Text: George W. Eveleth, “Edgar A. Poe,” Portland Transcript (Portland, ME), vol. 14, no. 8, June 8, 1850, p. 60, col. 3

[page 60, column 3, continued:]

For the Transcript.

Let those persons who are “without spot,” and who have been eager to “cast the first stone” at the drunkard's grave of Edgar A. Poe, read the following before casting again. — It is an extract from a letter received from Mr. Poe in January 1848: — ”You ask me if I will not hint to you what was the ‘terrible evil’ which caused the ‘irregularities so profoundly lamented.’ Yes, I will do more than hint. — This evil was the greatest which can befall man. Six years ago a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. Her life was dispaired 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 the year the vessel broke again — I went through precisely the same scene. Again, in about a year afterward. Then again — again — again — and even once again, at varying intervals. 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 pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive — nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how often and how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had indeed nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure when I found one in the death of my wife. This I can and do endure as becomes a man — it was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope and despair which I could not longer have endured without total loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, then, I receive a new, but oh God I how melancholy an existence!”

G. W. EVELETH.