This was fol-
lowed by 'Some Chinese Ghosts,' which like the 'Stray Leaves' con-
sists of gems artistically cut and reset by a literary lapidary.
lowed by 'Some Chinese Ghosts,' which like the 'Stray Leaves' con-
sists of gems artistically cut and reset by a literary lapidary.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v12 - Gre to Hen
"
"Ay," retorted A—, "there it is: then I suppose you would
prefer seeing him and Milton instead? » "No," said Lamb,
"neither. I have seen so much of Shakespeare on the stage and
on book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantelpieces, that I am
quite tired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton's face,
the impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like,
-it is too starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of
losing some of the manna of his poetry in the leaven of his
countenance and the precisian's band and gown. ”
"I shall guess no more," said A—. "Who is it, then, you
would like to see in his habit as he lived,' if you had your
choice of the whole range of English literature? " Lamb then
named Sir Thomas Browne and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir
Philip Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the
greatest pleasure to encounter on the door of his apartment in
their nightgown and slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting
with them. At this A laughed outright, and conceived Lamb
was jesting with him; but as no one followed his example, he
thought there might be something in it, and waited for an ex-
planation in a state of whimsical suspense. Lamb then (as well
as I can remember a conversation that passed twenty years ago
-how time slips! ) went on as follows:-
"The reason why I pitch upon those two authors is, that their
writings are riddles, and they themselves the most mysterious of
personages. They resemble the soothsayers of old, who dealt in
dark hints and doubtful oracles; and I should like to ask them
the meaning of what no mortal but themselves, I should sup-
pose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson,-I have no curiosity,
―――
## p. 7121 (#519) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7121
no strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswell together have
pretty well let me into the secret of what passed through his
mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently explicit:
my friends whose repose I should be tempted to disturb (were it
in my power), are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable.
"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose composition
the Urn-Burial,' I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at
the bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is
like a stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I
would invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it.
Besides, who would not be curious to see the lineaments of a
man who, having himself been twice married, wished that man-
kind were propagated like trees?
"As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own
'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a
truly formidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalypti-
cal, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and
for the unraveling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of
an encounter with so portentous a commentator! "
"I am afraid in that case," said A————, "that if the mystery
were once cleared up the merit might be lost;" and turning to
me, whispered a friendly apprehension that while Lamb contin-
ued to admire these old crabbed authors he would never become
a popular writer.
Dr. Donne was mentioned as a writer of the same period, with
a very interesting countenance, whose history was singular, and
whose meaning was often quite as un-come-at-able without a per-
sonal citation from the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries.
The volume was produced; and while some one was expatiating
on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the portrait prefixed to
the old edition, A got hold of the poetry, and exclaiming
"What have we here? " read the following:-
"Here lies a She-sun, and a He-moon there;
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe. "
There was no resisting this, till Lamb, seizing the volume,
turned to the beautiful 'Lines to his Mistress,' dissuading her
from accompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused
features and a faltering tongue.
XII-446
## p. 7122 (#520) ###########################################
7122
WILLIAM HAZLITT
His
Some one then inquired of Lamb if we could not see from
the window the Temple walk in which Chaucer used to take his
exercise; and on his name being put to the vote, I was pleased
to find that there was a general sensation in his favor in all but
A, who said something about the ruggedness of the metre, and
even objected to the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed
at this superficial gloss, pertinaciously reducing everything to its
own trite level, and asked "if he did not think it would be worth
while to scan the eye that had first greeted the Muse in that dim
twilight and early dawn of English literature; to see the head
round which the visions of fancy must have played like gleams
of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch those lips that 'lisped
in numbers, for the numbers came' as by a miracle, or as if the
dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he had been the first
to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to modern ears);
but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing before his
age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humorist withal, who
has not only handed down to us the living manners of his time,
but had no doubt store of curious and quaint devices, and would
make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of the Tabard.
interview with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would
rather have seen Chaucer in company with the author of the
'Decameron,' and have heard them exchange their best stories
together, the Squire's Tale against the Story of the Falcon, the
Wife of Bath's Prologue against the Adventures of Friar Albert.
How fine to see the high mysterious brow which learning then
wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of the world, by
the courtesies of genius! Surely, the thoughts and feelings which
passed through the minds of these great revivers of learning,
these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have
stamped an expression on their features as different from the
moderns as their books, and well worth the perusal! Dante," I
continued, "is as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one
whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to
penetrate his spirit, and the only one of the Italian poets I should
care much to see. There is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less
a hand than Titian's: light, Moorish, spirited, but not answering
our idea. The same artist's large colossal profile of Peter Are
tino is the only likeness of the kind that has the effect of con-
versing with the mighty dead,' and this is truly spectral, ghastly,
necromantic. "
## p. 7123 (#521) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7123
Lamb put it to me if I should like to see Spenser as well
as Chaucer; and I answered without hesitation: -"No; for his
beauties were ideal, visionary, not palpable or personal, and there-
fore connected with less curiosity about the man.
His poetry
was the essence of romance, a very halo round the bright orb
of fancy; and the bringing in the individual might dissolve the
charm. No tones of voice could come up to the mellifluous
cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged angel could vie
with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to our appre-
hensions) rather a creature of the element, that lived in the
rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary
mortal. Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere
vision like one of his own pageants, and that he should pass by
unquestioned like a dream or sound-
'That was Arion crowned:
So went he playing on the wat'ry plain! '»
Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, and
Martin Burney hinted at the Wandering Jew; but the last was
set aside as spurious, and the first made over to the New World.
"I should like," says Mrs. Reynolds, "to have seen Pope talk-
ing with Patty Blount; and I have seen Goldsmith. " Every one
turned round to look at Mrs. Reynolds, as if by so doing they
too could get a sight of Goldsmith.
"Where," asked a harsh croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in
the years 1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of,
nor is there any account of him in Boswell during those two
years. Was he in Scotland with the Pretender? He seems to
have passed through the scenes in the Highlands in company
with Boswell many years after, 'with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if
they were familiar to him, or associated in his mind with inter-
ests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an additional
reason for my liking him; and I would give something to have
seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain,
and penning the proclamation to all true subjects and adherents
of the legitimate government. "
>>
"I thought," said A—, turning short round upon Lamb, “that
you of the Lake School did not like Pope ? "Not like Pope!
My dear sir, you must be under a mistake: I can read him over
and over forever! "-"Why, certainly, the Essay on Man' must
be allowed to be a masterpiece. "—"It may be so, but I seldom
## p. 7124 (#522) ###########################################
7124
WILLIAM HAZLITT
(
look into it. "—"Oh! then it's his 'Satires' you admire? "-"No,
not his Satires,' but his friendly epistles and his compliments.
"Compliments? I did not know he ever made any. "-"The
finest," said Lamb, "that were ever paid by the wit of man.
Each of them is worth an estate for life
- nay, is an immortal-
ity. There is that superb one to Lord Cornbury: -
-
-
'Despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. '
Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And
then that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however
little deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds:
'Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde! '
And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses
Lord Bolingbroke:-
'Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
O all-accomplished St. John, deck thy shrine ? >
Or turn," continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on his cheek and
his eye glistening, "to his list of early friends:
'But why then publish? — Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Even mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved!
Happier their author, if by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks. '»
Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book
he said, "Do you think I would not wish to have been friends
with such a man as this? "
## p. 7125 (#523) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7125
"What say you to Dryden ? "-"He rather made a show of
himself, and courted popularity in that lowest temple of Fame,
a coffee-house, so as in some measure to vulgarize one's idea of
him. Pope, on the contrary, reached the very beau-ideal of what
a poet's life should be; and his fame while living seemed to be
an emanation from that which was to circle his name after death.
He was so far enviable (and one would feel proud to have wit-
nessed the rare spectacle in him) that he was almost the only
poet and man of genius who met with his reward on this side
of the tomb; who realized in friends, fortune, the esteem of the
world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and who
found that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime
which they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after
his death. Read Gray's verses to him on his supposed return
from Greece, after his translation of Homer was finished, and
say if you would not gladly join the bright procession that wel-
comed him home, or see it once more land at Whitehall stairs. "
"Still," said Mrs. Reynolds, "I would rather have
seen him
talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a coronet coach with
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu! "
Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at the
other end of the room, whispered to Martin Burney to ask if
Junius would not be a fit person to invoke from the dead.
"Yes," said Lamb, "provided he would agree to lay aside his
mask. "
We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding
was mentioned as a candidate; only one, however, seconded the
proposition. "Richardson? "-"By all means, but only to look
at him through the glass door of his back shop, hard at work
upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary contrast that ever
was presented between an author and his works): but not to let
him come behind his counter, lest he should want you to turn
customer; nor to go up-stairs with him, lest he should offer to
read the first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison,' which was
originally written in eight-and-twenty volumes octavo, or get out
the letters of his female correspondents to prove that 'Joseph
Andrews' was low. "
There was but one statesman in the whole English history
that any one expressed the least desire to see,— Oliver Crom-
well, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy; —
and one enthusiast, -John Bunyan, the immortal author of the
## p. 7126 (#524) ###########################################
7126
WILLIAM HAZLITT
'Pilgrim's Progress. ' It seemed that if he came into the room,
dreams would follow him, and that each person would nod under
his golden cloud, "nigh sphered in heaven," a canopy as strange
and stately as any in Homer.
Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received
with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by Baron Field.
He presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been
talked of; but then it was on condition that he should act in
tragedy and comedy, in the play and farce Lear' and 'Wildair'
and 'Abel Drugger. ' What a sight for sore eyes that would be!
