POE CENTENARY EXERCISES. -I 1 ) 



terest, subordination of secondary meaning, compression oi 

 thoughl within a narrow compass, and the identification of 

 the poem with a distinctive metrical effect. Within these 

 narrow limits, imposed by his own genius, confirmed by his 

 character, and later, rationalized into a philosophy, Poe was 

 a master. lie fashioned, under these rules, a few poems 

 which are finalities, and a finality marks the end of the path. 

 Poe has <rone as far as man can go in his own field, and that 

 is saying that he was a creative artist; one whose work be- 

 trays not only perfection of form but individuality of touch. 

 At the end of a hundred years how stands the account with 

 Poe and what place does he hold in our literature? Poets, 

 critics, story-writers of high rank abroad have given him the 

 first place: at home there lias been a great confusion of voices; 

 reckless charge and countercharge; unmeasured condemna- 

 tion, unmeasured Laudation. In the Hall of Fame, of which 

 the university whose guests we are today is the custodian hut 

 without voice in the selection of names inscribed on its walls 

 and therefore free of all responsibility, l'oe's has not vet 

 found a place. That is a small matter so far as his fame is 

 concerned, for fame does not rest on the suffrages of any 

 lesser jury than the great body of intelligent readers. If 

 symmetry of life and faultless contour of conduct are the 

 tests which determine fitness for this enrolment among the 

 immortals Poe must he content to he excluded as Coleridge 

 and Shelley and Burns — all irregular in life hut none of 

 them corrupt in nature — Chopin and Wagner, Raphael and 

 Turner would he shut out were they brought to the same 

 seat of judgment. If character, that is the equation between 

 temptation in temperament, inheritance, physique and the 

 insidious and searching influence of conditions, and resistance, 

 the final direction of the struggling spirit in the storm and 

 mystery of life, is the determining element then the exclusion 

 of Poe is a usurpation of a function which Infinite Wisdom 

 alone is intelligent and just enough to discharge. If the 

 determining test is, as it ought to be, the quality of a man's 



