Text: Anonymous, “Two Lives of Edgar A. Poe,” New York Times (New York, NY), vol. XXX, no. 9087, October 24, 1880, p. 10, cols. 1-3

[page 10, column 1:]

POE'S MANY BIOGRAPHERS — PARENTAGE AND QUARREL WITH MR. ALLAN — ORIGIN OF “THE RAVEN” AND “THE BELLS” — LETTER FROM MRS. WHITMAN — THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM — POVERTY AND HIS WIFE'S DEATH — POE'S CHARACTER.

The fame of Edgar Poe, it must be owned, rests on a slight foundation. Two or three poems, as many short stories, and a few criticisms constitute his chief titles to immortality, and if these do not reach positive genius they certainly show talent of that high order where it is difficult to distinguish the boundary line between one and the other.

But for them he could hardly be called a popular author, even in his own country. The number of American readers who are familiar with more than “The Bells,” and “Annabel Lee,” among his poems; “The Gold Bug,” and the group to which “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” belongs among his tales, and the criticisms of Hawthorne, — Dickens, and Mrs. Browning, is not large. And vet there is no American author of whom so much has been written as of Poe, and perhaps the reason lies as much in the wide fame of these few works as in the sad, romantic, and entangled story of the author's clouded life. Few men, if asked to name the best-known American poems, would give “The Raven” place second to any. School-books and platform-readers alone have carried its weird melody to almost every ear. In England and Scotland more editions have been printed than in the United States. In France, the bibliography includes more than a dozen titles, one of them a magnificent illustrated folio print of “The Raven.” Edition after edition has appeared in Germany, translations have been made into Spanish and Italian, and two years ago the poems were brought out in Australia. And yet, with all that has been written of him, no author of this century has been more unfortunate in his biographers. Moderation, discernment, and a capacity to bring somewhat of consistency out of contradictions, and to detect falsehood where it exists, has been singularly wanting in the most of them. Griswold, the first, and, all things considered, perhaps the worst, possessed hardly greater disqualifications for his work. than some of those who have sought to defend him. Works about Poe have been written which, were he alive to read them, might well make him beg to be saved from his friends.

Mr. Ingram has been known for some 15 years as a special student of the life of Poe. Six years ago he wrote a memoir to preface the American edition of his works after Griswold had done duty there for a quarter of a century. He has since published in England and America many short articles on obscure points in Poe's life, and has been known to possess valuable collection of Poe's manuscripts and books. In the work before us are embodied the results of these long labors. Mr. Stoddard also has been known as a student of Poe, and a memoir by him was printed in 1874 as an introduction to the poetical works in London. His present memoir is new and contains information not printed in the first. Mr. Ingram writes as a champion of Poe against his detractors, though he is not blind to all his failings. Mr. Stoddard takes the ground neither of champion nor of detractor, and in brief space tells what is actually known of Poe, the bad as well as the good. The value of Mr. Ingram's book lies in its copiousness, no single work containing so much of what is extant in periodicals and private collections; that of Mr. Stoddard in the judicial spirit which pervades it, the work being almost the complete biography to which the term judicial could safely be applied. There is much in both to interest the public, much that most readers never saw before.

Mr. Stoddard, closes his memoir with a few words from Dr. Johnson — apparently from the Life of Savage’. saying Poe's life has been variously related, and all that we know with certainty is that he was poor. The clouded points in Pop's life are still many, and it is doubtful if all’ will ever be cleared away. But these volumes help to remove some of them. It is not known with certainty when he was born. Once he wrote Griswold that it was in 1811; again, that 1818 was the year: For 20 gears 1811 was accepted and Baltimore was given as the place. But sombody [[somebody]] found in an old number of Poe's Broadway Journal the words: “We like Boston. We were born there, and perhaps it is just as well not to mention that we are heartily ashamed of the fact” — a statement afterward verified as true. The year has been fixed as 1809, instead of 1811, but whether Jan. 19 or Feb. 19 was the day remains still in doubt. Mr. Stoddard says Feb. 19; Mr. Ingram Jan. 19. Mr. Stoddard's reasons for taking January are good enough. Who Poe's mother was is another unanswered question. She was born, Mr. Ingram says, at sea, and her mother died soon afterward. Many wild stories lave been abroad respecting her parentage, one of the wildest being that she was a daughter of Benedict Arnold. Her name, however, was Arnold — Elizabeth Arnold — but whether she was a maiden or a widow when she married David is uncertain. Both parents made a livelihood on the stage. and lied when Edgar was a child. The real cause of Poe's quarrel with Mr. Allan, the rich Virginian who adopted and reared him, will, perhaps, never be known He was the only child of the Allan household, and was indulged in every pleasure and luxury that the wealth of fond parents could afford. They educated him in England, gave him dogs and horses, and lavished care and affection upon him. He was sent to the University at Charlottesville, and there contracted heavy debts in gambling. Mr. Allan at times was subject to sudden outbursts temper; he refused to pay the gambling debts- some $2,000. A violent altercation ensued, the final result of which was that Poe hastily left the house. Mrs. Allan, who was Poe's best friend, died not long afterward. Mr. Allan married again; children were born, and when the rich old planter died he did not leave 8 mill of his money to young Poe, now adrift on the world and seeking a livelihood by his pen. People who knew all the circumstances of this famous quarrel have said that Poe in the first instance, at least, was not to blame. and it has been urged, with good reason, that the debts which Poe had contracted afforded no just ground to Mr. Allan for casting off a son whom he had without restraint in prodigal Long years afterward Poe wrote to Mrs. Whitman of what he called his “Quixotic sense of the honorable,” and said it was in consequence of this that in early life he deliberately threw away a large fortune rather than endure a trivial wrong.”

