Text: Richard Beale Davis, “Preliminary Remarks,” Chivers' Life of Poe 1952, pp. 22-33

[page 22:]

Preliminary Remarks

It is not my object on the present occasion, in presenting to the world a New Life of Edgar A. Poe, to denounce, in unmanly terms, that ephemeral though ambitious, host of hypocrites,(2) who aspire to embalm their dying names in the Amber of his immortality — making his inocent [sic], although unhappy, Bacchanalia, an excuse for their infernal orgies — many of those who now effect [sic] to praise him, having been the very first to denounce him in his lifetime. Far be it from me to wish to disturb their low-minded Eyrie — for very well do I know that Buzzards must have some where to roost — if not on the eternal Trees of God — those evergreen Cedars whose living heads are exalted into Heaven — yet, on the thunderblasted pines [w]hose whirlwind-tangled boughs moan pitifully but [on]ly a few feet above the billowy dust of this low-minded mortal-loving earth.

Shades of my immortal ancestors! Ye who look down from yon starry thrones in Heaven upon the fleeting things of time — inspiring me, at this midnight hour of the night, with the eternal Spirit of your loves — forbid the thought!

I allude now more especially to those who dispraised him in his lifetime, on account of envy of his genius, as well as to those still more dispicable [sic] souls who pretend to defend him on the still basic principle of wishing the world to believe that they are what they are not nor ever were — the faithful Apostles of his greatness — when they not only persuaded the people to sell the ointment by which he was to have been anointed and the proceeds to be given to the [page 23:] poor, but he was in their hands the very bag containing the money for which he was sold to a premature death.

Somebody in the Boston Literary Museum, in republishing the following extract from a Poem° on his death, by Mrs. R. S. Nichols, says “This is a very just tribute to one who was at times a god, and again a fiend — ” showing how little he knew of either the man, or the Poet:

Neither(4) is it my object to endorse his aberations [sic]. Every body, who knows the least about me, knows this very well. Of all the men in the world, I am the farthest from ever tolerating any such thing. Had I the many Sermons which I preached to him, through my letters, on the evils of intoxication — particularly in a person of his qualifications — to which his letters, which will be found in another part of this work, are answers — they would settle the point in the mind of every honest man at once — even admitting that the mere mention of the fact here should not — which I have no reason to doubt. But it does appear to me that there are many people in this world who are not willing to believe that Poe had any character(5) — because, at long interims, he “got drunk.” But is this justice? Is it right to deprive a man of all his good qualities, because he possesses some few that are not good? Is it, in any wise, following the precepts of Christ, to denounce our fellowman because he is not perfect? — because, in revealing to us his good qualities, he should be so imprudent as to betray his foibles? But there is no charity in the vulgar. Ubi charitas, ubi charitas — for the charitable always see clearly. But there never was yet any clairvoyant who would nickname God's creatures. Because it is by the popularity of a great man's notable qualities that his foibles are made known. Among the Vulgar, no great man's greatness is any redeeming quality from the most infinitisimal vice. But this was not the way with Christ — for, when the adultress came to him for forgiveness, instead of stoning her to death — as was the way with the Jews — his reprimand was couched in the following most beautiful forgiveness — ”Go and sin no more — ” giving as a reason for his charitable pardon, the heavenly lenity that “She loved much.” [page 25:]

But now, in this day, a man is denounced — absolutely hated — by the soft-shells — the little souls [-] for doing the very thing which characterizes not only the nature of Christ, but evangelizes the immortal Spirit of God.

Suppose he did drink. Did he not live — feel, think] and love? Did he not have an immortal soul in his body? Was he not tempted like other men? Did he not suffer that which would, perhaps, have been the bitterest death to many men? But independently of all this, was he not, with all his foibles, greater, better, in every sense of the term — infinitely better — than the very best of those who denounced him? Certainly he was — inasmuch as he was infinitely above them in everything that constitutes the true man, independently of the foibles which they possessed in common with him — for there is not one of the nincompoops(6) who have ever yet had the foolhardiness to cast stones at him, who(7) was not a living walking sepulchre of guilty and sinful rottenness.

Mr Griswold, in recording° a visit which he paid Poe, during his first acquaintance with him, in Philadelphia, says that his manner was not only gentlemanly and quiet, — his dress being simple and elegant, — but there was all that singular neatness and refinement in his house which amply betokened a man of genius. But he cannot refrai[n] from telling us that he “got drunk.” Then(8) why not follow the advice of Christ and say, as he did to Mary Magdalene — “His sins are forgiven, for he loved much?”

