Volume II Part 19 (2/2)
I see your paper on Loochoo must have been much more than what you said of it,--viz, that only some snuffy German would read it Or was the London report about the paper on Loochoo which I have? (There h it would be quite hard to get at: probably three years' work)
You can't i of reaction in thehad quite suddenly become clear to me, and utterly void of emotional interest: a race pri the practices of a larger civilization under compulsion,--five thousand years at least eest to us the existence of feelings and ideals which do not exist, but are sihest things have not grown up out of equally sis The compulsion first--then the sense of duty becoe of ethical habit,--then the habit creating conviction,--then relations,--then the capacity for general ideas But all the educational syste with facts apparent to common sense There are no depths to stir, no race-profundities to explore: all is like a japanese river-bed, through which the stones and rocks show up all the year round,--and is never filled but in time of cataclysm and destruction
Ever faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN
TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN
KOBE, March, 1895
DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--Of course send back the Taylor and Pater--if you don't care for them I myself was veryfor Taylor is connected with boyish recollections of his facile charreatly thrill me now And may I make a confession?--I can't endure anylearned the gems of the Of Wordsworth Watson sings,--
”It ht has broadened since he died!”
Well, I should smile! His deepest truths have become platitudes
This reical bit of Hugo's, ”Chant de Sophocle a Salareatness and littleness You know it, I suppose It opens thus:--
Me voila! Je suis un Ephebe,-- Mes seize ans sont d'azur baignes, Guerre, Deesse de l'Erebe,-- Sones_
The italicized wordsbathos; while the first part of the verse is like a Greek frieze But let us go on:--
Je viens a toi, la nuit est noire!
Puisque Xerces est le plus fort, Prends-loire, Et pour la tonificence!)
Toi dont le glaive est le ministre, Toi que l'Eclair suit dans les cieux, Choisis-moi de ta main sinistre Une belle fille aux doux yeux
What makes the splendour of this verse? Not only the tremendous contrast,--apocalyptic It is especially, I think, the oish the whole thing is!
I fear that what I said long ago is likely to come true: the first fire is burnt out,--the zeal is dead,--the educational effort (one of theserved its immediate purpose (the recovery of national autonomy) is dead Hence there is a prospect of decay
Now I should like to protest against this danger in a review-article: say, ”History of the Decline and Fall of Education in japan;” or, ”History of Foreign Teaching in japan” Could I get documents?--just a skeleton at least; of statistics, rules, details, numbers The article has been in my mind for two years And I notice the japanese don't object to healthy criticis-talk, however,--and stupid
I think it is As in the _Chronicle_ just now, about the Mo unpleasant in the tone of japanese satire to me,--however clever, it shows that they have not yet reached the same perception of sensibility as we have Of course I refer only to the best of them--masters The sy in the company of a cultivated japanese for more than an hour at a time After the first charm of formality is over, the man becomes ice--or else suddenly drifts away from you into his oorld, far from ours as the star Rephan
You will be pleased to hear that I have not yet droppedto speak of, but have lost none so far By fall I suppose I shall have h no fortune, out of ”Glih to justify a tropical trip, I shall be satisfied
Malta h of a scholar to use such an opportunity as Malta would give I should do better with Spain and gipsies, or Pondicherry and Klings
By the way, ue was Italian I spoke Romaic and Italian by turns In New Orleans I hired a teacher to teach ain But it didn't come at all, and I quarrelled with the teacher, who looked exactly like a murderer and never smiled So I know not Italian
Ever faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN
TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN