FABIEN DURRINGER
Lafcadio Hearn and Japan: From a “Journey” to “Home”
GLOBAL CONVERSATIONS: An International Journal in Contemporary Philosophy and Culture
Volume II, Number 01 (2019): 43-59

Home, Journey, and Literature
LAFCADIO HEARN AND JAPAN: FROM A “JOURNEY” TO “HOME”
Fabien Durringer

Abstract
Following the theme “Home and Journey around the Globe” of the 2nd symposium
organized by the Society for Philosophy as Global Conversation, this article tries
to analyze how Japan, which started as a travel destination via a journalistic
assignment, became and remained, until the end of his life, “home” for the writer
Lafcadio Hearn. Assuming that the reader is not necessarily well acquainted withthis author, usually known in the field of Japonology, we start by describing in somedetail Hearn’s life and work. This thorough overview allows us in the second andthe third part to analyze two fundamental questions concerning Hearn’s life andwork: first, we try to understand how Japan, a destination meant to be a place of ajourney, could trigger Hearn’s desire to settle there; second, we analyze how thisdesire was sustained throughout his life. To answer our initial question, we describeand explain the process through which Hearn fell in love with Japan and how theJapanese, in return, showed their affection to him. In that part, we also tackle theproblem of Hearn’s childhood and teenage life, which enables us to understandhow a country like Japan, with its peculiarity in terms of people’s spirit, religious
faith, and beliefs, could match so well with Hearn’s personality. Past the initial
encounter, the passion and the delights of the first few years, which saw Hearn
marry a Japanese woman and settle his home there, we analyze how he kept his
desire to be in Japan and live in the long run. We show that this was rendered
possible through his position as a scholar and his rich work on interpreting Japanand its culture. Hearn was a committed person and his position as an intermediary
between West and East enabled him to question the presumed superiority of theWestern culture over its Eastern counterpart. Besides this commitment, anotherfactor, namely, the sharp insight of his writings on Japan, can also be seen as
sustaining his desire to remain in that particular country. By means of his essays
and stories, Hearn was indeed able to make its contemporary readers “undertakea journey” in Japan, and he played a crucial role in laying the foundations ofcultural analysis studies about this country that would flourish in the twentiethcentury.
Keywords: Lafcadio Hearn, biography, work, Japan, travel, home, culture

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Introduction“Journey” and “Home” are two words that seem to fit perfectly with Lafcadio Hearn’s both life
and work. As a déraciné (a rootless person) Lafcadio Hearn was in constant search of a “home”
during his entire life. Having already had an extraordinary life filled with moments of extreme
difficulties and numerous moves, Hearn finally settled down in Japan at around forty years ofage, where he founded a family and spent the rest of his life. During his fourteen years there hewrote many books about Japan, which nowadays are still considered among the best work ofinterpretation of the culture of this country and the life of its people.
To assess Hearn’s life and work in the light of “journey” and “home” we will need tostart with a presentation of who Hearn was and what he achieved in terms of writings. This firstpart will allow us to understand better the second one, which will focus on how Japan, where
he was sent on an assignment, became indeed his home, how the encounter with this country
made him fall in love with it, or more prosaically put, how the “chemistry” between him andJapan worked. The third part will focus on how Hearn kept his desire to stay in Japan, especiallyon his role of advocate and interpreter of the culture of this country, and on his literary capacity
to take his contemporary readers – through his writings – “on a journey” to this land.
1. Hearn’s life and work
1.1 Hearn’s life1
It will not be an exaggeration to describe Hearn’s life as “extra-ordinary.” Throughout thecourse of his entire life he lived on three different continents: Europe in his youth, America
from age of 19 to 40, and Asia – Japan – until his death when he was 54. He lived in at least six
different countries and a total of about fifteen different cities.2
He was born on the Greek Island of Lefkada or Leucadia to an Irish surgeon of the
British army, Charles Bush Hearn, and a Greek mother, Rosa Antonia Cassimati. His full namewas Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, his middle name deriving from Lefkada, the Island on which he
was born.
Lafcadio Hearn’s childhood and teenage years were in the main marked by a successionof abandonments. The first one came from his mother, described as “a young Greek woman,from a good family, but illiterate and very religious,”3 who initially moved to Dublin with him
in 1852 to her family in law. She left back for Greece two years later in the summer of 1854
mentally ill – having attempted suicide the previous year4 – leaving the little Lafcadio in thehand of his grand-mother’s sister, Sarah Brenane, a wealthy widow, who was to take care of
him until his departure for America. Hearn never saw his mother again upon her departure for
Greece. His father, on the other hand, was rarely home; he was assigned by the army first to the1

Most of the dates and facts for this biography have been taken from: Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey: The Lifeand Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (Trowbridge, Wiltshire: Japan Library, 1993); Edith De la Héronnière, “Lafcadio
Hearn: Une voix venue du plus intime de l’invisibilité,” in Lettres Japonaises (Paris: Pocket Revue des Deux
Mondes, 2014); Kyoto Gaidai, Bibliotheca Hearnania, Tokyo: The University Library (Kyoto University ofForeign Studies, 1997).
2
See Document 1 for a summary map of his life prior Japan, Document 2 for his life in Japan.
3
Edith De la Héronnière, “Lafcadio Hearn,” p. 12. Quote translated from the French by the author.
4
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 220.

