In farces like ‘The Spectacles,’ ‘Loss of Breath,’ and ‘The Man that was Used up,’ the motives would be revolting were not the characters manifestly constructed of wood or papier-maché. The figures are neither more nor less than marionettes. If Madame Stephanie Lalande (aged eighty-one) dashes her wig on the ground with a yell and dances a fandango upon it, ‘in an absolute ecstasy and agony of rage,’ it is what may be expected in a pantomime. Whoever wishes to laugh at the hero of the Bugaboo and Kickapoo campaign, when he is discovered sans scalp, sans palate, sans arm, leg, and shoulders, is at liberty to do so, but he must laugh as do children when Punch beats his wife. There is no question of the vivacity displayed in these pieces. ‘Bon-Bon,’ ‘The Duc de l’Omelette,’ ‘Lionizing,’ ‘Never bet the Devil your Head,’ ‘X-ing a Paragrab,’ ‘Diddling Considered as one of the Exact Sciences,’ ‘The Business Man,’ and ‘The Angel of the Odd’ are sprightly with an uncanny sprightliness. It must always be a matter for astonishment that Poe could have written them. The mystery of their being read is explained by the taste of the times. On the other hand, ‘The Devil in the Belfry’ is genuinely amusing. The description of the peaceful estate of the pleasant Dutch toy village of Vondervotteimitiss, where the very pigs wore repeaters tied to their tails with ribbons, and the sad story of the destruction of all order and regularity by the advent of the foreign-looking young man in black kerseymere knee-breeches, are most agreeably set forth. This extravaganza is not only the best of Poe’s humorous sketches, but ranks with the work of men who were better equipped and more gifted in such work than was Poe. V THE CRITIC Poe brought into American criticism a pungency which it had hitherto lacked. He was entirely independent, and had urbanity companioned independence the value of his critical work would have been greatly augmented. He could praise with warmth and condemn with asperity; he could not maintain an even temper. Swayed by his likes and his dislikes, he was but too apt to grow extravagantly commendatory or else spiteful. ‘He had the judicial mind but was rarely in the judicial state of mind.’[27] He was not unwilling to give pain, and easily persuaded himself that he did so in a just cause. There was a pleasurable sense of power in the consciousness of being feared. Yet the pleasure thus derived can never be other than ignoble. A man of Poe’s genius can ill afford to waste his time in attacking other men of genius whose conceptions of literary art differ from his own. Still less can he afford to assail the swarm of petty authors whose works will perish the sooner for being let alone. Of all harmless creatures authors are the most harmless and should be allowed to live their innocent little lives. But Poe took literature hard, and authors had a disquieting effect on him.