CONCLUSION 



231 



asters and geraniums, would he make the lawn 

 hideous with patches of brilliant red varied by 

 streaks of purple blue, and add his finishing 

 touch in the magenta of his choicest dahlia ? 

 Would he plant them in patterns of stars and 

 lozenges and tadpoles ? would he border them 

 with paths of asphalt? Would he not rather 

 fill his borders with every kind of beautiful 

 flower that he might delight in ? It is impos- 

 sible to take his professions seriously when he 

 so flies in the face of nature, when he trans- 

 plants exotics into impossible conditions, when 

 rarity, difliculty, and expense of production are 

 his tests of the value of a flower. The beauty 

 that he claims for his garden is not his but 

 that of the flowers, the grass, the sunlight, and 

 the cloud, which no amount of bad design can 

 utterly destroy. 



A garden is so much an individual afl^air — 

 it should show so distinctly the idiosyncrasy 

 of its owner — that it would be useless to ofl^er 

 any hints as to its details. The brief sketch 

 which has been given of the development of the 

 formal garden will indicate the very wide field 

 of design which it includes, and the abuses and 

 extravagance which led to its decay and ulti- 

 mate extinction. The study of its history will 

 at least show the dangers to be avoided, and 

 they can be summarised in the taults of over- 

 elaboration and affectation. The characteristic 

 of the old formal garden, the garden of Mark- 



