38 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



a garden. We should follow the dictates of good 

 taste and of common sense. Of things applied 

 direct from Nature the line should be drawn at the 

 gigantesque, the elemental, the sad, the gruesome, 

 the crude. True, that in art of another kind — 

 in Architecture or in Music — the artistic equivalents 

 of these qualities may find place, but as garden 

 effects they are eminently unsuitable, except, indeed, 

 where it is desired to perpetrate a grim joke. 



Beyond these limitations, however, all is open 

 ground for the imaginative handling of the true gar- 

 dener ; and what a noble residue remains ! Nature 

 in her health and wealth — green, opulent, lusty Na- 

 ture is at his feet. Of things gay, debonair, subtle, 

 and refined — things that stir poetic feelings or that 

 give joy — he may take to himself and conjure with to 

 the top of his bent. It is for him as for the poet in 

 Sir Philip's Sidney's words — " So as he goeth hand 

 in hand with Nature, not enclosed within the narrow 

 warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the 

 zodiac of his own wit. Nature never set forth the 

 earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done ; 

 neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet- 

 smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the 

 too-much loved earth more lovely: her world is 

 brazen, the poets only deliver a golden''' 



Animated with corresponding desire, the gardener 

 resorts to lovely places in this " too-much loved 

 earth," there to find his stock-in-trade and learn his 

 craft. We Avatch him as he hies to the bravery of 

 the spring-flowers in sunny forest-glades ; to meadow- 



