SUmetican a?en of 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE E. WOODBERRY. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 
 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street. 
 
 1885. 
 

 Copyright, 1885, 
 BY GEORGE E. WOODBERRY. 
 
 3- % -S~-Z> 6 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
8 $5 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 PARENTAGE 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 EDUCATION 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 WANDERINGS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 AT THE SOUTH 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 IN NEW YORK 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE END or THE PLAY 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 15 
 
 30 
 
 . 63 
 
 104 
 
 . 201 
 
 . 278 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE principal printed sources for a narrative of 
 Poe s life are the following, of which the first 
 three were inspired by himself and published 
 before his death : I., Griswold s sketch, in " The 
 Poets and Poetry of America," 1842 ; II., Hirst s 
 sketch, in the Philadelphia "Saturday Museum," 
 1843 ; III., Lowell s sketch, in " Graham s Maga 
 zine," 1845 ; IV., Griswold s " Memoir," founded on 
 the documents put into his hands as Poe s executor 
 and prefixed to the third volume of the original 
 edition of Poe s "Works," 1850, but now suppressed ; 
 V., Mrs. Whitman s " Edgar Poe and his Critics," 
 1860 ; VI., Didier s "Life," prefixed to an edition of 
 Poe s " Poems," 1876 ; VII., Gill s " Life," 1877 ; 
 VIII., Stoddard s " Life," prefixed to a volume of se 
 lections from the "Works," 1880, and now included 
 in the latest complete edition (A. C. Armstrong & 
 Son, 1884, 6 vols.) ; IX., Ingram s " Life " (London), 
 1880. These authorities, each of which contains 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 original matter peculiar to itself, and numerous 
 personal reminiscences of Poe in periodicals and 
 newspapers, have been used in the preparation of 
 the present biography. The statements of fact in 
 these sources are extraordinarily conflicting, doubt 
 ful, and contested ; and in view of this, as well as 
 of the spirit of rancor excited in any discussion of 
 Poe s character, the author has made this, so far as 
 was possible, a documentary biography, has veri 
 fied all facts positively stated at first hand, and 
 has felt obliged to assign the authority followed, 
 in any questionable assertions, in foot notes. This 
 method, which seemed the only practicable one if 
 truth was to be arrived at, has involved a more 
 direct obligation to previous works than would 
 otherwise have been the case ; but the author in 
 this matter has been treated with marked courtesy, 
 and he takes pleasure in thanking Mr. Eugene L. 
 Didier and TV. Fearing Gill, Esq., for voluntarily 
 offering to him the use of their material, and 
 Messrs. A. C. Armstrong & Son, the owners of 
 the copyright of the Griswold and Stoddard 
 memoirs, for permission to extract the passages 
 found in the text. To Mr. Gill he is indebted also 
 for the use of the incomplete MS. " Life " by T. C. 
 Clarke, once Poe s partner. To Mr. Ingram s 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 work the present biography is under obligation, as 
 the foot notes exhibit, especially for extracts (the 
 briefest possible) from Poe s correspondence with 
 
 women. The letters designated "Poe to ," 
 
 and accredited to Ingram s " Life" where they had 
 been previously printed, were placed at the author s 
 disposal by their owner ; and for this favor, as well 
 as for a copy of the^4^^i^Lto " Eureka," he desires 
 to express his thanks. 
 
 Notwithstanding the amount of printed matter 
 regarding Poe, his life has not been exhaustively 
 treated. The larger portion of the following pages 
 consists of wholly new information, or of old state 
 ments so radically corrected as to become new. 
 In preparing this the author has been indebted to 
 the assistance of very many persons, of whom he 
 can thank by name only a few, but he trusts that 
 the lack of any public acknowledgment will not 
 be misconstrued as neglect. Not to enter upon 
 minor matters and the incessant corrections of 
 detail made by the present volume, the account 
 of Poe s parentage and marriage is for the first time 
 given according to the facts, from original in 
 vestigation. The discovery of the papers that 
 settle Poe s history during the years concern 
 ing which nothing whatever has hitherto been 
 
Viii PREFACE. 
 
 definitely known, was due to the consideration 
 of Robert Lincoln, Secretary of War, and the kind 
 ness of Adjutant-General R. C. Drum. The MSS. 
 and other material collected by the late Judge 
 Neilson Poe, and hitherto unpublished, are of great 
 value, particularly the papers that give the only 
 contemporary account of Poe s death, and the 
 Snodgrass correspondence, which affords interesting 
 details of Poe s years in Philadelphia. The cor 
 respondence of Poe with Mr. James Russell Lowell, 
 the most interesting of all from a literary point of 
 view, throws much light into obscure portions of 
 Poe s mature life, as well as upon his mind and 
 character, and the correspondence between Mr. C. 
 F. Briggs and Mr. Lowell is the most direct and 
 the only authoritative piece of evidence regarding 
 Poe s affairs during his connection with the 
 " Broadway Journal." Letters of Poe, MSS. and 
 other original material bearing upon his life have 
 also been furnished by Messrs. Ferdinand T. 
 Dreer, Thomas H. Ellis, W. J. McClellan, T. B. 
 Aldrich, Allan B. Magruder, Douglass Sherley, 
 William Nelson, Mrs. Susan A. Weiss, William 
 E. Foster, John Parker, J. N. Ireland, F. O. C. 
 Darley, and Arthur Mazyck. Mr. E. C. Stedman 
 kindly loaned the daguerreotype from which the 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 portrait here given is engraved. For all this 
 generous assistance the author makes grateful 
 acknowledgment, as well as to Professor Irving 
 Stringham, of the University of California, for the 
 substance of the criticism of Poe s astronomical 
 speculations, and to Mr. Frank Parks for friendly 
 and invaluable aid in many ways ; especially does 
 he feel deeply obliged to Miss Amelia F. Poe, 
 General Drum, and Mr. Lowell, for their attention 
 and liberality. 
 
 BEVERLY, MASS., December 18, 1884. 
 
EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 CHAPTEE L 
 
 PAKENTAGE. 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE was born at Boston, Janu 
 ary 19, 1809. His parents were regular members 
 of the company then playing at the Federal Street 
 Theatre. His father, who was about thirty years 
 of age, had been known in his youth at Baltimore 
 as the son of the ardent Revolutionary patriot, Da 
 vid Poe, whose name he bore, and as, ostensibly, a 
 student of law. His friends, however, thought of 
 him rather as a clever amateur actor and a boon 
 companion of the Thespian Club ; and after he had 
 emigrated to Georgia, where one of his father s 
 brothers had settled, they may have found noth 
 ing out of keeping with his affable, impulsive, and 
 unreflecting character in the report that he had 
 left the brown law books ranged on the shelves 
 of his uncle s brother-in-law and gone upon the 
 stage. Old General Poe, as the citizens called 
 him in recognition of his Revolutionary services, 
 was not a man to condone such an offense in his 
 1 
 
2 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 eldest born. He was in his sixtieth year, with at 
 least three younger children to provide for, and he 
 let the runaway shift for himself, a situation te 
 diously familiar, in after years, to the young actor, 
 who was most successful on the boards in that part 
 of the " Wild Gallant " which he had first essayed 
 in real life ; but his father was by no means the 
 worldly-minded, dry-hearted miser of the play 
 wrights. 
 
 General Poe, indeed, left a memory full of vir 
 tue. Every action of his life bespeaks a strong 
 and decisive man, from the time he first comes into 
 public notice as " one David Poe, a wheelwright," 
 leader of the mob that ousted Kobert Christie, the 
 Koyal Sheriff, from the city, and afterward at 
 tacked the Tory editor, William Goddard, the 
 slanderer of Washington. He had a natural right 
 to a rude and resolute strength, since by a not im 
 probable tradition he traced his descent through his 
 father, John Poe, who had emigrated about 1745 
 from the north of Ireland and settled in Pennsyl 
 vania, to one of Cromwell s officers who had re 
 ceived grants of Irish land, while on his mother s 
 side he is said to have been nephew to John Mac- 
 Bride, who fought under Nelson at Copenhagen, 
 and rose to be an Admiral of the Blue. In his 
 Revolutionary post of Assistant Quartermaster- 
 General for Baltimore, he was a prompt and effect 
 ive official, whose patriotism was genuine and deep- 
 seated, since he advanced money from his scanty 
 
PARENTAGE. 3 
 
 private funds, for which, be it added, no repayment 
 was made, except long afterwards in the form of 
 a pension to his widow. His country s injustice, 
 however, did not lessen his devotion. In 1814, 
 when he was in his seventy-second year, the old 
 spirit blazed out again in his active service as a 
 volunteer in the battle of North Point, against his 
 old enemies, the British. An honest, vigorous, sen 
 sible man, capable of worldly sacrifice, so much 
 he was ; and if the ties of natural affection seem 
 to have been in his heart neither strong nor tender, 
 even toward his orphaned grandchildren, it must 
 be remembered that he was not prosperous, and 
 they were well cared for by their adoptive parents. 
 The last record concerning him is that Lafayette, 
 on his parting visit to this country, went to his 
 grave and kissed the sod above him exclaiming, 
 " Ici repose un^ coeur noble ! " 
 
 On the maternal side, the record of Edgar Poe s 
 lineage belongs to the fleeting memories of the stage, 
 and \s both briefer and more obscure. The few 
 facts that remain .in regard to his mother and 
 grandmother have been practically ignored by our 
 books of theatrical annals, and are to be found only 
 in contemporary newspapers. The " Independent 
 Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser," published 
 at Boston, in its issue of February 11, 1796, an 
 nounced that Mrs. Arnold, an English actress from 
 the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, would make 
 her first appearance in America at the Federal 
 
4 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Street Theatre, on February 12. If the success 
 of her first night was an earnest of her future 
 fortune, she must have received a considerable share 
 of applause, as is seen by the following character 
 istic notice : 
 
 " We have had the pleasure of a complete fruition in 
 the anticipation of the satisfaction a Boston audience 
 would receive from the dramatic abilities of Mrs. Ar 
 nold. The theatre never shook, with such bursts of ap 
 plause, as on her first appearance, on Friday evening 
 last. Not a heart but was sensible of her merits ; not a 
 tongue but vibrated in her praise ; not a hand but moved 
 in approbation. Nor did these expressions of satisfaction 
 die with the evening, her merits have since been the 
 pleasing theme of every conversation." 1 
 
 Mrs. Arnold, whose forte seems to have been in 
 vocal music, sang often, and also acted in comic 
 operas, burlettas, and romantic plays, until the 
 close of the season, May 16. On June 1 she gave 
 a vocal concert, at which her daughter, Elizabeth, 
 made her first appearance and sang some popular 
 songs adapted to her youth. The fascination of 
 the mother was not confined to the stage. She had 
 now captivated " Nobody Coming to Marry Me " 
 was one of her piquant ditties the impressionable 
 heart of one Mr. Tubbs, a player on the piano 
 forte ; and after their speedy union the bridegroom 
 set up a theatre at Portland, Me. A very little 
 theatre it must have been, hardly more than a 
 1 Massachusetts Mercury, February 16, 1796. 
 
PARENTAGE. 5 
 
 family affair, since it was recruited from the ama 
 teurs of the town, and had for its chief attractions 
 only Tubbs s piano, his wife s voice, and the pre 
 cocity of his step-daughter, " the beautiful Miss 
 Arnold, whose powers as an actress command ad 
 miration." l One winter s experience of the theat 
 rical enthusiasm of Maine proved enough, and 
 when spring came the three were engaged as mem 
 bers of the troupe made up by Manager Solee from 
 the Boston and Charleston comedians to play in 
 the latter city. On their way South they stopped 
 at New York, where two performances were given 
 at the John Street Theatre in August, but the 
 company was soon afterwards scattered by the fatal 
 yellow fever of that year. During the autumn 
 the family went South, and on the opening of the 
 Charleston theatre, in November, made their de*but. 
 They performed the whole winter, but Miss Arnold 
 in only slight parts, a child, a nymph, a Cupid ; 
 and at the close of the season, in April, the name 
 of Poe s grandmother Tubbs and her obscure con 
 sort, the piano-forte player, disappeared from his 
 tory, while young Miss Arnold returned to the 
 North and joined the Philadelphia company. With 
 her new associates she acted the next four seasons 
 (1798-1802), during their winter engagements in 
 the city, their summer ventures at Southwark, and 
 on their excursions to Washington and elsewhere ; 
 her roles were usually unimportant, but she enjoyed 
 1 The Eastern Herald and Gazette of Maine, December 12, 1796. 
 
6 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 benefits and was apparently under the protection 
 of Mr. Usher and Mrs. Snowden. On March 14, 
 1800, Mr. C. D. Hopkins, a young man, made a 
 reputation on his very first appearance as " Tony 
 Lumpkin," and became a popular member of the 
 company, with which he continued to play, except 
 during occasional absences at the South. In 1802, 
 after the season had closed with the engagement of 
 Mr. Green, of the Virginia company, Miss Arnold 
 played at Baltimore, and there received a benefit, 
 June 4. Possibly it was on this occasion that the 
 charms of the petite and arch beauty inflamed the 
 heart of young Poe ; but if it were so the spark 
 must quickly have grown dim and cold, for within 
 two months she was married to Mr. Hopkins, who 
 had been acting during the spring at Norfolk. 
 Early in August the pair were delighting the people 
 of Alexandria, and they were long to hold good 
 rank among the Virginia players, as may still be 
 read in old files of Petersburg, Norfolk, and Rich 
 mond papers. 
 
 In the fall of 1804 a new member was added to 
 the company in the person of Mr. David Poe. This 
 youth of twenty-five summers l had left his uncle s 
 
 1 The age of both David Poe and Miss Arnold has been reck 
 oned (Ingram, i. 3) as if they were born in 1787. The youthful- 
 ness of the lovers, however, disappears with the other romantic 
 features of their mythical elopement. The mention of Miss Ar 
 nold at Boston and Portland in 1796 can hardly be thought to 
 apply to a child of nine years, and her roles the next summer in 
 New York (the play-bill ascribes one of these, "Agues," hi " The 
 
PARENTAGE. 7 
 
 at Augusta, and made " his second appearance on 
 any stage " at Charleston, December 5, 1803 ; but 
 he had previously performed at the same place, 
 December 1, without any special announcement. 
 He had continued uninterruptedly in the same com 
 pany until the close of the season in the spring, a 
 diffident, easily abashed actor, although in his own 
 role as " Harry Thunder " in " Wild Oats." He was 
 not, as has hitherto been asserted, drawn to the South 
 and tempted before the footlights by any inamorata 
 except the Comic Muse; nor is it likely that his 
 uncle, who died the following September, withdrew 
 him, as the tradition avers, from the fascination of 
 the theatre after he had entered on his career. In 
 November, at all events, the new actor, for whom 
 particular favor was asked as being American born, 
 was playing in the Virginia company at Petersburg, 
 and with it he continued as it moved from place to 
 place through its wide circuit, until, early in Septem 
 ber, 1805, it opened the season at Mr. Green s new 
 theatre in Washington. Mr. Green was particu 
 larly unfortunate in this venture, and not the least 
 of his losses was that of the popular comedian, as 
 he is styled, Mr. Hopkins, who died, after a brief 
 
 Mountaineers," to "Mrs. Arnold," but presumably by a misprint, 
 as the name of "Mrs. Tubbs" is in the same list) could not have 
 been filled by a person so young. The character of her life and 
 the notices of her acting make it exceedingly improbable that she 
 was much, if at all, younger than her husband. He was born 
 " certainly not later than 1780." John P. Poe, Esq., to the au 
 thor, June 19, 1883. 
 
8 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 illness, on October 26. The company, and his 
 widow among the rest, performed until Christmas, 
 and then went southward again. Within a month 
 Mr. Poe, with some pecuniary aid from a friend 
 (for these actors were always poor), married Mrs. 
 Hopkins, and early in February they were already 
 playing at Richmond. They remained in Virginia 
 until May, when they started North ; and after act 
 ing at Philadelphia in June and July, and at the 
 new Vauxhall Gardens, New York, from the middle 
 of July until late in August, they arrived at Boston 
 by October, and were welcomed by Mrs. Poe s old 
 friends, the Ushers. 
 
 Here they had their permanent home for the 
 three following years. From the contemporary 
 criticisms 1 it is easy to form a clear and complete 
 idea of the personal appearance and histrionic talent 
 of the poet s father and mother. David Poe was a 
 man of prepossessing figure, suitable for the juve 
 nile and gallant parts, the Henrys and Charles 
 Sedleys, which he habitually took; his voice was 
 full and manly, but untrained, deficient in modula 
 tion and in power, his utterance distinct but me 
 chanical, his gesture either too stiff or too flaccid. 
 He was sometimes praised, but more often censured, 
 or even made fun of, for his lack of dignity and his 
 
 1 These are contained in the various journals of all the cities 
 in which the Poes acted, and more particularly in a few period 
 icals of elegant literature, The Polyanthos, The Emerald, The 
 Theatrical Censor and Critical Miscellany, The Rambler s Magazine 
 and Theatrical Register, and The New Englander. 
 
PARENTAGE. 9 
 
 dependence on, the prompter. His range was nar 
 row, his manner always remained amateurish, and 
 after repeated trials he sank at last, it is said, into 
 insignificance. But his wife, who had been born 
 and trained to the stage, rose above mediocrity, 
 although she apparently never equaled her mother 
 in popularity or in merit. She was fragile in figure 
 (Ariel was one of her roles), and her voice, when 
 she sang, lacked richness and volume. She began 
 her Boston engagement with light impersonations, 
 and soon won upon the public by her archness and 
 roguery in the comic and her sweetness in the ro 
 mantic plays. Mr. Buckingham, the somewhat ex 
 acting critic of " The Polyanthos," pronounced the 
 hoyden to be her forte, but others were more indul 
 gent to her serious representations. In the course 
 of time she l)eame_the 
 
 when Cooper and Fennell were enjoying their 
 greatest triumphs, she was the Cordelia, Oplielia, 
 or Blanche of the drama, and when the youthful 
 prodigy, John Howard Payne, first came on the 
 Boston boards in 1809, she still maintained her 
 position, playing Palmyra to his Zaphna, Sigis- 
 munda to his Tancred, and the like parts. An 
 impression of the regard in which she was held, 
 and of her own theatrical labors, can, perhaps, 
 best be got from the following favorable notice, 
 which, moreover, throws a suggestive light on the 
 worldly condition of the lesser players of that 
 time : 
 
10 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 " If industry can claim from the public either favor or 
 support the talents of Mrs. Poe will not pass unrewarded. 
 She has supported and maintained a course of charac 
 ters more numerous and arduous than can be paralleled 
 on our boards during any one season. Often she has 
 been obliged to perform three characters on the same 
 evening, and she has always been perfect in the text, and 
 has well comprehended the intention of her author. 
 
 " In addition to her industry, however, Mrs. Poe has 
 claims for other favors from the respectability of her 
 talents. Her Romps and Sentimental characters, have 
 an individuality which has marked them peculiarly her 
 own. But she has succeeded often in the tender per 
 sonations of tragedy ; her conceptions are always marked 
 with good sense and natural ability. We are confident 
 to hope therefore that the Bostonians will not suffer her 
 merits to be so slighted that poverty and distress are to 
 result from her benefit night ; as has been the case with 
 other performers." * 
 
 This appeal was ineffective, since the Poes ad 
 vertised a second benefit, in conjunction with the 
 Ushers, to indemnify them, as they state in their 
 personal card to the public (in which they " hope 
 for that sanction, influence, and liberal support 
 which has ever yet distinguished a Boston au 
 dience "), for what they term "the great failure 
 and severe losses sustained by their former at 
 tempts." 2 A friendly effort was made by one 
 " Senex " to increase Mrs. Poe s reputation by 
 
 1 Boston Gazette, March 21, 1808. 
 
 2 Ibid., April 18, 1808. 
 
PARENTAGE. 11 
 
 praise of her moral qualities and domestic virtues, 
 and she was supported by the good will of some 
 ladies in society ; but there was clearly a party 
 against her among the critics, to which she must 
 finally have succumbed, even if she had been more 
 successfully defended by the characteristic argu 
 ments to which, as Mr. Buckingham relates, her 
 husband resorted by calling upon that gentleman 
 with the purpose of caning him for his imperti 
 nence. From such incidents and from the gen 
 eral tone of criticism the natural conclusion is that 
 Mrs. Poe was an interesting rather than a brilliant 
 actress, more deserving than fortunate, and in 
 debted for her moderate share of favor rather to 
 her painstaking care than to native talents. 
 
 She played very often during these years ; fre 
 quently she sang, and sometimes she danced a Po 
 lish minuet, the feminine counterpart to her hus 
 band s hornpipes, reels, and strathspeys. There 
 are but two marked breaks in her appearances: 
 one in the early months of 1807, when her son 
 William may have been born ; the other in the same 
 months of 1809, when she suffered her second con 
 finement. The child, born January 19, 1 was named 
 
 1 This is the date recorded by Poe on matriculating at the Uni 
 versity of Virginia in 1826. The argument by which Mr. R. H. 
 Stoddard seeks.to discredit it, on the ground that Mrs. Poe acted 
 through January, rests on a too cursory examination of the 
 evidence. During that month Mrs. Poe appeared only as a peas 
 ant in a pantomime, apparently three times, and was so adver 
 tised to appear January 20. Mr. Stoddard, assuming that she 
 
12 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Edgar. The mother went again upon the stage 
 February 10, and played until the end of the sea 
 son almost incessantly. The family then left Bos 
 ton, never to return, but not without grateful feel 
 ings toward the city, at least on Mrs. Poe s part, 
 since on the back of a painting from her own hand 
 she charged her son to " love Boston, the place of 
 his birth, and where his mother found her best and 
 most sympathetic friends." l 
 
 Early in September the Poes had become mem 
 bers of the New York company, in which they re 
 mained until the following July, still engaged in 
 acting the romantic and sentimental drama and 
 light comedy of the period. They made little im 
 pression. At the close of the season they left New 
 York, and within six weeks Mrs. Poe had joined 
 her old friends of Mr. Green s Virginia company, 
 and was announced at Eichmond, but there is no 
 further mention of her husband : whether he was 
 
 did appear on that evening, puts the date of birth forward one 
 month ; hut the matter is settled by several notices, of which 
 the following is one : 
 
 " We congratulate the frequenters of the Theatre on the recov 
 ery of Mrs. Poe from her recent confinement. This charming 
 little Actress will make her re-appearance To-morrow Evening, 
 etc." Boston Gazette, February 9, 1809. 
 
 The suggested date, February 19, is further inadmissible be 
 cause Mrs. Poe played in important roles five times between the 
 10th and 24th of that month. The date upon Poe s monument, 
 January 20, apparently derived from Judge Neilson Poe, of Bal 
 timore, has no extant authority whatever to support it. 
 
 1 Ingram, i. 6. 
 
PARENTAGE. 13 
 
 already dead, or lived on in a lingering consump 
 tion, is uncertain. Mrs. Poe continued to play in 
 the field of her early triumphs, and from the warm 
 commendation she received it would seem that her 
 charms and beauty had suffered no loss of power 
 over the audiences of the Southern circuit. A year 
 later, after having given birth to her third child, 
 Rosalie, she fell into a rapid decline. At the open 
 ing of the Richmond season, in August, 1811, she 
 was still an active member of the troupe, nor did 
 she cease to appear until after her benefit night, 
 early in October. The family, which was in the 
 utmost destitution, immediately became the object 
 of the charity of the Richmond ladies. The play 
 ers, too, advertised a second night for her benefit, 
 " in consequence of the serious and long-continued 
 indisposition of Mrs. Poe, and in compliance with 
 the advice and solicitation of many of the most 
 repectable families," a and on the morning of that 
 day the following card appeared : 
 
 fly TO THE HUMANE. 
 
 " On this night Mrs. Poe, lingering on the bed of dis 
 ease and surrounded by her children, asks your assist 
 ance ; and asks it perhaps for the last time." 2 
 
 A few days later, December 8, she died. A few 
 kind words in a Richmond paper, a single line in 
 one at Boston, was all that marked the close of a 
 
 1 The Virginia Patriot, November 29, 1811. 
 
 2 The Enquirer, November 29, 1811 
 
14 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 career which, though honorable, must have been 
 full of labor, anxiety, and poverty. The tinsel 
 crown, the gauze and the flash of the paste jewels, 
 the robes and the red shoes, went into the chest of 
 faded things. Harlequin must seek a new Colum 
 bine before the footlights flare up again ; and there, 
 left over from the comedy, were three children, 
 the eldest five years old, all helpless and in want. 
 Possibly the actors might have afforded them some 
 protection, but the disastrous conflagration of the 
 theatre on Christmas night prevented. That fatal 
 calamity, which threw the city into mourning and 
 turned the play-house into a church, deeply stirred 
 the community, and in the charity immediately ex 
 tended to all the sufferers these orphans were not 
 neglected. Mrs. Allan, a young wife of twenty- 
 five years, and her friend, Mrs. McKenzie, who 
 were attracted by the younger children, took, one 
 Edgar, the other Eosalie, into their homes ; Will 
 iam, the eldest, was cared for by his father s friends 
 at Baltimore. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 ME. JOHN ALLAN, who now with great reluc 
 tance gave his family name to the orphan of the 
 poor actors, had emigrated from Ayrshire, and, as 
 a member of the firm, Ellis & Allan, had already 
 at the age of thirty-one acquired position and for 
 tune in the Virginia tobacco trade. He had been 
 married for some time, but was still childless ; and 
 although in admitting a stranger s offspring to his 
 family he had at first merely yielded to his wife s 
 urgent entreaties, the black-eyed, curly-haired boy 
 naturally soon became a pet in the empty home, 
 especially as his precocity and beauty blended with 
 the charm of his young affection to minister to the 
 pride as well as touch the^heart of the foster-father. 
 At the age of six he could read, draw, and dance ; 
 of more showy accomplishments (the long, narrow 
 Virginia table, cleared for dessert, being his stage), 
 his trick before company was to pledge their 
 healths, and his talent was to declaim, for each of 
 which he had, perhaps by inheritance, an equal 
 aptitude. He received the rudiments of knowledge 
 in a private school at Richmond, and spent the 
 
16 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 three summers following his mother s death at the 
 White Sulphur Springs, then the fashionable South 
 ern resort ; in both places tradition still affords 
 glimpses of him, a prettily-dressed boy riding his 
 pony or running with his dogs, indulged in public 
 as a general favorite, and fondled at home as an 
 only child. About June 17, 1815, 1 Mr. Allan 
 sailed for England, with his wife, her sister, and 
 Edgar, apparently for a long stay, since he disposed 
 of some of his household goods and effects by auc 
 tion sale before leaving. He provided an Olive 
 Branch, a Murray s Reader, and two Murray s 
 Spelling Books for Edgar s entertainment during 
 the voyage, and shortly after his arrival placed 
 the child, then six years old, at the Manor House 
 School, Stoke-Newington, a suburb of London. 
 
 His residence there seems to have left deep marks 
 of remembrance upon his mind, nor is it unlikely 
 that the delight in the ancient, which afterwards 
 characterized him, sprang partly from this early 
 familiarity with a memorable past not yet vanished 
 from. the eye and hand. The main village, which 
 has since been lost in the overflow of the metrop 
 olis, then consisted of a long elm-embowered street 
 of the Tudor time, following the track of a Roman 
 road ; near the old Green, by deeply-shaded walks, 
 that still bear the names of Henry and Elizabeth, 
 
 1 Colonel Thomas H. Ellis, to the author, May 28, 1884. 
 These statements regarding Mr. Allan s absence are based on 
 the books of the firm, Ellis & Allan, in Colonel Ellis s possession. 
 
EDUCATION. 17 
 
 stood the houses of Anne Boleyn s ill-fated lover, 
 Earl Percy, and of her daughter s fortunate court 
 ier, the favorite Leicester ; to the west ran the 
 green lanes, over hazy inland fields, and to the east 
 the more modern street of Queen Anne and early 
 Georgian architecture, where behind its formal 
 box-bordered parterre rose the white Manor House 
 School, old and irregular, sloping in the rear to 
 the high brick wall, with its ponderous spiked and 
 iron-studded gates, which inclosed the playground. 
 In the seclusion of these grounds Poe spent his 
 pchool-days from his eighth to his thirteenth year ; 
 there in the long, narrow, low school-room, oak- 
 ceiled, gothic-windowed, with its irregular, black, 
 jackknife-hewed desks and the sacred corner-boxes 
 for master and ushers (in one of them once sat 
 the murderer, Eugene Aram), he conned his Latin 
 and mispronounced his French ; in the bedroom 
 beyond the many tortuous passages and perplexing 
 little stairways, he first felt the wakening of the 
 conscience, whose self-echoing whispers he after 
 wards heightened into the voice and ghostly ter 
 ror of the Spanish Hombre Embozado ; in that 
 wide, graveled, treeless, and benchless playground 
 he trained his muscles in the sports, and when 
 on Saturday afternoon the mighty gate swung 
 open he and his mates filed out to walk beneatli 
 the gigantic and gnarled trees, amid which once 
 lived Shakespeare s friend, Essex, or to gaze with 
 boy s eyes of wonder at the tl^jbfe walls, deep win* ;\ ^ 
 
18 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 dows and doors, massive with locks and bars, be 
 hind which Robinson Crusoe was written ; and on 
 Sunday, after the holiday ramble, he would obey 
 the summons of the hollow -toned church bell, 
 sounding from its fretted tower, and witness from 
 the scholars remote gallery pew that miraculous 
 weekly transformation in the pulpit, " This rev 
 erend man, with countenance so demurely benign, 
 with robes so glossy and so clerically flowing, with 
 wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast, 
 could this be he who, of late, with sour visage 
 and in snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in 
 hand, the Draconian Laws of the academy ? Oh, 
 gigantic paradox ! " 1 
 
 It seems a monotonous existence ; but, touched 
 by the spirit and the flush of boyhood, it was really 
 a full one, the life of keen sensation, of personal 
 rivalries and party strife, the first battle and the first 
 prize. " OA, le bon temps" Poe cries, " que ce siecle 
 defer! " and, indeed, he must have passed many a 
 lonely hour, too, under that meagre and rigid regime 
 of inferior English school-mastery ; and though 
 he learned to run and leap, construe Latin and 
 speak French, and during some portion of the time 
 regularly visited the Allans in London, yet, remem 
 bering that these five years are the ones in which 
 home ties are drawn closest about the hearts of most 
 American boys, and the lessons of concession learned 
 by them, a too curious mind might discover in this 
 1 Works, iii. 419. 
 
EDUCATION. 19 
 
 stretch of the boy s life the first workings of the 
 sinister influence which afterwards struck so im 
 passably the circle of isolation about the man. Dr. 
 Bransby, however, the parson-teacher, remarked 
 nothing in Edgar Allan, as he was called, except 
 that he was clever, but spoilt by "an extravagant 
 amount of pocket money." 1 The village, indeed, 
 was said by Beaumont and Fletcher to be a place 
 " where ale and cakes are plenty ; " but the boy s 
 wildest excesses were probably in the same rasp 
 berry tarts and ginger beer on which at the Grey 
 Friars a year or two later Clive Newcome dissipated 
 his pocketful of sovereigns. Poe, no doubt, took the 
 fun, the homesickness, and the good things as other 
 boys did; and when, in the June of 1820, he left be 
 hind him the old trees and ruinous houses, the mist 
 and fragrance and mould of the drowsy English 
 parish, and returned to Richmond, he was not much 
 different from his mates, except that he made his 
 first trials at verse and kept the manuscripts. 
 
 He arrived home with the Allans on August 2, 
 and at once renewed his studies in the English and 
 Classical School of Joseph H. Clarke, who is de 
 scribed as a fiery, pedantic, pompous Irishman from 
 Trinity College, Dublin. Here he read the ordinary 
 classical authors of the old preparatory curriculum, 
 continued his French, and capped Latin verses, a 
 pastime of which he is reported to have been fond. 
 He was lacking in diligence and accuracy, but was 
 1 The Athenceum, No. 2GGO, p. 497, October 19, 1878. 
 
20 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 quick and brilliant, and when it came the turn of his 
 set to be at the top of the school he had but one 
 rival in scholarship. In athletic exercises, the other 
 half of youthful life, he was especially active, being 
 aided in this, perhaps, by the training of the Manor 
 House playground; slight in figure at first, but 
 robust and tough, he was a swift runner and far 
 leaper, and he possessed, together with some skill 
 in boxing, the English school-boy s readiness to use 
 it ; in particular he was a fine, bold swimmer, and 
 as, since Byron, poets seem to have a prescriptive 
 right to the mention of their aquatic feats, be it 
 once more recorded that in his fifteenth year Poe 
 swam in the James River from Ludlam s wharf to 
 Warwick Bar, six miles, against a very strong tide 
 and in a hot June sun, and afterwards walked back 
 to the city with little apparent fatigue. He evi 
 dently cut a considerable figure in the school ; he 
 was its champion in the simple tournaments of those 
 days, prominent in its debating society, and known 
 as a versifier in both a gallant and a satiric vein, 
 no slight distinction in the eyes of the fellows 
 who listened to the English ode in which, on the 
 retirement of Master Clarke to give place to Mas 
 ter William Burke, in the fall of 1823, he addressed 
 the outgoing principal. 
 
 But neither his facile scholarship, nor his aptness 
 in quoting jLatin hexameters and stringing English 
 rhymes, nor his fame in the sports made him the 
 favorite of the school. His aristocratic mates, it is 
 
EDUCATION. 21 
 
 said by one of themselves, remembered that he was 
 sprung from the poor actors, and were averse to his 
 leadership. Poe, too, partly it may be because he 
 was aware of the reason for this slight but cutting 
 ostracism, helped it by a defiant and irritable spirit 
 that sometimes broke through the restraint- of his 
 well-bred manners. One who was counted nearer 
 to him than the rest describes him as u self-willed, 
 capricious, inclined to be imperious, and though of 
 generous impulses not steadily kind, or even ami 
 able." l The indulgence to which he had been ac 
 customed at home with its resulting lawlessness of 
 nature, and his marked ability with its attendant 
 intellectual pride, contributed somewhat to form 
 this temper ; but he was always reserved, a quality 
 especially liable to misconstruction by boys, and in 
 his youth as in later life he never formed the habit 
 he may not have had the power of making in 
 timate friends. No one, it would seem, ever knew 
 him. He had his chums in his own and his fags in 
 the younger set, and he showed them his poems just 
 as he quoted Horace, in search of a certain sort, of 
 recognition ; he was sensible of affection, too, and 
 capable of warm attachment, as in his friendship for 
 young Sully, the artist s nephew, who was a refined 
 but difficult boy ; amid all such associations, how 
 ever, he lived most to himself. He was a dreamer, 
 too, and in the light of his insubstantial visions, as 
 well as through ruder experience, he felt his solita- 
 
 1 Ingram, i. 24. 
 
22 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 riness. The sense of social wrong, the brooding 
 disposition, the imaginative temperament, the way 
 ward will, the excitable, impatient, imperious nature 
 these lines of character were coming out, fainter 
 or stronger, in the moody, self-conscious boy, and 
 he found himself alone and left to his own will. 
 His foster-father was liberal in a worldly way, his 
 foster-mother considerate, forgiving, and faithful, 
 but in spirit as in blood he was of a different strain 
 from them ; his kindred were unknown to him, his 
 teachers were the merest pedagogues, his compan 
 ions cast in another mould. It is not meant that 
 all usual attention was not given to him. He was 
 not neglected, nor were his surroundings unpleas 
 ant. Mr. Allan, although he had not yet settled in 
 a house of his own, belonged to the most cultivated 
 and agreeable society that Virginia knew in the days 
 .of her old-fashioned and justly famed courtesy and 
 hospitality, and a childhood spent in association 
 with such gentlemen as Edgar constantly and fa 
 miliarly met could not fail to be both pleasant and 
 of the highest utility in forming both manner and 
 character. A boy, however, is little sensible of the 
 value of such surroundings, and in the unfolding of 
 his heart Poe may, amid all such mere kindliness, 
 have missed what to a child of genius was of far 
 more consequence, responsive sympathy, and the 
 secret understanding that springs from love. He 
 was, however it happened, a lonely boy. 
 
 Under these circumstances there is no inherent 
 
EDUCATION. 23 
 
 unlikelihood in the story that rests only on his own 
 words, that one clay, in the home of a much younger 
 schoolmate, when his friend s mother, lovely, gen 
 tle, and gracious, spoke to him with some unusual 
 tenderness, the tones thrilled him with a new sen 
 sation, and kindled within him, in his own phrase, 
 the first purely ideal love of his soul. To this 
 lady, Jane Stith Stanard, he became strongly at 
 tached, as a lonely boy of fourteen, whose affections 
 were beginning to wander from an unsympathetic 
 home, naturally would ; but she was his confidant 
 and friend only for a short time. She died April 28, 
 1824, at the early age of thirty-one years ; and for a 
 long while he haunted her grave by night, brooding 
 on the mystery of the dead, and there in the sigh 
 of the dry grasses and the louder moan of autumn 
 winds his young heart caught the first faint notes of 
 that paean of passionate regret and self-sprung ter 
 ror which afterward, struck on his lyre, became the 
 lo Triomphe of despair. The fascination_jo>_j]his 
 Jady did not cease with hen Ufa^-but grew with his 
 ^earjsj the direct experience of death in her loss 
 _was the ground on which his imagination long 
 woj*ked^ and determined the_jeajJ.y~Jbeiit of his mind 
 toward a sombre supernaturalism. One need not 
 try to disentangle the bare facts from this, as it 
 seems, almost legendary anecdote ; 1 however much 
 its romantic element may have been heightened, 
 
 1 Edgar Poe and his Critics, by Sarah Helen Whitman. New 
 York : Kudd & Carleton, 1860 : p. 49. 
 
24 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 still, through all the unconscious transformations of 
 time and genius, the individuality of Poe is plainly 
 discernible in two of its marked traits, his ten- 
 
 Idency to idealize a woman s memory, and the kin 
 ship of his emotional beliefs with superstition. 
 
 Poe left Master Burke s in March, 1825, and 
 spent the remainder of the year in preparing him 
 self, with the aid of private instruction, for the 
 University of Virginia, then in its first session. 
 In his not too scanty leisure hours he nursed his 
 first flame, in the ordinary way of mortal love, by 
 his devotions to a neighbor s daughter, younger 
 than himself, Miss Sarah Elmira Eoyster; but, her 
 father diligently intercepting all letters, this ro 
 mance ended on the young lady s part in an early 
 marriage, and on Poe s in some reproachful stanzas 
 d la Byron, wherein the rejected suitor seeks to 
 immortalize the fair one s infidelity. The inamo 
 rata s reminiscences of her lover, too, are prettily 
 conventional : he was, she says, 1 beautiful, sad, and 
 silent, but as she adds that he was fond of music 
 and clever at his sketching, particularly of herself, 
 he evidently, like undistinguished youths, found 
 humble means to overcome the difficulties of con 
 versation. The most fondly recollected hours of 
 this year, however (the last in which he lived under 
 the same roof with Mr. Allan), must have been 
 spent in the pleasant and spacious home which 
 Mr. Allan purchased in this summer for his set- 
 1 Appletons Journal, N. S., iv. 429 (May, 1878). 
 
EDUCATION. 25 
 
 tied abode. From its high southward windows he 
 would look down on the green islands that stud the 
 foaming rapids of the James, and see across the 
 winding river the village of Manchester and the 
 wooded fields beyond, bathed in the warm after 
 noon; or, stepping out between the shutters upon 
 the adjoining wide-roofed balcony with its sanded 
 floor, where stood the fine London telescope that, 
 perhaps, gave to his childish mind its bent toward 
 astronomy, would look at the stars, or more idly 
 would watch the moonlight falling on the myrtles 
 and jessamines, the box and the fig-trees, the grape 
 vines and raspberry bushes planted by the former 
 Andalusian owner in the quiet garden close, which, 
 now wild and desolate, keeps no fragrance save the 
 romance of his memory. To that fair prospect, 
 the landscape of his innocent years, he was uncon 
 sciously bidding farewell. 
 
 On February 14, 1826, he wrote his name, and 
 the place and date of his birth, in the matricula 
 tion book of the University of Virginia, and en 
 tered the schools of ancient and modern languages. 
 He was now seventeen years old, somewhat short in 
 stature, thick-set, compact, bow-legged, with the 
 rapid and jerky gait of an English boy ; his nat 
 ural shyness had become a fixed reserve ; his face, 
 clustered about by dark, curly hair, wore usually 
 a grave and melancholy expression, the look that 
 comes rather from the habit of reverie than any 
 actual sadness, but his features would kindle with 
 
26 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 lively animation when, as frequently happened, he 
 grew warm in his cause. He divided his time, after 
 the custom of undergraduates, between the recita 
 tion room, the punch bowl, the card table, athletic 
 sports, and pedestrianism. He was a member of 
 the classes in Latin and Greek, French, Spanish, 
 and Italian, and attended them regularly ; but being 
 facile rather than studious, he did not acquire a 
 critical knowledge of these languages. Outside he 
 moved in a jolly set. At first he had roomed with a 
 chum, one Miles George, of Richmond, on the lawn, 
 to adopt the local description, but after a quarrel 
 and pugilistic duel in correct form between them 
 (the combatants shook hands at the end of it) 
 Poe settled in No. 13 West Range, decorated the 
 walls with charcoal sketches out of Byron, and there 
 gathered the fellows to enjoy peach and honey, as 
 the delectable old-time Southern punch was called, 
 and to play at loo or seven-up. Both in drinking 
 and in card -playing Poe acted capriciously, and 
 either was or affected to be the creature of impulse. 
 
 "Poe s passion for strong drink," writes one of his in 
 timate college mates, "was as marked and as peculiar as 
 that for cards. It was not the taste of the beverage that 
 influenced him ; without a sip or smack of the mouth 
 he would seize a full glass, without water or sugar, and 
 send it home at a single gulp. This frequently used him 
 up ; "but if not, he rarely returned to the charge." 3 
 
 1 Thomas Goode Tucker to Douglass Sherley, Esq., April 5, 
 1880. MS. The substance of this and other letters from Mr. 
 
EDUCATION. 27 
 
 If the full glass was one of peach and honey, or 
 merely of the peach brandy unmixed, Poe s suscep 
 tibility to such a draught, it should be remarked, 
 by no means indicates a weak head, particularly in 
 a youth of seventeen ; but this fashion of drinking 
 en barbare (as Baudelaire styles it) he kept up 
 through life. Not intoxication, however, but gam 
 bling, was then his vice ; and for this, too, as was 
 to be expected from his excitable temperament, he 
 was ill adapted, or else luck ran strong against him, 
 since he ended the year with heavy debts of honor. 
 By his recklessness in card-playing he is said to 
 have lost caste in the aristocratic cliques. What 
 ever his private history may have been, he did not 
 come under the notice of the Faculty, which is 
 stated to have been at that time unusually watch 
 ful and strict ; but as the administration of the 
 University was somewhat peculiar, owing to the 
 theories of its founder, Jefferson, an anecdote of 
 the time will make the facts clearer. 
 
 It seems that the Faculty desired to check gam 
 bling, which had reached a great height, and as in 
 Jefferson s judgment as much of the discipline as 
 possible should be left to the civil authorities, ar 
 rangements were made to observe, indict, and try 
 the principal offenders. One morning the county 
 sheriff and his posse appeared at the doorway of a 
 
 Tucker was embodied by Mr. Sherley in an article in the Virginia 
 University Magazine, 1880. Cf. " Edgar A. Poe and his College 
 Companions," New Orleans Times-Democrat, May 18, 1884. 
 
28 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 lecture room where the students, already warned, 
 were answering roll-call ; a glance was enough for 
 suspicion, and a shadow of suspicion for flight, as 
 they made good their escape by windows and doors, 
 and, eluding pursuit by striking into an unfre 
 quented by-path for a wooded knoll on the skirts 
 of the Ragged Mountains, safe among the hills 
 they enjoyed their favorite diversion unmolested, 
 until at the end of a three days vacation they were 
 allowed to respond to the roll-call in peace. 
 
 Under such rules of government as this story im 
 plies, freedom from censure by the Faculty is not 
 convincing proof of a blameless life ; but there is 
 no reason to suppose that Poe s habits, judged by 
 the standard of morals that obtained where he was, 
 gave occasion for much unfavorable remark, or were 
 widely different from the habits of those members 
 of his -own set who became the pious judge and the 
 acceptable Episcopalian clergyman. He plunged 
 into debt as did others whose extravagance at the 
 tradesmen s shops and the hotels led to the enact 
 ment of a statute that declared all debts beyond 
 the reasonable wants of a student null and void. 
 But amid the dissipations of his private life, he 
 found leisure to cultivate his own genius, and would 
 gather his friends about him to listen to some ex 
 travaganza of his invention, read in declamatory 
 tones, or to some poem he had made during his long 
 solitary rambles in the Ragged Mountains. He 
 still had no confidential friends. " No one knew 
 
EDUCATION. 29 
 
 him," is the unanimous testimony of his classmates ; 
 but they all describe him consistently in terms that 
 show he was a spirited youth, who led a self-ab 
 sorbed life, frequently of hig % h intensity, but was 
 easily diverted into the commonplace pleasures of 
 a fashionable set, and probably entered on them 
 with the more recklessness because of his habitual 
 reserve. While Poe was still at the University, 
 however, Mr. Allan thought it best to inquire into 
 the state of his affairs personally, and went up to 
 Charlottesville, where he paid all of his debts that 
 he thought just ; but, not being a father to take 
 his boy s luck without wincing, he refused to honor 
 losses at play, which amounted to about twenty- 
 five hundred dollars. 1 At the close of the session, 
 December 15, 1826, Poe came home with the high 
 est honors in Latin and French ; but this did not 
 mollify his guardian, who, instead of allowing him 
 to return, placed him in his own counting-room. 
 From this confinement Poe soon broke, and went 
 out to seek his fortune in the world. 
 
 1 Edgar Allan Poe. A letter by Colonel Thomas H. Ellis to 
 the editor of the Richmond Standard, April 22, 1881. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 WANDERINGS. 
 
 POE made his way at once towards Boston, and 
 there in the spring tried to make a good start in 
 the world by publishing his youthful verses. He 
 persuaded Calvin F. S. Thomas, a poor youth of 
 nineteen, who had just set up a shop at 70 Wash 
 ington Street, to undertake the job, and in due 
 course he saw the first and unacknowledged heir of 
 his invention in the shape of a small, thin book, 
 mean in appearance and meagre in contents, en 
 titled " Tamerlane and other Poems." 1 This vol 
 ume, the only venture of Thomas in the book-trade, 
 was published about midsummer; its receipt was 
 advertised by the leading magazines, 2 and two years 
 
 1 Tamerlane and other Poems. By a Bostonian. Boston : 
 Calvin F. S. Thomas . . . Printer. 1827, pp. 40. The volume 
 contained, besides preface and notes, Tamerlane and nine fugi 
 tive pieces : 1. To . (" I saw thee on the bridal day ") ; 
 
 2. Dream s; 3. Visit of the Dead; 4. Evening Star ; 5. Imitation; 
 
 6. No title (" In youth have I known one with whom the earth ") ; 
 
 7. No title ("A wilder d being from my birth ") ; 8. No title (" The 
 happiest day the happiest hour ") ; 9. The Lake. Of these Tam 
 erlane and the first, third, and ninth of the short poems are in 
 cluded in revised versions of Foe s works. Vide Mr. Richard 
 Herne Shepard s reprint, London, 1884. 
 
 2 The United States Review and Literary Gazette, ii. 399 (Aug. 
 1827) ; The North American Review, xxv. 471 (Oct. 1827). 
 
WANDERINGS. 31 
 
 later, although the edition was small and obscure, 
 it was still sufficiently known to find mention in the 
 first comprehensive work on American Poetry. 1 
 
 It passed into circulation such as is indicated 
 by these contemporary notices, and in view of that 
 fact Poe s statement that it was suppressed for 
 private reasons counts for little. It may as well 
 be confessed at once that any unsupported asser 
 tion by Poe regarding himself is to be received 
 with great caution. In this case, as will presently 
 be seen, his circumstances give no plausibility to 
 his story. 
 
 There is, perhaps, more color of truth in the 
 claim put forth in his boyishly affected preface that 
 this volume was written in 1821-22. As that was 
 the time when his mind would naturally rapidly 
 unfold, and, as the statement agrees with the tra 
 dition of a manuscript volume shown to Master 
 Clarke by Mr. Allan, in order to obtain the for 
 mer s advice respecting its publication, it is prob 
 able that some of the poems at least were then 
 drafted ; but from the passages that reveal the de 
 pressing influence of his own home and imply his 
 experience of love and death, as well as from what 
 is recorded of his habits at the University, it is 
 clear that they were re-written, and really rep 
 resent his genius at the stage it was in when 
 they were printed. The precocity of the verses is 
 
 1 Specimens of American Poetry, by Samuel Kettell. Boston : 
 S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829 : iii. p. 405. 
 
32 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 parked, but it is a full-grown youth, not a child 
 of thirteen, who has been bitten by the Byronic 
 malady ; and, indeed, striking as they are, their 
 relief is mainly due to the light flashed back on 
 them^from Poe s perfect work. 
 
 " Tamerlane " in its first form shows more 
 poetic susceptibility, if less literary power, than in 
 its present one. In the story itself there is little 
 difference between the two versions. In both the 
 great conqueror relates to a conventional friar how, 
 in his boyhood, among the mountains of Taglay, 
 he had loved a maiden, and stirred alike by his 
 ambition for her and for himself had one day de 
 termined to go away and seek the empire which 
 the prescience of genius assured him would be his. 
 In pursuit of this plan, he says, without giving any 
 hint of his departure or its purpose, he left her 
 asleep in a matted bower ; and naturally enough 
 when, after the fulfillment of his hopes, he returned 
 to seat her on " the throne of half the world," he 
 found his destined bride had died in consequence 
 of his desertion. Hinc illce lachrymce. 
 
 Neither in this tale, nor in the nine fugitive 
 pieces of a personal character which followed it, 
 was there anything to command public attention, 
 especially as the style and spirit were distinctively 
 imitative, the constructions involved, the meaning 
 dark, and the measure as lame as the old Tartar 
 himself is fabled to have been. The interest of 
 the volume now lies partly in its plainly autobio- 
 
WANDERINGS. 33 
 
 graphical passages, such as those which describe 
 how conscious genius takes its own impulse for the 
 unerring divine instinct, or express the poet s naive 
 and slightly bitter resentment on finding himself 
 not a prophet in his own household ; and partly in 
 the subtler self-revelation afforded by the reflection 
 of passing poetic moods, which it may be remarked 
 are surer signs of promise than poetic ideas, be 
 cause, although they may as easily become conven 
 tional, they cannot be so successfully appropriated 
 from others by patience and art, nor can their 
 language ever ring true except numine prcesenti 
 by the very breath of the indwelling Apollo. Slow, 
 confined, and stammering as is their expression in 
 these, earliest poems, they show that, however af 
 fected by the artificiality and turgidity, the false 
 sentiment, the low motive, and the sensational ac 
 cessories of the Byronic model, the young poet 
 turned naturally to his own experience, and could 
 write from his heart. 
 
 In particular, two characteristics come out as 
 primary in Poe s nature. He was one of the 
 proudest of men, and from many expressions here 
 it is plain that he cultivated pride, even in boy 
 hood. He thought it the distinctive manly quality. 
 He declares with emphasis that every nobly en 
 dowed soul, conscious of its power, will ever 
 
 " Find Pride the ruler of its will." 
 
 Byron had sown the evil seed, but it had fallen in 
 
34 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 very favorable soil. This personal trait, however, 
 needs only to be glanced at in passing. The second 
 characteristic belongs rather to his temperament, 
 and affected his art more directly. The sight of 
 beauty did not affect his aesthetic sense so much as 
 it aroused his dreaming faculty. He looks out on 
 the world as a vague and undefined delight ; he 
 notes only the broad and general features of the 
 landscape ; he does not see any object in detail ; his 
 imagination so predominates over his perceptive 
 powers, he is so much more poet than artist, that he 
 loses the beautiful in the suggestions, the reveries, 
 the feelings, it awakens, and this emotion is the 
 value he found in beauty throughout his life. The 
 mood was a part of his ordinary experience. Some 
 times he describes it : 
 
 " In spring of life have ye ne er dwelt 
 Some object of delight upon, 
 With steadfast eye, till ye have felt 
 The earth reel and the vision gone ? " 
 
 Sometimes he expresses it (and in the lines is heard 
 the first whisper of " Ligeia ") : 
 
 " T was the chilly wind 
 Came o er me in the night, and left behind 
 Its image on my spirit." 
 
 This exaltation is continually the object of his re 
 grets and of his longings ; he ascribes to it a sym 
 bolic spiritual meaning, and even a moral power, 
 
 as being something 
 
 " given 
 In beauty by our God, to those alone 
 
WANDERINGS. 35 
 
 Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven 
 Drawn by their heart s passion " 
 
 This value, whether true or false, which he gave to 
 such emotional moods, is the significant thing in his 
 poetic life, and shows that the dreaming faculty was 
 a primary element in his genius. Sometimes, it is 
 true, the real scene remains prominent in his mind ; 
 but even then, although it does not fade away into 
 mere emotion, it is not unchanged ; it ceases to be 
 natural, and is removed into the preternatural. In 
 two of these early poems " The Lake " and " Visit 
 of the Dead" is this the case, and it is noticeable 
 that Poe retained both among his works, as if he 
 perceived that of all in this collection they alone 
 have his peculiar touch. In the latter, especially, 
 the treatment of landscape is wholly his own ; crude 
 as its expression is, it affords the first glimpse of 
 that new tract of Acheron, as it were, which he 
 revealed " out of space, out of time : " 
 
 " And the stars shall look not down 
 From their thrones, in the dark heaven, 
 With light like Hope to mortals given, 
 But their red orbs, without beam, 
 To thy withering heart shall seem. 
 As a burning, and a fever 
 Which would cling to thee forever. 
 But t will leave thee, as each star 
 In the morning light afar 
 Will fly thee " 
 
 Such imaginings the vision of the throned stars 
 with averted faces, the identifying of the outer fas 
 cination of an ill-omened nature with the mortal 
 
36 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 fever within, the dissolving of the spell as the red 
 orbs flee far in the streaming eastern light might 
 well portend in poetry a genius as original as was 
 Blake s in art. 
 
 The abundant alloy in the substance of the work, 
 however, and the rudeness of its execution justly 
 condemned the volume to speedy oblivion. It 
 brought neither fame to the poet nor money to the 
 printer, and shortly after its publication the dis 
 appearance of Poe, which had already occurred, 
 was followed by the removal of Thomas to New 
 York. Neither in his stay in that city nor during 
 his later life in Buffalo, N. Y., and Springfield, 
 Mo., did Thomas, who lived until 1876, ever men 
 tion, either to his own family or, so far as is 
 known, to his friends or associates, that his first 
 venture in the book-trade was Poe s verses. In 
 view of this fact, 1 in connection with the general 
 publication of reminiscences by all who were ever 
 well acquainted with Poe, and the special interest 
 of this obscure portion of his life, it may be safely 
 inferred that Thomas never identified the first au 
 thor he knew with the famous poet who wrote 
 " The Raven." The obvious conclusion is that Poe 
 lived in Boston under an assumed name. 
 
 Whether this were so or not, a few months had 
 sufficed to exhaust Poe s resources, and he now 
 found himself, a youth of eighteen, poor and friend- 
 
 1 Mrs. Martha (Thomas) Booth to the author, June 14, 1884. 
 
WANDERINGS. 37 
 
 less in the city of his birth, and without means of 
 self-support. In this extremity he took the readiest 
 way out of his difficulties, and on May 26 enlisted 
 at Boston in the army of the United States as a 
 private soldier, under the name of Edgar A. Perry. 1 
 He stated that he was born at Boston and was 
 by occupation a clerk ; and although minors were 
 then accepted into the service, he gave his age as 
 twenty-two years. He had, says the record, gray 
 eyes, brown hair, and a fair complexion, and was 
 five feet eight inches in height. He was at once 
 assigned to Battery H, of the First Artillery, then 
 serving in the harbor at Fort Independence ; on 
 October 31, the battery was ordered to Fort Moul- 
 trie, Charleston, S. C., and exactly one year later 
 was again transferred to Fortress Monroe, Va. 
 The character of Poe s life during this period can 
 now be but imperfectly made out, since the officers 
 under whom he served are dead ; but from papers 
 presently to be given, it appears that he discharged 
 his duties as company clerk and assistant in the 
 commissariat department so as to win the good will 
 of his superiors, and was in all respects a faithful 
 and efficient soldier. On January 1, 1829, he was 
 appointed Sergeant-Major, a promotion which, by 
 the invariable custom of the army, was made only 
 for merit. 
 
 1 These statements are based on the papers relating to Edgar 
 A. Perry, or Poe, now on file in the War Department, of which 
 certified copies were sent to the author. 
 
38 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 At some time after reaching Fortress Monroe he 
 is said to have made his situation known to Mr. 
 Allan. It is not unlikely thaUiis officers, becom 
 ing acquainted wrjJTjiTS_^JTilj>,y^ajid p.rln cation., and 
 
 bemgTirtefested. nTliis character, urgedjiis endeav- 
 ^ which 
 
 he-^ouI3Trise in_the__serYice}j^aiid advised his ap- 
 plyingToTiis foster-father for aid. How Mr. Allan 
 reeetve^hls~news cannot, unfortunately, be deter 
 mined ; but as he apparently did not move in the 
 matter until after the mortal illness of his wife, 
 there is ground for the inference that he recalled 
 the wanderer in compliance with her dying request. 
 At all events, it seems to have been some days after 
 Mrs. Allan s death, which occurred February 28, 
 1829, that Poe returned to Richmond on leave of 
 absence granted by his colonel on Mr. Allan s ap 
 plication. The result of his visit is told in the 
 following letter, which betrays a surprising inac 
 curacy in some of its details : 
 
 FORTRESS MONROE, March 30th, 29. 
 
 GENERAL : 
 
 I request your permission to discharge from the ser 
 vice Edgar A. Perry, at present the Sergeant-Major of 
 the 1st Reg t of Artillery, on his procuring a substitute. 
 
 The said Perry is one of a family of orphans whose 
 unfortunate parents were the victims of the conflagration 
 of the Richmond theatre in 1809. The subject of this 
 letter was taken under the protection of a Mr. Allen, 
 a gentleman of wealth and respectability, of that city, 
 
WANDERINGS. 39 
 
 who, as I understand, adopted his protege as his son and 
 heir ; with the intention of giving him a liberal educa 
 tion, he had placed him at the University of Virginia 
 from which, after considerable progress in his studies, in 
 a moment of youthful indiscretion he absconded, and 
 was not heard from by his Patron for several years ; 
 in the mean time, he became reduced to the necessity of 
 enlisting into the service and accordingly entered as a 
 soldier in my Regiment, at Fort Independence in 1827. 
 Since the arrival of his company at this place, he has 
 made his situation known to his Patron at whose request, 
 the young man has been permitted to visit him ; 1 the 
 result is, an entire reconciliation on the part of Mr. Al 
 len, who reinstates him into his family and favor, and 
 who in a letter I have received from him requests that 
 his son may be discharged on procuring a substitute ; 
 an experienced soldier and approved sergeant is ready 
 to take the place of Perry so soon as his discharge can 
 be obtained. The good of the service, therefore cannot 
 be materially injured by the discharge. 
 I have the honor to be, 
 
 With great respect, your obedient servant, 
 JAS. HOUSE, 
 
 Col. 1st Arty. 
 
 To the General Commanding the 
 E. Dept. U. S. A., New York. 
 
 The official reply to this application was an 
 order, dated April 4, in accordance with which 
 Poe was discharged, by substitute, April 15. Be 
 fore leaving his post he obtained the following 
 letters from his officers, which show conclusively 
 1 There is no record of this furlough. 
 
40 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 that he had already formed the plan of entering 
 West Point, and indicate that this entered into the 
 understanding on which Mr. Allan took Kim into 
 favor : 
 
 FORTRESS MONROE, VA., 20th Apl 1829. 
 Edgar Poe, late Serg t-Major in the 1st Art y? served 
 under my command in H. company 1st Reg t of Artil 
 lery, from June 1827 to January 1829, during which 
 time his conduct was unexceptionable. He at once per 
 formed the duties of company clerk and assistant in 
 the Subsistent Department, both of which duties were 
 promptly and faithfully done. His habits are good and 
 intirely free from drinking. 
 
 J. HOWARD, 
 Lieut. 1st Artillery. 
 
 In addition to the above, I have to say that Edgar 
 Poe 1 was appointed Sergeant-Major of the 1st Art y : 
 on the 1st of Jan y, 1829, and up to this date, has been 
 exemplary in his deportment, prompt and faithful in the 
 discharge of his duties and is highly worthy of con 
 fidence. 
 
 H. W. GRISWOLD, 
 Bt. Capt. and Adjt. 1st Art y. 
 
 I have known and had an opportunity of observing 
 the conduct of the above mentioned Serg t-Maj r . Poe 
 some three months during which his deportment has 
 been highly praiseworthy and deserving of confidence. 
 His education is of a very high order and he appears to 
 be free from bad habits, in fact the testimony of Lt. 
 Howard and Adjt. Griswold is full to that point. Un- 
 1 Originally written Perry, but changed to read Poe. 
 
WANDERINGS. 41 
 
 derstanding he is, thro his friends, an applicant for ca 
 det s warrant, I unhesitatingly recommend him as prom 
 ising to aquit himself of the obligations of that station 
 studiously and faithfully. 
 
 W. J. WOKTH, 
 Lt. Col. ComcPg Fortress Monroe. 
 
 With these credentials in his pocket, the dis 
 charged Sergeant - Major, aged twenty, went to 
 Richmond, where no time was lost in attempting to 
 place him at West Point. At Mr. Allan s request, 
 Andrew Stevenson, the Speaker of the House, and 
 Major John Campbell, under date of May 6, also 
 wrote letters of recommendation, not of any inter 
 est now ; and a week later James P. Preston, the 
 father of one of Poe s ctoser school friends and 
 representative of the district in Congress, lent his 
 influence in these terms : 
 
 RICHMOND, VA., May 13th, 1829. 
 
 SIR: 
 
 Some of the friends of young Mr. Edgar Poe have 
 solicited me to address a letter to you in his favor be 
 lieving that it may be useful to him in his application 
 to the Government for military service. I know Mr. 
 Poe and am acquainted with the fact of his having been 
 born under circumstances of great adversity. I also 
 know from his own productions and other undoubted 
 proofs that he is a young gentleman of genius and tal- 
 eants. I believe he is destined to be distinguished, since 
 he has already gained reputation for taleants and attain 
 ments at the University of Virginia. I think him pos 
 sessed of feeling and character peculiarly intitling him 
 
42 SDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 to public patronage. I am entirely satisfied that the 
 salutary system of military discipline will soon develope 
 his honorable feelings, and elevated spirit, and prove 
 him worthy of confidence. I would not write in his 
 recommendation if I did not believe that he would re 
 munerate the Government at some future day, by his 
 services and taleants, for whatever maybe done for him. 
 I have the honor to be 
 
 Very respectfully your obt. serv t, 
 
 JAMES P. PRESTON. 
 MAJOR JOHN EATON, Sec y of War, Washington. 
 
 Of more interest than all these, however, is Mr. 
 Allan s own communication : 
 
 RICHMOND, May 6th, 1829. 
 D R Sm: 
 
 The youth who presents this, is the same alluded to by 
 Lt. Howard, Capt. Griswold Colo. Worth, our represen 
 tative and the speaker, the Hon ble Andrew Stevenson, 
 and my friend Major Jno. Campbell. 
 
 He left me in consequence of some gambling at the 
 University at Charlottes ville, because (I presume) I re 
 fused to sanction a rule that the shopkeepers and others 
 had adopted there, making Debts of Honour of all indis 
 cretions. I have much pleasure in asserting that he stood 
 his examination at the close of the year with great credit 
 to himself. His history is short. He is the grandson of 
 Quartermaster General Poe, of Maryland, whose widow 
 as I understand still receives a pension for the services 
 or disabilities of her husband. Frankly Sir, do I declare 
 that he is no relation to me whatever ; that I have many 
 [in] whom I have taken an active interest to promote 
 
WANDERINGS. <* 43 
 
 theirs ; with no other feeling than that, every man is my 
 care, if he be in distress. For myself I ask nothing, but 
 I do request your kindness to aid this youth in the pro 
 motion of his future prospects. And it will afford me 
 great pleasure to reciprocate any kindness you can show 
 him. Pardon my frankness ; but I address a soldier. 
 Your ob d t se v t, JOHN ALLAN. 
 
 THE HON BLE JOHN H. EATON, 
 Sec y of War, Washington City. 
 
 The coldness of feeling with which Mr. Allan 
 here classes the boy he had brought up almost 
 from infancy with the objects of his general char 
 ity might lead one to believe that possibly lie did 
 not intend to make Poe his heir, but on the con 
 trary thought to be honorably rid of the burden of 
 further patronage by having paid a sum of money 
 for a substitute in the army, and helping to open a 
 career for his protege* in his self-chosen profession. 
 Such a letter must have been galling to Poe s 
 pride. He presented it with the others to the Sec 
 retary of War in person. 
 
