Volume I Part 28 (2/2)

I am sorry that I have so little to tell you in a literary way As you seem to see the _T-D_ very often, you watchto cos on very, very slowly: I fear I shan't finish it before winter Then I have a little Chinese story accepted for _Harper's Bazar_, which I will send you, and which I think you will like

Otherwise ed With the expansion of my private study, I feel convinced that I know too little to atte like a serious voluer fancy in some directions, and new colours, which I can use hereafter Fiction seems to be the only certain road to the publishers'

hearts, and I shall try it, not in a lengthy, but a brief co as much as possible after intense effects I think you would like lomeration of exotics and eccentricities

And you do not norite much?--do you? I would like to have read the paper you told me of; but I fear the _Manhattan_ is dead beyond resurrection--and, by the way, Richard Grant White has departed to that land which is ruled by absolute silence, and in which a law of fair play, unrecognized by our publishers, doth prevail Do you never take a vacation? If you could visit our Grande Isle in the healthy season, you would enjoy it so much! An old-fashi+oned, drowsy, free-and-easy Creole watering-place in the Gulf,--where there is an ad extraordinary, and subjects innumerable for artistic studies--a hybrid population from all the ends of heaven, white, yellow, red, brown, cinnaold Basques, Andalusians, Portuguese, Malays, Chinas there

Have you seen the revised Old Testament? How many of our favourite and beautiful texts have been marred! I almost prefer the oddity of Wickliffe And, by the way, I must tell you that Palmer's Koran is a fine book! (”Sacred Books of the East,” Mac I will be able, one of these days, to write so that I can worthily dedicate to you,

Believe me Very affectionately, LAFCADIO HEARN

TO H E KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, October, 1885

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I would suggest as a title for Tunison's adil,” or, better still, ”The Virgilian Legend” (in the singular), as it is the custo folklorists to asseeneral head Thus we have ”The Legend of Melusine, or Mere Lusine;” ”The Legend of Myrrdliuh each subject represents a large nu the evolutional history of one idea through centuries This title could be supplemented by an explanatory sub-title

Of course you can rely on ly, what I cannot but admire and honourably envy the authorshi+p of I wish I could even hope to do so fine a piece of serious work as this prorateful for your pros, which I will return in a day or two Soments--I would like so as to introduce your role well I now fear, however, that I shall not be able to devote as s, doings, and a to tell I have accureat deal in directions which have not yet led oal; I haveabout; and I have becousted hat I have already done

But I have not yet abandoned the idea of evolutional fiction, and find thathas enabled me to find a totally new charested artistic effects of a new and peculiar description I dream of a novel, or a novelette, to be constructed upon totally novel principles; but the outlook is not encouraging Years of very hard ith a proble hard to graduate and feeling tolerably uneasy about the result

Since you have ht drop a line occasionally I hope to hear you succeed with the Scribners;--if not, I would strongly recohton, Mifflin & Co, the most appreciative publishers on this side of the Atlantic

Yours very affectionately, LAFCADIO HEARN

TO H E KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1885

DEAR K,--I was in hopes by this time to have been able to have sent you for examination a little voluiven of the various negro-creole dances and songs of the Antilles

The book has been ordered for a very considerable ti to some cause or other, its arrival has been delayed

I find references ard to the music of those extraordinary desert nomads, who retain their blue eyes and blonde hair under the sun of the Timbuctoo country; and to Endemann (by Hartmann) as a preserver of the music of the Basutos (South Africa) Hartmann himself considers African music--superficially, perhaps, in the sritiens” (Berlin: in 2 vols) I have the small work (”Peuples d'Afrique”) which forms part of the French International Scientific Series, but has not been translated for the American collection

Hartmann speaks well of thetheir art undeveloped; and he even says that the fayptian music of Dendera, Edfu, and Thebes never rose above the orchestration at an Ashantee or Monbuttoo festival He even reyptian and ritian peoples are alro talents for improvisation, and their peculiar love of animal-fables--the saro e work of Hartraphed I fear it is very expensive The names Hartmann and Endeh French sources,--perhaps you have seen the original He supports some of his vieith quotations you are familiar with perhaps--from Clapperton, Bowdich, and Schweinfurth

It is rather provoking that I have not been able to find any special; and I fancy the Griot ly resemble (in its suitability to iroes here Every French writer on Senegal has so to say about the Griots, but none seeh music to preserve a chant The last torks published (Jeannest's ”Au Congo” and Marche's ”Afrique Occidentale”) ritten by men without music in their souls The first publishes pictures of ives ten lines to the subject in a volume of nearly 400 pp Seeht cultivate virgin soil in regard to the Africanto it seems to deal with the music of South Africa and the west and north coasts;--the interior is unknown musically I expect to receive La Selve soon, however,--and if his announce of interest therein regarding the cis-Atlantic Africa

L H

I saw a notice in the _Tribune_ regarding the negro Pan's pipe described by Cable I never saw it; but the fact is certainly very interesting

The cane is well adapted to inspire such manufacture