e opens its pink white petals, as it
were, in rosy reflection of the snow that lies yet upon the ground.
But the coldness of the weather does not in the least deter people from
thronging the spot in which the trees grow, where they spend hours in
admiration, and end by pinning appropriate poems on the twigs for later
comers to peruse. Fleeting as the flowers are in fact, they live forever
in fancy. For they constitute one of the commonest motifs of both
painting and poetry. A branch just breaking into bloom seen against the
sunrise sky, or a bough bending its blossoms to the bosom of a stream,
is subject enough for their greatest masters, who thus wed, as it
were, two arts in one,--the spirit of poesy with pictorial form. This
plum-tree is but a blossom. Precocious harbinger of a host of flowers,
its gay heralding over, it vanishes not to be recalled, for it bears no
edible fruit.

The next event in the series might fairly be called phenomenal. Early in
April takes place what is perhaps as superb a sight as anything in this
world, the blossoming of the cherry-trees. Indeed, it is not easy to do
the thing justice in description. If the plum invited admiration, the
cherry commands it; for to see the sakura in flower for the first time
is to experience a new sensation. Familiar as a man may be with cherry
blossoms at home, the sight there bursts upon him with the dazzling
effect of a revelation. Such is the profusion of flowers that the tree
seems to have turned into a living mass of rosy light. No leaves break
the brilliance. The snowy-pink petals drape the branches entirely, yet
so delicately, one deems it all a veil donned for the tree's nuptials
with the spring. For nothing could more completely personify the spirit
of the spring-time. You can almost fancy it some dryad decked for her
bridal, in maidenly day-dreaming too lovely to last. For like the plum
the cherry fails in its fruit to fulfil the promise of its flower.

It would be strange indeed if so much beauty received no recognition,
but it is even more strange that recognition should be so complete and
so universal as it is. Appreciation is not confined to the cultivated
few; it is shown quite as enthusiastically by the masses. The popularity
of the plants is all-embracing. The common people are as sensitive to
their beauty as are the upper classes. Private gratification, roseate
as it is, pales beside the public delight. Indeed, not content with what
revelatio