THE USE OF GARDENS 



ruin with the lapse of years ; and every attempt to guard them 

 from decay, or to restore them when the inevitable degeneration 

 has become perceptible, takes away some of the character of the 

 work and some of the quality which the artist gave to it at the 

 outset. But the garden gains rather than loses as it grows older 

 because it is planned for the future rather than the present, and 

 can only reach perfection after it has matured during a long period. 

 And in this maturing the care that is taken to keep it trim and 

 to check errant growths of tree and shrub, the constant attention 

 that is given to replacing plants that may become sickly or mis- 

 shapen, the strict supervision by which the first signs of decay 

 are detected, is each of them of infinite importance because each 

 contributes something to the sum total of artistic effort which 

 the completed garden represents. Not often can the designer 

 himself expect to see his work in its full beauty, nature's deliberate 

 processes continue far beyond the span of human life ; he has to 

 trust much to his successors and to leave in their hands a large 

 part of his responsibility. When this trust is accepted in the 

 right spirit, with a due measure of respect for the wishes of the 

 garden-maker, all will go well with his creation, and his foresight 

 and intelligent anticipation of the future will be amply justified. 

 To people who are not so much students of the arts as lovers of 

 sentiment this garden will be not less a delight ; linking as it 

 does past with present, it serves to remind them of those other 

 days when the haste and turmoil of modern life were unknown. It 

 has the restful atmosphere of antiquity, the serenity of the quiet 

 old age which concerns itself hardly at all with the affairs of the 

 moment and lives almost entirely in the past. The romance 

 which invests such a haunt of ancient peace has a ring of reality 

 because the place charms the senses into forgetfulness of to-day 

 and encourages dreams of a bygone existence when men and 

 women lived picturesquely. The dreamer, indeed, by giving rein 

 to his imagination can see many pleasant visions in the old garden, 

 and can people it with a company of congenial spirits among whom 

 he can while away his time in perfect contentment. 

 It seems, then, that the use of gardens is to add in an infinite 

 variety of ways to the enjoyment of civilised humanity and to keep 

 alive not only the love of nature and the understanding of sound 

 aesthetic principles but, as well, that sense of poetry and romance 

 which runs some risk of being obliterated by the materialism of the 

 twentieth century. So long as garden-worship of the right type 

 continues the mental degeneration which comes from the persistent 



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