oint of view of
the people amongst whom he was living, an attempt to legalise a union
with a coloured woman was an unpardonable lapse from social law. Not
only then, but for years afterwards, public opinion was strongly
influenced against him in consequence of this lamentable incident. Even
at the time of his death, in 1904, a perfect host of statements and
distorted legends exaggerating all his lapses from conventional
standards were raked up. Amongst other accusations, they declared that
when in New Orleans he was the favoured admirer of Marie Levaux, known
as "The Voodoo Queen."

Page Baker, the editor of the _Times Democrat_ immediately came forward
to defend Hearn from the charge. Referring to the Voodoo Queen, the
article says: "All this wonderful tale is based upon the fact that
Hearn, like every other newspaper man in New Orleans who thought there
might be a story in it, entered into communication with a negro woman,
who called herself 'Marie Levaux,' and pretended, falsely as was
afterward shown, to know something of the mysteries of Voodooism.

"Whether as reporter, editor, or author, Hearn insisted on investigating
for himself what he wrote about; but what the _Sun_ states is not only
untrue, but would have been impossible in a Southern city like New
Orleans, where the colour line is so strictly drawn. If Hearn had been
the man the _Sun_ says he was, he could not have held the position he
did a week, much less the long years he remained in this city.... He
certainly was not conventional in the order of his life any more than he
was in the product of his brain. For this, the man being now dead and
silent, the conventional takes the familiar revenge upon him."

In 1875, as far as we can make out, Hearn left the _Enquirer_, and in
the latter part of 1876 was on the staff of the _Commercial_, but he had
too seriously wounded the susceptibilities of society in Cincinnati to
make existence any longer comfortable, or, indeed, possible. The
uncongenial climate, also, of Ohio did not suit his delicate
constitution. He longed to get away.

Dreams had come to him of the strange Franco-Spanish city, the Great
South Gate, lying at the mouth of the Mississippi. These dreams were
evoked by reading one of Cable's stories. When he first viewed New
Orleans from the deck of the steamboat that had carried him from grey
north-western mists into the tepid and orange-scented air of the South,
his impression of the city, drowsin