Frederick Law Olmsted

“Those who knew A. J. Downing and have written about him have made it clear that he was just the sort of man to have had a marked influence on the young and impressionable men who later became the designers of Central Park. It is incontestable that he had every opportunity to impress his knowledge and cultivated taste in subjects related to park designing on at least the younger of those two young men, namely Calvert Vaux, because he had brought Mr. Vaux in the summer of 1850 from London, where he had been a pupil and draughtsman in the office of a London architect named Truefitt, to act as his architectural assistant. He soon advanced him to be his partner. Mr. Downing was drowned about two years after he brought Mr. Vaux to this country. Mr. Vaux no doubt took over the business of the firm and completed the unfinished works. For that purpose I think he continued to live in Newburgh for probably two years or more, when he removed to New York City....

“Knowing how wide awake and keen for intellectual cultivation and knowledge Mr. Calvert Vaux was, and having listened to innumerable conversations of his, I can imagine the profound influence upon the younger man of his intellectual intercourse with his well read and thoughtful partner, A. J. Downing....

“The other designer of Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, it can well be imagined was somewhat influenced by A. J. Downing, although for the most part indirectly through the latter’s writings. I know he several times spoke to me of A. J. Downing, but my recollection of what he said is too vague to be of much help. I simply have the impression that he had met and knew A. J. Downing both as a social acquaintance and as a man, like himself, professionally concerned in the education of the public in horticulture, agriculture and rural taste.”

Southside Staten Island,
Nov. 23, 1850.

Dear Sir:

I wish to thank you for your kindness in sending me, through Mr. Field last spring, a letter of introduction to Mr. Thompson of London. I did not arrive in London in season to attend the exhibition you wished me to, but I twice visited the gardens and enjoyed valuable conversations with Mr. Thompson, who was very obliging and communicative. I took his advice as to what I should see in Paris, and I had thought to offer you some account of what most interested me there, but nearly all that was new and valuable of my observations there has already now appeared in the Horticulturist in the article by Mr. S. from the Journal of the London Soc’y.

I spent only about one month on the Continent, mostly Germany, where I much enjoyed the social out-door life, and the frequent approaches to realizations of your ideal village. The custom of taking meals in the gardens or summer houses is very common; and it seemed to me the middle classes at least lived in the open air more than even the English; nor did it seem to me, as is frequently asserted, that their habits in these respects injured the family influence, or made Home any less homelike and lovable, but the contrary.

I saw the best parts of England, spending two months travelling through it on foot, seeing the country of course to great advantage, so that I feel as if I had not merely seen the rural character, but lived in it, and made it a part of me. I was then two months in Ireland and Scotland.

I wish you would when convenient do us (your disciples in Horticulture) the favor to explain distinctly the terms used to describe the different ways of growing pears, etc. I think your correspondents of the Horticulturist have generally used the term Standard to designate pears grown on pear stock only, and Dwarf for those on Quince or Thorn. But in Europe does not Dwarf mean a low ill-shapen tree, or a maiden tree that has lost its leader, and is only suitable for walls?... I was disappointed at not finding the pear grown on quince more abroad. Even at Paris I saw but few in open culture. Those at the Jardin des Plantes and at the Luxembourg are splendid full grown trees, and even this bad season were as full as could be desired of fruit. At Versailles they were mostly on trellis or walls—those en quenouille invariably looked unhealthy.

I saw your Fruits of America in France and England and Scotland; always shown as something for me to be proud of as your countryman.

Yours Respectfully,
Fred. Law Olmsted.

Mr. A. J. Downing.

That the two men were regularly in correspondence on subjects of professional interest may be inferred from a bit in a letter to Charles Brace, not yet returned from the Continent, Jan. 11, 1851: “I have written to Downing to tell him who you are. He wants me to write him in familiar letters Rough Impressions of Germany, etc. I find I cannot do it. I saw and know too little of Germany to write distinctly upon it, but I agree with him that whoever could do it would be in the way of doing a good deal of small good.”

