Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-10-09
An English Physicians Views of Edgar A

zoe.
An English physician, Henry Maudesley,
has recently written an article on Edgar A.
Poe, which, though not at all remarkable, is
not without interest, and we therefore make
one or two extracts therefrom. He says
of Poe's father and mother:
David Poe, deficient of decencies bade
farewell to law, of which he had been a
student, along with respectability, and with
Elizabeth Arnold, the beautiful actress, went
forth into the wide, wide world. On the
whole, the wide world can not be said to be
very suitable place for man to enter upon
| who has given up respectable routine for a
beautiful actress--if he wants to do any
| thing but to die therein. Oh, it was pitifui,
| 1t was bad, irrecoverably bad, David Poe,
for are not the sins of the father visited upon
the children unto the third and fourth
generation? We grieve for the transaction,
yet we can not well regret it; for had not
things so happened, there would have been for
us no Edgar Pee, no "Raven," and no Lenore.
Strange, and the observation is very trite,
how far back lies the origin of any event in
this world. The thing done remains in action
forever. One can not help thinking of the
young lawyer sitting with enraptured coun-
tenance in the pit of the theater, absorbed in
the enchanting actress upon whom every one
OF the multitude present was absorbed in ad-
miraton-for she was great favorite-who
should have pointed to that face, and have
said, that in the sympathetic and admitting
glance which beamed therefrom toward the
actress, lay the germ of things which were
TO occupy the worlds attention, as long, NAV
be, as it existed. Edgar Poe, his poetry, and
the amazement of mankind at his strange,
lurid, irregular existence; nay, that glance is
also actually accountable for this present
waste ofink and paper.
OF the author of the Craven" and the
kindness-much overstated by the physician
shown the poet, his English reviewer OBJ
serves:
There is one pleasing circumstance in the
history OF Edgar; and it is this, that the
world has no cause to ,reproach itself for ne
glect OF him; as it does so reprOach itself in
respect Of its treatment to certain unhappy
geniuses. Kindness interposed constantly
trom the cradle to the grave, and did what
could be done to rescue him from the misery
that he was ever bringing down upon him
self. His case may, indeed, be cited as in
structvely showing how vain it is to re-
proach ourselves for not showering aid on
such unhappy beings. Would not Chatter
ton, being such as he was, have died of ar
senic, or even more miserably, whatever had
been done for him? And Byron. would he
have been more wayward and more wretched,
had he been born to poverty and starvation
instead Of being born to an income and a
coronet? When man can not do something
for himself he seems to be like sieve, to let
all the good others may do to him run
through. Is it not, moreover, somewhat in
consistent with the character OF genius TO
look for such aid2 If the man has been sent
into the world, so pre-eminently endowed,
he has been sent to enlighten and to benefit
the world, and not to be nursed and coddled
by it like delicate child.