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The Duc de L’Omelette

Keats fell by a criticism. Who was it died of “The Andromache”?1 Ignoble souls!—De L’Omelette perished of an ortolan. L’histoire en est breve. Assist me, Spirit of Apicius! A golden cage bore the little winged wanderer, enamored, melting, indolent, to the Chaussee D’Antin, from its home in far Peru. From its queenly possessor La Bellissima, …

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The Gold-Bug

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!He hath been bitten by the Tarantula. All in the Wrong. Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid …

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The Imp of the Perverse

In the consideration of the faculties and impulses—of the prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them. In the pure arrogance of the reason, we …

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The Man of the Crowd

Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul. La Bruyère It was well said of a certain German book that “es lasst sich nicht lesen”—it does not permit itself to be read. There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly …

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The Man That Was Used Up

The bust of the General was unquestionably the finest bust I ever saw. For your life you could not have found a fault with its wonderful proportion. This rare peculiarity set off to great advantage a pair of shoulders which would have called up a blush of conscious inferiority into the countenance of the marble …

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The Masque of the Red Death

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the bodyand especially upon …

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The Murders in the Rue Morgue

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture. – Sir Thomas Browne The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, …

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The Mystery of Marie Rogêt

Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle modifieiren gewohulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das Lutherthum hervor. There are ideal series of events which run parallel with …

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The Oblong Box

I observed that his name was carded upon THREE state-rooms; and, upon again referring to the list of passengers, I found that he had engaged passage for himself, wife, and two sisters—his own. The state-rooms were sufficiently roomy, and each had two berths, one above the other. These berths, to be sure, were so exceedingly …

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