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During The Whole Of A Dull, Dark, And Soundless Day In The Autumn Of The Year, When The Clouds Hung Oppressively Low In The Heavens, I Had Been Passing Alone, On Horseback, Through A Singularly Dreary Tract Of Country; And At Length Found Myself, As The Shades Of The Evening Drew On, Within View Of The Melancholy House Of Usher. I Know Not How It Was - But, With The First Glimpse Of The Building, A Sense Of Insufferable Gloom Pervaded My Spirit.

-Edgar Allan Poe

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During The Whole Of

Edgar Allan Poe

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During The Whole Of A Dull, Dark, And Soundless Day In The Autumn Of The Year, When The Clouds Hung Oppressively Low In The Heavens, I Had Been Passing Alone, On Horseback, Through A Singularly Dreary Tract Of Country; And At Length Found Myself, As The Shades Of The Evening Drew On, Within View Of The Melancholy House Of Usher. I Know Not How It Was - But, With The First Glimpse Of The Building, A Sense Of Insufferable Gloom Pervaded My Spirit.

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I Am Shadow, And My Dwelling Is Near To The Catacombs Of Ptolemais, And Hard By Those Dim Plains Of Helusion Which Border Upon The Foul Charonian Canal." And Then Did We, The Seven, Start From Our Seats In Horror, And Stand Trembling, And Shuddering, And Aghast, For The Tones In The Voice Of The Shadow Were Not The Tones Of Any One Being, But Of A Multitude Of Beings, And, Varying In Their Cadences From Syllable To Syllable Fell Duskly Upon Our Ears In The Well-remembered And Familiar Accents Of Many Thousand Departed Friends.

The Plots Of God Are Perfect. The Universe Is A Plot Of God.

There Is Something In The Unselfish And Self-sacrificing Love Of A Brute, Which Goes Directly To The Heart Of Him Who Has Had Frequent Occasion To Test The Paltry Friendship And Gossamer Fidelity Of Mere Man.

All That We See Or Seem Is But A Dream Within A Dream.

The Romans Worshipped Their Standard; And The Roman Standard Happened To Be An Eagle. Our Standard Is Only One Tenth Of An Eagle,--a Dollar, But We Make All Even By Adoring It With Tenfold Devotion.

Finally On Sunday Morning, October 7, 1849, "he Became Quiet And Seemed To Rest For A Short Time. Then, Gently, Moving His Head," He Said, "lord Help My Poor Soul." As He Had Lived So He Died-in Great Misery And Tragedy.

I Was A Child And She Was A Child, In This Kingdom By The Sea; But We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love- I And My Annabel Lee; With A Love That The Winged Seraphs Of Heaven Coveted Her And Me.

The Best Things In Life Make You Sweaty.

Decorum -- That Bug-bear Which Deters So Many From Bliss Until The Opportunity For Bliss Has Forever Gone By.

There Are Moments When, Even To The Sober Eye Of Reason, The World Of Our Sad Humanity Must Assume The Aspect Of Hell.

The Generous Critic Fann'd The Poet's Fire, And Taught The World With Reason To Admire.

Philosophers Have Often Held Dispute As To The Seat Of Thought In Man And Brute For That The Power Of Thought Attends The Latter My Friend, Thy Beau, Hath Made A Settled Matter, And Spite Of Dogmas Current In All Ages, One Settled Fact Is Better Than Ten Sages. (o,tempora! O,mores!)

...if You Do Not Take It Up With You In Some Way, I Shall Be Under The Necessity Of Breaking Your Head With This Shovel

In The Marginalia ... We Talk Only To Ourselves; We Therefore Talk Freshly - Boldly - Originally - With Abandonment - Without Conceit.

And Now Was Acknowledged The Presence Of The Red Death. He Had Come Like A Thief In The Night. And One By One Dropped The Revelers In The Blood-bedewed Halls Of Their Revel, And Died Each In The Despairing Posture Of His Fall. And The Life Of The Ebony Clock Went Out With That Of The Last Of The Gay. And The Flames Of The Tripods Expired. And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

It Is Impossible To Say How First The Idea Entered My Brain, But, Once Conceived, It Haunted Me Day And Night.

Men Die Nightly In Their Beds, Wringing The Hands Of Ghostly Confessors ... On Account Of The Hideousness Of Mysteries Which Will Not Suffer Themselves To Be Revealed.

I Could Have Clasped The Red Walls To My Bosom As A Garment Of Eternal Peace. "death," I Said, "any Death But That Of The Pit!" Fool! Might I Have Not Known That Into The Pit It Was The Object Of The Burning Iron To Urge Me?

