And, scattered through the book, there are many other passages of almost
equal descriptive excellence.

Nevertheless, to apply artistic standards to this book would be a
fundamental error in appreciation. Like faith, enthusiasm, or heroism,
art veils part of the truth of life to make the rest appear more
splendid, inspiring, or sinister. And this book is only truth,
interesting and futile, truth unadorned, simple and straightforward. The
Resident of Pahang has the devoted friendship of Umat, the punkah-puller,
he has an individual faculty of vision, a large sympathy, and the
scrupulous consciousness of the good and evil in his hands. He may as
well rest content with such gifts. One cannot expect to be, at the same
time, a ruler of men and an irreproachable player on the flute.



A HAPPY WANDERER--1910


Converts are interesting people. Most of us, if you will pardon me for
betraying the universal secret, have, at some time or other, discovered
in ourselves a readiness to stray far, ever so far, on the wrong road.
And what did we do in our pride and our cowardice? Casting fearful
glances and waiting for a dark moment, we buried our discovery
discreetly, and kept on in the old direction, on that old, beaten track
we have not had courage enough to leave, and which we perceive now more
clearly than before to be but the arid way of the grave.

The convert, the man capable of grace (I am speaking here in a secular
sense), is not discreet. His pride is of another kind; he jumps gladly