GARDEN DESIGN AND RECENT WRITINGS UPON IT. 15 



and ugly colours that, seen in a beautiful light, it would be worth 

 painting ? There is not, and there never can be, any other true test. 



Even if our aim be right, the direction, as it is in other matters, 

 may be vitiated by stupidity, as in gardens where false lines and curves 

 abound, as in the Champs Elysee in Paris. It is quite right to see the 

 faults of this and to laugh at them ; but how about those who plant 

 in true and artistic ways? In the case we mention there is ceaseless 

 and inartistic and vain throwing up of the ground, and sharp and ugly 

 slopes, which are often against the cultivation of the things planted. 



The rejection of clipped forms and book patterns of trees set out 

 like lamp-posts, costly walls where none are wanted, and of all the 

 too facile labours of the drawing-board "artist" in gardens, first 

 affected in England in what we call pleasure-ground and park, is set 

 down by these writers on garden design as the wicked invention of 

 certain men. No account has been taken of the eternally beautiful 

 lessons of Nature or even the simple facts which should be known to 

 all who write about such things. Thus in " The Art and Craft of 

 Garden Making " we read : 



So far as the roads were concerned Brown built up a theory that, as Nature 

 abhorred a straight line, it was necessary to make roads curl about. Serpentine 

 lines are said to be the lines of Nature, and therefore beyond question the only 

 proper lines. 



But nothing is said of the fact that in making paths or roads in 



diversified country it is absolutely necessary to follow the line of 



easiest gradation, and this cannot always be a 



Facts of natural straight line and is indeed, often a beautiful bent 



beauty the source , . T 



of good design. line> In man y cag es we are not twenty paces from 

 the level space around a house before we have to 

 think of the lie of the ground in making walks, roads, or paths. We 

 are soon face to face with the fact that the worst thing we can attempt 

 is a straight line. If any one for any reason persists in the attempt 

 the result is ugliness, and, in the case of drives, danger. Ages before 

 Brown was born the roads of England often followed beautiful lines, 

 and it would be just as true to attribute to " Brownites " the invention 

 of the forms of trees, hills, or clouds themselves as to say that they in- 

 vented the waved line for path or drive. The statement is of a piece 

 with the other, that the natural and picturesque view of garden design 

 and planting is the mischievous invention of certain men, and not the 

 outcome of the most precious of all gifts, of Nature herself, and of the 

 actual facts of tree and landscape beauty. All who have seen the 

 pictures by the roadsides of many parts of Britain and the paths over 

 the hills, and, still more so, those who have to form roads or walks in 

 diversified country, will best know how absurd such statements are. 



