Volume II Part 22 (1/2)

One little story which would never die, ht suffice,--or a volume of little stories Stories, fiction: that is all the public care about

Not essays, however clever,--nor vagaries, nor travels,--but stories about so common to all life under the sun And this is just the very hardest of all earthly things to do I norant,--by studying the subject for the necessary time But a story cannot be written by the help of study at all: it must come from outside It must be a ”sensation” in one's own life,--and not peculiar to any life or any place or ti the ”will” and ”shall” carefully, and think that I shall be able to avoid serious et the ”instantaneous sense”--so to speak--of their correct use The line between ”intention” and ”future sequence” I can't well define

I can't help fearing that what youmeans that you want me to write as if I were you, or at least to ht by your standard This, of course, would render frank correspondence impossible,--as it does even now to so one day, and badly another--I expect my friend to discern that both impressions are true, and solve the contradiction--that is, if my letters are really wanted For absolute ”justice and tees of Herbert Spencer--but you would then discern that even _la raison peut fatiguer a la longue_ I should suppose the interest of letters not to be in the text, but in the writer A?

L H

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, April, 1895

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--In writing to you, of course, I've not been writing a book--but sis of the moment as they come I write a book exactly the same way; but all this has to be smoothed, ordinated, corrected, toned over twenty tie is ready It strikes me, however, that the first raw emotion or fancy, which is the base of all, has its value between men who understand each other You, on the other hand,--differently constituted,--write a letter as you would write a book You collect and ht instinctively and perhaps unconsciously before setting it on paper

I'm not quite such an American radical as you think in consequence; for I confess to a belief in the value of aristocracies--a very strong belief On the other hand, the reality of the thing to the man is its relation to him personally Don't you think your comfort in all sorts and conditions may be due to your personal independence of those sorts and conditions? It is like Rufz's statement that ”the first relations betweenas you are in nobody's way, and have capacity to please, you have the bright side turned to you (Again, there is this question: Are you sure the side you see and like is not the artificial side? I don't say it is, but there are possibilities) My own dislike of mercantile people in all countries is based upon experiences of the contrary sort But how can men, trained froe of human weakness, reument; and that the poorest people in all countries are the ued and indisputable facts in sociology,--in the study of civilized races, at least When to this marrow-bred sense of morality is superadded the courtesy you yourself in a forant in the stateentleentleness means delicate consideration for others, by means of which virtue no man can succeed in life

I should like to know any story of heroism--sorry not to be near you to coax you for an outline of it Every fact of goodness makes one better, and an author richer, to know it There are good heroes and heroines in all walks of life, indeed,--though all walks of life do not necessarily lead to goodness Indeed, there are sooodness is foolishness,--but all won't believe it is true

The extraordinary wastefulness of foreign life is a fact that strikes one hard after life in the interior Men work like slaves for no other earthly reason than that conventions require them to live beyond their means; and those who are free to live as they wish live on a scale that seeht in the end, but I have not yet escaped the sensation of i a hundred for e, more than 500 a week for mere amusement He lives, therefore, at the rate of ht: but in the eternal order of things the whirligig of ties

A paper read by Spencer before the Anthropological Society, on the subject of the Method of Coy, caes--so I could read it What a y! I may try to take up the theestions, however--such as that the japanese indifference to abstract ideas is not indifference, but incapacity to forestion

P S I should like to discuss the ”heredity and evolution” topic of child-feeling, but fear to weary you withletter, but concluded not to send to-day You are quite right about the inherited feeling of the impulse to martial play: the new toy would represent subjectively soards colour, for remains the chief factor in the matter A mask of _o tafuku_ as a toy would not effect modifications in the quality of certain inherited impressions, but only accentuate them, and accentuate others innuret that I cannot write more for the moment, yours faithfully,

LAFCADIO HEARN

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

KOBE, 1895

DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--I et a job in Loochoo, when the country becohost-business must be simply immense: it must be im Of old I felt sure that if the Egyptian dehostly side of that literature would be a--for just the sahost-stories are without parallel assyrian ghostology is also very awful; but we don't know much about their necropoles,--for whatever those were, they were of perishable stuff

As I told the Houghton firm I had a volume of philosophical fairy-tales in ain, they sent me four volumes;the old charm coreat the art of the ical si force of coraphed and phonographed and put, like electricity, in storage To write like Andersen, one must be Andersen

But the fountain of his inspiration is unexhausted, and I hope to gain by drinking from it I read, and let the result set up disturbances interiorly Disturbances e Kyushu

LAFCADIO HEARN

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

KOBE, April, 1895

DEAR HENDRICK,--Apparently the war is over; and we are glad,--with due apprehension Possibilities are ugly The dooun to be knelled In twenty-five years ents chiefly The anti-foreign feeling is strong I auilty