50 A GARDEN DIARY 
SEPTEMBER 29, 1899 
“ TYOUNTAINS  ; they are a great beauty and 
refreshment, but pools mar all, and make 
the garden unwholesome, full of flies and frogs.” 
For two persons who have just been at some 
pains to establish a pool in their grounds, this 
is a hard saying! That the judgment has much 
to support it, apart from the weight of its utterer, 
I cannot deny. At the same time a better case 
can, I think, be made out for the culprits than 
may appear at first sight. Fountains in a copse, 
be they never so limpid, never so sparkling, 
would be stamped with an unendurable stamp 
of artificiality. Pools on the other hand, 
though there are certainly not many in these 
copses of ours, are at all events not inconceiv- 
able. In the present case we flatter ourselves 
that the particular spot we have selected for 
our pool was intended by Nature to contain 
one, and nothing but the incurable aridity of 
these dry hillsides hindered her from carrying 
out that intention. Where every drop of water 
