'Yes, if by His mercy I may indeed be brought to the home where they dwell! But as the power of keen enjoyment of this world was never mine, as it is given to bright healthy creatures with eyes and teeth and limbs sound and firm, so I try to remember dear Father's words, that "he did not mean that he was fit to go because there was little that he cared to stop here for." And I don't feel morbid like, only with a diminished capacity for enjoying things here. Of the mere animal pleasures, eating and drinking are a serious trouble. My eyes don't allow me to look about much, and I walk with "unshowing eye turned towards the earth." I don't converse with ease; there is the feeling of difficulty in framing words. I prefer to be alone and silent. If I must talk, I like the English tongue least of all. Melanesia doesn't have such combinations of consonants and harsh sounds as our vernacular rejoices in. If I speak loud, as in preaching, I am pretty clear still; but I can't read at all properly now without real awkwardness.
'I am delighted with Shairp's "Essays" that Pena sent me. He has the very nature to make him capable of appreciating the best and most thoughtful writers, especially those who have a thoughtful spirit of piety in them. He gives me many a very happy quiet hour. I wish such a book had come in my way while I was young. I more than ever regret that Mr. Keble's "Praelectiones" was never translated into English. I am sure that I have neglected poetry all my life for want of some guide to the appreciation and criticism of it, and that I am the worse for it. If you don't use Uncle Sam's "Biographia Literaria," and "Literary Remains," I should much like to have them.
'Do you, Fan, care to have any of my German books? I have, indeed, scarce any but theological ones. But no one else reads German here, and I read none but the divinity; and, indeed, I almost wish I had them in translations, for the sake of the English type and paper. My eyes don't like the German type at all.
'Moreover, now (it was not so years ago), all that is worth reading in their language is in a good serviceable English dress, and passed, moreover, through the minds of clear English thinkers-and the Germans are such wordy, clumsy, involved writers. A man need not be a German scholar to be well acquainted with all useful German theology. Döllinger is almost the only clear, plain writer I know among them. Dorner, the great Lutheran divine, gives you about two pages and a half of close print for a single sentence-awful work, worse than my English!... But I know that if I read less, and thought more, it would be better. Only it is such hard work thinking, and I am so lazy! I was amused at hearing, through another lad, of Edward Wogale's remark, "This helping in translation" (a revisal of the "Acts" in Mota) "is such hard work!" "Yes, my boy, brain work takes it out of you." I wish I had Jem's power of writing reports, condensing evidence into clear reliable statements. Lawyers get that power; while we Clergymen are careless and inaccurate, because, as old Lord Campbell said, "there is no reply to our sermons."
'What would I give to have been well drilled in grammar, and made an accurate scholar in old days! Ottery School and Eton didn't do much for me in that way, though of course the fault was chiefly in myself.
'But most of all, I think that I regret the real loss to us Eton boys of the weekly help that Winchester, Rugby, and Harrow boys had from Moberly, Arnold, and Vaughan in their sermons! I really think that might have helped to keep us out of harm!
'It is now 4.30 P.M., calm and hot. Such a tiger-lily on my table, and the pretty delicate achimenes, and the stephanotis climbing up the verandah, and a bignonia by its side, with honeysuckle all over the steps, and jessamine all over the two water-tanks at the angle of the verandah. The Melanesians have, I think, twenty-nine flower gardens, and they bring the flowers, of flowers, and the oleanders are a sight! Some azaleas are doing well, verbenas, hibiscus of all kinds. Roses and, alas! clove carnations, and stocks, and many of the dear old cottage things won't grow well. Scarlet passion flowers and splendid Japanese lilies of perfect white or pink or spotted. The golden one I have not yet dared to buy. They are most beautiful. I like both the red and the yellow tritoma; we have both. But I don't think we have the perfume of the English flowers, and I miss the clover and buttercup. And what would I give for an old-fashioned cabbage rose, as big as a saucer, and for fresh violets, which grow here but have little scent, and lilies of the valley! Still more, fancy seeing a Devonshire bank in spring, with primroses and daisies, or meadows with cowslip and clover and buttercups, and hearing thrushes and blackbirds and larks and cuckoos, and seeing trout rise to the flies on the water! There is much exaggeration in second-rate books about tropical vegetation. You are really much better off than we are. No trees equal English oaks, beeches, and elms, and chestnuts; and with very little expense and some care, you have any flowers you like, growing out of doors or in a greenhouse. You can make a warmer climate, and we can't a colder one. But we have plenty to look at for all that. There, what a nice hour I have spent in chatting with you!'
This same dreamy kind of 'chat,' full of the past, and of quiet meditation over the present, reminding one of Bunyan's Pilgrims in the Land of Beulah, continues at intervals through the sheets written while waiting for the 'Southern Cross.' Here is a note (March 14) of the teaching:-
'I am working at the Miracles with the second set, and I am able to venture upon serious questions, viz. the connection between sin and physical infirmity or sickness, the Demoniacs, the power of working miracles as essential to the Second Adam, in whom the prerogative of the Man (the ideal man according to the idea of his original condition) was restored. Then we go pretty closely into detail on each miracle, and try to work away till we reach a general principle or law.
'With another class I am making a kind of Commentary on St. Luke. With a third, trying to draw out in full the meaning of the Lord's Prayer. With a fourth, Old Testament history. It is often very interesting; but, apart from all sham, I am a very poor teacher. I can discourse, or talk with equals, but I can't teach. So I don't do justice to these or any other pupils I may chance to have. But they learn something among us all.'
He speaks of himself as being remarkably well and free from the discomforts of illness during the months of March and Apriclass="underline" and these letters show perfect peace and serenity of spirit; but his silence and inadequacy for 'small talk' were felt like depression or melancholy by some of his white companions, and he always seemed to feel it difficult to rouse himself. To sit and study his Hebrew Isaiah with Delitzsch's comment was his chief pleasure; and on his birthday, April 1, Easter Eve, and the ensuing holy days, he read over all his Father's letters to him, and dwelt, in the remarks to his sisters, upon their wisdom and tenderness.
Mr. Codrington says: 'Before starting on the voyage he had confirmed some candidates in the Church in town: on which occasion he seemed to rouse himself with difficulty for the walk, and would go by himself; but he was roused again by the service, and gave a spirited and eloquent address, and came back, after a hearty meal and lively conversation, much refreshed in mind and body. This was on Palm Sunday. On Easter Day he held his last confirmation of three girls and two Solomon Island boys.
Then came the 'Southern Cross,' bringing with her from New Zealand a box with numerous books and other treasures, the pillow that the old Bishop of Exeter was leaning on when he died; a photograph, from the Bishop of Salisbury, of his Cathedral, and among the gifts for the younger Melanesians, a large Noah's ark, which elicited great shouts of delight.
'Well! [after mentioning the articles in order] all these things, and still more the thought of the pains taken and the many loving feelings engaged in getting them together, will help me much during the coming months. All the little unexpected things are so many little signs of the care and love you always have for me, and that is more than their own value, after all. I always feel it solemn to go off on these voyages. We have had such mercies. Fisher is doing quite well, getting about on crutches; and that is the only hospital case we have had during the whole summer.'