The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume II Part 35

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, June, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--I wonder if you are perfectly disgusted with my silence and general invisibility. But perhaps you have been far too busy to think enough about me even to say, "D--n his lying little soul!"

(which is what I would have said under like circ.u.mstances); for I have been reading about you,--and know that you have had some sad and very important duties to perform, of an unexpected character.

I got by the last steamer only two notices for you; they are amusing, because they represent two entirely different religious points of view in Methodist criticism. Perhaps you will think the favourable notice very kindly under the circ.u.mstances.

What to say about the Manila matter I don't know. My notion is that you will not be likely to get the furlough so soon. Events are thickening, and looking very dark as well as strange. What most delights me is the prospect of an Anglo-American alliance. Then will come the world-struggle of races--British and Yankee against the Slav and his allies. Hope we shall not see that--it will be a very awful thing,--a vast earthquake in all the world's markets. And the Latins, curiously enough, are being drawn together by the same sense of their future peril. Their existence is in danger. Loti offers his services to Spain, after having been dropt from the French navy,--not because the moral justice of the question is understood by him, or even felt by him; but because his blood and ancestral feelings naturally attract him to Spain rather than to America. I should be sorry to see the best writer of prose of any country in this world blown to pieces for his chivalrous whim; but he is very likely to get killed if he goes into this mess. All men of letters will feel then very sorry; and a marvellous genius will have been thrown away for nothing--since there is no ghost of a hope for Spain.

I shall get down to Yokohama unexpectedly, I suppose, very soon--if I feel well enough: the weather has been so atrocious that I had fire in my room up to last week. I hope you have not felt any the worse for these abominable changes of temperature. Another such "spring" would drive me wild! In spite of it I have nearly completed a sixth chapter or essay for book Number Six. I am full of projects and suggestions; but cannot yet decide which among the mult.i.tude are strong enough to survive and bear development.

Ever affectionately, with faint hopes of forgiveness,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

TOKYO, June, 1898.

DEAR WIZARD, MAGICIAN, THAUMATURGIST,--Your letter was wonderful. It made things quite vivid before me; and I can actually see G. and M.

and the others you speak of (including myself, under the influence of demophobia). Also you cannot imagine how much good such a letter does a fellow in my condition. It is tonicky,--slips ozone of hope into a consumptive soul. I must now keep out of blues for at least another seven years.

Anyhow, things are about right. My little wife is getting strong again; my eyes are all right; the examinations are over; the vacation begins; Little, Brown & Company send me heaps of books; and we go to the seaside as soon as I can manage it,--with an old pupil of mine,--an officer now of engineers.

Speaking of pupils reminds me that just as you keep me from follies, or mischief, by a bit of sound advice at times,--not to say by other means,--so here I have learned to be guided by K.'s mamma. Indeed, no Occidental-born could manage a purely j.a.panese household, or direct j.a.panese according to his own light. Things are so opposite, so eccentric, so provoking at times,--so impossible to understand. A foreign merchant, for example, cannot possibly manage his own j.a.panese clerks--he must trust their direction to a j.a.panese head clerk. And this is the way all through the Orient,--even in Aryan India. Any attempt to control everything directly is hopelessly mischievous. By learning to abstain therefrom, I have been able to keep my servants from the beginning, and have learned to prize some of them at their weight in gold.

What I was going to say especially is in reference to pupils and students. In Tokyo students do everything everywhere for or against everybody. They are legion,--they are ubiquitous. The news-vender, the hotel-clerk, the porter of a mansion, the man-servant of any large house is sure to be a student, struggling to live. (I have had one for a year--a good boy, and inconceivably useful, who soon enters the army.) A Tokyo resident is _obliged_ to have students about him. They are better guards than police, and better servants than any servants. If you don't have a student or two, you may look out for robbers, confidence-men, rowdies, trouble of all kinds at your house.

Students _police_ Tokyo.

Well, I found I could not be familiar with my students. It spoiled matters. I had to be a little unpleasant. Then reserved. As a consequence all is admirable. Direct interference won't do. I have to leave that to the lady of the house; and she can manage things without ever getting angry. But another student, whom I am educating, _did_ give me much heart-burning, until I became simply cruel with him. I should have dropped him; but I was told: "You don't understand: have patience, and wait." "But," I said, "his work is trash--worthless." "Never mind,"

was the answer, "wait and see!" At the end of the year, I am surprised by the improvement and the earnestness. "You see," I am told, "that boy was a spoiled child while his family were rich; but his heart is good.

He will do well yet." And I find this quite probable. How the j.a.panese can manage with perfect gentleness and laughter what we cannot manage by force or fraud or money, ought to be a lesson. And I sympathize with this character--only, my own character is much too impatient and cranky to allow of correct imitation.

