space.
+
+Like unto the Soul is a Drop of Dew for
+
+    Your personality signifies, in the eternal order, just as much
+    as the especial motion of molecules in the shivering of any
+    single drop. Perhaps in no other drop will the thrilling and the
+    picturing be ever exactly the same; but the dews will continue
+    to gather and to fall, and there will always be quivering
+    pictures.... The very delusion of delusions is the idea of death
+    as loss.
+
+KWAIDAN[39] (17) was the book before "Japan," which was published
+after Hearn's death. It is a collection of old stories, many of them
+of the gruesome, and of careful studies of ants, mosquitoes, and
+butterflies. Striking is the tale of Yuki-Onna, the snow-woman, as is
+also the incident of Riki-Baka. One bewitched by the dead is
+Mimi-Nashi-Hôïchi, whose ears were torn off because the holy texts which
+were written everywhere else upon his body were there forgotten. Sonjô,
+the hunter, killed the mate of a female _oshidori_, who after appearing
+to him in a dream as a beautiful woman, who rebukes him the following
+day as a bird, tears open her body, and dies before his eyes. O-Tei is
+reborn in the shape of a woman that she may wed years later her promised
+husband--Nagao Chôsei of Echigo. So loyal is the love of O-Sodé, the
+milk-nurse, that the cherry-tree which is planted in commemoration of
+her, on the anniversary of her death, blossoms in a wonderful way.
+Because of his selfish wickedness in thinking only of the gains in his
+profession, a priest was made to be reborn into the state of a
+_jikininki_, who had to devour the corpses of people who died in his
+district. Other devourers of human flesh are the Rokuro-Kubi. The head
+of a Rokuro-Kubi separates itself from its body.
+
+    [39] Copyright, 1904, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+JAPAN[40] (18): AN ATTEMPT AT INTERPRETATION is the last book that Hearn
+published. He was reading its proofs at the time of his death. Although
+a posthumous volume appeared, this may rightly be termed his final word.
+It is the crystallization and the summary of all that has been said
+before. It contains a group of twenty-one lectures, which Hearn had
+expected at first to deliver at Cornell University. His own words will
+best reveal their import:--
+
+    [40] Copyright, 1904, by the Macmillan Company.
+
+    They will form a book explaining Japan from the standpoint of
+    ancestor-worship. They are suited only to a cultivated audience.
+
+    The substantial idea of the lectures is that Japanese society
+    represents the condition of ancient Greek society a thousand
+    years before Christ. I am treating of religious Japan,--not of
+    artistic or economical Japan except by way of illustration.
+
+"The history of Japan is really the history of her religion," is the key
+to the book.
+
+The _Academy_ remarks:--
+
+"No one who wishes to understand the possibilities of the future of
+Japan can afford to neglect the past, and no one who would grasp the
+meaning of the past can afford to neglect Mr. Hearn's fine and
+thoughtful work." (288.)
+
+In a review Mr. Griffis says:--
+
+"They felt that he had done his best and was degenerating. Yet here is a
+work which is a classic in science, a wonder of interpretation. It is
+the product of long years of thought, of keenest perception, or
+marvellous comprehension.
+
+"One cannot quote, one must read this work. It shows the Japanese under
+his armour, modern science. The Japanese, outwardly, are ruled by
+treaties, diplomacy, governments, codes, Imperial Diet, armies and
+battleships--all modern and external. Inwardly they--that is, forty-nine
+millions of them--are governed by ghosts. The graveyard is the true
+dictator. It is ever their 'illustrious ancestors' who achieve
+victories. They, as a nation, are superbly organized for war. There is
+no originality, no personality, no individuality worth speaking of in
+the island empire. It is all done by the government, the community. In
+social evolution the Japanese are even yet far behind the Romans, and
+much as the pre-Homeric Greeks.
+
+"In a word, Lafcadio Hearn outdoes the missionaries in dogmatism,
+exceeds even the hostile propagandist in telling the naked truth.
+Devoted friend of Japan, he excels the sworn enemies of her religions in
+laying bare, though with admiration, the realities.... Lafcadio Hearn
+turns the white and searching beams on the ship and man.... His book is
+a re-reading of all Japanese history, a sociological appraisement of the
+value of Japanese civilization, and a warning against intolerant
+propaganda of any sort whatever. This book is destined to live, and to
+cause searchings of heart among those who imagine that the Japanese soul
+has been changed in fifty years." (326.)
+
+From the _Spectator_ I quote:--
+
+"Both the prose and poetry of Japanese life are infused into Mr. Hearn's
+charming pages. Nobody, so far as we know, has given a better
+description of the fascination which Japanese life has at first for such
+as enter into its true spirit, and of its gradual disappearance.... Of
+course it must be remembered that this charm of Japan was something more
+than a beautiful mirage. 'Old Japan,' in the opinion of Mr. Hearn, 'came
+nearer to the achievement of the highest moral ideal than our far more
+evolved societies can hope to do for many a hundred years. Curiously
+enough, it was under the shadow of the sword that the fascinating life
+of Japan matured; universal politeness was nurtured by the knowledge
+that any act of rudeness might, and probably would, cause a painful and
+immediate death. This supremacy of the sword, governed by the noble rule
+of _bushi-do_, hardened the Japanese temper into the wonderful spirit of
+self-sacrifice and patriotism which is now making itself apparent in the
+stress of war. All this is admirably portrayed in Mr. Hearn's
+pages,--the swan-song of a very striking writer." (383.)
+
+In _The American Journal of Sociology_ there is a review of this book,
+by Edmund Buckley of the University of Chicago, which is so admirable
+and inclusive that I have obtained Professor Buckley's kind permission
+to quote it in its entirety. This review leaves small margin for further
+comment. But it is to be regretted that space will not permit citations
+of Hearn's tributes to the Japanese home, woman and character.
+
+"On p. 160 of W. E. Griffis' 'The Mikado's Empire,' is textual evidence
+that, so late as 1876, intelligent men, and theologians at that--rather,
+in sooth, because they are theologians--could harbour such atrocious
+notions about Shintôism, the ethnic faith of the Japanese, as the
+following: 'Shintô is in no proper sense of the term a religion....
+In its lower forms it is blind obedience to governmental and priestly
+dictates.' The present reviewer bears these Christian apologists and
+heathen defamers 'witness that they have a zeal for God, but not
+according to knowledge.' They wrote in the days when hierology
+(comparative religion) was still inchoate, for C. P. Ticle's 'Elements'
+did not appear in its English dress until 1877; and when Japan's
+abasement before the 'Christian' powers was complete, and therefore
+everything Japanese assumed to be worthless. But the reaction came, of
+course, and is now pretty well completed. Japan's novel yet glorious art
+conquered the world; Japan's new yet ever-victorious army has conquered
+Russia's imposing array; and now Mr. Hearn completely routs the
+contemners of a people's sincere faith. The consensus of hierologists
+that no people was ever found without a religion had already been given;
+and the creed, cult, and ethics of Shintôism had been correctly
+described; but it remained for Mr. Hearn to give a more complete and
+intimate account than had previously been done of the ancestorism in
+Shintô and of its profound influence upon politics and morality.
+
+"It will surprise no one to learn that Mr. Hearn overdid his contention,
+just because such excess is the well-nigh inevitable reaction from the
+underestimate that he found current and sought to correct. As he states
+the case on p. 4: 'Hitherto the subject of Japanese religion has been
+written of chiefly by the sworn enemies of that religion; by others it
+has been almost entirely ignored.' But now that 'see-saw' has followed
+'see,' we may hope to win a final equilibrium of correct appreciation.
+To this end several corrections are called for; but, before they are
+made, clearness will be secured by a concise analysis of the treatise;
+for in its course religion, politics, and morality are interwoven on a
+historic warp. The entire fabric runs about as follows: (Chap. 3.) The
+real religion of the Japanese is ancestorism, which showed in three
+cults--the domestic, the communal, and the state. The domestic arose
+first, but the primitive family might include hundreds of households.
+Ancestorism in Japan confirms Spencer's exposition of religious origins.
+The greater gods were all evolved from ghost-cults. Good men made good
+gods; bad men, bad ones. (Chap. 4.) The domestic cult began in offerings
+of food and drink made at the grave; then, under Chinese influence, was
+transferred to the home before tablets; where it was maintained until
+this present by Buddhism. Thin tablets of white wood, inscribed with the
+names of the dead, are placed in a miniature wooden shrine, which is
+kept upon a shelf in some inner chamber. Tiny offerings of food,
+accompanied with brief prayer, must be made each day by some member of
+the household in behalf of all; for the blessed dead still need
+sustenance, and in return can guard the house. The Buddhist rite,
+however, made prayer, not _to_, but _for_ these dead. The Japanese
+scholar Hirata is correct when he declares the worship of ancestors to
+be the mainspring of all virtues. (Chap. 5.) The family was united only
+by religion. The father--not the mother--was supposed to be the
+life-giver, and was therefore responsible for the cult. Hence the
+inferior position of woman. The ancestral ghost of an _uji_, or family
+of several households, became later the _ujigami_, or local tutelar god.
+Subordination of young to old, of females to males, and of the whole
+family to its chief, who was at once ruler and priest, shows that the
+family organization was religious and not marital. Both monogamy and the
+practice of parents selecting their child's spouse arose because best
+accordant with religion. Later custom makes the decision, not of the
+father alone, but of the household and kindred, determinative of any
+important step.
+
+"(Chap. 6.) The communal cult of the district ruled the family in all
+its relations to the outer world. The _ujigami_, or clan-god, was the
+spirit rather of a former ruler than of a common ancestor. Hochiman was
+a ruler, but Kasuga an ancestor. Beside the _uji_ temple of a district,
+there may be a more important one dedicated to some higher deity. Every
+_ujiko_ or parishioner is taken to the _ujigami_ when one month old and
+dedicated to him. Thereafter he attends the temple festivals, which
+combine fun with piety; and he makes the temple groves his playground.
+Grown up, he brings his children here; and, if he leaves home, pays his
+respects to the god on leaving and returning. Thus the social bond of
+each community was identical with the religious bond, and the cult of
+the _ujigami_ embodied the moral experience of the community. The
+individual of such a community enjoyed only a narrowly restricted
+liberty. Shintôism had no moral code, because at this stage of
+ancestor-cult religion and ethics coincide.
+
+"(Chap. 7.) The great gods of nature were developed from
+ancestor-worship, though their real history has been long forgotten.
+(Chap. 8.) Rites of worship and of purification were many. (Chap. 9.)
+The rule of the dead extended to moral conduct and even to sumptuary
+matters, language, and amusements. (Chap. 10.) Buddhism absorbed the
+native ancestor-cult, but prescribed that prayers be said for them, not
+to them. In accordance with its principle, 'First observe the person,
+then preach the law'--that is, accommodate instruction to the hearer's
+capacity--Buddhism taught the masses metempsychosis instead of
+palingenesis, and the paradise of Amida instead of the nirvâna of
+Buddha. Buddhism rendered its greatest service to Japan by education in
+the learning and arts of China. (Chap. 11.) The higher Buddhism is a
+kind of monism.
+
+"(Chap. 12.) Japanese society was simply an amplification of the
+patriarchal family, and its clan-groups never united into a coherent
+body until 1871. At first the bulk of the people were slaves or serfs,
+but from the seventh century a large class of freedmen--farmers and
+artisans--came into existence. The first period of Japanese social
+evolution was based on a national head, the Mikado, and a national cult,
+Shintôism; it began in this seventh century, but developed to the
+limit of its type only under the Tokugawa shoguns, in the seventeenth
+century.
+
+"Next to the priest-emperor at the head came the _kugé_, or ancient
+nobility, from whose ranks most of the latter regents and shoguns were
+drawn. Next ranked the _buké_ or _samurai_, which was the professional
+military class, and was ruled by nearly three hundred _daimyô_, or
+feudal lords of varying importance. Next came the commonalty, _heimin_,
+with three classes--farmers, artisans, and tradesmen, the last being
+despised by the _samurai_, who also could cut down any disrespectful
+_heimin_ with impunity. Lowest of all came the _chori_--pariahs, who
+were not counted Japanese at all, but _mono_-'things.' But even among
+them distinctions arose according to occupation. The close care taken of
+the native religion by the government precluded rise of a church. Nor
+was Buddhism, divided into hostile sects and opposed by the _samurai_,
+ever able to establish a hierarchy independent of the government.
+Personal freedom was suppressed, as it would be now under Socialism,
+which is simply a reversion to an overcome type.
+
+"(Chap. 13.) The second period of Japanese social evolution lasted from
+the eleventh to the nineteenth century, and was marked by dominance over
+the mikadoate of successive dynasties of shoguns. The permanence of this
+mikadoate amid all perturbations of the shogunate was owing to its
+religious nature. (Chap. 14.) Following the lord in death, suicide, and
+vendetta were customs based on loyalty, and they involved the noblest
+self-sacrifice. (Chap. 15.) Catholic missions were suppressed lest they
+should lead to the political conquest of Japan. (Chap. 16.) The Tokugawa
+shoguns exercised iron discipline, and now were brought to perfection
+those exquisite arts and manners of the Japanese. (Chap. 17.) A revival
+of learning, begun in the eighteenth century, slowly led to a new
+nationalist support of the Mikado; and when by 1891 the shogun had
+resigned and the daimiates been abolished, the third period in Japan's
+social evolution began. (Chap. 18.) In spite of outward seeming, the
+ancient social conditions and ancestor-cult still control every action.
+(Chap. 19.) The individual is still restrained by the conventions of the
+masses, by communistic guilds of craftsmen, and by the government's
+practice of taking loyal service in all its departments without giving
+adequate pecuniary reward. (Chap. 20.) The educational system still
+maintains the old communism by training, not for individual ability, but
+for co-operative action. This is favoured, too, by the universal
+practice of rich men meeting the personal expenses of promising
+students. (Chap. 21.) Japanese loyalty and courage will support her army
+and navy, but industrial competition with other peoples calls for
+individual freedom. (Chap. 22.) The Japanese are not indifferent to
+religion, and can be understood only by a study of their religious and
+social evolution. Future changes will be social, but ancestor-cult will
+persist, and offers an insuperable obstacle to the spread of
+Christianity.
+
+"The critical reader will not have failed to meet in this summary many
+positions that challenge his previous knowledge, and whether these be
+correct or not can be determined only by an examination of the full
+text, which it eminently deserves. The reviewer, however, will confine
+himself to certain matters that seem to him the dominating errors of the
+whole. Probably three greater errors were never compressed into a single
+sentence than in this from p. 27: 'The real religion of Japan, the
+religion still professed in one form or another by the entire nation, is
+that cult which has been the foundation of all civilized religion and of
+all civilized society--ancestor-worship.' That ancestor-worship is still
+professed by the entire nation is negatived by all we know from other
+sources as well as all we should expect. The ancestor-worship native to
+Japan had been appropriated by Buddhism; and, since the revolution of
+1868 with its disestablishment of that church, the Butsudan, where the
+tablets were kept, has been largely sold as an art object or has been
+simply disused. The _mitamaya_ mentioned on p. 50, as if in extensive
+use for ancestor-worship, is found only in a few purist families, and is
+known to the mass of Japanese only as the rear apartment or structure of
+a Shintôist shrine.
+
+"That ancestor-worship is 'the real religion of Japan' and 'has been the
+foundation of all civilized religion' are errors that Mr. Hearn owes to
+Herbert Spencer's influence, which is confessed here, and indeed is
+evident throughout the work. Perhaps nothing has brought Spencer into
+more discredit than the lengths he went to prove this basic nature of
+ancestorism in his 'Principles of Sociology,' and the reader of pp.
+121-24 of Mr. Hearn's work will readily see how futile also is the
+attempt to show that the nature-deities of Shintôism were only
+'transfigured ghosts.' No, indeed, God did not make man and leave ghosts
+to make him religious. The heaven and the earth were here before ghosts,
+and man could personify them just as soon as he knew himself as a
+person, which he must have done long before he analyzed himself into a
+ghost-soul and a body. Had Mr. Hearn not ignored Réville, Max Müller,
+Pfleiderer, and Saussaye, while steeping himself in Spencer, he might
+have observed, what is plainly visible in Shintôism as elsewhere:
+that religion has _two_ tap roots, ancestorism indeed, but also
+naturism.
+
+"Again, Mr. Hearn's sentence declares that ancestor-worship is 'the
+foundation of all civilized society.' This is the prevailing view
+throughout the work; for example, on pp. 23, 57, 86, 99, 175, and 320.
+But other passages imply the saner view that religion and morality are
+coordinate functions of one man. Thus at p. 511, Mr. Hearn attributes
+Japan's power to 'her old religious and social training.' The many and
+strong cases of influence of religion upon conduct that can really be
+shown in Japan amount only to influence, of course, and not to
+'foundation' or 'origination,' A quite transparent case of Mr. Hearn's
+error is where (p. 152) he attributes the exceptional cleanliness of the
+Japanese to their religion, which here, as usual, he sums up as
+ancestor-worship. One wonders, however, why this world-wide phenomenon
+of religion should determine a Japanese cleanliness; why
+ancestor-worshippers are not always clean; as for example the Chinese,
+who bathe most rarely. It seems saner to seek a cause for the unique
+daily bath of the Japanese in their also uniquely numerous thermal
+springs, which occur in no less than 388 different localities. Symbolism
+did indeed in Japan, as elsewhere, lead to religious bathing in rivers;
+but bathing in rivers, as in ocean, was never popular in Japan until
+recently learned from the foreigner; whereas the thermal springs are
+crowded, and the daily baths at home are always taken exceedingly hot
+after the thermal pattern, for these have been found not only cleansing,
+but curing and warming, the last quality being a great merit where
+winters are cold and houses unheated.
+
+"Finally, the reader need not expect to meet here any adequate reference
+to those vices that have been fostered by religion in Japan. The
+concubinage, confirmed by ancestorism, is once mentioned; and the
+harlotry, promoted by phallicism (the phallos was frequently found in a
+brothel, though not exclusively there, of course), is relegated to a
+simple footnote. But such matters can be learned elsewhere, whereas the
+close and frequent points of influence which religion exercised upon
+politics and morality in Japan can nowhere else be so well studied as
+here." (292.)
+
+THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY[41] (19) is Hearn's posthumous book. The
+last memories are of the "Weaving Lady of the Milky Way"; of "Goblin
+Poetry"; of "Ultimate Questions," which are called forth by the essay of
+that name written by the author of the "Synthetic Philosophy"; of the
+"Mirror Maiden" whom Matsumura, the priest, saved from the well, and who
+repaid him by good-fortune. Moreover, of the alluring maiden in the
+dream of Itô Norisuké--if one is to choose a ghost for a bride, who
+would not seek Himégimi-Sama? As a finale there is the picture of
+Admiral Tôgô sending to Tôkyô "for some flowering-trees in
+pots--inasmuch as his responsibilities allowed him no chance of seeing
+the cherry-flowers and the plum-blossoms in their season."
+
+    [41] Copyright, 1905, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+
+
+
+                              BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                   AMERICAN AND ENGLISH EDITIONS[42]
+                             ORIGINAL WORKS
+                              (Nos. 1-19)
+
+
+    [42] For the English Editions, the English Catalogue of Books
+         has been followed.
+
+                                 No. 1.
+
+1884. STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE.
+
+Stories reconstructed from the Anvari-Soheïli, Baitál, Pachísí,
+Mahabharata, Pantchatantra, Gulistan, Talmud, Kalewala, etc. Boston:
+James R. Osgood and Company, 1884, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 2.
+
+1885. GOMBO ZHÈBES. Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs, selected from
+six Creole dialects. Translated into French and into English, with
+notes, complete index to subjects and some brief remarks upon the Creole
+idioms of Louisiana. New York: Will H. Coleman, 1885, 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 3.
+
+1887. SOME CHINESE GHOSTS. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1887, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1906, 12mo.
+
+
+                                 No. 4.
+
+1889. CHITA: A Memory of Last Island. New York: Harper and Brothers,
+1889, 12mo.
+
+
+                                 No. 5.
+
+1890. YOUMA, The Story of a West-Indian Slave. New York: Harper and
+Brothers, 1890, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1890, 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 6.
+
+1890. TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. New York: Harper and
+Brothers, 1890, 8vo.
+
+The Same. London: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1900, 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 7.
+
+1894. GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. Boston and New York: Houghton,
+Mifflin and Company, 1894, 2 vols., 8vo.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1894, 2 vols., 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 2 vols., Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 2 vols., Cr.
+8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 8.
+
+1895. "OUT OF THE EAST." Reveries and Studies in New Japan. Boston and
+New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1895, 16mo.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1895, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 9.
+
+1896. KOKORO: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. Boston and New
+York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896, 16mo.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1896, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1903, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1905, 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 10.
+
+1897. GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS, Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far
+East. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1897, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 11.
+
+1898. EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
+1898, 16mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1898, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 12.
+
+1899. IN GHOSTLY JAPAN. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1899, 16mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 13.
+
+1900. SHADOWINGS. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1900, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1900, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 14.
+
+1901. A JAPANESE MISCELLANY. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1901,
+12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1901, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 15.
+
+1902. JAPANESE FAIRY TALES. Tôkyô, Japan: T. Hasegawa (4 vols.),
+16mo.
+
+
+                                No. 16.
+
+1902. KOTTÔ. Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs. New York:
+The Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd.), 1902, 8vo.
+Reprinted, April, 1903.
+
+
+                                No. 17.
+
+1904. KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Boston and New
+York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1904, 12mo.
+
+
+                                No. 18.
+
+1904. JAPAN: An Attempt at Interpretation. New York: The Macmillan
+Company (London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd.), 1904, 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 19.
+
+1905. THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY, and other Studies and Stories.
+Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                              TRANSLATIONS
+                              (Nos. 20-21)
+
+
+                                No. 20.
+
+1882. ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS, and other Fantastic Romances. By
+Théophile Gautier. Faithfully translated by Lafcadio Hearn. New York: R.
+Worthington, 1882, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 12mo.
+
+New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1906, 12mo.
+
+CLARIMONDE. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 16mo.
+
+
+                                No. 21.
+
+1890. THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD (Member of the Institute). By
+Anatole France. The Translation and Introduction by Lafcadio Hearn. New
+York: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.
+
+
+                                   II
+
+                            FOREIGN EDITIONS
+                              (Nos. 22-30)
+
+
+                                 DANISH
+
+                                No. 22.
+
+1902. FRA SKYGGERNES VERDEN ("From the World of the Shadows"). Complete
+and translated by Johanne Münther.
+
+178 pages, one portrait. Gyldendalske book-trade, Copenhagen, 1902, 8vo.
+
+
+                                 FRENCH
+
+                                No. 23.
+
+1904. LE JAPON INCONNU. (esquisses psychologiques). Par Lafcadio Hearn.
+Traduit de l'anglais avec l'autorisation de l'auteur, par Mme. Léon
+Raynal. In 18 jésus, 111-354 p. Mayenne, impr. Colin, Paris, lib.
+Dujarric, 1904.
+
+(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.")
+
+
+                                 GERMAN
+
+                                No. 24.
+
+1905. KOKORO. Von Lafcadio Hearn. Einzig autorisierte Übersetzung aus
+dem Englischen von Berta Franzos. Mit vorwort von Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
+Buchschmuck von Emil Orlik. Frankfurt a Main: Rütten und Loening, 1905,
+8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 25.
+
+1906. LOTUS. Blicke in das unbekannte Japan. Einzig autorisierte
+Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Berta Franzos. Mit vorwort von Hugo
+von Hofmannsthal. Buchschmuck von Emil Orlik. Frankfurt a Main: Rütten
+und Loening, 1905, 8vo.
+
+(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.")
+
+
+                                No. 26.
+
+1907. Lafcadio Hearn's Werke über Japan in künstlerischer
+Buchausstattung von Emil Orlik. Band I. Kokoro. Band II. Lotus. Band
+III. Izumo. Frankfurt a Main: Rütten und Loening, 1907.
+
+
+                                SWEDISH
+
+                                No. 27.
+
+1903. EXOTICA. Noveller och studier från Japan, af Lafcadio Hearn.
+Bemyndigad öfversättning af Karin Hirn; med några notiser om författaren
+af Yrjö Hirn. Tredje Upplagen. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1903,
+16mo., 2 end pages, pp. 227, decorated paper.
+
+(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," "Out of the East,"
+"Kokoro," "Exotics and Retrospectives," "In Ghostly Japan,"
+"Shadowings.")
+
+Reprint 1905.
+
+
+                                No. 28.
+
+1903. EXOTICA. Noveller och studier från Japan, af Lafcadio Hearn. Ny
+samling. Bemyndigad öfversättning af Karin Hirn. Stockholm: Wahlström &
+Widstrand, 1903, 16mo., 2 p. l., pp. 248, decorated paper.
+
+(Selections from "Out of the East," "Kokoro," "Gleanings in
+Buddha-Fields," "Exotics and Retrospectives," "In Ghostly Japan,"
+"Shadowings," "A Japanese Miscellany," "Kottô.")
+
+
+                                No. 29.
+
+1904. SPÖKEN OCH DRÖMMAR FRÅN JAPAN. (Exotica. Tredje Samlingen) af
+Lafcadio Hearn. Bemyndigad öfversättning från Engelskan af Karin Hirn.
+Wahlström & Widstrands, Förlag, Stockholm, MCMIV., 16mo., 1 end page,
+pp. 218, decorated paper.
+
+(Selections from "Shadowings," "A Japanese Miscellany," "Kottô,"
+"Kwaidan.")
+
+
+                                No. 30.
+
+1905. NATALIKA. ("Stray Leaves from Strange Literature") af Lafcadio
+Hearn. Bemyndigad öfversättning af Karin Hirn. Stockholm: Wahlström &
+Widstrand, 16mo., pp. 189, decorated paper.
+
+("Runes from the Kalewala" omitted.)
+
+
+                                  III
+
+                  LIST, WITH DESCRIPTION, OF SEPARATE
+                 PUBLISHED WORKS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
+
+                              (Nos. 1-21)
+
+                             ORIGINAL WORKS
+
+
+                                 No. 1.
+
+1884. STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE. Stories reconstructed from
+the Anvari-Soheïli, Baitál Pachísí, Mahabharata, Pantchatantra,
+Gulistan, Talmud, Kalewala, etc. By Lafcadio Hearn. (Publisher's
+Monogram.) Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1884.
+
+16mo., pp. (16) 225, green cloth, black lettering, and decorations.
+
+(5) Dedication:--
+
+                              To my Friend
+                             PAGE M. BAKER
+                             Editor of the
+                       New Orleans Times-Democrat
+
+(7-11) Explanatory (_Extract_).
+
+While engaged upon this little mosaic work of legend and fable, I felt
+much like one of those merchants told of in Sindbad's Second Voyage, who
+were obliged to content themselves with gathering the small jewels
+adhering to certain meat which eagles brought up from the Valley of
+Diamonds. I have had to depend altogether upon the labour of translators
+for my acquisitions; and these seemed too small to deserve separate
+literary setting. By cutting my little gems according to one pattern, I
+have doubtless reduced the beauty of some; yet it seemed to me their
+colours were so weird, their luminosity so elfish, that their intrinsic
+value could not be wholly destroyed even by so clumsy an artificer as I.
+
+In short, these fables, legends, parables, etc., are simply
+reconstructions of what impressed me as most fantastically beautiful in
+the most exotic literature which I was able to obtain. With few
+exceptions, the plans of the original narratives have been preserved....
+
+This little collection has no claim upon the consideration of scholars.
+It is simply an attempt to share with the public some of those novel
+delights I experienced while trying to familiarize myself with some very
+strange and beautiful literatures.
+
+... My gems were few and small: the monstrous and splendid await the
+coming of Sindbad, or some mighty lapidary by whom they may be wrought
+into jewel bouquets exquisite as those bunches of topaz blossoms and
+ruby buds laid upon the tomb of Nourmahal.
+
+New Orleans, 1884.
+
+(13-14) Bibliography.
+
+(15-16) Contents:--
+
+
+                              Stray Leaves
+
+    The Book of Thoth. _From an Egyptian Papyrus._
+    The Fountain Maiden. _A Legend of the South Pacific._
+    The Bird Wife. _An Esquimaux Tradition._
+
+
+            Tales retold from Indian and Buddhist Literature
+
+    The Making of Tilottama
+    The Brahman and his Brahmani
+    Bakawali
+    Natalika
+    The Corpse-Demon
+    The Lion
+    The Legend of the Monster Misfortune
+    A Parable Buddhistic
+    Pundari
+    Yamaraja
+    The Lotos of Faith
+
+
+                        Runes from the Kalewala
+
+    The Magical Words
+    The First Musician
+    The Healing of Wainamoinen
+
+
+                        Stories of Moslem Lands
+
+    Boutimar, the Dove
+    The Son of a Robber
+    A Legend of Love
+    The King's Justice
+
+
+                   Traditions retold from the Talmud
+
+    A Legend of Rabba
+    The Mockers
+    Esther's Choice
+    The Dispute in the Halacha
+    Rabbi Yochanan ben Zachai
+    A Tradition of Titus
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Crown 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Charles W. Coleman, Jr., _Harper's Monthly_, May, 1887, vol. 74,
+        p. 855.
+
+                                 No. 2.
+
+1885. GOMBO ZHÈBES. Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs, selected from
+six Creole dialects. Translated into French and into English, with
+notes, complete index to subjects and some brief remarks upon the Creole
+idioms of Louisiana. By Lafcadio Hearn. New York: Will H. Coleman,
+Publisher, No. 70, Business Quarter, Astor House, 1885.
+
+8vo., 6 p. l., pp. 42, brown cloth, design on cover.
+
+
+(3-4) Introduction (_Extract_).
+
+Any one who has ever paid a flying visit to New Orleans probably knows
+something about those various culinary preparations whose generic name
+is "Gombo"--compounded of many odds and ends, with the okra-plant, or
+true gombo for a basis, but also comprising occasionally "losé,
+zepinard, laitie," and the other vegetables sold in bunches in the
+French market. At all events, any person who has remained in the city
+for a season must have become familiar with the nature of "gombo filé,"
+"gombo févi," and "gombo aux herbes," or as our coloured cook calls it
+"gombo zhèbes"--for she belongs to the older generation of Creole
+_cuisinières_, and speaks the patois in its primitive purity, without
+using a single "r." Her daughter, who has been to school, would
+pronounce it _gombo zhairbes_:--the modern patois is becoming more and
+more Frenchified, and will soon be altogether forgotten, not only
+throughout Louisiana, but even in the Antilles. It still, however,
+retains originality enough to be understood with difficulty by persons
+thoroughly familiar with French; and even those who know nothing of any
+language but English, readily recognize it by the peculiar rapid
+syllabification and musical intonation. Such English-speaking residents
+of New Orleans seldom speak of it as "Creole": they call it _gombo_, for
+some mysterious reason which I have never been able to explain
+satisfactorily. The coloured Creoles of the city have themselves begun
+to use the term to characterize the patois spoken by the survivors of
+slavery days. Turiault tells us that in the town of Martinique, where
+the Creole is gradually changing into French, the _Bitacos_, or country
+negroes who still speak the patois nearly pure, are much ridiculed by
+their municipal brethren:--_Ça ou ka palé là, chè, c'est nèg;--Ça pas
+Créole!_ ("What you talk is 'nigger,' my dear:--that isn't Creole!") In
+like manner a young Creole negro or negress of New Orleans might tell an
+aged member of his race: _Ça qui to parlé ça pas Créole; ça c'est
+gombo!_ I have sometimes heard the pure and primitive Creole also called
+"Congo" by coloured folks of the new generation.
+
+The literature of "gombo" has perhaps even more varieties than there are
+preparations of the esculents above referred to;--the patois has
+certainly its gombo févi, its gombo filé, its "gombo zhèbes"--both
+written and unwritten. A work like Marbot's "Bambous" would deserve to
+be classed with the pure "févi";--the treatises of Turiault, Baissac,
+St. Quentin, Thomas, rather resemble that fully prepared dish, in which
+crabs seem to struggle with fragments of many well-stewed meats, all
+strongly seasoned with pepper. The present essay at Creole folklore, can
+only be classed as "gombo zhèbes"--(_Zhèbes çé feuil-chou, cresson,
+laitie, bettrav, losé, zepinard_); the true okra is not the basis of our
+preparation;--it is a Creole dish, if you please, but a salmagundi of
+inferior quality.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Needless to say, this collection is far from perfect;--the most I can
+hope for is that it may constitute the nucleus of a more exhaustive
+publication to appear in course of time. No one person could hope to
+make a really complete collection of Creole proverbs--even with all the
+advantages of linguistic knowledge, leisure, wealth, and travel. Only a
+society of folklorists might bring such an undertaking to a successful
+issue;--but as no systematic effort is being made in this direction, I
+have had no hesitation in attempting--not indeed to fill a want--but to
+set an example. _Gouïe passé, difil sivré_:--let the needle but pass,
+the thread will follow.
+
+                                                                   L. H.
+
+(6) Creole Bibliography.
+
+Pages 40-42 Indexes.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+_Nation, The_, April 23, 1885, vol. 40, p. 349.
+
+
+                                 No. 3.
+
+1887. SOME CHINESE GHOSTS. By Lafcadio Hearn. (Chinese Characters.)
+Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1887. 16mo., p. (8) 185, brown cloth with
+Chinese mask on cover, red top.
+
+Facing Title-page:--
+
+_If ye desire to witness prodigies and to behold marvels, be not
+concerned as to whether the mountains are distant or the rivers far
+away._
+
+                                                    Kin-Kou-Ki-Koan.
+
+(2) Dedication:--
+
+                             To my Friend,
+                         HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL
+                             The Musician,
+                           who, speaking the
+                       speech of melody unto the
+                        children of Tien-hia,--
+               unto the wandering Tsing-jin, whose skins
+                       have the colour of gold,--
+               moved them to make strange sounds upon the
+                       serpent-bellied San-hien;
+                 persuaded them to play for me upon the
+                           shrieking Ya-hien;
+              prevailed on them to sing me a song of their
+                             native land,--
+                         the song of Mohlí-hwa,
+                    the song of the jasmine-flower.
+                                        (Sketch of Chinaman's head.)
+
+(Reverse) Chinese Character.
+
+(3-4) Preface.
+
+I think that my best apology for the insignificant size of this volume
+is the very character of the material composing it. In preparing the
+legends I sought especially for _weird beauty_; and I could not forget
+this striking observation in Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on Imitations of
+the Ancient Ballad": "The supernatural, though appealing to certain
+powerful emotions very widely and deeply sown amongst the human race,
+is, nevertheless, _a spring which is peculiarly apt to lose its
+elasticity by being too much pressed upon_." Those desirous to
+familiarize themselves with Chinese literature as a whole have had the
+way made smooth for them by the labours of linguists like Julien, Pavie,
+Rémusat, De Rosny, Schlegel, Legge, Hervey-Saint-Denys, Williams, Biot,
+Giles, Wylie, Beal, and many other Sinologists. To such great explorers
+indeed, the realm of Cathayan story belongs by right of discovery and
+conquest; yet the humbler traveller who follows wonderingly after them
+into the vast and mysterious pleasure-grounds of Chinese fancy may
+surely be permitted to cull a few of the marvellous flowers there
+growing,--a self-luminous _hwa-wang_, a black lily, a phosphoric rose or
+two,--as souvenirs of his curious voyage.
+
+L. H. New Orleans, March 15, 1886.
+
+(5) Contents:--
+
+The Soul of the Great Bell
+The Story of Ming-Y
+The Legend of Tchi-Niu
+The Return of Yen Tchin-King
+The Tradition of the Tea-Plant
+The Tale of the Porcelain God
+
+Appendix:--
+
+Notes. Glossary.
+
+New Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1906, 12mo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Charles W. Coleman, Jr., _Harper's Monthly_, May, 1887, vol. 74,
+        p. 855.
+
+    _Nation, The_, May 26, 1887, vol. 44, p. 456.
+
+
+                                 No. 4.
+
+1889. CHITA: a Memory of Last Island. By Lafcadio Hearn
+
+"_But Nature whistled with all her winds, Did as she pleased, and went
+her way._"
+
+--Emerson.
+
+New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, 1889. 12mo., 3 p. l., pp.
+204, terra-cotta cloth, decorated.
+
+(Published first in _Harper's Monthly_, April, 1888.)
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                              To my Friend
+                           DR. RODOLFO MATAS
+                                   of
+                              New Orleans
+
+(2) Contents:--
+
+        Part I
+    The Legend of L'île Dernière
+
+        Part II
+    Out of the Sea's Strength
+
+        Part III
+    The Shadow of the Tide
+
+(Reverse)
+
+    _Je suis la vaste mêlée,--
+    Reptile, étant l onde; ailée,
+        Étant le vent,--
+    Force et fuite, haine et vie,
+    Houle immense, poursuivie
+         Et poursuivant._
+                                                     --Victor Hugo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Boston Evening Transcript, The_, November 2, 1889.
+
+    Hutson, Charles Woodward, _Poet-Lore_, Spring, 1905, vol. 16,
+        p. 53.
+
+
+                                 No. 5.
+
+1890. YOUMA. The Story of a West-Indian Slave. By Lafcadio Hearn.
+(Publisher's Vignette.) New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square,
+1890.
+
+12mo., 1 p. l., pp. 193, frontispiece illustration, red cloth.
+
+(Published first in _Harper's Monthly_, January-February, 1890.)
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                              To my friend
+                           JOSEPH S. TUNISON.
+         The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1890, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenæum, The_, August 30, 1890, p. 284.
+
+    _Nation, The_, May 7, 1891, vol. 52, p. 385.
+
+
+                                 No. 6.
+
+1890. TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. By Lafcadio Hearn.
+Illustrated. (Publisher's Vignette.) New York: Harper & Brothers,
+Franklin Square, 1890. 8vo., pp. (12) 431, 38 full-page illustrations, 6
+illustrations in the text, green cloth ornamental.
+
+(Reverse)
+
+"_La facon d'être du pays est si agréable, la température si bonne, et
+l'on y vit dans une liberté si honnête, que je n'aye pas vu un seul
+homme, ny une seule femme, qui en soient revenus, en qui je n'aye
+remarqué une grande passion d'y retourner._"--Le Père Dutertre (1667).
+
+(3) Dedication:--
+
+                             À mon cher ami
+                             LEOPOLD ARNOUX
+                  Notaire à Saint Pierre, Martinique.
+
+_Souvenir de nos promenades,--de nos voyages,--de nos causeries,--des
+sympathies échangées,--de tout le charme d'une amitié inaltérable et
+inoubliable,--de tout ce qui parle à l'âme au doux Pays des Revenants._
+
+(5-6) Preface (_Extract_).
+
+The introductory paper, entitled "A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics"
+consists for the most part of notes taken upon a voyage of nearly three
+thousand miles, accomplished in less than two months. During such hasty
+journeying it is scarcely possible for a writer to attempt anything more
+serious than a mere reflection of the personal experiences undergone;
+and, in spite of sundry justifiable departures from simple note-making,
+this paper is offered only as an effort to record the visual and
+emotional impressions of the moment.
+
+My thanks are due to Mr. William Lawless, British Consul at St. Pierre,
+for several beautiful photographs, taken by himself, which have been
+used in the preparation of the illustrations.
+                                                               L. H.
+Philadelphia, 1889.
+
+(7) Contents:--
+
+    A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics (_Harper's Monthly_,
+        July-September, 1888)
+    Martinique Sketches:--
+       I. Les Porteuses (_Harper's Monthly_, July, 1889)
+      II. La Grande Anse (_Harper's Monthly_, November, 1889)
+     III. Un Revenant
+      IV. La Guiablesse
+       V. La Vérette (_Harper's Monthly_, October, 1888)
+      VI. Les Blanchisseusses
+     VII. La Pelée
+    VIII. 'Ti Canotié
+      IX. La Fille de Couleur
+       X. Bête-ni-Pié
+      XI. Ma Bonne
+     XII. "Pa combiné, chè!"
+    XIII. Yé
+     XIV. Lys.
+      XV. Appendix: Some Creole Melodies
+
+(9-10) Illustrations:--
+
+The Same. London: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _New York Times, The_, September 1, 1890.
+
+
+                                 No. 7.
+
+1894. GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. By Lafcadio Hearn. In two volumes.
+(Vignette.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company (The
+Riverside Press, Cambridge), 1894.
+
+8vo., 2 vols. pp. (x) 699, dull green cloth, silver lettering and
+design, gilt top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                             To the Friends
+                   whose kindness alone rendered possible
+                        my sojourn in the Orient,--
+                                   to
+                   PAYMASTER MITCHELL McDONALD, U. S. N.
+                                  and
+                      BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN, ESQ.
+            _Emeritus Professor of Philology and Japanese in the
+                       Imperial University of Tôkyô_
+                        I dedicate these volumes
+                              in token of
+                        Affection and Gratitude.
+
+(V-X) Preface (_Extract_).
+
+But the rare charm of Japanese life, so different from that of all other
+lands, is not to be found in its Europeanized circles. It is to be found
+among the great common people, who represent in Japan, as in all
+countries, the national virtues, and who still cling to their delightful
+old customs, their picturesque dresses, their Buddhist images, their
+household shrines, their beautiful and touching worship of ancestors.
+This is the life of which a foreign observer can never weary, if
+fortunate and sympathetic enough to enter into it,--the life that forces
+him sometimes to doubt whether the course of our boasted Western
+progress is really in the direction of moral development. Each day,
+while the years pass, there will be revealed to him some strange and
+unsuspected beauty in it. Like other life, it has its darker side; yet
+even this is brightness compared with the darker side of Western
+existence. It has its foibles, its follies, its vices, its cruelties;
+yet the more one sees of it, the more one marvels at its extraordinary
+goodness, its miraculous patience, its never-failing courtesy, its
+simplicity of heart, its intuitive charity. And to our own larger
+Occidental comprehension, its commonest superstitions, however contemned
+at Tôkyô, have rarest value as fragments of the unwritten
+literature of its hopes, its fears, its experience with right and
+wrong,--its primitive efforts to find solutions for the riddle of the
+Unseen.
+
+
+Contents:--
+
+Volume I.
+
+       I. My First Day in the Orient
+      II. The Writing of Kôbôdaishi
+     III. Jizô
+      IV. A Pilgrimage to Enoshima
+       V. At the Market of the Dead (_Atlantic Monthly_,
+            September, 1891)
+      VI. Bon-Odori
+     VII. The Chief City of the Province of the Gods
+            (_Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1891)
+    VIII. Kitzuki: The Most Ancient Shrine in Japan
+            (_Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1891)
+      IX. In the Cave of the Children's Ghosts
+       X. At Mionoseki
+      XI. Notes on Kitzuki
+     XII. At Hinomisaki
+    XIII. Shinjû
+     XIV. Yaegaki-Jinja
+      XV. Kitsune
+
+Volume II.
+
+     XVI. In a Japanese Garden (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1892)
+    XVII. The Household Shrine
+   XVIII. Of Women's Hair
+     XIX. From the Diary of an English Teacher
+      XX. Two Strange Festivals
+     XXI. By the Japanese Sea
+    XXII. Of a Dancing Girl (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1893)
+   XXIII. From Hôki to Oki
+    XXIV. Of Souls XXV. Of Ghosts and Goblins
+    XXVI. The Japanese Smile (_Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1893)
+   XXVII. Sayônara!
+
+Pages 695-99 Index.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1894, 2 vols., 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 2 vols., Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 2 vols., Cr.
+8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Bentzon, Th., _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p.
+        556.
+
+    Brandt, M. von, _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1900, vol. 27,
+        p. 68.
+
+    Challayé, Félicien, _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, 1903,
+        vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+    Challayê, Félicien, _Revue de Paris_, December 1, 1904 vol. 6,
+        p. 655.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, October 20, 1894, vol. 25, p. 347.
+
+    Scott, Mrs. M. McN., _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1895, vol. 75,
+        p. 830.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, November 17, 1894, vol. 73, p. 698.
+
+
+                                 No. 8.
+
+1895. "OUT OF THE EAST." Reveries and Studies in New Japan. By Lafcadio
+Hearn.
+
+               "_As far as the east is from the west_"--
+
+(Publisher's Vignette.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and
+Company (The Riverside Press, Cambridge), 1895.
+
+16mo., 2 p. 1., pp. 341, yellow cloth, silver lettering, yellow top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                                   To
+                            NISHIDA SENTARÔ
+                         in dear remembrance of
+                               Izumo days
+
+(2) Contents:--
+
+       I. The Dream of a Summer Day
+      II. With Kyûshû Students
+     III. At Hakata (_Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1894)
+      IV. Of the Eternal Feminine (_Atlantic Monthly_, December,
+            1893)
+       V. Bits of Life and Death
+      VI. The Stone Buddha
+     VII. Jiujutsu
+    VIII. The Red Bridal (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1894)
+      IX. A Wish Fulfilled (_Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1895)
+       X. In Yokohama
+      XI. Yuko: a Reminiscence
+
+"The Dream of a Summer Day" first appeared in the _Japan Daily Mail_.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1895, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenæum, The_, August 24, 1895, p. 249.
+
+    Brandt, M. von, _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1900, vol. 105,
+        p. 68.
+
+    Challayé Félicien, _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, 1903,
+        vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+    Challayé, Félicien, _Revue de Paris_, December 1, 1904, vol. 6,
+        p. 655.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, April 20, 1895, vol. 26, p. 123.
+
+    Scott, Mrs. M. McN., _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1895, vol. 75,
+        p. 830.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, October 12, 1895, vol. 75, p. 459.
+
+
+                                 No. 9.
+
+1896. KOKORO: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. By Lafcadio
+Hearn. (Top of page "Kokoro" in Japanese.) (Sketch of Japanese Head.)
+Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company (The Riverside Press,
+Cambridge), 1896.
+
+16 mo., 3 p. l., pp. 388, green cloth, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                              To my Friend
+                          AMÉNOMORI NOBUSHIGÉ
+                       poet, scholar, and patriot
+
+(2) Note:--
+
+(Japanese character)
+
+The papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than of the
+outer life of Japan,--for which reason they have been grouped under the
+title, "Kokoro" (heart). Written with the above character, this word
+signifies also mind, in the emotional sense; spirit; courage; resolve;
+sentiment; affection; and inner meaning,--just as we say in English,
+"the heart of things."
+
+Kobé, September 15, 1895.
+
+(3) Contents:--
+
+       I. At a Railway Station
+      II. The Genius of Japanese Civilization (_Atlantic Monthly_,
+            October, 1895)
+     III. A Street Singer
+      IV. From a Travelling Diary (_Atlantic Monthly_, December,
+            1895)
+       V. The Nun of the Temple of Amida
+      VI. After the War (_Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1895)
+     VII. Haru
+    VIII. A Glimpse of Tendencies
+      IX. By Force of Karma
+       X. A Conservative
+      XI. In the Twilight of the Gods (_Atlantic Monthly_, June,
+          1895)
+     XII. The Idea of Preëxistence
+    XIII. In Cholera-Time
+     XIV. Some Thoughts about Ancestor-Worship
+      XV. Kimiko
+          Appendix. Three Popular Ballads
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1896, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Popular Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenæum, The_, August 8, 1896, p. 185.
+
+    Bentzon, Th., _Revue de Deux Mondes_, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p.
+    556.
+
+    Brandt, M. von, _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1900, vol. 105,
+    p. 68.
+
+    Challayé Félicien, _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, 1903,
+    vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+    Challayé Félicien, _Revue de Paris_, December 1, 1904, vol. 6,
+    p. 655.
+
+    Cockerill, Col. John A., _Current Literature_, June, 1896, vol.
+    19, p. 476.
+
+    Herzog, Wilhelm, _Die Nation_, January 6, 1906, vol. 23, p. 217.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, April 18, 1896, vol. 27, p. 116.
+
+    _Nation, The_, July 9, 1896, vol. 63, p. 35.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, May 23, 1896, vol. 76, p. 739.
+
+    Takayanagi, Tozo, _The Book Buyer_, May, 1896, vol. 13, p. 229.
+
+
+                                 No. 10.
+
+1897. GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS, Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far
+East. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English Literature in the Imperial
+University of Japan. (Publisher's Vignette.) Boston and New York:
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company. (The Riverside Press, Cambridge.)
+
+12mo., pp. 296, blue cloth, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+Contents:--
+
+       I. A Living God (_Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1896)
+      II. Out of the Street (_Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1896)
+     III. Notes of a Trip to Kyôto (_Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1896)
+      IV. Dust (_Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1896)
+       V. About Faces in Japanese Art (Atlantic Monthly, August, 1896)
+      VI. Ningyô-no-Haka
+     VII. In Ôsaka
+    VIII. Buddhist Allusions in Japanese Folk-Song
+      IX. Nirvâna
+       X. The Rebirth of Katsugorô
+      XI. Within the Circle
+
+The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1897, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Academy, The_, November 13, 1897, vol. 52, p. 395.
+
+    _Athenæum, The_, November 13, 1897, p. 664.
+
+    Challayé, Félicien, _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, 1903,
+    vol. 11, p. 338
+
+    _Critic, The_, April 9, 1898, vol. 29, p. 248.
+
+    _Independent, The_, November 24, 1898, vol. 50, p. 1508.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, November 13, 1897, vol. 28, p. 389.
+
+    _Nation, The_, February 3, 1898, vol. 66, p. 97.
+
+    _Outlook, The_, October 16, 1897, vol. 57, p. 435.
+
+    _Public Opinion_, November 25, 1897, vol. 23, p. 694.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, November 20, 1897, vol. 79, p. 736.
+
+    Wagner, John Harrison, _The Book Buyer_, June, 1898, vol. 16, p.
+    437.
+
+
+                                No. 11.
+
+1898. EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English
+Literature in the Imperial University, Tôkyô. Boston: Little,
+Brown and Company, MDCCCXCIX.
+
+16mo., 4 p. l., pp. 299, 4 full-page illustrations, 13 illustrations in
+the text. Green cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+To Dr. C. H. H. Hall, of Yokohama (late U. S. Navy) _In Constant
+Friendship_
+
+(2) (Prefatory Note)
+
+All but one of the papers composing this volume appear for the first
+time. The little essays, or rather fantasies, forming the second part of
+the book, deal with experiences in two hemispheres; but their general
+title should explain why they have been arranged independently of that
+fact. To any really scientific imagination, the curious analogy existing
+between certain teachings of evolutional psychology and certain
+teachings of Eastern faith,--particularly the Buddhist doctrine that all
+sense-life is Karma, and all substance only the phenomenal result of
+acts and thoughts,--might have suggested something much more significant
+than my cluster of "Retrospectives." These are offered merely as
+intimations of a truth incomparably less difficult to recognize than to
+define.
+
+Tôkyô, Japan,                L. H. February 15, 1898.
+
+(3) Contents:--
+
+    Exotics:
+
+       I. Fuji-no-Yama
+      II. Insect-Musicians
+     III. A Question in the Zen Texts
+      IV. The Literature of the Dead
+       V. Frogs VI. Of Moon-Desire
+
+    Retrospectives:
+
+       I. First Impressions
+      II. Beauty is Memory
+     III. Sadness in Beauty
+      IV. Parfum de Jeunesse
+       V. Azure Psychology (_Teikoku Bungaku_, Yokohama)
+      VI. A Serenade
+     VII. A Red Sunset
+    VIII. Frisson
+      IX. Vespertina Cognitio
+       X. The Eternal Haunter
+
+(4) List of Illustrations.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1898, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenæum, The_, January 6, 1900, p. 11.
+
+    Bentzon, Th., _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 1, 1904, vol. 21,
+    p. 556.
+
+    _Dial, The_, July 16, 1899, vol. 27, p. 52.
+
+    _International Studio, The_, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+
+                                No. 12.
+
+1899. IN GHOSTLY JAPAN. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English
+Literature in the Imperial University, Tôkyô. Boston: Little,
+Brown and Company, MDCCCXCIX.
+
+16mo., 5 p. l., pp. 241, 4 full-page illustrations, 5 illustrations in
+the text. Blue cloth, ornamented with white cherry-blossoms, gold
+lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                                   To
+                         Mrs. Alice Von Behrens
+                          _For Auld Lang Syne_
+
+(2)
+
+                            In Ghostly Japan
+                              _Yoru bakari
+                           Miru mono nari to
+                               Omou-nayo!
+                             Hiru saë yumé
+                          no Ukiyo nari-kéri._
+
+    _Think not that dreams appear to the dreamer only at night: the
+    dream of this world of pain appears to us even by day_.
+
+                                                      Japanese Poem.
+
+(3) Contents:--
+
+    Fragment
+    Furisodé
+    Incense
+    A Story of Divination
+    Silkworms
+    A Passional Karma
+    Footprints of the Buddha
+    Ululation
+    Bits of Poetry
+    Japanese Buddhist Proverbs
+    Suggestion
+    Ingwa-Banashi
+    Story of a Tengu
+    At Yaidzu
+
+(4) List of Illustrations.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Inouye, Jukichi, _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1900, vol. 86,
+    pp. 399.
+
+    _International Studio, The_, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+
+                                No. 13.
+
+1900. SHADOWINGS. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English Literature in
+the Imperial University, Tôkyô, Japan. Boston: Little, Brown and
+Company, 1900.
+
+12mo., pp. (IV) 268, cloth.
+
+(I.) Dedication:--
+
+                     To Paymaster Mitchell McDonald
+                               U. S. Navy
+
+    My dear Mitchell,--
+
+    Herein I have made some attempt to satisfy your wish for "a few
+    more queer stories from the Japanese." Please accept the book as
+    another token of the writer's affection.
+
+                                                  Lafcadio Hearn
+                                                (Koizumi Yakumo)
+    Tôkyô, Japan,
+        January 1, 1900.
+
+
+(II.) Contents:--
+
+    Stories from Strange Books:--
+
+       I. The Reconciliation
+      II. A Legend of Fugen-Bosatsu
+     III. The Screen-Maiden
+      IV. The Corpse-Rider
+       V. The Sympathy of Benten
+      VI. The Gratitude of the Samébito
+
+    Japanese Studies:--
+
+       I. Sémi
+      II.Japanese Female Names
+     III. Old Japanese Songs
+
+    Fantasies:--
+
+       I. Noctilucæ
+      II. A Mystery of Crowds
+     III. Gothic Horror
+      IV. Levitation
+       V. Nightmare-Touch
+      VI. Readings from a Dream-Book
+     VII. In a Pair of Eyes
+
+(III.) Illustrations.
+
+(IV.) Bastard title-page:--
+
+    Il avait vu brûler d'étranges pierres,
+    Jadis, dans les brasiers de lapensée.
+                                    Émile Verhaeren
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1900, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenæum, The_, January 5, 1901, p. 15.
+
+    Bentzon, Th., _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.
+
+    F. T. C., _The Bookman_, February, 1901, vol. 12, p. 582.
+
+    _Dial, The_, January 1, 1901, vol. 30, p. 19.
+
+    _International Studio, The_, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.
+
+    Kinnosuké, Adachi, _The Critic_, January, 1901, vol. 38, p. 29.
+
+    _Nation, The_, November 8, 1900, vol. 71, p. 372.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+    _Public Opinion_, October 18, 1900, vol. 29, p. 504.
+
+
+                                No. 14.
+
+1901. A JAPANESE MISCELLANY. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English
+Literature in the Imperial University of Tôkyô. Boston: Little,
+Brown and Company, MDCCCCI.
+
+12mo., 5 p. l., pp. 305, 2 full-page illustrations, 6 plates, 5
+illustrations in the text. Green cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt
+top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                                   To
+                     Mrs. Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore
+
+(2) Contents:--
+
+    Strange Stories:
+       I. Of a Promise Kept
+      II. Of a Promise Broken
+     III. Before the Supreme Court
+      IV. The Story of Kwashin Koji
+       V. The Story of Umétsu Chûbei
+      VI. The Story of Kôgi the Priest
+
+Folklore Gleanings:
+
+   I. Dragon-Flies (_illustrated_)
+      II. Buddhist Names of Plants and Animals
+     III. Songs of Japanese Children (_illustrated_)
+
+Studies Here and There:
+
+   I. On a Bridge
+      II. The Case of O-Dai
+     III. Beside the Sea (_illustrated_)
+      IV. Drifting
+       V. Otokichi's Daruma (_illustrated_)
+      VI. In a Japanese Hospital
+
+(3) Illustrations.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1901, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenæum_, December 21, 1901, p. 833.
+
+    _International Studio, The_, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, December 1, 1901, vol. 32, p. 207.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 9, 1902, vol. 74, p. 39.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+
+                                No. 15.
+
+1902. JAPANESE FAIRY TALES. Rendered into English by Lafcadio Hearn.
+Published by T. Hasegawa, Publisher and Art-Printer, Tôkyô, Japan.
+
+Four 16mo. books on Japanese folded crêpe paper, highly illustrated in
+colours.
+
+    No. 22. The Goblin Spider
+    No. 23. The Boy Who Drew Cats
+    No. 24. The Old Woman Who Lost Her Dumpling
+    No. 25. Chin Chin Kobakama
+
+
+                                No. 16.
+
+1902. KOTTÔ (Japanese Characters). Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry
+Cobwebs. Collected by Lafcadio Hearn, Lecturer on English Literature in
+the Imperial University of Tôkyô, Japan. With illustrations by
+Genjiro Yeto. New York: The Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan &
+Company, Ltd.), 1902.
+
+8vo., 4 p. l., pp. 251, brown cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt
+top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+To SIR EDWIN ARNOLD in grateful remembrance of kind words
+
+(2) Contents:--
+
+Old Stories:
+
+       I. The Legend of Yurei-Daki
+      II. In a Cup of Tea
+     III. Common Sense
+      IV. Ikiryô
+       V. Shiryô
+      VI. The Story of O-Kamé
+     VII. Story of a Fly
+    VIII. Story of a Pheasant
+      IX. The Story of Chûgorô
+
+    A Woman's Diary
+    Heiké-Gani
+    Fireflies
+    A Drop of Dew
+    Gaki
+    A Matter of Custom
+    Revery
+    Pathological
+    In the Dead of the Night
+    Kusa-Hibari
+    The Eater of Dreams
+
+(3)
+
+                              Old Stories
+
+_The following nine tales have been selected from the
+"Shin-Chomon-Shû," "Hyaku Monogatari,"
+"Uji-Jûi-Monogatari-Shô," and other old Japanese books, to
+illustrate some strange beliefs. They are only Curios._
+
+The Same. Reprinted April, 1903.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenæum, The_, January 17, 1903, p. 77.
+
+    _Book Buyer, The_, December, 1902, vol. 25, p. 416.
+
+    More, Paul Elmer, _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1903, vol. 91,
+    p. 204.
+
+    _Nation, The_, March 26, 1903, vol. 76, p. 254.
+
+
+                                No. 17.
+
+1904. KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.--Lafcadio Hearn,
+Lecturer on English Literature in the Imperial University of
+Tôkyô, Japan (1896-1903). Honorary Member of the Japan Society,
+London. (Japanese Characters.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin
+and Company, MDCCCCIV. (Published April, 1904.)
+
+12mo., 6 p. 1., pp. 240, illustrated, 2 plates, dark green cloth,
+decorated, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Introduction by Publisher:--
+
+(3) Prefatory Note:--
+
+Most of the following _Kwaidan_, or Weird Tales, have been
+taken from old Japanese books,--such as the _Yasô-Kidan_,
+_Bukkyô-Hyakkwa-Zenshô_, _Kokon-Chomonshû_, _Tama-Sudaré_ and
+_Hyaku-Monogatari_. Some of the stories may have had a Chinese origin:
+the very remarkable "Dream of Akinosuké," for example, is certainly from
+a Chinese source. But the Japanese story-teller in every case, has so
+recoloured and reshaped his borrowing as to naturalize it.... One queer
+tale, "Yuki-Onna," was told me by a farmer of Chôfu,
+Nishitamagôri, in Musashi province, as a legend of his native
+village. Whether it has even been written in Japanese I do not know; but
+the extraordinary belief which it records used certainly to exist in
+most parts of Japan, and in many curious forms.... The incident of
+"Riki-Baka" was a personal experience; and I wrote it down almost
+exactly as it happened, changing only a family-name mentioned by the
+Japanese narrator.
+
+Tôkyô, Japan, January 20, 1904.                                L. H.
+
+(4) Contents:--
+
+    Kwaidan
+
+        The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hôichi (_Atlantic Monthly_,
+            August, 1903)
+        Oshidori
+        The Story of O-Tei
+        Ubazakura
+        Diplomacy
+        Of a Mirror and a Bell
+        Jikininki
+        Mujina
+        Rokuro-Kubi
+        A Dead Secret
+        Yuki-Onna
+        The Story of Aoyagi
+        Jiu-Roku-Zakura
+        The Dream of Akinosuké (_Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1904)
+        Riki-Baka
+        Hi-Mawari
+        Hôrai
+
+    Insect-Studies
+
+        Butterflies
+        Mosquitoes
+        Ants
+
+(5) Notes on the Illustrations
+
+The two drawings are by the Japanese artist, Keichû Takénouche. The
+frontispiece illustrates the scene in the story "Yuki-Onna" described on
+page 113, and the drawing facing page 180 illustrates the Butterfly
+Dance, described on page 203.
+
+The Same. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1904, 12mo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenæum, The_, September 17, 1904, p. 373.
+
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1904, vol. 93, p. 857.
+
+    _Bookman, The_, November, 1904, vol. 20, p. 159.
+
+
+                                No. 18.
+
+1904. (Japanese Characters.) JAPAN: An Attempt at Interpretation. By
+Lafcadio Hearn. Honorary Member of the Japan Society, London; formerly
+Lecturer in the Imperial University of Tôkyô (1896-1903), and
+Fourteen Years a Resident of Japan.
+
+    "Perhaps all very marked national characters can be traced back
+    to a time of rigid and pervading discipline."
+                                                   --Walter Bagehot.
+
+New York: The Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd.),
+1904. (Published, September, 1904.)
+
+8vo., 2 p. l., pp. 541, coloured frontispiece, brown cloth, black and
+gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Contents:--
+
+       I. Difficulties
+      II. Strangeness and Charm
+     III. The Ancient Cult
+      IV. The Religion of the Home
+       V. The Japanese Family
+      VI. The Communal Cult
+     VII. Developments of Shintô
+    VIII. Worship and Purification
+      IX. The Rule of the Dead
+       X. The Introduction of Buddhism
+      XI. The Higher Buddhism
+     XII.The Social Organization
+    XIII. The Rise of the Military Power
+     XIV. The Religion of Loyalty
+      XV. The Jesuit Peril
+     XVI. Feudal Integration
+    XVII. The Shintô Revival
+   XVIII. Survivals
+     XIX. Modern Restraints
+      XX. Official Education
+     XXI. Industrial Danger
+    XXII. Reflections
+          Bibliographical Notes
+          Index
+
+The Same. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1904, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Buckley, Edmund, _The American Journal of Sociology_, January
+    1905, vol. 10, p. 545.
+
+    Griffis, William Elliot, _The Critic_, February, 1905, vol. 46,
+    p. 185.
+
+    Griffis, William Elliot, _The Dial_, December 1, 1904, vol. 36,
+    p. 368.
+
+    _Independent, The_, October 27, 1904, vol. 57, p. 976.
+
+    _Nation, The_, December 8, 1904, vol. 79, p. 465.
+
+    _Public Opinion_, October 27, 1904, vol. 37, p. 537.
+
+    _Review of Reviews_, November, 1904, vol. 30, p. 561.
+
+    Shore, W. Teignmouth, _The Academy_, December 10, 1904, vol. 67,
+    p. 584.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, January 14, 1905, vol. 94, p. 54.
+
+    Thurston, S. J., Herbert, _The Messenger_, January, 1906,
+    vol. 45, p. 1.
+
+                                No. 19.
+
+1905. THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY, and other Studies and Stories. By
+Lafcadio Hearn. Houghton, Mifflin and Company: Boston and New York,
+1905. (Published October, 1905.)
+
+12mo., pp. (XIV) 209, decorated title-page, grey cloth with yellow
+trimmings, yellow top.
+
+(V) Contents:--
+
+    The Romance of the Milky Way (_Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1905)
+    Goblin Poetry
+    "Ultimate Questions" (_Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1905)
+    The Mirror Maiden
+    The Story of Itô Norisuké (_Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1905)
+    Stranger than Fiction (_Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1905)
+    A Letter from Japan (_Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1904)
+
+(VII-XIV) Introduction by F. G.
+
+The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Academy, The_, December 2, 1905, vol. 69, p. 1257. _Athenæum,
+    The_, March 31, 1906, p. 389.
+
+    _Dial, The_, November 1, 1905, vol. 39, p. 276.
+
+    Griffis, W. E., _The Critic_, March, 1906, vol. 48, p. 222.
+
+    _Independent_, The, December 21, 1905, vol. 59, p. 1478.
+
+    _Nation, The_, December 21, 1905, vol. 81, p. 510.
+
+    _Outlook, The_, November 9, 1906, vol. 84, p. 503.
+
+
+                              TRANSLATIONS
+
+
+                                No. 20.
+
+1882. ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS, and other Fantastic Romances. By
+Théophile Gautier. Faithfully translated by Lafcadio Hearn.
+
+Contents:--
+
+    One of Cleopatra's Nights
+    Clarimonde
+    Arria Marcella: A Souvenir of Pompeii
+    The Mummy's Foot
+    Omphale: A Rococo Story
+    King Candaules
+
+New York: R. Worthington, 770 Broadway, 1882.
+
+8vo., pp. (IX) 321, red cloth, gilt top. Head Gautier as Frontispiece.
+
+(III)
+
+
+    _The love that caught strange light from death's own eyes,
+    And filled death's lips with fiery words and sighs,
+        And half asleep, let feed from veins of his,
+    Her close red warm snake's-mouth, Egyptian-wise:
+    And that great night of love more strange than this,
+    When she that made the whole world's bale and bliss
+        Made king of the whole world's desire a slave
+    And killed him in mid-kingdom with a kiss._
+                                                      Swinburne.
+
+    "_Memorial verses on the death of Théophile Gautier._"
+
+
+(V-IX) To the Reader (_Extract_).
+
+It is the artist, therefore, who must judge of Gautier's creations. To
+the lovers of the loveliness of the antique world, the lovers of
+physical beauty and artistic truth,--of the charm of youthful dreams and
+young passion in its blossoming,--of poetic ambitions and the sweet
+pantheism that finds all Nature vitalized by the Spirit of the
+Beautiful,--to such the first English version of these graceful
+fantasies is offered in the hope that it may not be found wholly
+unworthy of the original.
+
+New Orleans, 1882.                                                 L. H.
+
+Pages 317-21 Addenda.
+
+New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 12mo.
+New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1906, 12mo.
+CLARIMONDE. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 16mo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+Brandt, M. von, _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1900, vol. 105, p. 68.
+
+Coleman, Charles W., Jr., _Harper's Monthly_, May, 1887, vol. 74, p.
+855.
+
+_Dayton (Ohio) Journal_, September 30, 1904.
+
+_Literary World, The_, February 14, 1891, vol. 22, p. 56.
+
+
+                                No. 21.
+
+1890. THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD (Member of the Institute). By
+Anatole France. The Translation and Introduction by Lafcadio Hearn.
+(Publisher's Vignette.) New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square,
+1890.
+
+8vo., pp. (IX) 281, paper.
+
+(V-IX) Introduction (_Extract_).
+
+But it is not because M. Anatole France has rare power to create
+original characters, or to reflect for us something of the more
+recondite literary life of Paris, that his charming story will live. It
+is because of his far rarer power to deal with what is older than any
+art, and withal more young, and incomparably more precious: the beauty
+of what is beautiful in human emotion. And that writer who touches the
+spring of generous tears by some simple story of gratitude, of natural
+kindness, of gentle self-sacrifice, is surely more entitled to our love
+than the sculptor who shapes for us a dream of merely animal grace, or
+the painter who images for us, however richly, the young bloom of that
+form which is only the husk of Being.
+
+L. H.
+
+(1) Contents:--
+
+    Part I.
+        The Log.
+
+    Part II.
+        The Daughter of Clémentine.
+            The Fairy
+            The Little Saint-George
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+_Literary World_, The, February 15, 1890, vol. 21, p. 59.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+            TRANSLATIONS PUBLISHED IN THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT[43]
+
+    [43] Hearn failed to give the years in which these translations
+         were published, and often also the days and months.
+
+(Nos. 31-218)
+
+
+No. 31. 1. Crucifying Crocodiles. By Cousot.
+                From _Le Figaro_, February 7.
+
+No. 32. 2. The Last of the Great Moguls. By Ali.
+                From _Le Nouvelle Revue_, March 1.
+
+No. 33. 3. Killed by Rollin's Ancient History. By Chas. Baissac.
+
+No. 34. 4. Mohammed Fripouille. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Yvette."
+
+No. 35. 5. The Eldest Daughter. By Jules Lemaitre.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 36. 6. The Burnt Rock. By "Carmen Sylva," Elizabeth, Queen of
+        Roumania.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 37. 7. The Confession. By de Maupassant.
+                From _Contes du Jour et de la Nuit_.
+
+No. 38. 8. In the Mountain of Marble. By Pierre Loti.
+
+No. 39. 9. A Story of Quinine. By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Récits Créoles_.
+
+No. 40. 10. How Gerard Resigned His Tutorship. By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Récits Créoles_.
+
+No. 41. 11. A Vendetta. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _Contes du Jour et de la Nuit_.
+
+No. 42. 12. A Coward. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _Contes du Jour et de la Nuit_.
+
+No. 43. 13. The Titaness. By Jules Lermina.
+                From _Le Figaro_, April 25.
+
+No. 44. 14. Reminiscences of Gustave Doré. By Albert Wolff.
+                From _Le Figaro_, March 2.
+
+No. 45. 15. The Return. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Yvette."
+
+No. 46. 16. Two Friends. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 47. 17. Moloch, the Devourer. (The Sacrifice.) By Gustave Flaubert.
+                From "Salambo," Ed. 1880.
+
+No. 48. 18. The Ring. By N. de Semenow.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 15.
+
+No. 49. 19. The Phalanx in Battle. By Gustave Flaubert.
+                From "Salambo," Ed. 1880.
+
+No. 50. 20. The Little Sister. By Hector Malot.
+                Novel.
+
+No. 51. 21. Riri's Rag-Picking. By Jean Rameau.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 31.
+
+No. 52. 22. A Divorced Man's New Year's Day. By Frantz Jourdain.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 2.
+
+No. 53. 23. Especially Interesting Apropos of the Comet with the Sodium
+        Tail. By Camille Flammarion.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, September 21.
+
+No. 54. 24. Eaten Alive. By Camille Debans.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 13.
+
+No. 55. 25. The Christmas Tree. By Theodore Dostoievsky.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 56. 26. "A Madman?" By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 57. 27. Tourgueneff. By Firmin Javel.
+                From _L'Evénement_, September 6.
+
+Tourgueneff. By Maurice Guillemot.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 5.
+
+No. 58. 28. A Polish Regiment under Fire. By Hendrik Sienkiewicz.
+                From _Nouvelle Revue_.
+
+No. 59. 29. In Oran. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _Au Soleil_.
+
+No. 60. 30. En Voyage. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 61. 31. "La Mère Sauvage." By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 62. 32. The Adopted Child. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 63. 33. The Child. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 64. 34. The Minuet. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 65. 35. My Uncle Jules. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 66. 36. The Love Chamber. By Albert Delpit, 1884.
+
+No. 67. 37. The Chair Mender. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 68. 38. Coco. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 69. 39. A Parricide. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 70. 40. The Red Wolves. By Henry Leturque.
+                From _Le Figaro_, April 24.
+
+No. 71. 41. Suicides. By Guy de Maupassant. "Les Soeurs Rondoli."
+
+No. 72. 42. The Cross. By Verax.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 17.
+
+No. 73. 43. The Art of Dancing. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, March 19.
+
+No. 74. 44. Haikona's Story. By Quatrelles.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 3.
+
+No. 75. 45. Forgotten on the Battle Field.
+                From _Le Figaro_, December 19.
+
+No. 76. 46. The Folly of Armaments. By P.
+                From _L'Evénement_, June 13.
+
+No. 77. 47. Japanese Theatricals. By Yedoko.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 7, 1886.
+
+No. 78. 48. On the Planet Mars. By Camille Flammarion.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 79. 49. The Colonel's Ideas. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Yvette."
+
+No. 80. 50. Waterloo. By Léon Cladel.
+                From _L'Evénement_, April 26.
+
+No. 81. 51. Terrifying a King. By XXX. From _Le Figaro_, December 9.
+
+No. 82. 52. The Secret of the Scaffold. By Comte de Villiers de
+        L'Isle-Adam.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 23.
+
+No. 83. 53. Littre as a Physician. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, June 5.
+
+No. 84. 54. Hugo and Littre. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 85. 55. A Modern Combat of the Thirty. By Vigeant.
+
+No. 86. 56. Algerian Warfare. By Ferdinand Hugonnet.
+
+No. 87. 57. Orden's Redoubt. By Adam Mickiewicz.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 88. 58. Lasker's Romance. By Aurelien Scholl.
+                From _L'Evénement_, February 26.
+
+No. 89. 59. The Duel. By Aurelien Scholl.
+                From _L'Evénement_, March 2.
+
+No. 90. 60. The Wife of Sobieski.
+                From _Le Figaro_ Supplement, February 23.
+
+No. 91. 61. Redemption. By Matilde Serao.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 92. 62. The Rats of Paris. By Olivier de Rawton.
+                From _Le Figaro_ Supplement.
+
+No. 93. 63. The Story of Tse-I-La. By Comte de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam.
+                From _Le Figaro_ Sunday Supplement.
+
+No. 94. 64. Cremation in Paris. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, March 6.
+
+No. 95. 65. Madame Auguste's Lion. By Horace Bertin.
+                From _Croquis de Province_.
+
+No. 96. 66. The Secret History of "Madame Bovary." By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _L'Evénement_, January 23.
+
+No. 97. 67. Nissa. By Albert Delpit.
+                From _Revue de Deux Mondes_.
+
+No. 98. 68. The Soudanian Marseillais.
+
+No. 99. 69. Justice in the Soudan. After De Bisson. 1868.
+
+No. 100. 70. Eaten by a Lion. By Louis Rousselet.
+                From _La Peau du Tigre_.
+
+No. 101. 71. Chanzy. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 10.
+
+No. 102. 72. Notes on Von Moltke. By Robert de Bonnieres.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 17.
+
+No. 103. 73. The Hunchback. By Chas. Richard.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 29.
+
+No. 104. 74. The Pacha of Audjelah. By H. Georges.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 5.
+
+No. 105. 75. The Umbrella. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 106. 76. Gambling for a Wife. By A. de Colonne.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 30.
+
+No. 107. 77. Happiness. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 108. 78. "Schmah Israel." By Sacher Masoch.
+                From _Revue Politique et Litteraire_, November 7.
+
+No. 109. 79. The Alfa-Gatherer. By Lieutenant Palat. ("Marcel
+        Frescaly.")
+                From _Le Figaro_, April 3.
+
+No. 110. 80. He. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 111. 81. 'Toine. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 112. 82. The Dowry. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 113. 83. The Funeral of an Indian Prince. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 7.
+
+No. 114. 84. The Jewelry. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 115. 85. The Five Senses. By Harry Alis.
+                From _Revue Politique et Litteraire_, October 2.
+
+No. 116. 86. A Bombshell. By Leon Tolstoi.
+
+No. 117. 87. A Day at Lahore. By Robert de Bonnieres.
+                From _Revue Politique et Litteraire_.
+
+No. 118. 88. Mario, Marquis of Candia. By Mario di Candia.
+                From _Le Figaro_, November 24.
+
+No. 119. 89. My Tailor Abrahamek. By Sacher-Masoch.
+                From _Revue Politique et Litteraire_, May 22.
+
+No. 120. 90. The Flesh-Eaters. By Olivier de Rawton.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 121. 91. Palabra Suelta No Tiene Vuelta. By Ricardo Palma. (Lima,
+        1880.)
+
+No. 122. 92. The Diva. By Luigi Gualdo.
+
+No. 123. 93. The Story of the Unfortunate Merchant. By Rene Bassett.
+
+No. 124. 94. Bamba. By Eugene Forgues.
+                From _Nouvelle Revue_.
+
+No. 125. 95. "Notre Père Qui Etesaux Cieux." By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Récits Créoles_.
+
+No. 126. 96. "Red Minette." By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Récits Créoles_.
+
+No. 127. 97. Fight at the Mill. By Emile Zola.
+
+No. 128. 98. Leo XIII. By Roman Correspondent.
+                From _Le Figaro_, February 27.
+
+No. 129. 99. The Carp Herder. By Charles Richard.
+                From _Le Figaro_, December 15, 1883.
+
+No. 130. 100. Fanny Elssler. By Viennese Correspondent.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 131. 101. Lola Montes and Ludwig I. of Bavaria. By X.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 132. 102. The Art of Being a Bore. By "De Ferney."
+                From _Le Voltaire_, January 31.
+
+No. 133. 103. Humanity of the Japanese.
+                From _L'Illustration_.
+
+No. 134. 104. By the Balloon Post. By Alexis Bouvier.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 29.
+
+No. 135. 105. An Extraordinary Letter from Von Moltke. By Count Von
+        Moltke.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, February 5.
+
+No. 136. 106. Chinese Women. By Lydie Paschkoff.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 137. 107. A Haul at Madagascar in 1717. By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Récits Créoles_.
+
+No. 138. 108. Pierrot. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 139. 109. My Aunt Minon. By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Récits Créoles_.
+
+No. 140. 110. An Episode of the War in Soudan. By Victor Cherbuliez.
+                From an address before the _Cinq Academies_.
+
+No. 141. 111. The Punishment of the Unfaithful Lover. By Sacher-Masoch.
+                From "The Mother of God."
+
+No. 142. 112. The Sorceress. The Comte d'Avesnes. By Michelet.
+                From "La Sorcière."
+
+No. 143. 113. The Great Fiddler of the Nineteenth Century. By "L'Homme
+        Masque."
+                From _Le Voltaire_, October 8.
+
+No. 144. 114. The Duello. By Ignotus. From _Le Figaro_, August 31.
+
+No. 145. 115. How Balzac Found Names for his Novels. By Léon Gozlan.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 146. 116. Tchernyschevsky and the Women of Nihilism. By Victor
+        Tissot.
+                From "Les Pères du Nihilisme," in _L'Illustration_.
+
+No. 147. 117. Emile Zola on Style. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 148. 118. The Man of the XVIth Century. By Victorien Sardou.
+                From _Le Figaro_, February 4.
+
+No. 149. 119. The Forest Growing in the Heart of Paris. By Camille
+        Flammarion.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, June 25.
+
+No. 150. 120. The Tomb of Nichelet. By An Old Parisian.
+                From _Le Figaro_, July 10.
+
+No. 151. 121. A Master Wizard. By Un Vieux Parisien.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 6.
+
+No. 152. 122. By Rail Across the Sahara. By Charles de Maurceley.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, January 23 and 27.
+
+No. 153. 123. In the House of Mahomet. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 20.
+
+No. 154. 124. The Chinese in Pnom-Penh, Cambodia. By Albert de
+        Chenclos.
+                From _La Revue Liberale_.
+
+No. 155. 125. Algeria. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, June 15.
+
+No. 156. 126. The Drum. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Contes de la Bécasse."
+
+No. 157. 127. Henry Charles Read. By Maxime du Camp.
+                From "Souvenirs Litteraires."
+
+No. 158. 128. Recollections of Baudelaire. By Maxime du Camp.
+                From "Souvenirs Litteraires."
+
+No. 159. 129. A Converted Libertine. By Ricardo Palma. (Lima, 1880.)
+
+No. 160. 130. Women of Fashionable Paris Society. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Figaro_, June 27.
+
+No. 161. 131. La Parisienne. By Adrien Marx.
+                From _Le Figaro_, May 13.
+
+No. 162. 132. At Sea. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Contes de la Bécasse."
+
+No. 163. 133. "Aunt Ess." By Arnold Mortier.
+                From _Le Figaro's_ "Contes d'Été," August 23.
+
+No. 164. 134. Pasteur.
+                From _Le Figaro_, November 23.
+
+No. 165. 135. A Ghost. By Parisis.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, October 23.
+
+No. 166. 136. Matrimonial Agencies at Paris. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, April 20.
+
+No. 167. 137. Liszt. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, May 25.
+
+No. 168. 138. The Stranglers of Paris, etc. By George Grison.
+                From _Le Figaro_, May 23.
+
+No. 169. 139. The Lights of the Wedding. By R. M.
+                From _La Epoca_, January 10.
+
+No. 170. 140. The Foundation of Skadra (Scutari). By W. Stephanowitsch.
+                From French translation.
+
+No. 171. 141. The Last Hideous Days of the Flatters Mission.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 23.
+
+No. 172. 142. The Two Neighbours. By Julia de Asensi.
+                From _La Epoca_, April 18.
+
+No. 173. 143. Candita. By "Almaviva."
+                From _La Epoca_, October 18.
+
+No. 174. 144. A Drunken Lion. By Hector de Callias.
+                From _Le Figaro_, June 30.
+
+No. 175. 145. The Song of Love Triumphant. By Ivan Tourgueneff.
+                From _Le Figaro._
+
+No. 176. 146. A Rich Man's Death. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 1.
+
+No. 177. 147. Germanillo. By "Juan Manuel de Capua."
+                From _La Epoca_, December 27.
+
+No. 178. 148. Simon's Papa. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "La Maison
+Tellier."
+
+No. 179. 149. "Las Hechas Y Por Hacer." By Ricardo Palma. (Lima, 1879.)
+
+No. 180. 150. The Bishop's Twenty Thousand Godos. By Ricardo Palma.
+
+No. 181. 151. "Los Postres del Festin." By Ricardo Palma.
+                From _La Raza Latina_, February 29.
+
+No. 182. 152. The Blessed Bread. By François Coppée.
+                From _Le Figaro_, March 6.
+
+No. 183. 153. The Invitation to Sleep. By François Coppée.
+                From _Le Figaro's_ "Contes d'Été."
+
+No. 184. 154. Cousin Rosa. By "Almaviva."
+                From _La Epoca_, March 17.
+
+No. 185. 155. The Chemise of Margarita Pareja. By Ricardo Palma.
+                From _La Raza Latina_.
+
+No. 186. 156. The Just Man. By F. Luzel.
+                From Luzel's Collection.
+
+No. 187. 157. Saint Peter's Betrothed. By De Luzel.
+
+No. 188. 158. Fantic Loho. By Luzel.
+                From "Breton Legends."
+
+No. 189. 159. The Adventures of Walter Schnaffs. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Contes de la Bécasse."
+
+No. 190. 160. L'Abandounado. By René Maizeroy.
+                From "The Love That Bleeds."
+
+No. 191. 161. Flaubert at Sparta. By Maxime du Camp.
+                From _Revue des Deux Mondes_.
+
+No. 192. 162. Daddy Goat and Daddy Tiger. By Pa Lindor.
+                From _Le Courrier des Opelousas_.
+
+No. 193. 163. The Great Chinese Vase. By Edmond de L.
+                From _Le Figaro_, February 17.
+
+No. 194. 164. The Two Porcelain Vases. By Charles Richard.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 195. 165. A Bit of Jewish Folk Lore. By Leopold Kompert.
+                From "Scenes du Ghetto."
+
+No. 196. 166. A Story of the Ghetto. By Leopold Kompert.
+                From "Scenes du Ghetto."
+
+No. 197. 167. A Legend of Rabbi Loeb. By Daniel Stauben.
+
+No. 198. 168. Loulou. By Lucien Griveau.
+
+No. 199. 169. The Cabecilla; the Story of the Carlist War. By Alphonse
+        Daudet.
+
+No. 200. 170. Tried, Condemned, Executed. By P. Didier.
+
+No. 201. 171. The Man with the Golden Brain. By Alphonse Daudet.
+                From "Ballades en Prose."
+
+No. 202. 172. The Death of the Dauphin, etc. By Alphonse Daudet.
+
+No. 203. 173. My First Duel. By Carle de Perrières.
+                From "Paris-Joyeux."
+
+No. 204. 174. My Two Cats. By Emile Zola.
+
+No. 205. 175. The Khouans. By N. Ney.
+                From _L'Illustration_, July 30.
+
+No. 206. 176. The Dead Wife.
+                After S. Juhens' French translation from Chinese.
+
+No. 207. 177. Scenes of Polish Life. By Krazewski.
+                From "Jermola," _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 208. 178. Memory of Algeria. By Alphonse Daudet.
+                From "Tartarin de Tarascon," _Nouvelle Revue_.
+
+No. 209. 179. Anecdote of Baudelaire. "Les Fantaisites." By Pierre
+        Quiroul.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 15.
+
+No. 210. 180. Adelaide Neilson. From _L'Illustration_, August 21.
+
+No. 211. 181. A Morning with Baudelaire. By "Theodore de Grave."
+
+No. 212. 182. "L'Enfant de la Balle." By François Coppée.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 213. 183. Poetical Illusions. By Maxime du Camp.
+                From "Souvenirs Litteraires."
+
+No. 214. 184. The Moon's Blessings. By Charles Baudelaire.
+
+No. 215. 185. Patti and Her New Home. By "Adrien Marx."
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 216. 186. The Ghostly Mass. By Luzel.
+                From "Veillees Bretonnes."
+
+No. 217. 187. Solitude. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Monsieur Parent."
+
+No. 218. "Fantastics."
+
+    1. "Aida." 2. Hiouen-Thsang. 3. El Vomito. (?) 4. The Devil's
+    Carbuncle. 5. A Hemisphere in a Woman's Hair. 6. The Clock.
+    7. The Fool and Venus. 8. The Stranger.
+
+No. 219. The winter of 1877, Mr. Hearn contributed from New Orleans, a
+series of letters to the Cincinnati _Commercial_ under the name of
+"Ozias Midwinter."
+
+
+                                   V
+
+         MAGAZINE STORIES AND PAPERS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER[44]
+
+    [44] If published also in book-form, the title of the book is
+         given.
+
+(Nos. 220-275)
+
+No. 220. The Scenes of Cable's Romances.
+    _The Century Magazine_, November, 1883, vol. 27 (N. S. Vol. 5),
+        p. 40.
+
+No. 221. Quaint New Orleans and its Habitants.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, December 6, 1884, vol. 28, p. 812.
+
+No. 222. New Orleans Exposition.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, January 3, 1885, vol. 29, p. 14.
+
+No. 223. The Creole Patois.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, January 10, 1885, vol. 29, p. 27.
+
+No. 224. The Creole Patois.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, January 17, 1885, vol. 29, p. 43.
+
+No. 225. New Orleans Exposition.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, January 31, 1885, vol. 29, p. 71
+
+No. 226. The East at New Orleans.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, March 7, 1885, vol. 29, p. 155.
+
+No. 227. Mexico at New Orleans.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, March 14, 1885, vol. 29, p. 167.
+
+No. 228. The New Orleans Exposition. Some Oriental Curiosities.
+    _Harper's Bazaar_, March 28, 1885, vol. 18, p. 201.
+
+No. 229. The New Orleans Exposition. Notes of a Curiosity Hunter.
+    _Harper's Bazaar_, April 4, 1885, vol. 18, p. 218
+
+No. 230. The Government Exhibit at New Orleans.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, April 11, 1885, vol. 29, p. 234.
+
+No. 231. The Legend of Tchi-Niu. A Chinese Story of Filial Piety.
+    _Harper's Bazaar_, October 31, 1885, vol. 18, p. 703. "Some Chinese
+        Ghosts," 1887.
+
+No. 232. The Last of the Voudoos.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, November 7, 1885, vol. 29, p. 726.
+
+No. 233. New Orleans Superstitions.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, December 25, 1886, vol. 30, p. 843.
+
+No. 234. Rabyah's Last Ride. A tradition of Pre-Islamic Arabia.
+    _Harper's Bazaar_, April 2, 1887, vol. 20, p. 239.
+
+No. 235. Chita.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, April, 1888, vol. 76, p. 733. "Chita," 1890.
+
+No. 236. A Midsummer Trip to the West Indies.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, July-September, 1888, vol. 77, pp. 209, 327,
+        614. "Two Years in the French West Indies," 1890.
+
+No. 237. La Vérette and the Carnival in St. Pierre, Martinique.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, October, 1888, vol. 77, p. 737. "Two Years in
+        the French West Indies," 1890.
+
+No. 238. Les Porteuses.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, July, 1889, vol. 79, p. 299. "Two Years in the
+        French West Indies," 1890.
+
+No. 239. At Grand Anse.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, November, 1889, vol. 79, p. 844. "Two Years in
+        the French West Indies," 1890.
+
+No. 240. A Ghost.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, December, 1889, vol. 80, p. 116.
+
+No. 241. Youma.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, January-February, 1890, vol. 80, pp. 218, 408.
+        "Youma," 1890.
+
+No. 242. Karma.
+    _Lippincott's Magazine_, May, 1890, vol. 45, p. 667.
+
+No. 243. A Study of Half-Breed Races in the West Indies.
+    _The Cosmopolitan_, June, 1890, vol. 9, p. 167.
+
+No. 244. West Indian Society of Many Colourings.
+    _The Cosmopolitan_, July, 1890, vol. 9, p. 337.
+
+No. 245. A Winter Journey to Japan.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, November, 1890, vol. 81, p. 860.
+
+No. 246. At the Market of the Dead.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1891, vol. 68, p. 382. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 247. The Chief City of the Province of the Gods.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1891, vol. 68, p. 621. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 248. The Most Ancient Shrine in Japan.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1891, vol. 68, p. 780. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 249. In a Japanese Garden.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1892, vol. 70, p. 14. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 250. Of a Dancing Girl.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1893, vol. 71, p. 332. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 251. The Japanese Smile.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1893, vol. 71, p. 634. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 252. Of the Eternal Feminine.
+    _Atlantic Monthly,_ December, 1893, vol. 72, p. 761. "Out of the
+        East," 1895.
+
+No. 253. The Red Bridal.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1894, vol. 74, p. 74. "Out of the East,"
+        1895.
+
+No. 254. At Hakata.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1894, vol. 74, p. 510. "Out of the
+        East," 1895.
+
+No. 255. From my Japanese Diary.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1894, vol. 74, p. 609.
+
+No. 256. A Wish Fulfilled.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1895, vol. 75, p. 90. "Out of the
+        East," 1895.
+
+No. 257. In the Twilight of the Gods.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1895, vol. 75, p. 791. "Kokoro," 1896.
+
+No. 258. The Genius of Japanese Civilization.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1895, vol. 76, p. 449. "Kokoro," 1896.
+
+No. 259. After the War.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1895, vol. 76, p. 599. "Kokoro," 1896.
+
+No. 260. Notes from a Travelling Diary.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1895, vol. 76, p. 815. "Kokoro," 1896.
+
+No. 261. China and the Western World.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1896, vol. 77, p. 450.
+
+No. 262. A Trip to Kyôto.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1896, vol. 77, p. 613. "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 263. About Faces in Japanese Art.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1896, vol. 78, p. 219. "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 264. Out of the Street: Japanese Folk-Songs.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1896, vol. 78, p. 347. "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 265. Dust.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1896, vol. 78, p. 642, "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 266. A Living God.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1896, vol. 78, p. 833. "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 267. Notes of a Trip to Izumo.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1897, vol. 79, p. 678.
+
+No. 268. The Story of Mimi-Nashi Hôïchi.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1903, vol. 92, p. 237. "Kwaidan," 1904.
+
+No. 269. The Dream of Akinosuké.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1904, vol. 93, p. 340. "Kwaidan," 1904.
+
+No. 270. A Letter from Japan.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1904, vol. 94, p. 625. "The Romance of
+        the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 271. The Story of Itô Norisuké.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1905, vol. 95, p. 98. "The Romance of
+        the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 272. Stranger than Fiction.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1905, vol. 95, p. 494. "The Romance of
+        the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 273. The Romance of the Milky Way.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1905, vol. 96, p. 238. "The Romance of
+        the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 274. Ultimate Questions.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1905, vol. 96, p. 391. "The Romance
+        of the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 275. Two Memories of a Childhood.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1906, vol. 98, p. 445.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+           ARTICLES BY HEARN TRANSLATED IN FOREIGN MAGAZINES
+
+                             (Nos. 276-280)
+
+
+No. 276. Le Sourire japonais.
+    Traduction de Madame Léon Raynal, _Revue de Paris_, July 15, 1900,
+        Year 7, vol. 4, p. 429.
+
+No. 277. Une Danseuse japonais.
+    Traduction de Madame Léon Raynal, _Revue de Paris,_ March 15, 1901,
+        Year 8, vol. 2, p. 330.
+
+No. 278. Le Nirvâna, étude de Bouddhisme Synthétique.
+
+    Traduite par M. & Mme. Charles-Marie Garnier, _Revue de Métaphysique
+        et de Morale_, 1903, Year 11, p. 352.
+
+No. 279. Kitsonné (superstition japonaise).
+    Traduction de Madame Léon Raynal, _Revue de Paris_, November 1,
+        1903, Year 10, vol. 6, p. 188.
+
+No. 280. Cimètieres et Temples japonais (Jizô).
+    Traduction de Madame Léon Raynal, _Revue de Paris,_ April 15, 1904,
+        Year 11, vol. 2, p. 829.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                           UNPUBLISHED WORKS
+
+                             (Nos. 281-282)
+
+
+                                No. 281.
+
+1885. AVATAR. Par Gautier, Translation by Lafcadio Hearn. Unable to find
+a publisher, Hearn destroyed the manuscript.
+
+
+                                No. 282.
+
+THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY, by Gustave Flaubert; translated from the
+Fifth Paris Edition, Vols. I-II. (Manuscript copy in the possession of
+Dr. Gould.) The half-page containing, at one time, probably, the
+translator's name, is cut off. The title-page is preceded by a
+half-page, printed, of directions to the printer, regarding size of
+type, etc.
+
+The volumes are 6 x 9-1/2 inches, opening at the end. The writing is in
+pencil, and the letters large, even for an ordinary handwriting, but
+remarkably so for that of Hearn, who, when writing with a pen, made his
+letters very small. The paper has the yellow tint habitually used by
+him.
+
+Volume I contains 364 pages; Volume II, numbered consecutively, the
+balance of a total of 679 pages. Five pages of _addenda_ follow,
+containing notes upon passages, with original texts, etc., which the
+American publisher would hardly dare to put forth.
+
+Hearn's synopsis (printed) of the "St. Anthony" accompanies the text of
+the translation, and is reproduced herewith:--
+
+
+                                ARGUMENT
+
+                                FRAILTY
+
+Sunset in the desert. Enfeebled by prolonged fasting, the hermit finds
+himself unable to concentrate his mind upon holy things. His thoughts
+wander: memories of youth evoke regrets that his relaxed will can no
+longer find strength to suppress;--and, remembrance begetting
+remembrance, his fancy leads him upon dangerous ground. He dreams of his
+flight from home,--of Ammonaria, his sister's playmate,--of his misery
+in the waste,--his visit to Alexandria with the blind monk Didymus,--the
+unholy sights of the luxurious city.
+
+Involuntarily he yields to the nervous dissatisfaction growing upon him.
+He laments his solitude, his joylessness, his poverty, the obscurity of
+his life: grace departs from him; hope burns low within his heart.
+Suddenly revolting against his weakness, he seeks refuge from
+distraction in the study of the Scriptures.
+
+Vain effort! An invisible hand turns the leaves, placing perilous texts
+before his eyes. He dreams of the Maccabees slaughtering their enemies,
+and desires that he might do likewise with the Arians of Alexandria;--he
+becomes inspired with admiration of King Nebuchadnezzar;--he meditates
+voluptuously upon the visit of Sheba's queen to Solomon;--discovers a
+text in the Acts of the Apostles antagonistic to principles of monkish
+asceticism,--indulges in reveries regarding the riches of the Biblical
+Kings and holy men. The Tempter comes to tempt him with evil
+hallucinations for which the Saint's momentary frailty has paved the
+way; and with the Evil One comes also--
+
+
+                         THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
+
+Phantom gold is piled up to excite Covetousness; shadowy banquets appear
+to evoke Gluttony. The scene shifts to aid the temptations of Anger and
+of Pride....
+
+Anthony finds himself in Alexandria, at the head of a wild army of monks
+slaughtering the heretics and the pagans, without mercy for age or sex.
+In fantastic obedience to the course of his fancy while reading the
+Scriptures a while before, and like an invisible echo of his evil
+thoughts, the scene changes again. Alexandria is transformed into
+Constantinople.
+
+Anthony finds himself the honoured of the Emperor. He beholds the vast
+circus in all its splendour, the ocean of faces, the tumult of
+excitement. Simultaneously he beholds his enemies degraded to the
+condition of slaves, toiling in the stables of Constantine. He feels joy
+in the degradation of the Fathers of Nicæa. Then all is transformed.
+
+It is no longer the splendour of Constantinople he beholds under the
+luminosity of a Greek day; but the prodigious palace of Nebuchadnezzar
+by night. He beholds the orgies, the luxuries, the abominations;--and
+the spirit of Pride enters triumphantly into him as the spirit of
+Nebuchadnezzar....
+
+Awakening as from a dream, he finds himself again before his hermitage.
+A vast caravan approaches, halts; and the Queen of Sheba descends to
+tempt the Saint with the deadliest of all temptations. Her beauty is
+enhanced by Oriental splendour of adornment; her converse is a song of
+witchcraft. The Saint remains firm.... The Seven Deadly Sins depart from
+him.
+
+
+                            THE HERESIARCHS
+
+But now the Tempter assumes a subtler form. Under the guise of a former
+disciple of Anthony,--Hilarion,--the demon, while pretending to seek
+instruction seeks to poison the mind of Anthony with hatred of the
+fathers of the church. He repeats all the scandals amassed by
+ecclesiastical intriguers, all the calumnies created by malice;--he
+cites texts only to foment doubt, and quotes the Evangels only to make
+confusion. Under the pretext of obtaining mental enlightenment from the
+wisest of men, he induces Anthony to enter with him into a spectral
+basilica, wherein are assembled all the Heresiarchs of the third
+century. The hermit is confounded by the multitude of tenets,--horrified
+by the blasphemies and abominations of Elkes, Corpocrates, Valentinus,
+Manes, Cerdo,--disgusted by the perversions of the Paternians,
+Marcosians, Serpentians,--bewildered by the apocryphal Gospels of Eve
+and of Judas, of the Lord and of Thomas.
+
+And Hilarion grows taller.
+
+
+                              THE MARTYRS
+
+Anthony finds himself in the dungeons of a vast amphitheatre, among
+Christians condemned to the wild beasts. By this hallucination the
+tempter would prove to the Saint that martyrdom is not always suffered
+for purest motives. Anthony finds the martyrs possessed of bigotry and
+insincerity. He sees many compelled to die against their will; many who
+would forswear their faith could it avail them aught. He beholds
+heretics die for their heterodoxy more nobly than orthodox believers.
+
+He finds himself transported to the tombs of the martyrs. He witnesses
+the meeting of Christian women at the sepulchres. He beholds the
+touching ceremonies of prayer change into orgie,--lamentations give
+place to amorous dalliance.
+
+
+                             THE MAGICIANS
+
+Then the Tempter seeks to shake Anthony's faith in the excellence and
+evidence of miracles. He assumes the form of a Hindoo Brahmin,
+terminating a life of wondrous holiness by self-cremation;--he appears
+as Simon Magus and Helen of Tyre,--as Apollonius of Tyana, greatest of
+all thaumaturgists, who claim superiority to Christ. All the marvels
+related by Philostratus are embodied in the converse of Apollonius and
+Damis.
+
+
+                                THE GODS
+
+Hilarion reappears, taller than ever, growing more gigantic in
+proportion to the increasing weakness of the Saint. Standing beside
+Anthony he evokes all the deities of the antique world. They defile
+before him a marvellous panorama;--Gods of Egypt and India, Chaldæa and
+Hellas, Babylon and Ultima Thule,--monstrous and multiform, phallic and
+ithyphallic, fantastic and obscene. Some intoxicate by their beauty;
+others appal by their foulness. The Buddha recounts the story of his
+wondrous life; Venus displays the rounded daintiness of her nudity; Isis
+utters awful soliloquy. Lastly the phantom of Jehovah appears, as the
+shadow of a god passing away for ever.
+
+Suddenly the stature of Hilarion towers to the stars; he assumes the
+likeness and luminosity of Lucifer; he announces himself as--
+
+
+                                SCIENCE
+
+And Anthony is lifted upon mighty wings and borne away beyond the world,
+above the solar system, above the starry arch of the Milky Way. All
+future discoveries of Astronomy are revealed to him. He is tempted by
+the revelation of innumerable worlds,--by the refutation of all his
+previous ideas of the nature of the Universe,--by the enigmas of
+infinity,--by all the marvels that conflict with faith. Even in the
+night of the Immensity the demon renews the temptation of reason;
+Anthony wavers upon the verge of pantheism.
+
+
+                             LUST AND DEATH
+
+Anthony, abandoned by the Spirit of Science, comes to himself in the
+desert. Then the Tempter returns under a two-fold aspect: as the Spirit
+of Fornication and the Spirit of Destruction. The latter urges him to
+suicide,--the former to indulgence of sense. They inspire him with
+strong fancies of palingenesis, of the illusion of death, of the
+continuity of life. The pantheistic temptation intensifies.
+
+
+                              THE MONSTERS
+
+Anthony in reveries meditates upon the monstrous symbols painted upon
+the walls of certain ancient temples. Could he know their meaning he
+might learn also something of the secret lien between Matter and
+Thought. Forthwith a phantasmagoria of monsters commence to pass before
+his eyes:--the Sphinx and the Chimera, the Blemmyes and Astomi, the
+Cynocephali and all creatures of mythologic creation. He beholds the
+fabulous beings of Oriental imagining,--the abnormities described by
+Pliny and Herodotus,--the fantasticalities to be adopted later by
+heraldry,--the grotesqueries of future mediæval illumination made
+animate;--the goblinries and foulnesses of superstitious fancy,--the
+Witches' Sabbath of abominations.
+
+
+                             METAMORPHOSIS
+
+The multitude of monsters melts away; the land changes into an Ocean;
+the creatures of the briny abysses appear. And the waters in turn also
+change; seaweeds are transformed to herbs, forests of coral give place
+to forests of trees, polypous life changes to vegetation. Metals
+crystallize; frosts effloresce, plants become living things, inanimate
+matter takes animate form, monads vibrate, the pantheism of nature makes
+itself manifest. Anthony feels a delirious desire to unite himself with
+the Spirit of Universal Being....
+
+The vision vanishes. The sun arises. The face of Christ is revealed. The
+temptation has passed; Anthony kneels in prayer.
+
+                                                                   L. H.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+                           BOOKS ABOUT HEARN
+
+                             (Nos. 283-284)
+
+
+                                No. 283.
+
+1906. THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN. By Elizabeth Bisland. With
+Illustrations. In two volumes. (Publisher's Vignette.) Boston and New
+York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company (The Riverside Press, Cambridge),
+1906.
+
+8vo., 2 vols., pp. (VIII), 475, 554, black cloth, Japanese characters on
+small red disc, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+        Volume I.
+    (V-VIII) Preface by E. B.
+
+Contents:--
+
+    Introductory Sketch
+        I. Boyhood
+        II. The Artist's Apprenticeship
+        III. The Master Workman
+        IV. The Last Stage
+
+    Letters
+
+    List of Illustrations.
+
+        Volume II.
+
+    List of Illustrations.
+
+    Letters (continued)
+
+    Pages 519-529 Appendix.
+
+    Pages 533-554 Index.
+
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+    _Academy, The_, January 26, 1907, vol. 72, p. 88.
+    _Athenæum, The_, February 2, 1907, p. 126.
+    _Current Literature_, January, 1907, vol. 42, p. 49. Dunbar, Olivia
+        Howard,
+    _North American Review_, February 15, 1907, vol. 184, p. 417.
+        Greenslet, Ferris,
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1907, vol. 99, p. 261. Godkin, F. W.,
+    _The Dial_, December 16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447. Huneker, James,
+    _New York Times, The_, December 1, 1906, vol. 11, p. 817.
+    _Nation, The_, November 29, 1906, vol. 83, p. 464.
+    _New York Evening Post, The_, December 1, 1906.
+    _New York Tribune, The_, December 5, 1906. Tunison, J. S.,
+    _Dayton (Ohio) Journal, The_, December 25, 1906.
+
+
+                                No. 284.
+
+1907. LETTERS FROM THE RAVEN, being the Correspondence of Lafcadio Hearn
+with Henry Watkin, with Introduction and critical comment by the editor,
+Milton Bronner. (Vignette drawing of the Raven.) New York: Brentano's,
+1907.
+
+12mo., pp. 201, half cloth brown. Ornamental black and gold back, gilt
+top.
+
+Contents:--
+
+Introduction Letters from the Raven Letters to a Lady Letters of Ozias
+Midwinter
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+             ARTICLES AND CRITICAL REVIEWS ABOUT HEARN
+
+                            (Nos. 285-388)
+
+
+ACADEMY, The
+
+    No. 285. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 13,
+        1897, vol. 52, p. 395.
+
+    No. 286. "Koizumi Yakumo--Lafcadio Hearn," by N. C., April 13, 1901,
+        vol. 60, p. 328.
+
+    No. 287. Sketch and list of works, October 8, 1904, vol. 67, p. 305.
+
+    No. 288. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by W.
+        Teignmouth Shore, December 10, 1904, vol. 67, p. 584.
+
+    No. 289. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December 2,
+        1905, vol. 69, p. 1257.
+
+    No. 290. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        January 26, 1907, vol. 72, p. 88.
+
+
+AMENOMORI, NOBUSHIGE
+
+    No. 291. _Atlantic Monthly_, "Lafcadio Hearn, the Man," October,
+        1905, vol. 96, p. 510.
+
+
+AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, The
+
+    No. 292. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by
+        Edmund Buckley, of the University of Chicago, January, 1905,
+        vol. 10, p. 545.
+
+
+AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS, The
+
+    No. 293. "Lafcadio Hearn, Interpretator of Japan," November, 1904,
+        vol. 30, p. 561.
+
+
+ATHENÆUM, The
+
+    No. 294. A review of "Youma," August 30, 1890, p. 284.
+
+    No. 295. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," November 10,
+        1894, p. 634.
+
+    No. 296. A review of "Out of the East," August 24, 1895, p. 249.
+
+    No. 297. A review of "Kokoro," August 8, 1896, p. 185.
+
+    No. 298. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 13,
+        1897, p. 664.
+
+    No. 299. A review of "Exotics and Retrospectives," January 6, 1900,
+        p. 11.
+
+    No. 300. A review of "Shadowings," January 5, 1901, p. 15.
+
+    No. 301. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," December 21, 1901, p.
+        833.
+
+    No. 302. A review of "Kottô," January 17, 1903, p. 77.
+
+    No. 303. A review of "Kwaidan," September 17, 1904, p. 373.
+
+    No. 304. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," March 31, 1906,
+        p. 389.
+
+    No. 305. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        February 2, 1907, p. 126.
+
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY, The
+
+    No. 306. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," and "Out of the
+        East," by Mrs. M. McN. Scott, June, 1895, vol. 75, p. 830.
+
+    No. 307. A review of "In Ghostly Japan," by Jukichi Inouye,
+        September, 1900, vol. 86, p. 399.
+
+    No. 308. "Lafcadio Hearn: The Meeting of Three Ways," by Paul Elmer
+        More, February, 1903, vol. 91, p. 204.
+
+    No. 309. A review of "Kwaidan," June, 1904, vol. 93, p. 857.
+
+    No. 291. "Lafcadio Hearn: the Man," by Nobushige Amenomori, October,
+        1905, vol. 96, p. 510.
+
+    No. 310. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Ferris Greenslet, February, 1907, vol.
+        99, p. 261.
+
+
+AUTHOR, The
+
+    No. 311. Sketch by O. P. Caylor (Reprinted from an article in the
+        _Philadelphia North American_), January 15, 1890, vol. 2, p. 51.
+
+
+BOOKBUYER, The
+
+    No. 312. "Lafcadio Hearn," by J. S. Tunison, May, 1896, vol. 13, p.
+        209.
+
+    No. 313. A review of "Kokoro," by Tozo Takayanagi, May, 1896, vol.
+        13, p. 229.
+
+    No. 314. "Through the Medium of a Temperament," by John Harrison
+        Wagner, June, 1898, vol. 16, p. 437.
+
+    No. 315. A review of "Kottô," December, 1902, vol. 25, p. 416.
+
+
+BOOKMAN, The
+
+    No. 316. A review of "Shadowings," by F. T. C., February, 1901, vol.
+        12, p. 582.
+
+    No. 317. A review of "Kwaidan," November, 1904, vol. 20, p. 159.
+
+    No. 318. "The Late Lafcadio Hearn," November, 1904, vol. 20, p. 190.
+
+
+BUCKLEY, EDMUND
+
+    No. 292. _The American Journal of Sociology_, a review of "Japan: an
+        Attempt at Interpretation," January, 1905, vol. 10, P. 545.
+
+
+CAYLOR, O. P.
+
+    No. 311. _The Author_, January 15, 1890, vol. 2, p. 51.
+
+
+CHAUTAUQUAN, The
+
+    No. 319. Short Sketch of Hearn, and reprints "Fragment,"
+        "Juiroku-zakura," "Riki-Baka," "Yuki-Onna," "The Screen Maiden,"
+        September, 1905, vol. 42, p. 245.
+
+
+CHICAGO EVENING POST, The
+
+    No. 320. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Francis Hackett.
+
+
+COCKERILL, COLONEL JOHN A.
+
+    No. 321. _Current Literature_, "Lafcadio Hearn: the author of
+        'Kokoro.'" (Reprinted from the New York _Herald_.) June, 1896,
+        vol. 19, p. 476.
+
+
+COLEMAN, JR., CHARLES W.
+
+    No. 322. _Harper's Monthly_, "The Recent Movement in Southern
+    Literature," May, 1887, vol. 74, p. 855.
+
+
+CRITIC, The
+
+    No. 323. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," April 9, 1898,
+        vol. 29, p. 248.
+
+    No. 324. "Mr. Hearn's Japanese Shadowings," by Adachi Kinnosuké,
+        January, 1901, vol. 38, p. 29.
+
+    No. 325. "Lafcadio Hearn's Funeral," by Margaret Emerson, January,
+        1905, vol. 46, p. 34.
+
+    No. 326. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by Wm.
+        Elliot Griffis, February, 1905, vol. 46, p. 185.
+
+    No. 327. "Hearn's Stories of Old Japan," by W. E. Griffis, March,
+        1906, vol. 48, p. 222.
+
+    No. 328. "Letters of a Poet to a Musician," by Henry E. Krehbiel,
+        April, 1906, vol. 48, p. 309.
+
+
+CURRENT LITERATURE
+
+    No. 321. "Lafcadio Hearn: the author of 'Kokoro,'" by Colonel John
+        A. Cockerill. (Reprinted from the New York _Herald_.) June,
+        1896, vol. 19, p. 476.
+
+    No. 329. "A Glimpse of Lafcadio Hearn," October, 1899, vol. 26, p.
+        310.
+
+    No. 330. "Lafcadio Hearn: a Dreamer," by Yone Noguchi. (Reprinted
+        from the _National Magazine_.) June, 1905, vol. 38, p. 521.
+
+    No. 331. "The Mystic Dream of Lafcadio Hearn," January, 1907, vol.
+        42, p. 49.
+
+
+DAYTON, OHIO, JOURNAL, The
+
+    No. 332. Editorial on Lafcadio Hearn, September 30, 1904.
+
+    No. 333. "Lafcadio Hearn," by J. S. Tunison, December 25, 1906.
+
+
+DIAL, The
+
+    No. 334. A review of "Exotics and Retrospectives," July 16, 1899,
+        vol. 27, p. 52.
+
+    No. 335. A review of "Shadowings," January 1, 1901, vol. 30, p. 19.
+
+    No. 336. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by Wm.
+        Elliot Griffis, December 1, 1904, vol. 36, p. 368.
+
+    No. 337. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," November 1,
+        1905, vol. 39, p. 276.
+
+    No. 338. "Self-Revelation of Lafcadio Hearn," by F. W. Godkin,
+        December 16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447.
+
+
+DUNBAR, OLIVIA HOWARD
+
+    No. 339. _North American Review_, a review of "The Life and Letters
+        of Lafcadio Hearn," February 15, 1907, vol. 184, p. 417.
+
+
+EMERSON, MARGARET
+
+    No. 325. _The Critic_, "Lafcadio Hearn's Funeral," January, 1905,
+        vol. 46, p. 34.
+
+
+EVENING SUN, The New York
+
+    No. 340. "A Native's Tribute to the Dead American Poet of Japan,"
+        November 11, 1904.
+
+
+EVENING POST, The New York
+
+    No. 341. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        December 1, 1906.
+
+
+EVENING TRANSCRIPT, The Boston
+
+        No. 342. A review of "Chita," November 2, 1889.
+
+
+F. T. C.
+
+    No. 316. _The Bookman_, a review of "Shadowings," February, 1901,
+        vol. 12, p. 582.
+
+
+FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, The
+
+    No. 343. "Lafcadio Hearn: a Study of his Personality and Art," by
+        George M. Gould, October-November, 1906, vol. 86, pp. 685, 881.
+
+
+GODKIN, F. W.
+
+    No. 338. _The Dial_, "Self-Revelation of Lafcadio Hearn," December
+        16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447.
+
+
+GOULD, GEORGE M.
+
+    No. 343. _Putnam's Monthly_, "Lafcadio Hearn: a Study of his
+        Personality and Art," October-November, 1906, vol. 1, pp. 97,
+        156. The Same, _Fortnightly Review_, October-November, 1906,
+        vol. 86, pp.685, 881.
+
+
+GREENSLET, FERRIS
+
+    No. 310. _Atlantic Monthly_, "Lafcadio Hearn," February, 1907, vol.
+        99, p. 261.
+
+
+GRIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT
+
+    No. 336. _The Dial_, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at
+        Interpretation," December 1, 1904, vol. 36, p. 308.
+
+    No. 326. _The Critic_, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at
+        Interpretation," February, 1905, vol. 46, p. 185.
+
+    No. 327. _The Critic_, "Hearn's Stories of Old Japan," March, 1906,
+        vol. 48, p. 222.
+
+
+HACKETT, FRANCIS
+
+    No. 320. Chicago _Evening Post_, "Lafcadio Hearn."
+
+
+HARPER'S MONTHLY
+
+    No. 322. "The Recent Movement in Southern Literature," by Charles W.
+        Coleman, Jr., May, 1887, vol. 74, p. 855.
+
+
+HUNEKER, JAMES
+
+    No. 344. The New York _Times_, "Exotic Lafcadio Hearn: The Life and
+        Letters of a Master of Nuance--Elizabeth Bisland's Sympathetic
+        Biography," December 1, 1906, vol. 11, p. 817.
+
+
+HUTSON, CHARLES WOODWARD
+
+    No. 345. _Poet-Lore_ "The English of Lafcadio Hearn," Spring, 1905,
+        vol. 16, p. 53.
+
+
+INDEPENDENT, The
+
+    No. 346. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 24,
+        1898, vol. 50, p. 1508.
+
+    No. 347. "An Interpreter of the East" (A review of "Japan: an
+        Attempt at Interpretation"), October 27, 1904, vol. 57, p. 976.
+
+    No. 348. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December 21,
+        1905, vol. 59, p. 1478.
+
+
+INOUYE, JUKICHI
+
+    No. 307. _Atlantic Monthly_, a review of "In Ghostly Japan,"
+        September, 1900, vol. 86, p. 399.
+
+
+INTERNATIONAL STUDIO, The
+
+    No. 349. A review of "Stories and Sketches of Japan," 1905, vol. 25,
+        p. XL.
+
+
+KENNARD, NINA H.
+
+    No. 350. _Nineteenth Century and After_, "Lafcadio Hearn," January,
+        1906, vol. 59, p. 135.
+
+
+KINNOSUKÉ, ADACHI
+
+    No. 324. _The Critic_, "Mr. Hearn's Japanese Shadowings," January,
+        1901, vol. 38, p. 29.
+
+
+KREHBIEL, HENRY E.
+
+    No. 328. _The Critic_, "Letters of a Poet to a Musician," April,
+        1906, vol. 48, p. 309.
+
+    No. 351. The New York _Tribune_, "Hearn and Folk-Lore Music."
+
+
+LITERARY WORLD, The
+
+    No. 352. A review of "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard," February 15,
+        1890, vol. 21, p. 59.
+
+    No. 353. A review of "One of Cleopatra's Nights," February 14, 1891,
+        vol. 22, p. 56.
+
+    No. 354. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," October 20,
+        1894, vol. 25, p. 347.
+
+    No. 355. A review of "Out of the East," April 20, 1895, vol. 26, p.
+        123.
+
+    No. 356. A review of "Kokoro," April 18, 1896, vol. 27, p. 116.
+
+    No. 357. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 13,
+        1897, vol. 28, p. 389.
+
+    No. 358. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," December 1, 1901, vol.
+        32, p. 207.
+
+
+LIVING AGE, The
+
+    No. 359. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Robert Young, March 23, 1907, vol.
+        252, p. 760. (Reprinted from the _Speaker_.)
+
+
+MATHER, JR., F. J.
+
+    No. 360. _The Nation_, "Lafcadio Hearn on Style" (editorial),
+        December 6, 1906, vol. 83, p. 478.
+
+
+MESSENGER, The
+
+    No. 361. "Mr. Lafcadio Hearn on the Jesuit Missions in Japan," by
+        Herbert Thurston, S. J., January, 1906, vol. 45, p. 1.
+
+
+MORE, PAUL ELMER
+
+    No. 308. _Atlantic Monthly_, "Lafcadio Hearn: the Meeting of Three
+        Ways," February, 1903, vol. 91, p. 204.
+
+
+NATION, The
+
+    No. 362. A review of "Gombo Zhèbes," April 23, 1885, vol. 40, p.
+        349.
+
+    No. 363. A review of "Some Chinese Ghosts," May 26, 1887, vol. 44,
+        p. 456.
+
+    No. 364. A review of "Youma," May 7, 1891, vol. 52, p. 385.
+
+    No. 365. A review of "Kokoro," July 9, 1896, vol. 63, p. 35.
+
+    No. 366. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," February 3, 1898,
+        vol. 66, p. 97.
+
+    No. 367. A review of "Shadowings," November 8, 1900, vol. 71, p.
+        372.
+
+    No. 368. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," January 9, 1902, vol.
+        74, p. 39.
+
+    No. 369. A review of "Kottô," March 26, 1903, vol. 76, p. 254.
+
+    No. 370. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," December
+        8, 1904, vol. 79, p. 465.
+
+    No. 371. A review of "Stories and Sketches of Japan," January 26,
+        1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+    No. 372. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December 21,
+        1905, vol. 81, p. 510.
+
+    No. 373. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        November 29, 1906, vol. 83, p. 464.
+
+    No. 360. "Lafcadio Hearn on Style" (editorial), by F. J. Mather,
+        Jr., December 6, 1906, vol. 83, p. 478.
+
+
+NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER, The
+
+    No. 350. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Nina H. Kennard, January, 1906, vol.
+        59, p. 135.
+
+
+NOGUCHI, YONE
+
+    No. 330. _Current Literature_, "Lafcadio Hearn: a Dreamer."
+        (Reprinted from the _National Magazine_.) June, 1905, vol. 38,
+        p. 521.
+
+
+NORTH AMERICAN, The
+
+    No. 339. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn," by
+        Olivia Howard Dunbar, February 15, 1907, vol. 184, p. 417.
+
+
+OUTLOOK, The
+
+    No. 374. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," October 16, 1897,
+        vol. 57, p. 435.
+
+    No. 375. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," November 9,
+        1906, vol. 84, p. 503.
+
+
+POET-LORE
+
+    No. 345. "The English of Lafcadio Hearn," by Charles Woodward
+        Hutson, Spring, 1905, vol. 16, p. 53.
+
+
+PUBLIC OPINION
+
+    No. 376. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 25,
+        1897, vol. 23, p. 694.
+
+    No. 377. A review of "Shadowings," October 18, 1900, vol. 29, p.
+        504.
+
+    No. 378. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," October
+        27, 1904. vol. 37, p. 537.
+
+
+PUTNAM'S MONTHLY
+
+    No. 343. "Lafcadio Hearn: A Study of his Personality and Art," by
+        George M. Gould, October-November, 1906, vol. I, pp. 97, 156.
+
+
+SCOTT, MRS. M. MCN.
+
+    No. 306. _Atlantic Monthly_, a review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar
+        Japan," and "Out of the East," June, 1895, vol. 75, p. 830.
+
+
+SHORE, W. TEIGNMOUTH
+
+    No. 288. _Academy_, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at
+        Interpretation," December 10, 1904, vol. 67, p. 584.
+
+
+SPECTATOR, The
+
+    No. 379. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," November 17,
+        1894, vol. 73, p. 698.
+
+    No. 380. A review of "Out of the East," October 12, 1895, vol. 75,
+        p.459.
+
+    No. 381. A review of "Kokoro," May 23, 1896, vol. 76, p. 739.
+
+    No. 382. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 20,
+        1897, vol. 79, p. 736.
+
+    No. 383. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," January
+        14, 1905, vol. 94, p. 54.
+
+    TAKAYANAGI, TOZO
+
+    No. 313. _The Book Buyer_, a review of "Kokoro," May, 1896, vol. 13,
+        p. 229.
+
+
+THURSTON, S. J., Herbert
+
+    No. 361. _The Messenger_, "Mr. Lafcadio Hearn on the Jesuit Missions
+        in Japan," January, 1906, vol. 45, p. 1.
+
+
+TIMES-DEMOCRAT, The New Orleans
+
+    No. 384. "A Strange Career," August 5, 1906.
+
+    No. 385. "Lafcadio Hearn and His Friends," August 20, 1906.
+
+    No. 386. "Silken Fetters," May 26, 1907.
+
+
+TIMES, The New York
+
+    No. 387. A review of "Two Years in the French West Indies,"
+        September 1, 1890.
+
+    No. 344. "Exotic Lafcadio Hearn: The Life and Letters of a Master of
+        Nuance--Elizabeth Bisland's Sympathetic Biography," by James
+        Huneker, December 1, 1906, vol. 11, p. 817.
+
+
+TRIBUNE, The New York
+
+    No. 388. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        December 5, 1906.
+
+    No. 351. "Hearn and Folk-Lore Music," by H. E. Krehbiel.
+
+
+TUNISON, J. S.
+
+    No. 312. _The Book Buyer_, "Lafcadio Hearn," May, 1896, vol. 13, p.
+        209.
+
+    No. 333. _The Dayton (Ohio) Journal_, "Lafcadio Hearn," December 25,
+        1906.
+
+
+WAGNER, JOHN HARRISON
+
+    No. 314. _The Book Buyer_, "Through the Medium of a Temperament,"
+        June, 1898, vol. 16, p. 437.
+
+
+YOUNG, ROBERT
+
+    No. 359. _The Living Age_, "Lafcadio Hearn," March 23, 1907, vol.
+        252, p. 760.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+            FOREIGN ARTICLES AND CRITICAL REVIEWS UPON HEARN
+
+                             (Nos. 389-398)
+
+
+                                 DANISH
+
+NYA PRESSEN
+
+    No. 389. "Ur en författares lif," af Konni Zilliacus, February 2,
+        1899.
+
+
+                                 FRENCH
+
+BENTZON, TH.
+
+    No. 390. _Revue des deux Mondes_, "Un Peintre du Japon: Lafcadio
+        Hearn,"[45] June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.
+
+
+CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE
+
+    No. 391. "Impressions sur la vie japonaise," par Félicien Challayé,
+        June, 1902, 3rd Series, 17th Cahier.
+
+
+CHALLAYÉ, FÉLICIEN
+
+    No. 391. _Cahiers de la quinzaine_, "Impressions sur la vie
+        japonaise," June, 1902, 3rd Series, 17th Cahier.
+
+    No. 392. _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_. "Un Philosophe
+        japonisant, Lafcadio Hearn,"[45] 1903, vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+    No. 393. _Revue de Paris_, "Lafcadio Hearn et le Japon,"[45]
+        December 1, 1904, vol. 6, p. 655.
+
+        [45] Translations by M. B. Easton, unpublished, in MSS.,
+             in the possession of Dr. Gould.
+
+
+REVUE DES DEUX MONDES
+
+    No. 390. "Un Peintre du Japon: 'Lafcadio Hearn,'"[45] par Th.
+        Bentzon, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.
+
+
+REVUE DE MÉTAPHYSIQUE ET DE MORALE
+
+    No. 392. "Un Philosophe japonisant, Lafcadio Hearn,"[45] par
+        Félicien Challayé, 1903, vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+
+REVUE DE PARIS
+
+    No. 393. "Lafcadio Hearn et le Japon,"[45] par Félicien Challayé,
+        December 1, 1904, vol. 6, p. 655.
+
+
+                                 GERMAN
+
+BRANDT, M. VON
+
+    No. 394. _Deutsche Rundschau_ "Lafcadio Hearn: Volksglaube und
+        Volkssitte in Japan," October, 1900, vol. 105, p. 68.
+
+
+DEUTSCHE RUNDSCHAU
+
+    No. 394. "Lafcadio Hearn: Volksglaube und Volkssitte in Japan," von
+        M. von Brandt, October, 1900, vol. 105, p. 68.
+
+
+    HERZOG, WILHELM
+
+    No. 395. _Die Nation_, a review of "Kokoro,"[45] January 6, 1906,
+        vol. 23, p. 217.
+
+
+    HIRN, PROFESSOR YRIÖ
+
+    No. 396. _Neue Freie Presse_, "Lafcadio Hearn," March 26, 1905, vol.
+        31, p. 14580.
+
+
+    NATION, Die
+
+    No. 395. A review of "Kokoro,"[45] von Wilhelm Herzog, January 6,
+        1906, vol. 23, p. 217.
+
+
+    NEUE FREIE PRESSE
+
+    No. 396. "Lafcadio Hearn," von Professor Yrjö Hirn, March 26, 1905,
+        vol. 31, p. 14580.
+
+
+    WAGE, Die
+
+    No. 397. "Ein englischer Japaner," von Th. Bentzon. (Deutsche von
+        Leo Fried.) A condensation of Mme. Bentzon's article in _Revue
+        des deux Mondes_. October 22-29, 1904, Year 7, Nr. 43, 44, pp.
+        987, 1001.
+
+
+                                SWEDISH
+
+HIRN, MRS. KARIN
+
+    No. 398. _Ord od Bild_, 1905.
+
+
+    ORD OD BILD
+
+    No. 398. Mrs. Karin Hirn, 1905.
+
+               *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+                       SUPPLEMENTAL LIST
+
+                         (Nos. 399-424)
+
+
+    No. 399. The Last of the New Orleans Fencing Masters, _Southern
+    Bivouac_, Louisville, Ky., New Series, vol. 2, Nov., 1886.
+
+Speaks of the Story of Jean Louis, from Vigeant's _Un Maître d'armes
+    sous la restauration_, and tells the tale of Don José Llulla. Six
+    double column, 8vo. pages, size and style of _Atlantic Monthly_.
+
+No. 400. The Legend of Skobeleff. Looks like an editorial in
+    T.-D.[46] (No date, etc.)
+
+    [47] The New Orleans _Times-Democrat_.
+
+No. 401. A Voudoo Dance. In style of T.-D. and of Hearn; unsigned,
+    undated, was evidently in T.-D.
+
+No. 402. The Future of France in the Orient. Editorial, doubtless in
+    T.-D., undated.
+
+No. 403. Pierre Loti. Translation by Hearn. "From the Original
+    Manuscript," signed by "Pierre Loti" and "Translated by Lafcadio
+    Hearn." Subheading: "Fragments from my Diary." Undated. Probably in
+    T.-D.
+
+No. 404. Death of the Great Danseuse of the Century. Unsigned and
+    undated. Not in type of editorial, but of contributed matter in
+    T.-D. Probably by Hearn.
+
+No. 405. The First Muezzin. With Arabic Sub-title, under which is
+    "Bilâl," and 15-line poetic excerpt from Edwin Arnold. Contains a
+    musical setting of Prayer by Villoteau, Description de l'Egypte:
+    Vol. XIV. Probably in T.-D. Without date, etc.
+
+No. 406. Dorodom the Last. Editorial, probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 407. The Naval Engagements of the Future. Translation from _Le
+    Figaro_.
+
+No. 408. Cable and the Negroes. Editorial, probably in T.-D. and by
+    Hearn. No date.
+
+No. 409. The Most Original of Modern Novelists (Loti). Editorial,
+    probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 410. Heroic Deeds at Sea. Editorial in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 411. Study and Play. Editorial in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 412. Arabian Women. Article contributed probably to T.-D.
+    Undated.
+
+No. 413. The Roar of a Great City. Editorial contributed probably to
+    T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 414. Some Fossil Anthropology. Editorial probably by Hearn, and
+    probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 415. A Word for the Tramps. Editorial possibly by Hearn, and
+    probably in T.-D.
+
+No. 416. Torn Letters. Signed original story in T.-D. Undated. Later
+    enlarged and published as "Chita."
+
+No. 417. Death and Resurrection in the Soudan. Editorial, probably
+    in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 418. A Memory of Two Fannies (Fanny Elssler, and Fanny Cerrito).
+    Editorial, probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 419. Shapira. Editorial, probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 420. To the Fountain of Youth. Original, signed contribution:
+    T.-D., May 24, 1885.
+
+No. 421. The Creole Doctor. Some Curiosities of Medicine in
+    Louisiana. From an Occasional Correspondent of _The Tribune_, New
+    Orleans, Dec. 28th. Probably in New York _Tribune_. Undated. Signed
+    Contribution.
+
+No. 422. A Story of Hands. The Hand and its Gestures. Translation,
+    Eugene Mouton, "From advance sheets." Undated.
+
+No. 423. The Legend of the Tea-Plant. Original contribution,
+    probably to the T.-D. Undated. Published later in "Some Chinese
+    Ghosts," 1887.
+
+No. 424. Academical Triumphs. Editorial, probably by Hearn, T.-D.,
+    Dec. 20, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+                     RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
+                      BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
+                          BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber Notes:
+
+Some of the illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs and so they correspond to the text, thus the page number of
+the illustration no longer matches the page number in the List of
+Illustrations.
+
+Throughout the document, vowels having macrons in Japanese words are
+indicated by vowels having circumflexes. For example, English word for
+the Japanese capital (currently written in Japanese romanji as toukyou)
+used to be written as Tokyo, but with macrons associated with each
+letter "o". In this text the Japanese capital would be written as Tôkyô.
+
+On page 8, "ludricrous" was replaced with "ludicrous".
+
+On page 28, "Lokis'" was replaced with "Loki's".
+
+On page 55, "An E volutional History" was replaced with "An Evolutional
+History".
+
+On page 56, the [OE] ligature was replaced with "OE".
+
+On page 85, "As, mine are" was replaced with "As mine are".
+
+On page 91, "it it incapable" was replaced with "it is incapable".
+
+On page 97, the single quotation mark after "What insect stings so!" was
+changed to a double quotation mark.
+
+On page 129, "gnored" was replaced with "ignored".
+
+On page 133, "refocussed" was replaced with "refocused".
+
+On page 159, "la belle negrésse" was replaced with "la belle négresse".
+
+On page 188 through 190, there is a long quotation that is marked by a
+single set of quotation marks, which differs than the quotation scheme
+used elsewhere in the book. This inconsistency was not corrected.
+
+On page 236, a quotation mark was removed from before "His book is a
+re-reading".
+
+On page 252, "Karin Kirn" was replaced with "Karin Hirn".
+
+On page 259, "n aye" was replaced with "n'aye".
+
+On page 278, the closing single quotation mark after "Madame Bovary" was
+replaces with a closing double quotation mark.
+
+On page 286, in the item No. 277, the period after "Raynal" was replaced
+with a comma, to be in agreement with the previous item.
+
+On page 293, in the item 307, "p." was added before the page number.
+
+On page 295, in the item 334, a quotation mark was added after "Exotics
+and Retrospectives,".
+
+On page 295, in the item 341, a period was added after the date December
+1, 1906.
+
+On page 298, in the item 366, a stray comma was deleted after the word
+"February".
+
+On page 299, in the item 387, a single quotation mark was replaced with
+a double quotation mark.
+
+On page 301, in the item 390, the unmatched quotation marks were
+corrected.
+
+Sometimes, a single footnote had multiple links to it.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Concerning Lafcadio Hearn, by George M. Gould
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Concerning Lafcadio Hearn, by George M. Gould
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Concerning Lafcadio Hearn
+       With a Bibliography by Laura Stedman
+
+Author: George M. Gould
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2011 [EBook #36783]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCERNING LAFCADIO HEARN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Ernest Schaal, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
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+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>CONCERNING LAFCADIO HEARN</h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption">Lafcadio Hearn.<br />
+<i>From a Photograph by Gutekunst</i>, 1889.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="margin-left4"><i>Frontispiece.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="h1"><span class="smcap">Concerning Lafcadio<br />
+Hearn. by george m. gould, m.d.</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY<br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> LAURA STEDMAN</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="cnobmargin">T. FISHER UNWIN</p>
+
+<p class="cnomargins">LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE</p>
+
+<p class="cnomargins">LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20</p>
+
+<p class="cnotmargin">1908</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center">[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">chap.</span> <span class="ralignsc">page</span></p>
+
+<p>I. HEREDITY AND THE EARLY LIFE <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_I_HEREDITY_AND_THE">1</a></span></p>
+
+<p>II. IN PERSON <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_II_IN_PERSON">7</a></span></p>
+
+<p>III. THE PERIOD OF THE GRUESOME <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_III_THE_PERIOD_OF_THE">13</a></span></p>
+
+<p>IV. THE NEW ORLEANS TIME <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV_THE_NEW_ORLEANS">33</a></span></p>
+
+<p>V. AT MARTINIQUE <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_V_AT_MARTINIQUE">57</a></span></p>
+
+<p>VI. "GETTING A SOUL" <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI_GETTING_A_SOUL">65</a></span></p>
+
+<p>VII. "IN GHOSTLY JAPAN" <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII_IN_GHOSTLY_JAPAN">81</a></span></p>
+
+<p>VIII. AS A POET <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII_AS_A_POET">93</a></span></p>
+
+<p>IX. THE POET OF MYOPIA <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX_THE_POET_OF">103</a></span></p>
+
+<p>X. HEARN'S STYLE <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_X_HEARNS_STYLE">119</a></span></p>
+
+<p>XI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI_SUMMARY_AND">137</a></span></p>
+
+<p>XII. APPRECIATIONS AND EPITOMES <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII_APPRECIATIONS_AND">143</a></span></p>
+
+<p>BIBLIOGRAPHY <span class="ralign"><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">247</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right"><i>To face page</i></p>
+
+<p>LAFCADIO HEARN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY GUTEKUNST<br />
+IN 1889 <span class="ralign"><a href="#frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></span></p>
+
+<p>HEARN AT ABOUT THE AGE OF EIGHT, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH <span class="ralign"><a href="#fp1">5</a></span></p>
+
+<p>REDUCED FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST ISSUE OF "YE GIGLAMPZ" <span class="ralign"><a href="#fp21">21</a></span></p>
+
+<p>LAFCADIO HEARN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT MARTINIQUE, AUGUST 24, 1888 <span class="ralign"><a href="#fp61">61</a></span></p>
+
+<p>HANDWRITING OF HEARN IN 1889 <span class="ralign"><a href="#fp63">68</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;x]</span></p>
+
+<p class="cap">THERE are as many possible biographies of a man as
+there are possible biographers&mdash;and one more! Of
+Lafcadio Hearn there has been, and there will be, no excuse
+for any biography whatever. A properly edited volume of
+his letters, and, perhaps, a critical estimate of the methods
+and development of his imaginative power and literary
+character are, and still remain, most desirable. That some
+competent hand may yet be found to undertake this task
+is still hoped by those who recognize the value of a man's
+best work. To furnish material and help toward this end
+is my object in collecting the following pages. The life
+of a literary man interests and is of value to the world
+because of the literature he has created. Without a bibliography,
+without even mention of the works he wrote, his
+biography would be useless. To correct many untrue and
+misleading statements and inferences of a serious nature
+that have been published concerning him and his life,
+should it ever be undertaken, will prove a labour so difficult
+and thankless that it will scarcely be entered upon by one
+who would do it rightly. That it will not be hazarded comes,
+as I have said, from the fact that it is not needed, because
+neither Hearn himself, nor his real friends, nor again, a discriminating
+literary sense, have been, nor can be, under
+any illusion as to his "greatness." He has been spoken of
+as "a great man," which, of course, he was not. Two talents
+he had, but these were far from constituting personal
+greatness. Deprived by nature, by the necessities of his
+life, or by conscious intention, of religion, morality, scholarship,
+magnanimity, loyalty, character, benevolence, and
+other constituents of personal greatness, it is more than
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;xi]</span>
+folly to endeavour to place him thus wrongly before the
+world.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The irony of the situation is pathetically heightened by
+the fact that, supposing him to be very great, "the weaknesses
+of very great men," which he said should not be
+spoken of, are amazingly paraded in the letters. Had he
+ever dreamed that his letters would be published, he would
+not, and could not, have so unblushingly exposed himself
+and his faults to the public gaze. The fact has now been
+writ exceeding large, or it would not be, and should
+not be, corrected and contradicted. A word to the wise
+suffices.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There remains the question, truly pertinent, concerning
+the nature and progress toward perfection of his imagination,
+and of his literary execution.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">We know nothing, and doubtless we may never know
+anything definite, accurate and of value about the character
+either of his father or of his mother. Any attempt, therefore,
+to estimate what effect heredity had in handing
+down the strange endowment we find in his early manhood
+is wholly futile. We may not be too sure concerning either
+the parentage or nationality ascribed to him.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Moreover, in the last analysis, Hearn was no "product
+of his environment." In a certain sense, he was of the
+school of Flaubert, Gautier, Maupassant, Loti, and Zola,
+but with such differences and variations that these teachers
+may not take much credit or flattery to themselves. The
+great, the distinctive, the dominating force which controlled
+and created Hearn's literary makings, his morbid vision,
+was not "environment" as the critics and scientists mean
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;xii]</span>
+by the term. These have not yet learned that Art and
+Life hang upon the perfection and peculiarities of the
+senses of the artist and of the one who lives, and that
+intellect and especially æsthetics are almost wholly the
+product of vision. Conversely, the morbidities and individualisms
+of Art and Life often depend pre-eminently
+upon the morbidities of vision.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Character, lastly, is the action or reaction of personality
+against circumstance, not under and dominated by circumstance.
+To have character is to control circumstance;
+Hearn was always its slave. Except in one particular, the
+pursuit of literary excellence, Hearn had no character
+whatever. His was the most unresisting, most echolike
+mind I have ever known. He was a perfect chameleon;
+he took for the time the colour of his surroundings. He
+was always the mirror of the friend of the instant, or if
+no friend was there, of the dream of that instant. The
+next minute he was another being, acted upon by the new
+circumstance, reflecting the new friend, or redreaming the
+old and new-found dream. They who blame him too
+sharply for his disloyalty and ingratitude to old friends
+do not understand him psychologically. There was
+nothing behind the physical and neurologic machine
+to be loyal or disloyal. He had no mind, or character,
+to be possessed of loyalty or disloyalty. For the most
+part, he simply dropped his friends, and rarely spoke
+ill of them or of his enemies. There was nothing whatever
+in him, except perhaps for the short time when
+he said his friend had given him a soul, to take the cast
+and function of loyalty or disloyalty, gratitude or ingratitude.
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;xiii]</span>
+One does not ask originality or even great consistency
+of an echo, and, of all men that have ever lived,
+Hearn, mentally and spiritually, was most perfectly an echo.
+The sole quality, the only originality, he brought to the
+fact, or to the echo, was colour&mdash;a peculiar derivation of a
+maimed sense. He created or invented nothing; his
+stories were always told him by others; at first they were
+gruesome tales even to horror and disgust. He learned
+by practice to choose lovelier stories, ones always distant,
+sometimes infinitely distant, and he learned to retell or
+echo them with more artistic skill and even a matchless
+grace. His merit, almost his sole merit, and his unique
+skill lay in the strange faculty of colouring the echo with
+the hues and tints of heavenly rainbows and unearthly
+sunsets, all gleaming with a ghostly light that never was
+on sea or shore. So that, fused as he was with his work,
+he himself became that impossible thing, a chromatic voice,
+a multicoloured echo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">We must, therefore, accept the facts as we find them,
+the young man as we find him, uneducated, friendless,
+without formed character, with a lot of heathenish and
+unrestrained appetites, crippled as to the most important
+of the senses, poverty-stricken, improvident, of peculiar and
+unprepossessing appearance and manners, flung into an
+alien world in many ways more morbid than himself.
+That he lived at all is almost astonishing, and that he
+writhed out, how he did it, and the means whereby he
+finally presented to the best artistic and literary intellects
+of the world prized values and enjoyments, is indeed
+worthy of some attention and study.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;xiv]</span>
+From letters written to me just prior to his death by
+that veteran and discriminating critic, Mr. Edmund C.
+Stedman, I quote a few sentences to show that the
+appreciation of Hearn has by no means reached its full
+measure:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"I passed an evening with your Hearn manuscript and
+the supplementary matter by my granddaughter, and
+found them both well done and of deep interest. Some of
+your passages are beautifully written and make me think
+that if you will give us more of the style which is so
+plainly at your command, you will gain, etc.... The
+publishers do not understand, as I do, that Hearn will in
+time be as much of a romantic personality and tradition as
+Poe now is. I strongly urged one publisher to buy those
+copyrights owned by three other firms on any terms and
+in the end bring out a definitive edition of his complete
+works."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">As to Miss Stedman's workmanlike bibliography, it
+should be said that the rule which has been followed in
+excluding less valuable reviews and notices, was based
+upon the effort to include doubtful ones only when of
+exceptional value, by a personal friend of Hearn, etc.
+Files of ordinary newspapers are not preserved even in
+local libraries, and, therefore, references to them have
+been excluded except under peculiar circumstances of
+authorship, opinions stated, etc.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">For their kind permission to make extracts from Hearn's
+published works, grateful acknowledgments are due to
+Messrs. Little, Brown and Company, Houghton, Mifflin and
+Company, Harper Brothers, and The Macmillan Company.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;xv]</span>
+Should this volume bring in more money than the necessary
+expenses of compiling it, the excess will be sent to
+Mrs. Hearn through the Japanese Consul, or in some other
+way.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">George M. Gould</span>.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_HEREDITY_AND_THE" id="CHAPTER_I_HEREDITY_AND_THE"></a>CHAPTER I.&mdash;HEREDITY AND THE
+EARLY LIFE</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="fp1" id="fp1"></a>
+<img class="border" src="images/fp1.jpg" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="cnobmargin"><span class="smcap">Hearn at about the Age of Eight.</span></p>
+
+<p class="cnotmargin"><i>From a Photograph.</i></p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>To face page 1.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;2]</span></p>
+
+<p class="cap">MANY conflicting accounts have been given concerning
+Hearn's parents and childhood. From his
+own statements made in 1889, the notes of which, taken
+down at the moment, are before me, he was born on
+June 27, 1850, at Leucadia, in Santa Maura, one of the
+Ionian Islands. His father, he said, was an Irishman,
+Charles Bush Hearn, Surgeon-Major in the 76th English
+Infantry Regiment, which had been stationed at Madras,
+Calcutta. The regiment was later merged into the 22nd
+West Riding Battalion. His mother was a Greek from
+Cerigo, another of the Ionian Isles; her name he had
+forgotten. He spoke of his father and mother as having
+been married, and of a subsequent divorce, about 1857 or
+1858. Allusion was made to a younger brother, named
+Daniel, who was brought up by an artist, a painter, Richard
+Hearn, a brother of Charles Bush Hearn, who lived in
+Paris.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a>
+<a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Hearn thought this brother was educated as a
+civil engineer. After the divorce his mother remarried,
+her second husband being a lawyer, a Greek, name unknown,
+and living at Smyrna, Asia Minor. Lafcadio's
+father also remarried, taking his wife to India. Three
+daughters were said to have been born there. Lafcadio
+was put under the care of his aunt, Mrs. Sarah Brenane, of
+Dublin, No. 73 Upper Leeson Street. She was a widow
+without children. In a letter to me, written prior to 1889,
+Hearn says: "As for me, I have a good deal in me <i>not</i> to
+thank my ancestors for; and it is a pleasure that <i>I cannot</i>,
+even if I would, trace myself two generations back, not
+even one generation on my mother's side. Half these
+Greeks are mixed with Turks and Arabs&mdash;don't know
+how much of an Oriental mixture I have, or may have."
+And again, "I do not know anything about my mother,
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;3]</span>
+whether alive or dead. My father died on his return from
+India. There was a queer romance in the history of my
+mother's marriage." He told me later that this romance
+was said to have been that Surgeon-Major Hearn was
+once set upon by the brothers of the young Greek woman
+to whom he was paying attention, and that he was left
+supposedly dead, with about a score of dagger-made
+wounds in his body.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_1_1">
+<span class="label">[1]</span></a>
+In <i>The Bookbuyer</i>, May, 1896, Hearn's friend, Mr. J. S. Tunison,
+speaks of the existence of a brother, "a busy farmer in Northwestern
+Ohio."</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">In the Dayton, Ohio, <i>Journal</i>, of December 25, 1906,
+Mr. Tunison speaks authoritatively of the discrepant
+accounts given by many writers, and by Hearn himself,
+concerning his parents, birth and early years. "Hearn
+himself had misgivings, and sometimes associated his
+baptismal name with the not uncommon Spanish name,
+Leocadie." The boy, of course, could only repeat what
+he had been told by his relatives or friends. Physiognomy
+can help little perhaps, but here its testimony is assuredly
+not confirmatory of the more common story. Any attempt
+to secure definite information in Ireland would scarcely be
+successful. One possibility remained: There is still living
+an Irish gentleman to whom Lafcadio was sent from
+Ireland, and in whose care, at least to a limited extent,
+the boy was placed. I have not the right to mention his
+name. He was living in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1870, and
+through his brother-in-law in Ireland, Lafcadio was, as it
+were, consigned to my informant. The subject is an
+unpleasant one to him, and he answered my questions
+with reluctance. He did not like the boy and did not
+feel that he had any obligation toward him; in fact, he
+did not feel that he was in any way responsible for his
+care. Besides, he had heavy duties toward his own
+children that absorbed all his energies. "I never had
+a letter from him. He came to the house three times.
+Mrs. Brenane sent me money, which I gave to him to pay
+his bills with. When he got work, he never came near me
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;4]</span>
+again." He was not sure that Mrs. Brenane was, in truth,
+Hearn's aunt, and upon being pressed, answered repeatedly,
+"I know nothing, nobody knows anything true of Hearn's
+life. He may have been related to my wife's family, but I
+never knew." Asked why the lad was "shipped" to him,
+he replied, "I do not know." Inquiries concerning the
+boy's schooling brought no more than, "I only know that
+he could never stay long in one school." "His father was
+Irish, was he not?" "Yes." "And his mother was
+Greek?" "O yes, I suppose so," but with an indefinite
+inflection.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The mystery, therefore, of Hearn's parentage and boyhood
+years is probably not to be cleared up. He was,
+perhaps, a "bad boy," and expelled from several schools;
+his lifelong hatred and fear of Catholics and Jesuits doubtless
+dates from these youthful and irrational experiences;
+but it is useless to inquire whether or not they were in any
+sense justifiable. A little reflected light is thrown upon
+this period by an apocryphal anecdote in a letter to me,
+written while Hearn was at my house, and which Miss
+Bisland in her "Life and Letters" kindly failed to put in
+its proper place,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> as well as omitted to say whence she
+obtained it:</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_2_2">
+<span class="label">[2]</span></a> Vol. I, pp. 459-460, just prior to the last paragraph.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">This again reminds me of something. When I was a boy, I had to
+go to confession, and my confessions were honest ones. One day I
+told the ghostly father that I had been guilty of desiring that the devil
+would come to me in the shape of the beautiful woman in which he
+came to the Anchorites in the desert, and that I thought that I would
+yield to such temptations. He was a grim man who rarely showed
+emotion, my confessor, but on that occasion he actually rose to his
+feet in anger.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Let me warn you!" he cried, "let me warn you! Of all things
+never wish that! You might be more sorry for it than you can possibly
+believe!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;5]</span>
+His earnestness filled me with fearful joy;&mdash;for I thought the temptation
+might actually be realized&mdash;so serious he looked ... but the
+pretty <i>succubi</i> all continued to remain in hell.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The necessary inference, therefore, is that the lad was an
+unwelcome charge upon those Irish relations or friends of
+his father, in whose care he was placed. It is said that he
+always spoke with bitterness of his father, and with love of
+his mother. Beyond a certain amount of money allotted
+(by his father?) for his support, neither parent was evidently
+concerned about his upbringing and welfare, and all who
+should have been interested in those things made haste to
+rid themselves of the obligations. If the stories of his
+boyish "badness" were true, the lad could not be blamed
+for putting into practice his inherited instincts, so that the
+pathos of his early misfortunes only increase our sympathy
+for the youth and his tragedies. (I reproduce a photograph
+of Lafcadio and his aunt, Mrs. Justin, or Sarah, Brenane.
+The lad must have been at the time about eight years of
+age.) The "consignment" of the nineteen-year old youth
+to the distant relative of the family, who was then living in
+Cincinnati, explains the reason why, landing in New York,
+he finally went to Cincinnati. How long he lived in New
+York City and any details of his life there before he went
+West, may be held as beyond investigation. Mr. Tunison
+incidentally speaks of him during this time as "sleeping in
+dry-goods boxes on the street, etc.," and I have heard that
+he acted as a restaurant waiter. There have been published
+stories of a period of want and suffering endured in London
+before the emigration to New York City. Others concerning
+great scholarship and the intimate knowledge of several
+languages, especially French, are surely not true. Even in
+1889, after the New Orleans and Martinique periods, Hearn
+could not speak French with ease or correctness. In
+Cincinnati he secured the help of a French scholar in
+translating Gautier's "Émaux et Camées." His want of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;6]</span>
+knowledge of the Latin language is deplored in his letters
+and, to the last, after a dozen or more years in Japan,
+his inability to read a Japanese newspaper or speak the
+language was a source of regret to himself, of errors too
+numerous to mention, and of grievous limitations in his
+work as an interpreter. In the one field of which his
+taste, aptitude and function dictated a wide and stimulating
+acquaintance, folk-lore, he was lamentably wanting.
