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[[fragment A>>]]
MARGINALIA.
By Edgar A. Poe.
 Abstruseness is a quality
appertaining to no
subject
of human consideration, per se. To him who approaches them by properly
graduated steps, all topics are alike in facility of comprehension. It
is merely because a stepping-stone, here and there, is heedlessly left
unsupplied in our road to the Differential Calculus, that this latter
is
not altogether as simple a thing as a sonnet by Mr. Solomon Seesaw. [[<<A]]
——
In a well-written article on
Macaulay, Mr. W. A.
Jones (one of our best essayists, although overflowing with petty
prejudice)
cites the following “sharp, epigrammatic paragraph on Southey’s
political
bias” as so happy in its merely grammatical construction as “to defy
improvement”.
“Government is to Mr Southey one of
the fine
arts.
He judges of a theory or a public measure, of a religion, a political
party,
a peace or a war, as men judge of a picture or a statue, by the effect
produced on his imagination. A chain of associations is to him what a
chain
of reasoning is to other men; and what he calls his opinions are in
fact
merely his tastes.”
I respect the rhetorical powers of
Macaulay quite
as highly as Mr Jones can possibly do — but it seems to me that the
paragraph
quoted is somewhat exceptionable.
In the first sentence, “Mr Southey”,
as being the
topic, should have precedence of “government”; and “one of the fine
arts”
is circumlocutory.
The second sentence is by no means
explicit. “He
judges of a theory &c &c as men judge of a picture or a statue”
— here we pause to ask how men judge of a picture or a statue, when Mr
Macaulay adds — “by the effect produced on his imagination.” But they
do not; they judge by the effect produced on their own. There is a
needless
repetition, too, of “judges” with “judge”; and the phrase “as men
judge”,
used in place of “as other men judge”, leaves Mr. Southey quite out of
the category of men. “The men”, also, is too closely followed by “other
men” in the next sentence; while “association” comes jingling too
immediately
with “imagination” just above. The tautological use of “what” is,
moreover,
uncouth. As for the last half of the last sentence, not only has it the
identical tournure of the first half, but it is pleonastic and
ungrammatical.
The relative, singular pronoun “what”, meaning “that thing which”, is
by
a gross oversight, used as a nominative to the plural “are.” The whole
paragraph is deficient in spirit, and, with all necessary deference, I
maintain that we shall improve it in writing it thus:
To Mr Southey, government is a fine
art. Of peace
or war — of a theory, a religion, or a public measure — he judges by
the imaginative effect, as a picture or statue is estimated by other
men.
To them, what a chain of reasoning is, to him is a chain of
association;
and, as to his opinions, they are nothing but his tastes.
——
[[fragment B>>]]
Mr Henry B.
Hirst, of
Philadelphia, has written some
minor poems of peculiar merit — a ballad called “Isabelle”, for
example
and a sonnet entitled “Astarte”. Here are two sweetly imaginative
passages from “The Owl”:
When twilight fades and evening falls
Alike on tree and tower,
And Silence, like a pensive maid,
Walks round each slumbering
bower;
When fragrant flowerets fold their leaves
And all is still in sleep,
The hornéd owl, on moonlit wing,
Flies from the donjon keep.
And he calls aloud “too-whit! Too-whoo!”
And the nightingale is
still,
And the pattering step of the hurrying hare
Is hushed upon the hill;
And he crouches low in the dewy grass
As the lord of the night
goes by,
Not with a loudly whirring wing
But like a lady’s sigh.
Every critic will admit that the
images in the
lines
italicized, are such as only a true poet could conceive; at the same
time
they are embodied with much art.
