Volume I Part 27 (2/2)
DEAR KREHBIEL,--I regret having been so pressed for tied to return your MS without a letter expressing the thanks which you know I feel I scribbled in pencil--which you can erase with a bit of bread--so, thatement; but advisenow to the South for literary work of a certain sort,--that immense fields for observation re, opportune work of a fresh kind I shall try soon reat difficulty is my introspective disposition, which leaveseyes, ears, and tongue in studying others rather than iven as African in Bryan Edwards's ”West Indies” My studies of African survivals have tereat many queer books which will coal; for our English travellers are generally poor ethnographers and anthropologists, so far as the Gold Coast and Ivory Coast are concerned You remember our correspondence about the coroes and whites
A war Spanish physician and professor here--is greatly interested in this new science: indeed we study cooniometers and Broca's instruments He states that only microscopic work can reveal the full details of differentiation in the vocal organs of races; but calls my attention to several differences already noticed
Gibb has proved, for instance, that the cartilages of Wrisberg are larger in the negro;--this would not affect the voice especially; but the fact promises revelations of a more important kind We think of your projects in connection with these studies
I copied only your Acadian boat-song What is the price of the slave-song book? If you have ti the next , I can use them admirably in _Melusine_
Your friend, L H
TO W D O'CONNOR
NEW ORLEANS, March, 1885
Big P S No 1
I forgot in my hurried letter yesterday, to tell you that if you ever want a copy of ”Stray Leaves,” don't go and buy it, as you have been naughty enough to do, but tell me, and I'll send you what you wish I hope to dedicate a book to you so to you
I am quite curious about you Seee, strong, and keen;--with delicate perceptions, (of course I know _that_, anyhoell-developed ideas of order and systereat continuity of purpose and a disposition as level and even as the hand you write If nize in it a very sular, impulsive, variable, nervous disposition,--al--except the love of the beautiful
Very faithfully, L H
Big P S No 2
I did not depend on _Le Figaro_ for stateo; but picked them up in all directions What think you of his refusal to aid poor blind Xavier Aubryet by writing a few lines of preface for his book?
What about his ignoring the services of his greatest champion, Theophile Gautier? What about his studied silence in regard to the works of the struggling poets and novelists of the urated? I really believe that the man has been a colossus of selfishness One who prejudiced ainst him, however, was that eccentric little Jew, Alexander Weill, whose reminiscences of Heine enerosity is rare Flaubert and Gautier possessed it; but twenty cases of the opposite kind, quite as illustrious, lad of your rebuke Whether ht not to speak of the weaknesses of truly great men when it can be avoided;--therefore I cry _peccavi_, and promise to do so no more
Yours very sincerely, LAFCADIO HEARN
[Illustration: MR HEARN'S EARLIER HANDWRITING]
TO H E KREHBIEL
NEW ORLEANS, 1885
DEAR KREHBIEL,--I have been away in Florida, in the track of old Ponce de Leon,--bathing in the Fount of Youth,--talking to the palreat Atlantic surf Charley Johnson and I took the trip together,--or to be strictly fair, it was he that induced ; and I am not sorry for the expense or the ti--sea-bathing--I prefer our own Creole islands in the Gulf to any place in Florida; but for scenery and sunlight and air,--air that is a liquid jewel,--Florida seearden of Hesperus I'll send you what I have written about it
Charles Dudley Warner, whose acquaintance e I have yet met Gilder of the _Century_ was here--a handsoot would interest you--Sy” I had no idea that the Twelfth Century had its literary renascence, or that in the ti worthy of Horace and Anacreon The Middle Ages no longer seem so Doresquely black
Your friend, LAFCADIO HEARN
TO REV WAYLAND D BALL
NEW ORLEANS, 1885