GARDEN DESIGN — COMPARATIVE, HISTORICAL, AND ETHICAL. 371 



well-grown trees and shrubs set amidst imposing masonry, and yet not 

 have as much quiet beauty as a handful of mixed seeds sown indiscrimi- 

 nately are capable of producing on a piece of waste ground, provided the 

 seeds are not too much mixed. An artist's wayward eye desires the 

 prodigality of the thorn and the thistle, but this is forbidden in Eden, 

 where order does prevail, which curbs the ground-greedy laurel or privet, 

 shall we say, and the riot of the perennial sunflower. All wise planters 

 know that there is a place to plant everything, although they may not be 

 skilful enough to plant everything in its place. Who is ? No one ! 



Easier, far easier, is it to build skilfully than to plant wisely, and 

 when in any measure it is done, who applauds ? The very, very few. 

 It is a more direct road to gain applause, though not altogether easy, by 

 perpetuating an atmosphere of weirdness and awe, as did the Egyptians, or 

 by making a display if the sources at your back are rich and powerful 

 enough, as did the Babylonians. 



In Solomon's gardening and in Eden there is nothing to excite 

 wonder. Here are the contrasting principles which I wish to pronounce. 

 In the Babylonian and the Egyptian there was, and this was their object. 

 Coleridge said that " in wonder all philosophy began, in wonder it ends, 

 and man's admiration fills up the interspace ; but the first wonder is the 

 offspring of ignorance and the last is the parent of idolatry. There is 

 indeed great inconsistency in man's wonder. He will wonder at the 

 works of man but not at the works of Nature. How often does an arch- 

 way of more than ordinary span and beauty excite his wonder, while the 

 arch of the heavens with a span measureless and a beauty divine is looked 

 upon with a cold indifference." 



A piece of man-made mechanism calls forth his wonder whilst the 

 marvellous structure of his own body is seldom or never contemplated 

 with interest. ^Yhen people are enamoured of the enchantments of 

 Blackpool it is hopeless to attempt to arouse them to the real wonder 

 that is pent up in an acorn or a Sequoia cone, telling them that in the 

 latter case you hold in your hand a pent-up vital force which if brought 

 into contact with the unseen chemical forces of the common earth in its 

 own congenial clime and habitat will abstract therefrom and assimilate 

 the carbon of the common atmosphere (thus making it fit for our breath- 

 ing by the process) and rear a living edifice of beauty almost half as high 

 as their ugly Eiffel Tower. 



Nor is Horticulture and Garden Design free from extravaganzas, 

 myself being as great an offender as anyone. Is there not a danger of 

 being so infected by monstrosities, by the curious, the quaint and the 

 rare, with hybrids, sports and phantasies that the special, delicate and 

 personal charm of a plant is lost ? I know it is difficult to draw the 

 line, because in a garden you must have the best (though this does not 

 imply that all should be monstrous), and I do not wish to decry the beauty 

 of hybrids and variegations, but I hold for the temperate mean that the 

 characteristic Eden -like beauty, the natural grace of each respective plant, 

 or of a tree its true habit of growth, is more than any irregularity or 

 sport, more to be desired than an inordinate amount of flower even. 



I do not suppose there was anything rampant in the united scheme of 

 design in the Garden of Eden ; every tree or plant was no doubt designed 



BB'2 



