Volume I Part 6 (1/2)
The fleeting archaic flavour of the original is not entirely lost here, and the lines are broken, yet estion, and a kindly one”
This book--his first--travelled far before finding a publisher, and then only at the cost of the author bearing half the expense of publication
Other notices had been less kind The _Observer_, as he quotes in a letter to Mr Hart, had declared that it was a collection of ”stories of unbridled lust without the apology of natural passion,” and that ”the translation reeked with the miasma of the brothel” The _Critic_ had wasted no ti itself to depreciation of Gautier, and this Hearn resented more than severity to himself, for at this period Gautier and his style were his passionate delight, as witness the following note which acco a selection from the Frenchman's poeive you a little novel pleasure by introducing you to the ”Emaux et Camees” As you have told me you never read them, I feel sure you will experience a literary surprise You will find in Gautier a perfection of , a voluptuous delicacy which no English poet has ever approached and which reveal, I think, a certain capacity of artistic expression no Northern tongue can boast What the Latin tongues yield in to Northern languages is strength; but the themes in which the Latin poets excel are usually soft and exquisite Still you will find in the ”Rondalla” so of the Toreador Juan
These ”Emaux et Camees” constitute Gautier's own pet selection froo's works to equal some of them I won't presume to offer you this copy: it is too shabby, has travelled about with ht years But if you are charicien des lettres francaises” (as Baudelaire called hi you a nicer copy
Mr John Albee wrote to him in connection with the book, and also the Reverend Wayland D Ball
”Stray Leaves froood and Company of Boston--followed in 1884 and was ht fewer letters from private admirers, and was not very profitable--save to his reputation In 1885 a tiny volu a collection of 350 Creole proverbs which he had ro--a patois of which the local nararo servants in Louisiana seeation at the ti his life in the West Indies they proved of incalculable value to him in his intercourse with the inhabitants There the patois--not having been subjected as in New Orleans to that all-absorbing solvent of the English tongue--continued to hold its own alongside the pure French of the educated Creoles, and his book would have been impossible had he not had command of the universal speech of the common people
”Some Chinese Ghosts” had set out on its travels in search of a publisher sometime earlier, and after several rejections was finally, in the following year, accepted by Roberts Brothers In regard to some corrections which they desired made in the text this reference has been found in a letter to his friend Krehbiel, a letter in which, however, time and the ruthless appetite of bookworms have made havoc ords here and there:--
1886
DEAR K,--In Proony I write
Roberts Brothers, Boston, have written me that they want to publish ”Chinese Ghosts;” but want me to cut out a multitude of japanese, Sanscrit, Chinese, and Buddhist terms
Thereupon unto them I despatched a colossal docu Southey, Moore, Flaubert, Edwin Arnold, Gautier, ”Hiawatha,” and hts of prose poetry, and the supremacy of Form
And no answer have I yet received
How shall I sacrifice Orientalisment of a Greek word] by the Holy Spirit, by the Vast[probably Blue Soul] of the Universebut one of the facets of that ht of the Universal Sun? And even as Apocalyptic John I hold--
”And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and fros which are written in this book”
Thy brother in the Holy Ghost of Art wisheth thee many benisons and victories, and the Grace that cometh as luminous rain and the Wind of Inspiration perfumed with musk and the flowers of Paradise
Lafcadio
This suggestion was peculiarly afflicting because of his love of exotic words, not only for their own sake, but for the colour they lent to the general scheme of decoration of his style It was as if a painter of an Oriental picture had been asked to omit all reproduction of Eastern costuern ter a
At about this period a friendshi+p formed with Lieutenant Oscar Crosby exerted ainfluence upon Hearn--an influence which continued to grow until his whole life and ht were coloured by it
Lieutenant Crosby was a young Louisianian, educated at West Point, and then stationed in New Orleans, a person of very unusual abilities, and Hearn found hi companion In a letter written to Ernest Crosby from japan in 1904, but a month before his death, he says:--
”A na lieutenant in the United States Aro, how to study Herbert Spencer
To that Crosby I shall always feel a very reverence of gratitude, and I shall always findthe name of Crosby”
To Mr Krehbiel in the saan the study of ”The Principles of Ethics” he wrote:--
”Talking of change in opinions, I am really astonished at myself You knohat my fantastic metaphysics were A friend disciplined me to read Herbert Spencer I suddenly discovered what a waste of time all my Oriental metaphysics had been I also discovered for the first tie I possessed I also found unspeakable co of the Great Doubt, which renders pessimism ridiculous, and teaches a new reverence for all forms of faith In short, from the day when I finished the 'First Principles,' a totally new intellectual life opened forthe next few years to devour the rest of this oceanic philosophy”