diffuseness, but it lacks the delicate touches,
the indications of character by small incidents, and realistic details,
that render Pierre Loti's novels, for instance, so vividly actual and
accurate. It is strong to the highest emotional pitch, and some of the
descriptions are marvellous, but the book gives the impression of being
fragmentary and unfinished.

After two years of exclusive intellectual communion and discussion of
literary matters between Lafcadio Hearn and Miss Bisland, he suddenly,
writing from Philadelphia, declares his intention of never addressing
her as Miss Bisland again except upon an envelope.

"It is a formality--and you are you; and you are not a formality--but a
somewhat--and I am only I."[15]

[15] "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn," Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

After this the personal note becomes predominant, and Miss Bisland
ceases, even on paper, to be a formality in Lafcadio Hearn's emotional
life.

During the course of the same summer, Hearn went to the West Indies for
his three months' midsummer trip. From thence he wrote one or two
delightful letters to the Lady of a Myriad Souls. In the same year he
was again in New York, but almost immediately accepted an offer made to
him by the Harpers to return to the West Indies for two years.

The following letter tells its own tale, and so daintily and
pathetically that one does not feel as if one could change a word:--

"Your letter reached me when everything that had seemed solid was
breaking up, and Substance had become Shadow. It made me very
foolish--made me cry. Your rebuke for the trivial phrase in my letter
was very beautiful as well as very richly deserved. But I don't think it
is a question of volition. It is necessary to obey the impulses of the
Unknown for Art's sake,--or rather, you _must_ obey them. The Spahi's
fascination by the invisible forces was purely physical. I think I am
right in going; perhaps I am wrong in thinking of making the tropics a
home. Probably it will be the same thing over again: impulse and chance
compelling another change.

"The carriage--no, the New York hack and hackman (no romance or
sentimentality about these!) is waiting to take me to Pier 49 East
River. So I must end. But I have written such a ridiculous letter that I
shan't put anybody's name to it."[16]

[16] "The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn," Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

In 1889 he again returned to America, and went for his famous