Text: George Barnett Smith, “Poe: His Life and Work,” Tinsely's Magazine (London, UK), vol. XXVIII, January 1881, pp. 15-32

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THERE is no more terribly suggestive story in literature than that of Edgar Allan Poe. A lurid light plays round the career of this brilliant genius from the moment in which his star rose above the horizon to that in which it set amidst gloom and despair. Everything about him is bizarre — his life, his character, his writings. Endowed with the finest faculties and the most sensitive organisation, it was his misfortune to fall into depths of degradation which caused him the keenest anguish and remorse. That he was far more unfortunate than guilty is now abundantly proved. Adopting a saying of Victor Hugo, his stories created un frisson nouveau; and this same shiver overtakes us when we study his life. Yet, under whatever guise we see him, there is a fascination about this remarkable man which we cannot shake off; ‘he holds us with his glittering eye, and literary annals probably furnish no such striking example of what may be called personal magnetism. With this wayward child of genius, existence was a perpetual struggle between the divine and the animal instincts — between the evil and the good. In his best moods he had moments of exaltation such as come to but few men; in his worst, he was plunged into excesses over which we would willingly draw a veil. His own expressed thoughts convey to us the impression of one constantly looking behind him for the evil spirit who is ever dogging his footsteps, and who is conscious that, sooner or later, his [column 2:] dread enemy must claim the victory. Never, surely, were such passionate exclamations addressed to high Heaven as those which were wrung from the lips of Poe — never, surely, had human soul more of those ‘violent delights’ which have ‘violent ends,’ or more of those moments of terrible despondency when the blackness of desolation envelops all.

Poe has added a new note to the gamut of sorrow and despair. He stands apart as an object of singular interest, and, notwithstanding all that has been written upon him, that interest still remains inexhaustible. He was born at Boston on the 19th of January 1809, a year which also witnessed the birth of such different personalities as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Ewart Gladstone, and Alfred Tennyson. The fitness of things is seen in an exceptional birth resulting from an exceptional union. Poe's father was of good birth, but of a roving and excitable disposition. He took to the stage, and married a talented actress named Elizabeth Arnold. From the paternal side Poe inherited a strange mixture of French, Italian, and Irish blood; but the intellectual endowment came, as it most frequently does in the case of men of genius, from the mother's side. Mrs. Poe appears to have excelled both as an artist and an actress. The future poet being left an orphan very early, he was adopted by his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy Scotch merchant, who had settled down and married [page 16:] in the State of Virginia. It was unfortunate for Poe that, at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings, he was left to the guidance of his own will, and became virtually master of his own actions. In one of an imaginative and easily excitable temperament, such license, as he himself has remarked, naturally became, in time, a cause of serious disquietude to his friends, and of positive injury to himself. Poe came to Europe with the Allans; and in the year 1816 was placed at school at Stoke Newington. While here, his cleverness attracted attention; but it was also observed that he had been spoilt by his adoptive parents. Mr. Allan was largely responsible for the after consequences; for he appears to have been changeable and fitful in his treatment of Poe, whose temperament he was perfectly unable to understand. Recalled to America in 1821, we find the youthful poet busy constructing imaginative pieces at the age of fourteen. For three or four years he was a scholar in a well-known academy at Richmond, Virginia. It was in this city that he met his first and last love, Elmira Royster, who afterwards became Mrs. Shelton. One year Poe passed at the University of Virginia; and it is admitted, by his warmest admirers, that his conduct here was far from exemplary, though he was not that hardened, intemperate, and reckless being he has been frequently represented.

Fortunately for the memory of Poe, the world is at length supplied with an antidote to the slanders of Griswold and others, in the shape of a perfectly trustworthy and most interesting account of his career.* [column 2:] It is to this work we are indebted for many of the biographical facts which it is necessary briefly to recapitulate in order to a right understanding of the poet's character. Poe was always being inspired by a passion of some kind, either Platonic or otherwise. In the former category we must class his admiration for Mrs. Helen Stannard, which he has described as ‘the one idolatrous and purely ideal love’ of his ill-starred boyhood, and which gave rise to those exceptionally beautiful stanzas, beginning, ‘Helen, thy beauty is to me.’ His regret for this lady was deep and lasting; and one who knew him later finds in it a key to much that seemed strange and abnormal in his after life. In 1827, Poe's first volume appeared, Tamerlane, and other Poems. We look back to this volume now chiefly because it set forth the author's indestructible belief in his own powers. Some of his numbers, even in this early volume, were by no means contemptible, either on the score of sentiment or rhythm; but the whole conveys the impression of being a jumble of passion and ambition. There was some power of song, certainly; but as yet it was quite possible for it to have died without ripening. The book was suppressed; and shortly afterwards, if we are to believe what was confidently stated by Poe's friends, and never contradicted by himself, he came to Europe in order to offer his services to the Greeks against their Turkish tyrants. Hannay loved to think of Poe in the Mediterranean; but that he ever reached there is more than questionable; and it is asserted that it was an elder brother — also a poet, and a dissipated one into the bargain — who was fired, like Byron, by the Greek struggle for independence. During Poe's absence in Europe Mrs. Allan died; and on his return, [page 17:] in 1829, he does not appear to have got on well with her surviving husband, his guardian. Poe probably exasperated him in many ways; and Mr. Allan had not the pleasantest manner of his own, so that a rupture ensued. For two years we find the poet residing with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm of Baltimore; but, before this, he had been a cadet at West Point Military Academy, from which he had been expelled for certain breaches of the regulations; and he had also gone through a variety of experiences in the pursuit of literature. Mrs. Clemm had an only child, Virginia, a very beautiful girl of fourteen; and with her, of course, the susceptible Edgar immediately fell in love. She reciprocated his affection, and eventually became his child-wife, loving him and clinging to him through all the painful vicissitudes of his subsequent career, until her untimely death. Poe was married in the year 1836; and from this date forward we constantly find him, as he once wrote to John P. Kennedy, the novelist, falling into ‘a little temporary difficulty.’ Still for some time there was no shadow over his domestic happiness. He was happy in his home and happy in his wife, while composing such strangely self-revealing works as the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. In 1838 he removed to Philadelphia, having the whole burden of the household upon his shoulders. He appears, in all earnestness, to have sought literary work, and to have struggled manfully to live as a man ought. It was now that he wrote the weird tale of ‘Ligeia’ for the American Museum. This story, which was suggested by a dream, had for its motto a quotation from the Essays of Joseph Glanvill: ‘Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his [column 2:] feeble will.’ Such a theme exactly suited the imperious defiant spirit of Poe, who sometimes carried his estimation of his own powers to a sublime excess. For example, a friend records that, upon one occasion, when he got into a discussion with the poet upon the subject of Pantheism, Poe was at first very quiet, but, slowly changing as he went on, at last a look of scornful pride worthyof Milton's Satan flashed over his pale delicate face and broad brow; a strange thrill nerved and dilated for an instant his slight figure, as he exclaimed, ‘ My whole nature utterly revolts at the idea that there is any being in the universe superior to myself!’ There was an extraordinary and uncunscionable egotism in Poe which was not held in check either by any intellectual or social restraint. At times this egotism, or conceit, borders on the ridiculous; and its amazing strength is but another lamentable proof of the absence of those wholesome checks which such natures absolutely require in their boyhood.