[But remind him of this, when there is not a man in the world who knew Poe who will not say that he was infinitely a better man than Griswold° ever was in his best moments.] (9) Suppose he did get drunk. He was not the first man who [page 26:] ever “got drunk — ” by many millions. No man can dislike drunkeness any more than I do; but I dislike injustice infinitely more — for had he been worth a hundred thousand dollars, the memory of his drunkenness — even if it ever had been remembered — would have been as completely swallowed up in the oblivious waters of this all-healing Bethesda as one single grain of sand in the middle of the Sea. Then how ridiculous it is for any sensible man — particularly a Doctor of Divinity — to be eternally harping on his drunkenness!

When will this world learn Charity — that fairest, most beautiful Daughter of Religion of whom Christ became so enamoured, that he not only died for her, but took her up into Heaven where he now enjoys her as his wife.

We hear a good deal, in the Churches, about Faith and Hope, but that beautiful wife of Christ, the [fairest of the three Sisters — the light of whose smile — brighter than Constellations of millions of great Suns — now kindles the universe with a everlasting joy — who is now the regning](10) Queen of Heaven — along with her divine Lord and Prince of Glory — is scarcely ever mentioned, — or, if mentioned at all, spoken of as the Mahometans do of the Houries as a thing to be dreamed of, but never obtained.

Mr Griswold says, in his Life of Poe,° that his Poems were not above the Popular taste — yet, they did not sell. But why did they not sell? Because the Publishers knew that they were above the Popular taste — if, indeed, there ever was any such thing in the whole world as a Popular taste. They were, therefore, above the Popular taste — else they would have sold — as readily as any of those of Willis or Longfellow. He did not write for miliners and School girls. He has also published a good deal about Poe's “wanderings,° [page 27:] ravings and indistinct cursings”; but what has all this to do with his genius? Did he not live in the boundless bosom of The All — the immortal spirit of God? Then he had a right to groan. It is the nature, as it appears to me, for Mr Griswold to find fault — that is, in speaking of Poe's genius, never to forget to mention that he “got drunk[.]” Now, perhaps this is the way with him. If it be so, then, let him give vent to his steam just as Poe did to his animus in “groaning” and “raving with indistinct curses.” But how Mr Griswold could have known that he was “cursing,” when these very same “curses” were “indistinct,” is a ma [tter?], perhaps, which he would not have enquired into narrowly — al-though, in the very same sentence, he informs us that his “eyes were upturned in a passionate prayer (never for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that he was already damned — ) but for their happiness who were, at the moment, objects of his idolatry.” So, it seems he prayed — prayed for somebody, if not for himself. But the Mahome-dans inform us that “Prayer is the Key that unlocks the Gates of Paradise.” But would it not damn any man in Christendom, in the estimation of every good man, to have him thus transgress that beautiful New Commandment of Christ, which directs us to “love our neighbour as ourself?”

So by the evidence of this Reverend Biographer, it appears that he was not the incarnate Fiend that many very narrow-souled people have supposed.

But Mr Griswold does not know every thing. In fact, he knows but very little — particularly about Poe. Had he studied Physiology as long as I have, — or even [page 28:] — he would have known, by this time, that groaning is a very necessary [th]ing with some men — the “raving and indistinct cursing,” about which he talks so much, being the manifestation only of that plenitude of spiritual vigor necessary to be let off in some way or other, or a man would die — just as a rose, when trampled, will give out its odor — the sweetest the greatest amount [-?] that is most grateful — to the passing winds. Mr Griswold ought to know this by experience — as what he has written is a perfect revelation of the same fac[t], that some men must either die, or let off their steam. It is, therefore, obvious to every well-thinking mind, that there is not a very great difference between some men and a steam Engine.(11)

Mr P. P. Cooke, of Virginia, who was a great admirer of Poe, in descanting on the morale of his life, makes the following rash remark°:

Mr Poe's life contained many blemishes: — the foregoing narrative has fully informed the reader of that. These blemishes, we are compelled to say, were the results of character rather than of circumstance; and in aught that pretends to be a picture of the man, some dark shades are indispensable. Yet it appears hard and unfeeling in the extreme to speak aught that is ill of the newly dead. De mortuis nil nisi bonum is the sentiment universal, in every rightly constituted mind and heart; and the writer is not an advocate for the stoical emendation of nil nisi verum.(12)

I think(13) he was mistaken. It was precisely the reverse with him. What he calls his blemishes of character — by which he must mean, — if he means any thing — his becoming intoxicated — were the results solely of circumstances.(14) [page 29:]

