Furthermore, necessity being the mother of invention, not a few of the
shorn brethren made up for the prohibition of fish and flesh, by
becoming expert cooks. They so exercised their talents in the culinary
art that their results on the table are proverbial. Especially did they
cultivate mushrooms, which in taste and nourishment are good substitutes
for fish.
The bonzes were lovers of beauty and of symbolism. They planted the
lotus, and the monastery ponds became seats of splendor, and delights to
the eye. Their teachings, metaphysical and mystical, poetical and
historical, scientific and literary, created, it may be said, the
Japanese garden, which to the refined imagination contains far more than
meets the eye of the alien.[9] Indeed, the oriental imitations in earth,
stone, water and verdure, have a language and suggestion far beyond what
the usual parterres and walks, borders and lines, fountains and statuary
of a western garden teach. It may be said that our "language of flowers"
is more luxuriant and eloquent than theirs; yet theirs is very rich
also, besides being more subtle in suggestion. The bonzes instilled
doctrine, not only by sermons, books and the emblems and furniture of
the temples, but they also taught dogma and ethics by the flower-ponds
and plots, by the artificial landscape, and by outdoor symbolism of all
kinds.
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