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 would it speak to me? I could not sleep for some long while, being absorbed in my own reflection.

It was Buddhism which encouraged and endorsed the superstition, even with added reasonings; it would only need a little light of circumstances to make it shine like a pearl which quickens itself, to speak figuratively, with the golden faith within. The humanising of a tree, whether it be a willow or a pine, has its origin in the general Nature-worship which is as old as the sun and the moon; I think it is one of the prides we can fairly well claim that we never laugh, jeer at, or wound Nature, and never invade her domain with cold hearts; it is, in truth, the Wester intellect that has taught us of the scheme and secret how to force the battle against Nature. Must we thank the West for our disillusionment? It was the romance of trees—like that of the willow, for instance—that saved at least old Japan from natural ruin; how such an allegorical story impressed our Japanese mind!

I used to hear, when I was young, of the lovely maiden ever so young and sad, who Rh