"After all I am rather a lucky fellow," he writes to McDonald, "a most peculiarly lucky fellow, principally owing to the note written by a certain sweet young lady, whose portrait now looks down on me from the ceiling of No. 21, Tomihasa-chio."
Writing from Tokyo to Mrs. Wetmore, in January, 1900, he tells her that above the table was a portrait of a young American officer in uniform,—a very dear picture. Many a time, Hearn said, they had sat up till midnight, talking about things.
The conversation at these dinners, eaten overlooking the stretch of Yokohama Harbour, with the sound of the waves lapping on the harbour wall beneath, and the ships and boats passing to and fro beyond, never seems to have been about literary matters, which perhaps accounts for the friendship between the two lasting so long. "Like Antæus I feel always so much more of a man, after a little contact with your reality, not so much of a literary man however."
The salt spray that Hearn loved so well seemed to cling to McDonald, the breeziness of a sailor's yarning ran through their after-dinner talks, the adventures of naval life at sea, and at the ports where McDonald had touched during his service. He was always urging McDonald to give him material for stories, studies of the life of the "open ports"—only real facts—not names or dates—real facts of beauty, or pathos, or tragedy. He felt that all the life of the open ports is not commonplace; there were heroisms and romances in it; and there was really nothing in this world as wonderful as life itself. All real life was a marvel, but in Japan a marvel that was hidden as much as possible—"especially hidden from dangerous chatterers like Lafcadio Hearn."
If he could get together a book of short stories—six would be enough—he would make a dedication of it to M. McD. as prettily as he could.
Under the soothing influence of a good cigar, Hearn would even take his friend into his confidence about many incidents in his own past life—that past life which generally was jealously guarded from the outside world. He tells McDonald the pleasure it gives him, his saying that he resembles his father, but "I have more smallness in me than you can suspect. How could it be otherwise! If a man lives like a rat for twenty or twenty-five years he must have acquired something of the disposition peculiar to house rodents, mustn't he?"
The communion between these two was more like that between some popular, athletic, sixth-form boy at Eton, whose softer side had been touched by the forlornness of a shy, sickly, bullied minor, than that between two middle-aged men, one representing the United States in an official capacity, the other one of the most famous writers of the day. The first letter relates to a visit that McDonald apparently paid to Ushigome, an audacious proceeding that few ventured upon.
Hearn expressed his appreciation of McDonald's good nature in coming to his miserable little shanty, over a muddy chaos of street—the charming way in which he accepted the horrid attempt at entertainment, and his interest and sympathy in Hearn's affairs.
In the house at Nishi Okubo mementoes are still preserved of McDonald's visits. A rocking-chair,—rare piece of furniture in a Japanese establishment—a spirit lamp, and an American cigar-ash holder.
McDonald apparently saw, as Dr. Papellier had seen at Kobe, that Hearn was killing himself by his ascetic Japanese mode of life. Raw fish and lotus roots were not food suited for the heavy brain work Hearn was doing, besides his professional duties at the university. McDonald, therefore, insisted on being allowed to send him wine and delicacies of all sorts.