Short Fiction, Edgar Allan Poe [best autobiographies to read TXT] 📗

adventurer, in digging the earth, happens to discover a peculiar metal for which the moon has a strong attraction, and straightway constructs of it a box, which, when cast loose from its terrestrial fastenings, flies with him, forthwith, to the satellite. The “Flight of Thomas O’Rourke,” is a jeu d’esprit not altogether contemptible, and has been translated into German. Thomas, the hero, was, in fact, the gamekeeper of an Irish peer, whose eccentricities gave rise to the tale. The “flight” is made on an eagle’s back, from Hungry Hill, a lofty mountain at the end of Bantry Bay.

In these various brochures the aim is always satirical; the theme being a description of Lunarian customs as compared with ours. In none is there any effort at plausibility in the details of the voyage itself. The writers seem, in each instance, to be utterly uninformed in respect to astronomy. In “Hans Pfaall” the design is original, inasmuch as regards an attempt at verisimilitude, in the application of scientific principles (so far as the whimsical nature of the subject would permit), to the actual passage between the earth and the moon.

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Flavius Vospicus says, that the hymn here introduced was sung by the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in the Sarmatic war, having slain, with his own hand, nine hundred and fifty of the enemy. ↩

Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of Landaff.⁠—See Chemical Essays, vol. v. ↩

The Hortulus Animæ cum Orantiunculis Aliquibus Superadditis of Grünninger. ↩

Rousseau, Nouvelle Héloïse. ↩

See Archimedes, De Incidentibus in Fluido.⁠—lib. 2. ↩

Moraux is here derived from mœurs, and its meaning is “fashionable” or more strictly “of manners.” ↩

Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise “De Sitû Orbis”, says “either the world is a great animal, or” etc. ↩

Balzac⁠—in substance⁠—I do not remember the words. ↩

Florem putares nare per liquidum æthera.

—⁠P. Commire

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“It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that which the experience of so many ages has already discovered; and this may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and music for the soul.”

—⁠Repub. lib. 2

“For this reason is a musical education most essential; since it causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul, taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it with beauty and making the man beautifully-minded.

He will praise and admire the beautiful; will receive it with joy into his soul, will feed upon it, and assimilate his own condition with it.

—⁠Repub. lib. 3

Music μουσικη had, however, among the Athenians, a far more comprehensive signification than with us. It included not only the harmonics of time and of tune, but the poetic diction, sentiment and creation each in its widest sense. The study of music was with them, in fact, the general cultivation of the taste of that which recognizes the beautiful⁠—in contradistinction from reason, which deals only with the true. ↩

“History,” from ίστορειν, to contemplate. ↩

The word “purification” seems here to be used with reference to its root in the Greek πυρ, fire. ↩

An incident similar in outline to the one here imagined occurred, not very long ago, in England. The name of the fortunate heir (who still lives) is Thelluson. I first saw an account of this matter in the “Tour” of Prince Puckler Muskau. He makes the sum received ninety millions of pounds, and observes, with much force, that “in the contemplation of so vast a sum, and to the services to which it might be applied, there is something even of the sublime.” To suit the views of this article, I have followed the Prince’s statement⁠—a grossly exaggerated one, no doubt. ↩

Upon the original publication of “Marie Rogêt,” the footnotes now appended were considered unnecessary; but the lapse of several years since the tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it expedient to give them, and also to say a few words in explanation of the general design. A young girl, Mary Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in the vicinity of New York; and, although her death occasioned an intense and long-enduring excitement, the mystery attending it had remained unsolved at the period when the present paper was written and published (November, 1842). Herein, under pretence of relating the fate of a Parisian grisette, the author has followed in minute detail, the essential, while merely paralleling the inessential facts of the real murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon the fiction is applicable to the truth: and the investigation of the truth was the object.

“The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” was composed at a distance from the scene of the atrocity, and with no other means of investigation than the newspapers afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he could have availed himself had he been upon the spot, and visited the localities. It may not be improper to record, nevertheless, that the confessions of two persons (one of them the Madame Deluc of the narrative), made, at different periods, long subsequent to the publication, confirmed, in full, not only the general conclusion, but absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that conclusion was attained. ↩

The nom de plume of Von Hardenburg. ↩

Nassau Street. ↩

Anderson. ↩

The Hudson. ↩

Weehawken. ↩

Payne. ↩

Crommelin. ↩

The New York Mercury. ↩

The New York Brother Jonathan, edited by