The years 1841-42 were years of rapid production with Poe, many of his best-known tales being at this period published in Graham's Magazine, a periodical whose sale enormously increased on account of his efforts. In April of the last-named year, however, he resigned the editorship of the magazine for reasons which are partially veiled in obscurity. Even with the aid of Mr. Ingram's biography, we are unable to understand many of the episodes in Poe's career. There always seems to be something in the background, something for which no adequate explanation is forthcoming — certainly none that is to the credit of the poet. ‘ Nervous restlessness’ is no doubt a very uncomfortable thing to suffer from, but it does not compel a man to throw away his best chances; [page 18:] and it is greatly to be feared that moral irregularities must account for the frequent lapses of Poe, and his failures to preserve his occupations and his friendships. He gave way periodically to intoxication, but never without bitterly lamenting his fall afterwards. But, while thus blameworthy, every one must pity the man. Hear him unbosom himself in this sad autobiographic fragment:

‘Six years ago,’ he said, writing to a correspondent in 1848, ‘a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took leave of her for ever, and underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered partially, and I again hoped. At the end of a year the vessel broke again. I went through precisely the same scene. Then again — again, and even once again, at varying intervals. Each time I felt all the agonies of her death, and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly, and clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive — nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute unconsciousness, I drank — God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink, rather than the drink to the insanity. I had, indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure, when I found one in the death of my wife. This I can and do endure as becomes a man. It was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope and despair which I could not longer have endured, without total loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, then, I receive a new, but — O God ! — how melancholy an existence!’

There is the stamp of truth in this confession, which disarms criticism [column 2:] and inspires commiseration; but Poe's contemporaries were scarcely likely to put the best complexion upon the affair, especially when he had attacked many of them in their works with extraordinary bitterness. He undoubtedly purified American literature of many excrescences by his bold and fearless method of criticism, but this only made him a marked man in certain quarters. That he was ardently attached to his young wife admits of no doubt; Mrs. Osgood, who knew them both intimately, testifies strongly to that; but when he lost her it was but too apparent that he had no solid and sterling basis of moral principle to fall back upon for his support. His imagination was the strongest thing about him, and when the waves and billows of trouble buffet a man, he needs a stronger staying-power than that.