Who would not part with a year's income at least, almost with a
year of his natural life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could
not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a
troop he must bring with him- the silver-tongued Barry, and
Quin, and Shuter, and Weston, and Mrs. Clive, and Mrs. Pritch-
ard, of whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favor-
ite when he was young! This would indeed be a revival of the
dead, the restoring of art; and so much the more desirable, as
such is the lurking skepticism mingled with our overstrained
admiration of past excellence, that though we have the speeches
of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the writings of Goldsmith,
and the conversation of Johnson, to show what people could do at
that period, and to confirm the universal testimony to the merits.
of Garrick, yet as it was before our time, we have our misgiv
ings, as if he was probably after all little better than a Bartlemy-
fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and laced
cocked hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard with
my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any was
ever moved by the true histrionic @stus, it was Garrick. When
he followed the Ghost in Hamlet' he did not drop the sword, as
most actors do, behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the
whole way round; so fully was he possessed with the idea, or so
anxious not to lose sight of his part for a moment. Once at a
splendid dinner party at Lord's they suddenly missed Gar-
rick, and could not imagine what was become of him till they
were drawn to the window by the convulsive screams and peals
of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on the ground
in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in
the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seem-
ing flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two
persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed as
## p. 7127 (#525) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7127
willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old
favorite.
We were interrupted in the heyday and mid-career of this
fanciful speculation by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it
was a shame to make all this rout about a mere player and
farce-writer, to the neglect and exclusion of the fine old drama-
tists, the contemporaries and rivals of Shakespeare. Lamb said he
had anticipated this objection when he had named the author of
'Mustapha and Alaham'; and out of caprice insisted upon keep-
ing him to represent the set, in preference to the wild, hare-
brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's,
Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to
Decker, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Hey-
wood; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might
offend by complimenting the wrong author on their joint produc-
tions. Lord Brook on the contrary stood quite by himself, or in
Cowley's words, was "a vast species alone. "
a vast species alone. " Some one hinted at
the circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled Lamb;
but he said a ghost would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette,
on being regularly addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided
our suffrages pretty equally. Some were afraid he would begin
to traduce Shakespeare, who was not present to defend himself.
"If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud, "there is
Godwin can match him. At length his romantic visit to Drum-
mond of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in
his favor.
Lamb inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I
would choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram. The
name of the "Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a
splendid example of waste talents, so different from the general-
ity of his countrymen. The choice was mightily approved by a
North-Briton present, who declared himself descended from that
prodigy of learning and accomplishment, and said he had family
plate in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials.
A. C. -Admirable Crichton! Hunt laughed, or rather roared, as
heartily at this as I should think he has done for many years.
The last-named mitre-courtier then wished to know whether
there were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted
to apply the wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in
modern times deserving the name,- Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler,
Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a
## p. 7128 (#526) ###########################################
7128
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Massachusetts man. As to the French, who talked fluently of
having created this science, there was not a tittle in any of their
writings that was not to be found literally in the authors I had
mentioned. Horne [Horne Tooke], who might have a claim to
come in under the head of Grammar, was still living. None of
these names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead
for the reappearance of those who might be thought best fitted
by the abstracted nature of their studies for their present spir-
itual and disembodied state, and who even while on this living
stage were nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As
A-
with an uneasy fidgety face, was about to put some ques-
tion about Mr. Locke and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by
Martin Burney, who observed, "If J was here, he would
undoubtedly be for having up those profound and redoubted
scholiasts Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. " I said this might
be fair enough in him, who had read or fancied he had read the
original works; but I did not see how we could have any right
to call up those authors to give an account of themselves in per-
son, till we had looked into their writings.
"
By this time it should seem that some rumor of our whimsi-
cal deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the irritabile
genus in their shadowy abodes; for we received messages from
several candidates that we had just been thinking of. Gray
declined our invitation, though he had not yet been asked; Gay
offered to come, and bring in his hand the Duchess of Bolton,
the original Polly; Steele and Addison left their cards as Captain
Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley; Swift came in and sat down
without speaking a word, and quitted the room as abruptly;
Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite side
of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay
Charon his fare; Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed
back again; and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn,
-an old companion of his who had conducted him to the other.
world, to say that he had during his lifetime been drawn out
of his retirement, as a show, only to be made an exciseman of,
and that he would rather remain where he was. He desired,
however, to shake hands by his representative; the hand thus
held out was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.
The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent
painters. While we were debating whether we should demand
speech with these masters of mute eloquence, whose features
――――――――
## p. 7129 (#527) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7129
were so familiar to us, it seemed that all at once they glided
from their frames, and seated themselves at some little distance
from us.
There was Leonardo, with his majestic beard and
watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes before him; next him
was Raphael's graceful head turned round to the Fornarina; and
on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm golden locks;
Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on the table
before him; Correggio had an angel at his side; Titian was
seated with his Mistress between himself and Giorgioni; Guido
was accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from.
him; Claude held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beauti-
ful panther (led in by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared
as his own Paris; and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold
chains, and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding his
hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and
as we rose to do them homage they still presented the same sur-
face to the view. Not being bond fide representations of living
people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb
show. As soon as they had melted into thin air there was a
loud noise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cima-
bue, and Ghirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by
their earnest desire to see their illustrious successors
"Whose names on earth
In Fame's eternal records live for aye! "
Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them,
and mournfully withdrew. "Egad! " said Lamb, "those are the
very fellows I should like to have had some talk with, to know
how they could see to paint when all was dark around them! "
"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J
"to the Legend of Good Women? " "Name, name, Mr. J—,"
cried Hunt in a boisterous tone of friendly exultation; "name
as many as you please, without reserve or fear of molestation! "
Jwas perplexed between so many amiable recollections that
the name of the lady of his choice expired in a pensive whiff of
his pipe; and Lamb impatiently declared for the Duchess of New-
castle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, than she car-
ried the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous on
this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as
there was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all
respects as exemplary, as the best of them could be for their
lives! "I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos, "
## p. 7130 (#528) ###########################################
7130
WILLIAM HAZLITT
said that incomparable person; and this immediately put us in
mind that we had neglected to pay honor due to our friends on
the other side of the Channel: Voltaire the patriarch of levity,
and Rousseau the father of sentiment; Montaigne and Rabelais,
great in wisdom and in wit; Molière, and that illustrious group
that are collected around him (in the print of that subject) to
hear him read his comedy of the 'Tartuffe' at the house of
Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucauld, St. Evremont, etc.
"There is one person," said a shrill querulous voice, "I would
rather see than all these - Don Quixote! "
«<
"Come, come! " said Hunt, "I thought we should have no
heroes, real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb? are you
for eking out your shadowy list with such names as Alexander,
Julius Cæsar, Tamerlane, or Ghenghis Khan? "
"Excuse me,"
said Lamb; "on the subject of characters in active life, plotters
and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own, which
I beg leave to reserve. ". "No, no! come, out with your wor-
thies! " "What do you think of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscar-
iot ? »
Hunt turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but
cordial and full of smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason! "
was echoed on all sides; and A- — thought that Lamb had now
fairly entangled himself. Why, I cannot but think," retorted
he of the wistful countenance, "that Guy Fawkes, that poor flut-
tering annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman.
I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated,
surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and
expecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise
for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that
fellow Godwin will make something of it. And as to Judas
Iscariot, my reason is different. I would fain see the face of
him who, having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son
of Man, could afterwards betray him. I have no conception of
such a thing; nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leo-
nardo's very fine one) that gave me the least idea of it. ". "You
have said enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify your choice. "
-
"Oh! ever right, Menenius,-ever right! "
"There is only one other person I can ever think of after
this," continued Lamb, but without mentioning a Name that
once put on a semblance of mortality. "If Shakespeare was to
come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if
that person was to come into it, we should all fall down and try
to kiss the hem of his garment! "
## p. 7131 (#529) ###########################################
7131
LAFCADIO HEARN
(1850-)
AFCADIO HEARN is a painter with the pen. He has the rare
gift of sympathetic observation, and the rarer gift of words
to express what he sees and feels. It is no exaggeration
to say that he is a great colorist, filling his canvas sometimes with
glowing hues, again with mists of pearl or opaline lights, and always
showing Nature's esoteric as well as her physical charms.
Although he is classed as an American author, Lafcadio Hearn was
born in Santa Maura, Ionian Islands, - the ancient Leucadia,- June
27th, 1850; the son of an Englishman and a
native Greek. After receiving his education
in England he came to America, and be-
came engaged in journalism in Cincinnati
and New Orleans. His first long story was
'Chita: A Memory of Last Island' (1889), a
marvelous description of the destruction
of L'Île Dernière, the fashionable watering-
place of the aristocratic families of Lou-
isiana. The book is full of remarkable
descriptive passages; as for example:-
LAFCADIO HEARN
"On the Gulf side of these islands you may
observe that the trees-when there are any trees
-all bend away from the sea; and even on bright
hot days, when the wind sleeps, there is some-
thing grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group of oaks
at Grande Isle I remember as especially suggestive: five stooping silhouettes
in line against the horizon line, fleeing women with streaming garments and
wind-blown hair,- bowing grievously and thrusting out arms desperately
northward so as to save themselves from falling. And they are being pur-
sued, indeed,- for the sea is devouring the land. "
Mr. Hearn had published previously Stray Leaves from Strange
Literatures,' a collection of stories from various sources, including
Egyptian, Indian, the Kalevala, and Talmud traditions.
This was fol-
lowed by 'Some Chinese Ghosts,' which like the 'Stray Leaves' con-
sists of gems artistically cut and reset by a literary lapidary. In the
preface the author calls himself "a humble traveler, who, entering
## p. 7132 (#530) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7132
the pleasure grounds of Chinese fancy, culls a few of the marvelous
flowers there growing,-a self-luminous hwa-wang, a black lily, a
phosphoric rose or two,-as souvenirs of his curious voyage. "
After Two Years in the West Indies' and 'Youma'— a story of
the fidelity of the "da" (nurse or bonne) to her little white charge
during the insurrection of Martinique-were published in 1890, Mr.
