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THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid
himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond
all conjecture.
--Sir Thomas Browne.
The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves,
but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their
effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to
their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest
enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting
in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the
analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure
from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play. He
is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his
solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary
apprehension præternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul
and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.
The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical
study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and
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