BEGINNING AND LEARNING 197 



education, it "vvould be unwelcome ; I only speak of what 

 I feel, and to a certain degree understand ; but I bad 

 the advantage in earlier life of some amount of training 

 in appreciation of the fine arts, and this, working upon 

 an inborn feeling of reverent devotion to things of 

 the highest beauty in the works of God, has helped 

 me to an understanding of their divinely-inspired in- 

 terpretations by the noblest minds of men, into those 

 other forms that we know as works of fine art. 



And so it comes about that those of us who feel 

 and understand in this way do not exactly attempt to 

 imitate Nature in our gardens, but try to become well 

 acquainted with her moods and ways, and then dis- 

 criminate in our borrowing, and so interpret her 

 methods as best we may to the making of our garden- 

 pictures. 



I have always had great delight in the study of 

 /Colour, as the word is understood by artists, which 

 again is not a positive matter, but one of relation and 

 proportion. And when one hears the common chatter 

 about "artistic colours," one receives an unpleasant 

 impression about the education and good taste of the 

 speaker ; and one is reminded of an old saying which 

 treats of the unwisdom of rushing in "where angels 

 fear to tread," and of regret that a good word should 

 be degraded by misuse. It may be safely said that 

 no colour can be called artistic in itself; for, in the 

 first place, it is bad English, and in the second, it is 

 nonsense. Even if the first objection were waived, 



