The Natural Style in Landscape Gardening 



given the "human interest" treatment (vox humana 

 stop), then touched off with a funny story, then 

 brought to a resounding climax. But all the way 

 through, and in every paragraph, the theme — the 

 leading motive — would stand out clearly and con- 

 trol the meaning of every word. 



This comparison is the more valuable because 

 the informal type of landscape composition bears 

 so many resemblances to prose composition in lit- 

 erature. The formal garden might be likened to 

 poetry. Each line has just so many feet; each 

 part is formally balanced by another exactly cor- 

 responding part. In poetry it is much less neces- 

 sary than in prose to develop a definite and didactic 

 theme. The form may be so beautiful in its obvi- 

 ous perfections that a mere vague feeling of beauty 

 or of mystery or of human passion may suffice. It 

 is not at all necessary to reach any specific con- 

 clusions. But the prose writer and the naturalis- 

 tic landscape gardener can not depend on these 

 things, — the forms with which they deal are not suf- 

 ficiently obvious to be admired on their own ac- 

 count; more attention must be given to content, 



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