General Principles 97 



much pleasure to the eye, at least, as though it were really 

 owned. Everyday experience will confirm the familiarity of 

 the remark, that some individuals glean more delight from 

 the opportunity of inspecting another person's property than 

 the owners themselves. Proprietors of extensive and beauti- 

 ful estates rarely appreciate them. Men generally value less 

 what they hold by no uncertain tenure. The things which 

 we retain on sufferance, or which we may some day be 

 deprived of, are those which, if we are not overburdened with 

 them, we most earnestly cling to and perseveringly admire. 

 This tendency is neither illegitimate nor pernicious, in refer- 

 ence to natural objects, while it may entail much innocent 

 gratification. 



To cater to an appetite so unexceptionable is surely not 

 beneath the dignity of art. And as it can be done without 

 any great difficulty where the frontage of a place is towards 

 an open country, it should always be taken among the estab- 

 lished requirements. The ways of accomplishing it have 

 before been enumerated, But it may be observed that a 

 boundary fence which looks most hke that which would 

 form the division between one part of an estate and another, 

 with such groups of trees and shrubs between the openings 

 as would be placed to give a foreground to the distant view, 

 even were there no separating fence behind them, will most 

 favor the illusion and enable the occupier to appropriate as 

 if it were his own, all that is beautiful in the general land- 

 scape. Even fences, sheds, cottages, etc., on the property 

 thus surveyed, may often be got rid of by a few specimen 

 plants, placed so as to cover or to diminish such divisions 

 in it as would detract from the semblance of expanse and 

 ownership. 



21. Imitation of Nature. — Readers who have traveled 

 with me thus far will have perceived that I have had occasion 



