and
these three traditions are fused by the peculiar sympathies of his mind
into one rich and novel compound,--a compound so rare as to have
introduced into literature a psychological sensation unknown before.
More than any other living author he has added a new thrill to our
intellectual experience."

When at Tokyo, if you find your way into the street called Naka-dori,
where ancient curios and embroideries are to be bought--you will
perchance be shown a wonderful fabric minutely intersected with delicate
traceries on a dark-coloured texture. If you are accompanied by any one
who is acquainted with ancient Japanese embroidery, they will show you
that these traceries are fine Japanese ideographs; poems, proverbs,
legends, embroidered by the laying on of thread by thread all over the
tissue, producing a most harmonious and beautiful effect. Thus did
Hearn, like these ancient artificers, weave ancient theories of
pre-existence and Karma into spiritual fantasies and imaginations. Ever
in consonance with wider interests his work opened up strange regions of
dreamland, touched trains of thought that run far beyond the boundaries
of men's ordinary mental horizon. In his sketch, for instance, called
the "Mountain of Skulls,"[17] how weirdly does he make use of the idea of
pre-existence. A young man and his guide are pictured climbing up a
mountain, where was no beaten path, the way lying over an endless
heaping of tumbled fragments.

[17] "In Ghostly Japan," Little, Brown & Co.

Under the stars they climbed, aided by some superhuman power, and as
they climbed the fragments under their feet yielded with soft dull
crashings.... And once the pilgrim youth laid hand on something smooth
that was not stone--and lifted it--and was startled by the cheekless
gibe of death.

In his inimitable way, Hearn tells how the dawn breaks, casting a light
on the monstrous measureless height round them. "All of these skulls and
dust of bones, my son, are your own!" says his guide. "Each has at some
time been the nest of your dreams and delusions and desires."

The Buddhist idea of pre-existence has been believed in by orientals
from time immemorial; in the Sacontala the Indian poet, Calidas, says:
"Perhaps the sadness of men, in seeing beautiful forms and hearing sweet
music, arises from some remembrance of past joys, and the traces of
connections in a former state of existence." The idea has been re-echoed
by many in our own time, but by no