Who is Oiterupé? Euterpe, of course. And this represents, I do assure you, the very highest possible result of a Western education at Göttingen, etc., upon the mind of the modern Japanese poet. Formerly he would have said something. Now he is struck dumb by—Heidelberg or Göttingen.
I have only twelve hours a week in which to teach; but, as I told you before, there are no text-books, and the university will not buy any; and the general standard of English is so low that I am sure not half of my classes understand what I say. Worst of all, there is no discipline. The students are virtually the masters in certain matters: the authorities fear their displeasure, and they do things extraordinary which fill European professors with amazement and rage—such as ordering different hours for their lectures, and demanding after a menacing fashion subscriptions for their various undertakings. Fancy the following colloquy:—
Professor—“But this is not a case of distress: I don’t think a professor should be asked for money where money is not needed—and then—”
Student—“The question is simply, will you pay or will you not?”
Professor—“I have told you my ideas about—”
Student—“I am not interested in your ideas. Will you or will you not?”
Professor (flushing with anger, like Sigurd the Bishop)—“No.”
Student turns his back upon professor, and walks away with the air of one going to prepare for a vendetta.
I have told you before that the first, second, and third year classes are mixed together. But that makes no matter. The matter is that the students can change the subjects of their studies when they please, and do so occasionally by way of showing their disapproval of the professor. “You must not teach that subject: I wish you to teach us about Greek mythology instead” is a specimen observation.
I cannot write to you about such delightful friends as the one described in your last letter, for the simple reason that I haven’t any. (You know that it is very difficult for me to find sympathizers in such a frogpond as the foreign community of an open port.) The Russian professor of philosophy, although boasting a Heidelberg degree, acknowledges to me that he believes heretics ought to be burnt alive (“for the saving of their souls”), and that he hopes to see the whole world under Catholic domination. I fancy he dreams of the Russian conquest to come; and the Panslavic dream is not impossible! He is a queer man,—about fifty at least,—a bachelor. Soft and cold—snowy in fact. The Jesuit improves on acquaintance—gentle, courteous, half-sympathetic, but always on guard, like a man afraid of being struck by some human affection. The American lawyer, hard and grim, has a rough plain goodness about him—providing that he be put to no trouble.... And the German, Dr. R——, of whom I spoke rather unsympathetically before, seems to me now the finest man of the lot. There can be no question of his learning, and his dogmatism; but he gives me the solid feeling of a man honest like a great rock of black basalt—huge, hard, direct—one of those rare German types with eyes and hair blacker than a coal. His hand is broad, hard, warm always, and has something electrical in its grasp. I think I shall get fond of him, if he doesn’t talk Virchow to me. (For Virchow is my bête noir! I hate his name with unspeakable hatred.) At all events, to my great surprise, I find this grim dark German takes absolute pleasure in doing a kindness, and in speaking well of others. Wherefore I feel that I am unreasonable and wrong to feel repelled by his liking for Virchow.
Of course, we must all go some day, if the university doesn’t go first. But as all have big salaries, all prepare for the rainy day. I shall not complain if allowed to finish my three years—though I should prefer six. But you can imagine how unstable everything looks—with changes in the ministry of education about every twelve months,—and the political influences behind the students. I am reposing upon the safety-valves of a steam-boiler,—much cracked, with many of the rivets loose,—and the engineers studying how to be out of the way when the great whang-bang comes around.
And when it does come, may it blow me, for a moment at least, in the immediate vicinity of Ellwood Hendrick.
Ever affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Tōkyō, December, 1896.
Dear old Fellow,— ... The Emperor paid us a visit the other day; and I had to don a frock-coat and a thing which inspired the Mohammedan curse,—“May God put a hat on you!” We stood in sleet and snow—horribly cold (no overcoats allowed) and were twice permitted to bow down before His Majesty. I confess I saw only les bottes de S. M. He has a deep commanding voice—is above the average in height. Most of us got cold, I think—nothing more for the nonce. Lowell discovered one delicious thing in the Far East—“The Gate of Everlasting Ceremony.” But the ancient ceremony was beautiful. Swallow-tails and plugs are not beautiful. My little wife tells me: “Don’t talk like that: even if a robber were listening to you upon the roof of the house, he would get angry.” So I am only saying this to you: “I don’t see why I should be obliged to take cold, merely for the privilege of bowing to H. M.” Of course this is half-jest, half-earnest. There is a reason for things—for anything except—a plug-hat!...
Affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Tōkyō, January, 1897.
Dear Hendrick,—“Sentimental Tommy” is marvellous. Gives me a very great idea of Barrie. The question with me is whether such a milieu and such a suggested ancestry could produce such types as Grizel and Tommy. I am not quite sure of it: I am still under the impression that blood will tell, and that children of drunkards and whores are not apt to prove angels—though there must be exceptions when the better inheritance dominates. However, the book has a good meaning as well as a great art, and the tendency is to recognitions of truths deeper than those of “Philistia.” You were awfully good to send it; but I feel rather small—my last sending being so poor a sprat to your salmon.
Never mind. I’ll send you my own book sometime this year—I think. It ought to be in the printer’s hands by the time you get this letter. It will probably be called “A Living God, and Other Studies”—or something of that sort. But only the gods exactly know.
Half of my psychological book—or nearly half—is also written. I shall dedicate it probably to the Lady of a Myriad Souls—whose photo in a black frame decorates my Japanese alcove. Provided—I don’t die or worse before it is finished. Any suggestions? I’m trying to explain all mysterious things which philosophers, etc., call inexplicable feelings. Have you any? Please turn some over to me, and let me digest them. I’ve managed the frisson (woman’s touch), some colour-sensations, sublimities, etc. I want some mysterious feelings—some exquisitenesses,—normal only. Parfum de jeunesse suggests experiences. Do you know any?...
Ever faithfully,
Lafcadio.
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Kōbe, February, 1897.
Dear Hendrick,— ... Oh! have you read those two marvellous things of Kipling’s last—“McAndrews’ Hymn,” and “The Mary Gloster”? Especially the “Mary Gloster.” I have no more qualified ideas about Kipling. He is to my fixed conviction the greatest of living English poets, and greater than all before him in the line he has taken. As for England, he is her modern Saga-man,—skald, scôp, whatever you like: lineal descendants of those fellows to whom the Berserker used to say: “Now you just stand right here, and see us fight so that you can make a song about it.”
Meanwhile the Holy Ghost has become temporarily (perhaps) disgusted with me; and I am doing nothing for three days past. Simply can’t—no feelings. I can grind; but what’s the use? I want to do something remarkable, unique, extraordinary, audacious; and I haven’t the qualifications. I want sensations—dreams—glimpses. Nothing! Will I ever get another good idea? Don’t know. Will I ever have any literary success?—So swings the pendulum! I fear my next book won’t be as good as it ought to be....
After all, the Jesuit is really the most interesting person. We are close to each other because we are so enormously far away,—just as in Wundt’s colour-theory the red and violet ends of the spectrum overlap after a fashion....
Ever faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
(Y. Koizumi.)
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Tōkyō, May, 1897.
Dear E. H.,—I have been reading your last over and over again—because it is very pretty indeed, one of the very prettiest letters I ever read. There is altogether something so deliriously assured about it—so full of happy confidence, that I feel quite comfortable and jolly about you ... notwithstanding the fact that I am tolerably sure you will be taken utterly away from me in the end. For this shall a man leave not only his friend, but his father and his mother,—saith the Sacred Book. You know that particular passage makes the Japanese mad,—but not quite so mad as the observation: “Unless a man shall hate his father and his mother,” etc., which has knocked the wind out of much missionary enterprise.
I can’t write much more about yourself, because I don’t know anything yet. So I shall talk about Tōkyō.
As you know, I have been somewhat idle—for a month at least. And the loneliness thickens. And certain gentlemen make it a rule to spit upon the ground with a loud noise when I pass by. I believe the trick is not confined to the Occident, having found Japanese skilful at it; but these be nevertheless manners of Heidelberg doctors! Nevertheless, it won’t work.
But really the conditions are very queer. I felt instinctively before going to Tōkyō, that I was going into a world of intrigue; but what a world I had no conception. The foreign element appears to live in a condition of perpetual panic. Everybody is infinitely afraid of everybody else, afraid to speak not only their minds, but to speak about anything except irrelevant matters, and then only in a certain formal tone sanctioned by custom. They huddle together sometimes at parties, and talk all together loudly about nothing,—like people in the expectation of a possible catastrophe, or like folks making a noise to drive away ghosts, or fear of ghosts. Somebody, quite accidentally, observes—or rather drops an observation about facts. Instantly there is a scattering away from that man as from dynamite. He is isolated for several weeks by common consent. Then he goes to work to reform a group of his own. Gradually he collects one—and rival groups are formed. But presently some one in another party or chat talks about something as it ought to be. Bang-fizz—chaos and confusion. Then all the groups unite to isolate that wicked tongue. The man is dangerous—an intriguer—ha! And so on—ad lib.
