Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/136

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
102
EDGAR ALLAN POE.

the legacy he bequeathed to literature, nor has it stilled the voices that, as one, acclaim his many fine qualities; lauding his devotion to his nearest ties and to his friends, his undaunted efforts to maintain his wife and mother when ill in body and enduring the most wearing of all pain—hope deferred, his honest and proper pride, disdaining to reproach when reproach was justifiable, his well-nigh superhuman industry and patience, his courage that refrained from lamentation and, through all and over all, the purity of his life. As these voices speak truly, their words live, for, having caught the fine ear of justice with which the people of America ever listen, they are imperishable.