A Great Word-Artist Shows That Under
the Levity of Bohemian Life Is a Serious
and Lofty Philosophy.
The late Lafcadio Hearn was one of the great prose-poets of the time. The
glimpse into his intimate mind which the _Critic_ affords by printing a
sheaf of his letters to H.E. Krehbiel, the music critic, will be
appreciated by all who followed his literary wanderings up to the time of
his settlement in Japan. The letters were written many years ago, when
Hearn was still in his early prime. When he learned of the death of Mr.
Krehbiel's child he wrote this exquisite expression of sympathy:
Your letter rises before me as I write like a tablet of
white stone bearing a dead name. I see you standing beside
me. I look into your eyes and press your hand and say
nothing.
Hearn was ever an artist, and he ever knew what art meant. In advising his
friend to break away from the exhausting routine of daily journalism, he
gave a typical expression of his philosophy of life:
Under the levity of Henri Muerger'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 worshipers.
The conditions pictured by Muerger have passed away in Paris
as elsewhere; the old barriers to ambition have been 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 labors 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.