Text: Landon C. Bell, “A Defense of Poe [part 02],” The Kit-Kat (Columbus, OH), vol. V, no. 2, June 1916, pp. 69-82

[page 69:]

IN PART I. of this paper we stated our purpose of mentioning some of the calumnies heaped upon Poe by Griswold in his Memoir, and then to examine the evidence showing the falsity of his statements. To this we now proceed.

Griswold in his Memoir(16) in speaking of the award to Poe of the prize offered by the Baltimore Visitor for the best story submitted, says that the committee met in a perfunctory way to authorize the publisher to use their names in such a way as to promote the publisher's advantage, not with any intention of considering the merits of the stories submitted; that one of the committee happened to pick up a small book in “exquisite caligraphy” and summoned the attention of the rest of the committee to the half-dozen compositions in it. “ It was unanimously decided that the prizes should be paid to the first of geniuses who had written legibly, Not another MS was unfolded. Immediately the confidential envelope was opened, and the successful competitor was found to bear the scarcely known name of Poe.”

This statement was maliciously false; Griswold [page 70:] could have had no belief, or basis for a belief that it was true. The committee who awarded the prizes consisted of John P. Kennedy, at one time Secretary of the Navy, the author of “Horse Shoe Robinson,” “Swallow Barn” and other important works; Dr. James H. Miller, a prominent physician of Baltimore, and Mr. John H. B. Latrobe. Upon the dedication of the Poe Memorial in Baltimore on November 17, 1875, Mr. Latrobe, one of the speakers, gave a correct account of the awarding of the prize to Poe; he bears testimony that a great many manuscripts were examined, some in feminine handwriting, many beautifully written; that many were rejected, some laid aside for further consideration, and that their labors had progressed until most of the manuscripts had been examined before those, which it was afterwards learned were Poe's came to hand. The names of none of the competitors were known to the committee.

Mr. Latrobe, in part, thus describes the reading of the manuscripts which afterwards turned out to be Poe's; “I remember,” he says, “that while reading the first page to myself, Mr. Kennedy and the Doctor had filled their glasses and lit their cigars, and when I said that we seemed at last to have a prospect of awarding the prize, they laughed as though they doubted it, and settled themselves in their comfortable chairs as I began to read. I had not proceeded far before my colleagues become as much interested as myself. The first tale finished, I went to the second, then to the next, and did not stop until I had gone through the volume, interrupted by such exclamations as “Capital!” “Excellent!” “How odd! “ and the like from my companions. [page 71:] There was no feeble phraseology, no illplaced punctuation, no wornout truisms, no strong thought elaborated into weakness. Logic and imagination were combined in rare consistency.” He further tells us that for some time the committee was undecided between the “A Manuscript Found in a Bottle” and “A Descent into the Maelstrom. “ Mr. Latrobe's account, of which this is a mere fragment, shows Griswold's statement to be a fiction, — out of the whole cloth.(17) Other testimony can be adduced, but as all the evidence condemns it as false, and as not a syllable of evidence can be produced to support it, this statement of Griswold's need not be further noticed.

Again, Griswold says of Poe:

“As a critic, he was more remarkable as a dissector of sentences than as a commenter upon ideas. He was little better than a carping grammarian.”

That Poe was a grammarian, Griswold had reason to know,(18) though whether he were a carping one, ought to be submitted to other judgment than his.

We have already said something of Poe's ability and position as a critic. To what has been said it may be proper to add other testimony. James Russell Lowell, in speaking of Poe as a critic, says:

“Unerring in his analysis of diction, meters and [page 72:] plots, he seemed wanting in the faculty of perceiving the profounder ethics of art. His criticisms are, however, distinguished for scientific precision and coherence of logic. They have the exactness and, at the same time, the coldness of mathematical demonstrations. Yet they stand in strikingly refreshing contrast to the vague generalisms and sharp personalities of the day. If deficient in warmth, they are especially valuable as illustrating the great truth, too generally overlooked, that analytic power is a subordinate quality of the critic.”(19)

It is rather remarkable that Lowell should have entertained the idea that Poe was æsthetically deficient. It proves only Lowell's inability to grasp Poe, in his full length, breadth and depth. It is certain that none in America and but few in the world equalled Poe in the æsthetic appreciation of the profounder ethics of literary art.

