The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination.

To me, there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form - and local human passions and conditions and standards - are depicted as native to other worlds and universes.

Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent.

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

The cat is classic whilst the dog is Gothic - nowhere in the animal world can we discover such really Hellenic perfection of form, with anatomy adapted to function, as in the felidae.

Certain of Poe's tales possess an almost absolute perfection of artistic form which makes them veritable beacon-lights in the province of the short story.