The Park in Muskau 123 



and patience make the so-called ** impossible " 

 quite easily possible. 



In my own case faith has literally removed 

 more than one mountain, and erected as many, 

 and when people saw that things were going, 

 they began to put more faith in my plans ; and 

 I thankiully acknowledge that I afterwards found 

 friendly support where I expected only resist- 

 ance. Even my Wendish peasants, constituting 

 the chief part of the population, and standing 

 on a level of culture not exactly of the highest 

 kind, have acquired some sense of the beautiful, 

 so that they have since decorated their villages 

 with trees. If they at times stole wood in my 

 park, yet they only cut the stakes to which trees 

 were tied, without doing the slightest injury to 

 the young trees themselves, a piece of delicate 

 consideration which in the case of Wends de- 

 serves ample recognition. 



I mention this only to encourage others not 

 to give in too soon when ** impossibility " is set 

 up against the realization of their dearest hopes. 

 Thus, I allowed every one, without consideration 

 of persons, access to my grounds, although many 

 landow^ners assured me that this was likewise 

 ** impossible," since the rough, often drunken, 

 people would cut down all the young trees and 

 pluck all the flowers. It is true that some ex- 

 cesses occurred at first. They were sharply pun- 

 ished when the culprits could be identified, and 

 when not, the damage was quickly and patiently 

 repaired, and the gates remained as before, open 



