General Principles 85 



rejected. It has been shown that it may be effective in 

 heightening color, but it merits, as a principle, a little more 

 development. It necessarily involves a certain amount of 

 suddenness in change, whether as to color, form, or general 

 character. Very violent transitions are not to be included in 

 the idea, at least not so far as its adoption is here considered 

 recommendable. 



If a rule might be ventured in reference to this rather 

 difficult matter, it should assume that harmony ought to reign 

 paramount, and almost alone, over the general features of a 

 place, and that contrast should distinguish its episodes or 

 more detached accessories. What is meant is, that a garden, 

 as viewed from the house, or from most of its own principal 

 points, should cojisist of parts and objects that have some 

 decided agreement with each other, or that the several con- 

 stituent parts should blend and interfuse insensibly; while 

 peculiarities, whether of treatment or vegetation, can be 

 reserved for little side scenes, shut off from the rest, or most 

 imperfectly disclosed, until the observer finds himself all at 

 once in the midst of them. The full effect of a contrast may 

 thus be secured, without any interference with the much more 

 important principles of harmony or congruity. 



Still, the occasional admission into a more open landscape 

 of things which will produce contrast, is by no means alto- 

 gether to be condemned. I remember being frequently 

 attracted, and always wdth the same pleasure, to a beautiful 

 specimen of the weeping birch, growing by the side of a noble 

 cedar of Lebanon on a lawn. And I have also noticed with 

 admiration, in several parts of the country, a kind of com- 

 panionship established between beeches and fine old speci- 

 mens of the common yew. In both these instances there was 

 a marked contrast both of form and color. But the branches 

 of the two plants were so nicely interwoven, and their foliage 



