River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1908-07-02
EDGAR ALLHW POE

stellations. And as for the matter of
renown-of place in the Hall OF
Fame-What is fame? On your con-
are realists or dreamers, jurists,
scholars or divines, pay some slight
regard to that voice of the outer
world, which one of our own writer's
termed the verdict of "a sort of con-
temporaneous posterity;' note that
there is scarcely an enlightened
tongue into which Poe's lyrics and
tales have not been rendered-that he
is read and held as a distinctive
genius, in France, Spain, Germany,
Italy, Russia, Scandinavia-that the
spell of his art is felt wherever our
own English speech goes With the flags
of its two great overlands. Fame! Is
there one of us still unconscious of
/ Poes fame?
| Not hear? When noise was every
where 1t tolled
Increasing like bell
CHOSE who have given their votes
for Franklin and Hamilton surely
have not demurred on ethical grounds
to one against whom no charge of i'm
morality can lie, seeing that his life,
like his handiwork, was chaste as
moonlight That he was poor and
| headstrong is true; and that he was
| the congenital victim of an abnorna al
craving for stimulants, now accounted
a disease, is true; but what of all this
beside the gift that made it's shining
way against such odds-beside ones
gratitude for his crystallization OF
| our inchoate taste and for the recog.
milton which his poetry and romance
did so much to gain for the literary
product of his native land"
Charles Frederic Stansbury in an
article on Poes life in Tidewater Vir
ginia Tin the Jamestown Magazine)
written apropos of the jamestown ex
position says:
Virginia is, likewise, proud of Poe
| His memory has been indicated by
the fine old university where he was a
| student, and the would-be assassins
of his character have been silenced
| forever. There were all too many OF
! these vultures, the chief of whom was
the unspeakable Griswold, the ghoul
ish slanderer, destined, like the tenn
| pie burner of ancient Ephesus, to live
forever in lasting infamy, his dis
honored name dragging after that OF
the brilliant genius, to emulate the
work of whom is the despair of great
minds and the confusion of little ones
The exquisite bronze bust of Poe
which adorns the University of Vir
| ginia, was modelled by the famous
sculptor, George Julian Zolnay. 1t is
probably the most sympathetic and
beautiful portrait of the poet extant
1t was brought into existence through
the efforts of Prof. Charles w. Kent
of the University of Virginia. MANY
lives of Poe have been written. and
few can remember the names of the
writers; Poe's name was not thought
| worthy to grace the alleged Hall OF
Fame, while nobody can remember
whose names were thought to be thus
worthy. Many a hardened topper or
reading the many pharisaieal biogra
phies of Poe. is highly shocked at the
stories of his occasional intemperance
on which those writer's love to dwell
| Griswold started it, and the rest OF
the sorry pack followed in full cry. Ar
excerpt from Augustine Birrell's ESSAY
on Charles Lamb might well apply te
Poe. With fine scorn this writer saws:
Lamb was rich in all that makes life
valuable or memory sweet But he
used to get drunk. This explains all