"Oh see in this wilderness of vast Nasu How the hailstones dash on the frozen ground! And ring on the gauntlets of hunters bold As they draw their arrows from leathern fold!" --'Many hundred years after this poem was composed, when our country was enjoying a perfect peace, a well-known statesman, reflecting on that poem, gave his own bent of thought, as follows: "Not knowing the age when hailstones rang On the gauntlets of warriors' hands; Warmly enveloped I lay me down, Listening all night to their dropping sound." --'_Apropos_ of hailstones, what a strange occurrence it was the other day, when hailstones ravaged the vicinity of Paris, and that too in the height of summer. I met a compatriot and his wife, now staying near St. Germain, at a small gathering on the evening of the same day, and they described the size of the stones and the damage done to the glass of the different houses. At first no one present believed them, but my friends did their best to explain that some of the stones they picked up and put on a tray were still large when they had left their home several hours afterwards. What they said was perfectly true, for I read in the papers next morning that in some places the hailstones were like eggs and weighed on an average from twenty to forty grammes; some even two hundred grammes. But ah! how silly I am to tell you all this, as you must all be well aware of it.' --'Never mind,' said those present, 'but please proceed with your discourse.' --'Well, there is a particular night of the year which is considered the best for the moon-scene; the 15th of August by the Lunar Calendar. The people generally get up a small social gathering to celebrate that evening. It was on one of those occasions that Hanawa, the celebrated blind scholar of Japan, gently sang as he sighed: "If it were a flower, I might touch it." 'The line does not sound very sympathetic when translated into a foreign language, but in the original Japanese it is full of poetry, and the meaning is understood that he could not even console himself by the sense of touch. The remark was overheard by his wife, who pathetically joined him by singing: "This Moon! 'tis the night that makes blind men's wives weep." --'Very fine and pathetic; but you said just now "celebrated blind scholar,"' remarked a lady. 'What do you mean by that? Do you mean to say he was a blind poet like Homer?' --'No, he was not exactly a poet, but a great scholar. In England there was a celebrated blind scholar, Fawcett, and Hanawa was our Fawcett. He was a Professor under the Shogunate Government, and one of the best and largest collections of rare old Japanese books made by him was his crowning achievement, and we are all much indebted to him.' --'I suppose there are as many blind, deaf, and dumb in your country as in any other?' asked another; 'and what do they do, or rather, what do you do with them?'