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West Indies (Feb. 1850–Sept. 1853), then to the Crimean war (March 1854–July 1856), andfinally for India, in August 1857, the year that he divorced Lafcadio Hearn’s mother, to remarry.
He will never return from India, dying in 1866 from Indian fever on a ship to Suez.5
From 1857, when it was agreed between his father and his great-aunt that he would beraised as a Roman Catholic,6 until 1863, when he was sent by Mrs. Brenane to a Roman Catholic
English boarding School, Lafcadio seemed to have enjoyed a life “of cultured leisure with,critically, untrammeled access to books of all sorts.”7 A move to England after Mrs. Brenane
married Henry Hearn Molyneux, a clerk at the Admiralty, and his life in his new school near
Durham marked the start of a series of misfortunes.8 First, entering this boarding school
practically meant that Lafcadio was abandoned once more, this time by his great-aunt. He would
even spend his holidays there. Next, he became a victim of an accident that resulted in the lossof his eye during a game at the school. His healthy eye would eventually deteriorate, making
him all too preoccupied with poor eyesight. Finally, his great-aunt went bankrupt owing to somedisastrous financial decisions by her new husband.
Without enough money to finance the completion of his secondary education, Mrs.
Brenane withdrew him from school and had Lafcadio Hearn finish it in a day school in London,
where they both had found refuge in the house of the maid who had accompanied them all theway from Ireland.9
In 1869, a decision was made to send Lafcadio to America, in Cincinnati, whererelatives of Molyneux could help him move on with his life. Hearn’s arrival in New York andthe first few months that he spent there remain a mystery to his biographers. Some saw him
spending one or two years in misery,10 accepting little jobs to survive. But according to others,
he relatively quickly11 made contact with the people he was addressed to, reaching a person
named Henry Watking who offered him a job in the printing trade in Cincinnati. Eventually,making his own way through, Lafcadio was able to start collaborating as a journalist in the
Enquirer in October 1872 and joined it as a regular staff member in 1874.12 Although
recognized as gifted, the image of Hearn was that of an outsider.13 As a journalist, he wasprimarily writing articles out of news items that were very much gruesome and macabre, inwhich he would exert his literary talent, the one he would later on use to tell thrilling Japanese
ghost stories. Moreover, in his translation work he would venture on texts of the “unacceptably
salacious French Romanticism.”14 To add to his image of an outsider, Hearn married a Black
woman named Mattie Folley, despite the fact that it was illegal at that time. This marriage,
although short-lived – a few months according to Hearn himself – cost him his job at the5

Ibid., p. 230.
Ibid., p. 233.
7
Ibid., p. 16.
8Ibid., p. 16.
9Ibid., p. 267.
10
Edith De la Héronnière, “Lafcadio Hearn,” pp. 13–14.
11
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, pp. 24–25.
12
Kyoto Gaidai, Bibliotheca Hearnania, p. 61.
13
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 17.
14
Ibid., p. 17
6

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Enquirer.15 And though his journalist talent landed him another job at Cincinnati Commercial
in 1876, his time in this city would nonetheless come to an end the following year, when, trying
to explain his move, he simply declared that it was time for him to leave Cincinnati.16
Document 1
HEARN’S LIFE BEFORE JAPAN
1. 1850 Birth in Greece (Leucadia or Lefkada)
2. 1852 Dublin
3. 1862 – 63 (Rouen ?)4. 1863 – 1867 Durham
5. 1867 – 1868 London
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
6. 1869 New York(21years)
7. 1870 – 1877 Cincinnati
8. 1877 – 1887 New-Orleans
9. 1887 – 1889 French West Indies (Antilles St Pierre)
10. 1890 New YorkEUROPE (19 years)

2
7

4

5

3

6
10

1

8
9

Drawn by the author with the following sources:
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey: The Life and Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (Trowbridge, Wiltshire: Japan
Library, 1993)
Edith De la Héronnière, “Lafcadio Hearn: Une voix venue du plus intime de l’invisibilité,” in Lettres Japonaises(Paris: Pocket Revue des Deux Mondes, 2014), 11-29.
Kyoto Gaidai. Bibliotheca Hearnania. Tokyo: The University Library (Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, 1997).
https://fr.wikipedia.org (blank map).

His next destination will be the south, which seemed to have attracted him because of
its sunny and warm weather. His move to the south was also marked by an intention to moveaway from journalism and start a carrier in literary writing,17 while at the same time moving

15

Ibid., p. 48.
Ibid., p. 51.
17
Ibid., p. 56.
16

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somewhat closer to his Greek roots by dropping the name Paddy for Lafcadio.18 Nevertheless,during his stay in New Orleans journalism will remain his livelihood, working for the Item and
The Democrat for three years (from 1878 to 1881) and later on taking the post of TimeDemocrat’s literary editor in 1881. His period in New Orleans, very productive in terms ofjournalistic work, will also mark the start of his books publications among which one can quote
One of Cleopatra’s Nights (1882), Stray Leaves from Strange Literature (1884), Gombo Zhèbes(1885), Some Chinese Ghosts (1887), Chita: A memory of the Last Island (1889).
The year of 1887 was to become important for him in that after visiting the French West
Indies, he decided to return there the same year and to stay for almost two years.19Although,financially challenging, the two years spent there, provided him with material for other books,
namely, Two years in the French Indies (1890) and Youma (1890).20 Having ultimately gonebankrupt,21 Hearn decided to return to New York in October 1889, where he remained a few
months before boarding, in March 1890, on Abyssinia to embark on what was to become thebiggest venture of his life: Japan.
Hearn was originally sent there on an assignment by Harper’s Magazine, the idea of
which was conceived in a conversation with the art director of the magazine.22 Although Hearn
was not quite satisfied with the terms of the agreement, which were rather unclear, he decided
to go ahead with it. His interest in things Oriental had apparently won over his fears of theunknown and “prompted him to undertake the journey to Japan, where he arrived on April 4th
1890.”23
His agreement with Harper’s Magazine was soon to break, but with the assistance ofHattori Ichizô, a Japanese whom he met at the New Orleans Centenary Exhibition a few years
earlier in 1885, he managed to secure a post as an English teacher in the town of Matsue. It isalso at his arrival in Japan that he got to become acquainted with the famous British Japanologist
Basil Hall Chamberlain.24
His time in Matsue actually proved to be one of the happiest he ever had.25 Only fourmonths upon his arrival there, in 1891, he married Koizumi Setsu, the daughter of a traditional
fallen samurai family, who was 18 years younger than him. He will have four children with her,three sons (1893, 1897, 1899) and one daughter (1903), who was born just a year before his
death.26 In 1893, the birth of his first child will raise the question of Hearn’s citizenship. He
will find it wiser to ask for Japanese status even at the expense of dropping his British one. Two

