But who shall analyse charm, or separate the tints of the opal? In writing of Noguchi, I am writing of something that can only be defined by itself. I can only take shred after shred from the cloak of gossamer he has woven for himself, and only hope in doing so to persuade other readers to buy his books and find for themselves a hundred shreds as beautiful as these. The frontispiece to _The Pilgrimage_ is a reproduction of a drawing by Utamaru, a thing of four pale colours and a splash of black, and made as light as wind by curves as subtle and as indefinable as those traced by worshipping stars round the object of their adoration. I had forgotten that it is the picture of a girl, and that fact is, indeed, as immaterial as the titles of Noguchi’s poems. In looking at it, I forget not only its subject, but the book in which it is, for this art, of poet or painter, Verlaine, Noguchi, Utamaru, Whistler, frees us, infecting us with its own freedom, from the world which is too much with us, for the exploration of that other world of dream which, unless we, too, are children, is with us so fitfully, and so seldom. “Beckoned by an appointed hand, unseen yet sure, in holy air We wander as a wind, silver and free, With one song in heart, we, the children of prayer. Our song is not of a city’s fall; No laughter of a kingdom bids our feet wait; Our heart is away, with sun, wind, and rain: We, the shadowy roamers on the holy highway.” 1909. KINETIC AND POTENTIAL SPEECH KINETIC AND POTENTIAL SPEECH