This is panic, pure and simple, and the selfishness of panic. But there is some reason for it—considering the class of minds. We are all in Japan living over earthquakes. Nothing is stable. All Japanese officialdom is perpetually in flux,—nothing but the throne is even temporarily fixed; and the direction of the currents depends much upon force of intrigue. They shift, like currents in the sea, off a coast of tides. But the side currents penetrate everywhere, and clapotent all comers, and swirl round the writing-stool of the smallest clerk,—whose pen trembles with continual fear for his wife’s and babies’ rice. Being good or clever or generous or popular or the best man for the place counts for very little. Intrigue has nothing at all to do with qualities. Popularity in the biggest sense has, of course, some value, but only the value depending upon certain alternations of the rhythm of outs-and-ins. That’s all.
In the Orient intrigue has been cultivated as an art for ages, and it has been cultivated as an art in every country, no doubt. But the result of the adoption of constitutional government by a race accustomed to autocracy and caste, enabled intrigue to spread like a ferment, in new forms, through every condition of society,—and almost into every household. It has become an infinite net—unbreakable, because elastic as air, though strong enough to upset ministers as readily as to oust clerks.
Future prospects—? Dégringolade.
I feel sorry to say that I think I have been wrong about a good many of my sincere hopes and glowing predictions. Tōkyō takes out of me all power to hope for a great Japanese future. You know how easily a society in such a state can be manipulated by shrewd foreign influence. The race must give evidence of some tremendous self-purifying and self-solidifying power, before my hopes can be restored to their former rainbow hues. At present I think it can truthfully be said that every official branch of service shows the rapidly growing weakness that means demoralization. The causes are numerous—too numerous to mention,—inadequate pay being a large one, as the best men will not take positions at $15 or $20 a month. But the great cause is utter instability and discouragement. The P. O., the telegraph-service, the railroads, etc., all are in a queer state.
And I—am as a flea in a wash-bowl. My best chance is to lie quiet and wait the coming of events. I hope to see Europe, with my boy, some day.
Well, this is only private history to amuse E. H., to make Western by contrast to Eastern life seem more beautiful to him. Affectionately,
Lafcadio.
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Tōkyō, May, 1897.
Dear E. H.,—I am still alive in alternations of gloom and sun. I anticipate now chiefly a national bankruptcy, or a war with Russia to upset my bank-account. There is a Buddhist text (Saddharma-Pundarika, chap. III, verse 125):—“The man whom they happen to serve is unwilling to give them much, and what he gives is soon lost. Such is the fruit of sinfulness.” It would be impossible, I imagine, that I should escape some future extraordinary experience of calamity. It is simply ridiculous,—can’t help seeing the absurdity of it. Otherwise I have sorrow.
For my friends have been dying quickly. Some years ago, one said to me: “You will outlive us: foreigners live longer than Japanese.” This I did not think true, as I know many Japanese over eighty, and the longevity of the western farmers is sometimes extraordinary—110 years being not very rare, and 100 plentiful, as examples. But my friend was doubtless referring to the more delicate classes—the hot-house plants, conservatory-growths, moulded by etiquette and classical culture and home-law. And I fear he was right. Nearly all my Japanese friends are dead. The last case was three or four days ago,—the sweetest of little women,—a creature not seemingly of flesh and blood, but made of silk embroidery mixed with soul. She was highly accomplished—one of my wife’s school friends. Married to a good man, but a man unable to care for her as she ought to have been cared for. No force to bear children: the pretty creature had never been too strong, and over-education had strained her nerves. She ought never to have been married at all. She knew she was dying, and came to bid us good-bye, laughing and lying bravely. “I must go home,” she said, “but I’ll soon be well and come back.” She must have suffered terribly for more than a year—but she never complained, never ceased to smile, never broke down. Died soon after reaching home.
Another friend, a man, dying, tells his wife: “Open the windows (shōji) wide, that my friend may see the chrysanthemums in the garden.” And he watches my face, laughing, while I pretend to be pleased. The beauty of his soul is finer than any chrysanthemum, and it is flitting. He wakes up in the night and calls: “Mother, did you hear from my friend? is his son well?” Then he goes to sleep again—his last words—for he is dead at sunrise. These lives are too fine and frail for the brutal civilization that is going to crush them all out—every one of them,—and prove to the future that sweetness is immoral à la Nietzsche: that to be unselfish is to sentence one’s self to death and one’s beloved to misery and probable extermination.
