TO GEORGE M. GOULD
Saint-Pierre, Martinique,
April, 1889.
Dear Gould,—I read your pamphlets with intense pleasure: that on the effect of reflex neurosis, of course, impressed me only as a curious research; but your paper on dreams, full of truth and suggestive beauty, had much more than a scientific interest for me. There is a world of poetical ideas and romantic psychology evoked by its perusal. I wonder only that you did not dwell more upon the softness, sweetness, impalpable goodness of this dream-world in which everything—even what we usually think wrong—seems to be right. Doubtless all man’s dreams of paradise, of a golden past age, or a perfect future, were born of the thin light vanishing sensations of dream. 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 damnable prudery that even this innocent phantasy seems to shock his sense of the “proper.”
You will be pleased to hear my novelette has been a success with the publishers. It cost me terrible work in this continual heat, small as it is; and I feel so mentally blank that I must get back to the States for a while to seek some vitality, brighten whatever blood I have got left after two years of tropical air.
If you could find me in Philadelphia a very quiet room where I could write without noise for a few months, I would try my luck there. New York is stupefying; I know too many people there; and I want to be very quiet,—only to see a friend or two now and then, when I am in good trim for a chat. I shall return to the West Indies in the winter.
Address me if you have time to write c/o H. M. Alden, Edr. Harper’s Magazine;—for I shall have left Martinique, doubtless, by the time this reaches you.
TO JOSEPH TUNISON
New York, 1889.
Dear Joe,—By the time this reaches you I shall have disappeared.
The moment I get into all this beastly machinery called “New York,” I get caught in some belt and whirled around madly in all directions until I have no sense left. This city drives me crazy, or, if you prefer, crazier; and I have no peace of mind or rest of body till I get out of it. Nobody can find anybody, nothing seems to be anywhere, everything seems to be mathematics and geometry and enigmatics and riddles and confusion worse confounded: architecture and mechanics run mad. One has to live by intuition and move by steam. I think an earthquake might produce some improvement. The so-called improvements in civilization have apparently resulted in making it impossible to see, hear, or find anything out. You are improving yourselves out of the natural world. I want to get back among the monkeys and the parrots, under a violet sky among green peaks and an eternally lilac and lukewarm sea,—where clothing is superfluous and reading too much of an exertion,—where everybody sleeps 14 hours out of the 24. This is frightful, nightmarish, devilish! Civilization is a hideous thing. Blessed is savagery! Surely a palm 200 feet high is a finer thing in the natural order than seventy times seven New Yorks. I came in by one door as you went out at the other. Now there are cubic miles of cut granite and iron fury between us. I shall at once find a hackman to take me away. I am sorry not to see you—but since you live in hell what can I do? I will try to find you again this summer.
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Philadelphia, 1889.
Dear Miss Bisland,—A week ago in New York I was asking a friend where you were, but could then obtain no satisfactory information without taking steps I had no time to attempt. I was really glad to get out of the frightful whirl and roar of modern improvements as soon as possible, but regretted not seeing you, even while assured of being able to do so before long.
It is true I have been silent with my friends: I did not write seven letters in seventeen months,—not even business letters. It was very difficult to write anything in the continuous enervating heat; and I had to struggle with difficulties of the most unlooked for sort, incessantly,—until I found correspondence become almost impossible. But I thought of you very often; and wondered if you were still in that terrible metropolis. I saw in Max O’Rell’s book some lines about a charming young lady and thought it must have been you.... I returned on the 8th from Martinique.
Dr. Matas sent me your pretty eulogy of “Chita”—which I often re-read afterward, and which gave me encouragement when I began to doubt whether I could do anything else.... I don’t think I shall write another story in the same manner,—feel I have changed very much in my way of looking at things and of writing. “Chita” will soon be sent to you in book form as a souvenir of Grande Isle: it is not as short a story as it looked in the serried type of Harper’s—will make a volume of 225 pp. I will have something else to send you, however, that will interest you more as to novelty,—a volume of tropical sketches.
