There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the human tendency to believe in the supernatural when faced with extraordinary coincidences that challenge rational thought.
Edgar Allan Poe suggests that even the most rational individuals can find themselves captivated by the idea of the supernatural when confronted with remarkable coincidences. These events may seem too coincidental to simply be chance, leading to a sense of wonder and contemplation about forces beyond our understanding. The inability of the intellect to fully grasp these occurrences may prompt a momentary belief in something greater than the rational world.
In practice
During a lecture on the nature of reality, this quote can illustrate how extraordinary events sometimes evoke a sense of awe.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.
The swiftness of time is infinite, as is still more evident when we look back on the past.
Ive seen the meanness of humans till I dont know why God aint put out the sun and gone away.
He whose head is in heaven need not fear to put his feet into the grave.
It used to be widely held that evil was incompatible with the existence of God: that no possible world contained both God and evil. So far as I am able tell, this thesis is no longer defended
We seek true individuality and the true individuals. But we find them not. For lo, we mortals see what our poor eyes can see; and they, the true individuals, - they belong not to this world of our merely human sense and thought.
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