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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3 by Edgar Allan Poe
page 35 of 322 (10%)
writing upon it, I should not have experienced the least difficulty,
I am sure, in reading it. Not a syllable was there, however- nothing
but a dreary and unsatisfactory blank; the illumination died away in
a few seconds, and my heart died away within me as it went.

I have before stated more than once that my intellect, for some
period prior to this, had been in a condition nearly bordering on
idiocy. There were, to be sure, momentary intervals of perfect
sanity, and, now and then, even of energy; but these were few. It
must be remembered that I had been, for many days certainly, inhaling
the almost pestilential atmosphere of a close hold in a whaling
vessel, and for a long portion of that time but scantily supplied
with water. For the last fourteen or fifteen hours I had none- nor
had I slept during that time. Salt provisions of the most exciting
kind had been my chief, and, indeed, since the loss of the mutton, my
only supply of food, with the exception of the sea-biscuit; and these
latter were utterly useless to me, as they were too dry and hard to
be swallowed in the swollen and parched condition of my throat. I was
now in a high state of fever, and in every respect exceedingly ill.
This will account for the fact that many miserable hours of
despondency elapsed after my last adventure with the phosphorus,
before the thought suggested itself that I had examined only one side
of the paper. I shall not attempt to describe my feelings of rage
(for I believe I was more angry than any thing else) when the
egregious oversight I had committed flashed suddenly upon my
perception. The blunder itself would have been unimportant, had not
my own folly and impetuosity rendered it otherwise- in my
disappointment at not finding some words upon the slip, I had
childishly torn it in pieces and thrown it away, it was impossible to
say where.
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