X CONCLUSION 225 



as a line, from the city of Utrecht to Amers- 

 foort." The road from Hoorn to Alkmaar, in 

 North Holland, and from Hoorn to Knkhuizen, 

 passes for miles under an avenue of elms. ''Is 

 there," Evelyn says, " a more ravishing or 

 delightful object, than to behold some entire 

 streets and whole towiis planted with these 

 lime-trees in even lines before their doors, so 

 as they seem like cities in a wood ? " Mr. 

 Robinson's views to the contrary are signifi- 

 cant. In his Garden Design^ p. 50, he asserts 

 that " the ugliest things in the fair land 

 of France are the ugly old lines of dipt 

 limes which deface many French towns." In 

 regard to this assertion, I would only repeat,^ 

 that the depth of colour, the play of re- 

 flected light, the extreme brilliancy of the 

 isolated spots of sunshine, which result from 

 these close-clipt masses of leafage, must surely 

 appeal to a person of quite ordinary sensi- 

 bility. But the point of serious moment in 

 Mr. Robinson's pronouncement is its hopeless 

 modernism in the worst sense. It shows an 

 insensibility to what has been done in the past, 

 and an unconsciousness of a whole world of 

 thought, which together constitute one of the 

 most fatal tendencies of modern design. Out 

 of a mind well stored with knowledge and tradi- 



^ Preface to the second edition of this book. I may also refer to 

 a paper on " Public Spaces, Parks, and Gardens," in a series of lectures 

 on the building and decoration of cities, by members of the Arts and 

 Crafts Society (Rivington, 1897). 