I wonder whether you could ever throw upon paper the thoughts you uttered to me that evening I visited you nearly two years ago,—when you said why you liked Grande Isle. In your few phrases you said much that I had been trying to express and could not,—at least it so seemed to me.... I have seen a great many strange beaches since; but nothing like the morning charm of Grande Isle ever revealed itself. I wonder if I were to see it now, whether I should feel the same pleasure....
Thanks for those verses!—there is a large, strong, strange beauty in them. There seems, you know, to be just now a straining-up of eyes to look for some singer able to prophesy,—to chant even one hymn of that cosmic faith that is stealing upon the world
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Philadelphia, 1889.
Dear Miss Bisland,—Oh! what a stiff epistle, with a little sharp pointing of reproach twisting about in the tail of every letter! Really you must never, never feel vexed at anything I write:—I wrote you just as I wrote to Mr. Stedman about the same matter. I feel the man sometimes is much less than the work: my work, however weak, is so much better than myself, that the less said about me the better,—then there are so many things you do not know. As for you not liking personalities, that is a very different thing! Your own personality has charm enough to render the truth very palatable. But I am sure, now, from your letter anything you say will be nice,—though I think it would have been better not to have said it. Does a portrait of an ugly man make one desirous to read his book? I could not get out of the Harper plan for an article on Southern writers, without hurting myself otherwise; but the candid truth is that I felt like yelling when I saw the thing—howling and screeching! Indeed I think that my belief in the invisible personality of a man has been largely forced by my thorough disgust with the visible personality. Schopenhauer says a beautiful thing about the former,—that the “I” is the dark point in consciousness,—just as the point of the retina where the sight-nerve enters is blind, and as the brain itself is without sensation, and the eye sees all but itself. I am not anxious to see my soul; but the fact of inability to see it encourages me to believe it is better than the thing called L. H.
I don’t know that I wrote anything clever enough to be worth your using, but it is a pleasure you should think so. I can only suggest that the adoption of my poor notions would tend to make me selfish about such as I might think really good ones—I would keep them out of my letters, until they could get into print!?!
Sub rosa, now!... My Martinique novelette comes out—the first part—in January. I think you will like it better than “Chita:” it is more mature and more exotic by far. It will run through two numbers. They have made some illustrations which I have not seen, and am therefore afraid of. Unless an illustration either reflects precisely or surpasses the writer’s imagination, it hurts rather than helps. By the way, have you ever met H.F. Farny? Farny is an Alsatian, a fine man, and a superb sketcher—though lazy as a serpent. But if you ever want imaginative drawing of a certain class, he is one to do it.
Please don’t ask me when I’m going to New York. I really can’t find out. I wish I could. I ought to be there on the 15th. But I am peculiarly situated, tied up by a business-muddle,—tangled by necessities of waiting for information,—tormented, befuddled, anxious beyond expression about an undecided plan,—shivering with cold, and longing for the tropics. All my life I have suffered with cold—all kinds of cold—psychical and physical;—I hate cold!!!!—I never can resign myself to live in it!—I can’t even think in it, and I would not be afraid of that Warm Place where sinners are supposed to go! Perhaps the G.A. will sentence me to everlasting sojourn in an iceberg when I have ceased to sin.
Very faithfully, and to some extent apologetically.
For you I do remain always as nice as I can be.
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Philadelphia, 1889.
Dear Miss Bisland,—I can’t say definitely when I shall be in New York, to have the delightful pleasure of a chat with you—something I have been looking forward to for fully a year; but I will write to tell you a few days in advance. I am drifting about with the forces of circumstance—following directions of least resistance. Just now I have a large mass (at least it looks very big to me) of MS. to amend and emend and arrange into a tropical book: you will like some things in it. When this job is finished, in a couple of weeks, it is probable I will set to work on a short sketch or story, for which I have the material partly arranged; and then I will go to New York. It is so quiet in this beautiful great city, and my present environment is so pleasant, that I am sure of doing better work here than I could in that frightful cyclone of electricity and machinery called New York....