+It might seem unfitting to allude to this were it not well
+to be discriminating in all cases, and had not Hearn sought
+to reach authoritativeness in a department wherein he had
+not gathered the fundamental data.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;7]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_IN_PERSON" id="CHAPTER_II_IN_PERSON"></a>CHAPTER II.&mdash;IN PERSON</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;8]</span>WHEN, in 1889, Hearn appeared in my reception
+room, although I had not seen any photograph of
+him, and had not even known of his coming, I at once said,
+"You are Lafcadio?" The poor exotic was so sadly out
+of place, so wondering, so suffering and shy, that I am sure
+he would have run out of the house if I had not at once
+shown him an overflowing kindness, or if a tone of voice
+had betrayed any curiosity or doubt. It was at once
+agreed that he should stay with me for awhile, and there
+was no delay in providing him with a seat at my table and
+a room where he could be at his work of proof-correcting.
+His "Two Years in the French West Indies" was then
+going through the press, and an incident connected with
+the proof-reading illustrates how impossible it was for him,
+except when necessity drove, to meet any person not already
+known. He wished to give his reader the tune of the songs
+printed on pages 426-431, but he knew nothing of music.
+I arranged with a lady to repeat the airs on her piano as
+he should whistle them, and then to write them on the
+music-staff. When the fatal evening arrived, Hearn and I
+went to the lady's house, but as we proceeded his part in
+our chatting lapsed into silence, and he lagged behind.
+Although he finally dragged himself to the foot of the doorstep,
+after I had rung the bell, his courage failed, and before
+the door was opened I saw him running as if for life, half a
+square away!</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Even before this adventure I had learned that it was
+useless to try to get him to lunch or dinner if any stranger
+were present. I think he always listened to detect the
+possible presence of a stranger before entering the dining-room,
+and he would certainly have starved rather than
+submit to such an ordeal. It may be readily imagined that
+my attempt to secure his services as a lecturer before a
+local literary society was a ludicrous failure. He would
+have preferred hanging.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;9]</span>
+I allude to this attitude of his mind from no idle or
+curious reason, but because it arose from logical and
+necessary reasons. When, later, he was in Japan, I was
+once importuned, and should not have yielded, to give a
+friend, who was about to visit T&#333;ky&#333;, a note of introduction.
+As I warned my friend Hearn refused to see visitors.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">That his extreme shyness depended upon his being
+unknown, and that it was united to a lack of humour, may
+be gathered from the fact that, when he came from Martinique,
+he wore a clothing which inevitably made the
+passers-by turn and look and smile. Long and repeated
+endeavours were necessary before I could get his consent to
+lay aside the outrageous tropical hat for one that would not
+attract attention. How little he recked of this appears from
+the tale I heard that a lot of street gamins in Philadelphia
+formed a <i>queue</i>, the leader holding by Hearn's coat-tails,
+and, as they marched, all kept step and sang in time,
+"Where, where, where did you get that hat?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At once, upon first meeting Hearn, I instinctively recognized
+that upon my part the slightest sign of a desire or
+attempt to study him, to look upon him as an object of
+literary or "natural" history, would immediately put an
+end to our relations. Indeed, it never at that time entered
+my mind to think thus of him, and only since collections of
+his letters and biographies are threatened has it occurred to
+me to think over our days and months together, and to
+help, so far as advisable, toward a true understanding of
+the man and his art.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In 1889 Lafcadio was 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighed
+137 pounds, and had a chest girth of 36-3/4 inches.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The summer of 1889 made noteworthy changes in
+Hearn's character. I suspect it was his first experience in
+anything that might be called home-life. To his beloved
+<i>pays des revenants</i>, Martinique, his mind constantly reverted,
+with an <i>Ahnung</i> that he should never see it again. There
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;10]</span>
+are truth and pathos and keen self-knowledge, frankly expressed
+in the letters he would write me in the next room,
+immediately after we had chatted long together, and when
+he felt that the pen could better express what he shyly
+shrank from speaking:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Ah! to have a profession is to be rich, to have international current-money,
+a gold that is cosmopolitan, passes everywhere. Then I think
+I would never settle down in any place; would visit all, wander about
+as long as I could. There is such a delightful pleasantness about the
+<i>first</i> relations with people in strange places&mdash;before you have made
+any rival, excited any ill wills, incurred anybody's displeasure. Stay
+long enough in any one place and the illusion is over; you have to sift
+this society through the meshes of your nerves, and find perhaps one
+good friendship too large to pass through.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is a very beautiful world; the ugliness of some humanity only
+exists as the shadowing that outlines the view; the nobility of man
+and the goodness of woman can only be felt by those who know the
+possibilities of degradation and corruption. Philosophically I am
+simply a follower of Spencer, whose mind gives me the greatest conception
+of Divinity I can yet expand to receive. The faultiness is not
+with the world, but with myself. I inherit certain susceptibilities,
+weaknesses, sensitivenesses, which render it impossible to adapt myself
+to the ordinary <i>milieu</i>; I have to make one of my own wherever
+I go, and never mingle with that already made. True, I love much
+knowledge, but I escape pains which, in spite of all your own knowledge,
+you could wholly comprehend, for the simple reason that you
+<i>can</i> mingle with men.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I am really quite lonesome for you, and am reflecting how much
+more lonesome I shall be in some outrageous equatorial country where
+I shall not see you any more;&mdash;also it seems to me perfectly and inexplainably
+atrocious to know that some day or other there will be no
+Gooley at &mdash;&mdash; St. That I should cease to make a shadow some day
+seems quite natural, because Hearney boy is only a bubble anyhow
+("The earth hath bubbles"),&mdash;but you, hating mysteries and seeing
+and feeling and knowing everything,&mdash;you have no right ever to die at
+all. And I can't help doubting whether you will. You have almost
+made me believe what you do not believe yourself: that there are
+souls. I haven't any, I know; but I think you have,&mdash;something
+electrical and luminous inside you that will walk about and see things
+always. Are you really&mdash;what I see of you&mdash;only an Envelope of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;11]</span>
+something subtler and perpetual? Because if you are, I might want
+you to pass down some day southward,&mdash;over the blue zone and the
+volcanic peaks like a little wind,&mdash;and flutter through the palm-plumes
+under the all-putrefying sun,&mdash;and reach down through old roots to
+the bones of me, and try to raise me up....</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The weakness and even exhaustion which the West
+Indian climate had wrought in Hearn were painfully apparent.
+His stay in Philadelphia, warm as that summer
+was to us, brought him speedily back to physical health.
+The lesson was not unheeded, nor its implications, by his
+sensitive mind.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I reproduce two photographs of Hearn: the first taken in
+1888 (facing page 61); and the second, by Mr. Gutekunst,
+at my urgent solicitation, in 1889, while Hearn was stopping
+at my house (<i>Frontispiece</i>).</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The first photograph, taken in Martinique, brings out
+the habitual sadness and lack of vivacity in his physiognomy.
+In my picture of 1889 (the second) I was
+unable, despite all effort, to get Hearn to present to
+the camera his entire face with naturally open eyes, and
+the customary expression. He resolutely refused, and
+consented to the compromise of a two-thirds view <i>with
+closed eyes</i>. And this to me is still the most truthful and
+hence the most expressive of all his photographs. It is so
+suggestive because of its negations, so expressive because
+non-expressive. But it indicates, silently and by inference,
+the most significant fact about the man.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">To those who are expert in such things, the stare of the
+highly myopic eye is known to be not that of mental action
+and seeing, but of not seeing. When we walk, we are forward-looking
+beings, and what goes on within the eye or
+brain and what may be behind us is totally ignored. But
+for a highly myopic person there is no outward or forward
+looking. Hearn's closed eye gives, therefore, a decidedly
+more truthful lesson in physiognomy than does the open
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;12]</span>
+and protruding one, which cannot see the coming or future
+scene, or which sees it so vaguely that its hint of the scene
+is perhaps more useless than the imagined picture of the
+totally blind. His inability to see the presenting world
+had resulted in a renunciation of outlook and an absolute
+incuriosity as to the future. With weaklings this might
+have brought about introspection, the mental eye&mdash;the
+product of the physical eye&mdash;turned in upon itself. Hearn
+was too much of an artist to fall into that Death Valley of
+all æsthetics, and there was a quick acceptance of the
+logical and inevitable, whence arose the wonder of poetic
+retrospection.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;13]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III_THE_PERIOD_OF_THE" id="CHAPTER_III_THE_PERIOD_OF_THE"></a>CHAPTER III.&mdash;THE PERIOD OF THE GRUESOME</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;14]</span>
+WHEN Hearn arrived in Cincinnati, in 1871 or
+1872, he was twenty-one or twenty-two years
+of age. All other methods of making a livelihood
+except that by his pen had failed, or were soon to fail, and
+it is not long before the literary way is exclusively and
+permanently adopted. There was a brief first time of
+service with Robert Clarke and Company as proof-reader.
+The exact uses of punctuation, the clearness which the
+proper marks give to writing, soon earned for him the
+sobriquet "Old Semicolon" among his fellow reporters.
+All his life Hearn clung meticulously to his theories
+concerning the necessity and precise rules of punctuation.
+Some of his later quarrels with periodical editors and
+proof-readers arose from differences of opinion in these
+things. There was a short engagement of Hearn by the
+librarian, Mr. Thomas Vickers, as private secretary or
+helper. Among his early friends was a printer, Mr. Henry
+Watkin, now residing at 1312 McMillan Street, who was
+kind to him, and who taught him to set type.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"In 1874," Mr. O. P. Caylor<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> writes, "Col. Cockerill of
+the <i>World</i> was managing editor of the Cincinnati <i>Enquirer</i>.
+A few weeks previous to the 'Tan-Yard Murder' Mr.
+Hearn came to the <i>Enquirer</i> office to sell a manuscript.
+Upstairs he ventured, but there his courage failed him.
+It was not enough to induce him to brave the awful
+editorial presence. So he paced up and down the hall
+with his velvet restless tread until the awful door opened
+and the terrible giant came forth. Hearn would, no doubt,
+have run away had he not been at the rear of the hall
+when Mr. Cockerill came out into the other end, and the
+stairway was between.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_3_3">
+<span class="label">[3]</span></a> A quotation in the <i>Author</i>, January 15, 1890, from an article by
+Mr. Caylor in the Philadelphia <i>North American</i>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"Thus it occurred that the author of 'Chita' submitted
+his first manuscript. He came with others later, but never
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;15]</span>
+could he persuade himself to knock at that editorial door
+for admission. Up and down, up and down the hall he
+would pace or glide until Colonel Cockerill came forth,
+whether the time consumed in waiting was ten minutes
+or two hours."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In <i>Current Literature</i>, June, 1896, Colonel John A.
+Cockerill, writing of Hearn, tells the story thus:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Some twenty years ago I was the editor in charge of a
+daily newspaper in a Western city. One day there came
+to my office a quaint, dark-skinned little fellow, strangely
+diffident, wearing glasses of great magnifying power and
+bearing with him evidence that Fortune and he were scarce
+on nodding terms.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"In a soft, shrinking voice he asked if I ever paid for
+outside contributions. I informed him that I was somewhat
+restricted in the matter of expenditure, but that I
+would give consideration to what he had to offer. He
+drew from under his coat a manuscript, and tremblingly
+laid it upon my table. Then he stole away like a distorted
+brownie, leaving behind him an impression that was uncanny
+and indescribable.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Later in the day I looked over the contribution which he
+had left. I was astonished to find it charmingly written....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"He sat in the corner of my room and wrote special
+articles for the Sunday edition as thoroughly excellent as
+anything that appeared in the magazines of those days. I
+have known him to have twelve and fifteen columns of this
+matter in a single issue of the paper. He was delighted
+to work, and I was pleased to have him work, for his style
+was beautiful and the tone he imparted to the newspaper
+was considerable. Hour after hour he would sit at his
+table, his great bulbous eyes resting as close to the paper
+as his nose would permit, scratching away with beaver-like
+diligence and giving me no more annoyance than a bronze
+ornament.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;16]</span>
+"His eyes troubled him greatly in those days. He was
+as sensitive as a flower. An unkind word from anybody
+was as serious to him as a cut from a whiplash, but I do
+not believe he was in any sense resentful.... He was
+poetic, and his whole nature seemed attuned to the beautiful,
+and he wrote beautifully of things which were neither
+wholesome nor inspiring. He came to be in time a
+member of the city staff at a fair compensation, and it was
+then that his descriptive powers developed. He loved to
+write of things in humble life. He prowled about the dark
+corners of the city, and from gruesome places he dug out
+charming idyllic stories. The negro stevedores on the
+steamboat-landings fascinated him. He wrote of their
+songs, their imitations, their uncouth ways, and he found
+picturesqueness in their rags, poetry in their juba dances."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In January or February, 1874, there was a horrible
+murder, "the famous Tan-Yard case," in Cincinnati, and
+Hearn's account of it in the <i>Enquirer</i>, from the newspaper
+and reportorial standpoint was so graphic and so far
+beyond the power of all rivals that he was henceforth
+assured of employment and of a measure and kind of
+respect. His friend, Mr. Edward Henderson, formerly city
+editor of the <i>Commercial</i>, now City Clerk in Cincinnati,
+says that because of his startling report of this murder
+"his city editors kept him at the most arduous work of a
+daily morning paper&mdash;the night-stations, for in that field
+mostly developed the sensational events that were worthy
+of his pen. In these days his powers would be held in
+reserve to write up what others should discover.... His
+repertory was strongest in the unusual and the startling.
+He was never known to shirk hardship or danger in filling
+an assignment or following up his self-obtained pointer."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The beginning of Hearn's literary career was his report
+of the Tan-Yard Murder case. It was published in the
+Cincinnati <i>Enquirer</i>, November, 1874. I shall quote some
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;17]</span>
+parts of it in a footnote to illustrate his innate and studied
+ability to outfit with words and expressions of the most
+startling and realistic picturing quality, the most horrible
+and loathsome facts. Keeping in mind the comparison
+with the illustrations from his later work in which he was
+equally capable of painting noble and beautiful things (all
+except those of a spiritual or religious nature), one is filled
+with admiration of a faculty so rare and perfect. Those
+who are sensitive should not read the excerpts which I
+append, and which are given in obedience to a sense of
+duty.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_4_4">
+<span class="label">[4]</span></a> "An <i>Enquirer</i> reporter visited the establishment some hours later,
+accompanied by Dr. Maley, and examined all so far discovered of
+Herman Schilling's charred corpse. The hideous mass of reeking
+cinders, despite all the efforts of the brutal murderers to hide their
+ghastly crime, remain sufficiently intact to bear frightful evidence
+against them.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"On lifting the coffin-lid, a powerful and penetrating odour, strongly
+resembling the smell of burnt beef, yet heavier and fouler, filled the
+room and almost sickened the spectators. But the sight of the black
+remains was far more sickening. Laid upon the clean white lining of
+the coffin, they rather resembled great shapeless lumps of half-burnt
+bituminous coal than aught else at the first hurried glance; and only
+a closer investigation could enable a strong-stomached observer to
+detect their ghastly character&mdash;masses of crumbling human bones,
+strung together by half-burnt sinews, or glued one upon another by a
+hideous adhesion of half-molten flesh, boiled brains and jellied blood,
+mingled with coal.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The skull had burst like a shell in the fierce furnace heat, and the
+whole upper portion seemed as though it had been blown out by the
+steam from the boiling and bubbling brains. Only the posterior
+portion of the occipital and parietal bones, and the inferior and
+superior maxillary, and some of the face bones remained,&mdash;the upper
+portion of the skull bones being jagged, burnt brown in some spots,
+and in others charred to black ashes. The brain had all boiled away,
+save a small waste lump at the base of the skull about the size of a
+lemon. It was crisped and still warm to the touch. On pushing the
+finger through the crisp, the interior felt about the consistency of
+banana fruit, and the yellow fibre seemed to writhe like worms in the
+Coroner's hands. The eyes were cooked to bubbled crisps in the
+blackened sockets, and the bones of the nose were gone, leaving a
+hideous hole.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"So covered were the jaws and the lower facial bones with coal,
+crusted blood and gummy flesh, that the Coroner at first supposed
+that the lower maxillary had been burned away. On tearing away the
+frightful skull-mask of mingled flesh and coal and charred gristle,
+however, the grinning teeth shone ghastly white, and the jaws were
+found intact. They were set together so firmly that it was found
+impossible to separate them, without reducing the whole mass to
+ashes. So great had been the heat that the Coroner was able to
+crumble one of the upper teeth in his fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Besides the fragments of the skull, have been found six ribs of the
+right side and four of the left; the middle portion of the spinal-column;
+the liver, spleen, and kidneys; the pelvic bones, the right
+and left humerus, the femoral bone and the tibia and fibula of both
+legs. The body had burnt open at the chest, and the heart and lungs
+had been entirely consumed. The liver had been simply roasted and
+the kidneys fairly fried. There is a horrible probability that the
+wretched victim was forced into the furnace alive, and suffered all the
+agonies of the bitterest death man can die, while wedged in the flaming
+flue. The teeth were so terribly clinched that more than one spectator
+of the hideous skull declared that only the most frightful agony could
+have set those jaws together. Perhaps, stunned and disabled by the
+murderous blows of his assailants, the unconscious body of the poor
+German was forced into the furnace. Perhaps the thrusts of the
+assassin's pitchfork, wedging him still further into the fiery hell, or
+perhaps the first agony of burning when his bloody garments took
+fire, revived him to meet the death of flames. Fancy the shrieks for
+mercy, the mad expostulation, the frightful fight for life, the superhuman
+struggle for existence&mdash;a century of agony crowded into a
+moment&mdash;the shrieks growing feebler&mdash;the desperate struggle dying
+into feeble writhings. And through it all, the grim murderers,
+demoniacally pitiless, devilishly desperate, gasping with their exertions
+to destroy a poor human life, looking on in silent triumph, peering
+into the furnace until the skull exploded, and the steaming body
+burst, and the fiery flue hissed like a hundred snakes! It may not be
+true&mdash;we hope for humanity's sake it cannot be true; but the rightful
+secrets of that fearful night are known only to the criminals and their
+God. They may be brought to acknowledge much; but surely never
+so much as we have dared to hint at."</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;18]</span>
+"When his city editor, in compliance with the urgency
+of a steeple-climber, consented to send a reporter to take
+observations of the city from the top of the cross surmounting
+the spire of St. Peter's Cathedral in Cincinnati, Hearn
+was the man selected. In mentioning the assignment to
+him, the city editor handed him a valuable field-glass, with
+the suggestion that he might find it useful. On taking his
+departure with the climbers, Hearn quietly handed back
+the glasses with the remark in undertone, 'Perhaps I'd
+better not take these; something might happen.' He made
+the trip to the top of the spire, though the men found it
+necessary to haul him part of the way in mid-air and to
+bodily place and hold him on top of the cross. And he
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;19]</span>
+produced an account of that thrilling experience that went
+the round of the newspaper world."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_5_5">
+<span class="label">[5]</span></a> Our wonder at the performance is heightened by the fact that
+Hearn, of course, saw nothing of what he so vividly described.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">It is little wonder that his "Vocabulary of the Gruesome"
+became famous, since I have learned from his friend
+and associate, the artist, Mr. Farney, and also from others,
+certain facts which demonstrate that this vocabulary was
+gathered not only or chiefly because of the exigencies of
+his work as a reporter, or to express the revolting in thrilling
+words, but because he had a spontaneous lickerishness for
+the things themselves. He positively delighted in the gruesome.
+With his fingers he dug into the scorched flesh and
+the exuding brains of the murdered man's body when it
+was taken from the furnace, and in another murder case he
+slid on the floor, as if on ice, in the congealed blood of the
+victim. "He even drank blood at the abattoirs with the
+consumptives when that craze had fallen upon the people
+of Cincinnati." There is more than an excuse for mentioning
+these things; it is necessary to do so in order to
+understand the origin and transformation of Hearn's chief
+endowment as a writer.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Even more convincing, perhaps, than these offensive
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;20]</span>
+gloatings as regards his native love of the gruesome, is
+the unconscious testimony given in the history of an
+illustrated paper established by Mr. Farney and Mr.
+Hearn. Mr. Henderson has said of Hearn that "very
+rarely was he known to throw a <i>soupçon</i> of humour into
+his work." The newspaper venture demonstrates that
+even when humour was planned Hearn had none to give.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Number One, Volume One, of <i>Ye Giglampz</i> was issued
+in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 21, 1874, and describes itself
+on the title-page as, "A Weekly Illustrated Journal,
+Devoted to Art, Literature and Satire." The size of the
+pages was 14-1/2 × 10-3/4 inches. The subsequent issues were
+larger, about 16 × 11-1/4 inches. There were eight pages in
+each number, the first, third, fourth and eighth were
+illustrated by Mr. H. F. Farney; the others were made up
+of reading matter. The heading of the editorial page did
+not exactly repeat that of the title-page, but read as
+follows:</p>
+
+<p class="cnobmargin">"The Giglampz."</p>
+<p class="cnomargins">Published Daily, except Week-Days.</p>
+<p class="cnomargins">Terms, $2.50 per annum.</p>
+<p class="cnomargins">Address, "Giglampz Publishing Co."</p>
+<p class="cnotmargin">150 West Fourth St.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="fp21" id="fp21"></a>
+<img class="border" src="images/fp21.jpg" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption">Reduced First Page of the First Issue.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">With the issue of Number Seven (August 2, 1874) appeared
+a notice that H. F. Farney and Company had
+purchased the <i>Giglampz</i> from its former proprietors, the
+new office being henceforth at the North-west corner of
+Fourth and Race Streets. Number Eight was the last
+furnished subscribers. Probably the only existing set of
+this periodical is that kindly lent to me by Mr. Farney at
+the request of Mr. Alexander Hill of The Robert Clarke
+Company, Cincinnati. Among the many significant things
+suggested in looking over the pages, is the fact that this
+bound file was Hearn's personal copy, his name being
+written on the cover-leaf by himself&mdash;"L. Hearn, 1877"&mdash;and
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;21]</span>
+just below, this: "Reminiscences of An Editorship
+under Difficulties."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is noteworthy that nowhere is it publicly announced
+that Hearn was the editor, although the fact was probably
+an open secret in Cincinnati at the time. The truth of
+the foregoing inscription in his handwriting is confirmed
+by the acknowledgment of his authorship of most of the
+articles, contributed as well as editorial, conveyed by his
+customary signature, penciled at the end or beginning of
+each paragraph or column which he had written. The
+very title of the paper itself was a witness in the same
+way, and shows that at that time, although Hearn kept
+his name concealed, he was not, as later, sensitive concerning
+his ocular defect.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> It is plain that the word <i>Giglampz</i>
+refers to the large and conspicuous spectacles or eye-glasses
+which at that time (not later) were worn habitually by
+Hearn. The proof of this comes out in the illustration
+occupying the full first page of the initial number, and
+entitled:</p>
+
+<p class="cnobmargin">"A Prospect of Herr Kladderadatsch,</p>
+<p class="cnomargins">Introducynge</p>
+<p class="cnotmargin">Mr. Giglampz tu ye Publycke."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_6_6">
+<span class="label">[6]</span></a> In the first number is an editorial paragraph, written by Hearn,
+reading as follows:&mdash;"The public has indulged in speculation and
+no little levity, in regard to our name. In this as in the future
+conduct of this extraordinary sheet, we seek only to please ourselves.
+Whether the Publishing Company will declare 'Irish Dividends' in
+six months, or not, does not concern us. We (the editorial corps)
+being on a salary, look on public favour with serene indifference.
+The name pleases us. We look upon it in the light of a conundrum,
+calculated to induce reflection in simple minds. We hope some one
+may solve it, as we have incontinently given it up."</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">The scene is that of the stage of a theatre, and Kladderadatsch
+proudly presents Mr. Giglampz to the wildly
+applauding audience. The head of the obsequious Mr.
+Giglampz is very large compared with his body, but most
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;22]</span>
+conspicuous is the enormous <i>pince-nez</i> astride a nose of
+fitting proportions. Mr. Farney was even permitted to
+give a mere hint of the editor's facial expression.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A curious and suggestive, even a pathetic, light is thrown
+upon Hearn's character by the fact that this personal file
+of his journal with his own inscriptions, signatures, etc.,
+was found in a second-hand book-store by Mr. Farney
+after Hearn left Cincinnati.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Although it is as much too long for our quoting as it
+was for introducing the journalistic venture, I cannot help
+reproducing Hearn's first editorial, the "Salutatory, By a
+Celebrated French Author, a Friend of Giglampz":</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">It was a dark and fearsome night in the month of June, 1874; and
+the pavements of Fourth Street were abandoned to solitude.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The lamps, dripping huge water-drops fire-tinged from their lurid
+glare, seemed monstrous yellow goblin-eyes, weeping phosphorescent
+tears.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It was raining, and the funereal sky flamed with lightning. It was
+such a rain as in the primeval world created verdant seas of slimy
+mud, subsequently condensed into that fossiliferous strata where
+to-day spectacled geologists find imbedded the awful remains of the
+titanic <i>iguanodon</i>, the <i>plesiosaurus</i>, and the <i>icthyosaurus</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">We sat motionlessly meditative in the shadows of a Gothic doorway
+of medieval pattern, and ruefully observed the movements of a
+giant rat, slaking his thirst at a water-spout. Suddenly we were
+aware of a pressure&mdash;a gentle pressure on our shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A hurried glance convinced us that the pressure was occasioned by
+the presence of a hand.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It was a long, bony, ancient hand, dried and withered to the consistency
+of India-rubber. It might have been compared to the hand
+of a mummy embalmed in the reign of Rameses III, but we felt a
+living warmth in its pressure, penetrating our summer linen.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Oriental wizards occasionally need the assistance of a magic
+candle, in their groping amid ancient tombs&mdash;a candle which burns
+with a fuming stench so foul, that hungry ghouls flee dismayedly
+away. This candle is made of green fat&mdash;the fat of men long dead.
+For such a candle it is of course necessary to have a candlestick. To
+procure this candlestick it is necessary to cut off the right hand of a
+murderous criminal executed by impalement, and having carefully
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;23]</span>
+dried it, to insert the candle in its ghastly grasp. Now the hand laid
+on our shoulder strongly resembled such a hand.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The living warmth of its pressure alone restrained us from uttering
+a shriek of hideous fear. A cold sweat ravaged the starched bosom
+of our under-garment.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Suddenly a face peered out from the shadow, and the sickly glare
+of the flickering gas-lamp fell full upon it.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The aspect of that face immediately reassured us.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It was long to grotesqueness and meagre even to weirdness. It
+would have been strongly Mephistophelic but for an air of joviality
+that was not wholly saturnine. The eyes were deep, piercing, but
+"laughter-stirred," as those of Haroun Alraschid. The nose was
+almost satanically aquiline, but its harsh outline was more than
+relieved by the long smiling mouth, and the countless wrinkles of
+merriment that intersected one another in crow's-feet all over the
+ancient face. The stranger's complexion was that of caout-chouc;
+and his long lank locks were blacker than the plumage of those
+yellow-footed birds that prey upon the dead. His whole aspect was
+that of one who, by some eerie, occult art of self-preservation, had
+been enabled to live through the centuries.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Am I not addressing the celebrated author&mdash;&mdash;?" said the voice
+of the uncouthly-featured.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It was a half-merry, half-mocking voice&mdash;a deep voice that sounded
+as though conveyed from a vast distance through the medium of a
+pneumatic tube.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It therefore resembled in its tone the dreamily-distant voices never-slumbering
+Fancy hears in the hours devoted to darkness and slumber
+by moral people.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">An enormous drop of soot-tinged water fell upon our nose, incontestably
+proving that we were awake; and we murmured monosyllabic
+assent to the stranger's query.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"It is well," replied the Unknown, with a latitudinarian smile of
+joy. "I have been seeking you. I need your assistance, your talent,
+your mental vigour so enormously manifested in your cyclopean<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+phrenological development."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_7_7">
+<span class="label">[7]</span></a> The contrast of this allusion to his large single eye with his
+morbid shyness about it of late years is noteworthy.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"<i>Sapristi</i>, monsieur!&mdash;permit me to inquire the nature of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Attend a little, friend, and your curiosity shall be sated with
+ample satisfaction. I have existed as you see through all ages. I
+have lived under a thousand alias names, under the various régimes
+of a thousand civilizations, which flourished on ancient soil now
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;24]</span>
+covered by the mile-deep waters of foaming oceans. I have made
+my dwelling-place in the mighty palace-halls of Egyptian kings, in
+the giant cities of dead Assyria, in the residences of Aztec monarchs
+and Peruvian Incas, in the snow-columned temples of the Greek, and
+the lordly homes of the luxurious Roman. In fact, I am rock-ribbed
+and ancient as the sun; and have been worshipped as a genius in far-sparkling
+planets ere this mundane sphere was first evolved from
+that flaming orb. In all time when individualized intelligent thought
+existed, I have inculcated in living beings the truth of that sublime
+and eternal maxim&mdash;Laugh and grow fat. To-day men must be
+taught this glorious truth by the Bullock Press rather than the Tongue.
+I want your pen, not your tongue. Write me a salutatory for my new
+illustrated weekly&mdash;only five cents a copy."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">With these words he pressed a glazed Bristol-board card into our
+trembling hand, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">By the light of the weeping street-lamps we read thereon this weird
+legend:</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">GIGLAMPZ</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The title itself, the Introduction by "Kladderadatsch,"
+and the character of the contributions and cuts make
+it plain that the third object of the publication, called
+"Satire," was designed to be much more prominent than
+"Art" or "Literature." Unquestionably an American
+<i>Kladderadatsch</i> was planned, and by Hearn and his friends
+it was supposed that the editor had a sense of humour
+sufficient to carry on the undertaking. I have quoted the
+Salutatory to show that with the favouring of youth,
+ambition, opportunity and the best encouragement, Hearn's
+mind from the first line drifted inevitably to the fearsome,
+the weird, the unearthly and far-away. By no power or
+necessity could his imagination be forced or bound to the
+task of producing things comic or even satiric, especially
+such humour and jokes as the Cincinnati newspaper reader
+wanted in 1874. Of the twelve columns of reading in the
+first number of <i>Giglampz</i>, Hearn contributed about eight,
+made up of fifteen or twenty distinct paragraphs. In the
+second number his contributions number seven; in the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;25]</span>
+third, six; in the fourth, three; in the fifth, four; in the
+sixth, two; in the seventh, one; in the eighth, one. In
+about a dozen of the first number, he somewhat unsuccessfully
+tried to be humorous or satiric, while six were
+frankly tragical, critical, bitter, etc. In the succeeding
+numbers Hearn made little effort to be humorous; in the
+fifth number he describes with startling power a picture of
+"a hideous scene in the interior of a seraglio;" in number
+six he returns to the Orient and in "The Fantasy of a
+Fan" mixes poetry, prose and fancy with a hinting of the
+subtle soft witchery of the Hearn of twenty-five years
+later.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> In the second number is a full-page cut, in which
+Beecher is depicted as standing before a crowd of jeerers
+prior to being placed in the stocks, with the scarlet letter
+"A" upon his breast. Hearn especially requested Mr.
+Farney to make him one of the conspicuous spectators.
+The bespectacled face is easily recognizable in the copy
+given me by the artist. In the seventh number Hearn
+describes in two columns the story he supposes behind the
+pictured Gabriel Max, called "The Last Farewell" (now
+in the Metropolitan Museum, New York). It shows so
+early suggestions of the manhood strength of the wordmaster
+that I copy it:</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_8_8">
+<span class="label">[8]</span></a> Mr. Farney tells me that he had to compel Hearn, even then, to
+moderate the boldness of sentences which would by their sensualism
+and licence shock their Cincinnati readers.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">THE TALE A PICTURE TELLS</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<i>Butchered to make a Roman Holiday</i>"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The remarkably fine engraving from Gabriel Max's picture, "The
+Last Farewell," in a late issue of the Berlin <i>Illustrirte Zeitung</i> (and
+which the New York <i>Graphic</i> a few days since stole to spoil in the
+stealing), is worthy of the celebrated original at Munich&mdash;a painting
+which will never be forgotten by those who have once beheld it.
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;26]</span>
+Among modern painters, probably Max has no superior in the art of
+harmoniously blending the horrible with the pathetic; and in none of
+his works is this peculiar power exhibited to better advantage than in
+"The Last Farewell:" a marvel of colour and composition, one of
+those rare pictures which seem to reflect the living shadows of a dead
+age with the weird truthfulness of a wizard's mirror.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A beautiful Roman girl is exposed in the Flavian amphitheatre, to
+be devoured by wild beasts. She can scarcely be eighteen years old,
+judging from the slender delicacy of her limbs and the childish sweetness
+of the pretty little brown face which she has vainly been striving
+to screen from the rude gaze of the shameless populace with the remnants
+of a rich black veil&mdash;probably torn by the rough hands of some
+brutal lanista. She leans with her back to the great wall of stone,
+calmly awaiting her fate without any signs of fear, although the hot,
+foul breath of a panther is already warm upon her naked feet. To her
+right, but a few feet away, a leopard and a huge bear are tearing each
+other to pieces; on her left, another den has just been thrown open,
+and at its entrance appears the hideous head of an immense tiger,
+with eyes that flame like emeralds.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">You can almost feel the warmth of the fierce summer sun shining
+on that scene of blood and crime, falling on the yellow sands of the
+arena, drying the dark pools of human blood the wild beasts have left
+unlapped. You can almost hear the deep hum of a hundred thousand
+voices above, and the hideous growlings of the contending brutes
+below. You wonder whether there is one heart in all that vast crowd
+of cruel spectators wherein some faint impulse of humanity still lingers,
+one tongue charitable enough to exclaim:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Poor little thing!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No: only wicked whispers followed by coarse laughter; monstrous
+indifference in the lower tiers, brutal yells of bloodthirsty impatience
+from the upper seats.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Two Roman knights relieve the monotony of the scene by strange
+speculation.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"One hundred sesterces that the tiger gets her first!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Two hundred on the panther!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Done, by the gods! Where are the lions?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Why, that cursed barbarian killed the last three this morning, one
+after another. The finest lions of the lot, too."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Who are you talking about?&mdash;that tall, dark Thracian?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"No: he was killed the day before by the same gladiator that
+killed the lions. I mean that golden-haired giant&mdash;that Goth. Says
+he was chief in his own country, or something. He's killed everybody
+and everything pitted against him so far. And this morning they put
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;27]</span>
+him naked in the arena, with nothing but a mirmillo's shield, and a
+sword; and let the lions loose on him one after another. I bet a
+thousand sesterces on that little Numidian lion; but the rascal killed
+him as he sprang, with one sword-thrust, and I lost my thousand
+sesterces. By Hercules, that Goth is a match for a dozen lions!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Brave fellow, by all the gods! Did they give him the wooden
+sword?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Julius Cortonus says they did. I didn't stay to see the rest of the
+games, for I was too angry about my thousand sesterces."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Furies take that tiger!&mdash;I believe the brute's afraid of the girl!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent">"Why, it is madness to throw such a fine-limbed girl as that to the
+lions!" cries a Greek merchant, lately arrived in Rome. "Eyes and
+hair, by Zeus, like Venus Anadyomene. I could sell her for a fortune
+in a slave-market."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Aedepol! not in a Roman slave-market, you fool. Why, I've
+known Lucullus to throw better-looking girls than that into his fishpond,
+to fatten his lampreys with. May Cerberus swallow that cursed
+tiger!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent">The tiger has not yet moved; his vast head and flaming green eyes
+are just visible at the door of the den. The leopard and the bear are
+still tearing one another. The panther is gradually, stealthily, noiselessly
+approaching the poor, helpless girl.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Suddenly a fresh, bright-red rose is thrown from the seats above:
+it is the last earthly greeting, the last farewell token of some old friend&mdash;perhaps
+a brother, perhaps (O God!) a lover! It falls on the
+blood-stained sand, shattering itself in perfumed ruin at the maiden's
+feet.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">She starts as the red leaves scatter before her. She advances from
+the wall, and boldly withdrawing the fragments of her poor, torn veil,
+looks up into the mighty sea of pitiless visages&mdash;looks up with her
+sweet, childish, cherry-lipped face, and those great, dark, softly sad
+Roman eyes&mdash;to thank him by a last look of love. "Who can it be?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No one the maiden knows. She only sees a seemingly endless row
+of cruel and sensual faces, the faces of the wild beast populace of
+Rome,&mdash;the faces which smile at the sight of a living human body,
+torn limb from limb by lions, and scattered over the sands in crimson
+shreds of flesh....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Suddenly a terrible yet friendly eye meets and rivets the gaze of her
+own&mdash;an eye keen and coldly-blue as a blade of steel. A sternly
+handsome Northern face it is, with flowing yellow hair. For an instant
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;28]</span>
+the iron lips seem to soften in a smile of pity, and the keen blue eyes
+become brighter. So do the soft dark ones they meet in that piteous
+farewell.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">She has found her unknown friend.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">... A crash&mdash;a fierce growl&mdash;a faint, helpless cry&mdash;a spray of
+warm, bright blood.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent">"Ah, Caius! you've lost your hundred sesterces. The Fates are
+against you to-day!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Curse the Fates! Did you see the fool who threw her the
+rose?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"That great tall Titan of a fellow, with the yellow hair?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Yes. That's the Goth."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"What! the gladiator who killed the lions?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The same who won his freedom this morning. See! the fool's
+wiping his eyes now. These Goths can fight like Hercules, but they
+whine like sick women when a girl is hurt. They think up in the
+North that women are to be worshipped like the immortal gods. I
+wish they'd make the great red-headed brute go down and kill that
+cursed tiger!"</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn's single contribution to the last number of the
+fated <i>Giglampz</i> was a four-column retelling of "the weird
+story of Loki's evil children from the strange folk-lore of
+Ancient Scandinavia."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It was thus blood, sensualism and fiendishness that still
+aroused Hearn's interest when not only not compelled to
+the choice, but when they were contraindicated and wholly
+illogical. But it was all a little less revolting, less real,
+more artistic, than the tan-yard reporting, and it was
+drawn from more remote sources. Mr. Henderson suggests
+the same when he writes:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"But it was not in this slavery for a living even to crush
+out of him the determination to advance and excel. In
+the small hours of morning, into broad daylight, after the
+rough work of the police rounds and the writing of perhaps
+columns, in his inimitable style, he could be seen, under
+merely a poor jet of gas, with his one useful eye close to
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;29]</span>
+book and manuscript, translating 'One of Cleopatra's
+Nights.' ...</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"An Oriental warmth and glow pervaded him. While
+his lines were hard ones in the grime and soot and trying
+weather of Cincinnati, from which his frail body shrank
+continually, his trend of thought was largely tropical.
+Perhaps he saw beyond the dusky faces, rolling eyes and
+broad noses of the people of the Cincinnati levee, the
+mixed people of the West Indies and the beautiful little
+ones of Japan, with whom he was destined to live before
+long. However that may be, his greatest pleasure, after a
+translation from Gautier or an original tragedy where he
+could in his masterful way use his vocabulary of the gruesome,
+was to study and absorb the indolent, sensuous life
+of the negro race, as he found it in Cincinnati and New
+Orleans, and to steep them in a sense of romance that he
+alone could extract from the study. Things that were
+common to these people in their everyday life, his vivid
+imagination transformed into a subtle melody of romance.
+The distant booming upon the midnight air of a river
+steamer's whistle was for him the roustabout's call to his
+waiting mistress at the landing, and his fruitful pen drew
+the picture of their watching and coming and meeting."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The words <i>indolent and sensuous life</i> are also significant.
+The tropics, their fatalism and the kind of life there lived
+were drawing him with secret but irresistible force. Now
+begins to mix with and mollify the gruesome a softer
+element, also Oriental, or what is much the same thing,
+tropical&mdash;sympathy with and study of the simple and
+unlettered, those who are the improvident slaves of fate,
+thoughtless impulse or heedless desire. To them, as we
+shall see, Hearn's mind turned more and more. His was
+essentially an Oriental mind and heart, an exotic weed
+(and weeds may become the loveliest of flowers) dropped
+by some migrating bird upon the strange crabbed soil of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;30]</span>
+the crudest of Occidentalism. Never did Hearn stop
+yearning for the warmth, the fatalism and the laziness of
+tropic semi-barbarism. The gruesome was not being
+killed, but was being modified and tamed by civilization.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn had been discharged from the <i>Commercial</i>, where
+his salary was $25 a week, "on an ethical point of policy
+which need not be discussed here. The <i>Commercial</i> took
+him on at $22." Judge M. F. Wilson, of Cincinnati, tells
+me that his discharge was caused by his seeking a licence
+for and an open marriage with a coloured woman. The
+licence was refused, because illegal at that time. The law
+was repealed a little later. The marriage did not take
+place.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_9_9">
+<span class="label">[9]</span></a> Mr. George Mortimer Roe, at that time a friend of Hearn, now
+living at Long Beach, California, writes me: "Hearn was quite
+persistent in his efforts to persuade me to assist him in getting the
+licence, but I told him I could not aid him in his ambition to be guilty
+of miscegenation. For many years we had been the best of friends,
+but from that time on he always avoided me, scarcely speaking to me
+if by accident we did meet."</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">Mr. Henderson continues thus:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"As Hearn advanced in his power to write, the sense of
+the discomforts of his situation in Cincinnati grew upon
+him. His body and mind longed for the congeniality of
+southern air and scenes. One morning, after the usual
+hard work of an unusually nasty winter night in Cincinnati,
+in a leisure hour of conversation, he heard an associate on
+the paper describe a scene in a Gulf State. It was something
+about a grand old mansion of an antebellum cotton
+prince, with its great white columns, its beautiful private
+drive down to the public road, whitewashed negro-quarters
+stretching away in the background, in the distance some
+cypress and live-oaks and Spanish moss, and close by a
+grove of magnolias with their delightful odours and the
+melody of mocking-birds in the early sunlight. Hearn
+took in every word of this, though he had little to say at
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;31]</span>
+the time, with great keenness of interest, as shown by the
+dilation of his nostrils. It was as though he could see and
+hear and smell the delights of the scene. Not long after
+this, on leaving Cincinnati for New Orleans, he remarked:
+'I have lost my loyalty to this paper, and change was
+inevitable. Perhaps it isn't so much the lack of opportunity
+here or a lack of appreciation of associations as this
+beastly climate. I seem to shrivel up in this alternation of
+dampness, heat and cold. I had to go sooner or later, but
+it was your description of the sunlight and melodies and
+fragrance and all the delights with which the South appeals
+to the senses that determined me. I shall feel better in the
+South and I believe I shall do better.'"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Some of his Cincinnati acquaintances speak of his
+obsequious, even fawning, manner ("timid and feline of
+approach," says Henderson), of his "washing his hands
+with invisible water"&mdash;characteristics not dictated by the
+parentage ascribed to him, not consonant with his photographs,
+and not wholly with his gruesome traits. He wore
+heavy myopic spectacles at this time, not to see (because
+they were wholly discarded later), but probably in order
+not to be seen&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> to hide the double deformity of his
+eyes. One must remember that with or without spectacles
+the world a foot or two away was much of a mystery to
+Hearn, and that one fears a surely existent and near-by
+mystery. One approaches it or comes within its power
+with doubt, dislike and caution. The play of facial expression
+was not to be seen by Hearn. All Uriah Heeps
+may not be myopic, but all highly myopic persons will
+have slow, stealthy, careful, even catlike attitudes and
+manners; every step they take must be done with hesitation,
+bowed head and great care, in order not to fall or
+stumble against something. The wholly blind walk with
+more decision and quickness. Of course this slow, soft
+carefulness of manner, "the velvet feline step," was Hearn's
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;32]</span>
+all his life. It followed inexorably that, though possessed
+of a healthy and athletic body, there was possible for him
+no athletics which required accuracy of sight or sequent
+precision and celerity of movement. That with good eyes
+he would have been an utterly different man in character
+and in literature, is as certain as that he would have had a
+very different manner, movement and style of physical
+existence. With good eyes he would have been strong,
+athletic, bold, as is admirably illustrated by the fact that
+in the single sport in which little vision was required&mdash;swimming&mdash;he
+was most expert, and that he enjoyed this
+exercise to the fullest degree.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">To scale a steeple in order to describe the city from
+that unusual point of view was a task worthy of yellow
+journalism which cared little for accuracy but much for
+"scare" headlines. Hearn saw little or nothing of the
+city, of course.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The only letters written during the Cincinnati period,
+known to exist, are those of 1876, called, "Letters to a
+Lady," published in the volume, <i>Letters from the Raven</i>,
+Milton Bronner, editor.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> One other work, the origins of
+which date from this period, is "One of Cleopatra's
+Nights," and with this is demonstrated the beginning of
+the influence of the modern French school of story-writers.
+Hearn was tiring of the worst brutality and coarseness of
+Occidentalism, and seeking a way to the true home of his
+mind. The ghastly must become the ghostly. The
+Frenchman's art was to become his half-way house.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_10_10">
+<span class="label">[10]</span></a> Brentano's, 1907.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;33]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV_THE_NEW_ORLEANS" id="CHAPTER_IV_THE_NEW_ORLEANS"></a>CHAPTER IV.&mdash;THE NEW ORLEANS TIME</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;34]</span>
+I HAVE somewhere read of a nomad child of the desert,
+born and rocked upon a camel, who was ever thereafter
+incapable of resting more than a day in one place. Whether
+or not the wandering father gave the homeless son his
+illogical spirit of unrest, matters less than that Hearn had it
+to a morbid degree. Any place rather than Cincinnati
+would have been better for the happiness and success of the
+emigrating boy, but his relatives had ridded themselves of
+the burden by assenting to his wish. Excepting that to
+Japan, the only sensible move he made was from Cincinnati
+toward the tropics, to the half-way house thither&mdash;New
+Orleans. The desire to seek the <i>au delà</i> was present, his
+friends tell me, throughout the stay in Cincinnati. Perhaps
+the single city in the world which would satisfy his dream
+more nearly than could any other, was New Orleans.
+Being psychologically for the most part of degenerate
+Latin stock, and especially of the French variety, with the
+requisite admixture of exotic and tropical barbarism;
+bathed, but not cooked, in the hot and brilliant sunshine he
+loved and hated; touched and energized by too little
+Teutonic blood and influence, New Orleans offered to the
+unhappy man the best possible surroundings for the growth
+of his talents. Adding to this fortunate concensus of circumstance
+and partly a corollary of it was the most fortunate
+of all accidents that could have occurred to him&mdash;that is,
+the existence of a daily newspaper such as the <i>Times-Democrat</i>;
+of a paying mass of subscribers relishing
+Hearn's translations from the most artistic French writers
+of the short-story; and, most important of all, the presence
+on the bridge of the noble Captain of the Newspaper enterprise,
+the veteran editor, Mr. Page M. Baker. One shudders
+to think what would have been Hearn's later career had it
+not been for the guidance and help of this wise, sympathetic
+and magnanimous friend. For the one thing needed by
+Hearn in those who would be his friends rather than their
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;35]</span>
+own was magnanimity. It was his frequent misfortune in
+life to come under the influence of those as incapable of
+true unselfishness and real kindness as it was natural for
+them to be cunning and to use an assumed friendship for
+hidden flatteries and purposes of their own. Most of these
+would not have dreamed of associating with the man for
+any reason other than to stand in the reflected light
+of his literary fame. Most of them had as little care for his
+poetic prose, and as little appreciation or knowledge of
+good literature as they had of "the enclitic <i>de</i>." They had
+no magnanimity, only wile instead of it. As Hearn was
+also deprived of large-mindedness in all affairs of the
+world, he was unhappily prone to accept the offered bribe.
+He wanted above all things to be flattered and to do as his
+imperious impulses and weak will suggested. Any one
+who recognized these things in him and seconded the follies,
+remained his permitted "friend," but those who withstood
+them in the least and ran counter to his morbid trends and
+resolves&mdash;these were speedily "dropped," and insulted or
+grieved to silence. If they had magnanimity, they bore
+with the man in pity and answered his insults with kind
+words and kinder deeds. They recognized that they were
+responsible not to the man but to the carrier of a great
+talent, and although they might not forget, they gladly
+forgave, if possibly they might speed him on his predestined
+way.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Of this number was Baker. Directly or indirectly through
+him, came a long and happy period of life; came the congenial,
+educating work, without slavery, of the translations
+and other easy reportorial services. Of equal importance
+were the financial rewards. Before and after the New
+Orleans time not the least of Hearn's misfortunes was his
+intolerable and brutalizing improvidence and impecuniousness.
+Under Baker's friendship he came to what for such a
+person was affluence and independence. He found leisure
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;36]</span>
+to read and study and think outside of the journalistic pale,
+and better still, perhaps,&mdash;better to his thinking, at least&mdash;he
+secured the means to indulge his life-long desire for
+curious and out-of-the-way books. During this time it
+grew to consciousness with him that in everything, except
+as regards his beloved Art, he had a little learned to
+recognize the worth of money.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But within him grew ever stronger the plague of the
+unsatisfied, the sting of unrest, and he was compelled to
+obey. In a letter to me from Martinique, after he had
+recognized his mistake, he admits and explains as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I seldom have a chance now to read or speak English; and English
+phrases that used to seem absolutely natural already begin to look
+somewhat odd to me. Were I to continue to live here for some years
+more, I am almost sure that I should find it difficult to write English.
+The resources of the intellectual life are all lacking here,&mdash;no libraries,
+no books in any language;&mdash;a mind accustomed to discipline becomes
+like a garden long uncultivated, in which the rare flowers return to
+their primitive savage forms, or are smothered by rank, tough growths
+which ought to be pulled up and thrown away. Nature does not allow
+you to think here, or to study seriously, or to work earnestly: revolt
+against her, and with one subtle touch of fever she leaves you helpless
+and thoughtless for months.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But she is so beautiful, nevertheless, that you love her more and
+more daily,&mdash;that you gradually cease to wish to do aught contrary
+to her local laws and customs. Slowly, you begin to lose all affection
+for the great Northern nurse that taught you to think, to work, to
+aspire. Then, after a while, this nude, warm, savage, amorous Southern
+Nature succeeds in persuading you that labour and effort and purpose
+are foolish things,&mdash;that life is very sweet without them;&mdash;and
+you actually find yourself ready to confess that the aspirations and
+inspirations born of the struggle for life in the North are all madness,&mdash;that
+they wasted years which might have been delightfully dozed away
+in a land where the air is always warm, the sea always the colour
+of sapphire, the woods perpetually green as the plumage of a green
+parrot.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I must confess I have had some such experiences. It appears to
+me impossible to resign myself to living again in a great city and
+in a cold climate. Of course I shall have to return to the States for
+a while,&mdash;a short while, probably;&mdash;but I do not think I will ever
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;37]</span>
+settle there. I am apt to become tired of places,&mdash;or at least of the
+disagreeable facts attaching more or less to all places and becoming
+more and more marked and unendurable the longer one stays. So
+that ultimately I am sure to wander off somewhere else. You can
+comprehend how one becomes tired of the very stones of a place,&mdash;the
+odours, the colours, the shapes of Shadows, and the tint of its sky;&mdash;and
+how small irritations become colossal and crushing by years of
+repetition;&mdash;yet perhaps you will not comprehend that one can
+become weary of a whole system of life, of civilization, even with
+very limited experience. Such is exactly my present feeling,&mdash;an
+unutterable weariness of the aggressive characteristics of existence
+in a highly organized society. The higher the social development,
+the sharper the struggle. One feels this especially in America,&mdash;in
+the nervous centres of the world's activity. One feels it least, I
+imagine, in the tropics, where it is such an effort just to live, that
+one has no force left for the effort to expand one's own individuality
+at the cost of another's. I clearly perceive that a man enamoured
+of the tropics has but two things to do:&mdash;To abandon intellectual
+work, or to conquer the fascination of Nature. Which I will do will
+depend upon necessity. I would remain in this zone if I could maintain
+a certain position here;&mdash;to keep it requires means. I can earn
+only by writing, and yet if I remain a few years more, I will have
+become (perhaps?) unable to write. So if I am to live in the
+tropics, as I would like to do, I must earn the means for it in very
+short order.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I gave up journalism altogether after leaving N. O. I went to
+Demerara and visited the lesser West Indies in July and August
+of last year,&mdash;returned to New York after three months with some
+MS.,&mdash;sold it,&mdash;felt very unhappy at the idea of staying in New York,
+where I had good offers,&mdash;suddenly made up my mind to go back
+to the tropics by the same steamer that had brought me. I had
+no commission, resolved to trust to magazine-work. So far I have
+just been able to scrape along;&mdash;the climate numbs mental life,
+and the inspirations I hoped for won't come. The real&mdash;surpassing
+imagination&mdash;whelms the ideal out of sight and hearing. The world
+is young here,&mdash;not old and wise and grey as in the North; and one
+must not seek the Holy Ghost in it. I suspect that the material
+furnished by the tropics can only be utilized in a Northern atmosphere.
+We will talk about it together.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">That he never thought to return to New Orleans is
+demonstrated by the fact that when he left, he shipped
+his books to another good friend and great editor, Mr.
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;38]</span>
+Alden, to keep for him. When he came to the United
+States in 1889, he fully intended returning to some
+tropical land. But it was otherwise ordered, and most
+fortunately, for a year or two more of life under such
+conditions would have killed both mind and body.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Upon Hearn's arrival in New Orleans, he began sending
+a series of charming letters to the Cincinnati <i>Commercial</i>,
+signed "Ozias Midwinter."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> They are, indeed, exquisite,
+and as certainly of a delicacy and beauty which must have
+made the reader of that time and newspaper wonder what
+strange sort of a correspondent the editor had secured.
+The first letter was about Memphis, passed on his way
+South. I cite some parts to show how the gruesome
+was merging into or being supplanted by something
+larger and better, and also to illustrate Hearn's growing
+interest in colours.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_11_11">
+<span class="label">[11]</span></a> Kindly secured by Mr. Alexander Hill, of Cincinnati, Ohio, from
+a friend and lent to me.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The stranger, however, is apt to leave Memphis with one charming
+recollection of the place&mdash;the remembrance of the sunset scene from
+the bluffs across the river over Arkansas. I do not think that any part
+of the world can offer a more unspeakably beautiful spectacle to the
+traveller than what he may witness any fair evening from those rugged
+old bluffs at Memphis. The first time I saw it the day had been perfectly
+bright and clear,&mdash;the blue of the sky was unclouded by the least
+fleecy stain of white cloud; and the sun descended in the west,&mdash;not
+in a yellow haze, or a crimson fog, but with the splendour of his fiery
+glory almost undimmed. He seemed to leave no trace of his bright
+fires behind him; and the sky-blue began to darken into night-purple
+from the east almost immediately. I thought at first it was one of the
+least romantic sunsets I had ever seen. It was not until the stars
+were out, and the night had actually fallen, that I beheld the imperial
+magnificence of that sunset.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent">I once thought, when sailing up the Ohio one bright Northern
+summer, that the world held nothing more beautiful than the scenery
+of the Beautiful River&mdash;those voluptuous hills with their sweet
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;39]</span>
+feminine curves, the elfin gold of that summer haze, and the pale
+emerald of the river's verdure-reflecting breast. But even the
+loveliness of the Ohio seemed faded, and the Northern sky-blue
+palely cold, like the tint of iceberg pinnacles, when I beheld for the
+first time the splendour of the Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"You must come on deck early to-morrow," said the kind Captain
+of the <i>Thompson Dean</i>; "we are entering the Sugar Country."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">So I saw the sun rise over the cane-fields of Louisiana.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It rose with a splendour that recalled the manner of its setting at
+Memphis, but of another colour;&mdash;an auroral flush of pale gold and
+pale green bloomed over the long fringe of cottonwood and cypress
+trees, and broadened and lengthened half-way round the brightening
+world. The glow seemed tropical, with the deep green of the trees
+sharply cutting against it; and one naturally looked for the feathery
+crests of cocoanut palms. Then the day broke gently and slowly&mdash;a
+day too vast for a rapid dawn&mdash;a day that seemed deep as Space.
+I thought our Northern sky narrow and cramped as a vaulted church-roof
+beside that sky&mdash;a sky so softly beautiful, so purely clear in its
+immensity, that it made one dream of the tenderness of a woman's
+eyes made infinite.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And the giant river broadened to a mile&mdash;smooth as a mirror, still
+and profound as a mountain lake. Between the vastness of the sky
+and the vastness of the stream, we seemed moving suspended in the
+midst of day, with only a long, narrow tongue of land on either side
+breaking the brightness. Yet the horizon never became wholly
+blue. The green-golden glow lived there all through the day; it was
+brightest in the south. It was so tropical, that glow;&mdash;it seemed
+of the Pacific, a glow that forms a background to the sight of lagoons
+and coral reefs and "lands where it is always afternoon."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Below this glow gleamed another golden green, the glory of the
+waving cane-fields beyond the trees. Huge sugar-mills were breathing
+white and black clouds into the sky, as they masticated their mighty
+meal; and the smell of saccharine sweetness floated to us from either
+shore. Then we glided by miles of cotton-fields with their fluttering
+white bolls; and by the mouths of broad bayous;&mdash;past swamps dark
+with cypress gloom, where the grey alligator dwells, and the grey
+Spanish moss hangs in elfish festoons from ancient trees;&mdash;past
+orange-trees and live-oaks, pecans and cottonwoods and broad-leaved
+bananas; while the green of the landscape ever varied, from a green
+so dark that it seemed tinged with blue to an emerald so bright that
+it seemed shot through with gold. The magnificent old mansions of
+the Southern planters, built after a generous fashion unknown in the
+North, with broad verandas and deliciously cool porches, and all
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;40]</span>
+painted white or perhaps a pale yellow, looked out grandly across the
+water from the hearts of shadowy groves; and, like villages of a
+hundred cottages, the negro quarters dotted the verdant face of the
+plantation with far-gleaming points of snowy whiteness.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And still that wondrous glow brightened in the south, like a far-off
+reflection of sunlight on the Spanish Main.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"But it does not look now as it used to in the old slave days," said
+the pilot, as he turned the great wheel. "The swamps were drained,
+and the plantations were not overgrown with cottonwood; and somehow
+or other the banks usen't to cave in then as they do now."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I saw indeed signs of sad ruin on the face of the great plantations;
+there were splendid houses crumbling to decay, and whole towns of
+tenantless cabins; estates of immense extent were lying almost
+unfilled, or with only a few acres under cultivation; and the vigorous
+cottonwood trees had shot up in whole forests over fields once made
+fertile by the labour of ten thousand slaves. The scene was not
+without its melancholy; it seemed tinged by the reflection of a glory
+passed away&mdash;the glory of wealth, and the magnificence of wealth; of
+riches and the luxury of riches.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">O fair paradise of the South, if still so lovely in thy ruin, what must
+thou have been in the great day of thy greatest glory!</p>
+
+<p class="indent">White steamboats, heavily panting under their loads of cotton,
+came toiling by, and called out to us wild greeting long and shrill,
+until the pilot opened the lips of our giant boat, and her mighty
+challenge awoke a thousand phantom voices along the winding shore.
+Red sank the sun in a sea of fire, and bronze-hued clouds piled up
+against the light, like fairy islands in a sea of glory, such as were
+seen, perhaps, by the Adelantado of the Seven Cities.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Those are not real clouds," said the pilot, turning to the west, his
+face aglow with the yellow light. "Those are only smoke clouds
+rising from the sugar mills of Louisiana, and drifting with the
+evening wind."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The daylight died away and the stars came out, but that warm glow
+in the southern horizon only paled, so that it seemed a little further
+off. The river broadened till it looked with the tropical verdure of its
+banks like the Ganges, until at last there loomed up a vast line of
+shadows, dotted with points of light, and through a forest of masts
+and a host of phantom-white river boats and a wilderness of chimneys
+the <i>Thompson Dean</i>, singing her cheery challenge, steamed up to the
+mighty levee of New Orleans.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The letters descriptive of New Orleans scenes and life
+deserve republishing had I space for them here. In a brief
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;41]</span>
+paragraph, a sentence perhaps, almost in a word, is given
+the photograph, chromatic and vitalized in Hearn's unrivalled
+picturesque style, of the levees, the shipping, the
+sugar-landing, the cotton-shipping, the ocean steamers, the
+strange mixture of peoples from all countries and climes;
+the architecture, streets, markets, etc. The Vendetta of
+the Sicilian immigrants is described with a strength
+and vividness which bear eloquent witness to Hearn's
+innate pleasure in such themes. There is also shown his
+beginning the study of Creole character, grammar, and
+language. A peculiarly striking picture is painted of the
+new huge cotton-press, as a monster whose jaws open with
+a low roar to devour the immense bale of cotton and to
+crush it to a few inches of thickness. I cannot exclude
+this excerpt:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Do you remember that charming little story, "Père Antoine's Date-Palm,"
+written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and published in the same
+volume with "Marjorie Daw" and other tales?</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Père Antoine was a good old French priest, who lived and died in
+New Orleans. As a boy, he conceived a strong friendship for a fellow
+student of about his own age, who, in after years, sailed to some
+tropical island in the Southern Seas, and wedded some darkly beautiful
+woman, graceful and shapely and tall as a feathery palm. Père
+Antoine wrote often to his friend, and their friendship strengthened
+with the years, until death dissolved it. The young colonist died, and
+his beautiful wife also passed from the world; but they left a little
+daughter for some one to take care of.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The good priest, of course, took care of her, and brought her up at
+New Orleans. And she grew up graceful and comely as her mother,
+with all the wild beauty of the South. But the child could not forget
+the glory of the tropics, the bright lagoon, the white-crested sea roaring
+over the coral reef, the royal green of the waving palms, and the beauty
+of the golden-feathered birds that chattered among them.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">So she pined for the tall palms and the bright sea and the wild reef,
+until there came upon her that strange homesickness which is death;
+and still dreaming of the beautiful palms, she gradually passed into
+that great sleep which is dreamless. And she was buried by Père
+Antoine near his own home.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">By and by, above the little mound there suddenly came a gleam of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;42]</span>
+green; and mysteriously, slowly, beautifully, there grew up towering
+in tropical grace above the grave, a princely palm. And the old priest
+knew that it had grown from the heart of the dead child.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">So the years passed by, and the roaring city grew up about the
+priest's home and the palm-tree, trying to push Père Antoine off his
+land. But he would not be moved. They piled up gold upon his
+doorsteps and he laughed at them; they went to law with him and he
+beat them all; and, at last, dying, he passed away true to his trust;
+for the man who cuts down that palm-tree loses the land that it grows
+upon.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"And there it stands," says the Poet, "in the narrow, dingy street,
+a beautiful dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign lady, whose grace is
+a joy to the eye, the incense of whose breath makes the air enamoured.
+May the hand wither that touches her ungently!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Now I was desirous above all things to visit the palm made famous
+by this charming legend, and I spent several days in seeking it. I
+visited the neighbourhood of the old Place d'Armes&mdash;now Jackson
+Square&mdash;and could find no trace of it; then I visited the southern
+quarter of the city, with its numberless gardens, and I sought for the
+palm among groves of orange-trees overloaded with their golden fruit,
+amid broad-leaved bananas, and dark cypresses, and fragrant magnolias
+and tropical trees of which I did not know the names. Then I
+found many date-palms. Some were quite young, with their splendid
+crest of leafy plumes scarcely two feet above the ground; others stood
+up to a height of thirty or forty feet. Whenever I saw a tall palm, I
+rang the doorbell and asked if that were Père Antoine's date-palm.
+Alas! nobody had ever heard of the Père Antoine.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then I visited the ancient cathedral, founded by the pious Don
+Andre Almonaster, Regidor of New Orleans, one hundred and fifty
+years ago; and I asked the old French priest whether they had ever
+heard of the Père Antoine. And they answered me that they knew
+him not, after having searched the ancient archives of the ancient
+Spanish Cathedral.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Once I found a magnificent palm, loaded with dates, in a garden on
+St. Charles Street, so graceful that I felt the full beauty of Solomon's
+simile as I had never felt it before: "Thy stature is like to a palm-tree."
+I rang the bell and made inquiry concerning the age of the
+tree. It was but twenty years old; and I went forth discouraged.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At last, to my exceeding joy, I found an informant in the person of
+a good-natured old gentleman, who keeps a quaint bookstore in
+Commercial Place. The tree was indeed growing, he said, in New
+Orleans Street, near the French Cathedral, and not far from Congo
+Square; but there were many legends concerning it. Some said it
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;43]</span>
+had been planted over the grave of some Turk or Moor&mdash;perhaps a
+fierce corsair from Algiers or Tunis&mdash;who died while sailing up the
+Mississippi, and was buried on its moist shores. But it was not at all
+like the other palm-trees in the city, nor did it seem to him to be a
+date-palm. It was a real Oriental palm; yea, in sooth, such a palm as
+Solomon spake of in his Love-song of Love-songs.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"I said, I will go up to the palm-tree; I will take hold of the boughs
+thereof." ...</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I found it standing in beautiful loneliness in the centre of a dingy
+woodshed on the north side of New Orleans Street, towering about
+forty feet above the rickety plank fence of the yard. The gateway
+was open, and a sign swung above it bearing the name, "M. Michel."
+I walked in and went up to the palm-tree. A labourer was sawing
+wood in the back-shed, and I saw through the windows of the little
+cottage by the gate a family at dinner. I knocked at the cottage-door,
+and a beautiful Creole woman opened it.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"May I ask, Madame, whether this palm-tree was truly planted by
+the Père Antoine?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Ah, Monsieur, there are many droll stories which they relate of that
+tree. There are folks who say that a young girl was interred there, and
+it is also said that a Sultan was buried under that tree&mdash;or the son of a
+Sultan. And there are also some who say that a priest planted it."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Was it the Père Antoine, Madame?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"I do not know, Monsieur. There are people also who say that it
+was planted here by Indians from Florida. But I do not know whether
+such trees grow in Florida. I have never seen any other palm-tree
+like it. It is not a date-palm. It flowers every year, with a
+beautiful yellow blossom the colour of straw, and the blossoms
+hang down in pretty curves. Oh, it is very graceful! Sometimes
+it bears fruit, a kind of oily fruit, but not dates. I am told that they
+make oil from the fruit of such palms."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I thought it looked so sad, that beautiful tree in the dusty woodyard,
+with no living green thing near it. As its bright verdant leaves waved
+against the blue above, one could not but pity it as one would pity
+some being, fair and feminine and friendless in a strange land. "<i>Oh,
+c'est bien gracieux</i>," murmured the handsome Creole lady.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Is it true, Madame, that the owner of the land loses it if he cuts
+down the tree?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"<i>Mais oui!</i> But the proprietors of the ground have always respected
+the tree, because it is so old, so very old!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then I found the proprietor of the land, and he told me that when
+the French troops first arrived in this part of the country they noticed
+that tree. "Why," I exclaimed, "that must have been in the reign of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;44]</span>
+Louis XIV!" "It was in 1679, I believe," he answered. As for the
+Père Antoine, he had never heard of him. Neither had he heard of
+Thomas Bailey Aldrich. So that I departed, mourning for my dead
+faith in a romance which was beautiful.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Next to his best Japanese studies, I suspect it will finally
+come to recognition that Hearn's greatest service to literature
+is his magnificent series of translations during the
+New Orleans years. As a translator there were given him
+his data by creative minds. His own mental equipment
+prevented creation, and his clearly set limits as a translator
+added power to his ability and function as a colourist and
+word-artist. His was almost a unique expertness of
+entering into the spirit of his models, refeeling their
+emotions, reimagining their thought and art, and reclothing
+it with the often somewhat hard and stiff material of English
+weaving. All of their spirit philologically possible to be
+conveyed to us, we may be sure he re-presents. For his
+was the rare power of the instant, the iridescent, the
+wingèd word. I think it was innate and spontaneous with
+him, a gift of the inscrutable, illogic, and fantastically
+generous-niggard Fates. All his studies and conscious
+efforts were almost unavailing either to hinder or to further
+its perfection. If to Fate we may not be grateful, we can
+at least thank the weird lesser gods of life for the
+mysterious wonder of the gift. The wealth of loving labour
+silently offered in the 187 or more translations published in
+the <i>Times-Democrat</i> is marvellous. Hearn brought to my
+house the loose cuttings from the files, and we got them
+into some order in "scrapbooks." But the dates of publication
+and other details are often characteristically wanting.
+Elsewhere in the present volume the titles, etc., of the
+stories are listed. Preceded by those of "One of Cleopatra's
+Nights," they form a body of literary values which should
+be rescued from the newspaper files and permanently
+issued in book-form for the pleasure and instruction of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;45]</span>
+English readers. To do this I have most generously been
+given permission by Hearn's ever helpful and discriminating
+friend, Mr. Page M. Baker, editor of the <i>Times-Democrat</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn knew well the difficulties of the translator's art.
+"One who translates for the love of the original will
+probably have no reward save the satisfaction of creating
+something beautiful and perhaps of saving a masterpiece
+from less reverent hands." So anxious was he to do such work
+that he was willing to pay the publication expenses. As
+pertinent, I copy an editorial of his on the subject, which
+was published in the <i>Times-Democrat</i>, during the period
+in which he was so busy as a translator:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The New York <i>Nation</i> has been publishing in its columns a number
+of interesting and severe criticisms upon translations from foreign
+authors. These translations are generally condemned, and with good
+specifications of reasons,&mdash;notwithstanding the fact that some of them
+have been executed by persons who have obtained quite a popular
+reputation as translators. One critic dwells very strongly upon the
+most remarkable weakness of all the renderings in question;&mdash;they
+invariably fail to convey the colour and grace of the original, even
+when the meaning is otherwise preserved. Speaking of the translators
+themselves, the reviewer observes: "There is not one <i>artist</i> among
+them."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">All this is very true; but the writer does not explain the causes of
+this state of affairs. They are many, no doubt;&mdash;the principal fact
+for consideration being that there is no demand for artistic work in
+translation. And there is no demand for it, not so much because it is
+rare and unlikely to be appreciated as because it is dear. Artistic
+translators cannot afford to work for a song,&mdash;neither would they
+attempt to translate a five-hundred-page novel in three weeks or a
+month as others do. Again, artistic translators would not care to
+attach their names to the published translation of a fourth-or fifth-class
+popular novel. Finally, artistic translations do not obtain a ready
+market with first-class American publishers, who, indeed, seldom
+touch domestic translations of foreign fiction, and depend for their
+translations of European literature upon transatlantic enterprise.
+Thus the artistic translator may be said to have no field. He may
+sell his work to some petty publisher, perhaps, but only at a price that
+were almost absurd to mention;&mdash;and the first-class publishers do not
+care to speculate in American translations at all. We might also add
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;46]</span>
+that the translator's task is always a thankless one,&mdash;that however
+superb and laborious his execution, it can never obtain much public
+notice, nor even so much as public comprehension. The original
+author will be admired,&mdash;the translator unnoticed, except by a few
+critics.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Moreover, the men capable of making the most artistic translations
+are usually better employed. The translator of a great French, German,
+or Italian masterpiece of style, ought, in the eternal fitness of
+things, to be a man able to write something very artistic in his own
+tongue. No one seems to doubt that Longfellow was the man to
+translate Dante,&mdash;that Tennyson could parallel Homer (as he has
+shown by a wonderful effort) in the nineteenth-century English,&mdash;that
+Carlyle re-created Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister" by his rendering of it,&mdash;that
+Austin Dobson was the first to teach English readers some of
+the beauties of Gautier's poetry,&mdash;that Swinburne alone could have
+made François Villon adopt an English garb which exactly fitted him.
+But the same readers perhaps never gave a thought to the fact that
+the works of Flaubert, of Daudet, of Droz, of Hugo, of at least a score
+of other European writers, call for work of an almost equally high
+class on the part of the translator, and never receive it! What a
+translation of Daudet could not Henry James give us!&mdash;how admirably
+John Addington Symonds could reproduce for us the Venetian richness
+of Paul de Saint Victor's style! But such men are not likely to
+be invited, on either side of the Atlantic, to do such work;&mdash;neither
+are they likely to do it as a labour of love! A splended translation
+of Flaubert might be expected from several members of what is called
+"The New England School;" but what Boston publisher would
+engage his favourite literary man in such pursuits? It is really
+doubtful whether the men most capable of making artistic translations
+could afford, under any ordinary circumstances, to undertake much
+work of the kind, except as a literary recreation. At all events, the
+English-reading world cannot hereafter expect to obtain its translations
+from other European languages through the labour of the best writers
+in its own. The only hope is, that the recklessness shown by publishers
+in their choice of translators will provoke a reaction, and that such
+work will be more generously remunerated and entrusted to real
+experts hereafter.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is unfortunately true that the translators who work for English
+publishers are far more competent than those who do similar work in
+the United States; forasmuch as transatlantic firms are glad to print
+cheap popular translations, while only inferior American firms care to
+undertake them. Another obstacle to good translations in the United
+States is that none of the great literary periodicals will devote space
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;47]</span>
+to them. The English and the French magazines and reviews are
+less conservative, and some very wonderful translations have been
+published by them. Artistic translation might be admirably developed
+in this country by the establishment of a new magazine-policy.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The wise reader, if he is also a sincere friend of Hearn,
+must wish that the correspondence published had been
+limited to the first volume. Room aplenty in this could
+have been made for the dozen valuable paragraphs contained
+in the second. It is not strange that the letters of
+Hearn worth saving were written before his departure for
+Japan. He repeatedly had urged that letter-writing both
+financially and mentally was expensive to the writer. In
+Japan he was so incessantly busy, much with his teaching
+and more with his real literary work, that time and will
+were wanting for that sort of letters which are of interest
+to the general reader. The interest of the person addressed
+is another affair. The dreary half-thousand pages of the
+correspondence of the Japanese time are most disappointing
+to one who has been thrilled by almost every page of
+the incomparable letters to Krehbiel and to a few others.
+Besides the two reasons for this which I have suggested,
+there are others which may perhaps be evident to some
+judicious readers, but which at this time may scarcely be
+plainly stated. At present the trees are so thick that the
+forest cannot be seen, but some day an amused and an
+amusing smile of recognition and disgust will curl the lips
+of the literary critic. There are two other considerations
+which should be held in mind: One of them was brought
+to me by a correspondent of Hearn who had frequently
+noted it; sometimes (has it happened before?) Hearn used
+his "friend" to whom he was writing, as a sort of method
+of exercising his own fancy, as a gymnastics in putting his
+imagination through its paces, or for a preliminary sketching
+in of notes and reminders to be of possible use in later
+serious work. Moreover, the plan was of service in rewarding
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;48]</span>
+his correspondents for their praise and appreciation.
+Of a far more substantial character were the letters sometimes
+written in gratitude for money received. Hearn
+flattered himself, as we know, that he was without
+"cunning," but there is at least one exquisitely ludicrous
+letter in existence which shows an inverted proof of it, in
+the execution of an Indian war-dance, because of "the
+ways and means" furnished.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">As published, Hearn's letters may be classified as
+follows: To</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="100%" summary="hearn letters">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Krehbiel</td>
+<td class="tdl">1887&nbsp;(3); 1878&nbsp;(5); 1879&nbsp;(2);
+1880&nbsp;(3); 1881&nbsp;(4); 1882&nbsp;(4);
+1883&nbsp;(4); 1884&nbsp;(13);
+1885&nbsp;(8); 1886&nbsp;(6); 1887&nbsp;(4)</td>
+<td class="tdr">56</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Hart</td>
+<td class="tdl">1882&nbsp;(3); 1883&nbsp;(1)</td>
+<td class="tdr">4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Ball</td>
+<td class="tdl">1882&nbsp;(2); 1883&nbsp;(4); 1885&nbsp;(3)</td>
+<td class="tdr">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">O'Connor</td>
+<td class="tdl">1883&nbsp;(4); 1884&nbsp;(2); 1885&nbsp;(2);
+1886&nbsp;(2); 1887&nbsp;(2)</td>
+<td class="tdr">12</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Albee</td>
+<td class="tdl">1883&nbsp;(1); 1898&nbsp;(2)</td>
+<td class="tdr">3</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Gould</td>
+<td class="tdl">1887&nbsp;(5); 1888&nbsp;(4); 1889&nbsp;(8)</td>
+<td class="tdr">17</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Bisland</td>
+<td class="tdl">1887&nbsp;(8); 1889&nbsp;(11); 1890&nbsp;(3);
+1900&nbsp;(1); 1902&nbsp;(3); 1903&nbsp;(9);<br />
+1904&nbsp;(1)</td>
+<td class="tdr">36</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Tunison</td>
+<td class="tdl">1889&nbsp;(1)</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Chamberlain</td>
+<td class="tdl">1890&nbsp;(7); 1891&nbsp;(13); 1895&nbsp;(22)</td>
+<td class="tdr">42</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Nishida</td>
+<td class="tdl">1890&nbsp;(2); 1891&nbsp;(2); 1892&nbsp;(2);
+1893&nbsp;(9); 1894&nbsp;(2); 1895&nbsp;(3);
+1896&nbsp;(3); 1897&nbsp;(2)</td>
+<td class="tdr">25</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Hirn</td>
+<td class="tdl">1890&nbsp;(1); 1902&nbsp;(5); 1903&nbsp;(1)</td>
+<td class="tdr">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Baker</td>
+<td class="tdl">1891&nbsp;(1); 1892&nbsp;(1); 1894(1);<br />
+1895&nbsp;(3); 1896&nbsp;(2)</td>
+<td class="tdr">8</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Hendrick</td>
+<td class="tdl">1891&nbsp;(2); 1892&nbsp;(4); 1893&nbsp;(10);<br />
+1894&nbsp;(6); 1895&nbsp;(6); 1896(9);<br />
+1897&nbsp;(7); 1898&nbsp;(2); 1902&nbsp;(2)</td>
+<td class="tdr">48</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Otani</td>
+<td class="tdl">1891&nbsp;(1); 1892&nbsp;(1); 1894(1);<br />
+1897&nbsp;(1); 1898&nbsp;(2); 1900&nbsp;(1)</td>
+<td class="tdr">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Ochiai</td>
+<td class="tdl">1893&nbsp;(2); 1894&nbsp;(2); 1896&nbsp;(2)</td>
+<td class="tdr">6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">McDonald</td>
+<td class="tdl">1897&nbsp;(10); 1898&nbsp;(25); 1899&nbsp;(19)</td>
+<td class="tdr">54</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Fenollosa</td>
+<td class="tdl">1898&nbsp;(3); 1899&nbsp;(2)</td>
+<td class="tdr">5</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Blank</td>
+<td class="tdl">1898</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;49]</span></p>
+
+<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="100%" summary="hearn letters">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Foxwell</td>
+<td class="tdl">1899</td>
+<td class="tdr">2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Yasuchochi</td>
+<td class="tdl">1901</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Tanabe</td>
+<td class="tdl">1904</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Crosby</td>
+<td class="tdl">1904</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Fujisaki</td>
+<td class="tdl">1904</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdr">347</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Besides these, the valuable series of "Letters from a
+Raven," and the sixteen in the same volume "To a Lady"
+are noteworthy. The latter are of little value either for
+biography or literature. But the letters to Watkin are so
+sincere, often childlike, indeed, that they will be prized by
+the discriminating. Another admirable series, copies of
+which I have, is made up of letters to Professor R. Matas,
+of New Orleans. To these it is hoped will sometime be
+added those which must exist, to Mr. Alden, who was an
+early and sincere friend. There are a number of unpublished
+letters to Gould, and the published ones have
+been so mutilated that they should be correctly republished.
+Almost anything written by Hearn before he went to
+Japan, or in some instances reflecting friendships and
+feelings existing before he sailed, may prove of as inestimable
+value as most letters written thereafter will
+probably be found valueless.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is noteworthy that the first series, edited by Miss
+Bisland, was commenced in 1877, when Hearn was twenty-seven
+years of age, and that for many years Mr. Krehbiel
+was almost his sole correspondent. But the inimitable
+perfection and preciousness of these fifty-six letters! They
+are well worth all his other set productions, published or
+burned, of the same years. Many are singly worth all the
+rest of our letters. Here the dreamer&mdash;and a dreamer he
+always was until he got out of his cocoon&mdash;was sincere,
+hopeful, planful, as playful as his sombre mind would permit,
+but always magnificently, even startlingly, unreserved.
+Remembering that Hearn's mind was essentially an echoing
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;50]</span>
+and a colouring mechanism, it is at once a glorious
+tribute to, and a superlative merit of Mr. Krehbiel to have
+given the primary and stimulating voice to the always
+listening dreamer. To have swerved him out of his predestined
+rôle so much as to make these pages so astonishingly
+full of <i>musical</i> reverberations, is a tribute to his own
+musical enthusiasm and power as it is also a demonstration
+of the echo-like, but fundamentally unmusical, nature of
+his friend's mind. If only in the final edition of Hearn's
+works, these letters with selections of some pages from a few
+others, could be made into a handy, small, and cheap volume
+for the delighting of the appreciators of literature and of
+literary character! Comparison of the spiritual and almost
+<i>spirituelle</i> flashings of these, with the ponderous and banal
+sogginess of hundreds upon hundreds of other pages of his
+letters, arouses the profound regret that Hearn to the
+world was "impossible," that, as he says, he "could not
+mingle with men," that no other voices ever so intimately
+reached the heart of him, or of his dreaming. Even here
+the amazing coloration furnished by "The Dreamer," as he
+calls himself, makes us at times feel that the magic of the
+word-artist and colour-mixer was almost superior to the
+enduring and awakening reality of Mr. Krehbiel. To this
+friend, as he writes, he spoke of his thoughts and fancies,
+wishes and disappointments, frailties, follies, and failures,
+and successes&mdash;even as to a brother. And that was not all
+he saw and heard in "his enchanted City of Dreams."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The slavery to ignoble journalism, what he calls a
+"really nefarious profession," was to be resolutely renounced
+from the day of his arrival in New Orleans. It is
+"a horrid life," he "could not stand the gaslight;" he
+"damned reportorial work and correspondence, and the
+American disposition to work people to death, and the
+American delight in getting worked to death;" he rebelled
+against becoming a part of the revolving machinery of a
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;51]</span>
+newspaper, because "journalism dwarfs, stifles, emasculates
+thought and style," and he was bound to "produce something
+better in point of literary execution."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There was also a not frankly confessed resolve to become
+respectable in other ways, and to be done with a kind of
+entanglement of which he was painfully conscious in the
+Cincinnati life. "I think I can redeem myself socially
+here! I have got into good society;" "it is better to live
+here in sackcloth and ashes, than to own the whole State
+of Ohio," he writes, and he is proud of living in a Latin
+city. He recognizes what Mr. Krehbiel calls his "peculiar
+and unfortunate disposition," and which he later sets forth
+as "a very small, erratic, eccentric, irregular, impulsive,
+variable, nervous disposition." Hearn visits a few friends
+awhile and then disappears for six months, so that he
+wishes to be hidden in New York except to Krehbiel and
+Tunison; he will pay a visit to the others he must see just
+before leaving town&mdash;for he is a "demophobe." He tried
+a secret partnership in keeping a restaurant, and thought
+to carry on a little French bookstore. He resolved at
+different times to go to Europe, to Cuba, to Texas, to
+Cincinnati, and planned all sorts of occupations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The indications soon multiply that in more ways than in
+worldly matters he is at variance with his world. He
+"regards thought as a mechanical process;" he has "no
+faith in any faith;" "individual life is a particle of that
+eternal force of which we know so little;" "Soul = Cerebral
+Activity = Soul;" Jesus is a legend and myth; he is
+"not a believer in free will, nor in the individual soul," etc.
+Think of a man writing to a Christian minister, think of a
+Christian minister receiving without protest a personal
+letter with this in it: "Nor can I feel more reverence for
+the crucified deity than for that image of the Hindoo god
+of light holding in one of his many hands Phallus, and yet
+wearing a necklace of skulls, etc."</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;52]</span>
+And Hearn, as to ethics, has the courage to write his
+friend of his convictions: "Passion was the inspiring breath
+of Greek art and the mother of language; its gratification
+the act of a creator, and the divinest rite of Nature's
+temple." In other letters, unpublished, that exist, Hearn
+is morbidly frank as to sexual licence and practices. In
+tropical cities there is "no time for friendship&mdash;only
+passion for women, and brief acquaintance for men."
+Without the influence of sexualism there can be no real
+greatness; "the mind remains arid and desolate," and he
+quotes approvingly:&mdash;"Virginity, Mysticism, Melancholy&mdash;three
+unknown words, three new maladies brought among
+us by the Christ," etc. "I do not find it possible to persuade
+myself that the 'mad excess of love' should not be
+indulged in by mankind," introduces a brilliant page upon
+the theme, ending with, "after all what else do we live for&mdash;ephemeræ
+that we are?" To my protest he wrote,
+"'Moral' feelings are those into which the sexual instinct
+does not visibly enter;" and again, "The sexual sense
+never tells a <i>physical</i> lie. It only tells an ethical one."
+There is, to be sure, no answer to a man who says such
+things.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is astonishing, how conscious and at the same time
+how careless Hearn was of his characteristics and trends.
+In 1878 he could coldly prepare to attempt a get-rich-quick
+scheme, "a fraud, which will pay like hell, an advertising
+fraud," etc., because "there is no money in honest work."
+At this time also he knew that his own wandering passion
+was "the strongest of all," and that his deepest desire was
+"to wander forever here and there until he should get old
+and apish and grey and die." His misfortunes he confessed
+were of his own making because it was absolutely
+out of the question for him to "keep any single situation
+for any great length of time," hating the mere idea of it,
+"impossible to stay anywhere without getting into trouble."
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;53]</span>
+"No one ever lived who seemed more a creature of circumstance
+than I," he correctly avows. He recognizes that
+"the unexpected obstacle to success was usually erected
+by himself."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">He acknowledges his ignorance and escapes from it and
+from the labour, expense, and duty of scholarship by flying,
+as many others have done, to the world of Imagination,
+which alone is left to him. "It allows of a vagueness of
+expression which hides the absence of real knowledge, and
+dispenses with the necessity of technical precision and
+detail." He "never reads a book which does not powerfully
+impress the imagination." Knowing that he has not
+true and real genius, he "pledges himself to the worship of
+the Odd, the Queer, the Strange, the Exotic, the Monstrous.
+It quite suits my temperament," and he "hopes to succeed
+in attracting some little attention." The monstrous, the
+enormous, and the lurid, is sought in the letters. The sentence
+at the bottom of page 226, Volume One of the "Life
+and Letters," and the ghastly story, pages 322-323, show
+the gruesome still much alive, and page 306 that blood,
+fury, and frenzy haunt his nightmare dreams. "In history
+one should only seek the extraordinary, the monstrous, the
+terrible; in mythology the most fantastic and sensuous,
+just as in romance," And yet he defends himself as a
+lover of Greek art, detests "the fantastic beauty that is
+Gothic," yet prides himself on being Arabesque. Even the
+love of Beaudelaire creeps in, and the brutal, horrible
+photograph of Gautier is "grander than he imagined." Of
+course to such a mind Matthew Arnold is a "colossal
+humbug"&mdash;and worse.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">With increasing frequency are repeated the complaints of
+disillusionment; he is frightened at the loss even of the love
+of the beautiful, and his friend tries in vain to rouse him from
+his ghost-life and dreaming. There are absurd excuses why
+he cannot work; when among beautiful things he cannot
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;54]</span>
+write of them, when he is away he is longing for them;
+there are months when he cannot do anything, and a little
+thing is produced with great pain and labour. "The old
+enthusiasm has completely died out of me." The people
+and the city are adequately cursed, and upon the debilitating
+climate is laid a proper and ever-repeated anathema.
+He loathes the North, especially New York City, "shudders
+at the bare idea of cold;" he yearns and pines for a
+still more tropical country which he knows may kill him,
+and which came near doing so. The <i>Wanderlust</i> is upon
+him as passages on pages 183, 193, 196, 197, 207, 215, 223,
+224, 398 of Volume One of the "Life and Letters" illustrate.
+At last he is off for Martinique, where work and
+even thought are still more impossible because of the
+benumbing heat.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Here follows a list of the unsigned editorials contributed
+by Hearn to his paper. It is made up from two of the
+scrap-books left me, and is entitled:</p>
+
+<p class="center">SUNDAY AND SPECIAL EDITORIALS BY LAFCADIO<br />
+HEARN FOR THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT, 1885-1887.</p>
+
+<p>1. The "Peronospora Ferrani" and Cholera Vaccination.<br />
+2. Literary Pessimism.<br />
+3. "The Song Celestial."<br />
+4. The Canonization of the Mahdi.<br />
+5. "Successor of Tamerlane."<br />
+6. The World's Journalism.<br />
+7. A Scientific Novelty.<br />
+8. The Jewish Question in Europe (Suppressed by the management).<br />
+9. Russian Literature Abroad.<br />
+10. The European Trouble.<br />
+11. Missionaries as Linguists.<br />
+12. Courbet.<br />
+13. Poetry and Pay.<br />
+14. The Present and Future of India.<br />
+15. An Archaeological Novel.<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;55]</span>
+16. An Evolutional History.<br />
+17. A New Pompeii.<br />
+18. Archæology in Cambodia.<br />
+19. The Great "I-Am."<br />
+20. A Terrible Novel.<br />
+21. The Latin Church in the East and Bismarck.<br />
+22. English Policy in China.<br />
+23. The Fear of Death.<br />
+24. A Danger to Egypt&mdash;The Senousiya.<br />
+25. Archaeological News from China.<br />
+26. Icelandic Prospects.<br />
+27. A Great English Physician.<br />
+28. Academical Triumphs.<br />
+29. The Magician of Paris.<br />
+30. Tolstoi's Vanity of Wisdom.<br />
+31. "Minos."<br />
+32. Newspapers and Religion.<br />
+33. Minos.<br />
+34. A Concord Compromise.<br />
+35. De Mercier on Dante.<br />
+36. The Origin of Christmas.<br />
+37. "Immortality" according to Dr. Holland.<br />
+38. The Future of Idealism.<br />
+39. "Solitude."<br />
+40. Dr. Holland's Defenders.<br />
+41. The Religion of Suffering.<br />
+42. The Ruins of Carthage.<br />
+43. A Defence of Pessimism.<br />
+44. Over-Education in Germany.<br />
+45. Decadence as a Fine Art.<br />
+46. Use of the Eye or the Ear in Learning Languages.<br />
+47. The Shadow of the "Light of Asia."<br />
+48. The Jew upon the Stage.<br />
+49. Some Theosophical Iconoclasm.<br />
+50. "Hamlet's Note-Book."<br />
+51. The Invasion of the Desert.<br />
+52. Resurrected Æstheticism.<br />
+53. Translations.<br />
+54. Nihilistic Literature in the United States.<br />
+55. Some Human Frailty.<br />
+56. An Art-Reformer.<br />
+57. Some Notes on Creole Literature.<br />
+58. The Scientific Value of Creole.<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;56]</span>
+59. "l'&OElig;uvre."<br />
+60. A Havanese Romance.<br />
+61. Some Supposed Sanscrit Translations.<br />
+62. The Omnivorous Newspaper.<br />
+63. A Religious Nightmare.<br />
+64. Joaquin Miller.<br />
+65. Pictures vs. Text.<br />
+66. "Follow the Donkey Path."<br />
+67. A Sketch of the Creole Patois.<br />
+68. In Spain.<br />
+69. Chinese Belief in God.<br />
+70. "Towards the Gulf."<br />
+71. Tennyson's Locksley Hall.<br />
+72. "Doesn't Want Any Progress."<br />
+73. The Howard Memorial Library&mdash;A Letter from Charles Dudley Warner.<br />
+74. A Definitive Rossetti.<br />
+75. The Chinese Future.<br />
+76. Artistic Value of Myopia.<br />
+77. Colours and Emotions.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;57]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V_AT_MARTINIQUE" id="CHAPTER_V_AT_MARTINIQUE"></a>CHAPTER V.&mdash;AT MARTINIQUE</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;58]</span></p>
+
+<p class="cap">THE lure of the Sea and of the Unknown was upon
+Hearn during the entire stay at New Orleans. How
+deeply it entered his heart is shown in a fragment rescued
+by his friend, Dr. Matas, which has been kindly sent me.
+The copy is in print, but when and where it was published
+we have been unable to learn. It was probably written in
+1885 or 1886. As it gives glimpses at once into Hearn's
+mind, of his fateful desire to roam, of his Nature-love, and,
+better, of his growing mastery of technic and imagery, I
+reproduce herewith the fragment, which he entitled:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">GULF WINDS</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Golden oranges piled up in bins,&mdash;apples of the Southern Hesperides;&mdash;a
+medley of meridional tongues,&mdash;silky Latin tongues and their
+silkier patois; Chinese buyers yellow as bananas, quadroons with skin
+like dead gold; swarthy sailors from the Antilles; sharp odours of
+fruit freshly disembarked;&mdash;all the semi-tropical sights and sounds of
+the French market. I stood beside an orange-bin; and priced the
+fruit. Fifty cents a hundred! While wondering how much the fruit-vender's
+profit could possibly be, I was insensibly attracted by something
+unusual in his face&mdash;a shadow of the beauty of the antique world
+seemed to rest upon it. "Are you not a Greek?" I asked, for there
+was no mistaking the metoposcopy of that head. Yes; he was from
+Zante&mdash;first a sailor, now a fruit-vender; some day, perhaps, he would
+be a merchant.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is among those who sell, not among those who buy, that the most
+curious studies of human nature and of the human face are to be made
+in the French market. These dealers are by no means usually French,
+but they are mostly from the Mediterranean coasts and the Levant&mdash;from
+Sicily and Cyprus, Corsica and Malta, the Ionian Archipelago,
+and a hundred cities fringing the coasts of Southern Europe. They
+are wanderers, who have wandered all over the face of the earth to
+find rest at last in this city of the South; they are sailors who have
+sailed all seas, and sunned themselves at a hundred tropical ports,
+and finally anchored their lives by the levee of New Orleans. The
+Neapolitan Italian, the Spaniard, the Corsican, the Levantine Greek,
+seek rest from storm here, in a clime akin to their own and under a
+sky as divinely blue, and at a port not far distant from their beloved
+sea. For these Levantine sailors hate dusty inland cities and the dry
+air of the Great West.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;59]</span>
+If you, O reader, chance to be a child of the sea;&mdash;if, in early childhood,
+you listened each morning and evening to that most ancient
+and mystic hymn-chant of the waves, which none can hear without
+awe, and which no musician can learn;&mdash;if you have ever watched
+wonderingly the far sails of the fishing-vessels turn rosy in the blush
+of sunset, or silver under the moon, or golden in the glow of sunrise;&mdash;if
+you once breathed as your native air the divine breath of the
+ocean, and learned the swimmer's art from the hoary breakers, and
+received the Ocean-god's christening, the glorious baptism of salt,&mdash;then,
+perhaps, you know only too well why these sailors of the Levant
+cannot seek homes within the heart of the land. Twenty years may
+have passed since your ears last caught the thunder of that mighty
+ode of hexameters which the sea has always sung and will sing forever,
+since your eyes sought the far line where the vaulted blue of
+heaven touches the level immensity of rolling water,&mdash;since you
+breathed the breath of the ocean, and felt its clear ozone living in your
+veins like an elixir. Have you forgotten the mighty measure of that
+mighty song? have you forgotten the divine saltiness of that unfettered
+wind? Is not the spell of the sea strong upon you still?</p>
+
+<p class="indent">So that when the long, burning summer comes, and the city roars
+dustily around you, and your ears are filled with the droning hum of
+machinery, and your heart full of the bitterness of the struggle for
+life, there comes to you at long intervals in the dingy office or the
+crowded street some memory of white breakers and vast stretches
+of wrinkled sand and far-fluttering breezes that seem to whisper,
+"Come!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">So that when the silent night comes,&mdash;you find yourself revisiting in
+dreams those ocean-shores thousands of miles away. The wrinkled
+sand, ever shifting yet ever the same, has the same old familiar patches
+of vari-coloured weeds and shining rocks along its level expanse: and
+the thunder-chant of the sea which echoes round the world, eternal
+yet ever new, is rolling up to heaven. The glad waves leap up to
+embrace you; the free winds shout welcome in your ears; white
+sails are shining in the west; white sea-birds are flying over the
+gleaming swells. And from the infinite expanse of eternal sky and
+everlasting sea, there comes to you, with the heavenly ocean-breeze,
+a thrilling sense of unbounded freedom, a delicious feeling as of life
+renewed, an ecstasy as of life restored. And so you start into wakefulness
+with the thunder of that sea-dream in your ears and tears of
+regret in your eyes to find about you only heat and dust and toil; the
+awakening rumble of traffic, and "the city sickening on its own thick
+breath."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And I think that the Levantine sailors dare not dwell in the midst
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;60]</span>
+of the land, for fear lest dreams of a shadowy sea might come upon
+them in the night, and phantom winds call wildly to them in their
+sleep, and they might wake to find themselves a thousand miles beyond
+the voice of the breakers.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Sometimes, I doubt not, these swarthy sellers of fruit, whose black
+eyes sparkle with the sparkle of the sea, and whose voices own the
+tones of ocean-winds, sicken when a glorious breeze from the Gulf
+enters the city, shaking the blossoms from the magnolia-trees and the
+orange-groves. Sometimes, I doubt not, they forsake their Southern
+home when the dream comes upon them, and take ship for the Spanish
+Main. Yet I think most men may wake here from the dreams of the
+sea, and rest again. It is true that you cannot hear the voice of the
+hoary breakers in the moonlight,&mdash;only the long panting of the cotton-presses,
+the shouting of the boats calling upon each other through the
+tropical night, and the ceaseless song of night-birds and crickets.
+But the sea-ships, with their white wings folded, are slumbering at the
+wharves; the sea-winds are blowing through the moon-lit streets, and
+from the South arises a wondrous pale glow, like the far reflection of
+the emerald green of the ocean. So that the Greek sailor, awaking
+from the vision of winds and waves, may join three fingers of his right
+hand, after the manner of the Eastern Church, and cross himself, and
+sleep again in peace.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn left New Orleans in July, 1887, and was soon
+settled at St. Pierre, Martinique. His letters to Dr. Matas
+form the principal sources of information concerning himself
+and his work during his stay there. From them I
+choose a few selections which bear upon his literary
+labours. At first, of course, all is perfection:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I am absolutely bewitched, and resolved to settle down somewhere
+in the West Indies. Martinique is simply heaven on earth. You
+must imagine a community whose only vices are erotic. There are
+no thieves, no roughs, no snobs. Everything is primitive and morally
+pure&mdash;except in the only particular where purity would be out of
+harmony with natural conditions. As for the climate, it is divine&mdash;though
+this is the worst season.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And I have begun to hate all that is energetic, swift, rapid in thought
+or action, all rivalry, all competition, all striving in the race of success.
+It is just enough to live here: no, it is too much!&mdash;it is more than
+any ordinary human being deserves to enjoy. It makes one feel like
+crying for joy just to look about one.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Couldn't I induce you to abandon the beastly civilization of the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;61]</span>
+U. S., and live somewhere down here forever more,&mdash;where everybody
+is honest and good-natured and courteous, and where everything is
+divine? Man was not intended to work in this part of the world:
+while you are here, you cannot quite persuade yourself you are awake,&mdash;it
+is a dream of eternal beauty,&mdash;all the musky winds, all the flower-months
+of Paradise! New Orleans is the most infernal hole in the
+entire Cosmos. Don't live in it! Confound fame and wealth and
+reputation and splendour. You don't need any of these things here;
+they are superfluous; they are obsolete; they are nuisances; they are
+living curses. Settle here. Humming-birds will fly into your chamber
+to wake you up. What on earth you can find to live for in the U.S.
+I am now at a loss to see. You'll get old there;&mdash;here you will remain
+eternally young: the palms distil Elixir Vitæ.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But it is simply foolishness to write to you&mdash;because I can't write
+about this place. All ambition to write has been paralyzed&mdash;let Nature
+do the writing&mdash;in green, azure and gold!</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="fp61" id="fp61"></a>
+<img src="images/fp61.jpg" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption">Lafcadio Hearn.<br />
+From a Photograph taken at Martinique, August 24th, 1888.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">(Letter from St. Pierre, July 30, 1887.)</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I am not at all sure of my literary future,&mdash;I do not mean pecuniarily,
+for I never allow that question to seriously bother me: to write simply
+to make money is to be a d&mdash;&mdash;d fraud, so long as one can aim at
+higher things. But I do not feel the same impulses and inspirations
+and power to create;&mdash;I have been passing through a sort of crisis,&mdash;out
+of enthusiasm into reality and I do not feel so mentally strong as
+I ought. The climate had much to do with it in the beginning, causing
+a serious weakness of memory;&mdash;that is now passed; but I feel as
+if <i>mon âme avait perdu ses ailes</i>. Perhaps something healthier and
+stronger may come of it; but in the meanwhile I suffer from great
+disquietude, and occasional very black ideas; and praise sounds to
+me like a malicious joke, because I feel that my work has been damnably
+bad. The fact that I <i>know</i> it has been bad, encourages me to
+believe I may do better, and find confidence in myself.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I have enough MS. for a volume of French colonial sketches, and
+do not think I will be able to do much more with Martinique for the
+present; but I also have accumulated material out of which something
+will probably grow. I would now like to attempt some Spanish
+studies.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Northern air will do me good, though I do not like the idea of
+living in it. But when, after all this stupid, brutal, never-varying
+heat, you steam North, and the constellations change, and the moon
+stands up on her feet instead of lying on her back lasciviously,&mdash;and
+the first grand whiff of cold air comes like the advent of a Ghost,&mdash;Lord!
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;62]</span>
+how one's brain suddenly clears and thrills into working order.
+It is like a new soul breathed into your being through the nostrils&mdash;after
+the Creator's fashion of animating his Adam of clay.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Perhaps you think I have been a poor correspondent. You can
+scarcely imagine the difficulties of maintaining a friendly chat by
+letter while trying to do literary work here. Most people who attempt
+literature here either give it up after a short time, or go to the graveyard:
+there are a few giants,&mdash;like Dr. Rufz de Lavison (who never
+finished his Études nevertheless), Davey the historian; Dessalles who
+suddenly disappeared leaving his history incomplete. But I fear I
+am no giant. At 2 or 2.30 p.m. if you try to write, your head feels
+as if a heated feather pillow had been stuffed into your skull. To
+write at all one must utilize the morning;&mdash;that is given to make
+the pot boil: one can write letters only at intervals, paragraph
+by paragraph, or between solid chapters of downright wearing-out
+work.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Nevertheless, one learns to love this land so much as to be quite
+willing to abandon anything and everything to live in it. As in the
+old Sunday-school hymn, "only man is vile:" nature and Woman are
+unspeakably sweet.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I suppose I will not be able to meet you in New York this fall: you
+will be too busy. Next summer it will be possible, I hope. Perhaps
+you will have the pleasure of a little book or two from me during the
+cold weather: I will revise things in New York. It has been a
+horrible agony to have my stuff printed without being able to see the
+proofs, and full of mistakes. "Chita" has been a great literary
+success&mdash;contrary to expectation. I find success is not decided by
+the press, nor by first effect on the public: opinions of literary men
+count much more, and these have been better than I imagined they
+could be. (1887)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Well, I am caught! The tropics have me, for better or worse, so
+long as I live. Life in a great northern city again would be a horror
+insupportable. Yet I have had great pain here. I have been four months
+without a cent of money where nobody would trust me: you know
+what that means, if you have ever had a rough-and-tough year or
+two: otherwise you could not imagine it. I have had disillusions in
+number. I find worst of all, there is no inspiration in the tropics,&mdash;no
+poetry, no aspiration, no self-sacrifice, no human effort. Now,
+that I can go where I like, do as I please&mdash;for I have won the fight
+after all,&mdash;I still prefer one year of Martinique to a thousand years of
+New York. What is it? Am I demoralized; or am I simply better
+informed than before? I don't really know. (1887)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;63]</span></p>
+
+<p class="right">New York, September 29, 1887.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_12_12">
+<span class="label">[12]</span></a> Written during a brief stay in New York, whither he had gone in the fall
+of 1887.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Dear Friend Matas:&mdash;I am going back to the tropics,&mdash;probably
+for many years. My venture has been more successful than I ever
+hoped; and I find myself able to abandon journalism, with all its
+pettinesses, cowardices, and selfishnesses, forever. I am able hereafter
+to devote myself to what you always said was my <i>forte</i>: the
+study of tropical Nature&mdash;God's Nature,&mdash;violent, splendid, nude, and
+pure. I never hoped for such fortune. It has come unasked. I am
+almost afraid to think it is true. I am afraid to be happy!</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>c/o</i> Dr. George M. Gould,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+119 South Seventeenth St.,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+Philadelphia, June 5, 1889.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Dear Friend Matas:&mdash;Your letter of March 21 only reached me to-day,
+June 5th; but made me very glad to get it. I have been back
+from the West Indies about three weeks&mdash;do not know how long I
+shall stay. It seemed like tearing my heart out to leave Martinique;
+and though I am now in one of the most beautiful cities in the world,
+among dear friends, and with the splendid spectacle before me of man's
+grandest efforts&mdash;not a wild cyclone of electricity and iron like New
+York, but a great quiet peace&mdash;the tropical Nature with all its memories
+haunts me perpetually,&mdash;draws my thought back again over the azure
+sea and under the turquoise sky to the great palms and the volcanic
+hills and the beautiful brown women. I know I shall have to go back
+to the tropics sooner or later.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The effect of the climate, as you know, is deadly to mental work.
+Physically, however, I felt better in it,&mdash;less nervous than I ever was
+before. Only one's will to work is broken down; and it is better only
+to collect material there to work up elsewhere. That sort of work I
+am busy at just now. I have a signed contract for publication of
+"Chita" in book-form; and the result of my two years' absence will
+be forthcoming in a volume of larger size.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">You know Philadelphia, I suppose, the beautiful city; and I suppose
+you know that physicians here form the leaders of, and give the tone
+to, social life. It seems to me but just that they should,&mdash;representing
+the highest intellectual rank of civilization when they are really worthy
+of the profession.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">... As for other people wondering what has become of me; that
+is just what I want. I do not care to have any one know what I am
+doing till it is done.... I have happily got over a sort of crisis,
+however, which isolated me more than I would have liked to be isolated
+from the world at large: the distrust of myself.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="fp63" id="fp63"></a>
+<img class="border" src="images/fp63.jpg" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption">Handwriting of Hearn in 1889.
+face page 63.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;64]</span>
+Concerning the value of Hearn's Martinique work, I am
+permitted to quote from a letter written to him on May 24,
+1890, by the late Edmund C. Stedman,&mdash;and there could
+be no better judge and critic:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"I will not leave without telling you how much I am
+your debtor for the fascinating copious record of your life
+in the Windward Islands, and for your 'Youma'&mdash;both of
+which I take with me to 'Kelp Rock'&mdash;and which we shall
+know by heart ere long. The 'Two Years' came when I
+was 'moving' in New York, etc.,&mdash;so that books and letters,
+unacknowledged, perforce have piled up on my table. I
+am grateful for your remembrance and your gifts. <i>No</i>
+book could please me more than your 'Two Years.' Those
+Islands are my Hesperides&mdash;I had begun a series of poems
+and lyrics, cast in the Caribees, but your prose poems put
+mine to shame&mdash;and I am glad to listen to your music and
+leave my own unsung."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;65]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI_GETTING_A_SOUL" id="CHAPTER_VI_GETTING_A_SOUL"></a>CHAPTER VI.&mdash;"GETTING A SOUL"</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;66]</span></p>
+
+<p class="cap">SHORT though it was in time, the Philadelphia visit
+in 1889 has a value long in significance, that deserves
+epitomization. To begin with, it was Hearn's first experience
+of anything that might be called home-life. Its
+result was a softening and normalizing of him both as
+to character and as to manner, which was most evident.
+Secondly, and as he chose to put it, I "gave him a soul."
+By this poetic paraphrase he meant that I had succeeded
+in bringing to his recognition the existence of Freedom in
+what he thought determinism;&mdash;that intelligence, purpose,
+and beneficence lie behind biology, and that human beings
+are not always, and may never be wholly, the slaves of the
+senses, and the dupes of desire. Beauty itself, which he
+so widely sought, I asked him to note, is a needless, harmful,
+and even impossible thing in a world of adamantine
+logic and necessity. Above all, I demonstrated the existence
+of Duty, "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God," not
+only in the abstract, but in concrete lives, in social and
+historic exemplifications, and that only by means of men
+and women who obey conscience is social and historic
+progress brought about. They who have not seen that
+can have no "soul;" they who do see it, have soul, durable
+or great according to the clearness of the seeing and the
+obedience to the implication. Fully and freely Hearn
+acknowledged the vision, and never afterward could he be
+wholly the same as he had been before. But the Providence
+of the Oriental and semi-barbarous is Improvidence, and
+their God is Fate. Hearn came to hate, or to pretend
+to hate, the truth which had now slipped through his
+spiritual eyes, but he could not undo or outroot it entirely;
+"henceforth by the vision splendid is on his way attended."
+Thirdly, this new viewpoint, this new spirit or soul, I
+got incorporated in a little art-work, or ethical study&mdash;"Karma,"
+published in <i>Lippincott's Magazine</i>, May, 1890,
+after Hearn had gone to Japan. To the world and without
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;67]</span>
+the knowledge of its making, "Karma" must have
+seemed an illogical and even impossible thing for Hearn to
+have written. It is apparently the sole work which he
+ever wrote, created <i>de novo</i> and without the data having
+been found or brought to him from without. But it was
+only a seeming creation. It was only the telling, the
+colouring, that was his, as in his other tales before or
+after. In our long walks and talks in the Park at night,
+we wrought out the title, the datum, and the whole trend
+of the story. He rebelled, but I held him to the task,
+which he finally executed with frank and artistic loyalty.
+The pride or indifference, even the dislike, of its readers,
+the writer, or inspirer, is as nothing compared with the
+fact that by it and from it Hearn learned something of
+love and duty that had never before been a living reality
+to him. What an infinite distance it was removed from
+anything dreamed during the Cincinnati period, or to be
+derived from Flaubert, Gautier, or Beaudelaire! After that
+his future work could never be, and never was, what it was
+from the writing, "<i>Everything you feel you would not like
+me to know.</i>" I do not think there is exaggeration of the
+importance of the story, and what led up to its writing, in
+saying that it was the greatest of the turning-points in his
+life, and that directly because of it the magnificent works
+of the Japanese period were profoundly influenced through
+the attitude of mind thereby gained.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Concerning the heroine of the tale Hearn wrote me:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Your objection to my idea is quite correct. I have already
+abandoned it. It would have to be sexual. Never could find in
+the tropics that magnificent type of womanhood, which in the New
+England girl, makes one afraid even to think about sex, while
+absolutely adoring the personality. Perfect natures inspire a love
+that is a fear. I don't think any love is noble without it. The tropical
+woman inspires a love that is half compassion; this is always
+dangerous, untrustworthy, delusive&mdash;pregnant with future pains
+innumerable.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;68]</span>
+But, fourthly, that in which I feel as great a pride, is
+compelling him to go to Japan. Others could have
+reported for lurid yellow journalism, others might possibly
+have translated as well as he, others could have told the
+West Indian stories, but&mdash;not even his beloved Lowell&mdash;only
+Hearn could have written of the Japanese life and
+soul as Hearn has done. He had no thought of the
+journey when I showed him his duty and his opportunity.
+By argument, pleading, almost compulsion, I at last
+wearied his opposition, and he went, with reluctance, after
+months of halting in detested New York City in which he
+learned by bitter experience that it was no place for him,
+and that his beloved tropics should not be again sought.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">How disappointed he was in his New York friends and
+prospects may be gathered from the following excerpt
+taken from one of his letters to me. I had used all my
+influence to keep him from a stay in the city. He wrote
+as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Dear Gooley, your advice is good from your way of looking at it;
+but I am much stronger in New York than you imagine, and my
+future in it is plain and perfect sailing if I keep good health. I am
+only embarrassed for the moment. I am quite a lion here, and could
+figure in a way you would hardly guess, if I were not such a man of
+tentacles. I am not afraid of the cold&mdash;though it disheartens fancy a
+little; but I shall leave fancy alone for a while. No, Gooley, dear
+Gooley, I shall make my way in New York&mdash;don't be afraid for me.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">He soon became convinced that I was right and finally
+resumed the journey unwillingly. The end has justified
+the means and the sacrifices. It is plain that the Japanese
+period and work crown his life-labours splendidly, and that
+his masterful pictures of Japanese characters, traditions,
+and religion now constitute one of our most precious
+literary treasures. They have also been of profound
+service to Japan.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">When he left my home, he, of his own accord, asked me
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;69]</span>
+to care for his library, then in the home of Mr. Alden at
+Metuchen, New Jersey, who two years previously had
+consented to take charge of it, and had paid shipping
+expenses, insurance, etc. None can imagine anything
+ungenerous or unkind in Mr. Alden. An old Cincinnati
+acquaintance characterizes Hearn's action in the matter as
+"a swindle." I have no knowledge or hint how it was or
+could be of that nature. Hearn wrote all the letters, and
+made all the arrangements to have the books sent to me.
+Mr. Alden authorizes me to say:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"I was perfectly convinced at the time of the transfer
+of the library to Dr. Gould that he had no desire for its
+possession, and that the transfer was made solely in
+accordance with Mr. Hearn's request. I am quite sure
+that Dr. Gould fully explained the matter to me at the
+time. I feel sure that Dr. Gould acted precisely as I
+should have done if I had retained possession of the
+library; that is, readily giving it up to any legitimate
+claimant." I found the books of no value to me, and they
+surely have been an expense. I tried, later, to prevail
+upon Hearn to allow me to ship them to him in Japan, but
+I never received any replies to my letters. He asked for the
+catalogue, some of the old books, and beside these, at his
+request, a number of expensive new books were at various
+times bought and sent to him. I suspect that as there
+was not a book on Japan in the collection, and as he had
+a plethora of data at hand such as he wanted, the library
+gathered with so much love and enthusiasm was no longer
+of use to him, especially under the conditions of his life
+there.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn gained strength and power as regards both truth
+and art, in so far as he was true to the better in himself;
+all his trouble and his weakness were born out of the lower
+self he would not, or could not, sacrifice. His worship of
+the blood-curdling and revolting gave him some temporary
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;70]</span>
+vogue among the readers of yellow newspaperdom, but not
+until that was renounced for the compromise of the "odd
+and ghostly" did he begin to show an ability to reach something
+more worthy in human nature than the degenerate
+reporter catered to. The next step in advance was the
+cultivation of the artistic pornography of the sensualistic
+French story-writer. Not until he renounced this did he
+once more come to the something of more use to the
+reading world which fills the Martinique epoch. His disinclination
+to go to Japan, I more than suspect, was owing
+to a half consciousness that there was in that nation too
+much civilization, too good character, and even too much
+religion to suit the tastes which had been uppermost
+in motiving his past literary labours. His going into
+utter, illogical, and absurd captivity to the atheistic and
+materialistic philosophy of Herbert Spencer was a sorry
+sacrifice of his nobler office and better destiny to the fate
+that relentlessly dogged his footsteps. He was forced
+into all the humanity and beneficence possible to him by
+Japanese restraint, art, and truth. His cries of disillusion
+over the Japanese were largely the anger of the semi-barbaric
+wanderer held by family ties, paternity, etc., when
+he found himself prevented from again seeking the faraway
+tropical pseudo-paradises of peoples but one remove
+from savagery.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In the pre-Japanese periods only the lurid, the monstrous,
+the enormous, only hot crime, and sexual passion, could
+excite his liveliest interest, and all great literature was as
+much ignored as if it did not exist. There is not a hint
+in all he did that he had read a line of the great creators
+of literature,&mdash;the Greek dramatists, Dante, Goethe, Shakespere,
+and a hundred more; he could not give time to
+read, much less study them. His pretension of ability to
+teach English literature was soon recognized even by the
+Japanese, and it is well that over-zealous friends did not
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;71]</span>
+secure him a lectureship at Cornell University. To be
+sure, he never had time to study even the history of his
+own science and art,&mdash;but he never would have done so,
+it is plain, if leisure and opportunity had been offered him.
+The ideal and the rewards of scholarship never entered
+his mind. Perhaps it was best for his peculiar office and
+proficiency that he allowed all erudition to go unlooked-upon.
+And yet if he had been possessed of sufficient
+virility and objectivity of mind to have learned the
+Japanese language, what would the labour not have been
+worth? That he could not read a Japanese book or
+newspaper after fourteen years of life among the people is
+most disconcerting. It is a tribute to the amazing delicacy
+and receptiveness of his mind that while he could not
+speak to his wife or children in their own tongue, he should
+still have so accurately caught the Japanese spirit and so
+admirably conveyed it to us.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The history of Hearn's ghoulish pleasure in the gruesome
+and sensualistic, runs from the tan-yard horror and Cincinnati
+reportorial days, through the translated stories of
+the New Orleans epoch, to his "St. Anthony." In "Stray
+Leaves" it is but little softened, and yet the atmosphere
+is brightening. It glitters and flashes like vengeful lightning
+about the clouds of his mind with the Martinique epoch,
+etc.; but in the Japanese writing even the "Mountain of
+Skulls" and other stories are so far removed from reality
+that our disgust sinks to a smile of sighing wonder that the
+gruesome could still be so loved by him. It is only a few
+of the brutal and a small brutalized public that seeks such
+<i>contes drolatiques</i> (without Balzac's wit, satire, and power,
+of course), and so again perforce, Hearn was weaned from
+his morbidities. Dominated by his developing art and
+also by the need to sell his writings, he thus rose, partly
+by the command of his readers, to the choice of less and
+less repulsive themes and methods, and, awed by the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;72]</span>
+Japanese spirit of gentleness and beauty, he finally endowed
+their national soul-life with a prismatic glory which
+they themselves had hardly suspected.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn deserted the god of religion, and, except in one
+respect, he was faithless to the god of ethics. He was,
+therefore, without any divinity. For a mind that had no
+creative ability, that <i>must</i> have its <i>subjects</i> furnished to it,
+a mind whose sole function was to colour the data chosen
+or given from without,&mdash;this inner emptiness could only be
+deceived by but could not be satisfied with the inner
+emptiness of Spencerism. He acknowledged that religion
+was the mother of all civilization, arts, and laws, and that
+all social systems, arts, and laws, antique or modern, were
+begotten and nurtured by ethics,&mdash;and yet there was no
+reality in, no reason for the existence of either religion or
+ethics in this world of mechanics and of fatalism, grim and
+inexorable.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn speaks somewhere of his aspiration to be considered
+a "thinker," and once he praises "science" as a
+source of data for working into the art forms of his beloved
+poetic prose. But science to him was as impossible as
+was he to polite society; Spencer gave him leave, he
+thought, to consider his atheism, irreligion, and sensualisticism
+as scientifically authorized, and logically justified.
+He was always hankering after the old heathen, even
+savage, gods of his father and mother; and every time he
+went Fantee with them, he came back to a saner world
+weakened and still more at war with himself. He always
+sought an impossible world where Teutonic worth and
+honour could supply a decadent Latin, with half-savage
+languor and never failing delights of the senses and of
+art,&mdash;art which, in the last analysis, was his only god.
+But his tragedy was that he always hastened to turn his
+god into a fetich, while even his mind caught disquieting
+glimpses of the awful truth that all genuine worship
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;73]</span>
+abjures fetichism. As sensualism is the superstition of
+love, so fetichistic art is the superstition of true æsthetics.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">For the most part, minds are mechanical not chemical
+compoundings, or if chemic, they are in very unstable equilibrium.
+There are strange and wayward traits, illogic and
+unfused to unity with the others. There may be psychopathic
+and isolation wards in the psyche, "retreats," and
+all manner of diseases of individual organs. Most people
+go Fantee, often or seldom, and are able to hide their
+fetichisms from even their best friends. If we observe
+ourselves at all, most of us wonder at the curious mix of
+self-contradictories in ourselves. The few whose souls and
+bodies are fused to clear-cut unity, the component metal
+melted to harmony in the foundry of Fate and of Purpose,&mdash;these
+clang loyally in absolute and precise tone-colour.
+In commoner folk the failure of the flux, and the flaws in
+the casting, have only a social significance, but with the
+Hearns, with thinkers and writers, the affair has an infinite
+purport.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn could never make his writings and his art impulses
+square with his beloved materialistic, deterministic
+philosophy. He did not believe in soul or in souls, and yet
+his soul was always treating of souls, and showing the
+invisible thread of continuity which links souls to Soul.
+Therefore he is always happiest when his <i>daimon</i> breaks
+from the restraint of theory and fate and pictures the play
+of free spirit, of soul unconquered by fate, of life victorious
+over death in some sad way or bright.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Concerning Hearn's treatment of friends, editors, and
+publishers, as it bears sharply upon his literary character
+and productivity, as little as may or must be said: He was
+under bonds to Fate to abuse worst the majority of his
+friends who were most magnanimous, helpful, and kind to
+him personally, or who were most discriminating and
+encouraging toward his art and artistic ideals. To his
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;74]</span>
+former Cincinnati comrades, except the old printer-friend,
+he scarcely ever wrote after he left them, and the most
+faithful of these recently writes me: "I never pretended to
+be a friend to him; I was merely one to whom he resorted
+when all the rest cast him out. He never found me
+wanting, but he got few letters from me, and none that
+were flattering." "I used to love Matas" are Hearn's
+pitiful words. It is with sorrow and pain that we note the
+sudden cessation in 1887 of the letters to Krehbiel. This
+noble friend had drawn from Hearn a beautiful world of
+play and enduring memories, and one may be more than
+sure that it was not Krehbiel who should be blamed.
+Baker had been his most helpful and best friend, and yet for
+a fancied wrong Hearn wrote him a letter filled with insult
+and ruffianism which a gentleman could not answer, hardly
+forgive, and never forget. Did Hearn know anybody of
+character in the West Indies? To the greatest of
+American editors, the one who "discovered" him and
+introduced him to a national and international audience,
+who treated him with a sweet and gracious benignity, even
+after a shamelessness that is indescribable&mdash;to this good
+man there is not a published letter, although many, and
+many more, must exist. One day while at my house,
+Hearn rushed to his room, seized the man's picture on the
+wall, tore it in a hundred pieces, and danced and spat upon
+it in a furious rage. In subsequent letters to me he explained
+his hatred&mdash;how he broke his engagements, how he
+borrowed money from his loathed and insulted friend, how
+he got credit through him from his tailor, etc. Gently the
+abused one bore it all and without the least remonstrance,
+writing me, "Hearn has utterly cast me off; I was loath to
+part with him." Professor Chamberlain and others kindly
+explain the curious morbid psychology which Hearn had
+exhibited towards them. To the last, love and trust
+breathed from Hearn's letters to me, and yet I learn that
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;75]</span>
+to others long afterward he wrote of me with bitterness
+and malevolent injustice. And yet he had written me after
+I saw him for the last time, in this way: "Please don't
+write me at all, or expect me to write, for some months.
+I do not need any money. I have a good deal on my
+mind, and am apt, in consequence, to do very stupid or
+very unkind things in an unlucky moment." And then he
+wrote: "No, dear Gooley, I will never be indifferent to
+you! Never think that; I understand better than you
+suppose. If I am silent at intervals, never doubt me, dear
+teacher and brother; and you will find everything come
+right." How often is the pathos of life sadly exaggerated
+by giving way to foolish, needless, and degrading inherited
+instincts at the expense of the higher life and usefulness!
+As to some who ludicrously boast of the long continuance
+of an intimate friendship, there are many letters of Hearn
+extant and unpublished which blow out that vanity with
+an amusing smile. The matter, generally, might not have
+so real an importance were it not that the publishing of
+literature has a vast deal to do with literature, and, closely
+examined, Hearn's quarrels with editors, publishers, and
+the public, is a matter that reaches out astonishingly both
+as regards himself, his books, and the interest in him, as
+well as beyond the question of Hearn or of any or all of
+his friends. Until one silent man consents to speak&mdash;which
+may never be&mdash;the discussion of the essence of the
+affair cannot be set forth in any detail. Passages in
+Hearn's letters relating thereto should never have been
+published, or a hundred other things should have been as
+frankly published. When such publicity shall exist the
+reasons will be manifest why one publisher destroyed an
+entire fresh edition of one book of Hearn, why another
+acted differently, why one is praised or praises himself,
+why others are blamed, why some are silent although a
+word would end the injustice, etc. One phase may be
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;76]</span>
+noted in passing:&mdash;Whatever Hearn's rights or wrongs as
+to the author's relations with publishers and editors, it was
+beyond the ken of his mind that one who may gloriously
+sacrifice all his own temporal blessings in striving after
+artistic excellence, has no right to ask the same altruism
+of those engaged in the publishing business. Hearn
+blamed the crude world, and, for him, its representatives
+in the persons of editors and their masters, the publishers,
+for wishing a certain kind of literature. As well blame
+the bookseller for not sending the book you had not
+ordered. He who deliberately chooses to give the world
+a literature he knows it does not want, must accept the
+rejection and editing of his manuscripts, and the absence
+of the world's cheques. He chose poverty and may not
+abuse them who allowed his choice to be realized. It is
+sad enough, but it is more than childish to grumble, more
+than ignoble to rail.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The search for "inspiration," as he called it, was with
+Hearn constant and lifelong. Thus, early in his career, he
+wrote to his friend, Dr. Matas:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">So I wait for the poet's Pentecost&mdash;the inspiration of Nature&mdash;the
+descent of the Tongues of Fire. And I think they will come when
+the wild skies brighten, and the sun of the Mexican Gulf reappears
+for his worshippers&mdash;with hymns of wind and sea, and the prayers of
+birds. When one becomes bathed in this azure and gold air&mdash;saturated
+with the perfume of the sea, he can't help writing <i>something</i>.
+And he cannot help feeling a new sense of being. The Soul of the
+Sea mingles with his own, is breathed into him: the Spirit that
+moveth over the deep is the Creator indeed&mdash;vivifying, illuminating,
+strengthening. I really feel his Religion&mdash;the sense of awe that
+comes to one in some great silent temple. You would feel it too
+under this eternal vault of blue, when the weird old Sea is touching
+the keys of his mighty organ....</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>And again he wrote:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I think I <i>must</i> get inspiration. The real secret of art is feeling.
+The highest form of that feeling is that which the splendour of
+Nature gives&mdash;the thrill and awe of terrible beauty. This is that
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;77]</span>
+inexplicable communication of the mind with the Unknowable that
+has created the religious sense. Said a friend to me yesterday, who
+is not a believer:&mdash;"I stood in the Alps at sunrise, and I knew what
+religion meant." And I think that passage in Wilson on Fetichism
+superb where he says that the sight of the splendid sky first created the
+religious sense. Terribly perverted this sense has been, no doubt;
+but it belongs, I fancy, to those things which are eternal, and will
+have many a glorious avatar before our planet floats off into the
+cemetery of dead worlds. It is, I believe, the most powerful possible
+motive for true modern poetry&mdash;in harmony with science and scientific
+faith; and that is what I am going to look for.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Such quotations could be multiplied indefinitely, but
+toward the end they become begging, and moaning in
+character. The "inspiration" is diligently hunted, hungrily
+waited for; at last the failure in its coming grows pitiful
+and tragic. For what is inspiration? If, with the fatal
+fashion of our fashionable fatalism, we think "we have
+outgrown all that," all that which was real and genuine
+inspiring, we at least cannot outgrow that which bred the
+belief in the inspiring, the trust in spirit and in spiritual
+truths and forces. Is it all primitive childishness, this faith
+in a real breathing-in of the higher life into our more
+carnal hearts and minds? Far from it! It is the veriest
+of verities, and the <i>deniers</i> of the conditions of inspiration
+dry up the springs of that "inspiration" which they so
+hungrily seek. The semblance cannot be without the
+reality. It will not come, lasting and inexhaustible, by
+any trick of literary technic. Out of the light of common
+day is not born that which never was on any sea or shore.
+Place, time, circumstance, are not, as Hearn thought, the
+gods of "Inspiration." "The wind bloweth where it
+listeth," and even a heathen god would hardly visit the
+altar with his sacred fire if the priests mocked at the power
+and the very existence of the deity. It is most plain that
+Hearn early and zealously studied the Bible&mdash;hundreds
+of allusions bear witness of the fact&mdash;and that he learned
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;78]</span>
+from it the revivification of words, the use of phrase,
+metaphor, belief, something of the art of reaching in toward
+the depths of men's moral and religious nature and experience:
+but all, just so evidently, as a literary art, a <i>tour de
+force</i>, the skill of the expert workman, handling them as
+symbols for the sake of the skill, while smiling scornfully
+at any belief in their reality. Language is the most spirit-like
+creation of man's mind, the thing nearest him, woven
+out of his own soul-substance, instinct with his life, haunted
+with his love, his hate, his suffering. Playing with words,
+using them as art-stuff, regardless of the experience and
+love and suffering which gave them conceiving and gives
+them quickening, is likely to bring upon the artist a sad
+revenge. Pleading in vain for "inspiration," Hearn died a
+score or more of years before he should have died.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It should be emphasized that Hearn had but one possible
+way, chosen or compelled, to make a living. His terrible
+myopia shut him out from every calling except that of a
+writer. Moreover, leaving aside the danger to his little
+vision from so much ocular labour, he had other and
+almost insurmountable handicaps as a poet or maker of
+literature: He had no original thing to say, for he was
+entirely without creative power, and had always to borrow
+theme and plot. Then he had never seen form, knew
+almost nothing of it as it exists out there, so that his sole
+technic was that of a colourist, and also to endow our dead
+and dying words with life&mdash;a "ghostly" life it was, and as
+he chose it to be&mdash;but living it assuredly was. That he
+over-coloured his pictures, that he over-sensualized his
+words, of this there is no question&mdash;but monotones and
+senescents that we are, let us not smile too superciliously!
+Let us learn; and above all let us enjoy!</p>
+
+<p class="indent">For, his alone was the palette of the painter of the afterglow
+of Earth's last sunset. And his the unique miracle
+of clothing with the hues of a hopeless rainbow, the faint
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;79]</span>
+reverberations of bells far sunk in the wreck and wrack of
+ruined centuries; of reintoning the prayers of Nirvâna-entering
+souls; of remoaning dear ancient and expiring
+griefs; of seeing with shut eyes the sad smiles of never-answered
+loves and never-meeting lovers. With him,
+hushed, we hearken to Muezzin Bilâl's call from his tower,
+to the broken sobs of a dancing-girl's passion, or to the
+plaintive beggings of dying babes for the cold breasts of
+dead mothers.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;81]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII_IN_GHOSTLY_JAPAN" id="CHAPTER_VII_IN_GHOSTLY_JAPAN"></a>CHAPTER VII.&mdash;"IN GHOSTLY JAPAN"</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;82]</span></p>
+
+<p class="cap">PERHAPS I should not have succeeded in getting
+Hearn to attempt Japan had it not been for a little
+book that fell into his hands during the stay with me.
+Beyond question, Mr. Lowell's volume had a profound
+influence in turning his attention to Japan and greatly
+aided me in my insistent urging him to go there. In
+sending the book Hearn wrote me this letter:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Gooley!&mdash;I have found a marvellous book,&mdash;a book of books!&mdash;a
+colossal, splendid, godlike book. You must read every line of it.
+Tell me how I can send it. For heaven's sake don't skip a word
+of it. The book is called "The Soul of the Far East," but its title
+is smaller than its imprint.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hearneyboy.</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">P.S.&mdash;Let something else go to H&mdash;, and read this book instead.
+May God eternally bless and infinitely personalize the man who wrote
+this book! Please don't skip one solitary line of it, and don't delay
+reading it,&mdash;because something, much! is going to go out of this book
+into your heart and life and stay there! I have just finished this
+book and feel like John in Patmos,&mdash;only a d&mdash;&mdash;d sight better. He
+who shall skip one word of this book let his portion be cut off and
+his name blotted out of the Book of Life.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_13_13">
+<span class="label">[13]</span></a> Mr. Percival Lowell's book soon reached me containing the
+inscription: "To George M. Gould, with best love of his spiritual
+pupil, L. H." I have intentionally retained colloquialisms in these
+excerpts, the indications of our familiarity, etc., to give a glimpse into
+the heart of the affectionate and sweet-natured man.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">There is not much to say about the Japanese period.
+The splendid books speak for themselves. There is little
+in the almost valueless letters that interest the literature-lover
+and give him concern about the literature-maker.
+There is one short page<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> which is worth the remainder
+of the book. The development of inborn characteristics
+goes on, despite the grafted soul, almost as fatalistically as
+Hearn would have wished, and in this instance in accordance
+with his theory of the unalterability of character. But this
+period is of surpassing interest solely because of the beautiful
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;83]</span>
+books and articles written. To analyze them is both
+impossible and undesirable. They are for our enjoyment,
+and after us generations will be delighted by them.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_14_14">
+<span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Life and Letters</i>, Vol. II, pp. 337 and 338.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn's views and practices as regards love and the
+feminine are not of sympathetic interest to those who
+think that monogamy is good and advisable. He hopes
+his son will not follow in his father's footsteps as regards
+every damozel in his path, and in this respect become
+the "disgraceful person he [the father] used to be." He
+"half suspects" the Oriental husband is right in loving
+his wife least of all others related to or dependent upon
+him, and quotes approvingly unquotable things about the
+laws of (sexual) nature, managing, <i>more suo</i>, to make
+beautiful the pursuit of beauty "in vain." Than the other,
+the woman-beauty of soul is the lesser. "It doesn't make
+a man any happier to have an intellectual wife. The less
+intellectual the more lovable,&mdash;for intellectual converse a
+man <i>can't</i> have with women." When contemplating legal
+marriage with "his wife" in 1892, he calculates shrewdly
+the advantages of the plan. He arrived in Japan in 1890
+and in less than two years "my little wife and I have saved
+nearly 2,000 Japanese dollars between us." When he has
+made her independent he will quit teaching, and "wander
+about awhile and write 'sketches' at $10.00 per page." In
+1893 he found difficulties in registering the birth of his son.
+Hearn was still a British subject. If the boy should be a
+Japanese citizen, the registry must be in the mother's name;
+if in the father's name, he would become a foreigner. To
+become a Japanese citizen would mean for Hearn a great
+reduction in his salary as a teacher under Government pay.
+"Why was I so foolish as to have a son?" "Really <i>I</i>
+don't know." In 1895 he "cuts the puzzle" by becoming a
+Japanese citizen, "losing all chance of Government employment
+at a living salary." Immediately Hearn "hopes to see
+a United Orient yet bound into one strong alliance against
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;84]</span>
+our cruel Western Civilization," "against what is called
+Society and what is called Civilization."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">For those who boasted of being his friends, it seems an
+astonishing thing that they should make Hearn portray
+his vices, his moral nakedness, so publicly. Of course he
+did not dream of the <i>exposé</i>. It is to his merit, however,
+that he would place the truth boldly and baldly before
+his friends. He confesses that the scandalous parts of a
+book are what he likes best, that he is "a Fraud," "a
+vile Latin," etc.,&mdash;"<i>Vive le monde antique!</i>" He is "<i>not
+respectable</i>." "Carpets&mdash;pianos&mdash;windows&mdash;curtains&mdash;brass
+bands&mdash;churches! how I hate them!! Would I had been
+born savage; the curse of civilized cities is upon me."
+He admits that he "cannot understand the moral side, of
+course," and urges that "the most serious necessity of life
+is not to take the moral side of it seriously. We must play
+with it, as with an <i>hetaira</i>." It is needless to add that
+in this composition and resolve lay Hearn's weakness, his
+tragedy, and his missing of "greatness." A man so willed
+must finally see that it is the source of pitiful instabilities
+and waywardness. "I have been at heart everything by
+turns." He learns the old trick of blaming "Fate" and
+"the other fellow;" he is hard-pushed, ignored, starved,
+morally humiliated:&mdash;"the less a man has to do with
+his fellow-men the better;" "it becomes plain why men
+cannot be good to one another;" character may not be
+bettered or changed; "no line exists between life and
+not-life;" "likes and dislikes never depart;" if Spanish,
+Italian, or French (instead of English, German, or American)
+he "can be at home with a villain," etc. Finally
+there comes that burst of frankness:&mdash;"I have more
+smallness in me than you can suspect. How could it
+be otherwise! If a man lives like a rat for twenty or
+twenty-five years, he must have acquired something of
+the disposition peculiar to house-rodents,&mdash;mustn't he?"
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;85]</span>
+Then increase the complaints of "treachery," the wish for
+"justice," the desire to go away, somewhere, anywhere;
+and the limit of the amazing is reached in praising <i>The
+Conservator</i> and <i>The Whim</i> for bravery and goodness,
+and in hating Virchow thoroughly. Was Virchow so
+loathsome because this great scientist found an impassable
+demarcation between life and the not-life?&mdash;"all cells
+are derived from cells." Is it surprising that his old
+imagined enemies, the Jesuits, are believed to be hidden
+in every place, lurking to thwart every ambition or success,
+even to kill him?<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_15_15">
+<span class="label">[15]</span></a> Those who care may see how this suspicion obfuscates his mind
+in an article against some of Hearn's statements, by Henry Thurston,
+in <i>The Messenger</i>, January 1906.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">No man is wholly bad who loves children, none wholly
+good who does not love them. In a nation of child-lovers,
+as Hearn's Japanese writings bear witness, he began to
+catch glimpses of truth hitherto unrecognized. Concerning
+his eldest son (a fourth child was expected in 1903) Hearn
+wrote: "No man can possibly know what life means until
+he has a child and loves it. And then the whole Universe
+changes,&mdash;and nothing will ever again seem exactly as
+it seemed before." Naturally he was drawn to the rich
+child-lore and fairy tales of Japan. With great difficulty
+I have secured copies of a number of fairy stories edited
+by him and published in Japan by T. Hasegawa, T&#333;ky&#333;,
+in a style beautiful and dainty beyond superlatives. As
+mine are probably the only ones in our country, I have
+ventured to copy herewith two of the tales:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">THE OLD WOMAN WHO LOST HER DUMPLING</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Long, long ago, there was a funny old woman, who liked to laugh
+and to make dumplings of rice-flour.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">One day, while she was preparing some dumplings for dinner, she
+let one fall; and it rolled into a hole in the earthen floor of her little
+kitchen and disappeared. The old woman tried to reach it by
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;86]</span>
+putting her hand down the hole, and all at once the earth gave way,
+and the old woman fell in.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">She fell quite a distance, but was not a bit hurt; and when she
+got up on her feet again, she saw that she was standing on a road,
+just like the road before her house. It was quite light down there;
+and she could see plenty of rice-fields, but no one in them. How all
+this happened, I cannot tell you. But it seems that the old woman
+had fallen into another country.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The road she had fallen upon sloped very much; so, after having
+looked for her dumpling in vain, she thought it must have rolled
+farther away down the slope. She ran down the road to look, crying:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">After a little while she saw a stone Jizo standing by the roadside,
+and she said:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"O Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Jizo answered:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Yes, I saw your dumpling rolling by me down the road. But you
+had better not go any farther, because there is a wicked Oni living
+down there, who eats people."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But the old woman only laughed, and ran on farther down the road,
+crying: "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of
+mine?" And she came to another statue of Jizo, and asked it:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"O kind Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And Jizo said:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Yes, I saw your dumpling go by a little while ago. But you must
+not run any farther, because there is a wicked Oni down there, who
+eats people."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But she only laughed, and ran on, still crying out: "My dumpling,
+my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?" And she came
+to a third Jizo, and asked it:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"O dear Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But Jizo said:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Don't talk about your dumpling now. Here is the Oni coming.
+Squat down here behind my sleeve, and don't make any noise."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Presently the Oni came very close, and stopped and bowed to Jizo,
+and said:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Good-day, Jizo San!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Jizo said good-day, too, very politely.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then the Oni suddenly snuffed the air two or three times in a
+suspicious way, and cried out: "Jizo San, Jizo San! I smell a smell
+of mankind somewhere&mdash;don't you?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Oh!" said Jizo, "perhaps you are mistaken."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"No, no!" said the Oni, after snuffing the air again, "I smell a
+smell of mankind."</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;87]</span>
+Then the old woman could not help laughing, "Te-he-he!"&mdash;and
+the Oni immediately reached down his big hairy hand behind Jizo's
+sleeve, and pulled her out,&mdash;still laughing, "Te-he-he!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Ah! ha!" cried the Oni.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then Jizo said:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"What are you going to do with that good old woman? You must
+not hurt her."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"I won't," said the Oni. "But I will take her home with me to
+cook for us."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Very well," said Jizo; "but you must really be kind to her. If
+you are not I shall be very angry."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"I won't hurt her at all," promised the Oni; "and she will only
+have to do a little work for us every day. Good-bye, Jizo San."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then the Oni took the old woman far down the road, till they came
+to a wide deep river, where there was a boat, and took her across the
+river to his house. It was a very large house. He led her at once
+into the kitchen, and told her to cook some dinner for himself and the
+other Oni who lived with him. And he gave her a small wooden
+rice-paddle, and said:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"You must always put only one grain of rice into the pot, and
+when you stir that one grain of rice in the water with this paddle, the
+grain will multiply until the pot is full."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">So the old woman put just one rice-grain into the pot, as the Oni
+told her, and began to stir it with the paddle; and, as she stirred,
+the one grain became two,&mdash;then four,&mdash;then eight,&mdash;then sixteen,&mdash;thirty-two,
+sixty-four, and so on. Every time she moved the paddle
+the rice increased in quantity; and in a few minutes the great pot was
+full.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">After that, the funny old woman stayed a long time in the house of
+the Oni, and every day cooked food for him and for all his friends.
+The Oni never hurt or frightened her, and her work was made quite
+easy by the magic paddle&mdash;although she had to cook a very, very
+great quantity of rice, because an Oni eats much more than any
+human being eats.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But she felt lonely, and always wished very much to go back to her
+own little house, and make her dumplings. And one day, when the
+Oni were all out somewhere, she thought she would try to run away.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">She first took the magic paddle, and slipped it under her girdle;
+and then she went down to the river. No one saw her; and the boat
+was there. She got into it, and pushed off; and as she could row
+very well, she was soon far away from the shore.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But the river was very wide; and she had not rowed more than
+one-fourth of the way across, when the Oni, all of them, came back
+to the house.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;88]</span>
+They found that their cook was gone, and the magic paddle too.
+They ran down to the river at once, and saw the old woman rowing
+away very fast.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Perhaps they could not swim: at all events they had no boat; and
+they thought the only way they could catch the funny old woman
+would be to drink up all the water of the river before she got to the
+other bank. So they knelt down, and began to drink so fast that
+before the old woman was half way over, the water had become
+quite low.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But the old woman kept on rowing until the water had got so
+shallow that the Oni stopped drinking, and began to wade across.
+Then she dropped her oar, took the magic paddle from her girdle,
+and shook it at the Oni, and made such funny faces that the Oni all
+burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But the moment they laughed, they could not help throwing up all
+the water they had drunk, and so the river became full again. The
+Oni could not cross; and the funny old woman got safely over to the
+other side, and ran away up the road as fast as she could.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">She never stopped running until she found herself at home again.
+After that she was very happy; for she could make dumplings whenever
+she pleased. Besides, she had the magic paddle to make rice
+for her. She sold her dumplings to her neighbours and passengers,
+and in quite a short time she became rich.</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE BOY WHO DREW CATS</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A long, long time ago, in a small country-village in Japan, there
+lived a poor farmer and his wife, who were very good people. They
+had a number of children, and found it very hard to feed them all.
+The elder son was strong enough when only fourteen years old to help
+his father; and the little girls learned to help their mother almost as
+soon as they could walk.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But the youngest child, a little boy, did not seem to be fit for hard
+work. He was very clever,&mdash;cleverer than all his brothers and sisters;
+but he was quite weak and small, and people said he could never
+grow very big. So his parents thought it would be better for him to
+become a priest than to become a farmer. They took him with them
+to the village-temple one day, and asked the good old priest who lived
+there, if he would have their little boy for his acolyte, and teach him
+all that a priest ought to know.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The old man spoke kindly to the lad, and asked him some hard
+questions. So clever were the answers that the priest agreed to take
+the little fellow into the temple as an acolyte, and to educate him for
+the priesthood.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;89]</span>
+The boy learned quickly what the old priest taught him, and was
+very obedient in most things. But he had one fault. He liked to
+draw cats during study-hours, and to draw cats even when cats ought
+not to have been drawn at all.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Whenever he found himself alone, he drew cats. He drew them on
+the margins of the priest's books, and on all the screens of the temple,
+and on the walls, and on the pillars. Several times the priest told
+him this was not right; but he did not stop drawing cats. He drew
+them because he could not really help it. He had what is called "the
+genius of an artist," and just for that reason he was not quite fit to be
+an acolyte;&mdash;a good acolyte should study books.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">One day after he had drawn some very clever pictures of cats upon
+a paper screen, the old priest said to him severely: "My boy, you
+must go away from this temple at once. You will never make a good
+priest, but perhaps you will become a great artist. Now let me give
+you a last piece of advice, and be sure you never forget it: 'Avoid
+large places at night;&mdash;keep to small.'"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The boy did not know what the priest meant by saying, "Avoid
+large places,&mdash;keep to small." He thought and thought, while he was
+tying up his little bundle of clothes to go away; but he could not
+understand those words, and he was afraid to speak to the priest any
+more, except to say good-bye.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">He left the temple very sorrowfully, and began to wonder what he
+should do. If he went straight home, he felt sure his father would
+punish him for having been disobedient to the priest: so he was
+afraid to go home. All at once he remembered that at the next
+village, twelve miles away, there was a very big temple. He had
+heard there were several priests at that temple; and he made up his
+mind to go to them and ask them to take him for their acolyte.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Now that big temple was closed up, but the boy did not know this
+fact. The reason it had been closed up was that a goblin had
+frightened the priests away, and had taken possession of the place.
+Some brave warriors had afterwards gone to the temple at night to
+kill the goblin; but they had never been seen alive again. Nobody
+had ever told these things to the boy; so he walked all the way to the
+village, hoping to be kindly treated by the priests.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">When he got to the village, it was already dark, and all the people
+were in bed; but he saw the big temple on a hill at the other end of
+the principal street, and he saw there was a light in the temple.
+People who tell the story say the goblin used to make that light, in
+order to tempt lonely travellers to ask for shelter. The boy went at
+once to the temple, and knocked. There was no sound inside. He
+knocked and knocked again; but still nobody came. At last he
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;90]</span>
+pushed gently at the door, and was quite glad to find that it had not
+been fastened. So he went in, and saw a lamp burning,&mdash;but no
+priest.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">He thought some priest would be sure to come very soon, and he
+sat down and waited. Then he noticed that everything in the temple
+was grey with dust, and thickly spun over with cobwebs. So he
+thought to himself that the priests would certainly like to have an
+acolyte, to keep the place clean. He wondered why they had allowed
+everything to get so dusty. What most pleased him, however, were
+some big white screens, good to paint cats upon. Though he was
+tired, he looked at once for a writing-box, and found one, ground
+some ink, and began to paint cats.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">He painted a great many cats upon the screens; and then he
+began to feel very, very sleepy. He was just on the point of lying
+down to sleep beside one of the screens, when he suddenly remembered
+the words: "Avoid large places;&mdash;keep to small."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The temple was very large; he was all alone; and as he thought
+of these words&mdash;though he could not quite understand them&mdash;he
+began to feel for the first time a little afraid; and he resolved to look
+for a small place in which to sleep. He found a little cabinet, with a
+sliding door, and went into it, and shut himself up. Then he lay down
+and fell fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Very late in the night he was awakened by a most terrible noise,&mdash;a
+noise of fighting and screaming. It was so dreadful that he was
+afraid even to look through a chink of the little cabinet: he lay very
+still, holding his breath for fright.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The light that had been in the temple went out; but the awful
+sounds continued, and became more awful, and all the temple shook.
+After a long time silence came; but the boy was still afraid to move.
+He did not move until the light of the morning sun shone into the
+cabinet through the chinks of the little door.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then he got out of his hiding-place very cautiously, and looked
+about. The first thing he saw, lying dead in the middle of it, an
+enormous monster rat,&mdash;a goblin-rat,&mdash;bigger than a cow!</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But who or what could have killed it? There was no man or other
+creature to be seen. Suddenly the boy observed that the mouths of
+all the cats he had drawn the night before, were red and wet with
+blood. Then he knew that the goblin had been killed by the cats
+which he had drawn. And then, also, for the first time, he understood
+why the wise old priest had said to him: "Avoid large places
+at night;&mdash;keep to small."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Afterwards that boy became a very famous artist. Some of the cats
+which he drew are still shown to travellers in Japan.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;91]</span>
+At once upon reaching Japan (it is plain Hearn never
+forgave me for compelling him to go) begin the complaints
+of the downright hard work of writing, consequent upon
+the loss of ideals. He breaks with publishers&mdash;an old-time
+story; he is losing his inspiration, and his only hope
+is that it will return to him again; in any Latin country
+he could at once, he thinks, get back the much coveted
+"thrill," or <i>frisson</i>. He would at last even relish the hated
+United States. From the beginning he tires of the
+Japanese character, and grows more and more tired the
+longer he stays; it has no depth, this thin soul-stream; it
+is incapable of long-sustained effort, prolonged study; he
+cannot much longer endure Japanese officialism; and the
+official "is something a good deal lower than a savage and
+meaner than the straight-out Western rough." He would
+wish never to write a line again about any Japanese
+subjects. Things finally came to such a pass that the only
+successful stimulus to work was that some one should do
+or say something horribly mean to him, and the force of
+the hurt could be measured in the months or years of
+resultant labour. As none ever did a mean thing to him,
+one may suspect that the psychology of his sudden
+enmities towards others was that he must perforce <i>imagine</i>
+that he had been "horribly" treated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The old <i>Wanderlust</i>, never wholly absent, returns
+strongly upon him; in less than a year he dreams of
+leaving Japan and his wife, and of "wandering about
+awhile;" he projects "a syndicate" whereby he may go to
+Java (rather than Manila, where the Jesuits were), or, "a
+French colony,&mdash;Tonkin, Noumea, or Pondicherry." A
+tropical trip is planned for six months of every year. But
+the "butterfly-lives" dependent upon him prevent, of
+course. He always spoke of returning often. At the last
+there is a savage growl that after thirteen years of work
+for Japan, in which he had sacrificed everything for her, he
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;92]</span>
+was "driven out of the service and practically banished from
+the country."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn's nostalgia for the nowhere or the anywhere was
+only conquered by death. In 1898 the logic of his life, of
+his misfortune, and character, begins to grow plainer, and
+he "fears being blinded or maimed so as to prove of no
+further use." It seems that if he had been able to do what
+he tried so often, and longed so fervently to do, he would
+have run away into the known or unknown, leaving children,
+wife, and all the ties that bound him to any orderly life.
+His vision had become almost useless; he had lost his
+lectureship; more and more it grew impossible to coax or
+force out of his mind such beautiful things as in younger
+days; the Furies of his atheism, pessimism, and lovelessness
+were close on his track; the hope of lectureships in
+the United States had failed,&mdash;nothing was left, nothing
+except one thing, which, chosen or not, came at the age of
+fifty-four.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Lessing has said that "Raphael would have been the
+great painter he was even if he had been born without
+arms," and Burke has told of a poet "blind from birth
+who nevertheless could describe visible objects with a
+spirit and justness excelled by few men blessed with
+sight." What irony of Fate it is that one almost blind
+should teach us non-users of our eyes the wonder and
+glory of colour; that the irreligious one should quicken
+our faith in the immaterial and unseen; that a sensualist
+should strengthen our trust in the supersensual; that one
+whose body and life were unbeautiful should sing such
+exquisite songs of silent beauty that our straining ears can
+hardly catch the subtle and unearthly harmonies! For
+Hearn is another of many splendid illustrations of the old
+truth that a man's spirit may be more philosophic than his
+philosophy, more scientific than his science, more religious
+than his creed, more divine than his divinity.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;93]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII_AS_A_POET" id="CHAPTER_VIII_AS_A_POET"></a>CHAPTER VIII.&mdash;AS A POET</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;94]</span></p>
+
+<p class="cap">THAT Hearn was a true poet none will deny, but it
+was one of the frequent seeming illogicalities of his
+character that he had no love of metric or rhymed poetry.
+I doubt if there is a single volume of such poetry in his
+library, and I never heard him repeat a line or stanza, and
+never knew him to read a page of what is called poetry.
+I suspect the simple reason was that his necessities compelled
+him rigidly to exclude everything from his world
+of thought which did not offer materials for the remunerating
+public. He had to make a living, and whence tomorrow's
+income should come was always a vital concern.
+Poetry of the metric and rhymed sort does not make
+bread and butter; hence there was no time to consider
+even the possibility of "cultivating the muses on a little
+oatmeal."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Of poetry he once wrote:&mdash;"The mere ideas and melody
+of a poem seem to me of small moment unless the complex
+laws of versification be strictly obeyed." The dictum, considering
+its source, is exquisitely ludicrous; for Hearn
+poetry could not be coined into dollars, even if he had had
+the mind and heart to learn anything of "the complex
+laws of versification." Elsewhere he excused his manifest
+utter ignorance of poetry and want of poetic appreciation
+by saying that there is so little really good poetry that it
+is easy to choose. He confessed his detestation of Wordsworth,
+Shelley, and Keats, preferring Dobson, Watson, and
+Lang. "Of Wordsworth&mdash;well, I should smile!" "Refined
+poetry" he held of little or no value, but he found
+the "vulgar" songs of coolies, fishermen, etc., very true
+and beautiful poetry. He vainly tried to translate some of
+Gautier's poems. He attempted original verse-making but
+a few times, and from my scrap-book I reproduce one of
+the results, kindly furnished me by Mr. Alexander Hill,
+of Cincinnati, to whom it was given by Mr. Tunison.
+Perhaps it was printed in <i>Forest and Stream</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;95]</span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">A CREOLE BOAT SONG</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hot shines the sun o'er the quivering land,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">No wind comes up from the sea,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Silent and stark the pine woods stand,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And the mock-bird sleeps in the Mayhaw tree,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Where, overhung with brier and vine,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">The placid waters slip and shine</span><br />
+<span class="i4">And dimple to thy lover's view&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">La belle rivière de Calcasieu.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Under the bending cypress trees,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Bedecked with pendulous cool grey moss</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That woos in vain the recreant breeze</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And silently mourns its loss.</span><br />
+<span class="i4">With drowsy eye, in my little boat</span><br />
+<span class="i4">I dreamily lie, and lazily float</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Lulled by the thrush's soft Te-rue&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">On La belle rivière de Calcasieu.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A heron stands, like a ghost in grey,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Knee-deep 'mongst the bending water lilies,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And yellow butterflies lightly play</span><br />
+<span class="i2">'Midst the blooms of fragrant amaryllis;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">The swift kingfisher winds his reel,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Saying his grace for his noonday meal,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">And a hawk soars up to the welkin blue</span><br />
+<span class="i4">O'er La belle rivière de Calcasieu.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Across the point, where the ferry plies,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I hear the click of the boatman's oar,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And his Creole song, with its quavering rise</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Re-echoes soft from shore to shore;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">And this is the rhyme that he idly sings</span><br />
+<span class="i4">As his boat at anchor lazily swings,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">For the day is hot, and passers few</span><br />
+<span class="i4">On La belle rivière de Calcasieu.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I ain't got time for make merry, me</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I ain't got time for make merry;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">My lill' gall waitin' at de River of Death</span><br />
+<span class="i2">To meet her ole dad at de ferry.</span><br />
+<span class="i4">She gwine be dere wid de smile on her face,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Like the night she died, when all de place</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Was lit by the moonbeams shiverin' troo</span><br />
+<span class="i4">La belle rivière de Calcasieu.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;96]</span>
+<span class="i0">"O sing dat song! O sing dat song!</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I ain't got time for make merry!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">De angel come 'fore berry long,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And carr' me o'er de ferry!</span><br />
+<span class="i4">He come wid de whirlwind in de night&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">He come wid de streak of de morning light&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">He find me ready&mdash;yass, dass true&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">By La belle rivière de Calcasieu.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Den who got time for make merry, eh?</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Den who got time for make merry?</span><br />
+<span class="i0">De fire burn up de light 'ood tree,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">De bird eat up de berry.</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Long time ago I make Voudoo,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">An' I dance Calinda strong and true,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">But de Lord he pierce me troo and troo</span><br />
+<span class="i4">On La belle rivière de Calcasieu."</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">In the Watkin letters, Hearn transcribes a poem of six
+stanzas written by himself for the decoration of the soldiers'
+graves at Chalmette Cemetery in 1878.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Far more successful, for obvious reasons, was an attempt
+at echoing a bit of Eastern fancy. A strange, gruesome,
+Oriental being had caught his eye at New Orleans, who
+translated for him some characteristic Eastern verses.
+Hearn thus rendered them in English:<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_16_16">
+<span class="label">[16]</span></a> From Hearn's manuscript copy through the kindness again of
+Mr. Tunison and Mr. Hill.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">THE RUSE</p>
+
+<p class="center">From <i>Amaron Satacum</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Late at night the lover returns unlooked-for,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Full of longing, after that cruel absence;&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Finds his darling by her women surrounded;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Enters among them:&mdash;</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Only sees his beautiful one, his idol,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Speaks no word, but watches her face in silence,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Looks with eyes of thirst and with lips of fever</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Burning for kisses.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;97]</span>
+<span class="i0">Late it is; and, nevertheless, the women,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Still remaining, weary his ears with laughter,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Prattling folly, tantalizing his longing&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Teasing his patience.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love weaves ruse in answer to gaze beseeching;&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Shrill she screams: "O heaven!&mdash;What insect stings so!"</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And with sudden waft of her robe outshaken,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Blows the vile light out.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">I find the following verses in his scrap-book of the New
+Orleans period:<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_17_17">
+<span class="label">[17]</span></a> Dated July 11, 1885.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">THE MUMMY</p>
+
+<p class="center">(After the French of Louis Bouilhet)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Startled,&mdash;as by some far faint din</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Of azure-lighted worlds, from sleep,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The Mummy, trembling, wakes within</span><br />
+<span class="i2">The hypogeum's blackest deep,&mdash;</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And murmurs low, with slow sad voice:</span><br />
+<span class="i2">"Oh! to be dead and still endure!&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Well may the quivering flesh rejoice</span><br />
+<span class="i2">That feels the vulture's gripe impure!</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Seeking to enter this night of death,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Each element knocks at my granite door:&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">'We are Earth and Fire and Air,&mdash;the breath</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Of Winds,&mdash;the Spirits of sea and shore.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Into the azure, out of the gloom,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Rise!&mdash;let thine atoms in light disperse!&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Blend with the date-palm's emerald plume!&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Scatter thyself through the universe!</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'We shall bear thee far over waste and wold:</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Thou shalt be lulled to joyous sleep</span><br />
+<span class="i0">By leaves that whisper in light of gold,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">By murmur of fountains cool and deep.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Come!&mdash;perchance from thy dungeon dark</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Infinite Nature may wish to gain</span><br />
+<span class="i0">For the godlike Sun another spark,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Another drop for the diamond rain.'</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;98]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Woe! mine is death eternal! ... and</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I feel Them come, as I lie alone,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The Centuries, heavy as drifted sand</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Heaping above my bed of stone!</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O be accursed, ye impious race!&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Caging the creature that seeks to soar;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Preserving agony's weird grimace,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">In hideous vanity, evermore!"</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Aux bruits lointains ouvrant l'oreille,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Jalouse encor du ciel d'azur,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">La momie en tremblant s'éveille</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Au fond de l'hypogée obscur.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, dit-elle, de sa voix lente,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Etre mort, et durer toujours.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Heureuse la chaire pantelante</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Sous l'ongle courbé des vautours.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Pour plonger dans ma nuit profonde</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Chaque element frappe en ce lieu.</span><br />
+&mdash;Nous sommes L'air! nous sommes l'onde!<br />
+<span class="i2">Nous sommes la terre et le feu!</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Viens avec nous, le steppe aride</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Veut son panache d'arbres verts,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Viens sous l'azur du ciel splendide,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">T'éparpiller dans l'univers.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nous t'emporterons par les plaines</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Nous te bercerons à la fois</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Dans le murmure des fontaines</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Et la bruissement des bois.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Viens. La nature universelle</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Cherche peut-être en ce tombeau</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Pour de soleil une étincelle!</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Pour la mer une goutte d'eau!</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Et dans ma tombe impérissable</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Je sens venir avec affroi</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Les siècles lourds comme du sable</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Qui s'amoncelle autour de moi.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;99]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah! sois maudite, race impie,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Qui le l'être arrêtant l'essor</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Gardes ta laideur assoupie</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Dans la vanité de la mort.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">In one of Hearn's letters to the Cincinnati <i>Commercial</i>,
+written soon after his arrival in New Orleans, he writes:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Here is a specimen closely akin to the Creole of the Antilles. It is
+said to be an old negro love-song, and I think there is a peculiar
+weird beauty in several of its stanzas. I feel much inclined to doubt
+whether it was composed by a negro, but the question of its authorship
+cannot affect its value as a curiosity, and, in any case, its spirit is
+thoroughly African. Unfortunately, without accented letters it is
+impossible to convey any idea of the melody, the liquid softness, the
+languor, of some of the couplets. My translation is a little free in
+parts.</p>
+
+<p class="center">I</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dipi me vouer toue, Adèle,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Ape danse calinda,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo reste pour toue fidèle,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Liberte a moin caba.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo pas soussi d'autt negresses,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Mo pas gagnin coeur pour yo;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Yo gagnin beaucoup finesses;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Yo semble serpent Congo.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">II</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mo aime toue trop, ma belle,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Mo pas capab resiste;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Coeur a moin tout comme sauterelle,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Li fait ne qu'appe saute.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo jamin contre gnoun femme</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Qui gagnin belle taille comme toue;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Jie a ton jete la flamme;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Corps a toue enchene moue.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">III</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To tant comme serpent sonnette</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Qui connin charme zozo,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Qui gagnin bouche a li prette</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Pour servi comme gnoun tombo.</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;100]</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo jamin voue gnoun negresse</span>
+<span class="i2">Qui connin marche comme toue,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Qui gagnin gnoun si belle gesse;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Corps a toue ce gnoun poupe.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">IV</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Quand mo pas vouer toue, Adèle,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Mo sentt m'ane mourri,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo vini com' gnoun chandelle</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Qui ape alle fini:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo pas vouer rien sur la terre</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Qui capab moin fait plaisi;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo capab dans la rivière</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Jete moin pour pas souffri.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">V</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dis moin si to gagnin n'homme;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Mo va fals ouanga pour li;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo fais li tourne fantome,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Si to vle moin pour mari.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo pas le in jour toue boudeuse;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">L'autt femme, pour moin ce fatras;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mo va rende toue bien heureuse;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Mo va baill' toue bell' madras.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">TRANSLATION</p>
+
+<p class="center">I</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Since first I beheld you, Adèle,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">While dancing the <i>calinda</i>,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I have remained faithful to the thought of you:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">My freedom has departed from me.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I care no longer for all other negresses;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I have no heart left for them:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">You have such grace and cunning:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">You are like the Congo serpent.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">II</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I love you too much, my beautiful one:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I am not able to help it.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">My heart has become just like a grasshopper,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">It does nothing but leap.</span>
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;101]</span>
+<span class="i0">I have never met any woman</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Who has so beautiful a form as yours.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Your eyes flash flame;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Your body has enchained me captive.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">III</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah, you are so like the serpent-of-the-rattles</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Who knows how to charm the little bird,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And who has a mouth ever ready for it</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To serve it for a tomb!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I have never known any negress</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Who could walk with such grace as you can,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Or who could make such beautiful gestures:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Your body is a beautiful doll.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">IV</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When I cannot see you, Adèle,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I feel myself ready to die;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">My life becomes like a candle</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Which has almost burned itself out.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I cannot, then, find anything in the world,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Which is able to give me pleasure;&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I could well go down to the river</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And throw myself in it that I might cease to suffer.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">V</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell me if you have a man;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And I will make an <i>ouanga</i> charm for him;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I will make him turn into a phantom,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">If you will only take me for your husband.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I will not go to see you when you are cross;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Other women are mere trash to me;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I will make you very happy,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">I think there is some true poetry in these allusions to the snake. Is
+not the serpent a symbol of grace? Is not the so-called "line of beauty"
+serpentine? And is there not something of the serpent in the beauty
+of all graceful women?&mdash;something of undulating shapeliness, something
+of silent fascination?&mdash;something of Lilith and Lamia? The
+French have a beautiful verb expressive of this idea, <i>serpenter</i>, "to
+serpent"&mdash;to curve in changing undulations like a lithe snake. The
+French artist speaks of the outlines of a beautiful human body as
+"serpenting," curving and winding like a serpent. Do you not like
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;102]</span>
+the word? I think it is so expressive of flowing lines of elegance&mdash;so
+full of that mystery of grace which puzzled Solomon; "the way of a
+serpent upon a rock."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The allusion to Voudooism in the last stanza especially interested
+me, and I questioned the gentleman who furnished me with the song
+as to the significance of the words: "I will make him turn into
+a phantom." I had fancied that the term <i>fantome</i> might be interpreted
+by "ghost," and that the whole line simply constituted a threat to
+make some one "give up the ghost."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"It is not exactly that," replied my friend; "it is an allusion, I
+believe, to the withering and wasting power of Voudoo poisons. There
+are such poisons actually in use among the negro obi-men&mdash;poisons
+which defy analysis, and, mysterious as the poisons of the Borgias,
+slowly consume the victims like a taper. He wastes away as though
+being dried up; he becomes almost mummified; he wanes like a
+shadow; he turns into a phantom in the same sense that a phantom is
+an unreal mockery of something real."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Thus I found an intelligent Louisianan zealous to confirm an
+opinion to which I was permitted to give expression in the <i>Commercial</i>
+nearly three years ago&mdash;that a knowledge of secret septic poisons
+(probably of an animal character), which leave no trace discoverable
+by the most skilful chemists, is actually possessed by certain beings
+who are reverenced as sorcerers by the negroes of the West Indies
+and the Southern States, but more especially of the West Indies,
+where much of African fetichism has been transplanted.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ozias Midwinter</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;103]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX_THE_POET_OF" id="CHAPTER_IX_THE_POET_OF"></a>CHAPTER IX.&mdash;THE POET OF
+MYOPIA</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;104]</span></p>
+
+<p class="cap">THE dependence not only of the literary character
+and workmanship of a writer, but even his innermost
+psyche, upon vision, normal or abnormal, is a truth
+which has been dimly and falteringly felt by several
+writers. Concerning "Madame Bovary," and his friend
+Flaubert, Maxime du Camp reflects some glintings of the
+truth. But these and others, lacking the requisite expert
+definiteness of knowledge, have failed to catch the satisfying
+and clear point of view. To illustrate I may quote the
+paragraph of du Camp:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The literary procedure of Flaubert threw everybody
+off the track and even some of the experts. But it was a
+very simple matter; it was by the accumulation and the
+superposition of details that he arrived at power. It is the
+physiologic method, the method of the myopes who look
+at things one after the other, very exactly, and then
+describe them successively. The literature of imagination
+may be divided into two distinct schools, that of the
+myopes and that of the hyperopes. The myopes see
+minutely, study every line, finding each detail of importance
+because everything appears to them in isolation;
+about them is a sort of cloud in which is detached the
+object in exaggerated proportions. They have, as it were,
+a microscope in their eye which enlarges everything. The
+description of Venice from the Campanile of St. Mark, that
+of Destitution in 'Captain Fracasse,' by Gautier are the
+capital results of myopic vision. The hyperopes, on the
+other hand, look at the <i>ensemble</i>, in which the details are
+lost, and form a kind of general harmony. The detail loses
+all significance, except perhaps they seek to bring it into
+relief as a work of art.... Besides, the myopes seek to
+portray sensations, while the hyperopes especially aim at
+analysis of the sentiments. If a hyperopic writer suddenly
+becomes myopic, his manner of thinking, and consequently
+of writing, at once is modified. What I call the school of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;105]</span>
+the myopes, Gautier names the school of the rabids. He
+said to Mérimée: 'Your characters have no muscles,' and
+Mérimée answered, 'Yours have no draperies.'"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But there is one consequence, common both to Flaubert
+and to Hearn, a most strange unity of result flowing from
+a seemingly opposed but really identical cause in the two
+men. I have elsewhere set forth the reasons for my belief
+that the secret of Flaubert's life, character, and literary art
+consisted in an inability to think and write at the same
+time. He was one of the most healthy and brilliant of
+men when he did not read or write, but his mind refused
+to act creatively whenever he wrote or read. From this
+resulted his epilepsy. Fathered by the fear of this disease,
+mothered by opium, and reared by unhygiene and eye-strain,
+came the miserable "St. Anthony" of the second
+remaking. In the failure of this pitiful work there was
+naught left except bottomless pessimism, the "cadenced
+phrase," and all the rest, called "Madame Bovary" and
+"art for art's sake."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There never was a greater sufferer from eye-strain than
+Flaubert, whose eyes were strikingly beautiful, and
+seemingly of extraordinary perfection as optical instruments.
+From this fact flowed the entire tragedy of the
+man's life and of his life-work. His friend du Camp says
+that had it not been for his disease he would have been,
+not a writer of great talent, but a man of genius. Hearn
+had the most defective eyesight, he was indeed nearly
+blind; but physically he suffered little from this cause,&mdash;and
+yet his choice of subjects and methods of literary
+workmanship, and every line he wrote, were dictated and
+ruled by his defect of vision. Opium, with the impossibility
+of writing and creating at the same time, dominated
+Flaubert's work and working, and the similar result was
+begot by Hearn's enormous monocular myopia.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">From Martinique, before I had met him, Hearn wrote me:
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;106]</span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I am very near-sighted, have lost one eye, which disfigures me
+considerably; and my near-sightedness always prevented the gratification
+of a natural <i>penchant</i> for physical exercise. I am a good
+swimmer, that is all.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In reply to nearly all the questions about my near-sightedness I
+might answer, "Yes." I had the best advice in London, and observe
+all the rules you suggest. Glasses strain the eye too much&mdash;part of
+retina is gone. The other eye was destroyed by a blow at college;
+or, rather, by inflammation consequent upon the blow. I can tell you
+more about myself when I see you, but the result will be more curious
+than pleasing. Myopia is not aggravating.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">In "Shadowings," the chapter on "Nightmare-Touch,"
+Hearn describes with his gift of the living word the dreams
+and hauntings he endured when as a boy he was shut in
+his room in the dark. It is a pitiful history, and shows
+how a child may suffer atrociously from the combination
+of an abnormally exuberant fancy and eye-strain, probably
+with added ocular disease. The subjective sensations and
+images were alive and Hearn's innate tendency to the
+horrible and hideous gave them the most awful of nightmarish
+realities.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I have already given (facing page 5) a copy of a little
+photograph of Hearn at about the age of eight, standing by
+Mrs. Brenane. It will be seen that the right eyeball was at
+this time about as large and protruding as in later life. This
+leaves a doubt whether the destruction of the left was due
+to the blow at college at the age of sixteen. In one of my
+letters he uses the word "scrofulous" in alluding to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It was not only during the last years of his life, that, as
+he says, "it was now largely a question of eyes." It was
+always the most important of all questions; first, physically
+and financially, because all hung upon his ability to write
+many hours a day. How his little of visual power was
+preserved under the work done is a marvel of physiology.
+So unconscious was Hearn of the influence of eye-strain
+in ruining the health of others (he himself had no eye-strain
+in the ordinary meaning of the term) that he wonders
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;107]</span>
+why the hard students about him were inexplainably dying,
+going mad, getting sick, and giving up their studies. This
+is hardly to be considered a fault of Hearn when educators
+and physicians and oculists the world over, never suspect
+the reason.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Moved by sympathy, and perhaps by the vaguest feeling
+that to Hearn's poor vision were due, in part at least, both
+his personal and literary characteristics, I early besought
+him to make use of scientific optical helps in order to see
+the world better, and to carry on his writing with greater
+ease, and with less danger to the little vision left him. He
+had but one eye, which was evidently enormously nearsighted.
+The other had been lost in youth. I found that
+he had about 25 diopters of myopia, to use the jargon of
+the oculist, and that consequently he knew little about the
+appearance of objects even a few feet away. In writing he
+was compelled to place the paper or pen-point about three
+inches from his eye. With the proper lens it was possible
+to give him vision of distant objects about one-fourth as
+clear as that of normal eyes. For a minute my disappointment
+was equal to my surprise when I found that he did
+not wish to see with even this wretched indistinctness, and
+that he would not think of using spectacles or eyeglasses.
+Later I found the reason for his action. He sometimes
+carried a little lens or monocle in his pocket, which somewhat
+bettered his vision, but in the several months he
+spent with me I saw him use it only once or twice, and
+then merely for an instant. I am almost sure that the
+reason for this preference for a world almost unseen, or
+seen only in colours, while form and outline were almost
+unknown, was never conscious with Hearn, although his
+mind was alert in detecting such psychologic solutions in
+others. In studying his writings, this reason finally has
+become clear to me.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">When one chooses an artistic calling, Fate usually, and
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;108]</span>
+to the artist unconsciously, dictates the kind of art-work
+and the method of carrying it to realization. The blind
+do not choose to be painters, but musicians; the deaf do
+not think of music, though nothing prevents them from being
+good painters. The dumb would hardly become orators
+or singers, but they might easily be sculptors, or painters,
+or designers. It is as evident that the poet is largely a
+visualizer, if one may so designate this psychic function,
+and without sight of the world of reality and beauty, poetry
+will inevitably lack the charm of the real and the lovely.
+Every great writer, in truth, shows more or less clearly that
+the spring and secret of his imagination lie preponderantly
+in the exceptional endowment, training, or sensitiveness of
+one of the principal senses of sight, hearing, or touch. A
+thousand quotations might be made from each of a dozen
+great writers to prove the thesis. The man born blind,
+however, cannot become a poet, because true poetry must
+be conditioned upon things seen&mdash;"simple, sensuous, and
+passionate" demands the great critic; but interwoven and
+underrunning the simplicity, the passion, and the sense, is
+and must be the world as mirrored by the eye. All thinking,
+all intellectual activity, is by no means of the image and
+the picture; all words are the product of the imagining, and
+the very letters of the alphabet are conventionalized pictures.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Physiologically, or normally, the perfection of the artist
+and of his workmanship thus depends upon the all-round
+perfection of his senses, the fulness of the materials and of
+his experience which these work on and in, and the logical
+and æsthetic rightness of systematization. Conversely, a
+new pathology of genius is coming into view which shows
+the morbidizing of art and literature through disease,
+chiefly of the sense-organs of the artist and literary workman,
+but also by unnatural living, selfishness, sin, and the
+rest. As Hearn was probably the most myopic literary
+man that has existed, his own thoughts upon <i>The Artistic</i>
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;109]</span>
+<i>Value of Myopia</i> are of peculiar interest. In 1887 one of
+his editorials in the <i>Times-Democrat</i> runs as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Probably more than one reader, on coming to page 15 of Philip
+Gilbert Hamerton's delightful book, "Landscape," was startled by
+the author's irrefutable statement that "the possession of very good
+eyesight may be a hindrance to those feelings of sublimity that exalt
+the poetic imagination." The fact is, that the impressiveness of
+natural scenery depends a great deal upon the apparent predominance
+of <i>mass</i> over <i>detail</i>, to borrow Mr. Hamerton's own words; the more
+visible the details of a large object,&mdash;a mountain, a tower, a forest
+wall, the less grand and impressive that object. The more apparently
+uniform the mass, the larger it seems to loom; the vaguer a shadow-space,
+the deeper it appears. An impression of weirdness,&mdash;such as
+that obtainable in a Louisiana or Florida swamp-forest, or, much
+more, in those primeval and impenetrable forest-deeps described so
+powerfully by Humbolt,&mdash;is stronger in proportion to the spectator's
+indifference to lesser detail. The real effect of the scene must be a
+<i>general</i> one to be understood. In painting, the artist does not
+attempt miscroscopic <i>minutiæ</i> in treating forest-forms; he simply
+attempts to render the effect of the masses, with their characteristic
+generalities of shadow and colour. It is for this reason the photograph
+can never supplant the painting&mdash;not even when the art of
+photographing natural colours shall have been discovered. Mr.
+Hamerton cites the example of a mountain, which always seems more
+imposing when wreathed in mists or half veiled by clouds, than when
+cutting sharply against the horizon with a strong light upon it. Half
+the secret of Doré's power as an illustrator was his exaggerated perception
+of this fact,&mdash;his comprehension of the artistic witchcraft of
+<i>suggestion</i>. And since the perception of details depends vastly upon
+the quality of eyesight, a landscape necessarily suggests less to the
+keen-sighted man than to the myope. The keener the view, the
+less depth in the impression produced. There is no possibility of
+mysterious attraction in wooded deeps or mountain recesses for the
+eye that, like the eye of the hawk, pierces shadow and can note the
+separate quiver of each leaf. Far-seeing persons can, to a certain
+degree, comprehend this by recalling the impressions given in twilight by
+certain unfamiliar, or by even familiar objects,&mdash;such as furniture and
+clothing in a half-lighted room. The suggestiveness of form vanishes
+immediately upon the making of a strong light. Again, attractive
+objects viewed vaguely through a morning or evening haze, or at a
+great distance, often totally lose artistic character when a telescope is
+directed upon them.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;110]</span>
+In the February number of <i>Harper's Magazine</i> we find a very
+clever and amusing poem by the scholarly Andrew Lang upon this
+very theme. The writer, after describing the christening-gifts of
+various kindly fairies, tells us that the wicked one&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&mdash;Said: "I shall be avenged on you.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">My child, you shall grow up nearsighted!"</span><br />
+<span class="i2">With magic juices did she lave</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Mine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Well, of all the gifts the Fairies gave,</span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Her's</i> is the present that I treasure!</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The bore, whom others fear and flee,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I do not fear, I do not flee him;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I pass him calm as calm can be;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I do not cut&mdash;I do not see him!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And with my feeble eyes and dim,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Where <i>you</i> see patchy fields and fences,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">For me the mists of Turner swim&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>My</i> "azure distance" soon commences!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Nay, as I blink about the streets</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Of this befogged and miry city,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Why, almost every girl one meets</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Seems preternaturally pretty!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">"Try spectacles," one's friends intone;</span><br />
+<span class="i2">"You'll see the world correctly through them."</span><br />
+<span class="i0">But I have visions of my own</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And not for worlds would I undo them!</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">This is quite witty and quite consoling to myopes, even as a cynical
+development of Philip Gilbert Hamerton's artistic philosophy. Still,
+it does not follow that the myope necessarily possesses the poetic
+faculty or feeling;&mdash;neither does it imply that the presbyope necessarily
+lacks it. If among French writers, for example, Gautier was
+notably nearsighted, Victor Hugo had an eye as keen as a bird's.
+It is true that a knowledge of the effect of shortsightedness on the
+imagination may be of benefit to a nearsighted man, who, possessing
+artistic qualities, can learn to take all possible advantage of his
+myopia,&mdash;to utilize his physical disability to a good purpose; but the
+longsighted artist need not be at a loss to find equally powerful sources
+of inspiration&mdash;he can seek them in morning mists, evening fogs, or
+those wonderful hazes of summer afternoons, when the land sends up
+all its vapours to the sun, like a smoke of gold. Beaudelaire, in his
+<i>Curiosités Esthétiques</i>, made an attempt to prove that the greatest
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;111]</span>
+schools of painting were evolved among hazy surroundings&mdash;Dutch
+fogs, Venetian mists, and the vapours of Italian marsh-lands.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The evolutionary tendency would seem to indicate for future man a
+keener vision than he at present possesses; and a finer perception of
+colour&mdash;for while there may be certain small emotional advantages
+connected with myopia, it is a serious hindrance in practical life.
+What effect keener sight will have on the artistic powers of the future
+man, can only be imagined&mdash;but an increasing tendency to realism in
+art is certainly perceptible; and perhaps an interesting chapter could
+be written upon the possible results to art of perfected optical instruments.
+The subject also suggests another idea,&mdash;that the total inability
+of a certain class of highly educated persons to feel interest in a
+certain kind of art production may be partly accounted for by the
+possession of such keen visual perception as necessarily suppresses the
+sensation of breadth of effect, either in landscape or verbal description.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Thus, according to Flaubert, the myope looks at things
+one after another and describes details, while Hearn says
+the exact opposite. Both are wrong. The oculist will feel
+constrained to differ somewhat from Hearn in the foregoing
+article.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In May 1887 he reviews editorially an article of my
+own which I had sent him during the preceding year.
+Again, because there has never been a literary artist with a
+colour-sense so amazingly developed as that of Hearn, I
+venture to copy his commendation of my views:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">COLOURS AND EMOTIONS</p>
+
+<p class="center">(May 8, 1887)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The evolutionary history of the Colour-Sense, very prettily treated
+of by Grant Allen and others, both in regard to the relation between
+fertilization of flowers by insects, and in regard to the æsthetic pleasure
+of man in contemplating certain colours, has also been considered in a
+very thorough way by American thinkers. Perhaps the most entertaining
+and instructive paper yet published on the subject was one in
+the <i>American Journal of Ophthalmology</i> last September. It has just
+been reprinted in pamphlet form, under the title of "The Human
+Colour-Sense as the Organic Response to Natural Stimuli;" and contains
+a remarkable amplification of these theories, rather suggested than
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;112]</span>
+laid down by the author of "Physiological Æsthetics." Of course, the
+reader whom the subject can interest, comprehends that outside of the
+mind no such thing as colour exists; and that the phenomena of
+colours, like those of sound, are simply the results of exterior impressions
+upon nerve apparatus specially sensitive to vibrations&mdash;in the
+one case of ether, in the other of air. Everybody, moreover,&mdash;even
+those totally ignorant of the physiology of the eye&mdash;know that certain
+colours are called primary or elementary. But it has probably occurred
+to few to ask why,&mdash;except in regard to mixing of paints in a
+drawing-school.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The theories of Gladstone and Magnus that the men of the Homeric
+era were colour-blind, because of the absence from the Homeric poems
+of certain words expressive of certain colours, have been disproved by
+more thorough modern research. The primitive man's sense of colour,
+or the sensitiveness of his retina to ether vibrations, may not have
+been as fine as that of the Roman mosaic-worker who could select his
+materials of 30,000 different tints, nor as that of Gobelin weavers, who
+can recognize 28,000 different shades of wool. But the evidence goes
+to show that the sense of colour is old as the gnawing of hunger or the
+pangs of fear,&mdash;old as the experience that taught living creatures to
+discern food and to flee from danger. There is, however, reason to
+suppose, from certain developmental phenomena observed in the eyes
+of children and newly-born animals, that the present condition of the
+colour-sense has been gradually reached&mdash;not so much in any particular
+species, as in all species possessing it,&mdash;just as vision itself must
+have been gradually acquired. Also showy colours must have been
+perceived before tints could be discerned; and even now we know
+through the spectroscope, that the human eye is not yet developed to
+the fullest possible perceptions of colour. Now the first colours
+recognized by the first eyes must have presumably been just those we
+call primary,&mdash;Yellow, Red, Green, Blue. Yellow, the colour of gold,
+is also the colour of our sun; the brightest daylight has a more or less
+faint tinge even at noon, according to the state of the atmosphere;&mdash;and
+this tinge deepens at sunrise and sunset. Red is the colour of
+blood,&mdash;a colour allied necessarily from time immemorial with violent
+mental impressions, whether of war, or love, or the chase, or religious
+sacrifice. Green itself is the colour of the world. Blue,&mdash;the blue of
+the far away sky,&mdash;has necessarily always been for man the colour
+mysterious and holy,&mdash;always associated with those high phenomena
+of heaven which first inspired wonder and fear of the Unknown.
+These colours were probably first known to intelligent life; and their
+impressions are to-day the strongest. So violent, indeed, have they
+become to our refined civilized sense, that in apparel or decoration
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;113]</span>
+three of them, at least, are condemned when offered pure. Even the
+armies of the world are abandoning red uniforms;&mdash;no refined people
+wear flaming crimsons or scarlets or yellows;&mdash;nobody would paint a
+house or decorate a wall with a solid sheet of strong primary colour.
+Blue is still the least violent, the most agreeable to the artistic sense;
+and in subdued form it holds a place, in costume and in art, refused to
+less spiritual colours.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It might consequently be expected there should exist some correlation
+between the primary colours and the stronger emotional states of
+man. And such, indeed, proves to be the case. Emotionally the
+colours come in the order of Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. Red still appeals
+to the idea of Passion,&mdash;for which very reason its artistic use is being
+more and more restrained. Very curious are the researches made by
+Grant Allen showing the fact of the sensual use of the red. In Swinburne's
+"Poems and Ballads "(the same suppressed work republished
+in this country under its first title, "Laus Veneris"), the red epithets
+appear 159 times, while gold, green and blue words occur respectively
+143, 86 and 25 times. In Tennyson's beautiful poem, "The Princess,"
+the red words occur only 20 times, the gold 28, the green 5, the blue
+once. With all his exquisite sense of colour, Tennyson is sparing of
+adjectives;&mdash;there is no false skin to his work; it is solid muscle and
+bone.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Next to Red, the most emotional colour is Yellow&mdash;the colour of
+life, and of what men seem to prize next to life,&mdash;Gold. We fancy we
+can live without green sometimes; it comes third; but it is the hue
+associated with all the labours of man on the earth, since he began to
+labour. It is the colour of Industry. Blue has always been, since
+man commenced to think, and always will be, until he shall have
+ceased to think,&mdash;associated with his spiritual sense,&mdash;his idea of many
+gods or of One,&mdash;his hopes of a second life, his faith, his good purposes,
+his perception of duty. Still, all who pray, turn up their faces
+toward the eternal azure. And with the modern expansion of the Idea
+of God, as with the modern expansion of the Idea of the Universe, the
+violet gulf of space ever seems more mystical,&mdash;its pure colour more
+and more divine, and appeals to us as the colour of the Unknowable,&mdash;the
+colour of the Holy of Holies.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">That Hearn wrote not from his own experience, out of
+his own heart, and with its blood, was due to the fact that
+life had denied him the needed experience; the personal
+materials, those that would interest the imaginative or
+imagining reader, did not exist. He must borrow, at first
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;114]</span>
+literally, which for him meant translation or retelling. The
+kind of things chosen was also dictated by the tragedy and
+pathos of his entire past life. But as if this pitiful tangling
+of the strands of Destiny were not enough, Fate added a
+knot of still more controlling misfortune. His adult life was
+passed without the poet's most necessary help of good vision.
+Indeed he had such extremely poor vision that one might
+say it was only the merest fraction of the normal. A most
+hazy blur of colours was all he perceived of objects beyond
+a foot or two away. There was left for him the memory
+of a world of forms as seen in his childhood; but that fact
+throws into relief the fact that it was a memory. It needs
+little psychologic acumen to realize how inaccurate would
+be our memories of trees, landscapes, mountains, oceans,
+cities, and the rest, seen only thirty years ago. How unsatisfying,
+how unreliable, especially for artistic purposes,
+must such memories be! To be sure, these haunting and
+dim recollections were, or might have been, helped out a
+little by pictures and photographs studied at the distance
+of three inches from the eye. The pathos of this, however,
+is increased by the fact that Hearn cared nothing for such
+photographs, etchings, engravings, etc. I never saw him
+look at one with attention or interest. Paintings, water-colours,
+etc., were as useless to him as the natural views
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Another way that he might have supplemented his
+infirmity was by means of his monocle, but he made
+little use of this poor device, because he instinctively
+recognized that it aided so meagrely. One cannot be
+sure how consciously he refused the help, or knew the
+reasons for his refusal. At best it could give him only
+a suggestion of the accurate knowledge which our eyes
+give us of distant objects, and not even his sensitive mind
+could know that it minimized the objects thus seen, and
+almost turned them into a caricaturing microscopic smallness,
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;115]</span>
+like that produced when we look through the large
+end of an opera-glass. What would we think of the world
+if we carried before our eyes an opera-glass thus inverted?
+Would not a second's such use be as foolish as continuous
+use? There was an optical and sensible reason for his
+refusal. With the subtle wisdom of the unconscious he
+refused to see plainly, because his successful work, his
+unique function, lay in the requickening of ancient sorrows,
+and of lost, aimless and errant souls. He supplemented
+the deficiencies of vision with a vivid imagination, a perfect
+memory, and a perfection of touch which gave some sense
+of solidity and content, and by hearing, that echo-like
+emphasized unreality; but his world was essentially a
+two-dimensional one. To add the <i>comble</i> to his ocular
+misfortunes, he had but one eye, and therefore he had no
+stereoscopic vision, and hence almost no perception of
+solidity, thickness, or content except such as was gained
+by the sense of touch, memory, judgment, etc. The little
+glimpse of stereoscopic qualities was made impossible by
+the fact of his enormous myopia, and further by the comparative
+blindness to objects beyond a few inches or a few
+feet away from the eye. The small ball becomes flat when
+brought sufficiently near the eye. Practically the world
+beyond a few feet was not a three-dimensional one; it was
+coloured it is true, and bewilderingly so, but it was formless
+and flat, without much thickness or solidity, and almost
+without perspective.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Moreover, Hearn's single eye was
+divergent, and more of the world to his left side was
+invisible to him than to other single-eyed persons. Most
+noteworthy also is another fact,&mdash;the slowness of vision by
+a highly myopic eye. It takes it longer to see what it
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;116]</span>
+finally does see than in the case of other eyes. So all the
+movements of such a myopic person must be slow and
+careful, for he is in doubt about everything under foot, or
+even within reach of the hands. Hearn's myopia produced
+his manners.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_18_18">
+<span class="label">[18]</span></a> I have gathered, but must omit, a hundred illuminating quotations
+from Hearn's writings, illustrating the truth of the formlessness and
+non-objectivity of his world, and how colour dominated his poorly seen
+universe.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">Intellect, one must repeat, is largely, almost entirely, the
+product of vision,&mdash;especially the æsthetic part of intellect.
+And intellect, it should not be forgotten, is "desiccated
+emotion"; which brings us up sharply before the question
+of the effect upon æsthetic and general feeling, upon the
+soft swirl and lift and flitting rush of the emotional nature,
+in a psyche so sensitive and aerial as that of Hearn. In
+this rare ether one loses the significance of words, and the
+limitations of logic, but it may not be doubted that in the
+large, the summarized effect of thirty years of two-dimensional
+seeing and living, of a flat, formless, coloured world,
+upon the immeasurably quick, sensitive plate of Hearn's
+mind, was&mdash;well, it was what it was!</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And who can describe that mind! Clearly and patently,
+it was a mind without creative ability, spring, or the desire
+for it. It was a mind improcreant by inheritance and by
+education, by necessity and by training, by poverty internal
+and external. To enable its master to live, it must write,
+and, as was pitifully evident, if it could not write in obedience
+to a creative instinct, it must do the next best thing.
+This residual second was to describe the external world,
+or at least so much of the externals of all worlds, physical,
+biological, or social, as romance or common-sense demanded
+to make the writing vivid, accurate, and bodied. Any good
+literature, especially the poetic, must be based on reality,
+must at least incidentally have its running obligato of
+reality. For the poet, again emphasized, vision is the intermediary,
+the broad, bright highway to facts. Prosaically,
+local colour requires the local seer. Barred from this divine
+roadway to and through the actual universe, the foiled mind
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;117]</span>
+of Hearn could choose but one course: to regarment, transform,
+and colour the world, devised and transmitted by
+others, and reversing the old &#959; &#955;&#959;&#947;&#959;&#962; &#963;&#945;&#961;&#958; &#949;&#947;&#949;&#957;&#949;&#964;&#959; rewrite
+the history of the soul as &#963;&#945;&#961;&#958; &#959; &#955;&#959;&#947;&#959;&#962; &#949;&#947;&#949;&#957;&#949;&#964;&#959;
+, for in
+Hearn's alembic the solidest of flesh was "melted" and
+escaped in clouds of spirit; it was indeed often so disembodied
+and freed that one is lost in wonder at the mere
+vision of the cloudland so eerie, so silent, so void, so invisibly
+far, and fading ever still farther away. But, chained
+to the <i>here</i> Hearn could not march on the bright road.
+He could never even see the road, or its ending. If freed
+to go, <i>there</i> became <i>here</i> with the intolerable limitation of
+his vision, the peculiarity of his unvision. The world, the
+world of the <i>there</i> must be brought to him, and in the
+bringing it became the <i>here</i>. In the process, distant
+motion or action became dead, silent, and immobile being;
+distance was transformed to presence, and an intimacy of
+presence which at one blow destroyed scene, setting, and
+illumination. For, except to passionate love, nearness and
+touch are not poetical or transfiguring, and to Hearn love
+never could come; at least it never did come. Except
+in boyhood he never, with any accuracy of expression
+or life, saw a human face; at the best, he saw faces
+only in the frozen photographs, and these interested him
+little.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">With creative instinct or ability denied, with the poet's
+craving for open-eyed knowing, and with the poet's
+necessity of realizing the world out there, Hearn, baldly
+stated, was forced to become the poet of myopia. His
+groping mind was compelled to rest satisfied with the
+world of distance and reality transported by the magic
+carpet to the door of his imagination and fancy. There in
+a flash it was melted to formless spirit, recombined to soul,
+and given the semblance of a thin reincarnation, fashioned,
+refashioned, coloured, recoloured. There, lo! that incomparable
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;118]</span>
+wonder of art, the haunting, magical essence of
+reality, the quivering, elusive protean ghost of the tragedy
+of dead pain, the smile of a lost universe murmuring <i>non
+dolet</i> while it dies struck by the hand of the beloved
+murderer.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;119]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X_HEARNS_STYLE" id="CHAPTER_X_HEARNS_STYLE"></a>CHAPTER X.&mdash;HEARN'S STYLE</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;120]</span></p>
+
+<p class="cap">"THE 'lovers of the antique loveliness,'" wrote Hearn,
+"are proving to me the future possibilities of a long-cherished
+dream&mdash;the English realization of a Latin style,
+modelled upon foreign masters, and rendered even more
+forcible by that element of <i>strength</i> which is the characteristic
+of the northern tongues." "I think that Genius must
+have greater attributes than mere creative power to be
+called to the front rank,&mdash;the thing created must be beautiful;
+it does not satisfy if the material be rich. I cannot
+content myself with ores and rough jewels, etc." "It has
+long been my aim to create something in English fiction
+analogous to that warmth of colour and richness of imagery
+hitherto peculiar to Latin literature. Being of a meridional
+race myself, a Greek, I <i>feel</i> rather with the Latin race than
+with the Anglo-Saxon; and trust that with time and study
+I may be able to create something different from the
+stone-grey and somewhat chilly style of latter-day English
+or American romance." "The volume, 'Chinese Ghosts,'
+is an attempt in the direction I hope to make triumph some
+day, <i>poetical prose</i>." "A man's style, when fully developed,
+is part of his personality. Mine is being shaped to a
+particular end."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn advised the use of the etymological dictionary in
+order to secure "that subtle sense of words to which much
+that <i>startles</i> in poetry and prose is due." But although
+always remaining an artist in words, he, at his best, came
+to know that artistic technique in ideas is a more certain
+method of arousing and holding the readers' interest. He
+also strongly urges a knowledge of Science as more
+necessary to the formation of a strong style. In this, however,
+he never practised what he commended, because he
+had no mind for Science, nor knowledge of scientific
+things. He spoke with pride of writing the scientific
+editorials for his paper, but they were few and may quickly
+be ignored.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;121]</span>
+Flaubert was Hearn's literary deity; the technique of the
+two men was identical, and consisted of infinite pains with
+data, in phrase-building, sentence-making, and word-choosing.
+With no writer was the filing of the line ever carried
+to higher perfection than with both master and pupil;
+fortunately the younger had to make his living by his pen,
+and therefore he could not wreck himself upon the
+impossible task as did Flaubert. For nothing is more
+certain to ruin style and content, form as well as matter,
+than to make style and form the first consideration of a
+writer. Flaubert, the fashion-maker and supreme example
+of this school, came at last to recognize this truth, and
+wished that he might buy up and destroy all copies of
+"Madame Bovary;" and he summed up the unattainableness
+of the ideal, as well as the resultant abysmal pessimism,
+when he said that "form is only an error of sense, and substance
+a fancy of your thought." His ever-repeated "Art
+has no morality," "The moment a thing is true it is good,"
+"Style is an absolute method of seeing things," "The idea
+exists only by virtue of its form," etc., led Flaubert and
+his thousand imitators into the quagmire which Zola, Wilde,
+Shaw, and decadent journalism generally so admirably
+illustrate. That Hearn escaped from the bog is due to
+several interesting reasons, the chief being his poverty,
+which compelled him to write much, and his audience,
+which, being Anglo-Saxon (and therefore properly and
+thoroughly cursed), would not buy the elegant pornography
+of Flaubert and the gentlemen who succeeded, or did not
+succeed, in the perfection of the worship and of the works
+of the master of them all. And then Hearn was himself at
+least part Anglo-Saxon, so that he shrank from perfection
+in the method.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There is a pathetic proof of the lesson doubly repeated in
+the lives of both Flaubert and Hearn. "St. Anthony" was
+rewritten three times, and each time the failures might be
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;122]</span>
+called, great, greater, greatest. There lies before me
+Hearn's manuscript translation of the third revision of the
+work, in two large volumes, with a printed pamphlet of
+directions to the printer, an Introduction, etc.,&mdash;a great
+labour assuredly on Hearn's part. No publisher could be
+found to give it to the world of English readers!<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Moreover,
+there was never in his life any personal happiness, romance,
+poetry, or satisfaction which could serve as the material of
+Hearn's æsthetic faculty. Almost every hour of that life
+had been lived in physical or mental anguish, denied desire,
+crushed yearnings, and unguided waywardness. Born of a
+Greek mother, and a roving English father, his childhood
+was passed in an absurd French school where another
+might have become a dwarfed and potted Chinese tree.
+Flung upon the alien world of the United States in youth,
+without self-knowledge, experience, or self-guiding power,
+he drank for years all the bitter poisons of poverty, banality,
+and the rest, which may not shatter the moral and mental
+health of strong and coarse natures. By nature and
+necessity shy beyond belief, none may imagine the
+poignant sufferings he endured, and how from it all he
+writhed at last to manhood and self-consciousness, preserved
+a weird yet real beauty of soul, a morbid yet
+genuine artist-power, a child-like and childish, yet most
+involuted and mysterious heart, a supple and subtle, yet
+illogical and contentless intellect.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_19_19">
+<span class="label">[19]</span></a> Particulars concerning the manuscript translation of "St. Anthony"
+are given in the Bibliography of Miss Stedman, Hearn's "Argument" of
+the book being reprinted in full.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">The most striking evidence of the pathetic and unmatched
+endowment and experience is that, while circumstance
+dictated that he should be a romancer, no facts
+in his own life could be used as his material. There had
+been no romance, no love, no happiness, no interesting personal
+data, upon which he could draw to give his imagination
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;123]</span>
+play, vividness, actuality, or even the semblance of reality.
+So sombre and tragic, moreover, had been his own living
+that the choice of his themes could only be of unhealthy,
+almost unnatural, import and colouring. He therefore chose
+to work over the imaginings of other writers, and perforce
+of morbid ones.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A glance at his library confirms the opinion. When
+Hearn left for Japan, he turned over to me several hundred
+volumes which he had collected and did not wish to take
+with him. His most-prized books he had had especially
+rebound in dainty morocco covers, and these, particularly,
+point to the already established taste, the yearning for the
+strange, the weird, and the ghost-like, the gathered and
+pressed exotic flowers of folklore, the banalities and
+morbidities of writers with unleashed imaginations, the
+love of antique religions and peoples, the mysteries
+of mystics, the descriptions of savage life and rites&mdash;all
+mixed with dictionaries, handbooks, systems of philosophy,
+etc.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Under the conditioning factor of his taste, it is true that
+his choice, or his <i>flair</i>, was unique and inerrant. He
+tracked his game with fatal accuracy to its lair. His
+literary sense was perfect, when he set it in action, and
+this is his unique merit. There has never been a mind
+more infallibly sure to find the best in all literatures, the
+best of the kind he sought, and probably his translations
+of the stories from the French are as perfect as can be.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">His second published volume, the "Stray Leaves from
+Strange Literature," epitomizes and reillumines this first
+period of his literary workmanship. The material, the
+basis, is not his own; it is drawn from the fatal Orient,
+and tells of love, jealousy, hate, bitter and burning vengeance,
+and death, sudden and awful. Over it is the
+wondrous mystical glamour in which he, like his elder
+brother Coleridge, was so expert in sunsetting these dead
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;124]</span>
+days and deathless themes. His next book, "Some
+Chinese Ghosts," was a reillustration of the same searching,
+finding, and illuminating.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Flaubert's choice of subjects, as regards his essential
+character, was of the most extreme illogicality; his
+cadenced phrase and meticulous technique were also not
+the product of his character or of his freedom. In the
+Land of Nowhere, Hearn was likewise compelled to reside,
+and it was necessarily a land of colour and echo, not one of
+form. The suffering Frenchman emptied of inhabitants
+or deimpersonalized his alien country, while the more
+healthy Anglo-Saxon peopled it with ghosts. "Have you
+ever experienced the historic shudder?" asked Flaubert.
+"I seek to give your ghost a ghostly shudder," said Hearn.
+Flaubert wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The artist should be in his work, like God in creation,
+invisible and all-powerful; he should be felt everywhere
+and seen nowhere.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Art should be raised above personal affections and
+nervous susceptibilities. It is time to give it the perfection
+of the physical sciences by means of pitiless method."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And Hearn's first and most beloved "Avatar," and his
+most serious "St. Anthony"&mdash;works dealing with the
+mysteries and awesomeness of disembodied souls and
+ideals&mdash;"could not get themselves printed." Moreover, in
+all that he afterwards published there are the haunting
+far-away, the soft concealing smile, and the unearthly
+memories of pain, the detached spirits of muted and transmuted
+dead emotions, and denied yearnings, the formless
+colourings of half-invisible and evanishing dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">For with Hearn's lack of creative ability, married to his
+inexperience of happiness, he could but choose the darksome,
+the tragical elements of life, the &#960;&#945;&#952;&#959;&#962; even of
+religion, as his themes. His intellect being a reflecting, or
+at least a recombining and colouring faculty, his datum
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;125]</span>
+must be sought without, and it must be brought to him;
+his joyless and even his tragic experience compelled him
+to cull from the mingled sad and bright only the pathetic
+or pessimistic subjects; his physical and optical imprisonment
+forbade that objectivation and distinctive embodiment
+which stamp an art work with the seal of reality, and
+make it stand there wholly non-excusing, or else offering
+itself as its own excuse for being. True art must have the
+warp of materiality, interwoven with the woof of life, or
+else the coloration and designs of the imagination cannot
+avail to dower it with immortality.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Working within the sad limits his Fates had set, Hearn
+performed wonders. None has made tragedy so soft and
+gentle, none has rendered suffering more beautiful, none
+has dissolved disappointment into such painless grief, none
+has blunted the hurt of mortality with such a delightful
+anæsthesia, and by none have death and hopelessness been
+more deftly figured in the guise of a desirable Nirvâna.
+The doing of this was almost a unique doing, the manner
+of the &#960;&#959;&#953;&#951;&#963;&#953;&#962; was assuredly so, and constitutes Hearn's
+claim to an artist's "For ever." He would have made no
+claim, it is true, to this, or to any other endless existence,
+but we who read would be too indiscriminating, would be
+losers, ingrates, if we did not cherish the lovely gift he
+brings to us so shyly. Restricted and confined as was his
+garden, he grew in it exotic flowers of unearthly but
+imperishable beauty. One will not find elsewhere an
+equal craftsmanship in bringing into words and vision
+the intangible, the far, fine, illusive fancy, the ghosts of
+vanished hearts and hopes. Under his magic touch unseen
+spirit almost reappears with the veiling of materiality, and
+behind the grim and grinning death's-head a supplanting
+smile of kindness invites pity, if not a friendly whisper.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">As to literary aim, Hearn distinctly and repeatedly confessed
+to me that his ideal was, in his own words, to give his
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;126]</span>
+reader "a ghostly shudder," a sense of the closeness of the
+unseen about us, as if eyes we saw not were watching us, as if
+long-dead spirits and weird powers were haunting the very
+air about our ears, were sitting hid in our heart of hearts.
+It was a pleasing task to him to make us hear the moans
+and croonings of disincarnate griefs and old pulseless
+pains, begging piteously, but always softly, gently, for our
+love and comforting. But it should not be unrecognized
+that no allurement of his art can hide from view the deeper
+pathos of a horrid and iron fatalism which to his mind
+moved the worlds of nature or of life, throttled freedom,
+steeled the heart, iced the emotions, and dictated the essential
+automatism of our own being and of these sad dead millions
+which crowd the dimly seen dreams of Hearn's mind.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It may be added that, accepting the command of his
+destiny, Hearn consciously formed an ideal to which he
+worked, and even laboured at the technique of its realization.
+I have talked with him upon these and similar subjects for
+many long hours, or got him to talk to me. The conversations
+were usually at night, beneath trees, with the
+moonlight shimmering through and giving that dim, mystic
+light which is not light, so well suited to such a poet and
+to his favourite subjects.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">As to technique, there was never an artist more patient
+and persistent than he to clothe his thought in its perfect
+garment of words. Sometimes he would be able to write
+with comparative ease a large number of sheets (of <i>yellow</i>
+paper&mdash;he could write on no other) in a day. At other
+times the words did not suit or fit, and he would rewrite a
+few pages scores of times. Once I knew him to labour
+over six lines an entire day, and then stop weary and unsatisfied.
+I had to supply a large waste-basket and have
+often wished I had kept for comparison and a lesson in
+practical æsthetics the half-bushel or more of wasted sheets
+thrown away nearly every day.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;127]</span>
+Just as those outfitted with good eyes must find Hearn's
+world too formless and too magnificently coloured, so
+normal civilized persons will find it altogether too sexually
+and sensually charged. Whenever able to do so he turns
+a description to the ghostly, but even then <i>c'est toujours
+femme!</i> A mountain is like a curved hip, a slender tree
+takes the form of a young girl budding into womanhood,
+etc. Colour, too, is everywhere, even where it is not,
+seemingly, to our eyes, and even colour is often made
+sensual and sexual by some strange suggestion or allusion.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Viewing merit as the due of conscious, honourable, unselfish,
+and dutiful effort, Hearn's sole merit rises from his
+heroic pursuit of an ideal of workmanship. Like glorious
+bursts of illuminating sunshine through the fogs and clouds
+of a murky atmosphere shine such sentences as these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">What you want, and what we all want, who possess devotion to any
+noble idea, who hide any artistic idol in a niche of our heart, is that
+independence which gives us at least the time to worship the holiness
+of beauty,&mdash;be it in harmonies of sound, of form, or of colour.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">What you say about the disinclination to work for years upon a
+theme for pure love's sake, without hope of reward, touches me,&mdash;because
+I have felt that despair so long and so often. And yet I
+believe that all the world's art-work&mdash;all that which is eternal&mdash;was
+thus wrought. And I also believe that no work made perfect for the
+pure love of art, can perish, save by strange and rare accident....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Yet the hardest of all sacrifices for the artist is this sacrifice to art,&mdash;this
+trampling of self under foot! It is the supreme test for
+admittance into the ranks of the eternal priests. It is the bitter and
+fruitless sacrifice which the artist's soul is bound to make,&mdash;as in
+certain antique cities maidens were compelled to give their virginity
+to a god of stone! But without the sacrifice, can we hope for the grace
+of Heaven?</p>
+
+<p class="indent">What is the reward? The consciousness of inspiration only! I
+think art gives a new faith. I think&mdash;all jesting aside&mdash;that could I
+create something I felt to be sublime, I should feel also that the
+Unknowable had selected me for a mouthpiece, for a medium of
+utterance, in the holy cycling of its eternal purpose; and I should
+know the pride of the prophet that had seen God face to face.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">* * * * Never to abandon the pursuit of an artistic vocation
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;128]</span>
+for any other occupation, however lucrative,&mdash;not even when she
+remained apparently deaf and blind to her worshippers. So long as
+one can live and pursue his natural vocation in art, it is a duty with
+him never to abandon it if he believes that he has within him the
+elements of final success. Every time he labours at aught that is not
+of art, he robs the divinity of what belongs to her.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">And the greatest of our satisfactions with Hearn's personality
+is that these were not mere words, but that he
+consistently, resolutely, and persistently practised his
+preaching. This was the only religion or ethics he had,
+and praise God, he had it! That alone binds us to him in
+any feeling of brotherhood, that only makes us grateful to
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Style has been too frequently and too long confounded
+with content. There is the matter, the thing to be said,
+the story to be told; and quite apart from this there is the
+method of telling it, which, properly viewed, is style. So
+long as the teller of the tale has only borrowed his message
+or story from others, there cannot be raised much question
+of originality, or discussion of the datum, except in so far
+as pertains to the <i>choice</i> of material. And so long as the
+stylist fingers etymological dictionaries for "startling words,"
+so long will his style remain of the lower kind and etymologically
+unstylish. When the technique becomes unconscious
+and perfect, there is style, or the art, merged into
+the content, and then, <i>le style c'est l'homme</i>, or, as Hearn
+translated it, style becomes the artist's personality. In the
+best Japanese works Hearn accomplished this, and with
+his consummate choice of material there was the consummate
+art-work. Subject, method, cunning handiwork,
+psychologic analysis, generous and loyal sympathy, colour
+(not form)&mdash;all were fused to a unity almost beyond disassociation,
+and challenging admiration. But it is not
+beyond our perfect enjoying.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is true that Hearn has ignored, necessarily and wisely
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;129]</span>
+ignored, the objective and material side of Japanese existence.
+Mechanics, nationalism, economy, the materialism
+of his material, had obviously to be untouched in his
+interpretation, or in his "Interpretation." It would have
+been absurd for him to have attempted any presentation
+or valuable phasing of this important aspect. That for
+him was in a double sense <i>ultra vires</i>. Such work will
+not want for experts. But what Hearn has done was
+almost wholly impossible to any other. His personal
+heredity, history, and physiology, highly exceptional, seem
+to have conspired to outfit him for this remarkable task.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There is still another reason, at first sight a contradicting
+one, for both Hearn's fitness and his success in giving us a
+literary incarnation of the spirit or soul of Japan in the
+subjective sense: To his readers it must have appeared
+an insoluble enigma why this superlatively subjective and
+psychical "sensitive" should have been such an unrecking,
+<i>outré</i>, and enthusiastic follower of Herbert Spencer's philosophy,
+or that part of it given in the "First Principles."
+It is told of an English wit that when asked if he was
+willing to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, he promptly
+replied, "Oh, yes, forty of them if you wish." Hearn was
+similarly minded&mdash;minus the fun,&mdash;and most unphilosophically
+he went into utter captivity, seemingly, to the unphilosophic
+philosopher. And yet the spirit of Spencer's
+"First Principles" was in reality as different from that of
+Hearn as was the spirit of St. Francis from that, for
+instance, of Cecil Rhodes. The contradiction and ludicrousness
+of this mismating is so easy of explanation that the
+incongruity is missed. The forest is not seen because of
+the trees. Hearn did not have true scientific instinct,
+animus, or ability. Neither had Herbert Spencer&mdash;so far
+as his "First Principles" is concerned, and as regards an
+improved inductive method as shown in the "Psychology,"
+"Biology," etc., Hearn, according to a letter, found he could
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;130]</span>
+not interest himself enough to read one of these later works.
+The clear and well-drilled scientific intellect admits that if
+Spencer had not published his "First Principles," but had
+gathered the facts of his later works before publishing an
+epitomizing Last Principles, the matter would have been as
+differently phased as night and day. Spencer cared infinitely
+more for the systematization than he did for the
+facts systematized. Reduced to its last analysis, the "First
+Principles" was the reverse of a close induction from the
+facts of nature and life. It presented the glitter of generalization
+without the logic. The reverberating echoes of its
+illogic, sweeping sonorously over the universe with an
+indiscriminate ignoring of the world-wide difference between
+matter and life, caught the fancy of the imprisoned poet
+soul; he thoughtlessly yielded a homage which, from his
+standpoint, was unjustified, and which objectively was an
+unscrutinizing lip-service. Subjectively Spencerism gave
+Hearn warrant for an inborn atheism and materialism
+which had been heightened immoderately by the bitter
+teachings of experience into a pessimism so horrid that
+one shuddered when looking into the man's soul depths.
+<i>Morne</i> was a favourite word with Hearn, and Spencer's
+was a fateful philosophy for one whose birth and education
+were desolation, and whose sight of the world was more
+than <i>morne</i>, was the abomination of desolation, was in
+truth the sheer awfulness of despair. Blindness were vastly
+preferable to Hearn's affliction, but if that splendid poet
+St. Francis had been so cursed, his face and his soul would
+have been ecstatic with smiles, with joy, with faith, with
+hope, and with love. So strange is the unaccountable
+allotment of Fate in her endowments, gifts, and orderings.
+There is and there can be no blame&mdash;only a pity wholly
+beyond expression.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The aloofness, far-awayness, the inapproachable distance
+and detachment of Hearn's spirit is one of the characteristics
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;131]</span>
+felt in reading his best pages. Everything is infinitely
+beyond our senses. To him everything was distant: the
+near was far, the far was at infinity. He thus truly became
+the poet of the <i>au delà</i>. His voice, itself an echo, comes to
+us as from the hush of an eerie height above the beat and
+wreck of the waves of our noisy shore. His personality as
+revealed in his writings is an echo, a memory, almost the
+memory of a memory, the thrill of the day-dream of a soul
+retreating from sense.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Each day the quiet grew more still</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Within his soul, more shrank the will</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Beyond the jar of sense, serene,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Behind the hurt of world or ill,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Where sleep hushed silences unseen.</span><br />
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">He ever insists on a haunting glimpse of the pain and
+the renunciation of others, of wasted and long-dead faces
+and loves, always shrinking from our gaze, pallid in the
+darkling light of the setting moon, of vanishing loves,
+grievous story, forgotten myth, and ruined religion.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And yet, and yet, all that works to make Hearn immortal
+in literature is, at last, not art <i>per se</i>. One might quote
+freely showing that his "filing of the line," like that of
+Flaubert, led to nothing, if the thought and feeling to be
+put into the lines were not there. They were not there
+with his masters, Flaubert, Gautier, Maupassant, and others,
+and so these men will not inherit literary immortality.
+They had no soul, and only the soul, the spirit, can be
+immortalized. Hearn's good fortune is that unconsciously,
+even almost against his will, he was more than they, more
+than an artist as such. He had something else to do. If
+it had not been for his poverty, the necessity to sell what
+he wrote, he would surely have gone the same road to
+Avernus as his masters. Then, too, he had no original
+message to write, because he had no real soul, only a
+borrowed one. Japan gave him her soul to rematerialize
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;132]</span>
+and recolour with literary life. Without his Japanese work
+Hearn would have died as <i>littérateur</i> in the year he died
+as a physical body. To tell her "ghostly" stories was his
+great office and function. When these were told his work
+was done. His old gloating over the clotted villainies of
+mediæval horror had been much outgrown, and it had no
+chance to be used in Japan. The Japanese character would
+not tolerate such things. The ghastly was transformed
+into the ghostly, and his Oriental fancy was luckily turned
+to better duties and pleasures. This more than Flaubert
+was something not to be got from modern atheistic French
+"Art for Art's sake," nor from modern Levantine nonentity
+of character. How marvellous is his sympathy with his
+subject, loyalty to his literary duty, and to his literary
+ideal! His despised Irish father perhaps had slipped into
+the otherwise invisible and limp threads of his Fates a little
+mesh of spiritual reality, which, dormant, unrecognized,
+and even scorned by him, came finally to give him all his
+valour and worth. He could dower the insubstantial sigh
+of a long dead soul or people with the wingéd word. It was
+a word of colour, only,&mdash;and colour has no objective existence,&mdash;the
+rainbow is not out there. And because it is
+spiritual, not objective, the most beautiful, if the most
+evanescent of all earthly things, is colour. The hearers of
+soundless music, and the lovers of "the light that never
+was on sea or shore" will understand what is meant. For
+them Hearn really wrote: they are few, and scattered far,
+but Hearn will magnificently multiply the number. His
+amazing merit is that while without the great qualities
+which make the greatest writers, he wrought such miracles
+of winning grace and persuading beauty.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">That he wrought against his will, and by the overcoming
+of a seemingly cruel Fate, puts him almost outside of our
+personal gratitude. We take the gift from a divinity he
+did not recognize, one that used the rebellious hand and
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;133]</span>
+the almost blind eye as a writing instrument. The lover
+of the gruesome, the Spencerian scientist, the man himself,
+must have wondered at the message when he came out
+from under the influence of the pitiless inspiration.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">One of Hearn's dangers was discursiveness, or want of
+conciseness and intensity. "Chita" showed it, and the
+West Indian work lost in value because of it. It is the
+danger of all those writers who lack creative ability, and
+who depend upon "local colour," and "style" for their
+effect. The story's the thing, after all! In Hearn's
+translations, and especially in "Stray Leaves," he for the
+moment caught the view of the value of the content, saw
+how the fact, dramatic, intense, and passionate is the all-desirable;
+the art of its presentation is the art of letting it
+flash forth upon the reader with few, apt, and flamelike
+words, which reveal and not conceal the life and soul of
+the act and of the actor. He tended to forget this. In
+"Karma," besides, or rather by reason of, the moral,&mdash;his
+newly got psyche,&mdash;he returned to a reliance upon essentials,
+upon the datum of the spirit, and not upon its reflections,
+refractions, and chromatics. The beautiful spectrum was
+there refocused into white light, and the senses disappeared
+to reveal behind them the divinity of soul. That art-lesson
+was never forgotten by Hearn, and his Japanese work had a
+purity and a reality, a white heat, which make his previous
+stories and sketches seem pale and weak.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Questions of style and form sometimes run inevitably
+into those of content and of logic. Essentially wanting
+the rigorous training of form, without the content and
+method of the scientific intellect, all Hearn's work shows
+a lack of system, order, and subordination of parts. In
+any single one of the Japanese volumes the absence of
+logic is lamentably evident. He constantly repeats himself,
+and the warp of some of his themes is worn threadbare.
+His most ambitious work, "Japan," is, in truth, a
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;134]</span>
+regathering and a restatement in more objective style, of
+his previous imaginative studies. Almost the only added
+thought concerns the difference between Shint&#333;ism and
+ancestor-worship and the truism that Japan is to-day
+ruthlessly sacrificing the life of the individual to that of
+the nation. The lack of scholarship and of the scientific
+animus (even in a field, folk-lore, more nearly his own than
+any other) comes to view in his mistake of supposing
+Spencer an authority on the subject of the origin of
+religion, and in the blunder that assumed ancestor-worship
+to be original in Japanese history and religion. Ancestor-worship,
+according to Griffis, Knox, and other distinguished
+authorities, was unknown to the ancient writers of Nippon
+and was imported from China. How threadbare&mdash;and yet
+how deftly, even charmingly concealed!&mdash;was the wearing
+of his favourite themes, is shown by Hearn's fateful return
+to the gruesome, especially in the later books, "Kott" and
+"Kwaidan." These stories of the dead and of morbid
+necrophilism are witnesses of Hearn's primitive interest in
+the ghastly, impossible to be renounced or sloughed, not to
+be replaced by desire for the supersensual, or by resolve
+to transform the loathsome into the ghostly. Hearn
+should never have been seduced into the delusion that he
+could become the spokesman of any scientific animus,
+methods or results. Erudition, logic, systematization, were
+to him impossible. His function was another and of a
+different nature, and his peculiar ability was for other
+tasks. If we are adequately to appreciate the exquisiteness
+of the earlier Japanese works, we will forget the "Japan,
+an Interpretation."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">If we look upon Hearn as a painter, almost the sole
+colour of his palette was mummy brown, the powdered flesh
+of the ancient dead holding in solution their griefs, their
+hopes, their loves, their yearnings, which he found to sink
+always to pulselessness, and to end in eternal defeat! But
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;135]</span>
+the pallor and sadness for the brief moment of their
+resuscitation was divinely softened and atoningly beautified.
+Then they disappeared again in the waste and
+gloom from which love and poesy had evoked them.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Felled in the struggle and defeat of the eternal battle
+with death, the vegetation of untold ages long ago drifted
+to an amorphous stratum of indistinguishable millionfold
+corpses. Compression, deferred combustion and over-shrouding
+transmuted and preserved it for a long-after-coming
+time, for our warming, lighting, and delighting.
+This has a perfect analogy in the history and use of tradition,
+myth, folk-lore, custom, and religion, those symbolic
+and concrete epitomes of man's long ancestral growths
+and strivings, those true black diamonds of humanity's
+experiences, its successes and failures, of its ideals and
+disappointments. Hearn's artistry consisted in catching
+up these gems, these extinguished souls washed from a
+world of graves to the threshold of his miracle-working
+imagination, and in making them flush for an instant with
+the semblance of life. With what exquisite skill and grace
+he was able to concentrate upon them the soft light-rays
+of a fancy as subtle and beautifying as ever has been given
+to mortal!</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;137]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI_SUMMARY_AND" id="CHAPTER_XI_SUMMARY_AND"></a>CHAPTER XI.&mdash;SUMMARY AND
+CONCLUSION</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;138]</span>
+CONCERNING Hearn's outfitting of character by
+his parents little or nothing is known. It is of
+comparative unimportance because only a slight judicial
+familiarity with his works, especially those of the pre-Japanese
+periods, demonstrates that so far as concerns
+substratum and substance of character he had neither.
+There was an interior void, an absence of psychic reality,
+which mocked his friends and which likewise baulked at
+true creativeness. He never made a plot or blew the breath
+of life into a character; his datum was always provided
+from without and by another. He was a reflector only,&mdash;plus
+a colourist&mdash;but a colourist of unrivalled excellence
+and power. Form he knew not, had never seen, and that
+is also his second conditioning weakness as an artist. Even
+much of his philosophy was to justify the sensualism,
+sensualisticism, pessimism, and godlessness which are early
+manifest. But it was a product taken over from another,
+a hastily devoured meal without mastication, digestion, or
+assimilation. The interior emptiness was pathetically emphasized
+by the fact of a contentless experience which also
+worked to deprive his mind of spontaneous originality. He
+never loved, except in one sorry way, never suffered much,
+never lived much, for he was a hard worker, and he was
+always seeking the ever-postponed, ever-unsatisfying Paradise,
+so vainly hunted for, and which none ever finds except
+in himself. <i>Ihm fehlt die Liebe,</i> was said of Heine,&mdash;how
+much truer is it of Hearn! Conspiring with a native lack
+of originality and want of normal experience, his enormous
+near-sightedness made his choice of material and method
+of handling it what we know. If anything was "inherited,"
+it was a pseudo-Orientalism, a love of the monstrous and
+gruesome, an astonishing indifference to Occidental history
+and its conclusions as to sexual and social laws, a spontaneous
+faith in faithlessness, a belief in irreligion, and an
+almost hopeless trend toward fatalism and its inevitable
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;139]</span>
+consequent, pessimism. Improvidence, financial as well as
+moral, and disloyalty, to his friends as well as to his higher
+nature, were his life-long, crippling, and condemning sins.
+Two mysteries seem almost inexplainable. We know why
+others had to give him his themes, and whence and how he
+became a mirror, or an echo; and we understand how the
+echoing became also wondrously, even exaggeratedly, but
+beautifully, coloured. We can almost see why he was
+foolishly and absurdly disloyal to personal friends, often
+treating worst those who were the most kind to him; best,
+those who were sometimes most cunningly selfish. We
+may explain his ridiculous <i>Wanderlust</i>. But two attributes
+are beyond all analysis:&mdash;one was a thing illogical with his
+character, his cleaving to an ideal of literary workmanship
+at the cost of selfishness, friendships, and temporary
+success; and the other was his marvellous literary and
+psychologic sympathy with whatever mind, people, circumstance,
+story, or tradition, accident or choice brought
+before the echoing or mirroring mind. If it were faint,
+ghostly, and far away, he was a true thaumaturgist in loving
+it into life, and living it into love.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">This beautiful sympathy and literary loyalty made it
+possible for Hearn to use the words of faith and of religion,
+even of morality, as if they were his own, while with them
+he had no personal sympathy whatever. For instance, he
+could speak, as if from his heart out, of "a million astral
+lamps lighted in the vast and violet dome of God's everlasting
+mosque." He could praise as a sublime exhortation
+the command, "O ye that are about to sleep, commend
+your souls to Him who never sleeps!" It is, of course,
+true that in Hearn's mind, doubtless, the poorest heathen
+or savage virtue was sublimely virtuous, and any barbaric
+vice had more of virtue in it than of viciousness. Surely
+the most paltry Oriental excellence was far lovelier to him
+than any Occidental heroism or beauty, however splendid.
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;140]</span>
+We are thus helped to understand how his mind could
+seem to flush with religious or ethical enthusiasm, while
+the mosque of his real heart was only a chasm of gloomy
+negation or a chaos of hideous death. This was due to the
+fact that he had no constructive mind, and as only one
+kind of doing, writing, was possible to him, because of his
+near-sightedness, he must needs hate Occidentalism, and
+exalt with a somewhat ludicrous praise the vapid, and even
+pitiful childishness of semi-barbaric Orientalism. The
+illogicality reaches its acme when Hearn, atheistic, disloyal,
+and unethical, was compelled, as in some of his Japanese
+pages, to put a morality and a religion behind the acts and
+in the hearts of his characters, which with his and with their
+atheism, was, dramatically, so out of place that the incongruity
+would make us smile if it were not all done with
+such a sweet and haunting grace. The culmination of the
+contradictory trends is in "Karma." To put it bluntly,
+Hearn had no spark of practical sexual virtue, and yet
+praise one shall, marvel at one must, the literary and
+dramatic honour which could, as in "Karma," so sympathetically
+describe the almost unscalable summits of
+virtue,&mdash;there where in holy silence, Passion gazes with awe
+at her divine Master, Duty.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A negative condition of this sympathy was the interior
+voidness of his character, the non-existence of reality
+within him, which thus allowed the positive loyalty to his
+subject free play; yet that which gave it leave to be, did
+not explain the genesis or quality of life of the being. But
+have a care! Do not ask the interest in any one subject
+to last for more than a fleeting moment! Early and
+always he possessed the rare, the wonderful gift of the
+instant, the iridescent, the wingéd word. At last was
+presented to him what he called a "soul," and that, in
+conjunction with his growth in artistic technique, in his
+handling of colours, and in procuring nobler data, helped
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;141]</span>
+to give the Japanese work a content and an enduring
+substance which distinguishes it from that of all others.
+This atones for all the hurt that precedes, and it is a
+benefaction and a delight to the entire world. In reward
+Literature will place upon his head one of her loveliest
+crowns.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;143]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII_APPRECIATIONS_AND" id="CHAPTER_XII_APPRECIATIONS_AND"></a>CHAPTER XII.&mdash;APPRECIATIONS AND EPITOMES</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2"/>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;144]</span>
+TAKEN as a whole, the criticisms upon Hearn's work
+are complimentary. He has his warm admirers,
+and some who are not so enthusiastic; but those who
+criticize adversely do so with a gentleness,&mdash;I may say,
+almost a reluctance that is perhaps the reflection of the
+spirit of his work. And whatever else these may offer, all
+agree that his writings have a unique charm.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Following are a few excerpts which should give an
+average of opinions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"One great secret of his success in interpreting the
+Japanese mind and temperament lay in his patience in
+seeking out and studying minutely the little things of a
+people said to be great in such. As Amenomori says of
+Hearn's mind, it 'called forth life and poetry out of dust.'"
+(327.)<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p class="indent">"As an interpreter of the Japanese heart, mind, hand
+and soul, Mr. Hearn has no superior. But he will not
+convert those who in health of body and mind love the
+landmarks of the best faith of the race. It is very hard to
+make fog and miasmatic exhalations, even when made
+partly luminous with rhetoric, attractive to the intellect
+that loves headlands and mountain-tops. The product of
+despair can never compete in robust minds with the product
+of faith." (357.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Sympathy and exquisiteness of touch are the characteristics
+of Mr. Hearn's genius. He is a chameleon, glowing
+with the hue of outer objects or of inward moods, or altogether
+iridescent. He becomes translucent and veined
+like a moth on a twig, or mottled as if with the protective
+golden browns of fallen leaves. We may not look for
+architectonic or even plastic powers. His is not the mind
+which constructs of inner necessity, which weaves plots and
+schemes, or thinks of its frame as it paints. He attempts
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;145]</span>
+no epic of history. The delver for sociologic or theologic
+spoil must seek deeper waters....</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_20_20">
+<span class="label">[20]</span></a> The numbers refer to the corresponding items in the Bibliography.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"In his later books the all-potent influence of Japanese
+restraint seems to have refined and subdued his wonderful
+style to more perfect harmonies....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"His chapters are long or short as are his moods. There
+is little organic unity in them; no scientific aim or philosophic
+grasp rounds them into form. Even his paragraphs
+have little cohesion. Speaking of the forming of his sentences,
+he himself has compared it to the focussing of an
+image, each added word being like the turn of a delicate
+screw." (306.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The secret of the charm that we feel to such a marked
+degree in Mr. Lafcadio Hearn's volumes is that, in contrast
+to other writers, he does take the Japanese very seriously
+indeed." (316.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"To the details of life and thought in Japan Mr. Hearn's
+soul seems everywhere and at all times responsive. He
+catches in his eye and on his pen minute motes scarcely
+noticeable by the keen natives themselves." (367.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"He has written nothing on Japan equal in length to
+his tales of West Indian life. But while we deplore this
+reserve of a writer who possesses every quality of style,
+except humour, we have reason to be grateful for whatever
+he gives us." (307.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The matchless prose and the sympathy of Mr. Hearn."
+(324.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Mr. Hearn has the sympathetic temperament, the
+minute mental vision, the subdued style peculiar to all that
+is good in Japanese art and literature, needed for the accomplishment
+of a labour which to him has been a labour
+of love indeed. Here we have no mawkish sentimentality,
+no excessive laudation, on the one hand; on the other, no
+Occidental harshness, no Occidental ignorance of the sweet
+mystery of Eastern ways of life and modes of thought.
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;146]</span>
+What this most charming of writers on Far Eastern subjects
+has seen all may see, but only those can understand
+who are endowed with a like faculty of perception of
+unobtrusive beauty, and a like power, it must be added,
+of patient and prolonged study of common appearances
+and everyday events." (295.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"A man has just died, intelligent and generous, who had
+succeeded in reconciling in his heart, the clear, rational
+ideas of the West together with the obscure deep sense of
+Extreme&mdash;Asia: Lafcadio Hearn. In the hospitality of
+his recipient soul, high European civilization and high
+Japanese civilization found a meeting-place; harmonized;
+completed, one in the other....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"In English-speaking countries, especially in the United
+States, Lafcadio Hearn already enjoys a just reputation.
+The lovers of the exotic, esteem him as equal to Kipling
+or Stevenson. In France, the <i>Revue de Paris</i> has begun
+to make him known, by publishing some of his best articles,
+elegantly and faithfully translated. His budding fame is
+destined to increase, as Europe takes a greater interest in
+the arts and the thoughts of the Extreme-Orient. His
+prose, exact and harmonious, will be admired as one of the
+finest since Ruskin wrote: his very personal style, at the
+same time subtle and powerful, will be noted: he will be
+especially admired for his delicate and profound intelligence
+of that Japanese civilization which, to us, remains
+so mysterious. What characterizes the talent of Lafcadio
+Hearn, that which gives it its precious originality,
+is the rare mixture of scientific precision and idealistic
+enthusiasm: his work might justly be entitled Truth
+and Poesy: 'In reading these essays,' says one of our
+best existing Japanese scholars, Professor Chamberlain,
+'one feels the truth of Richard Wagner's statement:
+"<i>Alles verständniss kommt uns nur durch die Liebe.</i>" (All
+understanding comes to us only through Love.) If Lafcadio
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;147]</span>
+Hearn understands Japan best, and makes it better
+understood than any other writer, it is because he loves it
+best.'</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Lafcadio Hearn describes with intelligence, with love
+all aspects of Japanese life: Nature and inhabitants; landscapes,
+animals and flowers; material life and life moral;
+classic Art and popular literature; philosophies, religions
+and superstitions. He awakens in us an exquisite feeling
+of old aristocratic and feudal Japan: he explains to us the
+prodigious revolution that modern Japan has created in
+thirty years....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Hearn has consecrated to the study of Japanese art
+some of his most curious psychological analyses.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Lafcadio Hearn takes a deep interest in the religious
+life of the Japanese. He studies with the minutest exactness
+the ancient customs of Shint&#333;ism, high moral precepts
+of Buddhism, and also the popular superstitions that hold
+on, for instance, to the worship of foxes, and to the idea of
+pre-existence." (393.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"To a certain large class of his adopted countrymen, his
+hatred of Christianity, which was pronounced long before
+he went to Japan, and his fondness for Oriental cults of all
+kinds, was recommendation. But it is still an open question
+whether he did harm or good to the Japanese by his
+advocacy of their superstitions....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Hearn's books are little known to the multitude. But
+they are familiar to an influential class the world over. In
+him Japan has lost a powerful and flattering advocate,
+and the English world one of its masters in style." (332.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Mr. Hearn was not a philosopher or a judicial student
+of life. He was a gifted, born impressionist, with a style
+resembling that of the French Pierre Loti. His stories
+and descriptions are delicate or gorgeous word pictures
+of the subtler and more elusive qualities of Oriental life."
+(293.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;148]</span>
+"His art is the power of suggestion through perfect
+restraint.... He stands and proclaims his mysteries at
+the meeting of three ways. To the religious instinct of
+India,&mdash;Buddhism in particular,&mdash;which history has engrafted
+on the æsthetic sense of Japan, Mr. Hearn brings
+the interpreting spirit of Occidental science; and these
+three traditions are fused by the peculiar sympathies of his
+mind into one rich and novel compound.... In these
+essays and tales, whose substance is so strangely mingled
+together out of the austere dreams of India and the subtle
+beauty of Japan and the relentless science of Europe, I
+read vaguely of many things which hitherto were quite
+dark." (308.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"He brings to the study of all aspects of Japanese
+life, intelligence, and love; he also sets sail in his descriptions
+and analyses towards a general theory on life; he
+is a Japanizing psychologist: he is also a philosopher....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"At all events, Lafcadio Hearn has the merit of recalling
+powerfully to the Europeans of Europe the importance,
+often misunderstood, of Eastern civilization. No one
+better than this Japanizing enthusiast to make us feel what
+there is of narrowness in our habitual conception of the
+world, in our individualistic literature, misunderstanding
+too much the influence of the Past in our anthropocentric
+art, neglecting Nature too often, penetrated too 'singly'
+in our classic philosophy with Greco-Latin and Christian
+influences. 'Till now,' says Lafcadio Hearn very forcibly,
+'having lived only in one hemisphere, we have thought but
+half thoughts.' We should enlarge our hearts and our
+minds by taking into our circle of culture, all the art and all
+the thought of the extreme East.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"From the philosophical view-point, Lafcadio Hearn has
+the merit of calling attention to the high value of Shint&#333;ism,
+and above all of Buddhism. His work deserves to exercise
+an influence on the religious ideas of the West. If religion
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;149]</span>
+can no longer occupy any place in the intellectual life
+of humanity, more and more invaded by science, she can
+subsist a long time yet, perhaps always, in her sentimental
+life." (392.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"For that rôle [as interpreter of Japan] he was eminently
+unfitted both by temperament and training. Indeed he was
+not slow to recognize his lack of the judicial faculty, and on
+one occasion acknowledged that he is a 'creature of
+extremes.' ... But Hearn often succeeds in reaching
+the heart of things by his faculty of sympathy, in virtue of
+which alone his books deserve perusal; when he fails it is
+because of a lack of the unimpassioned judicial faculty, a
+tendency to subordinate reason to feeling, an inclination to
+place sympathy in the position of judge rather than guide."
+(359.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Lafcadio Hearn not only buried himself in the Japanese
+world, but gave his ashes to the soil so often devastated by
+earthquake, typhoon, tidal wave and famine, but ever
+fertile in blooms of fancy which lies under the River
+of Heaven. The air of Nippon, poor in ozone, is overpopulated
+by goblins. No writer has ever excelled this
+child of Greece and Ireland in interpreting the weird fancies
+of peasant and poet in the land of bamboo and cherry
+flowers.... Hearn's life seemed crushed under 'the horror
+of infinite Possibility.' Hence perhaps the weird fascination
+of his work and style." (348.)</p>
+
+<p class="center">EPITOMES</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Avatar</span> (281).&mdash;It was during the Cincinnati period
+that Hearn made this&mdash;his first translation from the French.
+Writing of it in 1886, he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I have a project on foot&mdash;to issue a series of translations of archæological
+and artistic French romance&mdash;Flaubert's "Tentation de Saint-Antoine";
+De Nerval's "Voyage en Orient"; Gautier's "Avatar";
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;150]</span>
+Loti's most extraordinary African and Polynesian novels; and Beaudelaire's
+"Petits Poemes en Prose."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>But three years later, he writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The work of Gautier cited by you&mdash;"Avatar"&mdash;was my first translation
+from the French. I never could find a publisher for it, however,
+and threw the MS. away at last in disgust. It is certainly a wonderful
+story; but the self-styled Anglo-Saxon has so much&mdash;prudery that
+even this innocent phantasy seems to shock his sense of the
+"proper."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">La Tentation de Saint-Antoine</span> (282) was probably
+translated at about the same time. Hearn failed to
+find a publisher who would take it, but the manuscript is
+still in my possession. Hearn's own complete <i>scenario</i>,
+together with a description of the manuscript, is given
+on another page. I quote from Hearn about this work:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The original is certainly one of the most exotically strange pieces of
+writing in any language, and weird beyond description.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Of his own translation, he writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The work is audacious in parts; but I think nothing ought to be
+suppressed. That serpent-scene, the crucified lions, the breaking of
+the chair of gold, the hideous battles about Carthage,&mdash;these pages
+contain pictures that ought not to remain entombed in a foreign
+museum.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The winter of 1877, the year Hearn arrived in New
+Orleans, he corresponded with the Cincinnati <i>Commercial</i>
+under the name of "Ozias Midwinter" (219). Excerpts
+from this series of letters are given in the chapter, "The
+New Orleans Period."</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">One of Cleopatra's Nights</span> (20) was the first book
+to be published. The translations were made during the
+latter part of the Cincinnati period, but the volume did not
+appear until some years later, while Hearn was in New
+Orleans. It was prepared at the hour when his craving for
+the exotic and weird was at its height. From the opening
+word to the last the six stories are one long Dionysian
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;151]</span>
+revel of an Arabian Night's Dream, and within their pages
+it is not difficult to feel that "one is truly dead only when
+one is no longer loved." What an exotic group of names it
+is:&mdash;Cleopatra, "she that made the whole world's bale and
+bliss;" Clarimonde,</p>
+
+<p class="margin-left16">"Who was famed in her lifetime<br />
+As the fairest of women;"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Arria Marcella; the Princess Hermonthis; Omphale; and
+the one "fairer than all daughters of men, lovelier than all
+fantasies realized in stone"&mdash;Nyssia. It is a tapestry
+woven of the lights and jewels and passion of an antique
+world. "You will find in Gautier," Hearn writes, "a perfection
+of melody, a warmth of word colouring, a voluptuous
+delicacy;" "Gautier could create mosaics of word jewellery
+without equals." Hearn's "pet stories" are "Clarimonde"
+and "Arria Marcella." Is it strange that he should delight
+in these beautiful vampires?</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In this work, and in the tales to follow, we already
+perceive that colour is to become a sort of a fetich to be
+worshipped. Here in the studio of another artist, he serves
+his first apprenticeship, and from the highly toned palette
+of Gautier he learns how to mix and lay on the colours that
+he himself is later to use so richly.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In speaking of this book, a critic says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"His learning and his inspiration were wholly French in
+these productions, as also in what was his first and in some
+ways his best book, "One of Cleopatra's Nights," and other
+tales translated from Théophile Gautier. While Hearn was
+faithful to his original, he also improved upon it, and many
+a scholar who knows both French and English has confessed
+under the rose that Gautier is outdone." (332.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Of his work, Hearn writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">You asked me about Gautier. I have read and possess nearly all
+his works; and before I was really mature enough for such an undertaking
+I translated his six most remarkable short stories. The work
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;152]</span>
+contains, I regret to say, several shocking errors, and the publishers
+refused me the right to correct the plates. The book remains one of
+the sins of my literary youth, but I am sure my judgment of the value
+of the stories was correct.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">While preparing his next book, Hearn published in the
+<i>Century</i>, "The Scenes of Cable's Romances" (220). In
+this article he vivifies the quarters and dwellings that Mr.
+Cable in his delightful stories had already made famous.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">The First Muezzin, Bilâl</span> (405), was written in the
+fall of 1883, during the New Orleans period. It is a
+beautiful, serious piece of work, and is written with the
+fine, sonorous quality that such a theme should inspire.
+That it was a labour of love is shown in Hearn's letters
+written at its inception to Mr. Krehbiel, who was an
+invaluable aid to him in compiling its musical part.
+"Bilâl" was probably published finally in the <i>Times-Democrat</i>,
+after being refused by <i>Harper's</i>, the <i>Century</i>,
+and some others.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The traveller slumbering for the first time within the walls of an
+Oriental city, and in the vicinity of a minaret, can scarcely fail to be
+impressed by the solemn beauty of the Mohammedan Call to Prayer.
+If he have worthily prepared himself, by the study of book and of
+languages, for the experiences of Eastern travel, he will probably have
+learned by heart the words of the sacred summons, and will recognize
+their syllables in the sonorous chant of the Muezzin,&mdash;while the rose-coloured
+light of an Egyptian or Syrian dawn expands its flush to the
+stars. Four times more will he hear that voice ere morning again
+illuminates the east:&mdash;under the white blaze of noon; at the sunset
+hour, when the west is fervid with incandescent gold and vermilion;
+in the long after-glow of orange and emerald fires; and, still later,
+when a million astral lamps have been lighted in the vast and violet
+dome of God's everlasting mosque.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>In four parts Hearn tells the history of Bilâl, who</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>was an African black, an Abyssinian,&mdash;famed for his fortitude as a confessor,
+for his zeal in the faith of the Prophet, and for the marvellous
+melody of his voice, whose echoes have been caught up and prolonged
+and multiplied by all the muezzins of Islam, through the passing of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;153]</span>
+more than twelve hundred years.... And the words chanted by all
+the muezzins of the Moslem world,&mdash;whether from the barbaric brick
+structures which rise above "The Tunis of the Desert," or from the
+fairy minarets of the exquisite mosque at Agra,&mdash;are the words first
+sung by the mighty voice of Bilâl.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Bilâl was the son of an Abyssinian slave-girl, and himself
+began life as a slave. The first preaching of Mahomet
+had deep effect upon the slaves of Mecca, and Bilâl was
+perhaps the earliest of these to become a convert. Even
+under the tortures of the persecutors, he could not be
+made to apostatize&mdash;always he would answer, "<i>Ahad!
+Ahad</i>:" "<i>One</i>, one only God!" Abu Bekr, the bosom
+friend of the great Prophet, observing Bilâl, bought him,
+and set him free. Then Bilâl became the devoted servant
+of Mahomet; and, in fulfilment of a dream, he was made
+the First Muezzin to sound the <i>Adzân</i>, the Call to
+Prayer.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">God is Great!</span><br />
+<span class="i4">God is Great!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I bear witness there is no other God but God!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">I bear witness that Mahomet is the Prophet of God!</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Come unto Prayer!</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Come unto Salvation!</span><br />
+<span class="i4">God is Great!</span><br />
+<span class="i2">There is no other God but God!</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent">After the death of Mahomet, Bilâl ceased to sing the <i>Adzân</i>:&mdash;the
+voice that had summoned the Prophet of God to the house of prayer
+ought not, he piously fancied, to be heard after the departure of his
+master. Yet, in his Syrian home, how often must he have prayed to
+chant the words as he first chanted them from the starlit housetop in
+the Holy City, and how often compelled to deny the petitions of those
+who revered him as a saint and would perhaps have sacrificed all
+their goods to have heard him but once lift up his voice in musical
+prayer!... But when Omar visited Damascus the chiefs of the people
+besought him that, as Commander of the Faithful, he should ask Bilâl
+to sing the Call in honour of the event; and the old man consented to
+do so for the last time....<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;154]</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">To hear Bilâl must have seemed to many as sacred a privilege as
+to have heard the voice of the Prophet himself,&mdash;the proudest episode
+of a lifetime,&mdash;the one incident of all others to be related in long afteryears
+to children and to grandchildren. Some there may have been
+whom the occasion inspired with feelings no loftier than curiosity;
+but the large majority of those who thronged to listen in silent
+expectancy for the <i>Allah-hu-akbar!</i> must have experienced emotions
+too deep to be ever forgotten. The records of the event, at least,
+fully justify this belief;&mdash;for when, after moments of tremulous waiting,
+the grand voice of the aged African rolled out amid the hush,&mdash;with
+the old beloved words,&mdash;the old familiar tones, still deep and clean,&mdash;Omar
+and all those about him wept aloud, and tears streamed down
+every warrior-face, and the last long notes of the chant were lost in a
+tempest of sobbing.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Stray Leaves From Strange Literature</span><a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> (I) is
+the second book. It was written also during the period
+in New Orleans, many of the stories first appearing in the
+<i>Times-Democrat</i>, and the little volume is dedicated to its
+editor&mdash;Mr. Page M. Baker.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_21_21">
+<span class="label">[21]</span></a> Copyright, 1884, by James R. Osgood and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">These tales, as Hearn tells us in his Preface, are "reconstructions
+of what impressed me as most fantastically
+beautiful in the most exotic literature which I was able to
+obtain." In a letter he writes, "The language of 'Stray
+Leaves' is all my own, with the exception of the Italic
+texts and a few pages translated from the 'Kalewala.'"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The tapestry he is weaving is of the same crimson threads
+as that of the earlier tales, but the colours of sunset are
+softening to the gentler hues of the after-glow, and interwoven
+sometimes are strands of pure moonlight.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">We read of the great Book of Thoth which contains a
+formula whosoever could recite might never know death,
+and we learn how the cunning magician Noferkephtah
+obtained the book, which caused the wrath of the gods to
+fall upon him; later, how Satni, of whom "there was not
+in all Egypt so wise a scribe," yearned for the book, and
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;155]</span>
+took it from the tomb of Noferkephtah, and of the magic
+wrought and the penance done.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There is the exquisite tale of the Fountain Maiden,
+whom Aki caught in his own fish-net, and whom he grew
+to love more than his own life.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The story lingers of the sea-bird which fell into the
+hunter's hand, and when he looked more closely he found
+it had become transformed into a beautiful girl, "slender
+... like a young moon," and pity rose in the hunter's
+heart, and then love. One day, when their children had
+become strong and swift, and while they were all hunting
+together, the Bird-Wife called to the little ones to gather
+feathers: then she covered their arms and her own shoulders
+with the feathers, and far away they flew.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Passing onward, we read of Tilottama, and that by
+reason of her beauty "the great gods once became multiple-faced
+and myriad-eyed"; and that this beauty brought
+punishment to the wicked Sounda and Oupasounda.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There is Bakawali, for "whose history of love, human
+and superhuman, a parallel may not be found." For her
+great love of the mortal youth Taj-ulmuluk each night she
+sacrificed herself to the fiercest purification of fire. And
+then to appease the gods, she suffered herself to be turned
+for ten long years into marble from her waist to her feet.
+Her lover ministered to her and watched by her side
+through the terrible years until she was reincarnated for
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then we see the statue of Natalika, who avenged the
+death of her people.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And who shall answer the riddle of the Corpse Demon?
+And which one may not profit by the wisdom of the youth
+who knew nothing of science? Perhaps our hearts stir
+with a soft regret for the atonement of Pundari. And so
+we wander through a maze of colour and of magic, tarrying
+to listen to the voice of Kalewala, for&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;156]</span>
+As he sang the fair Sun paused in her course to hear him; the
+golden Moon stopped in her path to listen; the awful billows of the
+sea stood still; the icy rivers that devour the pines, that swallow up
+the firs, ceased to rage; the mighty cataracts hung motionless above
+their abysses; the waves of Juortana lifted high their heads to hear.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">"Slender she was as the tulip upon its stalk, and in
+walking her feet seemed kisses pressed upon the ground.
+But hadst thou beheld her face unveiled, and the whiteness
+of her teeth between her brown lips when she smiled!"
+Alas, she was a good Christian maiden and he a good
+Mussulman, and so in this Legend of Love each loyal
+heart dies pronouncing the faith of the other, lest they
+should not meet at the Day of Judgment.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">As we draw near the last figures on the tapestry, we find
+those two tender pictures of which Hearn himself speaks:
+"Your preference for Boutimar pleases me: Boutimar was
+my pet. There is a little Jewish legend in the collection&mdash;Esther&mdash;somewhat
+resembling it in pathos." These stories
+afford a glimpse into that gentle heart, which was later
+to respond to the exquisite faiths and loyalties of the
+Japanese.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Now the Creator sent unto Solomon a cup which contained
+some of the waters of youth and of life without end.
+And Solomon was asked: "Wilt thou drink hereof and live
+divinely immortal through ages everlasting, or wilt thou
+rather remain within the prison of humanity?" And
+Solomon dreamed upon these words; and he assembled in
+council a representative of all those over whom he held
+dominion. Then Solomon asked Boutimar, the wild dove,
+most loving of all living creatures, whether he should drink
+of the magic waters, and thus learn the bliss of earthly
+immortality. When Boutimar, the wild dove, learned that
+the cup held only enough water for one person, he made
+answer in the language of birds:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"O prophet of God! how couldst thou desire to be living alone,
+when each of thy friends and of thy counsellors and of thy children
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;157]</span>
+and of thy servants and of all who loved thee were counted with the
+dead? For all of these must surely drink the bitter waters of death,
+though thou shouldst drink the Water of Life. Wherefore desire
+everlasting youth, when the face of the world itself shall be wrinkled
+with age, and the eyes of the stars shall be closed by the black fingers
+of Azrael? When the love thou hast sung of shall have passed away
+like a smoke of frankincense, when the dust of the heart that beat
+against thine own shall have long been scattered by the four winds of
+heaven, when the eyes that looked for thy coming shall have become
+a memory, when the voices grateful to thine ear shall have been
+eternally stilled, when thy life shall be one oasis in a universal waste
+of death, and thine eternal existence but a recognition of eternal
+absence,&mdash;wilt thou indeed care to live, though the wild dove perish
+when its mate cometh not?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And Solomon, without reply, silently put out his arm and gave back
+the cup.... But upon the prophet-king's rich beard, besprinkled
+with powder of gold, there appeared another glitter as of clear dew,&mdash;the
+diamond dew of the heart, which is tears.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Esther, whose comeliness surpassed even that of Sarah,
+and her rich husband had lived together ten years, but
+there was no happiness in the soul of the good man, for
+"the sound of a child's voice had never made sunshine
+within his heart." So Esther and her husband sorrowed
+bitterly. And they brought the burden of their grief to
+Rabbi Simon ben Yochai, and when they had told him, a
+silence as of the Shechinah came upon the three, only the
+eyes of the Rabbi seemed to smile. And it was agreed
+that the twain should part; thus the Israelite could be
+known as a father in Israel.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A feast then was laid at the house, and before all the
+guests her husband spoke lovingly to Esther, and in token
+of his affection and his grief bade her to take from the
+house "whatever thou desirest, whether it be gold or jewels
+beyond price." And the wine was passed, and the people
+made merry, and finally a deep sleep fell upon them all.
+Then Esther gave command that her husband sleeping
+should be carried to her father's house. In the morning
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;158]</span>
+her husband awakened, and confused he cried out, "Woman,
+what hast thou done?"</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Then, sweeter than the voice of doves among the fig-trees, came the
+voice of Esther: "Didst thou not bid me, husband, that I should
+choose and take away from thy house whatsoever I most desired?
+And I have chosen thee, and have brought thee hither, to my father's
+home ... loving thee more than all else in the world. Wilt thou
+drive me from thee now?" And he could not see her face for tears of
+love; yet he heard her voice speaking on,&mdash;speaking the golden words
+of Ruth, which are so old yet so young to the hearts of all that love:
+"Whithersoever thou shalt go, I will also go; and whithersoever thou
+shalt dwell, I also will dwell. And the Angel of Death only may part
+us; for thou art all in all to me." ...</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And in the golden sunlight at the doorway suddenly stood, like a
+statue of Babylonian silver, the grand grey figure of Rabbi Simon ben
+Yochai, lifting his hands in benediction.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"<i>Schmah Israel!</i>&mdash;the Lord our God, who is One, bless ye with
+everlasting benediction! May your hearts be welded by love, as gold
+with gold by the cunning of goldsmiths! May the Lord, who coupleth
+and setteth thee single in families, watch over ye! The Lord make
+this valiant woman even as Rachel and as Lia, who built up the house
+of Israel! And ye shall behold your children and your children's
+children in the House of the Lord!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Even so the Lord blessed them; and Esther became as the fruitful
+vine, and they saw their children's children in Israel. Forasmuch as
+it is written: "He will regard the prayer of the destitute."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Gombo Zhèbes</span><a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>(2) followed in the New Orleans period.
+It is a compilation of 352 proverbs selected from six dialects.
+According to the indexes, there are 6 in the Creole of French
+Guyana; 28 in the Creole of Hayti; 51 in the Creole of
+New Orleans, Louisiana; 101 in the Creole of Martinique;
+110 in the Creole of Mauritius; 52 in the Creole of Trinidad.
+Most of the proverbs are similar to our own, but are translated
+into the simple homely language of the Creole,
+reflecting its mode of thought. The same proverb often
+appears in the different dialects. Although a proverb is
+of European origin, "the character of Creole folk-lore
+is very different from European folk-lore in the matter of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;159]</span>
+superstition." Many proverbs are direct from the African.
+Those in the Creole of Hayti are generally rough and
+coarse. The most popular subjects are, pot or kettle, rain,
+serpent or snake, of which there are six of each; devil, eggs,
+belly, horse, mothers, tail, of these there are seven of each;
+chicken, children, ox have eight of each; cat has nine;
+goat has eleven; talking has sixteen; monkey has
+seventeen; fine clothes has only four, idleness has five,
+and marriage has six.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_22_22">
+<span class="label">[22]</span></a> Copyright, 1885, by Will H. Coleman.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn speaks of this book as a Dictionary of Proverbs.
+He made an extensive study of the subject and in later
+researches found it most helpful. "I have," he says, "quite
+a Creole library embracing the Creole dialects of both
+hemispheres."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Following are a selection of the proverbs chosen from the
+different dialects:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">No. 23. <i>Bel tignon pas fait bel négresse. (Le beau tignon ne fait
+pas la belle négresse.)</i> "It isn't the fine head-dress that makes the fine
+negress." (<i>Louisiana.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Tignon</i> or <i>tiyon</i>, the true Creole word, "is the famously picturesque
+handkerchief which in old days all slave-women twisted about their
+heads."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 44. <i>Ça qui boudé manze boudin. (Celui qui boude mange du
+boudin.)</i> "He who sulks eats his own belly." That is to say, spites
+himself. The pun is untranslatable. (<i>Mauritius</i>.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Boudin</i> in French signifies a pudding, in Creole it also signifies the
+belly. Thus there is a double pun in the patois.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 256. <i>Quand diabe alle lamesse li caciétte so laquée. (Quand le
+diable va à la messe, il cache sa queue.)</i> "When the Devil goes to
+mass he hides his tail." (<i>Mauritius.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 352. <i>Zozo paillenqui crié là-haut, coudevent vini. (Le paille-en-cul
+crie la-haut, le coup de vent vient.)</i> "When the tropic-bird
+screams overhead, a storm-wind is coming." (<i>Mauritius.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 267. <i>Quand milatt tini yon vié chouvral yo dit nègress pas
+manman yo. (Quand les mulâtres ont un vieux cheval ils disent que
+les négresses ne sont pas leur mères.)</i> "As soon as a mulatto is able to
+own an old horse, he will tell you that his mother wasn't a nigger."
+(<i>Martinique.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;160]</span>No. 324. <i>Toutt milett ni grand zaureilles. (Tout les mulets ont
+des grandes oreilles.)</i> "All mules have big ears." Equivalent to our
+proverb: "Birds of a feather flock together." (<i>Martinique.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 291. <i>Si coulev oûlé viv, li pas pronminée grand-chemin. (Si
+la couleuvre veut vivre, elle ne se promène pas dans le grand chemin.)</i>
+"If the snake cares to live, it doesn't journey upon the high-road."
+(<i>Guyana.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 292. <i>Si coulève pas té fonté, femmes sé pouend li fair ribans
+jipes. (Si la couleuvre n'était pas effrontée les femmes la prendraient
+pour en faire des rubans de jupes.)</i> "If the snake wasn't spunky,
+women would use it for petticoat strings." (<i>Trinidad.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 100. <i>Complot plis fort passé ouanga.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> (Le complot est plus fort
+que l'ouanga.)</i> "Conspiracy is stronger than witchcraft." (<i>Hayti.</i>)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_23_23">
+<span class="label">[23]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Di moin si to gagnin homme!</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Mo va fé ouanga pouli;</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Mo fé li tourné fantôme</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Si to vlé mo to mari....</i></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"Tell me if thou hast a man (a lover) I will make a <i>ouanga</i> for
+him&mdash;I will change him into a ghost if thou wilt have me for thy
+husband."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">This word, of African origin, is applied to all things connected with
+the Voudooism of the negroes.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In the song, "<i>Dipi mo voué, toué Adèle</i>," from which the above lines
+are taken, the wooer threatens to get rid of a rival by <i>ouanga</i>&mdash;to
+"turn him into a ghost." The victims of Voudooism are said to have
+gradually withered away, probably through the influence of secret
+poison. The word <i>grigri</i>, also of African origin, simply refers to a
+charm, which may be used for an innocent or innocuous purpose.
+Thus, in a Louisiana Creole song, we find a quadroon mother promising
+her daughter a charm to prevent the white lover from forsaking
+her:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"<i>Pou tchombé li na fé grigri.</i>" "We shall make a <i>grigri</i> to keep
+him."</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">Simultaneously with the publication of "Gombo Zhèbes,"
+Hearn contributed a series of articles<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> to <i>Harper's Weekly.</i>
+(221-227, 230, 232.) These papers, which are commonplace
+newspaper work, tell of New Orleans, its Expositions,
+its Superstitions, Voudooism, and the Creole Patois. He
+feels that the Creole tongue must go, but while there is
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;161]</span>
+still time, he hopes that some one will rescue its dying
+legends and curious lyrics.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_24_24">
+<span class="label">[24]</span></a> Copyright, 1884, 1885, 1886, by Harper and Brothers.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The unedited Creole literature comprises songs, satires in rhymes,
+proverbs, fairy-tales&mdash;almost everything commonly included under the
+term folk-lore. The lyrical portion of it is opulent in oddities, in
+melancholy beauties.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">There are few of the younger generation of Creoles who do
+not converse in the French and English languages. Creole
+is the speech of motherhood, and "there is a strange naïve
+sorrow in their burdens as of children sobbing for lonesomeness
+in the night."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There is an interesting account of Jean Montanet, "Voudoo
+John"&mdash;The Last of the Voudoos. He was said to
+be a son of a prince of Senegal. From a ship's cook he
+rose to own large estates. While he was a cotton-roller,
+it was noticed that he seemed to have some peculiar occult
+influence over the negroes under him. Voudoo John had
+the mysterious <i>obi</i> power. Soon realizing his power, he
+commenced to tell fortunes, and thousands and thousands
+of people, white and black, flocked to him. Then he
+bought a house and began as well to practise Creole
+medicine. He could give receipts for everything and
+anything, and many a veiled lady stopped at his door.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Once Jean received a fee of $50 for a potion. "It was water," he
+said to a Creole confidant, "with some common herbs boiled in it. I
+hurt nobody, but if folks want to give me fifty dollars, I take the fifty
+dollars every time!"</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">It is said that Jean became worth at least $50,000. He
+had his horses and carriages, his fifteen wives, whom he
+considered, one and all, legitimate spouses. He was
+charitable too. But he did not know what to do with his
+money. Gradually, in one way or another, it was stolen
+from him, until at the last, with nothing left but his
+African shells, his elephant's tusk, and the sewing-machine
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;162]</span>
+upon which he used to tell fortunes even in his days of
+riches, he had to seek hospitality of his children.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn devotes several columns to Voudooism, telling of
+its witchcrafts and charms and fetiches which work for
+evil, and also of the superstitions regarding the common
+occurrences of daily life.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In a paper on Mexican feather-work at the New Orleans
+Exposition, there is this paragraph which presages his later
+descriptions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">As I write, the memory of a Mexican landscape scene in feather-work
+is especially vivid&mdash;a vast expanse of opulent wheat-fields,
+whereof the blonde immensity brightens or deepens its tint with the
+tremor of summer winds; distance makes violet the hills; a steel-bright
+river serpentines through the plain, reflecting the feminine
+grace of palms tossing their plumes against an azure sky. I remember
+also a vision of marshes&mdash;infinite stretches of reed-grown ooze,
+shuddering in gusts of sea-wind, and paling away into bluish vagueness
+as through a miasmatic haze.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">In conjunction with these articles, Hearn published in
+<i>Harper's Bazaar</i> (228-229) two papers on the Curiosities
+to be found at the New Orleans Exposition.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Some Chinese Ghosts</span><a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> (3) was the next book of the
+New Orleans period. The first publisher to whom it was
+submitted did not accept it, but Roberts Brothers finally
+brought it out. "There are only six little stories," writes
+Hearn, "but each of them cost months of hard work
+and study, and represents a much higher attempt than
+anything in the 'Stray Leaves.'" The book is dedicated
+to his friend Mr. Krehbiel, and the Dedication, which
+is given in the Bibliography, is as unique as the tales
+themselves.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_25_25">
+<span class="label">[25]</span></a> Copyright, 1887, by Roberts Brothers.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">In the Preface Hearn says that while preparing these
+legends he sought for "weird beauty." The era of fierce
+passions and horror is waning, and in these six perfect tales
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;163]</span>
+there is a new-found restraint, a firmer handling of the
+brush in more normal colours.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">One of the earliest reviews of his work remarks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"In his treatment of the legend lore of the Celestial
+Empire, Mr. Hearn has, if possible, been even more delicate
+and charming than in the stories which go to make the
+previous volume, so much so, indeed, that one is persuaded
+to full belief in the beauty and witchery of the almond-eyed
+heroines of his pages." (322.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The opening story is of the beautiful Ko-Ngai, daughter
+of Kouan-Yu, whose divine loyalty to her father never
+faltered even at a hideous death. He was a great bellmaker,
+and the Mandarin ordered that he should make a
+bell of such size that it would be heard for one hundred <i>li</i>,
+and further that the bell "should be strengthened with brass,
+and deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver." But
+the metals refused to mingle. Again the bell was cast, but
+the result was even worse, and the Son of Heaven was very
+angry; and this word was sent to Kouan-Yu:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"If thou fail a third time in fulfilling our command, thy head shall
+be severed from thy neck."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">When the lovely Ko-Ngai heard this, she sold her jewels,
+and paid a great price to an astrologer, and it was told to
+her:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver and iron never
+will embrace, until the flesh of a maiden be melted in the crucible;
+until the blood of a virgin be mingled with the metals in their fusion.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Ko-Ngai told no one what she had heard. The awful
+hour for the heroic effort of the final casting arrived.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">All the workmen wrought their tasks in silence; there was no sound
+heard but the muttering of the fires. And the muttering deepened
+into a roar of typhoons approaching, and the blood-red lake of metal
+slowly brightened like the vermilion of a sunrise, and the vermilion
+was transmuted into a radiant glow of gold, and the gold whitened
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;164]</span>
+blindingly, like the silver face of a full moon. Then the workers
+ceased to feed the raving flame, and all fixed their eyes upon the eyes
+of Kouan-Yu; and Kouan-Yu prepared to give the signal to cast.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn his head;
+and all heard the voice of Ko-Ngai sounding sharply sweet as a
+bird's song above the great thunder of the fires,&mdash;"For thy sake,
+O my Father!" And even as she cried, she leaped into the white
+flood of metal; and the lava of the furnace roared to receive her, and
+spattered monstrous flakes of flame to the roof, and burst over the
+verge of the earthen crater, and cast up a whirling fountain of many-coloured
+fires, and subsided quakingly, with lightnings and with
+thunders and with mutterings.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Of the lovely Ko-Ngai no trace remained save a little
+shoe, which was left in the hand of the faithful serving-woman
+who had striven to catch her as she leaped into the
+flame.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And ever does the bell, whose tones are deeper and
+mellower and mightier than the tones of any other bell,
+utter the name of Ko-Ngai; and ever between the mighty
+strokes there is a low moaning heard, a sobbing of "<i>Hiai!</i>"
+and that they say is Ko-Ngai crying for her little shoe.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The next tale tells of Ming-Y and how it was that he did
+not heed the counsel of the words of Lao-Tseu, and so it
+befell that he was loved by the beautiful Sië-Thao, whose
+tomb had many years ago crumbled to ruins.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Legend of Tchi-Niu is the queen flower of the
+nosegay of six. Tong's father died, and as they were very
+poor, the only way that Tong could obtain money to pay
+for the funeral expenses was to sell himself as a slave. The
+years passed, and he worked without rest or pay, but never
+a complaint did he utter. At length the fever of the ricefields
+seized him, and he was left alone in his sickness, for
+there was no one to wait on him. One noon he dreamed
+that a beautiful woman bent over him and touched his
+forehead with her hand. And Tong opened his eyes, and
+he saw the lovely person of whom he had dreamed. "I
+have come to restore thy strength and to be thy wife.
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;165]</span>
+Arise and worship with me." And reading his thoughts
+she said, "I will provide."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"And together they worshipped Heaven and Earth.
+Thus she became his wife."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But all that Tong knew of his wife was that her name
+was Tchi. And the fame of the weaving of Tchi spread
+far, and people came to see her beautiful work. One
+morning Tchi gave to her husband a document. It was
+his freedom that she had bought.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Later the silk-loom remained untouched, for Tchi gave
+birth to a son. And the boy was not less wonderful than
+his mother.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Now it came to the Period of the Eleventh Moon.
+Suddenly one night, Tchi led Tong to the cradle where
+their son slumbered, and as she did so a great fear and
+awe came over Tong, and the sweet tender voice breathed
+to him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"Lo! my beloved, the moment has come in which I must forsake
+thee; for I was never of mortal born, and the Invisible may incarnate
+themselves for a time only. Yet I leave with thee the pledge of our
+love,&mdash;this fair son, who shall ever be to thee as faithful and as fond
+as thou thyself hast been. Know, my beloved, that I was sent to thee
+even by the Master of Heaven, in reward of thy filial piety, and that
+I must now return to the glory of His house: I AM THE GODDESS
+TCHI-NIU."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Even as she ceased to speak, the great glow faded, and Tong,
+reopening his eyes, knew that she had passed away for ever,&mdash;mysteriously
+as pass the winds of heaven, irrevocably as the light of a flame
+blown out. Yet all the doors were barred, all the windows unopened.
+Still the child slept, smiling in his sleep. Outside, the darkness was
+breaking; the sky was brightening swiftly; the night was past. With
+splendid majesty the East threw open high gates of gold for the coming
+of the sun; and, illuminated by the glory of his coming, the
+vapours of morning wrought themselves into marvellous shapes of
+shifting colour,&mdash;into forms weirdly beautiful as the silken dreams
+woven in the loom of Tchi-Niu.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Another tale is that of Mara, who tempted in vain, for
+the Indian pilgrim conquered.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;166]</span>And still, as a mist of incense, as a smoke of universal sacrifice,
+perpetually ascends to heaven from all the lands of earth the pleasant
+vapour TE, created for the refreshment of mankind by the power of
+a holy vow, the virtue of a pious atonement.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Like unto the Tale of the Great Bell, Pu, convinced that
+a soul cannot be divided,</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">entered the flame, and yielded up his ghost in the embrace of the
+Spirit of the Furnace, giving his life for the life of his work,&mdash;his soul
+for the soul of his Vase.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And when the workmen came upon the tenth morning to take forth
+the porcelain marvel, even the bones of Pu had ceased to be; but lo!
+the Vase lived as they looked upon it: seeming to be flesh moved by
+the utterance of a Word, creeping to the titillation of a Thought. And
+whenever tapped by the finger, it uttered a voice and a name,&mdash;the
+voice of its maker, the name of its creator: PU.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">This same year, Hearn contributed to <i>Harpers Bazaar</i>
+the valiant legend of "Rabyah's Last Ride"(234)&mdash;Rabyah
+upon whom no woman had ever called in vain, and who
+defended his women even after he was dead. This tale
+was copied in the <i>Times-Democrat</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Chita</span><a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> (4), although published after Hearn left New
+Orleans, properly belongs to that period. It first appeared
+in much shorter form in the <i>Times-Democrat</i> under the
+title of "Torn Letters." This version met with many
+warm friends, and the author was urged to enlarge it. He
+did so, and Harpers accepted the story, publishing it first
+as a serial in their magazine. With this book came
+Hearn's first recognition, and because of its success, he was
+given a commission by Harpers for further studies in the
+tropics, which eventuated in the volume, "Two Years in
+the French West Indies."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_26_26">
+<span class="label">[26]</span></a> Copyright, 1889, by Harper and Brothers.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"Chita" is the first glimpse of what Mr. Hearn could
+write from out himself; for whereas, as always, the plot
+must be given to him, the thread here is so frail that what
+we admire and remember is the fabric itself which only
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;167]</span>
+Hearn could have woven. In "Chita" he recreates
+elemental nature. In "Karma" he becomes the conscience
+of a human being. Then, for the first time he realizes the
+spiritual forces which are stronger than life or death, and
+without which no beauty exists.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A criticism of "Chita" at the time of its publication
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"By right of this single but profoundly remarkable book,
+Mr. Hearn may lay good claim to the title of the American
+Victor Hugo ... so living a book has scarcely been
+given to our generation." (342.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Concerning the story, Hearn himself writes as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"Chita" was founded on the fact of a child saved from the Lost
+Island disaster by some Louisiana fishing-folk, and brought up by
+them. Years after a Creole hunter recognized her, and reported her
+whereabouts to relatives. These, who were rich, determined to bring
+her up as young ladies are brought up in the South, and had her sent
+to a convent. But she had lived the free healthy life of the coast, and
+could not bear the convent; she ran away from it, married a fisherman,
+and lives somewhere down there now,&mdash;the mother of multitudinous
+children.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">This slight structure of plot gave Hearn the opportunity
+to paint a marvellous picture. Hundreds of quotations
+could be given. He is delighted with the rich glory of the
+tropics, and by his power of word imagery he so reproduces
+it that with him we too can see and feel it. In this
+glowing Nature the poisoned beauty of the Orient is
+forgotten. Take this description:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The charm of a single summer day on these island shores is something
+impossible to express, never to be forgotten. Rarely, in the
+paler zones, do earth and heaven take such luminosity: those will
+best understand me who have seen the splendour of a West Indian
+sky. And yet there is a tenderness of tint, a caress of colour, in these
+Gulf-days which is not of the Antilles,&mdash;a spirituality, as of eternal
+tropical spring. It must have been to even such a sky that Xenophanes
+lifted up his eyes of old when he vowed the Infinite Blue was
+God;&mdash;it was indeed under such a sky that De Soto named the vastest
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;168]</span>
+and grandest of Southern havens Espiritu Santo,&mdash;the Bay of the
+Holy Ghost. There is a something unutterable in this bright Gulf-air
+that compels awe,&mdash;something vital, something holy, something
+pantheistic and reverentially the mind asks itself if what the eye
+beholds is not the &#960;&#957;&#949;&#8166;&#956;&#945; indeed, the Infinite Breath, the Divine Ghost,
+the Great Blue Soul of the Unknown. All, all is blue in the calm,&mdash;save
+the low land under your feet, which you almost forget, since it
+seems only as a tiny green flake afloat in the liquid eternity of day.
+Then slowly, caressingly, irresistibly, the witchery of the Infinite grows
+upon you: out of Time and Space you begin to dream with open eyes,&mdash;to
+drift into delicious oblivion of facts,&mdash;to forget the past, the
+present, the substantial,&mdash;to comprehend nothing but the existence of
+that infinite Blue Ghost as something into which you would wish to
+melt utterly away for ever.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">So it is told that into this perfect peace one August day
+in 1856, a scarlet sun sank in a green sky, and a moonless
+night came.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Then the Wind grew weird. It ceased being a breath; it became
+a Voice moaning across the world hooting,&mdash;uttering nightmare
+sounds,&mdash;<i>Whoo!</i>&mdash;<i>whoo!</i>&mdash;<i>whoo!</i>&mdash;and with each stupendous owl-cry
+the mooing of the waters seemed to deepen, more and more
+abysmally, through all the hours of darkness.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Morning dawned with great rain: the steamer <i>Star</i>
+was due that day. No one dared to think of it. "Great
+God!" some one shrieked,&mdash;"She is coming!"</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">On she came, swaying, rocking, plunging,&mdash;with a great whiteness
+wrapping her about like a cloud, and moving with her moving,&mdash;a
+tempest-whirl of spray;&mdash;ghost-white and like a ghost she came, for
+her smoke-stacks exhaled no visible smoke&mdash;the wind devoured it.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">And still the storm grew fiercer. On shore the guests
+at the hotel danced with a feverish reckless gaiety.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Again the <i>Star</i> reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began to
+drag away from the great building and its lights,&mdash;away from the
+voluptuous thunder of the grand piano,&mdash;even at that moment outpouring
+the great joy of Weber's melody orchestrated by Berlioz:
+<i>l'Invitatiòn à la Valse</i>,&mdash;with its marvellous musical swing.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;169]</span>
+&mdash;"Waltzing!" cried the captain. "God help them!&mdash;God help
+us all now!... The Wind waltzes to-night, with the Sea for his
+partner." ...</p>
+
+<p class="indent">O the stupendous Valse-Tourbillon! O the mighty Dancer!
+One-two&mdash;three! From north-east to east, from east to south-east,
+from south-east to south: then from the south he came, whirling the
+Sea in his arms....</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">And so the hurricane passed, and the day reveals utter
+wreck and desolation. "There is plunder for all&mdash;birds
+and men."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At a fishing village on the coast on this same night of
+the storm Carmen, the good wife of Feliu, dreamed&mdash;above
+the terrors of the tempest which shattered her sleep&mdash;once
+again the dream that kept returning of her little Concha,
+her first-born who slept far away in the old churchyard at
+Barcelona. And this night she dreamed that her waxen
+Virgin came and placed in her arms the little brown child
+with the Indian face, and the face became that of her dead
+Conchita.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">And Carmen wished to thank the Virgin for that priceless bliss, and
+lifted up her eyes; but the sickness of ghostly fear returned upon her
+when she looked; for now the Mother seemed as a woman long dead,
+and the smile was the smile of fleshlessness, and the places of the
+eyes were voids and darknesses.... And the sea sent up so vast a
+roar that the dwelling rocked.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent">Feliu and his men find the tide heavy with human dead
+and the sea filled with wreckage. Through this floatage
+Feliu detects a stir of life ... he swims to rescue a little
+baby fast in the clutch of her dead mother.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">To Carmen it is the meaning of her dream. The child
+has been sent by the Virgin. The tale leads on through
+the growing life of Chita. Finally one day Dr. La Brierre,
+whose wife and child had been lost in the famous storm, is
+summoned to Viosca's Point to the deathbed of his father's
+old friend, who is dying of the fever. It is Feliu who
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;170]</span>
+brings him. But before they can reach the Point the man
+has already died. The Doctor remains at Feliu's fishing
+smack. He feels the sickness of the fever coming over
+him. Then he sees Chita.... Hers is the face of his
+dead Adèle. Through the fury of the fever, which has
+now seized him, the past is mingled with the present. He
+re-lives the agony of that death-storm, re-lives all the horror
+of that scene, when all that he held dear was swept away&mdash;until
+his own soul passes out into the night.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The description of Dr. La Brierre in the throes of the
+fever is terrible. It is so realistic that one shudders.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Two Years in the French West Indies</span><a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> (6) was
+the <i>pièce de résistance</i> of the sojourn in the tropics. Some
+of the papers appeared first in <i>Harper's Magazine</i>. They
+are marvellous colour-pictures of the country, its people,
+its life, its customs, with many of the picturesque legends
+and the quaintnesses that creep into the heart.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_27_27">
+<span class="label">[27]</span></a> Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"There is not a writer who could have so steeped himself
+in this languorous Creole life and then tell so well about
+it. Trollope and Froude give you the hard, gritty facts,
+and Lafcadio Hearn the sentiment and poetry of this
+beautiful island." (387.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">More and more is Hearn realizing the necessity of finding
+new colour. "I hope to be able to take a trip to New
+Mexico in the summer just to obtain literary material, sun-paint,
+tropical colour, etc." It is always the intense that
+his fancy craves, and indeed <i>must</i> have in order to work.
+"There are tropical lilies which are venomous, but they
+are more beautiful than the frail and icy white lilies of the
+North." "Whenever I receive a new and strong impression,
+even in a dream, I write it down, and afterwards
+develop it at leisure.... There are impressions of blue
+light and gold and green, correlated to old Spanish legend,
+which can be found only south of this line." "I will write
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;171]</span>
+you a little while I am gone,&mdash;if I can find a little strange
+bit of tropical colour to spread on the paper,&mdash;like the fine
+jewel-dust of scintillant moth-wings." "Next week I go
+away to hunt up some tropical or semi-tropical impressions."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">He is bewitched by St. Pierre&mdash;"I love this quaint,
+whimsical, wonderfully coloured little town." On opening
+the present volume we at once feel how thoroughly sympathetic
+this whole Nature is to him, how ravished his
+senses are with all that she portrays.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">From Pier 49, East River, New York, we travel with
+Hearn through days of colour and beauty to the glorious
+Caribbean Sea, where we sail on to Roseau and St. Pierre.
+Here the colour is becoming so intense that the eyes are
+blinded.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The luminosities of tropic foliage could only be imitated in fire. He
+who desires to paint a West Indian forest,&mdash;a West Indian landscape,&mdash;must
+take his view from some great height, through which the
+colours come to his eye softened and subdued by distance,&mdash;toned
+with blues or purples by the astonishing atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">... It is sunset as I write these lines, and there are witchcrafts of
+colour. Looking down the narrow, steep street opening to the bay,
+I see the motionless silhouette of the steamer on a perfectly green sea,&mdash;under
+a lilac sky,&mdash;against a prodigious orange light.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Over her memoried paths we wander with Josephine, and
+then we pause before the lovely statue which seems a
+living presence.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">She is standing just in the centre of the Savane, robed in the fashion
+of the First Empire, with gracious arms and shoulders bare: one hand
+leans upon a medallion bearing the eagle profile of Napoleon....
+Seven tall palms stand in a circle around her, lifting their comely
+heads into the blue glory of the tropic day. Within their enchanted
+circle you feel that you tread holy ground,&mdash;the sacred soil of artist
+and poet;&mdash;here the recollections of memoir-writers vanish away; the
+gossip of history is hushed for you; you no longer care to know how
+rumour has it that she spoke or smiled or wept: only the bewitchment
+of her lives under the thin, soft, swaying shadows of those feminine
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;172]</span>
+palms.... Over violet space of summer sea, through the vast splendour
+of azure light, she is looking back to the place of her birth, back
+to beautiful drowsy Trois-Islets,&mdash;and always with the same half-dreaming,
+half-plaintive smile,&mdash;unutterably touching....</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">"Under a sky always deepening in beauty" we steam
+on to the level, burning, coral coast of Barbadoes. Then
+on past to Demerara.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">We pass through all the quaint beautiful old towns and
+islands. We see their wonders of sky and sea and flowers.
+We see their people and all that great race of the mixed
+blood.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">With dear old Jean-Marie we wait for the return of
+Les Porteuses, and we hear his call:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"<i>Coument ou yé, chè? coument ou kallé?</i>" ... (How art thou,
+dear?&mdash;how goes it with thee?)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And they mostly make answer, "<i>Toutt douce, chè,&mdash;et ou?</i>" (All
+sweetly, dear,&mdash;and thou?) But some, over-weary, cry to him, "<i>Ah!
+déchârgé moin vite, chè! moin lasse, lasse!</i>" (Unload me quickly,
+dear; for I am very, very weary.) Then he takes off their burdens,
+and fetches bread for them, and says foolish little things to make them
+laugh. And they are pleased and laugh, just like children, as they sit
+right down on the road there to munch their dry bread.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Again we follow on: this time to La Grande Anse,
+where we see the powerful surf-swimmers. With the population
+we turn out to witness the procession of young girls
+to be confirmed; we see the dances and games; we hear
+the chants, and the strange music on strange instruments.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At St. Pierre once more we listen to the history of Père
+Labat, who in twelve years made his order the richest and
+most powerful in the West Indies.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"Eh, Père Labat!&mdash;what changes there have been since thy day!...
+And all that ephemeral man has had power to change has been
+changed,&mdash;ideas, morals, beliefs, the whole social fabric. But the
+eternal summer remains,&mdash;and the Hesperian magnificence of azure
+sky and violet sea,&mdash;and the jewel-colours of the perpetual hills; the
+same tepid winds that rippled thy cane-fields two hundred years ago
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;173]</span>
+still blow over Sainte-Marie; the same purple shadows lengthen and
+dwindle and turn with the wheeling of the sun. God's witchery still
+fills this land; and the heart of the stranger is even yet snared by the
+beauty of it; and the dreams of him that forsakes it will surely be
+haunted&mdash;even as were thine own, Père Labat&mdash;by memories of its
+Eden-summer: the sudden leap of the light over a thousand peaks in
+the glory of a tropic dawn,&mdash;the perfumed peace of enormous azure
+noons,&mdash;and shapes of palm, wind-rocked in the burning of colossal
+sunsets,&mdash;and the silent flickering of the great fire-flies, through the
+lukewarm darkness, when mothers call their children home.... '<i>Mi
+fanal Pè Labatt!&mdash;mi Pè Labatt ka vini pouend ou!</i>'"</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Then we see the lights of the shrines that will protect us
+from the Zombi and the Moun-Mo, and all the terrible
+beings who are filled with witchcraft; and we listen to the
+tale of that Zombi who likes to take the shape of a lissome
+young negress.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">By this time it is Carnival Week with its dances and
+games and maskers. But a little later we are shuddering
+at the horrible pestilence Vérette that has seized the city.
+A gleam of the old love of horror is caught in the following
+quotation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">She was the prettiest, assuredly, among the pretty shop-girls of the
+Grande Rue,&mdash;a rare type of <i>sang-mêlée</i>. So oddly pleasing, the young
+face, that once seen, you could never again dissociate the recollection
+of it from the memory of the street. But one who saw it last night
+before they poured quick-lime upon it could discern no features,&mdash;only
+a dark brown mass, like a fungus, too frightful to think about.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">At the beautiful Savane du Fort our eyes and hearts are
+gladdened by the quaint sight of the Blanchisseuses with
+their snowy linen spread out for miles along the river's
+bank. Their laughter echoes in our ears, and we try to
+catch the words of their little songs.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">One warm and starry, and to us unforgettable, September
+morning we make the ascent of Mt. Pelée by the way of
+Morne St. Martin, and on our way we come to know the
+country that lies all around. Let me quote our sensation
+as we reach the summit:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;174]</span>At the beginning, while gazing south, east, west, to the rim of the
+world, all laughed, shouted, interchanged the quick delight of new
+impressions: every face was radiant.... Now all look serious; none
+speaks.... Dominating all, I think, is the consciousness of the awful
+antiquity of what one is looking upon,&mdash;such a sensation, perhaps, as
+of old found utterance in that tremendous question of the Book of Job:
+"<i>Wast thou brought forth before the hills?</i>"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And the blue multitudes of the peaks, the perpetual congregation of
+the mornes, seem to chorus in the vast resplendence,&mdash;telling of
+Nature's eternal youth, and the passionless permanence of that about
+us and beyond us and beneath,&mdash;until something like the fulness of a
+grief begins to weigh at the heart.... For all this astonishment of
+beauty, all this majesty of light and form and colour, will surely endure,&mdash;marvellous
+as now,&mdash;after we shall have lain down to sleep where
+no dreams come, and may never arise from the dust of our rest to look
+upon it.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Another day we are laughing at the little <i>ti canotié</i> who
+in the queerest tiny boats surround a steamer as soon as
+she drops anchor. These are the boys who dive for coins.
+A sad tale is told of Maximilien and Stréphane. Again
+our hearts are moved by the pathos and the tragedy of La
+Fille de Couleur; and in this chapter we find that characteristic
+description:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I refer to the celebrated attire of the pet slaves and <i>belles affranchies</i>
+of the old colonial days. A full costume,&mdash;including violet or crimson
+"petticoat" of silk or satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery
+and lace; "trembling-pins" of gold (<i>zépingue tremblant</i>) to
+attach the folds of the brilliant Madras turban; the great necklace of
+three or four strings of gold beads bigger than peas (<i>collier-choux</i>);
+the ear-rings, immense but light as egg-shells (<i>zanneaux-à-clous</i> or
+<i>zanneaux-chenilles</i>); the bracelets (<i>portes-bonheur</i>); the studs (<i>boutons-à-clous</i>);
+the brooches, not only for the turban, but for the chemise,
+below the folds of the showy silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,&mdash;would
+sometimes represent over five thousand francs' expenditure. This
+gorgeous attire is becoming less visible every year: it is now rarely
+worn except on very solemn occasions,&mdash;weddings, baptisms, first communions,
+confirmations. The <i>da</i> (nurse) or "<i>porteuse-de-baptême</i>" who
+bears the baby to church, holds it at the baptismal font, and afterwards
+carries it from house to house in order that all the friends of the family
+may kiss it, is thus attired: but now-a-days, unless she be a professional
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;175]</span>
+(for there are professional <i>das</i>, hired only for such occasions), she
+usually borrows the jewellery. If tall, young, graceful, with a rich
+gold tone of skin, the effect of her costume is dazzling as that of a
+Byzantine Virgin. I saw one young <i>da</i> who, thus garbed, scarcely
+seemed of the earth and earthly;&mdash;there was an Oriental something
+in her appearance difficult to describe,&mdash;something that made you
+think of the Queen at Sheba going to visit Solomon. She had brought
+a merchant's baby, just christened, to receive the caresses of the
+family at whose house I was visiting; and when it came to my turn to
+kiss it, I confess I could not notice the child: I saw only the beautiful
+dark face, coiffed with orange and purple, bending over it, in an
+illumination of antique gold. What a <i>da</i>!... She represented really
+the type of that <i>belle affranchie</i> of other days, against whose fascination
+special sumptuary laws were made: romantically she imaged for
+me the supernatural godmothers and Cinderellas of the Creole fairy-tales.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Still we have much to learn about the little creatures in
+the shapes of ants and scorpions and lizards. They form
+no small part of the population of Martinique. And still
+more about the fruits and the vegetables do we learn from
+good Cyrillia, Ma Bonne. One longs to have a housekeeper
+as loving and child-like and solicitous. We leave
+her gazing with love unutterable at the new photograph of
+her daughter, and wondering the while why they do not
+make a portrait talk so that she can talk to her beautiful
+daughter.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">And day by day the artlessness of this exotic humanity touches you
+more;&mdash;day by day this savage, somnolent, splendid Nature&mdash;delighting
+in furious colour&mdash;bewitches you more. Already the anticipated
+necessity of having to leave it all some day&mdash;the far-seen pain
+of bidding it farewell weighs upon you, even in dreams.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">But before we go, we must learn how Nature must treat
+those who are not born under her suns.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then at last reluctantly we board the <i>Guadeloupe</i>, and
+with Mademoiselle Violet-Eyes, who is leaving her country,
+perhaps for a very long time, to become a governess in
+New York, we realize that nowhere on this earth may there
+be brighter skies.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;176]</span>
+Farewell, fair city,&mdash;sun-kissed city,&mdash;many-fountained city!&mdash;dear
+yellow-glimmering streets,&mdash;white pavements learned by heart,&mdash;and
+faces ever looked for,&mdash;and voices ever loved! Farewell, white towers
+with your golden-throated bells!&mdash;farewell, green steeps, bathed in the
+light of summer everlasting!&mdash;craters with your coronets of forests!&mdash;bright
+mountain paths upwinding 'neath pomp of fern and angelin
+and feathery bamboo!&mdash;and gracious palms that drowse above the
+dead! Farewell, soft-shadowing majesty of valleys unfolding to the
+sun,&mdash;green golden cane-fields ripening to the sea!...</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Pelée&mdash;so they vanish
+behind us. Shall not we too become <i>Les Revenants</i>?</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Youma</span><a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> (5) was written in Martinique, and also belongs
+to the New Orleans period. "I think you will like it better
+than 'Chita.' It is more mature and exotic by far,"&mdash;so
+Hearn wrote of the story in one of his letters. Later on,
+when living in Japan, he wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_28_28">
+<span class="label">[28]</span></a> Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">It gave me no small pleasure to find that you like "Youma": you
+will not like it less knowing that the story is substantially true. You
+can see the ruins of the old house in the Quartier du Fort if you ever
+visit Saint-Pierre, and perhaps meet my old friend Arnoux, a survivor
+of the time. The girl really died under the heroic conditions described&mdash;refusing
+the help of the blacks and the ladder. Of course
+I may have idealized her, but not her act. The incident of the
+serpent occurred also; but the heroine was a different person,&mdash;a
+plantation girl, celebrated by the historian Rufz de Lavison. I wrote
+the story under wretched circumstances in Martinique, near the scenes
+described, and under the cross with the black Christ.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">An English notice says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"It is an admirable little tale, full of local characteristics
+with curious fragments of Creole French from Martinique,
+and abundance of wide human sympathy. It deserves
+reprinting for English readers more than three-fourths of
+the fiction which is wont to cross the Atlantic under similar
+circumstances." (294.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Youma" is the tale of the exquisite devotion and
+loyalty of a <i>da</i>. (A <i>da</i> is the foster-mother and nurse of
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;177]</span>
+a Creole child.) At the death of Aimée, Youma's playmate
+and rich foster-sister, little Mayotte, her child,
+becomes Youma's charge. An intimate description is
+given us of the Creole life of Mayotte and Youma. The
+love of this <i>da</i> is very beautiful. Once with an extraordinary
+heroism Youma saves Mayotte from a serpent
+which has slipped into their room. With a still greater
+heroism she refuses to run away with Gabriel, who has
+opened the world to her,&mdash;Gabriel who has brought her
+love, and whom she can marry in no other way. No, above
+the pleadings of her lover, comes the voice of her dying
+mistress, begging, with such trust,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"Youma, O Youma! you will love my child?&mdash;Youma, you will
+never leave her, whatever happens, while she is little? promise, dear
+Youma!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And she had&mdash;promised....</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Then comes the final test of Youma's strength of devotion.
+There is an outbreak among the blacks, who
+have become inflamed by the dreams of coming freedom.
+The Desrivières with many other families are forced to flee
+for refuge in safer quarters. Under one roof all these
+people gather. Youma is urged to leave and save herself.
+But she will not forsake Mayotte or her master. The
+infuriated blacks surround the house, and horror follows.
+Presently the house is set on fire. Youma, with Mayotte
+in her arms, appears at an upper window. Gabriel, "daring
+the hell about him for her sake," puts up a ladder. Youma
+hands him Mayotte. "Can you save her?" she asks.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"Gabriel could only shake his head;&mdash;the street sent up so frightful
+a cry....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"<i>Non!&mdash;non!&mdash;non!&mdash;pa lè yche-béké&mdash;janmain yche-béké!</i>"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Then you cannot save me!" cried Youma, clasping the child to
+her bosom,&mdash;"<i>janmain! janmain, mon ami.</i>"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Youma, in the name of God...."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"In the name of God, you ask me to be a coward!... Are you
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;178]</span>
+vile, Gabriel?&mdash;are you base?... Save myself and leave the child to
+burn?... Go!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Leave the <i>béké's yche</i>!&mdash;leave it!&mdash;leave it, girl!" shouted a
+hundred voices.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"<i>Moin!</i>" cried Youma, retreating beyond the reach of Gabriel's
+hand,&mdash;"<i>moin!</i> ... Never shall I leave it, never! I shall go to
+God with it."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Burn with it, then!" howled the negroes ... "down with that
+ladder! down with it, down with it!"</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The ladder catches fire and burns. The walls quiver,
+and there are shrieks from the back of the house. Unmoved,
+with a perfect calm, Youma remains at the window.
+"There is now neither hate nor fear on her fine face."
+Softly she whispers to Mayotte, and caresses her with an
+infinite tenderness. Never to Gabriel had she seemed so
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Another minute&mdash;and he saw her no more. The figure and the
+light vanished together, as beams and floor and roof all quaked
+down at once into darkness.... Only the skeleton of stone remained,&mdash;black-smoking
+to the stars.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">A stillness follows. The murderers are appalled by
+their crime.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Then, from below, the flames wrestled out again,&mdash;crimsoning the
+smoke whirls, the naked masonry, the wreck of timbers. They
+wriggled upward, lengthening, lapping together,&mdash;lifted themselves
+erect,&mdash;grew taller, fiercer,&mdash;twined into one huge fluid spire of tongues
+that flapped and shivered high into the night....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The yellowing light swelled,&mdash;expanded from promontory to promontory,&mdash;palpitated
+over the harbour,&mdash;climbed the broken slopes of
+the dead volcano leagues through the gloom. The wooded mornes
+towered about the city in weird illumination,&mdash;seeming loftier than
+by day,&mdash;blanching and shadowing alternately with the soaring and
+sinking of the fire;&mdash;and at each huge pulsing of the glow, the white
+cross of their central summit stood revealed, with the strange passion
+of its black Christ.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">... And at the same hour, from the other side of the world,&mdash;a
+ship was running before the sun, bearing the Republican gift of
+liberty and promise of universal suffrage to the slaves of Martinique.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;179]</span>There are two little bits of description which are so
+characteristic that I quote them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Then she became aware of a face ... lighted by a light that came
+from nowhere,&mdash;that was only a memory of some long-dead morning.
+And through the dimness round about it a soft blue radiance grew,&mdash;the
+ghost of a day.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Sunset yellowed the sky,&mdash;filled the horizon with flare of gold;&mdash;the
+sea changed its blue to lilac;&mdash;the mornes brightened their vivid green
+to a tone so luminous that they seemed turning phosphorescent.
+Rapidly the glow crimsoned,&mdash;shadows purpled; and night spread
+swiftly from the east,&mdash;black-violet and full of stars.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Karma</span><a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> (242) was written during the Philadelphia
+period, but was not published in <i>Lippincott's Magazine</i>
+until after Hearn had sailed for Japan. The story is
+concentrated, with its every word a shaft of light, and
+it seems a wrong to attempt to epitomize it. Except in
+its entirety no adequate conception can be formed of this
+marvellous revelation of the anguish that a human soul
+may suffer; nor of the artistic power with which Hearn
+has developed and perfected his study. Many quotations
+could be gleaned from his subsequent books which reflect
+the inspiration of "Karma."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_29_29">
+<span class="label">[29]</span></a> Copyright, 1889, by Lafcadio Hearn; and, copyright, 1890 by
+J. B. Lippincott Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">Despite her unusual intellect, the heroine had a childlike
+simplicity and frankness which invited her lover's
+confidence, but he had never told her his admiration, for
+a dormant power beneath her girlishness made a compliment
+seem a rudeness. He was often alone with her,
+which is helpful to lovers, but her charm always confused
+him, and his embarrassment only deepened. One day she
+archly asked him to tell her about it.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Is there one who does not know that moment when the
+woman beloved becomes the ideal, and the lover feels his
+utter unworthiness? Yet, if she is one of those rare souls,
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;180]</span>
+the illusion, however divine, is less perfect than is her worth.
+Do you know what she truly is&mdash;how she signifies "the
+whole history of love striving against hate, aspiration
+against pain, truth against ignorance, sympathy against
+pitilessness? She,&mdash;the soul of her! is the ripened
+passion-flower of the triumph. All the heroisms, the
+martyrdoms, the immolations of self,&mdash;all strong soarings
+of will through fire and blood to God since humanity
+began,&mdash;conspired to kindle the flame of her higher life."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And then you question yourself with a thousand
+questions, and then there are as many more of your
+duty to her, to the future, and to the Supreme Father.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">She was not surprised when he told her his wish, but
+she was not confident that he really loved her, nor whether
+she should permit herself to like him. Finally she bade
+him go home and "as soon as you feel able to do it
+properly,&mdash;write out for me a short history of your life;&mdash;just
+write down everything you feel that you would not
+like me to know. Write it,&mdash;and send it.... And then I
+shall tell you whether I will marry you."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">How easy the task seemed, and his whole being was
+joyous; but the lightness lasted for only a moment, and
+gradually all that her command meant crept over him....
+"<i>Everything you feel you would not like me to know.</i>"
+Surely she had no realization of what she had asked.
+Did she imagine that men were good like women&mdash;how
+cruel to hurt her.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then for a period he was uplifted with the desire to
+meet her truthfulness, but his courage failed again after he
+had written down the record of his childhood and youth.
+It was no slight task to make this confession of his sins.
+And how pale and trivial they had seemed before. Was it
+possible that he had never before rightly looked at them?
+Yet why should he so falter? Surely she meant to pardon
+him. He must put everything down truthfully, and then
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;181]</span>
+recolour the whole for her gaze. But his face grew hot at
+the thought of certain passages.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hour after hour he sat at his desk until it was past midnight,
+but no skill could soften the stony facts. Finally he
+lay down to rest: his fevered brain tried to find excuses
+for his faults. He could forgive himself everything ...
+except&mdash;ah, how unutterably wicked he had been there.
+No, he could not tell her <i>that</i>: instead he must lose her
+for ever. And in losing her he would lose all the higher
+self which she had awakened. To lose her&mdash;when he of
+all men had found his ideal.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"<i>Everything you feel you would not like me to know.</i>"
+Perhaps when she had put this ban upon him, she suspected
+that there were incidents in his life which he dared not tell
+her. Could he not deceive her? No, he might write a lie,
+but he could never meet her fine sweet eyes with a lie.
+What was he to do? And why had he always been so
+humble before that slight girl? "Assuredly those fine
+grey eyes were never lowered before living gaze: she
+seemed as one who might look God in the face."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Slowly his senses became more confused, and a darkness
+came, and a light in the darkness that shone on her; and
+he saw her bathed in a soft radiance, that seemed of some
+substance like ivory. And he knew that she was robing
+for her bridal with him.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">He was at her side: all around them was a gentle
+whispering of many friends, who were dead. Would they
+smile thus&mdash;<i>if they knew</i>?</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then there arose something within him, and he knew
+that he must tell her all. He commenced to speak, and
+she became transfigured, and smiled at him with the
+tenderness of an angel; and the more he told the greater
+was her forgiveness. And he heard the voices of the
+others lauding him for his self-sacrifice and his sincerity.
+Yet as they praised a fear clutched him for one last
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;182]</span>
+avowal that he must make. And with the growing of
+this doubt all seemed maliciously to change, and even
+she no longer smiled. He then would have told her alone,
+but even as he tried to hush his voice, it seemed to pierce
+the quietude "with frightful audibility, like the sibilation
+of a possessing spirit." Then with a reckless despair he
+shouted it aloud, and everything vanished, and the darkness
+of night was about him.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">For many restless days and nights he harried himself
+with bitter self-analysis; and day by day he tore up a
+certain page; yet without that page his manuscript was
+worthless. As the days grew into weeks a new fear seized
+him that his silence had betrayed him, and that already
+she had decided against him. In the face of this
+danger he became terrified, and one morning he feverishly
+copied the memorable page, and, addressing the whole,
+dropped it in the first letter-box, before he might change
+his mind.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then an awful revelation of his act overcame him.
+Should he telegraph her to return the manuscript unopened.
