Not until 1900 were all the long estranging years that lay between the time when he had last seen her in New York and the period of his professorship at a Japanese college forgotten, and he fell back on the simple human affection of their early intercourse. No longer did he think of her as the rich, beautiful, fashionable woman, but as the jeune fille un peu farouche, who in distant New Orleans days had understood and expressed a belief in his genius with all a girl's unsophisticated enthusiasm. She had written to him, and he gives her a whimsically pathetic answer, touching on memories, on thoughts, on aspirations, which had been a closed book for so long a period of time, and now, when re-opened, was seen to be printed as clearly on mind and heart as if he had parted with her but an hour before.
About a dozen letters succeed one another, and in September, 1904—the month in which he died—comes his last. He tells her that to see her handwriting again, upon the familiar blue envelope, was a great pleasure; except that the praise she lavished upon him was undeserved. He then refers to the dedication of the "Japanese Miscellany" which he had made to her. "The book is not a bad book in its way, and perhaps you will later on find no reason to be sorry for your good opinions of the writer. I presume that you are far too clever to believe more than truth, and I stand tolerably well in the opinion of a few estimable people in spite of adverse tongues and pens...."
He then tells her that the "Rejected Addresses," the name in writing to her he had given to "Japan, an Interpretation," would shortly appear in book form.... "I don't like the idea of writing a serious treatise on sociology; I ought to keep to the study of birds and cats and insects and flowers, and queer small things—and leave the subject of the destiny of Empires to men of brains. Unfortunately, the men of brains will not state the truth as they see it. If you find any good in the book, despite the conditions under which it was written, you will recognise your share in the necessarily ephemeral value thereof.
"May all good things ever come to you, and abide."
It is said by many, especially those who knew Hearn in later years, that he was heartless, capricious, incapable of constancy to any affection or sentiment, and yet, set forth so that all "who run may read," is this record of a devotion and friendship, cherished for a quarter of a century, lasting intact through fair years and foul, through absence, change of scene, even of nationality.
"Fear not, I say again; believe it true
That not as men mete shall I measure you...."
Time, besides his scythe and hour-glass, carries an accurate gauge for the estimation of human character and genius.