The Avenging Conscience

A baby has been left in the care of a bachelor uncle, who lavishes all his love and tenderness on his charge. He plans a great literary career for his nephew, for the boy has shown promise of future greatness. But he had reckoned without thought of a possible obstacle, woman. In the freshness of his youth, the young man meets a beautiful girl, whom he calls in the joy of his poetical nature, "Annabel Lee." The twain soon grow to love each other, with all the power which Poe has so vividly portrayed in his poems of the affections. But the old uncle, his heart set upon the boy's future, interferes. When "Annabel" calls to invite her young swain to a garden party, the uncle insults her by accusing her of pursuing his nephew "like a common woman," Hoping thereby to prevent her ever returning. The insult sinks deep into her heart, and realizing that the boy's obligations to his uncle are too great to be honorably broken, the two decide to part forever. Meanwhile, however, the uncle undergoes a change of heart, as the young people, grief-stricken and all unknowing, say their final farewells. Now comes to the young man thoughts that are black and evil. It seems to him that all Nature is but a series of systematic murders. He sees the spider devouring the fly, the ants consuming insects of other kinds. Only that day he had been reading the poems and stories of Edgar Allen Poe, among them the story of "The Tell Tale Heart." If only the old man, his uncle, were out of the way, there might yet be joy and happiness with the girl he loves. To make all the stronger this powerful impression on his mind, his uncle has only one eye, just as had the poor victim in the story of "The Tell Tale Heart." Brooding over the tragic blackness of the impending separation, he forms a diabolical plan. With all the consummate skill of Poe's character in "The Tell Tale Heart," the plan takes form and execution. It is then that the great and saving grace of conscience demonstrates its power. Avenging thoughts, such as Poe himself might have conceived, are visualized to the quaking youth. The subtle working of the inner conscience, beyond the power of mind to control, finds expression in the weird and terrible visions which torture the culprit brain. Relentless fate pursues him to the brink of the pit and then a sudden awakening proves that part of his mental disturbance is a dream, and the dream is what causes him to realize the horror of murder and to abandon the idea of it.