Text: Landon C. Bell, “A Defense of Poe [part 03],” The Kit-Kat (Columbus, OH), vol. V, no. 3, September 1916, pp. 124-132

[page 124:]

CONTINUING our purpose of further examining Griswold's perverted account of Poe's career, we come now to his relation of Poe's connection with The Southern Literary Messenger and with Graham's Magazine and to the episode of the termination of his engagement to Mrs. Whitman.

In the “Memoir,” Griswold over and over by direct assertion or by implication or innuendo, charged Poe with habitual drunkenness, on page xiv he charges that, in Baltimore before he re- moved to Richmond to be associated with Mr. White of The Southern Literary Messenger, Poe had indulged in drunkenness and was restrained only by necessity; that after he removed to Richmond, upon receiving a month's salary “for a week he was in a condition of brutish drunkenness, and Mr. White dismissed him.”

Griswold also charges that because of habits of intemperance and intoxication, Mr. Graham, the owner of Graham's Magazine, dismissed Poe as editor. On Page xxx in speaking of Poe's engagement to marry Mrs. Whitman, Griswold says that Poe went from New York to Mrs. Whitman's home town with the deliberate intention of breaking the engagement. Says Griswold : “He [Poe] left town the same evening, and the next day was reeling [page 125:] through the streets of the city which was the lady's home, and in the evening — that should have been the evening before the bridal — in his drunken- ness he committed at her house such outrages as made necessary a summons of the police. Here was no insanity leading to indulgence; he went from New York with a determination thus to induce an ending of the engagement; and he succeeded.”

On this same page Griswold charges that on Thursday, the fourth day of October, 1849, Poe in Baltimore “met acquaintances who invited him to drink; * * * * in a few hours he was in such a state as is commonly induced only by long-continued intoxication; after a night of insanity and exposure, he was carried to a hospital; and there on the evening of Sunday, the seventh of October, 1849 he died, at the age of thirty-eight years.”

That Poe was sometimes intemperate none will deny; but that he was not an habitual drunkard, as Griswold represented him, is now fully established. Griswold asserts that in Baltimore before Poe removed to Richmond to be associated with Thomas W. White, of the Southern Literary Messenger, Poe constantly indulged in drunkenness and was restrained only by necessity. There is no proof of this statement; but on the contrary the evidence is that at this period of his life Poe's habits were exemplary.

Poe began his connection with the Southern Literary Messenger early in 1835; he severed this connection in January, 1837. The length of time Poe continued on this magazine, the increase in its circulation which he achieved, the wonderful prestige it attained under his direction, and the vast [page 126:] amount of matter contributed to it up to the time of his quitting its editorial post, and even afterwards, disprove Griswold's charges and insinuations. Griswold's Memoir would lead one to believe that Poe was a drunkard in Baltimore, that he went to Richmond, Virginia, where he was ill content for “two or three weeks,” and then collecting a month's salary in advance, he indulged in “brutish drunkenness and Mr. White dismissed him.” The entire episode occupied but three or four weeks — according to Griswold.

Poe served the Southern Literary Messenger brilliantly for about two years, and the final number, for January, 1837, was made up of ninety-six pages of which Poe contributed fully one-third.

Immediately following the severance of his connections with the Messenger, Poe went to New York, and to the temperate, regular character of his conduct, Mr. William Gowans, “the wealthy and eccentric biblopolist,” who boarded in the same house with him, for more than eight months, bears testimony.(28) Dr. Harrison says: “Mr. Gowans joins N. P. Willis, Frances Sargent Osgood, George R. Graham and many others with whom Poe was intimately associated in social life and in literary office work, in the assertion that he was never otherwise seen than as the courteous and perfect gentleman whose manners, to women especially, were almost reverential, and to his employers habitually respectful and considerate.”(29) In his clear, cold, dispassionate, unbiased investigation of these topics, Dr. Harrison says :