18

Ibid., p. 17.
Ibid., pp. 94–95.
20
Kyoto Gaidai, Bibliotheca Hearnania, p. viii.
21
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 111.
22
Ibid., p. 130.
23
Kyoto Gaidai, Bibliotheca Hearnania, p. viii.
24
Ibid., p. viii.
25
This happiness is expressed in many of his early writings, especially in his two volumes book Glimpses ofUnfamiliar Japan. See Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (CN: Tuttle Publishing, 2009).
26
Kyoto Gaidai, Bibliotheca Hearnania, pp. 62–63.
19

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years later, he will be granted the Japanese citizenship and will adopt the name Koizumi
Yakumo.27
Document 2
HEARN’S MOVES DURING HIS STAY IN JAPAN (1890 -1904)
Date and place of residence
Job
Cause of change
ReporterfortheHarper’s
Ruptureof«contract » with the Harper’s
1. Yokohama
Magazine.
magazine; need of a job.
1890 (april – sept.)
Englishteacherinaschool.
Health (cold weather).
2.Matsue1890 (sept.) – 1891 (nov.)
English teacher in a school .
From the beginning financial strain on
3.Kumamoto
his post. Hearn not happy, unsecure
1891 (nov.) – 1894 (oct.)financially.
Reporter for the Kobe
Eye problem in dec.1894. Need rest.
4.KobeChronicle.
Cannot take a job for a year and a half.
1894 (oct.) – 1896 (sept.)
5.Tokyo1896 (sept.) – 1904 (april)

Lecturer at the Imperial
University of Tokyo.

6.Tokyo1904 (april)
7.Yaizu
1897 – 1904

Lecturer at Waseda
university.
Spend summer vacations
there (except 1903?).

2
3

4

7 1

University not wanting to renew thecontract. Arrival of Natsume Sôseki in
1904.
Death by heart attack on the 26th
September 1904.

5/6

Drawn and established by the author on the basis the following sources:
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey: The Life and Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (Trowbridge, Wiltshire: Japan
Library, 1993).
Edith De la Héronnière, “Lafcadio Hearn: Une voix venue du plus intime de l’invisibilité,” in Lettres Japonaises(Paris: Pocket Revue des Deux Mondes, 2014), 11-29.
Kyoto Gaidai. Bibliotheca Hearnania. Tokyo: The University Library (Kyoto University of Foreign Studies,1997).
https://www.hist-geo.com (blank map).

27

Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, 192: “Yakumo means eight clouds and was the first part of the most ancient
poem extant in the Japanese language.” An English translation of this Japanese poem can be found in: Basil H.
Chamberlain, trans., The Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters (Singapore: Tuttle Classics, 1981), pp. 76–77.

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Hearn’s life in Japan can be roughly divided into two main periods: the one before hesettled in Tokyo and the one after. Before being appointed as an English literature lecturer at
the Tokyo Imperial University in 1896, Lafcadio’s life in Japan was rather unstable. His firstyear in Matsue, though filled with joy and excitement in the discovery of Japan, would end up
in bad health due to the cold weather. With the help of Chamberlain, Hearn managed to obtain
the position of English teacher in Kumamoto, a city located more to the south and with milder
weather.28 The three years he spent there were not his best in Japan.29 He did not have the samerapport with the students that he enjoyed in Matsue, and his post was under constant threat for
financial reasons each of these years. Tired of this situation Hearn decided to quit this job in
1894, and in October of the same year he became again a reporter, this time for the English
newspaper Kobe Chronicle.30 Unfortunately, he had to put his work there to a halt because ofan eye’s neuritis. Compelled to rest in dark to cure his eye, Hearn would not work in thenewspaper for a year and a half, and only articles that he sent to Atlantic Monthly allowed him
to get by during this difficult times.31
During this period before Tokyo, despite his compelling jobs duties, Hearn started
publishing his major books about Japan. Each of these books is more or less related to a citywhere Hearn was residing at the time of its writing. Thus, his most voluminous work Glimpsesof Unfamiliar Japan, which was published in two volumes in 1894, corresponds to his stay in
Matsue. Out of the East (1895) is linked with Kumamoto, whereas Kokoro (1896) and
Gleanings in Buddha’s Field (1897) are attached to Kobe.32
The life of Hearn and his family significantly changed and became more stable when he
was offered the post of professor of “English Language and Literature” at Tokyo Imperial
University in 1896. For seven years, until 1904, he was to teach English literature with passion,
integrity, and a high sense of duty. 33 He was much appreciated by his students, who stood byhim protesting quite massively when his contract was not renewed in 1904.34 The circumstancesof Hearn’s dismissal were not quite clear, but he was soon offered a similar post of lecturer thesame year by Count Okuma, the founder of Waseda University, where he started teaching soonafter.35 However, in the meantime Hearn's health had seriously deteriorated, and after a firstheart attack on September 19th 1904, he would not endure a second one a week later and will
die on September 26th. His funeral was held on September 30th and was the first one to be
conducted for a foreigner under the Buddhist office. It was attended by forty professors, one
hundred students, and only three foreigners.36
During his Tokyo period, Hearn published a number of books on Japan. According tomost of his interpreters, his view on the country did not significantly change over time during
28

Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, 153.
Edith De la Héronnière, “Lafcadio Hearn,” p. 22.
30Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 178.
31
Ibid., pp. 183–184.
32
Ibid., pp. 146, 160, 188.
33
Ibid., p. 202.
34
For the details of the atmosphere surrounding Hearn’s dismissal see Yônejiro Noguchi, Lafcadio Hearn inJapan, 1910, Reprint (Kamakura: The Valley Press Japan, 1911), pp. 137–145. Those pages are a transcript of thejournal of one of Hearn’s former student named Kaworu Osanai.
35
Kyoto Gaidai, Bibliotheca Hearnania, p. 63; Murray, A Fantastic Journey, pp. 298–299.
36
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 301.
29

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this period. The main difference was rather in the type of publications he produced, which were
now ghost stories, together with essays. His books of the period were: In Ghostly Japan (1899)
Shadowings (1901), A Japanese Miscellany (1901), Kottô (1902) and Kwaidan (1904), which
was his most famous collection of ghost stories. His best-known analytical book, Japan: An
attempt at Interpretation (1904), was published posthumously, whereas the last of his books to
be published was The Romance of the Milky Way (1905).
1.2 Hearn’s oeuvre: an analytical overview
Looking more closely at Hearn’s works, we can divide them into two periods: publications
before Japan and publications in Japan. As already mentioned, Hearn started publishing books
while in New Orleans. Except for two novels, which were fairly popular at the time, his otherbooks have very much varied in terms of their contents. His Japanese books would include
translations, short stories retold, proverbs, essays, and others, most of which were modeled on
his Two years in the French West Indies.
Document 3
HEARN’S MAIN PUBLICATIONS BEFORE JAPAN1882: One of Cleopatra’s Nights, and other Fantastics Romances (Translation of Théophile Gautier)1884: Stray Leaves from Strange Literature (Stories reconstructed from Anvari-Soheili, Baital, Pachisi,
Mahabharata, Pantchatandra, Gulistan, Talmud, Kalewala, etc.
1885: Gombo Zhèbes (dictionary of Créole proverbs)
1887: Some Chinese Ghosts (shorts stories)
1889: Chita: A memory of Last Island (novel)
1890: Youma, The story of a West-Indian Slaves (novel)
1890: Two Years in the French West-Indies (miscellanous)
1890: The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (Translation of Anatole France)
Source: George M. Gould and Laura Stedman, Concerning Lafcadio Hearn (Wroclaw: Leopold Classic
Library, 2016), 248-250.

Hearn wrote a total of 14 books on Japan, published over a period of a little more thanten years (1894-1905).37 His most famous books are probably Kokoro (1896), Kwaidan (1904)
and Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation (1904), although most specialists would consider hisother works as equally interesting and valuable because of Hearn’s ability to always surprisethe reader with the originality of his approach to the topic he treats or the story he tells. Overall,
any writing approach he adopted, whether analytical or literary (retold old tales or legends fromJapan, shorts stories, etc.), could become a valuable means to present Japan to the readers. In
this sense, for Hearn, drawing on sensations and provoking feelings were tools of writing on
the same par as ensuring understanding.
On the analytical side, he would either describe what he saw or heard, or draw oncollected written materials. Although typically classified as “analytical,” some of thesedescriptions or observations, which could have easily taken the form of a television
documentary in our modern world, tell stories of real people and events happening in Japan insuch a vivid, colorful, realistic, and at once brilliant style that they could be equally classified
as literature.
37

See Document 4.

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For his purely literary work, the materials (legends, tales, folk stories, etc.) were takenfrom old Japanese books, or heard directly from his wife.38He would use his story-telling talent
to recreate the atmosphere of some old legends or folk stories dear to the Japanese people. Thus,
he made it possible for the Westerners to get to know better the Japanese folk and legends at atime when direct translations were still very scarce.
Document 4
HEARN’S PUBLICATIONS ABOUT JAPAN
1894: Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (2 Vol.)—Matsue—*
1895: Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan—Kumamoto—Analytical, use of re-told
1896: Kokoro; Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life
stories scarce—Kobe—
1897: Gleanings in Buddha’s Field: Studies of Hand and Soul in the
Far East—Kobe—
1898: Exotics and Retrospectives—Tokyo—1899: In Ghostly Japan—Tokyo—Analytical with literature
1900: Shadowings
also (tales, legends, short—Tokyo—stories, etc.)
1901: A Japanese Miscellany—Tokyo—1902: Kottô. Being Japanese Curios, with sundry Cobwebs—Tokyo—1904: Kwaidan; Stories and Studies of Strange Things
Mainly literature (legends,—Tokyo—tales, etc.)
1904: Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation
Only analytical (mainly—Tokyo; posthumous—
religion)
1905: The Romance of the Milky Way, and other Studies and Stories
Analytical with literature—Tokyo ; posthumous—*
In brackets the place that the book could be attached to, according to where Hearn was living while writing it.
Established by the author on the basis the following sources:
George M. Gould and Laura Stedman, Concerning Lafcadio Hearn (Wroclaw: Leopold Classic Library, 2016),
248-250.
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey: The Life and Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (Trowbridge, Wiltshire: Japan
Library, 1993).