I am afraid you were right about the tropics, and the fascination of climate. It is still upon me, and I shall find it very difficult to conquer the temptation to return to the French colonies: the main fact which helps me is the conviction that I cannot work there,—one’s memory and will blurs and fails in the incessant heat and sleepy air; and for three months before leaving I could not write a line.... My friends advise me to try the Orient next time; and I think I shall.
I have a novelette in the Magazine pigeon-holes,—you will like it; but I don’t know when it is going to come out.
It is not a little pleasure to know that my admiration of your verses can be an encouragement;—you have quite forgiven my ancient effort to amend a stanza by spoiling it!... I think your present position will leave you time—after a while—for all you love to do, and can do so uniquely. Magazine editing is so largely a question of method and system—so far as I can learn—that I fancy you will eventually find it possible to claim a few hours every day for yourself;—and such systematic work as you must take hold of, will not, like journalistic routine, deaden aspiration. I hope you will have a greater success with the new monthly than you yourself expect, and I am sure you will if you have fair chances at all.—But I must wait for the opportunity to see you—because what one writes (at least what I myself write) on such matters sounds so fictitious and flat,—though you know it comes from your sincere friend,
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Philadelphia, 1889.
Dear Miss Bisland,—It is true that I am only a small Voice;—but the Voice has been uninterruptedly in the City of Doctors and Quakers, with the exception of a much regretted interim passed in looking at that monstrosity,—aptly described by C. D. Warner as “having been cut out with a scroll-saw,”—Atlantic City.... (May I never, never behold anything resembling it again!) I fear you must have written the address wrong—so I send you the right one. It will always do: no matter where I be. The Voice will call at 475 Fourth Avenue as soon as it can. It is not its fault that it has not so done already. Everything to be written must be finished, if possible, by the 15th prox.,—so that I can get some place where the air is blue before cold weather. I will not be able to run away from the country before Christmas anyhow.
I trust you are very, very well,—and as—everything—nice as anybody could wish, and with best regards, remain always,
P.S. Now I want to see those letters which came back from the Dead Letter Office. Is it really so?
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Philadelphia, 1889.
Dear Miss Bisland,—I know I am a horrid ignis fatuus; but the proofs of “Chita” are only half-read, and I have no time to get away till it is all done. Then I am working on a sketch,—then there will be more proof-reading to do on the other book. But I will certainly get away in a few weeks more, and will have ever so many things to tell you.
I have never seen the Cosmopolitan in its new dress, and I do not know what has been going on anywhere....
Philadelphia is a city very peculiar—isolated by custom antique, but having a good solid social morality, and much peace. It has its own dry drab newspapers, which are not like any other newspapers in the world, and contain nothing not immediately concerning Philadelphia. Consequently no echo from New York enters here—nor any from anywhere else: there are no New York papers sold to speak of. The Quaker City does not want them—thinks them in bad taste, accepts only the magazines and weeklies. But it’s the best old city in the whole world all the same.
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Philadelphia, 1889.
My dear Miss Bisland,—I don’t know whether you saw a little gem of Loti’s in the Fortnightly; I cut it out and send it,—also an attempt at translation which proves the wisdom of the English magazine editor in printing it in French,—and a comment of mine. I don’t think you are likely to wish to print such a thing as the translation; but if you should, don’t use it without sending me a proof, because it is full of errors.
While in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, I found it—originally contributed, in French, to the Fortnightly for August, 1888—copied into a French paper. The impression made by reading it startled me for reasons independent of the exquisite weirdness of the thought. There was the great orange sunset of the tropics before me, over a lilac sea,—bronzing the green of the mango, and tamarind-trees, and the broad, satiny leaves of bananier and balisier. The interior described in the vision was not of modern Saint-Pierre; but I knew an old interior in Fort de France, whose present quaint condition repeated precisely the background of the dream. A hundred years ago there were but two places on the sunset-side of Martinique which could have presented the spectacle of the little low streets described,—Fort de France and Saint-Pierre. The high mountains cut off the sunset glow at an early hour on the eastern side of the island. It seemed to me a strange coincidence that in Les Colonies, a local paper, I had just read also, that some old cemetery of Fort de France was about to be turned into a playground for children.
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Philadelphia, 1889.
Dear Miss Bisland,—Verily shirîn, shirîntar, and shirîntarin art thou,—and Saadi in the Garden of the Taj likewise,—and also the letter which I have just received.
Emotionally the book is surely Arnold’s strongest: it has that intensity of sweetness which touches the sphere of pain. One need not seek in the Bostan or Gulistan for the essence of that volume: the Oriental thought has been transfigured in its reflection from a nineteenth century mind. There has been in one of Edwin Arnold’s books some suggestion of a future religion of human goodness and human brotherhood, through recognition of soul-unity,—but in none, I think, so strangely as in this. And then, what horror to read the very coarse interview published recently in a daily paper: the brutal repetition of a man’s words uttered under constraint, about the most sacred of sentiments!...
No; I won’t go to New York till you come back. I trust you will not overwork yourself: when we see (I mean “hear”) each other, we can talk over all known devices for lightening literary duties. I am acquainted with some; and I would not have you fall sick for anything—unless you were to do me something “awfully mean:” then I’m afraid I would not be so sorry as I ought to be.
I will try to give you something for the Christmas number anyhow,—but not very long. By the way, I have an idea which may be wrong, but seems to me worth uttering. The prose fiction which lives through the centuries in the short story: like the old Greek romances—narratives like “Manon Lescaut;” “Paul et Virginie;” the “Candide” of Voltaire; the “Vicar of Wakefield;” “Undine,” etc., outlive all the ampler labour of their authors. It seems to me that with this century the great novel will pass out of fashion: three-quarters of what is written is unnecessary,—is involved simply by obedience to effete formulas and standards. As a consequence we do not read as we used to. We read only the essential, skipping all else. The book that compels perusal of every line and word is the book of power. Create a story of which no reader can skip a single paragraph, and one has the secret of force,—if not of durability. My own hope is to do something in accordance with this idea: no descriptions, no preliminaries, no explanations—nothing but the feeling itself at highest intensity. I may fail utterly; but I think I have divined a truth which will yet be recognized and pursued by stronger minds than mine. The less material, the more force;—the subtler the power the greater, as water than land, as wind than water, as mind than wind. I would like to say something about light, heat, electricity, rates of ether-vibration;—but the notion will work itself out in your own beautiful mind without any clumsy attempts of mine to illustrate. —About the translation,—do as you please,—but don’t please put it in a great big daily, next to the account of a prize-fight or a murder,—and please, if you do anything with it, see, above all things earthly, that I get proofs. But I would just as soon you would keep it. I made it for you, and am glad you had not seen the original previously. I thought the Cosmo. was a sort of literary weekly. It is a beautiful little magazine,—full of surprises; and I trust it is going to win a great success.
Good-bye;—your Voice wishes you a very happy pleasure-trip, in which you will feel all sorts of new feelings, and dream all manner of new dreams.
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
Philadelphia, 1889.
This morning I dropped you a little note; but this afternoon, reading your book-chat in the Cosmo. I find I must write you something more impersonal.
—You know, perhaps, that Spencer’s thought about education—the paramount necessity of educating the Will through the Emotion—has received, consciously or unconsciously, more attention in Italy than elsewhere. The Emotions are not, as a rule, educated at all outside of the home-circle. The great public schools of all countries have a system which either ignores the emotions, or leaves them unprotected;—while all sectarian teaching warps and withers them in the direction, at least, of their natural growth. You know all this, I suppose, better than I. But perhaps you do not know the “Cuore” of Edmondo de Amicis (Thos. Y. Crowell & Co.), which has passed through 39 Italian editions. And if you do not know it, I pray you to read it without skipping a single phrase. It is as full of heart-sweetness as attar-of-roses is full of flower-ghosts; and it seems a revelation of what emotional education might accomplish.