But then imagine beings who never, in their lives, did anything which was not—I will not say “right,” that is commonplace—any single thing which was not beautiful! Should I write this the world would, of course, call me a liar, as it has become accustomed to do. But I could not now even write of them except to you—the wounds are raw.
I am thinking about Velvet Souls in general, and all ever known by me in particular. Almost in every place where I lived long, it was given me to meet a velvet soul or two—presences (male or female mattered nothing) which with a word or look wrapped all your being round in a softness and warmth of emotional caress inexpressible. “Velvet” isn’t a good word. The effect is more like the bath of tropical light and warmth to the body of a sick voyager from lands of consumption and rheumatism. These souls are intellectual in many cases, but that is not the interest of them—the interest is purely emotional. A purely intellectual person is unpleasant; and I fancy our religion is chiefly hateful because it makes its gods of the intellectual kind now-a-days. I should like to write about such souls—but how difficult. A queer thing for me is that in memory they unite, without distinction of sex, into one divine type of perfect tenderness and sympathy and knowledge,—like those Living Creatures of Dante’s Paradise composed of many different persons. I have found such souls also in Japan—but only Japanese souls. But they are melting into the night.
Lafcadio.
P.S. A very sad but curious story. A charming person, of high rank, bore twins. A Western woman would be proud and pleased. Shame struck the Japanese mother down. She became insane for shame. All Japanese life is not beautiful, you see. Imagine the cruelty of such a popular idea,—a peasant would have borne the trouble well,—but a daughter of princes—no!
TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA
Tōkyō, 1897.
Dear Nishida,—Your last kind letter came just after I had posted mine to you. Since then I have been horribly busy, and upset, and confused,—and even now I write rather because feeling ashamed at having been so long silent, than because I have time to write a good letter. We got a house only on the 29th, and are only half-settled now. The house is large—two-storied, and new—but not pretty, and there is no garden (at least nothing which deserves to be called a garden). We moved into it before it was finished, so as to make sure of it. It is all Japanese, of course—ten rooms. It belongs to a man who owns seven hundred and eighty houses!—a very old man, a Sakeya, named Masumoto Kihei. (Somebody tells me I am wrong,—that he has more than eight hundred houses.) He buries poor people free of charge—that is one of his ways of showing charity. He has one superintendent who, with many assistants, manages the renting of the houses. The house is very far from the university—forty-five minutes by kuruma—in Ushigome, and almost at the very end of Tōkyō. But it was a case of Shikata ga nai.
I teach only twelve hours. I have no text-books except for two classes,—one of which studies Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and the other Tennyson’s “Princess” (at my suggestion). I did not suggest “Paradise Lost;” but as the students wanted in different divisions of the class to study different books, made them vote, and, out of seventy-eight, sixty-three voted for “Paradise Lost”! Curious! (Just because it was hard for them, I suppose.) My other classes are special, and receive lectures on special branches of English literature (such as Ballad Literature, Ancient and Modern; Victorian Literature, etc.);—the professor being left free to do as he pleases. Of course, the position, as I try to fill it, will be an expensive one. I shall probably have to buy $1000 worth of books before next summer. Ultimately everything will be less expensive. The classes are very badly arranged (badly is a gentle word); for the 1st, 2d and 3d years of literature make one class;—the 2d and 3d together another class;—the 3d by itself a third class. You will see at once how difficult to try to establish a systematic three-years’ course. I am doing it, however,—with Professor Toyama’s approval;—hoping that the classes may be changed next year.
The students have been very kind and pleasant. My old Kumamoto pupils invited me to a meeting, and I made a speech to them. They meet in the same temple where Yaoya-O-Shichi used to meet Kichizo Sama,—her acolyte-lover. It is called Kichijōji.—I met some of my old pupils who had become judges, others who were professors, others engineers. I felt rather happy.
