The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

WILLIAM WILSON

connected with my family. But assuredly if we had
been brothers we must have been twins; for, after
leaving Dr. Bransby's, I casually learned that my
namesake was born on the nineteenth of January,
1813; and this is a somewhat remarkable coincidence;
for the day is precisely that of my own nativity.
It may seem strange that in spite of the continual
anxiety occasioned me by the rivalry of Wilson, and
his intolerable spirit of contradiction, I could not
bring myself to hate him altogether. We had, to be
sure, nearly every day a quarrel in which, yielding me
publicly the palm of victory, he, in some manner, contrived to make me feel that it was he who had deserved
it; yet a sense of pride on my part, and a veritable
dignity on his own, kept us always upon what are
called "spealing terms," while there were many points
of strong congeniality in our tempers, operating to
awake in me a sentiment which our position alone,
perhaps, prevented from ripening into friendship. It
is difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe, my
real feelings towards him. They formed a motley
and heterogeneous admixture: some petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred, some esteem, more
respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy curiosity.
To the moralist it will be unnecessary to say, in addition, that Wilson and myself were the most inseparable of companions.
It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs
existing between us, which turned all my attacks
upon him (and they were many, either open or covert)
into the channel of banter or practical joke (giving
pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather
than into a more serious and determined hostility.
But my endeavors on this head were by no means
13

9