Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/83

 his reason for a time tottered and fell, but no pressure of grief, or sorrow or privation ever betrayed or drove him into the crooked paths of dishonesty or fraud.

There may be some who think that after all the facts of his private life are of no consequence and that in the enjoyment of the rich fruits of his great genius, it matters little what kind of man he was, whether good or bad, honorable or depraved in the ordinary relationships of life and society.

I do not agree with this view.

Deep and ardent as may be our love of the beautiful; keen as may be our enjoyment of the consummate work of those who portray or depict it in its highest developments, whether with pen or brush or chisel, our pleasure in the contemplation and study of its most artistic manifestations cannot fail to be intensified and exalted by the consoling knowledge that the towering genius whose soul speaks to us from the past in the entrancing melody and commanding power of glowing words, or in the subduing fascination of breathing canvas, or in the potent spell of majestic marble, was animated not alone by a dominating sense of the beautiful, but was imbued also with a reverential love of the good and true.

From the authentic extrinsic evidence of his life and the resistless intrinsic evidence of his imperishable works, of such a lofty nature, was, I verily believe, the soul of Edgar Allan Poe.

And surely we can appreciate the better his exquisite poetry and read with increased admiration and delight his marvelous prose creations if, while our minds and souls are aglow with their beauty and power, we can truly picture their author as the unfortunate victim.