Some Chinese Ghosts

by Lafcadio Hearn

  1903

  Informed in March that as a Japanese citizen he is no longer en­titled to “foreigner’s salary” and his pay will be sharply reduced. Asks for sabbatical year due him, in ­order to accept Cornell invitation, but is refused. Resigns from Tokyo Imperial University. Students agitate for his reinstatement. Writes in August, “­After ­having worked thirteen years for Japan, I have been only driven out of the ser­vice, and practically banished from the country.” In fall, a daughter, Suzuko, born. Plans short trip to America to lecture at Cornell, but Cornell withdraws invitation ­after typhoid outbreak on campus. Completes manuscript of proposed Cornell lectures, published post­humously as Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (1904).

  1904

  Russo-Japanese War ­begins on Feb­ruary 10. Hearn lectures at Waseda University. Receives invitation from University of London to give ten lectures on Japanese civilization. On August 1, writes “A Letter from Japan,” about home-front during Russo-Japanese War: “This contest, ­between the mightiest of Western powers and a ­people that ­began to study Western science only within the recollection of many persons still in vigorous life, is, on one side at least, a struggle for national existence.” Dies of heart failure in Tokyo on September 26, at age 54. Buried in Zoshigaya Public Cemetery in Tokyo.

  Note on the Text

  This e-Book is drawn from the Library of America’s Lafcadio Hearn: American Writings, which collects four of Lafcadio Hearn’s published books—Some Chinese Ghosts (1887), Chita: A Memory of Last ­Island (1889), Two Years in the French West Indies (1890), and Youma (1890)—along with a selection of 25 news­paper and magazine articles published ­between 1875 and 1886, and 11 ­letters written ­between 1877 and 1888. The texts of the books have been taken from the first editions.

  Some Chinese Ghosts, a collection of tales based on Chinese legends, was first published by Roberts ­­Br­­others in Boston on Feb­ruary 24, 1887. “[T]here are only six ­little stories,” Hearn wrote Henry Edward Krehbiel, to whom he dedicated the book, “but each of them cost months of hard work and study.” He had published one of the six, “The Legend of Tchi-Niu,” in the October 31, 1885, issue of Harper’s Bazar, ­having ­begun work on the collection, ac­cording to his biographer Elizabeth Stevenson, around December 1884. At some point prior to October 1886, Hearn’s manuscript was rejected by Tick­nor & Fields. Accepting it later in the year, Roberts ­­Br­­others asked Hearn “to cut out a multitude of Japanese, Sanscrit, Chinese, and Buddhist terms.” Hearn responded with what he described for Krehbiel as “a colossal document of supplication and prayer,—citing Southey, Moore, Flaubert, Edwin Arnold, Gautier, ‘Hiawatha,’ and multitudinous singers and multitudinous songs, and the rights of prose ­­poetry and the supremacy of Form.” Roberts ­­Br­­others apparently yielded on questions of vocabulary, but poor sales and a dispute over royalties clouded his relations with the firm, and Some Chinese Ghosts was not reprinted during his lifetime. The pres­ent volume prints the text of the 1887 Roberts ­­Br­­others edition.

  This e-Book pres­ents the text of the original printings and manu­scripts chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce features of their typographic design, such as the display capitalization of chapter openings, or holographic features, such as variation in the length of dashes. The text is pres­ented without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are ­often expressive features, and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors and slips of the pen corrected, cited by page and line number: 71.18, Porlain-God.

  Notes

  In the notes below, the reference numbers refer to page and line of the print edition (the line count includes titles and headings). No note is made for material found in standard desk-reference books such as the American Heritage Dictionary or Webster’s Biographical Dictionary. Foreign phrases with which Hearn assumes a reader’s familiarity, or where the meaning is clear from context, are generally left untranslated. Arlin Turner provides a useful and informative introduction to Chita: A Memory of Last Island in the edition of the work in the Southern Literary Classics Series (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969). For more detailed notes, references to other studies, and further biographical background than is contained in the Chronology, see: Elizabeth Bisland, The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1906); Simon J. Bronner, ed., Lafcadio Hearn’s America: Ethnographic Sketches and Editorials (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002); Jonathan Cott, Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991); Delia LaBarre, ed., The New Orleans of Lafcadio Hearn: Illustrated Sketches from the Daily City Item (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007); P. D. & Ione Perkins, Lafcadio Hearn: A Bibliography of His Writings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934); S. Frederick Starr, ed., Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001); Elizabeth Stevenson, Lafcadio Hearn (New York: Macmillan, 1961; reprinted as The Grass Lark: A Study of Lafcadio Hearn).

  1.1 SOME CHINESE GHOSTS] Hearn knew no Chinese. His reliance on French, German, and British Sinologists (some of whom are mentioned in his “Preface” and “Notes”) is evident in the variant names he uses: both “Pe-King” and “Pekin” for the city now known as Beijing, for example, and both “Confucius” and “Kong-fu-tze.” The meanings he assigns to most of his Chinese words and phrases are clear from context.

  3.2 HENRY EDWARD KREHBEIL] Prominent music critic and musicologist (1854–1923). From 1874 to 1880, he served as music critic for the Cincinnati Gazette, where he befriended Hearn; later he became music editor of the New York Tribune. He wrote articles for various journals, translated opera libretti, and published several books, including a pioneering study of African-American music, Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music (1914). He championed the music of Wagner, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky.

  10.16 the Son of Heaven] The emperor.

  53.17 the City of King-te-chin] The city now known as Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province is often called the “Porcelain Capital” because of its long history of porcelain production.

  65.37 the Tai-Ping rebellion] An extensive revolt against the Chinese government (1850–1864) led by a heterodox Christian convert.