Untrofcuction 39 



past, and the best art of this kind, or for that matter of 

 any kind, is made up of the ideas obtained from many 

 sources, both natural and historical. In The Philosophy 

 of the Practical by Benedetto Croce are the following 

 words : 



"He is a true poet (landscape architect) who feels 

 himself at once bound to his predecessors and free, 

 conservative and revolutionary, like Homer, Dante, 

 and Shakespeare, who receive into themselves cen- 

 turies of history, of thought and poetry and add to 

 those centuries something that is the present and 

 will be the future : charges du passe, gros de 1'avenir. " 



And this growth is ever moving on, not without set- 

 backs, at what seems to be slow and irregular advance, 

 but in the long future we can confidently believe there 

 will be always a day of better things. There are 

 periods of seeming deadness in the development of 

 landscaping as of other things, but there need be no 

 despondency for 



"there is never real regression in history (or in land- 

 scape gardening) , but only contradictions that follow 

 upon solutions given and prepare new ones." 1 



1 B. Croce. 



