Before going to Corfu the young officer had fallen in love with a
countrywoman of his own; means, however, were lacking on both sides, and
she was persuaded by relations to accept a richer suitor. While still
smarting under the pangs of disappointed love, lonely, heartsore, Rosa
Tessima crossed his path, and the fate of both was sealed. Where they
met we know not. The Tessimas were inhabitants of the Island of Cerigo,
but communication between the islands was frequent.

As to the stories, which subsequently drifted to relations in Ireland,
of the girl's brothers having attacked and stabbed Charles Hearn in
consequence of the injury done to their sister's reputation, it is more
than likely they are entirely legendary. The Ionian male had no exalted
opinion of women, and was not likely to resort to revenge for imaginary
wrongs. There may have been some difficulty with regard to her dowry, as
in those days the sons inherited the land and were obliged, when a
daughter left her paternal home, to bestow upon her the settlement she
was entitled to; this was sometimes accompanied by a considerable amount
of friction.

Lafcadio was born at Santa Maura, the modern name for the ancient
Leucadia of the Greeks. Charles Hearn, presumably, was transferred there
by some necessity in his profession as military surgeon. The island,
excepting Corfu, is the largest in the Sept-Insula. On the southern
extremity of the western portion of the coast is situated the rock
whence Sappho is supposed to have sought "the end of all life's ends."
Not far off stand the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. A few stones piled
together still mark the spot where ceremonies were celebrated at the
altar in honour of the sun-god. The groves of cypress and ilex that
clothe the slope were in days gone by supposed to be peopled by the
divinities of ancient Greece. A crystalline stream of water, bubbling
down the hillside by the temple wall, runs into a well, familiarly known
as the Fountain of Arethusa. Standing in the courtyard of the temple a
glimpse can be caught of the Island of Ithaca quivering in the luminous
haze, with the Gulf of Corinth and the Greek hills beyond.

Although he left the Ionian Islands in infancy, the idea of having been
born surrounded by associations of the ancient Hellenic world--the world
that represented for him the ideal of supreme artistic beauty--impressed
itself upon Hearn's imagination. Often, later, amidst the god-haunted
shri