102 Landscape Gardening 



detail. It will, however, be necessary to keep in mind that 

 minuter beauties do not tell in or upon objects that have to 

 be viewed from a distance, and that, in architectural forms, 

 they are more fitted for internal than exterior decoration. 

 A building that has to be entered should always be much 

 more ornamented and enriched inside than it is without; and 

 little delicate finishings, though highly expressive when in 

 place, ought only to be put where they have to be closely 

 examined, and near enough to the eye to be thoroughly scru- 

 tinized and appreciated. 



Beauty of association is founded on the suggestion of 

 pleasing ideas, such as fitness, harmony, poetry, or the awak- 

 ening of images that have formerly delighted. It is especially 

 connected with anything aged, — with that in which our 

 ancestors or family have borne a part, or in which w^e have 

 personally shared. A tree or plant, which we, our relatives, 

 or some known and noted personage has planted, reared, 

 or tended; a summer house that is rich in family or other 

 ancient records, or in w^hich we or those we love have thought, 

 or studied, or felt much; a retired nook or secluded little 

 garden, which the fair hands of the departed have, by their 

 former ministrations, hallowed and rendered sacred; — ■ these 

 may all be abundantly fraught with the beauty of association. 



By this benignant law man is linked at once to the material 

 and the spiritual world, and the elements of a garden become 

 pregnant with both poetry and history. The chords of the 

 human heart are strung responsively to a variety of objects, 

 and a sight, or a sound, or a scent, may at any moment 

 waken their melody. Delicate perfumes, bursts of nature's 

 vernal music, gleams of gladdening sunshine after rain may 

 stir the shades of long-buried thoughts and emotions and 

 quicken them into new life with a thrilling power. 



Practically the beauty of association is hardly a thing to be 



