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Landors Cottage By Edgar Allan Poe
PAGE: 1

LANDOR'S COTTAGE

A Pendant to "The Domain of Arnheim"

DURING A pedestrian trip last summer, through one or two of the river
counties 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
unpleasantly 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 neighborhood (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 the 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 glades that led hither and
thither, were intended to be paths at all, 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 Virginian
mountain wagon -- the most aspiring vehicle, I take it, of its kind.
The road, however, except in being open through the wood -- if wood
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
Genoese velvet than any thing else. It was grass, clearly -- but
grass such as we seldom see out of England -- so short, so thick, so
even, and so vivid in color. Not a single impediment lay in the
wheel-route -- 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 define its boundaries at bottom with a
kind of half-precise, half-negligent, and wholly picturesque
definition. Clumps of wild flowers grew everywhere, luxuriantly, 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, are works of art; nor can I say that there was much to wonder
at in the mere excess of art 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 labor 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 superintended 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, in the true sense of
the Italian term, on the other. There were few straight, and no long
uninterrupted lines. The same effect of curvature or of color
appeared twice, usually, but not oftener, at any one point of view.
Everywhere was variety in uniformity. It was a piece of
"composition," in which the most fastidiously critical taste could
scarcely have suggested an emendation.

I had turned to the right as I entered this road, and now, arising, I
continued in the same direction. The path was so serpentine, that at
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 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 declivity 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 chassez 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 every thing in it became brilliantly
visible.

The first coup d'oeil, 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 color was wanting; for the
sunlight came out through the chasm, tinted all orange and purple;
while the vivid green of the grass in the valley was reflected more
or less upon all objects from the curtain of vapor that still hung
overhead, as if loth to take its total departure from a scene so
enchantingly beautiful.

The little vale into which I thus peered down from under the fog
canopy could not have been more than four hundred yards long; while
in breadth it varied from fifty to one hundred and fifty or perhaps
two hundred. It was most narrow at its northern extremity, opening
out as it tended southwardly, but with no very precise regularity.
The widest portion was within eighty yards of the southern extreme.
The slopes which encompassed the vale could not fairly be called
hills, unless at their northern face. Here a precipitous ledge of
granite arose to a height of some ninety feet; and, as I have
mentioned, the valley at this point was not more than fifty feet
wide; but as the visiter proceeded southwardly from the cliff, he
found on his right hand and on his left, declivities at once less
high, less precipitous, and less rocky. All, in a word, sloped and
softened to the south; and yet the whole vale was engirdled by
eminences, more or less 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 amphitheatre, through a cleanly cut natural cleft in the
granite embankment; this fissure might have been ten 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 recesses of unexplored
mountains and forests. The other opening was directly at the southern
end of the vale. Here, generally, the slopes were nothing more than
gentle inclinations, extending from east to west about one hundred
and fifty 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 every thing 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. Proceeding
southwardly, the explorer saw, at first, the same class of trees, but
less and less lofty and Salvatorish in character; then he saw the
gentler elm, succeeded by the sassafras and locust -- these again by
the softer linden, red-bud, 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 shrubbery alone -- an
occasional silver willow or white poplar excepted. 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 both were exceedingly beautiful: it
seemed to have taken charge of the northwestern entrance, springing
from a group of rocks in the very jaws of the ravine, and throwing
its graceful body, at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, far out
into the sunshine of the amphitheatre. About thirty yards east of
this tree stood, however, the pride of the valley, and beyond all
question the most magnificent tree I have ever seen, unless, perhaps,
among the cypresses of the Itchiatuckanee. It was a triple -- stemmed
tulip-tree -- the Liriodendron Tulipiferum -- one of the natural
order of magnolias. Its 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 at an elevation of about
eighty feet. The whole height of the principal division was one
hundred and twenty 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 of the largest and
most resplendent tulips! Only thus can the reader get any idea of the
picture I would convey. And then the stately grace of the clean,
delicately -- granulated columnar stems, the largest four feet in
diameter, at twenty from the ground. The innumerable blossoms,
mingling with those of other trees scarcely less beautiful, although
infinitely less majestic, filled the valley with more than Arabian
perfumes.

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