CHAPTER XI
WATER GARDENS AND DRIED-UP WATER SCENERY
“In the chill stillness of the first spring days,
A double beauty does my garden take.
What mystic paths, what purple wealth of bloom,
That fairy garden shows there in the lake.
Above the water long Wistaria sprays
Lean down and look upon their pictured grace.
Or is it that, below there, dim and cool,
Another Fuji flower lifts up her face?”
If the description ‘Water Gardens’ included all those in which water—in appearance or reality—was a conspicuous feature, quite half the gardens in Japan would have to be classified in this way. To again employ my old but useful simile, the rocks and stones are the bones of the skeleton, the contour of the land represents its features, the flowers and trees are the flesh and the adornments of dress, but the water is the garden’s life and soul.
No one knows better than the Japanese landscape artist what compound interest in beauty he reaps by the repetition and reflection of his earthy garden in his watery one. Just
