CONTENTS
[THREE JEWS By L. S. WOOLF]
[THE MARK ON THE WALL By VIRGINIA WOOLF]
[THREE JEWS]
By
LEONARD WOOLF.
It was a Sunday and the first day of spring, the first day on which one felt at any rate spring in the air. It blew in at my window with its warm breath, with its inevitable little touch of sadness. I felt restless, and I had nowhere to go to; everyone I knew was out of town. I looked out of my window at the black trees breaking into bud, the tulips and the hyacinths that even London could not rob of their reds and blues and yellows, the delicate spring sunshine on the asphalt, and the pale blue sky that the chimney pots broke into. I found myself muttering "damn it" for no very obvious reason. It was spring, I suppose, the first stirring of the blood.
I wanted to see clean trees, and the sun shine upon grass; I wanted flowers and leaves unsoiled by soot; I wanted to see and smell the earth; above all I wanted the horizon. I felt that something was waiting for me beyond the houses and the chimney-pots: I should find it where earth and sky meet. I didn't of course but I took the train to Kew.
If I did not find in Kew the place where earth and sky meet or even the smell of the earth, I saw at any rate the sun upon the brown bark of trees and the delicate green of grass. It was spring there, English spring with its fresh warm breath, and its pale blue sky above the trees. Yes, the quiet orderly English spring that embraced and sobered even the florid luxuriance of great flowers bursting in white cascades over strange tropical trees.