Hearn went to Japan, where he has since lived. He has taught in
various colleges, and has traveled extensively in remote places, giv-
ing the results of his thought, study, and observation in 'Out of the
East' (1894), Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan' (1895), and 'Kokovo'
(1896), the latter title meaning "the heart" in its most extended inter-
pretation. In all of these books Mr. Hearn shows his comprehension
of and sympathy with Oriental philosophy and art, myth, and tradition,
and paints in tender and vivid fashion the scenes and landscapes of
his adopted country.
Of mixed race, a fact which by modern theory is conducive to
rare gifts in the individual; one who has absorbed impressions from
picturesque lands and civilizations, and looked, as well, beneath the
surface to the deep sources of human action and feeling, and who
is able to express the romantic and the mystic, the brilliantly exotic,
with rare literary power,- Mr. Hearn is a striking figure in the Eng-
lish literature of the late nineteenth century.
THE STORM
From 'Chita: A Memory of Last Island. › Copyright 1889, by Harper &
Brothers
THR
HIRTY years ago, Last Island lay steeped in the enormous light
of even such magical days. July was dying: for weeks no
fleck of cloud had broken the heaven's blue dream of eter-
nity; winds held their breath; slow wavelets caressed the bland
brown beach with a sound as of kisses and whispers. To one
who found himself alone, beyond the limits of the village and
beyond the hearing of its voices, the vast silence, the vast light,
seemed full of weirdness. And these hushes, these transparencies,
do not always inspire a causeless apprehension: they are omens
sometimes-omens of coming tempest. Nature,-incomprehensi-
ble Sphinx! -before her mightiest bursts of rage ever puts forth
her divinest witchery, makes more manifest her awful beauty.
But in that forgotten summer the witchery lasted many
long days,- days born in rose-light, buried in gold. It was the
## p. 7133 (#531) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7133
height of the season. The long myrtle-shadowed village was
thronged with its summer population; the big hotel could hardly
accommodate all its guests; the bathing-houses were too few
for the crowds who flocked to the water morning and evening.
There were diversions for all: hunting and fishing parties, yacht-
ing excursions, rides, music, games, promenades. Carriage wheels
whirled flickering along the beach, seaming its smoothness noise-
lessly, as if muffled. Love wrote its dreams upon the sand.
Then one great noon, when the blue abyss of day seemed to
yawn over the world more deeply than ever before, a sudden
change touched the quicksilver smoothness of the waters— the
swaying shadow of a vast motion. First the whole sea circle
appeared to rise up bodily at the sky; the horizon curve lifted to
a straight line; the line darkened and approached,- a monstrous
wrinkle, an immeasurable fold of green water, moving swift as a
cloud shadow pursued by sunlight. But it had looked formidable
only by startling contrast with the previous placidity of the
open: it was scarcely two feet high; it curled slowly as it neared
the beach, and combed itself out in sheets of woolly foam with a
low, rich roll of whispered thunder. Swift in pursuit another
followed- a third a feebler fourth; then the sea only swayed
a little, and stilled again. Minutes passed, and the immeasur-
able heaving recommenced-one, two, three, four-seven long
swells this time; and the Gulf smoothed itself once more. Irreg-
ularly the phenomenon continued to repeat itself, each time with
heavier billowing and briefer intervals of quiet, until at last the.
whole sea grew restless, and shifted color and flickered green;
the swells became shorter and changed form. Then from horizon
to shore ran one uninterrupted heaving, one vast green swarming
of snaky shapes, rolling in to hiss and flatten upon the sand.
Yet no single cirrus speck revealed itself through all the violet
heights; there was no wind! You might have fancied the sea
had been upheaved from beneath.
And indeed, the fancy of a seismic origin for a windless surge
would not appear in these latitudes to be utterly without founda-
tion. On the fairest days a southeast breeze may bear you an
odor singular enough to startle you from sleep,-a strong, sharp
smell as of fish-oil; and gazing at the sea, you might be still
more startled at the sudden apparition of great oleaginous patches
spreading over the water, sheeting over the swells. That is, if
you had never heard of the mysterious submarine oil wells, the
―――――――
______
## p. 7134 (#532) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7134
volcanic fountains, unexplored, that well up with the eternal
pulsing of the Gulf Stream.
But the pleasure-seekers of Last Island knew there must have
been a "great blow" somewhere that day. Still the sea swelled;
and a splendid surf made the evening bath delightful. Then
just at sundown a beautiful cloud bridge grew up and arched
the sky with a single span of cottony pink vapor, that changed
and deepened color with the dying of the iridescent day. And
the cloud bridge approached, stretched, strained, and swung round
at last to make way for the coming of the gale,-even as the
light bridges that traverse the dreamy Têche swing open when
luggermen sound through their conch-shells the long, bellowing
signal of approach.
Then the wind began to blow, with the passing of July. It
blew from the northeast,- clear, cool. It blew in enormous sighs,
dying away at regular intervals, as if pausing to draw breath.
All night it blew; and in each pause could be heard the answer-
ing moan of the rising surf,- as if the rhythm of the sea molded
itself after the rhythm of the air,-as if the waving of the water
responded precisely to the waving of the wind,-a billow for
every puff, a surge for every sigh.
The August morning broke in a bright sky; the breeze still
came cool and clear from the northeast. The waves were run-
ning now at a sharp angle to the shore; they began to carry
fleeces, an innumerable flock of vague green shapes, wind-driven
to be despoiled of their ghostly wool. Far as the eye could fol-
low the line of the beach, all the slope was white with the great
shearing of them. Clouds came, flew as in a panic against the
face of the sun, and passed. All that day and through the night
and into the morning again the breeze continued from the north-
east, blowing like an equinoctial gale.
Then day by day the vast breath freshened steadily, and the
waters heightened. A week later sea-bathing had become peril-
ous; colossal breakers were herding in, like moving leviathan
backs, twice the height of a man. Still the gale grew, and the
billowing waxed mightier, and faster and faster overhead flew the
tatters of torn cloud. The gray morning of the 9th wanly lighted
a surf that appalled the best swimmers: the sea was one wild
agony of foam, the gale was rending off the heads of the waves
and veiling the horizon with a fog of salt spray. Shadowless and
gray the day remained; there were mad bursts of lashing rain.
## p. 7135 (#533) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7135
Evening brought with it a sinister apparition, looming through a
cloud-rent in the west-a scarlet sun in a green sky.
His san-
guine disk, enormously magnified, seemed barred like the body
of a belted planet. A moment, and the crimson spectre van-
ished, and the moonless night came.
Then the wind grew weird. It ceased being a breath; it
became a voice moaning across the world, hooting, uttering
nightmare sounds,-Whoo! -whoo! -whoo! -and with each stu-
pendous owl-cry the mooing of the waters seemed to deepen,
more and more abysmally, through all the hours of darkness.
From the northwest the breakers of the bay began to roll high
over the sandy slope, into the salines; the village bayou broad-
ened to a bellowing flood. So the tumult swelled and the turmoil
heightened until morning-a morning of gray gloom and whis-
tling rain. Rain of bursting clouds and rain of wind-blown brine
from the great spuming agony of the sea.
The steamer Star was due from St. Mary's that fearful morn-
ing. Could she come? No one really believed it,— no one. And
nevertheless men struggled to the roaring beach to look for her,
because hope is stronger than reason.
Even to-day, in these Creole islands, the advent of the steamer
is the great event of the week. There are no telegraph lines,
no telephones: the mail packet is the only trustworthy medium of
communication with the outer world, bringing friends, news, let-
ters. The magic of steam has placed New Orleans nearer to
New York than to the Timbaliers, nearer to Washington than to
Wine Island, nearer to Chicago than to Barataria Bay. And
even during the deepest sleep of waves and winds, there will
come betimes to sojourners in this unfamiliar archipelago a feel-
ing of lonesomeness that is a fear, a feeling of isolation from the
world of men,- totally unlike that sense of solitude which haunts
one in the silence of mountain heights, or amid the eternal
tumult of lofty granitic coasts: a sense of helpless insecurity.
The land seems but an undulation of the sea-bed; its highest
ridges do not rise more than the height of a man above the
salines on either side; the salines themselves lie almost level with
the level of the flood-tides; the tides are variable, treacherous,
mysterious. But when all around and above these ever-changing
shores the twin vastnesses of heaven and sea begin to utter the
tremendous revelation of themselves as infinite forces in conten-
tion. then indeed this sense of separation from humanity appalls.
## p. 7136 (#534) ###########################################
7136
LAFCADIO HEARN
Perhaps it was such a feeling which forced men, on the tenth
day of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, to hope against
hope for the coming of the Star, and to strain their eyes towards
far-off Terrebonne. "It was a wind you could lie down on,” said
my friend the pilot.
"Great God! " shrieked a voice above the shouting of the
storm, "she is coming! " It was true. Down the Atchafalaya, and
thence through strange mazes of bayou, lakelet, and pass, by a
rear route familiar only to the best of pilots, the frail river craft
had toiled into Caillou Bay, running close to the main shore;
and now she was heading right for the island, with the wind aft,
over the monstrous sea. On she came, swaying, rocking, plun-
ging, with a great whiteness wrapping her about like a cloud, and
moving with her moving,-a tempest-whirl of spray; ghost-white
and like a ghost she came, for her smoke-stacks exhaled no visi-
ble smoke the wind devoured it!
The excitement on shore became wild; men shouted them-
selves hoarse; women laughed and cried. Every telescope and
opera-glass was directed upon the coming apparition; all won-
dered how the pilot kept his feet; all marveled at the madness.
of the captain.
