European and Japanese Gardens 
PLAN OF THE PARK OF MARLY 
poetry, and of Le Notre in gardening. Of what immense inter¬ 
est it would be to show how this principle holds through the 
history of all the arts,—that he is greatest who can take what 
other men have done and better it, perfect it,—not he who pre¬ 
sumptuously shatters traditions, essaying, as it were, what no 
one has ever succeeded in doing, anew and alone to construct 
an art out of his own inner consciousness. 
Andre Le Notre was born at Paris in 1613. He was the 
son of the King’s surintendant , as his title was: what 
would correspond, I suppose, in our time and tongue, to 
Director of Works,—head gardener and outside man. The 
father was anxious to have his son become a painter, though in 
those days the natural course of events was for a man’s son to 
follow in his father’s footsteps. We are forced to draw the 
conclusion that the surintendant had found his calling none 
too much like the beds of roses his business was to cultivate, 
since he went so far out of his way to induce his son not to 
