Aims and Methods 



and it is a great deal easier, whatever one's 

 scheme, to work it out too far than sternly 

 to hold one's hand at just the right moment. 

 I have said that in a work of gardening art, 

 as in a work of architectural art, the plan, 

 the scheme, the fundamental idea, is the 

 main thing, and that this Nature never can 

 supply ; and I have also said that most peo- 

 ple, in their gardening, think more of every- 

 thing else than of a plan. But for this sea- 

 shore country-place the owner conceived a 

 very beautiful plan ; he has consistently ad- 

 hered to it while letting Nature do everything 

 else ; and the outcome is a singularly suc- 

 cessful, a singularly individual and personal 

 work of art. ^^I think," wrote Addison, 

 there are as many kinds of gardening as of 

 poetry." A very beautiful idylhc poem has 

 been written on the face of the suburban 

 country-place which I have tried roughly 

 to describe. But Addison's further words 

 might v>^ell be affixed to the gate-lodge of the 

 place on Buzzard's Bay : You will find 

 that my compositions in gardening are al- 

 together after the Pindaric manner, and run 

 into the beautiful wildness of Nature with- 



47 



