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diff --git a/old/frdam10.txt b/old/frdam10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b8d17de --- /dev/null +++ b/old/frdam10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,809 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Father Damien by Robert L. Stevenson + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Father Damien + +by Robert Louis Stevenson + +June, 1995 [Etext #281] + + +Project Gutenberg Etext of Father Damien by Robert L. 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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 + + + + |