I am very weary of New Orleans. The first delightful impression it

produced has vanished. The city of my dreams, bathed in the gold of

eternal summer, and perfumed with the amorous odours of orange flowers,

has vanished like one of those phantom cities of Spanish America,

swallowed up centuries ago by earthquakes, but reappearing at long

intervals to deluded travellers. What remains is something horrible like

the tombs here,--material and moral rottenness which no pen can do

justice to. You must have read some of those mediæval legends in which

an amorous youth finds the beautiful witch he has embraced all through

the night crumble into a mass of calcined bones and ashes in the

morning. Well, I feel like such a one, and almost regret that, unlike

the victims of these diabolical illusions, I do not find my hair

whitened and my limbs withered by sudden age; for I enjoy exuberant

vitality and still seem to myself like one buried alive or left alone in

some city cursed with desolation like that described by Sinbad the

sailor. No literary circle here; no jovial coterie of journalists; no

associates save those vampire ones of which the less said the better.

And the thought--Where must all this end?--may be laughed off in the

daytime, but always returns to haunt me like a ghost in the night.

Your friend,

L. HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1881.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--To what could I now devote myself? To nothing! To

study art in any one of its branches with any hope of success requires

years of patient study, vast reading, and a very considerable outlay of

money. This I know. I also know that I could not write one little story

of antique life really worthy of the subject without such hard study as

I am no longer able to undertake, and a purchase of many costly works

above my means. The world of Imagination is alone left open to me. It

allows of a vagueness of expression which hides the absence of real

knowledge and dispenses with the necessity of technical precision of

detail. Again, let me tell you that to produce a really artistic work,

after all the years of study required for such a task, one cannot

possibly obtain any appreciation of the work for years after its

publication. Such works as Flaubert's "Salammbô" or Gautier's "Roman de

la Momie" were literary failures until recently. They were too learned

to be appreciated. Yet to write on a really noble subject, how learned

one must be! There is no purpose, as you justly observe, in my

fantastics,--beyond the gratification of expressing a Thought which

cries out within one's heart for utterance, and the pleasant fancy that

a few kindred minds will dream over them, as upon pellets of green

hascheesch,--at least should they ever assume the shape I hope for. And

do not talk to me of work, dear fellow, in this voluptuous climate. It

is impossible! The people here are so languidly lazy that they do not

even dream of chasing away the bats which haunt these crumbling

buildings.

Is it possible you like Dr. Ebers? I hope not! He has no artistic

sentiment whatever,--no feeling, no colour. He is dry and dusty as a

mummy preserved with bitumen. He gropes in the hypogæa like some Yankee

speculator looking for antiquities to sell. You must be Egyptian to

write of Egypt;--you must feel all the weird solemnity and mighty

ponderosity of the antique life;--you must comprehend the whole force of

those ideas which expressed themselves in miracles of granite and

mysteries of black marble. Ebers knows nothing of this. Turning from the

French writers to his lifeless pages is like leaving the warm and

perfumed bed of a beloved mistress for the slimy coldness of a

sepulchre.

The Venus of Milo!--the Venus who is not a Venus! Perhaps you have read

Victor Rydberg's beautiful essay about that glorious figure! If not,

read it; it is worth while. And let me say, my dear friend, no one dare

write the whole truth about Greek sculpture. None would publish it. Few

would understand it. Winckelmann, although impressed by it, hardly

realized it. Symonds, in his exquisite studies, acknowledges that the

spirit of the antique life remains, and will always remain to the

greater number, an inexplicable although enchanting mystery. But if one

dared!...

And you speak of the Song of Solomon. I love it more than ever. But

Michelet, the passionate freethinker, the divine prose-poet, the bravest

lover of the beautiful, has written a terrible chapter upon it. No

lesser mind dare touch the subject now with sacrilegious hand.

I doubt if you are quite just to Gautier. I had hoped his fancy might

please you. But Gautier did not write those lines I sent you. They are

found in the report of conversations held with him by Emile

Bergerat;--they are mere memories of a dead voice. Probably had he ever

known that these romantic opinions would one day be published to the

world, he would never have uttered them.

Your Hindoo legends charmed me, but I do not like them as I love

the Greek legends. The fantasies created in India are superhumanly

vast, wild, and terrible;--they are typhoons of the tropical

imagination;--they seem pictures printed by madness,--they terrify and

impress, but do not charm. I love better the sweet human story of

Orpheus. It is a dream of human love,--the love that is not only strong,

but stronger than death,--the love that breaks down the dim gates of the

world of Shadows and bursts open the marble heart of the tomb to return

at the outcry of passion. Yet I hold that the Greek mind was infantine

in comparison to the Indian thought of the same era; nor could any Greek

imagination have created the visions of the visionary East. The Greek

was a pure naturalist, a lover of "the bloom of young flesh;"--the

Hindoo had fathomed the deepest deeps of human thought before the Greek

was born.

Zola is capable of some beautiful things. His "Le Bain" is pure

Romanticism, delicate, sweet, coquettish. His contribution to "Les

Soirées de Médan" is magnificent. His "Faute de l'Abbé Mouret" does not

lack real touches of poetry. But as the copy of Nature is not true art

according to the Greek law of beauty, so I believe that the school of

Naturalism belongs to the low order of literary creation. It is a sharp

photograph, coloured by hand with the minute lines of vein and shading

of down. Zola's pupils, however,--those who wrote the "Soirées de

Médan,"--have improved upon his style, and have mingled Naturalism with

Romanticism in a very charming way.

I was a little disappointed, although I was also much delighted, with

parts of Cable's "Grandissimes." He did not follow out his first

plan,--as he told me he was going to do,--viz., to scatter about fifty

Creole songs through the work, with the music in the shape of notes at

the end. There are only a few ditties published; and as the Creole music

deals in fractions of tones, Mr. Cable failed to write it properly. He

is not enough of a musician, I fancy, for that.

By the time you have read this I think you will also have read my

articles on Gottschalk and translations. I sent for his life to Havana;

and received it with a quaint Spanish letter from Enrique Barrera,

begging me to find an agent for him. I found him one here. His West

Indian volume is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever seen.

It is the wildest of possible romances.

L. H.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1881.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--How could you ever think you had offended me? I was

so sick--expecting to go blind and "lift the cover of my brains," as the

Spaniards say, and also ill-treated--that I had no spirit left to write.

You will be glad to know that I have now got so fat that they call me

"The Fat Boy" at the office.

Your letter gave me great pleasure. I think your plan--vague as it

appears to be--will crystallize into a very happy reality. You have the

sacred fire,--_le vrai feu sacré_,--and with health and strength must

succeed. What you want, and what we all want, who possess devotion to

any noble idea, who hide any artistic idol in a niche of the heart, is

that independence which gives us at least the time to worship the

holiness of beauty,--be it in harmonies of sound, of form, or of colour.

You have strength, youth,--not in years only but in the vital resources

of your being,--the true _parfum de la jeunesse_ is perceptible in your

thoughts and hopes and abilities to create; and you have other

advantages I will not mention lest my observations might be

"embarrassing." I should be surprised indeed to hear in a few years from

now that you had not been able to emancipate yourself from the fetters

of that intensely vulgar and detestably commonplace thing, called

American journalism,--of which I, alas! must long remain a slave. A

prize in the Havana lottery might alone deliver me speedily; but I

mostly rely on the hope of being able next year to open a little French

bookstore in one of the tense quaint old streets. I had hoped to leave

New Orleans; but with my eyes in their present condition, it would be

folly to fight for life over again in some foreign country.

You say you hope to see some day a product of my pen more durable than a

newspaper article. But I very much doubt if you ever will. My visual

misfortune has reduced my hours of work to one third. I only work from

10 A.M. to 2 P.M. You will see, therefore, that my work must be rapid.

At 2 P.M. my eyes are usually worn out. But as you seem to have been

interested in some of my little fantasies, I take the liberty of sending

you several now. They are too flimsy, however, to be ever collected for

publication, unless in the course of a few years I could write a

hundred or so, and select one out of three afterward.

Your observations about Amphion and Orpheus prompted me to send you an

old issue of the _Item_, in which you will find some very extraordinary

observations on the subject of Greek music, translated from a charming

work in my possession. But you will be disgusted, perhaps, to know that

with all his erudition upon musical legends and musical history, Gautier

had no ear for music. I almost feel like asking you not to tell that to

anybody.

If you could pay a visit this winter I think you would have a pleasant

time. I would like to aid you to get some of the Creole music I vainly

promised you. I found it impossible so far to obtain any; yet had I the

ability to write music down I could have obtained you some. If you were

here I could introduce you to the President of the Athénée Louisianaise,

who would certainly put you in the way of doing so yourself.

What I do hope to obtain for you--if you care about it--is Mexican

music. Mexicans are common visitors here; and every educated Mexican can

sing and play some instrument. They have sung here for us,--guitar

accompaniment. Did you ever hear "El Aguardiente"? It is a very queer

air,--boisterous, merry with a merriment that seems all the time on the

point of breaking into a laugh--yet withal half-savage like some Spanish

ditties. When they sang it here, it was with a chorus accompaniment of

glasses held upside down and tapped with spoons.

Did you ever hear negroes play the piano by ear? There are several

curiosities here, Creole negroes. Sometimes we pay them a bottle of wine

to come here and play for us. They use the piano exactly like a banjo.

It is good banjo-playing, but no piano-playing.

One difficulty in the way of obtaining Creole music or ditties is the

fact that the French coloured population are ashamed to speak their

patois before whites. They will address you in French and sing French

songs; but there must be extraordinary inducements to make them sing or

talk in Creole. I have done it, but it is no easy work.

Nearly all the Creoles here--white--know English, French, and Spanish,

more or less well, in addition to the patois employed only in speaking

to children or servants. When a child becomes about ten years old, it is

usually forbidden to speak Creole under any other circumstances.

But I do not suppose this will much interest you. I shall

endeavour--this time I'm afraid to promise--to secure you some Mexican

or Havanese music; and will postpone further remarks to a future

occasion.

I am sorry Feldwisch is ill; and I doubt if the Colorado air will do him

good. When he was here I had a vague suspicion I should never see him

again.

Remember me to those whom you know I like, and don't think me dilatory

if I don't write immediately on receipt of a letter. I have explained

the condition of affairs as well as I could.

I remain, dear fellow, yours,

L. HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1882.

How are you on Russian music?

You could make a terrible and taking operatic tragedy on Sacher-Masoch's

"Mother of God." Get it, if you can, and read it. I send you specimen

translation. It was written, I believe, in German.

Have you read in the "Kalewala" of the "Bride of Gold,"--of the

"Betrothed of Silver"?

Have you read how the mother of Kullevo arose from her tomb, and cried

unto him from the deeps of the dust?

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1882.

DEAR K.,--It got dark yesterday before I could finish some extracts from

"Kalewala" I wanted to send. They are just suggestion. I must also tell

you I have only a very confused idea of the "Kalewala" myself, having

read it through simply as a romance, and never having had time to study

out all its mythological bearings and meanings. In fact my edition is

too incomplete and confusedly arranged in any case: notes are piled in a

heap at the end of each volume, causing terrible trouble in making

references. See if you can get Castrén.

I want also to tell you that the Pre-Islamic legends I spoke of to you

are admirably arranged for musical suggestion. The original narrator

breaks into verse here and there, as into song: Rabiah, for instance,

recites his own death-song, his mother answers him in verse. All Arabian

heroic stories are arranged in the same way; and even in so serious a

work as Ibn Khallikan's great biographical dictionary, almost every

incident is emphasized by a poetical citation.

Your idea about your style being heavy is really incorrect. Your art has

trained you so thoroughly in choosing words that hit the exact meaning

desired with the full strength of technical or picturesque expression,

that the continual use of certain beauties has dulled your perception of

their native force, perhaps. You do not feel, I mean, the full strength

of what you write--in a style of immense compressed force. I would not

wish you to think you had done your best, though; better to feel

dissatisfied, but not good to _underestimate_ yourself. I am now, you

see, claiming the privilege of criticizing what I could not begin to do

myself; but I believe I can see beauty where it exists in style, and I

don't want you to be underestimating your own worth.

Are your letters of a character suitable for book-form? Hoppin,--I

think, is the name,--the author of "Old England," a Yale professor, who

made an English tour, formed one of the most charming volumes in such a

way. Think it over.

Affectionately,

LAFCADIO.

Please never even suspect that my suggestions to you are made in any

spirit of false conceit: a friend of the most limited artistic ability

can often suggest things to a real artist, and even give him

confidence.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1882.

