However, I do not pretend to be an adviser,--only a _suggester_. I think your good little wife would be a good adviser; for women seem blessed with a kind of divine intuition, and I sometimes believe they can see much farther into the future than men. You must not get disgusted with my long letter. I could not help telling you what interest your last excited in me regarding your own prospects.
Let me tell you something that I have been thinking about the bagpipe. Somewhere or other I have read that the bagpipe was a Roman military instrument, and was introduced into Scotland by the Roman troops, together with the "kilt." It must have occurred to you that the Highland dress bears a ghostly resemblance to that of the Roman private as exhibited on the Column of Trajan. I cannot remember where I have read this, but you can doubtless inform me.
I am still well, although I have even had the experience of nursing a friend sick of yellow fever. The gods are sparing me for some fantastic reason. I enclose some specimens of the death notices which sprinkle our town, and send a copy of the last _Item_.
My eyes are eternally played out, and I shall have to abandon newspaper work altogether before long. Perhaps I shall do better in some little business. What is eternally rising up before me now like a spectre is the ?--"Where shall I go?--what shall I do?" Sometimes I think of Europe, sometimes of the West Indies,--of Florida, France, or the wilderness of London. The time is not far off when I must go somewhere,--if it is not to join the "Innumerable Caravan." Whenever I go down to the wharves, I look at the white-winged ships. O ye messengers, swift Hermæ of Traffic, ghosts of the infinite ocean, whither will ye bear me?--what destiny will ye bring me,--what hopes, what despairs?
Your sincere friend and admirer, L. HEARN.
MY DEAR KREHBIEL,--I received your admirable little sketch. It pleased me more than the others,--perhaps because, having to deal with a simpler subject, you were less hampered by mechanical details and could maintain your light, gossipy, fresh method of instruction in all its simple force.
I recognized several of the cuts. That of the uppermost figure at the right-hand corner was of the god Terminus, a most ancient deity, and his instrument is of corresponding antiquity perhaps, although in country districts the Termina were generally characterized by a certain sylvan rudeness. The earliest Termina were mere blocks of wood or stone. Among the ancients a circle of ground, or square border--it was set by law in Rome at two feet wide--surrounded every homestead. This was inviolate to the gods, and the Termina were placed at intervals along its borders, or at the corners. At certain days in the year the proprietor made the circuit, pushing victims before him, and chanting hymns to the god of boundaries. The same gods existed among the ancient Hindoos, with whom the Greeks and Romans must have had a close relationship in remote antiquity. The Greeks called these deities the θεοὶ ὁρίοι. I do not know whence you got the figure; but I know it is a common one of Terminus; and such _eau-forte_ engravers as Gessner, who excelled in antique subjects, delighted to introduce it in sylvan scenes. I have an engraving by Leopold Flameng,--called _La Satyresse_,--a female satyr playing on the double flute (charming figure) and old Terminus with his single flute accompanies her in the background,--smiling from his pedestal of stone.