His style often glows with prismatic colors, but the colors seem to be refracted from ice. There is no warmth, no sweetness, no lovable and human quality. All the pronounced characteristics of Poe’s style are intensely and coldly intellectual. It is easier to admire his use of language than to like it. IV _TALES OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE_ By virtue of his journalistic gift, Poe resembled the author of _Robinson Crusoe_. He could not, like Defoe, have become general literary purveyor to the people, but he was quite ready to profit by what was uppermost in the public mind. _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym_ is an illustration, as it is also a good example of Poe’s art in its most mundane form. It recounts the adventures of a runaway lad at sea. Mutiny, drunkenness, brawling, murder, shipwreck, cannibalism, madness, are the chief ingredients of the book. It is minute, circumstantial, prolix, matter of fact. The air of verisimilitude is increased by an alternation of episodes of thrilling interest with tedious accounts of how a cargo should be stowed, and the object and method of bringing a ship to. Only at rare intervals does Poe’s peculiar genius flash out. As the longest of his writings the _Narrative_ has a peculiar value. By it we are able to get some notion of his power for ‘sustained effort,’ to use a phrase that always irritated him. That power was certainly not great; perhaps it was never fairly tested. _The Journal of Julius Rodman_ is a second attempt at the same kind of fiction. Poe was less happy in descriptions of the prairie than of the sea; the interest of the _Journal_ is feeble. In these fictions the author holds fast to tangible things. Pym and Rodman might have had the adventures they recount. In another group of stories Poe leavens fact with imagination. Such are ‘The Balloon Hoax,’ ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of one Hans Pfaall,’ ‘A Descent into the Maelström,’ and the ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’ Real or alleged science is compounded with the elements of wonder and mystery. And with these elements comes an increase of power.