Art Out-of-Doors 
script of the woodland world ; it is common 
vegetation ennobled — outdoor scenery neat- 
ly writ in man’s small hand. It is a sort of 
twin-picture, conceived of man in the studio 
of his brain, painted upon Nature’s canvas 
with the aid of her materials. ... It 
is Nature’s rustic language made fluent and 
intelligible ; Nature’s garrulous prose tersely 
recast — changed into imaginative shapes, 
touched to finer issues.” 
These are John Sedding’s words, written 
by an architect, and printed in 3 book 
which has for its main purpose to exalt 
formal gardening and to decry the “so- 
called landscape-gardener ” as a person who 
is not an artist at all, but a mere helpless, 
aimless meddler with Nature, professing to 
do work exactly like Nature’s, and, of course, 
always failing in the attempt. But this book 
is one of those which most grievously mis- 
represent the true ideals, methods, and results 
of landscape-gardening, however faithful may 
be its pictures of what the actual professors 
of the art to-day achieve in England ; and I 
have delighted to emphasize the fact by 
quoting this one passage as an admirable 
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