xvi • INTRODUCTION 



reflect in measured proportion the requirements and tastes 

 of their different inhabitants. 



At the present moment the cottage garden has 

 perhaps more to recommend it than that which belongs 

 to a larger place, and thus has greater ambitions to 

 gratify. In the small square box-edged beds, with 

 perhaps a narrow stone-paved walk near by, we find the 

 old-fashioned flowers that Chaucer and Spenser have 

 taught us to love, tended by some dear old body in a 

 mob cap. Here they look happy and seem at home, 

 whereas in many a larger garden there is a lack of 

 restfulness and dignity. What is wanted is the correct 

 spacing and laying out of lines, the proper proportion of 

 widths and heights, the knowledge of the use of level 

 terraces, the exercise of imagination, held in check by 

 restraint. When this has been secured by the nature- 

 lover and the true artist, our trusty friend the gardener 

 may come and show what skill in growing fine plants 

 he has attained through generations of plodding in- 

 dustry. The finishing touches will be supplied by the 

 owner of the garden ; but she will work with her views 

 in accord with the professional who has laid a solid 

 foundation. When this union of workers has been 

 more firmly established we may perhaps hope to possess 

 fewer gardens where sorry errors of design mar the 

 general beauty, and more which hold character and 

 imagination, as expressed in some of those wonderful 

 gardens of France and Italy. The feeling we sometimes 

 carry away from a garden is one of relief at escape from 

 such childish trifling, a feeling similar to that which we 

 experience when a trivial book is laid down. But on 

 the other hand, what satisfying joy is there in the visit to 

 a garden full of thought and of beauty ! We come away 

 refreshed, invigorated, as though we had spent an hour 

 in the company of some wise thinker. 



THE AUTHOR. 

 Massetts Place, Scaynes Hill, 

 Hayward's Heath, 



Sussex. 



