Lilies and Maples, have also found a new home?[1]
Pagodas, although a direct importation from China,—or, rather, one by way of Korea,—have much the same effect in a garden as have stone lanterns. It may be owing to my bias for things Japanese, as contrasted with Chinese, or it may be (and I think it is) because lanterns have their sphere of usefulness and pagodas have not, that I cannot share the Japanese enthusiasm for them. Every other thing to be found in a Japanese garden has its use—if pure ornament can be considered of economic value; but pagodas have nothing to recommend them but their quaintness. Of course, where the larger originals appear in a scene which is being reproduced in miniature, they are, perhaps, necessary according to the Japanese ideas, but I confess to rather a prejudice against them. They may be all very well for Dora’s dog, Jip, to lie in, or to exhibit the piety and riches of some big man in China; but they look foolish and futile even in that land, and much more so in Japan, where they are a deliberate imitation.
However, this is not the view taken by the Japanese themselves, so I will try to find what extenuating circumstances I can for them, according to my judgment.
- ↑ I regret to say that since writing this a typhoon wrenched this stone lantern from the cement in which it was imbedded and dashed it into a thousand pieces down the stone steps which it had lighted.
