dirt, he jumps up again. The day after I wrote you, I got a position
(without asking for it) as assistant editor on the _Item_, at a
salary considerably smaller than that I received on the _Commercial_
(of Cincinnati), but large enough to enable me to save half of it.
Therefore I hasten to return Will's generous favor with the most
sincere thanks and kindest wishes. You would scarcely know me now, for
my face is thinner than a knife and my skin very dark. The Southern
sun has turned me into a mulatto. I have ceased to wear spectacles,
and my hair is wild and ghastly. I am seriously thinking of going into
a fraud, which will pay like hell,--an advertising fraud: buying land
by the pound and selling it in boxes at one dollar per box. I have a
party here now who wants to furnish bulk of capital and go shares. He
is an old hand at the dodge. It would be carried along under false
names, of course; and there is really no money in honest work.... I
think I shall see you in the fall or spring; and when I come again to
Cincinnati, it will be, my dear old man, as you would wish, with money
in my pocket. It did me much good to hear from you; for I fancied my
postal card asking for help might have offended you; and I feared you
had resolved that I was a fraud. Well, I am something of a fraud, but
not to everybody I don't like the people here at all, and would not
live here continually. But it is convenient now, for I could not live
cheaper elsewhere."
Again undated, but belonging to his early New Orleans period, is the
letter in which, after discussing some business venture he had in mind,
he says:
"There is a strong feeling down here that the South will soon be
the safest place to live in. The labor troubles North promise to be
something terrible. I assure you that few well-posted newspaper men
here would care to exchange localities until after these labor troubles
have assumed some definite shape. There is no labor element here that
is dangerous.
"There are some businesses which would pay here: a cheap restaurant, a
cheap swimming bath, or a cheap laundry. Money just now could be coined
at any of these things. Everything else here is dead. I met a highly
educated Jew here not long ago, who had lived and made money in New
Zealand, Martinique, British Columbia, Panama, Sandwich Islands, Buenos
Ayres, and San Francisco. 'I have been,' he said, 'almost every place
where money can be made, and I know almost every dodge known to Hebrews
in the money-making way. But I do not see a single chance to make
anything in this town.' He left for the North. He was from London.
"I should like to see you down here, if it were not for malaria. You
would not escape the regular marsh fever; but that is not dangerous
when the symptoms are recognized and promptly treated. When I had it I
did not know what it was. I took instinctively a large dose of castor
oil. Sometime after I met the druggist, a good old German, who sold it
me. 'I never expected to see you again,' he said; 'you had a very bad
case of fever when I saw you.'
"But everybody gets that here. You live so abstemiously and thirst so
little after the flesh-pots that I think you would not have much to
fear. I go swimming a good deal; but I find the water horribly warm.
The lake seems to be situated directly over the great furnace of
Hell....
"I'll be doubly d--d if I have the vaguest idea what I shall do. I
have a delightfully lazy life here; and I assure you I never intend
to work fourteen hours a day again. But whether to leave here I don't
know. I'm only making about ten dollars a week, but that is better than
making twenty-five dollars and being a slave to a newspaper. I write
what I please, go when I please, and quit work when I please. I have
really only three hours a day office duty,--mostly consumed in waiting
for proofs. If I stay here, I can make more soon. But I don't really
care a damn whether I make much money or not. If I have to make money
by working hard for it, I shall certainly remain poor. I have done the
last hard work I shall ever do.
"On the success of some literary work, however, I have a vague idea of
receiving enough ready money to invest in some promising little specs,
here,--of the nature I have already hinted at. If they pay, they will
pay admirably. If I lose the money, I shan't die of starvation....
"I shall certainly not leave here before seeing Cuba. It would be a
mortal sin to be so near the Antilles and yet never have sailed that
sapphire sea yclept the Spanish Main.
"I never felt so funny in my whole life. I have no ambition, no loves,
no anxieties,--sometimes a vague unrest without a motive, sometimes a
feeling as if my heart was winged and trying to soar away, sometimes a
vague longing for pleasurable wanderings, sometimes a halfcrazy passion
for a great night with wine and women and music. But these are much
like flitting dreams, and amount to little. They are ephemeral. The
wandering passion is strongest of all; and I feel no inclination to
avail myself of the only anchor which keeps the ship of a man's life
in port.
