THE FRAME OF THE PICTURE 325 



ings. What I meant to write of was my conviction, 

 that came through sitting on the hay rafters and look- 

 ing down upon the garden, that as a beautiful paint- 

 ing is improved by proper framing, so should the 

 garden be enclosed at different points by frames, to 

 focus the eye upon some central object. 



Though the greater part of the garden is as yet 

 only planned and merely enough set out in each part 

 to fix special boundaries, as in the case of the rose bed, 

 I realize that as a whole it is too open and lacks per- 

 spective. You see it all at once; there are no breaks. 

 No matter in what corner scarlet salvia and vermilion 

 nasturtiums may be planted, they are sure to get in 

 range with the pink verbenas and magenta phlox in 

 a teeth-on-edge way. 



From other viewpoints the result is no better. 

 Looking from the piazza, that skirts two sides of the 

 house, where we usually spend much time, three por- 

 tions of the garden are in sight at once, and all on dif- 

 ferent planes, without proper separating frames; the 

 rose garden is near at hand, the old borders leading 

 to the sundial being at right angles with it. At the 

 right, the lower end of the knoll and the gap with 

 its bed of heliotrope are prominent, while between, at 

 a third distance, is the proposed location of the white- 