I am particularly pleased, too, with
the
concluding
quatrain of “The Lament of Adam” — a fine specimen of well-managed
dactylic
rhythm:
Life hath its pleasures — but perishing they as the
flowers;
Sin hath its sorrows; and, sighing, we turned from those bowers;
Bright were the angles behind, with their falchions of heavenly flame;
Dark was the desolate desert before us, but darker the depth of our
shame. [[<<B]]
Mr. Hirst’s longer poems fail, in
some measure,
through
want of merely constructive ability in their author, but evince,
nevertheless,
at numerous points, a rich although extravagant fancy, and a fervid
appreciation
of Beauty.
The least pardonable fault of Mr
Hirst is his
propensity
to imitation. He writes nothing which does not immediately put us in
mind
of something written by somebody else; and he has the bad habit of
pushing
his imitations far beyond the verge of caricature. These are trifles,
however,
which, for the present, his friends over-look; and I have considered
myself
as one of them.
[[fragment C>>]]
In a late number of “The Philadelphia
Saturday
Courier”
Mr Hirst has taken it into his head, anonymously, to accuse me of
pilfering
from him. He says:
“We
have spoken of the mystical
appearance
of Astarte as a fine touch of art. This is borrowed, and from the first
canto of Hirst’s “Endymion”, published years since in ‘The Southern
Literary
Messenger’ — [[<<C]]
Slowly
Endymion
bent, the light Elysian
Flooding his figure. Kneeling on one knee,
He loosed his sandals, lea
And lake and
woodland glittering on his vision —
A fairy
landscape,
bright and beautiful,
With Venus at
her full.
Astarte
is another name for
Venus; and when
we remember that Diana is about to descend to Endymion — that the
scene
which is about to follow is one of love — that Venus is the star of
love,
and that Hirst (with whom the writer has no personal acquaintance, of
course,)
by introducing it as he does, shadows out his story exactly as Mr Poe
introduces
his Astarte, the plagiarism of idea becomes evident.”
[[fragment D>>]]
All this is about a poem published
anonymously in
“The American Review”, and of which I am by no means sure (although Mr
Hirst is) that I am the author. It is called “Ulalume”. The passage
about
Astarte, which Mr H. says I purloined from the already quoted passage
from
Endymion, runs thus:
And now, as the night was
senescent
And stardials pointed to morn —
As the stardials hinted of morn —
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn —
Astarte’s bediamonded crescent,
Distinct with its duplicate horn.
The resemblance between the two
passages can now
be satisfactorily determined by any reader, for himself, without
>>any<<
assistance from me; and at this point the topic may stand. Let me
add, however, one suggestion to the multitude of literary hints which I
have already given Mr Hirst, privately, and of which he has so
plentifully
availed himself that I sometimes fancy his poems to be merely our
conversations
done into verse — let me just suggest to him that, in the concluding
two
lines of his own passage as quoted, there is an identical rhyme — no
doubt
an oversight — but one which may as well be remedied in a second
edition.
In the meantime, here is a passage
from a little
poem which I really did write — “Lenore”:
“How shall the ritual, then, be
read? — the
requiem how be sung
By you — by yours, the evil eye — by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died and died so young?”
And here, again, is a passage from a poem by Mr Hirst,
published in
the last January number of “Graham’s Magazine”:
“Mine the tongue that wrought this evil — mine the
false and
slanderous
tongue
That DONE to death the Lady Gwineth — O, my soul is sadly wrung!
‘Demon! devil!’ groaned the warrior — ‘devil of the evil eye!
Look upon the awful horror wrought by thy atrocious lie!’ “
Now my objection, in this case, is
not to the
larceny
per se. I have always told Mr Hirst that, provided he stole my poetry
in
a reputable manner, he might steal just as much of it as he thought
proper
— and, so far, he has behaved very well, in largely availing himself
of
the privilege. But what I do object to, is the being robbed in bad
grammar.
It is not that Mr Hirst did this thing — but that he has went and done
did it. [[<<D]]
——
[[fragment E>>]]
John Neal is by no means noticeable
for finish.
His
art is great and of a high character; but is massive rather than
detailed.