Considering Hearn’s entire work, we can note that his first few books were more
analytical (1894-1898), while beginning with In Ghostly Japan he started using short storytelling much more profusely. Kwaidan (1904) and Japan: an Attempt of Interpretation (1904)
stand out somewhat as exceptions; the former consisting almost entirely of literature materials(ghost stories, legends, etc.) while the latter being an analytical, logically structured text.
38

Yônejiro Noguchi, Lafcadio Hearn in Japan, pp. 58–59; Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 278; Donald Richie,
foreword to Lafcadio Hearn’s Japan: An Anthology of His Writings on the Country and Its People, edited by
Donald Richie (Singapore: Charles E. Tuttle Publishing, 1997), p. 15.

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Document 5
A TYPICAL CONTENT OF HEARN’S BOOK
The table of contents of « A Japanese Miscellany Strange Stories, Folklore Gleanings, Studies Here &There» (1901)
Strange Stories
I. Of a Promise Kept
(Ugetsu Monogatari)
II. Of a Promise Broken(Izumo legend)
III. The Story of Kwashin Koji
Literature(Yasô-Kidan)
Re-told old Japanese ghost stories
IV. The Story of Umétsu Chûbei
(Bukkyô-Hyakkwa-Zenshô)
V. The Story of Kôgi the Priest(Ugetsu Monogatari)
Folklore Gleanings
I. Dragon-flies
Analytical: Ethnology
II. Buddhist Names of Plants and Animals
From existing materials.
III. Songs of Japanese Children
Studies from gathered materials
Studies Here & ThereI. On a Bridge
Analytical: Anthropology
II. The Case of O-Dai
From observation.
III. Beside the sea
Stories of real people that Hearn saw or heard about,IV. Drifting
stories of things Hearn experienced with the people,
V. Otokichi’s Daruma
observation of religious rites, etc.
VI. In a Japanese Hospital
Source: Lafcadio Hearn, A Japanese Miscellany: Strange Stories, Folklore Gleanings, Studies Here &There. The Writings on Japan by Lafcadio Hearn Vol.2 (Tokyo: ICG Muse, 2001).

As an example of the kinds of topics Hearn’s books treat, one can heed to the table ofcontents of A Japanese Miscellany (1901).39 This table illustrates perfectly the range of Hearn’s
typical work. He himself must have been well aware of the different approaches heused, because the table of contents is logically split (which is not the case for all his books)
between: 1) Strange Stories (literature: re-told old Japanese ghost stories), 2) Folklore
Gleanings (studies from gathered materials, ethnological work) and 3) Studies Here & there(Observations or stories heard from people, anthropological work).
2. Lafcadio Hearn: home in Japan
2.1 Love at first sight
Perhaps the best way to explain the strong bond of Hearn with Japan is to use the popular
expression “love at first sight.” Hearn literally fell in love with the country, its landscape, andpeople. In his essay My first day in the Orient,40 he associates Japan with the country of fairies
and declares his wish to purchase everything in Japan, even Japan itself,

39
40

See Document 5.
Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, pp. 1–22.

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The largest steamer that crosses the Pacific could not contain what you wish to purchase. For,although you may not, perhaps, confess the fact to yourself, what you really want to buy is not thecontents of a shop; you want the shop and the shopkeeper, and the streets of shops with theirdraperies and their habitants, the whole city and the bay and the mountains begirding it, andFujiyama’s white witchery overhanging in the speckles sky, all Japan, in very truth, with its magicaltrees and luminous atmosphere, with all its cities and towns and temples, and forty millions of themost lovable people in the universe.41

Through the quote we feel Hearn’s love declaration to Japan, understand how sensitive he wasto the beauty of so many things there, and how in turn he was able express this love so
beautifully in his romantic style. The marriage to Setsu Koizumi that will bind him to thiscountry and its people was naturally capping his feelings in his first years in Japan.
In return, to gain Japanese people’s trust, Hearn needed their appreciation. He certainly
got it and the Japanese would not have opened their hearts so much to him if they felt he had
not been the type of trustworthy person who could regard them positively. The key tounderstanding Hearn's positive reception by the Japanese is probably in his different attitude orstate of mind compared to other Western scholars.42 Many of the latter often consideredthemselves as coming from a superior cultural area, not only in a materialistic but also
intellectual and spiritual sense. Hearn was a different sort; he had this gentle, human side thatis so much appreciated in Japan. At the same time, he was also sensitive to the Japanesesuspiciousness to the typical sharp, purely intellectual person, that was running low on a humandimension,
I confess to being one of those who believe that the human heart, even in the history of a race, may
be worth infinitely more than the human intellect, and that it will sooner or later prove itself infinitely
better able to answer all the cruel enigmas of the Sphinx of Life. I still believe the old Japanese were
nearer to the solution of those enigmas than are we, just because they recognized moral beauty as
greater than intellectual beauty.43

Nevertheless, like in any relationship, Hearn’s feeling toward Japan had their ups and downs.
Sometimes they oscillated between love and hate, but somehow, as he beautifully explained ina letter to Chamberlain from March 1895, even in difficult times, his mind was able to change
easily to recover the Japan he loved,
I had a sensation the other day, though, which I want to talk to you about. I felt as I had hated Japan
unspeakably, and the whole world seemed not worth living in, when there came two women in thehouse, to sell ballads. One took her shamisen and sang: and people crowded into the tiny yard to
hear. Never did I listen to anything sweeter. All the sorrow and beauty, all the pain and the sweetnessof life thrilled and quivered in that voice; and the old first love of Japan and of things Japanese cameback, and a great tenderness seemed to fill the place like a haunting. I looked at the people, and I

41

Ibid., p. 7.
George Hughes, “Lafcadio Hearn: Between Britain and Japan,” in Rediscovering Lafcadio Hearn: Japanese
Legends Life & Culture, edited by Hirakawa Sukehiro (Midsomer Norton: Global Books Ltd, 1997), p. 76.
43
Lafcadio Hearn, Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life (Singapore: Tuttle publishing, 1972), p. 36.
42