There is only a word to be found in the correspondence of that period about Mr. Olmsted’s visit to Downing,—in a letter to Fred. Kingsbury, Aug. 5, 1851: “I liked Ossining and Newburgh.[12] There is a piece in my book in one of the Horticulturists this summer, on Birkenhead Park mostly.”

In an article by Mrs. Van Rensselaer in the Century for October, 1893, based directly on reminiscences which Mr. Olmsted gave her in conversation, it is stated that he visited Downing at Newburgh and made the acquaintance of Calvert Vaux.

The second volume[13] of Mr. Olmsted’s first book, Walks and Talks (1852), contained the following dedication:

To the Memory of
Andrew Jackson Downing:
Whatever of good, true, and pleasant thought this
volume may contain, is humbly and
reverently inscribed.

Mr. Olmsted left among his papers a jotting evidently intended to be used in beginning an address for some occasion or other.

A. J. Downing

There are also a number of little sheets which Mr. Olmsted had had printed off, perhaps for the same occasion, and perhaps for some other public use, bearing the following quotation,—which expresses Mr. Olmsted’s own ideals of democracy as well:

Mr. Olmsted and Mr. Vaux were consulted in 1860 with regard to the memorial to Mr. Downing appropriately proposed to be erected in the Central Park but never carried out, and again in 1889 with reference to the Downing memorial park at Newburgh. Mrs. Downing,[14] who afterwards married Judge Monell, was a lifelong friend of the Vauxes and Olmsteds.

We know from Mr. Olmsted’s own words that he had a particular interest in visiting parks both on his first European journey of 1850, and in 1856, when he was abroad attending to his publishing business and travelling also somewhat with his sisters. In his Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England, first published in 1852, there are a number of passages which should be quoted here, particularly as showing the trained observation of scenery which he later brought to his landscape designing, and his keen interest in the social and economic aspects of rural life.[15] It is interesting to know, too, that the book was illustrated by his own sketches.[16]

Although he went primarily as a farmer, he had in mind to see all sides of the country. He wrote to his father before sailing: “I can have now the advantage of letters from Norton to the Scotch farmers, from Field to the English, from Antisell to the Irish. They all have warm friends there yet among just the men I want to learn from. Parsons will introduce me to the gardens and nurseries. Prof. Johnston returns to Edinboro, Judge Emerson and Stevens direct me to the lions of London, and Field opens the manufacturies.”

BIRKENHEAD AND ITS PARK

Birkenhead is the most important suburb of Liverpool, having the same relation to it that Charlestown has to Boston or Brooklyn to New York. When the first line of Liverpool packets was established, there were not half a dozen houses here; it now has a population of many thousands, and is increasing with a rapidity hardly paralleled in the New World. This is greatly owing to the very liberal and enterprising policy of the land-owners, which affords an example that might be profitably followed in the vicinity of many of our own large towns. There are several public squares, and the streets and places are broad, and well paved and lighted. A considerable part of the town has been built with reference to general effect, from the plans and under the direction of a talented architect, Gillespie Graham....

The baker had begged of us not to leave Birkenhead without seeing their new park, and at his suggestion we left our knapsacks with him, and proceeded to it. As we approached the entrance, we were met by women and girls, who, holding out a cup of milk, asked us—“Will you take a cup of milk, sirs?—good, cool, sweet, cow’s milk, gentlemen, or right warm from the ass!” And at the gate was a herd of donkeys, some with cans of milk strapped to them, others saddled and bridled, to be let for ladies and children to ride.

The gateway, which is about a mile and a half from the ferry, and quite back of the town, is a great, massive block of handsome Ionic architecture, standing alone, and unsupported by any thing else in the vicinity, and looking, as I think, heavy and awkward. There is a sort of grandeur about it that the English are fond of, but which, when it is entirely separate from all other architectural constructions, always strikes me unpleasantly. It seems intended as an impressive preface to a great display of art within; but here, as well as at Eaton Park, and other places I have since seen, it is not followed up with great things, the grounds immediately within the grand entrance being very simple, and apparently rather overlooked by the gardener. There is a large archway for carriages, and two smaller ones for those on foot, and, on either side, and over these, are rooms, which probably serve as inconvenient lodges for the labourers. No porter appears, and the gates are freely open to the public.

