Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/140

86 the graceful drooping sleeve held up to screen off a view, though very often it would be larger than the whole kimono is.

This fence may be rather stiff and architectural in form, to add to the dignity of a stately house, and to carry on its style into the garden; but often it is quite irregular in shape and design, and, I confess it sadly, sometimes ‘rococo’ to the last degree.

I give a few names of the many varieties of the ‘Screen Fence,’ and the reader can doubtless construct for himself a picture of the quaintness and charm to which these names are a key. The ‘Clothes-horse Fence’—the shape of that delightful and useful article which the traveller will remember to have seen in the sleeping-rooms of country inns, private bath-houses, etc., in Japan; the open spaces between the bars, in this case, are filled in with bamboo work in good designs. The ‘Armour’ pattern has a diagonal band in the centre, of crossed and tied Wistaria tendrils, which somewhat resembles ancient Japanese chain-mail. The ‘Moon-entering Screen Fence’ is, in an irregular way, like the repeating type which encloses the garden and bears the same name. It is not, however, so attractive, to my thinking, for the single opening, slightly broken at one side, for a Plum tree’s twisted trunk and branches to appear, seems to me too palpable a strain after effect, and gives the pretty little work an air of