Chinese gardens, of many sorts, are not unknown to me. Such survivals as exist of palace grounds I have written of elsewhere. Outdoor enclosures in their formal grandeur are so architectural in conception, and so combined with the involved details of buildings, of walls and of gates, that one thinks of the trees and the flowers as adjuncts of the builder’s art, and not as inmates of gardens. They are as Palms in handsome jars in a drawing-room, which we do not therefore call a conservatory. Of Chinese temple enclosures—those green-bowered places which almost alone have trees, on hill-sides or on plains (these because of their bareness being yearly scourged by droughts and devastating floods)—I have also spoken; as well as of the private gardens of rich men—high-walled, elaborate, magnificent, from which Nature, in her shyness and inconsequence, and sweet, coy innocence, her calm and restful peace, has been shut out.
Yes, it is true that China suggested the idea of gardens to Japan, and for this all honour to her; but let it also be conceded at the same time that wherever Japan adhered closely to the modes and expressions of that original idea, the main charm of her own compositions was gone.
The Chinese said: “Let us plant trees and flowering shrubs and sweet-smelling herbs near our houses, to add to them beauty, and for a
