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قراءة كتاب The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, Volume 2
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The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, Volume 2
LIFE AND LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN
VOLUME II
THE LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
LAFCADIO HEARN
BY
ELIZABETH BISLAND
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT 1906 BY ELIZABETH BISLAND WETMORE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published December 1906
ILLUSTRATIONS
| Lafcadio Hearn in Japanese Costume (photogravure) | Frontispiece |
| The City of Matsue, seen from Castle Hill | 40 |
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1. The Prefecture Office. The Middle School, in which Mr. Hearn was a teacher, is hidden from view by the Prefecture Office Building. 2. The Normal School. Mr. Hearn also taught here. 3. Here on the beach of Lake Shinyi Mr. Hearn lived for some time. |
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| The Shintō Temple of Kizuki described in “Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan” | 104 |
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Lafcadio Hearn was the first foreigner who was allowed to enter the inner part of this temple. |
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| A Group of Graduates of the Middle School | 162 |
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1. Mr. Hearn. 2. Mr. Nishida. 3. The old teacher of Chinese Classics. |
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| Lafcadio Hearn’s Favourite Dwelling-House | 192 |
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This house, an old Samurai’s residence, is situated in front of a castle. The river before the house is an outer moat of the castle. |
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| Mr. Hearn’s Garden in Tōkyō | 282 |
| Writing-Room in Mr. Hearn’s Tōkyō House | 344 |
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His three sons on the verandah. In this house he died. |
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| Facsimile of Mr. Hearn’s Later Handwriting | 410 |
| Kazuo and Iwao, Lafcadio Hearn’s Older Children, exercising at Jū-Jutsu | 476 |
| Afcadio Hearn’s Grave | 516 |
LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN
LETTERS
1890-1904
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
1890.
Dear Elizabeth,— ... I feel indescribably towards Japan. Of course Nature here is not the Nature of the tropics, which is so splendid and savage and omnipotently beautiful that I feel at this very moment of writing the same pain in my heart I felt when leaving Martinique. This is a domesticated Nature, which loves man, and makes itself beautiful for him in a quiet grey-and-blue way like the Japanese women, and the trees seem to know what people say about them,—seem to have little human souls. What I love in Japan is the Japanese,—the poor simple humanity of the country. It is divine. There is nothing in this world approaching the naïve natural charm of them. No book ever written has reflected it. And I love their gods, their customs, their dress, their bird-like quavering songs, their houses, their superstitions, their faults. And I believe that their art is as far in advance of our art as old Greek art was superior to that of the earliest European art-gropings—I think there is more art in a print by Hokusai or those who came after him than in a $10,000 painting—no, a $100,000 painting. We are the barbarians! I do not merely think these things: I am as sure of them as of death. I only wish I could be reincarnated in some little Japanese baby, so that I could see and feel the world as beautifully as a Japanese brain does.
And, of course, I am studying Buddhism with heart and soul. A young student from one of the temples is my companion. If I stay in Japan, we shall live together.—Will write again if all goes well.
My best love to you always.
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
1890.
Dear Miss Bisland,—Do you think well enough of me to try to get me employment at a regular salary, somewhere in the United States. I have permanently broken off with the Harpers: I am starved out. My average earnings for the last three years have been scarcely $500 a year. Here in Japan prices are higher than in New York,—unless one can become a Japanese employee. I was promised a situation; but it is now delayed until September.
I shall get along somehow. But I am so very tired of being hard-pushed, and ignored, and starved,—and obliged to undergo moral humiliations which are much worse than hunger or cold,—that I have ceased to be ashamed to ask you to say a good word for me where you can, to some newspaper, or some publishing firm, able to give me steady employ, later on.
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO ELIZABETH BISLAND
1890.
My dear Sister Elizabeth,— ... Now, as for myself,—I am going to become country school-master in Japan,—probably for several long years. The language is unspeakably difficult to learn;—I believe it can only be learned by ear. Teaching will help me to learn it; and before learning it, to write anything