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.
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.
Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance ... which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.