House & Garden 
for the popularity of this one with the tourist, 
who does not find demands made upon his 
appreciation to which he is obviously unequal. 
The untutored visitor can say with Thoreau : 
“All fables, indeed, have their morals; but 
the innocent enjoy the story.” If there is a 
moral, a lesson, or a creed contained in this 
garden, it is to be found, apparently, only in 
the duty of joyousness and in the communi¬ 
cation of that quality from nature to man. Of 
the subtleties and symbolisms of some of the 
more ancient gardens there appears to be no 
trace. It would seem to have been created 
in a mood of pure delight in beauty for its 
own sake and as an end in itself. 
One’s first impression, coming upon it 
suddenly after the long ride through fiat, 
green intersections of intermediate rice fields, 
is like passing from the silence of twilight 
into a burst of sunlight and music. The 
brilliancy of the scene is almost operatic in 
effect. As the Japanese themselves are fond 
of saying, “ It is more beautiful than nature, 
it is as beautiful as art.” From the wide 
irregular ponds situated in the central and 
Hat portions of the garden the Howers rise in 
magnificent battalions that assault and take 
the eye by storm. With no suggestion of 
confusion or massing, each giant spear and 
stalk stands out clearly, tipped with its great, 
furled, quivering butterfly blossoms flashing 
in the sunlight in prismatic hues of gem-like 
splendor and bearing on its wings all the con¬ 
centrated radiance of midsummer in Japan. 
The garden is not very large, but it is 
jewel-like in its completeness of form and in¬ 
tensity of color. No western artist has given 
even approximately such range of color with 
such infinite blending and shading of tone ; 
only those of the later U kioye artists who sac¬ 
rificed everything else to dramatic effect have 
partially done so. 1 n a sense such a garden is 
a departure from the normal, as all genius is, 
and surely nothing less than genius could have 
evolved from three simple specimens more 
than three hundred different varieties of such 
complex and bewildering beauty as are here 
displayed. The little simple classic Iris of so 
many centuries has blossomed into a Court 
Beauty. The hills, her ancient playgrounds, 
know her no more, and she lives henceforth 
in an atmosphere of adulation and applause. 
Strangely enough a sort of moral transforma¬ 
tion has accompanied this phenomenal growth. 
In its later brilliant development the Iris is a 
flower more admired than beloved by the Jap¬ 
anese, who find in it none of the ethical quali¬ 
ties dear to them in the plum and other flowers. 
Ayame is a name frequently adopted by that 
most brilliant class of modern Japanese 
women, the Geisha , as signifying a superlative 
degree of beauty and accomplishment, but it is 
almost never used in private families, being 
held to typify qualities too striking to fulfil 
the Japanese ideal of womanly excellence, of 
which the most essential attribute is a retiring 
modesty. Nevertheless, the modern Iris is to 
my mind, pre-eminently the flower of temper¬ 
ament. If she has lost her simplicity she has 
not lost her inherent grace and charm, and she 
has remained through all her phases a fruitful 
source of inspiration to poet and artist. 
There is a pretty story told of a beautiful 
court ladv of this name who lived six hun¬ 
dred years ago in the reign of Go Shirakawa, 
and who was beloved by the famous warrior, 
Minamoto Yorimasa. This warrior had the 
good fortune to deliver his Emperor from a 
bakemono , the ghost of a woman who appeared 
nightly to her august victim in the guise of 
a demon whose head was composed of three 
gigantic emeralds. Upon being asked to 
name his reward Yorimasa without hesitation 
named the Lady Ayame. The Emperor, 
perhaps to test his love, perhaps in the hope 
of retaining the young favorite at court, 
caused to be brought before him twelve 
maidens who, by means of the art of dress, 
had been made so exactly to resemble one 
another that it was impossible to detect the 
smallest shade of difference between them. 
Being told to make his choice, Yorimasa, 
concealing the great perplexity which he felt, 
replied in words which have since become 
proverbial :— 
Samidare ni, ike no makomo ni, 
Midzu no oite, idzure Ayame to 
Hikizo wadzurd. 
Which being roughly translated to prose 
means, “When the June rains flood the 
pond, how impossible it is to distinguish the 
beautiful Ayame from common reeds ! ” 
This answer so displeased the Lady Ayame 
that she blushed crimson with mortification, 
and thus unconsciously gave her lover the 
signal that he hoped for. 
37 