KALEWALA

DEAR K.,--The Society of Finnish Literature celebrated, in 1885, I

think, the first centennial of the publication of the "Kalewala."

There are two epics of Finland--just as most peoples have two

epics--most people at least of Aryan origin; and the existence of such

tremendous poems as the "Kalewala" and "Kanteletar" affords, in the

opinion of M. Quatrefages, a strong proof that the Finns are of Aryan

origin.

Loennrot was the Homer of Finland, the one who collected and edited the

oral epic poetry now published under the head of the "Kalewala."

But Léouzon Le Duc in 1845 published the first translation. (This I

have.) Loennrot followed him three years later. Le Duc's version

contained only 12,100 verses. Loennrot's contained 22,800. A second

French version was subsequently made (which I have sent for). In 1853

appeared Castrén's magnificent work on Finnish mythology, without which

a thorough comprehension of the "Kalewala" is almost impossible.

You will be glad to know that the _definitive_ edition of the

"Kalewala," as well as the work of Castrén, have both been translated

into German by Herr Schiefner (1852-54, I believe is the date). Since

then a whole ocean of Finnish poetry and folk-lore and legends has been

collected, edited, published, and translated. (I get some of these

facts from _Mélusine_, some from the work of the anthropologist

Quatrefages.)

In order to get a correct idea of what you might do with the "Kalewala,"

_you must get it and read it_. Try to get it in the German! I can give

you some idea of its beauties; but to give you its movement, and plot,

or to show you precisely how much operatic value it possesses, would be

a task beyond my power. It would be like attempting to make one familiar

with Homer in a week.

Once you have digested it, I can then be of real service, perhaps. You

would need the work of Castrén also--which I cannot read. To determine

the precise mythological value, rank, power, aspect, etc., of gods and

demons, and their relation to natural forces, one must read up a little

on the Finns. I have Le Duc, but he is deficient.

I don't think that any epic surpasses that weirdest and strangest of

runes. It is not so well known as it deserves. It gives you the

impression of a work written by wizards, who spoke little to men, and

much to nature--but the sinister and misty nature of the eternally

frozen North.

You have in the "Kalewala" all the elements of a magnificent operatic

episode,--weirdness, the passion of love, and the eternal struggle

between evil and good, between darkness and light. You have any possible

amount of melody,--a universe of inspiration for startling and totally

novel musical themes. The scenery of such a thing might be made wilder

and grander than anything imagined even by the Talmudically vast

conceptions of Wagner.

An opera founded on the "Kalewala" might be made a work worthy of the

grandest musician who ever lived: think of the possibilities suggested

by the picture of Nature's mightiest forces in contention,--wind and

sea, frost and sun, darkness and luminosity.

I don't like the antique theme you suggest, because it has been worn so

threadbare that only a miracle could give it a fresh surface. Better

search the "Kathā-sarit-Sāgara," or some other Indian

collection,--or borrow from the sublimely rough and rugged poetry of

Pre-Islamic Arabia. You will never regret an acquaintance with these

books--even at some cost. They epitomize all the thought, passion, and

poetry of a nation and of a period.

I prefer the "Kalewala" to any other theme you suggest. I might suggest

many others, but none so vast, so grand, so multiform. Nothing in the

Talmud like that. The Talmud is a _Semitic_ work; but nothing Jewish

rises to the grandeur of Arabic poetry, which expresses the supreme

possibilities of the Semitic mind,--except, perhaps, the Book of Job,

which is thought by some to have had an Arabian creator.

What you say about the disinclination to work for years upon a theme for

pure love's sake, without hope of reward, touches me,--because I have

felt that despair so long and so often. And yet I believe that all the

world's art-work--all that which is eternal--was thus wrought. And I

also believe that no work made perfect for the pure love of art, can

perish, save by strange and rare accident. Despite the rage of religion

and of time, we know Sappho found no rival, no equal. Rivers changed

their courses and dried up,--seas became deserts, since some Egyptian

romanticist wrote the story of Latin-Khamois. Do you suppose he ever

received $00 for it?

Yet the hardest of all sacrifices for the artist is this sacrifice to

art,--this trampling of self under foot! It is the supreme test for

admittance into the ranks of the eternal priests. It is the bitter and

fruitless sacrifice which the artist's soul is bound to make,--as in

certain antique cities maidens were compelled to give their virginity to

a god of stone! But without the sacrifice can we hope for the grace of

heaven?

What is the reward? The consciousness of inspiration only! I think art

gives a new faith. I think--all jesting aside--that could I create

something I felt to be sublime, I should feel also that the Unknowable

had selected me for a mouthpiece, for a medium of utterance, in the holy

cycling of its eternal purpose; and I should know the pride of the

prophet that had seen God face to face.

All this might seem absurd, perhaps, to a purely practical mind (yours

is not _too_ practical); but there is a practical side also. In this age

of lightning, thought and recognition have become quadruple-winged, like

the angels of Isaiah. Do your very best,--your very, very best: the

century must recognize the artist if he is there. If he is not

recognized, it is because he is not great. Have you faith in yourself? I

know you are a great natural artist; I have absolute faith in you. You

_must_ succeed if you make the sacrifice of working for art's sake

alone.

Comparing yourself to me won't do!--dear old fellow. I am in most things

a botch! You say you envy me certain qualities; but you forget how those

qualities are at variance with an art whose beauty is geometrical and

whose perfection is mathematical. You also say you envy me my power of

application!--If you only knew the pain and labour I have to create a

little good work. And there are months when I cannot write. It is not

hard to write when the thought is there; but the thought will not always

come--there are weeks when I cannot even think.

The only application I have is that of persistence in a small way. I

write a rough sketch and labour it over and over again for half a year,

at intervals of ten minutes' leisure--sometimes I get a day or two. The

work done each time is small. But with the passing of the seasons the

mass becomes noticeable--perhaps creditable. This is merely the result

of system.

You may laugh at this letter if you please,--this friendly protest to

one whom I have always recognized as my superior,--but there is truth in

it. Think over the "Kalewala," and write to

Your friend and admirer,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1882.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--When I got your letter I felt as if a great load was

lifted off me--the sky looked brighter and the world seemed a little

sweeter than usual. As for me, you could have paid me no higher

compliment. Glad you did not disapprove of the article.

Your clippings are superb. I think your style constantly gains in force

and terseness. It is admirably crystallized; and I have not yet been

able to form a permanent style of my own. I trust I will succeed in

time; but in purity and conciseness you will always be my master, for

your art has taught you style better than a thousand university

professors could do. I suppose, however, you will always be slightly

Gothic,--not harshly Gothic, but Middle Period,--making ornament always

subordinate to the general plan. I shall always be more or less

Arabesque,--covering my whole edifice with intricate designs, serrating

my arches, and engraving mysticisms above the portals. You will be grand

and lofty; I shall try to be at once voluptuous and elegant, like a

colonnade in the mosque of Cordova.

I send you something your article on the Jubilee Singers makes me think

of. It is from the pen of a marvellous writer, who long lived at

Senegal. If you do not find anything new in it, return it; but if it can

be of use to you, keep it. I hope to translate the whole work some day.

Your friend,

L. H.

Have heard Patti; but did not understand her power until you explained

it me.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1882.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--Much as it pleased me to hear from you, I assure you

that your letter is shocking. It is shocking to hear of anybody being

compelled to work for seventeen hours a day. You have neither time to

think, to study, to read, to do your best work, or to make any artistic

progress--not even to hint of pleasure--while working seventeen hours a

day. Nor is that all; I believe it injures a man's health and capacity

for endurance, as well as his style and peace of mind. You have a fine

constitution; but if once broken down by over-straining the nervous

system you will never get fully over the shock. It is very hard for me

to believe that it is really necessary for you to do reportorial work

and to write correspondence, unless you have a special financial object

to accomplish within a very short space of time. The editorial work

touching upon art matters which you are capable of doing for the

_Tribune_ might be done in the daytime; but what do you want to waste

your brain and time upon reportorial work for? D--n reportorial

work and correspondence, and the American disposition to work people

to death, and the American delight in getting worked to death!

Well, I have nothing more to say except to protest my hope that the

seventeen-hours-a-day business is going to stop before long; for the

longer it lasts the more difficult it will be for you to accomplish your

ultimate purpose. The devil of overworking one's self is that it

renders it impossible to get fair and just remuneration for value

given,--impossible also to create those opportunities for

self-advancements which form the steps of the stairway to the artistic

heaven,--impossible to maintain that self-pride and confident sense of

worth without which no man, however gifted, can make others fully

conscious of it. When you voluntarily convert yourself into a part of

the machinery of a great daily newspaper, you must revolve and keep

revolving with the wheels; you play the man in the treadmill. The more

you involve yourself the more difficult it will be for you to escape. I

said I had nothing further to observe; but I find I must say something

more,--not that I imagine for a moment I am telling you anything new,

but because I wish to try to impress anew upon you some facts which do

not seem to have influenced you as I believe they ought to do.

Under all the levity of Henri Murger's picturesque Bohemianism, there is

a serious philosophy apparent which elevates the characters of his

romance to heroism. They followed one principle faithfully,--so

faithfully that only the strong survived the ordeal,--never to abandon

the pursuit of an artistic vocation for any other occupation however

lucrative,--not even when she remained apparently deaf and blind to her

worshippers. The conditions pictured by Murger have passed away in Paris

as elsewhere: the old barriers to ambition have been greatly broken

down. But I think the moral remains. So long as one can live and pursue

his natural vocation in art, it is a duty with him never to abandon it

if he believes that he has within him the elements of final success.

Every time he labours at aught that is not of art, he robs the divinity

of what belongs to her.

Do you never reflect that within a few years you will no longer be the

YOUNG MAN,--and that, like Vesta's fires, the enthusiasm of youth for an

art-idea must be well fed with the sacred branches to keep it from dying

out? I think you ought really to devote all your time and energies and

ability to the cultivation of one subject, so as to make that subject

alone repay you for all your pains. And I do not believe that Art is

altogether ungrateful in these days: she will repay fidelity to her, and

recompense sacrifices. I don't think you have any more right to play

reporter than a great sculptor to model fifty-cent plaster figures of

idiotic saints for Catholic processions, or certain painters to letter

steamboats at so much a letter. In one sense, too, Art is exacting. To

acquire real eminence in any one branch of any art, one must study

nothing else for a lifetime. A very wide general knowledge may be

acquired only at the expense of depth. But you are certainly right in

thinking of the present for other reasons. Still, there is nothing so

important, not only to success but to confidence, hope, and happiness,

as good health and a strong constitution; and these you must lose if you

choose to keep working seventeen hours a day! It is well to be able to

do such a thing on a brief stretch, but it is suicide, moral and

physical, to keep it up regularly. The rolling-mill hand, or the

puddler, or the moulder, or the common brakeman on a railroad cannot

keep up at such hours for a great length of time; and you must know that

even hard labour is not so exhausting as brain-work. Don't work yourself

sick, old friend,--you are in a fair way to do it now.

Your friend,

L. H.

TO JEROME A. HART

NEW ORLEANS, May, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--Thanks for your kindly little article. I suppose it emanated

from the same source as the charming translation of Gautier's "Spectre

de la Rose"--which we reproduced here, comparing it with the inferior

translation--or rather mutilation--of the same poem which appeared in

the ----.

Your translation of the epitaph seems to me superb as far as the first

two lines go; but I can hardly agree with you as to the last. "La plus

belle du monde" cannot be perfectly rendered by "the loveliest in the

land"--which is a far weaker expression, by reason of the circumscribed

idea it involves. "La plus belle du monde" is an expression of paramount

force, simple as it is; it conveys the idea of beauty without an equal,

not in any one country, but in the whole world. But I think your second

line is a masterpiece of faithfulness; and, as you justly remark, my

hobby is literalism.

Very sincerely yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO JEROME A. HART

NEW ORLEANS, May, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--I am very grateful for your kind letter and the pleasure of

making your acquaintance even through an epistolary medium.

We have the same terrible proverb in Spanish that you cite in Italian;

but it certainly can never apply to the _Argonaut's_ exquisite

translations--preserving metre, colour, and warmth so far as seems to be

possible. Still, I must say that I do not believe the poetry of one

country can be perfectly reproduced in corresponding metre in the poetry

of another: much that is even marvellous may be done,--yet a little of

the original perfume evaporates in the process. Therefore the French

gave _prose_ translations of Heine and Byron: especially in regard to

the German poet they considered translation in metrical form impossible.

Nevertheless it is impossible also to refrain from attempting such

things at times,--when the beauty of exotic verse seems to take us by

the throat with the strangulation of pleasure. I have felt impelled

occasionally to make an essay in poetical translation; the result has

generally been a dismal failure, but I venture to send you a specimen

which appears to be less condemnable than most of my efforts. I cannot

presume to call it a translation,--it is only an adaptation.

