Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1880-12-22

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of this apparent contradiction is to be
found in peculiar tendency of his nat
ure-his morbid habit of introspection.
Hawthorne the profoundest moral
philosopher that America has ever
produced-has said that. of all of the
practices in which mind may indulge,
this one of introspection is the most
pernicious. Poe is slave to it. His
eyes are ever eurned inward to "heart
gnawed with anguish" Here, within
this spiritual laboratory, he dissects,
analyses, watches. He notes each pass
ing breath of emotion. He catches each
f1uctuating shade of feeling. He stud
les with painful minuteness the creeping
sensations of crime, guilt, sin and re-
morse. He pursues with nervous in
tensity the darkest thoughts as they steal
stealthily through the chambers of the
heart. He loves to see the delicate
or pnlsate with low. And it was this
process of critical self-anaiysis, this
peering into the innermost recesses of
the soul, this cold, analytic dissecting of
an emotion rs an anatomist would
nerve, this lying in wait for the
play of passion, this trailing thought
through all its tortuous windings-it
was this that shattered Poe's sensibilities
and dulled his perception. His charac-
tiers are but the logical sequence
of this intense subjective tendency of
mind In none of them can there be
found a complete and harmonious blend
ing of all the elements of mind and soul.
They are simply the incarnations of
| thought, mere distractions of crime and
| Ill
flesh and blood. All their sympathy,
love and fear is absorbed 10y single ami
mating principle. They have but little
to link them to humanity, and possess
more in common with the denizens of
hell than with in the habitants of the
earth.
The many conflicting tendencies found
in Poe would seem to almost Justify
belief in the duality of mind He was
strange compound of opposites, a Curl
Gus blending of harmonies and discords
In him I" fire and frost embrace" At
times he was mild, gentle and sffable;
again fierce, passionate and moody. Now
he would be charming or electrifying
circle of friends by his wonderful elo-
gu nee and now, sitting apart in some
secluded retreat, muttering to himself in
dismal monologues. One moment hold
ing you enraptured by his visions of
wondrous beauty; the next, claiming
you, petrifed with terror, among his
dismal phantoms, built up in forms OF
"gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur"
To-day, soaring away into the far-of
realms of imagination tomorrow,
wandering in ohe gloomy labyrinths OF
his own SOUL CAT night, the hero of
drunken debauch in the morning,
wizard of song, whose weird and ftfU
music was like that of sirens"
Poe has often been called the Byron
of America. In many respects they are
similar. Both are egotistical, passionate,
arrogant both have a morbid love Of
melancholy, gloom and death both
are the victims of passion and dis
eased self. contemplation. Poe resem-
bles Byron in his ethical. but not
his mental qualities. Byron is powerful,
vigorous, synthetic Poe is subtle,
| acute, analytic. Byron has broader COM
prehension; Poe has keener perception.
Byron treats of individuals Poe only
of principles. Byron is more objective
Poe more subjective. Byron was driven
into his own consciousness by forces
from without Poe entered his more
from innate necessity. Byron is not
only conscious of self-he feels the gaze
of the whole world Poe forgets the
outward, in his intense concentration
on the inward. Byron broods over his
wrongs; Poe analyses his emotions.
| Byron dwells upon his sorrows with
morbid self-pity Poe dissects his with
| frenzied pleasure. In other points they
! stand in closer relations, but still remain
apart. Byron is cynical, sullen, morose;
Poe is gloomy, sorrowful, respondent.
| Byron is misanthrope Poe is hypo-
chondriac. Byron wages war with all
mankind; Poe is ever contending with
! the elements of his own nature. Byron
has but little of idealism; Poe has moth
ing of sensualism. Byron has more of
human sympathy; yet Poe has less of
scorn and sarcasm. Byron's passions
come hot and seething from the heart
| Poe's are cold as intellect itself Byron
brushes all sentiment and feeling Poe
reverses them. Byron seems like
knocking devil, laughing at the world
in rhyme;'' Poe like a scoffing demon,
exulting in his own tiendishness
This, then, Is Poe, the saddest, lone
lest figure in all literature who gave
| the cypress to love and the myrtle to
! death who sounded the lowest depths
of Indebtedness and laughed at his own
misery who made of life living death
and chanted the requiems of despair
over the dead hopes of his own soul.
| The melancholy and gloom in which he
inshrouded himself has tinged with sad
ness all that he has written or said. No
ode to the nightingale or skylark from
Poe-his was to the sable-winged raven,
the type of his sorrow. He was ever
pursued across life's stage by the pas
sions of his nature, like Orestes fleeing
the furies, and he will ever hold place
in the memory of men rather for what
he might have been than for what he
was. Goethe has been called the poet
of the universe Byron the poet of the