170 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



on the pendent boughs of an ehn would be destructive of the 

 native grace and majesty of this tree. To perfect this ex- 

 pression those natural or artificial objects which are strongly 

 suggestive of the simple pleasures of country life should be 

 multiplied, unmixed with any of those ornaments that would 

 cause the former to seem like a counterfeit. It is simply neces- 

 sary to discard all excessive ornament, and all display of very 

 high cultivation. A combination of the natural ornaments 

 of vines, trees, flowers, and shrubbery, with a general sim- 

 plicity in the style of the dwelling-house, and an unobtrusive 

 elegance of the grounds, would perfect the charm. 



III. Moral expression seems to me to be as important as 

 any other agreeable quality, though it is generally overlooked 

 by builders and designers. It is not, however, overlooked by 

 the spectator, even though he be unconscious of its influence 

 upon his mind. The moral expression of the buildings and 

 grounds that meet our sight, when employed in our daily 

 rautiiie of business and travel, must produce no inconsiderable 

 effect on our happiness. When one has been journeying in 

 a pleasant country, where all the cottages of the poor and 

 the mansions of the wealthy are expressive of agreeable traits 

 in the cliaracter of their inmates, and differ only as wealth 

 necessarily differs from poverty, he returns home with a 

 cheerful heart and with complacent feelings towards his fellow 

 men. The simple unostentatious evidences of wealth do not 

 offend^- but if one sees in the general style of building prev- 

 alent in his own land, a marked expression of pride and con- 

 tempt of the poor on the one hand, and on the other not the 

 evidence of humble intelligence and refinement, but of a 

 silly apishness of wealth or of brutish ignorance and indiffer- 

 ence to the concerns of neatness and taste, he is offended and 

 disheartened. He returns home full of misanthropic humors, 

 ■indignant at the vanity and selfishness of the wealthy, and 

 fdisgusted with the folly and stupidity of the poor. The 

 ■majority of men may not be consciously affected by such 

 observations ,• but on all men of intelligent minds and gener- 

 ous feelings, the moral influence of architecture combined 

 with landscape, is such as greatly to affect their happiness. 



