On another occasion, the little woman, seeing by the expression of his face that he was in a bad temper when writing to his publisher, got possession of the letter and "posted it in a drawer," asking him next day whether he would not like to withhold some of the correspondence. He acted on the hint thus wisely given, and the letter "was never sent."
She describes him blowing for fun into a conch shell he had bought one day at Enoshima, delighting, like a mischievous boy, in the billowy sound that filled the room; or holding it to his ear to "listen to the murmur of the august abodes from whence it came." Happy in his garden and simple things—"the poet's home is to him the whole world," as the Japanese poem says—we see him talking, laughing, and singing at meals. "He had two kinds of laughter," his wife says, "one being a womanish sort of laughter, soft and deep; the other joyous and open-hearted, a catching sort of laughter, as if all trouble were forgotten, and when he laughed the whole household laughed, too."
His multiplying family was growing up healthy and intelligent. He was kept in touch with youth and vigorous life, through intercourse with them and his pupils at the university. The account given us of his merrymaking with his children puts a very different aspect on Hearn's nature and outlook on life. However crabbed and reserved his attitude towards the outside world might be, at home with his children he was the cheeriest of comrades, expansive and affectionate. Sometimes he would play "onigokko," or devil-catching play (hide-and-seek), with them in the garden. "Though no adept in the Japanese language, he succeeded in learning the words of several children's songs, the Tokyo Sunset Song, for instance—
"Yu-yake!
Ko-yake!
Ashita wa tenki ni nare."
"Evening-burning!
Little-burning!
Weather, be fair to-morrow!"
or the Song of "Urashima Taro."
He was much given to drawing, making pen-and-ink sketches illustrating quotations from English poetry for his eldest boy, Kazuo. Some of these which have recently been published are quite suggestively charming, distinguished by that quaint sadness which runs through all his work. In one, illustrative of Kingsley's "Three Fishers," though the lighthouse has a slight slant to leeward, the sea and clouds give an effect of storm and impending disaster which is wonderful.
He was too near-sighted to be allowed to walk alone in the bustling, crowded streets of Tokyo; he one day, indeed, sprained his ankle severely, stumbling over a heap of stones and earth that he did not see. But in Kazuo's and his wife's company, he explored every corner of the district where he lived. He very seldom spoke, she tells us, as he walked with bent head, and they followed silently so as not to disturb his meditations. There was not a temple unknown to him in Zoshigaya, Ochiai, and the neighbouring quarters. He always carried a little note-book, and frequently brought it out to make notes of what he saw as they passed along.
An ancient garden belonging to a temple near his house was a favourite resort, until one day he found three of the cedar trees cut down; this piece of vandalism, for the sake of selling the timber, made him so miserable that he refused any longer to enter the precincts, and for some time contented himself with a stroll round the lake in the university grounds. One of his students describes Hearn's slightly stooping form, surmounted by a soft broad-brimmed hat, pacing slowly and contemplatively along the lake, or sitting upon a stone on the shore, smoking his Japanese pipe.
Though Hearn hated the ceremonious functions connected with his professional position, he was by no means averse, during the first half of his stay at Tokyo,—whilst his health indeed still permitted the indulgences—to a good dinner and cigar, in congenial company at the club. He was often compelled, at dinner, we were told, to ask some one at his elbow what was in his plate; sometimes a friend would make jestingly misleading replies, to which he would cheerfully respond: "Very well, if you can eat it, so can I."