To those desirous of reproducing elsewhere a model garden after the correct Japanese fashion, this copiously illustrated volume should afford some aid, and at the same time impart a meaning to methods which, unexplained, possess merely the empty charm of novelty. Some may, however, hold that landscape gardening should be typical of the scenery of the soil, and regard the servile imitation of a foreign style as unnatural and purposeless. To this class the abstract principles of the Art may prove not totally unworthy of attention, and may even supply suggestion for a modified form of Western gardening. Robbed of its local garb and mannerisms, the Japanese method reveals ï¾µsthetic principles applicable to the gardens of any country, teaching, as it does, how to convert into a poem or picture a composition, which, with all its variety of detail, otherwise lacks unity and intent.
