WAY-SIDE HINTS 



would make admirable lee for the forcing- 

 houses of the gardeners, and for the growth of 

 whatever plants or vegetables crave the first 

 heats of the spring sun. The traveller will re- 

 call the "little Provence," in the garden of the 

 Tuileries, where, by the mere shelter of a 

 twelve-foot terrace wall circling around 

 against cool winds, a summer balminess is 

 given to the locality even in winter, and phthi- 

 sical old men and feeble children find their way 

 thither to luxuriate in the sunshine. 



If, on the other hand, such embankment 

 flank the north, its shadow will offer capital 

 nursery-ground for the rhododendrons, ivies, 

 and all such plants as are impatient of the free 

 blast of the sun. 



And, after all, if these happy accidents of 

 position and opportunity did not favor such 

 special culture, it should be the duty and the 

 pride of the true artist in land-work to ascer- 

 tain what other growths would be promoted by 

 exceptional disturbances of surface. The 

 finest and highest triumphs in landscape art 

 are wrought out in dealing with portentous 

 features of ugliness, and so enleashing them 

 with the harmonies of a given plan as to ex- 

 tort admiration. 



The railway, with its present bald embank- 



175 



