blossom, became quite Japanese things when we found in them a most feverish outburst of our desire towards Spring. We hardly think of truth and beauty as the ending words for a song on the nightingale as in Keats ode; our mind goes straight to the irresistible impulse of the bird in leaving the deeper hills to hunt after Spring and sunlight. It is a great moment among many others when we show we are much related with the Celtic temperament; there is nothing like our Spring thought, often turbulent, ever so passionate, that we express most forcibly one of the clear national characteristics.
Outside the sky is ashen and dumb, as it is usually at the end of December; the maple-leaves sang a month ago their last farewell of glory written in blood. (What a patience and strength they saved only to reach that tragic end!) Within my room the Spring air already floods. The Chinese daffodils, aged but happy, bloom on the tokonoma, the holy dais, where Spring always begins first to smile; a most appropriate picture is hanged on its wall, ready to greet the approach of the New Year