The ever-recurring necessity of writing for bread was very galling to Poe, while the illness of his wife unfitted him for literary work. It is said that, powerless to provide for the necessities of home, ‘he would steal out of his house at night, and go off and wander about the streets for hours, proud, heartsick, despairing, not knowing which way to turn, or what to do, while Mrs. Clemm (his wife's mother) would endure the anxiety at home as long as she could, and then start off in search of him.’ What a picture of domestic life this furnishes! At one time he attempted, but unsuccessfully, to obtain a government post, which should at least lift him above want and complete dependence. He was again driven to ply his pen with renewed vigour. It would have been well for Poe could his life at Richmond, Virginia, when he wrote for the Southern Literary Messenger, have continued. His singularly clever story of the MS. found in a Bottle [page 19:] had made him many literary friends, and work promised to be profitable and abundant. But these days were long over. He now became acquainted with a Philadelphia publisher, by whose aid he hoped to launch The Stylus, a magazine over which he had long brooded; but the scheme fell through. In 1843 he obtained a prize of one hundred dollars for his story of ‘The Gold Bug;’ but by this time he was in very low water pecuniarily. And yet, under the continual stress of poverty, he wrote many of his best critical articles. There was one upon Horne's Orion, which led to a correspondence between the two poets. In 1844 Poe perpetrated a startling hoax upon the New York world through the medium of the Sun newspaper. Our Yankee cousins are fond of a good rattling sensation, and they certainly got it on this occasion. We can fancy the readers of the Sun rubbing their eyes as they pondered the following piece of very special intelligence: ‘ Astounding news by express, viâ Norfolk! The Atlantic crossed in three days! Signal triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's flying machine! Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, S.C., of Mr. Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in the steering balloon Victoria, after a passage of seventy-five hours from land to land! Full particulars of the voyage!’ There was, of course, a rush for the sole paper containing such news, and the trick was a great success; but, like many of Theodore Hook's, it would not bear repeating. Towards the close of this year the New Mirror, a periodical to which Poe had been a frequent contributor, collapsed; and leaving Philadelphia, he resolved upon trying his fortunes in New York once more. The following year was the most [column 2:] brilliant in his literary career. Towards the close of January the first published version of his poetic masterpiece, ‘The Raven,’ appeared in the Evening Mirror, edited by N. P. Willis. The publication was from advance sheets of the American Review, and in describing the poem Willis affirmed that it was ‘the most effective single example of fugitive poetry ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift.’ It certainly made Poe famous, and has kept his name famous ever since. ‘No single fugitive poem,’ says his biographer, ‘ever caused such a furore. In the course of a few weeks it spread over the whole of the United States, calling into existence parodies and imitations innumerable, and indeed creating quite a literature of its own.’ Yet for ‘this masterpiece of genius — this poem which has probably done more for the renown of American letters than any other single work — it is alleged that Poe, then in the heyday of his intellect and reputation, received the sum of ten dollars!’ We can neither subscribe to the dictum as to the value of ‘The Raven’ transcending anything else in American letters, nor express much surprise at the remuneration paid for it. Certainly Longfellow in poetry, and Hawthorne by his Scarlet Letter, have done as much for the mere renown of American letters, while the editor who accepted Poe's poem would naturally plead that at the time he published it he could not possibly foresee the furore that would attach to it. For the poem itself, however, in common with thousands, we have nothing but admiration, and it is worth while to look into the genesis of a thing which may be fairly said to have acquired a universal [page 20:] fame. It is matter of speculation where its first root-idea came from. Poe described to Buchanan Read the whole process of the construction of his wonderful lyric, and declared that the suggestion of it arose from a line in Mrs. Browning's poem, ‘Lady Geraldine's Courtship.’ The line in question is, ‘With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air the purple curtain; and there is certainly a very close resemblance between this and a line in ‘The Raven.’ But there was a still more remarkable coincidence in connection with a poem entitled ‘Isadore,’ by an American writer, Mr. Albert Pike, and published some time before Poe's. As Mr. Ingram states, both write a poem lamenting a lost love, when, in point of fact, neither one nor the other had lost his ‘Isadore’ or his ‘Lenore,’ save in imagination. But the coincidence extends to subject, refrain, and the word selected for the refrain. Poe has two immense and towering advantages, however, over the other writer. He is a consummate artist, in the first place; and in the second, by his fine imagination, he is able to invest his work with a meaning and a power which shall appeal to the great mass of mankind. Nevertheless, two stanzas from Mr. Pike's poem will show that Poe must not only have seen it, but been strongly impressed by it:

Dickens's raven in Barnaby Rudge appears to have given Poe the idea for the melancholy bird which plays so striking and so weird a part in his immortal poem. In fact, calling attention previously to a point which Dickens had failed to make with his raven, the poet remarked that the bird ‘might have been made more than we now see it, a portion of the conception of the fantastic Barnaby. Its croakings might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama. Its character might have performed, in regard to that of the idiot, much the same part as does, in music, the accompaniment in respect to the air.’ Other curious, but less important, facts might be cited proving that ‘The Raven’ was by no means a totally unassisted work of the imagination.

We now see Poe once more with the ball at his feet. Another chance is given to him, such as falls to the lot of but few literary men. In 1845-46 he is in New York, mingling in the best society, charming every one by the fascination of his manners and the brilliancy of his conversational powers. He is, in fact, idolised for his genius. Mrs. Whitman has recorded the interest taken in the poet by the literary society of New York, and how he was regarded as something fresh and novel. Whether right or wrong, he was always terribly in earnest, and, like De Quincey, ‘he never supposed anything, he always knew.’ It was at this time that Poe became intimately acquainted with Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, a lady of considerable poetic gifts. Describing her first interview with him, she says, ‘I shall never forget the morning when I was summoned to the drawing-room by Mr. Willis to receive him. With his proud and beautiful head erect, his dark eyes flashing with the electric light of feeling and thought, [page 21:] a peculiar, an inimitable blending of sweetness and hauteur in his expression and manner, he greeted me calmly, gravely, almost coldly; yet with so marked an earnestness that I could not help being deeply impressed by it. From that moment until his death we were friends.’ Rebutting the calumnies of his enemies, Mrs. Osgood asserts that Poe had always the strictest reverence for women. While blameless, however, he allowed himself to be drawn into entanglements which furnished food for scandal. His better judgment also forsook him occasionally in literary matters, as in the controversy with an obscure writer named English, which Mr. Ingram relates at length. Poe's treatment of the man was clever and sarcastic, but the play was not worth the candle. But there is also something in the poet's attacks upon far abler and better men of letters which leaves a suspicion of jealousy. It may not have been so, but the manner of Poe's criticism certainly creates that unfortunate impression. He was frequently too stinted in his praise of some of the finest literary Spirits of America.

Early in 1846 Poe removed with his wife and Mrs. Clemm to a little cottage at Fordham. Here life for some time was perfectly unclouded, and all that it should be. Mrs. Gove-Nichols, who visited the Poe family at this place, has pictured the scene of domestic content and happiness. In writing and receiving letters the poet was perfectly content. He had been especially delighted on receiving a letter from Mrs. Browning, telling him that his ‘poem of “The Raven” had awakened a fit of horror in England.’ The narrator throws a strong side-light upon the character of Poe when she adds, ‘This was what he loved to do. To make the flesh creep, to make one shudder [column 2:] and freeze with horror, was more to his relish (I cannot say more to his mind or heart) than to touch the tenderest chords of sympathy or sadness.’ This is the great point of his tales, and the idiosyncrasy was an unfortunate one for the author. Being reminded on one occasion by Mrs. Gove-Nichols of a previous conversation in which he had said that he despised fame, Poe exclaimed energetically and almost fiercely, ‘It was false; I love fame. I dote on it; I idolise it; I would drink to the very dregs the glorious intoxication. I would have incense ascend in my honour from every hill and hamlet, from every town and city on this earth. Fame! glory ! they are life-giving breath and living blood. No man lives unless he is famous. How bitterly I belied my nature, and my aspirations, when I said I did not desire fame, and that I despised it! Such talk may appear wild exaggeration, but it is confessions like these which give us an insight into the man's nature. His soul, which was tore often intoxicated than his body, was as ambitious in its way as that of a Napoleon Bonaparte.

