who but is a little disappointed to find only the rest and serenity of green? Do all the books form a conspiracy to lie? These artists, too—has even Mr. Tyndale joined the league to deceive? Or where do they find the flowers and the colours that they paint? Shall we, too, join them, and waste away our letters of credit by buying highly-coloured picture post cards, and try to delude ourselves, or, better still, our friends at home, into the belief that we have seen these colours, these gardens?
Now, the truth is, as usual, that we can see only one side of the crystal of verity at a time, and it has many facets. While it is a fact that the basis of Japanese gardening is greenness, its fundamental purpose being a place for peace and repose and for quiet contemplation of Nature, which that harmonious, living colour assists more than any other in securing, yet it does not follow that it is nothing else but this. While vegetation is the last thing to be considered in making a garden,—it being the flesh that covers the bones, or the stones, of its skeleton,—the green might be regarded as the natural complexion, and the basis on which the flowers of dress appear to adorn. It is all another exemplification of how close to Nature these gardens are, that as with her green may be found the year round, so may colour, too, if one knows where to look for it. And although it is easily possible for a man to enter twenty
