Happy is the garden surrounded by a brick wall or with terrace wall of brick. How well every color looks by the side of old brick; even scarlet, bright pink, and rose-pink flowers, which seem impossible, do very well when held to the wall by clear green leaves. Flowering vines are perfect when trained on old soft-red brick enclosing walls; white-flowered vines are specially lovely thereon, Clematis, white Roses, and the rarely beautiful white Wistaria. How lovely is my Virgin's-bower when growing on brick; how Hollyhocks stand up beside it. Brick posts, too, are good in a fence, and, better still, in a pergola. A portion of the fine terrace wall at Van Cortlandt Manor is shown facing page 286. This wall was put in about fifty years ago; ere that there had been a grass bank, which is ever a trial in a garden; for it is hard to mow the grass on such a bank, and it never looks neat; it should be planted with some vine. A very curious garden wall is the serpentine brick wall still standing at the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville. It is about seven feet high, and closes in the garden and green of the row of houses occupied by members of the faculty; originally it may have extended around the entire college grounds. I present a view from the street in order to show its contour distinctly; within the garden its outlines are obscured by vines and flowers. The first thought in the mind of the observer is that its reason for curving is that it could be built much more lightly, and hence more cheaply, than a straight wall; then it seems a possible idealization in brick of the old Virginia rail fence. But I do not look to domestic patterns and influences for its production; it is to me a good example of the old-time domination of French ideas which was so marked and so disquieting in America. In France, after the peace of 1762, the Marquis de Geradin was revolutionizing gardening. His own garden at Ermenonville and his description of it exercised important influence in England and America, as in France. Jefferson was the planner and architect of the University of Virginia; and it is stated that he built this serpentine wall. Whether he did or not, it is another example of French influences in architecture in the United States. This French school, above everything else, replaced straight lines with carefully curving and winding lines. CHAPTER XX A MOONLIGHT GARDEN "How sweetly smells the Honeysuckle In the hush'd night, as if the world were one Of utter peace and love and gentleness." --WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR