



The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven Edition

VOLUME V.




Contents


 PHILOSOPHY OF FURNITURE
 A TALE OF JERUSALEM
 THE SPHINX
 HOP-FROG
 THE MAN OF THE CROWD
 NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD
 THOU ART THE MAN
 WHY THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND IN A SLING
 BON-BON
 SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE
 OLD ENGLISH POETRY

 =POEMS=
 PREFACE
 POEMS OF LATER LIFE
 THE RAVEN
 THE BELLS
 ULALUME
 TO HELEN
 ANNABEL LEE
 A VALENTINE
 AN ENIGMA
 FOR ANNIE
 TO F——
 TO FRANCES S. OSGOOD
 ELDORADO
 TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)
 O MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)
 THE CITY IN THE SEA
 THE SLEEPER
 NOTES

 =POEMS OF MANHOOD=
 LENORE
 TO ONE IN PARADISE
 THE COLISEUM
 THE HAUNTED PALACE
 THE CONQUEROR WORM
 SILENCE
 DREAM-LAND
 HYMN
 TO ZANTE
 SCENES FROM “POLITIAN”
 POEMS OF YOUTH
 INTRODUCTION TO POEMS—1831
 _LETTER TO MR. B—._
 SONNET—TO SCIENCE
 AL AARAAF
 TAMERLANE
 TO HELEN
 THE VALLEY OF UNREST
 ISRAFEL
 TO ——
 TO ——
 TO THE RIVER——
 SONG
 SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
 A DREAM
 ROMANCE
 FAIRY-LAND
 THE LAKE —— TO——
 EVENING STAR
 “THE HAPPIEST DAY.”
 IMITATION
 HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS
 DREAMS
 “IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE”
 NOTES

 =DOUBTFUL POEMS=
 ALONE
 TO ISADORE
 THE VILLAGE STREET
 THE FOREST REVERIE
 NOTES




PHILOSOPHY OF FURNITURE. In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their
      residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little
      sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, _meliora probant,
      deteriora _sequuntur—the people are too much a race of gadabouts
      to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a
      delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The
      Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are _poor _decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an
      indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are _all
      _curtains—a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The
      Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are
      preposterous. How this happens, it is not difficult to see. We have no aristocracy of
      blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable
      thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars, the _display
      of wealth _has here to take the place and perform the office of the
      heraldic display in monarchical countries. By a transition readily
      understood, and which might have been as readily foreseen, we have been
      brought to merge in simple _show_ our notions of taste itself. To speak less abstractly. In England, for example, no mere parade of
      costly appurtenances would be so likely as with us, to create an
      impression of the beautiful in respect to the appurtenances themselves—or
      of taste as regards the proprietor:—this for the reason, first, that
      wealth is not, in England, the loftiest object of ambition as constituting
      a nobility; and secondly, that there, the true nobility of blood,
      confining itself within the strict limits of legitimate taste, rather
      avoids than affects that mere costliness in which a _parvenu _rivalry
      may at any time be successfully attempted. The people _will _imitate the nobles, and the result is a thorough
      diffusion of the proper feeling. But in America, the coins current being
      the sole arms of the aristocracy, their display may be said, in general,
      to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace,
      looking always upward for models, are insensibly led to confound the two
      entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of
      an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly the sole
      test of its merit in a decorative point of view—and this test, once
      established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily traceable
      to the one primitive folly. There could be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist
      than the interior of what is termed in the United States—that is to
      say, in Appallachia—a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual
      defect is a want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would
      of the keeping of a picture—for both the picture and the room are
      amenable to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of
      art; and very nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher merits
      of a painting, suffice for decision on the adjustment of a chamber. A want of keeping is observable sometimes in the character of the several
      pieces of furniture, but generally in their colours or modes of adaptation
      to use _Very _often the eye is offended by their inartistic
      arrangement. Straight lines are too prevalent—too uninterruptedly
      continued—or clumsily interrupted at right angles. If curved lines
      occur, they are repeated into unpleasant uniformity. By undue precision,
      the appearance of many a fine apartment is utterly spoiled. Curtains are rarely well disposed, or well chosen in respect to other
      decorations. With formal furniture, curtains are out of place; and an
      extensive volume of drapery of any kind is, under any circumstance,
      irreconcilable with good taste—the proper quantum, as well as the
      proper adjustment, depending upon the character of the general effect. Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we still
      very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the
      apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the
      forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an ordinary
      man; a good judge of a carpet _must be _a genius. Yet we have heard
      discoursing of carpets, with the air “_d’un mouton qui reve,” _fellows
      who should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their
      own _moustaches. _Every one knows that a large floor _may _have
      a covering of large figures, and that a small one must have a covering of
      small—yet this is not all the knowledge in the world. As regards
      texture, the Saxony is alone admissible. Brussels is the preterpluperfect
      tense of fashion, and Turkey is taste in its dying agonies. Touching
      pattern—a carpet should _not _be bedizzened out like a Riccaree
      Indian—all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock’s feathers. In brief—distinct
      grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, _of no meaning, _are
      here Median laws. The abomination of flowers, or representations of
      well-known objects of any kind, should not be endured within the limits of
      Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or
      ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this nature should be rigidly
      Arabesque.