No Pictorial Or Sculptural Combinations Of Points Of Human Loveliness, Do More Than Approach The Living And Breathing Human Beauty As It Gladdens Our Daily Path.

I Seemed To Be Upon The Verge Of Comprehension, Without The Power To Comprehend As Men, At Time, Find Themselves Upon The Brink Of Rememberance, Without Being Able, In The End, To Remember.

In Criticism I Will Be Bold, And As Sternly, Absolutely Just With Friend And Foe. From This Purpose Nothing Shall Turn Me.

By The Grey Woods, By The Swamp, Where The Toad And Newt Encamp, By The Dismal Tarns And Pools, Where Dwell The Gouls. By Each Spot The Most Unholy, By Each Nook Most Melancholy, There The Traveller Meets, Aghast, Sheeted Memories Of The Past. Shrouded Forms That Start And Sigh, As They Pass The Wanderer By. White-robed Forms Of Friends Long Given; In Agony, To The Earth - And Heaven.

To Speak Algebraically, Mr. M. Is Execrable, But Mr. G. Is (x + 1)- Ecrable.

To Elevate The Soul, Poetry Is Necessary.

Men Have Called Me Mad; But The Question Is Not Yet Settled, Whether Madness Is Or Is Not The Loftiest Intelligence– Whether Much That Is Glorious– Whether All That Is Profound– Does Not Spring From Disease Of Thought– From Moods Of Mind Exalted At The Expense Of The General Intellect.

If A Poem Hasn't Ripped Apart Your Soul; You Haven't Experienced Poetry.

O, Times! O, Manners! It Is My Opinion That You Are Changing Sadly Your Dominion I Mean The Reign Of Manners Hath Long Ceased, For Men Have None At All, Or Bad At Least; And As For Times, Altho' 'tis Said By Many The "good Old Times" Were Far The Worst Of Any, Of Which Sound Doctrine I Believe Each Tittle Yet Still I Think These Worst A Little. I've Been A Thinking -isn't That The Phrase?- I Like Your Yankee Words And Yankee Ways - I've Been A Thinking, Whether It Were Best To Take Things Seriously, Or All In Jest

I Am Excessively Slothful, And Wonderfully Industrious-by Fits. There Are Epochs When Any Kind Of Mental Exercise Is Torture, And When Nothing Yields Me Pleasure But The Solitary Communion With The 'mountains & The Woods'-the 'altars' Of Byron. I Have Thus Rambled And Dreamed Away Whole Months, And Awake, At Last, To A Sort Of Mania For Composition. Then I Scribble All Day, And Read All Night, So Long As The Disease Endures.

And So, Being Young And Dipt In Folly, I Fell In Love With Melancholy.

Now This Is The Point. You Fancy Me A Mad. Madmen Know Nothing. But You Should Have Seen Me. You Should Have Seen How Wisely I Proceeded.

And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

If A Man Deceives Me Once, Shame On Him; If He Deceives Me Twice, Shame On Me.

I Was Never Kinder To The Old Man Than During The Whole Week Before I Killed Him.

It Was Many And Many A Year Ago, In A Kingdom By The Sea, That A Maiden There Lived Whom You May Know By The Name Of Annabel Lee;-- And This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.

The Rudiment Of Verse May, Possibly, Be Found In The Spondee.

I Am Walking Like A Bewitched Corpse, With The Certainty Of Being Eaten By The Infinite, Of Being Annulled By The Only Existing Absurd.

A Fool, For Example, Thinks Shakespeare A Great Poet . . . Yet The Fool Has Never Read Shakespeare.

How Much More Intense Is The Excitement Wrought In The Feelings Of A Crowd By The Contemplation Of Human Agony, Than That Brought About By The Most Appalling Spectacles Of Inanimate Matter.

Thank Heaven! The Crisis /the Danger Is Past, And The Lingering Illness, Is Over At Last /, And The Fever Called ''living'' Is Conquered At Last.

Sound Loves To Revel In A Summer Night.

And Because Our Reason Violently Deters Us From The Brink, Therefore, Do We The More Impetuously Approach It. There Is No Passion In Nature So Demoniacally Impatient, As That Of Him, Who Shuddering Upon The Edge Of A Precipice, Thus Meditates A Plunge. To Indulge For A Moment, In Any Attempt At Thought, Is To Be Inevitably Lost; For Reflection But Urges Us To Forbear, And Therefore It Is, I Say, That We Cannot. If There Be No Friendly Arm To Check Us, Or If We Fail In A Sudden Effort To Prostrate Ourselves Backward From The Abyss, We Plunge, And Are Destroyed.

And The Life Of The Ebony Clock Went Out With That Of The Last Of The Gay. And The Flames Of The Tripods Expired. And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

Deep In Earth My Love Is Lying And I Must Weep Alone.