But Captain Abraham Smith was not mad. A veteran Ameri-
can sailor, he had learned to know the great Gulf as scholars
know deep books by heart; he knew the birthplace of its tem-
pests, the mystery of its tides, the omens of its hurricanes. While.
lying at Brashear City he felt the storm had not yet reached its
highest, vaguely foresaw a mighty peril, and resolved to wait no
longer for a lull. "Boys," he said, "we've got to take her out
in spite of hell! " And they "took her out. " Through all the
peril, his men stayed by him and obeyed him. By mid-morning
the wind had deepened to a roar,-lowering sometimes to a
rumble, sometimes bursting upon the ears like a measureless
and deafening crash. Then the captain knew the Star was run-
ning a race with Death. "She'll win it," he muttered; "she'll
stand it. Perhaps they'll have need of me to-night. "
She won! With a sonorous steam chant of triumph the brave
little vessel rode at last into the bayou, and anchored hard by
her accustomed resting-place, in full view of the hotel, though
not near enough to shore to lower her gang-plank.
But she had sung her swan song. Gathering in from the
northeast, the waters of the bay were already marbling over the
## p. 7137 (#535) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7137
salines and half across the island; and still the wind increased its
paroxysmal power.
Cottages began to rock. Some slid away from the solid props
upon which they rested. A chimney tumbled. Shutters were
wrenched off; verandas demolished. Light roofs lifted, dropped
again, and flapped into ruin. Trees bent their heads to the
earth. And still the storm grew louder and blacker with every
passing hour.
The Star rose with the rising of the waters, dragging her
anchor. Two more anchors were put out, and still she dragged
-dragged in with the flood, twisting, shuddering, careening in
her agony.
Evening fell; the sand began to move with the
wind, stinging faces like a continuous fire of fine shot; and fren-
zied blasts came to buffet the steamer forward, sideward. Then
one of her hog-chains parted with a clang like the boom of a
big bell.
Then another! - Then the captain bade his men to
cut away all her upper works, clean to the deck. Overboard
into the seething went her stacks, her pilot-house, her cabins -
and whirled away. And the naked hull of the Star, still drag-
ging her three anchors, labored on through the darkness, nearer
and nearer to the immense silhouette of the hotel, whose hundred
windows were now all aflame. The vast timber building seemed
to defy the storm. The wind, roaring round its broad verandas,
hissing through every crevice with the sound and force of steam,
appeared to waste its rage. And in the half-lull between two ter-
rible gusts there came to the captain's ears a sound that seemed
strange in that night of multitudinous terrors - - a sound of music!
ALMOST every evening throughout the season there had been
dancing in the great hall; there was dancing that night also.
The population of the hotel had been augmented by the advent
of families from other parts of the island, who found their sum-
mer cottages insecure places of shelter; there were nearly four
hundred guests assembled. Perhaps it was for this reason that
the entertainment had been prepared upon a grander plan than
usual, that it assumed the form of a fashionable ball. And all
those pleasure-seekers, representing the wealth and beauty of
the Creole parishes,- whether from Ascension or Assumption, St.
Mary's or St. Landry's, Iberville or Terrebonne, whether inhabit-
ants of the multicolored and many-balconied Creole quarter of
the quaint metropolis, or dwellers in the dreamy paradises of the
XII-447
## p. 7138 (#536) ###########################################
7138
LAFCADIO HEARN
Têche, mingled joyously, knowing each other, feeling in some
sort akin; whether affiliated by blood, connaturalized by caste, or
simply interassociated by traditional sympathies of class sentiment
and class interest. Perhaps in the more than ordinary merriment
of that evening something of nervous exaltation might have been
discerned, something like a feverish resolve to oppose apprehen-
sion with gayety, to combat uneasiness by diversion. But the
hours passed in mirthfulness; the first general feeling of depres
sion began to weigh less and less upon the guests: they had
found reason to confide in the solidity of the massive building;
there were no positive terrors, no outspoken fears; and the new
conviction of all had found expression in the words of the host
himself, "Il n'y a rien de mieux à faire que de s'amuser! " Of
what avail to lament the prospective devastation of cane-fields,
to discuss the possible ruin of crops? Better to seek solace in
choregraphic harmonies, in the rhythm of gracious motion and of
perfect melody, than hearken to the discords of the wild orches-
tra of storms; wiser to admire the grace of Parisian toilets, the
eddy of trailing robes with its fairy foam of lace, the ivorine
loveliness of glossy shoulders and jeweled throats, the glimmer-
ing of satin-slippered feet, than to watch the raging of the flood
without, or the flying of the wrack.
་
So the music and the mirth went on: they made joy for them-
selves, those elegant guests; they jested and sipped rich wines;
they pledged, and hoped, and loved, and promised, with never a
thought of the morrow, on the night of the tenth of August,
eighteen hundred and fifty-six. Observant parents were there,
planning for the future bliss of their nearest and dearest; moth-
ers and fathers of handsome lads, lithe and elegant as young
pines, and fresh from the polish of foreign university training;
mothers and fathers of splendid girls whose simplest attitudes
were witcheries. Young cheeks flushed; young hearts fluttered
with an emotion more puissant than the excitement of the dance;
young eyes betrayed the happy secret discreeter lips would have
preserved. Slave-servants circled through the aristocratic press,
bearing dainties and wines, praying permission to pass in terms
at once humble and officious,—always in the excellent French
which well-trained house-servants were taught to use
on such
occasions.
Night wore on: still the shining floor palpitated to the feet
of the dancers; still the pianoforte pealed, and still the violins
-
—
## p. 7139 (#537) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7139
sang; and the sound of their singing shrilled through the dark-
ness, in gasps of the gale, to the ears of Captain Smith, as he
strove to keep his footing on the spray-drenched deck of the
Star.
"Christ! " he muttered,-" a dance! If that wind whips round
south, there'll be another dance! But I guess the Star will stay. "
Half an hour might have passed; still the lights flamed calmly,
and the violins trilled, and the perfumed whirl went on.
And suddenly the wind veered!
Again the Star reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began
to drag all her anchors. But she now dragged away from the
great building and its lights,-away from the voluptuous thunder
of the grand piano, even at that moment outpouring the great
joy of Weber's melody orchestrated by Berlioz, 'L'Invitation à
la Valse,' with its marvelous musical swing!
"Waltzing! ” cried the captain. "God help them! God help
us all now! The Wind waltzes to-night, with the Sea for his
partner! »
Oh the stupendous Valse Tourbillon! Oh the mighty Dancer!
One-two-three! From northeast to east, from east to south-
east, from southeast to south; then from the south he came,
whirling the Sea in his arms.
Some one shrieked in the midst of the revels,—some girl who
found her pretty slippers wet. What could it be? Thin streams
of water were spreading over the level planking, curling about
the feet of the dancers. What could it be? All the land had
begun to quake, even as but a moment before the polished floor
was trembling to the pressure of circling steps; all the building
shook now; every beam uttered its groan. What could it be?
There was a clamor, a panic, a rush to the windy night.
Infinite darkness above and beyond; but the lantern beams
danced far out over an unbroken circle of heaving and swirling
black water. Stealthily, swiftly, the measureless sea flood was
rising.
"Messieurs mesdames, ce n'est rien. Nothing serious, ladies,
1 assure you. Mais nous en avons vu bien souvent, les inonda-
*ions comme celle-ci; ça passe vite! The water will go down in
few hours, ladies: it never rises
le moindre danger, je vous dis!
what is that? »
higher than this; il n'y a pas
Allons! il n'y a- My God!
## p. 7140 (#538) ###########################################
7140
LAFCADIO HEARN
For a moment there was a ghastly hush of voices. And
through that hush there burst upon the ears of all a fearful and
unfamilar sound, as of a colossal cannonade-rolling up from the
south with volleying lightnings. Vastly and swiftly, nearer and
nearer it came, a ponderous and unbroken thunder roll, terrible as
the long muttering of an earthquake.
The nearest mainland, across mad Caillou Bay to the sea
marshes, lay twelve miles north; west, by the Gulf, the nearest
solid ground was twenty miles distant. There were boats, yes!
but the stoutest swimmer might never reach them now!
Then rose a frightful cry: the hoarse, hideous, indescribable
cry of hopeless fear; the despairing animal cry man utters when
suddenly brought face to face with Nothingness, without prepara-
tion, without consolation, without possibility of respite.
« Sauve
qui peut! " Some wrenched down the doors; some clung to the
heavy banquet tables, to the sofas, to the billiard tables; during
one terrible instant, against fruitless heroisms, against futile gen-
erosities, raged all the frenzy of selfishness, all the brutalities of
panic. And then-then came, thundering through the blackness,
the giant swells, boom on boom! One crash! the huge frame
building rocks like a cradle, seesaws, crackles. What are human
shrieks now? the tornado is shrieking! Another! chandeliers
splinter; lights are dashed out; a sweeping cataract hurls in; the
immense hall rises, oscillates, twirls as upon a pivot, crepitates,
crumbles into ruin. Crash again! the swirling wreck dissolves
into the wallowing of another monster billow; and a hundred
cottages overturn, spin in sudden eddies, quiver, disjoint, and
melt into the seething.
So the hurricane passed, tearing off the heads of the pro-
digious waves to hurl them a hundred feet in air, heaping up
the ocean against the land, upturning the woods.
Bays and
passes were swollen to abysses; rivers regorged; the sea marshes
were changed to raging wastes of water. Before New Orleans
the flood of the mile-broad Mississippi rose six feet above high-
est water-mark. One hundred and ten miles away, Donaldson-
ville trembled at the towering tide of the Lafourche. Lakes
strove to burst their boundaries. Far-off river steamers tugged
wildly at their cables, shivering like tethered creatures that hear
by night the approaching howl of destroyers. Smoke-stacks were
hurled overboard, pilot-houses torn away, cabins blown to frag-
ments.
