“Whenever he met with a work of any art suited to his taste, he expressed an intense admiration, even for a very small work. A man with a nice and kind heart he was! We often went to see the exhibition of pictures held occasionally in Tōkyō. If he found any piece of work very interesting to him, he spoke of it as cheap though very high in price. ‘What do you think of that?’ my husband says. ‘It is too much high price,’ I say, lest he should immediately buy it quite indifferent of prices. ‘No, I don’t mean about prices. I mean about the picture. Do you think it is very good?’ Then I answer: ‘Yes, a pretty picture, indeed, I think.’ ‘We shall then buy that picture,’ he says, ‘the price is however very cheap; let us offer more money for that.’ As to our financial matter, he was entirely trusting to me. Thus, I, the little treasurer, sometimes suffered on such occasions.
“In those innocent talks of our boys he was pleased to find interesting things. In fact his utmost pleasure was to be acquainted with a thing of beauty. How he was glad to hear my stories. Alas! he is no more! though I sometimes get amusing stories, they are now no use. Formalities were the things he most disliked. His likes and dislikes were always to the extreme. When he liked something he liked extremely. He used to wear a plain cloth; only he was particular about shirts on account of cold. When he had new suit of cloth made, he wore it after my repeated entreaties. Being fond of Japanese cloth, he always puts off foreign cloth when he comes back from without, and, sitting on the cushion so pleasantly, he smokes. At Aizu in summer, he often wore bathing cloth and Japanese sandals.
“He always chose the best and excellent quality of any kind of things, so in purchasing my dress, he often ordered according to his taste. Sometimes he was like an innocent child. One summer we went to a store selling cloth for a bathing cloth (yukata) which I wear in summer-time. The man showed us various kinds of designs, all of which he was so very fond and bought. I said that we need not so many kinds. He said: ‘But think of that. Only one yen and half for a piece. Please put on various kinds of dress, which only to see is pleasant to me.’ He bought some thirty pieces, to the amazement of the store people.
“He resented in his heart that many Japanese people, forgetting of the fact that there exist many beautiful points in things Japanese, are imitating Western style. He regretted that Japan would thus be lost. So he abhorred the foreign style which Japanese assume. He was glad that many Waseda professors wore Japanese haori and hakama. He disliked unharmonized foreign dress of Japanese lady and proud girl speaking English. We one day went to a bazar at Ueno Park. He asked the price of an article in Japanese. The storekeeper, a girl of new school, replied in English. He was displeased and drew my dress and turned away. When he became the professor of Waseda, Dean Takata invited him to his house. It was very rare that he ever accepted an invitation. At the portal, Mrs. Takata welcomed him in Japanese language. This reception greatly pleased him, so he told me when he returned home. In our home, furnitures and even the manner of maids’ hair-dressing were all in genuine Japanese style. If I happened to buy some articles of foreign taste, he would say: ‘Don’t you love Japanese arts?’ He wanted our boy put on Japanese cloths and wear geta instead of shoes. Sometimes in company with him in usual walks, one of our boys would wear shoes. He say: ‘Mamma San, look at my toes. Don’t you mind that our dear children’s toes should become disfigured in such manner as mine?’ As Kazuo’s appearance is very much like a foreigner, he taught him English. Other boys were taught and brought up in Japanese way. We kept no interpreter since our Matsue days. A Japanese guest would come to our house in Western style and smoke cigarettes, but the host receives him in Japanese cloth and does all in Japanese fashion—a curious contrast. With one glance of his nose-glass which he keeps he catches the whole appearance of any first visitor even to the smallest details of the physiognomy. He is extremely near-sighted; and the minute he takes a glance is the whole time of his observation; still his wonderfully keen observation often astonished me.
“One day I read the following story to him from a Japanese paper: ‘A certain nobleman’s old mother is extremely fond of classical Japanese ways, absolutely antagonistic to the modern manners. The maids were to wear obi in old ways. Lamps were not allowed, but paper andō was used instead. Nor soaps were to be used in this household. So maids and servants would not endure long.’ Hearn was very much delighted to learn that there still existed such a family. ‘How I like that!’ he said. ‘I would like to visit them.’ One time I said to him in joke: ‘You are not like Westerner, except in regard to your nose.’ Then he said: ‘What shall I do with this nose? But I am a Japanese. I love Japan better than any born Japanese.’
"Indeed, he loved Japan with his whole heart, but his sincere love for Japan was not very well understood by Japanese.
“When asked anything to him, he would not readily accept that; but everything he did he did it with his sincere and whole heart!
“One day he said to me: ‘Foreign people are very desirous to know of my whereabouts. Some papers have reported that Hearn disappeared from the world. What do you think of this? How funny!—disappeared from the world.’ Thus his chief pleasure was only to write, without being disturbed from without. O, while I thus talk of my dear husband’s life, I feel in myself as if I were being scolded by him why I was thus talking of him. ‘Where is Hearn now? He has disappeared from the world.’ This was his desire—unknown to the rest of the world. But though he would scold me I wish to tell about him more and more.
“When he was engaged in writing he was so enthusiastically that any small noise was a great pain to him. So I always tried to keep the house still in regard to the opening and shutting of doors, the footsteps of family, etc.; and I always chose to enter his room when necessary as I heard the sound of his pipes (tobacco-smoking pipes) and his songs in a high voice. But after removal to Ōkubo, our house was wide enough and his library was very remote from the children’s room and the portal. So he could enjoy his enjoyment in the world of calmness.