Page:Mystery Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.pdf/10

 BY G. MERCER ADAM.

interest in the unique figure of that errant genius who lived in the youth-time of the nation—Edgar Allan Poe—is a sign of a quickened apprehension of the poet-novelist's abilities as a writer of tales of baffling mystery and grizzly tragedy as well as of the general diffusion in our day of the literary spirit which enables us to appreciate and enjoy his many varied and artistic writings. Melodramatic as we now deem many of his works, the creation of a somewhat morbid fancy, which revelled in the occult, Poe was a man of rare talent as well as of fine sensibilities. To say that his personal life was on the whole clean, save for his unfortunate addiction at times to drink, is to affirm what most critics of the man and his age admit; though it is known that he was frequently a trouble to his friends owing to the idiosyncrasies of his genius, which incited his mind to find play in the realm of the phantom world and in an atmosphere of more or less brooding gloom. In spite of this, and of a nature unstable and vacillating, Poe had much in him that endeared him to his relatives and acquaintances, gentle, affectionate, as well as of polished manners, and capable of inspiring the love and welling-out sympathy of both men and women. Towards the latter he was ever chivalrous and devoted, and we can well understand what attraction women especially found in him, evoked in large 3