38.— An Artist's Flower Border. 



The chief beauty of the garden should lie in its flower colors and 

 plant forms, and not in the symmetry of its beds and borders. If 

 our ideas of a perfect garden include any rigid geometrical prin- 

 ciples, we would better study nature and let our ideals go ! Our 

 ideals, at best, are extremely limited, while nature's realism is 

 immeasurable ; she puts so much variety into her reality that she is 

 more beautiful than we can imagine, by sheer force of quantity ! 

 * * * We should seek to display the whiteness and purity 

 of the lily in the garden, and not trouble ourselves so much about 

 the brown earth patch from which it grows. — F. Schuyler Mathews, 

 in the Beautiful Flower Garden. 