Walking a short distance up an avenue, we passed through another light iron gate into a thick, luxuriant and diversified garden. Five minutes of admiration, and a few more spent in studying the manner in which art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was ready to admit that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden. Indeed, gardening had here reached a perfection that I had never before dreamed of. I cannot undertake to describe the effect of so much taste and skill as had evidently been employed; I will only tell you, that we passed by winding paths over acres and acres, with a constant varying surface, where on all sides were growing every variety of shrubs and flowers, with more than natural grace, all set in borders of greenest, closest turf, and all kept with most consummate neatness. At a distance of a quarter of a mile from the gate, we came to an open field of clean, bright green-sward, closely mown, on which a large tent was pitched, and a party of boys in one part, and a party of gentlemen in another, were playing cricket. Beyond this was a large meadow with rich groups of trees, under which a flock of sheep were reposing, and girls and women with children, were playing. While watching the cricketers, we were threatened with a shower, and hastened back to look for shelter, which we found in a pagoda, on an island approached by a Chinese bridge. It was soon filled, as were the other ornamental buildings, by a crowd of those who, like ourselves, had been overtaken in the grounds by the rain; and I was glad to observe that the privileges of the garden were enjoyed about equally by all classes. There were some who were attended by servants, and sent at once for their carriages, but a large proportion were of the common ranks, and a few women with children, or suffering from ill health, were evidently the wives of very humble labourers. There were a number of strangers, and some we observed with notebooks and portfolios, that seemed to have come from a distance to study from the garden. The summer-houses, lodges, bridges, etc., were all well constructed, and of undecaying materials. One of the bridges which we crossed was of our countryman Remington’s patent, an extremely light and graceful erection.

I obtained most of the following information from the head working-gardener.

The site of the park and garden was, ten years ago, a flat, sterile clay farm. It was placed in the hands of Mr. Paxton, in June, 1844, by whom it was laid out in its present form by June of the following year. Carriage roads, thirty-four feet wide, with borders of ten feet, and walks varying in width, were first drawn and made. The excavation for a pond was also made, and the earth obtained from these sources used for making mounds and to vary the surface, which has been done with much naturalness and taste. The whole ground was thoroughly under-drained, the minor drains of stone, the main, of tile. By these sufficient water is obtained to fully supply the pond, or lake, as they call it, which is from twenty to forty feet wide, and about three feet deep, and meanders for a long distance through the garden. It is stocked with aquatic plants, gold fish and swans.

The roads are macadamized. On each side of the carriage way, and of all the walks, pipes for drainage are laid, which communicate with deep main drains that run under the edge of all the mounds or flower beds. The walks are laid first with six inches of fine broken stone, then three inches cinders, and the surface with six inches of fine rolled gravel. All the stones on the ground which were not used for these purposes, were laid in masses of rock-work, and mosses and rock-plants attached to them. The mounds were then planted with shrubs, and heaths and ferns, and the beds with flowering plants. Between these, and the walks and drives, is everywhere a belt of turf (which, by the way, is kept close cut with short, broad scythes, and shears, and swept with hair-brooms, as we saw). Then the rural lodges, temple, pavilion, bridges, orchestra for a band of instrumental music, etc., were built. And so, in one year, the skeleton of this delightful garden was complete.

But this is but a small part. Besides the cricket and an archery ground, large valleys were made verdant, extensive drives arranged, plantations, clumps, and avenues of trees formed, and a large park laid out. And all this magnificent pleasure-ground is entirely, unreservedly, and for ever the people’s own. The poorest British peasant is as free to enjoy it in all its parts as the British queen. More than that, the baker of Birkenhead has the pride of an OWNER in it.

Is it not a grand good thing? But you are inquiring who paid for it. The honest owners—the most wise and worthy townspeople of Birkenhead—in the same way that the New Yorkers pay for “the Tombs” and the Hospital, and the cleaning (as they amusingly say) of their streets.

