Chapter V 



Parks and Gardens 



PARKS and gardens are two very different 

 things, and it is perhaps one of the chief 

 drawbacks of all the German and English grounds 

 that I know, that this distinction is almost never 

 sufficiently observed, so that, as MuUner says, we 

 too frequently meet with only a hodge-podge 

 of art and nonsense. Although the term ''park" 

 in the larger sense is generally applied to the en- 

 tire landscape design of the region, including 

 all dwellings, it really means, more accurately de- 

 fined, a combination of "pleasure-grounds" and 

 gardens within the larger area of the main park.' 

 The park must have the character of untrammeled 

 Nature, where the hand of man is visible only in 

 the well-kept roads and the judiciously scattered 

 buildings. It seems to me, however, a lack of 

 taste to ignore the human element altogether, 

 and, in order to keep the illusion of wild Nature, 

 to have to wade through the tall grass and tear 

 one's self on thorns in the woods, and come upon 



' The word "pleasure-ground" is difficult to translate accurately 

 into German, and I therefore consider it better to retain the English 

 expression; it means a terrain, abutting on the house and decorated 

 and fenced in, of far larger dimensions than gardens usually are; some- 

 thing that establishes a gradation between the park and the true garden, 

 which should appear to be really a part of the house. 



