The symbolism of Poe's verse we must solve, each for himself. To me, for
myself, the solution seems not difficult--and so no doubt says another;
but on comparison these solutions would no doubt be very different."

But highly as Bainbridge estimated Poe's verse, he placed Poe even
higher among writers of prose fiction than among poets. As I have said,
I am myself an admirer of Poe. His prose I have always thought the work
of a true genius--something, as Doctor Bainbridge said, "more than art,
aided by the most perfect art." But when we came to speak of his prose
writings, Bainbridge was able to express in language all that I had felt
of Poe, and to disclose and explain components of his genius that I had
never before fully recognized.

I then asked Bainbridge what it was in Poe's prose that he so much
admired.

"Poe's strong element of power as a writer of short stories," said
Bainbridge, "is, I think, his scientific imagination--the same capacity,
strange as the statement may appear, that, when directed into another
channel, makes a great physicist. It strikes me as inaccurate to say
that Newton discovered the law of gravitation. Newton imagined the fact
of a law of physical gravitation; and then he proceeded to prove _the_
law of gravitation, accomplishing the discovery by means of a second
attribute of genius--viz., tireless mental energy--the possession of a
talent for rigorous mental application and severe nervous strain. In the
sense that Columbus discovered America--in that sense, Newton discovered
the law of gravitation: Columbus imagined an America, and then proceeded
to make a physical demonstration of his belief by discovering the
Bahamas. The same faculty--scientific imagination--in Poe gave us 'A
Descent into the Maelstrom, The Murders in the Rue Morgue,' and other of