ttachment for his
half-sister, and the equally sudden break-off of all communications and
intercourse, are so thoroughly characteristic of Hearn's wayward and
unaccountable character. How, after such an incident, absolve him of the
charge, so frequently made, of caprice and inconstancy; in fact, you
would not attempt to defend him were it not for the unwavering
friendship and affection displayed in one or two instances; above all,
in the unselfish and generous manner in which he gave up all his private
inclinations and ambitions for the sake of his wife and family, and his
undeviating devotion to Miss Bisland (Mrs. Wetmore), the Lady of a
Myriad Souls, to whom his most beautiful and eloquent letters are
addressed.

It seems really to have only been during the last decade of his life
that he allowed irritability and sensitiveness to interfere between him
and his best friends. Years after he had left Cincinnati, he recalled
the memory of comrades he had left there; never were their mutual
struggles and aspirations forgotten. "It seemeth to me," he writes to
Krehbiel, "that I behold overshadowing the paper the most Dantesque
silhouette of one who walked with me the streets of the far-off Western
city by night, and with whom I exchanged ghostly fancies and phantom
hopes.... How the old forces have been scattered! But is it not pleasant
to observe that the members of the broken circle have been mounting
higher and higher to the Supreme Hope? Perhaps we may all meet some day
in the East whence, the legendary word hath it, 'Lightning ever
cometh.'"

He always remained generously sympathetic to the literary interests and
ventures of the "Cincinnati Brotherhood." Tunison wrote a book on the
Virgilian Legend, Hearn devotes paragraphs, suggesting titles,
publishers, and the best place for publication. To Farney, the artist,
he offers hospitality, if he will come to New Orleans to paint some of
the quaint nooks and corners; and later, he recommends him to Miss
Bisland as an artist whom she might employ to do illustrations for her
magazine. "Lazy as a serpent, but immensely capable."

Hearn was a strange mixture of humility and conceit, but there was not a
particle of literary jealousy in his composition.

To Krehbiel he writes: "Comparing yourself to me won't do ... dear old
fellow! I am in most things a botch. You say you envy me certain
qualities; but you forget how those qualities are at variance with an
Art whose beauties