Aims and Methods 



think that they are simply lovers of Nat- 

 ure." They have chanced to learn their 

 art, not in schools, or offices, or books, but 

 face to face with the problem that Nature 

 has set them, the materials that she has sup- 

 plied, and the lessons that she and her 

 worthy ministrants have explained in other 

 places ; and they do not realize that they 

 have studied at her knee with an artist's 

 eye, and have used her brushes and chisels 

 with an artist's hand. 



I visited not long ago the home of such a 

 man. It is a large place, gradually turned 

 into one by the union of two or three small 

 places which, as first laid out, had no artis- 

 tic relation to each other. Now it is the 

 most beautiful suburban home I have ever 

 seen. Its grounds have every artistic excel- 

 lence — breadth, repose, simplicity, and fit- 

 ness (these first of virtues in all works of 

 gardening), harmony between part and part 

 and between detail and detail, concentra- 

 tion of interest, variety in unity, stimulus 

 for the imagination ; and these excellences 

 did not come by accident, for their names 

 are perpetually on their creator's hps. 



35 



