The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [996]
He might, perhaps, wrap up the fruits of these researches in rather better English than that which he employs:
Yet still the water rose around them till all through the valleys nothing but little black islands of human beings were seen on the surface . . . . . . The more fixed the irrevocable decree, the heavier he leaned on the Omnipotent arm . . . . . . And lo! a solitary cloud comes drifting along the morning sky and catches against the top of the mountain . . . . . . At length emboldened by their own numbers they assembled tumultuously together . . . . . . Aaron never appears so perfect a character as Moses . . . . . . As he advanced from rock to rock the sobbing of the multitude that followed after, tore his heart-strings . . . . . . Friends were following after whose sick Christ had healed . . . . . . The steady mountain threatened to lift from its base and be carried away . . . . . . Sometimes God’s hatred of sin, sometimes his care for his children, sometimes the discipline of his church, were the motives . . . . . . Surely it was his mighty hand that laid on that trembling tottering mountain, &c. &c. &c.
These things are not exactly as we could wish them, perhaps: — but that a gentleman should know so much about Noah’s ark and know anything about anything else, is scarcely to be expected. We have no right to require English grammar and accurate information about Moses and Aaron at the hands of one and the same author. For our parts, now we come to think of it, if we only understood as much about Mount Sinai and other matters as Mr. Headley does, we should make a point of always writing bad English upon principle, whether we knew better or not.
It may well be made a question moreover, how far a man of genius is justified in discussing topics so serious as those handled by Mr. Headley, in any ordinary kind of style. One should not talk about Scriptural subjects as one would talk about the rise and fall of stocks or the proceedings of Congress. Mr. Headley has seemed to feel this and has therefore elevated his manner — a little. For example:
The fields were smiling in verdure before his eyes; the perfumed breezes floated by . . . . . The sun is sailing over the encampment . . . . . That cloud was God’s pavilion; the thunder was its sentinels; and the lightning the lances’ points as they moved round the sacred trust . . . . . . And how could he part with his children whom he had borne on his brave heart for more than forty years? . . . . . . Thus everything conspired to render Zion the spell-word of the nation and on its summit the heart of Israel seemed to lie and throb . . . . . . The sun died in the heavens; an earthquake thundered on to complete the dismay, &c. &c.
Here no one can fail to perceive the beauty (in an antediluvian, or at least in a Pickwickian sense) of these expressions in general, about the floating of the breeze, the sailing of the sun, the thundering of the earthquake and the throbbing of the heart as it lay on the top of the mountain.
The true artist, however, always rises as he proceeds, and in his last page or so brings all his elocution to a climax. Only hear Mr. Headley’s finale. He has been describing the crucifixion and now soars into the sublime:
How Heaven regarded this disaster, and the Universe felt at the sight, I cannot tell. I know not but tears fell like rain-drops from angelic eyes when they saw Christ spit upon and struck. I know not but there was silence on high for more than “half an hour” when the scene of the crucifixion was transpiring, — [a scene, as well as