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The Domain of Arnheim by Edgar Allan Poe · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
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Speaker 1: work in the public domain, the domain of Arnheim Edgar
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Speaker 1: Allan Poe. The garden like a lady fair was cut
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Speaker 1: that lay as if she slumbered in delight, and to
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Speaker 1: the open skies her eyes did shut. The azure fields
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Speaker 1: of heaven were assembled right in a large round set
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Speaker 1: with the flowers of light, the flowers de luce, and
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Speaker 1: the round sparks of dew that hung upon their azure
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Speaker 1: leaves did shoe like twinkling stars that sparkle in the
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Speaker 1: evening blue. Giles Fletcher, from his cradle to his grave
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Speaker 1: gale of prosperity bore my friend Ellison along. Nor do
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Speaker 1: I use the word prosperity in its mere worldly sense.
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Speaker 1: I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of
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Speaker 1: whom I speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing
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Speaker 1: the doctrines of Tragot, Price, Priestley, and condorsa of exemplifying
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Speaker 1: by individual instants what has been deemed the chimera of
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Speaker 1: the perfectionists in the brief existence of Ellis, and I
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Speaker 1: fancy that I have seen refuted the dogma that in
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Speaker 1: man's very nature lies some hidden principle the antagonist of bliss.
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Speaker 1: An anxious examination of his career has given me to
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Speaker 1: understand that, in general, from the violation of a few
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Speaker 1: simple laws of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind. That
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Speaker 1: as a species we have in our possession the as
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Speaker 1: yet unwrought elements of content, and that even now, in
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Speaker 1: the present darkness and madness of all thought on the
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Speaker 1: great question of the social condition, it is not impossible
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Speaker 1: that man the individual, under certain unusual and highly fortuitous conditions,
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Speaker 1: may be happy with opinions such as these. My young friend,
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Speaker 1: too was fully imbued, and thus it is worthy of
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Speaker 1: observation that the uninterrupted enjoyment which distinguished his life was
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Speaker 1: in great measure the result of preconcert. It is indeed
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Speaker 1: evident that with less of the instinctive philosophy which now
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Speaker 1: and then stands so well in the stead of experience,
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Speaker 1: mister Ellison would have found himself precipitated, by the very,
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Speaker 1: very extraordinary success of his life, into the common vortex
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Speaker 1: of unhappiness which yawns for those of pre eminent endowments.
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Speaker 1: But it is by no means my object to pen
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Speaker 1: an essay on happiness. The ideas of my friend may
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Speaker 1: be summed up in a few words. He admitted but
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Speaker 1: four elementary principles, or more strictly, conditions of bliss. That
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Speaker 1: which he considered chief was strange, to say, the simple
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Speaker 1: and purely physical one of free exercise in the open air.
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Speaker 1: The health, he said, attainable by other means, is scarcely
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Speaker 1: worth the name. He instanced the ecstasies of the fox hunter,
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Speaker 1: and pointed to the tillers of the earth, the only
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Speaker 1: people who, as a class can be fairly considered happier
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Speaker 1: than others. His second condition was the love of woman.
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Speaker 1: His third, and most difficult of realization, was the contempt
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Speaker 1: of ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit,
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Speaker 1: and he held that, other things being equal, the extent
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Speaker 1: of attainer happiness was in proportion to the spirituality of
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Speaker 1: this object. Ellison was remarkable in the continuous profusion of
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Speaker 1: good gifts lavished upon him by fortune. In personal grace
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Speaker 1: and beauty, he exceeded all men. His intellect was of
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Speaker 1: that order to which the acquisition of knowledge is less
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Speaker 1: a labor than an intuition and a necessity. His family
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Speaker 1: was one of the most illustrious of the Empire. His
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Speaker 1: bride was the loveliest and most devoted of women. His
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Speaker 1: possessions had been always ample, but on the attainment of
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Speaker 1: his majority, it was discovered that one of those extraordinary
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Speaker 1: freaks of fate had been played in his behalf, which
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Speaker 1: startle the whole social world, amid which they occur, and
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Speaker 1: seldom fail radically to alter the moral constitution of those
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Speaker 1: who are their objects. It appears that about a hundred
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Speaker 1: years before mister Ellison's coming of age, there had died
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Speaker 1: in a remote province, one mister Sebright Ellison. This gentleman
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Speaker 1: had amassed of princely fortune, and having no immediate connections,
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Speaker 1: conceived the whomen of suffering his wealth to accumulate for
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Speaker 1: a century after his decease. Minutely and sagaciously directing the
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Speaker 1: various modes of investment, he bequeathed the aggregate amount to
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Speaker 1: the nearest of blood bearing the name of Ellison, who
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Speaker 1: should be alive at the end of the hundred years.
