rted her, and the whole of pain or
pleasure might be held in a flower's cup or the imagined frown of
a friend. It was never found in those things which to others
seemed things of importance. At the age of twelve she passed the
Matriculation of the Madras University, and awoke to find herself
famous throughout India. "Honestly," she said to me, "I was not
pleased; such things did not appeal to me." But here, in a
letter from Hyderabad, bidding one "share a March morning" with
her, there is, at the mere contact of the sun, this outburst:
"Come and share my exquisite March morning with me: this
sumptuous blaze of gold and sapphire sky; these scarlet lilies
that adorn the sunshine; the voluptuous scents of neem and
champak and serisha that beat upon the languid air with their
implacable sweetness; the thousand little gold and blue and
silver breasted birds bursting with the shrill ecstasy of life in
nesting time. All is hot and fierce and passionate, ardent and
unashamed in its exulting and importunate desire for life and
love. And, do you know that the scarlet lilies are woven petal by
petal from my heart's blood, these little quivering birds are my
soul made incarnate music, these heavy perfumes are my emotions
dissolved into aerial essence, this flaming blue and gold sky is
the 'very me,' that part of me that incessantly and insolently,
yes, and a little deliberately, triumphs over that other part--a
thing of nerves and tissues that suffers and cries out, and that
must die to-morrow perhaps, or twenty years hence."

Then there was her humour, which was part of her strange wisdom,
and was always awake and on the watch. In all her letters,
written in exquisite English prose, but with an ardent imagery
and a vehement sincerity of emotion which make them, like the
poems, indeed almost more directly, un-English, Oriental, there
was always this intellectual, critical sense of humour, which
could laugh at one's own enthusiasm as frankly as that enthusiasm
had been set down. And partly the humour, like the delicate
reserve of her manner, was a mask or a shelter. "I have taught
myself," she writes to me from India, "to be commonplace and like
everybody else superficially. Every one thinks I am so nice and
cheerful, so 'brave,' all the banal things that are so comfortable
to be. My mother knows me only as 'such a tranquil child, but so
strong-willed.' A tranquil child!" And she writes again, with deeper
significance: