36 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



through her incapacities, shuts her in for cultivation, 

 binds her feet, as it were, with the silken cord of 

 art-constraint, and puts a gloss of intention upon her 

 every feature. 



In a garden Nature is not to be her simple self,, 

 but is to be subject to man's conditions, his choice, 

 his rejection. Let us briefly see, now, what con- 

 ditions man may fairly impose upon Nature what 

 lengths he may legitimately go in the way of mimicry 

 of natural effects or of conventionalism. Both books 

 and our own observation tell us that where the past 

 generations of gardeners have erred it has been 

 through a misconception of the due proportions of 

 realism and of idealism to be admitted into a garden. 

 At this time, in this phase, it was Art, in that phase 

 it was Nature, that was carried too far ; here design 

 was given too much rein, there not rein enough, and 

 people in their silly revolt against Art have gone 

 straight for the " veracities of Nature," copying her 

 features, dead or alive, outright, without discrimina- 

 tion as to their fitness for imitation, or their suitable- 

 ness to the position assigned to them. To what 

 extent, we ask, may the forms of Nature be copied 

 or recast ? What are the limits to which man may 

 carry ideal portraiture of Nature for the purposes of 

 Art? Questions like these would, of course, only 

 occur to a curious, debating age like ours ; but put 

 this way or that they keep alive the eternal pro- 

 blems of man's standing to the world of Nature, the 

 laws of idealism and realism, the nice distinctions of 

 " more and less." 



