The  reason  is  that  Hoffmann  started  from  the  fantastic
in  order  to  arrive  naturally  at  the  marvelous,  whereas
Poe  started  in  search  of  the  marvelous  from  the  real  and
actual;  a  procedure  which  disturbed  the  mind  with  greater
violence  than  any  other  method,  for  the  very  reason  that
it  displayed  all  the  circumstances  of  verisimihtude.  If  one
could  have  said  of  Ernest  Hoffmann's  Fantastic  Tales  that
they  were  insane,  one  can  say  of  Poe's  Extraordinary  Tales
that  they  are  drunken.  The  giddiness  which  overcame
their  author  as  he  conceived  them  overcomes  the  reader  as
he  peruses  them;  both  lose  conmionplace  feeling  to  be  lifted
to  extraordinary  feeUng;  after  reading  these  tales  it  is
impossible  to  sleep.
*'We,  whom  the  unhappy  author  has  robbed  of  more
than  a  few  hours  of  calm,  experienced,  from  the  moment
when  we  first  read  him,  a  yearning  to  protest  against  the
method  pursued  by  the  genius,  which  [protest],  had  we
been  gifted  with  a  talent  equal  to  his,  we  should  at  once
have  put  into  effect,  opposing  the  commonplace  to  the
extraordinary;  that  is  to  say,  telling  the  tales  which  we
knew,  but  guaranteeing  sleep  after  reading  them.
"Thence  dates  the  first  of  the  tales  which  we  here  pre-
sent. ...  If  the  type  becomes  fashionable,  with  what  delight
will  we  set  to  work  to  write  Commonplace  Tales  (His-
torias  vulgares)V'

Thus  we  see  that  though  Poe  won  no  distinguished  fol-
lowers he  at  least  stimulated  a  healthy  reaction,  which,  for
the  purposes  of  the  student  of  comparative  literature,  is
almost  as  good.
