Text: George Lippard, “[Edgar Allan Poe],” Quaker City (Philadelphia, PA), vol. 2, no. 5, p. 2, cols. 3-4

[page 2, column 3, continued:]

EDGAR ALLAN POE died, in the city of Baltimore, on Sunday, nearly two weeks ago. He is dead, and we are conscious that words are fruitless to express our feelings in relation to his death. Only a few weeks ago we took him by the hand, in our office, and heard him express himself in these words — “I am sick — sick at heart. I have come to see you before I leave for Virginia. I am home-sick for Virginia. I don’t know why it is, but when my foot is once in Virginia, I feel myself a new man. It is a pleasure to me to go into her woods — to lay myself upon her sod — even to breathe her air.” These words, the manner [column 4:] in which they were spoken, made a deep impression. They were the words of a man of genius, by the world, trampled upon by the men whom he had loaded with favors, and disappointed in every turn of life. Poe spent the day with us. He talked of the time when we had first met, in his quiet home in Seventh street, Philadelphia, when it was made happy by the presence of his wife — a pure and beautiful woman. He talked also of his last book, “Eureka,” well named a “Prose Poem,” and spoke much of projects for the future. When we parted from him in the cars, he held our hand for a long time, and seemed loth to leave us — there was in his voice, look and manner, something of a Presentiment that his strange and stormy life was near its close. His look and his words were vividly impressed upon our memory, until we heard of his death, and the news of that event brought every look and word home to us as keenly as though only a moment had passed since we parted from him. We frankly confess that, on this occasion, we cannot imitate a number of Editors who have taken upon themselves to speak of Poe, and his faults, in a tone of condescending pity! That Poe had faults we do not deny. He was a harsh, a bitter, and sometimes an unjust critic. But he was a man of genius — a man of high honor — a man of good heart. He was not an intemperate man. When he drank, the first drop maddened him; hence his occasional departures from the line of strict propriety. But he was not an habitual drinker. As an author, his name will live, while three-fourths of the bastard critics and mongrel authors of the present day go down to nothingness and night. And the men who now spit upon his grave; by way of retaliation for some injury which they imagine they have received from Poe living, would do well to remember, that it is only an idiot or a coward who strikes the cold forehead of a corpse. On some other occasion — when the lapse of time shall allow us to express ourselves freely — we shall speak more fully of the gifted dead. For the present we can only say, that his death adds another name to that scroll on which neglect and misfortune has already written the names of JOHN LOFLAND AND SUMNER LINCOLN FAIRFIELD.