The Several Styles 123 



figures of this or other kinds in stone, with Kttle or no aid of 

 "ornament beyond a good shape, will be more esteemed by 

 those capable of judging than the most elaborate plaster 

 decorations. 



The Natural Style. — Serpentine or wa\y lines may be 

 regarded as the characteristic features of the natural style. 

 Its object is beauty of lines and general variety. Round- 

 ness, smoothness, freedom from angularity, and grace, rather 

 than dignity or grandeur, are among its numerous indications. 

 It does not reject straight lines entirely near the house, or in 

 connection with a flower garden, a rosary, or a subordinate 

 building as a greenhouse that has a separate piece of garden 

 to it. Nor does it refuse to borrow from the picturesque in 

 regard to the arrangement and grouping of plants. It is a 

 blending of art with nature, — an attempt to interfuse the 

 two, or to produce something intermediate between the pure 

 state of either, which shall combine the vagaries of the one 

 with the regularity of the other, and appropriate the most 

 agreeable elements of both. It has all the grace of nature 

 without its ruggedness, and the refinement of art apart from 

 its stiffness and severity. 



So many of the peculiarities of this style have been inci- 

 dentally described, under various heads, that Httle remains 

 to be added on the subject. Intricacy, every species of 

 variety, indefiniteness, extension of apparent boundaries, 

 polish, and the graceful blending of parts are specially its 

 own traits. The Hberal use of plants, such as trees and 

 shrubs, in large irregular masses, more especially in outlying 

 borders, is a distinctive feature of this style. The natural 

 style is passed over very lightly in the original authorized 

 editions of this work, being commonly spoken of as the 

 "mixed" style. The twentieth-century reader in America 

 will remember that at the time of the writing of the original 



