Poe's methods were such a delight to him that his works have an uncanny atmosphere about them, as if he had not written them but had been present, passionately observant and critical, while they were being written by somebody else. More than once he used his pen to make a new thing out of a discussion of an old one, and on these occasions he dissects his own motives in so impersonal a manner that it is difficult for the reader to remember that the author examining is in any way connected with the author undergoing examination. _The Raven_, for example, a profound piece of technique, is scarcely as profound, and certainly not as surprising, as _The Philosophy of Composition_, in which its construction is minutely analysed, and Poe callously explains, as a matter of scientific rather than personal interest, that the whole poem was built on the refrain 'Nevermore,' and that this particular refrain was chosen on account of the sonority and ease of _o_ and _r_ sounded together. It was inevitable that such a man busying himself with story-telling should bring something new into the art. [Illustration: WILLIAM GODWIN] [William Godwin and _Caleb Williams_.] Another story-teller, who, like Poe, was a philosopher and deeply interested in technique, had existed before, and from him Poe had that strengthening of his ideas that is given by outside confirmation. He refers often to William Godwin, the author of _An Enquiry concerning Political Justice_ and of several novels, among them one now most undeservedly half forgotten, called _Caleb Williams_. It is seldom possible to point to any one book as the sign-post of a literary cross-roads, but there can be no doubt that in _Caleb Williams_ we see the beginnings of self-conscious construction in story-telling. Of that book Hazlitt wrote: 'No one ever began _Caleb Williams_ that did not read it through: no one that ever read it could possibly forget it, or speak of it after any length of time but with an impression as if the events and feelings had been personal to himself.' And the author not only had done this, but had known how it was done. It is usual to say that Poe himself was the first to choose an effect and then plan a story to produce it. But _Caleb Williams_ was published in 1794, and in a preface to one of the later editions Godwin gave his methods away. On him also lay that fruitful curse. He wrote: 'I formed a conception of a book of fictitious adventure that should in some way be distinguished by a very powerful interest. Pursuing this idea, I invented first the third volume of my tale, then the second, and last of all the first.'