from end to end with exquisitely made vines of paper Wistaria, which, in their delicate waving grace and colours, quite put to shame the garish flags and gaudy streamers of the foreign quarter.
But there the secret of the whole thing lies. The festival is not all in noise and dangerous play and fire-crackers. I, an American, think that the Japanese celebrate our Independence Day better than we ourselves do, for theirs is a manifestation of the spirit—a kindliness and courtesy that sympathizes with us in a patriotic sentiment. I cannot help thinking that ours would be more real if it too came from the heart, and did not at every street corner encroach on the rights of others, their feelings, and their claims to safety.
But we can all learn something. England’s Bank Holidays and Eastern ‘Race Weeks,’ Europe’s ante-Lenten Carnivals and New Year’s festivities, as well as America’s ‘Terrible Fourth’ and Labour Day, can take from the Japanese, if their movers will, points on the simple joy of celebration; from days spent, not in boisterous picnicking, in tedious street parades, gambling, or unhealthy gaiety, but in intimate communion with that which is cleanest and most serene, sanest and sweetest in the world—Nature.
