ABSTRACT
The Far Eastern love of Nature amounts almost to a passion. The mainsprings of Far Eastern art may be said to be three: Nature, Religion, and Humor. While British readers will search in vain, in his civilization, for explanations of even the most simple of nature’s laws, they will meet at every turn with devices for the beautifying of life, which may stand not unworthily beside the products of nature’s own skill. The love of Nature is apt to be considered a mental extravagance peculiar to poets, excusable in exact ratio to the ability to give it expression. But besides the delights of domesticity which the Japanese enjoys daily in Nature’s company. For nature’s beauties are too well recognized to remain the exclusive property of the first chance lover. People flock to view nature as we do to see a play, and privacy is as impossible as it is unsought.
