Text: Landon C. Bell, “A Defense of Poe [part 04],” The Kit-Kat (Columbus, OH), vol. V, no. 4, December 1916, pp. 175-184

[page 175:]

WITH this part, we conclude our discussion of Griswold's Memoir of Poe of Griswold's The Griswold charge that on Thursday, the 4th day of October, 1849, Poe in Baltimore who invited him to met acquaintances drink and in a few hours he was in such a state in-as is commonly induced only by long-continued intoxication and that after a night of insanity and exposure, he was carried to a hospital and there died on the evening of Sunday, October 7, 1849, is now known to be essentially false.

Poe, during the last illness of Virginia, was so overcome with anxiety and grief that he was scarcely able work. Virginia died January 30, 1847. Following this, at times Poe was well-nigh bereft of reason. His attachments to her had been poetically, reverently tender; and her taking had been almost more than he could bear.

“Deprived of the companionship and sympathy of his child-wife, the poet suffered what was to him the exquisite agony of utter loneliness.

“Night after night he would arise from his sleepless pillow, and, dressing himself, wander to the grave of his lost one, and throwing himself down upon the cold ground, weep bitterly for hours at a time.”(35) He often found it impossible to sleep without someone by his bedside, and usually [page 176:] after he retired Mrs. Clemm, stroked his brow while his mind indulged in wild flights of fancy.(36) Mrs. Whitman speaks of “those frenzied moments when the doors of the mind's ‘Haunted Palace’ were left all unguarded” when, “his words were the words of a princely intellect over-wrought.”

But this was during the last few years of his life, when to use his own words, he was overwhelmed with a “deadly grief.” Such facts are not recorded of him during any other period of his life. That he was seized with a mortal malady during a period of mental aberration is altogether probable; that his final illness was superinduced by intoxication, as charged by Griswold is not estabished — but quite the contrary.

Poe was arranging to launch his long cherished project, a magazine, The Stylus wholly controlled and directed by himself. He visited Richmond, Virginia, with a view to getting support for the project and there renewed old acquaintances and delivered two lectures to large audiences. Bishop Fitzgerald says that on the occasion of Poe's visit to Richmond it was arranged that he should be literary editor of The Examiner, and that he left Richmond with $1,500 in his pocket.(37) Poe went direct from Richmond to Baltimore, in his journey north to perfect arrangements for The Stylus. While in Richmond he wrote an article which he contemplated should appear in that magazine.(38)

Poe arrived in Baltimore on the evening of October 5, 1849, and went to Bradshaw's hotel on Pratt [page 177:] street. From there he went to the depot and took the cars for Philadelphia. The conductor, on going through the cars for tickets, found him lying in the baggage car insensible. He was taken as far as Havre de Grace, where the cars passed each other, and placed on the train returning to Baltimore. Some time that night he was found in an uncon- scious condition and taken to the Washington University Hospital.(39)

It has been suggested that Poe was drugged and robbed, certain it is that nothing was ever heard of the $1,500 which Bishop Fitzgerald testifies he had a few days earlier, when he left Richmond.

The evidence is against intoxication at the time. Dr. J. J. Moran, who attended him from the time of being taken to the hospital until his death, asserted solemnly that there was no smell of liquor on his breath, and that he recoiled with horror from the suggestion that he take what the physi- cian thought was a necessary stimulant.(40)

Dr. Moran declares that Professor John C. S. Monkur, who was present a short while before Poe died, and who carefully examined his case, gave as his opinion, in which he (Moran) fully concurred, that Poe's death was caused by excessive nervous excitement from exposure, followed by loss of nervous power. The most appropriate name for his disease is encephalitis. ”(41) And from an article by [page 178:] Mr. Richard Lew Dawson, of Rochester, N. Y., January, 1909, which was widely circulated during the Poe Centennial, we quote the following:

“Dr. John J. Moran, the physician who attended Poe in his last hours, says, in his book, ‘A Defense of Poe*: ‘I here affirm that Edgar Allan Poe did not die under the influence of any kind of intoxicating drink/ and Dr. Moran details the circumstances of Poe's being followed on his return to Baltimore, after starting to Philadelphia, by two men who had shadowed him in the train, and being waylaid, drugged and robbed by them, causing his death. Both the conductor on the train and the hackman who took him to the hospital declare he was perfectly sober. Dr. Moran again says: ‘I here avow that there is no evidence and never has been that Poe was ever seen drunk, or that he ever got drunk, from the year 1845 to 1849. We have the clearest testimony that he was a temperate man.’”

