HERBACEOUS GARDEN 
14 
could not make the mistakes one sometimes 
sees. As for instance a garden of vivid 
and crude-coloured annuals (that would have 
looked well with a near backing of a blue- 
green holly hedge) grown on a bare terrace 
with no background but faint mauve 
mountains in the distance, and looking posi- 
tively vulgar. Nor could he fill his garden 
with stonp and cement seats, well-heads, 
figures, vases, and general oddments from a 
stone-mason’s yard. 
The sense of proportion that knows where 
to use one stone or lead figure correctly, with 
perhaps a block of trees immediately behind 
and a long vista of clipped hornbeams on each 
side, as at Down Hall, Harlow, is a valuable 
possession, and would never allow anyone 
possessing it to make the fatal mistake of 
trying to imitate a cemetery. Too many 
gardens are out of drawing, and need correc- 
tion. To a trained eye, or to an artist, colour 
is not everything. Form and perspective 
are equally important, and are, alas ! much 
neglected. 
It is no more possible to give rules for that 
sense of proportion and form which some 
people lack, than it is to sense another person’s 
perception of colour. I might perhaps implore 
