Formal Flower-Beds 
borders of the city than in the much costlier 
and showier ornamentation of their Public 
Garden. 
Surely we ought not to go astray so often 
in so simple a matter as this. Surely it is 
easy to see that formal flower-beds must be 
demanded — or at least supported and ex- 
plained — by some measure of formality in 
neighboring things. An architectural ter- 
race may be planted with them, although a 
naturalistic lawn may not ; while they can- 
not look well in the centre of a freely 
treated park-landscape, they may in some 
spot, defined by meeting paths, near the 
line where the flowing features of the park- 
design meet the symmetrical features of the 
street ; and in very small open spaces in a 
city, where trees and shrubs could hardly 
flourish, we might use them much more often 
than we do. In short, they are artistic 
whenever they look as though they belonged 
in the place where they lie ; and this leads 
us to the fact that they are especially artis- 
tic when they look as though this place be- 
longed to them — as though it had been pre- 
147 
