16 
ART AND NATURE. 
touch of the arts which have subjugated the ruder elements in 
human and vegetable nature to mould and re-arrange them. We 
are not made to be content on nature’s lower levels j for that spark 
of divinity within us — Imagination — suggests to us progress and 
improvement, and these are no less natural than existence. The 
arts which make life beautiful are those that graft upon the wildings 
of nature the refinements and harmonies which the Deity through 
the imagination is ever suggesting to us. 
Decorative gardening had reached a high degree of perfection 
among ancient nations before the art now known as Landscape 
Gardening had its origin, or rather the beautiful development which 
it has reached in England within the last three centuries. The art 
which reproduces the wildness of rude nature, and that which 
softens the rudeness and creates polished beauty in its place, are 
equally arts of gardening. So too are the further arts by which 
plants and trees are moulded into unusual forms, and blended by 
studied symmetries with the purely artificial works of architecture. 
All are legitimate, and no one style may say to another, ‘‘ Thou art 
false because thou hast no prototype in nature,” since our dwellings 
and all the conveniences of civilized life would be equally false if 
judged by that standard. However diverse the modes of decora- 
tive gardening in different countries, all represent some ideal form 
of beauty, and illustrate that diversity of human tastes which is not 
less admirable than the diversity of productions in vegetable nature. 
That may be considered good gardening around suburban 
homes which renders the dwelling the central interest of a picture, 
which suggests an intention to produce a certain type of embellish- 
ment, and which harmoniously realizes the type intended, whether 
it be a tree-flecked meadow, a forest glade, a copse belted lawn, a 
formal old French garden, a brilliant parterre, or a general blend- 
ing of artfully grown sylvan and floral vegetation with architectural 
forms. 
Not to reproduce the rudeness of Nature, therefore, but to 
adapt her to our civilized necessities, to idealize and improve, 
to condense and appropriate her beauties, to eliminate the dross 
from her vegetable jewels, and give them worthy setting — these are 
the aims of Decorative Gardening. 