How Many Good Books Suffer Neglect Through The Inefficiency Of Their Beginnings!

The Want Of An International Copy-right Law, By Rendering It Nearly Impossible To Obtain Anything From The Booksellers In The Wayof Remuneration For Literary Labor, Has Had The Effect Of Forcing Many Of Our Very Best Writers Into The Service Of The Magazines And Reviews.

My Next Thought Concerned The Choice Of An Impression, Or Effect, To Be Conveyed: And Here I May As Well Observe That, Throughout The Construction, I Kept Steadily In View The Design.

Yet, Mad Am I Not — And Very Surely Do I Not Dream.

In [chess], Where The Pieces Have Different And "bizarre" Motions, With Various And Variable Values, What Is Only Complex, Is Mistaken (a Not Unusual Error) For What Is Profound

You Call It Hope-that Fire Of Fire! It Is But Agony Of Desire.

Poetry Is The Rhythmical Creation Of Beauty In Words.

I Hold That A Long Poem Does Not Exist. I Maintain That The Phrase, "a Long Poem," Is Simply A Flat Contradiction In Terms.

Children Are Never Too Tender To Be Whipped. Like Tough Beefsteaks, The More You Beat Them, The More Tender They Become.

The Idea Of God, Infinity, Or Spirit Stands For The Possible Attempt At An Impossible Conception.

Years Of Love Have Been Forgot, In The Hatred Of A Minute.

And So Faintly You Came Tapping, Tapping At My Chamber Door, That I Scarce Was Sure I Heard You"— Here I Opened Wide The Door; — Darkness There, And Nothing More.

...for The Question Is Of Will, And Not, As The Insanity Of Logic Has Assumed Of Power. It Is Not That The Deity Cannot Modify His Laws, But That We Insult Him In Imagining A Possible Necessity For Modification. In Their Origin These Laws Were Fashioned To Embrace All Contingencies Which Could Lie In The Future. With God All Is Now.

The Mere Imitation, However Accurate, Of What Is In Nature, Entitles No Man To The Sacred Name Of Artist

Odors Have An Altogether Peculiar Force, In Affecting Us Through Association; A Force Differing Essentially From That Of Objects Addressing The Touch, The Taste, The Sight Or The Hearing.

We Now Demand The Light Artillery Of The Intellect; We Need The Curt, The Condensed, The Pointed, The Readily Diffused - In Place Of The Verbose, The Detailed, The Voluminous, The Inaccessible. On The Other Hand, The Lightness Of The Artillery Should Not Degenerate Into Pop-gunnery - By Which Term We May Designate The Character Of The Greater Portion Of The Newspaper Press - Their Sole Legitimate Object Being The Discussion Of Ephemeral Matters In An Ephemeral Manner.

Indeed, There Is An Eloquence In True Enthusiasm That Is Not To Be Doubted.

By Undue Profundity We Perplex And Enfeeble Thought; And It Is Possible To Make Even Venus Herself Vanish From The Firmament By A Scrutiny Too Sustained, Too Concentrated, Or Too Direct.

I Remained Too Much Inside My Head And Ended Up Losing My Mind.

That Single Thought Is Enough. The Impulse Increases To A Wish, The Wish To A Desire, The Desire To An Uncontrollable Longing, And The Longing (to The Deep Regret And Mortification Of The Speaker, And In Defiance Of All Consequences,) Is Indulged.

The Customs Of The World Are So Many Conventional Follies.

As For Republicanism, No Analogy Could Be Found For It Upon The Face Of The Earth—unless We Except The Case Of The "prairie Dogs," An Exception Which Seems To Demonstrate, If Anything, That Democracy Is A Very Admirable Form Of Government—for Dogs.

Hear The Sledges With The Bells, Silver Bells! What A World Of Merriment Their Melody Foretells! How They Tinkle, Tinkle, Tinkle, In The Icy Air Of Night, While The Stars That Oversprinkle All The Heavens Seem To Twinkle With A Crystalline Delight: Keeping Time, Time, Time, In A Sort Of Runic Rhyme To The Tintinnabulation That So Musically Wells From The Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells-- From The Jingling And The Tingling Of The Bells.

The Higher Powers Of The Reflective Intellect Are More Decidedly And More Usefully Tasked By The Unostentatious Game Of Draughts Than By All The Elaborate Frivolity Of Chess.

The Past Is A Pebble In My Shoe.

The World Is A Great Ocean, Upon Which We Encounter More Tempestuous Storms Than Calms.

