rgreens, and
within we could see some daffodils, blue hyacinths and primroses. Mrs.
Koizumi told us that the bed was called the "English garden," and that
Hearn had bought the bulbs and plants and made the gardener plant them.
Somehow that little flower-bed, in that far-away country, so alien to
his own, seemed to me to express most of the pathos of Lafcadio Hearn's
life.

Here, "overseas, alone," he had put in those "English posies,"
daffodils, and primroses, and hyacinths, with a longing in his heart to
smell once more the peat-laden atmosphere of his Irish home, to see the
daisy-strewn meadows of Tramore, and the long sunlit slopes of Lough
Corrib.

"Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas,
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these,
Unto each his mother beach, bloom and bird and land--
Masters of the Seven Seas, Oh! love and understand!"

CHAPTER XXVIII
SECOND VISIT TO NISHI OKUBO

"Evil winds from the West are blowing over Horai; and the
magical atmosphere, alas! is shrinking away before them. It
lingers now in patches only, and bands,--like those long
bright bands of cloud that trail across the landscapes of
Japanese painters. Under these shreds of the elfish vapour
you still can find Horai--but not elsewhere.... Remember that
Horai is also called Shinkiro, which signifies Mirage,--the
Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading,--never
again to appear save in pictures and poems and dreams...."

Before we took our departure Mrs. Koizumi--through the medium of
Professor Tanabe--asked us again to honour her "contemptible abode" on
Friday the 26th, the day of the month on which the "August One" had
died, when, therefore, according to Japanese custom, the incense sticks
and the lamp were lighted before the _Butsudan_ and a repast laid out in
honour of the dead.

That day also, she told us, Kazuo would conduct us to the Zoshigaya
Cemetery where we might see his father's grave, and place flowers in the
flower cups before the tombstone. The invitation was gladly accepted,
and with numerous bows on both sides (we were gradually learning how to
spend five minutes over each hand-shake) we made our return journey to
the Metropole Hotel.

The four subsequent days were spent by my friends sight-seeing; they
went to Nikko, an expedition which took thr