describe, and something which it is possible to learn only after
a painful experience of years. At present I may say that all my
acquaintances here are limited to about half a dozen, with one or
two friends whom I invite to see me occasionally. Yet almost daily
I receive letters from people I do not know, asking favors which I
never grant. New Orleans is the best school for the study of human
selfishness I have ever been in. Buddhism teaches that the second birth
is to this life 'as the echo to the voice in the cavern, as the great
footprints to the steps of the elephant.' According to the teaching of
the Oriental Christ, this whole population will be born again as wild
beasts,--which is consoling. ... You say you cannot write. I differ
with you; but it would certainly be impossible for either of us to
write many things we would like to say. Still, you can easily drop a
line from time to time, even a postal card, just to let me know you
are well. If I do not get up to see you by September, I hope to see
you down. I dreamed one night that I heard the ticking of the queer
clock,--like the longstrides of a man booted and spurred. You know the
clock I mean,--the long, weird-faced clock. My eyes are not well, of
course,--never will be; but they are better. More about myself I cannot
tell you in a letter,--except that I suppose I have changed a little.
Less despondent, but less hopeful; wiser a little and more silent;
less nervous, but less merry; more systematic and perhaps a good deal
more selfish. Not strictly economical, but coming to it steadily; and
in leisure hours studying the theories of the East, the poetry of
antique India, the teachings of the wise concerning absorption and
emanation, the illusions of existence, and happiness as the equivalent
of annihilation. Think they were wiser than the wisest of Occidental
ecclesiastics.
"And still there is in life much sweetness and much pleasure in the
accomplishment of a fixed purpose. Existence may be a delusion and
desire a snare, but I expect to exist long enough to satisfy my desire
to see thee again before entering Nirvana. So, reaching to thee the
grasp of friendship across the distance of a thousand miles, I remain
in the hope of being always remembered sincerely as your friend."
On September 10, 1882, in reply to a letter from Mr. Watkin, in which
the latter said he thought of going to Tampa for a rest and possibly
also to look around and see what the business prospers were, Hearn
filled five big sheets with all the information he could gather about
Tampa, from facts about fleas to a glowing eulogy of the moon,--"seven
times larger than your cold moon."
Following upon his translations of Gautier, Hearn busied himself with
translations from Flaubert, and sent the manuscript of the proposed
title-page and introduction to Mr. Watkin to set up, as he was
superstitious about his "Dear Old Dad" bringing him luck. As usual he
urged his friend to visit him, drawing in a letter of September 14,
1882, the following alluring pictures:
"In October we shall have exquisite weather--St. Martin's summer, the
Creoles call it,--something like Indian summer North. Then I shall
indeed hope to see you. No danger now of fever; and will have a nice
healthy room for you. If you can't get away in October, wait till
November,--nice and clear month generally, with orange-blossom smells.
Raven wants to have a big talk. As for writing, don't write if it
bothers you. I am sure you cannot have much time and must take care of
your eyes. Perhaps some day we can both take things more easily, and a
long rest by running streams, near mountain winds and in a climate like
unto an eternal mountain springtime. Dream of voices of birds, whisper
of leaves, milky quivering of stars, laughing of streams, odors of pine
and of savage flowers, shadows of flying clouds, winds triumphantly
free. Horrible cities! vile air! abominable noises! sickness! humdrum
human machines! Let us strike our tents! move a little nearer to
Nature!"
October 26, 1882, still writing about the promised visit of Mr. Watkin,
he sent the following:
"MY DEAR OLD MAN: As the twig is bent, &c.--neither you nor I can now
correct ourselves of habits. We are both old. [Hearn was thirty-two
and Mr. Watkin fifty-nine.] I, for my part, feel ancient as the moon,
and regret the departure of my youth. But I observe that all my best
friends have the same habit. There's Charley Johnson,--wrote me twice
in five years. There's the old newspaper coteries never write me at
all. There is myself, just as bad as anybody. When somebody asked
Théophile Gautier to write, he answered, 'Oh, ask a carpenter to plane
planks just for fun!' It is a fact. Life's too short.... I was afraid
for a while that Yellow Jack was trying to climb up this way from
Pensacola; but I think all danger is now over. The weather feels chilly
to us,--alligator-blooded and web-footed dwellers of the swamp (the
Dismal Swamp): it will feel warm to you....
