George W. Eveleth to Edgar Allan Poe — 1845-12-21

George W. Eveleth to Edgar Allan Poe — 1845-12-21 Complete letter I from the 1922 historical printed edition. This is a historical transcription, not a scan of the autograph. All pages containing this letter are preserved unchanged; parts of adjacent letters or introductory material remain visible under their own headings. The searchable text is limited to this letter and its printed address/endorsement. Separate endnotes elsewhere in the source volume are not included. Machine OCR has not been fully proofread and may misread punctuation, dates, names or superscripts; consult the preserved scan for exact wording. Phillips, Dec. 21st [1845] I commenced taking Graham’s Magazine in 1842. It was about the first of my reading of the kind; and I was highly pleased with it — was especially pleased with the passionate stories of Mrs. Stephens, and the merry, skipping, child-like utterings forth of Mrs. Osgood.? Yet there were some few productions which I met with that were not in much favor with me at first; and they were those of Mr. Poe, the editor of the magazine during the first six months that I took it. His criticisms, I thought, were sheer pedan- tries, and his tales very perplexities, very enigmas which I could not unravel. His ‘Mask of the Red Death,’ .in particular, seemed a complete mystery. I could find neither beginning, middle, nor end to it— neither design nor meaning. But I was only a boy, and unused to much thinking, or to analyzing; so I was unprepared to judge with respect to the merits of what I read. I was incapable of discovering the lofty talent (genius, I suppose I should say) which his writings really possessed. — No, I know I am but little better fitted for the station of judge of literary merit than I was three years ago, and I have not aspired to that station now. I merely give my feeling. I have gone back to that old volume of the magazine, and read over and over again the reviews there, and have read, as carefully, those that have appeared in all the later volumes. But it has appeared to my mind that there was less of real, sound, philosophical criticism in the whole of these latter, than even in the one little notice of Hawthorne’s ‘Twice-told Tales’* among the former. And I should find more pleasure in perusing now, for the twentieth time, the fan- tasy condemned above, than in reading a story by Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Embury,> Mr. Peterson,° or any of the host of fanciful news-paper contribu- tors, for the first time. To be short and direct, Mr. Poe is the one I have selected from all the writers of whom I know any thing, for my especial favorite. I am passion- ately fond of reading his productions of all kinds. His works of analysis, such as ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’” ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogét,’® &c. whet curiosity to the keenest edge, forcing the very soul of the reader, in spite of himself, to every step, and through every obscure winding of their course. But I rather prefer his — his — his — night-mare tales to these —I know not what better adjective to use; for they cling, to my mind at least, in all the vividness, and with all the shivering intensity of the night-mare. In ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion,’® ‘The Descent into the Mael- strom,’!° ‘The Masque of the Red Death,’ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’! and others, there is a kind of under-current of something — I know not what — that comes up, faint at first, and dimly seen, but increasing gradually in strength and brightness, till it opens into a full ocean, surging and sounding and flaming. Each of them is a volume of metaphysicks and a book of poetry. I have never seen but three or four of his poems, and those are poems in my estimation. ‘The Haunted Palace’!? is next to perfect, Mr. Lowell sais. And I think ‘Dream-Land’! is nearly as good. I like Mr. Poe’s writings, I say, the best of any that I have come across, notwithstanding the man, I think, is rather graceless — rather egotistical; rather irreverent towards his f