In the street called Nihon Bashi, near the merchants of books and lanterns, of embroideries and bronzes, miniature gardens are sold; and, as a studious idler amid this fantastic display, I mentally compare these little fragments of the world. The artists have subtly shown themselves masters of the exquisite laws by which the lines of a landscape are composed, like those of a physiognomy. Instead of drawing nature they reproduce it, constructing their counterfeits from the very elements of the original, which they borrow--as a rule is illustrated by an example. These images are usually exact and perfect replicas. All sorts and kinds of pines, for instance, are offered me to choose from; and their position in the jar, with their height as a scale, proportionately shows the dimensions of their original territory. Here is a rice-field in Springtime; in the distance is a hill fringed with trees (they are made of moss). Here is the sea, with its archipelago and its capes! By the artifice of two stones, one black, one red, and rather worn and porous, they have represented two islands that appear to be joined together, whose difference in distance is shown only by their different colors, apparently due to the light of the setting sun. And even the many-colored sunset is represented by this bed of motley pebbles covered with the contents of two carafes. Now, to amplify my thought! The European artist copies nature according to the sentiment that he has for it. The Japanese imitates it according to the materials with which it furnishes him. One expresses himself, the other expresses nature. One creates, the other mimics. One paints, the other constructs. One is a student; the other, in a way, a master. One reproduces in its detail the spectacle that he surveys with a searching and subtle gaze; the other disengages its law with a flash of the eye, in the freedom of his fancy; and applies it with a scriptural conciseness. Here the first inspiration of the artist is the material on which he exercises his hand. Good-humoredly, he consults its intrinsic properties, its tints; and, appropriating the soul of the brute thing, he constitutes himself its interpreter. Of all the things that he might say, he expresses only the essential and significant characteristics; and, merely making a few shy indications here and there, leaves to the paper the task of concealing all those infinite complexities which are implied freely because they are taken for granted. It is a frolic of certitude, it is caprice with restraint; and the underlying idea, snared by such a method of argument, imposes itself upon us with an insidious conviction.