Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions — John H. Ingram, 1880, volume II — reading text

matter of impulse or inspiration. To originate, is carefully, patiently, and understandingly, to combine. The few American magazinists who ever think of this elaboration at all, cannot afford to carry it into practice for the paltry prices offered them by our periodical publishers. For this, and other glaring reasons, we are behind the age in a very important branch of literature, a branch which, moreover, is daily growing in importance, and which, in the end (not far distant), will be the most influential of all the departments of letters. “We are lamentably deficient not only in invention proper, but in that which is more strictly art. What American, for instance, in penning a criticism, ever supposes himself called upon to present his readers with more than the exact stipulation of his title — to present them with a criticism, and something beyond? Who thinks of making his critique a work of art in itself, independently of its critical opinions? a work of art, such as are all the more elaborate and most effective reviews of Macaulay? Yet these reviews we have evinced no incapacity to appreciate when presented, The best American review ever penned is miserably ineffective when compared with the notice of Montagu’s ‘Bacon,’ and yet this latter is, in general, a piece of tawdry sophistry, owing everything to a consummate, to an exquisite arrangement — to a thorough and just sufficiently comprehensive diffuseness, to a masterly climacing of points — to a style which dazzles the understanding with its brilliancy, but not more than it misleads it by its perspicuity, causing us so distinctly to comprehend that we fancy we coincide — in a word, to the perfection of art — of all the art which a Macaulay can wield, or which is applicable to any criticism that a Macaulay could write.” Hereafter follows an analysis of “Peter Snooks,” that tale being referred to as a specimen of the artistic manner in which an experienced English magazinist constructs his story, a most remarkable deficiency in that branch of literature being ascribed to Americans of the period. Poe declared, indeed, that except Hawthorne and one or two others, there “was not even a respectable skilful tale-writer on that side the Atlantic.” In July, Messrs. Wiley & Putnam announced for publication, in their Library of American Books, a volume of “Tales by Edgar A. Poe” himself. This collection was made for the publishers by Mr. E. A. Duyckinck, editor of the well-known Cyclopedia of American Literature. Besides many of the poet’s previously ‘published tales, the book contained the new story of “Mesmeric Revelation,” a story issued soon afterwards in the Columbian Magazine. Poe was somewhat annoyed at the selection made, and wrote to a correspondent: — “It may be some years before I publish the rest of my tales, essays, &c. The publishers cheat — and I must wait till I can be my own publisher. The collection of tales issued by Wiley & Putnam were selected by a gentleman whose taste does not coincide with my own, from seventy-two written by me at various times — and those chosen are not my best, nor do they fairly represent me in any respect.” Subsequently the author seems to have somewhat modified his views as to the nature of this collection for the editor of which he always expressed a high opinion. Small as was the volume, and limited its contents in quantity, the quality elicited a large amount of admiration and respect, not only in the United States but also in Europe. The “Tales” were published simultaneously in New York and London, and from the latter city Mr. Martin F. Tupper wrote to the publisher, “Shall we make Edgar Poe famous by a notice in the Literary Gazette?” Mr. Putnam does not state whether he accepted this generous offer; it is, therefore, difficult to say how much of the poet’s renown is due to the mediation of the “Proverbial Philosopher.” Probably the most important of the foreign reviews of these “Tales” was the appreciative critique by Monsieur E. D. Forgues that appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes. The reviewer, after an analysis of the various stories, proceeds to comment upon their shortness, and the greater probability of fame such writings possess over the wire-drawn inanities of our novelists, concluding with real prescience, that “il sera opportun de les comparer quand le temps aura consolidé la reputation naissante du conteur étranger et — qui sait? — ébranle quelque peu celles de nos romanciers féconds.” This, and other highly flattering notices of the young foreigner, gave an impetus to his reputation in Europe, which may be deemed to have culminated in the vraisemblant translations of Baudelaire, who, indeed, spent many years of his life in an endeavour to thoroughly identify his mind with that of his favourite littérateur, Edgar Poe, and who has reproduced many of Poe’s finest tales with but little, if any, loss of vigour and originality. Indeed, it is chiefly due to the efforts of Baudelaire — to the, in some respects, kindred genius of him to whom Victor Hugo wrote: — “ ‘Vous avez doté le ciel de l‘art d‘on ne sait quel rayon macabre — vous avez créé un frisson nouveau” — that Poe’s works have become standard classics in France. Edgar Poe, it may be pointed out, is the only American writer really well known and popular in that country. In Spain his “Historias Extraordinarias” speedily acquired fame, and have been thoroughly nationalised; whilst in Germany his poems and tales both have been frequently translated; also in Italy three or four separate translations of the latter have been published. Poe forwarded a copy of his “Tales” to