Evening star., 1961-08-13

island of Leucadia (pro-
nounced "Lafcadia"O four
months after his father had
left with his regiment. At the
age of 2 he was sent with
his mother to his paternal
family in Dublin, his father
still being absent.
The HearnS were Protes-
tants in a land of Catholics;
the mother was devout Greek
Orthodox. She spoke no Eng
lish and learned none; she
made no effort to adjust her
life to the ways of the them
selves maladjusted Hearns,
and after a time returned to
Greece, never to come back.
When Hearn remarked he de-
serted Lafcadio, who was
raised by an aunt, herself a
family outcast because she
had turned Catholic. She was
wealthy and sent Lafcadio to
school in France and Eng
land. but, unfortunately for
the boy, as the aunt advanced
in age a scheming financial
advisor managed to step
between Lafcadio and his
expectancy. In 1869 the boy
was sent to Cincinnati, where
Lafcadio found himself in a
new world, without money,
friends, or any contact with
an unloved and unloving
home. He knew that he was
to be a writer and he was
Irish; exile was therefore
necessary to his life-what
was unusual was that it was
not Self-impoSed.
50 =
Disfigured by the white
ness of an eye blinded in a
game, Hearn was morbidly
shy. The young stranger al
most starved in the unfamil-
iarity of the raw frontier
town. He was befriended by
a printer who, although he
had no job for him, gave him
food and a bed in exchange
for his conversation. Hearn
spent his days reading in the
public library, and in 1872
submitted to the Enquirer
his first writing to be pub
lished-a review of Tenny-
sons "Idyls of the King"
He wrote more book re-
views, but not for long; he
had the knack for sensa-
tional journalism, and it was
his stories of murder, sex,
and the lurid news of Gin
cinnati that soon made him
outstanding even among fell
low reporters many of whom
time was to show were
among the best in their pro-
fession. Nevertheless, the
Enquirer fired him in 1875,
for Hearn's marriage to a
beautiful mulatto was some
thing a respectable newSpa-
per could not tolerate - it
was not only scandalous, in
Ohio it was illegal. The Gin
cinnati Commercial, more
interested in a reporter who
had shown himself a phe-
nomenal circulation builder
than in ostracism, imme-
diately hired Hearn. The
marriage proved to be no
match; the young wife soon
dropped out of the picture,
not to be heard from again
until after Hearn's death.
X
In 1877, when he was
27, Hearn demonstrated the
wanderlust that was to be
characteristic of him for the
rest of his life. Throwing up
his job, he moved to New
Orleans, where for a short
while he once again found
himself in extreme poverty.
However, he was in fact pre-
cisely the right man in the
right place at the right time.
He fell passionately in love
with postwar New Orleans,
he vibrated in sympathy with
the slow, beautiful. aristo-
cratic city, and when he got
a job on the Item it was
quickly apparent that he
could draw etchings Of the
town and its peoples that
appealed to every reader,
partly through flattery and
partly because his stories
made articulate the South
erner's emotional attach
ment to his homeland. First
ON the Item. and later on
the new Times = Democrat
where as literary editor of a
consciously cultural newSpa-
per he was given free hand
to write whatever he wanted
to, Hearn, an Irishman and
a newcomer, mirrored the
South for the South, and, to
an even greater extent than
George Washington Gable or
Joel Harris, created it for
the North.
.
His style was no longer that
OF his Cincinnati days. Re-
fined, intricate, subtle, with
d sense for the fantastic and
tor the infections of the
Creole dialects, it enabled
dearn slowly to create a body
of humorous, reflective anc
descriptive writing that made
his reputation far beyond the
territory of his paper. Mark
Twain. Joaquin Miller
Charles Dudley Warner anc
many others read Hearn
visited Hearn, and spread
their admiration of him il
the literary circles of New
York and Boston. His worl
Uas pood his life happy. bu'