Happy Halloween everybody! Please join me for some fictitious horror along with outrageous beauty. I figured, there's enough scary in the world, I'd rather share some quotes from literary horror stories in conjunction with phenomenal specimens from the National Gem Collection at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D. C.
When Poe was originally buried in 1849, he was placed in an unmarked grave. Over the years, the site became overgrown with weeds. Reports of Poe’s anonymous and unkempt grave began to circulate, first privately then in the newspapers. The new monument was dedicated on November 17, 1875. Then, there was some confusion about the original burial site...
In honor of Halloween I want to make sure I bring on the scary, I've got some quotes for this Poe season from some of his Tales and Poems. Side note: there is a NEW statue in "Poe Square," in Boston, MA., dedicated to Edgar Allen Poe....apparently, Poe and Boston had a contentious relationship...the Boston Globe calls it "stormy." Apparently, during the dedication, the "air was crisp and sunny" making it" inappropriate for Poe's personality."
Enjoy the language and the horror of it all, and the beating of his hideous heart ....Once upon a midnight dreary, while pondered, the weak and weary...
Horror and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to the story I have to tell?
True!--nervous---very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed--not dulled them.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country...
My immediate purpose to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, the events have terrified --have tortured--have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror-
There are certain themes of which the interest is all absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.
I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the wrist, had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind; and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay; so that I could see into the innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.
And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white arms to fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of Death. And as she breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur from her lips.
*All quotes are from Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe.*
NON SEQUITUR: Rock collection from the Smithsonian Institute. These are truly amazing expressions of mother nature's "Best Of."
Tourmaline Specimen at the Smithsonian
Dom Pedro Aquamarine at the Smithsonian. 10,363 carats.
purple is a rare tourmaline-Elbaite, dark green is Grossular tsavorite, Hydroxyl Herderite
This clear crystal ball is phenomenal...flawless! This is very rare.
...may the flawless crystal ball evoke images of ideas and dreams that are just over the horizon.
I leave you with one last Poe-ism: Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before...