House and Garden 
BEAR GARDENS, BRONX PARK, NEW YORK 
rough boulders can receive 
the variety and refinement of 
sentiment of formal archi¬ 
tecture; their ordinary ex¬ 
pression is limited to such 
beauty and sympathy as one 
may find in the stones them¬ 
selves and in the freedom and 
unconventionality of their ar¬ 
rangement ; their picturesque¬ 
ness, that Ruskin calls a 
“ parasitical sublimity.” If 
they are to be sublime, they 
must be on the scale of the 
Matterhorn, or the Palisades. 
Yet, there are numberless piles 
of artificial rocks, and natural 
ones that could be imitated 
artificially, that are impressive 
and esthetic, and in their 
proper place would be a 
delight to the eye and a 
solace to the mind. 
Nothing could be better, in 
its way, than the arch on the 
wall of an Italian courtyard 
enclosing its fern-clad tufa 
and trickling water and statue. 
OBELISK, SCHOENBRUNN 
1 S9 
