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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:40 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:40 -0700 |
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diff --git a/281-h/281-h.htm b/281-h/281-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4616a97 --- /dev/null +++ b/281-h/281-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,616 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> +<title>Father Damien | Project Gutenberg</title> + <style> + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 281 ***</div> +<h1>FATHER DAMIEN<br> +AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DOCTOR HYDE OF HONOLULU<br> +FROM<br> +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">1914<br> +<span class="smcap">london</span><br> +<span class="smcap">chatto & windus</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">A new impression<br> +All rights reserved</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Sydney</span>,<br> +<i>February</i> 25, 1890.</p> +<p>Sir,—It may probably occur to you that we have met, and +visited, and conversed; on my side, with interest. You may +remember that you have done me several courtesies, for which I +was prepared to be grateful. But there are duties which +come before gratitude, and offences which justly divide friends, +far more acquaintances. Your letter to the Reverend H. B. +Gage is a document which, in my sight, if you had filled me with +bread when I was starving, if you had sat up to nurse my father +when he lay a-dying, would yet absolve me from the bonds of +gratitude. You know enough, doubtless, of the process of +canonisation to be aware that, a hundred years after the death of +Damien, there will appear a man charged with the painful office +of the <i>devil’s advocate</i>. After that noble +brother of mine, and of all frail clay, shall have lain a century +at rest, one shall accuse, one defend him. The circumstance +is unusual that the devil’s advocate should be a volunteer, +should be a member of a sect immediately rival, and should make +haste to take upon himself his ugly office ere the bones are +cold; unusual, and of a taste which I shall leave my readers free +to qualify; unusual, and to me inspiring. If I have at all +learned the trade of using words to convey truth and to arouse +emotion, you have at last furnished me with a subject. For +it is in the interest of all mankind, and the cause of public +decency in every quarter of the world, not only that Damien +should be righted, but that you and your letter should be +displayed at length, in their true colours, to the public +eye.</p> +<p>To do this properly, I must begin by quoting you at large: I +shall then proceed to criticise your utterance from several +points of view, divine and human, in the course of which I shall +attempt to draw again, and with more specification, the character +of the dead saint whom it has pleased you to vilify: so much +being done, I shall say farewell to you for ever.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">“<span +class="smcap">Honolulu</span>,<br> +“<i>August</i> 2, 1889.</p> +<p>“Rev. H. B. GAGE.</p> +<p>“Dear Brother,—In answer to your inquires about +Father Damien, I can only reply that we who knew the man are +surprised at the extravagant newspaper laudations, as if he was a +most saintly philanthropist. The simple truth is, he was a +coarse, dirty man, headstrong and bigoted. He was not sent +to Molokai, but went there without orders; did not stay at the +leper settlement (before he became one himself), but circulated +freely over the whole island (less than half the island is +devoted to the lepers), and he came often to Honolulu. He +had no hand in the reforms and improvements inaugurated, which +were the work of our Board of Health, as occasion required and +means were provided. He was not a pure man in his relations +with women, and the leprosy of which he died should be attributed +to his vices and carelessness. Other have done much for the +lepers, our own ministers, the government physicians, and so +forth, but never with the Catholic idea of meriting eternal +life.—Yours, etc.,</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">C. M. Hyde</span>” <a +id="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1" +class="citation">[1]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>To deal fitly with a letter so extraordinary, I must draw at +the outset on my private knowledge of the signatory and his +sect. It may offend others; scarcely you, who have been so +busy to collect, so bold to publish, gossip on your rivals. +And this is perhaps the moment when I may best explain to you the +character of what you are to read: I conceive you as a man quite +beyond and below the reticences of civility: with what measure +you mete, with that shall it be measured you again; with you, at +last, I rejoice to feel the button off the foil and to plunge +home. And if in aught that I shall say I should offend +others, your colleagues, whom I respect and remember with +affection, I can but offer them my regret; I am not free, I am +inspired by the consideration of interests far more large; and +such pain as can be inflicted by anything from me must be indeed +trifling when compared with the pain with which they read your +letter. It is not the hangman, but the criminal, that +brings dishonour on the house.