The Raven, the Fall of the House of Usher, and Other Poems and Tales

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... TALES. A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.1 '• The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways, nur are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastneds, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a dejAh in them greater than the well of Democritus." Joseph Glanvill.8 We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak. 1 A Descent into the Maelstrom -- distinctly the most realistic and exciting of the Tales of Pseudo-Science -- was first published in Graham's Magazine for May, 1841. It was the third of the series, having been preceded by the MS. Found in a Bottle and by Hans Pfall. Its sheer imaginative power lifts it out of the class of compositions to which it belongs, -- which if Poe did not originate, he nevertheless did much to popularize,--and makes it literature in a very real aud true sense. This success is probably due to the fact that in no other tale does Poe so thoroughly fuse his power of analysis and his power of depicting a situation. 'This motto, which, as is not unusual with Poe, is incorrectly given, has been found by Professor Woodberry in Glanvill's Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion, London, 1676. Glanvill (or Glauvil) was born in 1636 and died in 1680. He was a clergyman noted for his philosophical writings, of which the Vanity of Dogmatizing and a book on Sorcery are best known. The latter is discussed by Leeky in his great work on Rationalism; the former furnished Matthew Arnold with the basis of his Scholar Gypsy. The Democritus referred to in the motto is of course the famous " laughing philosopher" of Abdera (born about 490 B. C), who is better known for his constant ridicule of the follies of human...