As for the lines in "Clarimonde," if the book ever reaches a second

edition, I think I will be able to remedy some of their imperfections.

Skaldic verse, I suppose, would be anachronistically vile; but

something corresponding to the metre of "La Chanson de Roland,"

unrhymed, what the French call _vers assonances_. This corresponds

exactly with your lines in breadth; also in tone, as the accent of the

assonance is thrown upon the last syllable of each line.

Very gratefully yours,

L. H.

P. S. Just received another note from you. Have seen the reproduction; I

am exceedingly thankful for the compliment; and you know that so far as

the copyright business is concerned, the credit must do the book too

much good for Worthington to find any fault. I suppose you receive the

_Times-Democrat_ of New Orleans. I forward last Sunday's issue,

containing a little compliment to the _Argonaut_.

Very sincerely yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO JEROME A. HART

NEW ORLEANS, December, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--I venture to intrude upon you to ask a little advice, which

as a brother-student of foreign literature you could probably give me

better than any other person to whom I could apply. I am informed that

in San Francisco there are enterprising and liberal-minded publishers,

with whom unknown authors have a better chance than with the austere and

pious publishers of the East. It would be a very great favour indeed, if

you could give me some positive indication in this matter. I desire to

find a publisher for that excessively curious but somewhat audacious

book, "La Tentation de Saint Antoine," of Flaubert, of which I have

completed and corrected the MS. translation. You who know the original

will probably agree with me that it would be little less than a literary

crime to emasculate such a masterpiece in the translation. I have

translated almost every word of the Heresiarch dispute, and the

soliloquy of the god Crepitus, etc.

Consequently I have very little hopes of obtaining a publisher in New

York or Boston. Do you think I could obtain one in San Francisco? I

would be willing to advance something toward the cost of publishing,--if

necessary.

Trust you will pardon my intrusion. I think the mutual interest we both

feel in one branch of foreign literature is a fair excuse for my letter.

With thanks for previous many kindnesses,

I remain, truly yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO JEROME A. HART

NEW ORLEANS, January, 1883.

DEAR SIR,--Writing to San Francisco seems, after a sort, like writing to

Japan or Malabar, so great is the lapse of time consumed in the transit

of mail-matter, especially when one is anxious. I was quite so, fearing

you might have considered my letter intrusive; but your exceedingly

pleasant reply has dispelled all apprehension.

I am not surprised at the information; for the difficulty of finding

publishers in the United States is something colossal, and my hopes

burned with a very dim flame. I do not know about Worthington,--as he is

absent in Europe, perhaps he will undertake the publication; but I fear,

inasmuch as he is a Methodist of the antique type, that he will not. Now

the holy _Observer_ declared that the "Cleopatra" was a collection of

"stories of unbridled lust without the apology of natural passion;" that

"the translation reeked with the miasma of the brothel," etc.,

etc.,--and Worthington was much exercised thereat. Otherwise I should

have suggested the publication in English of "Mademoiselle de Maupin."

I regret that I cannot tell you anything about the fate of "Cleopatra's

Nights," but the publisher preserves a peculiar and sinister silence in

regard to it. Perhaps he is sitting upon the stool of orthodox

repentance. Perhaps he is preparing to be generous. But this I much

doubt; and as the translations were published partly at my own expense,

I am anxious only regarding the fate of my original capital.

Yes, I read the _Critic_--and considered that the observation on Gautier

stultified the paper. If the translator had been dissected by the same

hand, I should not have felt very unhappy. But I received some very nice

private letters from Eastern readers, which encouraged me very much, and

among them several requesting for other translations from Gautier.

"Salammbô" is the greatest, by far, of Flaubert's creations, because

harmonious in all its plan and purpose, and because it introduces the

reader into an unfamiliar field of history, cultivated with astonishing

skill and verisimilitude. It was twice written, like "La Tentation." I

translated the prayer to the Moon for the preface to "La Tentation." I

sincerely trust you will translate it. As for time, it is astonishing

what system will accomplish. If a man cannot spare an hour a day, he can

certainly spare a half-hour. I translated "La Tentation" by this

method,--never allowing a day to pass without an attempt to translate a

page or two. The work is audacious in parts; but I think nothing ought

to be suppressed. That serpent-scene, the crucified lions, the breaking

of the chair of gold, the hideous battles about Carthage,--these pages

contain pictures that ought not to remain entombed in a foreign museum.

I pray you may translate "Salammbô,"--a most difficult task, I

fancy,--but one that you would certainly succeed admirably with. In my

preface I spoke of "Salammbô" as the most wonderful of Flaubert's

productions.

"Herodias" is another story which ought to be translated. But I would

write too long a letter if I dilate upon the French masterpieces.

I will only say that, in regard to recent publications, I have noticed

some extraordinary novels which have not earned the attention they

deserve. "Le Roman d'un Spahi" seems to me a miracle of art,--and "Le

Mariage de Loti" contains passages of wonderful and weird beauty. These,

with "Aziyadé," are the productions of a French naval officer who signs

himself Loti. Think I shall try to translate the first-named next year.

Verily the path of the translator is hard. The Petersons and Estes &

Lauriat are deluging the country with bogus translations or translations

so unfaithful to the original that they must be characterized as

fraudulent. And the great American public like the stuff. One who

translates for the love of the original will probably have no reward

save the satisfaction of creating something beautiful, and perhaps of

saving a masterpiece from desecration by less reverent bards. But this

is worth working for.

With grateful thanks, and sincere hopes that you will not be deterred

from translating "Salammbô" before some incompetent hand attempts it, I

remain,

Sincerely,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--I am very grateful for the warm and kindly sympathy your

letter evidences; and as I have already received about a half-dozen

communications of similar tenor from unknown friends, I am beginning to

feel considerably encouraged. The "lovers of the antique loveliness" are

proving to me the future possibilities of a long cherished dream,--the

English realization of a Latin style, modelled upon foreign masters, and

rendered even more forcible by that element of _strength_ which is the

characteristic of Northern tongues. This no man can hope to accomplish;

but even a translator may carry his stone to the master-masons of a new

architecture of language.

You ask me about translations. I am sorry that I am not able to answer

you hopefully. I have a curious work by Flaubert in the hands of R.

Worthington (under consideration); and I have various MSS. filed away in

the Cemetery of the Rejected. I tried for six years to obtain a

publisher for the little collection you so much like, and was obliged at

last to have them published partly at my own expense--a difficult matter

for one who is obliged to work upon a salary. As for "Mademoiselle de

Maupin," much as I should desire the honour of translating it, I would

dread to work in vain, or at best to work for the profit of some

publisher who would have the translator at his mercy. If I could find a

publisher willing to publish the work precisely as I would render it, I

would be glad to surrender all profits to him; but I fancy that any

American publisher would wish to emasculate the manuscript.

I am told that an English translation was in existence in London some

years ago, but I could not learn the publisher's name. Chatto & Windus,

the printers of the admirable English version of the "Contes

Drolatiques," might be able to inform you further. But I am afraid that

the English version was scarcely worthy of the original, owing to the

profound silence of the press in regard to the matter. An American

translation was being offered to New York publishers a few years ago. It

was not accepted.

Although my own work is far from being perfect, I think I am capable of

judging other translations of Gautier. The American translations are

very poor ("Spirite," "Captain Fracasse," "Romance of the Mummy"), in

fact they are hardly deserving the name. The English translations of

Gautier's works of travel are generally good. Henry Holt has reprinted

some of them, I think.

But out of perhaps sixty volumes, Gautier's works include very few

romances or stories. I have never seen a translation of "Fortunio" or

"Militona,"--perhaps because the sexual idea--the Eternal

Feminine--prevails too much therein. "Avatar" has been translated in the

New York _Evening Post_, I cannot say how well; but I have the

manuscript translation of it myself, which I could never get a publisher

to accept. Then there are the "Contes Humoristiques" (1 vol.) and about

a dozen short tales not translated. Besides these, and the four

translated already ("Fracasse," "Spirite," "The Mummy," and possibly

"Mademoiselle de Maupin") Gautier's works consist chiefly of critiques,

sketches of travel, dramas, comedies--including the charmingly wicked

piece, "A Devil's Tear,"--and three volumes of poems.

My purpose now is to translate a series of works by the most striking

French authors, each embodying a style of a school. I tried in the first

collection to offer the best novelettes of Gautier in English, relying

upon my own judgement so far as I could. Hereafter with leisure and

health I shall attempt to do the same for about five others. I can

understand your desire to see more of Gautier, and I trust you will some

day; but when you have read "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and the two volumes

of short stories, you have read his masterpieces of prose, and will care

less for the remainder. His greatest art is of course in his magical

poems; except the exotic poetry of the Hindoos, and of Persia, there is

nothing in verse to equal them.

I must have fatigued your patience, however, by this time. With many

thanks for your kind letter, which I took the liberty to send to

Worthington, and hoping that you will soon be able to see another

curious attempt of mine in print, I remain,

Sincerely,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

I forgot to say that in point of archæologic art the "Roman de la Momie"

is Gautier's greatest work. It towers like an obelisk among the rest.

But the American translation would disappoint you very much; it is a

poor concern all the way through. It would not be a bad idea to drop a

line to Chatto & Windus, Pub., London, and enquire about English

versions of Gautier. You know that Austin Dobson translated some of his

poems very successfully indeed.

In haste,

L. H.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, November, 1882.

DEAR SIR,--I translate hurriedly for you a few extracts from

"Mademoiselle de Maupin," some of which have been used or translated by

Mallock, who has said many very clever things, but whose final

conclusions appear to me to smack of Jesuitic casuistry.

Gautier was not the founder of a philosophic school, but the founder of

a system of artistic thought and expression. His "Mademoiselle de

Maupin" is an idyl, nothing more, an idyl in which all the vague

longings of youth in the blossoming of puberty, the reveries of amorous

youth, the wild dreams of two passionate minds, male and female, both

highly cultivated, are depicted with a daring excused only by their

beauty. I think Mallock wrong in his taking Gautier for a type of

Antichrist. There are few who have beheld the witchery of an antique

statue, the supple interlacing of nude limbs in frieze or cameo, who

have not for the moment regretted the antique. Freethinkers as were

Gautier, Hugo, Baudelaire, De Musset, De Nerval, none of them were

insensible to the mighty religious art of mediævalism which created

those fantastic and enormous fabrics in which the visitor feels like an

ant crawling in the skeleton of a mastodon. With the growth of

æstheticism there is a tendency to return to antique ideas of beauty,

and the last few years has given evidence of a resurrection of Greek

influence in several departments of art. But when the first revolution

against prudery and prejudice had to be made in France, violent and

extreme opinions were necessary,--the Gautiers and De Mussets were the

Red Republicans of the Romantic Renaissance. Gautier's poems utter the

same plaints as his prose; mourning for the death of Pan, crying that

the modern world is draped with funeral hangings of black, against which

the white skeleton appears in relief. But the dreams of an artist may

influence art and literature only; they cannot affect the

crystallization of social systems or the philosophy of the eye.

They were all pantheists, these characters of Romanticism, some vaguely

like old Greek dreamers, others deeply and studiously, like De Nerval, a

lover of German mysticism: nature, whom they loved, must have whispered

to them in wind-rustling and wave-lapping some word of the mighty truths

she had long before taught to Brahmins and to Bodhisatvas under a more

luxuriant sky. They saw the evil beneath their feet as a vast "paste"

for which the great Statuary eternally moulded new forms in his infinite

crucible, and into which old forms were remelted to reappear in varied

shapes;--the lips of loveliness might blossom again in pouting roses,

the light of eyes rekindle in amethyst and emerald, the white breast

with its delicate network of veins be re-created in fairest marble. The

worship within sombre churches, and chapels, seemed to them unworthy of

the spirit of Universal Love;--to adore him they deemed no temple worthy

save that from whose roof of eternal azure hang the everlasting lamps

of the stars; no music, save that never-ending ocean hymn, ancient as

the moon, whose words no human musician may learn.

I do not know whether Mallock translated Gautier himself, or made

extracts; but Gautier's madrigal pantheistic alone contains the germ of

a faith sweeter and purer and nobler than the author of "Is Life Worth

Living?" ever dreamed of, or at least comprehended. The poem is a

microcosm of artistic pantheism; it contains the whole soul of Gautier,

like one of the legendary jewels in which spirits were imprisoned.

