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Edgar Allan Poe, "Landor's Cottage," The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Lit2Go Edition, (1903), accessed January 30, 2024, https://etc. 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 point of view from which I first saw the valley, was not altogether, although it was nearly, the best point from which to survey the house. Suddenly, therefore—and as if by the hand of magic—this whole valley and every thing in it became brilliantly visible. 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.
A small island, fairly laughing with flowers in full bloom, and affording little more space than just enough for a picturesque little building, seemingly a fowl–house—arose from the lake not far from its northern shore—to which it was connected by means of an inconceivably light—looking and yet very primitive bridge.
In March 1825, John Allan’s uncle and business benefactor William Galt, said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, died and left Allan several acres of real estate. It is a peculiarity of this material to give houses built of it the appearance of being wider at bottom than at top - after the manner of Egyptian architecture; and in the present instance, this exceedingly picturesque effect was aided by numerous pots of gorgeous flowers that almost encompassed the base of the buildings.
I had turned to the right as I entered this road, and now, arising, I continued in the same direction. He was civil, even cordial in his manner, but just then, I was more intent on observing the arrangements of the dwelling which had so much interested me, than the personal appearance of the tenant. The general floor of the amphitheatre was grass of the same character as that I had found in the road; if anything, more deliciously soft, thick, velvety, and miraculously green.Romance, provided my readers fully comprehended what I would here imply by the word - "romance" and "womanliness" seem to me convertible terms: and, after all, what man truly loves in woman, is simply her womanhood. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business. Nothing of the fence kind was observable elsewhere; for nowhere else was an artificial enclosure needed: - any stray sheep, for example, which should attempt to make its way out of the vale by means of the ravine, would find its progress arrested, after a few yards' advance, by the precipitous ledge of rock over which tumbled the cascade that had arrested my attention as I first drew near the domain. 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.