Landor's Cottage

               A PENDANT TO 'THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM'

     During a pedestrian tour 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 neighbourhood
(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 the most promising 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
anything 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 colour.  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 with a kind of
half-precise, half-negligent, and wholly picturesque definition. 
Clumps of wild flowers grew everywhere, luxuriantly, in the
interspaces.
     What to make of all this, of course I knew not.  Here was
art undoubtedly--that did not surprise me--all roads, in the
ordinary sense, are works of art; nor can I say that there was
much to wonder at in the mere excess of art manifested; all that
seemed to have been done, might have been done here--with such
natural 'capabilities' (as they have it in the books on Landscape
Gardening)--with very little labour and expense.  No; it was not
the amount but the character of the art which caused me to take a
seat on one of the blossomy stones and gaze up and down this
fairy-like avenue for half an hour or more in bewildered
admiration.  One thing became more and more evident the longer I
gazed: an artist, and one with a most scrupulous eye for form,
had superintended all these arrangements.  The greatest care had
been taken to preserve a due medium between the neat and graceful
on the one hand, and the pittoresco, in the true sense of the
Italian term, on the other.  There were few straight, and no long
uninterrupted lines.  The same effect of curvature or of colour,
appeared twice, usually, but not oftener, at any one point of
view.  Everywhere was variety in uniformity.  It was a piece of
'composition', in which the most fastidiously critical taste
could scarcely have suggested an emendation.
     I had turned to the right as I entered the road, and now,
arising, I continued in the same direction.  The path was so
serpentine, that at no moment could I trace its course for more
than two or three paces in advance.  Its character did not
undergo any material change.
     Presently the murmur of water fell gently upon my ear--and
in a few moments afterwards, as I turned with the road somewhat
more abruptly than hitherto, I became aware that a building of
some kind lay at the foot of a gentle declivity just before me. 
I could see nothing distinctly on account of the mist which
occupied all the little valley below.  A gentle breeze, however,
now arose, as the sun was about descending; and while I remained
standing on the brow of the slope, the fog gradually became
dissipated into wreaths, and so floated over the scene.
     As it came fully into view--thus gradually as I describe it-
-piece by piece, here a tree, there a glimpse of water, and here
again the summit of a chimney, I could scarcely help fancying
that the whole was one of the ingenious illusions sometimes
exhibited under the name of 'vanishing pictures'.
     By the time, however, that the fog had thoroughly
disappeared, the sun had made its way down behind the gentle
hills, and thence, as if with a slight chassez to the south, had
come again fully into sight; glaring with a purplish lustre
through a chasm that entered the valley from the west.  Suddenly,
therefore--and as if by the hand of magic--this whole valley and
everything in it became brilliantly visible.
     The first coup d'oeil, as the sun slid into the position
described, impressed me very much as I have been impressed when a
boy, by the concluding scene of some well-arranged theatrical
spectacle or melodrama.  Not even the monstrosity of colour was
wanting; for the sunlight came out through the chasm, tinted all
orange and purple; while the vivid green of the grass in the
valley was reflected more or less upon all objects, from the
curtain of vapour that still hung overhead, as if loth to take
its total departure from a scene so enchantingly beautiful.
     The little vale into which I thus peered down from under the
fog-canopy, could not have been more than four hundred yards
long; while in breadth it varied from fifty to one hundred and
fifty, or perhaps two hundred.  It was most narrow at its
northern extremity, opening out as it tended southwardly, but
with no very precise regularity.  The widest portion was within
eighty yards of the southern extreme.  The slopes which
encompassed the vale could not fairly be called hills, unless at
their northern face.  Here a precipitous ledge of granite arose
to a height of some ninety feet; and, as I have mentioned, the
valley at this point was not more than fifty feet wide; but as
the visitor proceeded southwardly from this cliff, he found on
his right hand and on his left, declivities at once less high,
less precipitous, and less rocky.  All, in a word, sloped and
softened to the south; and yet the whole vale was engirdled by
eminences, more or less high, except at two points.  One of these
I have already spoken of.  It lay considerably to the north of
west, and was where the setting sun made its way, as I have
before described, into the amphitheatre, through a cleanly-cut
natural cleft in the granite embankment; this fissure might have
been ten yards wide at its widest point, so far as the eye could
trace it.  It seemed to lead up, up like a natural causeway, into
the recesses of unexplored mountains and forests.  The other
opening was directly at the southern end of the vale.  Here,
generally, the slopes were nothing more than gentle inclinations,
extending from east to west about one hundred and fifty yards. 
