ty and perfection that meets one on every side is the
result of centuries and centuries of habit, until it has become
intuitive to the people. I can safely say there is no point in Japan
where an artist cannot stand still and frame between his hands a picture
that will be perfect in placing and design. In a Japanese garden, every
stepping-stone, every tree, every little miniature out-house, is thought
out as a bit of placing to form perfect balance. And it is thought out
not as an isolated bit of Nature, but in relation to everything around
that you can see, whether it is a temple, a large tree, or the side of a
hill; and whatever position you happen to be in, in that garden you will
always see a perfectly balanced picture. When you have been pottering
about in the towns for some weeks, you eventually become accustomed to
the idea that everything is thought out by these brilliant students in
order to form a picture, and you begin to feel proud of the knowledge
you have gleaned and to make practical use of it. You escort your
friends, who are a trifle fresher than yourself, about the towns,
pointing out to them that there is no accident in all the beauties that
they so much admire--the shops, the signboards, the placing of the
flower by the side of the workman--all this has been carefully thought
out from the decorative standpoint, to be beautiful. But then, when one
travels from the beaten track, away out in the country, even the
resident who is by way of being artistic, and has had the fact that the
Japanese are an artistic people driven into his stupid head by sheer
force, even this poor dear is swept off his feet when he finds that
Nature is still going on doing the same thing all these miles away from
the town. He has probably come to view the cherry-blossom, and he
discovers to his amazement that these huge hill-sides of blossom place
themselves perfectly one against the other--colossal trees with jutty
boughs frame themselves against the sides of the mountains to form a
picture. One huge sweep of blossom is thought out in relation to another
sweep that is deeper in tone; near by is a curiously-shaped bare patch
of earth which is designed to give value to the brighter colour; and so
it continues indefinitely.

The whole country is thought out in huge blotches to form a picture
perfect in harmony and in design. I once had a very interesting
experience of the felling of a tree in Japan, and here again placing
formed