Page:The Southern Literary Messenger - Minor.djvu/91

 Rh and refined, an imagination affluent and splendid, and withal, a singular capacity for minute and mathematical detail. We always predicted that Mr. Poe would reach a high grade in American literature, but we also thought, and still think, that he is too much attached to the gloomy German mysticism to be a useful and effective writer, without a total divorce from that sombre school. Take, for example, the tale of 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' which is understood to be from his pen. It is written with great power, but leaves on the mind a painful and horrible impression, without any redeeming admonition to the heart. It resembles a finely sculptured statue, beautiful to the eye, but without an immortal spirit. We wish that Mr. Poe would stick to the department of criticism: there he is an able professor and he uses up the vermin who are continually crawling, unbidden, into the literary arena, with the skill and nonchalance of a practiced surgeon. He cuts them up by piecemeal and rids the Republic of Letters of such nuisances, just as a good officer of police sentences to their proper destination the night-strollers and vagabonds who infest our cities. We sincerely wish Mr. Poe well and hope that he will take our advice in good part."

When Lea & Blanchard published Mr. Poe's "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," they