In the middle of this extent was a depression, level with the
ordinary floor of the valley.  As regards vegetation, as well as
in respect to everything else, the scene softened and sloped to
the south.  To the north--on the craggy precipice--a few paces
from the verge--upsprang the magnificent trunks of numerous
hickories, black walnuts, and chestnuts, interspersed with
occasional oak; and the strong lateral branches thrown out by the
walnuts especially, spread far over the edge of the cliff. 
Proceeding southwardly, the explorer saw, at first, the same
class of trees, but less and less lofty and Salvatorish in
character; then he saw the gentler elm, succeeded by the
sassafras and locust--these again by the softer linden, red-bud,
catalpa, and maple--these yet again by still more graceful and
modest varieties.  The whole face of the southern declivity was
covered with wild shrubbery alone--an occasional silver willow or
white poplar excepted.  In the bottom of the valley itself--(for
it must be borne in mind that the vegetation hitherto mentioned
grew only on the cliffs or hill-sides)--were to be seen three
insulated trees.  One was an elm of fine size and exquisite form:
it stood guard over the southern gate of the vale.  Another was a
hickory, much larger than the elm, and altogether a much finer
tree, although both were exceedingly beautiful: it seemed to have
taken charge of the north-western entrance, springing from a
group of rocks in the very jaws of the ravine, and throwing its
graceful body, at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, far out
into the sunshine of the amphitheatre.  About thirty yards east
of this tree stood, however, the pride of the valley, and beyond
all question the most magnificent tree I have ever seen, unless,
perhaps, among the cypresses of the Itchiatuckanee.  It was a
triple-stemmed tulip tree--the Liriodendron Tulipiferum--one of
the natural order of magnolias.  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.  The whole height of the
principal division was one hundred and twenty feet.  Nothing can
surpass in beauty the form, or the glossy, vivid green of the
leaves of the tulip tree.  In the present instance they were
fully eight inches wide; but their glory was altogether eclipsed
by the gorgeous splendour of the profuse blossoms.  Conceive,
closely congregated, a million of the largest and most
resplendent tulips!  Only thus can the reader get any idea of the
picture I would convey.  And then the stately grace of the clean,
delicately-granulated columnar stems, the largest four feet in
diameter, at twenty from the ground.  The innumerable blossoms,
mingling with those of other trees scarcely less beautiful,
although infinitely less majestic, filled the valley with more
than Arabian perfumes.
     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.  It was
hard to conceive how all this beauty had been attained.
     I have spoken of the two openings into the vale.  From the
one to the north-west issued a rivulet, which came, gently
murmuring and slightly foaming, down the ravine, until it dashed
against the group of rocks out of which sprang the insulated
hickory.  Here, after encircling the tree, it passed on a little
to the north of east, leaving the tulip tree some twenty feet to
the south, and making no decided alteration in its course until
it came near the midway between the eastern and western
boundaries of the valley.  At this point, after a series of
sweeps, it turned off at right angles and pursued a generally
southern direction--meandering as it went--until it became lost
in a small lake of irregular figure (although roughly oval), that
lay gleaming near the lower extremity of the vale.  This lakelet
was, perhaps, a hundred yards in diameter at its widest part.  No
crystal could be clearer than its water.  Its bottom, which could
be distinctly seen, consisted altogether of pebbles brilliantly
white.  Its banks, of the emerald grass already described,
rounded, rather than sloped, off into the clear heaven below; and
so clear was this heaven, so perfectly, at times, did it reflect
all objects above it, that where the true bank ended and where
the mimic one commenced, it was a point of no little difficulty
to determine.  The trout, and some other varieties of fish, with
which this pond seemed to be almost inconveniently crowded, had
all the appearance of veritably flying-fish.  It was almost
impossible to believe that they were not absolutely suspended in
the air.  A light birch canoe that lay placidly on the water, was
reflected in its minutest fibres with a fidelity unsurpassed by
the most exquisitely polished mirror.  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.  It
was formed of a single, broad and thick plank of the tulip wood. 