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Speaker 1: Many attempts had been made to set aside this singular bequest,
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Speaker 1: their ex post facto character rendered them abortive, but the
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Speaker 1: attention of a jealous government was aroused, and a legislative
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Speaker 1: act finally obtained forbidding all similar accumulations. This act, however,
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Speaker 1: did not prevent young Ellison from entering into possession on
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Speaker 1: his twenty first birthday as the heir of his ancestor
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Speaker 1: seabright of a fortune of four hundred and fifty millions
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Speaker 1: of dollars. When it had become known that such was
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Speaker 1: the enormous wealth inherited, there were, of course many speculations
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Speaker 1: as to the mode of its disposal. The magnitude and
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Speaker 1: the immediate availability of the sum bewildered all who thought
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Speaker 1: on the topic. The possessor of any appreciable amount of
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Speaker 1: money might been imagined to perform any one of a
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Speaker 1: thousand things, with riches merely surpassing those of any citizen.
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Speaker 1: It would have been easy to suppose him engaging to
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Speaker 1: supreme excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time, or
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Speaker 1: busying himself with political intrigue, or aiming at ministerial power,
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Speaker 1: or purchasing increase of nobility, or collecting large museums of vertu,
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Speaker 1: or playing the munificent patron of letters of science of art,
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Speaker 1: or endowing and bestowing his name upon extensive institutions of charity,
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Speaker 1: but for the inconceivable wealth in the actual possession of
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Speaker 1: the air, these objects and all ordinary objects were felt
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Speaker 1: to afford too limited a field. Recourse was had to figures,
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Speaker 1: and these, but suffice to confound. It was seen that
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Speaker 1: even at three percent, the annual income of the inheritance
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Speaker 1: amounted to no less than thirteen millions and five hundred
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Speaker 1: thousand dollars, which was one million and one hundred and
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Speaker 1: twenty five thousand per month, or thirty six thousand, nine
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Speaker 1: hundred eighty six per day, or one thousand, five hundred
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Speaker 1: forty one per hour, or six and twenty dollars for
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Speaker 1: every minute that flew. Thus the usual track of supposition
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Speaker 1: was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to imagine.
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Speaker 1: There were some who even conceived that mister Ellison would
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Speaker 1: divest himself of at least one half of his fortune
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Speaker 1: as of utterly superfluous opulence, enriching whole troops of his
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Speaker 1: relatives by division of his superabundance to the nearest of these.
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Speaker 1: He did, in fact, abandoned the very unusual wealth which
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Speaker 1: was his own before the inheritance. I was not surprised, however,
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Speaker 1: to perceive that he had long made up his mind
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Speaker 1: on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to
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Speaker 1: his friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature
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Speaker 1: of his decision. In regard to individual charities. He had
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Speaker 1: satisfied his conscience in the possibility of any improvement properly
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Speaker 1: so called being affected by man himself. In the general
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Speaker 1: condition of man, he had, I am sorry to confess
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Speaker 1: it little faith upon the whole, whether happily or unhappily,
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Speaker 1: He was thrown back in very great measure upon self.
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Speaker 1: In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet.
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Speaker 1: He comprehended moreover, the true character the august aims, the
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Speaker 1: supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest,
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Speaker 1: if not the sole, proper satisfaction of this sentiment he
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Speaker 1: instinctively felt to lie in the creation of novel forms
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Speaker 1: of beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his early education or
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Speaker 1: in the nature of his intellect, had tinged with what
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Speaker 1: is termed materialism all his ethical speculations, and it was
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Speaker 1: this bias, perhaps which led him to believe that the
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Speaker 1: most advantageous, at least, if not the sole, legitimate field
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Speaker 1: for the poetic exercise lies in the creation of novel
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Speaker 1: moods of purely physical loveliness. Thus it happened he became
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Speaker 1: neither musician nor poet, if we use this latter term
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Speaker 1: in its every day acceptation. Or it might have been
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Speaker 1: that he neglected to become either, merely in pursuance of
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Speaker 1: his idea that in contempt of ambition is to be
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Speaker 1: found one of the essential principles of happiness on earth.
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Speaker 1: Is it not indeed possible that while a high order
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Speaker 1: of genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is above that
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Speaker 1: which is termed ambition. And may it not thus happen
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Speaker 1: that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained mute
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Speaker 1: and inglorious. I believe that the world has never seen
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Speaker 1: and that unless, through some series of accidents goading the
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Speaker 1: noblest order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will
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Speaker 1: never see that full extent of triumphant execution in the
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Speaker 1: richer domains of art, of which the human nature is
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Speaker 1: absolutely capable. Ellison became neither musician nor poet, although no
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Speaker 1: man lived more profoundly enamored of music and poetry. Under
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Speaker 1: other circumstances, than those which invested him. It is not
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Speaker 1: impossible that he would have become a painter. Sculpture, although
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Speaker 1: in its nature rigorously poetic, was too limited in its
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Speaker 1: extent and consequences to have occupied at any time much
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Speaker 1: of his attention. And I have now mentioned all the
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Speaker 1: provinces in which the common understanding of the poetic sentiment
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Speaker 1: has declared it capable of expatiating. But Ellison maintained that
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Speaker 1: the richest, the truest, and most natural, if not altogether
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Speaker 1: the most extensive province, had been unaccountably neglected. No definition
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Speaker 1: had spoken of the landscape gardener as of the poet.
