Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/34

Rh already highly esteemed by many who appreciated his great gifts, while others regarded him with some jealousy and would gladly have seen him put down. From the first I recognized his genius so clearly that he used to laugh at me for my faith in his future fame. For I would often predict that he would be known to future generations as one of the great writers of the century, though it was easy to foresee that he would not receive full recognition in his life-time.

"And though he used to smile at my enthusiasm, he himself felt, I am convinced, the same certainty as to the quality of his gift, the ultimate fame that Fate held for him. It was this that made him regard his work with a reverent humility, and it was this that accounted in some degree for his extraordinary shyness, which made him shrink from being lionized or exploited by those who, at that time, would have been glad enough to entertain him and make much of him, for he had already begun to be quite an important literary person in the circles here which cared for such matters.

"But Hearn fled from social attentions as from the plague. He was by nature suspicious and he loathed flattery and pretense. Rh