The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1145]
LXI.
Von Raumer says that Enslen, a German optician, conceived the idea of throwing a shadowy figure, by optical means, into the chair of Banquo; and that the thing was readily done. Intense effect was produced; and I do not doubt that an American audience might be electrified by the feat. But our managers not only have no invention of their own, but no energy to avail themselves of that of others.
LXII.
A capital book, generally speaking; but Mr. Grattan has a bad habit — that of loitering in the road — of dallying and toying with his subjects, as a kitten with a mouse — instead of grasping it firmly at once and eating it up without more ado. He takes up too much time in the ante-room. He has never done with his introductions. Occasionally, one introduction is but the vestibule to another; so that by the time he arrives at his main incidents, there is nothing more to tell. He seems afflicted with that curious yet common perversity observed in garrulous old women — the desire of tantalizing by circumlocution. Mr. G’s circumlocution, however, is by no means like that which Albany Fonblanque describes as “a style of about and about and all the way round to nothing and nonsense.” . . . . If the greasy-looking lithograph here given as a frontispiece, be meant for Mr. Grattan, then is Mr. Grattan like nobody else: — for the fact is, I never yet knew an individual with a wire wig, or the countenance of an under-done apple dumpling . . . . . As a general rule, no man should put his own face in his own book. In looking at the author’s countenance the reader is seldom in condition to keep his own.
LXIII.
Here is a good idea for a Magazine paper: — let somebody “work it up:” — A flippant pretender to universal acquirement — a would-be Crichton — engrosses, for an hour or two, perhaps, the attention of a large company — most of whom are profoundly impressed by his knowledge. He is very witty, in especial, at the expense of a modest young gentleman, who ventures to make no reply, and who, finally, leaves the room as if overwhelmed with confusion; — the Crichton greeting his exit with a laugh. Presently he returns, followed by a footman carrying an armful of books. These are deposited on the table. The young gentleman, now, referring to some penciled notes which he had been secretly taking during the Crichton’s display of erudition, pins the latter to his statements, each by each, and refutes them all in turn, by reference to the very authorities cited by the egotist himself — whose ignorance at all points is thus made apparent.
LXIV.
A long time ago — twenty-three or four years at least — Edward C. Pinckney, of Baltimore, published an exquisite poem entitled “A Health.” It was profoundly admired by the critical few, but had little circulation: — this for no better reason than that the author was born too far South. I quote a few lines:
Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours —
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers.
To her the better elements
And kindlier stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
‘Tis less of Earth than Heaven.
Now, in 1842, Mr. George Hill published “The Ruins of Athens and Other Poems,” — and from one of the “Other Poems” I quote what follows:
And thoughts go sporting through her mind
Like children among flowers;
And deeds of gentle goodness are
The measures of her hours.
In soul or face she bears no trace
Of one from Eden driven,
But like the rainbow seems, though born
Of Earth, a part of Heaven.
Is this plagiarism or is it not? — I merely ask for information.
LXV.
Had the “George Balcombe” of Professor Beverley Tucker been the work of any one born North of Mason and Dixon’s line, it would have been long ago recognised as one of the very noblest fictions ever written by