At once upon reaching Japan (it is plain Hearn never forgave me for compelling him to go) begin the complaints of the downright hard work of writing, consequent upon the loss of ideals. He breaks with publishers—an old-time story; he is losing his inspiration, and his only hope is that it will return to him again; in any Latin country he could at once, he thinks, get back the much coveted "thrill," or frisson. He would at last even relish the hated United States. From the beginning he tires of the Japanese character, and grows more and more tired the longer he stays; it has no depth, this thin soul-stream; it is incapable of long-sustained effort, prolonged study; he cannot much longer endure Japanese officialism; and the official "is something a good deal lower than a savage and meaner than the straight-out Western rough." He would wish never to write a line again about any Japanese subjects. Things finally came to such a pass that the only successful stimulus to work was that some one should do or say something horribly mean to him, and the force of the hurt could be measured in the months or years of resultant labour. As none ever did a mean thing to him, one may suspect that the psychology of his sudden enmities towards others was that he must perforce imagine that he had been "horribly" treated.
The old Wanderlust, never wholly absent, returns strongly upon him; in less than a year he dreams of leaving Japan and his wife, and of "wandering about awhile;" he projects "a syndicate" whereby he may go to Java (rather than Manila, where the Jesuits were), or, "a French colony,—Tonkin, Noumea, or Pondicherry." A tropical trip is planned for six months of every year. But the "butterfly-lives" dependent upon him prevent, of course. He always spoke of returning often. At the last there is a savage growl that after thirteen years of work for Japan, in which he had sacrificed everything for her, he was "driven out of the service and practically banished from the country."
Hearn's nostalgia for the nowhere or the anywhere was only conquered by death. In 1898 the logic of his life, of his misfortune, and character, begins to grow plainer, and he "fears being blinded or maimed so as to prove of no further use." It seems that if he had been able to do what he tried so often, and longed so fervently to do, he would have run away into the known or unknown, leaving children, wife, and all the ties that bound him to any orderly life. His vision had become almost useless; he had lost his lectureship; more and more it grew impossible to coax or force out of his mind such beautiful things as in younger days; the Furies of his atheism, pessimism, and lovelessness were close on his track; the hope of lectureships in the United States had failed,—nothing was left, nothing except one thing, which, chosen or not, came at the age of fifty-four.
Lessing has said that "Raphael would have been the great painter he was even if he had been born without arms," and Burke has told of a poet "blind from birth who nevertheless could describe visible objects with a spirit and justness excelled by few men blessed with sight." What irony of Fate it is that one almost blind should teach us non-users of our eyes the wonder and glory of colour; that the irreligious one should quicken our faith in the immaterial and unseen; that a sensualist should strengthen our trust in the supersensual; that one whose body and life were unbeautiful should sing such exquisite songs of silent beauty that our straining ears can hardly catch the subtle and unearthly harmonies! For Hearn is another of many splendid illustrations of the old truth that a man's spirit may be more philosophic than his philosophy, more scientific than his science, more religious than his creed, more divine than his divinity.
CHAPTER VIII.—AS A POET
THAT Hearn was a true poet none will deny, but it was one of the frequent seeming illogicalities of his character that he had no love of metric or rhymed poetry. I doubt if there is a single volume of such poetry in his library, and I never heard him repeat a line or stanza, and never knew him to read a page of what is called poetry. I suspect the simple reason was that his necessities compelled him rigidly to exclude everything from his world of thought which did not offer materials for the remunerating public. He had to make a living, and whence tomorrow's income should come was always a vital concern. Poetry of the metric and rhymed sort does not make bread and butter; hence there was no time to consider even the possibility of "cultivating the muses on a little oatmeal."
Of poetry he once wrote:—"The mere ideas and melody of a poem seem to me of small moment unless the complex laws of versification be strictly obeyed." The dictum, considering its source, is exquisitely ludicrous; for Hearn poetry could not be coined into dollars, even if he had had the mind and heart to learn anything of "the complex laws of versification." Elsewhere he excused his manifest utter ignorance of poetry and want of poetic appreciation by saying that there is so little really good poetry that it is easy to choose. He confessed his detestation of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, preferring Dobson, Watson, and Lang. "Of Wordsworth—well, I should smile!" "Refined poetry" he held of little or no value, but he found the "vulgar" songs of coolies, fishermen, etc., very true and beautiful poetry. He vainly tried to translate some of Gautier's poems. He attempted original verse-making but a few times, and from my scrap-book I reproduce one of the results, kindly furnished me by Mr. Alexander Hill, of Cincinnati, to whom it was given by Mr. Tunison. Perhaps it was printed in Forest and Stream.
A CREOLE BOAT SONG
Hot shines the sun o'er the quivering land,
No wind comes up from the sea,
Silent and stark the pine woods stand,
And the mock-bird sleeps in the Mayhaw tree,
Where, overhung with brier and vine,
The placid waters slip and shine
And dimple to thy lover's view—
La belle rivière de Calcasieu.Under the bending cypress trees,
Bedecked with pendulous cool grey moss
That woos in vain the recreant breeze
And silently mourns its loss.
With drowsy eye, in my little boat
I dreamily lie, and lazily float
Lulled by the thrush's soft Te-rue—
On La belle rivière de Calcasieu.A heron stands, like a ghost in grey,
Knee-deep 'mongst the bending water lilies,
And yellow butterflies lightly play
'Midst the blooms of fragrant amaryllis;
The swift kingfisher winds his reel,
Saying his grace for his noonday meal,
And a hawk soars up to the welkin blue
O'er La belle rivière de Calcasieu.Across the point, where the ferry plies,
I hear the click of the boatman's oar,
And his Creole song, with its quavering rise
Re-echoes soft from shore to shore;
And this is the rhyme that he idly sings
As his boat at anchor lazily swings,
For the day is hot, and passers few
On La belle rivière de Calcasieu."I ain't got time for make merry, me
I ain't got time for make merry;
My lill' gall waitin' at de River of Death
To meet her ole dad at de ferry.
She gwine be dere wid de smile on her face,
Like the night she died, when all de place
Was lit by the moonbeams shiverin' troo
La belle rivière de Calcasieu."O sing dat song! O sing dat song!
I ain't got time for make merry!
De angel come 'fore berry long,
And carr' me o'er de ferry!
He come wid de whirlwind in de night—
He come wid de streak of de morning light—
He find me ready—yass, dass true—
By La belle rivière de Calcasieu."Den who got time for make merry, eh?
Den who got time for make merry?
De fire burn up de light 'ood tree,
De bird eat up de berry.
Long time ago I make Voudoo,
An' I dance Calinda strong and true,
But de Lord he pierce me troo and troo
On La belle rivière de Calcasieu."