Creole Sketches/Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Until the publication of his "Fantastics and Other Fancies" the work done by Lafcadio Hearn for the Item was utterly unknown. But those weird or dreamy sketches constituted but a small part of his work on that little journal. As assistant editor during the earlier years of his stay in New Orleans, he produced an immense number of editorials, translations, book reviews, dramatic criticisms, and sketches of all sorts, writing as he did for the paper every day, and not merely on Sundays, as was for the most part his custom in the case of his work with the Times-Democrat in the later years of his sojourn in this city.
The present volume contains a selection from his "Creole Sketches" together with a few other fanciful papers in a similar vein.
Partly because he was always deeply immersed in work or in study, partly on account of his natural shyness, he led in New Orleans the life of a recluse. Yet he had some friends, whom he greatly valued, and who still speak warmly of their intercourse with him. In one of his letters to Basil Hall Chamberlain, many years afterwards, he speaks of Charles Gayarré, the historian, as a "charming friend" of his. And in another letter to Chamberlain, in his remarks on modern Provençal, he says, "Some of my New Orleans friends used to speak it well." George W. Cable, the novelist, whose works he reviewed in the Item with enthusiastic praise, says that Hearn was a frequent visitor at his house, and that they profited by mutual frank criticism of each other's writings. Dr. Rudolph Matas, the renowned surgeon, tells of intimate companionship with him during his stay in this city. Dr. Lucien Salomon, a physician of long-established reputation, states that he was introduced to him by Dr. Matas, and that, despite his eccentricities, he found him a "lovable fellow." We know that Hearn's lifelong friendship with Miss Elizabeth Bisland, now Mrs. C. W. Wetmore, began when they were workers together in the office of the Times-Democrat. During these later years, too, he was befriended by the Bakers, both Page and Marion, and the wife of the latter, known to literature as Julia K. Wetherell. He had friends, too, who were not so intellectual, but for whom his affection was great. One of these was Mrs. Courtney, his landlady through the later years of his sojourn in this city, to whom he wrote from time to time, during temporary absences, letters that prove how much he valued her kindness, and with whom he left that notebook which enables us largely to supplement his bibliography, hitherto confined to the lists set down in Dr. Gould's book.
It is true that many of these friendships date from a period subsequent to his connection with the Item. But during those earlier years he resided wholly in the Creole quarter of the city, and there he had large opportunities for studying Creole character and Creole customs. At this time Colonel John W. Fairfax, then owner of the Item, was, with the exception of George W. Cable, perhaps his only friend in the city. But he evidently soon made other friends, and those chiefly among persons more familiar with the Creole, than with the American, side of the city.
There are many marks by which his unsigned articles can be identified, among which not the least striking are certain peculiarities in punctuation. But the most noteworthy of all is the higher note, sometimes philosophic, sometimes romantic, to which he soars in every paper, whatever the subject. With him the touch artistic is always there: Journalism becomes Literature.
It should be noted, as a curious addendum to "La Douane," that the niches of the New Orleans Custom House are still empty of the figures that were destined in the original design to fill them. Can it be that they are still hidden away in some locked, and perhaps forgotten, room of that vast building?
"Eleusis" is an exquisite trifle, an accurate and detailed description of the toilet and dress of the ballet dancer, a fit companion-piece to "Les Coulisses" as an evidence of his intimacy with the inner secrets of the stage during his service as dramatic critic; — French in its lightness of touch, and dainty as the apparel of which it treats.
In "Some Positive Opinions" we have another and very different token of his experience when accorded the freedom of the greenroom.
The review of "The Grandissimes" — it is only one of several is included as holding a close relationship with the sketches that are professedly Creole.
"The City of Dreams" depicts the result of the fateful yellow-fever epidemic of 1878 upon the smitten souls of the people. Fortunately science has forever rendered impossible the return of that heavy weight of woe that hung over the city in the year of which this and many others of Hearn's more poignant sketches are memorials.
The Cartoons, done by his own hand, of which a few have been introduced, have been placed out of their chronological order for the purpose of distributing them through the book.
They were found in the Item files for 1880, and our suspicion that they, with the verses and, brief paragraphs accompanying them, were Hearn's was confirmed by a statement from Colonel Fairfax made to my daughter, Ethel Hutson, in 1913, and since corroborated by him. I append her account of his statements.