Background Image

...

I Was Forced To Fall Back Upon The Unsatisfactory Conclusion, That While, Beyond Doubt, There Are Combinations Of Very Simple Natural Objects Which Have The Power Of Thus Affecting Us, Still The Analysis Of This Power Lies Among Considerations Beyond Our Depth. It Was Possible, I Reflected, That A Mere Different Arrangement Of The Particulars Of The Scene, Of The Details Of The Picture, Would Be Sufficient To Modify, Or Perhaps To Annihilate Its Capacity For Sorrowful Impression.

-Edgar Allan Poe

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Was Forced To

Edgar Allan Poe

...

I Was Forced To Fall Back Upon The Unsatisfactory Conclusion, That While, Beyond Doubt, There Are Combinations Of Very Simple Natural Objects Which Have The Power Of Thus Affecting Us, Still The Analysis Of This Power Lies Among Considerations Beyond Our Depth. It Was Possible, I Reflected, That A Mere Different Arrangement Of The Particulars Of The Scene, Of The Details Of The Picture, Would Be Sufficient To Modify, Or Perhaps To Annihilate Its Capacity For Sorrowful Impression.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Edgar Allan Poe

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.

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

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

In The Deepest Slumber-no! In Delirium-no! In A Swoon-no! In Death-no! Even In The Grave All Is Not Lost.

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 Him, Who Still Would Gaze Upon The Glory Of The Summer Sun, There Comes, When That Sun Will From Him Part, A Sullen Hopelessness Of Heart.

There Is Not A More Disgusting Spectacle Under The Sun Than Our Subserviency To British Criticism. It Is Disgusting, First, Because It Is Truckling, Servile, Pusillanimous--secondly, Because Of Its Gross Irrationality. We Know The British To Bear Us Little But Ill Will--we Know That, In No Case Do They Utter Unbiased Opinions Of American Books . . . We Know All This, And Yet, Day After Day, Submit Our Necks To The Degrading Yoke Of The Crudest Opinion That Emanates From The Fatherland.

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

Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.

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.

Grammar Is The Analysis Of Language.

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

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

The Analytical Power Should Not Be Confounded With Simple Ingenuity; For While The Analyst Is Necessarily Ingenious, The Ingenious Man Is Often Remarkably Incapable Of Analysis.

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.

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

We Allude To The Short Prose Narrative, Requiring From A Half Hour To One Or Two Hours In Its Perusal

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

And Then There Stole Into My Fancy, Like A Rich Musical Note, The Thought Of What Sweet Rest There Must Be In The Grave.

There Is Then No Analogy Whatever Between The Operations Of The Chess-player, And Those Of The Calculating Machine Of Mr. Babbage , And If We Choose To Call The Former A Pure Machine We Must Be Prepared To Admit That It Is, Beyond All Comparison, The Most Wonderful Of The Inventions Of Mankind.

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

I Must Perish In This Deplorable Folly. Thus, Thus, And Not Otherwise, Shall I Be Lost. I Dread The Events Of The Future, Not In Themselves, But In Their Results. I Shudder At The Thought Of Any, Even The Most Trivial, Incident, Which May Operate Upon This Intolerable Agitation Of Soul. I Have, Indeed, No Abhorrence Of Danger, Except In Its Absolute Effect-in Terror. In This Unnerved-in This Pitiable Condition-i Feel That The Period Will Sooner Or Later Arrive When I Must Abandon Life And Reason Together, In Some Struggle With The Grim Phantasm, Fear.

A Lie Travels Round The World While Truth Is Putting Her Boots On.

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.

A Wise Man Hears One Word And Understands Two.

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

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.

I Dread The Events Of The Future, Not In Themselves But In Their Results.

To Observe Attentively Is To Remember Distinctly.

Tell A Scoundrel, Three Or Four Times A Day, That He Is The Pink Of Probity, And You Make Him At Least The Perfection Of "respectability" In Good Earnest. On The Other Hand, Accuse An Honorable Man, Too Petinaciously, Of Being A Villain, And You Fill Him With A Perverse Ambition To Show You That You Are Not Altogether In The Wrong.

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.

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.

Yet I Am Not More Sure That My Soul Lives, Than I Am That Perverseness Is One Of The Primitive Impulses Of The Human Heartone Of The Indivisible Primary Faculties, Or Sentiments, Which Give Direction To The Character Of Man.

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

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.

...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.