I read Brownell’s book at your suggestion. It contains, I think, the best teaching about how to study French character; but I could not accept many of its inferences,—especially in regard to art and morality,—without reluctance. There is a sense of something wanting in the book—something lucid and spiritual (is it Conviction?) that makes it heavy. How luminous and psychically electric is Lowell’s book compared with it. And how much nobler a soul must be the dreamer of Chosön!
—I shall never write “Miss Bisland” again, except upon an envelope. It is a formality,—and you are you: you are not a formality,—but a somewhat. And I am only
TO GEORGE M. GOULD
1889.
Dear Gould,—Verily there is no strength nor power but from God,—the High, the Great! I have thy letter, O thou of enormous working capacity, and I admire and wonder, but am in no wise sorry for thee, seeing thou doest that which thou art able to do, and findest pleasure therein and excellence and dignity and power,—and that if thou wert doing it not thou wouldst surely be doing something else;—for God (whose name be exalted!) hath numbered thee among those who find felicity in exceeding activity. Thou art indeed forty-one years old, by reckoning of time; but as thou art of the Giants this reckoning hath no signification for thee. Verily thou art but twenty-five years old, and thou shalt never know age until a hundred winters shall have passed over thee. And all things which thou dost desire shall be accorded unto thee by Him who, like thyself, reposeth never, and whose blessed name be forever exalted! Also unto thee shall the patients come, as an army for multitude, so that thy bell shall make but one ringing through all thy days continuously, and that thy neighbours shall be oppressed by reason of the concourse in the street about thy dwelling.
But as for me, concerning whom thou makest inquiry, trouble not thyself about thy servant, whose trust and power are in God—the High, the Great! That which shall be shall be, and that which hath been shall not be again:—for the moment, indeed, I am concerned only to know why the flame of my lamp goeth upward, and all flame likewise,—unless it be for the purpose of praising God (whose name be exalted by all living creatures!). For thou saidst unto me, being a Kafeer, that Flame is a vibration only; but thou hast not been able to tell me the mystery of the pointing of fire and the upreaching of it to the feet of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Here it raineth always, and this Soul of me is slowly evaporating, despite the perusal of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who spake of souls. Meseems that each time I behold the eyes of her concerning whom I spake to thee, something of that soul is drawn out unto her, and devoured perhaps for sustenance of that Jinneyah—which is her own soul. So that mine hath become thin as the inner shadow wrought by a strong double light upon the ground; and I shall become even as a vegetable presently—having knowledge of nothing save the witchery of God in the eyes of women. The memory of Schopenhauer hath passed,—and with its passing I find my only salvation in a return to the study of the Oceanic Majesty and Power and Greatness and Holiness and Omniscience of the mind of Herbert Spencer.
Be thou ever blessed and loved by the sons of men, even as by
TO GEORGE M. GOULD
1889.
Gould,—You must have skipped, bad boy!—for the girl is not “all face and foot”! You missed the finely detailed account of her body in William’s diary,—and the just observation of a trait characteristic of the race in its purity; the great length of the lower limb,—fine greyhounds, fine thoroughbred horses, and fine men and women have all this characteristic, like the conventional figures of antique gem-work. The gipsy-girl is possible: I have seen charming ones. You must read Borrow’s “Gipsies” (the unabbreviated edition in two volumes),—also his "Bible in Spain,” and “Lavengro,”—a Gipsy novel. Simpson’s “Gipsies” is also worth looking at.... But if you won’t believe in the bird of passage, take Carmen and believe in her—there, at least, you will not doubt: all will prove in accordance with possible sin and sorrow. Why do you want the Bird’s body to be better known—since nobody ever knew it any better than you know it; (or would know if you had read all)—could not have except by making to operate, like the Vicar of Azey-le-Rideau, all its “hinges and mesial partitions,” even to disjuncture. What a singular fact in the history of torture, that the inquisitor was trained to believe the beautiful body he was breaking and rending and burning was never beautiful—that its grace and symmetry were illusions, the witchcraft of the dear old compassionate Devil striving to save his victim by the mirage of fleshly attractiveness! Only through this belief could certain monstrosities have been possible. It was always Saint Anthony’s temptation!
