it is merely a prose-rhapsody on the theme expressed in the words of old Glanvill, “Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his own feeble will.” This theme, the supremacy of mind over matter, was one over which Poe busied himself much; but to scientific thought on the subject he contributed little of value. It has been pointed out, however, that Poe was the first to write this sort of tale, the “psychical story,” in which Stevenson and others later outdid him. He was a subtle psychologist of certain moods and qualities, and understood the fiercer passions of terror and remorse as have few other men; of this, “William Wilson” furnishes abundant proof. But his range is limited, and most readers, tired, like the Lady of Shalott, of shadows, soon long to change his world of mystery and madness and death for the real world of sane and kindly, if commonplace, men and women. According to the old maxim, however, we must take the artist for what he is. Poe chose his material and his setting as his artistic genius guided him; that he made skilful use of this material there can be little doubt. Within his narrow range, he is absolute master. His intensity, his eloquence, his skill in the choice and repetition of words force the reader to yield to the spell and believe for the moment even in the impossible. His limitations have been well set forth by Professor Woodberry: Being gifted with the dreaming instinct, the myth-making faculty, the allegorising power, and with no other poetic element of high genius, he exercised his art in a region of vague feeling, symbolic ideas, and fantastic imagery, and wrought his spell largely through sensuous effects of colour, sound, and gloom, heightened by lurking but unshaped suggestions of mysterious meanings. Symbolism is indeed evident throughout his imaginative works; in “The Black Cat,” for example, remorse is indicated by the cat’s flaming eye; in “William Wilson,” a guilty conscience is the man’s double. Of ornamentation there is plenty; Poe revelled in a wealth of beautiful images of Oriental and Gothic splendour.