'How I should enjoy, indeed, a day or two at Hursley with Mr. and Mrs. Keble. A line from him now and then, if he can find time, would be a great delight to me; but I know that he thinks and prays, and that is indeed a great happiness.
'Oh, the blessing of such thoughts as All Saints' Day brings!—and now more dear than ever, every day brings!—"Patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and every spirit made perfect in the faith of Christ," as an old Liturgy says. And the Collects in the Burial Service! How full, how simple and soothing, how full of calm, holy, tender, blessed hopes and anticipations!
'So you think the large Adelaide photograph very sad. I really don't remember it; I fancy I thought it a very fair likeness. But you know that I have a heavy lumpy dull look, except when talking—indeed, then too for aught I know—and this may be mistaken for a sad look when it is only a dull stupid one. You can't get a nice picture out of an ugly face, so it's no use trying, but you are not looking for that kind of thing. You want to see how far the face is any index of the character and life and work.
I don't think it odd that I should look careworn. I have enough to make me so! And yet if I were with you now, brightened up by being with you, you would say, "How well he looks!" And you would think I had any amount of work in me, as you saw me riding or walking or holding services. And then I had to a very considerable extent got over that silly shyness, which was a great trial and drawback to me of old, and sadly prevented me from enjoying the society of people (at Oxford especially) which would have done me much good. But without all these bodily defects, I should have been even more vain, and so I can see the blessing and mercy now, though how many times I have indulged murmuring rebellious thoughts!
'Perhaps I shall live ten or twenty years, and look back and say, "I recollect how in '64 I really almost thought I should not last long." But don't fancy that I am morbidly cherishing such fancies. Only I like you all to know me as I am changing in feeling from time to time. There is quite enough to account for it all.'
A few days later he returned to Auckland, and thence wrote to me a letter on the pros and cons of a move from New Zealand. The sight of ships and the town he had ceased to think of great importance, and older scholars had ceased to care for it, and there was much at that time to recommend Curtis Island to his mind. The want of bread-fruit was the chief disadvantage he then saw in it, but he still looked to keeping up Kohimarama for a good many years to come. I cannot describe how tender and considerate he was of feelings he thought I might possibly have of disappointment that St. Andrew's was not a successful experiment as far as health was concerned, evidently fearing that I had set my hopes on that individual venture, and that my feelings might be hurt if it had to be deserted.
The next letters are a good deal occupied with the troubles incident to the judgment upon 'Essays and Reviews.' He took a view, as has been seen, such as might be expected of the delicate refining metaphysical mind, thinking out points for itself, and weighing the possible value of every word, and differed from those who were in the midst of the contest, and felt some form of resistance and protest needful. He was strongly averse to agitation on the subject, and at the same time grieved to find himself for the first time, to his own knowledge, not accepting the policy of those whom he so much respected; though the only difference in his mind from theirs was as to the manner of the maintenance of the truth, and the immediate danger of error going uncondemned—a point on which his remote life perhaps hardly enabled him to judge.
All these long letters and more, which were either in the same tone, or too domestic to be published, prove the leisure caused by having an unusually small collection of pupils, and happily all in fair health; but with Christmas came a new idea, or rather an old one renewed. Instead of only going to Norfolk Island, on sufferance from the Pitcairn Committee, and by commission from the Bishop of Tasmania, a regular request was made, by Sir John Young, the Governor of Australia, that the Pitcairners might be taken under his supervision, so that, as far as Government was concerned, the opposition was withdrawn which had hindered his original establishment there, though still Curtis Island remained in the ascendency in the schemes of this summer. The ensuing is a reply to Sir John Coleridge's letter, written after hearing of the attack at Santa Cruz:—
'Kohimarama: March 3, 1865.
'My dearest Uncle,—Many many thanks for your letter, so full of comfort and advice. I need not tell you that the last budget of letters revived again most vividly not only the actual scene at Santa Cruz, but all the searchings of heart that followed it. I believe that we are all agreed on the main point. Enough ground has been opened for the present. Codrington was right in saying that the object of late has been to fill up gaps. But some of the most hazardous places to visit lie nearest to the south, e.g. some of the New Hebrides, &c., south of the Banks Islands. My notion is, that I ought to be content even to pass by (alas!) some places where I had some hold when I had reason to feel great distrust of the generally kind intentions of the people (that is a dark sentence, but you know my meaning). In short, there are very few places where I can feel, humanly speaking, secure against this kind of thing. It is always in the power of even one mischievous fellow to do mischief. And if the feeling of the majority might be in my favour, yet there being no way of expressing public opinion, no one cares to take an active part in preventing mischief. It is not worth his while to get into a squabble and risk his own life.