 Chapter 16 of the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe, Raven Edition, Volume 2. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jacqueline Provo. The collected works of Edgar Allen Poe, Raven Edition, Volume 2, The Premature Burial. There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction. These, the mere romanticists must eschew if he do not wish to offend or to disgust. There are with propriety handled only when the severity and majesty of truth sanctify and sustain them. We thrill, for example, with the most intense of pleasurable pain over the accounts of the passage of the Barracena, of the earthquake at Lisbon, of the plague at London, of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the stifling of the 123 prisoners in the black hole at Calcutta. But in these accounts it is the fact. It is the reality. It is the history which excites. As inventions, we should regard them with simple abhorrence. I have mentioned some few of the more prominent in August calamities on record, but in these it is the extent not less than the character of the calamity which so vividly expresses the fancy. I need not remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalog of human miseries, I might have selected many individual instances more replete with essential suffering than any of these vast generalities of disaster. The true wretchedness indeed, the ultimate woe, is particular not diffused, that the ghastly extremes of agony are endured by man, the unit, and never by man the mass. For thus, let us thank a merciful God. To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes, which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality. That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be denied by those who think. Boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowing vague. Who shall say where the one ends and where the other begins? We know that there are diseases in which occur total cessations of all the apparent functions of vitality, and yet in which these cessations are merely suspensions, properly so called. They are only temporary pauses in the incomprehensible mechanism. A certain period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets its motion, the magic penions, and the wizard-wills. The silver cord was not forever loosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably broken, but where, meantime, was assault produced such effects that the well-known occurrence of such cases of suspended animation must naturally give rise now and then to premature interments. Apart from the consideration, we have the direct testimony of medical and ordinary experience to prove that a vast number of such interments have actually taken place. I might refer at once, if necessary, to a hundred well-authenticated instances. One a very remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh in the memory of some of my readers, occurred not very long ago in the neighboring city of Baltimore. Where, at occasion, the painful, intense, and widely extended excitement, the wife of one of the most respectable citizens, a lawyer of eminence and a member of Congress, was seized with a sudden and unaccountable illness, and completely baffled the skill of her physicians. After much suffering, she died, or was supposed to die. No one suspected, indeed, or had reason to suspect that she was not actually dead. She presented all the ordinary appearances of death, the face assumed the usual pinched or sunken outline, the lips were of the usual marble pallor, the eyes were lusterless, there was no warmth, pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity. The funeral in short was hastened on account of the rapid advance of what was supposed to be decomposition. The lady was deposited in her family vault, which for three subsequent years was undisturbed. At the expiration of the term, it was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus. But alas, how fearful a shock awaited the husband who personally threw open the door. As its portal swung outwardly back, some white apparel object fell rattling within his arms. A skeleton of his wife in her yet unmolded shroud. A careful investigation rendered it evident that she was revived within two days after entombment, that her struggles within the coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge or shelf to the floor, where it was so broken as to permit her escape. A lamp which had been accidentally left full of oil within the tomb was found empty. It might have been exhausted, however, by evaporation. On the uttermost of the steps, which led down into the dread chamber, was a large fragment of the coffin with which it seemed that she had endeavored to arrest attention by striking the iron door. While thus occupied, she probably swooned or possibly died through sheer terror and, having passed with him some wretched years, she died, at least her condition so closely resembled death as to deceive everyone who saw her. She was buried not in a vault, but in an ordinary grave in the village of her nativity. Filled with despair and still in flame by the memory of a profound entachment, the lover journeys from the capital to the remote province in which the village lies, with the romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse and possessing himself of its luxuriant tresses. He reaches the grave, at midnight he unearths the coffin, opens it, and is in the act of detaching the hair when he is arrested by the enclosing of the beloved eyes. In fact, the lady had been buried alive, vitality had not altogether departed and she was roused by the caresses of her lover from the lethargy which had been mistaken for death. He bore her frantically to his lodgings in the village. He employed certain powerful restoratives suggested by no little medical learning. And fine she revived, she recognized her preserver, she remained with him until, by slow degrees, she fully recovered her original health. Her woman's heart was not adamant and this last lesson of love suffice to soften it. She bestowed it upon Basouette. She returned no more to her husband by concealing from him her resurrection, flabbed with her lover to America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to France in the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady's appearance that her friends would be unable to recognize her. They were mistaken however for at the first meeting Monsure Ronelle did actually recognize and make claim to his wife. Monsure resisted and judicial tribunal sustained her and her resistance deciding that peculiar circumstances with a long lapse of years had extinguished not only equitably but legally the authority of the husband. The Chirurgical Journal of Leipzig, a periodical of high authority and merit which some American bookseller would do well to translate and republish, records in a late number a very distressing event of the character in question. Officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robust health being thrown from an unmanageable horse received a very severe contusion upon the head which rendered him insensible at once. The skull was slightly fractured but no immediate danger was apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was fled and many other of the ordinary means of relief were adopted. Gradually however he fell into a more and more hopeless state of stupor and finally it was thought that he died. The weather was warm and he was buried with indecent haste in one of the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday on the Sunday following the grounds of the cemetery were as usual much strong with visitors and about noon an intense excitement was created by the declaration of a peasant that while sitting upon the grave of the officer he had distinctly felt a commotion of the earth as if occasioned by someone struggling beneath. At first little attention was paid to the man's severation but his evident terror and the dogged obscenity with which he persisted in his story had at length their natural effect upon the crowd. Spades were hurriedly procured and the grave which was shamefully shallow was in a few minutes so far thrown open that the head of its occupant appeared. He was then seemingly dead but he sat nearly erect within his coffin the lid of which in his furious struggles he had partially uplifted. He was forced with conveyed to the nearest hospital where pronounced to be still living although in an asphatic condition. After some hours he revived recognized individuals of his acquaintance and in broken sentences spoke of his agonies in the grave. From what he related it was clear that he must have been conscious of life for more than an hour while inhumed for lapsing into insensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely filled with an exceedingly poor soil and thus some air was necessarily admitted. Here the footsteps of the crowd over had and endeavored to make himself heard and turn. It was the tumult within the grounds of the cemetery he said which appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep but no sooner was he awake than he became fully aware of the awful horrors of his position. This patient it is recording was doing well and seemed to be in a fair way of ultimate recovery but fell a victim to the quackeries of medical experiment. The galvanic battery was applied and he suddenly expired in one of those paroxysms which occasionally it super induces. The mention of the galvanic battery nevertheless recalls to my memory a well-known and very extraordinary case in point where its action proved the means of restoring to animation a young attorney of London who had been interred for two days. This occurred in 1931 and created at the time a very profound sensation wherever it was made the subject of converse. The patient Mr. Edward Stapleton had died a parent of typhus fever accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited the curiosity of his medical attendance. Upon his seeming deceased his friends were requested to sanction a post-mortem examination but declined to permit it. As often happens which such refusals are made the prediction is resolved to disinter the body and dissect it at leisure and private. Arrangements were easily affected with some of the numerous corpse of body snapsures with which London abounds and upon the third night after the funeral the supposed corpse was unearthed from a grave 8 feet deep and deposited in the opening chamber of one of the private hospitals. An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested an application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another and the customary effects super been with nothing to characterize them in any respect except upon one or two occasions a more than ordinary degree of life likeness in the convulsive act. It grew late, the day was about to dawn and it was thought expedient at length to proceed at once to the dissection. A student however was especially desirous of testing a theory of his own and insisted upon applying the battery to one of the pectoral muscles. A rough gash was made and a wire hastily brought in contact with a patient with a hurried but quite unconvulsive movement arose from the table stepped into the middle of the floor gazed about him unagely for a few seconds and then spoke. What he said was unintelligible but words were uttered the syllabification was distinct