قلّما يوجد من لم يتسلَّ، في فترة من حياته، بتتبّع الخطوات التي قادته إلى نتائج بعينها في عقله. وهو عملٌ كثيرًا ما يكون شائقًا، فمن يحاوله للمرة الأولى يُدهش من المسافة الشاسعة التي تبدو بلا نهاية، ومن التفكك بين نقطة البداية والغاية.

“There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.”Edgar Allan Poe — The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition (1976)