“My dear Miss Zenobia,” he said, while
the tears stood in his eyes, “is there anything
else I can do to promote the success of your laudable
undertaking? Let me reflect! It is just possible
that you may not be able, so soon as convenient, to
— to — get yourself drowned,
or — choked with a chicken-bone, or —
or hung, — or — bitten by a
— but stay! Now I think me of it, there
are a couple of very excellent bull-dogs in the yard
— fine fellows, I assure you —
savage, and all that — indeed just the thing
for your money — they’ll have you
eaten up, auricula and all, in less than five minutes
(here’s my watch!) — and then only
think of the sensations! Here! I say —
Tom! — Peter! — Dick, you villain!
— let out those” — but
as I was really in a great hurry, and had not another
moment to spare, I was reluctantly forced to expedite
my departure, and accordingly took leave at once —
somewhat more abruptly, I admit, than strict courtesy
would have otherwise allowed.
It was my primary object upon quitting Mr. Blackwood,
to get into some immediate difficulty, pursuant to
his advice, and with this view I spent the greater
part of the day in wandering about Edinburgh, seeking
for desperate adventures — adventures adequate
to the intensity of my feelings, and adapted to the
vast character of the article I intended to write.
In this excursion I was attended by one negro —
servant, Pompey, and my little lap-dog Diana, whom
I had brought with me from Philadelphia. It was
not, however, until late in the afternoon that I fully
succeeded in my arduous undertaking. An important
event then happened of which the following Blackwood
article, in the tone heterogeneous, is the substance
and result.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
A PREDICAMENT
What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?
—COMUS.
IT was a quiet and still afternoon when I strolled
forth in the goodly city of Edina. The confusion
and bustle in the streets were terrible. Men
were talking. Women were screaming. Children
were choking. Pigs were whistling. Carts
they rattled. Bulls they bellowed. Cows
they lowed. Horses they neighed. Cats they
caterwauled. Dogs they danced. Danced!
Could it then be possible? Danced! Alas,
thought I, my dancing days are over! Thus it is
ever. What a host of gloomy recollections will
ever and anon be awakened in the mind of genius and
imaginative contemplation, especially of a genius
doomed to the everlasting and eternal, and continual,
and, as one might say, the — continued
— yes, the continued and continuous, bitter,
harassing, disturbing, and, if I may be allowed the
expression, the very disturbing influence of the serene,
and godlike, and heavenly, and exalted, and elevated,
and purifying effect of what may be rightly termed
the most enviable, the most truly enviable —
nay! the most benignly beautiful, the most deliciously
Copyrights
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
