POE. 149 POE. years of age, a ready French scholar, had read widely if not wisely, and was a good mathe- matician. He was, however, neglectful of his military duties, was often under arrest, and at the end of six months was dismissed from the Academy by court-martial. He was penniless and could no longer look to Mr. Allan for aid. In March, 18.31, another volume from his hand ap- peared, this time in Xew York, under the title I'oems. All the poems save six which had ap- peared in the prexious volume were reprinted, with important changes in several instances, and six additional pieces were given to the public. Among the latter were "The Valley of Unrest," "The City in the Sea," '"Lenore," "To Helen," and "Israfel." Xo poetry of kindred beauty had appeared in America, and in certain respects those remarkable poems have not been surpassed. They showed a wonderfully sensitive ear for verbal notation, a toucli so delicate and sure that it may be described as magical, and an imagina- tion at once sombre arid beautiful. An artist by temperament and by imitation, Poe had no les- sons to teach, no truths to enforce. He cared supremely for beauty for its own sake; and so completely did he master the resources of verse that he was able, by mere collocation of sound, to produce an almost hypnotic effect, to throw a spell over his readers the secret of which re- sides in the beguiling of the ear quite as much as in the awakening of the imagination. The poet's activities were henceforth con- centrated on the task of supporting himself with his pen — a task which was rendered exceedingly difficult, not by lack of opportunities or of friends, but by irregularities of life and a restive, sensitive, and capricious temperament. In Bal- timore, where he next endeavored to secure a foothold, he found friends and made his first poiiular success by winning a prize of .$100 of- fered by The liattirday 'i.^itor, a monthly lit- erary journal, for the best prose story. The story selected by the judges was "A Manuscript Found in a Bottle." Poe was then living with his fa- ther's widowed sister, ilrs. Clemm. whose daugh- ter Virginia, then eleven years old. he married two years later. In the meantime Mr. Allan had died without any recognition of his adopted son in his will, and the poet was at last compelled to face life with such resources as nature had given him. These were ample if they had been wisely directed and husbanded. He had proved him- self a master of lyrical poetry and of the short story, and he was beginning to write criticism of a new order in Amierica. He was also drinking too often and too freely, and his abnormally sen- sitive nervous organization was seriously affected and finally shattered by an indulgence which to men of more vigorous physique would have been of slight physical importance. The uncertainty of his life, the pronounced strain of melancholy in his temperament, the brooding intensity of his imagination, the weakness of his will, and the terrible strain of his wife's long illness contrib- uted to make him the victim of a habit against which he fought at times with desperate courage, and for long periods with success. He was never, except for short periods, what is known as a dissipated man : but strong drink of any kind was a poison to him and the least indulgence prostrated him. From Baltimore Poe removed to Richmond, which he always regarded as his home and where he found congenial and helpful friends. As edi- tor of The fiouthern Literary Messenger he se- cured the happiest conditions which he was to know. He was an indefatigable worker, pro- ducing stories, poems, and critiques with ease, and at this time with evident pleasure. To this period belong a number of his most characteristic tales of fantasy: "Berenice," "The Fall of the Hou.se of Usher," "Ligeia," "Eleonora," "The Masque of the Red Death." These tales were not without forerunners in other literatures, but they combined a quality of imagination, a skill in taking possession of the imagination of the read- er, and a perfection of form which have given them a place by themselves in the literature of the world. They close in upon the mind, by a subtle use of suggestion and repetition, until a purely phantasmal world becomes real and abnor- mal figures take on the semblance of life. The skill with which the transition from the actual to the phantasmal is effected is the supreme triumph of Poe's art in fiction. The men and women who appear in these tales are all phan- toms, without warmth, passion, character; they, and the realm in which they move, are stamped with unreality. Poe's great limitation lies in the narrowness of his range and the lack of deep-rooted vitality in the creatures of his imagination. He deals habitually with abnor- mal aspects of life and phases of experience. His landscapes, characters, incidents are all in the realm of fantasy. These characteristics place him in the ranks of the modern Decadents, whom he has deeply influenced : but he differs widely from the men who have followed his lead in the absolute purity of his thought and imagi- nation. In 1835 literature of high quality was being produced in the United States, but public taste was uneducated, and crude, sentimental, and cheap fiction was widely read. In the columns of The Southern Literary ilesseiujer Poe began to print criticism of a kind and quality which was new to most American readers. He broke away entirely from the trammels of provin- cialism in taste and judgment, and applied to current writing the standards of the literature of the world. His handling of "Xorman Leslie," a popular novel of the day, arrested attention by reason of its vigor, its sarcasm, its disclosure of a genuine gift for analysis and appraisement of literary values. The critic, it was evident, was not averse to the use of the keenest weapons, but used them for high purposes. He was bent on exposing literai'y pretension and breaking the influence of mediocrity in American letters, and he rendered a genuine service to sound ta>«te and therefore to the development of good literature by his critical work. He lacked the spiritual insight of critics of the highest class, but he had wide acquaintance with the best in literature, rare power of analysis, and a very delicate sense of form. Above all. he was largely free from pro- vincial prejudices and capable of judging a work of art on its merits. He recognized the genius of Hawthorne at the very start : he was quick to set its full value on Tennyson's early verse: he discerned the significance of Bryant, Lowell, and Cooper. His occasional failure to compre- hend the spirit and method of a contemporary was most strikingly shown in his unfortunate at- tack on Longfellow, whom he accused of plagiar- izing.