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

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.

Yet We Met; And Fate Bound Us Together At The Alter,and I Never Spoke Of Passion Nor Thought Of Love. She, However Shunned Society, And, Attaching Herself To Me Alone Rendered Me Happy. It Is A Happiness To Wonder; It Is A Happiness To Dream.

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

We Had Always Dwelled Together, Beneath A Tropical Sun, In The Valley Of The Many Colored Grass.

I Fell In Love With Melancholy

Where The Good And The Bad And The Worst And The Best Have Gone To Their Eternal Rest.

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.

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

...the Agony Of My Soul Found Vent In One Loud, Long And Final Scream Of Despair.

And Each Separate Dying Ember Wrought Its Ghost Upon The Floor.

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.

I Was Never Really Insane Except Upon Occasions When My Heart Was Touched.

I Have Been Happy, Though In A Dream. I Have Been Happy-and I Love The Theme: Dreams! In Their Vivid Colouring Of Life As In That Fleeting, Shadowy, Misty Strife

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

There Are Two Bodies - The Rudimental And The Complete; Corresponding With The Two Conditions Of The Worm And The Butterfly. What We Call "death," Is But The Painful Metamorphosis. Our Present Incarnation Is Progressive, Preparatory, Temporary. Our Future Is Perfected, Ultimate, Immortal. The Ultimate Life Is The Full Design.

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

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

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness.

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!)

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.

He Is, As You Say, A Remarkable Horse, A Prodigious Horse, Although As You Very Justly Observe, A Suspicious And Untractable Character.

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

The Death Of A Beautiful Woman, Is Unquestionably The Most Poetical Topic In The World.

The Greater Amount Of Truth Is Impulsively Uttered; Thus The Greater Amount Is Spoken, Not Written.

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

We Gave Him A Hearty Welcome, For There Was Nearly Half As Much Of The Entertaining As Of The Contemptible About The Man.

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

In Our Endeavors To Recall To Memory Something Long Forgotten, We Often Find Ourselves Upon The Very Verge Of Remembrance, Without Being Able, In The End, To Remember.

Convinced Myself, I Seek Not To Convince.

There Are Few Persons Who Have Not, At Some Period Of Their Lives, Amused Themselves In Retracing The Steps By Which Particular Conclusions Of Their Own Minds Have Been Attained. The Occupation Is Often Full Of Interest And He Who Attempts It For The First Time Is Astonished By The Apparently Illimitable Distance And Incoherence Between The Starting-point And The Goal.

Perversity Is The Human Thirst For Self-torture.

Books, Indeed, Were His Sole Luxuries

Sound Loves To Revel In A Summer Night.

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.

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

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.

Me Volví Loco, Con Largos Intervalos De Horrible Cordura.

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

In For Ever Knowing, We Are For Ever Blessed; But To Know All Were The Curse Of A Fiend

To Helen Helen, Thy Beauty Is To Me Like Those Nicean Barks Of Yore That Gently, O'er A Perfumed Sea, The Weary, Way-worn Wanderer Bore To His Own Native Shore. On Desperate Seas Long Wont To Roam, Thy Hyacinth Hair, Thy Classic Face, Thy Naiad Airs Have Brought Me Home To The Glory That Was Greece, And The Grandeur That Was Rome. Lo, In Yon Brilliant Window-niche How Statue-like I See Thee Stand, The Agate Lamp Within Thy Hand, Ah! Psyche, From The Regions Which Are Holy Land!

And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.

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.

Sound-- That Stealeth Ever On The Ear Of Him Who, Musing, Gazeth On The Distance Dim, And Sees The Darkness Coming As A Cloud-- Is Not Its Form--its Voice--most Palpable And Loud?

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

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

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

But Evil Things, In Robes Of Sorrow, Assailed The Monarch's High Estate; (ah, Let Us Mourn, For Never Morrow Shall Dawn Upon Him Desolate!) And Round About His Home The Glory That Blushed And Bloomed, Is But A Dim-remembered Story Of The Old Time Entombed.

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!

This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.

The Most 'popular,' The Most 'successful' Writers Among Us (for A Brief Period, At Least) Are, 99 Times Out Of A Hundred, Persons Of Mere Effrontery-in A Word, Busy-bodies, Toadies, Quacks.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

The Rain Came Down Upon My Head - Unshelter'd. And The Wind Rendered Me Mad And Deaf And Blind.

