CHAPTER VI.—"GETTING A SOUL"
SHORT though it was in time, the Philadelphia visit in 1889 has a value long in significance, that deserves epitomization. To begin with, it was Hearn's first experience of anything that might be called home-life. Its result was a softening and normalizing of him both as to character and as to manner, which was most evident. Secondly, and as he chose to put it, I "gave him a soul." By this poetic paraphrase he meant that I had succeeded in bringing to his recognition the existence of Freedom in what he thought determinism;—that intelligence, purpose, and beneficence lie behind biology, and that human beings are not always, and may never be wholly, the slaves of the senses, and the dupes of desire. Beauty itself, which he so widely sought, I asked him to note, is a needless, harmful, and even impossible thing in a world of adamantine logic and necessity. Above all, I demonstrated the existence of Duty, "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God," not only in the abstract, but in concrete lives, in social and historic exemplifications, and that only by means of men and women who obey conscience is social and historic progress brought about. They who have not seen that can have no "soul;" they who do see it, have soul, durable or great according to the clearness of the seeing and the obedience to the implication. Fully and freely Hearn acknowledged the vision, and never afterward could he be wholly the same as he had been before. But the Providence of the Oriental and semi-barbarous is Improvidence, and their God is Fate. Hearn came to hate, or to pretend to hate, the truth which had now slipped through his spiritual eyes, but he could not undo or outroot it entirely; "henceforth by the vision splendid is on his way attended." Thirdly, this new viewpoint, this new spirit or soul, I got incorporated in a little art-work, or ethical study—"Karma," published in Lippincott's Magazine, May, 1890, after Hearn had gone to Japan. To the world and without the knowledge of its making, "Karma" must have seemed an illogical and even impossible thing for Hearn to have written. It is apparently the sole work which he ever wrote, created de novo and without the data having been found or brought to him from without. But it was only a seeming creation. It was only the telling, the colouring, that was his, as in his other tales before or after. In our long walks and talks in the Park at night, we wrought out the title, the datum, and the whole trend of the story. He rebelled, but I held him to the task, which he finally executed with frank and artistic loyalty. The pride or indifference, even the dislike, of its readers, the writer, or inspirer, is as nothing compared with the fact that by it and from it Hearn learned something of love and duty that had never before been a living reality to him. What an infinite distance it was removed from anything dreamed during the Cincinnati period, or to be derived from Flaubert, Gautier, or Beaudelaire! After that his future work could never be, and never was, what it was from the writing, "Everything you feel you would not like me to know." I do not think there is exaggeration of the importance of the story, and what led up to its writing, in saying that it was the greatest of the turning-points in his life, and that directly because of it the magnificent works of the Japanese period were profoundly influenced through the attitude of mind thereby gained.
Concerning the heroine of the tale Hearn wrote me:
Your objection to my idea is quite correct. I have already abandoned it. It would have to be sexual. Never could find in the tropics that magnificent type of womanhood, which in the New England girl, makes one afraid even to think about sex, while absolutely adoring the personality. Perfect natures inspire a love that is a fear. I don't think any love is noble without it. The tropical woman inspires a love that is half compassion; this is always dangerous, untrustworthy, delusive—pregnant with future pains innumerable.
But, fourthly, that in which I feel as great a pride, is compelling him to go to Japan. Others could have reported for lurid yellow journalism, others might possibly have translated as well as he, others could have told the West Indian stories, but—not even his beloved Lowell—only Hearn could have written of the Japanese life and soul as Hearn has done. He had no thought of the journey when I showed him his duty and his opportunity. By argument, pleading, almost compulsion, I at last wearied his opposition, and he went, with reluctance, after months of halting in detested New York City in which he learned by bitter experience that it was no place for him, and that his beloved tropics should not be again sought.
How disappointed he was in his New York friends and prospects may be gathered from the following excerpt taken from one of his letters to me. I had used all my influence to keep him from a stay in the city. He wrote as follows:
Dear Gooley, your advice is good from your way of looking at it; but I am much stronger in New York than you imagine, and my future in it is plain and perfect sailing if I keep good health. I am only embarrassed for the moment. I am quite a lion here, and could figure in a way you would hardly guess, if I were not such a man of tentacles. I am not afraid of the cold—though it disheartens fancy a little; but I shall leave fancy alone for a while. No, Gooley, dear Gooley, I shall make my way in New York—don't be afraid for me.
He soon became convinced that I was right and finally resumed the journey unwillingly. The end has justified the means and the sacrifices. It is plain that the Japanese period and work crown his life-labours splendidly, and that his masterful pictures of Japanese characters, traditions, and religion now constitute one of our most precious literary treasures. They have also been of profound service to Japan.