Stratford Lodge 
its size would have been a mere stupidity, 
when one part ot the garden could be made 
to overlook the other bv simply building the 
second on the lower level. A long flight of 
steps, broken by terraces, connects the two. 
It the reasons for the plan are thus easily dis¬ 
covered, its unusual outgrowth would puzzle 
one who did not know something of the men 
who designed it. Given a pair of young 
architects bubbling over with enthusiasm; 
turn them loose on the shores of the Medi¬ 
terranean ; let them see the pillared gardens 
of Southern Italy; take them about the bay 
of Naples, the Gulf of Salerno ; let them walk 
under the pergola of the Capuchin M onastery 
at Amalfi; let the beauty of it all become a part 
of their very lives ; let them think about it, 
dream about it, talk about it: then give them 
a fair chance to make a hillside garden, and 
see how like it will be to this garden. Has it 
anything in common with the house? What 
care they whether it has or not, if it pleases 
them? Is it native to the country side? 
W hat matter if it bring a fresh beauty of its 
own ? And does it not indeed justify itself if 
it afford a quiet haven from “ the poisonous 
excitement of city life,”—if its well ordered 
pillars soothe the spirit harassed by nervous 
hurry,—if the outlook from its pleasant 
shade over the distant hills is restful to eyes 
tired of an ugly 
town ? 
To coldly criticise 
the sudden trans¬ 
planting, from an 
Italian to a Penn¬ 
sylvania hillside, of 
J J 
a thing that has been 
a thousand years or 
more in making, is 
an easy task ; and it 
is not hard to show 
that the pillared gar¬ 
den is a natural out¬ 
growth of certain 
conditions not verv 
evidently present in 
Pennsylvania, that 
in a land where wood 
is scarce, where the 
vine is of common 
culture, where shade 
from a hot sun is the house from below stratford lodge 
THE STABLE STRATFORD LODGE 
very grateful, and where it is easier to build 
stone columns (even if they have to be plas¬ 
tered) than to find wooden posts, the force of 
circumstances gives us the pillared garden of 
6 
