The cherry-blossom has its great popularity with us, unlike the plum-blossom, largely because we have no need to refer to any particular story or tradition (though stories and traditions of it abound); but only to itself for our appreciation. With us appreciation of it is most natural, while often forced art in another place. And you can make on the spot, if you wish, a story or tradition, of heavenly thing or human being, to suit the cherry-blossom and also your own whim, and even imagine it to be partly your own creation. It is remarkable that any story or tradition, provided it is beautiful, will be found fit for it. I know some flowers of whom I can fancy an ugly thing; but your imagination will soon be disarmed if you start with hostile intention towards the cherry-blossom. It seems to me that the biggest offence to the cherry-blossom is to write poetry on it. How many million poems have we written on it? It is really appalling to see what bad poems we could turn out; it is a fact that the poems on the cherry-blossom have
