Essay on Gardens. Claude-Henri Watelet

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.