16mo., 4 p. l., pp. 299, 4 full-page illustrations, 13 illustrations in the text. Green cloth, decorated, gold lettering, gilt top.
(1) Dedication:—
To
Dr. C. H. H. Hall,
of Yokohama
(late U. S. Navy)
In Constant Friendship
(2) (Prefatory Note)
All but one of the papers composing this volume appear for the first time. The little essays, or rather fantasies, forming the second part of the book, deal with experiences in two hemispheres; but their general title should explain why they have been arranged independently of that fact. To any really scientific imagination, the curious analogy existing between certain teachings of evolutional psychology and certain teachings of Eastern faith,—particularly the Buddhist doctrine that all sense-life is Karma, and all substance only the phenomenal result of acts and thoughts,—might have suggested something much more significant than my cluster of "Retrospectives." These are offered merely as intimations of a truth incomparably less difficult to recognize than to define.
Tōkyō, Japan, L. H.
February 15, 1898.
(3) Contents:—
Exotics:
I. Fuji-no-Yama
II. Insect-Musicians
III. A Question in the Zen Texts
IV. The Literature of the Dead
V. Frogs
VI. Of Moon-Desire
Retrospectives:
I. First Impressions
II. Beauty is Memory
III. Sadness in Beauty
IV. Parfum de Jeunesse
V. Azure Psychology (Teikoku Bungaku, Yokohama)
VI. A Serenade
VII. A Red Sunset
VIII. Frisson
IX. Vespertina Cognitio
X. The Eternal Haunter