100 



ALPINE FLOWERS 



[PART I. 



they may be pleasing or awful, as the case may be, but they do 

 not strike us as being out of place. Who, on the other hand, has 

 not seen a lovely view marred by some unintelligent human 

 hand, whether its work took the form of a quarry, a statue, or 

 a vase ? A secret of the difference lies in the words weather- 

 beaten : rain, the chief rock-sculptor, working uniformly, slowly 

 and gently, leaves to each stone which it is fashioning its proper 

 character, models it according to its peculiarities of composition 

 and structure in short, uses it fitly ; while men, with the most 



Granite tor. 



artistic pretensions, and armed with ruthless tools, too often 

 misuse their materials. 



The first great rule which it behoves constructors of rock- 

 gardens to look to is one easily followed but constantly broken 

 it is that the work should be characteristic of the part of the 

 country in which it stands. That is to say, use chalk at 

 Brighton and sandstone at Tunbridge, granite on Dartmoor, and 

 trap near Edinburgh ; but the experience of every one must 

 include cases in which this is ignored. Some artists have even 

 carried their Philistinism in this respect so far, that the more 

 they have succeeded in giving to their rockwork the appearance 

 of a miscellaneous collection of mineralogical specimens from all 