+No, it was already too late. What was done&mdash;was
+done for ever. He now vaguely realized what he
+feared in her&mdash;"a penetrating dynamic moral power that
+he felt without comprehending." He tried to steel himself
+for the worst, but he knew with a premonition that
+behind his imagined worst there were depths beyond
+depths of worse.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The single word "Come" which he received two days
+later confirmed his fears. When he reached the door of
+her apartment, she had already risen to take from a locked
+drawer an envelope which he knew was his. She proffered
+him no greeting, but asked in a cold voice if he wished her
+to burn the document. At his whispered <i>yes</i>, he met her
+eyes, and they seemed to strip him of the last remnant of
+his pride. "He stood before her as before God,&mdash;morally
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;183]</span>
+naked as a soul in painted dreams of the Judgment
+Day."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The fire caught the paper, and he stood near, in fear of
+her next word, while she watched the flame.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At last she asked if the woman was dead. He well
+knew to what she referred, and replied that almost five
+years had passed since her death. To the penetrating
+questions which followed he answered that the child&mdash;a
+boy&mdash;was well, and that his friend was still there&mdash;in
+the same place. She turned to him abruptly and coldly,
+angered that he could have believed that she would pardon
+such a crime.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">He must have had some hope, or he would not have
+sent the letter. Had he measured her by his own moral
+standard? Certainly he had placed her below the level
+of honest people. Would he dare to ask their judgment
+of his sin?</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Speechless, he writhed under the scorn of her words, and
+a knowledge of shame to which his former agony was as
+nothing burned within him. That in him which her
+inborn goodness had taught her, was now laid bare to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Again she spoke after a silence&mdash;perhaps he would think
+she was cruel; but she was not, nor was she unjust, for
+transcendent sin that denies "all the social wisdom gained
+by human experience" cannot be pardoned, it can only
+be atoned. And that sin was his; and God would exact
+his expiation. And that expiation she now demanded in
+God's name, and as her right. He must go to the friend
+whom he had wronged, and tell him the whole truth. He
+must ask for the child, and fulfil his whole duty; also he
+must place even his life at the man's will. And she would
+rather see him dead than believe that he could be a coward
+as well as a criminal. This she requested not as a favour,
+but as her right.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;184]</span>
+At her words he grew pale as if to death, and for a
+moment she feared that he might refuse, and that she
+must despise him. No! his colour rushed back, and her
+heart leaped, as with a calm resolve he answered, "I will
+do it."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Then go!" she replied, betraying no gladness.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A year went by. She knew that he had kept his
+promise. He wrote to her often, and passionately, but
+the letters were never answered. Did she doubt him
+still?&mdash;or was she afraid of her own heart? He could
+not know the truth, so he waited with hopes and fears,
+and the seasons passed. Then one day she was startled
+to receive a letter which told her that he was passing
+through her suburb, and he begged only to be permitted
+to see her. To his surprise the answer brought the happy
+words, "You may."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">From the shy, beautiful eyes of the child, whom he
+brought, there seemed to plead a woman's sorrow, until
+her own soul answered in forgiveness. And the boy and
+the father marvelled at the tenderness that had come
+upon her, and the father sobbed until her voice thrilled:
+that suffering was strength and knowledge, that always
+he must suffer for the evil he had wrought, but she would
+help him to bear the pain, and to endure his atonement.
+She would shield his frailty&mdash;she would love his boy.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard</span> (21) was translated
+in New York, while Hearn was finishing the proofs
+of "Two Years in the French West Indies." Of it he
+writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">As for the "Sylvestre Bonnard" I believe I told you that that
+was translated in about ten days and published in two weeks from
+the time of beginning it.... But the work suffers in consequence
+of haste.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">After his departure for the Orient, two articles on West
+Indian Society appeared in the <i>Cosmopolitan</i> (243-244).
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;185]</span>
+They give a sympathetic study of the sad and pathetic
+tragedy of the race of the mixed blood. These articles
+bear a similarity to the chapter upon and the references
+to this subject, in "Two Years in the French West
+Indies."</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan</span><a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> (7) is the first of
+the series of Japanese books. It was published after
+Hearn had been in Japan for four years; since 1891 six
+of the articles had appeared in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>
+(246-251). Also in 1890, an article, "A Winter Journey
+to Japan," was published in <i>Harper's Monthly</i> (245). This
+was his initial paper on Japan.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_30_30">
+<span class="label">[30]</span></a> Copyright, 1894, by Lafcadio Hearn; and published by Houghton,
+Mifflin and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">In many ways the present book on Japan is his happiest,
+for the charm over everything is fresh and radiant. It is
+here that we learn the old graceful customs, the touching
+child-like ways, and the sacred appealing rites and beliefs
+that so endear to us the Japanese. Later we are to have
+studies more philosophical, more erudite, but none more
+penetrating in virtue of the very simplicity of subject.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is difficult to believe that the writer, bewitched with
+the warmth and colour of the tropics, giving his pen an
+unlicensed flow of word colour and enthusiasm, in a few
+years could have matured into this quiet, gentle thinker
+equally absorbed by the East. One finds scarcely a trace
+of the Hearn of the tropics: therein lies his unique genius;
+just so admirably as he reflected the West Indian life, does
+he now reflect that of the Japanese.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is the old Japan that Hearn loves, and the passing
+of which he mourns even at the first. In his Preface, he
+says, "My own conviction, and that of many impartial and
+more experienced observers of Japanese life, is that Japan
+has nothing whatever to gain by conversion to Christianity,
+either morally or otherwise, but very much to lose." Also
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;186]</span>
+in one of his letters he writes, "I felt, as never before, how
+utterly dead old Japan is, and how ugly New Japan is
+becoming." It is old Japan that we find in the present
+volume. It is much as if we looked into a diary of his first
+days in the Orient, giving his impressions and conclusions,
+as well as portraying the pictures themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">One of the reviews of the book contains the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"If Japan is all that he says; if the Japanese are so
+compounded of all the virtues, and so innocent of the ugly
+failings that mar our Western civilization, then the poet's
+dream of a Golden Age has actually been realized in the
+remote East. Much as we should like to believe that
+such a land and such a people actually exist, we cannot
+altogether conquer our doubts, or avoid the suspicion
+that the author's feeling sometimes gets the better of his
+judgment." (379.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And another says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"In volume one he is still the outside observer, remote
+enough to be amused with the little pretty, bird-like
+glances of the Orient towards the Occident, pleased at
+the happy chance which makes a blind shampooer's cry
+musical as she taps her way down the street, instead of
+giving her a voice raucous as that which hurts and haunts
+the unwilling ears of wayfarers down Newgate Street and
+on Ludgate-Hill; or complimentary to the cunning fancy
+which paints a branch of flowering cherry in a cleft bamboo
+on a square of faintly-coloured paper and calls the cherry
+blossom 'beauty' and the bamboo 'long life.' He notices
+the shapely feet of the people: 'bare brown feet of peasants,
+or beautiful feet of children wearing tiny, tiny <i>geta</i>, or feet
+of young girls in snowy <i>tabi</i>. The <i>tabi</i>, the white digitated
+stocking, gives to a small light foot a mythological aspect&mdash;the
+white cleft grace of the foot of a fauness.'</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"A little further on the leaven of witchcraft is working,
+and he cannot write so airily. It is not as a mere spectator
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;187]</span>
+that he talks of his visit to the Buddhist cemetery, where
+the rotting wooden laths stand huddled about the graves,
+and one tomb bears an English name and a cross chiselled
+upon it. Here he made acquaintance with the god, who is
+the lover of little children, Jiz&#333;-Sama, about whose feet are
+little piles of stones heaped there by the hands of mothers
+of dead children. He is not quite as much in earnest as
+volume two will find him, or he could not call the gentle
+god 'that charming divinity'; but the sight-seer is dying
+in him nevertheless. It was with a friend's hand that he
+struck the great bell at Enoshima." (286.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But even here with a new world unfolding to his
+delighted eyes, it was colour that Hearn really wanted.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I am not easy about my book, of which I now await the proofs.
+It lacks colour&mdash;it isn't like the West Indian book. But the world
+here is not forceful: it is all washed in faint blues and greys and
+greens. There are really <i>gamboge</i>, or saffron-coloured valleys,&mdash;and
+lilac fields; but these exist only in the early summer and the
+rape-plant season, and ordinarily Japan is chromatically spectral.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The opening chapter is his first day in the Orient, "the
+first charm of Japan is intangible and volatile as a perfume."
+Everything seems to him elfish and diminutive.
+"Cha," his Kurumaya, takes him past the shops where
+it appears to him "that everything Japanese is delicate,
+exquisite, admirable&mdash;even a pair of common wooden
+chop-sticks in a paper bag with a little drawing upon it."
+The money itself is a thing of beauty. But one must
+not dare to look, for there is enchantment in these wares,
+and having looked, one must buy. In truth one wishes
+to buy everything, even to the whole land, "with its
+magical trees and luminous atmosphere, with all its cities
+and towns and temples, and forty millions of the most
+lovable people."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Before the steps leading to a temple he stops.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;188]</span>
+I turn a moment to look back through the glorious light. Sea and sky
+mingle in the same beautiful pale clear blue. Below me the billowing of
+bluish roofs reaches to the verge of the unruffled bay on the right, and
+to the feet of the green wooded hills flanking the city on two sides.
+Beyond that semi-circle of green hills rises a lofty range of serrated
+mountains, indigo silhouettes. And enormously high above the line
+of them towers an apparition indescribably lovely,&mdash;one solitary snowy
+cone, so filmly exquisite, so spiritually white, that but for its immemorially
+familiar outline, one would surely deem it a shape of cloud.
+Invisible its base remains, being the same delicious tint as the sky:
+only above the eternal snow-line its dreamy cone appears, seeming to
+hang, the ghost of a peak, between the luminous land and the luminous
+heaven,&mdash;the sacred and matchless mountain, Fujiyama.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Passing to the temple garden he wonders why the trees
+are so lovely in Japan.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Is it that the trees have been so long domesticated and caressed by
+man in this land of the gods, that they have acquired souls, and strive
+to show their gratitude, like women loved, by making themselves more
+beautiful for man's sake? Assuredly they have mastered men's hearts
+by their loveliness, like beautiful slaves. That is to say, Japanese hearts.
+Apparently there have been some foreign tourists of the brutal class
+in this place, since it has been deemed necessary to set up inscriptions
+in English announcing that "it is forbidden to injure the trees."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Of Hearn's first visit to a Buddhist temple, I quote what
+one of his critics has to say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The silence of centuries seems to descend upon your
+soul, you feel the thrill of something above and beyond the
+commonplace of this every-day world, even here, amidst
+the turmoil, the rush, the struggle of this monster city
+of the West, if you take up his 'Glimpses of Unfamiliar
+Japan,' and turn to his description of his first visit to a
+Buddhist temple. Marvellous is his power of imparting
+the mystery of that strange land, of hidden meanings and
+allegories, of mists and legends. The bygone spirit of the
+race, the very essence of the heart of the people, that has
+lain sleeping in the temple gloom, in the shadows of the
+temple shrines, awakes and whispers in your ears. You
+feel the soft, cushioned matting beneath your feet, you
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;189]</span>
+smell the faint odour of the incense, you hear the shuffling
+of pilgrim feet, the priest sliding back screen after screen,
+pouring in light upon the gilded bronzes and inscriptions;
+and you look for the image of the Deity, of the presiding
+Spirit, between the altar groups of convoluted candelabra.
+And you see:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Only a mirror, a round, pale disc of polished metal, and my own
+face therein, and behind this mockery of me a phantom of the far sea.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Only a mirror! Symbolizing what? Illusion? Or that the Universe
+exists for us solely as the reflection of our own souls? Or the old
+Chinese teaching that we must seek the Buddha only in our own
+hearts? Perhaps some day I shall be able to find out. (350.)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Many more temples are visited in the following chapter.
+What impresses him the most is the joyousness of the
+people's faith: everything is bright and cheerful, and the
+air is filled with the sound of children's voices as they play
+in the courts. He sees the many representations of Jiz&#333;,
+the loving divinity who cares for the souls of little children,
+who comforts them, and saves them from the demons. The
+face of Jiz&#333; is like that of a beautiful boy, and the countenance
+is made "heavenly by such a smile as only Buddhist
+art could have imagined, the smile of infinite lovingness
+and supremest gentleness." There is also Kwannon, "the
+goddess of mercy, the gentle divinity who refused the
+rest of Nirvâna to save the souls of men." Her face is
+golden, smiling with eternal youth and infinite tenderness.
+And he sees Emma Dai-&#333;, the unpitying, tremendous
+one. He learns many things of many gods and goddesses.
+There is the temple of Kishibojin&mdash;the mother of Demons.
+For some former sin she was born a demon and devoured
+her own children. But through the teaching of Buddha
+she became a divine being, loving and protecting the little
+ones, and Japanese mothers pray to her, and wives pray
+for beautiful boys. At her shrine what impresses the
+visitor are hundreds of tiny dresses, mostly of poor material,
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;190]</span>
+stretched between tall poles of bamboos. These are the
+thank-offerings of poor simple country mothers whose
+prayers to her have been answered.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In another chapter Hearn writes of the Festival of the
+Dead, for between the 13th and the 15th day of July the
+dead may come back again. Every small and great shrine
+is made beautiful with new mats of purest rice straw, and
+is decorated with lotus flowers, <i>shikimi</i> (anise) and <i>misohagi</i>
+(lespedeza). Food offerings, served on a tiny lacquered
+table&mdash;a <i>zen</i>&mdash;are placed before the altars. Every hour,
+tea daintily served in little cups is offered to the viewless
+visitors. At night beautiful special lanterns are hung at
+the entrances of homes. Those who have dead friends
+visit the cemeteries and make offerings there with prayers,
+and the sprinkling of water, and the burning of incense.
+On the evening of the 15th the ghosts of those, who in
+expiation of faults committed in a previous life are doomed
+to hunger, are fed. And also are fed the ghosts of those
+who have no friends.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">For three days everything is done to feast the dead, and
+on the last night there comes the touching ceremony of
+farewell, for the dead must then return.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Everything has been prepared for them. In each home small boats
+made of barley straw closely woven have been freighted with supplies
+of choice food, with tiny lanterns, and written messages of faith and
+love. Seldom more than two feet in length are these boats; but the
+dead require little room. And the frail craft are launched on canal,
+lake, sea, or river,&mdash;each with a miniature lantern glowing at the prow,
+and incense burning at the stern. And if the night be fair, they
+voyage long. Down all the creeks and rivers and canals the phantom
+fleets go glimmering to the sea; and all the sea sparkles to the
+horizon with the lights of the dead, and the sea wind is fragrant with
+incense.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But alas! it is now forbidden in the great seaports to launch the
+<i>sh&#333;ry&#333;bune</i>, "the boats of the blessed ghosts."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">In Kami-Ichi, in the land of H&#333;ki, there is a glimpse
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;191]</span>
+into ancient Japan, for there the Bon-odori, the Dance of
+the Festival of the Dead, is still maintained. No longer is
+it danced in the cities. In the temple court, in the shadow
+of the tomb, with the moonlight as a guide, long processions
+of young girls dance a slow ghostly dance while the
+vast audience of spectators keeps a perfect stillness. A
+deep male chant is heard, and the women respond. Many
+songs follow, until the night is waning. Then this seeming
+witchcraft ends, and with merry laughter and soft chatting
+all disperse.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn spends a long happy day at Matsue, the chief city
+of the Province of the Gods, where he gathers legends and
+impressions. Of course it has its temples. The temple is
+the best place to see the life of the people. There it is
+that the children play all day long. In the summer
+evening, the young artisans and labourers prove their
+strength in wrestling-matches. The sacred dances are
+held there; and on holidays it is also the place where
+toys are sold.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Often at night your attention will be drawn to a large,
+silent, admiring group of people standing before some little
+booth. They will be looking at a few vases of sprays of
+flowers&mdash;an exhibition of skill in their arrangement.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Returning homeward, there is seen a poor woman
+scattering some white papers into a stream of water, and,
+as she throws each one in, murmuring something sweet in
+a low voice. She is praying for her little dead child, and
+these are little prayers that she has written to Jiz&#333;.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Kitzuki is the most ancient shrine in Japan, and it is the
+living centre of Shint&#333;. There the ancient faith burns as
+brightly as ever it did in the unknown past. Buddhism
+may be doomed to pass away, but Shint&#333; "unchanging
+and vitally unchanged remains dominant, and appears but
+to gain in power and dignity." Many of the wisest scholars
+have tried to define Shint&#333;.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;192]</span>
+But the reality of Shint&#333; lives not in books, nor in rites, nor in commandments,
+but in the national heart, of which it is the highest
+emotional religious expression, immortal and ever young. Far underlying
+all the surface crop of quaint superstitions and artless myths and
+fantastic magic, there thrills a mighty spiritual force, the whole soul of
+a race with all its impulses and powers and intuitions. He who would
+know what Shint&#333; is must learn to know that mysterious soul in which
+the sense of beauty and the power of art and the fire of heroism and
+magnetism of loyalty and the emotion of faith have become inherent,
+immanent, unconscious, instinctive.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">At Kaka is the Cave of the Children's Ghosts. No evil
+person may enter the Shin-Kukedo, for if he does, a large
+stone will detach itself and fall down upon him. Here in
+this great vault, lifting forty feet above the water, and with
+walls thirty feet apart, is a white rock out of which drips
+a water apparently as white as the rock itself. This is the
+Fountain of Jiz&#333;, which gives milk to the souls of little
+dead children.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">And mothers suffering from want of milk come hither to pray that
+milk may be given unto them; and their prayer is heard. And
+mothers having more milk than their infants need come hither also,
+and pray to Jiz&#333; that so much as they can give may be taken for the
+dead children; and their prayer is heard and their milk diminishes.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At least thus the peasants of Izumo say.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">In another cavern are countless little piles of stones and
+pebbles, which must have been made by long and patient
+labour. It is the work of the dead children. One must
+step carefully, for the sake of these little ones, for if any
+work is spoiled, they will cry. In the sand are prints
+of little naked feet, "<i>the footprints of the infant ghosts</i>."
+Strewn here and there on the rocks are tiny straw sandals,
+pilgrims' offerings to keep the baby feet from being bruised
+by the stones.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In the temple of Hojinji of the Zen sect at Mionoseki,
+there is an altar which bears many images of Kwannon,
+the Goddess of Mercy. Before the altar, and hung from the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;193]</span>
+carven ceiling, is a bright coloured mass of embroidered
+purses, patterns of silk-weaving and of cotton-weaving, also
+balls of threads and worsted and silk. These are the first
+offerings of little girls. As soon as a baby girl learns how
+to sew or knit or embroider, she brings to the Maid-Mother
+of all grace and sweetness and pity, the first piece that she
+has made successfully.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Even the infants of the Japanese kindergarten bring their first work
+here,&mdash;pretty paper-cuttings, scissored out and plaited into divers
+patterns by their own tiny flower-soft hands.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Among the many Notes on Kitzuki which interest, is
+the annual festival of the Divine Scribe, the Tenjin-Matsuri,
+to which every school-boy sends a specimen of
+his best writing. The texts are in Chinese characters,
+and are generally drawn from the works of Confucius or
+Mencius. And Hearn remarks that the children of other
+countries can never excel in the art of Japanese writing.
+The inner ancestral tendencies will not let them catch the
+secret of the stroke with the brush. It is the fingers of the
+dead that move the brush of the Japanese boy.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At every temple festival in Japan there is a sale of toys.
+And every mother, however poor, buys her child a toy.
+They are not costly, and are charming. Many of these
+toys would seem odd to a little English child. There is a
+tiny drum, a model of the drum used in the temples; or a
+miniature sambo table, upon which offerings are presented
+to the gods. There is a bunch of bells fastened to a
+wooden handle. It resembles a rattle, but it is a model of
+the sacred <i>suzu</i> which the virgin priestess uses in her dance
+before the gods. Then there are tiny images of priests
+and gods and goddesses. There is little of grimness in the
+faiths of the Far East; their gods smile. "Why religion
+should be considered too awful a subject for children to
+amuse themselves decently with never occurs to the common
+Japanese mind."</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;194]</span>
+Besides these, there are pretty toys illustrating some
+fairy-tale or superstition and many other playthings of
+clever devices, and the little doll, O-Hina-San (Honourable
+Miss Hina), which is a type of Japanese girl beauty. The
+doll in Japan is a sacred part of the household. There is
+a belief that if it is treasured long enough it becomes alive.
+Such a doll is treated like a real child: it is supposed to
+possess supernatural powers. One had such rare powers
+that childless couples used to borrow it. They would
+minister to it, and would give it a new outfit of clothes
+before returning it to its owners. All who did this became
+parents. To the Japanese a new doll is only a doll; but a
+doll that has received the love of many generations acquires
+a soul. A little Japanese girl was asked, "How can a doll
+live?" "Why," was the lovely answer, "<i>if you love it
+enough</i>, it will live!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Never is the corpse of a doll thrown away. When it
+has become so worn out that it must be considered quite
+dead, it is either burned or cast in running water, or it
+is dedicated to the God K&#333;jin. In almost every temple
+ground there is planted a tree called <i>enoki</i>, which is sacred
+to K&#333;jin. Before the tree will be a little shrine, and either
+there or at the foot of the sacred tree, the sad little remains
+will be laid. Seldom during the lifetime of its owner is a
+doll given to K&#333;jin.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">When you see one thus exposed, you may be almost certain that it
+was found among the effects of some poor dead woman&mdash;the innocent
+memento of her girlhood, perhaps even also of the girlhood of her
+mother and of her mother's mother.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">There is a sad and awful tradition in the history of the
+Kengy&#333;s, the oldest of the noble families of Izumo. Seven
+generations ago the Daimy&#333; of Izumo made his first official
+visit to the temples of Hinomisaki, and was entertained
+royally by the Kengy&#333;. As was the custom, the young
+wife served the royal visitor. Her simple beauty unfortunately
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;195]</span>
+enchanted him, and he demanded that she
+leave her husband and go with him. Terrified, but like a
+brave loving wife and mother, she answered that sooner
+than desert her husband and child she would kill herself.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Lord of Izumo went away, but the little household
+well knew the evil that now shadowed it. And shortly the
+Kengy&#333; was suddenly taken from his family; tried at once
+for some unknown offence, and banished to the islands of
+Oki, where he died. The Daimy&#333; was exultant, for no
+obstacle was in the way of his desire. The wife of the
+dead Kengy&#333; was the daughter of his own minister, whose
+name was Kamiya. Kamiya was summoned before the
+Daimy&#333;, who told him that there was no longer any reason
+why Kamiya's daughter should not enter his household,
+and bade Kamiya bring her to him.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The next day Kamiya returned, and with the utmost
+ceremony announced that the command had been fulfilled&mdash;the
+victim had arrived.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Smiling for pleasure, the Matsudaira ordered that she should be
+brought at once into his presence. The Kar&#333; prostrated himself,
+retired, and presently returned, placed before his master a <i>kubi-oke</i>
+upon which lay the freshly-severed head of a beautiful woman,&mdash;the
+head of the young wife of the dead Kengy&#333;,&mdash;with the simple
+utterance:</p>
+
+<p class="cnobmargin">"This is my daughter."</p>
+<p class="cnotmargin">Dead by her own brave will,&mdash;but never dishonoured.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">"None love life more than the Japanese; none fear
+death less." So it is that when two lovers find that they
+can never wed, they keep the love death together, which is
+<i>j&#333;shi</i> or <i>shinj&#363;</i>. By dying they believe that they will at
+once be united in another world. They always pray that
+they may be buried together. (In other books are written
+additional stories illustrating the touching custom.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At the temple of Yaegaki at Sakusa, are the Deities of
+Wedlock and of Love, and thither go all youths and
+maidens who are in love. Hundreds of strips of soft white
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;196]</span>
+paper are knotted to the gratings of the doors of the shrine.
+These are the prayers of love. Also there are tresses of
+girls' hair, love-sacrifices, and offerings of sea-water and of
+sea-weed. In the soil around the foundation of the shrine
+are planted quantities of small paper flags.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">All over Japan there are little Shint&#333; shrines before
+which are images in stone of foxes.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The rustic foxes of Izumo have no grace: they are uncouth; but
+they betray in countless queer ways the personal fancies of their
+makers. They are of many moods,&mdash;whimsical, apathetic, inquisitive,
+saturnine, jocose, ironical; they watch and snooze and squint and
+wink and sneer; they wait with lurking smiles; they listen with
+cocked ears most stealthily, keeping their mouths open or closed.
+There is an amusing individuality about them all, and an air of
+knowing mockery about most of them, even those whose noses
+have been broken off. Moreover, these ancient foxes have certain
+natural beauties which their modern T&#333;ky&#333; kindred cannot show.
+Time has bestowed upon them divers speckled coats of beautiful
+colours while they have been sitting on their pedestals, listening
+to the ebbing and flowing of the centuries and snickering weirdly
+at mankind. Their backs are clad with finest green velvet of old
+mosses; their limbs are spotted and their tails are tipped with the
+dead gold or the dead silver of delicate fungi. And the places they
+most haunt are the loveliest,&mdash;high shadowy groves where the <i>uguisu</i>
+sings in green twilight, above some voiceless shrine with its lamps and
+its lions of stone so mossed as to seem things born of the soil&mdash;like
+mushrooms.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">It is difficult to define the Fox superstition, chiefly
+because it has sprung from so many elements. The origin
+is Chinese, and in Japan it has become mixed with the
+worship of a Shint&#333; deity, and further enlarged by the
+Buddhist belief of thaumaturgy and magic. The peasants
+worship foxes because they fear them. But there are good
+foxes and bad ones. The country holds legend after
+legend of goblin foxes and ghost foxes, and foxes that
+take the form of human beings. Every Japanese child
+knows some of them.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Seldom is a Japanese garden a flower-garden: it may
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;197]</span>
+not contain a flower. It is a landscape garden, and its
+artistic purpose is to give the impression of a real scene.
+Besides, it is supposed to express "a mood in the soul."
+Such abstract ideas as Chastity, Faith, Connubial Bliss
+were expressed by the old Buddhist monks who first
+brought the art into Japan. Little hills, and slopes of
+green, tiny river-banks, and little islands, together with
+trees, and stones, and flowering shrubs are combined by
+the artist. All these things have their poetry and legend,
+and sometimes have a special name signifying their
+position and rank in the whole design.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In the ponds little creatures such as the frog and water-beetle
+live, and they too have their legends. The children
+make all of these creatures and the insects their playmates.
+Then there are the <i>semi</i>, which are musicians, and lovely
+dragon-flies which skim over the ponds; and back on the
+hill above the garden are many birds. It is not necessary
+to have a garden outdoors, for there are indoor gardens
+too which can even be put into a <i>koniwa</i>, the size of a
+fruit-dish.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The dead are never dead with the Japanese; they
+become even more important members of the family, for
+the spirits of the dead control the lives of the living. Each
+day there is some ceremony in memory of these blessed
+dead; and no home is so poor but it has its household
+shrine. And Shint&#333;, ancestor-worship,</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>signifies character in the higher sense,&mdash;courage, courtesy, honour,
+and above all things loyalty. The spirit of Shint&#333; is the spirit of filial
+piety, the zest of duty, the readiness to surrender life for a principle
+without a thought of wherefore. It is the docility of the child; it is
+the sweetness of the Japanese woman. It is conservatism likewise;
+the wholesome check upon the national tendency to cast away the
+worth of the entire past in rash eagerness to assimilate too much of
+the foreign present. It is religion,&mdash;but religion transformed into
+hereditary moral impulse,&mdash;religion transmuted into ethical instinct.
+It is the whole emotional life of the race,&mdash;the Soul of Japan.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;198]</span>
+Self-sacrifice, loyalty, the deepest spirit of Shint&#333;, is born
+with the child. If you ask any Japanese student what his
+dearest wish is he will surely answer,&mdash;"To die for His
+Majesty, our Emperor." It is impossible in this limited
+space to give an adequate idea of all that Shint&#333;ism
+implies.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The dressing of the hair is a very important part of a
+Japanese woman's toilet. It is dressed once in every three
+days, and the task takes probably two hours. The
+elaborateness of the coiffure changes with the growing
+age of the maiden. But when she is twenty-eight, she is
+no longer young, and so thereafter only one style is left,
+that worn by old women. Of course, there are many
+superstitions about women's hair. It is the Japanese
+woman's dearest possession, and she will undergo any
+suffering not to lose it. At one time it was considered a
+fitting vengeance to shear the hair of an erring wife, and
+then turn her away.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Only the greatest faith or the deepest love can prompt a woman to
+the voluntary sacrifice of her entire <i>chevelure</i>, though partial sacrifices,
+offerings of one or two long thick cuttings, may be seen suspended
+before many an Izumo shrine.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">What faith can do in the way of such sacrifice, he best knows who
+has seen the great cables, woven of women's hair, that hang in the
+vast Hongwanji temple at Ky&#333;to. And love is stronger than faith,
+though much less demonstrative. According to an ancient custom
+a wife bereaved sacrifices a portion of her hair to be placed in the
+coffin of her husband, and buried with him. The quantity is not
+fixed: in the majority of cases it is very small, so that the appearance
+of the coiffure is thereby no wise affected. But she who resolves to
+remain for ever faithful to the memory of the lost yields up all. With
+her own hand she cuts off her hair, and lays the whole glossy sacrifice&mdash;emblem
+of her youth and beauty&mdash;upon the knees of the dead.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is never suffered to grow again.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The "Diary of a Teacher" gives a careful picture of the
+school-life in Japan as Hearn finds it. At the Normal
+School, which is a state institute, the young man student
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;199]</span>
+has no expenses. In return for these kindnesses, when he
+graduates he serves as a teacher for five years. Discipline
+is severe, and deportment is a demand. "A spirit of
+manliness is cultivated, which excludes roughness but
+develops self-reliance and self-control."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The silence of study hours is perfect, and without permission
+no head is ever raised from a book.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The female department is in a separate building. Girls
+are taught the European sciences, and are trained in all
+the Japanese arts, such as embroidery, decoration, painting;
+and of course that most delicate of arts&mdash;the arranging of
+flowers. Drawing is taught in all the schools. By fifty
+per cent. do Japanese students excel the English students
+in drawing.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There is also a large elementary school for little boys
+and girls connected with the Normal School. These are
+taught by the students in the graduating classes. Noteworthy
+is the spirit of peace prevailing at the recesses that
+occur for ten minutes between each lesson. The boys
+romp and shout and race, but never quarrel. Hearn says
+that among the 800 scholars whom he has taught, he has
+never even heard of a fight, nor of any serious quarrel.
+The girls sing or play some gentle game, and the teachers
+are kind and watchful of the smaller scholars. If a dress
+is torn or soiled the child is cared for as carefully as if she
+were a younger sister.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No teacher would ever think of striking a scholar. If
+he did so he would at once have to give up his position.
+In fact, punishments are unknown. "The spirit is rather
+reversed. In the Occident the master expels the pupil.
+In Japan it happens quite as often that the pupil expels
+the master."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It takes the Japanese student seven years to acquire the
+triple system of ideographs, which is the alphabet of his
+native literature. He must also be versed in the written
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;200]</span>
+and the spoken literature. He must study foreign history,
+geography, arithmetic, astronomy, physics, geometry,
+natural history, agriculture, chemistry, drawing.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Worst of all he must learn English,&mdash;a language of which the
+difficulty to the Japanese cannot be even faintly imagined by any one
+unfamiliar with the construction of the native tongue,&mdash;a language so
+different from his own that the very simplest Japanese phrase cannot
+be intelligibly rendered into English by a literal translation of the
+words or even the form of the thought.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">And he studies all this upon the slimmest of diets, clad
+in thin clothes in cold rooms. No wonder many fall by
+the way.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The students have been trained to find a moral in all
+things. If the theme given to them for a composition is
+a native one, they will never fail to find it. For instance,&mdash;a
+peony is very beautiful, but it has a disagreeable odour;
+hence we should remember that "To be attracted by
+beauty only may lead us into fearful and fatal misfortune."
+The sting of the mosquito is useful, for "then we shall be
+bringed back to study."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There is nothing distinctive about the Japanese countenance,
+but there is an intangible pleasantness that is
+common to all. Contrasted with Occidental faces they
+seem "half-sketched." The outlines are very soft, there
+is "neither aggressiveness nor shyness, neither eccentricity
+nor sympathy, neither curiosity nor indifference.... But
+all are equally characterized by a singular placidity,&mdash;expressing
+neither love nor hate, nor anything save perfect
+repose and gentleness,&mdash;like the dreamy placidity of Buddhist
+images." Later, these faces become individualized.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In another chapter Hearn tells of Two Festivals: one
+the festival of the New Year; and the other, the Festival
+of Setsubun, which is the time for the casting out of devils.
+On the eve of this latter festival, the Yaku-otoshi, who is
+the caster-out of the demons, goes around, to any houses
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;201]</span>
+that may desire his services, and performs his exorcism,
+for which he receives a little fee. The rites consist of the
+recitation of certain prayers, and the rattling of a <i>shakuj&#333;</i>.
+The <i>shakuj&#333;</i> is an odd-shaped staff. There is a tradition
+that it was first used by Buddhist pilgrims to warn little
+creatures and insects to get out of the way.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I quote from a French review for the description of one
+of Hearn's stories:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"But the most beautiful of all, 'A Dancing Girl,' is
+drawn from the chronicles of that far-off past, from which,
+say what one may, he is certainly wise in drawing his
+inspirations. It is the story of a courtesan in love.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"At the height of her celebrity, this idol of a capital
+disappears from public life, and nobody knows why.
+Leaving fortune behind, she flies with a poor youth who
+loves her. They build for themselves a little house in the
+mountains, and there exist apart from the world, one for
+the other. But the lover dies one cold winter, and she
+remains alone, with no other consolation than to dance for
+him every evening in the deserted house. For he loved
+to see her dance, and he must still take pleasure in it.
+Therefore, daily, she places on the memorial altar the
+accustomed offerings, and at night she dances decked out
+in the same finery as when she was the delight of a large
+city. And the day comes, when old, decrepit, dying,
+reduced to beggary, she carries her superb costume faded
+with time, to a painter who had seen her in the days of
+her beauty, that he may accept it in exchange for a
+portrait made from memory, which shall be placed before
+the altar always bearing offerings, that her beloved may
+ever see her young, the most beautiful of the <i>shirabyashi</i>,
+and that he may forgive her for not being able to dance
+any more.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"This <i>shirabyashi</i>, from the distance of time, appears to
+us here, clothed with I know not what of hieratical dignity,
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;202]</span>
+such as the modern <i>geisha</i> could never possess. Lafcadio
+Hearn in no wise pretends in the pages he devotes to these
+latter, to idealize them beyond measure. They appear
+under his pen as pretty animals somewhat dangerous; but
+is it not their calling to be so? Whatever be the rank of
+the Japanese woman, he only speaks of her with an extreme
+discretion, and with a caution that one would look
+for in vain in the portrait of <i>Mme. Chrysanthème</i>. The
+subtle voluptuousness of his style is never extended to the
+scenes he reproduces; it is a style immaterial to a rare
+degree; he knows how to make us understand what he
+means, without one word to infringe those proprieties that
+are dear to the Japanese, even more than virtue itself.
+And to believe him, the young, well-brought-up girl,
+the honest wife, are in Japan the most perfect types of
+femininity that he has ever met in any part of the world;&mdash;he,
+who has travelled so much. Opinions formed superficially
+by globe-trotters on this subject that he scarcely
+glances at because of respect, arouse as much indignation
+in him as could they in the Japanese themselves. Evidently
+he has penetrated into their inner life, into the mystery of
+their thoughts, into their hidden springs of action, to the
+point of participating in their feelings." (390.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">From H&#333;ki to Oki there is much to learn about the
+landscapes of Western and Central Japan; and Hearn
+gives many legends, and many more impressions and
+intimate glimpses.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">As there are only walls of thin paper separating the
+lives of these Japanese people, no privacy can exist.
+Really everything is done in public, even your thoughts
+must be known. And it never occurs to a Japanese that
+there should be any reason for living unobserved. This
+must show a rare moral condition, and is understood
+only by those who appreciate the charm of the Japanese
+character, its goodness, and its politeness.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;203]</span>
+No one endeavours to expand his own individuality by belittling his
+fellow; no one tries to make himself appear a superior being: any
+such attempt would be vain in a community where the weaknesses of
+each are known to all, where nothing can be concealed or disguised,
+and where affectation could only be regarded as a mild form of
+insanity.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn speaks of the strange public curiosity which his
+presence aroused at Urago. It was not a rude curiosity;
+in fact, one so gentle that he could not wish the gazers
+rebuked. But so insistent did it become that he had to
+close his doors and windows to prevent his being watched
+while he was asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Kinjur&#333;, the ancient gardener, knows a great many
+things about souls. "No one is by the gods permitted to
+have more souls than nine." Kinjur&#333; also knows legends
+about ghosts and goblins.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">An essay penetrating the very heart of the Japanese, is
+the chapter on the "Japanese Smile." It crowns Hearn's
+work as a superb interpretation of Japanese soul-life. This
+smile is the outward and visible sign of the inward and
+spiritual grace of self-sacrifice. It is metaphysically and
+psychologically exquisite. It is an etiquette which for
+generations has been cultivated. It was a smile, <i>in origin</i>,
+however, demanded by hard heathen gods of the victims
+they sacrificed; and, in history, it was demanded of the
+subject race by the early conquerors. If refused, then off
+came their heads! The smile is born with the Japanese
+child, and is nurtured through all the growing years.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The smile is taught like the bow; like the prostration; like that
+little sibilant sucking-in of the breath which follows, as a token of
+pleasure, the salutation to a superior; like all the elaborate and
+beautiful etiquette of the old courtesy.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The Japanese believe that one should always turn one's
+happiest face to people. It is a wrong to cause them to
+share your sorrow or misfortune, and so hurt or sadden
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;204]</span>
+them. One should never look serious. It is not only
+unkind but extremely rude to show one's personal griefs
+or anger: these feelings should always be hidden. Even
+though it is death one must face, it is a duty to smile
+bravely.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It was with such a smile that the dying boy Shida wrote
+and pasted upon the wall over his bed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Thou, my Lord-Soul, dost govern me. Thou knowest that I cannot
+now govern myself. Deign, I pray thee, to let me be cured speedily.
+Do not suffer me to speak much. Make me to obey in all things the
+command of the physician.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">This ninth day of the eleventh month of the twenty-fourth year of
+Meiji.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">From the sick body of Shida to his Soul.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The key to the mystery of the most unaccountable smiles is Japanese
+politeness. The servant sentenced to dismissal for a fault prostrates
+himself, and asks for pardon with a smile. That smile indicates the
+very reverse of callousness or insolence: "Be assured that I am
+satisfied with the great justice of your honourable sentence, and that
+I am aware of the gravity of my fault. Yet my sorrow and my
+necessity have caused me to indulge the unreasonable hope that I may
+be forgiven for my great rudeness in asking pardon." The youth or
+girl beyond the age of childish tears when punished for some error,
+receives the punishment with a smile which means: "No evil feeling
+arises in my heart; much worse than this my fault has deserved."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">This quality, which has become as natural to the Japanese
+as the very breath of his body, is the sweet tonic-note of
+his whole character.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Say&#333;nara!</i> Across the waters echoes the cry, <i>Manzai,
+Manzai!</i> (Ten thousand years to you! ten thousand
+years!). Hearn is leaving. He is going far away. His
+pupils write expressing their sorrow and regret. He sends
+them a letter thanking them for their gift of a beautiful
+sword, and in a loving farewell says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">May you always keep fresh within your hearts those impulses of
+generosity and kindliness and loyalty which I have learned to know
+so well, and of which your gift will ever remain for me the graceful
+symbol!</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;205]</span>
+And a symbol not only of your affection and loyalty as students to
+teachers, but of that other beautiful sense of duty expressed, when so
+many of you wrote down for me, as your dearest wish, the desire to
+die for His Imperial Majesty, your Emperor. That wish is holy: it
+means perhaps more than you know, or can know, until you shall have
+become much older and wiser. This is an era of great and rapid
+change; and it is probable that many of you, as you grow up, will not
+be able to believe everything that your fathers believed before you,
+though I sincerely trust you will at least continue always to respect the
+faith, even as you still respect the memory, of your ancestors. But
+however much the life of New Japan may change about you, however
+much your own thoughts may change with the times, never suffer that
+noble wish you expressed to me to pass away from your souls. Keep
+it burning there, clear and pure as the flame of the little lamp that
+glows before your household shrine.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Out of the East</span><a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> (8), followed "Glimpses of Unfamiliar
+Japan." The charm of the first impression is
+waning.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_31_31">
+<span class="label">[31]</span></a> Copyright, 1895, by Lafcadio Hearn; and published by Houghton,
+Mifflin and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">In a letter Hearn writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Every day, it strikes me more and more how little I shall ever know
+of the Japanese. I have been working hard at a new book, which is
+now half finished, and consists of philosophical sketches chiefly. It
+will be a very different book from the "Glimpses," and will show you
+how much the Japanese world has changed for me. I imagine that
+sympathy and friendship are almost impossible for any foreigner to
+obtain,&mdash;because of the amazing difference in the psychology of the
+two races. We only guess at each other without understanding.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">In another letter, speaking of the title for this book, he
+continues:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">It was suggested only by the motto of the Oriental Society, "<i>Ex
+Oriente lux.</i>" ... The simpler the title, and the vaguer&mdash;in my case&mdash;the
+better: the vagueness touches curiosity. Besides, the book is a
+vague thing.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The <i>Academy</i>, writing of "Out of the East," says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Each book marks a longer step towards the Buddhist
+mysticism, wherein we have lost our poet. 'The Stone
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;206]</span>
+Buddha,' in the first mentioned book, is a dreamy dialogue
+between the wisdom of the West; Science, with her theories
+of evolution, revolution and dissolution; Buddhism, with
+its re-birth on re-rebirth; and Nirvâna at the end. This
+thing also is vanity. As there can be no end, so there can
+be no beginning; even Time is an illusion, and there is
+nothing new beneath a hundred million suns." (286.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The old charm of word colour sparkles in "The Dream
+of a Summer Day."</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Mile after mile I rolled along that shore, looking into the infinite
+light. All was steeped in blue,&mdash;a marvellous blue, like that which
+comes and goes in the heart of a great shell. Glowing blue sea met
+hollow blue sky in a brightness of electric fusion; and vast blue
+apparitions&mdash;the mountains of Higo&mdash;angled up through the blaze,
+like masses of amethyst. What a blue transparency! The universal
+colour was broken only by the dazzling white of a few high summer
+clouds, motionlessly curled above one phantom peak in the offing.
+They threw down upon the water snowy tremulous lights. Midges or
+ships creeping far away seemed to pull long threads after them,&mdash;the
+only sharp lines in all that hazy glory. But what divine clouds!
+White purified spirits of clouds, resting on their way to the beatitude
+of Nirvâna? Or perhaps the mists escaped from Urashima's box a
+thousand years ago?</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The gnat of the soul of me flitted out into that dream of blue, 'twixt
+sea and sun,&mdash;hummed back to the shore of Suminoyé through the
+luminous ghosts of fourteen hundred summers.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">And Hearn tells with charm why "the mists escaped
+from Urashima's box a thousand years ago," and also of
+the old, old woman who drank too deeply of the magical
+waters of youth.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Reviewing the present volume, the <i>Spectator</i> remarks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The main drift of his books, however, is to bring into
+view not so much the glories of Japanese sunlight or the
+charms of animate or inanimate Nature, on which it falls,
+as the prevalence, at any rate in extensive sections of
+Japanese society, of modes of thought and standards of
+conduct which, though often widely apart from our own,
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;207]</span>
+demand the respect of every candid Englishman. And
+certainly in this endeavour he meets with a large measure
+of success. His account of the essays written and the
+questions asked by the members of his class in English
+language and literature at the Government college, or
+Higher Middle School, of Ky&#363;sh&#363;, discloses not only what
+must be regarded as a very good development of general
+intelligence among those young men, but a moral tone
+which in many respects is quite as high, though with
+interesting differences in point of view, as would be expected
+among English boys or young men in the upper forms of
+our great public-schools or at the Universities. Of course,
+what boys or young men write for or say to their masters
+and tutors cannot by any means always be taken as sure
+evidence of their inner feelings or of the character of their
+daily life. But, so far as one can judge, Hearn's pupils
+appear to have given him their confidence, and what he
+tells us of them may therefore reasonably be taken without
+much discount. It certainly illustrates an attractive simplicity
+of character and thought, not untouched by poetic
+imagination, together with a high development of family
+affection and strong sense of family duty, and also a
+remarkably high level of patriotic feeling. This spirit is
+apparently inherited from the old military class of the
+island of Ky&#363;sh&#363;, and it is not surprising to hear that rich
+men at a distance are keen to give their sons the opportunity
+of acquiring the Ky&#363;sh&#363; 'tone.' Towards the close
+of his book Mr. Hearn gives an extremely interesting
+account of a farewell visit paid him in the autumn of 1894
+by an old pupil who had entered the army after leaving
+college, and had been placed, at his own request, in one of
+the divisions ordered for service in Corea:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"And now I am so glad," he exclaimed, his face radiant with a
+soldier's joy, "we go to-morrow." Then he blushed again, as if
+ashamed of having uttered his frank delight. I thought of Carlyle's
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;208]</span>
+deep saying, that never pleasures, but only suffering; and death are
+the lures that draw true hearts. I thought also&mdash;what I could not
+say to any Japanese&mdash;that the joy in the lad's eyes was like nothing
+I had ever seen before, except the caress in the eyes of a lover on
+the morning of his bridal.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">"A beautiful thought, the reader will agree; but why
+could it not be uttered to a Japanese? A good deal will
+be found on this subject in Mr. Hearn's book, and, as we
+have indicated, we do not think it all holds together. His
+class of students, we learn, professed to think it 'very, very
+strange' that there should be so much in English novels
+about love and marrying; and then he tells us that&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Any social system of which filial piety is not the moral cement; any
+social system in which children leave their parents in order to establish
+families of their own; any social system in which it is considered not
+only natural but right to love wife and child more than the authors of
+one's being; any social system in which marriage can be decided
+independently of the will of the parents by the mutual inclination of
+the young people themselves ... appears, to the Japanese student
+of necessity a state of life scarcely better than that of the birds
+of the air and the beasts of the field, or at best a sort of moral chaos.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">"Now, of course, it is known here that in Japan, as in
+other Oriental countries, it is a rule for marriages to be
+family arrangements, as regards which it is expected that
+the young persons will conform to the wishes of their
+respective parents.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent">"But of course some inconsistencies are to be expected
+from an author enamoured of the whole country. He is
+very Buddhist, and is anxious to show that Buddhists have
+always held, in matters of faith, something very like the
+doctrines of modern science with regard to the perpetual
+sequence of evolution and dissolution. On this subject he
+argues cleverly and effectively; but when, by implication
+or expressly, he compares Buddhism with Christianity, it is
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;209]</span>
+evident that the latter faith has not received any very close
+study from him. None the less is his book, though dominated
+by a somewhat uncritical enthusiasm, full of interest
+and instruction as to the difference between the gifts, the
+motives, and the mental and moral attitude of the Japanese
+and the peoples of the West, ourselves in particular. It is
+well worth while to study that remarkable people as they
+are seen by one who is so much captivated by them, and
+believes in them so strongly, as Mr. Lafcadio Hearn."
+(380.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The <i>Athenæum</i> does not speak so cordially, and a
+review in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Mr. Hearn is not at his best as a metaphysician....
+But we can forgive him in that he stands forth a staunch
+champion, defying the West from the heart of the Japanese
+people. He does this most clearly in his finest essay,
+'Jiujutsu.' Here the very meaning of the martial exercise,
+to 'conquer by yielding' is taken as text to explain the
+phenomena or national awakening which foreign cities have
+denounced as a 'reversal.' Japan has borrowed weapons
+of force from the West, in order successfully to resist its
+insidious influence. True progress is from within. Mr.
+Hearn writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">However psychologists may theorize on the absence or the limitations
+of personal individuality among the Japanese, there can be no
+question at all that, as a nation, Japan possesses an individuality
+stronger than our own." (306.)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn further brings out in a conversation with a young
+Japanese the fact that Japan, in order to keep pace with
+the competition of other nations, must adopt the methods
+which are in direct variance to her old morality, and all
+that which has made the Japanese what he is. Japan's
+future depends upon her industrial development, and the
+fine old qualities of self-sacrifice, simplicity, filial piety, the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;210]</span>
+contentment with little, are not the weapons for the modern
+struggle. In a postscript to this essay, written two years
+later, after the war with China, Hearn adds that "Japan has
+proved herself able to hold her own against the world.... <i>Japan
+has won in her jiujutsu.</i>"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Japan holds infinite legends of ghostly significance, and
+it is no wonder that Hearn found so much that was sympathetic.
+Every new town or new temple reveals some
+aspect of the odd. In this second book the joyousness is
+gone; he is now a philosopher, and his philosophy reflects
+much of the ghostly. The gruesome has been
+buried, but it is not dead: it will return reincarnated, not
+of the ghastly of real life, but of the dim, far-away,
+always more distant ghostly in the lives of the dead.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A revelation of the Nirvâna into which Hearn is being
+slowly drawn appears in "At Hakata." He has been
+telling the story of the sacred mirror that a mother in
+dying gave to her daughter, bidding her to look into it
+every morning and evening and there see her mother.
+And the girl looked and "having the heart of meeting
+her mother every day," knew not that the shadow in
+the mirror was her own face.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">One are we all,&mdash;and yet many, because each is a world of ghosts.
+Surely that girl saw and spoke to her mother's very soul, while seeing
+the fair shadow of her own young eyes and lips, uttering love!</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And with this thought, the strange display in the old temple court
+takes a new meaning,&mdash;becomes the symbolism of a sublime expectation.
+Each of us is truly a mirror, imaging something of the universe,&mdash;reflecting
+also the reflection of ourselves in that universe; and
+perhaps the destiny of all is to be molten by that mighty Image-maker,
+Death, into some great sweet passionless unity. How the vast work
+shall be wrought, only those to come after us may know. We of the
+present West do not know: we merely dream. But the ancient East
+believes Here is the simple imagery of her faith. All forms must
+vanish at last to blend with that Being whose smile is immutable
+Rest,&mdash;whose knowledge is Infinite Vision.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">"The Red Bridal" is a story of <i>j&#333;shi</i>&mdash;the joint suicide
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;211]</span>
+for love. These two young people had been playmates
+since their early school-days, and were deeply attached
+to each other. The girl's father, under the influence
+of an evil stepmother, agrees to sell his daughter
+to the richest and also the most disreputable man in
+the village. Hearing this awful command, the maiden
+only smiles the brave smile&mdash;inheritance of her Samurai
+blood. She knows what she must do.... Together
+she and her lover quietly meet the T&#333;ky&#333; express. As
+its low roar draws nearer, they "wound their arms about
+each other, and lay down cheek to cheek, very softly
+and quietly, straight across the inside rail."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">We close the book with the memory of Yuko, heroic
+little Yuko, who, even as noble Asakachi, who had his
+beautiful wish to die for his country fulfilled, proves that
+the Japanese spirit of loyalty is far greater than our word
+implies. With all her country, Yuko, a humble little
+serving-maid, whose name signifies "valiant," is sorrowing
+because of a Japanese attack upon the Czarevitch
+of the Russians. Her soul burns with the desire to give
+something that will soften the sorrow of the August One;
+for the heart of the girl, being that of a true Japanese,
+grieves not alone for what has happened, but with a
+deeper sense of the grief caused to the August One.
+The cry goes from Yuko asking how she, who has nothing,
+can give; and from the lips of the dead within her comes
+the answer: "Give thyself. To give life for the August
+One is the highest duty, the highest joy." "And in what
+place?" she asks. "Saiky&#333;," answer the silent voices;
+"in the gateway of those who by ancient custom should
+have died."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Does she falter? No.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">For her the future holds no blackness. Always she will see the
+rising of the holy Sun above the peaks, the smile of the Lady-Moon
+upon the waters, the eternal magic of the Seasons. She will haunt
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;212]</span>
+the places of beauty, beyond the folding of the mists, in the sleep of
+the cedar-shadows, through circling of innumerable years. She will
+know a subtler life, in the faint winds that stir the snow of the
+flowers of the cherry, in the laughter of playing waters, in every happy
+whisper of the vast green silences. But first she will greet her kindred,
+somewhere in shadowy halls awaiting her coming to say to her:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Thou hast done well,&mdash;like a daughter of Samurai. Enter, child!
+because of thee to-night we sup with the Gods!"</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">It is daylight when Yuko enters Kyot&#333;. She finds a
+lodging, and then goes to a skilful female hairdresser. Her
+little razor is made very sharp. Returning to her room,
+she writes a letter of farewell to her brother, and an appeal
+to the officials asking that the Tenshi-Sama may be begged
+to cease from suffering "seeing that a young life, even
+though unworthy, has been given in voluntary expiation of
+the wrong."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At the dark hour before dawn she slips to the gate of
+the Government edifice. Whispering a prayer, she kneels.
+Then with her long under-girdle of silk she binds her
+robes tightly about her knees, for</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>the daughter of a Samurai must always be found in death with limbs
+decently composed. Then, with steady precision, she makes in her
+throat a gash, out of which the blood leaps in a pulsing jet....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">At sunrise the police find her, quite cold, and the two letters, and
+a poor little purse containing five <i>yen</i> and a few <i>sen</i> (enough, she had
+hoped, for her burial); and they take her and all her small belongings
+away.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Kokoro</span><a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> (9), the next book, could well be a continuation
+of "Out of the East." Hearn speaks of it as "terribly
+radical," and "rather crazy"; and he fears that his views,
+which are greatly opposed in the West, may not be well
+received.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_32_32">
+<span class="label">[32]</span></a> Copyright, 1896, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"The fifteen chapters of which the book is composed,"
+says a German review, "do not contain the results of any
+research into the domain of politics, art or religion. They
+are rather fragments from Japanese life, and so clear is
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;213]</span>
+the language that the pictures given are brought home to us
+with wonderful effect. Lafcadio Hearn is a journalist in
+the best sense of the word. He is a writer who has something
+striking and original to say upon the events of the
+day, upon the conditions and institutions of a land, upon
+the possibilities of development in a people, upon deep
+philosophical, social and religious problems, upon the
+'Idea of Pre-existence,' upon Buddhism and Shint&#333;ism,
+upon the difference between Occidental and Oriental
+culture, and who judges all things, all conditions that he
+sees, from lofty heights. He is besides a character, a man
+of great ideals; he has a fine artistic feeling and is, moreover,
+able to render in wonderfully sympathetic language
+tender moods which come to him at the sight of a landscape,
+a work of art. Extraordinarily capable of assimilation, he,
+to whom Japan has become a second home, has entirely
+fitted himself into the Japanese life. He is so delighted
+with the customs, with the political and social conditions,
+with the simple family life, with the religion, the ceremonies,
+the ancestor-worship, and with the business intercourse
+carried on among themselves&mdash;which he assures us is
+characterized by exceptional probity&mdash;in short, he is so
+delighted with all the activities of this people that he
+thinks them the best possible because they spring from the
+inmost life of an ethical and never intellectual temperament.
+Therefore he takes sides with them passionately against
+the modern tendencies of Europe." (395.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In the opening story, which I think will be found one of
+his best, is portrayed the manner of a Japanese crowd in
+dealing with a criminal; and how this criminal was brought
+to atonement by the gaze of a little child, the son of the
+man he murdered, while the little one was yet in his
+mother's womb.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The next chapter is a discussion of Japanese Civilization.
+In 1903 Hearn wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;214]</span>
+"The Genius of Japanese Civilization" is a failure. I thought that
+it was true when I wrote it; but already Japan has become considerably
+changed, and a later study of ancient social conditions has
+proved to me that I made some very serious sociological errors in that
+paper.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">He shows that in the wonderful development of Japanese
+power, there is vitally no self-transformation. All that
+Japan is, she always has been. Nor is there any outward
+change. "The strength of Japan, like the strength of her
+ancient faith, needs little material display: both exist
+where the deepest real power of any great peoples exists,&mdash;in
+the Race Ghost." He contrasts the noise and confusion
+and vastness of Western cities. The construction of the
+West is endurance; of Japan impermanency. The very
+land is a land of impermanence. But in this impermanency
+Hearn finds the greatest excellence. He contrasts how
+little impedimenta the Japanese have&mdash;by that means
+alone how independent they are. He shows with what a
+quiet simplicity Japan has become a great commercial
+centre. He fears the new Western spirit which threatens
+her:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I confess to being one of those who believe that the human heart,
+even in the history of a race, may be worth infinitely more than the
+human intellect, and that it will sooner or later prove itself infinitely
+better able to answer all the cruel enigmas of the Sphinx of Life.&mdash;I
+still believe that the old Japanese were nearer to the solution of those
+enigmas than are we, just because they recognized moral beauty as
+greater than intellectual beauty.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is the old spirit which found infinite meaning&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>in the flushed splendour of the blossom-bursts of spring, in the coming
+and the going of the cicadæ, in the dying crimson of autumn foliage,
+in the ghostly beauty of snow, in the delusive motion of wave or cloud.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The beautiful voice of a blind peasant woman fills Hearn
+with gentle memories and an exquisite delight. He muses
+upon what the meaning of this charm can be; and he
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;215]</span>
+realizes that it is the old sorrows and loving impulses of
+forgotten generations.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The dead die never utterly. They sleep in the darkest cells of tired
+hearts and busy brains,&mdash;to be startled at rarest moments only by the
+echo of some voice that recalls their past.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The lovely spirit of showing only one's happiest face to
+the world is charmingly brought out in the little incident
+that, when in a railway carriage, a Japanese woman finds
+herself becoming drowsy, before she nods she covers her
+face with her long kimono sleeve.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Sometimes one may recall the dead, and speak with
+them. So it happened that O-Tayo heard once again the
+voice of her little child who begged her not to weep any
+more, for when mothers weep, the flood of the River of
+Tears rises so high that the soul cannot pass, and must
+wander and wander.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">O-Tayo never wept again, but softly she herself became
+as a little child. Her good parents built a tiny temple and
+fitted it with miniature ornaments, and here all day long
+children came to play games with her. And when at last
+she died, the children still played there, for as a little girl
+of nine said, "We shall still play in the Court of Amida.
+She is buried there. She will hear us and be happy."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The pathetic tale of Haru gives an interesting picture
+of the relation in Japan between man and wife; of the
+exquisite submission of the wife under the saddest conditions,
+even to the moment when the little grieved heart,
+which has never murmured, has the dying strength to utter
+only the single word, "<i>Anata</i>." (Thou.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"A Glimpse of Tendencies" analyzes many conditions
+in Japan, with various predictions for her future, and speaks
+of her lack of sympathy for her foreign teachers.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In "A Conservative" Hearn gives a searching study of
+how the evils of our civilization appear to a Japanese
+youth.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;216]</span>
+"In the chapter, 'The Idea of Pre-existence,' Hearn
+makes the interesting attempt of bringing the teachings of
+the Buddhistic religion and the conclusions of modern
+science into accord. The idea which differentiates the
+Oriental mode of thinking from our own, which more than
+any other permeates the whole mental being of the Far-East&mdash;'it
+is universal as the wash of air; it colours every
+emotion; it influences, directly or indirectly, almost every
+act'&mdash;which inspires the utterances of the people, their
+proverbs, their pious and profane exclamations, that is
+the idea of pre-existence. The expression, '<i>Ingwa</i>,' which
+signifies the Karma as inevitable retribution, serves as
+explanation for all suffering, all pain, all evil. The culprit
+says: 'That which I did I knew to be wicked when doing;
+but my <i>ingwa</i> was stronger than my heart,' <i>Ingwa</i> means
+predestination, determinism, necessity." (395.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In his chapter on "Ancestor-Worship" it is further
+proved how important a part of the household are the
+dead.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Another delightful study is "Kimiko,"&mdash;the story of one
+who turns dancing-girl out of filial piety. In the height of
+her fame she falls in love with a rich young man, and he
+with her. Kimiko is so good a woman at heart, that the
+man's friends do not object to his marrying her. She
+refuses, however, for her life has made her unworthy to be
+wife or mother. The man hopes to change her, but one
+day she disappears and is utterly lost to sight. Years pass
+and he marries. At last Kimiko returns as a wandering
+nun, looks at her lover's little son, whispers a message for
+the father in his ear, and is gone once more. The grace
+with which the story is told is inimitable, and the sickly
+sentimentality that revolts us in the <i>Dame aux Camelias</i> is
+absent. (381.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Gleanings in Buddha-Fields</span><a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> (10) is the third book
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;217]</span>
+of the Japanese period, and was written at Kobé. In this
+volume of essays, intermingled with sketches in lighter
+vein, Hearn continues his philosophical studies. There are
+the unmistakable signs that even this ardour is losing zest.
+The charm of Japan is going fast; and after this volume,
+until his final interpretation, which is a summary of all that
+has gone before, is reached, we find him seeking material in
+fairy-tales, legends, and even returning to old thoughts
+about the West Indian life.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_33_33">
+<span class="label">[33]</span></a> Copyright, 1897, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">Many of his critics feel that Hearn is becoming too
+subjective to be quite trustworthy; others feel that he is
+still too charmed by Japan to render a faithful picture. A
+review in <i>Public Opinion</i> says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"But, this feature of almost pardonable exaggeration
+pointed out, there is little for the critic to carp at in the
+majority of the eleven essays that compose the book. The
+opening paper, 'A Living God,' is a perfect specimen of
+the author's style, and evinces in a marked degree the
+influence of Oriental environment on a sensitive mind. It
+treats of the temples, shrines, and worship of the people, and
+tells by legend how even a living individual may come to
+be worshipped as a god by his friends....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The essay, however, that betrays most strongly the
+bent of the author's mental metamorphosis, and one, we
+venture to say, that will be generally challenged is that
+on 'Faces in Japanese Art.' The contention it embodies,
+which he boldly fathers, is a flat denial of the truth and
+worth of our accepted schools of art,&mdash;of drawing especially."
+(376.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Criticizing the chapters on Buddhism in the present
+book, the <i>Athenæum</i> says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"They are finely written, but the Buddhism is the
+Buddhism of Mr. Hearn, not of China or Japan, or of
+anywhere else. Nevertheless, we think them the most
+attractive of these gleanings. Laputa is placed not very
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;218]</span>
+far from Japan; to a quasi-Laputa Mr. Hearn has gone,
+and his Laputian experiences are more interesting than
+any ordinary terrestrial experiences could have been."
+(298.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The <i>Spectator</i> says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"His chapter on Nirvâna, which he describes as 'a study
+in synthetic Buddhism,' will be read with very great interest
+by all who care for the problems involved. There have
+been plenty of studies of the doctrine of Nirvâna more
+elaborate and complete, but few more suggestive and
+more taking.... Mr. Hearn begins by combating the
+popular Western notion that the idea of Nirvâna signifies
+to Buddhist minds complete annihilation. The notion is,
+he declares, erroneous because it contains only half the
+truth, and a half of the truth which is of no value or
+interest or intelligibility except when joined to the other
+half. According to Mr. Hearn, and, indeed, according to
+'the better opinion' generally, Nirvâna means not absolute
+nothingness or complete annihilation, but only the annihilation
+of what constitutes individualism and personality,&mdash;'the
+annihilation of everything that can be included under
+the term "I".'" (382.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn makes an elaborate study of the varying stages of
+births and heavens that one must generally pass through
+before one rises into the "infinite bliss" of Nirvâna. The
+chapter closes with this significant sentence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The only reality is One;&mdash;all that we have taken for Substance is
+only Shadow;&mdash;the physical is the unreal:&mdash;<i>and the outer-man is the
+ghost</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">There are two short chapters devoted to the Japanese
+Songs. The first songs, "Out of the Street," are, as
+Manyemon, who would not have the Western people
+deceived, tells us, the vulgar songs, or those sung by the
+washermen, carpenters, and bamboo-weavers, etc. The
+theme always holds some glint of love. Hearn has
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;219]</span>
+arranged certain ones in three groups forming a little
+shadow romance.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To Heaven with all my soul I prayed to prevent your going;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Already, to keep you with me, answers the blessed rain.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Things never changed since the Time of the Gods:
+</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The flowing of water, the Way of Love.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The second chapter is devoted to Folk-Songs with
+Buddhist allusions. Nearly all the arts and the greater
+number of the industries show the influence of Buddhism.
+A typical song is:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Even the knot of the rope tying our boats together</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Knotted was long ago by some love in a former birth.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Another:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Even while praying together in front of the tablets ancestral,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Lovers find chance to murmur prayers never meant for the dead.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">On the "Trip to Ky&#333;to" there is more to be learned about
+poor little Yuko, who gave her life for her nation. To the
+Japanese all the small details of her story are of the
+greatest importance, and are carefully treasured. Hearn
+thinks that the Western "refined feeling" might not care
+for the poor little blood-stained trifles; if so it is to be
+regretted.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In "Dust," with a dainty touch, he teaches again that
+we are but millions upon billions of dead people; that the
+cells and the souls are themselves recombinations of old
+welding of forces&mdash;forces of which we know nothing save
+that they belong "to the Shadow-Makers of universes."
+You are an individual&mdash;but also you are a population!
+This leads on to the end that</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">In whatsoever time all human minds accord in thought and will with
+the mind of the Teacher, there shall not remain even one particle of
+dust that does not enter into Buddhahood.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The last chapter, "Within the Circle," is of a philosophy
+so impermanent that it seems but Shadow-play, and one
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;220]</span>
+may not behold a visible form, for&mdash;like all that which it
+symbolizes&mdash;it is but an illusion.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Exotics and Retrospectives</span><a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> (11) faithfully followed
+the ensuing year. The effort to write is manifest; even to
+himself Hearn is admitting that the <i>frisson</i> which Japan
+gave him is passing. He is beginning to make copy; and
+the subjects are becoming more vague, vapoury, and
+ghostly.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_34_34">
+<span class="label">[34]</span></a> Copyright, 1898, by Little, Brown and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">I must eat some humble pie. My work during the past ten months
+has been rather poor. Why, I cannot quite understand&mdash;because it
+costs me more effort. Anyhow, I have had to rewrite ten essays: they
+greatly improved under the process. I am trying now to get a
+Buddhist commentary for them&mdash;mostly to be composed of texts
+dealing with pre-existence and memory of former lives. I took for
+subjects the following:&mdash;Beauty is Memory&mdash;why beautiful things
+bring sadness;&mdash;the Riddle of Touch&mdash;<i>i. e.</i> the thrill that a touch
+gives;&mdash;the Perfume of Youth;&mdash;the Reason of the Pleasure of the
+Feeling Evoked by Bright Blue;&mdash;the Pain Caused by Certain Kinds
+of Red;&mdash;Mystery of Certain Musical Effects;&mdash;Fear of Darkness
+and the Feeling of Dreams. Queer subjects, are they not? I think
+of calling the collection "Retrospectives.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The <i>Athenæum</i>, that wise critic, feels that in this book
+Hearn "shows himself at his best. He is more subdued,"
+it says, "than is his wont, and indulges less freely in
+excessive laudation and needless disparagement. The
+chapters on 'Insect Musicians,' on the 'Literature of the
+Dead,' and&mdash;oddly as it may sound to us&mdash;on 'Frogs,' are
+among the most delightful of all his writings. The keynote
+of all is struck in the pretty stanza that heads the
+first of the three:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>Mushi, yo mushi,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i4"><i>Naïté ingwa ga</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Tsukuru nara?</i></span><br />
+<span class="i4">(Insect, O insect!</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Singing fulfil you</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Your fire-life and all life!)</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;221]</span>
+"The translation is ours. The fondness of the Japanese
+for many kinds of chirping insects, which they keep in
+little bamboo-cages, is one of the prettiest of the surviving
+echoes of the past. The plaintive little cry satisfies the
+curious melancholy that characterizes the reflective moods
+of the lieges of Mutsu. In the long series of changes that
+is to end in perfect Buddha-forms, there is hope always,
+but always tinged with the sadness of vague memories of
+past pains, and the resigned dread of sorrows to come, one
+knows not how oft to be repeated ere in 'Nirvâna' all
+earthly moods are lost. There is a regular trade in these
+tiny songsters, of the history of which Mr. Hearn tells the
+pleasant story." (299.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn leads us to a cemetery in a quaint lonesome
+garden, and teaches us something about the wonderful
+texts and inscriptions that are chiselled into the stone of
+the tombs, or painted on the wooden <i>sotoba</i>, and go to
+form the important literature of the dead. A suggestive
+<i>sotoba</i>-text is:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The Amida-Ky&#333; says: "All who enter into that country enter
+likewise into that state of virtue from which there can be no turning
+back."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">From the Kaimy&#333; which is engraved on the tomb, we
+may select:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>Koji</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise, in the Mansion of Luminous
+Mind.)</p>
+
+<p><i>Koji</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Effective-Benevolence-Hearing-with-Pure-Heart-the-Supplications-of-the-Poor,&mdash;dwelling
+in the Mansion of the Virtue of Pity.)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The frog is another favourite of the Japanese. There is
+one special variety called the Kajika, or true singing-frog
+of Japan, which is kept as a pet in a little cage. For over
+a hundred years the frog has been the subject of numerous
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;222]</span>
+poems. Many of these little verses are love-poems, for
+the lovers' trysting-hour is also the hour when the frog-chorus
+is at its height. Here is a quotation from the
+Anthology called "Kokinsh&#363;," compiled <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 905, by the
+poet Ki-no-Tsurayuki:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The poetry of Japan has its roots in the human heart, and thence
+has grown into a multiform utterance. Man in this world, having a
+thousand million of things to undertake and to complete, has been
+moved to express his thoughts and his feelings concerning all that
+he sees and hears. When we hear the <i>uguisu</i> singing among flowers,
+and the voice of the <i>kawazu</i> which inhabits the waters, what mortal
+(<i>lit. "who among the living that lives"</i>) does not compose poems?</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>A charming frog poem is:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>Té wo tsuité</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Uta moshi-aguru,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Kawazu kana!</i></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">(With hand resting on the ground, reverentially you repeat your
+poem, O frog!)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>And another:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>Tamagawa no</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Hito wo mo yogizu</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Naku kawazu,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Kono y&#363; kikéba</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Oshiku ya wa aranu?</i></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">(Hearing to-night the frogs of the Jewel River&mdash;or Tamagawa, that
+sing without fear of man, how can I help loving the passing
+moment?)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">A vivid chapter is Hearn's description of his ascent of
+Fuji-no-Yama. Here he may once again use his palette
+of many colours, but certainly not with the old <i>abandon</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Brighter and brighter glows the gold. Shadows come from the
+west,&mdash;shadows flung by cloud-pile over cloud-pile; and these, like
+evening shadows upon snow, are violaceous blue.... Then orange-tones
+appear in the horizon; then smouldering crimson. And now
+the greater part of the Fleece of Gold has changed to cotton again,&mdash;white
+cotton mixed with pink.... Stars thrill out. The cloud-waste
+uniformly whitens;&mdash;thickening and packing to the horizon.
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;223]</span>
+The west glooms. Night rises; and all things darken except that
+wondrous unbroken world-round of white,&mdash;the Sea of Cotton.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">A lurking of the gruesome flashes out when the snow-patches
+against the miles of black soot and ashes on the
+mountain make him think "of a gleam of white teeth I
+once saw in a skull,&mdash;a woman's skull,&mdash;otherwise burnt
+to a sooty crisp."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Retrospectives" is a group of gentle reveries, where we
+may muse with Hearn on such elusive themes as the
+"Sadness in Beauty," for beauty has no real existence, it is
+the emotion of the dead within us. Or there is the
+analysis of that favourite word <i>frisson</i>, "the touch that
+makes a thrill within you is a touch that you have felt
+before,&mdash;sense-echo of forgotten intimacies in many unremembered
+lives." "Azure Psychology" and "A Red
+Sunset" recall Hearn's earlier criticisms on colour.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">In Ghostly Japan</span><a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> (12) followed. The title is revelatory
+of the Japan that is to people this book and those
+which are to come. In the opening chapter Hearn
+crystallizes in a powerful sketch the sum of Buddhist lore.
+Of this the <i>Academy</i> writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_35_35">
+<span class="label">[35]</span></a> Copyright, 1899, by Little, Brown and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"Of Nirvâna one carries away this one picture, painted
+in words curiously colourless and intangible&mdash;the picture
+of a mountain up whose steep side toil two creatures&mdash;the
+soul and his guide&mdash;toiling, stumbling upwards over a
+brittle and friable chaos of skulls. Skulls crumbled into
+powder and skulls crumbling mark out the road; 'and
+every skull,' says the guide, 'is yours, and has been yours
+in some past incarnation; and the dust that rises round
+your present body is the dust of your past and deserted
+bodies that have served you well or ill as may be in your
+past lives.' In the fine and bewildering haze of this
+thought we lose our poet, and henceforward he is not a
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;224]</span>
+face nor a voice, but an echo of a living man's voice. We
+hear the echo, but the voice we do not hear. And we
+grudge the voice, even to Nirvâna where all silences are
+merged in one." (286.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In a beautiful chapter Hearn outlines all that might be
+written about the important subject of incense. He tells
+a good deal about its religious, luxurious, and ghostly uses.
+There is also a charming custom of giving parties where
+dainty games are played with it.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Sometimes there can be love between the living and the
+dead, or so it appears in the ghostly story of "A Passional
+Karma," or O-Tsuyu, who died of love of Shinzabur&#333; and
+returns to be his bride. Every night, by the light of their
+Peony Lanterns, she, accompanied by her maid, comes to
+keep the ghostly tryst. Shinzabur&#333; does not know that
+O-Tsuyu is dead, but his servant Tomoz&#333;, overhearing
+voices, gazes through a chink, and sees&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>the face of a woman long dead,&mdash;and the fingers caressing were
+fingers of naked bone,&mdash;and of the body below the waist there was
+not anything: it melted off into thinnest trailing shadow. Where
+the eyes of the lover deluded saw youth and grace and beauty, there
+appeared to the eyes of the watcher horror only, and the emptiness
+of death.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Now he whose bride is a ghost cannot live. No matter
+what force flows in his blood he must certainly perish.
+Shinzabur&#333; is warned and an amulet to protect him from
+the dead is given to him, but treachery is played, and the
+amulet is stolen; so one morning Tomoz&#333; finds his master</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>hideously dead;&mdash;and the face was the face of a man who had died in
+the uttermost agony of fear;&mdash;and lying beside him in the bed were
+the bones of a woman! And the bones of the arms, and the bones of
+the hands, clung fast about his neck.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The gentle heart of the Japanese shines in the chapter
+on "Bits of Poetry." You might find yourself, Hearn says,
+in a community so poor that you could not even buy a cup
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;225]</span>
+of real tea, but no place could you discover "where there is
+nobody capable of making a poem." Poems are written on
+all occasions and for all occasions.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Poems can be found upon almost any kind of domestic utensil;&mdash;for
+example, upon braziers, iron-kettles, vases, wooden-trays, lacquer-ware,
+porcelains, chopsticks of the finer sort,&mdash;even toothpicks!
+Poems are painted upon shop-signs, panels, screens, and fans.
+Poems are printed upon towels, draperies, curtains, kerchiefs, silk-linings,
+and women's crêpe-silk underwear. Poems are stamped or
+worked upon letter-paper, envelopes, purses, mirror-cases, travelling-bags.
+Poems are inlaid upon enamelled ware, cut upon bronzes,
+graven upon metal pipes, embroidered upon tobacco-pouches.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">A Japanese artist would not think of elaborating a
+sketch, and a poem to be perfect must also only stir
+one's fancy. <i>Ittakkiri</i>, meaning "entirely vanished" in
+the sense of "all told," is a term applied contemptuously
+to him who expresses all his thought.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Japan is rich in proverbs. Hearn has translated one
+hundred examples of Buddhist proverbs.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Karu-toki no Jiz&#333;-gao; nasu-toki no Emma-gao.</i></p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Borrowing-time, the face of Jiz&#333;; repaying-time, the face of
+Emma.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Sodé no furi-awasé mo tash&#333; no en.</i></p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Even the touching of sleeves in passing is caused by some relation
+in a former life.)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">A powerful relic of the old clinging love of the gruesome
+is the story of <i>Ingwa-banashi</i>. The <i>daimy&#333;'s</i> wife knew
+that she was dying; and she thought of many things,
+especially of her husband's favourite, the Lady Yukiko,
+who was nineteen years old. She begged her husband to
+send for the Lady Yukiko, whom, she said, she loved as a
+sister. After the dying wife had told Lady Yukiko it was
+her wish that she should become the wife of their dear lord,
+she begged that Yukiko would carry her on her back to see
+the cherry-bloom.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;226]</span>
+As a nurse turns her back to a child, that the child may cling to it,
+Yukiko offered her shoulders to the wife, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Lady, I am ready: please tell me how I best can help you."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Why, this way!" responded the dying woman, lifting herself with
+an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko's shoulders. But
+as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down over the
+shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of the girl, and
+burst into a wicked laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"I have my wish!" she cried&mdash;"I have my wish for the cherry-bloom,
+but not the cherry-bloom of the garden!... I could not die
+before I got my wish. Now I have it!&mdash;oh, what a delight!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl, and
+died.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">When the attendants tried to lift the body from Yukiko's
+shoulders, they found that the hands of the dead had grown
+into the quick flesh of the breasts of the girl. And they
+could not be removed. A skilful physician was called, and
+he decided that the hands could be amputated only at the
+wrists, and so this was done. But the hands still clung to
+the breasts;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>and there they soon darkened and dried up like the hands of a person
+long dead.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Yet this was only the beginning of the horror.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not
+dead. At intervals they would stir&mdash;stealthily, like great grey spiders.
+And nightly thereafter,&mdash;beginning always at the Hour of the Ox,&mdash;they
+would clutch and compress and torture. Only at the Hour of the
+Tiger the pain would cease.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Every day she prayed to the dead for pardon, and every
+night the torture was renewed. This continued for more
+than seventeen years until Yukiko was heard of no
+more.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Shadowings</span><a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> (13) appeared the next year, 1900. Of
+this volume the <i>Bookman</i> says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_36_36">
+<span class="label">[36]</span></a> Copyright, 1900, by Little, Brown and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">"He gives us several essays upon matters Japanesque,
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;227]</span>
+which obviously involve no small amount of erudition and
+patient research. Such are his papers upon the various
+species of <i>Sémi</i>, or Japanese singing-locusts, and on the
+complicated etiquette of Japanese female names. But the
+distinctive feature of this volume is the first half, which is
+given up to a collection of curious tales by native writers,
+weird, uncanny, little stories, most of them, of ghouls and
+wraiths, and vampires, or at least the nearest Japanese
+equivalents for such Occidental spectres." (316.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The <i>Athenæum</i> does not find "Shadowings" equal to the
+volume "Exotics." It thinks that Hearn is "perilously
+near exhausting his repertory of <i>Kokin</i> [one-stringed fiddle]
+themes."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The stories with which the present volume opens have
+no particular merit: they have lost their chief and real
+advantage&mdash;their local colour&mdash;in Hearnesque translation,
+and seem to be little more than suggestions or drafts of
+'nouvelles,' out of which skilful hands might perhaps have
+made something much better. A good example is the
+story of the Screen Maiden, which is a most lame presentment
+of a charming motif. The chapters on female names,
+on <i>sémi</i>, couplets and 'Old Japanese Songs' are more
+interesting, but only to those who possess a considerable
+knowledge of old Japanese life and literature.... Of
+the 'Old Japanese Songs'&mdash;where is the proof of their
+antiquity?&mdash;much the best is the dance-ballad of the
+dragon-maid, who bewitched a <i>yamabushi</i>, and chased
+him over moor and hill and river, until the temple of
+Dojo was reached, under the great bell of which the
+trembling hill-warrior or outlaw (<i>yamabushi</i> were such
+originally in all probability) hid himself, whereupon the
+dragon-maid wrapped her body round the bell once and
+again and the third time the bell melted and flowed away
+like boiling water. And with it, according to the legend,
+flowed away the ashes of the unwilling object of the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;228]</span>
+dragon-maid's affections, consumed not through love, but
+through disdain." (300.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Strange things happen in the group of tales, and not the
+least is the tale of the maiden in the screen whose loveliness
+so bewitches a youth that he becomes sick unto death.
+Then an old scholar tells him that the person whom the
+picture represents is dead, but since the painter painted
+her mind as well as her form, her spirit lives in the picture
+and he may yet win her.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">So every day, Tokkei, following out the old scholar's
+injunctions, sits before the portrait calling softly the
+maiden's name. And finally after many days the maiden
+answered, "<i>Hai!</i>" And stepping down from out the
+screen, she kneels to take the cup of wine (which was to
+be so), whispering charmingly, "How could you love me
+so much?"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Also there is the tale of the Corpse Rider, in which the
+husband had to ride for one whole night, so far that he
+could not know the distance, the dead body of his divorced
+wife; and this was to save him from her vengeance.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The gruesome gleams here, and again in the tale of
+"The Reconciliation," when the repentant husband found
+that the wife he was holding in his arms is "a corpse so
+wasted that little remained save the bones, and the long
+black tangled hair."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">There is no small amount of etiquette in the prefixes
+and suffixes of the Japanese female names. The majority
+of the <i>Yobina</i>, or personal names, are not æsthetic. Some
+are called after the flowers, and there are also place names,
+as for instance <i>Miné</i> (Peak) <i>Hama</i> (Shore); but the large
+proportion express moral or mental attributes.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Tenderness, kindness, deftness, cleverness, are frequently represented
+by <i>yobina;</i> but appellations implying physical charm, or
+suggesting æsthetic ideas only, are comparatively uncommon. One
+reason for the fact may be that very æsthetic names are given to
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;229]</span>
+<i>geisha</i> and to <i>j&#333;ro</i>, and consequently vulgarized. But the chief reason
+certainly is that the domestic virtues still occupy in the Japanese
+moral estimate a place not less important than that accorded to
+religious faith in the life of our own Middle Ages. Not in theory
+only, but in every-day practice, moral beauty is placed far above
+physical beauty; and girls are usually selected as wives, not for their
+good looks, but for their domestic qualities.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">I give a few names gleaned from Hearn's lists:&mdash;<i>O-Jun</i>&mdash;"Faithful-to-death";
+<i>O-Tamé</i>&mdash;"For-the-sake-of,"&mdash;a
+name suggesting unselfishness; <i>O-Chika</i>&mdash;"Closely Dear";
+<i>O-Suki</i>&mdash;"The Beloved"&mdash;<i>Aimée</i>; <i>O-Taë</i>&mdash;"The Exquisite";
+<i>Tokiwa</i>&mdash;"Eternally Constant."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">From the "Fantasies," we read of the Mystery of
+Crowds, and the horrors of Gothic Architecture, the joys
+of levitation while one is asleep&mdash;with a moral attached;
+of Noctilucæ. Also, as we gaze with the adolescent youth
+into a pair of eyes we come to know that</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The splendour of the eyes that we worship belongs to them only as
+brightness to the morning-star. It is a reflex from beyond the shadow
+of the Now,&mdash;a ghost-light of vanished suns. Unknowingly within
+that maiden-gaze we meet the gaze of eyes more countless than the
+hosts of heaven,&mdash;eyes otherwhere passed into darkness and dust.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Thus, and only thus, the depth of that gaze is the depth of the Sea
+of Death and Birth, and its mystery is the World-Soul's vision, watching
+us out of the silent vast of the Abyss of Being.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Thus, and only thus, do truth and illusion mingle in the magic of
+eyes,&mdash;the spectral past suffusing with charm ineffable the apparition
+of the present;&mdash;and the sudden splendour in the soul of the Seer
+is but a flash, one soundless sheet-lightning of the Infinite Memory.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">A Japanese Miscellany</span><a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> (14) was the next book.
+What does the memory hold of these stories and sketches?
+Surely that picture of Old Japan with its charming sentiment
+for Dragon-flies, to which such delicate poems were
+written.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_37_37">
+<span class="label">[37]</span></a> Copyright, 1901, by Little, Brown and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;230]</span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>Tomb&#333; no</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Ha-ura ni sabishi,&mdash;</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Aki-shiguré.</i></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">(Lonesomely clings the dragon-fly to the under-side of the leaf&mdash;Ah!
+the autumn-rains!)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">And that verse by the mother poet, who seeing many
+children playing their favourite pastime of chasing butterflies,
+thinks of her little one who is dead:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>Tomb&#333;-tsuri!&mdash;</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Ky&#333; wa doko madé</i></span><br />
+<span class="i4"><i>Itta yara!</i></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">(Catching dragon-flies!... I wonder where <i>he</i> has gone to-day!)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Then there are the children's songs about Nature and
+her tiny creatures, and all their little songs for their plays;
+the songs which tell a story, and the sweet mother songs
+that lull the babies to sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">How we pity poor misguided O-Dai, who forgot loyalty
+to her ancestors to follow the teachings of the Western
+faith. At its bidding even the sacred tablets and the scroll
+were cast away. And when she had forsaken everything,
+and had become as an outcast with her own people, the
+good missionaries found they needed a more capable
+assistant. Poor little weak O-Dai, without the courage to
+fill her sleeves with stones and then slip into the river,
+longing for the sunlight, and so "flung into the furnace of
+a city's lust."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">We hear the gruesome tinkle of the dead wife's warning
+bell, and we certainly shudder before the vision of her
+robed in her grave-shroud:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"Eyeless she came&mdash;because she had long been dead;&mdash;and her
+loosened hair streamed down about her face;&mdash;and she looked without
+eyes through the tangle of it; and spake without a tongue."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Then the hideous horror of the evil crime, as this dead
+wife in her jealousy tore off the head of the sleeping young
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;231]</span>
+wife. The terrified husband following the trail of blood
+found</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>a nightmare-thing that chippered like a bat: the figure of the long-buried
+woman erect before her tomb,&mdash;in one hand clutching a bell, in
+the other the dripping head.... For a minute the three stood
+numbed. Then one of the men-at-arms, uttering a Buddhist invocation,
+drew, and struck at the shape. Instantly it crumbled down upon
+the soil,&mdash;an empty scattering of grave-rags, bones, and hair;&mdash;and the
+bell rolled clanking out of the ruin. But the fleshless right hand,
+though parted from the wrist, still writhed; and its fingers still gripped
+at the bleeding head&mdash;and tore, and mangled,&mdash;as the claws of the
+yellow crab fast to a fallen fruit.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">Who but Hearn would have chosen this ghastly scene,
+and described it with such terrible reality?</p>
+
+<p class="indent">With the parents we have unravelled the mystery of
+Kinumé, whose spirit belonged to one family, and whose
+body was the child of the other.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Perhaps we still see the famous picture of Kwashin Koji,
+which had a soul, for "it is well known that some sparrows,
+painted upon a sliding screen (<i>fusuma</i>) by H&#333;gen Yenshin,
+once flew away, leaving blank the spaces which they had
+occupied upon the surface. Also it is well known that a
+horse painted upon a certain Kakémono, used to go out at
+night to eat grass." So the water in the picture on the
+screen of Kwashin overflowed into the room, and the boat
+thereon glided forth, but not a ripple from the oar was
+heard. Then Kwashin Koji climbed into the boat, and it
+receded into the picture, and the water dried in the room.
+Over the painted water slipped the painted vessel until all
+disappeared, and Kwashin was heard of no more.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And we remember too the strange brave way that
+Umétsu Ch&#363;bei won the gift of great strength for his
+children, and their children's children.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The <i>Athenæum</i> finds the story of Kwashin the best of
+this collection. Speaking of the study, "On a Bridge," it
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;232]</span>"The author narrates a personal experience of a <i>riksha</i>
+man who drew him across an old bridge near Kumamoto.
+It was in the time of the Satsuma <i>muhon</i> (rebellion), some
+twenty-two years earlier, that the <i>Kurumaya</i> (<i>riksha</i> man)
+was stopped on the bridge by three men, who were dressed
+as peasants, but had very long swords under their raincoats.
+After a time a cavalry officer came along from the city.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The moment the horse got on the bridge the three men turned and
+leaped:&mdash;and one caught the horse's bridle; and another gripped the
+officer's arm; and the third cut off his head&mdash;all in a moment.... I
+never saw anything done so quickly.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">"The seeming peasants then waited, and presently
+another cavalry officer came and was murdered in like
+manner. Then came a third, who met a similar fate.
+Lastly, the peasants went away, having thrown the bodies
+into the river, but taking the heads with them. The man
+had never mentioned the matter till long after the war&mdash;why?
+'Because it would have been ungrateful.'</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"No doubt this is a true story." (301.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It was probably during the ensuing year that Hearn
+contributed to the Japanese Fairy Tale Series (15),
+published in T&#333;ky&#333;, his renditions of four of these
+stories.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Kott&#333;</span><a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> (16) followed. Says the <i>Athenæum</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The gem of this volume is 'A Woman's Diary,' purporting
+to be 'the history of a woman's married life
+recorded by herself, found in a small <i>haribako</i> (work-box)
+which had belonged to her.' It is an ordinary story, not in
+the least sensational, yet pitiful and even touching in its
+record of poverty and suffering, showing the hardships and
+small enjoyment&mdash;according to our notions, at least&mdash;of
+the colourless existence led by the bulk of the Japanese
+poorer classes upon a total family wage of twelve pounds
+a year or less." (302.)</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_38_38">
+<span class="label">[38]</span></a> Copyright, 1902, by the Macmillan Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;233]</span>
+Except for "A Woman's Diary" and "Fireflies" the
+tales in "Kott&#333;" are fragmentary. Some are gruesome as
+the history of the Gaki; or as the story of O-Katsu-San,
+who was so bold as to go by night to Yurei-Daki, and who
+to win her bet brought back the little money-box of the
+gods. But when she came to give her baby his milk,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Out of the wrappings unfastened there fell to the floor a blood-soaked
+bundle of baby clothes that left exposed two very small brown
+feet, and two very small brown hands&mdash;nothing more.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The child's head had been torn off!</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">There is also the story of O-Kamé, who returned each
+night to haunt her husband; of Ch&#363;gor&#333;, who was bewitched
+by a beautiful woman whom he married beneath
+the waters. But he sickened and died, for his blood had
+been drained by his Circe, who was "simply a Frog,&mdash;a
+great and ugly Frog!"</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The literature and the significance of the fire-flies holds
+an important place with the Japanese, and for more than
+a thousand years the poets have been making verses about
+these little creatures.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A sketch in which Hearn is most fortunate is "Pathological,"
+where Tama, the mother-cat, dreams of her dead
+kittens&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>coos to them, and catches for them small shadowy things,&mdash;perhaps
+even brings to them, through some dim window of memory, a sandal
+of ghostly straw....</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Beautiful is the "Revery of Mother-Love":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Yet those countless solar fires, with their viewless millions of living
+planets, must somehow reappear: again the wondrous Cosmos, self-born
+as self-consumed, must resume its sidereal whirl over the deeps
+of the eternities. And the love that strives for ever with death shall
+rise again, through fresh infinitudes of pain, to renew the everlasting
+battle.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The light of the mother's smile will survive our sun;&mdash;the thrill of
+her kiss will last beyond the thrilling of stars;&mdash;the sweetness of her
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;234]</span>
+lullaby will endure in the cradle-songs of worlds yet unevolved;&mdash;the
+tenderness of her faith will quicken the fervour of prayers to be made
+to the hosts of another heaven,&mdash;to the gods of a time beyond Time.
+And the nectar of her breasts can never fail: that snowy stream will
+still flow on, to nourish the life of some humanity more perfect than
+our own, when the Milky Way that spans our night shall have
+vanished for ever out of Space.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Like unto the Soul is a Drop of Dew for</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Your personality signifies, in the eternal order, just as much as the
+especial motion of molecules in the shivering of any single drop.
+Perhaps in no other drop will the thrilling and the picturing be ever
+exactly the same; but the dews will continue to gather and to fall,
+and there will always be quivering pictures.... The very delusion
+of delusions is the idea of death as loss.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Kwaidan</span><a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> (17) was the book before "Japan," which
+was published after Hearn's death. It is a collection of
+old stories, many of them of the gruesome, and of careful
+studies of ants, mosquitoes, and butterflies. Striking is
+the tale of Yuki-Onna, the snow-woman, as is also the
+incident of Riki-Baka. One bewitched by the dead is
+Mimi-Nashi-H&#333;ïchi, whose ears were torn off because the
+holy texts which were written everywhere else upon his
+body were there forgotten. Sonj&#333;, the hunter, killed the
+mate of a female <i>oshidori</i>, who after appearing to him in a
+dream as a beautiful woman, who rebukes him the following
+day as a bird, tears open her body, and dies before his
+eyes. O-Tei is reborn in the shape of a woman that she
+may wed years later her promised husband&mdash;Nagao Ch&#333;sei
+of Echigo. So loyal is the love of O-Sodé, the milk-nurse,
+that the cherry-tree which is planted in commemoration
+of her, on the anniversary of her death, blossoms in a
+wonderful way. Because of his selfish wickedness in
+thinking only of the gains in his profession, a priest was
+made to be reborn into the state of a <i>jikininki</i>, who had
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;235]</span>
+to devour the corpses of people who died in his district.
+Other devourers of human flesh are the Rokuro-Kubi.
+The head of a Rokuro-Kubi separates itself from its
+body.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_39_39">
+<span class="label">[39]</span></a> Copyright, 1904, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Japan<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> (18): An Attempt at Interpretation</span> is
+the last book that Hearn published. He was reading its
+proofs at the time of his death. Although a posthumous
+volume appeared, this may rightly be termed his final
+word. It is the crystallization and the summary of all
+that has been said before. It contains a group of twenty-one
+lectures, which Hearn had expected at first to deliver
+at Cornell University. His own words will best reveal
+their import:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_40_40">
+<span class="label">[40]</span></a> Copyright, 1904, by the Macmillan Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">They will form a book explaining Japan from the standpoint of
+ancestor-worship. They are suited only to a cultivated audience.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The substantial idea of the lectures is that Japanese society
+represents the condition of ancient Greek society a thousand years
+before Christ. I am treating of religious Japan,&mdash;not of artistic or
+economical Japan except by way of illustration.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">"The history of Japan is really the history of her
+religion," is the key to the book.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The <i>Academy</i> remarks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"No one who wishes to understand the possibilities of
+the future of Japan can afford to neglect the past, and no
+one who would grasp the meaning of the past can afford
+to neglect Mr. Hearn's fine and thoughtful work." (288.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In a review Mr. Griffis says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"They felt that he had done his best and was degenerating.
+Yet here is a work which is a classic in science,
+a wonder of interpretation. It is the product of long
+years of thought, of keenest perception, or marvellous
+comprehension.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"One cannot quote, one must read this work. It shows
+the Japanese under his armour, modern science. The
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;236]</span>
+Japanese, outwardly, are ruled by treaties, diplomacy,
+governments, codes, Imperial Diet, armies and battleships&mdash;all
+modern and external. Inwardly they&mdash;that is, forty-nine
+millions of them&mdash;are governed by ghosts. The
+graveyard is the true dictator. It is ever their 'illustrious
+ancestors' who achieve victories. They, as a nation, are
+superbly organized for war. There is no originality, no
+personality, no individuality worth speaking of in the
+island empire. It is all done by the government, the
+community. In social evolution the Japanese are even
+yet far behind the Romans, and much as the pre-Homeric
+Greeks.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"In a word, Lafcadio Hearn outdoes the missionaries in
+dogmatism, exceeds even the hostile propagandist in telling
+the naked truth. Devoted friend of Japan, he excels the
+sworn enemies of her religions in laying bare, though with
+admiration, the realities.... Lafcadio Hearn turns the
+white and searching beams on the ship and man....
+His book is a re-reading of all Japanese history, a sociological
+appraisement of the value of Japanese civilization,
+and a warning against intolerant propaganda of any sort
+whatever. This book is destined to live, and to cause
+searchings of heart among those who imagine that the
+Japanese soul has been changed in fifty years." (326.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">From the <i>Spectator</i> I quote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Both the prose and poetry of Japanese life are infused
+into Mr. Hearn's charming pages. Nobody, so far as we
+know, has given a better description of the fascination
+which Japanese life has at first for such as enter into its
+true spirit, and of its gradual disappearance.... Of course
+it must be remembered that this charm of Japan was
+something more than a beautiful mirage. 'Old Japan,' in
+the opinion of Mr. Hearn, 'came nearer to the achievement
+of the highest moral ideal than our far more evolved
+societies can hope to do for many a hundred years.
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;237]</span>
+Curiously enough, it was under the shadow of the sword
+that the fascinating life of Japan matured; universal
+politeness was nurtured by the knowledge that any act of
+rudeness might, and probably would, cause a painful and
+immediate death. This supremacy of the sword, governed
+by the noble rule of <i>bushi-do</i>, hardened the Japanese
+temper into the wonderful spirit of self-sacrifice and patriotism
+which is now making itself apparent in the stress of
+war. All this is admirably portrayed in Mr. Hearn's pages,&mdash;the
+swan-song of a very striking writer." (383.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In <i>The American Journal of Sociology</i> there is a review
+of this book, by Edmund Buckley of the University of
+Chicago, which is so admirable and inclusive that I have
+obtained Professor Buckley's kind permission to quote it
+in its entirety. This review leaves small margin for further
+comment. But it is to be regretted that space will not
+permit citations of Hearn's tributes to the Japanese home,
+woman and character.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"On p. 160 of W. E. Griffis' 'The Mikado's Empire,' is
+textual evidence that, so late as 1876, intelligent men, and
+theologians at that&mdash;rather, in sooth, because they are
+theologians&mdash;could harbour such atrocious notions about
+Shint&#333;ism, the ethnic faith of the Japanese, as the following:
+'Shint&#333; is in no proper sense of the term a religion.... In
+its lower forms it is blind obedience to governmental and
+priestly dictates.' The present reviewer bears these Christian
+apologists and heathen defamers 'witness that they have
+a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.' They
+wrote in the days when hierology (comparative religion)
+was still inchoate, for C. P. Ticle's 'Elements' did not
+appear in its English dress until 1877; and when Japan's
+abasement before the 'Christian' powers was complete,
+and therefore everything Japanese assumed to be worthless.
+But the reaction came, of course, and is now pretty well
+completed. Japan's novel yet glorious art conquered the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;238]</span>
+world; Japan's new yet ever-victorious army has conquered
+Russia's imposing array; and now Mr. Hearn completely
+routs the contemners of a people's sincere faith. The
+consensus of hierologists that no people was ever found
+without a religion had already been given; and the creed,
+cult, and ethics of Shint&#333;ism had been correctly described;
+but it remained for Mr. Hearn to give a more complete and
+intimate account than had previously been done of the
+ancestorism in Shint&#333; and of its profound influence upon
+politics and morality.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"It will surprise no one to learn that Mr. Hearn overdid
+his contention, just because such excess is the well-nigh
+inevitable reaction from the underestimate that he found
+current and sought to correct. As he states the case on
+p. 4: 'Hitherto the subject of Japanese religion has been
+written of chiefly by the sworn enemies of that religion;
+by others it has been almost entirely ignored.' But now
+that 'see-saw' has followed 'see,' we may hope to win a
+final equilibrium of correct appreciation. To this end
+several corrections are called for; but, before they are
+made, clearness will be secured by a concise analysis of
+the treatise; for in its course religion, politics, and morality
+are interwoven on a historic warp. The entire fabric runs
+about as follows: (Chap. 3.) The real religion of the
+Japanese is ancestorism, which showed in three cults&mdash;the
+domestic, the communal, and the state. The domestic
+arose first, but the primitive family might include hundreds
+of households. Ancestorism in Japan confirms Spencer's
+exposition of religious origins. The greater gods were all
+evolved from ghost-cults. Good men made good gods;
+bad men, bad ones. (Chap. 4.) The domestic cult began
+in offerings of food and drink made at the grave; then,
+under Chinese influence, was transferred to the home before
+tablets; where it was maintained until this present by
+Buddhism. Thin tablets of white wood, inscribed with
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;239]</span>
+the names of the dead, are placed in a miniature wooden
+shrine, which is kept upon a shelf in some inner chamber.
+Tiny offerings of food, accompanied with brief prayer,
+must be made each day by some member of the household
+in behalf of all; for the blessed dead still need sustenance,
+and in return can guard the house. The Buddhist rite,
+however, made prayer, not <i>to</i>, but <i>for</i> these dead. The
+Japanese scholar Hirata is correct when he declares the
+worship of ancestors to be the mainspring of all virtues.
+(Chap. 5.) The family was united only by religion. The
+father&mdash;not the mother&mdash;was supposed to be the life-giver,
+and was therefore responsible for the cult. Hence the
+inferior position of woman. The ancestral ghost of an <i>uji</i>,
+or family of several households, became later the <i>ujigami</i>,
+or local tutelar god. Subordination of young to old, of
+females to males, and of the whole family to its chief, who
+was at once ruler and priest, shows that the family organization
+was religious and not marital. Both monogamy and
+the practice of parents selecting their child's spouse arose
+because best accordant with religion. Later custom makes
+the decision, not of the father alone, but of the household
+and kindred, determinative of any important step.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"(Chap. 6.) The communal cult of the district ruled the
+family in all its relations to the outer world. The <i>ujigami</i>,
+or clan-god, was the spirit rather of a former ruler than of
+a common ancestor. Hochiman was a ruler, but Kasuga
+an ancestor. Beside the <i>uji</i> temple of a district, there may
+be a more important one dedicated to some higher deity.
+Every <i>ujiko</i> or parishioner is taken to the <i>ujigami</i> when
+one month old and dedicated to him. Thereafter he
+attends the temple festivals, which combine fun with piety;
+and he makes the temple groves his playground. Grown
+up, he brings his children here; and, if he leaves home,
+pays his respects to the god on leaving and returning.
+Thus the social bond of each community was identical
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;240]</span>
+with the religious bond, and the cult of the <i>ujigami</i>
+embodied the moral experience of the community. The
+individual of such a community enjoyed only a narrowly
+restricted liberty. Shint&#333;ism had no moral code, because
+at this stage of ancestor-cult religion and ethics coincide.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"(Chap. 7.) The great gods of nature were developed
+from ancestor-worship, though their real history has been
+long forgotten. (Chap. 8.) Rites of worship and of purification
+were many. (Chap. 9.) The rule of the dead
+extended to moral conduct and even to sumptuary matters,
+language, and amusements. (Chap. 10.) Buddhism absorbed
+the native ancestor-cult, but prescribed that prayers
+be said for them, not to them. In accordance with its
+principle, 'First observe the person, then preach the law'&mdash;that
+is, accommodate instruction to the hearer's capacity&mdash;Buddhism
+taught the masses metempsychosis instead of
+palingenesis, and the paradise of Amida instead of the
+nirvâna of Buddha. Buddhism rendered its greatest
+service to Japan by education in the learning and arts of
+China. (Chap. 11.) The higher Buddhism is a kind of
+monism.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"(Chap. 12.) Japanese society was simply an amplification
+of the patriarchal family, and its clan-groups never
+united into a coherent body until 1871. At first the bulk
+of the people were slaves or serfs, but from the seventh
+century a large class of freedmen&mdash;farmers and artisans&mdash;came
+into existence. The first period of Japanese
+social evolution was based on a national head, the Mikado,
+and a national cult, Shint&#333;ism; it began in this seventh
+century, but developed to the limit of its type only
+under the Tokugawa shoguns, in the seventeenth
+century.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Next to the priest-emperor at the head came the <i>kugé</i>,
+or ancient nobility, from whose ranks most of the latter
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;241]</span>
+regents and shoguns were drawn. Next ranked the <i>buké</i>
+or <i>samurai</i>, which was the professional military class, and
+was ruled by nearly three hundred <i>daimy&#333;</i>, or feudal lords
+of varying importance. Next came the commonalty,
+<i>heimin</i>, with three classes&mdash;farmers, artisans, and tradesmen,
+the last being despised by the <i>samurai</i>, who also could cut
+down any disrespectful <i>heimin</i> with impunity. Lowest of
+all came the <i>chori</i>&mdash;pariahs, who were not counted Japanese
+at all, but <i>mono</i>-'things.' But even among them distinctions
+arose according to occupation. The close care taken
+of the native religion by the government precluded rise of
+a church. Nor was Buddhism, divided into hostile sects
+and opposed by the <i>samurai</i>, ever able to establish a
+hierarchy independent of the government. Personal freedom
+was suppressed, as it would be now under Socialism,
+which is simply a reversion to an overcome type.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"(Chap. 13.) The second period of Japanese social
+evolution lasted from the eleventh to the nineteenth century,
+and was marked by dominance over the mikadoate of
+successive dynasties of shoguns. The permanence of this
+mikadoate amid all perturbations of the shogunate was
+owing to its religious nature. (Chap. 14.) Following the
+lord in death, suicide, and vendetta were customs based on
+loyalty, and they involved the noblest self-sacrifice. (Chap.
+15.) Catholic missions were suppressed lest they should
+lead to the political conquest of Japan. (Chap. 16.) The
+Tokugawa shoguns exercised iron discipline, and now were
+brought to perfection those exquisite arts and manners of
+the Japanese. (Chap. 17.) A revival of learning, begun
+in the eighteenth century, slowly led to a new nationalist
+support of the Mikado; and when by 1891 the shogun had
+resigned and the daimiates been abolished, the third period
+in Japan's social evolution began. (Chap. 18.) In spite
+of outward seeming, the ancient social conditions and
+ancestor-cult still control every action. (Chap. 19.) The
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;242]</span>
+individual is still restrained by the conventions of the
+masses, by communistic guilds of craftsmen, and by
+the government's practice of taking loyal service in all
+its departments without giving adequate pecuniary reward.
+(Chap. 20.) The educational system still maintains the old
+communism by training, not for individual ability, but for
+co-operative action. This is favoured, too, by the universal
+practice of rich men meeting the personal expenses of
+promising students. (Chap. 21.) Japanese loyalty and
+courage will support her army and navy, but industrial
+competition with other peoples calls for individual freedom.
+(Chap. 22.) The Japanese are not indifferent to
+religion, and can be understood only by a study of their
+religious and social evolution. Future changes will be social,
+but ancestor-cult will persist, and offers an insuperable
+obstacle to the spread of Christianity.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The critical reader will not have failed to meet in
+this summary many positions that challenge his previous
+knowledge, and whether these be correct or not can be
+determined only by an examination of the full text,
+which it eminently deserves. The reviewer, however, will
+confine himself to certain matters that seem to him the
+dominating errors of the whole. Probably three greater
+errors were never compressed into a single sentence than
+in this from p. 27: 'The real religion of Japan, the religion
+still professed in one form or another by the entire nation,
+is that cult which has been the foundation of all civilized
+religion and of all civilized society&mdash;ancestor-worship.'
+That ancestor-worship is still professed by the entire
+nation is negatived by all we know from other sources as
+well as all we should expect. The ancestor-worship
+native to Japan had been appropriated by Buddhism;
+and, since the revolution of 1868 with its disestablishment
+of that church, the Butsudan, where the tablets
+were kept, has been largely sold as an art object or
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;243]</span>
+has been simply disused. The <i>mitamaya</i> mentioned on
+p. 50, as if in extensive use for ancestor-worship, is found
+only in a few purist families, and is known to the mass of
+Japanese only as the rear apartment or structure of a
+Shint&#333;ist shrine.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"That ancestor-worship is 'the real religion of Japan'
+and 'has been the foundation of all civilized religion' are
+errors that Mr. Hearn owes to Herbert Spencer's influence,
+which is confessed here, and indeed is evident throughout
+the work. Perhaps nothing has brought Spencer into
+more discredit than the lengths he went to prove this
+basic nature of ancestorism in his 'Principles of Sociology,'
+and the reader of pp. 121-24 of Mr. Hearn's work will
+readily see how futile also is the attempt to show that the
+nature-deities of Shint&#333;ism were only 'transfigured ghosts.'
+No, indeed, God did not make man and leave ghosts to
+make him religious. The heaven and the earth were here
+before ghosts, and man could personify them just as soon
+as he knew himself as a person, which he must have done
+long before he analyzed himself into a ghost-soul and a
+body. Had Mr. Hearn not ignored Réville, Max Müller,
+Pfleiderer, and Saussaye, while steeping himself in Spencer,
+he might have observed, what is plainly visible in Shint&#333;ism
+as elsewhere: that religion has <i>two</i> tap roots, ancestorism
+indeed, but also naturism.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Again, Mr. Hearn's sentence declares that ancestor-worship
+is 'the foundation of all civilized society.' This
+is the prevailing view throughout the work; for example,
+on pp. 23, 57, 86, 99, 175, and 320. But other passages
+imply the saner view that religion and morality are coordinate
+functions of one man. Thus at p. 511, Mr. Hearn
+attributes Japan's power to 'her old religious and social
+training.' The many and strong cases of influence of religion
+upon conduct that can really be shown in Japan
+amount only to influence, of course, and not to 'foundation'
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;244]</span>
+or 'origination,' A quite transparent case of Mr. Hearn's
+error is where (p. 152) he attributes the exceptional cleanliness
+of the Japanese to their religion, which here, as usual,
+he sums up as ancestor-worship. One wonders, however,
+why this world-wide phenomenon of religion should determine
+a Japanese cleanliness; why ancestor-worshippers
+are not always clean; as for example the Chinese, who
+bathe most rarely. It seems saner to seek a cause for
+the unique daily bath of the Japanese in their also uniquely
+numerous thermal springs, which occur in no less than 388
+different localities. Symbolism did indeed in Japan, as
+elsewhere, lead to religious bathing in rivers; but bathing
+in rivers, as in ocean, was never popular in Japan until
+recently learned from the foreigner; whereas the thermal
+springs are crowded, and the daily baths at home are
+always taken exceedingly hot after the thermal pattern,
+for these have been found not only cleansing, but curing
+and warming, the last quality being a great merit where
+winters are cold and houses unheated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Finally, the reader need not expect to meet here any
+adequate reference to those vices that have been fostered
+by religion in Japan. The concubinage, confirmed by
+ancestorism, is once mentioned; and the harlotry, promoted
+by phallicism (the phallos was frequently found in a brothel,
+though not exclusively there, of course), is relegated to a
+simple footnote. But such matters can be learned elsewhere,
+whereas the close and frequent points of influence
+which religion exercised upon politics and morality in Japan
+can nowhere else be so well studied as here." (292.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">The Romance of the Milky Way</span><a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> (19) is
+Hearn's posthumous book. The last memories are of
+the "Weaving Lady of the Milky Way"; of "Goblin
+Poetry"; of "Ultimate Questions," which are called forth
+by the essay of that name written by the author of the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;245]</span>
+"Synthetic Philosophy"; of the "Mirror Maiden" whom
+Matsumura, the priest, saved from the well, and who repaid
+him by good-fortune. Moreover, of the alluring maiden
+in the dream of It&#333; Norisuké&mdash;if one is to choose a ghost
+for a bride, who would not seek Himégimi-Sama? As a
+finale there is the picture of Admiral T&#333;g&#333; sending to
+T&#333;ky&#333; "for some flowering-trees in pots&mdash;inasmuch as
+his responsibilities allowed him no chance of seeing the
+cherry-flowers and the plum-blossoms in their season."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_41_41">
+<span class="label">[41]</span></a> Copyright, 1905, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;247]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY"></a>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;248]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2a">I</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">AMERICAN AND ENGLISH EDITIONS<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
+
+<p class="center">ORIGINAL WORKS</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 1-19)</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_42_42">
+<span class="label">[42]</span></a> For the English Editions, the English Catalogue of Books has been followed.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">No. 1.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1884. STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Stories reconstructed from the Anvari-Soheïli, Baitál, Pachísí, Mahabharata,
+Pantchatantra, Gulistan, Talmud, Kalewala, etc. Boston:
+James R. Osgood and Company, 1884, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 2.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1885. GOMBO ZHÈBES. Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs,
+selected from six Creole dialects. Translated into French and into
+English, with notes, complete index to subjects and some brief remarks
+upon the Creole idioms of Louisiana. New York: Will H. Coleman,
+1885, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 3.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1887. SOME CHINESE GHOSTS. Boston: Roberts Brothers,
+1887, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1906, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 4.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1889. CHITA: A Memory of Last Island. New York: Harper
+and Brothers, 1889, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 5.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1890. YOUMA, The Story of a West-Indian Slave. New York:
+Harper and Brothers, 1890, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1890, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 6.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1890. TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES.
+New York: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1900,
+8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 7.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1894. GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. Boston and
+New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1894, 2 vols., 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;249]</span>
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1894,
+2 vols., 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 2 vols., Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903,
+2 vols., Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 8.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1895. "OUT OF THE EAST." Reveries and Studies in New
+Japan. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company,
+1895, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1895,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 9.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1896. KOKORO: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life.
+Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1896,
+8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1903, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1905, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 10.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1897. GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS, Studies of Hand
+and Soul in the Far East. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin
+and Company, 1897, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1897, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903,
+8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 11.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1898. EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES. Boston: Little,
+Brown and Company, 1898, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1898, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905,
+8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 12.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1899. IN GHOSTLY JAPAN. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
+1899, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;250]</span>
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 13.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1900. SHADOWINGS. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
+1900, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1900, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
+1904, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 14.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1901. A JAPANESE MISCELLANY. Boston: Little, Brown
+and Company, 1901, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1901, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 15.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1902. JAPANESE FAIRY TALES. T&#333;ky&#333;, Japan: T. Hasegawa
+(4 vols.), 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 16.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1902. KOTT&#332;. Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs.
+New York: The Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan and
+Company, Ltd.), 1902, 8vo. Reprinted, April, 1903.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 17.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1904. KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Boston
+and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1904,
+12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 18.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1904. JAPAN: An Attempt at Interpretation. New York: The
+Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd.),
+1904, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 19.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1905. THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY, and other
+Studies and Stories. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and
+Company, 1905, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;251]</span>
+TRANSLATIONS</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 20-21)</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 20.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1882. ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS, and other Fantastic
+Romances. By Théophile Gautier. Faithfully translated by Lafcadio
+Hearn. New York: R. Worthington, 1882, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1906, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">CLARIMONDE. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 21.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1890. THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD (Member
+of the Institute). By Anatole France. The Translation and Introduction
+by Lafcadio Hearn. New York: Harper and Brothers,
+1890, 8vo.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="h2a">II</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">FOREIGN EDITIONS</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 22-30)</p>
+
+<p class="center">DANISH</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 22.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1902. FRA SKYGGERNES VERDEN ("From the World of
+the Shadows"). Complete and translated by Johanne Münther.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">178 pages, one portrait. Gyldendalske book-trade, Copenhagen,
+1902, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center">FRENCH</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 23.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1904. LE JAPON INCONNU. (esquisses psychologiques). Par
+Lafcadio Hearn. Traduit de l'anglais avec l'autorisation de l'auteur,
+par Mme. Léon Raynal. In 18 jésus, 111-354 p. Mayenne, impr.
+Colin, Paris, lib. Dujarric, 1904.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.")</p>
+
+<p class="center">GERMAN</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 24.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1905. KOKORO. Von Lafcadio Hearn. Einzig autorisierte
+Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Berta Franzos. Mit vorwort
+von Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Buchschmuck von Emil Orlik. Frankfurt
+a Main: Rütten und Loening, 1905, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;252]</span>No. 25.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1906. LOTUS. Blicke in das unbekannte Japan. Einzig autorisierte
+Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Berta Franzos. Mit
+vorwort von Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Buchschmuck von Emil Orlik.
+Frankfurt a Main: Rütten und Loening, 1905, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.")</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 26.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1907. Lafcadio Hearn's Werke über Japan in künstlerischer
+Buchausstattung von Emil Orlik. Band I. Kokoro. Band II. Lotus.
+Band III. Izumo. Frankfurt a Main: Rütten und Loening, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class="center">SWEDISH</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 27.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1903. EXOTICA. Noveller och studier från Japan, af Lafcadio
+Hearn. Bemyndigad öfversättning af Karin Hirn; med några notiser
+om författaren af Yrjö Hirn. Tredje Upplagen. Stockholm: Wahlström
+&amp; Widstrand, 1903, 16mo., 2 end pages, pp. 227, decorated
+paper.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," "Out of the
+East," "Kokoro," "Exotics and Retrospectives," "In Ghostly Japan,"
+"Shadowings.")</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Reprint 1905.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 28.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1903. EXOTICA. Noveller och studier från Japan, af Lafcadio
+Hearn. Ny samling. Bemyndigad öfversättning af Karin Hirn.
+Stockholm: Wahlström &amp; Widstrand, 1903, 16mo., 2 p. l., pp. 248,
+decorated paper.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Selections from "Out of the East," "Kokoro," "Gleanings in
+Buddha-Fields," "Exotics and Retrospectives," "In Ghostly Japan,"
+"Shadowings," "A Japanese Miscellany," "Kott&#333;.")</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 29.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1904. SPÖKEN OCH DRÖMMAR FRÅN JAPAN. (Exotica.
+Tredje Samlingen) af Lafcadio Hearn. Bemyndigad öfversättning
+från Engelskan af Karin Hirn. Wahlström &amp; Widstrands, Förlag,
+Stockholm, MCMIV., 16mo., 1 end page, pp. 218, decorated paper.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Selections from "Shadowings," "A Japanese Miscellany," "Kott&#333;,"
+"Kwaidan.")</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 30.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1905. NATALIKA. ("Stray Leaves from Strange Literature")
+af Lafcadio Hearn. Bemyndigad öfversättning af Karin Hirn.
+Stockholm: Wahlström &amp; Widstrand, 16mo., pp. 189, decorated
+paper.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">("Runes from the Kalewala" omitted.)</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;253]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2a">III</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">LIST, WITH DESCRIPTION, OF SEPARATE
+PUBLISHED WORKS IN CHRONOLOGICAL
+ORDER</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 1-21)</p>
+
+<p class="center">ORIGINAL WORKS</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 1.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1884. STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE.
+Stories reconstructed from the Anvari-Soheïli, Baitál Pachísí, Mahabharata,
+Pantchatantra, Gulistan, Talmud, Kalewala, etc. By Lafcadio
+Hearn. (Publisher's Monogram.) Boston: James R. Osgood and
+Company, 1884.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">16mo., pp. (16) 225, green cloth, black lettering, and decorations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(5) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To my Friend<br />
+PAGE M. BAKER<br />
+Editor of the<br />
+New Orleans Times-Democrat</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(7-11) Explanatory (<i>Extract</i>).</p>
+
+<p class="indent">While engaged upon this little mosaic work of legend and fable,
+I felt much like one of those merchants told of in Sindbad's Second
+Voyage, who were obliged to content themselves with gathering the
+small jewels adhering to certain meat which eagles brought up from
+the Valley of Diamonds. I have had to depend altogether upon the
+labour of translators for my acquisitions; and these seemed too small
+to deserve separate literary setting. By cutting my little gems according
+to one pattern, I have doubtless reduced the beauty of some; yet
+it seemed to me their colours were so weird, their luminosity so elfish,
+that their intrinsic value could not be wholly destroyed even by so
+clumsy an artificer as I.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">In short, these fables, legends, parables, etc., are simply reconstructions
+of what impressed me as most fantastically beautiful in the
+most exotic literature which I was able to obtain. With few exceptions,
+the plans of the original narratives have been preserved....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">This little collection has no claim upon the consideration of scholars.
+It is simply an attempt to share with the public some of those novel
+delights I experienced while trying to familiarize myself with some
+very strange and beautiful literatures.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">... My gems were few and small: the
+monstrous and splendid await the coming of Sindbad, or some mighty
+lapidary by whom they may be wrought into jewel bouquets exquisite
+as those bunches of topaz blossoms and ruby buds laid upon the tomb
+of Nourmahal.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Orleans, 1884.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;254]</span>
+(13-14) Bibliography.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(15-16) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">Stray Leaves</p>
+
+<p class="contents">The Book of Thoth. <i>From an Egyptian Papyrus.</i><br />
+The Fountain Maiden. <i>A Legend of the South Pacific.</i><br />
+The Bird Wife. <i>An Esquimaux Tradition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Tales retold from Indian and Buddhist Literature</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Tales retold from Indian and Buddhist Literature<br />
+The Making of Tilottama<br />
+The Brahman and his Brahmani<br />
+Bakawali<br />
+Natalika<br />
+The Corpse-Demon<br />
+The Lion<br />
+The Legend of the Monster Misfortune<br />
+A Parable Buddhistic<br />
+Pundari<br />
+Yamaraja<br />
+The Lotos of Faith</p>
+
+<p class="center">Runes from the Kalewala</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Runes from the Kalewala<br />
+The Magical Words<br />
+The First Musician<br />
+The Healing of Wainamoinen</p>
+
+<p class="center">Stories of Moslem Lands</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Stories of Moslem Lands<br />
+Boutimar, the Dove<br />
+The Son of a Robber<br />
+A Legend of Love<br />
+The King's Justice</p>
+
+<p class="center">Traditions retold from the Talmud</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Traditions retold from the Talmud<br />
+A Legend of Rabba<br />
+The Mockers<br />
+Esther's Choice<br />
+The Dispute in the Halacha<br />
+Rabbi Yochanan ben Zachai<br />
+A Tradition of Titus</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Crown 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Charles W. Coleman, Jr., <i>Harper's Monthly</i>, May, 1887, vol. 74,
+p. 855.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 2.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1885. GOMBO ZHÈBES. Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs,
+selected from six Creole dialects. Translated into French and into
+English, with notes, complete index to subjects and some brief remarks
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;255]</span>
+upon the Creole idioms of Louisiana. By Lafcadio Hearn. New
+York: Will H. Coleman, Publisher, No. 70, Business Quarter, Astor
+House, 1885.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">8vo., 6 p. l., pp. 42, brown cloth, design on cover.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(3-4) Introduction (<i>Extract</i>).</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Any one who has ever paid a flying visit to New Orleans probably
+knows something about those various culinary preparations whose
+generic name is "Gombo"&mdash;compounded of many odds and ends, with
+the okra-plant, or true gombo for a basis, but also comprising occasionally
+"losé, zepinard, laitie," and the other vegetables sold in bunches
+in the French market. At all events, any person who has remained in
+the city for a season must have become familiar with the nature of
+"gombo filé," "gombo févi," and "gombo aux herbes," or as our
+coloured cook calls it "gombo zhèbes"&mdash;for she belongs to the older
+generation of Creole <i>cuisinières</i>, and speaks the patois in its primitive
+purity, without using a single "r." Her daughter, who has been to
+school, would pronounce it <i>gombo zhairbes</i>:&mdash;the modern patois is
+becoming more and more Frenchified, and will soon be altogether
+forgotten, not only throughout Louisiana, but even in the Antilles. It
+still, however, retains originality enough to be understood with difficulty
+by persons thoroughly familiar with French; and even those
+who know nothing of any language but English, readily recognize it
+by the peculiar rapid syllabification and musical intonation. Such
+English-speaking residents of New Orleans seldom speak of it as
+"Creole": they call it <i>gombo</i>, for some mysterious reason which I
+have never been able to explain satisfactorily. The coloured Creoles
+of the city have themselves begun to use the term to characterize the
+patois spoken by the survivors of slavery days. Turiault tells us that
+in the town of Martinique, where the Creole is gradually changing
+into French, the <i>Bitacos</i>, or country negroes who still speak the patois
+nearly pure, are much ridiculed by their municipal brethren:&mdash;<i>Ça ou
+ka palé là, chè, c'est nèg;&mdash;Ça pas Créole!</i> ("What you talk is
+'nigger,' my dear:&mdash;that isn't Creole!") In like manner a young
+Creole negro or negress of New Orleans might tell an aged member
+of his race: <i>Ça qui to parlé ça pas Créole; ça c'est gombo!</i> I have
+sometimes heard the pure and primitive Creole also called "Congo"
+by coloured folks of the new generation.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The literature of "gombo" has perhaps even more varieties than
+there are preparations of the esculents above referred to;&mdash;the patois
+has certainly its gombo févi, its gombo filé, its "gombo zhèbes"&mdash;both
+written and unwritten. A work like Marbot's "Bambous" would
+deserve to be classed with the pure "févi";&mdash;the treatises of Turiault,
+Baissac, St. Quentin, Thomas, rather resemble that fully prepared dish,
+in which crabs seem to struggle with fragments of many well-stewed
+meats, all strongly seasoned with pepper. The present essay at
+Creole folklore, can only be classed as "gombo zhèbes"&mdash;(<i>Zhèbes çé
+feuil-chou, cresson, laitie, bettrav, losé, zepinard</i>); the true okra is not
+the basis of our preparation;&mdash;it is a Creole dish, if you please, but a
+salmagundi of inferior quality.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;256]</span>
+Needless to say, this collection is far from perfect;&mdash;the most
+I can hope for is that it may constitute the nucleus of a more exhaustive
+publication to appear in course of time. No one person
+could hope to make a really complete collection of Creole proverbs&mdash;even
+with all the advantages of linguistic knowledge, leisure, wealth,
+and travel. Only a society of folklorists might bring such an undertaking
+to a successful issue;&mdash;but as no systematic effort is being
+made in this direction, I have had no hesitation in attempting&mdash;not
+indeed to fill a want&mdash;but to set an example. <i>Gouïe passé, difil
+sivré</i>:&mdash;let the needle but pass, the thread will follow.</p>
+
+<p class="right">L. H.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(6) Creole Bibliography.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Pages 40-42 Indexes.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, April 23, 1885, vol. 40, p. 349.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 3.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1887. SOME CHINESE GHOSTS. By Lafcadio Hearn.
+(Chinese Characters.) Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1887. 16mo.,
+p. (8) 185, brown cloth with Chinese mask on cover, red top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Facing Title-page:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>If ye desire to witness prodigies and to behold marvels, be not
+concerned as to whether the mountains are distant or the rivers far
+away.</i></p>
+
+<p class="right">Kin-Kou-Ki-Koan.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(2) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To my Friend,<br />
+HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL<br />
+The Musician,<br />
+who, speaking the speech of melody unto the<br />
+children of Tien-hia,&mdash;<br />
+unto the wandering Tsing-jin, whose skins<br />
+have the colour of gold,&mdash;<br />
+moved them to make strange sounds upon the<br />
+serpent-bellied San-hien;<br />
+persuaded them to play for me upon the<br />
+shrieking Ya-hien;<br />
+prevailed on them to sing me a song of their<br />
+native land,&mdash;<br />
+the song of Mohlí-hwa,<br />
+the song of the jasmine-flower.</p>
+
+<p class="right">(Sketch of Chinaman's head.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Reverse) Chinese Character.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(3-4) Preface.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">I think that my best apology for the insignificant size of this
+volume is the very character of the material composing it. In preparing
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;257]</span>
+the legends I sought especially for <i>weird beauty</i>; and I could
+not forget this striking observation in Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on
+Imitations of the Ancient Ballad": "The supernatural, though
+appealing to certain powerful emotions very widely and deeply sown
+amongst the human race, is, nevertheless, <i>a spring which is peculiarly
+apt to lose its elasticity by being too much pressed upon</i>." Those
+desirous to familiarize themselves with Chinese literature as a whole
+have had the way made smooth for them by the labours of linguists
+like Julien, Pavie, Rémusat, De Rosny, Schlegel, Legge, Hervey-Saint-Denys,
+Williams, Biot, Giles, Wylie, Beal, and many other
+Sinologists. To such great explorers indeed, the realm of Cathayan
+story belongs by right of discovery and conquest; yet the humbler
+traveller who follows wonderingly after them into the vast and
+mysterious pleasure-grounds of Chinese fancy may surely be permitted
+to cull a few of the marvellous flowers there growing,&mdash;a
+self-luminous <i>hwa-wang</i>, a black lily, a phosphoric rose or two,&mdash;as
+souvenirs of his curious voyage.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">L. H.<br />
+New Orleans, March 15, 1886.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(5) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">The Soul of the Great Bell<br />
+The Story of Ming-Y<br />
+The Legend of Tchi-Niu<br />
+The Return of Yen Tchin-King<br />
+The Tradition of the Tea-Plant<br />
+The Tale of the Porcelain God</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Appendix:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Notes.<br />
+Glossary.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1906, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Charles W. Coleman, Jr., <i>Harper's Monthly</i>, May, 1887, vol. 74, p. 855.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, May 26, 1887, vol. 44, p. 456.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 4.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1889. CHITA: a Memory of Last Island. By Lafcadio Hearn</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>But Nature whistled with all her winds,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Did as she pleased, and went her way.</i>"</span><br />
+<span class="i4">&mdash;Emerson.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="indent">New York: Harper &amp; Brothers, Franklin Square, 1889.
+12mo., 3 p. l., pp. 204, terra-cotta cloth, decorated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Published first in <i>Harper's Monthly</i>, April, 1888.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To my Friend<br />
+DR. RODOLFO MATAS<br />
+of<br />
+New Orleans</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;258]</span>
+(2) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Part I</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The Legend of L'île Dernière</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i4">Part II</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Out of the Sea's Strength</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="i4">Part III</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The Shadow of the Tide</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>(Reverse)</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Je suis la vaste mêlée,&mdash;</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Reptile, étant l onde; ailée,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Étant le vent,&mdash;</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Force et fuite, haine et vie,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Houle immense, poursuivie</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Et poursuivant.</i></span><br />
+<span class="i4">&mdash;Victor Hugo.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Boston Evening Transcript, The</i>, November 2, 1889.
+Hutson, Charles Woodward, <i>Poet-Lore</i>, Spring, 1905, vol. 16, p. 53.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 5.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1890. YOUMA. The Story of a West-Indian Slave. By Lafcadio
+Hearn. (Publisher's Vignette.) New York: Harper &amp; Brothers,
+Franklin Square, 1890.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">12mo., 1 p. l., pp. 193, frontispiece illustration, red cloth.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Published first in <i>Harper's Monthly</i>, January-February, 1890.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To my friend<br />
+JOSEPH S. TUNISON.<br />
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1890, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, August 30, 1890, p. 284.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, May 7, 1891, vol. 52, p. 385.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 6.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1890. TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. By
+Lafcadio Hearn. Illustrated. (Publisher's Vignette.) New York:
+Harper &amp; Brothers, Franklin Square, 1890. 8vo., pp. (12) 431, 38 full-page
+illustrations, 6 illustrations in the text, green cloth ornamental.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Reverse)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"<i>La facon d'être du pays est si agréable, la température si bonne, et
+l'on y vit dans une liberté si honnête, que je n'aye pas vu un seul</i>
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;259]</span>
+<i>homme, ny une seule femme, qui en soient revenus, en qui je n'aye
+remarqué une grande passion d'y retourner.</i>"&mdash;Le Père Dutertre
+(1667).</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(3) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">À mon cher ami<br />
+LEOPOLD ARNOUX<br />
+Notaire à Saint Pierre, Martinique.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Souvenir de nos promenades,&mdash;de nos voyages,&mdash;de nos causeries,&mdash;
+des sympathies échangées,&mdash;de tout le charme d'une amitié inaltérable et
+inoubliable,&mdash;de tout ce qui parle à l'âme au doux Pays des Revenants.</i></p>
+
+<p class="indent">(5-6) Preface (<i>Extract</i>).</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The introductory paper, entitled "A Midsummer Trip to the
+Tropics" consists for the most part of notes taken upon a voyage of
+nearly three thousand miles, accomplished in less than two months.
+During such hasty journeying it is scarcely possible for a writer to
+attempt anything more serious than a mere reflection of the personal
+experiences undergone; and, in spite of sundry justifiable departures
+from simple note-making, this paper is offered only as an effort to
+record the visual and emotional impressions of the moment.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">My thanks are due to Mr. William Lawless, British Consul at St.
+Pierre, for several beautiful photographs, taken by himself, which have
+been used in the preparation of the illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">L. H.<br />
+Philadelphia, 1889.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(7) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics (<i>Harper's Monthly</i>, July-September, 1888)
+Martinique Sketches:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. Les Porteuses (<i>Harper's Monthly</i>, July, 1889)<br />
+II. La Grande Anse (<i>Harper's Monthly</i>, November, 1889)<br />
+III. Un Revenant<br />
+IV. La Guiablesse<br />
+V. La Vérette (<i>Harper's Monthly</i>, October, 1888)<br />
+VI. Les Blanchisseusses<br />
+VII. La Pelée<br />
+VIII. 'Ti Canotié<br />
+IX. La Fille de Couleur<br />
+X. Bête-ni-Pié<br />
+XI. Ma Bonne<br />
+XII. "Pa combiné, chè!"<br />
+XIII. Yé<br />
+XIV. Lys.<br />
+XV. Appendix: Some Creole Melodies</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(9-10) Illustrations:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;260]</span>
+Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents"><i>New York Times, The</i>, September 1, 1890.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 7.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1894. GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. By Lafcadio
+Hearn. In two volumes. (Vignette.) Boston and New York:
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company (The Riverside Press, Cambridge),
+1894.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">8vo., 2 vols. pp. (x) 699, dull green cloth, silver lettering and design,
+gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To the Friends<br />
+whose kindness alone rendered possible<br />
+my sojourn in the Orient,&mdash;<br />
+to<br />
+PAYMASTER MITCHELL McDONALD, U. S. N.<br />
+and<br />
+BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN, ESQ.<br />
+<i>Emeritus Professor of Philology and Japanese in the<br />
+Imperial University of T&#333;ky&#333;</i><br />
+I dedicate these volumes<br />
+in token of<br />
+Affection and Gratitude.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(V-X) Preface (<i>Extract</i>).</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But the rare charm of Japanese life, so different from that of all
+other lands, is not to be found in its Europeanized circles. It is to be
+found among the great common people, who represent in Japan, as in
+all countries, the national virtues, and who still cling to their delightful
+old customs, their picturesque dresses, their Buddhist images, their
+household shrines, their beautiful and touching worship of ancestors.
+This is the life of which a foreign observer can never weary, if
+fortunate and sympathetic enough to enter into it,&mdash;the life that forces
+him sometimes to doubt whether the course of our boasted Western
+progress is really in the direction of moral development. Each day,
+while the years pass, there will be revealed to him some strange and
+unsuspected beauty in it. Like other life, it has its darker side; yet
+even this is brightness compared with the darker side of Western
+existence. It has its foibles, its follies, its vices, its cruelties; yet the
+more one sees of it, the more one marvels at its extraordinary goodness,
+its miraculous patience, its never-failing courtesy, its simplicity
+of heart, its intuitive charity. And to our own larger Occidental
+comprehension, its commonest superstitions, however contemned at
+T&#333;ky&#333;, have rarest value as fragments of the unwritten literature of its
+hopes, its fears, its experience with right and wrong,&mdash;its primitive
+efforts to find solutions for the riddle of the Unseen.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;261]</span>
+Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">Volume I.</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. My First Day in the Orient<br />
+II. The Writing of K&#333;b&#333;daishi<br />
+III. Jiz&#333;<br />
+IV. A Pilgrimage to Enoshima<br />
+V. At the Market of the Dead (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, September, 1891)<br />
+VI. Bon-Odori<br />
+VII. The Chief City of the Province of the Gods (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1891)<br />
+VIII. Kitzuki: The Most Ancient Shrine in Japan (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, December, 1891)<br />
+IX. In the Cave of the Children's Ghosts<br />
+X. At Mionoseki<br />
+XI. Notes on Kitzuki<br />
+XII. At Hinomisaki<br />
+XIII. Shinj&#363;<br />
+XIV. Yaegaki-Jinja<br />
+XV. Kitsune</p>
+
+<p class="center">Volume II.</p>
+
+<p class="contents">XVI. In a Japanese Garden (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, July, 1892)<br />
+XVII. The Household Shrine<br />
+XVIII. Of Women's Hair<br />
+XIX. From the Diary of an English Teacher<br />
+XX. Two Strange Festivals<br />
+XXI. By the Japanese Sea<br />
+XXII. Of a Dancing Girl (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, July, 1893)<br />
+XXIII. From H&#333;ki to Oki<br />
+XXIV. Of Souls<br />
+XXV. Of Ghosts and Goblins<br />
+XXVI. The Japanese Smile (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, May, 1893)<br />
+XXVII. Say&#333;nara!</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Pages 695-99 Index.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1894,
+2 vols., 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 2 vols., Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903,
+2 vols., Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Bentzon, Th., <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, June 1, 1904, vol. 21,
+p. 556.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Brandt, M. von, <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i>, October, 1900, vol. 27,
+p. 68.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Challayé, Félicien, <i>Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale</i>, 1903,
+vol. 11, p. 338.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;262]</span>
+Challayê, Félicien, <i>Revue de Paris</i>, December 1, 1904, vol. 6,
+p. 655.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Literary World, The</i>, October 20, 1894, vol. 25, p. 347.
+Scott, Mrs. M. McN., <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, June, 1895, vol. 75,
+p. 830.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Spectator, The</i>, November 17, 1894, vol. 73, p. 698.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 8.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1895. "OUT OF THE EAST." Reveries and Studies in New
+Japan. By Lafcadio Hearn.</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<i>As far as the east is from the west</i>"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Publisher's Vignette.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin
+and Company (The Riverside Press, Cambridge), 1895.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">16mo., 2 p. 1., pp. 341, yellow cloth, silver lettering, yellow top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To<br />
+NISHIDA SENTAR&#332;<br />
+in dear remembrance of<br />
+Izumo days</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(2) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. The Dream of a Summer Day<br />
+II. With Ky&#363;sh&#363; Students<br />
+III. At Hakata (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, October, 1894)<br />
+IV. Of the Eternal Feminine (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, December, 1893)<br />
+V. Bits of Life and Death<br />
+VI. The Stone Buddha<br />
+VII. Jiujutsu<br />
+VIII. The Red Bridal (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, July, 1894)<br />
+IX. A Wish Fulfilled (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, January, 1895)<br />
+X. In Yokohama<br />
+XI. Yuko: a Reminiscence</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"The Dream of a Summer Day" first appeared in the <i>Japan Daily
+Mail</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1895,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, August 24, 1895, p. 249.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Brandt, M. von, <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i>, October, 1900, vol. 105,
+p. 68.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Challayé Félicien, <i>Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale</i>, 1903,
+vol. 11, p. 338.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Challayé, Félicien, <i>Revue de Paris</i>, December 1, 1904, vol. 6,
+p. 655.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;263]</span>
+<i>Literary World, The</i>, April 20, 1895, vol. 26, p. 123.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Scott, Mrs. M. McN., <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, June, 1895, vol. 75,
+p. 830.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Spectator, The</i>, October 12, 1895, vol. 75, p. 459.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 9.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1896. KOKORO: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. By
+Lafcadio Hearn. (Top of page "Kokoro" in Japanese.) (Sketch
+of Japanese Head.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and
+Company (The Riverside Press, Cambridge), 1896.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">16 mo., 3 p. l., pp. 388, green cloth, gold lettering, gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To my Friend<br />
+AMÉNOMORI NOBUSHIGÉ<br />
+poet, scholar, and patriot</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(2) Note:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(Japanese character)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than of
+the outer life of Japan,&mdash;for which reason they have been grouped
+under the title, "Kokoro" (heart). Written with the above character,
+this word signifies also mind, in the emotional sense; spirit; courage;
+resolve; sentiment; affection; and inner meaning,&mdash;just as we say in
+English, "the heart of things."</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Kobé, September 15, 1895.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(3) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. At a Railway Station<br />
+II. The Genius of Japanese Civilization (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, October, 1895)<br />
+III. A Street Singer<br />
+IV. From a Travelling Diary (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, December, 1895)<br />
+V. The Nun of the Temple of Amida<br />
+VI. After the War (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1895)<br />
+VII. Haru<br />
+VIII. A Glimpse of Tendencies<br />
+IX. By Force of Karma<br />
+X. A Conservative<br />
+XI. In the Twilight of the Gods (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, June, 1895)<br />
+XII. The Idea of Preëxistence<br />
+XIII. In Cholera-Time<br />
+XIV. Some Thoughts about Ancestor-Worship<br />
+XV. Kimiko<br />
+Appendix. Three Popular Ballads</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1896, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1903, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Popular Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1905, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;264]</span>
+Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, August 8, 1896, p. 185.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Bentzon, Th., <i>Revue de Deux Mondes</i>, June 1, 1904, vol. 21,
+p. 556.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Brandt, M. von, <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i>, October, 1900, vol. 105,
+p. 68.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Challayé Félicien, <i>Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale</i>, 1903,
+vol. 11, p. 338.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Challayé Félicien, <i>Revue de Paris</i>, December 1, 1904, vol. 6,
+p. 655.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Cockerill, Col. John A., <i>Current Literature</i>, June, 1896, vol. 19,
+p. 476.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Herzog, Wilhelm, <i>Die Nation</i>, January 6, 1906, vol. 23, p. 217.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Literary World, The</i>, April 18, 1896, vol. 27, p. 116.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, July 9, 1896, vol. 63, p. 35.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Spectator, The</i>, May 23, 1896, vol. 76, p. 739.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Takayanagi, Tozo, <i>The Book Buyer</i>, May, 1896, vol. 13, p. 229.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 10.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1897. GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS, Studies of Hand
+and Soul in the Far East. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English
+Literature in the Imperial University of Japan. (Publisher's Vignette.)
+Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. (The
+Riverside Press, Cambridge.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">12mo., pp. 296, blue cloth, gold lettering, gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. A Living God (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, December, 1896)<br />
+II. Out of the Street (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, September, 1896)<br />
+III. Notes of a Trip to Ky&#333;to (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, May, 1896)<br />
+IV. Dust (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1896)<br />
+V. About Faces in Japanese Art (Atlantic Monthly, August, 1896)<br />
+VI. Ningy&#333;-no-Haka<br />
+VII. In &#332;saka<br />
+VIII. Buddhist Allusions in Japanese Folk-Song<br />
+IX. Nirvâna<br />
+X. The Rebirth of Katsugor&#333;<br />
+XI. Within the Circle</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1897, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Academy, The</i>, November 13, 1897, vol. 52, p. 395.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, November 13, 1897, p. 664.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Challayé, Félicien, <i>Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale</i>, 1903, vol. 11, p. 338</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Critic, The</i>, April 9, 1898, vol. 29, p. 248.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;265]</span>
+<i>Independent, The</i>, November 24, 1898, vol. 50, p. 1508.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Literary World, The</i>, November 13, 1897, vol. 28, p. 389.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, February 3, 1898, vol. 66, p. 97.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Outlook, The</i>, October 16, 1897, vol. 57, p. 435.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Public Opinion</i>, November 25, 1897, vol. 23, p. 694.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Spectator, The</i>, November 20, 1897, vol. 79, p. 736.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Wagner, John Harrison, <i>The Book Buyer</i>, June, 1898, vol. 16, p. 437.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 11.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1898. EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES. By Lafcadio
+Hearn. Lecturer on English Literature in the Imperial University,
+T&#333;ky&#333;. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, MDCCCXCIX.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">16mo., 4 p. l., pp. 299, 4 full-page illustrations, 13 illustrations in the
+text. Green cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To<br />
+Dr. C. H. H. Hall,<br />
+of Yokohama<br />
+(late U. S. Navy)<br />
+<i>In Constant Friendship</i></p>
+
+<p class="indent">(2) (Prefatory Note)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">All but one of the papers composing this volume appear for the
+first time. The little essays, or rather fantasies, forming the second
+part of the book, deal with experiences in two hemispheres; but their
+general title should explain why they have been arranged independently
+of that fact. To any really scientific imagination, the curious
+analogy existing between certain teachings of evolutional psychology
+and certain teachings of Eastern faith,&mdash;particularly the Buddhist
+doctrine that all sense-life is Karma, and all substance only the phenomenal
+result of acts and thoughts,&mdash;might have suggested something
+much more significant than my cluster of "Retrospectives."
+These are offered merely as intimations of a truth incomparably less
+difficult to recognize than to define.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">T&#333;ky&#333;, Japan,                L. H.<br />
+February 15, 1898.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(3) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Exotics:<br />
+<br />
+I. Fuji-no-Yama<br />
+II. Insect-Musicians<br />
+III. A Question in the Zen Texts<br />
+IV. The Literature of the Dead<br />
+V. Frogs<br />
+VI. Of Moon-Desire</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Retrospectives:</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. First Impressions<br />
+II. Beauty is Memory<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;266]</span>
+III. Sadness in Beauty<br />
+IV. Parfum de Jeunesse<br />
+V. Azure Psychology (<i>Teikoku Bungaku</i>, Yokohama)<br />
+VI. A Serenade<br />
+VII. A Red Sunset<br />
+VIII. Frisson<br />
+IX. Vespertina Cognitio<br />
+X. The Eternal Haunter</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(4) List of Illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1898, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905,
+8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, January 6, 1900, p. 11.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Bentzon, Th., <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Dial, The</i>, July 16, 1899, vol. 27, p. 52.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>International Studio, The</i>, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 12.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1899. IN GHOSTLY JAPAN. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer
+on English Literature in the Imperial University, T&#333;ky&#333;. Boston:
+Little, Brown and Company, MDCCCXCIX.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">16mo., 5 p. l., pp. 241, 4 full-page illustrations, 5 illustrations in the
+text. Blue cloth, ornamented with white cherry-blossoms, gold lettering,
+gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To<br />
+Mrs. Alice Von Behrens<br />
+<i>For Auld Lang Syne</i></p>
+
+<p class="indent">(2)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In Ghostly Japan</span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Yoru bakari</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Miru mono nari to</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Omou-nayo!</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Hiru saë yumé no</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Ukiyo nari-kéri.</i></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Think not that dreams appear to the dreamer only at
+night: the dream of this world of pain appears to us
+even by day</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="right">Japanese Poem.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;267]</span>
+(3) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Fragment<br />
+Furisodé<br />
+Incense<br />
+A Story of Divination<br />
+Silkworms<br />
+A Passional Karma<br />
+Footprints of the Buddha<br />
+Ululation<br />
+Bits of Poetry<br />
+Japanese Buddhist Proverbs<br />
+Suggestion<br />
+Ingwa-Banashi<br />
+Story of a Tengu<br />
+At Yaidzu</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(4) List of Illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Inouye, Jukichi, <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, September, 1900, vol. 86, pp. 399.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>International Studio, The</i>, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 13.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1900. SHADOWINGS. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English
+Literature in the Imperial University, T&#333;ky&#333;, Japan. Boston: Little,
+Brown and Company, 1900.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">12mo., pp. (IV) 268, cloth.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(I.) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To Paymaster Mitchell McDonald<br />
+U. S. Navy</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">My dear Mitchell,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Herein I have made some attempt to satisfy your wish
+for "a few more queer stories from the Japanese." Please
+accept the book as another token of the writer's affection.</p>
+
+<p class="right">Lafcadio Hearn<br />
+(Koizumi Yakumo)</p>
+
+<p>T&#333;ky&#333;, Japan,<br />
+January 1, 1900.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">(II.) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Stories from Strange Books:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. The Reconciliation<br />
+II. A Legend of Fugen-Bosatsu<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;268]</span>
+III. The Screen-Maiden<br />
+IV. The Corpse-Rider<br />
+V. The Sympathy of Benten<br />
+VI. The Gratitude of the Samébito</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Japanese Studies:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. Sémi<br />
+II. Japanese Female Names<br />
+III. Old Japanese Songs</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Fantasies:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. Noctilucæ<br />
+II. A Mystery of Crowds<br />
+III. Gothic Horror<br />
+IV. Levitation<br />
+V. Nightmare-Touch<br />
+VI. Readings from a Dream-Book<br />
+VII. In a Pair of Eyes</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(III.) Illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(IV.) Bastard title-page:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Il avait vu brûler d'étranges pierres,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Jadis, dans les brasiers de la pensée.</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Émile Verhaeren</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1900, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, January 5, 1901, p. 15.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Bentzon, Th., <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">F. T. C., <i>The Bookman</i>, February, 1901, vol. 12, p. 582.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Dial, The</i>, January 1, 1901, vol. 30, p. 19.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>International Studio, The</i>, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Kinnosuké, Adachi, <i>The Critic</i>, January, 1901, vol. 38, p. 29.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, November 8, 1900, vol. 71, p. 372.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Public Opinion</i>, October 18, 1900, vol. 29, p. 504.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 14.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1901. A JAPANESE MISCELLANY. By Lafcadio Hearn.
+Lecturer on English Literature in the Imperial University of T&#333;ky&#333;.
+Boston: Little, Brown and Company, MDCCCCI.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">12mo., 5 p. l., pp. 305, 2 full-page illustrations, 6 plates, 5
+illustrations in the text. Green cloth, decorated, gold lettering,
+gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;269]</span>
+(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To<br />
+Mrs. Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(2) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Strange Stories:<br />
+I. Of a Promise Kept<br />
+II. Of a Promise Broken<br />
+III. Before the Supreme Court<br />
+IV. The Story of Kwashin Koji<br />
+V. The Story of Umétsu Ch&#363;bei<br />
+VI. The Story of K&#333;gi the Priest</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Folklore Gleanings:</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. Dragon-Flies (<i>illustrated</i>)<br />
+II. Buddhist Names of Plants and Animals<br />
+III. Songs of Japanese Children (<i>illustrated</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Studies Here and There:</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. On a Bridge<br />
+II. The Case of O-Dai<br />
+III. Beside the Sea (<i>illustrated</i>)<br />
+IV. Drifting<br />
+V. Otokichi's Daruma (<i>illustrated</i>)<br />
+VI. In a Japanese Hospital</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(3) Illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1901, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904,
+16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905,
+Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum</i>, December 21, 1901, p. 833.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>International Studio, The</i>, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Literary World, The</i>, December 1, 1901, vol. 32, p. 207.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, January 9, 1902, vol. 74, p. 39.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 15.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1902. JAPANESE FAIRY TALES. Rendered into English by
+Lafcadio Hearn. Published by T. Hasegawa, Publisher and Art-Printer,
+T&#333;ky&#333;, Japan.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Four 16mo. books on Japanese folded crêpe paper, highly illustrated
+in colours.</p>
+
+<p class="contents">No. 22. The Goblin Spider<br />
+No. 23. The Boy Who Drew Cats<br />
+No. 24. The Old Woman Who Lost Her Dumpling<br />
+No. 25. Chin Chin Kobakama</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;270]</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 16.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1902. KOTT&#332; (Japanese Characters). Being Japanese Curios,
+with Sundry Cobwebs. Collected by Lafcadio Hearn, Lecturer on
+English Literature in the Imperial University of T&#333;ky&#333;, Japan. With
+illustrations by Genjiro Yeto. New York: The Macmillan Company
+(London: Macmillan &amp; Company, Ltd.), 1902.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">8vo., 4 p. l., pp. 251, brown cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Dedication:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">To<br />
+SIR EDWIN ARNOLD<br />
+in<br />
+grateful remembrance<br />
+of<br />
+kind words</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(2) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Old Stories:</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. The Legend of Yurei-Daki<br />
+II. In a Cup of Tea<br />
+III. Common Sense<br />
+IV. Ikiry&#333;<br />
+V. Shiry&#333;<br />
+VI. The Story of O-Kamé<br />
+VII. Story of a Fly<br />
+VIII. Story of a Pheasant<br />
+IX. The Story of Ch&#363;gor&#333;<br />
+<br />
+A Woman's Diary<br />
+Heiké-Gani<br />
+Fireflies<br />
+A Drop of Dew<br />
+Gaki<br />
+A Matter of Custom<br />
+Revery<br />
+Pathological<br />
+In the Dead of the Night<br />
+Kusa-Hibari<br />
+The Eater of Dreams</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(3)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Old Stories</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>The following nine tales have been selected from the "Shin-Chomon-Sh&#363;,"
+"Hyaku Monogatari," "Uji-J&#363;i-Monogatari-Sh&#333;," and other old
+Japanese books, to illustrate some strange beliefs. They are only Curios.</i></p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. Reprinted April, 1903.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, January 17, 1903, p. 77.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Book Buyer, The</i>, December, 1902, vol. 25, p. 416.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;271]</span>
+More, Paul Elmer, <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, February, 1903, vol. 91, p. 204.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, March 26, 1903, vol. 76, p. 254.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 17.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1904. KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.&mdash;Lafcadio
+Hearn, Lecturer on English Literature in the Imperial
+University of T&#333;ky&#333;, Japan (1896-1903). Honorary Member of the
+Japan Society, London. (Japanese Characters.) Boston and New
+York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, MDCCCCIV. (Published
+April, 1904.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">12mo., 6 p. 1., pp. 240, illustrated, 2 plates, dark green cloth,
+decorated, gold lettering, gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Introduction by Publisher:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(3) Prefatory Note:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Most of the following <i>Kwaidan</i>, or Weird Tales, have been taken
+from old Japanese books,&mdash;such as the <i>Yas&#333;-Kidan</i>, <i>Bukky&#333;-Hyakkwa-Zensh&#333;</i>,
+<i>Kokon-Chomonsh&#363;</i>, <i>Tama-Sudaré</i> and <i>Hyaku-Monogatari</i>.
