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Lafcadio Hearn's Sketches of Old Japan In "Kotto," the Late American Professor of English In Tokio Translates Diary of Humble Japanese Woman Into English--Interesting Description of the Grass- Lark: By Professor W. T. Allison. jo A book that first appeared in 1902, the year in which its author, Latcadio Hearn, died, has just been re-printed in a handsome illustrated edition by the Macmillan Company. It is entitled "Kotto" and consists not only of nine stories translatel by Hearn from old Japanese bouvks to illustrate strange oriental beliefs, but a number of original sketches which have all the charm of atmos- phere and style for which this writ. er's pictures of Japan ure noted. Hearn was a literary orchid of the lote nineteenth century who divided public attention with Oscar Wilde for the precicusness of his style and the exotic character of his life. Few men in modern days had a stranger career. Born of a Greek mother and Irish father in New Orleans, he passed his youth in a vagrant sort of fashion, was educated in HEng- land, and eventually drifted to Ja- pan, where, in 1896, he became pro- fessor of English dn the University of Tokio. Hearn became enchanted with Japanese life. He learned tha language, married aJapanese maiden, familiarized himself with the cus- toms of the country, and plucked the , heart out of the mystery of the east. ---- How Hearn Taught the Japs. While he was professor in Tokio Hearn tried to give his Japanese students a knowledge of English literature. Using the simplest lan- guage he taught literature accord- ing to a method which is unfortu- Dately seldom employed. He taught English poetry as the expression of emotion and sentiment, as the re- presentation of life. "In consider- ing a poet," he says in ome of his letters to a friend in America, "1 tried to explain tHe quality and the power of the emotion to the im- agination and the emotions of my pupils." Hearn never wrote out hie lectures, and, what fs more, never 'had any idea that they would be published. They would have been lost to us entirely had not eight Ja- Panese disciples in'his classes taken full motes. It was from these Japa- nese jottings that a posthumous vol, ume. entitled, "Interpretations of Literature," was constructed, and, to quote Prof. Erskine, it contgins a : body of cciticism unmatched in Eng- lish unless we return to Coleridge, and in some ways wuncqualled by anything in Coleridge." k entitied, | "than to any other. Here come upon fact; in ~ the other .and stories im- ~ sgination is in the ascendant. Hearn ~ tells his readers that he once came somewhat remarkable manuscript, seventeen long narrow sheets of soft paper, plerced with a silken string, and covered with fine ~ Japanese characters. It was a kind of diary, containing the story of a her. This diary is very touching. Thomas Gray once referred to "the short and simple annals of poor." This transcription from a humble life on the other side of the Pleasures of this humble pair: "On the first day of the eighth month we went to the templa of Asakusa to pray,--that day being the first anniversary of the death of my husband's former wife. After- wards we went to an eel-house, near THE DAILY BRITISH WHIG the Azuma bridge for dinner; and | while we were there--just about the 'hour of noon--an earthquake toon place. Being close to the river, the house rocked very much; and I was greatly frightened. "Remembering that when we went to Asakusa before, in the time of cherry blossoms, we had seen a big fire, this earthquake made me feel anxious; --I wondered whether light- ning would come next. "About two o'clock we left the eating-house, and went to the Asa- kusa park. From there we went by street car to Kanda; and we stopped awhile at a cool place in Kanda, to rest ourselves. On our way home we called at father's, and it was after nine o'clock when we got back. "The fifteenth day of the same month was the festival of Goto Hachiman-jinja; and Goto, my sis- ter, and the younger sister of Goto came ¢o the house. I had hoped that we could all go to the temple together; but that morning my hus- band had taken a Mttle too much wine,--e0 we had to go without him. After worshipping at the temple, we went to Goto's house; and I stopped there awhile before returning home." She Loses Her First Baby. In the. following entry we have the pathetic recital of the loss ot the first baby, a tiny little thing with large black eyes: "I must say that it was a very small child; for, though it ought to have been born in the eighth month, it was born indeed in the sixth. At seven o'clock in the evening of the same day, when the time came to give the child some medicine, we saw, by the light of the lamp, that he was looking all about, with his big eyes wide open. During that night the child slept in my mother's bosom. Ae we had been told that he must be kept very warm, because he was only a seven-months' child, it was decided that he should be kept in the bosom by day as well as by night. "Next day--the ninth day of the sixth month--at ily die'; --that, indeed, 4s a true say- ing about the world. "Only for one day to de called a mother! --to have a child born only tosee is die! . . . Surely, I thought, if a child must die within two days after birth, it were better that it should never be born." . tural history sketches in this book is that which describes the Kusa- Hibarl, the grasslark of Japan. These little insects, like the fire flies, are to be bought in the market in Japanese cities. They are kept in cages two inches high and one inch and a half wide. By day Kusa-Hibari sleeps or meditates or feeds on his slice of egg-plant or cucumber. The foreigner who sees one of these crickets for the first time wonders why such = fuss is made over Kusa- Hibari, but listen to this besutiful prose poem in which Lafcadio Hearn chants the praises of the gnat-like thing which costs twelve cents in the insect shop: "But always at sunset the infin- Htesimal soul of him awakens: then the room begins to fill with a deH- cate and ghostly music of indeseridb- able sweetness,--a thin, thin silvery rippling and thrilling as of tiniest electric bells. ; i Hit i § 4 pg § i The unique quality and flavour of HP