"Ay," retorted A—, "there it is: then I suppose you would
prefer seeing him and Milton instead? » "No," said Lamb,
"neither. I have seen so much of Shakespeare on the stage and
on book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantelpieces, that I am
quite tired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton's face,
the impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like,
-it is too starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of
losing some of the manna of his poetry in the leaven of his
countenance and the precisian's band and gown. ”
"I shall guess no more," said A—. "Who is it, then, you
would like to see in his habit as he lived,' if you had your
choice of the whole range of English literature? " Lamb then
named Sir Thomas Browne and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir
Philip Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the
greatest pleasure to encounter on the door of his apartment in
their nightgown and slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting
with them. At this A laughed outright, and conceived Lamb
was jesting with him; but as no one followed his example, he
thought there might be something in it, and waited for an ex-
planation in a state of whimsical suspense. Lamb then (as well
as I can remember a conversation that passed twenty years ago
-how time slips! ) went on as follows:-
"The reason why I pitch upon those two authors is, that their
writings are riddles, and they themselves the most mysterious of
personages. They resemble the soothsayers of old, who dealt in
dark hints and doubtful oracles; and I should like to ask them
the meaning of what no mortal but themselves, I should sup-
pose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson,-I have no curiosity,
―――
## p. 7121 (#519) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7121
no strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswell together have
pretty well let me into the secret of what passed through his
mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently explicit:
my friends whose repose I should be tempted to disturb (were it
in my power), are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable.
"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose composition
the Urn-Burial,' I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at
the bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is
like a stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I
would invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it.
Besides, who would not be curious to see the lineaments of a
man who, having himself been twice married, wished that man-
kind were propagated like trees?
"As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own
'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a
truly formidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalypti-
cal, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and
for the unraveling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of
an encounter with so portentous a commentator! "
"I am afraid in that case," said A————, "that if the mystery
were once cleared up the merit might be lost;" and turning to
me, whispered a friendly apprehension that while Lamb contin-
ued to admire these old crabbed authors he would never become
a popular writer.
Dr. Donne was mentioned as a writer of the same period, with
a very interesting countenance, whose history was singular, and
whose meaning was often quite as un-come-at-able without a per-
sonal citation from the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries.
The volume was produced; and while some one was expatiating
on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the portrait prefixed to
the old edition, A got hold of the poetry, and exclaiming
"What have we here? " read the following:-
"Here lies a She-sun, and a He-moon there;
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe. "
There was no resisting this, till Lamb, seizing the volume,
turned to the beautiful 'Lines to his Mistress,' dissuading her
from accompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused
features and a faltering tongue.
XII-446
## p. 7122 (#520) ###########################################
7122
WILLIAM HAZLITT
His
Some one then inquired of Lamb if we could not see from
the window the Temple walk in which Chaucer used to take his
exercise; and on his name being put to the vote, I was pleased
to find that there was a general sensation in his favor in all but
A, who said something about the ruggedness of the metre, and
even objected to the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed
at this superficial gloss, pertinaciously reducing everything to its
own trite level, and asked "if he did not think it would be worth
while to scan the eye that had first greeted the Muse in that dim
twilight and early dawn of English literature; to see the head
round which the visions of fancy must have played like gleams
of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch those lips that 'lisped
in numbers, for the numbers came' as by a miracle, or as if the
dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he had been the first
to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to modern ears);
but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing before his
age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humorist withal, who
has not only handed down to us the living manners of his time,
but had no doubt store of curious and quaint devices, and would
make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of the Tabard.
interview with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would
rather have seen Chaucer in company with the author of the
'Decameron,' and have heard them exchange their best stories
together, the Squire's Tale against the Story of the Falcon, the
Wife of Bath's Prologue against the Adventures of Friar Albert.
How fine to see the high mysterious brow which learning then
wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of the world, by
the courtesies of genius! Surely, the thoughts and feelings which
passed through the minds of these great revivers of learning,
these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have
stamped an expression on their features as different from the
moderns as their books, and well worth the perusal! Dante," I
continued, "is as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one
whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to
penetrate his spirit, and the only one of the Italian poets I should
care much to see. There is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less
a hand than Titian's: light, Moorish, spirited, but not answering
our idea. The same artist's large colossal profile of Peter Are
tino is the only likeness of the kind that has the effect of con-
versing with the mighty dead,' and this is truly spectral, ghastly,
necromantic. "
## p. 7123 (#521) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7123
Lamb put it to me if I should like to see Spenser as well
as Chaucer; and I answered without hesitation: -"No; for his
beauties were ideal, visionary, not palpable or personal, and there-
fore connected with less curiosity about the man.
His poetry
was the essence of romance, a very halo round the bright orb
of fancy; and the bringing in the individual might dissolve the
charm. No tones of voice could come up to the mellifluous
cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged angel could vie
with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to our appre-
hensions) rather a creature of the element, that lived in the
rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary
mortal. Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere
vision like one of his own pageants, and that he should pass by
unquestioned like a dream or sound-
'That was Arion crowned:
So went he playing on the wat'ry plain! '»
Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, and
Martin Burney hinted at the Wandering Jew; but the last was
set aside as spurious, and the first made over to the New World.
"I should like," says Mrs. Reynolds, "to have seen Pope talk-
ing with Patty Blount; and I have seen Goldsmith. " Every one
turned round to look at Mrs. Reynolds, as if by so doing they
too could get a sight of Goldsmith.
"Where," asked a harsh croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in
the years 1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of,
nor is there any account of him in Boswell during those two
years. Was he in Scotland with the Pretender? He seems to
have passed through the scenes in the Highlands in company
with Boswell many years after, 'with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if
they were familiar to him, or associated in his mind with inter-
ests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an additional
reason for my liking him; and I would give something to have
seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain,
and penning the proclamation to all true subjects and adherents
of the legitimate government. "
>>
"I thought," said A—, turning short round upon Lamb, “that
you of the Lake School did not like Pope ? "Not like Pope!
My dear sir, you must be under a mistake: I can read him over
and over forever! "-"Why, certainly, the Essay on Man' must
be allowed to be a masterpiece. "—"It may be so, but I seldom
## p. 7124 (#522) ###########################################
7124
WILLIAM HAZLITT
(
look into it. "—"Oh! then it's his 'Satires' you admire? "-"No,
not his Satires,' but his friendly epistles and his compliments.
"Compliments? I did not know he ever made any. "-"The
finest," said Lamb, "that were ever paid by the wit of man.
Each of them is worth an estate for life
- nay, is an immortal-
ity. There is that superb one to Lord Cornbury: -
-
-
'Despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. '
Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And
then that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however
little deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds:
'Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde! '
And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses
Lord Bolingbroke:-
'Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
O all-accomplished St. John, deck thy shrine ? >
Or turn," continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on his cheek and
his eye glistening, "to his list of early friends:
'But why then publish? — Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Even mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved!
Happier their author, if by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks. '»
Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book
he said, "Do you think I would not wish to have been friends
with such a man as this? "
## p. 7125 (#523) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7125
"What say you to Dryden ? "-"He rather made a show of
himself, and courted popularity in that lowest temple of Fame,
a coffee-house, so as in some measure to vulgarize one's idea of
him. Pope, on the contrary, reached the very beau-ideal of what
a poet's life should be; and his fame while living seemed to be
an emanation from that which was to circle his name after death.
He was so far enviable (and one would feel proud to have wit-
nessed the rare spectacle in him) that he was almost the only
poet and man of genius who met with his reward on this side
of the tomb; who realized in friends, fortune, the esteem of the
world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and who
found that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime
which they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after
his death. Read Gray's verses to him on his supposed return
from Greece, after his translation of Homer was finished, and
say if you would not gladly join the bright procession that wel-
comed him home, or see it once more land at Whitehall stairs. "
"Still," said Mrs. Reynolds, "I would rather have
seen him
talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a coronet coach with
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu! "
Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at the
other end of the room, whispered to Martin Burney to ask if
Junius would not be a fit person to invoke from the dead.
"Yes," said Lamb, "provided he would agree to lay aside his
mask. "
We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding
was mentioned as a candidate; only one, however, seconded the
proposition. "Richardson? "-"By all means, but only to look
at him through the glass door of his back shop, hard at work
upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary contrast that ever
was presented between an author and his works): but not to let
him come behind his counter, lest he should want you to turn
customer; nor to go up-stairs with him, lest he should offer to
read the first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison,' which was
originally written in eight-and-twenty volumes octavo, or get out
the letters of his female correspondents to prove that 'Joseph
Andrews' was low. "
There was but one statesman in the whole English history
that any one expressed the least desire to see,— Oliver Crom-
well, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy; —
and one enthusiast, -John Bunyan, the immortal author of the
## p. 7126 (#524) ###########################################
7126
WILLIAM HAZLITT
'Pilgrim's Progress. ' It seemed that if he came into the room,
dreams would follow him, and that each person would nod under
his golden cloud, "nigh sphered in heaven," a canopy as strange
and stately as any in Homer.
Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received
with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by Baron Field.
He presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been
talked of; but then it was on condition that he should act in
tragedy and comedy, in the play and farce Lear' and 'Wildair'
and 'Abel Drugger. ' What a sight for sore eyes that would be!