+Some of the stories may have had a Chinese origin: the very
+remarkable "Dream of Akinosuké," for example, is certainly from a
+Chinese source. But the Japanese story-teller in every case, has so
+recoloured and reshaped his borrowing as to naturalize it.... One
+queer tale, "Yuki-Onna," was told me by a farmer of Ch&#333;fu, Nishitamag&#333;ri,
+in Musashi province, as a legend of his native village. Whether it
+has even been written in Japanese I do not know; but the extraordinary
+belief which it records used certainly to exist in most parts of Japan,
+and in many curious forms.... The incident of "Riki-Baka" was
+a personal experience; and I wrote it down almost exactly as it
+happened, changing only a family-name mentioned by the Japanese
+narrator.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">T&#333;ky&#333;, Japan, January 20, 1904. <span class="ralign">L. H.</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">(4) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">Kwaidan<br />
+The Story of Mimi-Nashi-H&#333;ichi (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, August, 1903)<br />
+Oshidori<br />
+The Story of O-Tei<br />
+Ubazakura<br />
+Diplomacy<br />
+Of a Mirror and a Bell<br />
+Jikininki<br />
+Mujina<br />
+Rokuro-Kubi<br />
+A Dead Secret<br />
+Yuki-Onna<br />
+The Story of Aoyagi<br />
+Jiu-Roku-Zakura<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;272]</span>The Dream of Akinosuké (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, March, 1904)<br />
+Riki-Baka<br />
+Hi-Mawari<br />
+H&#333;rai<br />
+<br />
+Insect-Studies<br />
+Butterflies<br />
+Mosquitoes<br />
+Ants</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(5) Notes on the Illustrations</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The two drawings are by the Japanese artist, Keich&#363; Takénouche.
+The frontispiece illustrates the scene in the story "Yuki-Onna"
+described on page 113, and the drawing facing page 180 illustrates the
+Butterfly Dance, described on page 203.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1904,
+12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, September 17, 1904, p. 373.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, June, 1904, vol. 93, p. 857.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Bookman, The</i>, November, 1904, vol. 20, p. 159.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 18.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1904. (Japanese Characters.) JAPAN: An Attempt at Interpretation.
+By Lafcadio Hearn. Honorary Member of the Japan
+Society, London; formerly Lecturer in the Imperial University of
+T&#333;ky&#333; (1896-1903), and Fourteen Years a Resident of Japan.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">"Perhaps all very marked national characters
+can be traced back to a time of rigid and pervading
+discipline."</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;Walter Bagehot.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">New York: The Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan and
+Company, Ltd.), 1904. (Published, September, 1904.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">8vo., 2 p. l., pp. 541, coloured frontispiece, brown cloth, black and
+gold lettering, gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">I. Difficulties<br />
+II. Strangeness and Charm<br />
+III. The Ancient Cult<br />
+IV. The Religion of the Home<br />
+V. The Japanese Family<br />
+VI. The Communal Cult<br />
+VII. Developments of Shint&#333;<br />
+VIII. Worship and Purification<br />
+IX. The Rule of the Dead<br />
+X. The Introduction of Buddhism<br />
+XI. The Higher Buddhism<br />
+XII. The Social Organization<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;273]</span>
+XIII. The Rise of the Military Power<br />
+XIV. The Religion of Loyalty<br />
+XV. The Jesuit Peril<br />
+XVI. Feudal Integration<br />
+XVII. The Shint&#333; Revival<br />
+XVIII. Survivals<br />
+XIX. Modern Restraints<br />
+XX. Official Education<br />
+XXI. Industrial Danger<br />
+XXII. Reflections</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Bibliographical Notes</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Index</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1904, 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Buckley, Edmund, <i>The American Journal of Sociology</i>, January
+1905, vol. 10, p. 545.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Griffis, William Elliot, <i>The Critic</i>, February, 1905, vol. 46,
+p. 185.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Griffis, William Elliot, <i>The Dial</i>, December 1, 1904, vol. 36,
+p. 368.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Independent, The</i>, October 27, 1904, vol. 57, p. 976.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, December 8, 1904, vol. 79, p. 465.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Public Opinion</i>, October 27, 1904, vol. 37, p. 537.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Review of Reviews</i>, November, 1904, vol. 30, p. 561.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Shore, W. Teignmouth, <i>The Academy</i>, December 10, 1904, vol.
+67, p. 584.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Spectator, The</i>, January 14, 1905, vol. 94, p. 54.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Thurston, S. J., Herbert, <i>The Messenger</i>, January, 1906, vol. 45,
+p. 1.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 19.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1905. THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY, and other
+Studies and Stories. By Lafcadio Hearn. Houghton, Mifflin and
+Company: Boston and New York, 1905. (Published October, 1905.)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">12mo., pp. (XIV) 209, decorated title-page, grey cloth with yellow
+trimmings, yellow top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(V) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">The Romance of the Milky Way (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, August, 1905)
+Goblin Poetry</p>
+
+<p class="indent">"Ultimate Questions" (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, September, 1905)
+The Mirror Maiden</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Story of It&#333; Norisuké (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, January, 1905)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Stranger than Fiction (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, April, 1905)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">A Letter from Japan (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1904)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="indent">(VII-XIV) Introduction by F. G.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent"><i>Academy, The</i>, December 2, 1905, vol. 69, p. 1257.
+<i>Athenæum, The</i>, March 31, 1906, p. 389.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;274]</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Dial, The</i>, November 1, 1905, vol. 39, p. 276.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Griffis, W. E., <i>The Critic</i>, March, 1906, vol. 48, p. 222.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Independent</i>, The, December 21, 1905, vol. 59, p. 1478.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Nation, The</i>, December 21, 1905, vol. 81, p. 510.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Outlook, The</i>, November 9, 1906, vol. 84, p. 503.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">TRANSLATIONS</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 20.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1882. ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS, and other Fantastic
+Romances. By Théophile Gautier. Faithfully translated by Lafcadio
+Hearn.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents">One of Cleopatra's Nights<br />
+Clarimonde<br />
+Arria Marcella: A Souvenir of Pompeii<br />
+The Mummy's Foot<br />
+Omphale: A Rococo Story<br />
+King Candaules</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New York: R. Worthington, 770 Broadway, 1882.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">8vo., pp. (IX) 321, red cloth, gilt top. Head Gautier as Frontispiece.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(III)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>The love that caught strange light from death's own eyes,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>And filled death's lips with fiery words and sighs,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>And half asleep, let feed from veins of his,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Her close red warm snake's-mouth, Egyptian-wise:</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>And that great night of love more strange than this,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>When she that made the whole world's bale and bliss</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>Made king of the whole world's desire a slave</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>And killed him in mid-kingdom with a kiss.</i></span><br />
+<span class="i16">Swinburne.</span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Memorial verses on the death of Théophile Gautier.</i>"</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">(V-IX) To the Reader (<i>Extract</i>).</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is the artist, therefore, who must judge of Gautier's creations.
+To the lovers of the loveliness of the antique world, the lovers of
+physical beauty and artistic truth,&mdash;of the charm of youthful dreams
+and young passion in its blossoming,&mdash;of poetic ambitions and the
+sweet pantheism that finds all Nature vitalized by the Spirit of the
+Beautiful,&mdash;to such the first English version of these graceful fantasies
+is offered in the hope that it may not be found wholly unworthy of the
+original.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Orleans, 1882. <span class="ralign">L. H.</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;275]</span>
+Pages 317-21 Addenda.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1906, 12mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">CLARIMONDE. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="indent">Brandt, M. von, <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i>, October, 1900, vol. 105,
+p. 68.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Coleman, Charles W., Jr., <i>Harper's Monthly</i>, May, 1887, vol. 74,
+p. 855.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Dayton (Ohio) Journal</i>, September 30, 1904.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><i>Literary World, The</i>, February 14, 1891, vol. 22, p. 56.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">No. 21.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1890. THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD (Member
+of the Institute). By Anatole France. The Translation and Introduction
+by Lafcadio Hearn. (Publisher's Vignette.) New York:
+Harper &amp; Brothers, Franklin Square, 1890.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">8vo., pp. (IX) 281, paper.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">(V-IX) Introduction (<i>Extract</i>).</p>
+
+<p class="indent">But it is not because M. Anatole France has rare power to create
+original characters, or to reflect for us something of the more recondite
+literary life of Paris, that his charming story will live. It is because of
+his far rarer power to deal with what is older than any art, and withal
+more young, and incomparably more precious: the beauty of what is
+beautiful in human emotion. And that writer who touches the spring
+of generous tears by some simple story of gratitude, of natural kindness,
+of gentle self-sacrifice, is surely more entitled to our love than
+the sculptor who shapes for us a dream of merely animal grace, or the
+painter who images for us, however richly, the young bloom of that
+form which is only the husk of Being.<span class="ralign">L. H.</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">(1) Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Part I.</p>
+<p class="contents">The Log.</p>
+<p class="indent">Part II.</p>
+<p class="contents">The Daughter of Clémentine.<br />
+The Fairy<br />
+The Little Saint-George</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Articles and Reviews:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="contents"><i>Literary World</i>, The, February 15, 1890, vol. 21, p. 59.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;276]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2a">IV</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">TRANSLATIONS PUBLISHED IN THE
+TIMES-DEMOCRAT<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_43_43">
+<span class="label">[43]</span></a> Hearn failed to give the years in which these translations were published,
+and often also the days and months.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 31-218)</p>
+
+<p class="contents">No. 31. 1. Crucifying Crocodiles. By Cousot.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, February 7.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 32. 2. The Last of the Great Moguls. By Ali.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Nouvelle Revue</i>, March 1.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 33. 3. Killed by Rollin's Ancient History. By Chas. Baissac.<br />
+<br />
+No. 34. 4. Mohammed Fripouille. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Yvette."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 35. 5. The Eldest Daughter. By Jules Lemaitre.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 36. 6. The Burnt Rock. By "Carmen Sylva," Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 37. 7. The Confession. By de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Contes du Jour et de la Nuit</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 38. 8. In the Mountain of Marble. By Pierre Loti.<br />
+<br />
+No. 39. 9. A Story of Quinine. By Chas. Baissac.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Récits Créoles</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 40. 10. How Gerard Resigned His Tutorship. By Chas. Baissac.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Récits Créoles</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 41. 11. A Vendetta. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Contes du Jour et de la Nuit</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 42. 12. A Coward. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Contes du Jour et de la Nuit</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 43. 13. The Titaness. By Jules Lermina.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, April 25.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 44. 14. Reminiscences of Gustave Doré. By Albert Wolff.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, March 2.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 45. 15. The Return. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Yvette."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 46. 16. Two Friends. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 47. 17. Moloch, the Devourer. (The Sacrifice.) By Gustave Flaubert.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Salambo," Ed. 1880.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 48. 18. The Ring. By N. de Semenow.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, August 15.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 49. 19. The Phalanx in Battle. By Gustave Flaubert.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Salambo," Ed. 1880.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 50. 20. The Little Sister. By Hector Malot.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Novel.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 51. 21. Riri's Rag-Picking. By Jean Rameau.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, October 31.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;277]</span>
+No. 52. 22. A Divorced Man's New Year's Day. By Frantz Jourdain.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, January 2.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 53. 23. Especially Interesting Apropos of the Comet with the
+Sodium Tail. By Camille Flammarion.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Voltaire</i>, September 21.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 54. 24. Eaten Alive. By Camille Debans.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, September 13.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 55. 25. The Christmas Tree. By Theodore Dostoievsky.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 56. 26. "A Madman?" By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 57. 27. Tourgueneff. By Firmin Javel.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Evénement</i>, September 6.</span><br />
+<br />
+Tourgueneff. By Maurice Guillemot.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, September 5.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 58. 28. A Polish Regiment under Fire. By Hendrik Sienkiewicz.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Nouvelle Revue</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 59. 29. In Oran. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Au Soleil</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 60. 30. En Voyage. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Miss Harriet."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 61. 31. "La Mère Sauvage." By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Miss Harriet."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 62. 32. The Adopted Child. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Miss Harriet."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 63. 33. The Child. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Miss Harriet."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 64. 34. The Minuet. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Miss Harriet."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 65. 35. My Uncle Jules. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Miss Harriet."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 66. 36. The Love Chamber. By Albert Delpit, 1884.<br />
+<br />
+No. 67. 37. The Chair Mender. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 68. 38. Coco. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 69. 39. A Parricide. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 70. 40. The Red Wolves. By Henry Leturque.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, April 24.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 71. 41. Suicides. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Les Soeurs Rondoli."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 72. 42. The Cross. By Verax.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, October 17.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 73. 43. The Art of Dancing. By Ignotus.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, March 19.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 74. 44. Haikona's Story. By Quatrelles.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, January 3.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 75. 45. Forgotten on the Battle Field.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, December 19.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 76. 46. The Folly of Armaments. By P.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Evénement</i>, June 13.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 77. 47. Japanese Theatricals. By Yedoko.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, August 7, 1886.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;278]</span>
+No. 78. 48. On the Planet Mars. By Camille Flammarion.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 79. 49. The Colonel's Ideas. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Yvette."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 80. 50. Waterloo. By Léon Cladel.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Evénement</i>, April 26.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 81. 51. Terrifying a King. By XXX.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, December 9.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 82. 52. The Secret of the Scaffold. By Comte de Villiers de
+L'Isle-Adam.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, October 23.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 83. 53. Littre as a Physician. By Emile Zola.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Voltaire</i>, June 5.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 84. 54. Hugo and Littre. By Emile Zola.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 85. 55. A Modern Combat of the Thirty. By Vigeant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 86. 56. Algerian Warfare. By Ferdinand Hugonnet.<br />
+<br />
+No. 87. 57. Orden's Redoubt. By Adam Mickiewicz.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 88. 58. Lasker's Romance. By Aurelien Scholl.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Evénement</i>, February 26.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 89. 59. The Duel. By Aurelien Scholl.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Evénement</i>, March 2.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 90. 60. The Wife of Sobieski.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i> Supplement, February 23.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 91. 61. Redemption. By Matilde Serao.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 92. 62. The Rats of Paris. By Olivier de Rawton.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i> Supplement.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 93. 63. The Story of Tse-I-La. By Comte de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i> Sunday Supplement.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 94. 64. Cremation in Paris. By Ignotus.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, March 6.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 95. 65. Madame Auguste's Lion. By Horace Bertin.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Croquis de Province</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 96. 66. The Secret History of "Madame Bovary." By Guy de
+Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Evénement</i>, January 23.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 97. 67. Nissa. By Albert Delpit.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Revue de Deux Mondes</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 98. 68. The Soudanian Marseillais.<br />
+<br />
+No. 99. 69. Justice in the Soudan. After De Bisson. 1868.<br />
+<br />
+No. 100. 70. Eaten by a Lion. By Louis Rousselet.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Peau du Tigre</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 101. 71. Chanzy. By Ignotus.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, January 10.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 102. 72. Notes on Von Moltke. By Robert de Bonnieres.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, August 17.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 103. 73. The Hunchback. By Chas. Richard.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, August 29.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;279]</span>No. 104. 74. The Pacha of Audjelah. By H. Georges.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, September 5.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 105. 75. The Umbrella. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 106. 76. Gambling for a Wife. By A. de Colonne.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, January 30.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 107. 77. Happiness. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 108. 78. "Schmah Israel." By Sacher Masoch.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Revue Politique et Litteraire</i>, November 7.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 109. 79. The Alfa-Gatherer. By Lieutenant Palat. ("Marcel
+Frescaly.")<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, April 3.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 110. 80. He. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 111. 81. 'Toine. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 112. 82. The Dowry. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 113. 83. The Funeral of an Indian Prince. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, September 7.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 114. 84. The Jewelry. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 115. 85. The Five Senses. By Harry Alis.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Revue Politique et Litteraire</i>, October 2.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 116. 86. A Bombshell. By Leon Tolstoi.<br />
+<br />
+No. 117. 87. A Day at Lahore. By Robert de Bonnieres.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Revue Politique et Litteraire</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 118. 88. Mario, Marquis of Candia. By Mario di Candia.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, November 24.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 119. 89. My Tailor Abrahamek. By Sacher-Masoch.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Revue Politique et Litteraire</i>, May 22.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 120. 90. The Flesh-Eaters. By Olivier de Rawton.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 121. 91. Palabra Suelta No Tiene Vuelta. By Ricardo Palma.
+(Lima, 1880.)<br />
+<br />
+No. 122. 92. The Diva. By Luigi Gualdo.<br />
+<br />
+No. 123. 93. The Story of the Unfortunate Merchant. By Rene
+Bassett.<br />
+<br />
+No. 124. 94. Bamba. By Eugene Forgues.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Nouvelle Revue</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 125. 95. "Notre Père Qui Etesaux Cieux." By Chas. Baissac.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Récits Créoles</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 126. 96. "Red Minette." By Chas. Baissac.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Récits Créoles</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 127. 97. Fight at the Mill. By Emile Zola.<br />
+<br />
+No. 128. 98. Leo XIII. By Roman Correspondent.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, February 27.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 129. 99. The Carp Herder. By Charles Richard.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, December 15, 1883.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 130. 100. Fanny Elssler. By Viennese Correspondent.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 131. 101. Lola Montes and Ludwig I. of Bavaria. By X.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 132. 102. The Art of Being a Bore. By "De Ferney."<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Voltaire</i>, January 31.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;280]</span>
+No. 133. 103. Humanity of the Japanese.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Illustration</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 134. 104. By the Balloon Post. By Alexis Bouvier.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, January 29.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 135. 105. An Extraordinary Letter from Von Moltke. By Count Von Moltke.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Voltaire</i>, February 5.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 136. 106. Chinese Women. By Lydie Paschkoff.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 137. 107. A Haul at Madagascar in 1717. By Chas. Baissac.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Récits Créoles</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 138. 108. Pierrot. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<br />
+No. 139. 109. My Aunt Minon. By Chas. Baissac.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Récits Créoles</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 140. 110. An Episode of the War in Soudan. By Victor Cherbuliez.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From an address before the <i>Cinq Academies</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 141. 111. The Punishment of the Unfaithful Lover. By Sacher-Masoch.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "The Mother of God."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 142. 112. The Sorceress. The Comte d'Avesnes. By Michelet.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "La Sorcière."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 143. 113. The Great Fiddler of the Nineteenth Century. By
+"L'Homme Masque."<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Voltaire</i>, October 8.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 144. 114. The Duello. By Ignotus.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, August 31.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 145. 115. How Balzac Found Names for his Novels. By Léon
+Gozlan.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 146. 116. Tchernyschevsky and the Women of Nihilism. By
+Victor Tissot.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Les Pères du Nihilisme," in <i>L'Illustration</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 147. 117. Emile Zola on Style. By Emile Zola.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 148. 118. The Man of the XVIth Century. By Victorien Sardou.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, February 4.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 149. 119. The Forest Growing in the Heart of Paris. By Camille
+Flammarion.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Voltaire</i>, June 25.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 150. 120. The Tomb of Nichelet. By An Old Parisian.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, July 10.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 151. 121. A Master Wizard. By Un Vieux Parisien.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, October 6.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 152. 122. By Rail Across the Sahara. By Charles de Maurceley.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Voltaire</i>, January 23 and 27.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 153. 123. In the House of Mahomet. By Ignotus.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, October 20.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 154. 124. The Chinese in Pnom-Penh, Cambodia.  By Albert
+de Chenclos.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Revue Liberale</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;281]</span>
+No. 155. 125. Algeria. By Ignotus.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, June 15.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 156. 126. The Drum. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Contes de la Bécasse."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 157. 127. Henry Charles Read. By Maxime du Camp.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Souvenirs Litteraires."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 158. 128. Recollections of Baudelaire. By Maxime du Camp.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Souvenirs Litteraires."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 159. 129. A Converted Libertine. By Ricardo Palma. (Lima, 1880.)<br />
+<br />
+No. 160. 130. Women of Fashionable Paris Society. By Emile Zola.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, June 27.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 161. 131. La Parisienne. By Adrien Marx.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, May 13.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 162. 132. At Sea. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Contes de la Bécasse."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 163. 133. "Aunt Ess." By Arnold Mortier.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro's</i> "Contes d'Été," August 23.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 164. 134. Pasteur.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, November 23.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 165. 135. A Ghost. By Parisis.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Voltaire</i>, October 23.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 166. 136. Matrimonial Agencies at Paris. By Ignotus.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, April 20.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 167. 137. Liszt. By Ignotus.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, May 25.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 168. 138. The Stranglers of Paris, etc. By George Grison.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, May 23.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 169. 139. The Lights of the Wedding. By R. M.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Epoca</i>, January 10.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 170. 140. The Foundation of Skadra (Scutari).  By W. Stephanowitsch.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From French translation.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 171. 141. The Last Hideous Days of the Flatters Mission.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, September 23.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 172. 142. The Two Neighbours. By Julia de Asensi.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Epoca</i>, April 18.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 173. 143. Candita. By "Almaviva."<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Epoca</i>, October 18.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 174. 144. A Drunken Lion. By Hector de Callias.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, June 30.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 175. 145. The Song of Love Triumphant. By Ivan Tourgueneff.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+No. 176. 146. A Rich Man's Death. By Emile Zola.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, August 1.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 177. 147. Germanillo. By "Juan Manuel de Capua."<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Epoca</i>, December 27.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 178. 148. Simon's Papa. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "La Maison Tellier."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 179. 149. "Las Hechas Y Por Hacer." By Ricardo Palma.
+(Lima, 1879.)<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;282]</span>No. 180. 150. The Bishop's Twenty Thousand Godos. By Ricardo
+Palma.<br />
+<br />
+No. 181. 151. "Los Postres del Festin." By Ricardo Palma.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Raza Latina</i>, February 29.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 182. 152. The Blessed Bread. By François Coppée.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, March 6.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 183. 153. The Invitation to Sleep. By François Coppée.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro's</i> "Contes d'Été."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 184. 154. Cousin Rosa. By "Almaviva."<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Epoca</i>, March 17.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 185. 155. The Chemise of Margarita Pareja. By Ricardo Palma.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>La Raza Latina</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 186. 156. The Just Man. By F. Luzel.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From Luzel's Collection.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 187. 157. Saint Peter's Betrothed. By De Luzel.<br />
+<br />
+No. 188. 158. Fantic Loho. By Luzel.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Breton Legends."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 189. 159. The Adventures of Walter Schnaffs.  By Guy de
+Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Contes de la Bécasse."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 190. 160. L'Abandounado. By René Maizeroy.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "The Love That Bleeds."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 191. 161. Flaubert at Sparta. By Maxime du Camp.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 192. 162. Daddy Goat and Daddy Tiger. By Pa Lindor.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Courrier des Opelousas</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 193. 163. The Great Chinese Vase. By Edmond de L.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, February 17.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 194. 164. The Two Porcelain Vases. By Charles Richard.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 195. 165. A Bit of Jewish Folk Lore. By Leopold Kompert.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Scenes du Ghetto."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 196. 166. A Story of the Ghetto. By Leopold Kompert.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Scenes du Ghetto."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 197. 167. A Legend of Rabbi Loeb. By Daniel Stauben.<br />
+<br />
+No. 198. 168. Loulou. By Lucien Griveau.<br />
+<br />
+No. 199. 169. The Cabecilla; the Story of the Carlist War. By
+Alphonse Daudet.<br />
+<br />
+No. 200. 170. Tried, Condemned, Executed. By P. Didier.<br />
+<br />
+No. 201. 171. The Man with the Golden Brain. By Alphonse Daudet.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Ballades en Prose."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 202. 172. The Death of the Dauphin, etc. By Alphonse Daudet.<br />
+<br />
+No. 203. 173. My First Duel. By Carle de Perrières.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Paris-Joyeux."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 204. 174. My Two Cats. By Emile Zola.<br />
+<br />
+No. 205. 175. The Khouans. By N. Ney.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Illustration</i>, July 30.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 206. 176. The Dead Wife.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">After S. Juhens' French translation from Chinese.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 207. 177. Scenes of Polish Life. By Krazewski.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Jermola," <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;283]</span>No. 208. 178. Memory of Algeria. By Alphonse Daudet.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Tartarin de Tarascon," <i>Nouvelle Revue</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 209. 179. Anecdote of Baudelaire.  "Les Fantaisites." By
+Pierre Quiroul.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>, August 15.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 210. 180. Adelaide Neilson.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>L'Illustration</i>, August 21.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 211. 181. A Morning with Baudelaire. By "Theodore de Grave."<br />
+<br />
+No. 212. 182. "L'Enfant de la Balle." By François Coppée.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 213. 183. Poetical Illusions. By Maxime du Camp.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Souvenirs Litteraires."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 214. 184. The Moon's Blessings. By Charles Baudelaire.<br />
+<br />
+No. 215. 185. Patti and Her New Home. By "Adrien Marx."<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From <i>Le Figaro</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 216. 186. The Ghostly Mass. By Luzel.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Veillees Bretonnes."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 217. 187. Solitude. By Guy de Maupassant.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From "Monsieur Parent."</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 218. "Fantastics."<br />
+<br />
+1. "Aida." 2. Hiouen-Thsang. 3. El Vomito. (?) 4. The<br />
+Devil's Carbuncle. 5. A Hemisphere in a Woman's Hair. 6. The<br />
+Clock. 7. The Fool and Venus. 8. The Stranger.<br />
+<br />
+No. 219. The winter of 1877, Mr. Hearn contributed from New<br />
+Orleans, a series of letters to the Cincinnati <i>Commercial</i> under the<br />
+name of "Ozias Midwinter."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="h2a">V</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">MAGAZINE STORIES AND PAPERS IN
+CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_44_44">
+<span class="label">[44]</span></a> If published also in book-form, the title of the book is given.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 220-275)</p>
+
+<p class="contents">No. 220. The Scenes of Cable's Romances.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Century Magazine</i>, November, 1883, vol. 27 (N. S. Vol. 5), p. 40.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 221. Quaint New Orleans and its Habitants.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, December 6, 1884, vol. 28, p. 812.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 222. New Orleans Exposition.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, January 3, 1885, vol. 29, p. 14.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 223. The Creole Patois.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, January 10, 1885, vol. 29, p. 27.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 224. The Creole Patois.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, January 17, 1885, vol. 29, p. 43.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;284]</span>
+No. 225. New Orleans Exposition.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, January 31, 1885, vol. 29, p. 71</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 226. The East at New Orleans.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, March 7, 1885, vol. 29, p. 155.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 227. Mexico at New Orleans.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, March 14, 1885, vol. 29, p. 167.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 228. The New Orleans Exposition. Some Oriental Curiosities.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Bazaar</i>, March 28, 1885, vol. 18, p. 201.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 229. The New Orleans Exposition. Notes of a Curiosity
+Hunter.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Bazaar</i>, April 4, 1885, vol. 18, p. 218</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 230. The Government Exhibit at New Orleans.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, April 11, 1885, vol. 29, p. 234.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 231. The Legend of Tchi-Niu. A Chinese Story of Filial
+Piety.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Bazaar</i>, October 31, 1885, vol. 18, p. 703.
+"Some Chinese Ghosts," 1887.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 232. The Last of the Voudoos.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, November 7, 1885, vol. 29, p. 726.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 233. New Orleans Superstitions.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, December 25, 1886, vol. 30, p. 843.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 234. Rabyah's Last Ride. A tradition of Pre-Islamic Arabia.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Bazaar</i>, April 2, 1887, vol. 20, p. 239.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 235. Chita.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Monthly</i>, April, 1888, vol. 76, p. 733. "Chita,"
+1890.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 236. A Midsummer Trip to the West Indies.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Monthly</i>, July-September, 1888, vol. 77, pp.
+209, 327, 614. "Two Years in the French West
+Indies," 1890.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 237. La Vérette and the Carnival in St. Pierre, Martinique.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Monthly</i>, October, 1888, vol. 77, p. 737.
+"Two Years in the French West Indies," 1890.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 238. Les Porteuses.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Monthly</i>, July, 1889, vol. 79, p. 299. "Two
+Years in the French West Indies," 1890.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 239. At Grand Anse.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Monthly</i>, November, 1889, vol. 79, p. 844.
+"Two Years in the French West Indies," 1890.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 240. A Ghost.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Monthly</i>, December, 1889, vol. 80, p. 116.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 241. Youma.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Monthly</i>, January-February, 1890, vol. 80, pp.
+218, 408. "Youma," 1890.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 242. Karma.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Lippincott's Magazine</i>, May, 1890, vol. 45, p. 667.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 243. A Study of Half-Breed Races in the West Indies.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Cosmopolitan</i>, June, 1890, vol. 9, p. 167.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 244. West Indian Society of Many Colourings.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>The Cosmopolitan</i>, July, 1890, vol. 9, p. 337.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 245. A Winter Journey to Japan.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Harper's Monthly</i>, November, 1890, vol. 81, p. 860.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;285]</span>
+No. 246. At the Market of the Dead.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, September, 1891, vol. 68, p. 382.
+"Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 247. The Chief City of the Province of the Gods.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1891, vol. 68, p. 621.
+"Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 248. The Most Ancient Shrine in Japan.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, December, 1891, vol. 68, p. 780.
+"Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 249. In a Japanese Garden.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, July, 1892, vol. 70, p. 14. "Glimpses
+of Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 250. Of a Dancing Girl.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, March, 1893, vol. 71, p. 332.
+"Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 251. The Japanese Smile.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, May, 1893, vol. 71, p. 634. "Glimpses
+of Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 252. Of the Eternal Feminine.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly,</i> December, 1893, vol. 72, p. 761.
+"Out of the East," 1895.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 253. The Red Bridal.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, July, 1894, vol. 74, p. 74. "Out of
+the East," 1895.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 254. At Hakata.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, October, 1894, vol. 74, p. 510.
+"Out of the East," 1895.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 255. From my Japanese Diary.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1894, vol. 74, p. 609.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 256. A Wish Fulfilled.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, January, 1895, vol. 75, p. 90. "Out
+of the East," 1895.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 257. In the Twilight of the Gods.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, June, 1895, vol. 75, p. 791. "Kokoro,"
+1896.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 258. The Genius of Japanese Civilization.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, October, 1895, vol. 76, p. 449.
+"Kokoro," 1896.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 259. After the War.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1895, vol. 76, p. 599.
+"Kokoro," 1896.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 260. Notes from a Travelling Diary.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, December, 1895, vol. 76, p. 815.
+"Kokoro," 1896.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 261. China and the Western World.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, April, 1896, vol. 77, p. 450.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 262. A Trip to Ky&#333;to.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, May, 1896, vol. 77, p. 613. "Gleanings
+in Buddha-Fields," 1897.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 263. About Faces in Japanese Art.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, August, 1896, vol. 78, p. 219.
+"Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," 1897.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;286]</span>
+No. 264. Out of the Street: Japanese Folk-Songs.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, September, 1896, vol. 78, p. 347.
+"Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," 1897.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 265. Dust.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1896, vol. 78, p. 642,
+"Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," 1897.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 266. A Living God.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, December, 1896, vol. 78, p. 833.
+"Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," 1897.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 267. Notes of a Trip to Izumo.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, May, 1897, vol. 79, p. 678.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 268. The Story of Mimi-Nashi H&#333;ïchi.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, August, 1903, vol. 92, p. 237.
+"Kwaidan," 1904.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 269. The Dream of Akinosuké.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, March, 1904, vol. 93, p. 340.
+"Kwaidan," 1904.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 270. A Letter from Japan.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, November, 1904, vol. 94, p. 625.
+"The Romance of the Milky Way," 1905.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 271. The Story of It&#333; Norisuké.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, January, 1905, vol. 95, p. 98. "The
+Romance of the Milky Way," 1905.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 272. Stranger than Fiction.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, April, 1905, vol. 95, p. 494. "The
+Romance of the Milky Way," 1905.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 273. The Romance of the Milky Way.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, August, 1905, vol. 96, p. 238. "The
+Romance of the Milky Way," 1905.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 274. Ultimate Questions.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, September, 1905, vol. 96, p. 391.
+"The Romance of the Milky Way," 1905.</span><br />
+<br />No. 275. Two Memories of a Childhood.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, October, 1906, vol. 98, p. 445.</span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="h2a">VI</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">ARTICLES BY HEARN TRANSLATED IN
+FOREIGN MAGAZINES</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 276-280)</p>
+
+<p class="contents">No. 276. Le Sourire japonais.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Traduction de Madame Léon Raynal, <i>Revue de Paris</i>,
+July 15, 1900, Year 7, vol. 4, p. 429.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 277. Une Danseuse japonais.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Traduction de Madame Léon Raynal, <i>Revue de Paris,</i>
+March 15, 1901, Year 8, vol. 2, p. 330.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;287]</span>
+No. 278. Le Nirvâna, étude de Bouddhisme Synthétique.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Traduite par M. &amp; Mme. Charles-Marie Garnier, <i>Revue
+de Métaphysique et de Morale</i>, 1903, Year 11, p. 352.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 279. Kitsonné (superstition japonaise).<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Traduction de Madame Léon Raynal, <i>Revue de Paris</i>,
+November 1, 1903, Year 10, vol. 6, p. 188.</span><br />
+<br />
+No. 280. Cimètieres et Temples japonais (Jiz&#333;).<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Traduction de Madame Léon Raynal, <i>Revue de Paris,</i>
+April 15, 1904, Year 11, vol. 2, p. 829.</span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="h2a">VII</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">UNPUBLISHED WORKS</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 281-282)</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 281.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1885. AVATAR. Par Gautier, Translation by Lafcadio Hearn.
+Unable to find a publisher, Hearn destroyed the manuscript.</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 282.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY, by Gustave Flaubert;
+translated from the Fifth Paris Edition, Vols. I-II. (Manuscript copy
+in the possession of Dr. Gould.) The half-page containing, at one
+time, probably, the translator's name, is cut off. The title-page is
+preceded by a half-page, printed, of directions to the printer, regarding
+size of type, etc.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The volumes are 6 x 9-1/2 inches, opening at the end. The writing
+is in pencil, and the letters large, even for an ordinary handwriting,
+but remarkably so for that of Hearn, who, when writing with a pen,
+made his letters very small. The paper has the yellow tint habitually
+used by him.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Volume I contains 364 pages; Volume II, numbered consecutively,
+the balance of a total of 679 pages. Five pages of <i>addenda</i> follow,
+containing notes upon passages, with original texts, etc., which the
+American publisher would hardly dare to put forth.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hearn's synopsis (printed) of the "St. Anthony" accompanies the
+text of the translation, and is reproduced herewith:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">ARGUMENT</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Frailty</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">Sunset in the desert. Enfeebled by prolonged fasting, the hermit
+finds himself unable to concentrate his mind upon holy things. His
+thoughts wander: memories of youth evoke regrets that his relaxed
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;288]</span>
+will can no longer find strength to suppress;&mdash;and, remembrance
+begetting remembrance, his fancy leads him upon dangerous ground.
+He dreams of his flight from home,&mdash;of Ammonaria, his sister's
+playmate,&mdash;of his misery in the waste,&mdash;his visit to Alexandria with
+the blind monk Didymus,&mdash;the unholy sights of the luxurious city.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Involuntarily he yields to the nervous dissatisfaction growing upon
+him. He laments his solitude, his joylessness, his poverty, the
+obscurity of his life: grace departs from him; hope burns low within
+his heart. Suddenly revolting against his weakness, he seeks refuge
+from distraction in the study of the Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Vain effort! An invisible hand turns the leaves, placing perilous
+texts before his eyes. He dreams of the Maccabees slaughtering
+their enemies, and desires that he might do likewise with the
+Arians of Alexandria;&mdash;he becomes inspired with admiration of
+King Nebuchadnezzar;&mdash;he meditates voluptuously upon the visit of
+Sheba's queen to Solomon;&mdash;discovers a text in the Acts of the
+Apostles antagonistic to principles of monkish asceticism,&mdash;indulges
+in reveries regarding the riches of the Biblical Kings and holy men.
+The Tempter comes to tempt him with evil hallucinations for which
+the Saint's momentary frailty has paved the way; and with the Evil
+One comes also&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Seven Deadly Sins</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">Phantom gold is piled up to excite Covetousness; shadowy banquets
+appear to evoke Gluttony. The scene shifts to aid the temptations of
+Anger and of Pride....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Anthony finds himself in Alexandria, at the head of a wild army of
+monks slaughtering the heretics and the pagans, without mercy for
+age or sex. In fantastic obedience to the course of his fancy while
+reading the Scriptures a while before, and like an invisible echo of
+his evil thoughts, the scene changes again. Alexandria is transformed
+into Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Anthony finds himself the honoured of the Emperor. He beholds
+the vast circus in all its splendour, the ocean of faces, the tumult of
+excitement. Simultaneously he beholds his enemies degraded to
+the condition of slaves, toiling in the stables of Constantine. He
+feels joy in the degradation of the Fathers of Nicæa. Then all is
+transformed.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">It is no longer the splendour of Constantinople he beholds under
+the luminosity of a Greek day; but the prodigious palace of
+Nebuchadnezzar by night. He beholds the orgies, the luxuries, the
+abominations;&mdash;and the spirit of Pride enters triumphantly into him
+as the spirit of Nebuchadnezzar....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Awakening as from a dream, he finds himself again before his
+hermitage. A vast caravan approaches, halts; and the Queen of
+Sheba descends to tempt the Saint with the deadliest of all temptations.
+Her beauty is enhanced by Oriental splendour of adornment;
+her converse is a song of witchcraft. The Saint remains firm....
+The Seven Deadly Sins depart from him.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;289]</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Heresiarchs</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">But now the Tempter assumes a subtler form. Under the guise of
+a former disciple of Anthony,&mdash;Hilarion,&mdash;the demon, while pretending
+to seek instruction seeks to poison the mind of Anthony with
+hatred of the fathers of the church. He repeats all the scandals
+amassed by ecclesiastical intriguers, all the calumnies created by
+malice;&mdash;he cites texts only to foment doubt, and quotes the Evangels
+only to make confusion. Under the pretext of obtaining mental
+enlightenment from the wisest of men, he induces Anthony to enter
+with him into a spectral basilica, wherein are assembled all the
+Heresiarchs of the third century. The hermit is confounded by the
+multitude of tenets,&mdash;horrified by the blasphemies and abominations
+of Elkes, Corpocrates, Valentinus, Manes, Cerdo,&mdash;disgusted by the
+perversions of the Paternians, Marcosians, Serpentians,&mdash;bewildered
+by the apocryphal Gospels of Eve and of Judas, of the Lord and of
+Thomas.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">And Hilarion grows taller.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Martyrs</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">Anthony finds himself in the dungeons of a vast amphitheatre,
+among Christians condemned to the wild beasts. By this hallucination
+the tempter would prove to the Saint that martyrdom is not
+always suffered for purest motives. Anthony finds the martyrs
+possessed of bigotry and insincerity. He sees many compelled to die
+against their will; many who would forswear their faith could it avail
+them aught. He beholds heretics die for their heterodoxy more nobly
+than orthodox believers.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">He finds himself transported to the tombs of the martyrs. He
+witnesses the meeting of Christian women at the sepulchres. He
+beholds the touching ceremonies of prayer change into orgie,&mdash;lamentations
+give place to amorous dalliance.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Magicians</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">Then the Tempter seeks to shake Anthony's faith in the excellence
+and evidence of miracles. He assumes the form of a Hindoo
+Brahmin, terminating a life of wondrous holiness by self-cremation;&mdash;he
+appears as Simon Magus and Helen of Tyre,&mdash;as Apollonius of
+Tyana, greatest of all thaumaturgists, who claim superiority to Christ.
+All the marvels related by Philostratus are embodied in the converse
+of Apollonius and Damis.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Gods</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hilarion reappears, taller than ever, growing more gigantic in
+proportion to the increasing weakness of the Saint. Standing beside
+Anthony he evokes all the deities of the antique world. They defile
+before him a marvellous panorama;&mdash;Gods of Egypt and India,
+Chaldæa and Hellas, Babylon and Ultima Thule,&mdash;monstrous and
+multiform, phallic and ithyphallic, fantastic and obscene. Some
+intoxicate by their beauty; others appal by their foulness. The
+Buddha recounts the story of his wondrous life; Venus displays the
+<span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;290]</span>
+rounded daintiness of her nudity; Isis utters awful soliloquy. Lastly
+the phantom of Jehovah appears, as the shadow of a god passing
+away for ever.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Suddenly the stature of Hilarion towers to the stars; he assumes
+the likeness and luminosity of Lucifer; he announces himself as&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Science</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">And Anthony is lifted upon mighty wings and borne away beyond
+the world, above the solar system, above the starry arch of the Milky
+Way. All future discoveries of Astronomy are revealed to him. He
+is tempted by the revelation of innumerable worlds,&mdash;by the refutation
+of all his previous ideas of the nature of the Universe,&mdash;by the
+enigmas of infinity,&mdash;by all the marvels that conflict with faith. Even
+in the night of the Immensity the demon renews the temptation of
+reason; Anthony wavers upon the verge of pantheism.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Lust and Death</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">Anthony, abandoned by the Spirit of Science, comes to himself in
+the desert. Then the Tempter returns under a two-fold aspect: as
+the Spirit of Fornication and the Spirit of Destruction. The latter
+urges him to suicide,&mdash;the former to indulgence of sense. They
+inspire him with strong fancies of palingenesis, of the illusion of
+death, of the continuity of life. The pantheistic temptation intensifies.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Monsters</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">Anthony in reveries meditates upon the monstrous symbols painted
+upon the walls of certain ancient temples. Could he know their
+meaning he might learn also something of the secret lien between
+Matter and Thought. Forthwith a phantasmagoria of monsters
+commence to pass before his eyes:&mdash;the Sphinx and the Chimera, the
+Blemmyes and Astomi, the Cynocephali and all creatures of mythologic
+creation. He beholds the fabulous beings of Oriental imagining,&mdash;the
+abnormities described by Pliny and Herodotus,&mdash;the fantasticalities
+to be adopted later by heraldry,&mdash;the grotesqueries of future
+mediæval illumination made animate;&mdash;the goblinries and foulnesses
+of superstitious fancy,&mdash;the Witches' Sabbath of abominations.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Metamorphosis</span></p>
+
+<p class="indent">The multitude of monsters melts away; the land changes into an
+Ocean; the creatures of the briny abysses appear. And the waters
+in turn also change; seaweeds are transformed to herbs, forests of
+coral give place to forests of trees, polypous life changes to vegetation.
+Metals crystallize; frosts effloresce, plants become living things, inanimate
+matter takes animate form, monads vibrate, the pantheism of
+nature makes itself manifest. Anthony feels a delirious desire to
+unite himself with the Spirit of Universal Being....</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The vision vanishes. The sun arises. The face of Christ is
+revealed. The temptation has passed; Anthony kneels in prayer.</p>
+
+<p class="right">L. H.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;291]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2a">VIII</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">BOOKS ABOUT HEARN</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 283-284)</p>
+
+<p class="center">No. 283.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1906. THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN.
+By Elizabeth Bisland. With Illustrations. In two volumes. (Publisher's
+Vignette.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and
+Company (The Riverside Press, Cambridge), 1906.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">8vo., 2 vols., pp. (VIII), 475, 554, black cloth, Japanese characters
+on small red disc, gold lettering, gilt top.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Volume I.<br />
+(V-VIII) Preface by E. B.</p>
+
+<p>Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Introductory Sketch</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>I. Boyhood<br />
+II. The Artist's Apprenticeship<br />
+III. The Master Workman<br />
+IV. The Last Stage</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Letters</p>
+
+<p>List of Illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Volume II.<br />
+List of Illustrations.<br />
+Letters (continued)<br />
+Pages 519-529 Appendix.<br />
+Pages 533-554 Index.</p>
+
+<p>Articles and Reviews:&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Academy, The</i>, January 26, 1907, vol. 72, p. 88.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Athenæum, The</i>, February 2, 1907, p. 126.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Current Literature</i>, January, 1907, vol. 42, p. 49.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dunbar, Olivia Howard, <i>North American Review</i>, February 15, 1907, vol. 184, p. 417.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Greenslet, Ferris, <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, February, 1907, vol. 99, p. 261.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Godkin, F. W., <i>The Dial</i>, December 16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Huneker, James, <i>New York Times, The</i>, December 1, 1906, vol. 11, p. 817.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Nation, The</i>, November 29, 1906, vol. 83, p. 464.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>New York Evening Post, The</i>, December 1, 1906.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>New York Tribune, The</i>, December 5, 1906.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tunison, J. S., <i>Dayton (Ohio) Journal, The</i>, December 25, 1906.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;292]</span>
+No. 284.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">1907. LETTERS FROM THE RAVEN, being the Correspondence
+of Lafcadio Hearn with Henry Watkin, with Introduction and
+critical comment by the editor, Milton Bronner. (Vignette drawing
+of the Raven.) New York: Brentano's, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">12mo., pp. 201, half cloth brown. Ornamental black and gold back,
+gilt top.</p>
+
+<p>Contents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Introduction<br />
+Letters from the Raven<br />
+Letters to a Lady<br />
+Letters of Ozias Midwinter</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="h2a">IX</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">ARTICLES AND CRITICAL REVIEWS
+ABOUT HEARN</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 285-388)</p>
+
+<p>ACADEMY, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 285. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 13,
+1897, vol. 52, p. 395.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 286. "Koizumi Yakumo&mdash;Lafcadio Hearn," by N. C., April 13,
+1901, vol. 60, p. 328.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 287. Sketch and list of works, October 8, 1904, vol. 67, p. 305.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 288. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by
+W. Teignmouth Shore, December 10, 1904, vol. 67,
+p. 584.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 289. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December
+2, 1905, vol. 69, p. 1257.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 290. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+January 26, 1907, vol. 72, p. 88.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>AMENOMORI, NOBUSHIGE</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 291. <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn, the Man," October,
+1905, vol. 96, p. 510.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 292. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by
+Edmund Buckley, of the University of Chicago,
+January, 1905, vol. 10, p. 545.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 293. "Lafcadio Hearn, Interpretator of Japan," November,
+1904, vol. 30, p. 561.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;293]</span>
+ATHENÆUM, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 294. A review of "Youma," August 30, 1890, p. 284.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 295. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," November
+10, 1894, p. 634.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 296. A review of "Out of the East," August 24, 1895, p. 249.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 297. A review of "Kokoro," August 8, 1896, p. 185.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 298. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November
+13, 1897, p. 664.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 299. A review of "Exotics and Retrospectives," January 6,
+1900, p. 11.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 300. A review of "Shadowings," January 5, 1901, p. 15.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 301. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," December 21,
+1901, p. 833.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 302. A review of "Kott&#333;," January 17, 1903, p. 77.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 303. A review of "Kwaidan," September 17, 1904, p. 373.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 304. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," March
+31, 1906, p. 389.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 305. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+February 2, 1907, p. 126.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>ATLANTIC MONTHLY, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 306. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," and "Out
+of the East," by Mrs. M. McN. Scott, June, 1895, vol.
+75, p. 830.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 307. A review of "In Ghostly Japan," by Jukichi Inouye,
+September, 1900, vol. 86, p. 399.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 308. "Lafcadio Hearn: The Meeting of Three Ways," by
+Paul Elmer More, February, 1903, vol. 91, p. 204.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 309. A review of "Kwaidan," June, 1904, vol. 93, p. 857.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 291. "Lafcadio Hearn: the Man," by Nobushige Amenomori,
+October, 1905, vol. 96, p. 510.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 310. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Ferris Greenslet, February, 1907,
+vol. 99, p. 261.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>AUTHOR, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 311. Sketch by O. P. Caylor (Reprinted from an article in the
+<i>Philadelphia North American</i>), January 15, 1890, vol.
+2, p. 51.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>BOOKBUYER, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 312. "Lafcadio Hearn," by J. S. Tunison, May, 1896, vol. 13,
+p. 209.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 313. A review of "Kokoro," by Tozo Takayanagi, May, 1896,
+vol. 13, p. 229.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 314. "Through the Medium of a Temperament," by John
+Harrison Wagner, June, 1898, vol. 16, p. 437.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 315. A review of "Kott&#333;," December, 1902, vol. 25, p. 416.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>BOOKMAN, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 316. A review of "Shadowings," by F. T. C., February, 1901,
+vol. 12, p. 582.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;294]</span>
+No. 317. A review of "Kwaidan," November, 1904, vol. 20,
+p. 159.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 318. "The Late Lafcadio Hearn," November, 1904, vol. 20,
+p. 190.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>BUCKLEY, EDMUND</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 292. <i>The American Journal of Sociology</i>, a review of "Japan:
+an Attempt at Interpretation," January, 1905, vol. 10,
+P. 545.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>CAYLOR, O. P.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 311. <i>The Author</i>, January 15, 1890, vol. 2, p. 51.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>CHAUTAUQUAN, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 319. Short Sketch of Hearn, and reprints "Fragment," "Juiroku-zakura,"
+"Riki-Baka," "Yuki-Onna," "The Screen
+Maiden," September, 1905, vol. 42, p. 245.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>CHICAGO EVENING POST, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 320. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Francis Hackett.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>COCKERILL, <span class="smcap">Colonel</span> JOHN A.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 321. <i>Current Literature</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn: the author of
+'Kokoro.'" (Reprinted from the New York <i>Herald</i>.)
+June, 1896, vol. 19, p. 476.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>COLEMAN, <span class="smcap">Jr.</span>, CHARLES W.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 322. <i>Harper's Monthly</i>, "The Recent Movement in Southern
+Literature," May, 1887, vol. 74, p. 855.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>CRITIC, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 323. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," April 9,
+1898, vol. 29, p. 248.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 324. "Mr. Hearn's Japanese Shadowings," by Adachi Kinnosuké,
+January, 1901, vol. 38, p. 29.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 325. "Lafcadio Hearn's Funeral," by Margaret Emerson,
+January, 1905, vol. 46, p. 34.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 326. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by
+Wm. Elliot Griffis, February, 1905, vol. 46, p. 185.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 327. "Hearn's Stories of Old Japan," by W. E. Griffis, March,
+1906, vol. 48, p. 222.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 328. "Letters of a Poet to a Musician," by Henry E. Krehbiel,
+April, 1906, vol. 48, p. 309.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>CURRENT LITERATURE</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 321. "Lafcadio Hearn: the author of 'Kokoro,'" by Colonel
+John A. Cockerill. (Reprinted from the New York
+<i>Herald</i>.) June, 1896, vol. 19, p. 476.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 329. "A Glimpse of Lafcadio Hearn," October, 1899, vol. 26,
+p. 310.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;295]</span>
+No. 330. "Lafcadio Hearn: a Dreamer," by Yone Noguchi.
+(Reprinted from the <i>National Magazine</i>.) June, 1905,
+vol. 38, p. 521.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 331. "The Mystic Dream of Lafcadio Hearn," January, 1907,
+vol. 42, p. 49.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>DAYTON, <span class="smcap">Ohio</span>, JOURNAL, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 332. Editorial on Lafcadio Hearn, September 30, 1904.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 333. "Lafcadio Hearn," by J. S. Tunison, December 25,
+1906.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>DIAL, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 334. A review of "Exotics and Retrospectives," July 16, 1899,
+vol. 27, p. 52.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 335. A review of "Shadowings," January 1, 1901, vol. 30,
+p. 19.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 336. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by
+Wm. Elliot Griffis, December 1, 1904, vol. 36, p. 368.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 337. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," November
+1, 1905, vol. 39, p. 276.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 338. "Self-Revelation of Lafcadio Hearn," by F. W. Godkin,
+December 16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>DUNBAR, OLIVIA HOWARD</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 339. <i>North American Review</i>, a review of "The Life and
+Letters of Lafcadio Hearn," February 15, 1907, vol.
+184, p. 417.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>EMERSON, MARGARET</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 325. <i>The Critic</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn's Funeral," January, 1905,
+vol. 46, p. 34.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>EVENING SUN, The New York</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 340. "A Native's Tribute to the Dead American Poet of
+Japan," November 11, 1904.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>EVENING POST, The New York</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 341. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+December 1, 1906.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>EVENING TRANSCRIPT, The Boston</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 342. A review of "Chita," November 2, 1889.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>F. T. C.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 316. <i>The Bookman</i>, a review of "Shadowings," February,
+1901, vol. 12, p. 582.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 343. "Lafcadio Hearn: a Study of his Personality and Art,"
+by George M. Gould, October-November, 1906, vol. 86,
+pp. 685, 881.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;296]</span>
+GODKIN, F. W.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 338. <i>The Dial</i>, "Self-Revelation of Lafcadio Hearn," December
+16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>GOULD, GEORGE M.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 343. <i>Putnam's Monthly</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn: a Study of his
+Personality and Art," October-November, 1906, vol. 1,
+pp. 97, 156. The Same, <i>Fortnightly Review</i>, October-November,
+1906, vol. 86, pp. 685, 881.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>GREENSLET, FERRIS</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 310. <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn," February, 1907,
+vol. 99, p. 261.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>GRIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 336. <i>The Dial</i>, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation,"
+December 1, 1904, vol. 36, p. 308.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 326. <i>The Critic</i>, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation,"
+February, 1905, vol. 46, p. 185.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 327. <i>The Critic</i>, "Hearn's Stories of Old Japan," March, 1906,
+vol. 48, p. 222.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>HACKETT, FRANCIS</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 320. Chicago <i>Evening Post</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>HARPER'S MONTHLY</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 322. "The Recent Movement in Southern Literature," by
+Charles W. Coleman, Jr., May, 1887, vol. 74, p. 855.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>HUNEKER, JAMES</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 344. The New York <i>Times</i>, "Exotic Lafcadio Hearn: The
+Life and Letters of a Master of Nuance&mdash;Elizabeth
+Bisland's Sympathetic Biography," December 1, 1906,
+vol. 11, p. 817.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>HUTSON, CHARLES WOODWARD</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 345. <i>Poet-Lore</i> "The English of Lafcadio Hearn," Spring,
+1905, vol. 16, p. 53.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>INDEPENDENT, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 346. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November
+24, 1898, vol. 50, p. 1508.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 347. "An Interpreter of the East" (A review of "Japan: an
+Attempt at Interpretation"), October 27, 1904, vol. 57,
+p. 976.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 348. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December
+21, 1905, vol. 59, p. 1478.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>INOUYE, JUKICHI</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 307. <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, a review of "In Ghostly Japan," September,
+1900, vol. 86, p. 399.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;297]</span>
+INTERNATIONAL STUDIO, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 349. A review of "Stories and Sketches of Japan," 1905, vol.
+25, p. XL.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>KENNARD, NINA H.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 350. <i>Nineteenth Century and After</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn," January,
+1906, vol. 59, p. 135.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>KINNOSUKÉ, ADACHI</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 324. <i>The Critic</i>, "Mr. Hearn's Japanese Shadowings," January,
+1901, vol. 38, p. 29.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>KREHBIEL, HENRY E.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 328. <i>The Critic</i>, "Letters of a Poet to a Musician," April,
+1906, vol. 48, p. 309.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 351. The New York <i>Tribune</i>, "Hearn and Folk-Lore Music."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>LITERARY WORLD, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 352. A review of "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard," February
+15, 1890, vol. 21, p. 59.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 353. A review of "One of Cleopatra's Nights," February 14,
+1891, vol. 22, p. 56.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 354. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," October
+20, 1894, vol. 25, p. 347.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 355. A review of "Out of the East," April 20, 1895, vol. 26,
+p. 123.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 356. A review of "Kokoro," April 18, 1896, vol. 27, p. 116.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 357. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 13,
+1897, vol. 28, p. 389.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 358. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," December 1, 1901,
+vol. 32, p. 207.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>LIVING AGE, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 359. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Robert Young, March 23, 1907,
+vol. 252, p. 760. (Reprinted from the <i>Speaker</i>.)</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>MATHER, <span class="smcap">Jr</span>., F. J.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 360. <i>The Nation</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn on Style" (editorial),
+December 6, 1906, vol. 83, p. 478.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>MESSENGER, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 361. "Mr. Lafcadio Hearn on the Jesuit Missions in Japan,"
+by Herbert Thurston, S. J., January, 1906, vol. 45,
+p. 1.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>MORE, PAUL ELMER</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 308. <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn: the Meeting of
+Three Ways," February, 1903, vol. 91, p. 204.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>NATION, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 362. A review of "Gombo Zhèbes," April 23, 1885, vol. 40,
+p. 349.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;298]</span>
+No. 363. A review of "Some Chinese Ghosts," May 26, 1887, vol.
+44, p. 456.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 364. A review of "Youma," May 7, 1891, vol. 52, p. 385.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 365. A review of "Kokoro," July 9, 1896, vol. 63, p. 35.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 366. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," February 3,
+1898, vol. 66, p. 97.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 367. A review of "Shadowings," November 8, 1900, vol. 71,
+p. 372.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 368. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," January 9, 1902,
+vol. 74, p. 39.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 369. A review of "Kott&#333;," March 26, 1903, vol. 76, p. 254.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 370. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation,"
+December 8, 1904, vol. 79, p. 465.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 371. A review of "Stories and Sketches of Japan," January
+26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 372. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December
+21, 1905, vol. 81, p. 510.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 373. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+November 29, 1906, vol. 83, p. 464.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 360. "Lafcadio Hearn on Style" (editorial), by F. J. Mather,
+Jr., December 6, 1906, vol. 83, p. 478.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 350. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Nina H. Kennard, January, 1906,
+vol. 59, p. 135.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>NOGUCHI, YONE</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 330. <i>Current Literature</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn: a Dreamer." (Reprinted
+from the <i>National Magazine</i>.) June, 1905,
+vol. 38, p. 521.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>NORTH AMERICAN, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 339. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+by Olivia Howard Dunbar, February 15, 1907, vol. 184,
+p. 417.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>OUTLOOK, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 374. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," October 16,
+1897, vol. 57, p. 435.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 375. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way,"
+November 9, 1906, vol. 84, p. 503.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>POET-LORE</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 345. "The English of Lafcadio Hearn," by Charles Woodward
+Hutson, Spring, 1905, vol. 16, p. 53.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>PUBLIC OPINION</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 376. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November
+25, 1897, vol. 23, p. 694.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 377. A review of "Shadowings," October 18, 1900, vol. 29,
+p. 504.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;299]</span>
+No. 378. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation,"
+October 27, 1904. vol. 37, p. 537.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>PUTNAM'S MONTHLY</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 343. "Lafcadio Hearn: A Study of his Personality and Art,"
+by George M. Gould, October-November, 1906, vol. I,
+pp. 97, 156.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>SCOTT, <span class="smcap">Mrs. M. McN.</span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 306. <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, a review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar
+Japan," and "Out of the East," June, 1895, vol. 75,
+p. 830.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>SHORE, W. TEIGNMOUTH</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 288. <i>Academy</i>, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation,"
+December 10, 1904, vol. 67, p. 584.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>SPECTATOR, The</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 379. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," November
+17, 1894, vol. 73, p. 698.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 380. A review of "Out of the East," October 12, 1895, vol. 75,
+p.459.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 381. A review of "Kokoro," May 23, 1896, vol. 76, p. 739.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 382. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November
+20, 1897, vol. 79, p. 736.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 383. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation,"
+January 14, 1905, vol. 94, p. 54.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>TAKAYANAGI, TOZO</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 313. <i>The Book Buyer</i>, a review of "Kokoro," May, 1896, vol.
+13, p. 229.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>THURSTON, S. J., Herbert</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 361. <i>The Messenger</i>, "Mr. Lafcadio Hearn on the Jesuit
+Missions in Japan," January, 1906, vol. 45, p. 1.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>TIMES-DEMOCRAT, The New Orleans</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 384. "A Strange Career," August 5, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 385. "Lafcadio Hearn and His Friends," August 20, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 386. "Silken Fetters," May 26, 1907.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>TIMES, The New York</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 387. A review of "Two Years in the French West Indies,"
+September 1, 1890.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 344. "Exotic Lafcadio Hearn: The Life and Letters of a
+Master of Nuance&mdash;Elizabeth Bisland's Sympathetic
+Biography," by James Huneker, December 1, 1906,
+vol. 11, p. 817.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>TRIBUNE, The New York</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 388. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+December 5, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 351. "Hearn and Folk-Lore Music," by H. E. Krehbiel.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;300]</span>
+TUNISON, J. S.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 312. <i>The Book Buyer</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn," May, 1896, vol. 13,
+p. 209.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 333. <i>The Dayton (Ohio) Journal</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn," December
+25, 1906.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>WAGNER, JOHN HARRISON</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 314. <i>The Book Buyer</i>, "Through the Medium of a Temperament,"
+June, 1898, vol. 16, p. 437.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>YOUNG, ROBERT</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 359. <i>The Living Age</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn," March 23, 1907,
+vol. 252, p. 760.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="h2a">X</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">FOREIGN ARTICLES AND CRITICAL REVIEWS
+UPON HEARN</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 389-398)</p>
+
+<p class="center">DANISH</p>
+
+<p>NYA PRESSEN</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 389. "Ur en författares lif," af Konni Zilliacus, February 2,
+1899.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">FRENCH</p>
+
+<p>BENTZON, <span class="smcap">Th.</span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 390. <i>Revue des deux Mondes</i>, "Un Peintre du Japon: Lafcadio
+Hearn,"<a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 391. "Impressions sur la vie japonaise," par Félicien Challayé,
+June, 1902, 3rd Series, 17th Cahier.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>CHALLAYÉ, FÉLICIEN</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 391. <i>Cahiers de la quinzaine</i>, "Impressions sur la vie japonaise,"
+June, 1902, 3rd Series, 17th Cahier.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 392. <i>Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale</i>. "Un Philosophe
+japonisant, Lafcadio Hearn,"<a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> 1903, vol. 11, p. 338.</p>
+
+<p class="hangindent">No. 393. <i>Revue de Paris</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn et le Japon,"<a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> December
+1, 1904, vol. 6, p. 655.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a>
+<span class="label">[45]</span> Translations by M. B. Easton, unpublished, in MSS., in the possession of
+Dr. Gould.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;301]</span>
+REVUE DES DEUX MONDES</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 390. "Un Peintre du Japon: 'Lafcadio Hearn,'"<a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> par Th.
+Bentzon, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>REVUE DE MÉTAPHYSIQUE ET DE MORALE</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 392. "Un Philosophe japonisant, Lafcadio Hearn,"<a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> par
+Félicien Challayé, 1903, vol. 11, p. 338.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>REVUE DE PARIS</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 393. "Lafcadio Hearn et le Japon,"<a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> par Félicien Challayé,
+December 1, 1904, vol. 6, p. 655.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">GERMAN</p>
+
+<p>BRANDT, M. VON</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 394. <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i> "Lafcadio Hearn: Volksglaube
+und Volkssitte in Japan," October, 1900, vol. 105, p. 68.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>DEUTSCHE RUNDSCHAU</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 394. "Lafcadio Hearn: Volksglaube und Volkssitte in
+Japan," von M. von Brandt, October, 1900, vol. 105,
+p. 68.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>HERZOG, WILHELM</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 395. <i>Die Nation</i>, a review of "Kokoro,"<a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> January 6, 1906,
+vol. 23, p. 217.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>HIRN, PROFESSOR YRIÖ</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 396. <i>Neue Freie Presse</i>, "Lafcadio Hearn," March 26, 1905,
+vol. 31, p. 14580.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>NATION, Die</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 395. A review of "Kokoro,"<a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> von Wilhelm Herzog, January 6,
+1906, vol. 23, p. 217.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a>
+<span class="label">[46]</span> Translations by M. B. Easton, unpublished, in MSS., in the possession
+of Dr. Gould.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>NEUE FREIE PRESSE</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 396. "Lafcadio Hearn," von Professor Yrjö Hirn, March 26,
+1905, vol. 31, p. 14580.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>WAGE, Die</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 397. "Ein englischer Japaner," von Th. Bentzon. (Deutsche
+von Leo Fried.) A condensation of Mme. Bentzon's
+article in <i>Revue des deux Mondes</i>. October 22-29,
+1904, Year 7, Nr. 43, 44, pp. 987, 1001.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">SWEDISH</p>
+
+<p>HIRN, <span class="smcap">Mrs</span>. KARIN</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 398. <i>Ord od Bild</i>, 1905.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>ORD OD BILD</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hangindent">No. 398. Mrs. Karin Hirn, 1905.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;302]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2a">XI</p>
+
+<p class="h2a">SUPPLEMENTAL LIST</p>
+
+<p class="center">(Nos. 399-424)</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 399. The Last of the New Orleans Fencing Masters, <i>Southern
+Bivouac</i>, Louisville, Ky., New Series, vol. 2, Nov., 1886.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Speaks of the Story of Jean Louis, from Vigeant's <i>Un Maître d'armes
+sous la restauration</i>, and tells the tale of Don José Llulla. Six double
+column, 8vo. pages, size and style of <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 400. The Legend of Skobeleff. Looks like an editorial in
+T.-D.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> (No date, etc.)</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_47_47">
+<span class="label">[47]</span></a> The New Orleans <i>Times-Democrat</i>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 401. A Voudoo Dance. In style of T.-D. and of Hearn;
+unsigned, undated, was evidently in T.-D.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 402. The Future of France in the Orient. Editorial, doubtless
+in T.-D., undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 403. Pierre Loti. Translation by Hearn. "From the Original
+Manuscript," signed by "Pierre Loti" and "Translated by Lafcadio
+Hearn." Subheading: "Fragments from my Diary." Undated.
+Probably in T.-D.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 404. Death of the Great Danseuse of the Century. Unsigned
+and undated. Not in type of editorial, but of contributed matter in
+T.-D. Probably by Hearn.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 405. The First Muezzin. With Arabic Sub-title, under which
+is "Bilâl," and 15-line poetic excerpt from Edwin Arnold. Contains
+a musical setting of Prayer by Villoteau, Description de l'Egypte:
+Vol. XIV. Probably in T.-D. Without date, etc.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 406. Dorodom the Last. Editorial, probably in T.-D.
+Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 407. The Naval Engagements of the Future. Translation
+from <i>Le Figaro</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 408. Cable and the Negroes. Editorial, probably in T.-D.
+and by Hearn. No date.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 409. The Most Original of Modern Novelists (Loti). Editorial,
+probably in T.-D. Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 410. Heroic Deeds at Sea. Editorial in T.-D. Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 411. Study and Play. Editorial in T.-D. Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 412. Arabian Women. Article contributed probably to T.-D.
+Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 413. The Roar of a Great City. Editorial contributed probably
+to T.-D. Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 414. Some Fossil Anthropology. Editorial probably by Hearn,
+and probably in T.-D. Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 415. A Word for the Tramps. Editorial possibly by Hearn,
+and probably in T.-D.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 416. Torn Letters. Signed original story in T.-D. Undated.
+Later enlarged and published as "Chita."</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><span class="pagenum">[Pg&nbsp;303]</span>
+No. 417. Death and Resurrection in the Soudan. Editorial, probably
+in T.-D. Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 418. A Memory of Two Fannies (Fanny Elssler, and Fanny
+Cerrito). Editorial, probably in T.-D. Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 419. Shapira. Editorial, probably in T.-D. Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 420. To the Fountain of Youth. Original, signed contribution:
+T.-D., May 24, 1885.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 421. The Creole Doctor. Some Curiosities of Medicine in
+Louisiana. From an Occasional Correspondent of <i>The Tribune</i>, New
+Orleans, Dec. 28th. Probably in New York <i>Tribune</i>. Undated.
+Signed Contribution.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 422. A Story of Hands. The Hand and its Gestures. Translation,
+Eugene Mouton, "From advance sheets." Undated.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 423. The Legend of the Tea-Plant. Original contribution,
+probably to the T.-D. Undated. Published later in "Some Chinese
+Ghosts," 1887.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">No. 424. Academical Triumphs. Editorial, probably by Hearn,
+T.-D., Dec. 20, 1885.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Richard Clay &amp; Sons, Limited</span>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">bread street hill, e.c., and</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">bungay, suffolk.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<div class="tnote">
+
+<p class="h2a">Transcriber's Notes:</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="indent">Some of the illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs and so they correspond to the text, thus the page number of
+the illustration no longer matches the page number in the List of
+Illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 8, "ludricrous" was replaced with "ludicrous".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 28, "Lokis'" was replaced with "Loki's".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 55, "An E volutional History" was replaced with "An Evolutional
+History".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 56, the &oelig; ligature was replaced with "OE".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 85, "As, mine are" was replaced with "As mine are".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 91, "it it incapable" was replaced with "it is incapable".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 97, the single quotation mark after "What insect stings so!" was
+changed to a double quotation mark.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 129, "gnored" was replaced with "ignored".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 133, "refocussed" was replaced with "refocused".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 159, "la belle negrésse" was replaced with "la belle négresse".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 188 through 190, there is a long quotation that is marked by a single
+set of quotation marks, which differs than the quotation scheme used elsewhere
+in the book. This inconsistency was not corrected.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 236, a quotation mark was removed from before "His book is a
+re-reading".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 252, "Karin Kirn" was replaced with "Karin Hirn".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 259, "n aye" was replaced with "n'aye".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 278, the closing single quotation mark after "Madame Bovary" was
+replaces with a closing double quotation mark.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 286, in the item No. 277, the period after "Raynal" was replaced
+with a comma, to be in agreement with the previous item.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 293, in the item 307, "p." was added before the page number.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 295, in the item 334, a quotation mark was added after "Exotics and
+Retrospectives,".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 295, in the item 341, a period was added after the date December
+1, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 298, in the item 366, a stray comma was deleted after the word
+"February".</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 299, in the item 387, a single quotation mark was replaced with
+a double quotation mark.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">On page 301, in the item 390, the unmatched quotation marks were
+corrected.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Concerning Lafcadio Hearn, by George M. Gould
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Concerning Lafcadio Hearn, by George M. Gould
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Concerning Lafcadio Hearn
+       With a Bibliography by Laura Stedman
+
+Author: George M. Gould
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2011 [EBook #36783]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCERNING LAFCADIO HEARN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Ernest Schaal, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONCERNING LAFCADIO HEARN
+
+
+
+
+                [Illustration: LAFCADIO HEARN.
+                _From a Photograph by Gutekunst, 1889._]
+
+
+_Frontispiece._
+
+
+
+
+                    CONCERNING LAFCADIO
+                    HEARN. By GEORGE M. GOULD, M.D.
+
+
+                          WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY
+                            BY LAURA STEDMAN
+
+
+                       _WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS_
+
+
+                            T. FISHER UNWIN
+
+                        LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
+                        LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
+                                  1908
+
+
+
+
+                        [_All rights reserved_]
+
+
+
+
+    CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAP.                                               PAGE
+
+      I.  HEREDITY AND THE EARLY LIFE                          1
+
+     II.  IN PERSON                                            7
+
+    III.  THE PERIOD OF THE GRUESOME                          13
+
+     IV.  THE NEW ORLEANS TIME                                33
+
+      V.  AT MARTINIQUE                                       57
+
+     VI.  "GETTING A SOUL"                                    65
+
+    VII.  "IN GHOSTLY JAPAN"                                  81
+
+   VIII.  AS A POET                                           93
+
+     IX.  THE POET OF MYOPIA                                 103
+
+      X.  HEARN'S STYLE                                      119
+
+     XI.  SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION                             137
+
+    XII.  APPRECIATIONS AND EPITOMES                         143
+
+          BIBLIOGRAPHY                                       247
+
+
+
+
+    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                 _To face page_
+
+    LAFCADIO HEARN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY GUTEKUNST
+    IN 1889                                       _Frontispiece_
+
+    HEARN AT ABOUT THE AGE OF EIGHT, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH         5
+
+    REDUCED FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST ISSUE OF "YE
+    GIGLAMPZ"                                                 21
+
+    LAFCADIO HEARN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT MARTINIQUE,
+    AUGUST 24, 1888                                           61
+
+    HANDWRITING OF HEARN IN 1889                              68
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+THERE are as many possible biographies of a man as there are possible
+biographers--and one more! Of Lafcadio Hearn there has been, and there
+will be, no excuse for any biography whatever. A properly edited volume
+of his letters, and, perhaps, a critical estimate of the methods and
+development of his imaginative power and literary character are, and
+still remain, most desirable. That some competent hand may yet be found
+to undertake this task is still hoped by those who recognize the value
+of a man's best work. To furnish material and help toward this end is my
+object in collecting the following pages. The life of a literary man
+interests and is of value to the world because of the literature he has
+created. Without a bibliography, without even mention of the works he
+wrote, his biography would be useless. To correct many untrue and
+misleading statements and inferences of a serious nature that have been
+published concerning him and his life, should it ever be undertaken,
+will prove a labour so difficult and thankless that it will scarcely be
+entered upon by one who would do it rightly. That it will not be
+hazarded comes, as I have said, from the fact that it is not needed,
+because neither Hearn himself, nor his real friends, nor again, a
+discriminating literary sense, have been, nor can be, under any illusion
+as to his "greatness." He has been spoken of as "a great man," which, of
+course, he was not. Two talents he had, but these were far from
+constituting personal greatness. Deprived by nature, by the necessities
+of his life, or by conscious intention, of religion, morality,
+scholarship, magnanimity, loyalty, character, benevolence, and other
+constituents of personal greatness, it is more than folly to endeavour
+to place him thus wrongly before the world.
+
+The irony of the situation is pathetically heightened by the fact that,
+supposing him to be very great, "the weaknesses of very great men,"
+which he said should not be spoken of, are amazingly paraded in the
+letters. Had he ever dreamed that his letters would be published, he
+would not, and could not, have so unblushingly exposed himself and his
+faults to the public gaze. The fact has now been writ exceeding large,
+or it would not be, and should not be, corrected and contradicted. A
+word to the wise suffices.
+
+There remains the question, truly pertinent, concerning the nature and
+progress toward perfection of his imagination, and of his literary
+execution.
+
+We know nothing, and doubtless we may never know anything definite,
+accurate and of value about the character either of his father or of his
+mother. Any attempt, therefore, to estimate what effect heredity had in
+handing down the strange endowment we find in his early manhood is
+wholly futile. We may not be too sure concerning either the parentage or
+nationality ascribed to him.
+
+Moreover, in the last analysis, Hearn was no "product of his
+environment." In a certain sense, he was of the school of Flaubert,
+Gautier, Maupassant, Loti, and Zola, but with such differences and
+variations that these teachers may not take much credit or flattery to
+themselves. The great, the distinctive, the dominating force which
+controlled and created Hearn's literary makings, his morbid vision, was
+not "environment" as the critics and scientists mean by the term. These
+have not yet learned that Art and Life hang upon the perfection and
+peculiarities of the senses of the artist and of the one who lives, and
+that intellect and especially aesthetics are almost wholly the product of
+vision. Conversely, the morbidities and individualisms of Art and Life
+often depend pre-eminently upon the morbidities of vision.
+
+Character, lastly, is the action or reaction of personality against
+circumstance, not under and dominated by circumstance. To have character
+is to control circumstance; Hearn was always its slave. Except in one
+particular, the pursuit of literary excellence, Hearn had no character
+whatever. His was the most unresisting, most echolike mind I have ever
+known. He was a perfect chameleon; he took for the time the colour of
+his surroundings. He was always the mirror of the friend of the instant,
+or if no friend was there, of the dream of that instant. The next minute
+he was another being, acted upon by the new circumstance, reflecting the
+new friend, or redreaming the old and new-found dream. They who blame
+him too sharply for his disloyalty and ingratitude to old friends do not
+understand him psychologically. There was nothing behind the physical
+and neurologic machine to be loyal or disloyal. He had no mind, or
+character, to be possessed of loyalty or disloyalty. For the most part,
+he simply dropped his friends, and rarely spoke ill of them or of his
+enemies. There was nothing whatever in him, except perhaps for the short
+time when he said his friend had given him a soul, to take the cast and
+function of loyalty or disloyalty, gratitude or ingratitude. One does
+not ask originality or even great consistency of an echo, and, of all
+men that have ever lived, Hearn, mentally and spiritually, was most
+perfectly an echo. The sole quality, the only originality, he brought to
+the fact, or to the echo, was colour--a peculiar derivation of a maimed
+sense. He created or invented nothing; his stories were always told him
+by others; at first they were gruesome tales even to horror and disgust.
+He learned by practice to choose lovelier stories, ones always distant,
+sometimes infinitely distant, and he learned to retell or echo them with
+more artistic skill and even a matchless grace. His merit, almost his
+sole merit, and his unique skill lay in the strange faculty of colouring
+the echo with the hues and tints of heavenly rainbows and unearthly
+sunsets, all gleaming with a ghostly light that never was on sea or
+shore. So that, fused as he was with his work, he himself became that
+impossible thing, a chromatic voice, a multicoloured echo.
+
+We must, therefore, accept the facts as we find them, the young man as
+we find him, uneducated, friendless, without formed character, with a
+lot of heathenish and unrestrained appetites, crippled as to the most
+important of the senses, poverty-stricken, improvident, of peculiar and
+unprepossessing appearance and manners, flung into an alien world in
+many ways more morbid than himself. That he lived at all is almost
+astonishing, and that he writhed out, how he did it, and the means
+whereby he finally presented to the best artistic and literary
+intellects of the world prized values and enjoyments, is indeed worthy
+of some attention and study.
+
+From letters written to me just prior to his death by that veteran and
+discriminating critic, Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, I quote a few sentences to
+show that the appreciation of Hearn has by no means reached its full
+measure:
+
+"I passed an evening with your Hearn manuscript and the supplementary
+matter by my granddaughter, and found them both well done and of deep
+interest. Some of your passages are beautifully written and make me
+think that if you will give us more of the style which is so plainly at
+your command, you will gain, etc.... The publishers do not understand,
+as I do, that Hearn will in time be as much of a romantic personality
+and tradition as Poe now is. I strongly urged one publisher to buy those
+copyrights owned by three other firms on any terms and in the end bring
+out a definitive edition of his complete works."
+
+As to Miss Stedman's workmanlike bibliography, it should be said that
+the rule which has been followed in excluding less valuable reviews and
+notices, was based upon the effort to include doubtful ones only when of
+exceptional value, by a personal friend of Hearn, etc. Files of ordinary
+newspapers are not preserved even in local libraries, and, therefore,
+references to them have been excluded except under peculiar
+circumstances of authorship, opinions stated, etc.
+
+For their kind permission to make extracts from Hearn's published works,
+grateful acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Little, Brown and Company,
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Harper Brothers, and The Macmillan
+Company.
+
+Should this volume bring in more money than the necessary expenses of
+compiling it, the excess will be sent to Mrs. Hearn through the Japanese
+Consul, or in some other way.
+
+                                                    GEORGE M. GOULD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--HEREDITY AND THE
+    EARLY LIFE
+
+
+            [Illustration: HEARN AT ABOUT THE AGE OF EIGHT.
+                         _From a Photograph._]
+
+
+_To face page 1._
+
+
+MANY conflicting accounts have been given concerning Hearn's parents and
+childhood. From his own statements made in 1889, the notes of which,
+taken down at the moment, are before me, he was born on June 27, 1850,
+at Leucadia, in Santa Maura, one of the Ionian Islands. His father, he
+said, was an Irishman, Charles Bush Hearn, Surgeon-Major in the 76th
+English Infantry Regiment, which had been stationed at Madras, Calcutta.
+The regiment was later merged into the 22nd West Riding Battalion. His
+mother was a Greek from Cerigo, another of the Ionian Isles; her name he
+had forgotten. He spoke of his father and mother as having been married,
+and of a subsequent divorce, about 1857 or 1858. Allusion was made to a
+younger brother, named Daniel, who was brought up by an artist, a
+painter, Richard Hearn, a brother of Charles Bush Hearn, who lived in
+Paris.[1] Hearn thought this brother was educated as a civil engineer.
+After the divorce his mother remarried, her second husband being a
+lawyer, a Greek, name unknown, and living at Smyrna, Asia Minor.
+Lafcadio's father also remarried, taking his wife to India. Three
+daughters were said to have been born there. Lafcadio was put under the
+care of his aunt, Mrs. Sarah Brenane, of Dublin, No. 73 Upper Leeson
+Street. She was a widow without children. In a letter to me, written
+prior to 1889, Hearn says: "As for me, I have a good deal in me _not_ to
+thank my ancestors for; and it is a pleasure that _I cannot_, even if I
+would, trace myself two generations back, not even one generation on my
+mother's side. Half these Greeks are mixed with Turks and Arabs--don't
+know how much of an Oriental mixture I have, or may have." And again, "I
+do not know anything about my mother, whether alive or dead. My father
+died on his return from India. There was a queer romance in the history
+of my mother's marriage." He told me later that this romance was said to
+have been that Surgeon-Major Hearn was once set upon by the brothers of
+the young Greek woman to whom he was paying attention, and that he was
+left supposedly dead, with about a score of dagger-made wounds in his
+body.
+
+    [1] In _The Bookbuyer_, May, 1896, Hearn's friend, Mr. J. S.
+        Tunison, speaks of the existence of a brother, "a busy
+        farmer in Northwestern Ohio."
+
+In the Dayton, Ohio, _Journal_, of December 25, 1906, Mr. Tunison speaks
+authoritatively of the discrepant accounts given by many writers, and by
+Hearn himself, concerning his parents, birth and early years. "Hearn
+himself had misgivings, and sometimes associated his baptismal name with
+the not uncommon Spanish name, Leocadie." The boy, of course, could only
+repeat what he had been told by his relatives or friends. Physiognomy
+can help little perhaps, but here its testimony is assuredly not
+confirmatory of the more common story. Any attempt to secure definite
+information in Ireland would scarcely be successful. One possibility
+remained: There is still living an Irish gentleman to whom Lafcadio was
+sent from Ireland, and in whose care, at least to a limited extent, the
+boy was placed. I have not the right to mention his name. He was living
+in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1870, and through his brother-in-law in Ireland,
+Lafcadio was, as it were, consigned to my informant. The subject is an
+unpleasant one to him, and he answered my questions with reluctance. He
+did not like the boy and did not feel that he had any obligation toward
+him; in fact, he did not feel that he was in any way responsible for his
+care. Besides, he had heavy duties toward his own children that absorbed
+all his energies. "I never had a letter from him. He came to the house
+three times. Mrs. Brenane sent me money, which I gave to him to pay his
+bills with. When he got work, he never came near me again." He was not
+sure that Mrs. Brenane was, in truth, Hearn's aunt, and upon being
+pressed, answered repeatedly, "I know nothing, nobody knows anything
+true of Hearn's life. He may have been related to my wife's family, but
+I never knew." Asked why the lad was "shipped" to him, he replied, "I do
+not know." Inquiries concerning the boy's schooling brought no more
+than, "I only know that he could never stay long in one school." "His
+father was Irish, was he not?" "Yes." "And his mother was Greek?" "O
+yes, I suppose so," but with an indefinite inflection.
+
+The mystery, therefore, of Hearn's parentage and boyhood years is
+probably not to be cleared up. He was, perhaps, a "bad boy," and
+expelled from several schools; his lifelong hatred and fear of Catholics
+and Jesuits doubtless dates from these youthful and irrational
+experiences; but it is useless to inquire whether or not they were in
+any sense justifiable. A little reflected light is thrown upon this
+period by an apocryphal anecdote in a letter to me, written while Hearn
+was at my house, and which Miss Bisland in her "Life and Letters" kindly
+failed to put in its proper place,[2] as well as omitted to say whence
+she obtained it:
+
+        [2] Vol. I, pp. 459-460, just prior to the last
+            paragraph.
+
+    This again reminds me of something. When I was a boy, I had
+    to go to confession, and my confessions were honest ones.
+    One day I told the ghostly father that I had been guilty of
+    desiring that the devil would come to me in the shape of
+    the beautiful woman in which he came to the Anchorites in
+    the desert, and that I thought that I would yield to such
+    temptations. He was a grim man who rarely showed emotion,
+    my confessor, but on that occasion he actually rose to his
+    feet in anger.
+
+    "Let me warn you!" he cried, "let me warn you! Of all things
+    never wish that! You might be more sorry for it than you can
+    possibly believe!"
+
+    His earnestness filled me with fearful joy;--for I thought
+    the temptation might actually be realized--so serious he
+    looked ... but the pretty _succubi_ all continued to remain
+    in hell.
+
+The necessary inference, therefore, is that the lad was an unwelcome
+charge upon those Irish relations or friends of his father, in whose
+care he was placed. It is said that he always spoke with bitterness of
+his father, and with love of his mother. Beyond a certain amount of
+money allotted (by his father?) for his support, neither parent was
+evidently concerned about his upbringing and welfare, and all who should
+have been interested in those things made haste to rid themselves of the
+obligations. If the stories of his boyish "badness" were true, the lad
+could not be blamed for putting into practice his inherited instincts,
+so that the pathos of his early misfortunes only increase our sympathy
+for the youth and his tragedies. (I reproduce a photograph of Lafcadio
+and his aunt, Mrs. Justin, or Sarah, Brenane. The lad must have been at
+the time about eight years of age.) The "consignment" of the
+nineteen-year old youth to the distant relative of the family, who was
+then living in Cincinnati, explains the reason why, landing in New York,
+he finally went to Cincinnati. How long he lived in New York City and
+any details of his life there before he went West, may be held as beyond
+investigation. Mr. Tunison incidentally speaks of him during this time
+as "sleeping in dry-goods boxes on the street, etc.," and I have heard
+that he acted as a restaurant waiter. There have been published stories
+of a period of want and suffering endured in London before the
+emigration to New York City. Others concerning great scholarship and the
+intimate knowledge of several languages, especially French, are surely
+not true. Even in 1889, after the New Orleans and Martinique periods,
+Hearn could not speak French with ease or correctness. In Cincinnati he
+secured the help of a French scholar in translating Gautier's "Emaux et
+Camees." His want of knowledge of the Latin language is deplored in his
+letters and, to the last, after a dozen or more years in Japan, his
+inability to read a Japanese newspaper or speak the language was a
+source of regret to himself, of errors too numerous to mention, and of
+grievous limitations in his work as an interpreter. In the one field of
+which his taste, aptitude and function dictated a wide and stimulating
+acquaintance, folk-lore, he was lamentably wanting. It might seem
+unfitting to allude to this were it not well to be discriminating in all
+cases, and had not Hearn sought to reach authoritativeness in a
+department wherein he had not gathered the fundamental data.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--IN PERSON
+
+
+WHEN, in 1889, Hearn appeared in my reception room, although I had not
+seen any photograph of him, and had not even known of his coming, I at
+once said, "You are Lafcadio?" The poor exotic was so sadly out of
+place, so wondering, so suffering and shy, that I am sure he would have
+run out of the house if I had not at once shown him an overflowing
+kindness, or if a tone of voice had betrayed any curiosity or doubt. It
+was at once agreed that he should stay with me for awhile, and there was
+no delay in providing him with a seat at my table and a room where he
+could be at his work of proof-correcting. His "Two Years in the French
+West Indies" was then going through the press, and an incident connected
+with the proof-reading illustrates how impossible it was for him, except
+when necessity drove, to meet any person not already known. He wished to
+give his reader the tune of the songs printed on pages 426-431, but he
+knew nothing of music. I arranged with a lady to repeat the airs on her
+piano as he should whistle them, and then to write them on the
+music-staff. When the fatal evening arrived, Hearn and I went to the
+lady's house, but as we proceeded his part in our chatting lapsed into
+silence, and he lagged behind. Although he finally dragged himself to
+the foot of the doorstep, after I had rung the bell, his courage failed,
+and before the door was opened I saw him running as if for life, half a
+square away!
+
+Even before this adventure I had learned that it was useless to try to
+get him to lunch or dinner if any stranger were present. I think he
+always listened to detect the possible presence of a stranger before
+entering the dining-room, and he would certainly have starved rather
+than submit to such an ordeal. It may be readily imagined that my
+attempt to secure his services as a lecturer before a local literary
+society was a ludricrous failure. He would have preferred hanging.
+
+I allude to this attitude of his mind from no idle or curious reason,
+but because it arose from logical and necessary reasons. When, later, he
+was in Japan, I was once importuned, and should not have yielded, to
+give a friend, who was about to visit Tokyo, a note of
+introduction. As I warned my friend Hearn refused to see visitors.
+
+That his extreme shyness depended upon his being unknown, and that it
+was united to a lack of humour, may be gathered from the fact that, when
+he came from Martinique, he wore a clothing which inevitably made the
+passers-by turn and look and smile. Long and repeated endeavours were
+necessary before I could get his consent to lay aside the outrageous
+tropical hat for one that would not attract attention. How little he
+recked of this appears from the tale I heard that a lot of street gamins
+in Philadelphia formed a _queue_, the leader holding by Hearn's
+coat-tails, and, as they marched, all kept step and sang in time,
+"Where, where, where did you get that hat?"
+
+At once, upon first meeting Hearn, I instinctively recognized that upon
+my part the slightest sign of a desire or attempt to study him, to look
+upon him as an object of literary or "natural" history, would
+immediately put an end to our relations. Indeed, it never at that time
+entered my mind to think thus of him, and only since collections of his
+letters and biographies are threatened has it occurred to me to think
+over our days and months together, and to help, so far as advisable,
+toward a true understanding of the man and his art.
+
+In 1889 Lafcadio was 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighed 137 pounds, and had a
+chest girth of 36-3/4 inches.
+
+The summer of 1889 made noteworthy changes in Hearn's character. I
+suspect it was his first experience in anything that might be called
+home-life. To his beloved _pays des revenants_, Martinique, his mind
+constantly reverted, with an _Ahnung_ that he should never see it again.
+There are truth and pathos and keen self-knowledge, frankly expressed
+in the letters he would write me in the next room, immediately after we
+had chatted long together, and when he felt that the pen could better
+express what he shyly shrank from speaking:
+
+    Ah! to have a profession is to be rich, to have
+    international current-money, a gold that is cosmopolitan,
+    passes everywhere. Then I think I would never settle down
+    in any place; would visit all, wander about as long as I
+    could. There is such a delightful pleasantness about the
+    _first_ relations with people in strange places--before you
+    have made any rival, excited any ill wills, incurred
+    anybody's displeasure. Stay long enough in any one place
+    and the illusion is over; you have to sift this society
+    through the meshes of your nerves, and find perhaps one
+    good friendship too large to pass through.
+
+    It is a very beautiful world; the ugliness of some humanity
+    only exists as the shadowing that outlines the view; the
+    nobility of man and the goodness of woman can only be felt
+    by those who know the possibilities of degradation and
+    corruption. Philosophically I am simply a follower of
+    Spencer, whose mind gives me the greatest conception of
+    Divinity I can yet expand to receive. The faultiness is not
+    with the world, but with myself. I inherit certain
+    susceptibilities, weaknesses, sensitivenesses, which render
+    it impossible to adapt myself to the ordinary _milieu_; I
+    have to make one of my own wherever I go, and never mingle
+    with that already made. True, I love much knowledge, but I
+    escape pains which, in spite of all your own knowledge, you
+    could wholly comprehend, for the simple reason that you
+    _can_ mingle with men.
+
+    I am really quite lonesome for you, and am reflecting how
+    much more lonesome I shall be in some outrageous equatorial
+    country where I shall not see you any more;--also it seems
+    to me perfectly and inexplainably atrocious to know that
+    some day or other there will be no Gooley at ---- St. That I
+    should cease to make a shadow some day seems quite natural,
+    because Hearney boy is only a bubble anyhow ("The earth hath
+    bubbles"),--but you, hating mysteries and seeing and feeling
+    and knowing everything,--you have no right ever to die at
+    all. And I can't help doubting whether you will. You have
+    almost made me believe what you do not believe yourself:
+    that there are souls. I haven't any, I know; but I think you
+    have,--something electrical and luminous inside you that
+    will walk about and see things always. Are you really--what
+    I see of you--only an Envelope of something subtler and
+    perpetual? Because if you are, I might want you to pass down
+    some day southward,--over the blue zone and the volcanic
+    peaks like a little wind,--and flutter through the
+    palm-plumes under the all-putrefying sun,--and reach down
+    through old roots to the bones of me, and try to raise me
+    up....
+
+The weakness and even exhaustion which the West Indian climate had
+wrought in Hearn were painfully apparent. His stay in Philadelphia, warm
+as that summer was to us, brought him speedily back to physical health.
+The lesson was not unheeded, nor its implications, by his sensitive
+mind.
+
+I reproduce two photographs of Hearn: the first taken in 1888 (facing
+page 61); and the second, by Mr. Gutekunst, at my urgent solicitation,
+in 1889, while Hearn was stopping at my house (_Frontispiece_).
+
+The first photograph, taken in Martinique, brings out the habitual
+sadness and lack of vivacity in his physiognomy. In my picture of 1889
+(the second) I was unable, despite all effort, to get Hearn to present
+to the camera his entire face with naturally open eyes, and the
+customary expression. He resolutely refused, and consented to the
+compromise of a two-thirds view _with closed eyes_. And this to me is
+still the most truthful and hence the most expressive of all his
+photographs. It is so suggestive because of its negations, so expressive
+because non-expressive. But it indicates, silently and by inference, the
+most significant fact about the man.
+
+To those who are expert in such things, the stare of the highly myopic
+eye is known to be not that of mental action and seeing, but of not
+seeing. When we walk, we are forward-looking beings, and what goes on
+within the eye or brain and what may be behind us is totally ignored.
+But for a highly myopic person there is no outward or forward looking.
+Hearn's closed eye gives, therefore, a decidedly more truthful lesson in
+physiognomy than does the open and protruding one, which cannot see the
+coming or future scene, or which sees it so vaguely that its hint of the
+scene is perhaps more useless than the imagined picture of the totally
+blind. His inability to see the presenting world had resulted in a
+renunciation of outlook and an absolute incuriosity as to the future.
+With weaklings this might have brought about introspection, the mental
+eye--the product of the physical eye--turned in upon itself. Hearn was
+too much of an artist to fall into that Death Valley of all aesthetics,
+and there was a quick acceptance of the logical and inevitable, whence
+arose the wonder of poetic retrospection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--THE PERIOD OF THE GRUESOME
+
+
+WHEN Hearn arrived in Cincinnati, in 1871 or 1872, he was twenty-one or
+twenty-two years of age. All other methods of making a livelihood except
+that by his pen had failed, or were soon to fail, and it is not long
+before the literary way is exclusively and permanently adopted. There
+was a brief first time of service with Robert Clarke and Company as
+proof-reader. The exact uses of punctuation, the clearness which the
+proper marks give to writing, soon earned for him the sobriquet "Old
+Semicolon" among his fellow reporters. All his life Hearn clung
+meticulously to his theories concerning the necessity and precise rules
+of punctuation. Some of his later quarrels with periodical editors and
+proof-readers arose from differences of opinion in these things. There
+was a short engagement of Hearn by the librarian, Mr. Thomas Vickers, as
+private secretary or helper. Among his early friends was a printer, Mr.
+Henry Watkin, now residing at 1312 McMillan Street, who was kind to him,
+and who taught him to set type.
+
+"In 1874," Mr. O. P. Caylor[3] writes, "Col. Cockerill of the _World_
+was managing editor of the Cincinnati _Enquirer_. A few weeks previous
+to the 'Tan-Yard Murder' Mr. Hearn came to the _Enquirer_ office to sell
+a manuscript. Upstairs he ventured, but there his courage failed him. It
+was not enough to induce him to brave the awful editorial presence. So
+he paced up and down the hall with his velvet restless tread until the
+awful door opened and the terrible giant came forth. Hearn would, no
+doubt, have run away had he not been at the rear of the hall when Mr.
+Cockerill came out into the other end, and the stairway was between.
+
+    [3] A quotation in the _Author_, January 15, 1890, from an
+        article by Mr. Caylor in the Philadelphia _North American_.
+
+"Thus it occurred that the author of 'Chita' submitted his first
+manuscript. He came with others later, but never could he persuade
+himself to knock at that editorial door for admission. Up and down, up
+and down the hall he would pace or glide until Colonel Cockerill came
+forth, whether the time consumed in waiting was ten minutes or two
+hours."
+
+In _Current Literature_, June, 1896, Colonel John A. Cockerill, writing
+of Hearn, tells the story thus:
+
+"Some twenty years ago I was the editor in charge of a daily newspaper
+in a Western city. One day there came to my office a quaint,
+dark-skinned little fellow, strangely diffident, wearing glasses of
+great magnifying power and bearing with him evidence that Fortune and he
+were scarce on nodding terms.
+
+"In a soft, shrinking voice he asked if I ever paid for outside
+contributions. I informed him that I was somewhat restricted in the
+matter of expenditure, but that I would give consideration to what he
+had to offer. He drew from under his coat a manuscript, and tremblingly
+laid it upon my table. Then he stole away like a distorted brownie,
+leaving behind him an impression that was uncanny and indescribable.
+
+"Later in the day I looked over the contribution which he had left. I
+was astonished to find it charmingly written....
+
+"He sat in the corner of my room and wrote special articles for the
+Sunday edition as thoroughly excellent as anything that appeared in the
+magazines of those days. I have known him to have twelve and fifteen
+columns of this matter in a single issue of the paper. He was delighted
+to work, and I was pleased to have him work, for his style was beautiful
+and the tone he imparted to the newspaper was considerable. Hour after
+hour he would sit at his table, his great bulbous eyes resting as close
+to the paper as his nose would permit, scratching away with beaver-like
+diligence and giving me no more annoyance than a bronze ornament.
+
+"His eyes troubled him greatly in those days. He was as sensitive as a
+flower. An unkind word from anybody was as serious to him as a cut from
+a whiplash, but I do not believe he was in any sense resentful.... He
+was poetic, and his whole nature seemed attuned to the beautiful, and he
+wrote beautifully of things which were neither wholesome nor inspiring.
+He came to be in time a member of the city staff at a fair compensation,
+and it was then that his descriptive powers developed. He loved to write
+of things in humble life. He prowled about the dark corners of the city,
+and from gruesome places he dug out charming idyllic stories. The negro
+stevedores on the steamboat-landings fascinated him. He wrote of their
+songs, their imitations, their uncouth ways, and he found
+picturesqueness in their rags, poetry in their juba dances."
+
+In January or February, 1874, there was a horrible murder, "the famous
+Tan-Yard case," in Cincinnati, and Hearn's account of it in the
+_Enquirer_, from the newspaper and reportorial standpoint was so graphic
+and so far beyond the power of all rivals that he was henceforth assured
+of employment and of a measure and kind of respect. His friend, Mr.
+Edward Henderson, formerly city editor of the _Commercial_, now City
+Clerk in Cincinnati, says that because of his startling report of this
+murder "his city editors kept him at the most arduous work of a daily
+morning paper--the night-stations, for in that field mostly developed
+the sensational events that were worthy of his pen. In these days his
+powers would be held in reserve to write up what others should
+discover.... His repertory was strongest in the unusual and the
+startling. He was never known to shirk hardship or danger in filling an
+assignment or following up his self-obtained pointer."
+
+The beginning of Hearn's literary career was his report of the Tan-Yard
+Murder case. It was published in the Cincinnati _Enquirer_, November,
+1874. I shall quote some parts of it in a footnote to illustrate his
+innate and studied ability to outfit with words and expressions of the
+most startling and realistic picturing quality, the most horrible and
+loathsome facts. Keeping in mind the comparison with the illustrations
+from his later work in which he was equally capable of painting noble
+and beautiful things (all except those of a spiritual or religious
+nature), one is filled with admiration of a faculty so rare and perfect.
+Those who are sensitive should not read the excerpts which I append, and
+which are given in obedience to a sense of duty.[4]
+
+    [4] "An _Enquirer_ reporter visited the establishment some
+        hours later, accompanied by Dr. Maley, and examined all so
+        far discovered of Herman Schilling's charred corpse. The
+        hideous mass of reeking cinders, despite all the efforts of
+        the brutal murderers to hide their ghastly crime, remain
+        sufficiently intact to bear frightful evidence against them.
+
+        "On lifting the coffin-lid, a powerful and penetrating
+        odour, strongly resembling the smell of burnt beef, yet
+        heavier and fouler, filled the room and almost sickened the
+        spectators. But the sight of the black remains was far more
+        sickening. Laid upon the clean white lining of the coffin,
+        they rather resembled great shapeless lumps of half-burnt
+        bituminous coal than aught else at the first hurried glance;
+        and only a closer investigation could enable a
+        strong-stomached observer to detect their ghastly
+        character--masses of crumbling human bones, strung together
+        by half-burnt sinews, or glued one upon another by a hideous
+        adhesion of half-molten flesh, boiled brains and jellied
+        blood, mingled with coal.
+
+        "The skull had burst like a shell in the fierce furnace
+        heat, and the whole upper portion seemed as though it had
+        been blown out by the steam from the boiling and bubbling
+        brains. Only the posterior portion of the occipital and
+        parietal bones, and the inferior and superior maxillary, and
+        some of the face bones remained,--the upper portion of the
+        skull bones being jagged, burnt brown in some spots, and in
+        others charred to black ashes. The brain had all boiled
+        away, save a small waste lump at the base of the skull about
+        the size of a lemon. It was crisped and still warm to the
+        touch. On pushing the finger through the crisp, the interior
+        felt about the consistency of banana fruit, and the yellow
+        fibre seemed to writhe like worms in the Coroner's hands.
+        The eyes were cooked to bubbled crisps in the blackened
+        sockets, and the bones of the nose were gone, leaving a
+        hideous hole.
+
+        "So covered were the jaws and the lower facial bones with
+        coal, crusted blood and gummy flesh, that the Coroner at
+        first supposed that the lower maxillary had been burned
+        away. On tearing away the frightful skull-mask of mingled
+        flesh and coal and charred gristle, however, the grinning
+        teeth shone ghastly white, and the jaws were found intact.
+        They were set together so firmly that it was found
+        impossible to separate them, without reducing the whole mass
+        to ashes. So great had been the heat that the Coroner was
+        able to crumble one of the upper teeth in his fingers.
+
+        "Besides the fragments of the skull, have been found six
+        ribs of the right side and four of the left; the middle
+        portion of the spinal-column; the liver, spleen, and
+        kidneys; the pelvic bones, the right and left humerus, the
+        femoral bone and the tibia and fibula of both legs. The body
+        had burnt open at the chest, and the heart and lungs had
+        been entirely consumed. The liver had been simply roasted
+        and the kidneys fairly fried. There is a horrible
+        probability that the wretched victim was forced into the
+        furnace alive, and suffered all the agonies of the bitterest
+        death man can die, while wedged in the flaming flue. The
+        teeth were so terribly clinched that more than one spectator
+        of the hideous skull declared that only the most frightful
+        agony could have set those jaws together. Perhaps, stunned
+        and disabled by the murderous blows of his assailants, the
+        unconscious body of the poor German was forced into the
+        furnace. Perhaps the thrusts of the assassin's pitchfork,
+        wedging him still further into the fiery hell, or perhaps
+        the first agony of burning when his bloody garments took
+        fire, revived him to meet the death of flames. Fancy the
+        shrieks for mercy, the mad expostulation, the frightful
+        fight for life, the superhuman struggle for existence--a
+        century of agony crowded into a moment--the shrieks growing
+        feebler--the desperate struggle dying into feeble writhings.
+        And through it all, the grim murderers, demoniacally
+        pitiless, devilishly desperate, gasping with their exertions
+        to destroy a poor human life, looking on in silent triumph,
+        peering into the furnace until the skull exploded, and the
+        steaming body burst, and the fiery flue hissed like a
+        hundred snakes! It may not be true--we hope for humanity's
+        sake it cannot be true; but the rightful secrets of that
+        fearful night are known only to the criminals and their God.
+        They may be brought to acknowledge much; but surely never so
+        much as we have dared to hint at."
+
+"When his city editor, in compliance with the urgency of a
+steeple-climber, consented to send a reporter to take observations of
+the city from the top of the cross surmounting the spire of St. Peter's
+Cathedral in Cincinnati, Hearn was the man selected. In mentioning the
+assignment to him, the city editor handed him a valuable field-glass,
+with the suggestion that he might find it useful. On taking his
+departure with the climbers, Hearn quietly handed back the glasses with
+the remark in undertone, 'Perhaps I'd better not take these; something
+might happen.' He made the trip to the top of the spire, though the men
+found it necessary to haul him part of the way in mid-air and to bodily
+place and hold him on top of the cross. And he produced an account of
+that thrilling experience that went the round of the newspaper
+world."[5]
+
+    [5] Our wonder at the performance is heightened by the fact
+        that Hearn, of course, saw nothing of what he so vividly described.
+
+It is little wonder that his "Vocabulary of the Gruesome" became famous,
+since I have learned from his friend and associate, the artist, Mr.
+Farney, and also from others, certain facts which demonstrate that this
+vocabulary was gathered not only or chiefly because of the exigencies of
+his work as a reporter, or to express the revolting in thrilling words,
+but because he had a spontaneous lickerishness for the things
+themselves. He positively delighted in the gruesome. With his fingers he
+dug into the scorched flesh and the exuding brains of the murdered man's
+body when it was taken from the furnace, and in another murder case he
+slid on the floor, as if on ice, in the congealed blood of the victim.
+"He even drank blood at the abattoirs with the consumptives when that
+craze had fallen upon the people of Cincinnati." There is more than an
+excuse for mentioning these things; it is necessary to do so in order to
+understand the origin and transformation of Hearn's chief endowment as a
+writer.
+
+Even more convincing, perhaps, than these offensive gloatings as
+regards his native love of the gruesome, is the unconscious testimony
+given in the history of an illustrated paper established by Mr. Farney
+and Mr. Hearn. Mr. Henderson has said of Hearn that "very rarely was he
+known to throw a _soupcon_ of humour into his work." The newspaper
+venture demonstrates that even when humour was planned Hearn had none to
+give.
+
+Number One, Volume One, of _Ye Giglampz_ was issued in Cincinnati, Ohio,
+on June 21, 1874, and describes itself on the title-page as, "A Weekly
+Illustrated Journal, Devoted to Art, Literature and Satire." The size of
+the pages was 14-1/2 x 10-3/4 inches. The subsequent issues were larger,
+about 16 x 11-1/4 inches. There were eight pages in each number, the
+first, third, fourth and eighth were illustrated by Mr. H. F. Farney;
+the others were made up of reading matter. The heading of the editorial
+page did not exactly repeat that of the title-page, but read as follows:
+
+                            "The Giglampz."
+                   Published Daily, except Week-Days.
+                        Terms, $2.50 per annum.
+                   Address, "Giglampz Publishing Co."
+                           150 West Fourth St.
+
+
+         [Illustration: REDUCED FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST ISSUE.]
+
+
+With the issue of Number Seven (August 2, 1874) appeared a notice that
+H. F. Farney and Company had purchased the _Giglampz_ from its former
+proprietors, the new office being henceforth at the North-west corner of
+Fourth and Race Streets. Number Eight was the last furnished
+subscribers. Probably the only existing set of this periodical is that
+kindly lent to me by Mr. Farney at the request of Mr. Alexander Hill of
+The Robert Clarke Company, Cincinnati. Among the many significant things
+suggested in looking over the pages, is the fact that this bound file
+was Hearn's personal copy, his name being written on the cover-leaf by
+himself--"L. Hearn, 1877"--and just below, this: "Reminiscences of An
+Editorship under Difficulties."
+
+It is noteworthy that nowhere is it publicly announced that Hearn was
+the editor, although the fact was probably an open secret in Cincinnati
+at the time. The truth of the foregoing inscription in his handwriting
+is confirmed by the acknowledgment of his authorship of most of the
+articles, contributed as well as editorial, conveyed by his customary
+signature, penciled at the end or beginning of each paragraph or column
+which he had written. The very title of the paper itself was a witness
+in the same way, and shows that at that time, although Hearn kept his
+name concealed, he was not, as later, sensitive concerning his ocular
+defect.[6] It is plain that the word _Giglampz_ refers to the large and
+conspicuous spectacles or eye-glasses which at that time (not later)
+were worn habitually by Hearn. The proof of this comes out in the
+illustration occupying the full first page of the initial number, and
+entitled:
+
+                  "A Prospect of Herr Kladderadatsch,
+                              Introducynge
+                      Mr. Giglampz tu ye Publycke."
+
+    [6] In the first number is an editorial paragraph, written by
+        Hearn, reading as follows:--"The public has indulged in
+        speculation and no little levity, in regard to our name. In
+        this as in the future conduct of this extraordinary sheet,
+        we seek only to please ourselves. Whether the Publishing
+        Company will declare 'Irish Dividends' in six months, or
+        not, does not concern us. We (the editorial corps) being on
+        a salary, look on public favour with serene indifference.
+        The name pleases us. We look upon it in the light of a
+        conundrum, calculated to induce reflection in simple minds.
+        We hope some one may solve it, as we have incontinently
+        given it up."
+
+The scene is that of the stage of a theatre, and Kladderadatsch proudly
+presents Mr. Giglampz to the wildly applauding audience. The head of the
+obsequious Mr. Giglampz is very large compared with his body, but most
+conspicuous is the enormous _pince-nez_ astride a nose of fitting
+proportions. Mr. Farney was even permitted to give a mere hint of the
+editor's facial expression.
+
+A curious and suggestive, even a pathetic, light is thrown upon Hearn's
+character by the fact that this personal file of his journal with his
+own inscriptions, signatures, etc., was found in a second-hand
+book-store by Mr. Farney after Hearn left Cincinnati.
+
+Although it is as much too long for our quoting as it was for
+introducing the journalistic venture, I cannot help reproducing Hearn's
+first editorial, the "Salutatory, By a Celebrated French Author, a
+Friend of Giglampz":
+
+    It was a dark and fearsome night in the month of June,
+    1874; and the pavements of Fourth Street were abandoned to
+    solitude.
+
+    The lamps, dripping huge water-drops fire-tinged from their
+    lurid glare, seemed monstrous yellow goblin-eyes, weeping
+    phosphorescent tears.
+
+    It was raining, and the funereal sky flamed with lightning.
+    It was such a rain as in the primeval world created verdant
+    seas of slimy mud, subsequently condensed into that
+    fossiliferous strata where to-day spectacled geologists find
+    imbedded the awful remains of the titanic _iguanodon_, the
+    _plesiosaurus_, and the _icthyosaurus_.
+
+    We sat motionlessly meditative in the shadows of a Gothic
+    doorway of medieval pattern, and ruefully observed the
+    movements of a giant rat, slaking his thirst at a
+    water-spout. Suddenly we were aware of a pressure--a gentle
+    pressure on our shoulder.
+
+    A hurried glance convinced us that the pressure was
+    occasioned by the presence of a hand.
+
+    It was a long, bony, ancient hand, dried and withered to the
+    consistency of India-rubber. It might have been compared to
+    the hand of a mummy embalmed in the reign of Rameses III,
+    but we felt a living warmth in its pressure, penetrating our
+    summer linen.
+
+    The Oriental wizards occasionally need the assistance of a
+    magic candle, in their groping amid ancient tombs--a candle
+    which burns with a fuming stench so foul, that hungry ghouls
+    flee dismayedly away. This candle is made of green fat--the
+    fat of men long dead. For such a candle it is of course
+    necessary to have a candlestick. To procure this candlestick
+    it is necessary to cut off the right hand of a murderous
+    criminal executed by impalement, and having carefully dried
+    it, to insert the candle in its ghastly grasp. Now the hand
+    laid on our shoulder strongly resembled such a hand.
+
+    The living warmth of its pressure alone restrained us from
+    uttering a shriek of hideous fear. A cold sweat ravaged the
+    starched bosom of our under-garment.
+
+    Suddenly a face peered out from the shadow, and the sickly
+    glare of the flickering gas-lamp fell full upon it.
+
+    The aspect of that face immediately reassured us.
+
+    It was long to grotesqueness and meagre even to weirdness.
+    It would have been strongly Mephistophelic but for an air of
+    joviality that was not wholly saturnine. The eyes were deep,
+    piercing, but "laughter-stirred," as those of Haroun
+    Alraschid. The nose was almost satanically aquiline, but its
+    harsh outline was more than relieved by the long smiling
+    mouth, and the countless wrinkles of merriment that
+    intersected one another in crow's-feet all over the ancient
+    face. The stranger's complexion was that of caout-chouc; and
+    his long lank locks were blacker than the plumage of those
+    yellow-footed birds that prey upon the dead. His whole
+    aspect was that of one who, by some eerie, occult art of
+    self-preservation, had been enabled to live through the
+    centuries.
+
+    "Am I not addressing the celebrated author----?" said the
+    voice of the uncouthly-featured.
+
+    It was a half-merry, half-mocking voice--a deep voice that
+    sounded as though conveyed from a vast distance through the
+    medium of a pneumatic tube.
+
+    It therefore resembled in its tone the dreamily-distant
+    voices never-slumbering Fancy hears in the hours devoted to
+    darkness and slumber by moral people.
+
+    An enormous drop of soot-tinged water fell upon our nose,
+    incontestably proving that we were awake; and we murmured
+    monosyllabic assent to the stranger's query.
+
+    "It is well," replied the Unknown, with a latitudinarian
+    smile of joy. "I have been seeking you. I need your
+    assistance, your talent, your mental vigour so enormously
+    manifested in your cyclopean[7] phrenological development."
+
+        [7] The contrast of this allusion to his large
+            single eye with his morbid shyness about it of
+            late years is noteworthy.
+
+    "_Sapristi_, monsieur!--permit me to inquire the nature
+    of----"
+
+    "Attend a little, friend, and your curiosity shall be sated
+    with ample satisfaction. I have existed as you see through
+    all ages. I have lived under a thousand alias names, under
+    the various regimes of a thousand civilizations, which
+    flourished on ancient soil now covered by the mile-deep
+    waters of foaming oceans. I have made my dwelling-place in
+    the mighty palace-halls of Egyptian kings, in the giant
+    cities of dead Assyria, in the residences of Aztec monarchs
+    and Peruvian Incas, in the snow-columned temples of the
+    Greek, and the lordly homes of the luxurious Roman. In fact,
+    I am rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; and have been
+    worshipped as a genius in far-sparkling planets ere this
+    mundane sphere was first evolved from that flaming orb. In
+    all time when individualized intelligent thought existed, I
+    have inculcated in living beings the truth of that sublime
+    and eternal maxim--Laugh and grow fat. To-day men must be
+    taught this glorious truth by the Bullock Press rather than
+    the Tongue. I want your pen, not your tongue. Write me a
+    salutatory for my new illustrated weekly--only five cents a
+    copy."
+
+    With these words he pressed a glazed Bristol-board card into
+    our trembling hand, and disappeared.
+
+    By the light of the weeping street-lamps we read thereon
+    this weird legend:
+
+                                GIGLAMPZ
+
+The title itself, the Introduction by "Kladderadatsch," and the
+character of the contributions and cuts make it plain that the third
+object of the publication, called "Satire," was designed to be much more
+prominent than "Art" or "Literature." Unquestionably an American
+_Kladderadatsch_ was planned, and by Hearn and his friends it was
+supposed that the editor had a sense of humour sufficient to carry on
+the undertaking. I have quoted the Salutatory to show that with the
+favouring of youth, ambition, opportunity and the best encouragement,
+Hearn's mind from the first line drifted inevitably to the fearsome, the
+weird, the unearthly and far-away. By no power or necessity could his
+imagination be forced or bound to the task of producing things comic or
+even satiric, especially such humour and jokes as the Cincinnati
+newspaper reader wanted in 1874. Of the twelve columns of reading in the
+first number of _Giglampz_, Hearn contributed about eight, made up of
+fifteen or twenty distinct paragraphs. In the second number his
+contributions number seven; in the third, six; in the fourth, three; in
+the fifth, four; in the sixth, two; in the seventh, one; in the eighth,
+one. In about a dozen of the first number, he somewhat unsuccessfully
+tried to be humorous or satiric, while six were frankly tragical,
+critical, bitter, etc. In the succeeding numbers Hearn made little
+effort to be humorous; in the fifth number he describes with startling
+power a picture of "a hideous scene in the interior of a seraglio;" in
+number six he returns to the Orient and in "The Fantasy of a Fan" mixes
+poetry, prose and fancy with a hinting of the subtle soft witchery of
+the Hearn of twenty-five years later.[8] In the second number is a
+full-page cut, in which Beecher is depicted as standing before a crowd
+of jeerers prior to being placed in the stocks, with the scarlet letter
+"A" upon his breast. Hearn especially requested Mr. Farney to make him
+one of the conspicuous spectators. The bespectacled face is easily
+recognizable in the copy given me by the artist. In the seventh number
+Hearn describes in two columns the story he supposes behind the pictured
+Gabriel Max, called "The Last Farewell" (now in the Metropolitan Museum,
+New York). It shows so early suggestions of the manhood strength of the
+wordmaster that I copy it:
+
+    [8] Mr. Farney tells me that he had to compel Hearn, even then,
+        to moderate the boldness of sentences which would by their
+        sensualism and licence shock their Cincinnati readers.
+
+                        THE TALE A PICTURE TELLS
+
+                 "_Butchered to make a Roman Holiday_"
+
+    The remarkably fine engraving from Gabriel Max's picture,
+    "The Last Farewell," in a late issue of the Berlin
+    _Illustrirte Zeitung_ (and which the New York _Graphic_ a
+    few days since stole to spoil in the stealing), is worthy of
+    the celebrated original at Munich--a painting which will
+    never be forgotten by those who have once beheld it. Among
+    modern painters, probably Max has no superior in the art of
+    harmoniously blending the horrible with the pathetic; and in
+    none of his works is this peculiar power exhibited to better
+    advantage than in "The Last Farewell:" a marvel of colour
+    and composition, one of those rare pictures which seem to
+    reflect the living shadows of a dead age with the weird
+    truthfulness of a wizard's mirror.
+
+    A beautiful Roman girl is exposed in the Flavian
+    amphitheatre, to be devoured by wild beasts. She can
+    scarcely be eighteen years old, judging from the slender
+    delicacy of her limbs and the childish sweetness of the
+    pretty little brown face which she has vainly been striving
+    to screen from the rude gaze of the shameless populace with
+    the remnants of a rich black veil--probably torn by the
+    rough hands of some brutal lanista. She leans with her back
+    to the great wall of stone, calmly awaiting her fate without
+    any signs of fear, although the hot, foul breath of a
+    panther is already warm upon her naked feet. To her right,
+    but a few feet away, a leopard and a huge bear are tearing
+    each other to pieces; on her left, another den has just been
+    thrown open, and at its entrance appears the hideous head of
+    an immense tiger, with eyes that flame like emeralds.
+
+    You can almost feel the warmth of the fierce summer sun
+    shining on that scene of blood and crime, falling on the
+    yellow sands of the arena, drying the dark pools of human
+    blood the wild beasts have left unlapped. You can almost
+    hear the deep hum of a hundred thousand voices above, and
+    the hideous growlings of the contending brutes below. You
+    wonder whether there is one heart in all that vast crowd of
+    cruel spectators wherein some faint impulse of humanity
+    still lingers, one tongue charitable enough to exclaim:
+
+    "Poor little thing!"
+
+    No: only wicked whispers followed by coarse laughter;
+    monstrous indifference in the lower tiers, brutal yells of
+    bloodthirsty impatience from the upper seats.
+
+    Two Roman knights relieve the monotony of the scene by
+    strange speculation.
+
+    "One hundred sesterces that the tiger gets her first!"
+
+    "Two hundred on the panther!"
+
+    "Done, by the gods! Where are the lions?"
+
+    "Why, that cursed barbarian killed the last three this
+    morning, one after another. The finest lions of the lot,
+    too."
+
+    "Who are you talking about?--that tall, dark Thracian?"
+
+    "No: he was killed the day before by the same gladiator that
+    killed the lions. I mean that golden-haired giant--that
+    Goth. Says he was chief in his own country, or something.
+    He's killed everybody and everything pitted against him so
+    far. And this morning they put him naked in the arena, with
+    nothing but a mirmillo's shield, and a sword; and let the
+    lions loose on him one after another. I bet a thousand
+    sesterces on that little Numidian lion; but the rascal
+    killed him as he sprang, with one sword-thrust, and I lost
+    my thousand sesterces. By Hercules, that Goth is a match for
+    a dozen lions!"
+
+    "Brave fellow, by all the gods! Did they give him the wooden
+    sword?"
+
+    "Julius Cortonus says they did. I didn't stay to see the
+    rest of the games, for I was too angry about my thousand
+    sesterces."
+
+    "Furies take that tiger!--I believe the brute's afraid of
+    the girl!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Why, it is madness to throw such a fine-limbed girl as that
+    to the lions!" cries a Greek merchant, lately arrived in
+    Rome. "Eyes and hair, by Zeus, like Venus Anadyomene. I
+    could sell her for a fortune in a slave-market."
+
+    "Aedepol! not in a Roman slave-market, you fool. Why, I've
+    known Lucullus to throw better-looking girls than that into
+    his fishpond, to fatten his lampreys with. May Cerberus
+    swallow that cursed tiger!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The tiger has not yet moved; his vast head and flaming green
+    eyes are just visible at the door of the den. The leopard
+    and the bear are still tearing one another. The panther is
+    gradually, stealthily, noiselessly approaching the poor,
+    helpless girl.
+
+    Suddenly a fresh, bright-red rose is thrown from the seats
+    above: it is the last earthly greeting, the last farewell
+    token of some old friend--perhaps a brother, perhaps (O
+    God!) a lover! It falls on the blood-stained sand,
+    shattering itself in perfumed ruin at the maiden's feet.
+
+    She starts as the red leaves scatter before her. She
+    advances from the wall, and boldly withdrawing the fragments
+    of her poor, torn veil, looks up into the mighty sea of
+    pitiless visages--looks up with her sweet, childish,
+    cherry-lipped face, and those great, dark, softly sad Roman
+    eyes--to thank him by a last look of love. "Who can it be?"
+
+    No one the maiden knows. She only sees a seemingly endless
+    row of cruel and sensual faces, the faces of the wild beast
+    populace of Rome,--the faces which smile at the sight of a
+    living human body, torn limb from limb by lions, and
+    scattered over the sands in crimson shreds of flesh....
+
+    Suddenly a terrible yet friendly eye meets and rivets the
+    gaze of her own--an eye keen and coldly-blue as a blade of
+    steel. A sternly handsome Northern face it is, with flowing
+    yellow hair. For an instant the iron lips seem to soften in
+    a smile of pity, and the keen blue eyes become brighter. So
+    do the soft dark ones they meet in that piteous farewell.
+
+    She has found her unknown friend.
+
+    ... A crash--a fierce growl--a faint, helpless cry--a spray
+    of warm, bright blood.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Ah, Caius! you've lost your hundred sesterces. The Fates
+    are against you to-day!"
+
+    "Curse the Fates! Did you see the fool who threw her the
+    rose?"
+
+    "That great tall Titan of a fellow, with the yellow hair?"
+
+    "Yes. That's the Goth."
+
+    "What! the gladiator who killed the lions?"
+
+    "The same who won his freedom this morning. See! the fool's
+    wiping his eyes now. These Goths can fight like Hercules,
+    but they whine like sick women when a girl is hurt. They
+    think up in the North that women are to be worshipped like
+    the immortal gods. I wish they'd make the great red-headed
+    brute go down and kill that cursed tiger!"
+
+Hearn's single contribution to the last number of the fated _Giglampz_
+was a four-column retelling of "the weird story of Loki's evil children
+from the strange folk-lore of Ancient Scandinavia."
+
+It was thus blood, sensualism and fiendishness that still aroused
+Hearn's interest when not only not compelled to the choice, but when
+they were contraindicated and wholly illogical. But it was all a little
+less revolting, less real, more artistic, than the tan-yard reporting,
+and it was drawn from more remote sources. Mr. Henderson suggests the
+same when he writes:
+
+"But it was not in this slavery for a living even to crush out of him
+the determination to advance and excel. In the small hours of morning,
+into broad daylight, after the rough work of the police rounds and the
+writing of perhaps columns, in his inimitable style, he could be seen,
+under merely a poor jet of gas, with his one useful eye close to book
+and manuscript, translating 'One of Cleopatra's Nights.' ...
+
+"An Oriental warmth and glow pervaded him. While his lines were hard
+ones in the grime and soot and trying weather of Cincinnati, from which
+his frail body shrank continually, his trend of thought was largely
+tropical. Perhaps he saw beyond the dusky faces, rolling eyes and broad
+noses of the people of the Cincinnati levee, the mixed people of the
+West Indies and the beautiful little ones of Japan, with whom he was
+destined to live before long. However that may be, his greatest
+pleasure, after a translation from Gautier or an original tragedy where
+he could in his masterful way use his vocabulary of the gruesome, was to
+study and absorb the indolent, sensuous life of the negro race, as he
+found it in Cincinnati and New Orleans, and to steep them in a sense of
+romance that he alone could extract from the study. Things that were
+common to these people in their everyday life, his vivid imagination
+transformed into a subtle melody of romance. The distant booming upon
+the midnight air of a river steamer's whistle was for him the
+roustabout's call to his waiting mistress at the landing, and his
+fruitful pen drew the picture of their watching and coming and meeting."
+
+The words _indolent and sensuous life_ are also significant. The
+tropics, their fatalism and the kind of life there lived were drawing
+him with secret but irresistible force. Now begins to mix with and
+mollify the gruesome a softer element, also Oriental, or what is much
+the same thing, tropical--sympathy with and study of the simple and
+unlettered, those who are the improvident slaves of fate, thoughtless
+impulse or heedless desire. To them, as we shall see, Hearn's mind
+turned more and more. His was essentially an Oriental mind and heart, an
+exotic weed (and weeds may become the loveliest of flowers) dropped by
+some migrating bird upon the strange crabbed soil of the crudest of
+Occidentalism. Never did Hearn stop yearning for the warmth, the
+fatalism and the laziness of tropic semi-barbarism. The gruesome was not
+being killed, but was being modified and tamed by civilization.
+
+Hearn had been discharged from the _Commercial_, where his salary was
+$25 a week, "on an ethical point of policy which need not be discussed
+here. The _Commercial_ took him on at $22." Judge M. F. Wilson, of
+Cincinnati, tells me that his discharge was caused by his seeking a
+licence for and an open marriage with a coloured woman. The licence was
+refused, because illegal at that time. The law was repealed a little
+later. The marriage did not take place.[9]
+
+    [9] Mr. George Mortimer Roe, at that time a friend of Hearn, now
+        living at Long Beach, California, writes me: "Hearn was
+        quite persistent in his efforts to persuade me to assist him
+        in getting the licence, but I told him I could not aid him
+        in his ambition to be guilty of miscegenation. For many
+        years we had been the best of friends, but from that time on
+        he always avoided me, scarcely speaking to me if by accident
+        we did meet."
+
+Mr. Henderson continues thus:
+
+"As Hearn advanced in his power to write, the sense of the discomforts
+of his situation in Cincinnati grew upon him. His body and mind longed
+for the congeniality of southern air and scenes. One morning, after the
+usual hard work of an unusually nasty winter night in Cincinnati, in a
+leisure hour of conversation, he heard an associate on the paper
+describe a scene in a Gulf State. It was something about a grand old
+mansion of an antebellum cotton prince, with its great white columns,
+its beautiful private drive down to the public road, whitewashed
+negro-quarters stretching away in the background, in the distance some
+cypress and live-oaks and Spanish moss, and close by a grove of
+magnolias with their delightful odours and the melody of mocking-birds
+in the early sunlight. Hearn took in every word of this, though he had
+little to say at the time, with great keenness of interest, as shown by
+the dilation of his nostrils. It was as though he could see and hear and
+smell the delights of the scene. Not long after this, on leaving
+Cincinnati for New Orleans, he remarked: 'I have lost my loyalty to this
+paper, and change was inevitable. Perhaps it isn't so much the lack of
+opportunity here or a lack of appreciation of associations as this
+beastly climate. I seem to shrivel up in this alternation of dampness,
+heat and cold. I had to go sooner or later, but it was your description
+of the sunlight and melodies and fragrance and all the delights with
+which the South appeals to the senses that determined me. I shall feel
+better in the South and I believe I shall do better.'"
+
+Some of his Cincinnati acquaintances speak of his obsequious, even
+fawning, manner ("timid and feline of approach," says Henderson), of his
+"washing his hands with invisible water"--characteristics not dictated
+by the parentage ascribed to him, not consonant with his photographs,
+and not wholly with his gruesome traits. He wore heavy myopic spectacles
+at this time, not to see (because they were wholly discarded later), but
+probably in order not to be seen--_i.e._ to hide the double deformity of
+his eyes. One must remember that with or without spectacles the world a
+foot or two away was much of a mystery to Hearn, and that one fears a
+surely existent and near-by mystery. One approaches it or comes within
+its power with doubt, dislike and caution. The play of facial expression
+was not to be seen by Hearn. All Uriah Heeps may not be myopic, but all
+highly myopic persons will have slow, stealthy, careful, even catlike
+attitudes and manners; every step they take must be done with
+hesitation, bowed head and great care, in order not to fall or stumble
+against something. The wholly blind walk with more decision and
+quickness. Of course this slow, soft carefulness of manner, "the velvet
+feline step," was Hearn's all his life. It followed inexorably that,
+though possessed of a healthy and athletic body, there was possible for
+him no athletics which required accuracy of sight or sequent precision
+and celerity of movement. That with good eyes he would have been an
+utterly different man in character and in literature, is as certain as
+that he would have had a very different manner, movement and style of
+physical existence. With good eyes he would have been strong, athletic,
+bold, as is admirably illustrated by the fact that in the single sport
+in which little vision was required--swimming--he was most expert, and
+that he enjoyed this exercise to the fullest degree.
+
+To scale a steeple in order to describe the city from that unusual point
+of view was a task worthy of yellow journalism which cared little for
+accuracy but much for "scare" headlines. Hearn saw little or nothing of
+the city, of course.
+
+The only letters written during the Cincinnati period, known to exist,
+are those of 1876, called, "Letters to a Lady," published in the volume,
+_Letters from the Raven_, Milton Bronner, editor.[10] One other work,
+the origins of which date from this period, is "One of Cleopatra's
+Nights," and with this is demonstrated the beginning of the influence of
+the modern French school of story-writers. Hearn was tiring of the worst
+brutality and coarseness of Occidentalism, and seeking a way to the true
+home of his mind. The ghastly must become the ghostly. The Frenchman's
+art was to become his half-way house.
+
+    [10] Brentano's, 1907.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--THE NEW ORLEANS TIME
+
+
+I HAVE somewhere read of a nomad child of the desert, born and rocked
+upon a camel, who was ever thereafter incapable of resting more than a
+day in one place. Whether or not the wandering father gave the homeless
+son his illogical spirit of unrest, matters less than that Hearn had it
+to a morbid degree. Any place rather than Cincinnati would have been
+better for the happiness and success of the emigrating boy, but his
+relatives had ridded themselves of the burden by assenting to his wish.
+Excepting that to Japan, the only sensible move he made was from
+Cincinnati toward the tropics, to the half-way house thither--New
+Orleans. The desire to seek the _au dela_ was present, his friends tell
+me, throughout the stay in Cincinnati. Perhaps the single city in the
+world which would satisfy his dream more nearly than could any other,
+was New Orleans. Being psychologically for the most part of degenerate
+Latin stock, and especially of the French variety, with the requisite
+admixture of exotic and tropical barbarism; bathed, but not cooked, in
+the hot and brilliant sunshine he loved and hated; touched and energized
+by too little Teutonic blood and influence, New Orleans offered to the
+unhappy man the best possible surroundings for the growth of his
+talents. Adding to this fortunate concensus of circumstance and partly a
+corollary of it was the most fortunate of all accidents that could have
+occurred to him--that is, the existence of a daily newspaper such as the
+_Times-Democrat_; of a paying mass of subscribers relishing Hearn's
+translations from the most artistic French writers of the short-story;
+and, most important of all, the presence on the bridge of the noble
+Captain of the Newspaper enterprise, the veteran editor, Mr. Page M.
+Baker. One shudders to think what would have been Hearn's later career
+had it not been for the guidance and help of this wise, sympathetic and
+magnanimous friend. For the one thing needed by Hearn in those who would
+be his friends rather than their own was magnanimity. It was his
+frequent misfortune in life to come under the influence of those as
+incapable of true unselfishness and real kindness as it was natural for
+them to be cunning and to use an assumed friendship for hidden
+flatteries and purposes of their own. Most of these would not have
+dreamed of associating with the man for any reason other than to stand
+in the reflected light of his literary fame. Most of them had as little
+care for his poetic prose, and as little appreciation or knowledge of
+good literature as they had of "the enclitic _de_." They had no
+magnanimity, only wile instead of it. As Hearn was also deprived of
+large-mindedness in all affairs of the world, he was unhappily prone to
+accept the offered bribe. He wanted above all things to be flattered and
+to do as his imperious impulses and weak will suggested. Any one who
+recognized these things in him and seconded the follies, remained his
+permitted "friend," but those who withstood them in the least and ran
+counter to his morbid trends and resolves--these were speedily
+"dropped," and insulted or grieved to silence. If they had magnanimity,
+they bore with the man in pity and answered his insults with kind words
+and kinder deeds. They recognized that they were responsible not to the
+man but to the carrier of a great talent, and although they might not
+forget, they gladly forgave, if possibly they might speed him on his
+predestined way.
+
+Of this number was Baker. Directly or indirectly through him, came a
+long and happy period of life; came the congenial, educating work,
+without slavery, of the translations and other easy reportorial
+services. Of equal importance were the financial rewards. Before and
+after the New Orleans time not the least of Hearn's misfortunes was his
+intolerable and brutalizing improvidence and impecuniousness. Under
+Baker's friendship he came to what for such a person was affluence and
+independence. He found leisure to read and study and think outside of
+the journalistic pale, and better still, perhaps,--better to his
+thinking, at least--he secured the means to indulge his life-long desire
+for curious and out-of-the-way books. During this time it grew to
+consciousness with him that in everything, except as regards his beloved
+Art, he had a little learned to recognize the worth of money.
+
+But within him grew ever stronger the plague of the unsatisfied, the
+sting of unrest, and he was compelled to obey. In a letter to me from
+Martinique, after he had recognized his mistake, he admits and explains
+as follows:
+
+    I seldom have a chance now to read or speak English; and
+    English phrases that used to seem absolutely natural
+    already begin to look somewhat odd to me. Were I to
+    continue to live here for some years more, I am almost sure
+    that I should find it difficult to write English. The
+    resources of the intellectual life are all lacking
+    here,--no libraries, no books in any language;--a mind
+    accustomed to discipline becomes like a garden long
+    uncultivated, in which the rare flowers return to their
+    primitive savage forms, or are smothered by rank, tough
+    growths which ought to be pulled up and thrown away. Nature
+    does not allow you to think here, or to study seriously, or
+    to work earnestly: revolt against her, and with one subtle
+    touch of fever she leaves you helpless and thoughtless for
+    months.
+
+    But she is so beautiful, nevertheless, that you love her
+    more and more daily,--that you gradually cease to wish to do
+    aught contrary to her local laws and customs. Slowly, you
+    begin to lose all affection for the great Northern nurse
+    that taught you to think, to work, to aspire. Then, after a
+    while, this nude, warm, savage, amorous Southern Nature
+    succeeds in persuading you that labour and effort and
+    purpose are foolish things,--that life is very sweet without
+    them;--and you actually find yourself ready to confess that
+    the aspirations and inspirations born of the struggle for
+    life in the North are all madness,--that they wasted years
+    which might have been delightfully dozed away in a land
+    where the air is always warm, the sea always the colour of
+    sapphire, the woods perpetually green as the plumage of a
+    green parrot.
+
+    I must confess I have had some such experiences. It appears
+    to me impossible to resign myself to living again in a great
+    city and in a cold climate. Of course I shall have to return
+    to the States for a while,--a short while, probably;--but I
+    do not think I will ever settle there. I am apt to become
+    tired of places,--or at least of the disagreeable facts
+    attaching more or less to all places and becoming more and
+    more marked and unendurable the longer one stays. So that
+    ultimately I am sure to wander off somewhere else. You can
+    comprehend how one becomes tired of the very stones of a
+    place,--the odours, the colours, the shapes of Shadows, and
+    the tint of its sky;--and how small irritations become
+    colossal and crushing by years of repetition;--yet perhaps
+    you will not comprehend that one can become weary of a whole
+    system of life, of civilization, even with very limited
+    experience. Such is exactly my present feeling,--an
+    unutterable weariness of the aggressive characteristics of
+    existence in a highly organized society. The higher the
+    social development, the sharper the struggle. One feels this
+    especially in America,--in the nervous centres of the
+    world's activity. One feels it least, I imagine, in the
+    tropics, where it is such an effort just to live, that one
+    has no force left for the effort to expand one's own
+    individuality at the cost of another's. I clearly perceive
+    that a man enamoured of the tropics has but two things to
+    do:--To abandon intellectual work, or to conquer the
+    fascination of Nature. Which I will do will depend upon
+    necessity. I would remain in this zone if I could maintain a
+    certain position here;--to keep it requires means. I can
+    earn only by writing, and yet if I remain a few years more,
+    I will have become (perhaps?) unable to write. So if I am to
+    live in the tropics, as I would like to do, I must earn the
+    means for it in very short order.
+
+    I gave up journalism altogether after leaving N. O. I went
+    to Demerara and visited the lesser West Indies in July and
+    August of last year,--returned to New York after three
+    months with some MS.,--sold it,--felt very unhappy at the
+    idea of staying in New York, where I had good
+    offers,--suddenly made up my mind to go back to the tropics
+    by the same steamer that had brought me. I had no
+    commission, resolved to trust to magazine-work. So far I
+    have just been able to scrape along;--the climate numbs
+    mental life, and the inspirations I hoped for won't come.
+    The real--surpassing imagination--whelms the ideal out of
+    sight and hearing. The world is young here,--not old and
+    wise and grey as in the North; and one must not seek the
+    Holy Ghost in it. I suspect that the material furnished by
+    the tropics can only be utilized in a Northern atmosphere.
+    We will talk about it together.
+
+That he never thought to return to New Orleans is demonstrated by the
+fact that when he left, he shipped his books to another good friend and
+great editor, Mr. Alden, to keep for him. When he came to the United
+States in 1889, he fully intended returning to some tropical land. But
+it was otherwise ordered, and most fortunately, for a year or two more
+of life under such conditions would have killed both mind and body.
+
+Upon Hearn's arrival in New Orleans, he began sending a series of
+charming letters to the Cincinnati _Commercial_, signed "Ozias
+Midwinter."[11] They are, indeed, exquisite, and as certainly of a
+delicacy and beauty which must have made the reader of that time and
+newspaper wonder what strange sort of a correspondent the editor had
+secured. The first letter was about Memphis, passed on his way South. I
+cite some parts to show how the gruesome was merging into or being
+supplanted by something larger and better, and also to illustrate
+Hearn's growing interest in colours.
+
+    [11] Kindly secured by Mr. Alexander Hill, of Cincinnati, Ohio,
+         from a friend and lent to me.
+
+    The stranger, however, is apt to leave Memphis with one
+    charming recollection of the place--the remembrance of the
+    sunset scene from the bluffs across the river over
+    Arkansas. I do not think that any part of the world can
+    offer a more unspeakably beautiful spectacle to the
+    traveller than what he may witness any fair evening from
+    those rugged old bluffs at Memphis. The first time I saw it
+    the day had been perfectly bright and clear,--the blue of
+    the sky was unclouded by the least fleecy stain of white
+    cloud; and the sun descended in the west,--not in a yellow
+    haze, or a crimson fog, but with the splendour of his fiery
+    glory almost undimmed. He seemed to leave no trace of his
+    bright fires behind him; and the sky-blue began to darken
+    into night-purple from the east almost immediately. I
+    thought at first it was one of the least romantic sunsets I
+    had ever seen. It was not until the stars were out, and the
+    night had actually fallen, that I beheld the imperial
+    magnificence of that sunset.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    I once thought, when sailing up the Ohio one bright Northern
+    summer, that the world held nothing more beautiful than the
+    scenery of the Beautiful River--those voluptuous hills with
+    their sweet feminine curves, the elfin gold of that summer
+    haze, and the pale emerald of the river's verdure-reflecting
+    breast. But even the loveliness of the Ohio seemed faded,
+    and the Northern sky-blue palely cold, like the tint of
+    iceberg pinnacles, when I beheld for the first time the
+    splendour of the Mississippi.
+
+    "You must come on deck early to-morrow," said the kind
+    Captain of the _Thompson Dean_; "we are entering the Sugar
+    Country."
+
+    So I saw the sun rise over the cane-fields of Louisiana.
+
+    It rose with a splendour that recalled the manner of its
+    setting at Memphis, but of another colour;--an auroral flush
+    of pale gold and pale green bloomed over the long fringe of
+    cottonwood and cypress trees, and broadened and lengthened
+    half-way round the brightening world. The glow seemed
+    tropical, with the deep green of the trees sharply cutting
+    against it; and one naturally looked for the feathery crests
+    of cocoanut palms. Then the day broke gently and slowly--a
+    day too vast for a rapid dawn--a day that seemed deep as
+    Space. I thought our Northern sky narrow and cramped as a
+    vaulted church-roof beside that sky--a sky so softly
+    beautiful, so purely clear in its immensity, that it made
+    one dream of the tenderness of a woman's eyes made infinite.
+
+    And the giant river broadened to a mile--smooth as a mirror,
+    still and profound as a mountain lake. Between the vastness
+    of the sky and the vastness of the stream, we seemed moving
+    suspended in the midst of day, with only a long, narrow
+    tongue of land on either side breaking the brightness. Yet
+    the horizon never became wholly blue. The green-golden glow
+    lived there all through the day; it was brightest in the
+    south. It was so tropical, that glow;--it seemed of the
+    Pacific, a glow that forms a background to the sight of
+    lagoons and coral reefs and "lands where it is always
+    afternoon."
+
+    Below this glow gleamed another golden green, the glory of
+    the waving cane-fields beyond the trees. Huge sugar-mills
+    were breathing white and black clouds into the sky, as they
+    masticated their mighty meal; and the smell of saccharine
+    sweetness floated to us from either shore. Then we glided by
+    miles of cotton-fields with their fluttering white bolls;
+    and by the mouths of broad bayous;--past swamps dark with
+    cypress gloom, where the grey alligator dwells, and the grey
+    Spanish moss hangs in elfish festoons from ancient
+    trees;--past orange-trees and live-oaks, pecans and
+    cottonwoods and broad-leaved bananas; while the green of the
+    landscape ever varied, from a green so dark that it seemed
+    tinged with blue to an emerald so bright that it seemed shot
+    through with gold. The magnificent old mansions of the
+    Southern planters, built after a generous fashion unknown in
+    the North, with broad verandas and deliciously cool porches,
+    and all painted white or perhaps a pale yellow, looked out
+    grandly across the water from the hearts of shadowy groves;
+    and, like villages of a hundred cottages, the negro quarters
+    dotted the verdant face of the plantation with far-gleaming
+    points of snowy whiteness.
+
+    And still that wondrous glow brightened in the south, like a
+    far-off reflection of sunlight on the Spanish Main.
+
+    "But it does not look now as it used to in the old slave
+    days," said the pilot, as he turned the great wheel. "The
+    swamps were drained, and the plantations were not overgrown
+    with cottonwood; and somehow or other the banks usen't to
+    cave in then as they do now."
+
+    I saw indeed signs of sad ruin on the face of the great
+    plantations; there were splendid houses crumbling to decay,
+    and whole towns of tenantless cabins; estates of immense
+    extent were lying almost unfilled, or with only a few acres
+    under cultivation; and the vigorous cottonwood trees had
+    shot up in whole forests over fields once made fertile by
+    the labour of ten thousand slaves. The scene was not without
+    its melancholy; it seemed tinged by the reflection of a
+    glory passed away--the glory of wealth, and the magnificence
+    of wealth; of riches and the luxury of riches.
+
+    O fair paradise of the South, if still so lovely in thy
+    ruin, what must thou have been in the great day of thy
+    greatest glory!
+
+    White steamboats, heavily panting under their loads of
+    cotton, came toiling by, and called out to us wild greeting
+    long and shrill, until the pilot opened the lips of our
+    giant boat, and her mighty challenge awoke a thousand
+    phantom voices along the winding shore. Red sank the sun in
+    a sea of fire, and bronze-hued clouds piled up against the
+    light, like fairy islands in a sea of glory, such as were
+    seen, perhaps, by the Adelantado of the Seven Cities.
+
+    "Those are not real clouds," said the pilot, turning to the
+    west, his face aglow with the yellow light. "Those are only
+    smoke clouds rising from the sugar mills of Louisiana, and
+    drifting with the evening wind."
+
+    The daylight died away and the stars came out, but that warm
+    glow in the southern horizon only paled, so that it seemed a
+    little further off. The river broadened till it looked with
+    the tropical verdure of its banks like the Ganges, until at
+    last there loomed up a vast line of shadows, dotted with
+    points of light, and through a forest of masts and a host of
+    phantom-white river boats and a wilderness of chimneys the
+    _Thompson Dean_, singing her cheery challenge, steamed up to
+    the mighty levee of New Orleans.
+
+The letters descriptive of New Orleans scenes and life deserve
+republishing had I space for them here. In a brief paragraph, a
+sentence perhaps, almost in a word, is given the photograph, chromatic
+and vitalized in Hearn's unrivalled picturesque style, of the levees,
+the shipping, the sugar-landing, the cotton-shipping, the ocean
+steamers, the strange mixture of peoples from all countries and climes;
+the architecture, streets, markets, etc. The Vendetta of the Sicilian
+immigrants is described with a strength and vividness which bear
+eloquent witness to Hearn's innate pleasure in such themes. There is
+also shown his beginning the study of Creole character, grammar, and
+language. A peculiarly striking picture is painted of the new huge
+cotton-press, as a monster whose jaws open with a low roar to devour the
+immense bale of cotton and to crush it to a few inches of thickness. I
+cannot exclude this excerpt:
+
+    Do you remember that charming little story, "Pere Antoine's
+    Date-Palm," written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and published
+    in the same volume with "Marjorie Daw" and other tales?
+
+    Pere Antoine was a good old French priest, who lived and
+    died in New Orleans. As a boy, he conceived a strong
+    friendship for a fellow student of about his own age, who,
+    in after years, sailed to some tropical island in the
+    Southern Seas, and wedded some darkly beautiful woman,
+    graceful and shapely and tall as a feathery palm. Pere
+    Antoine wrote often to his friend, and their friendship
+    strengthened with the years, until death dissolved it. The
+    young colonist died, and his beautiful wife also passed from
+    the world; but they left a little daughter for some one to
+    take care of.
+
+    The good priest, of course, took care of her, and brought
+    her up at New Orleans. And she grew up graceful and comely
+    as her mother, with all the wild beauty of the South. But
+    the child could not forget the glory of the tropics, the
+    bright lagoon, the white-crested sea roaring over the coral
+    reef, the royal green of the waving palms, and the beauty of
+    the golden-feathered birds that chattered among them.
+
+    So she pined for the tall palms and the bright sea and the
+    wild reef, until there came upon her that strange
+    homesickness which is death; and still dreaming of the
+    beautiful palms, she gradually passed into that great sleep
+    which is dreamless. And she was buried by Pere Antoine near
+    his own home.
+
+    By and by, above the little mound there suddenly came a
+    gleam of green; and mysteriously, slowly, beautifully,
+    there grew up towering in tropical grace above the grave, a
+    princely palm. And the old priest knew that it had grown
+    from the heart of the dead child.
+
+    So the years passed by, and the roaring city grew up about
+    the priest's home and the palm-tree, trying to push Pere
+    Antoine off his land. But he would not be moved. They piled
+    up gold upon his doorsteps and he laughed at them; they went
+    to law with him and he beat them all; and, at last, dying,
+    he passed away true to his trust; for the man who cuts down
+    that palm-tree loses the land that it grows upon.
+
+    "And there it stands," says the Poet, "in the narrow, dingy
+    street, a beautiful dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign
+    lady, whose grace is a joy to the eye, the incense of whose
+    breath makes the air enamoured. May the hand wither that
+    touches her ungently!"
+
+    Now I was desirous above all things to visit the palm made
+    famous by this charming legend, and I spent several days in
+    seeking it. I visited the neighbourhood of the old Place
+    d'Armes--now Jackson Square--and could find no trace of it;
+    then I visited the southern quarter of the city, with its
+    numberless gardens, and I sought for the palm among groves
+    of orange-trees overloaded with their golden fruit, amid
+    broad-leaved bananas, and dark cypresses, and fragrant
+    magnolias and tropical trees of which I did not know the
+    names. Then I found many date-palms. Some were quite young,
+    with their splendid crest of leafy plumes scarcely two feet
+    above the ground; others stood up to a height of thirty or
+    forty feet. Whenever I saw a tall palm, I rang the doorbell
+    and asked if that were Pere Antoine's date-palm. Alas!
+    nobody had ever heard of the Pere Antoine.
+
+    Then I visited the ancient cathedral, founded by the pious
+    Don Andre Almonaster, Regidor of New Orleans, one hundred
+    and fifty years ago; and I asked the old French priest
+    whether they had ever heard of the Pere Antoine. And they
+    answered me that they knew him not, after having searched
+    the ancient archives of the ancient Spanish Cathedral.
+
+    Once I found a magnificent palm, loaded with dates, in a
+    garden on St. Charles Street, so graceful that I felt the
+    full beauty of Solomon's simile as I had never felt it
+    before: "Thy stature is like to a palm-tree." I rang the
+    bell and made inquiry concerning the age of the tree. It was
+    but twenty years old; and I went forth discouraged.
+
+    At last, to my exceeding joy, I found an informant in the
+    person of a good-natured old gentleman, who keeps a quaint
+    bookstore in Commercial Place. The tree was indeed growing,
+    he said, in New Orleans Street, near the French Cathedral,
+    and not far from Congo Square; but there were many legends
+    concerning it. Some said it had been planted over the grave
+    of some Turk or Moor--perhaps a fierce corsair from Algiers
+    or Tunis--who died while sailing up the Mississippi, and was
+    buried on its moist shores. But it was not at all like the
+    other palm-trees in the city, nor did it seem to him to be a
+    date-palm. It was a real Oriental palm; yea, in sooth, such
+    a palm as Solomon spake of in his Love-song of Love-songs.