While at Fordham the youthful Mrs. Poe was attacked by consumption, and sank rapidly. The household was very poor. Mrs. Gove-Nichols, on visiting the invalid, found that ‘there was no clothing on the bed, which was only straw, but a snow-white counterpane and sheets. The weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband's greatcoat, with a large tortoiseshell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were the sufferer's only means of warmth, except as [page 22:] her husband held her hands, and her mother her feet.’ These painful facts having been made known to a benevolent lady named Mrs. Shew (afterwards Houghton), she not only headed a private subscription, but from that moment watched over the suffering family as a mother. But the end could not be averted. Death came for the young wife, and the day of the funeral seems to have been a desolate dreary day — ‘The skies they were ashen and sober’ — and the bereaved husband ‘was forced to assume his old military cloak, which Mrs. Shew had been at pains to hide out of sight, fearing the memories it must arouse, it having, erstwhile, and in the days of their greatest tribulation, served as a covering for Virginia's bed.’ When all was over the poet gave way, and fell into a kind of apathetic stupor, but Mrs. Shew still continued to befriend him. He recovered somewhat, but soon afterwards suffered a relapse; and amongst those who came to his aid were General Scott and ‘Stella’ (Mrs. Lewis), the author of ‘Sappho.’ Amongst other peculiarities of Poe, of which we are reminded by his correspondence with a New-England lady, he had a habit of unburdening himself of his very heart's secrets to any one who would listen to him; and, further, he was always deeply enraptured by his newest friend, whomsoever it might be. These things were due to the quicksilver nature of his temperament. How he came to be grossly misunderstood is shown clearly by these sentences from one of his own letters: ‘My habits are rigorously abstemious, and I omit nothing of the natural regimen requisite for health, i.e. I rise early, eat moderately, drink nothing but water, and take abundant and regular exercise in the open air. The desire for [column 2:] society comes upon me only when I have been excited by drink. Then only I go — that is, at these times only I have been in the practice of going among my friends, who seldom, or in fact never, having seen me unless excited, take it for granted that I am always so. Those who really know me know better.” Poe was as active as ever in 1848 over his great scheme of the Stylus magazine. For some time he could write and speak of nothing else. To further it, he gave a lecture on ‘The Universe, but very few of those who had the honour to be included in the universe attended. He was brilliant as usual, but he had scarcely mastered the great secret he was determined to unriddle. His theory is explained at length in his work entitled Eureka. That he was not a scientist this effusion clearly proves, and of course only an intellect trained in scientific learning and method could be expected to grapple with such a theme in a fit and worthy manner. Poe himself appears in the end to have been convinced of this, and wished his work to be taken only for what it is a prose poem. The Universe would doubtless be an attractive theme for one possessing a daring imagination like Poe, but its secrets were, and are, such as utterly to defy a reasonable exposition from merely vague generalisations. In Eureka, Poe demonstrated that, if he held firmly any theory at all concerning the relations of life and the universe, it was a Pantheistic one. In all his writings we perceive one great defect — the absence of humour. Of invective he had enough and to spare, when wasted upon nobodies and busybodies, but of that quality which would have enabled him to cast off despair he had none. Humour is the enemy of settled gloom, and it would have been well for [page 23:] Poe as a man if he had been endowed with it. The only approach to it recorded in conversation was when he was once speaking of the Jesuit fathers at Fordham College — ‘They were highly-cultivated gentlemen and scholars,’ he said; ‘smoked, drank, and played cards like gentlemen, and never said a word about religion!’

Poe took an intense interest in his Eureka, and there is something approaching the ludicrous in Mr. Putnam's account of the fierce earnestness with which he regarded the book. ‘Newton's discovery of gravitation,’ he assured the publisher, ‘was a mere incident compared with the discoveries revealed in this book. It would at once command such unusual and intense interest, that the publisher might give up all other enterprises, and make this one book the business of his lifetime. An edition of fifty thousand copies might be sufficient to begin with, but it would be but a small beginning. No other scientific event in the history of the world approached in importance the original developments of the book.’ Mr. Putnam scarcely saw his way to the relinquishment of all other engagements, in order to make room for the Eureka, but he had no objection to begin the revolution in a small way; so, instead of beginning with fifty thousand copies, he ventured upon five hundred. It was quite as well he did so; for although there is a certain grandeur in Poe's ideas, yet Poe himself has gone, and the secrets of the universe still remain unravelled. So that, grand and majestic as may have been Poe's speculations, it would doubtless be very inconvenient for Messrs. Putnam to be burdened with them in a concrete form, in the shape of forty-nine thousand five hundred volumes, upon their shelves.

