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The History Of All Magazines Shows Plainly That Those Which Have Attained Celebrity Were Indebted For It To Articles Similar In Natureto Berenice--although, I Grant You, Far Superior In Style And Execution. I Say Similar In Nature. You Ask Me In What Does This Nature Consist? In The Ludicrous Heightened Into The Grotesque: The Fearful Coloured Into The Horrible: The Witty Exaggerated Into The Burlesque: The Singular Wrought Out Into The Strange And Mystical.

-Edgar Allan Poe

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The History Of All

Edgar Allan Poe

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The History Of All Magazines Shows Plainly That Those Which Have Attained Celebrity Were Indebted For It To Articles Similar In Natureto Berenice--although, I Grant You, Far Superior In Style And Execution. I Say Similar In Nature. You Ask Me In What Does This Nature Consist? In The Ludicrous Heightened Into The Grotesque: The Fearful Coloured Into The Horrible: The Witty Exaggerated Into The Burlesque: The Singular Wrought Out Into The Strange And Mystical.

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Deep Into That Darkness Peering, Long I Stood There Wondering, Fearing, Doubting, Dreaming Dreams No Mortals Ever Dared To Dream Before; But The Silence Was Unbroken, And The Stillness Gave No Token, And The Only Word There Spoken Was The Whispered Word, "lenore?" This I Whispered, And An Echo Murmured Back The Word, "lenore!" — Merely This, And Nothing More

The Past Is A Pebble In My Shoe.

By Late Accounts From Rotterdam, That City Seems To Be In A High State Of Philosophical Excitement. Indeed, Phenomena Have There Occurred Of A Nature So Completely Unexpected--so Entirely Novel--so Utterly At Variance With Preconceived Opinions--as To Leave No Doubt On My Mind That Long Ere This All Europe Is In An Uproar, All Physics In A Ferment, All Reason And Astronomy Together By The Ears.

A Wise Man Hears One Word And Understands Two.

There Might Be A Class Of Beings, Human Once, But Now To Humanity Invisible, For Whose Scrutiny, And For Whose Refined Appreciation Of The Beautiful, More Especially Than For Our Own, Had Been Set In Order By God The Great Landscape-garden Of The Whole Earth.

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.

I Stand Amid The Roar Of A Surf-tormented Shore, And I Hold Within My Hand Grains Of Golden Sand- How Few! Yet How They Creep Through My Fingers To The Deep, While I Weep- While I Weep!

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

I Have No Faith In Human Perfectability. I Think That Human Exertion Will Have No Appreciable Effect Upon Humanity. Man Is Now Only More Active - Not More Happy - Nor More Wise, Than He Was 6000 Years Ago.

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

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.

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

Mournful And Never-ending Remembrance.

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

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

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.

If You Have Never Been At Sea In A Heavy Gale, You Can Form No Idea Of The Confusion Of Mind Occasioned By Wind And Spry Together. They Blind, Deafen, And Strangle You, And Take Away All Power Of Action Or Reflection.

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

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.

Those Who Gossip With You Will Gossip About You.

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.

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 Felt That I Breathed An Atmosphere Of Sorrow.

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.

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

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

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.

Yes," I Said, "for The Love Of God!

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.

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?

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.

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 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.

Lord Help My Poor Soul.

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.

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

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.

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

The Customs Of The World Are So Many Conventional Follies.

The Word "verse" Is Used Here As The Term Most Convenient For Expressing, And Without Pedantry, All That Is Involved In The Consideration Of Rhythm, Rhyme, Meter, And Versification... The Subject Is Exceedingly Simple; One Tenth Of It, Possibly May Be Called Ethical; Nine Tenths, However, Appertains To The Mathematics.

The Bostonians Are Really, As A Race, Far Inferior In Point Of Anything Beyond Mere Intellect To Any Other Set Upon The Continent Of North America. They Are Decidedly The Most Servile Imitators Of The English It Is Possible To Conceive.

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.

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.

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

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

Literature Is The Most Noble Of Professions. In Fact, It Is About The Only One Fit For A Man.

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.

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.

Perversity Is The Human Thirst For Self-torture.

