What does it mean to separate but not separate?

Meaning: The walls in the garden are hollow and there are no corridors to rely on. Although the space is separated, the scenery is not really isolated.

From: The sixth natural paragraph in "Suzhou Gardens" by the famous writer Ye Shengtao.

Original text:

When visiting Suzhou gardens, you will inevitably notice the flower walls and corridors. It is separated by walls and bounded by corridors. The more layers there are, the deeper the scenery becomes.

However, there are various hollow patterns of bricks on the walls, and the corridors have nothing to rely on on both sides. In fact, they are separated but not separated, and they are bounded but not bounded, which adds to the depth of the scenery.

Some gardens also install a large mirror at an appropriate location to add more layers, which can almost double the entire garden.

Extended information:

Creative background:

This article is the preface written by Mr. Ye for a photo album of Suzhou gardens. In early 1979, a publishing house in Hong Kong planned to publish a photography book introducing Suzhou gardens, and asked Mr. Ye to write a preface.

Ye Lao lived in Suzhou until he was 22 years old. In his spare time, he often visited Suzhou gardens with his friends and had a profound understanding of the interest and characteristics of Suzhou gardens. When writing this preface, he also consulted Chen Congzhou The book "Suzhou Gardens" compiled by the professor.

After the preface was written, it was handed over to the publishing house in Hong Kong, but the photo album was never published. The editorial board of "Encyclopedia Knowledge" knew that Mr. Ye had such an article and asked them to publish it first. Therefore, this preface was published in the 1979 issue 4 of "Encyclopedia Knowledge". The last few sentences of the preface were deleted when it was published.

When the People's Education Press compiled it into Chinese textbooks, it deleted the first paragraph of the preface, and the original title was "The Gardens of the Humble Administrator - A Talk about Suzhou Gardens" was also changed to "Suzhou Gardens".