Volume I Part 1 (2/2)

Charles Hearn, the father of Lafcadio, was her eldest son, and another son was Richard, as one of the Barbizon painters and an intimate friend of Jean Francois Millet

It was in the late '40's, when England still held the Ionian Isles, that the 76th Foot was ordered to Greece, and Surgeon-Major Hearn accoarrison duty on the island of Cerigo Apparently not long after his arrival he ote, whose family is said to have been of old and honourable Greek descent

Photographs of the young surgeon represent hi side-whiskers so valued at that period, and with a bold profile and delicate waist A passionate love affair ensued between the beautiful Greek girl and the handsoirl's brothers, the native bitterness toward the English garrison being as intense as was the sentiainst the Northern army of occupation ioes that the Cerigote men--there was hot blood in the fa hiirl, it is said, with the aid of a servant, concealed him in a barn and nursed hirateful lover and married him by the Greek rites in Santa Maura

The first child died immediately after birth, and the boy, Lafcadio, was the second child; taking his name from the Greek name of the island, Lefcada Another son, James, three years later in Cephalonia, was the fruit of this ically

When England ceded the Ionian Isles to Greece Dr Hearn returned with his fa, perhaps, for a while at Malta, for in a letter written during the last years of his life Lafcadio says: ”I a been in Malta as a child My father told hts, and a story of aof the French had the presence of reen paint”

The two boys were at this tied six and three It was inevitable, no doubt, that the young wife, who had never h she spoke, as did the children, Italian and Roe frorey streets of Dublin, nor can it be wondered at that, an exile a aliens in race, speech, and faith, there should have soon grown up s and disputes The unhappy details have died into silence with the passage of time, but the wife seems to have believed herself repudiated and betrayed, and theeventually annulled, she fled to S the two children with the father This cousin she afterwards married and her children knew her no ain, and the boy Lafcadio being adopted by Dr Hearn's aunt, a Mrs Brenane, and reain saw either his father or his brother[1]

[1] The following version of the story is reproduced from a letter written by Mrs Hearn in reply to a request for any knowledge she ained on this subject froether in japan Its poignant sih two languages

”Mas Maave ot angry and gazed on et Thus I remember my Mama's face She was of a little stature, with black hair and black eyes, like a japanese woman How pitiable Mama San she was Unhappy Mama San; pitiable indeed! Think of that--Think: you are my wife, and I take you with Kazuo and Iwao to e spoken there, nor have any friend You have your husband only, who prove not very kind You must be so very unhappy then And then if I happened to love some native lady and say 'Sayonara' to you, how you would trouble your heart! That was the case with my Mama I have not such cruel heart But only to think of such thing makes me sad To see your face troubled just now my heart aches Let us drop such subject from our talk”

”Papa San--It is only once that I relad with my papa Yes, on that occasion! Perhaps I was then a boy like Iwao or Kiyoshi+ I was playing with allop-trop' cah up I observedhand Papa took me from the hands of nurse I was on horseback As I looked behind a great nuallop-trop' I ieneral then It was only on that tiood papa he was”

The euess at of a passionate, sensitive boy of seven, suddenly flung by the stormy emotions of his elders out of the s child the relations of its parents and the circle of the holobe itself, and the sudden ravish amid the ties and affections of the world forever after tiht in tiotten these shocks, but the eldest son of Charles Hearn and Rosa Cerigote was destined to suffer always because of the violent rending of their ties Froe distrusts, his unconquerable terror of the potentialities which he suspected as lurking beneath the frankest exterior, and his constant, morbid dread of betrayal and abandonment by even his closest friends

Whatever of fault there ueaffection

To the brother he never sarote, when he was a man, ”And you do not ree, brown eyes like a wild deer's--that used to bend above your cradle? You do not reers after the old Greek orthodox fashi+on, and utter the words--?? t? ???a t?? ?at??? ?a?

t?? ???? ?a? t?? ????? ??e?at??, 'In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost'? She made, or had made, three little wounds upon you when a baby--to place you, according to her childish faith, under the protection of those three powers, but specially that of Him for whom alone the Nineteenth Century still feels some reverence--_the Lord and Giver of Life_ We were all very dark as children, very passionate, very odd-looking, and wore gold rings in our ears Have you not the raph I felt all , in whom the soul of e is, the same resolves as I! Will he tell me of them?' There was another Self,--would that Self interpret This?

”For This has always been mysterious Were I to use the word 'Soul' in its limited and superannuated sense as the spirit of the individual instead of the ghost of a race,--I should say it had always see in different ways One of these represented the spirit of mutiny--impatience of all restraint, hatred of all control, weariness of everything ular, iht of consequences The other represented pride and persistence;--it had little power to use the reins before I was thirty Whatever there is of good in me came from that dark race-soul of which we know so little My love of right, ;--my admiration for what is beautiful or true;--my capacity for faith in ives e-pohose physical sign is in the large eyes of both of us,--came from Her It is the mother who makes us,--th or powers of calculation, but his heart and power to love And I would rather have her portrait than a fortune”

Mrs Brenane, into whose hands the child thus passed, was theof a wealthy Irishman, by whom she had been converted to Romanis” The divorce and ree of her nephew incurred her bitterest resentment; she not only insisted upon a complete separation from the child, but did not hesitate to speak her mind fully to the boy, who always retained the impressions thus early instilled In one of his letters he speaks of his father's ”rigid face, and steel-steady eyes,” and says: ”I can re father only five times He was rather taciturn, I think I re letter froers and elephants--printed in Roman letters with a pen, so that I could read it easily I re into the toith his regi at a dinner with a nu about under the table as” And elsewhere he declares, ”I think there is nothing of him in me, either physically or mentally” A e bearing thethe same dark skins, delicate, aquiline profiles, eyes deeply set in arched orbits, and short, supple, well-knit figures The fanment not easy to define except by the indefinite terin or Irish residence

Of the next twelve years of Lafcadio Hearn's life there exists but re record The little dark-eyed, dark-faced, passionate boy with the wound in his heart and the gold rings in his ears--speaking English but staled with Italian and Romaic--seems to have been removed at about his seventh year to Wales, and from this time to have visited Ireland but occasionally Of his surroundings during the most impressionable period of his life it is impossible to reconstruct other than shadowy outlines Mrs Brenane was old; ealthy; and lived surrounded by eager priests and passionate converts

In ”Kwaidan” there is a little story called ”Hi-Mawari,” which seelimpse of this period:--

On the wooded hill behind the house Robert and I are looking for fairy-rings Robert is eight years old, comely, and very wise;--I alowing, glorious August day; and the warm air is filled with sharp, sweet scents of resin

We do not find any fairy-rings; but we find a great rass I tell Robert the old Welsh story of the , and so disappeared for seven years, and would never eat or speak after his friends had delivered hi but the points of needles, you know,” says Robert

”Who?” I ask

”Goblins,” Robert answers

This revelation leaves me dumb with astonishment and awe But Robert suddenly cries out:--