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

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

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

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

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

Ghastly Grim And Ancient Raven Wandering From The Nightly Shore - Tell Me What Thy Lordly Name Is On The Night's Plutonian Shore! Quoth The Raven, `nevermore.

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

Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

In The Heaven's Above, The Angels, Whispering To One Another, Can Find, Among Their Burning Terms Of Love, None So Devotional As That Of 'mother.

Who Cares How Time Advances? I Am Drinking Ale Today.

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.

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.

In Efforts To Soar Above Our Nature, We Invariably Fall Below It.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

[the Daguerreotype] Itself Must Undoubtedly Be Regarded As The Most Important, And Perhaps The Most Extraordinary Triumph Of Modern Science.

All Works Of Art Should Begin... At The End.

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?

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

In Death - No! Even In The Grave All Is Not Lost. Else There Is No Immortality For Man. Arousing From The Most Profound Slumbers, We Break The Gossamer Web Of Some Dream. Yet In A Second Afterward, (so Frail May That Web Have Been) We Remember Not That We Have Dreamed.

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.

In One Case Out Of A Hundred A Point Is Excessively Discussed Because It Is Obscure; In The Ninety-nine Remaining It Is Obscure Because It Is Excessively Discussed.

Sensations Are The Great Things, After All. Should You Ever Be Drowned Or Hung, Be Sure And Make A Note Of Your Sensations; They Will Be Worth To You Ten Guineas A Sheet.

And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.

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

There Is No Beauty Without Some Strangeness

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Have Not Only Labored Solely For The Benefit Of Others (receiving For Myself A Miserable Pittance), But Have Been Forced To Model My Thoughts At The Will Of Men Whose Imbecility Was Evident To All But Themselves

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

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

We Gave The Future To The Winds, And Slumbered Tranquilly In The Present, Weaving The Dull World Around Us Into Dreams.

And All My Days Are Trances, And All My Nightly Dreams Are Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, And Where Thy Footstep Gleams-- In What Ethereal Dances, By What Eternal Streams!

Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.

If You Are Ever Drowned Or Hung, Be Sure And Make A Note Of Your Sensations.

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.

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

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

[e]very Plot, Worth The Name, Must Be Elaborated To Its Dénouement Before Anything Be Attempted With The Pen. It Is Only With The Dénouement Constantly In View That We Can Plot Its Indispensable Air Of Consequence, Or Causation, By Making The Incidents, And Especially The Tone At All Points Tend To The Development Of The Intention.

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

Leave My Loneliness Unbroken

Sometimes I’m Terrified Of My Heart; Of Its Constant Hunger For Whatever It Is It Wants. The Way It Stops And Starts.

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

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.

To Observe Attentively Is To Remember Distinctly.

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

The Mental Features Discoursed Of As The Analytical, Are, In Themselves, But Little Susceptible Of Analysis. We Appreciate Them Only In Their Effects. We Know Of Them, Among Other Things, That They Are Always To Their Possessor, When Inordinately Possessed, A Source Of The Liveliest Enjoyment.

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.

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

It Is More Than Probable That I Am Not Understood; But I Fear, Indeed, That It Is In No Manner Possible To Convey To The Mind Of The Merely General Reader, An Adequate Idea Of That Nervous Intensity Of Interest With Which, In My Case, The Powers Of Meditation (not To Speak Technically) Busied And Buried Themselves, In The Contemplation Of Even The Most Ordinary Objects Of The Universe.

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.

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.

For My Own Part, I Have Never Had A Thought Which I Could Not Set Down In Words, With Even More Distinctness Than That With Which I Conceived It.

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

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

If You Wish To Forget Anything On The Spot, Make A Note That This Thing Is To Be Remembered.

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!

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

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

We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love.

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

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

Prophet!" Said I, "thing Of Evil! - Prophet Still, If Bird Or Devil! By That Heaven That Bends Above Us- By That God We Both Adore- Tell This Soul With Sorrow Laden If, Within The Distant Aidenn, It Shall Clasp A Sainted Maiden Whom The Angels Name Lenore- Clasp A Rare And Radiant Maiden Whom The Angels Name Lenore." Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.

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.

