Volume II Part 19 (1/2)

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--I never liked any letter I got froether I suppose I have often ht to be,--and also finding certain of my best friends so differently soul-toned that I am often at a loss to understand hows and whys But it is curious that we are absolutely at one, after all, on sociological questions, as your letter shows Undoubtedly the ”co slavery,” predicted by Spencer, will coarchy will control life Men ed to eat at a public table; but every iteulated by law The world will be sickened for all time of democracy as now preached The future tyranny will be worse than any of old,--for it will be a regime of e froes But, for all that, the people are good They will be trapped through their ignorance, and held in slavery by their ignorance; and her goodness before they can reach freedoain

I believe there is no point of your letter in which we are not thoroughly at accord I have also been inclined to many schools of belief in theseby turns It is like the history of one's religious experiences And just as when, after e one's self from the last mesh of the net of creeds, one sees for the first ti of all, and the ical questions, it is by emancipation from faiths in politics that one learns what lies behind all politics,--the necessity of the Conservative vs the Radical, of the pleb vs the aristo Then, if synizes the aesthetic andto the latter, one learns also to understand that the great, good, unhappy, moral, immoral, vicious, virtuous people are the real soil of all future hope,--the field of the divine in Man

But for all that, when conditions jar on rumble and see only evil What reat shakes”--must show you that At the end of all experiences, bitter and pleasant, I try to suood only

What I said about the Germans you may not have understood I did not explain There is, I think, a particular Gerenerations to a colish--there has been developed a them a certain spirit of tolerance and a social inclination essentially German Also the poverty of their country has nourished a tendency to sobriety of life, while the causes developing their educational systeht the race, I believe, to a higher general plane than others I don't lish; but I think the rowth educationally is At all events a German community in America or in japan, while it remains German--has a peculiar charuished froious and social codes,--and an exterior affability,--quite different from the individualism of other cooes quite as deep as in those isolated natures so much harder to win

The essay by Spencer you will find in a volume sent you by mail, and sent to me by my American friend It did not appear in the old editions

Perhaps I may try the feat soh I e that I now perceive several ofI also perceive how closely Lowell reached the neighbourhood of truth without being able, nevertheless, (or willing?) to actually touch it My conclusion is that the charely the charm of childhood, and that theinto an adolescence which threatens to prove repulsive Perhaps the lish ”bad boys” it often does

I fear I can scarcely finish ”Occult japan,” and that I praised it too much in my late letter, after hasty exaly, supercilious one, verging on the wickedness of a wish to hurt When my eyes improve, I should like better to see his work on Mars I don't wish to say that ood as Lowell's ”Soul of the Far East;” but it is a curious fact that in at least a majority of the favourable criticisms I have been spoken of as far more successful than Lowell Why? Certainly not because I am his equal, either as a thinker or an observer The reason is simply that the world considers the sympathetic mood more just than the analytical or critical And except when the critic is a giant like Spencer or his peers,--I fear the merely critical mood will always be blind to the most vital side of any hu,--not reason This, indeed, Spencer showed long ago But there was in the ”Soul of the Far East” an exquisite approach to playful tenderness--utterly banished from ”Occult japan”

Ever yours, LAFCADIO HEARN

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, February, 1895

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--Thanks for the curious historical envelopes My eyes are nearly well: there is still one small black spot in the centre of the field of vision; but I trust it will go away as soon as the weather becohted to know you like the book A curious fact is that out of fifty criticisms sent me, in which the critics select ”favourites,”

I find that almost every article in the book has been selected by somebody It thus seems to appeal to persons of totally different teests itself,--that perhaps no book written entirely in one key can please so well as a book written in many keys However, the work must be unconscious If you are curious about any of the ”inside facts,” I shall be glad to tell you The ”Teacher's Diary” is, of course, strictly true as to rouping” The cruiser at Mionoseki was the Takachiho,--since beco you would like,--so I trust you will peep at them some time The Guji of Hino-misaki is my wife's relative, and the story of his ancestor is quite true

