The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [880]
He received what is usually regarded as a “good education” — that is to say, he graduated at college; but his education, in the path he pursued, was worth to him, on account of his extraordinary savoir faire, fully twice as much as would have been its value in any common case. No man’s knowledge is more available, no man has exhibited greater tact in the seemingly casual display of his wares. With him, at least, a little learning is no dangerous thing. He possessed at one time, I believe, the average quantum of American collegiate lore — “a little Latin and less Greek,” a smattering of physical and metaphysical science, and (I should judge) a very little of the mathematics — but all this must be considered as mere guess on my part. Mr. Willis speaks French with some fluency, and Italian not quite so well.
Within the ordinary range of belles lettres authorship, he has evinced much versatility. If called on to designate him by any general literary title, I might term him a magazinist — for his compositions have invariably the species of effect, with the brevity which the magazine demands. We may view him as a paragraphist, an essayist, or rather “sketcher,” a tale writer and a poet.
In the first capacity he fails. His points, however good when deliberately wrought, are too recherchés to be put hurriedly before the public eye. Mr. W. has by no means the readiness which the editing a newspaper demands. He composes (as did Addison, and as do many of the most brilliant and seemingly dashing writers of the present day,) with great labor and frequent erasure and interlineation. His MSS., in this regard, present a very singular appearance, and indicate the vacillation which is, perhaps, the leading trait of his character. A newspaper, too, in its longer articles — its “leaders” — very frequently demands argumentation, and here Mr. W. is remarkably out of his element. His exuberant fancy leads him over hedge and ditch — anywhere from the main road; and, besides, he is far too readily self-dispossessed. With time at command, however, his great tact stands him instead of all argumentative power, and enables him to overthrow an antagonist without permitting the latter to see how he is overthrown. A fine example of this “management” is to be found in Mr. W.’s reply to a very inconsiderate attack upon his social standing, made by one of the editors of the New York “Courier and Inquirer.” I have always regarded this reply as the highest evidence of its author’s ability, as a masterpiece of ingenuity, if not of absolute genius. The skill of the whole lay in this — that, without troubling himself to refute the charges themselves brought against him by Mr. Raymond, he put forth his strength in rendering them null, to all intents and purposes, by obliterating, incidentally and without letting his design be perceived, all the impression these charges were calculated to convey. But this reply can be called a newspaper article only on the ground of its having appeared in a newspaper.
As a writer of “sketches,” properly so called, Mr. Willis is unequaled. Sketches — especially of society — are his forte, and they are so for no other reason than that they afford him the best opportunity of introducing the personal Willis — or, more distinctly, because this species of composition is most susceptible of impression from his personal character. The degagé tone of this kind of writing, too, best admits and encourages that fancy which Mr. W. possesses in the most extraordinary degree; it is in fancy that he reigns supreme: this, more than any one other quality,