crowds to feast their eyes on garden or pond. The arts of flower-arrangement and landscape-gardening may be looked upon as branches of science and philosophy; at least, they command as much veneration. Inevitably, then, is the minstrel's lyre enwreathed with innumerable garlands. Yet, possibly because of the "pathetic fallacy," which so constantly pervades similar parterres of English poesy that its absence makes the Japanese flower-plot seem scentless, the fancies which find expression in this class of subject appear particularly trivial. Sometimes a personal preference is stated, as in
White Peony.
Full of set flowers,
Full is my chamber;
Thou art most stately,
White peony.
Sometimes the cut blossom is commiserated, as in
Adrift.
Ah! how my petals
Float in the flower-vase;
Helpless and rootless;
Sad is my lot.
Sometimes the operation of a natural law, to which plants as well as other forms of life are subject, points a moral:
Death, The Leveller.
Peonies, roses,
Faded, are equal;
Only while life blooms
Differ the flowers.
But human egoism, which only sees in nature a back-
