KŌBE, March, 1895.
DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--It was very comforting to get a letter from you;
for I wanted an impulse to write. I have been blue--by reason partly
of the weather; and partly because of those reactions which follow all
accomplished work in some men's cases. Everything done then seems like
an Elle-woman,--a mere delusive shell; and one marvels why anybody
should have been charmed.
Of course I did not ask point-blank for criticisms, because you told me
long ago, "Every man should make his own book,"--and, although it is
the literary custom in America to consult friends, I could see justice
in the suggestion. The title "Out of the East" was selected from a
number. It was suggested only by the motto of the Oriental Society, "Ex
Oriente lux." The "Far East" has been so monopolized by others that I
did not like to use the phrase. "Out of the Uttermost East" would sound
cacophonously,--besides suggesting a straining for effect. I thought
of Tennyson's "most eastern east," but the publishers didn't approve
it. The simpler the title, and the vaguer--in my case--the better:
the vagueness touches curiosity. Besides, the book is a vague thing.
Sound has much to do with the value of a title. If it hadn't, you would
have written "Japanese Things" instead of "Things Japanese"--which is
entirely different, and so pretty that your admirers and imitators
snapped it up at once. So we have "Things Chinese" by an imitator, and
"Things Japanese" is a phrase which has found its recognized place in
the vocabulary of critics of both worlds. Your criticism on "Out of
the East," though, would have strongly influenced me, if you had sent
it early enough. I noticed the very same suggestion in the _Athenæum_
regarding the use of the word "Orient" and the phrase "Far East"
by Americans. For our "Orient" is, as you say, still the Orient of
Kinglake, of De Nerval, etc. But why should it be? To Milton it was the
Indian East with kings barbaric sitting under a rain of pearls and gold.
Manila was long my dream. But, although my capacity for sympathy with
the beliefs of Catholic peasantry anywhere is very large,--the ugly
possibility exists that the Inquisition survives in Manila, and I have
had the ill-fortune to make the Jesuits pay some attention to me. You
know about the young Spaniard who had his property confiscated, and
who disappeared some years ago,--and was restored to liberty only
after heaven and earth had been moved by his friends in Spain. I don't
know that I should disappear; but I should certainly have obstacles
thrown in my way. Mexico would be a safer country for the same class of
studies,--Ceram ought to be interesting: in Wallace's time the cost of
life per individual was only about 8s. 6d. a year! A moist, hot tropical
climate I like best. The heat is weakening, I know, but that moisture
means the verdure that is a delight to the eyes, and palms, and parrots,
and butterflies of enormous size;--and no possibility of establishing
Western conditions of life. I should like very much to see the book you
kindly offered to lend me. It might create new aspirations: I am always
at night dreaming of islands in undiscovered seas, where all the people
are gods and fairies.
Of course I cannot know much about it now, but I am almost sure of
having been in Malta as a child. At a later time my father, who was long
there, told me queer things about the old palaces of the knights, and
a story about a monk who, on the coming of the French, had the presence
of mind to paint the gold chancel-railing with green paint. Southern
Italy and the Mediterranean islands are especially fitted for classical
scholars, like Symonds; but what a world of folk-lore also is there
still ungathered! I should think that, next to Venice, Malta must be the
most romantic spot in Europe.
I see your paper on Loochoo must have been much more than what you said
of it,--viz., that only some snuffy German would read it. Or was the
London report about the paper on Loochoo which I have? (There must be a
wonderful ghost-world in those islands,--though it would be quite hard
to get at: probably three years' work.)
You can't imagine my feeling of reaction in the matter of Japanese
psychology. It seems as if everything had quite suddenly become clear
to me, and utterly void of emotional interest: a race primitive as
the Etruscan before Rome was, or more so, adopting the practices of a
larger civilization under compulsion,--five thousand years at least
emotionally behind us,--yet able to suggest to us the existence of
feelings and ideals which do not exist, but are simulated by something
infinitely simpler. Wonder if our own highest things have not grown
up out of equally simple things. The compulsion first--then the
sense of duty become habit, automatic, the conviction expanding into
knowledge of ethical habit,--then the habit creating conviction,--then
relations,--then the capacity for general ideas. But all the educational
system now seems to me farcical and wrong,--except in mere dealing
with facts apparent to common sense. There are no depths to stir, no
race-profundities to explore: all is like a Japanese river-bed, through
which the stones and rocks show up all the year round,--and is never
filled but in time of cataclysm and destruction.
Ever faithfully,
LAFCADIO HEARN.