 On this journey to Washington he made the 
 closer acquaintance of his blood relations in Balti 
 more, where, pending his appointment as a cadet, 
 he now determined to publish his second volume of 
 poems, the fruit of his leisure in the army. He also 
 entered into some obscure relations with William 
 Gwynn, Esq., then editor of the " Federal Gazette 
 and Baltimore Daily Advertiser," and showed him 
 the manuscript of "Al Aaraaf," which was de- 
 
44 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 clared to be " indicative of a tendency to anything 
 but the business of matter-of-fact life." l For his 
 introduction the poet was probably indebted to 
 Neilson Poe, his cousin at the third remove, who 
 was emploj^ed in Gwynn s office ; and possibly, as 
 has been stated, it was at the suggestion of Neil- 
 son s father, George Poe, that he also sought the 
 critical advice of John Neal, who had resided in 
 Baltimore some few years before, and was now e^jt- 
 ing the " Yankee " at Boston. In the correspond 
 ence columns of that periodical, in its issue for 
 September, 1829, the following appeared : 
 
 " If E. A. P. of Baltimore whose lines about Heaven, 
 though he professes to regard them as altogether supe 
 rior to anything in the whole range of American poetry, 
 save two or three trifles referred to, are, though non 
 sense, rather exquisite nonsense would but do himself 
 justice, might [sic] make a beautiful and perhaps a mag 
 nificent poem. There is a good deal here to justify such 
 a hope. 
 
 Dim vales and shadowy floods 
 And cloudy-looking woods, 
 Whose forms we can t discover, 
 For the tears that drip all over. 
 
 The moonlight 
 
 falls 
 
 Over hamlets, over halls, 
 
 Wherever they may be, 
 
 O er the strange woods, o er the sea 
 
 1 Works, i. cl. 
 
WANDERINGS. 
 
 O er spirits on the wing, 
 O er every drowsy thing 
 And buries them up quite 
 In a labyrinth of light, 
 , And then how deep ! Oh deep ! 
 Is the passion of their sleep ! 
 
 He should have signed it Bah ! We have no room for 
 others." l 
 
 The tone of this indicates that Poe was not 
 backed by any strong personal friend of the critic. 
 He received the doubtful satire with good grace, 
 however, and replied in a letter printed in the 
 December issue, and prefaced by these editorial 
 remarks : 
 
 "The following passages are from the manuscript 
 works of a young author, about to be published in Balti 
 more. He is entirely a stranger to us, but with all their 
 faults, if the remainder of Al Aaraaf and Tamerlane 
 are as good as the body of the extracts here given to 
 say nothing of the more extraordinary parts, he will de 
 serve to stand high very high in the estimation of the 
 shining brotherhood. Whether he will do so however, 
 must depend, not so much upon his worth now in mere 
 poetry, as upon his worth hereafter in something yet 
 loftier and more generous we allude to the stronger 
 properties of the mind, to the magnanimous determina 
 tion that enables a youth to endure the present, whatever 
 the present may be, in the hope, or rather in the belief, 
 the fixed, unwavering belief, that in the future he will 
 find his reward." 
 
 1 The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette, iii. 168 (new series). 
 
46 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 The poet s letter follows : 
 
 " I am young not yet twenty am a poet if deep 
 worship of all beauty can make me one and wish to be 
 so in the more common meaning of the word. I would 
 give the world to embody one half the ideas afloat in my 
 imagination. (By the way, do you remember or did 
 you ever read the exclamation of Shelley about Shake 
 speare ? What a number of ideas must have been 
 afloat before such an author could arise ! ) I appeal to 
 you as a man that loves the same beauty which I adore 
 
 the beauty of the natural blue sky and the sunshiny 
 earth there can be no tie more strong than that of 
 brother for brother it is not so much that they love 
 one another, as that they both love the same parent 
 their affections are always running in the same direction 
 
 the same channel and cannot help mingling. I am, 
 and have been from my childhood, an idler. It cannot 
 therefore be said that 
 
 " I left a calling for this idle trade, 
 
 A duty broke a father disobeyed 
 
 for I have no father nor mother. 
 
 " I am about to publish a volume of Poems, the 
 greater part written before I was fifteen. Speaking 
 about Heaven the editor of the Yankee says, He 
 might write a beautiful, if not a magnificent poem 
 (the very first words of encouragement I ever remember 
 to have heard). I am very certain that as yet I have 
 not written either but that I can, I will take oath if 
 they will give me time. 
 
 "The poems to be published are Al Aaraaf 
 * Tamerlane one about four, and the other about 
 
WANDERINGS. 47 
 
 three hundred lines, with smaller pieces. * Al Aaraaf 
 has some good poetry, and much extravagance, which I 
 have not had time to throw away. 
 
 " Al Aaraaf is a tale of another world the star 
 discovered by Tycho Brahe, which appeared and disap 
 peared so suddenly or rather, it is no tale at all. I 
 will insert an extract about the palace of its presiding 
 Deity, in which you will see that I have supposed many 
 of the lost sculptures of our world to have flown (in spirit) 
 to the star * Al Aaraaf a delicate place more suited 
 to their divinity : 
 
 Uprear d upon such height arose a pile/ etc." 
 
 After Poe s quotations from this poem and " Tam 
 erlane," and from the verses now known in a re 
 vised form as "A Dream within a Dream," the 
 editor concludes : 
 
 " Having allowed our youthful writer to be heard in 
 his own behalf, what more can we do for the lovers of 
 genuine poetry ? Nothing. They who are judges will 
 not need more ; and they who are not why waste 
 words upon them ? We shall not." l 
 
 The volume 2 which gave rise to this correspond- 
 
 1 The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette, vi. 295-298 (new 
 series). 
 
 2 Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, by Edgar A. Poe. 
 Baltimore: Hatch & Dunning, 1829 : pp.71. This volume begins 
 with an unentitled sonnet, the first draft of To Science, contin 
 ues with Al Aaraaf and. Tamerlane, both nearly as now printed, 
 and concludes with a Preface, now known, revised, as Romance, 
 
 and nine miscellaneous poems : 1. To (" Should my early life 
 
 seem"), forty lines, now printed, revised, as A Dream within a 
 
48 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 ence was published at the close of the year. It was 
 a thin book, but respectably printed, with a pro 
 fusion of extra leaves bearing mottoes from Eng 
 lish and Spanish poets, and with liberal margins. 
 "Al Aaraaf," the leading poem, is generally re 
 garded as incomprehensible. Its obscurity is largely 
 due to Poe s attempting, not only to tell a story, but 
 also to express in an allegoric form some truth which 
 he had arrived at amid the uneventful leisure of 
 the barracks. In the rapid growth of his intelli 
 gence, beauty, which had been merely a source of 
 emotion, became an object of thought, an idea 
 as well as an inspiration. It was the first of the 
 great moulding ideas of life that he apprehended. 
 Naturally his juvenile fancy at once personified it 
 as a maiden, Nesace, and, seeking a realm for her 
 to preside over, found it in Al Aaraaf, not the 
 narrow wall between heaven and hell which in 
 Moslem mythology is the place of the dead who are 
 neither good nor bad, but the burning star ob 
 served by Tycho Brahe, which the poet imagines to 
 be the abode of those spirits, angelic or human, 
 
 Dream ; 2. To (" I saw thee on thy bridal day ") ; 3. To 
 
 (" The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see " ) ; 4. To the River ; 
 
 5. The Lake. To ; 6. Spirits of the Dead ; 7. A Dream ; 
 
 8. To M ("I heed not that my earthly lot"), twenty lines, 
 
 now printed, revised, as To ; 9. Fairyland, the lines entitled 
 
 Heaven in The Yankee. Of these Tamerlane, of which the former 
 edition is said to have been " suppressed," is wholly rewritten, 
 and the second, fifth, sixth, and seventh of the miscellaneous 
 poems are from the 1827 edition, but revised. 
 
WANDERINGS. 49 
 
 who choose, instead of that tranquillity which makes 
 the highest bliss, the sharper delights of love, wine, 
 and pleasing melancholy, at the price of annihila 
 tion in the moment of their extremest joy. At this 
 point the allegory becomes cumbrous, and the hand 
 ling of it more awkward, because Poe tries to im 
 itate Milton and Moore at the same time. By 
 the use of incongruous poetic machinery, however, 
 he contrives to say that beauty is the direct revela 
 tion of the divine to mankind, arid the protection 
 of the soul against sin. The action of the maiden 
 in whom beauty* is personified begins with a prayer 
 descriptive of the Deity, who in answer directs her, 
 through the music of the spheres, to leave the con 
 fines of our earth and guide her wandering star to 
 other worlds, which she should guard against the 
 contagion of evil, 
 
 "Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man." 
 
 In obedience to this mandate she chants an incan 
 tation in which she calls upon her subjects, and es 
 pecially her handmaid Ligeia, the personified har 
 mony of nature, to attend her. At this point the 
 allegory terminates, and the story begins. It now 
 appears that among the inhabitants of Al Aaraaf 
 are two, Angelo and lanthe, who cannot hear the 
 summons because of their mutual passion, and so 
 in reminiscences of the past and dreams of the fu 
 ture, unmindful, the lovers 
 
 " whilecl away 
 The night that waned and waned and brought no day." 
 
50 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Here, with singular abruptness, the poem con 
 cludes. 
 
 Of course, as serious work it was a failure. After 
 " Queen Mab," " Heaven and Earth," or even "The 
 Loves of the Angels," it was pardonable only in 
 a boy. The obscure allegory, the absence of any 
 structural relation between it and the brief ro 
 mance, the discordant influence of other poets who 
 had broken Byron s ascendency over Poe s mind, 
 and finally the style itself, with its long and ill- 
 timed parentheses, its inconsequential pursuit of 
 image into image and thought into thought, until all 
 consistency in the meaning is lost, and other analo 
 gous defects of youthful composition, combine their 
 separate elements of confusion to make the poem 
 seemingly unintelligible. In fact, it seems as if Poe 
 had stopped without completing his original con 
 ception ; as if he found his constructive power too 
 weak, and broke off without trying to unify or clar 
 ify his work. Nevertheless, it shows a gain of both 
 mental and literary power ; it has, too, a lively 
 fancy, a flowing metre, and occasionally a fine line, 
 that place it above " Tamerlane " as a product oi 
 crude genius. In particular, the characteristics oi 
 Poe, the attempt to seize the impalpable, to fix 
 the evanescent, to perceive the supersensual, are 
 strongly marked, and although the management is 
 in general as much Moore s as that of "Tamer 
 lane " is Byron s, and there is nothing original in 
 its substance except the symbolization of the per- 
 
WANDERINGS. 51 
 
 vasive music of nature in Ligeia, it proved that 
 the author had a poetic faculty, and, if he could 
 break from his masters and learn the clear use of 
 words, was well starred. Poe s experience in this 
 effort was probably one premise of the conclusion 
 which, helped by Coleridge s dictum, he soon made, 
 and held firmly ever after, that a long poem is 
 a contradiction in terms, and hence impossible. 
 
 The remainder of this pamphlet-like volume is, 
 biographically, of little consequence. " Tamerlane," 
 wholly rewritten, has gained in rhetorical effec 
 tiveness, though it has lost in spontaneity, and 
 in its present form is as clever and uninteresting 
 an imitation of Byron as was ever printed. In 
 some of the personal pieces, too, in which Poe takes 
 the traditional attitude of the Pilgrim toward his 
 past bliss and present desolation, Byron s influence 
 continues strong. The ruling genius of the hour, 
 however, was plainly Moore, who in his poems sup 
 plied a model to be imitated, and in his prefaces 
 and notes information to be either worked up into 
 verse, or transferred bodily to the foot of the new 
 pages. In the annotations to " Al Aaraaf ," it musT 
 be noticed, Poe began the evil practice, which he 
 continued through life, of making a specious show 
 of learning by mentioning obscure names and quot 
 ing learned authorities at second hand. Among 
 the sources used by him, besides Moore s notes, 
 Chateaubriand s " Itine raire de Paris a Jerusalem " 
 is of most interest, since that author afforded 
 
52 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 suggestions for later work. On a line of the last 
 page he himself comments with a sort of bravado : 
 "Plagiarism see the works of Thomas Moore J 
 passim ; " but, curiously enough, this occurs in the 
 only one of the new poems which bears the mark 
 of his originality. It is "Fairyland," the sketch of 
 the mist lighted by the moon, the broad, pallid 
 glamour descending at midnight on the vaporing 
 earth, drowsing all things into deep slumber be 
 neath its elfish light, and at noon soaring like a 
 yellow albatross in far-off skies. There is a unique 
 character in this imagery that makes it linger in 
 the memory when the crudities of its expression 
 are forgotten. 
 
 On the issue of this volume Poe returned to " 
 Richmond, where, on the second evening after his 
 arrival, he met a companion of his school-days, to 
 whom he told some of his adventures, and gave 
 carte blanche for copies of his poems at the book 
 sellers, to be distributed among his former friends. 
 While " Al Aaraaf " was puzzling those to whom 
 it came as a kind of Christmas gift, and was strug 
 gling against the private merriment of the young 
 wits of Baltimore and the public gibes of the liter 
 ary oracle of that city, " The Minerva and Emer 
 ald," edited by John H. Hewitt and Rufus Dawes, 
 on the latter of whom full vengeance was wreaked 
 long afterwards, Poe waited for his commission 
 probably with some anxiety, as he reached and 
 passed the age of twenty-one, the legal limit within 
 
WANDERINGS. 53 
 
 which he could be appointed. Mr. Allan, too, may 
 have felt some sympathetic uneasiness, inasmuch as 
 he was preparing to take a new and youthful wife, 
 who might not find Edgar s presence in the house 
 desirable. Poe s attainment of his majority was 
 not regarded as an insuperable obstacle. It was as 
 easy to grow two years younger now as it had been 
 to grow four years older when he enlisted, and he 
 had already made up his mind to this rejuvenation 
 some months before, when he wrote to John Neal 
 that he was "not yet twenty." Relying on this fic 
 tion, he solicited the influence of Powhatan Ellis, 
 a younger brother of Mr. Allan s partner, and then 
 United States Senator from Mississippi, who wrote 
 to Secretary Eaton, March 13, recommending him 
 not from any personal acquaintance, but on informa 
 tion 1 from others. This letter received immediate 
 attention. Poe was forthwith appointed a cadet, 
 and on March 31 Mr. Allan gave his formal con 
 sent as guardian to his ward s binding himself to 
 serve the United States for five years. The die 
 being cast, Mr. Allan furnished Poe with what 
 ever was necessary, and he probably thought, as he 
 turned to the enjoyment of his wedded bliss, that 
 
 l This may have been furnished by Judge Marshall and Gen 
 eral Scott, whose wife was a cousin of Mr. Allan s fiancee, but of 
 their interference, first alleged by Hirst (Edgar A. Poe, Philadel 
 phia Saturday Museum, 1843) and repeated by later biographers 
 (Mr. Stoddard adds the name of John Randolph), there is no 
 record. Hirst s sketch, it may be remarked here, though resting 
 primarily on Poe s authority, is full of en 
 
 
54 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 his duty by the child he had, adopted was finally 
 done. Poe, after a second visit at Baltimore, dur 
 ing which he called on Mr. N. C. Brooks, 1 a young 
 litterateur, and got a poem accepted by him for a 
 forthcoming annual, went on to West Point, where 
 he soon forgot all about the promised contribution. 
 He entered the Military Academy on July 1, 
 1830, and settled at No. 28, South Barracks. His 
 age is recorded as being then nineteen years and 
 five months, but to the cadets he seemed older, 
 and it was jokingly reported among them, much to 
 Poe s annoyance, that " he had procured a cadet s 
 appointment for his son, and the boy having died 
 the father had substituted himself in his place." 2 
 His room-mate, who tells this anecdote, recalls his 
 expression as weary, worn, and discontented, and 
 his conversation on literary topics as without ex 
 ception carping and censorious. The three occu 
 pants of the room, it is added, gave it a bad rep 
 utation ; and Poe, in particular, besides joining his 
 two fellows in the consumption of brandy, totally 
 neglected his studies. The features of this slcetch, 
 notwithstanding its being drawn by one of the 
 actors, are too grim. On others of his classmates 
 he left a more agreeable impression. One of them, 
 Allan B. Magruder, Esq., writes cf him as a fel- 
 
 1 Dr.N. C. Brooks to the author, June 3, 1884. All subsequent 
 statements regarding the relations of Poe and Brooks are made 
 on the same authority. 
 
 2 Harper s New Monthly Magazine, xxxv. 754 (Nov. 1867). 
 
WANDERINGS. 55 
 
 low " of kindly spirit and simple style," and con 
 tinues his brief reminiscences as -follows : 
 
 " He was very shy and reserved in his intercourse 
 with his fellow-cadets his associates being confined 
 almost exclusively to Virginians. He was an accom 
 plished French scholar, and had a wonderful aptitude 
 for mathematics, so that he had no difficulty in prepar 
 ing his recitations in his class and in obtaining the 
 highest marks in these departments. He was a devourer 
 of books, but his great fault was his neglect of and ap 
 parent contempt for military duties. His wayward and 
 capricious temper made him at times utterly oblivious 
 or indifferent to the ordinary routine of roll-call, drills, 
 and guard duties. These habits subjected him often to 
 arrest and punishment, and effectually prevented his 
 learning or discharging the duties of a soldier." x 
 
 This account is supported by the official records, 
 which show that at the examination at the end of the 
 half-year Poe stood third in French and seventeenth 
 in mathematics, in a class of eighty-seven members ; 
 he was not in arrest, however, before January, and 
 whether he incurred minor academic censure for 
 neglect of his military duties cannot be determined, 
 as the books were destroyed by fire in 1838. His 
 life at West Point, so far from being the long-contin 
 ued college prank that it has been represented, did 
 not differ from his course at the University, except 
 that his predominant literary taste, which found ex 
 pression only in talk about the poets and pasquin- 
 
 1 Allan B. Magruder, Esq., to tho author April 23, 1884. 
 
56 FDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 ades on the academy officials, isolated him among 1 
 his associates, while the custom of the place and his 
 own lack of means forbade the excessive gambling 
 in which he had formerly indulged. He was the 
 intellectual, self-absorbed, exclusive young fellow 
 that he had been, but older, and consequently more 
 discontented and unsettled. As before, he bore 
 his share in the school-boy follies of his mates, 
 and his greater neglect of routine duty may be as 
 cribed in part to its increased irksomeness to him 
 after his year of freedom from such restraints. 
 
 After the first six months had passed he made 
 up his mind to leave the service. Whether he was 
 merely tired of the profession he had voluntarily 
 chosen, or felt that the recent marriage of Mr. 
 Allan, which took place at New York, October 5, 
 cut off his expectation of an inheritance, and threw 
 him on his own resources, or whether he was con 
 vinced that literature was his unavoidable career, 
 makes little difference. Mr. Allan, as was to be 
 expected, refused to sanction his alleged resigna 
 tion, and consequently he had to employ indirect 
 means to accomplish his purpose. 1 On January 5, 
 1831, a court-martial was convened at West Point, 
 to try offenders against discipline, and after a short 
 sitting adjourned until January 28. For the two 
 
 1 This statement, which has no authority except Hirst, must 
 have been originally derived from Foe. It is probably correct, 
 although accompanied by the evident misrepresentation, repeated 
 in all the biographies, that the reason why Poe determined to 
 leave was the birth of an heir to Mr. Allan. 
 
WANDERINGS. 57 
 
 weeks preceding this adjourned meeting Poe neg 
 lected practically all his duties as a cadet, and 
 was consequently cited to appear before the court 
 and answer to two charges of two specifications 
 each, to the effect that he had absented himself 
 from certain parades, roll-calls, guard duty, and 
 academical duties, and in the course of this remiss- 
 ness had twice directly disobeyed the orders of the 
 officer of the day. He pleaded guilty to all, except 
 one specification, and as it was the one alleging 
 the most patent of his offenses his absence from 
 parade, roll-call, and guard duty he thus shut 
 the gates of mercy on himself. The court found 
 him guilty, and passed a sentence of dismissal, 
 which, however, in order that his pay might suffice 
 to meet his debts to the academy, they recom 
 mended should not take effect until March 6 ; on 
 February 8, 1831, the Secretary of War approved 
 the proceedings of the court, and ordered the sen 
 tence to be executed in accordance with the recom 
 mendation. On the morning of March 7, conse 
 quently, Poe found himself as free as he had been 
 in Boston, four years before, when he first entered 
 the service, and apparently as penniless, since only 
 twelve cents remained to his credit. 
 
 Funds for his journey to New York may have 
 been provided from the subscriptions of the cadets 
 (seventy-five cents, which the superintendent al 
 lowed to be deducted from their pay), 1 of which 
 1 Allan B. Magruder, Esq., to the author, July 1, 1884. 
 
58 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 a part only was advanced, for a volume of his 
 poems which he proposed to publish in that city. 
 Mr. Elam Bliss, a reputable publisher, who is said 
 to have come to West Point on the business, un 
 dertook the job presumably on the strength of the 
 subscription. The book, which was entitled sim 
 ply "Poems," 1 purported to be a second edition 
 of the Baltimore volume, from which it differed in 
 many of its readings, and materially by the omis 
 sion of six short poems and the addition of the 
 first forms of " To Helen," " The Sleeper," " Le- 
 nore," " The Valley of Unrest," " The City in the 
 Sea," and " Israfel." In the expansion of the ear 
 lier poems and of " Fairyland " in particular, Poe 
 approached very near to the inane, but in the half 
 dozen new ones, inferior as they are to the revised 
 
 1 Poems. By Edgar A. Poe. Second edition. New York. Pub 
 lished by Elam Bliss, 1831 : pp. 124. This volume is dedicated to 
 the United States Corps of Cadets, and opens with a preparatory 
 
 letter to Mr. , dated West Point, 1831, and addressed "Dear 
 
 B ;" it contains: 1. Introduction, 66 lines, an expansion 
 
 of Preface in the 1829 edition ; 2. To Helen ; 3. Israfel, 44 lines; 
 4. The Doomed City, 58 lines, the first version of The City in the 
 Sea ; 5. Fairyland, 64 lines, an expansion of the poem of the same 
 name in the 1829 edition ; 6. Irene, 74 lines, the first version of 
 The Sleeper ; 7. A Pcean, 44 lines, the first version of Lenore ; 
 8. The Valley Nis, 46 lines, the first version of The Valley of 
 Unrest ; 9. Al Aaraaf, slightly revised, and introduced as in the 
 1829 edition by " To Science; " 10. Tamerlane, again considerably 
 revised, particularly by the insertion of The Lake in a new form, 
 
 and of lines from To (" Should my early life seem "), from 
 
 the 1829 edition. Each poem has a bastard title, and the volume 
 is further pieced out by mottoes, to each of which a page is 
 given. 
 
WANDERINGS. 59 
 
 versions now known, his genius first became man 
 ifest both in the character of his poetic motives and 
 in the fascination of some perfect lines. The first 
 three are based on his own experience, and are es 
 sentially personal, an imaginative amplification 
 of the lines of the " Introduction : " 
 
 " I could not love except where Death 
 Was mingling his with Beauty s breath, 
 Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny 
 Were stalking between her and me." 
 
 Of these, however, "To Helen," which has been 
 overpraised, owes much of its finish to the slight 
 changes since made in it. " Irene," although im 
 pressive in conception and original in handling, is 
 far too rude to be regarded as more than a poem 
 of some promise, and the " Paean " is happily for 
 gotten. The remaining three, which are developed 
 from slight Oriental suggestions, are of a different 
 kind. In these for the first time the strangeness 
 and distance and mystical power of Poe s imagina 
 tions are so given as to be henceforth identified 
 with his genius. Two are landscape effects. In 
 one, far down in the east, the Valley of Unrest dis 
 closes its tremulous trees beneath the ceaseless flow 
 of swift-motioned clouds, a glow of deep color ; 
 and in the other, as far in the west, gleams the 
 weird diablerie of that strange city lying all alone 
 in its glare and gloom, shadowed in those black 
 waves : 
 
 " Around by lifting winds forgot 
 Eesignedly beneath the sky 
 The melancholy waters lie." 
 
60 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 The melodious monotone, the justness of touch in 
 lines like these, are as artistic as the idea is poetic. 
 But fine as is the substance of these two poems and 
 excellent as is the execution at its best, neither 
 rises to the rank of " Israfel," in which rings out 
 the lyric burst, the first pure song of the poet, the 
 notes most clear and liquid and soaring of all he 
 ever sang, that waken and tremble in the first in 
 spiration not less magnetically because narrower in 
 compass and lower in flight than in the cadences of 
 theyperfected song. 
 
 /As his genius had developed, Poe had formed a 
 theory of poetry, which he expressed, so far as he 
 had made it out to himself, in the prefatory "Letter 
 
 to Mr. ." In this, after some thin logic to the 
 
 effect that pleasure instead of utility is thd end 
 of all rational human activity, and consequently 
 of poetry, he subjects Wordsworth s theories and 
 practice to a very supercilious criticism, and as 
 serts that poetry should be pursued as "a passion," 
 not as " a study," since " learning has little to do 
 with the imagination intellect with the passions 
 
 - or age with poetry ; " at the end he sums up his 
 creed in an article which shows the strong influence 
 of Coleridge s criticism, as follows : 
 
 " A poem in my opinion, is opposed to a work of 
 science by having, for its immediate object, pleasure, not 
 truth ; i to romance, by having for its object an in\ 
 definite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem 
 only so far as this object is attained ; romance present- 
 
WANDERINGS. 61 
 
 ing perceptible images with definite, poetry with iiy- 
 definite, sensations, to which end music is an essential, 
 since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most 
 indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a 
 pleasurable idea, is poetry ; music without the idea is 
 simply music ; the idea without the music is prose from 
 its very definiteness." 
 
 These crude generalizations, together with the 
 incidental remarks that no one enjoys long poems, 
 and that delicacy is the poet s peculiar kingdom, 
 are the fundamental ideas out of which he after 
 ward slowly developed and finally perfected his 
 poetic theory; to the canons thus laid down he 
 submitted his own practice the more easilu because 
 they were consonant with his own genius. J 
 
 For the present neither his statement of the 
 poetic ideal nor his attempted illustration of it in 
 terested the world. The only notice his poetry re 
 ceived was from the laughter of the cadets, who 
 were disappointed because the little green volume 
 of dingy paper had not turned out to be a book of 
 local squibs. He himself went South, but whether 
 he returned to Mr. Allan s house must be regarded 
 as doubtful. He had not been a regular inmate of 
 that home since he left it for the University, a boy 
 of seventeen, over five years before ; and in the 
 mean time a Miss Paterson, aged thirty, had come 
 to take the place of his foster-mother, and his own 
 successor in the shape of a lineal heir was at hand. 
 Poe remained but a short time, if at all, at Rich- 
 
62 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 mond. His own characteristic description of the 
 rupture with the family was that, led by a chival- 
 ric feeling, he "deliberately threw away a large 
 fortune rather than endure a trivial wrong ; " l but 
 this statement is worth nothing as evidence. Mr. 
 Allan plainly regarded him as ungrateful, reckless, 
 and untrustworthy ; and Poe s conduct toward him, 
 to say the least, had been that of a son who, since 
 he wished his own will, ought to make his own 
 way. 
 1 Foe to Mrs. Whitman, October 18, 1848. Ingram, ii. 171. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AT THE SOUTH. 
 
 POE determined to settle at Baltimore, probably 
 because he had a grateful remembrance of the 
 kindness of his relatives there during his visits two 
 years before, and because he had no prospects else 
 where nor money to seek them. He at once asked 
 employment of his former acquaintance, William 
 Gwynn, the editor, who apparently had some cause 
 to distrust him, and it is noticeable that the form 
 of his application shows that he still kept ostensibly 
 on some terms with Mr. Allan : 
 
 MayMh, 1831. 
 MR. W. GWYNN. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I am almost ashamed to ask any favour 
 at your hands after my foolish conduct upon a former 
 occasion but I trust to your good nature. 
 
 I am very anxious to remain and settle myself in 
 Baltimore as Mr. Allan has married again and I no 
 longer look upon Richmond as my place of residence. 
 
 This wish of mine has also met with his approbation. 
 I wish to request your influence in obtaining some sit 
 uation or employment in this city. Salary would be a 
 minor consideration, but I do not wish to be idle. 
 
 Perhaps (since I understand Neilson has left you) 
 
64 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 you might be so kind as to employ me in your office in 
 some capacity. 
 
 If so I will use every exertion to deserve your con 
 fidence. Very respectfully yr. ob. st., 
 
 EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 I would have waited upon you personally but am 
 confined to my room with a severe sprain in my knee. 1 
 
 Mr. Gwynn seems not to have exercised the 
 Christian grace of forgiveness. Within a few 
 weeks Poe turned to another Baltimore acquaint 
 ance, Mr. N. C. Brooks, who had recently opened 
 a school at Keisterstown, not far from the city, 
 and offered himself as an assistant ; but of this, 
 too, nothing came. To a man of Poe s talents and 
 poverty there was left only a literary career. 
 
 Baltimore was not the most promising field for a 
 young and friendless poet to seek his fortune in. 
 Less than four years before, Pinkney, who had 
 resided there since childhood, had died at the age 
 of twenty-five from the effects of poverty and dis 
 couragement suffered just as his genius was break, 
 ing forth. At the present time there were two 
 literary sets in the city, of which Kennedy and his 
 friends of the club constituted one, and a half 
 dozen obscure young men Arthur, Carpenter, Mac- 
 Jilton, Brooks, Hewitt, and Dawes, whose names 
 were current in the literature of the day and will 
 occur in this narrative made up the other ; but 
 to the former Poe was a stranger, and to the latter 
 1 Poe to Gwynn, MS. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 65 
 
 he was only slightly known. In the course of the 
 first eighteen months of his life at Baltimore, where 
 he was always understood to have resided at this 
 time, he bought his experience of anonymous and 
 unappreciated authorship dearly. He now turned 
 to prose to gain his living. Bulwer and Disraeli, 
 the popular writers of the time, gave direction to 
 his genius, both in subject and style. Under their 
 influence he wrote at least six tales, but he had 
 found no publisher for them when, in 1833, in 
 the summer, the Baltimore " Saturday Visiter," a 
 weekly literary paper recently started by Mr. Lam 
 bert A. Wilmer, a young journalist, sought public 
 attention in a way not unusual among contempo 
 rary periodicals of its class by offering two prizes : 
 one of one hundred dollars for the best tale in 
 prose, the other of fifty dollars for the best short 
 poem, which should be presented within a fixed time. 
 On learning this Poe determined to send in the tales 
 which he was so fortunately supplied with, and the 
 better to secure his success to send in all of them. 
 The judges of this literary contest were Dr. 
 James H. Miller, J. H. B. Latrobe, Esq., and 
 John P. Kennedy, Esq., who had published a year 
 before his pleasant sketches entitled " Swallow 
 Barn." When these gentlemen met, according to 
 the narrative l of Mr. Latrobe, which, although 
 clearly very inaccurate in detail, seems substantially 
 true, nearly all the manuscripts were examined 
 
 1 Works, cxlvii-clii. 
 
66 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 more and more cursorily before a certain small 
 quarto-bound book was noticed; Mr. Latrobe on 
 taking it up found it entitled " Tales of the Folio 
 Club," and written very neatly in Roman charac 
 ters, and on reading it to his associates the stories 
 proved so agreeable a diversion over the wine and 
 cigars that the first prize was immediately awarded 
 to its author. Among the poems, too, one entitled 
 " The Coliseum " was regarded the best, but being 
 in the same hand as the successful tales was ruled 
 out, and the second prize awarded to Hewitt, the 
 reviewer of Poe s " Al Aaraaf " four years before. 
 On October 12 these decisions were announced in 
 the " Saturday Visiter ; " one of the tales, " A MS. 
 Found in a Bottle," was published as the prize 
 story, and the name of its author given as Edgar 
 Allan Poe. 
 
 To that young man, whose fortunes were then at 
 their lowest ebb, the hard cash, as well as the en 
 couragement and the flattering card of the judges, 
 advising the author to print all his tales in a book, 
 must have been very welcome. The low state to 
 which he had become reduced is briefly and point 
 edly shown in a passage in Kennedy s diary : 
 
 " It is many years ago, I think, perhaps as early as 
 1833 or 34, that I found him in Baltimore in a state of 
 starvation. I gave him clothing, free access to my table 
 and the use of a horse for exercise whenever he chose ; 
 in fact brought him up from the very verge of despair." * 
 
 1 Life of John Pendleton Kennedy. By Henry T. Tuckerman. 
 New York: G. P. Putnam s Sons, 1871 : p. 376. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 
 
 67 
 
 It is further illustrated by the following self- 
 explanatory note from Poe to that kind-hearted 
 gentleman, who all his life was seeking out and 
 advancing merit : 
 
 " Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the 
 quick. I cannot come for reasons of the most humiliat 
 ing nature my personal appearance. You may im 
 agine my mortification in making this disclosure to you, 
 but it is necessary." ] 
 
 And if further proof be needed (for the facts 
 have been denied), it is furnished by a letter of 
 Poe s years afterwards, in which he says, " Mr. 
 Kennedy has been, at all times, a true friend to me 
 he was the first true friend I ever had I am in 
 debted to him for life itself." 2 Poe also made the 
 acquaintance of Dr. Miller, with whom he after 
 wards had some correspondence, and of Mr. La- 
 trobe, who describes 3 him as below the middle stat 
 ure, erect in carriage, self-possessed in manner, and 
 grave in countenance until he became animated in 
 conversation, when his face lighted up and his man 
 ner became demonstrative. 
 
 1 Life of John Pendleton Kennedy, p. 375. 
 
 2 Poe to F. W. Thomas. Stoddard, xcv. 
 
 3 Mr. Latrobe states that this visit was made on the Monday 
 following the award, but he is clearly in error or hns confused 
 two visits, since he makes Poe mention the Southern Literary Mes 
 senger, which did not appear until nine months later, and Plans 
 Pfaall, which by Poe s own statement was suggested to him by 
 reading a book published a year afterward. 
 
68 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 For the following six months Poe employed his 
 time in contributing to the " Saturday Visiter," 
 of which no file is now known, and upon such 
 hack work as Mr. Kennedy could procure for him, 
 none of which has been traced; but he attracted 
 no further public notice. He lived from the sum 
 mer of 1833, at least, if not earlier, in a very re 
 tired way with his father s widowed sister, Mrs. 
 Clemm, who, with her single surviving child, Vir 
 ginia, seems to have settled in Baltimore in the 
 spring, after a long absence from the city; and 
 whatever he earned went into the small common 
 stock of the family. Mr. Wilmer, the editor of 
 the " Saturday Visiter," was a constant companion. 
 Nearly every day they walked out together in the 
 suburbs, and sometimes took Virginia, a child of 
 eleven, with them. Poe was then neatly, though 
 inexpensively, clad (Hewitt, his successful rival, 
 says he wore " Byron collars and a black stock, 
 and looked the poet all over "), and in his features 
 there was a delicacy which was perhaps the pallor 
 of his Southern complexion ; his companion, who 
 was of a coarse fibre, mistook his refinement for 
 effeminacy, but perceived that he was possessed of 
 quick sympathies and an affectionate disposition. 
 During an unbroken intimacy of some months, 
 Wilmer saw no sign of bad habits in his friend, 
 except on one occasion when Poe set out some Ja 
 maica rum at his lodgings and drank moderately 
 with his guest ; and on another when Mrs. Clemm 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 69 
 
 scolded the young man for coming home intoxi 
 cated the night before from a tavern supper, but 
 as if it were a rare occurrence. These recollec 
 tions, 1 however, cover only a comparatively short 
 period. Wilmer was soon crowded out of his edi 
 torship by Hewitt, and left Baltimore on foot and 
 in want, to follow journalism in other quarters. A 
 cousin, Miss Herring, on whom Poe used to call, 
 says he would write poems in her album and read 
 to her ; but his attentions were discouraged by her 
 father on account both of the relationship and of 
 Poe s use of liquor. These visits began as early 
 as 1831, and continued until her marriage in 1834. 
 It would appear, too, from her account that he went 
 at times to Philadelphia and other places. 2 
 
 On March 27, 1834, Mr. Allan died of the 
 dropsy. Shortly before this event Poe called at 
 his house, and being told by Mrs. Allan, who did 
 not recognize him, that the physicians had forbid 
 den her husband to see any one he thrust her aside 
 and walked rapidly to Mr. Allan s chamber ; on his 
 entrance Mr. Allan raised the cane which he used 
 to walk with, and, threatening to strike him if he 
 came within his reach, ordered him out, a command 
 that Poe at once obeyed. 3 This was the so-called 
 
 1 Recollections of Edgar A. Poe. By L. A. Wilmer, Baltimore 
 Daily Commercial, May 23, 1866. 
 
 2 Miss A. F. Poe to the author, September 13, 1884. 
 
 8 Edgar Allan Poe. A letter by Colonel Thomas H. Ellis to 
 the Richmond Standard, April 22, 1881. Mr. Ellis had the very 
 best means of judging the truth in this matters 
 
70 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 violent scene in which the two parted. Mr. Allan 
 left three children ; his will cut off any lingering- 
 hopes of inheritance Poe may have indulged in, 
 and threw him irretrievably on his own resources. 
 About this time he gathered his tales together and 
 sent them to a Philadelphia house. He probably 
 employed the summer upon the tragedy "Politian," 
 and the autumn upon " Hans Pfaall." He also pro 
 jected a new literary magazine, to be edited at Bal 
 timore by himself and Wilmer, to whom he sent a 
 prospectus ; * and after the new year opened, upon 
 Kennedy s recommendation, he sent some tales to 
 the " Southern Literary Messenger," still in the 
 first struggles of its existence. Mr. T. W. White, 
 the editor, was attracted by his new contributor s 
 talents, and in March published one of the stories, 
 "Berenice," with a very flattering notice; at the 
 same time he addressed a letter of inquiry to Mr. 
 Kennedy, which elicited the following response : 
 
 " BALTIMORE, April 13, 1835. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : Poe did right in referring to me. He 
 is very clever with his pen classical and scholar-like. 
 He wants experience and direction, but I have no doubt 
 he can be made very useful to you. And, poor fellow ! 
 he is very poor. I told him to write something for 
 every number of your magazine, and that you might 
 find it to your advantage to give him some permanent 
 
 1 Our Pnss Gang ; or, A Complete Exposition of the Corruptions 
 and Crimes of the American Newspapers. By Lambert A. Wil 
 mer (ex-editor). Philadelphia : J. T. Lloyd, 1859 : p. 36. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 71 
 
 employ. He has a volume of very bizarre tales in the 
 
 hands of , in Philadelphia, who for a year past has 
 
 been promising to publish them. This young fellow is 
 highly imaginative, and a little given to the terrific. 
 He is at work upon a tragedy, but I have turned him 
 to drudging upon whatever may make money, and I 
 have no doubt you and he will find your account in each 
 other." * 
 
 " Berenice " was followed in successive numbers 
 by other tales and some criticism. On the 30th of 
 May he wrote to Mr. White, thanking him for his 
 kindness : 
 
 " In regard to my critique of Mr. Kennedy s novel I 
 seriously feel ashamed of what I have written. I fully 
 intended to give the work a thorough review, and exam 
 ine it in detail. Ill health alone prevented me from 
 doing so. At the time I made the hasty sketch I sent 
 you, I was so ill as to be hardly able to see the paper on 
 which I wrote, and I finished it in a state of complete 
 exhaustion. I have not, therefore, done anything like 
 justice to the book, and I am vexed about the matter, 
 for Mr. Kennedy has proved himself a kind friend to me 
 in every respect, and I am sincerely grateful to him for 
 many acts of generosity and attention. You ask me if 
 I am perfectly satisfied with your course. I reply that 
 I am entirely. My poor services are not worth what 
 you give me for them." 1 
 
 A month later, in reply to some advances made 
 by Mr. White, he again wrote : 
 
 1 Griswold, xxix. 
 
72 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 " You ask me if I would be willing to come on to Rich 
 mond if you should have occasion for my services during 
 the coming winter. I reply that nothing would give me 
 greater pleasure. I have been desirous for some time 
 past of paying a visit to Richmond, and would be glad 
 of any reasonable excuse for so doing. Indeed I am 
 anxious to settle myself in that city, and if, by any chance, 
 you hear of a situation likely to suit me, I would gladly 
 accept it, were the salary even the merest trifle. I should, 
 indeed, feel myself greatly indebted to you if through 
 your means I could accomplish this object. What you 
 say in the conclusion of your letter, in relation to the 
 supervision of proof-sheets, gives me reason to hope that 
 possibly you might find something for me to do in your 
 office. If so, I should be very glad for at present 
 only a very small portion of my time is employed." 1 
 
 In the first of these letters is the earliest mention 
 of ill-health in Poe ; but from this time he fre 
 quently complains of nervous exhaustion, which can 
 be ascribed only to the reaction of drugs and stim 
 ulants on a weakened system. Neither at college, 
 nor in the army, nor at West Point, is there any 
 proof that he showed any dangerous or even inju 
 rious taste for liquor ; the evidence goes rather to 
 indicate that he was free from the vice of intox 
 ication. Now, however, when he emerges from his 
 obscurity, he seems to have already fixed upon him 
 self the habits of indulgence, which, although less 
 strong in their hold and less violent in their ef- 
 
 1 Griswold, xxix. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 73 
 
 fects than they afterwards became, were gradually 
 accustoming him to surrender at longer or shorter 
 intervals to a temptation which, once yielded to, 
 rendered him irrational and irresponsible for days,] 
 and left him prostrated. At some time between his 1 ; 
 abandonment by Mr. Allan and his literary adop 
 tion by Mr. Kennedy, the weakest spot in his nature 
 had been found, During this period Poe was very 
 poor ; he was solitary, proud, and despairing. That 
 a nervous system extraordinarily sensitive should 
 have been permanently weakened by such bodily 
 privation and mental strain is not unlikely ; that a 
 youth of twenty three or four years, possibly with 
 an hereditary taint in his blood, should indulge in 
 such a vice admits no wonder ; and that under the 
 circumstances his frame retained an unusual sus 
 ceptibility to such influences, even after better days 
 had come, offers nothing strange to ordinary expe 
 rience. His excesses, however, seem to have been 
 infrequent, and^ he was now trying to overcome his 
 temptation. In Mr. Kennedy, to whom he appar 
 ently confided all his troubles, he had a kind and . 
 invigorating friend, and in Mrs. Clemm he had 
 found more motherhood and in her daughter more 
 tender affection than he hud ever known. He had 
 no choice but to go to Richmond, but he seems to 
 have felt that separation from these friends would 
 cast him back into that state of loneliness and de 
 spondency out of which they had helped him to rise. 
 Virginia was greatly attached to him, and Mrs. 
 
74 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Clemm had no one else to look to for support. 
 Under the circumstances it was not so unnatural as 
 it was unwise that, before leaving for Richmond, 
 Poe proposed to keep the family united by marry 
 ing his cousin, and the engagement was approved 
 by her mother. 
 
 In midsummer, with this understanding, Poe left 
 Baltimore apparently without regret, for he owed 
 little gratitude to that city, nor did he ever return 
 to it to live, although there he was destined to die 
 and be buried. He went directly to Eichmond, to 
 the home and associates of his childhood ; nor did 
 he doubt that, in spite of the changes in his lot, life 
 there would be pleasant to him ; he may have 
 thought that his literary position would compensate 
 for his loss of social pretension and the considera 
 tion that attaches to wealth, or even that his old 
 acquaintance would be advantageous to him. How 
 ever this turned out, he entered at once on his duties 
 as an assistant, although he was not nominally an 
 editor until November, at a salary of ten dollars a 
 week. It was not high pay, but the position he held 
 was a good opening and well adapted to his talents. 
 He had on hand nine tales besides those which had 
 already been published (" A MS. Found in a Bot 
 tle," " Berenice," " Morella," " Lionizing," " Hans 
 Pfaall," "The Visionary," and " Bon-Bon "), and 
 he expected to print the whole sixteen in the fall 
 at Philadelphia. He had been highly praised by 
 Paulding, Tucker, Kennedy, and others who were 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 75 
 
 the literary autocrats of their day. The Southern 
 press welcomed him loudly. His fortunes, however 
 regarded, were in bright contrast to his immediate 
 past ; but not long after his arrival all this was 
 made as naught, because an obstruction arose in 
 the course of true love. 
 
 The engagement between Edgar and his cousin 
 Virginia had come to the ears of his relative, Neil- 
 son Poe, who, himself a third cousin to both, had 
 recently married her half-sister, also his third 
 cousin ; and, led by his wife, who thought Virginia 
 too young to marry (as indeed she was, having been 
 born August 15, 1822, 1 and consequently hardly 
 turned of thirteen years), he offered to take her into 
 his family and care for her until she should be 
 eighteen, when, if she desired to rnarry Edgar, she 
 would be free to do so. The communication of this 
 news to Poe had an extraordinary effect upon him, 
 and seems to have cast him into the deepest dejec 
 tion. He wrote to Mrs. Clemm, August 29, im 
 ploring her not to consent to separate him from 
 Virginia, and appealing to her pity for himself in 
 such terms that his sincerity cannot be questioned. 
 Some days later, evidently under the same influ 
 ence, he wrote to Mr. Kennedy as follows : 
 
 KICHMOND, Sept. 11, 1835. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I received a letter yesterday from Dr. 
 Miller, in which he tells me you are in town. I hasten, 
 
 i The Records of St. Paul s Parish, Baltimore. The date 
 August 13 has some authority by family tradition. 
 
76 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 therefore, to write you, and express by letter what I have 
 always found it impossible to express orally my deep 
 sense of gratitude for your frequent and ineffectual as 
 sistance and kindness. Through your influence Mr. 
 White has been induced to employ me in assisting him 
 with the editorial duties of his Magazine at a salary of 
 five hundred and twenty dollars per annum. The situa 
 tion is agreeable to me for many reasons, but alas ! it 
 appears to me that nothing can now give me pleasure or 
 the slightest gratification. Excuse me, my dear sir, if in 
 this letter you find much incoherency. My feelings at 
 this moment are pitiable, indeed. I am suffering under 
 d. depression of spirits, such as I have never felt before. 
 I have struggled in vain against the influence of this mel- 
 afcchply ; you will believe me, when I say that I am still 
 miserable in spite of the great improvement in my cir 
 cumstances. I say you will believe me, and for this sim 
 ple reason, that a man who is writing for effect does not 
 write thus. My heart is open before you if it be 
 worth reading, read it. I am wretched, and know not 
 why. Console me, for you can. But let it be quickly, 
 or it will be too late. Write me immediately. Convince 
 me that it is worth one s while that it is at all neces 
 sary to live, and you will prove yourself indeed my 
 friend. Persuade me to do what is right. I do mean 
 this. I do not mean that you should consider what I 
 now write you a jest. Oh, pity me ! for I feel that my 
 words are incoherent ; but I will recover myself. You 
 will not fail to see that I am suffering under a depres 
 sion of spirits which will ruin me should it be long con 
 tinued. Write, me then, and quickly urge me to do 
 what is right. Your words will have more weight with 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 77 
 
 me than the words of others, for you were my friend 
 when no one else was. Fail not, as you value your peace 
 of mind hereafter. E. A. PoE. 1 
 
 To this painful letter, exhibiting an unmanned 
 spirit, Mr. Kennedy replied : ~ 
 
 " I am sorry to see you in such plight as your letter 
 shows you in. It is strange that just at this time, when 
 everybody is praising you, and when fortune is begin 
 ning to smile upon your hitherto wretched circumstances, 
 you should be invaded by these blue devils. It belongs, 
 however, to your age and temper to be thus buffeted 
 but be assured, it only wants a little resolution to master 
 the adversary forever. You will doubtless do well hence 
 forth in literature, and add to your comforts, as well as 
 to your reputation, which it gives me great pleasure to 
 assure you is everywhere rising in popular esteem." 2 
 
 Probably before receiving this letter Poe left 
 Richmond and arrived at Baltimore to plead his 
 suit in person, since on September 22 he took 
 out a license in that city for the marriage. 3 It has 
 been said, on the authority of Mrs. Clemm s con 
 versation taken down in short-hand, that the cere 
 mony was performed by the Rev. John Johns, at 
 Old Christ Church, and that the next day Poe re 
 turned to his duties. 4 If this was actually the case 
 
 1 The Life of John Pendleton Kennedy, pp. 375, 376. 
 
 2 Griswold, xxix, xxx. 
 
 3 Marriage Records of Baltimore City. 
 
 4 Didier, p. 58. The date of marriage is given as September 2. 
 As Mr. Didier knew nothing of the record of the marriage license 
 granted September 22, the error is of a kind to support rather 
 
78 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 the matter was kept very private. There is now 
 no complete legal proof of the marriage ; but this 
 is not conclusive against its having taken place, as 
 the marriage records of Old Christ Church were 
 badly kept and are very defective. It is certain, 
 however, that Poe so far succeeded in his entreaties 
 that the proposal of Neilson Poe was rejected, and 
 Mrs. Clemm and her daughter removed to Rich- 
 mond within a few weeks, where the three contin 
 ued to live together. There they planned to start 
 a boarding-house, and with this in view Poe sent 
 the following letter to George Poe in Alabama : 
 
 RICHMOND, Jan. 12, 1836. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I take the liberty of addressing you in 
 behalf of a mutual relation, Mrs. William Clemm, late 
 of Baltimore and at her earnest solicitation. 
 
 You are aware that for many years she has been suf 
 fering privations and difficulties of no ordinary kind. 
 I know that you have assisted her at a former period, 
 and she has occasionally received aid from her cousins, 
 William and Robert Poe, of Augusta. What little has 
 been heretofore in my own power I have also done. 
 
 Having lately established myself in Richmond, and 
 undertaken the editorship of the Southern Literary Mes 
 senger, and my circumstances having thus become better 
 than formerly, I have ventured to offer my aunt a home. 
 
 than to discredit the marriage. The license was the last issued on 
 that day, and it fails to prove the marriage only because there is 
 no return of the minister officiating ; but such a return was not 
 obligatory, and there are several other entries in the records that 
 are similarly incomplete. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 79 
 
 She is now therefore in Richmond, with her daughter 
 Virginia, and is, for the present boarding at the house 
 of a Mrs. Yarrington. My salary is only at present 
 about $800 per aim., and the charge per week for our 
 board, (Mrs. Clemm s, her daughter s, and my own,) is 
 $9. I am thus particular in stating my precise situa 
 tion that you may be the better enabled to judge in 
 regard to the propriety of granting the request which I 
 am now about to make for Mrs. Clemm. 
 
 It is ascertained that if Mrs. C. could obtain the 
 means of opening, herself, a boarding-house in this city, 
 she could support herself and daughter comfortably with 
 something to spare. But a small capital would be nec 
 essary for an undertaking of this nature, and many of 
 the widows of our first people are engaged in it, and find 
 it profitable. I am willing to advance, for my own part, 
 $100, and I believe that Wm. & R. Poe will advance 
 $100. If then you would so far aid her in her design 
 as to loan her yourself $100 she will have sufficient to 
 commence with. I will be responsible for the repayment 
 of the sum, in a year from this date, if you can make it 
 convenient to comply with her request. 
 
 I beg you, my dear Sir, to take this subject into consid 
 eration. I feel deeply for the distresses of Mrs. Clemm, 
 and I am sure you will feel interested in relieving them. 
 [Signature cut off.] 
 
 P. S. I am the son of David Poe, Jr. Mrs. C. s 
 brother. 1 
 
 George Poe sent the money, but the history of 
 the plan belongs to a later period. 
 
 1 Poe to George Poe, MS. 
 
80 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 From the first Poe had entered upon his work 
 with vigor, and he soon took entire charge of the 
 magazine. Besides fulfilling the manifold and dis 
 tracting duties incident to mere editorship he con 
 tributed tales, poems, and reviews, signed and un 
 signed, as well as compendious articles, which al 
 though unclaimed are clearly from his hand. A 
 considerable portion of this matter had been writ 
 ten before he came to Richmond, but the entire 
 mass is so large as to prove that he was a not less 
 diligent than facile author. Much of his work was 
 of slight importance then, and now posterity is in 
 terested in little more of it than a few poems and 
 the seven new tales, " Loss of Breath," " King 
 Pest," "Shadow," " Metzengerstein," "Due de 
 L Omelette," " Epimanes," and " A Tale of Jeru 
 salem," which he added to the seven already issued. 
 
 These fourteen, presumably all but two of the 
 " Tales of the Folio Club," which the Philadelphia 
 house had so long held under consideration, stand 
 in a group by themselves as the first fruits of Poe s 
 genius. In conception and execution they afford 
 types of his later works in both the arabesque and 
 grotesque manner, as he afterwards happily named 
 the two extremes of his style, and without requir 
 ing too close a scrutiny they illustrate the develop 
 ment of his mind and art. Only five of them are 
 purely imaginative, and of these " Berenice " is the 
 most varied and comprehensive ; in it Poe s hero 
 first comes upon the stage, a man struck with some 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 81 
 
 secret disease, given to the use of drugs and to f: 
 musing over old books in an antiquated and gloomy I 
 chamber, and reserved for a horrible experience. 1 
 In it, too, are such themes of evil fascination for 
 his mind as the epileptic patient and the premature 
 burial ; such marks of his handling as the cousin- 
 ship of the principal actors, the description of 
 morbid physical changes, the minute analysis of 
 sensations, the half-superstitious reference to me 
 tempsychosis, and the vivid analysis of the effects 
 of drugs ; and such traits of literary style as the 
 absence of conversation, the theatrically elaborated 
 scene of the action, the speed of the narrative with 
 its sudden and yet carefully prepared catastrophe. 
 " Berenice " reveals a mind at once analytical 
 and constructive, in which the imagination is the 
 dominant faculty and a taste for sensuous effects, 
 melodramatic incidents, and fantastic suggestions 
 is the most shaping influence. Defective as the 
 tale is in refinement Poe never but once indulged 
 again in a denoument of such mere physical horror 
 it exhibits, in however crude a form, the capac 
 ity to conceive startling imaginative effects and to 
 select the right means to bring them about directly, 
 forcibly, and without observation ; in a word, ar 
 tistic power. In the Venetian story of " The Vis 
 ionary," now known as "The Assignation," there is 
 more of splendid coloring, of the purely spectacular 
 and decorative element ; in the Hungarian myth of 
 " Metzeriger stein " there is a more violent and raw 
 
82 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 superstition ; in "Morella" the history of the re 
 volting victory of that aspiring will, by which the 
 dying mother s spirit, passing into her new-born 
 babe, retained in that childish frame the full intel 
 ligence and ripe passions of womanhood there is 
 a solemn and breathless dread beneath the com 
 ing of a vague but sure terror : and these several 
 traits individualize the three tales, but in none of 
 them is there the finely wrought complexity of 
 " Berenice." All yield, however, in comparison 
 with the fifth and last of the early arabesque series, 
 the parable called " Shadow," which, within its nar 
 row limits of a page or two, is at once the most 
 noble and most artistic expression of Poe s imagi 
 nation during the first period of his career, and 
 furthermore is alone distinguished by the even flow 
 and delicacy of transition that belong to his best 
 prose style. The elements in this rhapsody of gloom 
 are simple and massive, the accessories in perfect 
 keeping ; the fine monotone of stifled and expectant 
 emotion in the breasts of the Greek revelers in the 
 lighted, sepulchral, plague-isolated hall is just sus 
 tained at its initial pitch until the one thrilling, 
 solitary change arises in the emergence of the 
 shadow from the black draperies of the chamber, 
 and its motionless relief under the gloom of the 
 seven iron lamps, against the burnished, brazen 
 door, opposite to the feet of the young and shrouded 
 Zoilus as it were the semblance of a man, but 
 "the shadow neither of man, nor of God, nor of 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 83 
 
 any familiar thing," the vague, formless One 
 that was not indifferent to the low-voiced ques 
 tion of Oinos, but spoke and told its dwelling-place 
 and its appellation ; " and then did we, the seven, 
 start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling, 
 and shuddering, and aghast, for the tones in the 
 voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one 
 being, but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in 
 their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily 
 upon our ears in the well-remembered and familiar 
 accents of many thousand departed friends." 
 
 Perhaps the "MS. Found in a Bottle," reprinted 
 as from Miss Eliza Leslie s annual, " The Gift," 
 full as it is of fantasy and magnificent scenic effects 
 of ocean views, should be placed among the tales 
 of pure imagination ; it stands slightly apart from 
 them only because it has some relationship with 
 those stories, partly of adventure, partly of science, 
 which Poe built rather out of his acquired knowl 
 edge than his dreams. Of this class u Hans Pf aall," 
 the narrative of a voyage to the moon, is the first 
 complete type. The idea of such a passage from 
 the earth to its nearest neighbor in space was not 
 novel, nor was the astronomical information in 
 volved by any means abstruse, being furnished in 
 fact by Herschel s popular treatise, then first pub 
 lished in America ; but Poe claimed that the design 
 of making a fiction plausible by the use of scientific 
 facts and principles was original, and he certainly 
 worked it out with great patience and skill, and even 
 
84 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 a high degree of scientific consistency. It is not 
 without obligation to an obscure deus ex machina, 
 a providence unknown to physics, which overruled 
 the balloonist s fate ; but, with all its whimsicalities, 
 it exhibits for the first time the keenness and lu 
 cidity of Poe s intelligence as distinguished from 
 his imagination, and proves that he then possessed 
 a considerable power of applied thought. It is 
 noteworthy, too, a,s the earliest of those attempts to 
 gull the public, for which he afterwards became no 
 torious. At the time it was less successful in this 
 respect than the celebrated " Moon-Hoax " of Mr. 
 Locke, published a few weeks later in the " New 
 York Sun," which made fools of many highly in 
 telligent citizens and caused Poe some chagrin, as 
 he showed in his later comments upon it, because 
 so many more people were taken in by it than by 
 " Hans Pfaall," while he had put himself to so much 
 more pains than Mr. Locke to seem truthful ; cer 
 tainly if verisimilitude were the gauge of the crowd s 
 folly in credulity, he deserved better luck than his 
 rival. 
 
 The remainder of the tales Poe would have called 
 grotesque. Unfortunately he was not so plentifully 
 gifted with humor as with either imagination or 
 intelligence, and consequently his fame would suffer 
 less by the omission than by the retention of these 
 lucubrations. Some of them are the merest ex 
 travaganzas, such as the " Due de L Omelette," in 
 which the devil poses as a gambler who can lose, or 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 85 
 
 " Bon-Boii," in which he plays his part as a canni 
 bal of human souls. Some are satirical, and among 
 them is 1 to be reckoned one of his weakest produc 
 tions, " Loss of Breath, A Tale d la Blackwood," 
 which in its first form, with its expanded narra 
 tive of the hanging and the burial alive, was more 
 perceptibly aimed at the inane jargon (as it was 
 then thought) of German metaphysics. In all of 
 them, too, Poe is less original than in his other 
 tales ; he shows more plainly the traces of his read 
 ing. " King Pest " is very closely modeled on Viv 
 ian Grey s adventure in the castle of the Grand 
 Duke of Johannisberger (the cabinet of the Prince 
 of Little Lilliput in the same novel contains the 
 double of the Saracen s horse in Metzengerstein s 
 tapestry) ; and " Lionizing," a sketch which was 
 repeatedly and elaborately corrected in later years, 
 apart from its Shandean touch, copies in style 
 and conception " Too Beautiful for Anything " in 
 Bulwer s "The Ambitious Student in IU Health, 
 and other Papers," apparently a favorite book of 
 Poe s. " Epimanes " and " A Tale of Jerusalem," 
 the flattest of the series, need hardly be mentioned. 
 The humor in all, where it exists in any degree, is 
 too hollow, too mocking and sardonic, to be agree 
 able ; there is no laughter in it. The fact is that 
 just as Poe desired to be considered precocious he 
 had also the weakness of wishing to be thought a 
 
 O O 
 
 universal genius. The grotesque tales are the spec 
 tral progeny of this illusion. 
 
86 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 But it was as a critic, not as an imaginative or 
 humorous author, that Poe made the editorial hit 
 that placed the new Southern monthly at once be 
 side the " Knickerbocker " and the " New Eng- 
 lander " as a national magazine. While at Balti 
 more he had contributed a few perfunctory book 
 notices, but only when he was publicly known as 
 editor did he, to use the expression of a contem 
 porary, " fall in with his broad-axe." Late in the 
 fall of 1835 there appeared the loudly-announced, 
 much-bepuffed "Norman Leslie," one of the pop-- 
 ular novels of its day ; it was ambitious, crude, 
 and foolish, but its pretentiousness seems the par 
 ticular quality which led Poe to single it out for 
 an example. In the issue for December, therefore, 
 he subjected it to such scrutiny as had never been 
 known in our country before, and he did his task 
 so trenchantly and convincingly, with such spirit 
 and effect, that the public were widely interested ; 
 they bought, read, and looked for more. The 
 Southern press with one voice cried on havoc ; they 
 were only too glad to find in their own country a 
 youth with the boldness to rouse and the skill to 
 worry Knickerbocker game, for the young author, 
 Theodore S. Fay, was a pet of the metropolitan 
 litterateurs and an associate editor of the " New 
 York Mirror," then the best literary weekly of the 
 country. Even if Poe had not been applauded to 
 the echo, he was not of a nature to hesitate in fol 
 lowing up a predetermined line of policy ; but he 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 87 
 
 soon found a stand making against him. " There 
 was some show at first of closing the New York 
 columns, with gentleman-like contempt, to any re 
 monstrance against the insult ; but at length the 
 " Mirror," after several insidious attacks, made one 
 openly, to wit : 
 
 " (dF 3 Those who have read the notices of American 
 books in a certain southern monthly which is striving 
 to gain notoriety by the loudness of its abuse, may find 
 amusement in the sketch, in another page, entitled The 
 Successful Novel. The Southern Literary Messenger 
 knows d^p^ by experience .JHJ1 what it is to write a suc 
 cessless novel. 
 
 The sketch referred to was a clever squib in the 
 style of Poe s " Lionizing," and while satirizing his 
 attention to the minutiae of style and his readi 
 ness to cry plagiarism somewhat in a jackdaw man 
 ner, as if the word were his whole stock in trade, 
 insinuated further that the Harpers had rejected 
 Poe s longer, as the " Mirror " itself had his shorter, 
 effusions. In this charge there was little, if any, 
 truth ; and to the point Poe replied with a flat 
 denial : he " never in his life wrote or published, or 
 attempted to publish, a novel either successful or 
 successless," 2 a statement which must be under 
 stood as relegating into nonentity the alleged early 
 work of Poe, " An Artist at Home and Abroad." 
 
 1 Neio York Mirror, April 9, 1836. 
 
 2 Southern Literary Messenger, ii. 327 (April, 1836). 
 
88 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 This trivial incident drew from Poe a statement of 
 the spirit in which he believed himself to be under 
 taking the reform of criticism, and the grounds of 
 his action : 
 
 " There was a time, it is true, when we cringed to 
 foreign opinion let us even say when we paid a most 
 servile deference to British critical dicta. That an 
 American book could, by any possibility, be worthy 
 perusal, was an idea by no means extensively prevalent 
 in the land ; and if we were induced to read at all the 
 productions of our native writers, it was only after re 
 peated assurances from England that such productions 
 were not altogether contemptible . . . Not so, however, 
 with our present follies. We are becoming boisterous 
 and arrogant in the pride of a too speedily assumed lit 
 erary freedom. We throw off with the most presumptu 
 ous and unmeaning hauteur, all deference whatever to 
 foreign opinion we forget, in the puerile inflation of 
 vanity, that the world is the true theatre of the biblical 
 histrio we get up a hue and cry about the necessity of 
 encouraging native writers of merit we blindly fancy 
 that we can accomplish this by indiscriminate puffing of 
 good, bad, and indifferent, without taking the trouble to 
 consider that what we choose to denominate encourage 
 ment is thus, by its general application, precisely the 
 reverse. In a word, so far from being ashamed of the 
 many disgraceful literary failures to which our own inor 
 dinate vanities and misapplied patriotism have lately 
 given birth, and so far from deeply lamenting that these 
 daily puerilities are of home manufacture, we adhere perti 
 naciously to our original blindly conceived idea, and thus 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 89 
 
 often find ourselves involved in the gross paradox of lik 
 ing a stupid book the better, because, sure enough, its 
 stupidity is American." : 
 
 These views were by no means novel or unshared. 
 The periodical press was frequently weighted or 
 padded with essays, reports of lectures, or editorial 
 remarks, endeavoring to explain the feebleness of 
 American criticism, and deprecating it. A writer in 
 the " Knickerbocker " itself ascribes many causes, 
 not confined, perhaps, to that period, such as the 
 interests of publishers, the social relations of edit 
 ors, the wish to encourage the young, the fear of 
 being esteemed unpatriotic, and the like. What 
 distinguished Poe was the audacity with which he 
 took the unenvied post, and the vigor with which 
 he struck. Undoubtedly his worldly fortunes were 
 affected by the enmities he thus made. The New 
 Yorkers never forgave him. Colonel Stone, of 
 the "Commercial Advertiser," and W. Gaylord 
 Clarke, of the " Philadelphia Gazette," denounced 
 him, and in the house of his friends the " Newbern 
 Spectator " was an envious foe. But the presump 
 tuous young critic did not therefore withdraw his 
 hand ; and though at a time when Gifford and 
 Wilson handed down the traditions of critical style 
 he did not write with the urbanity that now ob 
 tains, though he was not choice in his phrase nor 
 delicate in his ridicule, all of his adverse decisions 
 but one (that on " Sartor Resartus ") have been 
 
 1 Southern Literary Messenger, ii. 326 (April, 1836). 
 
90 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 sustained. Moreover, the severity, what is called 
 the venom and heartlessness, of these critiques has 
 been much exaggerated ; there were in all but four 
 like that upon " Norman Leslie," and these were 
 milder than the first, a fact very creditable to Poe 
 when one recollects how loudly he was urged " to 
 hang, draw, and Quarterly," and how aptly such a 
 literary temper fell in with the proud self-confi 
 dence of his nature. His end was justice, if his 
 manner was not courtesy. 
 