having spoken he fell heavily on the floor. For some moments all were paralyzed with all but the urgency of the case soon restored them their presence of mind. It was seen that Mr. Stapleton was alive although in a swoon upon exhibition of either he revived and was rapidly restored to health into the society of his friends from whom however all knowledge of his resuscitation was withheld until a relapse was no longer to be apprehended. Their wonder, their rapturous astonishment may be conceived. The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident nevertheless is involved in what Mr. S. himself asserts he declares that at no period was he altogether insensible that doling and confusedly he was aware of everything which happened to him the moment in which he was pronounced dead by his positions to that in which he fell swooning to the floor of the hospital. I am alive for the uncomprehended words which upon recognizing the locality of the dissecting room he had endeavored in his extremity to utter. It were an easy matter to multiply such histories as these but I forbear for indeed we have no need of such to establish the fact that premature interments occur when we reflect how very rarely from the nature of the case we have it in our power to detect them we must admit that they may frequently occur without our cognizance scarcely in truth is a graveyard ever encroached upon for any purpose to any great extent that skeletons are not found in postures which suggest the most fearful of suspicions. Fearful indeed the suspicion but more fearful the doom it may be assertive without hesitation that no event is so terribly well adapted to this premeness of bodily and a mental distress as its burial before death the unendurable oppression of the lungs the stifling fumes from the damp earth the clinging to the death garments the rigid embrace the narrow house the blackness of the absolute night the silence like a sea that overwhelms the unseen but palpable presence of the conqueror worm these things with the thoughts of the air and grass above with memory of dear friends informed of our fate and with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead these considerations I say carry into the heart which still palpitates a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must recoil we know of nothing so agonizing upon earth we can dream of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the neither most hell and thus all narratives upon this topic have an interest profound an interest nevertheless which through the sacred all of the topic itself very properly and very peculiarly depends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated what I have now to tell is of my own actual knowledge of my own positive and personal experience for several years I had been subject to attacks the singular disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy in default of a more definitive title although both the immediate and the predisposing causes and even the actual diagnosis of this disease are still mysterious it's obvious and apparent character is sufficiently well understood its variations seem to be chiefly of degree sometimes the patient lies for a day only or even for a shorter period in a series of exaggerated lethargy he is senseless and extremely motionless but the pulsation of the heart is constantly perceptible some traces of warmth remain a slight color lingers within the center of the cheek and upon application of a mirror to the lips we can detect a torpid, unequal and vacillating action of the lungs then again the duration of the trances for weeks even for months while the closest scrutiny and the most rigorous medical tests fail to establish any material distinction between the state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute death by the moment solely by the knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject to catalepsy by the consequence suspicion excited and above all by the non-appearance of decay the advances of the melody are luckily gradual the first manifestations although marked are unequivocal the fits grows excessively more and more distinctive and endure each for a longer term than the proceeding in this lies the principal security from inhumation whose first attack should be of the extreme character which is occasionally seen would almost inevitably be consigned alive to the tomb my own case differed in no important particular from those mentioned in medical books sometimes without any apparent cause I sank little by little into a condition of hemisyncope or half swooned and in the condition without pain without ability to stir or strictly speaking to think with a dull lethargic consciousness and of the presence of those who surrounded my bed I remained until the crisis of the disease restored me suddenly to perfect sensation at other times I was quickly and impetuously smitten I grew sick and numb and chilly and dizzy and so fell prostrate at once then for weeks all was void and black and silent and nothing became the universe total annihilation could be no more from these latter attacks I awoke however with a gradation slow in proportion to the suddenness of the seizure just as the day dawns to the friendless and houseless beggar who roams the streets throughout the long desolate one or night just so tardily just so wearily just so tearily came back the light of the soul to me apart from the tendency to trance however my general health appeared to be good nor could I perceive that it was at all affected by the one prevalent malady unless indeed an idiosyncrasy in my ordinary sleep may be looked upon as super induced upon awakening from slumber I could never gain at once thorough possession of my senses and always remain for many minutes and much bewilderment and perplexity the mental faculties in general but the memory and the special being a condition of absolute abeyance and all that I endured there was no physical suffering but of moral distress and infinitude my fancy through charnel I talked of worms of tombs and epitaphs I was lost in memories of death and the idea premature burial held continual possession of my brain the ghastly danger to which I was subjected haunted me day and night in the former the torture of meditation was excessive in the latter supreme and the grim darkness overspread the earth then with every horror of thought I shook shook as the quivering plumes upon the hearse when nature could endure wakefulness no longer it was with a struggle that I consented for sleep for I shuddered to reflect that upon awakening I might find myself the tenant of a grave and when finally I sank into slumber it was only to rush at once into a world of phantasms above which with vast sable overshadowing wing hovered predominant the one supprecall idea from the innumerable images of gloom which thus oppressed me in dreams I select for record but a solitary vision me thought I was immersed in a cataleptic trance of more than usual duration and profundity suddenly there was an icy hand upon my forehead and an impatient gibbering voice whispered the word arise within my ear I sat erect darkness was total I could not see the figure of him who had aroused me I could call to mind neither the period at which I had fallen into the trance nor the locality in which I then lay while I remained motionless and busy in endeavors to collect my thought the cold hand grasping fiercely by the wrist shaking it petulantly while the gibbering voice said again arise did I not bid the arise and who I demanded art thou I have no name in the regions which I inhabit replied the voice mournfully I was mortal but infiend I was merciless but impitiful thou thus feel that I shudder my teeth chatter as I speak yet it is not with the chilliness of the night of the night without end this hideousness is insufferable how can thou tranquilly sleep I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies these sights are more than I can bear get thee up come with me into the outer night and let me unfold to thee the graves is not this a spectacle of woe behold I looked and the unseen figure which still grasped me by the wrist had caused to be thrown up open the graves of all mankind and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay so that I could see into the innermost recesses and their view the shrouded bodies and their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm but alas the real sleepers were fewer by many millions and those who slumbered not at all and there was a feeble struggling and there was a general sad unrest and from out the depths of the countless pits there came a melancholy wrestling from the garments of the varied and of those who seem tranquilly to repose I saw that a vast number had changed in a great or less degree the rigid and uneasy position which they had naturally been entombed and the voice again said to me as I gazed is it not oh is it not a pitiful sight but before I could find words to reply the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist the phosphoric lights expired and the graves were closed with sudden violence while from out there arose a tumbled despairing cry saying again is it not oh god is it not a very pitiful sight fantasies such as these presenting themselves at night extended their terrific influence far into my waking hours my nerves became thoroughly unstrong and I felt a prey to perpetual horror I hesitated to ride or to walk or to indulge in any exercise that could carry me from home in fact I no longer dare trust myself out of the immediate presence of those who are aware of my proneness to calypsy lest falling into one of my usual fits I should be buried before my real condition could be ascertained I doubted the care the fidelity of my dearest friends I dreaded that in some trance of more than customer induration they might be prevailed upon to regard me as irrecoverable I even went so far as to fear that as I occasion much trouble they might be glad to consider any very protracted attack a sufficient excuse for getting rid of me altogether it was in vain they endeavor to reassure me by the most solemn promises I exacted the most sacred oaths that under no circumstance they would bury me until decomposition had so materially advanced as to render further preservation impossible and even then my mortal terrors would listen to no reason would accept no consolation I entered into a series of elaborate precautions among other things I had the family vault so remodeled as to admit of being readily opened from within the slightest pressure upon a long lever that extended far into the tomb would cause the iron portal to fly back there were arrangements also for the free admission of air and light and convenient receptacles for food and water within the immediate reach of the coffin intended for my reception this coffin was warmly and softly padded and was provided with a lid fashioned upon the principal of the vault door with the addition of springs so contrived that the feeblest movement of the body could be sufficient to set it at liberty besides all this there was suspended from the roof of the tomb a large bell the rope of which it was designed should extend through a hole in the coffin and so be fastened to one of the hands of the corpse but alas what avails the vigilance against the destiny of man not even these well-contrived securities suffice to save from the uttermost