The Relation of Natural to Artificial Beauty in Landscape 
But in proportion as we separate ourselves 
from centers of human life should we restrain 
ourselves in making artificial arrangements of 
planting. A garden is nothing but a great 
outdoor room,— a house, so to speak, under 
the open sky, in which the levels, the width 
of the paths, should be determined by the 
same principles of design as we would apply 
within our houses in the arrangement of our 
rooms, but whose decoration and coloring, 
so to speak, is turned over to Nature. And 
a park made for the use of the multitudes of 
the city will, in the same way, find its greatest 
beauty in allowing man’s work and nature’s 
to follow each along its own lines. Why is 
an avenue of great trees more majestic than 
an equal number of trees equally spaced, but 
artifically dotted at random over a given area ? 
The avenue in its arrangement, in its spacing, 
is man s way of arranging trees. It is like a 
peristyle of great columns; but an equal 
number of trees equally spaced 
and yet at random is neither 
man’s way nor Nature’s. It 
expresses neither one thing nor 
the other, either to the lover of 
art or to the lover of Nature. 
Nature does not plant her trees 
like a crop of corn, at suitable 
intervals and of equal age and 
size, and it is only where there has 
been an unsympathetic and un¬ 
natural and Philistine interference 
on the part of man, whether in 
planting or in cutting down, that 
we find trees grouped aimlessly, 
but at equal intervals. 
Nature does not build river- 
walls or bridges or roads any more 
than she does houses, much less 
does she make railroad cuts or 
embankments. What, then, 
should be our rule in dealing with 
these? The cuts and embank¬ 
ments for railroads our landscape 
gardeners have, fortunately, 
generally given up in despair. 
Surely, if not discouraged, Nature 
will take better care of these than 
man can possibly do. She will 
gradually shroud them in trees 
and thickets and hide the ugly 
bare gashes that the hand of the 
engineer has made. The Wissahickon Drive, 
in Fairmount Park, is a beautiful example of 
this. Did it ever occur to you how frightful, 
how hideous the Wissahickon must have been 
when that drive was made—the rocks tumbled 
down into the stream in great masses? Left 
alone, Nature has made it utterly beautiful. 
But what of our river walls and bridges ? Do 
you think to make these beautiful by building 
them carelessly, roughly, on lines that are not 
true and perfect and beautiful architecturally, 
and at the same time cut off all chance for 
Nature to hide their naked ugliness? Or 
should they be built as we would build any 
work which we are pleased to call a true work 
of art, a true masterpiece of architecture? Shall 
they be carefully designed and laid out on 
perfect curves as we would a great building ? 
Certainly,—why not? And the only limit in 
the matter of costliness and perfection of finish 
should be the predominance w'hieh we wish to 
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