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Show I A Dual life Two years ago Lofcadio Hearn, a marvelous genius, died. Now a negro woman of Cincinnati has set up a claim that she was his wife. The New York Sun sees no reason to douht tho wo-man's wo-man's statement, because while the man in life was a pronounced genius and wrote some marvelous marvel-ous things, he would not associate with decent people; no one of all the class that so admired his works could get near him; he always associated asso-ciated with the lowest order of negroes, the real Congo type, "the priestesses and prophetesses, liking' hest of all Marie Lavoux, the "Voudoo Queen." He loved to study the Congo superstitions, supersti-tions, folklore, songs and incantations. After roving over all the West India Islands, he went to Japan, formed there a domestic alliance with a Japanese woman and a little later died. He was a son of a British officer and Greek woman. He was deformed, blind of one eye, and almost blind of the other. "He was always unkempt, slovenly, with the face of a weasel, the manners of a cad. Tfo was nevertheless one of the most brilliant and picturesque writers of the day, a profound, versatile and poetic thinker, one of the greatest masters of occult languages and literature litera-ture the Christian world has ever known." The foregoing Is interesting insofar as it is a more or less likeness of more than one wonderful literary genius. In the later years of the life of the marvelous Edwin Arnold there were whispers that he was sex-perverted, and there are others tm which the reader will readily recall. It is as B though an angel and a demon had striven for the B possession of a soul, and both had clung to it B while that soul inhabited an earthly tabernacle. B One day the good angel had the mastery and the B brightest of the earth stood spellbound under the B charm of his thoughts and the exquisite art in B presenting them not only the thoughts, but the B exact language needed to perfectly express them B in a way which gave to the language the organ B roll of music. There is another thought. When B the ancestors of this creature's mother could, in B a more perfect form than has ever been acquired B since, exactly express thoughts in words, the an-B an-B cestors of his father were both barbarians and H vulgarians an altogether fierce and brutish -B tribe. Did Fate play a trick over the wretch's B cradle and say "We in him will produce a likeness B of both ancestors all that is high and sweet, all B that is brutish?" Heredity plays fearful tricks H at times. Napoleon was not a Frenchman. In his B mother's soul there lay the germ of that old fierce B instinct of Roman women when they, leaning over B tho arena, gave the signal to slay the discomfitted B combatant. That germ moved in the fierce woman B who was altogether a Roman and developed in B her son, caused him to look calmly on while men B thousands were dying, and which continued un-B un-B til all Europe was soaked with blood. And if we B look upon such a life as that of Hearn, and are B lost in speculation as the causes that produced B i1, an(l stiH believing in the soul's immortality B and that another life follows this, what will be B his status in that life? B Will the angel and the demon still cling to B im until the one or the other in vanquished? B Or, are some natures so depraved that, like the B beasts, the elements composing them are dis-B dis-B solved and there is no resurrection? And still B tho mercy of the Infinite is over all and permits B nothing in vain. If this is true, then when will B the compensation for such a life as Hearn's B come? B Of course, this is all speculation, but the ques- tion comes back: Could not even he have been B saved if different influences had been drawn B around his childhood? And are we not all too B careless in our watch over tho children that are B growing up around us? |