CHINESE GARDENING.
What is it that we seek in the possession of a pleasure-garden? The art of laying out gardens consists in an endeavor to combine cheerfulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, and repose in such a manner that the senses may be deluded by an imitation of rural nature. Diversity, which is the main advantage of free landscape, must therefore be sought in a judicious choice of soil, an alternation of chains of hills and valleys, gorges, brooks, and lakes covered with aquatic plants. Symmetry is wearying, and ennui and disgust will soon be excited in a garden where every part betrays constraint and art.
Lieu-tschen, an ancient Chinese writer—taken from Humboldt’s “Cosmos.”