the names of the boys, even with the class-roll before him,
almost an insurmountable difficulty. Nishida helped him; gave him all
the necessary instructions about hours and text-books, placed his desk
close to his, the better to prompt him in school hours, and introduced
him to the directors and to the governor of the province. "Out of the
East," the volume written later at Kumamoto, was dedicated to Nishida
Sentaro, "In dear remembrance of Izumo days."

"Hearn's faith in this good friend was something wonderful," his wife
tells us. "When he heard of Nishida's illness, in 1897, he exclaimed: 'I
would not mind losing everything that belongs to me if I could make him
well.' He believed in him with such a faith only possible to a child."

Nishida Sentaro was also one of the ancient lineage and caste, and an
intimate friend of the Koizumi family.

Matsue had been at one time almost exclusively occupied by the Samurai
feudal lords. After throwing open her doors to the world, and admitting
western civilisation, Japan found herself obliged to accept, amongst
other democratic innovations, the sweeping away of the great feudal and
military past, reducing families of rank to obscurity and poverty.
Youths and maidens of illustrious extraction, who had only mastered the
"arts of courtesy" and the "arts of war," found themselves obliged to
adopt the humblest occupations to provide themselves and their families
with the means of livelihood. Daughters of men once looked upon as
aristocrats had to become indoor servants with people of a lower caste,
or to undertake the austere drudgery of the rice-fields or the
lotus-ponds. Their houses and lands were confiscated--their heirlooms,
costly robes, crested lacquer ware, passed at starvation prices to those
whom "misery makes rich." Amongst these aristocrats the Koizumis were
numbered. Nishida Sentaro, knowing their miserable circumstances, and
seeing how advisable it would be, if it were Hearn's intention to remain
in Japan, to have a settled home of his own, formed the idea of bringing
about a union between Setsu and the English teacher at the Matsue
College.

On his own initiative he undertook the task of approaching his foreign
friend. Finding him favourably inclined, he suggested the marriage as a
suitable one to Setsu's parents.

It is supposed that marriage in Japan must be solemnised by a priest,
but this is not so. A Japanese marriage is simply a legal pledge, and is
not inve