The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

TALES OF NATURAL BEAUTY
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 locustthese again by the softer linden, red-bud, catalpa, and
maple - these yet again by still more graceful and
more 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 hillsides) 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 TulipSifera - 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
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