Art Out-of-Doors 
ors altogether, and keep to the quiet medium 
tones of green. These offer variety enough 
to satisfy a cultivated eye in the majority of 
cases ; and even if an emphatic note is really 
needed, it can be supplied, where the gen- 
eral effect is softly harmonious, by means of 
something less brilliant than a golden pop- 
lar or a purple beech. For the amateur, in 
short, the safest course is the best one to 
follow, although it may not be the one which 
an artist will always follow in his search for 
the highest and most individual kinds of 
beauty. If a dull tree stands where a bright 
one would have produced a better effect, we 
may feel that a chance has been missed. But 
if a bright one stands where harmony re- 
quired a dull one, then we feel that an actual 
sin against good taste has been committed. 
The art of the gardener has likewise greatly 
increased variety in the forms and in the text- 
ures of trees, giving us pyramidal and weep- 
ing shapes, and finely cut or fringed foliage, 
in a perpetually increasing flood of “novel- 
ties. ’ ’ Here again the amateur is apt to be 
seduced into thinking that novelty means 
excellence, that eccentricity means charm ; 
262 
