My Tropic Isle | Page 7

pastimes of its
children; if you desire to have exact first-hand knowledge, to revel in
the rich delights of new experiences, your scope must be limited.
The sentiments of a true lover of an Isle cannot without sacrilege be
shared. The love is an exclusive passion, not of Herodian fierceness,
misgiving, and gloom, but of joyful jealousy, for it must be well-nigh
impossible to every one else.
Such is this delicious Isle--this unkempt, unrestrained garden where the
centuries gaze upon perpetual summer. Small it is, and of varied
charms--set in the fountain of time-defying youth. Abundantly
sprinkled with tepid rains, vivified by the glorious sun, its verdure
tolerates no trace of age. No ill or sour vapours contaminate its breath.
Bland and ever fresh breezes preserve its excellencies untarnished. It
typifies all that is tranquil, quiet, easeful, dreamlike, for it is the, Isle of
Dreams.
All is lovable--from crescentric sandpit--coaxing and consenting to the
virile moods of the sea, harmonious with wind-shaken casuarinas,
tinkling with the cries of excitable tern--to the stolid grey walls and
blocks of granite which have for unrecorded centuries shouldered off

the white surges of the Pacific. The flounces of mangroves, the sparse,
grassy epaulettes on the shoulders of the hills the fragrant forest, the
dim jungle, the piled up rocks, the caves where the rare swiftlet hatches
out her young in gloom and silence in nests of gluten and moss--all are
mine to gloat over. Among such scenes do I commune with the genius
of the Isle, and saturate myself with that restful yet exhilarating
principle which only the individual who has mastered the art of living
the unartificial life perceives. When strained of body and seared of
mind, did not the Isle, lovely in lonesomeness, perfumed, sweet in
health, irresistible in mood, console and soothe as naught else could?
Shall I not, therefore, do homage to its profuse and gracious charms
and exercise the rights and privileges of protector?
"When thus I hail the moment flying, Ah! still delay, thou art so fair!"
Sea, coral reefs, forest, jungle afford never ending pleasure. Look,
where the dolorous sphinx sheds gritty tears because of the boldness of
the sun and the solvency of the disdainful sea. Look, where the jungle
clothes the steep Pacific slope with its palms and overskirt of vines and
creepers! Glossy, formal bird's-nest ferns and irregular mass of
polypodium edged with fawn-coloured, infertile fronds fringe the
sea-ward ending. Orchids, old gold and violet, cling to the rocks with
the white claws of the sea snatching at their toughened roots, and
beyond the extreme verge of ferns and orchids on abrupt sea-scarred
boulders are the stellate shadows of the whorled foliage of the umbrella
tree, in varied pattern, precise and clean cut and in delightful
commingling and confusion. Deep and definite the shadows, offspring
of lordly light and steadfast leaves--not mere insubstantialities, but stars
deep sculptured in the grey rock.
And when an intemperate sprite romps and rollicks, and all the features
of prettiness and repose are distraught under the bluster and lateral blur
of a cyclone, still do I revel in the scene. Does a mother love her child
the less when, contorted with passion, it storms and rages? She grieves
that a little soul should be so greatly vexed. Her affection is no jot
depreciated. So, when my trees are tempest-tossed, and the grey seas
batter the sand-spit and bellow on the rocks, and neither bird nor
butterfly dare venture from leafy sanctuary, and the green flounces are
tattered and stained by the scald of brine spray, do I avow my serenity.
How staunch the heart of the little island to withstand so sturdy a

buffeting!
In such a scene would it not have been wicked to have delivered
ourselves over to any cranky, miserly economy or to any distortion or
affectation of thrift? Had fortune smiled, her gifts would have been
sanely appreciated, for our ideas of comfort and the niceties of life are
not cramped, neither are they to be gauged by the narrow gape of our
purse. Our castles are built in the air, not because earth has no fit place
for their foundations, but for the sufficient reason that the wherewithal
for the foundations was lacking. When a sufficiency of the world's
goods has been obtained to satisfy animal wants for food and clothing
and shelter, happiness depends, not upon the pleasures but the
pleasantnesses of life; not upon the possession of a house full of
superfluities but in the attainment of restraining grace.
It might be possible for us to live for the present in just a shade "better
style" than we do; but we have mean ambitions in other directions than
style. Style is not for those who are placidly indifferent to display; and
before whom on