Edgar Allan Poe
[Writer, b. 1809, Boston, Massachusetts, d. 1849, Baltimore, Maryland.]
If we examine a work of ordinary art, by means of a powerful microscope, all traces of resemblance to nature will disappear—but the closest scrutiny of the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the thing represented.
(1840) 
[The daguerreotype] itself must undoubtedly be regarded as the most important, and perhaps the most extraordinary triumph of modern science.
