The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1877-08-06
A Characteristic Of Poe.
fFrom the New Quarterly Magazine.l

II + were suddenly asked to name Poe's
dominant intellectual characteristic should
unhesitatingly answer, a passion Ter per-
lection; and If ] were then asked to name
the merely literary qualities by which this
is indicated, I should say. His accuracy and
his thoroughness.i ] know hon; strange,
and even absurd, this must sound to those
who think OF Poe as a specimen OF the
most impulsive and irregular type OF &C.
MUS; but ! cannot help its strangeness,
and hone to prove its truth and to
show the special kind OF perfection which
it was his constant endeavor to attain. Per-
hans to those whose acquaintance with his
works is not limited to "The Raven " and
half dozen OF his short tales it may hardly
seem SO very strange after all. 1t may, in
deed, be said that when this quality OF Poe's
intellectual temperament 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 dis
coyery appears so familiar that we feel
as il we had known it all our lie
which harmoniZes SO entirely with our
other mental acquisitions that it is dllf1cult
to believe it had not some obscure place
among our original mental furniture. Foes
passion for perfection manlfests itself more
or less visibly in everything which he
wrote; its workings are clearly enough to
be seen in the compositions just mentioned,
and its existence might be inferred, il not
proved, from them alone. Most OF his
short tales belong to the class of artistic
productions which painters call by the
name Of pot-boilers ~; that is, they
were produced to supply immediate
pecuniary necessities which were too
pressing to wait for the completion OF more
elaborate work. And yet they have about
them nothing Of the hasty, careless, slap
dash, pot-boiler character. They are planned
az carefully and finished as minutely as II
their author had been rich literary anna
teur with nothing to do but to take care
of his reputation. In the merest e1ter-
mails the same spirit was manifested.
He did not, like Button, array him.
self in full-dress when he sat down
to write, but the outside garments OF
his thoughts, the characters in which they
were traced upon the paper, were dlstln-
guished by such singular beauty that a
manuscript OF Poe is veritable artistic
treat. His handwriting is indeed SO cEar-
acteristic that it is real help to us IN
forming an opinion OF the man. The
compliment paid to its mere iegibility
in one Of Griswold's fictitious anecdotes
is fine specimen of the art OF damnlng
with faint praise. Every letter is perfectly
formed, every word reveals its slgnih-
cance at glapce, every point is placed as
carefully as il Poe had been q Hebrew
scribe copying the sacred law; everywhere
there is an exquisite symmetry; and yet no
handwriting was ever less mechanical and
formal, or more full Of individuality and
Significance. Thackeray's caligraphy some.
what resembles it, but in the manuscript OF
the English novelist the mere prettlness OF
the penmanship is in excess OF the eApres.
siyeness, while in that OF Poe we seem 10
get glimpse OF the real man.