Presently that tinted mist which was a tree in flower began to shine again through the dark noise which the papers had made. The uproar cleared a little. The water came nearer, its glittering growing stronger, its fire burning towards me. I saw in surprise through the gloom in my mind that the fire had touched the elms; their dark masses were faintly luminous. And the mallard drake, riding on the outer pulses of that radiation, was purple and emerald. But would the beauty of the spring surprise us, I wonder; would it still give the mind a twinge, sadden us with a nameless disquiet, shoot through us so keen an anguish when the almond tree is there again on a bright day, if we were decent, healthy, and happy creatures? Perhaps not. It is hard to say. It is a great while since our skinless and touchy crowds of the wonderful industrial era, moving as one man to the words of the daily papers, were such creatures. Perhaps we should merely yawn and stretch ourselves, feel revived with the sun a little warmer on our backs, and snuff up a pleasant smell which we remembered; begin to whistle, and grope for an adze. But we cannot have it so. The spring is not for us. We have been so inventive. We have desired other things, and we have got them. We have cleverly made a way of life that exacts so close an attention, if we would save it from disaster, that we are now its prisoners. Peace and freedom have become but a vision which the imprisoned view through the bars they themselves have made. The spring we see now is in a world not ours, a world we have left, which is still close to us, but is unapproachable. The children are in it, and even, apparently, the ducks. It is a world we see sometimes, as a reminder--once a year or so--of what we could have made of life, and what we have.