Art Out-of-Doors 
“Nature,” writes Aristotle, “has the will 
but not the power to realize perfection.” 
Turn the phrase the other way and it is 
quite as true : she has the power but not 
the will. In either reading it means that 
man can aid and supplement her work. 
The landscape-gardener can bend her will 
in many ways to his own, although he must 
have learned from her how to do it. He 
cannot achieve things to which her power is 
unequal, but he can liberate, assist, and di- 
rect that power. He could even remove 
her mountains if the result were worth the 
effort ; and he can blot them out of his 
landscape by the simplest of devices — by 
planting a clump of trees and shrubs which 
she will grow for him as cheerfully as though 
she herself had sown their seeds. He can- 
not make great rivers ; but he can make 
lakes from rivulets and cause water to dom- 
inate in a view which Nature had spread 
with green grass. He can even teach her to 
create exquisite details scarcely hinted at 
in her unassisted products. All “florists 7 
roses,” for example, are not beautiful; but 
there are many in which Nature herself may 
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