exhaling a perfume of freshness. What undying beauty there is, even in
Japan, in the first fresh morning hours in the country, and the
dawning hours of life!

Besides, I am quite ready to admit the attractiveness of the little
Japanese children; some of them are most fascinating. But how is it
that their charm vanishes so rapidly and is so quickly replaced by the
elderly grimace, the smiling ugliness, the monkeyish face?




XXXV.


My mother-in-law Madame Renoncule's small garden is, without
exception, one of the most melancholy spots I have seen during all my
peregrinations through the world.

Oh, the slow, enervating, dull hours spent in idle and diffuse
conversation in the dimly lighted verandah! Oh, the horrid peppered
jam in the microscopic pots! In the middle of the town, enclosed by
four walls, is this park of five yards square, with little lakes,
little mountains, and little rocks, where all wears an antiquated
appearance, and everything is covered with a greenish moldiness from
want of sun.

Nevertheless a true feeling for nature has inspired this tiny
representation of a wild spot. The rocks are well placed, the dwarf
cedars, no taller than cabbages, stretch their gnarled boughs over the