1838
A PREDICAMENT
by Edgar Allan Poe
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 ethereal, and, as it were,
the most pretty (if I may use so bold an expression) thing (pardon me,
gentle reader!) in the world- but I am always led away by my feelings.
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