agonies of living inhumation a wretch of these agonies for doomed there arrived an epic as often before there had arrived in which I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the first people an indefinite sense of existence slowly with a tortoise gradation approach the faint gray dawn of the cycle day a torpid uneasiness an apathetic endurance of dull pain no care no hope no effort then after a long interval a ringing in the ears then after a lap still longer a prickling or tingling sensation the extremities then a seemingly eternal period of pleasurable quiescence during which the awakening feelings are struggling in the thought then a brief re-sinking into non-entity then a sudden recovery at length the slight quivering of an eyelid and immediately there upon an electric shock of a terror deadly and infinite which sends the blood and torrents from the temples to the heart and now the first positive effort to think and now the first effort to remember and now a partial and evanescent success and now the memory has so far regained its dominion that in some measure I am cognizant of my state I feel that I am not awaking from ordinary sleep I recollect that I have been subject to catalepsy and now at last as if by the rush of an ocean my shattering spirit is overwhelmed by the one grim danger by the one spectral ever prevalent idea for some minutes after this fancy possess me I remained without motion and why I could not some encourage to move I dare not make the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate and yet there was something at my heart which whispered me it was sure despair such as no other species of wretchedness ever calls into being despair alone urged me after long irresolution to uplift the heavy eyelids of my eyes I uplifted them it was dark all dark I knew that the fit was over I knew that the crisis of my disorder had long passed I knew that had now fully recovered the use of my visual faculties and yet it was dark all dark the intense and utter railessness of the night that undureth forevermore I endeavored to shriek and my lips and my parched tongue moved convulsively together in the attempt but no voice issued from the cavernous lungs which as if by the weight of some incumbent mountain gasped and palpitated with a heart at every elaborate and struggling inspiration the movement of the jaws in this effort to cry aloud showed me that they were bound up as is usual with the dead I felt too that I lay upon some hard substance and by something similar my sides were also closely compressed so far I had not ventured to stir any of my limbs but now I violently threw at my face which had been lying at length with a wrist crossed this struck a solid wooden substance which extended above my person at an elevation of not more than six inches from my face I could no longer doubt that I reposed within a coffin at last and now am and all my infinite miseries came sweetly the cherub hope for I thought of my precautions I ride and made spasmodic exertions to force upon the lid I felt my wrists for the bell rope it was not to be found and now the comforter fled forever and they still stern or despair rain triumphant for I could not help perceiving the absence of the paddings which I had so carefully prepared and then too there came suddenly to my nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist earth the conclusion was irresistible I was not within the vault I had fallen into a trance while absent from home or how I could not remember and it was they who had buried me as a dog nailed up in some common coffin and thrust deep deep and forever into some ordinary and nameless grave as this awful conviction forced itself thus into the innermost chambers of my soul I once again struggled to cry out and in the second endeavor I succeeded a long wild and continuous shriek or yell of agony resounding through the realms of subterranean night hello there said a gruff voice and reply what the devil's the matter now said a second get out of that said a third what do you mean by yelling in that air kind of style like a catty mount said a fourth and here upon I was seized and shaken without ceremony for several minutes by a junta of very rough looking individuals they did not arouse me for my slumber for I was wide awake when I screamed but they restored me to the full possession of my memory this adventure occurred near Richmond in Virginia a company by a friend I had proceeded upon a gunning expedition some miles down the banks of the James river night approached and we were overtaken by a storm the cabin of a small sloop lying at anchor in the stream and laden with garden mold afforded us the only available shelter we made the best of it and passed the night on board I slept in one of the only burrows in the vessel and the burrows of a sloop of 60 or 20 tons need scarcely be described that which I occupied had no bedding of any kind its extreme width was 18 inches the distance of its bottom from the deck overhead was precisely the same I found it a matter of exceeding difficulty to squeeze myself in nevertheless I slept soundly and the whole of my vision for it was no dream and no nightmare arose naturally from the circumstances from my ordinary bias of thought and from the difficulty to which I have alluded of collecting my senses and especially of regaining my memory for a long time after awaking from slumber the men who shook me were the crew of the sloop and some laborers engaged to unload it from the load itself came the earthly smell the bandage about the jaws was the silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head in default of my customary nightcap the tortures endured however were indubitably quite equal for the time to those of actual sepulcher they were fearfully they were inconceivably hideous but out of evil proceeded good for their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion my soul acquired tone acquired temper I went abroad I took vigorous exercise I breathed the free air of heaven I thought upon other subjects than death I discarded my medical books I learned I read no night thoughts no fusty and about churchards no bugaboo tales such as this in short I became a new man and lived a man's life from the memorable night I dismissed forever my charnel apprehensions and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder of which perhaps they had been less the consequence than the cause there are moments when even to the sober eye of reason the world of our sad humanity is a grim assemblance of a hell but the imagination of man is no carathus to explore with impunity it's every cavern alas the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful but like the demons in whose company aphrasia made his voyage down the axis they must sleep or they will devour us they must be suffered to slumber or we perish end of the premature burial by jacqueline provot richmond virginia nitterwithcritters.blogspot.com the garden like a lady fair was cut that lay as if she slumbered in delight and to the open skies her eyes did shut the azure fields of heaven were assembled right in a large round set with the flowers of light the flowers day loose and the round sparks of dew that hung upon their azure leaves did shoe like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue Giles Fletcher from his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend Ellison along nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere worldly sense I mean it as synonymous with happiness the person of whom I speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the doctrines of turgot price priestly and condorset of exemplifying by individual instance what has been deemed the chimera of the perfectionists in the brief existence of Ellison I fancy that I have seen refuted the dogma that in man's very nature lies some hidden principle the antagonist of bliss an anxious examination of his career has given me to understand that in general from the violation of a few simple laws of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind that as a species we have in our possession the as yet unwrought elements of content and that even now in the present darkness and madness of all thought on the great question of the social condition it is not impossible that man the individual under certain unusual and highly fortuitous conditions may be happy with opinion such as these my young friend too was fully imbued and thus it is worthy of observation that the uninterrupted enjoyment which distinguished his life was in great measure the result of pre-concert it is indeed evident that with less of the instinctive philosophy which now and then stands so well in the stead of experience Mr. Ellison would have found himself precipitated by the very extraordinary success of his life into the common vortex of unhappiness which yawns for those of preeminent endowments but it is by no means my object to pen an essay on happiness the ideas of my friend may be summed up in a few words he admitted but four elementary principles or more strictly conditions of bliss which he considered chief was strange to say the simple and purely physical one of free exercise in the open air the health he said attainable by other means is scarcely worth the name he instanced the ecstasies of the fox hunter and pointed to the tillers of the earth the only people who as a class can be fairly considered happier than others his second condition was the love of woman his third and most difficult of occasion was the contempt of ambition his fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit and he held that other things being equal the extent of attainable happiness was in proportion to the spirituality of this object Ellison was remarkable in the continuous perfusion of good gifts lavished upon him by fortune in personal grace and beauty he exceeded all men his intellect was of that order to which the acquisition of knowledge is less a labor than an intuition and a necessity his family was one of the most illustrious of the empire his bride was the loveliest and most devoted of women his possessions had been always ample but on the attainment of his majority he was discovered that one of those extraordinary freaks of fate had been played in his behalf which started the whole social world amid which they occur and seldom fell radically to alter the moral constitution of their objects it appears that about a hundred years before Mr. Ellison's coming of age there had died in a remote province one Mr. Seabright Ellison this gentleman had amassed a princely fortune and having no immediate connections conceived the whim of suffering his wealth to accumulate for a century after his disease minutely and sagagiously directing the various modes of investment he bequeathed the aggregate amount to the nearest bearing the name of Ellison who should be alive at the end of the hundred years many attempts had been made to set aside this singular bequest their ex post facto character rendered them abortive but the attention of a jealous government was aroused and a legislative act finally obtained forbidding all similar accumulations this act however did not prevent young Ellison from entering into possession on his twenty first birthday as the heir of his ancestor Mr. Seabright of a fortune of four hundred and fifty millions of dollars footnote an incident similar in outline to the one here imagined