</p> +<p>You belong, sir, to a sect—I believe my sect, and that +in which my ancestors laboured—which has enjoyed, and +partly failed to utilise, an exceptional advantage in the +islands of Hawaii. The first missionaries came; they found +the land already self-purged of its old and bloody faith; they +were embraced, almost on their arrival, with enthusiasm; what +troubles they supported came far more from whites than from +Hawaiians; and to these last they stood (in a rough figure) in +the shoes of God. This is not the place to enter into the +degree or causes of their failure, such as it is. One +element alone is pertinent, and must here be plainly dealt +with. In the course of their evangelical calling, +they—or too many of them—grew rich. It may be +news to you that the houses of missionaries are a cause of +mocking on the streets of Honolulu. It will at least be +news to you, that when I returned your civil visit, the driver of +my cab commented on the size, the taste, and the comfort of your +home. It would have been news certainly to myself, had any +one told me that afternoon that I should live to drag such a +matter into print. But you see, sir, how you degrade better +men to your own level; and it is needful that those who are to +judge betwixt you and me, betwixt Damien and the devil’s +advocate, should understand your letter to have been penned in a +house which could raise, and that very justly, the envy and the +comments of the passers-by. I think (to employ a phrase of +yours which I admire) it “should be attributed” to +you that you have never visited the scene of Damien’s life +and death. If you had, and had recalled it, and looked +about your pleasant rooms, even your pen perhaps would have been +stayed.</p> +<p>Your sect (and remember, as far as any sect avows me, it is +mine) has not done ill in a worldly sense in the Hawaiian +Kingdom. When calamity befell their innocent parishioners, +when leprosy descended and took root in the Eight Islands, a +<i>quid pro quo</i> was to be looked for. To that +prosperous mission, and to you, as one of its adornments, God had +sent at last an opportunity. I know I am touching here upon +a nerve acutely sensitive. I know that others of your +colleagues look back on the inertia of your Church, and the +intrusive and decisive heroism of Damien, with something almost +to be called remorse. I am sure it is so with yourself; I +am persuaded your letter was inspired by a certain envy, not +essentially ignoble, and the one human trait to be espied in that +performance. You were thinking of the lost chance, the past +day; of that which should have been conceived and was not; of the +service due and not rendered. <i>Time was</i>, said the +voice in your ear, in your pleasant room, as you sat raging and +writing; and if the words written were base beyond parallel, the +rage, I am happy to repeat—it is the only compliment I +shall pay you—the rage was almost virtuous. But, sir, +when we have failed, and another has succeeded; when we have +stood by, and another has stepped in; when we sit and grow bulky +in our charming mansions, and a plain, uncouth peasant steps into +the battle, under the eyes of God, and succours the afflicted, +and consoles the dying, and is himself afflicted in his turn, and +dies upon the field of honour—the battle cannot be +retrieved as your unhappy irritation has suggested. It is a +lost battle, and lost for ever. One thing remained to you +in your defeat—some rags of common honour; and these you +have made haste to cast away.</p> +<p>Common honour; not the honour of having done anything right, +but the honour of not having done aught conspicuously foul; the +honour of the inert: that was what remained to you. We are +not all expected to be Damiens; a man may conceive his duty more +narrowly, he may love his comforts better; and none will cast a +stone at him for that. But will a gentleman of your +reverend profession allow me an example from the fields of +gallantry? When two gentlemen compete for the favour of a +lady, and the one succeeds and the other is rejected, and (as +will sometimes happen) matter damaging to the successful +rival’s credit reaches the ear of the defeated, it is held +by plain men of no pretensions that his mouth is, in the +circumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church and +Damien’s were in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: to help, +to edify, to set divine examples. You having (in one huge +instance) failed, and Damien succeeded, I marvel it should not +have occurred to you that you were doomed to silence; that when +you had been outstripped in that high rivalry, and sat inglorious +in the midst of your well-being, in your pleasant room—and +Damien, crowned with glories and horrors, toiled and rotted in +that pigsty of his under the cliffs of Kalawao—you, the +elect who would not, were the last man on earth to collect and +propagate gossip on the volunteer who would and did.</p> +<p>I think I see you—for I try to see you in the flesh as I +write these sentences—I think I see you leap at the word +pigsty, a hyperbolical expression at the best. “He +had no hand in the reforms,” he was “a coarse, dirty +man”; these were your own words; and you may think it +possible that I am come to support you with fresh evidence. +In a sense, it is even so. Damien has been too much +depicted with a conventional halo and conventional features; so +drawn by men who perhaps had not the eye to remark or the pen to +express the individual; or who perhaps were only blinded and +silenced by generous admiration, such as I partly envy for +myself—such as you, if your soul were enlightened, would +envy on your bended knees. It is the least defect of such a +method of portraiture that it makes the path easy for the +devil’s advocate, and leaves the misuse of the slanderer a +considerable field of truth. For the truth that is +suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy. +The world, in your despite, may perhaps owe you something, if +your letter be the means of substituting once for all a credible +likeness for a wax abstraction. For, if that world at all +remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall be named a +Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to the +Reverend H. B. Gage.