FATHER DAM EN.

New Zealand Tablet, 30 October 1919, Page 23

FATHER DAM EN.

Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson prefixes to Lay Morals in the Biographical Edition of her husband's work, a most interesting preface dealing with the attitude of "R.L.S." toward the victims of leprosy; the second paper in the volume being the famous letter in defence of Father Damien (says an American exchange). Two or three good anecdotes are told. In one the romance writer offers a cigarette "in the island fashion" (it was in the Marquesas) to a stranger, who takes it, with ''the maimed hand of a leper," and after a puff or two hands it back to the giver, who smokes it! "I could not mortify the man," said Stevenson afterwards to his horrified wife. At Molokai, 'whither they made a voyage to visit the leper settlement, he refused to wear gloves in playing croquet, lest it might remind the young girls of their condition. He revered Father Damien's memory, and studied the life of the priest until there seemed nothing more to learn. Fancy, then, Stevenson's feelings when he read in a newspaper at Sydney, some weeks later, the letter of a well-known Honolulu missionary, protesting against a monument to Father Damien on the ground that he was a "coarse, dirty man," who had contracted leprosy through his immoral habits! "I shall never forget my husband's ferocity of indignation," says Mrs. Stevenson, "his leaping stride as he paced the room holding the offending paper at arm's length before his eyes. In another moment he disappeared through the doorway, and I could hear him, in his own room, pulling his chair to the table and. the sound of his inkstand being dragged toward him." ; That afternoon he.called together his wife and her son. and daughter and told them he had something serious to lay before them; "and then we three had the incomparable experience of hearing its author read aloud' the defence of Father Damien while it was still red-hot from his indignant soul." Having finished the reading he 'pointed; out that the matter was highly libellous, and its publication

might involve the loss of his entire substance: but ''there was no dissenting voice—how could . there \ be?" .-■ Arr :-r t;p An eminent lawyer was consulted, and pronounced it a serious affair," as indeed it was. "However, no one will publish it for you," he exclaimed. This was true enough but the author hired a printer by the day, and the, ftT Shed through, then the family turned in and helped address the pamphlets, which were scattered 5 far and wide. And thus "Father Damien was ; vindicated by a stranger, a man of another country and another religion from his own." ■ Stevenson regretted that had not waited' before writing till his anger had cooled. If he had, the defence would have lacked something of the quality that makes it unique. " . J ■":,