Show who deplore the fact that tho memory of poe has not been duly honored la a conventional way may extract a graan or two ot comfort from the thought that it was not until last summer 1907 that the first memorial to dickens was erected la london despite the great love of englishmen and especially of londoners Lon doners tor dickens it was nearly 40 yeara after his death he died it will be remembered in 1870 before a memorial of any kind was erected to his memory in the brit ish capital this memorial Is a alm pie portrait bust with a bronze tablet and was placed upon the site of fur s inn Il olburn it was at fur alval s inn that dickens wrote pick wick and it was there in a little room on the third floor that he awoke one morning la 1836 to find himself famous foes failure of election to the hall ot fama Is another very real ance to many of his countrymen but a parallel in a way to this situation too may be found oversea last november the authorities of the museum undertook to select 19 names as the greatest and most re presenta live in english literature to be paint ed on 19 panels in the reading room of the british museum it was no aay task but the names finally set tied upon by the trustees of the mu seum were chaucer caxton tin aale spenser shakespeare bacon milton locke addelson Add lson swift pope gibbon wordsworth scott byron cargyle Cari yle macaulay tennyson and browning this selection of course by no means met with universal commenda com menda lion on the contrary loud cries of complaint and inquiry were beard from all over the country as soon as it was announced where was dick ens where was thackeray where was robert burns where were dryden johnson and burke and to continue where were fielding shel ley blake richardson butler and and where asked george bernard shaw in a stern and wrathful tone was bunyann thus we see that other national households besides our own have trouble in arranging their literary treasures to suit all the members of the family no one perhaps could speak with more authority on the subject of poe than the late mr edmund clarence stedman himself a poet the writer of a delightful life of poe and one of the hundred electors to the hall of fame in the august number of the north american review be said it the vote for cooper gave cause for wonder what of the insufficient tally score for poe whose manes probably will never cease to be vexed by a witling class of followers but concern ing whose place in imaginative altera ture the world at large has not the slightest doubt As a writer he was among the first to recognize the powers of hawthorne both were idealists Idea lists and if one produced no BUS talked romances like the scarlet let ter the other gave voice to no lyric melodies such as israfel and the haunted palace these artistic beauty haunted compeers com peers were twin I 1 arbs orbs in their nineteenth century con and as for the matter of renown of a place in the hall of fame what Is fame on your con science fellow judges whether you are realists or dreamers jurists scholars or divines pay some slight regard to that voice of the outer world which one ol 01 our own writers termed the verdict of a sort of con posterity note that there Is scarcely an enlightened tongue into which poe s lyrics and tales have not been rendered that he Is read and held as a distinctive genius in france spain germany italy russia scandinavia that the spell of his art Is felt wherever our own english speech goes with the flags of its two great over lands fame Is there one of us still unconscious of poe s fame not hear when noise was every where it tolled increasing like a bell those who have given their votes for franklin and hamilton surely have not demurred on ethical grounds to one against whom no charge of im morality can lie seeing his life like his handiwork was chaste as moonlight that he was poor and headstrong Is true and that he was the congenital victim of an abnormal craving for stimulants now accounted a disease Is true but what of all this beside the gift that made its shining way against such odds beside one s gratitude for his crystallization of our inchoate taste and tor the lecog netlon which bis poetry and romance did so much to gain for the literary product of his native land when maarten maartens visited new york city last summer to attend the peace conference one of the first things he touched on in an interview in the new york times on literary mattera was the subject of poo he eald can you tell me where poe Is burled I 1 scarcely expected the an awer I 1 have been inquiring for ever since I 1 lande he Is buried some where isn t he and he ts your great cst writer isn t he the greatest in terest attaches it one might judge from tho controvert which rages to this day to the cause and manner of his death but apparently no one knows or cares where his body lies or can direct the foreign pilgrim er to repair to render bis meed of reverence mr stedman s judgment Is thus con firmed indeed more than confirmed it is strongly emphasized by mr maar tens who places poe at the head of american men of letters let us now listen to a voice from england that of sir arthur conan doyle who said of poe in a recent article in an english cassells magazine 1 I have said that I 1 look upon poe as the worlds supreme short story writer his nearest rival I 1 should say was Mau passant the great nor man never rose jo the extreme force and originality fit the american but he bad a natural power an inborn in towards the right way of mak ing his effects which mark him as a great master he produced stories be cause it was in him to do so as naturally and as perfectly as an apple tree produces apples what a fine sensitive artistic touch it Is how easily and delicately the points are made poe was proud of being a virginian in 1841 he wrote to a friend in baitt more 1 I am a virginian at least I 1 call myself one for I 1 have resided all my life until within the last few years at richmond another writer mr charles L moore invites attention to poes