The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
composition, each insulated member of the fraternity will suggest
the identical emendation.
I repeat that in landscape arrangements, or collocations alone,
is the physical Nature susceptible of “exaltation” and that,
therefore, her susceptibility of improvement at this one point,
was a mystery which, hitherto I had been unable to solve. It was
Mr. Ellison who first suggested the idea that what we regarded as
improvement or exaltation of the natural beauty, was really such,
as respected only the mortal or human point of view; that each
alteration or disturbance of the primitive scenery might possibly
effect a blemish in the picture, if we could suppose this picture
viewed at large from some remote point in the heavens. “It is
easily understood,” says Mr. Ellison, “that what might improve a
closely scrutinized detail, might, at the same time, injure a
general and more distantly observed effect.” He spoke upon this
topic with warmth: regarding not so much its immediate or obvious
importance (which is little), as the character of the conclusions
to which it might lead, or of the collateral propositions which
it might serve to corroborate or sustain. There might be a class
of beings, human once, but now to humanity invisible, for whose
scrutiny and for whose refined appreciation of the beautiful,
more especially than for our own, had been set in order by God
the great landscape-garden of the whole earth.
In the course of our discussion, my young friend took occasion to
quote some passages from a writer who has been supposed to have
well treated this theme.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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