The Black Cat

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"For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief.  Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence.  Yet mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream.  But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul.
"This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body.
"I determined to wall it up in the cellar - as the monks of the Middle Ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.
"For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted.  Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening.  Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up..."

~ *Edgar Allan Poe (d. Oct. 7, 1809, 40 years of age)  American writer. London Oxford University Press.

"In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream."
~ The Hero as Man of Letters

"The true University of these days is a collection of books."
~ The Hero as King

"A good book is the purest essence of a human soul."  ~ Speech in support of the London Library, 1840.

~ Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881)  Scottish philosopher, writer, teacher.

~ The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 3rd ed., Oxford University Press.

To my quick ear the leaves conferred;
     The bushes they were bells;
I could not find a privacy
     From Nature's sentinels.

In cave if I presumed to hide,
     The walls began to tell;
Creation seemed a mighty crack
     To make me visible.

~Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) American poet

Trees of Canada

The Beautiful Hazelnut Tree ~ unfamiliar to many of us is highly valued for its fruit/nut.
A topic for research is the current use of imported hazelnuts in Ontario.  A member of The Haldimand Stewardship Council refers to the movement to plant hazelnut trees in Haldimand as a future supply for chocolate companies.

~ Native Trees of Canada, R. C. Hosie, 8th ed. does not list the hazelnut tree.
Photo taken Oct. 21, Simcoe, ON lbw.

"I believe that the scientist is trying to express absolute truth and the artist absolute beauty, so that I find in science and art, and in an attempt to lead a good life, all the religion that I want."

~ John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892 - 1964)  British scientist.  Living Philosophies (1931)

(Photo files:  lbw)

~ THE GREAT THOUGHTS Compiled by George Seldes, Ballantine Books, 1985

Hazelnut Tree ~ Located in Simcoe, Ontario.

Photo:  October 21, 2013.

Recognize this nut?