HERE 
Garden 
31 
September, 
1916 
O F 
FOUNTAINS 
And Over There and in Milady’s 
E S T H E R M A T S O N 
T O talk of foun¬ 
tains here is to 
be reminded of the 
small boy who began 
his composition on 
Lions with “Here¬ 
abouts there ain’t 
none.” 
Well, you may say, 
what if we do not 
possess any fountains 
to boast of in this 
new country of ours? 
We have soda-founts, 
if nothing stronger, 
at most of our street 
corners, and we no 
longer drive horses, 
so we do not need 
fountains for the 
prevention of cruelty 
to horses — no, gaso¬ 
line tanks are a suf¬ 
ficiency, thank you. 
And yet-—and yet— 
is the fountain to be 
relegated to the limbo 
of past glories ? Are 
the few which we do 
chance to possess to 
become mere romantic 
“relics” of bygone 
days and ways ? Does 
it smack of affecta- 
tion to desire a foun¬ 
tain in personal pleas- 
ance or public park ? 
The truth is there 
is more than a senti¬ 
mental reason for 
wishing to cling to the fountain. We have 
it on the testimony of a true plant lover 
that “water which has lain in the sun is bet¬ 
ter for our plants than cold well water, or 
water just from the town mains”; we know, 
too, that the very sound of water trickling 
into a basin, or the sight of it, mirroring 
the sky and foliage, serves to cool the air 
and gives one a sense of actual refresh¬ 
ment to be attained in no other way. 
Granted there is still opportunity for 
fountain-making, there is to-day infinite pos¬ 
sibility for variety in workmanship and de¬ 
sign in the making of it. To-day we not 
only have a perfectly bewildering wealth 
of old examples from which to get inspira¬ 
tion, but we have also a wonderful choice 
of materials in which to carry out our ideas. 
D O you, perchance, have a house and 
grounds laid out in the Grand Man¬ 
ner? Then very likely it will be in order 
for you to have a marble basin with antique 
columnar supports and with rich and in¬ 
teresting accessories of carved work. 
Is your home built on simpler, but still 
classic, Colonial lines, in some much hum¬ 
bler, but also homelier fashion ? Then per¬ 
chance you will exploit the possibilities of 
brick, gaining inspiration for your foun¬ 
tain from some masterly old southern man¬ 
sion with its brick-walled garden close. 
There is one advantage about the use 
of this material worth a moment’s heed. 
great temptation to 
make cheap imita¬ 
tions of the most 
elaborate classic pro¬ 
ductions and —facilis 
descensus Averno — 
because such as these 
are only too truly af¬ 
fectations, a cloud of 
prejudice shortly falls 
over the most innocu¬ 
ous and absolutely fit 
of garden accessories. 
N OW Nature 
takes a special 
delight in making 
play of lights and 
darks; almost we 
might call chiaroscuro 
her favorite game. 
And if we can only 
put ourselves into the 
right attitude, so as to 
come into touch with 
her moods, it will be 
quite possible for us 
to enlist the help of 
art to deepen a 
shadow here, or to 
heighten and empha¬ 
size there some high 
light. Thus the 
architectural detail, 
the bit of fine sculp¬ 
ture, the rare “find,” 
the brick, or terra¬ 
cotta, the simple r 
stucco ornament, or 
even the marble pro¬ 
duction—above all the decorative fountain 
—finds its proper reason for being. 
There is also in many an elaborate plea- 
saunce or in many formal city parks capital 
reason for its being of marble. Of a surety 
no other material can rival that for bril¬ 
liance. As a matter of fact it often, in our 
strong sunlight, vies with the very water 
itself. And when the relations between 
gleaming fount and green gloom are right¬ 
ly managed we have a resulting sense of 
inevitableness. We are certain that noth¬ 
ing else could have lent such an air of dis¬ 
tinction — nothing else could so perfectly 
have uttered the idea of the garden, and 
with so precisely the correct accent. 
As there are gardens and gardens, so 
there are fountains and fountains. A few 
of these speak to us in good, every day 
speech; some rare and favored ones initiate 
us into the realm of oratory. And it would 
be as foolish for us to shut our ears as it 
has been foolish for us until very recently 
to shut our eyes to the fact that we here 
live under unusual climatic conditions. Dur¬ 
ing one part of our year we are arctic, dur¬ 
ing the other part, tropic so to speak; but 
we have been far from ingenious in adapt¬ 
ing ourselves to such an alternation. 
At last, however, we have begun to re¬ 
alize that our summers bring us into touch 
with sunny Italy and that it is high time 
we emulated her children—that from them 
(Continued on page 58) 
Photograph by Beals 
Beauty, animation, variety , mystery—these four qualities are to be aimed at in the garden 
and all four are found in the fountain—in the trickle and splash of cooling waters 
Ruskin scarcely exaggerated when he de¬ 
clared it well-nigh impossible to make brick 
look absurd or commonplace. At any rate 
in garden-making it has certain quality of 
reserve. It holds its own, but always with 
dignity. Contrasting though it does with 
the greenery of vines and shrubs, it is yet 
never blatant. Such a contrast is self-sub¬ 
dued to an end of harmony which often 
with another material, such as glistening 
marble, for example, is only attained after 
many years of maturing age. 
Again the associations of brick are usual¬ 
ly of the pleasantest. From the vine-cov¬ 
ered walls of English country homes and 
welcoming brick terraces to the quaint side¬ 
walks of New England villages and the 
loved old-fashioned garden paths is no far 
cry; and about each there is an undeniable 
charm that makes strong appeal. 
In the wake of brick comes terra-cotta, 
lending itself with especial felicity to all 
sorts and conditions of Yankee inventive¬ 
ness. Tile, also, in its glazed and its un¬ 
glazed varieties, comes to lend zest to the 
choice of a fountain material, while as for 
stucco and cement they, to be sure, at the 
present moment are luring us on in veri¬ 
table witch-wise fashion. 
The truth is, the stucco, even more than 
the veritable marble accessory, is a some¬ 
what tricksy charmer. It is so easy with 
it to arrive at contrasts so glaring as to be 
actually garish. Worse, still, there is a 