 In fact, his reputation as a critic would now 
 suffer rather for the mercy he showed than for the 
 vengeance he took. With what hesitancy he sug 
 gests that Mrs. Sigourney might profitably forget 
 Mrs. Hemans ; with what consideration he hints a 
 fault in Mrs. Ellet, or just notices a blemish in 
 Miss Gould ; with what respect he treats Mellen 
 and Gallagher ! And if he asserts that Drake had 
 an analogical rather than a creative mind, and in 
 sinuates that Halleck s laurel was touched with 
 an artificial green, these were the names that a 
 lesser man would have let pass unchallenged. The 
 whole mass of this criticism but a small portion 
 of which deals with imaginative work is particu 
 larly characterized by a minuteness of treatment 
 which springs from a keen, artistic sensibility, and 
 by that constant regard to the originality of the 
 writer which is so frequently an element in the 
 jealousy of genius. One wearies in reading it 
 now ; but one gains thereby the better impression 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 91 
 
 of Poe s patience and of the alertness and compass 
 of his mental curiosity. Here and there, too, one 
 sees signs of his growth, as when he praises with 
 enthusiasm Godwin and Coleridge, Bulwer, Dis 
 raeli, and Scott ; or one finds the marks of his pe 
 culiar individuality, the early bent of his mind, as 
 when he mentions the love of analytical beauty in 
 this author, and whispers to the next the secret of 
 verisimilitude by obscuring the improbability of 
 the general in the naturalness and accuracy of the 
 particular. In especial some progress is made in 
 his poetic theory, but this must be treated by it 
 self. 
 
 He had reprinted without a signature his " Let 
 ter to B " from the 1831 edition of his poems, 
 
 with the editorial remark that " of course we shall 
 not be called upon to indorse all the writer s opin 
 ions." To the somewhat bald conclusions there 
 advanced, that poetry should aim at pleasure, and 
 be brief, indefinite, and musical, he now had some 
 thing to add in a peculiar dialect of German meta 
 physics and phrenology, then the fashion. The 
 most significant passage is one in which, after iden 
 tifying " the Faculty of Ideality " with the " Senti 
 ment of Poesy," he goes on as follows : 
 
 " This sentiment is the sense of the beautiful, of the 
 sublime, and of the mystical. Thence spring immedi 
 ately admiration of the fair flowers, the fairer forests, 
 the bright valleys and rivers and mountains of the Earth 
 and love of the gleaming stars and other burning 
 
92 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 glories of Heaven and, mingled up inextricably with 
 this love and this admiration of Heaven and of Earth, 
 the unconquerable desire to know. Poesy is the sen 
 timent of Intellectual Happiness here, and the Hope of 
 a higher Intellectual Happiness hereafter. Imagina 
 tion is its soul. With the passions of mankind, al 
 though it may modify them greatly although it may 
 exalt, or inflame, or purify, or control them it would 
 require little ingenuity to prove that it has no inevitable, 
 and indeed no necessary co-existence. . . . We do not 
 hesitate to say that a man highly endowed with the 
 powers of Causality that is to say, a man of meta 
 physical acumen will, even with a very deficient share 
 of Ideality, compose a finer poem (if we test it, as we 
 should, by its measure of exciting the Poetic Sentiment) 
 than one who, without such metaphysical acumen, shall 
 be gifted, in the most extraordinary degree, with the 
 faculty of Ideality. For a poem is not the Poetic fac 
 ulty, but the means of exciting it in mankind." ] 
 
 Poe s meaning may not be entirely plain at first 
 sight, built up as it is out of obscure Coleridgian 
 elements, which lie derived mainly from the " Bio- 
 graphia Literaria." In the plainest words, Poe con 
 ceived that beauty, whether natural or imaginary, 
 whether springing from the creative act of God or 
 the creative thought of man, affects the mind as a 
 glimpse of the infinite, and thus excites instan 
 taneous pleasure, and furthermore, by intimating a 
 fuller delight beyond, stimulates men to endeavor 
 to penetrate deeper into the mystery that encom- 
 
 1 Southern Literary Messenger, ii. 328 (April, 1836). 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 93 
 
 passes them. Beauty is thus a revelation of infi 
 nite truth, seized only by the imagination. Poetry 
 consequently, according to Poe s view at this time, 
 makes its highest appeal to the intellect instead 
 of the passions, and requires imagination rather 
 than sympathetic power in both its makers and its 
 readers. 
 
 The remainder of his proposition amounts only 
 to saying that one who is able to analyze the ele 
 ments which give rise to his own experience of the 
 vision that poetry brings, and thus to discern how 
 such moods are caused, can by forethought so select 
 and combine these elements as to arouse the same 
 state in others, whereas one who is merely suscep 
 tible to such experience might not be capable of 
 reproducing it with certainty : the latter has the 
 poe-tic temperament, the former has in addition 
 the analytical power which is necessary to art; 
 one is the creature, the other the master, of his 
 inspiration. All this, which means that " The An 
 cient Mariner " had been written by Coleridge, is 
 a good illustration of the rationalizing by which 
 Poe was accustomed to feed his own vanity indi 
 rectly. Did he not possess "analytical power"? 
 Was he not distinguished by "metaphysical acu 
 men " ? And through all, too, most noticeable is 
 his constant parroting of Coleridge, who was, taken 
 all in all, the guiding genius of Poe s entire intel 
 lectual life. 
 
 Of more consequence than either Poe s mysti- 
 
94 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 ^ cism or his metaphysical acumen, however, was the 
 lesson he learned from Schlegel, and now adduced 
 in support of his pet canon, that poems should be 
 brief. " In pieces of less extent," he writes, " the 
 pleasure is unique^ in the proper acceptation of that 
 term the understanding is employed, without dif 
 ficulty, in the contemplation of the picture as a 
 whole and thus its effect will depend, in a very 
 great degree, upon the perfection of its finish, upon 
 the nice adaptation of its constituent parts, and 
 especially upon what is rightly termed by Schlegel, 
 the unity or totality of interest." 1 This is the 
 first expression of Poe s intellectual sense of poetic 
 form, the quality in which his early verse was most 
 defective and his latest most eminent. 
 
 The new poems which were published in the 
 "Messenger," out of his compositions since 1831, 
 were the five scenes from that academical drama, 
 " Politian," the " Hymn " in " Morella," " To Mary," 
 
 " To " in " The Visionary," " To Eliza," " To 
 
 Zante," and the " Bridal Ballad." 2 These offer no 
 occasion for remark in this place, except that the 
 latter contained the following stanza, which, per- 
 
 1 Southern Literary Messenger, ii. 113 (January, 1836). 
 
 2 Of these To Mary, To , To Eliza, and the Bridal Ballad 
 
 are now known in revised versions, and the first three are enti 
 tled respectively To F , To One in Paradise, and to To F s 
 
 S. d. An earlier version of To One in Paradise, from 
 
 some unknown source, is quoted from The Athenceum by Curwen 
 in his Sorrow and Song. To Zante was suggested by a passage 
 in Chateaubriand s Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem, already men 
 tioned. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 95 
 
 haps, marks the nadir of Poe s descent into the 
 prosaic, tasteless, and absurd : - 
 
 "And thus they said I plighted 
 
 An irrevocable vow, 
 And my friends are all delighted 
 That I his love have requited, 
 And my mind is much benighted 
 
 If I am not happy now." 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add that the maturer 
 judgment of the poet canceled these lines, nor 
 would it be useful to revive their memory were it 
 not to give, by a striking example, an impression 
 once for all of the real worthlessness of much of 
 Poe s early work. Of his old poems he reprinted 
 in the " Messenger," in forms more or less revised, 
 "Irene," U A P^ean," "The Valley Nis," "To 
 Helen," "To Science," "Israfel," "The City of 
 Sin," from the New York volume, and " The 
 Coliseum," a fragment of "Politian," from the 
 Baltimore " Saturday Visiter." 
 
 The paucity of Poe s poetic productions while 
 editing the " Messenger " may be laid partly to his 
 lack of leisure. Indeed, he never wrote poetry 
 except in seasons of solitary musing. Now he was 
 largely employed in the correspondence and routine 
 business of the office, or in simply furnishing copy, 
 or attracting public interest by attention to the 
 topics of the hour. The most noted article of this 
 transitory nature was that in which he demon 
 strated that Maelzel s Chess Player must be oper 
 ated by human agency, and solved the methods 
 
96 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 used. The paper was well reasoned, and shows 
 that its author had a quick and observant eye, but 
 it has been vastly overrated, as any one may con 
 vince himself by comparing it minutely with Sir 
 David Brewster s " Letters on Natural Magic," to 
 which it stands confessedly obliged, and from which 
 it is partly paraphrased. Another article, " Pina- 
 kidia," being selections from Poe s commonplace 
 book, is worth a moment s detention for the light 
 it incidentally throws on his habits as a scholar. 
 In prefacing the clippings (which by an obvious 
 but very unfortunate misprint, never as yet cor 
 rected in any edition of his works, are declared to 
 be original instead of not original), he says that in 
 foreign magazines extracts of this sort are usually 
 taken " by wholesale from such works as the Bib- 
 liotheque des Memorabilia Literaria, the Recueil 
 des Bon (sic) Pensees, the Lettres Edifiantes et 
 Curieuses, the Literary Memoirs of Sallengre, 
 the Melanges Lite*raires of Suard and Andre, 
 or the 4 Pieces Interessantes et Pen Counties of 
 La Place." 1 These titles must have been taken 
 down at hap-hazard, for a thorough search of bib 
 liographies fails to reveal the existence of the first 
 two, and the others, apart from their bad French, 
 are incorrectly given. The earmark in this mas 
 querade of borrowed learning is seen in the " Me 
 langes LiteYaires of Suard and Andre," a title 
 evidently noted from the recent translation of 
 i Works, ii. 507. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 97 
 
 " Schlegel s Lectures on the Drama " (which fur 
 nished some extracts to the body of the article), for 
 there alone it occurs, the translator having erred in 
 rendering " Suard und Andre" (andere), that is, 
 Suard and others ; Poe innocently followed him, 
 and so tripped. The satirical young editor goes on 
 to say that " Disraeli s Curiosities of Literature, 
 Literary Character, and Calamities of Authors 
 have of late years proved exceedingly convenient 
 to some little American pilferers in this line, but 
 are now becoming too generally known ; " and forth 
 with he .takes from this same convenient repertory 
 several fine bits, including nearly all the alleged 
 plagiarisms of the poets. 1 Similar examples of the 
 disingenuousness of Poe, the flimsiness of his pre 
 tended scholarship, and his readiness to appropriate 
 from others by easy paraphrase occur throughout 
 his career. 
 
 In Poe s private life during the eighteen months 
 of his residence at Richmond the principal event 
 was his public marriage to his cousin. On May 16, 
 
 1 A more curious instance of Poe s mode of dealing with author 
 ities is his note on Israfel, which originally read, " And the angel 
 Israfel, who has the sweetest voice of all God s creatures : Koran." 
 The passage referred to is not in the Koran, but in Sale s Pre 
 liminary Discourse (iv. 71). Poe derived it from the notes to 
 Moore s Lalla Roolch, where it is correctly attributed to Sale. At 
 a later time he interpolated the entire phrase, "whose heart 
 strings are a lute" (the idea on which his poem is founded), 
 which is neither in Moore, Sale, nor the Koran ; and with this 
 highly original emendation, the note now stands in his Works as 
 an extract from the Koran. 
 
 n m*r OL , - 
 
 \A, 
 
98 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 1836, having secured one Thomas W. Cleland as 
 his surety, he gave a marriage bond as the law re 
 quired ; and Cleland was further obliging enough to 
 take oath before the deputy clerk, Charles Howard, 
 " that Virginia E. Clemm is of the full age of 
 twenty-one years, and a resident of the said city." 1 
 The ceremony was performed on the evening of the 
 same day at the boarding-house of the family, by 
 the Rev. Amasa Converse, a Presbyterian minis 
 ter, then editor of the " Southern Religious Tele 
 graph." 2 Mrs. Clemm, whom the minister remem 
 bered as " being polished, dignified, and agreeable 
 in her bearing," was present, and gave her consent 
 freely ; the bride, too, had a pleasing manner, but 
 seemed to him very young. 3 Virginia was in fact 
 slightly under fourteen. Poe was twenty-seven. 
 
 At this time it was expected that Mrs. Clemm, 
 who had not abandoned her plan of starting a 
 boarding-house, would rent a house recently pur 
 chased by Mr. White, and would board himself 
 and family as well as the newly-married pair. The 
 arrangement had been made, and Poe had expended 
 all his money and incurred a debt of two hundred 
 dollars in buying furniture before it was discovered 
 that the house was barely large enough for one 
 family, and the scheme was abandoned. In his 
 
 1 Hustings Court Records, Richmond, Va. 
 
 2 Southern Religious Telegraph, May 20, 1836; Richmond En 
 quirer, May 20, 1836. 
 
 3 Mrs. F. B. Converse to the author, May 20, 1884. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 99 
 
 consequent financial embarrassment, Poe wrote to 
 Kennedy on June 7, and asked a loan of one hun 
 dred dollars for six months in order to meet a note 
 for the same amount due in three months (perhaps 
 the money advanced by George Poe in February), 
 which he declared was his only debt. His salary, 
 he said, was fifteen dollars a week, and after No 
 vember was to be twenty ; and added, " Our Mes 
 senger is thriving beyond all expectation, and I 
 myself have every prospect of success." l Kennedy 
 probably acceded to this request ; but however that 
 was, the little family took up their abode together, 
 and were temporarily, at least, well provided for. 
 
 Poe might now justly regard his future as bright. 
 The " Messenger " had so prospered under his man 
 agement that it was an assured success, and was 
 likely to afford him a constantly increasing income. 
 His reputation was steadily growing ; the veteran 
 Pauldittg declared him the best of the young and 
 perhaps of the old writers ; the Southern press was 
 vociferous in its praises, and Poe, whose virtue was 
 never modesty, took good care that these acclaims 
 should not die away unechoed, as his advertising- 
 columns still show. He was settled in life ; his sal 
 ary was seven hundred and eighty dollars, and was 
 to be a thousand and forty ; he was actively plan 
 ning for future work, and plainly contemplated a 
 long residence in the city ; and yet in a few months 
 he was again a wanderer. The first number of the 
 1 Poe to Kennedy, Ingram, i. 140. 
 
100 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 magazine for 1837 announced that, " Mr. Poe s at 
 tention being called in another direction, lie will 
 decline, with the present number, the editorial du 
 ties of the 4 Messenger ; " and on a later page Mr. 
 White added that the resignation had taken effect 
 January 3, but would not prevent Poe s contrib 
 uting articles from time to time. In this number, 
 nearly one third of the matter, about thirty-five oc 
 tavo pages, was by Poe, but up to this date he had 
 published no original tale since the previous April, 
 and no poem since August ; of criticism, however, 
 there was usually no lack. It is more significant 
 that the October issue was delayed by the illness 
 of both editor and publisher, and the November 
 issue by a press of business, while in the latter 
 there is a very marked shrinking of the space de 
 voted to reviews. Some light is thrown upon the 
 matter by the following undated letter : 
 
 MY DEAR EDGAR : I cannot address you in such lan 
 guage as this occasion and my feelings demand: I must 
 he content to speak to you in my plain way. That you 
 are sincere in all your promises I firmly believe. But 
 when you once again tread these streets, I have my 
 fears that your resolutions will fail and that you will 
 again drink till your senses are lost. If you rely on 
 your strength you are gone. Unless you look to your 
 Maker for help you will not be safe. How much I re 
 gretted parting from you is known to Him only and 
 myself. I had become attached to you ; I am still ; and 
 I would willingly say return, did not a knowledge of 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 101 
 
 your past life make me dread a speedy renewal of our 
 separation. If you would make yourself contented with 
 quarters in my house, or with any other private family, 
 where liquor is not used, I should think there was some 
 hope for you. But if you go to a tavern or to any place 
 where it is used at table, you are not safe. You have 
 fine talents, Edgar, and you ought to have them re 
 spected, as well as yourself. Learn to respect yourself, 
 and you will soon find that you are respected. Separate 
 yourself from the bottle, and from bottle companions, for 
 ever. Tell me if you can and will do so. If you again 
 become an assistant in my office, it must be understood 
 that all engagements on my part cease the moment you 
 get drunk. I am your true friend. T. W. W. 1 
 
 The circumstance to which this note refers evi 
 dently belongs to an early period in Poe s editorship 
 and was antecedent to his marriage. It has been 
 suggested that the direct cause of Poe s resignation 
 was Mr. White s declining to allow him higher 
 wages or a share in the profits of the magazine; 
 but both the demand and the refusal are mere sup 
 positions. It is possible that his head was turned 
 by his rapid and brilliant success, and he was the 
 less solicitous to retain his post, particularly if, as 
 has been asserted, 2 he had received an invitation 
 from Dr. Francis L. Hawks, a North Carolina di 
 vine settled in New York city, to contribute to the 
 newly projected " New York Keview." But when 
 it is recollected that Mr. White was Poe s attached 
 
 i Griswold, xxx. 2 Hirst. 
 
102 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 friend, and must have required on business grounds 
 very strong reasons to make him part with the ed 
 itor who had proved his capacity by making the 
 " Messenger " the good investment it was, to a can 
 did mind it seems more probable that the extraor 
 dinary effects of Poe s fits of intoxication, however 
 infrequent, the irregularity they caused at the time 
 and the exhaustion they left behind, furnished the 
 real ground for Mr. White s determination to let 
 his protege go. Mr. Kennedy, who should have 
 known the facts, writes in reference to this incident 
 of Poe s life, "He was irregular, eccentric, and 
 querulous, and soon gave up his place." 1 Poe him 
 self afterwards confessed, as will be seen, that at 
 Richmond he gave way at long intervals to tempta 
 tion, and after each excess was invariably confined 
 to his bed for some days. The only contemporary 
 reference by him to this matter occurs in a business 
 letter, in which, although it was written six days 
 after his resignation went into effect, he accepts an 
 article from a West Point classmate without any 
 hint that he had ceased to be the editor of the mag 
 azine, except that he begs pardon for delay because 
 of " ill health and a weight of various and harass 
 ing business." 2 These facts all go to support the 
 view that Mr. White, after exercising forbearance 
 for a while, at last refused to yield to Poe s peni 
 tence, and insisted on a separation, which, however, 
 
 1 Life of John Pendleton Kennedy, p. 376. 
 
 2 Poe to Allan B. Magruder, January 9, 1837. MS. 
 
AT THE SOUTH. 103 
 
 was not suddenly or violently effected. The two 
 parted friends, and Mr. White continued through 
 out life to speak of Poe with great kindness and 
 warm feeling. When the matter was settled Poe 
 wrote to his old friend Wilmer, who was starving in 
 Baltimore, that if he would come to Richmond the 
 position would be given to him. 1 This Wilmer was 
 unable to do, and it fell to the lot of some other 
 editor to wonder why Poe, who soon left the city, 
 furnished no more installments of his serial narra 
 tive, " Arthur Gordon Pym," which had just been 
 begun in the " Messenger." 
 
 1 Our Press Gang, p. 40. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 ON leaving Richmond Poe made his way with 
 his family by slow stages through Baltimore and 
 Philadelphia to New York, where he took up his 
 residence at 113 Carmine Street. If he had gone 
 there with the expectation of obtaining literary em 
 ployment from the editor of the " New York Re 
 view," he was soon undeceived. The first number 
 of that magazine had appeared in March, but the 
 financial panic that then swept over the country 
 made the enterprise more difficult and hazardous, 
 and the second issue was delayed until October. 
 In this was a notice by Poe of Stephens " Travels 
 in Arabia Petrsea," prepared at an earlier time and 
 now rewritten. The article, which was attributed 
 to Secretary Cass, is a skillful compilation, by open 
 extract and secret paraphrase, from the book under 
 review and Keith s lately published work on Proph 
 ecy ; it is written in a very orthodox vein, but its 
 main point is a criticism of that doctor s inter 
 pretation of a few verses in Isaiah and Ezekiel 
 respecting Iduma3a, and turns on a rendering from 
 the Hebrew about which Poe could have had no 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 105 
 
 original knowledge. Of this passage, probably the 
 most learned in appearance that he ever wrote, Poe 
 was proud, and he reprinted it at every favorable 
 opportunity throughout his life. The scholarship, 
 whoever furnished it, was sound, and in later edi 
 tions of Keith the objectional paragraphs are omit 
 ted. So far as is known Poe did not again con 
 tribute to the theological quarterly. 
 
 He gave his attention during this winter princi 
 pally to the " Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," 1 
 which was announced by the Harpers in May, 
 1838, and was published at the end of July. Tales 
 of the sea, under the influence of Cooper and Mar- 
 ryatt, were then at the height of their popularity, 
 and many grew up and withered in a day. In se 
 lecting his subject, however, Poe was not merely 
 adopting the literary fashion, but with the business 
 adroitness of the born magazinist he was trading on 
 the momentary curiosity of the public, which was 
 highly interested in Antarctic explorations in con- 
 
 1 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, of Nantuckct ; compris 
 ing the Details of a Mutiny and Atrocious Butchery on board the 
 American Brig Grampus, on her Way to the South Seas with an 
 Account of the Recapture of the Vessel by the Survivors ; their 
 Shipwreck, and subsequent Horrible Sufferings from Famine ; 
 their Deliverance by means of the British Schooner Jane Gray; 
 the brief Cruise of this latter Vessel in the Antarctic Ocean ; her 
 Capture, and the Massacre of her Crew among a Group of Islands 
 in the 84th parallel of Southern latitude ; together with the in 
 credible Adventures and Discoveries still further South, to which 
 that distressing Calamity gave rise. 12mo, pp.198. New York: 
 Harper & Brothers, 1838. 
 
106 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 sequence of the expedition then fitting out under 
 the auspices of the government. Poe, who was ac 
 quainted with the chief projector, J. N. Reynolds, 
 had found some attraction in the scheme from the 
 first. He had reviewed the Congressional report 
 on the matter and twice written editorially about 
 it while still editor of the " Messenger." In this 
 way his attention was originally drawn to the sub 
 ject, and in course of time the new book of travels 
 was published, apparently on the recommendation 
 of Mr. Paulding. 1 
 
 The narrative is circumstantial and might well 
 seem plausible to the unreflecting and credulous, 
 although there are a few tell-tale slips, as where in 
 the fifth chapter Augustus, who died on the voyage, 
 is said to have revealed some matters to Arthur 
 only in later years. Its credibility, however, is not 
 so strange, nor the realistic art so ingenious, as 
 might be thought, since portions of it are either 
 suggested from other lately printed books, such as 
 Irving s "Astoria," or directly compiled (the de 
 tailed account of the South Seas is taken almost 
 textually from Morell s " Voyages " 2 ) by the easy 
 process of close paraphrase. What is peculiar to 
 the book is its accumulation of blood-curdling inci 
 dents. All the horrors of the deep are brought in 
 
 1 Hirst. 
 
 2 Narrative of Four Voyages to the South Seas and Pacific, 
 1822-1831. By Benjamin Morell. New York, 1832. Pp. 183 
 et seq. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 107 
 
 and huddled up together ; the entombment of Ar 
 thur in the hold, where he suffers everything pos 
 sible to his situation, from starvation to an attack 
 by a mad dog, the butchery of the mutineers, the 
 sickening riot, the desperate fight between the two 
 factions on board, poison, shipwreck, cannibalism 
 among friends, make the staple of the first part of 
 Pyrn s adventures ; some portions, such as the dis 
 guise of Pym as a putrescent corpse, the ship of 
 carrion men with the feeding gull, or the details 
 of Augustus s death, are so revoltingly horrible, so 
 merely physically disgusting, that one can hardly 
 understand how even Poe could endure to suggest 
 or develop them. Death in every fearful form is 
 the constant theme ; even after the ship reaches the 
 Southern regions the author diversifies his geo 
 graphical and botanical extracts only by the appre 
 hension of living inhumation, or the analysis of the 
 sensation of falling down a precipice, or wholesale 
 murder. Poe s touch is noticeable here and there 
 throughout, it is true, but he does not show the dis 
 tinctive subtlety, force, and fire of his genius until 
 the very end, and then only in a way to discredit 
 the plausibility he had previously aimed at. When 
 the finely imagined isle of Tsalal comes in view, 
 the real tale in its original part begins, and from 
 that point the keeping and gradation of the nar 
 rative is exquisite, while a wonderful interest is 
 afforded by the slight intimation and gradual reve 
 lation of the white country to the South. The cav- 
 
108 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 erns of the hieroglyphs are suggested by the Sinaitic 
 written mountains ; but after the voyagers leave the 
 island and are drawn on toward the pole, the start 
 ling scenery, by which expectation is raised to the 
 highest pitch without loss of vagueness, forms one 
 of his most original and powerful landscapes. 
 
 The volume was noticed by the press, but had 
 little success in this country, and the author, of 
 course, derived no profit from its reprint by Put 
 nam in England, where the country public are said 
 to have been hoaxed by it. The only income of 
 the family at this time seems to have been de 
 rived from Mrs. Clemm s keeping boarders, one of 
 whom, Mr. William Gowans, a bookseller, declares 
 that for the eight months or more during which 
 he lived with the family he never saw Poe other 
 wise than sober, courteous, and gentlemanly. 1 Mrs, 
 Clemm s earnings seem to have been no more than 
 sufficient, since Poe, when in the summer he de 
 cided to remove to Philadelphia, was. forced to bor 
 row money. 
 
 Thither he went in midsummer, but apparently 
 not without encouragement, since in a letter of 
 September 4, to his old acquaintance, Brooks, he 
 declines to write an article upon Irving on the 
 ground that he has " two engagements which it 
 would be ruinous to neglect." 2 This correspond 
 ence was probably begun by Poe on hearing that 
 
 1 Cowan s Sale Catalogue, No. 28, 1870, p. 11. 
 
 2 Poe to Brooks, Didier, p. 65. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 109 
 
 Brooks had bought Fairfield s review, " The North 
 American Quarterly Magazine " of Baltimore, and 
 was to continue it as a monthly under the name 
 of the "American Museum of Literature and the 
 Arts." To these he had already contributed " Li- 
 geia," composed probably in the past summer, 
 which appeared in the first number, in September, 
 and was followed by the satirical extravaganza 
 " The Signora Psyche Zenobia The Scythe of 
 Time " (" How to write a Blackwood Article " and 
 "A Predicament") in December, two pages of 
 " Literary Small Talk " in January, as much more 
 in February, and the poem "The Haunted Palace " 
 in April ; in the fall he had also sent for the " Bal 
 timore Book," an annual edited by Carpenter and 
 Arthur, " Siope " (" Silence "), a fine piece of im 
 aginative prose which was saved from the waste 
 basket by the intercession of Brooks. For these 
 he received very little pay, not more than five or 
 ten dollars an article, if anything at all. 
 
 The mention which Poe made of engagements at 
 Philadelphia refers probably to his text-book of 
 Conchology, upon which he was employed during 
 the winter. This volume 1 has givsn rise to so 
 
 1 The Conchologist s First Book: or, a /System of Testaceous 
 Malacology, arranged expressly for the use of schools, in which 
 the animals, according to Cuvier, arc given with the shells, a 
 great number of new species added, and the whole brought up, as 
 accurately as possible, to the present condition of the science. By 
 Edgar A. Poe. With illustrations of two hundred and fifteen shells, 
 presenting a correct type of each genus. Philadelphia : published 
 
110 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 much discussion that it must receive more notice 
 than it would otherwise deserve. It was charged 
 in his lifetime that the work was a simple reprint 
 of an English book, Captain Thomas Brown s "Con- 
 chology," which Poe had the effrontery to copyright 
 in this country as his own. He indignantly denied 
 the accusation, and said : 
 
 " I wrote the Preface and Introduction, and trans 
 lated from Cuvier the accounts of the animals, &c. All 
 school-books are necessarily made in a similar way." * 
 
 What Poe s understanding was of the manner in 
 which authors of school-books use their authorities 
 may be seen from his own words : 
 
 " It is the practice of quacks to paraphrase page after 
 page, rearranging the order of paragraphs, making a 
 slight alteration in point of fact here and there, but 
 preserving the spirit of the whole, its information, eru 
 dition, etc., etc., while everything is so completely rewrit 
 ten as to leave no room for a direct charge of plagiarism ; 
 and this is considered and lauded as originality. Now, he 
 who, in availing himself of the labors of his predecessors 
 (and it is clear that all scholars must avail themselves of 
 such labors) he who shall copy verbatim the passages 
 to be desired, without attempt at palming off their spirit 
 as original with himself, is certainly no plagiarist, even 
 if he fail to make direct acknowledgment of indebted- 
 
 for the author, by Haswell, Barrington & Haswell,, and for sale 
 by the principal booksellers in the United States. 1839. 12mo, 
 pp. 156. 
 
 1 Poe to , Ingram, i. 168. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. Ill 
 
 ness, i s unquestionably less of the plagiarist than the 
 disingenuous and contemptible quack who wriggles him 
 self, as above explained, into a reputation for originality, 
 a reputation quite out of place in a case of this kind 
 the public, of course, never caring a straw whether he 
 be original or not." ] 
 
 In this passage Poe wrote from experience ; for in 
 the parts of the " Conchologist s First Book" which 
 he claims as his own both methods are pursued. 
 The first is illustrated by the " Introduction," (pp. 
 3-8), which is a close paraphrase from Brown s 2 
 volume, the thoughts being identical in both, their 
 sequence similar, and the authorities quoted the 
 same. The second is illustrated by the plates, 
 which are copied from Brown, and by the " Expla 
 nation of the Parts of Shells " (pp. 9-20), which is 
 verbatim from the same source, and the " classifica 
 tion," which is reprinted from " Wyatt s Conchol- 
 &y>" 3 a large and expensive volume published the 
 preceding year, to which Poe acknowledges his ob 
 ligations in his preface. In the body of the work, 
 
 1 Works, ii. 46. 
 
 2 The Conchologist s Text-Book. Embracing the arrangements 
 of Lamarck and Linnrcus, with a glossary of technical terms. By 
 Captain Thomas Brown, Fellow, etc., etc. Illustrated by 19 en 
 gravings on steel. Fourth edition. Glasgow : Archibald Fullar- 
 ton&Co. 1837. 
 
 8 A Manual of Conchology according to the System laid down h) 
 Lamarck, ivith the Late Improvements of De Blainville. Exemplified 
 and arranged for the Use of Students. By Thomas Wyatt, M. A. 
 Illustrated by 36 plates, etc., etc. New York : Harper & Broth 
 ers. 1838. 
 
112 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 the order, the nomenclature, and the descriptions 
 of the shells are a paraphrase of Wyatt, at first 
 close, but as the writer grew more deft at the phra 
 seology more free ; and the description of the ani 
 mals is, as Poe stated, translated from Cuvier. The 
 volume concludes with an original glossary and an 
 index from Wyatt. 
 
 These being the facts as they are shown by a 
 direct comparison of all the books involved, there 
 can be no doubt that the real state of the case 
 is given by Professor John Gr. Anthony, of Har 
 vard College, who received his information from 
 Wyatt. The latter said that as his work of the 
 previous year proved too expensive for the public, 
 and as the Harpers refused to bring it out in a 
 cheaper form, it was determined to publish a new 
 book which should be sufficiently different from the 
 former to escape any suit for the infringement of 
 copyright ; and Poe was selected to father it. 1 This 
 is supported by the fact that Wyatt, who went 
 about lecturing on the subject, carried the volume 
 with him for sale. It was copyrighted in Poe s 
 name, and appeared about April, 1839, when it was 
 favorably noticed by the press. 2 The most that can 
 be said for Poe is that he shared the responsibility 
 with others, unless, indeed, some one should be 
 
 1 Professor John G. Anthony to John Parker, June 22, 1875. 
 MS. 
 
 2 Saturday Evening Chronicle and Mirror of the Times, Philadel 
 phia, April 27, 1839. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 113 
 
 found with sufficient hardihood to maintain that 
 Poe was ignorant of the true character of the book 
 to which he put his name. He has been credited, 
 too, with a translation and digest of Lemmonnier s 
 " Natural History," which was published the same 
 spring under Wyatt s name ; but there is no indica 
 tion that he had any hand in this work except his 
 own statement, in reviewing it, that he spoke " from 
 personal knowledge, and the closest inspection and 
 collation." l 
 
 While this volume was in preparation Poe had 
 begun to establish some connection with the city 
 press, perhaps by the assistance of Wilmer, who 
 was now pursuing his checkered journalistic career 
 in Philadelphia, and on May 8 he published the 
 grotesque sketch of " The Devil in the Belfry," in 
 the " Saturday Evening Chronicle." In one way 
 and another he made his name known at least lo 
 cally, and found work to do, however humble and 
 ill paid. One E. Burke Fisher, an old contribu 
 tor to the " Messenger," who in May of this year 
 had ventured with another sanguine man, Mr. W. 
 Whitney, to start a magazine, " The Literary Ex 
 aminer and Western Monthly Review," at Pitts- 
 burg, then at the extreme confines of the American 
 literary world, made him an offer of four dollars a 
 page for critical reviews ; but as Fisher published 
 the single article which he received editorially, and 
 with emendations of his own, it led only to Poe s 
 
 1 Burton s Gentleman s Magazine, v. 62 (July, 1839). 
 8 
 
114 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 declaring that "no greater scamp ever lived," l and 
 congratulating himself that the magazine died the 
 next month without circulating its fourth number. 
 He took the insult probably with a more cheerful 
 if not a higher spirit because he had already ob 
 tained permanent employment and a fresh oppor 
 tunity to distinguish himself as an editor. 
 
 In July, 1837, William Evans Burton, an Eng 
 lish comedian who was ambitious of winning liter 
 ary as well as histrionic fame in his adopted coun 
 try, had launched " The Gentleman s Magazine " 
 in the very darkest period of the financial depres 
 sion, and with singular felicity he had succeeded in 
 his venture. At first this periodical, which he both 
 owned and edited, was characterized by the lightest 
 of stories and the most sluggish of poems ; it was 
 padded with clippings, translations, and the usual 
 et ccetera of its kind, including the scrappy reviews, 
 made principally by the scissors, that then went 
 under the name of criticism ; but Burton devoted 
 himself to developing local talent, and the Phila 
 delphia editors, novelists, and poetasters, male and 
 female, stood by their patron. The fourth volume 
 began, in 1839, with golden promises of better 
 printing, elegant engravings, and contributions 
 from a long list of writers, in which, beside the 
 names of Leigh Hunt, Douglas Jerrold, and James 
 Montgomery, whose wares were presumably stolen, 
 figured the patronymics of thirty-two native au- 
 1 Poe to J. E. Snodgrass, July 12, 1841. MS. copy. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 115 
 
 thors, for the most part of Philadelphia!! or South 
 ern extraction, now all alike impartially forgotten. 
 Poe s friends, Wilmer and Brooks, were among 
 them, but he himself was not mentioned. Once 
 indeed, in the previous September, he had come 
 under the notice of the magazine, but only anony 
 mously as the author of " Arthur Gordon Pym," 
 in which capacity he had been flippantly treated. 
 There is no evidence, and not the least likelihood, 
 that he wrote anything for Burton until July, when 
 his name was printed in conjunction with the for 
 mer s as associate editor of the periodical whose 
 variable title was then " Burton s Gentleman s 
 Magazine and American Monthly Review." 
 
 The paucity of Poe s early contributions goes to 
 confirm this view. In the first number he printed 
 nothing of his own except some old poems and a 
 few brief book notices ; and at the close of the year 
 the only original work done by him exclusively for 
 " Burton s," besides numerous but entirely per 
 functory reviews, consisted of one sonnet, conjec- 
 turally his, though never afterwards acknowledged, 
 and three tales, "The Man that was Used Up," 
 "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Con 
 versation of Eiros and Charmion." " William 
 Wilson" was reprinted from "The Gift" for 1840, 
 and " Morella " from the "Tales of the Grotesque 
 and Arabesque," l published at the end of the year. 
 
 1 Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. By Edgar A. Foe. In 
 two volumes. Philadelphia: Lea & Blan chard. 1840. 16mo. 
 
116 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 This collection of Poe s stories was in two vol 
 umes, and included all those thus far mentioned, 
 and in addition the grotesque " Von Jung " and 
 " Why the Little Frenchman wears his Hand in a 
 Sling," making twenty-five in all. The publishers, 
 Lea & Blanchard, with whom he had previously 
 had some slight correspondence in 1836 in regard 
 to some rejected manuscripts, engaged, September 
 28, 1839, to print an edition of 750 copies, on con 
 dition that Poe should have the copyright and a 
 few copies (afterwards limited to twenty) for dis 
 tribution among his friends, and they should have 
 the profits. When the volume was nearly ready 
 Poe endeavored to obtain better terms, and in re 
 ply received the following letter, which may account 
 for his professed indifference at a later time regard 
 ing the fate of the tales : 
 
 November 20, 1839. 
 
 EDGAR A. POE, We have your note of to-day. 
 The copyright of the Tales would be of no value to 
 us ; when we undertook their publication, it was solely 
 
 The work was copyrighted in 1839, and was dedicated to Colonel 
 William Dray ton. Vol. i. (pp. 243) contained a preface and four 
 teen tales, that is, Morella, Lionizing, William Wilson, The Man 
 that was Used Up, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Due De 
 L Omelette, MS. Found in a Bottle, Bon-Bon, Shadow, The Devil 
 in the Belfry, Ligeia, King Pest, The Signora Zenobia (How to 
 write a Blackwood Article), The Scythe of Time (A Predica 
 ment). Vol. ii. (pp. 228) contained Epimanes, Siope, Hans Pfaall, 
 A Tale of Jerusalem, Von Jung, Loss of Breath, Metzengerstein, 
 Berenice, Why the Little Frenchman wears his Hand in a Sling, 
 The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion. Appendix. 
 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 117 
 
 to oblige you and not with any view to profit, and on 
 this ground it was urged by you. We should not there 
 fore be now called upon or expected to purchase the 
 copyright when we have no expectation of realizing the 
 Capital placed in the volumes. If the offer to publish 
 was now before us we should certainly decline it, and 
 would feel obliged if you knew and would urge some one 
 to relieve us from the publication at cost, or even at a 
 small abatement. 1 
 
 The volumes appeared early in December, and 
 were widely and favorably noticed by the city press 
 and in New York. The sale, however, was not 
 large, and after Poe s own copies were dispatched 
 he broke off intercourse with the firm for some time. 
 
 Three of these reprinted stories deserve some 
 further notice. Two of them, " Ligeia " and " The 
 Fall of the House of Usher," mark the highest 
 reach of the romantic element in Poe s genius, and 
 for the first time exhibit his artistic powers in full 
 development and under easy command. He had . 
 matured in the six years since he penned his first 
 story (he was now thirty), but his growth had been 
 within singularly well-defined limits ; his mind pur 
 sued the strong attraction that fascinated him in 
 that haunted borderland upon the verge but not 
 beyond the sphere of credibility, as the magnet 
 obeys the pole ; but this absorption of his imagina 
 tion in the preternatural was not more extraordi 
 nary than the monotony of the themes that exercised 
 1 Letter-Book of Lea & Blaiichard. 
 
118 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 it. In plot "Ligeia" is the same as "Morella," 
 and "The Fall of the House of Usher" the same 
 as " Berenice ; " in each a single dramatic event 
 had gathered about it in Poe s mind rich accretions 
 of fancy, thought, and suggestiveness, but practi- 
 \ cally there was no change except in treatment, in 
 the art by which the effect originally sought was 
 secured more finely, and in an intenser and more 
 elemental form. In all his best work, however, 
 Poe not only told a story, he also developed an 
 idea, and his later renderings of early conceptions 
 are markedly characterized by an increase in this 
 suggested, or, as he designated it, mystic, meaning. 
 In " Ligeia," which he regarded as his finest tale, 
 he re-wrote " Morella," but for much of its peculiar 
 power he went back to the sources of his youngest 
 inspiration. In " Al Aaraaf " he had framed out 
 of the breath of the night- wind and the idea of the 
 harmony of universal nature a fairy creature, 
 " Ligeia, Ligeia, my beautiful one ! " 
 
 Now by a finer touch he incarnated the motions of 
 the breeze and the musical voices of nature in the 
 form of a woman : but the Lady Ligeia has still no 
 human quality ; her aspirations, her thoughts and 
 capabilities, are those of a spirit ; the very beam and 
 glitter and silence of her ineffable eyes belong to 
 the visionary world. She is, in fact, the maiden 
 of Poe s dream, the Eidolon he served, the air- 
 woven divinity in which he believed ; for he had 
 the true myth-making faculty, the power to make 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 119 
 
 his senses aver what his imagination perceived. In 
 revealing through "Ligeia" the awful might of 
 the soul in the victory of its will over death and in 
 the eternity of its love, Poe worked in the very 
 element of his reverie, in the liberty of a world as 
 as he would have it. Upon this story he lavished 
 all his poetic, inventive, and literary skill, and at 
 last perfected an exquisitely conceived work, and 
 made it, within its own laws, as faultless as hu 
 manity can fashion. He did not once lapse into 
 the crude or repulsive; he blended the material 
 elements of the legend, the mere circumstance and 
 decoration of the scene, like married notes of a 
 sensuous accompaniment, and modulated them with 
 minute and delicate care to chime with the weird 
 suggestions of the things above nature, until all 
 unites and vanishes in an impression on the spirit, 
 in an intimation of the dark possibilities that lie 
 hidden in the eternal secret, adumbrated in the 
 startling event when the raven hair of Ligeia 
 streams down beneath the serpentine flames of the 
 writhing censer, and her eyes open full on her lost 
 lover, as they stand embosomed within the wind- 
 swayed golden hangings whereon the ghastly and 
 sable phantasmagoria keeps up its antic and cease 
 less dance. Without striving to unwind the mazes 
 of the spell that confuses the reader into momentary 
 belief in the incredible, one cannot but note the 
 marvelous certainty with which Poe passes from 
 vaguely suggestive and slightly unusual mutations 
 
120 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 of the senses, and advances by imperceptible grada 
 tions to accustom the mind to increasingly strange 
 and complex changes, incessant and seemingly law 
 less variations, until one is fairly bewildered into 
 accepting the final impossible transformation of 
 the immortal into mortality as merely the final 
 phase of the restless movement in all, and after 
 wards, on returning to the solid world, can scarcely 
 tell where he overstepped the boundaries of reality. 
 As in " Ligeia " the idea of change is elaborated, 
 so in " The Fall of the House of Usher " the in 
 tellectual theme is fear. For the purposes of this 
 story Poe used again the plot of " Berenice," but 
 so purified and developed (in its accidents as to be 
 hardly recognizable. Not a few would rank this 
 tale more high than " Ligeia ; " for, if that be 
 more distinguished by ideality, this is more excel 
 lent in the second virtue in Poe s scale, unity of 
 design. In artistic construction, it does not come 
 short of absolute perfection. The adaptation of the 
 related parts and their union in the total effect are 
 a triumph of literary craft ; the intricate details, as 
 it were mellowing and reflecting one ground tone, 
 have the definiteness and precision of inlaid mo 
 saic, or, like premonitions and echoes of the theme 
 in music, they are so exactly calculated as to secure 
 their end with the certainty of harmonic law itself. 
 The sombre landscape whose hues Poe alone knew 
 the secret of ; the subtle yet not overwrought sym 
 pathy between the mansion and the race that had 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 121 
 
 reared it ; the looks, traits, and pursuits of Usher, its 
 representative ; and the at first scarce-felt presence 
 of Madeline, his worn sister, all is like a narrow 
 ing and ever-intensifying force drawing in to some 
 unknown point ; and when this is reached, in the 
 bright copper-sheathed vault in which Madeline is 
 entombed, and the mind, after that midnight scene, 
 expands and breathes freer air, a hundred obscure 
 intimations, each slight in itself, startle and en 
 chain it, until, slowly as obscurity takes shape in a 
 glimmer of light, Usher s dread discloses itself in 
 its concrete and fearful fulfillment, and at once, 
 by the brief and sudden stroke of death, house, 
 race, and all sink into the black tarn where its 
 glassy image had so long built a shadowy reality. 
 
 Where every syllable tells, it is folly to attempt 
 an analysis of the workmanship. By way of illus 
 tration, however, it may be well to remark on the 
 mode in which the mind is prepared for the coming 
 of Madeline, and made almost to share Usher s 
 diseased acuteness of hearing, by the legendary tale, 
 with its powerful and exclusive appeal to the 
 senses; or to observe such a slight touch as the 
 small picture painted by Usher, the interior of a 
 long rectangular tunnel, deep in the earth, with 
 low, smooth walls, closed and without a torch, yet 
 flooded with intense rays, so clearly prophetic of 
 Madeline s vault, gleaming with metallic lustre, of 
 which, too, some reminiscence still survives in the 
 mind when the same unnatural luminous exhala- 
 
122 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 tion glows from the under-surface of the storm 
 clouds that press upon the turrets of the trem 
 bling house before its fall. Never has the impres 
 sion of total destruction, of absolute and irremedi 
 able ruin, been more strongly given ; had the man 
 sion remained, it would seem as if the extinction of 
 Usher had been incomplete. Doom rests upon all 
 things within the shadow of those walls; it is felt 
 to be impending ; and therefore, Poe, identifying 
 himself with his reader, places the sure seal of truth 
 on the illusion as he exclaims, " From that cham 
 ber and from that mansion I fled aghast." The 
 mind is already upon the recoil as it turns to view 
 the accomplished fatality. 
 
 These two tales deserve more attention in that 
 they are in Poe s prose what " The Raven " and 
 " Ulalume " are in his poetry, the richest of his im 
 aginative work. On them he expended his spirit. 
 There had been no such art before in America ; 
 but, like Hawthorne, he had to wait for any ade 
 quate recognition of his genius. His work in this 
 kind was done ; it could be left, safe as the dia 
 mond. 
 
 In " William Wilson " he opened a new vein. 
 It is the first of his studies of the springs of terror 
 in conscience. The idea itself which is developed 
 in the story, the conception of a double dogging 
 one s steps and thwarting one s evil designs, is an 
 old fancy 1 of men that has taken many shapes 
 
 1 It has been suggested (Ingram and Stoddard) that this tale 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 123 
 
 since Zoroaster saw his phantom in the garden. 
 The psychological element in it is less insisted on 
 than is usual in Poe s finest work, and it conse 
 quently lacks the intensity and spiritual power of 
 his later sketches on similar subjects. It has a 
 peculiar interest as containing an autobiographical 
 account of his school-days in England, but in his 
 own life there was little to serve as a basis for 
 other portions of the narrative. 
 
 Poe had already formed the habit, which no au 
 thor ever practiced so flagrantly, of republishing 
 old material slightly if at all revised. With the 
 exception of the fine sonnet entitled " Silence," all 
 his poetic contributions to " Burton s " were of this 
 sort ; the 1829 edition of his poems afforded " Spir 
 its of the Dead," 1 "Fairyland," 2 and "To the 
 
 River ," 2 and the "Messenger" yielded "To 
 
 lanthe in Heaven " and " To ," l the stanzas 
 
 originally addressed to Eliza White. At the be 
 ginning of the New Year he applied the same con- 
 was from a rare drama by Calderon, El. Embozado or El Capotado, 
 mentioned by Medwin to Irving, and vainly sought for by the latter 
 in Spanish libraries. (Irving s Life and Letters, ii. 232; iv. 70-72.) 
 Medwin undoubtedly had the plot from Shelley. The reference is 
 plainly to EL Purgatorio de San Patricia, a favorite of Shelley s 
 (from which he took a passage of The Cenci), in which Un Hom- 
 bre Embozado is a character. Poe read Medwin s Shelley ; but it 
 is extremely unlikely that he ever saw the drama in question, nor 
 is there any reason to seek so far for his knowledge of a supersti 
 tious idea common to literature. 
 
 1 Unsigned. 
 
 2 Signed " P." 
 
124 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 venient aid to the department of criticism, which 
 had hitherto been very feebly conducted, although 
 he had found opportunity to reproach Longfellow 
 for using so crudely, in " Hyperion," material ca 
 pable of being highly wrought by art, and had 
 praised Fouqud s " Undine " with delightful ap 
 preciation. In the January issue Moore s " Alci- 
 phron" drew from him one of those partial reviews 
 that seem to invalidate the usefulness of any criti 
 cism of contemporaries, and in piecing it out he 
 availed himself of his former remarks on Drake 
 and Marvell in the " Messenger," but openly under 
 the form of self-quotation. In a mediocre notice 
 of Bryant, somewhat later, he again had recourse 
 to the old files, and in other insignificant criticisms 
 he is found airing the bastard Hebrew learning of 
 his article in the "New York Review," and even 
 enumerating once more the storehouses of literary 
 odds and ends, including the mythical memoirs of 
 " Suard and Andre*." The most noticeable arti 
 cle is that review of Longfellow s " Voices of the 
 Night," in which he first urged against the New 
 England poet the charge of plagiarism. He in 
 stanced in particular Tennyson s "The Death of 
 the Old Year " as the source of " The Midnight 
 Mass for the Dying Year." This he characterized 
 as belonging "to the most barbarous class of lit 
 erary robbery ; that class in which, while the words 
 of the wronged author are avoided, his most intan 
 gible, and therefore his least defensible and least 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 125 
 
 reclaimable property, is purloined." 1 In other 
 ways than such book-reviewing as this Poe s mind 
 was also unprofitably employed. A satirical sketch, 
 " Peter Pendulum, the Business Man," and the first 
 of his articles respecting decoration, " The Philos 
 ophy of Furniture," were his only signed contribu 
 tions, for the mere plate or sporting articles may 
 be neglected. 
 
 In each number, however, from January to June 
 appeared an installment of his anonymous work, 
 " The Journal of Julius Rodman, Being an Ac 
 count of the First Passage across the Rocky Moun 
 tains of North America ever achieved by Civilized 
 Man." This narrative is constructed, like that of 
 " Arthur Gordon Pym," so as to win credence by cir 
 cumstantial detail and an affected air of plainness, 
 and Poe would probably have concluded it similarly 
 with weird marvels of nature. Julius Rodman was 
 the son of an Englishman who had settled in Ken 
 tucky. Being left alone by his father s death, he 
 started in his twenty-sixth year professedly on a 
 trapping expedition up the Missouri River, and 
 pushing on for mere adventure crossed the Rocky 
 Mountains in northern regions in 1792, but on 
 returning to Virginia, after three years absence, 
 never conversed respecting his journey, and took 
 great pains to secrete his diary. Unfortunately, 
 although the characters of the exploring party are 
 much more carefully selected than was the case in 
 1 Burton s Gentleman s Magazine, \\. 102-103 (February, 1840). 
 
126 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 " Arthur Gordon Pym," Poe conducted the travelers 
 only to the head waters of the Missouri. The de 
 scription of the trip, in which he followed very 
 closely the obvious authorities, such as Sir Alex 
 ander Mackenzie, Lewis and Clarke, Pike, and 
 Irving, is enlivened only by an attack on the Sioux, 
 the sight of a beaver dam, and a hand-to-hand con 
 flict with a bear. As before, too, he was led to 
 his subject by the public interest which was now 
 especially directed to the exploration of the West. 
 The work as a whole bears no relation to his gen 
 ius, except in a single passage which contains a faint 
 suggestion of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass 
 in "Eleonora." 
 
 With the June installment of the " Journal " 
 Poe s contributions to the magazine ceased, and at 
 the same time his engagement with Burton ab 
 ruptly terminated. There was evidently a serious 
 quarrel between the two editors, but the exact truth 
 regarding it can only be inferred. Poe asserted 
 that Burton had acted dishonorably in advertising 
 prizes for contributions which he never intended to 
 pay, and that this was the ground of his own resig 
 nation; Burton, on his side, circulated scandalous 
 reports in regard to Poe s habits and actions, and 
 described these as the cause of the trouble. It will 
 be best to confine attention to the documentary evi 
 dence, an important part of which is contained in 
 Poe s letters to Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, of Baltimore, 
 who had been Brooks s associate on the " Museum," 
 
JN PHILADELPHIA. 127 
 
 and was afterwards known as an early abolitionist 
 in that city. This correspondence, which began in 
 1839 with a request from Poe that his friend 
 would see that a puff of himself in a St. Louis 
 paper was reprinted and the last numbers of " Bur 
 ton s " noticed by the Baltimore press, extends over 
 three years, and relates mainly to the minor literary 
 affairs of the two, but incidentally some light is 
 thrown on more important matters, and among 
 them on this disagreement between Poe and Bur 
 ton. In reply to a question regarding the prizes 
 offered by Burton, Poe writes, December 19, 1839, 
 as follows : 
 
 "Touching the Premiums. The Advertisement re 
 specting them was written by Mr. Burton, and is not I 
 think as explicit as might [be]. I can give you no in 
 formation about their designation furth]er than is shown 
 in the advertisement itself. The tr[uth is,] I object, in 
 toto, to the whole scheme but merely follow[ed in] 
 Mr. B. s wake upon such matters of business." 1 
 
 Dr. Snodgrass sent on a contribution, but had 
 difficulty in recovering possession of it. Just after 
 the quarrel, Poe wrote to him again, in answer to 
 what seems to have been a pressing letter, as fol 
 lows : 
 
 1 Poe to Snodgrnss, December 19, 1839. This, and all subse 
 quent quotations from the Snodgrass correspondence (partly pub 
 lished in the New York Herald March 27, 1881) not otherwise 
 credited, is from a very careful MS. copy of the originals, made 
 some years since by I3r. William Hand Browne of Baltimore, 
 who annotates on this passage, " MS. burnt and broken. Restora 
 tions in brackets." 
 
128 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 " Touching your Essay, Burton not only lies, but de 
 liberately and wilfully lies ; for the last time but one 
 that I saw him I called his attention to the MS. which 
 was then at the top of a pile of other MSS. sent for pre 
 miums, in a drawer of the office desk. The last day I 
 was in the office I saw the Essay in the same position, 
 and am perfectly sure it is there still. You know it is a 
 peculiar looking MS. and I could not mistake it. In 
 saying it was not in his possession his sole design was to 
 vex you, and through you myself. T^ere I in your 
 place I would take some summary method of dealing 
 with the scoundrel, whose infamous line of conduct in 
 regard to this whole Premium scheme merits, and shall 
 receive exposure. I am firmly convinced that it was 
 never his intention to pay one dollar of the money of 
 fered ; and indeed his plain intimations to that effect, 
 made to me personally and directly, were the imme 
 diate reason of my cutting the connexion so abruptly as I 
 did. If you could, in any way, spare the time to come 
 on to Philadelphia, I think I could put you in the way 
 of detecting this villain in his rascality. I would go 
 down with you to the office, open the drawer in his pres 
 ence, and take the MS. from beneath his very nose. I 
 think this would be a good deed done, and would act as 
 a caution to such literary swindlers in future. What 
 think you of this plan ? Will you come on ? Write im 
 mediately in reply." 1 
 
 In support of Burton s charge of Poe s habits of 
 drinking at this time, nothing has been brought 
 forward except an undated letter from himself to 
 Poe: 
 
 1 Poe to Snodgrass, June 1 7, 1 840. MS. copy. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 129 
 
 " I am sorry you have thought it necessary to send 
 me such a letter. Your troubles have given a morbid 
 tone to your feelings which it is your duty to discourage. 
 I myself have been as severely handled by the world as 
 you can possibly have been, but my sufferings have not 
 tinged my mind with melancholy, nor jaundiced my 
 views of society. You must rouse your energies, and if 
 care assail you, conquer it. I will gladly overlook the 
 past. I hope you will as easily fulfill your pledges for 
 the future. We shall agree very well, though I cannot 
 permit the magazine to be made a vehicle for that sort 
 of severity which you think * so successful with the mob. 
 I am truly much less anxious about making a monthly 
 sensation than I am upon the point of fairness. You 
 must, my dear sir, get rid of your avowed ill-feelings 
 toward your brother authors. You see I speak plainly ; 
 I cannot do otherwise upon such a subject. You say the 
 people love havoc. I think they love justice. I think 
 you yourself would not have written the article on Dawes, 
 in a more healthy state of mind. I am not trammelled 
 by any vulgar consideration of expediency ; I would 
 rather lose money than by such undue severity wound the 
 feelings of a kind-hearted and honorable man. And I 
 am satisfied that Dawes has something of the true fire 
 in him. I regretted your word-catching spirit. But I 
 wander from my design. I accept your proposition to re 
 commence your interrupted avocations upon the Maga. 
 Let us meet as if we had not exchanged letters. Use 
 more exercise, write when feelings prompt, and bu as 
 
 sured of my friendship. You will soon regain a healthy 
 
 activity of mind, and laugh at your past vagaries." l 
 1 Griswold, xxxii. 
 
130 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 There is in this letter no statement nor even any 
 implication that the cause of Poe s temporary resig 
 nation, of which we know only from this source, was 
 drunkenness. All that is said would be more ob 
 viously and naturally explained, both in substance 
 and tone, on the supposition that when Burton re 
 fused to print the censorious criticism on Rufus 
 Dawes Poe gave way to his anger, perhaps used 
 high words, and in a moment of pique left his sit 
 uation ; on returning to himself, and under the 
 strong pressure of poverty at home, it is not un 
 likely that he surprised Burton by one of his self- 
 humiliating and bitter letters, and that Burton 
 wrote to him the foregoing kindly reply. This sup 
 position explains everything that is said, whereas 
 the assumption that Poe had been on a drunken 
 spree is not required by any phrase or sentence, 
 and would fail to explain why the entire letter 
 deals with the subject of Poe s criticism and the 
 temperament out of which it sprang. 
 
 Independently of this letter, however, it is plain 
 that Burton did charge Poe with the vicious habit 
 which he would find most difficulty in denying. 
 Dr. Snodgrass heard the story at second hand, and 
 nearly nine months later wrote about it to Poe, 
 who was then editor of " Graham s." The reply is 
 at length and explicit : 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, April 1, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR SNODGRASS : I fear you have been think 
 ing it was not my design to answer your kind letter at 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 131 
 
 all. It is now April Fool s Day, and yours is dated 
 March 8th ; but believe me, although, for good reason, 
 I may occasionally postpone my reply to your favors, I 
 am never in danger of forgetting them. 
 
 In regard to Burton. I feel indebted to you for the 
 kind interest you express ; but scarcely know how to re 
 ply. My situation is embarrassing. It is impossible, as 
 you say, to notice a buffoon and a felon, as one gentle 
 man would notice another. The law, then, is my only 
 resource. Now, if the truth of a scandal could be ad 
 mitted in justification I mean of what the law terms 
 a scandal I would have matters all my own way. I 
 would institute a suit, forthwith, for his personal defa 
 mation of myself. He would be unable to prove the 
 truth of his allegations. I could prove their falsity and 
 their malicious intent by witnesses who, seeing me at all 
 hours of every day, would have the best right to speak 
 I mean Burton s own clerk, Morrell, and the compositors 
 of the printing office. In fact, I could prove the scan 
 dal almost by acclamation. I should obtain damages. 
 But, on the other hand, I have never been scrupulous in 
 regard to what I have said of him. I have always told 
 him to his face, and everybody else, that I looked upon 
 him as a blackguard and a villain. This is notorious. 
 He would meet me with a cross action. The truth of 
 the allegation which I could [as] easily prove as he 
 would find it difficult to prove the truth of his own re 
 specting me would not avail me. The law will not 
 admit, as justification of my calling Billy Burton a scoun 
 drel, that Billy Burton is really such. What then can 
 I do ? If I sue, he sues : you see how it is. 
 
132 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 At the same time as I may, after further reflection, 
 be induced to sue, I would take it as an act of kindness 
 not to say justice on your part, if you would see 
 the gentleman of whom you spoke, and ascertain with 
 accuracy all that may legally avail .me ; that is to say, 
 what and when were the words used, and whether your 
 friend would be willing for your sake, for my sake, and 
 for the sake of truth, to give evidence if called upon. 
 Will you do this for me ? 
 
 So far for the matter inasmuch as it concerns Burton. 
 I have now to thank you for your defence of myself, as 
 stated. You are a physician, and I presume no physi 
 cian can have difficulty in detecting the drunkard at a 
 glance. You are, moreover, a literary man, well read 
 in morals. You will never be brought to believe that I 
 could write what I daily write, as I write it, were I as 
 this villain would induce those who know me not, to be 
 lieve. In fine, I pledge you, before God, th e solemn 
 word of a gentleman, that I am temperate even to rigor. 
 From the hour in which I first saw this basest of ca 
 lumniators to the hour in which I retired from his office 
 in uncontrollable disgust at his chicanery, arrogance, ig 
 norance and brutality, nothing stronger than water ever 
 passed my lips. 
 
 It is, however, due to candor that I inform you upon 
 what foundation he has erected his slanders. At no 
 period of my life was I ever what men call intemperate. 
 I never was in the habit of intoxication. I never drunk 
 drams, &c. But, for a brief period, while I resided in 
 Richmond, and edited the Messenger I certainly did 
 give way, at long intervals, to the temptation held out 
 on all sides by the spirit of Southern conviviality. My 
 sensitive temperament could not stand an excitement 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 133 
 
 which was an every day matter to my companions. In 
 short, it sometimes happened that I was completely in 
 toxicated. For some days after each excess I was in 
 variably confined to bed. But it is now quite four years 
 since I have abandoned every kind of alcoholic drink 
 four years, with the exception of a single deviation, 
 which occurred shortly after my leaving Burton, and 
 when I was induced to resort to the occasional use of 
 cider, with the hope of relieving a nervous attack. 
 
 You will thus see, frankly stated, the whole amount 
 of my sin. You will also see the blackness of that 
 heart which could revive a slander of this nature. 
 Neither can you fail to perceive how desperate the ma 
 lignity of the slanderer must be how resolute he must 
 be to slander, and how slight the grounds upon which 
 he would build up a defamation since he can find 
 nothing better with which to charge me than an accusa 
 tion which can be disproved by each and every man 
 with whom I am in the habit of daily intercourse. 
 
 I have now only to repeat to you, in general, my sol 
 emn assurance that my habits are as far removed from 
 intemperance as the day from the night. My sole drink 
 is water. 
 
 Will you do me the kindness to repeat this assurance 
 to such of your own friends as happen to speak of me 
 in your hearing ? 
 
 I feel that nothing more is requisite, and you will 
 agree with me upon reflection. 
 
 Hoping soon to hear from you, I am, 
 
 Yours most cordially, 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 
 DR. J. E. SNODGRASS. 
 
 1 Foe to Snodgrass, Baltimore American, April, 1881. 
 
134 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Unfortunately, this disclaimer is traversed by a 
 letter from Mr. C. W. Alexander, the publisher of 
 the magazine, to Mr. T. C. Clarke, of Philadel 
 phia. In answer to the question whether Poe s al 
 leged irregularities at that time were such as to 
 interfere with his work, Mr. Alexander writes : 
 
 " The absence of the principal editor on professional 
 duties left the matter frequently in the hands of Mr. 
 Poe, whose unfortunate failing may have occasioned 
 some disappointment in the preparation of a particular 
 article expected from him, but never interfering with the 
 regular publication of the " Gentleman s Magazine," as 
 its monthly issue was never interrupted upon any occa 
 sion, either from Mr. Poe s deficiency, or from any other 
 cause, during my publication of it, embracing the whole 
 time of Mr. Poe s connection with it. That Mr. Poe 
 .had faults seriously detrimental to his own interests, 
 none, of course, will deny. They were, unfortunately, 
 too well known in the literary circles of Philadelphia, 
 were there any disposition to conceal them. But he 
 alone was the sufferer, and not those who received the 
 benefit of his preeminent talents, however irregular his 
 habits or uncertain his contributions may occasionally 
 have been." * 
 
 It is possible that Mr. Alexander, writing ten 
 years after the event, may have confused his recol 
 lections and antedated the intemperance of Poe, 
 which became frequent and notorious during the 
 next year. Were it not for this letter there would 
 i Alexander to Clarke, October 20, 1850, Gill, p. 97. 
 
