As for the choice of the subjects translated, it gave me most pleasure to find some of my “Retrospectives” in that stern and sturdy tongue: it was a bracing experience. The selections from “Glimpses” I should not have advised; for the book is disfigured by faults of “journalistic” style, and was written before I really began to understand, not Japan, but how difficult it is to understand Japan. Nevertheless your judgement in this particular was coincident with the general decision: the story of the Shirabyoshi has, for example, appeared in four languages. It is a story of the painter Bunchō,—and the merit is in no wise mine, as I merely paraphrased a Japanese narrative. Don’t think me ungrateful, please, because I express my preferences thus. Really the experience of trying to follow in Swedish the meaning of my “Serenade,” etc., was more than a delight,—and I imagined that the translator had successfully aimed at reproducing in Swedish the rhythm of the English sentences.
I am happy in reading your words about the Japanese dances: as you have seen a living example of one kind, you will not judge them all severely hereafter. Of course there are dances and dances. I wish that you could see the dancing of a pair of miko,—little Shintō maid-priestesses: it is a simple performance, but as pleasing as a hovering of butterflies.
Your “Origins of Art” is a book that seems to have proved above the range of some small critics; but you have been felt and appreciated in higher spheres, I think. I was amused by the dullardism of some English critics, evidently incapable of perceiving that the sterling value of such a book is suggestive,—that it was intended to make men think, not to furnish some intellectual lazy-bones with ready-made ideas....
Finland I know only through Léouzon Le Duc’s delicious prose-translation. I think of forests of birch, and lakes interminably opening into lakes, and rivers that roar in lonely places, and “liver-coloured earth.” Wonder if the earth is really that colour?—the ground of my garden, after a shower, is exactly “liver-colour”—a rich reddish brown.
Please convey my humble thanks to Mrs. Hirn, and believe me
Yours most sincerely,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO YRJÖ HIRN
Tōkyō, April, 1902.
Dear Professor,—Many thanks for the archæological treatise, and for your kindness in sending me the “critical” news. (I think that I can appreciate the good will that can impel so busy a professor to give me so much of his time.) And please to convey my thanks to Mrs. Hirn for her charming letter.