Art Out-of -Doors 



ors altogether, and keep to the quiet medium 

 tones of green. These offer variety enough 

 to satisfy a cultivated eye in the majority of 

 cases ; and even if an emphatic note is really 

 needed; it can be supplied, where the gen- 

 eral effect is softly harmonious, by means of 

 something less brilliant than a golden pop- 

 lar or a purple beech. For the amateur, in 

 short, the safest course is the best one to 

 follow, although it may not be the one which 

 an artist will always follow in his search for 

 the highest and most individual kinds of 

 beauty. If a dull tree stands where a bright 

 one would have produced a better effect, we 

 may feel that a chance has been missed. But 

 if a bright one stands where harmony re- 

 quired a dull one, then we feel that an actual 

 sin against good taste has been committed. 



The art of the gardener has likewise greatly 

 increased variety in the forms and in the text- 

 ures of trees, giving us pyramidal and weep- 

 ing shapes, and finely cut or fringed foliage, 

 in a perpetually increasing flood of ^^novel- 

 ties." Here again the amateur is apt to be 

 seduced into thinking that novelty means 

 excellence, that eccentricity means charm. ; 

 262 



