More often, however, the scene suggested is the shallow bed of a river, with round white pebbles, and a few of the more prominent prescribed rocks of classical rules, with perhaps also a pretty sandy beach which still shows the marks of the receding water, as if drought had but just overtaken it. Hills artificially arrived at, valleys and paths winding through natural-looking plantations, all help the effect and show the art, which reached its height under the direction of Soseki, a priest who flourished during the Muro Machi Period, in the fifteenth century. He laid down many rules which are still observed, although no treatise of his, so far as is known, remains.
At this time,—that of the Ashikaga Regents,—poetry, and those two arts which are so nearly allied to gardening, and which influenced it largely,—the Tea Ceremonial and Flower Arrangement,—also became popular. As more and more ceremony surrounded the dignified tea-drinking, the grounds about the room set apart for the purpose received greater attention too; and it was for this that the classic rules and standards of beauty became so fixed that, later, no man of taste dared to disagree with the opinions of the master, lest he should argue himself without taste; while an ugly design was declared by the experts ‘unlucky,’ so as to keep up the standard of the art. It is as if in our day a bold man might laugh at Dante,