7^ PHILADELPHIA. 135 
 
 be no direct evidence that Poe was not, as lie 
 claimed to be, a sober man from the time he left 
 Richmond to that of his wife s illness in 1841, and 
 this would agree with GowanV account of him in 
 New York and with Mrs. Clemm s statement, re 
 ported by Mr. R. E. Shapley, of Philadelphia, 
 " For years I know he did not taste even a glass of 
 wine." To no other period of his mature life are 
 these words applicable. It should be noted, too, 
 that Wilmer, who sometimes met him in Philadel 
 phia, says that during their acquaintance he " did 
 not see him inebriated ; no, not in a single in 
 stance;" 1 but in his "Recollections" he asserts un 
 qualifiedly that this fault was the cause of all of 
 Poe s differences with his employers. Probably 
 the true cause of the trouble was less Poe s habits 
 than his acts ; it was of a business nature, and in 
 the affair each party seems to have had matter for 
 complaint. Burton, who it will be remembered 
 was a comic actor, had got into quarrels with the 
 managers, and he determined to have a theatre of 
 his own ; to obtain this he needed funds, and by 
 way of raising them he advertised his magazine 
 for sale without mentioning his intention to Poe. 
 The latter, on his part, arranged to issue a prospec 
 tus of a new and rival monthly, " The Penii Mag 
 azine," without advising Burton. He had long 
 had a strong ambition to have a magazine of his 
 own. In fact, he was always waiting to find some 
 
 1 Our Press Gang, p. 284. 
 
136 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 one with capital to embark in the enterprise, and 
 while still on Burton s was constantly uneasy 
 through the indulgence of this hope. In a letter 
 to Snodgrass, written six months before, there oc 
 curs a characteristic passage : 
 
 " I have heard, indirectly, that an attempt is to be 
 made by some one of capital in Baltimore, to get up a 
 Magazine. Have you heard anything of it? If you 
 have, will you be kind enough to let me know all about 
 it by return of mail if you can spend the time to 
 oblige me I am particularly desirous of understand 
 ing how the matter stands who are the parties, &c." 1 
 
 He was now preparing his prospectus, and no 
 doubt hoped that Burton s going out of the trade 
 would help his own prospects. He might fairly 
 expect that in the changes about to take place 
 some of the subscribers to the " Gentleman s " 
 would remain with him, who, as its real editor, had 
 won position and respect, especially with the press 
 of the city, and that they would form a nucleus 
 for the circulation of the "Penn." Whether in 
 fact he did, as was charged by Griswold, obtain 
 transcripts of Burton s subscription-list and other 
 valuable papers, for his own use, remains in doubt. 
 It was an obvious thing for him to do ; he was out 
 of humor with Burton, and as he believed that the 
 latter would soon sell he may not have regarded it 
 as a dishonorable proceeding. Undoubtedly Bur 
 ton looked on Poe s action in advertising his new 
 1 Poe to Snodgrass, January 21, 1840. MS. copy. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 137 
 
 enterprise at that moment as likely to diminish the 
 selling value of his property ; if in addition Poe at 
 tempted to secure his subscribers in an underhand 
 way, he would have had cause to be offended, and 
 if he remonstrated Poe may have told him that he 
 " looked upon him as a blackguard and a villain," 
 in the phrases of his letter to Snodgrass. That 
 there is no explicit mention of the charge in the 
 following letter, in which Poe makes his explana 
 tion to his employer, counts for nothing in view 
 of the points that mark omissions ; but the letter, 
 as edited, proves with sufficient certainty that the 
 " Perm Magazine " was the apple of discord, and 
 it has, besides, interesting bearings as an indica 
 tion of Poe s daily habits of business, his demeanor 
 and temper. 
 
 SIR : I find myself at leisure this Monday morn 
 ing, June 1, to notice your very singular letter of Sat 
 urday. ... I have followed the example of Victorine 
 and slept upon the matter, and you shall now hear what 
 I have to say. In the first place, your attempts to bully 
 me excite in my mind scarcely any other sentiment than 
 mirth. When you address me again, preserve, if you 
 can, the dignity of a gentleman. ... I shall feel my 
 self more at liberty to be explicit. As for the rest, you 
 do me gross injustice ; and you know it. As usual, you 
 have wrought yourself into a passion with me on ac 
 count of some imaginary wrong ; for no real injury, or 
 attempt at injury, have you ever received at my hands. 
 As I live, I am utterly unable to say why you are an 
 gry, or what true grounds of complaint you have against 
 
138 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 me. You are a man of impulses ; have made yourself, 
 in consequence, some enemies ; have been in many re 
 spects ill-treated by those whom you had looked upon as 
 friends and these things have rendered you suspicious. 
 You once wrote in your magazine a sharp critique upon 
 a book of mine a very silly book Pym. Had I 
 written a similar criticism upon a book of yours, you 
 feel that you would have been my enemy for life, and 
 you therefore imagine in my bosom a latent hostility to 
 wards yourself. This has been a mainspring in your 
 whole conduct towards me since our first acquaintance. 
 It has acted to prevent all cordiality. In a general 
 view of human nature your idea is just but you will 
 find yourself puzzled in judging me by ordinary motives. 
 Your criticism was essentially correct, and therefore, 
 although severe, it did not occasion in me one solitary 
 emotion either of anger or dislike. But even while I 
 write these words, I am sure you will not believe them. 
 Did I not still think you, in spite of the exceeding lit 
 tleness of some of your hurried actions, a man of many 
 honorable impulses, I should not now take the trouble to 
 send you this letter. I cannot permit myself to suppose 
 that you would say to me in cool blood what you said in 
 your letter of yesterday. You are, of course, only mis 
 taken, in asserting that I owe you a hundred dollars, 
 and you will rectify the mistake at once when you come 
 to look at your accounts. 
 
 Soon after I joined you, you made me an offer of 
 money, and I accepted $20. Upon another occasion, at 
 my request, you sent me enclosed in a letter $30. Of 
 this 30, I repaid 20 within the next fortnight (drawing 
 no salary for that period). I was thus still in your debt 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 139 
 
 $30, when not long ago I again asked a loan of $30, 
 which you promptly handed to me at your own home. 
 Within the last three weeks, three dollars each week 
 have been retained from my salary, an indignity which 
 I have felt deeply but did not resent. You state the 
 sum retained as $8, but this I believe is through a mis 
 take of Mr. Morrell. My postage bill, at a guess, might 
 be $9 or $10 and I therefore am indebted to you, 
 upon the whole, in the amount of about $60. More 
 than this sum I shall not pay. You state that you can 
 no longer afford to pay $50 per month for 2 or 3 pp. of 
 MS. Your error here can be shown by reference to the 
 Magazine. During my year with you I have written 
 
 In July 5 pp 
 
 " August 9 " 
 
 " Sept. 16 " 
 
 " Oct. 4 " 
 
 " Nov. 5 " 
 
 " Dec. 12 " 
 
 " Jan. 9 " 
 
 Feb. 12 
 
 " March 11 " 
 
 April 17 
 
 " May 14 " + 5 copied Miss McMichael s MS. 
 
 " June 9 " -f 3 " Chandlers. 
 
 132 \sic] 
 
 Dividing this sum by 12, we have an average of 11 
 pp. per month not 2 or 3. And this estimate leaves 
 out of question everything in the way of extract or com 
 pilation. Nothing is counted but bond fide composition. 
 11 pp. at $3 per p. would be $33, at the usual Magazine 
 
140 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 prices. Deduct this from $50, my monthly salary, and 
 we have left $17 per month, or $4 -j^ per week, for the 
 services of proof-reading; general superintendence at 
 the printing office ; reading, alteration and preparation 
 of MSS., with compilation of various articles, such as 
 Plate articles, Field sports, &c. Neither has anything 
 been said of my name upon your title page, a small item 
 you will say but still something, as you know. 
 Snowden pays his editresses $2 per week each for their 
 names solely. Upon the whole, I am not willing to ad 
 mit that you have greatly overpaid me. That I did not 
 do four times as much as I did for the Magazine was 
 your own fault. At first I wrote long articles, which 
 you deemed inadmissible, and never did I suggest any 
 to which you had not some immediate and decided ob 
 jection. Of course I grew discouraged, and could feel 
 no interest in the journal. 
 
 I am at a loss to know why you call me selfish. If 
 you mean that I borrowed money of you you know 
 that you offered it, and you know that I am poor. In 
 what instance has any one ever found me selfish ? Was 
 there selfishness in the affront I offered Benjamin (whom 
 I respect, and who spoke well of me) because I deemed it 
 a duty not to receive from any one commendation at your 
 expense? ... I have said that I could not tell why 
 you were angry. Place yourself in my situation and 
 see whether you would not have acted as I have done. 
 You first " enforced," as you say, a deduction of salary : 
 giving me to understand thereby that you thought of 
 parting company. You next spoke disrespectfully of 
 me behind my back this as an habitual thing to 
 those whom you supposed your friends, and who punc- 
 
AY PHILADELPHIA. 141 
 
 tually retailed me, as a matter of course, every ill-natured 
 word which you uttered. Lastly, you advertised your 
 magazine for sale without saying a word to me about it. 
 I felt no anger at what you did none in the world. 
 Had I not firmly believed it your design to give up your 
 journal, with a view of attending to the Theatre, I should 
 never have dreamed of attempting one of my own. The 
 opportunity of doing something for myself seemed a 
 good one (and I was about to be thrown out of busi 
 ness) and I embraced it. Now I ask you, as a man 
 of honor and as a man of sense what is there wrong 
 in all this ? What have I done at which you have any 
 right to take offence ? I can give you no definitive an 
 swer (respecting the continuation of Rodman s Journal) 
 until I hear from you again. The charge of $100 I 
 shall not admit for an instant. If you persist in it our 
 intercourse is at an end, and we can each adopt our own 
 measures. 
 
 In the meantime, I am, 
 
 Yr. Obt. St., 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 WM. E. BURTON, ESQ. 
 
 This letter seems meant to be conciliatory, but if 
 the savageness of Poe s characterization of his old 
 chief, already given, is any sign, it failed of its 
 purpose. Burton suppressed six or seven criti 
 cisms still on hand, and wrote and spoke hard 
 words about his former associate. Nor did Poe 
 lag much behind in returning ill-will. Six months 
 later he wrote to Snodgrass : 
 
 1 Poe to Burton, Ingrain, i. 175-179. 
 
142 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 " Mr. Burton, that illustrious graduate of St. John s 
 College, Cambridge, is going to the devil with the worst 
 grace in the world, but with a velocity truly astounding. 
 The press here in a body, have given him the cut direct. 
 So be it suum cuique. We have said quite enough 
 about this genius." l 
 
 On the whole, the natural inference from all 
 these papers is that the two editors quarreled over 
 some incident connected with the " Penn Maga 
 zine," and afterwards, being angry, told their 
 friends all the grievances they had against each 
 other, as their justification. 
 
 Burton s road, wherever it lay, did not again 
 cross Poe s. Within two weeks after the rupture, 
 " The Penn Magazine " was publicly 2 announced 
 to appear January 1, 1841, and prospectuses were 
 sent to the press and to private friends. Previ 
 ous to his quarrel with Burton, Poe contributed 
 to " Alexander s Weekly Messenger," published by 
 the same firm as the " Gentleman s," a series of 
 articles on cryptography, in which he challenged 
 his readers to invent ciphers which lie could not 
 interpret. According to his own statement, out of 
 the hundred sent in he read all but one, and that 
 he proved to be an imposture. He probably now 
 wrote further for the same, and possibly for other 
 papers, as he had done on first coming to Phila 
 delphia, and perhaps it was now that he contrib- 
 
 1 Poe to Snodgrass, January 17, 1841. MS. copy. 
 
 2 Philadelphia Saturday Chronicle, June 13, 1840. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 143 
 
 uted to the " United States Military Magazine," 1 
 in which at one time he had articles of consider 
 able length ; but no work of his has been traced 
 until the December " Gentleman s," in which he 
 published one of the most striking of the tales of 
 conscience, " The Man of the Crowd." With this 
 number the magazine passed under the control of 
 George R. Graham, editor of a feeble monthly, 
 the " Casket," who had bought out Burton in Oc 
 tober, and now merged the two under the name, 
 soon to become famous, of " Graham s Magazine." 
 lie was also one of the proprietors of " The Sat 
 urday Evening Post," a weekly, in which Poe had 
 been praised with increasing warmth and fre 
 quency for the past year. By such means, ap 
 parently, Poe and Graham came to a better ac 
 quaintance in the fall of 1840. As the winter 
 came on Poe was attacked by an illness of unde 
 fined character, but presumably similar to those 
 which continued to occur with increasing frequency 
 until his death. In consequence of this the issue 
 of the " Penn," which was to have taken place 
 January 1, was postponed until March 1. The 
 state of his affairs, as they seemed to himself on re 
 covering his health, is displayed in his correspond 
 ence with Snodgrass. He writes, January 17 : 
 
 1 P. S. Duval to the author, August 4, 1884. This magazine 
 was printed in Duval s lithographing establishment, in which 
 Wilmer, in his Recollections, says Poe at one time, despairing of 
 literature as a means of support, undertook to learn lithography. 
 Mr. Duval writes that there is no truth whatever in this state 
 ment. 
 
144 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 " You write to know my prospects with the Penn. 
 They are glorious, notwithstanding the world of diffi 
 culties under which I labored and labor. My illness 
 (from which I have now entirely recovered), has been, 
 for various reasons, a benefit to my scheme rather than 
 a disadvantage ; and, upon the whole, if I do not em 
 inently succeed in this enterprise the fault will be al 
 together mine own. Still, I am using every exertion to 
 insure success, and, among other manoeuvres, I have cut 
 down the bridges behind me. I must now do or die 
 I mean in a literary sense. 
 
 " In the literary way I shall endeavor, gradually, (if I 
 cannot effect the purpose at once) to give the Magazine 
 a reputation for the having no articles but from the best 
 pens a somewhat negative merit, you will say. In 
 criticism I will be bold and sternly, absolutely just, with 
 friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn 
 me. I shall aim at originality in the body of the work, 
 more than at any other especial quality. I have one or 
 two articles of my own in statu pupillari that would 
 make you stare, at least, on account of the utter oddity 
 of their conception. To carry out the conception is a 
 difficulty which may be overcome." 
 
 That the lack of capital was still a principal ob 
 stacle, however, appears from the conclusion of the 
 letter : 
 
 " And now, my dear Snodgrass, will you do me a 
 favor ? I have heard some mention of a new magazine 
 to be started in Baltimore by a Virginian & a practical 
 printer. I am anxious to know all the details of the 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 145 
 
 project. Can you procure and send me (by return of 
 mail) a Prospectus ? If you cannot get one, will you write 
 me all about it the gentleman s name, &c., &c., &c. ? 
 
 "I have underscored the word anxious because I 
 really mean what I say, and because, about a fortnight 
 ago, I made to the Hon. N. C. Brooks, A. M. a request 
 just such as I now make to yourself. He did not reply ; 
 and I, expecting of course the treatment which one gen 
 tleman naturally expects from another, have been put 
 to the greatest inconvenience by the daily but fruitless 
 expectation." * 
 
 On the back of this letter was printed the pro 
 spectus of " The Penn Magazine," which forms the 
 basis of Poe s many subsequent notices of a similar 
 kind, and explains the aims and purposes that he 
 continued to cherish as peculiarly his own. It read 
 as follows : 
 
 PROSPECTUS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE PENN MAGAZINE, 
 
 A MONTHLY LITERARY JOURNAL, 
 
 To be edited and published in the city of Philadelphia, 
 By EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 To THE PUBLIC. Since resigning the conduct of the 
 Southern Literary Messenger, at the commencement of 
 its third year, I have always had in view the establish 
 ment of a Magazine which should retain some of the 
 chief features of that journal, abandoning or greatly 
 modifying the rest. Delay, however, has been occa 
 sioned by a variety of causes, and not until now have I 
 
 1 Poe to Snodgrass. MS. copy. 
 10 
 
146 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 found myself at liberty to attempt the execution of the 
 design. 
 
 I will be pardoned for speaking more directly of the 
 Messenger. Having in it 110 proprietary right, my ob 
 jects too being at variance in many respects with those 
 of its very worthy owner, I found difficulty in stamping 
 upon its pages that individuality which I believe essen 
 tial to the full success of all similar publications. In 
 regard to their permanent influence, it appears to me 
 that a continuous definite character, and a marked cer 
 tainty of purpose, are requisites of vital importance ; 
 and I cannot help believing that these requisites are 
 only attainable when one mind alone has the general 
 direction of the undertaking. Experience has rendered 
 obvious what might indeed have been demonstrated 
 a priori that in founding a Magazine of my own lies 
 my sole chance of carrying out to completion whatever 
 peculiar intentions I may have entertained. 
 
 To those who remember the early days of the Southern 
 periodical in question, it will be scarcely necessary to 
 say that its main feature was a somewhat overdone caus 
 ticity in its department of Critical Notices of new books. 
 The Penn Magazine will retain this trait of severity inso 
 much only as the calmest yet sternest sense of justice will 
 permit. Some years since elapsed may have mellowed 
 down the petulance without interfering with the sight (?) 
 of the critic. Most surely they have not yet taught him 
 to read through the medium of a publisher s will, nor con 
 vinced him that the interests of letters are unallied with 
 the interests of truth. It shall be the first and chief pur 
 pose of the Magazine now proposed to become known as 
 one where may be found at all times, and upon all sub- 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 147 
 
 jects, an honest and a fearless opinion. It shall be a 
 leading object to assert in precept, and to maintain in 
 practice, the rights, while in effect it demonstrates the ad 
 vantages, of an absolutely independent criticism ; a 
 criticism self-sustained ; guiding itself only by the purest 
 rules of Art ; analyzing and urging these rules as it ap 
 plies them ; holding itself aloof from all personal bias ; 
 acknowledging no fear save that of outraging the right ; 
 yielding no point either to the vanity of the author, or to 
 the assumptions of antique prejudice, or to the involute 
 and anonymous cant of the Quarterlies, or to the arro 
 gance of those organized cliques which, hanging on like 
 nightmares upon American literature, manufacture, at the 
 nod of our principal book-sellers, a pseudo-public-opinion 
 by wholesale. These are objects of which no man need 
 be ashamed. They are purposes, moreover, whose nov 
 elty at least will give them interest. For assurance that 
 I will fulfill them in the best spirit and to the very letter, 
 I appeal with confidence to those friends, and especially 
 to those Southern friends, who sustained me in the Mes 
 senger, where I had but a very partial opportunity of 
 completing my own plans. 
 
 In respect to the other characteristics of the Penn 
 Magazine a few words here will suffice. 
 
 It will endeavor to support the general interests of the 
 republic of letters, without reference to particular regions 
 regarding the world at large as the true audience of 
 the author. Beyond the precincts of literature, properly 
 so called, it will leave in better hands the task of in 
 struction upon all matters of very grave moment. Its 
 aim chiefly shall be to please and this through means 
 of versatility, originality, and pungency. It may be as 
 
148 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 well here to observe that nothing said in this Prospectus 
 should be construed into a design of sullying the Maga 
 zine with any tincture of the buffoonery, scurrility, or 
 profanity, which are the blemish of some of the most 
 vigorous of the European prints. In all branches of the 
 literary department, the best aid, from the highest and 
 purest sources, is secured. 
 
 To the mechanical execution of the work the greatest 
 attention will be given which such a matter can require. 
 In this respect it is proposed to surpass, by very much, 
 the ordinary Magazine style. The form will somewhat 
 resemble that of The Knickerbocker ; the paper will be 
 equal to that of The North American Review ; pictorial 
 embellishments are promised only in the necessary il 
 lustration of the text. 
 
 The Penn Magazine will be published in Philadelphia, 
 on the first of each month : and will form, half-yearly, a 
 volume of about 500 pages. The price will be $5 per 
 annum, payable in advance, or upon the receipt of the 
 first number, which will be issued on the first of March, 
 1841. Letters addressed to the Editor and Proprietor, 
 
 EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, January 1, 1841. 
 
 These purposes and the sanguine hopes of Poe 
 were balked by the coincidence of a good offer 
 from Graham and a financial depression through 
 the country. The " Saturday Evening Post," Feb 
 ruary 20, 1841, announced that the scheme of the 
 " Penn Magazine " had been suspended, owing to 
 the disturbance in monetary affairs, in which peri 
 odicals were always the first to suffer ; it was added 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 149 
 
 that its editor had the finest prospects of success, 
 the press, and particularly the South and West, 
 being warm in his cause, and an excellent list 
 of subscribers having been already secured; this 
 " stern, just, and competent critic," it concluded, 
 would now take the editorial chair of " Graham s." 
 Poe s hand may be clearly seen in the critical 
 department of " Graham s " as early as February, 
 but his responsibility as editor in charge did not 
 begin until the April issue. From that time until 
 June of the next year he contributed to every num 
 ber, much of what he wrote being of his best work. 
 This period of his authorship is especially distin 
 guished by a remarkable quickening of his pow 
 ers of analytical reasoning, by virtue of which he 
 struck out a new vein of fiction. The first notable 
 sign of this mental development is in the articles 
 contributed to " Alexander s Weekly Messenger," 
 about January, 1840, while he was still engaged on 
 Burton s magazine, on the subject of cryptogra 
 phy, to which reference has already been made. In 
 July, 1841, he returned to the subject, in "Gra 
 ham s," and again received and translated several 
 intricate cryptographs. On the first of May pre 
 vious, when Graham s weekly, the " Saturday Even 
 ing Post," appeared in an enlarged and improved 
 form, he gave distinction to the number by an anal 
 ogous exercise of his analytical powers, his suc 
 cessful exposure of the plot of " Barnaby Rudge " 
 from the material afforded by the introductory 
 
150 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 chapters. Dickens is said to have been so sur 
 prised as to ask Poe if he were the devil. It 
 was in April, however, in the very first number of 
 his editing, that " Graham s " contained his earliest 
 story in which this interest, the employment of 
 method in disentangling a plot by mere ratiocina- 
 jtion, is principally involved. It was "The Mur- 
 klers of the Kue Morgue," perhaps the most fa 
 mous of his tales. It has been objected that really 
 there is no analysis in unraveling a web woven for 
 that purpose ; and, in a sense, this is true. Acute 
 as Poe s penetrative powers were, the ratiocinative 
 tales (with the possible exception of " The Mystery 
 of Marie Koget") do not illustrate them. The 
 primary gift employed in these ingenious narratives 
 is constructiveness ; they differ from their prede 
 cessors, from " The Fall of the House of Usher " 
 for example, not in the intellectual faculties exer 
 cised, but in their aim and conduct. In the earlier 
 group Poe gradually worked up to the denotiment 
 of a highly complicated series of facts and emo 
 tions ; in the later one, stating only the denofiment 
 of a similar series, he gradually worked back to its 
 origins ; in both cases he first constructed the story, 
 but in telling it he reversed in one the method used 
 in the other. The main difference is that in the 
 old process the emotional element counts for more, 
 while in the new one the incidents are necessarily 
 the important part ; indeed, they almost absorb at 
 tention. That the ratiocinative tales are on a 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 151 
 
 lower level than the imaginative ones hardly needs 
 to be said, since it is so conclusively indicated by 
 the fact that later writers have far surpassed Poe 
 in the complexity of this sort of mechanism, and 
 therefore in the apparent miracle of the solution. 
 They come short of Poe only in the original in 
 vention of the plot ; that is to say, they fail by 
 defects of imagination in the selection, and of ar 
 tistic power in the grouping, of their facts, for it 
 would be a mistake to suppose that the interest 
 in " The Murders of the Rue Morgue " is simply 
 the puzzle of detection. 
 
 The other tales that appeared during this period 
 are, in the " Post," the insignificant " A Succes 
 sion of Sundays " (" Three Sundays in a Week "), 
 and in " Graham s " " The Descent into the Mael 
 strom," which is to be classed with the " MS. Found 
 in a Bottle," and is the best of its kind; "The 
 Island of the Fay," the earliest of the simple land 
 scape pieces, and a study, as it proved, for " Eleo- 
 nora ; " an arabesque in his old manner, " The 
 Colloquy of Monos and Una," noticeable as the 
 first open expression of dissatisfaction with modern 
 institutions ; the two inferior sketches, " Never Bet 
 the Devil your Head," a satire on tales. with a 
 moral, and " Life in Death " (" The Oval Por 
 trait"), a variation of an old theme ; and, lastly, the 
 fine color study, " The Masque of the Eed Death," 
 in which the plot is managed almost exclusively 
 by merely decorative effects. 
 
152 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 In nearly all these tales, and particularly in this 
 last one, the constructive genius of their author is 
 most distinctively exercised ; they are thus admira 
 ble illustrations of his theory as he developed it 
 in his critical writings of this period, and fully 
 reach the high standard of literary art by which he 
 measured the works of others. Poe preferred the 
 form of the short story to that of the novel, for the 
 same reason that he thought brevity an essential 
 in purely poetic composition, because length is in 
 consistent with a single effect, or, as he termed it, 
 with the unity or totality of interest. Both his aim 
 and his method in narrative prose are succinctly 
 described in his own words : 
 
 " A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If 
 wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate 
 his incidents ; but having conceived, with deliberate 
 care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought 
 out, he then invents such incidents he then combines 
 such events as may best aid him in establishing this pre 
 conceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not 
 to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his 
 first step. In the whole composition there should be no 
 word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, 
 is not to the one preestablished design. And by such 
 means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length 
 painted which leaves in the mind of him who contem 
 plates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satis 
 faction. The idea of the tale has been presented un 
 blemished, because undisturbed ; and this is an end un 
 attainable by the novel." ] 
 
 i Works, ii. 197, 198. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 153 
 
 In Poe s best tales it is this ideal absolutely real 
 ized that has made them immortal. 
 
 Of his old poetry he contributed to the " Post " 
 " The Coliseum " and " The Bridal Ballad," and to 
 " Graham s," " To Helen," " Israfel," and " To One 
 Departed," the last two much revised. The bulk 
 of his writing, however, was critical, and consisted 
 of notices of new books. In the course of the fif 
 teen months he passed in review, at greater or less 
 length, and with various degrees of care, works 
 by Bulwer, Dickens, Macaulay, Marryatt, Lever, 
 and James, and, of American authors, Longfellow 
 and Hawthorne, besides others of only local noto 
 riety, such as Brainard, the Davidson Sisters, Seba 
 Smith, Wilmer, and Cornelius Mathews. There 
 were shorter notices of many others, both at home 
 and abroad, contemporary and classic ; and in par 
 ticular there was a concise view of over a hundred 
 native writers in three papers, entitled " Autogra 
 phy," an expansion of similar articles in the " Mes 
 senger " for 1836. Without entering in this place 
 on the question of Poe s powers and influence as 
 a critic (and throughout his life, it must always be 
 kept in mind, he was far more distinguished in 
 America as a critic than as either a romancer or a 
 poet), his attitude toward his contemporaries can 
 not be even momentarily neglected at any stage of 
 his career. 
 
 This attitude had not changed since he was ed 
 itor of the " Messenger." He still remembered his 
 
154 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 review of " Norman Leslie " as inaugurating the 
 new age in American criticism, and Theodore S. 
 Fay continued to be his favorite example of the 
 bepuffed literary impostor. His general view of 
 our literary affairs at this time was expressed in a 
 review of the scurrilous and filthy satire by his 
 friend Wilmer, "The Quacks of Helicon," in 
 which he had incorporated his article written two 
 years before and revamped by the editor of the 
 " Pittsburg Examiner " in that short-lived period 
 ical : 
 
 " We repeat it : it is the truth which he has spoken ; 
 and who shall contradict us ? He has said unscrupu 
 lously what every reasonable man among us lias long 
 known to be as true as the Pentateuch that, as a 
 literary people, we are one vast perambulating humbug. 
 He has asserted that we are clique-ridden ; and who 
 does not smile at the obvious truism of that assertion ? 
 He maintains that chicanery is, with us, a far surer road 
 than talent to distinction in letters. Who gainsays this ? 
 The corrupt nature of our ordinary criticism has become 
 notorious. Its powers have been prostrated by its own 
 arm. The intercourse between critic and publisher, as it 
 now almost universally stands, is comprised either in the 
 paying and pocketing of blackmail, as the price of a 
 simple forbearance, or in a direct system of petty and 
 contemptible bribery, properly so-called a system even 
 more injurious than the former to the true interests of 
 the public, and more degrading to the buyers and sellers 
 of good opinion, on account of the more positive char 
 acter of the service here rendered for the consideration 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 155 
 
 received. We laugh at the idea of any denial of our 
 assertions upon this topic ; they are infamously true. . . . 
 " We may even arrive, in time, at that desirable point 
 from which a distinct view of our men of letters may 
 be obtained, and their respective pretensions adjusted, 
 by the standard of rigorous and self-sustaining criticism 
 alone. That their several positions are as yet properly 
 settled ; that the posts which a vast number of them now 
 hold are maintained by any better tenure than that of 
 the chicanery upon which we have commented, will be 
 asserted by none but the ignorant, or the parties who 
 have best right to feel an interest in the good old con 
 dition of things. No two matters can be more radically 
 different than the reputation of some of our prominent 
 litterateurs, as gathered from the mouths of the people, 
 (who glean it from the paragraphs of the papers), and 
 the same reputation as deduced from the private esti 
 mate of intelligent and educated men. We do not ad 
 vance this fact as a new discovery. Its truth, on the 
 contrary, is the subject, and has long been so, of every 
 day witticism and mirth. 
 
 ..." Is there any man of good feeling and of or 
 dinary understanding is there one single individual 
 among all our readers who does not feel a thrill of 
 bitter indignation, apart from any sentiment of mirth, 
 as he calls to mind instance after instance of the purest, 
 of the most unadulterated quackery in letters, which 
 has risen to a high post in the apparent popular estima 
 tion, and which still maintains it, by the sole means 
 of a blustering arrogance, or of a busy wriggling con 
 ceit, or of the most bare -faced plagiarism, or even 
 through the simple immensity o its 
 
 
 
156 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 sumptions not only unopposed by the press at large, but 
 absolutely supported in proportion to the vociferous 
 clamor with which they are made in exact accord 
 ance with their utter baselessness and untenability ? We 
 should have no trouble in pointing out. to-day, some 
 twenty or thirty so-called literary personages, who, if 
 not idiots, as we half think them, or if not hardened to 
 all sense of shame by a long course of disingenuousness, 
 will now blush, in the perusal of these words, through 
 consciousness of the shadowy nature of that purchased 
 pedestal on which they stand will now tremble in 
 thinking of the feebleness of the breath which will be 
 adequate to the blowing it from beneath their feet. With 
 the help of a hearty good will, even we may yet tumble 
 them down." 1 
 
 From this general condemnation Poe excepted 
 an editor or two, and he reminded Wilmer, in 
 deprecating indiscriminate abuse, that there were a 
 few poets among us : 
 
 "Mr. Bryant is not all a fool. Mr. Willis is not 
 quite an ass. Mr. Longfellow will steal, but, perhaps, 
 he cannot help it (for we have heard of such things,) 
 and then it must not be denied that nil tetigit quod non 
 ornavit" 2 
 
 In his own glance at the literary republic, in the 
 " Autography," he had dispensed praise very freely, 
 nine tenths of the verdicts being favorable and many 
 flattering. The principal exceptions were among 
 the New England writers, especially those whom 
 
 1 Works, iv. 542-547. 2 Ibid. iv. 549. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 157 
 
 he believed to belong to the clique of the " North 
 American Review ; " Emerson, in particular, as 
 being, moreover, a transcendentalist, he treated 
 contemptuously, and Longfellow, whom he gener 
 ously declares " entitled to the first place among 
 the poets of America," but adds, on jealous reflec 
 tion, " certainly to the first place among those who 
 have put themselves prominently forth as poets," 
 he strikes at with the old cut, as being guilty of 
 the sin of imitation, " an imitation sometimes 
 verging upon down-right theft." J 
 
 In more detailed criticisms of current books, 
 Poe, as was to be expected, merely made specifica 
 tions of his general strictures regarding the low 
 character of our literature. Whether he dealt with 
 poetry or prose, with the dunces or the geniuses, 
 his estimate, after he had first asked the absorb 
 ing question, " Was the writer a literary thief ? " 
 was that of a craftsman, and had almost exclusive 
 reference to the workmanship. It consisted, as he 
 would have said, in the application of principles of 
 composition, in minute detail, instead of in the 
 enunciation of them. Consequently, the criticism 
 is, as a rule, so bound up with the work to which it 
 relates as to have no value by itself, and has now 
 no vitality. He spoke the truth in describing his 
 reviews as neither wholly laudatory nor wholly de 
 famatory even in the mest exasperating cases of 
 stupidity. To the reader it will not infrequently 
 1 Works, ii. xviii. 
 
158 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 seem that he used a giant s force to crush a fly, or 
 in too many passages was guilty of the worst taste, 
 or even now and then became scurrilous, blustering", 
 
 7 o" 
 
 and vituperative, or, especially when he attempted 
 humor, very flat. The traits of his style were al 
 ways the same, whether he was pricking a reputa 
 tion or confining himself to mere criticism ; he at 
 tended to one, or another, or all, of certain points, 
 the chief being originality in idea, handling, con 
 struction, keeping, rhetorical and grammatical 
 rules ; and he exemplified by citation whatever de 
 fects or merits he found. Very seldom he felt 
 able to give unstinted praise, as to Hawthorne, 
 whose tales he said belonged " to the highest region 
 of Art an Art subservient to genius of a very 
 lofty order," and whose mind he declared " origi 
 nal in all points ; " 1 but even this notice, in which 
 his insight and his justice are both conspicuous, he 
 could not forbear to blot with the suggested charge 
 that in " Howe s Masquerade " the New Englander 
 had stolen directly from some passages in his own 
 " William Wilson." 
 
 In none of these articles does Poe develop any 
 principles except in that on Longfellow s " Ballads 
 and other Poems." He barely touched the old of 
 fense of plagiarism, but made his attack in a new 
 quarter by attempting to show that Longfellow s 
 " conception of the aims of poesy is all wrong " for 
 the reason tfyat " didacticism is the prevalent tone 
 f Works, ii. 199. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 159 
 
 of his song." In his proof Poe restated his poetic 
 theory, which had become freed from its meta 
 physics since five years before, and in the course of 
 his argument he struck out the happy phrase that 
 remained his pet definition of poetry ever after : 
 
 " Its [Poetry s] first element is the thirst for supernal 
 BEAUTY a beauty which is not afforded the soul by 
 any existing collocation of earth s forms a beauty 
 which, perhaps, no possible combination of these forms 
 would fully produce. Its second element is the attempt 
 to satisfy this thirst by novel combinations among those 
 forms of beauty which already exist, or by novel com 
 binations of those combinations which our predecessors, 
 toiling in chase of the same phantom, have already set 
 in order. We thus clearly deduce the novelty, the orig 
 inality, the invention, the imagination, or lastly, the 
 creation of BEAUTY (for the terms as here employed 
 are synonymous) as the essence of all Poesy." x 
 
 With a slight change (which summed up in one 
 word a succeeding paragraph, embodying his view 
 that music was a necessary constituent), this defini 
 tion of poetry as being " the rhythmical creation of 
 beauty " became the first principle of his poetic criti 
 cism, as indeed, however obscurely made out, it had 
 always been. His former doctrine that a poem 
 should have complete unity within itself he reiter 
 ated by reprinting unchanged the passage already 
 quoted from the " Messenger " of 1836. In accord 
 ance with these canons, Longfellow, whom under all 
 1 Works, ii. 366. 
 
160 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 circumstances Poe ranked at the head of our poets, 
 was judged to fail by making truth either a pri 
 mary end or one secondary to mere beauty, and to 
 succeed by confining his poems each to one idea. 
 
 Whether these piquant criticisms and powerful 
 tales made " Graham s " popular, or whether its suc 
 cess was due to the shrewd business sagacity and 
 generous advertisement of its owners, the magazine 
 had at once a brilliant run. It had opened with a 
 circulation of eight thousand in January, 1841 ; in 
 July it had risen to seventeen thousand ; in Decem 
 ber (at which time the names of Mrs. Emma C. 
 Embury and Mrs. Ann S. Stephens were added to 
 those of George R. Graham, C. J. Peterson, and 
 Edgar A. Poe, as editors) it was twenty-five thou 
 sand, and in March forty thousand, in each case 
 according to the public announcement in the maga 
 zine itself. Poe was the working editor during this 
 time, and is fairly entitled to a considerable, if not 
 the main, share in the success of the undertaking. 
 At the same time he seems never to have been con 
 tented with his position, and especially he con 
 tinued to cherish the plan of starting the " Penn 
 Magazine." Shortly after assuming the editorship 
 he wrote to Snodgrass, " The Penn, I hope, is 
 only 4 scotched, not killed, " and added that the 
 project would "unquestionably be resumed here 
 after ; " l and a few months later he addressed his 
 
 1 Poe to Snodgrass, April 1, 1841, Baltimore American, April, 
 1881. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 161 
 
 old friend, Kennedy, then in Congress, on the same 
 subject, as appears from a letter to Mr. F. W. 
 Thomas, a Baltimore friend, poet and novelist, 
 dated July 4, 1841 : " I wrote to Mr. K. about ten 
 days ago on the subject of a magazine, a project 
 of mine in connection with Graham." l Poe doubt 
 less referred to the same scheme when he wrote 
 to Snodgrass, on September 19, what, in view of 
 the success of " Graham s," seems a strange pas 
 sage : 
 
 "It is not impossible that Graham will join me in the 
 i Penn. He has money. By the way is it impossible 
 to start a first-class mag. in Baltimore? Is there no 
 publisher or gentleman of moderate capital who would 
 join me in this scheme ? publishing the work in the 
 City of Monuments ? " 2 
 
 A more conclusive indication of restless dissatis 
 faction with his seeming good fortune as editor of 
 the leading American magazine occurs in an earlier 
 letter to Thomas, dated June 26, 1841 : - 
 
 " I have just heard through Graham, who obtained 
 his information from Ingraham, that you have stepped 
 into an office at Washington, salary $1,000. From the 
 bottom of my heart I wish you joy. You can now lu 
 cubrate at your ease, and will infallibly do something 
 worthy yourself. 
 
 " For my own part, notwithstanding Graham s unceas 
 ing civility and real kindness, I feel more and more dis- 
 
 1 Poe to Thomas, Stoddard, xcv. 
 
 2 Poe to Suodgrass, MS. copy. 
 
 11 
 
162 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 gusted with my situation. Would to God I could do as 
 you have done. Do you seriously think that an applica 
 tion on my part to Tyler would have a good result ? 
 My claims, to be sure, are few. I am a Virginian at 
 least I call myself one, for I have resided all my life, 
 until within the last few years, in Richmond. My polit 
 ical principles have always been, as nearly as may be, 
 with the existing administration, and I battled with right 
 good will for Harrison, when opportunity offered. With 
 Mr. Tyler I have some slight personal acquaintance, al 
 though it is a matter which he has possibly forgotten. 
 For the rest I am a literary man, and I see a dis 
 position in Government to cherish letters. Have I any 
 chance ? I would be greatly indebted to you if you 
 would reply to this as soon as you can, and tell if it 
 would, in your opinion, be worth my while to make an 
 effort ; and, if so, put me on the right track. This 
 could not be better done than by detailing to me your 
 own mode of proceeding." * 
 
 On July 4, Poe followed this up by another more 
 urgent request : 
 
 " I received yours of the 1st, this morning, and have 
 again to thank you for the interest you take in my wel 
 fare. I wish to God I could visit Washington, but 
 the old story, you know I have no money ; not enough 
 to take me there, saying nothing of getting back. It is 
 a hard thing to be poor ; but as I am kept so by an hon 
 est motive I dare not complain. 
 
 "Your suggestion about Mr. Kennedy is well-timed, 
 and here, Thomas, you can do me a true service. Call 
 1 Poe to Thomas, Stoddard, xciii. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 163 
 
 upon Kennedy you know him, I believe ; if not, intro 
 duce yourself he is a perfect gentleman, and will give 
 you cordial welcome. Speak to him of my wishes, and 
 urge him to see the Secretary of War in my behalf, or 
 one of the other Secretaries, or President Tyler. I men 
 tion in particular the Secretary of War, because I have 
 been to W. Point, and this may stand me in some stead. 
 I would be glad to get almost any appointment, even a 
 $500 one, so that I have something independent of let 
 ters for a subsistence. To coin one s brain into silver, at 
 the nod of a master, is, to my thinking, the hardest task 
 in the world. Mr. Kennedy has been, at all times, a true 
 friend to me he was the first true friend I ever had 
 I am indebted to him for life itself. He will be willing 
 to help me now, but needs urging,, for he is always head 
 and ears in business." l 
 
 Besides indulging in these plans Poe now remem 
 bered his old publishers, Lea & Blanchard, and en 
 tertained the hope that they would undertake a new 
 edition of his " Tales," including the best of those 
 written since 1839. A few weeks after their first 
 publication, he had written to Snodgrass, "I am 
 happy to say that the edition is already very nearly 
 exhausted." 2 On June 17, 1840, he amplified this 
 statement by saying, " Touching my Tales you 
 will scarcely believe me when I tell you that I am 
 ignorant of their fate, and have never spoken to the 
 publishers concerning them since the day of their 
 
 1 Poe to Thomas, Stocldsird, xciv., xcv. 
 
 2 Poe to Snodgrass, December 19, 1839. MS. copy. 
 
164 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 issue. I have cause to think, however, that the edi 
 tion was exhausted almost immediately." l 
 
 Perhaps it was still with this impression that he 
 addressed the following letter : 
 
 MESSRS. LEA & BLANCHARD, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 GENTLEMEN: I wish to publish a new collection of 
 my prose Tales with some such title as this : 
 
 The Prose Tales of Edgar A. Poe, including " The 
 Murders in the Rue Morgue" the " Descent into the 
 Maelstrom" and all his later pieces, with a second 
 edition of the " Tales of the Grotesque Arabesque" 
 
 The later pieces will be eight in number, making the 
 entire collection thirty-three, which would occupy two 
 thick novel volumes. 
 
 I am anxious that your firm should continue to be my 
 publishers, and, if you would be willing to bring out the 
 book, I should be glad to accept the terms which you 
 allowed me before, that is, you receive all profits, and 
 allow me twenty copies for distribution to friends. 
 
 Will you be kind enough to give me an early reply to 
 this letter, and believe me 
 
 Yours, very respectfully, 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 2 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 Office Graham s Magazine, August 13, 41. 
 
 Whatever doubt he had regarding the matter was 
 dissipated by the reply of the firm : 
 
 1 Poe to Snodgrass, MS. copy. 
 
 2 The Library of George W. C/tilds, described by F. W. Rob 
 inson. Philadelphia, 1882 : pp. 13, 14. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 165 
 
 Aug. 16, 1841. 
 
 EDGAR A. POE 
 
 We have yrs of 15th inst in which you are kind enough 
 to offer us a " new collection of prose Tales." 
 
 In answer we very much regret to say that the state 
 of affairs is such as to give little encouragement to new 
 undertakings. As yet we have not got through the edi 
 tion of the other work and up to this time it has not re 
 turned to us the expense of its publication. We assure 
 you that we regret this on your account as well as on our 
 own as it would give us great pleasure to promote your 
 views in relation to publication. 1 
 
 [Unsigned.] 
 
 But if Poe could not start his own magazine, nor 
 get a public office, nor publish a new volume of 
 "Tales," his lot was to all outward appearance 
 fortunate ; his prospects were brilliant, his reputa 
 tion steadily growing, his associates friendly, and, 
 especially, his home was in a condition of greater 
 comfort than ever before. Whatever practical diffi 
 culties it was his lot to encounter, no shadow had 
 crossed the threshold of the little cottage where 
 he lived with his wife and her mother in a close 
 privacy of watchful love and domestic happiness. 
 Mrs. Clemm, a vigorous woman of about fifty 
 years, who is said to have had the face, size, and 
 figure of a man, was the head of the household, re 
 ceived and expended Poe s wages, and kept things 
 in order. The few acquaintances who called on the 
 family sometimes wondered, as did Mayne Reid, 
 1 Letter-book of Lea and Blanchard. 
 
166 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 how this masculine matron should have been the 
 mother of the fragile girl, still under twenty-one, 
 whose feminine beauty and charm was of so del 
 icate an order that she seems nearly as sylph-like 
 as one of Poe s imaginary creations. " She hardly 
 looked more than fourteen," writes Mr. A. B. Har 
 ris, who knew her at this time, " fair, soft, and 
 graceful and girlish. Every one who saw her was 
 won by her. Poe was very proud and very fond 
 of her, and used to delight in the round, child-like 
 face and plump little finger [sic. Q. figure?], 
 which he contrasted with himself, so thin and half- 
 melancholy looking, and she in turn idolized him. 
 She had a voice of wonderful sweetness, and was an 
 exquisite singer, and in some of their more prosper 
 ous days, when they were living in a pretty little 
 rose-covered cottage on the outskirts of Philadel 
 phia, she had her harp and piano." l The third 
 member of this strangely-consorted group, Poe him 
 self, was the same reserved, isolated, dreamy man, 
 of high-strung nerves, proud spirit, and fantastic 
 moods, that he had been in youth. With senses 
 excessively acute and a mind easily accessible to 
 motives of dread, if he was not the monomaniac of 
 fear he knew in Eoderick Usher, he was always 
 haunted by suggestions of evil to come ; nor was 
 he quite free from the vague apprehension that be 
 longs to children s minds. He did not like to go 
 out in the dark, and with such jocularity as he was 
 
 1 Hearth and Home. Quoted in Ingram, i. 221. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 167 
 
 capable of said that he believed evil demons had 
 power then. In his home alone he found happi 
 ness, affection, and a refuge from contact with the 
 world. 
 
 One evening when Virginia was singing she rup 
 tured a blood-vessel ; her life was despaired of, and 
 although she partially recovered it was only to sink 
 again and again. The sick-bed was now the centre 
 of the secluded home. " She could not bear the 
 slightest exposure," writes Mr. Harris, "and needed 
 the utmost care ; and all those conveniences as to 
 apartment and surroundings which are so impor 
 tant in the case of an invalid were almost matters 
 of life and death to her. And yet the room where 
 she lay for weeks, hardly able to breathe, except as 
 she was fanned, was a little place with the ceiling 
 so low over the narrow bed that her head almost 
 touched it. But no one dared to speak, Mr. Poe 
 was so sensitive and irritable ; quick as steel and 
 flint, said one who knew him in those days. And 
 he would not allow a word about the danger of her 
 dying ; the mention of it drove him wild." * Mr. 
 Graham also tells how he saw Poe hovering around 
 the couch with fond fear and tender anxiety, shud 
 dering visibly at her slightest cough ; and he con 
 tinues, " I rode out one summer evening with them, 
 and the remembrance of his watchful eyes, eagerly 
 bent upon the slightest change of hue in that loved 
 face, haunts me yet as the memory of a sad strain." 2 
 
 1 Hearth and Home. Quoted by Ingram, i. 223, 224. 
 
 2 Wnrlat, \. xcvii. 
 
168 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 This was the beginning of the long suspense of years, 
 with their racking alternations of hope and despair, 
 which Poe called his worst misfortune. 
 
 But the subtle influence which preserves a poet s 
 heart from the wounds of life touched him, and 
 raised the transitory elements of his common story 
 and transformed them, and made them a part of 
 the world s tradition of love and loss. In " Eleo- 
 nora," which was published in the "Gift" for 1842, 
 his absorbing sorrow turned thought and affliction 
 to favor and to prettiness. In this alone of all his 
 tales is there any sign of the warmth, the vital 
 sense of human love. The myth for such it is 
 is pictorial, like a mediaeval legend : the child-lov 
 ers are set in one of those preternatural land 
 scapes which his genius built in the void ; but on 
 this sequestered Paradise there fell no shadow save 
 that of loveliness curtaining in innocent peace, be 
 hind thick forests and innumerable flowers, the 
 Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, through which 
 the River of Silence flowed noiselessly, and watered 
 the slender, white-barked trees that leaned toward 
 the light, and mirrored the scented lawns besprin 
 kled with lilies and a thousand bright blossoms. 
 Here love came to the boy and girl, beneath the 
 fantastic trees suddenly bursting into bloom with 
 bright star-shaped flowers, and they wander, like a 
 new Aucassin and Mcolette, along the river that 
 now murmurs musically, and over the ruby-red 
 asphodels that spring up ten by ten in the place 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 169 
 
 of the fallen white lilies; and the valley is filled 
 with marvelous light and life and joy, as if glory 
 and sweetness were imprisoned within its vaporous 
 limits. Symbolism has seldom been more simple 
 and pure, more imaginative, childlike, and direct, 
 more absolute master of the things of sense for the 
 things of the spirit, than in this unreal scene. 
 Burne Jones might paint it, for it is the very spirit 
 that sang of the Romaunt of the Rose. Rossetti 
 might have sung its sad conclusion ; for now the 
 lady died : 
 
 " The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the 
 trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green 
 carpet faded ; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels 
 withered away ; and there sprang up, in place of them, 
 ten by ten, dark, eye-like violets, that writhed uneasily 
 and were ever encumbered with dew. And Life departed 
 from our paths ; for the tall flamingo flaunted no more 
 his scarlet plumage before us, but flew sadly from the 
 vale into the hills, with all the gay glowing birds that had 
 arrived in his company. And the golden and silver fish 
 swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our 
 domain and bedecked the sweet river never again. And 
 the lulling melody that had been softer than the wind 
 harp of -ZEolus, and more divine than all save the voice 
 of Eleonora, it died little by little away, in murmurs 
 growing lower and lower, until the stream returned, at 
 length, utterly, into the solemnity of its original silence. 
 And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and, aban 
 doning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, 
 fell back into the regions of Hesper, and took away all 
 
 
170 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 its manifold golden and gorgeous glories from the Valley 
 of the Many-Colored Grass." 1 
 
 Poe s life was full of glaring contrasts, just such 
 as there is between this exquisite foreboding of his 
 widowhood in symbols and the hard reality. To 
 this experience of the fragility of his hold on hap 
 piness, and to this first perception of it toward the 
 fall of 1841, he attributed the worst of his failures, 
 the loss of all power to resist the temptation to 
 drink. 
 
 At a later time, in answer to the question 
 whether he could hint the " terrible evil " which 
 was the cause of his " irregularities," he wrote : 
 
 " Yes, I can do more than hint. This evil was the 
 greatest which can befall a man. Six years ago, a wife, 
 whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a 
 blood-vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I 
 took leave of her forever, and underwent all the agonies 
 of her death. She recovered partially, and I again 
 hoped. At the end of a year, the vessel broke again. 
 I went through precisely the same scene. . . . Then 
 again again and even once again, at varying inter 
 vals. Each time I felt all the agonies of her death 
 and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more 
 dearly and clung to her life with more desperate per 
 tinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive nervous 
 in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long 
 intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of abso 
 lute unconsciousness I drank God only knows how 
 often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies 
 
 1 Works, lii. 450. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 171 
 
 referred the insanity to the drink, rather than the drink 
 to the insanity." ] 
 
 Whether this self-abandonment to temptation 
 was sudden or gradual is not stated; it may be 
 that Poe s troubles merely occasioned an increase 
 in those irregularities which were said to be matter 
 of common fame before this time. A cousin, who 
 was intimate with the family at the time of Vir 
 ginia s seizure, says that he then frequently refused 
 wine in her presence, and adds the too significant 
 words that at that time his fits of intoxication were 
 due to the excessive use of opium. 2 
 
 In the next spring (1842) he lost the editorship 
 of " Graham s." The only explanation vouchsafed 
 by the proprietor is that one day, on returning from 
 an unusual absence from his duties, Poe found Mr. 
 Rufus Wilmot Griswold in his chair, and at once 
 turned and left the office never to return. 3 This 
 could hardly have been more than an incident in 
 the truth. A man even so impulsive as Poe does 
 not thus surrender through pique his main source- 
 of support, especially when he has a sick wife and 
 is poor ; nor, on the other hand, would a business 
 man like Graham allow an editor, who had placed 
 his magazine easily at the head of all competitors 
 and made it a paying property, to depart for any 
 such trivial display of temper. Without making 
 
 1 Poe to , January 4, 1848. Ingram, i. 215, 216. 
 
 2 Miss A. F. Poe to the author, September 13, 1884. 
 8 Gill, pp. 110, 111. 
 
172 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 an assertion, it may fairly be inferred that, to use 
 Mr. Kennedy s words in regard to Poe s failure on 
 the " Messenger," his nature was too " eccentric, 
 irregular, and querulous " for him to hold the posi 
 tion ; furthermore, as has become clear enough, his 
 heart was not in the work : he had been chafing 
 as restlessly in this position as when on " Burton s," 
 and had continually sought other modes of support. 
 Mr. Graham had engaged Griswold temporarily, 
 and the " Saturday Evening Post," May 14, 1842, 
 now announced that he had become an associate 
 editor of that paper and of " Graham s." In the 
 magazine itself it was stated that his duties, as 
 Poe s successor, would begin with the July number. 
 Unfortunately, Griswold was to inherit Poe s desk 
 once more as a biographer, and therefore some closer 
 notice must be taken of him. 
 
 Rufus Wilmot Griswold, when he was thus pub 
 licly announced as the new editor of "Graham s " in 
 May, 1842, was a young man of twenty-seven years, 
 who had some time before left the Baptist ministry 
 for the more attractive walks of literature. He 
 had published both sermons and songs, and had 
 served on several newspapers in Boston, New York, 
 and Philadelphia ; latterly he had been engaged in 
 compiling his popular volume, " The Poets and Po 
 etry of America," -- that Ilic Jacet of American 
 mediocrities of the first generation. An unsup 
 ported statement by Griswold respecting Poe is 
 liable to suspicion, but there is no improbability in 
 
72V PHILADELPHIA, . 173 
 
 his account of the beginning of the most unfor 
 tunate acquaintance of his life. Poe was the editor 
 of " Graham s " when he heard of Griswold s inten 
 tion to set in order the "American Parnassus;" but 
 he was not widely known as a poet, in fact, he had 
 practically abandoned poetry in late years. He was, 
 however, fond of his early verses, and he was never 
 known to omit any opportunity of advertising him 
 self. It was natural, therefore, that shortly after 
 the announcement of Griswold s venture he should 
 call on him for the purpose of securing admission 
 among Apollo s candidates, and it is consistent with 
 all that is known of his habits that he should fur 
 nish 1 in March, 1841, a selection from his own 
 verses and material for a biography. When, a year 
 later, tho unexpected meeting in Graham s office 
 took place, the incident caused no rupture in the 
 friendly relations of the two men. In April Gris 
 wold s long-expected volume had been issued, and 
 Poe offered to review it for him. The transaction 
 which then occurred should be given in Poe s 
 words. September 12, 1842, he wrote to his friend, 
 Mr. F. W. Thomas, as follows : 
 
 " Graham has made me a good offer to return. He is 
 not especially pleased with Griswold, nor is any one else, 
 
 1 Poe to Griswold, March 29, 1841. Griswold, xxi. The gen 
 uineness of these letters as printed has been doubted, but the au 
 thor believes that they are unquestionably Poe s compositions, and 
 in all probability exact copies of the originals. The grounds of 
 this opinion involve too many minutiaB to be recounted. 
 
174 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 with the exception of the Rev. gentleman himself, who 
 has gotten himself into quite a hornet s nest by his Poets 
 and Poetry. It appears you gave him personal offence 
 by delay in replying to his demand for information touch 
 ing Mrs. Welby, I believe, or somebody else. Hence 
 his omission of you in the body of the book ; for he had 
 prepared quite a long article from my MS., and had se 
 lected several pages for quotation. He is a pretty fellow 
 to set himself up for an honest judge, or even as a capa 
 ble one. About two months since, we were talking of 
 the book, when I said that I thought of reviewing it in 
 full for the Democratic Review , but found my design 
 anticipated by an article from that ass O Sullivan, and 
 that I knew no other w^ork in which a notice would be 
 readily admissible. Griswold said, in reply : i You need 
 not trouble yourself about the publication of the review, 
 should you decide on writing it, for I will attend to all 
 that. I will get it in some reputable work, and look to 
 it for the usual pay, in the meantime handing you what 
 ever your charge would be. This, you see, was an in 
 genious insinuation of a bribe to puff his book. I accepted 
 his offer forthwith, and wrote the review, handed it to 
 him, and received from him the compensation ; he never 
 daring to look over the MS. in my presence, and taking 
 it for granted that all was right. But that review has 
 not yet appeared, and I am doubtful if it ever will. I 
 wrote it precisely as I would have written under ordinary 
 circumstances, and be sure there was no predominance of 
 praise." 1 
 
 This does not read very consistently with another 
 
 1 Poe to Thomas, Stoddard, xcvii., xcviii. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 175 
 
 letter, 1 belonging clearly to a later time, in which he 
 informs Griswold that he has made use of his name 
 with the publishers for a copy, and contemplates no 
 ticing it in Lowell s " Pioneer." 
 
 While these changes were going on, Poe had not 
 relaxed his efforts to obtain an office under gov 
 ernment, and in the letter to Thomas, just quoted, 
 he expresses high hopes of success and great grati 
 tude to his friend for his efforts in the matter. At 
 the same time he was considering Graham s offer 
 to return, and a proposal vaguely entertained by 
 Foster, editor of the " Aurora," to start a magazine 
 in New York under Poe s charge. None of these 
 plans came to anything ; and, as always when every 
 thing else failed, Poe returned to his scheme for 
 starting a magazine of his own. He had at once ad 
 vertised the " Penn " on leaving " Graham s," 2 and 
 addressed his friends and acquaintances through a 
 new Prospectus, and besought them to obtain sub 
 scriptions, of which he needed five hundred. As 
 before, " The Penn Magazine " was to be original, 
 fearless, and independent, and would in particular 
 open its columns to merit instead of mushroom 
 reputations, and would be distinguished by criti 
 cism instead of puffery. To Washington Poe, the 
 
 1 Poe to Griswold. Griswold, xxi. Cf. letter circa January, 
 1849, ibid, xxii., in which Poe speaks of the review in the Pioneer 
 as having actually appeared in 1843, but it is not to be found 
 there. Possibly Poe contributed it, and the sudden suspension of 
 the Pioneer prevented its publication. 
 
 2 The New York Mirror, July 30, 1842. 
 
176 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 head of his Augusta relatives, he wrote in August 
 that he would issue the first number in the next 
 January, with the hope that he might serve truth 
 and advance American literature, and that fortune 
 and fame would now come to him hand in hand. 1 
 He succeeded in interesting Mr. Thomas C. Clarke, 
 the owner of the " Saturday Museum," a weekly 
 paper, in his plan, and the two entered into a part 
 nership for the publication of the new periodical, 
 which it was thought best to call " The Stylus." 
 
 The literary work of Poe during the last half of 
 this year was slight. In October he contributed to 
 " Graham s " his long-delayed article on " Rufus 
 Dawes," in which at last he took satirical vengeance 
 on that poetaster. A weaker and less prominent 
 magazine, " Snowden s Lady s Companion," was his 
 principal resource ; in it he published in October 
 "The Landscape Garden," and in November, De 
 cember, and February "The Mystery of Marie 
 Roget," in parts. In this fall, too, he addressed 
 for the first time Mr. J. R. Lowell, who had sev 
 eral times been praised by him incidentally, and 
 who was about to issue a new periodical in Boston. 
 As the correspondence thus begun is the most in 
 teresting series of letters by Poe, and as it throws 
 considerable light upon both his affairs and his 
 character, it will be given in full : 
 DR SIR, 
 
 Learning your design of commencing a Magazine, in 
 1 Poe to Washington Poe, August 15, 1842. Gill, p. 114. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 177 
 
 Boston, upon the first of January next, I take the liberty 
 of asking whether some arrangement might not be made, 
 by which I should become a regular contributor. 
 
 I should be glad to furnish a short article each month 
 
 of such character as might be suggested by yourself 
 
 and upon such terms as you could afford " in the be 
 ginning." 
 
 That your success will be marked and permanent I 
 will not doubt. At all events, I most sincerely wish you 
 well ; for no man in America has excited in me so much 
 admiration and, therefore, none so much of respect 
 and esteem as the author of "Rosaline." 
 
 May I hope to hear from you at your leisure ? In the 
 meantime, believe me 
 
 Most Cordially Yours, 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN PoE. 1 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, ESQRE. 
 PHILADELPHIA Novem : 16, 1842. 
 
 The offer was gladly accepted, and articles were 
 sent by Poe, as suggested, for each number. The 
 two following letters continue the story of the ac 
 quaintance : 
 
 [not dated mailed December 25, 1842.] 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND 
 
 I send you a brief poem for No 2, with my very best 
 wishes. 
 
 I duly received yours of the 19th and thank you for 
 reversing the judgment of Mr. Tuckerman the author 
 of the " Spirit of Poesy," which, by the way, is some 
 what of a misnomer since no spirit appears. 
 
 1 Poe to Lowell, MS. 
 32 
 
178 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Touching the " Miscellany " had I known of Mr. 
 T. s accession, I should not have ventured to send an 
 article. Should he, at any time, accept an effusion of 
 mine, I should ask myself what twattle I had been per 
 petrating, so flat as to come within the scope of his 
 approbation. He writes, through his publishers, "if 
 Mr. Poe would condescend to furnish more quiet articles 
 he would be a most desirable correspondent." All I 
 have to say is that if Mr. T. Persists in his quietude, he 
 will put a quietus on the Magazine of which Mess. 
 Bradbury and Soden have been so stupid as to give him 
 control. 
 
 I am all anxiety to see your first number. In the 
 meantime believe me, 1 
 
 [Signature torn off.] 
 
 PHILADELPHIA February 4, 1843. 
 MY DEAR MR. LOWELL, 
 
 For some weeks I have been daily proposing to write 
 and congratulate you upon the triumphant debut of the 
 " Pioneer," but have been prevented by a crowd of more 
 worldly concerns. 
 
 Thank you for the compliment in the foot-note. Thank 
 you, also, for your attention in forwarding the Maga 
 zine. 
 
 As far as a $3 Magazine can please me at all, I am 
 delighted with yours. I am especially gratified with 
 what seems to me a certain coincidence of opinion and 
 of taste, between yourself and your humble servant, in 
 the minor arrangements, as well as in the more im 
 portant details of the journal, for example the poetry 
 
 i Poe to Lowell, MS. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 179 
 
 in the same type as the prose the designs from Flax- 
 man &c. As regards the contributors our thoughts 
 are one. Do you know that when, some time since, I 
 dreamed of establishing a Magazine of my own, I said 
 to myself "If I can but succeed in engaging, as per 
 manent contributors, Mr. Hawthorne, Mr. Neal, and two 
 others, with a certain young poet of Boston, who shall 
 be nameless, I will engage to produce the best journal in 
 America." At the same time, while I thought, and still 
 think highly of Mr. Bryant, Mr. Cooper, and others, I 
 said nothing of them. 
 
 You have many warm friends in this city but the 
 reforms you propose require time in their development, 
 and it may be even a year before " The Pioneer " will 
 make due impression among the Quakers. In the mean 
 time, persevere. 
 
 I forwarded you, about a fortnight ago I believe, by 
 Hamden s Express, an article called " Notes upon Eng 
 lish Verse." A thought has struck me, that it may prove 
 too long, or perhaps too dull, for your Magazine in 
 either case, use no ceremony, but return it in the same 
 mode (thro Hamden) and I will, forthwith, send some 
 thing in its place. 
 
 I duly received from Mr. Graham, $10 on your 
 account, for which I am obliged. I would prefer, how 
 ever, that you would remit directly to myself through the 
 P. Office. 
 
 I saw, not long ago, at Graham s, a poem without the 
 author s name but which for many reasons I take to 
 be yours the chief being that it was very beautiful. 
 Its title I forget but it slightly veiled a lovely Allegory 
 in which " Religion " was typified, and the whole painted 
 
 ) 
 
180 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 the voyage of some wanderers and mourners in search 
 of some far-off isle. Is it yours ? 
 
 Truly your friend E. A. PoE. 1 
 
 Within a few weeks of the date of this letter, 
 the Prospectus of " The Stylus " was first issued 
 through the columns of the " Saturday Museum," 
 which called attention to it in an editorial puff of 
 Poe. The Prospectus is shorter than that of the 
 " Penn Magazine," but the identity of the two is 
 avowed, and in the important parts describing the 
 aims of the editors the same sentences formerly 
 used are incorporated. The " chief purpose" is 
 still declared to be to found a journal distinguished 
 by " a sincere and fearless opinion," and it is an 
 nounced as earnest of this intention that " an im 
 portant feature of the work, and one which will be 
 introduced in the opening number, will be a series 
 of Critical and Biographical Sketches of Ameri 
 can Writers. " " The Stylus " was to be illustrated 
 also, like the " Penn," and an agreement, signed 
 January 31, 1843, was entered into between Clarke 
 and Poe on one side and F. O. C. Darley on the 
 other, in accordance with which the latter was to 
 furnish not less than three original designs per 
 month to Clarke and Poe, at seven dollars each, 
 until July 1, 1844, and was not to contribute 
 similar designs for use in any other magazine dur 
 ing that period. The subjects were to be given by 
 the editors, and the first work put into the artist s 
 1 Poe to Lowell, MS. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 181 
 
 hands for this purpose was " The Gold Bug," for 
 which he made and delivered some designs. Poe 
 himself took the story to Mr. Darley, with whom 
 he held pleasant relations. " He impressed me," 
 writes the latter, " as a refined and very gentle 
 manly man ; exceedingly neat in his person ; in 
 teresting always, from the intellectual character of 
 his mind, which appeared to me to be tinged with 
 sadness. His manner was quiet and reserved ; he 
 rarely smiled. I remember his reading his Gold 
 Bug and Black Cat to me before they were 
 published. The form of his manuscript was pe 
 culiar: he wrote on half sheets of note paper, 
 which he pasted together at the ends, making one 
 continuous piece, which he rolled up tightly. As 
 he read he dropped it upon the floor. It was 
 very neatly written, and without corrections, ap 
 parently." l Several of these small rolls still exist. 
 
