AMERICA TO-DAY
canism of it, that gives it its value in the eyes of all thinking Englishmen. Only one American author of the first rank could possibly, at a superficial glance, appear—not so much English as—European, cosmopolitan. I mean, of course, Edgar Allen Poe, who has left perhaps a deeper impress upon literature outside the English-speaking countries than any other imaginative writer of the century, with the exception of Byron. Poe was a born idealist, a creature of pure intelligence. Whether in poetry or fiction, he was always solving problems; and it is hard to be distinctively national in an exercise of pure intelligence. We do not look for local colour in, for example, the agreeable essays of Euclid. But Poe's intelligence was, at bottom, of a characteristically American type. He was the Edison of romance.[1] As for the other great writers of America, what can be more patent than their Americanism? Speaking only, for the present, of those who have joined the majority, I would name two who seem to me to stand with Poe in the very front rank of original genius. They are Emerson, that starlike spirit, dwelling in a serener ether than
- ↑ I went to see Poe's grave in Baltimore, marked by a mean and ugly monument, little more than a mere tombstone. It is surely time that a worthy memorial should be raised, at his burial-place or elsewhere, to this unique genius. England and the English-speaking world would gladly contribute. For a masterly criticism and vindication of Poe, let me refer the reader to Mr. John M. Robertson's New Essays towards a Critical Method. London and New York: J. Lane. 1897.
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