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198 resents the brush, always managed to look (to my eye, at least) beautiful in its own independent way, as if unaffected by my failure or success.

But the bending of the twig was only part of the training. A great field of study lay before me—of the flowers and leaves appropriate to different occasions, the sentiments which attached to the various plants, and all the poetical and literary allusions which the worker, thoroughly versed in the art, implied by his selection and arrangement. Our old editions of The Language of Flowers, which I used to pore over as a child, were nothing to that. One ought to know the whole literature of Japan by heart and have an almost equally good knowledge of the Chinese classic authors, be deeply imbued with Buddhist and Shinto lore, know something of India, and have, into the bargain, a poetic mind, in order to understand all the subtleties of the subject.

Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, in writing on the art of flower arrangement, as usual when touching on their æsthetics does not do the Japanese justice. He is really never in sympathy with the artistic side of the Japanese character, and is always inclined to gentle raillery on those subjects, chaffing mildly whenever he has occasion to mention any of the delicacies and refinements of art which the Western world is only now beginning to