Who would not part with a year's income at least, almost with a
year of his natural life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could
not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a
troop he must bring with him- the silver-tongued Barry, and
Quin, and Shuter, and Weston, and Mrs. Clive, and Mrs. Pritch-
ard, of whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favor-
ite when he was young! This would indeed be a revival of the
dead, the restoring of art; and so much the more desirable, as
such is the lurking skepticism mingled with our overstrained
admiration of past excellence, that though we have the speeches
of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the writings of Goldsmith,
and the conversation of Johnson, to show what people could do at
that period, and to confirm the universal testimony to the merits.
of Garrick, yet as it was before our time, we have our misgiv
ings, as if he was probably after all little better than a Bartlemy-
fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and laced
cocked hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard with
my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any was
ever moved by the true histrionic @stus, it was Garrick. When
he followed the Ghost in Hamlet' he did not drop the sword, as
most actors do, behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the
whole way round; so fully was he possessed with the idea, or so
anxious not to lose sight of his part for a moment. Once at a
splendid dinner party at Lord's they suddenly missed Gar-
rick, and could not imagine what was become of him till they
were drawn to the window by the convulsive screams and peals
of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on the ground
in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in
the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seem-
ing flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two
persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed as
## p. 7127 (#525) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7127
willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old
favorite.
We were interrupted in the heyday and mid-career of this
fanciful speculation by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it
was a shame to make all this rout about a mere player and
farce-writer, to the neglect and exclusion of the fine old drama-
tists, the contemporaries and rivals of Shakespeare. Lamb said he
had anticipated this objection when he had named the author of
'Mustapha and Alaham'; and out of caprice insisted upon keep-
ing him to represent the set, in preference to the wild, hare-
brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's,
Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to
Decker, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Hey-
wood; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might
offend by complimenting the wrong author on their joint produc-
tions. Lord Brook on the contrary stood quite by himself, or in
Cowley's words, was "a vast species alone. "
a vast species alone. " Some one hinted at
the circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled Lamb;
but he said a ghost would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette,
on being regularly addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided
our suffrages pretty equally. Some were afraid he would begin
to traduce Shakespeare, who was not present to defend himself.
"If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud, "there is
Godwin can match him. At length his romantic visit to Drum-
mond of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in
his favor.
Lamb inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I
would choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram. The
name of the "Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a
splendid example of waste talents, so different from the general-
ity of his countrymen. The choice was mightily approved by a
North-Briton present, who declared himself descended from that
prodigy of learning and accomplishment, and said he had family
plate in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials.
A. C. -Admirable Crichton! Hunt laughed, or rather roared, as
heartily at this as I should think he has done for many years.
The last-named mitre-courtier then wished to know whether
there were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted
to apply the wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in
modern times deserving the name,- Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler,
Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a
## p. 7128 (#526) ###########################################
7128
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Massachusetts man. As to the French, who talked fluently of
having created this science, there was not a tittle in any of their
writings that was not to be found literally in the authors I had
mentioned. Horne [Horne Tooke], who might have a claim to
come in under the head of Grammar, was still living. None of
these names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead
for the reappearance of those who might be thought best fitted
by the abstracted nature of their studies for their present spir-
itual and disembodied state, and who even while on this living
stage were nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As
A-
with an uneasy fidgety face, was about to put some ques-
tion about Mr. Locke and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by
Martin Burney, who observed, "If J was here, he would
undoubtedly be for having up those profound and redoubted
scholiasts Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. " I said this might
be fair enough in him, who had read or fancied he had read the
original works; but I did not see how we could have any right
to call up those authors to give an account of themselves in per-
son, till we had looked into their writings.
"
By this time it should seem that some rumor of our whimsi-
cal deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the irritabile
genus in their shadowy abodes; for we received messages from
several candidates that we had just been thinking of. Gray
declined our invitation, though he had not yet been asked; Gay
offered to come, and bring in his hand the Duchess of Bolton,
the original Polly; Steele and Addison left their cards as Captain
Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley; Swift came in and sat down
without speaking a word, and quitted the room as abruptly;
Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite side
of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay
Charon his fare; Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed
back again; and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn,
-an old companion of his who had conducted him to the other.
world, to say that he had during his lifetime been drawn out
of his retirement, as a show, only to be made an exciseman of,
and that he would rather remain where he was. He desired,
however, to shake hands by his representative; the hand thus
held out was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.
The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent
painters. While we were debating whether we should demand
speech with these masters of mute eloquence, whose features
――――――――
## p. 7129 (#527) ###########################################
WILLIAM HAZLITT
7129
were so familiar to us, it seemed that all at once they glided
from their frames, and seated themselves at some little distance
from us.
There was Leonardo, with his majestic beard and
watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes before him; next him
was Raphael's graceful head turned round to the Fornarina; and
on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm golden locks;
Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on the table
before him; Correggio had an angel at his side; Titian was
seated with his Mistress between himself and Giorgioni; Guido
was accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from.
him; Claude held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beauti-
ful panther (led in by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared
as his own Paris; and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold
chains, and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding his
hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and
as we rose to do them homage they still presented the same sur-
face to the view. Not being bond fide representations of living
people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb
show. As soon as they had melted into thin air there was a
loud noise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cima-
bue, and Ghirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by
their earnest desire to see their illustrious successors
"Whose names on earth
In Fame's eternal records live for aye! "
Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them,
and mournfully withdrew. "Egad! " said Lamb, "those are the
very fellows I should like to have had some talk with, to know
how they could see to paint when all was dark around them! "
"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J
"to the Legend of Good Women? " "Name, name, Mr. J—,"
cried Hunt in a boisterous tone of friendly exultation; "name
as many as you please, without reserve or fear of molestation! "
Jwas perplexed between so many amiable recollections that
the name of the lady of his choice expired in a pensive whiff of
his pipe; and Lamb impatiently declared for the Duchess of New-
castle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, than she car-
ried the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous on
this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as
there was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all
respects as exemplary, as the best of them could be for their
lives! "I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos, "
## p. 7130 (#528) ###########################################
7130
WILLIAM HAZLITT
said that incomparable person; and this immediately put us in
mind that we had neglected to pay honor due to our friends on
the other side of the Channel: Voltaire the patriarch of levity,
and Rousseau the father of sentiment; Montaigne and Rabelais,
great in wisdom and in wit; Molière, and that illustrious group
that are collected around him (in the print of that subject) to
hear him read his comedy of the 'Tartuffe' at the house of
Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucauld, St. Evremont, etc.
"There is one person," said a shrill querulous voice, "I would
rather see than all these - Don Quixote! "
«<
"Come, come! " said Hunt, "I thought we should have no
heroes, real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb? are you
for eking out your shadowy list with such names as Alexander,
Julius Cæsar, Tamerlane, or Ghenghis Khan? "
"Excuse me,"
said Lamb; "on the subject of characters in active life, plotters
and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own, which
I beg leave to reserve. ". "No, no! come, out with your wor-
thies! " "What do you think of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscar-
iot ? »
Hunt turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but
cordial and full of smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason! "
was echoed on all sides; and A- — thought that Lamb had now
fairly entangled himself. Why, I cannot but think," retorted
he of the wistful countenance, "that Guy Fawkes, that poor flut-
tering annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman.
I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated,
surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and
expecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise
for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that
fellow Godwin will make something of it. And as to Judas
Iscariot, my reason is different. I would fain see the face of
him who, having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son
of Man, could afterwards betray him. I have no conception of
such a thing; nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leo-
nardo's very fine one) that gave me the least idea of it. ". "You
have said enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify your choice. "
-
"Oh! ever right, Menenius,-ever right! "
"There is only one other person I can ever think of after
this," continued Lamb, but without mentioning a Name that
once put on a semblance of mortality. "If Shakespeare was to
come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if
that person was to come into it, we should all fall down and try
to kiss the hem of his garment! "
## p. 7131 (#529) ###########################################
7131
LAFCADIO HEARN
(1850-)
AFCADIO HEARN is a painter with the pen. He has the rare
gift of sympathetic observation, and the rarer gift of words
to express what he sees and feels. It is no exaggeration
to say that he is a great colorist, filling his canvas sometimes with
glowing hues, again with mists of pearl or opaline lights, and always
showing Nature's esoteric as well as her physical charms.
Although he is classed as an American author, Lafcadio Hearn was
born in Santa Maura, Ionian Islands, - the ancient Leucadia,- June
27th, 1850; the son of an Englishman and a
native Greek. After receiving his education
in England he came to America, and be-
came engaged in journalism in Cincinnati
and New Orleans. His first long story was
'Chita: A Memory of Last Island' (1889), a
marvelous description of the destruction
of L'Île Dernière, the fashionable watering-
place of the aristocratic families of Lou-
isiana. The book is full of remarkable
descriptive passages; as for example:-
LAFCADIO HEARN
"On the Gulf side of these islands you may
observe that the trees-when there are any trees
-all bend away from the sea; and even on bright
hot days, when the wind sleeps, there is some-
thing grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group of oaks
at Grande Isle I remember as especially suggestive: five stooping silhouettes
in line against the horizon line, fleeing women with streaming garments and
wind-blown hair,- bowing grievously and thrusting out arms desperately
northward so as to save themselves from falling. And they are being pur-
sued, indeed,- for the sea is devouring the land. "
Mr. Hearn had published previously Stray Leaves from Strange
Literatures,' a collection of stories from various sources, including
Egyptian, Indian, the Kalevala, and Talmud traditions.
This was fol-
lowed by 'Some Chinese Ghosts,' which like the 'Stray Leaves' con-
sists of gems artistically cut and reset by a literary lapidary. In the
preface the author calls himself "a humble traveler, who, entering
## p. 7132 (#530) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7132
the pleasure grounds of Chinese fancy, culls a few of the marvelous
flowers there growing,-a self-luminous hwa-wang, a black lily, a
phosphoric rose or two,-as souvenirs of his curious voyage. "
After Two Years in the West Indies' and 'Youma'— a story of
the fidelity of the "da" (nurse or bonne) to her little white charge
during the insurrection of Martinique-were published in 1890, Mr.