Words Have No Power To Impress The Mind Without The Exquisite Horror Of Their Reality.

And Now Have I Not Told You That What You Mistake For Madness Is But Overacuteness Of The Senses?

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.

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.

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

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

...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.

Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost.

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

The Truth Is, I Am Heartily Sick Of This Life & Of The Nineteenth Century In General. (i Am Convinced That Every Thing Is Going Wrong.)

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.

Ah, Broken Is The Golden Bowl! The Spirit Flown Forever! Let The Bell Toll!-a Saintly Soul Floats On The Stygian River; And, Guy De Vere, Hast Thou No Tear?-weep Now Or Nevermore!

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

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

The Best Things In Life Make You Sweaty.

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness - And Usually Prefers Silence To Saying Something Which Is Not Everything It Should Be.

I Became Insane, With Long Intervals Of Horrible Sanity.

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

They Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night.

Alas! For That Accursed Time They Bore Thee O'er The Billow, From Love To Titled Age And Crime, And An Unholy Pillow! From Me, And From Our Misty Clime, Where Weeps The Silver Willow!

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.

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

Fill With Mingled Cream And Amber, I Will Drain That Glass Again. Such Hilarious Visions Clamber Through The Chamber Of My Brain — Quaintest Thoughts — Queerest Fancies Come To Life And Fade Away; What Care I How Time Advances? I Am Drinking Ale Today.

Melancholy Is ... The Most Legitimate Of All The Poetical Tones.

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

Beauty Is The Sole Legitimate Province Of The Poem.

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

Either The Memory Of Past Bliss Is The Anguish Of To-day; Or The Agonies Which Are Have Their Origins In Ecstasies Which Might Have Been.

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.

If Any Ambitious Man Have A Fancy To Revolutionize, At One Effort, The Universal World Of Human Thought, Human Opinion, And Human Sentiment.

The Believer Is Happy. The Doubter Is Wise.

Experience Has Shown, And A True Philosophy Will Always Show, That A Vast, Perhaps The Larger Portion Of The Truth Arises From The Seemingly Irrelevant.

But In The Expression Of The Countenance, Which Was Beaming All Over With Smiles, There Still Lurked (incomprehensible Anomalyl) That Fitful Strain Of Melancholy Which Will Ever Be Found Inseparable From The Perfection Of The Beautiful.

Never To Suffer Would Have Been Never To Have Been Blessed.

Were I Called On To Define, Very Briefly, The Term Art, I Should Call It 'the Reproduction Of What The Senses Perceive In Nature Through The Veil Of The Soul.' The Mere Imitation, However Accurate, Of What Is In Nature, Entitles No Man To The Sacred Name Of 'artist.'

It Would Be Mockery To Call Such Dreariness Heaven At All.

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.

Most Writers - Poets In Especial - Prefer Having It Understood That They Compose By A Species Of Fine Frenzy - An Ecstatic Intuition - And Would Positively Shudder At Letting The Public Take A Peep Behind The Scenes.

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.

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

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

Reality Is The #1 Cause Of Insanity Among Those Who Are In Contact With It

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

Lord Help My Poor Soul.

Man's Real Life Is Happy, Chiefly Because He Is Ever Expecting That It Soon Will Be So.

I Heed Not That My Earthly Lot Hath - Little Of Earth In It - That Years Of Love Have Been Forgot In The Hatred Of A Minute: - I Mourn Not That The Desolate Are Happier, Sweet, Than I, But That You Sorrow For My Fate Who Am A Passer By.

Democracy Is A Very Admirable Form Of Government - For Dogs

Man Is An Animal That Diddles, And There Is No Animal That Diddles But Man.

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.

To See Distinctly The Machinery--the Wheels And Pinions--of Any Work Of Art Is, Unquestionably, Of Itself, A Pleasure, But One Which We Are Able To Enjoy Only Just In Proportion As We Do Not Enjoy The Legitimate Effect Designed By The Artist.

Many Years Ago, I Contracted An Intimacy With A Mr. William Legrand. He Was Of An Ancient Huguenot Family, And Had Once Been Wealthy; But A Series Of Misfortunes Had Reduced Him To Want.

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.

A Poem In My Opinion, Is Opposed To A Work Of Science By Having For Its Immediate Object, Pleasure, Not Truth.

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.

There Is No Beauty Without Some Strangeness

Art Is To Look At Not To Criticize.

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.

