The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1192]
XL.
And this is the “American Drama” of ——! Well! — that “Conscience which makes cowards of us all” will permit me to say, in praise of the performance, only that it is not quite so bad as I expected it to be. But then I always expect too much.
XLI.
What we feel to be Fancy will be found fanciful still, whatever be the theme which engages it. No subject exalts it into Imagination. When Moore is termed “a fanciful poet,” the epithet is applied with precision. He is. He is fanciful in “Lalla Rookh,” and had he written the “Inferno,” in the “Inferno” he would have contrived to be still fanciful and nothing beyond.
XLII.
When we speak of “a suspicious man,” we may mean either one who suspects, or one to be suspected. Our language needs either the adjective “suspectful,” or the adjective “suspectable.”
XLIII.
“To love,” says Spenser, “ is
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To speed, to give, to want, to be undone.
The philosophy, here, might be rendered more profound, by the mere omission of a comma. We all know the willing blindness — the voluntary madness of Love. We express this in thus punctuating the last line:
To speed, to give — to want to be undone.
It is a case, in short, where we gain a point by omitting it.
XLIV.
Miss Edgeworth seems to have had only an approximate comprehension of “Fashion,” for she says: “If it was the fashion to burn me, and I at the stake, I hardly know ten persons of my acquaintance who would refuse to throw on a fagot.” There are many who, in such a case, would “refuse to throw on a fagot “ — for fear of smothering out the fire.
XLV.
I am beginning to think with Horsely — that “the People have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them.”
XLVI.
“It is not fair to review my book without reading it,” says Mr. Mathews, talking at the critics, and, as usual, expecting impossibilities. The man who is clever enough to write such a work, is clever enough to read it, no doubt; but we should not look for so much talent in the world at large. Mr. Mathews will not imagine that I mean to blame him. The book alone is in fault, after all. The fact is that, “er lasst sich nicht lesen “ — it will not permit itself to be read. Being a hobby of Mr. Mathew’s, and brimful of spirit, it will let nobody mount it but Mr. Mathews.
XLVII.
It is only to teach his children Geography, that G —— wears a boot the picture of Italy upon the map.
XLVIII.
In his great Dictionary, Webster seems to have had an idea of being more English than the English — “plus Arabe qu’en Arabie.”
XLIX.
That there were once “seven wise men “ is by no means, strictly speaking, an historical fact; and I am rather inclined to rank the idea among the Kabbala.
L.
Painting their faces to look like Macaulay, some of our critics manage to resemble him, at length, as a Massaccian does a Raffäellian Virgin; and, except that the former is feebler and thinner than the other — suggesting the idea of its being the ghost of the other — not one connoisseur in ten can perceive any difference. But then, unhappily, even the street lazzaroni can feel the distinction.
A CHAPTER ON AUTOGRAPHY
(PART I)
UNDER this head, some years ago, there appeared, in the Southern Literary Messenger, an article which attracted very general attention, not less from the nature of its subject than from the peculiar manner in which it was handled. The editor introduces his readers to a certain Mr. Joseph Miller, who, it is hinted, is not merely a descendant of the illustrious Joe, of Jest-Book notoriety, but that identical individual in proper person. Upon this point, however, an air of uncertainty is thrown by means of an equivoque, maintained throughout the paper, in respect to Mr. Miller's middle name. This equivoque is put into the mouth of Mr. M. himself. He gives his name, in the first instance, as Joseph A. Miller ; but, in the course of conversation, shifts it to Joseph B., then to Joseph C., and so on through