Mrs. Browning, then Miss Barrett, who, writing to a correspondent shortly afterwards, remarked — “There is a tale of his which I do not find in this volume, but which is going the rounds of the newspapers, about mesmerism, throwing us all into most admired disorder, or dreadful doubts as to whether it can be true, as the children say of ghost-stories. The certain thing in the tale in question is the power of the writer, and the faculty he has of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar.” The story to which Mrs. Browning referred was “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” not published until December of that year. In July, the sole management of the Broadway Journal devolved upon Poe, although the publication did not become his own property for some months later. The new volume opened with the usual flourish of trumpets from the publisher, who, after thanking his numerous friends for their aid in “the very difficult task of establishing a literary and critical weekly,” informs them that “the success of the work, in the brief period of its existence, has been, he truly believes, beyond precedent, and that from a brilliant past he looks confidently to a triumphant future.” To the Journal for this month Poe contributed, besides revisions of his earlier tales and poems, a lengthy review of Mr. Hirst’s poems, a sympathetic one of Mr. Hoyt’s quaint “Chaunt of Life,” several voluminous critiques on The Drama, and many shorter notices and notes, of more or less interest. His dramatic critiques were chiefly occupied with the acting of Mrs. Mowatt — of whose grace and beauty he spoke in terms of enthusiastic admiration — and from the first of them these significant sentences may be cited: — “We have no sympathies with the prejudices which would have dissuaded Mrs. Mowatt from the stage. There is no cant more contemptible than that which habitually decries the theatrical profession — a profession which, in itself, embraces all that can elevate and ennoble, and absolutely nothing to degrade. If some, if many, or if even nearly all of its members are dissolute, this is an evil arising not from the profession itself, but from the unhappy circumstances which surround it. . . . In the mere name of actress she can surely find nothing to dread — nothing, or she would be unworthy of the profession, not the profession unworthy her. The theatre is ennobled by its high facilities for the development of genius — facilities not afforded elsewhere in equal degree. By the spirit of genius, we say, it is ennobled, it is sanctified beyond the sneer of the fool or the cant of the hypocrite. The actor of talent is poor of heart, indeed, if he do not look with contempt upon the mediocrity even of a king The writer of this article is himself the son of an actress, has invariably made it his boast, and no earl was ever prouder of his earldom than he of his descent from a woman who, although well born, hesitated not to consecrate to the drama her brief career of genius and of beauty.” Poe’s contribution to the American Review for this month was the poem of “Eulalie,” and to Graham’s Magazine that most suggestive story, “The Imp of the Perverse.” Probably in no other tale of this author will such originality of investigation, and such acumenical analysis of a monomania, be discoverable, as in this one. The field of research would appear to have been quite unexplored in this direction, and had, perchance, been left so, because hitherto no one bad at once combined in his own person the power to analyse, and the morbid “sixth sense” of perversity analysable. Many, most persons, have, undoubtedly, to some extent, and at certain times, felt promptings to act in a manner they know to be diametrically opposed to their own interests, and that for no reasonable reason; yet few, whose mental equilibrium is invariably unshaken, come within the morbid circle of those depicted by Poe, with whom “the assurance of the wrong, or error, of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us, to its prosecution.” Whether this “overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong’s sake” will not, as the poet declares, “admit of analysis, or resolution, into ulterior elements,” or whether it really “is a radical, a primitive, impulse,” may safely be left to the professed psychologist to discuss; but no thoughtful person will refuse to admit the truth of the illustrations Poe offers in corroboration of his theory. The love, inherent in human nature, to dally with danger, is faithfully rendered in these words: — “We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss — we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably, we remain. By slow degrees our sickness, and dizziness, and horror, become merged in a cloud of unnameable feeling By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapour from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But out of this, our cloud upon the precipice’s edge, there grows into palpability a shape far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it but a thought, is although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of out bones with the fierceness of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height; and this fall — this rushing annihilation — for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imaginationfor this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it; and because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the more impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. To indulge for a moment in any attempt at thought is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge and are destroyed. “Examine these and similar actions as we will, we shall find them resulting