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?

True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had haunted my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Of all the sense of hearing acute.

I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.

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.

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.

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.

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.