Page:Edgar Poe and his critics.djvu/50

 after the death of the beloved Eleanora, the appearance “from a far, far distant and unknown land” of the Seraph Ermengarde. Observe, too, in these closing lines the indication, so often manifest in Poe’s poems and stories, of a lingering pity and sorrow for the dead;—an ever-recurring pang of remorse in the fear of having grieved them by some involuntary wrong of desertion or forgetfulness.

This haunting remembrance—this sad, remorseful pity for the departed, is everywhere a distinguishing feature in his prose and poetry.

The existence of such a feeling as a prevalent mood of his mind, of which we have abundant evidence, is altogether incompatible with that cold sensualism with which he has been so ignorantly charged. So far from being selfish or heartless his devotional fidelity to the memory of those he loved would by the world be regarded as fanatical. A characteristic incident of his boyhood will illustrate the passionate fidelity which we have ascribed to him. While at the academy in