POE CENTENARY EXERCISES. 39 



man as he violently closed the door. It is a perilous hour 

 for a writer when men and women confuse clamorous lauda- 

 tion with intelligent appreciation and will nut let the air rest 

 from their in >i>y protestations; and for the poet the hour in 

 which he becomes fund for recitation is often the hour of 

 doom. That Poe has survived the pealing of the hells and 

 the invocation to the Raven is a sign of his genius; it has been 

 said, you remember, that the fact that the Christian religion 

 had survived written sermons is proof >>i its divine origin. 



Tt is a serious misfortune, too. when a man's friends juggle 

 with the facts of his life or claim for him qualities and ex- 

 cellences which he obviously lacked, or push his inferior work 

 to the front and demand that on the strength of it he be 

 admitted into the company of the immortals. All these 

 things Poe's unwise admirers have done: the}' have tried to 

 ignore indisputable facts, they have claimed for him a vitality 

 and range of genius which he does not possess; and they have 

 pressed his secondary work on the attention of the world. 



Poe's fame has survived the enormously over-worked popu- 

 larity of " The Raven " and " The Bells." The first of these 

 poems is probably known by more people than any other 

 piece of verse yet written on tins continent; obviously that 

 is a fact which has its weight. In both poems Poe's technical 

 skill is marvelous; he plays like a great virtuoso on the open 

 and closed vowels; he produces the most striking effects by 

 the use of the refrain and repetend. In the world of sound 

 these poems are of a magical effectiveness; they have a 

 hypnotic influence. But while the outer courts of the soul 

 are swept with melody the inner courts are silent. Poe's 

 genius must be sought elsewhere: there is a note of artificiality 

 in both these poems; they have no spiritual root, and no deep 

 artistic necessity fashioned them. 



It has been Poe's misfortune also to fall into the hands 

 oi malicious or self-exploiting biographers, whose portraits 

 of him have been as much out of drawing as is Fronde's 

 striking but misleading sketch of Carlyle; examples of that 



