Text: Eugene L. Didier, “The Loves of Edgar A. Poe,” The Poe Cult and Other Poe Papers (1909), pp. 123-134

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The splendid fame that has crowned the name of Edgar A. Poe within the memory of living men has made him one of the most interesting personalities, not only in American Literature, but in the literature of the world. Proudly conscious of his rare and remarkable genius, the author of The Raven mingled in a cold and unsympathetic world with a haughty defiance. But, beneath that stern and cynical exterior, was a heart full of romantic sentiment, and quickly responsive to kindness and affection.

Poe, himself, was the offspring of a romantic marriage between a young actress and a Baltimore law student, and he proved himself a worthy son of his parents. Before he had completed his sixteenth year, he wooed and won the heart of a young girl in Richmond who was destined to be his first and his last love, also. Elmira Royster was the fair daughter of one of the proudest families of the Old Dominion, and Poe, although the son of a poor player (poor in every respect), was [page 124:] the recognized peer of the best in Virginia's capital. Years afterwards, the poet, speaking of youthful love, quotes the assertion of George Sand that “les anges ne sont plus pures que le coeur d’ un jeune homme qui aime en verite,” and remarks that it would be truth itself were it averred of the love of him who is at the same time young and a poet. He cites the boyish love of Byron for Mary Chaworth which affected the whole subsequent life of the noble bard, adding, “she to him was the Egeria of his dreams — the Venus Aphrodite that sprang, in full and supernal loveliness, from the bright foam upon the storm-tormented ocean of his thoughts.” Miss Royster lived opposite to Poe's home in Richmond, and, naturally, they became acquainted — an acquaintance which soon ripened into mutual love.

This youthful love affair continued until Poe left Richmond for the University of Virginia. They agreed to keep up a frequent correspondence during their separation, but the father of the young lady, who disapproved of the affair, intercepted his letters.

He hastened to marry his daughter to a more desirable husband. It was not until a year or two after she became Mrs. Shelton that Poe learned why his passionate love letters [page 125:] received no answer from his sweetheart. The effect of this boyish attachment is perceptible in many of the poet's juvenile verses.

Long years after the death of her poet-lover, Mrs. Shelton recalled him as “a beautiful boy;” quiet, agreeable, but sad-mannered; “full of strong prejudices, and passionately fond, even in those early days, of everything beautiful and having a natural invincible detestation of everything coarse and unrefined.” He drew beautifully; “he drew a pencil likeness of me in a few minutes.” He was, also, very fond of music. “Edgar,” continues the lady, “was very generous, and warm and zealous in any cause he was interested in, being enthusiastic and impulsive”

When Poe's adopted father, John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond, drove him from the only home he had known for twenty-two years, the outcast was received into the family of his aunt, Mrs. Marie Clemm, in Baltimore, and, until his unhappy life ended, his home was with her, whether in Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York.

Mrs. Clemm was the daughter of Gen. David Poe, whose services and sacrifices in the American Revolution entitled him to the respect of his countrymen. His daughter was poor, but she gave “Eddie,” as she always [page 126:] called the poet, a home rich in love. Her onlychild, Virginia, was at that time a lovely girl of about ten years old. Poe became her teacher. They were both young, and daily and hourly together. Naturally, they fell in love with each other. Upon their youthful love, Poe founded one of his early tales, “Leonora,” the scenes of which are laid in the Valley of the Many-colored Grass. He describes the “sweet recesses of the vale;” the “Deep and narrow river, brighter than ajl save the eyes of Eleonora;” “the soft, green grass, besprinkled with yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red asphodel — all so beautiful that it spoke to our hearts of the love and glory of God.” Here they “lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the valley — I, and my cousin and her mother.” “The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the seraphim, and she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among the flowers; no guile disguised the fervor of love which animated her heart.”