Turning from this gigantic theme, [column 2:] which was stated and expounded in a modest little volume of 144 pages, dedicated to Baron von Humboldt, we follow the poet in his wanderings, destined, alas, now to be very brief on this grief-stricken planet. He appeared at Richmond again, renewing old and making new acquaintances and, still pushing his scheme for a magazine. Then he returned to Fordham, where he was employed writing for the magazines, rarely leaving home now. At the residence of Mrs. Shew, however, he wrote the first rough draft of ‘ The Bells,’ amongst the most melodious of poems. Here again one of his best-known effusions arose out of the simplest circumstances. Coming in one day, he said that he had to write a poem, and had no feeling, no inspiration. Church-bells were ringing in the distance. Mrs. Shew handed him paper, but he declined it, saying, ‘I so dislike the noise of bells to-night. I cannot write; I have no subject — I am exhausted.’ The lady took up the pen, and, pretending to mimic his style, wrote, ‘The Bells, by E. A. Poe,’ and added, in mere sportiveness, ‘The bells, the little silver bells,’ Poe finishing off the stanza. She suggested, for the next verse, ‘The heavy iron bells,’ and this Poe also worked out into a stanza. Thus the poem grew. The poet was not well; and when he had finished the work retired to rest, sleeping for twelve hours. Next day he could hardly recall the evening's work. ‘This showed his mind was injured,’ Mrs. Shew observes, ‘nearly gone out for want of food, and from disappointment. He had not been drinking, and had only been a few hours from home. Evidently his vitality was low, and he was nearly insane.’ It was probably a reaction, such as the taking of opium frequently brings. But Poe was certainly now in a [page 24:] very weak and debilitated condition. Mr. Ingram says that, at times, his contempt for the ordinary conventionalities of life rendered it difficult for his friends to maintain their relations with him. The observation is vague, and we are left to fill in its details as best we may. Whatever Poe's faults were, nevertheless, they were such as to alienate from: him the very friend who had so long befriended him. He wrote to Mrs. Shew a passionate and fervid appeal, in which he described himself as ‘a lost soul’ (a figure of speech); but she must have seen that it was hopeless longer to attempt to guide him, and the two never met again. But there was another lady with whom he had become acquainted, the well-known poetess, Mrs. Helen Whitman. With her he appears to have instantly fallen in love, and some idea of the fervent nature of his letters to her may be gathered from this extract: ‘All thoughts, all passions seem now merged in that one consuming desire — the mere wish to make you comprehend — to make you see that for which there is no human voice, the unutterable fervour of my love for you; for so well do I know your poet nature, that I feel sure if you could but look down xow into the depths of my soul with your spiritual eyes, you could not refuse to speak to me what, alas, you still leave, resolutely leave, unspoken. You would love me, if only for the greatness of my love. Is it not something, in this cold dreary world, to be loved? O, if I could but burn into your spirit the deep, the true meaning which I attach to those three syllables underlined! But, alas, the effort is all in vain, and “I live and die unheard.”’

The poet's soul seemed to be constantly exhausting itself in italics and dashes. ‘This and other passages [column 2:] are very typical of the chronically disturbed state of his heart. In another letter he asks to be allowed to comfort her, to tranquillise her, or, if Fate so wills it, to go down into the grave with her. In a third of these passionate love epistles there is a solemn asseveration which it is of great importance to note as bearing upon his career. ‘By the God who reigns in heaven,’ he exclaims, ‘I swear to you that my soul is incapable of dishonour; that, with the exception of occasional follies and excesses, which I bitterly lament, but to which I have been driven by intolerable sorrow, and which are hourly committed by others without attracting any notice whatever, I can call to mind no act of my life which would bring a blush to my cheek — or to yours. He continued to plead with her, until at length she sent him a brief and indecisive note which perplexed him. Poe then wrote that he would be at Providence, where Mrs. Whitman resided, on the following evening. He went; but instead of going to the lady's house, he returned in a dreadfully depressed state, and, by an abortive attempt at suicide, ‘reduced himself to a truly deplorable condition.’ Poe still gave the lady no peace, and one morning called upon her in a state of delirious excitement, imploring her to save him from some terrible impending doom. She was afraid to speak the word he wished, viz. that she would marry him, for she had been warned by others against doing so. The poet prevailed in the end, however, and Mrs. Whitman ‘permitted him to extract from her a promise that she would become his wife, upon condition that he never touched intoxicants again, declaring that nothing, save his own infirmity, should cause her to recede from her plighted troth.’ The preparations for the marriage were [page 25:] now pushed forward, but the union never took place. Information was conveyed to Mrs. Whitman and to her relatives, that during his absence he had violated the solemn pledge of abstinence so recently given. This might possibly have been the work of some enemy; but Mrs. Whitman, though she observed no trace of the infringement of his promise in his appearance, was impelled afterwards to write the following account of their separation : ‘I was at last convinced that it would be in vain longer to hope against hope. I knew that he had irrevocably lost the power of self-recovery. Gathering together some papers which he had intrusted to my keeping, I placed them in his hands without a word of explanation or reproach, and, utterly worn out and exhausted by the mental conflicts and anxieties and responsibilities of the last few days, I drenched my handkerchief with ether and threw myself on a sofa, hoping to lose myself in utter unconsciousness. Sinking on his knees beside me, he entreated me to speak to him — to speak one word, but one word. At last I responded, almost inaudibly, “What can I say?” “Say that you love me, Helen.” “I love you.” These were the last words I ever spoke to him.’ A melodramatic situation, surely, but one of terrible import to Poe.