He seems to be either deficient in a sense of completeness, or unstable
in temperament; so that he grows wearied with his work before getting
it
done. He begins well — vigorously — startingly — proceeds by fits —
much at random — now prosing, now gossiping, now running away with his
subject, now exciting vivid interest; but his conclusions are sure to
be
hurried and indistinct; so that the reader, perceiving a falling off
where
he expects a climax, is pained, and, closing the book with
dissatisfaction,
is in no mood to do the author justice, by giving him credit for the
vivid
sensations [[<<E]] which have been aroused during the
progress of
perusal, of all literary foibles the most fatal, perhaps, is that of
defective
climax.
——
“Its branches, long and green, shall hang
My unremembered grave above.”
This putting the adjective after the
noun is
merely
an inexcusable Gallicism; but the putting the preposition after the
noun
is alien to all language and in opposition to its principles. Such
things,
in general, only betray the versifier’s poverty of resource. When an
inversion
occurs, we say to ourselves: — “Here the poet lacked the skill
to
make out his line without distorting the natural or colloquial order of
the words.” Now and then, however, we must refer the error, not to
deficiency
of skill, but to something far less defensible — to an idea that such
tortuosities belong to the essence of poetry — that it needs them to
distinguish
it from prose; and that we are poetical much in the ratio of our
unprosaicalness
at these points. People who think in this way, while using the phrase
“poetic
license” — a phrase which has to answer for an infinity of sins —
seem
to have an indistinct conviction that the license in question involves
within itself a necessity of being adopted — of being taken advantage
of. The true artist will avail himself of no “license” whatever. The
very
word will disgust him; for it says: — “Since you seem unable to manage
without these pecadillo advantages, you must have them, I suppose; and
the world, half-shutting its eyes, will do its best not to see the
awkwardness
which they stamp upon your poem.”
Few things have greater tendency than
inversion,
to render verse feeble and ineffective. In most cases where a line is
spoken
of as “forcible”, the force may be referred to directness of
expression.
I say “in most cases”, and with perfect deliberation. A vast majority
of
the [[fragment F>>]] passages which have become household
through
frequent
quotation, owe their popularity either to this directness or, in
general,
to the scorn of poetic license. In short, as regards verbal
construction,
the more prosaic a poetical style is, the better. Through this species
of prosaicism Cowper, with scarcely one of the higher poetical
elements,
came very near making his age fancy him the equal of Pope; and to the
same
cause are attributable three fourths of that unusual point and force
for
which, in later days, Thomas Moore has become so distinguished. It is
the
prosaicism of these two writers to which is owing their particular
quotability. [[<<F]]
——
[[fragment G>>]]
I propose to demonstrate, at the
first convenient
opportunity, that all impressions of both physical and moral Beauty are
rigorously mathematical, and have their ultimate source in the simple
appreciation
of equality. This proposition will not appear so startling when we
observe
that all conceivable forms are radically and essentially triangular.
Mathematics,
in fact, are the soul — are the true poetry of the Universe. We
recognize
the existence of design — of a Creator — solely through our
observation
of the natural mathematics.
——
In “The Child of the Sea” — of whose
author and
her exquisitely plaintive “Forsaken” I spoke at length in one of the
previous
“Marginalia” — there are numerous passages of Byronic fervor — quite
different from anything written by an American — if we except,
perhaps,
Mrs Brooks (Maria Del Occidente) author of “The Bride of Seven”. “The
Child
of the Sea”, when published, will secure the fame of Mrs. Lewis — but
for some reason which I cannot well explain, I prefer, in several
respects,
her fugitive pieces. Here are some fine quatrains from an admirable
little
poem “To Una”:
Sere lies my heart — and sere its world:
Since thou wert from its altars hurled
My Spirit’s pinions have been furled
Like sails becalmed.
Love on my heart thy form did stamp
Thy beauty, like a vestal lamp,
Within my Soul’s cell dark and damp
Forever burns:
And unto thee (as to its goal, —
Gazes athirst the stranded soul —
As points the magnet to the pole) —
My sick heart turns.
