Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/82

62, is a truth that few are so utterly stubborn as to deny. We mean to say that, in all instances, the most strictly literal interpretation will apply."

He inserts also in the same review his proffered emendation of Isaiah XXXIV, 10, quoting the original Hebrew in Hebrew letters. Poe was very proud of this achievement and repeats his newly acquired Oriental lore several times in later years, though one must sympathize with him in his repetitions because the typographical outfit was not again equal to the reproduction of the awesome and erudite Hebrew originals. Of course he has been called a charlatan and worse for intimating a knowledge of Hebrew which he did not possess. But surely his pride in the matter is pardonable. It was a very small hoax. Doctor Charles Anthon, of New York, had given him in a letter (June 1, 1837) all the information that was needed, and Poe used it, making much of the Hebrew characters that Doctor Anthon had furnished. But Doctor Anthon's letter was in answer to one from Poe, asking whether the emendation was borne out by the Hebrew text. Poe nowhere claims familiarity with Hebrew or even originality in his proffered reading of the text.

Poe's belief in the Bible, his aversion to scepticism, and his assurance of the immortality of the soul find frequent assertion in his less known works. He commends the inaugural address of the President of Hampden-Sidney College because it shows "a vein of that truest of all philosophy, the philosophy of the Christian." He believed that the lines, Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow, He who would search for pearls must dive below,