CHAPTER XIV
FLOWER ARRANGEMENT
“Seven plants I send you, on a bamboo stand,
Each symbolizing Life, happy and long.”
Princess Shirakawa, with a gift of grasses,
at the New Year
It can hardly be pretended that this is a true garden topic, but so much garden lore and cult is included in its study that it would seem a pity to exclude it. The main scientific principle which is its basis is the same as that of the landscape artist—that is, a representation of Nature on a small scale. It is, like the tea-tray gardens, a display of a portion of scenery for the house and for intimate contemplation, and is always more than a simple bunch of flowers in a vase, or a bit of interior decoration. It is a method of artistic composition, too, like Japanese gardens, depending less on masses of colour and brilliancy of bloom than on the disposition of line, on effects of light and shade obtained by the relief of blocks of foliage, by the slender lines of stems.
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