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

You Are Not Wrong Who Deem That My Days Have Been A Dream; Yet If Hope Has Flown Away In A Night, Or In A Day, In A Vision, Or In None, Is It Therefore The Less Gone? All That We See Or Seem Is But A Dream Within A Dream.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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

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

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

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

A Short Story Must Have A Single Mood And Every Sentence Must Build Towards It.

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.'

The Enormous Multiplication Of Books In Every Branch Of Knowledge Is One Of The Greatest Evils Of This Age, Since It Presents One Of The Most Serious Obstacles To The Acquisition Of Correct Information By Throwing In The Reader's Way Piles Of Lumber In Which He Must Painfully Grope For The Scraps Of Useful Matter, Peradventure Interspersed.

And My Soul From Out That Shadow That Lies Floating On The Floor, Shall Be Lifted -- Nevermore!

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

Books, Indeed, Were His Sole Luxuries

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

Invisible Things Are The Only Realities.

After Reading All That Has Been Written, And After Thinking All That Can Be Thought, On The Topics Of God And The Soul, The Man Who Has A Right To Say That He Thinks At All, Will Find Himself Face To Face With The Conclusion That, On These Topics, The Most Profound Thought Is That Which Can Be The Least Easily Distinguished From The Most Superficial Sentiment.

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

From Childhood's Hour I Have Not Been. As Others Were, I Have Not Seen. As Others Saw, I Could Not Awaken. My Heart To Joy At The Same Tone. And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Believe Me, There Exists No Such Dilemma As That In Which A Gentleman Is Placed When He Is Forced To Reply To A Blackguard.

Always Keep A Big Bottle Of Booze At Your Side. If A Bird Starts Talking Nonsense To You In The Middle Of The Night Pour Yourself A Stiff Drink.

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.

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.

Men Of Genius Are Far More Abundant Than Is Supposed. In Fact, To Appreciate Thoroughly The Work Of What We Call Genius, Is To Possess All The Genius By Which The Work Was Produced.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

Music, When Combined With A Pleasurable Idea, Is Poetry; Music, Without The Idea, Is Simply Music; The Idea, Without The Music, Is Prose, From Its Very Definitiveness.

Take Thy Beak From Out My Heart, And Take Thy Form From Off My Door!” Quoth The Raven, “nevermore.

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.

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.

Once Upon A Midnight Dreary, While I Pondered, Weak And Weary, Over Many A Quaint And Curious Volume Of Forgotten Lore--while I Nodded, Nearly Napping, Suddenly There Came A Tapping, As If Some One Gently Rapping, Rapping At My Chamber Door. "'tis Some Visitor," I Muttered, "tapping At My Chamber Door--only This And Nothing More.

Whether People Grow Fat By Joking, Or Whether There Is Something In Fat Itself Which Predisposes To A Joke, I Have Never Been Quite Able To Determine.

It Is Clear That A Poem May Be Improperly Brief. Undue Brevity Degenerates Into Mere Epigrammatism. A Very Short Poem, While Now And Then Producing A Brilliant Or Vivid, Never Produces A Profound Or Enduring, Effect. There Must Be The Steady Pressing Down Of The Stamp Upon The Wax.

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

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

Yet I Am Not More Sure That My Soul Lives, Than I Am That Perverseness Is One Of The Primitive Impulses Of The Human Heart - One Of The Indivisible Primary Faculties, Or Sentiments, Which Give Direction To The Character Of Man. Who Has Not, A Hundred Times, Found Himself Committing A Vile Or A Silly Action, For No Other Reason Than Because He Knows He Should Not? Have We Not A Perpetual Inclination, In The Teeth Of Our Best Judgment, To Violate That Which Is Law, Merely Because We Understand It To Be Such?

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

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

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

Come Little Children I'll Take Thee Away, Into A Land Of Enchantment Come Little Children The Time's Come To Play Here In My Garden Of Shadows Follow Sweet Children I'll Show Thee The Way Through All The Pain And The Sorrows Weep Not Poor Childlen For Life Is This Way Murdering Beauty And Passions Hush Now Dear Children It Must Be This Way To Weary Of Life And Deceptions Rest Now My Children For Soon We'll Away Into The Calm And The Quiet Come Little Children I'll Take Thee Away, Into A Land Of Enchantment Come Little Children The Time's Come To Play Here In My Garden Of Shadows

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.

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

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Honore De Balzac

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