After these two catastrophes the little man became almost comically terrified at financial enterprise of any kind, even the investment of money in dividend-paying concerns. When Captain Mitchell McDonald later, in Japan, endeavoured to induce him to put his money into various lucrative concerns, Hearn declared that he would prefer to lose everything he owned than submit to the worry of investing it. The mere idea of business was "a horror, a nightmare, a torture unspeakable."
Though apparently only journalising and translating, Hearn was piling up experiences and sensations, not making use of them except in letters, but laying down the concrete and setting the foundation for his work in the West Indies and Japan. "The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a friendly, distant party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them silently away." Emerson did not take into account those apparently infertile periods in an artist's life, when the days come and go, but though they pass silently away, all their gifts are not unused, nor is their passage unproductive. How invaluable, for instance, was Hearn's study of Creole proverbs for his "Two Years in the French West Indies." How invaluable for his interpretation of the Orient were the studies he undertook for "Strange Leaves from Strange Literature," and his six small adaptations entitled "Chinese Ghosts."
After several refusals "Stray Leaves" was accepted for publication by Osgood. He thus announced the fact to his friend Krehbiel:--
"'Stray Leaves,' etc., have been accepted by James R. Osgood and Co. Congratulate your little Dreamer of Monstrous Dreams,
The book was dedicated to "Page M. Baker, Editor of the New Orleans _Times Democrat_."
This series of small sketches is typical of the clarity of language and purity of thought that invariably distinguish Hearn's work; but it lacks the realism, the keenness of _choses vues_, so characteristic of his Japanese sketches. There is none of the haunting, moving tragedy and ghostliness, the spiritual imagination and introspection of "Kokoro" or the "Exotics." Though polished and scholarly, showing refinement in the use of words, the interest is remote and visionary, permeated here and there also with a certain amount of Celtic sentimentality, a "Tommy Moore" flavour, somewhat too saccharine in quality. The one, for instance, called "Boutimar" treats of a very hackneyed subject, the offering of the water of youth, and life without end, to Solomon, and the sage's refusal, because of the remembrance suggested by Boutimar that he would outlive children, friends and all whom he loved; therefore "Solomon, without reply, silently put out his arm and gave back the cup.... But upon the prophet-king's rich beard, besprinkled with powder of gold, there appeared another glitter as of clear dew,--the diamond dew of the heart, which is tears."