--'Well, in that respect,' I answered, 'we are perhaps more developed than other peoples. Even the etymology of our language proves it. We have such terms as Hanami, that is a flower-seeing; Tsukimi, that is moon-seeing; and Yukimi, that is, snow-seeing. You have phrases such as "to see the flowers," "to see the moon," and "to see the snow," but these are hardly an equivalent. Our phrases imply a deeper feeling, both poetical and artistic; may even imply an act of seeing those objects in the company of congenial friends. The snow is, as I indicated, one of these sights. _Apropos_ of snow, I went to Richmond once in company with a few compatriots, to see the snow-scene in the park there, whence one commands a beautiful view of the river Thames. Many years afterwards I was asked if we had snow in my country (you know this kind of question is asked of us very often). I answered "Yes." Thereupon a lady, who happened to remember that I had gone to Richmond to see the snow there years ago, abruptly remarked, "Oh! I thought you had no snow in your country." When I replied, "What makes you think so," she said, "Because you went to Richmond on purpose to see the snow." I had then to explain that our excursion to Richmond was not because we did not know what snow was, but because we liked to see the sight. We do not get tired of seeing such scenes any more than you Europeans get tired of going to the opera, to see, or rather to hear the same opera over and over again, as for instance _Faust_.' --'But at the opera we can satisfy our sense of sight as well as that of hearing,' said a young lady, 'but what of the snow! It has no colour, being white,--it has no sound: besides, the season must be cold and the very sight of it must be chilling.' --'You are partly right, I admit, but is not white the very ideal of purity? Are you not very fond of it? Do not you ladies like wearing pure white dresses? Are you not wearing one at this very moment? We Japanese are very fond of white. The ideal colour of Shintoism is white. According to that creed, even for mourning, white is preferred to black. It suggests a notion of cleanliness, which is the essence of the creed. Besides, you cannot surely say opera boxes are ideally comfortable. They are not cold, it is true, but certainly they are generally stifling. One sees there scenery, but what is it compared with the grandeur of nature. Then again, you cannot exactly say snow has no sound. We, in our poetry, speak of the music of falling snow, or the music of dropping rain. Those sounds are considered especially musical in the depth of night: we even poetise the sounds of falling hailstones. There is a well-known poem on a hailstorm composed some seven centuries ago. It is a short poem, as ours usually are, but to us it gives a deep impression, and animates a martial spirit. It is difficult to translate, but it runs somewhat like this: