Volume I Part 15 (2/2)
TO H E KREHBIEL
NEW ORLEANS, 1880
MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--Your letter delighted me I always felt sure that you would unshackle yourself--sooner or later; but I hardly expected it would coe of your new position, I think, will be the leisure it will afford you to study, and that too while you are still in the flush of youth and aies are iery I think your future is secure now beyond any doubt;--for any e, such real love for art, and such a total absence of vices should find the road before an easy one It is true that you have a prodigious work to achieve; but the path is well oiled, like those level highways along which the Egyptians ratulate you; I rejoice with you; and I envy you with the purest envy possible Still th, and that so which is partly hope and partly force and love for the beautiful which I have lost, and which, having passed aith the summer of life, can never be recalled When ato grow old You have not felt that yet I hope you will not for rey at thirty!
I liked your letter very ard to our discussion It is just and pleasant to read I thought your first reproaches much too violent But I a of the Greeks as chaste You will not learn what the Greeks were in the tilory of their republics either frolish writer I could refer you to--without ton Symonds, author of ”Studies of the Greek Poets,” and ”Studies and Sketches in Southern Europe” His works would charenius, men rote miracles--_un peuple des demi-dieux_, as a French poet terht, as reflected in their y, their literature, their art, and their history certainly does not indicate the least conception of chastity in the o down to your grave with the conception you have ate the contrary
I would like to discuss the other affair, also; but I have so little tio the pleasure
As to the fantastics, you greatly overesti much more ”worthy of my talents,” as you express it I am conscious they are only trivial; but I am condemned to move around in a sphere of triviality until the end I a able to work only a few hours a day, cannot do anything outside of ular occupation My hope is to perfect myself in Spanish and French; and, if possible, to study Italian next suues, I may have a better chance hereafter But I fancy the idea of the fantastics is artistic
They are e life of New Orleans They are dreah theures embody the story of life here, as it impresses me I hope to be able to take a trip to Mexico in the summer just to obtain literary material, sun-paint, tropical colour, etc There are tropical lilies which are venomous, but they are more beautiful than the frail and icy-white lilies of the North Tell me if you received a fantastic founded upon the story of Ponce de Leon I think I sent it since my last letter I have not written any fantastics since except one,--inspired by Tennyson's fancy,----
”My heart would hear her and beat Had it lain for a century dead---- Would start and tremble under her feet---- And blossom in purple and red”
Jerry, Krehbiel, Ed Miller, Feldwisch! All gone! It is a little strange
But it will always be so Looking around the table at hoathered wanderers from all nations and all skies, the certainty of separation for all societies and coteries is very impressive We are all friends In six months probably there will not be one left Dissolution of little societies in this city is s decay more speedily, or mummify And I think that in such cities there is no real friendshi+p There is no time for it Only passion for women, a brief acquaintance for men And it is only when I h and open like a wind froin to realize I once lived in a city whose heart was not a cemetery two centuries old, and where people who hated did not kiss each other, and where men did not mock at all that youth and faith hold to be sacred
Your sincere friend, L HEARN
Read Bergerat's article on Offenbach--the long one I think you will like it
TO H E KREHBIEL
NEW ORLEANS, February, 1881
MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--A pleasant ue, illu irl, inheriting, I hope, those great soft grey eyes of yours, and the artist dream of her artist father I should think you would feel a sweet and terrible responsibility--like one of those traditional guardian-angels entrusted for the first time with the care of a new life
I have notin a ruined Creole house; da down the facade, a great yard with plants and cacti in it; a quixotic horse, four cats, two rabbits, three dogs, five geese, and a seraglio of hens,--all living together in harmony A fortune-teller occupies the lower floor
She has a fantastic apartht of two little tapers burning before two human skulls in one corner of the roo very weary of the Creole quarter, and think I shall pull up stakes and fly to the garden district where the orange-trees are, but where Latin tongues are not spoken It is very hard to accustom one's self to live with A these strange types I am swindled all the time and I know it, and still I find it hard to summon up resolution to forsake these antiquated streets for the commonplace and practical American districts
Very affectionately, L HEARN
TO H E KREHBIEL
NEW ORLEANS, February, 1881
MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--Your letter rises beforea dead na beside