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Speaker 1: Yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of
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Speaker 1: the landscape garden offered to the proper muse the most
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Speaker 1: magnificent of opportunities. Here, indeed, was the fairest field for
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Speaker 1: the display of imagination, in the endless combining of forms
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Speaker 1: of novel beauty, the elements to enter into combination being
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Speaker 1: by a vast superiority the most glorious which the Earth
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Speaker 1: could afford. In the multiform and multicolor of the flowers
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Speaker 1: and the trees, he recognized the most direct and energetic
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Speaker 1: efforts of nature at physical loveliness, and in the direction
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Speaker 1: or concentrate of this effort, or more properly, in its
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Speaker 1: adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth,
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Speaker 1: he perceived that he should be employing the best means,
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Speaker 1: laboring to the greatest advantage in the fulfillment not only
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Speaker 1: of his own destiny as poet, but of the august
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Speaker 1: purposes for which the Deity had implanted the poetic sentiment
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Speaker 1: in man its adaptation to the eyes which were to
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Speaker 1: behold it on earth. In his explanation of this phraseology,
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Speaker 1: mister Ellison did much towards solving what has always seemed
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Speaker 1: to me an enigma. I mean, the fact which none
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Speaker 1: but the ignorant dispute, that no such combination of scenery
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Speaker 1: exists in nature as the painter of Genius may produce.
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Speaker 1: No such paradises are to be found in reality as
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Speaker 1: have glowed on the canvas of Claude. In the most
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Speaker 1: enchanting of natural landscapes, there will always be found a
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Speaker 1: defect or an excess, many excesses and defects. While the
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Speaker 1: component parts may defy individually the highest skill of the artist,
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Speaker 1: the arrangement of these parts will always be susceptible of improvement.
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Speaker 1: In short, no position can be attained on the wide
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Speaker 1: surface of the natural earth from which an artistical looking
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Speaker 1: steadily will not find matter of offense in what is
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Speaker 1: termed the composition of the landscape. And yet how unintelligible
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Speaker 1: is this In all other matters. We are justly instructed
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Speaker 1: to regard nature as supreme. With her details. We shrink
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Speaker 1: from competition. Who shall presume to imitate the colors of
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Speaker 1: the tulip, or to improve the proportions of the lily
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Speaker 1: of the valley. The criticism which says, of sculpture or
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Speaker 1: portraiture that here nature is to be exalted or idealized,
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Speaker 1: rather than imitated, is in error. No pictorial or sculptural
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Speaker 1: combinations of points of human liveliness do more than approach
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Speaker 1: the living and breathing beauty in landscape alone is the
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Speaker 1: principle of the critic true, and having felt its truth here,
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Speaker 1: it is but the headlong spirit of generalization which has
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Speaker 1: led him to pronounce it true throughout all the domains
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Speaker 1: of art, having i say, felt its truth here. For
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Speaker 1: the feeling is no affectation or chimera. The mathematics afford
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Speaker 1: no more absolute demonstrations than the sentiments of his art
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Speaker 1: yields the artist. He not only believes, but positively knows
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Speaker 1: that such and such apparently arbitrary arrangements of matter constitute,
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Speaker 1: and alone constitute, the true beauty. His reasons, however, have
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Speaker 1: not yet been matured into expression. It remains for a
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Speaker 1: more profound analysis than the world has yet seen fully
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Speaker 1: to investigate and express them. Nevertheless, he is confirmed in
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Speaker 1: his instinctive opinions by the voice of all his brethren.
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Speaker 1: Let a composition be defective. Let an emendation be wrought
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Speaker 1: in its mere arrangement of form. Let this emendation be
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Speaker 1: submitted to every artist in the world. By each will
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Speaker 1: its necessity be admitted. And even far more than this,
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Speaker 1: in remedy of the defective composition, each insulated member of
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Speaker 1: the fraternity would have suggested the identical emendation. I repeat that,
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Speaker 1: in landscape arrangements alone is the physical nature susceptible of exaltation,
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Speaker 1: and that therefore her susceptibility of improvement. At this one
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Speaker 1: point was a mystery. I had been unable to solve.
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Speaker 1: My own thoughts on the subject, had rested in the
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Speaker 1: idea that the primitive intention of nature would have so
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Speaker 1: arranged the Earth's surface as to have fulfilled at all
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Speaker 1: points man's sense of perfection in the beautiful, the sublime,
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Speaker 1: or the picturesque. But that this primitive intention had been
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Speaker 1: frustrated by the known geological disturbances, disturbances of form and color,
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Speaker 1: grouping in the correction or a laying of which lies
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Speaker 1: the soul of art. The force of this idea was
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Speaker 1: much weakened, however, by the necessity which it involved, of
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Speaker 1: considering the disturbances abnormal and unadapted to any purpose. It
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Speaker 1: was Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic of death.