——
“The Wandering Jew” seems to be the
result of
Sue’s
having become interested in certain narratives where ingenuity was the
impression conveyed. The whole idea of the work is trick played against
trick. His ingenuity, however, is so wofully overdone — is so
miserably
caricatured — as to cease being ingenuity in becoming pure fuss and
irrelevancy.
Ingenuity, with him, gets at last to be the end, not the means. The
most
distressingly roundabout machinations are set on foot to accomplish
objects
which every reader sees at a glance might have been accomplished by the
most ordinary manœuvres — in fact, without any manœuvring at all.
There
are some minds, nevertheless, which do receive the intended impression,
ingenuity, simply on account of the defect I here point out — the
defect
of irrelevancy — on account of the unusualness or unexpectedness of
the
means through which the results are wrought. Of the machinations of
Rodin
and his crew it may be said, speaking loosely, that the reader would be
warranted, at any given point, in betting ten to one that, if resorted
to in actual life, they would fail in working out the purposes
intended.
Where Djalma, for example, is mystified into committing a murder, the
chances
are at least a hundred to one that his own destruction (the ultimate
design
and the result so confidently anticipated by the Jesuit) would not be
brought
to pass; and was it consistent with the Jesuitical character (as
represented)
to leave anything to chance at all, when, the morrow being the final
day
of settlement, there was so little opportunity of repairing an error?
But the book abounds in the grossest
inconsistencies
and inadvertencies — points which might be more easily overlooked were
it not that skill — that ingenuity — is so obviously the design of
the
whole fiction.
How glaringly improbable that Rodin,
going to a
certain
chateau on the sea-coast for the first and only time in his life,
should
arrive there on the very night, of all others, in which Djalma (the
victim
especially sought) should happen to be thrown ashore, the sole survivor
of a wreck, at that very particular point of the whole coast! Nor is
there
even an attempt to establish a plausibility — a sequence of
cause
and effect; the reader is required to acquiesce in the matter as in a
simple
and ordinary coincidence! If such mere coincidences do occur, now and
then,
in Nature, they should at least never be made to occur in any fiction
pretending
to be natural. [[<<G]]
[[fragment H>>]]
Marshall Simon is represented as
being aware of
deadly
intentions toward his daughters, on the part of the Jesuits — of their
being in siege of the house to entrap and destroy these two girls —
and
of the fact that, when three days shall have expired, all danger will
cease;
and yet some mere matters of business which might readily have been
postponed
(and which the author does not even think it necessary to say could not
have been postponed) are supposed to be sufficient, in spite of his
intense
anxiety on account of these daughters, to take him away from them
before
the expiration of three days. The result of his abandonment is their
death! [[<<H]]
[[fragment I>>]]
The plots of the Jesuits are
represented as being
thoroughly understood by all the heirs at an early period of the
narrative;
and yet the heirs take no joint precautions — no united measures.
Naturally,
considering how brief was the period during which evil was to be
apprehended
— that their lives were, nevertheless, in extreme danger during this
brief
period, and that the amount of money at issue was forty or fifty
millions
of francs — naturally, I say, these heirs would have concerted
measures
for their mutual protection — would have applied to the police — at
all
events would have secluded and fortified themselves conjointly. Nothing
of the kind is done; and this for no better reason than that it would
have
interfered with the manœuvring which was the sum total of the
novelist’s
object.
The intention of the testator was
simply that the
true heirs, or some of them, should get his money and, especially, that
no Jesuit should. Why, then, was not an injunction against any Jesuit’s
falling heir to the money, under any circumstances, made a portion of
the
instrument? This would have precluded the Jesuital [[sic]]
machinations
in
depriving them of an object, and thus would have ensured the security
and
tranquility of the true heirs.
