The Translation of a Savage | Page 2

night, in 1894, said to me:
"There is a really remarkable play in that book of yours, 'The
Translation, of a Savage'." I had not thought up to that time that my
work was of the kind which would appeal to George Moore, but he was
always making discoveries. Meeting him in Pall Mall one day, he said
to me: "My dear fellow, I have made a great discovery. I have been
reading the Old Testament. It is magnificent. In the mass of its
incoherence it has a series of the most marvellous stories. Do you
remember--" etc. Then he came home and had tea with me, revelling, in
the meantime, on having discovered the Bible!
I cannot feel that 'The Translation of a Savage' has any significance
beyond the truthfulness with which I believe it describes the
transformation, or rather the evolution, of a primitive character into a
character with an intelligence of perception and a sympathy which is
generally supposed to be the outcome of long processes of civilisation
and culture. The book has so many friends--this has been sufficiently
established by the very large sale it has had in cheap editions--that I am
still disposed to feel it was an inevitable manifestation in the progress
of my art, such as it is. People of diverse conditions of life have found
in it something to interest and to stimulate. One of the most volcanic of
the Labour members in the House of Commons told me that the
violence of his opposition to me in debate on a certain bill was greatly
moderated by the fact that I had written 'The Translation of a Savage';
while a certain rather grave duke remarked to me concerning the
character of Lali that "She would have been all right anywhere." I am
bound to say that he was a duke who, while a young man, knew the
wilds of Canada and the United States almost as well as I know
Westminster.

THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE

CHAPTER I
HIS GREAT MISTAKE
It appeared that Armour had made the great mistake of his life. When
people came to know, they said that to have done it when sober had
shown him possessed of a kind of maliciousness and cynicism almost
pardonable, but to do it when tipsy proved him merely weak and
foolish. But the fact is, he was less tipsy at the time than was imagined;
and he could have answered to more malice and cynicism than was
credited to him. To those who know the world it is not singular that, of
the two, Armour was thought to have made the mistake and had the
misfortune, or that people wasted their pity and their scorn upon him
alone. Apparently they did not see that the woman was to be pitied. He
had married her; and she was only an Indian girl from Fort Charles of
the Hudson's Bay Company, with a little honest white blood in her
veins. Nobody, not even her own people, felt that she had anything at
stake, or was in danger of unhappiness, or was other than a person who
had ludicrously come to bear the name of Mrs. Francis Armour. If any
one had said in justification that she loved the man, the answer would
have been that plenty of Indian women had loved white men, but had
not married them, and yet the population of half- breeds went on
increasing.
Frank Armour had been a popular man in London. His club might be
found in the vicinity of Pall Mall, his father's name was high and
honoured in the Army List, one of his brothers had served with
Wolseley in Africa, and Frank himself, having no profession, but with a
taste for business and investment, had gone to Canada with some such
intention as Lord Selkirk's in the early part of the century. He owned
large shares in the Hudson's Bay Company, and when he travelled
through the North-West country, prospecting, he was received most
hospitably. Of an inquiring and gregarious nature he went as much
among the half-breeds--or 'metis', as they are called--and Indians as
among the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company and the white settlers.
He had ever been credited with having a philosophical turn of mind;
and this was accompanied by a certain strain of impulsiveness or daring.

He had been accustomed all his life to make up his mind quickly and,
because he was well enough off to bear the consequences of
momentary rashness in commercial investments, he was not counted
among the transgressors. He had his own fortune; he was not drawing
upon a common purse. It was a different matter when he trafficked
rashly in the family name so far as to marry the daughter of
Eye-of-the-Moon, the Indian