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 for this slow-moving provincial spring.  Let us to the town to meet the spring—­for: 

  They’ve taken all the spring from the country to the town—­
    Like the butter and the eggs, and the milk from the cow;
    And if you want a primrose, you write to London now,
  And if you need a nightingale, well,—­Whiteley sends it down.

THE GREAT MERRY-GO-ROUND

In an age curious of new pleasures, the merry-go-round seems still to maintain its ancient popularity.  I was the other day the delighted, indeed the fascinated, spectator of one in full swing in an old Thames-side town.  It was a very superior example, with a central musical engine of extraordinary splendour, and horses that actually curveted, as they swirled maddeningly round to the strains of ’The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.’  How I longed to join the wild riders!  But though I am a brave man, I confess that to ride a merry-go-round in front of a laughter-loving Cockney public is more than I can dare.  I had to content myself with watching the faces of the riders.  I noticed particularly one bright-eyed little girl, whose whole passionate young soul seemed to be on fire with ecstasy, and for whom it was not difficult to prophesy trouble when time should bring her within reach of more dangerous excitements.  Then there was a stolid little boy, dull and unmoved in expression, as though he were in church.  Life, one felt sure, would be safe enough, and stupid enough, for him; the world would have no music to stir or draw him.  The fifes would go down the street with a sweet sound of marching feet, and the eyes of other men would brighten and their blood be all glancing spears and streaming banners, but he would remain behind his counter; from the strange hill beyond the town the dear, unholy music, so lovely in the ears of other men and maids, would call to him in vain, and morning and evening the stars would sing above his draper’s shop, but he never hear a word.

What particularly struck me was the number of quite grown-up, even elderly, people who came and had their pennyworth of horse-exercise.  Now it was a grave young workman quietly smoking his pipe as he revolved; now it was a stout middle-aged woman returning from marketing, on whom the Zulu music and the whirling horses laid their irresistible spells.  Unless ye become as little children!