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saw they were nearly all weeping and snuffing; and though I could not understand the words, I could
feel the pathos and the beauty of things.44

But whether he was in a phase of rejection or love of Japan, Hearn, as a Japanese citizen, wasa patriot who never failed to support his adopted country. In the wars against China (1895) andRussia (1904-05), he always supported Japan. Even more surprisingly, he was at odds with his
British friend Chamberlain regarding the treaty between Britain and Japan from 1894 which
abolished the unequal clauses of commerce. Chamberlain, backing Britain, was against it, while
Hearn supported it.45
Taking into account his new nationality and patriotism allows us to better judge thenegative feelings Hearn would sometimes have toward Japan: like any citizen, his feelings
towards his own country could vary. However, Hearn fundamentally felt, through his Japanesefamily, as well as for the reasons that made him fall in love with Japan, that his bonds to thiscountry were too strong to be broken and that it had definitely become home for him.
2.2 Childhood memories and empathy for Japan
Besides the “love at first sight” and all the factors we mentioned to explain the relation ofendearment between Hearn and the Japanese, most of his researchers would also consider hischildhood to have, in one way or another, played a part in conditioning his relation to Japan assomething special and appealing to his personality. What triggered what, and how things werestructured, consciously or unconsciously in Hearn’s mind will always be difficult todemonstrate, especially as he was an author who did not talk much about himself. But
everything that Japan represented in terms of its people (especially from lower classes), theirfaith and superstitions (relating to ghosts and death), their folk stories, their Buddhism, was for
Hearn an inexhaustible source of inspiration and something whose mere existence and presencearound him was fundamentally satisfying to his very being.
Perhaps his childhood upbringing, including the factor of his “abandonment” and theway Hearn was raised by Mrs. Brenane, played a crucial part in this respect. As Edith de La
Héronnière writes,[Mrs. Brenane]’s big dark house was terrifying the little boy [Hearn], especially at night when his
imagination and sensitivity made him see phantoms and devils in the dark. All his life he’ll believein ghosts. One looks for ways of healing his fear by locking him up in his room at night, which will
have the effect of increasing his fears and upset his hypersensitive soul.46

Other authors have also sought for a connection between the insecurities of his childhood andhis sympathetic perception of ghostly Japan.47
If his identification to his father seemed to have faded already in the United-States when
Hearn decided to drop his name Paddy (Patrick) to adopt Lafcadio (derived from Lefkada and44

Elisabeth Bisland, The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1906), Vol.
I, pp. 219-220.
45
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, pp. 180–181.
46
Edith De la Héronnière, “Lafcadio Hearn,” p. 46.
47
Sukehiro Hirakawa, “Lafcadio Hearn: towards an Irish Interpretation,” in A Fantastic Journey: the Life andLiterature of Lafcadio Hearn (Trowbridge, Wiltshire: Japan Library, 1993), p. 2.

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referring to his Greek origins and his mother), Japan had been also the perfect ground for Hearn
to reactivate his repressed memories of all sorts linked to his painful relation to his mother.
Such a link can be detected in many of his portraits of women – mostly poor and religious likehis mother – that Hearn depicts in his stories. Japan had one advantage over other places where
Hearn had also met similar people: although poor, less educated and attached to their seemingly
primitive faith and superstitions, those people from lower classes that Hearn loved to portray,
were living, in his eyes, in the most refined culture, with seemingly impeccable values andexquisite manners. In this sense, Japan can be seen as entering the role of enhancing the imageof Hearn's repressed memories of his mother. In turn, Greece, which symbolized therelationship with his mother, can be thus seen as a key for understanding Hearn’s approach andsympathy for Japan.
Other authors (Murray, Hirakawa) also stress the importance of the period Hearn spentin Ireland.48 According to them, it is precisely because he spent his childhood in Ireland that hecould become very receptive to a world that would appear as pagan, with all its faiths andsuperstitions. Hearn had indeed a nurse who told him fairy tales and ghost stories when he was
as young as six years old.49 Thus, Hirakawa states that,
Brought up in Dublin, listening to many Irish folk-tales told by unspoiled peasant maids and servantboys coming from the countryside, Hearn was obsessed with the world of the occult. He wasprobably conscious of this Irish background which enabled him to enter into and feel the ghostly
Japan so well.50

In order to complete the whole picture of his childhood and the influence it could havesubsequently had on his deep sympathy towards the Japanese culture and people, one also needs
to heed to Hearn’s relation to Christianity and the Irish/ British Victorian gothic society. The
Gothic art and religious values have certainly contributed to Hearn’s taste for thrill and horror,51
as he progressively rejected the Roman Catholic way he was brought up. Although Mrs.
Brenane does not seem to have been as strict as some of his early biographers thought,52 shestill had an agreement with his father to raise him religiously as a Roman Catholic.53 Hearn’s
rejection of the monotheistic religion appears to have accelerated during the time he was a pupil
at the Boarding School in Durham. Harsh, strict, and austere education did not fit well Hearn’s
sensitivity. Consequently, the peculiar vacuum in his worldview that emerged upon his
rejection of Christianity was later on to be filled by the Buddhism. He became interested in
Buddhism during his stay in New-Orleans,54 and from this point onwards his attraction and love
for this religion will never lessen (quite significantly, Hearn was actually the first Westerner tobe buried in Japan according to the Buddhist rite).55 Questions relating to death, ancestor48

Sukehiro Hirakawa, “Lafcadio Hearn: towards an Irish Interpretation,” pp. 1-12; Murray, A Fantastic Journey,
pp. 33, 35.
49Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 35.
50
Sukehiro Hirakawa, “Lafcadio Hearn: towards an Irish Interpretation,” p. 11.
51
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, pp. 258–259.
52
Ibid., pp. 15–16.
53
See Note 6.
54
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 20.
55
Ibid., p. 301.

