NEWS OF SPRING 



necessary that that which surrounds our dwelling should par- 

 take, in some small measure, of its shape and its regularity. It 

 has always struck us as disagreeable that the featureless plain 

 or the unkempt forest should begin abruptly at our front-door 

 or under our window-ledge. A transition was indispensable 

 and naturally entailed the appropriation of the nearest plants 

 and their submission to the symmetries of the building. 



4 

 This transition, this traditional harmony, which has been 



deliberately disregarded in our towns since the excessive use 

 of the small English garden,^ is still found here and there in 

 certain antiquated and almost dead cities, where perfect models 

 survive of humanized walks and parks. I need not mention 

 Versailles and other French gardens, whose sylvan decoration 

 is so closely adapted to the buildings of the three Louis. Nor, 

 by a stronger reason, need I recall the illustrious gardens of 

 Italy, whose perfections are so manifest: they contain and con- 

 tinue their porticoes, columns and balustrades in so insepa- 

 rable a fashion that this earth, perhaps, possesses nothing more 

 satisfactory or more stately. But other instances, nearer at 



^ For observe that the small English garden, upon a pinch, can provide a setting, 

 in the open country, for a rustic cottage, but does not harmonize with any other kind 

 of dwelling. 



[ 6 ] 



