Aims and Methods 
and it is a great deal easier, whatever one’s 
scheme, to work it out too far than sternly 
to hold one’s hand at just the right moment. 
I have said that in a work of gardening art, 
as in a work of architectural art, the plan, 
the scheme, the fundamental idea, is the 
main thing, and that this Nature never can 
supply ; and I have also said that most peo- 
ple, in their gardening, think more of every- 
thing else than of a plan. But for this sea- 
shore country-place the owner conceived a 
very beautiful plan ; he has consistently ad- 
hered to it while letting Nature do everything 
else ; and the outcome is a singularly suc- 
cessful, a singularly individual and personal 
work of art. “I think,” wrote Addison, 
“ there are as many kinds of gardening as of 
poetry.” A very beautiful idyllic poem has 
been written on the face of the suburban 
country-place which I have tried roughly 
to describe. But Addison’s further words 
might well be affixed to the gate-lodge of the 
place on Buzzard’s Bay : “ You will find 
that my compositions in gardening are al- 
together after the Pindaric manner, and run 
into the beautiful wildness of Nature with- 
47 
