...impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime to be felt beyond what they are here," he affirmed. "So beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and...to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable!"50 Yet, if Jefferson had conformed his memory to Burkean categories, he had also confused...

...height about a minute, gave me a violent headache. But the view from beneath is entirely different: If the view from the top be painful and intolerable,...to heaven! The rapture of the spectator is really indescribable!26 One stands before this passage almost with the same sensation as Jefferson stood atop...

...arch approaches the semi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of the ellipsis, which would be the cord of the arch, is many times longer than the transverse....to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable! The fissure continuing narrow, deep, and straight, for a considerable distance above...

...into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet of fixed rocks, and peep over it. Looking down from this height about...to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable! The fissure continuing narrow, deep, and straight, for a considerable distance above...

...arch approaches the semi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of the ellipsis, which would be the cord of the arch, is many times longer than the transverse....to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable! The fissure continuing narrow, deep, and straight, for a considerable distance above...

...parapet and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head ach. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable,...to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable! The fissure continuing narrow, deep, and streight for a considerable distance above...

...the middle, is about 60 feet, but more at the ends . . ." and so on. And then, with hardly a break: "It is impossible for the emotions, arising from the...rapture of the Spectator is really indiscribable!" The treatment of landscape in the Notes recalls a phrase from John Locke's second treatise on government,...

...constituted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large trees. The residue, with the hill on ". . . so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing, as it were, up to heaven." Natural Bridge, H. Fenn, steel engraving from Picturesque America, 1872 both sides, is one solid rock...

...imagination. Adopting the latent literary jargon of romantic enthusiasm, he found the Natural Bridge "so beautiful, an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were, up to Heaven!"11 In a similar passage worthy of Wordsworth, he described the magical view from Monticello:...

...Blue ridge . . . and, descending then to the valley below, the sensation becomes delightful in the extreme. It is impossible for the emotions, arising...rapture of the Spectator is really indiscribable!" (24-25). Notes Introduction 1. For a superb, richly illustrated survey of Virginia landscape art that...