Gould and some of
Hearn's friends. It is as well perhaps, therefore, to go into detail as
little as possible.

A passage occurs in one of Hearn's letters to Ellwood Hendrik which
disposes of the matter. "Of course we shall never see each other again
in this world, and what is the use of being unkind after all?... The
effect is certainly to convince a man of forty-four that the less he has
to do with his fellowmen the better, or, at least, that the less he has
to do with the so-called 'cultured' the better...."

From the city of doctors and Quakers, Hearn wrote several letters to
Miss Bisland, at first entirely formal upon literary subjects. He
couldn't say when he was going to New York, as he was tied up by
business muddle, waiting for information, anxious beyond expression
about an undecided plan, shivering with cold, and longing for the
tropics.

Lights are thrown upon his emotional and intellectual life in letters
written in the autumn to Dr. Gould from New York.

Japan was looming large on the oriental horizon. A book by Percival
Lowell, entitled "The Soul of the Far East," had just appeared. It
apparently made a profound impression upon Hearn; every word he declared
to be dynamic, as lucid and philosophical as Schopenhauer. All his
former enthusiasm for Japan was aroused, he followed her progress with
the deepest interest. The Japanese constitution had been promulgated in
1889, the first diet had met in Tokyo in 1890, the simultaneous
reconstruction of her army, and creation of a navy, was gradually
placing her in the van of far eastern nations; and, what was more
important to commercial America, her trade had enormously developed
under the new regime.

Harpers, the publishers, came to the conclusion that it would be
expedient to send one of their staff to Tokyo as regular correspondent;
Hearn had succeeded in catching the attention of the public by his story
of "Chita" and "A Midsummer Trip," that had both been published serially
in their magazine. With his graphic and picturesque pen he would
adequately, they thought, fill the post.

In an interview with the managing director he was approached upon the
subject, and, needless to say, eagerly accepted the offer. It was
arranged, therefore, that, accompanied by Charles D. Weldon, one of
Harpers' artists, he was to start in the beginning of the March of 1890
for the Far East.

Little did Hearn realise that the strange land for which he was bound
was to rec