The last tragic scene in the poet's ill-starred career reminds us in its naked horror of the death of a still greater man of genius, Christopher Marlowe. The rupture of the engagement with Mrs. Whitman gave rise to scandalous reports, and Poe, in regard to this and other matters, was undoubtedly greatly maligned; but still, there is one passage in his most friendly biographer's account which is indirectly damaging to his character. ‘Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Shew, and Mrs. Whitman attempted, as has [column 2:] been seen, more or less to befriend the helpless poet; but as they one after the other deemed it necessary to let him go his ways, he sank deeper and deeper into the ‘Slough of Despond.”’ Why did they deem it necessary to let him go his ways, unless they had discovered that the work of reformation was hopeless? But we tay well feel with them, while strongly blaming the poet, that there is room enough for pity. There were few who could understand such a nature as Poe's, or gauge the depth and strength of the struggles which he made after a higher and nobler life. Poe died at Baltimore, and from Mr. Ingram's narrative we quote the passage in which the end is depicted: ‘Early in October, on the 2d apparently, Poe left Richmond for New York. He proceeded by boat to Baltimore, which city he reached safely on the morning following his departure. Upon his arrival he gave his trunk to a porter to convey it, it is stated, to the cars which were timed to leave in an hour or so for Philadelphia, whilst he sought some refreshment. What now happened is still shrouded in mystery. Before leaving Richmond the poet had complained of indisposition, of chilliness, and of exhaustion, and it is just possible that the increase of these symptoms may have enticed him into breaking his pledge, or into resorting to some deleterious drug. Be the cause whatever it may, it now appears to have become the fixed belief of the Baltimoreans that the unfortunate poet, while in a state of temporary mania or stupor, fell into the hands of a gang of ruffians who were scouring the streets in search of victims. Wednesday, the 3d of October, was election-day for members of Congress in the State of Maryland, and it is the general supposition that Poe was captured by an electioneering [page 26:] band, “cooped,” drugged, dragged to the polls, and then, after having voted the ticket placed in his hand, was ruthlessly left in the street to die. For the truth of this terrible tale there appears to be too great a probability.’ Dr. Moran, physician of the Washington University Hospital, Baltimore, states that the poet was brought into that institution on the 7th of October, in a state of insensibility. He had been discovered in that condition, lying on a bench by a wharf, and having been recognised by a passerby, had been put into a conveyance and taken to the hospital. Poe's cousin, Judge Neilson Poe, visited him in hospital, and did everything for his comfort, but in vain. The poet recovered consciousness for a time; but ‘the horror and misery of his condition, combined with the effects of exposure, produced such a shock to the nervous system that he never recovered, and about midnight on the 7th of October 1849, his poor tortured spirit passed away.’ Mr. Moncure Conway says he has heard it related that when, near the close of his life, Poe was found by one searching for him in a low public-house in Baltimore, he raised his tipsy head and exclaimed, Sic transit gloria mundi! But whatever may have been the precise manner of his death, it was a painful and ignominious one. The vital spark was extinguished as the result of stupor and excess. ‘That vivid imagination was overwhelmed in gloom — gone were those glorious visions of beauty which he had been able to call up at will! Those many-coloured brilliant lights of existence which illumined his path — for, notwithstanding his excesses, Poe was able to create a very phantasmagoria of physical and nervous enjoyment — were all dead, gone down into utter darkness! The teeming brain, the flashing eye, the throbbing heart, all were alike cold [column 2:] and silent, for ‘the silver cord was loosed, and the golden bowl was broken at the cistern.’

What of the character of this extraordinary man? If it be the truth — and there seems no possibility of evading it — that his career was cut short by his excesses, let the truth be spoken. Pity and sympathy may come in at their proper place, but after the confession, not before; they cannot do away with the facts; yet these divine sentiments may help us to make all possible allowances for the very strong temptations to which Poe was subjected. It is peculiarly a case in which we should emulate the spirit of Him ‘who makes allowance for us all.’ Still, Poe drank heavily to drown bitter memories and feelings well-nigh unbearable; but he drank consciously. He knew why he drank, and the object of it; and nothing is gained by endeavouring to deny or explain away the fact. His sufferings were no doubt great, and his anguish at certain periods intensely keen; with all this we can sympathise, while we at the same time regret the absence of that will which, instead of allowing him to sink beneath himself, would have led him into the path of a noble and manly endurance. To endeavour to divest Poe of responsibility would be to set up a false and dangerous standard in morals. Baudelaire has an extraordinary theory in regard to this matter, which he connects with the writings of Poe: ‘Je crois que, dans beaucoup de cas, non pas certainement dans tous, l’ivrognerie de Poe était un moyen mnémonique, une méthode de travail, méthode énergique et mortelle, mais appropriée a sa nature passionnée. Le poéte avait appris & boire, comme un littérateur soigneux s’exerce a faire des cahiers de notes. Il ne pouvait résister au désir de retrouver les [page 27:] visions merveilleuses ou effrayantes, les conceptions subtile qu’il avait rencontrées dans une tempéte précédente; c’étaient de vieilles connaissances qui l’attiraient impérativement, et pour renouer avec elles, il prenait le chemin le plus dangereux, mais le plus direct. Une partie de ce qui fait aujourd’hui notre jouissance est ce qui l’a tué.’ This is certainly the most extraordinary defence or palliation of the conduct of Poe which has ever been put forward. And it is as dangerous as it is extraordinary. The spectacle of a number of poets rushing about the world, and seeking by means of intoxication to recall certain methods of composition, would be as inconvenient and immoral as it is novel. We are afraid that Baudelaire's hypothesis must be dismissed as having little to do with the actual facts in the poet's case. There are grounds, however, for forming another hypothesis in connection with the poet, and that is that he took opium. The symptoms from which he suffered were certainly those which would be produced by a use of the drug; and it is not a little singular that, in referring to De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater, Poe himself said that there was ‘yet room for a book on opium-eating, which should be the most profoundly interesting volume ever penned.’ Now, unless there was some special reason founded upon experience, it seems scarcely likely that a man would venture to speak with authority upon such a painful subject as that dealt with in De Quincey's work.