Professor Toyama I like more and more. He is a curious man,—really a solid man and a man of the world,—but not at all unkind, and extremely straightforward. He can be very sarcastic, and is very skilful at making jokes. Some of the foreign professors are rather afraid of his jokes: I have heard him make some sharp ones. But he does not joke yet with me directly—seems to understand me very well indeed. He knows a great deal about English authors and their values,—but says very little about his own studies. I do not understand how he found time to learn as much about the English and American authors as he seems to know. He gave me some kind hints about the students—told me exactly what they liked, and how far to humour them. I had only one long talk with him,—that was at the house of Dr. Florenz one evening. The doctor had invited five of us to dinner.
What else is there to tell you? I must not say too much about the mud, the bad roads, the horrible confusion caused by the laying-down of those new water-pipes. The weather is vile, and Tōkyō is hideous in Ushigome. But Setsu is happy—like a bird making its nest. She is fixing up her new home, and has not yet had time to notice what ugly weather it is.
In Tōkyō we find everything very cheap,—except house-rent. And even house-rent is much lower than in Kōbe,—very much lower. I pay only $25 for a very big house; but I expect to do even better than that. Affectionate regards,
Lafcadio Hearn (Y. Koizumi).
TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA
Tōkyō, 1897.
Dear Nishida,—This morning (the 17th) Mr. Takahashi came with your letter of introduction. He is a charming gentleman, and I felt unhappy at not being able to talk Japanese to him. He brought a most beautiful present—a tea-set of a sort I had never even seen before,—“crackled” porcelain inside to the eye, and outside a chocolate-coloured clay etched with pretty designs of houses and groves and lakes with boats upon them. The cups were a great surprise and delight—especially as they were made in Matsue. Mr. Takahashi gave me better news of you than your last letter brought me: he thought you were getting stronger,—so I have hopes of pleasant chats with you. He told us many things about Matsue. He is a very correct, courteous gentleman; and I felt quite clumsy, as I always do when I meet a real gentleman of the Japanese school. I think I should like any of your friends. Mr. Takahashi had something about him which brought back to me the happy feeling of my pleasant time in Izumo.
I don’t feel to-day, though, like I used to feel in Izumo. I have become very grey, and much queerer looking; and as I never make any visits or acquaintances outside of my quiet little neighbourhood, I have become also rather henjin. But I have written half a new book. I am not able to say now what it will be like: for the things I most wish to put into it—stories of real life—have not yet been written. I have finished only the philosophical chapters. One subject is “Nirvana,” and another the study of matter in itself as unreality,—or at least as a temporary apparition only. Then I have taken up the defence of Japanese methods of drawing, under the title of “Faces in the Old Picture-Books.” My public, however, is not all composed of thinkers; and I have to please the majority by telling them stories sometimes. After all, every public more or less resembles a school-class. They say, just like my students always used to say when they felt very tired or sleepy, hot days,—“Teacher, we are tired: please tell us some extraordinary story.”
I can’t just now remember when—at Matsue—a man came into the classroom to watch my teaching. He came from some little island. I have quite forgotten the name. He looked a little like Mr. Takahashi;—but there was something different in his face,—a little sad, perhaps. When the class was over he came to me and said something very good and kind, and pressed my hand and went away to his island. It is a queer thing that experiences of this kind are often among the most vivid of one’s life—though they are so short. I have often dreamed of that man. Often and often. And the dream is always the same. He is the director of a beautiful little school in a very large garden, surrounded by high white walls. I go into that garden by an iron gate. It is always summer. I teach for that man; and everything is gentle and earnest and pleasant and beautiful, just as it used to be in Matsue,—and he always repeats the nice things he said long ago. If I can ever find that school, with the white walls and the iron gate,—I shall want to teach there, even if the salary be only the nice things said at the end of the class. But I fear the school is made of mist, and that teacher and pupils are only ghosts. Or perhaps it is in Hōrai.
Ever with best regards from all of us, faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Tōkyō, August, 1897.
Dear Hendrick,—As for Miss Josephine’s letter, I believe that I cannot answer it at all: it was so sweet that I could only sit down quietly and think about it,—and I feel that any attempt to answer it on paper would be no use. There is only one way that it ought to be adequately answered, and that way I hope that you will adopt for my sake.
It was a more than happy little romance—that which you told me of, and makes one feel new things about the great complex life of your greater world. The poetry of the story makes a singular appeal to me now—possibly because in this Far East such loving sympathy is non-existent (at least outside of the household). Artistic life depends a great deal upon such friendships: I doubt whether it can exist without them, any more than butterflies or bees could exist without flowers. The ideal is created by the heart, no doubt; but it is nourished only by others’ faith and love for it. In all this great Tōkyō I doubt if there is a man with an ideal—or a woman (I mean any one not a Japanese); and so far as I have been able to hear and see there are consequently no friendships. Can there possibly be friendships where there is no aspirational life? I doubt it very much.