In the “Ludwig Article” Griswold said :

“Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was well known personally or by reputation, in all this country *** but he had few or no friends; and the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art lost one of its most brilliant, but erratic stars.”

The statement that Poe had few or no friends and that but few would be grieved by the news of his death was not true.

Sufficient reference to Mrs. Whitman's book has been made to show that she was one of Poe's [page 179:] friends, and a perusal of her volume will show that she regarded herself as one of a large circle of friends. Griswold's article containing these statements in reference to Poe called forth from N. P. Willis the article above mentioned in the Home Journal. Mr. Willis's entire article is a firm denial not only of these particular statements of Griswold, but a dignified, and convincing contradiction of substantially all that Griswold had said.

George R. Graham, the proprietor of Graham's Magazine, a man of the highest character, indignant beyond measure at Griswold's outrageous conduct in this regard, rose to the defense of his friend; and in a letter addressed to Willis(42) minces no words in characterizing Griswold. In part he said :

“My Dear Willis: — In an article of yours which accompanies the two beautiful volumes of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, you have spoken with so much truth and delicacy of the deceased, and, with the magical touch of genius, have called so warmly up before me the memory of our lost friend as you and I both seem to have known him, that I feel warranted in addressing to you the few plain words I have to say in defense of his character as set down by Mr. Griswold.

“I knew Mr. Poe well, far better than Mr. Griswold;(43) and by the memory of old times, when he was an editor of Graham's, I pronounce this exceedingly ill-timed and unappreciative estimate [page 180:] of the character of our lost friend, unfair and untrue. It is Mr. Poe as seen by the writer while laboring under a fit of the nightmare, but so dark a picture has no resemblance to the living man. Accompanying these beautiful volumes, it is an immortal infamy, the death's head over the entrance to the garden of beauty, a horror that clings to the brow of morning, whispering of murder * * * The only relief we feel is in knowing that it is not true, that it is a fancy sketch of a perverted, jaundiced vision. The man who could deliberately say of Edgar Allan Poe, in a notice of his life and writings prefacing the volumes which were to become a priceless souvenir to all who loved him, that his death might startle many, but that few would be grieved by it, ‘**** is a judge dishonored.’ He is not Mr. Poe's peer, and I challenge him before the country even as a juror in the case.”

Poe had a host of friends and admirers in Virginia, and other parts of the South. Just before his death, he was in Richmond, Virginia, for a period of three months. He delivered his famous lecture on “The Poetic Principle” to a large and enthusiastic audience, and was requested to repeat it, which he did. Soon thereafter he left Richmond. A few days later he died in Baltimore. The evidence of numerous and true friendships in Richmond is abundant.

The Richmond Whig on October 9, contained a notice of Poe's death, in which it was said :

“It is with profound grief that we give place this morning to the painful intelligence which will be read below. The sad announcement was received in yesterday's evening mail. When we reflect that [page 181:] it was but the other day that the deceased was delighting our citizens with a lecture as beautiful as his own genius was powerful and erratic — that he was walking in our streets in the vigor of manhood and mingling with acquaintances in the sociability of friendship — we would fain believe that it was untrue. The news of the death of Mr. Poe will fall with a heavy and crushing weight upon one in the city who is related to him by the tender ties of sister; and who can hardly have any previous knowledge of his illness; whilst it will be read with profound regret by all who appreciate generous qualities and admire genius. In the beautiful language of his own “Lenore,” let there be a requiem for the dead — in that he died so young.”(44)

Mrs. Weiss (Susan Archer Talley), in speaking of Poe's departure from Richmond, only three or four days before his death says:

“The evening of the day previous to that appointed for his departure from Richmond, Poe spent at my mother's. He declined to enter the parlors, where a number of visitors were assembled, saying he preferred the more quiet sitting room; and here I had a long and almost uninterrupted conversation with him. He spoke of his future, seeming to anticipate it with an eager delight, like that of youth. He declared that the last few weeks in the society of his old and new friends had been the happiest that he had known for many years ***”(45) [page 182:]

And finally near the end of the biographical details which he undertakes to give, Griswold no doubt feeling that his tirade of falsehoods, calumnies and villifications needed some justification, in order to induce the public to swallow it, sub- mits his justification in this crowning slander:

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum is a common and an honorable sentiment, but its proper application would lead to the suppression of histories of half of the most conspicuous of mankind; in this case it is impossible on account of the notoriety of Mr. Poe's faults; and it would be unjust to the living against whom his hands were always raised and who had no resort but in his outlawry from their sympathies. Moreover, his career is full of instruction and warning, and it has always been made a portion of the penalty of wrong that its anatomy should be displayed for the common study and advantage.” After the abundant proof of Griswold's untruthfulness, his manifold misrepresentations, his invention of sheer falsehoods, and his perfidious endeavors in every way to blacken Poe's memory, we are not surprised at his crowning hypocrisy in pretending that his biography of Poe was written for “the common study and advantage.”