However, we will now pass from the dark side of Poe's character, and consider its best. If there were strong shadows in him, they were only the more apparent because there were also strong lights. His natural affections were very deep; he was honourable and chivalrous; [column 2:] his bearing had usually the refinement and delicacy of a gentleman; he had strong self-reliance in regard to those things over which he was a master; and he deserves every credit for the manly fight he made to live entirely by literature, when such a resolve implied self-abnegation and much hard work. In personal appearance Poe must have been very attractive — a man to captivate the female sex, and to interest deeply his own. Professor Valentine speaks of the profound impression made by the poet's recitations, especially by his rendering of Hood's ‘Bridge of Sighs;’ and he thus refers to his general appearance: ‘His brow was fine and expressive; his eye dark and restless; in the mouth firmness, mingled with an element of scorn and discontent. His gait was firm and erect, but his manner nervous and emphatic. He was of fine address, and cordial in his intercourse with his friends, but looked as though he rarely smiled from joy, to which he seemed to be a stranger; that might be partly attributed to the great struggle for self-control, in which he seemed to be constantly engaged. There was little variation and much sadness in the intonation of his voice; yet this very sadness was so completely in harmony with his history as to excite on the part of this community a deep interest in him, both as a lecturer and a reader.’ Mr. E. C. Stedman, the American critic, speaking of Poe in his best period, as recalled by Halpin's engraving, remarks that we see one ‘slight, but erect of figure, athletic, and well moulded; of middle height, but so proportioned as to seem every inch a man; his head finely modelled, with a forehead and temples large, and not unlike those of Bonaparte; his hands fair as a woman's; in all a well-dressed gentleman; one, even in the garb of [page 28:] poverty, “with gentleman written all over him.” We see the handsome intellectual face, the dark and clustering hair, the clear and sad gray-violet eyes — large, lustrous, glowing with expression; the mouth, whose smile at least was sweet and winning. We imagine the soft musical voice (a delicate thing in man or woman), the easy quiet movement, the bearing that no failure could humble. And this man had not only the gift of beauty, but the passionate love of beauty — either of which may be as great a blessing or peril as can befall a human being stretched upon the rack of this tough world.’ So much for one picture; now look upon this, as reflected from some daguerreotype taken shortly before his death: ‘It is like an inauspicious mirror, that shows all too clearly the ravage made by a vexed spirit within, and loses the qualities which only a living artist could feel and capture. Here is the dramatic defiant bearing, but with it the bitterness of scorn. The disdain of an habitual sneer has found an abode on the mouth, yet scarcely can hide the tremor of irresolution. In Bendann's likeness, indubitably faithful, we find those hardened lines of the chin and neck that are often visible in men who have gambled heavily — which Poe did not in mature years — or who have lived loosely and slept ill. The face tells of battling, of conquering external enemies, of many a defeat, when the man was at war with his meaner self.’ There is great truth in these psychological readings from the outward presentment of the man.

Poe's genius was volcanic; it did not burn with a pure, steady, lambent flame, but seemed to gather its forces in secret, and then burst in lurid and fitful gleams upon the world. And this peculiarity was in harmony with his character. [column 2:] Never, perhaps, was poet's nature so mirrored in his work as in Poe's case. Through all there beams a glowing appreciation of beauty; but this cannot bring him happiness in his desperate struggle against Fate, while beneath all there is a deep and unfathomable undercurrent of sadness. The music and the misery of ‘The Raven’ are alike typical of Poe. His soul has found a theme congenial with itself. In metrical and unconventional form the poem stands alone. Nor is this work, and others of the poet, distinguished for genius alone. We see in almost all that he has written consummate art; such art as we are apt to associate with the ancient Greeks, and which sprang from their all-consuming love of beauty. The Southern Celtic blood of Poe had much to do with moulding his genius after this type. Music, art, passion, beauty; all these may be discovered in this versatile writer; nay, are so inextricably blended with all that he has done as to be perceptible to the most casual reader. Time may demolish much of what he has written; but there are some things which are safe from his destroying hand, immortal and indestructible. Every poet of his own age has been impressed by his original force, and a not inapt comparison has been drawn between him and the great dramatist whom we have already mentioned, Marlowe.

We shall not linger over poems whose fame is now contemporaneous with the English language. But there are some which are not so universally known that seem to us stamped even more strongly with Poe's peculiar individuality. Of such poems is ‘The Conqueror Worm,’ whose note of hopeless melancholy strikes deeper than that of ‘The Raven,’ and almost makes the flesh to creep. The poet pictures himself in a theatre [page 29:] upon a gala night, and he sees amid the mimic rout a crawling shape intrude. It is the victorious worm, which fastens upon its victims:

How strangely poetic, though widely differing in subject and treatment, are ‘The Sleeper’ and ‘The City in the Sea’! Rich music is the predominant quality in ‘Annabel Lee’ and ‘Eulalie,’ though we would not forget the graceful fancy in both; but it is in that wonderful dirge ‘Ulalume’ that the ‘absolute perfection’ of rhythm is attained. The poem itself is autobiographical, and, by its evident spontaneity, reminds us of the improvisations of the French and Italian poets. The midnight walk, described in this monody, and the sharp transitions of experience, hope treading upon the heels of despair, were, we are told, the exact experiences of Poe himself. The memory is haunted by such strains as these, while there is a magical force in the alliteration and the repetition of the ideas and the most striking words:

This too is surely exquisite versification:

Of our own poet Coleridge we are forcibly reminded by such stanzas as these, from ‘The Haunted Palace,’ and their melody is not unworthy of the writer of ‘The Ancient Mariner’ himself:

Of that class of poems showing the unrest of the poet may be taken ‘A Dream within a Dream; while the exquisite verses ‘To Helen’ and ‘Israfel’ speak of happier and healthier moods. The last-named poem is worthy of ranking with Poe's very best work. It has a beautiful lilt, and is very noticeable both for its melody and its poetic aspiration:

Real poetry, then, we may find in abundance in Poe — lyrical poetry of a high order. It is not invested with any deep moral significance, neither has it much to tell us of the great questions of the age, philosophical or otherwise. Poe sang because he must, as the birds do. It was his vocation to make music, and from this point of view he has rarely been excelled. [page 30:] As to the niche ‘he will occupy amongst the world's writers, that is another matter. He certainly does not belong to the first order of poets — those in whom are blended, in equal degree, melody, reflectiveness, and dramatic strength. It is as a lyric poet he must be judged; and if his range be narrow, we must remember that a perfect cameo is finer than the most towering inartistic statue. Taking his poems altogether, twenty pages would more than cover, perhaps, all that he will be remembered by; but how many poets of the past have bequeathed us twenty pages even which are immortal? From the simplest elements, as by a touch from the wand of an enchanter, he has constructed one or two poems whose matchless music will continue to ring in the ears of generations yet unborn.

