Ruskin tells us, in his treatise on the Grotesque, that it is the trembling of the human soul in the presence of Death which most of all disturbs the images on the intellectual mirror, investing them with the grotesque ghastliness of fitful dreams. “If the mind be not healthful and serene the wider the scope of its glance and the grander the truths of which it obtains an insight the more fantastic and fearful are these distorted images.”
Yet, as out of mighty and terrific discords noblest harmonies are sometimes evolved, so through the purgatorial ministries of awe and terror, and through the haunting Nemesis of doubt, Poe’s restless and unappeased soul was urged on to the fulfilment of its appointed work—groping out blindly towards the light, and marking the approach of great spiritual truths by the very depth of the shadow it projected against them.
It would seem that the true point of view from which his genius should be regarded has yet to be sought.
