Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/270

JAPAN ; fills the heart with love; makes a cheerful countenance; dispels drowsiness; banishes evil passions; teaches the changes of plants and trees; brings distant landscapes close; gives journeyless access to mountain-caves, sea-beaten shores, and cool grottos, and shows the procession of ages without decay." But it must be confessed that these miniature landscapes have a toy character which interferes with appreciation of their beauties. One can easily recognise the consummate skill displayed in bringing all their parts into exact proportion with the scale of the design. But there is always a suggestion of triviality which mars the effect. None the less they have the undoubted merit of lightening the life of the student or the humble tradesman, since they give him the constant companionship of a fair garden such as would otherwise be beyond his reach. They are usually arranged in trays of pottery, porcelain, or bronze, each tiny tree and bush carefully trained, and each pebble showing the features of the rock it is intended to represent.

Associated with miniature gardening is the art of growing trees in pots, which also may be said to have attained the rank of a national pastime from the Muromachi era; or, speaking more accurately, from the close of the fifteenth century. It is not suggested that the practice of dwarfing trees and shrubs by confining their roots in pots had not been inaugurated long before the days when the Ashikaga dilettante carried 242