re no book-houses at all--only shops for
the sale of school texts. Should you get the stories, I want you to read
the 'Matsuyama Mirror' first. There is a ghostly beauty that I think you
will feel deeply. After all, the simplest stories are the best.

"I wanted to say many more things; but the mail is about to leave, and I
must stop to-day.

"My little fellow is trying hard to talk and to walk. He is now very
fair and strong.

"Tell me, dear little beautiful sister, how you are always,--give me
good news of yourself,--and love me a little bit. I will write soon
again.

"LAFCADIO HEARN."

In November, 1895, Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain visited him at Kobe,
and then probably the possibility was discussed of Hearn's re-entering
the government service as professor of English in the Imperial
University at Tokyo. But as late as April, 1896, he still seemed
uncertain that his engagement under government was assured.

Professor Toyama wrote to him, saying that his becoming a Japanese
citizen had raised a difficulty, which he hoped might be surmounted.
Hearn replied, that he was not worried about the matter, and had never
allowed himself to consider it very seriously--hinting, at the same
time, that he would not accept a lower salary. If Matsue only had been a
little warmer in the winter, he would rather be teaching there than in
Tokyo, in any event he hoped some day to make a home there.

About this time comes Hearn's last letter to his sister:--

"MY DEAR LITTLE SIS,

"What you say about writing for English papers, etc., is interesting,
but innocent. Men do not get opportunities to dispose of any MS. to
advantage without one of two conditions. Either they must have struck a
popular vein--become popular as writers; or they must have _social_
influence. I am not likely to become popular, and I have no social
influence. No good post would be given me,--as I am not a man of
conventions, and I am highly offensive to the Orthodoxies who have
always tried to starve me to death--without success, happily, as yet. I
am looking, however, for an English publisher, and hope some day to get
a hearing in some London print. But for the time being, it is not what I
wish that I can get, but what I can. Perhaps your eyes will open wide
with surprise to hear that I shall get nothing, or almost nothing for my
books. The contracts deprive me of all but a nominal percentage on the
2nd tho