The Red Cloud chief., 1877-12-20
A Characteristic Of Poe.

| IL i were SuuUcUiy d5hcu W HdIic
POe's dominant intellectual character
istic, l should unhesitatingly answer a
passion for perfection; and if l were
then asked to name the merely literary
qualities by which this is indicated, l
should say his accuracy and his thor
Oughness. l know how strange and even
absurd this must sound to those who
think of Poe as a specimen of the most
| impulsive and irregular type of genius
but l cannet help its s~trangeness, and
hope to prove its truth and to show the
special kind of perfection which it was
his constant eudeavOr to attain. Per-
haps to those whose acquaintance with
his works is not limited to "The Raven"
and half a dozen of his short tales, it
may hardly seem SO very strange after
all. 1t may, indeed, be said that when
this quality of Poe's intellectual tenn
permanent has once been seized by the
critical perception. it seems so obvious
that the wonder is how it could ever
have been missed.
1t is like some new truth, which the
moment after its discovery appears so
familiar that we feel as if we had known
it all our ~life-which harmODizes so en-
tirely with our other mental acquisitions
that it is difficult to belle Ie it had not
some obscure place among our original
mental furniture. POe's passion for per.
lection manifests itself more OF less
visibly in everything which he wrote;
its workings r clearly enough to be
seen in the compositions just mentioned,
and its existence might be inferred if
not proved from them alone. Most of
his short tales belong to the class of ar.
tistic productions which painters call by
the name of "rct boilers" that is, they
were produced to supply immediate pc
cuniary necessities. which were too
pressing to wait f0f the completion Of
more elaborate work. And yet they
have about them nothing Of the hasty,
careless, slapdash, pot boiler character.
They are planned as carefully and fin.
ished as infinitely as if their author had
been a rich literary amateur, with no
thing to do bat to take care of his repu-
tation. In tho merest externals the
same spirit was manifested. He did not.
like Button, array himself in full dress
when he sat down to write. but the out
side garments of his thoughts, the char
acters in which they were traced upon
the paper, were distinguished by such
singular beauty that a manuscript of
Poe is a verltable artistic treat. His
handwriting is indeed so characteristic
that it is a real help 10 us in forming an
opinion of the man. The compliment
paid to its mere legibility in one of Girls
worlds fictitious anecdotes, is a fine
specimen OF the art of damning with
faint praise. Every letter is perfectly
formed. every word reveals its signii-
canoe at a glance, every point is placed
as carefully as if Poe had been a He.
brew scribe copying the sacred law;
everywhere there is an exquisite SYM
metry, and yet no handwriting was ever
less mechanical and formal, or more full
of Individuality and significance. Thack-
eray's caligraphy somewhat resembles
it, but in the manuscript of the English
novelist the mere prettiness OF the PEN
manship is in excess of the expressive
ness, while in that of Poe We seem to
get a glimpse of the real man.-The
Ne1D Ouarterlu MAGAZINE.