The Inheritance 3 
voice both the East and the West, but he at 
least who spends half his life in one and half 
in the other, may feel in sympathy with both, 
as he owes something to the charm of each, 
and may interpret some phases, if nothing 
more, of these two sides of his continental 
garden. So I hope to present the character 
—to reflect the very atmosphere it may be— 
of certain corners selected because of indi- 
viduality, or for no better reason than that 
I am familiar with them and like them; to 
outline, as it were, little pictures of these 
chosen places with their more common birds 
and flowers—pictures based on subtle im- 
pressions of the true personal charm and 
character of each. Thus I shall bring them 
together—the East and the West—so that 
their natural characters may be tacitly com- 
pared. I would reveal in short what a fair 
estate is ours, rather by intimations than by 
any careful description—for that is the pro- 
vince of botanies and ornithologies; yet offer- 
ing, perhaps, a stimulus to the study, not of 
these books, but rather of the garden itself. 
For this purpose I have chosen New York and 
the Massachusetts shore in the East, Cali- 
fornia and Arizona in the West, and while I 
would have included some pictures of the 
