OUR CITY GARDENS 



tween the French garden (that of the Tuileries, for in- 

 stance), which conforms to the lines of certain streets, 

 but is too bare and too sparingly shaded, and the Eng- 

 glish garden, which is also none too shady and which breaks 

 up disagreeably the symmetry of our towns? If the Pare 

 Monceau were planted with great clusters of elms, pines, 

 limes, plane-trees or chestnut-trees, tall, close-set, dark, thick, 

 almost cubical, and intersected by wide, clear-cut, rcguar ave- 

 nues, all leading to a large lake, would it display to less ad- 

 vantage the luxury that drives through it and would it lose 

 any of its charm for bestowing upon it some little air of 

 gravity, peace and meditation? 



What we can thus imagine in connection with the most 

 successful of English gardens thrusts itself upon us with much 

 greater cogency the moment we have to do with those little 

 city parks the extent of which is no longer large enough to 

 extenuate their absurdities. The great fault, the great mis- 

 take of all our municipal gardeners is their dread of the tree. 

 They seem to forget that, at the bottom of man's heart, amid 

 his obscurest, but most powerful instincts, reigns his bound- 

 less yearning for the primordial forest. You really abuse the 

 innocence and the credulity of the town-dweller by offering 



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