Father Damien | Page 7

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