</p> +<p>You may ask on what authority I speak. It was my +inclement destiny to become acquainted, not with Damien, but with +Dr. Hyde. When I visited the lazaretto, Damien was already +in his resting grave. But such information as I have, I +gathered on the spot in conversation with those who knew him well +and long: some indeed who revered his memory; but others who had +sparred and wrangled with him, who beheld him with no halo, who +perhaps regarded him with small respect, and through whose +unprepared and scarcely partial communications the plain, human +features of the man shone on me convincingly. These gave me +what knowledge I possess; and I learnt it in that scene where it +could be most completely and sensitively +understood—Kalawao, which you have never visited, about +which you have never so much as endeavoured to inform yourself; +for, brief as your letter is, you have found the means to stumble +into that confession. “<i>Less than one-half</i> of +the island,” you say, “is devoted to the +lepers.” Molokai—“<i>Molokai +ahina</i>,” the “grey,” lofty, and most +desolate island—along all its northern side plunges a front +of precipice into a sea of unusual profundity. This range +of cliff is, from east to west, the true end and frontier of the +island. Only in one spot there projects into the ocean a +certain triangular and rugged down, grassy, stony, windy, and +rising in the midst into a hill with a dead crater: the whole +bearing to the cliff that overhangs it somewhat the same relation +as a bracket to a wall. With this hint you will now be able +to pick out the leper station on a map; you will be able to judge +how much of Molokai is thus cut off between the surf and +precipice, whether less than a half, or less than a quarter, or a +fifth, or a tenth—or, say a twentieth; and the next time +you burst into print you will be in a position to share with us +the issue of your calculations.</p> +<p>I imagine you to be one of those persons who talk with +cheerfulness of that place which oxen and wain-ropes could not +drag you to behold. You, who do not even know its situation +on the map, probably denounce sensational descriptions, +stretching your limbs the while in your pleasant parlour on +Beretania Street. When I was pulled ashore there one early +morning, there sat with me in the boat two sisters, bidding +farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys +of human life. One of these wept silently; I could not +withhold myself from joining her. Had you been there, it is +my belief that nature would have triumphed even in you; and as +the boat drew but a little nearer, and you beheld the stairs +crowded with abominable deformations of our common manhood, and +saw yourself landing in the midst of such a population as only +now and then surrounds us in the horror of a nightmare—what +a haggard eye you would have rolled over your reluctant shoulder +towards the house on Beretania Street! Had you gone on; had +you found every fourth face a blot upon the landscape; had you +visited the hospital and seen the butt-ends of human beings lying +there almost unrecognisable, but still breathing, still thinking, +still remembering; you would have understood that life in the +lazaretto is an ordeal from which the nerves of a man’s +spirit shrink, even as his eye quails under the brightness of the +sun; you would have felt it was (even today) a pitiful place to +visit and a hell to dwell in. It is not the fear of +possible infection. That seems a little thing when compared +with the pain, the pity, and the disgust of the visitor’s +surroundings, and the atmosphere of affliction, disease, and +physical disgrace in which he breathes. I do not think I am +a man more than usually timid; but I never recall the days and +nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days and seven +nights), without heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhere +else. I find in my diary that I speak of my stay as a +“grinding experience”: I have once jotted in the +margin, “<i>Harrowing</i> is the word”; and when the +<i>Mokolii</i> bore me at last towards the outer world, I kept +repeating to myself, with a new conception of their pregnancy, +those simple words of the song—</p> +<blockquote><p>“’Tis the most distressful country +that ever yet was seen.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was a +settlement purged, bettered, beautified; the new village built, +the hospital and the Bishop-Home excellently arranged; the +sisters, the doctor, and the missionaries, all indefatigable in +their noble tasks. It was a different place when Damien +came there and made this great renunciation, and slept that first +night under a tree amidst his rotting brethren: alone with +pestilence; and looking forward (with what courage, with what +pitiful sinkings of dread, God only knows) to a lifetime of +dressing sores and stumps.