Recognition is the more
instant for having been postponed. He does not acquire it, like a miser's
fortune, coin after coin, but "not at all or all in all." And thus with
other ambitions: the courtier, soldier, actor,--whatever their parts,--each
counts his triumph from some lucky stroke. Poe's Raven, despite augury, was
for him "the bird that made the breeze to blow." The poet settled in
New-York, in the winter of 1844-'45, finding work upon Willis's paper, "The
Evening Mirror," and eking out his income by contributions elsewhere. For
six years he had been an active writer, and enjoyed a professional
reputation; was held in both respect and misdoubt, and was at no loss for
his share of the ill-paid journalism of that day. He also had done much of
his very best work,--such tales as "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of
Usher," (the latter containing that mystical counterpart, in verse, of
Elihu Vedder's "A Lost Mind,") such analytic feats as "The Gold Bug" and
"The Mystery of Marie Roget." He had made proselytes abroad, and gained a
lasting hold upon the French mind. He had learned his own power and
weakness, and was at his prime, and not without a certain reputation. But
he had written nothing that was on the tongue of everybody. To rare and
delicate work some popular touch must be added to capture the general
audience of one's own time.
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