Hearn went to Japan, where he has since lived. He has taught in
various colleges, and has traveled extensively in remote places, giv-
ing the results of his thought, study, and observation in 'Out of the
East' (1894), Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan' (1895), and 'Kokovo'
(1896), the latter title meaning "the heart" in its most extended inter-
pretation. In all of these books Mr. Hearn shows his comprehension
of and sympathy with Oriental philosophy and art, myth, and tradition,
and paints in tender and vivid fashion the scenes and landscapes of
his adopted country.
Of mixed race, a fact which by modern theory is conducive to
rare gifts in the individual; one who has absorbed impressions from
picturesque lands and civilizations, and looked, as well, beneath the
surface to the deep sources of human action and feeling, and who
is able to express the romantic and the mystic, the brilliantly exotic,
with rare literary power,- Mr. Hearn is a striking figure in the Eng-
lish literature of the late nineteenth century.
THE STORM
From 'Chita: A Memory of Last Island. › Copyright 1889, by Harper &
Brothers
THR
HIRTY years ago, Last Island lay steeped in the enormous light
of even such magical days. July was dying: for weeks no
fleck of cloud had broken the heaven's blue dream of eter-
nity; winds held their breath; slow wavelets caressed the bland
brown beach with a sound as of kisses and whispers. To one
who found himself alone, beyond the limits of the village and
beyond the hearing of its voices, the vast silence, the vast light,
seemed full of weirdness. And these hushes, these transparencies,
do not always inspire a causeless apprehension: they are omens
sometimes-omens of coming tempest. Nature,-incomprehensi-
ble Sphinx! -before her mightiest bursts of rage ever puts forth
her divinest witchery, makes more manifest her awful beauty.
But in that forgotten summer the witchery lasted many
long days,- days born in rose-light, buried in gold. It was the
## p. 7133 (#531) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7133
height of the season. The long myrtle-shadowed village was
thronged with its summer population; the big hotel could hardly
accommodate all its guests; the bathing-houses were too few
for the crowds who flocked to the water morning and evening.
There were diversions for all: hunting and fishing parties, yacht-
ing excursions, rides, music, games, promenades. Carriage wheels
whirled flickering along the beach, seaming its smoothness noise-
lessly, as if muffled. Love wrote its dreams upon the sand.
Then one great noon, when the blue abyss of day seemed to
yawn over the world more deeply than ever before, a sudden
change touched the quicksilver smoothness of the waters— the
swaying shadow of a vast motion. First the whole sea circle
appeared to rise up bodily at the sky; the horizon curve lifted to
a straight line; the line darkened and approached,- a monstrous
wrinkle, an immeasurable fold of green water, moving swift as a
cloud shadow pursued by sunlight. But it had looked formidable
only by startling contrast with the previous placidity of the
open: it was scarcely two feet high; it curled slowly as it neared
the beach, and combed itself out in sheets of woolly foam with a
low, rich roll of whispered thunder. Swift in pursuit another
followed- a third a feebler fourth; then the sea only swayed
a little, and stilled again. Minutes passed, and the immeasur-
able heaving recommenced-one, two, three, four-seven long
swells this time; and the Gulf smoothed itself once more. Irreg-
ularly the phenomenon continued to repeat itself, each time with
heavier billowing and briefer intervals of quiet, until at last the.
whole sea grew restless, and shifted color and flickered green;
the swells became shorter and changed form. Then from horizon
to shore ran one uninterrupted heaving, one vast green swarming
of snaky shapes, rolling in to hiss and flatten upon the sand.
Yet no single cirrus speck revealed itself through all the violet
heights; there was no wind! You might have fancied the sea
had been upheaved from beneath.
And indeed, the fancy of a seismic origin for a windless surge
would not appear in these latitudes to be utterly without founda-
tion. On the fairest days a southeast breeze may bear you an
odor singular enough to startle you from sleep,-a strong, sharp
smell as of fish-oil; and gazing at the sea, you might be still
more startled at the sudden apparition of great oleaginous patches
spreading over the water, sheeting over the swells. That is, if
you had never heard of the mysterious submarine oil wells, the
―――――――
______
## p. 7134 (#532) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7134
volcanic fountains, unexplored, that well up with the eternal
pulsing of the Gulf Stream.
But the pleasure-seekers of Last Island knew there must have
been a "great blow" somewhere that day. Still the sea swelled;
and a splendid surf made the evening bath delightful. Then
just at sundown a beautiful cloud bridge grew up and arched
the sky with a single span of cottony pink vapor, that changed
and deepened color with the dying of the iridescent day. And
the cloud bridge approached, stretched, strained, and swung round
at last to make way for the coming of the gale,-even as the
light bridges that traverse the dreamy Têche swing open when
luggermen sound through their conch-shells the long, bellowing
signal of approach.
Then the wind began to blow, with the passing of July. It
blew from the northeast,- clear, cool. It blew in enormous sighs,
dying away at regular intervals, as if pausing to draw breath.
All night it blew; and in each pause could be heard the answer-
ing moan of the rising surf,- as if the rhythm of the sea molded
itself after the rhythm of the air,-as if the waving of the water
responded precisely to the waving of the wind,-a billow for
every puff, a surge for every sigh.
The August morning broke in a bright sky; the breeze still
came cool and clear from the northeast. The waves were run-
ning now at a sharp angle to the shore; they began to carry
fleeces, an innumerable flock of vague green shapes, wind-driven
to be despoiled of their ghostly wool. Far as the eye could fol-
low the line of the beach, all the slope was white with the great
shearing of them. Clouds came, flew as in a panic against the
face of the sun, and passed. All that day and through the night
and into the morning again the breeze continued from the north-
east, blowing like an equinoctial gale.
Then day by day the vast breath freshened steadily, and the
waters heightened. A week later sea-bathing had become peril-
ous; colossal breakers were herding in, like moving leviathan
backs, twice the height of a man. Still the gale grew, and the
billowing waxed mightier, and faster and faster overhead flew the
tatters of torn cloud. The gray morning of the 9th wanly lighted
a surf that appalled the best swimmers: the sea was one wild
agony of foam, the gale was rending off the heads of the waves
and veiling the horizon with a fog of salt spray. Shadowless and
gray the day remained; there were mad bursts of lashing rain.
## p. 7135 (#533) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7135
Evening brought with it a sinister apparition, looming through a
cloud-rent in the west-a scarlet sun in a green sky.
His san-
guine disk, enormously magnified, seemed barred like the body
of a belted planet. A moment, and the crimson spectre van-
ished, and the moonless night came.
Then the wind grew weird. It ceased being a breath; it
became a voice moaning across the world, hooting, uttering
nightmare sounds,-Whoo! -whoo! -whoo! -and with each stu-
pendous owl-cry the mooing of the waters seemed to deepen,
more and more abysmally, through all the hours of darkness.
From the northwest the breakers of the bay began to roll high
over the sandy slope, into the salines; the village bayou broad-
ened to a bellowing flood. So the tumult swelled and the turmoil
heightened until morning-a morning of gray gloom and whis-
tling rain. Rain of bursting clouds and rain of wind-blown brine
from the great spuming agony of the sea.
The steamer Star was due from St. Mary's that fearful morn-
ing. Could she come? No one really believed it,— no one. And
nevertheless men struggled to the roaring beach to look for her,
because hope is stronger than reason.
Even to-day, in these Creole islands, the advent of the steamer
is the great event of the week. There are no telegraph lines,
no telephones: the mail packet is the only trustworthy medium of
communication with the outer world, bringing friends, news, let-
ters. The magic of steam has placed New Orleans nearer to
New York than to the Timbaliers, nearer to Washington than to
Wine Island, nearer to Chicago than to Barataria Bay. And
even during the deepest sleep of waves and winds, there will
come betimes to sojourners in this unfamiliar archipelago a feel-
ing of lonesomeness that is a fear, a feeling of isolation from the
world of men,- totally unlike that sense of solitude which haunts
one in the silence of mountain heights, or amid the eternal
tumult of lofty granitic coasts: a sense of helpless insecurity.
The land seems but an undulation of the sea-bed; its highest
ridges do not rise more than the height of a man above the
salines on either side; the salines themselves lie almost level with
the level of the flood-tides; the tides are variable, treacherous,
mysterious. But when all around and above these ever-changing
shores the twin vastnesses of heaven and sea begin to utter the
tremendous revelation of themselves as infinite forces in conten-
tion. then indeed this sense of separation from humanity appalls.
## p. 7136 (#534) ###########################################
7136
LAFCADIO HEARN
Perhaps it was such a feeling which forced men, on the tenth
day of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, to hope against
hope for the coming of the Star, and to strain their eyes towards
far-off Terrebonne. "It was a wind you could lie down on,” said
my friend the pilot.
"Great God! " shrieked a voice above the shouting of the
storm, "she is coming! " It was true. Down the Atchafalaya, and
thence through strange mazes of bayou, lakelet, and pass, by a
rear route familiar only to the best of pilots, the frail river craft
had toiled into Caillou Bay, running close to the main shore;
and now she was heading right for the island, with the wind aft,
over the monstrous sea. On she came, swaying, rocking, plun-
ging, with a great whiteness wrapping her about like a cloud, and
moving with her moving,-a tempest-whirl of spray; ghost-white
and like a ghost she came, for her smoke-stacks exhaled no visi-
ble smoke the wind devoured it!
The excitement on shore became wild; men shouted them-
selves hoarse; women laughed and cried. Every telescope and
opera-glass was directed upon the coming apparition; all won-
dered how the pilot kept his feet; all marveled at the madness.
of the captain.
