Poe intrigues me nowadays. I kind of him took him for granted when I was young. I think I read "Tell-Tale Heart" when I was 7. But I read that story now or something like "The Black Cat" and you kind realize the man was not exactly playing with a full deck.

As a boy, I was chilled by the descriptions of the old man's vulture eye and the killer's extreme stealth--taking a whole hour to shove his head into the old man's room. How a man, in a drunken rage, grabs his faithful kitty-cat and cuts one of its eyes out with a pen-knife. Since I own a wonderful black cat, I cheer for the creature in the end. But you can tell Poe knew about the nature and character of cats. So his descriptions of the devil-cat's antics are very realistic because my cat does precisely those things. It would be horrible to find myself suddenly deathly afraid of it--total loathing and dread. I was chilled by his descriptions of the Red Death and the horrifying figure that walks silently about the ballroom. Poe perfectly captures utter madness to a degree I've never read in anything else.

There is speculation that Poe may have murdered a girl named Mary Rogers and then wrote about it as a short story, "Murder of Marie Roget." Apparently, Poe was the last person to be seen with Miss Rogers before her untimely demise. He was apparently known to have been tragically infatuated with her. He had other faults as alcoholism, a gambling addiction, and being staunchly pro-slavery. I think he was also booted out of the Army for dereliction or something like that.

If true that Poe murdered a girl, it no doubt weighed heavily on him throughout the remainder of his tragically short life. It might explain such stories as "Usher" (and other such stories that reveal a fascination for basements, cellars, mausoleums, dungeons) and poems as "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee" where the bereaved protagonist laments out his soul for his lost love. Perhaps it drove him mad until he was found wandering about deliriously in the streets of Baltimore. Apparently, even his last words might yield a clue: "Oh, my poor, poor soul."

Ah Poe, ah humanity!