DESIGNING A GARDEN 35 
the most secluded nooks and idyllic retreats, 
there must be a certain all-pervading neat pre- 
cision. In other words, suburban grounds may 
show only to a very limited degree that element 
which we commonly, though not very exactly, 
designate as informality. They must conform 
to the suburban spirit of order. 
Rightly conceived, the garden is in the 
nature of an outdoor extension of the house. 
Every house requires a certain amount of gar- 
den treatment to make its presence on the face 
of the earth anything but an impertinence; for 
the hard and definite lines created with man’s 
compass and square are antagonistic to every 
impulse of Nature and natural “outdoors” 
and must be led up to gradually and insinu- 
atingly, if harmony between man’s work and 
Nature’s is ever to be attained. The charm 
of the ancient house is largely owing to the 
loss of this acute and hard precision of line 
and form occasioned by its settling and yield- 
ing to Time — a very subtle and inappreciable 
loss in the case of well preserved buildings, 
yet distinctly effective in the bringing together 
of artificial and natural. Similarly, the thatch 
roof, either new or old, is a wonderful har- 
monizer, partly because of its gracious lines 
and partly because of its crude “ natural ” 