A final word in conclusion. The general pur- port and intent of Griswold's memoir was to deny to Poe any claim to greatness. Griswold either denied any ability to Poe, or else condemned him to a position of contemptible mediocrity as for instance, in denying him any ability as a critic, and avering he was but little more than a “carping grammarian.” [page 183:]

But the world is beginning to appraise Poe in terms of what he has done, rather than in terms of what Griswold has said of him.

Dr. Charles W. Kent,(46) in drawing an analogy between Poe and Chopin, has called attention to the remarkable scope of Poe's conceptions, which were at times far beyond his powers of expression; and many of which had to be simplified to suit available language and conventional reading; just as Chopin, no doubt conceived in music what no pianist could render.

Arthur Ransome(47) says:

“Many are ready to discuss him, [Poe] and to betray in discussion the fact that they have not troubled to examine the subject of their argument * * *

“I had become dissatisfied with my own respect for Poe, because I could not point to tales or poems that accounted for its peculiar character of expectancy. I admired him, but, upon analysis, found that my admiration was always for something round the corner, or over the hill. In reading and re-reading his collected works I learned that, perfect as his best things are, he has another title to immortality. It became clear that Poe's brain was more stimulating than his art, and that the tales and poems by which he is known were but the by-products of an unconcluded search. Throughout Poe's life he sought a philosophy of beauty that should also be a philosophy of life. He did not find it, and the unconcluded nature of his [page 184:] search is itself sufficient to explain his present vitality.”

And Dr. C. Alphonso Smiths points out that Poe has influenced the entire literary world in at least four ways:

First, as a discoverer in the realm of meter and rhythm. “So far as known, no new stanza had been coined in English literature since Spenser's time till Poe appeared. The stanzaic structure of ‘The Raven,’ of ‘To Helen,’ are new creations.”

Second, as a pioneer in the short story.

Third, as the exponent of self consciousness in Literature, to which subject Mr. Ransome gives an entire chapter in his “Critical Study” of Poe, and

Fourth, Poe is a revealer of a distinctive Americanism. Dr. Smith says: “To my mind Poe's Americanism lies not in his themes, but in his constructive genius. He thought in terms of structure. He is to be classed among our great builders. Poe's Americanism is found * * * in the conscious adaptation of means to end, in the quick realization of structural possibilities, in the practical handling of details, in the efficiency and effectiveness of his technique, which enabled him to body forth his visions in enduring forms and even to originate the only new type of prose literature that our country has produced.”

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appeared at the bottom of page 175:]

35 Gill's Life of Poe, p. 191.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 176:]

36 Id.

37 Harrison's Biography of Poe, page 322.

38 Id. 323.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 177:]

39 Dr. Moran's Memoranda, New York Herald, October 28, 1875.

40 Harrison's Biography, pp. 162-3, 322. New York Herald, October 28, 1875.

Works of Edgar Allan Poe, (W. J. Widdleton) Vol. 1, p. cxvii.

41 New York Herald, October 2, 1875. Works of Edgar Allan Poe, (W. J. Widdleton), Volume 1, page cxxi.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 179:]

42 Published in Graham's Magazine, 1850.

43 In another part of the letter, Mr. Graham says of Poe: “For three or four years I knew him intimately, and for eighteen months saw him almost daily.”

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 181:]

44 Reproduced in the Memoir of Poe by J. H. Whitty, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911, pages lxxxiii-iv.

45 Quoted in Harrison's Biography of Poe, page 322.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 183:]

46 Introduction to “The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, “ New York, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company.

47 In the preface to his book, “Edgar Allan Poe, a Critical Study.” New York, Nitchel Kennerley, 1910.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 184:]

48 Address, Academic Day, University of Maryland, November 13, 1911; University of Virginia Magazine, December, 1911.