ARRANGEMENT 105 



deformed by fault and flaw. Did you ever meet 

 a gardener who, however fair his ground, was 

 absolutely content and pleased? Did you never 

 hear * O si angulus ille ! ' from the lord of many 

 fields? Is there not always a tree to be felled or 

 a bed to be turfed ? Does not somebody's chimney, 

 or somebody's ploughed field, persist in obtruding 

 its ugliness ? Is there not ever some grand mistake 

 to be remedied next summer ? Alas ! the florist 

 never is, but always to be blessed with a perfect 

 garden : and to him, as to all mankind, perfect 

 happiness is that ^ gay to-morrow of the mind, which 

 never comes.' 



These imperfections and mistakes, of course, arise 

 in our gardens mainly from our own ignorance or 

 indolence ; and as sterility, feebleness, and premature 

 decay are caused not by tree, plant, weather, soil, 

 but by wrong treatment, position, neglect ; so all 

 unsightly combinations — poverty or excess of objects 

 brought together, rigidity, monotony, ungracefulness 

 — originate not from the materials at our disposal, 

 but from the manner in which we dispose them. 

 And in this matter of arrangement we are at the 

 present day conspicuously weak. Never was the 

 gardener so rich in resources. Our collectors, hazard- 

 ing their lives, and losing them, in their work of 

 love, have gained us treasures from every clime. 



