Nature and culture ...

... Gardening and Governing. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The well-designed garden shows nature more clearly and beautifully than nature can show itself. And this can be a model of politics: people left to their own devices can run riot, make themselves and their environment "ruin'd" and "disorder'd"; properly governed, though, they can flourish, they can become their best selves and make the most of their environment.

But the governor's hand, like the gardener's, can fall too heavy. If we grant that Richard has been careless and thoughtless, has failed to govern, has allowed weeds to overwhelm "our sea-walled garden," we may also suspect this gardener, who is quick to appoint an "executioner" and is perhaps overly enamored with "evenness" in his realm. We need governors as we need gardeners; but not all forms of government are equally wise or equally beautiful.

See also The Great Repression.