"Then again,--I have curiously regained memories of long ago,
which I thought utterly forgotten. Leisure lends memory a sharp
definition. Life here is so lazy,--nights are so liquid with tropic
moonlight,--days are so splendid with green and gold,--summer is so
languid with perfume and warmth,--that I hardly know whether I am
dreaming or awake. It is all a dream here, I suppose, and will seem a
dream even after the sharp awakening of another voyage, the immortal
gods only know where. Ah! Gods! beautiful Gods of antiquity! One can
only feel you, and know you, and believe in you, after living in this
sweet, golden air. What is the good of dreaming about earthly women,
when one is in love with marble, and ivory, and the bronzes of two
thousand years ago? Let me be the last of the idol-worshippers, O
golden Venus, and sacrifice to thee the twin doves thou lovest,--the
birds of Paphos,--the Cythendae!"
Hearn had had his troubles with New Orleans and Cincinnati newspaper
men, some of whom pirated his translations, while others printed
slanderous stories concerning his manner of living,--slanders
which Mr. Watkin combated in a personal letter to the editor of the
_Commercial_ some years after, when his attackers again became busy. On
July 10, 1878, Hearn wrote:
"MY DEAR OLD MAN: Was delighted to hear from you. I am very glad the
thing is as much of a mystery to you as it is to me. I can only surmise
that it must have been a piece of spite work on the part of a certain
gentleman connected with the N. O. _Times,_ who printed some of my
work before, and got a raking for it. My position here is a peculiar
one, and not as stable as I should like, so that if it were made to
appear that I had re-utilized stuff from the _Item_, I would certainly
get into trouble. I have been very ill for a week, break-bone fever.
I do not expect to return North 'broke.' 'Cahlves is too scace in dis
country to be killed for a prodigal son.' I wish you were near that I
might whisper projects of colossal magnitude in your ear. I am working
like hell to make a good raise for Europe. Will write more soon. Editor
away to-day and the whole paper on my hands.
"_Monday._ Delayed posting letter. I find this climate terribly
enervating. No one could have led a more monastic life than I have
done here; yet I find I cannot even think energetically. The mind seems
to lose all power of activity. I have been collecting materials for
magazine articles, and I can't write them out. I have only been able to
do mechanical work,--translating, &c., and one Romanesque essay, which
was successively rejected by three magazines. Wish I was on a polar
expedition.
"I have been an awfully good boy down here, and have no news to tell
you of amours or curious experiences."
Hearn once more tells of his trouble with a Cincinnati paper, alleging
the owners failed to pay him for his New Orleans correspondence, and
how finally he was "happily discharged."
Then he resumes: "By the way, I wrote a poem for the decoration of the
soldiers' graves at Chalmette National Cemetery, on the 30th inst. I
think it was. The poem was read by Col. Wright of this city at the
decoration and published in the _Democrat_. It was the first bit of
rhyme I wrote, and so you must excuse it. But it is not as good as--
"_The love of Hearn and Watkin_,
_What is its kin_?--
_It is two toads encysted_
_Within one stone_,
_Two vipers twisted_
_Into one._
"Here is the poem:
_"Fairflowers pass away:_
_In perfumed ruin falls the lily's urn_;
_In pallid pink decay_
_Moulders the rose;--all in their time return_
_To the primeval clay._
_"Yet still their tiny ghosts_
_Hover about our homes on viewless wings;_
_In incense-breathing hosts_
_They love to haunt those stores of trifling things_
_Of which affection boasts_,--
_"Some curl of glossy hair_,--
_Some loving letter penned by pretty fingers_,--
_Some volume old and rare_,
_On whose time-yellow fly-leaf fondly lingers_
_The name of a woman fair._
_"So in that hour_
_When brave lives fail and brave hearts cease to beat_,--
_Each deed of power
Lives on to haunt our memories,--faintly sweet_
_Like the ghost of a flower._
_"Each flower we strew_
_In tribute to the brave to-day shall prove_
_A token true_
_Of some sweet memory of the dead we love_,--
_The Men in Blue._
_"Perchance the story_
_Of Chalmette's heroes may be lost to fame,_
_As years wax hoary;_
_But Valor's Angel keeps each gallant name_
_On his Roll of Glory."_
August 14, 1878, Hearn wrote a letter to the man who had always cheered
him and who now in turn needed cheering. Business in all lines in
Cincinnati was bad, and Mr. Watkin was quite despondent. He had written
Hearn something of this, and also had hinted that he might move to
Kansas or somewhere farther West. In return he received the following
letter, expressive of all that was most fun-loving in its writer:
"MY DEAR OLD MAN: I think you had better come here next Oktober and
rejoin your naughty raven. It would not do you any harm to reconnoitre.