“There is no doubt that Poe was addicted to drugs and stimulants at irregular intervals and [page 127:] under strong temptations. That he was either an habitual drunkard or an habitual opium-eater is contradicted both by the unanimous testimony of his intimate friends — those who really knew him — and by the piles of exquisitely written manuscript, manuscript written at all hours of the day and night, under all circumstances of good and bad health, hurried or deliberately, that have remained behind to attest a physical condition absolutely the opposite of that of a victim of delirium tremens.”(30)

Griswold's charge that because of habits of intemperance and intoxication, George R. Graham, the owner of Graham's Magazine dismissed Poe as editor, was a baseless slander. Baseless because Griswold knew his statement to be untrue and knew the exact facts connected with the secession of Poe from this editorship; and these facts were not complimentary to Griswold. Mr. W. Fearing Gill interviewed Mr. Graham on this subject, in the course of his preparation of his life of Poe. In order to refute the Griswold statement, and to throw light upon Griswold's character in general, we quote a page or two from Mr. Gill's volume:

“Mr. Graham, from whom the magazine was named, is now living, and when we last saw him, December, 1873, he was in excellent health. We were then, of course, intent upon securing data in regard to the life of Poe; and in a conversation with Mr. Graham, some peculiarly significant facts touching Griswold's veracity in particular were elicited. [page 128:]

“Mr. Graham states that Poe never quarreled with him; never was discharged from Graham's Magazine; and that during the ‘four or five years’ italicized by Griswold as indicated the personal ill-will between Mr. Poe and Mr. Graham, over fifty articles by Poe were accepted by Mr. Graham.

“The facts of Mr. Poe's secession from Graham's were as follows : Mr. Poe was, from illness or other causes, absent for a short time from his post on the Magazine. Mr. Graham had, meanwhile, made a temporary arrangement with Dr. Griswold to act as Poe's substitute until his return. Poe came back unexpectedly and, seeing Griswold in his chair, turned on his heel without a word, and left the office, nor could he be persuaded to enter it again, although, as stated, he sent frequent contributions thereafter to the pages of the magazine.

“The following pertinent anecdote, related to us by Mr. Graham, well illustrates the character of Poe's biographer. Dr. Griswold's associate in his editorial duties on Graham's was Mr. Charles J. Peterson, a gentleman long and favorably known in connection with prominent American magazines. Jealous of his abilities, and unable to visit his vindictiveness upon him in propria persona, Dr. Griswold conceived the noble design of stabbing him in the back, writing under a nom de plume in another journal, the New York Review. In the columns of the Review there appeared a most scurrilous attack upon Mr. Peterson, at the very time in the daily interchange of friendly courtesies with his treacherous associate. Unluckily for Dr. Griswold, Mr. Graham saw this article, and, immediately inferring, from the tone, that Griswold was the undoubted author, went to him with the [page 129:] article in his hand, saying, ‘ Dr. Griswold, I am sorry to say that I have detected you in what I call a piece of rascality. ‘Griswold turned all colors upon seeing the article, but stoutly denied the imputation saying, ‘I’ll go before an alderman and swear that I never wrote it.’ It was fortunate that he was not compelled to add perjury to his meanness, for Mr. Graham said no more about the matter at that time, waiting his opportunity for authoritative confirmation of the truth of his surmises. He soon found his conjectures confirmed to the letter. Being well acquainted with the editor of the Review he took occasion to call upon him shortly afterward when in New York. Asking as a special favor to see the manuscript of the article in question, it was handed to him. The writing was in Griswold's hand.

“Returning to Philadelphia, Mr. Graham called Griswold to him, told him the facts, paid him a month's salary in advance, and dismissed him from his post, on the spot.

“So it becomes evident that the memory of Poe's biographer, confused upon the point of his discharge from Graham's has saddled Poe with the humiliation and disgrace that alone belong to him.”

