GRAND ANSE, MARTINIQUE, JUNE 1888
DEAR DR. GOULD,—I am writing you from an obscure, pretty West Indian village, seldom visited by travellers. Tall palms, and a grand roaring sea, blue as lapis lazuli in spite of its motion.
I was certainly even more pleased to hear from you than you could have been at the receipt of my letter;—for in addition to the intellectual and sympathetic pleasure of such a correspondence, the comparative rarity of friendly missives, enhancing their value, lends them certain magnetism difficult to describe,—the sensation, perhaps, of that North, and that Northern vigour of mind which has made the world what it is, and that pure keen air full of the Unknowable Something which has made the Northern Thought.
I seldom have a chance now to read or speak English; and English phrases that used to seem absolutely natural already begin to look somewhat odd to me. Were I to continue to live here for some years more, I am almost sure that I should find it difficult to write English. The resources of the intellectual life are all lacking here,—no libraries, no books in any language;—a mind accustomed to discipline becomes like a garden long uncultivated, in which the rare flowers return to their primitive savage forms, or are smothered by rank, tough growths which ought to be pulled up and thrown away. Nature does not allow you to think here, or to study seriously, or to work earnestly: revolt against her, and with one subtle touch of fever she leaves you helpless and thoughtless for months.
But she is so beautiful, nevertheless, that you love her more and more daily,—that you gradually cease to wish to do aught contrary to her local laws and customs. Slowly, you begin to lose all affection for the great Northern nurse that taught you to think, to work, to aspire. Then, after a while, this nude, warm, savage, amorous Southern Nature succeeds in persuading you that labour and effort and purpose are foolish things,—that life is very sweet without them;—and you actually find yourself ready to confess that the aspirations and inspirations born of the struggle for life in the North are all madness,—that they wasted years which might have been delightfully dozed away in land where the air is always warm, the sea always the colour of sapphire, the woods perpetually green as the plumage of a green parrot.
I must confess I have had some such experiences. It appears to me impossible to resign myself to living again in a great city and in a cold climate. Of course I shall have to return to the States for a while,—a short while, probably;—but I do not think I will ever settle there. I am apt to become tired of places,—or at least of the disagreeable facts attaching more or less to all places and becoming more and more marked and unendurable the longer one stays. So that ultimately I am sure to wander off somewhere else. You can comprehend how one becomes tired of the very stones of a place,—the odours, the colours, the shapes of Shadows, and tint of its sky;—and how small irritations become colossal and crushing by years of repetition;—yet perhaps you will not comprehend that one can actually become weary of a whole system of life, of civilization, even with very limited experience. Such is exactly my present feeling,—an unutterable weariness of the aggressive characteristics of existence in a highly organized society. The higher the social development, the sharper the struggle. One feels this especially in America,—in the nervous centres of the world’s activity. One feels at least, I imagine, in the tropics, where it is such an effort just to live, that one has no force left for the effort to expand one’s own individuality at the cost of another’s. I clearly perceive that a man enamoured of the tropics has but two things to do:—To abandon intellectual work, or to conquer the fascination of Nature. Which I will do will depend upon necessity. I would remain in this zone if I could maintain a certain position here;—to keep it requires means. I can earn only by writing, and yet if I remain a few years more, I will have become (perhaps?) unable to write. So if I am to live in the tropics, as I would like to do, I must earn the means for it in very short order.
I gave up journalism altogether after leaving N. O. I went to Demerara and visited the lesser West Indies in July and August of last year,—returned to New York after three months with some MS.,—sold it,—felt very unhappy at the idea of staying in New York, where I had good offers,—suddenly made up my mind to go back to the tropics by the very same steamer that had brought me. I had no commission, resolved to trust to magazine-work. So far I have just been able to scrape along;—the climate numbs mental life, and the inspirations I hoped for won’t come. The real—surpassing imagination—whelms the ideal out of sight and hearing. The world is young here,—not old and wise and grey as in the North; and one must not seek the Holy Ghost in it. I suspect that the material furnished by the tropics can only be utilized in a Northern atmosphere. We will talk about it together; for I will certainly call on you in Philadelphia some day.
I would not hesitate, if I were you, to begin the magnum opus;—the only time to hesitate would be when it is all complete, before giving to the printer. Then one may perhaps commune with one’s self to advantage upon the question of what might be gained or lost by waiting for more knowledge through fresh expansions of science. But the true way to attempt an enduring work is to begin it as a duty, without considering one’s self in the matter at all, but the subject only,—which you love more and more the longer you caress it, and find it taking form and colour and beauty with the patient years.
I am horribly ignorant about scientific matters; but sometimes the encouragement of a layman makes the success of the prelate.
Now, replying to your question about “Chita.” “Chita” was founded on the fact of a child saved from the Lost Island disaster by some Louisiana fisher-folk, and brought up by them. Years after a Creole hunter recognized her, and reported her whereabouts to relatives. These, who were rich, determined to bring her up as young ladies are brought up in the South, and had her sent to a convent. But she had lived the free healthy life of the coast, and could not bear the convent;—she ran away from it, married a fisherman, and lives somewhere down there now,—the mother of multitudinous children.
And about my work, I can only tell you this:—I will have two illustrated articles on a West Indian trip in the Harper’s Monthly soon,—within four or five months. These will be followed by brief West Indian sketches. Other sketches, not suited for the magazine, will go to form a volume to be published later on. I do not correspond or write for any newspaper, and I would always let you know in advance where anything would be published written by me.
You know what the nervous cost of certain imaginative work means; and this sort of work I do not think I shall be able to do here. One has no vital energy to spare in such a climate. I cannot read Spencer here,—gave up the “Biology” (vol. II) in despair. But I did not miss the wonderful page about the evolution of the eye—hair—snail-horn—etc., etc. . . . I want to see anything you write that I can understand, with my limited knowledge of scientific terms and facts. And when you write again, tell me what you said of Loti in the letter I never received. Did you read his “Roman d’un Spahi”? I thought you would like it. If you do not, let me know why,—because Loti has had much literary influence upon me, and I want to know his faults as well as his merits. With love to you,
LAFCADIO HEARN.