【1】盆栽の話をしよう。
　こう切り出せば好事家はともかく、おおかたの知識人は眉をひそめるに相違ない。【2】自然の樹の姿をねじまげるのは心ない仕業だ、のびのびと枝葉を繁らせよ、という自然主義によって盆栽のサロン芸的矮小性を批判し、その前近代性をあばく前に、ともかくこの高度の園芸術の素性を見定めねばならない。
　【3】武蔵野の深い森に囲まれた皇居の一隅に数百鉢の盆栽を保有する御苑がある。日本史を飾るお歴々の寄進した逸品ぞろいのなかに三代将軍徳川家光の愛した五葉の松まで目にすれば、この国の園芸文化の奥深さにただ脱帽するしかない。【4】しかも盆栽愛好の風潮は権門貴顕に限らず広く市井に浸透している。愛好層の広さと息の長さはやはりただごとではない。今日、日本のどんな片田舎へ行っても一つや二つの盆栽愛好会はあるものだ。人口が十万の都会となれば、その数は十は下らないだろう。
　【5】大衆文化としての盆栽愛好に関するこの連綿たる事実は、戦後、俳句第二芸術論が知識人を衝撃したにもかかわらず俳句熱はいっこう衰えるどころか、ますます市井において盛んなことを想い起こさせる。
　【6】いったい盆栽とは日本の生活史のなかでどういう位置を占めるのだろうか。
　盆栽の起源についてのこまかな詮索はともかく、およそ平安末ないし鎌倉期に発した盆栽は、中世を通じて庭先の台または縁に置かれ、庭の築山を背景として楽しむならわしだった。【7】その様子を書いた『慕帰絵詞』などを見ると、盆栽は庭の一部で、しかも濡れ縁の延長でもある。築山と盆栽の関係は、あたかも自然の山峰（さんぽう）とそれを借景した庭のような関係を成している。盆栽は築山を背景として眺めるものだったらしい。
　【8】また一方、室町期に山峰（さんぽう）の叙景術として出現した立花は、次第∵に花への意識を集中させるため抽象性を高めながら、一方で花の床（とこ）映りをよくするため庭の花影は逆にこれをつとめて抑制させる渋好みの庭園を発展させた。【9】生け花もまた、庭との関係が常に強く意識されていたのだった。つまり、山、借景庭、濡れ縁の盆栽、床（とこ）の生け花という、野生から掌中にいたる序列化された自然の鎖が、日本人の生活空間を貫いていたと思えてならない。この山水の美的序列は座敷と庭との不即不離な関係と並行していた。（中略）
　【0】自分の志操を山水に託し、これを胸中に収めた日本人はたしかに自然を愛したが、しかし、原始のままの自然を身近に置いたりはしなかった。自然と人間の間のとり方が問題であった。
　すなわち、太古の自然は敬して遠ざけ、しかるのち邸内に築いた庭にこれを借景としてとり入れた。庭はやがて軒下に凝縮されて坪庭となり、さらに盆栽となる。自然を社会化するこの流れは、土を払い落とした草木が床（とこ）の間へ上り、人々が華の幻をそこに見るまでやまなかった。巧みに巧まれてついに身辺へたぐり寄せられた山水は、作法美の域にいたってようやく人々の掌中に収められたのだ。
　生命現象の次元では手つかずの自然は尊いが、文化現象の話になれば自然は作法化されなければならなかった。それは人間と自然との美的黙約である。

（「風景学・実践篇」（中村良夫）より）

In eighteenth century Britain, fa1milies began to express affection more openly than before. In addition it seems that for the first time children were no longer thought of as small adults, but as a distinct group of people with special needs. A century after the Quaker, Penn, there was a growing voice advising gentleness with children. One popular eighteenth-century handbook on the upbringing of children, itself a significant development, warned: "Severe and frequent whipping is, I think, a very bad practice." In 1798 another handbook told mothers that "The first object in the education of a child should be to acquire its affection, and the second to obtain its confidence. The most likely thing to expand a youthful mind is … praise.
Girls, however, continued to be victims of the parents' desire to make them match the popular idea of feminine beauty of slim bodies, tight waists and a pale appearance. To achieve this aim, and so improve the chances of a good marriage, parents forced their daughters into tightly waisted clothes, and gave them only little food to avoid an unfashionably healthy appearance. Undoubtedly this behaviour explains the idea and reality of frail feminine health which continued into the nineteenth century.
Parents still often decided on a suitable marriage for their children, but they increasingly sought their childlen's opinion. However, sons and daughters often had to many against their wishes. One man, forced to give up the only woman he ever loved, wrote, "l sighed as a lover, but I obeyed as a son. "But love and companionship were slowly becoming accepted reasons for marriage. As one husband wrote to his wife after fifteen years of marriage, "l have only time to say that I love you dearly, - best of women, best of wives, and best of friends. "If such feelings described a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century marriage they were less openly stated, and perhaps less openly expected.
The increase in affection was partly because people could now expect a reasonably long life. This resulted mainly from improved diet and the greater cleanliness of cotton rather than woollen underclothing. However, it was also the result of a growing idea of kindness. For perhaps the first time people started to believe that cruelty either to humans or animals was wrong. It did not prevent bad facto･y conditions, but it did help those trying to end slavery. At the root of this dislike of cruelty was the idea that every human was an individual.
This growing individualism showed itself in a desire for privacy. In the seventeenth century middleclass and wealthier families were served by servants, who listened to their conversation as they ate. They lived in rooms that led one to another, usually through wide double doors. Not even the bedrooms were private. But in the eighteenth century fa1milies began to eat alone, preferring to serve themselves than to have servants listening to everything they had to say. They also rebuilt the insides of their homes, putting in corridors, so that each person in the family had his or her own private bedroom.
Britain was ahead of the rest of Europe in this individualism. Almost certainly this was the result of the political as well as economic strength of the middle class, and the way in which the middle class mixed so easily with the gentry and aristocracy. Individualism was important to trade and industrial success.