... Jeune artiste, tu attends un sujet?Tout est sujet; le sujet c'est toi-même:ce sont tes impressions, tes emotionsdevant la nature. C'est toi qu'il faut regarder,et non autour de toi.
Eugène Delacroix.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
FLORIDIAN REVERIES
TO THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
A TROPICAL INTERMEZZO
A NAME IN THE PLAZA
VULTUR AURA
CREOLE PAPERS
QUAINT NEW ORLEANS AND ITS HABITANTS
CREOLE WOMEN IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES
ARABESQUES
ARABIAN WOMEN
RABYAH'S LAST RIDE
On a memorable day a good many years ago a certain sub-editor,exploring the morning's mail, found his sense enthralled by a weird,sad, delicious odor. Perfumes in the mail were not unheard-of: violetsthere had been, and musk, and orange blossoms, and tobacco; and thesub-editor, with a fantasy appropriate to his station, even pridedhimself on his ability to close his eyes and pick out a Californiacontribution by the unaided sense of smell. But never before had therebeen anything like this. Its chief essence was sandalwood, that wasclear, but sandalwood so etherealized and mingled with I know notwhat of exotic scents that it gave to the imagination a provocativeghostly thrill indescribable. The basket of the Muses, hastily tumbled,disclosed a portentous envelope of straw color, with queer blue stampsin one corner, and queer unknown characters in another; yet queerest ofall was the address in an odd orientalized hand, done with delicate,curiously curving strokes of the pen. Within, in a script still lessSpencerian, these words met the sub-editor's excited eye:—
The Dream of Akinosuké
'In the district called Toïchi of Yamato province, there used to livea gōshi named Miyata Akinosuké'; and so on through some twenty pages,telling a mystical legend of old Japan in a lovely and melodiousEnglish style.
This was the writer's first introduction to Lafcadio Hearn, knownto him up to that time only by a somewhat formidable repute as 'thebest interpreter of Japan,' and mentally scheduled for perusal on aconvenient opportunity which had never come. Since then Hearn's twentyvolumes have been read and