I have a book for you—an astounding book,—a godlike book. But I want you to promise to read every single word of it. Every word is dynamic. It is the finest book on the East ever written; and though very small contains more than all my library of Oriental books. And an American (?) wrote it! It is called “The Soul of the Far East.” It will astound you like Schopenhauer, the same profundity and lucidity. Love to you,
TO GEORGE M. GOULD
1889.
Dear Gould,—I blacked—that is, I had my boots blacked yesterday,—just for the same reason that we do things after people are dead (which we would not have done for them while they lived and asked), with a ghostly idea of pleasing them. If you had been here I might not have had them blacked, but as you were gone, I did it for the Shadow of you. And I gave the boy 20 cents,—because of the feeling that he might never have such a chance again. That boy runs after me now everywhere,—but—he is mistaken! I am no longer the same! I have satisfied my conscience, and enjoy Nirvana.
This morning when I got up I thought the streets looked queer. It seemed as if they were lighted by the afternoon in some way or other, instead of the morning. I went to the P. O. with “The Soul of the Far East.” How silent the streets for a Friday morning! The population seemed all to have ebbed away somewhere as if to look at something. The post-office was silent as a pyramid inside. I went to the book-store, and found it closed,—and for the first time realized that it was Sunday. Then I understood why the streets looked like afternoon; and the sunshine had a tinge as of evening in a cemetery. Confound Sunday!
Talking with Jakey last night about Nature, I heard him express the opinion that his capacity of scientific realization of the causes of things was enough to account for the absence in him of any feeling of awe or reverence in the presence of mountain scenery. It occurred to me therewith that the characteristic of indifference to poetry might be almost common to mathematicians. The man who wrote “The Soul of the Far East” and “Chosön” is nevertheless an accomplished mathematician. But you will notice that his divine poetry touches only that which no scientific knowledge can explain,—that which no mathematics can solve,—that which must remain mysterious throughout all conceivable span of time,—the fluttering of the Human Soul in its chrysalis, which it at once hates and loves, and hates because it loves, and strives to burst through, and still fears unspeakably to break,—though dimly conscious of the infinite Ghostly Peace beyond.
TO GEORGE M. GOULD
1889.
Dear Gould,—I feel like a white granular mass of amorphous crystals—my formula appears to be isomeric with Spasmotoxin. My aurochloride precipitates into beautiful prismatic needles. My Platinochloride develops octohedron crystals,—with a fine blue fluorescence. My physiological action is not indifferent. One millionth of a grain injected under the skin of a frog produced instantaneous death accompanied by an orange blossom odour. The heart stopped in systole. A base—L3 H9 NG4—offers analogous reaction to phosmotinigstic acid. Yours with best regards,
Gould,—“Concerning zombis, tell me all about them.”
Hearn,—“In order to relate you that which you desire, it will be necessary first to explain the difference in the idea of the supernatural as existing in the savage and in the civilized mind. Now, I remember a very strange thing....”
Gould,—“I’ll be back in a minute.” (Strides across the street.)
Violent agitation in the peripheral centres of Hearn, together with considerable acute anguish, owing to disintegration of cerebral tissue consequent upon the sudden arrest of nerve-force in discharge. (See Grant Allen on cause of pain, “Physiological Æsthetics.”)
Gould, suddenly reappearing:—“Go on with that old story, now.”
(Resurrection of cerebral agitation in the ganglionic centres and intercorrelate cerebral fibres of Hearn. After desperate and painful research, the broken threads of memories and impulses are found again, and peripherally conjointed, and the wounded narrative proceeds, limping grievously.)
