THEORT OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN 15 



selves upon our attention, even though they pass unnoticed by our 

 consciousness, yet constitute a background of association, an atmos- 

 phere of reality and pleasurable completeness, which forms no small 

 part of our feeling of unity with the joyous and ordered universe which 

 we behold.* 



Through this infinitely complicated associational connection of 

 all our mental content, our memories, our emotions, our present sen- 

 sations and perceptions, an experience in any one realm of the senses, 

 or in any one field of thought, finds, as it were, kinship in the mind 

 with other experiences widely different, and it is idle to attempt to say 

 what train of creative thought, what powerful emotion, may not be 

 aroused by any apparently trivial experience. 



The pleasure caused by any work of art will be different in the mind 

 of each beholder as the mind of each beholder is different. The de- 

 signer can be sure of his effect only in so far as he can know the mass 

 of memories to which his design must appeal. There are some experi- 

 ences which are the common lot of all mankind throughout the ages, 

 and works of art which appeal to the memories of these will appeal to 

 every man, and will live as long as these memories remain the common 

 property of man. But works of art which depend for their interest 

 on knowledge or desire born of a transitory period will die with the de- 

 sires which brought them into being. In the same way, a work of art 

 designed for an individual owner, without regard to the common mem- 

 ories and training of mankind at large, is apt to please no one but the 

 owner and will probably not please him for long. 



The designer whose broad interest has kept him in touch with many 

 and varied ideas, who has accumulated mental material of many kinds, 

 and organized it in many ways, has acquired a very real power when 

 he comes to deal with clients of different sorts. He is able to put him- 

 self in their place, to see the relative values of things as they see them, 



* The pleasure we derive from colour, scent, and song in the garden is a by- 

 product of evolution, due to that similarity of environment and of power to re- 

 spond to it which has cast our senses almost in the same mould with those of the 

 insects and birds ; and the significance of the fact is that life is one and man a part 

 of nature, not a supernatural being who has been suddenly intruded into a garden." 

 Sitwell, p. 49, note i. 