A Strong Argument For The Religion Of Christ Is This - That Offences Against Charity Are About The Only Ones Which Men On Their Death-beds Can Be Made - Not To Understand - But To Feel - As Crime.

There Are Some Secrets Which Do Not Permit Themselves To Be Told.

There Are Few Persons, Even Among The Calmest Thinkers, Who Have Not Occasionally Been Startled Into A Vague Yet Thrilling Half Credence In The Supernatural, By Coincidences Of So Seemingly Marvellous A Character That, As Mere Coincidences, The Intellect Has Been Unable To Receive Them.

In Other Words, I Believed, And Still Do Believe, That Truth, Is Frequently Of Its Own Essence, Superficial, And That, In Many Cases, The Depth Lies More In The Abysses Where We Seek Her, Than In The Actual Situations Wherein She May Be Found.

The Sole Purpose Is To Provide Infinite Springs, At Which The Soul May Allay The Eternal Thirst To Know Which Is Forever Unquenchable Within It, Since To Quench It, Would Be To Extinguish The Soul's Self.

Dreams Are The Eraser Dust I Blow Off My Page. They Fade Into The Emptiness, Another Dark Gray Day. Dreams Are Only Memories Of The Plans I Had Back Then. Dreams Are Eraser Dust And Now I Use A Pen.

Over The Mountains Of The Moon, Down The Valley Of The Shadow, Ride, Boldly Ride," The Shade Replied,- "if You Seek For Eldorado.

As A Poet And As A Mathematician, He Would Reason Well; As A Mere Mathematician, He Could Not Have Reasoned At All.

There Was An Iciness, A Sinking, A Sickening Of The Heart - An Unredeemed Dreariness Of Thought Which No Goading Of The Imagination Could Torture Into Aught Of The Sublime

The People Have Nothing To Do With The Laws But To Obey Them.

I Am Actuated By An Ambition Which I Believe To Be An Honourable One The Ambition Of Serving The Great Cause Of Truth, While Endeavouring To Forward The Literature Of The Country.

There Was Much Of The Beautiful, Much Of The Wanton, Much Of The Bizarre, Something Of The Terrible, And Not A Little Of That Which Might Have Excited Disgust.

I Fell In Love With Melancholy

Few Persons Can Be Made To Believe That It Is Not Quite An Easy Thing To Invent A Method Of Secret Writing That Shall Baffle Investigation. Yet It May Be Roundly Asserted That Human Ingenuity Cannot Concoct A Cipher Which Human Ingenuity Cannot Resolve.

Once Upon A Midnight Dreary, While I Pondered Weak And Weary.

The Ninety And Nine Are With Dreams, Content But The Hope Of The World Made New, Is The Hundredth Man Who Is Grimly Bent On Making Those Dreams Come True.

The Believer Is Happy. The Doubter Is Wise.

I Wish I Could Write As Mysterious As A Cat.

The Pioneers And Missionaries Of Religion Have Been The Real Cause Of More Trouble And War Than All Other Classes Of Mankind.

It Was Night, And The Rain Fell; And Falling, It Was Rain, But, Having Fallen, It Was Blood.

I Have Made No Money. I Am As Poor Now As Ever I Was In My Life - Except In Hope, Which Is By No Means Bankable.

Men Have Called Me Mad; But The Question Is Not Yet Settled, Whether Madness Is Or Is Not The Loftiest Intelligence.

But Our Love Was Stronger By Far Than The Love Of Those Who Were Older Than We Of Many Far Wiser Than We And Neither The Angels In Heaven Above, Nor The Demons Down Under The Sea, Can Ever Dissever My Soul From The Soul Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee.

One Morning, In Cool Blood, I Slipped A Noose About Its Neck And Hung It To The Limb Of A Tree; — Hung It With The Tears Streaming From My Eyes, And With The Bitterest Remorse At My Heart; — Hung It Because I Knew That It Had Loved Me, And Because I Felt It Had Given Me No Reason Of Offence; — Hung It Because I Knew That In So Doing I Was Committing A Sin — A Deadly Sin That Would So Jeopardize My Immortal Soul As To Place It — If Such A Thing Were Possible — Even Beyond The Reach Of The Infinite Mercy Of The Most Merciful And Most Terrible God.

To Be Thoroughly Conversant With Man’s Heart, Is To Take Our Final Lesson In The Iron-clasped Volume Of Despair

If We Cannot Comprehend God In His Visible Works, How Then In His Inconceivable Thoughts, That Call The Works Into Being?

Science Has Not Yet Taught Us If Madness Is Or Is Not The Sublimity Of The Intelligence.

Mournful And Never-ending Remembrance.

