Volume II Part 29 (2/2)

DEAR HENDRICK,--As for Miss Josephine's letter, I believe that I cannot answer it at all: it was so sweet that I could only sit down quietly and think about it,--and I feel that any attempt to answer it on paper would be no use There is only one way that it ought to be adequately answered, and that way I hope that you will adopt for my sake

It was a more than happy little ros about the great coreater world The poetry of the story ular appeal tosympathy is non-existent (at least outside of the household) Artistic life depends a great deal upon such friendshi+ps: I doubt whether it can exist without them, any more than butterflies or bees could exist without flowers

The ideal is created by the heart, no doubt; but it is nourished only by others' faith and love for it In all this great Tokyo I doubt if there is a man with an ideal--or a woman (I mean any one not a japanese); and so far as I have been able to hear and see there are consequently no friendshi+ps Can there possibly be friendshi+ps where there is no aspirational life? I doubt it verythe past ten months has been rather poor Why, I cannot quite understand--because it costs me reatly iet a Buddhist co with preexistence and :--Beauty is Me sadness;--the riddle of touch--i

e, the _thrill_ that a touch gives;--the perfu evoked by bright blue;--the pain caused by certain kinds of red;--mystery of certainof drea the collection ”Retrospectives” It ht be dedicated to ”E B W,”--I fancy that I should do well to use the initials only; for so But when the ill be finished I cannot tell

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In this Tokyo, this detestable Tokyo, there are no japanese impressions to be had except at rare intervals To describe to you the place would be utterly impossible,--more easy to describe a province

Here the quarter of the foreign e like a well-painted Aates several centuries old; a little further square miles of indescribable squalor;--then round trampled into a waste of dust, and bounded by hideous barracks;--then a great park, full of really weird beauty, the shadows all black as ink;--then square miles of streets of shops, which burn down once a year;--then roves;--then more streets All this not flat, but hilly,--a city of undulations Ireen and romantic--alternate with quarters of turraph-poles, looking at a distance like enormous fine-tooth combs, make a horrid impression Miles of water-pipes--miles and miles and miles of them--interrupt the traffic of the principal streets: they have been trying to put theround for seven years,--and ith official trickery, etc, the work antic reservoirs are ready; but no water in theineer (once a university professor) for 138,000 odd commission on plans! Streets melt under rain, water-pipes sink, water-pipe holes drown spreeing s in the street--To think of art or time or eternity in the dead waste and muddle of this mess is difficult

The Holy Ghost of the poets is not in Tokyo I a to try to find him by the seashore

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The other night I got into a little-known part of Tokyo,--a street all ablaze with lanterns about thirty feet high, painted eird devices And I was interested especially by the insect-sellers I bought a nu to make a study of the subjects The noise made by these creatures is very ine; but the habit of keeping them is not merely due to a love of the noise in itself No: it is because these little orchestras give to city-dwellers the _feeling_ of the delight of being in the country,--the sense of woods and hills and floater and starry nights and sweet air Fireflies are caged for the same reason

This is a refinement of sensation, is it not?--only a poetical people could have i summer-voices to make for them the illusion of nature where there is only dust and ers_ It is no use to cage the cicadae: they ree, and die

In this horrid Tokyo I feel like a cicada:--I a So any ht?--like a bell-insect which has only _one_ note

What ree to which the writer is a creature of circu or a Stevenson, he can go on forever Otherwise he is likely to exhaust every motive in short order, to the same extent that he depends on outer influence

There was a little under-ripple of premonition in that very sweet letter froht that the future ht hold troubles in its shado I suppose that for none can the future be only luminous; but that you will have a sreat sea appears to ine there will be rocks and reefs and whirlpools for you You have both such large experience of life as it is, and of the laws and the arts of navigating that water, that I have no anxiety about you at all Such little disillusions as you ether But there is the sensation of being afraid for somebody else--one has to face that; and the more boldly, perhaps, the less the terror becomes It is worse in the case where one would be helpless without the other But I i independent spirits--each skilled in self-guidance Thatyou _will_ have to do,--that is, to take extreood care of yourself for somebody else's sake Which redounds to my benefit; for I really don't knohat I should do without that occasional wind of sy my wife that it would be ever so much better to leave Tokyo, and dwell in the country, at a very much smaller salary, and have peace of mind She says that nowhere could I have any peace of mind until I become a Buddha, and that with patience we can becoood; andBut perhaps the influence fro of all

An earthquake and several other things (I _hate_ earthquakes) interrupted this letter It is awfully dull, I know--forgive its flatness

Ever, dear H, your LAFCADIO

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

TOKYO, 1897

DEAR HENDRICK,--You speak about that feeling of fulness of the heart hich we look at a thing,--half angered by inability to analyze within ourselves the delight of the vision I think the feeling is unanalyzable, si says in that wonderful narrative, ”The Finest Story in the World,” ”the doors have been shut behind us” The pleasure you felt in looking at that tree, at that lawn,--all the pleasure of the quaint su old city,--was it only _your_ pleasure? There is really no singular,--no ”I” ”I” is surely collective Othere never could explain fully those ht on summer waters,--by certain voice tones that make the heart beat quicker,--by certain colours and touches and longings The law that inherited memory becomes transmuted into intuitions or instincts is not absolute Only some memories, or rather parts of them, are so transformed Others remain--will not die When you felt the charm of that tree and that lawn,--many ould have loved you were they able to live as in other days, were looking through you and res At least I think it must have been so The different ways in which different places and things thus make appeal would be partly explained;--the supreest chain of life, and the highest But no pleasure of this sort can have so ghostly a sweetness as that which belongs to the charenerations have been Then how ain, and how many ecstasies of the childhoods of a hundred years must revive! We do not _all_ die,--said the ancient wise man How much of us dies is an unutterablehere She tells us we are advancing toward equilibration, to be followed by dissolution, to be succeeded by another evolution, to end in another disintegration--and so on forever Why a cosain resolved into a sun-swarm, she confesses that she does not know There is no comfort in her except the comfort of doubt,--and that is wholesoht can utterly perish As all life is force, the record of everything must pass into the infinite

Nohat is this force that shapes and unshapes universes? Might it be old thoughts and words and passions of men? The ancient East so declares There can be rest eternal only when--not in one petty world, but throughout all the cosmos--the Good only lives Here all is, of course, theory and ignorance,--for all we know Still the faith ought to have value Hoould the well-balanced ht would affect not only the future of hi queer happened I was vexed about so that had been done at a distance Some days after, one said to ry, people were killed”-- the place ”I know that,” I said ”But do you not feel sorry?” ”Why should I feel sorry?--I did not kill anybody” ”_How do you know you did not? Your anger er that caused the wrong_” Unto this I could not reply Thinking over the matter, indeed, who can say what his life may be to the life of the unseen about him?

Ever very affectionately, LAFCADIO HEARN

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

1897