Mr. Ingram gives something new in the history of Poe's best-known poem. Efforts have often been made to trace the origin of “The Raven” to personal experience. One writer has found it in the last illness of Poe's wife, who was once: erroneously thought to be dead, a sense of remorse at some wrong he had done her, or fancied he had done her, having suggested the theme. In an old number of the New Mirror, to which paper Poe for a time was contributor, Mr. Ingram has found a poem by Albert Pike, well-known writer. called which Mr. Pike had written after sitting up late at study, the thought of suddenly losing her who slept near him having crossed his mind in the stillness of midnight. The refrain forever Isadore” occurs in this poem at the end of each stanza, and the following stanza, fairly representative of the entire work, will show how tar it suggests “The Raven:”

In “Isadore,” also, there is a bird which “sits and sings a melancholy strain:” not a raven, however, but a bird. Poe got. his raven, Mr. Ingram thinks, from “Barnaby Rudge.” He once said he thought Dickens might have made more of the bird in that story. “Its might have been prophetically heard in the course of the poem was originally written for Colton's American Review, a Whig journal, and appeared in the number for February, 1845, under the name “ —— Quarles,” with a long prose introduction, which both Mr. Stoddard and Mr. Ingram think was [column 2:] either written by Poe or inspired by him. Mr. Ingram, however, that N. P. Willis got an advance proof of the poem for his Evening Mirror, where it appeared on the 20th of January, before the number of the American Review came out with a statement that Poe was its author — a fact which has escaped other biographers, and raises the interesting question, which was the real first edition, Mr. Willis's or Mr. Colton's? The poem appeared substantially as it is now known, the only notable change being in the eleventh stanza, where the following lines are used instead of those which now close the stanza:

It was in the Summer of 1848, while living at Fordham, that Poe wrote the first rough draft of “The Bells” not, however, at his own house, but in that of Mrs. Shew, one of the most devoted friends he and his family found in New-York. He came in that day, Mrs. Shew relates in Mr. Ingram's work, and said he had to write a poem, but complained of having no feeling, no sentiment, no inspiration.” She persuaded him to drink some tea, which he drank in the conservatory, the windows of which were open and admitted the sound of neighboring church bells. “Here is paper,” she said playfully, but Poe declined it. so dislike the noise of bells he answered, cannot write. I have no am exhausted.” She then took up the pen, and, pretending to mimic his style, wrote down the words: “The Bells. By E. A. Poe,” and began: “The bells, the little silver bells,” Poe taking the pen at this point and finishing the stanza. She then suggested for the next stanza, “The heavy iron bells,” and this also he expanded into a stanza, Both were copied on a new sheet by Poe and headed, “By Mrs. M. L. Shew,” he remarking that the poem was hers, That night Poe was taken ill: his mind was injured “from want of food and A physician called and said: He has heart disease, and will die early in Early in the following year Poe finished Bells.” To Annie” he writes: “Yesterday I wrote five pages, and the day before 8 poem considerably longer than ‘The I call it ‘The He thinks it will appear in Colton's American Review, but it did not: it first came out in Sartain's Magazine, and Colton apparently had declined it, perhaps on the ground that he was unwilling to pay for it. Three versions of it were sent to Sartain from time to time, and were paid for. Mr. Stoddard gives the first version, which consists of only eighteen lines. It is this, apparently, to which Mr. Ingram refers, but he does not give the poem, although the manuscript is in his possession. Another doubtful point in the life of Poe, and one which has engaged the attention of nearly all his ographers, is the charge of plagiarism in his Conchologist's First Book, published in 1839. Mr. Stoddard makes an extremely interesting contribution to this subject. He has obtained from Mr. Philes a copy of Capt. Brown's work, from which it is charged that Poe stole his; and prints the titles of each, with extracts in parallel columns. In eight pages he certainly makes out a bad case for somebody. In Mr. Ingram's work is printed Poe's denial of this charge as totally false.” He says he wrote the work in conjunction with two Philadelphia Professors, his name being put to it as best known and most likely to aid its circulation.” He wrote the preface and introduction, he says, and translated from Cuvier the accounts of the animals. Mr. Stoddard does not give any preface from Brown — presumably there was none to give — but the ideas in Brown's introduction it must be owned, very like Poe's. The accounts of the animals correspond not only in fact, but usually in words; but Brown, as well as Poe, may have translated from Cuvier.