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Speaker 1: He thus explained, admit the earthly immortality of man to
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Speaker 1: have been the first intention we have. Then the primitive
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Speaker 1: arrangement of the earth's surface, adapted to his blissful estate,
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Speaker 1: as not existent, but designed. The disturbances were the preparations
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Speaker 1: for his subsequently conceived deathful condition. Now, said my friend,
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Speaker 1: what we regard as exaltation of the landscape may be
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Speaker 1: really such as respects only the moral or human point
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Speaker 1: of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly
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Speaker 1: effect a blemish in the picture. If we can suppose
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Speaker 1: this picture viewed at large in mass, from some point
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Speaker 1: distant from the Earth's surface, although not beyond the limits
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Speaker 1: of its atmosphere. It is easily understood that what might
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Speaker 1: improve a closely scrutinized detail may at the same time
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Speaker 1: injure a general or more distantly observed effect. There may
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Speaker 1: be a class of beings human, once but now invisible
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Speaker 1: to humanity, to whom from afar our disorder may seem
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Speaker 1: order Our unpicturesqueness, picturesque in a word, the earth angels,
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Speaker 1: for whose scrutiny more especially than our own, and for
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Speaker 1: whose death refined appreciation of the beautiful may have been
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Speaker 1: set in array by God the wide landscape gardens of
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Speaker 1: the hemispheres. In the course of discussion, my friend quoted
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Speaker 1: some passages from a writer on landscape gardening, who has
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Speaker 1: been supposed to have well treated his theme. There are
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Speaker 1: properly but two styles of landscape gardening, the natural and
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Speaker 1: the artificial. One seeks to recall the original beauty of
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Speaker 1: the country by adapting its means to the surrounding scenery,
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Speaker 1: cultivating trees in harmony with the hills or plain of
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Speaker 1: the neighboring land, detecting and bringing into practice those nice
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Speaker 1: relations of size, proportion, and color, which hid from the
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Speaker 1: common observer, are revealed everywhere to the experienced student of nature.
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Speaker 1: The result of the natural style of gardening is seen
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Speaker 1: rather in the absence of all defects and incongruities, in
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Speaker 1: the prevalence of a healthy harmony and order, than in
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Speaker 1: the creation of any special wonders or miracles. The artificial
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Speaker 1: style has as many varieties as there are different tastes
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Speaker 1: to gratify. It has a certain general relation to the
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Speaker 1: various styles of building. There are the stately avenues and
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Speaker 1: retirements of Versailles, Italian terraces, and a various mixed Old
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Speaker 1: English style which bears some relation to the domestic Gothic
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Speaker 1: or English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be said against the
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Speaker 1: abuses of the artificial landscape gardening, a mixture of pure
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Speaker 1: art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty.
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Speaker 1: This is partly pleasing to the eye by the show
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Speaker 1: of order and design, and partly moral. A terrace with
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Speaker 1: an old moss covered balustrade calls up at once to
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Speaker 1: the eye the fair forms that have passed there in
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Speaker 1: other days. The slightest exhibition of art is an evidence
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Speaker 1: of care and human interest. From what I have already observed,
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Speaker 1: said Ellison, you will understand that I reject the idea
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Speaker 1: here expressed of recalling the original beauty of the country.
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Speaker 1: The original beauty is never so great as that which
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Speaker 1: may be introduced. Of course, everything depends on the selection
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Speaker 1: of a spot with capabilities. What is said about detecting
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Speaker 1: and bringing into practice this nice relations of size, proportion
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Speaker 1: and color is one of those mere vaguenesses of speech
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Speaker 1: which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought. The phrase quoted
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Speaker 1: may mean any thing or nothing, and guides in no
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Speaker 1: degree that the true result of the natural style of
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Speaker 1: gardening is seen rather in the absence of all defects
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Speaker 1: and incongruities than in the creation of any special wonders
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Speaker 1: or miracles. Is a proposition better suited to the groveling
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Speaker 1: apprehension of the herd than to the fervid dreams of
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Speaker 1: the man of genius. The negative merit suggested, appertains to
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Speaker 1: that hobbling criticism which in letters would elevate Addison into
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Speaker 1: apotheosis in truth, while that virtue, which consists in the
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Speaker 1: mere avoidance of vice, appeals directly to the understanding, and
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Speaker 1: can thus be circumscribed in rule. The loftier virtue, which
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Speaker 1: flames in creation, can be apprehended in its results alone.
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Speaker 1: Rule applies but to the merits of denial, to the
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Speaker 1: excellencies which refrain beyond these. The critical art can but suggest.
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Speaker 1: We may be instructed to build a cato, but we
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Speaker 1: are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or
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Speaker 1: an inferno. The thing done, however, the wonder accomplished, and
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Speaker 1: the capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of the
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Speaker 1: negative school, who, through inability to create, have scoffed at creation,
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Speaker 1: are now found the loudest in applause. What in its
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Speaker 1: chrysalis condition of principle affronted their demure. Reason never fails,
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Speaker 1: in its maturity of accomplishment to extort admiration from their
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Speaker 1: instinct of beauty. The author's observations on the artificial style,
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Speaker 1: continued Ellison, are less objectionable. A mixture of pure art
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Speaker 1: in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty.
