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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: All classes feel its force, and freely indulge the feeling. Poor as
well as rich, low as well as high, contrive to gratify their poetic
instincts for natural scenery. As for flowers, especially tree
flowers, or those of the larger plants, like the lotus or the iris,
the Japanese appreciation of their beauty is as phenomenal as is
that beauty itself. Those who can afford the luxury possess the
shrubs in private; those who cannot, feast their eyes on the public
specimens. From a sprig in a vase to a park planted on purpose,
there is no part of them too small or too great to be excluded from
Far Oriental affection. And of the two "drawing-rooms" of the Mikado
held every year, in April and November, both are garden-parties:
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