This was forty feet long, and spanned the interval between shore
and shore with a slight but very perceptible arch, preventing all
oscillation.  From the southern extreme of the lake issued a
continuation of the rivulet, which, after meandering for,
perhaps, thirty yards, finally passed through the 'depression'
(already described) in the middle of the southern declivity, and
tumbling down a sheer precipice of a hundred feet, made its
devious and unnoticed way to the Hudson.
     The lake was deep--at some points thirty feet--but the
rivulet seldom exceeded three, while its greatest width was about
eight.  Its bottom and banks were as those of the pond--if a
defect could have been attributed to them, in point of
picturesqueness, it was that of excessive neatness.
     The expanse of the green turf was relieved, here and there,
by an occasional showy shrub, such as the hydrangea, or the
common snow-ball, or the aromatic seringa; or, more frequently,
by a clump of geraniums blossoming gorgeously in great varieties. 
These latter grew in pots which were carefully buried in the
soil, so as to give the plants the appearance of being
indigenous.  Besides all this, the lawn's velvet was exquisitely
spotted with sheep--a considerable flock of which roamed about
the vale, in company with three tamed deer, and a vast number of
brilliantly-plumed ducks.  A very large mastiff seemed to be in
vigilant attendance upon these animals, each and all.
     Along the eastern and western cliffs--where, towards the
upper portion of the amphitheatre, the boundaries were more or
less precipitous--grew ivy in great profusion--so that only here
and there could even a glimpse of the naked rock be obtained. 
The northern precipice, in like manner, was almost entirely
clothed by grape-vines of rare luxuriance; some springing from
the soil at the base of the cliff, and others from ledges on its
face.
     The slight elevation which formed the lower boundary of this
little domain, was crowned by a neat stone wall, of sufficient
height to prevent the escape of the deer.  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.  In
short, the only ingress or egress was through a grate occupying a
rocky pass in the road, a few paces below the point at which I
stopped to reconnoitre the scene.
     I have described the brook as meandering very irregularly
through the whole of its course.  Its two general directions, as
I have said, were first from west to east, and then from north to
south.  At the turn, the stream, sweeping backwards, made an
almost circular loop, so as to form a peninsula which was very
nearly an island, and which included about the sixteenth of an
acre.  On this peninsula stood a dwelling-house--and when I say
that this house, like the infernal terrace seen by Vathek, 'etait
d'une architecture inconnue dans les annales de la terre', I
mean, merely, that its tout ensemble struck me with the keenest
sense of combined novelty and propriety--in a word, of poetry--
(for, than in the words just employed, I could scarcely give, of
poetry in the abstract, a more rigorous definition)--and I do not
mean that the merely outre was perceptible in any respect.
     In fact, nothing could well be more simple--more utterly
unpretending than this cottage.  Its marvellous effect lay
altogether in its artistic arrangement as a picture.  I could
have fancied, while I looked at it, that some eminent landscape-
painter had built it with his brush.
     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.  I will therefore describe it as I afterwards
saw it--from a position on the stone wall at the southern extreme
of the amphitheatre.
