220 



Gardens for Small Country Houses. 



if too simply treated, soon 

 exhausts our curiosity. The 

 more the designer lacks space, 

 the apter should he be in 

 making us forget his garden's 

 hmitations. Ingenious plea- 

 santries of treatment here and 

 there arrest the interest. By 

 concentrating it they make 

 the visitor oblivious of the 

 smallness of the theatre which 

 yields so much diversion. This 

 is not a plea for many orna- 

 ments, still less for any one 

 that stands out markedly from 

 its surroundings ; no more is 

 claimed than that ornament 

 of the right kind is even more 

 welcome in small gardens than 

 in big. It is admittedly diffi- 

 cult to get anything small 

 enough in scale that is at the 

 same time pleasant as sculp- 

 ture in its own right. There 

 are always available little re- 

 productions in bronze of the 

 exquisite Narcissus at Naples. 



FIG. 322. — ^^BOY AND DOLPHIN IN POOL. 



FIGS. 320 AND 321. — ON GATE-PIERS AT PAPILLON HALL. 



It figures in a score of gardens, 

 and always looks well. It is, 

 however, unreasonable always 

 to demand of a garden figure 

 that it should be fine as 

 sculpture. 



Professor Lethaby wrote 

 years ago of garden figures : 

 " Lead is homely and ordinary 

 and not too good to receive 

 the gyafiti of lovers' knots, 

 red letter dates and initals." 

 This theory must be withheld 

 from such younger sons of 

 the house as own pen-knives, 

 but it shows a right attitude 

 to such pleasdnt unheroic sub- 

 jects as may properly find 

 their being enshrined in lead. 

 It is an insult to submit a 

 finely modelled bronze or 

 marble figure to the changing 



