_November_ 11_th_ 1888.
_One November night_, _in the village of Tautira_, _we sat at the high
table in the hall of assembly_, _hearing the natives sing_. _It was dark
in the hall_, _and very warm_; _though at times the land wind blew a
little shrewdly through the chinks_, _and at times_, _through the larger
openings_, _we could see the moonlight on the lawn_. _As the songs arose
in the rattling Tahitian chorus_, _the chief translated here and there a
verse_. _Farther on in the volume you shall read the songs themselves_;
_and I am in hopes that not you only_, _but all who can find a savour in
the ancient poetry of places_, _will read them with some pleasure_. _You
are to conceive us_, _therefore_, _in strange circumstances and very
pleasing_; _in a strange land and climate_, _the most beautiful on
earth_; _surrounded by a foreign race that all travellers have agreed to
be the most engaging_; _and taking a double interest in two foreign
arts_.
_We came forth again at last_, _in a cloudy moonlight_, _on the forest
lawn which is the street of Tautira_. _The Pacific roared outside upon
the reef_. _Here and there one of the scattered palm-built lodges shone
out under the shadow of the wood_, _the lamplight bursting through the
crannies of the wall_. _We went homeward slowly_, _Ori a Ori carrying
behind us the lantern and the chairs_, _properties with which we had just
been enacting our part of the distinguished visitor_. _It was one of
those moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall the names and
deplore the absence of congenial friends_; _and it was your name that
first rose upon our lips_. ‘_How Symonds would have enjoyed this
evening_!’ _said one_, _and then another_. _The word caught in my mind_;
_I went to bed_, _and it was still there_. _The glittering_, _frosty
solitudes in which your days are cast arose before me_: _I seemed to see
you walking there in the late night_, _under the pine-trees and the
stars_; _and I received the image with something like remorse_.
_There is a modern attitude towards fortune_; _in this place I will not
use a graver name_. _Staunchly to withstand her buffets and to enjoy
with equanimity her favours was the code of the virtuous of old_. _Our
fathers_, _it should seem_, _wondered and doubted how they had merited
their misfortunes_: _we_, _rather how we have deserved our happiness_.
_And we stand often abashed and sometimes revolted_, _at those
partialities of fate by which we profit most_. _It was so with me on
that November night_: _I felt that our positions should be changed_. _It
was you_, _dear Symonds_, _who should have gone upon that voyage and
written this account_. _With your rich stores of knowledge_, _you could
have remarked and understood a thousand things of interest and beauty
that escaped my ignorance_; _and the brilliant colours of your style
would have carried into a thousand sickrooms the sea air and the strong
sun of tropic islands_. _It was otherwise decreed_. _But suffer me at
least to connect you_, _if only in name and only in the fondness of
imagination_, _with the voyage of the_ ‘Silver Ship.’