Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/398

276, and later too, appear the forced kind of splendid curves and colours grown in flower-pots.

Then comes the floral month of May, when no artist can paint fast enough—so Mr. Tyndale says—to hope to show on his canvas one-half of the flowers which Nature so prodigally lavishes on the year.

Cherry blossoms are scarce fading before Azaleas are ready to carry on the rich harmonies of colour; and as a passionate love motif begins to weave itself into the end of a symphony’s movement before we get it presented in all its full splendour of great crashing notes and full-gathered chords in its final evolution, so the Azaleas begin suavely in shadowy mauve blooms before the gorgeous climax of their scarlet, orange, crimson, and snow-white blossoms bursts forth. Like love, again, the Azaleas linger long, painting the hill-sides from early in May, at Kyoto, well into August at Nikko and Chuzenji. Oh! the fire of the red ones, and the fragrance of the white ones, and the beauty of them all! Barbarian that I am, I like these flowers best, but the subtle-minded Japanese prefers the Wistaria, which comes as early but does not last so long.

But is anything lovelier? As I look back on the bowers of pale purple blooms that I have known, I hesitate. When I think of an old gate, decked as if for a bridal arch, with