The Glorious Dryden, Refiner And Purifier Of

A Page Of Addison Or Of Irving Will Teach More Of Style Than A Whole Manual Of Rules, Whilst A Story Of Poe's Will Impress Upon The Mind A More Vivid Notion Of Powerful And Correct Description And Narration Than Will Ten Dry Chapters Of A Bulky Textbook.

To Me There Is Nothing More Fraught With Mystery & Terror Than A Remote Massachusetts Farmhouse Against A Lonely Hill. Where Else Could An Outbreak Like The Salem Witchcraft Have Occurred?

The Most Merciful Thing In The World, I Think, Is The Inability Of The Human Mind To Correlate All Its Contents. We Live On A Placid Island Of Ignorance In The Midst Of Black Seas Of The Infinity, And It Was Not Meant That We Should Voyage Far.

In Relating The Circumstances Which Have Led To My Confinement Within This Refuge For The Demented, I Am Aware That My Present Position Will Create A Natural Doubt Of The Authenticity Of My Narrative.

I Could Not Help Feeling That They Were Evil Things-- Mountains Of Madness Whose Farther Slopes Looked Out Over Some Accursed Ultimate Abyss. That Seething , Half-luminous Cloud-background Held Ineffable Suggestions Of A Vague, Ethereal Beyondness Far More Than Terrestrially Spatial; And Gave Appalling Reminders Of The Utter Remoteness, Separateness, Desolation, And Aeon-long Death Of This Untrodden And Unfathomed Austral World.