WAY-SIDE HINTS. 159 



first heats of the spring sun. The traveller will recall 

 the " little Provence," in the garden of the Tuileries, 

 where, by the mere shelter of a twelve-foot terrace wall 

 circling around against cool winds, a summer balmi- 

 ness is given to the locality even in winter, and phthi- 

 sical old men and feeble children find their way 

 thither to luxuriate in the sunshine. 



If, on the other hand, such embankment flank the 

 north, its shadow will offer capital nursery-ground for 

 the rhododendrons, ivies, and all such plants as are 

 impatient of the free blast of the sun. 



And, after all, if these happy accidents of posi- 

 tion and opportunity did not favor such special culture, 

 it should be the duty and the pride of the true artist 

 in land-work to ascertain what other growths would 

 be promoted by exceptional disturbances of surface. 

 The finest and highest triumphs in landscape art are 

 wrought out in dealing with portentous features of 

 ugliness, and so enleashing them with the harmonies 

 of a given plan as to extort admiration. 



The railway, with its present bald embankments, 

 and its baldness of all sorts, is a prominent feature in 

 many of our suburban landscapes. It cannot be 

 ignored, and the study must be to harmonize its 

 sweep of level line, its barren slopes, its ugly scars, 

 its deep cuttings, with the order and grace of our 

 fields and homes. Rains and weather-stains and wild 