Speaking of the "Decameron," Petronius, Angelinus, and so forth, I must

say that I think it the duty of every scholar to read them. It is only

thus that we can really obtain a correct idea of the thought and lives

of those who read them when first related or written. They are

historical paintings, they are shadows of the past and echoes of dead

voices. Brantôme or De Châteauneuf teach one more about the life of the

fifteenth or sixteenth centuries than a dozen ordinary historians could

do. The influence of sex and sexual ideas has moulded the history of

nations and formed national character; yet, except Michelet, there is

perhaps no historian who has read history fairly in this connection.

Without such influence there can be no real greatness; the mind remains

arid and desolate. Every noble mind is made fruitful by its virility; we

all have a secret museum in some corner of the brain, although our

Pompeian or Etruscan curiosities are only shown to appreciative

friends.

I have read your enclosed slip and am quite pleased with the creditable

notice given you by way of introduction, and quite astonished that you

should be so young. You have fine prospects before you, I fancy, if so

successful already. Of course _Congregational_ is so vague a word that I

cannot tell how latitudinarian your present ideas are (for people in

general), nor how broadly you may extend your studies of philosophy.

Your correspondence with a freethinker of an extreme type would incline

me to believe you were very liberally inclined, but I have often noticed

that clergymen belonging even to the old cast-iron type may be classed

among warm admirers of the beautiful and the true for their own sakes.

Very sincerely yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

P. S. Have just been looking at Mallock, and am satisfied that he made

the translation himself because he translated the "virginity" by

"purity." No one but a Catholic or Jesuit would do that; only Catholics,

I believe, consider the consummation of love intrinsically impure, or

attempt to identify purity with virginity. Gautier would never have used

the word--a word in itself impure and testifying to uncleanliness of

fancy. I have translated it properly by the English equivalent. I

suppose you know that Mallock's aim is to prove that everybody not a

Catholic is a fool.

ENCLOSURE

"Mademoiselle de Maupin," petite édition, Charpentier, 2 vols.; vol. ii,

page 12.

"I am a man of the Homeric ages;--the world in which I live is not mine,

and I comprehend nothing of the social system by which I am surrounded.

Never did Christ come into the world for me; I am as pagan as Alcibiades

or Phidias. Never have I been to Golgotha to gather passion-flowers; and

the deep river flowing from the side of the crucified, and making a

crimson girdle about the world, has never bathed me with its waves."

Page 21: "Venus may be seen; she hides nothing; for modesty is created

for the ugly alone; and is a modern invention, daughter of the Christian

disdain of form and matter."

"O ancient worlds! all thou didst revere is now despised; thine idols

are overthrown in dust; gaunt anchorites clad in tattered rags, gory

martyrs with shoulders lacerated by the tigers of the circuses, lie

heaped upon the pedestals of thy gods so comely and so charming;--the

Christ has enveloped the world in his winding sheet. Beauty must blush

for herself, must wear a shroud."

Pages 22, 23: "Virginity, thou bitter plant, born upon a soil

blood-moistened, whose wan and sickly flower opes painfully within the

damp shadows of the cloister, under cold lustral rains;--rose without

perfume, and bristling with thorns,--thou hast replaced for us those

fair and joyous roses, besprinkled with nard and Falernian, worn by the

dancing girls of Sybaris."

"The antique world knew thee not, O fruitless flower!--never wert thou

entwined within their garlands, replete with intoxicating perfume;--in

that vigorous and healthy life, thou wouldst have been disdainfully

trampled under foot! Virginity, mysticism, melancholy,--three unknown

words, three new maladies brought among us by the Christ. Pale spectres

who deluge the world with icy tears and who," etc., etc.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

SECRET AFFINITIES

(A PANTHEISTIC MADRIGAL)

"_Emaux et Camées--Enamels and Cameos_"

For three thousand years two blocks of marble in the pediment of an

antique temple have juxtaposed their white dreams against the background

of the Attic heaven.

Congealed in the same nacre, tears of those waves which weep for

Venus,--two pearls deep-plunged in ocean's gulf, have uttered secret

words unto each other;--

Blooming in the cool Generalife, beneath the spray of the ever-weeping

fountain, two roses in Boabdil's time spake to each other with whisper

of leaves;--

Upon the cupolas of Venice, two white doves, rosy-footed, perched one

May-time evening on the nest where love makes itself eternal.

Marble, pearl, rose, and dove--all dissolve, all pass away;--the pearl

melts, the marble falls, the rose fades, the bird takes flight.

Leaving each other, all atoms seek the deep Crucible to thicken that

universal paste formed of the forms that are melted by God.

By slow metamorphoses, the white marble changes to white flesh, the rosy

flowers into rosy lips,--remoulding themselves into many fair bodies.

Again do the white doves coo within the hearts of young lovers; and the

rare pearls re-form into teeth for the jewel-casket of woman's smile.

And hence those sympathies, imperiously sweet, whereby in all places

souls are gently warmed to know each other for sisters.

Thus, docile to the summons of an aroma, a sunbeam, a colour, the atom

flies to the atom as to the flower the bee.

Then dream-memories return of long reveries in white temple pediments,

of reveries in the deeps of the sea,--of blossom talk beside the

clear-watered fountain,--

Of kisses and quivering of wings upon the domes that are tipped with

balls of gold; and the faithful molecules seek one another and know the

clinging of love once more.

Again love awakens from its slumber of oblivion;--vaguely the Past is

re-born; the perfume of the flower inhales and knows itself again in the

sweetness of the pink mouth.

In that mother-of-pearl which glimmers in a laugh, the pearl recognizes

its own whiteness;--upon the smooth skin of a young girl the marble with

emotion recognizes its own coolness.

The dove finds in a sweet voice the echo of its own plaint,--resistance

becomes blunted, and the stranger becomes the lover.

And thou before whom I tremble and burn,--what ocean-billow, what

temple-font, what rose-tree, what dome of old knew us together? What

pearl or marble, what flower or dove?

L. HEARN.

DEAR BALL,--Hope you will like the above rough prose version--of course

all the unison is gone, all the soul of it has exhaled like a

perfume;--this is a faded flower, pressed between the leaves of a

book,--not the exquisite blossom which grew from the heart of Théophile

Gautier.

L. H.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

DEAR BALL,--So far from your last being a "poor letter," as you call it,

I derived uncommon pleasure therefrom; and you must not annoy yourself

by writing me long letters when you have much more important matters to

occupy yourself. To write a letter of twelve pages or more is the labour

equivalent to the production of a column article for a newspaper; and it

would be unreasonable to expect any correspondent to devote so much

time and labour to letter-writing more than once in several months. I

have always found the friends who write me short letters write me

regularly, and all who write long letters become finally weary and cease

corresponding altogether at last. Nevertheless a great deal may be said

in a few words, and much pleasure extracted from a letter one page long.

I should much like to hear of your being called to a strong church, but

I suppose, as you say, that your youth is for the time being a drawback.

But I certainly would not feel in the least annoyed upon that score. You

have all your future before you in a very bright glow, and I do not

believe that any one can expect to obtain real success before he is

thirty-five or forty. You cannot even forge yourself a good literary

style before thirty; and even then it will not be perfectly tempered for

some years. But from what I have seen of your ability, I should

anticipate a more than common success for you, and I believe you will

create yourself a very wide and strong weapon of speech. And your

position is very enviable. There is no calling which allows of so much

leisure for study and so many opportunities for self-cultivation. Just

fancy the vast amount of reading you will be able to accomplish within

five years, and the immense value of such literary absorption. I have

the misfortune to be a journalist, and it is hard work to study at all,

and attend to one's diurnal duty. Another misfortune here is the want of

a good library. You have in Boston one of the finest in the world, and

I believe you will be apt to regret it if you leave. Speaking of

study,--you know that science has broadened and deepened so enormously

of late years, that no man can thoroughly master any one branch of any

one science, without devoting his whole life thereunto. The scholars of

the twentieth century will have to be specialists or nothing. In matters

of literary study, pure and simple, a fixed purpose and plan must be

adopted. I will tell you what mine is, for I am quite young too,

comparatively speaking, and have my "future" before me, so to speak. I

never read a book which does not powerfully impress the imagination; but

whatever contains novel, curious, potent imagery I always read, no

matter what the subject. When the soil of fancy is really well enriched

with innumerable fallen leaves, the flowers of language grow

spontaneously. There are four things especially which enrich

fancy,--mythology, history, romance, poetry,--the last being really the

crystallization of all human desire after the impossible, the diamonds

created by prodigious pressure of suffering. Now there is very little

really good poetry, so it is easy to choose. In history I think one

should only seek the extraordinary, the monstrous, the terrible; in

mythology the most fantastic and sensuous, just as in romance. But there

is one more absolutely essential study in the formation of a strong

style--science. No romance equals it. If one can store up in his brain

the most extraordinary facts of astronomy, geology, ethnology, etc.,

they furnish him with a wonderful and startling variety of images,

symbols, and illustrations. With these studies I should think one could

not help forging a good style at least--an impressive one certainly. I

give myself five years more study; then I think I may be able to do

something. But with your opportunities I could hope to do much better

than I am doing now. Opportunity to study is supreme happiness; for

colleges and universities only give us the keys with which to unlock

libraries of knowledge hereafter. Isn't it horrible to hold the keys in

one's hands and never have time to use them?

Very truly yours,

L. HEARN.

Don't write again until you have plenty of time;--I know you must be

busy. But whenever you would like to hear anything about anything in my

special line of study, let me have a line from you, as I might be able

to be of some use in matters of reference.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

MY DEAR BALL,--I suppose you are quite disgusted with my silence; but

you would excuse it were you to see how busy I have been, especially

since our managing editor has gone on a vacation of some months.

I was amused at your ideal description of me. As you supposed, I am

swarthy--more than the picture indicates; but by no means interesting

to look at, and the profile view conceals the loss of an eye. I am also

very short, a small square-set fellow of about 140 pounds when in good

health.

I read with extreme pleasure your essay, and while I do not hold the

same views, I believe yours will do good. Furthermore, if you

familiarize the public with Buddhism, you are bound to aid in bringing

about the very state of things I hope for. Buddhism only needs to be

known to make its influence felt in America. I don't think that works

like those of Sinnett, or Olcott's curious "Buddhist Catechism,"

published by Estes & Lauriat, will do any good;--they are too

metaphysical, representing a sort of neo-gnosticism which repels by its

resemblance to Spiritualistic humbug. But the higher Buddhism,--that

suggested by men like Emerson, John Weiss, etc.,--will yet have an

apostle. We shall live, I think, to see some strange things.

I am sorry I cannot gratify you by my reply about your projected

literary sketches. The policy of the paper has been to give the

preference to lady writers on such subjects, with a few exceptions to

which some literary reputation has been attached. You would have a much

better chance with theosophic essays; but you would be greatly

restricted as to space. You did not write, it appears, to Page; and he

is now at Saratoga, where he will remain about two months. Anyhow, I

would personally advise you--if you think my advice worth anything--to

devote your literary impulse altogether to religious subjects. By a

certain class of sermons and addresses you can achieve in a few years

much more success than the slow uphill work of professional journalism

or literature would bring you in a whole decade. With leisure and

popularity you could then achieve such literary work as you could not

think of attempting now. As for me, if I succeed in becoming independent

of journalism in another ten years, I shall be luckier than men of much

greater talent,--such as Bayard Taylor.

Believe me, as ever, yours,

L. HEARN.

TO REV. WAYLAND D. BALL

NEW ORLEANS, June, 1883.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--You have been very kind indeed to give me so pleasant

an introduction to your personality;--I already feel as if we were more

intimate, as if I knew you better and liked you more. A photograph is

generally a surprise;--in your case it was not;--you are very much as I

fancied you were--only more so.

I read with pleasure your article. The introduction was especially

powerful. I must now, however, tell you frankly what I think would be

most to your interest. When I wrote before I had no definite idea as to

the scope or plan of your essay, nor did I know the _Inter-Ocean_

desired it. Now I think it your duty to give the next article to that

paper,--as the first is incomplete without it. It does not contain more

than the parallel. However, the publication of your writing in the

_Inter-Ocean_, even though unremunerative, will do you vastly more good

than would the publication in our paper at a small price. The

_Inter-Ocean_ circulation is very large; and you must be advertised.

It is not necessary to seek it, but it would be unwise to refuse

it. In the mean time I shall call attention to you in our columns

occasionally,--briefly of course. I only proposed _T.-D._ with the idea

you might have need of a medium to publish your opinions and ideas. But

so long as the _Inter-Ocean_ takes an interest in you,--even without

compensating you,--you have a right to congratulate yourself, as you are

only beginning to make your voice heard in the wilderness. I shall bring

your paper to Page Baker to-night,--who has just returned to town. Will

send photo when I write again.

