270 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



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There is one more line in Nature which must not be 



forgotten the circle. Whether you stand upon a 

 mountain-top or on the deck of a ship or in the centre of 

 the Newark marshes ringed by crawling freight trains 

 and smoking chimney stacks, you have only to glimpse 

 the horizon in a circle all about you to feel at once a 

 sudden awareness of the great dome of the sky over- 

 head, Omar's inverted bowl, and to sense yourself 

 at the exact centre of the universe, directly beneath 

 the zenith. If a plumb line were dropped from the 

 zenith, it would, you feel sure, pierce your hat or your 

 head, for at such a time you remove your hat to feel 

 the sun, as you fill your lungs deep with air. The 

 sensation is distinctly pleasant, with distinct motor 

 reactions of expansion. Here the sunshine seems con- 

 centrated, here is the focal point of its rays, the pivot 

 of the bright, blue day. 



I am not a landscape architect, nor even a skilled 

 horticulturist, but in thinking over some of these 

 moods I have tried to describe, evoked more or less 

 directly by the lines and contours of Nature, and in 

 reflecting how such lines are similarly employed in 

 building construction, I have come to wonder if the 

 natural landscape does not hold lessons for our garden 

 makers which at present they have not always scanned. 

 To be sure, it is pretty well recognized to-day, or so I 

 gather from the gardens I visit, that a chaos of lines 

 in the ground plan, whether in beds, walks, or tree 



