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On Gardens

If, under the influence of their passions, men forsake the gentle pleasures of a tranquil existence, they also come to yearn, through an irresistible urge, for the peace and quiet that they have sacrificed. A need often awakens in their troubled souls to escape the painful commotion that increasingly marks all societies. Especially when the season of nature’s renewal returns, everything urges them to enjoy the gifts they are offered. That is when, lured outside the walls that enclose them, they scatter like escaped prisoners into wide and airy spaces. They can be seen wandering outside cities or climbing hillsides in search of air purer than they have breathed until now. Those most oppressed by their labors, those most chained to the yoke of their passions, rid themselves of their fetters or, if they are too weak and the effort is too great, drag their tether behind them while briefly forgetting its weight. Thus they obey nature’s command, for she smiles at them encouragingly and says:

“Come! Escape the turmoil that exhausts you; escape those impulsive passions that tire your soul, the whirlwind whose thick vapors wear you down. Come, come and breathe, come and receive the warm caress of that lovely star that restores your right to equality, since it casts its light and warmth not only on the powerful and rich, but on the weak and poor as well. Listen to my voice: Build yourselves retreats where, surrounded by your children, your wives, and some true friends, you may taste, at least for a while, the pleasures that I have in store for you.”

At the call of that soothing and persuasive voice, most city dwellers run off to find delight in the calm of the countryside. They build houses, endeavor to make them enjoyable, and seek peaceful tasks and pleasures in the care they bestow on them. Although their desires are still vague and their ideas unclear, their need for such pleasures is genuine. And since there is no man who has not entertained some fantasy stemming from his desires, there is no one, especially in the spring, who has not conceived the project of a country retreat. It is one of those “novels” every man composes for himself, just like the “novel” of his loves, his ambitions, or his fortune.

One should, no doubt, expect to find in these creative endeavors the same diversity that nature bestows on the individuals who undertake them. But while nature is careful to make each person different, the irresistible urge to imitate makes men resemble one another when they live side by side.

Imitation, subjecting everything to its power, imposes laws on trees, flowers, water, greenery. Most of the designs of our gardens, the shapes of our flower beds, the layouts of our groves, the ornaments we use, are borrowed or copied from one another.

There are, however, certain basic relations that exist between all these manifestations and man’s needs, abilities, and inclinations. And there are also those that arise from the progress of knowledge and from the influence the various arts exert on one another.

In order to explain these relations, I shall distinguish between utilitarian establishments and pleasure gardens.

As for city gardens, their layouts seem to me to belong more particularly to architecture than to the other arts. Indeed, public walks, even most of those that belong to royal households or to our princes and are accessible to everyone, must be regarded as places where people meet or congregate. Simplicity and symmetry suit them well, for in our country, order and custom demand that everything in them be readily accessible to the eye.

Utilitarian Establishments

Rural establishments, those that conform to the original intentions of nature, are also the oldest and the least susceptible to the inevitable changes that take place within societies.

People who live in the midst of fields either resist the whims of fashion or are ignorant of them. Changes in mores and the weight of public opinion have greater difficulty reaching them; the arts and social customs are slower to exert their influence. The purpose of such establishments is usefulness, often limited to strict necessity. Considered from this point of view, they would seem to be related only to the mechanical arts, but there is always a subtle element of pleasure that enters into the utilitarian, because relaxation is as indispensable to man as work, and pleasure is one of his needs.

It is in this respect that my subject is related to the liberal arts. But let us examine for a moment the process that leads to this affinity.

When industry or power have produced in societies inequalities in skills and resources, then disparities arise in the ownership of the countryside, which should belong to everyone. Powerful and rich lords, who own large portions of the common heritage, derive a double advantage from their possessions: luxury and leisure. Yet while profiting from these benefits, they do not completely abandon the impulses that had produced them; indeed, those impulses fill their leisure time. Thus hunting sometimes appeals to belligerent peoples who, in times of peace, find it an enjoyable substitute for war. But aggressive activities do not lead to the transformation of wilderness into farmland or of the countryside into gardens. Such interests are primarily reserved for the farmers who cultivate the land. Open to new ideas, engaged by their work, prompted by their very activities toward the need for relaxation, everything draws them to the pleasures of repose, to the charms of idle enjoyments, and finally to more refined gratifications.

We shall see how, in large and flourishing societies, imitation and vanity are added to these impulses. But let us pursue our argument.

Having become less active because need—both useful and dire to men—no longer determines their behavior, landowners who enjoy in peace both luxury and leisure bring closer to their homes what they had earlier sought far away. Forest shade seems now too distant, and water flowing in out-of-the-way caves is now too hard to draw at its source; in other words, they require that the ready availability of goods obviate need, and the immediacy of gratification anticipate desire.

And so, frustrated in his idleness, man demands that surrounding objects stir feelings in him too often absent from his empty and weary soul. And as his soul has become difficult to please in the choice of sensations, like a sick person in the choice of foods offered him, he carries his desires to the level of sensual experience, whose delicacy requires the most perfect balance of external objects, the senses, and state of mind.

In order to attain such a refined degree of pleasure, man makes subtle distinctions in the embellishment of those sites he enjoys visiting. He prepares comfortable resting places and seeks out attractive views. He demands an ever thicker shade from the foliage of trees intertwined and transformed into bowers, while he requires that apart from their usefulness these trees be also prized for their shapes, their selection, and their variety. Wishing to be constantly enthralled, he gathers in a single place the flowers that had captured his attention in the fields and meadows where nature sows them at random. Moreover, he devises new ways of endowing them with perfections that nature had apparently denied them. Then, attentive to the sweet emotions of love, filial tenderness, and friendship, man discovers in these feelings even greater charms. He abandons himself to them in solitary places where his sensibilities are intensified by the happiness of birds; where the rhythmic sound of cascading, rolling water prolongs a pleasing reverie; where greenery and rare, many-colored flowers invite the eye to linger, thus delighting both sight and smell without bringing too much discomfort to the soul.