Hearn,—“As I was observing, I recollect one very curious instance of emotional and fantastic—”
Gould,—“Yes, I’ll be out in a moment—“ (Disappears through a door.)
—Brutal confusion established in the visual, auditory, gustatory, and olfactory ganglia of Hearn;—general quivering and strain of all the mnemonic current lines, and then a sense of inquisitorial torture going on in various brain-chambers, where the vital forces, suddenly arrested, flow back in a deluge and set all ideas afloat in drowning agony. Slow recovery as from concussion of the cerebellum.
Enter Gould,—“Now proceed with that story of yours.”
Hearn,—pacifying the fury of the ganglionic centres with the most extreme possible difficulty, timidly observes,—
“But you don’t care to hear it?”
Gould,—moving with inconceivable rapidity, dynamically overcharged,—
“Of course, I do: I’m just dying to hear it.”
Hearn, running after him, skipping preliminaries in the anguish of “hope deferred which maketh the heart sick,”—
“Well, it was in the Rue du Bois Morier,—one of the steepest and strangest streets in the world, full of fantastic gables, and the shadows of—”
Gould,—“Yes, I’ll be out in a minute.” (Vanishes through a shop entrance.)
(Inexpressible chaos and bewilderment of impulses afferent and efferent,—electrical collisions in the ganglia,—unspeakable combustion of tissue in the intercorrelating fibres,—paralysis of conflicting emotions,—unutterable anguish: coma followed by acute mania in the person of Hearn.)
Gould,—emerging, “Well, go on with that old yarn....”
But Hearn is being already conveyed by two large Philadelphia Policemen to the Penn. Lunatic Asylum for Uncurables.
Astonishment of Gould.
TO GEORGE M. GOULD
1889.
Gould,—Just after I wrote you last night, something began to whiffle quite soundlessly round my head: I saw only a shadow, and I turned down the gas,—remembering that he who extinguisheth his light so that insects may not perish therein, shall, according to the book of Laotse, obtain longer life and remission of sins. Then it struck me with its wings so heavily that I knew it was a bat,—for no bird could fly so silently; and I turned up the gas again,—full. There it was!—very large,—circling round and round the ceiling so swiftly that I felt dizzy trying to turn to keep it in sight,—and as noiselessly as its own shadow above it. I could not tell which was the shadow and which the life,—until both came together at last upon a ledge, and made a little peak-shouldered devilish thing with strangely twisted ears.
All at once I remembered an experience in Martinique one summer evening. We were at Grand Anse,—friend Arnoux and I,—supping in a little room opening over a low garden full of banana-trees, to the black beach of the sea; and the great Voice thundered so we could scarcely hear ourselves speak; and the candle in the verrine fluttered like something afraid. Then right over my head a bat began to circle, with never a sound. Arnoux exclaimed: “Mais, mon cher, regarde cette sacrée bête—ah—c’est drôle!” By the look of his face I knew drôle meant “weird.” He struck it down with his napkin and it disappeared; but a moment later came back again, and flew round as before. Again he hit it and drove it away; but it always came flitting back. Then we all laughed;—and Pierre, the host, tickling my ear with his beard, cried out,—“C’est ta maîtresse à Saint-Pierre—elle est morte,—elle vient te chercher.” And I looked so serious that Arnoux burst into a laugh as loud as the surf outside.
Now when I saw that bat, I thought it was “weird,”—drôle as the other. I even found myself wondering, Who it could be? I thought it might be Clemence, about whose death I received news in my last letter. I did not think for a moment it was Gould. Only some very poor simple soul would avail itself of so humble a vehicle for apparition.... Then it looked so much like something damned as it moved about, that I felt ashamed of thinking it could be Clemence,—the best kind of old souls, Clemence!—My blanchisseuse. It was not easy to catch the bat without hurting it. I argued that if it was anybody I knew it could not be afraid of me. It sat on the mirror. It went under the table. It flattened under the trunk and feigned death. Then I caught it in my hat; and it revealed its plain nature by burying its teeth in my finger; and it would not let go,—and it squeaked and chippered like a ghost. I was almost mad enough to hurt it; but I tried to caress its head, which felt soft and nice. But it showed all its teeth and looked too ugly, and there was a musky smell of hell about it—so that I knew, if it were anybody, the place with a capital “P” where it came from. I put it in a box. To-night I am going to let it go.
TO GEORGE M. GOULD
1889.
My most dear Gould,—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 Gould at 119 S. 17th St. That I should cease to make a shadow some day seems quite natural, because Hearn 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-purifying sun,—and reach down through old roots to the bones of me, and try to raise me up.
“Ruth" maketh progress; but I had to murder the “Mother of God.” Anyhow the simile would have had a Catholic idolatrousness about it, so that I don’t regret it.—I send a clipping I found in the trunk, to make you laugh: the “Femmes Arabes” of Dr. Perron furnished me the facts.—Mrs. Gould moveth or reposeth in serenity,—Jakey fulfilleth with becoming dignity the duties devolved upon him. I have consumed one plug of “Quaker City;” but as the smoke spires up, the spiritual-sensualism of “Ruth” becometh manifest.
There has been some rain almost worthy of the tropics,—and much darkness. And I can understand better why the ancients of Yucatan, accustomed to the charm of real physical light (about which you Northerners know nothing), put no fire into their hell, but darkness only, as woe enough for tropical souls to bear!
I hope you are having a glorious, joyous journeying, and remain,
TO ——
1889.
I am very sorry your trip was a chilly and rainy one. As for me, I have been shivering here, and have got to get South somewhere soon,—if only till I can get back to the tropics. I am sorry to confess it; but the tropical Circe bewitches me again—I must go back to her.
I had such a queer dream last night. A great, warm garden with high clipped hedges,—much higher than a man,—and a sort of pleasant country-house, with steps leading into the garden,—and everywhere, even on the steps, hampers and baskets. Krehbiel was there,—he told me he was going to Europe never to come back. And you were there, too, all in black silk—sheathed in it; you were also going away somewhere; and I was packing for you, getting things ready. Everybody was saying nice things: one did not seem to hear,—really one never hears voices in dreams,—but one feels the words, tones and all, as if they passed unspoken—just the soul or will of them only—out of one brain into another. I can’t remember what anybody said precisely: what I recollect best is the sensation that everybody was going, and that I was to stay all alone in the place, or anywhere I pleased; and it was getting dark. Then I woke up, and said: “Well, I really must see her.” I suppose dreams mean nothing: but interpreted by the contrary, as is a custom, it would mean the reverse—that I am going away somewhere,—which I don’t yet know
P. S. Oh!—you spoke about Philadelphia.... Is it possible you have never seen it? Is it possible you have never seen Fairmount Park? Believe me, then, that it is the most beautiful place of the whole civilized world on any sunny, tepid summer day. Your Central Park is a cabbage-garden by comparison: F. Pk. is fifteen miles long, by about eight or ten broad. But the size is nothing. It is the beauty of the woods and their vistas, the long drives by the river, the glimpse of statuary and fountains from delightful terraces, the knolls commanding the whole circle of the horizon, the vast garden and lawn spaces, the shadowed alleys where 100,000 people make scarcely any more sound than a swarm of bees,—and over it all such a soft, sweet dreamy light. (When you go to see it, be sure to choose a sunny, warm day.) Thousands of thousands of carriages file by, each with a pair of lovers in it. Everybody in the park seems to be making love to somebody. Love is so much the atmosphere of the place,—a part of the light and calm and perfume—that you feel as if drenched with it, permeated by it, mesmerized. And if you are all alone, you will look about you once in a while, wondering that somebody else is not beside you.... But I forgot that I am not writing to a stupid man, like myself.