The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4Poe, Edgar Allan
General
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
“There are, properly,” he writes, “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 in harmony with the
hills or plain 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 beautiful harmony and
order, than in the creation of any special wonders or miracles.
The artificial 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 scene, 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 moss-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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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