Now let us suppose this sense of the Almighty
      design to be one step depressed—to be brought into something like
      harmony or consistency with the sense of human art—to form an
      intermedium between the two:—let us imagine, for example, a
      landscape whose combined vastness and definitiveness—whose united
      beauty, magnificence, and strangeness, shall convey the idea of
      care, or culture, or superintendence, on the part of beings
      superior, yet akin to humanity—then the sentiment of interest is
      preserved, while the art intervolved is made to assume the air of
      an intermediate or secondary nature—a nature which is not God,
      nor an emanation from God, but which still is nature in the sense
      of the handiwork of the angels that hover between man and God.”

      It was in devoting his enormous wealth to the embodiment of a
      vision such as this—in the free exercise in the open air ensured
      by the personal superintendence of his plans—in the unceasing
      object which these plans afforded—in the high spirituality of the
      object—in the contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to
      feel—in the perennial springs with which it gratified, without
      possibility of satiating, that one master passion of his soul,
      the thirst for beauty, above all, it was in the sympathy of a
      woman, not unwomanly, whose loveliness and love enveloped his
      existence in the purple atmosphere of Paradise, that Ellison
      thought to find, and found, exemption from the ordinary cares of
      humanity, with a far greater amount of positive happiness than
      ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De Staël. I despair of conveying to the reader any distinct conception of
      the marvels which my friend did actually accomplish. I wish to
      describe, but am disheartened by the difficulty of description,
      and hesitate between detail and generality. Perhaps the better
      course will be to unite the two in their extremes. Mr. Ellison’s first step regarded, of course, the choice of a
      locality, and scarcely had he commenced thinking on this point,
      when the luxuriant nature of the Pacific Islands arrested his
      attention. In fact, he had made up his mind for a voyage to the
      South Seas, when a night’s reflection induced him to abandon the
      idea. “Were I misanthropic,” he said, “such a locale would suit
      me. The thoroughness of its insulation and seclusion, and the
      difficulty of ingress and egress, would in such case be the charm
      of charms; but as yet I am not Timon. I wish the composure but
      not the depression of solitude. There must remain with me a
      certain control over the extent and duration of my repose. There
      will be frequent hours in which I shall need, too, the sympathy
      of the poetic in what I have done. Let me seek, then, a spot not
      far from a populous city—whose vicinity, also, will best enable
      me to execute my plans.”

      In search of a suitable place so situated, Ellison travelled for
      several years, and I was permitted to accompany him. A thousand
      spots with which I was enraptured he rejected without hesitation,
      for reasons which satisfied me, in the end, that he was right. We
      came at length to an elevated table-land of wonderful fertility
      and beauty, affording a panoramic prospect very little less in
      extent than that of Aetna, and, in Ellison’s opinion as well as
      my own, surpassing the far-famed view from that mountain in all
      the true elements of the picturesque. “I am aware,” said the traveller, as he drew a sigh of deep
      delight after gazing on this scene, entranced, for nearly an
      hour, “I know that here, in my circumstances, nine-tenths of the
      most fastidious of men would rest content. This panorama is
      indeed glorious, and I should rejoice in it but for the excess of
      its glory. The taste of all the architects I have ever known
      leads them, for the sake of ‘prospect,’ to put up buildings on
      hill-tops. The error is obvious. Grandeur in any of its moods,
      but especially in that of extent, startles, excites—and then
      fatigues, depresses. For the occasional scene nothing can be
      better—for the constant view nothing worse. And, in the constant
      view, the most objectionable phase of grandeur is that of extent;
      the worst phase of extent, that of distance. It is at war with
      the sentiment and with the sense of seclusion—the sentiment and
      sense which we seek to humor in ‘retiring to the country.’ In
      looking from the summit of a mountain we cannot help feeling
      abroad in the world. The heart-sick avoid distant prospects as a
      pestilence.”

      It was not until toward the close of the fourth year of our
      search that we found a locality with which Ellison professed
      himself satisfied. It is, of course, needless to say where was
      the locality. The late death of my friend, in causing his domain
      to be thrown open to certain classes of visitors, has given to
      Arnheim a species of secret and subdued if not solemn celebrity,
      similar in kind, although infinitely superior in degree, to that
      which so long distinguished Fonthill. The usual approach to Arnheim was by the river. The visitor left
      the city in the early morning. During the forenoon he passed
      between shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed
      innumerable sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green
      of rolling meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided
      into that of merely pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a
      sense of retirement—this again in a consciousness of solitude. As
      the evening approached, the channel grew more narrow; the banks
      more and more precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich,
      more profuse, and more sombre foliage. The water increased in
      transparency. The stream took a thousand turns, so that at no
      moment could its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance
      than a furlong. At every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned
      within an enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable
      walls of foliage, a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor—the
      keel balancing itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom
      bark which, by some accident having been turned upside down,
      floated in constant company with the substantial one, for the
      purpose of sustaining it. The channel now became a gorge—although
      the term is somewhat inapplicable, and I employ it merely because
      the language has no word which better represents the most
      striking—not the most distinctive—feature of the scene.