</p> +<p>You will say, perhaps, I am too sensitive, that sights as +painful abound in cancer hospitals and are confronted daily by +doctors and nurses. I have long learned to admire and envy +the doctors and the nurses. But there is no cancer hospital +so large and populous as Kalawao and Kalaupapa; and in such a +matter every fresh case, like every inch of length in the pipe of +an organ, deepens the note of the impression; for what daunts the +onlooker is that monstrous sum of human suffering by which he +stands surrounded. Lastly, no doctor or nurse is called +upon to enter once for all the doors of that gehenna; they do not +say farewell, they need not abandon hope, on its sad threshold; +they but go for a time to their high calling, and can look +forward as they go to relief, to recreation, and to rest. +But Damien shut-to with his own hand the doors of his own +sepulchre.</p> +<p>I shall now extract three passages from my diary at +Kalawao.</p> +<p><i>A</i>. “Damien is dead and already somewhat +ungratefully remembered in the field of his labours and +sufferings. ‘He was a good man, but very +officious,’ says one. Another tells me he had fallen +(as other priests so easily do) into something of the ways and +habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise +the fact, and the good sense to laugh at” [over] +“it. A plain man it seems he was; I cannot find he +was a popular.”</p> +<p><i>B</i>. “After Ragsdale’s death” +[Ragsdale was a famous Luna, or overseer, of the unruly +settlement] “there followed a brief term of office by +Father Damien which served only to publish the weakness of that +noble man. He was rough in his ways, and he had no +control. Authority was relaxed; Damien’s life was +threatened, and he was soon eager to resign.”</p> +<p><i>C</i>. “Of Damien I begin to have an +idea. He seems to have been a man of the peasant class, +certainly of the peasant type: shrewd, ignorant and bigoted, yet +with an open mind, and capable of receiving and digesting a +reproof if it were bluntly administered; superbly generous in the +least thing as well as in the greatest, and as ready to give his +last shirt (although not without human grumbling) as he had been +to sacrifice his life; essentially indiscreet and officious, +which made him a troublesome colleague; domineering in all his +ways, which made him incurably unpopular with the Kanakas, but +yet destitute of real authority, so that his boys laughed at him +and he must carry out his wishes by the means of bribes. He +learned to have a mania for doctoring; and set up the Kanakas +against the remedies of his regular rivals: perhaps (if anything +matter at all in the treatment of such a disease) the worst thing +that he did, and certainly the easiest. The best and worst +of the man appear very plainly in his dealings with Mr. +Chapman’s money; he had originally laid it out” +[intended to lay it out] “entirely for the benefit of +Catholics, and even so not wisely; but after a long, plain talk, +he admitted his error fully and revised the list. The sad +state of the boys’ home is in part the result of his lack +of control; in part, of his own slovenly ways and false ideas of +hygiene. Brother officials used to call it +‘Damien’s Chinatown.’ ‘Well,’ +they would say, ‘your Chinatown keeps growing.’ +And he would laugh with perfect good-nature, and adhere to his +errors with perfect obstinacy. So much I have gathered of +truth about this plain, noble human brother and father of ours; +his imperfections are the traits of his face, by which we know +him for our fellow; his martyrdom and his example nothing can +lessen or annul; and only a person here on the spot can properly +appreciate their greatness.”</p> +<p>I have set down these private passages, as you perceive, +without correction; thanks to you, the public has them in their +bluntness. They are almost a list of the man’s +faults, for it is rather these that I was seeking: with his +virtues, with the heroic profile of his life, I and the world +were already sufficiently acquainted. I was besides a +little suspicious of Catholic testimony; in no ill sense, but +merely because Damien’s admirers and disciples were the +least likely to be critical. I know you will be more +suspicious still; and the facts set down above were one and all +collected from the lips of Protestants who had opposed the father +in his life. Yet I am strangely deceived, or they build up +the image of a man, with all his weakness, essentially heroic, +and alive with rugged honesty, generosity, and mirth.</p> +<p>Take it for what it is, rough private jottings of the worst +sides of Damien’s character, collected from the lips of +those who had laboured with and (in your own phrase) “knew +the man”;—though I question whether Damien would have +said that he knew you. Take it, and observe with wonder how +well you were served by your gossips, how ill by your +intelligence and sympathy; in how many points of fact we are at +one, and how widely our appreciations vary. There is +something wrong here; either with you or me. It is +possible, for instance, that you, who seem to have so many ears +in Kalawao, had heard of the affair of Mr. Chapman’s money, +and were singly struck by Damien’s intended +wrong-doing. I was struck with that also, and set it fairly +down; but I was struck much more by the fact that he had the +honesty of mind to be convinced. I may here tell you that +it was a long business; that one of his colleagues sat with him +late into the night, multiplying arguments and accusations; that +the father listened as usual with “perfect good-nature and +perfect obstinacy”; but at the last, when he was +persuaded—“Yes,” said he, “I am very much +obliged to you; you have done me a service; it would have been a +theft.” There are many (not Catholics merely) who +require their heroes and saints to be infallible; to these the +story will be painful; not to the true lovers, patrons, and +servants of mankind.