Page:Edgar Poe and his critics.djvu/78

 mournful corridors—its “halls of tragedy and chambers of retribution,” would appal the boldest heart.

Theodore Parker has nobly said that “every man of genius has to hew out for himself, from the hard marbles of life, the white statue of Tranquillity.” Those who have best succeeded in this sublime work will best know how to look with pity and reverent awe upon the melancholy torso which alone remains to us of Edgar Poe’s misguided efforts to achieve that beautiful and august statue of Peace.