Text: Anonymous, “Poe and the Hall of Fame,” New York Times (New York, NY), vol. LIX, whole no. 19,013, February 13, 1910, p. 10, cols. 3-4

[page 10, column 3, continued:]

POE AND THE HALL OF FAME.

EDGAR ALLAN POE will be admitted to the Hall of Fame of New York University this Summer if Chancellor MACCRACKEN's idea that the men and women honored by admission to that Pantheon or are not chosen because somebody thinks they ought to [column 4:] be famous, but because they really achieved fame. POE's fame is secure, whether or not his name is ever inscribed on a panel six feet high and two feet wide in the semi-circular colonnade on University Heights. He must receive 51 votes of 100 cast to be honored by admission to the colonnade wherein the memory of EMERSON, HAWTHORNE, LONGFELLOW, IRVING, and WHITTIER is already perpetuated.

The greatness of POE is not questioned by anybody competent to Judge of literary worth, though his genius has never been quite so highly extolled in his own country as in France, thanks to BAUDELAIRE and his followers, who received with enthusiasm even the pseudo-scientific and extravagant “Eureka.” As a poet, if imagination and melody and beauty of form are attributes of poetry, Pom surely ranks above some who have already been admitted to the Hall of Fame. As a prose writer, with a matchless style, and a facility of invention unequaled in American letters, he has been the inspiration of whole generation of writers in various languages. The opposition to a sculptured recognition of him on University Heights has been based on a narrow view of life and a misunderstanding of art. POE was a man of dazzling genius. The discussion provoked by the original proposal to place his name on one of the panels has annoyed many intelligent persons, and if it has only amused a larger number, it has certainly served to create a false impression of the purpose and dignity of the colonnade on the hilltop.

This is comet year. A contributor to one of the newspapers points out that Pom was one of the first to imagine the destruction of the earth by a huge comet. One of that sort is now rushing toward us through space, a big fellow with a tail loaded with cyanogen. The university's tribute to Pom should be hastened. Let him be honored as a prophet, if not as a poet and writer of exquisite prose.