Of the farm which was purchased, one hundred and twenty acres have been disposed of in the way I have described. The remaining sixty acres, encircling the park and garden, were reserved to be sold or rented, after being well graded, streeted, and planted, for private building lots. Several fine mansions are already built on these (having private entrances to the park), and the rest now sell at $1.25 a square yard. The whole concern cost the town between five and six hundred thousand dollars. It gives employment, at present, to ten gardeners and labourers in summer, and to five in winter.

The generous spirit and fearless enterprise that has accomplished this, has not been otherwise forgetful of the health and comfort of the poor. Among other things, I remember, a public washing and bathing house for the town is provided. I should have mentioned also, in connection with the market, that in the outskirts of the town there is a range of stone slaughter-houses, with stables, yards, pens, supplies of hot and cold water and other arrangements and conveniences, that enlightened regard for health and decency would suggest.

The consequence of all these sorts of things is, that all about the town lands, which a few years ago were almost worthless wastes, have become of priceless value; where no sound was heard but the bleating of goats and braying of asses complaining of their pasturage, there is now the hasty click and clatter of many hundred busy trowels and hammers. You may drive through wide and thronged streets of stately edifices, where were only a few scattered huts, surrounded by quagmires. Docks of unequalled size and grandeur are building, and a forest of masts grows along the shore; and there is no doubt that this young town is to be not only remarkable as a most agreeable and healthy place of residence, but that it will soon be distinguished for extensive and profitable commerce. It seems to me to be the only town I ever saw that has been really built at all in accordance with the advanced science, taste and enterprising spirit that are supposed to distinguish the nineteenth century. I do not doubt it might be found to have plenty of exceptions to its general character, but I did not inquire for these, nor did I happen to observe them. Certainly, in what I have noticed, it is a model town, and may be held up as an example not only to philanthropists and men of taste, but to speculators and men of business.

After leaving the park, we ascended a hill, from the top of which we had a fine view of Liverpool and Birkenhead. Its sides were covered with villas, with little gardens about them. The architecture was generally less fantastic, and the style and materials of building more substantial than is usually employed in the same class of residences with us. Yet there was a good deal of the same stuck up and uneasy pretentious air about them that the suburban houses of our own city people so commonly have. Possibly this is the effect of association, in my mind, of steady, reliable worth and friendship with plain or old-fashioned dwellings, for I often find it difficult to discover in the buildings themselves the element of such expression. I am inclined to think it is more generally owing to some disunity in the design,—often, perhaps, to a want of keeping between the mansion and its grounds or its situation. The architect and the gardener do not understand each other, and commonly the owner or resident is totally at variance in his tastes and intentions from both; or the man whose ideas the plan is made to serve, or who pays for it, has no true independent taste, but had fancies to be accommodated, which only follow confusedly after custom or fashion. I think, with Ruskin, it is a pity that every man’s house cannot be really his own, and that he can not make all that is true, beautiful, and good in his own character, tastes, pursuits, and history manifest in it.

But however fanciful and uncomfortable many of the villa houses about Liverpool and Birkenhead appear at first sight, the substantial and thorough manner in which most of them are built will atone for many faults. The friendship of nature has been secured to them. Dampness, heat, cold, will be welcome to do their best. Every day they will improve. In fifty or a hundred years fashions may change, and they will appear, perhaps, quaint, possibly grotesque; but still strong, home-like, and hospitable. They have no shingles to rot, no glued and puttied and painted gimcrackery to warp and crack and moulder; and can never look so shabby, and desolate, and dreary, as will nine-tenths of the buildings of the same denomination now erecting about New York, almost as soon as they lose the raw, cheerless, imposter-like airs which seem almost inseparable from their newness.

A FERME ORNÉE

A few miles further on we came to a large, park-like pasture, bounded by a neatly trimmed hedge, and entered by a simple gate, from which a private road ran curving among a few clumps of trees to a mansion about a furlong distant. We entered, and rested ourselves awhile at the foot of some large oaks. The house was nearly hidden among trees, and these, seen across the clear grass land, were the finest groups of foliage we had ever seen. A peculiar character was given it by one or two copper-leaved beeches—large, tall trees, thickly branched from the very surface of the ground. (These trees, which are frequently used with great good effect in landscape gardening in England, are rare in America, though they may be had at the nurseries. There are two sorts, one much less red than the other.) The cattle in this pasture-lawn were small and black, brisk and wild-looking, but so tame in reality, that as we lay under the tree, they came up and licked our hands like dogs. The whole picture completely realized Willis’s beautiful ideal, “The Cottage Insoucieuse.”