 In aid of the new venture Poe s life and portrait 
 were printed in the " Saturday Museum," of which 
 it was announced that he was editor. The life was 
 written by a young Philadelphia poet, H. B. Hirst, 
 from materials furnished by T. W. White, of the 
 "Messenger," and Thomas; and the portrait, which 
 was said to be a mere caricature, was lithographed 
 from a miniature. 
 
 Poe himself was shortly after sent to Washing 
 ton to obtain subscriptions among his political 
 friends, and, if possible, those of the President 
 
 1 Darley to the author, February 2G, 1884. 
 
182 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 and Cabinet through his old acquaintance, Eob 
 Tyler. He apparently also meant to lecture, and 
 to look after his prospects of becoming an office 
 holder, the particular post in view being an In 
 spectorship. The visit was unfortunate. On the 
 evening of his arrival he began to drink, and his 
 host s " rummy coffee " following port wine made 
 the beginning of a spree. On the next day, March 
 11, he so far lost his head as to write a contra 
 dictory and untrue letter, 1 plainly the composition 
 of an intoxicated man, to his partner ; and a day 
 later, Mr. J. E. Dow, who was taking care of him, 
 also dispatched a letter to Mr. Clarke, advising 
 him to come on and take charge of his friend, as 
 Mr. Thomas was too ill to do so, and he himself too 
 much engaged, while they both felt afraid to send 
 him off to Philadelphia alone, lest he should be led 
 to stop at Baltimore, and there meet with some 
 harm. " Mrs. Poe," says the writer pitifully, " is 
 in a bad state of health, and I charge you, as you 
 have a soul to be saved, to say not one word to her 
 about him until he arrives with you." 2 Poe, how 
 ever, was sent home by himself, and arrived at 
 Philadelphia March 15, where he was met at the 
 station by Mrs. Clemm. After going home he 
 called on Clarke, who was greatly surprised to see 
 him, but received him " cordially and made light 
 of the matter ; " at least, so Poe wrote to his two 
 
 * ! Poe to Clarke. Gill, p. 120- 
 2 Dow to Clarke. Gill, p. 121. 
 
/AT PHILADELPHIA. 183 
 
 friends, Thomas and Dow, the next day, in a long 
 epistle, 1 in which, although treating the affair 
 jocosely, and alarmed for its possible effects on 
 Clarke s mind, he expresses his regret and sends 
 his apologies, with many words of gratitude for the 
 attention shown him. He remarks incidentally, " I 
 would be glad, too, if you would take an opportu 
 nity of saying to Mr. Rob Tyler that if he can 
 look over matters and give me the Inspectorship, I 
 will join the Washingtonians forthwith ; " but he 
 seems to have made up his mind that his hopes of 
 office were vain. 
 
 That Clarke was not implacably offended by this 
 episode, which Poe accounted for as an attack of 
 illness which had unduly alarmed Dow, appears 
 from the following letter to Lowell, in which the 
 project of the " Stylus " is announced to him. The 
 " Pioneer " had already met its fate, and Lowell 
 was himself ill with ophthalmia. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, March 27, 43. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I have just received yours of the 24th and am deeply 
 grieved, first that you should have been so unfortunate, 
 and, secondly, that you should have thought it necessary 
 to offer me any apology for your misfortunes. As for 
 the few dollars you owe me give yourself not one 
 moment s concern about them. I am poor, but must be 
 very much poorer, indeed, when I even think of demand 
 ing them. 
 
 1 Poe to Thomas and Dow, March 16, 1843. MS. copy. 
 
184 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 But I sincerely hope all is not so bad as you suppose 
 it, and that, when you come to look about you, you will 
 be able to continue " The Pioneer." Its decease, just 
 now, would be a most severe blow to the good cause 
 the cause of a Pure Taste. I have looked upon your 
 Magazine, from its outset, as the best in America, and 
 have lost no opportunity of expressing the opinion. 
 Herewith I send a paper, " The Phil. Sat. Museum," 
 in which I have said a few words on the topic. 
 
 I am not editing this paper, although an announce 
 ment was prematurely made to that effect ; but have the 
 privilege of inserting what I please editorially. On the 
 first of July next I hope to issue the first number of 
 " The Stylus," a new monthly, with some novel features. 
 I send you, also, a paper containing the Prospectus. In 
 a few weeks I hope to forward you a specimen sheet. I 
 am anxious to get a poem from yourself for the opening 
 number, but, until you recover your health, I fear that I 
 should be wrong in making the request. 
 
 Believe me, my dear friend, that I sympathize with 
 you truly in your affliction. When I heard that you had 
 returned to Boston, I hoped you were entirely well, and 
 your letter disappoints and grieves me. 
 
 When you find yourself in condition to write, I would 
 be indebted to you if you could put me in the way of 
 procuring a brief article (also for my opening number) 
 from Mr. Hawthorne whom I believe you know per 
 sonally. Whatever you gave him, we should be happy 
 to give. A part of my design is to illustrate, whatever 
 is fairly susceptible of illustration, with finely executed 
 wood-engravings after the fashion of Gigoux s " Gil 
 Bias " or " Grandville s Gulliver " and I wish to get 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 185 
 
 a tale from Mr. Hawthorne as early as possible (if I am 
 so fortunate as to get one at all), that I may put the il 
 lustration in the hands of the artist. 
 
 You will see by the Prospectus that we intend to give 
 a series of portraits of the American literati, with crit 
 ical sketches. I would be glad if I could so arrange 
 matters as to have you first, provided you yourself have 
 no serious objection. Instead of the " full-length por 
 traits " promised in the Prospectus (which will be mod 
 ified in the specimen sheet), we shall have medallions 
 about three inches in diameter. Could you put me in 
 possession of any likeness of yourself ? or would you 
 do me the same favor in regard to Mr. Hawthorne? 
 You perceive I proceed upon the ground that you are 
 intimate with Mr. H., and that making these inquiries 
 would not subject you to trouble or inconvenience. 
 
 I confess that I am by no means so conversant with 
 your own compositions (especially in prose), as I should 
 be. Could you furnish me with some biographical and 
 critical data, and tell me when or how I could be put in 
 possession of your writings generally ? but I fear I am 
 asking altogether too much. 
 
 If the 4th number of " The Pioneer " is printed, I 
 would be obliged if you would send me an early copy 
 through the P. O. 
 
 Please remember me to Mr. Carter, and believe me 
 Most sincerely your friend, 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 J. RUSSELL LOWELL, ESQ RE . 
 
 Before the " Pioneer " was discontinued, after its 
 third number, Poe had contributed to it " The Tell- 
 
 1 Poe to Lowell. MS. 
 
186 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Tale Heart," the third of the tales of conscience ; 
 " Lenore," a greatly revised version of his old 
 " Pseaii ; " and " Notes upon English Verse," a 
 purely metrical discussion, which he afterwards re 
 moulded into the " Rationale of Verse." During 
 the same time he published in Miss Leslie s an 
 nual, "The Gift," for 1843, "The Pit and the 
 Pendulum," a tale of no striking originality ; and 
 in " Graham s " the fine poem entitled " The Con 
 queror Worm," and " Flaccus " (the second of the 
 series called "Our Amateur Poets"), a satirical 
 review of one Thomas Ward, which he himself re 
 garded as in his best manner. 
 
 Meanwhile the "Stylus" had been abandoned, 
 and when the first of July came it found Poe sick 
 and poor. On June 11 he wrote to Griswold a 
 characteristic note : 
 
 DEAR GRISWOLD : Can you not send me $5 ? I 
 am sick and Virginia is almost gone. Come and see me. 
 Peterson says you suspect me of a curious anonymous 
 letter. I did not write it, but bring it along with you 
 when you make the visit you promised to Mrs. Clemm. 
 I will try to fix that matter soon. Could you do any 
 thing with my note ? Yours truly, 
 
 E. A. P. 1 
 
 It was probably in response to this letter that 
 Griswold called upon him at his home, No. 7 Spring 
 Garden, of which he gave a description : 
 
 " When once he sent for me to visit him, during a 
 1 Griswold, xx. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 187 
 
 period of illness caused by protracted and anxious watch 
 ing at the side of his sick wife, I was impressed by 
 the singular neatness and the air of refinement in his 
 home. It was in a small house, in one of the pleasant 
 and silent neighborhoods far from the centre of the town, 
 and though slightly and cheaply furnished everything in 
 it was so tasteful and so fitly disposed that it seemed al 
 together suitable for a man of genius. For this and for 
 most of the comforts he enjoyed, in his brightest as in his 
 darkest years, he was chiefly indebted to his mother-in- 
 law, who loved him with more than maternal devotion 
 and constancy." 1 
 
 To this same period of unusual poverty and 
 suffering Mayne Reid s characterization of Mrs. 
 Clemm probably belongs: 
 
 " She was the ever- vigilant guardian of the home, 
 watching it against the silent but continuous sap of ne 
 cessity, that appeared every day to be approaching closer 
 and nearer. She was the sole servant, keeping every 
 thing clean ; the sole messenger, doing the errands, mak 
 ing pilgrimages between the poet and his publishers, 
 frequently bringing back such chilling responses as The 
 article not accepted, or The check not to be given 
 until such and such a day, often too late for his ne 
 cessities. And she was also the messenger to the market ; 
 from it bringing back not the delicacies of the season, 
 but only such commodities as were called for by the dire 
 exigencies of hunger." 2 
 
 He remembered the house as " a lean-to of three 
 
 1 Grisvvold, xxxiv. 
 
 2 Onward, quoted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 30, 1869. 
 
188 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 rooms (there may have been a garret with a closet), 
 of painted plank construction, supported against the 
 gable of the more pretentious dwelling," the lat 
 ter being a four story red-brick mansion of a wealthy 
 Quaker. But Mr. T. C. Clarke, whose family vis 
 ited the Poes more or less frequently, describes it 
 as a cottage set back from the street amid luxu 
 riant grape and other vines, and ornamented in 
 winter with flowers. There he especially remem 
 bered the childish wife, slowly wasting away in con 
 sumption, but " wearing on her beautiful counte 
 nance the smile of resignation, and the warm, even 
 cheerful look with which she ever greeted her 
 friends." 1 The appearance of the house, however, 
 and the simple hospitality which he and Mayne 
 Reid and others enjoyed in it, must have varied 
 materially with the rapacity of the pawnbroker ; 
 and it is said that the family now became the ob 
 ject of charity. 
 
 The principal income during these trying months 
 was the one-hundred-dollar prize received by Poe 
 from " The Dollar Newspaper," edited by Joseph 
 Sailer, for the story of " The Gold Bug," which he 
 had recovered from Graham by exchanging a crit 
 ical article for it, and had sent in to the judges. 
 This, the most widely circulated of his tales, was 
 published in two parts : the first June 21, 1843, and 
 the second (together with the first, which was re 
 printed) a week later. On July 12 it was pub- 
 i Gill, p. 101. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 189 
 
 lished again with two other prize tales in a supple 
 ment. A charge that it was plagiarized from Miss 
 Sherburne s " Imogene, or The Pirate s Treasure," 
 was made in " The Spirit of the Times," and was 
 widely circulated, but a refutation was quickly at 
 tempted in "The Dollar Newspaper," July 19. The 
 only other stories of Poe s published during this 
 year were the fearful tale of "The Black Cat" in 
 the "United States Saturday Post" (as the old 
 " Saturday Evening Post" was now called), August 
 19, and " Morning on the Wissahiccon," a quiet 
 landscape sketch of the environs of Philadelphia 
 (evidently " The Elk," mentioned hereafter), con 
 tributed to Willis s annual, " The Opal," for 1844. 
 In criticism he published three reviews, all in 
 " Graham s : " one, perhaps the most contemptuous 
 he ever wrote, on William Ellery Channing, the 
 transcendentalist poet, being the third of the series 
 " Our Amateur Poets ; " one on Fitz-Greene Hal- 
 leek, being No. viii. of "Our Contributors," a series 
 of which the plan seems to have been taken from 
 that projected by Poe for the " Stylus ; " and one of 
 a perfunctory kind on Cooper s " Wyandotte." In 
 the fall an edition of his " Tales," in parts, was un 
 dertaken, but only one issue, containing " The Mur 
 ders of the Rue Morgue " and "The Man who was 
 Used Up," is known. 1 
 
 Poe still interested himself from time to time in 
 the solution of cryptographs, an occupation which 
 
 1 The New Mirror, September, 1843. 
 
190 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 the following letter, with its side-lights upon other 
 topics, sufficiently illustrates : 
 
 PHILA., Aug. 28, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have just rec d your letter, en 
 closing one in hieroglyphical writing from Mr. Meek, 
 and hasten to reply, since you desire it ; although, some 
 months ago, I was obliged to make a vow that I would 
 engage in the solution of no more cryptographs. The 
 reason of my making this vow will be readily understood. 
 Much curiosity was excited throughout the country by 
 my solutions of these cyphers, and a great number of 
 persons felt a desire to test my powers individually 
 so that I was at one time absolutely overwhelmed ; and 
 this placed me in a dilemma ; for I had either to devote 
 my whole time to the solutions, or the correspondents 
 would suppose me a mere boaster, incapable of fulfilling 
 my promises. I had no alternative but to solve all ; but 
 to each correspondent I made known my intentions to 
 solve no more. You will hardly believe me when I tell 
 you that I have lost, in time, which to me is money, more 
 than a thousand dollars, in solving ciphers, with no other 
 object in view than that just mentioned. A really diffi 
 cult cipher requires vast labor and the most patient 
 thought in its solution. Mr. Meek s letter is very simple 
 indeed, and merely shows that he misapprehends the 
 whole matter. It runs thus : 
 
 [Here follows the solution.] 
 
 This is the whole of Mr. Meek s letter but he is 
 mistaken in supposing that I " pride myself " upon my 
 solutions of ciphers. I feel little pride about anything. 
 
 It is very true, as he says, that cypher writing is " no 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 191 
 
 great difficulty if the signs represent invariably the same 
 letters and are divided into separate words." But the 
 fact is, that most of the criptographs sent to me (Dr. 
 Frailey s for instance) were not divided into words, and 
 moreover, the signs never represented the same letter 
 twice. 
 
 But here is an infallible mode of showing Mr. Meek 
 that he knows nothing about the matter. He says cipher, 
 writing "is no great difficulty if the signs represent inva 
 riably the same letters and are divided into separate 
 words." This is true ; and yet, little as this difficulty is, 
 he cannot surmount it. Send him, as if from yourself^ 
 these few words, in which the conditions stated by him 
 are rigidly preserved. I will answer for it, he cannot 
 decipher them for his life. They are taken at random 
 from a well-known work now lying beside me : 
 [Here follows Poe s cryptograph.] 
 
 And now, my dear friend, have you forgotten that 
 I asked you, some time since, to render me an important 
 favor ? You can surely have no scruples in a case of this 1 
 kind. I have reason to believe that I have been maligned 
 by some envious scoundrel in this city, who has written 
 you a letter respecting myself. I believe I know the 
 villain s name. It is Wilmer. In Philadelphia no one 
 speaks to him. He is avoided by all as a reprobate of 
 the lowest class. Feeling a deep pity for him, I endeav 
 oured to befriend him, and you remember that I rendered 
 myself liable to some censure by writing a review of his 
 filthy pamphlet called the "Quacks of Helicon." He 
 has returned my good offices by slander behind my back. 
 All here are anxious to have him convicted for there 
 is scarcely a gentleman in Phila a whom he has not libelled, 
 
192 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 through the gross malignity of his nature. Now, I ask 
 you, as a friend and as a man of noble feelings, to send 
 me his letter to you. It is your duty to do this and I 
 am sure, upon reflection, you will so regard it. 
 I await your answer impatiently. 
 
 Your friend, E. A. PoE. 1 
 
 Wilmer probably ill deserved this tirade, since, 
 after Poe s death, he was one of his most faithful 
 defenders. Scandal, however, was busy with Poe s 
 name, and found its way into print in one of the 
 city papers, in an article of which Poe suspected 
 Griswold to be the author. There is some evi 
 dence, as will be seen later on, that he visited Sar 
 atoga this summer ; but the illness of himself and 
 his wife, and the poverty of the family, together 
 with his seemingly uninterrupted employment in 
 Philadelphia, go to discredit the story. 
 
 After the fall came, the only information concern 
 ing him at this obscure period "is derived from his 
 letters to Lowell : 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 19, 1843. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I was upon the point of fulfilling a long neglected 
 duty and replying to Mr. Carter s letter, enclosing $5, 
 when I received yours of the 13th, remitting $5 more. 
 Believe me I am sincerely grateful to you both for your 
 uniform kindness and consideration. 
 
 You say nothing of your health but Mr. C. speaks of 
 its perfect restoration, and I see, by your very MS., that 
 you are well again, body and mind. I need not say that 
 1 Poe to John Tomlin, Esq. MS. 
 
7.2V PHILADELPHIA. 193 
 
 I am rejoiced at this for you must know and feel that 
 I am. "When I thought of the possible loss of your eye 
 sight, I grieved as if some dreadful misfortune were 
 about happening to myself. 
 
 I shall look with much anxiety for your promised vol 
 ume. Will it include your " Year s Life," and other 
 poems already published ? I hope that it may ; for these 
 have not yet been fairly placed before the eye of the 
 world. I am seeking an opportunity to do you justice in 
 a review, and may find it in " Graham," when your book 
 appears. No poet in America has done so much. I 
 have maintained this upon all occasions. Mr. Longfel 
 low has genius, but by no means equals you in the true 
 spirit. He is moreover so prone to imitation that I know 
 not how to understand him at times. I am in doubt 
 whether he should not be termed an arrant plagiarist. 
 You have read his " Spanish Student " ? I have written 
 quite a long notice of it for Graham s December number. 
 The play is a poor composition, with some fine poet 
 ical passages. His " Hymn to the Night," with some 
 strange blemishes, is glorious. How much I should 
 like to interchange opinions with you upon poems and 
 poets in general ! I fancy that we should agree, usually, 
 in results, while differing, frequently, about principles. 
 The day may come when we can discuss everything at 
 leisure, in person. 
 
 You say that your long poem has taught you a useful 
 lesson, " that you are unfit to write narrative unless 
 in a dramatic form." It is not you that are unfit for 
 the task but the task for you for any poet. Poetry 
 must eschew narrative except, as you say, dramatic 
 ally. I mean to say that the true poetry the highest 
 13 
 
 ^5^v^ 
 
194 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 poetry must eschew it. The Iliad is not the highest. 
 The connecting links of a narrative the frequent pas 
 sages which have to serve the purpose of binding together 
 the parts of the story, are necessarily prose, from their 
 very explanatory nature. To color them to gloss over 
 their prosaic nature (for this is the most which can 
 be done) requires great skill. Thus Byron, who was no 
 artist, is always driven, in his narrative, to fragmentary 
 passages, eked out with asterisks. Moore succeeds bet 
 ter than any one. His " Alciphron " is wonderful in the 
 force, grace, and nature of its purely narrative passages : 
 but pardon me for prosing. 
 
 I send you the paper with my life and portrait. The 
 former is true in general the latter particularly false. 
 It does not convey the faintest idea of my person. No 
 one of my family recognized it. But this is a point of 
 little importance. You will see, upon the back of the 
 biography, an announcement that I was to assume the 
 editorship of the " Museum." This was unauthorized. 
 I never did edit it. The review of " Graham s Maga 
 zine " was written by H. B. Hirst a young poet of this 
 city. Who is to write your life for " Graham ? " It is 
 a pity that so many of these biographies were entrusted 
 to Mr. Griswold. He certainly lacks independence, or 
 judgment, or both. 
 
 I have tried in vain to get a copy of your " Year s 
 Life " in Philadelphia. If you have one, and could spare 
 it, I would be much obliged. 
 
 Do write me again when you have leisure, and be 
 lieve me, Your most sincere friend, 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 
 J. E. LOWELL, ESQRE. 
 
 1 Poe to Lowell. MS. 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 195 
 
 At some time during the summer Poe is said to 
 have made his debut as a lecturer in the " Egyptian 
 Hall," Baltimore. He appeared in Philadelphia in 
 the same role, November 25, and made a favora 
 ble impression. His subject was " The Poets and 
 Poetry of America," and, while the lecture was 
 largely compiled from his former book-reviews, it 
 was especially distinguished by an attack, which 
 seems to have been unusually severe, on Gris- 
 wold s volume. At some time before this date, and 
 probably at the very beginning of the year, there 
 had appeared in the " Saturday Museum " an anon 
 ymous review of the third edition of Griswold s 
 work, in which that reverend gentleman was held 
 up to public ridicule in the most scoffing and bitter 
 style, and contrasted with Poe by name, much to 
 the latter s praise and to his own degradation. 
 This mingled expression of pique, wrath, and scorn, 
 with its flaunting self -commendation, is indubitably 
 Poe s own work, but as it was unacknowledged 
 Griswold had no plain ground for a personal quar 
 rel. About the utterances of the lecture, however, 
 he could have no doubt, and the flagellation he re 
 ceived in it, which does not seem to have displeased 
 his literary associates, caused an open breach be 
 tween himself and Poe that was not closed, even in 
 appearance, until a year and a half had elapsed. 
 It is worthy of note that Griswold had left his 
 place on " Graham s" about two months before the 
 delivery of the address. 
 
196 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 The receipts from the new profession of lecturing 
 could not have been large, and for one cause or an 
 other the editors who were accustomed to publish 
 Poe s work either would not buy it, or else delayed 
 to print it. After Griswold s retirement from 
 " Graham s," Poe seems to have held during the 
 winter the post of assistant to Graham, by far the 
 larger part of the reviews being from his hand. In 
 March, 1844, appeared his only signed article for 
 several months past, a lengthy review of the drama, 
 " Orion," by Eichard Hengist Home, recently pub 
 lished in England. Of this work, which appealed 
 strongly to Poe s delight in pictorial fancy and 
 subdued mystical suggestion, he declared, "It is 
 our deliberate opinion that in all that regards the 
 loftiest and holiest attributes of the true Poetry, 
 4 Orion has never been excelled. Indeed, we feel 
 strongly inclined to say that it has never been 
 equaled" After comparing one passage of it with 
 Milton s description of hell, the latter being " al 
 together inferior in graphic effect, in originality, 
 in expression, in the true imagination," he con 
 cludes more calmly that " Orion will be admitted, 
 by every man of genius, to be one of the noblest, 
 if not the very noblest poetical work of the age." l 
 
 Whether or not Poe had been taken back by 
 Graham to be his unacknowledged assistant, he 
 had now formed a new scheme, which is as fine a 
 piece of literary visionariness as was ever elabo- 
 
 1 Works, ii. 437-444. 
 
7^ PHILADELPHIA. 197 
 
 rated by a penniless author. He unfolds it in the 
 following letter to Lowell, which also contains 
 other matter of contemporary interest. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, March 30, 1844. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 Graham has been speaking to me, lately, about your 
 Biography, and I am anxious to write it at once, always 
 provided you have no objection. Could you forward me 
 the materials within a day or two ? I am just now quite 
 disengaged in fact positively idle. 
 
 I presume you have read the Memoir of Willis, in 
 the April number of G. It is written by a Mr. Landor 
 
 but I think it full of hyperbole. Willis is no genius 
 
 a graceful trifler no more. He wants force and 
 sincerity. He is very frequently far-fetched. In me, at 
 least, he never excites an emotion. Perhaps the best 
 poem he has written is a little piece called " Unseen 
 Spirits," beginning " The Shadows lay Along Broad 
 way." 
 
 You inquire about my own portrait. It has been done 
 for some time but is better as an engraving, than as a 
 portrait. It scarcely resembles me at all. When it will 
 appear I cannot say. Conrad and Mrs. Stephens will 
 certainly come before me perhaps Gen. Morris. My 
 Life is not yet written, and I am at a sad loss for a Bi 
 ographer for Graham insists upon leaving the matter 
 to myself. 
 
 I sincerely rejoice to hear of the success of your 
 volume. To sell eleven hundred copies of a bound book 
 of American poetry, is to do wonders. I hope every 
 thing from your future endeavors. Have you read 
 * Orion ? " Have you seen the article on " American 
 
198 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Poetry " in the " London Foreign Quarterly ? " It has 
 been denied that Dickens wrote it but, to me, the ar 
 ticle affords so strong internal evidence of his hand that 
 I would as soon think of doubting my existence. He tells 
 much truth although he evinces much ignorance and 
 more spleen. Among other points he accuses myself of 
 " metrical imitation " of Tennyson, citing, by way of in 
 stance, passages from poems which were written and 
 published by me long before Tennyson was heard of : 
 but I have at no time made any poetical pretention. I 
 am greatly indebted for the trouble you have taken about 
 the lectures, and shall be very glad to avail myself, next 
 season, of any invitation from the " Boston Lyceum." 
 Thank you, also, for the hint about the North American 
 Review ; I will bear it in mind. I mail you, herewith, 
 a " Dollar Newspaper," containing a somewhat extrava 
 gant tale of my own. I fear it will prove little to your 
 taste. 
 
 How dreadful is the present condition of our Liter 
 ature ! To what are things tending ? We want two 
 things, certainly : an International Copy-Right Law, 
 and a well-founded Monthly Journal, of sufficient ability, 
 circulation, and character, to control and so give tone to, 
 our Letters. It should be, externally, a specimen of high, 
 but not too refined Taste : I mean, it should be boldly 
 printed, on excellent paper, in single column, and be il 
 lustrated, not merely embellished, by spirited wood de 
 signs in the style of Grandville. Its chief aims should 
 be Independence, Truth, Originality. It should be a 
 journal of some 120 pp, and furnished at $5. It should 
 have nothing to do with Agents or Agencies. Such a 
 Magazine might be made to exercise a prodigious in- 
 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 199 
 
 fluence, and would be a source of vast wealth to its pro 
 prietors. There can be no reason why 100,000 copies 
 might not, in one or two *years, be circulated ; but the 
 means of bringing it into circulation should be radically 
 different from those usually employed. 
 
 Such a journal might, perhaps, be set on foot by a 
 coalition, and, thus set on foot, with proper understand 
 ing, would be irresistible. Suppose, for example, that 
 the elite of our men of letters should combine secretly. 
 Many of them control papers, &c. Let each subscribe, 
 say $200, for the commencement of the undertaking; 
 furnishing other means, as required from time to time, 
 until the work be established. The articles to be sup 
 plied by the members solely, and upon a concerted plan 
 of action. A nominal editor to be elected from among 
 the number. How could such a journal fail ? I would 
 like very much to hear your opinion upon this matter. 
 Could not the " ball be set in motion ? " If we do not 
 defend ourselves by some such coalition, we shall be de 
 voured, without mercy, by the Godeys, the Snowdens, 
 et id genus omne. 
 
 Most truly your friend, 
 
 EDGAR A. Pos. 1 
 
 The next week after writing this letter Poe put 
 in execution what seems a very sudden determina 
 tion to leave Philadelphia. Possibly the discon 
 tinuance of his undefined connection with " Gra 
 ham s," which now took place, finally discouraged 
 him ; but whatever was the immediate occasion of 
 his decision, looking back over the five years of his 
 i Poe to Lowell. MS. 
 
200 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 life in that city, with its delusively brilliant open 
 ings and sharp reverses of fortune, he must have 
 felt that he obeyed the dictates of worldly prudence 
 in deserting a scene where his repeated failures and 
 their causes were well known to the whole literary 
 fraternity. He seems to have broken up his home 
 at the cottage before this time, and he had not much 
 more than ten dollars in his pocket when he left. 
 Mrs. Clemm remained behind to sell his books and 
 settle up affairs, and with Virginia he went to New 
 York, apparently with no more definite a view than 
 to make a new start in a new community. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN NEW YORK. 
 
 POE S account of his departure is given in a let 
 ter to Mrs. Clemm, which stands by itself in his 
 correspondence as of a purely domestic kind, illus 
 trative of life within doors, and (the more forcibly 
 by its indirectness) of the penury to which at times 
 the family was accustomed. Its confiding and fa 
 miliar tone explains somewhat, too, how he won the 
 devotion of his mother-in-law to that degree which 
 has secured for her the admiration of all who were 
 intimately acquainted with Poe s home life. 
 
 ( NEW YORK, Sunday Morning, 
 \ April 7, just after breakfast. 
 
 MY DEAR MUDDY, 
 
 We have just this minute done breakfast, and I now sit 
 down to write you about everything. I can t pay for the 
 letter, because the P. O. won t be open to-day. In the 
 first place we arrived safe at Walnut St. wharf. The 
 driver wanted to make me pay a dollar, but I would n t. 
 Then I had to pay a boy a levy to put the trunks in the 
 baggage car. In the meantime I took Sis [Virginia] in 
 the Depot Hotel. It was only a quarter past six, and 
 we had to wait till seven. We saw the Ledger and 
 Times nothing in either a few words of no account 
 
202 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 in the Chronicle. We started in good spirits, but did 
 not get here until nearly three o clock. We went in 
 the cars to Amboy, about forty miles from N. York, and 
 then took the steamboat the rest of the way. Sissy 
 coughed none at all. When we got to the wharf it was 
 raining hard. I left her on board the boat, after putting 
 the trunks in the Ladies cabin, and set off to buy an 
 umbrella and look for a boarding-house. I met a man 
 selling umbrellas, and bought one for twenty-five cents. 
 Then I went up Greenwich St. and soon found a board 
 ing house. It is just before you get to Cedar St., on 
 the west side going up the left-hand side. It has 
 brown stone steps, with a porch with brown pillars. 
 " Morrison " is the name on the door. I made a bargain 
 in a few minutes and then got a hack and went for Sis. 
 I was not gone more than half an hour, and she was 
 quite astonished to see me back so soon. She didn t 
 expect me for an hour. There were two other ladies 
 waiting on board so she was n t very lonely. When 
 we got to the house we had to wait about half an hour 
 before the room was ready. The house is old and looks 
 buggy [The letter is cut here for the signature on the 
 other side.] the cheapest board I ever knew, taking 
 into consideration the central situation and the living. 
 I wish Kate [Catterina, the cat] could see it she 
 would faint. Last night, for supper, we had the nicest 
 tea you ever drank, strong and hot wheat bread and 
 rye bread cheese tea-cakes (elegant), a great dish 
 (two dishes) of elegant ham, and two of cold veal, piled 
 up like a mountain and large slices three dishes of 
 the cakes and everything in the greatest profusion. No 
 fear of starving here. The landlady seemed as if she 
 
IN NEW YORK. 203 
 
 could n t press us enough, and we were at home directly. 
 Her husband is living with her a fat, good-natured old 
 soul. There are eight or ten boarders two or three of 
 them ladies two servants. For breakfast we had ex 
 cellent-flavored coffee, hot and strong not very clear 
 and no great deal of cream veal cutlets, elegant ham 
 and eggs and nice bread and butter. I never sat down 
 to a more plentiful or a nicer breakfast. I wish you 
 could have seen the eggs and the great dishes of 
 meat. I ate the first hearty breakfast I have eaten 
 since I left our little home. Sis is delighted, and we 
 are both in excellent spirits. She has coughed hardly 
 any and had no night sweat. She is now busy mending 
 my pants which I tore against a nail. I went out last 
 night and bought a skein of silk, a skein of thread, 
 two buttons, a pair of slippers, and a tin pan for the 
 stove. The fire kept in all night. We have now got 
 four dollars and a half left. To-morrow I am going to 
 try and borrow three dollars, so that I may have a 
 fortnight to go upon. I feel in excellent spirits, and 
 have n t drank a drop so that I hope soon to get out 
 of trouble. The very instant I scrape together enough 
 money I will send it on. You can t imagine how much 
 we both do miss you. Sissy had a hearty cry last night, 
 because you and Catterina were n t here. We are re 
 solved to get two rooms the first moment we can. In 
 the mean time it is impossible we could be more comfort 
 able or more at home than we are. It looks as if it were 
 going to clear up now. Be sure and go to the P. 0. 
 and have my letters forwarded. As soon as I write 
 Lowell s article, I will send it to you, and get you to get 
 the money from Graham. Give our best love to C. 
 [Signature cut out.] 
 
204 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Be sure and take home the "Messenger " to Hirst 
 We hope to send for you very soon. 1 
 
 The postscript of this letter, " Be sure and take 
 home the Messenger to Hirst," though a matter 
 of the most trifling detail, is worth explanation, 
 since the circumstance to which it relates is yet re 
 membered to Poe s discredit in Philadelphia, while 
 the whole paltry affair furnishes a capital illustra 
 tion of the mean though natural misconstruction 
 to which he was sometimes exposed. The story is 
 completely told in the following papers. Willis 
 Duane, to whom the letters are addressed, was at 
 one time Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 NEW YORK, Oct. 28, 44. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 Owing to my absence from this city, (where I am now 
 residing) I did not receive your letter of the 15th until 
 this morning. 
 
 I regret exceedingly that circumstances should have 
 led you to think me negligent, or uncourteous, in not re 
 turning the volume of the "Messenger" for one or 
 the other (perhaps both) you must long since have con 
 sidered me. The facts are these : Some eight months 
 ago, I believe, I chanced to mention, in Mr. Hirst s hear 
 ing, that I wished to look over a particular article in the 
 " Messenger." He immediately volunteered to procure 
 me the desired volume from you. I would much rather 
 have borrowed it personally but he seemed to make a 
 point of the matter and I consented. Soon afterwards 
 he handed me the book, which I retained a very short 
 1 Poe to Mrs. Clemm. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 205 
 
 time. It is now certainly more than seven months since 
 I returned it to Mr. Hirst, through my mother-in-law 
 (Mrs. Clemm) who informs me that she left it at his 
 office, with one of his brothers. Most probably it was 
 deposited in a book-case, and thus overlooked and for 
 gotten. May I trouble you to send for it. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 WILLIS DUANE, ESQR. 
 
 Endorsed by Duane : N. B. The statement con 
 tained in this letter that the volume of " The Southern 
 Literary Messenger " in question was returned to Henry 
 B. Hirst, Esqr. was pronounced by Mr. Hirst to be "a 
 damned lie," and subsequent events showed that Mr. 
 Hirst was right in denying it Mr. Poe having sold the 
 book I hope unintentionally to William A. Leary, 
 the bookseller on Second St. 
 
 W. D. 
 
 NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 45. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 Richmond is the last place in which I should have 
 hoped to find a copy of either the 1st, 2d, or 3d volumes 
 of the " Messenger." For this reason I did not apply 
 there. I have [been] putting myself, however, to some 
 trouble in endeavoring to collect among my friends here 
 the separate numbers of the missing volume. I am glad 
 that your last letter relieves me from all such trouble in 
 future. I do not choose to recognize you in this matter 
 at all. To the person of whom I borrowed the book, or 
 rather who insisted on forcing it on me, I have sufficient 
 reason to believe that it was returned. Settle your diffi- 
 
206 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 culties with him, and insult me with no more of your 
 communications. 
 
 EDGAR A. POE. 
 MR. DUANE. 
 
 Endorsed by Duane : Bombastes Furioso Poe. Dated 
 January 28, 1845. Received January 31, 1845. Not to 
 be answered. N. B. The volume of " The Southern Liter 
 ary Messenger " to which this letter, and that of October 
 28, 1844, refer, was lent by me to E. A. Poe, through 
 Henry B. Hirst, Esq., and was sold by the said Poe 
 among a lot of books belonging to himself to William 
 A. Leary, a bookseller on North Seventh Street. Mr. 
 Leary sold it to a bookseller in Richmond, Va., who sold 
 it to the publishers of the " Messenger," who sold it to a 
 friend of mine who was visiting Richmond, and whom I 
 had commissioned to purchase me a copy. My name 
 was on the title page during all these sales. 
 
 Poe had the grace to be ashamed of himself, when 
 he heard of the manner in which I had had to repurchase 
 my own book. He remarked to H. B. Hirst, Esqr., 
 " What must Mr. Duane think of me," on hearing of 
 which, I sent him word that I thought he ought to send 
 me the five dollars which the repurchase had cost me. 
 He died without doing so, I suppose from inability. 
 
 W. D. 1 
 
 Poe s innocence in the matter seems to be proved 
 by the postscript to Mrs. Clemrn, nor is there any 
 reason to believe that the original mistake, by 
 which the volume was included in the sale of Poe s 
 books, was anything but a natural blunder made 
 1 Poe to Duane. MSS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 207 
 
 in the confusion of the removal, one, however, 
 which Mrs. Clemm, probably out of short-sighted 
 regard for Poe s feelings, may have been unwilling 
 to acknowledge. 
 
 Poe s first business in New York after he got 
 settled was presumably to call on the editor of 
 " The Sun," and offer him the well-known " Balloon 
 Hoax." At least on the following Saturday, April 
 13, " The Sun " contained a postscript, in double- 
 leaded type, announcing that a balloon had crossed 
 the Atlantic, bringing news, and had arrived at 
 Charleston, S. C., and promising that an extra, giv 
 ing full particulars, should be issued at ten o clock 
 on that morning. The extra duly appeared, with 
 its narrative, in Poe s usual realistic manner, of a 
 transatlantic voyage by a party of English aero 
 nauts ; and at a time when such journalistic fictions 
 were more common and less easily detected than 
 now, it achieved a momentary success. In the same 
 month appeared the picturesque story of metemp 
 sychosis, " A Tale of the Ragged Mountains," in 
 " Godey s Lady s Book." No other publications 
 during this spring, except the poem " Dreamland " 
 in " Graham s " for June, have been traced. 
 
 The only direct source of information regarding 
 Poe during these first months in New York is his 
 correspondence with Lowell, who now offered to 
 write his life for the series, " Our Contributors," 
 then appearing in " Graham s." Poe replied as 
 follows : 
 
208 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 NEW YORK, May 28, 44. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I received yours last night, forwarded from Phila 
 delphia to this city, where I intend living for the future. 
 Touching the Biography I would be very proud, in 
 deed, if you would write it, and did, certainly, say to 
 myself, and I believe to Graham that such was my 
 wish ; but as I fancied the job might be disagreeable, I 
 did not venture to suggest it to yourself. Your offer 
 relieves me from great embarrassment, and I thank you 
 sincerely. You will do me justice ; and that I could 
 not expect at all hands. 
 
 Herewith, I mail you a Life written some time since 
 by Hirst, from materials furnished principally by Thomas 
 and Mr. T. W. White. It is correct, I think, in the 
 main (barring extravagant eulogy), and you can select 
 from it whatever you deem right. The limit is 6 pp. 
 of Graham as much less as you please. Besides the 
 Tales enumerated in the foot-note, I have written " The 
 Spectacles;" "The Oblong Box;" "A Tale of the 
 Ragged Mountains ; " " The Premature Burial ; " 
 " The Purloined Letter ;" " The System of Doctors 
 Tar and Fether;" "The Black Cat;" "The Elk;" 
 " Diddling Considered as one of the Exact Sciences ; " 
 " Mesmeric Revelation ; " " The Gold Bug ; " " Thou 
 art the Man;" about 60 altogether, including the 
 " Grotesque and Arabesque." Those italicized are as 
 yet unpublished in the hands of different editors. Of 
 the "Gold Bug" (my most successful tale), more than 
 300,000 copies have been circulated. 
 
 There is an article on " American Poetry " in a late 
 number of the London Foreign Quarterly, in which some 
 
7^ NEW YORK. 209 
 
 allusion is made to me, as a poet, and as an imitator 
 of Tennyson. I would like you to say (in my defense) 
 what is the fact : that the passages quoted as imitations 
 were written and published, in Boston, before the issue 
 of even Tennyson s first volume. Dickens (/ know) 
 wrote the article I have private personal reasons for 
 knowing this. The portrait prepared, does not in the 
 least resemble me. 
 
 I wrote you a long letter from Philadelphia about 
 seven weeks since did you get it ? You make no allu 
 sion to it. In great haste, 
 
 Your most sincere friend, 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 
 The list of the tales still in the hands of editors 
 which this letter gives brings out strongly one 
 source of the discouragement under which Poe had 
 to bear up. He had been for ten years a writer of 
 untiring industry, and in that time had produced 
 an amount of work large in quantity and excellent 
 in quality, much of it belonging in the very highest 
 rank of imaginative prose ; but his books had never 
 sold, and the income from his tales and other 
 papers in the magazines had never sufficed to keep 
 the wolf from the door unless he eked out his sup 
 port by editing. The fact that literature was not 
 a paying profession, however, merely involved as 
 its consequence that Poe was under the necessity of 
 obtaining and keeping an editorial post, if he 
 wished to escape poverty; that he did not realize 
 
 1 Poe to Lowell. MS. 
 14 
 
210 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 his situation with sufficient clearness, or had not 
 sufficient force of character to govern himself for 
 the sake of the comfort of his home, may have 
 been his fault or his misfortune, but is in either 
 case obvious enough. In spite of all this, never 
 theless, it should be constantly kept in mind that 
 Poe had difficulty in selling his work and was very 
 poorly paid. In view of the whole mass of his 
 writings, too, of which a large portion was perish 
 able, what he says of his own indolence in the 
 following letter ought to be taken with some allow 
 ance for the tendency he had to idealize his own 
 nature. A poet s analysis of his original tempera 
 ment, if it be sincere, is of the highest value ; for a 
 man s conception of his own character, particularly 
 if he be of an introspective turn, counts often as 
 one of the most powerful influences that shape his 
 acts. In describing himself Poe was not uncon 
 scious of the presence of Lowell as his auditor, nor 
 forgetful of the latter s relation to him as his biog 
 rapher ; but the account falls in with other more 
 disinterested utterances by Poe regarding himself, 
 and in general it has an idiosyncratic character 
 that marks it as genuine. In reading it one in 
 voluntarily remembers the separate, slight intima 
 tions that Poe s life and works have already af 
 forded of his use of drugs ; more than once, to the 
 reflective mind, a trait of the opium-eater must 
 have already been startlingly distinct, and though 
 the direct evidence of the habit is very scanty the 
 
IN NEW YORK. 211 
 
 indirect evidence is constant, varied, and convinc 
 ing. In the light of this suggestion the following 
 rhodomontade of philosophy and self -analysis may 
 lose something of its seeming affectation : 
 
 NEW YORK, July 2, 44. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. LOWELL, I can feel for the " con 
 stitutional indolence " of which you complain for it is 
 one of my own besetting sins. I am excessively sloth 
 ful and wonderfully industrious by fits. There are 
 epochs when any kind of mental exercise is torture, and 
 when nothing yields me pleasure but solitary communion 
 with the "mountains and the woods," the "altars" of 
 Byron. I have thus rambled and dreamed away whole 
 months, and awake, at last, to a sort of mania for compo 
 sition. Then I scribble all day, and read all night, so 
 long as the disease endures. This is also the tempera 
 ment of P. P. Cooke, of Virginia, the author of " Florence 
 Vane," "Young Rosalie Lee," and some other sweet 
 poems and I should not be surprised if it were your 
 own. Cooke writes and thinks as you and I have 
 been told that you resemble him personally. 
 
 I am not ambitious unless negatively. I now and 
 then feel stirred up to excel a fool, merely because I hate 
 to let a fool imagine that he may excel me. Beyond this 
 I feel nothing of ambition. I really perceive that vanity 
 about which most men merely prate, the vanity of the 
 human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie 
 of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. 
 I think that human exertion will have no appreciable 
 effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active 
 not more happy nor more wise, than he was 6,000 
 
212 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 years ago. The result will never vary and to suppose 
 that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived 
 in vain that the foregone time is but the rudiment of 
 the future that the myriads who have perished have 
 not been upon equal footing with ourselves nor are we 
 with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man 
 11 the individual in man the mass. I have no belief in 
 1 spirituality. I think the word a mere word. No one 
 has really a conception of spirit. We cannot imagine 
 what is not. We deceive ourselves by the idea of infi 
 nitely rarefied matter. Matter escapes the senses by de 
 grees a stone a metal a liquid the atmosphere 
 a gas the luminif erous ether. Beyond this there 
 fare other modifications more rare. But to all we attach 
 / the notion of a constitution of particles atomic compo 
 sition. For this reason only we think spirit different ; 
 . for spirit, we say, is unparticled, and therefore is not 
 matter. But it is clear that if we proceed sufficiently 
 far in our ideas of rarefaction, we shall arrive at a point 
 where the particles coalesce ; for, although the particles 
 be infinite, the infinity of littleness in the spaces between 
 them is an absurdity. The unparticled matter, perme 
 ating and impelling all things, is God. Its activity is the 
 thought of God which creates. Man, and other thinking 
 beings, are individualizations of the unparticled matter. 
 Man exists as a " person," by being clothed with matter 
 (the particled matter) which individualizes him. Thus 
 habited, his life is rudimental. What we call " death " 
 is the painful metamorphosis. The stars are the habita 
 tions of rudimental beings. But for the necessity of the 
 rudimental life, there would have been no worlds. At 
 death, the worm is the butterfly still material, but of a 
 
IN NEW YORK. 213 
 
 matter unrecognized by our organs recognized occa 
 sionally, perhaps, by the sleep-waker directly without 
 organs through the mesmeric medium. Thus a sleep- 
 waker may see ghosts. Divested of the rudimental cov 
 ering, the being inhabits space, what we suppose to be 
 the immaterial universe, passing everywhere, and act 
 ing all things, by mere volition, cognizant of all secrets 
 but that of the nature of God s volition, the motion, or 
 activity, of the unparticled matter. 
 
 You speak of " an estimate of my life," and, from 
 what I have already said, you will see that I have none 
 to give. I have been too deeply conscious of the muta- ; 
 bility and evanescence of temporal things to give any* 
 continuous effort to anything to be consistent in any-i 
 thing. My life has been whim impulse passion"-^* 
 a longing for solitude a scorn of all things present, 
 in an earnest desire for the future. 
 
 I am profoundly excited by music, and by some poems, 
 those of Tennyson especially whom, with Keats, 
 Shelley, Coleridge (occasionally), and a few others of 
 like thought and expression, I regard as the sole po 
 ets. Music is the perfection of the soul, or idea, of 
 Poetry. The vagueness of exaltation aroused by a sweet 
 air (which should be strictly indefinite and never too 
 strongly suggestive) is precisely what we should aim at 
 in poetry. Affectation, within bounds, is thus no blemish. 
 
 I still adhere to Dickens as either author, or dictator, 
 of the review. My reasons would convince you, could I 
 give them to you, but I have left myself no space. I 
 had two long interviews with Mr. D. when here. Nearly 
 everything in the critique, I heard from him, or suggested 
 to him, personally. The poem of Emerson I read to 
 hin, 
 
 (Fw. 
 
214 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 I have been so negligent as not to preserve copies of 
 any of my volumes of poems nor was either worthy of 
 preservation. The best passages were culled in Hirst s 
 article. I think my best poems "The Sleeper," "The 
 Conqueror Worm," " The Haunted Palace," " Lenore," 
 " Dreamland," and the " Coliseum," but all have been 
 hurried and unconsidered. My best tales are " Ligeia," 
 the "Gold-Bug," the "Murders in the Rue Morgue," 
 "The Fall of the House of Usher," the " Tell-Tale 
 Heart," the "Black Cat," "William Wilson," and "The 
 Descent into the Maelstrom." " The Purloined Letter," 
 forthcoming in the " Gift," is perhaps the best of my 
 tales of ratiocination. I have lately written for Godey 
 " The Oblong Box " and " Thou art the Man," as yet 
 unpublished. With this I mail you the " Gold-Bug," 
 which is the only one of my tales I have on hand. 
 
 Graham has had, for nine months, a review of mine on 
 Longfellow s " Spanish Student," which I have " used 
 up," and in which I have exposed some of the grossest 
 plagiarisms ever perpetrated. I can t tell why he does 
 not publish it. I believe G. intends my Life for the 
 September number, which will be made up by the 10th 
 August. Your article should be on hand as soon as 
 convenient. Believe me your true friend, 
 
 E. A. PoE. 1 
 
 The philosophic lucubrations in the foregoing 
 were taken from his metaphysical tale, " Mesmeric 
 Revelations," about to be published in the " Co 
 lumbian Magazine" for August, and were after 
 wards more fully developed. In his next letter he 
 1 Poe to Lowell. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 215 
 
 returned to the subject, and gave the noticeable 
 information that he was engaged on his " Critical 
 History of American Literature," a book at which 
 he kept working until death. 
 
 NEW YORK, August 18, 1844. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 With this letter I take the liberty to mail you a num 
 ber of the " Columbian Magazine," in which you will 
 find a paper on " Mesmeric Revelation." In it I have 
 endeavored to amplify some ideas which I suggested in 
 my last letter. 
 
 You will observe many corrections and alterations. 
 In fact the article was wofully misprinted ; and my prin 
 cipal object in boring you with it now, is to beg of you 
 the favor to get it copied (with corrections) in the 
 Brother Jonathan I mean the Boston Notion or 
 any other paper where you have interest. If you can 
 do this without trouble, I would be very deeply indebted 
 to you. I am living so entirely out of the world, just 
 now, that I can do nothing of the kind myself. 
 
 In what are you occupied ? or is it still the far 
 niente ? For myself I am very industrious collecting 
 and arranging materials for a Critical History of Ameri 
 can Literature. Do you ever see Mr. Hawthorne ? He 
 is a man of rare genius. A day or two since I met with 
 a sketch by him called " Browne s Wooden Image " 
 delicious. The leading idea, however, is suggested by 
 Michael Angelo s couplet : 
 
 Non ha 1 otterino artista alcun concetto 
 Che un marmo solo in se non circumscriva. 
 
 To be sure Angelo half stole the thought from Socrates. 
 
216 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 How fares it with the Biography ? I fear we shall be 
 late. Most truly your friend, 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 
 Two months later he acknowledges the receipt of 
 the biography, which Lowell had sent, September 
 27, in care of his friend, Mr. C. F. Briggs, Poe s 
 future partner, and again reverts to the scheme 
 for the association of authors in a Magazine Com 
 pany. 
 
 NEW YORK, Oct. 28, 44. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 A host of small troubles growing from the one trouble 
 of poverty, but which I will not trouble you with in 
 detail, have hitherto prevented me from thanking you 
 for the Biography and all the well-intended flatteries 
 which it contains. But, upon the principle of better late 
 than never, let me thank you now, again and again. I 
 sent it to Graham on the day I received it taking with 
 it only one liberty in the way of modification. This. I 
 hope you will pardon. It was merely the substitution 
 of another brief poem for the last you have done me the 
 honor to quote. 
 
 I have not seen your marriage announced, but I pre 
 sume from what you said in your penultimate letter, 
 that I may congratulate you now. Is it so ? At all 
 events I can wish you no better wish than that you may 
 derive from your marriage as substantial happiness as I 
 have derived from mine. 
 
 A long time ago I wrote you a long letter to which 
 you have never replied. It concerned a scheme for pro- 
 i Poe to Lowell. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 217 
 
 tecting ourselves from the imposition of publishers by 
 a coalition. I will state it again in brief. Suppose a 
 dozen of the most active or influential men of letters in 
 this country should unite for the purpose of publishing a 
 magazine of high character. Their names to be kept 
 secret, that their mutual support might be the more ef 
 fectual. Each member to take a share of the stock at 
 $100 a share. Each, if required, to furnish one article 
 each month the work to be sustained altogether by 
 the contributions of the members, or by unpaid contri 
 butions from others. As many of the members as possi 
 ble to be taken from those connected otherwise with the 
 press : a black-ball to exclude any one suggested as a 
 member by those already conjoined this to secure 
 unanimity. These, of course, are mere hints in the 
 rough. But suppose that (the scheme originating with 
 yourself and me) we write to any others or, seeing them 
 personally, engage them in the enterprise. The desired 
 number being made up, a meeting might be held, and a 
 constitution framed. A point in this latter might be 
 that an editor should be elected periodically from among 
 the stockholders. 
 
 The advantages of such a coalition seem to me very- 
 great. The Magazine could be started with a positive 
 certainty of success. There would be no expense for 
 contributions, while we would have the best. Plates, of 
 course, would be disdained. The aim would be to ele 
 vate without stupefying our literature to further jus 
 tice to resist foreign dictation and to afford (in the 
 circulation and profit of the journal) a remuneration to 
 ourselves for whatever we should write. 
 
 The work should be printed in the very best manner, 
 
218 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 and should address the aristocracy of talent. We might 
 safely give, for $5, a pamphlet of 128 pages, and, with 
 the support of the variety of our personal influence, we 
 might easily extend the circulation to 20,000, giving 
 $100,000. The expenses would not exceed $40,000, if 
 indeed they reached $20,000 when the work should be 
 fairly established. Thus there would be- $60,000 to be 
 divided among twelve, $5,000 per annum apiece. 
 
 I have thought of this matter long and cautiously, and 
 am persuaded that there would be little difficulty in doing 
 even far more than I have ventured to suggest. 
 
 Do you hear anything more about the Lectures ? 
 
 Truly yours, E. A. POE. 1 
 
 It was before the date of this letter that, accord 
 ing to Mr. N. P. Willis, Mrs. Clemm called upon 
 him and solicited employment for Poe, who was 
 then, she said, ill. Willis, who was just convert 
 ing his weekly paper, the "New Mirror," into the 
 "Evening Mirror," a daily, with a weekly issue in 
 addition, was in need of a subordinate, and in con 
 sequence of Mrs. Clemm s visit, whose countenance, 
 he says, in his falsetto style, was made " beautiful 
 and saintly by an evident complete giving up of her 
 life to privation and sorrowful tenderness," Poe was 
 engaged as an assistant "a mechanical parag- 
 raphist," to use Willis s phrase in the "Mirror" 
 office. There, at a desk in a corner, he sat from 
 nine in the morning until the paper went to press, 
 ready for whatever work might befall. Without a 
 1 Poe to Lowell. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 219 
 
 smile, or a word of praise or blame, he discharged 
 the duties of the daily routine punctually, listened 
 good-humoredly to the request that he would dull 
 the edge of a criticism or soften a misanthropic 
 sentiment, and conformed with entire fidelity to the 
 suggestions made. Such is Willis s sketch of his 
 subordinate, and he adds in general terms that 
 through a considerable period he saw only "one 
 presentment of the man, a quiet, patient, indus 
 trious, and most gentlemanly person, commanding 
 the utmost respect and good feeling by his unvary 
 ing deportment and ability." It needs no keen eye 
 to read between the lines of this highly respectable 
 description the real facts, that the pay was small, 
 the labor perfunctory and uninteresting, and the 
 spirit of the poet himself, compelled to subdue his 
 saturnine temper to the geniality of his chief, was 
 chafing and burning within. It was a striking in 
 stance of Pegasus in harness. 
 
 The first number of " The Evening Mirror " ap 
 peared October 7, 1844, and the next day the liter 
 ary columns contained this passage upon Elizabeth 
 Barrett Browning : 
 
 " Miss Barrett is worth a dozen of Tennyson and six 
 of Motherwell equal perhaps in original genius to 
 Keats and Shelley." 
 
 Two months later this was followed up by an 
 other unmistakable sentence on the same poetess : 
 
 " We do not believe there is a poetical soul embodied 
 
220 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 in this world that as a centre of thought sees fur 
 ther out toward the periphery permitted to angels, than 
 Miss Barrett." J 
 
 These critical dicta could have been no one s but 
 Poe s ; and as his hand is readily discerned in the 
 literary paragraphing at many other points, it is 
 most likely that he was employed on the daily from 
 its start. It is as certain, on the other hand, as in 
 ternal evidence can make it that he never before 
 this time, as has been stated, 2 made one of Willis s 
 staff of writers. 
 
 Nothing of Poe s in the " Mirror " during the first 
 three months requires notice ; but meanwhile his 
 old pieces in editors hands had got published : the 
 two inferior grotesques, " The Oblong Box " and 
 "Thou art the Man," in "Godey s" for Septem 
 ber and October ; " The Literary Life of Thingum 
 Bob," a satirical extravaganza, mainly ridiculous, 
 on the ways of editors and the means of popular 
 ity, which had at last found its indulgent victim in 
 the "Southern Literary Messenger " for December, 
 
 1 Evening Mirror, December 7, 1844. 
 
 2 Ingram, i. 248. The statement that Poe contributed trans 
 lations from the French to the New Mirror from April, 1843, to 
 its discontinuance (which is wrongly said to have taken place be 
 fore Poe left Philadelphia), and signed them with his initials, rests 
 on a negligent examination of the files. The translations referred 
 to begin January 3, 1843 (i. 9), and are signed E. P.; they con 
 tinue to the end, but afterwards they are also signed at the be 
 ginning of the articles "By a Lady." (For example, i. 307, 
 355, etc.) They are, moreover, from authors whom there is no 
 evidence that Poe read. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 221 
 
 where it appeared anonymously ; " The Purloined 
 Letter," in the " Gift " for 1845, closing the series 
 of the ratiocinative tales. In the " Democratic Re 
 view " for November and December, too, the first in 
 stallments of the miscellaneous notes called " Mar 
 ginalia " were issued ; and as one reads them and 
 the later collections, which continued to be pub 
 lished until Poe died, one cannot but admire the 
 audacity of their author, who could thus resell clip 
 pings from his old book reviews since the beginning 
 of his career, by merely giving them a new title. 
 It was a dexterous filching back from Time of the 
 alms for oblivion already given and stored away in 
 that capacious wallet. Doubtless Poe looked on ed 
 itors as fair game, if they would not buy his new 
 tales, let them purchase his old criticisms. But 
 now an event occurred that made any manuscripts 
 by Poe treasure-trove. Probably the editors, who 
 had almost emptied their pigeon-holes of his accu 
 mulated contributions, were sorry they had not de 
 layed longer. 
 
 In the "Evening Mirror," January 29, 1845, 
 " The Raven " l was published, with a highly com- 
 
 1 The author is indebted to an unpublished paper by Professor 
 W. E. Griffis for the earliest mention of " The Raven," which, on 
 evidence satisfactory to Professor Griffis, was in the course of com 
 position in the summers of 1842 and 1843. The legend, however, 
 involves the assertion that Poe, at the time of his greatest pov 
 erty in Philadelphia, was visiting a pleasure resort near Saratoga 
 Springs. Of this there is no documentary proof, and in the au 
 thor s opinion it is highly improbable ; the story is therefore not 
 included in the text. 
 
222 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 mendatory card from Willis ; and a few days later 
 " The American Whig Review " for February, from 
 the advance sheets of which this poem had been 
 copied, was the centre of literary interest and the 
 prey of editorial scissors throughout the length and 
 breadth of the country. In the magazine the au 
 thor was masked under the pseudonym " Quarles," 
 but in this journal he had been named as E. A. 
 Poe. The popular response was instantaneous and 
 decisive. No great poem ever established itself 
 so immediately, so widely, and so imperishably 
 in men s minds. " The Raven " became, in some 
 sort, a national bird, and the author the most 
 notorious American of the hour. It happened 
 and for this Godey and Graham must have blessed 
 their stars that in their respective magazines of 
 this same month the former published "The 1002 
 Tale," the voyage of Sinbad among the wonders 
 made known by modern science, and the latter 
 Lowell s sketch of Poe. 
 
 One cannot help wondering whether Poe felt no 
 misgiving when he read the latter, with its falsifica 
 tions of fact, and in the first heat of an assured 
 fame reflected that these might some day be in 
 quired into. Not to mention minor representations, 
 the third misstatement of his birth (1813), the 
 romance of his expedition to St. Petersburg, and 
 the assertion that he left West Point on account 
 of the birth of a son and heir to Mr. Allan, he 
 knew to be untrue ; even if he were not respon- 
 
IN NEW YORK. 223 
 
 sible for the original errors (the assumption is 
 absurd) in the previous sketches of him by Gris- 
 wolcl and Hirst, he furnished the latter s biography 
 as the source of information, and he himself revised 
 Lowell s own article four months before its publica 
 tion. Poe circulated, and so far as he could prac 
 tically accredited, falsehoods concerning himself ; 
 moreover, he approved the report of his wildness 
 in youth, and he took no pains to explain the ques 
 tionable incidents of his career. One single poor 
 defense for his conduct, in this particular instance, 
 he left his biographer in the guarded sentence in 
 his letter to Lowell, in which he describes the 
 "Museum" Life as correct "in the main." Sim 
 ilar untruths, however, in regard to himself occur 
 in his letters and other writings, although it has not 
 been thought necessary to call special attention to 
 them in each case. This failing casts suspicion 
 upon all unsupported assertions by him that di 
 rectly affect himself. 
 
 A The first trial Poe made of the value of his pop 
 ularity was to lecture in the library of the New 
 York Historical Society, on February 28, when be 
 tween two and three hundred persons gathered to 
 hear him. His subject was, as before, American 
 Poetry, and in substance the address was the old 
 monologue, sharp, bitter, and grim, on the sins of 
 editors and the stupidity of versifiers, relieved only 
 by the recitation of a few fine poems and too 
 generous praise where he thought praise was due. 
 
224 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 He dealt with Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Welby, Mrs. 
 Osgood, Seba Smith, the Davidsons, Bryant, Hal- 
 leek, Longfellow, Sprague, and Dana. The in 
 ference is that the lecture was made up by piecing 
 together his old book reviews, and was probably 
 textually the same with that delivered at Phila 
 delphia, except that he now omitted reference to 
 Griswold, with whom he was endeavoring to renew 
 his acquaintance, plainly from selfish motives. He 
 was still playing the part of the fearless critic, and 
 he found some listeners to follow Lowell s lead and 
 commend him for his daring, while they acknowl 
 edged the usefulness of his ungracious service ; 
 but there were many more in whose minds his 
 words rankled. He was a good speaker, having 
 natural gifts of elocution and an effective manner. 
 Willis, in noticing the lecture, sketches him with 
 the elegant facility that now, to our changed taste, 
 reads so much like nonsense : 
 
 "He becomes a desk, his beautiful head showing 
 like a statuary embodiment of Discrimination; his ac 
 cent drops like a knife through water, and his style is 
 so much purer and clearer than the pulpit commonly 
 gets or requires that the effect of what he says, besides 
 other things, pampers the ear." l 
 
 The lecture over, Poe returned to his work upon 
 the " Mirror," which he had already got into 
 trouble by an attack on Longfellow s collection of 
 minor fugitive poems, called " The Waif ; " but in 
 
 1 Evening Mirror, March 12, 1845. 
 
7J\r NEW YORK. 225 
 
 the course of the month he withdrew from the paper, 
 much to the regret of his employer. His contribu 
 tions to the " Mirror " were of the slightest interest, 
 and contain nothing novel. His connection with it 
 had inured to his own benefit by the frequent puffs 
 of himself, both direct and indirect, which it pub 
 lished, and by the literary introductions which his 
 position afforded him. He was, however, always 
 dissatisfied with his situation, and before half a 
 year had passed practically used the " Mirror " to 
 advertise for a better place. In the same issue that 
 reprinted Lowell s critical estimate of him, he is 
 editorially praised, his capacities as a magazine ed 
 itor pointed out, and himself described as " ready 
 for propositions." 3 No proposition of the kind was 
 made, but an arrangement was entered into by 
 which he became associated with Charles F. Briggs, 
 then known as "Harry Franco," in the manage 
 ment of the " Broadway Journal," a weekly which 
 had issued its first number on the 4th of January 
 previous. 
 
