II RIVERSIDE LETTERS 9 



gulls I saw was of very little importance 

 either to you or me, my purpose being, as an 

 artist, to convey to you, a brother artist, the 

 charming effect produced by the white gulls 

 and black rooks in the bright sunshine 

 feeding together in the shallow flood water 

 on the meadow. At the same time it was a 

 careless blunder of mine about the change of 

 plumage, and so no doubt I deserved correc- 

 tion. 



Our Professor Anderson lent me some 

 extremely interesting papers on gardening 

 and flower arrangement amongst the Japanese, 

 which I have been reading lately ; he also 

 kindly sent me a number of photographs of 

 gardens in Japan. It appears that the 

 Japanese approach flower culture and flower 

 arrangement with a sort of religious, artistic, 

 and scientific spirit, which is entirely unknown 

 to European nations. The following quotation 

 from a paper written by T. Conder, Esq., 

 F.R.I.B.A., published by the Asiatic Society 

 of Japan, gives one an idea of the views with 



