f Poe was lost to the view of many by a
too persistent search for the satyr's cloven foot. In considering the
poet's eccentricities, in common with other extraordinary and anomalous
beings, it must be deeply deplored that one so endowed with wealth of
intellect beyond his fellow men, should be still so poor in moral store
that the dullest of them could dare look with disdain on this heir to
gifts regal and sacred.

He could forget his deep, earnest love of order in things intellectual,
in every excess of disorder in things material, and his passionate love
of the beautiful could be profaned by frequent grovelling amid the
hideous deformities of vice. Poe, in his reverence for Art (his only
reverence), seemed generally to set greater store on the elaborate and
artistic perfection of his works, than in the spontaneity of genius
therein displayed. So it would seem, at least, in his voluntarily
exposing the skeleton design of his greatest poem, 'The Raven,' and the
various processes by which this grand shadow attained its final
harmonious and terrible proportions. This may be a noble sacrifice to
the principles of Art, intended as a warning to rash novices against the
sin of slovenliness in composition; but the poem must be of solid fibre
to resist this disenchanting test. The unveiling of hidden mysteries,
the disclosure of trap doors, ropes, and pulleys, may assist in the
general dissemination of knowledge; but in behalf of those who prefer to
be ignorant that they may be happy, we protest against the innovation.
In this dangerous experiment of Poe's, however, we are forced to do what
he would have us do--admire the ingenuity of the poet, together with his
knowledge of effect, rhythmical and dramatic, his flexibility and
strength of versification, and marvellous faculty of word painting. This
propensity to make all things subservient to the advancement of Art is
not always productive of present good to one's fellow beings, whatever
may be the results to posterity, as the luckless women who cross the
path of such men cannot unfrequently testify--oftentimes assiduously
wooed, won, and lightly discarded, to furnish an artistic study of the
female capacity for suffering, as well as to supply renewed inspiration
for further poetic bemoanings. In the prose narrations of Edgar Poe, the
same skilful handling of mystery, and the turning to account of any
incident susceptible of dramatic effect, are always apparent as in his
poems.