 Briggs was a writer of light literature, from Nan- 
 tucket, and ambitious of editing a paper. A month 
 before this time he wrote to his friend Lowell, " I 
 have made arrangements for publishing the first 
 number of my long-talked-of paper in January. It 
 will be published by John Bisco, a shrewd Yankee 
 from Worcester, who has been a school-teacher in 
 New Jersey, and was once the publisher of the 
 
 1 Evening Mirror, January 20, 1845. 
 15 
 
 //TT ivf 
 
226 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Knickerbocker. Further on he adds, " If you 
 know Poe s address, send it to me when you 
 write." 1 In consequence of this introduction, Poe 
 contributed to the first two numbers of the " Jour 
 nal" a review of Mrs. Browning, and from that 
 time was a regular writer, at the rate of $1 a col 
 umn. The impression he made on Briggs is told 
 in the following passages of the latter s correspond 
 ence with Lowell : 
 
 " I like Poe exceedingly well ; Mr. Griswold has told 
 me shocking bad stories about him, which his whole de 
 meanor contradicts." 2 
 
 " Poe tells me that Graham refused to print his tale 
 of the Gold Bug, and kept it in his possession nine 
 months. I never read it before last week, and it strikes 
 me as among the most ingenious pieces of fiction that I 
 have ever seen. If you have not read it, it will repay 
 you for the trouble when you do. He told me further 
 more that the poem which you have quoted from the 
 House of Usher, 
 
 In a valley, fair and shady [sic] 
 By good angels tenanted, etc., 
 
 he sent to O Sullivan for the Democratic, and it was 
 returned to him. You see by these what the judg 
 ments of Magazine editors amount to. ... I have al 
 ways strangely misunderstood Poe, from thinking him 
 one of the Graham and Godey species, but I find him as 
 different as possible. I think that you will like him 
 well when you come to know him personally." 3 
 
 1 Briggs to Lowell, December 7, 1844. MS. 
 
 2 Briggs to Lowell, January 6, 1845. MS. 
 8 Briggs to Lowell, January 27, 1845. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 227 
 
 At the beginning of March Poe was announced 
 as a co-editor, with Henry G. Watson and Briggs, 
 of the " Journal ; " and for the sake of elucidation 
 it should be added that by this time he was in the 
 thick of the so-called " Longfellow war," in which 
 he was endeavoring to sustain the charge of plagia 
 rism against the poet, and that incidentally he occa 
 sionally glanced at Lowell as guilty of the same of 
 fense, whether, knowingly or not. By following the 
 correspondence, which is the only original authority 
 for this portion of Poe s career, the relations be 
 tween him and his chief are easily made out. On 
 March 8 Briggs writes, 
 
 " Poe is only an assistant to me, and will in no manner 
 interfere with my own way of doing things. It was req 
 uisite that I should have his or some other person s assist 
 ance, on account of my liability to be taken off from the 
 business of the paper, and as his name is of some au 
 thority I thought it advisable to announce him as an 
 editor. Mr. Watson s name will command the support 
 of a good portion of the musical interest in this city and 
 in Boston, and by putting forth his name as musical 
 editor I can gain his time for a pro rata dividend on 
 the amount of patronage which he may obtain. He is 
 the only musical critic in the country and a thorough 
 good fellow. Poe has left the Mirror. Willis was too 
 Willisy for him. Unfortunately for him (Poe) he has 
 mounted a very ticklish hobby just now, Plagiarism, 
 which he is bent on riding to death, and I think the 
 better way is to let him run down as soon as possible by 
 giving him no check. Wiley and Putnam are going to 
 
228 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 publish a new edition of his tales and sketches. Every 
 body has been raven-mad about his last poem, and his 
 lecture, which "W. Story went with me to hear, has gained 
 him a dozen or two of waspish foes who will do him 
 more good than harm." ] 
 
 A week later, March 16, he returns to the same 
 subject : 
 
 " Poe is a monomaniac on the subject of plagiarism, 
 and I thought it best to allow him to ride his hobby to 
 death in the outset and be done with it. It all com 
 menced with myself. When he was in the Mirror of 
 fice he made what I thought a very unjustifiable charge 
 against my friend Aldrich [James Aldrich], who is one 
 of the best fellows in the world, and I replied to it as you 
 saw. Somebody in Boston, Outis, whose name I for 
 get, replied to P. on behalf of Longfellow and Aldrich, 
 and so the war began. It will end as it began, in smoke. 
 But it will do us some good by calling public attention to 
 our paper. Poe is a much better fellow than you have 
 an idea of. ... The Journal gains strength every 
 day, and I am very sanguine of success." 
 
 Three clays later he writes again more fully : 
 
 " I thought it best to gain Poe s services as a critic be 
 cause he already has a reputation for reviewing, and I 
 could gain them by allowing him a certain portion of the 
 profits of the paper. He thought it would gain the 
 Journal a certain number of subscribers immediately 
 if his name were published in connection with it. I did 
 
 1 Briggs to Lowell. MS. 
 
 2 Briggs to Lowell. MS. 
 
/./V NEW YORK. 229 
 
 not much like the plan, but he had had more experience 
 than myself in the matter, so I consented. ... I retain 
 precisely the same authority I did in the beginning. . . . 
 Poe s fol-de-rol about plagiarism I do not like, but the 
 replies which it provokes serve us as advertisements, 
 and help us along. As he dealt more severely by me 
 and my friend Aldrich than anybody else I do not think 
 that anybody has any right to complain of his thumps. I 
 think that you are too sensitive in regard to Longfellow ; 
 I really do not see that he has said anything offensive 
 about him. . . . Poe has indeed a very high admiration 
 for Longfellow, and so he will say before he is done. 
 For my own part I did not use to think well of Poe, but 
 my love for you and implicit confidence in your judg 
 ment, led me to abandon all my prejudices against him 
 when I read your account of him. The Rev. Mr. Gris- 
 wold, of Philadelphia, told me some abominable lies 
 about him, but a personal acquaintance with him has in 
 duced me to think highly of him. Perhaps some Phila- 
 delphian has been whispering foul things in your ear 
 about him. Doubtless his sharp manner has made him 
 many enemies. But you will think better of him when 
 you meet him." ] 
 
 While Briggs was thus explaining his own posi 
 tion and defending Poe from the strictures of 
 Lowell, who had now ceased to correspond with 
 him, the " Broadway Journal " was becoming noto 
 rious by this " Longfellow war," which, as Briggs 
 remarked at the time, was " all on one side." The 
 attitude of Poe toward Longfellow has become suf- 
 1 Briggs to Lowell. MS. 
 
230 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 ficiently clear in the course of the preceding nar 
 rative ; he was a jealous admirer. The present, 
 and most notorious, embrogiio was occasioned by 
 the publication of " The Waif," a collection of 
 fugitive pieces by minor authors, edited by Long 
 fellow. In the " Evening Mirror " Poe had said, 
 
 " We conclude our notes on the Waif with the ob 
 servation that, although full of beauties, it is infected 
 with a moral taint or is this a mere freak of our own 
 fancy ? We shall be pleased if it be so ; but there 
 does appear, in this little volume, a very careful avoid 
 ance of all American poets who may be supposed espe 
 cially to interfere with the claims of Mr. Longfellow. 
 These men Mr. Longfellow can continuously imitate (is 
 that the word ?) and yet never incidentally commend." 1 
 
 The discussion thus begun was followed up in 
 succeeding issues with the protests of Longfel 
 low s friends and the editorial comment in reply, 
 extenuating on Willis s part, vindicatory on Poe s, 
 until Willis withdrew from the discussion in a 
 card in which he stated his entire dissent from 
 " all the disparagement of Longfellow " that had 
 been published in the " Mirror ; " and soon after 
 he admitted to its columns a lengthy defense of 
 him by one " Outis," at just about the time that 
 Poe left the office to join Briggs. 
 
 On March 1 the new editor of the " Broadway 
 Journal " began his reply to " Outis," which was 
 continued in weekly installments through five num- 
 
 1 Evening Mirror, January 14, 1845. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 231 
 
 bers. As far as it related to Longfellow it repeated 
 textually the charge made in " Burton s " in regard 
 to "The Midnight Mass for the Dying Year;" dis 
 credited a letter in which Longfellow had person 
 ally explained the error in consequence of which 
 he had translated a song of Motherwell s back into 
 English from the German of Wolff, under the 
 impression that it was original with the latter ; and 
 finally charged new plagiarisms, particularly in the 
 case of " The Spanish Student," some scenes of 
 which he traced to his own " Politian " in a violent 
 passage in which probably the old review is in 
 corporated. 
 
 To sum up Poe s strictures as urged here and in 
 earlier and later writings, Longfellow was a plagia 
 rist, a didactic poet, and a writer of hexameters. 
 In this there is so much truth as is involved in the 
 milder statement that he belonged to the poets of 
 cultivation rather than of irresistible original gen 
 ius, that he frequently wrote to illustrate or enforce 
 morality, and that his ear was too little refined to 
 be offended by the spondaic flatness of an English 
 hexameter. That Poe was sincere in his opinions, 
 though he enforced them rudely and with the ma 
 licious pleasure of an envious rival, there can be 
 little question ; that Longfellow never pilfered 
 from Poe, and that in the unconscious adaptations 
 natural to a poet of culture he never imitated him, 
 there can be no doubt at all. In the elusive search 
 for motives in the case, it is best to remain con- 
 
232 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 tent with Longfellow s charitable opinion : " The 
 harshness of his criticisms I have never attributed 
 to anything but the irritation of a sensitive nature, 
 chafed by some indefinite sense of wrong." 1 
 
 Poe s other contributions to the " Journal " dur 
 ing the time that he had " a third interest " (as he 
 described to Griswold his salary of a third of the 
 profits) were plentiful, but not original. The mis 
 erable grotesque " Peter Snooks," and the long- 
 rejected tale " The Premature Burial," of which 
 no earlier publication is found, were the only 
 new stories ; but of the old ones he reprinted, 
 sometimes with slightly changed names and other 
 revision, " Lionizing," " Berenice," " Bon-Bon," 
 " The Oval Portrait," " The Philosophy of Furni 
 ture," " Three Sundays in a Week," " The Pit and 
 the Pendulum," " Eleonora," "Shadow," " The 
 Assignation," and " Morella ; " and of his poems, 
 To F ," "The Sleeper," "To One in Para 
 dise," and " The Conqueror Worm." He also uti 
 lized passages from old book-reviews by incorporat 
 ing them in new notices. His new papers were for 
 the most part hack-work articles on anastatic print 
 ing, street-paving, magazine literature, etc., etc. ; 
 the only noteworthy pieces being a critical baiting 
 of one W. W. Lord, who had committed the un 
 pardonable sin of plagiarizing from the author of 
 " The Kaven," and the exhaustive review of some 
 volumes of Mrs. Browning s, already mentioned. 
 1 Southern Literary Messenger, November, 1849. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 233 
 
 In this last, although nearly all the space is taken 
 up with unfavorable comment in detail, Miss Bar 
 rett is at the conclusion lifted to the highest pinna 
 cle but one : " She has surpassed all her poetical 
 contemporaries of either sex (with a single excep 
 tion)," that exception being Tennyson. 
 
 Outside of the " Journal," Poe contributed to 
 the April " Whig Review " " The Doomed City " 
 and " The Valley Ms," revised, and " Some Words 
 with a Mummy," a grotesque on the old theme 
 that " there is nothing new under the sun," with 
 some unusual satire on politics. Before the end of 
 the year, it may be added here, he had published 
 in the " Democratic " " The Power of Words," a 
 metaphysical tale; in the "Whig," "The Facts 
 in the Case of M. Valdemar," that tale which for 
 mere physical disgust and foul horror has no rival 
 in literature, though in writing it, Poe was much 
 indebted to a romance, " The Seeress of Prevorst," 
 and in the same magazine in July the new poem 
 " Eulalie," and in August the review of " The 
 American Drama " in which he dealt mainly with 
 Willis s " Tortesa," and once more with Long 
 fellow s " Spanish Student " at great length ; in 
 " Graham s," " The Imp of the Perverse," the last 
 of the tales of conscience, and the absurd mad 
 house grotesque " Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether ; " 
 and in " Godey s " two installments of the clippings 
 from old magazines, called " Marginalia." These 
 publications include all his new writings until 1846. 
 
 I(T ^ 
 
 U 
 
234 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 The history of the " Broadway Journal " in the 
 mean time was interesting. When the first volume 
 was approaching its end, Briggs wrote to Lowell, 
 June 29, 1845, reviewing his plans : 
 
 " I have arrangements on foot with a new publisher 
 for the Journal who will enable me to give it a fresh 
 start, and I trust very soon to be able to give you an 
 earnest of its profits. I shall haul down Poe s name ; 
 he has latterly got into his old habits and I fear will in 
 jure himself irretrievably. I was taken at first with a 
 certain appearance of independence and learning in his 
 criticisms, but they are so verbal, and so purely selfish 
 that I can no longer have any sympathy with him." 1 
 
 Not long before, Lowell, being on his way from 
 Philadelphia back to Cambridge, called on Poe ; but 
 as, in Mrs. Clemm s words to the former, " he was 
 not himself " that day, none of those golden hopes, 
 indulged in by Poe, and at an earlier date by Briggs 
 also, were realized from this personal meeting. The 
 interview, however, prepared Lowell for the fol 
 lowing passage in Briggs s next letter, in explanation 
 of what seemed a sudden demise of the " Jour 
 nal:" 
 
 " The non-appearance of the Broadway Journal has 
 probably surprised you. I had made arrangements with 
 a new publisher, a very good business man, and had 
 agreed upon terms with Bisco to buy his interest ; but 
 when I came to close with him he exacted more than I 
 had stipulated for, and finding that he was determined 
 
 1 Briggs to Lowell. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 235 
 
 to give me trouble I refused to do anything with the 
 1 Journal. I had the first number of the new volume all 
 ready to be issued, with a handsomely engraved title, 
 etc. ; but, as I could not put the new publisher s name 
 upon it without Bisco s consent, I let it go a week, mean 
 ing to issue a double number not doubting that I could 
 agree with him upon some terms ; but he had fallen into 
 the hands of evil advisers, and became more extortionate 
 than ever. Poe in the meantime got into a drunken 
 spree, and conceived an idea that I had not treated him 
 well, for which he had no other grounds than my having 
 loaned him money, and persuaded Bisco to carry on the 
 Journal himself. As his doing so would give me a le 
 gal claim upon him, and enable me to recover something 
 from him, I allowed him to issue one number, but it is 
 doubtful whether he issues another. Mr. Homans, the 
 publisher, with whom I had agreed to undertake the 
 publication of the Journal, is an educated man and a 
 thorough good fellow, with a very extensive book-selling 
 connection. He is still desirous of taking hold of the 
 Journal, and has made me a very liberal offer to go on 
 with him if he can purchase Bisco s share. But I do not 
 yet know how the affair will terminate. 
 
 " Poe s mother-in-law told me that he was quite tipsy 
 the day that you called upon him, and that he acted 
 very strangely ; but I perceived nothing of it when I 
 saw him in the morning. He was to have delivered a 
 poem before the societies of the New York University 
 a few weeks since, but drunkenness prevented him. I 
 believe he had not drank anything for more than eight 
 een months until within the past three months, but in 
 this time he has been very frequently carried home in a 
 
236 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 wretched condition. I am sorry for him. He has some 
 good points, but, taken altogether, he is badly made up. 
 I was deceived by his superficial talents when I first met 
 him, and relied too much upon the high opinion which 
 you had expressed of him. His learning is very much 
 like that of the famous Mr. Jenkinson in the Vicar of 
 Wakefield. He talks about dactyls and spondees with 
 surprising glibness ; and the names of metres being 
 caviare to nine men out of ten, he has gained a reputa 
 tion for erudition at a very cheap rate. He makes quo 
 tations from the German, but he can t read a word of 
 the language." l 
 
 Some further explanation of the matter was 
 given August 1 : 
 
 "I did not give you sufficient particulars to enable 
 you to understand my difficulties with Bisco and Poe. 
 Neither has done anything without my full consent, 
 and I have nothing to complain of but their mean 
 ness, which they could n t help. I had told P. a month 
 before that I should drop his name from the * Journal. 
 He said I might keep it there if I wanted to, although 
 he intended to go into the country and devote his time 
 to getting up books, and would not therefore be able to 
 assist me. I had also told Bisco that I would have 
 nothing more to do with him after the close of the first 
 volume, and that I would not carry it on unless I could 
 find a publisher to my mind. I did find such a pub 
 lisher, and Bisco, thinking that I was very anxious to go 
 on with it, was more exacting in his demands for his 
 share of the Journal than I thought just, so I told him 
 i Briggs to Lowell, July 16, 1845. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 237 
 
 I would not take it ; and he, thinking to spite me, and 
 Poe, thinking to glorify himself in having overmastered 
 me, agreed to go on with it. I laughed at their folly, 
 and told them to go ahead ; but I still hold the same 
 right that I ever did, and could displace them both if I 
 wished to do so. But seeing so much poltroonery and 
 littleness in the business gave me a disgust to it, and I 
 let them alone, hoping to get back from Bisco some 
 money which I had advanced him." * 
 
 Three weeks later he wrote a characterization of 
 Poe more in detail : 
 
 " You have formed a correct estimate of Poe s charac 
 terless character. I have never met a person so utterly 
 deficient of high motive. He cannot conceive of any 
 body s doing anything, except for his own personal ad 
 vantage ; and he says, with perfect sincerity, and entire 
 unconsciousness of the exposition which it makes of his 
 own mind and heart, that he looks upon all reformers as 
 madmen ; and it is for this reason that he is so great 
 an egoist. He cannot conceive why the world should 
 not feel an interest in whatever interests him, because he 
 feels no interest himself in what does not personally con 
 cern him. Therefore, he attributes all the favor which 
 Longfellow, yourself, or anybody else receives from the 
 world as an evidence of the ignorance of the world, and 
 the lack of that favor in himself he attributes to the 
 world s malignity. It is too absurd for belief, but he 
 really thinks that Longfellow owes his fame mainly to the 
 ideas which he has borrowed from his (Poe s) writings in 
 the Southern Literary Messenger. His presumption is 
 
 1 Briggs to Lowell. MS. 
 
238 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 beyond the liveliest imagination. He has no reverence for 
 Homer, Shakespeare, or Milton, but thinks that Orion 
 is the greatest poem in the language. He has too much 
 prudence to put his opinions into print, or, rather, he 
 can find nobody impudent enough to print them, but 
 he shows himself in his private converse. The Bible, he 
 says, is all rigmarole. As to his Greek, you might see 
 very well if it were put in your eye. He does not read 
 Wordsworth, and knows nothing about him." 1 
 
 As has been incidentally mentioned above, the 
 "Journal" was suspended for one week; and when 
 the first number of the second volume appeared, a 
 week later, it bore Poe s name as sole editor. Since 
 he describes himself as " one third proprietor," in 
 his old terms, it seems probable that he agreed to 
 go on with Bisco for one third of the profits, just 
 as before, but having entire charge. Bisco himself 
 declares that he meant to get rid of Briggs, and, in 
 order to do so, took up with Poe. There was from 
 the first some financial tangle between the parties, 
 which, fortunately, there is no need to unravel. 
 The result of the difference was to install Poe in 
 full control. One of his acts was to have a fling 
 at Briggs, in connection with which our last ex 
 tract from the latter s correspondence has its in 
 terest : 
 
 " You take Poe s niaiseries too seriously. I only cared 
 for his unhandsome allusion to me in the B. J. because 
 it proved him a baser man than I thought him before. 
 
 1 Briggs to Lowell, August 21, 1845. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 289 
 
 . . . The truth is that I have not given him the shadow 
 of a cause for ill-feeling ; on the contrary he owes me 
 now for money that I lent him to pay his board and keep 
 him from being turned into the street. But he knows that 
 I am possessed of the secret of his real character and he 
 no doubt hates me for it. Until it was absolutely neces 
 sary for me to expose some of his practices to save my 
 self from contempt I never breathed a syllable of his ill 
 habits, but I tried in vain to hide them from observation 
 out of pure compassion, for I had not known him long 
 before I lost all respect for him and felt a loathing dis 
 gust for his habits. I did not much blame him for the 
 matter of his remarks about Jones, although the manner 
 of them was exceeding improper and unjust ; the real 
 cause of his ire was Jones neglecting to enumerate him 
 among the humorous writers of the country, for he has 
 an inconceivably extravagant idea of his capacities as a 
 humorist. The last conversation I had with Poe he used 
 all his power of eloquence in persuading me to join him 
 in the joint editor-ship of the Stylus. " l 
 
 Poe remained simply editor, with his third in 
 terest for pay, until October. In the first number 
 of his editing was a review of his own " Tales," 2 just 
 published by Wiley and Putnam as No. 2 in their 
 
 1 Briggs to Lowell, October 13, 1845. MS. 
 
 2 Tales. By Edgar A. Poe. New York : Wiley and Putnam. 
 1845. Pp. 228. The contents are, in order: The Gold Bug, The 
 Black Cat, Mesmeric Revelations, Lionizing, The Fall of the House 
 of Usher, The Descent into the Maelstrom, The Colloquy of Monos 
 and Una, The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion, The Murders 
 of the Rue Morgue, the Mystery of Marie Roget, The Purloined 
 Letter, The Man in the Crowd. 
 
240 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 " Library of American Books," and edited by Duy- 
 ckinck, who certainly had selected from Poe s num 
 erous and uneven stories those on which his fame 
 has proved itself to be founded. Poe, however, 
 declared in private, "Those selected are not my 
 best, nor do they fairly represent me in any re 
 spect." l He meant that they were too much of one 
 kind, whereas he had aimed at diversity in his 
 writings ; in other words, the grotesque tales were 
 slighted, and hence the universality of his genius 
 and the versatility of his talents were not illus 
 trated. During the first months of his editorship 
 he reprinted, as before, his old tales, occasionally 
 somewhat revised : " How to Write a Black wood Ar 
 ticle," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The 
 Literary Life of Thingum-Bob," " The Business 
 Man," " The Man who was Used Up," " Never Bet 
 the Devil your Head," "The Tell-Tale Heart," 
 " William Wilson," " Why the Little Frenchman 
 wears his Hand in a Sling," " The Landscape Gar 
 den," " The Tale of Jerusalem," " The Island of the 
 Fay," " MS. Found in a Bottle," " The Due d Ome- 
 lette," 2 " King Pest," 2 " The Power of Words," 
 and "Diddling Considered as one of the Fine 
 Arts." Of his poetry he used " The Coliseum," 
 "Zante," "Israfel," " Silence," 3 " Science," "Bridal 
 Ballad," "Eulalie," " Leiiore," 2 "A Dream," 3 
 "Catholic Hymn," 4 "Romance," 3 "City in the 
 
 1 Poe to . Ingram, ii. 24. 
 
 2 Signed " Littleton Barry." 3 Signed P. * Signed J. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 241 
 
 Sea," "To the River ," "The Valley of Un 
 rest," " To F ," To " i ( The bowers 
 
 whereat "), " Song " l (" I saw thee "), and " Fairy 
 land ; " 2 of criticism there was nothing noteworthy 
 except a flattering review of Hirst and a satirical 
 one of Hoyt, both poetasters. 
 
 In October occurred one of the best known in 
 cidents of Poe s life. In the summer he had visited 
 Boston, and now was invited to give a poem before 
 the Boston Lyceum (it will be remembered that 
 Lowell had at Poe s request formerly interested 
 himself to obtain an engagement for him to lecture 
 before the same organization), and he accepted. 
 On the evening appointed, October 16, a lecture, 
 which was the second of the course, having been 
 given by Caleb Gushing, Poe came forward on the 
 platform of the Odeon, and after some prefatory 
 remarks about the foolishness of didacticism read 
 " Al Aaraaf." The audience, the hour being late, 
 began to disperse, but enough persons remained to 
 enjoy his recitation of " The Raven," with which 
 the entertainment closed. Whatever was the cause, 
 Poe disappointed his audience, and afterwards 
 some Boston papers commented somewhat severely 
 on the performance, especially when the truth came 
 out that the poem given was a juvenile production, 
 written years before. Poe, when he returned to 
 New York, declared that he had acted of malice 
 prepense. 
 
 i Unsigned. * Signed + -f. 
 
 16 
 
242 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 "It would scarcely be supposed that we would put 
 ourselves to the trouble of composing for the Bostonians 
 anything in the shape of an original poem. We did not. 
 "We had a poem (of about five hundred lines) lying by 
 us one quite as good as new one at all events, that 
 we considered would answer sufficiently well for an au 
 dience of transcendentalists. That we gave them it 
 was the best that we had for the price and it did 
 answer remarkably well. Its name was not " The Mes 
 senger Star " who but Miss Walters would ever think of 
 so delicious a little bit of invention as that ? We had no 
 name for it at all. The poem is what is occasionally called 
 a juvenile poem but the fact is, it is anything but 
 juvenile now, for we wrote it, printed it, and published 
 it, in book form, before we had fairly completed our 
 { tenth year. We read it verbatim, from a copy now in 
 our possession, and which we shall be happy to show at 
 any moment to any of our inquisitive friends." 1 . . . 
 
 The audacity of this last claim to precocity of 
 genius, which would make Poe ten years younger 
 than he was, is almost burlesque. He goes on to 
 say, " Over a bottle of champagne that night, we 
 confessed to Messrs. Gushing, Whipple, Hudson, 
 Field, and a few other natives who swear not al 
 together by the frog-pond we confessed, we say, 
 the soft impeachment of the hoax." 
 
 This was Poe s explanation, given in the course 
 
 of an article, destitute of any gentlemanly trait, 
 
 in reply to Miss Walters, of the " Transcript," 
 
 whose name had before been the target for his 
 
 1 The Broadway Journal, November 1, 1845. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 243 
 
 shafts. One would say that pique rather than de 
 light was roused in him by the success of what 
 has been called his " mischief-making " expedition 
 to Boston. The fact probably was, as originally 
 stated by Griswold, that Poe had undertaken an 
 engagement, and being unable to write a poem for 
 such an occasion he resorted to his old composi 
 tions, and selected " Al Aaraaf " as the most avail 
 able. He may have felt some doubt as to how the 
 audience would take it, but he had none as to the 
 excellence of his poem. His elaborate explana 
 tion of his motives was an afterthought. 
 
 Just at this time occurred the singular transac 
 tion by which Poe became sole proprietor of the 
 " Journal " October 24. Mr. Bisco says that he 
 made over his rights to Poe for the consideration 
 of a promissory note for $50, signed by Poe, and 
 indorsed by Horace Greeley, who had at one time 
 written on political topics for the paper ; and when 
 it came due Bisco collected it, as was to be antici 
 pated, from the indorser. Greeley himself refers 
 to this incident, with sharp pleasantry : 
 
 " A gushing youth once wrote me to this effect : 
 1 DEAR SIR, Among your literary treasures, you 
 have doubtless preserved several autographs of our coun 
 try s late lamented poet, Edgar A. Poe. If so, and you 
 can spare one, please inclose it to me, and receive the 
 thanks of yours truly. 
 
 I promptly responded as follows : 
 
 * DEAR SIR, Among my literary treasures, there 
 
244 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 happens to be exactly one autograph of our country s 
 late lamented poet, Edgar A. Poe. It is his note of 
 hand for fifty dollars, with my indorsement across the 
 back. It cost me exactly $50.75 (including protest), 
 and you may have it for half that amount. Yours, 
 respectfully. 
 
 That autograph, I regret to say, remains on my 
 hands, and is still for sale at first cost, despite 
 the lapse of time and the depreciation of our cur 
 rency." i 
 
 Thus Poe at last owned and edited the " Jour 
 nal," but he needed capital to run it. In August 
 he had written to Neilson Poe, 2 with whom he had 
 reestablished connections, that he should start a 
 magazine in January ; but this was probably only 
 a chance reference to the " Stylus," which he was 
 always trying to float. At present he devoted 
 himself to raising further funds to pay the current 
 bills of the paper. Among Griswold s letters, the 
 authenticity of which cannot be fairly doubted, is 
 one written two days after the " Journal " passed 
 into Poe s hands. But before citing this it should 
 be remarked that Poe and his future biographer 
 had now become reconciled, and wore at least the 
 show of amity until Poe s death. The occasion 
 of their renewal of acquaintance was Griswold s 
 " Prose Writers of America," in which Poe wished 
 for notice. Soon after the first exchange of letters 
 
 1 Recollections of a Busy Life. By Horace Greeley : pp. 196, 
 197. 
 
 2 Poe to Neilson Poe, August 8, 1845. MS. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 245 
 
 Poe sent him his poems to be edited, and at a later 
 date he reminded him of the many times he had 
 spoken favorably of him, and gave as the reason 
 for the personal attack in the Philadelphia lecture 
 the fact that some one had ascribed to Griswold 
 the " beastly article " to which reference has al 
 ready been made. 
 
 On October 26, 1845, at any rate, Poe felt suf 
 ficiently sure of Griswold s favor to make a request : 
 
 MY DEAR GRISWOLD : Will you aid me at a pinch 
 at one of the greatest pinches conceivable ? If you will, 
 I will be indebted to you for life. After a prodigious 
 deal of maneuvering, I have succeeded in getting " The 
 Broadway Journal " entirely within my own control. It 
 will be a fortune to me if I can hold it and I can 
 do it easily with a very trifling aid from my friends. 
 May I count you as one ? Lend me $50, and you shall 
 never have cause to regret it. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 
 In reply to this he apparently received twenty- 
 five dollars at once, and as much more on the first 
 of December ; but, the lack of capital continuing to 
 be a pressing trouble, he wrote to his cousin, George 
 Poe, touching the same matter : 
 
 NEW YORK, November 30, 45. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 Since the period when (no doubt for good reasons) 
 you declined aiding me with the loan of $50, I have 
 1 Griswold, xxi., xxii. 
 
246 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 perseveringly struggled against a thousand difficulties, 
 and have succeeded, although not in making money, still 
 in attaining a position in the world of letters, of which, 
 under the circumstances, I have no reason to be ashamed. 
 
 For these reasons because I feel that I have exerted 
 myself to the utmost and because I believe that you 
 will appreciate my efforts to elevate the family name 
 I now appeal to you once more for aid. 
 
 With this letter I send you a number of " The Broad 
 way Journal," of which, hitherto, I have been merely 
 editor, and one third proprietor. I have lately pur 
 chased the whole paper, and, if I can retain it, it will be 
 a fortune to me in a short time ; but I have exhausted 
 all my resources in the purchase. In this emergency I 
 have thought that you might not be indisposed to assist 
 me. 
 
 I refrain from saying any more for I feel that if 
 your heart is kindly disposed toward me, I have already l 
 [Rest, with signature, cut off.] 
 
 While these embarrassments were annoying him, 
 Poe used his paper for the reproduction of his 
 works as formerly, and before the end of the year 
 he had reprinted " Some Words with a Mummy," 
 " The Devil in the Belfry," " A Tale of the Kagged 
 Mountains," " Four Beasts in One," " The Oblong 
 Box," " Mystification," " Loss of Breath," 2 and 
 one not elsewhere published, so far as is known, 
 " The Spectacles," an extremely weak piece of hu 
 mor, which Home had tried to get printed in Eng- 
 
 1 Poe to George Poe, November 30, 1845. MS. 
 
 2 Signed " Littleton Barry." 
 
IN NEW YORK. 247 
 
 land without success. The poetry had been ex 
 hausted before this date, all of it having been put 
 into the printer s hands in September. 
 
 The " Journal " showed vigorous management ; 
 its advertisements had been largely increased, and 
 its circulation is said to have doubled. The last 
 numbers of December are full of promises regard 
 ing the future ; but George Poe not responding, 
 the Greeley note becoming due, and obliging friends 
 being now obdurate, the demise of the paper sud 
 denly took place. On December 26 was published 
 
 the following : 
 
 VALEDICTORY. 
 
 Unexpected engagements demanding my whole atten 
 tion, and the objects being fulfilled so far as regards my 
 self personally, for which " The Broadway Journal " 
 was established, I now, as its editor, bid farewell as 
 cordially to foes as to friends. 
 
 EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 What other objects Poe achieved, except the re- 
 publication of nearly all the narrative prose he had 
 ever written, and of a considerable portion of his 
 poems, it is hard to see. One more number is said 
 to have been issued, January 3, under the editor 
 ship of Thomas Dunn English, with which the 
 "Journal" expired. 
 
 Just at the close of the year, apparently on No 
 vember 31, Poe s collected poems had been issued 
 by Wiley and Putnam, under the title " The Ra- 
 
248 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 ven and Other Poems." 1 The volume contained 
 nearly all the poetry he had ever written, and the 
 versions are those now established in the text. In 
 the preface he speaks in dispraise of his work, say 
 ing that he thinks nothing in this volume of much 
 value to the public, or very creditable to himself. 
 " Events not to be controlled," he continues, in the 
 well-known words, " have prevented me from mak 
 ing at any time any serious effort in what, under 
 happier circumstances, would have been the field 
 of my choice. With me poetry has been not a pur 
 pose, but a passion ; and the passions should be 
 held in reverence ; they must not they cannot at 
 will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compen 
 sations, or the more paltry commendations, of man 
 kind." 2 
 
 The poems which this proud apology prefaced 
 comprise the poetic labors of their author up to the 
 
 1 The Raven and Other Poems. By Edgar A. Poe. New York : 
 Wiley and Putnam. 1845. The contents were, in order, The 
 Raven, Valley of Unrest, Bridal Ballad, The Sleeper, The Coli 
 seum, Lenore, Catholic Hymn, Israfel, Dream-land, Sonnet To 
 Zante, City in the Sea, To One in Paradise, Eulalie A Song, To 
 
 F s S. d, To F , Sonnet Silence, The Conqueror 
 
 Worm, The Haunted Palace, Scenes from " Politian." Then 
 followed, with the foot-note still published, Poems in Youth : 
 Sonnet To Science, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, A Dream, l\o- 
 
 mance, Fairy-land, To , To the River , The Lake To 
 
 , Song, To Helen. It is scarcely necessary to add that the 
 
 youthful poems are not printed exactly " verbatim, without alter 
 ation from the original edition," but the changes, nevertheless, 
 are not important. 
 
 2 Works, i. 4. 
 
7^- NEW YORK. 249 
 
 close of this year, and although a few were to be 
 added before his death, they illustrate fully his po 
 etic powers. In attempting an estimate of their 
 worth, it is only just to recur once more to the the 
 ory which Poe had now completely developed re 
 garding the aims and scope of poetry ; for it is his 
 own comment on his own text. To put it in the 
 fewest words, Poe believed that of the pleasures 
 that spring from Truth, which satisfies the intellect, 
 or from Passion, which excites the heart, or from 
 Beauty, which elevates the soul, the latter is the 
 most pure, keen, and absorbing ; and this because 
 it appeals to that sense of harmony and feeds that 
 yearning for its manifestation which belongs to the 
 immortal part of man. In the moods aroused 
 through the sentiment of beauty man is most clearly 
 conscious of his eternal nature, and in the lifting up 
 of his spirit under such influences penetrates (so 
 Poe thought) to the divine. This subtle power is 
 possessed by all beauty in its sensible forms as built 
 by God in nature; but the suggestions of some 
 thing fairer beyond and above nature, which arise 
 in its presence, stimulate man to attempt to reach 
 this unknown loveliness by recombining the ele 
 ments he perceives, and thus in imagination (which 
 repeats the creative act of God) to fashion by art, 
 under the guidance of his own instinct, an ideal 
 beauty which shall be a new and purer source of 
 spiritual emotion. This creation of beauty is the 
 end of all the fine arts, but in music and in poetry 
 
250 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 it is most directly accomplished. It would, how 
 ever, be an error to suppose that Poe, in thus adopt 
 ing the doctrines of Coleridge and rejecting passion 
 and truth and morality as poetic themes, meant to 
 sever poetry by distinct boundaries from those re 
 gions of life ; on the contrary, he expressly states 
 that "the incitements of Passion, the precepts of 
 Duty, and even the lessons of Truth " may be ad 
 vantageously introduced into a poem, if they are 
 only subordinated and blended in by the skill of 
 the artist who understands how to use them for the 
 heightening of the effect of mere beauty ; and fur 
 thermore, it should be observed that to beauty itself 
 Poe assigns both a moral value, as lending attrac 
 tion to virtue, and an intellectual value, as leading 
 out to the mystical province of that truth which, 
 withdrawn from the probing of the reason, is fath 
 omed by the imagination alone. Such a specula 
 tion may be regarded as a baseless reverie or as 
 , profound philosophy ; but it is essential to keep in 
 I mind the fact not only that Poe made beauty the 
 i theme of poetry, but also that he found its value in 
 intimations of the divine ; or, in other words, that 
 he was devoted to a mystical aBstheticism. Of the 
 minor articles of his creed it is necessary to recall 
 only those which assert that a poem should be brief ; 
 should aim at a single artistic effect, but not to the 
 exclusion of a secondary suggested meaning ; and 
 should be touched, if possible, by a certain quaint- 
 iiess, grotesqueness, or peculiarity of rhythm or 
 metre, to give it tone. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 251 
 
 One who reflects upon the character of mind 
 implied by the holding of this theory, the elements 
 of which assimilated and united only very slowly in 
 Poe s case, cannot be surprised at the objections or 
 dinarily urged against Poe s verses. They are said 
 to be vague, destitute of ideas, insubstantial, un 
 real, full of artifice, and trenching on the domain 
 of music. That these phrases accurately describe 
 the impression made by the poems on many minds 
 by no means strangers to the poetic sentiment 
 may be granted without hesitation ; and if any one 
 maintains that from certain points of view such 
 words are justly applied, it would be futile to dis 
 sent. The diversity of criticism upon Poe s verse 
 is largely due to the assumption that it can be 
 measured intelligibly by any other than his own 
 standard. The poet strives, Poe thought, to bring 
 about in others the state felt in himself ; and in 
 his own case that was one of brooding reverie, a 
 sort of emotional possession, full of presentiment, 
 expectancy, and invisible suggestion, the mood that 
 is the habitat of superstition ; vagueness was the 
 very hue in which he painted. Again, if in his 
 prose tales he declares repeatedly that he meant 
 not to tell a story, but to produce an effect, much 
 more is it to be thought that in poetry he aimed 
 not to convey an idea, but to make an impression. 
 He was not a philosopher nor a lover ; he never 
 served truth nor knew passion ; he was a dreamer, 
 and his life was, warp and woof, mood and sen 
 
252 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 ment instead of act and thought. When he came 
 to poetic expression which must needs be the gen 
 uine manifestation of the soul s secret, he had no 
 wisdom and no romance to disclose, of any earthly 
 reality, and he was forced to bring out his meagre 
 store of visionary facts, to which his random and 
 morbid feelings alone gave credibility. To say of 
 such works that they are destitute of ideas and 
 insubstantial is not criticism, it is mere de 
 scription. Even for that slight framework of the 
 things of sense which Poe had to shape in order to 
 allegorize his moods at all, he seems but little in 
 debted to nature. The purely imaginary character 
 of his landscape has been touched on, again and 
 again, hitherto ; it is indicative of the obvious fact 
 that he never regarded nature as anything but the 
 crucible of his fancies. To qualify his conceptions 
 as unreal is merely to gather into a colorless word 
 the quivering eastern valley, the flaming city isled 
 in darkness, the angel-thronged, star-lighted thea 
 tre of the Worm s conquest, the wind-blown king 
 dom by the sea, the Titanic cypress alley, the night s 
 Plutonian shore, or any other of those dim tracts, 
 
 " Out of space, out of time," 
 
 where his spirit wandered. So, too, if any one 
 presses the charge of artifice home, it must be al 
 lowed just, though it attaches only to the later 
 poems and is the excess of art. No poet was ever 
 less spontaneous in excellence than Poe. When 
 one reads, at successive stages of his career, the 
 
IN NEW YORK. 253 
 
 same old stanzas in new versions, and notices how 
 they grew out of rudeness of many different de 
 scriptions into such perfection as they reached, he 
 perceives before him an extraordinary example of 
 growth in the knowledge and exercise of the poetic 
 art, the pulse of the machine laid bare. The 
 changes are minute and almost innumerable, the ap 
 proaches to perfection are exceedingly gradual, the 
 last draft is sometimes only slightly related to the 
 earliest ; but and this is the point that proves 
 Poe primarily a careful artist rather than an in 
 spired poet in every instance the alteration is 
 judicious, the step is a step forward. One who 
 achieves success mainly by self - training in art 
 comes to rely on art overmuch ; and so he degen 
 erates into artifice, or visible art, puts his faith in 
 mechanism, and trusts his fame to cogs and levers 
 of words and involutions of sounds; or it may 
 happen, as was perhaps finally the case with Poe, 
 that a weakened mind keeps facility with the tools 
 when the work slips from its grasp. At least, so 
 much truth lies in this last objection of the arti 
 ficiality of Poe s work as to justify the more gen 
 erous statement that he was, in verse as in prose, 
 essentially a skillful literary artist. And further 
 more, music was an essential element of his art. It 
 is true that his ear for verbal melody was at first 
 very defective, and was never perfect, but in much 
 of his best work the rhythmic movement is faultless 
 in its flow and its simplicity. This is not, however, 
 
254 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 all that is meant by saying that he borrowed effects 
 from music. In his verses sonorousness counts in 
 dependently of its relation to the meaning of the 
 words, and the poem seems at intervals to become 
 merely a volume of sound, in which there is no ap 
 peal to the mind at all, but only a stimulation of 
 the feelings as by the tones of an instrument. In 
 the management of the theme, too, particularly in 
 his later verse, the handling of the refrain, the re 
 currence to the same vocal sounds and the same or 
 der of syllabic structure, the movement of the whole 
 poem by mere new presentations of the one idea, as 
 in u The Raven," or of the same group of imagery, as 
 in " Ulalume," partakes of the method of musical 
 composition. In these ways Poe did appropriate 
 the effects of music, and they blended with the 
 other characteristics of his art as sound and color 
 in nature, to make that vague impression on the 
 mind of which he sought the secret. It belongs to 
 his originality that he could thus exercise his mas 
 tery in the borderland between poetry and music, 
 where none before him had had power. 
 
 After all, to meet the last circumscription of his 
 praise, he did not write a dozen poems of the best 
 rank. Those of his youth, already sufficiently 
 characterized, were works of promise in a boy, but 
 they would not have made a bubble as they sank 
 in the waters of oblivion. Of those composed in 
 manhood (and as such should be reckoned the pres 
 ent versions of " The Sleeper," " The Valley of 
 
IN NEW YORK. 255 
 
 Unrest," " The City in the Sea," " To One in Para 
 dise," and possibly " Israfel ") the first fine one was 
 " The Haunted Palace," nor was that to be free 
 from later improvements ; and from its appearance 
 until his death Poe s poems of the same level can 
 be counted on the fingers. To the world, indeed, 
 he is the genius of one poem only, " The Raven ; " 
 unless, to support his name, the fame of " The 
 Bells " and of " Ulalume " be added. There is no 
 occasion to examine either these three or any others 
 of the dozen that are justly immortal ; they all be 
 long to the class of poems that make their way at 
 once or not at all. Yet it may serve to define 
 and possibly to elucidate Poe s nature if it be 
 incidentally noticed that, except in his single lyric 
 "Israfel," the theme of his imagination is ruin ; and 
 that in the larger number of these few best poems 
 it is the special case of ruin which he declared 
 the most poetic of all, the death of a beautiful 
 woman. It is of no concern that the treatment 
 was radically different, so that in each instance a 
 poem absolutely unique was created ; the noteworthy 
 fact is, at present, that Poe s genius was developed 
 in its strength by brooding over a fixed idea, as the 
 insane do ; and when, under great excitement, some 
 other mode of expression was imperative, it was 
 found only in such objective work as the marvel 
 ous allegory of " The Conqueror Worm," so ter 
 rible in the very perfection of its flawless art, or 
 in such spirit-broken confession as that other alle- 
 
256 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 gory of " The Haunted Palace," which in intense, 
 imaginative self-portraiture is scarcely excelled in 
 literature. The secret life, the moments of strong 
 est emotion, the hours of longest reach, implied by 
 such motives as these, make that impenetrable 
 background of shadow against which in these poems 
 the poet stands relieved forever, the object of 
 deep pity, whether his sufferings were imaginary or 
 real, inevitable or self-imposed, the work of unre- 
 garding fate or the strict retribution of justice. 
 
 But when the utmost has been said adversely, 
 the power of these dozen poems is undiminished 
 even over those who admit their vagueness, their 
 lack of ideas, their insubstantial and unreal qual 
 ity, their sometimes obvious artifice, their likeness 
 to musical compositions, and their scant number. 
 Poe would himself have considered such censures 
 as praises in disguise, and scoffed at their authors 
 as dull-mettled rascals, like Partridge at the play. 
 The power, after all, remains ; first and foremost a 
 power of long - practiced art, but also of the spell 
 itself, of the forms evoked independently of the 
 magic that compels them, a fascination that makes 
 the mind pause. If one is not subdued by this, at 
 least at moments, there are some regions of mortal 
 ity unknown to him ; he will never disembark on 
 No Man s Land. If one is not sensible of the ex 
 quisite construction here shown, the poetic art is as 
 much a mystery to him as was Prospero s to Cali 
 ban. But if one with the eye to see and the heart 
 
IN NEW YORK. 257 
 
 to understand, being once overcome by these poems, 
 continues to inhabit with the ill things that dwell 
 there, he forgets Poe s own gospel of the ends of 
 art, and perceives not the meaning of the irony 
 that made the worshiper of beauty the poet of the 
 outcast soul. If it be the office of poetry to inti 
 mate the divine, it must be confessed these works 
 of Poe intimate the infernal ; they are variations 
 struck on the chord of evil that vibrates in all life, 
 throbs of the heart of pain, echoes of ruin that float 
 up from the deep within the deep, the legend and 
 pa3an and ritual of hopeless death ; they belong to 
 the confusions of a superstitious mind, the feebleness 
 of an unmanned spirit, the misery of an impotent 
 will. Profound in knowledge of the obscure sources 
 of feeling ; almost magical in the subtlety of their 
 art ; bold, clear, and novel in imagination ; ideal, ab 
 solutely original, married to music of the most allur 
 ing charm, these poems fulfill all conditions of Poe s 
 standard save one, and that the supreme one. They 
 deserve their fame ; but, seeing the gifts of genius 
 involved in their creation, one turns from the 
 literary result, and scans more narrowly the life in 
 which they were involved. 
 
 At this time Poe firs^t began to frequent, some 
 times in company with his invalid wife, but more 
 often alone, the receptions at which the litterateurs 
 of the metropolis, particularly the ladies, used to 
 meet. These gatherings took place commonly at 
 Dr. Orville Dewey s, the eloquent preacher ; or at 
 
 17 
 
258 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 James Lawson s, distinguished in Poe s mind as a 
 man interested in our literature although a Scotch 
 man, and as an enthusiast in all matters of taste 
 although himself devoid of it ; or at Miss Anne 
 Charlotte Lynch s, a poetess of the Willis group, 
 whose weekly receptions in Waverley Place were 
 thronged by literary men, artists, poetesses, and 
 others of like pursuits. At such resorts, in the 
 midst of a variously constituted company, Poe 
 would sit, dressed in plain black, but with the 
 head, the broad, retreating white brow, the large, 
 luminous, piercing eyes, the impassive lips, that 
 gave the visible character of genius to his features ; 
 and if the loud, bluff pleasantry of the humorist 
 physician, Dr. Francis, or the high-keyed declama 
 tion of Margaret Fuller in her detested transcen- 
 dentalist Boston dialect, would permit, he would 
 himself, in his ordinary subdued, musical tones ex 
 ercise the fascination of his talk on women of lesser 
 note, among whom to mention only those that 
 come within the scope, of this narrative were 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes- Smith, once known as the 
 author of " The Sinless Child "(which Poe thought 
 the most original long American poem excepting 
 Maria del Occidente s " Bride of Seven ") ; Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Frieze Ellet, whose hand Poe took in an 
 evil hour ; and Mrs. Mary Gove, afterwards Mrs. 
 Nichols, " a Mesmerist, a Swedenborgian, a phre 
 nologist, a homoaopathist, and a disciple of Priess- 
 nitz," and, adds Poe, " what more I am not pre- 
 
IN NEW YORK. 259 
 
 pared to say." l Notwithstanding his natural reserve 
 his manners were pleasing, and his conversation, 
 although best when but one or two were present, 
 must have been engaging and impressive even in 
 the constraint and inconsequence of general talk. 
 Upon women, especially in these last years, his 
 voice and look had a magical power, although this 
 was probably only the extraordinary charm pecul 
 iar to the Virginia society in which he was bred ; 
 and, on his side, Poe had long indulged a habit of 
 idealizing women and worshiping them in secret. 
 An attachment of this sort he had formed for Mrs. 
 Francis Sargent Osgood (a poetess of thirty and the 
 wife of an American artist), who On publishing her 
 first volume, seven years before, in London had 
 been taken up as a protegee, by Mrs. Norton. Poe 
 had noticed her verses many times with great 
 favor, and in his New York lecture, especially, eulo 
 gized her in warm terms. Shortly after this latter 
 incident Willis one day handed her " The Raven," 
 with the author s request for her judgment on it, 
 and for an introduction to herself. She assented, 
 and a few days later Poe called at the Astor House 
 to see her. 
 
 " I shall never forget," she wrote, " the morning when 
 I was summoned to the drawing-room by Mr. Willis to 
 receive him. With his proud and beautiful head erect, 
 his dark eyes flashing with the electric light of feeling 
 and of thought, a peculiar, an inimitable blending of 
 1 Works, ii. 65. 
 
260 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 sweetness and hauteur in his expression and manner, he 
 greeted me, calmly, gravely, almost coldly, yet with so 
 marked an earnestness that I could not help being deeply 
 impressed by it. From that moment until his death we 
 were friends ; although we met only during the first year 
 of our acquaintance." l 
 
 The friendship, so signed, was sealed by some 
 verses addressed to Poe, in the character of Israf el, 
 by Mrs. Osgood, and published in the " Broadway 
 Journal ; " and to these Poe replied with a third 
 version of his old stanzas, originally written for lit 
 tle Eliza White, and now transparently rededicated 
 
 "To Mrs. F s S 1 O d." The young 
 
 poetess soon became intimate with the household in 
 Amity Street, then the place of their settlement, 
 and to her pen is due the only description of the 
 family, at this time, that has been preserved : 
 
 " It was in his own simple yet poetical home that to 
 me the character of Edgar Poe appeared in its most 
 beautiful light. Playful, affectionate, witty, alternately 
 docile and wayward as a petted child, for his young, 
 gentle, and idolized wife, and for all who came, he had, 
 even in the midst of his most harassing literary duties, 
 a kind word, a pleasant smile, a graceful and courteous 
 attention. At his desk beneath the romantic picture of 
 his loved and lost Lenore, he would sit, hour after hour, 
 patient, assiduous, and uncomplaining, tracing, in an ex 
 quisitely clear chirography and with almost superhuman 
 swiftness, the lightning thoughts the rare and radiant 
 fancies as they flashed through his wonderful and 
 1 Griswold, liii. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 261 
 
 ever-wakeful brain. I recollect, one morning, toward 
 the close of his residence in this city, when he seemed 
 unusually gay and light-hearted. Virginia, his sweet 
 wife, had written me a pressing invitation to come to 
 them ; and I, who never could resist her affectionate 
 summons, and who enjoyed his society far more in his 
 own home than elsewhere, hastened to Amity Street. 
 I found him just completing his series of papers entitled 
 The Literati of New York. i See, said he, displaying 
 in laughing triumph several little rolls of narrow paper 
 (he always wrote thus for the press), I am going to 
 show you by the difference of length in these the differ 
 ent degrees of estimation in which I hold all you liter 
 ary people. In each of these one of you is rolled up 
 and fully discussed. Come, Virginia, help me ! And 
 one by one they unfolded them. At last they came to 
 one which seemed interminable. Virginia laughingly 
 ran to one corner of the room with one end, and her 
 husband to the opposite with the other. And whose 
 lengthened sweetness long drawn out is that ? said I. 
 Hear her ! he cried. Just as if her little vain heart 
 did n t tell her it s herself I " 1 
 
 Mrs. Osgood was a kind friend, and while her 
 indulgence in sentimentality is sufficiently evident 
 in these reminiscences, and plainly affected her 
 more than she was conscious of, she was pleased 
 to think, with Virginia, that her influence over 
 Poe was for his good. If on his part there were in 
 this Platonic friendship, as she declares, "many 
 little poetical episodes, in which the impassioned 
 
 1 Griswold, lii.-liii. 
 
262 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 romance of his temperament impelled him to in 
 dulge," they were powerless to disturb the love and 
 confidence between himself and Virginia ; and on 
 her own part, his devoted admirer obtained from 
 him a solemn promise not to use stimulants, and, 
 she naively states, he so far observed his word as 
 never to appear before her when affected by them. 
 
 At Virginia s request a correspondence arose be 
 tween the two, but fraught with evil consequences ; 
 for, one day, after the Poes had removed to the 
 village of Fordham, whither they went when the 
 cherry-trees blossomed in 1846, Mrs. Ellet, who 
 was calling on them, saw an open letter from Mrs. 
 Osgood to Poe, couched in language which in her 
 judgment required friendly interference. This lady 
 consulted with her friends, and the scandalized 
 bevy of interlopers prevailed on Mrs. Osgood to 
 commission some of them to demand the return of 
 her portion of the too sugared correspondence. It 
 seems strange that Mrs. Osgood did not herself 
 make the request quietly, if she thought she had 
 committed herself improperly ; instead of doing so, 
 however, she sent Margaret Fuller and a compan 
 ion, who astonished the poet with their credentials. 
 In a moment of exasperation he is said to have re 
 marked that Mrs. Ellet had better come and look 
 after her own letters, a chance word that seems 
 to have canceled all his considerate flattery of that 
 versifier in the past ten years. The ladies returned 
 to New York with their precious bundle ; and Poe 
 
IN NEW YORK. 263 
 
 says that he gave Mrs. Ellet her own packet with 
 out awaiting her application, and hence was sur 
 prised when her brother demanded of him, a few 
 days later, what he had no longer in his possession. 
 Mrs. Osgood did not meet Poe after this, but her 
 testimony to his good qualities was never lacking 
 on occasion. She wrote these reminiscences on her 
 death-bed to defend his memory. " I have never 
 seen him," she said, " otherwise than gentle, gen 
 erous, well bred, and fastidiously refined. To a 
 sensitive and delicately nurtured woman, there was 
 a peculiar and irresistible charm in the chivalric, 
 graceful, and almost tender reverence with which 
 he invariably approached all women who won his 
 respect. It was this which first commanded and 
 always retained my regard for him." 1 
 
 While this romance was verging to its catas 
 trophe, Poe s literary work was the series of pa 
 pers already mentioned, " The Literati of New 
 York." It was published in " Godey s Lady s 
 Book," which had now become the mainstay of his 
 support, although he still occasionally contributed 
 to " Graham s," which in March published an in 
 stallment of "Marginalia," and in April "The 
 Philosophy of Composition," with its notorious 
 analysis of the genesis of " The Raven." 
 
 In " Godey s " he had written criticisms in each 
 number since the previous November, noticing Mat 
 thews, Mrs. Smith, Simms, Mrs. Hewitt, Mrs. 
 1 Griswold, lii. 
 
264 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Osgood, and Bryant ; but " The Literati " was a 
 series of papers, not called forth by current books, 
 but a sort of " Autography " expanded, and prob 
 ably made up all he had yet written of his pro 
 jected work on our literature. " The Literati " 
 proper, which began to appear in May and contin 
 ued through six numbers, dealt with thirty-eight 
 authors resident in New York, and Poe professed 
 to give in the main not merely his own opinion of 
 them, but that of literary society as expressed in 
 private. The sketches themselves are distinctly 
 the work of a magazinist, both in conception and 
 execution ; in fact, they are simply somewhat hur 
 riedly recorded impressions of literary people and 
 their works, interspersed, according to Poe s inveter 
 ate habit, with extracts from, or paraphrases of, his 
 old book-reviews since the time of the " Messenger." 
 Being written with perfect frankness, and in that 
 spirit of oblivious indifference to what the world 
 would say which had won a hearing for Poe s criti 
 cism, the series was the literary hit of the season. 
 Few of these characterizations (they include per 
 sonal as well as literary qualities) are in any way 
 humiliating to their subjects. None, it is true, not 
 even that of Mrs. Osgood, is unreservedly lauda 
 tory ; but if limitations of capacity are marked out 
 sharply and freely, praise is, as a rule, generously 
 given within the bounds. Against Lewis Gaylord 
 Clark, of " The Knickerbocker," Poe had an old 
 grudge, and just at this time Briggs had succeeded 
 
IN NEW YORK. 265 
 
 to Fay and Griswold as the peculiar object of his 
 spleen ; but with these exceptions, although some 
 of the nobodies might have been nettled at the 
 cavalier manner in which their merits were circum 
 scribed or themselves patronized, there were very 
 few with any just cause for complaint, since Poe 
 was not so much the prince of critics as to antici 
 pate exactly the judgment of posterity by ignoring 
 them. In respect to the more important ones, 
 Willis, Halleck, and Margaret Fuller, his decisions 
 were final and have been sustained. There was a 
 good deal of discussion, however, among the dis 
 turbed mediocrities ; Godey was implored by the 
 honey - tongued and brow -beaten by the loud 
 mouthed, but he refused to be intimidated by 
 either method, as he assured the public in a card ; 
 and, in particular, Thomas Dunn English was 
 roused to open combat. 
 
 This individual, whom Poe facetiously called 
 " Thomas Dunn Brown," was a doctor, lawyer, 
 novelist, editor, and poet of twenty-seven years of 
 age, whom Poe, despite his foolish disclaimer of 
 personal acquaintance, had met in Philadelphia, 
 and had allowed to lounge about his office and run 
 errands for him when he was editing the " Broad 
 way Journal." No mortal ever held a pen who 
 would not resent such a shameless exposure of his 
 ears as was Poe s article in this instance, a sort 
 of grotesque in criticism. English secured forth 
 with the columns of the " Mirror " (which had 
 
266 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 changed hands), and poured out on Poe, June 
 23, a flood of scurrility ; besides a plentiful use of 
 billingsgate and the easy charge of intoxication, 
 there was in particular a specific accusation of ob 
 taining money under false pretenses and of down 
 right forgery. Poe replied four days later in the 
 Philadelphia " Saturday Gazette," and exercised 
 his powers of recrimination at a length and with 
 an effect that makes one think of the lion and the 
 jackal. Of course he confessed his poverty and 
 his excesses, with the pitiful extenuation that the 
 latter were the unavoidable result rather than the 
 cause of his misfortune ; but he exculpated himself 
 from the charges affecting his integrity, and had he 
 not in his turn indulged in intemperate personal 
 abuse there would have been nothing to desire in 
 his rejoinder. Poe also brought suit against the 
 " Mirror," and, no witnesses appearing to justify 
 the libel, he was adjudged damages, February 17, 
 1847, in the sum of $225, with costs to the defen 
 dant. 
 
 Notwithstanding the wrath of a few manikins, 
 Poe s " Literati " was not a prose Dunciad ; and 
 the impression that his criticism in general was an 
 anathema on American mediocrity is an entirely 
 false one. Not infrequently, indeed, he exposed 
 some fool s folly with the raillery and zest of a 
 boy s untroubled enjoyment in the low comedy of 
 the situation ; now and then, in a more bitter mood, 
 he could with deliberate leisure pull some insect 
 
IN NEW YORK. 267 
 
 of the hour to pieces, or impale a Bavius or two 
 upon the highway. He looked on himself as a 
 public executioner, and was proud of the office. 
 On the whole, however, his commendation equaled, 
 if it did not exceed, his condemnation, and more 
 than one of those whom he extolled to the skies has 
 long since sunk back to the dust. The peculiarity 
 of his position was, not that he was an unjust judge, 
 but that he was the only one ; not that his cen 
 sures were undeserved, but that he alone pronounced 
 a sentence without fear or favor. He thus drew 
 about himself a swarm of enemies ; and as his life 
 offered only too fair an opportunity they used their 
 advantage to take revenge in slander, as did Dr. 
 English, but in secret. In these critical decisions 
 of Poe s, speaking generally, he does not seem to 
 have been himself actuated by any unworthy motive, 
 any personal consideration of friendliness or enmity, 
 or any hope of gain or fear of loss ; if such matters 
 affected his judgment, it was ordinarily either in 
 an unconscious or an involuntary way. Now and 
 then, as in the case of Griswold, he was stung into 
 telling truth when he might otherwise have held 
 his peace ; or he apologized, as to Matthews, for 
 the violence of some earlier critique, or lowered the 
 key of his laudation when friendship ceased, as 
 with Lowell. Worldly motives swayed his mind, 
 now more, now less ; personal feelings entered into 
 his verdicts ; but he was not governed by them. 
 His open claim to impartiality, sincerity, and integ- 
 
268 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 rity seems to be sustained ; or, if shaken at all, to 
 be invalidated by the praise he gave to his femi 
 nine friends rather than by the contempt he poured 
 out on his masculine foes. 
 
 It is thought in some quarters that Poe s crit 
 icism, and particularly its destructive portions, 
 was very valuable. It is even said that he raised 
 the level of our current literature. The race of 
 chameleon poets, however, is not yet extinct, and 
 they feed on the green trees of Tennyson, Brown 
 ing, and Swinburne as once on those of Moore, 
 Mrs. Hemans, and Keats. Reputations are still 
 made by the coteries of a publisher s anteroom and 
 sustained by judicious advertising. The motives 
 that influence the editorial judgments of the press 
 have changed but little in a generation. If, as is 
 true, the mediocrities of our time are more clever 
 in their imitation and more painstaking in their 
 drudgery, this is rather to be ascribed to the gen 
 eral rise of the standard of literary excellence, due 
 to the intellectual movement of the age, than to 
 the influence of a single free lance like Poe. The 
 good that criticism can do to the producers of liter 
 ature is trifling ; its work is to improve the popu 
 lar taste, and to make the best that is written 
 widely known and easily apprehensible ; to authors 
 it is, for many reasons, well-nigh useless. Destruc 
 tive criticism of imaginative work, especially, is or 
 dinarily futile, and in Poe s case no exception need 
 be made. The good he did was infinitesimal ; it 
 
IN NEW YORK. 269 
 
 would have been far better to leave such work to 
 the scythe of Time. 
 
 Of the excellence of Poe s criticism in itself, 
 however, there can be no question. He was the 
 disciple of Coleridge ; and, being gifted with some 
 thing of Coleridge s analytic powers, he applied the 
 principles he thus derived with skill and effect. 
 No one, too, could subject himself to so long a 
 self-training, and become so perfect in his own 
 subtle art, without developing a refined taste of the 
 highest value in criticism. The test of his ability 
 as a critic, the severest test to which a man can 
 be put, is the quickness and certainty of his rec 
 ognition of unknown genius. In this Poe suc 
 ceeded ; the rank he gave to the American poets, 
 young and old (and in the case of the best of them 
 he had only their earliest work to judge by), is the 
 rank sustained by the issue, and his success in 
 dealing with the English reputations of the future 
 was not less marked. To Tennyson, Dickens, 
 and Longfellow he brought early applause ; Mrs. 
 Browning, Lowell, and Hawthorne were foreknown 
 by him when their names were still in doubt. It 
 is no diminution of his just praise that he so far 
 shared in human weakness as to obey an obscure 
 jealousy, notably in Longfellow s case ; or to be 
 misled by a prejudice, as with Emerson or any 
 other transcendentalist ; or to hail many a poetaster, 
 particularly in petticoats, as of Apollo s band. He 
 was as extreme in eulogy as in denunciation ; and, 
 
270 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 especially in the case of Southern writers, he some 
 times indulged in so laudatory a strain as to be 
 guilty of absurdity. His decisions in more than 
 one instance, like those on Moore, and in a less de 
 gree on Dickens, were merely contemporary ; and 
 in other cases, like that of Home s " Orion," were 
 esoteric and whimsical. His silence, too, regarding 
 the great men of the past, such as Shakspere, 
 and the unanimous report of his violent deprecia 
 tion of them in conversation, must count in settling 
 his own virtues as a critic. He was, it is easy to 
 see now, prejudiced here and partial there ; foolish, 
 or interested, or wrong-headed; carping, or flat 
 tering, or contemptuous. Yet he was the first of 
 his time to mark the limitations of the pioneer 
 writers, such as Irving, Bryant, and Cooper, and to 
 foresee the future of the younger men who have been 
 mentioned ; he was, too, though he originated no 
 criterion, the first to take criticism from mere 
 advertising, puffery, and friendship, and submit it 
 to the laws of literary art. This was much to do, 
 and in his lifetime, whatever were his deficiencies, 
 was regarded as his great distinction ; it was the 
 more honorable because of the offense that was now 
 and then bound to be given, even if Poe had been 
 the wisest and kindest of men instead of the reck 
 less, erratic, and un scholarly judge he was. For, 
 to come to the rationale of the matter, it was by no 
 means learning, in which he was a charlatan, nor 
 inborn sense, nor intellectual honesty, nor moral 
 
IN NEW YORK. 271 
 
 insight, nor power of imaginative sympathy, that 
 gave his criticism value, in all these he was 
 deficient ; but it was merely the knowledge of 
 the qualities and methods of artistic effect, which 
 came to him in the development of his own genius 
 under the controlling influence of Coleridge s rea 
 son and imagination. His criticism is thus largely 
 a series of illustrations of literary art as he hiinsejf 
 it. 
 
 For weeks before English s libel Poe had been 
 ill at Fordham, whither he had lately removed, 
 and henceforth his constitution may be regarded 
 as hopelessly broken. This premature exhaustion 
 may be in part ascribed to continuous overwork, re 
 peated disappointments, and the humiliations of pov 
 erty ; but his shattered health must also be traced 
 to the use of liquor, his indulgence in which, since, 
 after his year of abstinence, he broke down in 
 1845, had been extreme. In addition to this cause, 
 too, must be recorded the more insidious and mor 
 tal influence of the use of opium, which, vampire- 
 like, had sucked the vitality out of the whole frame 
 of his being, mental, moral, and physical. 
 