EATON PARK

In the afternoon we walked to Eaton Park.

Probably there is no object of art that Americans of cultivated taste generally more long to see in Europe than an English park. What artist so noble, has often been my thought, as he who, with far-reaching conception of beauty and designing power, sketches the outline, writes the colours, and directs the shadows of a picture so great that Nature shall be employed upon it for generations, before the work he has arranged for her shall realize his intentions.[17]

... We came to the great castellated edifice that I have before spoken of as the gateway to the park. Such we were told it was, and were therefore surprised to find within only a long, straight road, with but tolerable mowing lots alternating by the side of it, with thick plantations of trees, no way differing from the twenty-year old natural wood of my own farm, except that hollies, laurels, and our common dogwood were planted regularly along the edge.

---

We tramped on for several miles through this tame scenery and most ungentlemanly farming, until it became really tiresome. At length the wood fell back, and the road was lined for some way with a double row of fine elms. Still no deer. A little further, and we came to a cottage most beautifully draped with ivy; passed through another gate. Ah! here is the real park at last.

A gracefully, irregular, gently undulating surface of close-cropped pasture land, reaching way off inimitably; dark green in colour; very old, but not very large trees scattered singly and in groups—so far apart as to throw long unbroken shadows across broad openings of light, and leave the view in several directions unobstructed for a long distance. Herds of fallow-deer, fawns, cattle, sheep and lambs quietly feeding near us, and moving slowly in masses at a distance; a warm atmosphere, descending sun, and sublime shadows from fleecy clouds transiently darkening in succession, sunny surface, cool woodside, flocks and herds, and foliage.

The road ran on winding through this. We drew a long breath, and walked slowly for a little way, then turned aside at the nearest tree, and lay down to take it all in satisfactorily.

---

We concluded that the sheep and cattle were of the most value for their effect in the landscape; but it was a little exciting to us to watch the deer, particularly as we would sometimes see them in a large herd leisurely moving across an opening among the trees, a long way off, and barely distinguishable.

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It is not my business to attempt a criticism of “the finest specimen of the pointed Gothic” in England; but I may honestly say that it did not, as a whole, produce the expected effect of grandeur or sublimity upon us, without trying to find reasons for the failure. Even when we came to look at it closely, we found little to admire. There was no great simple beauty in it as a mass, nor yet vigorous original character enough in the details to make them an interesting study. The edifice is long and low, and covered with an immense amount of meaningless decoration.

Such was our first impression, and we were greatly disappointed, you may be sure. We admired it more afterwards on the other side, from the middle of a great garden, where it seems to stand much higher, being set up on terraces, and gaining much, I suspect, from the extension of architectural character to the grounds in its front. Here we acknowledged a good deal of magnificence in its effect. Still it seemed as if it might have been obtained in some other style, with less labour, and was much frittered away in the confusion of ornament.

This garden is a curiosity. It is in the geometrical style, and covers eight acres, it is said, though it does not seem nearly that to the eye. It is merely a succession of small arabesque figures of fine grass or flower beds, set in hard, rolled, dark-coloured gravel. The surface, dropping by long terraces from the steps of the hall to the river, is otherwise only varied by stiff pyramidal yews and box, and a few vases. On the whole, the effect of it in connection with the house, and looking towards it, is good, more so than I should have expected; and it falls so rapidly, that it affects the landscape seen in this distance from the house but very little. This is exquisitely beautiful, looking across the Dee, over a lovely valley towards some high, blue mountains. From other parts of the hall grand vistas open through long avenues of elms, and there are some noble single trees about the lawn.

