woven bamboo screen, the conqueror, lovingly thought
of, approach over the dazzling level of the beach.

"It is he. With his swords at his side he advances, holding up his fan.
The red girdle and the scarlet tassel appear in sharply cut relief against
the dark armour; and upon his shoulder glitters a crest of Hizen or of
Tokungawa.

"This handsome warrior sheathed with his scales and plates of metal, under
his bronze, his silk and glimmering lacquer, seems a crustacean, gigantic,
black and vermilion.

"He has caught sight of her. Under the beaver of the war mask he smiles,
and his quickened step makes to glitter in the sun the two antennae of gold
that quiver upon his helmet."

The comparison of a warrior in full armour to a gigantic crab or lobster,
especially lobster, is not exactly new. Victor Hugo has used it before in
French literature, just as Carlyle has used it in English literature;
indeed the image could not fail to occur to the artist in any country
where the study of armour has been carried on. But here the poet does not
speak of any particular creature; he uses only the generic term,
crustacean, the vagueness of which makes the comparison much more
effective. I think you can see the whole picture at once. It is a Japanese
colour-print,--some ancient interior, lighted by the sun of a great summer
day; and a woman looking through a bamboo blind toward the seashore, where
she sees a warrior approaching. He divines that he is seen; but if he
smiles, it is only because the smile is hidden by his iron mask. The only
sign of any sentiment on his part is that he walks a little quicker. Still
more amazing is a companion picture, containing only a solitary figure:

LE DAIMIO (Matin de bataille)

Sous le noir fouet de guerre a quadruple pompon,
L'etalon belliqueux en hennissant se cabre,
Et fait bruire, avec de cliquetis de sabre,
La cuirasse de bronze aux lames du jupon.

Le Chef vetu d'airain, de laque et de crepon,
Otant le masque a poils de son visage glabre,
Regarde le volcan sur un ciel de cinabre
Dresser la neige ou rit l'aurore du Nippon.

Mais il a vu, vers l'Est eclabousse d'or, l'astre,
Glorieux d'eclairer ce matin de desastre,
Poindre, orbe eblouissant, au-dessus de la mer;

Et pour couvrir ses yeux dont pas un cil ne bouge,
Il ouvre d'un seul coup son eventail de fer,
Ou dans le satin blanc se leve un Soleil rouge.

"Under the black war whip with its quadruple