Text: Anonymous, “Edgar Allan Poe,” Leisure Hour (London, UK), vol. III, no. 132, July 6, 1854, pp. 427-429

[page 427:]

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

THE life of Edgar Poe is among the saddest in all literary history, and great lessons may be learned from it. He was descended from parents, one of whom at least, his mother, had a good deal of wild blood, as it is termed, in her veins, which was not likely to be sobered down by the profession she adopted, namely, that of an actress, of which she was fond. She does not seem to have been a woman of much intellect, but rather of vivacity and general attractiveness. David Poe, her husband, was a lawyer; but when he married he gave up his prospects in that direction to join his wife. They “ played” together, as it is called, in various theatres in America until they died. Such, then, was the parentage of the poet, and it is worthy of record, as elucidating many parts of his mind and character. For no man, perhaps, ever partook more of the nature of his parents; their very being seemed to be stamped upon his; he was a sort of Janus reflex of them both. He inherited his wonderful analytical power, his lawyer-like observation of minute details, his faculty of unravelling the most knotty difficulties, as well as his wiry strength, from his father; and he had all his mother's gaiety and love of excitement. He had an individuality of his own, however, was imaginative, and delighted to dwell upon dark and mystic themes. There are touches in his poetry of great pathos; and a wild aerial music gushes out of it which takes the heart captive with an indescribable pleasure.

We need not speak here of the “Raven” — so well known now to most readers — in proof of Poe's originality, and consequent individuality. What his parents possessed he possessed, and, besides this, genius, and that too of a very high order. What he wanted most was strength of will, and a good guide and monitor. But the very occupation of his parents in a great measure prevented the possibility of guidance; inasmuch as a life of dissipation and theatrical bustle and excitement are Incompatible with family discipline. This was Poe's misfortune, and very sorrowfully did he suffer for it. For although he was but five years old when he was taken under the guardianship of an excellent merchant, Mr. Thomas [[John]] Allan, who indeed adopted him as his son — still the red seed of the wild life had been sown, and finding a soil adapted to its growth, it grew long and silently, until it was matured into one of the saddest harvests ever cut down by criminality and death.

In 1816 — he was born 1811, at Baltimore — he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Allan to England, and Visited some of our most beautiful scenery, which does not appear to have made much impression on him, if we may judge from his writings; for although he was subsequently sent to school at Stoke Newington for four or five years, and must have enjoyed many delightful rambles, and have felt many Sweet influences of nature in connection therewith, We do not find any allusion — at least we have seen none — to English rural scenery, tradition, or pastimes in his books. At Stoke Newington he was under the tutorship of a clergyman who did all in his power to instruct and elevate his mind ; but on his return to the States, when he entered the university of Charlottesville, he forgot all his [column 2:] good lessons, and his kind old teacher, and the admonitions of his fond guardian, and the wild nature of the man burst out in all its power, and hurried him on from dissipation to dissipation, and infamy to infamy. It is but fair to say, although it is little in extenuation, that the general manners of the university were at that time loose and depraved. Poe, however, must have been a giant of iniquity — a sort of chivalrous champion, if we may use such an expression, in the cause of the devil — setting all law and morals at defiance; for even his companions were shocked at his procedure; and so bad and notorious did he become at last, that he was expelled the university.

It is strange enough, that, in spite of these shocking habits, so destructive to the intellect as well as to the moral nature, Poe maintained the first rank of scholarship throughout. He seems to have emulated the career of Crichton, who was posted upon the gates of Padua as a “monster of erudition, whom, if any one sought, he might find at the tavern.” He was noted, like Crichton, for his gymnastic feats, his fencing, swimming, as well as for his conversational and declamatory powers. It is related of him that he once swam from Richmond to Warwick, “seven miles and a half, against a tide running probably from two to three miles an hour.” We doubt, from large experience in this fine art and exercise, the truth of this statement; but it makes a line in the poet's biography, and so we put it down here. It will serve at least to show that he had an extensive fame for performances of this kind amongst his cotemporaries.

Covered with debt and infamy, he applied to Mr. Allan for money, drew upon him, and when at last he could get no more from his generous friend, he wrote an abusive letter to him, and left America with the intention of joining the Greeks against the Turks. The dissipation to be found in the capitals of Europe, however, held him back, and his drinking and gambling habits strangled his infant ideas of liberty and glory in the cradle. He found his way to St. Petersburg; but his first and last adventure there was a drunken riot, from the consequences of which he had to be rescued by the American minister.