"Yes; I think a river trip down would be nicer for you, as it would
include rest, good living, and a certain magical illusion of Southern
beauties which bewitched me into making my dwelling-place among the
frogs and bugs and the everlasting mosquitoes. 'Bugs' here mean every
flying and crawling thing whereof the entomology is unknown to the
people. The electric lights nightly murder centillions of them."
The letter is signed as usual with the drawing of a raven. As a
novelty, the bird is looking at a steamer bearing over the side-wheel
the name _Watkin_.
November 24, 1882, he wrote to Mr. Watkin, foreshadowing the book,
"Stray Leaves from Strange Literatures," which was to bring him his
first meed of praise from all sides. Again in this letter he somewhat
despondently referred to his being a small man in a world where,
according to his morbid views, big men won all the battles:
"I'm busy on a collection of Oriental legends,--Brahmanic, Buddhistic,
Talmudic, Arabic, Chinese, and Polynesian,--which I hope to have ready
in the spring. I think I can get Scribner or Osgood to bring it out.
"I think myself that life is worth living under the conditions you
speak of; but they are very hard to obtain. I would be glad to try
a new climate,--a new climate is a new life, a new youth. Here the
problem of existence forever stares one in the face with eyes of iron.
Independence is so hard to obtain,--the churches, the societies, the
organizations, the cliques, the humbugs are all working against the
man who tries to preserve independence of thought and action. Outside
of these one cannot obtain a woman's society, and if obtained one is
forever buried in the mediocrity to which she belongs.... My idea of
perfect bliss would be ease and absolute quiet,--silence, dreams,
tepidness,--great quaint rooms overlooking a street full of shadows
and emptiness,--friends in the evening, a pipe, a little philosophy,
wandering under the moon.... I am beginning to imagine that to be
forever in the company of one woman would kill a man with ennui. And
I feel that I am getting old--immemorially old,--older than the moon.
I ought never to have been born in this century, I think sometimes,
because I live forever in dreams of other centuries and other faiths
and other ethics,--dreams rudely broken by the sound of cursing in the
street below, cursing in seven different languages. I can't tell you
much else about myself. I live in my books, and the smoke of my pipe,
and ideas that nobody has any right expelling a good time in this world
unless he be gifted with great physical strength and force of will.
These give success. Little phantoms of men are blown about like down
in the storms of the human struggle: they have not enough weight to
keep them in place. And the Talmud says: 'There are three whose life
is no life: the Sympathetic man, the Irascible, and the Melancholy.'
But alas! the art by which the Sorceress of Colchis could recreate
a body by cutting it up and boiling it in a pot is lost. Don't you
think happiness is solely the result of perfect health under normal
conditions of existence? I believe in the German philosopher who said
that whether one had a billion dollars a day or only one dollar a
week, it made no difference in regard to the amount of happiness a
human brain was susceptible of. Still, it would be so nice to avoid
the opposite by walling oneself up from the human species,--like the
Cainites, whose cities were 'walled up to Heaven.'"
There now ensues in the correspondence, a silence extending over a
period of nearly five years. These were busy years for Hearn. His
position in the New Orleans newspaper world became a prominent one,
and his translations of stories from the French, made for the papers
by which he was employed, were so favorably received as to give him
greater confidence in his own abilities.
Early in June of the year 1887 things began to take a turn for greater
work for Hearn. His studies of the negroes and the Creoles of Louisiana
had attracted the attention of the publishers, and he had received some
rather tempting offers to do work for them. It was then that he left
New Orleans, going to New York by way of Cincinnati. With all of his
old shyness, his avoidance of mere acquaintances, and his love of the
white-haired old gentleman, who alone in Cincinnati had understood him,
Hearn spent his entire day in Cincinnati in chat at Watkin's printing
office, which was then situated at 26 Longworth Street. It was there
that Hearn saw once more the tall clock, whose peculiar ticking seemed
to have fascinated him and to which references are made even in his
few letters from Japan. After the day with Mr. Watkin, he went direct
to New York, where he was the guest of his friend, Mr. H. E. Krehbiel,
the well-known musical critic, who was then living at 438 West 57th
Street. From there it was that Hearn wrote to his mentor the following
confession of affection and gratitude:
"DEAR OLD MAN: A delightful trip brought me safe and sound to New
York, where my dear friend Krehbiel was waiting to take me to his cosy
home. I cannot tell you how much our little meeting delighted me, or
how much I regretted to depart so soon, or how differently I regarded
our old friendship from my old way of looking at it. I was too young,
too foolish, and too selfish to know you as you are, when we used to
be together. Ten years made little exterior change in me, but a great
deal of heart-change; and I saw you as you are,--noble and true and
frank and generous, and felt I loved you more than I ever did before;
felt also how much I owed you, and will always owe you,--and understood
how much allowance you had made for all my horrid, foolish ways when
I used to be with you. Well, I am sure to see you again.' I am having
one of the most delightful holidays here I ever had in my life; and I
expect to stay a few weeks. If it were not for the terrible winters,
I should like to live in New York. Some day I suppose I shall have to
spend a good deal of my time here. The houses eleven stories high,
that seem trying to climb into the moon,--the tremendous streets and
roads,--the cascading thunder of the awful torrent of life,--the sense
of wealth-force and mind-power that oppresses the stranger here,--all
these form so colossal a contrast with the inert and warmly colored
Southern life that I know not how to express my impression. I can
only think that I have found superb material for a future story, in
which the influence of New York on a Southern mind may be described.
