THE USE OF GARDENS 



is so attractively displayed, the garden becomes a plain proof of the 

 bond of sympathy which exists between her and humanity. In 

 fulfilling its purpose as " a Pleasure of the Greatest and the Ease 

 of the Meanest," it unites all ranks of men in a worship which has 

 no hidden mysteries, and which demands from those who follow it 

 nothing but a clean and wholesome preference for pure and un- 

 affected beauty. To the nature lover its symbolises the joy of life 

 spent in her society, the pleasure of an association which can never 

 become wearisome and never lose its freshness, for the possession ot 

 a garden means to him the bringing of nature to his very door so 

 that she lingers beside him, always within his reach. 

 This pleasure in possession accounts for the care that has been taken 

 to maintain numbers of delightful gardens with all their beauty un- 

 impaired through many generations. There are places, some large 

 and imposing, some small and unpretentious, but exquisite in their 

 miniature perfection, which have been handed down from father to 

 son as treasures worthy of the strictest safeguarding. The lapse 

 of years has given to them an absolute completeness by bringing all 

 their details into harmony and has invested them with that atmos- 

 phere of serene maturity which comes only when nature has had 

 ample time to play her part. And it is maturity, not decay, that 

 makes them delightful, the beauty of full growth and rich develop- 

 ment, not the picturesqueness of the ruin. The garden which has 

 gone to decay can never have the charm of one that is kept in 

 order and tended continuously by loving hands. Directly the air ot 

 neglect creeps over it there is an end to its attractiveness ; it begins 

 to look slovenly and dishevelled, uncared for and despised, and as its 

 trim borders thicken with weeds, its smooth lawns grow rough and 

 coarse, and its shrubberies turn into wild and untidy thickets, it 

 loses, bit by bit, every shred of its character. Only when nature has 

 effaced all traces of man's handiwork and what remains has no 

 longer even the semblance of a garden, can the spot be beautiful 

 again, but its beauty then will be that of primitive wildness, the 

 grace of the untutored savage. 



The man who loves his garden is always anxious for its welfare and 

 spares no pains to keep it at its best. He does not grudge the 

 expenditure of time and money if thereby he can enhance the 

 delights of the place which has come to him from possibly remote 

 ancestors, and which he hopes to hand on to his heirs in a condition 

 creditable both to his taste and to his understanding of artistic 

 responsibility. That he should take pride in maintaining the charm 

 and character of his garden, that he should be anxious to protect it 

 xiv 



