WATER FLOWERS 233 



range of choice, and just as obviously a choice 

 must be made. For except under very unusual 

 conditions these two aspects cannot be success- 

 fully combined. That they are both very often 

 seen together in elaborate gardens is no argu- 

 ment for the propriety of using them thus, nor 

 for methods that ignore all nicer subtleties of 

 harmony. 



Water in motion, curiously enough when we 

 stop to think of it, does violence to its own pro- 

 foundest law; for water is, by its very nature, 

 static. It seeks its level — which is rest Hence 

 nothing can be more agitated, more ill at ease 

 in a sense, than the rushing, tumbling stream or 

 the plunging cataract; just as nothing is more 

 expressive of force irresistible than the spurting 

 jet or playing fountain, though the latter may 

 be as a matter of fact an expression of a certain 

 contentment which the stream is denied, inas- 

 much as it merely dances at its level, otherwise 

 its place of rest. 



Yet neither the jet nor the fountain of gentlest 

 play will produce the serenity which is, in the 

 last analysis, the very heart and soul of the kind 

 of garden desirable to live in. Only the pool 

 will do this; for the quiet pool is above all at 

 peace — satisfied — resting, pensive, setting up at 

 the first glimpse of its shining surface the mood 



