Lafcadio Hearn and the velocipede

Next year the Library of America plans to publish the first volume of writings of Lafcadio Hearn, an intriguing but nearly forgotten author with a taste for the exotic and macabre. The book includes a selection of Hearn’s journalism from Cincinnati and New Orleans.

I’ve been reading Inventing New Orleans, which collects Hearn’s New Orleans writings. Only a fraction of these have been chosen for the new volume, and a comparison of titles shows that the most significant pieces have generally made the cut. It would have been good, though, to find room for more of the lighter and more ephemeral ones, like “The Unspeakable Velocipede.” Here is an excerpt:

The velocipede is like a vicious dog, because it always attacks any one who runs away from it; but it is also like a lion which attacks any one who dares to face it boldly. It is like a fox in treachery, like a panther in agility, like a tiger in cruelty, like a gorilla in ferocity, like a greyhound in speed, like a badger in taking a good hold of the calf of your leg, and like the Devil for impudence.

You cannot turn a corner so quickly that a velocipede cannot turn after you still quicker. There is but one possible means of escaping a velocipede. Velocipedes are like grizzly bears; they cannot climb trees....

The only way to attack the velocipede successfully is to attack their riders — as the Romans learned to do in fighting against trained elephants. Trained elephants sometimes turned and trampled down their own supporters. So with velocipedes. If you stand your ground well and direct your just rage and wholly excusable indignation against the rider, you will find the velocipede treacherously abandon its owner and fling him in the dust and trample wildly upon him.