 The cottage to which he had retired in the spring 
 of 1846, although at the best a mean dwelling, was 
 the pleasantest retreat he had known. It was a 
 one story and a half house, still standing on King s 
 Bridge Road, at the top of Fordham Hill. Within, 
 on the ground-floor, were two small apartments, a 
 kitchen and sitting-room ; and above, up a narrow 
 
272 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 stairway, two others, one Poe s room a low, 
 cramped chamber, lighted by little square windows 
 like port-holes, the other a diminutive closet of a 
 bedroom, hardly large enough to lie down in. The 
 furniture was of the simplest : in the clean, white- 
 floored kitchen, says Mrs. Gove, who visited the 
 family during this first summer, were a table, a 
 chair, and a little stove; and in the other room, 
 which was laid with checked matting, were only 
 a light stand with presentation volumes of the 
 Brownings upon it, some hanging shelves with a 
 few other books ranged on them, and four chairs. 
 Outside, however, the broad views, in contrast with 
 the dwarfed interior, must have had, as is now the 
 case, a fine spaciousness. The old cherry-trees 
 are still rooted in the grassy turf, out of which 
 crops here and there the granite of the underlying 
 rock; and a stone s throw to the east of the ve 
 randa, then as now overgrown with vines, rises the 
 ledge itself, overhung by sighing pines, and looking 
 off far across the meadows, woods, and villages, to 
 the glimmer of ocean on the dim horizon. Of this 
 little home in the pleasant country there are many 
 reminiscences, curiously intermingling the beauty 
 of nature with the charm of the three occupants. 
 Mrs. Clemm, now over sixty, with her large, benev 
 olent features and white hair, in a worn black dress, 
 made upon all who saw her an impression of dig 
 nity, refinement, and especially of deep motherly 
 devotion to her children ; Virginia, at the age 
 
IN NEW YORK. 273 
 
 of twenty-five, retained her beauty, but the large 
 black eyes and raven hair contrasted sadly with 
 the white pallor of her face; Poe himself, poor, 
 proud, and ill, anticipating grief, and nursing 
 the bitterness that springs from helplessness in 
 the sight of suffering borne by those dear to us, 
 was restless and variable, the creature of contra 
 dictory impulses, alternating between the eager 
 ness of renewed hope and the dull maze of the 
 ever-recurring disappointment. Friends called on 
 him, and found him anxious over the one great 
 trouble of his poverty, or inspirited by the compli 
 ment of a letter from Mrs. Browning, or endeavor 
 ing to distract his mind with his pets, a bobolink 
 he had caught and caged, or a parrot some one had 
 given him, or his favorite cat. If he went away to 
 the city, he came back at once to his home ; once, 
 when he was detained, he sent a note to Virginia, 
 which is unique in his correspondence : 
 
 June 12, 1846. 
 
 MY DEAR HEAJJT My Dear Virginia Our mother 
 will explain to you why I stay away from you this night. 
 I trust the interview I am promised will result in some 
 substantial good for me for your dear sake and hers 
 keep up your heart in all hopefulness, and trust yet a 
 little longer. On my last great disappointment I should 
 have lost my courage but for you my little darling 
 wife. You are my greatest and only stimulus now, to 
 battle with this uncongenial, unsatisfactory, and ungrate 
 ful life. 
 
 I shall be with you to-morrow [illegible] p. M., and be 
 18 
 
274 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 assured until I see you I will keep in loving remem 
 brance your last words, and your fervent prayer ! 
 
 Sleep well and may God grant you a peaceful summer 
 with your devoted 
 
 EDGAR. 1 
 
 As the summer went on Poe grew no better, and 
 daily Virginia failed and faded, and the resources 
 of the household were being slowly reduced to 
 the starving point. Autumn came, the snow and 
 the cold and the winter seclusion, and affairs 
 grew desperate ; the wolf was already at the door 
 when by happy chance this same Mrs. Gove, whose 
 kind heart could prompt her to something better 
 than her verses, called on the Poes, and found the 
 dying wife in the summer sitting-room, which had 
 been taken for her use. The scene requires her 
 own description : 
 
 " There was no clothing on the bed, which was only 
 straw, but a snow-white counterpane and sheets. The 
 weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful 
 chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. 
 She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband s 
 great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. 
 The wonderful cat seemed conscious of her great useful 
 ness. The coat and the cat were the sufferer s only 
 means of warmth, except as her husband held her 
 hands, and her mother her feet. Mrs. Clemm was pas 
 sionately fond of her daughter, and her distress on ac 
 count of her illness and poverty and misery was dreadful 
 to see." a 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 88, 89. 2 Ingram, ii. 97. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 275 
 
 On her return to New York, Mrs. Gove applied 
 to Mrs. Maria Louise Shew, the daughter of a phy 
 sician, who had given his child a medical education, 
 and thus had helped to make her the useful friend 
 of the poor to whom she devoted her life. Relief 
 was immediately sent, and by Mrs. Shew s efforts 
 a subscription of sixty dollars was soon made up. 
 " From the day this kind lady first saw the suffer 
 ing family of the poet," adds Mrs. Gove, whose nar 
 rative is here closely followed, " she watched over 
 them as a mother watches over her babe. She saw 
 them often, and ministered to the comfort of the 
 dying and the living." 
 
 Under the influence of this glimpse of kindliness, 
 Poe roused his faculties to new work. The " Lit 
 erati," which had come to an end in October, was 
 followed in the next month in " Godey s " by a tale 
 of Italian vengeance, in the traditional style, " The 
 Cask of Amontillado ; " but with this and an install 
 ment of " Marginalia " in the December " Gra 
 ham s " his publications for this year came to an 
 end. 
 
 In December, much to his mortification, the ne 
 cessitous condition of his family was made public 
 by a paragraph in " The Express," which appears 
 to have been kindly meant, since it merely appealed 
 to his friends in his behalf : 
 
 " We regret to learn that Edgar A. Poe and his wife 
 are both dangerously ill with the consumption, and that 
 the hand of misfortune lies heavy upon their temporal 
 
276 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 affairs. We are sorry to mention the fact that they are 
 so far reduced as to be barely able to obtain the necessa 
 ries of life. This is indeed a hard lot, and we hope that 
 the friends and admirers of Mr. Poe will come promptly 
 to his assistance in his bitterest hour of need." l 
 
 Willis, who saw this notice, gave greater cur 
 rency to the facts by an article in his own paper, 
 " The Home Journal," in which he made his 
 friend s destitution the text of a plea for an au 
 thors house of refuge. Poe, who felt humiliated by 
 these disclosures, wrote an open letter to Willis, 
 December 30, 1846, in which he tried hard to deny 
 the actual misery of his condition, but only suc 
 ceeded in forcing his pen to the guarded assertion 
 that he had indeed been in want of money in con 
 sequence of his long illness, but that it was not al 
 together true that he had materially suffered from 
 privation beyond the extent of his capacity for suf 
 fering. This labored statement, however, which is 
 given in nearly his exact words, was soon after 
 wards privately acknowledged, in a letter to Mrs. 
 Locke, of Lowell, who sent him some verses, and 
 apparently followed them with more solid expres 
 sions of her interest, to be only an indulgence of 
 his natural pride, which impelled him, he wrote, 
 " to shrink from public charity, even at the cost of 
 truth in denying those necessities which were but 
 too real." 2 m 
 
 Within a month, however, all his new hopes and 
 1 Griswold, xl. 2 Griswold, xli. 
 
IN NEW YORK. 277 
 
 old troubles were lost sight of in view of the rap 
 idly approaching death of his wife. On January 
 29, 1847, he wrote to Mrs. Shew, whose attention 
 had been unremitting during all these winter weeks, 
 the following note : 
 
 KINDEST DEAREST FRIEND, My poor Virginia 
 still lives, although failing fast and now suffering much 
 pain. May God grant her life until she sees you and 
 thanks you once again ! Her bosom is full to overflowing 
 like my own with a boundless inexpressible grati 
 tude to you. Lest she may never see you more she 
 bids me say that she sends you her sweetest kiss of love 
 and will die blessing you. But come oh come to 
 morrow ! Yes, I will be calm everything you so 
 nobly wish to see me. My mother sends you, also, her 
 " warmest love and thanks." She begs me to ask you, 
 if possible, to make arrangements at home so that you 
 may stay with us To-morrow night. I enclose the order 
 to the Postmaster. Heaven bless you and farewell ! 
 
 EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 
 FORDHAM, Jan. 29, 47. 
 
 In response, Mrs. Shew called to take a last 
 leave of the invalid, who asked her to read some 
 letters from the second Mrs. Allan, exculpating 
 Poe from causing any difficulty at his old home, 
 and gave her Poe s picture and his mother s jewel- 
 case as keepsakes. On the next day, Saturday, 
 January 30, Virginia died. Her husband, wrapped 
 in the military cloak that had once served to cover 
 her, followed the body to the tomb, to which it was 
 consigned in the presence of a few friends. 
 1 Ingram, ii. 107. 
 

 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE END OF THE PLAY. 
 
 POE became very ill after this event; and al 
 though in the middle of March he seems to have 
 partially recovered under the nursing of Mrs. 
 Shew and his mother-in-law, he again sank, and his 
 life was believed to be endangered. It was neces 
 sary to raise fresh funds for his relief, and by the 
 interest of various friends one hundred dollars were 
 collected at once, and afterwards other sums were 
 contributed. Mrs. Shew, who, as has been said, 
 had received a medical education, decided that Poe 
 " in his best health had lesion of one side of the 
 brain;" and she adds in her diary, "As he could 
 not bear stimulants or tonics, without producing 
 insanity, I did not feel much hope that he could be 
 raised up from brain fever, brought on by extreme 
 suffering of mind and body, actual want and hun 
 ger and cold having been borne by this heroic 
 husband in order to supply food, medicine, and 
 comforts to his dying wife, until exhaustion and 
 lifelessness were so near at every reaction of the 
 fever that even sedatives had to be administered 
 with extreme caution." 1 It was at this time that 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 115. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 279 
 
 he dictated, in half -delirious states of mind, the ro 
 mantic and unfounded story, which he obliged Mrs. 
 Shew to write down, of his voyage to France, his 
 duel, and his French novel, which has been ac 
 cepted as sober truth. 
 
 On recovering from this prolonged illness suffi 
 ciently to resume work in some degree, he confined 
 himself to his home. He rose early, ate moderately, 
 drank only water, and took abundance of exercise 
 in the open air. From time to time he visited Mrs. 
 Shew in the city, and she in turn called upon him, 
 and would frequently advise him to contract mar 
 riage, with the warning that he could be saved from 
 sudden death only by a prudent, calm life with a 
 woman who had sufficient strength and affection to 
 manage his affairs for him. On his part, he re 
 strained his reply to remarks, which she termed 
 ironical, regarding her ignorance of the world s evil. 
 In this summer and autumn he entertained more 
 than one acquaintance who carried away bright 
 recollections of his home. He had still the caged 
 birds to pet, and now in additionTTe amused his lei 
 sure with cultivating a flower garden, in which were 
 beds of mignonnette, heliotrope, and dahlias. Fre 
 quently he would walk some miles to the westward, 
 along uneven country roads lined with orchards, to 
 the High Bridge, on whose lofty granite arches, a 
 hundred and forty-five feet above high-water, the 
 great aqueduct crosses Harlem Kiver ; and there on 
 the elevated grassy causeway, used only by foot-pas- 
 
280 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 sengers, he would pace by day or night, or would 
 lean on the low parapet, alone, musing on his own 
 life, or speculating on the constitution of the uni 
 verse, or merely enjoying the beauty of the pictur 
 esque scenes up and down the river. The ledge, 
 too, back of his house, with its pines and the wide 
 prospect, was one of his haunts, and thither he 
 would retreat to escape literary callers, or to dream 
 out the metaphysical rhapsody over which he was 
 brooding ; for it was in such solitary places. ihat Jig 
 planned " Euj-eJsaT^ 
 
 jThis year, particularly in its earlier part, was 
 necessarily one of comparative inactivity, yet Poe s 
 name did not pass out of the public notice. 
 Willis, who remained his faithful literary friend, 
 took pains to copy his poems, advertise his plans, 
 and commend his genius whenever opportunity of 
 fered ; and Poe on his part kept him informed in 
 regard to his doings. In the " Home Journal," 
 
 March 13, appeared the lines " To M. L. S ," 
 
 addressed to Mrs. Shew, of inferior poetic merit, 
 and characterized by the peculiar and sometimes dis 
 sonant cadences of the later unrhymed poems. A 
 week later the same paper announced as soon to be 
 published " The Authors of America, in Prose and 
 Verse, by Edgar A. Poe," but the work did not ap 
 pear, though the review of Hawthorne in the No 
 vember " Godey s," in which Poe decides that Haw 
 thorne is not original, after all, but only peculiar, 
 may be regarded as an extract from it. In Decem- 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 281 
 
 ber the ballad " Ulalume," having been rejected by 
 the " Union Magazine," was published in the 
 " Whig," and reprinted by Willis in accordance 
 with the following request from Poe, which may 
 serve as an example of several such letters : 
 
 FORDHAM, Dec. 8. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. WILLIS, Many thanks for the kind 
 expressions in your note of three or four weeks ago. 
 
 I send you an "American Review" the number 
 just issued in which is a ballad by myself, but pub 
 lished anonymously. It is called " Ulalume " the 
 page is turned down. I do not care to be known as its 
 author just now ; but I would take it as a great favor if 
 you would copy it in the H. J., with a word of inquiry 
 as to who wrote it : provided always that you think 
 the poem worth the room it would occupy in your paper 
 a matter about which I am by no means sure. 
 
 Always yours gratefully, EDGAR A. PoE. 1 
 
 Willis prefaced his reprint with the desired in 
 quiry as to the authorship of " Ulalume," and de 
 scribed it, in words that may not have seemed to 
 Poe indicative of sympathetic insight, as an " ex 
 quisitely piquant and skillful exercise of rarity and 
 niceness of language," and "a curiosity in phil- 
 ologic flavor." Since this extraordinarily inane 
 characterization, the best opinion has differed 
 widely in regard to this ballad, and still most men 
 of poetic sensibility would say no more in its favor 
 than did Willis. It is built out of the refrain, the 
 1 Poe to Willis. MS. 
 
282 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 most difficult mode of construction, and conse 
 quently it requires in the reader not only a willing 
 ness to accept monotony as a means of expression, 
 but a content with it ; the thought moves so slowly, 
 with such slight advances from its initial stage, 
 with such difficult increments of meaning and in 
 distinguishable deepening of tone, that, like the 
 workings of an expiring mind, it only just keeps 
 wearily in action ; its allegorizing, moreover, is 
 further from nature than is usual even with Poe, 
 and implies by its very simplicity that long familiar 
 ity with its imagery that Poe possessed. For these 
 and other reasons, the sympathetic mood, without 
 which no such poem is comprehended, must be of 
 rare occurrence in this case ; but if ever that mood 
 comes, that physical exhaustion and mental gloom 
 and dreaming upon the dark, in which the modes 
 of expression in this poem are identical with those 
 of nature, then, in spite of jarring discords, cock 
 ney rhymes, and coarse types of mystery and horror, 
 this poem may well seem the language of a spirit 
 sunk in blank and moaning despair, and at every 
 move beaten back helplessly upon itself. It was 
 written at the period of Poe s lowest physical ex 
 haustion and probably of most poignant self-re 
 proach. During these months he was not far from 
 insajijty. The criticism that finds in the ballad he 
 thus wrote merely a whimsical experiment in words 
 has little to go on ; it is more likely that, taking 
 into consideration, too, the lack of finish in conjunc- 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 283 
 
 tion with the justness of touch in its essential struc 
 ture, we have, in this poem, the most spontaneous, 
 the most unmistakably genuine utterance of Poe, 
 the most clearly self -portray ing work of his hand. 
 That, to most readers, it is unintelligible, and is 
 suggestive of humor rather than of pathos, only 
 marks how far Poe was now removed, through one 
 and another influence, from normal humanity. 
 
 Before the publication of "Ulalume," which thus 
 marks the extreme development of Poe s original 
 genius, occurred the first sign that he was to be 
 widely recognized in foreign lands, unless the theft 
 of some of his writings by English magazines may 
 be regarded as an indication of fame. In the 
 "Revue des DeuxMondes," October 15, 1846, was a 
 lengthy and appreciative review of the last edition 
 of his tales, and attention having been already called 
 to him in Paris by the legal proceedings between 
 some of the city journals that had stolen, either 
 from the original or from each other, " The Murders 
 of the Rue Morgue," Madame Isabelle Meunier 
 translated his best stories. 
 
 But while, unknown to himself, his reputation 
 was thus growing in France, where it was destined 
 to be wide-spread and enduring, he was engaged in 
 thinking out what he thought would prove his best 
 title to the remembrance of posterity, " Eureka." 
 As the winter advanced he applied himself wholly 
 to this speculation ; night after night in the coldest j 
 weather he would wrap himself in his great military ; 
 
284 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 cloak, and pace the little veranda of the cottage 
 (through long hours of solitary meditation, elabo- 
 jrating thought by thought his theory of the eternal 
 secret. At the opening of the new year, 1848, he 
 Jiad practically completed the work, and he now set 
 himself with new vigor to the old task of establish 
 ing the " Stylus," with the hope that " Eureka " 
 would furnish him with the necessary funds. He 
 sent out the old prospectus, with its well-worn an 
 nouncements that the management was to bear the 
 mark of individuality, the contributions to be se 
 lected solely on the ground of merit, the criticism to 
 be independent, sincere, and fearless ; all that five 
 years had added to the advertisement was the 
 promise of "Literary America," by the editor, 
 being " a faithful account of the literary produc 
 tions, literary people, and literary affairs of the 
 United States," to be begun in the first number. 
 Poe s plan was to make a personal canvass through 
 the country, as had been so successfully done by 
 his friend Mr. Freeman Hunt in launching his 
 " Merchants Magazine " a few years previous. 
 With the view of raising the money for this jour 
 ney he advertised a lecture in the Society Library, 
 on the " Cosmogony of the Universe," and at his 
 request Willis besought public favor for it in his 
 paper, the " Home Journal," and added a good 
 word for the projected " Stylus," the founding of 
 which was said to be the ultimate object of the 
 lecture. On February 3, in response to these 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 285 
 
 notices, about sixty persons assembled, the night 
 unfortunately being stormy, and, it is said, were 
 held entranced for two hours and a half by an ab 
 stract of " Eureka," although the charm must have 
 been exercised by the personality of the poet rather 
 than the substance of what he uttered ; and indeed 
 Poe seems to have been an eloquent and impressive 
 speaker, as he had good right to be both by inher 
 itance and by the natural endowments of his voice 
 and person. 
 
 The lecture was imperfectly reported by a few 
 of the city papers, but made no impression. Finan 
 cially it had failed of its purpose, and therefore Poe, 
 seeing no better means of obtaining funds, deter 
 mined to publish the entire work, and at once of 
 fered it to Mr. Putnam, who many years afterward 
 wrote an account 1 of the interview which, though 
 doubtless essentially true, seems to be colored. He 
 says that Poe was in a tremor of excitement and 
 declared with intense earnestness and solemnity 
 that the issue of the book was of momentous 
 interest, that the truths disclosed in it were of more 
 consequence than the discovery of gravitation, and 
 that an edition of 50,000 copies would be but a 
 beginning. Mr. Putnam confesses that he was im 
 pressed, and two days later accepted the manu 
 script. An edition of 500 copies was printed with 
 out delay and published early in the summer, in 
 good form, under the title "Eureka; A Prose 
 1 Putnam s Magazine, iv. 471. N. S. (October, 1869.) 
 
286 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Poem," 1 and introduced by the well-known pref 
 ace : 
 
 " To the few who love me and whom I love to 
 those who feel rather than to those who think to the 
 dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the 
 only realities I offer this Book of Truths, not in its 
 character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds 
 in its Truth; constituting it true. To them I present 
 the composition as an Art-Product alone : let us say as 
 a Romance ; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a 
 Poem. 
 
 " What I here propound is true : therefore it can 
 not die : or if by any means it be now trodden down 
 so that it die, it will rise again to the Life Everlasting/ 
 Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work 
 to be judged after I am dead." 
 
 It is obviously impossible to grant Poe s request. 
 He has written a physical explanation of the uni 
 verse and based it on metaphysical principles ; he 
 has declared it a true account, and he must stand 
 by his words. Moreover, the speculative activity 
 of Poe s mind grew out of its analytical activity ; 
 the metaphysical essays virtually begin when the 
 ratiocinative tales end, in 1845, and thus in the his 
 tory of Poe s mental development, " Eureka," the 
 principal work of his last years, necessarily occupies 
 an important place. The earliest indication that 
 such topics occupied his mind occurs in the review 
 
 3 Eureka : A Prose Poem. By Edgar A. Foe. New York : 
 Geo. P. Putnam. 1884: pp. 143. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 287 
 
 of Macaulay s Essays : " That we know no more to- 
 day of the nature of Deity of its purposes and 
 thus of man himself than we did even a dozen 
 years ago is a proposition disgracefully absurd ; 
 and of this any astronomer could assure Mr. Macau- 
 lay. Indeed, to our own mind, the only irrefutable 
 argument in support of the soul s immortality or, 
 rather, the only conclusive proof of man s alternate 
 dissolution and rejuvenescence ad infinitum is 
 to be found in analogies deduced from the modern 
 established theory of the nebular cosmogony." 1 
 Shortly after this utterance the metaphysical tales 
 begin, but the speculations of Poe were not fully 
 developed until the publication of " Eureka." In 
 the following criticism, which necessarily partakes 
 somewhat of the abstract nature of its subject, only 
 what is peculiar to Poe will be dwelt on ; and it 
 may as well be premised that the end in view is not 
 the determination of abstract truth, but simply the 
 illustration alike of Poe s genius and character by 
 the light of his speculations. 
 
 Poe s hypothesis is as follows : The mind knows 
 intuitively by inductive or deductive processes 
 which escape consciousness, elude reason, or defy 
 expression that the creative act of Deity must 
 have been the simplest possible ; or, to expand and 
 define this statement, it must have consisted in 
 willing into being a primordial particle, the germ 
 of all things, existing without relations to aught, or, 
 
 1 Works, ii. 447. 
 
288 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 in the technical phrase, unconditioned. This par 
 ticle, by virtue of the divine volition, radiated 
 into space uniformly in all directions a shower of 
 atoms of diverse form, irregularly arranged among 
 themselves, but all, generally speaking, equally dis 
 tant from their source; this operation was repeated 
 at intervals, but with decreased energy in each 
 new instance, so that the atoms were impelled less 
 far. On the exhaustion of the radiating force, the 
 universe was thus made up of a series of concentric 
 hollow spheres, like a nest of boxes, the crusts of 
 the several spheres being constituted of the atoms 
 of the several discharges. The radiating force at 
 each of its manifestations is measured by the num 
 ber of atoms then thrown off ; or, since the number 
 of atoms in any particular case must have been 
 directly proportional with the surface of the partic 
 ular sphere they occupied, and since the surfaces 
 of a series of concentric spheres are directly pro 
 portional with the squares of their distances from 
 the centre, the radiating force in the several dis 
 charges was directly proportional with the squares 
 of the distances to which the several atomic showers 
 were driven. 
 
 On the consummation of this secondary crea 
 tive act, as the diffusion may be called, there oc 
 curred, says Poe, a recoil, a striving of the atoms 
 each to each in order to regain their primitive 
 condition ; and this tendency, which is now being 
 satisfied, is expressed in gravitation, the mutual 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 289 
 
 attraction of atoms with a force inversely propor 
 tional with the squares of the distances. In other 
 words, the law of gravitation is found to be the 
 converse of the law of radiation, as would be the 
 case if the former energy were the reaction of the 
 latter as is claimed ; furthermore, the distribution 
 of the atoms in space is seen to be such as would 
 result from the mode of diffusion described. The 
 return of the atoms into their source, however, 
 would take place too rapidly, adds Poe, and with 
 out accomplishing the Deity s design of developing 
 out of the original homogeneous particle the utmost 
 heterogeneity, were it not that God, in this case a 
 true Deus ex machine^ has interposed by intro 
 ducing a repelling force which began to be gener 
 ated at the very inception of the universal reaction, 
 and ever becomes greater as the latter proceeds. 
 Poe names this force electricity, while at the same 
 time he suggests that light, heat, and magnetism 
 are among its phases, and ascribes to it all vital 
 and mental phenomena ; but of the principle itself 
 he makes a mystery, since he is intuitively convinced 
 that it belongs to that spiritual essence which lies 
 beyond the limits of human inquiry. In the grand 
 reaction, then, the universe is through attraction be 
 coming more condensed, and through repulsion more 
 heterogeneous. Attraction and repulsion taken to 
 gether constitute our notion of matter ; the former 
 is the physical element, the Body, the latter is the 
 spiritual element, the Soul. Incidentally it should 
 
 19 
 
290 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 be remarked that since in a divine design, being 
 perfect, no one part exists for the sake of others 
 more than the others for its sake, it is indifferent 
 whether repulsion be considered, as hitherto, an 
 expedient to retard the attractive force, or, on the 
 other hand, the attractive force as an expedient to 
 develop repulsion ; in other words, it is indifferent 
 whether the physical be regarded as subordinate to 
 the spiritual element, or vice versa. To return to 
 the main thread, Poe affirms that repulsion will not 
 increase indefinitely as the condensation of the 
 mass proceeds, but when in the process of time it 
 has fulfilled its purpose the evolution of hetero 
 geneity it will cease, and the attractive force, 
 being un resisted, will draw the atoms back into the 
 primordial particle in which, as it has no parts, at 
 traction will also cease ; now, attraction and repul 
 sion constituting our notion of matter, the cessation 
 of these two forces is the same thing with the anni 
 hilation of matter, or in other words, the universe, 
 at the end of the reaction which has been mentally 
 followed out, will sink into the nihility out of which 
 it arose. In conclusion Poe makes one last affir 
 mation, to wit, that the diffusion and ingathering 
 of the universe is the diffusion and ingathering of 
 Deity itself, which has no existence apart from the 
 constitution of things. 
 
 It is difficult to treat this hypothesis, taken as a 
 metaphysical speculation, with respect. To examine 
 it for the purpose of demolition would be a tedious, 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 291 
 
 though an easy task ; but fortunately there is no need 
 to do more than point out a few of its confusions in 
 order to illustrate the worthlessness of Poe s thought 
 in this field, and to indicate the depth of the delu 
 sion under which he labored in believing himself a 
 discoverer of new truth. For this purpose it will 
 be best to take the most rudimentary metaphysical 
 ideas involved. The primordial particle is declared 
 to be unconditioned " my particle proper is abso 
 lute Irrelation," or in other words it is the Abso 
 lute ; but this is incompatible with its being willed 
 into being by Deity, to which it would then necessa 
 rily stand related as an effect to its cause ; on the 
 contrary, it must itself, being the Absolute, be Deity 
 with which Poe at last identifies it. In other words, 
 when Poe has reached the conception of the pri 
 mordial particle as first defined by him, he is just 
 where he started, that is, at the conception of De 
 ity, and at that point, as has been seen, he had 
 to end. The difficulty which bars inquiry the 
 inconceivability of creation remains as insuper 
 able as ever, although Poe may have cheated him 
 self into believing it overcome by the legerdemain 
 of a phrase from physics ; in the attempt to de 
 scribe the generation of the phenomenal universe 
 out of the unknowable, he has been foiled by the old 
 obstacles the impossibility of making an equation 
 between nothing and something, of effecting a 
 transformation of the absolute into the conditioned. 
 If the primordial particle be material, it is only 
 
292 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 the scientific equivalent of the old turtle of the Hin 
 doos, on which the elephant stands to support the 
 globe ; if it be immaterial, it is the void beneath. 
 
 Such a criticism as the above belongs to the 
 primer of thought in this science ; but objections 
 as obvious, brief, and fatal may be urged against 
 every main point of the argument. Without enter 
 ing on such a discussion it is sufficient to observe, 
 as characteristic illustrations of the density of Poe s 
 ignorance in this department of knowledge, that he 
 regards space not as created but as given, explains 
 the condensation of the universe as being a physi 
 cal reaction upon the immaterial will of God (for 
 the original radiating force cannot be discriminated 
 from and is expressly identified with the divine vo 
 lition, just as the primordial particle cannot be dis 
 criminated from and is expressly identified with the 
 divine essence), and lastly so confuses such simple 
 notions as final and efficient causes that he contra 
 distinguishes the force of repulsion from that of at 
 traction as arising and disappearing in obedience to 
 the former instead of the later sort. In a word, 
 Poe s theory belongs to the infancy of speculation, 
 to the period before physics was separated from 
 ontology ; in this sense, and in no other, Kennedy s 
 remark that Poe wrote like " an old Greek philos 
 opher," was just. 
 
 What Poe himself most prized in this hypothe 
 sis was its pantheistic portion. The sentence of 
 Baron Bielfeld, " nous ne connaissons rien de 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 293 
 
 la nature ou de 1 essence de Dieu ; pour sa- 
 voir ce qu il est, il faut etre Dieu meme," had 
 made a deep impression on his mind early in life ; 
 it is one of the half-dozen French quotations that 
 he introduces at every opportunity into his compo 
 sitions ; in " Eureka" he translates it, " We know 
 absolutely nothing of the nature or essence of God ; 
 in order to comprehend what he is, we should have 
 to be God ourselves," and he immediately adds, 
 " I nevertheless venture to demand if this our pres 
 ent ignorance of the Deity is an ignorance to which 
 the soul is everlastingly condemned." Now after 
 reflection he boldly took the only road to such 
 knowledge that was left open by the apothegm, and 
 affirmed that he was God, being persuaded thereto 
 by his memories of an ante-natal and his aspiration 
 for an immortal existence, and in particular by his 
 pride. " My whole nature utterly revolts" he 
 exclaimed, " at the idea that there is any Being in 
 the Universe superior to myself! " 2 On reading so 
 violent an expression of belief one involuntarily 
 examines the matter more closely and pushes home 
 the question whether Poe did actually so fool him 
 self to the top of his bent ; and after some little 
 investigation one finds that, if he was his own 
 dupe, the reason is not far to seek. It is necessary 
 here to summarize the speculations which were put 
 forth elsewhere by Poe, especially in the metaphys 
 ical tales, and either led up to or supplemented 
 the views of " Eureka." 
 
 1 Works, i. 132. 2 Ingram, ii. 144. 
 
294 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 According to these other statements, the Uni 
 verse is made up of gross matter sensibly perceived 
 and of fine matter so minutely divided that the 
 atoms coalesce (this is, of course, a contradiction in 
 terms) and form an unparticled substance which 
 permeates and impels all things. This unparticled 
 substance or imperceptible coalescent matter is the 
 universal mind (into such unintelligible phraseol 
 ogy is the keen analyst forced) ; its being is Deity ; 
 its motion, regarded on the material or energetic 
 side, is the divine volition, or, regarded on the 
 mental or conscious side, is the creative thought. 
 Deity and its activity, being such in its universal 
 existence, is individualized, by means of gross mat 
 ter made for that end, into particular creatures, 
 among which are men ; the human being, in other 
 words, is a specialization of the universal, or is God 
 incarnate, as is every other creature whatsoever. 
 It is superfluous to follow Poe in his fantastic con 
 ception of the universe as the abode of countless 
 rudimentary incarnations of the Deity, each a di 
 vine thought and therefore irrevocable ; the pecul 
 iar form of his pantheism would not be more de 
 fined thereby. At the first glance one sees that 
 his theory is built out of Cartesian notions, crudely 
 apprehended, and rendered ridiculous by the effort 
 to yoke them with thoroughly materialistic ideas. 
 In fact, Poe s scraps of speculative philosophy came 
 from such opposite quarters that when his mind 
 began to work on such contradictory information 
 
THE END OF TEE PLAY. 295 
 
 he could not well help falling into inextricable 
 confusion. On the one hand he had derived, early 
 in life, from obscure disciples of the French pliilo- 
 sophes, the first truth that a materialist ever learns, 
 the origin of all knowledge in experience, and 
 the consequent limitation of the mind to phenom 
 ena ; on the other hand he had at a later period 
 gleaned some of the conceptions of transcendental 
 ism from Coleridge, Schlegel, and other secondary 
 sources ; from the union of such principles the issue 
 was naturally monstrous, two-natured, like the Cen 
 taur. Essentially Poo was a materialist.; whether, 
 by gradually refining and subdividing matter, he 
 reaches the unparticled substance, or by reversing 
 the evolution of nature he arrives at the fiery mist 
 and the primordial particle, he seeks to find out God 
 by searching matter ; and even in adopting the rad 
 ically spiritual idea of pantheism, he is continually 
 endeavoring to give it a materialistic form. Hs 
 persuaded him self T as it is easy for ignorance _tg 
 do ; subtle as his mind was, well furnished for 
 metaphysical thought both by his powers of ab 
 straction and of reasoning, he wrote the jargon 
 that belongs to the babbling days of philosophy 
 because he did not take the pains to know the re 
 sults of past inquiry and to train himself in modern 
 methods. By his quick perception and adroit use 
 of analogies, and especially by his tireless imagina 
 tion, he gave his confused dogmatism the semblance 
 of a reasoned system ; but in fact his metaphysics 
 
296 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 
 
 exhibit only the shallowness of his scholarship 
 and the degrading self-delusion of an arrogant 
 and fatuous mind. 
 
 It is probable that few readers of " Eureka " 
 ever seriously tried to understand its metaphysics. 
 Its power other than the fascination which some 
 readers feel in whatever makes of their counte 
 nances " a foolish face of wonder " lies in its ex 
 position of Laplace s nebular theory and its vivid 
 and popular presentation of astronomical phe 
 nomena. In this physical portion of the essay it 
 has been fancied that Poe anticipated some of the 
 results of later science ; but this view cannot be 
 sustained with candor. His own position that mat 
 ter came from nihility and consisted of centres of 
 force had been put forth as a scientific theory by 
 Boscovich in 1758-59, had been widely discussed, 
 and had found its way into American text-books. 
 The same theory in a modified form had just been 
 revived and brought to the notice of scientists by 
 Faraday in his lecture in 1844. It has not, how 
 ever, occupied the attention of first-class scientific 
 men since that time. There may be, in the claim 
 that " the recent progress of scientific thought runs 
 in Poe s lines," some reference to Sir William 
 Thomson s vortex theory of the constitution of 
 atoms, but its resemblance to Poe s theory of vor 
 tices is only superficial, for what he puts forth was 
 merely a revival of one of the earliest attempts to 
 explain the Newtonian law, long since abandoned 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 297 
 
 by science. It is true that in several particulars, 
 such as the doctrine of the evolution of the universe 
 from the simple to the complex, Poe s line of thought 
 has now been followed out in detail ; these sugges 
 tions, however, were not at the time peculiar to Poe, 
 were not originated or developed by him, but on 
 the contrary were common scientific property, for 
 he appropriated ideas, just as he paraphrased state 
 ments of fact, from the books he read. He was no 
 more a forerunner of Spencer, Faraday, and Dar 
 win than scores of others, and he did nothing to 
 make their investigations easier. 
 
 Poe s purely scientific speculations are mainly 
 contained in the unpublished addenda to a report 
 of his lecture on " The Universe " sent to a corre 
 spondent, and consist either of mathematical expla 
 nations of Kepler s first and third laws ; or of state 
 ments, " that the sun was condensed at once (not 
 gradually according to the supposition of Laplace) 
 into his smallest size," and afterwards " sent into 
 space his substance in the form of a vapor " from 
 which Neptune was made ; or of similar theories. 
 They exhibit once more Poe s tenacity of mind, the 
 sleuth-hound persistence of his intellectual pursuit ; 
 but, like his metaphysics, they represent a waste of 
 power. They are, moreover, characterized by ex 
 traordinary errors. Some of the, data are quite 
 imaginary, it being impossible to determine what 
 are the facts ; some of them are quite wrong. The 
 density of Jupiter, for example, in a long and im- 
 
298 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 portant calculation, is constantly reckoned as two 
 and one half, whereas it is only something more 
 than one fifth, and the densities of the planets are 
 described as being inversely as their rotary periods, 
 whereas in any table of the elements of the solar 
 system some wide departures from this rule are ob 
 servable. Again, it is stated that Kepler s first 
 and third laws " cannot be explained upon the 
 principle of Newton s theory;" but, in fact, they 
 follow by mathematical deduction from it. Poe s 
 own explanation of them is merely a play upon fig 
 ures. A striking instance of fundamental igno 
 rance of astronomical science is his statement at 
 various places that the planets rotate (on their own 
 axes) in elliptical orbits, and the reference he fre 
 quently make s to the breadth of their orbits (the 
 breadth of their paths through space) agreeably to 
 this supposition. Such a theory is incompatible 
 with the Newtonian law of gravitation, according to 
 which any revolution in an elliptical orbit implies 
 a source of attraction at the focus of the ellipse. 
 Examples of bodies which have breadth of orbit in 
 Poe s sense are found in the satellites of all the 
 planets, each of which, however, has its primary as 
 a source of attraction to keep it in its elliptical 
 orbit ; the primary by its revolution round the sun 
 gives then the satellite a breadth of orbit. But to 
 make the proper rotation of the planets themselves 
 take place about a focus, which would be merely a 
 point moving in an elliptical orbit about the sun. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 299 
 
 would be to give them an arbitrary motion with no 
 force to produce it. 
 
 So far was Poe from being a seer of science, that 
 he was fundamentally in error with regard to the 
 generalizations which were of prime importance to 
 his speculations. The one grand assumption of his 
 whole speculation is the universality of the law of 
 inverse squares as applied to attraction and re 
 pulsion, whereas it has been known since the begin 
 ning of study regarding them that that law does 
 not explain all the forces involved, as, for example, 
 molecular forces; and for this Boscovich himself 
 had provided. Again, to illustrate his scientific 
 foresight, he reproaches Herschel for his reluc 
 tance to doubt the stability of the universe, and 
 himself boldly affirms, consistently with his theory, 
 that it is in a state of ever swifter collapse ; than 
 this nothing could be more at variance with the 
 great law of the conservation of energy. Un 
 doubtedly Poe had talents for scientific investiga 
 tion, had he been willing to devote himself to such 
 work ; but, so far as appears from this essay, he 
 had not advanced farther in science that the ele 
 ments of physics, mathematics, and astronomy, as 
 he had learned them at school or from popular 
 works, such as Dr. Nichol s " Architecture of the 
 Heavens," or from generalizations, such as the 
 less technical chapters of Auguste Comte s " La 
 Philosophic Positif." Out of such a limited 
 stock of knowledge Poe could not by mere re- 
 
300 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 flection generate any Newtonian truth ; that he 
 thought he had done so, measures his folly. In a 
 word, for this criticism must be brought to a close, 
 " Eureka " affords one of the most striking in 
 stances in literature of a naturally strong intellect 
 tempted by overweening pride to an Icarian flight 
 and betrayed, notwithstanding its merely specious 
 knowledge, into an ignoble exposure of its own 
 presumption and ignorance. The facts are not to 
 be obscured by the smooth profession of Poe that 
 he wished this work to be looked on only as a 
 poem ; for, though he perceived that his argument 
 was too fragmentary and involved to receive cre 
 dence, he was himself profoundly convinced that 
 he had revealed the secret of eternity. Nor, were 
 " Eureka " to be judged as a poem, that is to say, as 
 a fictitious cosmogony, would the decision be more 
 favorable ; even then so far as it is obscure to the 
 reader it must be pronounced defective, so far as 
 it is understood, involving as it does in its primary 
 conceptions incessant contradictions of the necessary 
 laws of thought, it must be pronounced meaningless. 
 Poe believed himself to be that extinct being, a uni 
 versal genius of the highest order; and he wrote 
 this essay to prove his powers in philosophy and in 
 science. To the correspondent to whom he sent 
 the addenda he declared, " As to the lecture, I am 
 very quiet about it but if you have ever dealt 
 with such topics, you will recognize the novelty and 
 moment of my views. What I have propounded 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 301 
 
 will (in good time) revolutionize the world of 
 Physical and Metaphysical science. I say this 
 calmly, but I say it." l Poe succeeded only in 
 showing how egregiously genius may mistake its 
 realm. 
 
 Besides " Eureka," Poe s publications for the 
 first half year were of the slightest, consisting only 
 of "Marginalia," in January and February, and 
 " Fifty Suggestions," in May and June (a paper 
 of the same character), in " Graham s," and " An 
 Enigma," an anagrammatic poem to Sarah Ann 
 Lewis, commonly called "Estelle," in the "Union," 
 in March. 
 
 A glimpse of his life at home is afforded by an 
 affectionate reminiscence of Mrs. Clemm s, which 
 was reported by Mr. R. E. Shapley, of Philadel 
 phia, in a newspaper, and has by chance been pre 
 served ; in the main parts it seems to apply to the 
 whole period of his widowerhood : 
 
 " He never liked to be alone, and I used to sit up with 
 him, often until four o clock in the morning, he at his 
 desk, writing, and I dozing in my chair. When he was 
 composing Eureka, we used to walk up and down the 
 garden, his arm around me, mine around him, until I 
 was so tired I could not walk. He would stop every few 
 minutes and explain his ideas to me, and ask if I un 
 derstood him. I always sat up with him when he was 
 writing, and gave him a cup of hot coffee every hour 
 or two. At home he was simple and affectionate as a 
 1 Poe to . Ingram, ii. 141. 
 
 . 
 tr 
 
302 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 child, and during all the years he lived with me I do 
 not remember a single night that he failed to come and 
 kiss his mother, as he called me, before going to bed." 
 
 The principal event of his private life, when 
 " Eureka " was being published, was the termina 
 tion of his social intercourse with Mrs. Shew. 
 Since the death of Virginia, this lady had main 
 tained her intimacy with the family, and had ac 
 tively befriended him in his literary projects. In 
 the earlier part of the year she had asked him to 
 furnish the music room and library of a new house 
 which she was to occupy, and she made him at 
 home when he visited her. One such visit is es 
 pecially of interest, since to it has been ascribed 
 the first suggestion of Poe s second great popular 
 poem, "The Bells." It was early in the summer 
 that he one day called and complained that he had 
 to write a poem, but felt no inspiration. Mrs. 
 Shew persuaded him to drink some tea in a con 
 servatory whose open windows admitted the sound 
 of church-bells, and gave him some paper, which 
 he declined, saying, " I so dislike the noise of bells 
 to-night, I cannot write. I have no subject I 
 am exhausted." Mrs. Shew then wrote, " The 
 Bells, by E. A. Poe," and added, " The bells, the 
 little silver bells ; " on the poet s finishing the 
 stanza thus suggested, she again wrote, " The heavy 
 iron bells," and this idea also Poe elaborated, and 
 then copying off the two stanzas, headed it, " By 
 Mrs. M. L. Shew," and called it her poem. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 303 
 
 Such, nearly in Mr. Ingram s own words, is the 
 story which he derived from Mrs. Shew s diary. 
 But although the incident is, without doubt, truly 
 related, it may be questioned whether this was the 
 original genesis of the poem. It will be remem 
 bered that Poe derived several suggestions from 
 Chateaubriand at the very beginning of his career. 
 The parallelism that exists between the completed 
 poem of " The Bells " and a brief chapter of the 
 " Genie du Christianisme " is at least worth notic 
 ing, and it is not likely to be a fortuitous coinci 
 dence. The following extract will sufficiently illus 
 trate the matter. 
 
 " II nous semble que si nous etions poete, nous ne de- 
 daignerions point cette cloche agitee par les fantomes 
 dans la vieille chapelle de la foret, ni celle qu une re- 
 ligieuse f rayeur balan<joit dans nos campagnes pour ecar- 
 ter le tonnerre, ni celle qu on sonnoit la nuit, dans cer 
 tains ports de mer, pour diriger le pilote a, travers les 
 ecueils. Les carillons des cloches, au milieu de nos 
 fetes, sembloient augmenter 1 allegresse publique ; dans 
 des calamites, au contraire, ces memes bruits devenoient 
 terribles. Les cheveux dressent encore sur la tete au 
 souvenir de ces jours de meurtre et de feu, retentissant 
 des clameurs du tocsin. Qui de nous a perdu la me moire 
 de ces hurlements, de ces cris aigus, entrecoupes de si 
 lences, durant lesquels on distinguoit de rares coups de 
 fusil, quelque voix lamentable et solitaire, et surtout le 
 bourdonnement de la cloche d alarme, ou le son de 1 hor- 
 ologe qui frappoit tranquillement 1 heure ecoulee ? " * 
 
 1 Genie du Christianisme. Par M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand. 
 Paris, P. Pourrat Freres, 1836 : tome ii., 261. 
 
304 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 In view of Poe s known habits of composition, it 
 is most likely that this poetic suggestion in a work 
 to which he was in early years under considerable 
 obligations, was one of the ideas that haunted him 
 for years, and this is sustained by his frequent ref 
 erence to the magical sounds of bells throughout 
 his literary life. It may well be that this is the 
 poem referred to in Gris wold s memoir as the sub 
 ject on which he meant to write for the Boston Ly 
 ceum " a subject which he said had haunted his 
 imagination for years." l If there be any plausi 
 bility in this inference, the likelihood is that Mrs. 
 Shew, who pleads guilty to Poe s reproach that she 
 never read his tales or poems, merely recalled to 
 him thoughts and words which she already knew 
 had been running in his mind. 
 
 The events immediately subsequent to this inci 
 dent also deserve mention. Word was sent to 
 Mrs. Clemm that Poe would remain in the city, 
 and, going to his room, he slept twelve hours, after 
 which he only faintly remembered what he had 
 done. " This showed," says the diary, " that his 
 mind was injured, nearly gone out for want of food 
 and from disappointment. He had not been drink 
 ing, and had only been a few hours from home. 
 Evidently his vitality was low and he was nearly 
 insane. While he slept we studied his pulse, and 
 found the same symptoms which I had so often no 
 ticed before. I called in Dr. Francis (the old man 
 
 1 Griswold, xxxviii. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 305 
 
 was odd, but very skillful), who was one of our 
 neighbors. His words were, He has heart disease 
 and will die early in life. " l On the next day he 
 was taken home by his friend, but did not seem to 
 understand that he was ill. 
 
 It must have been very soon after this that Mrs. 
 Shew, finding that her protege was too irresponsible 
 and too romantic to be allowed such freedom with 
 her as he had been accustomed to, broke off the ac 
 quaintance. -J^oe^ who was never very sensible of 
 the social realities of life, seems in these last years 
 to have been unable to observe the limits set by the 
 world to even the most genuine and pure devotion 
 in such a case. The consequence which, although 
 he had foreseen it, must, in his state of health, 
 have been hard to endure, was the sudden and 
 complete cessation of intercourse between the fami 
 lies. In June Mrs. Shew wrote an explanatory 
 letter to him, and he replied as follows, but they 
 never afterwards met on the old terms : 
 
 " Can it be true, Louise, that you have the idea fixed 
 in your mind to desert your unhappy and unfortunate 
 friend and patient ? You did not say so, I know, but 
 for months I have known you were deserting me, not 
 willingly, but none the less surely my destiny 
 
 Disaster, following fast and following faster, till his song one 
 
 burden bore 
 Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore 
 
 Of " Never nevermore." 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 156. 
 20 
 
306 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 So I have had premonitions of this for months. I re 
 peat, my good spirit, my loyal heart ! must this follow 
 as a sequel to all the benefits and blessings you have so 
 generously bestowed ? Are you to vanish like all I love, 
 or desire, from my darkened and lost soul ? I have 
 read over your letter again and again, and cannot make 
 it possible, with any degree of certainty, that you wrote 
 it in your right mind. (J know you did not without 
 tears of anguish and regret.) Is it possible your influ 
 ence is lost to me ? Such tender and true natures are 
 ever loyal until death ; but you are not dead, you are 
 full of life and beauty ! Louise, you came in, ... in 
 your floating white robe Good morning, Edgar/ 
 There was a touch of conventional coldness in your 
 hurried manner, and your attitude as you opened the 
 kitchen door to find Muddie, is my last remembrance of 
 you. There was love, hope, and sorrow in your smile, 
 instead of love, hope, and courage, as ever before. O 
 Louise, how many sorrows are before you ! Your in 
 genuous and sympathetic nature will be constantly 
 wounded in its contact with the hollow, heartless world ; 
 and for me, alas ! unless some true and tender, and pure 
 womanly love saves me, I shall hardly last a year longer 
 alive ! A few short months will tell how far my strength 
 (physical and moral) will carry me in life here. How 
 can I believe in Providence when you look coldly 
 upon me ? Was it not you who renewed my hopes and 
 faith in God ? . . . and in humanity ? Louise, I heard 
 your voice as you passed out of my sight leaving me . . . ; 
 but I still listened to your voice. I heard you say with a 
 sob, Dear Muddie. I heard you greet my Catarina, 
 but it was only as a memory . . . nothing escaped my ear, 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 307 
 
 and I was convinced it was not your generous self . . . 
 repeating words so foreign to your nature to your , 
 tender heart ! I heard you sob out your sense of duty 
 to my mother, and I heard her reply, Yes, Loui . . . 
 yes. . . . Why turn your soul from its true work for the 
 desolate to the thankless and miserly world ? . . . I felt 
 my heart stop, and I was sure I was then to die before 
 your eyes. Louise, it is well it is fortunate you 
 looked up with a tear in your dear eyes, and raised the 
 window, and talked of the guava you had brought for 
 my sore throat. Your instincts are better than a strong 
 man s reason for me I trust they may be for your 
 self. Louise, I feel I shall not prevail a shadow has 
 already fallen upon your soul, and is reflected in your 
 eyes. It is too late you are floating away with the 
 cruel tide ... it is not a common trial it is a fearful 
 one to me. Such rare souls as yours so beautify this 
 earth ! so relieve it of all that is repulsive and sordid. 
 So brighten its toils and cares, it is hard to lose sight of 
 them even for a short time . . . but you must know and 
 be assured of my regret and sorrow if aught I have 
 ever written has hurt you. My heart never wronged 
 you. I place you in my esteem in all solemnity 
 beside the friend of my boyhood the mother of my 
 school-fellow, of whom I told you, and as I have repeated 
 in the poem ... as the truest, tenderest of this world s 
 most womanly souls, and an angel to my forlorn and 
 darkened nature. I will riot say lost soul again, for 
 your sake. I will try to overcome my grief for the sake 
 of your unselfish care of me in the past, and in life or 
 death, I am ever yours gratefully and devotedly, 
 
 " EDGAR A. POE." 1 
 1 Tnjrram, ii. 157-159. 
 
308 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Poe was not to remain long in this forlorn condi 
 tion. He had indulged for some years one of his 
 silent ideal adorations for Mrs. Sarah Helen Whit 
 man, a poetess of Providence, Rhode Island, to 
 whom he had been attracted by a verbal descrip- 
 tion of her eccentricities and sorrows. Of this 
 ideal passion no words except his own can convey 
 an adequate idea, although it must be premised 
 that the following passages were not written until 
 after he had met the lady. 
 
 " She [his informant] had referred to thoughts, senti 
 ments, traits, moods, which I knew to be my own, but 
 which, until that moment, I had believed to be my own 
 solely unshared by any human being. A profound 
 sympathy took immediate possession of my soul. I can 
 not better explain to you what I felt than by saying that 
 your unknown heart seemed to pass into my bosom 
 there to dwell forever while mine, I thought, was 
 translated into your own. From that hour I loved you. 
 Since that period I have never seen nor heard your 
 name without a shiver, half of delight, half of anxiety. 
 The impression left upon my mind was that you were 
 still a wife, and it is only within the last few months that 
 I have been undeceived in this respect. For this reason 
 I shunned your presence and even the city in which you 
 lived. You may remember that once when I passed 
 through Providence with Mrs. Osgood I positively re 
 fused to accompany her to your house, and even pro 
 voked her into a quarrel by the obstinacy and seeming 
 unreasonableness of my refusal. I dared neither go nor 
 say why I could not. I dared not speak of you 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 309 
 
 much less see you. For years your name never passed 
 my lips, while my soul drank in, with a delirious thirst, 
 all that was uttered in my presence respecting you. 
 The merest whisper that concerned you awoke in me a 
 shuddering sixth sense, vaguely compounded of fear, ec 
 static happiness, and a wild inexplicable sentiment that 
 resembled nothing so nearly as a consciousness of guilt." l 
 
 Mrs. Whitman, on her part, had been informed 
 of frequent commendatory allusions to herself made 
 by Poe, and was prevailed upon to address some 
 verses to him for the entertainment of what was 
 termed a valentine party given by some literary 
 friends in New York. The two did not meet 
 on this occasion ; but the verses, published in the 
 " Home Journal," March 18 (now entitled "The 
 Raven," in Mrs. Whitman s "Poems") were sent 
 to Poe. He says, in the continuation of the let 
 ter just quoted, that he was thrown into a state 
 of ecstasy by this proof of her regard, and, as he 
 could not express his emotion in spontaneous lines, 
 took down a volume of his old poems and read " To 
 Helen," with the result that the identity of name 
 and the aptness of the sentiment, which to one ac 
 customed to the Calculus of Probabilities wore an 
 air of positive miracle, overwhelmed him with the 
 belief that their destinies were conjoined. He was, 
 at least, aroused to the point of composition, and 
 
 replied to her valentine with the lines "To ," 
 
 afterwards elaborated into the beautiful, if not im 
 passioned poem " To Helen," which is supposed to 
 
 1 Poe to Mrs. Whitman, no date. Ingram, ii. 161, 162. 
 
310 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 commemorate his first sight of this lady when, on 
 his way back from his first visit to Boston, in the 
 summer of 1845, he had observed her among the 
 roses of her garden in the moonlight. Whether 
 this legend be true or not and there is no reason 
 to doubt it the scene of the lines is clearly a 
 mere elaboration of that suggested in the seventh 
 stanza of Mrs. Whitman s " The Raven," in con 
 nection with the vista obviously repeated from his 
 lines of the previous year to Mrs. Shew. This 
 poem was afterwards printed in the " Union .Maga 
 zine " for November ; but as at this time it drew 
 no acknowledgment from its object, to whom, al 
 though he had not as yet been introduced, he sent 
 a written copy still without his name, he soon af 
 ter^ June 10, applied to his visitor of the previous 
 autumn, Miss Anna Blackwell, who was then at 
 Providence, and begged her to write him some 
 thing about Mrs. Whitman, and added " keej) my 
 secret that is to say, let no one know I have 
 asked you to do so." l This lady did not answer his 
 note ; on the contrary, hearing Miss Maria Mcln- 
 tosh, another literary woman, tell Mrs. Whitman 
 that one evening at Fordham a month previously 
 Poe had talked only of her, Miss Blackwell gave 
 the letter at once to Mrs. Whitman herself, who 
 continued to observe an obstinate silence towards 
 her admirer. 2 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 165. 
 
 2 Cf. Mrs. Whitman to R. H. Stoddard, September 30, 1872. 
 Stoclflard, cxxxiv. - cxxxix. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 311 
 
 In the following month Poe went to Lowell, 
 Mass., the residence of his old correspondent, Mrs. 
 Locke, and lectured on " The Poetic Principle." 
 There he made acquaintance with a family who 
 became his devoted friends. Immediately upon his 
 return to New York, being furnished with funds 
 for his long-delayed journey in behalf of the " Sty 
 lus," derived possibly from this lecture or the two 
 advances made on " Eureka," he started for Rich- 
 mond. In that city he made the acquaintance of 
 Mr. John R. Thompson, editor of the " Southern 
 Literary Messenger," of whose office he made a re 
 sort, and among his old friends he met his boyish 
 flame, Miss Royster, now the widow Shelton, well 
 supplied with worldly goods and well disposed to 
 ward himself. He was on the point of taking up 
 the youthful romance and proposing marriage to 
 her, when he received from Mrs. Whitman, who 
 had begun to question the propriety of her neglect, 
 two stanzas of her poem, " A Night in August," 
 unsigned, and sent, she says, after a lapse of more 
 than two months, in " playful acknowledgment " 
 of his own anonymous lines. In the letter already 
 quoted, Poe represents his state of mind during 
 her silence as a hoping against hope culminating in 
 a spirit far more reckless than despair ; and he 
 concludes, referring to his intention of offering his 
 hand to Mrs. Shelton at this stage, " your lines 
 reached me in Richmond on the very day in which 
 I was about to enter on a course which would have 
 
312 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 borne me far, far away, from you, sweet, sweet 
 Helen, and from the divine dream of your love." 
 He left with Mr. Thompson for publication in " The 
 Messenger," a criticism of Mrs. Lewis s poems, 
 printed in the September number, and " The Ra 
 tionale of Verse," printed in the October and No 
 vember numbers, and immediately returned to 
 Fordham. There he found time to write an open 
 letter, September 20, to Mr. C. F. Hoffman, of 
 " The Literary World," in reply to a criticism on 
 " Eureka " which had appeared during his absence, 
 and in which he observes that the ground covered 
 by Laplace compares with that covered by his 
 own theory as a bubble with the ocean on which it 
 floats ; and, on the next day, if Mrs. Whitman s 
 date be correct, having obtained a letter of intro 
 duction from Miss Mclntosh, he presented himself 
 to his poetical correspondent, passed two evenings 
 in her company, and with a characteristic choice of 
 place, asked her, as they were walking in the cem 
 etery, to marry him. Mrs. Whitman, who had de 
 layed her reply, wrote to him a letter in which, 
 as may be gathered from Poe s indignant protest 
 against confounding so spiritual a love as his with 
 merely mortal matters, she referred to her age 
 she was forty-five and had been widowed for the 
 past fifteen years her personal appearance, and 
 her illness ; but such objections could not withstand 
 the high style of Poe s vein, and she was forced to 
 acknowledge, though rather by suggestion than con- 
 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 313 
 
 fession, the real ground of her refusal, which was 
 the representations of her friends in regard to 
 Poe s character. To this he replied, October 18, 
 with a protestation that "with the exception of oc 
 casional follies and excesses which I bitterly lament 
 but to which I have been driven by intolerable sor 
 row, and which are hourly committed by others 
 without attracting any notice whatever I can 
 call to mind no act of my life which would bring a 
 blush to my cheek or to yours." 1 He reminded 
 her of the enemies he had made by his published 
 criticisms, of the result of his libel case, and of her 
 distance from his friends, and concluded with a 
 sketch of the secluded Eden he had fancied for 
 their abode (out of " Landor s Cottage " which he 
 was then writing), and expressions of his sorrow 
 that his dream was not to be realized, of his deep 
 devotion to herself, his utter hopelessness and the 
 agony of his determination to abandon his fruitless 
 wooing. 
 
 Soon after dispatching this letter, however, being 
 on his way to Lowell to deliver a new lecture, he 
 stopped at Providence, and, calling upon Mrs. 
 Whitman, he again urged her to accept his hand 
 and realize the last and brightest hope that re 
 mained to him in life. She promised still to enter 
 tain his proposal, and to write to him at Lowell 
 the decision at which she should arrive. Thither 
 he went, and though he did not deliver his lecture, 
 1 Ingram, ii. 171. 
 
814 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 cemented his acquaintance with his new friends 
 and spent some days at the village of Westford, 
 where he rested, waited, strolled off to look at the 
 hills, and enjoyed the society of " Annie," whom 
 he had taken into his confidence, and of her sister. 
 The latter, who was then a school-girl, in her rem 
 iniscences of Poe, draws the familiar portrait of 
 him, self-possessed, serious, deferential to all wo 
 men, distinguished by the large, deep eyes and 
 low baritone voice that charmed so many of them ; 
 but she adds nothing of novel interest except a 
 quiet indoor scene, curiously illustrative of the 
 speed with which he established a habit of inti 
 macy with married women. 
 
 " My memory photographs him, sitting before an open 
 wood fire, in the early autumn evening, gazing intently 
 into the glowing coal, holding the hand of a dear friend 
 < Annie while for a long tune no one spoke, and 
 the only sound was the ticking of the tall old clock in 
 the corner of the room." l 
 
 About the second of November, having received 
 an indecisive letter from Mrs. Whitman, who seems 
 to have been always struggling between her incli 
 nation and her prudence, and having replied that 
 he would call at her house on Saturday, Novem 
 ber 4, he left this pleasant home. 
 
 Two weeks later he wrote to his friend at Low 
 ell, referring to what happened after he bade her 
 farewell, as follows : 
 
 1 Ingrain, ii. 190. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 315 
 
 " I remember nothing distinctly from that moment 
 until I found myself in Providence. I went to bed and 
 wept through a long, long, hideous night of Despair 
 When the day broke, I arose and endeavored to quiet 
 my mind by a rapid walk in the cold, keen air but all 
 would not do the Demon tormented me still. Finally, 
 I procured two ounces of laudanum, and without return 
 ing to my hotel, took the cars back to Boston. When I 
 arrived I wrote you a letter, in which I opened my whole 
 heart to you to you. ... I told you how my strug 
 gles were more than I could bear. ... I then reminded 
 you of that holy promise which was the last I exacted 
 from you in parting the promise that, under all cir 
 cumstances, you would come to me on my bed of death. 
 I implored you to come then, mentioning the place 
 where I should be found in Boston. Having written 
 this letter, I swallowed about half the laudanum, and 
 hurried to the Post Office, intending not to take the rest 
 until I saw you for, I did not doubt for one moment, 
 that Annie would keep her sacred promise. But I had 
 not calculated on the strength of the laudanum, for, be 
 fore I reached the Post Office my reason was entirely 
 gone, and the letter was never put in. Let me pass over 
 my darling sister the awful horrors that succeeded. 
 A friend was at hand, who aided, and (if it can be called 
 saving) saved me, but it is only within the last three 
 days that I have been able to remember what occurred 
 in that dreary interval. It appears that, after the laud 
 anum was rejected from the stomach, I became calm, and 
 to a casual observer, sane so that I was suffered to go 
 back to Providence." * 
 
 1 Poe to "Annie," November 16, 1848. Ingram, ii. 193, 194. 
 
316 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 On Tuesday morning, November 7, Poe called at 
 Mrs. Whitman s ; but she, having been alarmed, it 
 is said, by his failure to keep his engagement the 
 previous Saturday, which she distinctly ascribes to 
 his having become intoxicated in Boston, refused 
 to see him until noon, despite all the messages that 
 he could invent. In the afternoon he again called, 
 by appointment, and once more implored her to 
 marry him at once and return with him to New 
 York. He excused his excesses in Boston on the 
 ground of his anxiety in respect to her decision, 
 and on that and the following day continued to 
 i plead his cause with all his eloquent abandonment 
 of language and manner. The details of the ter 
 mination of this interview and of its consequences 
 have been narrated by Mrs. Whitman herself with 
 slight variations. The earliest account, so far as is 
 known, is contained in a private letter of March, 
 1860. In this, after mentioning that Poe "had 
 vehemently urged me to an immediate marriage," 
 she continues as follows : 
 
 " As an additional reason for delaying a marriage 
 which, under any circumstances, seemed to all my 
 friends full of evil portents, I read to him some passages 
 from a letter which I had recently received from one of 
 his New York associates. He seemed deeply pained 
 and wounded by the result of our interview, and left me 
 abruptly, saying that if we met again it would be as 
 strangers. He passed the evening in the bar-room of his 
 hotel, and after a night of delirious frenzy, returned the 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 317 
 
 next day to my mother s house in a state of great mental 
 excitement and suffering, declaring that his welfare for 
 time and eternity depended on me. A physician, Dr. 
 O. H. Oakie, was sent for by my mother, who, perceiv 
 ing indications of brain fever, advised his removal to the 
 house of his friend W. J. Pabodie, of this city, where he 
 was kindly cared for until his recovery." l 
 
 Later and possibly more accurate accounts change 
 r some of these details and amplify others. In the 
 V interview of November 8, according to these, Mrs. 
 Whitman showed Poe several letters, one of which 
 especially moved him ; on reading it, further con 
 fidential conversation being prevented by visitors, 
 he took leave at once with a look of strange excite 
 ment, and made no reply to her invitation, " We 
 shall see you this evening?" He did not, however, 
 return, but sent a note of renunciation. On the 
 next day when Poe called, he was so uncontrol 
 lable that his passionate appeals rang through the 
 house. " Never have I heard anything so awful," 
 records Mrs. Whitman, " awful even to sublimity. 
 It was long before I could nerve myself to see him. 
 ^STy mother was with him more than two hours 
 before I entered the room. He hailed me as an 
 angel sent to save him from perdition. ... In the 
 afternoon he grew more composed, and my mother 
 sent for Dr. Oakie. " 2 
 
 In consequence of this pitiable exhibition of 
 Mrs. Whitman to . MS. 
 
 r? 
 
 2 Ingram, ii. 176. 
 
318 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 Poe s state, and with the hope of helping him in 
 what seemed to be a last struggle for life itself, 
 Mrs. Whitman consented within a few days to a 
 conditional engagement. Forced to be content with 
 this, Poe, having on his side repeated the promise 
 of reform that he had given to every woman whom 
 he had known intimately, returned to New York 
 on November 14, and on the same evening wrote to 
 assure his fiancee that he had not dared to break 
 his pledge. 
 
