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Show I Monument to Pee. i What has the world to do now with the weaknesses of a man who is dead? I Why should It heap scorn on hla mem iory because of his personal peculiar I I ties? Poe the living man waa unfortunate, unfor-tunate, buffeted In turn by cruel circumstances cir-cumstances outside himself and by the perversities of a nature he could not control and other people could not understand. un-derstand. But he waa and Is to-day the finest poetic genius the country has produced. As a writer of the short story he founded a school which th best of the French, the German and the Slav short-story writers have been proud to follow. It Is because of his matchless, haunting melodies of 7erae and the rich world of his Imagination revealed to us In his short stories that Poe'a memory should be honored- His frailties as a man perished with him; there Is no need to keep them in mem ory. But that Imperishable part ot him which we call genius deserves Its fame. Monuments are not raised to the flawless alone. If they wens there might be fewer, even in poud Rich mond, to lift the names ot favored sons upward to the sky. Washington Post. |