Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1880-12-22
EDGAR ALLEN POE.
BY u. G. HARRIS.

There have appeared at different
stages of the worlds history minds SO
anomalous in their nature, so totally at
variance with those surrounding them,
so unnatural and equivocal in their con-
struction, that they have seemed more
like Grant spirits from the world be-
yond than those possessing the attri-
butes and propensites of common NOR
tails.
Prominent among the names in this
strange order of beings occurs that of
Edgar Allen Poe. He combines in re-
markable degree two elements of mind
seldom found united analysis and i'm
agination. These constitute the ground
work of his genius, they are the source
of his wonderful power. No two facuI-
ties could stand more opposite in their
effects. Their union in him give to many
of his subjects the effect of what can
only be expressed by the extraordinary
phrase of the spiritually material. He
treats the most ideal themes In the most
| realistic manner. He is both poet and
mathematician. He conceives with all
the vividness of the former, but he rea-
sons with all the GOODNESS and precision
of the latter. He is living fire hedged Ill
with ice. He reduces the widest play
of passion to the most exact order. He
unites the severest logic to the most ex-
uberant fancy, the heat of passion to the
GOODNESS of reason.
A too-close observance of the poetical
and ideal part of his nature has gained
for him the appellation of dreamer. He
has his moods of abstraction, but he is
not the typical dreamer His piercing
acuteness, his minuteness of detail, his
subtle distinctions, his refined reason
mgs, all separate him from the purely
meditative mind The dreamer is pas
sive; Poe concentrates them. The
dreamer revels In the mysterious Poe
viii have nothing to do with it, only as
be can explain it. The dreamer sur
renders himself to contemplation and
reverie till his own individuality is lost
in that of the objects around him; Poe.
never loses himself in his abstraction. he
is most keenly alive when most absorbed
Mark the contrast between the
strength, clearness and precision of his
intellectual, and the wild disorder and
disease of his moral and aesthetic facul-
ties. He naturally possesses delicate.
perceptions and refined sensibilities.
But what do we find in his tales ?
nature attuned to the harmonious and
the beautiful reveling in all that is dis
cordant and hideous; mind intoxicated
by the fendishness of its own creations
indulging In all that is selt-destructive;
all the natural, genuine emotions of the
heart blighted and turned away; hope
driven into the icy caves of despair; Joy
banished into rayless caverns Of gloom:
poetic fervor turned into demoniacaJ
fury; feeling frozen into frenzy; smiles
wlthered into sneers. In fine, the i'm
preston produced by these wierd COM
positions is that of demon mounting to
q throne of evil eminence ON the wreck
OF all that is pure and beautiful; and,
having attained it, gazing down with
fiendish glee upon the ruins below. The
diseased condition of his mind we see
manifested in the unnatural delight he
seems to take in dwelling on the sub
iects of death and decay. In one Of his
tales he says; 81 have imbibed the
shadows of the fallen columns Of Tad
NOR. Balbec and Persepolis, till my
very soul has become ruin" That Is
it. It is always beauty and grace de-
throned; shattered columns, crumbling
walls and tottering arches; the lingering
smile on the lips of death; the false and
treacherous bloom on the features of
disease; "the gilded halo. lowering
round decay it is all these that his
morbid fancy seizes upon with such
greedy avidity.
He cares nothing for mere external OBJ
iects only as they excite his emotions.
Therefore he always chooses such sub
jects as are suggestive of melancholy
and sadness. He ever represents love
as in the icy clutches of death, not that
he may show his affection for the dead,
but rather as means of gratifying his
abstract love of grief He has morbid
craving for unnatural sensations. He
feeds ON mockeries. He taunts himself
with the hopelessness of his despair, and
takes strange delight in this process of
self-torture. His most intolerable an
guish is his keenest joy; the more pain
full his emotions. the more pungent his
pleasure; the greater his grief, the more
delicious his sorrow.
But how shall we account for this per-
version of his nature9 That a mind
should indulge in all that Is sef-destruct-