Mr. John H. Ingram, Poe's English biographer, speaking of an early period of Poe's activities, — the period of his connection with the Southern Literary Messenger, says: “His talents made that periodical quite brilliant while he was connected with it,’ . . . . and indeed in little more than a twelvemonth Poe raised its circulation from seven hundred to nearly five thousand. This success was partially due to the originality and fascination of Poe's stories, and partially owing to the fearlessness of his trenchant critiques. He could not be made, either by flattery or abuse, a respecter of persons. In the December number of the Messenger he began that system of literary scarification — that crucial dissection of bookmaking mediocrities, which, whilst it [page 73:] created throughout the length and breadth of the states a terror of his powerful pen, at the same time raised up against him a host of implacable, though unknown, enemies, who were only too glad, from that time, to seize upon and repeat any story, however improbable, to his discredit. Far better would it have been for his future welfare if, instead of affording contemporary nonentities a chance of literary immortality by impaling them upon his pen's sharp point, he had devoted his whole time to the production of his wonderful stories, or still more wonderful poems. Why could he not have left the task of crushing or puffing the works of his Lilliputian contemporaries to the ordinary ‘ disappointed authors?”(20)

One writer, in speaking of Poe's review of “Norman Leslie,” declared it to have “introduced a new era in our critical literature,” and that “the success of the Messenger has been justly attributable to Poe's exertions on its behalf, but especially to the skill, honesty and audacity of the criticism under the editorial head.”

The writer, J. K. Paulding, after reading Poe's review of Drake and Halleck, wrote (in a private letter), “ I think it one of the finest specimens of criticism ever published in this country.”(21)

Professor Woodberry, a biographer, careful to avoid being accused of unduly favoring Poe, — so much so that he is possibly at times like the Indian's tree, — so straight that he leans the other way, says:

“The peculiarity of his position was, not that he [page 74:] was an unjust judge, but that he was the only one; not that his censures were undeserved, but that he alone pronounced a sentence without fear or favor. . . . In these critical decisions of Poe's, speaking generally, he does not seem to have been himself motive, any personal actuated by any unworthy or enmity, or any hope of friendliness consideration of gain or fear of loss; if such matters affected his judgment either in an unconscious or an involuntary, it was ordinarily way. . . . His open claim to impartiality, sincerity, and integrity seems to be sustained; or, if shaken at all, to be invalidated the praise he gave to his feminine friend rather than by the contempt he poured out on his masculine foes.

“Of the excellence of Poe's criticism in itself, how- ever, there can be no question. He was the disciple of Coleridge; and, being gifted with something of Coleridge's analytic powers, he applied the principles he thus derived with skill and effect. No one, too, could subject himself to so long a self-training, and become as perfect in his own subtle art, without developing a refined taste of the highest value in criticism. The test of his ability as a critic, the severest test to which a man can be put, is the quickness and certainty of his recognition of unknown genius. In this Poe succeeded; the rank he gave to the American poets, young and old (and in the case of the best of them he had only their earliest work to judge by), is the rank sustained by the issue, and his success in dealing with the English reputations of the future was not less marked. To Tennyson, Dickens, and Longfellow he brought early applause; Mrs. Browning, Lowell and Hawthorne were foreknown by him when their names [page 74:] were still in doubt, . . . . he was the first of his time to mark the limitations of the pioneer writers, such as Irving, Bryant and Cooper, and to foresee the future of the younger men who have been mentioned; he was, too, the first to take criticism from mere advertising, puffery, and friendship, and submit it to the laws of literary art.”(22)

In Arthur Ransome's most important contribution to Poe literature he has given us his conclusions and views, based upon a comprehensive and critical consideration of Poe's works, considered in the light of practically everything that has been written on the subject.

