The Park in Muskau 117 



When all is finished, the greater, nay, the 

 greatest, part of the real merit of the work will 

 remain unnoticed by the casual stranger, and the 

 more that this is true, the better it is. But this is 

 just the intelligent man's endeavor and triumph 

 to make one believe that everything which he 

 sees must be exactly so and not otherwise, and 

 that from all time it has not been very different. 

 It would grieve me much if, for instance, at the 

 sight of the luxuriant meadows in my park, any 

 one should now trouble himself with the idea 

 that formerly here the thistle scarcely grew, 

 or, when he comfortably rolls by on the level 

 drive amidst abundant foliage he should be sud- 

 denly brought up by the reflection, that formerly 

 in this place a bottomless morass hardly afforded 

 an approach to grazing cattle. T he perfection of 

 landscap^jtrt_isj;each^ only in the region where 

 it again app^rs to be untrammeled Nature, but 

 in her noblest manifestation. We find here a cu- 

 rious affinity between the art of the landscape 

 maker and that of the actor, since these are the 

 only two among all the arts that take Nature 

 herself for material and at the same time for the 

 representation of the theme, the actor endeavor- 

 ing to portray in his own person ideal man and 

 the landscape maker welding together the mate- 

 rial as he finds it in the rough and creating ideal 

 landscape. Unfortunately the similarity can be 

 carried still further, for the creations of both art- 

 ists are fleeting, although the landscape maker 

 still has some advantages over the actor. 