In 1835, Poe was appointed editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, a magazine which had been started in Richmond a short time before. Under his management the Messenger [page 127:] soon gained a national reputation, and within one year its circulation increased from seven hundred to five thousand, which was a large circulation for a magazine sixty years ago. But, in the midst of his brilliant literary success, Poe felt most painfully his absence from her who had been his companion for four years. During all these years he had watched her as she grew more lovely, more charming, more interesting, and now when he wished to make her his wife, she was two hundred miles away. He became depressed, morbid, melancholy. At his solicitation, Mrs. Clemm removed to Richmond with her daughter, and, on the 16th of May, 1836, he was married to his cousin, she being not quite fourteen years old. The rest of that year was perhaps the brightest and happiest of Poe's life. His salary, indeed, was small ($15.00 a week), but it afforded sufficient support for the little family. Mrs. Clemm was a wonderful manager, and proved the truth of Goethe's saying that beauty is cheap when taste is the purchaser.

I have told the story of Poe's married life in another article — of his perfect devotion in sickness and in health — of his sorrow and desolation when a cruel death took her from him forever. One who knew the family well [page 128:] describes Virginia a year or two after her marriage as possessing a matchless beauty and loveliness; her eyes were as bright as any houri; and her face defied the genius of Canova to imitate. Added to the charms of person was a disposition of surpassing sweetness. The tender love and devotion existing between the poet and his beautiful young wife was remarked by all who knew them. Poe's unhappiness was inborn, and came not from any domestic cause, for both Mrs. Clemm and her daughter cared for him as though he were a child. They spared him all those little personal matters which annoy sensitive people. They selected his collars and cravats, his gloves and cuffs. He was always neatly dressed; Mrs. Clemm told me he preferred for ordinary wear a dark-gray suit, with a turndown collar and black cravat. She said she had often heard Eddie declare that he never saw any person so beautiful as his own sweet little wife. He did not know, at that time, that Virginia's beauty was of that fatal kind which consumption imparts to its victim, and that “she had been made perfect in loveliness only to die.” In a letter written to her relative, the late Judge Neilson Poe, Mrs. Clemm gives some interesting details of the domestic life of the poet. [page 129:]

“Eddie was domestic in all his habits, seldom leaving home for an hour unless his darling Virginia or myself were with him. He was truly an affectionate, kind husband, and a devoted son to me. He was impulsive, generous, affectionate, noble. His tastes were very simple, and his admiration for all that was good and beautiful very great. We three lived only for each other.”

Theodore Parker said that every man of genius has to hew out for himself, from the hard marble of life, the white statue of Tranquillity. Applying this to Poe, Mrs. Whitman with all her womanly sympathy asked the world to look with pity and reverent awe upon the unhappy poet's efforts to achieve that beautiful and august statue of Peace. She remarks further that one clear glance into the corridors of his life — “its halls of tragedy and chambers of retribution,” would appall the stoutest heart. It was after the death of his charming child-wife that the poet's heart became so desolate and suffered from what he himself describes as “a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.” Like many highly imaginative men, Poe was deeply interested in the awful mystery of death. In most of his poetry and in many of his prose tales, he seeks to unravel [page 130:] the impenetrable secrets of the grave, finding a never-ceasing fascination in its gloomy recesses. Mrs. Clemm told me that “Eddie” often wandered to his wife's grave at midnight, in the snow and rain, and threw himself upon the mound of earth, calling upon her in words of most tender affection to watch over him. For weeks and months after this, the crowning sorrow of his life of sorrow, the poet was crushed with grief. His usual occupations were neglected, his pen was thrown aside; his books were not opened; he wandered about the country by day, and at night kept long and solitary vigil at the grave of his “lost Lenore.” From that time, he was a changed man: he who never laughed and rarely ever smiled, scarcely ever smiled again.

