I had now to combine the two ideas, of a lover lamenting his deceased mistress and a Raven continuously repeating the word "Nevermore"--I had to combine these, bearing in mind my design of varying, at every turn, the _application_ of the word repeated; but the only intelligible mode of such combination is that of imagining the Raven employing the word in answer to the queries of the lover. And here it was that I saw at once the opportunity afforded for the effect on which I had been depending--that is to say, the effect of the _variation of application_. I saw that I could make the first query propounded by the lover--the first query to which the Raven should reply "Nevermore"--that I could make this first query a commonplace one--the second less so--the third still less, and so on--until at length the lover, startled from his original _nonchalance_ by the melancholy character of the word itself--by its frequent repetition--and by a consideration of the ominous reputation of the fowl that uttered it--is at length excited to superstition, and wildly propounds queries of a far different character--queries whose solution he has passionately at heart--propounds them half in superstition and half in that species of despair which delights, in self-torture--propounds them not altogether because he believes in the prophetic or demoniac character of the bird (which, reason assures him, is merely repeating a lesson learned by rote) but because he experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modeling his questions as to receive from the _expected_ "Nevermore" the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrow. Perceiving the opportunity thus afforded me--or, more strictly, thus forced upon me in the progress of the construction--I first established in mind the climax, or concluding query--that to which "Nevermore" should be in the last place an answer--that in reply to which this word "Nevermore" should involve the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair. Here then the poem may be said to have its beginning--at the end, where all works of art should begin--for it was here, at this point of my preconsiderations, that I first put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza: "'Prophet,' said I, 'thing of evil! prophet still if bird or devil! By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore, Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.' Quoth the raven 'Nevermore.'"