ameful 'only.'"

They seemed to have exchanged books and discussed things, and laughed
and made jokes school-boy fashion. Hearn talks of their sprees, their
dinners, their tiffins, "irresistibles," and alludes to "blue ghost" and
"blue soul"--names given to some potation partaken of at the club or at
the hotel. It shows McDonald's powers of persuasion that Hearn was
tempted out of his shell at Ushigome to pass two or three days at
Yokohama. Sunlit hours were these in the exile's life. Three days passed
with his friend at Yokohama were, Hearn declares, the most pleasurable
in a pilgrimage of forty-seven years.

"What a glorious day we did have!" he says again. "Wonder if I shall
ever be able to make a thumb-nail literary study thereof,--with
philosophical reflections. The Naval Officer, the Buddhist Philosopher
(Amenomori), and the wandering Evolutionist. The impression is
altogether too sunny and happy and queer, to be forever lost to the
world. I must think it up some day...." There is something pathetic in
these healthy-minded, healthy-bodied men petting and making much of the
little genius, half in pity, half in admiration, recognising in an
indefinite way that some divine attribute was his.

McDonald, in his enthusiastic sailor fashion, used to express his belief
in Hearn's genius, telling him that he was a greater writer than Loti.
Being a practical person, he was apparently continually endeavouring to
try and induce his little friend to take a monetary view of his
intellectual capacities. Hearn tells him that he understands why he
wished him to write fiction--he wanted him to make some profit out of
his pen, and he knew that "fiction" was about the only stuff that really
paid. Then he sets forth the reasons why men like himself didn't write
more fiction. First of all, he had little knowledge of life, and by that
very want of knowledge was debarred from mixing with the life which
alone can furnish the material. They can _divine_, but must have some
chances to do that, for society everywhere suspects them. Men like
Kipling belong to the great Life Struggle, and the world believes them
and worships them; "but Dreamers that talk about pre-existence, and who
think differently from common-sense folk, are quite outside of social
existence."

Then his old dream of being able to travel was again adverted to, or
even an independence that would liberate him from slavery to
officialdom--but he had too many little butterfl