General Principles 



unless it be purely for show, a certain amount of privacy 

 ought assuredly to be sought after. And the more thoroughly 

 it is gained, the more pleasurable to most persons, and the 

 more accordant with good taste, will be the entire production. 



6. Unity and congruity of parts are probably among the 

 easiest things to attend to, yet the most seldom attained. 

 Curved walks along the front of a house, — figures, vases, 

 and other architectural ornaments in a different style to that 

 of the principal building, — straight walks passing off ob- 

 liquely from other straight ones, or even curved lines issuing 

 from or crossing straight ones at an oblique angle, — a mix- 

 ture of general styles of treatment, — gay roses or honey- 

 suckles twining around funereal pillars or urns, — the most 

 somber-looking plants placed against a building in a florid 

 style -of architecture, — -the commonest greenhouses tacked on 

 to structures of some pretension as to correctness and purity 

 of manner, — these, and a variety of similar incongruities, 

 are most abundant and conspicuous in gardens. 



Taste, on the other hand, dem.ands that there should be a 

 perfect harmpny between the various portions of a garden 

 both with respect to each other and to its buildings. Every 

 structure ought to have its appropriate garden fittings, to 

 impart or preserve to it its proper expression. The part just 

 around a house should be treated somewhat architecturally 

 or formally, and the transitions from this to the more distant 

 portions of a garden, and from these again to the field, and so 

 on to the surrounding country, be gradual and almost imper- 

 ceptible. And where any sort of rusticity or picturesqueness 

 is wished for, or some other feature essentially distinct from 

 those which characterize the garden generally, such pieces 

 ought to be separated from the rest by a well-marked though 

 inartificial division, so that the two are not seen together. 



Connection and order are the universal laws of nature, and 



