Letters from the Raven; being the correspondence of Lafcadio Hearn with Henry Watkin, with introd and critical comment by the editor, Milton Bronner . s from answering in any way until weeks was this silence which caused Hearn to maila postal card, on January 13, 1878, which con-tained one of his cleverest drawings. In the back-ground is shown the sky with a crescent the foreground, upright from a grass-growngrave, stands a tombstone, bearing the inscrip-tion: h. w. DIEDNOV. 29 1877 Perched on top of the stone is a particularly rag-ged and particularly black raven. It was the
Letters from the Raven; being the correspondence of Lafcadio Hearn with Henry Watkin, with introd and critical comment by the editor, Milton Bronner . s from answering in any way until weeks was this silence which caused Hearn to maila postal card, on January 13, 1878, which con-tained one of his cleverest drawings. In the back-ground is shown the sky with a crescent the foreground, upright from a grass-growngrave, stands a tombstone, bearing the inscrip-tion: h. w. DIEDNOV. 29 1877 Perched on top of the stone is a particularly rag-ged and particularly black raven. It was the lastgleam of fun that was to come from him for sometime. He was to experience some of the bitter-est moments of his life, moments which explainedhis hatred of New Orleans, as the slanders ofthe newspaper men of Cincinnati embittered himagainst that city. The following seems to be the first, or one ofthe first, letters written by him after his arrival inNew Orleans. As usual, it is undated: 42 Letters from The Raven Dear Old Friend: I cannot say how glad1 was to hear from you. I did not—unfortunately—get your letter at Memphis; it would have. •~> all DRAWING ON A POSTAL CARD SENT TO WATKIN TOREMIND HIM HE HAD NOT WRITTEN cheered me up. I am slowly, very slowly, gettingbetter. The wealth of a world is here,—unworkedgold in the ore, one might say; the paradise ofthe South is here, deserted and half in ruins. Inever beheld anything so beautiful and so I saw it first—sunrise over Louisiana—the tears sprang to my eyes. It was like youngdeath, — a dead bride crowned with orange flow- Letters from The Raven 43 ers,—a dead face that asked for a kiss. I cannot sayhow fair and rich and beautiful this dead Southis. It has fascinated me. I have resolved to livein it; I could not leave it for that chill and dampNorthern life again. Yes; I think you could makeit pay to come here. One can do much here withvery little capital. The great thing is, of course,the sugar-
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