42 Hints on Landscape Gardening 



scape, it is true that heterogeneous objects might 

 without detriment be visible at one glance, yet 

 the imagination can never succeed in accepting 

 with satisfaction (what has been attempted in 

 many parks, famous in their time) the conjunc- 

 tion of a Chinese tower with a Gothic church, 

 tw^o or three Greek temples, a Russian block- 

 house, a ruined castle, a Dutch farmhouse, with, 

 perhaps, a volcano thrown in, all being part of 

 one picture. In contemplating such a scene, no 

 matter how beautiful the setting, taste could not 

 but suffer from artistic indigestion ! 



On the other hand, the principles which should 

 be established for the "pleasure-ground" and 

 gardens are entirely different ; the latter may be 

 as varied as possible, as flower gardens, winter 

 gardens, orchards, vineyards, vegetable gardens, 

 etc. In England I saw exotic gardens, Chinese 

 gardens, American gardens, monastic, and even 

 porcelain, gardens. 



I may repeat here with some variation what 

 I have said before : as the park is Nature ideal- 

 ized within a small compass, so the garden is an 

 extended dwelling. Here the tastes of the owner 

 may have free play, following his imagination 

 and indulging even in trivialities.' Everything 

 should be decorative, designed for comfort, and 



' Of course there may be things that are obvious absurdities. In a 

 garden in Vienna, for instance, I saw a house in the shape of a tub in 

 which sits an immense Diogenes of cardboard, who seems to have just 

 extinguished his light in deference to the spectator; or elsewhere a 

 bench, where a person who sits down upon it is drenched, after a few 

 minutes, with a squirt of water, and other like impertinences. 



