STRUCTURAL 147 



stability. Even the plainest plank bridge may 

 show intelligent labour. No effort of imagination 

 can pretend a bridge is a natural product, and a 

 sham haphazard structure is absurd. Moreover 

 a bridge with its repeated image in the water 

 below should be doubly beautiful, and no pains 

 should be spared to make it so. The Japanese 

 show artistic taste in garden structures as in every- 

 thing else. Each little humped up bridge and 

 tea-house has as much care lavished on it as the 

 rest of the garden, and note that though a Japan- 

 ese garden is a landscape garden in its truest sense, 

 no rustic work has any part in it. A bridge 

 should always be sufficiently above the water for a 

 gleam of light to show beneath it. The semi- 

 circular bridge of the Japanese carries this principle 

 to the fullest extent, a perfect circle being formed 

 by the bridge and its reflection. 



The chief beauty of some old gardens is their 

 gateways. The old designers gave great attention 

 to these knowing them to be an integral part of 

 the design. The boundary wall and its gates 

 should go together, and where the wall adjoins 

 or forms the forecourt the architect will generally 

 undertake it at the same time as the house. If 

 they fall to the garden designer let him study the 

 house and conform to its style. Gates between 

 garden and park, and into kitchen garden are 

 generally his business, and in connexion with his 

 own work. Good carpentering is always fit. 



