To those who know the full details of the sad story of Poe’s life it is little wonder that his sensitive, passionate nature sought surcease from disappointment in the nepenthe of the intoxicating cup. It was but natural for a man of his nervous temperament and delicacy of feeling to fall into that melancholy moroseness which would chide even the angels for taking away his beautiful “Annabel Lee;” or that he should wail over the “Lost Lenore,” or declare that his soul should “nevermore” be lifted from the shadow of the “Raven” upon the floor. These poems and others are but the expressions of disappointment and despair of a soul alienated from happy human relations. While we admire their power and beauty, we should remember at what cost of pain and suffering and disappointment they were produced. They are powerful illustrations of the prodigal expense of human strength, of broken hopes and bitter experiences through which rare specimens of our literature are often grown. To treat the life of Edgar Allen Poe, with its lessons, fully, would require the scope of a volume. Both as a man and an author there is a sad fascination which belongs to no other writer, perhaps, in the world. His personal character has been represented as pronouncedly double. It is said that Stevenson, who was a great admirer of Poe, received the inspiration for his novel, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” from the contemplation of his double character. Paul Hamilton Hayne has also written a poem entitled, “Poe,” which presents in a double shape the angel and demon in one body. The first two stanzas of which we quote:―― “Two mighty spirits dwelt in him: One, a wild demon, weird and dim, The darkness of whose ebon wings Did shroud unutterable things: One, a fair angel, in the skies Of whose serene, unshadowed eyes Were seen the lights of Paradise. To these, in turn, he gave the whole Vast empire of his brooding soul; Now, filled with strains of heavenly swell, Now thrilled with awful tones of hell: Wide were his being’s strange extremes, ’Twixt nether glooms, and Eden gleams Of tender, or majestic dreams.”