"I should like to see your new home. The other one was very cosy; but perhaps this is even better. What I also want to see is No. 16 Longworth Street, and to hear the ticking of the old clock that used to sound like the steps of a long-legged man walking on pavement. Effie wrote me a dear, pretty letter. Thank her for me. It is just about seven years now since I saw Dad. I suppose he looks now more like Homer than ever. .1 have become somewhat grey, and have crow's-feet around my eyes. Also I have become fat, and disinclined for violent exercise. In other words, I'm getting down the shady side of the hill,—and the horizon before me is already darkening, and the winds blowing out of it, cold. And I am not in the least concerned about the enigmas,—except that I wonder what my boy will do if I don't live to be nearly as old as Dad. Ever with all affectionate regards to him and yourself and Effie,
"Lafcadio Hearn"
In 1896 Mr. Watkin, partially recovered from his injuries, wrote Hearn a letter, and received a last one from him,—a reply in which the writer finally placed the seal upon the finest friendship in his history. Unlike some of his other attempts at prophecy, Hearn's predictions in this last letter failed to come true. He never saw his old friend again, and the old gentleman, at the age of eighty-two, now occupies a room in the Old Men's Home in Cincinnati, counting among his chief treasures the letters which have been here presented.
"Kobe
"Nakayamatedori
"7-chome
"Bangai 16
"May 23,'96
"Dear Old Dad: How nice to get so dear a letter from you! I know the cost to you of writing it, and my dear old father must not imagine that I do not understand why he cannot write often. With his little grey boy it is much the same now: he finds it hard to write letters, and he has very few correspondents. Why, indeed, should he have many? True men are few; and the autograph-hunters, and the scheming class of small publishers, and the people, who want gratis information about commercial matters in Japan are not considered by him as correspondents. They never get any answers. I have two or three dear friends in this world: is not that enough?—you being oldest and dearest. To feel that one has them is much.
"But I must ask many pardons. I fear Miss Effie will not forgive me for not acknowledging ere now the receipt of a photograph, which surprised as much as it pleased me. To think of the little girl having so developed into the fine serious woman! How old it makes me feel! for I remember Miss Effie when she was so little. Please ask her to forgive me. I was away when the photograph came (in Kyoto), and when I returned, lazily put off writing from day to day. There was, however, some excuse for my laziness. I have been very sick with inflammation of the lungs, and am getting well very slowly. But all danger is practically over.
"I see from the kind letter of protest bearing your initials that the idealism which makes love has never gone out of your heart when you think of me. It is all much more real than any materialism; see, you always predicted that I should be able to do something, while extremely practical, materialistic people predicted that I should end in jail or at the termination of a rope. And your prediction seems to have been wiser,—for at last, at last I am attracting a little attention in England.... Also I see (what I did not know before) that some people have been writing horrid things about me. I expected it, sooner or later, as I have been an open enemy of the missionaries; and, besides, the least success in this world must be atoned for. The price is heavy. Those who ignore you when you are nobody find it necessary to hate you when you disappoint their expectations. But if I keep my health I need not care very much. The incident only brought out some of the honey in dear old Dad's heart.
"You ask about my boy. I can best respond by sending his last photo,—nearly three years old now. If I can educate him in France or Italy, it would be better for him, I think. He is very sensitive; and I am afraid of American or English school training for him. I only pray the Gods will spare me till he is eighteen or twenty. I am watching to see what he will develop; if he have any natural gift, I shall try to cultivate only that gift. Ornamental education is a wicked, farcical waste of time. It left me incapacitated to do anything; and I still feel the sorrow of the sin of having dissipated ten years in Latin and Greek, and stuff,... when a knowledge of some one practical thing, and of a modern language or two, would have been of so much service. As it is, I am only self-taught; for everything I learned in school I have since had to unlearn. You helped me with some of the unlearning, dear old Dad!
"I really expect to see you. You are only seventy-two, and hale, and I trust you have long years before you, and that we shall meet. About the business depression, I hear that it is passing and that 'flush times' are in store for the West. This, I trust, will be. Oh, no! I shall not have to look for you 'in the old men's home,'—no, I shall see you in your own home,—and talk queer talk to you.
"For the time being (indeed, for two years) I have lived altogether by literary work, without breaking my little reserves, and it is likely that better things are in store for me. I am anxious for success,—for the boy's sake above all. To have the future of others to make—to feel the responsibilities—certainly changes the face of life. I am always frightened, of course; but I work and hope. That is the best, is it not? Remember me to all kind friends. Ask Effie to forgive my rude silence, and all yours to believe my love and constant remembrance.