s of nerve demanded by his task,
he is allowed without forfeiture of pay to remain idle temporarily, in
order that his hand may recover the requisite precision of touch. As
I listened, Hamlet's courtly criticism of the grave-digger's want of
sensibility came drifting into my memory. "The hand of little employment
hath the daintier sense," says Shakespeare, who has left nothing unsaid.

IT was a festival in honor of Dai Butsu or some one of the auxiliary
deities that preside over the destinies of Japland. For three days and
nights the streets of Tokio--where the squat little brown houses look
for all the world as if they were mimicking the favorite sitting posture
of the Japanese--were crowded with smiling holiday makers, and made
gay with devices of tinted tissue paper, dolphins, devils, dragons, and
mythical winged creatures which at night amiably turned themselves into
lanterns. Garlands of these, arranged close together, were stretched
across the streets from ridgepoles to ridgepole, and your jinrikisha
whisked you through interminable arbors of soft illumination. The
spectacle gave one an idea of fairyland, but then all Japan does that.

A land not like ours, that land of strange flowers,
Of daemons and spooks with mysterious powers--
Of gods who breathe ice, who cause peach-blooms and rice
And manage the moonshine and turn on the showers.

Each day has its fair or its festival there,
And life seems immune to all trouble and care--
Perhaps only seems, in that island of dreams,
Sea-girdled and basking in magical air.

They've streets of bazaars filled with lacquers and jars,
And silk stuffs, and sword-blades that tell of old wars;
They've Fuji's white cone looming up, bleak and lone,
As if it were trying to reach to the stars.

They've temples and gongs, and grim Buddhas in throngs,
And pearl-powdered geisha with dances and songs:
Each girl at her back has an imp, brown or black,
And dresses her hair in remarkable prongs.

On roadside and street toddling images meet,
And smirk and kotow in a way that is sweet;
Their obis are tied with particular pride,
Their silken kimonos hang scant to the feet.

With purrs like a cat they all giggle and chat,
Now spreading their fans, and now holding them flat;
A fan by its play whispers, "Go now!" or "Stay!"
"I hate you!" "I love you!"--a fan can say t