Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/62

32 labour by machine-made articles, but, in the stead of it, may come a breadth and bigness of effect and of outlook that is not, perhaps, now a distinguishing feature of their artistic expression. But we must return from the realms of prophecy as to the future of landscape gardening in Japan, and explain some of its guiding principles.

The one infallible and inexorable rule is that everything must be to scale, and that one part must never violate the laws of classic proportion by overweighting any other part. For instance, a small house, if it has not always a small garden, will admit no objects such as trees, lanterns, or any architectural features near it so much out of proportion as to send it out of its true place in the plan. Also, no greater finish is allowed in one part of the scheme than in another; the three grades of finish—rough, intermediate, and highly wrought—are always adhered to throughout. All ornaments, buildings, fences, stones, lake borders, even the shapes of trees and shrubs, must harmonize in this respect. As a consequence, even the detractors of Japanese gardens have to confess that in no others is there a more assured sense of unity and of harmony of purpose.

The garden is planned from all points of view, and the scene from Nature from which it is a reduced but never literal transcript has been sketched and mapped and forgotten before it can be revived again. It may be that a