THE GARDEN ENCLOSURE 55 



green of the surrounding trees was enchanting for 

 the few days it lasted. The writer of these lines 

 has never forgotten the fairylike impression that 

 this pergola made upon his mind when as a very 

 small boy he used to canter through it on his pony 

 of an early May morning. These rustic pergolas 

 were in a public park and were built when rustic 

 work was much in vogue; there is no excuse for 

 using them anywhere now. 



Small Italian gardens are not effective and should 

 never be used unless the house is in the Italian 

 style. Most of the Italian gardens one sees are 

 shams, pretending to be something that they are 

 not and never will be. The old gardens cannot 

 be reproduced in miniature; the modern ones are 

 enormously expensive and cover many acres of 

 ground. Beautiful effects that are natural in Italy 

 are badly imitated in the neighbourhood of New 

 York, so that the result reminds one of a scene 

 in a comic opera. Italian gardens need space, 

 long avenues of trees, vistas of mountains, topiary 

 work that cannot be reproduced here; their fur- 

 nishings are marble fountains elaborately carved, 

 vases, beautiful statues, colonnades and flights of 



