The life and letters of Lafcadio Hearn . TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK 335 is not in Tokyo. I am going to try to find him bythe seashore. The other night I got into a Httle-known part ofTokyo, — a street all ablaze with lanterns aboutthirty feet high, painted withweird devices. And I was in-terested especially by the insect-sellers. I bought a number ofcages full of night-singing in-sects, and am now trying to make a study of thesubjects. The noise made by these creatures is verymuch more extraordinary than you could imagine;but the habit of keeping them is not merely due toa love of the noise in itself
The life and letters of Lafcadio Hearn . TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK 335 is not in Tokyo. I am going to try to find him bythe seashore. The other night I got into a Httle-known part ofTokyo, — a street all ablaze with lanterns aboutthirty feet high, painted withweird devices. And I was in-terested especially by the insect-sellers. I bought a number ofcages full of night-singing in-sects, and am now trying to make a study of thesubjects. The noise made by these creatures is verymuch more extraordinary than you could imagine;but the habit of keeping them is not merely due toa love of the noise in itself. No: it is because theselittle orchestras give to city-dwellers the feeling ofthe delight of being in the country, — the sense ofwoods and hills and flowing water and starry nightsand sweet air. Fireflies are caged for the samereason. ^ This is a refinement of sensation, is it not ? —only a poetical people could have imagined theluxury of buying summer-voices to make for themthe illusion of nature where there is only dust andmud.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidlifeletterso, bookyear1906