</p> +<p>And I take it, this is a type of our division; that you are +one of those who have an eye for faults and failures; that you +take a pleasure to find and publish them; and that, having found +them, you make haste to forget the overvailing virtues and the +real success which had alone introduced them to your +knowledge. It is a dangerous frame of mind. That you +may understand how dangerous, and into what a situation it has +already brought you, we will (if you please) go hand-in-hand +through the different phrases of your letter, and candidly +examine each from the point of view of its truth, its +appositeness, and its charity.</p> +<blockquote><p>Damien was <i>coarse</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers, +who had only a coarse old peasant for their friend and +father. But you, who were so refined, why were you not +there, to cheer them with the lights of culture? Or may I +remind you that we have some reason to doubt if John the Baptist +were genteel; and in the case of Peter, on whose career your +doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no doubt at all he was +a “coarse, headstrong” fisherman! Yet even in +our Protestant Bibles Peter is called Saint.</p> +<blockquote><p>Damien was <i>dirty</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He was. Think of the poor lepers annoyed with this dirty +comrade! But the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food in a fine +house.</p> +<blockquote><p>Damien was <i>headstrong</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong +head and heart.</p> +<blockquote><p>Damien was <i>bigoted</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I am not fond of bigots myself, because they are not fond of +me. But what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it +as a blemish in a priest? Damien believed his own religion +with the simplicity of a peasant or a child; as I would I could +suppose that you do. For this, I wonder at him some way +off; and had that been his only character, should have avoided +him in life. But the point of interest in Damien, which has +caused him to be so much talked about and made him at last the +subject of your pen and mine, was that, in him, his bigotry, his +intense and narrow faith, wrought potently for good, and +strengthened him to be one of the world’s heroes and +exemplars.</p> +<blockquote><p>Damien <i>was not sent to Molokai</i>, <i>but went +there without orders</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Is this a misreading? or do you really mean the words for +blame? I have heard Christ, in the pulpits of our Church, +held up for imitation on the ground that His sacrifice was +voluntary. Does Dr. Hyde think otherwise?</p> +<blockquote><p>Damien <i>did not stay at the settlement</i>, +<i>etc.</i></p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is true he was allowed many indulgences. Am I to +understand that you blame the father for profiting by these, or +the officers for granting them? In either case, it is a +mighty Spartan standard to issue from the house on Beretania +Street; and I am convinced you will find yourself with few +supporters.</p> +<blockquote><p>Damien <i>had no hand in the reforms</i>, +<i>etc.</i></p> +</blockquote> +<p>I think even you will admit that I have already been frank in +my description of the man I am defending; but before I take you +up upon this head, I will be franker still, and tell you that +perhaps nowhere in the world can a man taste a more pleasurable +sense of contrast than when he passes from Damien’s +“Chinatown” at Kalawao to the beautiful Bishop-Home +at Kalaupapa. At this point, in my desire to make all fair +for you, I will break my rule and adduce Catholic +testimony. Here is a passage from my diary about my visit +to the Chinatown, from which you will see how it is (even now) +regarded by its own officials: “We went round all the +dormitories, refectories, etc.—dark and dingy enough, with +a superficial cleanliness, which he” [Mr. Dutton, the +lay-brother] “did not seek to defend. ‘It is +almost decent,’ said he; ‘the sisters will make that +all right when we get them here.’” And yet I +gathered it was already better since Damien was dead, and far +better than when he was there alone and had his own (not always +excellent) way. I have now come far enough to meet you on a +common ground of fact; and I tell you that, to a mind not +prejudiced by jealousy, all the reforms of the lazaretto, and +even those which he most vigorously opposed, are properly the +work of Damien. They are the evidence of his success; they +are what his heroism provoked from the reluctant and the +careless. Many were before him in the field; Mr. Meyer, for +instance, of whose faithful work we hear too little: there have +been many since; and some had more worldly wisdom, though none +had more devotion, than our saint. Before his day, even you +will confess, they had effected little. It was his part, by +one striking act of martyrdom, to direct all men’s eyes on +that distressful country. At a blow, and with the price of +his life, he made the place illustrious and public. And +that, if you will consider largely, was the one reform needful; +pregnant of all that should succeed. It brought money; it +brought (best individual addition of them all) the sisters; it +brought supervision, for public opinion and public interest +landed with the man at Kalawao. If ever any man brought +reforms, and died to bring them, it was he. There is not a +clean cup or towel in the Bishop-Home, but dirty Damien washed +it.