Volume I Part 13 (2/2)

I must also tell you that I find Spanish remarkably easy to acquire; and believe that at the end of another year I shall be able to master it,--write it and speak it well To do the latter, however, I shall be obliged to spend some time in sohts have been turned for soes, I can prosecute s over the face of the earth without tiration

After all, it has been lucky for ed to quit hard newspaper work; for it has afforded me opportunities for self-improvement which I could not otherwise have acquired I should like, indeed, toin order to study, and I

I have really given up all hope of creating anything while I remain here, or, indeed, until ed

What endary land,--this land of perfume and of dreams,--must be chiselled into shape elsewhere

One cannot write of these beautiful things while surrounded by them; and by an atmosphere, heavy and drowsy as that of a conservatory It must be afterward, in times to come, when I shall find retfully of the graceful paled robes of olden ripples of the cane-fields under the summer wind, and this divine sky--deep and vast and cloudless as Eternity, with its far-off horizon tint of tender green

I do not wonder the South has produced nothing of literary art Its beautiful realities fill the iret and desire and the Spirit of Unrest that provoketh poetry and roloo panoraination and poetry

The fever is dying A hty wind, boisterous and cool, lifted the poisonous air from the city at last

I cannot describe to you the peculiar effect of the suh you were breathing a drugged at yelloith biliousness The least over-indulgence in eating or drinking prostrates you My feeling all through the time of the epidemic was about this: I have the fever-principle in my blood,--it shows its presence in a hundred ways,--if the ets the least out of order, the fever will get me down I was not afraid of serious consequences, but I felt conscious that nothing but strict attention to the laws of health would pull h The experience has been valuable I believe I could now live in Havana or Vera Cruz without fear of the terrible fevers which prevail there Do you know that even here we have no less than eleven different kinds of fever,--lad winter is coy to us The summer is not like that North At the North you have a clear, dry, burning air; here it is clear also, but dense, heavy, and so moist that it is never so hot as you have it But no one dares expose himself to the vertical sun I have noticed that even the chickens and the dos, cats, etc, always seek shady places They fear the sun People with valuable horses will not work them much in summer They die very rapidly of sunstroke

In winter, too, one feels content There is no nostalgia But the sus with it to ue species of homesickness, as if I had friends in so that I have forgotten even their names and the appellation of the place where they live I hope it will be so next suo whither the humour leads me,--the propensity which the author of ”The Howadji in Syria” calleth the Spirit of the Camel

But this is a land where one can really enjoy the Inner Life Every one has an inner life of his ohich no other eye can see, and the great secrets of which are never revealed, although occasionally e create soli and shutting in the night I suppose you live such a life, too,--a double existence--a dual entity Are we not all doppelgangers?--and is not the invisible the only life we really enjoy?

YouIt is delicious, therefore, to find out that it is actually a haunted house

But the ghosts do not trouble me; I have become so much like one of themselves in my habits There is one room, however, where no one likes to be alone; for phantom hands clap, and phantonify?” I asked a servant ”_ca veut dire, Foulez-ar expression for ”Git!”

There is to be a _literary_ (God save the mark!) newspaper here I have been asked to help edit it As I find that I can easily attend to both papers I shall scribble and scrawl and sell 'em translations which I could not otherwise dispose of Thus I shall soon be , instead of 40, about 100 perfrom American civilization to other horrors which I know not of--soood Catholic (in outward appearance) for fear of having a _navaja_ stuck into you, and where the whole population is socan tell what nation anybody belongs to So in the meantime I must study such phrases as:----

Tiene V un leoncito? Have you a so un fero perro No: but I've an ugly dog

Tiene V un o un hombrecillo No: but I've a miserable littleand dead, watch over thee, and thy dreams be made resonant with the sound ofthou shalt vainly endeavour to recall, and forever regret with a vague and yet pleasant sorrow; knowing that the Gods permit not mortals to learn their sacred hymns

L HEARN

By the way, let me send you a short translation from Baudelaire It is so mystic and sad and beautiful

TO H E KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1879