Think of the times we could have,--delightful rooms with five large
windows opening on piazzas shaded by banana trees; dining at Chinese
restaurants and being served by Manila waitresses, with oblique eyes
and skin like gold; visiting sugar-cane plantations; scudding over to
Cuba; dying with the mere delight of laziness; laughing at cold and
smiling at the news of snowstorms a thousand miles away; eating the
cheapest food in the world,--and sinning the sweetest kind of sins. Now
you know, good old Dad, nice old Dad,--you know that you are lazy and
ought to be still lazier. Come here and be lazy. Let me be the siren
voice enticing a Ulysses who does not stuff wax in his ears. Don't go
to horrid, dreadful Kansas. Go to some outrageous ruinous land, where
the moons are ten times larger than they are there. Or tell me to pull
up stakes, and I shall take unto myself the wings of a bird and fly to
any place but beastly Cincinnati.
"Money can be made here out of the poor. People are so poor here that
nothing pays except that which appeals to poverty. But I think you
could make things hop around lively. Now one can make thirty milk
biscuits for five cents and eight cups of coffee for five cents. Just
think of it! ...
"Cincinnati is bad; but it's going to be a d--d sight worse. You know
that as well as I do. Leave the vile hole and the long catalogue of
Horrid Acquaintances behind you, and come down here to your own little
man,--good little man. Get you nice room, nice board, nice business.
Perhaps we might strike ile in a glorious spec. Why don't you spec.?
You'd better spec, pretty soon, or the times will get so bad that you
will have to get up and dust. This is a seaport. There are tall ships
here. They sail to Europe,--to London, Marseilles, Constantinople,
Smyrna. They sail to the West Indies and those seaports where we are
going to open a cigar store or something of that kind.
_Oh, I have seven tall ships at sea,_
_And seven more at hand;_
_And five and twenty jolly, jolly seamen_
_Shall be at your command._
May the Immortal Gods preserve you in immortal youth."
There now follow some letters whose dates it has been impossible to
fix. The cancellation marks on the envelopes give the months, but not
the years. However, there is internal evidence to show that they
belong to the period between the last group and the group of 1882,
so that they were written in the years 1879, 1880, and 1881, in all
probability. The first is one of the most interesting letters in the
whole set. The future great writer is displayed as the owner of a
five-cent eating-house. The letter is replete with ridiculous little
sketches of a bird, which he claimed was a raven. In fact:, in the
following, wherever "raven" is used, the reader must understand that
there is a drawing of one in the letter. It was written in February:
"MY DEAR O. M.: Your style of correspondence--four letters a
year--leads me to suppose that the fate of the Raven is of little
consequence. It was therefore with surprise that I heard of a letter
concerning It being received at the _Item_ office. The letter warranted
the assumption that you had at least some curiosity, if nothing better,
in regard to It. That curiosity should be gratified. The Raven keepeth
a restaurant in the city of New Orleans. It is secretly in business
for itself. It is also in the newspaper business. The reason It has
gone into business for itself is that It is tired of working for other
people. The reason that It is still in the newspaper line is that the
business is not yet paying, and needs some financial support. The
business is the cheapest in N. O. All dishes are five cents. Knocks
the market price out of things. The business has already cost about
one hundred dollars to set up. May pay well; may not. The Raven has a
partner,--a large and ferocious man, who kills people that disagree
with their coffee. The Raven expects to settle in Cuba before long.
Is going there to reconnoitre in a few months,--if Fortune smileth.
