THE THEORY OF GARDEN DESIGN 141 



and confident of their power to improve nature in 

 subduing her to their own purposes. 



In a garden man subdues nature to his own pur- 

 poses, and to pretend that he is not doing so is mere 

 affectation. But, at the same time, there is no reason 

 why he should make an arrogant display of his con- 

 quest, why he should not use all beautiful accidents 

 of nature that will not conflict with the aims of his 

 art. There are some formal gardeners who want all 

 their plants to look like architectural ornaments, 

 mere vegetable repetitions of stonework conventions; 

 and it is an unfortunate piece of luck for them that 

 nature has produced some trees and plants that look 

 as if man and not she had made them, and others 

 that can be easily cut into any shape that takes the 

 designer's fancy. The use of these, or the misuse of 

 them, deprives formal gardening of one of its chief 

 beauties, that contrast between the forms of architec- 

 ture and the forms of natural growth of which we 

 have already spoken. It is just as absurd to attempt 

 to make plants look like architectural ornaments as 

 to attempt to make a garden look like a piece of wild 

 nature, and in each case the absurdity comes from 

 the same desire to make things seem what they are 

 not, the desire that produces so many modern kinds 

 of ugliness. A garden is not a piece of wild nature, 

 and a plant is not an architectural ornament. All 

 make-believes of this kind do violence to the essential 

 character of the material which they use; and, whether 

 they run into excess of naturalism or excess of formal- 



