Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/15

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
PREFACE
ix

out a sacrifice to the intelligibility of the text, by referring the reader to other parts of the book. Also, I have not been able in technical descriptions to illustrate my meaning as often as I should like, and in such cases, where obscurity exists, I can only refer the reader to the clear and lucid descriptions, full of drawings and diagrams explaining them, in Mr. Josiah Conder's book on Japanese Landscape Gardening.

I must again acknowledge my indebtedness to this book, as well as to Miss Du Cane's delightful volume on the Flowers of Japan; also to my friend. Sir Francis Piggott, for the botanical names of many plants, as well as to Mr. Stephen Troyte Dunn of Kew, formerly of Hong-Kong, who has helped me in more ways than I can name. I owe much, also, to Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, although I have had the impertinence to disagree with him often in his strictures on the various arts of the country, which he knows so much better than does any other foreigner. I should also speak of the late Mr. Arthur Lloyd of Tokio, probably the greatest home (foreign) authority on Buddhism, whose kindly talks no less than whose books have been a help to me. It would be absurd to include Lafcadio Hearn's beautiful tales and myths of Japan in this list, because it