The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1906-08-14
ssTIIE WAY OF THE WORID.'

THE WAY OF THE WORLD"
All lovers of the infinitely beautiful
and suggestive prose poetry which dis
tingu;shed the style of the late
Lafcadio Hearn will welcome the de
NAL as pure fabrication of the shocking
stories of his personal life which
were lately printed as the result of
| the claim of Il Cincinnati negress that
she was the wife OF the author and
therefore entitled to the royalties ac-
| cruing from his books. 1t / been
stated that Hearn cOnsOrted by prefer
nee with negroes and that, while in
New Orleans, he associated with the
black race almost entirely, being on
particularly intimate terms with a
West indian negreSs there who was
known as the "VOodoo Queen" The
full and complete refutationS by peo-
pie who knew Hearn in this country,
and by his associates at the time he
was on the TimeS-DemOcrat in New
Orleans were not unexpected and
serve to emphasize the d~eplorahle
habit of printing anything and every
thing about a dead ma whose work
has given him to the public.
From what can be gathered of a
strange and romantic character,
IIearn was a social victim Of his UNI
convcntionality, Tie was not an Amer
lean. His father. we believe, was
English. his mother 81 mixture of
Spanish and French lie grew up in
practical solitude, q citizen of the
world, speaking nan tongues, living
among many people. His mind was
the store house of dreams, which
he painted in words which held the
delicate Shadings Of the outer color
in9s of the rainbow. He stood on tip
the intinite-and touched it with his
tinger-tips. SO born, 50 reared and
impelled it is no wonder that he
was uncOmmunicative, ~unsocial, in
tangible. He lived and moved in his
own world, different from that of
any one else, touching commonplace
employment ont OF sheer necessity.
Naturally, he cared nothing for APP
p~earanCcs, for dress or for the COM
AiCA1 VI IL ' w ~ WIN
those with whom he touched elbows
as in 4 crowd. And from these trap
pings, which We're the outer negli-
gences of the inner genius, have been
constructed the stories of shame and
beastliness with which his memory
has been besmirchedi It appears that
the negro woman is an impOSter, and
that the NO0doo Queen was merely a
picturesque character III whom all the
New Orleans newspaper men were
professionally Interested. As the
TimeS-Democrat truly says, had
I4earn been the character he has beer
denoted as being, he could not have
held his employment in New Orleans
for a week.
But. notwithstanding the sweeping
character of the denia!s. the sad Sian
der Will live. Years later it Will come
up again with braZen smirk. And,
finally, it will be believed, as all black
tin"s said of those identified With
are ultimately believed. That
IS Il curious passion of the world, an
enVious spirit OF eNultation at the
of leaving a finger mark on a
page. And, already. irrepara-
bly,, there is something gone from the
pleasure and the uDlift Of Hearn's
Words-those passages inscrutably APP
pealing to the mind, full of innate
recognition to the soul. The master
remains. but his words are in
e%Vitably become Il shining web hiding
in it's core a lie. They are still beau
tiful, but, somehow, no longer friends.
The lie told of the G still lives to
rob the solitary who travelled the
world with passionate desire for
recognition of that con~nradeship
which. unable to EXPRESS in his life,
he so c%onidingly exhibited in his
books.
Something has been taken away
from the Hearn with whom it was
possible to strain the eyes in sympa-
thy at the STARE. For what? y pass
ing scrap of cruel gossip printed of q
man because he was dead. and be-
cause. in expressing his words like
diamonds strung on cords OF human
hearts. he had made himself famous
as one who translated the thrill
of sea and Sky and who found IN the
stern face of reckoning death the
message of beauty and of peace.
So gentle q spirit might at least
I've been spared the stab.