It was magnanimous of Hearn to dedicate "Gleanings in Buddha Fields" to the doctor after this incident. McDonald and his genial surroundings seemed to have thoroughly understood how to manage the little man. When he became irritable and unreasonable they apparently took not the least notice, and good-naturedly wheedled him back into a good temper again--treated him, in fact, as Mr. Watkin had treated him during his attacks of temper at Cincinnati.
So, without any real break, this friendship, as well as Mrs. Wetmore's, lasted until the end. Since Hearn's death, Captain McDonald has loyally stood by his widow and children, taking upon himself the self-imposed duties of executor, collecting together scattered MS., and arranging the sale of the copyright of his books in the United States.
"Every one has an inner life of his own,--which no other eye can see, and the great secrets of which are never revealed, although occasionally, when we create something beautiful, we betray a faint glimpse of it--sudden and brief, as of a door opening and shutting in the night.... Are we not all Dopplegangers?--and is not the invisible the only life we really enjoy?"
In spite of his railings against Tokyo, Hearn was probably happier at Ushigome and Nishi Okubo than he had ever been during his other sojournings in Japan, excepting always the enchanted year at Matsue.
To paraphrase George Barrow, there was day and night, both sweet things, sun, moon, and stars, all sweet things, likewise there was the wind that rustled through the bamboo-grove.
Hearn had all the oriental's scorn of comfort: so long as he could indulge in the luxury of dreaming and writing, his pipe and Webster's Dictionary within reach, he asked for little else.
This master of impressionist prose confessed--in his diffident and humble manner where his art was concerned--that now for the first time he began to write English with ease. Roget's "Thesaurus," and Skeat's "Etymological Dictionary" were definitely discarded. He recognised, also, that he had caught the ear of the public, not only in America but in England.
The manner of Hearn's life at this time entirely contradicts his pessimistic statements, that "the Holy Ghost had deserted him ...," that "he had lost his pen of fire ...," and that he was "like a caged cicada that could not sing."