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 weaknesses, 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