Page:The Raven; with literary and historical commentary.djvu/45

 Rh English palaces, and even in some of the better houses of New York.

"Your objection to the tinkling of the footfalls is far more pointed, and in the course of composition occurred so forcibly to myself that I hesitated to use the term. I finally used it, because I saw that it had, in its first conception, been suggested to my mind by the sense of the supernatural with which it was, at the moment, filled. No human or physical foot could tinkle on a soft carpet, therefore the tinkling of feet would vividly convey the supernatural impression. This was the idea, and it is good within itself; but if it fails [as I fear it does] to make itself immediately and generally felt, according to my intention, then in so much is it badly conveyed or expressed.

"Your appreciation of The Sleeper delights me. In the higher qualities of poetry it is better than The Raven; but there is not one man in a million who could be brought to agree with me in this opinion. The Raven, of course, is far the better as a work of art; but in the true basis of all art, The Sleeper is the superior. I wrote the latter when quite a boy."

Mr. E. C. Stedman who, as a poet even more than as a critic, has been better enabled to gauge Poe's poetic powers than so many who have ventured to adjudicate upon them, appropriately remarks,—

"Poe could not have written The Raven in youth. It exhibits a method so positive as almost to compel us to accept, against the denial of his associates, his own account of its building. The maker does keep a firm hand on it throughout, and for once seems to set his purpose above his passion. This appears in the gravely quaint diction, and in the contrast between