Never could this private smile have been more subtle than on the night of the day when he permitted himself to be elected a member of the British Academy.  Further, let it not be said that our Academy excludes novelists and journalists.  We novelists are ably represented by Mr. Andrew Lang, author of “Prince Prigio” and part-author of “The World’s Desire.”  And we journalists have surely an adequate spokesman in the person of the author of “Lost Leaders.”  Mr. Lang has also dabbled in history.

POE AND THE SHORT STORY

[28 Jan. ’09]

The great Edgar Allen Poe celebration has passed off, and no one has been seriously hurt by the terrific display of fireworks.  Some of the set pieces were pretty fair; for example, Mr. G.B.  Shaw’s in the Nation and Prof.  C.H.  Herford’s in the Manchester Guardian.  On the whole, however, the enthusiasm was too much in the nature of mere good form.  If only we could have a celebration of Omar Khayyam, Tennyson, Gilbert White, or the inventor of Bridge, the difference between new and manufactured enthusiasm would be apparent.  We have spent several happy weeks in conceitedly explaining to that barbaric race, the Americans, that in Poe they have never appreciated their luck.  Yet we ourselves have never understood Poe.  And we never shall understand Poe.  It is immensely to our credit that, owing to the admirable obstinacy of Mr. J.H.  Ingram, we now admit that Poe was neither a drunkard, a debauchee, nor a cynical eremite.  This is about as far as we shall get.  Poe’s philosophy of art, as discovered in his essays and his creative work, is purely Latin and, as such, incomprehensible and even naughty to the Saxon mind.  To the average bookish Englishman Poe means “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and his finest poetry means nothing at all.  Tell that Englishman that Poe wrote more beautiful lyrics than Tennyson, and he will blankly put you down as mad.  (So shall I.)

* * * * *

Once, and not many years since, I contemplated editing a complete edition of Poe, with a brilliant introduction in which I was to show that the appearance of a temperament like his in the United States in the early years of the nineteenth century was the most puzzling miracle that can be found in the whole history of literature.  Then, naturally, I intended to explain the miracle.  My plans were placed before a wise and good publisher, whose reply was to indicate two very respectable complete editions of Poe which had eminently failed with the public.  Further inquiries satisfied me that the public had no immediate use for anything elaborate, final, and expensive concerning Poe.  My bright desire therefore paled and flickered out.  Since then I have come to the conclusion that I know practically nothing of the “secret of Poe,” and that nobody else knows much more.