by Edgar Allan Poe

Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum forelevatas

- Ebn Zaiat

MISERY is manifold The wretchedness of earth is multiform Overreaching the wide horizon rainbow, its hues are as various hues arch - as distinct too, yet as intimately blended Overreaching the wide horizon rainbow ! How that from beauty derived type of unloveliness ? - covenant of peace, simile of sorrow ? But as, in ethics, evil is consequence of good, so, , out of joy is sorrow born Either the memory of past bliss anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are_, have their origin ecstasies which

My baptismal name is Egaeus; that family mention Yet no towers land more time-honored than my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls Our line called race of visionaries; and in many striking particulars - character family mansion - frescos chief saloon - tapestries dormitories - chiselling of some buttresses armory - but more especially gallery of antique paintings - fashion library chamber - and, lastly, very peculiar nature library's contents - more than sufficient evidence to warrant the belief

The recollections earliest years are connected chamber, and with its volumes - latter say no more Here died my mother Herein was I born But mere idleness that I lived before - soul has no previous existence You deny it ? - not argue the matter Convinced myself, I seek not , however, remembrance of aerial forms - of spiritual and meaning eyes - of sounds, musical yet sad - remembrance which excluded; memory like shadow - vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like shadow, too, impossibility getting rid of it while the sunlight reason shall exist

chamber was I born Thus awaking long night of what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once very regions of fairy land - into palace of imagination - wild dominions of monastic thought and erudition - singular that I gazed around me with startled and ardent eye - that I loitered away my boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it is_ singular that as years rolled away, noon of manhood found me still mansion fathers - wonderful what stagnation there fell springs life - wonderful how total an inversion took place character commonest thought The realities world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas land of dreams became, in turn, not the material every-day existence, but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself

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Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal halls Yet differently we grew - I, ill of health, and buried in gloom - she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers, the ramble hill-side - mine the studies cloister; I, living within my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, most intense and painful meditation - she, roaming carelessly through life, with no thought shadows in her path, or the silent flight raven-winged hours Berenice ! -I call upon her name - Berenice ! - and gray ruins of memory thousand tumultuous recollections are startled sound ! Ah, vividly is her image before me now, as early days of her light-heartedness and joy ! Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty ! Oh, sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim ! Oh, Naiad among its fountains ! And then - then all is mystery and terror, and tale which told Disease - fatal disease, fell like the simoon upon her frame; and, even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept over her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and, in manner the most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person ! Alas ! the destroyer came and went ! - victim -where is she ? her not - or knew her no longer as Berenice

numerous train of maladies superinduced fatal and primary one which effected revolution of so horrible kind moral and physical being cousin, mentioned most distressing and obstinate in its nature, species of epilepsy not unfrequently terminating in trance itself - trance very nearly resembling positive dissolution, and her manner of recovery was in most instances, startlingly abrupt mean time my own disease - for told that call it by no other appellation - my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and assumed finally monomaniac character of novel and extraordinary form - hourly and momently gaining vigor - and obtaining over me the most incomprehensible ascendancy This monomania, if so term it, consisted in morbid irritability properties mind in metaphysical science termed the _attentive more than probable that not understood; but , indeed, in no manner possible to convey mind merely general reader, an adequate idea nervous _intensity of interest , in my case, the powers of meditation (not technically) busied and buried themselves, contemplation of even the most ordinary objects universe

To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riveted to some frivolous device margin, or typography of book; absorbed, better part of summer's day, in quaint shadow falling aslant tapestry or floor; to lose myself, for an entire night, in watching the steady flame of lamp, or the embers of fire; to dream away whole days over the perfume of flower; to repeat, monotonously, some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever mind; to lose all sense of motion or physical existence, of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in: such were few most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by condition mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explanation

Yet let me not be misapprehended The undue, earnest, and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, must not be confounded in character ruminating propensity common to all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of ardent imagination not even, as at first supposed, an extreme condition, or exaggeration propensity, but primarily and essentially distinct and different one instance, the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually not_ frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight object in wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, conclusion of day dream often replete with luxury_, he finds the _incitamentum_, or first cause musings, entirely vanished and forgotten In my case, the primary object was invariably frivolous_, although assuming, medium distempered vision, refracted and unreal importance Few deductions, if any, were made; and those few pertinaciously returning in original object as centre The meditations were never pleasurable; and, termination reverie, the first cause, from being out of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest the prevailing feature disease In word, the powers of mind more particularly exercised were, with me, as said before, the attentive_, , day-dreamer, the _speculative

My books, epoch, if actually serve to irritate the disorder, partook, perceived, largely, in their imaginative and inconsequential nature, characteristic qualities disorder itself I well remember, among others, the treatise noble Italian, Coelius Secundus Curio, "_De Amplitudine Beati Regni Dei;_" St Austin's great work, the "City of God;" and Tertullian's "_De Carne Christi_," paradoxical sentence "_Mortuus est Dei filius; credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est,_" occupied my undivided time, for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation

Thus appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial things, my reason bore resemblance ocean-crag spoken of by Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of human violence, fiercer fury waters winds, trembled only touch flower called Asphodel And although, to careless thinker, it might appear matter beyond doubt, alteration produced by her unhappy malady, moral condition of Berenice, would afford me many objects exercise intense and abnormal meditation whose nature at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not in any degree the case lucid intervals infirmity, her calamity, indeed, pain, and, taking deeply to heart that total wreck of her fair and gentle life, fall to ponder, frequently and bitterly, wonder-working means so strange revolution so suddenly brought But these reflections partook not idiosyncrasy disease, and were such as occurred, under similar circumstances, ordinary mass of mankind True to its own character, my disorder revelled less important but more startling changes wrought physical frame of Berenice - singular and most appalling distortion of her personal identity

During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her strange anomaly existence, feelings with me, had never been heart, and my passions _always were mind gray early morning - trellised shadows forest at noonday - and silence library at night - she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her - not living and breathing Berenice, but Berenice of dream; not as being earth, earthy, but abstraction being; not as thing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but theme most abstruse although desultory speculation And now - now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet, bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of marriage

And the period nuptials was approaching, when, upon an afternoon winter year - one unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse beautiful Halcyon {*1}, - I sat, (and sat, as , alone,) inner apartment library But, uplifting my eyes, that Berenice stood before me

my own excited imagination - or the misty influence atmosphere - or the uncertain twilight chamber - or the gray draperies which fell around her figure - that caused so vacillating and indistinct an outline ? tell She spoke no word; and I - not for worlds could uttered syllable An icy chill ran through my frame; sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me; consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back chair, I remained for breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person Alas ! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige former being lurked in any single line contour My burning glances fell face