"
We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there
are two distinct conditions of my mental existence- the condition of a
lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of
events forming the first epoch of my life- and a condition of shadow
and doubt, appertaining to the present, and to the recollection of
what constitutes the second great era of my being. Therefore, what I
shall tell of the earlier period, believe; and to what I may relate of
the later time, give only such credit as may seem due, or doubt it
altogether, or, if doubt it ye cannot, then play unto its riddle the
Oedipus.
She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly and
distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of the only
sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my cousin.
We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in the
Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came
upon that vale; for it lay away up among a range of giant hills that
hung beetling around about it, shutting out the sunlight from its
sweetest recesses.
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