I am, or have been, the teacher of men who, although insignificant in English, are literary celebrities in their own tongue. Their portraits are known over j.a.pan; their poems and stories celebrated. Naturally they feel proportionately averse to being treated as mere boys. Still, an appeal to their honour, gently made, will sometimes work wonders. I tried it the other day, by advice of the director, when there had been a refusal to obey. He said: "Don't write to them; don't _order_ them: just go and talk to them. You know what to say." And they obeyed--_in spite of the fact that the whole room laughed at them for their change of resolve_. There is hope for this cla.s.s of men: if the university system were better managed, they would be splendidly earnest....

Affectionately, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, July, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--We ran over somebody last night--and the train therefore waited in mourning upon the track during a decorous period. We did not see Tokyo till after eleven considerably. But the waiting was not unpleasant. Frogs sang as if nothing had happened, and the breeze from the sea faintly moved through the cars;--and I meditated about the sorrows and the joys of life by turns, and smoked, and thanked the G.o.ds for many things,--including the existence of yourself and Dr.

Hall. I was not unfortunate enough to see what had been killed,--or the consequences to friends and acquaintances; and feeling there was no more pain for that person, I smoked in peace--though not without a prayer to the G.o.ds to pardon my want of seriousness.

Altogether I felt extremely happy, in spite of the delay. The day had been so glorious,--especially subsequent to the removal of a small h--l, containing several myriads of lost souls, from the left side of my lower jaw.

Reaching home, I used some of that absolutely wonderful medicine. It was a great and grateful surprise. (I am not trying to say much about the kindness of the gift--that would be no use.) After having used it, for the first time, I made a tactile investigation without fear, and found--

What do you think?

Guess!

Well, I found that--_the wrong one had been pulled_,--No. 3 instead of No. 2.

I don't say that No. 3 didn't deserve its fate. But it had never been openly aggressive. It had struggled to perform its duties under disadvantageous circ.u.mstances: its character had been modest and shrinking. No. 2 had been, on the contrary, Mt. Vesuvius, the last great Javanese earthquake, the tidal wave of '96, and the seventh chamber of the Inferno, all in mathematical combination. It--Mt. Vesuvius, etc.--is still with me, and although to-day astonished into quiescence, is far from being extinct. The medicine keeps it still for the time. You will see that I have been destined to experience strange adventures.

Hope I may be able to see you again _soon_,--4th, if possible. Love to you and all kind wishes to everybody.

LAFCADIO.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, July, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--I mailed you this morning the raw proofs, and the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. I fear you will find the former rather faulty in their present unfinished state. But if you mount Fuji you will be a glorious critic.

I don't know how to tell you about the sense of all the pleasant episodes of yesterday, coupled with the feeling that I must have seemed too sombre toward the close,--instead of showing to you and friend Amenomori the happiest face possible. I was unusually naughty--I suppose; but I was worried a little. However, my sky is only clouded for moments--and my friends know that appearances signify nothing serious.

We had adventures at s.h.i.+mbas.h.i.+. I saw a well-dressed fellow getting rather close to my wife while she was counting some small change; and I pushed in between her and him--just in time; for she had found his hand on her girdle, trying to get her watch. Then I had a hand poked in my right side-pocket, and another almost simultaneously into my left breast-pocket. The men got nothing from either of us. What interested me was the style of the work. The man I noticed especially was a delicate-looking young fellow, very genteelly dressed, and wearing spectacles. He pretended to be very hot, and was holding his hat in his left hand before him, and working under it with his right. The touching of the pocket with the fingers reminded me of nothing so much as the motion of a cat's paw in playing. You know the cat does not give a single stroke, but a succession of taps, so quickly following each other that you can scarcely see how it is done. The incident was rather curious and amusing than provoking.

I fear poor Amenomori was disappointed--after all his pains about Haneda.

It was just as well that we made the trip yesterday. To-day the weather is mean,--cloudy, hot, and dusty all at the same time. Yesterday we had clear azure and gold,--and lilac-flas.h.i.+ng dragonflies,--and a glorious moon coming home.

After seeing your shoulders I have no doubt about your finding Fuji child's-play--even Fuji could not break such a back as that; but I think that you will do well, on the climb, to eat very lightly. My experience was that the less eating the easier climbing. I took one drink on the stiff part of the climb,--contrary to the advice of the guides,--and I was sorry for it. The necessity is to reduce rather than stimulate the circulation when you get to the rarefied zone. Perhaps you will find another route better than the Gotemba route; but Amenomori would be the best adviser there.

Ever affectionately, with countless thanks,

LAFCADIO.

TO MITCh.e.l.l McDONALD

TOKYO, August, 1898.

DEAR McDONALD,--I am sending you two of Zola's books, and a rather complex social novel by Maupa.s.sant--not, any of them, to be returned. I recommend "Rome" only; the others will just do to lend to friends, or to read for the sake of the French, when you have nothing better on hand.

What a glorious day we did have! Wonder if I shall ever be able to make a thumbnail literary study thereof,--with philosophical reflections. The naval officer, the Buddhist philosopher, and the wandering evolutionist.

The impression is altogether too sunny and happy and queer to be forever lost to the world. I must think it up some day.