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Father Damien, an Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu By: Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) |
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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
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