Lafcadio Hearn 
Leaves From the Diary of an Impressionist, 1911 
Early Writings

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. He attended spiritualistic seances, he tried a little opium, and made other fantastic experiments in life. But these are topics that need not concern us here. The impor tant point is that with the Cincinnati pe riod the tale of Hearn’s career as a literary artist begins. He ‘devours’ Hoffmann and writes marvelous murder-stories for the Sunday edition of his paper; he studies the methods of those great prosateurs, Flau bert and Gautier; and finally, before leaving Cincinnati in 1877, he completes the trans lation of the tales of Gautier which he published some years later as One of Cleo patra’s Nights and Other Fantastic Ro manoes.’