Text: Poins, “New York Notes,” Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT), vol. XLVIII, no. 186, August 5, 1884, p. 1, cols. 7-8

[page 1, column 7:]

NEW YORK NOTES.

———

Once More Along the South Shore — A Desert Waste for Arab Artists — Some Pictures of Poe — Reminiscences of Fordham.

Special Correspondent of THE COURANT.

NEW YORK, August 2, 1884.

[[. . .]] city. And further on to Quoge on the shore of Shinnecock bay, with the clams, natives and mysteries of Mecox bay beyond, will give me, I fancy, some verbal sketches from nature equal to any our artist ever brought from New Jersey. Very much of all this. to the ordinary tourist, is terra (et aqua) incognita. The multitudinous Hamptons, East. West, Bridge and South, equaling in number the Connecticut Haddams, are frightfully familiar by means of New York artists, who haunt these places all summer and flood the exhibitions with old houses, old wind-mills and weak and monotonous landscapes, of which I can safely say, with Selkirk, their tameness is shocking to me. And before making (on paper) another brief near by pilgrimage this suggestion of sketches in the absence of other note of art interest, brings me to this: Within a week I have had before me for careful examination and in instances for admiration a curious collection which is believed to contain all the extant pictures of Edgar A. Poe, from the first, whose orgin [[origin]] I will give you, down to the very latest, the freshly drawn and engraved Paris picture by Chiffiart. Pictures, I call them, for probably not one of them is a very close portrait, and one or two of them are so shockingly bad, even as conceivable resemblances, that I might consent to call them “renditions” — using an unmeaning word to express a meaningless thing. I remember well the very first picture that ever was put forth as a portrait of Poe. Years ago, Brady, perhaps the most famous photographer of his time, had his gallery on the corner of Broadway and Tenth street. Almost everybody of note, from the then young Prince of Wales, when he was here, down to the least known variety actress, some time or other “sat” in that gallery. There was a famous collection of all the foreign and domestic “statesmen” of the period, incl: ling most of the aldermen of this city. But really it was A wonderful assemblage of remarkable portraits, for Brady bad a branch gallery at Washington; and during the war the photographer found another and larger literal “field” for enterprise, the battle-field, and he and his assistants took thousands of views of actual engagements, camp scenes, fortifications, and so on, all of which, after a long struggle, finally were sold to the government and now are somewhere, I believe, in Washington. For portraits there was scarcely any one of note, abroad or at home, living or lately dead, that could not be found in this gallery. But it was full twelve years after Poe's death that Brady produced a large-sized photograph purporting to be a portrait of the poet, and evolved in this way: Mr. Brady claimed, after infinite search, to have found a small and very faint daguerreotype of Poe, of which he bad an artist make an enlarged careful crayon copy and from this copy he made his photographic negatives, of different sizes, and these are the basis of all the subsequent pictures of Poe, subject to such variations as the memory or imagination of those who knew or bad seen him could suggest. But I doubt if one of these numerous pictures was thoroughly satisfying, friends. I have to had any one surviving I long talks over one of the seemingly most satisfactory pictures with the late John R. Thompson, who knew Poe intimately, who loved him, and, as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, had employed him. Thompson told me that he had never seen a picture, that, to him, was anything more than suggestive of Poe — the high, broad forehead was always “too much emphasized,” the mouth and lower part of the face was too weak, and there was an almost complete failure in the admittedly strong attempt to reproduce the fine eyes, if, indeed, they could be put on paper or canvas. A long time after Brady's ‘production’ a German artist came from Berlin to this city for the professional, and, as the believed, for the profitable purpose of taking, making, or getting portraits of some of the more distinguished Americans for publication in Germany. He made a fine crayon of Poe from the Brady picture, of course “improving” it, and this somewhat fanciful picture has in turn been ideal, photographed and widely circulated. As an ideal, looking very nearly like what a reader and admirer of the poet would think Poe should look, perhaps it is the most satisfactory of all the Poe pictures; but beside it on my table, as I write, is another actual photograph taken by Elliott, of London, since the poet prefixed the word “Baron” to Tennyson, which is a satisfying picture, and the strong shading of difference in meaning between what is satisfactory only and what is thoroughly satisfying will convey my feeling, as well as my meaning, of what is wanting in every picture of Poe I have seen, and I have seen them all. It is the difference between Long Branch and Long Beach, or between Coney Island and the Isle of Wight. Within a week or two there has been an outburst of fresh interest in poor Poe, evolved by the newspaper announcement that somebody has bought the cottage at Fordham, occupied for a brief while by Poe. Certainly one comfort comes from this sale — that Poe did not carry away with him when he died the spirit and essence romance. One of the visiting enthusiasts, of whom there have been several in the past ten days, was shown not only the poet's working room, but the very table on which Poe wrote “The Raven.” And other reminiscences and mementoes of Poe were lying on the floors and behind the doors, up stairs and down stairs, only waiting to be picked up — as items. Now, as a simple matter of history, Poe wrote “The Raven” in Richmond and [column 8:] brought it in his pocket to this city, publishing it soon after his arrival in the February (1845) number of the American Review. There is a considerable class of people who pretend to know everything about Poe, when in point of fact there is no man of note in modern times of whom so very little actually is known. Or for that matter cared about, excepting by a very few. As an intelligent people we should recall to our shame that it was twenty six years (from 1849 to 1873) before it was thought worth while to hunt up his hitherto unnoticed grave in Baltimore and put up some memorial to mark the spot. As for the Fordham house, suddenly become such an object of interest, Poe lived in it very poorly about three years. His young wife died there in January, 1848, and Poe himself died in Baltimore, after a long absence from this city, in October of the year following. Fordham is within twelve miles of the City hall, and since 1873 it has been within the corporate limits. It is the seat of St John's college aud of Jerome park, and what with the commencements and races I suppose I have been to Fordham forty times. Once, with a friend, I made a special pilgrimage to Poe's place — a little old tumble down house; it would be gilt-edged courtesy to call it a cottage. It was years ago, when neighbors’ memory should be nearer to Poe than it was last week. In diligent search through the village we found one old woman who remembered that Mrs. Clemm lived there and “boarded,” she said, two young people, “but they were awfully poor.” Mrs. Clemm was Mrs. Poe's mother. And the poverty was a painful fact. Let us save our sentiment for the seashore.

POINS.