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worship, souls, reincarnation, which haunted him at the time, were best answered by thisreligion, which he cherished until the end of his life. A great admirer of Herbert Spencer, heoften endeavored to reconcile his evolutionary philosophy with Buddhism.56 Many of his“reveries” and speculations in his essays dealt with this topic. The cultural importance of
Buddhism in Japan, which stimulated his intellectual searches and provided him with pointers
to his own identity, had a major impact on Hearn’s deep sympathy and love for Japan.
3. Lafcadio, the committed and the go-between interpreter
3.1 A committed Hearn: some critical views of the WestAs we already saw in our first part, Lafcadio Hearn was not one of those Western critics whoviewed Japanese culture as inferior to theirs in terms of development. On the contrary, Hearn
took the Japanese civilization seriously and this helped him develop a critical mind toward what
the West was and had to offer.
His first criticism that he repeats throughout his writing is related to religion and faith.
For him, a monotheistic religion such as Christianity was not necessarily superior in this regard.
Hearn believed that Buddhism could be put at least on the same level as Christianity on boththe solutions it proposes for the salvation of the souls after death and the philosophical theoryof life it developed. For Hearn who believed in transmigration, Buddhism was actually superior
on both of these levels, which is why in his writings he had the willingness and the commitment
to explain the Buddhism and to make it appealing and worth considering in the West.
His second criticism of the West addressed the destruction of Old Japan through theprocess of industrialization. As Murray puts it, “Hearn used Japan as a mirror to show the Westits moral inadequacy.”57 During his poor years in the slums of London following the bankruptcy
of his great aunt, Hearn had already accumulated terrible memories of the industrial rampage
that modernization could bring about. In many of his writings (Horai58, The Japanese smile59,etc.), he would warn the West of the terrible consequences that industrialization would have on
the rural areas of Japan, this “ghostly” Japan that he loved so much. Witnessing the old
traditions and folk stories slowly disappear, Hearn acted with the urge to collect them. In thisregard, many researchers acknowledge the influence he had on the Japanese anthropologists,
notably on Yanagita Kunio, known as the father of Japanese anthropology.60 What Hearn feared
the most was – beyond the destruction of the traditional architecture and buildings of Japan – achange in the kind, congenial and sincere character and temperament of the people of the ruralarea, whom he cherished dearly.

56

Ibid., p. 20.
Paul Murray, A Fantastic Journey, p. 19.
58
Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, Tuttle Classics (Singapore: Tuttle Publishing,1971), pp. 171–178.
59
Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, pp. 539–561.
60
Ronald Morse, « Atelier-débat autour de Ronald Morse, traducteur américain de Tôno monogatari et de Tôno
monogatari shûi » [Workshop and debate on Ronald Morse, American translator of Tôno monogatari and Tôno
Monogatari Shûi] (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Centre d’Etudes Japonaises, Paris,
June 11th, 2015); Sukehiro Hirakawa, “Lafcadio Hearn: towards an Irish Interpretation,” p. 4.
57

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3.2 A precursor of Japanese cultural identity analysis
Lafcadio Hearn was an extremely talented analyst of the Japanese culture, and in many regards
he was one of the pioneers in the cultural studies that bore on the culture of Japan and theJapanese people in the twentieth century. His ability to make his contemporaries “take a journey
to Japan” by way of his writing was undeniable, and many important writers of his time,
including Stefan Zweig (1881-1942),61 Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929),62 and more
recently, Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987),63 had read his work. To illustrate the point of thisparagraph, without being exhaustive or too explanative, we would like to finish it by giving a
few examples of sharp insight from some of his essays drawn from two of his best books,
Kokoro and Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan:
-

-

-

-

-

In The Genius of Japanese Civilization,64 he explores the importance of the notion ofimpermanency. This notion, deriving from Buddhism, states that everything isephemeral and had a tremendous impact on the relationship the Japanese had with theirarchitecture (for instance, it explains the practice to replace the sanctuary of Ise every
twenty years). On a more psychological level, it helped them accept changes and things
that do not last.
In At a railway station,65 when reporting about a criminal who is about to be hanged forkilling a man, he describes a scene where this criminal apologizes to the child of thedead man. Here the importance of the act of contrition is suggested through this subtle
and beautiful description without much analysis. Contrition, apologies, capacity to bewell aware of the evil done, by begging a pardon, is still nowadays an important aspectof the Japanese society.
In A Glimpses of tendencies,66 a remarkable analysis about commerce at the time hewas living in Japan, Lafcadio shows us how talented Japanese people were to acquire
the knowledge of the Westerners and make it their own after taking the best of it. This
notion in the discourse of the cultural anthropology will be later known as iitoko tori.67
In The idea of preexistence,68 by explaining the notion of Karma (innen or inwa inJapanese) and the idea of preexistence in Buddhism, Hearn shows how such beliefs leadto determinism and resignation, two features that one can still find in the cultural identityof present-day Japan.
In his famous article The Japanese Smile,69 one particularly interesting part dwells upon
the inter-communication between the Japanese people. He introduces us to a way of61

Stephen Zweig, “Lafcadio Hearn,” in Lettres Japonaises (Paris: Pocket Revue des Deux Mondes, 2014), pp.
167–179.
62
Hugo Von Hoffmansthal, “Lafcadio Hearn,” in Lettres Japonaises (Paris: Pocket Revue des Deux Mondes,2014), pp. 161–165.
63
See back cover of: Lafcadio Hearn, Lettres Japonaises, translated by Edith de La Héronnière et Marc Logé
(Agora. Paris: Pocket Revue des Deux Mondes, 2014).
64
Lafcadio Hearn, Kokoro, pp. 8–39.
65
Ibid., pp. 1–7.
66
Ibid., pp. 120–154.
67
Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno, eds., The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture(Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2002), pp. 127–133.
68
Lafcadio Hearn, Kokoro, pp. 222–226.
69
Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, pp. 539–561.

