A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

THE
Otokichi's Daruma
I
young folks are delighted, because last
night a heavy fall of snow made for us
what the Japanese poets so prettily call
" a silver world." . . . Really these poets have
been guilty of no extravagance in their charming
praises of winter. For in Japan winter is beauti-
ful, — fantastically beautiful. It bestirs no mel-
ancholy imaginings about " the death of nature,"
— inasmuch as nature remains most visibly alive
during even the Period of Greatest Cold. It
does not afflict the aesthetic eye with the spectacle
of "skeleton-woods," — for the woods largely
consist of evergreens. And the snow, — heaping
softly upon the needles of the pines, or forcing
the bamboos to display their bending grace under
its momentary weight, — never suggests to Far-
Eastern poet the dismal fancy of a winding-sheet.
Indeed the singular charm of Japanese winter is
made by this snow, — lumping itself into grotes-
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