Griswold's statements in referenec to Poe's engagement to Mrs. Whitman, and the termination of that engagement were distorted and false. That Poe went from New York to Providence with the intention of breaking the engagement is a statement which there is not a particle of evidence to support; that the next day he was intoxicated, and in his drunkenness committed at her house such outrages as made necessary a summons of the police, was wholly false. It is not believed that [page 130:] Griswold could have believed his statements true; at any event, when it was called to his attention that his account was erroneous, he took no steps to correct it, and he offered no apologies, but in a bullying tone indicated that he would controvert the statements of Mr. Pabodie and others — which, however, of course he never did.

In a letter dated June 2, 1852, to the New York Tribune, Mr. William J. Pabodie writes at length refuting Griswold's charges.(31) Mr. Pabodie was a prominent lawyer of Providence and intimately acquainted with Poe and Mrs. Whitman, and in writing his letter spoke not only for himself but also for Mrs. Whitman. Referring to the part of Griswold's story immediately under consideration now, he said:

“* * * in view of the rapidly increasing circulation which this story has obtained and the severity of comment which it has elicited, the friends of the late Edgar A. Poe deem it an imperative duty to free his memory from this unjust reproach, and to oppose to it their unqualified denial. Such a denial is due, not only to the memory of the departed, but also to the lady whose home is supposed to have been desecrated by these disgraceful outrages.

“Mr. Poe was frequently my guest during his stay in Providence. In his several visits to the city I was with him daily. I was acquainted with the circumstances of his engagement, and with the causes which led to its dissolution. I am authorized to say, not only from my personal knowledge but also from the statements of all who were conversant with the affair, that there existed not a [page 131:] shadow of foundation for the stories above alluded to.”

Griswold, upon the appearance of this letter in the Tribune, wrote, on June 8, 1852(32) to Mr. Pabodie saying that Mr. Pabodie should have consulted him before publishing his letter, and forcing him (Griswold) to prove his statements true, which he could do “on the most unquestioned authority,” also saying “ I cannot permit any statement in my Memoir of Poe to be contradicted” etc. Griswold concluded his letter as follows: “Before writing to The Tribune I will await your opportunity to acknowledge this note, and to give such explana- tions of your letter as will render any public state- ment on my part unnecessary.”

Griswold thus reaffirmed his former statements, declared he could prove them and said in effect unless Mr. Pabodie withdrew his statements he would publish an article in The Tribune replying thereto.

Mr. Pabodie's reply to this bullying, threatening note was a calm and firm reiteration of what he had said in his letter in The Tribune.(33) Griswold thereupon let the matter rest. He did not write The Tribune or any other paper; he did not produce his proofs, for he had none; and he died without ever having retracted the libel he had published.

Mrs. Whitman gave the final and incontrovertible testimony on the subject in a letter to Mr. Gill, written in August, 1873, which he was permitted to quote:

“No such scene as that described by Dr. Griswold ever transpired in my presence. No one, certainly [page 132:] no woman, who had the slightest acquaintance with EdgarPoe, could have credited the story for a instant.”(34)

In Part IV, the next part of this paper, our consideration of Griswold's falsehoods (while leaving much of his villainy unmentioned) will be concluded with a relation of some of the incidents of Poe's life, following the death of Virginia, in Richmond and Baltimore, immediately before his death.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 126:]

28 Harrison's Life of Poe, page 128.

29 Id.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 127:]

30 Dr. Harrison justified this view, so far as it depends upon the manuscripts by submitting them to experts in handwriting. See also the article “The Personality of Poe,” by Appleton Morgan, Munsey's Magazine, July, 1897.

Harrison's Life of Poe, page 123.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 130:]

31 This letter is reproduced in Gill's Life of Poe, pp. 219-21.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 131:]

32 See letter reproduced in Gill's Life of Poe, p. 222.

33 The letter is reproduced in full in Gill's Life of Poe, pages 223-226.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 132:]

34 Gill's Life of Poe, p. 227.