House and Garden 
THE FOUNTAIN 
between. 7 he vertical joints were all made 
as narrow as possible. 1 he deeply raked- 
out horizontal joints were also most valu¬ 
able when the vines planted at the foot 
of the wall began to grow, for besides acting 
as a sort of trellis they enabled the vines to 
hide their stalks in the joints and allowed 
the patches of green leaves the more 
easily to soften the hard lines of the stone¬ 
work. 
We have then in “Blair Eyrie” a notable 
example of the success with which a thorough¬ 
ly refined domestic note may be struck in the 
wilderness and made to harmonize with its 
surroundings. I his requires, as we have 
seen, a skillful adjustment between the rugged 
face of Nature and a delicate artificiality 
which alone, in the immediate foreground of 
a home, can adequately give the atmosphere 
demanded by the refinements of modern 
domestic life. 1 liese are becoming more and 
more inseparable, for pretence is no longer 
made of living the simple life, even on the 
rugged slopes of Mt. Desert. 
1 he “Blair Eyrie” work was especially 
successful in overcoming another important 
difficulty, one often the source of much dis¬ 
appointment, in like cases, to the owner— 
namely, that after the first summer, the place 
had the air of a much older piece of work, 
and the raw newness which is so uninteresting 
and which it so often takes years to overcome, 
was obviated. This was partly due to the wild 
surroundings of the garden and partly, largely 
indeed, to the skillful blending of the artificial 
with the natural, whereby the spectator is led 
to attribute the obvious age of its setting to the 
garden as well. Time has now only to mellow 
its fully developed charms, and give it that 
completer air of genuine age which the suc¬ 
ceeding years alone can fully bestow.* 
* Photographs by E. E. Soderholtz. 
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