+
+    "I said, I will go up to the palm-tree; I will take hold of
+    the boughs thereof." ...
+
+    I found it standing in beautiful loneliness in the centre of
+    a dingy woodshed on the north side of New Orleans Street,
+    towering about forty feet above the rickety plank fence of
+    the yard. The gateway was open, and a sign swung above it
+    bearing the name, "M. Michel." I walked in and went up to
+    the palm-tree. A labourer was sawing wood in the back-shed,
+    and I saw through the windows of the little cottage by the
+    gate a family at dinner. I knocked at the cottage-door, and
+    a beautiful Creole woman opened it.
+
+    "May I ask, Madame, whether this palm-tree was truly planted
+    by the Pere Antoine?"
+
+    "Ah, Monsieur, there are many droll stories which they
+    relate of that tree. There are folks who say that a young
+    girl was interred there, and it is also said that a Sultan
+    was buried under that tree--or the son of a Sultan. And
+    there are also some who say that a priest planted it."
+
+    "Was it the Pere Antoine, Madame?"
+
+    "I do not know, Monsieur. There are people also who say that
+    it was planted here by Indians from Florida. But I do not
+    know whether such trees grow in Florida. I have never seen
+    any other palm-tree like it. It is not a date-palm. It
+    flowers every year, with a beautiful yellow blossom the
+    colour of straw, and the blossoms hang down in pretty
+    curves. Oh, it is very graceful! Sometimes it bears fruit, a
+    kind of oily fruit, but not dates. I am told that they make
+    oil from the fruit of such palms."
+
+    I thought it looked so sad, that beautiful tree in the dusty
+    woodyard, with no living green thing near it. As its bright
+    verdant leaves waved against the blue above, one could not
+    but pity it as one would pity some being, fair and feminine
+    and friendless in a strange land. "_Oh, c'est bien
+    gracieux_," murmured the handsome Creole lady.
+
+    "Is it true, Madame, that the owner of the land loses it if
+    he cuts down the tree?"
+
+    "_Mais oui!_ But the proprietors of the ground have always
+    respected the tree, because it is so old, so very old!"
+
+    Then I found the proprietor of the land, and he told me that
+    when the French troops first arrived in this part of the
+    country they noticed that tree. "Why," I exclaimed, "that
+    must have been in the reign of Louis XIV!" "It was in 1679,
+    I believe," he answered. As for the Pere Antoine, he had
+    never heard of him. Neither had he heard of Thomas Bailey
+    Aldrich. So that I departed, mourning for my dead faith in a
+    romance which was beautiful.
+
+Next to his best Japanese studies, I suspect it will finally come to
+recognition that Hearn's greatest service to literature is his
+magnificent series of translations during the New Orleans years. As a
+translator there were given him his data by creative minds. His own
+mental equipment prevented creation, and his clearly set limits as a
+translator added power to his ability and function as a colourist and
+word-artist. His was almost a unique expertness of entering into the
+spirit of his models, refeeling their emotions, reimagining their
+thought and art, and reclothing it with the often somewhat hard and
+stiff material of English weaving. All of their spirit philologically
+possible to be conveyed to us, we may be sure he re-presents. For his
+was the rare power of the instant, the iridescent, the winged word. I
+think it was innate and spontaneous with him, a gift of the inscrutable,
+illogic, and fantastically generous-niggard Fates. All his studies and
+conscious efforts were almost unavailing either to hinder or to further
+its perfection. If to Fate we may not be grateful, we can at least thank
+the weird lesser gods of life for the mysterious wonder of the gift. The
+wealth of loving labour silently offered in the 187 or more translations
+published in the _Times-Democrat_ is marvellous. Hearn brought to my
+house the loose cuttings from the files, and we got them into some order
+in "scrapbooks." But the dates of publication and other details are
+often characteristically wanting. Elsewhere in the present volume the
+titles, etc., of the stories are listed. Preceded by those of "One of
+Cleopatra's Nights," they form a body of literary values which should be
+rescued from the newspaper files and permanently issued in book-form for
+the pleasure and instruction of English readers. To do this I have most
+generously been given permission by Hearn's ever helpful and
+discriminating friend, Mr. Page M. Baker, editor of the
+_Times-Democrat_.
+
+Hearn knew well the difficulties of the translator's art. "One who
+translates for the love of the original will probably have no reward
+save the satisfaction of creating something beautiful and perhaps of
+saving a masterpiece from less reverent hands." So anxious was he to do
+such work that he was willing to pay the publication expenses. As
+pertinent, I copy an editorial of his on the subject, which was
+published in the _Times-Democrat_, during the period in which he was so
+busy as a translator:
+
+    The New York _Nation_ has been publishing in its columns a
+    number of interesting and severe criticisms upon
+    translations from foreign authors. These translations are
+    generally condemned, and with good specifications of
+    reasons,--notwithstanding the fact that some of them have
+    been executed by persons who have obtained quite a popular
+    reputation as translators. One critic dwells very strongly
+    upon the most remarkable weakness of all the renderings in
+    question;--they invariably fail to convey the colour and
+    grace of the original, even when the meaning is otherwise
+    preserved. Speaking of the translators themselves, the
+    reviewer observes: "There is not one _artist_ among them."
+
+    All this is very true; but the writer does not explain the
+    causes of this state of affairs. They are many, no
+    doubt;--the principal fact for consideration being that
+    there is no demand for artistic work in translation. And
+    there is no demand for it, not so much because it is rare
+    and unlikely to be appreciated as because it is dear.
+    Artistic translators cannot afford to work for a
+    song,--neither would they attempt to translate a
+    five-hundred-page novel in three weeks or a month as others
+    do. Again, artistic translators would not care to attach
+    their names to the published translation of a fourth-or
+    fifth-class popular novel. Finally, artistic translations do
+    not obtain a ready market with first-class American
+    publishers, who, indeed, seldom touch domestic translations
+    of foreign fiction, and depend for their translations of
+    European literature upon transatlantic enterprise. Thus the
+    artistic translator may be said to have no field. He may
+    sell his work to some petty publisher, perhaps, but only at
+    a price that were almost absurd to mention;--and the
+    first-class publishers do not care to speculate in American
+    translations at all. We might also add that the
+    translator's task is always a thankless one,--that however
+    superb and laborious his execution, it can never obtain much
+    public notice, nor even so much as public comprehension. The
+    original author will be admired,--the translator unnoticed,
+    except by a few critics.
+
+    Moreover, the men capable of making the most artistic
+    translations are usually better employed. The translator of
+    a great French, German, or Italian masterpiece of style,
+    ought, in the eternal fitness of things, to be a man able to
+    write something very artistic in his own tongue. No one
+    seems to doubt that Longfellow was the man to translate
+    Dante,--that Tennyson could parallel Homer (as he has shown
+    by a wonderful effort) in the nineteenth-century
+    English,--that Carlyle re-created Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister"
+    by his rendering of it,--that Austin Dobson was the first to
+    teach English readers some of the beauties of Gautier's
+    poetry,--that Swinburne alone could have made Francois
+    Villon adopt an English garb which exactly fitted him. But
+    the same readers perhaps never gave a thought to the fact
+    that the works of Flaubert, of Daudet, of Droz, of Hugo, of
+    at least a score of other European writers, call for work of
+    an almost equally high class on the part of the translator,
+    and never receive it! What a translation of Daudet could not
+    Henry James give us!--how admirably John Addington Symonds
+    could reproduce for us the Venetian richness of Paul de
+    Saint Victor's style! But such men are not likely to be
+    invited, on either side of the Atlantic, to do such
+    work;--neither are they likely to do it as a labour of love!
+    A splended translation of Flaubert might be expected from
+    several members of what is called "The New England School;"
+    but what Boston publisher would engage his favourite
+    literary man in such pursuits? It is really doubtful whether
+    the men most capable of making artistic translations could
+    afford, under any ordinary circumstances, to undertake much
+    work of the kind, except as a literary recreation. At all
+    events, the English-reading world cannot hereafter expect to
+    obtain its translations from other European languages
+    through the labour of the best writers in its own. The only
+    hope is, that the recklessness shown by publishers in their
+    choice of translators will provoke a reaction, and that such
+    work will be more generously remunerated and entrusted to
+    real experts hereafter.
+
+    It is unfortunately true that the translators who work for
+    English publishers are far more competent than those who do
+    similar work in the United States; forasmuch as
+    transatlantic firms are glad to print cheap popular
+    translations, while only inferior American firms care to
+    undertake them. Another obstacle to good translations in the
+    United States is that none of the great literary periodicals
+    will devote space to them. The English and the French
+    magazines and reviews are less conservative, and some very
+    wonderful translations have been published by them. Artistic
+    translation might be admirably developed in this country by
+    the establishment of a new magazine-policy.
+
+The wise reader, if he is also a sincere friend of Hearn, must wish that
+the correspondence published had been limited to the first volume. Room
+aplenty in this could have been made for the dozen valuable paragraphs
+contained in the second. It is not strange that the letters of Hearn
+worth saving were written before his departure for Japan. He repeatedly
+had urged that letter-writing both financially and mentally was
+expensive to the writer. In Japan he was so incessantly busy, much with
+his teaching and more with his real literary work, that time and will
+were wanting for that sort of letters which are of interest to the
+general reader. The interest of the person addressed is another affair.
+The dreary half-thousand pages of the correspondence of the Japanese
+time are most disappointing to one who has been thrilled by almost every
+page of the incomparable letters to Krehbiel and to a few others.
+Besides the two reasons for this which I have suggested, there are
+others which may perhaps be evident to some judicious readers, but which
+at this time may scarcely be plainly stated. At present the trees are so
+thick that the forest cannot be seen, but some day an amused and an
+amusing smile of recognition and disgust will curl the lips of the
+literary critic. There are two other considerations which should be held
+in mind: One of them was brought to me by a correspondent of Hearn who
+had frequently noted it; sometimes (has it happened before?) Hearn used
+his "friend" to whom he was writing, as a sort of method of exercising
+his own fancy, as a gymnastics in putting his imagination through its
+paces, or for a preliminary sketching in of notes and reminders to be of
+possible use in later serious work. Moreover, the plan was of service in
+rewarding his correspondents for their praise and appreciation. Of a
+far more substantial character were the letters sometimes written in
+gratitude for money received. Hearn flattered himself, as we know, that
+he was without "cunning," but there is at least one exquisitely
+ludicrous letter in existence which shows an inverted proof of it, in
+the execution of an Indian war-dance, because of "the ways and means"
+furnished.
+
+As published, Hearn's letters may be classified as follows: To
+
+    Krehbiel                1887 (3); 1878 (5);  1879 (2);
+                            1880 (3); 1881 (4);  1882 (4);
+                            1883 (4); 1884 (13); 1885 (8);
+                            1886 (6); 1887 (4)                    56
+    Hart                    1882 (3); 1883 (1)                     4
+    Ball                    1882 (2); 1883 (4);  1885 (3)          9
+    O'Connor                1883 (4); 1884 (2);  1885 (2);
+                            1886 (2); 1887 (2)                    12
+    Albee                   1883 (1); 1898 (2)                     3
+    Gould                   1887 (5); 1888 (4);  1889 (8)         17
+    Bisland                 1887 (8); 1889 (11); 1890 (3);
+                            1900 (1); 1902 (3);  1903 (9);
+                            1904 (1)                              36
+    Tunison                 1889 (1)                               1
+    Chamberlain             1890 (7); 1891 (13);
+                            1895 (22)                             42
+    Nishida                 1890 (2); 1891 (2); 1892 (2);
+                            1893 (9); 1894 (2); 1895 (3);
+                            1896 (3); 1897 (2)                    25
+    Hirn                    1890 (1); 1902 (5); 1903 (1)           7
+    Baker                   1891 (1); 1892 (1); 1894 (1);
+                            1895 (3); 1896 (2)                     8
+    Hendrick                1891 (2); 1892 (4); 1893 (10);
+                            1894 (6); 1895 (6); 1896 (9);
+                            1897 (7); 1898 (2); 1902 (2)          48
+    Otani                   1891 (1); 1892 (1); 1894 (1);
+                            1897 (1); 1898 (2); 1900 (1)           7
+    Ochiai                  1893 (2); 1894 (2); 1896 (2)           6
+    McDonald                1897 (10); 1898 (25); 1899 (19)       54
+    Fenollosa               1898 (3); 1899 (2)                     5
+    Blank                   1898                                   1
+    Foxwell                 1899                                   2
+    Yasuchochi              1901                                   1
+    Tanabe                  1904                                   1
+    Crosby                  1904                                   1
+    Fujisaki                1904                                   1
+                                                                 ---
+                                                                 347
+
+Besides these, the valuable series of "Letters from a Raven," and the
+sixteen in the same volume "To a Lady" are noteworthy. The latter are of
+little value either for biography or literature. But the letters to
+Watkin are so sincere, often childlike, indeed, that they will be prized
+by the discriminating. Another admirable series, copies of which I have,
+is made up of letters to Professor R. Matas, of New Orleans. To these it
+is hoped will sometime be added those which must exist, to Mr. Alden,
+who was an early and sincere friend. There are a number of unpublished
+letters to Gould, and the published ones have been so mutilated that
+they should be correctly republished. Almost anything written by Hearn
+before he went to Japan, or in some instances reflecting friendships and
+feelings existing before he sailed, may prove of as inestimable value as
+most letters written thereafter will probably be found valueless.
+
+It is noteworthy that the first series, edited by Miss Bisland, was
+commenced in 1877, when Hearn was twenty-seven years of age, and that
+for many years Mr. Krehbiel was almost his sole correspondent. But the
+inimitable perfection and preciousness of these fifty-six letters! They
+are well worth all his other set productions, published or burned, of
+the same years. Many are singly worth all the rest of our letters. Here
+the dreamer--and a dreamer he always was until he got out of his
+cocoon--was sincere, hopeful, planful, as playful as his sombre mind
+would permit, but always magnificently, even startlingly, unreserved.
+Remembering that Hearn's mind was essentially an echoing and a
+colouring mechanism, it is at once a glorious tribute to, and a
+superlative merit of Mr. Krehbiel to have given the primary and
+stimulating voice to the always listening dreamer. To have swerved him
+out of his predestined role so much as to make these pages so
+astonishingly full of _musical_ reverberations, is a tribute to his own
+musical enthusiasm and power as it is also a demonstration of the
+echo-like, but fundamentally unmusical, nature of his friend's mind. If
+only in the final edition of Hearn's works, these letters with
+selections of some pages from a few others, could be made into a handy,
+small, and cheap volume for the delighting of the appreciators of
+literature and of literary character! Comparison of the spiritual and
+almost _spirituelle_ flashings of these, with the ponderous and banal
+sogginess of hundreds upon hundreds of other pages of his letters,
+arouses the profound regret that Hearn to the world was "impossible,"
+that, as he says, he "could not mingle with men," that no other voices
+ever so intimately reached the heart of him, or of his dreaming. Even
+here the amazing coloration furnished by "The Dreamer," as he calls
+himself, makes us at times feel that the magic of the word-artist and
+colour-mixer was almost superior to the enduring and awakening reality
+of Mr. Krehbiel. To this friend, as he writes, he spoke of his thoughts
+and fancies, wishes and disappointments, frailties, follies, and
+failures, and successes--even as to a brother. And that was not all he
+saw and heard in "his enchanted City of Dreams."
+
+The slavery to ignoble journalism, what he calls a "really nefarious
+profession," was to be resolutely renounced from the day of his arrival
+in New Orleans. It is "a horrid life," he "could not stand the
+gaslight;" he "damned reportorial work and correspondence, and the
+American disposition to work people to death, and the American delight
+in getting worked to death;" he rebelled against becoming a part of the
+revolving machinery of a newspaper, because "journalism dwarfs,
+stifles, emasculates thought and style," and he was bound to "produce
+something better in point of literary execution."
+
+There was also a not frankly confessed resolve to become respectable in
+other ways, and to be done with a kind of entanglement of which he was
+painfully conscious in the Cincinnati life. "I think I can redeem myself
+socially here! I have got into good society;" "it is better to live here
+in sackcloth and ashes, than to own the whole State of Ohio," he writes,
+and he is proud of living in a Latin city. He recognizes what Mr.
+Krehbiel calls his "peculiar and unfortunate disposition," and which he
+later sets forth as "a very small, erratic, eccentric, irregular,
+impulsive, variable, nervous disposition." Hearn visits a few friends
+awhile and then disappears for six months, so that he wishes to be
+hidden in New York except to Krehbiel and Tunison; he will pay a visit
+to the others he must see just before leaving town--for he is a
+"demophobe." He tried a secret partnership in keeping a restaurant, and
+thought to carry on a little French bookstore. He resolved at different
+times to go to Europe, to Cuba, to Texas, to Cincinnati, and planned all
+sorts of occupations.
+
+The indications soon multiply that in more ways than in worldly matters
+he is at variance with his world. He "regards thought as a mechanical
+process;" he has "no faith in any faith;" "individual life is a particle
+of that eternal force of which we know so little;" "Soul = Cerebral
+Activity = Soul;" Jesus is a legend and myth; he is "not a believer in
+free will, nor in the individual soul," etc. Think of a man writing to a
+Christian minister, think of a Christian minister receiving without
+protest a personal letter with this in it: "Nor can I feel more
+reverence for the crucified deity than for that image of the Hindoo god
+of light holding in one of his many hands Phallus, and yet wearing a
+necklace of skulls, etc."
+
+And Hearn, as to ethics, has the courage to write his friend of his
+convictions: "Passion was the inspiring breath of Greek art and the
+mother of language; its gratification the act of a creator, and the
+divinest rite of Nature's temple." In other letters, unpublished, that
+exist, Hearn is morbidly frank as to sexual licence and practices. In
+tropical cities there is "no time for friendship--only passion for
+women, and brief acquaintance for men." Without the influence of
+sexualism there can be no real greatness; "the mind remains arid and
+desolate," and he quotes approvingly:--"Virginity, Mysticism,
+Melancholy--three unknown words, three new maladies brought among us by
+the Christ," etc. "I do not find it possible to persuade myself that the
+'mad excess of love' should not be indulged in by mankind," introduces a
+brilliant page upon the theme, ending with, "after all what else do we
+live for--ephemerae that we are?" To my protest he wrote, "'Moral'
+feelings are those into which the sexual instinct does not visibly
+enter;" and again, "The sexual sense never tells a _physical_ lie. It
+only tells an ethical one." There is, to be sure, no answer to a man who
+says such things.
+
+It is astonishing, how conscious and at the same time how careless Hearn
+was of his characteristics and trends. In 1878 he could coldly prepare
+to attempt a get-rich-quick scheme, "a fraud, which will pay like hell,
+an advertising fraud," etc., because "there is no money in honest work."
+At this time also he knew that his own wandering passion was "the
+strongest of all," and that his deepest desire was "to wander forever
+here and there until he should get old and apish and grey and die." His
+misfortunes he confessed were of his own making because it was
+absolutely out of the question for him to "keep any single situation for
+any great length of time," hating the mere idea of it, "impossible to
+stay anywhere without getting into trouble." "No one ever lived who
+seemed more a creature of circumstance than I," he correctly avows. He
+recognizes that "the unexpected obstacle to success was usually erected
+by himself."
+
+He acknowledges his ignorance and escapes from it and from the labour,
+expense, and duty of scholarship by flying, as many others have done, to
+the world of Imagination, which alone is left to him. "It allows of a
+vagueness of expression which hides the absence of real knowledge, and
+dispenses with the necessity of technical precision and detail." He
+"never reads a book which does not powerfully impress the imagination."
+Knowing that he has not true and real genius, he "pledges himself to the
+worship of the Odd, the Queer, the Strange, the Exotic, the Monstrous.
+It quite suits my temperament," and he "hopes to succeed in attracting
+some little attention." The monstrous, the enormous, and the lurid, is
+sought in the letters. The sentence at the bottom of page 226, Volume
+One of the "Life and Letters," and the ghastly story, pages 322-323,
+show the gruesome still much alive, and page 306 that blood, fury, and
+frenzy haunt his nightmare dreams. "In history one should only seek the
+extraordinary, the monstrous, the terrible; in mythology the most
+fantastic and sensuous, just as in romance," And yet he defends himself
+as a lover of Greek art, detests "the fantastic beauty that is Gothic,"
+yet prides himself on being Arabesque. Even the love of Beaudelaire
+creeps in, and the brutal, horrible photograph of Gautier is "grander
+than he imagined." Of course to such a mind Matthew Arnold is a
+"colossal humbug"--and worse.
+
+With increasing frequency are repeated the complaints of
+disillusionment; he is frightened at the loss even of the love of the
+beautiful, and his friend tries in vain to rouse him from his ghost-life
+and dreaming. There are absurd excuses why he cannot work; when among
+beautiful things he cannot write of them, when he is away he is longing
+for them; there are months when he cannot do anything, and a little
+thing is produced with great pain and labour. "The old enthusiasm has
+completely died out of me." The people and the city are adequately
+cursed, and upon the debilitating climate is laid a proper and
+ever-repeated anathema. He loathes the North, especially New York City,
+"shudders at the bare idea of cold;" he yearns and pines for a still
+more tropical country which he knows may kill him, and which came near
+doing so. The _Wanderlust_ is upon him as passages on pages 183, 193,
+196, 197, 207, 215, 223, 224, 398 of Volume One of the "Life and
+Letters" illustrate. At last he is off for Martinique, where work and
+even thought are still more impossible because of the benumbing heat.
+
+Here follows a list of the unsigned editorials contributed by Hearn to
+his paper. It is made up from two of the scrap-books left me, and is
+entitled:
+
+SUNDAY AND SPECIAL EDITORIALS BY LAFCADIO HEARN FOR THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT,
+1885-1887.
+
+    1. The "Peronospora Ferrani" and Cholera Vaccination.
+    2. Literary Pessimism.
+    3. "The Song Celestial."
+    4. The Canonization of the Mahdi.
+    5. "Successor of Tamerlane."
+    6. The World's Journalism.
+    7. A Scientific Novelty.
+    8. The Jewish Question in Europe (Suppressed by the management).
+    9. Russian Literature Abroad.
+    10. The European Trouble.
+    11. Missionaries as Linguists.
+    12. Courbet.
+    13. Poetry and Pay.
+    14. The Present and Future of India.
+    15. An Archaeological Novel.
+    16. An Evolutional History.
+    17. A New Pompeii.
+    18. Archaeology in Cambodia.
+    19. The Great "I-Am."
+    20. A Terrible Novel.
+    21. The Latin Church in the East and Bismarck.
+    22. English Policy in China.
+    23. The Fear of Death.
+    24. A Danger to Egypt--The Senousiya.
+    25. Archaeological News from China.
+    26. Icelandic Prospects.
+    27. A Great English Physician.
+    28. Academical Triumphs.
+    29. The Magician of Paris.
+    30. Tolstoi's Vanity of Wisdom.
+    31. "Minos."
+    32. Newspapers and Religion.
+    33. Minos.
+    34. A Concord Compromise.
+    35. De Mercier on Dante.
+    36. The Origin of Christmas.
+    37. "Immortality" according to Dr. Holland.
+    38. The Future of Idealism.
+    39. "Solitude."
+    40. Dr. Holland's Defenders.
+    41. The Religion of Suffering.
+    42. The Ruins of Carthage.
+    43. A Defence of Pessimism.
+    44. Over-Education in Germany.
+    45. Decadence as a Fine Art.
+    46. Use of the Eye or the Ear in Learning Languages.
+    47. The Shadow of the "Light of Asia."
+    48. The Jew upon the Stage.
+    49. Some Theosophical Iconoclasm.
+    50. "Hamlet's Note-Book."
+    51. The Invasion of the Desert.
+    52. Resurrected AEstheticism.
+    53. Translations.
+    54. Nihilistic Literature in the United States.
+    55. Some Human Frailty.
+    56. An Art-Reformer.
+    57. Some Notes on Creole Literature.
+    58. The Scientific Value of Creole.
+    59. "l'OEuvre."
+    60. A Havanese Romance.
+    61. Some Supposed Sanscrit Translations.
+    62. The Omnivorous Newspaper.
+    63. A Religious Nightmare.
+    64. Joaquin Miller.
+    65. Pictures vs. Text.
+    66. "Follow the Donkey Path."
+    67. A Sketch of the Creole Patois.
+    68. In Spain.
+    69. Chinese Belief in God.
+    70. "Towards the Gulf."
+    71. Tennyson's Locksley Hall.
+    72. "Doesn't Want Any Progress."
+    73. The Howard Memorial Library--A Letter from Charles Dudley Warner.
+    74. A Definitive Rossetti.
+    75. The Chinese Future.
+    76. Artistic Value of Myopia.
+    77. Colours and Emotions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--AT MARTINIQUE
+
+
+THE lure of the Sea and of the Unknown was upon Hearn during the entire
+stay at New Orleans. How deeply it entered his heart is shown in a
+fragment rescued by his friend, Dr. Matas, which has been kindly sent
+me. The copy is in print, but when and where it was published we have
+been unable to learn. It was probably written in 1885 or 1886. As it
+gives glimpses at once into Hearn's mind, of his fateful desire to roam,
+of his Nature-love, and, better, of his growing mastery of technic and
+imagery, I reproduce herewith the fragment, which he entitled:
+
+                               GULF WINDS
+
+    Golden oranges piled up in bins,--apples of the Southern
+    Hesperides;--a medley of meridional tongues,--silky Latin
+    tongues and their silkier patois; Chinese buyers yellow as
+    bananas, quadroons with skin like dead gold; swarthy sailors
+    from the Antilles; sharp odours of fruit freshly
+    disembarked;--all the semi-tropical sights and sounds of the
+    French market. I stood beside an orange-bin; and priced the
+    fruit. Fifty cents a hundred! While wondering how much the
+    fruit-vender's profit could possibly be, I was insensibly
+    attracted by something unusual in his face--a shadow of the
+    beauty of the antique world seemed to rest upon it. "Are you
+    not a Greek?" I asked, for there was no mistaking the
+    metoposcopy of that head. Yes; he was from Zante--first a
+    sailor, now a fruit-vender; some day, perhaps, he would be a
+    merchant.
+
+    It is among those who sell, not among those who buy, that
+    the most curious studies of human nature and of the human
+    face are to be made in the French market. These dealers are
+    by no means usually French, but they are mostly from the
+    Mediterranean coasts and the Levant--from Sicily and Cyprus,
+    Corsica and Malta, the Ionian Archipelago, and a hundred
+    cities fringing the coasts of Southern Europe. They are
+    wanderers, who have wandered all over the face of the earth
+    to find rest at last in this city of the South; they are
+    sailors who have sailed all seas, and sunned themselves at a
+    hundred tropical ports, and finally anchored their lives by
+    the levee of New Orleans. The Neapolitan Italian, the
+    Spaniard, the Corsican, the Levantine Greek, seek rest from
+    storm here, in a clime akin to their own and under a sky as
+    divinely blue, and at a port not far distant from their
+    beloved sea. For these Levantine sailors hate dusty inland
+    cities and the dry air of the Great West.
+
+    If you, O reader, chance to be a child of the sea;--if, in
+    early childhood, you listened each morning and evening to
+    that most ancient and mystic hymn-chant of the waves, which
+    none can hear without awe, and which no musician can
+    learn;--if you have ever watched wonderingly the far sails
+    of the fishing-vessels turn rosy in the blush of sunset, or
+    silver under the moon, or golden in the glow of sunrise;--if
+    you once breathed as your native air the divine breath of
+    the ocean, and learned the swimmer's art from the hoary
+    breakers, and received the Ocean-god's christening, the
+    glorious baptism of salt,--then, perhaps, you know only too
+    well why these sailors of the Levant cannot seek homes
+    within the heart of the land. Twenty years may have passed
+    since your ears last caught the thunder of that mighty ode
+    of hexameters which the sea has always sung and will sing
+    forever, since your eyes sought the far line where the
+    vaulted blue of heaven touches the level immensity of
+    rolling water,--since you breathed the breath of the ocean,
+    and felt its clear ozone living in your veins like an
+    elixir. Have you forgotten the mighty measure of that mighty
+    song? have you forgotten the divine saltiness of that
+    unfettered wind? Is not the spell of the sea strong upon you
+    still?
+
+    So that when the long, burning summer comes, and the city
+    roars dustily around you, and your ears are filled with the
+    droning hum of machinery, and your heart full of the
+    bitterness of the struggle for life, there comes to you at
+    long intervals in the dingy office or the crowded street
+    some memory of white breakers and vast stretches of wrinkled
+    sand and far-fluttering breezes that seem to whisper,
+    "Come!"
+
+    So that when the silent night comes,--you find yourself
+    revisiting in dreams those ocean-shores thousands of miles
+    away. The wrinkled sand, ever shifting yet ever the same,
+    has the same old familiar patches of vari-coloured weeds and
+    shining rocks along its level expanse: and the thunder-chant
+    of the sea which echoes round the world, eternal yet ever
+    new, is rolling up to heaven. The glad waves leap up to
+    embrace you; the free winds shout welcome in your ears;
+    white sails are shining in the west; white sea-birds are
+    flying over the gleaming swells. And from the infinite
+    expanse of eternal sky and everlasting sea, there comes to
+    you, with the heavenly ocean-breeze, a thrilling sense of
+    unbounded freedom, a delicious feeling as of life renewed,
+    an ecstasy as of life restored. And so you start into
+    wakefulness with the thunder of that sea-dream in your ears
+    and tears of regret in your eyes to find about you only heat
+    and dust and toil; the awakening rumble of traffic, and "the
+    city sickening on its own thick breath."
+
+    And I think that the Levantine sailors dare not dwell in the
+    midst of the land, for fear lest dreams of a shadowy sea
+    might come upon them in the night, and phantom winds call
+    wildly to them in their sleep, and they might wake to find
+    themselves a thousand miles beyond the voice of the
+    breakers.
+
+    Sometimes, I doubt not, these swarthy sellers of fruit,
+    whose black eyes sparkle with the sparkle of the sea, and
+    whose voices own the tones of ocean-winds, sicken when a
+    glorious breeze from the Gulf enters the city, shaking the
+    blossoms from the magnolia-trees and the orange-groves.
+    Sometimes, I doubt not, they forsake their Southern home
+    when the dream comes upon them, and take ship for the
+    Spanish Main. Yet I think most men may wake here from the
+    dreams of the sea, and rest again. It is true that you
+    cannot hear the voice of the hoary breakers in the
+    moonlight,--only the long panting of the cotton-presses, the
+    shouting of the boats calling upon each other through the
+    tropical night, and the ceaseless song of night-birds and
+    crickets. But the sea-ships, with their white wings folded,
+    are slumbering at the wharves; the sea-winds are blowing
+    through the moon-lit streets, and from the South arises a
+    wondrous pale glow, like the far reflection of the emerald
+    green of the ocean. So that the Greek sailor, awaking from
+    the vision of winds and waves, may join three fingers of his
+    right hand, after the manner of the Eastern Church, and
+    cross himself, and sleep again in peace.
+
+Hearn left New Orleans in July, 1887, and was soon settled at St.
+Pierre, Martinique. His letters to Dr. Matas form the principal sources
+of information concerning himself and his work during his stay there.
+From them I choose a few selections which bear upon his literary
+labours. At first, of course, all is perfection:
+
+    I am absolutely bewitched, and resolved to settle down
+    somewhere in the West Indies. Martinique is simply heaven
+    on earth. You must imagine a community whose only vices are
+    erotic. There are no thieves, no roughs, no snobs.
+    Everything is primitive and morally pure--except in the
+    only particular where purity would be out of harmony with
+    natural conditions. As for the climate, it is
+    divine--though this is the worst season.
+
+    And I have begun to hate all that is energetic, swift, rapid
+    in thought or action, all rivalry, all competition, all
+    striving in the race of success. It is just enough to live
+    here: no, it is too much!--it is more than any ordinary
+    human being deserves to enjoy. It makes one feel like crying
+    for joy just to look about one.
+
+    Couldn't I induce you to abandon the beastly civilization of
+    the U. S., and live somewhere down here forever
+    more,--where everybody is honest and good-natured and
+    courteous, and where everything is divine? Man was not
+    intended to work in this part of the world: while you are
+    here, you cannot quite persuade yourself you are awake,--it
+    is a dream of eternal beauty,--all the musky winds, all the
+    flower-months of Paradise! New Orleans is the most infernal
+    hole in the entire Cosmos. Don't live in it! Confound fame
+    and wealth and reputation and splendour. You don't need any
+    of these things here; they are superfluous; they are
+    obsolete; they are nuisances; they are living curses. Settle
+    here. Humming-birds will fly into your chamber to wake you
+    up. What on earth you can find to live for in the U.S. I am
+    now at a loss to see. You'll get old there;--here you will
+    remain eternally young: the palms distil Elixir Vitae.
+
+    But it is simply foolishness to write to you--because I
+    can't write about this place. All ambition to write has been
+    paralyzed--let Nature do the writing--in green, azure and
+    gold!
+
+[Illustration: LAFCADIO HEARN. _From a Photograph taken at Martinique,
+August 24th, 1888._]
+
+                (Letter from St. Pierre, July 30, 1887.)
+
+    I am not at all sure of my literary future,--I do not mean
+    pecuniarily, for I never allow that question to seriously
+    bother me: to write simply to make money is to be a d----d
+    fraud, so long as one can aim at higher things. But I do
+    not feel the same impulses and inspirations and power to
+    create;--I have been passing through a sort of crisis,--out
+    of enthusiasm into reality and I do not feel so mentally
+    strong as I ought. The climate had much to do with it in
+    the beginning, causing a serious weakness of memory;--that
+    is now passed; but I feel as if _mon ame avait perdu ses
+    ailes_. Perhaps something healthier and stronger may come
+    of it; but in the meanwhile I suffer from great
+    disquietude, and occasional very black ideas; and praise
+    sounds to me like a malicious joke, because I feel that my
+    work has been damnably bad. The fact that I _know_ it has
+    been bad, encourages me to believe I may do better, and
+    find confidence in myself.
+
+    I have enough MS. for a volume of French colonial sketches,
+    and do not think I will be able to do much more with
+    Martinique for the present; but I also have accumulated
+    material out of which something will probably grow. I would
+    now like to attempt some Spanish studies.
+
+    Northern air will do me good, though I do not like the idea
+    of living in it. But when, after all this stupid, brutal,
+    never-varying heat, you steam North, and the constellations
+    change, and the moon stands up on her feet instead of lying
+    on her back lasciviously,--and the first grand whiff of cold
+    air comes like the advent of a Ghost,--Lord! how one's
+    brain suddenly clears and thrills into working order. It is
+    like a new soul breathed into your being through the
+    nostrils--after the Creator's fashion of animating his Adam
+    of clay.
+
+    Perhaps you think I have been a poor correspondent. You can
+    scarcely imagine the difficulties of maintaining a friendly
+    chat by letter while trying to do literary work here. Most
+    people who attempt literature here either give it up after a
+    short time, or go to the graveyard: there are a few
+    giants,--like Dr. Rufz de Lavison (who never finished his
+    Etudes nevertheless), Davey the historian; Dessalles who
+    suddenly disappeared leaving his history incomplete. But I
+    fear I am no giant. At 2 or 2.30 p.m. if you try to write,
+    your head feels as if a heated feather pillow had been
+    stuffed into your skull. To write at all one must utilize
+    the morning;--that is given to make the pot boil: one can
+    write letters only at intervals, paragraph by paragraph, or
+    between solid chapters of downright wearing-out work.
+
+    Nevertheless, one learns to love this land so much as to be
+    quite willing to abandon anything and everything to live in
+    it. As in the old Sunday-school hymn, "only man is vile:"
+    nature and Woman are unspeakably sweet.
+
+    I suppose I will not be able to meet you in New York this
+    fall: you will be too busy. Next summer it will be possible,
+    I hope. Perhaps you will have the pleasure of a little book
+    or two from me during the cold weather: I will revise things
+    in New York. It has been a horrible agony to have my stuff
+    printed without being able to see the proofs, and full of
+    mistakes. "Chita" has been a great literary
+    success--contrary to expectation. I find success is not
+    decided by the press, nor by first effect on the public:
+    opinions of literary men count much more, and these have
+    been better than I imagined they could be. (1887)
+
+    Well, I am caught! The tropics have me, for better or worse,
+    so long as I live. Life in a great northern city again would
+    be a horror insupportable. Yet I have had great pain here. I
+    have been four months without a cent of money where nobody
+    would trust me: you know what that means, if you have ever
+    had a rough-and-tough year or two: otherwise you could not
+    imagine it. I have had disillusions in number. I find worst
+    of all, there is no inspiration in the tropics,--no poetry,
+    no aspiration, no self-sacrifice, no human effort. Now, that
+    I can go where I like, do as I please--for I have won the
+    fight after all,--I still prefer one year of Martinique to a
+    thousand years of New York. What is it? Am I demoralized; or
+    am I simply better informed than before? I don't really
+    know. (1887)
+
+                               New York, September 29, 1887.[12]
+
+        [12] Written during a brief stay in New York,
+             whither he had gone in the fall of 1887.
+
+    Dear Friend Matas:--I am going back to the
+    tropics,--probably for many years. My venture has been more
+    successful than I ever hoped; and I find myself able to
+    abandon journalism, with all its pettinesses, cowardices,
+    and selfishnesses, forever. I am able hereafter to devote
+    myself to what you always said was my _forte_: the study of
+    tropical Nature--God's Nature,--violent, splendid, nude, and
+    pure. I never hoped for such fortune. It has come unasked. I
+    am almost afraid to think it is true. I am afraid to be
+    happy!
+
+                          _c/o_ Dr. George M. Gould,
+                                  119 South Seventeenth St.,
+                                      Philadelphia, June 5, 1889.
+
+    Dear Friend Matas:--Your letter of March 21 only reached me
+    to-day, June 5th; but made me very glad to get it. I have
+    been back from the West Indies about three weeks--do not
+    know how long I shall stay. It seemed like tearing my heart
+    out to leave Martinique; and though I am now in one of the
+    most beautiful cities in the world, among dear friends, and
+    with the splendid spectacle before me of man's grandest
+    efforts--not a wild cyclone of electricity and iron like New
+    York, but a great quiet peace--the tropical Nature with all
+    its memories haunts me perpetually,--draws my thought back
+    again over the azure sea and under the turquoise sky to the
+    great palms and the volcanic hills and the beautiful brown
+    women. I know I shall have to go back to the tropics sooner
+    or later.
+
+    The effect of the climate, as you know, is deadly to mental
+    work. Physically, however, I felt better in it,--less
+    nervous than I ever was before. Only one's will to work is
+    broken down; and it is better only to collect material there
+    to work up elsewhere. That sort of work I am busy at just
+    now. I have a signed contract for publication of "Chita" in
+    book-form; and the result of my two years' absence will be
+    forthcoming in a volume of larger size.
+
+    You know Philadelphia, I suppose, the beautiful city; and I
+    suppose you know that physicians here form the leaders of,
+    and give the tone to, social life. It seems to me but just
+    that they should,--representing the highest intellectual
+    rank of civilization when they are really worthy of the
+    profession.
+
+    ... As for other people wondering what has become of me;
+    that is just what I want. I do not care to have any one know
+    what I am doing till it is done.... I have happily got over
+    a sort of crisis, however, which isolated me more than I
+    would have liked to be isolated from the world at large: the
+    distrust of myself.
+
+[Illustration: HANDWRITING OF HEARN IN 1889. _face page 63._]
+
+Concerning the value of Hearn's Martinique work, I am permitted to quote
+from a letter written to him on May 24, 1890, by the late Edmund C.
+Stedman,--and there could be no better judge and critic:
+
+"I will not leave without telling you how much I am your debtor for the
+fascinating copious record of your life in the Windward Islands, and for
+your 'Youma'--both of which I take with me to 'Kelp Rock'--and which we
+shall know by heart ere long. The 'Two Years' came when I was 'moving'
+in New York, etc.,--so that books and letters, unacknowledged, perforce
+have piled up on my table. I am grateful for your remembrance and your
+gifts. _No_ book could please me more than your 'Two Years.' Those
+Islands are my Hesperides--I had begun a series of poems and lyrics,
+cast in the Caribees, but your prose poems put mine to shame--and I am
+glad to listen to your music and leave my own unsung."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.--"GETTING A SOUL"
+
+
+SHORT though it was in time, the Philadelphia visit in 1889 has a value
+long in significance, that deserves epitomization. To begin with, it was
+Hearn's first experience of anything that might be called home-life. Its
+result was a softening and normalizing of him both as to character and
+as to manner, which was most evident. Secondly, and as he chose to put
+it, I "gave him a soul." By this poetic paraphrase he meant that I had
+succeeded in bringing to his recognition the existence of Freedom in
+what he thought determinism;--that intelligence, purpose, and
+beneficence lie behind biology, and that human beings are not always,
+and may never be wholly, the slaves of the senses, and the dupes of
+desire. Beauty itself, which he so widely sought, I asked him to note,
+is a needless, harmful, and even impossible thing in a world of
+adamantine logic and necessity. Above all, I demonstrated the existence
+of Duty, "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God," not only in the abstract,
+but in concrete lives, in social and historic exemplifications, and that
+only by means of men and women who obey conscience is social and
+historic progress brought about. They who have not seen that can have no
+"soul;" they who do see it, have soul, durable or great according to the
+clearness of the seeing and the obedience to the implication. Fully and
+freely Hearn acknowledged the vision, and never afterward could he be
+wholly the same as he had been before. But the Providence of the
+Oriental and semi-barbarous is Improvidence, and their God is Fate.
+Hearn came to hate, or to pretend to hate, the truth which had now
+slipped through his spiritual eyes, but he could not undo or outroot it
+entirely; "henceforth by the vision splendid is on his way attended."
+Thirdly, this new viewpoint, this new spirit or soul, I got incorporated
+in a little art-work, or ethical study--"Karma," published in
+_Lippincott's Magazine_, May, 1890, after Hearn had gone to Japan. To
+the world and without the knowledge of its making, "Karma" must have
+seemed an illogical and even impossible thing for Hearn to have written.
+It is apparently the sole work which he ever wrote, created _de novo_
+and without the data having been found or brought to him from without.
+But it was only a seeming creation. It was only the telling, the
+colouring, that was his, as in his other tales before or after. In our
+long walks and talks in the Park at night, we wrought out the title, the
+datum, and the whole trend of the story. He rebelled, but I held him to
+the task, which he finally executed with frank and artistic loyalty. The
+pride or indifference, even the dislike, of its readers, the writer, or
+inspirer, is as nothing compared with the fact that by it and from it
+Hearn learned something of love and duty that had never before been a
+living reality to him. What an infinite distance it was removed from
+anything dreamed during the Cincinnati period, or to be derived from
+Flaubert, Gautier, or Beaudelaire! After that his future work could
+never be, and never was, what it was from the writing, "_Everything you
+feel you would not like me to know._" I do not think there is
+exaggeration of the importance of the story, and what led up to its
+writing, in saying that it was the greatest of the turning-points in his
+life, and that directly because of it the magnificent works of the
+Japanese period were profoundly influenced through the attitude of mind
+thereby gained.
+
+Concerning the heroine of the tale Hearn wrote me:
+
+    Your objection to my idea is quite correct. I have already
+    abandoned it. It would have to be sexual. Never could find
+    in the tropics that magnificent type of womanhood, which in
+    the New England girl, makes one afraid even to think about
+    sex, while absolutely adoring the personality. Perfect
+    natures inspire a love that is a fear. I don't think any
+    love is noble without it. The tropical woman inspires a
+    love that is half compassion; this is always dangerous,
+    untrustworthy, delusive--pregnant with future pains
+    innumerable.
+
+But, fourthly, that in which I feel as great a pride, is compelling him
+to go to Japan. Others could have reported for lurid yellow journalism,
+others might possibly have translated as well as he, others could have
+told the West Indian stories, but--not even his beloved Lowell--only
+Hearn could have written of the Japanese life and soul as Hearn has
+done. He had no thought of the journey when I showed him his duty and
+his opportunity. By argument, pleading, almost compulsion, I at last
+wearied his opposition, and he went, with reluctance, after months of
+halting in detested New York City in which he learned by bitter
+experience that it was no place for him, and that his beloved tropics
+should not be again sought.
+
+How disappointed he was in his New York friends and prospects may be
+gathered from the following excerpt taken from one of his letters to me.
+I had used all my influence to keep him from a stay in the city. He
+wrote as follows:
+
+    Dear Gooley, your advice is good from your way of looking
+    at it; but I am much stronger in New York than you imagine,
+    and my future in it is plain and perfect sailing if I keep
+    good health. I am only embarrassed for the moment. I am
+    quite a lion here, and could figure in a way you would
+    hardly guess, if I were not such a man of tentacles. I am
+    not afraid of the cold--though it disheartens fancy a
+    little; but I shall leave fancy alone for a while. No,
+    Gooley, dear Gooley, I shall make my way in New York--don't
+    be afraid for me.
+
+He soon became convinced that I was right and finally resumed the
+journey unwillingly. The end has justified the means and the sacrifices.
+It is plain that the Japanese period and work crown his life-labours
+splendidly, and that his masterful pictures of Japanese characters,
+traditions, and religion now constitute one of our most precious
+literary treasures. They have also been of profound service to Japan.
+
+When he left my home, he, of his own accord, asked me to care for his
+library, then in the home of Mr. Alden at Metuchen, New Jersey, who two
+years previously had consented to take charge of it, and had paid
+shipping expenses, insurance, etc. None can imagine anything ungenerous
+or unkind in Mr. Alden. An old Cincinnati acquaintance characterizes
+Hearn's action in the matter as "a swindle." I have no knowledge or hint
+how it was or could be of that nature. Hearn wrote all the letters, and
+made all the arrangements to have the books sent to me. Mr. Alden
+authorizes me to say:
+
+"I was perfectly convinced at the time of the transfer of the library to
+Dr. Gould that he had no desire for its possession, and that the
+transfer was made solely in accordance with Mr. Hearn's request. I am
+quite sure that Dr. Gould fully explained the matter to me at the time.
+I feel sure that Dr. Gould acted precisely as I should have done if I
+had retained possession of the library; that is, readily giving it up to
+any legitimate claimant." I found the books of no value to me, and they
+surely have been an expense. I tried, later, to prevail upon Hearn to
+allow me to ship them to him in Japan, but I never received any replies
+to my letters. He asked for the catalogue, some of the old books, and
+beside these, at his request, a number of expensive new books were at
+various times bought and sent to him. I suspect that as there was not a
+book on Japan in the collection, and as he had a plethora of data at
+hand such as he wanted, the library gathered with so much love and
+enthusiasm was no longer of use to him, especially under the conditions
+of his life there.
+
+Hearn gained strength and power as regards both truth and art, in so far
+as he was true to the better in himself; all his trouble and his
+weakness were born out of the lower self he would not, or could not,
+sacrifice. His worship of the blood-curdling and revolting gave him some
+temporary vogue among the readers of yellow newspaperdom, but not until
+that was renounced for the compromise of the "odd and ghostly" did he
+begin to show an ability to reach something more worthy in human nature
+than the degenerate reporter catered to. The next step in advance was
+the cultivation of the artistic pornography of the sensualistic French
+story-writer. Not until he renounced this did he once more come to the
+something of more use to the reading world which fills the Martinique
+epoch. His disinclination to go to Japan, I more than suspect, was owing
+to a half consciousness that there was in that nation too much
+civilization, too good character, and even too much religion to suit the
+tastes which had been uppermost in motiving his past literary labours.
+His going into utter, illogical, and absurd captivity to the atheistic
+and materialistic philosophy of Herbert Spencer was a sorry sacrifice of
+his nobler office and better destiny to the fate that relentlessly
+dogged his footsteps. He was forced into all the humanity and
+beneficence possible to him by Japanese restraint, art, and truth. His
+cries of disillusion over the Japanese were largely the anger of the
+semi-barbaric wanderer held by family ties, paternity, etc., when he
+found himself prevented from again seeking the faraway tropical
+pseudo-paradises of peoples but one remove from savagery.
+
+In the pre-Japanese periods only the lurid, the monstrous, the enormous,
+only hot crime, and sexual passion, could excite his liveliest interest,
+and all great literature was as much ignored as if it did not exist.
+There is not a hint in all he did that he had read a line of the great
+creators of literature,--the Greek dramatists, Dante, Goethe,
+Shakespere, and a hundred more; he could not give time to read, much
+less study them. His pretension of ability to teach English literature
+was soon recognized even by the Japanese, and it is well that
+over-zealous friends did not secure him a lectureship at Cornell
+University. To be sure, he never had time to study even the history of
+his own science and art,--but he never would have done so, it is plain,
+if leisure and opportunity had been offered him. The ideal and the
+rewards of scholarship never entered his mind. Perhaps it was best for
+his peculiar office and proficiency that he allowed all erudition to go
+unlooked-upon. And yet if he had been possessed of sufficient virility
+and objectivity of mind to have learned the Japanese language, what
+would the labour not have been worth? That he could not read a Japanese
+book or newspaper after fourteen years of life among the people is most
+disconcerting. It is a tribute to the amazing delicacy and receptiveness
+of his mind that while he could not speak to his wife or children in
+their own tongue, he should still have so accurately caught the Japanese
+spirit and so admirably conveyed it to us.
+
+The history of Hearn's ghoulish pleasure in the gruesome and
+sensualistic, runs from the tan-yard horror and Cincinnati reportorial
+days, through the translated stories of the New Orleans epoch, to his
+"St. Anthony." In "Stray Leaves" it is but little softened, and yet the
+atmosphere is brightening. It glitters and flashes like vengeful
+lightning about the clouds of his mind with the Martinique epoch, etc.;
+but in the Japanese writing even the "Mountain of Skulls" and other
+stories are so far removed from reality that our disgust sinks to a
+smile of sighing wonder that the gruesome could still be so loved by
+him. It is only a few of the brutal and a small brutalized public that
+seeks such _contes drolatiques_ (without Balzac's wit, satire, and
+power, of course), and so again perforce, Hearn was weaned from his
+morbidities. Dominated by his developing art and also by the need to
+sell his writings, he thus rose, partly by the command of his readers,
+to the choice of less and less repulsive themes and methods, and, awed
+by the Japanese spirit of gentleness and beauty, he finally endowed
+their national soul-life with a prismatic glory which they themselves
+had hardly suspected.
+
+Hearn deserted the god of religion, and, except in one respect, he was
+faithless to the god of ethics. He was, therefore, without any divinity.
+For a mind that had no creative ability, that _must_ have its _subjects_
+furnished to it, a mind whose sole function was to colour the data
+chosen or given from without,--this inner emptiness could only be
+deceived by but could not be satisfied with the inner emptiness of
+Spencerism. He acknowledged that religion was the mother of all
+civilization, arts, and laws, and that all social systems, arts, and
+laws, antique or modern, were begotten and nurtured by ethics,--and yet
+there was no reality in, no reason for the existence of either religion
+or ethics in this world of mechanics and of fatalism, grim and
+inexorable.
+
+Hearn speaks somewhere of his aspiration to be considered a "thinker,"
+and once he praises "science" as a source of data for working into the
+art forms of his beloved poetic prose. But science to him was as
+impossible as was he to polite society; Spencer gave him leave, he
+thought, to consider his atheism, irreligion, and sensualisticism as
+scientifically authorized, and logically justified. He was always
+hankering after the old heathen, even savage, gods of his father and
+mother; and every time he went Fantee with them, he came back to a saner
+world weakened and still more at war with himself. He always sought an
+impossible world where Teutonic worth and honour could supply a decadent
+Latin, with half-savage languor and never failing delights of the senses
+and of art,--art which, in the last analysis, was his only god. But his
+tragedy was that he always hastened to turn his god into a fetich, while
+even his mind caught disquieting glimpses of the awful truth that all
+genuine worship abjures fetichism. As sensualism is the superstition of
+love, so fetichistic art is the superstition of true aesthetics.
+
+For the most part, minds are mechanical not chemical compoundings, or if
+chemic, they are in very unstable equilibrium. There are strange and
+wayward traits, illogic and unfused to unity with the others. There may
+be psychopathic and isolation wards in the psyche, "retreats," and all
+manner of diseases of individual organs. Most people go Fantee, often or
+seldom, and are able to hide their fetichisms from even their best
+friends. If we observe ourselves at all, most of us wonder at the
+curious mix of self-contradictories in ourselves. The few whose souls
+and bodies are fused to clear-cut unity, the component metal melted to
+harmony in the foundry of Fate and of Purpose,--these clang loyally in
+absolute and precise tone-colour. In commoner folk the failure of the
+flux, and the flaws in the casting, have only a social significance, but
+with the Hearns, with thinkers and writers, the affair has an infinite
+purport.
+
+Hearn could never make his writings and his art impulses square with his
+beloved materialistic, deterministic philosophy. He did not believe in
+soul or in souls, and yet his soul was always treating of souls, and
+showing the invisible thread of continuity which links souls to Soul.
+Therefore he is always happiest when his _daimon_ breaks from the
+restraint of theory and fate and pictures the play of free spirit, of
+soul unconquered by fate, of life victorious over death in some sad way
+or bright.
+
+Concerning Hearn's treatment of friends, editors, and publishers, as it
+bears sharply upon his literary character and productivity, as little as
+may or must be said: He was under bonds to Fate to abuse worst the
+majority of his friends who were most magnanimous, helpful, and kind to
+him personally, or who were most discriminating and encouraging toward
+his art and artistic ideals. To his former Cincinnati comrades, except
+the old printer-friend, he scarcely ever wrote after he left them, and
+the most faithful of these recently writes me: "I never pretended to be
+a friend to him; I was merely one to whom he resorted when all the rest
+cast him out. He never found me wanting, but he got few letters from me,
+and none that were flattering." "I used to love Matas" are Hearn's
+pitiful words. It is with sorrow and pain that we note the sudden
+cessation in 1887 of the letters to Krehbiel. This noble friend had
+drawn from Hearn a beautiful world of play and enduring memories, and
+one may be more than sure that it was not Krehbiel who should be blamed.
+Baker had been his most helpful and best friend, and yet for a fancied
+wrong Hearn wrote him a letter filled with insult and ruffianism which a
+gentleman could not answer, hardly forgive, and never forget. Did Hearn
+know anybody of character in the West Indies? To the greatest of
+American editors, the one who "discovered" him and introduced him to a
+national and international audience, who treated him with a sweet and
+gracious benignity, even after a shamelessness that is indescribable--to
+this good man there is not a published letter, although many, and many
+more, must exist. One day while at my house, Hearn rushed to his room,
+seized the man's picture on the wall, tore it in a hundred pieces, and
+danced and spat upon it in a furious rage. In subsequent letters to me
+he explained his hatred--how he broke his engagements, how he borrowed
+money from his loathed and insulted friend, how he got credit through
+him from his tailor, etc. Gently the abused one bore it all and without
+the least remonstrance, writing me, "Hearn has utterly cast me off; I
+was loath to part with him." Professor Chamberlain and others kindly
+explain the curious morbid psychology which Hearn had exhibited towards
+them. To the last, love and trust breathed from Hearn's letters to me,
+and yet I learn that to others long afterward he wrote of me with
+bitterness and malevolent injustice. And yet he had written me after I
+saw him for the last time, in this way: "Please don't write me at all,
+or expect me to write, for some months. I do not need any money. I have
+a good deal on my mind, and am apt, in consequence, to do very stupid or
+very unkind things in an unlucky moment." And then he wrote: "No, dear
+Gooley, I will never be indifferent to you! Never think that; I
+understand better than you suppose. If I am silent at intervals, never
+doubt me, dear teacher and brother; and you will find everything come
+right." How often is the pathos of life sadly exaggerated by giving way
+to foolish, needless, and degrading inherited instincts at the expense
+of the higher life and usefulness! As to some who ludicrously boast of
+the long continuance of an intimate friendship, there are many letters
+of Hearn extant and unpublished which blow out that vanity with an
+amusing smile. The matter, generally, might not have so real an
+importance were it not that the publishing of literature has a vast deal
+to do with literature, and, closely examined, Hearn's quarrels with
+editors, publishers, and the public, is a matter that reaches out
+astonishingly both as regards himself, his books, and the interest in
+him, as well as beyond the question of Hearn or of any or all of his
+friends. Until one silent man consents to speak--which may never be--the
+discussion of the essence of the affair cannot be set forth in any
+detail. Passages in Hearn's letters relating thereto should never have
+been published, or a hundred other things should have been as frankly
+published. When such publicity shall exist the reasons will be manifest
+why one publisher destroyed an entire fresh edition of one book of
+Hearn, why another acted differently, why one is praised or praises
+himself, why others are blamed, why some are silent although a word
+would end the injustice, etc. One phase may be noted in
+passing:--Whatever Hearn's rights or wrongs as to the author's relations
+with publishers and editors, it was beyond the ken of his mind that one
+who may gloriously sacrifice all his own temporal blessings in striving
+after artistic excellence, has no right to ask the same altruism of
+those engaged in the publishing business. Hearn blamed the crude world,
+and, for him, its representatives in the persons of editors and their
+masters, the publishers, for wishing a certain kind of literature. As
+well blame the bookseller for not sending the book you had not ordered.
+He who deliberately chooses to give the world a literature he knows it
+does not want, must accept the rejection and editing of his manuscripts,
+and the absence of the world's cheques. He chose poverty and may not
+abuse them who allowed his choice to be realized. It is sad enough, but
+it is more than childish to grumble, more than ignoble to rail.
+
+The search for "inspiration," as he called it, was with Hearn constant
+and lifelong. Thus, early in his career, he wrote to his friend, Dr.
+Matas:
+
+    So I wait for the poet's Pentecost--the inspiration of
+    Nature--the descent of the Tongues of Fire. And I think
+    they will come when the wild skies brighten, and the sun of
+    the Mexican Gulf reappears for his worshippers--with hymns
+    of wind and sea, and the prayers of birds. When one becomes
+    bathed in this azure and gold air--saturated with the
+    perfume of the sea, he can't help writing _something_. And
+    he cannot help feeling a new sense of being. The Soul of
+    the Sea mingles with his own, is breathed into him: the
+    Spirit that moveth over the deep is the Creator
+    indeed--vivifying, illuminating, strengthening. I really
+    feel his Religion--the sense of awe that comes to one in
+    some great silent temple. You would feel it too under this
+    eternal vault of blue, when the weird old Sea is touching
+    the keys of his mighty organ....
+
+And again he wrote:
+
+    I think I _must_ get inspiration. The real secret of art is
+    feeling. The highest form of that feeling is that which the
+    splendour of Nature gives--the thrill and awe of terrible
+    beauty. This is that inexplicable communication of the
+    mind with the Unknowable that has created the religious
+    sense. Said a friend to me yesterday, who is not a
+    believer:--"I stood in the Alps at sunrise, and I knew what
+    religion meant." And I think that passage in Wilson on
+    Fetichism superb where he says that the sight of the
+    splendid sky first created the religious sense. Terribly
+    perverted this sense has been, no doubt; but it belongs, I
+    fancy, to those things which are eternal, and will have
+    many a glorious avatar before our planet floats off into
+    the cemetery of dead worlds. It is, I believe, the most
+    powerful possible motive for true modern poetry--in harmony
+    with science and scientific faith; and that is what I am
+    going to look for.
+
+Such quotations could be multiplied indefinitely, but toward the end
+they become begging, and moaning in character. The "inspiration" is
+diligently hunted, hungrily waited for; at last the failure in its
+coming grows pitiful and tragic. For what is inspiration? If, with the
+fatal fashion of our fashionable fatalism, we think "we have outgrown
+all that," all that which was real and genuine inspiring, we at least
+cannot outgrow that which bred the belief in the inspiring, the trust in
+spirit and in spiritual truths and forces. Is it all primitive
+childishness, this faith in a real breathing-in of the higher life into
+our more carnal hearts and minds? Far from it! It is the veriest of
+verities, and the _deniers_ of the conditions of inspiration dry up the
+springs of that "inspiration" which they so hungrily seek. The semblance
+cannot be without the reality. It will not come, lasting and
+inexhaustible, by any trick of literary technic. Out of the light of
+common day is not born that which never was on any sea or shore. Place,
+time, circumstance, are not, as Hearn thought, the gods of
+"Inspiration." "The wind bloweth where it listeth," and even a heathen
+god would hardly visit the altar with his sacred fire if the priests
+mocked at the power and the very existence of the deity. It is most
+plain that Hearn early and zealously studied the Bible--hundreds of
+allusions bear witness of the fact--and that he learned from it the
+revivification of words, the use of phrase, metaphor, belief, something
+of the art of reaching in toward the depths of men's moral and religious
+nature and experience: but all, just so evidently, as a literary art, a
+_tour de force_, the skill of the expert workman, handling them as
+symbols for the sake of the skill, while smiling scornfully at any
+belief in their reality. Language is the most spirit-like creation of
+man's mind, the thing nearest him, woven out of his own soul-substance,
+instinct with his life, haunted with his love, his hate, his suffering.
+Playing with words, using them as art-stuff, regardless of the
+experience and love and suffering which gave them conceiving and gives
+them quickening, is likely to bring upon the artist a sad revenge.
+Pleading in vain for "inspiration," Hearn died a score or more of years
+before he should have died.
+
+It should be emphasized that Hearn had but one possible way, chosen or
+compelled, to make a living. His terrible myopia shut him out from every
+calling except that of a writer. Moreover, leaving aside the danger to
+his little vision from so much ocular labour, he had other and almost
+insurmountable handicaps as a poet or maker of literature: He had no
+original thing to say, for he was entirely without creative power, and
+had always to borrow theme and plot. Then he had never seen form, knew
+almost nothing of it as it exists out there, so that his sole technic
+was that of a colourist, and also to endow our dead and dying words with
+life--a "ghostly" life it was, and as he chose it to be--but living it
+assuredly was. That he over-coloured his pictures, that he
+over-sensualized his words, of this there is no question--but monotones
+and senescents that we are, let us not smile too superciliously! Let us
+learn; and above all let us enjoy!
+
+For, his alone was the palette of the painter of the afterglow of
+Earth's last sunset. And his the unique miracle of clothing with the
+hues of a hopeless rainbow, the faint reverberations of bells far sunk
+in the wreck and wrack of ruined centuries; of reintoning the prayers of
+Nirvana-entering souls; of remoaning dear ancient and expiring griefs;
+of seeing with shut eyes the sad smiles of never-answered loves and
+never-meeting lovers. With him, hushed, we hearken to Muezzin Bilal's
+call from his tower, to the broken sobs of a dancing-girl's passion, or
+to the plaintive beggings of dying babes for the cold breasts of dead
+mothers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.--"IN GHOSTLY JAPAN"
+
+PERHAPS I should not have succeeded in getting Hearn to attempt Japan
+had it not been for a little book that fell into his hands during the
+stay with me. Beyond question, Mr. Lowell's volume had a profound
+influence in turning his attention to Japan and greatly aided me in my
+insistent urging him to go there. In sending the book Hearn wrote me
+this letter:
+
+    Gooley!--I have found a marvellous book,--a book of
+    books!--a colossal, splendid, godlike book. You must read
+    every line of it. Tell me how I can send it. For heaven's
+    sake don't skip a word of it. The book is called "The Soul
+    of the Far East," but its title is smaller than its
+    imprint.
+                                                 HEARNEYBOY.
+
+    P.S.--Let something else go to H--, and read this book
+    instead. May God eternally bless and infinitely personalize
+    the man who wrote this book! Please don't skip one solitary
+    line of it, and don't delay reading it,--because something,
+    much! is going to go out of this book into your heart and
+    life and stay there! I have just finished this book and feel
+    like John in Patmos,--only a d----d sight better. He who
+    shall skip one word of this book let his portion be cut off
+    and his name blotted out of the Book of Life.[13]
+
+        [13] Mr. Percival Lowell's book soon reached me
+             containing the inscription: "To George M. Gould,
+             with best love of his spiritual pupil, L. H." I
+             have intentionally retained colloquialisms in
+             these excerpts, the indications of our familiarity,
+             etc., to give a glimpse into the heart of the
+             affectionate and sweet-natured man.
+
+There is not much to say about the Japanese period. The splendid books
+speak for themselves. There is little in the almost valueless letters
+that interest the literature-lover and give him concern about the
+literature-maker. There is one short page[14] which is worth the
+remainder of the book. The development of inborn characteristics goes
+on, despite the grafted soul, almost as fatalistically as Hearn would
+have wished, and in this instance in accordance with his theory of the
+unalterability of character. But this period is of surpassing interest
+solely because of the beautiful books and articles written. To analyze
+them is both impossible and undesirable. They are for our enjoyment, and
+after us generations will be delighted by them.
+
+    [14] _Life and Letters_, Vol. II, pp. 337 and 338.
+
+Hearn's views and practices as regards love and the feminine are not of
+sympathetic interest to those who think that monogamy is good and
+advisable. He hopes his son will not follow in his father's footsteps as
+regards every damozel in his path, and in this respect become the
+"disgraceful person he [the father] used to be." He "half suspects" the
+Oriental husband is right in loving his wife least of all others related
+to or dependent upon him, and quotes approvingly unquotable things about
+the laws of (sexual) nature, managing, _more suo_, to make beautiful the
+pursuit of beauty "in vain." Than the other, the woman-beauty of soul is
+the lesser. "It doesn't make a man any happier to have an intellectual
+wife. The less intellectual the more lovable,--for intellectual converse
+a man _can't_ have with women." When contemplating legal marriage with
+"his wife" in 1892, he calculates shrewdly the advantages of the plan.
+He arrived in Japan in 1890 and in less than two years "my little wife
+and I have saved nearly 2,000 Japanese dollars between us." When he has
+made her independent he will quit teaching, and "wander about awhile and
+write 'sketches' at $10.00 per page." In 1893 he found difficulties in
+registering the birth of his son. Hearn was still a British subject. If
+the boy should be a Japanese citizen, the registry must be in the
+mother's name; if in the father's name, he would become a foreigner. To
+become a Japanese citizen would mean for Hearn a great reduction in his
+salary as a teacher under Government pay. "Why was I so foolish as to
+have a son?" "Really _I_ don't know." In 1895 he "cuts the puzzle" by
+becoming a Japanese citizen, "losing all chance of Government employment
+at a living salary." Immediately Hearn "hopes to see a United Orient yet
+bound into one strong alliance against our cruel Western Civilization,"
+"against what is called Society and what is called Civilization."
+
+For those who boasted of being his friends, it seems an astonishing
+thing that they should make Hearn portray his vices, his moral
+nakedness, so publicly. Of course he did not dream of the _expose_. It
+is to his merit, however, that he would place the truth boldly and
+baldly before his friends. He confesses that the scandalous parts of a
+book are what he likes best, that he is "a Fraud," "a vile Latin,"
+etc.,--"_Vive le monde antique!_" He is "_not respectable_."
+"Carpets--pianos--windows--curtains--brass bands--churches! how I hate
+them!! Would I had been born savage; the curse of civilized cities is
+upon me." He admits that he "cannot understand the moral side, of
+course," and urges that "the most serious necessity of life is not to
+take the moral side of it seriously. We must play with it, as with an
+_hetaira_." It is needless to add that in this composition and resolve
+lay Hearn's weakness, his tragedy, and his missing of "greatness." A man
+so willed must finally see that it is the source of pitiful
+instabilities and waywardness. "I have been at heart everything by
+turns." He learns the old trick of blaming "Fate" and "the other
+fellow;" he is hard-pushed, ignored, starved, morally humiliated:--"the
+less a man has to do with his fellow-men the better;" "it becomes plain
+why men cannot be good to one another;" character may not be bettered or
+changed; "no line exists between life and not-life;" "likes and dislikes
+never depart;" if Spanish, Italian, or French (instead of English,
+German, or American) he "can be at home with a villain," etc. Finally
+there comes that burst of frankness:--"I have more smallness in me than
+you can suspect. How could it be otherwise! If a man lives like a rat
+for twenty or twenty-five years, he must have acquired something of the
+disposition peculiar to house-rodents,--mustn't he?" Then increase the
+complaints of "treachery," the wish for "justice," the desire to go
+away, somewhere, anywhere; and the limit of the amazing is reached in
+praising _The Conservator_ and _The Whim_ for bravery and goodness, and
+in hating Virchow thoroughly. Was Virchow so loathsome because this
+great scientist found an impassable demarcation between life and the
+not-life?--"all cells are derived from cells." Is it surprising that his
+old imagined enemies, the Jesuits, are believed to be hidden in every
+place, lurking to thwart every ambition or success, even to kill
+him?[15]
+
+    [15] Those who care may see how this suspicion obfuscates his
+         mind in an article against some of Hearn's statements, by
+         Henry Thurston, in _The Messenger_, January 1906.
+
+No man is wholly bad who loves children, none wholly good who does not
+love them. In a nation of child-lovers, as Hearn's Japanese writings
+bear witness, he began to catch glimpses of truth hitherto unrecognized.
+Concerning his eldest son (a fourth child was expected in 1903) Hearn
+wrote: "No man can possibly know what life means until he has a child
+and loves it. And then the whole Universe changes,--and nothing will
+ever again seem exactly as it seemed before." Naturally he was drawn to
+the rich child-lore and fairy tales of Japan. With great difficulty I
+have secured copies of a number of fairy stories edited by him and
+published in Japan by T. Hasegawa, Tokyo, in a style beautiful and
+dainty beyond superlatives. As mine are probably the only ones in our
+country, I have ventured to copy herewith two of the tales:--
+
+                  THE OLD WOMAN WHO LOST HER DUMPLING
+
+    Long, long ago, there was a funny old woman, who liked to
+    laugh and to make dumplings of rice-flour.
+
+    One day, while she was preparing some dumplings for dinner,
+    she let one fall; and it rolled into a hole in the earthen
+    floor of her little kitchen and disappeared. The old woman
+    tried to reach it by putting her hand down the hole, and
+    all at once the earth gave way, and the old woman fell in.
+
+    She fell quite a distance, but was not a bit hurt; and when
+    she got up on her feet again, she saw that she was standing
+    on a road, just like the road before her house. It was quite
+    light down there; and she could see plenty of rice-fields,
+    but no one in them. How all this happened, I cannot tell
+    you. But it seems that the old woman had fallen into another
+    country.
+
+    The road she had fallen upon sloped very much; so, after
+    having looked for her dumpling in vain, she thought it must
+    have rolled farther away down the slope. She ran down the
+    road to look, crying:
+
+    "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?"
+
+    After a little while she saw a stone Jizo standing by the
+    roadside, and she said:
+
+    "O Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"
+
+    Jizo answered:
+
+    "Yes, I saw your dumpling rolling by me down the road. But
+    you had better not go any farther, because there is a wicked
+    Oni living down there, who eats people."
+
+    But the old woman only laughed, and ran on farther down the
+    road, crying: "My dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that
+    dumpling of mine?" And she came to another statue of Jizo,
+    and asked it:
+
+    "O kind Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"
+
+    And Jizo said:
+
+    "Yes, I saw your dumpling go by a little while ago. But you
+    must not run any farther, because there is a wicked Oni down
+    there, who eats people."
+
+    But she only laughed, and ran on, still crying out: "My
+    dumpling, my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?" And
+    she came to a third Jizo, and asked it:
+
+    "O dear Lord Jizo, did you see my dumpling?"
+
+    But Jizo said:
+
+    "Don't talk about your dumpling now. Here is the Oni coming.
+    Squat down here behind my sleeve, and don't make any noise."
+
+    Presently the Oni came very close, and stopped and bowed to
+    Jizo, and said:
+
+    "Good-day, Jizo San!"
+
+    Jizo said good-day, too, very politely.
+
+    Then the Oni suddenly snuffed the air two or three times in
+    a suspicious way, and cried out: "Jizo San, Jizo San! I
+    smell a smell of mankind somewhere--don't you?"
+
+    "Oh!" said Jizo, "perhaps you are mistaken."
+
+    "No, no!" said the Oni, after snuffing the air again, "I
+    smell a smell of mankind."
+
+    Then the old woman could not help laughing, "Te-he-he!"--and
+    the Oni immediately reached down his big hairy hand behind
+    Jizo's sleeve, and pulled her out,--still laughing,
+    "Te-he-he!"
+
+    "Ah! ha!" cried the Oni.
+
+    Then Jizo said:
+
+    "What are you going to do with that good old woman? You must
+    not hurt her."
+
+    "I won't," said the Oni. "But I will take her home with me
+    to cook for us."
+
+    "Very well," said Jizo; "but you must really be kind to her.
+    If you are not I shall be very angry."
+
+    "I won't hurt her at all," promised the Oni; "and she will
+    only have to do a little work for us every day. Good-bye,
+    Jizo San."
+
+    Then the Oni took the old woman far down the road, till they
+    came to a wide deep river, where there was a boat, and took
+    her across the river to his house. It was a very large
+    house. He led her at once into the kitchen, and told her to
+    cook some dinner for himself and the other Oni who lived
+    with him. And he gave her a small wooden rice-paddle, and
+    said:
+
+    "You must always put only one grain of rice into the pot,
+    and when you stir that one grain of rice in the water with
+    this paddle, the grain will multiply until the pot is full."
+
+    So the old woman put just one rice-grain into the pot, as
+    the Oni told her, and began to stir it with the paddle; and,
+    as she stirred, the one grain became two,--then four,--then
+    eight,--then sixteen,--thirty-two, sixty-four, and so on.
+    Every time she moved the paddle the rice increased in
+    quantity; and in a few minutes the great pot was full.
+
+    After that, the funny old woman stayed a long time in the
+    house of the Oni, and every day cooked food for him and for
+    all his friends. The Oni never hurt or frightened her, and
+    her work was made quite easy by the magic paddle--although
+    she had to cook a very, very great quantity of rice, because
+    an Oni eats much more than any human being eats.
+
+    But she felt lonely, and always wished very much to go back
+    to her own little house, and make her dumplings. And one
+    day, when the Oni were all out somewhere, she thought she
+    would try to run away.
+
+    She first took the magic paddle, and slipped it under her
+    girdle; and then she went down to the river. No one saw her;
+    and the boat was there. She got into it, and pushed off; and
+    as she could row very well, she was soon far away from the
+    shore.
+
+    But the river was very wide; and she had not rowed more than
+    one-fourth of the way across, when the Oni, all of them,
+    came back to the house.
+
+    They found that their cook was gone, and the magic paddle
+    too. They ran down to the river at once, and saw the old
+    woman rowing away very fast.
+
+    Perhaps they could not swim: at all events they had no boat;
+    and they thought the only way they could catch the funny old
+    woman would be to drink up all the water of the river before
+    she got to the other bank. So they knelt down, and began to
+    drink so fast that before the old woman was half way over,
+    the water had become quite low.
+
+    But the old woman kept on rowing until the water had got so
+    shallow that the Oni stopped drinking, and began to wade
+    across. Then she dropped her oar, took the magic paddle from
+    her girdle, and shook it at the Oni, and made such funny
+    faces that the Oni all burst out laughing.
+
+    But the moment they laughed, they could not help throwing up
+    all the water they had drunk, and so the river became full
+    again. The Oni could not cross; and the funny old woman got
+    safely over to the other side, and ran away up the road as
+    fast as she could.
+
+    She never stopped running until she found herself at home
+    again. After that she was very happy; for she could make
+    dumplings whenever she pleased. Besides, she had the magic
+    paddle to make rice for her. She sold her dumplings to her
+    neighbours and passengers, and in quite a short time she
+    became rich.
+
+                         THE BOY WHO DREW CATS
+
+    A long, long time ago, in a small country-village in Japan,
+    there lived a poor farmer and his wife, who were very good
+    people. They had a number of children, and found it very
+    hard to feed them all. The elder son was strong enough when
+    only fourteen years old to help his father; and the little
+    girls learned to help their mother almost as soon as they
+    could walk.
+
+    But the youngest child, a little boy, did not seem to be fit
+    for hard work. He was very clever,--cleverer than all his
+    brothers and sisters; but he was quite weak and small, and
+    people said he could never grow very big. So his parents
+    thought it would be better for him to become a priest than
+    to become a farmer. They took him with them to the
+    village-temple one day, and asked the good old priest who
+    lived there, if he would have their little boy for his
+    acolyte, and teach him all that a priest ought to know.
+
+    The old man spoke kindly to the lad, and asked him some hard
+    questions. So clever were the answers that the priest agreed
+    to take the little fellow into the temple as an acolyte, and
+    to educate him for the priesthood.
+
+    The boy learned quickly what the old priest taught him, and
+    was very obedient in most things. But he had one fault. He
+    liked to draw cats during study-hours, and to draw cats even
+    when cats ought not to have been drawn at all.
+
+    Whenever he found himself alone, he drew cats. He drew them
+    on the margins of the priest's books, and on all the screens
+    of the temple, and on the walls, and on the pillars. Several
+    times the priest told him this was not right; but he did not
+    stop drawing cats. He drew them because he could not really
+    help it. He had what is called "the genius of an artist,"
+    and just for that reason he was not quite fit to be an
+    acolyte;--a good acolyte should study books.
+
+    One day after he had drawn some very clever pictures of cats
+    upon a paper screen, the old priest said to him severely:
+    "My boy, you must go away from this temple at once. You will
+    never make a good priest, but perhaps you will become a
+    great artist. Now let me give you a last piece of advice,
+    and be sure you never forget it: 'Avoid large places at
+    night;--keep to small.'"
+
+    The boy did not know what the priest meant by saying, "Avoid
+    large places,--keep to small." He thought and thought, while
+    he was tying up his little bundle of clothes to go away; but
+    he could not understand those words, and he was afraid to
+    speak to the priest any more, except to say good-bye.
+
+    He left the temple very sorrowfully, and began to wonder
+    what he should do. If he went straight home, he felt sure
+    his father would punish him for having been disobedient to
+    the priest: so he was afraid to go home. All at once he
+    remembered that at the next village, twelve miles away,
+    there was a very big temple. He had heard there were several
+    priests at that temple; and he made up his mind to go to
+    them and ask them to take him for their acolyte.
+
+    Now that big temple was closed up, but the boy did not know
+    this fact. The reason it had been closed up was that a
+    goblin had frightened the priests away, and had taken
+    possession of the place. Some brave warriors had afterwards
+    gone to the temple at night to kill the goblin; but they had
+    never been seen alive again. Nobody had ever told these
+    things to the boy; so he walked all the way to the village,
+    hoping to be kindly treated by the priests.
+
+    When he got to the village, it was already dark, and all the
+    people were in bed; but he saw the big temple on a hill at
+    the other end of the principal street, and he saw there was
+    a light in the temple. People who tell the story say the
+    goblin used to make that light, in order to tempt lonely
+    travellers to ask for shelter. The boy went at once to the
+    temple, and knocked. There was no sound inside. He knocked
+    and knocked again; but still nobody came. At last he pushed
+    gently at the door, and was quite glad to find that it had
+    not been fastened. So he went in, and saw a lamp
+    burning,--but no priest.
+
+    He thought some priest would be sure to come very soon, and
+    he sat down and waited. Then he noticed that everything in
+    the temple was grey with dust, and thickly spun over with
+    cobwebs. So he thought to himself that the priests would
+    certainly like to have an acolyte, to keep the place clean.
+    He wondered why they had allowed everything to get so dusty.
+    What most pleased him, however, were some big white screens,
+    good to paint cats upon. Though he was tired, he looked at
+    once for a writing-box, and found one, ground some ink, and
+    began to paint cats.
+
+    He painted a great many cats upon the screens; and then he
+    began to feel very, very sleepy. He was just on the point of
+    lying down to sleep beside one of the screens, when he
+    suddenly remembered the words: "Avoid large places;--keep to
+    small."
+
+    The temple was very large; he was all alone; and as he
+    thought of these words--though he could not quite understand
+    them--he began to feel for the first time a little afraid;
+    and he resolved to look for a small place in which to sleep.
+    He found a little cabinet, with a sliding door, and went
+    into it, and shut himself up. Then he lay down and fell fast
+    asleep.
+
+    Very late in the night he was awakened by a most terrible
+    noise,--a noise of fighting and screaming. It was so
+    dreadful that he was afraid even to look through a chink of
+    the little cabinet: he lay very still, holding his breath
+    for fright.
+
+    The light that had been in the temple went out; but the
+    awful sounds continued, and became more awful, and all the
+    temple shook. After a long time silence came; but the boy
+    was still afraid to move. He did not move until the light of
+    the morning sun shone into the cabinet through the chinks of
+    the little door.
+
+    Then he got out of his hiding-place very cautiously, and
+    looked about. The first thing he saw, lying dead in the
+    middle of it, an enormous monster rat,--a
+    goblin-rat,--bigger than a cow!
+
+    But who or what could have killed it? There was no man or
+    other creature to be seen. Suddenly the boy observed that
+    the mouths of all the cats he had drawn the night before,
+    were red and wet with blood. Then he knew that the goblin
+    had been killed by the cats which he had drawn. And then,
+    also, for the first time, he understood why the wise old
+    priest had said to him: "Avoid large places at night;--keep
+    to small."
+
+    Afterwards that boy became a very famous artist. Some of the
+    cats which he drew are still shown to travellers in Japan.
+
+At once upon reaching Japan (it is plain Hearn never forgave me for
+compelling him to go) begin the complaints of the downright hard work of
+writing, consequent upon the loss of ideals. He breaks with
+publishers--an old-time story; he is losing his inspiration, and his
+only hope is that it will return to him again; in any Latin country he
+could at once, he thinks, get back the much coveted "thrill," or
+_frisson_. He would at last even relish the hated United States. From
+the beginning he tires of the Japanese character, and grows more and
+more tired the longer he stays; it has no depth, this thin soul-stream;
+it is incapable of long-sustained effort, prolonged study; he cannot
+much longer endure Japanese officialism; and the official "is something
+a good deal lower than a savage and meaner than the straight-out Western
+rough." He would wish never to write a line again about any Japanese
+subjects. Things finally came to such a pass that the only successful
+stimulus to work was that some one should do or say something horribly
+mean to him, and the force of the hurt could be measured in the months
+or years of resultant labour. As none ever did a mean thing to him, one
+may suspect that the psychology of his sudden enmities towards others
+was that he must perforce _imagine_ that he had been "horribly" treated.
+
+The old _Wanderlust_, never wholly absent, returns strongly upon him; in
+less than a year he dreams of leaving Japan and his wife, and of
+"wandering about awhile;" he projects "a syndicate" whereby he may go to
+Java (rather than Manila, where the Jesuits were), or, "a French
+colony,--Tonkin, Noumea, or Pondicherry." A tropical trip is planned for
+six months of every year. But the "butterfly-lives" dependent upon him
+prevent, of course. He always spoke of returning often. At the last
+there is a savage growl that after thirteen years of work for Japan, in
+which he had sacrificed everything for her, he was "driven out of the
+service and practically banished from the country."
+
+Hearn's nostalgia for the nowhere or the anywhere was only conquered by
+death. In 1898 the logic of his life, of his misfortune, and character,
+begins to grow plainer, and he "fears being blinded or maimed so as to
+prove of no further use." It seems that if he had been able to do what
+he tried so often, and longed so fervently to do, he would have run away
+into the known or unknown, leaving children, wife, and all the ties that
+bound him to any orderly life. His vision had become almost useless; he
+had lost his lectureship; more and more it grew impossible to coax or
+force out of his mind such beautiful things as in younger days; the
+Furies of his atheism, pessimism, and lovelessness were close on his
+track; the hope of lectureships in the United States had
+failed,--nothing was left, nothing except one thing, which, chosen or
+not, came at the age of fifty-four.
+
+Lessing has said that "Raphael would have been the great painter he was
+even if he had been born without arms," and Burke has told of a poet
+"blind from birth who nevertheless could describe visible objects with a
+spirit and justness excelled by few men blessed with sight." What irony
+of Fate it is that one almost blind should teach us non-users of our
+eyes the wonder and glory of colour; that the irreligious one should
+quicken our faith in the immaterial and unseen; that a sensualist should
+strengthen our trust in the supersensual; that one whose body and life
+were unbeautiful should sing such exquisite songs of silent beauty that
+our straining ears can hardly catch the subtle and unearthly harmonies!
+For Hearn is another of many splendid illustrations of the old truth
+that a man's spirit may be more philosophic than his philosophy, more
+scientific than his science, more religious than his creed, more divine
+than his divinity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--AS A POET
+
+
+THAT Hearn was a true poet none will deny, but it was one of the
+frequent seeming illogicalities of his character that he had no love of
+metric or rhymed poetry. I doubt if there is a single volume of such
+poetry in his library, and I never heard him repeat a line or stanza,
+and never knew him to read a page of what is called poetry. I suspect
+the simple reason was that his necessities compelled him rigidly to
+exclude everything from his world of thought which did not offer
+materials for the remunerating public. He had to make a living, and
+whence tomorrow's income should come was always a vital concern. Poetry
+of the metric and rhymed sort does not make bread and butter; hence
+there was no time to consider even the possibility of "cultivating the
+muses on a little oatmeal."
+
+Of poetry he once wrote:--"The mere ideas and melody of a poem seem to
+me of small moment unless the complex laws of versification be strictly
+obeyed." The dictum, considering its source, is exquisitely ludicrous;
+for Hearn poetry could not be coined into dollars, even if he had had
+the mind and heart to learn anything of "the complex laws of
+versification." Elsewhere he excused his manifest utter ignorance of
+poetry and want of poetic appreciation by saying that there is so little
+really good poetry that it is easy to choose. He confessed his
+detestation of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, preferring Dobson,
+Watson, and Lang. "Of Wordsworth--well, I should smile!" "Refined
+poetry" he held of little or no value, but he found the "vulgar" songs
+of coolies, fishermen, etc., very true and beautiful poetry. He vainly
+tried to translate some of Gautier's poems. He attempted original
+verse-making but a few times, and from my scrap-book I reproduce one of
+the results, kindly furnished me by Mr. Alexander Hill, of Cincinnati,
+to whom it was given by Mr. Tunison. Perhaps it was printed in _Forest
+and Stream_.
+
+
+                           A CREOLE BOAT SONG
+
+    Hot shines the sun o'er the quivering land,
+      No wind comes up from the sea,
+    Silent and stark the pine woods stand,
+      And the mock-bird sleeps in the Mayhaw tree,
+        Where, overhung with brier and vine,
+        The placid waters slip and shine
+        And dimple to thy lover's view--
+        La belle riviere de Calcasieu.
+
+    Under the bending cypress trees,
+      Bedecked with pendulous cool grey moss
+    That woos in vain the recreant breeze
+      And silently mourns its loss.
+        With drowsy eye, in my little boat
+        I dreamily lie, and lazily float
+        Lulled by the thrush's soft Te-rue--
+        On La belle riviere de Calcasieu.
+
+    A heron stands, like a ghost in grey,
+      Knee-deep 'mongst the bending water lilies,
+    And yellow butterflies lightly play
+      'Midst the blooms of fragrant amaryllis;
+        The swift kingfisher winds his reel,
+        Saying his grace for his noonday meal,
+        And a hawk soars up to the welkin blue
+        O'er La belle riviere de Calcasieu.
+
+    Across the point, where the ferry plies,
+      I hear the click of the boatman's oar,
+    And his Creole song, with its quavering rise
+      Re-echoes soft from shore to shore;
+        And this is the rhyme that he idly sings
+        As his boat at anchor lazily swings,
+        For the day is hot, and passers few
+        On La belle riviere de Calcasieu.
+
+    "I ain't got time for make merry, me
+      I ain't got time for make merry;
+    My lill' gall waitin' at de River of Death
+      To meet her ole dad at de ferry.
+        She gwine be dere wid de smile on her face,
+        Like the night she died, when all de place
+        Was lit by the moonbeams shiverin' troo
+        La belle riviere de Calcasieu.
+
+    "O sing dat song! O sing dat song!
+      I ain't got time for make merry!
+    De angel come 'fore berry long,
+      And carr' me o'er de ferry!
+        He come wid de whirlwind in de night--
+        He come wid de streak of de morning light--
+        He find me ready--yass, dass true--
+        By La belle riviere de Calcasieu.
+
+    "Den who got time for make merry, eh?
+      Den who got time for make merry?
+    De fire burn up de light 'ood tree,
+      De bird eat up de berry.
+        Long time ago I make Voudoo,
+        An' I dance Calinda strong and true,
+        But de Lord he pierce me troo and troo
+        On La belle riviere de Calcasieu."
+
+
+In the Watkin letters, Hearn transcribes a poem of six stanzas written
+by himself for the decoration of the soldiers' graves at Chalmette
+Cemetery in 1878.
+
+Far more successful, for obvious reasons, was an attempt at echoing a
+bit of Eastern fancy. A strange, gruesome, Oriental being had caught his
+eye at New Orleans, who translated for him some characteristic Eastern
+verses. Hearn thus rendered them in English:[16]
+
+    [16] From Hearn's manuscript copy through the kindness again of
+         Mr. Tunison and Mr. Hill.
+
+                                THE RUSE
+
+                         From _Amaron Satacum_
+
+    Late at night the lover returns unlooked-for,
+    Full of longing, after that cruel absence;--
+    Finds his darling by her women surrounded;
+                  Enters among them:--
+
+    Only sees his beautiful one, his idol,
+    Speaks no word, but watches her face in silence,
+    Looks with eyes of thirst and with lips of fever
+                  Burning for kisses.
+
+    Late it is; and, nevertheless, the women,
+    Still remaining, weary his ears with laughter,
+    Prattling folly, tantalizing his longing--
+                  Teasing his patience.
+
+    Love weaves ruse in answer to gaze beseeching;--
+    Shrill she screams: "O heaven!--What insect stings so!"
+    And with sudden waft of her robe outshaken,
+                  Blows the vile light out.
+
+I find the following verses in his scrap-book of the New Orleans
+period:[17]
+
+    [17] Dated July 11, 1885.
+
+                               THE MUMMY
+
+                  (After the French of Louis Bouilhet)
+
+    Startled,--as by some far faint din
+      Of azure-lighted worlds, from sleep,
+    The Mummy, trembling, wakes within
+      The hypogeum's blackest deep,--
+
+    And murmurs low, with slow sad voice:
+      "Oh! to be dead and still endure!--
+    Well may the quivering flesh rejoice
+      That feels the vulture's gripe impure!
+
+    "Seeking to enter this night of death,
+      Each element knocks at my granite door:--
+    'We are Earth and Fire and Air,--the breath
+      Of Winds,--the Spirits of sea and shore.
+
+    "'Into the azure, out of the gloom,
+      Rise!--let thine atoms in light disperse!--
+    Blend with the date-palm's emerald plume!--
+      Scatter thyself through the universe!
+
+    "'We shall bear thee far over waste and wold:
+      Thou shalt be lulled to joyous sleep
+    By leaves that whisper in light of gold,
+      By murmur of fountains cool and deep.
+
+    "'Come!--perchance from thy dungeon dark
+      Infinite Nature may wish to gain
+    For the godlike Sun another spark,
+      Another drop for the diamond rain.'
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Woe! mine is death eternal! ... and
+      I feel Them come, as I lie alone,--
+    The Centuries, heavy as drifted sand
+      Heaping above my bed of stone!
+
+    "O be accursed, ye impious race!--
+      Caging the creature that seeks to soar;
+    Preserving agony's weird grimace,
+      In hideous vanity, evermore!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Aux bruits lointains ouvrant l'oreille,
+      Jalouse encor du ciel d'azur,
+    La momie en tremblant s'eveille
+      Au fond de l'hypogee obscur.
+
+    Oh, dit-elle, de sa voix lente,
+      Etre mort, et durer toujours.
+    Heureuse la chaire pantelante
+      Sous l'ongle courbe des vautours.
+
+    Pour plonger dans ma nuit profonde
+      Chaque element frappe en ce lieu.
+    --Nous sommes L'air! nous sommes l'onde!
+      Nous sommes la terre et le feu!
+
+    Viens avec nous, le steppe aride
+      Veut son panache d'arbres verts,
+    Viens sous l'azur du ciel splendide,
+      T'eparpiller dans l'univers.
+
+    Nous t'emporterons par les plaines
+      Nous te bercerons a la fois
+    Dans le murmure des fontaines
+      Et la bruissement des bois.
+
+    Viens. La nature universelle
+      Cherche peut-etre en ce tombeau
+    Pour de soleil une etincelle!
+      Pour la mer une goutte d'eau!
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Et dans ma tombe imperissable
+      Je sens venir avec affroi
+    Les siecles lourds comme du sable
+      Qui s'amoncelle autour de moi.
+
+    Ah! sois maudite, race impie,
+      Qui le l'etre arretant l'essor
+    Gardes ta laideur assoupie
+      Dans la vanite de la mort.
+
+In one of Hearn's letters to the Cincinnati _Commercial_, written soon
+after his arrival in New Orleans, he writes:
+
+    Here is a specimen closely akin to the Creole of the
+    Antilles. It is said to be an old negro love-song, and I
+    think there is a peculiar weird beauty in several of its
+    stanzas. I feel much inclined to doubt whether it was
+    composed by a negro, but the question of its authorship
+    cannot affect its value as a curiosity, and, in any case,
+    its spirit is thoroughly African. Unfortunately, without
+    accented letters it is impossible to convey any idea of the
+    melody, the liquid softness, the languor, of some of the
+    couplets. My translation is a little free in parts.
+
+                                   I
+
+    Dipi me vouer toue, Adele,
+      Ape danse calinda,
+    Mo reste pour toue fidele,
+      Liberte a moin caba.
+    Mo pas soussi d'autt negresses,
+      Mo pas gagnin coeur pour yo;
+    Yo gagnin beaucoup finesses;
+      Yo semble serpent Congo.
+
+                                   II
+
+    Mo aime toue trop, ma belle,
+      Mo pas capab resiste;
+    Coeur a moin tout comme sauterelle,
+      Li fait ne qu'appe saute.
+    Mo jamin contre gnoun femme
+      Qui gagnin belle taille comme toue;
+    Jie a ton jete la flamme;
+      Corps a toue enchene moue.
+
+                                  III
+
+    To tant comme serpent sonnette
+      Qui connin charme zozo,
+    Qui gagnin bouche a li prette
+      Pour servi comme gnoun tombo.
+
+    Mo jamin voue gnoun negresse
+      Qui connin marche comme toue,
+    Qui gagnin gnoun si belle gesse;
+      Corps a toue ce gnoun poupe.
+
+                                   IV
+
+    Quand mo pas vouer toue, Adele,
+      Mo sentt m'ane mourri,
+    Mo vini com' gnoun chandelle
+      Qui ape alle fini:
+    Mo pas vouer rien sur la terre
+      Qui capab moin fait plaisi;
+    Mo capab dans la riviere
+      Jete moin pour pas souffri.
+
+                                   V
+
+    Dis moin si to gagnin n'homme;
+      Mo va fals ouanga pour li;
+    Mo fais li tourne fantome,
+      Si to vle moin pour mari.
+    Mo pas le in jour toue boudeuse;
+      L'autt femme, pour moin ce fatras;
+    Mo va rende toue bien heureuse;
+      Mo va baill' toue bell' madras.
+
+                              TRANSLATION
+
+                                   I
+
+    Since first I beheld you, Adele,
+    While dancing the _calinda_,
+    I have remained faithful to the thought of you:
+    My freedom has departed from me.
+    I care no longer for all other negresses;
+    I have no heart left for them:
+    You have such grace and cunning:
+    You are like the Congo serpent.
+
+                                   II
+
+    I love you too much, my beautiful one:
+    I am not able to help it.
+    My heart has become just like a grasshopper,
+    It does nothing but leap.
+    I have never met any woman
+    Who has so beautiful a form as yours.
+    Your eyes flash flame;
+    Your body has enchained me captive.
+
+                                  III
+
+    Ah, you are so like the serpent-of-the-rattles
+    Who knows how to charm the little bird,
+    And who has a mouth ever ready for it
+    To serve it for a tomb!
+    I have never known any negress
+    Who could walk with such grace as you can,
+    Or who could make such beautiful gestures:
+    Your body is a beautiful doll.
+
+                                   IV
+
+    When I cannot see you, Adele,
+    I feel myself ready to die;
+    My life becomes like a candle
+    Which has almost burned itself out.
+    I cannot, then, find anything in the world,
+    Which is able to give me pleasure;--
+    I could well go down to the river
+    And throw myself in it that I might cease to suffer.
+
+                                   V
+
+    Tell me if you have a man;
+    And I will make an _ouanga_ charm for him;
+    I will make him turn into a phantom,
+    If you will only take me for your husband.
+    I will not go to see you when you are cross;
+    Other women are mere trash to me;
+    I will make you very happy,
+    And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief.
+
+I think there is some true poetry in these allusions to the snake. Is
+not the serpent a symbol of grace? Is not the so-called "line of beauty"
+serpentine? And is there not something of the serpent in the beauty of
+all graceful women?--something of undulating shapeliness, something of
+silent fascination?--something of Lilith and Lamia? The French have a
+beautiful verb expressive of this idea, _serpenter_, "to serpent"--to
+curve in changing undulations like a lithe snake. The French artist
+speaks of the outlines of a beautiful human body as "serpenting,"
+curving and winding like a serpent. Do you not like the word? I think it
+is so expressive of flowing lines of elegance--so full of that mystery
+of grace which puzzled Solomon; "the way of a serpent upon a rock."
+
+The allusion to Voudooism in the last stanza especially interested me,
+and I questioned the gentleman who furnished me with the song as to the
+significance of the words: "I will make him turn into a phantom." I had
+fancied that the term _fantome_ might be interpreted by "ghost," and
+that the whole line simply constituted a threat to make some one "give
+up the ghost."
+
+"It is not exactly that," replied my friend; "it is an allusion, I
+believe, to the withering and wasting power of Voudoo poisons. There are
+such poisons actually in use among the negro obi-men--poisons which defy
+analysis, and, mysterious as the poisons of the Borgias, slowly consume
+the victims like a taper. He wastes away as though being dried up; he
+becomes almost mummified; he wanes like a shadow; he turns into a
+phantom in the same sense that a phantom is an unreal mockery of
+something real."
+
+Thus I found an intelligent Louisianan zealous to confirm an opinion to
+which I was permitted to give expression in the _Commercial_ nearly
+three years ago--that a knowledge of secret septic poisons (probably of
+an animal character), which leave no trace discoverable by the most
+skilful chemists, is actually possessed by certain beings who are
+reverenced as sorcerers by the negroes of the West Indies and the
+Southern States, but more especially of the West Indies, where much of
+African fetichism has been transplanted.
+
+                                                    OZIAS MIDWINTER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.--THE POET OF MYOPIA
+
+THE dependence not only of the literary character and workmanship of a
+writer, but even his innermost psyche, upon vision, normal or abnormal,
+is a truth which has been dimly and falteringly felt by several writers.
+Concerning "Madame Bovary," and his friend Flaubert, Maxime du Camp
+reflects some glintings of the truth. But these and others, lacking the
+requisite expert definiteness of knowledge, have failed to catch the
+satisfying and clear point of view. To illustrate I may quote the
+paragraph of du Camp:
+
+"The literary procedure of Flaubert threw everybody off the track and
+even some of the experts. But it was a very simple matter; it was by the
+accumulation and the superposition of details that he arrived at power.
+It is the physiologic method, the method of the myopes who look at
+things one after the other, very exactly, and then describe them
+successively. The literature of imagination may be divided into two
+distinct schools, that of the myopes and that of the hyperopes. The
+myopes see minutely, study every line, finding each detail of importance
+because everything appears to them in isolation; about them is a sort of
+cloud in which is detached the object in exaggerated proportions. They
+have, as it were, a microscope in their eye which enlarges everything.
+The description of Venice from the Campanile of St. Mark, that of
+Destitution in 'Captain Fracasse,' by Gautier are the capital results of
+myopic vision. The hyperopes, on the other hand, look at the _ensemble_,
+in which the details are lost, and form a kind of general harmony. The
+detail loses all significance, except perhaps they seek to bring it into
+relief as a work of art.... Besides, the myopes seek to portray
+sensations, while the hyperopes especially aim at analysis of the
+sentiments. If a hyperopic writer suddenly becomes myopic, his manner of
+thinking, and consequently of writing, at once is modified. What I call
+the school of the myopes, Gautier names the school of the rabids. He
+said to Merimee: 'Your characters have no muscles,' and Merimee
+answered, 'Yours have no draperies.'"
+
+But there is one consequence, common both to Flaubert and to Hearn, a
+most strange unity of result flowing from a seemingly opposed but really
+identical cause in the two men. I have elsewhere set forth the reasons
+for my belief that the secret of Flaubert's life, character, and
+literary art consisted in an inability to think and write at the same
+time. He was one of the most healthy and brilliant of men when he did
+not read or write, but his mind refused to act creatively whenever he
+wrote or read. From this resulted his epilepsy. Fathered by the fear of
+this disease, mothered by opium, and reared by unhygiene and eye-strain,
+came the miserable "St. Anthony" of the second remaking. In the failure
+of this pitiful work there was naught left except bottomless pessimism,
+the "cadenced phrase," and all the rest, called "Madame Bovary" and "art
+for art's sake."
+
+There never was a greater sufferer from eye-strain than Flaubert, whose
+eyes were strikingly beautiful, and seemingly of extraordinary
+perfection as optical instruments. From this fact flowed the entire
+tragedy of the man's life and of his life-work. His friend du Camp says
+that had it not been for his disease he would have been, not a writer of
+great talent, but a man of genius. Hearn had the most defective
+eyesight, he was indeed nearly blind; but physically he suffered little
+from this cause,--and yet his choice of subjects and methods of literary
+workmanship, and every line he wrote, were dictated and ruled by his
+defect of vision. Opium, with the impossibility of writing and creating
+at the same time, dominated Flaubert's work and working, and the similar
+result was begot by Hearn's enormous monocular myopia.
+
+From Martinique, before I had met him, Hearn wrote me:
+
+    I am very near-sighted, have lost one eye, which disfigures
+    me considerably; and my near-sightedness always prevented
+    the gratification of a natural _penchant_ for physical
+    exercise. I am a good swimmer, that is all.
+
+    In reply to nearly all the questions about my
+    near-sightedness I might answer, "Yes." I had the best
+    advice in London, and observe all the rules you suggest.
+    Glasses strain the eye too much--part of retina is gone. The
+    other eye was destroyed by a blow at college; or, rather, by
+    inflammation consequent upon the blow. I can tell you more
+    about myself when I see you, but the result will be more
+    curious than pleasing. Myopia is not aggravating.
+
+In "Shadowings," the chapter on "Nightmare-Touch," Hearn describes with
+his gift of the living word the dreams and hauntings he endured when as
+a boy he was shut in his room in the dark. It is a pitiful history, and
+shows how a child may suffer atrociously from the combination of an
+abnormally exuberant fancy and eye-strain, probably with added ocular
+disease. The subjective sensations and images were alive and Hearn's
+innate tendency to the horrible and hideous gave them the most awful of
+nightmarish realities.
+
+I have already given (facing page 5) a copy of a little photograph of
+Hearn at about the age of eight, standing by Mrs. Brenane. It will be
+seen that the right eyeball was at this time about as large and
+protruding as in later life. This leaves a doubt whether the destruction
+of the left was due to the blow at college at the age of sixteen. In one
+of my letters he uses the word "scrofulous" in alluding to himself.
+
+It was not only during the last years of his life, that, as he says, "it
+was now largely a question of eyes." It was always the most important of
+all questions; first, physically and financially, because all hung upon
+his ability to write many hours a day. How his little of visual power
+was preserved under the work done is a marvel of physiology. So
+unconscious was Hearn of the influence of eye-strain in ruining the
+health of others (he himself had no eye-strain in the ordinary meaning
+of the term) that he wonders why the hard students about him were
+inexplainably dying, going mad, getting sick, and giving up their
+studies. This is hardly to be considered a fault of Hearn when educators
+and physicians and oculists the world over, never suspect the reason.
+
+Moved by sympathy, and perhaps by the vaguest feeling that to Hearn's
+poor vision were due, in part at least, both his personal and literary
+characteristics, I early besought him to make use of scientific optical
+helps in order to see the world better, and to carry on his writing with
+greater ease, and with less danger to the little vision left him. He had
+but one eye, which was evidently enormously nearsighted. The other had
+been lost in youth. I found that he had about 25 diopters of myopia, to
+use the jargon of the oculist, and that consequently he knew little
+about the appearance of objects even a few feet away. In writing he was
+compelled to place the paper or pen-point about three inches from his
+eye. With the proper lens it was possible to give him vision of distant
+objects about one-fourth as clear as that of normal eyes. For a minute
+my disappointment was equal to my surprise when I found that he did not
+wish to see with even this wretched indistinctness, and that he would
+not think of using spectacles or eyeglasses. Later I found the reason
+for his action. He sometimes carried a little lens or monocle in his
+pocket, which somewhat bettered his vision, but in the several months he
+spent with me I saw him use it only once or twice, and then merely for
+an instant. I am almost sure that the reason for this preference for a
+world almost unseen, or seen only in colours, while form and outline
+were almost unknown, was never conscious with Hearn, although his mind
+was alert in detecting such psychologic solutions in others. In studying
+his writings, this reason finally has become clear to me.
+
+When one chooses an artistic calling, Fate usually, and to the artist
+unconsciously, dictates the kind of art-work and the method of carrying
+it to realization. The blind do not choose to be painters, but
+musicians; the deaf do not think of music, though nothing prevents them
+from being good painters. The dumb would hardly become orators or
+singers, but they might easily be sculptors, or painters, or designers.
+It is as evident that the poet is largely a visualizer, if one may so
+designate this psychic function, and without sight of the world of
+reality and beauty, poetry will inevitably lack the charm of the real
+and the lovely. Every great writer, in truth, shows more or less clearly
+that the spring and secret of his imagination lie preponderantly in the
+exceptional endowment, training, or sensitiveness of one of the
+principal senses of sight, hearing, or touch. A thousand quotations
+might be made from each of a dozen great writers to prove the thesis.
+The man born blind, however, cannot become a poet, because true poetry
+must be conditioned upon things seen--"simple, sensuous, and passionate"
+demands the great critic; but interwoven and underrunning the
+simplicity, the passion, and the sense, is and must be the world as
+mirrored by the eye. All thinking, all intellectual activity, is by no
+means of the image and the picture; all words are the product of the
+imagining, and the very letters of the alphabet are conventionalized
+pictures.
+
+Physiologically, or normally, the perfection of the artist and of his
+workmanship thus depends upon the all-round perfection of his senses,
+the fulness of the materials and of his experience which these work on
+and in, and the logical and aesthetic rightness of systematization.
+Conversely, a new pathology of genius is coming into view which shows
+the morbidizing of art and literature through disease, chiefly of the
+sense-organs of the artist and literary workman, but also by unnatural
+living, selfishness, sin, and the rest. As Hearn was probably the most
+myopic literary man that has existed, his own thoughts upon _The
+Artistic_ _Value of Myopia_ are of peculiar interest. In 1887 one of
+his editorials in the _Times-Democrat_ runs as follows:--
+
+    Probably more than one reader, on coming to page 15 of
+    Philip Gilbert Hamerton's delightful book, "Landscape," was
+    startled by the author's irrefutable statement that "the
+    possession of very good eyesight may be a hindrance to
+    those feelings of sublimity that exalt the poetic
+    imagination." The fact is, that the impressiveness of
+    natural scenery depends a great deal upon the apparent
+    predominance of _mass_ over _detail_, to borrow Mr.
+    Hamerton's own words; the more visible the details of a
+    large object,--a mountain, a tower, a forest wall, the less
+    grand and impressive that object. The more apparently
+    uniform the mass, the larger it seems to loom; the vaguer a
+    shadow-space, the deeper it appears. An impression of
+    weirdness,--such as that obtainable in a Louisiana or
+    Florida swamp-forest, or, much more, in those primeval and
+    impenetrable forest-deeps described so powerfully by
+    Humbolt,--is stronger in proportion to the spectator's
+    indifference to lesser detail. The real effect of the scene
+    must be a _general_ one to be understood. In painting, the
+    artist does not attempt miscroscopic _minutiae_ in treating
+    forest-forms; he simply attempts to render the effect of
+    the masses, with their characteristic generalities of
+    shadow and colour. It is for this reason the photograph can
+    never supplant the painting--not even when the art of
+    photographing natural colours shall have been discovered.
+    Mr. Hamerton cites the example of a mountain, which always
+    seems more imposing when wreathed in mists or half veiled
+    by clouds, than when cutting sharply against the horizon
+    with a strong light upon it. Half the secret of Dore's
+    power as an illustrator was his exaggerated perception of
+    this fact,--his comprehension of the artistic witchcraft of
+    _suggestion_. And since the perception of details depends
+    vastly upon the quality of eyesight, a landscape
+    necessarily suggests less to the keen-sighted man than to
+    the myope. The keener the view, the less depth in the
+    impression produced. There is no possibility of mysterious
+    attraction in wooded deeps or mountain recesses for the eye
+    that, like the eye of the hawk, pierces shadow and can note
+    the separate quiver of each leaf. Far-seeing persons can,
+    to a certain degree, comprehend this by recalling the
+    impressions given in twilight by certain unfamiliar, or by
+    even familiar objects,--such as furniture and clothing in a
+    half-lighted room. The suggestiveness of form vanishes
+    immediately upon the making of a strong light. Again,
+    attractive objects viewed vaguely through a morning or
+    evening haze, or at a great distance, often totally lose
+    artistic character when a telescope is directed upon them.
+
+    In the February number of _Harper's Magazine_ we find a very
+    clever and amusing poem by the scholarly Andrew Lang upon
+    this very theme. The writer, after describing the
+    christening-gifts of various kindly fairies, tells us that
+    the wicked one--
+
+              --Said: "I shall be avenged on you.
+            My child, you shall grow up nearsighted!"
+              With magic juices did she lave
+            Mine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.
+              Well, of all the gifts the Fairies gave,
+            _Her's_ is the present that I treasure!
+
+            The bore, whom others fear and flee,
+              I do not fear, I do not flee him;
+            I pass him calm as calm can be;
+              I do not cut--I do not see him!
+            And with my feeble eyes and dim,
+              Where _you_ see patchy fields and fences,
+            For me the mists of Turner swim--
+              _My_ "azure distance" soon commences!
+            Nay, as I blink about the streets
+             Of this befogged and miry city,
+            Why, almost every girl one meets
+              Seems preternaturally pretty!
+            "Try spectacles," one's friends intone;
+              "You'll see the world correctly through them."
+            But I have visions of my own
+              And not for worlds would I undo them!
+
+    This is quite witty and quite consoling to myopes, even as a
+    cynical development of Philip Gilbert Hamerton's artistic
+    philosophy. Still, it does not follow that the myope
+    necessarily possesses the poetic faculty or
+    feeling;--neither does it imply that the presbyope
+    necessarily lacks it. If among French writers, for example,
+    Gautier was notably nearsighted, Victor Hugo had an eye as
+    keen as a bird's. It is true that a knowledge of the effect
+    of shortsightedness on the imagination may be of benefit to
+    a nearsighted man, who, possessing artistic qualities, can
+    learn to take all possible advantage of his myopia,--to
+    utilize his physical disability to a good purpose; but the
+    longsighted artist need not be at a loss to find equally
+    powerful sources of inspiration--he can seek them in morning
+    mists, evening fogs, or those wonderful hazes of summer
+    afternoons, when the land sends up all its vapours to the
+    sun, like a smoke of gold. Beaudelaire, in his _Curiosites
+    Esthetiques_, made an attempt to prove that the greatest
+    schools of painting were evolved among hazy
+    surroundings--Dutch fogs, Venetian mists, and the vapours of
+    Italian marsh-lands.
+
+    The evolutionary tendency would seem to indicate for future
+    man a keener vision than he at present possesses; and a
+    finer perception of colour--for while there may be certain
+    small emotional advantages connected with myopia, it is a
+    serious hindrance in practical life. What effect keener
+    sight will have on the artistic powers of the future man,
+    can only be imagined--but an increasing tendency to realism
+    in art is certainly perceptible; and perhaps an interesting
+    chapter could be written upon the possible results to art of
+    perfected optical instruments. The subject also suggests
+    another idea,--that the total inability of a certain class
+    of highly educated persons to feel interest in a certain
+    kind of art production may be partly accounted for by the
+    possession of such keen visual perception as necessarily
+    suppresses the sensation of breadth of effect, either in
+    landscape or verbal description.
+
+Thus, according to Flaubert, the myope looks at things one after another
+and describes details, while Hearn says the exact opposite. Both are
+wrong. The oculist will feel constrained to differ somewhat from Hearn
+in the foregoing article.
+
+In May 1887 he reviews editorially an article of my own which I had sent
+him during the preceding year. Again, because there has never been a
+literary artist with a colour-sense so amazingly developed as that of
+Hearn, I venture to copy his commendation of my views:
+
+
+                          COLOURS AND EMOTIONS
+
+                             (May 8, 1887)
+
+    The evolutionary history of the Colour-Sense, very prettily
+    treated of by Grant Allen and others, both in regard to the
+    relation between fertilization of flowers by insects, and
+    in regard to the aesthetic pleasure of man in contemplating
+    certain colours, has also been considered in a very
+    thorough way by American thinkers. Perhaps the most
+    entertaining and instructive paper yet published on the
+    subject was one in the _American Journal of Ophthalmology_
+    last September. It has just been reprinted in pamphlet
+    form, under the title of "The Human Colour-Sense as the
+    Organic Response to Natural Stimuli;" and contains a
+    remarkable amplification of these theories, rather
+    suggested than laid down by the author of "Physiological
+    AEsthetics." Of course, the reader whom the subject can
+    interest, comprehends that outside of the mind no such
+    thing as colour exists; and that the phenomena of colours,
+    like those of sound, are simply the results of exterior
+    impressions upon nerve apparatus specially sensitive to
+    vibrations--in the one case of ether, in the other of air.
+    Everybody, moreover,--even those totally ignorant of the
+    physiology of the eye--know that certain colours are called
+    primary or elementary. But it has probably occurred to few
+    to ask why,--except in regard to mixing of paints in a
+    drawing-school.
+
+    The theories of Gladstone and Magnus that the men of the
+    Homeric era were colour-blind, because of the absence from
+    the Homeric poems of certain words expressive of certain
+    colours, have been disproved by more thorough modern
+    research. The primitive man's sense of colour, or the
+    sensitiveness of his retina to ether vibrations, may not
+    have been as fine as that of the Roman mosaic-worker who
+    could select his materials of 30,000 different tints, nor as
+    that of Gobelin weavers, who can recognize 28,000 different
+    shades of wool. But the evidence goes to show that the sense
+    of colour is old as the gnawing of hunger or the pangs of
+    fear,--old as the experience that taught living creatures to
+    discern food and to flee from danger. There is, however,
+    reason to suppose, from certain developmental phenomena
+    observed in the eyes of children and newly-born animals,
+    that the present condition of the colour-sense has been
+    gradually reached--not so much in any particular species, as
+    in all species possessing it,--just as vision itself must
+    have been gradually acquired. Also showy colours must have
+    been perceived before tints could be discerned; and even now
+    we know through the spectroscope, that the human eye is not
+    yet developed to the fullest possible perceptions of colour.
+    Now the first colours recognized by the first eyes must have
+    presumably been just those we call primary,--Yellow, Red,
+    Green, Blue. Yellow, the colour of gold, is also the colour
+    of our sun; the brightest daylight has a more or less faint
+    tinge even at noon, according to the state of the
+    atmosphere;--and this tinge deepens at sunrise and sunset.
+    Red is the colour of blood,--a colour allied necessarily
+    from time immemorial with violent mental impressions,
+    whether of war, or love, or the chase, or religious
+    sacrifice. Green itself is the colour of the world.
+    Blue,--the blue of the far away sky,--has necessarily always
+    been for man the colour mysterious and holy,--always
+    associated with those high phenomena of heaven which first
+    inspired wonder and fear of the Unknown. These colours were
+    probably first known to intelligent life; and their
+    impressions are to-day the strongest. So violent, indeed,
+    have they become to our refined civilized sense, that in
+    apparel or decoration three of them, at least, are
+    condemned when offered pure. Even the armies of the world
+    are abandoning red uniforms;--no refined people wear flaming
+    crimsons or scarlets or yellows;--nobody would paint a house
+    or decorate a wall with a solid sheet of strong primary
+    colour. Blue is still the least violent, the most agreeable
+    to the artistic sense; and in subdued form it holds a place,
+    in costume and in art, refused to less spiritual colours.
+
+    It might consequently be expected there should exist some
+    correlation between the primary colours and the stronger
+    emotional states of man. And such, indeed, proves to be the
+    case. Emotionally the colours come in the order of Red,
+    Yellow, Green, Blue. Red still appeals to the idea of
+    Passion,--for which very reason its artistic use is being
+    more and more restrained. Very curious are the researches
+    made by Grant Allen showing the fact of the sensual use of
+    the red. In Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads "(the same
+    suppressed work republished in this country under its first
+    title, "Laus Veneris"), the red epithets appear 159 times,
+    while gold, green and blue words occur respectively 143, 86
+    and 25 times. In Tennyson's beautiful poem, "The Princess,"
+    the red words occur only 20 times, the gold 28, the green 5,
+    the blue once. With all his exquisite sense of colour,
+    Tennyson is sparing of adjectives;--there is no false skin
+    to his work; it is solid muscle and bone.
+
+    Next to Red, the most emotional colour is Yellow--the colour
+    of life, and of what men seem to prize next to life,--Gold.
+    We fancy we can live without green sometimes; it comes
+    third; but it is the hue associated with all the labours of
+    man on the earth, since he began to labour. It is the colour
+    of Industry. Blue has always been, since man commenced to
+    think, and always will be, until he shall have ceased to
+    think,--associated with his spiritual sense,--his idea of
+    many gods or of One,--his hopes of a second life, his faith,
+    his good purposes, his perception of duty. Still, all who
+    pray, turn up their faces toward the eternal azure. And with
+    the modern expansion of the Idea of God, as with the modern
+    expansion of the Idea of the Universe, the violet gulf of
+    space ever seems more mystical,--its pure colour more and
+    more divine, and appeals to us as the colour of the
+    Unknowable,--the colour of the Holy of Holies.
+
+That Hearn wrote not from his own experience, out of his own heart, and
+with its blood, was due to the fact that life had denied him the needed
+experience; the personal materials, those that would interest the
+imaginative or imagining reader, did not exist. He must borrow, at
+first literally, which for him meant translation or retelling. The kind
+of things chosen was also dictated by the tragedy and pathos of his
+entire past life. But as if this pitiful tangling of the strands of
+Destiny were not enough, Fate added a knot of still more controlling
+misfortune. His adult life was passed without the poet's most necessary
+help of good vision. Indeed he had such extremely poor vision that one
+might say it was only the merest fraction of the normal. A most hazy
+blur of colours was all he perceived of objects beyond a foot or two
+away. There was left for him the memory of a world of forms as seen in
+his childhood; but that fact throws into relief the fact that it was a
+memory. It needs little psychologic acumen to realize how inaccurate
+would be our memories of trees, landscapes, mountains, oceans, cities,
+and the rest, seen only thirty years ago. How unsatisfying, how
+unreliable, especially for artistic purposes, must such memories be! To
+be sure, these haunting and dim recollections were, or might have been,
+helped out a little by pictures and photographs studied at the distance
+of three inches from the eye. The pathos of this, however, is increased
+by the fact that Hearn cared nothing for such photographs, etchings,
+engravings, etc. I never saw him look at one with attention or interest.
+Paintings, water-colours, etc., were as useless to him as the natural
+views themselves.
+
+Another way that he might have supplemented his infirmity was by means
+of his monocle, but he made little use of this poor device, because he
+instinctively recognized that it aided so meagrely. One cannot be sure
+how consciously he refused the help, or knew the reasons for his
+refusal. At best it could give him only a suggestion of the accurate
+knowledge which our eyes give us of distant objects, and not even his
+sensitive mind could know that it minimized the objects thus seen, and
+almost turned them into a caricaturing microscopic smallness, like that
+produced when we look through the large end of an opera-glass. What
+would we think of the world if we carried before our eyes an opera-glass
+thus inverted? Would not a second's such use be as foolish as continuous
+use? There was an optical and sensible reason for his refusal. With the
+subtle wisdom of the unconscious he refused to see plainly, because his
+successful work, his unique function, lay in the requickening of ancient
+sorrows, and of lost, aimless and errant souls. He supplemented the
+deficiencies of vision with a vivid imagination, a perfect memory, and a
+perfection of touch which gave some sense of solidity and content, and
+by hearing, that echo-like emphasized unreality; but his world was
+essentially a two-dimensional one. To add the _comble_ to his ocular
+misfortunes, he had but one eye, and therefore he had no stereoscopic
+vision, and hence almost no perception of solidity, thickness, or
+content except such as was gained by the sense of touch, memory,
+judgment, etc. The little glimpse of stereoscopic qualities was made
+impossible by the fact of his enormous myopia, and further by the
+comparative blindness to objects beyond a few inches or a few feet away
+from the eye. The small ball becomes flat when brought sufficiently near
+the eye. Practically the world beyond a few feet was not a
+three-dimensional one; it was coloured it is true, and bewilderingly so,
+but it was formless and flat, without much thickness or solidity, and
+almost without perspective.[18] Moreover, Hearn's single eye was
+divergent, and more of the world to his left side was invisible to him
+than to other single-eyed persons. Most noteworthy also is another
+fact,--the slowness of vision by a highly myopic eye. It takes it longer
+to see what it finally does see than in the case of other eyes. So all
+the movements of such a myopic person must be slow and careful, for he
+is in doubt about everything under foot, or even within reach of the
+hands. Hearn's myopia produced his manners.
+
+    [18] I have gathered, but must omit, a hundred illuminating
+         quotations from Hearn's writings, illustrating the truth of
+         the formlessness and non-objectivity of his world, and how
+         colour dominated his poorly seen universe.
+
+Intellect, one must repeat, is largely, almost entirely, the product of
+vision,--especially the aesthetic part of intellect. And intellect, it
+should not be forgotten, is "desiccated emotion"; which brings us up
+sharply before the question of the effect upon aesthetic and general
+feeling, upon the soft swirl and lift and flitting rush of the emotional
+nature, in a psyche so sensitive and aerial as that of Hearn. In this
+rare ether one loses the significance of words, and the limitations of
+logic, but it may not be doubted that in the large, the summarized
+effect of thirty years of two-dimensional seeing and living, of a flat,
+formless, coloured world, upon the immeasurably quick, sensitive plate
+of Hearn's mind, was--well, it was what it was!
+
+And who can describe that mind! Clearly and patently, it was a mind
+without creative ability, spring, or the desire for it. It was a mind
+improcreant by inheritance and by education, by necessity and by
+training, by poverty internal and external. To enable its master to
+live, it must write, and, as was pitifully evident, if it could not
+write in obedience to a creative instinct, it must do the next best
+thing. This residual second was to describe the external world, or at
+least so much of the externals of all worlds, physical, biological, or
+social, as romance or common-sense demanded to make the writing vivid,
+accurate, and bodied. Any good literature, especially the poetic, must
+be based on reality, must at least incidentally have its running
+obligato of reality. For the poet, again emphasized, vision is the
+intermediary, the broad, bright highway to facts. Prosaically, local
+colour requires the local seer. Barred from this divine roadway to and
+through the actual universe, the foiled mind of Hearn could choose but
+one course: to regarment, transform, and colour the world, devised and
+transmitted by others, and reversing the old [Greek: o logos sarx
+egeneto] rewrite the history of the soul as [Greek: sarx o logos
+egeneto], for in Hearn's alembic the solidest of flesh was "melted" and
+escaped in clouds of spirit; it was indeed often so disembodied and
+freed that one is lost in wonder at the mere vision of the cloudland so
+eerie, so silent, so void, so invisibly far, and fading ever still
+farther away. But, chained to the _here_ Hearn could not march on the
+bright road. He could never even see the road, or its ending. If freed
+to go, _there_ became _here_ with the intolerable limitation of his
+vision, the peculiarity of his unvision. The world, the world of the
+_there_ must be brought to him, and in the bringing it became the
+_here_. In the process, distant motion or action became dead, silent,
+and immobile being; distance was transformed to presence, and an
+intimacy of presence which at one blow destroyed scene, setting, and
+illumination. For, except to passionate love, nearness and touch are not
+poetical or transfiguring, and to Hearn love never could come; at least
+it never did come. Except in boyhood he never, with any accuracy of
+expression or life, saw a human face; at the best, he saw faces only in
+the frozen photographs, and these interested him little.
+
+With creative instinct or ability denied, with the poet's craving for
+open-eyed knowing, and with the poet's necessity of realizing the world
+out there, Hearn, baldly stated, was forced to become the poet of
+myopia. His groping mind was compelled to rest satisfied with the world
+of distance and reality transported by the magic carpet to the door of
+his imagination and fancy. There in a flash it was melted to formless
+spirit, recombined to soul, and given the semblance of a thin
+reincarnation, fashioned, refashioned, coloured, recoloured. There, lo!
+that incomparable wonder of art, the haunting, magical essence of
+reality, the quivering, elusive protean ghost of the tragedy of dead
+pain, the smile of a lost universe murmuring _non dolet_ while it dies
+struck by the hand of the beloved murderer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.--HEARN'S STYLE
+
+
+"THE 'lovers of the antique loveliness,'" wrote Hearn, "are proving to
+me the future possibilities of a long-cherished dream--the English
+realization of a Latin style, modelled upon foreign masters, and
+rendered even more forcible by that element of _strength_ which is the
+characteristic of the northern tongues." "I think that Genius must have
+greater attributes than mere creative power to be called to the front
+rank,--the thing created must be beautiful; it does not satisfy if the
+material be rich. I cannot content myself with ores and rough jewels,
+etc." "It has long been my aim to create something in English fiction
+analogous to that warmth of colour and richness of imagery hitherto
+peculiar to Latin literature. Being of a meridional race myself, a
+Greek, I _feel_ rather with the Latin race than with the Anglo-Saxon;
+and trust that with time and study I may be able to create something
+different from the stone-grey and somewhat chilly style of latter-day
+English or American romance." "The volume, 'Chinese Ghosts,' is an
+attempt in the direction I hope to make triumph some day, _poetical
+prose_." "A man's style, when fully developed, is part of his
+personality. Mine is being shaped to a particular end."
+
+Hearn advised the use of the etymological dictionary in order to secure
+"that subtle sense of words to which much that _startles_ in poetry and
+prose is due." But although always remaining an artist in words, he, at
+his best, came to know that artistic technique in ideas is a more
+certain method of arousing and holding the readers' interest. He also
+strongly urges a knowledge of Science as more necessary to the formation
+of a strong style. In this, however, he never practised what he
+commended, because he had no mind for Science, nor knowledge of
+scientific things. He spoke with pride of writing the scientific
+editorials for his paper, but they were few and may quickly be ignored.
+
+Flaubert was Hearn's literary deity; the technique of the two men was
+identical, and consisted of infinite pains with data, in
+phrase-building, sentence-making, and word-choosing. With no writer was
+the filing of the line ever carried to higher perfection than with both
+master and pupil; fortunately the younger had to make his living by his
+pen, and therefore he could not wreck himself upon the impossible task
+as did Flaubert. For nothing is more certain to ruin style and content,
+form as well as matter, than to make style and form the first
+consideration of a writer. Flaubert, the fashion-maker and supreme
+example of this school, came at last to recognize this truth, and wished
+that he might buy up and destroy all copies of "Madame Bovary;" and he
+summed up the unattainableness of the ideal, as well as the resultant
+abysmal pessimism, when he said that "form is only an error of sense,
+and substance a fancy of your thought." His ever-repeated "Art has no
+morality," "The moment a thing is true it is good," "Style is an
+absolute method of seeing things," "The idea exists only by virtue of
+its form," etc., led Flaubert and his thousand imitators into the
+quagmire which Zola, Wilde, Shaw, and decadent journalism generally so
+admirably illustrate. That Hearn escaped from the bog is due to several
+interesting reasons, the chief being his poverty, which compelled him to
+write much, and his audience, which, being Anglo-Saxon (and therefore
+properly and thoroughly cursed), would not buy the elegant pornography
+of Flaubert and the gentlemen who succeeded, or did not succeed, in the
+perfection of the worship and of the works of the master of them all.
+And then Hearn was himself at least part Anglo-Saxon, so that he shrank
+from perfection in the method.
+
+There is a pathetic proof of the lesson doubly repeated in the lives of
+both Flaubert and Hearn. "St. Anthony" was rewritten three times, and
+each time the failures might be called, great, greater, greatest. There
+lies before me Hearn's manuscript translation of the third revision of
+the work, in two large volumes, with a printed pamphlet of directions to
+the printer, an Introduction, etc.,--a great labour assuredly on Hearn's
+part. No publisher could be found to give it to the world of English
+readers![19] Moreover, there was never in his life any personal
+happiness, romance, poetry, or satisfaction which could serve as the
+material of Hearn's aesthetic faculty. Almost every hour of that life had
+been lived in physical or mental anguish, denied desire, crushed
+yearnings, and unguided waywardness. Born of a Greek mother, and a
+roving English father, his childhood was passed in an absurd French
+school where another might have become a dwarfed and potted Chinese
+tree. Flung upon the alien world of the United States in youth, without
+self-knowledge, experience, or self-guiding power, he drank for years
+all the bitter poisons of poverty, banality, and the rest, which may not
+shatter the moral and mental health of strong and coarse natures. By
+nature and necessity shy beyond belief, none may imagine the poignant
+sufferings he endured, and how from it all he writhed at last to manhood
+and self-consciousness, preserved a weird yet real beauty of soul, a
+morbid yet genuine artist-power, a child-like and childish, yet most
+involuted and mysterious heart, a supple and subtle, yet illogical and
+contentless intellect.
+
+    [19] Particulars concerning the manuscript translation of "St.
+         Anthony" are given in the Bibliography of Miss Stedman,
+         Hearn's "Argument" of the book being reprinted in full.
+
+The most striking evidence of the pathetic and unmatched endowment and
+experience is that, while circumstance dictated that he should be a
+romancer, no facts in his own life could be used as his material. There
+had been no romance, no love, no happiness, no interesting personal
+data, upon which he could draw to give his imagination play, vividness,
+actuality, or even the semblance of reality. So sombre and tragic,
+moreover, had been his own living that the choice of his themes could
+only be of unhealthy, almost unnatural, import and colouring. He
+therefore chose to work over the imaginings of other writers, and
+perforce of morbid ones.
+
+A glance at his library confirms the opinion. When Hearn left for Japan,
+he turned over to me several hundred volumes which he had collected and
+did not wish to take with him. His most-prized books he had had
+especially rebound in dainty morocco covers, and these, particularly,
+point to the already established taste, the yearning for the strange,
+the weird, and the ghost-like, the gathered and pressed exotic flowers
+of folklore, the banalities and morbidities of writers with unleashed
+imaginations, the love of antique religions and peoples, the mysteries
+of mystics, the descriptions of savage life and rites--all mixed with
+dictionaries, handbooks, systems of philosophy, etc.
+
+Under the conditioning factor of his taste, it is true that his choice,
+or his _flair_, was unique and inerrant. He tracked his game with fatal
+accuracy to its lair. His literary sense was perfect, when he set it in
+action, and this is his unique merit. There has never been a mind more
+infallibly sure to find the best in all literatures, the best of the
+kind he sought, and probably his translations of the stories from the
+French are as perfect as can be.
+
+His second published volume, the "Stray Leaves from Strange Literature,"
+epitomizes and reillumines this first period of his literary
+workmanship. The material, the basis, is not his own; it is drawn from
+the fatal Orient, and tells of love, jealousy, hate, bitter and burning
+vengeance, and death, sudden and awful. Over it is the wondrous mystical
+glamour in which he, like his elder brother Coleridge, was so expert in
+sunsetting these dead days and deathless themes. His next book, "Some
+Chinese Ghosts," was a reillustration of the same searching, finding,
+and illuminating.
+
+Flaubert's choice of subjects, as regards his essential character, was
+of the most extreme illogicality; his cadenced phrase and meticulous
+technique were also not the product of his character or of his freedom.
+In the Land of Nowhere, Hearn was likewise compelled to reside, and it
+was necessarily a land of colour and echo, not one of form. The
+suffering Frenchman emptied of inhabitants or deimpersonalized his alien
+country, while the more healthy Anglo-Saxon peopled it with ghosts.
+"Have you ever experienced the historic shudder?" asked Flaubert. "I
+seek to give your ghost a ghostly shudder," said Hearn. Flaubert
+wrote:--
+
+"The artist should be in his work, like God in creation, invisible and
+all-powerful; he should be felt everywhere and seen nowhere.
+
+"Art should be raised above personal affections and nervous
+susceptibilities. It is time to give it the perfection of the physical
+sciences by means of pitiless method."
+
+And Hearn's first and most beloved "Avatar," and his most serious "St.
+Anthony"--works dealing with the mysteries and awesomeness of
+disembodied souls and ideals--"could not get themselves printed."
+Moreover, in all that he afterwards published there are the haunting
+far-away, the soft concealing smile, and the unearthly memories of pain,
+the detached spirits of muted and transmuted dead emotions, and denied
+yearnings, the formless colourings of half-invisible and evanishing
+dreams.
+
+For with Hearn's lack of creative ability, married to his inexperience
+of happiness, he could but choose the darksome, the tragical elements of
+life, the [Greek: pathos] even of religion, as his themes. His intellect
+being a reflecting, or at least a recombining and colouring faculty, his
+datum must be sought without, and it must be brought to him; his
+joyless and even his tragic experience compelled him to cull from the
+mingled sad and bright only the pathetic or pessimistic subjects; his
+physical and optical imprisonment forbade that objectivation and
+distinctive embodiment which stamp an art work with the seal of reality,
+and make it stand there wholly non-excusing, or else offering itself as
+its own excuse for being. True art must have the warp of materiality,
+interwoven with the woof of life, or else the coloration and designs of
+the imagination cannot avail to dower it with immortality.
+
+Working within the sad limits his Fates had set, Hearn performed
+wonders. None has made tragedy so soft and gentle, none has rendered
+suffering more beautiful, none has dissolved disappointment into such
+painless grief, none has blunted the hurt of mortality with such a
+delightful anaesthesia, and by none have death and hopelessness been more
+deftly figured in the guise of a desirable Nirvana. The doing of this
+was almost a unique doing, the manner of the [Greek: poiesis] was
+assuredly so, and constitutes Hearn's claim to an artist's "For ever."
+He would have made no claim, it is true, to this, or to any other
+endless existence, but we who read would be too indiscriminating, would
+be losers, ingrates, if we did not cherish the lovely gift he brings to
+us so shyly. Restricted and confined as was his garden, he grew in it
+exotic flowers of unearthly but imperishable beauty. One will not find
+elsewhere an equal craftsmanship in bringing into words and vision the
+intangible, the far, fine, illusive fancy, the ghosts of vanished hearts
+and hopes. Under his magic touch unseen spirit almost reappears with the
+veiling of materiality, and behind the grim and grinning death's-head a
+supplanting smile of kindness invites pity, if not a friendly whisper.
+
+As to literary aim, Hearn distinctly and repeatedly confessed to me that
+his ideal was, in his own words, to give his reader "a ghostly
+shudder," a sense of the closeness of the unseen about us, as if eyes we
+saw not were watching us, as if long-dead spirits and weird powers were
+haunting the very air about our ears, were sitting hid in our heart of
+hearts. It was a pleasing task to him to make us hear the moans and
+croonings of disincarnate griefs and old pulseless pains, begging
+piteously, but always softly, gently, for our love and comforting. But
+it should not be unrecognized that no allurement of his art can hide
+from view the deeper pathos of a horrid and iron fatalism which to his
+mind moved the worlds of nature or of life, throttled freedom, steeled
+the heart, iced the emotions, and dictated the essential automatism of
+our own being and of these sad dead millions which crowd the dimly seen
+dreams of Hearn's mind.
+
+It may be added that, accepting the command of his destiny, Hearn
+consciously formed an ideal to which he worked, and even laboured at the
+technique of its realization. I have talked with him upon these and
+similar subjects for many long hours, or got him to talk to me. The
+conversations were usually at night, beneath trees, with the moonlight
+shimmering through and giving that dim, mystic light which is not light,
+so well suited to such a poet and to his favourite subjects.
+
+As to technique, there was never an artist more patient and persistent
+than he to clothe his thought in its perfect garment of words. Sometimes
+he would be able to write with comparative ease a large number of sheets
+(of _yellow_ paper--he could write on no other) in a day. At other times
+the words did not suit or fit, and he would rewrite a few pages scores
+of times. Once I knew him to labour over six lines an entire day, and
+then stop weary and unsatisfied. I had to supply a large waste-basket
+and have often wished I had kept for comparison and a lesson in
+practical aesthetics the half-bushel or more of wasted sheets thrown away
+nearly every day.
+
+Just as those outfitted with good eyes must find Hearn's world too
+formless and too magnificently coloured, so normal civilized persons
+will find it altogether too sexually and sensually charged. Whenever
+able to do so he turns a description to the ghostly, but even then
+_c'est toujours femme!_ A mountain is like a curved hip, a slender tree
+takes the form of a young girl budding into womanhood, etc. Colour, too,
+is everywhere, even where it is not, seemingly, to our eyes, and even
+colour is often made sensual and sexual by some strange suggestion or
+allusion.
+
+Viewing merit as the due of conscious, honourable, unselfish, and
+dutiful effort, Hearn's sole merit rises from his heroic pursuit of an
+ideal of workmanship. Like glorious bursts of illuminating sunshine
+through the fogs and clouds of a murky atmosphere shine such sentences
+as these:--
+
+    What you want, and what we all want, who possess devotion
+    to any noble idea, who hide any artistic idol in a niche of
+    our heart, is that independence which gives us at least the
+    time to worship the holiness of beauty,--be it in harmonies
+    of sound, of form, or of colour.
+
+    What you say about the disinclination to work for years upon
+    a theme for pure love's sake, without hope of reward,
+    touches me,--because I have felt that despair so long and so
+    often. And yet I believe that all the world's art-work--all
+    that which is eternal--was thus wrought. And I also believe
+    that no work made perfect for the pure love of art, can
+    perish, save by strange and rare accident....
+
+    Yet the hardest of all sacrifices for the artist is this
+    sacrifice to art,--this trampling of self under foot! It is
+    the supreme test for admittance into the ranks of the
+    eternal priests. It is the bitter and fruitless sacrifice
+    which the artist's soul is bound to make,--as in certain
+    antique cities maidens were compelled to give their
+    virginity to a god of stone! But without the sacrifice, can
+    we hope for the grace of Heaven?
+
+    What is the reward? The consciousness of inspiration only! I
+    think art gives a new faith. I think--all jesting
+    aside--that could I create something I felt to be sublime, I
+    should feel also that the Unknowable had selected me for a
+    mouthpiece, for a medium of utterance, in the holy cycling
+    of its eternal purpose; and I should know the pride of the
+    prophet that had seen God face to face.
+
+    * * * * Never to abandon the pursuit of an artistic
+    vocation for any other occupation, however lucrative,--not
+    even when she remained apparently deaf and blind to her
+    worshippers. So long as one can live and pursue his natural
+    vocation in art, it is a duty with him never to abandon it
+    if he believes that he has within him the elements of final
+    success. Every time he labours at aught that is not of art,
+    he robs the divinity of what belongs to her.
+
+And the greatest of our satisfactions with Hearn's personality is that
+these were not mere words, but that he consistently, resolutely, and
+persistently practised his preaching. This was the only religion or
+ethics he had, and praise God, he had it! That alone binds us to him in
+any feeling of brotherhood, that only makes us grateful to him.
+
+Style has been too frequently and too long confounded with content.
+There is the matter, the thing to be said, the story to be told; and
+quite apart from this there is the method of telling it, which, properly
+viewed, is style. So long as the teller of the tale has only borrowed
+his message or story from others, there cannot be raised much question
+of originality, or discussion of the datum, except in so far as pertains
+to the _choice_ of material. And so long as the stylist fingers
+etymological dictionaries for "startling words," so long will his style
+remain of the lower kind and etymologically unstylish. When the
+technique becomes unconscious and perfect, there is style, or the art,
+merged into the content, and then, _le style c'est l'homme_, or, as
+Hearn translated it, style becomes the artist's personality. In the best
+Japanese works Hearn accomplished this, and with his consummate choice
+of material there was the consummate art-work. Subject, method, cunning
+handiwork, psychologic analysis, generous and loyal sympathy, colour
+(not form)--all were fused to a unity almost beyond disassociation, and
+challenging admiration. But it is not beyond our perfect enjoying.
+
+It is true that Hearn has ignored, necessarily and wisely ignored, the
+objective and material side of Japanese existence. Mechanics,
+nationalism, economy, the materialism of his material, had obviously to
+be untouched in his interpretation, or in his "Interpretation." It would
+have been absurd for him to have attempted any presentation or valuable
+phasing of this important aspect. That for him was in a double sense
+_ultra vires_. Such work will not want for experts. But what Hearn has
+done was almost wholly impossible to any other. His personal heredity,
+history, and physiology, highly exceptional, seem to have conspired to
+outfit him for this remarkable task.
+
+There is still another reason, at first sight a contradicting one, for
+both Hearn's fitness and his success in giving us a literary incarnation
+of the spirit or soul of Japan in the subjective sense: To his readers
+it must have appeared an insoluble enigma why this superlatively
+subjective and psychical "sensitive" should have been such an unrecking,
+_outre_, and enthusiastic follower of Herbert Spencer's philosophy, or
+that part of it given in the "First Principles." It is told of an
+English wit that when asked if he was willing to subscribe to the
+Thirty-nine Articles, he promptly replied, "Oh, yes, forty of them if
+you wish." Hearn was similarly minded--minus the fun,--and most
+unphilosophically he went into utter captivity, seemingly, to the
+unphilosophic philosopher. And yet the spirit of Spencer's "First
+Principles" was in reality as different from that of Hearn as was the
+spirit of St. Francis from that, for instance, of Cecil Rhodes. The
+contradiction and ludicrousness of this mismating is so easy of
+explanation that the incongruity is missed. The forest is not seen
+because of the trees. Hearn did not have true scientific instinct,
+animus, or ability. Neither had Herbert Spencer--so far as his "First
+Principles" is concerned, and as regards an improved inductive method as
+shown in the "Psychology," "Biology," etc., Hearn, according to a
+letter, found he could not interest himself enough to read one of these
+later works. The clear and well-drilled scientific intellect admits that
+if Spencer had not published his "First Principles," but had gathered
+the facts of his later works before publishing an epitomizing Last
+Principles, the matter would have been as differently phased as night
+and day. Spencer cared infinitely more for the systematization than he
+did for the facts systematized. Reduced to its last analysis, the "First
+Principles" was the reverse of a close induction from the facts of
+nature and life. It presented the glitter of generalization without the
+logic. The reverberating echoes of its illogic, sweeping sonorously over
+the universe with an indiscriminate ignoring of the world-wide
+difference between matter and life, caught the fancy of the imprisoned
+poet soul; he thoughtlessly yielded a homage which, from his standpoint,
+was unjustified, and which objectively was an unscrutinizing
+lip-service. Subjectively Spencerism gave Hearn warrant for an inborn
+atheism and materialism which had been heightened immoderately by the
+bitter teachings of experience into a pessimism so horrid that one
+shuddered when looking into the man's soul depths. _Morne_ was a
+favourite word with Hearn, and Spencer's was a fateful philosophy for
+one whose birth and education were desolation, and whose sight of the
+world was more than _morne_, was the abomination of desolation, was in
+truth the sheer awfulness of despair. Blindness were vastly preferable
+to Hearn's affliction, but if that splendid poet St. Francis had been so
+cursed, his face and his soul would have been ecstatic with smiles, with
+joy, with faith, with hope, and with love. So strange is the
+unaccountable allotment of Fate in her endowments, gifts, and orderings.
+There is and there can be no blame--only a pity wholly beyond
+expression.
+
+The aloofness, far-awayness, the inapproachable distance and detachment
+of Hearn's spirit is one of the characteristics felt in reading his
+best pages. Everything is infinitely beyond our senses. To him
+everything was distant: the near was far, the far was at infinity. He
+thus truly became the poet of the _au dela_. His voice, itself an echo,
+comes to us as from the hush of an eerie height above the beat and wreck
+of the waves of our noisy shore. His personality as revealed in his
+writings is an echo, a memory, almost the memory of a memory, the thrill
+of the day-dream of a soul retreating from sense.
+
+            Each day the quiet grew more still
+            Within his soul, more shrank the will
+              Beyond the jar of sense, serene,
+            Behind the hurt of world or ill,
+              Where sleep hushed silences unseen.
+
+He ever insists on a haunting glimpse of the pain and the renunciation
+of others, of wasted and long-dead faces and loves, always shrinking
+from our gaze, pallid in the darkling light of the setting moon, of
+vanishing loves, grievous story, forgotten myth, and ruined religion.
+
+And yet, and yet, all that works to make Hearn immortal in literature
+is, at last, not art _per se_. One might quote freely showing that his
+"filing of the line," like that of Flaubert, led to nothing, if the
+thought and feeling to be put into the lines were not there. They were
+not there with his masters, Flaubert, Gautier, Maupassant, and others,
+and so these men will not inherit literary immortality. They had no
+soul, and only the soul, the spirit, can be immortalized. Hearn's good
+fortune is that unconsciously, even almost against his will, he was more
+than they, more than an artist as such. He had something else to do. If
+it had not been for his poverty, the necessity to sell what he wrote, he
+would surely have gone the same road to Avernus as his masters. Then,
+too, he had no original message to write, because he had no real soul,
+only a borrowed one. Japan gave him her soul to rematerialize and
+recolour with literary life. Without his Japanese work Hearn would have
+died as _litterateur_ in the year he died as a physical body. To tell
+her "ghostly" stories was his great office and function. When these were
+told his work was done. His old gloating over the clotted villainies of
+mediaeval horror had been much outgrown, and it had no chance to be used
+in Japan. The Japanese character would not tolerate such things. The
+ghastly was transformed into the ghostly, and his Oriental fancy was
+luckily turned to better duties and pleasures. This more than Flaubert
+was something not to be got from modern atheistic French "Art for Art's
+sake," nor from modern Levantine nonentity of character. How marvellous
+is his sympathy with his subject, loyalty to his literary duty, and to
+his literary ideal! His despised Irish father perhaps had slipped into
+the otherwise invisible and limp threads of his Fates a little mesh of
+spiritual reality, which, dormant, unrecognized, and even scorned by
+him, came finally to give him all his valour and worth. He could dower
+the insubstantial sigh of a long dead soul or people with the winged
+word. It was a word of colour, only,--and colour has no objective
+existence,--the rainbow is not out there. And because it is spiritual,
+not objective, the most beautiful, if the most evanescent of all earthly
+things, is colour. The hearers of soundless music, and the lovers of
+"the light that never was on sea or shore" will understand what is
+meant. For them Hearn really wrote: they are few, and scattered far, but
+Hearn will magnificently multiply the number. His amazing merit is that
+while without the great qualities which make the greatest writers, he
+wrought such miracles of winning grace and persuading beauty.
+
+That he wrought against his will, and by the overcoming of a seemingly
+cruel Fate, puts him almost outside of our personal gratitude. We take
+the gift from a divinity he did not recognize, one that used the
+rebellious hand and the almost blind eye as a writing instrument. The
+lover of the gruesome, the Spencerian scientist, the man himself, must
+have wondered at the message when he came out from under the influence
+of the pitiless inspiration.
+
+One of Hearn's dangers was discursiveness, or want of conciseness and
+intensity. "Chita" showed it, and the West Indian work lost in value
+because of it. It is the danger of all those writers who lack creative
+ability, and who depend upon "local colour," and "style" for their
+effect. The story's the thing, after all! In Hearn's translations, and
+especially in "Stray Leaves," he for the moment caught the view of the
+value of the content, saw how the fact, dramatic, intense, and
+passionate is the all-desirable; the art of its presentation is the art
+of letting it flash forth upon the reader with few, apt, and flamelike
+words, which reveal and not conceal the life and soul of the act and of
+the actor. He tended to forget this. In "Karma," besides, or rather by
+reason of, the moral,--his newly got psyche,--he returned to a reliance
+upon essentials, upon the datum of the spirit, and not upon its
+reflections, refractions, and chromatics. The beautiful spectrum was
+there refocused into white light, and the senses disappeared to reveal
+behind them the divinity of soul. That art-lesson was never forgotten by
+Hearn, and his Japanese work had a purity and a reality, a white heat,
+which make his previous stories and sketches seem pale and weak.
+
+Questions of style and form sometimes run inevitably into those of
+content and of logic. Essentially wanting the rigorous training of form,
+without the content and method of the scientific intellect, all Hearn's
+work shows a lack of system, order, and subordination of parts. In any
+single one of the Japanese volumes the absence of logic is lamentably
+evident. He constantly repeats himself, and the warp of some of his
+themes is worn threadbare. His most ambitious work, "Japan," is, in
+truth, a regathering and a restatement in more objective style, of his
+previous imaginative studies. Almost the only added thought concerns the
+difference between Shintoism and ancestor-worship and the truism that
+Japan is to-day ruthlessly sacrificing the life of the individual to
+that of the nation. The lack of scholarship and of the scientific animus
+(even in a field, folk-lore, more nearly his own than any other) comes
+to view in his mistake of supposing Spencer an authority on the subject
+of the origin of religion, and in the blunder that assumed
+ancestor-worship to be original in Japanese history and religion.
+Ancestor-worship, according to Griffis, Knox, and other distinguished
+authorities, was unknown to the ancient writers of Nippon and was
+imported from China. How threadbare--and yet how deftly, even charmingly
+concealed!--was the wearing of his favourite themes, is shown by Hearn's
+fateful return to the gruesome, especially in the later books, "Kott"
+and "Kwaidan." These stories of the dead and of morbid necrophilism are
+witnesses of Hearn's primitive interest in the ghastly, impossible to be
+renounced or sloughed, not to be replaced by desire for the
+supersensual, or by resolve to transform the loathsome into the ghostly.
+Hearn should never have been seduced into the delusion that he could
+become the spokesman of any scientific animus, methods or results.
+Erudition, logic, systematization, were to him impossible. His function
+was another and of a different nature, and his peculiar ability was for
+other tasks. If we are adequately to appreciate the exquisiteness of the
+earlier Japanese works, we will forget the "Japan, an Interpretation."
+
+If we look upon Hearn as a painter, almost the sole colour of his
+palette was mummy brown, the powdered flesh of the ancient dead holding
+in solution their griefs, their hopes, their loves, their yearnings,
+which he found to sink always to pulselessness, and to end in eternal
+defeat! But the pallor and sadness for the brief moment of their
+resuscitation was divinely softened and atoningly beautified. Then they
+disappeared again in the waste and gloom from which love and poesy had
+evoked them.
