uch less are we suffered to become
after death small gods in our own right. How can we pity the
folly of Urashima after he had lived so long alone with
visible gods?

"Perhaps the fact that we do may answer the riddle. This pity
must be self-pity; wherefore the legend may be the legend of a
myriad souls. The thought of it comes just at a particular
time of blue light and soft wind,--and always like an old
reproach. It has too intimate relation to a season and the
feeling of a season not to be also related to something real
in one's life, or in the lives of one's ancestors."

Only for a year did Hearn's sojourn in Fairyland last. The winter
following his arrival was a very severe one. The northern coast of Japan
lies open to the Arctic winds blowing over the snow-covered plains of
Siberia. Heavy falls of snow left drifts five feet high round the
_Yashiki_ on the hill. The large rooms, so delightful in the summer with
their verandah opening on the garden, were cold as "cattle barns" in
winter, with nothing but charcoal braziers to heat them. He dare not
face another such experience, and asked, if possible, to be transferred
to warmer quarters. Aided again by his friend, Professor Chamberlain,
the authorities at Tokyo were induced to give him the professorship of
English at the Imperial University at Kumamoto.

Kumamoto is situated in Kyushu, facing Formosa and the Chinese coast;
the climate, therefore, is much milder than that of Matsue. Here,
however, began Hearn's first disillusionment; like Urashima Taro, having
dwelt within the precincts of Fairyland he felt the shock of returning
to Earth again. The city struck him as being ugly and commonplace, a
half-Europeanised garrison town, resounding to the sounds of bugles and
the drilling of soldiers, instead of pilgrim songs and temple bells.
"But Lord! I must try to make money; for nothing is sure in Japan and I
am now so tied down to the country that I can't quit it, except for a
trip, whether the Government employs me or not."

He began to look back with regret to the days passed at Matsue. "You
must travel out of Izumo," he said, "after a long residence, and find
out how unutterably different it is from other places,--for instance,
this country ... the charming simplicity of the Izumo folk does not here
exist."

All his Izumo servants had accompanied him to his new quarters, and
apparently all his wife's family,