"Every genuine author in a greater or less degree leaves in his
works, whatever their design, traces of his personal character:
elements of his immortal being, in which the individual survives the
person. While we read the pages of the 'Fall of the House of Usher,'
or of 'Mesmeric Revelations,' we see in the solemn and stately gloom
which invests one, and in the subtle metaphysical analysis of both,
indications of the idiosyncrasies of what was most remarkable and
peculiar in the author's intellectual nature. But we see here only
the better phases of his nature, only the symbols of his juster
action, for his harsh experience had deprived him of all faith in man
or woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of
the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture.
This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally
unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society as composed
altogether of villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of
that kind which enabled him to cope with villany, while it
continually caused him by overshots to fail of the success of
honesty. He was in many respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer's
novel of 'The Caxtons.' Passion, in him, comprehended -many of the
worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not
contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of
wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing
natural advantages of this poor boy--his beauty, his readiness, the
daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere--had
raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that
turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices against him.
Irascible, envious--bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient
angles were all varnished over with a cold, repellant cynicism, his
passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed to him no moral