Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the _tone_ of its highest manifestation――and all experience has shown that this tone is one of _sadness_. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones. These points being settled, I next bethought me of the _nature_ of my _refrain_. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the _refrain_ itself must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in any sentence of length. In proportion to the brevity of the sentence, would, of course, be the facility of the variation. This led me at once to a single word as the best _refrain_. The question now arose as to the _character_ of the word. Having made up my mind to a _refrain_, the division of the poem into stanzas was, of course, a corollary; the _refrain_ forming the close to each stanza. That such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt; and these considerations inevitably led me to the long _o_ as the most sonorous vowel, in connection with _r_ as the most producible consonant. The sound of the _refrain_ being thus determined, it became necessary to select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which I had pre-determined as the tone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word “Nevermore.” In fact, it was the very first which presented itself. The next _desideratum_ was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word “Nevermore.” In observing the difficulty which I at once found in inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition, I did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the pre-assumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by _a human_ being――I did not fail to perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a _non_-reasoning creature capable of speech; and, very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven, as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the intended _tone_.