 In spite, however, of his success in so difficult 
 and indeed desperate a wooing, he felt little of the 
 happiness of an accepted lover. He arrived at 
 Fordham safely, but so changed in outward ap 
 pearance by the wear of the last fortnight that Mrs. 
 Clemm declares, in a letter to " Annie," written 
 two days later, he was hardly recognizable. All 
 the previous night, according to the same author 
 ity, he had raved about this last lady, and the same 
 day, November 16, he also wrote to her a letter 
 which is inexplicable on the theory that he put 
 any faith in the happy issue of his betrothal, since 
 after giving the account, already quoted, of his 
 suicidal attempt at Boston, he proposes to take 
 a cottage for his mother and himself at Westford, 
 where he might see her family every day and her 
 self often, and concludes with a passionate appeal 
 that she would come on to Fordham at once, if only 
 for a week, saying, "I am so ill so terribly, hope 
 lessly ill in body and mind, that I feel I cannot 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 319 
 
 live." 1 In his next letter, however, written four 
 days later, to Edward Valentine, the brother of the 
 first Mrs. Allan, and containing merely a request 
 for the loan of 1200 to start the " Stylus," he 
 .^expresses a strong hope of surmounting his diffi 
 culties. On November 21, 22, and 24, and pre 
 sumably on other dates, he wrote to Mrs. Whit 
 man, warning her against his slanderers, particu 
 larly the women, begging her to be true to him, as 
 his sole hope was in her love, and drawing golden 
 anticipations of their worldly triumph. Mean 
 while, on November 23, he had written to "An 
 nie s " sister, already mentioned, in hardly less 
 affectionate terms than to herself or Mrs. Whit 
 man, protesting his love for " Annie " and implor 
 ing an answer to his former letter to the latter 
 with a fervor amply indicated by a single line : 
 "Her silence fills my whole soul with terror." 2 
 
 With such conflicting and exhausting emotions, 
 which happily have not been further disclosed by 
 his confidants, Poe passed another fortnight. On 
 J)eeember 20 he left Fordham to give the fifth 
 lecture before the Franklin Lyceum of Provi 
 dence. __At the New York station he met a lady, 
 who said to him, " Mr. Poe, are you going to 
 Providence to be married?" "I am going," he 
 replied, " to deliver a lecture on Poetry." Then he 
 added, after a moment, " That marriage may never 
 take place." His friend, Mr. Pabodie, in describing 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 194. 2 Ingram, ii. 196. 
 
320 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 this interview, states that " circumstances existed 
 which threatened to postpone the marriage indefi 
 nitely, if not altogether to prevent it." 1 To these, 
 which have not been divulged, Poe presumably 
 referred. On reaching Providence he delivered the 
 lecture, " The Poetic Principle," the same evening, 
 December 20, to a large audience. He remained in 
 the city, and still pleaded with Mrs. Whitman to be 
 married and to return with him to Fordham. He 
 was stopping at the Earl House, and there occasion 
 ally drank at the bar with some young men of the 
 city. On Friday evening, December 22, he called 
 at Mrs. Whitman s, partially intoxicated ; but, 
 says Mr. Pabodie, who was present, he was quiet 
 and said little. The next morning he was full of 
 contrition and profuse of promises for the future, 
 and he persuaded Mrs. Whitman to appoint Mon 
 day evening for the ceremony. He then wrote 
 to Dr. Crocker, engaging him to officiate, and 
 to Mrs. Clemm, advising her to expect himself 
 and his wife on Tuesday at Fordham. In the 
 afternoon, however, Mrs. Whitman received a 
 note from a friend, informing her that Poe had 
 that morning again drunk at the bar of his hotel, 
 and she therefore finally decided to break off the 
 match. When Poe called, says Mrs. Whitman, 
 " no token of the infringement of his promise 
 was visible in his appearance or manner." 2 This 
 
 1 Pabodie to Griswold, June 11, 1852. Gill, 224. 
 
 2 Ingram, ii. 1 84, 1 85. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 321 
 
 circumstance, however, she disregarded, and carried 
 out her predetermined plan. " Gathering together 
 some papers," she says, " which he had intrusted 
 to my keeping, I placed them in his hands without 
 a word of explanation or reproach, and, utterly 
 worn out and exhausted by the mental conflicts and 
 anxieties and responsibilities of the last few days, 
 I drenched my handkerchief with ether and threw 
 myself on a sofa, hoping to lose myself in utter un 
 consciousness. Sinking on his knees beside me, he 
 entreated me to speak to him, to speak one word, 
 but one word. At last I responded, almost inau- 
 dibly, What can I say ? Say that you love 
 me, Helen. ^ I love you? These were the last 
 words I ever spoke to him." 1 Mr. Pabodie, who 
 had accompanied Poe on this visit, went with him 
 to the train, in which he left at once for Fordham. 
 About three weeks later he addressed a last letter 
 to Mrs. Whitman, in respect to some slanderous 
 misrepresentations of his conduct in this affair, which 
 had been put in circulation ; but to this, which he 
 had first sent unsealed to "Annie," Mrs. Whitman 
 made no reply, except, weeks afterward, indirectly 
 by some " Stanzas for Music," published in " The 
 Metropolitan " for February, and now included, in 
 a revised version, in her " Poems" as " The Island 
 of Dreams." 
 
 This episode has been narrated in minute detail 
 because gross perversions of the facts were once 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 184, 185. 
 
322 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 common, and are not yet entirely suppressed ; and 
 in the relation it has not been possible to ignore, as 
 one would desire to do, the letters written by Poe, 
 during this period, to Mrs. Whitman, "Annie," 
 and her sister. If Poe s correspondence "with 
 other women with Mrs. Osgood, for example, 
 who terms his letters " divinely beautiful " bore 
 any resemblance to that of the last year of his life, 
 fortune has been more than usually kind in de 
 stroying it. Not one word from these letters ought 
 ever to have been published, but now it is too 
 late to exclude them from the record. FromJ:his 
 nd other evidence it is plain that Poe, worn out 
 >y the ruin wrought on a romantic temperament 
 )y his unavailing struggle with poverty, insane in- 
 ulgence, and secret disease, realizing now the 
 lopelessness of his situation and oppressed by its 
 oneliness, felt himself under an overpowering ne- 
 essity of receiving human help, and sought "for it 
 with an ardor undisciplined by years, in whatever 
 uarter there was any promise. He had made up 
 is mind, moreover, to adopt Mrs. Shew s advice, 
 and to try to save himself in what she had declared 
 the only possible way, marriage. A trivial inci 
 dent the anonymous exchange of a copy of verses 
 resulted in some slight relations between himself 
 and a woman whose genius he had idealized, and 
 he at once threw himself on her mercy. By his own 
 declaration to Mrs. Whitman, hardly more than a 
 week earlier he had been on the point of asking 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 323 
 
 another woman to be his wife. Mrs. Whitman 
 herself, notwithstanding her many virtues and ad 
 mirable qualities of heart, so finely exercised in her 
 lifelong devotion to Poe s memory, was eccentric, 
 susceptible to romantic fancies and mystical moods. 
 She was in particular a believer in occult spiritual 
 influences, and by this approach to her weakness 
 Poe made his persuasive appeal. Both in his let 
 ters to her and in the recorded fragments of their 
 conversation, he rhapsodized about their affinities, 
 as if that were the sure chord to respond to his 
 touch. Poe may have believed in what he pro 
 fessed, but amid all his transcendental raptures, as 
 well as in his vindication of his character and his 
 absurd anticipations of their worldly triumph, as 
 he called it, although his helplessness and real suf 
 fering are plain to see, it is futile to look for any 
 unmistakable expression of the love man bears to 
 woman, any passage that rings true with genuine 
 .devotion as does the single brief note written to 
 his wife, Virginia. In all this correspondence there 
 is a total. and absolute absorption of his mind in his 
 own affairs, his injuries, distresses, and hopes; 
 indeed, to one familiar with his modes of expression, 
 it seems almost an accident that these letters were 
 addressed to -Mrs. Whitman. The language, con 
 fidential and studded with terms of endearment, 
 is such as he habitually used both in written and 
 spoken words to other women who he thought un 
 derstood him. Clearly, so far as his need of sym- 
 
324 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 pathy, pity, consolation, was concerned, he put more 
 trust in " Annie s " heart, just as he wrote to 
 her with more freedom and besought her aid with 
 more simplicity. He had selected Mrs. Whitman 
 as the object of his marital determination out of 
 admiration for her poems, had asked her hand at 
 the first interview, and, finding himself opposed by 
 private defamation, had urged his suit with eager 
 ness and force ; but he apparently never believed 
 he would succeed, and in this fear he pressed for 
 a conclusion. In fact Poe seems less absorbed in 
 a woman than infatuated with an idea, an idea 
 which, originating in fancy, fostered by his ideal 
 izing faculty, made practicable by accident, and 
 acted on from impulse, was now supported by the 
 strongest worldly motives, since his reputation, am 
 bition, and fortune were highly interested in the 
 issue. 
 
 Besides these considerations, it must be remem 
 bered how plain and frequent in both Poe s acts 
 and words at this period are the signs of a mind 
 unstrung. To give but one additional instance, in 
 judging the following passage to Mrs. Whitman, 
 the only choice lies between Poe s insincerity or his 
 practical insanity : 
 
 " Was I right, dearest Helen, in my first impression of 
 you ? you know I have implicit faith in first impres 
 sions was I right in the impression that you are am 
 bitious ? If so, and if you will have faith in me, I can 
 and will satisfy your wildest desires. It would be a 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 325 
 
 glorious triumph, Helen, for us for you and me. I 
 dare not trust my schemes to a letter nor indeed have 
 I time even to hint at them here. When I see you I 
 will explain all as far, at least, as I dare explain all 
 my hopes even to you. Would it not be glorious, dar 
 ling, to establish in America, the sole unquestionable 
 aristocracy that of intellect to secure its supremacy 
 to lead and to control it ? All this I can do, Helen, 
 and will if you bid me and aid me." 1 
 
 This, in the case of a man of Poe s years and 
 powers, is either chicanery or irresponsible maun 
 dering. Pie merely let his pen run, as in nearly all 
 these letters, which, to characterize them plainly, 
 record the confusion and weakness of a mind aban 
 doned to an emotional mood, and occupied only by 
 self-pity, intellectual pride, or despair. That he 
 has been thus revealed to the world in his weakest 
 moments and most wretched abasement is the fault 
 of his friends ; but keeping in view his state of 
 mind and body, the origin and course of his woo 
 ing, and the surrounding circumstances, one finds 
 it least difficult to believe that if Poe was sincere 
 in his professions he was self-deceived, and to agree 
 with Mrs. Osgood, who, having herself been the ob 
 ject of similar sentiments from him, declared of his 
 dead wife, " I believe she was the only woman 
 whom he ever truly loved." 2 
 
 1 Poe to Mrs. Whitman, November 22, 1848. Ingram, ii. 180, 
 181. 
 
 2 Griswold, liii. 
 
326 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 On reaching Fordham Poe found Mrs. Clemn, 
 who had never favored the match, overjoyed to see 
 him unaccompanied by a wife, and, were it possi 
 ble, more devoted to himself. He set to work, and 
 wrote several hours each day ; but, in consonance 
 with the view that has been taken, although doubt 
 less bitterly aggrieved, lie exhibited no regret at the 
 event which he had always considered likely, and 
 no fidelity to the woman whose loyalty to his mem 
 ory in after years was almost ideal. On January 
 11, 1849, he wrote to "Annie" as follows: 
 
 " In spite of so many worldly sorrows in spite of all 
 the trouble and misrepresentation (so hard to bear) that 
 Poverty has entailed on me for so long a time in spite 
 of all this I am so, so happy. . . . I need not tell you 
 how great a burden is taken off my heart by my rupture 
 with Mrs. W. ; for I have fully made up my mind to 
 break the engagement. . . . Nothing would have de 
 terred me from the match but what I tell you." 3 
 
 Two weeks later he inclosed to the same corre 
 spondent a last letter to Mrs. Whitman, in which, 
 after referring to the evil reports of him origina 
 ting at Providence, he declared, " No amount of 
 provocation shall induce me to speak ill of you 
 [Mrs. Whitman], even in my own defense," 2 
 with directions to read it, seal it with wax, and mail 
 it in Boston ; and to this singularly indelicate act, 
 which is excused only by the circumstance that 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 202. 2 Ingram, ii. 185. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 327 
 
 "Annie s" confidence in him had been shaken by 
 these same slanders, he added the dishonor of a 
 hasty expression of his pique in words too violently 
 in contrast with the line just quoted to escape no 
 tice. 
 
 " Of one thing rest assured, from this day forth I shun 
 the pestilential society of literary women. They are a 
 heartless, unnatural, venomous, dishonorable set, with no 
 guiding principle but inordinate self-esteem. Mrs. Os- 
 good is the only exception I know." * 
 
 Having thus freed himself of the affair, for it 
 is said that Mrs. Whitman s name never afterwards 
 passed his lips, Poe busied himself with litera 
 ture, which, he wrote to Thomas, there was no se 
 ducing him from ; and he adds, " Nor would I 
 abandon the hopes that still lead me on for all the 
 jgolcl in California." 2 In the " Southern Literary 
 Messenger " for February he published an unfavor 
 able review of Lowell s "A Fable for Critics," and 
 in " Godey s " j)f the same month " Mellonta 
 Tauta," a revision o f the introduction to " Eureka." 
 He sent, but fruitlessly, " Landor s Cottage " to 
 the " Metropolitan," whose short career was distin 
 guished by some lines addressed to him by Mrs. 
 Osgood, and also by Mrs. Whitman in indirect ac 
 knowledgment of his last letter ; and with like ill 
 success fifty pages of " Marginalia " (possibly the 
 editor had discovered their second-hand character) 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 205. 
 
 2 Poe to Thomas, February 14, 1849. MS. copy. 
 
328 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 to the " Messenger," and " Critics and Criticism " 
 to the " Whig." Poe was elated with his imme 
 diate prospects ; and he had good reason, if there 
 was no exaggeration in his statement that he had 
 made permanent engagements with every magazine 
 in America (except Peterson s "National"), in 
 cluding a Cincinnati magazine called the " Gentle 
 men s," at a minimum price of five dollars per Gra 
 ham page. Ou-^ebruary 6 he finished "The Bells," 
 presumably the second draft, and the next day 
 "Hop-Frog," a tale of grotesque humor out of Ber- 
 ner s Froissart, published in April in the " Flag of 
 our Union," a Boston weekly. His only other pub 
 lications that have been traced were the ghoulish 
 lines " To Annie " (reprinted by Willis) and the 
 sonnet " To my Mother," both in the same cheap 
 Boston weekly, and, as it would seem, in April ; 
 and lastly, in "Sartain s Magazine" for March, "A 
 Valentine," the anagrammatic poem to Mrs. Os- 
 good. Perhaps " El Dorado," the only poem of 
 which the first publication is unknown, belongs to 
 this same period. 
 
 These various writings probably represent Poe s 
 literary activity for some time before this spring, 
 and this is certainly the case with the only noticea 
 ble pieces among them, " The Domain of Arnheim" 
 and " Landor s Cottage," called its pendant. The 
 latter closed the series of the landscape studies, 
 which make as distinct a group in Poe s imaginative 
 work as the tales of mystery, ratiocination, or con- 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 329 
 
 science, since in these the sensuous element, which 
 was primary in his genius, found its simplest and 
 most unrestrained expression. The series had cul 
 minated, however, in " The Domain of Arnheim," 
 in which the brilliancy and flood and glow of pure 
 color are a mere reveling of the aesthetic sense ; and 
 so gorgeous is the vision and thrown out in so broad 
 an expanse that, although only a description, the 
 piece is as unique among works of imagination as 
 is " The Black Cat " or " The Fall of the House of 
 Usher." The landscape that the mention of the 
 latter recalls, and much more the spectral wood 
 land and tarn of " Ulalume," serve to measure by 
 momentary contrast with the scenes of faery in 
 " Arnheim " the range of Poe s fantasy, and at the 
 same time to bring out strongly the extent to which 
 his work is dependent for its effect directly on the 
 senses, however abnormally excited. In fact the 
 impression made in the present case is solely spec 
 tacular. The landscape sketches, too, which belong 
 to the dark period of Poe s career, afford some 
 pleasant relief to the paltrinesses, the miseries, and 
 debasements of his ordinary life. The idyllic sweet 
 ness of " Eleonora," the quiet beauty of " The Isl 
 and of the Fay " and " Morning on the Wissahic- 
 con," opened round Poe, as he was seen in his 
 Philadelphia days, the only prospect beyond the 
 mean walls of the newspaper office and the tenement 
 house. Now in his yet more wretched years he 
 was not deprived of his poet s birthright in the in- 
 
330 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 heritance of nature ; rather, as in this mythical 
 " Arnheim," he indulged most purely his delight in 
 the contemplation of loveliness for its own sake ; 
 and as he imagined the charming cottage of Landor 
 just at the time when his letters exhibit him in his 
 lowest spirits, it would seem that his country ram 
 bles still gave him an outlook on the things of 
 beauty, of light and calm and joy. No life can 
 continue in darkness and turmoil such as these past 
 months would have been, had they been filled only 
 with the incidents and passions of the written story. 
 Of the bursts of sunshine and pauses of calm that 
 checkered this portion of Poe s days, of the after 
 noons and frequent nights of summer whose beauty 
 he drank in with senses dulled only by the lotus- 
 flower, these landscape studies are the open secret. 
 While Poe was thus engaged a second female foe 
 had arisen in the home of his Lowell friends in the 
 person of a woman who had helped to relieve his 
 necessities in 1847. She busied herself so suc 
 cessfully with disseminating the current slanders 
 respecting him as to disturb the minds of the fam 
 ily, and to alienate, at least partially, the good 
 will of the head of the house. Poe, on being in 
 formed of this new misfortune, accounted for the 
 gossip s hostility by saying that he had left her 
 abruptly in consequence of her disparagement of 
 " Annie," and added that he thought it hard that 
 such a quarrel should prejudice him in the lat- 
 ter s mind. He was so far moved by the attitude 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 331 
 
 assumed by her husband that he gave up a pro 
 posed visit to his house and the plan of settling 
 near these new friends permanently, and he even 
 professed to think it necessary that the correspon 
 dence should cease. He wrote, " I cannot and will 
 not have it on my conscience that I have interfered 
 with the domestic happiness of the only being in 
 the whole world, whom I have loved at the same 
 time with truth and with purity." * 
 
 Such an abrupt termination to one of the happiest 
 friendships of his life was fortunately avoided. Poe 
 was able to sustain his story, and after a few weeks 
 the tale bearer, whose connection with his family 
 seems to have been unbroken, wrote to him that she 
 was about to publish a novel recording their relations 
 in detail in such a way as to make his own character 
 appear noble and generous, and that she would come 
 on to Fordham at once to avail herself of any sug 
 gestions from him. What became of this novel, or 
 what reception the lady s proposals met with, is un 
 known ; but as in the sequel, even after Poe s death, 
 she still busied herself in scandal, it is likely that 
 there was no reconciliation. 
 
 In literary matters the spring had brought 
 disappointment. The " Columbia " and "Union" 
 failed ; the ." Whig " and " Democratic " stopped 
 payment ; the " Messenger," which was in Poe s 
 debt, remained in arrears ; another publication, 
 with which he had engaged for ten dollars weekly, 
 1 Poe to " Annie," February 19, 1849. Ingram, ii. 208. 
 
332 EDGAE ALLAN POE. 
 
 was forced to decline contributions ; with " Godey s " 
 he had quarreled : and so, in his own words, he was 
 " reduced to Sartain and Graham, both very 
 precarious." His many engagements, on which he 
 had built so hopefully a few months before, had 
 dwindled away ; and to add to his misfortunes he 
 had again been seriously ill. " I thought," wrote 
 Mrs. Clemm to "Annie," "he would die several 
 times. God knows I wish we were both in our 
 graves. It would, I am sure, be far better." 1 
 A deep gloom settled over his mind. He himself 
 wrote to the same lady, in denying that this arose 
 from his literary disappointments, " My sadness 
 is unaccountable, and this makes me the more sad. 
 I am full of dark forebodings. Nothing cheers or 
 comforts me. My life seems wasted the future 
 looks a dreary blank ; but I will struggle on and 
 hope against hope. " 2 After this he visited his 
 friends at Lowell, apparently in [L j^ay. and there 
 wrote the third draft of " The Bells ; " he soon re 
 turned to New York, with the expectation of going 
 
 the old scheme, *- 
 
 the establishment of the " Stylus, " for "Winch he was 
 now arranging a partnership with a Mr. Patterson, 
 in accordance with which it would be published si 
 multaneously in New York and St. Louis on Janu 
 ary 1, I860. He was delayed for some weeks, dur 
 ing which his despondency was marked and habit 
 ual. Before leaving Fordham, apparently led by 
 
 1 Ingram, ii. 215. 2 Ingram, ii. 214. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 333 
 
 the palpable signs of his danger, he wrote requests 
 that Griswold would superintend the collection of 
 his works, and that Willis would write such a bio 
 graphical notice as should be deemed necessary. 
 On June 29, having completed his arrangements 
 for his journey, he went to New York in company 
 with Mrs. Clemm, to pass the night at the house of 
 Mrs. Lewis, the poetess, whose works he had lately 
 reviewed, and with whom during the past year 
 an intimacy of the old kind had sprung up. " He 
 seemed very sad," wrote this lady, " and retired 
 early. On leaving the next morning he took my 
 hand in his, and, looking in my face, said, Dear 
 Stella, my much beloved friend. You truly under 
 stand and appreciate me I have a presentiment 
 that I shall never see you again. I must leave to 
 day for Richmond. If I never return, write my 
 life. You can and will do me justice. " 1 Mrs. 
 Clemm accompanied him to the steamboat, and on 
 parting he said to her, " God bless you, my own 
 darling mother. Do not fear for Eddy ! See how 
 good I will be while I am away from you, and will 
 [sic] come back to love and comfort you." 2 
 
 Poe stopped at Philadelphia, where he suffered 
 a severe attack of delirium tremens, during which 
 he was taken care of by Mr. John Sartain, the 
 proprietor of Sartain s Magazine, who still remem 
 bers the visions about which he raved and the per 
 sistence with which he besought him for laudanum, 
 i Ingram, ii. 220. 2 Ingram, ii. 221. 
 
334 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 PII recovering he proceeded to Bichmond and there 
 /remained through July, August, and September, 
 /delivered his lecture on "The Poetic Principle," in 
 j Richmond and Norfolk, canvassed for the " Stylus," 
 / and enjoyed the society of his old and new friends. 
 I He stayed at the Madison Tavern, a once fashion- 
 able but then decayed hotel, and he visited much 
 among his acquaintances, by whom he was well 
 received, and, indeed, lionized. At Duncan s Lodge, 
 especially, the residence of the Mackenzies, who 
 had adopted his sister Rosalie, he was made at 
 home ; and at Robert Sully s, the artist whom he 
 had befriended in his early schooldays, and at Mrs. 
 Talley s, he passed many of those hours which he 
 said were the happiest he had known for years. 
 To Miss Susan Archer Talley, now Mrs. Weiss, 
 who then looked on Poe with the romantic interest 
 of a young poetess as well as with a woman s sym 
 pathy with sadness so confessed as his, is due the 
 most life-like and detailed portrait of him that 
 exists. Erect in stature, cold, impassive, almost 
 haughty in manner, soberly and fastidiously clad in 
 black, to a stranger s eye he wore a look of distinc 
 tion rather than beauty ; on nearer approach one 
 was more struck by the strongly marked head, with 
 the broad brow, the black curly hair brushed back, 
 the pallid, careworn, and in repose the somewhat 
 haggard features, while beneath the concealment of 
 a short black moustache one saw the slight habitual 
 contraction of the mouth and occasionally the quick, 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 335 
 
 almost imperceptible curl of the upper lip in scorn 
 a sneer, it is said, that was easily excited ; but 
 the physical fascination of the man was felt, at last, 
 to lie in his eyes, large, jet-black, with a steel-gray 
 iris, clear as crystal, restless, ever expanding and 
 contracting as, responsive with intelligence and emo 
 tion, they bent their full, open, steady, unshrinking 
 gaze from under the long black lashes that shaded 
 them. On meeting his friends Poe s face would 
 brighten with pleasure, his features lost the worn 
 look and his reserve its coldness ; to men he was 
 cordial, to women he showed a deference that seems 
 always to have suggested a reminiscence of chivalry ; 
 and in society with the young he forgot his melan 
 choly, listened with amusement, or joined in their 
 repartees with evident pleasure, though he would 
 soon leave them for a seat in the portico, or a walk 
 in the grounds with a single friend. To the eyes of 
 his young girlish friend he seemed invariably cheer 
 ful, and often even playful in mood. Once only 
 was he noticeably cast down ; it was when visiting 
 the old deserted Mayo place, called The Hermitage, 
 where he used to go frequently in his youth, and 
 the scene was so picturesque that it is worth giving 
 at length : 
 
 " On reaching the place our party separated, and Poe 
 and myself strolled slowly about the grounds. I observed 
 that he was unusually silent and preoccupied, and, at 
 tributing it to the influence of memories associated with 
 the place, forbore to interrupt him. He passed slowly 
 
336 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 by the mossy bench called the lovers seat, beneath 
 two aged trees, and remarked, as we turned toward the 
 garden, * There used to be white violets here. Searching 
 amid the tangled wilderness of shrubs, we found a few 
 late blossoms, some of which he placed carefully between 
 the leaves of a note-book. Entering the deserted house, 
 he passed from room to room with a grave, abstracted 
 look, and removed his hat, as if involuntarily, on enter 
 ing the saloon, where in old times many a brilliant 
 company had assembled. Seated in one of the deep 
 windows, over which now grew masses of ivy, his memory 
 must have borne him back to former scenes, for he 
 repeated the familiar lines of Moore : 
 
 I feel like one 
 
 Who treads alone 
 Some banquet hall deserted/ 
 
 and paused, with the first expression of real sadness that 
 I had ever seen on his face. The light of the setting sun 
 shone through the drooping ivy-boughs into the ghostly 
 room, and the tattered and mildewed paper-hangings, 
 with their faded tracery of rose-garlands, waved fitfully 
 in the autumn breeze. An inexpressibly eerie feeling 
 came over me, which I can even now recall, and as I 
 stood there, my old childish idea of the poet as a spirit of 
 mingled light and darkness recurred strongly to my im 
 agination." 1 
 
 Poe talked with his young friend about his plans 
 and hopes ; about the restrictions on criticism which 
 are imposed by personal friendship and editorial pre 
 possessions, and from which even he could not wholly 
 
 1 Scribner s Magazine, xv. 5, p. 712 (March, 1878). 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 337 
 
 free himself ; about his New York friends, the mis 
 constructions his nature suffered under even among 
 those who knew him, and other confidential topics 
 that the charm of his listener and his own readiness 
 to indulge in quick intimacies, beguiled him into. 
 In particular it should be noticed that he showed 
 her a letter from Griswold, accepting his commis 
 sion to edit his works in case of his sudden death. 
 
 These reminiscences of quiet mornings in the 
 grounds of Duncan s Lodge and of social evenings 
 at the houses of various friends do not contain the 
 whole story of this summer. Twice during this 
 visit, it is said, Poe again suffered severe illness in 
 consequence of intemperance, and though he recov 
 ered under kind and skillful care, he was told by his 
 physician, Dr. Carter, that another such indulgence 
 would probably prove fatal ; and in the course of a 
 long conversation in which Poe was moved to tears 
 he convinced this gentleman of his earnest desire to 
 overcome his temptations and of his unavailing 
 struggle against them, though he had still, it seems, 
 courage to keep up hope for the last trial. 
 
 During these months, too, he renewed his atten 
 tions to Mrs. Shelton and asked her hand in mar 
 riage. There is no room to doubt that in this act 
 he obeyed worldly motives ; for though there had 
 been romantic passages between them in schooldays, 
 there is no likelihood that these would have pre 
 vailed on Poe to unite himself with a woman who is 
 described as of plain manners, older than himself, 
 22 
 
338 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 and with no attraction except wealth. It cannot 
 have escaped attention that Poe uniformly attrib 
 uted his ill-success in the world solely to his pov 
 erty ; in later years especially this had become so 
 settled a conviction in his mind that in his letters 
 to " Annie," " I must get rich, get rich," is a re 
 frain so constant as to seem the purpose he had 
 most at heart ; he needed money to secure his 
 shattered health against the necessities of hard labor 
 for a support precarious at best, and especially to 
 establish the " Stylus," the scheme he pursued as 
 a phantom. Mrs. Clemm believed that his motive 
 was to provide a home and friends for herself. To 
 her Mrs. Whitman wrote, "I think I can under 
 stand all the motives that influenced Edgar in those 
 last days and can see how the desire to provide 
 a home and friends for you, swayed him in all" 
 His engagement to Mrs. Shelton was commonly 
 talked of, and is said to have been mentioned in the 
 papers, greatly to his displeasure ; and although 
 Mrs. Shelton has denied that a formal agreement 
 existed, and acknowledges only a partial understand 
 ing, she began a correspondence with Mrs. Clemm 
 the first letter 2 of whicli is not to be explained on 
 any other theory than that she meant to marry Poe. 
 The most authentic indication of the actual state of 
 affairs is Poe s letter to Mrs. Clemm, September 
 
 1 Mrs. Whitman to Mrs. Clemm, April 17, 1859. MS. 
 
 2 This letter, of which the author has a copy, is too private for 
 publication. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 339 
 
 18, 1849, in which, it will be noticed, his peculiar 
 secretiveness is markedly illustrated by his directing 
 her to address him under a fictitious name in Phila 
 delphia. 
 
 [RICHMOND, VA. 
 TUESDAY, September 18, 49. 
 MY OWN DARLING MUDDY, 
 
 On arriving here last night from Norfolk I received 
 both your letters, including Mrs. Lewis s. I cannot tell 
 you the joy they gave me to learn at least that you are 
 well and hopeful. May God forever bless you, my dear 
 dear Muddy. Elmira has just got home from the 
 country. I spent last evening with her. I think she 
 loves me more devotedly than any one I ever knew and 
 I cannot help loving her in return. Nothing is as yet 
 definitely settled -] and it will not do to hurry matters. 
 I lectured at Norfolk on Monday and cleared enough 
 to settle my bill here at the Madison House with $2 
 over. I had a highly fashionable audience, but Norfolk 
 is a small place and there were two exhibitions the same 
 night. Next Monday I lecture again here and expect 
 to have a large audience. On Tuesday I start for Phila 
 delphia to attend to Mrs. Loud s poems and possibly 
 on Thursday I may start for New York. If p do I will 
 go straight over to Mrs. Lewis s and send for you. It 
 will be better for me not to go to Fordham don t 
 you think so ? Write immediately in reply and direct 
 to Philadelphia. For fear I should not get the letter 
 sign no name and address it to E. S. T. Grey Esq re . 
 If possible I will get married before I start, but there 
 is no telling. Give my dearest love to Mrs. L. My 
 poor poor Muddy I am still unable to send you even one 
 
340 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 dollar, but keep [up heart I hope that our troubles 
 are nearly over. I saw John Beatty in Norfolk. 
 
 God bless and protect you, my own darling Muddy. 
 I showed your letter to Elmira, and she says "it is such 
 a darling precious letter that she loves you for it already." 
 
 Your own Eddy. 
 
 Don t forget to write immediately to Philadelphia so 
 that your letter will be there when I arrive. 
 
 The papers here are praising me to death and I have 
 been received everywhere with enthusiasm. Be sure and 
 preserve all the printed scraps I have] sent you and keep 
 up my file of the Literary World. 1 
 
 It has been stated that a disagreement arose be 
 tween Poe and Mrs. Shelton in consequence of her 
 expressed intention of keeping control of her prop 
 erty, and that he refused to give up her letters to 
 him unless she would first surrender his ; and this 
 circumstance is alleged to be the basis of the scan 
 dalous story still circulated respecting Poe s levy 
 ing blackmail on a woman and being beaten by 
 her brother. Of the truth of this at any time in his 
 life, there is no indication. Neither is there any 
 evidence that any difference arose between the two 
 at all. Poe is said to have himself written to Mrs. 
 Clemm that the ceremony was fixed for October 
 -...17^ On any other supposition than that a practi 
 cal engagement still existed, it is inexplicable that 
 after Poe s death Mrs. Shelton should have gone 
 
 1 Poe to Mrs. Clemm, MS. ; where bracketed, MS. copy. 
 
 2 Diclier, 110. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 341 
 
 into mourning, as she did, or have written a letter 
 of condolence to Mrs. Clemm, with whom she had 
 no acquaintance, of such a character that the latter 
 should have written to " Annie " regarding it, "I 
 have received a letter from poor Elmira ; oh, how 
 you will pity her when you read it ! " l Moreover, 
 Poe s statement to his mother-in-law agrees with 
 his promise to his friends at Richmond that he 
 would return within two weeks, and with his ex 
 pressed intention to reside thereafter in that city, 
 although this would necessarily involve the aban 
 donment of his plan in respect to the " Stylus," 
 which his present partner in the enterprise, Mr. 
 E. H. N. Patterson, in a letter dated August 21, 
 proposed to issue, according to the plan, simultane 
 ously in New York and St. Louis, on July 1, 
 1850. 
 
 In order to wind up his affairs in New York and 
 to bring Mrs. Clemm to Richmond, as prelimina 
 ries of this marriage, Poe decided to go North. 
 On the day before leaving, probably Saturday, Sep 
 tember 29, he passed the evening at Mrs. Talley s, 
 where he had a long conversation with her daugh 
 ter, in which he spoke of his future, " seeming to 
 anticipate it with eager delight, like that of youth," 
 and, Mrs. Weiss adds, " he declared that the last 
 few weeks in the society of his old and new friends 
 had been the happiest that he had known for many 
 years, and that when he again left New York he 
 
 1 Mrs. Clemm to "Annie," October 17, 1849. Ingram, ii. 241. 
 
342 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 should there leave behind all the trouble and vexa 
 tion of his past life." 1 That night he spent with 
 his friends at Duncan s Lodge, and sat late at his 
 window, smoking and silent. The next day he 
 passed in the city with some male friends, and late 
 in the evening left Dr. Carter s office to take sup 
 per across the street, at Sadler s restaurant. There 
 he met some acquaintances, who kept company 
 with him until very late and then accompanied 
 him to the boat, where they left him sober and 
 cheerful. If, as seems probable, this was on Sun 
 day night, he would have arrived in Baltimore late 
 on Monday or early Tuesday. All that is known 
 of his movements is that he called at Dr. N. C. 
 Brooks s on an afternoon, partially intoxicated, and, 
 not finding his friend, went away. It is reported, 
 too, that he took the train to Philadelphia, but, 
 being in the wrong car, was brought back from 
 Havre de Grace in a state of stupor. On what 
 foundation this story rests cannot now be deter 
 mined. It is also said that he dined with some old 
 military friends, became intoxicated, and while in 
 that state was captured by politicians, who kept 
 him stupefied, and made him vote at several places 
 on Wednesday, election day. The basis of this tra 
 dition, too, is now lost. The only certain event after 
 his call on Brooks, which, according to the hypoth 
 esis here made, was on Tuesday, is that on Wednes 
 day, at some time after noon, he was recognized at 
 1 Scribner s Magazine, xv. 5, p. 713 (March, 1878). 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 343 
 
 one of the rum-shops used for voting, Kyan s Fourth 
 "Ward Polls, by a printer, who wrote the following 
 note : 
 
 BALTIMORE CITY, Oct. 3, 1849. 
 
 There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at 
 Ryan s Fourth Ward Polls, who goes under the cogno 
 men of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress. 
 He says he is acquainted with you, and I assure you he 
 is in need of immediate assistance. 
 
 JOSEPH W. WILSON. 
 
 To DR. J. E. SNODGRASS. 1 
 
 Dr. Snodgrass called at Ryan s and had Poe 
 taken to the Washington Hospital, where he was. 
 admitted, unconscious, at 5 p. M. ; his relatives in 
 the city were notified of his condition, and gave 
 him such attention as was possible. He remained, 
 except for a brief interval, in an alarming delirium, 
 and on Sunday, about five o clock, he died. The 
 story of these last days, the catastrophe of " the 
 motley drama," taken from contemporary docu 
 ments, is as follows : 
 
 BALTIMORE CITY MARINE HOSPITAL, 
 November 15, 49. 
 
 MRS. CLEMM, 
 
 MY DEAR MADAM, 
 
 I take the earliest opportunity of respond 
 ing to yours of the 9th inst., which came to hand by 
 yesterday s mail. 
 
 1 N. Y. Herald, March 27, 1881. 
 
344 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 But now for the required intelligence. Presuming 
 you are already aware of the malady of which Mr. Poe 
 died, I need only state concisely the particulars of his 
 circumstances from his entrance until his decease. 
 
 When brought to the Hospital he was unconscious of 
 his condition who brought him or with whom he had 
 been associating. He remained in this condition from 
 five o clock in the afternoon the hour of his admis 
 sion until three next morning. This was on the 3d 
 October. 
 
 To this state succeeded tremor of the limbs, and at 
 first a busy but not violent or active delirium constant 
 talking and vacant converse with spectral and imag 
 inary objects on the walls. His face was pale and his 
 whole person drenched in perspiration. We were una 
 ble to induce tranquillity before the second day after his 
 admission. 
 
 Having left orders with the nurses to that effect, I 
 was summoned to his bedside so soon as consciousness 
 supervened, and questioned him in reference, to his 
 family, place of residence, relatives, etc. But his an 
 swers were incoherent and unsatisfactory. He told me 
 however, he had a wife in Richmond (which I have 
 since learned was not the fact), that he did not know 
 when he left that city or what had become of his trunk 
 of clothing. Wishing to rally and sustain his now fast 
 sinking hopes, I told him I hoped that in a few days he 
 would be able to enjoy the society of his friends here 
 and I would be most happy to contribute in every possi 
 ble way to his ease and comfort. At this he broke out 
 with much energy, and said the best thing his best friend 
 could do would be to blow out his brains with a pistol 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 345 
 
 that when he beheld his degradation he was ready to 
 sink into the earth," etc. Shortly after giving expres 
 sion to these words Mr. Poe seemed to doze, and I left 
 him for a short time. When I returned I found him in 
 a violent delirium, resisting the efforts of two nurses to 
 keep him in bed. This state continued until Saturday 
 evening (he was admitted on Wednesday), when he 
 commenced calling for one u Reynolds," which he did 
 through the night until three on Sunday morning. At 
 this time a very decided change began to affect him. 
 Having become enfeebled from exertion he became 
 quiet and seemed to rest for a short time ; then gently 
 moving his head, he said, " Lord help my poor soul," 
 and expired ! 
 
 This, Madam, is as faithful an account as I am able 
 to furnish from the Record of his case. 
 
 His remains were visited by some of the first individ 
 uals of the city, many of them anxious to have a lock of 
 his hair. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 J. J. MORAN, Res. Phys. 1 
 
 The undistinguished funeral took place on Mon 
 day, October 8, and three days later Neilson Poe 
 wrote an account of it to Mrs. Clemm : 
 
 1 Moran to Mrs. Clemm, MS. The omitted portions are of no 
 interest. The different dates and additional circumstances given 
 many years afterward by Dr. Moran, must give way to the state 
 ments here made when the event was fresh in his memory. 
 
346 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 BALTIMORE, October 11, 1849. 
 MY DEAR MADAM : 
 
 He died on Sunday morning, about five o clock, at the 
 Washington Medical College, where he had been since* 
 the Wednesday preceding. At what time he arrived 
 in this city, where he spent the time he was here, or un 
 der what circumstances, I have been unable to ascertain. 
 It appears that on Wednesday he was seen and recog 
 nized at one of the places of election in old town, and 
 that his condition was such as to render it necessary to 
 send him to the College, where he was tenderly nursed 
 until the time of his death. As soon as I heard that he 
 was at the College I went over ; but his physician did not 
 think it advisable that I should see him, as he was very 
 excitable. The next day I called, and sent him changes 
 of linen etc., and was gratified to learn that he was much 
 better, and I was never so much shocked, in my life , as 
 when, on Sunday morning, notice was sent me that he 
 was dead. Mr. Herring and myself immediately took 
 the necessary steps for his funeral, which took place on 
 Monday afternoon at four o clock. . . . The body was 
 followed to the grave by Mr. Herring, Dr. Snodgrass, 
 Mr. Z. Collins Lee (an old classmate) and myself. The 
 service was performed by the Rev. William T. D. Clemm, 
 a son of James S. Clemm. Mr. Herring and myself 
 have sought, in vain, for the trunk and clothes of Edgar 
 there is reason to believe that he was robbed of them, 
 whilst in such a condition as to render him insensible of 
 his loss. . . . 
 
 Truly your friend and servant, NEILSON" POE. 
 
 MRS. MARIA 
 
 1 Neilson Poe to Mrs. Clemm. MS. The omitted portions are 
 of no interest. 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 347 
 
 Shortly after I?oe s death his remaining Writings 
 were published by the editors or friends who had 
 copies. To mention only the first issue in each 
 case, " Annabel Lee," the simplest and sweetest of 
 his ballads, appeared in the New York " Tribune," 
 " The Bells," that wonderful onomatopoetic experi 
 ment, in " Sartain s " for November, an essay " On 
 Critics and Criticism" in " Graham s " for January, 
 1850, and in October following, " The Poetic Prin 
 ciple " in " Sartain s." The press had few notices 
 of his loss ; and, had it not been foi? the intense en 
 ergy of Griswold s delineation of him in the " Trib 
 une," a piece of writing that has the power of ge 
 nius and cannot be forgotten while his memory 
 lives, there would have been little to mark his 
 death in contemporary papers. In consequence of 
 this attack, however, Willis made a kind defense 
 of his friend in the " Home Journal." Notwith 
 standing this incidental proof of Griswold s temper 
 and predisposition toward Poe, the latter s papers, 
 which contained ample materials for a biography, 
 were put into his hands. After having edited 
 two volumes of Poe s Works, Griswold prefixed his 
 notorious memoir to the third volume, and at a 
 later time published the fourth and last volume. 
 The editing was poorly done, and in consequence 
 there is at present no accurate or complete edition 
 of Poe s works, since later editors have taken Gris 
 wold s work as a basis. The memoir aroused a 
 stormy discussion ; the poet s friends, Wilmer, Neal, 
 
348 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 and Graham, had already come to his defense ; and 
 since then many others of his acquaintances* have 
 come forward from time to time to tell whatever 
 good they knew of him, so that there is at present 
 no fund of personal reminiscence about any other 
 American man of letters that can compare in full 
 ness, detail, and variety with that regarding Poe. 
 
 The story that has now been told, in which has 
 been substantially incorporated whatever knowl 
 edge of Poe was accessible, has shown, it is hoped, 
 the folly of any summary view of his character. 
 Where the fault lay those who are bold to take the 
 scales of justice may determine ; the simple fact is 
 that Poe, being highly endowed, well-bred, and ed 
 ucated better than his fellows, had more than once 
 fair opportunities, brilliant prospects, and groups 
 of benevolent, considerate, and active friends, and 
 repeatedly forfeited prosperity and even the homely 
 honor of an honest name. He ate opium and drank 
 liquor ; whatever was the cause, these were instru 
 ments of his ruin, and before half his years were 
 run they had done their work with terrible thor 
 oughness he was a broken man. He died un 
 der circumstances of exceptional ugliness, misery, 
 and pity, but not accidentally, for the end and 
 the manner of it were clearly near and inevitable. 
 He left a fame destined to long memory, and about 
 it has grown up an idealized legend, the elements 
 of which are not far to seek ; but in the first 
 lines of the literary history of a young nation, the 
 
THE END OF THE PLAY. 349 
 
 truth is better than a lie, however gilded, and in 
 the case of genius, that so easily gathers romantic 
 power over the heart and wins its devotion, candor 
 is a social virtue. On the roll of our literature 
 Poe s name is inscribed with the few foremost, and 
 in the world at large his genius is established as 
 valid among: all men. Much as he derived nurture 
 
 O 
 
 from other sources he was the son of Coleridge by 
 the weird touch in his imagination, by the principles 
 of his analytic criticism, and the speculative bent 
 of his mind. An artist primarily, whose skill, 
 helped by the finest sensitive and perceptive 
 powers in himself, was developed by thought, pa 
 tience, and endless self-correction into a subtle deft 
 ness of hand unsurpassed in its own work, he be 
 longed to the men of culture instead of those of 
 originally perfect power ; but being gifted with the 
 dreaming instinct, the myth-making faculty, the al 
 legorizing power, and with no other poetic element 
 of high genius, he exercised his art in a region of 
 vague feeling, symbolic ideas, and fantastic imagery, 
 and wrought his spell largely through sensuous ef 
 fects of color, sound, and gloom, heightened by 
 lurking but unshaped suggestions of mysterious 
 meanings. Now and then gleams of light and 
 stretches of lovely landscape shine out, but for the 
 most part his mastery was over dismal, supersti 
 tious, and waste places. In imagination, as in ac 
 tion, his was an evil genius; and in its realms of 
 revery he dwelt alone. Except the wife who idol- 
 
350 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 ized him and the mother who cared for him, no one 
 touched his heart in the years of his manhood, and 
 at no time was love so strong in him as to rule his 
 life ; as he was self-indulgent, he was self-absorbed, 
 and outside of his family no kind act, no noble af 
 fection, no generous sacrifice is recorded of him. 
 Many men, it is true, held him in kind regard, and 
 many women, subjected by his romantic sentiment, 
 remained loyal to his memory ; but these winning 
 attractions never overcame the subtle power within 
 that made him unable to establish a natural human 
 relation, to keep continuously on living terms with 
 any one, except the inmates of his family. Solitary 
 as he was, proud and selfish, how could he kindle 
 his works with the vital interest of humanity? 
 Other interests they have, but not this crowning 
 one which is the supreme excellence of the works 
 of men. Thus ever more remote from mankind ran 
 the currents of his life and genius, interminably 
 commingling, until their twin streams, glassing at 
 last the desolation they had so often prophetically 
 imaged, choked and stagnant in midway of their 
 course, sank into the waste. The pitiful justice of 
 Poe s fate, the dark immortality of his fame, were 
 accomplished. 
 
INDEX 
 
 OF THE PRINCIPAL NEWSPAPERS, PERIODICALS, AND 
 PROPER NAMES MENTIONED IN THE TEXT. 
 
 [In consulting this index for any particular poem, story, or article by Poe, 
 the references to the magazines he edited and the various collections of his 
 writings published by himself should also be carefully looked up.] 
 
 ALEXANDER, W. C., concerning Poe s 
 habits, 134. 
 
 Alexander s Weekly Messenger, 142. 
 
 Allan, John, adopts Poe, 15; attitude 
 toward Poe, 22, 53, 54, 02 ; letter to 
 Secretary of War, 42, 43 ; remarries, 
 56; death, 68. 
 
 Allan, Mrs. John, 14 ; her death, 38. 
 
 Arnold, Mrs., 3-5. 
 
 Arnold, Miss Elizabeth, first appear 
 ance on the stage, 4 ; her age, 6 
 note; marries David Poe, 8; birth 
 of William and Edgar, 11 ; death, 
 13, 14. 
 
 BLACKWELL, Miss ANNA, 310. 
 
 Bliss, Elam, publisher of Poe s poems, 
 58. 
 
 Boscovich, 29G. 
 
 Boston Gazette, appeal for Mrs. Poe s 
 benefit, 10. 
 
 Bransby, Dr., Poe s description of, 18. 
 
 Briggs, C. F., 216; associated with 
 Poe, 225 ; his opinion of Poe in let 
 ters to J. R. Lowell, 22G-229, 235- 
 239. 
 
 Broadway Journal, the, 225, 234, 235 ; 
 Poe becomes proprietor of, 243 ; last 
 issue of, 247. 
 
 Brooks, N. C., 54, 64, 108, 109. 
 
 Browning, Mrs. E. B., 219. 
 
 Bulwer, E. L., 91. 
 
 Burke, William, 20. 
 
 Burton, William E., as editor of the 
 Gentleman s Magazine, 114; his 
 quarrel with Poe, 126, 128-142. 
 
 Byron, influence on Poe, 33, 50. 
 
 CAMPBELL, MAJOR JOHN, 41. 
 Calderon, 122 note. 
 Carter, Dr., 337, 342. 
 
 Channing, W. E., 189. 
 
 Chateaubriand, influence on Poe, 51, 
 303. 
 
 Clarke, Joseph H., 19,20. 
 
 Clarke, Thomas C., joins with Poe to 
 publish the Stylus, 176, 182, 183; 
 reminiscences of Poe s home, 188. 
 
 Clemm, Mrs., Poe makes his home 
 with, 68 ; plan to start a boarding- 
 house, 78, 79, 98, 99 ; on Poe s tem 
 perance, 135 ; head of Poe s house 
 hold, 165 ; on Poe s home life, 301, 
 302. 
 
 Clemm, Virginia, 68; her marriage 
 with Poe, 75, 78, 97, 98; her beauty, 
 166 ; illness, 167-170 ; death, 277. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 51, 91 ; influence on 
 Poe, 93, 285. 
 
 Converse, Rev. F., 98. 
 
 Cooper, James Fenimore, 189. 
 
 DARLEY, F. O. C., to illustrate the 
 Stylus, 180; reminiscences of Poe, 
 181. 
 
 Dawes, Rufus, 52 ; Poe s article on, 
 176. 
 
 Dewey, Dr. Orville, 257. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 150, 198. 
 
 Didier, E., on Poe s marriage, 77 note. 
 
 Disraeli, influence on Poe, 85, 91. 
 
 Dollar Newspaper, the, 188, 189. 
 
 Dow, J. E., cares for Poe in Washing 
 ton, 182. 
 
 Duane, Willis, his accusation against 
 Poe, 204-207. 
 
 Duval, P. S., concerning Poe s learn 
 ing lithography, 143 note. 
 
 EASTERN HERALD AND GAZETTE OF 
 
 MAINE, 5. 
 Ellet, Mrs. E. F., 258, 262. 
 
352 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ellis, Powhattan, 53. 
 Ellis, Col. Thomas H., 69. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 157. 
 English, Thomas Dunn, 265, 266. 
 Enquirer, The, 13. 
 
 FARADAY, 296. 
 
 Fay, Thomas S., his Norman Leslie 
 
 reviewed by Poe, 86. 
 Fisher, E. Burke, 113. 
 Francis, Dr., 258. 
 FuUer, Margaret, 258, 262. 
 
 Gentleman s Magazine, the, character 
 of, 114, 115 ; Foe s editorship, 115, 
 123-126 ; Graham assumes control, 
 143. See Graham s Magazine. 
 
 Gift, the, 186. 
 
 Gove, Mrs. Mary, 258 ; reminiscences 
 of Poe, 272, 274. 
 
 Gowans, Wm., on Poe s habits, 108. 
 
 Graham s Magazine, 143; Poe s editor 
 ship of, 149, 160, 171, 196. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, his endorsement of 
 Poe s note, 243. 
 
 Green, his company of players, 6, 7, 12. 
 
 Griswold, Capt. H. W., his letter rec 
 ommending Poe, 40. 
 
 Griswold, R. W., relations with Poe, 
 171-175, 192, 195, 244, 245 ; descrip 
 tion of Poe s home, 186, 187 ; en 
 gages to edit Pos s works, 337 ; his 
 memoir, 347, 348. 
 
 Gwynn, Wm., 43, 44, 63, 64. 
 
 HALLECK, FITZ-GREENE, 189. 
 
 Hawthorne, N., 158: Poe s estimate 
 of, 280. 
 
 Herschel, 83. 
 
 Hewitt, John H., 52; description of 
 Poe, 68. 
 
 Hirst, 53 note, 241. 
 
 Hoffman, C. P., 312. 
 
 Hopkins, C. D., 6, 7. 
 
 Home, Poe s praises of, 196. 
 
 House, Col. James, requests Poe s 
 discharge from the army, 38, 39. 
 
 Howard, Lieutenant J., his letter rec 
 ommending Poe, 40. 
 
 Hoyt, 241. 
 
 INDEPENDENT CHRONICLE AND UNIVER 
 SAL ADVERTISER, 3. 
 
 KENNEDY, JOHN P. , 65-77 ; concerning 
 the reason of Poe s leaving the Mes 
 senger, 102. 
 
 Knickerbocker, the, on American crit 
 icism, 89. 
 
 LAFAYETTE, 3. 
 Laplace, 296. 
 
 Latrobe, J. H. B., reminiscences of 
 
 Poe, 65-67. 
 Lawsou, James, 258. 
 Lea & Blanchard, publishers of Poe s 
 
 Tales, 116, 117, 164, 165. 
 Lewis, Mrs. S., 312 ; her last meeting 
 
 with Poe, 333. 
 Longfellow, H. W., Poe s charges of 
 
 plagiarism against, 124, 157, 231 ; 
 
 Poe s estimate of, 159, 160; The 
 
 Waif, 224, 230 ; his opinion of Poe s 
 
 criticism, 232. 
 Lord, W. W., 232. 
 Lowell, J. R., Poe s letters to, 176 
 
 et seq. ; his sketch of Poe, 207, 222 ; 
 
 meeting with Poe, 234. 
 Lynch, Miss Anne C., 258. 
 
 MAGRUDER, ALLAN B., reminiscences 
 
 of Poe, 54, 55. 
 Massachusetts Mercury, 4. 
 Mclntosh, Miss Maria, 310. 
 Meunier, Mine. I., translates Poe s 
 
 Tales, 283. 
 Mirror, the, on Poe s criticisms, 87, 
 
 88 ; advertises the Penn, 175 ; Poe 
 
 assistant editor, 218; Poe s libel 
 
 suit against, 266. 
 Moore, Thomas, influence on Poe, 
 
 ol. 
 Moran, Dr. J. J., account of Poe s 
 
 death, 343-345. 
 Morell, Voyages of, Poe s indebtedness 
 
 to, 106. 
 
 NEAL, John, 44. 
 
 OAKIE, DR., 317. 
 
 Opal, the, 189. 
 
 Osgood, Mrs. F. S., 259-263. 
 
 PABODIE, W. J., 317, 319. 
 
 Paulding, J. K., 106. 
 
 Penn Magazine, the, cause of Poe s 
 trouble with Burton, 135-137 ; pro 
 spectus, 145-148 ; scheme of, re 
 vived, 160, 175. See Stylus. 
 
 Pioneer, the, 177, 183. 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, parentage, 1-14 ; 
 date of birth, 11 note; adopted by 
 John Allan, 15 ; at school in England, 
 16-19 ; youthful characteristics, 20- 
 23 ; at the University of Virginia, 25- 
 28 ; in Boston, 30-36 ; in the army 
 37-39 ; misstatements concerning 
 his age, 53 ; at West Point, 54-57 ; 
 rupture with Mr. Allan, 62, 69 ; in 
 Baltimore, 64-74 ; first evidences of 
 intemperance, 72, 73 ; in Richmond, 
 74-103 ; marriage, 75, 78, 97, 98 ; as 
 a critic, 86-91, 153, 160, 266-271 ; 
 poetic_ihory, 91-94, 159; goes to 
 
INDEX. 
 
 353 
 
 New York, 104; to Philadelphia, 
 108; employed by Burton, 115; 
 quarrel with Burton and discussion 
 of habits, 120, 128-142; employed 
 by Graham, 149 ; aim and method in 
 narration, 152 ; household, 165-167 ; 
 wife s illness, 167-171 ; plans for the 
 Stylus, see Stylus ; trip to Washing 
 ton, 181-183 ; as a lecturer, 195 ; 
 goes to New York, 199 ; on the Mir 
 ror, 218 ; lectures before N. Y. His 
 torical Society. 223, 224; on the 
 Broadway Journal, 228, 247, 248; 
 before the Boston Lyceum, 241-243 ; 
 estimate of his poetry, 249-25.7 ; his 
 acquaintance with the "New York 
 literati, 257-263; removal to Ford- 
 ham, 262 ; home life at Fordham, 
 271-276 ; his wife s death, 277 ; his 
 illness, 278, 279 ; his lecture, Eu 
 reka, 284, 285 ; his opinion of Eure 
 ka, 285, 300, 301, 312 ; trip to Rich 
 mond, 311; his love affairs, 308-327 ; 
 despondency, 332 ; last trip to the 
 South, 333 ; his proposed marriage 
 with Mrs. Shelton, 337-341; de 
 parture for New York, 341, 342 ; last 
 illness, 343, 346. 
 
 WORKS. AL AARAAF (1829), 47 note; 
 estimate of, 48-52 ; Annabel Lee, 
 347; Assignation, The, 81, 232; 
 Automatic Chess Plai/er, The, 96, 
 97 ; Bells, The, 302-304, 328, 347 ; 
 Berenice, 70, 80, 81, 232 ; Black Cat, 
 The, 189 ; Bon-Bon, 85, 232 ; Bridal 
 Ballad, 240; Business Man, The, 
 240 ; Cask of Amontillado, The, 
 275 ; Catholic Hymn, 240 ; City of 
 the Sea, 240; Coliseum, The, 240; 
 CONCHOLOGIST S FIRST BOOK, THE, 
 109-113 ; Conqueror Worm, The, 
 186, 232 ; Critical History of Amer 
 ican Literature, 215 ; Critics and 
 Criticism, 328, 347; Devil in the 
 Belfry, The, 246 ; Diddling consid 
 ered as one of the Fine Arts, 240 ; 
 Domain of Arnheim, The, 328-330; 
 Dream, A, 240 ; Dreamland, 207 ; 
 Due de V Omelette, The, 80, 240; 
 El Dorado, 328 ; Eleonora, 168-170, 
 332; Epimanes, 80; Estelle, 301; 
 Eulalie, 240 ; EUREKA, first planned, 
 280 ; elaborated, 283, 284 ; publica 
 tion of, 285 ; estimate of, 286-301 ; 
 Fairyland, 123, 241; Fall of the 
 House of Usher, 120 - 122 ; Four 
 Beasts in One, 246; Flaccus, 186; 
 Gold Bug, The, 188, 189; Hans 
 Pfaall, 70, 83 ; Hop Frog, ,T_ 8 ; Jlmr 
 to write <t lilackn-ooil. Article, 240. 
 Island of the Fay, The, 240 ; J.*rti- 
 fel, 240 ; Julius Rodman. 125, 126 ; 
 23 
 
 King Pest, 80, 240 ; Lander s Cot 
 tage, 327 ; Landscape Garden, The, 
 240; Lenore, 186,240; Ligeia, H8- 
 120 ; Lionizing, 232 ; lAterary Life 
 of Thin<jtim-Bob, 220, 240; Literati 
 of New York, The, 263, 268 ; Loss 
 of Breath, 80, 246 ; Man Who was 
 Used Up, The, 189, 240 ; Marginalia, 
 221, 203, 275, 301; Masque of the 
 Red: Death, The, 240 ; Mellonta Tau- 
 ta, 327 ; Mesmeric Revelations, 214 ; 
 Metzengerstein, 80 ; Morella, 80, 232 ; 
 Morning on the Wissnhiccon, 189; 
 MS. Found in a Bottle, 83, 240 ; Mur 
 ders in the Rue Morgue, 150, 189, 
 283 ; Mystery of Marie Roget, 176 ; 
 Mystification, 246 ; Never Bet the 
 Devil your Head, 240 : Notes upon 
 English Verse, 179, 186 ; Oblong 
 Box, The, 220, 246; Our Amateur 
 Poets, 186, 189 ; Our Contributors, 
 189; Oval Portrait, The, 232 ; 
 Pcean, 186 ; Peter Snooks, 232 ; Phi 
 losophy of Composition, The, 263 ; 
 Philosophy of Furniture, 232 ; Pit 
 and the Pendulum, The, 186, 232 ; 
 Poetic Principle, The, 311, 320, 334, 
 347 ; Poets and Poetry of America, 
 The, 172, 195 ; POEMS (1831), 58-61 ; 
 Politian, 70 ; Power of Words, The, 
 240 ; Premature Burial, The, 232 ; 
 Purloined Letter, The, 221 ; Quacks 
 of Helicon, 154 ; Rationale of Verse, 
 The, 186, 312 ; RAVEN AND OTHER 
 POEMS, THE (1845), 248-257 ; Raren, 
 The, 221, 222 ; Romance, 240. Sci 
 ence, 240; Shadow. 80-82,232: Si 
 lence, 123, 240 ; Sleeper, The, 232 ; 
 Some Words with a Mummy, 246 ; 
 Song ("I saw thee "), 241 ; Spec 
 tacles, The, 246 ; Spirits of the Dead, 
 123 ; Tale of Jerusalem, A , 80, 240 ; 
 Tale of the Ragged Mountains. A, 
 207, 246; TALES (1845), 239 note; 
 Tales of the Folio Club, 80-85; 
 TALES OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARA 
 BESQUE (1840), 115 ; TAMERLANE AND 
 OTHER POEMS (1827), 30-36; Tell- 
 Tale Heart, The, 185, 240 ; The 1002 
 Tale, 222; Thou art the Man, 220; 
 Three Sundays in a week, 232 ; To 
 
 ("The bowers whereat"), 
 
 241 ; To Annie, 328 ; To F , 
 
 232 ; To Ian the in Heaven, 123 ; To 
 M. L. S , 280 ; To My Moth 
 er, 328 ; To the Hirer , 123, 241 ; 
 
 Travels in Arabia Petrcca, 104, 105; 
 Ulalume, 281-283; V<it<-nth>t, A, 
 328 ; Valley of Unrest, The, 241 ; 
 Williinn. Wilton, 122, 240 ; Why 
 the Little Frmrhinnn Wears his 
 Hand in a Sling, 240. 
 
354 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Poe, David, 1, 2, 6, 7 ; his marriage, 
 
 8 : uncertainty about his death. 12, 
 
 18. 
 
 Poe, Gen. David, his character, 2, 3. 
 Poe, George, 79. 
 Poe, Neilson, 75; his account of Poe s 
 
 death, 346. 
 Poe, William, 11, 14. 
 Poe, Rosalie, 13, 14, 334. 
 Preston, James C., recommends Poe 
 
 for West Point, 41, 42. 
 
 REID, MAYNE, 165; reminiscences of 
 
 Poe s home, 187. 
 Royster, Miss S. E., reminiscences of 
 
 Poe, 24, 311 ; Poe s proposal of mar 
 
 riage to, 337, 341. 
 
 SARTAIN, JOHN, 333. 
 
 Saturday Evening Post, the, 143, 149, 
 
 172. 
 Saturday Museum, publishes a sketch 
 
 of Poe. 181 ; attack on Griswold of, 
 
 195. 
 
 Saturday Visiter, 65. 
 Schlegel, 96, 97. 
 Shapley, R. E., 301. 
 Sheltou, Mrs. S. E. , see Royster, Miss 
 
 S. E. 
 Shew, Mrs. M. L., 275 ; intimacy with 
 
 Poe, 277-279, 302, 304-307. 
 Smith, Mrs. E. O., 258. 
 Snodgrass, Dr. J. E., Poe s letters to, 
 
 127 et seq.; has Poe taken to the 
 
 hospital, 343. 
 
 Snowden s Lady s Companion, 176. 
 Southern Literary Messenger, 70 ; 
 
 Poe s editorship of, 74-100. 
 Spirit of the Times, the, charges Poe 
 
 with plagiarism, 189. 
 
 Stanard, Mrs. Jane Stith, 23.. 
 Stoddard, R. H.. on the date of Poe s 
 
 birth, 11 note. 
 Stylus, the, 176; plans for, 180, 186, 
 
 284,332. 
 
 THOMAS, CALVIN F. S., 30, 36. 
 Thomas, F. W., 161 ; Poe s letters to, 
 
 161 et seq. 
 
 Thompson, J. R., 311. 
 Thomson, Sir William, 296. 
 Tomlin, John, 190. 
 
 UNITED STATES MILITARY MAGAZINE, 
 143. 
 
 VALENTINE, EDWARD, 319. 
 Virginia Patriot, 13. 
 
 WALTERS, Miss, 242. 
 
 Ward, Thomas, 186. 
 
 Watson, Henry G., 227. 
 
 Weiss, Mrs. S. A., reminiscences of 
 Poe, 334-337. 
 
 White, T. W., 70 ; relations with Poe, 
 100-103. 
 
 Whitman, Sarah H., 62; Poe s love 
 affair with, 308-327. 
 
 Wilmer, Lambert A. , 65 ; intimacy 
 with Poe. 68, 69 ; on Poe s habits, 
 135 ; Poe s accusation against, 191, 
 192 ; defends Poe, 347. 
 
 Willis, N. P., 197, 218; on Poe s lec 
 ture, 224 ; on Ulalume, 281 ; de 
 fense of Poe by, 347. 
 
 Worth, Lieut. Col. W. J., letter of, 
 recommending Poe, 40, 41. 
 
 YANKEE AND BOSTON LITERARY GA 
 ZETTE, THE, 44-47. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 3, line 18. For une coeur read un cceur." 
 Page 14, line 17. For "McKenzie" read "MacKenzie." 
 Page 30, foot-note. For " Shepard " read " Shepherd." 
 

 
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