I would scarcely advise you to quote from my book. I am still too small

a figure to attract any attention; and I think it would be best for you

only to cite generally recognized authorities. Needless to say that I

should feel greatly honoured and very grateful; but I think it would not

be strictly to your interest to notice me until such time as I am

recognized as a thinker, if such time shall ever arrive. With you it is

very different;--your _cloth_--as we say in England--gives every gamin

the right to review and praise you as a public teacher.

Yours very affectionately,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1883.

DEAR SIR,--Mr. Page M. Baker, managing editor of the _Times-Democrat_,

to whose staff I belong, handed me your letter relative to the article

on Gustave Doré--stating at the same time that it seemed to him the

handsomest compliment ever paid to my work. I hasten to confirm the

statement, and to thank you very sincerely for that delicate and

nevertheless magistral criticism; for no one could have uttered a more

forcible compliment in fewer words. As the author of a little volume of

translations from Théophile Gautier I received a number of very

encouraging and gratifying letters from Eastern literary men; but I must

say that your letter upon my editorial gave me more pleasure than all of

them, especially, perhaps, as manifesting an artistic sympathy with me

in my admiration for the man whom I believe to have been the mightiest

of modern artists.

Very gratefully and sincerely yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, March, 1883.

MY DEAR MR. O'CONNOR,--My delay in answering your charming letter was

unavoidable, as I have been a week absent from the city upon an

excursion to the swampy regions of southern Louisiana, in company with

Harpers' artist, for whom I am writing a series of Southern sketches. As

I am already on good terms with the Harpers, your delicate letter to

them cannot have failed to do me far more good than would have been the

case had I been altogether unknown. I don't know how to thank you, but

trust that I may yet have the pleasure of trying to do so verbally, if

you ever visit New Orleans.

Your books came to hand; and do great credit to your skill--I am myself

a compositor and have held the office of proof-reader in a large

publishing house, where I tried to establish an English system of

punctuation with indifferent success. Thus I can appreciate the work. As

yet I have not had time to read much of the report, but as the

Life-Saving Service has a peculiar intrinsic interest I will expect to

find much to enjoy in the report before long.

You are partly right about Gautier, and, I think, partly wrong. His idea

of work was to illustrate with a mosaic of rare and richly-coloured

words. But there is a wonderful tenderness, a nervous sensibility of

feeling, an Oriental sensuousness of warmth in his creations which I

like better than Victor Hugo's marvellous style. Hugo, like the grand

Goth that he is, liked the horrible, the grotesqueness of tragic

mediævalism. Gautier followed the Greek ideal so potently presented in

Lessing's "Laocoön," and sought the beautiful only. His poetry is, I

believe, matchless in French literature--an engraved gem-work of words.

Well, you can judge for yourself a little, by reading his two remarkable

prose-fantasies--"Arria Marcella" and "Clarimonde"--in my translations

of him, which you will receive from New York in a few days. Something

evaporates in translation of course, and as the book was my first

effort, there will be found divers inaccuracies and errors therein; but

enough remains to give some idea of Gautier's imaginative powers and

descriptive skill. Will also forward you paper you ask for.

I regret having to write very hurriedly, as I have a great press of work

upon my hands. You will hear from me again, however, more fully. A

letter to my address as above given will reach me sooner than if sent to

the _Times-Democrat_ office.

Very gratefully your friend,

L. HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, August, 1883.

MY DEAR MR. O'CONNOR,--I had feared that I had lost a rare literary

friend. Your charming letter undeceived me, and your equally charming

present revealed you to me in a totally new light. I had imagined you as

a delicate amateur only: I did not recognize in you a Master. And after

I had read your two articles,--articles written in a fashion realizing

my long-cherished dream of English in splendid Latin attire,--I felt

quite ashamed of my own work. You have a knowledge, too, of languages

unfamiliar to me, which I honestly envy, and which is becoming

indispensable in the higher spheres of literary criticism--I mean a

knowledge of Italian and German. As for your long silence, it only

remains for me to say that your letter filled me with that sympathy

which, in certain sad moments, expresses itself only by a silent and

earnest pressure of the hand,--because any utterance would sound

strangely hollow, like an echo in some vast dim emptiness.

Your beautiful little book came like a valued supplement to an edition

of "Leaves of Grass" in my library. I have always _secretly_ admired

Whitman, and would have liked on more than one occasion to express my

opinion in public print. But in journalism this is not easy to do. There

is no possibility of praising Whitman unreservedly in the ordinary

newspaper, whose proprietors always tell you to remember that their

paper "goes into respectable families," or accuse you of loving obscene

literature if you attempt controversy. Journalism is not really a

literary profession. The journalist of to-day is obliged to hold himself

ready to serve any cause,--like the _condottieri_ of feudal Italy, or

the free captains of other countries. If he can enrich himself

sufficiently to acquire comparative independence in this really

_nefarious_ profession, then, indeed, he is able freely to utter his

heart's sentiments and indulge his tastes, like that æsthetic and wicked

Giovanni Malatesta whose life Yriarte has written.

I do not think that I could ever place so lofty an estimate upon the

poet's work, however, as you give,--although no doubt rests in my mind

as to your critical superiority. I think that Genius must have greater

attributes than mere creative power to be called to the front rank,--the

thing created must be beautiful; it does not satisfy me if the material

be rich. I cannot content myself with ores and rough jewels. I want to

see the gold purified and wrought into marvellous fantastic shapes; I

want to see the jewels cut into roses of facets, or turned as by Greek

cunning into faultless witchery of nude loveliness. And Whitman's gold

seems to me in the ore: his diamonds and emeralds in the rough. Would

Homer be Homer to us but for the billowy roar of his mighty verse,--the

perfect cadence of his song that has the regularity of ocean-diapason? I

think not. And did not all the Titans of antique literature polish their

lines, chisel their words, according to severest laws of art? Whitman's

is indeed a Titanic voice; but it seems to me the voice of the giant

beneath the volcano,--half stifled, half uttered,--roaring betimes

because articulation is impossible.

Beauty there is, but it must be sought for; it does not flash out from

hastily turned leaves: it only comes to one after full and thoughtful

perusal, like a great mystery whose key-word may only be found after

long study. But the reward is worth the pain. That beauty is

cosmical--it is world-beauty;--there is something of the antique

pantheism in the book, and something larger too, expanding to the stars

and beyond. What most charms me, however, is that which is most earthy

and of the earth. I was amused at some of the criticisms--especially

that in the _Critic_--to the effect that Mr. Whitman might have some

taste for natural beauty, etc., _as an animal has_! Ah! that was a fine

touch! Now it is just the animalism of the work which constitutes its

great force to me--not a brutal animalism, but a _human_ animalism, such

as the thoughts of antique poets reveal to us: the inexplicable delight

of being, the intoxication of perfect health, the unutterable pleasures

of breathing mountain-wind, of gazing at a blue sky, of leaping into

clear deep water and drifting with a swimmer's dreamy confidence down

the current, with strange thoughts that drift faster. Communion with

Nature teaches philosophy to those who love that communion; and Nature

imposes silence sometimes, that we may be forced to think:--the men of

the plains say little. "You don't feel like talking out there," I heard

one say: "the silence makes you silent." Such a man could not tell us

just what he thought under that vastness, in the heart of that silence:

but Whitman tells us for him. And he also tells us what we ought to

think, or to remember, about things which are not of the wilderness but

of the city. He is an animal, if the _Critic_ pleases, but a human

animal--not a camel that weeps and sobs at the sight of the city's

gates. He is rude, joyous, fearless, artless,--a singer who knows

nothing of musical law, but whose voice is as the voice of Pan. And in

the violent magnetism of the man, the great vital energy of his work,

the rugged and ingenuous kindliness of his speech, the vast joy of his

song, the discernment by him of the Universal Life,--I cannot help

imagining that I perceive something of the antique sylvan deity, the

faun or the satyr. Not the distorted satyr of modern cheap classics: but

the ancient and godly one, "inseparably connected with the worship of

Dionysus," and sharing with that divinity the powers of healing, saving,

and foretelling, not less than the orgiastic pleasures over which the

androgynous god presided.

I see great beauty in Whitman, great force, great cosmical truths sung

of in mystical words; but the singer seems to me nevertheless

_barbaric_. You have called him a bard. He is! But his bard-songs are

like the improvisations of a savage skald, or a forest Druid: immense

the thought! mighty the words! but the music is wild, harsh, rude,

primæval. I cannot believe it will endure as a great work endures: I

cannot think the bard is a creator, but only a precursor--only the voice

of one crying in the wilderness--_Make straight the path for the Great

Singer who is to come after me!_... And therefore even though I may

differ from you in the nature of my appreciation of Whitman I love the

soul of his work, and I think it a duty to give all possible aid and

recognition to his literary priesthood. Whatsoever you do to defend, to

elevate, to glorify his work you do for the literature of the future,

for the cause of poetical liberty, for the cause of mental freedom. Your

book is doubly beautiful to me, therefore: and I believe it will endure

to be consulted in future times, when men shall write the "History of

the Literary Movement of 1900," as men have already written the

"Histoire du Romantisme."

I don't think you missed very much of my work in the _T.-D._ I have not

been doing so well. The great heat makes one's brain languid, barren,

dusty. Then I have been making desperate efforts to do some magazine

work. Thanks for your praise of "The Pipes of Hameline." I wish, indeed,

that I could drag myself out of this newspaper routine,--even though

slowly, like a turtle struggling over uneven ground. Journalism dwarfs,

stifles, emasculates thought and style. As for my translation of

Gautier, it has many grave errors I am ashamed of, but it is not

castrated. My pet stories in it are "Clarimonde" and "Arria Marcella."

Victor Hugo was indeed the Arthur of the Romantic Movement, and Gautier

was but one of his knights, though the best of them--a Lancelot. I think

his "Emaux et Camées" surpass Hugo's work in word-chiselling, in

goldsmithery; but Hugo's fancy overarches all, like the vault of the

sky. His prose is like the work of Angelo--the paintings in the Sistine

Chapel, the figures described by Emilio Castelar as painted by flashes

of lightning. He is one of those who appear but once in five hundred

years. Gautier is not upon Hugo's level. But while Hugo wrought like a

Gothic sculptor, largely, weirdly, wondrously, Gautier could create

mosaics of word-jewelry without equals. The work is small, delicate,

elfish: it will endure as long as the French language, even though it

figure in the Hugo architecture only as arabesque-work or stained glass

or inlaid pavement.

Oh yes! you will catch it for those articles! you will have the fate of

every champion of an unpopular cause,--thorns at every turn, which may

turn into roses.

I hope to see you some day. Will always have time to write. Sometimes my

letter may be short; but not often. Believe me, sincerely,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO JOHN ALBEE

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

DEAR SIR,--Your very kind letter, forwarded to me by Mr. Worthington,

was more of an encouragement and comfort than you, perhaps, even

desired. One naturally launches his first literary effort with fear and

trembling; and at such a time kind or unkind words may have a lasting

effect upon his future hopes and aims.

The little stories were translated five years ago, in the intervals of

rest possible to snatch during reportorial duty on a Western paper. I

was then working fourteen hours a day. Subsequently I was four years

vainly seeking a publisher.

Naturally enough, the stories are not even now all that I could wish

them to be; but I trust that before long I may escape so far from the

treadmill of daily newspaper labour as to produce something better in

point of literary execution. It has long been my aim to create something

in English fiction analogous to that warmth of colour and richness of

imagery hitherto peculiar to Latin literature. Being of a meridional

race myself, a Greek, I _feel_ rather with the Latin race than with the

Anglo-Saxon; and trust that with time and study I may be able to create

something different from the stone-grey and somewhat chilly style of

latter-day English or American romance.

This may seem only a foolish hope,--unsubstantial as a ghost; but with

youth, health and such kindly encouragement as you have given me, I

believe that it may yet be realized. Of course a little encouragement

from the publishers will also be necessary. Believe me very gratefully

yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, September, 1883.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I trust you will be able to read the hideously written

music I sent you in batches,--according as I could find leisure to copy

it. The negro songs are taken from a most extraordinary book translated

into French from the Arabic, and published at Paris by a geographical

society. The author was one of those errant traders who travel yearly

through the desert to the Soudan, and beyond into Timbuctoo

occasionally, to purchase slaves and elephants' teeth from those almost

unknown Arab sultans or negro kings who rule the black ant-hills of

Central Africa. I have only yet obtained the great volume relating to

Ouaday; the volume on Darfour is coming. Perron, the learned translator,

in his "Femmes Arabes" (published at Algiers), gives some curious

chapters on ancient Arab music which I must try to send you one of these

days. The Japanese book--a rather costly affair printed in gold and

colours--is rapidly becoming scarce. I expect soon to have some Hindoo

music; as I have a subscription for a library of folk-lore and folk-lore

music of all nations, of which only 17 volumes are published so

far--Elzevirians. These mostly relate to Europe, and contain much

Breton, Provençal, Norman, and other music. But there will be several

volumes of Oriental popular songs, etc. Some day, I was thinking, we

might together get up a little volume on the musical legends of all

nations, introducing each legend by appropriate music.