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Speaker 1: This is just as also is the reference to the
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Speaker 1: sense of human interest. The principle expressed is incontrovertible, but
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Speaker 1: there may be something beyond it, there may be an object,
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Speaker 1: in keeping with the principle, an object unattainable by the
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Speaker 1: means ordinarily possessed by individuals, yet which, if attained, would
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Speaker 1: lend a charm to the landscape garden, far surpassing that
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Speaker 1: which a sense of merely human interest could bestow. A
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Speaker 1: poet having very unusual pecuniary resources, might, while retaining the
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Speaker 1: necessary idea of art or culture, or, as our author
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Speaker 1: expresses it, of interest, so imbue his designs at once
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Speaker 1: with extent and novelty of beauty, as to convey the
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Speaker 1: sentiment of spiritual interference. It will be seen that in
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Speaker 1: bringing about such result he secures all the advantages of
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Speaker 1: interest or design, while relieving his work of the harshness
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Speaker 1: or technicality of the worldly art. In the most rugged
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Speaker 1: of wildernesses, in the most savage of the scenes of
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Speaker 1: pure nature, there is apparent the art of a creator.
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Speaker 1: Yet this art is apparent to reflection only in no
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Speaker 1: respect has it the obvious force of a feeling. Now
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Speaker 1: let us suppose this sense of the almighty design to
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Speaker 1: be one step depressed, to be brought into something like
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Speaker 1: harmony or consistency with the sense of human art. To
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Speaker 1: form an intermedium between the two. Let us imagine, for example,
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Speaker 1: a landscape whose combined vastness and definitiveness, whose united beauty, magnificence,
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Speaker 1: and strangeness shall convey the idea of care or culture
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Speaker 1: or superintendence on the part of being superior yet akin
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Speaker 1: to humanity. Then the sentiment of interest is preserved, while
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Speaker 1: the art intervalved is made to assume the air of
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Speaker 1: an intermediate or secondary nature, a nature which is not
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Speaker 1: God nor an emanation from God, but which still is
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Speaker 1: nature in the sense of the handiwork of the angels
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Speaker 1: that hover between man and God. It was in devoting
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Speaker 1: his enormous wealth to the embodiment of a vision such
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Speaker 1: as this, in the free exercise in the open air,
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Speaker 1: ensured by the personal superintendence of his plans, in the
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Speaker 1: unceasing object which these plans afforded, in the high spirituality
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Speaker 1: of the object, in the contempt of ambition which it
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Speaker 1: enabled him truly to feel, in the perennial springs with
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Speaker 1: which it gratified without possibility of satiating, that one master
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Speaker 1: passion of his soul, the thirst for beauty above all,
21:03
Speaker 1: It was in the sympathy of a woman not unwomanly,
21:07
Speaker 1: whose loveliness and love enveloped his existence in the purple
21:10
Speaker 1: atmosphere of paradise that Ellison thought to find and found
21:14
Speaker 1: exemption from the ordinary cares of humanity, with a far
21:17
Speaker 1: greater amount of positive happiness than ever glowed in the
21:20
Speaker 1: rapt day dreams of destull. I despair of conveying to
21:24
Speaker 1: the reader any distinct conception of the marvels which my
21:27
Speaker 1: friend did actually accomplish. I wished to describe, but am
21:31
Speaker 1: disheartened by the difficulty of description, and hesitate between detail
21:35
Speaker 1: and generality. Perhaps the better course will be to unite
21:39
Speaker 1: the two in their extremes. Mister Ellison's first step regarded,
21:43
Speaker 1: of course, the choice of a locality, and scarcely had
21:46
Speaker 1: he commenced thinking on this point when the luxuriant nature
21:49
Speaker 1: of the Pacific Islands arrested his attention. In fact, he
21:53
Speaker 1: had made up his mind for a voyage to the
21:55
Speaker 1: South Seas when a knight's reflection induced him to abandon
21:59
Speaker 1: the idea. Were I misanthropic, he said, such a locale
22:03
Speaker 1: would suit me. The thoroughness of its insulation and seclusion,
22:07
Speaker 1: and the difficulty of ingress and egress would in such
22:10
Speaker 1: case be the charm of charms. But as yet I
22:13
Speaker 1: am not timan. I wish the composure, but not the
22:16
Speaker 1: depression of solitude. There must remain with me a certain
22:20
Speaker 1: control over the extent and duration of my repose. There
22:24
Speaker 1: will be frequent hours in which I shall need, too,
22:27
Speaker 1: the sympathy of the poetic in what I have done.
22:30
Speaker 1: Let me seek, then, a spot not far from a
22:33
Speaker 1: populous city, whose vicinity also will best enable me to
22:37
Speaker 1: execute my plans. In search of a suitable place so situated,
22:41
Speaker 1: Ellison traveled for several years, and I was permitted to
22:45
Speaker 1: accompany him a thousand spots with which I was enraptured.
22:48
Speaker 1: He rejected without hesitation, for reasons which satisfied me in
22:53
Speaker 1: the end that he was right. We came at length
22:56
Speaker 1: to an elevated table land of wonderful fertility and beauty,
23:00
Speaker 1: affording a panoramic prospect very little less in extent than
23:03
Speaker 1: that of Etna, and, in Ellison's opinion, as well as
23:06
Speaker 1: my own, surpassing the far famed view from that mountain,
23:09
Speaker 1: in all the true elements of the picturesque, I am aware,
23:13
Speaker 1: said the traveler, as he drew a sigh of deep delight.
23:15
Speaker 1: After gazing on this scene, entranced for nearly an hour,
23:19
Speaker 1: I know that here, in my circumstances, nine tenths of
23:22
Speaker 1: the most fastidious of men would rest content. This panorama
23:27
Speaker 1: is indeed glorious, and I should rejoice in it. But
23:29
Speaker 1: for the excess of its glory, the taste of all
23:33
Speaker 1: the architects I have ever known leads them, for the
23:35
Speaker 1: sake of prospect, to put up buildings on hilltops. The
23:40
Speaker 1: error is obvious. Grandeur in any of its moods, but
23:44
Speaker 1: especially in that of extent, startles, excites, and then fatigues depresses.
23:50
Speaker 1: For the occasional scene, nothing can be better. For the
23:53
Speaker 1: constant view, nothing worse. And in the constant view, the
23:57
Speaker 1: most objectionable phase of grandeur is that of extent. The
24:01
Speaker 1: worst phase of extent that of distance. It is at
24:04
Speaker 1: war with the sentiment and with the sense of seclusion,
24:07
Speaker 1: the sentiment and sense which we seek to humor in
24:10
Speaker 1: retiring to the country, In looking from the summit of
24:13
Speaker 1: a mountain, we cannot help feeling abroad in the world.
24:17
Speaker 1: The heart sick avoid distant prospects as a pestilence. It
24:21
Speaker 1: was not until towards the close of the fourth year
24:23
Speaker 1: of our search that we found a locality with which
24:25
Speaker 1: Ellison professed himself satisfied. It is, of course needless to
24:30
Speaker 1: say where was the locality. The late death of my friend,
24:34
Speaker 1: in causing his domain to be thrown open to certain
24:37
Speaker 1: classes of visitors, has given to Arnheim a species of
24:40
Speaker 1: secret and subdued, if not solemn, celebrity, similar in kind,
24:44
Speaker 1: although infinitely superior in degree, to that which so long
24:47
Speaker 1: distinguished Fontill. The usual approach to Arnheim was by the river.
24:53
Speaker 1: The visitor left the city in the early morning. During
24:56
Speaker 1: the forenoon he passed between shores of a tranquil and
24:59
Speaker 1: domestic beauty on which grazed innumerable sheep, their white fleeces,
25:03
Speaker 1: spotting the vivid green of rolling meadows. By degrees, the
25:07
Speaker 1: idea of cultivation subsided into that of merely pastoral care.
25:12
Speaker 1: This slowly became merged in a sense of retirement, this
25:15
Speaker 1: again in a consciousness of solitude. As the evening approached,
25:19
Speaker 1: the channel grew more narrow, the banks more and more precipitous,
25:23
Speaker 1: and these latter were clothed and rich, more profuse and
25:26
Speaker 1: more somber foliage. The water increased in transparency, The stream
25:32
Speaker 1: took a thousand turns, so that at no moment could
25:35
Speaker 1: its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance than
25:37
Speaker 1: a furlong. At every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within
25:42
Speaker 1: an enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable walls of foliage,
25:46
Speaker 1: a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor, the keel
25:49
Speaker 1: balancing itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark, which,
25:53
Speaker 1: by some accident, having been turned upside down, floated in
25:57
Speaker 1: constant company with the substantial one for the purpose of
26:00
Speaker 1: sustaining it. The channel now became a gorge, although the
26:04
Speaker 1: term is somewhat inapplicable, and I employ it merely because
26:07
Speaker 1: the language has no word which better represents the most striking,
26:11
Speaker 1: not the most distinctive feature of the scene. The character
26:15
Speaker 1: of gorge was maintained only in the height and parallelism
26:18
Speaker 1: of the shores. It was lost altogether in their other traits.
