Aims and Methods 
think that they are simply “ lovers of Nat- 
ure . 7 ’ They have chanced to learn their 
art, not in schools, or offices, or books, but 
face to face with the problem that Nature 
has set them, the materials that she has sup- 
plied, and the lessons that she and her 
worthy ministrants have explained in other 
places ; and they do not realize that they 
have studied at her knee with an artist's 
eye, and have used her brushes and chisels 
with an artist’s hand. 
I visited not long ago the home of such a 
man. It is a large place, gradually turned 
into one by the union of two or three small 
places which, as first laid out, had no artis- 
tic relation to each other. Now it is the 
most beautiful suburban home I have ever 
seen. Its grounds have every artistic excel- 
lence — breadth, repose, simplicity, and fit- 
ness (these first of virtues in all works of 
gardening), harmony between part and part 
and between detail and detail, concentra- 
tion of interest, variety in unity, stimulus 
for the imagination ; and these excellences 
did not come by accident, for their names 
are perpetually on their creator’s lips. 
35 
