Concerning Lafcadio

CONTENTS


CHAP. PAGE

I. HEREDITY AND THE EARLY LIFE 1

II. IN PERSON 7

III. THE PERIOD OF THE GRUESOME 13

IV. THE NEW ORLEANS TIME 33

V. AT MARTINIQUE 57

VI. "GETTING A SOUL" 65

VII. "IN GHOSTLY JAPAN" 81

VIII. AS A POET 93

IX. THE POET OF MYOPIA 103

X. HEARN'S STYLE 119

XI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 137

XII. APPRECIATIONS AND EPITOMES 143

BIBLIOGRAPHY 247




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


_To face page_

LAFCADIO HEARN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY GUTEKUNST
IN 1889 _Frontispiece_

HEARN AT ABOUT THE AGE OF EIGHT, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 5

REDUCED FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST ISSUE OF "YE
GIGLAMPZ" 21

LAFCADIO HEARN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT MARTINIQUE,
AUGUST 24, 1888 61

HANDWRITING OF HEARN IN 1889 68




PREFACE


THERE are as many possible biographies of a man as there are possible
biographers--and one more! Of Lafcadio Hearn there has been, and there
will be, no excuse for any biography whatever. A properly edited volume
of his letters, and, perhaps, a critical estimate of the methods and
development of his imaginative power and literary character are, and
still remain, most desirable. That some competent hand may yet be found
to undertake this task is still hoped by those who recognize the value
of a man's best work. To furnish material and help toward this end is my
object in collecting the following pages. The life of a literary man
interests and is of value to the world because of the literature he has
created. Without a bibliography, without even mention of the works he
wrote, his biography would be useless. To correct many untrue and
misleading statements and inferences of a serious nature that have been
published concerning him and his life, should it ever be undertaken,
will prove a labour so difficult and thankless that it will scarcely be
entered upon by one who would do it rightly. That it will not be
hazarded comes, as I have said, from the fact that it is not needed,
because neither Hearn himself, nor his real friends, nor again, a
discriminating literary sense, have been, nor can be, under any illusion
as to his "greatness." He has been spoken of as "a great man," which, of
course, he was not. Two talents he had, but these were far from
constituting personal greatness. Deprived by nature, by the necessities
of his life, or by conscious intention, of religion, morality,
scholarship, magnanimity, loyalty, character, benevolence, and other
constituents of personal greatness, it is more than folly to endeavour
to place him thus wrongly before the world.

The irony of the situation is pathetically heightened by the fact that,
supposing him to be very great, "the weaknesses of very great men,"
which he said should not be spoken of, are amazingly paraded in the
letters. Had he ever dreamed that his letters would be published, he
would not, and could not, have so unblushingly exposed himself and his
faults to the public gaze. The fact has now been writ exceeding large,
or it would not be, and should not be, corrected and contradicted. A
word to the wise suffices.

There remains the question, truly pertinent, concerning the nature and
progress toward perfection of his imagination, and of his literary
execution.

We know nothing, and doubtless we may never know anything definite,
accurate and of value about the character either of his father or of his
mother. Any attempt, therefore, to estimate what effect heredity had in
handing down the strange endowment we find in his early manhood is
wholly futile. We may not be too sure concerning either the parentage or
nationality ascribed to him.