Roads and Paths 
which it is desirable to preserve. Then 
they will be evidently rational, and, if well 
drawn, entirely pleasing to the eye. But 
sometimes there will be no such reasons for 
curvature, and yet curvature will be neces- 
sitated by convenience in driving and by the 
general desire to avoid too stiff a line. In 
such cases a good landscape-gardener will 
make the curves seem natural by some de- 
vice of his own — by altering the surface of 
the ground, or by planting. When his work 
is done, and time has assisted it a little, the 
effect should be the same as though Nature 
had prescribed the line of his drive. The 
drive may have been the first consideration, 
and the objects which govern its course 
merely later adjuncts ; the curve may have 
been the necessity, the hillock, the tree, or 
the group of shrubs a device to excuse it. 
But the eye need not realize the fact ; the 
surface irregularities and the plants may be 
made to seem the cause, and the curve the 
natural consequence. To secure such a result 
is one of those artifices which are inexcusable 
if they fail of the right effect, but which are 
the highest kind of art — the art that conceals 
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