There Are Some Secrets Which Do Not Permit Themselves To Be Told. Men Die Nightly In Their Beds, Wringing The Hands Of Ghostly Confessors, And Looking Them Piteously In The Eyes - Die With Despair Of Heart And Convulsion Of Throat, On Account Of The Hideousness Of Mysteries Which Will Not Suffer Themselves To Be Revealed. Now And Then, Alas, The Conscience Of Man Takes Up A Burden So Heavy In Horror That It Can Be Thrown Down Only Into The Grave. And Thus The Essence Of All Crime Is Undivulged.

The Object, Truth, Or The Satisfaction Of The Intellect, And The Object, Passion, Or The Excitement Of The Heart, Are, Although Attainable, To A Certain Extent, In Poetry, Far More Readily Attainable In Prose.

Were The Succession Of Stars Endless, Then The Background Of The Sky Would Present Us An Uniform Luminosity, Like That Displayed By The Galaxy-since There Could Be Absolutely No Point, In All That Background, At Which Would Not Exist A Star. The Only Mode, Therefore, In Which, Under Such A State Of Affairs, We Could Comprehend The Voids Which Our Telescopes Find In Innumerable Directions, Would Be By Supposing The Distance Of The Invisible Background So Immense That No Ray From It Has Yet Been Able To Reach Us At All.

The Writer Who Neglects Punctuation, Or Mispunctuates, Is Liable To Be Misunderstood For The Want Of Merely A Comma, It Often Occurs That An Axiom Appears A Paradox, Or That A Sarcasm Is Converted Into A Sermonoid.

A Dirge For Her The Doubly Dead In That She Died So Young.

I Have Before Suggested That A Genuine Blackguard Is Never Without A Pocket-handkerchief.

For The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee

Invisible Things Are The Only Realities.

Books, Indeed, Were His Sole Luxuries

And Travellers, Now, Within That Valley, Through The Red-litten Windows See Vast Forms, That Move Fantastically To A Discordant Melody, While, Like A Ghastly Rapid River, Through The Pale Door A Hideous Throng Rush Out Forever And Laugh — But Smile No More.

Even With The Utterly Lost, To Whom Life And Death Are Equally Jests, There Are Matters Of Which No Jest Can Be Made.

Beauty Of Whatever Kind, In Its Supreme Development, Invariably Excites The Sensitive Soul To Tears.

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness.

Not Hear It? --yes, I Hear It, And Have Heard It. Long --long --long --many Minutes, Many Hours, Many Days, Have I Heard It --yet I Dared Not --oh, Pity Me, Miserable Wretch That I Am! --i Dared Not --i Dared Not Speak! We Have Put Her Living In The Tomb!

-ev'n With Us The Breath Of Science Dims The Mirror Of Our Joy.

And Have I Not Told You That What You Mistake For Madness Is But Over-acuteness Of The Sense? --now, I Say, There Came To My Ears A Low, Dull, Quick Sound, Such As A Watch Makes When Enveloped In Cotton. I Knew That Sound Well, Too. It Was The Beating Of The Old Man's Heart. It Increased My Fury, As The Beating Of A Drum Stimulates The Soldier Into Courage.

I Never Can Hear A Crowd Of People Singing And Gesticulating, All Together, At An Italian Opera, Without Fancying Myself At Athens, Listening To That Particular Tragedy, By Sophocles, In Which He Introduces A Full Chorus Of Turkeys, Who Set About Bewailing The Death Of Meleager.

The Depth Lies In The Valleys Where We Seek Her, And Not Upon The Mountain-tops Where She Is Found.

Marking A Book Is Literally An Experience Of Your Differences Or Agreements With The Author. It Is The Highest Respect You Can Pay Him.

It All Depends On The Robber's Knowledge Of The Loser's Knowledge Of The Robber. - Daupin

...and, All At Once, The Moon Arouse Through The Thin Ghastly Mist, And Was Crimson In Color... And They Lynx Which Dwelleth Forever In The Tomb, Came Out Therefrom. And Lay Down At The Feet Of The Demon. And Looked At Him Steadily In The Face.

Even For Those To Whom Life And Death Are Equal Jests. There Are Some Things That Are Still Held In Respect.

No Thinking Being Lives Who, At Some Luminous Point Of His Life Of Thought, Has Not Felt Himself Lost Amid The Surges Of Futile Efforts At Understanding, Or Believing, That Anything Exists Greater Than His Own Soul.

Lord Help My Poor Soul.

But Psyche Uplifting Her Finger Said: Sadly This Star I Mistrust

I Have Great Faith In Fools,— Self-confidence My Friends Will Call It.

For The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee; And The Stars Never Rise But I Feel The Bright Eyes Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee; And So, All The Night-tide, I Lie Down By The Side Of My Darling- My Darling- My Life And My Bride, In The Sepulchre There By The Sea, In Her Tomb By The Sounding Sea.

