10 The Garden Beautiful 



face to face with the fact that the worst thing we can 

 attempt is a straight hne. If any one for any reason 

 persists in the attempt the result is ughness, and, in the 

 case of drives, danger. Ages before Brown was born 

 the roads of England often followed beautiful lines, and 

 it would be just as true to attribute to Brown the in- 

 vention of the forms of trees, hills, or clouds themselves, 

 as to say that he invented the waved line for path or 

 drive. The statement is of a piece with the other, that 

 the natural and picturesque view of garden design and 

 planting is the mischievous invention of certain men, 

 and not the outcome of the most precious of all gifts, of 

 Nature herself, and of the actual facts of tree and land- 

 scape beauty. All who have seen the pictures by the 

 roadsides of many parts of Britain, and the paths over 

 the hills, and, still more so, those who have to form 

 roads or walks in diversified country, will best know 

 the value of such statements. 



Variety tJie true source of beauty in gardens. The very 

 statement that there is but one way of making a garden 

 is its own refutation ; as with this formula before us 

 what becomes of the wondrous variety of the earth and 

 its forms, and of the advantages and needs of change 

 that soil, site, climate, air, and view give us — plains, river 

 valleys, old beach levels, mountains and gentle hills, 

 chalk downs and rich loamy fields, forest and open 

 country ? 



' What is the use of Essex going into Dorset merely to 

 see the same thing done in the home landscape or the 

 garden ? But if Essex were to study his own ground 

 and do the best he could from his own knowledge of the 

 spot, his neighbour might be glad to see his garden. 

 We have too much of the stereotyped style already ; in 



