Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/59

 with themes and situations which have interested men since the dawn of literature. It is also said that in his stories Poe displays invention rather than imagination, but I am inclined to believe that in literature as in life, like calls to like and that it is Poe's imagination that holds our imaginations spellbound. In the construction of his stories and occasionally in his verbal style he yields to no writer of his class—in other words, he takes high rank as a conscious artist. His appeal is limited by the fact that the substance of his fiction lies apart, not precisely from life but from ordinary human experience; but interest in the abnormal is by no means an inhuman or an unhuman characteristic, and the reception given Poe's tales in France alone would seem, after all allowances have been made, to confute the assertion often risked that they are meretricious in conception and in execution. We can scarcely be too often reminded that Burke's warning against indicting whole peoples applies to literary matters just as well as it does to political. A people or a large body of persons may go crazy for a short time, but they do not stay crazy, and, if a book stands the test of years with any people, or considerable body of readers, the chances are that it is full of merit. I know of no more foolish conduct a critic can be guilty of than to endeavor to demonstrate that a man who has produced and continues to produce fairly striking emotional and intellecualintellectual [sic] effects is little more than a charlatan. It is at least obvious that such critics are not charlatans, for they belong to the class of dupes—they are duped by their own overacuteness. And let us remember also that it is unsafe to pay much attention to analytical critics who would