ages, as is
explained in a note at the end.

_November 11th, 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 Novemb