26:22
Speaker 1: The walls of the ravine, through which the clear water,
26:25
Speaker 1: still tranquility flowed, arose to an elevation of one hundred
26:28
Speaker 1: and occasionally of one hundred and fifty feet, and inclined
26:31
Speaker 1: so much toward each other, as in a great measure
26:34
Speaker 1: to shut out the light of day, while the long
26:37
Speaker 1: plume like moss, which depended densely from the intertwining shrubberies overhead,
26:41
Speaker 1: gave the whole chasm and air of funereal gloom. The
26:44
Speaker 1: windings became more frequent and intricate, and seemed often as
26:48
Speaker 1: if returning in upon themselves, so that the voyager had
26:51
Speaker 1: long lost all idea of direction, He was moreover and
26:55
Speaker 1: wrapped in an exquisite sense of the strange. The thought
26:59
Speaker 1: of nature still remained, but her character seemed to have
27:02
Speaker 1: undergone modification. There was a weird symmetry, a thrilling uniformity,
27:06
Speaker 1: a wizard propriety in these her works. Not a dead branch,
27:11
Speaker 1: not a withered leaf, not a stray pebble, not a
27:14
Speaker 1: patch of the brown earth was anywhere visible. The crystal
27:17
Speaker 1: water welled up against the clean granite or the unblemished moss,
27:21
Speaker 1: with a sharpness of outline that delighted while it bewildered
27:24
Speaker 1: the eye. Having threaded the mazes of this channel for
27:28
Speaker 1: some hours, the gloom deepening every moment. A sharp and
27:31
Speaker 1: unexpected turn of the vessel brought it suddenly, as if
27:34
Speaker 1: dropped from heaven into a circular basin of very considerable
27:37
Speaker 1: extent when compared with the width of the gorge. It
27:41
Speaker 1: was about two hundred yards in diameter and girt in
27:43
Speaker 1: at all points but one that immediately fronting the vessel
27:47
Speaker 1: as it entered by hills equal in general height to
27:49
Speaker 1: the walls of the chasm, although of a thoroughly different character.
27:54
Speaker 1: Their side sloped from the water's edge at an angle
27:56
Speaker 1: of some forty five degrees, and they were clothed from
27:59
Speaker 1: base to some not a perceptible point, escaping in a
28:02
Speaker 1: drapery of the most gorgeous flower blossoms, scarcely a green
28:06
Speaker 1: leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating color.
28:10
Speaker 1: This basin was of great depth, but so transparent was
28:13
Speaker 1: the water that the bottom, which seemed to consist of
28:16
Speaker 1: a thick mass of small, round alabaster pebbles, was distinctly
28:20
Speaker 1: visible by glimpses, that is to say, whenever the eye
28:23
Speaker 1: could permit itself not to see far down in the
28:25
Speaker 1: inverted heaven the duplicate blooming of the hills. On these
28:30
Speaker 1: latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of any size.
28:34
Speaker 1: The impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness, warmth, color, quietude, uniformity, softness, delicacy, daintiness, voluptuousness,
28:44
Speaker 1: and a miraculous extremeness of culture that suggested dreams of
28:47
Speaker 1: a new race of fairies, laborious, tasteful, magnificent and fastidious.
28:53
Speaker 1: But as the eye traced upward the myriad tinted slope
28:56
Speaker 1: from its sharp junction with the water to its vague
28:59
Speaker 1: termination amid the folds of overhanging cloud, it became indeed
29:03
Speaker 1: difficult not to fancy a panoramic cataract of rubies, sapphires, opals,
29:08
Speaker 1: and golden onyxes rolling silently out of the sky. The visitor,
29:13
Speaker 1: shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom of
29:15
Speaker 1: the ravine, is delighted but astounded by the full orb
29:18
Speaker 1: of the declining sun, which he had supposed to be
29:21
Speaker 1: already far below the horizon, but which now confronts him
29:24
Speaker 1: and forms the sole termination of an otherwise limitless vista
29:27
Speaker 1: seen through another chasm like rift in the hills. But
29:31
Speaker 1: here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him
29:34
Speaker 1: so far, and descends into a light canoe of ivory
29:37
Speaker 1: stained with Arabesque devices in vivid scarlet, both within and without.
29:42
Speaker 1: The poop and beak of this boat arise high above
29:44
Speaker 1: the water, with sharp points, so that the general form
29:47
Speaker 1: is that of an irregular crescent. It lies on the
29:50
Speaker 1: surface of the bay with the proud grace of a swan.
29:54
Speaker 1: On its ermine floor reposes a single feathery paddle of
29:57
Speaker 1: satin wood, but no oarsmen or attendant is to be seen.
30:01
Speaker 1: The guest is bidden to be of good cheer that
30:04
Speaker 1: the fates will take care of him. The larger vessel disappears,
30:08
Speaker 1: and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies
30:10
Speaker 1: apparently motionless in the middle of the lake. While he
30:14
Speaker 1: considers what course to pursue. However, he becomes aware of
30:17
Speaker 1: a gentle movement in the fairy bark. It slowly swings
30:21
Speaker 1: itself around until its prow points toward the sun. It
30:25
Speaker 1: advances with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity, while the
30:29
Speaker 1: slight ripples it creates seem to break about the ivory
30:31
Speaker 1: side in divinest melody seem to offer the only possible
30:34
Speaker 1: explanation of the soothing yet melancholy music, for whose unseen
30:38
Speaker 1: origin The bewildered voyager looks around him in vain. The
30:42
Speaker 1: canoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista
30:45
Speaker 1: is approached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen.
30:49
Speaker 1: To the right arise a chain of lofty hills, rudely
30:52
Speaker 1: and luxuriantly wooded. It is observed, however, that the trade
30:56
Speaker 1: of exquisite cleanness where the bank dips into the water
30:59
Speaker 1: still prevails. There is not one token of the usual
31:03
Speaker 1: river debris. To the left, the character of the scene
31:07
Speaker 1: is softer and more obviously artificial. Here the bank slopes
31:11
Speaker 1: upward from the stream in a very gentle ascent, forming
31:14
Speaker 1: a broad sward of grass, of a texture resembling nothing
31:17
Speaker 1: so much as velvet, and of a brilliancy of green
31:19
Speaker 1: which would bear comparison with the tint of the purest emerald.