The unhappy man returned once more to the States, and sought Mr. Allan, who was willing to receive him again into favour, notwithstanding his wickedness and ingratitude. He accordingly, at Poe's request, got him a scholarship in the military academy, where, abandoning jor a time his former habits, and attending to his studies, he became a general favourite. The red seed, however, was still growing, though unseen, and soon waved its harvest ears in the broad light again, like a sea of fire — a horrible, consuming sea, a sea of desolation and death, hurrying the soul onward, as it were, into a more fiery sea and everlasting ruin. Ten months after his appointment he was cashiered. Like the Bourbons and the Stuarts, he could not learn lessons from history and experience. He seems to have been under the dreadful enchantment of an evil spirit, who took delight in showing him the pleasant domain of virtue and the regal empire of intellect only to hurl him back again into sloughs of vice and degradation, amidst the howling of vampires, the shrieks of mandrakes, [page 428:] and the orgies of devils. Intemperance was his master passion — that sin which may be termed the fierce, implacable enemy of God and the god-like, and does indeed so pollute the divine image in man that wherever it obtains there can be no religion, no truth, no peace, no hope — nothing but a world of despair, peopled, as it were, by jibbering apes in the form and fashion of men. And what was poor Poe, with all his learning and genius, but one of these apes? — a man without heart or principle, who might have been equal to the highest offices of state or scholarship, had he devoted himself to virtuous courses, instead of to vice and intemperance. Mr. Allan, however, did not abandon him yet, but received him at his estate at Richmond, and promised to treat him as a son, if he would only mend his ways. Shortly after Mr. A. married a Miss Paterson, and Poe was mean and ungrateful enough to ridicule the lady, as some say; although others give a still more discreditable version of the affair, and say that he added the crime of insult to ridicule. Upon this he was turned out of doors, and his good guardian died not long after, leaving three children to share his estate. Poe was disinherited, as he deserved.

He subsequently published a volume of poems at Baltimore, which attracted much attention, and he wrote many pieces for the journals of that city, but soon found he could not live by his pen; so he tried to live by the sword, and enlisted as a private soldier. He was recognised by some officers who had previously known him at the military academy, and they kindly tried, without his knowledge, to get him a commission; but just as they were on the point of success, his evil genius prevailed again, and he deserted the ranks, and fled no one knew whither.

He next appeared as a competitor for two prizes offered by the “Baltimore Saturday Visitor,” and won them by his good writing, because, as the wise adjudicators said, he was “the first of geniuses who had written legibly.” Good friends followed this success. He was introduced by the publisher to a gentleman who saw him well clad and made decent to appear in respectable society. For he was at this juncture “ thin and pale even to ghastliness; his whole appearance indicated sickness and the utmost destitution. A well-worn frock concealed the absence of a shirt, and imperfect boots disclosed the want of hose. But the eyes of the young man were luminous with intelligence and feeling.” Through the efforts of these new friends he obtained the editorship of a magazine at Richmond, but soon fell into his ancient habits, and, getting drunk for a week, lost his situation. The proprietor of the magazine, who was a worthy man, was reconciled to him again, however, on his promise of amendment, and wrote so affectionate and judicious a letter on the occasion that one would have thought it must have affected him for good. But all was of no use. Again he fell, and in 1837 quitted his employer. He was married, too, at this time, to his cousin, Virginia Clemm, who is reputed to have been both a beautiful and amiable girl; and now he had to suffer the pain of finding that she also must want, through his excesses and follies. He is said to have loved his wife, and perhaps he did; but he took a strange way of showing it. After visiting Baltimore and New [column 2:] York in search of literary employment, we find him settled in Philadelphia in the year 1838, editing a magazine, which was started by Mr. Burton, a literary amateur of that city, and a kind-hearted, high-principled, and honourable man, who, like Mr. Allan, was a true friend to Poe, and did all in his power to save him from those terrible vices to which he knew he was addicted. As usual, during the first few weeks of his new employment, he was steady and assiduous in the performance of its duties; thought himself entitled to say that he had conquered “the seductive and dangerous besetment” of drink, that he was a “model of temperance,” etc.; but alas! the summer glory of that year had scarcely vanished, ere his glory vanished also, and again he relapsed into intemperance and horrid vice. The magazine was neglected, and Poe was dismissed. By this time, however, he had gained a considerable reputation in the chief cities of the Union, both as a prose writer and a poet, and it became a matter of deep regret with all his friends that a man of so much talent should so recklessly throw himself away. Mr. Burton was anxious to reclaim him if possible; and agreed to receive him once more as his editor upon the old conditions, urging him to be less caustic and severe in his criticisms upon the writings of his brother authors, and telling him that he would rather lose his money than wantonly inflict injury upon the feelings of honourable men. Poe was too apt, in his morbid moods, to indulge in bitter sarcasms, and use the pen with a slashing hand, “‘ because,” as he said, this manner of writing “was successful with the mob.” Mr. Burton replied, “I am truly much less anxious to make a monthly sensation, than I am upon the point of fairness.” An admirable rebuke!

