Volume I Part 38 (1/2)

I have never seen the _Cosoing on anywhere

Philadelphia is a city very peculiar--isolated by custoood solid social morality, and much peace It has its own dry drab newspapers, which are not like any other newspapers in the world, and contain nothing not i Philadelphia

Consequently no echo from New York enters here--nor any from anywhere else: there are no New York papers sold to speak of The Quaker City does not want theazines and weeklies But it's the best old city in the whole world all the same

Faithfully, L HEARN

TO ELIZABETH BISLAND

PHILADELPHIA, 1889

MY DEAR MISS BISLAND,--I don't knohether you saw a little gehtly_; I cut it out and send it,--also an atteazine editor in printing it in French,--and a comment of mine I don't think you are likely to wish to print such a thing as the translation; but if you should, don't use it without sending me a proof, because it is full of errors

While in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, I found it--originally contributed, in French, to the _Fortnightly_ for August, 1888--copied into a French paper The i it startled me for reasons independent of the exquisite weirdness of the thought There was the great orange sunset of the tropics before o, and tamarind-trees, and the broad, satiny leaves of _bananier_ and _balisier_ The interior described in the vision was not of modern Saint-Pierre; but I knew an old interior in Fort de France, whose present quaint condition repeated precisely the background of the dreao there were but two places on the sunset-side of Martinique which could have presented the spectacle of the little low streets described,--Fort de France and Saint-Pierre The high low at an early hour on the eastern side of the island It seee coincidence that in _Les Colonies_, a local paper, I had just read also, that some old ceround for children

LAFCADIO HEARN

TO ELIZABETH BISLAND

PHILADELPHIA, 1889

DEAR MISS BISLAND,--Verily shi+rin, shi+rintar, and shi+rintarin art thou,--and Saadi in the Garden of the Taj likewise,--and also the letter which I have just received

Eest: it has that intensity of sweetness which touches the sphere of pain One need not seek in the Bostan or Gulistan for the essence of that voluured in its reflection from a nineteenth century mind

There has been in one of Edwin Arnold's books sooodness and hunition of soul-unity,--but in none, I think, so strangely as in this And then, what horror to read the very coarse interview published recently in a daily paper: the brutal repetition of a man's words uttered under constraint, about the o to New York till you come back I trust you will not overwork yourself: e see (I mean ”hear”) each other, we can talk over all known devices for lightening literary duties I am acquainted with so--unless you were to do”awfully ht to be

I will try to give you so By the way, I have an idea whichThe prose fiction which lives through the centuries in the short story: like the old Greek roinie;” the ”Candide” of Voltaire; the ”Vicar of Wakefield;” ”Undine,” etc, outlive all the ampler labour of their authors It seereat novel will pass out of fashi+on: three-quarters of what is written is unnecessary,--is involved simply by obedience to effete formulas and standards As a consequence we do not read as we used to We read only the essential, skipping all else The book that compels perusal of every line and word is the book of power Create a story of which no reader can skip a single paragraph, and one has the secret of force,--if not of durability My own hope is to do so in accordance with this idea: no descriptions, no preli itself at highest intensity I may fail utterly; but I think I have divined a truth which will yet be recognized and pursued by stronger minds than mine The less reater, as water than land, as wind than water, as ht, heat, electricity, rates of ether-vibration;--but the notion ork itself out in your own beautiful mind without any clumsy attempts of mine to illustrate

--About the translation,--do as you please,--but don't please put it in a great big daily, next to the account of a prize-fight or awith it, see, _above all things earthly_, that I get proofs But I would just as soon you would keep it

I inal previously

I thought the _Cosmo_ was a sort of literary weekly It is a beautiful littleto win a great success

Good-bye;--your Voice wishes you a very happy pleasure-trip, in which you will feel all sorts of new feelings, and dream all manner of new dreams

LAFCADIO HEARN

TO ELIZABETH BISLAND

PHILADELPHIA, 1889