The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Chinese Ghosts, by Lafcadio Hearn

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Title: Some Chinese Ghosts

Author: Lafcadio Hearn

Release Date: July 11, 2005 [EBook #16261]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Note: The letter o with a caron
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SOME CHINESE GHOSTS

BY LAFCADIO HEARN

_Copyright_, 1887, by ROBERTS BROTHERS

* * * * *

_To my friend_ HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL

_THE MUSICIAN_

WHO, SPEAKING THE SPEECH OF MELODY UNTO THE
CHILDREN OF TIEN-HIA,--
UNTO THE WANDERING TSING-JIN, WHOSE SKINS
HAVE THE COLOR OF GOLD,--
MOVED THEM TO MAKE STRANGE SOUNDS UPON THE
SERPENT-BELLIED SAN-HIEN;
PERSUADED THEM TO PLAY FOR ME UPON THE
SHRIEKING YA-HIEN;
PREVAILED ON THEM TO SING ME A SONG OF THEIR
NATIVE LAND,--
THE SONG OF MOHLI-HWA,
THE SONG OF THE JASMINE-FLOWER

[Illustration: Line drawing of a man's head]

* * * * *

_PREFACE_

I think that my best apology for the insignificant size of this volume
is the very character of the material composing it. In preparing the
legends I sought especially for _weird beauty_; and I could not forget
this striking observation in Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on Imitations of
the Ancient Ballad": "The supernatural, though appealing to certain
powerful emotions very widely and deeply sown amongst the human race,
is, nevertheless, a _spring which is peculiarly apt to lose its
elasticity by being too much pressed upon_."

Those desirous to familiarize themselves with Chinese literature as a
whole have had the way made smooth for them by the labors of linguists
like Julien, Pavie, Remusat, De Rosny, Schlegel, Legge,
Hervey-Saint-Denys, Williams, Biot, Giles, Wylie, Beal, and many other
Sinologists. To such great explorers, indeed, the realm of Cathayan
story belongs by right of discovery and conquest; yet the humbler
traveller who follows wonderingly after them into the vast an