He Knew That Hop-frog Was Not Fond Of Wine; For It Excited The Poor Cripple Almost To Madness; And Madness Is No Comfortable Feeling.

With Me Poetry Has Been Not A Purpose, But A Passion; And The Passions Should Be Held In Reverence: They Must Not They Cannot At Will Be Excited, With An Eye To The Paltry Compensations, Or The More Paltry Commendations, Of Mankind.

The Nose Of A Mob Is Its Imagination. By This, At Any Time, It Can Be Quietly Led.

When, Indeed, Men Speak Of Beauty, They Mean, Precisely, Not A Quality, As Is Supposed, But An Effect - They Refer, In Short, Just To That Intense And Pure Elevation Of Soul - Not Of Intellect, Or Of Heart.

Yes I Now Feel That It Was Then On That Evening Of Sweet Dreams- That The Very First Dawn Of Human Love Burst Upon The Icy Night Of My Spirit. Since That Period I Have Never Seen Nor Heard Your Name Without A Shiver Half Of Delight Half Of Anxiety.

To Vilify A Great Man Is The Readiest Way In Which A Little Man Can Himself Attain Greatness.

Of Puns It Has Been Said That Those Who Most Dislike Them Are Those Who Are Least Able To Utter Them.

Mysteries Force A Man To Think, And So Injure His Health.

That Is Another Of Your Odd Notions," Said The Prefect, Who Had A Fashion Of Calling Every Thing "odd" That Was Beyond His Comprehension, And Thus Lived Amid An Absolute Legion Of "oddities.

Yes, Heaven Is Thine; But This Is A World Of Sweets And Sours; Our Flowers Are Merelyflowers.

Happiness Is Not To Be Found In Knowledge, But In The Acquisition Of Knowledge

There Are Chords In The Hearts Of The Most Reckless Which Cannot Be Touched Without Emotion.

Thou Wouldst Be Loved? - Then Let Thy Heart From Its Present Pathway Part Not! Being Everything Which Now Thou Art, Be Nothing Which Thou Art Not. So With The World Thy Gentle Ways, Thy Grace, Thy More Than Beauty, Shall Be An Endless Theme Of Praise, And Love - A Simple Duty.

...for Her Whom In Life Thou Dids't Abhor, In Death Thou Shalt Adore

In Visions Of The Dark Night I Have Dreamed Of Joy Departed-- But A Waking Dream Of Life And Light Hath Left Me Broken-hearted.

Art Is To Look At Not To Criticize.

A Gentleman With A Pug Nose Is A Contradiction In Terms.

In Me Didst Thou Exist-and, In My Death, See By This Image, Which Is Thine Own, How Utterly Thou Hast Murdered Thyself.

Read This And Thought Of You: Through Joy And Through Sorrow, I Wrote. Through Hunger And Through Thirst, I Wrote. Through Good Report And Through Ill Report, I Wrote. Through Sunshine And Through Moonshine, I Wrote. What I Wrote It Is Unnecessary To Say. ~ Edgar Allen Poe

That Pleasure Which Is At Once The Most Pure, The Most Elevating And The Most Intense, Is Derived, I Maintain, From The Contemplation Of The Beautiful.

The Death Then Of A Beautiful Woman Is Unquestionably The Most Poetical Topic In The World, And Equally Is It Beyond Doubt That The Lips Best Suited For Such Topic Are Those Of A Bereaved Lover.

With Me Poetry Has Not Been A Purpose, But A Passion.

A Man's Grammar, Like Caesar's Wife, Must Not Only Be Pure, But Above Suspicion Of Impurity.

I Found Him Well Educated, With Unusual Powers Of Mind, But Infected With Misanthropy, And Subject To Perverse Moods Of Alternate Enthusiasm And Melancholy.

True! - Nervous - Very, Very Nervous I Had Been And Am; But Why Will You Say That I Am Mad?

The Best Chess-player In Christendom May Be Little More Than The Best Player Of Chess; But Proficiency In Whist Implies Capacity For Success In All Those More Important Undertakings Where Mind Struggles With Mind.

Imperceptibly The Love Of These Discords Grew Upon Me As My Love Of Music Grew Stronger.

Scorching My Seared Heart With A Pain, Not Hell Shall Make Me Fear Again.

The Result Of Law Inviolate Is Perfection–right–negative Happiness. The Result Of Law Violate Is Imperfection, Wrong, Positive Pain.