In the autumn of 1848, a gleam of sunlight illumined Poe's dark and fateful life, for at that time he first became personally acquainted with Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman. Twenty-four years afterwards, Mrs. Whitman wrote a long and interesting account of her love affair with the poet. It appears that he called upon her at her residence in Providence, R. I., bringing a letter of introduction from a mutual friend, Miss Maria J. Mcintosh. Mrs. Whitman's presence seemed to inspire him with an immediate hope that she could, if she would, [page 131:] raise him from the misery and despair from which he had been suffering since the death of his wife, nearly two years before; and, also, that she could give an inspiration to his genius, of which he had, said Poe, as yet given no token. “Notwithstanding the eloquence with which he urged upon me his wishes,” said Mrs. Whitman, “I knew too well that I could not exercise over him the power that he described to me. In parting with him, I promised that I would reply to him and tell him what I could not then say to him.” Poe wrote to Mrs. Whitman soon after leaving her, but she delayed writing from day to day, unwilling to give him pain by a refusal, and yet fearing to mislead him and compromise herself by any word of friendly sympathy and encouragement. However, after a few weeks, an ardent courtship won the lady's consent to a conditional engagement, followed by her consent to an immediate marriage. On Saturday, December 24, 1848, Poe wrote to a minister, asking him to perform the ceremony on the following Monday evening; he wrote at the same time to Mrs. Clemm that he and his bride should arrive in New York on Tuesday, December 27th. The condition upon which Mrs. Whitman consented to marry Poe was that he should not touch liquor of any kind. Mrs. [page 132:] Whitman says her friends were anxious to break the rash engagement, and were strongly opposed to the hasty marriage. On Saturday afternoon, she received a note informing her that Poe had that very morning broken his promise by drinking wine in the barroom of the Earl House; he took but a single glass, and showed no evidence of excitement in his manner or appearance; but this proof of his infirmity of purpose at such a moment convinced his fiancée that no influence of hers could avail to save him, and she broke the engagement. He returned to New York that evening, and the lovers never met again, but Poe's love for her was one of the cherished memories of Mrs. Whitman's life, and her deep interest in his name and fame ceased only with her own death, which took place on the 27th of June, 1876.

In the summer of 1849, Poe visited Richmond, and there among the scenes of his youth and early manhood, he resumed his acquaintance with the object of his first love, Elmira Royster, who was at that time the widow Shelton. Their love was renewed, and an engagement quickly followed, and the marriage was fixed for the ensuing October. While on his way to New York, to bring Mrs. Clemm to Richmond, which was to be their future [page 133:] home, Poe was overtaken by the calamity in Baltimore, which resulted in his death on the 7th of October, 1849.

Besides these various loves of Edgar Poe, he had several friendships, more or less ardent. His friendship for Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood was cemented by a congeniality of taste and a poetical sympathy. Each celebrated the other in verse, and Mrs. Osgood, a few months before her own early death — she survived Poe only seven months — wrote a most interesting personal sketch of the poet, giving a detailed account of his home life in New York, after the publication of The Raven had placed him among the first of living poets. In a well-known drawing room in New York, once the favorite resort of the literati, there hung a portrait of Poe, which was described as having the aspect of a beautiful and desolate shrine from which the Genius had departed, recalling certain lines in one of the antique marbles:

Near this luminous but impassive face, with its sad and soulless eyes, says Mrs. Whitman, was a portrait of Poe's unrelenting biographer, Griswold. In a recess opposite hung a portrait [page 134:] of the fascinating Mrs. Osgood, whose genius both had so fervently admired, and for whose coveted praise and friendship both had been competitors. Looking at the beautiful face of this lady, so full of enthusiasm, and dreamy, tropical sunshine — remembering the eloquent words of her praise, as expressed in the prodigal and passionate exaggerations of her verse, one ceases to wonder at the rivalries and enmities enkindled within the hearts of those who admired her genius and grace — rivalries and enmities which the grave itself could not cancel or appease.

The lover and his loves are long since dead, but, so immortal is the touch of genius, the. memory of those ladies is embalmed in their country's literary history. This sketch of the loves of Edgar A. Poe cannot be more appropriately concluded than by quoting two verses from an exquisite poem of Sarah Helen Whitman, entitled, “The Portrait of Poe.”