Poe, Edgar Allen / 2008-07-24 00:00:00

1850
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM
by Edgar Allan Poe
The garden like a lady fair was cut,
That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
The azure fields of Heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flowers of light.
The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew.
That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue.
Giles Fletcher.
FROM his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend
Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere worldly
sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of whom I
speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the doctrines of
Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet- of exemplifying by individual
instance what has been deemed the chimera of the perfectionists. In
the brief existence of Ellison I fancy that I have seen refuted the
dogma, that in man's very nature lies some hidden principle, the
antagonist of bliss. An anxious examination of his career has given me
to understand that in general, from the violation of a few simple laws
of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind- that as a species we
have in our possession the as yet unwrought elements of content- and
that, even now, in the present darkness and madness of all thought
on the great question of the social condition, it is not impossible
that man, the individual, under certain unusual and highly
fortuitous conditions, may be happy.
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