Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/89

Rh and there are no miscellaneous ornaments set around here and there—only a vase of flowers.

But more and more are the Japanese coming to build at least parts of the house in Occidental style, so that it is now quite common to find, in houses of well-to-do people, a foreign room with carpet, table, chairs, pictures, etc. Stoves and grates, too, for either wood or coal, are being largely used. Mattresses, springs, and bedsteads are also coming into use, because sleeping on the floor, where one is subject to draughts, has been found to be unhealthy. In the case of foreign rooms, moreover, it is generally unnecessary to take off the shoes; and thus another frequent cause of colds is removed. A prevailing style of architecture at present is the hybrid!

The best rooms of a Japanese house are not in the front, but in the rear, and have an outlook upon the garden, which likewise, from its plainness and simplicity, is unique. "Its artistic purpose is to copy faithfully the attractions of a veritable landscape, and to carry the real impressions that a real landscape communicates. It is, therefore, at once a picture and a poem; perhaps even more a poem than a picture." It is in Japan, moreover, that it is possible to have a "garden" without flowers or grass—with, perhaps, only "rocks and pebbles and sand." For the Japanese truly and literally find "sermons in stones," and give them not only "character" but also "tones and values." More than all that, "they held