This English elm is a much finer tree than I had been aware of—very tall, yet with drooping limbs and fine thick foliage; not nearly as fine as a single tree as our elm, but even more effective, I think, in masses, because thicker and better filled out in its general outline.

ENGLISH LANDSCAPE

I must say, that on the whole, the agriculture of Cheshire, as the first sample of that of England which is presented to me, is far below my expectations. There are sufficient reasons to expect that we shall find other parts much superior to it; but what we have seen quite disposes of the common picture which our railroad and stage-coach travellers are in the habit of giving to our imagination, by saying that “all England is like a garden.” Meaning only a “landscape garden,” a beautiful and harmonious combination of hill and dale, with the richest masses of trees, and groups and lines of shrubbery, the greenest turf and most picturesque buildings, it might be appropriately said of many parts, particularly in the south of the country. But, with reference to cultivation, and the productiveness of the land, it might be quite as truly applied to some small districts of our own country as to this part of England.

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... We reach another lane and cultivated fields again, and, being on elevated ground at the knarly feet of a glorious, breezy, gray, old beech-tree, lay ourselves down, and, looking back upon the extensive landscape, tell our friend in what it differs from American scenery.

The great beauty and peculiarity of the English landscape is to be found in the frequent long, graceful lines of deep green hedges and hedge-row timber, crossing hill, valley, and plain, in every direction; and in the occasional large trees, dotting the broad fields, either singly or in small groups, left to their natural open growth, (for ship-timber, and, while they stand, for cattle shades,) therefore branching low and spreading wide, and more beautiful, much more beautiful, than we often allow our trees to make themselves. The less frequent brilliancy of broad streams or ponds of water, also distinguishes the prospect from those we are accustomed to, though there are often small brooks or pools, and much marshy land, and England may be called a well-watered country. In the foreground you will notice the quaint buildings, generally pleasing objects in themselves, often supporting what is most agreeable of all, and what you can never fail to admire, never see any thing ugly or homely under, a curtain of ivy or other creepers; the ditches and the banks by their side, on which the hedges are planted; the clean and careful cultivation, and general tidiness of the agriculture; and the deep, narrow, crooked, gulch-like lane, or the smooth, clean, matchless, broad highway. Where trees are set in masses for ornament, the Norway spruce and the red beech generally give a dark, ponderous tone, which we seldom see in America; and in a hilly and unfertile country there are usually extensive patches of the larch, having a brown hue. The English elm is the most common tree in small parks or about country-houses. It appears, at a little distance, more like our hickory, when the latter grows upon a rich soil, and is not cramped, as sometimes in our river intervals, than any other American tree.

There seems to me to be a certain peculiarity in English foliage, which I can but little more than allude to, not having the skill to describe. You seem to see each particular leaf, (instead of a confused leafiness,) more than in our trees; or it is as if the face of each leaf was parallel, and more equally lighted than in our foliage. It is perhaps only owing to a greater density, and better filling up, and more even growth of the outer twigs of the trees, than is common in our drier climate. I think that our maple woods have more resemblance to it than others.

There is usually a much milder light over an English landscape than an American, and the distance and shady parts are more indistinct. It is rare that there is not a haziness, slightly like that of our Indian summer in the atmosphere, and the colours of every thing, except of the foliage are less brilliant and vivacious than we are accustomed to. The sublime or the picturesque in nature is much more rare in England, except on the sea-coast, than in America; but there is every where a great deal of quiet, peaceful, graceful beauty, which the works of man have generally added to, and which I remember but little at home that will compare with. This Herefordshire reminds me of the valley in Connecticut, between Middletown and Springfield. The valley of the Mohawk and the upper part of the Hudson, is also in some parts English-like.

