THE ARGUMENT ix 



untrodden Alpine peaks remote from every trace of 

 civilization, although in reality a sumptuous mansion 

 is not ten feet away. Others are the perfection of 

 " mosai'culture," a term invented by a Frenchman to 

 denote the most complicated plant patchwork, forming 

 the last word of floricultural artificiality. 



Between these two extremes are many delightful gar- 

 dens, neither imitations of a wilderness nor rigidly con- 

 ventional, where plants can grow freely and people are 

 not out of place. Often they have been designed with 

 less rhyme than reason, but are only more charming 

 because they are useful as well as ornamental, to be 

 "lived in" as well as "looked on." Unlike the great 

 French gardens, they are not brilliant intellectual 

 achievements laboriously constructed to form a vista 

 from the windows of a palatial chateau and to afford a 

 gay crowd of courtiers a parade-ground ; nor have they 

 the melancholy beauty of those early Italian villas whose 

 romantic effect has become intensified by neglect and 

 decay ; at present in their perfection the English gardens 

 are in appearance flourishing, of moderate dimensions 

 and unassuming style. Their homelike atmosphere 

 gives them individuality and a charm more endearing 

 than that of other more pretentious performances. Of 

 many of the simplest and most pleasing of these no 

 examples will be given, either because their pecul- 

 iar attraction is due to their skilful adaptation to, a 



