have believed that my body had dropped aside, that I stood there naked,
unprotected, a form-less spirit, stirred and lifted by the passing
breeze.

And then it came. As with a sword-thrust of blinding sweetness, I was
laid open. Yet so instant, and of such swiftness, was the stroke, that I
can only describe it by saying that, while pierced and wounded, I was
also healed again.

Without hint or warning, Beauty swept me with a pain and happiness well
nigh intolerable. It drenched me and was gone. No lightning flash could
have equalled the swiftness of its amazing passage; something tore in
me; the emotion was enveloping but very tender; it was both terrible yet
dear. Would to God I might crystallize it for you in those few mighty
words which should waken in yourself--in every one!--the wonder and the
joy. It contained, I felt, both the worship that belongs to awe and the
tenderness of infinite love which welcomes tears. Some power that was
not of this world, yet that used the details of this world to manifest,
had visited me.

No element of surprise lay in it even. It was too swift for anything but
joy, which of all emotions is the most instantaneous: I had been empty,
I was filled. Beauty that bathes the stars and drowns the very universe
had stolen out of this wild morsel of wasted and uncared-for English
garden, and dropped its transforming magic into--me. At the very moment,
moreover, when I had been ready to deny it altogether. I saw my
insignificance, yet, such was the splendour it had wakened in me, knew
my right as well. It could be ever thus; some attitude in myself alone
prevented. . . .