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 preëxistence 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.” It might be dedicated to “E. B. W.,”—I fancy that I should do well to use the initials only; for some of the essays might be found a little startling. But when the work will be finished I cannot tell.
In this Tōkyō, this detestable Tōkyō, there are no Japanese impressions to be had except at rare intervals. To describe to you the place would be utterly impossible,—more easy to describe a province. Here the quarter of the foreign embassies, looking like a well-painted American suburb;—near by an estate with quaint Chinese gates several centuries old; a little further square miles of indescribable squalor;—then miles of military parade-ground trampled into a waste of dust, and bounded by hideous barracks;—then a great park, full of really weird beauty, the shadows all black as ink;—then square miles of streets of shops, which burn down once a year;—then more squalor;—then rice-fields and bamboo groves;—then more streets. All this not flat, but hilly,—a city of undulations. Immense silences—green and romantic—alternate with quarters of turmoil and factories and railroad stations. Miles of telegraph-poles, looking at a distance like enormous fine-tooth combs, make a horrid impression. Miles of water-pipes—miles and miles and miles of them—interrupt the traffic of the principal streets: they have been trying to put them underground for seven years,—and what with official trickery, etc., the work makes slow progress. Gigantic reservoirs are ready; but no water in them yet. City being sued by the foreign engineer (once a university professor) for $138,000 odd commission on plans! Streets melt under rain, water-pipes sink, water-pipe holes drown spreeing men and swallow up playful children; frogs sing amazing songs in the street.—To think of art or time or eternity in the dead waste and muddle of this mess is difficult. The Holy Ghost of the poets is not in Tōkyō. I am going to try to find him by the seashore.
The other night I got into a little-known part of Tōkyō,—a street all ablaze with lanterns about thirty feet high, painted with weird devices. And I was interested especially by the insect-sellers. I bought a number of cages full of night-singing insects, and am now trying to make a study of the subjects. The noise made by these creatures is very much more extraordinary than you could imagine; but the habit of keeping them is not merely due to a love of the noise in itself. No: it is because these little orchestras give to city-dwellers the feeling of the delight of being in the country,—the sense of woods and hills and flowing water and starry nights and sweet air. Fireflies are caged for the same reason.
This is a refinement of sensation, is it not?—only a poetical people could have imagined the luxury of buying summer-voices to make for them the illusion of nature where there is only dust and mud. Notice also that the singers are night-singers. It is no use to cage the cicadæ: they remain silent in a cage, and die.
In this horrid Tōkyō I feel like a cicada:—I am caged, and can’t sing. Sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever be able to sing any more,—except at night?—like a bell-insect which has only one note.
What more and more impresses me every year is the degree to which the writer is a creature of circumstance. If he can make the circumstance, like a Kipling or a Stevenson, he can go on forever. Otherwise he is likely to exhaust every motive in short order, to the same extent that he depends on outer influence.
There was a little under-ripple of premonition in that very sweet letter from Miss Josephine,—just the faintest suggestion of a thought that the future might hold troubles in its shadow. Now I suppose that for none can the future be only luminous; but that you will have a smooth and steady current to bear you along to the great sea appears to me a matter of course. I do not imagine there will be rocks and reefs and whirlpools for you. You have both such large experience of life as it is, and of the laws and the arts of navigating that water, that I have no anxiety about you at all. Such little disillusions as you may have should only draw you nearer together. But there is the sensation of being afraid for somebody else—one has to face that; and the more boldly, perhaps, the less the terror becomes. It is worse in the case where one would be helpless without the other. But I imagine that your union is one of two strong independent spirits—each skilled in self-guidance. That makes everything so much easier.
One thing you will have to do,—that is, to take extremely good care of yourself for somebody else’s sake. Which redounds to my benefit; for I really don’t know what I should do without that occasional wind of sympathy wherewith your letters refresh me. I keep telling my wife that it would be ever so much better to leave Tōkyō, and dwell in the country, at a very much smaller salary, and have peace of mind. She says that nowhere could I have any peace of mind until I become a Buddha, and that with patience we can become independent. This is good; and my few Japanese friends tell me the same thing. But perhaps the influence from 40 Kilby Street, Boston, is the most powerful and saving of all.