Does he mean to say that the milk-white Temple in(15) that Jasper-walled, many-gated(16) City of Pure Gold of the Living God, whose streets were paved with multicoloured Jewels picked from the Mines of Heaven — in whose Angel-peopled dome genius sat weaving garlands of Glory for the [enchantment of the waiting] (17) Ages — was only a sepulchre for dead men's bones? [and not a Sanctuary for all beauty?] Impossible. Mr Poe was not a monster — no demon — but rather an Angel — a fallen Angel if you please — but no Monster. Why not say at once he was a god — an Exile from Heaven — an erratic Star who had wandered out of his path in the Empyrean, not from his own free will, but because it was the will of the Higher Powers?(18) For did he not ray off some of his divine lightnings for the dark midnight of this world? Was he not a “cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night” to all those truly noble souls whose eyes were couched to behold the Incarnation of the Beautiful — or whose ears were unstopped to hear the far off coming of the Divine Harmonies? Was he not trod, from star to star,(19) up to the Gates of God? Did he not lose the memory of having been born here in this world, in the antisipation of becoming a fit companion for the laurel-crowned Immortals?(20) Did he not sell the Real for the Idea1(21) — thereby in carnating, in spirit at least, his own conception of the Beautiful — in short, enjoying Eternity in Time? [page 30:]

When he first blew his golden Trumpet, the mellow tones of which took the ears of the Gods captive — wooing the Angels to lean down oer their Sapphire Sills in Heaven to listen to his sweet strains — did not all the whole round world of “inane Flunkeyism” utter their “barbarian cackle,” responsive to the obstreperous Howlings of the Devils down in Hell? Because the tongue that he spoke was not of this world but of Heaven. So it is with all great men — with every true Genius. If the true Son of God, who was the most beautiful person who ever walked on the earth — too good to walk on any ground except the soul of Paradise — nay, even too good to walk on any floor less beautiful than the Opal-paven floors of Heaven — who was King of the Angels — if the Son of God, I say, could not come down into this world and live in peace, how can we expect that any less glorious being could? The truth is, this world, as it is now governed — being, as it is, entirely under the dominion of the Devil — is not a fit abiding place for any of the true Sons of God. But it does seem that they must come — God will send them down — just as he sent his angels to Sodom, of old, to save it from utter destitution. That this is the reason — the sole reason — why he does send them down — can be very easily proven by His own Word — spoken out of His own mouth.

The outward expression of Art is the shadow of the substance — the reflex of the divine Beauty within the soul. Poe did the Appolonian spiriting of his genius gently. There was just the difference between him and a true Poet — between him and Keats, or Shelley, for instance — that there is between the two Sinfonias of Mozart and Beethoven. While the latter captivates us by the celestial purity of his serenity of tone, the former enchants us by the intensity of his impassioned beauty — the divine tenderness of his love. [page 31:] This is just the difference between a Poet of Passion, or a true Poet — and one of mere sentiment. This I have spoken of elsewhere.

A true Poet has the mellifluous voice of the plaintive Lurlei [sic], which always sings to every one just before his death. Love must be the Inspirer of all his euphoneous [sic] workings, whether Mythical or natural. No Manx Fairy on the Isle of Man ought to excell this Celestial Syren on the Isle of Heaven. But Poe's Art consisted mostly of that ingenuity of grace which is precisely the opposite of that flexibility of motions which is the characteristic of voluptuousness of passion. Like the Sibyl inspired — ”pale-mouthed Prophetess dreaming” — his Mystical Visions were the inspirations of an enthusiasm for an Empyreal life — a life in which abstract being was considered the synonym for life — such as Endymion longed after while dreaming of the Moon upon Mount Latmos.

He wanted the Heroic enthusiasm of the Gothic Homeric times, when the Ideal greatness of the Gods was incarnated in the Greek perfectibility of form and action. He did not appear here on earth as an Angel sent down on some Divine Mission of use, but as an exile out of Heaven whose coming, on account of his own Self will, detained him here against this [same?] will, to do or not to do, just as it happened — without any determinate object in view.(22)

He complained of Poverty; but riches would have ruined him — because no man ever possessed a more complete power over the velocity of his wings. The embers of unrest which lay smouldering, in the unutterable volcano of his soul [,] were not the burden of an unfulfilled destiny — nor were they a Phoenix waiting to be born in order [to] display [page 32:] the prismy mail of his plumage — nor the divine behest of a Mission unfulfilled — but the agravated [sic] Hell-throes of a heart that longed under the torturing blisters of manifold insults, for sympathy with some(23) kindred soul — some congenial spirit, — but could not find it here on earth —

