During this lecture upon one of his favorite hobbies, the low voice of The Dreamer was vibrant with earnestness. He spoke out of bitter experience and as he who bore the reputation of a reserved man, laid his soul bare, his vivid eyes held the eyes of his companion by the very intensity--the deep sincerity of their gaze. Mr. Graham's last conversation with his new editor had dazed him; this one dazed him still more. What manner of man was this? (he asked himself) with whom he had formed a league? He could not say--beyond the fact that he was undoubtedly original--and interesting. Admirable qualities for an editor--both! The readers of the new monthly thoroughly agreed with him. The history of Edgar Poe's career as editor of _The Southern Literary Messenger_ promptly began to repeat itself with _Graham's Magazine_. The announcement that he had been engaged as editor immediately drew the attention of the reading world toward _Graham's_, and it soon became apparent that in the new position he was going to out-do himself. The rapidity with which his brilliant and caustic critiques and essays, and weird stories, followed upon the heels of one another was enough to take one's breath away. He alternately raised the hair of his readers with master-pieces of unearthly imaginings and diverted them with playful studies in autography and exhibitions of skill in reading secret writing. About the time of his beginning his duties at _Graham's_ he must needs have had a visit from some fairy godmother, the touch of whose enchanted wand left him with a new gift. This was a wonderfully developed power of analysis which he found pleasure in exercising in every possible way. To quote his own words, "As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as bring his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play." He tried the newly discovered talent upon everything. In his papers on "Autography" he practised it in the reading of character from hand-writing, and in his deciphering of secret writing he carried it so far and awakened the interest and curiosity of the public to such extent that it bade fair to be the ruin of him; for it seemed his correspondents would have him drop literature and devote himself and the columns of _Graham's Magazine_ for the rest of his life, to the solving of these puzzles. Finally, having proved that it was impossible for any of them to compose a cypher he could not read in less time than its author had spent in inventing it, he took advantage of his only safeguard, and positively declined to have anything more to do with them.