Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/35

 Yes, there is still much to do, but has not a great deal been accomplished? Not quite sixty years, that is not quite two generations have passed since Poe died under deplorable circumstances here in this city of Baltimore, which, if I may so phrase it, is the center of the mystery which still surrounds his life, and which, in consequence, should be the center of future investigations of his interesting career. When he died in his forty-first year his national reputation was not inconsiderable, though in many respects unfavorable, and, in a small way, the foundations had been laid for his international fame. There were also incipient signs of the formation of a cult. Taking everything into consideration—Poe's antecedents and temperament, his financial status, the comparatively unpropitious environment in which he lived and wrote—we may fairly hold that in his short life he accomplished as editor, critic, story-teller, and poet a rather exceptional amount of work which produced upon his contemporaries much more than an average impression. In other words, Poe is no exception to the rule that the writers who really count began by counting with their contemporaries. We may hold more than this, however. Many a writer has established for himself by the time of his death a greater fame than Poe had secured by 1849, and then has slowly lost it, in whole or in part, without having experienced two great drawbacks such as speedily fell to the lot of Poe. We must remember that it was his fate to be read for many years in an unattractive edition prepared by a somewhat unsympathetic and perfunctory editor, whose name has been anathema to the poet's admirers, but upon whom it is no longer necessary or