Coincidences, In General, Are Great Stumbling Blocks In The Way Of That Class Of Thinkers Who Have Been Educated To Know Nothing Of The Theory Of Probabilities- That Theory To Which The Most Glorious Objects Of Human Research Are Indebted For The Most Glorious Of Illustration.

Then, Methought, The Air Grew Denser, Perfumed From An Unseen Censer Swung By Seraphim Whose Footfalls Tinkled On The Tufted Floor. "wretch," I Cried, "thy God Hath Lent Thee--by These Angels He Hath Sent Thee-- Respite--respite And Nepenthe From Thy Memories Of Lenore! Quaff, Oh Quaff This Kind Nepenthe, And Forget This Lost Lenore!" Quothe The Raven, "nevermore.

There Are Certain Themes Of Which The Interest Is All-absorbing, But Which Are Too Entirely Horrible For The Purposes Of Legitimate Fiction.

For Years Your Name Never Passed My Lips, While My Soul Drank In, With A Delirious Thirst, All That Was Uttered In My Presence Respecting You.

In The One Instance, The Dreamerloses Sight Of This Object In A Wilderness Of Deductions And Suggestionsuntilhe Finds The Incitamentum, Or First Cause Of His Musings,... Forgotten. In My Case, The Primary Object Was Invariably Frivolous, Although Assuming, Through The Medium Of My Distempered Vision, A Refracted And Unreal Importance.

And Much Of Madness, And More Of Sin, And Horror The Soul Of The Plot.

I Have No Words Alas! To Tell The Loveliness Of Loving Well

I Need Scarcely Observe That A Poem Deserves Its Title Only Inasmuch As It Excites, By Elevating The Soul. The Value Of The Poem Is In The Ratio Of This Elevating Excitement. But All Excitements Are, Through A Psychal Necessity, Transient.

In Reading Some Books We Occupy Ourselves Chiefly With The Thoughts Of The Author; In Perusing Others, Exclusively With Our Own.

There Is No Beauty Without Some Strangeness

As The Strong Man Exults In His Physical Ability, Delighting In Such Exercises As Call His Muscles Into Action, So Glories The Analyst In That Moral Activity Which Disentangles.

The Fury Of A Demon Instantly Possessed Me. I Knew Myself No Longer. My Original Soul Seemed, At Once, To Take Its Flight From My Body; And A More Than Fiendish Malevolence, Gin-nurtured, Thrilled Every Fibre Of My Frame.

Ah, Distinctly I Remember It Was In The Bleak December; And Each Separate Dying Ember Wrought Its Ghost Upon The Floor. Eagerly, I Wished The Morrow; - Vainly I Had Sought To Borrow From My Books Surcease Of Sorrow - Sorrow For The Lost Leonore - For The Rare And Radiant Maiden Who The Angels Name Lenore - Nameless Here For Evermore.

And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.

Truth Is Not Always In A Well. In Fact, As Regards The More Important Knowledge, I Do Believe That She Is Invariably Superficial. The Depth Lies In The Valleys Where We Seek Her, And Not Upon The Mountain-tops Where She Is Found.

The Unity Of Effect Or Impression Is A Point Of The Greatest Importance. It Is Clear, Moreover, That This Unity Cannot Be Thoroughly Preserved In Productions Whose Perusal Cannot Be Completed At One Sitting.

I Intend To Put Up With Nothing That I Can Put Down.

The Realities Of The World Affected Me As Visions, And As Visions Only, While The Wild Ideas Of The Land Of Dreams Became, In Turn,—not The Material Of My Every-day Existence--but In Very Deed That Existence Utterly And Solely In Itself.

You Will Observe That The Stories Told Are All About Money-seekers, Not About Money-finders.

Keeping Time, Time, Time, In A Sort Of Runic Rhyme, To The Tintinnabulation That So Musically Wells, From The Bells, Bells, Bells.

In Beauty Of Face No Maiden Ever Equaled Her. It Was The Radiance Of An Opium-dream - An Airy And Spirit-lifting Vision More Wildly Divine Than The Fantasies Which Hovered About The Slumbering Souls Of The Daughters Of Delos.

And The Silken Sad Uncertain Rustling Of Each Purple Curtain Thrilled Me — Filled Me With Fantastic Terrors Never Felt Before; So That Now, To Still The Beating Of My Heart, I Stood Repeating, Tis Some Visitor Entreating Entrance At My Chamber Door — Some Late Visitor Entreating Entrance At My Chamber Door; — This It Is, And Nothing More.

Hear The Mellow Wedding Bells, Golden Bells! What A World Of Happiness Their Harmony Foretells Through The Balmy Air Of Night How They Ring Out Their Delight! From The Molten Golden Notes, And All In Tune What A Liquid Ditty Floats To The Turtle-dove That Listens While She Gloats On The Moon!

