The Formal Garden 37 



in mind only American Italian gardens/ I am afraid geometric 

 patterns patched on to the lawns of new estates, with little clipped 

 trees set along the borders at exact intervals, and stiff, prim asters in 

 rectangular beds, or a row of urns on a concrete balustrade with 

 perhaps a few meaningless relics of Italian sculpture from some 

 antique shop in New York, to make the garden convincing of its 

 expense. 



&quot;Apropos, I must tell you a story,&quot; he went on. &quot;Once I 

 was dining in the house of some very rich people, where the lady 

 on my right insisted upon talking about her imposing earthly 

 possessions. Her Italian garden, of the type I have described, 

 she dwelt upon in detail, telling me how much the marble work had 

 cost, how expensive the topiary effects were to keep up, and every 

 other painful particular. At last, unable to endure her prattle 

 about a sarcophagus she had decided to use as a garden seat, I 

 surprised her by saying: My wife, too, has an Italian garden/ 

 Indeed ? she asked incredulously, knowing perfectly well that we 

 live in a small suburban cottage. Yes, I replied; it took two 

 Italians three days to dig it/ Then she changed the subject/ 



In translating the Italian garden cult to America, via England, 

 France and Holland, and after long subjugation there, the fun 

 damental principles of the best formal garden making have been so 

 far lost sight of in the great majority of cases that it has become 

 well-nigh a travesty to call most of our meaningless imitations 

 Italian gardens at all. It may be claimed that Italian ideals cannot 

 be translated into our terms; that the garden magic of the Ren 

 aissance is dependent upon age, the peculiarity of the Italian climate 

 and landscape, the wealth of deep-toned evergreens, the cheapness 

 of labour, the social usages of an age of splendour, the Italian genius 

 for artistic expression. 