     The main building was about twenty-four feet long and
sixteen broad--certainly not more.  Its total height, from the
ground to the apex of the roof, could not have exceeded eighteen
feet.  To the west end of this structure was attached one about a
third smaller in all its proportions:--the line of its front
standing back about two yards from that of the larger house; and
the line of its roof, of course, being considerably depressed
below that of the roof adjoining.  At right angles to these
buildings, and from the rear of the main one--not exactly in the
middle--extended a third compartment, very small--being, in
general, one third less than the western wing.  The roofs of the
two larger were very steep--sweeping down from the ridge-beam
with a long concave curve, and extending at least four feet
beyond the walls in front, so as to form the roofs of two
piazzas.  These latter roofs, of course, needed no support; but
as they had the air of needing it, slight and perfectly plain
pillars were inserted at the corners alone.  The roof of the
northern wing was merely an extension of a portion of the main
roof.  Between the chief building and western wing arose a very
tall and rather slender square chimney of hard Dutch bricks,
alternately black and red:--a slight cornice of projecting bricks
at the top.  Over the gables, the roofs also projected very
much:--in the main building about four feet to the east and two
to the west.  The principal door was not exactly in the main
division, being a little to the east--while the two windows were
to the west.  These latter did not extend to the floor, but were
much longer and narrower than usual--they had single shutters
like doors--the panes were of lozenge form, but quite large.  The
door itself had its upper half of glass, also in lozenge panes--a
moveable shutter secured it at night.  The door to the west wing
was in its gable, and quite simple--a single window looked out to
the south.  There was no external door to the north wing, and it,
also, had only one window to the east.
     The blank wall of the eastern gable was relieved by stairs
(with a balustrade) running diagonally across it--the ascent
being from the south.  Under cover of the widely-projecting eave
these steps gave access to a door leading into the garret, or
rather loft--for it was lighted only by a single window to the
north, and seemed to have been intended as a store-room.
     The piazzas of the main building and western wing had no
floors, as is usual; but at the doors and at each window, large,
flat, irregular slabs of granite lay imbedded in the delicious
turf, affording comfortable footing in all weather.  Excellent
paths of the same material--not nicely adapted, but with the
velvety sod filling frequent intervals between the stones, led
hither and thither from the house, to a crystal spring about five
paces off, to the road, or to one or two outhouses that lay to
the north, beyond the brook, and were thoroughly concealed by a
few locusts and catalpas.
     Not more than six steps from the main door of the cottage
stood the dead trunk of a fantastic pear-tree, so clothed from
head to foot in the gorgeous bignonia blossoms that one required
no little scrutiny to determine what manner of sweet thing it
could be.  From various arms of this tree hung cages of different
kinds.  In one, a large wicker cylinder with a ring at top,
revelled a mocking bird; in another, an oriole; in a third, the
impudent bobolink--while three or four more delicate prisons were
loudly vocal with canaries.
     The pillars of the piazza were enwreathed in jasmine and
sweet honeysuckle; while from the angle formed by the main
structure and its west wing, in front, sprang a grape-vine of
unexampled luxuriance.  Scorning all restraint, it had clambered
first to the lower roof--then to the higher; and along the ridge
of this latter it continued to writhe on, throwing out tendrils
to the right and left, until at length it fairly attained the
east gable, and fell trailing over the stairs.
     The whole house, with its wings, was constructed of the old-
fashioned Dutch shingles--broad, and with unrounded corners.  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.
     The shingles were painted a dull grey; and the happiness
with which this neutral tint melted into the vivid green of the
tulip tree leaves that partially overshadowed the cottage, can
readily be conceived by an artist.
     From the position near the stone wall, as described, the
buildings were seen at great advantage--for the south-eastern
angle was thrown forward--so that the eye took in at once the
whole of the two fronts, with the picturesque eastern gable, and
at the same time obtained just a sufficient glimpse of the
northern wing, with parts of a pretty roof to the spring-house,
and nearly half of a light bridge that spanned the brook in the
near vicinity of the main buildings.
     I did not remain very long on the brow of the hill, although
long enough to make a thorough survey of the scene at my feet. 
It was clear that I had wandered from the road to the village,
and I had thus good traveller's excuse to open the gate before
me, and inquire my way, at all events; so, without more ado, I
proceeded.
     The road, after passing the gate, seemed to lie upon a
natural ledge, sloping gradually down along the face of the
north-eastern cliffs.  It led me on to the foot of the northern
precipice, and thence over the bridge, round by the eastern gable
to the front door.  In this progress, I took notice that no sight
of the out-houses could be obtained.
