KŌBE, March, 1895.
DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--Of course send back the Taylor and Pater--if you
don't care for them. I myself was very much disappointed in Pater.
Perhaps my liking for Taylor is connected with boyish recollections of
his facile charm: even Longfellow cannot greatly thrill me now. And may
I make a confession?--I can't endure any more of Wordsworth, Keats,
and Shelley--having learned the gems of them by heart. I really prefer
Dobson and Watson and Lang. Of Wordsworth Watson sings,--
"It may be thought has broadened since he died!"
Well, I should smile! His deepest truths have become platitudes.
This reminds me that I have wanted to talk to you about a magical bit of
Hugo's, "Chant de Sophocle à Salamine." It is such a striking instance
of Hugo's greatness and littleness. You know it, I suppose. It opens
thus:--
Me voila! Je suis un Ephèbe,--
Mes seize ans sont d'azur baignés,
Guerre, Déesse de l'Erèbe,--
Sombre Guerre _aux cris indignes_.
The italicized words make me mad. It is a bathos, the fourth
line--shrieking bathos; while the first part of the verse is like a
Greek frieze. But let us go on:--
Je viens à toi, la nuit est noire!
Puisque Xercès est le plus fort,
Prends-moi pour la lutte et la gloire,
Et pour la tombe,--mais d'abord,--
(Now for the magnificence!)
Toi dont le glaive est le ministre,
Toi que l'Eclair suit dans les cieux,
Choisis-moi de ta main sinistre
Une belle fille aux doux yeux.
What makes the splendour of this verse? Not only the tremendous
contrast,--apocalyptic. It is especially, I think, the magnificent dual
use of "sinistre." How Hugoish the whole thing is!...
I fear that what I said long ago is likely to come true: the first
fire is burnt out,--the zeal is dead,--the educational effort (one of
the most colossal in all history, surely) having served its immediate
purpose (the recovery of national autonomy) is dead. Hence there is a
prospect of decay.
Now I should like to protest against this danger in a review-article:
say, "History of the Decline and Fall of Education in Japan;" or,
"History of Foreign Teaching in Japan." Could I get documents?--just
a skeleton at least; of statistics, rules, details, numbers. The
article has been in my mind for two years. And I notice the Japanese
don't object to healthy criticisms at all,--rather like them. They hate
petting-talk, however,--and stupid misinterpretations. I should like to
try the thing.
I think it is Amenomori who is writing rather savage things in the
_Chronicle_ just now, about the Mombushō, and threatens to write
more. There is a something unpleasant in the tone of Japanese satire to
me,--however clever, it shows that they have not yet reached the same
perception of sensibility as we have. Of course I refer only to the best
of them--masters. The sympathetic touch is always absent. I feel unhappy
at being in the company of a cultivated Japanese for more than an hour
at a time. After the first charm of formality is over, the man becomes
ice--or else suddenly drifts away from you into his own world, far from
ours as the star Rephan.
You will be pleased to hear that I have not yet dropped money. I have
made nothing to speak of, but have lost none so far. By fall I suppose
I shall have made something, though no fortune, out of "Glimpses." If I
can clear enough to justify a tropical trip, I shall be satisfied.
Malta must be delightful. But I am not enough of a scholar to use such
an opportunity as Malta would give. I should do better with Spain and
gipsies, or Pondicherry and Klings.
By the way, my child-tongue was Italian. I spoke Romaic and Italian by
turns. In New Orleans I hired a teacher to teach me,--thinking memory
would come back again. But it didn't come at all, and I quarrelled with
the teacher, who looked exactly like a murderer and never smiled. So I
know not Italian.
Ever faithfully,
LAFCADIO HEARN.