Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/109

Rh bronze ones, and there are prescribed shapes, too, for these large lanterns, based on the principle of appropriateness.

For smaller gardens there are shapely things, four or five feet tall, which are much used either alone or in groups composed of an ‘Erect’ lantern,—that is, one of the ‘Standard’ type,—a ‘Recumbent Stone,’ and some shrubs, or an overhanging pine. For little gardens the sizes shrink, as if Alice had lent them some of her mushroom to eat; and in some of these it is as though the mushroom itself had come alive, here before, there after taking, for some are large and some small, but all gracefully patterned to resemble that fungus. These mushroom shapes are generally set up on short legs with their widespreading umbrella tops; they are known as ‘Snow-scene’ lanterns, because, although most picturesque in summer, and quaintly suited to the diminutive rustic nook in which they are placed, they are still more charming in the winter, with their broad flat tops softly covered with white snow.

This shape is not of the small tribe, however, for, though squat, its top must be broad enough to display its design and form when clothed in its thick winter garment; so it is not for the very modest and small garden, of which there are so many thousands scattered all over the country, but for rather large places where there is a landscape effect. In little spaces, lanterns