occurred not very long ago in England the name of the fortunate heir was Ellison I first saw an account of this matter in the tour of Prince Puckler Muska who makes the sum inherited ninety millions of pounds and justly observes that in the contemplation of so vast a sum and of the services to which it might be applied there's something even of the sublime end quote to suit the views of this article I have followed the Prince's statement although a grossly exaggerated one the germ and in fact the commencement of the present paper was published many years ago previous to the issue of the first number of Sue's admirable Jewish errant which may possibly have been suggested to him by Muska's account end footnote when it had become known that such wealth inherited there were of course many speculations as to the motive of its disposal the magnitude and the immediate availability of the sum bewildered all who thought on the topic the possessor of any appreciable amount of money might have been imagined to perform any one of a thousand things with riches merely surpassing those of any citizen it would have been easy to suppose him engaging to supreme excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time himself with political intrigue or aiming at ministerial power or purchasing increase of nobility or collecting large museums of virtue or playing the munificent patron of letters of science of art or endowing and bestowing his name upon extensive institutions of charity but for the inconceivable wealth in the actual possession of the air these objects and all ordinary objects were felt to afford too limited a field recourse was had to figures and these but sufficed to confound it was seen that even at three percent the annual income of the inheritance amounted to no less than thirteen millions and five hundred thousand dollars which was one million and one hundred twenty five thousand per month or thirty six thousand nine hundred and eighty six per day or one thousand five hundred and forty one per hour or six and twenty dollars for every minute that flew thus the usual track of supposition was thoroughly broken up men knew not what to imagine there were some who even conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest himself of at least one half of his fortune as of utterly superfluous opulence enriching whole troops of his relatives by division of his superabundance to the nearest of these he did in fact abandon the very unusual wealth which was his own before the inheritance I was not surprised however to perceive that he had long made up his mind on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to his friends nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his decision in regard to individual charities he had satisfied his conscience in the possibility of any improvement properly so called being affected by men himself in the general condition of man he had I am sorry to confess it little faith upon the whole whether happily or unhappily was thrown back in very great measure upon self in the widest and noblest sense he was a poet he comprehended moreover the true character the Auguste Ames the supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment the fullest if not the soul proper satisfaction of the sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the creation of novel forms of beauty some peculiarities either in his early education his intellect had tinged with what is termed materialism all his ethical speculations and it was this bias perhaps which led him to believe that the most advantageous at least if not the soul legitimate field for the poetic exercise lies in the creation of novel moods of purely physical loveliness thus it happened he became neither musician nor poet if we use this latter term in its everyday acceptation he became either merely in pursuance of his idea that in contempt of ambition is to be found one of the essential principles of happiness on earth is it not indeed possible that while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious the highest is above that which is termed ambition and may it not thus happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained mute and inglorious I believe that the world has never seen and that unless through a series of accidents goading the noblest order of mind into distasteful exertion the world will never see that full extent of triumphant execution in the richer domains of art of which the human nature is absolutely capable Ellison became neither musician nor poet although no man lived more profoundly enamored of music and poetry under other circumstances than those which invested him it is not impossible that he would have become a painter sculpture although in its nature rigorously poetical was too limited in its extent and consequences to have occupied at any time much of his attention and I have now mentioned all the provinces in which the common understanding of the poetic sentiment has declared it capable of expatiating but Ellison maintained that the richest the truest the most natural if not altogether the most extensive province had been unaccountably neglected no definition had spoken of the landscape gardener as of the poet yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the landscape garden offered to the proper muse the most magnificent of opportunities here indeed was the fairest field for the display of imagination in the endless combining of forms of novel beauty the elements to enter into combination being by a vast superiority the most glorious which the earth could afford in the multi-form and multi-color of the flowers and the trees he recognized the most direct and energetic efforts of nature at physical loveliness and in the direction or concentration of this effort or more properly in its adaptation to the eyes which were to be hold it on earth he perceived that he should be employing the best means laboring to the greatest advantage in the fulfillment not only of his own destiny as poet but of the august purposes for which the deity had implanted the poetic sentiment in man its adaptation to the eyes which were to be hold it on earth in his explanation of this phraseology Mr. Ellison did much towards solving what has always seemed to me in enigma I mean the fact which none but the ignorant dispute that no such combination of scenery exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce no such paradises are to be found in reality as have blowed on the canvas of Claude in the most enchanting of natural landscapes there will always be found a defect or an excess many excesses and defects while the component parts may defy individually the highest skill of the artist the arrangement of these parts will always be susceptible of improvement in short no position can be obtained on the wide surface of the natural earth from which an artistical eye looking steadily will not find matter of offense in what is termed the composition of the landscape and yet how unintelligible is this in all other matters we are justly instructed to regard nature as supreme with her details we shrink from competition who shall presume to imitate the colors of the tulip or to improve the proportions of the lily of the valley the criticism which says of sculpture or portraiture that here nature is to be exalted or idealized rather than imitated is an error no pictorial or sculptural combinations of points of human liveliness do more than approach the living and breathing beauty in landscape alone is the principle of the critic true and having felt its truth here it is but the headlong spirit of generalization which has led him to pronounce it true throughout all the domains of art having I say felt its truth here for the feeling is no affectation or chimera the mathematics afford no more absolute demonstrations than the sentiments of his art yields the artist he not only believes but positively knows that such and such apparently arbitrary arrangements of matter constitute and alone constitute the true beauty his reasons however have not been matured into expression it remains for a more profound analysis than the world has yet seen fully to investigate and express them nevertheless he is confirmed in his instinctive opinions by the voice of all his brethren let a composition be defective let an commendation be wrought in its mere arrangement of form let this commendation be submitted to every artist in the world by each will its necessity be admitted and even far more than this in remedy of the defective composition each insulated member of the fraternity will have suggested the identical commendation I repeat that in landscape arrangements alone is the physical nature susceptible of exaltation and that therefore her susceptibility of improvement at this one point was a mystery I had been unable to solve my own thoughts on the subject had rested in the idea that the primitive intention of nature would have so arranged the earth's surface as to have fulfilled at all points man's sense of perfection in the beautiful the sublime or the picturesque but that this primitive intention had been frustrated by the known geological disturbances disturbances of form and color grouping in the correction or a laying of which lies the soul of art the force of this idea was much weakened however by the necessity which it involved of considering the disturbances abnormal and unadapted to any purpose it was Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic of death he thus explained admit the earthly immortality of man to have been the first intention we have then the primitive arrangement of the earth's surface adapted to his blissful estate is not existent but designed the disturbances were the preparations for his subsequently conceived deathful condition now said my friend what we regard as exaltation of the landscape may be really such as respects only the moral or human point of view each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly affect a blemish in the picture if we can suppose this picture viewed at large in mass from some point distant from the earth's surface although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere it is easily understood that what might improve a closely scrutinized detail may at the same time injure a general or more distantly observed effect there may be a class of beings human once but now invisible to humanity to whom from afar our disorder may seem order our unpictureskness picturesque in a word the earth angels for whose scrutiny more especially than our own and for whose death refined appreciation for the beautiful may have been set in array by God the wide landscape gardens of the hemispheres in the course of the discussion my friend quoted some passages from a writer on landscape gardening who has been supposed to have well treated his theme there are properly but two styles of landscape gardening the natural and the artificial one seeks to recall the original beauty of the country by adapting its means to the surrounding scenery cultivating trees and harmony with the hills or plane of the neighboring land detecting and bringing into practice those nice relations of size proportion and color which hid from the common observer are revealed everywhere to the experienced student of nature the result of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in the absence of all defects and incongruities in the prevalence of