His style is highly finished, graceful and truly classical. It
would be hard to find a living author who had displayed such varied
powers. As an example of his style we would refer to one of his tales,
"The House of Usher," in the first volume of his "Tales of the Grotesque
and Arabesque." It has a singular charm for us, and we think that no one
could read it without being strongly moved by its serene and sombre
beauty. Had its author written nothing else, it would alone have been
enough to stamp him as a man of genius, and the master of a classic
style. In this tale occurs, perhaps, the most beautiful of his poems.
The great masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the vague and
the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used dread and horror
alone, but only in combination with other qualities, as means of
subjugating the fancies of their readers. The loftiest muse has ever a
household and fireside charm about her. Mr. Poe's secret lies mainly in
the skill with which he has employed the strange fascination of mystery
and terror. In this his success is so great and striking as to deserve
the name of art, not artifice. We cannot call his materials the noblest
or purest, but we must concede to him the highest merit of construction.
As a critic, Mr. Poe was aesthetically deficient. Unerring in his
analysis of dictions, metres, and plots, he seemed wanting in the
faculty of perceiving the profounder ethics of art.
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