During the last illness of his wife, Poe's poverty was melancholy enough. One person who visited them. found her lying on a bed of straw with white sheets and the poet's greatcoat for a covering. Poe and Mrs. Clemm held her hands and feet to keep them warm, and a large tortoise-shell cat slept at her side and seemed conscious of its great usefulness. When the wife died; Mrs. Shew gave them great assistance. “But for her,” writes Mrs. Clemm, my darling Virginia would have been laid in her grave in cotton. I can never tell my gratitude that my darling was entombed in lovely linen. Just before the poet died, brighter days than he had ever known since he left Mr. Allan's house, seemed to be hand for this unfortunate man, who, it is said, never earned a dollar except by his pen. Engagements to write are pouring in upon me every day,” he says in January, 1849 (?) He had two proposals within a week from Boston. Fifty printed pages had gone to the Southern Literary Messenger. He had made engagements with every magazine in America except one. The least price he is to get for a page is $5, and he can easily average one and a half pages a day. But magazines in that time did not always pay their debts. Two months later he says: All seems to be frustrated — at least for the present.” One magazine had failed, then another. The American Review was forced to stop paying for contributions; likewise the Democratic. Another, from which he had been promised $10 per week, pleaded poverty and declined to receive more articles. The Southern Literary Messenger owed him a great deal, “but cannot pay just yet.” Altogether he is reduced to Sartain and both very precarious.” In June he left New-York never to return, and in Baltimore, as the world knows, his restless and unhappy spirit passed away in the following October, leaving Mrs. Clemm: sincerely desolate and inconsolable. When Mrs. Clemm died, in 1871, she had reached four-score.

Mr. Ingram devotes an entire chapter to Poe's so-called second visit to Europe — made in 1827, after the quarrel with Mr. Allan — an incident in his career which other biographers have rejected as untrue, the poet having been confounded with his brother, who did make such a visit. Mr. Ingram bases his account on memoranda made at the poet's request” during a dangerous illness shortly after his wife died, and sees no reason for doubting the accuracy of this story any more than others told by the poet. Unfortunately, Poe was not over-scrupulous in telling the truth about himself. It is well enough known what errors he permitted Mr. Lowell to make in the sketch of him which Mr. Lowell wrote for Graham. Mr. Ingram admits he has no means of discovering what Poe did in Europe, but hints that the cause of Greece against the Turks, in which Byron a few years earlier had died, was in some way connected with it.

Both biographers note the influence of Lord Byron on those of Poe's early productions which were written in, Byron's last years or soon after his death, when his influence was still in the ascendant. Mr. Ingram thinks one of them was inspired by Dream Mr. Stoddard that another caught its impulse from The Deformed Transformed.” And it will be interesting here to recall how much there is of similarity in the lives of these two poets. Both lost their father and mother before they became of age, Poe being practically twice an orphan. Both in early life were petted and, indulged to an which only the strongest natures could bear with safety, the one by the public, the other by his adopted parents. Both found themselves suddenly famous, Byron after cantos I and II of Childe Harold” appeared, Poe after “The Raven.” Both were by nature ill-formed. to fraternize with men, and all their lives long were hopelessly at war with circumstances. Both had an uncommon facility in making enemies; both were proud of their feats at swimming, Byron in the Hellespont, Poe against a strong tide in the river James; both when young fell in love with women older than themselves, and Poe, after the object of his affections died, used to visit her grave alone at midnight; both craved for friendship, but could find few friends of the kind they wished or could keep; both died young and left behind them’ reputations for evil which no man could envy them. Biographers they both had in great abundance, and the lies told of Poe were, perhaps, no baser than those told of Byron, or more difficult for future writers to disprove. There are, however, many limitations to the comparison aside from the wide difference in their merits as poets.

