t notice;
seemed hardly to notice my appearance. This fact impressed me very much,
and when I knew him better I found that the same wide tolerance of mind
ran through all his thoughts and actions. It might have been tact, but
nothing seemed to surprise him. It was as if he had lived too much to be
surprised at anything. He seemed to me on that particular morning, and
whenever I met him afterwards, to be the most natural, unaffected,
companionable person I had ever come across. Secondly, I thought he was
extraordinarily gentle, more gentle than a woman, since it was not a
physical gentleness, but a gentleness of thought. You noticed it in his
tone, in his voice, in his manner. He had a mind which worked with
velvet or gossamer touch. Thirdly, in spite of that softness and
gentleness, he looked intensely male. You could see that in his eye, and
you would feel it in the quiet mastery of every sentence. And fourthly,
he seemed to be, unlike most foreigners, altogether at home in Japan. He
appeared to have come into smooth water, placid and unconcerned. Yet I
found him essentially European, in spite of his being so at home in
Japan. You could see that from his very great fairness of complexion,
tense facial expression, and delicate susceptibility. That was obvious.
Then his nose settled it. It struck me at the time as curious that a
foreigner so eager to interpret Japan should be himself so occidental in
appearance. Another point with regard to this first meeting: our
acquaintance lasted for three years, but I do not think I knew him any
better or any more at the end than I did at that first meeting."

Hearn was as unconventional in his dress as in most things, deliberately
protesting against social restrictions in his personal attire. Shy,
diffident people, who above all things wish to avoid attracting
attention, seem so often to forget that if they would only garb
themselves like the rest of the world it would be the best disguise they
could adopt. The jeers and laughter of the passers-by in the streets of
Philadelphia, even the fact that a number of street gamins formed a
queue, the leader holding by his coat-tails while they kept in step,
singing, "Where, where did you get that hat?" had not any effect, Gould
tells us, in inducing him to substitute conventional headgear for the
enormous tropical straw hat, or the reefer coat and flannel shirt, that
he habitually wore.

Mr. Mason, in Japan, told us, that Hearn boasted of