| | 1 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Domain of Arnheim  | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | 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. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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