Page:Edgar Poe and his critics.djvu/15



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author of the “Original Memoir” prefixed to the volume of Poe’s Illustrated Poems, recently published by Redfield, says, “Of all the poets, whose lives have been a puzzle and a mystery to the world, there is not one more difficult to be understood than Edgar Allan Poe.” The Rev. George Gilfillan, in his very imaginative portraiture of the poet, admits that the moral anatomists who have met and wondered over his life, have given up all attempts at dissection and diagnosis, turning away with the solemnly whispered warning to the world, and especially to its more brilliant and gifted intellects, “Beware!” 2