i'm in an edgar allan poe sort of mood

A recent project for our Honors English class was to research the Spanish Inquisition, since we had just read The Pit and the Pendulum, a not-so-short short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Being the overacheiver that I sometimes am (and being bored), I stumbled upon a website where one can download Poe stories for free. Naturally, I did just that.

Also, I found some of his most famous quotes, which I found quite lovely:

-All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
-Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
-I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.
-I have no faith in human perfectability.
-I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity.
-Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
-I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
-It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
-Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
-Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
-Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow - You are not wrong who deem, That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone?
-The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
-They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
-We loved with a love that was more than love.

My favorite work by Edgar Allan Poe is "The Raven," a poem which can be read here.

In my research I also found that when you have to research torture in the Spanish Inquisition, be ready to find some very strange articles on torture. Very creepy.

We also watched a documentary about him, and he happens to be a very interesting person. Here is his Wikipedia article, and one on the Spanish Inquisition.