A Short Story Is "a Short Prose Narrative, Requiring From A Half Hour, To One Or Two Hours In Its Perusal...having Conceived, With Deliberate Care, A Certain Unique Or Single Effect To Be Wrought Out.

Those Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night. In Their Gray Visions They Obtain Glimpses Of Eternity, And Thrill, In Waking, To Find That They Have Been Upon The Verge Of The Great Secret. In Snatches, They Learn Something Of The Wisdom Which Is Of Good, And More Of The Mere Knowledge Which Is Of Evil.

As An Individual, I Myself Feel Impelled To Fancy ... A Limitless Succession Of Universes.... Each Exists, Apart And Independently, In The Bosom Of Its Proper And Particular God.

There Is No Passion In Nature So Demoniacally Impatient, As That Of Him Who, Shuddering Upon The Edge Of A Precipice, Thus Meditates A Plunge.

It May Be Roundly Asserted That Human Ingenuity Cannot Concoct A Cipher Which Human Ingenuity Cannot Resolve.

There Was A Discordant Hum Of Human Voices! There Was A Loud Blast As Of Many Trumpets! There Was A Harsh Grating As Of A Thousand Thunders! The Fiery Walls Rushed Back! An Outstretched Arm Caught My Own As I Fell, Fainting, Into The Abyss. It Was That Of General Lasalle. The French Army Had Entered Toledo. The Inquisition Was In The Hands Of Its Enemies.

If The Propositions Of This Discourse Are Tenable, The "state Of Progressive Collapse" Is Precisely That State In Which Alone We Are Warranted In Considering All Things.

The Boundaries Which Divide Life From Death Are At Best Shadowy And Vague. Who Shall Say Where The One Ends, And Where The Other Begins?

And The Raven, Never Flitting, Still Is Sitting, Still Is Sitting...

And The Raven, Never Flitting, Still Is Sitting, Still Is Sitting On The Pallid Bust Of Pallas Just Above My Chamber Door; And His Eyes Have All The Seeming Of A Demon's That Is Dreaming, And The Lamplight O'er Him Streaming Throws His Shadow On The Floor, And My Soul From Out That Shadow, That Lies Floating On The Floor, Shall Be Lifted - Nevermore.

Every Poem Should Remind The Reader That They Are Going To Die.

It Will Be Found, In Fact, That The Ingenious Are Always Fanciful, And The Truly Imaginative Never Otherwise Than Analytic.

It Is By No Means An Irrational Fancy That, In A Future Existence, We Shall Look Upon What We Think Our Present Existence, As A Dream.

Out- Out Are The Lights- Out All! And, Over Each Quivering Form, The Curtain, A Funeral Pall, Comes Down With The Rush Of A Storm, While The Angels, All Pallid And Wan, Uprising, Unveiling, Affirm That The Play Is The Tragedy, "man," And Its Hero The Conqueror Worm.

No Murmur Arose From Its Bed, And So Gently It Wandered Along, That The Pearly Pebbles Upon Which We Loved To Gaze, Far Down Within Its Bosom, Stirred Not At All, But Lay In A Motionless Content, Each In Its Own Old Station, Shining On Gloriously Forever.

In The Tale Proper--where There Is No Space For Development Of Character Or For Great Profusion And Variety Of Incident--mere Construction Is, Of Course, Far More Imperatively Demanded Than In The Novel.

I Became Insane, With Long Intervals Of Horrible Sanity.

The Merchant, To Secure His Treasure The Merchant, To Secure His Treasure, Conveys It In A Borrowed Name: Euphelia Serves To Grace My Measure, But Cloe Is My Real Flame. My Softest Verse, My Darling Lyre Upon Euphelia's Toilet Lay - When Cloe Noted Her Desire That I Should Sing, That I Should Play. My Lyre I Tune, My Voice I Raise, But With My Numbers Mix My Sighs; And Whilst I Sing Euphelia's Praise, I Fix My Soul On Cloe's Eyes. Fair Cloe Blushed; Euphelia Frowned: I Sung, And Gazed; I Played, And Trembled: And Venus To The Loves Around Remarked How Ill We All Dissembled.

A Mystery, And A Dream, Should My Early Life Seem.

I Have, Indeed, No Abhorrence Of Danger, Except In Its Absolute Effect - In Terror.

All Suffering Originates From Craving, From Attachment, From Desire.

There Are Few Cases In Which Mere Popularity Should Be Considered A Proper Test Of Merit; But The Case Of Song-writing Is, I Think, One Of The Few.

Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost.

It Is The Nature Of Truth In General, As Of Some Ores In Particular, To Be Richest When Most Superficial.

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