     As I turned the corner of the gable, the mastiff bounded
towards me in stern silence, but with the eye and the whole air
of a tiger.  I held him out my hand, however, in token of amity--
and I never yet knew the dog who was proof against such an appeal
to his courtesy.  He not only shut his mouth and wagged his tail,
but absolutely offered me his paw--afterwards extending his
civilities to Ponto.
     As no bell was discernible, I rapped with my stick against
the door, which stood half open.  Instantly a figure advanced to
the threshold--that of a young woman about twenty-eight years of
age--slender, or rather slight, and somewhat above the medium
height.  As she approached, with a certain modest decision of
step altogether indescribable, I said to myself, 'Surely here I
have found the perfection of natural, in contra-distinction from
artificial grace.'  The second impression which she made on me,
but by far the more vivid of the two, was that of enthusiasm.  So
intense an expression of romance, perhaps I should call it, or of
unworldliness, as that which gleamed from her deep-set eyes, had
never so sunk into my heart of hearts before.  I know not how it
is, but this peculiar expression of the eye, wreathing itself
occasionally into the lips, is the most powerful, if not
absolutely the sole spell, which rivets my interest in woman. 
'Romance', provided my readers fully comprehend 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.  The eyes of Annie (I heard some one
from the interior call her 'Annie, darling!') were 'spiritual
grey'; her hair, a light chestnut: this is all I had time to
observe of her.
     At her most courteous of invitations, I entered--passing
first into a tolerably wide vestibule.  Having come mainly to
observe, I took notice that to my right as I stepped in, was a
window, such as those in front of the house; to the left, a door
leading into the principal room; while, opposite me, an open door
enabled me to see a small apartment, just the size of the
vestibule, arranged as a study, and having a large bow window
looking out to the north.
     Passing into the parlour, I found myself with Mr Landor--for
this, I afterwards found, was his name.  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 north wing, I now saw, was a bed-chamber: its door
opened into the parlour.  West of this door was a single window,
looking towards the brook.  At the west end of the parlour, were
a fire-place, and a door leading into the west wing--probably a
kitchen.
     Nothing could be more rigorously simple than the furniture
of the parlour.  On the floor was an ingrain carpet, of excellent
texture--a white ground, spotted with small circular green
figures.  At the windows were curtains of snowy white jaconet
muslin: they were tolerably full, and hung decisively, perhaps
rather formally, in sharp, parallel plaits to the floor--just to
the floor.  The walls were papered with a French paper of great
delicacy--a silver ground, with a faint green cord running zig-
zag throughout.  Its expanse was relieved merely by three of
Julien's exquisite lithographs a trois crayons, fastened to the
wall without frames.  One of these drawings was a scene of
Oriental luxury, or rather voluptuousness; another was a
'carnival piece', spirited beyond compare; the third was a Greek
female head--a face so divinely beautiful, and yet of an
expression so provokingly indeterminate, never before arrested my
attention.
     The more substantial furniture consisted of a round table, a
few chairs (including a large rocking-chair), and a sofa, or
rather 'settee': its material was plain maple painted a creamy
white, slightly interstriped with green--the seat of cane.  The
chairs and table were 'to match'; but the forms of all had
evidently been designed by the same brain which planned 'the
grounds': it is impossible to conceive anything more graceful.
     On the table were a few books; a large, square, crystal
bottle of some novel perfume; a plain, ground-glass astral (not
solar) lamp, with an Italian shade; and a large vase of
resplendently-blooming flowers.  Flowers indeed of gorgeous
colours and delicate odour, formed the sole mere decoration of
the apartment.  The fire-place was nearly filled with a vase of
brilliant geranium.  On a triangular shelf in each angle of the
room stood also a similar vase, varied only as to its lovely
contents.  One or two smaller bouquets adorned the mantel; and
late violets clustered about the open windows.
     It is not the purpose of this work to do more than give, in
detail, a picture of Mr Landor's residence--as I found it.