An earthquake and several other things (I hate earthquakes) interrupted this letter. It is awfully dull, I know—forgive its flatness....
Ever, dear H., your
Lafcadio.
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Tōkyō, 1897.
Dear Hendrick,— ... You speak about that feeling of fulness of the heart with which we look at a thing,—half angered by inability to analyze within ourselves the delight of the vision. I think the feeling is unanalyzable, simply because, as Kipling says in that wonderful narrative, “The Finest Story in the World,” “the doors have been shut behind us.” The pleasure you felt in looking at that tree, at that lawn,—all the pleasure of the quaint summer in that charming old city,—was it only your pleasure? There is really no singular,—no “I.” “I” is surely collective. Otherwise we never could explain fully those movements within us caused by the scent of hay,—by moonlight on summer waters,—by certain voice tones that make the heart beat quicker,—by certain colours and touches and longings. The law that inherited memory becomes transmuted into intuitions or instincts is not absolute. Only some memories, or rather parts of them, are so transformed. Others remain—will not die. When you felt the charm of that tree and that lawn,—many who would have loved you were they able to live as in other days, were looking through you and remembering happy things. At least I think it must have been so. The different ways in which different places and things thus make appeal would be partly explained;—the supreme charm referring to reminiscences reaching through the longest chain of life, and the highest. But no pleasure of this sort can have so ghostly a sweetness as that which belongs to the charm of an ancestral home—in which happy generations have been. Then how much dead love lives again, and how many ecstasies of the childhoods of a hundred years must revive! We do not all die,—said the ancient wise man. How much of us dies is an unutterable mystery.
Science is rather provoking here. She tells us we are advancing toward equilibration, to be followed by dissolution, to be succeeded by another evolution, to end in another disintegration—and so on forever. Why a cosmos must be dissipated into a nebula, and the nebula again resolved into a sun-swarm, she confesses that she does not know. There is no comfort in her except the comfort of doubt,—and that is wholesome. But she says one encouraging thing. No thought can utterly perish. As all life is force, the record of everything must pass into the infinite. Now what is this force that shapes and unshapes universes? Might it be old thoughts and words and passions of men? The ancient East so declares. There can be rest eternal only when—not in one petty world, but throughout all the cosmos—the Good only lives. Here all is, of course, theory and ignorance,—for all we know. Still the faith ought to have value. How would the well-balanced man try to live if once fully persuaded that his every thought would affect not only the future of himself, but of the universe! The other day something queer happened. I was vexed about something wrong that had been done at a distance. Some days after, one said to me: “The other day, while you were so angry, people were killed”—mentioning the place. “I know that,” I said. “But do you not feel sorry?” “Why should I feel sorry?—I did not kill anybody.” “How do you know you did not? Your anger might have been added to the measure of the anger that caused the wrong.” Unto this I could not reply. Thinking over the matter, indeed, who can say what his life may be to the life of the unseen about him?
Ever very affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
1897.
Dear Hendrick,— ... The idea of a set of philosophical fairy-tales often haunts me. One doesn’t need to go to the Orient for the material. It is everywhere. The Elle-woman is real. So are the Sirens, Circe, and the Sphinx and Herakles and Admetos and Alkestis. So are the Harpies, and Medusa, and the Fates who measure and cut and spin. But when I try, I find myself unable to create for want of a knowledge of every-day life,—that life which is the only life the general reader understands or cares about.
Then the philosophical fairy-tales might deal with personal experiences common to all men,—impulse and sorrow and loss and hope and discovery of the hollowness of things. But the inclination only is with me,—the pushing sensation,—the vague cloud-feeling of the thing. Can you help—suggest—define—develop by a flash or two? If you can, be sweet, and tell me; and the fairy-tales shall be dedicated unto you. Indeed they shall in any case, if I can ever write them. In haste, with love,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO MITCHELL McDONALD
Tōkyō, November, 1897.
Dear McDonald,—I can only very poorly express my real feeling at the true goodness shown me, not only in coming out to my miserable little shanty, over that muddy chaos of street,—but in making me feel so free-and-easy with you, in the charming way you accepted the horrid attempt at entertainment, and in the hundred ways by which you showed your interest and sympathy. It was more than nice—that is all I can say.
But you set some mental machinery at work too. I believe almost your first remark was your desire that I should write fiction,—and I believe I understand why you wish this. It is because you wish me to make some profit out of my pen; and, being well informed on all business matters, you know, just as well as we literary men do, that fiction is about the only material that really pays. And now I am going, after a little thinking about the matter, to answer you in kind.
Why do not men like myself write more fiction? For two reasons. The first is because they have little knowledge of life, little savoir-vivre, to help them in the study of the artificial and complex growth of modern society. The second is that, unless very exceptionally situated, they are debarred, by this very want of knowledge and skill, from mixing with that life which alone can furnish the material. Society everywhere suspects them; common life repels them. They can divine, but they must have rare chances to do that. Men like the genius Kipling belong to the great life-struggle, understand it, reflect it, and the world worships them. But dreamers who talk about preëxistence, and who think differently from common-sense folk, are quite outside of social existence. But—I can do this: You know all about the foreign life of these parts,—the shadows and the lights. You can give me, perhaps, in the course of three years, suggestions for six little stories—based upon the relations between foreigners and Japanese in this era of Meiji: studies of the life of the “open ports.” I should need only real facts—not names or dates—real facts of beauty or pathos or tragedy. There are hosts of these. All the life of the open ports is not commonplace: there are heroisms and romances in it; and there is nothing in this world nearly as wonderful as life itself. All real life is a marvel—but in Japan a marvel that is hidden as much as possible—especially hidden from dangerous chatterers like Lafcadio Hearn.
Of course I could not make a book in a few months,—not in less than two or three years; but I could make one, with the mere help of hints from a man who knows. And if that book of short stories (six would be enough to make a book) should ever be so written, I should certainly make a dedication of it to M. McD. as prettily as I could.
There is an answer to your wish so far as I can make one for the present. I shall be down to see you the next month, probably, and we can chat over matters if you have time. And I shall take care not to come when you are too busy.
Faithfully, with affectionate regards and thanks,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO MASANOBU ŌTANI
Tōkyō, December, 1897.
Dear Ōtani,—I have your very nice letter, which gave me much pleasure. This is just a line before I go away, in regard to the subject for January, and relevant matters.
First let me tell you that you are very, very much mistaken—extraordinarily mistaken—in thinking that I do not care for what you call “vulgar” songs. They are just what I care most about. In all the poems that you translated for me this month, I could find but one that I liked very much; and that was a dodoitsu.
Now I am going to shock you by saying something that may surprise you; but if I do not say it, you will never understand what I want. In all the great mass of student poetry that you collected for me, I found only seventeen pieces that I could call poetry,—and on submitting those seventeen pieces to higher tests, I found that nearly all were reflections of thoughts and feelings from older poets. As for the book that you translated, I could find no true poetry in it at all, and scarcely anything original.
And now let me tell you my honest opinion about this whole matter. The refined poetry of this era, and most of the poetry that you collected for me of other eras, is of little or no value. On the other hand, the “vulgar” songs sung by coolies and fishermen and sailors and farmers and artisans, are very true and beautiful poetry; and would be admired by great poets in England, in France, in Italy, in Germany, or in Russia.
You will think, of course, that this only shows my ignorance and my stupidity. But please reflect a little about the matter. A great poem by Heine, by Shakespeare, by Calderon, by Petrarch, by Hafiz, by Saadi, remains a great poem even when it is translated into the prose of another language. It touches the emotion or the imagination in every language. But poetry which cannot be translated is of no value whatever in world-literature; and it is not even true poetry. It is a mere playing with values of words. True poetry has nothing to do with mere word-values. It is fancy, it is emotion, it is passion, or it is thought. Therefore it has power and truth. Poetry that depends for existence on the peculiarities of one language is waste of time, and can never live in people’s hearts. For this reason there is more value in the English ballad of “Childe Waters” or of “Tamlane,” than in the whole of the verse of Pope.
Of course, I know there are some beautiful things in Japanese classical poetry—I have translations from the Manyōshū and Kokinshū which are beautiful enough to live forever in any language. But these are beautiful because they do not depend on word-values, but upon sentiment and feeling.
I fear you will think all this very foolish and barbarous; but perhaps it will help you to understand what I want. “Vulgar” poetry is supremely valuable, in my humble opinion.
Please this month collect for me, if you can, some poems on the Sound of the Sea and the Sound of the Wind. If there are not many poems on these subjects, then you might add poems on the Sea and the Wind in any other connection. What I want to get is the feeling that the sound and the mystery of Wind and Sea have inspired in Japanese Song.
With best wishes ever, faithfully yours,
Y. Koizumi.