LAFCADIO HEARN
In the ’70’s
How is that for Bohemianism? But I wish I could spend a day with you in order to recount the many wonderful and mystic adventures I have had in this quaint and ruinous city. To recount them in a letter is impossible. But I came here to enjoy romance, and I have had my fill.
Business,—ye Antiquities!—hard, practical, unideal, realistic business! But what business? Ah, mi corazon, I would never dare to tell you. Not that it is not honourable, respectable, etc., but that it is so devoid of dreamful illusions. Yet hast thou not said,—“This is no world for dreaming,”—and divers other horrible things which I shall not repeat?
Tell me all about your exotic musical instruments, when you have time,—you know they will interest me; and may not I, too, some day be able to forward to you various barbaric symbols and sackfuls from outlandish places?—from the pampas or the llanos,—from some palm-fringed islands of the Eastern sea, where even Nature dreams opiated dreams? How knowst thou but that I shall make the Guacho and llanero, the Peruvian and the Chilian, to contribute right generously to thy store of musical wealth?
I have not made much progress in the literature most dear to you; inasmuch as my time has been rather curtailed, and the days have become provokingly short. But I have been devouring Hoffmann (Emile de la Bédollière’s translation in French—could not get a complete English one); and I really believe he has no rival as a creator of musical fantasticalities. “The Organ-Stop,” “The Sanatus,” “Lawyer Krespel” (a story of a violin, replete with delightful German mysticism), “A Pupil of the Great Tartini,” “Don Juan,”—and a dozen other stories evidence an enthusiasm for music and an extraordinary sensitiveness to musical impressions on the author’s part. You probably read these in German,—if not, I am sure many of them would delight you. The romance of music must, I fancy, be a vast aid to the study of the art,—it seems to me like the setting of a jewel, or the frame of a painting. I also have observed in the New York Times a warm notice of a lady who is an enthusiast upon the subject of Finnish music, and who has collected a valuable mass of the quaint music and weird ditties of the North. As you speak of having a quantity of Finnish music, however, I have no doubt that you know much more about the young lady than I could tell you.
Prosper Mérimée’s “Carmen” has fairly enthralled me,—I am in love with it. The colour and passion and rapid tragedy of the story is marvellous. I think I was pretty well prepared to enjoy it, however. I had read Simpson’s “History of the Gipsies,” Borro’s[6] “Gypsies of Spain,” a volume of Spanish gipsy ballads,—I forget the name of the translator,—and everything in the way of gipsy romance I could get my hands on,—by Sheridan Le Fanu, Victor Hugo, Reade, Longfellow, George Eliot, Balzac, and a brilliant novelist also whose works generally appear in the Cornhill Magazine. Balzac’s “Le Succube” gives a curious picture of the persecution of the Bohemians in mediæval France, founded upon authentic records. Le Fanu wrote a sweet little story called “The Bird of Passage,” which contained a remarkable variety of information in regard to gipsy secrets; but it is only within very recent years that a really good novel on a gipsy theme has been written in English; and I am sorry that I cannot remember the author’s name. I found more romance as well as information in Borro and Simpson than in all the novels and poems put together; and I obtained a fair idea of the artistic side of Spanish gipsy life from Doré’s “Spain.” Doré is something of a musician as well as a limner; and his knowledge of the violin enabled him to make himself at home in the camps of that music-loving people. He played wild airs to them, and studied their poses and gestures with such success that his gipsies seem actually to dance in the engravings. I read that Miss Minnie Hauck plays Carmen in gorgeous costume, which is certainly out of place, except in one act of the opera. Otherwise from the first scene of the novel in which she advances “poising herself on her hips, like a filly from the Cordovan Stud,” to the ludicrous episode at Gibraltar, her attire is described as more nearly resembling that picturesque rag-blending of colour Doré describes and depicts. If you see the opera,—please send me your criticism in the Gazette.
You may remember some observations I made—based especially on De Coulanges—as to the derivation of the Roman and Greek tongues from the Sanscrit. Talking of Borro reminds me that Borro traces the gipsy dialects to the mother of languages; and Simpson naturally finds the Romany akin to modern Hindostanee, which succeeded the Sanscrit. Now here is a curious fact. Rommain is simply Sanscrit for The Husbands,—a domestic appellation applicable to the gipsy races above all others, when the ties of blood are stronger than even among the Jewish people; and Borro asks timidly what is then the original meaning of those mighty words, “Rome” and the “Romans,” of which no scholar (he claims) has yet ventured to give the definition. Surely all mysteries seem to issue from the womb of nations,—from the heart of Asia.
I see that the musical critic of the New York Times speaks of certain airs in the opera of Carmen as Havanese airs,—Avaneras. If there be a music peculiar to Havana, I expect that I shall hear some of it next summer. If I could only write music, I could collect much interesting matter for you.
There is a New Orleans story in the last issue of Scribner’s Monthly,—“Ninon,”—which I must tell you is a fair exemplification of how mean French Creoles can be. The great cruelties of the old slave régime were perpetuated by French planters. Anglo-Saxon blood is not cruel. If you want to find cruelty, either in ancient or modern history, it must be sought for among the Latin races of Europe. The Scandinavian and Teutonic blood was too virile and noble to be cruel; and the science of torture was never developed among them.
Before I commenced to keep house for myself, I must tell you about a Chinese restaurant which I used to patronize. No one in the American part of the city—or at least very few—know even of its existence. The owner will not advertise, will not hang out a sign, and seems to try to keep his business a secret. The restaurant is situated in the rear part of an old Creole house on Dumaine Street,—about the middle of the French Quarter; and one must pass through a dark alley to get in. I had heard so much of the filthiness of the Chinese, that I would have been afraid to enter it, but for the strong recommendations of a Spanish friend of mine,—now a journalist and a romantic fellow. (By the way, he killed a stranger here in 1865 one night, and had to fly the country. A few hot words in a saloon; and the Spanish blood was up. The stranger fell so quickly and the stab was given so swiftly,—“according to the rules,”—that my friend had left the house before anybody knew what had happened. Then the killer was stowed away upon a Spanish schooner, and shipped to Cuba, where he remained for four years. And when he came back, there were no witnesses.)