In some of the gardens there are many other beautiful things to be seen, one in particular was almost like a museum of precious things. There were open rooms in it, with the flowers arranged according to the best artistic styles, with valuable dwarf trees and curios placed beside them; there were three old _kakemonos_ I should have loved to possess. In this garden also was a wonderful collection of landscape stones, arranged as islands on flat porcelain trays filled with water. It was indeed a case of bringing the mountain to Mahomet--perfect rocky scenes, with gleaming waterfalls made by streaks of white quartz. The innumerable lovely stones--from an inch to a foot high--represented perfectly, enchantingly, all types of grand, beautiful, natural scenery. The one I liked best was (even in Japanese things my fancy usually hits on the most expensive) just a thousand yen in price!
An old man, apparently master of the garden, came up and talked to us, he was curious to see a foreigner so interested in stones, and wished to hear which I liked best, and so on. I wished I could speak fluently with him, he was just the type of character that seems to be dying out, and that is so rich in interest and quaint wisdom and remote culture. His deep wrinkles and keen light eyes were so attractive. I wished I had gold to spend in that garden, he and I would enjoy the good old Japanese way of spending several days over selecting the treasures. He had a pretty little piece of carved white jade among his flowers, six inches long and an inch high--a foil for a dark foliage arrangement, £20 it cost, he said, and he didn’t lie as to its worth.
This is the first nursery garden I have been in that seems to be the creation of an _old_ artistic Japanese, it was indeed charming.
Afterwards we lunched in Oyeno Park, and then I went a round of calls on my bicycle, then home to have two friends to tea, and a view of copies of old Japanese prints: half a chapter I forced myself to write in the evening sent me to sleep.
=July 20–24.=--An uneventful week of work, all the Institute seems asleep, and Professor _F----_ only came an hour or two for some of the days till Friday, when we worked very hard.