OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
cherry flower typifies everything that is at once refined, beautiful, and vigorous. The blossom itself has no special excellence ; it is as cherry blossoms are everywhere. But by massing the trees in positions that lend themselves to a coup-d'œil, by arching them over long avenues beside broad rivers, and by setting them in a framework of exquisite scenery, there are produced glowing effects and harmonious contrasts which, enhanced by the opalescent atmosphere of a Japanese spring, are worthy of the passionate enthusiasm they arouse. It has been sometimes asserted, sometimes denied, that a keener love of flowers and a more subtle sense of their beauties exist, either by instinct or by education, among these Far-Eastern people than can be found anywhere else. Those that take the affirmative view point to the vast crowds of men, women, and children that throng the cherry groves during the short season of bloom; to the universality of this affectionate admiration, as potent to draw the grey-headed statesman or the philosopher from his studio as to attract lads and lasses on the threshold of life and love; to the familiar acquaintance with flowers and their habits that is possessed even by artisans and scavengers, and to the fact that the Japanese manage to derive much wider gratification from flowers and to utilise them more effectively as factors of public pleasure than any other nation does. In the science of horticulture they rank far below Europeans and Americans. They had practically
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