It has mastered the elements of Spanish language, and has a Spanish
tutor who comes every day to teach It. It has been studying Spanish
assiduously for six mos.; and trusts to be able to establish a _meson
de los estrangeros,_ or stranger's restaurant, in Havana,--unless It is
busted up pretty soon. It might be busted up. As yet It has remained
poor. Economy is the cause thereof. It has seen little of wine and
women in this city. Its notions are mean and stingy. It is constantly
suspicious that Its partner may go back on It. It is of a suspicious
character. It has debts on its mind, but prefers to look after its own
interests at present,--until It can buy some clothes. It also proposes
to establish another five-cent eating-house here in the French quarter,
sooner or later, if this one pays. If the O. M. ever leaves Cincinnati,
he may see the Raven. Otherwise he will not. If he comes to this part
of the world, he can obtain board cheap at the five-cent restaurant.
The Raven would not object: to see him again,--on the contrary, he is
filled with CURIOSITY to see him. The Raven may succeed right off. He
may not. But he is going to succeed sooner or later, even if he has to
start an eating-house in Hell. He sends you his respects,--reserving
his affection for a later time."
Hearn enclosed with the latter a yellow handbill advertising his
restaurant. It was as follows:
"_The_ 5 _cent Restaurant_
160 _Dryades Street_"
_This is the cheapest eating-house in the South. It is neat, orderly,
and respectable as any other in New Orleans. You can get a good meal
for a couple of nickels. All dishes_ 5 _cents. A large cup of pure
Coffee, with Rolls, only_ 5 _cents._
_Everything half the price of the markets_."
In a letter postmarked June 27, he again refers to his knowledge of
Spanish, and, what is more interesting, makes his first reference to
Japan, the country where he was to achieve his best work: "Your little
Raven talks Spanish. Has a fair acquaintance with the language. Just
now rusty for want of practice. Soon pick it up again.... "Have also
wild theories regarding Japan.
Splendid field in Japan Climate just like
England,--perhaps a little milder. Plenty of Europeans. English,
American and French papers....
"Would not be surprised if you could make N. Orleans trip pay--now
that I have seen your circulars. Only--remember C. O. D. Everybody
here is a thief. Must be careful even in changing a quarter not to
get counterfeits or false change. Horrid den of villains, robbers,
mutual admiration,--political quacks, medical quacks, literary
quacks,--adventurers, Spanish, Italian, Greek, English, Corsican,
French, Venezuelan,--Parisian roués, Sicilian murderers, Irish
ruffians.... Couldn't be half so bad in Japan."
The censure of New Orleans people must not be taken too seriously. He
afterwards had some very dear friends there, who changed his opinions
to a great extent. On November 24 came a letter liberally sprinkled
with drawings of the raven and replete with his fun:
"DEAR OLD MAN: The Raven has not found letter-writing a pleasant
occupation lately. It has had some trouble; It has also been studying
very hard; It has had Its literary work doubled, and It has had little
leisure time, as Its grotesque and fantastic Eye is not yet in a
healthy condition. It cannot write at night, not in these beautiful
Southern Nights, which flame with stars,--the 'holy Night,' as the old
Greek poet called it, which is 'all Eye, all Ear, all perfume to the
student.'
"The Raven would like to see you, as It could tell you a great many
queer things about Southern matters, which no paper has published or
dare publish, and about the city and about the people. But It hardly
hopes to see you; for after this summer It will not be here. It has
latterly heard much of advantages held out to It in Mexico City, where
the great exposition is soon to be held; and Its Spanish studies have
been successful. It wants to find a temporary resting-place among
Spanish people, and cannot stay here. It would be pleased to forget
Its own language for a while, whether in Cuba or elsewhere.... The
Raven cannot go North, as It cannot afford to. It will require all
It can save to carry It through troubles which await It somewhere
else,--for thou knowest full well that Woe is the normal condition
of the Raven's existence. The Raven passeth Its time thusly: In the
morning It a-riseth with the Sun and drinketh a cup of coffee and
devoureth a piece of bread. Then It proceeded to the office and
concocteth devilment for the _Item,_ Then It returned to Its room,
whose windows are shadowed by creeping plants and clouds of mosquitoes,
and received Its Spanish tutor. Then It goeth to a Chinese restaurant,
where It eateth an amazing dinner,--Its bump of ALIMENTATIVENESS being
enormously developed. Then It spendeth two hours among the second-hand
bookstores. It then goeth to bed,--to arise in the dead vast and middle
of the night and smoke Its pipe. For a year It hath not smoked a cigar;
and Its morals are exemplary. It sendeth you Its affectionate good-will
and proceedeth forthwith to smoke Its pipe."
