big or small, growing in a group beside the well or water-basin, or on the banks of a lake or stream, with their feet dabbling in the water; but the very finest are grown in pots and tended like babies. These[1] (in the picture) were cultivated by an old priest, who took no end of trouble in helping the artist in grouping and arranging them. His old wife posed as the ‘life’ of the picture, and how delighted was the husband when Mr. Tyndale, dissatisfied with the withered face among the fresh flowers, while still preserving the likeness, changed her into the pretty, wide-eyed mousmé who now peeps out from the flowers.
“Aha!” the ancient Darby said, chuckling, “you have given me a pretty young wife! Very good! Very good!” He felt that he was a fine figure of a man, after all!
Of green pictures, painted at the moment when they are not green, there are many in this book, but of those whose intention it was to suggest repose and peace, undisturbed by the mental uplift of brighter colour, there are only two—that of a Buddhist temple garden at Kofu (page 126), and that of the Kuridani Temple at Kyoto (facing page 136). Nami-Kawa San’s green garden at Kyoto (facing page 160), and the rock garden at Nikko (facing page 284), although
- ↑ Iris Kaempferi. Some of the blooms were nearly a foot across. The colour, too, was a triumph of the grower, as a true pink is most difficult of attainment, the flowers inclining always to mauves.
