The Japanese letters of Lafcadio Hearn

Front matter

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Preface

Shortly after the death of Lafcadio Hearn, Edmund Clarence Stedman said : —

" Hearn will become in time as much of a romantic personality and tradition as Poe now is."

If this prophecy is to be fulfilled 't is desirable that the tradition should be based on truth.

The Poe legend springs in the main from the impression conveyed by his first biographer, Griswold, and it is now generally accepted that Griswold's unfriendly animus so distorted the facts of the poet's life as to give of the man an idea both false and injurious.

A tradition, however, once set on foot and made viable, dies hard. Our poor humanity is ever willing to fancy a biographer more impartial and accurate when he reveals and analyzes faults, than when he dwells on the virtues and nobility of his subject. Lombroso, Nordau, and their school, have inclined the multitude to believe every man of genius more or less morbid and abnormal, and when the ordinary ''defects of the qualities" of a famous man are interpreted as signs of degeneracy the public is prone to feel it is at last getting "The Real John Smith," "The Real Robert Robertson." As if there were some greater veracity in faultiness than in goodness, in weakness than in strength!

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In the preface to "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn" occasion was taken to say — "the intention of such part of the book as is my own is to give a history of the circumstances under which a great man developed his genius. I have purposely ignored all such episodes as seemed impertinent to this end, as from my point of view there seems a sort of gross curiosity in raking among such details of a man's life as he himself would wish ignored. These I gladly leave to those who enjoy such labours."

Others, since that paragraph was published, have apparently found pleasure in this squalid industry, and lest the public should build upon false suggestions an unveracious legend concerning a good man I have considered it necessary to touch upon and explain certain events in Lafcadio Hearn's life. Also to restate in brief the facts concerning him. It is unfortunate that this should be requisite, but the duty of those who were really acquainted with Hearn to puncture any evilly blown bubbles of suggestion and innuendo, cannot rightfully be ignored.

1. First as to his birth and origin: — The story of these, as related by himself, was carefully investigated at the time of the publication of his "Life and Letters." It was confirmed in every detail by means of family papers and through information obtained directly from his half-sisters, his brother and his cousins. Without undue credulity it may be supposed that he himself and his immediate family knew the facts better than some whose entire personal acquaintance with Lafcadio Hearn extended over the period of exactly five months.

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2. His youth and early influences : — I have been personally acquainted with the Hearns for many years. They are people of birth and breeding, and up to his sixteenth year — the formative period of life — Laf cadio Hearn lived in an atmosphere of wealth and refinement. That he quarrelled with his guardian and left home is not remarkable, as many famous and obscure men have done the same thing in the heat and inexperience of youth.

3. As to his sight: — The testimony of his schoolmates and family is that it was good until his sixteenth year, when he injured one eye in playing a game. And while the health of the other eye was much affected by the strain of incessant study and work and he was obliged to use a powerful glass when reading, yet his vision, with its aid, was acute and accurate for such things as did not require the close concentration demanded by print.

Among the legends is a great deal of fanciful nonsense wrapped up in the technical verbiage of the specialist, which always daunts and convinces the ignorant. But as a fact Lafcadio Hearn's eye troubles were not the result of disease, and no more affected his character and writing than the deafness of one ear would have done.

4. His relations with women have been treated with equal inaccuracy and malice in this mass of absurd "Hearn legends." From the tone of many of these aforementioned "legends" and the press comments one would suppose that any irregularity in the relations of the sexes was something hitherto unheard of. To put it simply, no doubt Lafcadio viii PREFACE

Hearn did not lead the life of a Galahad up to the time of his marriage. But soon as he had the smallest hope of being able to support a family he married a lady of rank and high character, and was a devoted husband and father to the day of his death. Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, whose testimony will hardly be questioned, declares the Hearn marriage to have been singularly pure and happy.

5. There has been much whispering of terrible "scandals," but when analyzed by those who know the facts and who cling to some shreds of common sense these scandals resolve themselves into this: "VMien Hearn jBrst went to Cincinnati his poverty was so extreme he slept for a time in an abandoned boiler in a vacant lot. After he secured work his home was a garret room in a cheap boarding-house. It was winter, his room un warmed, and his hours, owing to the nature of his work, were irregular. The cook in this boarding-house was a handsome, kind-hearted mulatto girl, who kept his dinner warm, and allowed him to sit by her fire when he came in wet and chilled. He was not yet twenty; he was fresh from England, where the racial prejudices of America were unknown and where the sentimentalities of the Abolition party about "the images of God in ebony" had not been instilled into his mind. He apparently drifted into some connection with this girl, and with characteristic chivalry felt that he owed her legal rights and applied for a license to marry her. This was Hearn's own account of the matter, and has been confirmed by the testimony of those who were best fitted to know whether his statement was true.

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It was a pathetic, high-minded piece of quixotism. Would that no man had ever been less tender and honest with the women of the African race!

Hearn's life in New Orleans has been referred to as base and gross, but the only specific charge brought is that he was allied to a Voodoo priestess. I happen to know that this charge rests on the fact that he was ordered to see her for the purpose of writing an article about her and that he met her exactly once. When examined, most of these whispered scandals are found to have an equally valuable and accurate basis.

Several times during his various changes of lodgings in New Orleans Hearn occupied rooms rented to him by coloured people. Such lodgings were common enough in that day, and were no more unusual or scandalous than are lodgings kept by Irish or German people in New York. The same was true of the West Indies, and in such lodgings in Martinique he fell ill of yellow fever and was nursed with great kindness and his rent allowed to remain in arrears until he was able to repay it, though he always declared that no money could discharge the debt of gratitude. These are the facts on which are based the charges that he "lived with negroes."

6. Certain portions of these legends were given currency in a recent book about Hearn, the author of which appears to have accepted them without due investigation, or to have lacked the means of verifying his statements. The writer is perhaps hardly to be held responsible for his rather regrettable ignorance of the facts, as his acquaintance with Hearn

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was very short-lived. It began through a somewhat desultory correspondence, and included a visit which ended in a serious rupture. The author of the book appears to nurse the impression that he "gave Lafcadio Hearn a soul." Hearn, however, seems never to have been aware of this debt, or else to have proved ungrateful, since the acquaintance so soon and so abruptly ended was never renewed.

So brief a friendship would naturally render it impossible for the writer of the book to acquire a very correct idea of the character and antecedents of his subject, and his confusion as to the facts may therefore be passed over with proper regret and indulgence.

To sum up the facts of Lafcadio Hearn's life as contrasted with these myths : — He was of gentle birth and lived amid refined surroundings in his early years. He left home at sixteen and after many years of poverty and hard work raised himself to the position of an honoured teacher in one of the world's greatest universities. He married well and happily and was a devoted father and husband, and he enriched English literature with valuable and permanent contributions.

There is the real story of the man's life. That he had some faults and some peculiarities only proves him to be like all the rest of us, but those who knew him intimately — not for five months but for the greater part of his life — remember Lafcadio Hearn with profound affection and respect.

Contents

INTRODUCTION xv

LETTERS TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN . . 1

LETTERS TO MRS. HEARN 439