Volume I Part 11 (1/2)
”The emblems were all Buddhist The portable hearse, carried by six men in blue, was a beautiful object of unpainted, perfectly fresh, white wood triold and silver lotus flowers at the corners Priests carrying food for the dead, university professors, and a multitude of students formed the end of the procession In the coround of black lacquer and gold, eight priests chanted a dirge
Their heads were clean-shaven and they were clothed in white, with several brilliantly tinted gauze robes i of a bell, the chief japanese ether they knelt before the hearse, touching their foreheads to the floor, and placing so between the candles A delicate perfume filled the air The wife next stepped forith expressionless face--her hair done in stiff loops like carved ebony, her only ornas and funerals She and the younger sons also burned incense
The chief round, and the ceremony was ended”
The students presented a laurel wreath with the inscription ”In htier than the sword of the victorious nation which he loved and lived aiven hirave!” The body was then re interred at the ce the inscription ”Shogaku In-den Jo-ge Hachi-un Koji,” which literally translatedlike Eight Rising Clouds, ells in Mansion of Right Enlightenment”
Amenomori,--who of him after his death, said: ”Like a lotus thehusband and father, and sincere friend Within thatpure as the vestal fire, and in that flame dwelt a rasped the highest theuchi wrote: ”Surely we could lose two or three battleshi+ps at Port Arthur rather than Lafcadio Hearn”
After his death were issued a few of his last studies of japan under the title of ”A Roraphical fragments included in this volues, is na between two boundless levels, green and blue;--on the right only rice-fields, reaching to the sky-line;--on the left only su-craft of curious shapes are riding Everything is steeped in white sun; and I arown top a boy is running towardsaside the long sleeves of his robe as he runs, and baring his slender legs to the knee Very fast he runs, springing upon his sandals;--and he has in his hands so carefully by the wings, lest it should hurt itself struggling With what sudden inco in the light,--between those summer silences of field and sea! A delicate boy, with the blended chars under thischild-face with lips apart,--the twinkle of the light quick feet,--the shadows of grasses and of little stones!
”But, quickly as he runs, the child will co to ht of a japanese sun that set long years ago Never, dearest!--never shall we meet,--not even when the stars are dead!
”And yet,--can it be possible that I shall not remember?--that I shall not still see, in other million summers, the sarasses and of little stones,--the running of the same little sandalled feet that will never, never reach my side?”
The compression found necessary in order to yield room for the letters, which I think will bear comparison with the most famous letters in literature, has forcedthea bare outline of his work as an artist It has obliged me to abandon all temptation to dwell upon his more human side, his humour, tenderness, sy qualities that reat part supplied by the letters themselves, where he turns different sides of his mind to each correspondent, and where one sees in consequence a shadow of the writers themselves reflected in his own mental attitude
In the turbid, shallow flood of the ephelish letters has been partially obscured But day by day, as these sink unfruitfully into the sands of tie the stern and exquisite outlines of his patient work
While still a boy he said playfully, in answer to an appeal to concede soarer taste for the sake of popularity: ”I shall stick to yptian Colossus with a broken nose, seated soleinality”
To that creed he held through all the bitter permutations of life, and at the end itprinciples and decaying conventions, despite false teaching, false triumphs, and false taste, there were yet those who strove for the i, who pandered to no temptation froreat world-voices, were dazzled by none of the great world-lights, and used their gift as stepping-stone to no meaner life; but clear-eyed and patient, neither elated nor cast down, still lifted the laly for her own immortal sake”
LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN
LETTERS
1877-1889
TO HE KREHBIEL
NEW ORLEANS, 1877[5]
DEAR KREHBIEL,--I have just received your second pleasant letter, enclosing aarticle on reatly You could write a farseries of essays on the history ofwho, as you say, did little more thanin ”Curiosites des Arts”--curious book now out of print--an article on the es, which is of deep interest even to such an ignoramus as myself I would have translated it for your amusement, but, that ive you an extract, and as soon as I feel better I will send the whole thing if you deem it worth while:--
”The Roht to this country and adopted nearly all thethe peoples they had conquered