THE HOUSE AND THE GARDEN 233 



house, often seems conscious of its formality, and to 

 be a protest against the idea of landscape gardens. 

 This kind of self-consciousness, an inevitable though 

 undesirable characteristic of a reviving art, is sure to 

 be seized upon and exaggerated by fashion. The more 

 enterprising suburban builder suddenly discovers that 

 straight paths and rows of Thuyas are the thing; and, 

 since they are as cheap as winding walks and shrub- 

 beries, he provides them, just as he provides houses 

 with a fashionable air of austerity about their porches 

 and chimneys. But this fashionable formality is no 

 more satisfying than the fashionable austerity; and 

 people whose taste is made by fashion will soon tire 

 of both. There could be no more signal proof of the 

 close connexion between garden design and house- 

 building than the fact that a sham art in house-build- 

 ing has immediately produced a sham art in garden 

 design to go with it. The essence of good house- 

 building is that the facts about the house shall be 

 pleasantly expressed. It must make no pretensions 

 to be anything more than it is, and it must also make 

 the best of what it is, like a well-mannered man. In 

 the same way the essence of good garden design is 

 to make a piece of ground both pleasant and useful 

 without attempting to conceal its nature, its limits, 

 or its uses. The worst excesses of landscape gar- 

 dening have come about from a desire to make gar- 

 dens seem larger than they are; and landscape gar- 

 deners, in the vain attempt to imitate nature, have 

 too often forgotten that gardens are ever used for any 



