The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming the phantom
handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of the
Genii and of the Gnomes.
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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