I have nearly finished a collection of Oriental stories from all sorts

of queer sources,--the Sanscrit, Buddhist, Talmudic, Persian,

Polynesian, Finnish literatures, etc.,--which I shall try to publish.

But their having been already in print will militate against them.

Couldn't get a publisher for the fantastics, and I am, after all, glad

of it; for I feel somewhat ashamed of them now. I have saved a few of

the best pieces, which will be rewritten at some future time if I

succeed in other matters. Another failure was the translation of

Flaubert's "Temptation of Saint Anthony," which no good publisher seems

inclined to undertake. The original is certainly one of the most

exotically strange pieces of writing in any language, and weird beyond

description. Some day I may take a notion to print it myself. At present

I am also busy with a dictionary of Creole Proverbs (this is a secret),

four hundred or more of which I have arranged; and, by the way, I have

quite a Creole library, embracing the Creole dialects of both

hemispheres. I have likewise obtained favour with two firms, Harpers',

and Scribners'--both of whom have recently promised to consider

favourably anything I choose to send in. You see I have my hands full;

and an enormous mass of undigested matter to assimilate and crystallize

into something.

So much about myself, in reply to your question.... Your Armenian legend

was very peculiar indeed. There is nothing exactly like it either in

Baring-Gould's myths ("Mountain of Venus") or Keightley's "Fairy

Mythology," or any of the Oriental folk-lore I have yet seen. The

ghostly sweetheart is a universal idea, and the phantom palace also; but

the biting of the finger is a delightful novelty. Many thanks for the

pretty little tale.

I don't think you will see me in New York this winter. I shudder at the

bare idea of cold. Speak to me of blazing deserts, of plains smoking

with volcanic vapours, of suns ten times larger, and vast lemon-coloured

moons,--and venomous plants that writhe like vipers and strangle like

boas,--and clouds of steel-blue flies,--and skeletons polished by

ants,--and atmospheres heavy as those of planets nearer to the solar

centre!--but hint not to me of ice and slush and snow and black-frost

winds. Why can't you come down to see me? I'll show you nice music: I'll

enable you to note down the musical cries of the Latin-faced venders of

herbs and _gombo fève_ and _calas_ and _latanir_ and _patates_.

If you can't come, I'll try to see you next spring or summer; but I

would rather be whipped with scorpions than visit a Northern city in the

winter months. In fact few residents here would dare to do it,--unless

well used to travelling. Some day I must write something about the

physiological changes produced here by climate. In an article I wrote

for _Harper's_ six months ago, and which ought to appear soon (as I was

paid for it), you will observe some brief observations on the subject;

but the said subject is curious enough to write a book about. By the

way, I have become scientific--I write nearly all the scientific

editorials for our paper, which you sometimes see, no doubt. Farney

ought to spend a few months here: it would make him crazy with joy to

perceive those picturesquenesses which most visitors never see.

I thought I would go to Cincinnati next week or so; but I'm afraid it's

too cold now. If I do go, I'll write you.

As to your protest about correspondence, I think you're downright wrong;

but I won't renew the controversy. Anyhow I suppose we keep track of

each other, with affectionate curiosity. I am quite sorry you missed my

friend Page Baker: he is a splendid type,--you would have become fast

friends at once. Never mind, though! if you ever come down here, we'll

make you enjoy yourself in earnest. Please excuse this rambling letter.

Your Creolized friend,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

P. S. By the bye, have you the original music of the Muezzin's call,--as

called by the first of all Muezzins, Bìlâl the Abyssinian, to whom it

was taught by Our Lord Mohammed? Bìlâl the black Abyssinian, whose voice

was the mightiest and sweetest in Islam. In those first days, Bìlâl was

persecuted as the slave of the persecuted Prophet of God. And in the

"Gulistan," it is told how he suffered. But after Our Lord had departed

into the chamber of Allah,--and the tawny horsemen of the desert had

ridden from Medina even to the gates of India, conquering and to

conquer,--and the young crescent of Islam, slender as a sword, had waxed

into a vast moon of glory that filled the world,--Bìlâl still lived with

that wonderful health of years given unto the people of his race. But he

only sang for the Kalif. And the Kalif was Omar. So, one day, it came to

pass, that the people of Damascus, whither Omar had travelled upon a

visit, begged the Caliph, saying: "O Commander of the Faithful, we pray

thee that thou ask Bìlâl to sing the call to prayer for us, even as it

was taught him by Our Lord Mohammed." And Omar requested Bìlâl. Now

Bìlâl was nearly a century old; but his voice was deep and sweet as

ever. And they aided him to ascend the minaret. Then, into the midst of

the great silence burst once more the mighty African voice of

Bìlâl,--singing the _Adzan_, even as it has still been sung for more

than twelve hundred years from all the minarets of Islam:

"God is Great!

God is Great!

I bear witness there is no other God but God!

I bear witness that Mohammed is the Prophet of God!

Come to Prayer!

Come to Prayer!

Come unto Salvation!

God is Great!

God is Great!

There is no other God but God!"

And Omar wept and all the people with him.

This is an outline. I'd like to have the music of that. Sent to London

for it, and couldn't get it.

L. H.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

I'm so delighted with that music that I don't know what to do.

First, I went to my friend Grueling, the organist, and got him to play

and sing it. "It is very queer," he said; "but it seems to me like

chants I've heard some of these negroes sing." Then I took it to a

piano-player, and he played it for me. Then I went to a cornet-player--I

think the cornet gives the best idea of the sound of a tenor voice--and

he played it exquisitely, beautifully. Those arabesques about the name

of Allah are simply divine! I noticed the difference clearly. The second

version seems suspended, as a song eternal,--something never to be

finished so long as waves sing and winds call, and worlds circle in

space. So I thought of Edwin Arnold's lines:--

"Suns that burn till day has flown,

Stars that are by night restored,

_Are thy dervishes_, O Lord,

_Wheeling_ round thy golden throne!"

I believe I'll use both songs. The suspended character of the second has

a great and pathetic poetry in it. Please tell me in your next letter

what kind of voice Bìlâl ought to have--being a woolly-headed

Abyssinian. I suppose I'll have to make him a tenor. I can't imagine a

basso making those flourishes about the name of the Eternal.

Next week I'll send you selections of Provençal and other music which I

believe are new. My library is very fine. I have a collection worth a

great deal of money which you would like to see.

If you ever come down here, you could stay with me nicely, and have a

pleasant artistic time.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H.E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, October, 1883.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--I have been too sick with a strangling cold to write

as I had wished, or to copy for you something for which I had already

obtained the music-paper. Nevertheless I am going to ask another favour.

I hope you can find time to copy separately for me the Arabic words of

the _Adzan_: I prefer Villoteau. As for Koran-reading, it would delight

me; but please give me the number of the _sura_, or chapter, from which

the words are taken.

My article on Bìlâl is progressing: the second part being complete. I am

dividing it into four Sections. But I do not feel quite so hopeful now

as I did before. Magazine-writing is awful labour. Six weeks at least

are required to prepare an article, and then the probability is that the

magazine editor will make beastly changes: my article on Cable suffered

at his hands. The Harpers change nothing; but they keep an article over

for twelve months and more. One of mine is not yet published. I have

been hoping that if my "Bìlâl" takes, you might follow it up with an

article on Arabic music generally: the open letter department of

_Scribner's_ pays well, and the Harpers pay even better. I would like to

see you with a series, which could afterward be united into a volume:

you could copyright each one. This is only a suggestion.

I will not make much use of the Koran-reading in "Bìlâl:" I want to

leave that wholly to you. I feel even guilty for borrowing your pithy

and forcible observation upon the _cantillado_.

If you have a chance to visit some of your public libraries, please see

whether they have Maisonneuve's superb series: "Les Littératures

populaires de toutes les nations." I have fourteen volumes of it, rich

in musical oddities. If they have it not, I will send you extracts from

time to time. Also see if they have _Mélusine_: my volume of it (1878)

contains the music of a Greek dance, older than the friezes of the

Parthenon. Of course, if you can see them, it will be better than the

imperfect copying of an ignoramus in music like me.

I grossly offended a Creole musician the other day. He denied _in toto_

the African sense of melody. "But," said I, "did you not tell me that

you spent hours trying to imitate the notes of a roustabout-song on your

flute?" "I did," he replied, "but not because it pleased me--only

because I was curious to learn why I could not imitate it: it still

baffles me, but it is nevertheless an abomination to my ear!" "Nay!"

said I, "it hath a most sweet sound to me; and to the ethnologist a most

fascinating interest. Verily, I would rather listen to it, than hear a

symphony of Beethoven!" ... Whereupon he walked away in high fury; and

now ... he speaketh to me no more!

Yours very thankfully,

L. HEARN.

[Illustration]

TO H.E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--There is nothing in magazine-work in the way of

profit; for the cent-a-word pay does not really recompense the labour

required: but the magazines introduce one to publishers, and publishers

select men to write their books. Magazine-work is the introduction to

book-work; and book-work pays doubly--in money and reputation. I hope to

climb up slowly this way--it takes time, but offers a sure issue. You

could do so much more rapidly.

I find in my Oriental catalogues "Villoteau--_Mémoire sur la Musique de

l'antique Egypte._--Paris: Maisonneuve & Cie, 1883 (15 fr.)." Wonder if

you have the work in any of your public libraries. If you have not, and

you would like to get it, I can obtain it from Paris duty-free next

time I write to Maisonneuve, from whom I am obtaining a great number of

curious books.

You must have noticed in the papers the real or pretended discovery of

an ancient Egyptian melody,--the notes being represented by owls

ascending and descending the musical scale. Hope you will get to see it.

I have been thinking that we might some day, together, work up a

charming collection of musical legends: each legend followed by a

specimen-melody, with learned dissertation by H. Edward Krehbiel. But

that will be for the days when we shall be "well-known and highly

esteemed authors." I think I could furnish some singular folk-lore.

Meanwhile "Bìlâl" has been finished. I wrote to _Harper's

Magazine_;--the article was returned with a very complimentary autograph

letter from Alden, praising it warmly, but recommending its being

offered to the _Atlantic_, as he did not know when he could "find room

for it." Find room for it! Ah, bah!... I am sorry: because I had written

him about your share in it, and hoped, if successful, it would tempt him

to write you. It is now in the hands of another magazine. I used your

Koran-fragment in the form of a musical footnote.

I notice you called it a "brick." Are you sure this is the correct word?

Each _sura_ (or chapter) indeed signifies a "course of bricks in a

wall;" but also signifies "a rank of soldiers"--and the verses, which

were never numbered in the earlier MSS., are so irregular that the

poetry of the term "brick" could scarcely apply to them. However, I may

be wrong.

I was delighted with your delight, as expressed in your beautiful letter

upon the Hebrew ceremonial. Hebrew literature has been my hobby for some

time past: I have Hershon's "Talmudic Miscellany;" Stauben's "Scènes de

la Vie Juive" (full of delicious traditions); Kompert's "Studies of

Jewish Life," which you have no doubt read in the original German; and

Schwab's French translation of the beginning of the Jerusalem Talmud

(together with the Babylonian Berachoth), 5 vols. I confess the latter

is, as a whole, unreadable; but the legends in it are without parallel

in weirdness and singularity. Such miscellaneous reading of this sort as

I have done has given new luminosity to my ideas of the antique Hebrew

life; and enabled me to review them without the gloom of Biblical

tradition,--especially the nightmarish darkness of the Pentateuch. I

like to associate Hebrew ceremonies rather with the wonderful Talmudic

days of the Babylonian rabbonim than with the savage primitiveness of

the years of Exodus and Deuteronomy. There are some queer things about

music in the Talmud; but they are sometimes extravagant as that story

about the conch-shell blown at the birth of Buddha--"where of the sound

_rolled on unceasingly for four years_!" The swarthy fishermen of our

swampy lakes do blow conch-shells by way of marine signalling; and

whenever I hear them I think of that monstrous conch-shell told of in

the Nidānakathā.

