Volume I Part 18 (2/2)

NEW ORLEANS, 1882

DEAR SIR,--I arateful for the warm and kindly sympathy your letter evidences; and as I have already received about a half-dozen coinning to feel considerably encouraged The ”lovers of the antique loveliness” are proving tocherished drealish realization of a Latin style, n masters, and rendered even th_ which is the characteristic of Northern tongues This no man can hope to accomplish; but even a translator may carry his stone to the e

You ask me about translations I am sorry that I am not able to answer you hopefully I have a curious work by Flaubert in the hands of R

Worthington (under consideration); and I have various MSS filed away in the Cemetery of the Rejected I tried for six years to obtain a publisher for the little collection you so ed at last to have them published partly at ed to work upon a salary As for ”Mademoiselle de Maupin,”it, I would dread to work in vain, or at best to work for the profit of some publisher ould have the translator at histo publish the work precisely as I would render it, I would be glad to surrender all profits to him; but I fancy that any American publisher would wish to elish translation was in existence in London soo, but I could not learn the publisher's nalish version of the ”Contes Drolatiques,” ht be able to inforlish version was scarcely worthy of the original, owing to the profound silence of the press in regard to theoffered to New York publishers a few years ago It was not accepted

Althoughperfect, I think I a other translations of Gautier The American translations are very poor (”Spirite,” ”Captain Fracasse,” ”Ro the nalish translations of Gautier's works of travel are generally good Henry Holt has reprinted some of them, I think

But out of perhaps sixty volumes, Gautier's works include very few romances or stories I have never seen a translation of ”Fortunio” or ”Militona,”--perhaps because the sexual idea--the Eternal Feminine--prevails too much therein ”Avatar” has been translated in the New York _Evening Post_, I cannot say hoell; but I have the et a publisher to accept Then there are the ”Contes Humoristiques” (1 vol) and about a dozen short tales not translated Besides these, and the four translated already (”Fracasse,” ”Spirite,” ”The Mummy,” and possibly ”Mademoiselle de Maupin”) Gautier's works consist chiefly of critiques, sketches of travel, draly wicked piece, ”A Devil's Tear,”--and three volumes of poems

My purpose now is to translate a series of works by thea style of a school I tried in the first collection to offer the best novelettes of Gautier in English, relying upon ement so far as I could Hereafter with leisure and health I shall attempt to do the same for about five others I can understand your desire to see more of Gautier, and I trust you will some day; but when you have read ”Mademoiselle de Maupin” and the two volumes of short stories, you have read his masterpieces of prose, and will care less for the reical poems; except the exotic poetry of the Hindoos, and of Persia, there is nothing in verse to equal theued your patience, however, by this time With many thanks for your kind letter, which I took the liberty to send to Worthington, and hoping that you will soon be able to see another curious attempt of mine in print, I reot to say that in point of archaeologic art the ”Roreatest work It towers like an obelisk a the rest

But the American translation would disappoint you very h It would not be a bad idea to drop a line to Chatto & Windus, Pub, London, and enquire about English versions of Gautier You know that Austin Dobson translated some of his poems very successfully indeed

In haste, L H

TO REV WAYLAND D BALL

NEW ORLEANS, November, 1882

DEAR SIR,--I translate hurriedly for you a few extracts from ”Mademoiselle de Maupin,” some of which have been used or translated by Mallock, who has said s, but whose final conclusions appear to me to smack of Jesuitic casuistry

Gautier was not the founder of a philosophic school, but the founder of a systeht and expression His ”Made s of youth in the blosso of puberty, the reveries of amorous youth, the wild dreahly cultivated, are depicted with a daring excused only by their beauty I think Mallock wrong in his taking Gautier for a type of Antichrist There are feho have beheld the witchery of an antique statue, the supple interlacing of nude liretted the antique Freethinkers as were Gautier, Hugo, Baudelaire, De Musset, De Nerval, none of theious art of mediaevalism which created those fantastic and enor in the skeleton of a rowth of aestheticism there is a tendency to return to antique ideas of beauty, and the last few years has given evidence of a resurrection of Greek influence in several departainst prudery and prejudice had to be made in France, violent and extreme opinions were necessary,--the Gautiers and De Mussets were the Red Republicans of the Romantic Renaissance Gautier's poe for the death of Pan, crying that the ainst which the white skeleton appears in relief But the dreams of an artist may influence art and literature only; they cannot affect the crystallization of social systems or the philosophy of the eye

They were all pantheists, these characters of Rouely like old Greek dreamers, others deeply and studiously, like De Nerval, a lover of German mysticism: nature, who and wave-lapping soht to Brahmins and to Bodhisatvas under a more luxuriant sky They saw the evil beneath their feet as a vast ”paste”

for which the great Statuary eternally moulded new forms in his infinite crucible, and into which old forms were remelted to reappear in varied shapes;--the lips of loveliness ht of eyes rekindle in amethyst and emerald, the white breast with its delicate network of veins be re-created in fairest marble The worshi+p within sombre churches, and chapels, seemed to them unworthy of the spirit of Universal Love;--to adore him they deemed no te the everlasting la ocean hymn, ancient as the moon, whose words no human musician may learn

I do not knohether Mallock translated Gautier hial pantheistic alone contains the germ of a faith sweeter and purer and nobler than the author of ”Is Life Worth Living?” ever dreamed of, or at least comprehended The poem is a microcosm of artistic pantheisendary jewels in which spirits were ielinus, and so forth, I must say that I think it the duty of every scholar to read them It is only thus that we can really obtain a correct idea of the thought and lives of those who read thes, they are shadows of the past and echoes of dead voices Brantome or De Chateauneuf teach one more about the life of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries than a dozen ordinary historians could do The influence of sex and sexual ideas has moulded the history of nations and formed national character; yet, except Michelet, there is perhaps no historian who has read history fairly in this connection

Without such influence there can be no real greatness; the mind remains arid and desolate Every noble mind is made fruitful by its virility; we all have a secret h our Pompeian or Etruscan curiosities are only shown to appreciative friends

I have read your enclosed slip and aiven you by way of introduction, and quite astonished that you should be so young You have fine prospects before you, I fancy, if so successful already Of course _Congregational_ is so vague a word that I cannot tell how latitudinarian your present ideas are (for people in general), nor how broadly you may extend your studies of philosophy

Your correspondence with a freethinker of an extreme type would incline me to believe you were very liberally inclined, but I have often noticed that clergy even to the old cast-iron typewarm admirers of the beautiful and the true for their own sakes

Very sincerely yours, LAFCADIO HEARN

P S Have just been looking at Mallock, and am satisfied that he inity” by ”purity” No one but a Catholic or Jesuit would do that; only Catholics, I believe, consider the consummation of love intrinsically iinity Gautier would never have used the word--a word in itself i to uncleanliness of fancy I have translated it properly by the English equivalent I suppose you know that Mallock's aim is to prove that everybody not a Catholic is a fool