than 'shall.' The word 'shall' in the second person especially
has for me a queer identification with English harshness and
menace,--memories of school perhaps. I shall study the differences by
your teaching and try to avoid mistakes, but I think I shall never be
able to feel the distinction. The tone to me is everything--the word
nothing."

The best essays in "Kokoro" were inspired, not by Kobe, but by Kyoto,
one of the most beautiful cities in Japan, seat of the ancient
government and stronghold of the ancient creeds. It lies only a short
distance from Kobe, and many were the days and hours that Hearn spent
dreaming in the charming old-fashioned hotel and picking up impressions
amidst the Buddhist shrines and gardens of the surrounding country.
"Notes from a Travelling Diary," "Pre-existence," and the charming
sketch "Kimiko," written on the text "To wish to be forgotten by the
beloved is a soul-task harder far than trying not to forget," all
originated in Kyoto.

In a letter to his sister dated March 11th, 1895, he alludes to his book
"Kokoro."

"My sweet little beautiful sister, since my book is being so long
delayed I may anticipate matters by telling you something of the
so-called Ancestor-Worship of which I spoke in my last letter. The
subject is not in any popular work on Japan, and I think should interest
you, if for no other reason than that you are yourself such a sweet
little mother.

"When a person dies in Japan, a little tablet is made which stands upon
a pedestal, and is about a foot high. On this narrow tablet is inscribed
either the real name of the dead, or the Buddhist name given to the
soul. This is the Mortuary Tablet, or as you have sometimes seen it
called in books, the Ancestral Tablet.

"If children die they also have tablets in the home, but they are not
prayed to,--but prayed _for_. Nightly the Mother talks to her dead
child, advising, reminding, with words of caress,--just as if the little
one were alive, and a tiny lamp is lighted to guide the little ghostly
feet home.

"Well, I do not want to write a dry essay for you, but in view of all
the unkind things said about Japanese beliefs, I thought you might like
to hear this, for I think you will feel there is something beautiful in
the rule of reverence to the dead.

"I hope, though I am not at all sure, that you will receive some fairy
tales by this same mail,--as I have trusted the sending of them to a
Yokohama friend. Here there a