As for japanese words, you ht like ”Out of the East” better I don't think there are five japanese words in the book But it is chiefly reverie--contains little about facts or places Perhaps you will be less pleased with it in another way

As for changing oodthe feeling of a place and tihly detestable japanese can be, and that revelation assisted in illus I am now convinced, for exa the term philosophically) in the race is a serious defect rather than a merit, and is very probably connected with the absence of theIt does not folloever, that the same instinct lish Latin races would account for the artistic superiority as well as the moral weakness of French and Italians in special directions;--and the fact that even certain classes of music are now called sensual (not sensuous), and that there is a tendency to abjure Italian music in favour of the more aspirational Gerest-brained races are reaching a stage in abstract aesthetics still higher than the highest possible develop That the japanese can ever reach our aesthetic stage seems to me utterly impossible, but assuredly what they lack in certain directions theyup in others Indeed the development of the mathematical faculty in the race--unchecked and unht to prove a serious danger to Western civilization at last At least it seeht to produce scientific, political, and ists,”--Napoleons of practical applications of science All that is tender and manly and considerate and heroic in Northern character has certainly grown out of the sexual sentis in the far East would seem to have been evolved out of a different class of eine a civilization on Western lines with cold calculation universally substituted for ethical principle! The suggestion is very terrible and very ugly One would prefer even the society of the later Roman Empire

I am sorry your eyes are not all you could wish Do you not think it may be the weather? The doctor tells ht in summer, but that I have to be careful in cold weather And the tropics did et to the warm zones occasionally--perhaps shall be able to There are so verdure I have been unable to get facts about tropical conditions on this side of the world,--except through Wallace Ceraests possibilities But oneThen there are the French Marquesas A French colony ought to be full of romance, and void of missionaries But all these are dreams

Ever faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, March, 1895

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--It was very coet a letter from you; for I wanted an impulse to write I have been blue--by reason partly of the weather; and partly because of those reactions which follow all acco done then seems like an Elle-woman,--a mere delusive shell; and one marvels why anybody should have been charmed

Of course I did not ask point-blank for criticiso, ”Every h it is the literary custom in Aestion The title ”Out of the East” was selected froested only by the motto of the Oriental Society, ”Ex Oriente lux” The ”Far East” has been so monopolized by others that I did not like to use the phrase ”Out of the Utter a straining for effect I thought of Tennyson's ”most eastern east,” but the publishers didn't approve it The siuer--in ueness touches curiosity Besides, the book is a vague thing

Sound has much to do with the value of a title If it hadn't, you would have written ”japanese Things” instead of ”Things japanese”--which is entirely different, and so pretty that your ads Chinese” by an is japanese” is a phrase which has found its recognized place in the vocabulary of critics of both worlds Your criticisly influenced h I noticed the very sa the use of the word ”Orient” and the phrase ”Far East”

by Americans For our ”Orient” is, as you say, still the Orient of Kinglake, of De Nerval, etc But why should it be? To Milton it was the Indian East with kings barbaric sitting under a rain of pearls and gold

Manila was long h my capacity for sympathy with the beliefs of Catholic peasantry anywhere is very large,--the ugly possibility exists that the Inquisition survives in Manila, and I have had the ill-fortune to make the Jesuits pay so Spaniard who had his property confiscated, and who disappeared soo,--and was restored to liberty only after heaven and earth had been moved by his friends in Spain I don't know that I should disappear; but I should certainly have obstacles thrown in my way Mexico would be a safer country for the sa: in Wallace's time the cost of life per individual was only about 8s 6d a year! A , I know, but that ht to the eyes, and palms, and parrots, and butterflies of enor Western conditions of life I should like very ht create new aspirations: I a of islands in undiscovered seas, where all the people are Gods and fairies

Of course I cannot knowbeen in Malta as a child At a later tis about the old palaces of the knights, and a story about aof the French, had the presence of reen paint Southern Italy and the Mediterranean islands are especially fitted for classical scholars, like Syathered! I should think that, next to Venice, Malta must be the most romantic spot in Europe