In England, at least, with most persons, the reputation of Poe will chiefly rest upon his poems; yet some of his prose ‘Tales’ are no whit below these in original and graphic power. Wild and fantastic creations many of them are, but powerful notwithstanding. Griswold, though he has done more harm perhaps than any other person to the memory of Poe, was not far wrong when he thus observed with regard to these weird prose compositions: ‘His realm was on the shadowy confines of human experience, among the abodes of crime, gloom, and horror; and there he delighted to surround himself with images of beauty and of terror, to raise his solemn palaces and towers and spires in a night upon which should rise no sun. His minuteness of detail, refinement of reasoning, and propriety and power of language, the perfect keeping and apparent good faith with which he managed the evocation and exhibition of his strange and spectral and revolting [column 2:] creations, gave him an astonishing mastery over his readers, so that his books were closed as one would lay aside nightmare or the spells of opium.’

Yet so cleverly were these tales constructed — take, for example, ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’ — that they fairly puzzled people by their psychological problems, and experts even were at a loss to comprehend them. There was a curious mixture of the real and the manifestly unreal in these stories, which made them both tantalising and fascinating. They defy analysis, as they were probably intended to do, for it was Poe's supreme delight to startle people by the grotesque and the supernatural. Such pieces as ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ ‘The Mystery of Marie Roget,’ ‘The Man of the Crowd,’ ‘Hans Pfaall,’ ‘The Gold Bug,’ and ‘The Descent into the Maelstrom,’ have no exact parallel in literature. Their qualities are such as we find developed now in Hoffman, now in Balzac, and now in Fouqué. On the author's side they were bonâ-fide attempts to pierce the mysteries of the invisible world, for it was Poe's burning desire to get to the secret heart of things. Beaten back in his quest, he returned to it again and again, and his Eureka shows with what tenacity he clung to his hope and expectation of solving the secrets of the Universe. But the tales in which lyrics are introduced — and of these ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ may be mentioned as being of the highest type — ‘are full of complex beauty, the choicest products of his genius. They are the offspring of yearnings that lifted him so far above himself as to make us forget his failings, and think of him only as a creative artist — a man of noble gifts.’ Poe's tales have naturally suggested to the critics a comparison [page 31:] with those of Hawthorne; but the latter are far superior to Poe's in literary finish, while the spiritual tones in them are finer and more subtle. The soul of one was capable of finer issues, of nobler and purer suggestions, than that of the other. There is the crashing of the storm in Poe; there is the music of the Æolian harp in Hawthorne.

Such, then, was this Transatlantic poet — this man of intense, if somewhat restricted, genius. He fulfils some of Carlyle's requisites of a true poet, though not all. ‘As the first and indispensable condition of good poets,’ says the author of Sartor Resartus, ‘they are wise and good men; much they have seen and suffered, and they have conquered all this, and made it all their own; they have known life in its heights and depths, and mastered it in both, and can teach others what it is, and how to lead it rightly. Their minds are as a mirror to us, where the perplexed image of our own being is reflected back in soft and clear interpretation. Here mirth and gravity are blended together; wit rests on deep devout wisdom, as the greensward with its flowers must rest on the rock, whose foundations reach downward to the centre. In a word, they are believers; but their faith is no sallow plant of darkness; it is green and flowery, for it grows in the sunlight.’ It is only the Shakespeares and the Goethes of mankind who attain this height of development, men of the infinite eye and of profound heart. But in the forests of Nature there are trees as beautiful, though not so majestic and noble, as the oak. So the realm of poetry is divided. He who has sway over the highest gifts is poet, philosopher, and singer in one; yet he who is singer only claims our admiration in proportion to the sweetness and melody [column 2:] of his utterancés. We do not go to Poe for deep thought, for that searching wisdom which penetrates to the heart of things; but we go to him for his genuine inspiration — an inspiration that gives him high rank in the brotherhood of song. In the same sense — though not in the same degree — he is a poet as Shelley is; and both ‘learnt in suffering what they taught in song.’ Poe lacks the high ideality and the deep spirituality of the English poet; but his ear was almost as musical and as finely attuned. As to the question whether the world is the better for his living in it, we must unhesitatingly answer yes. He who adds but one note of joy, or pleasure, or happiness to the sum of human life, has not lived in vain. His own existence is mortal, and it may have been marred by many imperfections. All these have but a short space to live, and perish with his humanity; but his song lives for ever — it is passed on from generation to generation, to give exquisite delight to thousands who may know nothing of the singer. Such is the reward of genius. It creates immortality for its possessor, and none can trace the bounds of its influence.

It is extraordinary that Poe, with his highly sensitive organisation, his melodious endowments, his noble aspirations, and his poetic gifts, should have sunk into the depths which he has himself depicted. One more illustration the poet furnishes that a man may be near the earth and yet nearer to the highest heaven of thought and feeling at the same time. We remember the description of the idol whose head was of gold and his feet of clay. Such a one was Poe. Torn by the conflicting forces of good and evil, at times he was able to rise to the true height of his being, and to [page 32:] tread down the baser elements which struggled for the mastery. But he lacked that commanding moral energy which would alone have insured him complete victory. Cut off at an age when his faculties had begun to ripen, it is impossible to say what he might not have achieved had he been able to conquer and bring into subjection those passions which were to him what the chariot of the sun was to Phaeton. Yet literature presents fewer names commanding at once so strong and so genuine an interest. We may not accept the theory, that if he had been a better and a wiser man his poetry must necessarily have been of an inferior [column 2:] type. Yet, as we have observed, never was man's work more incontestably stamped by the individuality of character than his. Whatever there was of gloom, of spiritual exaltation, of moral weakness, of beauty, or of grandeur in that character, all was reflected in his writings. Hence, this suffering, sinning, aspiring, and chivalrous soul, buffeted and tempest-tossed, with so much of our common humanity in him, and so much also that was far above our common humanity, extorts from the world sympathy with his sublime yearnings, pity for his Titanic struggles, and admiration for his unique genius.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 16, column 1:]

* The biography by Mr. John H. Ingram, entitled Edgar Allan Poe: his Life, Letters, and Opinions, which throws a new light upon many passages in Poe's career, and disposes of many hitherto unrefuted statements.