You Need Not Attempt To Shake Off Or To Banter Off Romance. It Is An Evil You Will Never Get Rid Of To The End Of Your Days. It Is A Part Of Yourself ... Of Your Soul. Age Will Only Mellow It A Little, And Give It A Holier Tone.

If You Run Out Of Ideas Follow The Road; You'll Get There

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. Ah! What Is Not A Dream By Day To Him Whose Eyes Are Cast On Things Around Him With A Ray Turned Back Upon The Past? That Holy Dream- That Holy Dream, While All The World Were Chiding, Hath Cheered Me As A Lovely Beam A Lonely Spirit Guiding. What Though That Light, Thro' Storm And Night, So Trembled From Afar- What Could There Be More Purely Bright In Truth's Day-star?

One Half Of The Pleasure Experienced At A Theatre Arises From The Spectator's Sympathy With The Rest Of The Audience, And, Especially From His Belief In Their Sympathy With Him.

False Hope Is Nicer Than No Hope At All.

All Religion, My Friend, Is Simply Evolved Out Of Fraud, Fear, Greed, Imagination, And Poetry.

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.

There Are Some Qualities, Some Incorporate Things, That Have A Double Life, Which Thus Is Made. A Type Os Twin Entity Which Springs From Matter And Light, Envinced In Solid And Shade.

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.

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.

I Might Refer At Once, If Necessary, To A Hundred Well Authenticated Instances. One Of Very Remarkable Character, And Of Which The Circumstances May Be Fresh In The Memory Of Some Of My Readers, Occurred, Not Very Long Ago, In The Neighboring City Of Baltimore, Where It Occasioned A Painful, Intense, And Widely Extended Excitement.

To Elevate The Soul, Poetry Is Necessary.

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.

Life Is For The Strong, To Be Lived By The Strong And If Need Be, Taken By The Strong. The Weak Were Put On Earth To Give The Strong Pleasure.

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.

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.

A Fearful Instance Of The Ill Consequences Attending Upon Irascibility - Alive, With The Qualifications Of The Dead - Dead, With The Propensities Of The Living - An Anomaly On The Face Of The Earth - Being Very Calm, Yet Breathless.

We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love.

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

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.

The Scariest Monsters Are The Ones That Lurk Within Our Souls.

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.

Leave My Loneliness Unbroken

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

By A Route Obscure And Lonely Haunted By Ill Angels Only, Where An Eidolon, Named Night, On A Black Throne Reigns Upright, I Have Reached These Lands But Newly From An Ultimate Dim Thule -- From A Wild, Weird Clime That Lieth, Sublime, Out Of Space, Out Of Time.

The Thousand Injuries Of Fortunato I Had Borne As I Best Could, But When He Ventured Upon Insult I Vowed Revenge. You, Who So Well Know The Nature Of My Soul, Will Not Suppose, However, That Gave Utterance To A Threat. At Length I Would Be Avenged; This Was A Point Definitely, Settled --but The Very Definitiveness With Which It Was Resolved Precluded The Idea Of Risk. I Must Not Only Punish But Punish With Impunity. A Wrong Is Unredressed When Retribution Overtakes Its Redresser. It Is Equally Unredressed When The Avenger Fails To Make Himself Felt As Such To Him Who Has Done The Wrong.

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.

The Goodness Of Your True Pun Is In The Direct Ratio Of Its Intolerability.

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

Perched Upon A Bust Of Pallas, Just Above My Chamber Door,- Perched, And Sat, And Nothing More.

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.

If In Many Of My Productions Terror Has Been The Thesis, I Maintain That Terror Is Not Of Germany, But Of The Soul.

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.

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.

Stupidity Is A Talent For Misconception.

And I Fell Violently On My Face.

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

I Call To Mind Flatness And Dampness; And Then All Is Madness - The Madness Of A Memory Which Busies Itself Among Forbidden Things.

The Usual Derivation Of The Word Metaphysics Is Not To Be Sustainedthe Science Is Supposed To Take Its Name From Its Superiority To Physics. The Truth Is, That Aristotle's Treatise On Morals Is Next In Succession To His Book Of Physics.

It Is With Literature As With Law Or Empire - An Established Name Is An Estate In Tenure, Or A Throne In Possession.

Sleep, Those Little Slices Of Death — How I Loathe Them.

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

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!

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.

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

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

Trending Author

Steve Guttenberg

Sherri Shepherd

Category