93 



templatcd, or to determine on an extension of its original boundaries 

 in some other direction. 



As the number and value of the health and pleasure-giving cir- 

 cumstances possible in any park must of course be limited by its 

 size, the question of size may be thought to depend on the restrictions 

 fixed in regard to the number of these circumstances ; and it may 

 perhaps be thought, that a large park has advantages over a small 

 one only in the greater number and the greater variety of the pleas- 

 ures which it offers. But it would be a serious mistake to entertain 

 any such idea, as will be evident to any one who will ask himself: 

 Is there any pleasure which all persons find at all times in every 

 park, and if so, what does that pleasure depend upon 1 



The answer unquestionably must be — That there is such a pleas- 

 ure, common, constant and universal to all parks, and that it results 

 from the feeling of relief experienced by those entering them, on 

 escaping from the cramped, confined and controlling circumstances of 

 the streets of the town; in other words, a sense of enlarged freedom 

 is to all, at all times, the most certain and the most valuable gratifi- 

 cation afforded by a park. The scenery which favors this gratifica- 

 tion is, therefore, more desirable to be secured than any other, and 

 the various topographical conditions and circumstances of a site thus, 

 in reality, become important very much in the proportion by which 

 they give f he means of increasing the general impression of undefined 

 limit. The degree of this impression, which will be found in any 

 particular park, must unquestionably depend very much upon the 

 manner in which it is laid out ; that is to say, on the manner in 

 which the original topographical conditions are turned to account by 

 the designers ; but as no degree of art can make the back yard of a 

 town house seem unlimited, and as no art at all is required to make 

 a prairie of some hundred square miles seem unlimited to a man set 

 down in the midst of it, it is obvious that a certain distance between 

 the points of resort within the park, and its exterior limits, is neces- 

 sary, in order to allow the fence or wall that would otherwise defi- 

 nitely establish the position of the boundary to be obscured by plant 

 ing, if nothing more ; and that therefore, until all other necessary 

 requirements are provided for, it will not be entirely practicable to 

 determine where the boundary lines of the park may be established 

 with a true economy of space. 



We have first, then, to determine what accommodations are desir- 

 able to be secured within the park, and next how these shall be situ- 

 ated with reference to one another, and to exterior topographical 

 circumstances. Our conclusions will depend first upon our under- 



