398 Landscape Gardening 



wishing to purchase trees at the nursery of the Messrs. 

 Downing, in Newburgh, had visited that pleasant town, and 

 transacted business with the younger partner, he would 

 have been perplexed to understand why the younger part- 

 ner with his large knowledge, his remarkable power of 

 combination, his fine taste, his rich cultivation, his singular 

 force and precision of expression, his evident mastery of his 

 profession, w r as not a recognized authority in it, and why 

 he had never been heard of. For it was remarkable in 

 Downing, to the end, that he always attracted attention 

 and excited speculation. The boy of the Montgomery 

 Academy carried that slightly defiant head into the arena 

 of life, and seemed always too much a critical observer not 

 to challenge wonder, sometimes, even, to excite distrust. 

 That was the eye which in the vegetable world had scanned 

 the law through the appearance, and followed through the 

 landscape the elusive line of beauty. It was a full, firm, 

 serious eye. He did not smile with his eyes as many do, 

 but they held you as in a grasp, looking from under their 

 cover of dark browns. 



The young man, now twenty years old or more, and hard 

 at work, began to visit the noble estates upon the banks of 

 the Hudson, to extend his experience, and confirm his nascent 

 theories of art in landscape-gardening. Studying in the 

 red cottage, and working in the nursery upon the Newburgh 

 highlands, he had early seen that in a new, and unworked, 

 and quite boundless country, with every variety of kindly 

 climate and available soil, where fortunes arose in a night, 

 an opportunity was offered to Art, of achieving a new and 

 characteristic triumph. To touch the continent lying 

 chaotic, in mountain, and lake, and forest, with a finger that 

 should develop all its resources of beauty, for the admira- 

 tion and benefit of its children, seemed to him a task worthy 

 the highest genius. This was the dream that dazzled the 

 silent years of his life in the garden, and inspired and 

 strengthened him in every exertion. As he saw more and 

 more of the results of this spirit in the beautiful Hudson 

 country-seats, he was, naturally, only the more resolved. To 