a healthy harmony and order than in the creation of any special wonders or miracles the style has as many varieties as there are different tastes to gratify it has a certain general relation to the various styles of building there are the stately avenues and retirements of Versailles Italian terraces and a various mixed old English style which bears some relation to the domestic Gothic or English Elizabethan architecture whatever may be said against the abuses of the artificial landscape gardening a mixture of pure art in a garden adds to it a great beauty this is partly pleasing to the eye by the show of order and design and partly moral a terrace with an old mosque covered balustrade calls up at once to the eye the fair forms that have passed there in other days the slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of care and human interest from what I have already observed said Ellison you will understand that I reject the idea here expressed of recalling the original beauty of the country the original beauty is never so great as that which may be introduced of course everything depends on the selection of a spot with capabilities what is said about detecting and bringing into practice nice relations of size proportion and color is one of those mere vaguenesses of speech which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought the phrase quoted may mean anything or nothing and guides in no degree that the true result of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in absence of all defects and incongruities than in the creation of any special wonders or miracles is a proposition better suited to the groveling apprehension of the herd than to the fervid dreams of the man of genius the negative merit suggested appertains to that hobbling criticism which in letters would elevate Addison into apotheosis in truth while that virtue which consists in the mere avoidance of vice appeals directly to the understanding and can thus be circumscribed in rule the loftier virtue which flames in creation can be apprehended in its results alone rule applies but to the merits of denial to the excellencies which refrain beyond these the critical art can but suggest they may be instructed to build a Cato but we are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or an inferno the thing done however the wonder accomplished and the capacity for apprehension becomes universal the sophists of the negative school who through inability to create have scoffed at creation are now found the loudest in applause what in its chrysalis condition of principle affronted their demure reason never fails in its maturity of accomplishment to extort admiration from their instinct of beauty the author's observations on the artificial style continued Ellison are less objectionable a mixture of pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty this is just as also is the reference to the sense of human interest the principle expressed is incontrovertible but there may be something beyond it there may be an object in keeping with the principle an object unattainable by the means ordinarily possessed by individuals yet which if attained would lend a charm to the landscape garden far surpassing that which a sense of merely human interest could bestow a poet having very unusual pecuniary resources might while retaining the necessary idea of art or culture or as our author expresses it of interest so imbue his designs at once with extent and novelty of beauty as to convey the sentiment of spiritual interference it will be seen that in bringing about such result he secures all the advantages of interest or design while relieving his work of the harshness or technicality of the worldly art in the most rugged of wildernesses in the most savage of the scenes of pure nature there is apparent the art of a creator yet this art is apparent to reflection only in no respect has it the obvious force of a feeling now let us suppose this sense of the almighty design to be one step depressed to be brought into something like harmony or consistency with the sense of human art to form an intermedium between the two let us imagine for example a landscape whose defined vastness and definitiveness whose united beauty magnificence and rangeness shall convey the idea of care or culture or superintendence on the part of being superior yet akin to humanity then the sentiment of interest is preserved while the art intervolved is made to assume the air of an intermediate or secondary nature a nature which is not God nor an emanation from God but which still is nature in the sense of the handiwork of the angels that hover between man and God it was in devoting his enormous embodiment of a vision such as this in the free exercise in the open air ensured by the personal superintendence of his plans in the unceasing object which these plans afforded in the high spirituality of the object in the contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to feel in the perennial springs with which it gratified without possibility of satiating that one master passion of his soul the thirst for beauty above all it was in the sympathy of a man who loved unwomanly whose loveliness and love enveloped his existence in the purple atmosphere of paradise that Ellison thought to find and found exemption from the ordinary cares of humanity with a far greater amount of positive happiness than ever glowed in the rapt daydreams of Daystale I despair of conveying to the reader any distinct conception of the marvels which my friend did actually accomplish I wish to describe but I am disheartened by the description and hesitate between detail and generality perhaps the better course will be to unite the two in their extremes Mr. Ellison's first step regarded of course the choice of a locality and scarcely had he commenced thinking on this point than the luxuriant nature of the Pacific islands arrested his attention in fact he made up his mind for a voyage to the South Seas when a night's reflection induced him to abandon the idea I hope it he said such a locale would suit me the thoroughness of its insulation and seclusion and the difficulty of ingress and egress would in such case be the charm of charms but as yet I am not Timon I wish the composure but not the depression of solitude there must remain with me a certain control over the extent and duration of my repose there will be frequent hours in which I shall need to the sympathy of the poetic in what I have done let me seek then a spot not far from a populist city whose vicinity also will best enable me to execute my plans in search of a suitable place so situated Ellison traveled for several years and I was permitted to accompany him a thousand spots with which I was enraptured he rejected without hesitation for reasons which satisfied me in the end that he was right we came at length to an elevated table land of wonderful fertility and a panoramic prospect very little less an extent than that of Etna and in Ellison's opinion as well as my own surpassing the far-famed view from that mountain in all the true elements of the picturesque I am aware said the traveler as he drew a sigh of deep delight after gazing on the scene entranced for nearly an hour I know that here in my circumstances nine-tenths of the most fastidious of men would rest content this panorama is indeed glorious and I should rejoice in it but for the excess of its glory the taste of all the architects I have ever known leads them for the sake of prospect to put up buildings on hilltops the error is obvious grandeur in any of its moods but especially in that of extent startles excites and then fatigue depresses for the occasional scene nothing can be better for the constant view nothing worse and in the constant view the most objectionable phase of grandeur is that of extent the worst part of extent that of distance it is at war with the sentiment and with the sense of seclusion the sentiment and the sense which we seek to humor in retiring to the country in looking from the summit of a mountain we cannot help feeling abroad in the world the heart sick avoid distant prospects as a pestilence it was not until toward the close of the fourth year of our search that we found a locality with which we identified it is of course needless to say where was the locality the late death of my friend in causing his domain to be thrown open to certain classes of visitors has given to arnhem a species of secret and subdued if not solemn celebrity similar in kind although infinitely superior in degree to that which so long distinguished font hill the usual approach to arnhem was by the river the visitor left the city in the early morning during the four noon he passed between shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty on which gazed innumerable sheep their white fleeces spotting the rivet green of rolling meadows by degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into that of merely pastoral care this slowly became merged in a sense of retirement this again in a consciousness of solitude as the evening approached the channel grew more narrow the banks more and more precipitous and these letter were closed in rich more profuse and more somber foliage the water increased in transparency the stream took a thousand turns so that at no moment could its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance than a furlong at every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within an enchanted circle having insuperable and impenetrable walls of foliage a roof of ultra marine satin and no floor the keel balancing itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark which by some accident having been turned upside down floated in constant company with the substantial one for the purpose of sustaining it the channel now became a gorge although the term is somewhat inapplicable and I employ it merely because the language has no word which better represents the most striking not the most distinctive feature of the scene the character of gorge was maintained only in the height and parallelism of the shores it was lost altogether in their other traits the walls of the ravine through which the clear water still tranquilly flowed rose to an elevation of a hundred and occasionally of a hundred and fifty feet and inclined so much toward each other as in a great measure to shut out the light of day while the long plume like moss which depended densely from the intertwining shrubberies overhead gave the whole chasm an air of funerial gloom the windings became more frequent and intricate and seemed often as if returning in upon themselves so that the voyager had long lost all idea of direction he was moreover in wrapped in an exquisite sense of the strange the thought of nature still remained but her character seemed to have undergone modification there was a weird symmetry a thrilling uniformity a wizard propriety in these her works not a dead branch not a withered leaf not a stray pebble not a patch of the brown earth was anywhere visible the crystal water filled up against the clean granite or the unblemished moss with a sharpness of outline that delighted while it bewildered the eye having threaded the mazes of this channel for some hours the gloom deepening every moment a sharp and unexpected turn of the vessel brought it suddenly as if dropped from heaven into a circular basin of very considerable extent when