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speaking indirectly that is bound with the Confucian culture. “The indirect way of
conveying information is essentially Confucian. ‘Even when you have no doubts’, says
the Li-ki, ‘do not let what you say appear as your own view’.”70 This way ofcommunicating will be also analyzed later on by cultural anthropologists trying tounderstand how to communicate with the Japanese people. It will be indeed labeledaimai (Japanese word for vague, unclear, ambiguous or equivocal), a notion that will be
extensively studied and debated among researchers. Nowadays it is still a powerfulconcept for seizing intercultural communication with the Japanese people.
In Of a Dancing Girl,71 one of the most beautiful text of Hearn in our view, we are
introduced to the art of painting “landscape views and life studies” by itinerant painters.
Here Hearn underlines that in Japan “the Japanese artist gives you that which he feels—the mood of a season, the precise sensation of an hour and place; his work is qualified
by a power of suggestiveness rarely found in the art of the West[...] he is a painter ofrecollections and of sensation rather than of clear-cut realities; […].”72 All thissuggestive power in art is what later on Yasushi Inoue will call Kokoro no bunka, the“culture of the heart – or the mind – in an article read for NHK radio.73 This culture,
based on suggestion rather than full explanation, is still a powerful concept forunderstanding Japan. In the same essay, telling us a beautiful story of one of thisitinerant painters lost in a mountain and welcomed by a geisha in a isolated house,
Lafcadio Hearn will make us sensitive (without naming it) to the notion of On-gaeshi(reimbursement of a moral debt). The painter, who becomes famous in the years after
their initial meeting, later on accepts the request of the geisha who was now old to painther young, as she was when he met her for the first time, so that she put her picture on
the Buddhist altar next to her deceased husband. He accepts but understanding that she
was worried about not being able to pay him back, he will add: “‘Of that matter’, thegood painter exclaimed, ‘you must not think at all! No; I am glad to have this present
chance of paying a small part of my old debt to you. So tomorrow I will paint you just
as you wish’.”74 This is a typical example of what later on Ruth Benedict, in her famousbook The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, will develop as a moral based on debt.75

In these few examples extracted from Hearn's work, one can already identify key notions about
Japan that play parts in the cultural identity analysis: impermanency (The Genius of Japanese
civilization), the importance of forgiveness (At a railway station), the talent to acquire
knowledge or cultural items and make them Japanese (A Glimpses of tendencies), resignation

70

Ibid., p. 552.
Ibid., pp. 434–455.
72
Ibid., pp. 441-442.
73
Inoue Yasuhi 靖井上, “Kokoro no Bunka” 心の文化 [A Culture of the Heart], in Eigo de hanasu nihon no
bunka: Japan as I see it 英語で話す日本の文化：Japan as I see it [Japanese Culture in English: Japan as I seeit], translated by Don Kenny, edited by NHK Overseas Broadcasting Department, Bilingual Books (Tokyo:
Kodansha International, 2007), pp. 142-157.
74
Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, p. 452.
75
Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, 1967, Reprint, (US: Houghton Mifflin Company paperback,1989), pp. 114-131.
71

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and determinism (The idea of preexistence), the notion of aimai, or vagueness (The Japanesesmile), the importance of the heart-mind in the sense that the Japanese culture is focused on
one’s suggested feelings (Of a Dancing Girl), the notion of on or debt (Of a Dancing Girl), andso on. These concepts do not necessarily appear straightforwardly in Hearn’s works, but they
are suggested through either stories or explanations. This, in turn, has made of Hearn’s essays
a definite point of departure for the cultural anthropological discourse on Japan, whichdeveloped after World War II, especially in America.76
Conclusion
In this paper, upon a thorough review of his life and work, we were able to analyze how Hearn,
who went to Japan on a simple assignment, fell in love with this country and settled there forthe rest of his life. In a sense, his continuous attachment to Japan was a “love at first sight,” butit was also conditioned by a compatibility of the culture of this land with his character, which
could be traced back to his childhood. As a result, Japan and the Japanese people became thechoice of his heart; he settled there and made it home. Beyond the family and possible
materialistic reasons that tied him to Japan, Hearn remained – through his role of go-between
and his work – undeterred in his desire to stay in this country. By studying Japan and its culture,
Hearn came to the point of putting into question the superiority of the Western models. He also
wrote insightful texts that allowed his contemporary readers to discover Japan, which for its
part laid the basis for further cultural analysis of Japan.
To conclude, I will just quote Stefan Zweig who neatly summarized the chance that thefield of Japanese studies had with a great author like Hearn,
And that was the secret goal in view of which destiny had hidden Lafcadio Hearn, a goal for which
it had raised him. He was meant to tell us about unknown Japan; to tell us about all those little things,
with their own style, left in the shadow until now; those little “nothing,” so fragile, that many would
have left running away through their fingers; those ephemeral moments that the storm of time would
have taken away if he didn’t come on time; all those popular legends so full of meaning, thosetouching superstitions, those puerile and patriarchal customs. Catching this scent, picking up gently
this soft glare of the flower that had already been withering, that is what destiny had called him for.77

***

76

Ruth Benedict quotes Hearn in her famous book about Japan. See Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,
p. 303.
77
Stephen Zweig, “Lafcadio Hearn,” p. 175. Translated from the French by the author.

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