French Gardening and Its Master 
is a name known to all men,—and of how many other names 
in his art can that be said ? How many of the names I have 
mentioned are known, except Palissy, whose work in other 
lines is his chief claim to renown, beyond the circles of those 
who have made a special study of the history of horticulture ? 
In other arts one can run through a dozen names with ease, 
but in gardening there is one man, and one only, of such com¬ 
manding genius that his name is a household word and his 
chief work a recognized classic. Le Notre resembled Shakes¬ 
peare in another point, namely, that he was content to take 
the material ready at hand and perfect it, rather than run 
to the ends of the earth for new motives on which to build, 
new forms in which to cast his work. The poise, the insight, 
the imagination of genius of the first order was his ; but he 
saw his field to be large enough in perfecting and in inter¬ 
preting what his predecessors had prepared for him. The 
quintessence of genius and of wisdom, this,—not to throw away 
as nothing worth the skill of preceding ages and his own ; but to 
seize it, treasure it, transmute it in the alembic of his own per¬ 
sonality,—put it forth at last pure gleaming metal of creative 
power. Of such stuff was the originality of Shakespeare in 
THE CHATEAU FROM THE LAKE 
CHANTILLY 