But Captain Abraham Smith was not mad. A veteran Ameri-
can sailor, he had learned to know the great Gulf as scholars
know deep books by heart; he knew the birthplace of its tem-
pests, the mystery of its tides, the omens of its hurricanes. While.
lying at Brashear City he felt the storm had not yet reached its
highest, vaguely foresaw a mighty peril, and resolved to wait no
longer for a lull. "Boys," he said, "we've got to take her out
in spite of hell! " And they "took her out. " Through all the
peril, his men stayed by him and obeyed him. By mid-morning
the wind had deepened to a roar,-lowering sometimes to a
rumble, sometimes bursting upon the ears like a measureless
and deafening crash. Then the captain knew the Star was run-
ning a race with Death. "She'll win it," he muttered; "she'll
stand it. Perhaps they'll have need of me to-night. "
She won! With a sonorous steam chant of triumph the brave
little vessel rode at last into the bayou, and anchored hard by
her accustomed resting-place, in full view of the hotel, though
not near enough to shore to lower her gang-plank.
But she had sung her swan song. Gathering in from the
northeast, the waters of the bay were already marbling over the
## p. 7137 (#535) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7137
salines and half across the island; and still the wind increased its
paroxysmal power.
Cottages began to rock. Some slid away from the solid props
upon which they rested. A chimney tumbled. Shutters were
wrenched off; verandas demolished. Light roofs lifted, dropped
again, and flapped into ruin. Trees bent their heads to the
earth. And still the storm grew louder and blacker with every
passing hour.
The Star rose with the rising of the waters, dragging her
anchor. Two more anchors were put out, and still she dragged
-dragged in with the flood, twisting, shuddering, careening in
her agony.
Evening fell; the sand began to move with the
wind, stinging faces like a continuous fire of fine shot; and fren-
zied blasts came to buffet the steamer forward, sideward. Then
one of her hog-chains parted with a clang like the boom of a
big bell.
Then another! - Then the captain bade his men to
cut away all her upper works, clean to the deck. Overboard
into the seething went her stacks, her pilot-house, her cabins -
and whirled away. And the naked hull of the Star, still drag-
ging her three anchors, labored on through the darkness, nearer
and nearer to the immense silhouette of the hotel, whose hundred
windows were now all aflame. The vast timber building seemed
to defy the storm. The wind, roaring round its broad verandas,
hissing through every crevice with the sound and force of steam,
appeared to waste its rage. And in the half-lull between two ter-
rible gusts there came to the captain's ears a sound that seemed
strange in that night of multitudinous terrors - - a sound of music!
ALMOST every evening throughout the season there had been
dancing in the great hall; there was dancing that night also.
The population of the hotel had been augmented by the advent
of families from other parts of the island, who found their sum-
mer cottages insecure places of shelter; there were nearly four
hundred guests assembled. Perhaps it was for this reason that
the entertainment had been prepared upon a grander plan than
usual, that it assumed the form of a fashionable ball. And all
those pleasure-seekers, representing the wealth and beauty of
the Creole parishes,- whether from Ascension or Assumption, St.
Mary's or St. Landry's, Iberville or Terrebonne, whether inhabit-
ants of the multicolored and many-balconied Creole quarter of
the quaint metropolis, or dwellers in the dreamy paradises of the
XII-447
## p. 7138 (#536) ###########################################
7138
LAFCADIO HEARN
Têche, mingled joyously, knowing each other, feeling in some
sort akin; whether affiliated by blood, connaturalized by caste, or
simply interassociated by traditional sympathies of class sentiment
and class interest. Perhaps in the more than ordinary merriment
of that evening something of nervous exaltation might have been
discerned, something like a feverish resolve to oppose apprehen-
sion with gayety, to combat uneasiness by diversion. But the
hours passed in mirthfulness; the first general feeling of depres
sion began to weigh less and less upon the guests: they had
found reason to confide in the solidity of the massive building;
there were no positive terrors, no outspoken fears; and the new
conviction of all had found expression in the words of the host
himself, "Il n'y a rien de mieux à faire que de s'amuser! " Of
what avail to lament the prospective devastation of cane-fields,
to discuss the possible ruin of crops? Better to seek solace in
choregraphic harmonies, in the rhythm of gracious motion and of
perfect melody, than hearken to the discords of the wild orches-
tra of storms; wiser to admire the grace of Parisian toilets, the
eddy of trailing robes with its fairy foam of lace, the ivorine
loveliness of glossy shoulders and jeweled throats, the glimmer-
ing of satin-slippered feet, than to watch the raging of the flood
without, or the flying of the wrack.
་
So the music and the mirth went on: they made joy for them-
selves, those elegant guests; they jested and sipped rich wines;
they pledged, and hoped, and loved, and promised, with never a
thought of the morrow, on the night of the tenth of August,
eighteen hundred and fifty-six. Observant parents were there,
planning for the future bliss of their nearest and dearest; moth-
ers and fathers of handsome lads, lithe and elegant as young
pines, and fresh from the polish of foreign university training;
mothers and fathers of splendid girls whose simplest attitudes
were witcheries. Young cheeks flushed; young hearts fluttered
with an emotion more puissant than the excitement of the dance;
young eyes betrayed the happy secret discreeter lips would have
preserved. Slave-servants circled through the aristocratic press,
bearing dainties and wines, praying permission to pass in terms
at once humble and officious,—always in the excellent French
which well-trained house-servants were taught to use
on such
occasions.
Night wore on: still the shining floor palpitated to the feet
of the dancers; still the pianoforte pealed, and still the violins
-
—
## p. 7139 (#537) ###########################################
LAFCADIO HEARN
7139
sang; and the sound of their singing shrilled through the dark-
ness, in gasps of the gale, to the ears of Captain Smith, as he
strove to keep his footing on the spray-drenched deck of the
Star.
"Christ! " he muttered,-" a dance! If that wind whips round
south, there'll be another dance! But I guess the Star will stay. "
Half an hour might have passed; still the lights flamed calmly,
and the violins trilled, and the perfumed whirl went on.
And suddenly the wind veered!
Again the Star reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began
to drag all her anchors. But she now dragged away from the
great building and its lights,-away from the voluptuous thunder
of the grand piano, even at that moment outpouring the great
joy of Weber's melody orchestrated by Berlioz, 'L'Invitation à
la Valse,' with its marvelous musical swing!
"Waltzing! ” cried the captain. "God help them! God help
us all now! The Wind waltzes to-night, with the Sea for his
partner! »
Oh the stupendous Valse Tourbillon! Oh the mighty Dancer!
One-two-three! From northeast to east, from east to south-
east, from southeast to south; then from the south he came,
whirling the Sea in his arms.
Some one shrieked in the midst of the revels,—some girl who
found her pretty slippers wet. What could it be? Thin streams
of water were spreading over the level planking, curling about
the feet of the dancers. What could it be? All the land had
begun to quake, even as but a moment before the polished floor
was trembling to the pressure of circling steps; all the building
shook now; every beam uttered its groan. What could it be?
There was a clamor, a panic, a rush to the windy night.
Infinite darkness above and beyond; but the lantern beams
danced far out over an unbroken circle of heaving and swirling
black water. Stealthily, swiftly, the measureless sea flood was
rising.
"Messieurs mesdames, ce n'est rien. Nothing serious, ladies,
1 assure you. Mais nous en avons vu bien souvent, les inonda-
*ions comme celle-ci; ça passe vite! The water will go down in
few hours, ladies: it never rises
le moindre danger, je vous dis!
what is that? »
higher than this; il n'y a pas
Allons! il n'y a- My God!
## p. 7140 (#538) ###########################################
7140
LAFCADIO HEARN
For a moment there was a ghastly hush of voices. And
through that hush there burst upon the ears of all a fearful and
unfamilar sound, as of a colossal cannonade-rolling up from the
south with volleying lightnings. Vastly and swiftly, nearer and
nearer it came, a ponderous and unbroken thunder roll, terrible as
the long muttering of an earthquake.
The nearest mainland, across mad Caillou Bay to the sea
marshes, lay twelve miles north; west, by the Gulf, the nearest
solid ground was twenty miles distant. There were boats, yes!
but the stoutest swimmer might never reach them now!
Then rose a frightful cry: the hoarse, hideous, indescribable
cry of hopeless fear; the despairing animal cry man utters when
suddenly brought face to face with Nothingness, without prepara-
tion, without consolation, without possibility of respite.
« Sauve
qui peut! " Some wrenched down the doors; some clung to the
heavy banquet tables, to the sofas, to the billiard tables; during
one terrible instant, against fruitless heroisms, against futile gen-
erosities, raged all the frenzy of selfishness, all the brutalities of
panic. And then-then came, thundering through the blackness,
the giant swells, boom on boom! One crash! the huge frame
building rocks like a cradle, seesaws, crackles. What are human
shrieks now? the tornado is shrieking! Another! chandeliers
splinter; lights are dashed out; a sweeping cataract hurls in; the
immense hall rises, oscillates, twirls as upon a pivot, crepitates,
crumbles into ruin. Crash again! the swirling wreck dissolves
into the wallowing of another monster billow; and a hundred
cottages overturn, spin in sudden eddies, quiver, disjoint, and
melt into the seething.
So the hurricane passed, tearing off the heads of the pro-
digious waves to hurl them a hundred feet in air, heaping up
the ocean against the land, upturning the woods.
Bays and
passes were swollen to abysses; rivers regorged; the sea marshes
were changed to raging wastes of water. Before New Orleans
the flood of the mile-broad Mississippi rose six feet above high-
est water-mark. One hundred and ten miles away, Donaldson-
ville trembled at the towering tide of the Lafourche. Lakes
strove to burst their boundaries. Far-off river steamers tugged
wildly at their cables, shivering like tethered creatures that hear
by night the approaching howl of destroyers. Smoke-stacks were
hurled overboard, pilot-houses torn away, cabins blown to frag-
ments.