He tells us that Poe regarded excellence as that which is capable of self-manifestation; that it is for the critic to show when, where, and how it fails in becoming manifest; that in teaching what perfec- tion is, it was most rational to proceed to specify what it is not; that a cultivated sensitiveness to discord is the same thing as an appreciation of harmony. “ These,” says Ransome, “were the reasons, this the principle that determined the character of Poe's criticism, and made his articles, even on the poets be admired — like Mrs. Browning — read like attacks. . . . . Poe, perhaps unwisely, paid his readers the compliment of supposing that they read the books first and his criticisms afterwards. . . . . In thinking of Poe's critical work, we think of his [page 76:] “Hawthorne,” and his “Philosophy of Composition,” and the other essays whose temper of mind lets them share with these a swift and dry-shod life. . . . . Poe's interest was less in individuals than in the principles and nature of their art. . . . Building on the foundation that held excellence to be itself manifest, Poe raised for himself a structure of knowledge about the means of avoiding ugliness or failure in expression. There is no rule for the creation of beauty, but there are many for freeing loveliness from its fetters.”

Again he says:

“We must have also noticed that the tempera- mental character of Poe's writings is less important than their ‘fundamental brain-work.’ The Poe who thrills us is less exciting than the Poe who thinks, and even the tales and poems are of more than their face-value on that account. . . .. There is a quality in his work more universal than that of strangeness, a quality not of temperament but of brain. His temperament often found expression, his brain was seldom able to reach its far more difficult goal. He left us weird and shapely works of art, but, in the realm of thought, how much more often a blaze on a tree trunk showing that he had passed than a cleared path showing that he had passed with ease and been able to make a road. Yet it seems to me that these blazed tree trunks are the achievements that should keep his memory alive. He made a few beautiful things. So have others. But how few in the history of thought have tried to teach, even in broken speech, the secret of beautiful things, and the way not to their making only, but to their understanding. [page 77:] It was to that end that Poe blazed his trees, and, when we see how often he mistook the road, we should remember in what a dense forest he was traveling, and how lonely was the pioneer. . . . He had no friend in a thinker of his own power. He was extraordinarily alone.

“Again and again in his works are indications of a mind grappling with problems that his own understanding set far out of reach of his country and time. Poe fought many battles the very dust of which could not appear to his contemporaries.”

It must be, therefore, from this consideration of the topic, that Poe was a critic of the first order, notwithstanding Griswold's denial.

Griswold also charges Poe with being dishonest. As to this charge it is sufficient to say that no other person ever brought that charge; but on the con- trary we have evidence of his most scrupulous honesty. Graham, in his vindication of Poe, writes:

“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 struggle 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 unwearied in his industry, and the soul of honor in all his transactions. . . . . He kept his accounts, small as they were, with . . . . the accuracy of a banker. I append an account sent to me in his own hand, long after he had left Philadelphia, [page 78:] and after all knowledge of the transactions it recited had escaped my memory. I had returned him the story of ‘The Gold Bug,’ at his own request, as he could dispose of it very advantageously elsewhere:

“This, I find, was his uniform habit with others as well as myself, carefully recalling to mind his indebtedness with the fresh article sent. And this is the man who [according to Griswold] had ‘no moral susceptibility,’ and little or nothing of the ‘ true point of honor. ‘”

Like so many of Griswold's assertions, it is upon full investigation now declared to be a “sheer fabrication.”

In the “Memoir” Griswold further said: “He had made up his mind upon the numberless com- plexities of the social world, and the whole system was with him an imposture. This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character. . . .. Passion, in him, comprehended many [page 79:] of the worst emotions, which militate against human happiness. You could not contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. Irascible, envious — bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant cynicism while his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed to him no moral susceptibility; and what was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem or the love of his species; only the hard wish to succeed — not shine, not serve — succeed; that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.”

N. P. Willis, writing with specific reference to these statements in the Griswold Memoir, said:

“Some four or five years since when editing a daily paper in this city [New York], 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 reminder of what genius was in [page 80:] him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him always with defferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented-far more yielding than most men, we thought, on points so excusably sensitive.”(24)

Mr. Willis, then after quoting several letters from Poe to sustain his point, continues: “Brief and chance-taken, as these letters are, we think they sufficiently prove the existence of the very qualities denied to Mr. Poe — humility, willingness to persevere, belief in another's kindness, and capability of cordial and grateful friendship.”(25)

George R. Graham, writing with reference to these same statements, says:

“As to his ‘ quick choler’ when he was contradicted, it depended a good deal upon the party denying, as well as upon the subject discussed. He was quick, it is true, to perceive mere quacks in literature, and somewhat apt to be hasty when pestered with them; but upon most other questions his natural amiability was not easily disturbed. Upon a subject that he understood thoroughly, he felt some right to be positive, if not arrogant, when addressing pretenders. 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 kindheartedness of a child. No man was more quickly [page 81:] touched by a kindness, none more prompt to return for an injury.”(26)

“I shall never forget,” Graham continues, “how solicitous of the happiness of his wife and mother- in-law he was whilst one of the editors of Graham's Magazine; his whole efforts seemed to be to procure the comfort and welfare of his home. Except for their happiness, and the natural ambition of having a magazine of his own, I never heard him deplore the want of wealth. The truth is, he cared little for money, and knew less of its value, for he seemed to have no personal expenses. What he received from me, in regular monthly instalments, went directly into the hands of his mother-in-law for family comforts, and twice only I remember his purchasing some rather expensive luxuries for his house, and then he was nervous to the degree of misery until he had, by extra articles, covered what he considered an imprudent indebtedness.”

Mrs. Whitman, in her protest against Griswold's Memoir, says: “In evidence of the habitual courtesy and good nature noticeable to all who best knew him in domestic and social life, we remember an incident that occurred at once of the soirees to which we have alluded. A lady known for her great lingual attainments, wishing to apply a wholesome check to the vanity of a young author, proposed inviting him to translate for the company a difficult passage in Greek, of which language she knew him to be profoundly ignorant, although given to a rather pretentious display of Greek quotations in his published writings. Poe's earnest and persistent [page 82:] remonstrances against this piece of mechanceté alone averted the embarrassing test.”(27)

In Part III will be considered Griswold's version of Poe's connection with “The Southern Literary Messenger “ and “Graham's Magazine,” and his relations to Thomas W. White of the former and George R. Graham of the latter; and also will be considered Griswold's account of the termination of the engagement between Poe and Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, a talented member of the literati of New England.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 69:]

16 Prefixed to the fourth (and last) volume of Poe's works as collected by Griswold, J. S. Redfield, New York, 1850.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 71:]

17 See the address of Mr. Latrobe in full in Volume I of Works of Edgar Allan Poe, W. J. Widdleton, Publisher, New York, 1881, page cxlvii, et seq.

18 See Poe's criticism of Griswold's “ The Poets and Poetry of America, “ (Carey & Hart, Philadelphia), in Philadelphia Saturday Musem (1843), reproduced in “The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe,” edited by James A. Harrison, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York, Volume 11, page 220, 235.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 72:]

19 Graham's Magazine, February, 1845.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 73:]

20 The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, New York, W. J. Widdleton, Publisher, 1881, page 11.

21 Gill's Life of Poe, page 75. Page Seventy-three

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 75:]

22 Edgar Allan Poe, — (American Men of Letters Series ), by George E. Woodberry, Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston and New York, 1885.

23 Edgar Allan Poe, A Critical Study, Mitchell Kennerly, New York, 1910.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 80:]

24 Works of Edgar A. Poe, New York, W. J. Widdleton, 1881. p. cxi.

25 Id.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 81:]

26 Gill's Life of Poe, Appendix, Graham's Vindication, pgs. 253-4.