compared with the width of the gorge it was about two hundred yards in diameter and girt in all points but one that immediately fronting the vessel as it entered by hills equal in general height to the walls of the chasm although of a thoroughly different character their sides sloped from the water's edge in an angle of some forty-five degrees and they were clothed from base to summit not a perceptible point escaping in a drapery of the most gorgeous flower blossoms scarcely a green leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating color this basin was of great depth but so transparent was the water that the bottom which seemed to consist of a thick mass of small round alabaster pebbles was distinctly visible by glimpses that is to say whenever the eye could permit itself not to see far down in the introverted heaven the duplicate blooming of the hills on these latter there were no trees nor even shrubs of any size the impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness warmth color quietude uniformity softness delicacy daintiness voluptuousness and a miraculous extremeness of culture that suggested dreams of a new race of fairies laborious tasteful magnificent and fastidious but as the eye traced upward from the myriad tinted slope from its sharp junction with the water to its vague termination amid the folds of overhanging cloud it became indeed difficult not to fancy a panoramic cataract of rubies sapphires opals and golden onyxes rolling silently out of the sky the visitor shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom of the ravine is delighted but astounded by the full orb of the declining sun which he had supposed to be already far below the horizon but which now confronts him and forms the sole termination of an otherwise limitless vista seen through another chasm like a rift in the hills but here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him so far and descends into a light canoe of ivory stained with arabesque devices in vivid scarlet both within and without the poop and beak of this boat arise high above the water with sharp points so that the general form is that of an irregular crescent it lies on the surface of the bay with the proud grace of a swan on its ermined floor reposes a single feathery paddle of satin wood but no oarsmen are attendant is to be seen the guest is forbidden to be of good cheer that the fates will take care of him the larger vessel disappears and he is left alone in the canoe which lies apparently motionless in the middle of the lake while he considers what course to pursue however he becomes aware of a gentle movement in the fairy bark it slowly swings itself around until its prow points toward the sun it advances with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity while the slight ripples it creates seem to break out the ivory side in divinist melody seem to offer the only possible explanation to the soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin the bewildered voyager looks around him in vain the canoe steadily proceeds and the rocky gate of the vista is approached so that its depths can be more distinctly seen to the right rise a chain of lofty hills rudely and luxuriously wooded it is observed however that the trade of exquisite cleanness where the bank dips into the water still prevails there is not one token of the usual river debris to the left the character of the scene is softer and more obviously artificial here the bank slopes upward from the stream in a very gentle ascent forming a broad swathe of grass of a texture resembling nothing so much as velvet and of a brilliancy of green which would bear comparison with the tint of the purest emerald this plateau varies in width from ten to three hundred yards reaching from the river bank to a wall fifty feet high which extends in an infinity of curves but following the general direction of the river until lost in the distance to the westward this wall is of one continuous rock and has been formed by cutting perpendicularly the once rugged precipice of the stream's southern bank but no trace of the labor has been suffered to remain the chiseled stone has the hue of ages and is profusely overhung and overspread with the ivy, the coral honeysuckle the eglantine and the calamatus the uniformity of the top and bottom lines of the wall is fully relieved by occasional trees of gigantic height growing singly or in small groups both along the plateau and in the domain behind the wall but in close proximity to it so that the frequent limbs of the black walnut especially reach over and dip their pendant extremities into the water farther back within the domain the vision is impeded by an impenetrable screen of foliage these things are observed during the canoe's gradual approach to what I have called the gate of the vista on drawing nearer to this however it's chasm-like appearance vanishes a new outlet from the bay is discovered to the left in which direction the wall is also seen to sweep still following the general course of the stream down this new opening the eye cannot penetrate very far for the stream accompanied by the wall still bends to the left until both are slowed up by the leaves the boat nevertheless glides magically into the winding channel and here the shore opposite the wall is found to resemble that opposite the wall in the straight vista lofty hills rising occasionally into mountains and covered with vegetation in wild luxuriance still shut in the scene floating gently onward but with a velocity slightly augmented the voyager after many short turns finds his progress apparently barred by a gigantic gate or rather door of burnished gold elaborately carved and fretted and reflecting the direct rays of the now fast sinking sun with an effulgence that seems to wreath the whole surrounding forest in flames this gate is inserted in the lofty wall which here appears to cross the river at right angles in a few moments however it is seen that the main body of the water still sweeps in a gentle and extensive curve to the left the wall following it as before while a stream of considerable volume diverging from the principal one makes its way with a slight ripple under the door and is thus hidden from sight the canoe falls into the lesser channel and approaches the gate its ponderous wings are slowly and musically expanded the boat glides between them and commences a rapid descent into a vast amphitheater entirely begirt with purple mountains whose bases are laved by a gleaming river throughout the full extent of their circuit at the same time the whole paradise of arnheim bursts upon the view there is a gush of entrancing melody there is an oppressive sense of strange sweet odor there is a dream like intermingling to the eye of tall slender eastern trees bosky shrubberies flocks of golden and crimson birds lily-fringed lakes meadows of violets tulips poppies hyacinths and tube roses long intertangled lines of silver streamlets and uprising confusedly from a mid-all a mass of semi-gothic semi-sericenic architecture sustaining itself by miracle in mid-air glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred orioles minarets and pinnacles and seeming the phantom-handy work conjointly of the silps of the fairies of the geni and of the gnomes and of the domain of arnheim Chapter 18 of the Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Raven Edition Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Hannah Dowell The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Raven Edition Volume 2 Landau's Cottage Appendent to the Domain of Arnheim During a pedestrian trip last summer through one or two of the river counters of New York I found myself as the day declined somewhat embarrassed about the road I was pursuing. The land undulated very remarkably and my path for the last hour had wound about and about so confusedly in its effort to keep in the valleys that I no longer knew in what direction lay the sweet village of B where I had determined to stop for the night. The sun had scarcely shone strictly speaking during the day which nevertheless had been pleasantly warm. A smoky mist resembling that of the Indian summer enveloped all things and of course added to my uncertainty. Not that I cared much about the matter if I did not hit upon the village before sunset or even before dark it was more than possible that a little Dutch farmhouse or something of that kind would soon make its appearance. Although in fact the neighbourhood perhaps on account of being more picturesque than fertile was very sparsely inhabited. At all events with my knapsack for a pillow and my hound as a sentry a bivouac in the open air was just a thing which would have amused me. I sauntered on therefore quite at ease Ponto taking charge of my gun until at length just as I had begun to consider whether the numerous little glazes that led hither and thither I was conducted by one of them into an unquestionable carriage-track. There could be no mistaking it. The traces of light wheels were evident and although the tall shrubberies and overgrown undergrowth met overhead there was no obstruction whatever below even to the passage of a Virginia mountain wagon the most aspiring vehicle I take it of its kind. The road however except in being open through the wood would be not too weighty a name for such an assemblage of light trees and except in the particulars of evident wheel-tracks bore no resemblance to any road I had before seen. The tracks of which I speak were but faintly perceptible having been impressed upon the firm yet pleasantly moist surface of what looked more like green genoes velvet than anything else. It was grass clearly but grass such as we seldom see out of England. So short so thick so even so vivid in colour not a single impediment lay in the wheel-root not even a chip or dead twig the stones that once obstructed the way had been carefully placed not thrown along the sides of the lane so as to find its boundaries at the bottom with a kind of half precise, half negligent and wholly picturesque definition clumps of wild flowers grew everywhere luxurantly in the interspaces what to make of all this of course I knew not here was art undoubtedly that did not surprise me all roads in the ordinary sense our works of art nor can I say that there was much to wonder at in the mere excess of art as manifested all that seemed to have been done might have been done here with such natural capabilities as they have it in the books on landscape gardening with very little time landscape gardening with very little labour and expense no, it was not the amount but the character of the art which caused me to take a seat on one of the blossomy stones and gaze up and down this fairy-like avenue for half an hour or more in bewildered admiration one thing became more and more evident the longer I gazed an artist and one with a most scrupulous eye for form had super intended all these arrangements the greatest care had been taken to preserve a due medium between the neat and graceful on the one hand and the pittoresque and the true sense the Italian term on the other there were few straights and no long uninterrupted lines the same effect of curvature or of colour appeared twice usually but not often at any one point of view everywhere was variety and uniformity it was a piece of composition in which the most fastidiously critical taste could scarcely have suggested an ammediation I had turned to the right as I entered this road now arising I continued in the same direction the path was so serpentine that there's no moment could I trace its course for more than two or three paces in advance its character did not undergo any material change presently presently the murmur of water fell gently upon my ear and in a few moments afterward as I turned with the road somewhat more abruptly than hitherto I became aware that a building of some kind lay at the foot of a gentle de-clavity just before me I could see nothing distinctly on account of the mist which occupied all the little valley below a gentle breeze however now arose as the sun was about descending and while I remained standing on the brow of the slope the fog gradually became dissipated into wreaths and so floated over the scene as it came fully into view thus gradually as I describe it piece by piece here a tree there a glimpse of water and here again the summit of a chimney I could scarcely help fancying that the whole was one of the ingenious illusions sometimes exhibited under the name of vanishing pictures by the time however that the fog had thoroughly disappeared the sun had made its way down behind the gentle hills and thence as it with a slight chassé to the south had come again fully into sight glaring with a purplish lustre through a chasm that entered the valley from the west suddenly therefore and as if by the hand of magic this whole valley and everything in it became brilliantly visible the first kudoi as the sun slid into the position described impressed me very much as I have been impressed when a boy by the concluding scene of some well arranged theatrical spectacle or melodrama not even the monstrosity of colour was wanting the sunlight came out through the chasm tinted all orange and purple while the vivid green of the grass and the valley was reflected more or less upon all objects from the curtain of vapour but still hung overhead as if loathed to take its departure from a scene so enchantingly beautiful the little veil into which I thus peered down from under the fog canopy could not have been more than 400 yards long while in breadth it varied from 50 to 150 perhaps 200 it was most narrow at its northern extremity opening out as it tended southerly but with no very precise regularity the widest portion was within 80 yards of the southern extreme the slopes which encompassed the veil could not fairly be called hills unless at their northern face here a precipitous ledge of granite arose to the height of some 90 feet and as I have mentioned the valley at this point was not more than 50 feet wide but as the visitor proceeded southerly from the cliff he found on his right hand and on his left declarities at once less high less precipitous and less rocky all in a word sloped and softened to the south and yet the whole veil was engirdled by eminences high except at two points one of these I have already spoken of it lay considerably to the north of west and was where the setting sun made its way as I have before described into the amphitheater through a cleanly cut natural cleft in the granite embankment this fissure might have been 10 yards wide at its widest point so far as the eye could trace it it seemed to lead up up like a natural causeway into the areas of unexplored mountains and forests the other opening was directly at the southern end of the veil here, generally the slopes were nothing more than gentle inclinations extending from east to west about 150 yards in the middle of this extent was a depression level with the ordinary floor of the valley as regards vegetation as well as in respect to everything else the scene softened and sloped to the south to the north on the craggy precipice a few paces from the verge up sprang the magnificent trunks of numerous hickories black walnuts and chestnuts interspersed with occasional oak and the strong lateral branches thrown out by the walnuts especially spread far over the edge of the cliff perceiving subtly the explorer saw at first the same class of trees but less and less lofty and solvatorious in character then he saw the gentler elm exceeded by the susifers and locust these again by the softer linden redbird catalpa and maple these yet again by still more graceful and more modest varieties the whole face of the southern declivity was covered with wild trepary alone an occasional silver willow or white poplar accepted in the bottom of the valley itself for it must be borne in mind that the vegetation hitherto mentioned grew only on the cliffs or hillsides were, to be seen, three insulated trees one was an elm of fine size and exquisite form it stood guard over the southern gate of the vale another was a hickory much larger than the elm and altogether a much finer tree although much smaller a much finer tree although both were exceedingly beautiful it seemed to have taken charge of the north-western entrance springing from a group of rocks in the very jaws of the ravine and throwing its graceful body at an angle of nearly 45 degrees far out into the sunshine of the amphitheater about 30 yards east of this tree stood however in the pride of the valley and beyond all question the most magnificent tree I have ever seen unless perhaps among the cypresses of the itchia tucani it was a triple stemmed tulip tree the lyrodendron tulipitharium one of the natural order of magnolias it's three trunks separated from the parent at about three feet from the soil and diverging very slightly and gradually were not more than four feet apart at the point where the largest stem shot out into foliage this was as an elevation of about 80 feet the whole height of the principal division was 120 feet nothing can surpass in beauty the form or the glossy vivid green of the leaves of the tulip tree in the present instance they were fully eight inches wide but their glory was altogether eclipsed by the gorgeous splendor of the profuse blossoms Conceive closely congregated a million the largest and most resplendent tulips only thus can they really get any idea of the picture I would convey and then the stately grace of the clean delicately granulated columnist stems the largest four feet in diameter at twenty from the ground the innumerable blossoms mingling with those of other trees scarcely less beautiful infinitely less majestic filled the valley with more than Arabian perfumes the general floor of the amphitheatre was gras of the same character as that I had found on the road if anything more deliciously soft thick velvety and miraculously green it was harder to conceive how all this beauty had been attained I have spoken of two openings into the veil from the one to the north west issued a rivulet heavily murmuring and slightly foaming down the ravine until it dashed against a group of rocks out of which sprang the insulated hickory here, after encircling the tree it passed on a little to the north of east leaving the tulip tree some twenty feet to the south and making no decided alteration in its course until it came near the midway between the eastern and western boundaries of the valley at this point after a series of sweeps it turned off at right angles and pursued a generally southern direction meandering as it went until it became lost in a small lake of irregular figure although roughly oval the lake gleaming near the lower extremity of the veil this lake that was perhaps a hundred yards in diameter its widest part no crystal could be clearer than its waters its bottom which could be distinctly seen consisted altogether of pebbles brilliantly white as banks of the emerald grass already described rounded rather than sloped off into the clear heaven below and so clear was this heaven so perfectly at times that it reflect all objects above it that where the true bank ended and where the mimic one commenced it was a point of no little difficulty to determine the trout and some other varieties of fish with which this pond seemed to be almost inconveniently crowded with the appearance of veritable flying fish it was almost impossible to believe that they were not absolutely suspended in the air a light birch canoe that lay placidly on the water was reflected in its minutest fibers with a fidelity unsurpassed by the most exquisitely polished mirror a small island fairly laughing with flowers in full bloom and affording little more space than just enough for a picturesque little building seemingly a fowl house arose from the lake not far from its northern shore to which it was connected by means of an inconceivably light looking and yet very primitive bridge it was formed of a single broad and thick plank of the tulip wood this was 40 feet long and spanned the interval between shore and shore with a slight but very perceptible arch preventing all oscillation from the southern extreme of the lake issued a continuation of the rivulet which after meandering for perhaps 30 yards finally passed through the depression already described in the middle of the southern declavity and in tumbling down a sheer precipice of 100 feet made its devious and unnoticed way to the Hudson the lake was deep at some points 30 feet but the rivulet seldom exceeded 3 while its greatest width was about 8 its bottom and banks were as those of the pond if a defect could have been attributed in point of picturesqueness it was that of excessive neatness the expanse of the green turf was relieved here and there by an occasional showy shrub such as the hydrangea or the common snowball or the aromatic syringa or more frequently by a clump of geraniums blossoming gorgeously in great varieties these latter grew in pots carried in the soil so as to give the plants the appearance of being indigenous besides all this the lawn's velvet was exquisitely spotted with sheep a considerable flock of which roamed about the veil in company with three tamed deer and a vast number of brilliantly bloomed ducks a very large mastiff seemed to be in vigilant attendance upon these animals each and all along the eastern and western clips where toward the upper portion of the amphitheater the boundaries were more or less precipitous grew ivy and great to profusion so that only here and there could even a glimpse of the naked rock be obtained the northern precipice in like manner was almost entirely clothed by great finds of rare luxurients some springing from the soil at the base of the cliff and others from ledges on its face the slight elevation which formed the lower boundary of this little domain was crowned by a neat stone wall of sufficient height to prevent the escape of the thea nothing of the fence kind was observable elsewhere for nowhere else was an artificial enclosure needed any stray sheep for example, which should attempt to make its way out of the veil by means of the ravine would find its progress arrested after a few yards advance by the precipitous ledge of rock over which tumbled the cascade that had rested my attention as I first drew near the domain in short the only ingress or egress was through a gate occupying a rocky pass in the road a few paces below the point which had stopped to recontract the site I have described the brook as meandering very irregularly through the whole of its course its two general directions as I have said were first from west to east and then from north to south after the turn the stream sweeping backward made an almost circular loop so as to form a peninsula which was very nearly an island and which included about the 16th of an acre on this peninsula stood a dwelling house and when I say that this house like the infernal terrace in my vatek était d'une architecture encore nous dans les annelles de la terre I mean merely that it is tout ensemble struck me with a keenest sense of combined novelty and propriety in a word of poetry for than in the words just employed I could scarcely give of poetry in the abstract a more rigorous definition and I do not mean that merely outre was perceptible with any respect in fact nothing could well be more simple more utterly unpretending than this cottage its marvellous effect lay altogether in its artistic arrangement as a picture I could have fancied while I looked at it that some eminent landscape painter had built it with his brush the point of view from which I first saw the valley was not altogether although it was nearly the best point from which to survey the house I will therefore describe it as I afterwards saw it from a position on the stone wall at the southern extreme of the amphitheatre the main building was about 24 feet long and 16 broad certainly not more its total height from the ground to the apex of the roof could not have exceeded 18 feet to the west end of this structure was attached one about a third smaller in all its proportions the line of its front standing back about two yards from that of the larger house and the line of its roof of course being considerably depressed below that of the roof adjoining at right angles to these buildings and from the rear of the main one not exactly in the middle extended a third compartment very small being in general one third less than the western wing the roofs of the two larger were very steep sweeping down from the ridge beam with a long concave curve and extending at least four feet beyond the walls in front so as to form the roofs of two piazzas these latter roofs of course needed no support but they had the air of needing it slight and perfectly plain pillars were inserted at the corners alone the roof of the northern wing was merely an extension of a portion of the main roof between the chief building and western wing arose the very tall and rather slender square chimney of hard Dutch bricks alternately black and red the slight cornice of projecting bricks at the top over the gables the roof also projected very much in the main building about four feet to the east and two to the west the tall door was not exactly in the main division being a little to the east while the two windows were to the west these latter did not extend to the floor but were much longer and narrower than usual they had single shutter-like doors the panes were of lozenge form but quite large the door itself had its upper half of glass also in lozenge panes a movable shutter secured to it at night the door to the west wing was in its gable and quite simple a single window looked out to the south there was no external door to the north wing and it also only had one window to the east the blank wall of the eastern gable was relieved by stairs with a balustrade running diagonally across it the ascent being from the south under cover of the widely projecting eve steps gave access to a door leading to the garret or rather loft for it was lighted only by a single window to the north and seemed to be intended as a storeroom the piazzas of the main building and western wing had no floors as is usual but at the doors and at each window large flat irregular slab of granite lay embedded in the delicious turf affording comfortable footing in all weather excellent parts of the same material not nicely adapted but with the velvety sod filling frequent intervals between the stones led hither and thither from the house to a crystal spring about five paces off to the road or to one or two out houses that laid the north beyond the brook and were thoroughly concealed by a few locusts and cut-uplers not more than six steps from the main door of the cottage stood the dead trunk of a fantastic pear tree so clothed from head to foot in the gorgeous begonia blossoms that one required no little scrutiny to determine what matter a sweet thing it could be from various arms to this tree and cages of different kinds in one a large wicker cylinder with a ring at top revealed a mockingbird in another an aural in a third the impudent bobble ink while three or four more delicate prisons were soundly vocal with canaries the pillars of the piazza were in wreath and jasmine and sweet honeysuckle while from the angle formed by the main structure and its west wing in front sprang a grapevine of unexampled luxurience scorned or restrained it clambered first to the lower roof then to the higher and along the ridge of this latter it continued to ride on to the right and left until at length it fairly attained around the east gable and fell trailing over the stairs the whole house with its wings was constructed of the old fashion Dutch shingles broad and with unrounded corners it is a peculiarity of this material to give houses built of it the appearance of being wider at the bottom than at the top after the manner of Egyptian architecture and in the present instance this exceedingly picturesque effect was aided by numerous pots of gorgeous flowers that almost encompass the base of the buildings the shingles were painted a dull grey and the happiness with which this neutral tint melted into the vivid green of the chew-up tree leaves that partially overshadowed the cottage can readily be conceived by an artist from the position near the stone wall as described the buildings were seen at great advantage for the south-eastern angles thrown forward so that the eye took in at once the hole at the two fronts with a picturesque eastern gable and at the same time obtained just a sufficient glimpse of the northern wing with parts of it pretty roofed to the spring house and nearly half of a light bridge that spammed the brook in the near vicinity of the main buildings I did not remain very long on the brow of the hill although long enough to make a thorough survey of the scene it was clear that I had wandered from the road to the village and I had thus good travellers excuse to open the gate before me and inquire my way at all events so without more ado I proceeded the road after passing the gate seemed to lie upon a natural ledge sloping gradually down the face of the north-eastern cliffs it led me onto the foot of the northern precipice and thence over the bridge round by the eastern gable to the front door in this progress I took notice that no sight of the outhouses could be obtained as I turned to the corner of the gable the mastiff bound towards me in stern silence but with the eye and the whole air of a tiger I held him out my hand however in a token of amnesty I never yet knew the dog who was proof against such an appeal to his courtesy he not only shut his mouth and wagged his tail but absolutely offered me his poor afterward extending his abilities to Ponto as no bell was discernable I wrapped with my stick against the door which stood half open instantly a figure advanced the threshold that of a young woman about 28 years of age slender or rather slight and somewhat above the medium height as she approached with a certain modest decision of step altogether indescribable I said to myself surely here I have found the perfection of natural in contradiction from artificial grace the second impression which she made on me but by far the more vivid of the two was that of enthusiasm so intense an expression of romance perhaps I should call it or of unworldliness as that which gleamed from her deep set eyes had never so sunk into my heart of hearts before I know not how it is but this peculiar expression of the eye reading itself occasionally into the lips is the most powerful if not absolutely the sole spell which rivets my interest in women romance provided by my readers fully comprehended what I would here imply by the word romance and womanliness seem to me convertible terms and after all what man truly loves in women is simply her womanhood the eyes of Annie I heard someone from the interior call her Annie darling was spiritual grey her hair a light chestnut this is all I had time to observe of her at her most courteous of invitations I entered passing first into a tolerably wide vestibule having come mainly to observe I took notice that to my right as I stepped in was a window such as those in the front of the house to the left a door leading into the principal room while opposite me the open door enabled me to see a small apartment just the size of the vestibule arranged as a study and having a large bow window looking out to the north passing into the parlour I found myself with Mr. Landor for this I afterwards found was his name he was civil even cordial in his manner but just then I was more intent on observing the arrangements of the dwelling which interested me than the personal appearance of the tenant the north wing I now saw was a bed chamber its door opened into the parlour west of this door was a single window looking toward the brook at the west end of the parlour were a fireplace and a door leading into the west ring probably a kitchen nothing could be more rigorously simple than the furniture of the parlour on the floor was an ingrained carpet of excellent texture a white ground spotted with small circular green figures at the windows were curtains of snowy white jackanette muslin they were tolerably full and hung decisively perhaps rather formally in sharp parallel plaques to the floor just to the floor the walls were prepared with a French paper of great delicacy a silver ground with a faint green cord running zigzag throughout its expanse was relieved merely by three of Julian's exquisite lithographs, a toacrion fastened to the wall without frames one of these drawings was a scene of oriental luxury or rather voluptuousness another was a carnival piece spirited beyond compare the third was a Greek female head a face so divinely beautiful and yet of an expression so provokingly indeterminate never before arrested my attention the more substantial furniture consisted of a round table a few chairs including a large rocking chair and a sofa or rather settee its material was plain maple crainted in a creamy white slightly interstriped with green the seat of cane the chairs and table were to match but the forms of all had evidently been designed by the same brain which planned the grounds it is impossible to conceive anything more graceful on the table were a few books a large square crystal bottle of some novel perfume a plain ground glass astral not solar lamp with an Italian shade and of large vards of resplendently blooming flowers indeed of gorgeous colours and delicate odour formed a sole mere decoration of the apartment the fireplace was nearly filled with a vase of brilliant geranium on a triangular shelf in each angle of the room stood also a similar vase carried only as to its lovely contents one or two smaller bouquets adorned the mantel and late violets clustered about the open windows it is not the purpose of this work to do more than give in detail a picture of Mr. Landor's residence as I found it how he made it what it was and why with some particular Mr. Landor himself may possibly from the subject of another article End of Landor's Cottage Recording by Hannah Dowell