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.

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.

I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.

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.

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.

And I fell violently on my face.

It is with literature as with law or empire - an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession.