198 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



simple and mean place ! With what contempt 

 would he have all these tatters uprooted ! What 

 fine avenues he would open out ! What beau- 

 tiful alleys he would have pierced ! What fine goose- 

 feet, what fine trees like parasols and fans ! What 

 finely fretted trellises ! What beautifully-drawn 

 yew hedges, finely squared and rounded ! What fine 

 bowling-greens of fine English turf, rounded, squared, 

 sloped, ovaled ; what fine yews carved into dragons, 

 pagodas, marmosets, every kind of monster ! With 

 what fine bronze vases, what fine stone-founts he 

 would adorn his garden ! When all that is carried 

 out, said M. De Wolmar, he will have made a very 

 fine place, which one will scarcely enter, and will 

 always be anxious to leave to seek the country." 



Or Gautier, upon Nature's wild growths : "You 

 will find in her domain a thousand exquisitely pretty 

 little corners into which man seldom or never 

 penetrates. There, from every constraint, she 

 gives herself up to that delightful extravagance of 

 dishevelled plants, of glowing flowers and wild 

 vegetation everything that germinates, flowers, and 

 casts its seeds, instinct with an eager vitality, to the 

 wind, whose mission it is to disperse them broadcast 

 with an unsparing hand. . . . And over the rain- 

 washed gate, bare of paint, and having no trace of 

 that green colour beloved by Rousseau, we should 

 have written this inscription in black letters, stone- 

 like in shape, and threatening in aspect : 



' GARDENERS ARE PROHIBITED FROM ENTERING 

 HERE.' 



