a stone, there is one placed, never without due thought and a just weighing of need and effect, of classic precedent and of present necessity; and, these permitting, an honourable name is given, and it becomes a respected member of the family stones.
As a final word, I may say that I believe the Japanese ascribe more humanity to their stones than they do to their flowers or trees, or even—with the exception of the fox and badger—to their animals. Perhaps it is because of rock their gods are carven, on rock their eulogies to great men are inscribed, of rock their gravestones are made,—which every year are tended and honoured as if, for a day, the dead lived again,—that the personality of the stones becomes a more reasonable suggestion.
But even if, in their names, they did not seem to be endowed with character and personality, their very position and situation in the garden takes them out of the class of dead, inanimate things, gives to them the responsibility of definite duties, and makes them, at the very least, into living rocks.