Well, new as these things may seem to me, they are, no doubt, old
and uninteresting to you,--so that I shall not bore you with my
impressions. I will look forward to our next meeting, when during a
longer stay in Cin. I can tell you such little experiences of my trip
as may please you. I want to get into that dear little shop of yours
again. I dreamed of it the other night, and heard the ticking of the
old clock like a man's feet treading on pavement far away; and I saw
the Sphinx, with the mother and child in her arms, move her monstrous
head, and observe: 'The sky in New York is grey!'
"When I woke up it _was_ grey, and it remained grey until to-day.
Even now it is not like our summer blue. It looks higher and paler
and colder. We are nearer to God in the South, just as we are nearer
to Death in that terrible and splendid heat of the Gulf Coast. When
I write God, of course I mean only the World-Soul, the mighty and
sweetest life of Nature, the great Blue Ghost, the Holy Ghost which
fills planets and hearts with beauty.
"Believe me, Dear Old Dad,
"Affectionately, your son,
"LAFCADIO HEARN"
Below this is once more the familiar drawing of the raven.
From this time on the letters came at greater and greater intervals.
There were only three more from America and then four from Japan. It
was not that Hearn forgot his old friend or cared less for him. But he
became busier, and with larger projects, newer aims, and a different
life, there was less time in which to indulge himself in the active
correspondence of former years. Between the New York group of letters
and those from Japan is a gap. Letters on both sides had become a
matter of years instead of weeks or months. Mr. Watkin, with the
increasing weight of years on his shoulders and the increasing cares of
a business that had begun to decline with the introduction of modern
printing methods, found less time to write to his Raven.
Early in July, 1887, Hearn at last departed on that long-wished-for
journey to the West Indies. A note, hastily scribbled to Mr. Watkin,
told of the arrangements:
"DEAR OLD MAN: I leave on the _Barracouta_ for Trinidad, Sunday, at
daybreak. I have been travelling about a good deal, and have been
silent only because so busy and so tired when the business was over.
Your dear letter and your excellent little stamp both delighted me. I
will let you hear from me soon again,--that is, as soon as I can get to
a P. O.
"With affection, always your little Raven,
"LAFCADIO HEARN"
This promise of frequent letters was one he was not destined to
keep. Once in the West Indies, he found himself so enthralled by its
beauties, so busy putting on paper his impressions of what he was
seeing and breathing and feeling, that it was not until he was once
more in the United States that he found time to write.
September 21, 1887, he sent the following from Metuchen, New Jersey:
"DEAR OLD DAD: After three months or so in the West Indies and British
Guiana, I am back again in the U. S. in first-rate health and spirits.
I ought to have been able to write you, I thought, from Martinique;
but the enormous and unexpected volume of work I had to do rendered it
almost impossible to write anything except business letters to Harpers,
and one or two necessary notes to friends looking after my affairs
elsewhere. My conviction is that you and I would do well to spend our
lives in the Antilles. All dreams of Paradise (even Mahomet's) are more
than realized there by nature;--after returning, I find this world all
colorless, all grey, and fearfully cold. I feel like an outcast from
heaven. But it is no use trying to tell you anything about it in a
letter. I wrote nearly three hundred pages of manuscript to the Harpers
about it,--and I have not been able to say one thousandth part. I got
two little orders for stamps for you at Martinique,--pencil stamps like
the one you made for me. One is to be 'Plissonneau, fils;' the other,
'A. Testart.' Send bill to me, and stamps to A. Testart, St. Pierre,
Martinique, French W. Indies. I hope to see you on my way South, dear
old Dad.
