16 ART AND NATURE. 



touch of the arts which have subjugated the ruder elements in 

 human and vegetable nature to mould and re-arrange them. We 

 are not made to be content on nature's lower levels; for that spaik 

 of divinity within us Imagination suggests to us progress and 

 improvement, and these are no less natural than existence. The 

 arts which make life beautiful are those that graft upon the wildings 

 of nature the refinements and harmonies which the Deity through 

 the imagination is ever suggesting to us. 



Decorative gardening had reached a high degree of perfection 

 among ancient nations before the art now known as Landscape 

 Gardening had its origin, or rather the beautiful development which 

 it has reached in England within the last three centuries. The art 

 which reproduces the wildness of rude nature, and that which 

 softens the rudeness and creates polished beauty in its place, are 

 equally arts of gardening. So too are the further arts by which 

 plants and trees are moulded into unusual forms, and blended by 

 studied symmetries with the purely artificial works of architecture. 

 All are legitimate, and no one style may say to another, " Thou art 

 false because thou hast no prototype in nature," since our dwellings 

 and all the conveniences of civilized life would be equally false if 

 judged by that standard. However diverse the modes of decora- 

 tive gardening in different countries, all represent some ideal form 

 of beauty, and illustrate that diversity of human tastes which is not 

 less admirable than the diversity of productions in vegetable nature. 



That may be considered good gardening around suburban 

 homes which renders the dwelling the central interest of a picture, 

 which suggests an intention to produce a certain type of embellish- 

 ment, and which harmoniously realizes the type intended, whether 

 it be a tree-flecked meadow, a forest glade, a copse belted lawn, a 

 formal old French garden, a brilliant parterre, or a general blend- 

 ing of artfully grown sylvan and floral vegetation with architectural 

 forms. 



Not to reproduce the rudeness of Nature, therefore, but to 

 adapt her to our civilized necessities, to idealize and improve, 

 to condense and appropriate her beauties, to eliminate the dross 

 from her vegetable jewels, and give them worthy setting these are 

 the aims of Decorative Gardening. 



