ore than one cuckoo to
make a spring. I confess that only yesterday I saw three sulphur
butterflies, with my own eyes; I admit the catkins, and the
silver-notched palm; and I am told on good colour-authority that there
is a lovely purplish bloom, almost like plum-bloom, over certain copses
in the valley; by taking thought, I have observed the long horizontal
arms of the beech growing spurred with little forked branches of
spear-shaped buds, and I see little green nipples pushing out through
the wolf-coloured rind of the dwarf fir-trees. Spring is arming in
secret to attack the winter--that is sure enough, but spring in secret
is no spring for me. I want to see her marching gaily with green
pennons, and flashing sun-blades, and a good band.

I want butterflies as they have them at the Lyceum--'butterflies all
white,' 'butterflies all blue,' 'butterflies of gold,' and I should
particularly fancy 'butterflies all black.' But there, again, you
see,--you must go to town, within hearing of Mrs. Patrick Campbell's
_voix d'or_. I want the meadows thickly inlaid with buttercups and
daisies; I want the trees thick with green leaves, the sky all larks and
sunshine; I want hawthorn and wild roses--both at once; I want some go,
some colour, some warmth in the world. Oh, where are the pipes of Pan?

The pipes of Pan are in town, playing at street corners and in the
centres of crowded circuses, piled high with flower-baskets blazing with
refulgent flowery masses of white and gold. Here are the flowers you can
only buy in town; simple flowers enough, but only to be had in town.
Here are fragrant banks of violets every few yards, conflagrations of
daffodils at every crossing, and narcissus in scented starry garlands
for your hair.

You wander through the Strand, or along Regent Street, as through the
meadows of Enna--sweet scents, sweet sounds, sweet shapes, are all about
you; the town-butterflies, white, blue, and gold, 'wheel and shine' and
flutter from shop to shop, suddenly resurgent from their winter
wardrobes as from a chrysalis; bright eyes flash and flirt along the
merry, jostling street, while the sun pours out his golden wine
overhead, splashing it about from gilded domes and bright-faced
windows--and ever are the voices at the corners and the crossings
calling out the sweet flower-names of the spring!

* * * * *

But here in the country it is still all rain and iron. I am tired of
waiting