Evening star., 1926-04-23
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

Edgar Allan Poe as an unconform-
| ing artist is discussed in the following
letter received recently from New
York City:
"A good friend has sent me some of
your clippings from recent issues Of
The Star dealing with Poe. Will you
| allow me to tell you that l think your
discussions of value and well handled.
Your review of Mr.. Krutchs recent
study appeared to be an exceptionally
good way of presenting his works to
your audience.
Il have been working for some years
on life and times of Edgar Allan
Poe, called Israfel, to be published
by Doran in the Autumn. In SO doing
l nave covered nearly all of the ex-
| tant Poe material and turned up a
good deal of vital new sources. / tell
you this to show you why l now take
the liberty of the following remarks
Edgar Allan Poe has been misun-
derstood both by his ordinary readers
| and by his literary and scientific
biographers, because he is almost the
sole example in our American litera-
ture up to very recent times Of the
purely literary artist. In the little
poem which you quoted some time
ago, called Alone you have rightly
surmised that the life story of Poe and
his philosophy Is summed up. The
poem is, by the way, genuine and was
written in the album of Poe's cousin,
MISS Herring, while Poe was in Balti-
more in 1929. In this poem Poe says
IN erect that his inspiration
From every depth of good and i'll
and that this is what has made him
different from all about him.
The mystery which binds me still
X
Now it is positively that which
neither his biographers nor his readers
In this country have ever been able
10 understand. 1t is the credo of the
artist who takes life as he finds it and
lets 1t blow through the strings of his
nature and awake what echoes it will.
Mr.. Poe's nerve strings were yery
tightly and sensitively tuned, and the
sounds he evoked from the storms of
life that finally destroyed so curious
ana nne an instrument are peculiarly
memorable. 1t Is the tunes which he
heard and reproduced that alone make
MIN important, and not what kind of
man he was as a citizen or Journalist
or critic
Say what you will. America is an
incurably moral country and the home
OF the happy and conventionally
minded. For that reason it most ad.
mlres as human being some char
acter type which approaches the ideal
OF Its own moral mediocrity. 1t would
like to see some virtuous grocer's as
sistant, all Of whose children were
born in wedlock and whose whole life
was one long conformity. produce an
immortal poem or other work Of art.
But this is psychologically impossible.
Great works of art depend for their
first principles upon some quality of
arresting and interesting differences,
and differences do not spring from
characters whose whole life effort is to
be the same as everybody else. Hence
you yourself in an article embark upon
the task of showing Poe's common
sense from time to time in this column
merely to show that he was not all
fantasy. But, my dear sir, do you not
see you are trying to do what all Poe's
admirers and critics have done so far,
destroy the only real claim Poe has as
an artist and prove to the great Amer
lean newspaper public that after all
he was just a nice common-Sense fell
low like themselves, who also produced
great works of art?
Let me assure you, you are mis-
taken. Mr.. Poe was one of the most
curious and tremendous persons who
have thus far troubled the North Amer
lean republic. 1t is true he had lat
times) considerable critical common
sense, but his claim for the wreath of
fame lies in the fact that because he
cared Only to record the impressions