As I write it seemeth to me that I behold, overshadowing the paper, the

most Dantesque silhouette of one who walked with me the streets of the

far-off Western city by night, and with whom I exchanged ghostly fancies

and phantom hopes. Now in New York! How the old night-forces have been

scattered! But is it not pleasant to observe that the members of the

broken circle have been mounting higher and higher toward the supreme

hope? Perhaps we may all meet some day in the East; whence as legendary

word hath it--"lightning ever cometh." Remember me very warmly to my old

comrade Tunison.

But I think it more probable I shall see you here than that you

shall see me there. New York has become something appalling

to my imagination--perhaps because I have been drawing my ideas

of it from caricatures: something cyclopean without solemnity,

something pandemoniac without grotesqueness,--preadamite

bridges,--superimpositions of iron roads higher than the aqueducts of

the Romans,--gloom, vapour, roarings and lightnings. When I think of it,

I feel more content with my sunlit marshes,--and the frogs,--and the

gnats,--and the invisible plagues lurking in visible vapours,--and the

ancientness,--and the vast languor of the land. Even our vegetation

here, funereally drooping in the great heat, seems to dream of dead

things--to mourn for the death of Pan. After a few years here the spirit

of the land has entered into you,--and the languor of the place embraces

you with an embrace that may not be broken;--thoughts come slowly, ideas

take form sluggishly as shapes of smoke in heavy air; and a great

horror of work and activity and noise and bustle roots itself within

your soul,--I mean brain. Soul = Cerebral Activity = Soul.

I am afraid you have read the poorest of Cable's short stories. "Jean-ah

Poquelin," "Belles-Demoiselles," are much better than "Tite Poulette."

There is something very singular to me in Cable's power. It is not a

superior style; it is not a minutely finished description--for it will

often endure no close examination at all: nevertheless his stories have

a puissant charm which is hard to analyze. His serial novel--"The

Grandissimes"--is not equal to the others; but I think the latter

portion of "Dr. Sevier" will surprise many. He did me the honour to read

nearly the whole book to me. Cultivate him, if you get a chance.

Baker often talks with me about you. You would never have any difficulty

in obtaining a fine thing here. Perhaps you will be the reverse of

flattered by this bit of news; but the proprietors here think they can

make the _T.-D._ a bigger paper than it is, and rival the Eastern

dailies. For my part I hope they will do it; but they lack system,

experience, and good men, to some extent. Now good men are not easily

tempted to cast their fortunes here at present. It will be otherwise in

time; the city is really growing into a metropolis,--a world's market

for merchants of all nations,--and will be made healthier and more

beautiful year by year.

Good-bye for the present.

Your very sincere friend,

L. HEARN.

TO W. D. O'CONNOR

NEW ORLEANS, 1883.

MY DEAR O'CONNOR,--I felt the same regret on finishing your letter that

I have often experienced on completing a brief but delightful novelette:

I wanted more,--and yet I had come to the end!... Your letters are all

treasured up;--they are treats, and one atones for years of silence. My

dear friend, you must never trouble yourself to write when you feel

either tired or disinclined: when I think I have the power to interest

you, I will always take advantage of it, without expecting you to write.

I know what routine is, and what weariness is; and some day I think we

shall meet, and arrange for a still more pleasant intimacy.

Your preference for Boutimar pleases me: Boutimar was my pet. There is a

little Jewish legend in the collection--Esther--somewhat resembling it

in pathos.

Your observation about my knowledge is something I cannot accept; for in

positive acquirements I am even exceptionally ignorant. By purchasing

queer books and following odd subjects I have been able to give myself

the air of knowing more than I do; but none of my work would bear the

scrutiny of a specialist; I would like, however, to show you my library.

It cost me only about $2000; but every volume is _queer_. Knowing that I

have nothing resembling genius, and that any ordinary talent must be

supplemented with some sort of curious study in order to place it above

the mediocre line, I am striving to woo the Muse of the Odd, and hope

to succeed in thus attracting some little attention. This coming summer

I propose making my first serious effort at original work--a very tiny

volume of sketches in our Creole archipelago at the skirts of the Gulf.

I am seeking the Orient at home, among our Lascar and Chinese colonies,

and the Prehistoric in the characteristics of strange European settlers.

The trouble kindly taken by you in transcribing the little words of

praise by a lady was more than compensated by the success of its

purpose, I fancy. The only pleasure, indeed, that an author derives from

his labours is that of hearing such commendations from appreciative or

sympathetic readers. Your sending copies "hither and thither" was too

kind; I could scold you for it! Still, the consequences indicated that

the book may some day reach a new edition; and I receive nothing until

the publisher pockets $1000.

Have you seen the exquisite new edition of Arnold's "Light of Asia"? It

has enchanted me,--perfumed my mind as with the incense of a strangely

new and beautiful worship. After all, Buddhism in some esoteric form may

prove the religion of the future. Is not the cycle of transmigration

actually proven in the vast evolution from nomad to man,--from worm to

King through innumerable myriads of brute form? Is not the tendency of

all modern philosophy toward the acceptance of the ancient Indian

teaching that the visible is but an emanation of the Invisible,--a

delusion,--a creature, or a shadow, of the Supreme Dream? What are the

heavens of all Christian fancies, after all, but Nirvana,--extinction of

individuality in the eternal interblending of man with divinity; for a

bodiless, immaterial, non-sensuous condition means nothingness, and no

more. And the life and agony and death of universes, are these not

pictured forth in the Oriental teachings that all things appear and

disappear alternately with the slumber or the awakening, the night or

the day, of the Self-Existent? Finally, he efforts of Romanes and Darwin

and Vignoli to convince us of the interrelation--the brotherhood of

animals and of men were anticipated by Gautama. I have an idea that the

Right Man could now revolutionize the whole Occidental religious world

by preaching the Oriental faith.

Very affectionately,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

If Symonds praises Whitman, I stand reproved for my least doubts; for he

is the very apostle of _classicism_ and _form_.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, December, 1883.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I greatly enjoyed that sharp, fresh, breezy letter from

Feldwisch, which I re-enclose with thanks for the pleasure given. While

I am greatly delighted with his success, I cannot say I have been

surprised: he possessed such rare and splendid qualities of integrity

and manliness--coupled with uncommon quickness of business

perception--that I would not have been astonished to hear of Congressman

Feldwisch,--always supposing it were possible to be a politician and an

upright member of modern American society,--which is doubtful. Please

let me have his exact address;--I would like to write him once in a

while.

After all, I believe you are right in regard to magazine-work. I fully

appreciated the effect upon a thoroughbred artist of being asked to

write something flimsy,--ask Liszt to play Yankee Doodle! Our

magazines--excepting the _Atlantic_--do not appear to be controlled by,

or in the interest of, scholars. Fancy how I felt when asked

(indirectly) by the _Century_ to write something "SNAPPY"!--even I, who

am no specialist, and if anything of an artist, only a word-artist in

embryo!... I also suspect you are correct in your self-interest: your

_forte_ will never be _light_ work, because your knowledge is too

extensive, and your artistic feeling too deep, to be wasted upon

puerilities. It has always seemed to me that your style gains in solid

strength and beauty as the subject you treat is deeper. To any mind

which has grasped the general spirit and aspect of a science, isolated

facts are worthy of consideration only in their relation to universal

and, perhaps, eternal laws: anecdote for the mere sake of anecdote is

simply unendurable.

Five years of hard study here have resulted in altogether changing my

own literary inclinations,--yet, unfortunately, to no immediate purpose

that I can see; for I must always remain too ignorant to succeed as a

specialist in any one topic. But a romantic fact--the possession of

which would have driven me wild with joy a few years ago, or even one

year ago, perhaps--now affects me not at all unless I can perceive its

relation to some general principle to be elucidated. And the mere ideas

and melody of a poem seem to me of small moment unless the complex laws

of versification be strictly obeyed. Hence I feel no inclination to

attempt a story or sketch unless I can find some theme of which the

treatment might do more than gratify fancy. Unless a romance be

instructive,--or inaugurate a totally novel style,--I think it can have

no lasting value. The old enthusiasm has completely died out of me. But

meanwhile I am trying to fill my brain with unfamiliar facts on special

topics, believing that some day or other I shall be able to utilize them

in a new way. I have thought, for example, of trying to write

physiological novelettes or stories,--based upon scientific facts in

regard to races and characters, but nevertheless of the most romantic

aspect possible: natural but never naturalistic. Still, I am so fully

conscious that this idea has been suggested by popular foreign

novelists, that I fear it may prove merely a passing ambition.

Another great affliction is my inability to travel. I hate the life of

every day in connection with any idea of story-writing: I would give

anything to be a literary Columbus,--to discover a Romantic America in

some West Indian or North African or Oriental region,--to describe the

life that is only fully treated of in universal geographies or

ethnological researches. Won't you sympathize with me?... If I could

only become a Consul at Bagdad, Algiers, Ispahan, Benares, Samarkand,

Nippo, Bangkok, Ninh-Binh,--or any part of the world where ordinary

Christians do not like to go! Here is the nook in which my romanticism

still hides. But I know I have not the physical qualifications to fit me

for such researches, nor the linguistic knowledge required to make such

researches valuable. I suppose I shall have to settle down at last to

something horribly prosaic, and even devoid of philosophic interest....

Alas! O that I were a travelling shoemaker, or a player upon the

sambuke!

I have two--nay three--projects sown: the seed has not yet sprouted. I

expressed to Harpers' a little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs--a mere

compilation, of course, from many unfamiliar sources; "Bìlâl" is under

consideration at the _Century_ (where, I fear, they will cut up every

sentence which clashes with Baptist ideas on the sinfulness of Islam);

and my compilation of Oriental stories is being "seriously examined" by

J. R. Osgood & Co....

This letter is getting wearisome; but I don't know how soon I can again

snatch time to write.... Ah yes!--for God's sake (I suppose you believe

just a small bit in God) don't try to conceive how I could sympathize

with Cable! Because I never sympathized with him at all. His awful

faith--which to me represents an undeveloped mental structure--gives a

neutral tint to his whole life among us. There is a Sunday-school

atmosphere.... But Cable is more liberal-minded than his creed; he has

also rare analytical powers on a small scale.... Belief I do not think

is ridiculous altogether;--nothing is ridiculous in the general order of

the world: but at a certain point it prevents the mind from

expanding;--its horizon is solid stone and its sky a material vault. One

must cease to believe before being able to comprehend either the reason

or beauty of belief. The loss is surely well recompensed by the vast

enlargement of vision--the opening up of the Star-spaces,--the

recognition of the Eternal Life throbbing simultaneously in the vein of

an insect or the scintillations of a million suns,--the comprehension of

the relations of Infinity to human existence, or at least the

understanding that there are such relations,--and that the humblest atom

of substance can tell a story more wondrous than all the epics,

romances, legends, or myths devised by ancient or modern fancy.--Now I

am getting long-winded again. I conclude with a promise soon to forward

another little bit of queer music. Hope you like the last. Come down

here and I will turn you loose in my library. I need hardly specify that

if you come, your natural expenses will be represented by 0,--that is,

if you condescend to live in my neighbourhood. It is not romantic; but

it is comfortable. I'm sick of Creole Romance--it nearly cost me my

life.

Bye, my friend.

Your old goblin,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1884.

DEAR KREHBIEL,--I hope you may prove right and I wrong in my judgement

of ----. As you say, I have a peculiar and unfortunate disposition;

nevertheless I had better reasons for my suggestions to you than it is

now necessary to specify.

Your syrinx discoveries seem to me of very uncommon importance. What is

now important to learn is this: Is the syrinx an original instrument in

those regions whence the American and West Indian slave-elements were

drawn?--an account of which slave-sources is to be found in Edwards's

"History of the West Indies." The Congo dances with their music are

certainly importations from the West Coast--the Ivory Coast. Have you

seen Livingstone's account of the multiple pipe (_chalumeau_, Hartmann

calls it in French) among the Batokas? I would like to know if it is a

syrinx. We have no big public libraries here; but if you have time to

make some West African researches, one could perhaps trace out the whole

history of the syrinx's musical migration. I send you the latest

information I have been able to pick up. Just so soon as I can get the

material ready, will send also information regarding the various West

Indian dances in brief--also the negro-Creole bottle-dance, danced over

an upright bottle to the chant--

"Ça ma coupé,--

Ça ma coupé,--

Ça ma coupé,--

Ça!

Ça ma coupé,--

Ça ma coupé,--

Ça ma coupé,--

Ça!"

I've reopened the envelope to tell you something I forgot--a suggestion.