At Rodin’s instigation, Hardy, on his
deathbed,
is
made to assign all his claim to Rodin. But, clearly, he assigned what
was
not his own to assign. The assignment was worthless; and Rodin was only
a fool, instead of being a Jesuit, in taking so much pains to no
purpose.
The will gives the property to those, of seven mentioned, who shall
present
themselves, in person, on the day of settlement.
The author’s fluctuation of purpose
and lapse of
memory appear on every page. His original design — I take it upon me
to
say — was to give the money, finally, to the true heirs, and then, by
making them spend this vast fortune in Fourierite factories &c
&c,
to exemplify the [uncertain reading, the word may be “general”]
doctrines
of the associationists. As he proceeded with the work, however, M. Sue
reflected that he could make more literary capital by pretending that
his
purpose was to instigate the people against the Jesuits. In pursuance
of
this latter fancy, he ends his work in permitting the priests to
triumph
over “injured innocence” and the rest of it. But in all this he missed
his in mark — unless, indeed, his mark was not so much really to
injure
the Jesuits as to get up a belief that he had injured them. If any
definite
impression is created by “The Wandering Jew”, it is that of admiration
for the perseverance and ingenuity of the Rodin clique; and I need not
add that, as the world is (unhappily?) constituted, injured innocence,
if very stupid, never compares well with that villainy, however
outrageous,
which is not only especially clever, but particularly crowned with
success.
Would it be too much to say that, even in America, since the
publication
of the “Wandering Jew”, there have sprung up one hundred secret
societies,
through admiration and in imitation — or let us say caricature — of
the
Society of Jesus?
An ostentatiously impressive point is
made of
Adrienne’s
taking into her carriage a little girl whom she finds begging in the
street.
We naturally look for the result; some result was intended, we know;
but
none appears.
Adrienne is repeatedly warned of her
approaching
poverty. The design was, to test her natural qualities in the fire of
the
most abject distress; but the design is forgotten; nothing comes of it;
the heroine dies rich.
There is a vast deal of preparatory
melodramatic
mystery about “the chamber” in the shutup house where the will is to be
read; and we look for something wonderful to be seen or heard,
eventually,
in that apartment. Nothing comes of it.
Madame Simon gives Dagobert a packet,
the papers
contained in which are declared to be absolutely necessary in
establishing
the claims of the sisters, Rose and Blanche. Nothing comes of it. The
papers
are never presented, and are seen in the end to be obviously of no use
(whatever they were) in establishing the claim.
In the same way Dagobert,
particularly describing
Djalma to the sisters, impresses upon them the importance of
remembering
the description. Again, nothing comes of it, although something was
evidently
intended. The parties never meet.
It is difficult to comprehend how or
why the
Princess
(Rodin’s coadjutor) who has been a “maker of corpses”, or worse, all
her
life, should suddenly take it into her head to go raving mad with
terror
and remorse, merely because she was introduced to a row of corpses
arranged,
à la spectacle, in the “mysterious chamber”, at the termination
of the story.
What necessity is there for making
Rodin boast of
the unwashed condition of his face and hands?
Where we might expect a display of
power, if any
real power were possessed by M. Sue, we are somewhat disappointed — as
in the description of the mad-house.
The supernaturalism of the work is
not only
thoroughly
a failure in itself, but quite out of keeping with the peculiarly
homely,
minute, and commonplace character and tone of the general narrative.
The
Wandering Jew himself aids in no respect the true purposes of the
novelist.
He accomplishes nothing that could not have been more probably
accomplished
without his assistance. His carrying with him the cholera wherever he
goes,
is in some degree a fine melodramatic fancy, although spoilt in the
handling;
nor does there seem any poetic justice in his wanderings being thus
made
the source of injury to others — to those who had no portion in his
crime.
The sister is an absurdity throughout, and seems to have been an
afterthought;
introduced, no doubt, as a type of the supposititious enslaved
condition
of womankind.