"Believe me always,
"LAFCADIO HEARN"
In view of the terrible catastrophe at St. Pierre, it would be
interesting to know whether Hearn's friends perished in that fury of
fire and lava and hot ashes. Hearn's expectations about returning to
New Orleans were not destined to be fulfilled. So successful had he
been in his work for Harpers that, a week later than the date of the
previous letter, he had the satisfa&ion of announcing that he was going
back to what at that time seemed to him the most delightful region in
the world. The opening of this letter is unique, in that it is the only
one in which he is in the least ceremonious:
"H. WATKIN, ESQ., DEAR OLD DAD: I am going right back to the Tropics
again, this time to stay. I have quit newspapering forever. Wish
I could see you and chat with you before I go, but I cannot get a
chance this time. My address will be care American Consul, St. Pierre,
Martinique, Lesser Antilles. I may not be there all the time, but
that will be my headquarters, and there letters will always reach
me. To-day I am packing, rushing around breathlessly, preparing to
go,--so that my letter must be brief. I did better with my venture than
I ever expected; for I got for my work done seven hundred dollars,
besides having secured material for much better work. You will hear of
me in the _Harper's Magazine_ this winter,--beginning about January
and February. I shall be able hereafter to rest where I please; so
that I shall have no trouble, when I get to New York again, in
running to Cincinnati. Of course I don't want my little plans known
yet,--because no one knows what might turn up; but these are the
present prospers,--quite bright for me. I will write from Martinique or
Guadeloupe, and try to coax you to go down there. Good-bye for a little
while, with my best love to you.
"L. HEARN"
Again this promise of letters from the West Indies was destined to
be broken. While lotus-eating, Hearn wrote few letters. He was most
probably busy, amid the glow and color of the Antilles, studying the
philosophical, scientific, and religious works which were destined
so strongly to color his writings about Japan. He went to the
latter country in 1890. In order that the reader may have a clear
understanding of events, the facts in Hearn's Japanese career may be
told in a few words. In 1890 and 1891 he served as English teacher in
the ordinary middle school and the normal school of Matsue in Izumo.
Next he was connected with the government school at Kumamoto. Then came
newspaperwork at Kobe, and finally in 1896 he was honored by being made
lecturer on English literature at the Imperial University of Tokio,
which position he held until 1903, when he retired, owing to increasing
trouble with his eyes, which had caused him anxiety all his life. He
was contemplating a lecture trip in the United States, but ill health
prevented. He died at his Tokio home September 26, 1904, and was buried
September 29, with the Buddhist rites, the funeral service being held
at the temple of Jito-in of Ichigaya. He now sleeps in the lonely old
cemetery of Zōshigaya in the outskirts of the capital. Shortly after
Hearn reached Japan Mr. Watkin obtained his address, and wrote him a
letter telling how often he had thought of him and had expected to hear
from him in the two years and more that had elapsed since their last
letters. This brought a speedy reply,--a reply which showed that, so
far as his feeling for the old English printer was concerned, there
was little difference between the immature, ambition-stung youth of
nineteen and the well-known, mature author of forty, who felt in some
dim way that there amid this Oriental people he was destined to live
and die. The reply to Mr. Watkin is from Yokohama, and, contrary to
Hearn's previous rule, is actually dated,--April 25, 1890.
"DEAR OLD DAD: I was very happy to feel that your dear heart thought
about me; I also have often found myself dreaming of you. I arrived
here, by way of Canada and Vancouver, after passing some years in
the West Indies. I think I shall stay here some years. I have not
been getting rich,--quite the contrary; but I am at least preparing a
foundation for ultimate independence,--if I keep my health. It is very
good now, but I have many grey hairs, and I shall be next June forty
years old.
"I trust to make enough in a year or two to realize my dream of a home
in the West Indies; if I succeed, I must try to coax you to come along,
and dream life away quietly where all is sun and beauty. But no one
ever lived who seemed more a creature of circumstances than I; I drift
with various forces in the direction of least resistance,--resolve
to love nothing, and love always too much for my own peace of
mind,--places, things, and persons,--and lo! presto! everything is
swept away, and becomes a dream,--like life itself.
