Nature—a transcription, but not a literal copy—so licence within certain limits is allowed. The great brute force of Nature, however, is acknowledged to be capable of effects stupendous, extraordinary, even unnatural, that a man would be a fool to try to imitate. Rocks, for instance, that in mountain scenery frowningly overhang a valley, like the shaggy eyebrows of a stern and scowling god, are not copied by the landscape artist, because they would give the observer a sense of insecurity, exactly opposite to the effect which the natural object has. Balanced rocks, and gigantic boulders poised on insecure-looking foundations, are also barred, and rightly, from the garden, although they are immensely admired, perhaps even worshipped, in Nature. Rocks which are larger at the top than at the bottom would not be employed, for the same reason. Those with distorted tops, twisted, seamed, or with holes in their sides, are called ‘Diseased Stones,’ and should not be—although I fear occasionally they are—admitted into a proper garden. Vertical stones which more or less resemble the human body (what the Japanese call Taido-seki, and Mr. Conder translates as ‘Statue Stones’) are never, if they have fallen flat instead of standing upright, permitted in a well-conducted garden. They call them ‘Dead Stones,’ and they instil life into them by setting them up on end, or else oust them altogether.
