d Krehbiel; honourable, respectable
business, but devoid of dreamful illusions. "Alas, this is no world for
dreaming."

The venture ended as might have been expected. Hearn had not inherited
the commercial instincts of his ancestors who sold oil and wine in the
Ionian Islands; his partner robbed him of all the money he had invested,
and decamped, leaving him saddled with the restaurant and a considerable
number of debts. A swindling building society seems to have absorbed the
rest of his savings.

After these two catastrophes the little man became almost comically
terrified at financial enterprise of any kind, even the investment of
money in dividend-paying concerns. When Captain Mitchell McDonald later,
in Japan, endeavoured to induce him to put his money into various
lucrative concerns, Hearn declared that he would prefer to lose
everything he owned than submit to the worry of investing it. The mere
idea of business was "a horror, a nightmare, a torture unspeakable."

Though apparently only journalising and translating, Hearn was piling up
experiences and sensations, not making use of them except in letters,
but laying down the concrete and setting the foundation for his work in
the West Indies and Japan. "The days come and go like muffled and veiled
figures sent from a friendly, distant party; but they say nothing, and
if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them silently away."
Emerson did not take into account those apparently infertile periods in
an artist's life, when the days come and go, but though they pass
silently away, all their gifts are not unused, nor is their passage
unproductive. How invaluable, for instance, was Hearn's study of Creole
proverbs for his "Two Years in the French West Indies." How invaluable
for his interpretation of the Orient were the studies he undertook for
"Strange Leaves from Strange Literature," and his six small adaptations
entitled "Chinese Ghosts."

After several refusals "Stray Leaves" was accepted for publication by
Osgood. He thus announced the fact to his friend Krehbiel:--

"DEAR K. (Private),

"'Stray Leaves,' etc., have been accepted by James R. Osgood and Co.
Congratulate your little Dreamer of Monstrous Dreams,

"Aschadnan na Mahomet Rasoul Allah,

"Bismillah,
"Allah-hu-akbar."

The book was dedicated to "Page M. Baker, Editor of the New Orleans
_Times Democrat_."

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