+
+Felled in the struggle and defeat of the eternal battle with death, the
+vegetation of untold ages long ago drifted to an amorphous stratum of
+indistinguishable millionfold corpses. Compression, deferred combustion
+and over-shrouding transmuted and preserved it for a long-after-coming
+time, for our warming, lighting, and delighting. This has a perfect
+analogy in the history and use of tradition, myth, folk-lore, custom,
+and religion, those symbolic and concrete epitomes of man's long
+ancestral growths and strivings, those true black diamonds of humanity's
+experiences, its successes and failures, of its ideals and
+disappointments. Hearn's artistry consisted in catching up these gems,
+these extinguished souls washed from a world of graves to the threshold
+of his miracle-working imagination, and in making them flush for an
+instant with the semblance of life. With what exquisite skill and grace
+he was able to concentrate upon them the soft light-rays of a fancy as
+subtle and beautifying as ever has been given to mortal!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.--SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
+
+
+CONCERNING Hearn's outfitting of character by his parents little or
+nothing is known. It is of comparative unimportance because only a
+slight judicial familiarity with his works, especially those of the
+pre-Japanese periods, demonstrates that so far as concerns substratum
+and substance of character he had neither. There was an interior void,
+an absence of psychic reality, which mocked his friends and which
+likewise baulked at true creativeness. He never made a plot or blew the
+breath of life into a character; his datum was always provided from
+without and by another. He was a reflector only,--plus a colourist--but
+a colourist of unrivalled excellence and power. Form he knew not, had
+never seen, and that is also his second conditioning weakness as an
+artist. Even much of his philosophy was to justify the sensualism,
+sensualisticism, pessimism, and godlessness which are early manifest.
+But it was a product taken over from another, a hastily devoured meal
+without mastication, digestion, or assimilation. The interior emptiness
+was pathetically emphasized by the fact of a contentless experience
+which also worked to deprive his mind of spontaneous originality. He
+never loved, except in one sorry way, never suffered much, never lived
+much, for he was a hard worker, and he was always seeking the
+ever-postponed, ever-unsatisfying Paradise, so vainly hunted for, and
+which none ever finds except in himself. _Ihm fehlt die Liebe,_ was said
+of Heine,--how much truer is it of Hearn! Conspiring with a native lack
+of originality and want of normal experience, his enormous
+near-sightedness made his choice of material and method of handling it
+what we know. If anything was "inherited," it was a pseudo-Orientalism,
+a love of the monstrous and gruesome, an astonishing indifference to
+Occidental history and its conclusions as to sexual and social laws, a
+spontaneous faith in faithlessness, a belief in irreligion, and an
+almost hopeless trend toward fatalism and its inevitable consequent,
+pessimism. Improvidence, financial as well as moral, and disloyalty, to
+his friends as well as to his higher nature, were his life-long,
+crippling, and condemning sins. Two mysteries seem almost inexplainable.
+We know why others had to give him his themes, and whence and how he
+became a mirror, or an echo; and we understand how the echoing became
+also wondrously, even exaggeratedly, but beautifully, coloured. We can
+almost see why he was foolishly and absurdly disloyal to personal
+friends, often treating worst those who were the most kind to him; best,
+those who were sometimes most cunningly selfish. We may explain his
+ridiculous _Wanderlust_. But two attributes are beyond all
+analysis:--one was a thing illogical with his character, his cleaving to
+an ideal of literary workmanship at the cost of selfishness,
+friendships, and temporary success; and the other was his marvellous
+literary and psychologic sympathy with whatever mind, people,
+circumstance, story, or tradition, accident or choice brought before the
+echoing or mirroring mind. If it were faint, ghostly, and far away, he
+was a true thaumaturgist in loving it into life, and living it into
+love.
+
+This beautiful sympathy and literary loyalty made it possible for Hearn
+to use the words of faith and of religion, even of morality, as if they
+were his own, while with them he had no personal sympathy whatever. For
+instance, he could speak, as if from his heart out, of "a million astral
+lamps lighted in the vast and violet dome of God's everlasting mosque."
+He could praise as a sublime exhortation the command, "O ye that are
+about to sleep, commend your souls to Him who never sleeps!" It is, of
+course, true that in Hearn's mind, doubtless, the poorest heathen or
+savage virtue was sublimely virtuous, and any barbaric vice had more of
+virtue in it than of viciousness. Surely the most paltry Oriental
+excellence was far lovelier to him than any Occidental heroism or
+beauty, however splendid. We are thus helped to understand how his mind
+could seem to flush with religious or ethical enthusiasm, while the
+mosque of his real heart was only a chasm of gloomy negation or a chaos
+of hideous death. This was due to the fact that he had no constructive
+mind, and as only one kind of doing, writing, was possible to him,
+because of his near-sightedness, he must needs hate Occidentalism, and
+exalt with a somewhat ludicrous praise the vapid, and even pitiful
+childishness of semi-barbaric Orientalism. The illogicality reaches its
+acme when Hearn, atheistic, disloyal, and unethical, was compelled, as
+in some of his Japanese pages, to put a morality and a religion behind
+the acts and in the hearts of his characters, which with his and with
+their atheism, was, dramatically, so out of place that the incongruity
+would make us smile if it were not all done with such a sweet and
+haunting grace. The culmination of the contradictory trends is in
+"Karma." To put it bluntly, Hearn had no spark of practical sexual
+virtue, and yet praise one shall, marvel at one must, the literary and
+dramatic honour which could, as in "Karma," so sympathetically describe
+the almost unscalable summits of virtue,--there where in holy silence,
+Passion gazes with awe at her divine Master, Duty.
+
+A negative condition of this sympathy was the interior voidness of his
+character, the non-existence of reality within him, which thus allowed
+the positive loyalty to his subject free play; yet that which gave it
+leave to be, did not explain the genesis or quality of life of the
+being. But have a care! Do not ask the interest in any one subject to
+last for more than a fleeting moment! Early and always he possessed the
+rare, the wonderful gift of the instant, the iridescent, the winged
+word. At last was presented to him what he called a "soul," and that, in
+conjunction with his growth in artistic technique, in his handling of
+colours, and in procuring nobler data, helped to give the Japanese work
+a content and an enduring substance which distinguishes it from that of
+all others. This atones for all the hurt that precedes, and it is a
+benefaction and a delight to the entire world. In reward Literature will
+place upon his head one of her loveliest crowns.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.--APPRECIATIONS AND EPITOMES
+
+
+TAKEN as a whole, the criticisms upon Hearn's work are complimentary. He
+has his warm admirers, and some who are not so enthusiastic; but those
+who criticize adversely do so with a gentleness,--I may say, almost a
+reluctance that is perhaps the reflection of the spirit of his work. And
+whatever else these may offer, all agree that his writings have a unique
+charm.
+
+Following are a few excerpts which should give an average of opinions:--
+
+"One great secret of his success in interpreting the Japanese mind and
+temperament lay in his patience in seeking out and studying minutely the
+little things of a people said to be great in such. As Amenomori says of
+Hearn's mind, it 'called forth life and poetry out of dust.'" (327.)[20]
+
+    [20] The numbers refer to the corresponding items in the
+         Bibliography.
+
+"As an interpreter of the Japanese heart, mind, hand and soul, Mr. Hearn
+has no superior. But he will not convert those who in health of body and
+mind love the landmarks of the best faith of the race. It is very hard
+to make fog and miasmatic exhalations, even when made partly luminous
+with rhetoric, attractive to the intellect that loves headlands and
+mountain-tops. The product of despair can never compete in robust minds
+with the product of faith." (357.)
+
+"Sympathy and exquisiteness of touch are the characteristics of Mr.
+Hearn's genius. He is a chameleon, glowing with the hue of outer objects
+or of inward moods, or altogether iridescent. He becomes translucent and
+veined like a moth on a twig, or mottled as if with the protective
+golden browns of fallen leaves. We may not look for architectonic or
+even plastic powers. His is not the mind which constructs of inner
+necessity, which weaves plots and schemes, or thinks of its frame as it
+paints. He attempts no epic of history. The delver for sociologic or
+theologic spoil must seek deeper waters....
+
+"In his later books the all-potent influence of Japanese restraint seems
+to have refined and subdued his wonderful style to more perfect
+harmonies....
+
+"His chapters are long or short as are his moods. There is little
+organic unity in them; no scientific aim or philosophic grasp rounds
+them into form. Even his paragraphs have little cohesion. Speaking of
+the forming of his sentences, he himself has compared it to the
+focussing of an image, each added word being like the turn of a delicate
+screw." (306.)
+
+"The secret of the charm that we feel to such a marked degree in Mr.
+Lafcadio Hearn's volumes is that, in contrast to other writers, he does
+take the Japanese very seriously indeed." (316.)
+
+"To the details of life and thought in Japan Mr. Hearn's soul seems
+everywhere and at all times responsive. He catches in his eye and on his
+pen minute motes scarcely noticeable by the keen natives themselves."
+(367.)
+
+"He has written nothing on Japan equal in length to his tales of West
+Indian life. But while we deplore this reserve of a writer who possesses
+every quality of style, except humour, we have reason to be grateful for
+whatever he gives us." (307.)
+
+"The matchless prose and the sympathy of Mr. Hearn." (324.)
+
+"Mr. Hearn has the sympathetic temperament, the minute mental vision,
+the subdued style peculiar to all that is good in Japanese art and
+literature, needed for the accomplishment of a labour which to him has
+been a labour of love indeed. Here we have no mawkish sentimentality, no
+excessive laudation, on the one hand; on the other, no Occidental
+harshness, no Occidental ignorance of the sweet mystery of Eastern ways
+of life and modes of thought. What this most charming of writers on Far
+Eastern subjects has seen all may see, but only those can understand who
+are endowed with a like faculty of perception of unobtrusive beauty, and
+a like power, it must be added, of patient and prolonged study of common
+appearances and everyday events." (295.)
+
+"A man has just died, intelligent and generous, who had succeeded in
+reconciling in his heart, the clear, rational ideas of the West together
+with the obscure deep sense of Extreme--Asia: Lafcadio Hearn. In the
+hospitality of his recipient soul, high European civilization and high
+Japanese civilization found a meeting-place; harmonized; completed, one
+in the other....
+
+"In English-speaking countries, especially in the United States,
+Lafcadio Hearn already enjoys a just reputation. The lovers of the
+exotic, esteem him as equal to Kipling or Stevenson. In France, the
+_Revue de Paris_ has begun to make him known, by publishing some of his
+best articles, elegantly and faithfully translated. His budding fame is
+destined to increase, as Europe takes a greater interest in the arts and
+the thoughts of the Extreme-Orient. His prose, exact and harmonious,
+will be admired as one of the finest since Ruskin wrote: his very
+personal style, at the same time subtle and powerful, will be noted: he
+will be especially admired for his delicate and profound intelligence of
+that Japanese civilization which, to us, remains so mysterious. What
+characterizes the talent of Lafcadio Hearn, that which gives it its
+precious originality, is the rare mixture of scientific precision and
+idealistic enthusiasm: his work might justly be entitled Truth and
+Poesy: 'In reading these essays,' says one of our best existing Japanese
+scholars, Professor Chamberlain, 'one feels the truth of Richard
+Wagner's statement: "_Alles verstaendniss kommt uns nur durch die
+Liebe._" (All understanding comes to us only through Love.) If Lafcadio
+Hearn understands Japan best, and makes it better understood than any
+other writer, it is because he loves it best.'
+
+"Lafcadio Hearn describes with intelligence, with love all aspects of
+Japanese life: Nature and inhabitants; landscapes, animals and flowers;
+material life and life moral; classic Art and popular literature;
+philosophies, religions and superstitions. He awakens in us an exquisite
+feeling of old aristocratic and feudal Japan: he explains to us the
+prodigious revolution that modern Japan has created in thirty years....
+
+"Hearn has consecrated to the study of Japanese art some of his most
+curious psychological analyses.
+
+"Lafcadio Hearn takes a deep interest in the religious life of the
+Japanese. He studies with the minutest exactness the ancient customs of
+Shintoism, high moral precepts of Buddhism, and also the popular
+superstitions that hold on, for instance, to the worship of foxes, and
+to the idea of pre-existence." (393.)
+
+"To a certain large class of his adopted countrymen, his hatred of
+Christianity, which was pronounced long before he went to Japan, and his
+fondness for Oriental cults of all kinds, was recommendation. But it is
+still an open question whether he did harm or good to the Japanese by
+his advocacy of their superstitions....
+
+"Hearn's books are little known to the multitude. But they are familiar
+to an influential class the world over. In him Japan has lost a powerful
+and flattering advocate, and the English world one of its masters in
+style." (332.)
+
+"Mr. Hearn was not a philosopher or a judicial student of life. He was a
+gifted, born impressionist, with a style resembling that of the French
+Pierre Loti. His stories and descriptions are delicate or gorgeous word
+pictures of the subtler and more elusive qualities of Oriental life."
+(293.)
+
+"His art is the power of suggestion through perfect restraint.... He
+stands and proclaims his mysteries at the meeting of three ways. To the
+religious instinct of India,--Buddhism in particular,--which history has
+engrafted on the aesthetic sense of Japan, Mr. Hearn brings the
+interpreting spirit of Occidental science; and these three traditions
+are fused by the peculiar sympathies of his mind into one rich and novel
+compound.... In these essays and tales, whose substance is so strangely
+mingled together out of the austere dreams of India and the subtle
+beauty of Japan and the relentless science of Europe, I read vaguely of
+many things which hitherto were quite dark." (308.)
+
+"He brings to the study of all aspects of Japanese life, intelligence,
+and love; he also sets sail in his descriptions and analyses towards a
+general theory on life; he is a Japanizing psychologist: he is also a
+philosopher....
+
+"At all events, Lafcadio Hearn has the merit of recalling powerfully to
+the Europeans of Europe the importance, often misunderstood, of Eastern
+civilization. No one better than this Japanizing enthusiast to make us
+feel what there is of narrowness in our habitual conception of the
+world, in our individualistic literature, misunderstanding too much the
+influence of the Past in our anthropocentric art, neglecting Nature too
+often, penetrated too 'singly' in our classic philosophy with
+Greco-Latin and Christian influences. 'Till now,' says Lafcadio Hearn
+very forcibly, 'having lived only in one hemisphere, we have thought but
+half thoughts.' We should enlarge our hearts and our minds by taking
+into our circle of culture, all the art and all the thought of the
+extreme East.
+
+"From the philosophical view-point, Lafcadio Hearn has the merit of
+calling attention to the high value of Shintoism, and above all of
+Buddhism. His work deserves to exercise an influence on the religious
+ideas of the West. If religion can no longer occupy any place in the
+intellectual life of humanity, more and more invaded by science, she can
+subsist a long time yet, perhaps always, in her sentimental life."
+(392.)
+
+"For that role [as interpreter of Japan] he was eminently unfitted both
+by temperament and training. Indeed he was not slow to recognize his
+lack of the judicial faculty, and on one occasion acknowledged that he
+is a 'creature of extremes.' ... But Hearn often succeeds in reaching
+the heart of things by his faculty of sympathy, in virtue of which alone
+his books deserve perusal; when he fails it is because of a lack of the
+unimpassioned judicial faculty, a tendency to subordinate reason to
+feeling, an inclination to place sympathy in the position of judge
+rather than guide." (359.)
+
+"Lafcadio Hearn not only buried himself in the Japanese world, but gave
+his ashes to the soil so often devastated by earthquake, typhoon, tidal
+wave and famine, but ever fertile in blooms of fancy which lies under
+the River of Heaven. The air of Nippon, poor in ozone, is overpopulated
+by goblins. No writer has ever excelled this child of Greece and Ireland
+in interpreting the weird fancies of peasant and poet in the land of
+bamboo and cherry flowers.... Hearn's life seemed crushed under 'the
+horror of infinite Possibility.' Hence perhaps the weird fascination of
+his work and style." (348.)
+
+
+                                EPITOMES
+
+AVATAR (281).--It was during the Cincinnati period that Hearn made
+this--his first translation from the French. Writing of it in 1886, he
+says:--
+
+    I have a project on foot--to issue a series of translations of
+    archaeological and artistic French romance--Flaubert's "Tentation
+    de Saint-Antoine"; De Nerval's "Voyage en Orient"; Gautier's
+    "Avatar"; Loti's most extraordinary African and Polynesian
+    novels; and Beaudelaire's "Petits Poemes en Prose."
+
+But three years later, he writes:--
+
+    The work of Gautier cited by you--"Avatar"--was my first
+    translation from the French. I never could find a publisher for
+    it, however, and threw the MS. away at last in disgust. It is
+    certainly a wonderful story; but the self-styled Anglo-Saxon has
+    so much--prudery that even this innocent phantasy seems to shock
+    his sense of the "proper."
+
+LA TENTATION DE SAINT-ANTOINE (282) was probably translated at about the
+same time. Hearn failed to find a publisher who would take it, but the
+manuscript is still in my possession. Hearn's own complete _scenario_,
+together with a description of the manuscript, is given on another page.
+I quote from Hearn about this work:--
+
+    The original is certainly one of the most exotically strange
+    pieces of writing in any language, and weird beyond description.
+
+Of his own translation, he writes:--
+
+    The work is audacious in parts; but I think nothing ought to be
+    suppressed. That serpent-scene, the crucified lions, the
+    breaking of the chair of gold, the hideous battles about
+    Carthage,--these pages contain pictures that ought not to remain
+    entombed in a foreign museum.
+
+The winter of 1877, the year Hearn arrived in New Orleans, he
+corresponded with the Cincinnati _Commercial_ under the name of "Ozias
+Midwinter" (219). Excerpts from this series of letters are given in the
+chapter, "The New Orleans Period."
+
+ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS (20) was the first book to be published. The
+translations were made during the latter part of the Cincinnati period,
+but the volume did not appear until some years later, while Hearn was in
+New Orleans. It was prepared at the hour when his craving for the exotic
+and weird was at its height. From the opening word to the last the six
+stories are one long Dionysian revel of an Arabian Night's Dream, and
+within their pages it is not difficult to feel that "one is truly dead
+only when one is no longer loved." What an exotic group of names it
+is:--Cleopatra, "she that made the whole world's bale and bliss;"
+Clarimonde,
+
+            "Who was famed in her lifetime
+            As the fairest of women;"
+
+Arria Marcella; the Princess Hermonthis; Omphale; and the one "fairer
+than all daughters of men, lovelier than all fantasies realized in
+stone"--Nyssia. It is a tapestry woven of the lights and jewels and
+passion of an antique world. "You will find in Gautier," Hearn writes,
+"a perfection of melody, a warmth of word colouring, a voluptuous
+delicacy;" "Gautier could create mosaics of word jewellery without
+equals." Hearn's "pet stories" are "Clarimonde" and "Arria Marcella." Is
+it strange that he should delight in these beautiful vampires?
+
+In this work, and in the tales to follow, we already perceive that
+colour is to become a sort of a fetich to be worshipped. Here in the
+studio of another artist, he serves his first apprenticeship, and from
+the highly toned palette of Gautier he learns how to mix and lay on the
+colours that he himself is later to use so richly.
+
+In speaking of this book, a critic says:--
+
+"His learning and his inspiration were wholly French in these
+productions, as also in what was his first and in some ways his best
+book, "One of Cleopatra's Nights," and other tales translated from
+Theophile Gautier. While Hearn was faithful to his original, he also
+improved upon it, and many a scholar who knows both French and English
+has confessed under the rose that Gautier is outdone." (332.)
+
+Of his work, Hearn writes:--
+
+    You asked me about Gautier. I have read and possess nearly
+    all his works; and before I was really mature enough for
+    such an undertaking I translated his six most remarkable
+    short stories. The work contains, I regret to say, several
+    shocking errors, and the publishers refused me the right to
+    correct the plates. The book remains one of the sins of my
+    literary youth, but I am sure my judgment of the value of
+    the stories was correct.
+
+While preparing his next book, Hearn published in the _Century_, "The
+Scenes of Cable's Romances" (220). In this article he vivifies the
+quarters and dwellings that Mr. Cable in his delightful stories had
+already made famous.
+
+THE FIRST MUEZZIN, BILAL (405), was written in the fall of 1883, during
+the New Orleans period. It is a beautiful, serious piece of work, and is
+written with the fine, sonorous quality that such a theme should
+inspire. That it was a labour of love is shown in Hearn's letters
+written at its inception to Mr. Krehbiel, who was an invaluable aid to
+him in compiling its musical part. "Bilal" was probably published
+finally in the _Times-Democrat_, after being refused by _Harper's_, the
+_Century_, and some others.
+
+    The traveller slumbering for the first time within the walls of
+    an Oriental city, and in the vicinity of a minaret, can scarcely
+    fail to be impressed by the solemn beauty of the Mohammedan Call
+    to Prayer. If he have worthily prepared himself, by the study of
+    book and of languages, for the experiences of Eastern travel, he
+    will probably have learned by heart the words of the sacred
+    summons, and will recognize their syllables in the sonorous
+    chant of the Muezzin,--while the rose-coloured light of an
+    Egyptian or Syrian dawn expands its flush to the stars. Four
+    times more will he hear that voice ere morning again illuminates
+    the east:--under the white blaze of noon; at the sunset hour,
+    when the west is fervid with incandescent gold and vermilion; in
+    the long after-glow of orange and emerald fires; and, still
+    later, when a million astral lamps have been lighted in the vast
+    and violet dome of God's everlasting mosque.
+
+In four parts Hearn tells the history of Bilal, who
+
+    was an African black, an Abyssinian,--famed for his fortitude as
+    a confessor, for his zeal in the faith of the Prophet, and for
+    the marvellous melody of his voice, whose echoes have been
+    caught up and prolonged and multiplied by all the muezzins of
+    Islam, through the passing of more than twelve hundred years....
+    And the words chanted by all the muezzins of the Moslem
+    world,--whether from the barbaric brick structures which rise
+    above "The Tunis of the Desert," or from the fairy minarets of
+    the exquisite mosque at Agra,--are the words first sung by the
+    mighty voice of Bilal.
+
+Bilal was the son of an Abyssinian slave-girl, and himself began life as
+a slave. The first preaching of Mahomet had deep effect upon the slaves
+of Mecca, and Bilal was perhaps the earliest of these to become a
+convert. Even under the tortures of the persecutors, he could not be
+made to apostatize--always he would answer, "_Ahad! Ahad_:" "_One_, one
+only God!" Abu Bekr, the bosom friend of the great Prophet, observing
+Bilal, bought him, and set him free. Then Bilal became the devoted
+servant of Mahomet; and, in fulfilment of a dream, he was made the First
+Muezzin to sound the _Adzan_, the Call to Prayer.
+
+
+                            God is Great!
+                            God is Great!
+        I bear witness there is no other God but God!
+        I bear witness that Mahomet is the Prophet of God!
+                        Come unto Prayer!
+                        Come unto Salvation!
+                            God is Great!
+                  There is no other God but God!
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+    After the death of Mahomet, Bilal ceased to sing the
+    _Adzan_:--the voice that had summoned the Prophet of God to
+    the house of prayer ought not, he piously fancied, to be
+    heard after the departure of his master. Yet, in his Syrian
+    home, how often must he have prayed to chant the words as he
+    first chanted them from the starlit housetop in the Holy
+    City, and how often compelled to deny the petitions of those
+    who revered him as a saint and would perhaps have sacrificed
+    all their goods to have heard him but once lift up his voice
+    in musical prayer!... But when Omar visited Damascus the
+    chiefs of the people besought him that, as Commander of the
+    Faithful, he should ask Bilal to sing the Call in honour of
+    the event; and the old man consented to do so for the last
+    time....
+
+    To hear Bilal must have seemed to many as sacred a privilege
+    as to have heard the voice of the Prophet himself,--the
+    proudest episode of a lifetime,--the one incident of all
+    others to be related in long afteryears to children and to
+    grandchildren. Some there may have been whom the occasion
+    inspired with feelings no loftier than curiosity; but the
+    large majority of those who thronged to listen in silent
+    expectancy for the _Allah-hu-akbar!_ must have experienced
+    emotions too deep to be ever forgotten. The records of the
+    event, at least, fully justify this belief;--for when, after
+    moments of tremulous waiting, the grand voice of the aged
+    African rolled out amid the hush,--with the old beloved
+    words,--the old familiar tones, still deep and clean,--Omar
+    and all those about him wept aloud, and tears streamed down
+    every warrior-face, and the last long notes of the chant
+    were lost in a tempest of sobbing.
+
+STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE[21] (I) is the second book. It was
+written also during the period in New Orleans, many of the stories first
+appearing in the _Times-Democrat_, and the little volume is dedicated to
+its editor--Mr. Page M. Baker.
+
+    [21] Copyright, 1884, by James R. Osgood and Company.
+
+These tales, as Hearn tells us in his Preface, are "reconstructions of
+what impressed me as most fantastically beautiful in the most exotic
+literature which I was able to obtain." In a letter he writes, "The
+language of 'Stray Leaves' is all my own, with the exception of the
+Italic texts and a few pages translated from the 'Kalewala.'"
+
+The tapestry he is weaving is of the same crimson threads as that of the
+earlier tales, but the colours of sunset are softening to the gentler
+hues of the after-glow, and interwoven sometimes are strands of pure
+moonlight.
+
+We read of the great Book of Thoth which contains a formula whosoever
+could recite might never know death, and we learn how the cunning
+magician Noferkephtah obtained the book, which caused the wrath of the
+gods to fall upon him; later, how Satni, of whom "there was not in all
+Egypt so wise a scribe," yearned for the book, and took it from the tomb
+of Noferkephtah, and of the magic wrought and the penance done.
+
+There is the exquisite tale of the Fountain Maiden, whom Aki caught in
+his own fish-net, and whom he grew to love more than his own life.
+
+The story lingers of the sea-bird which fell into the hunter's hand, and
+when he looked more closely he found it had become transformed into a
+beautiful girl, "slender ... like a young moon," and pity rose in the
+hunter's heart, and then love. One day, when their children had become
+strong and swift, and while they were all hunting together, the
+Bird-Wife called to the little ones to gather feathers: then she covered
+their arms and her own shoulders with the feathers, and far away they
+flew.
+
+Passing onward, we read of Tilottama, and that by reason of her beauty
+"the great gods once became multiple-faced and myriad-eyed"; and that
+this beauty brought punishment to the wicked Sounda and Oupasounda.
+
+There is Bakawali, for "whose history of love, human and superhuman, a
+parallel may not be found." For her great love of the mortal youth
+Taj-ulmuluk each night she sacrificed herself to the fiercest
+purification of fire. And then to appease the gods, she suffered herself
+to be turned for ten long years into marble from her waist to her feet.
+Her lover ministered to her and watched by her side through the terrible
+years until she was reincarnated for him.
+
+Then we see the statue of Natalika, who avenged the death of her people.
+
+And who shall answer the riddle of the Corpse Demon? And which one may
+not profit by the wisdom of the youth who knew nothing of science?
+Perhaps our hearts stir with a soft regret for the atonement of Pundari.
+And so we wander through a maze of colour and of magic, tarrying to
+listen to the voice of Kalewala, for--
+
+    As he sang the fair Sun paused in her course to hear him; the
+    golden Moon stopped in her path to listen; the awful billows of
+    the sea stood still; the icy rivers that devour the pines, that
+    swallow up the firs, ceased to rage; the mighty cataracts hung
+    motionless above their abysses; the waves of Juortana lifted
+    high their heads to hear.
+
+"Slender she was as the tulip upon its stalk, and in walking her feet
+seemed kisses pressed upon the ground. But hadst thou beheld her face
+unveiled, and the whiteness of her teeth between her brown lips when she
+smiled!" Alas, she was a good Christian maiden and he a good Mussulman,
+and so in this Legend of Love each loyal heart dies pronouncing the
+faith of the other, lest they should not meet at the Day of Judgment.
+
+As we draw near the last figures on the tapestry, we find those two
+tender pictures of which Hearn himself speaks: "Your preference for
+Boutimar pleases me: Boutimar was my pet. There is a little Jewish
+legend in the collection--Esther--somewhat resembling it in pathos."
+These stories afford a glimpse into that gentle heart, which was later
+to respond to the exquisite faiths and loyalties of the Japanese.
+
+Now the Creator sent unto Solomon a cup which contained some of the
+waters of youth and of life without end. And Solomon was asked: "Wilt
+thou drink hereof and live divinely immortal through ages everlasting,
+or wilt thou rather remain within the prison of humanity?" And Solomon
+dreamed upon these words; and he assembled in council a representative
+of all those over whom he held dominion. Then Solomon asked Boutimar,
+the wild dove, most loving of all living creatures, whether he should
+drink of the magic waters, and thus learn the bliss of earthly
+immortality. When Boutimar, the wild dove, learned that the cup held
+only enough water for one person, he made answer in the language of
+birds:--
+
+    "O prophet of God! how couldst thou desire to be living alone,
+    when each of thy friends and of thy counsellors and of thy
+    children and of thy servants and of all who loved thee were
+    counted with the dead? For all of these must surely drink the
+    bitter waters of death, though thou shouldst drink the Water of
+    Life. Wherefore desire everlasting youth, when the face of the
+    world itself shall be wrinkled with age, and the eyes of the
+    stars shall be closed by the black fingers of Azrael? When the
+    love thou hast sung of shall have passed away like a smoke of
+    frankincense, when the dust of the heart that beat against thine
+    own shall have long been scattered by the four winds of heaven,
+    when the eyes that looked for thy coming shall have become a
+    memory, when the voices grateful to thine ear shall have been
+    eternally stilled, when thy life shall be one oasis in a
+    universal waste of death, and thine eternal existence but a
+    recognition of eternal absence,--wilt thou indeed care to live,
+    though the wild dove perish when its mate cometh not?"
+
+    And Solomon, without reply, silently put out his arm and gave
+    back the cup.... But upon the prophet-king's rich beard,
+    besprinkled with powder of gold, there appeared another glitter
+    as of clear dew,--the diamond dew of the heart, which is tears.
+
+Esther, whose comeliness surpassed even that of Sarah, and her rich
+husband had lived together ten years, but there was no happiness in the
+soul of the good man, for "the sound of a child's voice had never made
+sunshine within his heart." So Esther and her husband sorrowed bitterly.
+And they brought the burden of their grief to Rabbi Simon ben Yochai,
+and when they had told him, a silence as of the Shechinah came upon the
+three, only the eyes of the Rabbi seemed to smile. And it was agreed
+that the twain should part; thus the Israelite could be known as a
+father in Israel.
+
+A feast then was laid at the house, and before all the guests her
+husband spoke lovingly to Esther, and in token of his affection and his
+grief bade her to take from the house "whatever thou desirest, whether
+it be gold or jewels beyond price." And the wine was passed, and the
+people made merry, and finally a deep sleep fell upon them all. Then
+Esther gave command that her husband sleeping should be carried to her
+father's house. In the morning her husband awakened, and confused he
+cried out, "Woman, what hast thou done?"
+
+    Then, sweeter than the voice of doves among the fig-trees, came
+    the voice of Esther: "Didst thou not bid me, husband, that I
+    should choose and take away from thy house whatsoever I most
+    desired? And I have chosen thee, and have brought thee hither,
+    to my father's home ... loving thee more than all else in the
+    world. Wilt thou drive me from thee now?" And he could not see
+    her face for tears of love; yet he heard her voice speaking
+    on,--speaking the golden words of Ruth, which are so old yet so
+    young to the hearts of all that love: "Whithersoever thou shalt
+    go, I will also go; and whithersoever thou shalt dwell, I also
+    will dwell. And the Angel of Death only may part us; for thou
+    art all in all to me." ...
+
+    And in the golden sunlight at the doorway suddenly stood, like a
+    statue of Babylonian silver, the grand grey figure of Rabbi
+    Simon ben Yochai, lifting his hands in benediction.
+
+    "_Schmah Israel!_--the Lord our God, who is One, bless ye with
+    everlasting benediction! May your hearts be welded by love, as
+    gold with gold by the cunning of goldsmiths! May the Lord, who
+    coupleth and setteth thee single in families, watch over ye! The
+    Lord make this valiant woman even as Rachel and as Lia, who
+    built up the house of Israel! And ye shall behold your children
+    and your children's children in the House of the Lord!"
+
+    Even so the Lord blessed them; and Esther became as the fruitful
+    vine, and they saw their children's children in Israel.
+    Forasmuch as it is written: "He will regard the prayer of the
+    destitute."
+
+GOMBO ZHEBES[22](2) followed in the New Orleans period. It is a
+compilation of 352 proverbs selected from six dialects. According to the
+indexes, there are 6 in the Creole of French Guyana; 28 in the Creole of
+Hayti; 51 in the Creole of New Orleans, Louisiana; 101 in the Creole of
+Martinique; 110 in the Creole of Mauritius; 52 in the Creole of
+Trinidad. Most of the proverbs are similar to our own, but are
+translated into the simple homely language of the Creole, reflecting its
+mode of thought. The same proverb often appears in the different
+dialects. Although a proverb is of European origin, "the character of
+Creole folk-lore is very different from European folk-lore in the matter
+of superstition." Many proverbs are direct from the African. Those in
+the Creole of Hayti are generally rough and coarse. The most popular
+subjects are, pot or kettle, rain, serpent or snake, of which there are
+six of each; devil, eggs, belly, horse, mothers, tail, of these there
+are seven of each; chicken, children, ox have eight of each; cat has
+nine; goat has eleven; talking has sixteen; monkey has seventeen; fine
+clothes has only four, idleness has five, and marriage has six.
+
+    [22] Copyright, 1885, by Will H. Coleman.
+
+Hearn speaks of this book as a Dictionary of Proverbs. He made an
+extensive study of the subject and in later researches found it most
+helpful. "I have," he says, "quite a Creole library embracing the Creole
+dialects of both hemispheres."
+
+Following are a selection of the proverbs chosen from the different
+dialects:--
+
+    No. 23. _Bel tignon pas fait bel negresse. (Le beau tignon ne
+    fait pas la belle negresse.)_ "It isn't the fine head-dress that
+    makes the fine negress." (_Louisiana._)
+
+    _Tignon_ or _tiyon_, the true Creole word, "is the famously
+    picturesque handkerchief which in old days all slave-women
+    twisted about their heads."
+
+    No. 44. _Ca qui boude manze boudin. (Celui qui boude mange du
+    boudin.)_ "He who sulks eats his own belly." That is to say,
+    spites himself. The pun is untranslatable. (_Mauritius_.)
+
+    _Boudin_ in French signifies a pudding, in Creole it also
+    signifies the belly. Thus there is a double pun in the patois.
+
+    No. 256. _Quand diabe alle lamesse li caciette so laquee. (Quand
+    le diable va a la messe, il cache sa queue.)_ "When the Devil
+    goes to mass he hides his tail." (_Mauritius._)
+
+    No. 352. _Zozo paillenqui crie la-haut, coudevent vini. (Le
+    paille-en-cul crie la-haut, le coup de vent vient.)_ "When the
+    tropic-bird screams overhead, a storm-wind is coming."
+    (_Mauritius._)
+
+    No. 267. _Quand milatt tini yon vie chouvral yo dit negress pas
+    manman yo. (Quand les mulatres ont un vieux cheval ils disent
+    que les negresses ne sont pas leur meres.)_ "As soon as a
+    mulatto is able to own an old horse, he will tell you that his
+    mother wasn't a nigger." (_Martinique._)
+
+    No. 324. _Toutt milett ni grand zaureilles. (Tout les mulets ont
+    des grandes oreilles.)_ "All mules have big ears." Equivalent to
+    our proverb: "Birds of a feather flock together."
+    (_Martinique._)
+
+    No. 291. _Si coulev oule viv, li pas pronminee grand-chemin. (Si
+    la couleuvre veut vivre, elle ne se promene pas dans le grand
+    chemin.)_ "If the snake cares to live, it doesn't journey upon
+    the high-road." (_Guyana._)
+
+    No. 292. _Si couleve pas te fonte, femmes se pouend li fair
+    ribans jipes. (Si la couleuvre n'etait pas effrontee les femmes
+    la prendraient pour en faire des rubans de jupes.)_ "If the
+    snake wasn't spunky, women would use it for petticoat strings."
+    (_Trinidad._)
+
+    No. 100. _Complot plis fort passe ouanga.[23] (Le complot est
+    plus fort que l'ouanga.)_ "Conspiracy is stronger than
+    witchcraft." (_Hayti._)
+
+    [23]    _Di moin si to gagnin homme!
+              Mo va fe ouanga pouli;
+            Mo fe li tourne fantome
+              Si to vle mo to mari...._
+
+         "Tell me if thou hast a man (a lover) I will make a
+         _ouanga_ for him--I will change him into a ghost if thou
+         wilt have me for thy husband."
+
+         This word, of African origin, is applied to all things
+         connected with the Voudooism of the negroes.
+
+         In the song, "_Dipi mo voue, toue Adele_," from which the
+         above lines are taken, the wooer threatens to get rid of a
+         rival by _ouanga_--to "turn him into a ghost." The victims
+         of Voudooism are said to have gradually withered away,
+         probably through the influence of secret poison. The word
+         _grigri_, also of African origin, simply refers to a
+         charm, which may be used for an innocent or innocuous
+         purpose. Thus, in a Louisiana Creole song, we find a
+         quadroon mother promising her daughter a charm to prevent
+         the white lover from forsaking her:
+
+         "_Pou tchombe li na fe grigri._" "We shall make a _grigri_
+         to keep him."
+
+Simultaneously with the publication of "Gombo Zhebes," Hearn contributed
+a series of articles[24] to _Harper's Weekly._ (221-227, 230, 232.)
+These papers, which are commonplace newspaper work, tell of New Orleans,
+its Expositions, its Superstitions, Voudooism, and the Creole Patois. He
+feels that the Creole tongue must go, but while there is still time, he
+hopes that some one will rescue its dying legends and curious lyrics.
+
+    [24] Copyright, 1884, 1885, 1886, by Harper and Brothers.
+
+    The unedited Creole literature comprises songs, satires in
+    rhymes, proverbs, fairy-tales--almost everything commonly
+    included under the term folk-lore. The lyrical portion of
+    it is opulent in oddities, in melancholy beauties.
+
+There are few of the younger generation of Creoles who do not converse
+in the French and English languages. Creole is the speech of motherhood,
+and "there is a strange naive sorrow in their burdens as of children
+sobbing for lonesomeness in the night."
+
+There is an interesting account of Jean Montanet, "Voudoo John"--The
+Last of the Voudoos. He was said to be a son of a prince of Senegal.
+From a ship's cook he rose to own large estates. While he was a
+cotton-roller, it was noticed that he seemed to have some peculiar
+occult influence over the negroes under him. Voudoo John had the
+mysterious _obi_ power. Soon realizing his power, he commenced to tell
+fortunes, and thousands and thousands of people, white and black,
+flocked to him. Then he bought a house and began as well to practise
+Creole medicine. He could give receipts for everything and anything, and
+many a veiled lady stopped at his door.
+
+    Once Jean received a fee of $50 for a potion. "It was
+    water," he said to a Creole confidant, "with some common
+    herbs boiled in it. I hurt nobody, but if folks want to
+    give me fifty dollars, I take the fifty dollars every
+    time!"
+
+It is said that Jean became worth at least $50,000. He had his horses
+and carriages, his fifteen wives, whom he considered, one and all,
+legitimate spouses. He was charitable too. But he did not know what to
+do with his money. Gradually, in one way or another, it was stolen from
+him, until at the last, with nothing left but his African shells, his
+elephant's tusk, and the sewing-machine upon which he used to tell
+fortunes even in his days of riches, he had to seek hospitality of his
+children.
+
+Hearn devotes several columns to Voudooism, telling of its witchcrafts
+and charms and fetiches which work for evil, and also of the
+superstitions regarding the common occurrences of daily life.
+
+In a paper on Mexican feather-work at the New Orleans Exposition, there
+is this paragraph which presages his later descriptions:--
+
+    As I write, the memory of a Mexican landscape scene in
+    feather-work is especially vivid--a vast expanse of opulent
+    wheat-fields, whereof the blonde immensity brightens or
+    deepens its tint with the tremor of summer winds; distance
+    makes violet the hills; a steel-bright river serpentines
+    through the plain, reflecting the feminine grace of palms
+    tossing their plumes against an azure sky. I remember also
+    a vision of marshes--infinite stretches of reed-grown ooze,
+    shuddering in gusts of sea-wind, and paling away into
+    bluish vagueness as through a miasmatic haze.
+
+In conjunction with these articles, Hearn published in _Harper's Bazaar_
+(228-229) two papers on the Curiosities to be found at the New Orleans
+Exposition.
+
+SOME CHINESE GHOSTS[25] (3) was the next book of the New Orleans period.
+The first publisher to whom it was submitted did not accept it, but
+Roberts Brothers finally brought it out. "There are only six little
+stories," writes Hearn, "but each of them cost months of hard work and
+study, and represents a much higher attempt than anything in the 'Stray
+Leaves.'" The book is dedicated to his friend Mr. Krehbiel, and the
+Dedication, which is given in the Bibliography, is as unique as the
+tales themselves.
+
+    [25] Copyright, 1887, by Roberts Brothers.
+
+In the Preface Hearn says that while preparing these legends he sought
+for "weird beauty." The era of fierce passions and horror is waning, and
+in these six perfect tales there is a new-found restraint, a firmer
+handling of the brush in more normal colours.
+
+One of the earliest reviews of his work remarks:--
+
+"In his treatment of the legend lore of the Celestial Empire, Mr. Hearn
+has, if possible, been even more delicate and charming than in the
+stories which go to make the previous volume, so much so, indeed, that
+one is persuaded to full belief in the beauty and witchery of the
+almond-eyed heroines of his pages." (322.)
+
+The opening story is of the beautiful Ko-Ngai, daughter of Kouan-Yu,
+whose divine loyalty to her father never faltered even at a hideous
+death. He was a great bellmaker, and the Mandarin ordered that he should
+make a bell of such size that it would be heard for one hundred _li_,
+and further that the bell "should be strengthened with brass, and
+deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver." But the metals refused
+to mingle. Again the bell was cast, but the result was even worse, and
+the Son of Heaven was very angry; and this word was sent to Kouan-Yu:--
+
+    "If thou fail a third time in fulfilling our command, thy head
+    shall be severed from thy neck."
+
+When the lovely Ko-Ngai heard this, she sold her jewels, and paid a
+great price to an astrologer, and it was told to her:--
+
+    Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver and iron never
+    will embrace, until the flesh of a maiden be melted in the
+    crucible; until the blood of a virgin be mingled with the metals
+    in their fusion.
+
+Ko-Ngai told no one what she had heard. The awful hour for the heroic
+effort of the final casting arrived.
+
+    All the workmen wrought their tasks in silence; there was no
+    sound heard but the muttering of the fires. And the muttering
+    deepened into a roar of typhoons approaching, and the blood-red
+    lake of metal slowly brightened like the vermilion of a sunrise,
+    and the vermilion was transmuted into a radiant glow of gold,
+    and the gold whitened blindingly, like the silver face of a full
+    moon. Then the workers ceased to feed the raving flame, and all
+    fixed their eyes upon the eyes of Kouan-Yu; and Kouan-Yu
+    prepared to give the signal to cast.
+
+But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn his
+    head; and all heard the voice of Ko-Ngai sounding sharply sweet
+    as a bird's song above the great thunder of the fires,--"For thy
+    sake, O my Father!" And even as she cried, she leaped into the
+    white flood of metal; and the lava of the furnace roared to
+    receive her, and spattered monstrous flakes of flame to the
+    roof, and burst over the verge of the earthen crater, and cast
+    up a whirling fountain of many-coloured fires, and subsided
+    quakingly, with lightnings and with thunders and with mutterings.
+
+Of the lovely Ko-Ngai no trace remained save a little shoe, which was
+left in the hand of the faithful serving-woman who had striven to catch
+her as she leaped into the flame.
+
+And ever does the bell, whose tones are deeper and mellower and mightier
+than the tones of any other bell, utter the name of Ko-Ngai; and ever
+between the mighty strokes there is a low moaning heard, a sobbing of
+"_Hiai!_" and that they say is Ko-Ngai crying for her little shoe.
+
+The next tale tells of Ming-Y and how it was that he did not heed the
+counsel of the words of Lao-Tseu, and so it befell that he was loved by
+the beautiful Sie-Thao, whose tomb had many years ago crumbled to ruins.
+
+The Legend of Tchi-Niu is the queen flower of the nosegay of six. Tong's
+father died, and as they were very poor, the only way that Tong could
+obtain money to pay for the funeral expenses was to sell himself as a
+slave. The years passed, and he worked without rest or pay, but never a
+complaint did he utter. At length the fever of the ricefields seized
+him, and he was left alone in his sickness, for there was no one to wait
+on him. One noon he dreamed that a beautiful woman bent over him and
+touched his forehead with her hand. And Tong opened his eyes, and he saw
+the lovely person of whom he had dreamed. "I have come to restore thy
+strength and to be thy wife. Arise and worship with me." And reading his
+thoughts she said, "I will provide."
+
+"And together they worshipped Heaven and Earth. Thus she became his
+wife."
+
+But all that Tong knew of his wife was that her name was Tchi. And the
+fame of the weaving of Tchi spread far, and people came to see her
+beautiful work. One morning Tchi gave to her husband a document. It was
+his freedom that she had bought.
+
+Later the silk-loom remained untouched, for Tchi gave birth to a son.
+And the boy was not less wonderful than his mother.
+
+Now it came to the Period of the Eleventh Moon. Suddenly one night, Tchi
+led Tong to the cradle where their son slumbered, and as she did so a
+great fear and awe came over Tong, and the sweet tender voice breathed
+to him:--
+
+    "Lo! my beloved, the moment has come in which I must forsake
+    thee; for I was never of mortal born, and the Invisible may
+    incarnate themselves for a time only. Yet I leave with thee the
+    pledge of our love,--this fair son, who shall ever be to thee as
+    faithful and as fond as thou thyself hast been. Know, my
+    beloved, that I was sent to thee even by the Master of Heaven,
+    in reward of thy filial piety, and that I must now return to the
+    glory of His house: I AM THE GODDESS TCHI-NIU."
+
+Even as she ceased to speak, the great glow faded, and Tong,
+    reopening his eyes, knew that she had passed away for
+    ever,--mysteriously as pass the winds of heaven, irrevocably as
+    the light of a flame blown out. Yet all the doors were barred,
+    all the windows unopened. Still the child slept, smiling in his
+    sleep. Outside, the darkness was breaking; the sky was
+    brightening swiftly; the night was past. With splendid majesty
+    the East threw open high gates of gold for the coming of the
+    sun; and, illuminated by the glory of his coming, the vapours of
+    morning wrought themselves into marvellous shapes of shifting
+    colour,--into forms weirdly beautiful as the silken dreams woven
+    in the loom of Tchi-Niu.
+
+Another tale is that of Mara, who tempted in vain, for the Indian
+pilgrim conquered.
+
+    And still, as a mist of incense, as a smoke of universal
+    sacrifice, perpetually ascends to heaven from all the lands of
+    earth the pleasant vapour TE, created for the refreshment of
+    mankind by the power of a holy vow, the virtue of a pious
+    atonement.
+
+Like unto the Tale of the Great Bell, Pu, convinced that a soul cannot
+be divided,
+
+    entered the flame, and yielded up his ghost in the embrace of
+    the Spirit of the Furnace, giving his life for the life of his
+    work,--his soul for the soul of his Vase.
+
+And when the workmen came upon the tenth morning to take forth
+    the porcelain marvel, even the bones of Pu had ceased to be; but
+    lo! the Vase lived as they looked upon it: seeming to be flesh
+    moved by the utterance of a Word, creeping to the titillation of
+    a Thought. And whenever tapped by the finger, it uttered a voice
+    and a name,--the voice of its maker, the name of its creator: PU.
+
+This same year, Hearn contributed to _Harpers Bazaar_ the valiant legend
+of "Rabyah's Last Ride"(234)--Rabyah upon whom no woman had ever called
+in vain, and who defended his women even after he was dead. This tale
+was copied in the _Times-Democrat_.
+
+CHITA[26] (4), although published after Hearn left New Orleans, properly
+belongs to that period. It first appeared in much shorter form in the
+_Times-Democrat_ under the title of "Torn Letters." This version met
+with many warm friends, and the author was urged to enlarge it. He did
+so, and Harpers accepted the story, publishing it first as a serial in
+their magazine. With this book came Hearn's first recognition, and
+because of its success, he was given a commission by Harpers for further
+studies in the tropics, which eventuated in the volume, "Two Years in
+the French West Indies."
+
+    [26] Copyright, 1889, by Harper and Brothers.
+
+"Chita" is the first glimpse of what Mr. Hearn could write from out
+himself; for whereas, as always, the plot must be given to him, the
+thread here is so frail that what we admire and remember is the fabric
+itself which only Hearn could have woven. In "Chita" he recreates
+elemental nature. In "Karma" he becomes the conscience of a human being.
+Then, for the first time he realizes the spiritual forces which are
+stronger than life or death, and without which no beauty exists.
+
+A criticism of "Chita" at the time of its publication says:--
+
+"By right of this single but profoundly remarkable book, Mr. Hearn may
+lay good claim to the title of the American Victor Hugo ... so living a
+book has scarcely been given to our generation." (342.)
+
+Concerning the story, Hearn himself writes as follows:--
+
+    "Chita" was founded on the fact of a child saved from the Lost
+    Island disaster by some Louisiana fishing-folk, and brought up
+    by them. Years after a Creole hunter recognized her, and
+    reported her whereabouts to relatives. These, who were rich,
+    determined to bring her up as young ladies are brought up in the
+    South, and had her sent to a convent. But she had lived the free
+    healthy life of the coast, and could not bear the convent; she
+    ran away from it, married a fisherman, and lives somewhere down
+    there now,--the mother of multitudinous children.
+
+This slight structure of plot gave Hearn the opportunity to paint a
+marvellous picture. Hundreds of quotations could be given. He is
+delighted with the rich glory of the tropics, and by his power of word
+imagery he so reproduces it that with him we too can see and feel it. In
+this glowing Nature the poisoned beauty of the Orient is forgotten. Take
+this description:--
+
+    The charm of a single summer day on these island shores is
+    something impossible to express, never to be forgotten. Rarely,
+    in the paler zones, do earth and heaven take such luminosity:
+    those will best understand me who have seen the splendour of a
+    West Indian sky. And yet there is a tenderness of tint, a caress
+    of colour, in these Gulf-days which is not of the Antilles,--a
+    spirituality, as of eternal tropical spring. It must have been
+    to even such a sky that Xenophanes lifted up his eyes of old
+    when he vowed the Infinite Blue was God;--it was indeed under
+    such a sky that De Soto named the vastest and grandest of
+    Southern havens Espiritu Santo,--the Bay of the Holy Ghost.
+    There is a something unutterable in this bright Gulf-air that
+    compels awe,--something vital, something holy, something
+    pantheistic and reverentially the mind asks itself if what the
+    eye beholds is not the [Greek: pneuma] indeed, the Infinite
+    Breath, the Divine Ghost, the Great Blue Soul of the Unknown.
+    All, all is blue in the calm,--save the low land under your
+    feet, which you almost forget, since it seems only as a tiny
+    green flake afloat in the liquid eternity of day. Then slowly,
+    caressingly, irresistibly, the witchery of the Infinite grows
+    upon you: out of Time and Space you begin to dream with open
+    eyes,--to drift into delicious oblivion of facts,--to forget the
+    past, the present, the substantial,--to comprehend nothing but
+    the existence of that infinite Blue Ghost as something into
+    which you would wish to melt utterly away for ever.
+
+So it is told that into this perfect peace one August day in 1856, a
+scarlet sun sank in a green sky, and a moonless night came.
+
+    Then the Wind grew weird. It ceased being a breath; it became a
+    Voice moaning across the world hooting,--uttering nightmare
+    sounds,--_Whoo!_--_whoo!_--_whoo!_--and with each stupendous
+    owl-cry the mooing of the waters seemed to deepen, more and more
+    abysmally, through all the hours of darkness.
+
+Morning dawned with great rain: the steamer _Star_ was due that day. No
+one dared to think of it. "Great God!" some one shrieked,--"She is
+coming!"
+
+    On she came, swaying, rocking, plunging,--with a great whiteness
+    wrapping her about like a cloud, and moving with her moving,--a
+    tempest-whirl of spray;--ghost-white and like a ghost she came,
+    for her smoke-stacks exhaled no visible smoke--the wind devoured
+    it.
+
+And still the storm grew fiercer. On shore the guests at the hotel
+danced with a feverish reckless gaiety.
+
+    Again the _Star_ reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began to
+    drag away from the great building and its lights,--away from the
+    voluptuous thunder of the grand piano,--even at that moment
+    outpouring the great joy of Weber's melody orchestrated by
+    Berlioz: _l'Invitation a la Valse_,--with its marvellous musical
+    swing.
+
+    --"Waltzing!" cried the captain. "God help them!--God help us
+    all now!... The Wind waltzes to-night, with the Sea for his
+    partner." ...
+
+    O the stupendous Valse-Tourbillon! O the mighty Dancer!
+    One-two--three! From north-east to east, from east to
+    south-east, from south-east to south: then from the south he
+    came, whirling the Sea in his arms....
+
+And so the hurricane passed, and the day reveals utter wreck and
+desolation. "There is plunder for all--birds and men."
+
+At a fishing village on the coast on this same night of the storm
+Carmen, the good wife of Feliu, dreamed--above the terrors of the
+tempest which shattered her sleep--once again the dream that kept
+returning of her little Concha, her first-born who slept far away in the
+old churchyard at Barcelona. And this night she dreamed that her waxen
+Virgin came and placed in her arms the little brown child with the
+Indian face, and the face became that of her dead Conchita.
+
+    And Carmen wished to thank the Virgin for that priceless bliss,
+    and lifted up her eyes; but the sickness of ghostly fear
+    returned upon her when she looked; for now the Mother seemed as
+    a woman long dead, and the smile was the smile of fleshlessness,
+    and the places of the eyes were voids and darknesses.... And the
+    sea sent up so vast a roar that the dwelling rocked.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Feliu and his men find the tide heavy with human dead and the sea filled
+with wreckage. Through this floatage Feliu detects a stir of life ... he
+swims to rescue a little baby fast in the clutch of her dead mother.
+
+To Carmen it is the meaning of her dream. The child has been sent by the
+Virgin. The tale leads on through the growing life of Chita. Finally one
+day Dr. La Brierre, whose wife and child had been lost in the famous
+storm, is summoned to Viosca's Point to the deathbed of his father's old
+friend, who is dying of the fever. It is Feliu who brings him. But
+before they can reach the Point the man has already died. The Doctor
+remains at Feliu's fishing smack. He feels the sickness of the fever
+coming over him. Then he sees Chita.... Hers is the face of his dead
+Adele. Through the fury of the fever, which has now seized him, the past
+is mingled with the present. He re-lives the agony of that death-storm,
+re-lives all the horror of that scene, when all that he held dear was
+swept away--until his own soul passes out into the night.
+
+The description of Dr. La Brierre in the throes of the fever is
+terrible. It is so realistic that one shudders.
+
+TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES[27] (6) was the _piece de
+resistance_ of the sojourn in the tropics. Some of the papers appeared
+first in _Harper's Magazine_. They are marvellous colour-pictures of the
+country, its people, its life, its customs, with many of the picturesque
+legends and the quaintnesses that creep into the heart.
+
+    [27] Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.
+
+"There is not a writer who could have so steeped himself in this
+languorous Creole life and then tell so well about it. Trollope and
+Froude give you the hard, gritty facts, and Lafcadio Hearn the sentiment
+and poetry of this beautiful island." (387.)
+
+More and more is Hearn realizing the necessity of finding new colour. "I
+hope to be able to take a trip to New Mexico in the summer just to
+obtain literary material, sun-paint, tropical colour, etc." It is always
+the intense that his fancy craves, and indeed _must_ have in order to
+work. "There are tropical lilies which are venomous, but they are more
+beautiful than the frail and icy white lilies of the North." "Whenever I
+receive a new and strong impression, even in a dream, I write it down,
+and afterwards develop it at leisure.... There are impressions of blue
+light and gold and green, correlated to old Spanish legend, which can be
+found only south of this line." "I will write you a little while I am
+gone,--if I can find a little strange bit of tropical colour to spread
+on the paper,--like the fine jewel-dust of scintillant moth-wings."
+"Next week I go away to hunt up some tropical or semi-tropical
+impressions."
+
+He is bewitched by St. Pierre--"I love this quaint, whimsical,
+wonderfully coloured little town." On opening the present volume we at
+once feel how thoroughly sympathetic this whole Nature is to him, how
+ravished his senses are with all that she portrays.
+
+From Pier 49, East River, New York, we travel with Hearn through days of
+colour and beauty to the glorious Caribbean Sea, where we sail on to
+Roseau and St. Pierre. Here the colour is becoming so intense that the
+eyes are blinded.
+
+    The luminosities of tropic foliage could only be imitated in
+    fire. He who desires to paint a West Indian forest,--a West
+    Indian landscape,--must take his view from some great height,
+    through which the colours come to his eye softened and subdued
+    by distance,--toned with blues or purples by the astonishing
+    atmosphere.
+
+... It is sunset as I write these lines, and there are
+    witchcrafts of colour. Looking down the narrow, steep street
+    opening to the bay, I see the motionless silhouette of the
+    steamer on a perfectly green sea,--under a lilac sky,--against a
+    prodigious orange light.
+
+Over her memoried paths we wander with Josephine, and then we pause
+before the lovely statue which seems a living presence.
+
+    She is standing just in the centre of the Savane, robed in the
+    fashion of the First Empire, with gracious arms and shoulders
+    bare: one hand leans upon a medallion bearing the eagle profile
+    of Napoleon.... Seven tall palms stand in a circle around her,
+    lifting their comely heads into the blue glory of the tropic
+    day. Within their enchanted circle you feel that you tread holy
+    ground,--the sacred soil of artist and poet;--here the
+    recollections of memoir-writers vanish away; the gossip of
+    history is hushed for you; you no longer care to know how rumour
+    has it that she spoke or smiled or wept: only the bewitchment of
+    her lives under the thin, soft, swaying shadows of those
+    feminine palms.... Over violet space of summer sea, through the
+    vast splendour of azure light, she is looking back to the place
+    of her birth, back to beautiful drowsy Trois-Islets,--and always
+    with the same half-dreaming, half-plaintive smile,--unutterably
+    touching....
+
+"Under a sky always deepening in beauty" we steam on to the level,
+burning, coral coast of Barbadoes. Then on past to Demerara.
+
+We pass through all the quaint beautiful old towns and islands. We see
+their wonders of sky and sea and flowers. We see their people and all
+that great race of the mixed blood.
+
+With dear old Jean-Marie we wait for the return of Les Porteuses, and we
+hear his call:--
+
+    "_Coument ou ye, che? coument ou kalle?_" ... (How art thou,
+    dear?--how goes it with thee?)
+
+And they mostly make answer, "_Toutt douce, che,--et ou?_" (All
+    sweetly, dear,--and thou?) But some, over-weary, cry to him,
+    "_Ah! decharge moin vite, che! moin lasse, lasse!_" (Unload me
+    quickly, dear; for I am very, very weary.) Then he takes off
+    their burdens, and fetches bread for them, and says foolish
+    little things to make them laugh. And they are pleased and
+    laugh, just like children, as they sit right down on the road
+    there to munch their dry bread.
+
+Again we follow on: this time to La Grande Anse, where we see the
+powerful surf-swimmers. With the population we turn out to witness the
+procession of young girls to be confirmed; we see the dances and games;
+we hear the chants, and the strange music on strange instruments.
+
+At St. Pierre once more we listen to the history of Pere Labat, who in
+twelve years made his order the richest and most powerful in the West
+Indies.
+
+    "Eh, Pere Labat!--what changes there have been since thy day!...
+    And all that ephemeral man has had power to change has been
+    changed,--ideas, morals, beliefs, the whole social fabric. But
+    the eternal summer remains,--and the Hesperian magnificence of
+    azure sky and violet sea,--and the jewel-colours of the
+    perpetual hills; the same tepid winds that rippled thy
+    cane-fields two hundred years ago still blow over Sainte-Marie;
+    the same purple shadows lengthen and dwindle and turn with the
+    wheeling of the sun. God's witchery still fills this land; and
+    the heart of the stranger is even yet snared by the beauty of
+    it; and the dreams of him that forsakes it will surely be
+    haunted--even as were thine own, Pere Labat--by memories of its
+    Eden-summer: the sudden leap of the light over a thousand peaks
+    in the glory of a tropic dawn,--the perfumed peace of enormous
+    azure noons,--and shapes of palm, wind-rocked in the burning of
+    colossal sunsets,--and the silent flickering of the great
+    fire-flies, through the lukewarm darkness, when mothers call
+    their children home.... '_Mi fanal Pe Labatt!--mi Pe Labatt ka
+    vini pouend ou!_'"
+
+Then we see the lights of the shrines that will protect us from the
+Zombi and the Moun-Mo, and all the terrible beings who are filled with
+witchcraft; and we listen to the tale of that Zombi who likes to take
+the shape of a lissome young negress.
+
+By this time it is Carnival Week with its dances and games and maskers.
+But a little later we are shuddering at the horrible pestilence Verette
+that has seized the city. A gleam of the old love of horror is caught in
+the following quotation:--
+
+    She was the prettiest, assuredly, among the pretty shop-girls of
+    the Grande Rue,--a rare type of _sang-melee_. So oddly pleasing,
+    the young face, that once seen, you could never again dissociate
+    the recollection of it from the memory of the street. But one
+    who saw it last night before they poured quick-lime upon it
+    could discern no features,--only a dark brown mass, like a
+    fungus, too frightful to think about.
+
+At the beautiful Savane du Fort our eyes and hearts are gladdened by the
+quaint sight of the Blanchisseuses with their snowy linen spread out for
+miles along the river's bank. Their laughter echoes in our ears, and we
+try to catch the words of their little songs.
+
+One warm and starry, and to us unforgettable, September morning we make
+the ascent of Mt. Pelee by the way of Morne St. Martin, and on our way
+we come to know the country that lies all around. Let me quote our
+sensation as we reach the summit:--
+
+    At the beginning, while gazing south, east, west, to the rim of
+    the world, all laughed, shouted, interchanged the quick delight
+    of new impressions: every face was radiant.... Now all look
+    serious; none speaks.... Dominating all, I think, is the
+    consciousness of the awful antiquity of what one is looking
+    upon,--such a sensation, perhaps, as of old found utterance in
+    that tremendous question of the Book of Job: "_Wast thou brought
+    forth before the hills?_"
+
+And the blue multitudes of the peaks, the perpetual congregation
+    of the mornes, seem to chorus in the vast resplendence,--telling
+    of Nature's eternal youth, and the passionless permanence of
+    that about us and beyond us and beneath,--until something like
+    the fulness of a grief begins to weigh at the heart.... For all
+    this astonishment of beauty, all this majesty of light and form
+    and colour, will surely endure,--marvellous as now,--after we
+    shall have lain down to sleep where no dreams come, and may
+    never arise from the dust of our rest to look upon it.
+
+Another day we are laughing at the little _ti canotie_ who in the
+queerest tiny boats surround a steamer as soon as she drops anchor.
+These are the boys who dive for coins. A sad tale is told of Maximilien
+and Strephane. Again our hearts are moved by the pathos and the tragedy
+of La Fille de Couleur; and in this chapter we find that characteristic
+description:--
+
+    I refer to the celebrated attire of the pet slaves and _belles
+    affranchies_ of the old colonial days. A full
+    costume,--including violet or crimson "petticoat" of silk or
+    satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery and lace;
+    "trembling-pins" of gold (_zepingue tremblant_) to attach the
+    folds of the brilliant Madras turban; the great necklace of
+    three or four strings of gold beads bigger than peas
+    (_collier-choux_); the ear-rings, immense but light as
+    egg-shells (_zanneaux-a-clous_ or _zanneaux-chenilles_); the
+    bracelets (_portes-bonheur_); the studs (_boutons-a-clous_); the
+    brooches, not only for the turban, but for the chemise, below
+    the folds of the showy silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,--would
+    sometimes represent over five thousand francs' expenditure. This
+    gorgeous attire is becoming less visible every year: it is now
+    rarely worn except on very solemn occasions,--weddings,
+    baptisms, first communions, confirmations. The _da_ (nurse) or
+    "_porteuse-de-bapteme_" who bears the baby to church, holds it
+    at the baptismal font, and afterwards carries it from house to
+    house in order that all the friends of the family may kiss it,
+    is thus attired: but now-a-days, unless she be a professional
+    (for there are professional _das_, hired only for such
+    occasions), she usually borrows the jewellery. If tall, young,
+    graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin, the effect of her
+    costume is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin. I saw one
+    young _da_ who, thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and
+    earthly;--there was an Oriental something in her appearance
+    difficult to describe,--something that made you think of the
+    Queen at Sheba going to visit Solomon. She had brought a
+    merchant's baby, just christened, to receive the caresses of the
+    family at whose house I was visiting; and when it came to my
+    turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice the child: I saw
+    only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange and purple,
+    bending over it, in an illumination of antique gold. What a
+    _da_!... She represented really the type of that _belle
+    affranchie_ of other days, against whose fascination special
+    sumptuary laws were made: romantically she imaged for me the
+    supernatural godmothers and Cinderellas of the Creole
+    fairy-tales.
+
+Still we have much to learn about the little creatures in the shapes of
+ants and scorpions and lizards. They form no small part of the
+population of Martinique. And still more about the fruits and the
+vegetables do we learn from good Cyrillia, Ma Bonne. One longs to have a
+housekeeper as loving and child-like and solicitous. We leave her gazing
+with love unutterable at the new photograph of her daughter, and
+wondering the while why they do not make a portrait talk so that she can
+talk to her beautiful daughter.
+
+    And day by day the artlessness of this exotic humanity touches
+    you more;--day by day this savage, somnolent, splendid
+    Nature--delighting in furious colour--bewitches you more.
+    Already the anticipated necessity of having to leave it all some
+    day--the far-seen pain of bidding it farewell weighs upon you,
+    even in dreams.
+
+But before we go, we must learn how Nature must treat those who are not
+born under her suns.
+
+Then at last reluctantly we board the _Guadeloupe_, and with
+Mademoiselle Violet-Eyes, who is leaving her country, perhaps for a very
+long time, to become a governess in New York, we realize that nowhere on
+this earth may there be brighter skies.
+
+    Farewell, fair city,--sun-kissed city,--many-fountained
+    city!--dear yellow-glimmering streets,--white pavements learned
+    by heart,--and faces ever looked for,--and voices ever loved!
+    Farewell, white towers with your golden-throated
+    bells!--farewell, green steeps, bathed in the light of summer
+    everlasting!--craters with your coronets of forests!--bright
+    mountain paths upwinding 'neath pomp of fern and angelin and
+    feathery bamboo!--and gracious palms that drowse above the dead!
+    Farewell, soft-shadowing majesty of valleys unfolding to the
+    sun,--green golden cane-fields ripening to the sea!...
+
+Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Pelee--so they vanish behind us. Shall
+not we too become _Les Revenants_?
+
+YOUMA[28] (5) was written in Martinique, and also belongs to the New
+Orleans period. "I think you will like it better than 'Chita.' It is
+more mature and exotic by far,"--so Hearn wrote of the story in one of
+his letters. Later on, when living in Japan, he wrote:--
+
+    [28] Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.
+
+    It gave me no small pleasure to find that you like "Youma": you
+    will not like it less knowing that the story is substantially
+    true. You can see the ruins of the old house in the Quartier du
+    Fort if you ever visit Saint-Pierre, and perhaps meet my old
+    friend Arnoux, a survivor of the time. The girl really died
+    under the heroic conditions described--refusing the help of the
+    blacks and the ladder. Of course I may have idealized her, but
+    not her act. The incident of the serpent occurred also; but the
+    heroine was a different person,--a plantation girl, celebrated
+    by the historian Rufz de Lavison. I wrote the story under
+    wretched circumstances in Martinique, near the scenes described,
+    and under the cross with the black Christ.
+
+An English notice says:--
+
+"It is an admirable little tale, full of local characteristics with
+curious fragments of Creole French from Martinique, and abundance of
+wide human sympathy. It deserves reprinting for English readers more
+than three-fourths of the fiction which is wont to cross the Atlantic
+under similar circumstances." (294.)
+
+"Youma" is the tale of the exquisite devotion and loyalty of a _da_. (A
+_da_ is the foster-mother and nurse of a Creole child.) At the death of
+Aimee, Youma's playmate and rich foster-sister, little Mayotte, her
+child, becomes Youma's charge. An intimate description is given us of
+the Creole life of Mayotte and Youma. The love of this _da_ is very
+beautiful. Once with an extraordinary heroism Youma saves Mayotte from a
+serpent which has slipped into their room. With a still greater heroism
+she refuses to run away with Gabriel, who has opened the world to
+her,--Gabriel who has brought her love, and whom she can marry in no
+other way. No, above the pleadings of her lover, comes the voice of her
+dying mistress, begging, with such trust,--
+
+    "Youma, O Youma! you will love my child?--Youma, you will never
+    leave her, whatever happens, while she is little? promise, dear
+    Youma!"
+
+    And she had--promised....
+
+Then comes the final test of Youma's strength of devotion. There is an
+outbreak among the blacks, who have become inflamed by the dreams of
+coming freedom. The Desrivieres with many other families are forced to
+flee for refuge in safer quarters. Under one roof all these people
+gather. Youma is urged to leave and save herself. But she will not
+forsake Mayotte or her master. The infuriated blacks surround the house,
+and horror follows. Presently the house is set on fire. Youma, with
+Mayotte in her arms, appears at an upper window. Gabriel, "daring the
+hell about him for her sake," puts up a ladder. Youma hands him Mayotte.
+"Can you save her?" she asks.
+
+    "Gabriel could only shake his head;--the street sent up so
+    frightful a cry....
+
+    "_Non!--non!--non!--pa le yche-beke--janmain yche-beke!_"
+
+    "Then you cannot save me!" cried Youma, clasping the child to
+    her bosom,--"_janmain! janmain, mon ami._"
+
+    "Youma, in the name of God...."
+
+    "In the name of God, you ask me to be a coward!... Are you vile,
+    Gabriel?--are you base?... Save myself and leave the child to
+    burn?... Go!"
+
+    "Leave the _beke's yche_!--leave it!--leave it, girl!" shouted a
+    hundred voices.
+
+    "_Moin!_" cried Youma, retreating beyond the reach of Gabriel's
+    hand,--"_moin!_ ... Never shall I leave it, never! I shall go to
+    God with it."
+
+    "Burn with it, then!" howled the negroes ... "down with that
+    ladder! down with it, down with it!"
+
+The ladder catches fire and burns. The walls quiver, and there are
+shrieks from the back of the house. Unmoved, with a perfect calm, Youma
+remains at the window. "There is now neither hate nor fear on her fine
+face." Softly she whispers to Mayotte, and caresses her with an infinite
+tenderness. Never to Gabriel had she seemed so beautiful.
+
+    Another minute--and he saw her no more. The figure and the light
+    vanished together, as beams and floor and roof all quaked down
+    at once into darkness.... Only the skeleton of stone
+    remained,--black-smoking to the stars.
+
+A stillness follows. The murderers are appalled by their crime.
+
+    Then, from below, the flames wrestled out again,--crimsoning the
+    smoke whirls, the naked masonry, the wreck of timbers. They
+    wriggled upward, lengthening, lapping together,--lifted
+    themselves erect,--grew taller, fiercer,--twined into one huge
+    fluid spire of tongues that flapped and shivered high into the
+    night....
+
+The yellowing light swelled,--expanded from promontory to
+    promontory,--palpitated over the harbour,--climbed the broken
+    slopes of the dead volcano leagues through the gloom. The wooded
+    mornes towered about the city in weird illumination,--seeming
+    loftier than by day,--blanching and shadowing alternately with
+    the soaring and sinking of the fire;--and at each huge pulsing
+    of the glow, the white cross of their central summit stood
+    revealed, with the strange passion of its black Christ.
+
+... And at the same hour, from the other side of the world,--a
+    ship was running before the sun, bearing the Republican gift of
+    liberty and promise of universal suffrage to the slaves of
+    Martinique.
+
+There are two little bits of description which are so characteristic
+that I quote them:--
+
+    Then she became aware of a face ... lighted by a light that came
+    from nowhere,--that was only a memory of some long-dead morning.
+    And through the dimness round about it a soft blue radiance
+    grew,--the ghost of a day.
+
+Sunset yellowed the sky,--filled the horizon with flare of
+    gold;--the sea changed its blue to lilac;--the mornes brightened
+    their vivid green to a tone so luminous that they seemed turning
+    phosphorescent. Rapidly the glow crimsoned,--shadows purpled;
+    and night spread swiftly from the east,--black-violet and full
+    of stars.
+
+KARMA[29] (242) was written during the Philadelphia period, but was not
+published in _Lippincott's Magazine_ until after Hearn had sailed for
+Japan. The story is concentrated, with its every word a shaft of light,
+and it seems a wrong to attempt to epitomize it. Except in its entirety
+no adequate conception can be formed of this marvellous revelation of
+the anguish that a human soul may suffer; nor of the artistic power with
+which Hearn has developed and perfected his study. Many quotations could
+be gleaned from his subsequent books which reflect the inspiration of
+"Karma."
+
+    [29] Copyright, 1889, by Lafcadio Hearn; and, copyright, 1890
+         by J. B. Lippincott Company.
+
+Despite her unusual intellect, the heroine had a childlike simplicity
+and frankness which invited her lover's confidence, but he had never
+told her his admiration, for a dormant power beneath her girlishness
+made a compliment seem a rudeness. He was often alone with her, which is
+helpful to lovers, but her charm always confused him, and his
+embarrassment only deepened. One day she archly asked him to tell her
+about it.
+
+Is there one who does not know that moment when the woman beloved
+becomes the ideal, and the lover feels his utter unworthiness? Yet, if
+she is one of those rare souls, the illusion, however divine, is less
+perfect than is her worth. Do you know what she truly is--how she
+signifies "the whole history of love striving against hate, aspiration
+against pain, truth against ignorance, sympathy against pitilessness?
+She,--the soul of her! is the ripened passion-flower of the triumph. All
+the heroisms, the martyrdoms, the immolations of self,--all strong
+soarings of will through fire and blood to God since humanity
+began,--conspired to kindle the flame of her higher life."
+
+And then you question yourself with a thousand questions, and then there
+are as many more of your duty to her, to the future, and to the Supreme
+Father.
+
+She was not surprised when he told her his wish, but she was not
+confident that he really loved her, nor whether she should permit
+herself to like him. Finally she bade him go home and "as soon as you
+feel able to do it properly,--write out for me a short history of your
+life;--just write down everything you feel that you would not like me to
+know. Write it,--and send it.... And then I shall tell you whether I
+will marry you."
+
+How easy the task seemed, and his whole being was joyous; but the
+lightness lasted for only a moment, and gradually all that her command
+meant crept over him.... "_Everything you feel you would not like me to
+know._" Surely she had no realization of what she had asked. Did she
+imagine that men were good like women--how cruel to hurt her.
+
+Then for a period he was uplifted with the desire to meet her
+truthfulness, but his courage failed again after he had written down the
+record of his childhood and youth. It was no slight task to make this
+confession of his sins. And how pale and trivial they had seemed before.
+Was it possible that he had never before rightly looked at them? Yet why
+should he so falter? Surely she meant to pardon him. He must put
+everything down truthfully, and then recolour the whole for her gaze.
+But his face grew hot at the thought of certain passages.
+
+Hour after hour he sat at his desk until it was past midnight, but no
+skill could soften the stony facts. Finally he lay down to rest: his
+fevered brain tried to find excuses for his faults. He could forgive
+himself everything ... except--ah, how unutterably wicked he had been
+there. No, he could not tell her _that_: instead he must lose her for
+ever. And in losing her he would lose all the higher self which she had
+awakened. To lose her--when he of all men had found his ideal.
+
+"_Everything you feel you would not like me to know._" Perhaps when she
+had put this ban upon him, she suspected that there were incidents in
+his life which he dared not tell her. Could he not deceive her? No, he
+might write a lie, but he could never meet her fine sweet eyes with a
+lie. What was he to do? And why had he always been so humble before that
+slight girl? "Assuredly those fine grey eyes were never lowered before
+living gaze: she seemed as one who might look God in the face."
+
+Slowly his senses became more confused, and a darkness came, and a light
+in the darkness that shone on her; and he saw her bathed in a soft
+radiance, that seemed of some substance like ivory. And he knew that she
+was robing for her bridal with him.
+
+He was at her side: all around them was a gentle whispering of many
+friends, who were dead. Would they smile thus--_if they knew_?
+
+Then there arose something within him, and he knew that he must tell her
+all. He commenced to speak, and she became transfigured, and smiled at
+him with the tenderness of an angel; and the more he told the greater
+was her forgiveness. And he heard the voices of the others lauding him
+for his self-sacrifice and his sincerity. Yet as they praised a fear
+clutched him for one last avowal that he must make. And with the growing
+of this doubt all seemed maliciously to change, and even she no longer
+smiled. He then would have told her alone, but even as he tried to hush
+his voice, it seemed to pierce the quietude "with frightful audibility,
+like the sibilation of a possessing spirit." Then with a reckless
+despair he shouted it aloud, and everything vanished, and the darkness
+of night was about him.
+
+For many restless days and nights he harried himself with bitter
+self-analysis; and day by day he tore up a certain page; yet without
+that page his manuscript was worthless. As the days grew into weeks a
+new fear seized him that his silence had betrayed him, and that already
+she had decided against him. In the face of this danger he became
+terrified, and one morning he feverishly copied the memorable page, and,
+addressing the whole, dropped it in the first letter-box, before he
+might change his mind.
+
+Then an awful revelation of his act overcame him. Should he telegraph
+her to return the manuscript unopened. No, it was already too late. What
+was done--was done for ever. He now vaguely realized what he feared in
+her--"a penetrating dynamic moral power that he felt without
+comprehending." He tried to steel himself for the worst, but he knew
+with a premonition that behind his imagined worst there were depths
+beyond depths of worse.
+
+The single word "Come" which he received two days later confirmed his
+fears. When he reached the door of her apartment, she had already risen
+to take from a locked drawer an envelope which he knew was his. She
+proffered him no greeting, but asked in a cold voice if he wished her to
+burn the document. At his whispered _yes_, he met her eyes, and they
+seemed to strip him of the last remnant of his pride. "He stood before
+her as before God,--morally naked as a soul in painted dreams of the
+Judgment Day."
+
+The fire caught the paper, and he stood near, in fear of her next word,
+while she watched the flame.
+
+At last she asked if the woman was dead. He well knew to what she
+referred, and replied that almost five years had passed since her death.
+To the penetrating questions which followed he answered that the
+child--a boy--was well, and that his friend was still there--in the same
+place. She turned to him abruptly and coldly, angered that he could have
+believed that she would pardon such a crime.
+
+He must have had some hope, or he would not have sent the letter. Had he
+measured her by his own moral standard? Certainly he had placed her
+below the level of honest people. Would he dare to ask their judgment of
+his sin?
+
+Speechless, he writhed under the scorn of her words, and a knowledge of
+shame to which his former agony was as nothing burned within him. That
+in him which her inborn goodness had taught her, was now laid bare to
+himself.
+
+Again she spoke after a silence--perhaps he would think she was cruel;
+but she was not, nor was she unjust, for transcendent sin that denies
+"all the social wisdom gained by human experience" cannot be pardoned,
+it can only be atoned. And that sin was his; and God would exact his
+expiation. And that expiation she now demanded in God's name, and as her
+right. He must go to the friend whom he had wronged, and tell him the
+whole truth. He must ask for the child, and fulfil his whole duty; also
+he must place even his life at the man's will. And she would rather see
+him dead than believe that he could be a coward as well as a criminal.
+This she requested not as a favour, but as her right.
+
+At her words he grew pale as if to death, and for a moment she feared
+that he might refuse, and that she must despise him. No! his colour
+rushed back, and her heart leaped, as with a calm resolve he answered,
+"I will do it."
+
+"Then go!" she replied, betraying no gladness.
+
+A year went by. She knew that he had kept his promise. He wrote to her
+often, and passionately, but the letters were never answered. Did she
+doubt him still?--or was she afraid of her own heart? He could not know
+the truth, so he waited with hopes and fears, and the seasons passed.
+Then one day she was startled to receive a letter which told her that he
+was passing through her suburb, and he begged only to be permitted to
+see her. To his surprise the answer brought the happy words, "You may."
+
+From the shy, beautiful eyes of the child, whom he brought, there seemed
+to plead a woman's sorrow, until her own soul answered in forgiveness.
+And the boy and the father marvelled at the tenderness that had come
+upon her, and the father sobbed until her voice thrilled: that suffering
+was strength and knowledge, that always he must suffer for the evil he
+had wrought, but she would help him to bear the pain, and to endure his
+atonement. She would shield his frailty--she would love his boy.
+
+THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD (21) was translated in New York, while
+Hearn was finishing the proofs of "Two Years in the French West Indies."
+Of it he writes:--
+
+    As for the "Sylvestre Bonnard" I believe I told you that that
+    was translated in about ten days and published in two weeks from
+    the time of beginning it.... But the work suffers in consequence
+    of haste.
+
+After his departure for the Orient, two articles on West Indian Society
+appeared in the _Cosmopolitan_ (243-244). They give a sympathetic study
+of the sad and pathetic tragedy of the race of the mixed blood. These
+articles bear a similarity to the chapter upon and the references to
+this subject, in "Two Years in the French West Indies."
+
+GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN[30] (7) is the first of the series of
+Japanese books. It was published after Hearn had been in Japan for four
+years; since 1891 six of the articles had appeared in the _Atlantic
+Monthly_ (246-251). Also in 1890, an article, "A Winter Journey to
+Japan," was published in _Harper's Monthly_ (245). This was his initial
+paper on Japan.
+
+    [30] Copyright, 1894, by Lafcadio Hearn; and published by
+         Houghton, Mifflin and Company.]
+
+In many ways the present book on Japan is his happiest, for the charm
+over everything is fresh and radiant. It is here that we learn the old
+graceful customs, the touching child-like ways, and the sacred appealing
+rites and beliefs that so endear to us the Japanese. Later we are to
+have studies more philosophical, more erudite, but none more penetrating
+in virtue of the very simplicity of subject.
+
+It is difficult to believe that the writer, bewitched with the warmth
+and colour of the tropics, giving his pen an unlicensed flow of word
+colour and enthusiasm, in a few years could have matured into this
+quiet, gentle thinker equally absorbed by the East. One finds scarcely a
+trace of the Hearn of the tropics: therein lies his unique genius; just
+so admirably as he reflected the West Indian life, does he now reflect
+that of the Japanese.
+
+It is the old Japan that Hearn loves, and the passing of which he mourns
+even at the first. In his Preface, he says, "My own conviction, and that
+of many impartial and more experienced observers of Japanese life, is
+that Japan has nothing whatever to gain by conversion to Christianity,
+either morally or otherwise, but very much to lose." Also in one of his
+letters he writes, "I felt, as never before, how utterly dead old Japan
+is, and how ugly New Japan is becoming." It is old Japan that we find in
+the present volume. It is much as if we looked into a diary of his first
+days in the Orient, giving his impressions and conclusions, as well as
+portraying the pictures themselves.
+
+One of the reviews of the book contains the following:--
+
+"If Japan is all that he says; if the Japanese are so compounded of all
+the virtues, and so innocent of the ugly failings that mar our Western
+civilization, then the poet's dream of a Golden Age has actually been
+realized in the remote East. Much as we should like to believe that such
+a land and such a people actually exist, we cannot altogether conquer
+our doubts, or avoid the suspicion that the author's feeling sometimes
+gets the better of his judgment." (379.)
+
+And another says:--
+
+"In volume one he is still the outside observer, remote enough to be
+amused with the little pretty, bird-like glances of the Orient towards
+the Occident, pleased at the happy chance which makes a blind
+shampooer's cry musical as she taps her way down the street, instead of
+giving her a voice raucous as that which hurts and haunts the unwilling
+ears of wayfarers down Newgate Street and on Ludgate-Hill; or
+complimentary to the cunning fancy which paints a branch of flowering
+cherry in a cleft bamboo on a square of faintly-coloured paper and calls
+the cherry blossom 'beauty' and the bamboo 'long life.' He notices the
+shapely feet of the people: 'bare brown feet of peasants, or beautiful
+feet of children wearing tiny, tiny _geta_, or feet of young girls in
+snowy _tabi_. The _tabi_, the white digitated stocking, gives to a small
+light foot a mythological aspect--the white cleft grace of the foot of a
+fauness.'
+
+"A little further on the leaven of witchcraft is working, and he cannot
+write so airily. It is not as a mere spectator that he talks of his
+visit to the Buddhist cemetery, where the rotting wooden laths stand
+huddled about the graves, and one tomb bears an English name and a cross
+chiselled upon it. Here he made acquaintance with the god, who is the
+lover of little children, Jizo-Sama, about whose feet are little
+piles of stones heaped there by the hands of mothers of dead children.
+He is not quite as much in earnest as volume two will find him, or he
+could not call the gentle god 'that charming divinity'; but the
+sight-seer is dying in him nevertheless. It was with a friend's hand
+that he struck the great bell at Enoshima." (286.)
+
+But even here with a new world unfolding to his delighted eyes, it was
+colour that Hearn really wanted.
+
+    I am not easy about my book, of which I now await the proofs. It
+    lacks colour--it isn't like the West Indian book. But the world
+    here is not forceful: it is all washed in faint blues and greys
+    and greens. There are really _gamboge_, or saffron-coloured
+    valleys,--and lilac fields; but these exist only in the early
+    summer and the rape-plant season, and ordinarily Japan is
+    chromatically spectral.
+
+The opening chapter is his first day in the Orient, "the first charm of
+Japan is intangible and volatile as a perfume." Everything seems to him
+elfish and diminutive. "Cha," his Kurumaya, takes him past the shops
+where it appears to him "that everything Japanese is delicate,
+exquisite, admirable--even a pair of common wooden chop-sticks in a
+paper bag with a little drawing upon it." The money itself is a thing of
+beauty. But one must not dare to look, for there is enchantment in these
+wares, and having looked, one must buy. In truth one wishes to buy
+everything, even to the whole land, "with its magical trees and luminous
+atmosphere, with all its cities and towns and temples, and forty
+millions of the most lovable people."
+
+Before the steps leading to a temple he stops.
+
+    I turn a moment to look back through the glorious light. Sea and
+    sky mingle in the same beautiful pale clear blue. Below me the
+    billowing of bluish roofs reaches to the verge of the unruffled
+    bay on the right, and to the feet of the green wooded hills
+    flanking the city on two sides. Beyond that semi-circle of green
+    hills rises a lofty range of serrated mountains, indigo
+    silhouettes. And enormously high above the line of them towers
+    an apparition indescribably lovely,--one solitary snowy cone, so
+    filmly exquisite, so spiritually white, that but for its
+    immemorially familiar outline, one would surely deem it a shape
+    of cloud. Invisible its base remains, being the same delicious
+    tint as the sky: only above the eternal snow-line its dreamy
+    cone appears, seeming to hang, the ghost of a peak, between the
+    luminous land and the luminous heaven,--the sacred and matchless
+    mountain, Fujiyama.
+
+Passing to the temple garden he wonders why the trees are so lovely in
+Japan.
+
+    Is it that the trees have been so long domesticated and caressed
+    by man in this land of the gods, that they have acquired souls,
+    and strive to show their gratitude, like women loved, by making
+    themselves more beautiful for man's sake? Assuredly they have
+    mastered men's hearts by their loveliness, like beautiful
+    slaves. That is to say, Japanese hearts. Apparently there have
+    been some foreign tourists of the brutal class in this place,
+    since it has been deemed necessary to set up inscriptions in
+    English announcing that "it is forbidden to injure the trees."
+
+Of Hearn's first visit to a Buddhist temple, I quote what one of his
+critics has to say:--
+
+"The silence of centuries seems to descend upon your soul, you feel the
+thrill of something above and beyond the commonplace of this every-day
+world, even here, amidst the turmoil, the rush, the struggle of this
+monster city of the West, if you take up his 'Glimpses of Unfamiliar
+Japan,' and turn to his description of his first visit to a Buddhist
+temple. Marvellous is his power of imparting the mystery of that strange
+land, of hidden meanings and allegories, of mists and legends. The
+bygone spirit of the race, the very essence of the heart of the people,
+that has lain sleeping in the temple gloom, in the shadows of the temple
+shrines, awakes and whispers in your ears. You feel the soft, cushioned
+matting beneath your feet, you smell the faint odour of the incense, you
+hear the shuffling of pilgrim feet, the priest sliding back screen after
+screen, pouring in light upon the gilded bronzes and inscriptions; and
+you look for the image of the Deity, of the presiding Spirit, between
+the altar groups of convoluted candelabra. And you see:
+
+    Only a mirror, a round, pale disc of polished metal, and my own
+    face therein, and behind this mockery of me a phantom of the far
+    sea.
+
+Only a mirror! Symbolizing what? Illusion? Or that the Universe
+    exists for us solely as the reflection of our own souls? Or the
+    old Chinese teaching that we must seek the Buddha only in our
+    own hearts? Perhaps some day I shall be able to find out. (350.)
+
+Many more temples are visited in the following chapter. What impresses
+him the most is the joyousness of the people's faith: everything is
+bright and cheerful, and the air is filled with the sound of children's
+voices as they play in the courts. He sees the many representations of
+Jizo, the loving divinity who cares for the souls of little children,
+who comforts them, and saves them from the demons. The face of Jizo
+is like that of a beautiful boy, and the countenance is made "heavenly
+by such a smile as only Buddhist art could have imagined, the smile of
+infinite lovingness and supremest gentleness." There is also Kwannon,
+"the goddess of mercy, the gentle divinity who refused the rest of
+Nirvana to save the souls of men." Her face is golden, smiling with
+eternal youth and infinite tenderness. And he sees Emma Dai-O, the
+unpitying, tremendous one. He learns many things of many gods and
+goddesses. There is the temple of Kishibojin--the mother of Demons. For
+some former sin she was born a demon and devoured her own children. But
+through the teaching of Buddha she became a divine being, loving and
+protecting the little ones, and Japanese mothers pray to her, and wives
+pray for beautiful boys. At her shrine what impresses the visitor are
+hundreds of tiny dresses, mostly of poor material, stretched between
+tall poles of bamboos. These are the thank-offerings of poor simple
+country mothers whose prayers to her have been answered.
+
+In another chapter Hearn writes of the Festival of the Dead, for between
+the 13th and the 15th day of July the dead may come back again. Every
+small and great shrine is made beautiful with new mats of purest rice
+straw, and is decorated with lotus flowers, _shikimi_ (anise) and
+_misohagi_ (lespedeza). Food offerings, served on a tiny lacquered
+table--a _zen_--are placed before the altars. Every hour, tea daintily
+served in little cups is offered to the viewless visitors. At night
+beautiful special lanterns are hung at the entrances of homes. Those who
+have dead friends visit the cemeteries and make offerings there with
+prayers, and the sprinkling of water, and the burning of incense. On the
+evening of the 15th the ghosts of those, who in expiation of faults
+committed in a previous life are doomed to hunger, are fed. And also are
+fed the ghosts of those who have no friends.
+
+For three days everything is done to feast the dead, and on the last
+night there comes the touching ceremony of farewell, for the dead must
+then return.
+
+    Everything has been prepared for them. In each home small boats
+    made of barley straw closely woven have been freighted with
+    supplies of choice food, with tiny lanterns, and written
+    messages of faith and love. Seldom more than two feet in length
+    are these boats; but the dead require little room. And the frail
+    craft are launched on canal, lake, sea, or river,--each with a
+    miniature lantern glowing at the prow, and incense burning at
+    the stern. And if the night be fair, they voyage long. Down all
+    the creeks and rivers and canals the phantom fleets go
+    glimmering to the sea; and all the sea sparkles to the horizon
+    with the lights of the dead, and the sea wind is fragrant with
+    incense.
+
+But alas! it is now forbidden in the great seaports to launch
+    the _shoryobune_, "the boats of the blessed ghosts."
+
+In Kami-Ichi, in the land of Hoki, there is a glimpse into ancient
+Japan, for there the Bon-odori, the Dance of the Festival of the Dead,
+is still maintained. No longer is it danced in the cities. In the temple
+court, in the shadow of the tomb, with the moonlight as a guide, long
+processions of young girls dance a slow ghostly dance while the vast
+audience of spectators keeps a perfect stillness. A deep male chant is
+heard, and the women respond. Many songs follow, until the night is
+waning. Then this seeming witchcraft ends, and with merry laughter and
+soft chatting all disperse.
+
+Hearn spends a long happy day at Matsue, the chief city of the Province
+of the Gods, where he gathers legends and impressions. Of course it has
+its temples. The temple is the best place to see the life of the people.
+There it is that the children play all day long. In the summer evening,
+the young artisans and labourers prove their strength in
+wrestling-matches. The sacred dances are held there; and on holidays it
+is also the place where toys are sold.
+
+Often at night your attention will be drawn to a large, silent, admiring
+group of people standing before some little booth. They will be looking
+at a few vases of sprays of flowers--an exhibition of skill in their
+arrangement.
+
+Returning homeward, there is seen a poor woman scattering some white
+papers into a stream of water, and, as she throws each one in, murmuring
+something sweet in a low voice. She is praying for her little dead
+child, and these are little prayers that she has written to Jizo.
+
+Kitzuki is the most ancient shrine in Japan, and it is the living centre
+of Shinto. There the ancient faith burns as brightly as ever it did
+in the unknown past. Buddhism may be doomed to pass away, but Shinto
+"unchanging and vitally unchanged remains dominant, and appears but to
+gain in power and dignity." Many of the wisest scholars have tried to
+define Shinto.
+
+    But the reality of Shinto lives not in books, nor in rites,
+    nor in commandments, but in the national heart, of which it is
+    the highest emotional religious expression, immortal and ever
+    young. Far underlying all the surface crop of quaint
+    superstitions and artless myths and fantastic magic, there
+    thrills a mighty spiritual force, the whole soul of a race with
+    all its impulses and powers and intuitions. He who would know
+    what Shinto is must learn to know that mysterious soul in
+    which the sense of beauty and the power of art and the fire of
+    heroism and magnetism of loyalty and the emotion of faith have
+    become inherent, immanent, unconscious, instinctive.
+
+At Kaka is the Cave of the Children's Ghosts. No evil person may enter
+the Shin-Kukedo, for if he does, a large stone will detach itself and
+fall down upon him. Here in this great vault, lifting forty feet above
+the water, and with walls thirty feet apart, is a white rock out of
+which drips a water apparently as white as the rock itself. This is the
+Fountain of Jizo, which gives milk to the souls of little dead
+children.
+
+    And mothers suffering from want of milk come hither to pray that
+    milk may be given unto them; and their prayer is heard. And
+    mothers having more milk than their infants need come hither
+    also, and pray to Jizo that so much as they can give may be
+    taken for the dead children; and their prayer is heard and their
+    milk diminishes.
+
+    At least thus the peasants of Izumo say.
+
+In another cavern are countless little piles of stones and pebbles,
+which must have been made by long and patient labour. It is the work of
+the dead children. One must step carefully, for the sake of these little
+ones, for if any work is spoiled, they will cry. In the sand are prints
+of little naked feet, "_the footprints of the infant ghosts_." Strewn
+here and there on the rocks are tiny straw sandals, pilgrims' offerings
+to keep the baby feet from being bruised by the stones.
+
+In the temple of Hojinji of the Zen sect at Mionoseki, there is an altar
+which bears many images of Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy. Before the
+altar, and hung from the carven ceiling, is a bright coloured mass of
+embroidered purses, patterns of silk-weaving and of cotton-weaving, also
+balls of threads and worsted and silk. These are the first offerings of
+little girls. As soon as a baby girl learns how to sew or knit or
+embroider, she brings to the Maid-Mother of all grace and sweetness and
+pity, the first piece that she has made successfully.
+
+    Even the infants of the Japanese kindergarten bring their first
+    work here,--pretty paper-cuttings, scissored out and plaited
+    into divers patterns by their own tiny flower-soft hands.
+
+Among the many Notes on Kitzuki which interest, is the annual festival
+of the Divine Scribe, the Tenjin-Matsuri, to which every school-boy
+sends a specimen of his best writing. The texts are in Chinese
+characters, and are generally drawn from the works of Confucius or
+Mencius. And Hearn remarks that the children of other countries can
+never excel in the art of Japanese writing. The inner ancestral
+tendencies will not let them catch the secret of the stroke with the
+brush. It is the fingers of the dead that move the brush of the Japanese
+boy.
+
+At every temple festival in Japan there is a sale of toys. And every
+mother, however poor, buys her child a toy. They are not costly, and are
+charming. Many of these toys would seem odd to a little English child.
+There is a tiny drum, a model of the drum used in the temples; or a
+miniature sambo table, upon which offerings are presented to the gods.
+There is a bunch of bells fastened to a wooden handle. It resembles a
+rattle, but it is a model of the sacred _suzu_ which the virgin
+priestess uses in her dance before the gods. Then there are tiny images
+of priests and gods and goddesses. There is little of grimness in the
+faiths of the Far East; their gods smile. "Why religion should be
+considered too awful a subject for children to amuse themselves decently
+with never occurs to the common Japanese mind."
+
+Besides these, there are pretty toys illustrating some fairy-tale or
+superstition and many other playthings of clever devices, and the little
+doll, O-Hina-San (Honourable Miss Hina), which is a type of Japanese
+girl beauty. The doll in Japan is a sacred part of the household. There
+is a belief that if it is treasured long enough it becomes alive. Such a
+doll is treated like a real child: it is supposed to possess
+supernatural powers. One had such rare powers that childless couples
+used to borrow it. They would minister to it, and would give it a new
+outfit of clothes before returning it to its owners. All who did this
+became parents. To the Japanese a new doll is only a doll; but a doll
+that has received the love of many generations acquires a soul. A little
+Japanese girl was asked, "How can a doll live?" "Why," was the lovely
+answer, "_if you love it enough_, it will live!"
+
+Never is the corpse of a doll thrown away. When it has become so worn
+out that it must be considered quite dead, it is either burned or cast
+in running water, or it is dedicated to the God Kojin. In almost
+every temple ground there is planted a tree called _enoki_, which is
+sacred to Kojin. Before the tree will be a little shrine, and either
+there or at the foot of the sacred tree, the sad little remains will be
+laid. Seldom during the lifetime of its owner is a doll given to
+Kojin.
+
+    When you see one thus exposed, you may be almost certain that it
+    was found among the effects of some poor dead woman--the
+    innocent memento of her girlhood, perhaps even also of the
+    girlhood of her mother and of her mother's mother.
+
+There is a sad and awful tradition in the history of the Kengyos, the
+oldest of the noble families of Izumo. Seven generations ago the
+Daimyo of Izumo made his first official visit to the temples of
+Hinomisaki, and was entertained royally by the Kengyo. As was the
+custom, the young wife served the royal visitor. Her simple beauty
+unfortunately enchanted him, and he demanded that she leave her husband
+and go with him. Terrified, but like a brave loving wife and mother, she
+answered that sooner than desert her husband and child she would kill
+herself.
+
+The Lord of Izumo went away, but the little household well knew the evil
+that now shadowed it. And shortly the Kengyo was suddenly taken from
+his family; tried at once for some unknown offence, and banished to the
+islands of Oki, where he died. The Daimyo was exultant, for no
+obstacle was in the way of his desire. The wife of the dead Kengyo
+was the daughter of his own minister, whose name was Kamiya. Kamiya was
+summoned before the Daimyo, who told him that there was no longer any
+reason why Kamiya's daughter should not enter his household, and bade
+Kamiya bring her to him.
+
+The next day Kamiya returned, and with the utmost ceremony announced
+that the command had been fulfilled--the victim had arrived.
+
+    Smiling for pleasure, the Matsudaira ordered that she should be
+    brought at once into his presence. The Karo prostrated
+    himself, retired, and presently returned, placed before his
+    master a _kubi-oke_ upon which lay the freshly-severed head of a
+    beautiful woman,--the head of the young wife of the dead
+    Kengyo,--with the simple utterance:
+
+                         "This is my daughter."
+            Dead by her own brave will,--but never dishonoured.
+
+"None love life more than the Japanese; none fear death less." So it is
+that when two lovers find that they can never wed, they keep the love
+death together, which is _joshi_ or _shinju_. By dying they
+believe that they will at once be united in another world. They always
+pray that they may be buried together. (In other books are written
+additional stories illustrating the touching custom.)
+
+At the temple of Yaegaki at Sakusa, are the Deities of Wedlock and of
+Love, and thither go all youths and maidens who are in love. Hundreds of
+strips of soft white paper are knotted to the gratings of the doors of
+the shrine. These are the prayers of love. Also there are tresses of
+girls' hair, love-sacrifices, and offerings of sea-water and of
+sea-weed. In the soil around the foundation of the shrine are planted
+quantities of small paper flags.
+
+All over Japan there are little Shinto shrines before which are
+images in stone of foxes.
+
+    The rustic foxes of Izumo have no grace: they are uncouth; but
+    they betray in countless queer ways the personal fancies of
+    their makers. They are of many moods,--whimsical, apathetic,
+    inquisitive, saturnine, jocose, ironical; they watch and snooze
+    and squint and wink and sneer; they wait with lurking smiles;
+    they listen with cocked ears most stealthily, keeping their
+    mouths open or closed. There is an amusing individuality about
+    them all, and an air of knowing mockery about most of them, even
+    those whose noses have been broken off. Moreover, these ancient
+    foxes have certain natural beauties which their modern
+    Tokyo kindred cannot show. Time has bestowed upon them
+    divers speckled coats of beautiful colours while they have been
+    sitting on their pedestals, listening to the ebbing and flowing
+    of the centuries and snickering weirdly at mankind. Their backs
+    are clad with finest green velvet of old mosses; their limbs are
+    spotted and their tails are tipped with the dead gold or the
+    dead silver of delicate fungi. And the places they most haunt
+    are the loveliest,--high shadowy groves where the _uguisu_ sings
+    in green twilight, above some voiceless shrine with its lamps
+    and its lions of stone so mossed as to seem things born of the
+    soil--like mushrooms.
+
+It is difficult to define the Fox superstition, chiefly because it has
+sprung from so many elements. The origin is Chinese, and in Japan it has
+become mixed with the worship of a Shinto deity, and further enlarged
+by the Buddhist belief of thaumaturgy and magic. The peasants worship
+foxes because they fear them. But there are good foxes and bad ones. The
+country holds legend after legend of goblin foxes and ghost foxes, and
+foxes that take the form of human beings. Every Japanese child knows
+some of them.
+
+Seldom is a Japanese garden a flower-garden: it may not contain a
+flower. It is a landscape garden, and its artistic purpose is to give
+the impression of a real scene. Besides, it is supposed to express "a
+mood in the soul." Such abstract ideas as Chastity, Faith, Connubial
+Bliss were expressed by the old Buddhist monks who first brought the art
+into Japan. Little hills, and slopes of green, tiny river-banks, and
+little islands, together with trees, and stones, and flowering shrubs
+are combined by the artist. All these things have their poetry and
+legend, and sometimes have a special name signifying their position and
+rank in the whole design.
+
+In the ponds little creatures such as the frog and water-beetle live,
+and they too have their legends. The children make all of these
+creatures and the insects their playmates. Then there are the _semi_,
+which are musicians, and lovely dragon-flies which skim over the ponds;
+and back on the hill above the garden are many birds. It is not
+necessary to have a garden outdoors, for there are indoor gardens too
+which can even be put into a _koniwa_, the size of a fruit-dish.
+
+The dead are never dead with the Japanese; they become even more
+important members of the family, for the spirits of the dead control the
+lives of the living. Each day there is some ceremony in memory of these
+blessed dead; and no home is so poor but it has its household shrine.
+And Shinto, ancestor-worship,
+
+    signifies character in the higher sense,--courage, courtesy,
+    honour, and above all things loyalty. The spirit of Shinto is
+    the spirit of filial piety, the zest of duty, the readiness to
+    surrender life for a principle without a thought of wherefore.
+    It is the docility of the child; it is the sweetness of the
+    Japanese woman. It is conservatism likewise; the wholesome check
+    upon the national tendency to cast away the worth of the entire
+    past in rash eagerness to assimilate too much of the foreign
+    present. It is religion,--but religion transformed into
+    hereditary moral impulse,--religion transmuted into ethical
+    instinct. It is the whole emotional life of the race,--the Soul
+    of Japan.
+
+Self-sacrifice, loyalty, the deepest spirit of Shinto, is born with
+the child. If you ask any Japanese student what his dearest wish is he
+will surely answer,--"To die for His Majesty, our Emperor." It is
+impossible in this limited space to give an adequate idea of all that
+Shintoism implies.
+
+The dressing of the hair is a very important part of a Japanese woman's
+toilet. It is dressed once in every three days, and the task takes
+probably two hours. The elaborateness of the coiffure changes with the
+growing age of the maiden. But when she is twenty-eight, she is no
+longer young, and so thereafter only one style is left, that worn by old
+women. Of course, there are many superstitions about women's hair. It is
+the Japanese woman's dearest possession, and she will undergo any
+suffering not to lose it. At one time it was considered a fitting
+vengeance to shear the hair of an erring wife, and then turn her away.
+
+    Only the greatest faith or the deepest love can prompt a woman
+    to the voluntary sacrifice of her entire _chevelure_, though
+    partial sacrifices, offerings of one or two long thick cuttings,
+    may be seen suspended before many an Izumo shrine.
+
+What faith can do in the way of such sacrifice, he best knows
+    who has seen the great cables, woven of women's hair, that hang
+    in the vast Hongwanji temple at Kyoto. And love is stronger
+    than faith, though much less demonstrative. According to an
+    ancient custom a wife bereaved sacrifices a portion of her hair
+    to be placed in the coffin of her husband, and buried with him.
+    The quantity is not fixed: in the majority of cases it is very
+    small, so that the appearance of the coiffure is thereby no wise
+    affected. But she who resolves to remain for ever faithful to
+    the memory of the lost yields up all. With her own hand she cuts
+    off her hair, and lays the whole glossy sacrifice--emblem of her
+    youth and beauty--upon the knees of the dead.
+
+It is never suffered to grow again.
+
+The "Diary of a Teacher" gives a careful picture of the school-life in
+Japan as Hearn finds it. At the Normal School, which is a state
+institute, the young man student has no expenses. In return for these
+kindnesses, when he graduates he serves as a teacher for five years.
+Discipline is severe, and deportment is a demand. "A spirit of manliness
+is cultivated, which excludes roughness but develops self-reliance and
+self-control."
+
+The silence of study hours is perfect, and without permission no head is
+ever raised from a book.
+
+The female department is in a separate building. Girls are taught the
+European sciences, and are trained in all the Japanese arts, such as
+embroidery, decoration, painting; and of course that most delicate of
+arts--the arranging of flowers. Drawing is taught in all the schools. By
+fifty per cent. do Japanese students excel the English students in
+drawing.
+
+There is also a large elementary school for little boys and girls
+connected with the Normal School. These are taught by the students in
+the graduating classes. Noteworthy is the spirit of peace prevailing at
+the recesses that occur for ten minutes between each lesson. The boys
+romp and shout and race, but never quarrel. Hearn says that among the
+800 scholars whom he has taught, he has never even heard of a fight, nor
+of any serious quarrel. The girls sing or play some gentle game, and the
+teachers are kind and watchful of the smaller scholars. If a dress is
+torn or soiled the child is cared for as carefully as if she were a
+younger sister.
+
+No teacher would ever think of striking a scholar. If he did so he would
+at once have to give up his position. In fact, punishments are unknown.
+"The spirit is rather reversed. In the Occident the master expels the
+pupil. In Japan it happens quite as often that the pupil expels the
+master."
+
+It takes the Japanese student seven years to acquire the triple system
+of ideographs, which is the alphabet of his native literature. He must
+also be versed in the written and the spoken literature. He must study
+foreign history, geography, arithmetic, astronomy, physics, geometry,
+natural history, agriculture, chemistry, drawing.
+
+    Worst of all he must learn English,--a language of which the
+    difficulty to the Japanese cannot be even faintly imagined by
+    any one unfamiliar with the construction of the native
+    tongue,--a language so different from his own that the very
+    simplest Japanese phrase cannot be intelligibly rendered into
+    English by a literal translation of the words or even the form
+    of the thought.
+
+And he studies all this upon the slimmest of diets, clad in thin clothes
+in cold rooms. No wonder many fall by the way.
+
+The students have been trained to find a moral in all things. If the
+theme given to them for a composition is a native one, they will never
+fail to find it. For instance,--a peony is very beautiful, but it has a
+disagreeable odour; hence we should remember that "To be attracted by
+beauty only may lead us into fearful and fatal misfortune." The sting of
+the mosquito is useful, for "then we shall be bringed back to study."
+
+There is nothing distinctive about the Japanese countenance, but there
+is an intangible pleasantness that is common to all. Contrasted with
+Occidental faces they seem "half-sketched." The outlines are very soft,
+there is "neither aggressiveness nor shyness, neither eccentricity nor
+sympathy, neither curiosity nor indifference.... But all are equally
+characterized by a singular placidity,--expressing neither love nor
+hate, nor anything save perfect repose and gentleness,--like the dreamy
+placidity of Buddhist images." Later, these faces become individualized.
+
+In another chapter Hearn tells of Two Festivals: one the festival of the
+New Year; and the other, the Festival of Setsubun, which is the time for
+the casting out of devils. On the eve of this latter festival, the
+Yaku-otoshi, who is the caster-out of the demons, goes around, to any
+houses that may desire his services, and performs his exorcism, for
+which he receives a little fee. The rites consist of the recitation of
+certain prayers, and the rattling of a _shakujo_. The _shakujo_ is
+an odd-shaped staff. There is a tradition that it was first used by
+Buddhist pilgrims to warn little creatures and insects to get out of the
+way.
+
+I quote from a French review for the description of one of Hearn's
+stories:--
+
+"But the most beautiful of all, 'A Dancing Girl,' is drawn from the
+chronicles of that far-off past, from which, say what one may, he is
+certainly wise in drawing his inspirations. It is the story of a
+courtesan in love.
+
+"At the height of her celebrity, this idol of a capital disappears from
+public life, and nobody knows why. Leaving fortune behind, she flies
+with a poor youth who loves her. They build for themselves a little
+house in the mountains, and there exist apart from the world, one for
+the other. But the lover dies one cold winter, and she remains alone,
+with no other consolation than to dance for him every evening in the
+deserted house. For he loved to see her dance, and he must still take
+pleasure in it. Therefore, daily, she places on the memorial altar the
+accustomed offerings, and at night she dances decked out in the same
+finery as when she was the delight of a large city. And the day comes,
+when old, decrepit, dying, reduced to beggary, she carries her superb
+costume faded with time, to a painter who had seen her in the days of
+her beauty, that he may accept it in exchange for a portrait made from
+memory, which shall be placed before the altar always bearing offerings,
+that her beloved may ever see her young, the most beautiful of the
+_shirabyashi_, and that he may forgive her for not being able to dance
+any more.
+
+"This _shirabyashi_, from the distance of time, appears to us here,
+clothed with I know not what of hieratical dignity, such as the modern
+_geisha_ could never possess. Lafcadio Hearn in no wise pretends in the
+pages he devotes to these latter, to idealize them beyond measure. They
+appear under his pen as pretty animals somewhat dangerous; but is it not
+their calling to be so? Whatever be the rank of the Japanese woman, he
+only speaks of her with an extreme discretion, and with a caution that
+one would look for in vain in the portrait of _Mme. Chrysantheme_. The
+subtle voluptuousness of his style is never extended to the scenes he
+reproduces; it is a style immaterial to a rare degree; he knows how to
+make us understand what he means, without one word to infringe those
+proprieties that are dear to the Japanese, even more than virtue itself.
+And to believe him, the young, well-brought-up girl, the honest wife,
+are in Japan the most perfect types of femininity that he has ever met
+in any part of the world;--he, who has travelled so much. Opinions
+formed superficially by globe-trotters on this subject that he scarcely
+glances at because of respect, arouse as much indignation in him as
+could they in the Japanese themselves. Evidently he has penetrated into
+their inner life, into the mystery of their thoughts, into their hidden
+springs of action, to the point of participating in their feelings."
+(390.)
+
+From Hoki to Oki there is much to learn about the landscapes of
+Western and Central Japan; and Hearn gives many legends, and many more
+impressions and intimate glimpses.
+
+As there are only walls of thin paper separating the lives of these
+Japanese people, no privacy can exist. Really everything is done in
+public, even your thoughts must be known. And it never occurs to a
+Japanese that there should be any reason for living unobserved. This
+must show a rare moral condition, and is understood only by those who
+appreciate the charm of the Japanese character, its goodness, and its
+politeness.
+
+    No one endeavours to expand his own individuality by belittling
+    his fellow; no one tries to make himself appear a superior
+    being: any such attempt would be vain in a community where the
+    weaknesses of each are known to all, where nothing can be
+    concealed or disguised, and where affectation could only be
+    regarded as a mild form of insanity.
+
+Hearn speaks of the strange public curiosity which his presence aroused
+at Urago. It was not a rude curiosity; in fact, one so gentle that he
+could not wish the gazers rebuked. But so insistent did it become that
+he had to close his doors and windows to prevent his being watched while
+he was asleep.
+
+Kinjuro, the ancient gardener, knows a great many things about souls.
+"No one is by the gods permitted to have more souls than nine."
+Kinjuro also knows legends about ghosts and goblins.
+
+An essay penetrating the very heart of the Japanese, is the chapter on
+the "Japanese Smile." It crowns Hearn's work as a superb interpretation
+of Japanese soul-life. This smile is the outward and visible sign of the
+inward and spiritual grace of self-sacrifice. It is metaphysically and
+psychologically exquisite. It is an etiquette which for generations has
+been cultivated. It was a smile, _in origin_, however, demanded by hard
+heathen gods of the victims they sacrificed; and, in history, it was
+demanded of the subject race by the early conquerors. If refused, then
+off came their heads! The smile is born with the Japanese child, and is
+nurtured through all the growing years.
+
+    The smile is taught like the bow; like the prostration; like
+    that little sibilant sucking-in of the breath which follows, as
+    a token of pleasure, the salutation to a superior; like all the
+    elaborate and beautiful etiquette of the old courtesy.
+
+The Japanese believe that one should always turn one's happiest face to
+people. It is a wrong to cause them to share your sorrow or misfortune,
+and so hurt or sadden them. One should never look serious. It is not
+only unkind but extremely rude to show one's personal griefs or anger:
+these feelings should always be hidden. Even though it is death one must
+face, it is a duty to smile bravely.
+
+It was with such a smile that the dying boy Shida wrote and pasted upon
+the wall over his bed:--
+
+Thou, my Lord-Soul, dost govern me. Thou knowest that I cannot
+    now govern myself. Deign, I pray thee, to let me be cured
+    speedily. Do not suffer me to speak much. Make me to obey in all
+    things the command of the physician.
+
+This ninth day of the eleventh month of the twenty-fourth year
+    of Meiji.
+
+From the sick body of Shida to his Soul.
+
+
+    The key to the mystery of the most unaccountable smiles is
+    Japanese politeness. The servant sentenced to dismissal for a
+    fault prostrates himself, and asks for pardon with a smile. That
+    smile indicates the very reverse of callousness or insolence:
+    "Be assured that I am satisfied with the great justice of your
+    honourable sentence, and that I am aware of the gravity of my
+    fault. Yet my sorrow and my necessity have caused me to indulge
+    the unreasonable hope that I may be forgiven for my great
+    rudeness in asking pardon." The youth or girl beyond the age of
+    childish tears when punished for some error, receives the
+    punishment with a smile which means: "No evil feeling arises in
+    my heart; much worse than this my fault has deserved."
+
+This quality, which has become as natural to the Japanese as the very
+breath of his body, is the sweet tonic-note of his whole character.
+
+_Sayonara!_ Across the waters echoes the cry, _Manzai, Manzai!_ (Ten
+thousand years to you! ten thousand years!). Hearn is leaving. He is
+going far away. His pupils write expressing their sorrow and regret. He
+sends them a letter thanking them for their gift of a beautiful sword,
+and in a loving farewell says:--
+
+    May you always keep fresh within your hearts those impulses of
+    generosity and kindliness and loyalty which I have learned to
+    know so well, and of which your gift will ever remain for me the
+    graceful symbol!
+
+    And a symbol not only of your affection and loyalty as students
+    to teachers, but of that other beautiful sense of duty
+    expressed, when so many of you wrote down for me, as your
+    dearest wish, the desire to die for His Imperial Majesty, your
+    Emperor. That wish is holy: it means perhaps more than you know,
+    or can know, until you shall have become much older and wiser.
+    This is an era of great and rapid change; and it is probable
+    that many of you, as you grow up, will not be able to believe
+    everything that your fathers believed before you, though I
+    sincerely trust you will at least continue always to respect the
+    faith, even as you still respect the memory, of your ancestors.
+    But however much the life of New Japan may change about you,
+    however much your own thoughts may change with the times, never
+    suffer that noble wish you expressed to me to pass away from
+    your souls. Keep it burning there, clear and pure as the flame
+    of the little lamp that glows before your household shrine.
+
+OUT OF THE EAST[31] (8), followed "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." The
+charm of the first impression is waning.
+
+    [31] Copyright, 1895, by Lafcadio Hearn; and published by
+         Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+In a letter Hearn writes:--
+
+    Every day, it strikes me more and more how little I shall ever
+    know of the Japanese. I have been working hard at a new book,
+    which is now half finished, and consists of philosophical
+    sketches chiefly. It will be a very different book from the
+    "Glimpses," and will show you how much the Japanese world has
+    changed for me. I imagine that sympathy and friendship are
+    almost impossible for any foreigner to obtain,--because of the
+    amazing difference in the psychology of the two races. We only
+    guess at each other without understanding.
+
+In another letter, speaking of the title for this book, he continues:--
+
+    It was suggested only by the motto of the Oriental Society, "_Ex
+    Oriente lux._" ... The simpler the title, and the vaguer--in my
+    case--the better: the vagueness touches curiosity. Besides, the
+    book is a vague thing.
+
+The _Academy_, writing of "Out of the East," says:--
+
+"Each book marks a longer step towards the Buddhist mysticism, wherein
+we have lost our poet. 'The Stone Buddha,' in the first mentioned book,
+is a dreamy dialogue between the wisdom of the West; Science, with her
+theories of evolution, revolution and dissolution; Buddhism, with its
+re-birth on re-rebirth; and Nirvana at the end. This thing also is
+vanity. As there can be no end, so there can be no beginning; even Time
+is an illusion, and there is nothing new beneath a hundred million
+suns." (286.)
+
+The old charm of word colour sparkles in "The Dream of a Summer Day."
+
+    Mile after mile I rolled along that shore, looking into the
+    infinite light. All was steeped in blue,--a marvellous blue,
+    like that which comes and goes in the heart of a great shell.
+    Glowing blue sea met hollow blue sky in a brightness of electric
+    fusion; and vast blue apparitions--the mountains of Higo--angled
+    up through the blaze, like masses of amethyst. What a blue
+    transparency! The universal colour was broken only by the
+    dazzling white of a few high summer clouds, motionlessly curled
+    above one phantom peak in the offing. They threw down upon the
+    water snowy tremulous lights. Midges or ships creeping far away
+    seemed to pull long threads after them,--the only sharp lines in
+    all that hazy glory. But what divine clouds! White purified
+    spirits of clouds, resting on their way to the beatitude of
+    Nirvana? Or perhaps the mists escaped from Urashima's box a
+    thousand years ago?
+
+The gnat of the soul of me flitted out into that dream of blue,
+    'twixt sea and sun,--hummed back to the shore of Suminoye
+    through the luminous ghosts of fourteen hundred summers.
+
+And Hearn tells with charm why "the mists escaped from Urashima's box a
+thousand years ago," and also of the old, old woman who drank too deeply
+of the magical waters of youth.
+
+Reviewing the present volume, the _Spectator_ remarks:--
+
+"The main drift of his books, however, is to bring into view not so much
+the glories of Japanese sunlight or the charms of animate or inanimate
+Nature, on which it falls, as the prevalence, at any rate in extensive
+sections of Japanese society, of modes of thought and standards of
+conduct which, though often widely apart from our own, demand the
+respect of every candid Englishman. And certainly in this endeavour he
+meets with a large measure of success. His account of the essays written
+and the questions asked by the members of his class in English language
+and literature at the Government college, or Higher Middle School, of
+Kyushu, discloses not only what must be regarded as a very good
+development of general intelligence among those young men, but a moral
+tone which in many respects is quite as high, though with interesting
+differences in point of view, as would be expected among English boys or
+young men in the upper forms of our great public-schools or at the
+Universities. Of course, what boys or young men write for or say to
+their masters and tutors cannot by any means always be taken as sure
+evidence of their inner feelings or of the character of their daily
+life. But, so far as one can judge, Hearn's pupils appear to have given
+him their confidence, and what he tells us of them may therefore
+reasonably be taken without much discount. It certainly illustrates an
+attractive simplicity of character and thought, not untouched by poetic
+imagination, together with a high development of family affection and
+strong sense of family duty, and also a remarkably high level of
+patriotic feeling. This spirit is apparently inherited from the old
+military class of the island of Kyushu, and it is not surprising
+to hear that rich men at a distance are keen to give their sons the
+opportunity of acquiring the Kyushu 'tone.' Towards the close of
+his book Mr. Hearn gives an extremely interesting account of a farewell
+visit paid him in the autumn of 1894 by an old pupil who had entered the
+army after leaving college, and had been placed, at his own request, in
+one of the divisions ordered for service in Corea:--
+
+    "And now I am so glad," he exclaimed, his face radiant with a
+    soldier's joy, "we go to-morrow." Then he blushed again, as if
+    ashamed of having uttered his frank delight. I thought of
+    Carlyle's deep saying, that never pleasures, but only suffering;
+    and death are the lures that draw true hearts. I thought
+    also--what I could not say to any Japanese--that the joy in the
+    lad's eyes was like nothing I had ever seen before, except the
+    caress in the eyes of a lover on the morning of his bridal.
+
+"A beautiful thought, the reader will agree; but why could it not be
+uttered to a Japanese? A good deal will be found on this subject in Mr.
+Hearn's book, and, as we have indicated, we do not think it all holds
+together. His class of students, we learn, professed to think it 'very,
+very strange' that there should be so much in English novels about love
+and marrying; and then he tells us that--
+
+    Any social system of which filial piety is not the moral cement;
+    any social system in which children leave their parents in order
+    to establish families of their own; any social system in which
+    it is considered not only natural but right to love wife and
+    child more than the authors of one's being; any social system in
+    which marriage can be decided independently of the will of the
+    parents by the mutual inclination of the young people themselves
+    ... appears, to the Japanese student of necessity a state of
+    life scarcely better than that of the birds of the air and the
+    beasts of the field, or at best a sort of moral chaos.
+
+"Now, of course, it is known here that in Japan, as in other Oriental
+countries, it is a rule for marriages to be family arrangements, as
+regards which it is expected that the young persons will conform to the
+wishes of their respective parents.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But of course some inconsistencies are to be expected from an author
+enamoured of the whole country. He is very Buddhist, and is anxious to
+show that Buddhists have always held, in matters of faith, something
+very like the doctrines of modern science with regard to the perpetual
+sequence of evolution and dissolution. On this subject he argues
+cleverly and effectively; but when, by implication or expressly, he
+compares Buddhism with Christianity, it is evident that the latter faith
+has not received any very close study from him. None the less is his
+book, though dominated by a somewhat uncritical enthusiasm, full of
+interest and instruction as to the difference between the gifts, the
+motives, and the mental and moral attitude of the Japanese and the
+peoples of the West, ourselves in particular. It is well worth while to
+study that remarkable people as they are seen by one who is so much
+captivated by them, and believes in them so strongly, as Mr. Lafcadio
+Hearn." (380.)
+
+The _Athenaeum_ does not speak so cordially, and a review in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ says:--
+
+"Mr. Hearn is not at his best as a metaphysician.... But we can forgive
+him in that he stands forth a staunch champion, defying the West from
+the heart of the Japanese people. He does this most clearly in his
+finest essay, 'Jiujutsu.' Here the very meaning of the martial exercise,
+to 'conquer by yielding' is taken as text to explain the phenomena or
+national awakening which foreign cities have denounced as a 'reversal.'
+Japan has borrowed weapons of force from the West, in order successfully
+to resist its insidious influence. True progress is from within. Mr.
+Hearn writes:--
+
+    However psychologists may theorize on the absence or the
+    limitations of personal individuality among the Japanese, there
+    can be no question at all that, as a nation, Japan possesses an
+    individuality stronger than our own." (306.)
+
+Hearn further brings out in a conversation with a young Japanese the
+fact that Japan, in order to keep pace with the competition of other
+nations, must adopt the methods which are in direct variance to her old
+morality, and all that which has made the Japanese what he is. Japan's
+future depends upon her industrial development, and the fine old
+qualities of self-sacrifice, simplicity, filial piety, the contentment
+with little, are not the weapons for the modern struggle. In a
+postscript to this essay, written two years later, after the war with
+China, Hearn adds that "Japan has proved herself able to hold her own
+against the world.... _Japan has won in her jiujutsu._"
+
+Japan holds infinite legends of ghostly significance, and it is no
+wonder that Hearn found so much that was sympathetic. Every new town or
+new temple reveals some aspect of the odd. In this second book the
+joyousness is gone; he is now a philosopher, and his philosophy reflects
+much of the ghostly. The gruesome has been buried, but it is not dead:
+it will return reincarnated, not of the ghastly of real life, but of the
+dim, far-away, always more distant ghostly in the lives of the dead.
+
+A revelation of the Nirvana into which Hearn is being slowly drawn
+appears in "At Hakata." He has been telling the story of the sacred
+mirror that a mother in dying gave to her daughter, bidding her to look
+into it every morning and evening and there see her mother. And the girl
+looked and "having the heart of meeting her mother every day," knew not
+that the shadow in the mirror was her own face.
+
+    One are we all,--and yet many, because each is a world of
+    ghosts. Surely that girl saw and spoke to her mother's very
+    soul, while seeing the fair shadow of her own young eyes and
+    lips, uttering love!
+
+And with this thought, the strange display in the old temple
+    court takes a new meaning,--becomes the symbolism of a sublime
+    expectation. Each of us is truly a mirror, imaging something of
+    the universe,--reflecting also the reflection of ourselves in
+    that universe; and perhaps the destiny of all is to be molten by
+    that mighty Image-maker, Death, into some great sweet
+    passionless unity. How the vast work shall be wrought, only
+    those to come after us may know. We of the present West do not
+    know: we merely dream. But the ancient East believes Here is the
+    simple imagery of her faith. All forms must vanish at last to
+    blend with that Being whose smile is immutable Rest,--whose
+    knowledge is Infinite Vision.
+
+"The Red Bridal" is a story of _joshi_--the joint suicide for love.
+These two young people had been playmates since their early school-days,
+and were deeply attached to each other. The girl's father, under the
+influence of an evil stepmother, agrees to sell his daughter to the
+richest and also the most disreputable man in the village. Hearing this
+awful command, the maiden only smiles the brave smile--inheritance of
+her Samurai blood. She knows what she must do.... Together she and her
+lover quietly meet the Tokyo express. As its low roar draws
+nearer, they "wound their arms about each other, and lay down cheek to
+cheek, very softly and quietly, straight across the inside rail."
+
+We close the book with the memory of Yuko, heroic little Yuko, who, even
+as noble Asakachi, who had his beautiful wish to die for his country
+fulfilled, proves that the Japanese spirit of loyalty is far greater
+than our word implies. With all her country, Yuko, a humble little
+serving-maid, whose name signifies "valiant," is sorrowing because of a
+Japanese attack upon the Czarevitch of the Russians. Her soul burns with
+the desire to give something that will soften the sorrow of the August
+One; for the heart of the girl, being that of a true Japanese, grieves
+not alone for what has happened, but with a deeper sense of the grief
+caused to the August One. The cry goes from Yuko asking how she, who has
+nothing, can give; and from the lips of the dead within her comes the
+answer: "Give thyself. To give life for the August One is the highest
+duty, the highest joy." "And in what place?" she asks. "Saikyo,"
+answer the silent voices; "in the gateway of those who by ancient custom
+should have died."
+
+Does she falter? No.
+
+    For her the future holds no blackness. Always she will see the
+    rising of the holy Sun above the peaks, the smile of the
+    Lady-Moon upon the waters, the eternal magic of the Seasons. She
+    will haunt the places of beauty, beyond the folding of the
+    mists, in the sleep of the cedar-shadows, through circling of
+    innumerable years. She will know a subtler life, in the faint
+    winds that stir the snow of the flowers of the cherry, in the
+    laughter of playing waters, in every happy whisper of the vast
+    green silences. But first she will greet her kindred, somewhere
+    in shadowy halls awaiting her coming to say to her:
+
+"Thou hast done well,--like a daughter of Samurai. Enter, child!
+    because of thee to-night we sup with the Gods!"
+
+It is daylight when Yuko enters Kyoto. She finds a lodging, and then
+goes to a skilful female hairdresser. Her little razor is made very
+sharp. Returning to her room, she writes a letter of farewell to her
+brother, and an appeal to the officials asking that the Tenshi-Sama may
+be begged to cease from suffering "seeing that a young life, even though
+unworthy, has been given in voluntary expiation of the wrong."
+
+At the dark hour before dawn she slips to the gate of the Government
+edifice. Whispering a prayer, she kneels. Then with her long
+under-girdle of silk she binds her robes tightly about her knees, for
+
+    the daughter of a Samurai must always be found in death with
+    limbs decently composed. Then, with steady precision, she makes
+    in her throat a gash, out of which the blood leaps in a pulsing
+    jet....
+
+    At sunrise the police find her, quite cold, and the two letters,
+    and a poor little purse containing five _yen_ and a few _sen_
+    (enough, she had hoped, for her burial); and they take her and
+    all her small belongings away.
+
+KOKORO[32] (9), the next book, could well be a continuation of "Out of
+the East." Hearn speaks of it as "terribly radical," and "rather crazy";
+and he fears that his views, which are greatly opposed in the West, may
+not be well received.
+
+    [32] Copyright, 1896, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+"The fifteen chapters of which the book is composed," says a German
+review, "do not contain the results of any research into the domain of
+politics, art or religion. They are rather fragments from Japanese life,
+and so clear is the language that the pictures given are brought home to
+us with wonderful effect. Lafcadio Hearn is a journalist in the best
+sense of the word. He is a writer who has something striking and
+original to say upon the events of the day, upon the conditions and
+institutions of a land, upon the possibilities of development in a
+people, upon deep philosophical, social and religious problems, upon the
+'Idea of Pre-existence,' upon Buddhism and Shintoism, upon the
+difference between Occidental and Oriental culture, and who judges all
+things, all conditions that he sees, from lofty heights. He is besides a
+character, a man of great ideals; he has a fine artistic feeling and is,
+moreover, able to render in wonderfully sympathetic language tender
+moods which come to him at the sight of a landscape, a work of art.
+Extraordinarily capable of assimilation, he, to whom Japan has become a
+second home, has entirely fitted himself into the Japanese life. He is
+so delighted with the customs, with the political and social conditions,
+with the simple family life, with the religion, the ceremonies, the
+ancestor-worship, and with the business intercourse carried on among
+themselves--which he assures us is characterized by exceptional
+probity--in short, he is so delighted with all the activities of this
+people that he thinks them the best possible because they spring from
+the inmost life of an ethical and never intellectual temperament.
+Therefore he takes sides with them passionately against the modern
+tendencies of Europe." (395.)
+
+In the opening story, which I think will be found one of his best, is
+portrayed the manner of a Japanese crowd in dealing with a criminal; and
+how this criminal was brought to atonement by the gaze of a little
+child, the son of the man he murdered, while the little one was yet in
+his mother's womb.
+
+The next chapter is a discussion of Japanese Civilization. In 1903 Hearn
+wrote:--
+
+    "The Genius of Japanese Civilization" is a failure. I thought
+    that it was true when I wrote it; but already Japan has become
+    considerably changed, and a later study of ancient social
+    conditions has proved to me that I made some very serious
+    sociological errors in that paper.
+
+He shows that in the wonderful development of Japanese power, there is
+vitally no self-transformation. All that Japan is, she always has been.
+Nor is there any outward change. "The strength of Japan, like the
+strength of her ancient faith, needs little material display: both exist
+where the deepest real power of any great peoples exists,--in the Race
+Ghost." He contrasts the noise and confusion and vastness of Western
+cities. The construction of the West is endurance; of Japan
+impermanency. The very land is a land of impermanence. But in this
+impermanency Hearn finds the greatest excellence. He contrasts how
+little impedimenta the Japanese have--by that means alone how
+independent they are. He shows with what a quiet simplicity Japan has
+become a great commercial centre. He fears the new Western spirit which
+threatens her:--
+
+    I confess to being one of those who believe that the human
+    heart, even in the history of a race, may be worth infinitely
+    more than the human intellect, and that it will sooner or later
+    prove itself infinitely better able to answer all the cruel
+    enigmas of the Sphinx of Life.--I still believe that the old
+    Japanese were nearer to the solution of those enigmas than are
+    we, just because they recognized moral beauty as greater than
+    intellectual beauty.
+
+It is the old spirit which found infinite meaning--
+
+    in the flushed splendour of the blossom-bursts of spring, in the
+    coming and the going of the cicadae, in the dying crimson of
+    autumn foliage, in the ghostly beauty of snow, in the delusive
+    motion of wave or cloud.
+
+The beautiful voice of a blind peasant woman fills Hearn with gentle
+memories and an exquisite delight. He muses upon what the meaning of
+this charm can be; and he realizes that it is the old sorrows and loving
+impulses of forgotten generations.
+
+    The dead die never utterly. They sleep in the darkest cells of
+    tired hearts and busy brains,--to be startled at rarest moments
+    only by the echo of some voice that recalls their past.
+
+The lovely spirit of showing only one's happiest face to the world is
+charmingly brought out in the little incident that, when in a railway
+carriage, a Japanese woman finds herself becoming drowsy, before she
+nods she covers her face with her long kimono sleeve.
+
+Sometimes one may recall the dead, and speak with them. So it happened
+that O-Tayo heard once again the voice of her little child who begged
+her not to weep any more, for when mothers weep, the flood of the River
+of Tears rises so high that the soul cannot pass, and must wander and
+wander.
+
+O-Tayo never wept again, but softly she herself became as a little
+child. Her good parents built a tiny temple and fitted it with miniature
+ornaments, and here all day long children came to play games with her.
+And when at last she died, the children still played there, for as a
+little girl of nine said, "We shall still play in the Court of Amida.
+She is buried there. She will hear us and be happy."
+
+The pathetic tale of Haru gives an interesting picture of the relation
+in Japan between man and wife; of the exquisite submission of the wife
+under the saddest conditions, even to the moment when the little grieved
+heart, which has never murmured, has the dying strength to utter only
+the single word, "_Anata_." (Thou.)
+
+"A Glimpse of Tendencies" analyzes many conditions in Japan, with
+various predictions for her future, and speaks of her lack of sympathy
+for her foreign teachers.
+
+In "A Conservative" Hearn gives a searching study of how the evils of
+our civilization appear to a Japanese youth.
+
+"In the chapter, 'The Idea of Pre-existence,' Hearn makes the
+interesting attempt of bringing the teachings of the Buddhistic religion
+and the conclusions of modern science into accord. The idea which
+differentiates the Oriental mode of thinking from our own, which more
+than any other permeates the whole mental being of the Far-East--'it is
+universal as the wash of air; it colours every emotion; it influences,
+directly or indirectly, almost every act'--which inspires the utterances
+of the people, their proverbs, their pious and profane exclamations,
+that is the idea of pre-existence. The expression, '_Ingwa_,' which
+signifies the Karma as inevitable retribution, serves as explanation for
+all suffering, all pain, all evil. The culprit says: 'That which I did I
+knew to be wicked when doing; but my _ingwa_ was stronger than my
+heart,' _Ingwa_ means predestination, determinism, necessity." (395.)
+
+In his chapter on "Ancestor-Worship" it is further proved how important
+a part of the household are the dead.
+
+Another delightful study is "Kimiko,"--the story of one who turns
+dancing-girl out of filial piety. In the height of her fame she falls in
+love with a rich young man, and he with her. Kimiko is so good a woman
+at heart, that the man's friends do not object to his marrying her. She
+refuses, however, for her life has made her unworthy to be wife or
+mother. The man hopes to change her, but one day she disappears and is
+utterly lost to sight. Years pass and he marries. At last Kimiko returns
+as a wandering nun, looks at her lover's little son, whispers a message
+for the father in his ear, and is gone once more. The grace with which
+the story is told is inimitable, and the sickly sentimentality that
+revolts us in the _Dame aux Camelias_ is absent. (381.)
+
+GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS[33] (10) is the third book of the Japanese
+period, and was written at Kobe. In this volume of essays, intermingled
+with sketches in lighter vein, Hearn continues his philosophical
+studies. There are the unmistakable signs that even this ardour is
+losing zest. The charm of Japan is going fast; and after this volume,
+until his final interpretation, which is a summary of all that has gone
+before, is reached, we find him seeking material in fairy-tales,
+legends, and even returning to old thoughts about the West Indian life.
+
+    [33] Copyright, 1897, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+Many of his critics feel that Hearn is becoming too subjective to be
+quite trustworthy; others feel that he is still too charmed by Japan to
+render a faithful picture. A review in _Public Opinion_ says:--
+
+"But, this feature of almost pardonable exaggeration pointed out, there
+is little for the critic to carp at in the majority of the eleven essays
+that compose the book. The opening paper, 'A Living God,' is a perfect
+specimen of the author's style, and evinces in a marked degree the
+influence of Oriental environment on a sensitive mind. It treats of the
+temples, shrines, and worship of the people, and tells by legend how
+even a living individual may come to be worshipped as a god by his
+friends....
+
+"The essay, however, that betrays most strongly the bent of the author's
+mental metamorphosis, and one, we venture to say, that will be generally
+challenged is that on 'Faces in Japanese Art.' The contention it
+embodies, which he boldly fathers, is a flat denial of the truth and
+worth of our accepted schools of art,--of drawing especially." (376.)
+
+Criticizing the chapters on Buddhism in the present book, the _Athenaeum_
+says:--
+
+"They are finely written, but the Buddhism is the Buddhism of Mr. Hearn,
+not of China or Japan, or of anywhere else. Nevertheless, we think them
+the most attractive of these gleanings. Laputa is placed not very far
+from Japan; to a quasi-Laputa Mr. Hearn has gone, and his Laputian
+experiences are more interesting than any ordinary terrestrial
+experiences could have been." (298.)
+
+The _Spectator_ says:--
+
+"His chapter on Nirvana, which he describes as 'a study in synthetic
+Buddhism,' will be read with very great interest by all who care for the
+problems involved. There have been plenty of studies of the doctrine of
+Nirvana more elaborate and complete, but few more suggestive and more
+taking.... Mr. Hearn begins by combating the popular Western notion that
+the idea of Nirvana signifies to Buddhist minds complete annihilation.
+The notion is, he declares, erroneous because it contains only half the
+truth, and a half of the truth which is of no value or interest or
+intelligibility except when joined to the other half. According to Mr.
+Hearn, and, indeed, according to 'the better opinion' generally, Nirvana
+means not absolute nothingness or complete annihilation, but only the
+annihilation of what constitutes individualism and personality,--'the
+annihilation of everything that can be included under the term "I".'"
+(382.)
+
+Hearn makes an elaborate study of the varying stages of births and
+heavens that one must generally pass through before one rises into the
+"infinite bliss" of Nirvana. The chapter closes with this significant
+sentence:--
+
+    The only reality is One;--all that we have taken for Substance
+    is only Shadow;--the physical is the unreal:--_and the outer-man
+    is the ghost_.
+
+There are two short chapters devoted to the Japanese Songs. The first
+songs, "Out of the Street," are, as Manyemon, who would not have the
+Western people deceived, tells us, the vulgar songs, or those sung by
+the washermen, carpenters, and bamboo-weavers, etc. The theme always
+holds some glint of love. Hearn has arranged certain ones in three
+groups forming a little shadow romance.
+
+    To Heaven with all my soul I prayed to prevent your going;
+    Already, to keep you with me, answers the blessed rain.
+
+    Things never changed since the Time of the Gods: The flowing of
+    water, the Way of Love.
+
+The second chapter is devoted to Folk-Songs with Buddhist allusions.
+Nearly all the arts and the greater number of the industries show the
+influence of Buddhism. A typical song is:--
+
+        Even the knot of the rope tying our boats together Knotted was
+        long ago by some love in a former birth.
+
+Another:--
+
+    Even while praying together in front of the tablets ancestral,
+    Lovers find chance to murmur prayers never meant for the dead.
+
+On the "Trip to Kyoto" there is more to be learned about poor little
+Yuko, who gave her life for her nation. To the Japanese all the small
+details of her story are of the greatest importance, and are carefully
+treasured. Hearn thinks that the Western "refined feeling" might not
+care for the poor little blood-stained trifles; if so it is to be
+regretted.
+
+In "Dust," with a dainty touch, he teaches again that we are but
+millions upon billions of dead people; that the cells and the souls are
+themselves recombinations of old welding of forces--forces of which we
+know nothing save that they belong "to the Shadow-Makers of universes."
+You are an individual--but also you are a population! This leads on to
+the end that
+
+    In whatsoever time all human minds accord in thought and will
+    with the mind of the Teacher, there shall not remain even one
+    particle of dust that does not enter into Buddhahood.
+
+The last chapter, "Within the Circle," is of a philosophy so impermanent
+that it seems but Shadow-play, and one may not behold a visible form,
+for--like all that which it symbolizes--it is but an illusion.
+
+EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES[34] (11) faithfully followed the ensuing
+year. The effort to write is manifest; even to himself Hearn is
+admitting that the _frisson_ which Japan gave him is passing. He is
+beginning to make copy; and the subjects are becoming more vague,
+vapoury, and ghostly.
+
+    [34] Copyright, 1898, by Little, Brown and Company.
+
+    I must eat some humble pie. My work during the past ten months
+    has been rather poor. Why, I cannot quite understand--because it
+    costs me more effort. Anyhow, I have had to rewrite ten essays:
+    they greatly improved under the process. I am trying now to get
+    a Buddhist commentary for them--mostly to be composed of texts
+    dealing with pre-existence and memory of former lives. I took
+    for subjects the following:--Beauty is Memory--why beautiful
+    things bring sadness;--the Riddle of Touch--_i. e._ the thrill
+    that a touch gives;--the Perfume of Youth;--the Reason of the
+    Pleasure of the Feeling Evoked by Bright Blue;--the Pain Caused
+    by Certain Kinds of Red;--Mystery of Certain Musical
+    Effects;--Fear of Darkness and the Feeling of Dreams. Queer
+    subjects, are they not? I think of calling the collection
+    "Retrospectives.
+
+The _Athenaeum_, that wise critic, feels that in this book Hearn "shows
+himself at his best. He is more subdued," it says, "than is his wont,
+and indulges less freely in excessive laudation and needless
+disparagement. The chapters on 'Insect Musicians,' on the 'Literature of
+the Dead,' and--oddly as it may sound to us--on 'Frogs,' are among the
+most delightful of all his writings. The keynote of all is struck in the
+pretty stanza that heads the first of the three:--
+
+                        _Mushi, yo mushi,
+                            Naite ingwa ga
+                        Tsukuru nara?_
+                            (Insect, O insect!
+                        Singing fulfil you
+                    Your fire-life and all life!)
+
+"The translation is ours. The fondness of the Japanese for many kinds of
+chirping insects, which they keep in little bamboo-cages, is one of the
+prettiest of the surviving echoes of the past. The plaintive little cry
+satisfies the curious melancholy that characterizes the reflective moods
+of the lieges of Mutsu. In the long series of changes that is to end in
+perfect Buddha-forms, there is hope always, but always tinged with the
+sadness of vague memories of past pains, and the resigned dread of
+sorrows to come, one knows not how oft to be repeated ere in 'Nirvana'
+all earthly moods are lost. There is a regular trade in these tiny
+songsters, of the history of which Mr. Hearn tells the pleasant story."
+(299.)
+
+Hearn leads us to a cemetery in a quaint lonesome garden, and teaches us
+something about the wonderful texts and inscriptions that are chiselled
+into the stone of the tombs, or painted on the wooden _sotoba_, and go
+to form the important literature of the dead. A suggestive _sotoba_-text
+is:--
+
+    The Amida-Kyo says: "All who enter into that country enter
+    likewise into that state of virtue from which there can be no
+    turning back."
+
+From the Kaimyo which is engraved on the tomb, we may select:--
+
+    _Koji_--
+    (Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise, in the Mansion of
+    Luminous Mind.)
+
+    _Koji_--
+    (Effective-Benevolence-Hearing-with-Pure-Heart-the-Supplications
+    -of-the-Poor,--dwelling in the Mansion of the Virtue of Pity.)
+
+The frog is another favourite of the Japanese. There is one special
+variety called the Kajika, or true singing-frog of Japan, which is kept
+as a pet in a little cage. For over a hundred years the frog has been
+the subject of numerous poems. Many of these little verses are
+love-poems, for the lovers' trysting-hour is also the hour when the
+frog-chorus is at its height. Here is a quotation from the Anthology
+called "Kokinshu," compiled A.D. 905, by the poet Ki-no-Tsurayuki:--
+
+    The poetry of Japan has its roots in the human heart, and thence
+    has grown into a multiform utterance. Man in this world, having
+    a thousand million of things to undertake and to complete, has
+    been moved to express his thoughts and his feelings concerning
+    all that he sees and hears. When we hear the _uguisu_ singing
+    among flowers, and the voice of the _kawazu_ which inhabits the
+    waters, what mortal (_lit. "who among the living that lives"_)
+    does not compose poems?
+
+A charming frog poem is:--
+
+                             _Te wo tsuite
+                            Uta moshi-aguru,
+                             Kawazu kana!_
+
+(With hand resting on the ground, reverentially you repeat your poem, O
+frog!)
+
+And another:--
+
+                              _Tamagawa no
+                           Hito wo mo yogizu
+                              Naku kawazu,
+                           Kono yu kikeba
+                          Oshiku ya wa aranu?_
+
+(Hearing to-night the frogs of the Jewel River--or Tamagawa, that sing
+without fear of man, how can I help loving the passing moment?)
+
+A vivid chapter is Hearn's description of his ascent of Fuji-no-Yama.
+Here he may once again use his palette of many colours, but certainly
+not with the old _abandon_.
+
+    Brighter and brighter glows the gold. Shadows come from the
+    west,--shadows flung by cloud-pile over cloud-pile; and these,
+    like evening shadows upon snow, are violaceous blue.... Then
+    orange-tones appear in the horizon; then smouldering crimson.
+    And now the greater part of the Fleece of Gold has changed to
+    cotton again,--white cotton mixed with pink.... Stars thrill
+    out. The cloud-waste uniformly whitens;--thickening and packing
+    to the horizon. The west glooms. Night rises; and all things
+    darken except that wondrous unbroken world-round of white,--the
+    Sea of Cotton.
+
+A lurking of the gruesome flashes out when the snow-patches against the
+miles of black soot and ashes on the mountain make him think "of a gleam
+of white teeth I once saw in a skull,--a woman's skull,--otherwise burnt
+to a sooty crisp."
+
+"Retrospectives" is a group of gentle reveries, where we may muse with
+Hearn on such elusive themes as the "Sadness in Beauty," for beauty has
+no real existence, it is the emotion of the dead within us. Or there is
+the analysis of that favourite word _frisson_, "the touch that makes a
+thrill within you is a touch that you have felt before,--sense-echo of
+forgotten intimacies in many unremembered lives." "Azure Psychology" and
+"A Red Sunset" recall Hearn's earlier criticisms on colour.
+
+IN GHOSTLY JAPAN[35] (12) followed. The title is revelatory of the Japan
+that is to people this book and those which are to come. In the opening
+chapter Hearn crystallizes in a powerful sketch the sum of Buddhist
+lore. Of this the _Academy_ writes:--
+
+    [35] Copyright, 1899, by Little, Brown and Company.
+
+"Of Nirvana one carries away this one picture, painted in words
+curiously colourless and intangible--the picture of a mountain up whose
+steep side toil two creatures--the soul and his guide--toiling,
+stumbling upwards over a brittle and friable chaos of skulls. Skulls
+crumbled into powder and skulls crumbling mark out the road; 'and every
+skull,' says the guide, 'is yours, and has been yours in some past
+incarnation; and the dust that rises round your present body is the dust
+of your past and deserted bodies that have served you well or ill as may
+be in your past lives.' In the fine and bewildering haze of this thought
+we lose our poet, and henceforward he is not a face nor a voice, but an
+echo of a living man's voice. We hear the echo, but the voice we do not
+hear. And we grudge the voice, even to Nirvana where all silences are
+merged in one." (286.)
+
+In a beautiful chapter Hearn outlines all that might be written about
+the important subject of incense. He tells a good deal about its
+religious, luxurious, and ghostly uses. There is also a charming custom
+of giving parties where dainty games are played with it.
+
+Sometimes there can be love between the living and the dead, or so it
+appears in the ghostly story of "A Passional Karma," or O-Tsuyu, who
+died of love of Shinzaburo and returns to be his bride. Every night,
+by the light of their Peony Lanterns, she, accompanied by her maid,
+comes to keep the ghostly tryst. Shinzaburo does not know that
+O-Tsuyu is dead, but his servant Tomozo, overhearing voices, gazes
+through a chink, and sees--
+
+    the face of a woman long dead,--and the fingers caressing were
+    fingers of naked bone,--and of the body below the waist there
+    was not anything: it melted off into thinnest trailing shadow.
+    Where the eyes of the lover deluded saw youth and grace and
+    beauty, there appeared to the eyes of the watcher horror only,
+    and the emptiness of death.
+
+Now he whose bride is a ghost cannot live. No matter what force flows in
+his blood he must certainly perish. Shinzaburo is warned and an
+amulet to protect him from the dead is given to him, but treachery is
+played, and the amulet is stolen; so one morning Tomozo finds his
+master
+
+    hideously dead;--and the face was the face of a man who had died
+    in the uttermost agony of fear;--and lying beside him in the bed
+    were the bones of a woman! And the bones of the arms, and the
+    bones of the hands, clung fast about his neck.