</p> +<blockquote><p>Damien <i>was not a pure man in his relations with +women</i>, <i>etc.</i></p> +</blockquote> +<p>How do you know that? Is this the nature of conversation +in that house on Beretania Street which the cabman envied, +driving past?—racy details of the misconduct of the poor +peasant priest, toiling under the cliffs of Molokai?</p> +<p>Many have visited the station before me; they seem not to have +heard the rumour. When I was there I heard many shocking +tales, for my informants were men speaking with the plainness of +the laity; and I heard plenty of complaints of Damien. Why +was this never mentioned? and how came it to you in the +retirement of your clerical parlour?</p> +<p>But I must not even seem to deceive you. This scandal, +when I read it in your letter, was not new to me. I had +heard it once before; and I must tell you how. There came +to Samoa a man from Honolulu; he, in a public-house on the beach, +volunteered the statement that Damien had “contracted the +disease from having connection with the female lepers”; and +I find a joy in telling you how the report was welcomed in a +public-house. A man sprang to his feet; I am not at liberty +to give his name, but from what I heard I doubt if you would care +to have him to dinner in Beretania Street. “You +miserable little -------” (here is a word I dare not print, +it would so shock your ears). “You miserable little +------,” he cried, “if the story were a thousand +times true, can’t you see you are a million times a lower +----- for daring to repeat it?” I wish it could be +told of you that when the report reached you in your house, +perhaps after family worship, you had found in your soul enough +holy anger to receive it with the same expressions; ay, even with +that one which I dare not print; it would not need to have been +blotted away, like Uncle Toby’s oath, by the tears of the +recording angel; it would have been counted to you for your +brightest righteousness. But you have deliberately chosen +the part of the man from Honolulu, and you have played it with +improvements of your own. The man from +Honolulu—miserable, leering creature—communicated the +tale to a rude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a public-house, +where (I will so far agree with your temperance opinions) man is +not always at his noblest; and the man from Honolulu had himself +been drinking—drinking, we may charitably fancy, to +excess. It was to your “Dear Brother, the Reverend H. +B. Gage,” that you chose to communicate the sickening +story; and the blue ribbon which adorns your portly bosom forbids +me to allow you the extenuating plea that you were drunk when it +was done. Your “dear brother”—a brother +indeed—made haste to deliver up your letter (as a means of +grace, perhaps) to the religious papers; where, after many +months, I found and read and wondered at it; and whence I have +now reproduced it for the wonder of others. And you and +your dear brother have, by this cycle of operations, built up a +contrast very edifying to examine in detail. The man whom +you would not care to have to dinner, on the one side; on the +other, the Reverend Dr. Hyde and the Reverend H. B. Gage: the +Apia bar-room, the Honolulu manse.</p> +<p>But I fear you scarce appreciate how you appear to your +fellow-men; and to bring it home to you, I will suppose your +story to be true. I will suppose—and God forgive me +for supposing it—that Damien faltered and stumbled in his +narrow path of duty; I will suppose that, in the horror of his +isolation, perhaps in the fever of incipient disease, he, who was +doing so much more than he had sworn, failed in the letter of his +priestly oath—he, who was so much a better man than either +you or me, who did what we have never dreamed of daring—he +too tasted of our common frailty. “O, Iago, the pity +of it!” The least tender should be moved to tears; +the most incredulous to prayer. And all that you could do +was to pen your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage!</p> +<p>Is it growing at all clear to you what a picture you have +drawn of your own heart? I will try yet once again to make +it clearer. You had a father: suppose this tale were about +him, and some informant brought it to you, proof in hand: I am +not making too high an estimate of your emotional nature when I +suppose you would regret the circumstance? that you would feel +the tale of frailty the more keenly since it shamed the author of +your days? and that the last thing you would do would be to +publish it in the religious press? Well, the man who tried +to do what Damien did, is my father, and the father of the man in +the Apia bar, and the father of all who love goodness; and he was +your father too, if God had given you grace to see it.</p> +<h2>Footnotes</h2> +<p><a id="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> From the Sydney +<i>Presbyterian</i>, October 26, 1889.</p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 281 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + |