The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [931]
Having read the Moon story to an end, and found it anticipative of all the main points of my “Hans Phaall,” I suffered the latter to remain unfinished. The chief design in carrying my hero to the moon was to afford him an opportunity of describing the lunar scenery, but I found that he could add very little to the minute and authentic account of Sir John Herschell. The first part of “Hans Phaall,” occupying about eighteen pages of “The Messenger,” embraced merely a journal of the passage between the two orbs, and a few words of general observation on the most obvious features of the satellite; the second part will most probably never appear. I did not think it advisable even to bring my voyager back to his parent earth. He remains where I left him, and is still, I believe, “the man in the moon.”
From the epoch of the hoax “The Sun” shone with unmitigated splendor. The start thus given the paper insured it a triumph; it has now a daily circulation of not far from fifty thousand copies, and is, therefore, probably, the most really influential journal of its kind in the world. Its success firmly established “the penny system” throughout the country, and (through “The Sun”) consequently, we are indebted to the genius of Mr. Locke for one of the most important steps ever yet taken in the pathway of human progress.
On dissolving, about a year afterwards, his connexion with Mr. Beach, Mr. Locke established a political daily paper, “The New Era,” conducting it with distinguished ability. In this journal he made, very unwisely, an attempt at a second hoax, giving the finale of the adventures of Mungo Park in Africa — the writer pretending to have come into possession, by some accident, of the lost MSS. of the traveler. No one, however, seemed to be deceived, (Mr. Locke’s columns were a suspected district,) and the adventures were never brought to an end. They were richly imaginative.
The next point made by their author was the getting up a book on magnetism as the primum mobile of the universe, in connexion with Doctor Sherwood, the practitioner of magnetic remedies. The more immediate purpose of the treatise was the setting forth a new magnetic method of obtaining the longitude. The matter was brought before Congress and received with favorable attention. What definite action was had I know not. A review of the work appeared in “The Army and Navy Chronicle,” and made sad havoc of the whole project. It was enabled to do this, however, by attacking in detail the accuracy of some calculations of no very radical importance. These and others Mr. Locke is now engaged in carefully revising; and my own opinion is that his theory (which he has reached more by dint of imagination than of anything else) will finally be established, although, perhaps, never thoroughly by him.
His prose style is noticeable for its concision, luminousness, completeness — each quality in its proper place. He has that method so generally characteristic of genius proper. Everything he writes is a model in its peculiar way, serving just the purposes intended and nothing to spare. He has written some poetry, which, through certain radical misapprehensions, is not very good.
Like most men of true imagination, Mr. Locke is a seemingly paradoxical compound of coolness and excitability.
He is about five feet seven inches in height, symmetrically formed; there is an air of distinction about his whole person — the air noble of genius. His face is strongly pitted by the small-pox, and, perhaps from the same cause, there is a marked obliquity in the eyes; a certain calm, clear luminousness, however, about these latter, amply compensates for the defect, and the forehead is truly beautiful in its intellectuality. I am acquainted with no person possessing so fine