The author is cruelly given to pet
phrases.
Whenever
one of M. Sue’s heroes gets at all excited or in trouble, he forthwith
“loses his head” or his countenance assumes “a heartrending
expression.”
The good points of the book are its
variety and
novelty
of incident; the spirit of its occasional scenes; and, especially, the
frequent gorgeousness of its descriptions. Nor must I forget to speak
of
its characterpainting, which is, now and then, of a very high order.
Dagobert
is admirable, although a little too much in the way of the French
comedy.
His wife is also good. Rose and Blanche are sweetly unnatural. Rodin is
a vivid portrait, exaggerated. Adrienne is, in all particulars,
magnificent.
The style of “The Wandering Jew”
might have been
a little better — but it would have puzzled M. Sue to make it even a
very
little worse. [[<<I]]
——
[[fragment J>>]]
“The Vision of Rubeta” is, perhaps,
our best
satire;
yet in saying this I mean no very especial commendation. It is bold
enough
— if we keep out of mind its anonymous issue — and bitter enough, and
witty enough, — if we forget its pitiable punning on names — and long
enough, Heaven knows, and well constructed and decently versified; but
it fails in the principal element of all satire, sarcasm, because the
intention
to be sarcastic (as in the “British Bards and Scotch Reviewers”, and as
in every satire with which I am acquainted) is permitted to render
itself
manifest. The malevolence appears. The author is never very severe,
because
he is at no time particularly cool. We laugh, not so much at his
victims,
as at himself for letting them put him into such a passion; and where a
deeper sentiment than mirth is excited [[<<J]] —
where it
is
pity or contempt that we are made to feel — the feeling is too often
reflected,
in its object, from the satirized to the satirist, with whom we
sympathize
in the discomfort of his animosity. Mr Osborn has few superiors in
downright
invective; but this is the awkward left arm of the satiric Muse. That
satire
alone is worth talking about which appears to be the genial,
good-humored
outpouring of irrepressible merriment.
“The Vision” was luxuriously printed,
and, owing
to the high price necessarily set upon it, no great many copies were
sold;
but the few circulated made quite a hubbub; and with reason — for the
book was not only bitter [[fragment K>>]] but personal in
the
last degree.
There are cases in which such personality is justifiable; but the case
of Mr. Osborn was not one of them. He had been assailed, not as Mr
Osborn,
but as the anonymous author of at least a questionable book, “The
Confessions
of a Poet.” He retaliated by abusing, personally and in their own
names,
those who had thus assailed him. He weakly suffered, however, the names
of the satirized to be printed merely with initial and terminal letters
&c. I say “weakly suffered” this folly to be committed; for, to do
him justice, he insisted upon introducing a note, mentioning that he
was
compelled by his publisher to indicate the names, although [[<<K]]
[[fragment L>>]] he himself, the author, had
written them in full
and wished
them so to appear. The publisher, of course, was much in error if he
promised
himself, through any such small subterfuge, immunity from the
consequences
of libel; but, without dwelling on this point, Mr Osborn was weak in
not
withdrawing his book altogether, at any sacrifice, rather than submit
to
terms which would render his position equivocal. It is not proper (to
use
a gentle word) nor does it seem courageous, to attack our foe in spirit
and in effect — so that all the world shall know whom we mean — while
either we say to ourselves or permit others to force us into saying, “I
have not attacked this man by name, in the eye, or according to the
letter,
of the law.” But, admitting Mr Osborn’s intention carried out, and the
names printed in full — can any one fail to see the inconsistency of
claiming
credit for courage and chivalry, on the score of so printing them,
while,
in publishing his book anonymously, he puts it out of the power of the
satirized to retaliate, and thus virtually avows his dread of
retaliation?
The secret of the authorship was for a long time, indeed, carefully
preserved.
Had Mr O. thought at all upon these matters, he is the very last man in
the world who would have subjected himself to censure respecting them. [[<<L]]
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