rpers were obliged to make arrangements to
transmit the money through a friend in Japan, and it was only after
considerable persuasion and a lapse of several years that he was induced
to accept it. So often in his career through life Hearn proved an
exemplification of his own statement. Those who are checked by emotional
feeling, where no check is placed on competition, must fail.
Uncontrolled emotional feeling was the rock on which he split, at this
and many other critical moments in his career.

He had brought a letter of introduction, presumably from Harpers, the
publishers, to Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, professor, of English
literature at the Tokyo University, the well-known author of "Things
Japanese." On his arrival, Hearn thought of obtaining a position as
teacher in a Japanese family, so as to master the spoken language.
Simply to have a small room where he could write would satisfy him, he
told Professor Chamberlain, and so long as he was boarded he would not
ask for remuneration. He knew, also, that he could not carry out his
fixed determination of writing a comprehensive book on Japan, without
passing several years exclusively amongst the Japanese people.

Chamberlain, however, saw at once that Hearn's capacities were far
superior to those necessary for a private tutorship. Having been so long
resident in Japan, and written so much upon the country, as well as
occupying a professorship in Tokyo Imperial University, his influence in
Japanese official life was considerable; he now bestirred himself, and
succeeded in getting Hearn an appointment as English teacher in the
Jinjo Chugakko, or ordinary middle school, at Matsue, in the province of
Izumo, for the term of one year.

A week or two later Hearn was able to announce to his dear sister,
Elizabeth, that he was going to become a country schoolmaster in Japan.

On several occasions Professor Chamberlain held out the kindly hand of
comradeship to Lafcadio; to him Hearn owed his subsequent appointment at
the Tokyo University.

For five or six years the two men were bound together in a close
communion of intellectual enthusiasms and mutual interests, as is easy
to see by the wonderful correspondence recently published. To him and to
Paymaster Mitchell McDonald, Lafcadio dedicated his "Glimpses of
Unfamiliar Japan."

TO THE FRIENDS
WHOSE KINDNESS ALONE RENDERED POSSIBLE
MY SOJOURN