230 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



himself, and because he was not content to be so mis- 

 represented by his garden. The natural tendency of 

 men who are pleased with their houses is to plan their 

 gardens to suit them. Thus in other countries ugly 

 formal gardens came with ugly houses; and even in 

 England the man who likes a suburban villa will sur- 

 round it with a villa garden. If he prefers the pre- 

 tence of a villa to the reality of a cottage, he will prefer 

 an iron railing, Calceolarias, and Geraniums to a yew 

 hedge and a border of Larkspurs and Roses and Lilies. 

 But in England there are few who really like sub- 

 urban villas, and even the artificial taste for them is 

 found chiefly among those whose education has been 

 carried only so far as to make them distrust all their 

 natural tastes. A very little more education gives 

 an Englishman confidence in his natural taste for 

 countrified houses, and gardens to suit them. 



But in the eighteenth century, for reasons which 

 we still find it difficult to understand, the English 

 mind reacted in most things against its natural tastes 

 and instincts. In other ages we have excelled more 

 in poetry than in prose, but then our prose was better 

 than our poetry. We are a country rather than a 

 town people by nature; but then we aimed at a town 

 rather than a country civilization, and built town 

 houses in the country, whereas at other times we 

 have tended rather to build country houses in the 

 town. But all through the eighteenth century the 

 English mind was uneasy under the ideals which it 

 had imposed upon itself, and it was always revolting 



