SPANISH GARDENS 
21 
the seas; as it had always been understood by all races 
of men, up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
when Dufresnoy succeeded Le Notre as director of 
the royal gardens at Versailles. 
The changes that have been wrought by man in his 
advance over the earth mark corresponding changes 
in man himself; and in no particular is this more evi¬ 
dent than it is in garden making. When the world 
was a wilderness, ranged by wild beasts and men less 
tame than the gardeners, defensive boundaries were 
a necessity; and within these boundaries, upon this 
bit of earth which each thus claimed for himself, no 
hint of the wilderness could be tolerated. For it was 
a foe and harbored foes—and no honest husbandman 
could possibly have temporized with it for an instant. 
This I think explains the careful exclusion of any 
suggestion of Nature in the old designs; the love of 
artificial forms; the stiff lines; the unyielding repres¬ 
sion; the straight, clipped walls of sternly disciplined 
growth. And it is a perfectly natural taste, considered 
in this light. For it is only by contrast that we com¬ 
prehend, and comprehending, enjoy; thus the gardens 
that were made while the struggle against Nature and 
the wilderness was going on, were designed instinct¬ 
ively to afford the greatest possible contrast to Nature 
and the wilderness. While those that have come later, 
as earth has gradually grown to be more and more 