Again, without any clue as to its date and without any aid from the
memory of Mr. Watkin, is a small photograph of the writer, with this
characteristic note:
"DEAR OLD DAD: Would like to hear from you, to see you, to chat with
you. Write me a line or two. As soon as I can find time, will write
a nice, long, chatty letter,--all about everything you would like to
hear. Am doing well. New Orleans is not, however, what I hoped it was.
Are you well and happy? I have thoughts of cemeteries and graves, and a
dear old Ghost with a white beard,--a Voice of the Past.
"I press your hand.
"LAFCADIO HEARN"
In a letter dated July 7, 1882, Hearn tells of his first adventures
in the book-writing line and of the horrified criticisms of some of
the Eastern book-reviewers. All told, however, he becomes the more
purposeful Hearn, the man Mr. Watkin had always predicted he would be
if he continued at his literary work in his own way. It is interesting
for another reason, too, in that it shows how already, in these New
Orleans days, Hearn was preparing himself by his studies for his future
life in Japan.
"MY DEAR OLD DAD: Your letter lies before me here like a white tablet
of stone bearing a dead name; and in my mind there is just such a
silence as one feels standing before a tomb,--so that I can press your
hand only and say nothing.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF PART OF A LETTER FROM HEARN To MR. WATKIN]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A CHARACTERISTIC NOTE FROM HEARN TO MR.
WATKIN WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF A PHOTOGRAPH]
[Illustration: A FANCIFUL PENCIL SKETCH BY HEARN]
"I must go North in a few months, by way of Cincinnati, and spend a
week or so in the city. My intention is to see Worthington about a new
publication. He is now in Europe. Here I make thirty dollars a week for
about five hours' work a day, and the position appears tolerably solid;
but the climate is enervating, the man who refuses to connect himself
with church or clique lives alone like a hermit in the Thebaids, and
one sickens of such a life at times. Sometimes I fancy that the older I
grow, the more distasteful companionship becomes; but this may be owing
to the situation here. Nevertheless I am feeling very old, old almost
as the Tartar of Longfellow's poem,--'three hundred and sixty years.'
"Imagine the heavy, rancid air of a Southern swamp in midsummer, when
the very clouds seem like those which belonged to the atmosphere of
pregeologic periods, uncreated lead and iron,--never a breath of pure
air,--dust that is powdered dung,--quaking ground that shakes with
the passage of a wagon,--heat as of a perpetual vapor bath,--and at
night, subtle damps that fill the bones with rheumatism and poison the
blood. Then, when one thinks of green hills and brisk winds, comes a
strange despondency. It is something like the outlying region through
which Milton's Lucifer passed, half crawling, half flying, on his way
to the Garden of Eden. Your little reprints provoked very pleasant
old memories. I paid the Somebody one hundred and fifty dollars for
the publication.[1] Have not yet heard from him. The understanding is
that I get my money back and something besides. However, I shall be
satisfied with the something. I have had many nice notices, letters
from authors of some note, and a few criticisms of the true Pharisaic
species. I enclose one for your amusement. I have also built up a fine
library, about three hundred picked volumes, and have a little money
saved. Have also some ambition to try the book business,--not here,
but in San Francisco or somewhere else. However, I have no definite
plans,--only a purpose to do something for myself and thus obtain
leisure for a systematic literary purpose. Were you situated like
me,--that is, having no large business or large interests,--I think
I should try to coax you to seek the El Dorado of the future, where
fortunes will certainly be made by practical men,--Mexico,--where no
one ever lights a fire, and where one has only to go in the sun when he
is too cold, into the shade when he is too warm. But for the present
I will only ask you to come down here when the weather gets healthy
and your business will allow it. You will stay with me, of course, and
no expense. The trip would be agreeable in the season when the air is
sweet with orange blossoms.
[Footnote 1: Translation of Gautier's short stories.]