The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1187]
CCXXIII. [[CCXXIV.]]
The qualities of Heber are well understood. His poetry is of a high order. He is imaginative, glowing, and vigorous, with a skill in the management of his means unsurpassed by that of any writer of his time, but without any high degree of originality. Can there be anything in the nature of a “classical” life at war with novelty per se? At all events, few fine scholars, such as Heber truly was, are original.
CCXXIV. [[CCXXV.]]
Original characters, so called, can only be critically praised as such, either when presenting qualities known in real life, but never before depicted, (a combination nearly impossible) or when presenting qualities (moral, or physical, or both) which, although unknown, or even known to be hypothetical, are so skilfully adapted to the circumstances which surround them, that our sense of fitness is not offended, and we find ourselves seeking a reason why those things might not have been, which we are still satisfied are not. The latter species of originality appertains to the loftier regions of the Ideal.
CCXXV. [[CCXXVI.]]
George Balcombe, we are induced to regard, upon the whole, as the best American novel. There have been few books of its peculiar kind, we think, written in any country, much its superior. Its interest is intense from beginning to end. Talent of a lofty order is evinced in every page of it. Its most distinguishing features are invention, vigor, almost audacity, of thought — great variety of what the German critics term intrigue, and exceeding ingenuity and finish in the adaptation of its component parts. Nothing is wanting to a complete whole, and nothing is out of place, or out of time. Without being chargeable in the least degree with imitation, the novel bears a strong family resemblance to the Caleb Williams of Godwin. Thinking thus highly of George Balcombe, we still do not wish to be understood as ranking it with the more brilliant fictions of some of the living novelists of Great Britain. In regard to the authorship of the book, some little conversation has occurred, and the matter is still considered a secret. But why so? — or rather, how so? The mind of the chief personage of the story, is the transcript of a mind familiar to us — an unintentional transcript, let us grant — but still one not to be mistaken. George Balcombe thinks, speaks, and acts, as no person, we are convinced, but Judge Beverly Tucker, ever precisely thought, spoke, or acted before.
FIFTY SUGGESTIONS
I.
IT is observable that, while among all nations the omni-color, white, has been received as an emblem of the Pure, the no-color, black, has by no means been generally admitted as sufficiently typical of impurity. There are blue devils as well as black; and when we think very ill of a woman, and wish to blacken her character, we merely call her “a blue-stocking,” and advise her to read, in Rabelais’ ”Gargantua,” the chapter “de ce qui est signifié par les couleurs blanc et bleu.” There is far more difference between these “couleurs,” in fact, than that which exists between simple black and white. Your “blue,” when we come to talk of stockings, is black in issimo — “nigrum nigrios nigro” — like the matter from which Raymond Lully first manufactured his alcohol.
II.
Mr. ——, I perceive, has been appointed Librarian to the new ——— Athenæum. To him, the appointment is advantageous in many respects. Especially: — “Mon cousin, voici une belle occasion pour apprendre à lire!”
III.
As far as I can understand the “loving our enemies,” it implies the hating our friends.
IV.
In commencing our dinners with gravy soup, no doubt we have taken a hint from Horace —
——— Da, he says, si grave non est,
Quæ prima iratum ventrem