Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/41

Rh for more changes in things Japanese that count to the philosopher than has any other outward or moral force. The landing of Commodore Perry, and the subsequent development of Japan into a world Power, was as nothing compared with the all-pervasive sentiment which grew from this into the hearts, the religion, the very warp and woof of the national life, so that no one could say what issues had not been affected by it. But it did not change the people, their habits, their ideals; it simply grew into them.

And so the influence of China on Japan, of which we hear so much, was by suggestion rather than by setting her a formal copy. In painting, how far has Japan advanced since she first began to work along the same lines! Comparisons are odious, but, to instance language, although Japan has taken so many words bodily from the other yellow race,—almost all her gardening names are incorporated direct from them,—how she has turned these words from the hideous, chopped, hasty noise, all consonants, gutturals, and nasals, which it was, into musical sounds, liquid as Italian, only those who have heard both can say. In poetry (although Mr. Chamberlain speaks of it as puerile), how have the Japanese surpassed their masters, and given the world some of the most exquisite (even in translation), most poignant passages in any literature! While in gardening, how have they evolved, from a formal and pretentious Chinese model