merits as a tone painter in an artl cle in the dial most epics and great works of fiction he thinks have no trace of tone the region of tone be ing tho drama the lyric and the prose story hamlet begins with a tone picture the scene on the platform at elsynore Els lnore hardly equaled in shakespeare continuing mr moore says with of course other immense in poe cannot come into corn carlson with shakespeare in variety of tone shakespeare s different pieces are keyed to all the notes of color from ebon black to the purest gold of sunlight poe keeps in the main in the dark side of the spectrum but within his range there are great differences in shade and always absolute certainty of effect consider the varieties of tone in the grave somber colors of the fall of tho house of usher the restless brilliancy of the masque of the red death and the sober ordered daylight of Lan dors cottage or the range between the in tangible shadows of Ul alume the rich gloom of the raven and the faceted sparkle of the haunted palace As the modern world of letters has main ly gone to keats to learn style the per word phrasing so it has gone to poe to learn tone the truths of keeping an atmosphere in composition poe did not set himself to write copy book maxims of morality but the total effect of his work la that of dottl ness and nobility ills men are brave and his women are pure he Is the least vulgar of mortals perhaps it books have any effect at all his tend to make men too truthful too sens alve too high minded standards evidently have changed since emerson referred to poe as that jingle man alluding to this disparaging comment dr II 11 G wells the english novelist and writer on sociology ci said at a dinner in boston I 1 think hardly of your new england writers for their contempt of poe I 1 shall never be able to forget that emerson called him that jingle man today to day a thousand read poe where one reads emerson and not to know poe s work Is rather a disgrace rupert taylor LL B in a recently printed study of edgar allan poe baa this to eay ot poe s private life poe took pleasure in the softer in fluentes fluen ces of home life although there Is little or no reflection of it in his writings he dearly loved his wife and her mother of whom he speaks tn an excellent sonnet addressed to her after the death of his wife as more than mother in the black cat he gives evidence of a fondness for domestic pets ills cottage at fordham was beautified by vines and flowering plants and be kept in cages several singing birds and tropical birds of plumage he was as all who know anything about the matter attested on every occasion a devoted and model husband people in general are BO accustomed tto regard poe as a poet and short story writer that they fall to realize that he was also a profound specula alve thinker in an article entitled poe as an evolutionist popular science monthly september mr frederic drew bond points out that in estimating his character too little attention Is bestowed on this phase of his work he finds that poe entertained in ita broad outlines that idea of the changes and development of the world which goes nowadays by the name ot the theory of evolution on february 3 1848 poe delivered as a lecture at the society library of new york an abstract of his speculations on the material and spiritual verse its essence origin creation present condition and destiny short ly afterward this was published by putnam under the title eureka after quoting the paragraphs from eureka in which poe sums up his theory of cosmic development mr bond says the statement of poe that heterogeneousness brought about directly through condensation Is proportional with it forever appears to contain the germ of herbert spencers developed formula evolution Is a change from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity through continuous differentiations and integrations noteworthy also Is poes statement of the correlation between mental development and physical organization it Is improbable that Eurek ahad any influence in preparing the way tor the reception ot evolutionary ideas a little later at the most such influx ence must have been of the slightest tor though his work was early trans into foreign languages the failure to find fitting recognition of its true character and the general obscurity la which it has lain seems to preclude such a likelihood its interest lies in the light it throws on its author and in the honorable place it assigns him in that long line of from thales to darwin the status then of edgar allan poe 60 years after is as follows mr edmund clarence stedman finds that poe is read and held as a distinctive genius in france spain germany italy russia scandinavia that the spell of his art la felt wherever our own english speech goes with the flags of its two great over lands mr maarten maartens declares that poe Is at the head of american literature era ture and that europe Is quite agreed as it has been from the first in recognizing the overshadowing 4 genius of edgar allan poe r 4 sir arthur conan doyle looks upon poe as the worlds supreme short story writer whose nearest rival was Mau passant charles frederic stansbury pro 1 bounces poe a brilliant genius to emulate the work of whom Is the despair of great minds and the confusion of little ones mr charles L moore tells us that s poo was the least vulgar of mortals and that the total effect of his work ja Is that of loftiness and nobility t miss myrtle reed says that po S fought bravely against cruel odds mr rupert taylor finds that poa was on every occasion a devoted and I 1 j model husband mr frederic drew bond points out li that poe had a prevision of the doc trine of evolution and that he la entitled to an honorable place in that long line of thinkers from thales to darwin this then Is the testimony on dl J examination of the year 1807 in the case of edgar allan poo versus vt those electors to the hall of fama who have BO far withheld from him their lots f gentlemen the defense rests FRANCIS MADISON V s y |