xtravagance 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
co