Delicacy, subtlety,

suggestion in any form, have no part in it. During the five years of my

exile amid this tropical extravagance I can recall no single instance

of beauty “hinting” anywhere. Nature seems, rather, audaciously

abandoned; she is without restraint. She shows her all, tells

everything—she shouts, she never whispers. You will understand me when

I tell you that this wholesale lack of reticence and modesty involves

all absence in the beholder of—surprise. A sudden ravishment of the

senses is impossible. One never can experience that sweet and troubling

agitation to which a breathless amazement properly belongs. You may be

stunned; you are hardly ever “thrilled.”

Now, this new sensitiveness to Beauty I have mentioned has opened me

to that receptiveness which is aware of subtlety and owns to sharp

surprise. The thrill is of its very essence. It is unexpected. Out of

the welter of prolific detail Nature here glories in, a delicate hint

of wonder and surprise comes stealing. The change, of course, is in

myself, not otherwise. And on the particular “crude” occasion I will

briefly mention, it reached me from the most obvious and banal of

conditions—the night sky and the moon.

Here, then, is how it happened: There had arisen a situation of

grave difficulty among the natives of my Province, and the need for

taking a strong, authoritative line was paramount. The reports of my

subordinates from various parts of the country pointed to very vigorous

action of a repressing, even of a punitive, description. It was not, in

itself, a complicated situation, and no Governor, who was soldier too,

need have hesitated for an instant. The various Stations, indeed,

anticipating the usual course of action indicated by precedent, had

automatically gone to their posts, prepared for the “official

instructions” it was known that I should send, wondering impatiently

(as I learned afterwards) at the slight delay. For delay there was,

though of a few hours only; and this delay was caused by my

uncomfortable new habit —pausing for the guidance and the “thrill.”

Intuition, waiting upon the thrill of Beauty that guided it, at first

lay inactive.

My behaviour seemed scarcely of the orthodox, official kind,

soldierly least of all. There was uneasiness, there was cursing,

probably; there were certainly remarks not complimentary. Prompt,

decisive action was the obvious and only course… while I sat quietly

in the Headquarters Bungalow, a sensitive youth again, a dreamer, a

poet, hungry for the inspiration of Beauty that the gorgeous tropical

night concealed with her excess of smothering abundance.

This incongruity between my procedure and the time-honoured methods

of “strong” Governors must have seemed exasperating to those who

waited, respectful, but with nerves on edge, in the canvassed and

tented regions behind the Headquarters clearing. Indeed, the Foreign

Office, could it have witnessed my unpardonable hesitation, might well

have dismissed me on the spot, I think. For I sat there, dreaming in my

deck-chair on the verandah, smoking a cigarette, safe within my net

from the countless poisonous mosquitoes, and listening to the wind in

the palms that fringed the heavy jungle round the building.

Smoking quietly, dreaming, listening, waiting, I sat there in this

mood of inner attention and expectancy, knowing that the guidance I

anticipated must surely come.

A few clouds sprawled in their beds of silver across the sky; the

heat, the perfume, were, as always, painfully, excessive; the moonlight

bathed the huge trees and giant leaves with that habitual extravagance

which made it seem ordinary, almost cheap and wonderless. Very silent

the wooden house lay all about me, there were no footsteps, there was

no human voice. I heard only the wash of the heavy-scented wind through

the colossal foliage that hardly stirred, and watched, as a hundred

times before, the immense heated sky, drenched in its brilliant and

intolerable moonlight. All seemed a riot of excess, an orgy.

Then, suddenly, the shameless night drew on some exquisite veil, as

the moon, between three-quarters and the full, slid out of sight behind

a streaky cloud. A breath, it seemed, of lighter wind woke all the

perfume of the burdened forest leaves. The shouting splendour hushed;

there came a whisper and, at last—a hint.

I watched with relief and gratitude the momentary eclipse, for in

the half-light I was aware of that sharp and tender mood which was

preparatory to the thrill. Slowly sailing into view again from behind

that gracious veil of cloud—

“The moon put forth a little diamond peak, No bigger

than an unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scimitar; Bright signal

that she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals, ere deliciously She

bowed into the heavens her timid head.”

And then it came. The Thrill stole forth and touched

me, passing like a meteor through my heart, but in that lightning

passage, cleaving it open to some wisdom that seemed most near to love.

For power flowed in along the path that Beauty cleft for it, and with

the beauty came that intuitive guidance I had waited for.

The inspiration operated like a flash. There was no

reasoning; I was aware immediately that another and a better way of

dealing with the situation was given me.

I need not weary you with details.