It threatened, I admit, to destroy the prestige so long and
laboriously established, since it seemed a dangerous yielding to the
natives that must menace the white life everywhere and render trade in
the Colony unsafe. Yet I did not hesitate.... There was bustle at
once within that Bungalow; the orders went forth; I saw the way and
chose it--to the dismay, outspoken, of every white man whose welfare
lay in my official hands. And the results, I may tell you now without pride, since, as we both
admit, no credit attaches to myself--the results astonished the
entire Colony.... The Chiefs came to me, in due course, bringing
fruit and flowers and presents enough to bury all Headquarters, and
with a reverential obedience that proved the rising scotched to
death--because its subtle psychological causes had been marvellously
understood. Full comprehension, as I mentioned earlier in this narrative, we
cannot expect to have. Its origin, I may believe, lies hid in the
nature of that Beauty which is truth and love--in the source of our
very life, perhaps, which lies hid again with beauty very far
away.... But I may say this much at least: that it seemed, my inspired
action had co-operated with the instinctive beliefs of these
mysterious tribes--cooperated with their primitive and ancient sense
of Beauty. It had, inexplicably to myself, fulfilled their sense of
right, which my subordinates would have outraged. I had acted with,
instead of against, them. More I cannot tell you. You have the "crude instance," and you have
the method. The instances multiplied, the method became habit. There
grew in me this personal attitude towards an impersonal power I
hardly understood, and this attitude included an emotion--love. With
faith and love I consequently obeyed it. I loved the source of my
guidance and assistance, though I dared attach no name to it. Simple
enough the matter might have been, could I have referred its origin
to some name--to our mother or to you, to my Chief in London, to an
impersonal Foreign Office that has since honoured me with money and a
complicated address upon my envelopes, or even, by a stretch of
imagination, to that semi-abstract portion of my being some men call
a Higher Self. To none of these, however, could I honestly or dishonestly ascribe it. Yet, as in the case of those congratulatory telegrams from our mother
and yourself, I was aware--and this feeling never failed with each
separate occurrence--aware that somebody, other than ourselves
individually or collectively--was pleased. V

WHAT I have told you so far concerns a growth chiefly of my inner life
that was almost a new birth. My outer life, of event and action, was
sufficiently described in those monthly letters you had from me
during the ten years, broken by three periods of long-leave at home,
I spent in that sinister and afflicted land. This record, however,
deals principally with the essential facts of my life, the inner; the
outer events and actions are of importance only in so far as they
interpret these, since that which a man feels and thinks alone is
real, and thought and feeling, of course, precede all action. I have told you of the Thrill, of its genesis and development; and I
chose an obvious and rather banal instance, first of all to make
myself quite clear, and, secondly, because the majority were of so
delicate a nature as to render their description extremely difficult. The point is that the emotion was, for me, a new one. I may honestly
describe it as a birth. I must now tell you that it first stirred in me some five years after
I left England, and that during those years I had felt nothing but
what most other men feel out here. Whether its sudden birth was due
to the violent country, or to some process of gradual preparation
that had been going forward in me secretly all that time, I cannot
tell. No proof, at any rate, offered itself of either. It came
suddenly. I do know, however, that from its first occurrence it has
strengthened and developed until it has now become a dominating
influence of a distinctly personal kind. My character has been affected, perhaps improved. You have mentioned
on several occasions that you noted in my letters a new tenderness, a
new kindness towards my fellow-creatures, less of criticism and more
of sympathy, a new love; the "birth of my poetic sense" you also
spoke of once; and I myself have long been aware of a thousand fresh
impulses towards charity and tolerance that had, hitherto, at any
rate, lain inactive in my being. I need not flatter myself complacently, yet a change there is, and it
may be an improvement. Whether big or small, however, I am sure of
one thing: I ascribe it entirely to this sharper and more extended
sensitiveness to Beauty, this new and exquisite receptiveness that
has established itself as a motive-power in my life. I have changed
the poet's line, using prose of course: There is beauty everywhere
and therefore joy. And I will explain briefly, too, how it is that this copybook maxim is
now for me a practical reality. For at first, with my growing
perception, I was distressed at what seemed to me the lavish waste,
the reckless, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in human
nature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. The loss seemed
so extravagant. Not only that a million flowers waste their sweetness
on the desert air, but that such prodigal stores of human love and
tenderness remain unemployed, their rich harvest all
ungathered--because, misdirected and misunderstood, they find no
receptacle into which they may discharge. It has now come to me, though only by & slow and almost imperceptible
advance, that these stores of apparently unremunerative beauty, this
harvest so thickly sown about the world, unused, ungathered--prepare
yourself, please, for an imaginative leap--ore used, are gathered,
are employed. By Whom? I can only answer: By some one who is pleased; and probably by many
such. How, why, and wherefore--I catch your crowd of questions in
advance--we need not seek exactly to discover, although the answer
of no uncertain kind, I hear within the stillness of a heart that has
learned to beat to a deeper, sweeter rhythm than before. Those who loved beauty and lived it in their lives, follow that same
ideal with increasing power and passion afterwards--and for ever. The shutter of black iron we call Death hides the truth with terror
and resentment; but what if that shutter were, after all,
transparent? A glorious dream, I hear you cry. Now listen to my answer. It is, for
me, a definite assurance and belief, because--I know. Long before you have reached this point you will, I know, have reached
also the conclusion (with a sigh) that I am embarked upon some
commonplace experience of ghostly return, or, at least, of posthumous
communication. Perhaps I wrong you here, but in any case I would at
once correct the inference, if it has been drawn. You remember our
adventures with the seance-mongers years ago? ...