Vistas 67 



of green. It can only persuade it and lead it on. It is a matter 

 of suggestion, not coercion. And successful suggestion always 

 presents but the one idea — it offers not the subtlest hint of a 

 resistant force or, in this instance, an antagonistic direction. 

 The idea in the case just cited is all breadth and expansion, and 

 nothing should occur to distract the mind, through the eye, from 

 this. 



A view that follows a valley requires "planting in" on pre- 

 cisely the same principle — that is on the lines of the valley, 

 whether they be oblique to the view point, or horizontal, or 

 straight away. Similarly a view of field or mountain or stream 

 must determine, by the line which dominates it, just how the 

 vision shall be helped along the way. 



I have yet to find an instance where the rule does not apply. 

 Consciously or unconsciously the artist makes use of it in a 

 landscape, and views that give a sense of complete satisfaction 

 will be found to measure up to the standard which it furnishes. 

 It not only legitimately includes a prospect in your own domain, 

 but it emphasizes its presence there; and by this emphasis 

 enhances its value to the whole. 



Happily, circumstances require the planting of barren tracts 

 to create vistas, rather more often than they require the cutting 

 out of Nature's growth to clear them — happily at least for some 

 of us. I doubt if many who love outdoors and all that lives 

 outdoors, can see a tree felled without a shivering pang of regret. 

 I am perfectly free to confess that I cannot. Yet it is quite as 

 important to eliminate vegetation under some conditions as it is 

 to preserve it tmder others. But let there be no uncertainty 

 about when to do one and when the other — for the hour in which 

 a tree may be laid low is tragically brief, compared to the half 

 a hundred years or so it may have been growing. 



