Roads and Paths 



which it is desirable to preserve. Then 



they Avill be evidently rational, and, if well 

 drawn, entirely pleasing to the eye. But 

 sometimes there will be no such reasons for 

 curvature, and yet curvature will be neces- 

 sitated by convenience in driving and by the 

 general desire to avoid too stiff a line. In 

 such cases a good landscape-gardener vrill 

 make the curves seem natural by some de- 

 vice of his own — by altering the surface of 

 the ground, or by planting. AVhen his work 

 is done, and time has assisted it a little, the 

 effect should be the same as though Nature 

 had prescribed the line of his drive. The 

 drive may have been the first consideration, 

 and the objects which govern its course 

 merely later adjuncts ] the curve may have 

 been the necessity, the hillock, the tree, or 

 the group of shrubs a device to excuse it. 

 But the eye need not realize the fact ; the 

 surface irregularities and the plants may be 

 made to seem the cause, and the curve the 

 natural consequence. To secure such a result 

 is one of those artifices which are inexcusable 

 if they fail of the right effect, but which are 

 the highest kind of art — the art that conceals 



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