"It is damp at nights however, and fires are lit of evenings to dry the rooms. You know the land is marshy. Even the dead are unburied,—they are only vaulted up. The cemeteries are vaults, not graveyards. Only the Jews bury their dead; and their dead are buried in water. It is water three—yes, two—feet underground.
"I like the people, especially the French; but of course I might yet have reason to change my opinion....
"Would you be surprised to hear that I have been visiting my UNCLE? Would you be astonished to learn that I was on the verge of poverty? No. Then, forsooth, I will be discreet. One can live here for twenty cents a day—what's the odds? ...
"Yours truly,
"The Prodigal Son"
On the reverse side of an application for a money order, Hearn wrote to Watkin in 1878, some considerable time after his arrival in New Orleans:
"I see the Cincinnati Commercial once in a while, and do not find any difference in it. My departure affecteth its columns not at all. In sooth a man on a daily newspaper is as a grain of mustard seed. Hope I may do better in New Orleans. It is time for a fellow to get out of Cincinnati when they begin to call it the Paris of America. But there are some worse places than Cincinnati. There is Memphis, for example."
At one period, early during his stay in New Orleans, when Hearn began to look back upon what he had accomplished, or rather had failed to accomplish, in his life, he sank into the depths of despair. As was his wont, he wrote from his heart to his sole friend, depending upon him not only for cheer, but for advice. Mr. Watkin refused to take this long letter seriously, teased him about it rather, and advised him not to go to England, but to remain here in this country and persist in one line of work. The Hearn letter, which follows, belongs to the month of February, 1878:
"Dear Old Man: I shall be twenty-eight years old in a few days,—a very few days more; and I am frightened to think how few they are. I am afraid to look at the almanac to find out what day The Day falls upon,—it might fall upon a Friday,—and I can't shake off a superstition about it,—a superstition always outlives a religion. Looking back at the file of these twenty-eight years, which grow more shadowy in receding, I can remember and distinguish the features of at least twenty. There is an alarming similarity of misery in all their faces; and however misty the face, the outlines of misery are remarkably perceptible. Each, too, seems to be a record of similar events,—thwarting of will and desire in every natural way, ill success in every aim, denial of almost every special wish, compulsion to ad upon the principle that everything agreeable was wrong and everything disagreeable right, unpleasant recognition of selfweakness and inability to win success by individual force,—not to mention enormous addenda in the line of novel and wholly unexpected disappointments. Somehow or other, whenever I succeeded in an undertaking, the fruit acquired seemed tasteless and vapid; but usually, when one step more would have been victory, some extraordinary and unanticipated obstacle rose up in impassability. I must acknowledge, however, that, as a general rule, the unexpected obstacle was usually erected by myself;—some loss of temper, impatience, extra-sensitiveness, betrayed and indulged instead of concealed, might be credited with a large majority of failures.
"Without a renovation of individuality, however, I really can see no prospect, beyond the twenty-eighth year, of better years—the years seem to grow worse in regular succession. As to the renovation,—it is hardly possible: don't you think so? Sometimes I think small people without great wills and great energies have no business trying to do much in this wonderful country; the successful men all appear to have gigantic shoulders and preponderant deportments. When I look into the private histories of the young men who achieved success in the special line I have been vainly endeavoring to follow to some termination, I find they generally hanged themselves or starved to death, while their publishers made enormous fortunes and world-wide reputations after their unfortunate and idealistic customers were dead. There were a few exceptions, but these exceptions were cases of extraordinary personal vigor and vital force. So while my whole nature urges me to continue as I have begun, I see nothing in prospect: except starvation, sickness, artificial wants, which I shall never be wealthy enough to even partially gratify, and perhaps utter despair at the end. Then again, while I have not yet lost all confidence in myself, I feel strongly doubtful whether I shall ever have means or leisure to develop the latent (possible) ability within me to do something decently meritorious. Perhaps, had I not been constrained to ambition by necessity, I should never have had any such yearnings about the unattainable and iridescent bubbles of literary success. But that has nothing to do with the question. Such is the proposition now: how can I get out of hell when I have got halfway down to the bottom of it? Can I carry on any kind of business? I can fancy that I see you throw back your head and wag your beard with a hearty laugh at the mere idea, the preposterous idea!