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Soon after leaving Warminster, began a very different style of landscape from what I have before seen: long ranges and large groups of high hills with gentle and gracefully undulating slopes; broad and deep cells between and within them, through which flow in tortuous channels streamlets of exceedingly pure, sparkling water. These hills are bare of trees, except rarely a close body of them, covering a space of perhaps an acre, and evidently planted by man. Within the shelter of these you will sometimes see that there is a large farm-house with a small range of stables. The valleys are cultivated, but the hills in greater part are covered, without the slightest variety, except what arises from the changing contour of the ground, with short, wiry grass, standing thinly, but sufficiently close to give the appearance at a little distance from the eye, of a smooth, velvety, green surface. Among the first of the hills I observed, at a high elevation, long angular ramparts and earth-works, all greened over. Within them at the summit of the hill were several extensive tumuli, evidently artificial, (though I find nothing about it in the books,) and on the top of one of these was a shepherd and dog and a large flock of sheep, clear and coldly distinct, and appearing of gigantic size against the leaden clouds behind. In the course of the day I met with many of these flocks, and nearly all of the hill-land seemed given up to them. I was upon the border, in fact, of the great Southdown district, and, during the next week, the greater part of the country through which we were travelling, was of the same general character of landscape, though frequently not as green, varied, and pleasing as in these outskirts of it.

THE DESCRIPTION OF SCENERY

There is always a strong temptation upon the traveller to endeavor to so describe fine scenery, and the feelings which it has occasioned him, that they may be reproduced to the imagination of his friends. Judging from my own experience, this purpose always fails. I have never yet seen any thing celebrated in scenery, of which I had previously obtained a correct conception. Certain striking, prominent points, that the power of language has been most directed to the painting of, almost invariably disappoint, and seem little and commonplace, after the exaggerated forms which have been brought before the mind’s eye. Beauty, grandeur, impressiveness, in any way, from scenery, is not often to be found in a few prominent, distinguishable features, but in the manner and the unobserved materials with which these are connected and combined. Clouds, lights, states of the atmosphere, and circumstances that we cannot always detect, affect all landscapes, and especially landscapes in which the vicinity of a body of water is an element, much more than we are often aware. So it is that the impatient first glance of the young traveller, or the impertinent critical stare of the old tourist, is almost never satisfied, if the honest truth be admitted, in what it has been led to previously imagine. I have heard “Niagara is a mill-dam,” “Rome is a humbug.”

The deep sentiments of nature that we sometimes seem to have been made the confidant of, when among the mountains, or on the moors or the ocean,—even those of man wrought out in architecture and sculpture and painting, or of man working in unison with Nature, as sometimes in the English parks, on the Rhine, and here on the Isle of Wight,—such revealings are beyond words; they never could be transcribed into note-books and diaries, and so descriptions of them become caricatures, and when we see them, we at first say we are disappointed that we find not the monsters we were told of.

Dame Nature is a gentlewoman. No guide’s fee will obtain you her favour, no abrupt demand; hardly will she bear questioning, or direct, curious gazing at her beauty; least of all, will she reveal it truly to the hurried glance of the passing traveller, while he waits for his dinner, or fresh horses, or fuel and water; always we must quietly and unimpatiently wait upon it. Gradually and silently the charm comes over us; the beauty has entered our souls; we know not exactly when or how, but going away we remember it with a tender, subdued, filial-like joy.

Does this seem nonsense to you? Very likely, for I am talking of what I don’t understand. Nature treats me so strangely; it’s past my speaking sensibly of, and yet, as a part of my travelling experience, I would speak of it. At times I seem myself to be her favourite, and she brings me to my knees in deep feeling, such as she blesses no other with; oftener I see others in ecstasies, while I am left to sentimentalize and mourn, or to be critical, and sneering, and infidel. Nonsense still; but tell me, do you think it is only for greed of trouts that your great and sensitive man lingers long, intently stooping over dark pools in the spray of the mountain torrents, or stealing softly a way through the bending rushes, or kneeling lowly on the darkest verdure of the shaded meadow? What else? I know not what he thinks, but of this I am assured: while his mind is most intent upon his trivial sport, his heart and soul will be far more absorbent of the rugged strength, the diffuse, impetuous brilliance, the indefinite gliding grace, or the peaceful twilight loveliness, of the scenes around him, than if he went out searching, labouring directly for it as for bread and fame.

