"Never Bet The Devil Your Head" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

1850
NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD
A Tale With a Moral
by Edgar Allan Poe

CON tal que las costumbres de un autor," says Don Thomas de las
Torres, in the preface to his "Amatory Poems" "sean puras y castas,
importo muy poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras"- meaning,
in plain English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure
personally, it signifies nothing what are the morals of his books.
We presume that Don Thomas is now in Purgatory for the assertion. It
would be a clever thing, too, in the way of poetical justice, to
keep him there until his "Amatory Poems" get out of print, or are laid
definitely upon the shelf through lack of readers. Every fiction
should have a moral; and, what is more to the purpose, the critics
have discovered that every fiction has. Philip Melanchthon, some
time ago, wrote a commentary upon the "Batrachomyomachia," and
proved that the poet's object was to excite a distaste for sedition.
Pierre la Seine, going a step farther, shows that the intention was to
recommend to young men temperance in eating and drinking. Just so,
too, Jacobus Hugo has satisfied himself that, by Euenis, Homer meant
to insinuate John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther; by the
Lotophagi, Protestants in general; and, by the Harpies, the Dutch. Our
more modern Scholiasts are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate
a hidden meaning in "The Antediluvians," a parable in Powhatan," new
views in "Cock Robin," and transcendentalism in "Hop O' My Thumb."
In short, it has been shown that no man can sit down to write
without a very profound design. Thus to authors in general much
trouble is spared. A novelist, for example, need have no care of his
moral. It is there- that is to say, it is somewhere- and the moral and
the critics can take care of themselves. When the proper time arrives,
all that the gentleman intended, and all that he did not intend,
will be brought to light, in the "Dial," or the "Down-Easter,"
together with all that he ought to have intended, and the rest that he
clearly meant to intend:- so that it will all come very straight in
the end.
There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against
me by certain ignoramuses- that I have never written a moral tale, or,
in more precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics
predestined to bring me out, and develop my morals:- that is the
secret. By and by the "North American Quarterly Humdrum" will make
them ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying
execution- by way of mitigating the accusations against me- I offer
the sad history appended,- a history about whose obvious moral there
can be no question whatever, since he who runs may read it in the
large capitals which form the title of the tale. I should have
credit for this arrangement- a far wiser one than that of La
Fontaine and others, who reserve the impression to be conveyed until
the last moment, and thus sneak it in at the fag end of their fables.
Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables,