Volume II Part 20 (1/2)

KOBE, March, 1895

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--About three days ago came the welcome books

”The Cruise of the Marchesa” it would be difficult to praise too highly There are a few touches here and there slightly priggish, or snobbish,--but the fine taste of the writer as a rule, his modesty as a man of science, his compact force of expression, his appreciation of nature, his astonishi+ng capacity for saying a vast deal in a feords, are indubitable, and give the book a very high literary place The engravings are lovely The other book is an amazement How any ine It is the raceful attempt of the sort I ever saw,--absolutely unreadable as a whole: an almanac is a ro facts by groping through it I should scarcely like to trust ht, and will bear eneral impression is that both Sulu and the Celebes are paradises; but that Dutch order is highly preferable to the condition of the isles under Spanish doueur_ habits is the chief drawback, I should iine, at a place like Macassar But the Malayan Dutch colonies htful places I fear, however, that as in Java, the Christianization of the natives has spoiled the field for folk-lore work

The Ryukyu chapters, with the illuentle sensation Half-China and half-japan under tropical conditions should create a particular queerness quite different from our Dai Nippon queerness I hardly believe that the conditions will change so rapidly as those of japan proper In such latitudes and such isolation changes do not come quickly There are little places on the west coast I knohere the conditions must be still pretty near the sao

I fear, however,days (except for business and et rich Some day I may hit the public; but that will probably be when I shall have become ancient I feel just now empty and useless and a dead failure Perhaps I shall feel better next season At all events I have learned that, beyond all doubt and question, it is absolutely useless fordoes not co

I had a sensation the other day, though, which I want to talk to you about I felt as if I hated japan unspeakably, and the whole world see in, when there came tomen to the house, to sell ballads One took her _sa; and people crowded into the tiny yard to hear Never did I listen to anything sweeter All the sorrow and beauty, all the pain and the sweetness of life thrilled and quivered in that voice; and the old first love of japan and of things japanese careat tenderness see I looked at the people, and I saw they were nearly all weeping, and snuffing; and though I could not understand the words, I could feel the pathos and the beauty of things Then, too, for the first tier was blind Both woly, but the voice of the one that sang was indescribably beautiful; and she sang as peasants and birds and _se, which is nature and is divine They anderers both I called them in, and treated them well, and heard their story It was not romantic at all,--small-pox, blindness, a sick husband (paralyzed) and children to care for I got two copies of the ballad, and enclose one I should be very glad to pay for having it translated literally:--if you think it could be used, I wish you would soive it to a japanese translator As for price, I should say five yen would be a fair limit

Would you not like me to return some day your version of the kumamoto Rojo, and admirable translation? I preserve it carefully; and have used so book I rendered nearly the whole into loose verse, but in spite ofwith the best part of it; I could put no spirit into the lines My suggestion about it is because it is a very curious if not a very poetical thing; and should you ever s, it would be a pity not to include it So it is always carefully kept, not only for its own sake, but also in view of such possible use

I find it is still the custom when a _shi+nju_ occurs tothe same, and sell it This reminds one of London

Ballad customs seem to be the same in all parts of the world

I shall soon return the books, with a copy of the next _Atlantic_ What could I send you that you would like? I should suggest Rossetti, if you do not know hih as Tennyson I have only Wallace a travellers I have all of Fiske and Huxley and Spencer and Clifford and the philosophy of Lewes By the way, have you read ”Trilby”? I have read it several times over It is a wonderful book The art of it escapes one at first reading, when one reads only for the story

LAFCADIO HEARN

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, 1895

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--I warned you not to get Gautier's coainst my desire Gautier's own opinion was adverse to the publication of his complete poems in this shape

He selected and published separately those which satisfied him, in the ”Emaux et Camees” (I once translated ”Les Taches Jaunes,”--isn't it?--in the other volume; a bit of weird sensualism quite in the Romantic spirit) Gautier's work is often uneven He was a journalist, and lived by the newspaper His life's complaint was that he could never find time for perfect work: the effort e, I think Still, writing merely for a newspaper,--in haste,--without a chance to think and polish,--his feuilletons remain treasures of French literature (You are very unjust to his prose; for it is the finest of all French prose) His co--they run to about 60 vols, but they cannot all be had from one publisher So he has become a subject for book-collectors Sainte-Beuve, like Gautier, existed as a journalist In France a journalist used to have literary chances In English-speaking countries literary work is still outside of the newspapers; and our would-be litterateurs have therefore a still harder struggle (See that article in the _Revue_ No English prose could accomplish those feats of colour and sensation--delicate sensation the ue is immeasurably inferior to French)

”Philip and His Wife” was finished in the October nu it Mrs Deland is a great genius, I think

Her ”Story of a Child” was one of the daintiest bits of psychology I ever read

Sorry you deny hereditary sensation The idea of the experimentalists that the mind of the newly born child is a _tabula rasa_, and that all sensations are based on individual experiences, is no longer recognized--not at least by the evolutional school of psychology, the only purely scientific school Spencer especially has denied this idea

In the life about us we see every day proofs of inherited capacity for pleasures we know nothing of, and incapacity for pleasures normal to us and to our whole race Indeed, I can prove the fact to you at any time

Faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN

P S I have been out for a walk As usual the little boys cried ”Ijin,”

”Tojin,”--and, although I don't go out alone, the changed feeling of even the adult population toward a foreigner wandering through their streets was strongly visible

A sadness, such as I never felt before in japan, came over me Perhaps your pencilled comments on the decrease of filial piety, and the erroneous i to do with it I felt, as never before, how utterly dead Old japan is, and how ugly New japan is becos which have ceased to exist Only on reaching a little shrine, filled with popular _ex-voto_,--innocent foolish things,--it see still,--but far away froht I would like to be in the old Buddhist cemetery at Gesshoji, which is in Matsue, in the Land of Izu, and were so reater

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN