90 Landscape Gardening 



the same tone will be preserved as far as possible with 

 variegated evergreens, shrubs that bear red berries, and other 

 flowering or gay-looking evergreens, with an abundance of 

 early-blooming bulbs and herbaceous plants, to betoken the 

 first approaches of spring. The whole character of the place 

 should also be light, open, airy, — not at all crowded, or 

 overgrown , or overshadowed. The gravel in the walks should 

 have a warm, reddish-yellow tint, and the arcliitectural enrich- 

 ments should be lively, and rather florid than otherwise. 



But the expression of a garden may, if required, be that of 

 quietness, — a modest, unassuming, medium state, between 

 plainness and ostentation. It need not be wanting in beauty 

 or refinement. It may be correctly and even elegantly 

 arranged and furnished, yet there will be no peculiarity of 

 tone on which the eye can fasten. All will be good, but 

 nothing extravagant. Flowers will be cherished, though not 

 in extraordinary profusion. Every kind of evergreens will 

 be unreservedly admitted, but there will be no attempt at 

 display, no thrusting forward the evidences of wealth. Taste 

 will be shown in concealing all its manifestations, — in the 

 little arts, and ingenious contrivances, and kindly cares, 

 which embellish gardens, as they do life, without ever reveal- 

 ing the machinery of their action, and of which the effect is 

 seen and felt in their results rather than their processes, — 

 in the whole rather than the details. A quiet-looking garden, 

 like a well-educated incUvidual, presents no particular feature 

 that can attract special notice, — all is smooth, easy, agree- 

 able. And perhaps this quietness of expression is the surest 

 index to refinement and taste, though the latter is not incom- 

 patible with some amount of luxury and sprightliness. 



Art should be pretty obviously expressed in that part of 

 every garden which is in the immediate vicinity of the house, 

 and may sometimes retain its prominence throughout the 