"Perhaps there will be a great awakening; and each will cease to be an
Ego, but an All, and will know the divinity of Man by seeing, as the
veil falls, himself in each and all.
"Here I am in the land of dreams,--surrounded by strange Gods. I seem
to have known and loved them before somewhere: I burn incense before
them. I pass much of my time in the temples, trying to see into the
heart of this mysterious people. In order to do so I have to blend with
them and become a part of them. It is not easy. But I hope to learn the
language; and if I do not, in spite of myself, settle here, you will
see me again. If you do not, I shall be under big trees in some old
Buddhist cemetery, with six laths above me, inscribed with prayers in
an unknown tongue, and a queerly carved monument typifying those five
elements into which we are supposed to melt away. I trust all is well
with you, dear old Dad. Write me when it will not pain your eyes. Tell
me all you can about yourself. Be sure that I always remember you; and
that my love goes to you.
"LAFCADIO HEARN
"I could tell you so much to make you laugh if you were here; and to
hear you laugh again would make me very happy."
An interval of over four years now occurred before Hearn wrote once
more to Cincinnati. Some very decided changes had taken place in his
life. He had wedded a Japanese woman, he had a son, and he was reputed
to have become a Buddhist. He had been successful with his literary
work, his essays on things Japanese being among the most noteworthy
and popular articles in the _Atlantic Monthly._ It was at this period,
when Mr. Watkin thought his friend was most happy, that he received a
long reply from Japan in response to a joint letter sent by the old
gentleman and his daughter, Miss Effie Watkin. It is a singular thing
that it was not until this time that Hearn ever mentioned Mr. Watkin's
wife and daughter. He had in truth been few times in their presence.
Mrs. Watkin, a woman of strong common sense, had found the foolish
superstitions of the young lad hard to bear, and he had accordingly,
when in Cincinnati, confined his particular friendship to the husband
and father. The letter from Hearn rather surprised its recipient by
reason of its despondency. It had much of the old gloomy cast of
thought. For this there were two potent reasons. One was his worry
over his son's future. The other was his worry over that Japan he had
learned to love so well. He felt doubtful about the outcome of the war
with China,--the letter was written in September, 1894,--and troubles
for the Mikado's empire always made him a little sad. Singularly
enough, the same feeling can be traced very clearly in his book,
"Japan, An Attempt at Interpretation," written in the first months of
the struggle with Russia.
One other word of introductory comment is necessary. His seeming
depreciation of his own essays was only the reflection of his general
gloomy viewpoint at the time the letter was written. Hearn was dwelling
at the time at Kumamoto.
"DEAR OLD DAD: It delighted me to get that kindest double letter from
yourself and sweet-hearted little daughter,--or rather delighted us.
My wife speaks no English, but I translated it for her. She will send
a letter in Japanese, which Miss Effie will not be able to read, but
which she will keep as a curiosity perhaps. Our love to you both.
"How often I have thought of you, and wondered about you, and wished I
could pass with you more of the old-fashioned evenings, reading ancient
volumes of the_ Atlantic Monthly_,--so much better a magazine in those
days than in these, when I am regularly advertised as one of its
contributors.
"I often wonder now at your infinite patience with the extraordinary,
superhuman foolishness and wickedness of the worst pet you ever had in
your life. When I think of all the naughty, mean, absurd, detestable
things I did to vex you and to scandalize you, I can't for the life of
me understand why you did n't want to kill me,--as a sacrifice to the
Gods. What an idiot I was!--and how could you be so good?--and why do
men change so? I think of my old self as of something which ought not
to have been allowed to exist on the face of the earth,--and yet, in my
present self, I sometimes feel ghostly reminders that the old self was
very real indeed. Well, I wish I were near you to love you and make up
for all old troubles.
"I have a son. He is my torment and my pride. He is not like me or
his mother. He has chestnut hair and blue eyes, and is enormously
strong,--the old Gothic blood came out uppermost. I am, of course,
very anxious about him. He _can't_ become a Japanese,--his soul is all
English, and his looks. I must educate him abroad. Head all above the
ears,--promises to be intelligent. I shall never have another child.
I feel too heavily the tremendous responsibility of the thing. But
the boy is there,--intensely alive; and I must devote the rest of
my existence to him. One thing I hope for is that he will never be
capable of doing such foolish things as his daddy used to do. His name
is Kaji-we or Ka-jio. He does not cry, and has a tremendous capacity
for growing. And he gives me the greatest variety of anxiety about his
future.