236 Xan^scape Brcbitecture 



esque must have done their office through the occu- 

 pance of three or four generations. The dwelHngs of 

 man must declare themselves such as have sheltered 

 the hoary quietude of sires long ago gone to their 

 graves. Inasmuch as the picturesque abjures change 

 it rejects improvement, it abhors the square, the per- 

 pendicular, the horizontal, and it likes rather all forms 

 that now are other than at first they were, and that 

 lean this way and that way and that threaten to fall ; 

 but so did the same building threaten a fall a century 

 ago! In a word, the picturesque is the Conservation 

 of Landscape Beauty. It is where the picturesque 

 holds undisputed sway that we shall find — or shall 

 expect to find — secure and placid longevity — domes- 

 tic sanctity and reverence; together with a piety 

 that holds more communion with the past than with 

 the busy and philanthropic present. Give me only 

 the picturesque, and I shall be well content never to 

 gaze on tropical luxuriance, or upon Alpine sublimi- 

 ties, nor shall ever wish to travel the broad walks 

 that surround palaces: shall never be taxed for my 

 admiration of those things which wealth and pride 

 have superadded to nature." 



The strange quality of charm may not and yet is 

 likely to go with picturesqueness and certainly requires 

 consideration in landscape gardening. But it may be 

 asked what is charm? Who shall say? Arthur C. 

 Benson describing a landscape writes that charm 

 "seems to arise partly out of a subtle orderliness and a 



