the critique, and the converse. On this account, and because there are

but few B-'s in the world, I would be as much ashamed of the world's

good opinion as proud of your own. Another than yourself might here

observe, 'Shakespeare is in possession of the world's good opinion, and

yet Shakespeare is the greatest of poets. It appears then that the world

judge correctly, why should you be ashamed of their favorable judgment?'

The difficulty lies in the interpretation of the word 'judgment' or

'opinion.' The opinion is the world's, truly, but it may be called

theirs as a man would call a book his, having bought it; he did not

write the book, but it is his; they did not originate the opinion, but

it is theirs. A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet-yet

the fool has never read Shakespeare. But the fool's neighbor, who is a

step higher on the Andes of the mind, whose head (that is to say,

his more exalted thought) is too far above the fool to be seen or

understood, but whose feet (by which I mean his everyday actions)

are sufficiently near to be discerned, and by means of which that

superiority is ascertained, which but for them would never have been

discovered-this neighbor asserts that Shakespeare is a great poet--the

fool believes him, and it is henceforward his opinion. This neighbor's

own opinion has, in like manner, been adopted from one above him,

and so, ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel around the

summit, beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands upon the

pinnacle.

You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer.

He is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5