+
+The gentle heart of the Japanese shines in the chapter on "Bits of
+Poetry." You might find yourself, Hearn says, in a community so poor
+that you could not even buy a cup of real tea, but no place could you
+discover "where there is nobody capable of making a poem." Poems are
+written on all occasions and for all occasions.
+
+    Poems can be found upon almost any kind of domestic
+    utensil;--for example, upon braziers, iron-kettles, vases,
+    wooden-trays, lacquer-ware, porcelains, chopsticks of the finer
+    sort,--even toothpicks! Poems are painted upon shop-signs,
+    panels, screens, and fans. Poems are printed upon towels,
+    draperies, curtains, kerchiefs, silk-linings, and women's
+    crepe-silk underwear. Poems are stamped or worked upon
+    letter-paper, envelopes, purses, mirror-cases, travelling-bags.
+    Poems are inlaid upon enamelled ware, cut upon bronzes, graven
+    upon metal pipes, embroidered upon tobacco-pouches.
+
+A Japanese artist would not think of elaborating a sketch, and a poem to
+be perfect must also only stir one's fancy. _Ittakkiri_, meaning
+"entirely vanished" in the sense of "all told," is a term applied
+contemptuously to him who expresses all his thought.
+
+Japan is rich in proverbs. Hearn has translated one hundred examples of
+Buddhist proverbs.
+
+    _Karu-toki no Jizo-gao; nasu-toki no Emma-gao._
+
+(Borrowing-time, the face of Jizo; repaying-time, the face of
+    Emma.)
+
+_Sode no furi-awase mo tasho no en._
+
+(Even the touching of sleeves in passing is caused by some
+    relation in a former life.)
+
+A powerful relic of the old clinging love of the gruesome is the story
+of _Ingwa-banashi_. The _daimyo's_ wife knew that she was dying; and
+she thought of many things, especially of her husband's favourite, the
+Lady Yukiko, who was nineteen years old. She begged her husband to send
+for the Lady Yukiko, whom, she said, she loved as a sister. After the
+dying wife had told Lady Yukiko it was her wish that she should become
+the wife of their dear lord, she begged that Yukiko would carry her on
+her back to see the cherry-bloom.
+
+    As a nurse turns her back to a child, that the child may cling
+    to it, Yukiko offered her shoulders to the wife, and said:--
+
+    "Lady, I am ready: please tell me how I best can help you."
+
+    "Why, this way!" responded the dying woman, lifting herself with
+    an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko's shoulders.
+    But as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down
+    over the shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of
+    the girl, and burst into a wicked laugh.
+
+    "I have my wish!" she cried--"I have my wish for the
+    cherry-bloom, but not the cherry-bloom of the garden!... I could
+    not die before I got my wish. Now I have it!--oh, what a
+    delight!"
+
+    And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl,
+    and died.
+
+When the attendants tried to lift the body from Yukiko's shoulders, they
+found that the hands of the dead had grown into the quick flesh of the
+breasts of the girl. And they could not be removed. A skilful physician
+was called, and he decided that the hands could be amputated only at the
+wrists, and so this was done. But the hands still clung to the breasts;
+
+    and there they soon darkened and dried up like the hands of a
+    person long dead.
+
+    Yet this was only the beginning of the horror.
+
+Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not
+    dead. At intervals they would stir--stealthily, like great grey
+    spiders. And nightly thereafter,--beginning always at the Hour
+    of the Ox,--they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at
+    the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease.
+
+    Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun.
+
+Every day she prayed to the dead for pardon, and every night the torture
+was renewed. This continued for more than seventeen years until Yukiko
+was heard of no more.
+
+SHADOWINGS[36] (13) appeared the next year, 1900. Of this volume the
+_Bookman_ says:--
+
+    [36] Copyright, 1900, by Little, Brown and Company.
+
+"He gives us several essays upon matters Japanesque, which obviously
+involve no small amount of erudition and patient research. Such are his
+papers upon the various species of _Semi_, or Japanese singing-locusts,
+and on the complicated etiquette of Japanese female names. But the
+distinctive feature of this volume is the first half, which is given up
+to a collection of curious tales by native writers, weird, uncanny,
+little stories, most of them, of ghouls and wraiths, and vampires, or at
+least the nearest Japanese equivalents for such Occidental spectres."
+(316.)
+
+The _Athenaeum_ does not find "Shadowings" equal to the volume "Exotics."
+It thinks that Hearn is "perilously near exhausting his repertory of
+_Kokin_ [one-stringed fiddle] themes."
+
+"The stories with which the present volume opens have no particular
+merit: they have lost their chief and real advantage--their local
+colour--in Hearnesque translation, and seem to be little more than
+suggestions or drafts of 'nouvelles,' out of which skilful hands might
+perhaps have made something much better. A good example is the story of
+the Screen Maiden, which is a most lame presentment of a charming motif.
+The chapters on female names, on _semi_, couplets and 'Old Japanese
+Songs' are more interesting, but only to those who possess a
+considerable knowledge of old Japanese life and literature.... Of the
+'Old Japanese Songs'--where is the proof of their antiquity?--much the
+best is the dance-ballad of the dragon-maid, who bewitched a
+_yamabushi_, and chased him over moor and hill and river, until the
+temple of Dojo was reached, under the great bell of which the trembling
+hill-warrior or outlaw (_yamabushi_ were such originally in all
+probability) hid himself, whereupon the dragon-maid wrapped her body
+round the bell once and again and the third time the bell melted and
+flowed away like boiling water. And with it, according to the legend,
+flowed away the ashes of the unwilling object of the dragon-maid's
+affections, consumed not through love, but through disdain." (300.)
+
+Strange things happen in the group of tales, and not the least is the
+tale of the maiden in the screen whose loveliness so bewitches a youth
+that he becomes sick unto death. Then an old scholar tells him that the
+person whom the picture represents is dead, but since the painter
+painted her mind as well as her form, her spirit lives in the picture
+and he may yet win her.
+
+So every day, Tokkei, following out the old scholar's injunctions, sits
+before the portrait calling softly the maiden's name. And finally after
+many days the maiden answered, "_Hai!_" And stepping down from out the
+screen, she kneels to take the cup of wine (which was to be so),
+whispering charmingly, "How could you love me so much?"
+
+Also there is the tale of the Corpse Rider, in which the husband had to
+ride for one whole night, so far that he could not know the distance,
+the dead body of his divorced wife; and this was to save him from her
+vengeance.
+
+The gruesome gleams here, and again in the tale of "The Reconciliation,"
+when the repentant husband found that the wife he was holding in his
+arms is "a corpse so wasted that little remained save the bones, and the
+long black tangled hair."
+
+There is no small amount of etiquette in the prefixes and suffixes of
+the Japanese female names. The majority of the _Yobina_, or personal
+names, are not aesthetic. Some are called after the flowers, and there
+are also place names, as for instance _Mine_ (Peak) _Hama_ (Shore); but
+the large proportion express moral or mental attributes.
+
+    Tenderness, kindness, deftness, cleverness, are frequently
+    represented by _yobina;_ but appellations implying physical
+    charm, or suggesting aesthetic ideas only, are comparatively
+    uncommon. One reason for the fact may be that very aesthetic
+    names are given to _geisha_ and to _joro_, and consequently
+    vulgarized. But the chief reason certainly is that the domestic
+    virtues still occupy in the Japanese moral estimate a place not
+    less important than that accorded to religious faith in the life
+    of our own Middle Ages. Not in theory only, but in every-day
+    practice, moral beauty is placed far above physical beauty; and
+    girls are usually selected as wives, not for their good looks,
+    but for their domestic qualities.
+
+I give a few names gleaned from Hearn's
+lists:--_O-Jun_--"Faithful-to-death"; _O-Tame_--"For-the-sake-of,"--a
+name suggesting unselfishness; _O-Chika_--"Closely Dear"; _O-Suki_--"The
+Beloved"--_Aimee_; _O-Tae_--"The Exquisite"; _Tokiwa_--"Eternally
+Constant."
+
+From the "Fantasies," we read of the Mystery of Crowds, and the horrors
+of Gothic Architecture, the joys of levitation while one is asleep--with
+a moral attached; of Noctilucae. Also, as we gaze with the adolescent
+youth into a pair of eyes we come to know that
+
+    The splendour of the eyes that we worship belongs to them only
+    as brightness to the morning-star. It is a reflex from beyond
+    the shadow of the Now,--a ghost-light of vanished suns.
+    Unknowingly within that maiden-gaze we meet the gaze of eyes
+    more countless than the hosts of heaven,--eyes otherwhere passed
+    into darkness and dust.
+
+    Thus, and only thus, the depth of that gaze is the depth of the
+    Sea of Death and Birth, and its mystery is the World-Soul's
+    vision, watching us out of the silent vast of the Abyss of
+    Being.
+
+    Thus, and only thus, do truth and illusion mingle in the magic
+    of eyes,--the spectral past suffusing with charm ineffable the
+    apparition of the present;--and the sudden splendour in the soul
+    of the Seer is but a flash, one soundless sheet-lightning of the
+    Infinite Memory.
+
+A JAPANESE MISCELLANY[37] (14) was the next book. What does the memory
+hold of these stories and sketches? Surely that picture of Old Japan
+with its charming sentiment for Dragon-flies, to which such delicate
+poems were written.
+
+    [37] Copyright, 1901, by Little, Brown and Company.
+
+                               _Tombo no
+                          Ha-ura ni sabishi,--
+                             Aki-shigure._
+
+    (Lonesomely clings the dragon-fly to the under-side of the
+    leaf--Ah! the autumn-rains!)
+
+And that verse by the mother poet, who seeing many children playing
+their favourite pastime of chasing butterflies, thinks of her little one
+who is dead:--
+
+                            _Tombo-tsuri!--
+                            Kyo wa doko made
+                              Itta yara!_
+
+    (Catching dragon-flies!... I wonder where _he_ has gone to-day!)
+
+Then there are the children's songs about Nature and her tiny creatures,
+and all their little songs for their plays; the songs which tell a
+story, and the sweet mother songs that lull the babies to sleep.
+
+How we pity poor misguided O-Dai, who forgot loyalty to her ancestors to
+follow the teachings of the Western faith. At its bidding even the
+sacred tablets and the scroll were cast away. And when she had forsaken
+everything, and had become as an outcast with her own people, the good
+missionaries found they needed a more capable assistant. Poor little
+weak O-Dai, without the courage to fill her sleeves with stones and then
+slip into the river, longing for the sunlight, and so "flung into the
+furnace of a city's lust."
+
+We hear the gruesome tinkle of the dead wife's warning bell, and we
+certainly shudder before the vision of her robed in her grave-shroud:--
+
+    "Eyeless she came--because she had long been dead;--and her
+    loosened hair streamed down about her face;--and she looked
+    without eyes through the tangle of it; and spake without a
+    tongue."
+
+Then the hideous horror of the evil crime, as this dead wife in her
+jealousy tore off the head of the sleeping young wife. The terrified
+husband following the trail of blood found
+
+    a nightmare-thing that chippered like a bat: the figure of the
+    long-buried woman erect before her tomb,--in one hand clutching
+    a bell, in the other the dripping head.... For a minute the
+    three stood numbed. Then one of the men-at-arms, uttering a
+    Buddhist invocation, drew, and struck at the shape. Instantly it
+    crumbled down upon the soil,--an empty scattering of grave-rags,
+    bones, and hair;--and the bell rolled clanking out of the ruin.
+    But the fleshless right hand, though parted from the wrist,
+    still writhed; and its fingers still gripped at the bleeding
+    head--and tore, and mangled,--as the claws of the yellow crab
+    fast to a fallen fruit.
+
+Who but Hearn would have chosen this ghastly scene, and described it
+with such terrible reality?
+
+With the parents we have unravelled the mystery of Kinume, whose spirit
+belonged to one family, and whose body was the child of the other.
+
+Perhaps we still see the famous picture of Kwashin Koji, which had a
+soul, for "it is well known that some sparrows, painted upon a sliding
+screen (_fusuma_) by Hogen Yenshin, once flew away, leaving blank the
+spaces which they had occupied upon the surface. Also it is well known
+that a horse painted upon a certain Kakemono, used to go out at night to
+eat grass." So the water in the picture on the screen of Kwashin
+overflowed into the room, and the boat thereon glided forth, but not a
+ripple from the oar was heard. Then Kwashin Koji climbed into the boat,
+and it receded into the picture, and the water dried in the room. Over
+the painted water slipped the painted vessel until all disappeared, and
+Kwashin was heard of no more.
+
+And we remember too the strange brave way that Umetsu Chubei won the
+gift of great strength for his children, and their children's children.
+
+The _Athenaeum_ finds the story of Kwashin the best of this collection.
+Speaking of the study, "On a Bridge," it says:--
+
+"The author narrates a personal experience of a _riksha_ man who drew
+him across an old bridge near Kumamoto. It was in the time of the
+Satsuma _muhon_ (rebellion), some twenty-two years earlier, that the
+_Kurumaya_ (_riksha_ man) was stopped on the bridge by three men, who
+were dressed as peasants, but had very long swords under their
+raincoats. After a time a cavalry officer came along from the city.
+
+    The moment the horse got on the bridge the three men turned and
+    leaped:--and one caught the horse's bridle; and another gripped
+    the officer's arm; and the third cut off his head--all in a
+    moment.... I never saw anything done so quickly.
+
+"The seeming peasants then waited, and presently another cavalry officer
+came and was murdered in like manner. Then came a third, who met a
+similar fate. Lastly, the peasants went away, having thrown the bodies
+into the river, but taking the heads with them. The man had never
+mentioned the matter till long after the war--why? 'Because it would
+have been ungrateful.'
+
+"No doubt this is a true story." (301.)
+
+It was probably during the ensuing year that Hearn contributed to the
+Japanese Fairy Tale Series (15), published in Tokyo, his
+renditions of four of these stories.
+
+KOTTO[38] (16) followed. Says the _Athenaeum_:--
+
+"The gem of this volume is 'A Woman's Diary,' purporting to be 'the
+history of a woman's married life recorded by herself, found in a small
+_haribako_ (work-box) which had belonged to her.' It is an ordinary
+story, not in the least sensational, yet pitiful and even touching in
+its record of poverty and suffering, showing the hardships and small
+enjoyment--according to our notions, at least--of the colourless
+existence led by the bulk of the Japanese poorer classes upon a total
+family wage of twelve pounds a year or less." (302.)
+
+    [38] Copyright, 1902, by the Macmillan Company.
+
+Except for "A Woman's Diary" and "Fireflies" the tales in "Kotto" are
+fragmentary. Some are gruesome as the history of the Gaki; or as the
+story of O-Katsu-San, who was so bold as to go by night to Yurei-Daki,
+and who to win her bet brought back the little money-box of the gods.
+But when she came to give her baby his milk,--
+
+    Out of the wrappings unfastened there fell to the floor a
+    blood-soaked bundle of baby clothes that left exposed two very
+    small brown feet, and two very small brown hands--nothing more.
+
+The child's head had been torn off!
+
+There is also the story of O-Kame, who returned each night to haunt her
+husband; of Chugoro, who was bewitched by a beautiful woman whom
+he married beneath the waters. But he sickened and died, for his blood
+had been drained by his Circe, who was "simply a Frog,--a great and ugly
+Frog!"
+
+The literature and the significance of the fire-flies holds an important
+place with the Japanese, and for more than a thousand years the poets
+have been making verses about these little creatures.
+
+A sketch in which Hearn is most fortunate is "Pathological," where Tama,
+the mother-cat, dreams of her dead kittens--
+
+    coos to them, and catches for them small shadowy things,--perhaps
+    even brings to them, through some dim window ofmemory, a sandal
+    of ghostly straw....
+
+Beautiful is the "Revery of Mother-Love":--
+
+    Yet those countless solar fires, with their viewless millions of
+    living planets, must somehow reappear: again the wondrous
+    Cosmos, self-born as self-consumed, must resume its sidereal
+    whirl over the deeps of the eternities. And the love that
+    strives for ever with death shall rise again, through fresh
+    infinitudes of pain, to renew the everlasting battle.
+
+    The light of the mother's smile will survive our sun;--the
+    thrill of her kiss will last beyond the thrilling of stars;--the
+    sweetness of her lullaby will endure in the cradle-songs of
+    worlds yet unevolved;--the tenderness of her faith will quicken
+    the fervour of prayers to be made to the hosts of another
+    heaven,--to the gods of a time beyond Time. And the nectar of
+    her breasts can never fail: that snowy stream will still flow
+    on, to nourish the life of some humanity more perfect than our
+    own, when the Milky Way that spans our night shall have vanished
+    for ever out of Space.
+
+Like unto the Soul is a Drop of Dew for
+
+    Your personality signifies, in the eternal order, just as much
+    as the especial motion of molecules in the shivering of any
+    single drop. Perhaps in no other drop will the thrilling and the
+    picturing be ever exactly the same; but the dews will continue
+    to gather and to fall, and there will always be quivering
+    pictures.... The very delusion of delusions is the idea of death
+    as loss.
+
+KWAIDAN[39] (17) was the book before "Japan," which was published
+after Hearn's death. It is a collection of old stories, many of them
+of the gruesome, and of careful studies of ants, mosquitoes, and
+butterflies. Striking is the tale of Yuki-Onna, the snow-woman, as is
+also the incident of Riki-Baka. One bewitched by the dead is
+Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi, whose ears were torn off because the holy texts which
+were written everywhere else upon his body were there forgotten. Sonjo,
+the hunter, killed the mate of a female _oshidori_, who after appearing
+to him in a dream as a beautiful woman, who rebukes him the following
+day as a bird, tears open her body, and dies before his eyes. O-Tei is
+reborn in the shape of a woman that she may wed years later her promised
+husband--Nagao Chosei of Echigo. So loyal is the love of O-Sode, the
+milk-nurse, that the cherry-tree which is planted in commemoration of
+her, on the anniversary of her death, blossoms in a wonderful way.
+Because of his selfish wickedness in thinking only of the gains in his
+profession, a priest was made to be reborn into the state of a
+_jikininki_, who had to devour the corpses of people who died in his
+district. Other devourers of human flesh are the Rokuro-Kubi. The head
+of a Rokuro-Kubi separates itself from its body.
+
+    [39] Copyright, 1904, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+JAPAN[40] (18): AN ATTEMPT AT INTERPRETATION is the last book that Hearn
+published. He was reading its proofs at the time of his death. Although
+a posthumous volume appeared, this may rightly be termed his final word.
+It is the crystallization and the summary of all that has been said
+before. It contains a group of twenty-one lectures, which Hearn had
+expected at first to deliver at Cornell University. His own words will
+best reveal their import:--
+
+    [40] Copyright, 1904, by the Macmillan Company.
+
+    They will form a book explaining Japan from the standpoint of
+    ancestor-worship. They are suited only to a cultivated audience.
+
+    The substantial idea of the lectures is that Japanese society
+    represents the condition of ancient Greek society a thousand
+    years before Christ. I am treating of religious Japan,--not of
+    artistic or economical Japan except by way of illustration.
+
+"The history of Japan is really the history of her religion," is the key
+to the book.
+
+The _Academy_ remarks:--
+
+"No one who wishes to understand the possibilities of the future of
+Japan can afford to neglect the past, and no one who would grasp the
+meaning of the past can afford to neglect Mr. Hearn's fine and
+thoughtful work." (288.)
+
+In a review Mr. Griffis says:--
+
+"They felt that he had done his best and was degenerating. Yet here is a
+work which is a classic in science, a wonder of interpretation. It is
+the product of long years of thought, of keenest perception, or
+marvellous comprehension.
+
+"One cannot quote, one must read this work. It shows the Japanese under
+his armour, modern science. The Japanese, outwardly, are ruled by
+treaties, diplomacy, governments, codes, Imperial Diet, armies and
+battleships--all modern and external. Inwardly they--that is, forty-nine
+millions of them--are governed by ghosts. The graveyard is the true
+dictator. It is ever their 'illustrious ancestors' who achieve
+victories. They, as a nation, are superbly organized for war. There is
+no originality, no personality, no individuality worth speaking of in
+the island empire. It is all done by the government, the community. In
+social evolution the Japanese are even yet far behind the Romans, and
+much as the pre-Homeric Greeks.
+
+"In a word, Lafcadio Hearn outdoes the missionaries in dogmatism,
+exceeds even the hostile propagandist in telling the naked truth.
+Devoted friend of Japan, he excels the sworn enemies of her religions in
+laying bare, though with admiration, the realities.... Lafcadio Hearn
+turns the white and searching beams on the ship and man.... His book is
+a re-reading of all Japanese history, a sociological appraisement of the
+value of Japanese civilization, and a warning against intolerant
+propaganda of any sort whatever. This book is destined to live, and to
+cause searchings of heart among those who imagine that the Japanese soul
+has been changed in fifty years." (326.)
+
+From the _Spectator_ I quote:--
+
+"Both the prose and poetry of Japanese life are infused into Mr. Hearn's
+charming pages. Nobody, so far as we know, has given a better
+description of the fascination which Japanese life has at first for such
+as enter into its true spirit, and of its gradual disappearance.... Of
+course it must be remembered that this charm of Japan was something more
+than a beautiful mirage. 'Old Japan,' in the opinion of Mr. Hearn, 'came
+nearer to the achievement of the highest moral ideal than our far more
+evolved societies can hope to do for many a hundred years. Curiously
+enough, it was under the shadow of the sword that the fascinating life
+of Japan matured; universal politeness was nurtured by the knowledge
+that any act of rudeness might, and probably would, cause a painful and
+immediate death. This supremacy of the sword, governed by the noble rule
+of _bushi-do_, hardened the Japanese temper into the wonderful spirit of
+self-sacrifice and patriotism which is now making itself apparent in the
+stress of war. All this is admirably portrayed in Mr. Hearn's
+pages,--the swan-song of a very striking writer." (383.)
+
+In _The American Journal of Sociology_ there is a review of this book,
+by Edmund Buckley of the University of Chicago, which is so admirable
+and inclusive that I have obtained Professor Buckley's kind permission
+to quote it in its entirety. This review leaves small margin for further
+comment. But it is to be regretted that space will not permit citations
+of Hearn's tributes to the Japanese home, woman and character.
+
+"On p. 160 of W. E. Griffis' 'The Mikado's Empire,' is textual evidence
+that, so late as 1876, intelligent men, and theologians at that--rather,
+in sooth, because they are theologians--could harbour such atrocious
+notions about Shintoism, the ethnic faith of the Japanese, as the
+following: 'Shinto is in no proper sense of the term a religion....
+In its lower forms it is blind obedience to governmental and priestly
+dictates.' The present reviewer bears these Christian apologists and
+heathen defamers 'witness that they have a zeal for God, but not
+according to knowledge.' They wrote in the days when hierology
+(comparative religion) was still inchoate, for C. P. Ticle's 'Elements'
+did not appear in its English dress until 1877; and when Japan's
+abasement before the 'Christian' powers was complete, and therefore
+everything Japanese assumed to be worthless. But the reaction came, of
+course, and is now pretty well completed. Japan's novel yet glorious art
+conquered the world; Japan's new yet ever-victorious army has conquered
+Russia's imposing array; and now Mr. Hearn completely routs the
+contemners of a people's sincere faith. The consensus of hierologists
+that no people was ever found without a religion had already been given;
+and the creed, cult, and ethics of Shintoism had been correctly
+described; but it remained for Mr. Hearn to give a more complete and
+intimate account than had previously been done of the ancestorism in
+Shinto and of its profound influence upon politics and morality.
+
+"It will surprise no one to learn that Mr. Hearn overdid his contention,
+just because such excess is the well-nigh inevitable reaction from the
+underestimate that he found current and sought to correct. As he states
+the case on p. 4: 'Hitherto the subject of Japanese religion has been
+written of chiefly by the sworn enemies of that religion; by others it
+has been almost entirely ignored.' But now that 'see-saw' has followed
+'see,' we may hope to win a final equilibrium of correct appreciation.
+To this end several corrections are called for; but, before they are
+made, clearness will be secured by a concise analysis of the treatise;
+for in its course religion, politics, and morality are interwoven on a
+historic warp. The entire fabric runs about as follows: (Chap. 3.) The
+real religion of the Japanese is ancestorism, which showed in three
+cults--the domestic, the communal, and the state. The domestic arose
+first, but the primitive family might include hundreds of households.
+Ancestorism in Japan confirms Spencer's exposition of religious origins.
+The greater gods were all evolved from ghost-cults. Good men made good
+gods; bad men, bad ones. (Chap. 4.) The domestic cult began in offerings
+of food and drink made at the grave; then, under Chinese influence, was
+transferred to the home before tablets; where it was maintained until
+this present by Buddhism. Thin tablets of white wood, inscribed with the
+names of the dead, are placed in a miniature wooden shrine, which is
+kept upon a shelf in some inner chamber. Tiny offerings of food,
+accompanied with brief prayer, must be made each day by some member of
+the household in behalf of all; for the blessed dead still need
+sustenance, and in return can guard the house. The Buddhist rite,
+however, made prayer, not _to_, but _for_ these dead. The Japanese
+scholar Hirata is correct when he declares the worship of ancestors to
+be the mainspring of all virtues. (Chap. 5.) The family was united only
+by religion. The father--not the mother--was supposed to be the
+life-giver, and was therefore responsible for the cult. Hence the
+inferior position of woman. The ancestral ghost of an _uji_, or family
+of several households, became later the _ujigami_, or local tutelar god.
+Subordination of young to old, of females to males, and of the whole
+family to its chief, who was at once ruler and priest, shows that the
+family organization was religious and not marital. Both monogamy and the
+practice of parents selecting their child's spouse arose because best
+accordant with religion. Later custom makes the decision, not of the
+father alone, but of the household and kindred, determinative of any
+important step.
+
+"(Chap. 6.) The communal cult of the district ruled the family in all
+its relations to the outer world. The _ujigami_, or clan-god, was the
+spirit rather of a former ruler than of a common ancestor. Hochiman was
+a ruler, but Kasuga an ancestor. Beside the _uji_ temple of a district,
+there may be a more important one dedicated to some higher deity. Every
+_ujiko_ or parishioner is taken to the _ujigami_ when one month old and
+dedicated to him. Thereafter he attends the temple festivals, which
+combine fun with piety; and he makes the temple groves his playground.
+Grown up, he brings his children here; and, if he leaves home, pays his
+respects to the god on leaving and returning. Thus the social bond of
+each community was identical with the religious bond, and the cult of
+the _ujigami_ embodied the moral experience of the community. The
+individual of such a community enjoyed only a narrowly restricted
+liberty. Shintoism had no moral code, because at this stage of
+ancestor-cult religion and ethics coincide.
+
+"(Chap. 7.) The great gods of nature were developed from
+ancestor-worship, though their real history has been long forgotten.
+(Chap. 8.) Rites of worship and of purification were many. (Chap. 9.)
+The rule of the dead extended to moral conduct and even to sumptuary
+matters, language, and amusements. (Chap. 10.) Buddhism absorbed the
+native ancestor-cult, but prescribed that prayers be said for them, not
+to them. In accordance with its principle, 'First observe the person,
+then preach the law'--that is, accommodate instruction to the hearer's
+capacity--Buddhism taught the masses metempsychosis instead of
+palingenesis, and the paradise of Amida instead of the nirvana of
+Buddha. Buddhism rendered its greatest service to Japan by education in
+the learning and arts of China. (Chap. 11.) The higher Buddhism is a
+kind of monism.
+
+"(Chap. 12.) Japanese society was simply an amplification of the
+patriarchal family, and its clan-groups never united into a coherent
+body until 1871. At first the bulk of the people were slaves or serfs,
+but from the seventh century a large class of freedmen--farmers and
+artisans--came into existence. The first period of Japanese social
+evolution was based on a national head, the Mikado, and a national cult,
+Shintoism; it began in this seventh century, but developed to the
+limit of its type only under the Tokugawa shoguns, in the seventeenth
+century.
+
+"Next to the priest-emperor at the head came the _kuge_, or ancient
+nobility, from whose ranks most of the latter regents and shoguns were
+drawn. Next ranked the _buke_ or _samurai_, which was the professional
+military class, and was ruled by nearly three hundred _daimyo_, or
+feudal lords of varying importance. Next came the commonalty, _heimin_,
+with three classes--farmers, artisans, and tradesmen, the last being
+despised by the _samurai_, who also could cut down any disrespectful
+_heimin_ with impunity. Lowest of all came the _chori_--pariahs, who
+were not counted Japanese at all, but _mono_-'things.' But even among
+them distinctions arose according to occupation. The close care taken of
+the native religion by the government precluded rise of a church. Nor
+was Buddhism, divided into hostile sects and opposed by the _samurai_,
+ever able to establish a hierarchy independent of the government.
+Personal freedom was suppressed, as it would be now under Socialism,
+which is simply a reversion to an overcome type.
+
+"(Chap. 13.) The second period of Japanese social evolution lasted from
+the eleventh to the nineteenth century, and was marked by dominance over
+the mikadoate of successive dynasties of shoguns. The permanence of this
+mikadoate amid all perturbations of the shogunate was owing to its
+religious nature. (Chap. 14.) Following the lord in death, suicide, and
+vendetta were customs based on loyalty, and they involved the noblest
+self-sacrifice. (Chap. 15.) Catholic missions were suppressed lest they
+should lead to the political conquest of Japan. (Chap. 16.) The Tokugawa
+shoguns exercised iron discipline, and now were brought to perfection
+those exquisite arts and manners of the Japanese. (Chap. 17.) A revival
+of learning, begun in the eighteenth century, slowly led to a new
+nationalist support of the Mikado; and when by 1891 the shogun had
+resigned and the daimiates been abolished, the third period in Japan's
+social evolution began. (Chap. 18.) In spite of outward seeming, the
+ancient social conditions and ancestor-cult still control every action.
+(Chap. 19.) The individual is still restrained by the conventions of the
+masses, by communistic guilds of craftsmen, and by the government's
+practice of taking loyal service in all its departments without giving
+adequate pecuniary reward. (Chap. 20.) The educational system still
+maintains the old communism by training, not for individual ability, but
+for co-operative action. This is favoured, too, by the universal
+practice of rich men meeting the personal expenses of promising
+students. (Chap. 21.) Japanese loyalty and courage will support her army
+and navy, but industrial competition with other peoples calls for
+individual freedom. (Chap. 22.) The Japanese are not indifferent to
+religion, and can be understood only by a study of their religious and
+social evolution. Future changes will be social, but ancestor-cult will
+persist, and offers an insuperable obstacle to the spread of
+Christianity.
+
+"The critical reader will not have failed to meet in this summary many
+positions that challenge his previous knowledge, and whether these be
+correct or not can be determined only by an examination of the full
+text, which it eminently deserves. The reviewer, however, will confine
+himself to certain matters that seem to him the dominating errors of the
+whole. Probably three greater errors were never compressed into a single
+sentence than in this from p. 27: 'The real religion of Japan, the
+religion still professed in one form or another by the entire nation, is
+that cult which has been the foundation of all civilized religion and of
+all civilized society--ancestor-worship.' That ancestor-worship is still
+professed by the entire nation is negatived by all we know from other
+sources as well as all we should expect. The ancestor-worship native to
+Japan had been appropriated by Buddhism; and, since the revolution of
+1868 with its disestablishment of that church, the Butsudan, where the
+tablets were kept, has been largely sold as an art object or has been
+simply disused. The _mitamaya_ mentioned on p. 50, as if in extensive
+use for ancestor-worship, is found only in a few purist families, and is
+known to the mass of Japanese only as the rear apartment or structure of
+a Shintoist shrine.
+
+"That ancestor-worship is 'the real religion of Japan' and 'has been the
+foundation of all civilized religion' are errors that Mr. Hearn owes to
+Herbert Spencer's influence, which is confessed here, and indeed is
+evident throughout the work. Perhaps nothing has brought Spencer into
+more discredit than the lengths he went to prove this basic nature of
+ancestorism in his 'Principles of Sociology,' and the reader of pp.
+121-24 of Mr. Hearn's work will readily see how futile also is the
+attempt to show that the nature-deities of Shintoism were only
+'transfigured ghosts.' No, indeed, God did not make man and leave ghosts
+to make him religious. The heaven and the earth were here before ghosts,
+and man could personify them just as soon as he knew himself as a
+person, which he must have done long before he analyzed himself into a
+ghost-soul and a body. Had Mr. Hearn not ignored Reville, Max Mueller,
+Pfleiderer, and Saussaye, while steeping himself in Spencer, he might
+have observed, what is plainly visible in Shintoism as elsewhere:
+that religion has _two_ tap roots, ancestorism indeed, but also
+naturism.
+
+"Again, Mr. Hearn's sentence declares that ancestor-worship is 'the
+foundation of all civilized society.' This is the prevailing view
+throughout the work; for example, on pp. 23, 57, 86, 99, 175, and 320.
+But other passages imply the saner view that religion and morality are
+coordinate functions of one man. Thus at p. 511, Mr. Hearn attributes
+Japan's power to 'her old religious and social training.' The many and
+strong cases of influence of religion upon conduct that can really be
+shown in Japan amount only to influence, of course, and not to
+'foundation' or 'origination,' A quite transparent case of Mr. Hearn's
+error is where (p. 152) he attributes the exceptional cleanliness of the
+Japanese to their religion, which here, as usual, he sums up as
+ancestor-worship. One wonders, however, why this world-wide phenomenon
+of religion should determine a Japanese cleanliness; why
+ancestor-worshippers are not always clean; as for example the Chinese,
+who bathe most rarely. It seems saner to seek a cause for the unique
+daily bath of the Japanese in their also uniquely numerous thermal
+springs, which occur in no less than 388 different localities. Symbolism
+did indeed in Japan, as elsewhere, lead to religious bathing in rivers;
+but bathing in rivers, as in ocean, was never popular in Japan until
+recently learned from the foreigner; whereas the thermal springs are
+crowded, and the daily baths at home are always taken exceedingly hot
+after the thermal pattern, for these have been found not only cleansing,
+but curing and warming, the last quality being a great merit where
+winters are cold and houses unheated.
+
+"Finally, the reader need not expect to meet here any adequate reference
+to those vices that have been fostered by religion in Japan. The
+concubinage, confirmed by ancestorism, is once mentioned; and the
+harlotry, promoted by phallicism (the phallos was frequently found in a
+brothel, though not exclusively there, of course), is relegated to a
+simple footnote. But such matters can be learned elsewhere, whereas the
+close and frequent points of influence which religion exercised upon
+politics and morality in Japan can nowhere else be so well studied as
+here." (292.)
+
+THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY[41] (19) is Hearn's posthumous book. The
+last memories are of the "Weaving Lady of the Milky Way"; of "Goblin
+Poetry"; of "Ultimate Questions," which are called forth by the essay of
+that name written by the author of the "Synthetic Philosophy"; of the
+"Mirror Maiden" whom Matsumura, the priest, saved from the well, and who
+repaid him by good-fortune. Moreover, of the alluring maiden in the
+dream of Ito Norisuke--if one is to choose a ghost for a bride, who
+would not seek Himegimi-Sama? As a finale there is the picture of
+Admiral Togo sending to Tokyo "for some flowering-trees in
+pots--inasmuch as his responsibilities allowed him no chance of seeing
+the cherry-flowers and the plum-blossoms in their season."
+
+    [41] Copyright, 1905, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
+
+
+
+
+                              BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                   AMERICAN AND ENGLISH EDITIONS[42]
+                             ORIGINAL WORKS
+                              (Nos. 1-19)
+
+
+    [42] For the English Editions, the English Catalogue of Books
+         has been followed.
+
+                                 No. 1.
+
+1884. STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE.
+
+Stories reconstructed from the Anvari-Soheili, Baital, Pachisi,
+Mahabharata, Pantchatantra, Gulistan, Talmud, Kalewala, etc. Boston:
+James R. Osgood and Company, 1884, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 2.
+
+1885. GOMBO ZHEBES. Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs, selected from
+six Creole dialects. Translated into French and into English, with
+notes, complete index to subjects and some brief remarks upon the Creole
+idioms of Louisiana. New York: Will H. Coleman, 1885, 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 3.
+
+1887. SOME CHINESE GHOSTS. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1887, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1906, 12mo.
+
+
+                                 No. 4.
+
+1889. CHITA: A Memory of Last Island. New York: Harper and Brothers,
+1889, 12mo.
+
+
+                                 No. 5.
+
+1890. YOUMA, The Story of a West-Indian Slave. New York: Harper and
+Brothers, 1890, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1890, 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 6.
+
+1890. TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. New York: Harper and
+Brothers, 1890, 8vo.
+
+The Same. London: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1900, 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 7.
+
+1894. GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. Boston and New York: Houghton,
+Mifflin and Company, 1894, 2 vols., 8vo.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1894, 2 vols., 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 2 vols., Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 2 vols., Cr.
+8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 8.
+
+1895. "OUT OF THE EAST." Reveries and Studies in New Japan. Boston and
+New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1895, 16mo.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1895, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                 No. 9.
+
+1896. KOKORO: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. Boston and New
+York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896, 16mo.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1896, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1903, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1905, 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 10.
+
+1897. GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS, Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far
+East. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1897, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 11.
+
+1898. EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
+1898, 16mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1898, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 12.
+
+1899. IN GHOSTLY JAPAN. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1899, 16mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 13.
+
+1900. SHADOWINGS. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1900, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1900, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 14.
+
+1901. A JAPANESE MISCELLANY. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1901,
+12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1901, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 15.
+
+1902. JAPANESE FAIRY TALES. Tokyo, Japan: T. Hasegawa (4 vols.),
+16mo.
+
+
+                                No. 16.
+
+1902. KOTTO. Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs. New York:
+The Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd.), 1902, 8vo.
+Reprinted, April, 1903.
+
+
+                                No. 17.
+
+1904. KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Boston and New
+York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1904, 12mo.
+
+
+                                No. 18.
+
+1904. JAPAN: An Attempt at Interpretation. New York: The Macmillan
+Company (London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd.), 1904, 8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 19.
+
+1905. THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY, and other Studies and Stories.
+Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905, 12mo.
+
+The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+                              TRANSLATIONS
+                              (Nos. 20-21)
+
+
+                                No. 20.
+
+1882. ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS, and other Fantastic Romances. By
+Theophile Gautier. Faithfully translated by Lafcadio Hearn. New York: R.
+Worthington, 1882, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 12mo.
+
+New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1906, 12mo.
+
+CLARIMONDE. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 16mo.
+
+
+                                No. 21.
+
+1890. THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD (Member of the Institute). By
+Anatole France. The Translation and Introduction by Lafcadio Hearn. New
+York: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.
+
+
+                                   II
+
+                            FOREIGN EDITIONS
+                              (Nos. 22-30)
+
+
+                                 DANISH
+
+                                No. 22.
+
+1902. FRA SKYGGERNES VERDEN ("From the World of the Shadows"). Complete
+and translated by Johanne Muenther.
+
+178 pages, one portrait. Gyldendalske book-trade, Copenhagen, 1902, 8vo.
+
+
+                                 FRENCH
+
+                                No. 23.
+
+1904. LE JAPON INCONNU. (esquisses psychologiques). Par Lafcadio Hearn.
+Traduit de l'anglais avec l'autorisation de l'auteur, par Mme. Leon
+Raynal. In 18 jesus, 111-354 p. Mayenne, impr. Colin, Paris, lib.
+Dujarric, 1904.
+
+(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.")
+
+
+                                 GERMAN
+
+                                No. 24.
+
+1905. KOKORO. Von Lafcadio Hearn. Einzig autorisierte Uebersetzung aus
+dem Englischen von Berta Franzos. Mit vorwort von Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
+Buchschmuck von Emil Orlik. Frankfurt a Main: Ruetten und Loening, 1905,
+8vo.
+
+
+                                No. 25.
+
+1906. LOTUS. Blicke in das unbekannte Japan. Einzig autorisierte
+Uebersetzung aus dem Englischen von Berta Franzos. Mit vorwort von Hugo
+von Hofmannsthal. Buchschmuck von Emil Orlik. Frankfurt a Main: Ruetten
+und Loening, 1905, 8vo.
+
+(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.")
+
+
+                                No. 26.
+
+1907. Lafcadio Hearn's Werke ueber Japan in kuenstlerischer
+Buchausstattung von Emil Orlik. Band I. Kokoro. Band II. Lotus. Band
+III. Izumo. Frankfurt a Main: Ruetten und Loening, 1907.
+
+
+                                SWEDISH
+
+                                No. 27.
+
+1903. EXOTICA. Noveller och studier fran Japan, af Lafcadio Hearn.
+Bemyndigad oefversaettning af Karin Hirn; med nagra notiser om foerfattaren
+af Yrjoe Hirn. Tredje Upplagen. Stockholm: Wahlstroem & Widstrand, 1903,
+16mo., 2 end pages, pp. 227, decorated paper.
+
+(Selections from "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," "Out of the East,"
+"Kokoro," "Exotics and Retrospectives," "In Ghostly Japan,"
+"Shadowings.")
+
+Reprint 1905.
+
+
+                                No. 28.
+
+1903. EXOTICA. Noveller och studier fran Japan, af Lafcadio Hearn. Ny
+samling. Bemyndigad oefversaettning af Karin Hirn. Stockholm: Wahlstroem &
+Widstrand, 1903, 16mo., 2 p. l., pp. 248, decorated paper.
+
+(Selections from "Out of the East," "Kokoro," "Gleanings in
+Buddha-Fields," "Exotics and Retrospectives," "In Ghostly Japan,"
+"Shadowings," "A Japanese Miscellany," "Kotto.")
+
+
+                                No. 29.
+
+1904. SPOeKEN OCH DROeMMAR FRAN JAPAN. (Exotica. Tredje Samlingen) af
+Lafcadio Hearn. Bemyndigad oefversaettning fran Engelskan af Karin Hirn.
+Wahlstroem & Widstrands, Foerlag, Stockholm, MCMIV., 16mo., 1 end page,
+pp. 218, decorated paper.
+
+(Selections from "Shadowings," "A Japanese Miscellany," "Kotto,"
+"Kwaidan.")
+
+
+                                No. 30.
+
+1905. NATALIKA. ("Stray Leaves from Strange Literature") af Lafcadio
+Hearn. Bemyndigad oefversaettning af Karin Hirn. Stockholm: Wahlstroem &
+Widstrand, 16mo., pp. 189, decorated paper.
+
+("Runes from the Kalewala" omitted.)
+
+
+                                  III
+
+                  LIST, WITH DESCRIPTION, OF SEPARATE
+                 PUBLISHED WORKS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
+
+                              (Nos. 1-21)
+
+                             ORIGINAL WORKS
+
+
+                                 No. 1.
+
+1884. STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE. Stories reconstructed from
+the Anvari-Soheili, Baital Pachisi, Mahabharata, Pantchatantra,
+Gulistan, Talmud, Kalewala, etc. By Lafcadio Hearn. (Publisher's
+Monogram.) Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1884.
+
+16mo., pp. (16) 225, green cloth, black lettering, and decorations.
+
+(5) Dedication:--
+
+                              To my Friend
+                             PAGE M. BAKER
+                             Editor of the
+                       New Orleans Times-Democrat
+
+(7-11) Explanatory (_Extract_).
+
+While engaged upon this little mosaic work of legend and fable, I felt
+much like one of those merchants told of in Sindbad's Second Voyage, who
+were obliged to content themselves with gathering the small jewels
+adhering to certain meat which eagles brought up from the Valley of
+Diamonds. I have had to depend altogether upon the labour of translators
+for my acquisitions; and these seemed too small to deserve separate
+literary setting. By cutting my little gems according to one pattern, I
+have doubtless reduced the beauty of some; yet it seemed to me their
+colours were so weird, their luminosity so elfish, that their intrinsic
+value could not be wholly destroyed even by so clumsy an artificer as I.
+
+In short, these fables, legends, parables, etc., are simply
+reconstructions of what impressed me as most fantastically beautiful in
+the most exotic literature which I was able to obtain. With few
+exceptions, the plans of the original narratives have been preserved....
+
+This little collection has no claim upon the consideration of scholars.
+It is simply an attempt to share with the public some of those novel
+delights I experienced while trying to familiarize myself with some very
+strange and beautiful literatures.
+
+... My gems were few and small: the monstrous and splendid await the
+coming of Sindbad, or some mighty lapidary by whom they may be wrought
+into jewel bouquets exquisite as those bunches of topaz blossoms and
+ruby buds laid upon the tomb of Nourmahal.
+
+New Orleans, 1884.
+
+(13-14) Bibliography.
+
+(15-16) Contents:--
+
+
+                              Stray Leaves
+
+    The Book of Thoth. _From an Egyptian Papyrus._
+    The Fountain Maiden. _A Legend of the South Pacific._
+    The Bird Wife. _An Esquimaux Tradition._
+
+
+            Tales retold from Indian and Buddhist Literature
+
+    The Making of Tilottama
+    The Brahman and his Brahmani
+    Bakawali
+    Natalika
+    The Corpse-Demon
+    The Lion
+    The Legend of the Monster Misfortune
+    A Parable Buddhistic
+    Pundari
+    Yamaraja
+    The Lotos of Faith
+
+
+                        Runes from the Kalewala
+
+    The Magical Words
+    The First Musician
+    The Healing of Wainamoinen
+
+
+                        Stories of Moslem Lands
+
+    Boutimar, the Dove
+    The Son of a Robber
+    A Legend of Love
+    The King's Justice
+
+
+                   Traditions retold from the Talmud
+
+    A Legend of Rabba
+    The Mockers
+    Esther's Choice
+    The Dispute in the Halacha
+    Rabbi Yochanan ben Zachai
+    A Tradition of Titus
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Crown 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Charles W. Coleman, Jr., _Harper's Monthly_, May, 1887, vol. 74,
+        p. 855.
+
+                                 No. 2.
+
+1885. GOMBO ZHEBES. Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs, selected from
+six Creole dialects. Translated into French and into English, with
+notes, complete index to subjects and some brief remarks upon the Creole
+idioms of Louisiana. By Lafcadio Hearn. New York: Will H. Coleman,
+Publisher, No. 70, Business Quarter, Astor House, 1885.
+
+8vo., 6 p. l., pp. 42, brown cloth, design on cover.
+
+
+(3-4) Introduction (_Extract_).
+
+Any one who has ever paid a flying visit to New Orleans probably knows
+something about those various culinary preparations whose generic name
+is "Gombo"--compounded of many odds and ends, with the okra-plant, or
+true gombo for a basis, but also comprising occasionally "lose,
+zepinard, laitie," and the other vegetables sold in bunches in the
+French market. At all events, any person who has remained in the city
+for a season must have become familiar with the nature of "gombo file,"
+"gombo fevi," and "gombo aux herbes," or as our coloured cook calls it
+"gombo zhebes"--for she belongs to the older generation of Creole
+_cuisinieres_, and speaks the patois in its primitive purity, without
+using a single "r." Her daughter, who has been to school, would
+pronounce it _gombo zhairbes_:--the modern patois is becoming more and
+more Frenchified, and will soon be altogether forgotten, not only
+throughout Louisiana, but even in the Antilles. It still, however,
+retains originality enough to be understood with difficulty by persons
+thoroughly familiar with French; and even those who know nothing of any
+language but English, readily recognize it by the peculiar rapid
+syllabification and musical intonation. Such English-speaking residents
+of New Orleans seldom speak of it as "Creole": they call it _gombo_, for
+some mysterious reason which I have never been able to explain
+satisfactorily. The coloured Creoles of the city have themselves begun
+to use the term to characterize the patois spoken by the survivors of
+slavery days. Turiault tells us that in the town of Martinique, where
+the Creole is gradually changing into French, the _Bitacos_, or country
+negroes who still speak the patois nearly pure, are much ridiculed by
+their municipal brethren:--_Ca ou ka pale la, che, c'est neg;--Ca pas
+Creole!_ ("What you talk is 'nigger,' my dear:--that isn't Creole!") In
+like manner a young Creole negro or negress of New Orleans might tell an
+aged member of his race: _Ca qui to parle ca pas Creole; ca c'est
+gombo!_ I have sometimes heard the pure and primitive Creole also called
+"Congo" by coloured folks of the new generation.
+
+The literature of "gombo" has perhaps even more varieties than there are
+preparations of the esculents above referred to;--the patois has
+certainly its gombo fevi, its gombo file, its "gombo zhebes"--both
+written and unwritten. A work like Marbot's "Bambous" would deserve to
+be classed with the pure "fevi";--the treatises of Turiault, Baissac,
+St. Quentin, Thomas, rather resemble that fully prepared dish, in which
+crabs seem to struggle with fragments of many well-stewed meats, all
+strongly seasoned with pepper. The present essay at Creole folklore, can
+only be classed as "gombo zhebes"--(_Zhebes ce feuil-chou, cresson,
+laitie, bettrav, lose, zepinard_); the true okra is not the basis of our
+preparation;--it is a Creole dish, if you please, but a salmagundi of
+inferior quality.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Needless to say, this collection is far from perfect;--the most I can
+hope for is that it may constitute the nucleus of a more exhaustive
+publication to appear in course of time. No one person could hope to
+make a really complete collection of Creole proverbs--even with all the
+advantages of linguistic knowledge, leisure, wealth, and travel. Only a
+society of folklorists might bring such an undertaking to a successful
+issue;--but as no systematic effort is being made in this direction, I
+have had no hesitation in attempting--not indeed to fill a want--but to
+set an example. _Gouie passe, difil sivre_:--let the needle but pass,
+the thread will follow.
+
+                                                                   L. H.
+
+(6) Creole Bibliography.
+
+Pages 40-42 Indexes.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+_Nation, The_, April 23, 1885, vol. 40, p. 349.
+
+
+                                 No. 3.
+
+1887. SOME CHINESE GHOSTS. By Lafcadio Hearn. (Chinese Characters.)
+Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1887. 16mo., p. (8) 185, brown cloth with
+Chinese mask on cover, red top.
+
+Facing Title-page:--
+
+_If ye desire to witness prodigies and to behold marvels, be not
+concerned as to whether the mountains are distant or the rivers far
+away._
+
+                                                    Kin-Kou-Ki-Koan.
+
+(2) Dedication:--
+
+                             To my Friend,
+                         HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL
+                             The Musician,
+                           who, speaking the
+                       speech of melody unto the
+                        children of Tien-hia,--
+               unto the wandering Tsing-jin, whose skins
+                       have the colour of gold,--
+               moved them to make strange sounds upon the
+                       serpent-bellied San-hien;
+                 persuaded them to play for me upon the
+                           shrieking Ya-hien;
+              prevailed on them to sing me a song of their
+                             native land,--
+                         the song of Mohli-hwa,
+                    the song of the jasmine-flower.
+                                        (Sketch of Chinaman's head.)
+
+(Reverse) Chinese Character.
+
+(3-4) Preface.
+
+I think that my best apology for the insignificant size of this volume
+is the very character of the material composing it. In preparing the
+legends I sought especially for _weird beauty_; and I could not forget
+this striking observation in Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on Imitations of
+the Ancient Ballad": "The supernatural, though appealing to certain
+powerful emotions very widely and deeply sown amongst the human race,
+is, nevertheless, _a spring which is peculiarly apt to lose its
+elasticity by being too much pressed upon_." Those desirous to
+familiarize themselves with Chinese literature as a whole have had the
+way made smooth for them by the labours of linguists like Julien, Pavie,
+Remusat, De Rosny, Schlegel, Legge, Hervey-Saint-Denys, Williams, Biot,
+Giles, Wylie, Beal, and many other Sinologists. To such great explorers
+indeed, the realm of Cathayan story belongs by right of discovery and
+conquest; yet the humbler traveller who follows wonderingly after them
+into the vast and mysterious pleasure-grounds of Chinese fancy may
+surely be permitted to cull a few of the marvellous flowers there
+growing,--a self-luminous _hwa-wang_, a black lily, a phosphoric rose or
+two,--as souvenirs of his curious voyage.
+
+L. H. New Orleans, March 15, 1886.
+
+(5) Contents:--
+
+The Soul of the Great Bell
+The Story of Ming-Y
+The Legend of Tchi-Niu
+The Return of Yen Tchin-King
+The Tradition of the Tea-Plant
+The Tale of the Porcelain God
+
+Appendix:--
+
+Notes. Glossary.
+
+New Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1906, 12mo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Charles W. Coleman, Jr., _Harper's Monthly_, May, 1887, vol. 74,
+        p. 855.
+
+    _Nation, The_, May 26, 1887, vol. 44, p. 456.
+
+
+                                 No. 4.
+
+1889. CHITA: a Memory of Last Island. By Lafcadio Hearn
+
+"_But Nature whistled with all her winds, Did as she pleased, and went
+her way._"
+
+--Emerson.
+
+New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, 1889. 12mo., 3 p. l., pp.
+204, terra-cotta cloth, decorated.
+
+(Published first in _Harper's Monthly_, April, 1888.)
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                              To my Friend
+                           DR. RODOLFO MATAS
+                                   of
+                              New Orleans
+
+(2) Contents:--
+
+        Part I
+    The Legend of L'ile Derniere
+
+        Part II
+    Out of the Sea's Strength
+
+        Part III
+    The Shadow of the Tide
+
+(Reverse)
+
+    _Je suis la vaste melee,--
+    Reptile, etant l onde; ailee,
+        Etant le vent,--
+    Force et fuite, haine et vie,
+    Houle immense, poursuivie
+         Et poursuivant._
+                                                     --Victor Hugo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Boston Evening Transcript, The_, November 2, 1889.
+
+    Hutson, Charles Woodward, _Poet-Lore_, Spring, 1905, vol. 16,
+        p. 53.
+
+
+                                 No. 5.
+
+1890. YOUMA. The Story of a West-Indian Slave. By Lafcadio Hearn.
+(Publisher's Vignette.) New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square,
+1890.
+
+12mo., 1 p. l., pp. 193, frontispiece illustration, red cloth.
+
+(Published first in _Harper's Monthly_, January-February, 1890.)
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                              To my friend
+                           JOSEPH S. TUNISON.
+         The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1890, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenaeum, The_, August 30, 1890, p. 284.
+
+    _Nation, The_, May 7, 1891, vol. 52, p. 385.
+
+
+                                 No. 6.
+
+1890. TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. By Lafcadio Hearn.
+Illustrated. (Publisher's Vignette.) New York: Harper & Brothers,
+Franklin Square, 1890. 8vo., pp. (12) 431, 38 full-page illustrations, 6
+illustrations in the text, green cloth ornamental.
+
+(Reverse)
+
+"_La facon d'etre du pays est si agreable, la temperature si bonne, et
+l'on y vit dans une liberte si honnete, que je n'aye pas vu un seul
+homme, ny une seule femme, qui en soient revenus, en qui je n'aye
+remarque une grande passion d'y retourner._"--Le Pere Dutertre (1667).
+
+(3) Dedication:--
+
+                             A mon cher ami
+                             LEOPOLD ARNOUX
+                  Notaire a Saint Pierre, Martinique.
+
+_Souvenir de nos promenades,--de nos voyages,--de nos causeries,--des
+sympathies echangees,--de tout le charme d'une amitie inalterable et
+inoubliable,--de tout ce qui parle a l'ame au doux Pays des Revenants._
+
+(5-6) Preface (_Extract_).
+
+The introductory paper, entitled "A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics"
+consists for the most part of notes taken upon a voyage of nearly three
+thousand miles, accomplished in less than two months. During such hasty
+journeying it is scarcely possible for a writer to attempt anything more
+serious than a mere reflection of the personal experiences undergone;
+and, in spite of sundry justifiable departures from simple note-making,
+this paper is offered only as an effort to record the visual and
+emotional impressions of the moment.
+
+My thanks are due to Mr. William Lawless, British Consul at St. Pierre,
+for several beautiful photographs, taken by himself, which have been
+used in the preparation of the illustrations.
+                                                               L. H.
+Philadelphia, 1889.
+
+(7) Contents:--
+
+    A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics (_Harper's Monthly_,
+        July-September, 1888)
+    Martinique Sketches:--
+       I. Les Porteuses (_Harper's Monthly_, July, 1889)
+      II. La Grande Anse (_Harper's Monthly_, November, 1889)
+     III. Un Revenant
+      IV. La Guiablesse
+       V. La Verette (_Harper's Monthly_, October, 1888)
+      VI. Les Blanchisseusses
+     VII. La Pelee
+    VIII. 'Ti Canotie
+      IX. La Fille de Couleur
+       X. Bete-ni-Pie
+      XI. Ma Bonne
+     XII. "Pa combine, che!"
+    XIII. Ye
+     XIV. Lys.
+      XV. Appendix: Some Creole Melodies
+
+(9-10) Illustrations:--
+
+The Same. London: Harper and Brothers, 1890, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _New York Times, The_, September 1, 1890.
+
+
+                                 No. 7.
+
+1894. GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. By Lafcadio Hearn. In two volumes.
+(Vignette.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company (The
+Riverside Press, Cambridge), 1894.
+
+8vo., 2 vols. pp. (x) 699, dull green cloth, silver lettering and
+design, gilt top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                             To the Friends
+                   whose kindness alone rendered possible
+                        my sojourn in the Orient,--
+                                   to
+                   PAYMASTER MITCHELL McDONALD, U. S. N.
+                                  and
+                      BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN, ESQ.
+            _Emeritus Professor of Philology and Japanese in the
+                       Imperial University of Tokyo_
+                        I dedicate these volumes
+                              in token of
+                        Affection and Gratitude.
+
+(V-X) Preface (_Extract_).
+
+But the rare charm of Japanese life, so different from that of all other
+lands, is not to be found in its Europeanized circles. It is to be found
+among the great common people, who represent in Japan, as in all
+countries, the national virtues, and who still cling to their delightful
+old customs, their picturesque dresses, their Buddhist images, their
+household shrines, their beautiful and touching worship of ancestors.
+This is the life of which a foreign observer can never weary, if
+fortunate and sympathetic enough to enter into it,--the life that forces
+him sometimes to doubt whether the course of our boasted Western
+progress is really in the direction of moral development. Each day,
+while the years pass, there will be revealed to him some strange and
+unsuspected beauty in it. Like other life, it has its darker side; yet
+even this is brightness compared with the darker side of Western
+existence. It has its foibles, its follies, its vices, its cruelties;
+yet the more one sees of it, the more one marvels at its extraordinary
+goodness, its miraculous patience, its never-failing courtesy, its
+simplicity of heart, its intuitive charity. And to our own larger
+Occidental comprehension, its commonest superstitions, however contemned
+at Tokyo, have rarest value as fragments of the unwritten
+literature of its hopes, its fears, its experience with right and
+wrong,--its primitive efforts to find solutions for the riddle of the
+Unseen.
+
+
+Contents:--
+
+Volume I.
+
+       I. My First Day in the Orient
+      II. The Writing of Kobodaishi
+     III. Jizo
+      IV. A Pilgrimage to Enoshima
+       V. At the Market of the Dead (_Atlantic Monthly_,
+            September, 1891)
+      VI. Bon-Odori
+     VII. The Chief City of the Province of the Gods
+            (_Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1891)
+    VIII. Kitzuki: The Most Ancient Shrine in Japan
+            (_Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1891)
+      IX. In the Cave of the Children's Ghosts
+       X. At Mionoseki
+      XI. Notes on Kitzuki
+     XII. At Hinomisaki
+    XIII. Shinju
+     XIV. Yaegaki-Jinja
+      XV. Kitsune
+
+Volume II.
+
+     XVI. In a Japanese Garden (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1892)
+    XVII. The Household Shrine
+   XVIII. Of Women's Hair
+     XIX. From the Diary of an English Teacher
+      XX. Two Strange Festivals
+     XXI. By the Japanese Sea
+    XXII. Of a Dancing Girl (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1893)
+   XXIII. From Hoki to Oki
+    XXIV. Of Souls XXV. Of Ghosts and Goblins
+    XXVI. The Japanese Smile (_Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1893)
+   XXVII. Sayonara!
+
+Pages 695-99 Index.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1894, 2 vols., 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, 2 vols., Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 2 vols., Cr.
+8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Bentzon, Th., _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p.
+        556.
+
+    Brandt, M. von, _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1900, vol. 27,
+        p. 68.
+
+    Challaye, Felicien, _Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale_, 1903,
+        vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+    Challaye, Felicien, _Revue de Paris_, December 1, 1904 vol. 6,
+        p. 655.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, October 20, 1894, vol. 25, p. 347.
+
+    Scott, Mrs. M. McN., _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1895, vol. 75,
+        p. 830.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, November 17, 1894, vol. 73, p. 698.
+
+
+                                 No. 8.
+
+1895. "OUT OF THE EAST." Reveries and Studies in New Japan. By Lafcadio
+Hearn.
+
+               "_As far as the east is from the west_"--
+
+(Publisher's Vignette.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and
+Company (The Riverside Press, Cambridge), 1895.
+
+16mo., 2 p. 1., pp. 341, yellow cloth, silver lettering, yellow top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                                   To
+                            NISHIDA SENTARO
+                         in dear remembrance of
+                               Izumo days
+
+(2) Contents:--
+
+       I. The Dream of a Summer Day
+      II. With Kyushu Students
+     III. At Hakata (_Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1894)
+      IV. Of the Eternal Feminine (_Atlantic Monthly_, December,
+            1893)
+       V. Bits of Life and Death
+      VI. The Stone Buddha
+     VII. Jiujutsu
+    VIII. The Red Bridal (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1894)
+      IX. A Wish Fulfilled (_Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1895)
+       X. In Yokohama
+      XI. Yuko: a Reminiscence
+
+"The Dream of a Summer Day" first appeared in the _Japan Daily Mail_.
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1895, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenaeum, The_, August 24, 1895, p. 249.
+
+    Brandt, M. von, _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1900, vol. 105,
+        p. 68.
+
+    Challaye Felicien, _Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale_, 1903,
+        vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+    Challaye, Felicien, _Revue de Paris_, December 1, 1904, vol. 6,
+        p. 655.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, April 20, 1895, vol. 26, p. 123.
+
+    Scott, Mrs. M. McN., _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1895, vol. 75,
+        p. 830.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, October 12, 1895, vol. 75, p. 459.
+
+
+                                 No. 9.
+
+1896. KOKORO: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. By Lafcadio
+Hearn. (Top of page "Kokoro" in Japanese.) (Sketch of Japanese Head.)
+Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company (The Riverside Press,
+Cambridge), 1896.
+
+16 mo., 3 p. l., pp. 388, green cloth, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                              To my Friend
+                          AMENOMORI NOBUSHIGE
+                       poet, scholar, and patriot
+
+(2) Note:--
+
+(Japanese character)
+
+The papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than of the
+outer life of Japan,--for which reason they have been grouped under the
+title, "Kokoro" (heart). Written with the above character, this word
+signifies also mind, in the emotional sense; spirit; courage; resolve;
+sentiment; affection; and inner meaning,--just as we say in English,
+"the heart of things."
+
+Kobe, September 15, 1895.
+
+(3) Contents:--
+
+       I. At a Railway Station
+      II. The Genius of Japanese Civilization (_Atlantic Monthly_,
+            October, 1895)
+     III. A Street Singer
+      IV. From a Travelling Diary (_Atlantic Monthly_, December,
+            1895)
+       V. The Nun of the Temple of Amida
+      VI. After the War (_Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1895)
+     VII. Haru
+    VIII. A Glimpse of Tendencies
+      IX. By Force of Karma
+       X. A Conservative
+      XI. In the Twilight of the Gods (_Atlantic Monthly_, June,
+          1895)
+     XII. The Idea of Preexistence
+    XIII. In Cholera-Time
+     XIV. Some Thoughts about Ancestor-Worship
+      XV. Kimiko
+          Appendix. Three Popular Ballads
+
+The Same. London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, 1896, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1903, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Popular Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenaeum, The_, August 8, 1896, p. 185.
+
+    Bentzon, Th., _Revue de Deux Mondes_, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p.
+    556.
+
+    Brandt, M. von, _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1900, vol. 105,
+    p. 68.
+
+    Challaye Felicien, _Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale_, 1903,
+    vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+    Challaye Felicien, _Revue de Paris_, December 1, 1904, vol. 6,
+    p. 655.
+
+    Cockerill, Col. John A., _Current Literature_, June, 1896, vol.
+    19, p. 476.
+
+    Herzog, Wilhelm, _Die Nation_, January 6, 1906, vol. 23, p. 217.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, April 18, 1896, vol. 27, p. 116.
+
+    _Nation, The_, July 9, 1896, vol. 63, p. 35.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, May 23, 1896, vol. 76, p. 739.
+
+    Takayanagi, Tozo, _The Book Buyer_, May, 1896, vol. 13, p. 229.
+
+
+                                 No. 10.
+
+1897. GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS, Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far
+East. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English Literature in the Imperial
+University of Japan. (Publisher's Vignette.) Boston and New York:
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company. (The Riverside Press, Cambridge.)
+
+12mo., pp. 296, blue cloth, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+Contents:--
+
+       I. A Living God (_Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1896)
+      II. Out of the Street (_Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1896)
+     III. Notes of a Trip to Kyoto (_Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1896)
+      IV. Dust (_Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1896)
+       V. About Faces in Japanese Art (Atlantic Monthly, August, 1896)
+      VI. Ningyo-no-Haka
+     VII. In Osaka
+    VIII. Buddhist Allusions in Japanese Folk-Song
+      IX. Nirvana
+       X. The Rebirth of Katsugoro
+      XI. Within the Circle
+
+The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1897, 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Gay and Bird's, 1902, Cr. 8vo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1903, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Academy, The_, November 13, 1897, vol. 52, p. 395.
+
+    _Athenaeum, The_, November 13, 1897, p. 664.
+
+    Challaye, Felicien, _Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale_, 1903,
+    vol. 11, p. 338
+
+    _Critic, The_, April 9, 1898, vol. 29, p. 248.
+
+    _Independent, The_, November 24, 1898, vol. 50, p. 1508.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, November 13, 1897, vol. 28, p. 389.
+
+    _Nation, The_, February 3, 1898, vol. 66, p. 97.
+
+    _Outlook, The_, October 16, 1897, vol. 57, p. 435.
+
+    _Public Opinion_, November 25, 1897, vol. 23, p. 694.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, November 20, 1897, vol. 79, p. 736.
+
+    Wagner, John Harrison, _The Book Buyer_, June, 1898, vol. 16, p.
+    437.
+
+
+                                No. 11.
+
+1898. EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English
+Literature in the Imperial University, Tokyo. Boston: Little,
+Brown and Company, MDCCCXCIX.
+
+16mo., 4 p. l., pp. 299, 4 full-page illustrations, 13 illustrations in
+the text. Green cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+To Dr. C. H. H. Hall, of Yokohama (late U. S. Navy) _In Constant
+Friendship_
+
+(2) (Prefatory Note)
+
+All but one of the papers composing this volume appear for the first
+time. The little essays, or rather fantasies, forming the second part of
+the book, deal with experiences in two hemispheres; but their general
+title should explain why they have been arranged independently of that
+fact. To any really scientific imagination, the curious analogy existing
+between certain teachings of evolutional psychology and certain
+teachings of Eastern faith,--particularly the Buddhist doctrine that all
+sense-life is Karma, and all substance only the phenomenal result of
+acts and thoughts,--might have suggested something much more significant
+than my cluster of "Retrospectives." These are offered merely as
+intimations of a truth incomparably less difficult to recognize than to
+define.
+
+Tokyo, Japan,                L. H. February 15, 1898.
+
+(3) Contents:--
+
+    Exotics:
+
+       I. Fuji-no-Yama
+      II. Insect-Musicians
+     III. A Question in the Zen Texts
+      IV. The Literature of the Dead
+       V. Frogs VI. Of Moon-Desire
+
+    Retrospectives:
+
+       I. First Impressions
+      II. Beauty is Memory
+     III. Sadness in Beauty
+      IV. Parfum de Jeunesse
+       V. Azure Psychology (_Teikoku Bungaku_, Yokohama)
+      VI. A Serenade
+     VII. A Red Sunset
+    VIII. Frisson
+      IX. Vespertina Cognitio
+       X. The Eternal Haunter
+
+(4) List of Illustrations.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1898, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenaeum, The_, January 6, 1900, p. 11.
+
+    Bentzon, Th., _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 1, 1904, vol. 21,
+    p. 556.
+
+    _Dial, The_, July 16, 1899, vol. 27, p. 52.
+
+    _International Studio, The_, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+
+                                No. 12.
+
+1899. IN GHOSTLY JAPAN. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English
+Literature in the Imperial University, Tokyo. Boston: Little,
+Brown and Company, MDCCCXCIX.
+
+16mo., 5 p. l., pp. 241, 4 full-page illustrations, 5 illustrations in
+the text. Blue cloth, ornamented with white cherry-blossoms, gold
+lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                                   To
+                         Mrs. Alice Von Behrens
+                          _For Auld Lang Syne_
+
+(2)
+
+                            In Ghostly Japan
+                              _Yoru bakari
+                           Miru mono nari to
+                               Omou-nayo!
+                             Hiru sae yume
+                          no Ukiyo nari-keri._
+
+    _Think not that dreams appear to the dreamer only at night: the
+    dream of this world of pain appears to us even by day_.
+
+                                                      Japanese Poem.
+
+(3) Contents:--
+
+    Fragment
+    Furisode
+    Incense
+    A Story of Divination
+    Silkworms
+    A Passional Karma
+    Footprints of the Buddha
+    Ululation
+    Bits of Poetry
+    Japanese Buddhist Proverbs
+    Suggestion
+    Ingwa-Banashi
+    Story of a Tengu
+    At Yaidzu
+
+(4) List of Illustrations.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1899, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Inouye, Jukichi, _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1900, vol. 86,
+    pp. 399.
+
+    _International Studio, The_, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+
+                                No. 13.
+
+1900. SHADOWINGS. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English Literature in
+the Imperial University, Tokyo, Japan. Boston: Little, Brown and
+Company, 1900.
+
+12mo., pp. (IV) 268, cloth.
+
+(I.) Dedication:--
+
+                     To Paymaster Mitchell McDonald
+                               U. S. Navy
+
+    My dear Mitchell,--
+
+    Herein I have made some attempt to satisfy your wish for "a few
+    more queer stories from the Japanese." Please accept the book as
+    another token of the writer's affection.
+
+                                                  Lafcadio Hearn
+                                                (Koizumi Yakumo)
+    Tokyo, Japan,
+        January 1, 1900.
+
+
+(II.) Contents:--
+
+    Stories from Strange Books:--
+
+       I. The Reconciliation
+      II. A Legend of Fugen-Bosatsu
+     III. The Screen-Maiden
+      IV. The Corpse-Rider
+       V. The Sympathy of Benten
+      VI. The Gratitude of the Samebito
+
+    Japanese Studies:--
+
+       I. Semi
+      II.Japanese Female Names
+     III. Old Japanese Songs
+
+    Fantasies:--
+
+       I. Noctilucae
+      II. A Mystery of Crowds
+     III. Gothic Horror
+      IV. Levitation
+       V. Nightmare-Touch
+      VI. Readings from a Dream-Book
+     VII. In a Pair of Eyes
+
+(III.) Illustrations.
+
+(IV.) Bastard title-page:--
+
+    Il avait vu bruler d'etranges pierres,
+    Jadis, dans les brasiers de lapensee.
+                                    Emile Verhaeren
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1900, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenaeum, The_, January 5, 1901, p. 15.
+
+    Bentzon, Th., _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.
+
+    F. T. C., _The Bookman_, February, 1901, vol. 12, p. 582.
+
+    _Dial, The_, January 1, 1901, vol. 30, p. 19.
+
+    _International Studio, The_, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.
+
+    Kinnosuke, Adachi, _The Critic_, January, 1901, vol. 38, p. 29.
+
+    _Nation, The_, November 8, 1900, vol. 71, p. 372.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+    _Public Opinion_, October 18, 1900, vol. 29, p. 504.
+
+
+                                No. 14.
+
+1901. A JAPANESE MISCELLANY. By Lafcadio Hearn. Lecturer on English
+Literature in the Imperial University of Tokyo. Boston: Little,
+Brown and Company, MDCCCCI.
+
+12mo., 5 p. l., pp. 305, 2 full-page illustrations, 6 plates, 5
+illustrations in the text. Green cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt
+top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+                                   To
+                     Mrs. Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore
+
+(2) Contents:--
+
+    Strange Stories:
+       I. Of a Promise Kept
+      II. Of a Promise Broken
+     III. Before the Supreme Court
+      IV. The Story of Kwashin Koji
+       V. The Story of Umetsu Chubei
+      VI. The Story of Kogi the Priest
+
+Folklore Gleanings:
+
+   I. Dragon-Flies (_illustrated_)
+      II. Buddhist Names of Plants and Animals
+     III. Songs of Japanese Children (_illustrated_)
+
+Studies Here and There:
+
+   I. On a Bridge
+      II. The Case of O-Dai
+     III. Beside the Sea (_illustrated_)
+      IV. Drifting
+       V. Otokichi's Daruma (_illustrated_)
+      VI. In a Japanese Hospital
+
+(3) Illustrations.
+
+The Same. London: Sampson, Low and Company, 1901, 8vo.
+
+New Popular Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1904, 16mo.
+
+New Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenaeum_, December 21, 1901, p. 833.
+
+    _International Studio, The_, 1905, vol. 25, p. XL.
+
+    _Literary World, The_, December 1, 1901, vol. 32, p. 207.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 9, 1902, vol. 74, p. 39.
+
+    _Nation, The_, January 26, 1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+
+                                No. 15.
+
+1902. JAPANESE FAIRY TALES. Rendered into English by Lafcadio Hearn.
+Published by T. Hasegawa, Publisher and Art-Printer, Tokyo, Japan.
+
+Four 16mo. books on Japanese folded crepe paper, highly illustrated in
+colours.
+
+    No. 22. The Goblin Spider
+    No. 23. The Boy Who Drew Cats
+    No. 24. The Old Woman Who Lost Her Dumpling
+    No. 25. Chin Chin Kobakama
+
+
+                                No. 16.
+
+1902. KOTTO (Japanese Characters). Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry
+Cobwebs. Collected by Lafcadio Hearn, Lecturer on English Literature in
+the Imperial University of Tokyo, Japan. With illustrations by
+Genjiro Yeto. New York: The Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan &
+Company, Ltd.), 1902.
+
+8vo., 4 p. l., pp. 251, brown cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt
+top.
+
+(1) Dedication:--
+
+To SIR EDWIN ARNOLD in grateful remembrance of kind words
+
+(2) Contents:--
+
+Old Stories:
+
+       I. The Legend of Yurei-Daki
+      II. In a Cup of Tea
+     III. Common Sense
+      IV. Ikiryo
+       V. Shiryo
+      VI. The Story of O-Kame
+     VII. Story of a Fly
+    VIII. Story of a Pheasant
+      IX. The Story of Chugoro
+
+    A Woman's Diary
+    Heike-Gani
+    Fireflies
+    A Drop of Dew
+    Gaki
+    A Matter of Custom
+    Revery
+    Pathological
+    In the Dead of the Night
+    Kusa-Hibari
+    The Eater of Dreams
+
+(3)
+
+                              Old Stories
+
+_The following nine tales have been selected from the
+"Shin-Chomon-Shu," "Hyaku Monogatari,"
+"Uji-Jui-Monogatari-Sho," and other old Japanese books, to
+illustrate some strange beliefs. They are only Curios._
+
+The Same. Reprinted April, 1903.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenaeum, The_, January 17, 1903, p. 77.
+
+    _Book Buyer, The_, December, 1902, vol. 25, p. 416.
+
+    More, Paul Elmer, _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1903, vol. 91,
+    p. 204.
+
+    _Nation, The_, March 26, 1903, vol. 76, p. 254.
+
+
+                                No. 17.
+
+1904. KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.--Lafcadio Hearn,
+Lecturer on English Literature in the Imperial University of
+Tokyo, Japan (1896-1903). Honorary Member of the Japan Society,
+London. (Japanese Characters.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin
+and Company, MDCCCCIV. (Published April, 1904.)
+
+12mo., 6 p. 1., pp. 240, illustrated, 2 plates, dark green cloth,
+decorated, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Introduction by Publisher:--
+
+(3) Prefatory Note:--
+
+Most of the following _Kwaidan_, or Weird Tales, have been
+taken from old Japanese books,--such as the _Yaso-Kidan_,
+_Bukkyo-Hyakkwa-Zensho_, _Kokon-Chomonshu_, _Tama-Sudare_ and
+_Hyaku-Monogatari_. Some of the stories may have had a Chinese origin:
+the very remarkable "Dream of Akinosuke," for example, is certainly from
+a Chinese source. But the Japanese story-teller in every case, has so
+recoloured and reshaped his borrowing as to naturalize it.... One queer
+tale, "Yuki-Onna," was told me by a farmer of Chofu,
+Nishitamagori, in Musashi province, as a legend of his native
+village. Whether it has even been written in Japanese I do not know; but
+the extraordinary belief which it records used certainly to exist in
+most parts of Japan, and in many curious forms.... The incident of
+"Riki-Baka" was a personal experience; and I wrote it down almost
+exactly as it happened, changing only a family-name mentioned by the
+Japanese narrator.
+
+Tokyo, Japan, January 20, 1904.                                L. H.
+
+(4) Contents:--
+
+    Kwaidan
+
+        The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi (_Atlantic Monthly_,
+            August, 1903)
+        Oshidori
+        The Story of O-Tei
+        Ubazakura
+        Diplomacy
+        Of a Mirror and a Bell
+        Jikininki
+        Mujina
+        Rokuro-Kubi
+        A Dead Secret
+        Yuki-Onna
+        The Story of Aoyagi
+        Jiu-Roku-Zakura
+        The Dream of Akinosuke (_Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1904)
+        Riki-Baka
+        Hi-Mawari
+        Horai
+
+    Insect-Studies
+
+        Butterflies
+        Mosquitoes
+        Ants
+
+(5) Notes on the Illustrations
+
+The two drawings are by the Japanese artist, Keichu Takenouche. The
+frontispiece illustrates the scene in the story "Yuki-Onna" described on
+page 113, and the drawing facing page 180 illustrates the Butterfly
+Dance, described on page 203.
+
+The Same. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1904, 12mo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Athenaeum, The_, September 17, 1904, p. 373.
+
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1904, vol. 93, p. 857.
+
+    _Bookman, The_, November, 1904, vol. 20, p. 159.
+
+
+                                No. 18.
+
+1904. (Japanese Characters.) JAPAN: An Attempt at Interpretation. By
+Lafcadio Hearn. Honorary Member of the Japan Society, London; formerly
+Lecturer in the Imperial University of Tokyo (1896-1903), and
+Fourteen Years a Resident of Japan.
+
+    "Perhaps all very marked national characters can be traced back
+    to a time of rigid and pervading discipline."
+                                                   --Walter Bagehot.
+
+New York: The Macmillan Company (London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd.),
+1904. (Published, September, 1904.)
+
+8vo., 2 p. l., pp. 541, coloured frontispiece, brown cloth, black and
+gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+(1) Contents:--
+
+       I. Difficulties
+      II. Strangeness and Charm
+     III. The Ancient Cult
+      IV. The Religion of the Home
+       V. The Japanese Family
+      VI. The Communal Cult
+     VII. Developments of Shinto
+    VIII. Worship and Purification
+      IX. The Rule of the Dead
+       X. The Introduction of Buddhism
+      XI. The Higher Buddhism
+     XII.The Social Organization
+    XIII. The Rise of the Military Power
+     XIV. The Religion of Loyalty
+      XV. The Jesuit Peril
+     XVI. Feudal Integration
+    XVII. The Shinto Revival
+   XVIII. Survivals
+     XIX. Modern Restraints
+      XX. Official Education
+     XXI. Industrial Danger
+    XXII. Reflections
+          Bibliographical Notes
+          Index
+
+The Same. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1904, 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    Buckley, Edmund, _The American Journal of Sociology_, January
+    1905, vol. 10, p. 545.
+
+    Griffis, William Elliot, _The Critic_, February, 1905, vol. 46,
+    p. 185.
+
+    Griffis, William Elliot, _The Dial_, December 1, 1904, vol. 36,
+    p. 368.
+
+    _Independent, The_, October 27, 1904, vol. 57, p. 976.
+
+    _Nation, The_, December 8, 1904, vol. 79, p. 465.
+
+    _Public Opinion_, October 27, 1904, vol. 37, p. 537.
+
+    _Review of Reviews_, November, 1904, vol. 30, p. 561.
+
+    Shore, W. Teignmouth, _The Academy_, December 10, 1904, vol. 67,
+    p. 584.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, January 14, 1905, vol. 94, p. 54.
+
+    Thurston, S. J., Herbert, _The Messenger_, January, 1906,
+    vol. 45, p. 1.
+
+                                No. 19.
+
+1905. THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY, and other Studies and Stories. By
+Lafcadio Hearn. Houghton, Mifflin and Company: Boston and New York,
+1905. (Published October, 1905.)
+
+12mo., pp. (XIV) 209, decorated title-page, grey cloth with yellow
+trimmings, yellow top.
+
+(V) Contents:--
+
+    The Romance of the Milky Way (_Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1905)
+    Goblin Poetry
+    "Ultimate Questions" (_Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1905)
+    The Mirror Maiden
+    The Story of Ito Norisuke (_Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1905)
+    Stranger than Fiction (_Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1905)
+    A Letter from Japan (_Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1904)
+
+(VII-XIV) Introduction by F. G.
+
+The Same. London: Constable and Company, 1905, Cr. 8vo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+    _Academy, The_, December 2, 1905, vol. 69, p. 1257. _Athenaeum,
+    The_, March 31, 1906, p. 389.
+
+    _Dial, The_, November 1, 1905, vol. 39, p. 276.
+
+    Griffis, W. E., _The Critic_, March, 1906, vol. 48, p. 222.
+
+    _Independent_, The, December 21, 1905, vol. 59, p. 1478.
+
+    _Nation, The_, December 21, 1905, vol. 81, p. 510.
+
+    _Outlook, The_, November 9, 1906, vol. 84, p. 503.
+
+
+                              TRANSLATIONS
+
+
+                                No. 20.
+
+1882. ONE OF CLEOPATRA'S NIGHTS, and other Fantastic Romances. By
+Theophile Gautier. Faithfully translated by Lafcadio Hearn.
+
+Contents:--
+
+    One of Cleopatra's Nights
+    Clarimonde
+    Arria Marcella: A Souvenir of Pompeii
+    The Mummy's Foot
+    Omphale: A Rococo Story
+    King Candaules
+
+New York: R. Worthington, 770 Broadway, 1882.
+
+8vo., pp. (IX) 321, red cloth, gilt top. Head Gautier as Frontispiece.
+
+(III)
+
+
+    _The love that caught strange light from death's own eyes,
+    And filled death's lips with fiery words and sighs,
+        And half asleep, let feed from veins of his,
+    Her close red warm snake's-mouth, Egyptian-wise:
+    And that great night of love more strange than this,
+    When she that made the whole world's bale and bliss
+        Made king of the whole world's desire a slave
+    And killed him in mid-kingdom with a kiss._
+                                                      Swinburne.
+
+    "_Memorial verses on the death of Theophile Gautier._"
+
+
+(V-IX) To the Reader (_Extract_).
+
+It is the artist, therefore, who must judge of Gautier's creations. To
+the lovers of the loveliness of the antique world, the lovers of
+physical beauty and artistic truth,--of the charm of youthful dreams and
+young passion in its blossoming,--of poetic ambitions and the sweet
+pantheism that finds all Nature vitalized by the Spirit of the
+Beautiful,--to such the first English version of these graceful
+fantasies is offered in the hope that it may not be found wholly
+unworthy of the original.
+
+New Orleans, 1882.                                                 L. H.
+
+Pages 317-21 Addenda.
+
+New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 12mo.
+New Edition. New York: Brentano's, 1906, 12mo.
+CLARIMONDE. New York: Brentano's, 1899, 16mo.
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+Brandt, M. von, _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1900, vol. 105, p. 68.
+
+Coleman, Charles W., Jr., _Harper's Monthly_, May, 1887, vol. 74, p.
+855.
+
+_Dayton (Ohio) Journal_, September 30, 1904.
+
+_Literary World, The_, February 14, 1891, vol. 22, p. 56.
+
+
+                                No. 21.
+
+1890. THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD (Member of the Institute). By
+Anatole France. The Translation and Introduction by Lafcadio Hearn.
+(Publisher's Vignette.) New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square,
+1890.
+
+8vo., pp. (IX) 281, paper.
+
+(V-IX) Introduction (_Extract_).
+
+But it is not because M. Anatole France has rare power to create
+original characters, or to reflect for us something of the more
+recondite literary life of Paris, that his charming story will live. It
+is because of his far rarer power to deal with what is older than any
+art, and withal more young, and incomparably more precious: the beauty
+of what is beautiful in human emotion. And that writer who touches the
+spring of generous tears by some simple story of gratitude, of natural
+kindness, of gentle self-sacrifice, is surely more entitled to our love
+than the sculptor who shapes for us a dream of merely animal grace, or
+the painter who images for us, however richly, the young bloom of that
+form which is only the husk of Being.
+
+L. H.
+
+(1) Contents:--
+
+    Part I.
+        The Log.
+
+    Part II.
+        The Daughter of Clementine.
+            The Fairy
+            The Little Saint-George
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+
+_Literary World_, The, February 15, 1890, vol. 21, p. 59.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+            TRANSLATIONS PUBLISHED IN THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT[43]
+
+    [43] Hearn failed to give the years in which these translations
+         were published, and often also the days and months.
+
+(Nos. 31-218)
+
+
+No. 31. 1. Crucifying Crocodiles. By Cousot.
+                From _Le Figaro_, February 7.
+
+No. 32. 2. The Last of the Great Moguls. By Ali.
+                From _Le Nouvelle Revue_, March 1.
+
+No. 33. 3. Killed by Rollin's Ancient History. By Chas. Baissac.
+
+No. 34. 4. Mohammed Fripouille. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Yvette."
+
+No. 35. 5. The Eldest Daughter. By Jules Lemaitre.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 36. 6. The Burnt Rock. By "Carmen Sylva," Elizabeth, Queen of
+        Roumania.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 37. 7. The Confession. By de Maupassant.
+                From _Contes du Jour et de la Nuit_.
+
+No. 38. 8. In the Mountain of Marble. By Pierre Loti.
+
+No. 39. 9. A Story of Quinine. By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Recits Creoles_.
+
+No. 40. 10. How Gerard Resigned His Tutorship. By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Recits Creoles_.
+
+No. 41. 11. A Vendetta. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _Contes du Jour et de la Nuit_.
+
+No. 42. 12. A Coward. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _Contes du Jour et de la Nuit_.
+
+No. 43. 13. The Titaness. By Jules Lermina.
+                From _Le Figaro_, April 25.
+
+No. 44. 14. Reminiscences of Gustave Dore. By Albert Wolff.
+                From _Le Figaro_, March 2.
+
+No. 45. 15. The Return. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Yvette."
+
+No. 46. 16. Two Friends. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 47. 17. Moloch, the Devourer. (The Sacrifice.) By Gustave Flaubert.
+                From "Salambo," Ed. 1880.
+
+No. 48. 18. The Ring. By N. de Semenow.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 15.
+
+No. 49. 19. The Phalanx in Battle. By Gustave Flaubert.
+                From "Salambo," Ed. 1880.
+
+No. 50. 20. The Little Sister. By Hector Malot.
+                Novel.
+
+No. 51. 21. Riri's Rag-Picking. By Jean Rameau.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 31.
+
+No. 52. 22. A Divorced Man's New Year's Day. By Frantz Jourdain.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 2.
+
+No. 53. 23. Especially Interesting Apropos of the Comet with the Sodium
+        Tail. By Camille Flammarion.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, September 21.
+
+No. 54. 24. Eaten Alive. By Camille Debans.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 13.
+
+No. 55. 25. The Christmas Tree. By Theodore Dostoievsky.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 56. 26. "A Madman?" By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 57. 27. Tourgueneff. By Firmin Javel.
+                From _L'Evenement_, September 6.
+
+Tourgueneff. By Maurice Guillemot.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 5.
+
+No. 58. 28. A Polish Regiment under Fire. By Hendrik Sienkiewicz.
+                From _Nouvelle Revue_.
+
+No. 59. 29. In Oran. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _Au Soleil_.
+
+No. 60. 30. En Voyage. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 61. 31. "La Mere Sauvage." By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 62. 32. The Adopted Child. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 63. 33. The Child. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 64. 34. The Minuet. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 65. 35. My Uncle Jules. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Miss Harriet."
+
+No. 66. 36. The Love Chamber. By Albert Delpit, 1884.
+
+No. 67. 37. The Chair Mender. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 68. 38. Coco. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 69. 39. A Parricide. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 70. 40. The Red Wolves. By Henry Leturque.
+                From _Le Figaro_, April 24.
+
+No. 71. 41. Suicides. By Guy de Maupassant. "Les Soeurs Rondoli."
+
+No. 72. 42. The Cross. By Verax.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 17.
+
+No. 73. 43. The Art of Dancing. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, March 19.
+
+No. 74. 44. Haikona's Story. By Quatrelles.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 3.
+
+No. 75. 45. Forgotten on the Battle Field.
+                From _Le Figaro_, December 19.
+
+No. 76. 46. The Folly of Armaments. By P.
+                From _L'Evenement_, June 13.
+
+No. 77. 47. Japanese Theatricals. By Yedoko.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 7, 1886.
+
+No. 78. 48. On the Planet Mars. By Camille Flammarion.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 79. 49. The Colonel's Ideas. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Yvette."
+
+No. 80. 50. Waterloo. By Leon Cladel.
+                From _L'Evenement_, April 26.
+
+No. 81. 51. Terrifying a King. By XXX. From _Le Figaro_, December 9.
+
+No. 82. 52. The Secret of the Scaffold. By Comte de Villiers de
+        L'Isle-Adam.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 23.
+
+No. 83. 53. Littre as a Physician. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, June 5.
+
+No. 84. 54. Hugo and Littre. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 85. 55. A Modern Combat of the Thirty. By Vigeant.
+
+No. 86. 56. Algerian Warfare. By Ferdinand Hugonnet.
+
+No. 87. 57. Orden's Redoubt. By Adam Mickiewicz.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 88. 58. Lasker's Romance. By Aurelien Scholl.
+                From _L'Evenement_, February 26.
+
+No. 89. 59. The Duel. By Aurelien Scholl.
+                From _L'Evenement_, March 2.
+
+No. 90. 60. The Wife of Sobieski.
+                From _Le Figaro_ Supplement, February 23.
+
+No. 91. 61. Redemption. By Matilde Serao.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 92. 62. The Rats of Paris. By Olivier de Rawton.
+                From _Le Figaro_ Supplement.
+
+No. 93. 63. The Story of Tse-I-La. By Comte de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam.
+                From _Le Figaro_ Sunday Supplement.
+
+No. 94. 64. Cremation in Paris. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, March 6.
+
+No. 95. 65. Madame Auguste's Lion. By Horace Bertin.
+                From _Croquis de Province_.
+
+No. 96. 66. The Secret History of "Madame Bovary." By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _L'Evenement_, January 23.
+
+No. 97. 67. Nissa. By Albert Delpit.
+                From _Revue de Deux Mondes_.
+
+No. 98. 68. The Soudanian Marseillais.
+
+No. 99. 69. Justice in the Soudan. After De Bisson. 1868.
+
+No. 100. 70. Eaten by a Lion. By Louis Rousselet.
+                From _La Peau du Tigre_.
+
+No. 101. 71. Chanzy. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 10.
+
+No. 102. 72. Notes on Von Moltke. By Robert de Bonnieres.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 17.
+
+No. 103. 73. The Hunchback. By Chas. Richard.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 29.
+
+No. 104. 74. The Pacha of Audjelah. By H. Georges.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 5.
+
+No. 105. 75. The Umbrella. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 106. 76. Gambling for a Wife. By A. de Colonne.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 30.
+
+No. 107. 77. Happiness. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 108. 78. "Schmah Israel." By Sacher Masoch.
+                From _Revue Politique et Litteraire_, November 7.
+
+No. 109. 79. The Alfa-Gatherer. By Lieutenant Palat. ("Marcel
+        Frescaly.")
+                From _Le Figaro_, April 3.
+
+No. 110. 80. He. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 111. 81. 'Toine. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 112. 82. The Dowry. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 113. 83. The Funeral of an Indian Prince. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 7.
+
+No. 114. 84. The Jewelry. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 115. 85. The Five Senses. By Harry Alis.
+                From _Revue Politique et Litteraire_, October 2.
+
+No. 116. 86. A Bombshell. By Leon Tolstoi.
+
+No. 117. 87. A Day at Lahore. By Robert de Bonnieres.
+                From _Revue Politique et Litteraire_.
+
+No. 118. 88. Mario, Marquis of Candia. By Mario di Candia.
+                From _Le Figaro_, November 24.
+
+No. 119. 89. My Tailor Abrahamek. By Sacher-Masoch.
+                From _Revue Politique et Litteraire_, May 22.
+
+No. 120. 90. The Flesh-Eaters. By Olivier de Rawton.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 121. 91. Palabra Suelta No Tiene Vuelta. By Ricardo Palma. (Lima,
+        1880.)
+
+No. 122. 92. The Diva. By Luigi Gualdo.
+
+No. 123. 93. The Story of the Unfortunate Merchant. By Rene Bassett.
+
+No. 124. 94. Bamba. By Eugene Forgues.
+                From _Nouvelle Revue_.
+
+No. 125. 95. "Notre Pere Qui Etesaux Cieux." By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Recits Creoles_.
+
+No. 126. 96. "Red Minette." By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Recits Creoles_.
+
+No. 127. 97. Fight at the Mill. By Emile Zola.
+
+No. 128. 98. Leo XIII. By Roman Correspondent.
+                From _Le Figaro_, February 27.
+
+No. 129. 99. The Carp Herder. By Charles Richard.
+                From _Le Figaro_, December 15, 1883.
+
+No. 130. 100. Fanny Elssler. By Viennese Correspondent.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 131. 101. Lola Montes and Ludwig I. of Bavaria. By X.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 132. 102. The Art of Being a Bore. By "De Ferney."
+                From _Le Voltaire_, January 31.
+
+No. 133. 103. Humanity of the Japanese.
+                From _L'Illustration_.
+
+No. 134. 104. By the Balloon Post. By Alexis Bouvier.
+                From _Le Figaro_, January 29.
+
+No. 135. 105. An Extraordinary Letter from Von Moltke. By Count Von
+        Moltke.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, February 5.
+
+No. 136. 106. Chinese Women. By Lydie Paschkoff.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 137. 107. A Haul at Madagascar in 1717. By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Recits Creoles_.
+
+No. 138. 108. Pierrot. By Guy de Maupassant.
+
+No. 139. 109. My Aunt Minon. By Chas. Baissac.
+                From _Recits Creoles_.
+
+No. 140. 110. An Episode of the War in Soudan. By Victor Cherbuliez.
+                From an address before the _Cinq Academies_.
+
+No. 141. 111. The Punishment of the Unfaithful Lover. By Sacher-Masoch.
+                From "The Mother of God."
+
+No. 142. 112. The Sorceress. The Comte d'Avesnes. By Michelet.
+                From "La Sorciere."
+
+No. 143. 113. The Great Fiddler of the Nineteenth Century. By "L'Homme
+        Masque."
+                From _Le Voltaire_, October 8.
+
+No. 144. 114. The Duello. By Ignotus. From _Le Figaro_, August 31.
+
+No. 145. 115. How Balzac Found Names for his Novels. By Leon Gozlan.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 146. 116. Tchernyschevsky and the Women of Nihilism. By Victor
+        Tissot.
+                From "Les Peres du Nihilisme," in _L'Illustration_.
+
+No. 147. 117. Emile Zola on Style. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 148. 118. The Man of the XVIth Century. By Victorien Sardou.
+                From _Le Figaro_, February 4.
+
+No. 149. 119. The Forest Growing in the Heart of Paris. By Camille
+        Flammarion.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, June 25.
+
+No. 150. 120. The Tomb of Nichelet. By An Old Parisian.
+                From _Le Figaro_, July 10.
+
+No. 151. 121. A Master Wizard. By Un Vieux Parisien.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 6.
+
+No. 152. 122. By Rail Across the Sahara. By Charles de Maurceley.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, January 23 and 27.
+
+No. 153. 123. In the House of Mahomet. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, October 20.
+
+No. 154. 124. The Chinese in Pnom-Penh, Cambodia. By Albert de
+        Chenclos.
+                From _La Revue Liberale_.
+
+No. 155. 125. Algeria. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, June 15.
+
+No. 156. 126. The Drum. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Contes de la Becasse."
+
+No. 157. 127. Henry Charles Read. By Maxime du Camp.
+                From "Souvenirs Litteraires."
+
+No. 158. 128. Recollections of Baudelaire. By Maxime du Camp.
+                From "Souvenirs Litteraires."
+
+No. 159. 129. A Converted Libertine. By Ricardo Palma. (Lima, 1880.)
+
+No. 160. 130. Women of Fashionable Paris Society. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Figaro_, June 27.
+
+No. 161. 131. La Parisienne. By Adrien Marx.
+                From _Le Figaro_, May 13.
+
+No. 162. 132. At Sea. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Contes de la Becasse."
+
+No. 163. 133. "Aunt Ess." By Arnold Mortier.
+                From _Le Figaro's_ "Contes d'Ete," August 23.
+
+No. 164. 134. Pasteur.
+                From _Le Figaro_, November 23.
+
+No. 165. 135. A Ghost. By Parisis.
+                From _Le Voltaire_, October 23.
+
+No. 166. 136. Matrimonial Agencies at Paris. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, April 20.
+
+No. 167. 137. Liszt. By Ignotus.
+                From _Le Figaro_, May 25.
+
+No. 168. 138. The Stranglers of Paris, etc. By George Grison.
+                From _Le Figaro_, May 23.
+
+No. 169. 139. The Lights of the Wedding. By R. M.
+                From _La Epoca_, January 10.
+
+No. 170. 140. The Foundation of Skadra (Scutari). By W. Stephanowitsch.
+                From French translation.
+
+No. 171. 141. The Last Hideous Days of the Flatters Mission.
+                From _Le Figaro_, September 23.
+
+No. 172. 142. The Two Neighbours. By Julia de Asensi.
+                From _La Epoca_, April 18.
+
+No. 173. 143. Candita. By "Almaviva."
+                From _La Epoca_, October 18.
+
+No. 174. 144. A Drunken Lion. By Hector de Callias.
+                From _Le Figaro_, June 30.
+
+No. 175. 145. The Song of Love Triumphant. By Ivan Tourgueneff.
+                From _Le Figaro._
+
+No. 176. 146. A Rich Man's Death. By Emile Zola.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 1.
+
+No. 177. 147. Germanillo. By "Juan Manuel de Capua."
+                From _La Epoca_, December 27.
+
+No. 178. 148. Simon's Papa. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "La Maison
+Tellier."
+
+No. 179. 149. "Las Hechas Y Por Hacer." By Ricardo Palma. (Lima, 1879.)
+
+No. 180. 150. The Bishop's Twenty Thousand Godos. By Ricardo Palma.
+
+No. 181. 151. "Los Postres del Festin." By Ricardo Palma.
+                From _La Raza Latina_, February 29.
+
+No. 182. 152. The Blessed Bread. By Francois Coppee.
+                From _Le Figaro_, March 6.
+
+No. 183. 153. The Invitation to Sleep. By Francois Coppee.
+                From _Le Figaro's_ "Contes d'Ete."
+
+No. 184. 154. Cousin Rosa. By "Almaviva."
+                From _La Epoca_, March 17.
+
+No. 185. 155. The Chemise of Margarita Pareja. By Ricardo Palma.
+                From _La Raza Latina_.
+
+No. 186. 156. The Just Man. By F. Luzel.
+                From Luzel's Collection.
+
+No. 187. 157. Saint Peter's Betrothed. By De Luzel.
+
+No. 188. 158. Fantic Loho. By Luzel.
+                From "Breton Legends."
+
+No. 189. 159. The Adventures of Walter Schnaffs. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Contes de la Becasse."
+
+No. 190. 160. L'Abandounado. By Rene Maizeroy.
+                From "The Love That Bleeds."
+
+No. 191. 161. Flaubert at Sparta. By Maxime du Camp.
+                From _Revue des Deux Mondes_.
+
+No. 192. 162. Daddy Goat and Daddy Tiger. By Pa Lindor.
+                From _Le Courrier des Opelousas_.
+
+No. 193. 163. The Great Chinese Vase. By Edmond de L.
+                From _Le Figaro_, February 17.
+
+No. 194. 164. The Two Porcelain Vases. By Charles Richard.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 195. 165. A Bit of Jewish Folk Lore. By Leopold Kompert.
+                From "Scenes du Ghetto."
+
+No. 196. 166. A Story of the Ghetto. By Leopold Kompert.
+                From "Scenes du Ghetto."
+
+No. 197. 167. A Legend of Rabbi Loeb. By Daniel Stauben.
+
+No. 198. 168. Loulou. By Lucien Griveau.
+
+No. 199. 169. The Cabecilla; the Story of the Carlist War. By Alphonse
+        Daudet.
+
+No. 200. 170. Tried, Condemned, Executed. By P. Didier.
+
+No. 201. 171. The Man with the Golden Brain. By Alphonse Daudet.
+                From "Ballades en Prose."
+
+No. 202. 172. The Death of the Dauphin, etc. By Alphonse Daudet.
+
+No. 203. 173. My First Duel. By Carle de Perrieres.
+                From "Paris-Joyeux."
+
+No. 204. 174. My Two Cats. By Emile Zola.
+
+No. 205. 175. The Khouans. By N. Ney.
+                From _L'Illustration_, July 30.
+
+No. 206. 176. The Dead Wife.
+                After S. Juhens' French translation from Chinese.
+
+No. 207. 177. Scenes of Polish Life. By Krazewski.
+                From "Jermola," _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 208. 178. Memory of Algeria. By Alphonse Daudet.
+                From "Tartarin de Tarascon," _Nouvelle Revue_.
+
+No. 209. 179. Anecdote of Baudelaire. "Les Fantaisites." By Pierre
+        Quiroul.
+                From _Le Figaro_, August 15.
+
+No. 210. 180. Adelaide Neilson. From _L'Illustration_, August 21.
+
+No. 211. 181. A Morning with Baudelaire. By "Theodore de Grave."
+
+No. 212. 182. "L'Enfant de la Balle." By Francois Coppee.
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 213. 183. Poetical Illusions. By Maxime du Camp.
+                From "Souvenirs Litteraires."
+
+No. 214. 184. The Moon's Blessings. By Charles Baudelaire.
+
+No. 215. 185. Patti and Her New Home. By "Adrien Marx."
+                From _Le Figaro_.
+
+No. 216. 186. The Ghostly Mass. By Luzel.
+                From "Veillees Bretonnes."
+
+No. 217. 187. Solitude. By Guy de Maupassant.
+                From "Monsieur Parent."
+
+No. 218. "Fantastics."
+
+    1. "Aida." 2. Hiouen-Thsang. 3. El Vomito. (?) 4. The Devil's
+    Carbuncle. 5. A Hemisphere in a Woman's Hair. 6. The Clock.
+    7. The Fool and Venus. 8. The Stranger.
+
+No. 219. The winter of 1877, Mr. Hearn contributed from New Orleans, a
+series of letters to the Cincinnati _Commercial_ under the name of
+"Ozias Midwinter."
+
+
+                                   V
+
+         MAGAZINE STORIES AND PAPERS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER[44]
+
+    [44] If published also in book-form, the title of the book is
+         given.
+
+(Nos. 220-275)
+
+No. 220. The Scenes of Cable's Romances.
+    _The Century Magazine_, November, 1883, vol. 27 (N. S. Vol. 5),
+        p. 40.
+
+No. 221. Quaint New Orleans and its Habitants.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, December 6, 1884, vol. 28, p. 812.
+
+No. 222. New Orleans Exposition.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, January 3, 1885, vol. 29, p. 14.
+
+No. 223. The Creole Patois.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, January 10, 1885, vol. 29, p. 27.
+
+No. 224. The Creole Patois.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, January 17, 1885, vol. 29, p. 43.
+
+No. 225. New Orleans Exposition.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, January 31, 1885, vol. 29, p. 71
+
+No. 226. The East at New Orleans.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, March 7, 1885, vol. 29, p. 155.
+
+No. 227. Mexico at New Orleans.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, March 14, 1885, vol. 29, p. 167.
+
+No. 228. The New Orleans Exposition. Some Oriental Curiosities.
+    _Harper's Bazaar_, March 28, 1885, vol. 18, p. 201.
+
+No. 229. The New Orleans Exposition. Notes of a Curiosity Hunter.
+    _Harper's Bazaar_, April 4, 1885, vol. 18, p. 218
+
+No. 230. The Government Exhibit at New Orleans.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, April 11, 1885, vol. 29, p. 234.
+
+No. 231. The Legend of Tchi-Niu. A Chinese Story of Filial Piety.
+    _Harper's Bazaar_, October 31, 1885, vol. 18, p. 703. "Some Chinese
+        Ghosts," 1887.
+
+No. 232. The Last of the Voudoos.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, November 7, 1885, vol. 29, p. 726.
+
+No. 233. New Orleans Superstitions.
+    _Harper's Weekly_, December 25, 1886, vol. 30, p. 843.
+
+No. 234. Rabyah's Last Ride. A tradition of Pre-Islamic Arabia.
+    _Harper's Bazaar_, April 2, 1887, vol. 20, p. 239.
+
+No. 235. Chita.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, April, 1888, vol. 76, p. 733. "Chita," 1890.
+
+No. 236. A Midsummer Trip to the West Indies.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, July-September, 1888, vol. 77, pp. 209, 327,
+        614. "Two Years in the French West Indies," 1890.
+
+No. 237. La Verette and the Carnival in St. Pierre, Martinique.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, October, 1888, vol. 77, p. 737. "Two Years in
+        the French West Indies," 1890.
+
+No. 238. Les Porteuses.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, July, 1889, vol. 79, p. 299. "Two Years in the
+        French West Indies," 1890.
+
+No. 239. At Grand Anse.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, November, 1889, vol. 79, p. 844. "Two Years in
+        the French West Indies," 1890.
+
+No. 240. A Ghost.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, December, 1889, vol. 80, p. 116.
+
+No. 241. Youma.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, January-February, 1890, vol. 80, pp. 218, 408.
+        "Youma," 1890.
+
+No. 242. Karma.
+    _Lippincott's Magazine_, May, 1890, vol. 45, p. 667.
+
+No. 243. A Study of Half-Breed Races in the West Indies.
+    _The Cosmopolitan_, June, 1890, vol. 9, p. 167.
+
+No. 244. West Indian Society of Many Colourings.
+    _The Cosmopolitan_, July, 1890, vol. 9, p. 337.
+
+No. 245. A Winter Journey to Japan.
+    _Harper's Monthly_, November, 1890, vol. 81, p. 860.
+
+No. 246. At the Market of the Dead.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1891, vol. 68, p. 382. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 247. The Chief City of the Province of the Gods.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1891, vol. 68, p. 621. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 248. The Most Ancient Shrine in Japan.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1891, vol. 68, p. 780. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 249. In a Japanese Garden.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1892, vol. 70, p. 14. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 250. Of a Dancing Girl.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1893, vol. 71, p. 332. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 251. The Japanese Smile.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1893, vol. 71, p. 634. "Glimpses of
+        Unfamiliar Japan," 1894.
+
+No. 252. Of the Eternal Feminine.
+    _Atlantic Monthly,_ December, 1893, vol. 72, p. 761. "Out of the
+        East," 1895.
+
+No. 253. The Red Bridal.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1894, vol. 74, p. 74. "Out of the East,"
+        1895.
+
+No. 254. At Hakata.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1894, vol. 74, p. 510. "Out of the
+        East," 1895.
+
+No. 255. From my Japanese Diary.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1894, vol. 74, p. 609.
+
+No. 256. A Wish Fulfilled.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1895, vol. 75, p. 90. "Out of the
+        East," 1895.
+
+No. 257. In the Twilight of the Gods.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1895, vol. 75, p. 791. "Kokoro," 1896.
+
+No. 258. The Genius of Japanese Civilization.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1895, vol. 76, p. 449. "Kokoro," 1896.
+
+No. 259. After the War.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1895, vol. 76, p. 599. "Kokoro," 1896.
+
+No. 260. Notes from a Travelling Diary.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1895, vol. 76, p. 815. "Kokoro," 1896.
+
+No. 261. China and the Western World.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1896, vol. 77, p. 450.
+
+No. 262. A Trip to Kyoto.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1896, vol. 77, p. 613. "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 263. About Faces in Japanese Art.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1896, vol. 78, p. 219. "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 264. Out of the Street: Japanese Folk-Songs.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1896, vol. 78, p. 347. "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 265. Dust.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1896, vol. 78, p. 642, "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 266. A Living God.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1896, vol. 78, p. 833. "Gleanings in
+        Buddha-Fields," 1897.
+
+No. 267. Notes of a Trip to Izumo.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1897, vol. 79, p. 678.
+
+No. 268. The Story of Mimi-Nashi Hoichi.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1903, vol. 92, p. 237. "Kwaidan," 1904.
+
+No. 269. The Dream of Akinosuke.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1904, vol. 93, p. 340. "Kwaidan," 1904.
+
+No. 270. A Letter from Japan.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1904, vol. 94, p. 625. "The Romance of
+        the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 271. The Story of Ito Norisuke.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1905, vol. 95, p. 98. "The Romance of
+        the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 272. Stranger than Fiction.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1905, vol. 95, p. 494. "The Romance of
+        the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 273. The Romance of the Milky Way.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1905, vol. 96, p. 238. "The Romance of
+        the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 274. Ultimate Questions.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1905, vol. 96, p. 391. "The Romance
+        of the Milky Way," 1905.
+
+No. 275. Two Memories of a Childhood.
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1906, vol. 98, p. 445.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+           ARTICLES BY HEARN TRANSLATED IN FOREIGN MAGAZINES
+
+                             (Nos. 276-280)
+
+
+No. 276. Le Sourire japonais.
+    Traduction de Madame Leon Raynal, _Revue de Paris_, July 15, 1900,
+        Year 7, vol. 4, p. 429.
+
+No. 277. Une Danseuse japonais.
+    Traduction de Madame Leon Raynal, _Revue de Paris,_ March 15, 1901,
+        Year 8, vol. 2, p. 330.
+
+No. 278. Le Nirvana, etude de Bouddhisme Synthetique.
+
+    Traduite par M. & Mme. Charles-Marie Garnier, _Revue de Metaphysique
+        et de Morale_, 1903, Year 11, p. 352.
+
+No. 279. Kitsonne (superstition japonaise).
+    Traduction de Madame Leon Raynal, _Revue de Paris_, November 1,
+        1903, Year 10, vol. 6, p. 188.
+
+No. 280. Cimetieres et Temples japonais (Jizo).
+    Traduction de Madame Leon Raynal, _Revue de Paris,_ April 15, 1904,
+        Year 11, vol. 2, p. 829.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                           UNPUBLISHED WORKS
+
+                             (Nos. 281-282)
+
+
+                                No. 281.
+
+1885. AVATAR. Par Gautier, Translation by Lafcadio Hearn. Unable to find
+a publisher, Hearn destroyed the manuscript.
+
+
+                                No. 282.
+
+THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY, by Gustave Flaubert; translated from the
+Fifth Paris Edition, Vols. I-II. (Manuscript copy in the possession of
+Dr. Gould.) The half-page containing, at one time, probably, the
+translator's name, is cut off. The title-page is preceded by a
+half-page, printed, of directions to the printer, regarding size of
+type, etc.
+
+The volumes are 6 x 9-1/2 inches, opening at the end. The writing is in
+pencil, and the letters large, even for an ordinary handwriting, but
+remarkably so for that of Hearn, who, when writing with a pen, made his
+letters very small. The paper has the yellow tint habitually used by
+him.
+
+Volume I contains 364 pages; Volume II, numbered consecutively, the
+balance of a total of 679 pages. Five pages of _addenda_ follow,
+containing notes upon passages, with original texts, etc., which the
+American publisher would hardly dare to put forth.
+
+Hearn's synopsis (printed) of the "St. Anthony" accompanies the text of
+the translation, and is reproduced herewith:--
+
+
+                                ARGUMENT
+
+                                FRAILTY
+
+Sunset in the desert. Enfeebled by prolonged fasting, the hermit finds
+himself unable to concentrate his mind upon holy things. His thoughts
+wander: memories of youth evoke regrets that his relaxed will can no
+longer find strength to suppress;--and, remembrance begetting
+remembrance, his fancy leads him upon dangerous ground. He dreams of his
+flight from home,--of Ammonaria, his sister's playmate,--of his misery
+in the waste,--his visit to Alexandria with the blind monk Didymus,--the
+unholy sights of the luxurious city.
+
+Involuntarily he yields to the nervous dissatisfaction growing upon him.
+He laments his solitude, his joylessness, his poverty, the obscurity of
+his life: grace departs from him; hope burns low within his heart.
+Suddenly revolting against his weakness, he seeks refuge from
+distraction in the study of the Scriptures.
+
+Vain effort! An invisible hand turns the leaves, placing perilous texts
+before his eyes. He dreams of the Maccabees slaughtering their enemies,
+and desires that he might do likewise with the Arians of Alexandria;--he
+becomes inspired with admiration of King Nebuchadnezzar;--he meditates
+voluptuously upon the visit of Sheba's queen to Solomon;--discovers a
+text in the Acts of the Apostles antagonistic to principles of monkish
+asceticism,--indulges in reveries regarding the riches of the Biblical
+Kings and holy men. The Tempter comes to tempt him with evil
+hallucinations for which the Saint's momentary frailty has paved the
+way; and with the Evil One comes also--
+
+
+                         THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
+
+Phantom gold is piled up to excite Covetousness; shadowy banquets appear
+to evoke Gluttony. The scene shifts to aid the temptations of Anger and
+of Pride....
+
+Anthony finds himself in Alexandria, at the head of a wild army of monks
+slaughtering the heretics and the pagans, without mercy for age or sex.
+In fantastic obedience to the course of his fancy while reading the
+Scriptures a while before, and like an invisible echo of his evil
+thoughts, the scene changes again. Alexandria is transformed into
+Constantinople.
+
+Anthony finds himself the honoured of the Emperor. He beholds the vast
+circus in all its splendour, the ocean of faces, the tumult of
+excitement. Simultaneously he beholds his enemies degraded to the
+condition of slaves, toiling in the stables of Constantine. He feels joy
+in the degradation of the Fathers of Nicaea. Then all is transformed.
+
+It is no longer the splendour of Constantinople he beholds under the
+luminosity of a Greek day; but the prodigious palace of Nebuchadnezzar
+by night. He beholds the orgies, the luxuries, the abominations;--and
+the spirit of Pride enters triumphantly into him as the spirit of
+Nebuchadnezzar....
+
+Awakening as from a dream, he finds himself again before his hermitage.
+A vast caravan approaches, halts; and the Queen of Sheba descends to
+tempt the Saint with the deadliest of all temptations. Her beauty is
+enhanced by Oriental splendour of adornment; her converse is a song of
+witchcraft. The Saint remains firm.... The Seven Deadly Sins depart from
+him.
+
+
+                            THE HERESIARCHS
+
+But now the Tempter assumes a subtler form. Under the guise of a former
+disciple of Anthony,--Hilarion,--the demon, while pretending to seek
+instruction seeks to poison the mind of Anthony with hatred of the
+fathers of the church. He repeats all the scandals amassed by
+ecclesiastical intriguers, all the calumnies created by malice;--he
+cites texts only to foment doubt, and quotes the Evangels only to make
+confusion. Under the pretext of obtaining mental enlightenment from the
+wisest of men, he induces Anthony to enter with him into a spectral
+basilica, wherein are assembled all the Heresiarchs of the third
+century. The hermit is confounded by the multitude of tenets,--horrified
+by the blasphemies and abominations of Elkes, Corpocrates, Valentinus,
+Manes, Cerdo,--disgusted by the perversions of the Paternians,
+Marcosians, Serpentians,--bewildered by the apocryphal Gospels of Eve
+and of Judas, of the Lord and of Thomas.
+
+And Hilarion grows taller.
+
+
+                              THE MARTYRS
+
+Anthony finds himself in the dungeons of a vast amphitheatre, among
+Christians condemned to the wild beasts. By this hallucination the
+tempter would prove to the Saint that martyrdom is not always suffered
+for purest motives. Anthony finds the martyrs possessed of bigotry and
+insincerity. He sees many compelled to die against their will; many who
+would forswear their faith could it avail them aught. He beholds
+heretics die for their heterodoxy more nobly than orthodox believers.
+
+He finds himself transported to the tombs of the martyrs. He witnesses
+the meeting of Christian women at the sepulchres. He beholds the
+touching ceremonies of prayer change into orgie,--lamentations give
+place to amorous dalliance.
+
+
+                             THE MAGICIANS
+
+Then the Tempter seeks to shake Anthony's faith in the excellence and
+evidence of miracles. He assumes the form of a Hindoo Brahmin,
+terminating a life of wondrous holiness by self-cremation;--he appears
+as Simon Magus and Helen of Tyre,--as Apollonius of Tyana, greatest of
+all thaumaturgists, who claim superiority to Christ. All the marvels
+related by Philostratus are embodied in the converse of Apollonius and
+Damis.
+
+
+                                THE GODS
+
+Hilarion reappears, taller than ever, growing more gigantic in
+proportion to the increasing weakness of the Saint. Standing beside
+Anthony he evokes all the deities of the antique world. They defile
+before him a marvellous panorama;--Gods of Egypt and India, Chaldaea and
+Hellas, Babylon and Ultima Thule,--monstrous and multiform, phallic and
+ithyphallic, fantastic and obscene. Some intoxicate by their beauty;
+others appal by their foulness. The Buddha recounts the story of his
+wondrous life; Venus displays the rounded daintiness of her nudity; Isis
+utters awful soliloquy. Lastly the phantom of Jehovah appears, as the
+shadow of a god passing away for ever.
+
+Suddenly the stature of Hilarion towers to the stars; he assumes the
+likeness and luminosity of Lucifer; he announces himself as--
+
+
+                                SCIENCE
+
+And Anthony is lifted upon mighty wings and borne away beyond the world,
+above the solar system, above the starry arch of the Milky Way. All
+future discoveries of Astronomy are revealed to him. He is tempted by
+the revelation of innumerable worlds,--by the refutation of all his
+previous ideas of the nature of the Universe,--by the enigmas of
+infinity,--by all the marvels that conflict with faith. Even in the
+night of the Immensity the demon renews the temptation of reason;
+Anthony wavers upon the verge of pantheism.
+
+
+                             LUST AND DEATH
+
+Anthony, abandoned by the Spirit of Science, comes to himself in the
+desert. Then the Tempter returns under a two-fold aspect: as the Spirit
+of Fornication and the Spirit of Destruction. The latter urges him to
+suicide,--the former to indulgence of sense. They inspire him with
+strong fancies of palingenesis, of the illusion of death, of the
+continuity of life. The pantheistic temptation intensifies.
+
+
+                              THE MONSTERS
+
+Anthony in reveries meditates upon the monstrous symbols painted upon
+the walls of certain ancient temples. Could he know their meaning he
+might learn also something of the secret lien between Matter and
+Thought. Forthwith a phantasmagoria of monsters commence to pass before
+his eyes:--the Sphinx and the Chimera, the Blemmyes and Astomi, the
+Cynocephali and all creatures of mythologic creation. He beholds the
+fabulous beings of Oriental imagining,--the abnormities described by
+Pliny and Herodotus,--the fantasticalities to be adopted later by
+heraldry,--the grotesqueries of future mediaeval illumination made
+animate;--the goblinries and foulnesses of superstitious fancy,--the
+Witches' Sabbath of abominations.
+
+
+                             METAMORPHOSIS
+
+The multitude of monsters melts away; the land changes into an Ocean;
+the creatures of the briny abysses appear. And the waters in turn also
+change; seaweeds are transformed to herbs, forests of coral give place
+to forests of trees, polypous life changes to vegetation. Metals
+crystallize; frosts effloresce, plants become living things, inanimate
+matter takes animate form, monads vibrate, the pantheism of nature makes
+itself manifest. Anthony feels a delirious desire to unite himself with
+the Spirit of Universal Being....
+
+The vision vanishes. The sun arises. The face of Christ is revealed. The
+temptation has passed; Anthony kneels in prayer.
+
+                                                                   L. H.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+                           BOOKS ABOUT HEARN
+
+                             (Nos. 283-284)
+
+
+                                No. 283.
+
+1906. THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN. By Elizabeth Bisland. With
+Illustrations. In two volumes. (Publisher's Vignette.) Boston and New
+York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company (The Riverside Press, Cambridge),
+1906.
+
+8vo., 2 vols., pp. (VIII), 475, 554, black cloth, Japanese characters on
+small red disc, gold lettering, gilt top.
+
+        Volume I.
+    (V-VIII) Preface by E. B.
+
+Contents:--
+
+    Introductory Sketch
+        I. Boyhood
+        II. The Artist's Apprenticeship
+        III. The Master Workman
+        IV. The Last Stage
+
+    Letters
+
+    List of Illustrations.
+
+        Volume II.
+
+    List of Illustrations.
+
+    Letters (continued)
+
+    Pages 519-529 Appendix.
+
+    Pages 533-554 Index.
+
+
+Articles and Reviews:--
+    _Academy, The_, January 26, 1907, vol. 72, p. 88.
+    _Athenaeum, The_, February 2, 1907, p. 126.
+    _Current Literature_, January, 1907, vol. 42, p. 49. Dunbar, Olivia
+        Howard,
+    _North American Review_, February 15, 1907, vol. 184, p. 417.
+        Greenslet, Ferris,
+    _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1907, vol. 99, p. 261. Godkin, F. W.,
+    _The Dial_, December 16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447. Huneker, James,
+    _New York Times, The_, December 1, 1906, vol. 11, p. 817.
+    _Nation, The_, November 29, 1906, vol. 83, p. 464.
+    _New York Evening Post, The_, December 1, 1906.
+    _New York Tribune, The_, December 5, 1906. Tunison, J. S.,
+    _Dayton (Ohio) Journal, The_, December 25, 1906.
+
+
+                                No. 284.
+
+1907. LETTERS FROM THE RAVEN, being the Correspondence of Lafcadio Hearn
+with Henry Watkin, with Introduction and critical comment by the editor,
+Milton Bronner. (Vignette drawing of the Raven.) New York: Brentano's,
+1907.
+
+12mo., pp. 201, half cloth brown. Ornamental black and gold back, gilt
+top.
+
+Contents:--
+
+Introduction Letters from the Raven Letters to a Lady Letters of Ozias
+Midwinter
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+             ARTICLES AND CRITICAL REVIEWS ABOUT HEARN
+
+                            (Nos. 285-388)
+
+
+ACADEMY, The
+
+    No. 285. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 13,
+        1897, vol. 52, p. 395.
+
+    No. 286. "Koizumi Yakumo--Lafcadio Hearn," by N. C., April 13, 1901,
+        vol. 60, p. 328.
+
+    No. 287. Sketch and list of works, October 8, 1904, vol. 67, p. 305.
+
+    No. 288. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by W.
+        Teignmouth Shore, December 10, 1904, vol. 67, p. 584.
+
+    No. 289. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December 2,
+        1905, vol. 69, p. 1257.
+
+    No. 290. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        January 26, 1907, vol. 72, p. 88.
+
+
+AMENOMORI, NOBUSHIGE
+
+    No. 291. _Atlantic Monthly_, "Lafcadio Hearn, the Man," October,
+        1905, vol. 96, p. 510.
+
+
+AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, The
+
+    No. 292. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by
+        Edmund Buckley, of the University of Chicago, January, 1905,
+        vol. 10, p. 545.
+
+
+AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS, The
+
+    No. 293. "Lafcadio Hearn, Interpretator of Japan," November, 1904,
+        vol. 30, p. 561.
+
+
+ATHENAEUM, The
+
+    No. 294. A review of "Youma," August 30, 1890, p. 284.
+
+    No. 295. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," November 10,
+        1894, p. 634.
+
+    No. 296. A review of "Out of the East," August 24, 1895, p. 249.
+
+    No. 297. A review of "Kokoro," August 8, 1896, p. 185.
+
+    No. 298. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 13,
+        1897, p. 664.
+
+    No. 299. A review of "Exotics and Retrospectives," January 6, 1900,
+        p. 11.
+
+    No. 300. A review of "Shadowings," January 5, 1901, p. 15.
+
+    No. 301. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," December 21, 1901, p.
+        833.
+
+    No. 302. A review of "Kotto," January 17, 1903, p. 77.
+
+    No. 303. A review of "Kwaidan," September 17, 1904, p. 373.
+
+    No. 304. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," March 31, 1906,
+        p. 389.
+
+    No. 305. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        February 2, 1907, p. 126.
+
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY, The
+
+    No. 306. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," and "Out of the
+        East," by Mrs. M. McN. Scott, June, 1895, vol. 75, p. 830.
+
+    No. 307. A review of "In Ghostly Japan," by Jukichi Inouye,
+        September, 1900, vol. 86, p. 399.
+
+    No. 308. "Lafcadio Hearn: The Meeting of Three Ways," by Paul Elmer
+        More, February, 1903, vol. 91, p. 204.
+
+    No. 309. A review of "Kwaidan," June, 1904, vol. 93, p. 857.
+
+    No. 291. "Lafcadio Hearn: the Man," by Nobushige Amenomori, October,
+        1905, vol. 96, p. 510.
+
+    No. 310. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Ferris Greenslet, February, 1907, vol.
+        99, p. 261.
+
+
+AUTHOR, The
+
+    No. 311. Sketch by O. P. Caylor (Reprinted from an article in the
+        _Philadelphia North American_), January 15, 1890, vol. 2, p. 51.
+
+
+BOOKBUYER, The
+
+    No. 312. "Lafcadio Hearn," by J. S. Tunison, May, 1896, vol. 13, p.
+        209.
+
+    No. 313. A review of "Kokoro," by Tozo Takayanagi, May, 1896, vol.
+        13, p. 229.
+
+    No. 314. "Through the Medium of a Temperament," by John Harrison
+        Wagner, June, 1898, vol. 16, p. 437.
+
+    No. 315. A review of "Kotto," December, 1902, vol. 25, p. 416.
+
+
+BOOKMAN, The
+
+    No. 316. A review of "Shadowings," by F. T. C., February, 1901, vol.
+        12, p. 582.
+
+    No. 317. A review of "Kwaidan," November, 1904, vol. 20, p. 159.
+
+    No. 318. "The Late Lafcadio Hearn," November, 1904, vol. 20, p. 190.
+
+
+BUCKLEY, EDMUND
+
+    No. 292. _The American Journal of Sociology_, a review of "Japan: an
+        Attempt at Interpretation," January, 1905, vol. 10, P. 545.
+
+
+CAYLOR, O. P.
+
+    No. 311. _The Author_, January 15, 1890, vol. 2, p. 51.
+
+
+CHAUTAUQUAN, The
+
+    No. 319. Short Sketch of Hearn, and reprints "Fragment,"
+        "Juiroku-zakura," "Riki-Baka," "Yuki-Onna," "The Screen Maiden,"
+        September, 1905, vol. 42, p. 245.
+
+
+CHICAGO EVENING POST, The
+
+    No. 320. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Francis Hackett.
+
+
+COCKERILL, COLONEL JOHN A.
+
+    No. 321. _Current Literature_, "Lafcadio Hearn: the author of
+        'Kokoro.'" (Reprinted from the New York _Herald_.) June, 1896,
+        vol. 19, p. 476.
+
+
+COLEMAN, JR., CHARLES W.
+
+    No. 322. _Harper's Monthly_, "The Recent Movement in Southern
+    Literature," May, 1887, vol. 74, p. 855.
+
+
+CRITIC, The
+
+    No. 323. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," April 9, 1898,
+        vol. 29, p. 248.
+
+    No. 324. "Mr. Hearn's Japanese Shadowings," by Adachi Kinnosuke,
+        January, 1901, vol. 38, p. 29.
+
+    No. 325. "Lafcadio Hearn's Funeral," by Margaret Emerson, January,
+        1905, vol. 46, p. 34.
+
+    No. 326. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by Wm.
+        Elliot Griffis, February, 1905, vol. 46, p. 185.
+
+    No. 327. "Hearn's Stories of Old Japan," by W. E. Griffis, March,
+        1906, vol. 48, p. 222.
+
+    No. 328. "Letters of a Poet to a Musician," by Henry E. Krehbiel,
+        April, 1906, vol. 48, p. 309.
+
+
+CURRENT LITERATURE
+
+    No. 321. "Lafcadio Hearn: the author of 'Kokoro,'" by Colonel John
+        A. Cockerill. (Reprinted from the New York _Herald_.) June,
+        1896, vol. 19, p. 476.
+
+    No. 329. "A Glimpse of Lafcadio Hearn," October, 1899, vol. 26, p.
+        310.
+
+    No. 330. "Lafcadio Hearn: a Dreamer," by Yone Noguchi. (Reprinted
+        from the _National Magazine_.) June, 1905, vol. 38, p. 521.
+
+    No. 331. "The Mystic Dream of Lafcadio Hearn," January, 1907, vol.
+        42, p. 49.
+
+
+DAYTON, OHIO, JOURNAL, The
+
+    No. 332. Editorial on Lafcadio Hearn, September 30, 1904.
+
+    No. 333. "Lafcadio Hearn," by J. S. Tunison, December 25, 1906.
+
+
+DIAL, The
+
+    No. 334. A review of "Exotics and Retrospectives," July 16, 1899,
+        vol. 27, p. 52.
+
+    No. 335. A review of "Shadowings," January 1, 1901, vol. 30, p. 19.
+
+    No. 336. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," by Wm.
+        Elliot Griffis, December 1, 1904, vol. 36, p. 368.
+
+    No. 337. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," November 1,
+        1905, vol. 39, p. 276.
+
+    No. 338. "Self-Revelation of Lafcadio Hearn," by F. W. Godkin,
+        December 16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447.
+
+
+DUNBAR, OLIVIA HOWARD
+
+    No. 339. _North American Review_, a review of "The Life and Letters
+        of Lafcadio Hearn," February 15, 1907, vol. 184, p. 417.
+
+
+EMERSON, MARGARET
+
+    No. 325. _The Critic_, "Lafcadio Hearn's Funeral," January, 1905,
+        vol. 46, p. 34.
+
+
+EVENING SUN, The New York
+
+    No. 340. "A Native's Tribute to the Dead American Poet of Japan,"
+        November 11, 1904.
+
+
+EVENING POST, The New York
+
+    No. 341. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        December 1, 1906.
+
+
+EVENING TRANSCRIPT, The Boston
+
+        No. 342. A review of "Chita," November 2, 1889.
+
+
+F. T. C.
+
+    No. 316. _The Bookman_, a review of "Shadowings," February, 1901,
+        vol. 12, p. 582.
+
+
+FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, The
+
+    No. 343. "Lafcadio Hearn: a Study of his Personality and Art," by
+        George M. Gould, October-November, 1906, vol. 86, pp. 685, 881.
+
+
+GODKIN, F. W.
+
+    No. 338. _The Dial_, "Self-Revelation of Lafcadio Hearn," December
+        16, 1906, vol. 41, p. 447.
+
+
+GOULD, GEORGE M.
+
+    No. 343. _Putnam's Monthly_, "Lafcadio Hearn: a Study of his
+        Personality and Art," October-November, 1906, vol. 1, pp. 97,
+        156. The Same, _Fortnightly Review_, October-November, 1906,
+        vol. 86, pp.685, 881.
+
+
+GREENSLET, FERRIS
+
+    No. 310. _Atlantic Monthly_, "Lafcadio Hearn," February, 1907, vol.
+        99, p. 261.
+
+
+GRIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT
+
+    No. 336. _The Dial_, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at
+        Interpretation," December 1, 1904, vol. 36, p. 308.
+
+    No. 326. _The Critic_, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at
+        Interpretation," February, 1905, vol. 46, p. 185.
+
+    No. 327. _The Critic_, "Hearn's Stories of Old Japan," March, 1906,
+        vol. 48, p. 222.
+
+
+HACKETT, FRANCIS
+
+    No. 320. Chicago _Evening Post_, "Lafcadio Hearn."
+
+
+HARPER'S MONTHLY
+
+    No. 322. "The Recent Movement in Southern Literature," by Charles W.
+        Coleman, Jr., May, 1887, vol. 74, p. 855.
+
+
+HUNEKER, JAMES
+
+    No. 344. The New York _Times_, "Exotic Lafcadio Hearn: The Life and
+        Letters of a Master of Nuance--Elizabeth Bisland's Sympathetic
+        Biography," December 1, 1906, vol. 11, p. 817.
+
+
+HUTSON, CHARLES WOODWARD
+
+    No. 345. _Poet-Lore_ "The English of Lafcadio Hearn," Spring, 1905,
+        vol. 16, p. 53.
+
+
+INDEPENDENT, The
+
+    No. 346. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 24,
+        1898, vol. 50, p. 1508.
+
+    No. 347. "An Interpreter of the East" (A review of "Japan: an
+        Attempt at Interpretation"), October 27, 1904, vol. 57, p. 976.
+
+    No. 348. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December 21,
+        1905, vol. 59, p. 1478.
+
+
+INOUYE, JUKICHI
+
+    No. 307. _Atlantic Monthly_, a review of "In Ghostly Japan,"
+        September, 1900, vol. 86, p. 399.
+
+
+INTERNATIONAL STUDIO, The
+
+    No. 349. A review of "Stories and Sketches of Japan," 1905, vol. 25,
+        p. XL.
+
+
+KENNARD, NINA H.
+
+    No. 350. _Nineteenth Century and After_, "Lafcadio Hearn," January,
+        1906, vol. 59, p. 135.
+
+
+KINNOSUKE, ADACHI
+
+    No. 324. _The Critic_, "Mr. Hearn's Japanese Shadowings," January,
+        1901, vol. 38, p. 29.
+
+
+KREHBIEL, HENRY E.
+
+    No. 328. _The Critic_, "Letters of a Poet to a Musician," April,
+        1906, vol. 48, p. 309.
+
+    No. 351. The New York _Tribune_, "Hearn and Folk-Lore Music."
+
+
+LITERARY WORLD, The
+
+    No. 352. A review of "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard," February 15,
+        1890, vol. 21, p. 59.
+
+    No. 353. A review of "One of Cleopatra's Nights," February 14, 1891,
+        vol. 22, p. 56.
+
+    No. 354. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," October 20,
+        1894, vol. 25, p. 347.
+
+    No. 355. A review of "Out of the East," April 20, 1895, vol. 26, p.
+        123.
+
+    No. 356. A review of "Kokoro," April 18, 1896, vol. 27, p. 116.
+
+    No. 357. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 13,
+        1897, vol. 28, p. 389.
+
+    No. 358. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," December 1, 1901, vol.
+        32, p. 207.
+
+
+LIVING AGE, The
+
+    No. 359. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Robert Young, March 23, 1907, vol.
+        252, p. 760. (Reprinted from the _Speaker_.)
+
+
+MATHER, JR., F. J.
+
+    No. 360. _The Nation_, "Lafcadio Hearn on Style" (editorial),
+        December 6, 1906, vol. 83, p. 478.
+
+
+MESSENGER, The
+
+    No. 361. "Mr. Lafcadio Hearn on the Jesuit Missions in Japan," by
+        Herbert Thurston, S. J., January, 1906, vol. 45, p. 1.
+
+
+MORE, PAUL ELMER
+
+    No. 308. _Atlantic Monthly_, "Lafcadio Hearn: the Meeting of Three
+        Ways," February, 1903, vol. 91, p. 204.
+
+
+NATION, The
+
+    No. 362. A review of "Gombo Zhebes," April 23, 1885, vol. 40, p.
+        349.
+
+    No. 363. A review of "Some Chinese Ghosts," May 26, 1887, vol. 44,
+        p. 456.
+
+    No. 364. A review of "Youma," May 7, 1891, vol. 52, p. 385.
+
+    No. 365. A review of "Kokoro," July 9, 1896, vol. 63, p. 35.
+
+    No. 366. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," February 3, 1898,
+        vol. 66, p. 97.
+
+    No. 367. A review of "Shadowings," November 8, 1900, vol. 71, p.
+        372.
+
+    No. 368. A review of "A Japanese Miscellany," January 9, 1902, vol.
+        74, p. 39.
+
+    No. 369. A review of "Kotto," March 26, 1903, vol. 76, p. 254.
+
+    No. 370. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," December
+        8, 1904, vol. 79, p. 465.
+
+    No. 371. A review of "Stories and Sketches of Japan," January 26,
+        1905, vol. 80, p. 68.
+
+    No. 372. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," December 21,
+        1905, vol. 81, p. 510.
+
+    No. 373. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        November 29, 1906, vol. 83, p. 464.
+
+    No. 360. "Lafcadio Hearn on Style" (editorial), by F. J. Mather,
+        Jr., December 6, 1906, vol. 83, p. 478.
+
+
+NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER, The
+
+    No. 350. "Lafcadio Hearn," by Nina H. Kennard, January, 1906, vol.
+        59, p. 135.
+
+
+NOGUCHI, YONE
+
+    No. 330. _Current Literature_, "Lafcadio Hearn: a Dreamer."
+        (Reprinted from the _National Magazine_.) June, 1905, vol. 38,
+        p. 521.
+
+
+NORTH AMERICAN, The
+
+    No. 339. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn," by
+        Olivia Howard Dunbar, February 15, 1907, vol. 184, p. 417.
+
+
+OUTLOOK, The
+
+    No. 374. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," October 16, 1897,
+        vol. 57, p. 435.
+
+    No. 375. A review of "The Romance of the Milky Way," November 9,
+        1906, vol. 84, p. 503.
+
+
+POET-LORE
+
+    No. 345. "The English of Lafcadio Hearn," by Charles Woodward
+        Hutson, Spring, 1905, vol. 16, p. 53.
+
+
+PUBLIC OPINION
+
+    No. 376. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 25,
+        1897, vol. 23, p. 694.
+
+    No. 377. A review of "Shadowings," October 18, 1900, vol. 29, p.
+        504.
+
+    No. 378. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," October
+        27, 1904. vol. 37, p. 537.
+
+
+PUTNAM'S MONTHLY
+
+    No. 343. "Lafcadio Hearn: A Study of his Personality and Art," by
+        George M. Gould, October-November, 1906, vol. I, pp. 97, 156.
+
+
+SCOTT, MRS. M. MCN.
+
+    No. 306. _Atlantic Monthly_, a review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar
+        Japan," and "Out of the East," June, 1895, vol. 75, p. 830.
+
+
+SHORE, W. TEIGNMOUTH
+
+    No. 288. _Academy_, a review of "Japan: an Attempt at
+        Interpretation," December 10, 1904, vol. 67, p. 584.
+
+
+SPECTATOR, The
+
+    No. 379. A review of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," November 17,
+        1894, vol. 73, p. 698.
+
+    No. 380. A review of "Out of the East," October 12, 1895, vol. 75,
+        p.459.
+
+    No. 381. A review of "Kokoro," May 23, 1896, vol. 76, p. 739.
+
+    No. 382. A review of "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields," November 20,
+        1897, vol. 79, p. 736.
+
+    No. 383. A review of "Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation," January
+        14, 1905, vol. 94, p. 54.
+
+    TAKAYANAGI, TOZO
+
+    No. 313. _The Book Buyer_, a review of "Kokoro," May, 1896, vol. 13,
+        p. 229.
+
+
+THURSTON, S. J., Herbert
+
+    No. 361. _The Messenger_, "Mr. Lafcadio Hearn on the Jesuit Missions
+        in Japan," January, 1906, vol. 45, p. 1.
+
+
+TIMES-DEMOCRAT, The New Orleans
+
+    No. 384. "A Strange Career," August 5, 1906.
+
+    No. 385. "Lafcadio Hearn and His Friends," August 20, 1906.
+
+    No. 386. "Silken Fetters," May 26, 1907.
+
+
+TIMES, The New York
+
+    No. 387. A review of "Two Years in the French West Indies,"
+        September 1, 1890.
+
+    No. 344. "Exotic Lafcadio Hearn: The Life and Letters of a Master of
+        Nuance--Elizabeth Bisland's Sympathetic Biography," by James
+        Huneker, December 1, 1906, vol. 11, p. 817.
+
+
+TRIBUNE, The New York
+
+    No. 388. A review of "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn,"
+        December 5, 1906.
+
+    No. 351. "Hearn and Folk-Lore Music," by H. E. Krehbiel.
+
+
+TUNISON, J. S.
+
+    No. 312. _The Book Buyer_, "Lafcadio Hearn," May, 1896, vol. 13, p.
+        209.
+
+    No. 333. _The Dayton (Ohio) Journal_, "Lafcadio Hearn," December 25,
+        1906.
+
+
+WAGNER, JOHN HARRISON
+
+    No. 314. _The Book Buyer_, "Through the Medium of a Temperament,"
+        June, 1898, vol. 16, p. 437.
+
+
+YOUNG, ROBERT
+
+    No. 359. _The Living Age_, "Lafcadio Hearn," March 23, 1907, vol.
+        252, p. 760.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+            FOREIGN ARTICLES AND CRITICAL REVIEWS UPON HEARN
+
+                             (Nos. 389-398)
+
+
+                                 DANISH
+
+NYA PRESSEN
+
+    No. 389. "Ur en foerfattares lif," af Konni Zilliacus, February 2,
+        1899.
+
+
+                                 FRENCH
+
+BENTZON, TH.
+
+    No. 390. _Revue des deux Mondes_, "Un Peintre du Japon: Lafcadio
+        Hearn,"[45] June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.
+
+
+CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE
+
+    No. 391. "Impressions sur la vie japonaise," par Felicien Challaye,
+        June, 1902, 3rd Series, 17th Cahier.
+
+
+CHALLAYE, FELICIEN
+
+    No. 391. _Cahiers de la quinzaine_, "Impressions sur la vie
+        japonaise," June, 1902, 3rd Series, 17th Cahier.
+
+    No. 392. _Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale_. "Un Philosophe
+        japonisant, Lafcadio Hearn,"[45] 1903, vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+    No. 393. _Revue de Paris_, "Lafcadio Hearn et le Japon,"[45]
+        December 1, 1904, vol. 6, p. 655.
+
+        [45] Translations by M. B. Easton, unpublished, in MSS.,
+             in the possession of Dr. Gould.
+
+
+REVUE DES DEUX MONDES
+
+    No. 390. "Un Peintre du Japon: 'Lafcadio Hearn,'"[45] par Th.
+        Bentzon, June 1, 1904, vol. 21, p. 556.
+
+
+REVUE DE METAPHYSIQUE ET DE MORALE
+
+    No. 392. "Un Philosophe japonisant, Lafcadio Hearn,"[45] par
+        Felicien Challaye, 1903, vol. 11, p. 338.
+
+
+REVUE DE PARIS
+
+    No. 393. "Lafcadio Hearn et le Japon,"[45] par Felicien Challaye,
+        December 1, 1904, vol. 6, p. 655.
+
+
+                                 GERMAN
+
+BRANDT, M. VON
+
+    No. 394. _Deutsche Rundschau_ "Lafcadio Hearn: Volksglaube und
+        Volkssitte in Japan," October, 1900, vol. 105, p. 68.
+
+
+DEUTSCHE RUNDSCHAU
+
+    No. 394. "Lafcadio Hearn: Volksglaube und Volkssitte in Japan," von
+        M. von Brandt, October, 1900, vol. 105, p. 68.
+
+
+    HERZOG, WILHELM
+
+    No. 395. _Die Nation_, a review of "Kokoro,"[45] January 6, 1906,
+        vol. 23, p. 217.
+
+
+    HIRN, PROFESSOR YRIOe
+
+    No. 396. _Neue Freie Presse_, "Lafcadio Hearn," March 26, 1905, vol.
+        31, p. 14580.
+
+
+    NATION, Die
+
+    No. 395. A review of "Kokoro,"[45] von Wilhelm Herzog, January 6,
+        1906, vol. 23, p. 217.
+
+
+    NEUE FREIE PRESSE
+
+    No. 396. "Lafcadio Hearn," von Professor Yrjoe Hirn, March 26, 1905,
+        vol. 31, p. 14580.
+
+
+    WAGE, Die
+
+    No. 397. "Ein englischer Japaner," von Th. Bentzon. (Deutsche von
+        Leo Fried.) A condensation of Mme. Bentzon's article in _Revue
+        des deux Mondes_. October 22-29, 1904, Year 7, Nr. 43, 44, pp.
+        987, 1001.
+
+
+                                SWEDISH
+
+HIRN, MRS. KARIN
+
+    No. 398. _Ord od Bild_, 1905.
+
+
+    ORD OD BILD
+
+    No. 398. Mrs. Karin Hirn, 1905.
+
+               *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+                       SUPPLEMENTAL LIST
+
+                         (Nos. 399-424)
+
+
+    No. 399. The Last of the New Orleans Fencing Masters, _Southern
+    Bivouac_, Louisville, Ky., New Series, vol. 2, Nov., 1886.
+
+Speaks of the Story of Jean Louis, from Vigeant's _Un Maitre d'armes
+    sous la restauration_, and tells the tale of Don Jose Llulla. Six
+    double column, 8vo. pages, size and style of _Atlantic Monthly_.
+
+No. 400. The Legend of Skobeleff. Looks like an editorial in
+    T.-D.[46] (No date, etc.)
+
+    [47] The New Orleans _Times-Democrat_.
+
+No. 401. A Voudoo Dance. In style of T.-D. and of Hearn; unsigned,
+    undated, was evidently in T.-D.
+
+No. 402. The Future of France in the Orient. Editorial, doubtless in
+    T.-D., undated.
+
+No. 403. Pierre Loti. Translation by Hearn. "From the Original
+    Manuscript," signed by "Pierre Loti" and "Translated by Lafcadio
+    Hearn." Subheading: "Fragments from my Diary." Undated. Probably in
+    T.-D.
+
+No. 404. Death of the Great Danseuse of the Century. Unsigned and
+    undated. Not in type of editorial, but of contributed matter in
+    T.-D. Probably by Hearn.
+
+No. 405. The First Muezzin. With Arabic Sub-title, under which is
+    "Bilal," and 15-line poetic excerpt from Edwin Arnold. Contains a
+    musical setting of Prayer by Villoteau, Description de l'Egypte:
+    Vol. XIV. Probably in T.-D. Without date, etc.
+
+No. 406. Dorodom the Last. Editorial, probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 407. The Naval Engagements of the Future. Translation from _Le
+    Figaro_.
+
+No. 408. Cable and the Negroes. Editorial, probably in T.-D. and by
+    Hearn. No date.
+
+No. 409. The Most Original of Modern Novelists (Loti). Editorial,
+    probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 410. Heroic Deeds at Sea. Editorial in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 411. Study and Play. Editorial in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 412. Arabian Women. Article contributed probably to T.-D.
+    Undated.
+
+No. 413. The Roar of a Great City. Editorial contributed probably to
+    T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 414. Some Fossil Anthropology. Editorial probably by Hearn, and
+    probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 415. A Word for the Tramps. Editorial possibly by Hearn, and
+    probably in T.-D.
+
+No. 416. Torn Letters. Signed original story in T.-D. Undated. Later
+    enlarged and published as "Chita."
+
+No. 417. Death and Resurrection in the Soudan. Editorial, probably
+    in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 418. A Memory of Two Fannies (Fanny Elssler, and Fanny Cerrito).
+    Editorial, probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 419. Shapira. Editorial, probably in T.-D. Undated.
+
+No. 420. To the Fountain of Youth. Original, signed contribution:
+    T.-D., May 24, 1885.
+
+No. 421. The Creole Doctor. Some Curiosities of Medicine in
+    Louisiana. From an Occasional Correspondent of _The Tribune_, New
+    Orleans, Dec. 28th. Probably in New York _Tribune_. Undated. Signed
+    Contribution.
+
+No. 422. A Story of Hands. The Hand and its Gestures. Translation,
+    Eugene Mouton, "From advance sheets." Undated.
+
+No. 423. The Legend of the Tea-Plant. Original contribution,
+    probably to the T.-D. Undated. Published later in "Some Chinese
+    Ghosts," 1887.
+
+No. 424. Academical Triumphs. Editorial, probably by Hearn, T.-D.,
+    Dec. 20, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+                     RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
+                      BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
+                          BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber Notes:
+
+Some of the illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs and so they correspond to the text, thus the page number of
+the illustration no longer matches the page number in the List of
+Illustrations.
+
+Throughout the document, vowels having macrons in Japanese words are
+indicated by vowels having circumflexes. For example, English word for
+the Japanese capital (currently written in Japanese romanji as toukyou)
+used to be written as Tokyo, but with macrons associated with each
+letter "o". In this text the Japanese capital would be written as Tokyo.
+
+On page 8, "ludricrous" was replaced with "ludicrous".
+
+On page 28, "Lokis'" was replaced with "Loki's".
+
+On page 55, "An E volutional History" was replaced with "An Evolutional
+History".
+
+On page 56, the [OE] ligature was replaced with "OE".
+
+On page 85, "As, mine are" was replaced with "As mine are".
+
+On page 91, "it it incapable" was replaced with "it is incapable".
+
+On page 97, the single quotation mark after "What insect stings so!" was
+changed to a double quotation mark.
+
+On page 129, "gnored" was replaced with "ignored".
+
+On page 133, "refocussed" was replaced with "refocused".
+
+On page 159, "la belle negresse" was replaced with "la belle negresse".
+
+On page 188 through 190, there is a long quotation that is marked by a
+single set of quotation marks, which differs than the quotation scheme
+used elsewhere in the book. This inconsistency was not corrected.
+
+On page 236, a quotation mark was removed from before "His book is a
+re-reading".
+
+On page 252, "Karin Kirn" was replaced with "Karin Hirn".
+
+On page 259, "n aye" was replaced with "n'aye".
+
+On page 278, the closing single quotation mark after "Madame Bovary" was
+replaces with a closing double quotation mark.
+
+On page 286, in the item No. 277, the period after "Raynal" was replaced
+with a comma, to be in agreement with the previous item.
+
+On page 293, in the item 307, "p." was added before the page number.
+
+On page 295, in the item 334, a quotation mark was added after "Exotics
+and Retrospectives,".
+
+On page 295, in the item 341, a period was added after the date December
+1, 1906.
+
+On page 298, in the item 366, a stray comma was deleted after the word
+"February".
+
+On page 299, in the item 387, a single quotation mark was replaced with
+a double quotation mark.
+
+On page 301, in the item 390, the unmatched quotation marks were
+corrected.
+
+Sometimes, a single footnote had multiple links to it.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Concerning Lafcadio Hearn, by George M. Gould
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCERNING LAFCADIO HEARN ***
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