Based on the details in the excerpt, what is the primary purpose of this passage?
O to amuse
to inform
O to thrill
O to warn
Read the excerpt from "The Masque of the Red Death"
by Edgar Allan Poe.
But these other apartments were densely crowded, and
in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel
went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the
sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music
ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers
were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all
things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to
be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it
happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with
more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful
among those who reveled. And thus, too, it happened,
perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime
had utterly sunk into silence, there were many
individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to
become aware of the presence of a masked figure which