And now will it be credited that, after Poe had been thus kindly reinstated in his office, he shortly after took advantage of Mr. B.'s absence in the country to start a new magazine; obtaining “transcripts of his employer's subscription and account books, to be used in a scheme for supplanting him?” So it was, however, and when Mr. B. returned, he found Poe drunk in a tavern; not a line of copy had been sent to the printer's, nor could he get his manuscripts back. All he did get was insult. In short, the only period of Poe's life which was at all creditable, was that during which he was connected with “Graham's Magazine.” His Penn project was a failure, as it deserved to be; and he now wrote for Graham “some of his finest pieces and most trenchant criticisms, and challenged attention by his papers entitled “Autography,” and those on cryptology and cyphers. After a year and a half of brilliant and active literary life, he once more sunk into the dread and fiery abyss in which he was destined at last to perish. Miserable and most unhappy man! whom no kindness could touch, no experience teach wisdom. And yet when he was sober, he was quiet and gentlemanly in his manners and deportment. His little cottage home on the outskirts of Philadelphia was marked by elegance and a refined taste; and his mother-in-law loved him, and never forsook him. There was a strange fascination about him; it was drink that blotted truth and love and honour out of his heart. His whole life was a disease, although a self-inflicted one; and [page 429:] it would have been a mercy to him could he have been treated as an insane person, and put under moral restraint.

He went to New York in 1844, and was received with more honour than he deserved by the literary men of that capital. His fame had gone before him, and he added to it by many brilliant productions in the York magazines. He attained the climax of his reputation as a writer by the publication of the “Raven,” the history of which, in its idea and structure, he has recorded in one of his essays. It is a wierd and wonderful poem, full of high mystic imagination and a strange melody. His habits, however, soon destroyed his prospects; and as he became more dissipated, so also he became more depraved. Once he borrowed fifty dollars of a lady of South Carolina, distinguished for her literary abilities, and when asked to return them, or give an acknowledgment of the loan, so that she might show it to her husband, he basely denied the debt; and only confessed to it through the cowardly fear of chastisement by her brother.

In 1846 Poe was living at Fordham, some miles from New York, in a state of great destitution. His wife was dying; and he and his mother-in-law were attending her last days. When his miseries were known in York — which they shortly were through the newspapers — money came rapidly in; too late, however, to rejoice the heart of that beautiful and unhappy wife, for she was dead before the first relief came. And then there was for a time silence and sorrow and bitterness and contrition in the house; and mother and husband both yearned with unspeakable yearnings to have their loved one back again. But the Omnipotent had spoken, and His minister had executed, and the curtain of eternity had dropped its starry folds down between them all for ever.

He subsequently returned to York, in difficulties still; and his dear old mother-in-law never forsook him, as we said, but devoted her whole life to him; selling odd poems for him where they could be sold, and when she had no poems, and there was no food in the house, begging for him! N. P. Willis has written a very touching account of this loving woman's devotion to her son; never, in all her applications, “amid all her tears and recitals of distress, suffering one syllable to escape her lips that could convey a doubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of trust in his genius and good intentions.”

In 1848, Poe delivered a lecture at the Society, Library, New York, on the cosmogony of the universe, which was afterwards published under the title of “Eureka,” a prose poem. It was a fine effort and full of power — a new theory of nature.

About this time he became acquainted by accident with one of the most beautiful women in New England; she was highly gifted also, and adorned with many virtues. Poe might have married this lady, and everything was arranged to this end. A friend congratulated him on his prospects. “I am not going to be married,” he said; “I shall not marry.” He left New York, determined to break off the engagement; went to the lady's house drunk, on the eve which ought to have been the bridal eve, and conducted himself with such brutal Violence that he was ejected by the police. And thus ended that chapter. [column 2:]

Shortly after he joined the temperance society in Richmond, and commenced lecturing in various towns. During his travels he fell in with a lady whom he had known in his youth, and engaged to marry her. At Baltimore, however, where he was, on his way to Philadelphia, to fulfil his engagement, he met with some old companions, and drank himself into a fever which put an end to his life. It was on a beautiful Sabbath evening in October, in the calm and beautiful twilight, when people were worshipping God in his holy places and hearing the message of his love, that Poe's rebellious spirit took its flight for doom.

There is no space here to make a resumé of his character and life; but surely it is full of sorrow and warning to all. May God help us to profit by the terrible example which he presents; and preserve us from those degrading habits of drinking end dissipation which sooner or later destroy both body and soul.