veloped the structure of "The
Raven" and fashioned a finished poem from a preconceived effect. It is
greatly to be regretted that he did not write a similar essay
outlining in detail the successive stages in the construction of one
of his short-stories. With his extraordinarily clear and analytic
intellect, he fashioned his plots with mathematical precision. So
rigorously did he work that in his best stories we feel that the
removal of a sentence would be an amputation. He succeeded absolutely
in giving his narrative the utmost emphasis with the greatest economy
of means.

=Analysis of "Ligeia."=--If we learn through and through how a single
perfect story is constructed, we shall have gone far toward
understanding the technic of story-building as a whole. Let us
therefore analyze one of Poe's short-stories--following in the main
the method which he himself pursued in his analysis of "The Raven"--in
order to learn the successive steps by which any excellent short-story
may be developed from its theme. Let us choose "Ligeia" for the
subject of this study, because it is very widely known, and because
Poe himself considered it the greatest of his tales. Let us see how,
starting with the theme of the story, Poe developed step by step the
structure of his finished fabric; and how, granted his preestablished
design, the progress of his plan was in every step inevitable.[8]

The theme of "Ligeia" was evidently suggested by those lines from
Joseph Glanvill which, quoted as a motto for the story, are thrice
repeated during the course of the narrative:--

"And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the
mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will,
pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield
himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the
weakness of his feeble will."

Poe recognized, with the English moralist, that the human will is
strong and can conquer many of the ills that flesh is heir to. If it
were still stronger, it could do more mighty things; and if it were
_very much_ stronger, it is even conceivable that it might vanquish
death, its last and sternest foe. Now it was legitimate for the
purposes of fiction to imagine a character endowed with a will strong
enough to conquer death; and a striking narrative effect could
certainly be produced by setting forth this moral conquest. This,
then, became the purpose of the story: to exhibit a ch