A GARDEN DIARY 



SEPTEMBER 29, 1899 



FOUNTAINS ; they are a great beauty and 

 refreshment, but pools mar all, and make 

 the garden unwholesome, full of flies and frogs." 

 For two persons who have just been at some 

 pains to establish a pool in their grounds, this 

 is a hard saying ! That the judgment has much 

 to support it, apart from the weight of its utterer, 

 I cannot deny. At the same time a better case 

 can, I think, be made out for the culprits than 

 may appear at first sight. Fountains in a copse, 

 be they never so limpid, never so sparkling, 

 would be stamped with an unendurable stamp 

 of artificiality. Pools on the other hand, 

 though there are certainly not many in these 

 copses of ours, are at all events not inconceiv- 

 able. In the present case we flatter ourselves 

 that the particular spot we have selected for 

 our pool was intended by Nature to contain 

 one, and nothing but the incurable aridity of 

 these dry hillsides hindered her from carrying 

 out that intention. Where every drop of water 



