■ffntrobuction 27 



and delight; and the fact that he proposed to ac- 

 complish this transformation not by extending 

 architectural works throughout the valley, not by 

 constructing mighty terraces, mile-long avenues, or 

 great formal water basins, such as he had seen in 

 Italy, at Versailles, and at Wilhelmshohe — but by 

 quietly inducing nature to transform herself, \He 

 would not force upon his native landscape any 

 foreign type of beauty; on the contrary, his aim was 

 the transfiguration, the idealization of such beauty as 

 was indigenous. ^ He was intent upon evolving 

 from out of the confused natural situation a com- 

 position in which all that was fundamentally 

 characteristic of the scenery, the history and in- 

 dustry of his estate should be harmoniously and 

 beautifully united. 



"One circumstance greatly favoured the happy 

 accomplishment of his design — namely, the very 

 fact that he had to do with a valley and not 

 with a plain or plateau. The irregularly rising 

 land skirting the river-levels supplied a frame 

 for his picture: the considerable stream, flowing 

 through the midst of the level, with here and there 

 a sweep toward the enclosing hills, became the all- 

 connecting and controlling element in his landscape. 

 Well he knew that what artists call 'breadth* 

 and 'unity of effect' was fully assured if only he 

 abstained from inserting impertinent structures or 

 other objects in the midst of this hill bounded 

 intervale. " 