Believing himself to be the true Messiah of Melody — one who had come down from Heaven to do away with the old things of the old world — he naturally panted after the adulation which would have been the manifestation of the World's belief in the legitimacy of his title;(24) but he only received crucifixion for his pains. He came into this world apparently without any belief at all in the sublime words of Milton, that “He who would write a Heroic Poem, must live the Heroic life.” His body was a beautiful Myrrhine Fabric, clear as crystal, filigreed all around with bazzi relievi of Amaranth, full of Ambrosia, which the Gods kept hermetically sealed all his life, until the day that Death broke it into fragments, when it was wasted upon the earth forever.

He stood here among men, in this world, like a tall solitary and evergreen Pine in the midst of a forest of gnarled and unsymetrical [sic] Oaks, freighting the odoriferous Argosies of the invisible, yet ever-present, Winds, with his heavenly wealth of mournful melodies. His soul was like a subterranean river rolling(25) its crystal waters unseen, but heard, over the seething scoria-shoals of a volcanic heart, ready, at every moment, either to burst with purifying joy at any breath of applause, and just as ready to do the same in indignation at even the slightest whisper of disapprobation.

Lord Jeffrey° was right when he said that “The power to [page 33:] write pure Poetry eclipses every other glory” — for to be filled with the effluence of the crystalline Divine Life of God,(26) is the only true way to reflect back his Image.

But, although his soul was like an Aeolian Harp, through which no wind could ever pass without being changed into the most articulate melody; yet none of his odorous hymn-ings are Austral but Boreal in their idiosyncrasy — rather re-fluxes [sic] of the various phases of his Intellect, than intuitive Art-histories(27) of a life of love.

A Poet should not go out of this world for the enjoyment and realization of his Ideals — for his Ideal should sphere within his Actual — but he should so temper them that that which is earthly should assume the far-up beauty of the heavenly.

He always wrote as though all Poetry consisted more in the Poetry of the language, than in the passions of the heart to be expressed through that language.(28) His Poetry was all Dahlias — beautiful to look at, but without any odor. Pure Poetry is a Rose full of odor. This Rose is the heart — the odor the poet's purest passions — Of his nature was the “susceptibility of his nerves to tuneful vibration. When the eyes of the Poet beholds Beauty, his heart makes his lips eloquent with praise. He rises in all his Angelic lovliness [sic] out of the fire-fountains of his heart, perfect in all his proportions, like Venus fresh and vigorous from the foaming sea. But he now sleeps “Ubi saeva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare nequit.”°

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 22:]

2 “hypocrites” is written above an indecipherable marked-through word.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 23:]

° Wherever this symbol appears, the reader is referred to the section of Explanatory Notes beginning on page 101.

3 The clipping of these two stanzas is pasted on the verso of the page containing the preceding.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 24:]

4 The text continues on a new sheet.

5 This word is followed by “any life at all —,” crossed through.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 25:]

6 This word is written above a marked out “sapheads.”

7 This word is written above a marked out “but.”

8 Written in before next word.

9 All the section in brackets crossed through by Chivers.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 26:]

10 All material in brackets on slip pasted over three lines of original.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 28:]

11 The preceding paragraph appears on an inserted half-sheet.

12 The quotation appears on a pasted-in printed clipping.

13 These two words written in above the remainder of the sentence.

14 The text before “circumstances” originally read “the circumstances in which he was placed.” (Marked through.)

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 29:]

15 Marked through between “in” and “that” is “which the Spirit of the Universe did not disdain to come down and dwell.”

16 The preceding “jasper-walled” is later insertion. Originally “and jasper-walled” appeared after “many-gated.” The next bracket also marks a marked-through phrase.

17 Written above a marked-through phrase (same as it is).

18 Interrogation point inserted. Indecipherable, marked through line follows.

19 One and a half-marked through lines are replaced by “from star to star.”

20 Interrogation point inserted. This point originally followed by “in Eternity?”

21 The word “world” originally followed “Ideal” (marked through).

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 31:]

22 Followed by the marked-through: “particularly to eschew all works of [man?].”

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 32:]

23 “another” is written in above “kindred” and after “some.”

24 Followed by the marked-through: “to that divine office.”

25 Followed by the marked-through: “unseen, but heard.”

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 33:]

26 Followed by the marked-through: “is only to reflect perfectly his Image.”

27 Followed by the marked-through: “of the true affections of the heart.”

28 Most of this sentence and that following written above marked-through and indecipherable matter.