The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
As I said before, everybody has heard of me. I am that very
Signora Psyche Zenobia, so justly celebrated as corresponding
secretary to the “Philadelphia, Regular, Exchange, Tea, Total,
Young, Belles, Lettres, Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical,
Association, To, Civilize, Humanity.” Dr. Moneypenny made the
title for us, and says he chose it because it sounded big like an
empty rum-puncheon. (A vulgar man that sometimes—but he’s deep.)
We all sign the initials of the society after our names, in the
fashion of the R. S. A., Royal Society of Arts—the S. D. U. K.,
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, &c, &c. Dr.
Moneypenny says that S. stands for stale, and that D. U. K.
spells duck, (but it don’t,) that S. D. U. K. stands for Stale
Duck and not for Lord Brougham’s society—but then Dr. Moneypenny
is such a queer man that I am never sure when he is telling me
the truth. At any rate we always add to our names the initials P.
R. E. T. T. Y. B. L. U. E. B. A. T. C. H.—that is to say,
Philadelphia, Regular, Exchange, Tea, Total, Young, Belles,
Lettres, Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical, Association,
To, Civilize, Humanity—one letter for each word, which is a
decided improvement upon Lord Brougham. Dr. Moneypenny will have
it that our initials give our true character—but for my life I
can’t see what he means.
Notwithstanding the good offices of the Doctor, and the strenuous
exertions of the association to get itself into notice, it met
with no very great success until I joined it. The truth is, the
members indulged in too flippant a tone of discussion. The papers
read every Saturday evening were characterized less by depth than
buffoonery. They were all whipped syllabub. There was no
investigation of first causes, first principles. There was no
investigation of any thing at all. There was no attention paid to
that great point, the “fitness of things.” In short there was no
fine writing like this. It was all low—very! No profundity, no
reading, no metaphysics—nothing which the learned call
spirituality, and which the unlearned choose to stigmatize as
cant. [Dr. M. says I ought to spell “cant” with a capital K—but I
know better.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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