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ORIGINAL ARTICLES.
Written for the Portland Transcript.
EDGAR A. POE.
You were kind enough, Mr. Editor, to insert in your paper my item referring to Mr. Poe, and to drop a friendly word yourself to his memory. His memory is deserving of that friendly word; yea, of many friendly, endearing, reverential words, his defamers — the right Reverend Dr. Rufus Wilmot Griswold among them, to the contrary notwithstanding. I have lately been looking over the evidence in proof of the heinous wickedness of his ways; and — what is it? Echo answers, “what is it?” — There is no authority to refer to, other than Griswold's — unless it be that of some nameless newspaper-scribbler who was in want of a penny to buy him some porridge — to show that “there seemed to him no moral susceptibility, and little or nothing of the true point of honor,” or that he wished to succeed merely “that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.” Indeed, there are numerous witnesses, persons who knew him well, and whose testimonies are to be relied on — such men as N. P. Willis, George R. Graham, John Neal, and many others that might be named — to prove precisely the opposite of this. Willis testifies of him thus: —
“Some four or five years since, when editing a paper in this city, Mr. Poe was employed by us, for several months, as critic and sub-editor. This was our first personal acquaintance with him. He resided with his wife and mother at Fordham, a few miles out of town, but was at his desk in the office, from nine in the morning till the evening paper went to press. With the highest admiration for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. With his pale, beautiful and intellectual face as a re minder of what genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him always with deferential courtesy. With a prospect of taking the lead in another periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his employment with us, and, through all this considerable period, we had seen but one presentiment of the man — a quiet, patient, industrious, and most gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good feeling by his unvarying deportment and ability. He frequently called on us afterwards at our place of business, and we met him often in the street — invariably the same sad-mannered, winning and refined gentleman, such as we had always known him. It was by rumor only, up to the day of his death, that we knew of any other development of character.”
The following is a small part of Graham's testimony: —
“Literature with him was religion: and he, its high-priest, with a whip of scorpions scourged the money-changers from the temple. In all else he had the docility and kind-heartedness of a child. No man was more quickly touched by a kindness — none more prompt to atone for an injury. For three or four years I knew him intimately, and for eighteen months saw him almost daily ; much of the time writing or conversing at the same desk; knowing all his hopes, his fears, and little annoyances of life, as well as his high-hearted struggles with adverse fate — yet he was always the same polished gentleman — the quiet, unobtrusive, thoughtful scholar — the devoted husband — frugal in his personal expenses — punctual and unvaried in his industry — and the soul of honor, in all his transactions.”
I add a few words to the same effect, taken from a letter in my possession, received, gust, 1847, from the editor of the New York Weekly Universe: —
“Mr. Poe, in our estimation, holds a high rank, regared [[regarded]] either as an elegant tale writer, a a poet, or a critic. He will be more fairly judged after his death, than during his life. His habits have been shockingly irregular, but what amendment they have undergone within the past six months, we cannot say, for Mr. Poe, during that time, has been in the country. We know him personally — he is a gentleman — a man of fine taste and of warm impulses, with a generous heart.”
A word touching those “shockingly irregular habits.” There's not a particle of reliable evidence to prove that he drank subsequently to the death of his wife, which was in the early part of the year 1847. But there is evidence, sufficient to satisfy my mind, at least, that he did not drink at all after this, up to the time [column 2:] when the report of his own death came. I have a letter from George H. Colton, at the time editor of the American Whig Review, now dead — written in October, 1847, in which he says: —
“I hope Mr. Poe has done drinking. I don't think he has drank anything this long time. — He, is living in a quiet way, out in the beautiful County of Westchester.”
Mr. Poe himself, wrote to me in February, 1848, thus:
“The editor of the Weekly Universe speaks kindly, and I find no fault with his representing my habits as ‘shockingly irregular.’ He could not have had the ‘personal acquaintance’ with me of which he writes ; but has fallen into a very natural error. The fact is thus My habits are rigorously abstemious, and I omit nothing of the natural regimen requisite for health: — i. e. — I rise early, eat moderately, drink nothing but water, and take abundant and regular exercise in the open air. But this is my private life — my studious and literary life — and of course escapes the eye of the world. The desire for society comes upon me only when I have become excited by drink. Then only I go — that is, at these times only I have been in the practice of going among my friends; who seldom or in fact never, having seen me unless excited, take it for granted that I am always so. Those who really know me, know better. But enough of this: the causes which maddened me to the drinking point are no more, and I am done drinking forever. My health is better — best — I was never so well.”
He wrote to me again in June, 1849, three days before his departure south — and his manuscript and his style betrayed then, any thing else than a hand and brain paralyzed with alcohol. Next, we bad news, some three or four months afterwards, that he had joined himself with a band of the Sons of Temperance, in his native town. Then, but a few weeks subsequently to this, came, as upon the pinions of the hurrying tempest, the report of his death by Delirium Tremens! I venture to pronounce this report a piece of newspaper humbuggery, to be credited only by quidnuncs and uncharitable ones. Yours truly, Mr. Editor,
G. W. EVELETH
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - PT, 1850] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Edgar A. Poe (G. W. Eveleth, 1850)