31:23
Speaker 1: This plateau varies in width from ten to three hundred yards,
31:27
Speaker 1: reaching from the river bank to a wall fifty feet high,
31:30
Speaker 1: which extends in an infinity of curves, but following the
31:33
Speaker 1: general direction of the river until lost in the distance
31:36
Speaker 1: to the westward. This wall is of one continuous rock,
31:40
Speaker 1: and has been formed by cutting perpendicularly the once rugged
31:43
Speaker 1: precipice of the streams southern bank, but no trace of
31:46
Speaker 1: the labor has been suffered to remain. The chiseled stone
31:50
Speaker 1: has the hue of ages, and is profusely overhung and
31:53
Speaker 1: overspread with the ivy, the coral, honeysuckle, the egglantine, and
31:57
Speaker 1: the clematis. The uniformity of the top and bottom lines
32:01
Speaker 1: of the wall is fully relieved by occasional trees of
32:04
Speaker 1: gigantic height growing singly or in small groups, both along
32:08
Speaker 1: the plateau and in the domain behind the wall, but
32:10
Speaker 1: in close proximity to it, so that frequent limbs of
32:14
Speaker 1: the black wallnut especially reach over and dip their pendent
32:18
Speaker 1: extremities into the water. Farther back within the domain, the
32:22
Speaker 1: vision is impeded by an impenetrable screen of foliage. These
32:26
Speaker 1: things are observed during the canoe's gradual approach to what
32:29
Speaker 1: I have called the gate of the Vista. On drawing
32:32
Speaker 1: nearer to this, however, its chasmlike appearance vanishes. A new
32:36
Speaker 1: outlet from the bay is discovered to the left, in
32:39
Speaker 1: which direction the wall is also seen to sweep, still
32:42
Speaker 1: following the general course of the stream. Down this new opening,
32:46
Speaker 1: the eye cannot penetrate very far, for the stream accompanied
32:50
Speaker 1: by the wall, still bends to the left until both
32:53
Speaker 1: are swallowed up by the leaves. The boat nevertheless glides
32:58
Speaker 1: magically into the winding channel, and here the shore opposite
33:01
Speaker 1: the wall is found to resemble that opposite the wall.
33:03
Speaker 1: In the strait vista, lofty hills rising occasionally into mountains
33:08
Speaker 1: and covered with vegetation in wild luxuriance, still shut in
33:12
Speaker 1: the scene. Floating gently onward but with a velocity slightly augmented,
33:18
Speaker 1: the voyager, after many short turns, finds his progress apparently
33:22
Speaker 1: barred by a gigantic gait, or rather door of burnished gold,
33:25
Speaker 1: elaborately carved and fretted, and reflecting the direct rays of
33:29
Speaker 1: the now fast sinking sun with an effulgence that seems
33:32
Speaker 1: to reach the whole surrounding forest in flames. This gate
33:36
Speaker 1: is inserted in the lofty wall, which here appears to
33:39
Speaker 1: cross the river at right angles. In a few moments, however,
33:43
Speaker 1: it is seen that the main body of the water
33:45
Speaker 1: still sweeps in a gentle and extensive curve to the left,
33:48
Speaker 1: the wall following it as before, while a stream of
33:51
Speaker 1: considerable volume diverging from the principal one makes its way
33:55
Speaker 1: with a slight ripple under the door, and is thus
33:58
Speaker 1: hidden from sight. The canoe falls into the lesser channel
34:02
Speaker 1: and approaches the gate. Its ponderous wings are slowly and
34:06
Speaker 1: musically expanded. The boat glides between them and commences a
34:10
Speaker 1: rapid descent into a vast amphitheater entirely begirt with purple mountains,
34:14
Speaker 1: whose bases are lathed by a gleaming river throughout the
34:17
Speaker 1: full extent of their circuit. Meantime, the whole paradise of
34:21
Speaker 1: Aarnheim bursts upon the view. There is a gush of
34:25
Speaker 1: entrancing melody. There is an oppressive sense of strange, sweet odour.
34:28
Speaker 1: There is a dreamlike intermingling to the eye of tall,
34:31
Speaker 1: slender eastern trees, bosky shrubberies, flocks of golden and crimson birds,
34:36
Speaker 1: lily fringed lakes, meadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tubrosas,
34:43
Speaker 1: long intertangled lines of silver streamlets and upspringing confusedly from
34:48
Speaker 1: amid all, a mass of semi Gothic, semi Saracenic architecture,
34:52
Speaker 1: sustaining itself by miracle in mid air, glittering in the
34:56
Speaker 1: red sunlight with a hundred orioles, minarets and pinnacles, and
35:00
Speaker 1: seeming the phantom handiwork conjointly of the sylphs of the fairies,
35:05
Speaker 1: of the Genii and of the Gnomes,