General Principles ^^ 



the production of an appearance of extent in a narrow com- 

 pass, and unless everything conspires to maintain the idea, 

 no attempt to awaken it will be successful. 



Breadth of lawn must be fully attained before any notion 

 of extent can be conveyed. A garden will always look meager 

 without a good open lawn. One broad glade of grass should, 

 therefore, stretch from the best windows of the house to 

 within a short distance of the boundary, with as httle inter- 

 ruption from walks as possible. The plants and groups may 

 be ranged irregularly on either side of this opening, and, 

 where the space will permit, there may be smaller glades 

 through and among these at varied intervals. If such a 

 broad glade of greensward can be had on two or even three 

 sides of the house, the effect of size will be still more fully 

 realized. 



The openness here advocated must not on any account be 

 converted into plainness. There is no more common error 

 than to suppose that a place which has simple borders along 

 two or three of its sides, and the enclosed area entirely un- 

 furnished, presents the best possible representation of size. 

 Because a very small space, such as a room, will appear larger 

 for being nearly or quite empty, it must not be assumed that 

 a garden is to be judged similarly On the contrary, a 

 simple area, which is taken in by the eye at one glance, invites 

 attention to the sharpness of its boundaries. That which 

 requires no mental effort to understand and embrace will 

 never seem extensive unless of gigantic proportions. The 

 notion of size is not to be realized, within straitened limits, 

 by mere simplicity. It is indefiniteness alone, — the giving 

 the eye a number of points to rest upon, and recesses to 

 explore, and the imagination a field for its active exercise, — 

 that can produce the required result. What we measure 

 piece by piece, through a lengthened process, will always be 



