Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/229

Rh to his work. The hard stone of the lantern is softened by the spray of Maple or Plum tree that brushes across it; the fences’ openings, by the fine continuous needles of the Pine trees behind; while the rigid lines of the solid wooden bridges are lost, on one side, in a group of Azalea bushes, and the cascade, falling partly behind a swaying creeper or an overhanging tree, is given an added grace.

Another advantage this method has is that, by making appeal to the imagination, instead of leaving everything to the matter-of-fact and calculating eye, it adds to the apparent size of the object that is partly concealed. How can even the most conscientious sight-seer jot down in his notebook the information that such and such a waterfall is so many feet in height, if its top is lost in leafy mystery, and if it is broken near the bottom by scarlet branches of Maple? And no one can insist on the exact (and dwarfed) dimensions of an irregular lake, whose silvery waters are concealed, here by a group of trees and shrubs, there by a hillock, and on whose placid bosom there is yet a place for Lotus flowers to bloom.

There are many varieties of water gardens, and, after those of lake scenery the cascade kind appears to be the most popular,—indeed, in the central part of Japan, where there are so many natural springs and falls, they seem more frequent than any other. Of course they are by