304 SECLUSION AND FREEDOM. 



bling in their grounds, the freedom of forest life. In 

 a landscape we would behold a great deal of pasture, of 

 forest, and homely tillage, and but a small proportion of 

 ornamented ground. We perceive the need of fences, and 

 we can easily regard them as objects of beauty, if de- 

 signed for convenience, and not for show. Dressed 

 grounds not only exclude man, they also banish the wild 

 animals and birds by their nice grading and clearing, and 

 in direct proportion to their extent do they destroy the 

 open expression of freedom in landscape. 



The very words employed to designate the different 

 Idnds of ground have a poetic or prosaic expression, ac- 

 cording as the ideas of freedom and seclusion, or the 

 opposite ones of restraint and exclusiveness, are presented 

 by them. What mind is not agreeably affected by the 

 word "prairie," with its magnificent space and unre- 

 strained journeys, its openness and gladness, its grandeur 

 and its solitude ? The words " glen " and " valley," " for- 

 est " and " mountain," " field " and " pasture," all awaken 

 images of Pierian freshness.and beauty. The word " park," 

 on the contrary, savors less of nature than of the city, 

 less of beauty than of decoration, less of romance and 

 poetry than of taste and artifice ; very delightful in a 

 city, with its marble edifices and paved avenues, but in 

 the country like a daub of paint on the cheek of an 

 infant. 