I was quite pleased to hear you like my Chinese paragraph; and I have a

little proposition. Do you know that a most delightful book was recently

published in France, consisting wholly of odd impressions about strange

books and strange people exchanged between friends by mail. Each

impression should be very brief. Why couldn't we do this: Once every

month I'll write you the queerest and most outlandish fancy I can get

up--based upon fact, of course--not more than two hundred words; and you

write me the most awful thing that has struck you in relation to new

musical discoveries. In a year's time we would have twenty-four little

pieces between us, which would certainly be original enough to elaborate

into more artistic form; and we could plot together how to outrage the

public by printing them. I would contribute $100 or so--if we couldn't

find an enthusiastic printer. The book would be very small.

Everything should be perfectly monstrous, you know--ordinary facts, or

ideas that could by any chance occur to commonly-balanced minds, ought

to be rigidly excluded.

I don't think I can go North till April. March would be too cold for me.

The temptation of hearing grand singers is not now strong,--I'm sorry to

say,--for I never go to the theatre on account of the artificial light,

never read or write after dark; and I anticipate no special pleasure

except that of seeing an old friend, and talking much monstrous talk

about matters which I but half understand.

Yours very affectionately,

L. HEARN.

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1884.

Extra volume of the series: Price, $500. Large folio.

THE BATTLE-CRIES OF ALL NATIONS. With accompaniment of Barbaric

instruments. Arranged for modern Orchestral reproduction.

I. ARYAN DIVISION.--Battle-Shouts of Gothic Races.--Teutoni and

Cimbri--Frank and Alleman--Merovingian--The Roar of

Pharamond. Iberian.--The Triumph of Herman.--Viking

War-Chants.--The Song of Roland as sung by

Taillefer.--Celtic and Early British War-Cries, etc., etc.

II. SEMITIC DIVISION.--Hebrew War-Cries. "God is gone up with a

shout, the Lord with the sound of the Trumpet."--Arabs and

Crusaders.--"Allah--hu-u-u Akbar!" etc. Berber Cries.--The

Numidian Cavalry.

(The work also contains Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, and Scythian

war-cries; war-cries of the Parthians and Huns, of the Mongols and

Tartars. Sounds of the Battle of Chalons; Cries of the Carthaginian

mercenaries; Macedonian rallying-call, etc., etc. In the modern part are

included Polynesian, African, Aztec, Peruvian, Patagonian and American.

A magnificent musical version of the chant of Ragnar Lodbrok will be

found in the Appendix: "We smote with our swords.")

* * * * *

(This is not intended as a part of our private extravaganzas: but is

written as a just punishment for your silence.)

Vol. I. MONOGRAPH UPON THE POPULAR MELODIES OF EXTINCT RACES.

XXIII and 700 pp.

Vol. II. MUSIC OF NOMAD RACES. Introduction. "Men of Prey; the

Falcon and Eagle Races of Mankind." Part I. The Arabs.

Part II. The Touareg of the Greater Desert. Part III.

The Turkish and Tartar Tribes of Central Asia. With

1600 examples of melodies, engravings of musical

instruments, etc.

Vol. III. MANIFESTATION OF CLIMATIC INFLUENCE IN POPULAR MELODY.

In Two Parts. Part I. Melodies of Mountain-dwellers.

Part II. Melodies of Valley dwellers and inhabitants

of low countries. (3379 Ex.)

Vol. IV. Race-Temper as Evidenced in the Popular Music of Various

Peoples. Part I. The Melancholy Tendency. Part II. The

Joyous Temperament. Part III. Ferocity. Part IV. etc.,

etc.,--2700 ex.

Vol. V. PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS OF EROTIC MUSIC IN ALL

COUNTRIES. (This volume contains nearly 7000 examples

of curious music from India, Japan, China, Burmah,

Siam, Arabia, Polynesia, Africa, and many other parts

of the world.)

Vol. VI. MUSIC OF THE DANCE IN THE ORIENT. (3500 pp.)

Chap. I. The Mussulman Bayaderes of India (17 photolith).

Chap. II. The Bayaderes of Hinduism--especially of the Krishna

and Sivaite sects.

Chap. III. Examples of Burmese Dance--music (with 25 photographic

plates).

Chap. IV. The Tea-house dancers of Japan; and Courtesans of

Yokohama. (34 Photo-Engrav.)

Chap. V. Chinese dancing melodies. (23 Photo-Engrav.)

Chap. VI. Tartar dance-melodies: the nomad dancing girls. (50

beautiful coloured plates.)

Chap. VII. Circassian and Georgian Dances, with Music. Examples

of Daghestan melodies (49 plates).

Chap. VIII. Oriental War-Dances (480 melodies).

Vol. VII. THE WEIRD IN SAVAGE MUSIC (with 169 highly curious

examples).

Vol. VIII. HISTORY OF CREOLE MUSIC IN THE OCCIDENTAL INDIES.

Part I. Franco-African Melody, and its ultimate development. (298

ex.)

Part II. Spanish. Creole music and the history of its formation

(359 examples of Havanese and other West Indian airs

are given).

Vol. IX-X-XI. Melodies of African Races. (This highly important

work contains no less than 5000 different melodies,

and a complete description of all African musical

instruments known, illustrated with numerous

engravings.) Price per vol., $27.50.

Vol. XII. RECONSTRUCTION OF ANTIQUE MELODIES AFTER THE

IRREFUTABLE SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF THE GERMAN SCHOOL OF

MUSICAL EVOLUTIONISTS. (By this new process of

anthropological research, it is now possible to

reconstruct a lost melody, precisely as it was

previously possible to affirm the existence of an

extinct species of mammal which left no fossil record

of which we know.)

Vol. XIII. MAGICAL MELODIES. The music of Apollo and

Orpheus.--The Melodies of Wäinamöinen.--The

Harp-playing of Merlin the Great.--Exhumation of the

extraordinary Wizard-music referred to in the

Kalewala.--Melodies that petrify.--Melodies that

kill.--Melodies which evoke storms and tempests.--The

Hávamál of Odin.--Scandinavian belief in chants which

seduce female virtue.--The Indian legend of

Amaron.--Polynesian magic song.--The thief's song that

lulls to sleep: a musical "hand-of-glory."--The

invocation of demons by song.--Examples of the

melodies which fiends obey.--Songs that bring down

fire from heaven.--Strange Hindoo legend of the singer

consumed by his own song.--The melodies of the greater

magic.--The chants that change the colour of the

Moon.--Deva-music: the conch-shells sounded at the

birth of Buddha.--Notes on the Kalewala legends of

singers who made the sun and moon to pause in heaven

and changed the courses of the stars.

Vol. XIV. THE MELODIES OF MIGHTY LAMENTATION. Isis and

Osiris.--Demeter and Persephone.--"By the Rivers of

Babylon."--Jeremiah's knowledge of music.--Lamentation

of Thomyris.--The musicians of Shah Jehan, etc.

Apocalyptic music of the Bible.

Vol. XV. MOURNING FOR THE DEAD. History of cries of mourning in

all nations.--Description of ancient writers.--Howling

of the women of the Teutoni and Cimbri.--Terror of the

Romans at the hideous sounds. (With 1300 examples of

musical wailing among ancient nations.)--Modern

wailing.--Survival of the Ancient Mourning Cry among

modern peoples.--The Corsican _voceri_.--African

funeral-chants.--Negro-Creole funeral-wail. (_Tout

pití çabri--ça Zoé non yé_).--Irish keening.--Gradual

development of funeral-music, etc., etc.

Vol. XVI. SONGS OF TRIUMPH.--"Up to the everlasting Gates of

Capitolian Jove."--Triumphal Chants of Rameses and

Thotmes.--Assyrian triumphal marches.--A Tartar

triumph.--Arabian melodies of war-joy, etc., etc.

KOROL AR C'HLEZE (The Sword-Dance)

Ancient dialect of Léon (Bretagne)

Goad, gwin, ha Korol.

D'id Heol!

Goad, gwin, ha Korol.

_Tan! tan! dir! oh! dir! tan! tan! dir ha tan!

Tann! tann! tir! ha tonn! tonn! tir ha tir ha tann!_

Ha Korol ha Kan,

Kan, ha Kann!

Ha Korol ha Kan.

Tan! tan!...

Korol ar c'hleze,

Enn eze;

Korol ar c'hleze.

Tan! tan!...

Kan ar c'hleze glaz

A gar laz;

Kan ar c'hleze glaz.

Tan! tan!...

Kann ar c'hleze gone

Ar Rone!

Kann ar c'hleze gone.

Tan! tan!...

Kleze! Rone braz

Ar stourmeaz!

Kleze! Rone braz!

Tan! tan!...

Kaneveden gen

War da benn!

Kaneveden gen!

_Tan! tan! dir! oh! dir! tan! tan dir ha tan!

Tann! tann! tir! ha tonn! tonn! tann! tir ha tir ha tann!_

LITERAL TRANSLATION

Blood, wine, and dance to thee, O Sun!--blood, wine and dance!

And dance and song, song and battle! dance and song!

The Dance of Swords, in circle!--the dance of swords.

Song of the Blue Sword that loves murder!--song of the blue sword!

Battle where the Savage Sword is King!--battle of the savage sword!

O Sword!--O great King of the fields of battle!--O Sword! O great King!

Let the Rainbow shine about thy brow!--let the rainbow shine!

(The chorus is literal in my own translation, or rather metrification!)

(Rude metrical translation by your most humble servant.)

CELTIC SWORD-SONG

Dance, battle-blood and wine,

O Sun, are thine!

Dance, battle-blood, and wine!

_O Fire!--O Fire!

O Steel!--O Steel!

O Fire!--O Fire!

O Steel and Fire!

O Oak!--O Oak!

O Earth!--O Waves!

O Waves!--O Earth!

O Earth and Oak!_

The dance-chant and the death-lock

In battle-shock!--

The dance-chant and the death-lock!

_O Fire!--O Fire!

O Steel!--O Steel!..._

The Sword-dance, circling

In a ring!--

The Sword-dance, circling!

_O Fire! O Fire!

O Steel! O Steel!..._

Sing the Slaughter-lover blue

Broad and true!

Sing the Slaughter-lover blue!

_O Fire!--O Fire!

O Steel!--O Steel!..._

Battle where the savage Sword

Is sole Lord,--

Battle of the savage Sword!

_O Fire!--O Fire!

O Steel!--O Steel!..._

O Sword! mighty King!

Battle-King!

O Sword! mighty King!...

_O Fire!--O Fire!

O Steel!--O Steel!..._

Let the Rainbow's magic rays

Round thee blaze!--

Let the Rainbow round thee blaze!

_O Fire!--O Fire!

O Steel!--O Steel!

O Fire!--O Fire!

O Steel and Fire!

O Oak!--O Oak!

O Earth!--O Waves!

O Waves!--O Earth!

O Earth and Oak!_

TO H. E. KREHBIEL

NEW ORLEANS, February, 1884.

DEAR K.,--Charley Johnson's coming down to spend a week with me. I shall

be soon enjoying his Rabelaisian mirth, and his Gargantuesque laughter.

He is going to Havana, and I shall ask him to get, if possible, the

music of the erotic mime-dance,--the Zamacueca of the Creoles.

I see they are offering prizes for a good opera. Why don't you compose

an opera? I can suggest the most tremendous, colossal, Ragnarockian

subject imaginable--knocks Wagner endwise and all the trilogies: "THE

WOOING OF THE VIRGIN OF POJA," from the "Kalewala." The "Kalewala" is

the only essentially _musical_ epopea I know of. Orpheus is a mere

clumsy charlatan to Wainamoinen and the wooers. The incidents are more

charmingly enormous than anything in the Talmud, Ramayana, or

Mahabharata. O! the old woman who talks to the Moon!--and the wicked

singer who turns all that hear him to stone!--and the phantoms created

by magical chant!--and the songs that make the stars totter in the

frosty sky!--and the melodies that melt the gates of iron! And then,

too, the episode of the Eternal Smith, by whose art the blue vault of

heaven was wrought into shape; and the weird sleigh-ride over the Frozen

Sea; and the words at whose utterance "the waters of the great deep

lifted a thousand heads to listen!" And the story of the Earth-giant,

aroused by magical force from his slumber of innumerable years, to teach

to the Magician the runes by which all things are created,--the

enchanted songs by which the Beginning was made to Begin. If you have

not read it, try to get a _prose_ translation: no poetical version can

preserve the delightful goblinry and elfishness of the original, whereof

the metre rings even as the ringing of a mighty harp.

I have also a delightful Malay poem which would make a much finer

operatic subject or dramatic subject than the European _féeries_

modelled upon the Hindoo drama of Sakuntala, or, as my French translator

writes it, _Sacountala_. I have an inexhaustible quarry of monstrous and

diabolical inspiration.

Yours truly, etc.