Page:Edgar Poe and his critics.djvu/47

Rh order and expression. It can hardly have escaped the notice of the most careless reader that certain ideas exercised over him the power of fascination. They return, again and again, in his stories and poems and seem like the utterances of a mind possessed with thoughts, emotions, and images of which the will and the understanding take little cognizance. In the delineation of these, his language often acquires a power and pregnancy eluding all attempts at analysis. It is then that by a few miraculous words he evokes emotional states or commands pictorial effects which live forever in the memory and form a part of its eternal inheritance. No analysis can dissect—no criticism can disenchant them.

As specimens of the class we have indicated read “Ligeia,” “Morella,” “Eleanora.” Observe in them the prevailing and dominant thoughts of his inner life—ideas of “fate and metaphysical aid”—of psychal and spiritual agencies, energies and potences. See in them intimations of mysterious phenomena