With all Byron's professed hatred of men he really had at heart more humanity than Poe. His moral and religious nature, despite his excesses, was more elevated. He had a reverence which Poe singularly lacked; he was not known to ingratitude was not charged against him; his generosity, not only in mere money matters, but in the treatment of others, was unexampled in his time, and in Hodgson and Hobhouse he found friends such as never ‘came to Poe. Among all the friends of Poe it is hard to find one who was A friend on equal terms. Many men befriended him, but their kindness arose not so much from affection as from pity and regard for his genius. Of the letters Mr. Ingram has collected from the men who knew him, and bear witness to his good qualities, there are none which show a genuine affection for him or a real sympathy with his nature and the causes of his misfortunes. When he complained that no one understood him, it was all the more melancholy because so true. It would be hard to find in all literature a man in whom were met so few of those qualities on which friendship is based — conscientiousness, veneration, [column 3:] benevolence, consideration tor the rights and feelings of others. Poe himself seemed only too well aware of all his failings. He used to wear his hair brushed up on the top of his head, where the moral faculties are supposed to: reside, his head being in that region singularly low. It was extremely high at the forehead and large behind the ears, but low and flat on top. Poe did not know that he wounded people when he savagely attacked their works, so little was his excessive intellectuality tempered by consideration and humanity. Thus, all his life, he was making enemies by his incorrigible iconoclasm, and bemoaning the misfortunes which resulted from it. He was not cruel deliberately. There was all almost feminine tenderness in his heart when his sensitive nature was not offended. He is charged by no one nowadays with unkindness toward his wife or his mother-in-law, both of whom loved him with all affection, and received in return every act of devotion which the unfortunate man could bestow, The secret of it lies largely no doubt in the predominance in them of the affections over the mental faculties. Neither aspired in any way to literature, or sought to be a companion to him in matters of intelligence. At literary gatherings where Poe was the lion his wife sat in corners and talked of anything but literature, sometimes was extremely quiet. Had it been otherwise the lines of this family might have fallen in far less pleasant places, Mrs. Osgood believed that Poe's wife was the only woman whom he ever truly loved, and that she was the subject of his “Annabel Lee.” This latter, however, has been denied. In his ‘direst poverty, Poe never failed in kindness to her and her mother, and after she died, down to that fatal day when he left New-York never to return, his kindness to Mrs. Clemm was unremitting and all that any son's could be to an own mother. She declared afterward that he was “impulsive, generous, affectionate, and noble. We three lived only for each other.”

Intellectually Poe was uncommonly honest. Few men in independent stations have shown an equal courage of their opinions, In literary judgment he feared nobody, respected no persons, and trusted no one but himself. This strong, even hard, intellectuality did him as much injury as a strong animal nature. It is really one of the most remarkable phases in Poe's career how much of his contemporary judgment in literary matters has been verified. Where every one else praised he often condemned unsparingly — to his own injury in many but the test of time has signally confirmed his judgment. He praised with great warmth the short stories of Hawthorne at a time when to praise that writer was to praise one of the obscurest men of letters in America, and this he did, although Hawthorne was working in a field in many ways like his own. Small jealousy did not exist in Poe, and, ambitious as he unquestionably was of literary distinction — an ambition which possessed him to the exclusion of many others, some of them more worthy than letters — he did not fail to award praise to others when he believed they deserved it. It has been that his detractors were many of them writers whose works he had handled severely, and there is little doubt that in Griswold's case, at least, this distorted his sense of fairness in dealing with sober facts. It is so easy for any man, by the very way he uses facts, to make a wayward and dissolute life appear monstrous and black. No pure Calvinist could write a life of Tom Paine with much veneration for his patriotism, or one of Burns with much sympathy for the hard struggle he bad in the world; and yet he would not be unfaithful to the facts.

All modern writers on Poe agree in awarding praise to Mrs. Helen Whitman's beautiful monogragh, “Edgar Allan Poe and his Critics,” one of the earliest protests against Poe's bitter accusers. Mr. Stoddard gives a long letter, which he received from her, telling the story of her engagement to Poe, and the causes which led to its breaking off. She shows clearly enough what slight foundations there were for the extraordinary version of that affair which Griswold gave. On Saturday morning, Dec. 24, 1848, the marriage ceremony had been arranged to take place the ensuing Monday evening, and a clergyman bad been asked to perform it. Mrs. Whitman's friends still made strenuous remonstrances against its suddenness. That same afternoon she learned that in the morning, after leaving her, he had broken his solemn promise by drinking wine in the bar-room of the Earle At such a moment, this proof of his weak will satisfied her that no influence she could exert would avail to save him. That night he returned by rail tol New- and never saw her again. All that Mrs. Whitman has left us concerning Poe bears witness that she knew weakness only too well, but reverenced and loved all that was noblest and best in him. The true biographer of Poe must always find in that poem of hers, Resurgamus,” a useful guide in interpreting the true character of Poe. It. begins, mourn thee not,” and the closing stanzas are these:

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 10, column 1:]

*EDGAR ALLAN POE: His Life, Letters, and Opinions. JOHN H. INGRAM. With Portraits of Poe and His Mother. 2 vols. London: JOHN HOGG. New-York: CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & Co. 1880.

SELECT WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE: Poetical and Prose With New Memoir by R. H. STODDARD. New-York: W. J. WIDDLETON. 1880.