SAUCE have made it world- famous. H.P. blends so naturally with all meats, fish and cheese. Try H.P. te-day. re ------smsaiia + love,--vague love of the unseen and unknown. It is quite impossible that he should ever have seen of known, in this present existence ot his. Not even his ancestors, for many generations back, could have known anything of the night-life of the fields, or the amorous value of song. They were born of eggs hatch- ed in a jar of clay, in the shop of some insect merchant; and they dwelt thereafter only in cages. But he sings the song of his race as it was sung @ myriad years ago, and as faultlessly as if he understood the exact significance of évery note. Of course he did not 1 the song. It is a song of organic memory,-- deep, dim memory of other quintil- lions of lives, when the ghost of him shrilled at night from the dewy 'grasses of the hills. Then that song brought him love--and death. He has forgotten all about death; but he remembers the love. And, there. fore, he sings mow--for the bride that will never come. "So that his longing is unconsci- ously retrospective: he cries to the dust of the past,--he calls to the silence and the gods for the return of time. Human lovers do very much the same thing without know- ing it. They call their #llusion on Ideal; and their Ideal is, after all, a mere shadowing of race-experience, a phantom of organic memory. The living presemt has very little to do with it. Perhaps this atomy also has an ideal, or at least the rudiment of an ideal; but, in any event the tiny desires must utter its plaint in vain." Alag for this particular Kusa- Hibari he died prematurely through lack of attention on the part of a Japanese maid. She forgot to sup- ply him with his daily slice of egg- plant and the fairy-music stopped and Prof. Hearn discovered that his study was cold in spite of the stove. r Ey ~--W. T. ALLISON. Litérary Notes. : Sir Rabinadrath Tagore, the Ben- general public: "Let booksellers re- member that into the writing of a book, however weak-spirited its backing, have gone a portion of a heart and soul, and who shall say how many hours of high hope and deep despondency'® Give the new author a chance, then, if only be- Cause a new good pen stimulates the taste for reading just as a new good play encourages a sluggish appetite for the theatre." The Best Similes for 1022. The best similes for the past year have been selected by Frank J. Wil- stach, author of "A Dictionary ot Similes," published by Little, Brown & Co. The crop for 1922 was, it ap- Pears, an abundant one. Mr. Wil- stach, who is the ackvowledged ex- pert in this line, has chosen those which seemed to him to be best in point of pigyancy or sententiousness. Here are some of them: A yacht like a great moth with folded wings.--Willlam McFee. The human mind should be like a good hotel---open the year round.-- WHHam Lyon Phelps. Sprawling like a wet masquito.-- Will Irwin, His voice was like a sword swing- ing.--Ben Hecht. Easy as to bite a dentist.--Anon. Subtle as the tapping of a pile- driver.--Channing Pollock. Eyes like acetylene headlights. -- Alexander Black. The curve of her mouth was liks blood upon snow.--Arthur Train. Reproachful as a curate's eye.-- Osbert Sitwell. Harmless like a rubber rabbitt.-- Nina Wilcox Putnam. He felt like the symptoms on a medicine bottle.--George Ade. Infatuation, Hke paralysis, is often all on one side.--Helen Rowland. RATA Newspaper Changes - An important change in Eastern Ontario newspaper ownership took place this week when the Trenton Courier-Advocate wag 'transferred from Clarence G. Young and Vance A Statia tp Arthur R. Aloway, form- erly of the Oshawa Reformer. The Courier-Advocate is an amalgamation of the two old established Trenton newspapers effected January 1st of this year. The Courier was founded in 1866 and the Advocate in 1879. Trenton has a population of ove: 6,000 and is strategically located on the Bay of Quinte at the mou:n of the Trent Canal System. Mr. Allo- way recently purchased the two news- papers at Stirling, which is sixteen miles from Trenton, and has amal- Now/vou can get it again. Tove co Tp" Now, for the first time in years, you can buy the finest sun-ripened o Virginia produces for 10c. a package. The kind you ike to smoke--the price you like to pay. Get a package of LONG TOM and celebrate. ~~ MEER. SMOKING TOBACCO The man with a keen and just con= ception of right and wrong is not extent by gamated them. He has obtained an There is something wrong with Ontario charter under the name of [the community where the impres- Trent Valley Newspaper Ltd., which | sion prevails that there are too [bothered to any great will cover the operations of both many churches. creeds. businesses. L. B. Calnan, son of| There are times when business Be sure that your vision 1s clear the well-known publisher of the Pic.!shewdness ought to go by the name | before you condemn the moral blind~ ton Gazette, is in charge at Stirling. (of rank dishonesty. Jiess of your neighbor. ---- gall poet, should be given a handle | :- . | to his name no longer, for he has}: dropped his knighthood. It is not: likely that this is a gesture of dis- dein directed against England, 'but the kind of thing we might expect from one who is not only a poet but an oriental mystic. E But while Rabinadrath has drop ped his English title he still keeps up his reading of English poetry. In personal appearance he resembles Tennyson, but he prefers the subtle- ties of Browning. An English writer who recently visited India saw Ta- gore interpreting Browning to a big crowd of Bengali students. The poet wore the national dress and sat cross-legged oh a low dais. Holding an English edition of Browning in his hand, he translated in a musical voice, using expressive gestures. His version held the close attention of the students. Just now Papini is a name on the tongue of the. religious world. His book, '"The Life of Christ," was first printed in Italy in the summer of 1921. Over 100,000 copies have ready sold 27,000 copies. Hodder and Stoughton have just published "Giovanni Papini was born in Flor- ence forty-two years ago. He writes of himself that he has offended Jesus as few cthers have done.' 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