The True Beauty of the Garden 
the purpose shall in itself create that atmosphere of 
beauty that ‘‘ swims on the light of forms.”’ 
There are also some people who seem to think that 
to leave things as they are is to leave them natural, 
and even carry this idea to the length of allowing 
weeds to grow in paths, encouraging an air of general 
neglect throughout the garden. To leave things as they 
are in the woods and fields, on the hills, and by the 
riversides, may be to leave them natural, and seeing 
that Nature makes a perpetual effort to attain the 
beautiful, such neglect there may be justifiable. In the 
small garden it is merely absurd. The garden is an 
artificial creation for a specific purpose. It is the 
room of the house that is out of doors. As man’s 
handiwork it should bear the indelible stamp of man’s 
art and craft. ‘‘If a man can build—can take such 
advantage of Nature that all her powers serve him— 
this is still the legitimate domain of beauty.” 
But because the garden to be beautiful must be the 
deliberate outcome of studied design it must not end 
with design, nor must it depend on it alone for its 
attractions. The outcome of effort, it must appear to 
be as effortless as may be. No one in visiting a gar- 
den for the first time should be conscious that the 
design is good, but merely that it is a good garden. 
The garden does not exist for its design, but because 
of, sometimes in spite of, it. The garden is a place 
wherein to paint those pictures we love with the forms 
and colours that Nature provides, and these are living, 
growing things that must be allowed to live and grow 
freely and happily if they are to fulfil their objects. 
They are the true beauty of the garden, the design 
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