itions, he was damning the Japanese and expressing
his hatred of those surrounding him, the only answer to be given to
those who blame him is to tell them to visit Japan, to reside in the
primitive portions of the country, with its ancient shrines, quaint
villages, courteous ways, and afterwards go to Tokyo or one of the open
ports, see the modern Japanese man in bowler hat and American
clothes--then and then only will they be able to understand what an
artist, such as Hearn, must have suffered in watching the transformation
being effected. On the subject of Old Japan he never changed his
opinion, which was, perhaps, from certain points of view,
over-enthusiastic. This very enthusiasm, however, enabled him to
accumulate impressions which, if he had been indifferent, would not have
stamped themselves on his imagination. Hearn's genius was essentially
subjective, the outer aspect of his work was the outcome of an inward
vision. We should never have had this inward vision so clearly revealed,
if it had not been, as it were, mirrored in a heart full of sympathy and
appreciation. You must strike an average between his admiration and
dislike of the kingdom of his adoption, as you must strike an average in
his expressions of literary and political opinion.

In consequence of Hearn's railings against Fate, the world has come to
the conclusion that his was a particularly ill-starred life. But the
tragedy really lay in the temperament of the man himself. Circumstances
were by no means adverse to the development of his genius. The most
salient misfortune that befell him, the loss of his inheritance, saved
him, most likely, from artistic sterility. With his impressionable
nature, an atmosphere of wealth and luxury might have paralysed his
mental activity. It was certainly a lucky star that led him to New
Orleans, and later to the West Indies; and what a supreme piece of good
fortune was the chance that came to him of spending the last fourteen
years of his life in Japan, before the ancient civilisation had been
swept away. It was pitiful, people say, to think of Hearn's poverty in
the end, but when you see his Tokyo house, with its speckless
cleanliness, its peace, its calm, you will no longer regret that his
means did not enable him to leave it. Japan was the country made for
him, and not the least benign ordinance that Fate imposed upon him was
his inability to accept the invitation, given to him during the last
years of his life