The greater part of the Isle of Wight is more dreary, desolate, bare, and monotonous than any equal extent of land you probably ever saw in America—would be, rather, if it were not that you are rarely out of sight of the sea; and no landscape, of which that is a part, ever can be without variety and ever-changing interest. It is, in fact down-land in the interior, exactly like that I described in Wiltshire, and sometimes breaking down into such bright dells as I there told of. But on the south shore it is rocky, craggy; and after you have walked through a rather dull country, though pleasing on the whole, for hours after landing, you come gradually to where the majesty of vastness, peculiar to the downs and the ocean, alternates or mingles with dark, picturesque, rugged ravines, chasms, and water-gaps, sublime rock-masses, and soft, warm smiling inviting dells and dingles; and, withal, there is a strange and fascinating enrichment of half-tropical foliage, so deep, graceful, and luxuriant, as I never saw before any where in the world. All this district is thickly inhabited, and yet so well covered with verdure, or often so tastefully appropriate—quiet, cosy, ungenteel, yet elegant—are the cottages, that they often add to, rather than insult and destroy, the natural charm of their neighbourhood. I am sorry to say, that among the later erections there are a number of very strong exceptions to this remark.

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As to Mr. Olmsted’s travels in 1856, we have a memorandum that he visited Rome, Genoa, Florence, Prague, Leipzig, and Dresden as well as London. We have a delightful reference to his brief Italian visit in a letter written to Charles Eliot, then abroad, March 4, 1886:

From the letters and books relating to his Southern journeys, there is less of scenery or of rural art. He was concerned with giving a true picture of the economic and social conditions in the South, especially as affected by slavery, and his observations were directed mainly to men and their affairs rather than to their landscape surroundings. There are, however, numerous passages of great interest in this regard, especially on the Texas journey of 1853-4. Several are here given.

One is written from San Antonio, Texas, March 12, 1854, to a friend.

The following selections are from the Back Country book:

THE LANDSCAPE—ROSE HEDGES

Although in his Walks and Talks the public had ample evidence of Mr. Olmsted’s taste in scenery, he was known principally as a literary man, a writer on agriculture, and a student of our social and economic conditions. His reasoned observations had been widely circulated through his letters in the New York Times and the books subsequently made up from these,[19] which are still considered to give the truest picture of the South before the war. Mr. Raymond of the Times is quoted in 1854 as thinking “highly of his powers of observation and detailed reporting, giving just the facts that people want.”

Among his intimates he was known as an enthusiast and keen analyst in debate. It is pleasant to quote two references to these qualities in letters, which were prophetic, in spirit if not in exact detail:

And in the Life and Letters of Charles Loring Brace,[20] there is a letter probably late in 1848:

Although he had not had a chance to prove his executive ability in any public capacity, he was known as a capable manager in the handling of farm labor. Very early in his agricultural career, there is an evidence of this in a letter (1848) to his brother:

His democratic ideals in general were well understood from his writings. There are some passages from letters written early in his career as a landscape architect which further interpret these with special regard to his chosen profession.

The letter of 1860, addressed to a subordinate who had referred to the difference in their “stations in life,” contains the following:

In 1863, when the political situation on the Central Park made it difficult for Mr. Olmsted to entertain the idea of returning to his work there, he wrote to Mr. Vaux from California:

Mr. Olmsted’s own summary of his fitness for the opportunity which presented itself in 1857, he gave in Spoils of the Park, written in 1882, to be reprinted in full in Volume Two of this work.

It is worth while also, perhaps, to give in conclusion two of the endorsements submitted with his Central Park application in 1857. (See facsimile opposite.)

Similar petitions bear the signatures of Russell Sturgis, Horace Greeley, George H. Putnam, Henry Holt, Whitelaw Reid, William Cullen Bryant, Bayard Taylor, Alexander Hamilton, Philip Schuyler, John M. Scribner, August Belmont, Morris K. Jesup, Henry Havemeyer, E. D. Morgan, Roosevelt & Co., and many others.

Pleasantest of all was the letter from Professor Asa Gray:

Facsimile of Petition to Secure Appointment of Mr. Olmsted as Superintendent of Central Park, 1857

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PART III
AMERICAN LANDSCAPE GARDENING IN 1857