Produced by John Orford
Glimpses of Unfamilar Japan
Second Series
by Lafcadio Hearn
In a Japanese Garden
Sec. 1
MY little two-story house by the Ohashigawa, although dainty as a bird-cage, proved much too small for comfort at the approach of the hotseason—the rooms being scarcely higher than steamship cabins, and sonarrow that an ordinary mosquito-net could not be suspended in them. Iwas sorry to lose the beautiful lake view, but I found it necessary toremove to the northern quarter of the city, into a very quiet Streetbehind the mouldering castle. My new home is a katchiu-yashiki, theancient residence of some samurai of high rank. It is shut off from thestreet, or rather roadway, skirting the castle moat by a long, high wallcoped with tiles. One ascends to the gateway, which is almost as largeas that of a temple court, by a low broad flight of stone steps; andprojecting from the wall, to the right of the gate, is a look-outwindow, heavily barred, like a big wooden cage. Thence, in feudal days,armed retainers kept keen watch on all who passed by—invisible watch,for the bars are set so closely that a face behind them cannot be seenfrom the roadway. Inside the gate the approach to the dwelling is alsowalled in on both sides, so that the visitor, unless privileged, couldsee before him only the house entrance, always closed with white shoji.Like all samurai homes, the residence itself is but one story high, butthere are fourteen rooms within, and these are lofty, spacious, andbeautiful. There is, alas, no lake view nor any charming prospect. Partof the O-Shiroyama, with the castle on its summit, half concealed by apark of pines, may be seen above the coping of the front wall, but onlya part; and scarcely a hundred yards behind the house rise denselywooded heights, cutting off not only the horizon, but a large slice ofthe sky as well. For this immurement, however, there exists faircompensation in the shape of a very pretty garden, or rather a series ofgarden spaces, which surround the dwelling on three sides. Broadverandas overlook these, and from a certain veranda angle I can enjoythe sight of two gardens at once. Screens of bamboos and woven rushes,with wide gateless openings in their midst, mark the boundaries of thethree divisions of the pleasure-grounds. But these structures are notintended to serve as true fences; they are ornamental, and only indicatewhere one style of landscape gardening ends and another begins.
Sec. 2
Now a few words upon Japanese gardens in general.
After having learned—merely by seeing, for the practical knowledge ofthe art requires years of study and experience, besides a natural,instinctive sense of beauty—something about the Japanese manner ofarranging flowers, one can thereafter consider European ideas of floraldecoration only as vulgarities. This observation is not the result ofany hasty enthusiasm, but a conviction settled by long residence in theinterior. I have come to understand