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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/281-0.txt b/281-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aee52bb --- /dev/null +++ b/281-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,524 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 281 *** + + + + +FATHER DAMIEN +AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DOCTOR HYDE OF HONOLULU +FROM +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + +1914 +LONDON +CHATTO & WINDUS + +A new impression +All rights reserved + +SYDNEY, +_February_ 25, 1890. + +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 _devil's advocate_. 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. + +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. + + "HONOLULU, + "_August_ 2, 1889. + + "Rev. H. B. GAGE. + + "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., + + "C. M. HYDE" {1} + +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. + +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. + +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 _quid pro quo_ 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. _Time was_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. "_Less than one-half_ of the island," you say, "is devoted +to the lepers." Molokai--"_Molokai ahina_," 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. + +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, "_Harrowing_ is the word"; and when the _Mokolii_ 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-- + + "'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen." + +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. + +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. + +I shall now extract three passages from my diary at Kalawao. + +_A_. "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." + +_B_. "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." + +_C_. "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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + Damien was _coarse_. + +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. + + Damien was _dirty_. + +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. + + Damien was _headstrong_. + +I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong head and +heart. + + Damien was _bigoted_. + +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. + + Damien _was not sent to Molokai_, _but went there without orders_. + +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? + + Damien _did not stay at the settlement_, _etc._ + +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. + + Damien _had no hand in the reforms_, _etc._ + +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. + + Damien _was not a pure man in his relations with women_, _etc._ + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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! + +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. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{1} From the Sydney _Presbyterian_, October 26, 1889. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 281 *** diff --git a/281-h.zip b/281-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd600b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/281-h.zip 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> + @@ -0,0 +1,918 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Father Damien, by Robert Louis Stevenson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Father Damien + an Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: February 28, 2007 [eBook #281] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER DAMIEN*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1914 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +FATHER DAMIEN +AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DOCTOR HYDE OF HONOLULU +FROM +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + +1914 +LONDON +CHATTO & WINDUS + +A new impression +All rights reserved + +SYDNEY, +_February_ 25, 1890. + +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 _devil's advocate_. 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. + +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. + + "HONOLULU, + "_August_ 2, 1889. + + "Rev. H. B. GAGE. + + "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., + + "C. M. HYDE" {1} + +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. + +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, and +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. + +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 _quid pro quo_ 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. _Time was_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. "_Less than one-half_ of the island," you say, "is devoted +to the lepers." Molokai--"_Molokai ahina_," 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. + +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, "_Harrowing_ is the word"; and when the _Mokolii_ 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-- + + "'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen." + +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. + +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. + +I shall now extract three passages from my diary at Kalawao. + +_A_. "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." + +_B_. "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." + +_C_. "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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + Damien was _coarse_. + +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. + + Damien was _dirty_. + +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. + + Damien was _headstrong_. + +I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong head and +heart. + + Damien was _bigoted_. + +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. + + Damien _was not sent to Molokai_, _but went there without orders_. + +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? + + Damien _did not stay at the settlement_, _etc._ + +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. + + Damien _had no hand in the reforms_, _etc._ + +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. + + Damien _was not a pure man in his relations with women_, _etc._ + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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! + +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. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{1} From the Sydney _Presbyterian_, October 26, 1889. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER DAMIEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 281.txt or 281.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/281 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + +FATHER DAMIEN + +AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DR. HYDE OF HONOLULU + + + + +SYDNEY, +FEBRUARY 25, 1890. + +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 DEVIL'S ADVOCATE. 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. + +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. + +"HONOLULU, +"August 2, 1889. + +"Rev. H. B. GAGE. + +"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., +"C. M. HYDE" (1) + +(1) From the Sydney PRESBYTERIAN, October 26, 1889. + +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. + +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, and 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 Hawaiins; 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 understated 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. + +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 QUID PRO QUO 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. TIME WAS, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. "LESS THAN ONE-HALF of the island," you say, "is +devoted to the lepers." Molokai - "MOLOKAI AHINA," 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. + +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, "HARROWING is the +word"; and when the MOKOLII 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 - + +" 'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen." + +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 poctor, +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. + +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. + +I shall now extract three passages from my diary at Kalawao. + +A. "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." + +B. "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." + +C. "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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Damien was COARSE. + +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. + +Damien was DIRTY. + +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. + +Damien was HEADSTRONG. + +I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong head +and heart. + +Damien was BIGOTED. + +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. + +Damien WAS NOT SENT TO MOLOKAI, BUT WENT THERE WITHOUT ORDERS. + +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? + +Damien DID NOT STAY AT THE SETTLEMENT, ETC. + +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. + +Damien HAD NO HAND IN THE REFORMS, ETC. + +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. + +Damien WAS NOT A PURE MAN IN HIS RELATIONS WITH WOMEN, ETC + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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! + +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. + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Father Damien + + + + diff --git a/old/frdam10.zip b/old/frdam10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..779cf50 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/frdam10.zip diff --git a/old/old-2024-11-21/281-h.zip b/old/old-2024-11-21/281-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd600b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2024-11-21/281-h.zip diff --git a/old/old-2024-11-21/281-h/281-h.htm b/old/old-2024-11-21/281-h/281-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76e21b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2024-11-21/281-h/281-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1015 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Father Damien</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + 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;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Father Damien, by Robert Louis Stevenson</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Father Damien, by Robert Louis Stevenson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Father Damien + an Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: February 28, 2007 [eBook #281] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER DAMIEN*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1914 Chatto & Windus edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<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 +name="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, and 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 name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> From the Sydney +<i>Presbyterian</i>, October 26, 1889.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER DAMIEN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 281-h.htm or 281-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/281 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Father Damien + an Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: February 28, 2007 [eBook #281] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER DAMIEN*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1914 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +FATHER DAMIEN +AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DOCTOR HYDE OF HONOLULU +FROM +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + +1914 +LONDON +CHATTO & WINDUS + +A new impression +All rights reserved + +SYDNEY, +_February_ 25, 1890. + +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 _devil's advocate_. 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. + +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. + + "HONOLULU, + "_August_ 2, 1889. + + "Rev. H. B. GAGE. + + "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., + + "C. M. HYDE" {1} + +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. + +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, and +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. + +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 _quid pro quo_ 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. _Time was_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. "_Less than one-half_ of the island," you say, "is devoted +to the lepers." Molokai--"_Molokai ahina_," 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. + +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, "_Harrowing_ is the word"; and when the _Mokolii_ 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-- + + "'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen." + +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. + +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. + +I shall now extract three passages from my diary at Kalawao. + +_A_. "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." + +_B_. "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." + +_C_. "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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + Damien was _coarse_. + +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. + + Damien was _dirty_. + +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. + + Damien was _headstrong_. + +I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong head and +heart. + + Damien was _bigoted_. + +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. + + Damien _was not sent to Molokai_, _but went there without orders_. + +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? + + Damien _did not stay at the settlement_, _etc._ + +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. + + Damien _had no hand in the reforms_, _etc._ + +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. + + Damien _was not a pure man in his relations with women_, _etc._ + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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! + +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. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{1} From the Sydney _Presbyterian_, October 26, 1889. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER DAMIEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 281.txt or 281.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/281 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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