Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions — John H. Ingram, 1880, volume II — reading text

to descend into the arena and combat blackguards with any other than their own weapons. To a friend who remonstrated with him, however, on the manner of the above communication, he wrote: — “I do not well see how I could have otherwise replied to English. You must know him (English) before you can well estimate my reply, He is so thorough a ‘blatherskite’ that to have replied to him with dignity would have been the extreme of the ludicrous. The only true plan — not to have answered him at all — was precluded on account of the nature of some of his accusations — forgery, for instance. To such charges, even from the Autocrat of all the Asses, a man is compelled to answer. There he had me. Answer him I must. But how? Believe me, there exists no such dilemma as that in which a gentleman is placed when he is forced to reply to a blackguard. If he have any genius, then is the time for its display. I confess to you that I rather like that reply of mine, in a literary sense; and so do a great many of my friends. It fully answered its purpose, beyond a doubt, Would to Heaven every work of Art did as much! You err in supposing me to have been I peevish’ when I wrote the reply. The peevishness was all I put on’ as a part of my argument — of my plan; so was the I indignation’ with which I wound up. How could I be either peevish or indignant about a matter so well adapted to further my purposes I Were I able to afford so expensive a luxury as personal — especially, as refutable — abuse, I would willingly pay any man $2000 per annum to hammer away at me all the year round.” And, in another letter to the same correspondent, Poe, referriner to the action for libel he had successfully carried out against the New York publisher of the slanders, says of English: — “The vagabond, at the period of the suit’s coming on, ran off to Washington, for fear of being criminally prosecuted. The I acknowledgment’ referred to was not forthcoming, and the Mirror could not get a single witness to testify one word against my character. . . . My suit against the Mirror was terminated by a verdict of $225 in my favour. The costs and all will make them a bill of $492. Pretty well-considering that there was no actual ‘damage’ done to me.” Early in the summer of 1846 Poe removed from Amity Street, New York, to Fordham, Westchester County, at that time quite out in the country, but now become almost a suburb of the city. His darling wife’s health was rapidly failing, and it was, Mrs. Whitman remarks, “for her dear sake, and for the recovery, of that peace which had been so fatally perilled amid the irritations and anxieties of his New York life, that Poe left the city and removed to the little Dutch cottage in Fordham, where he passed the three remaining years of his life. It was to this quiet haven in the beautiful spring or early summer of 1846, when the fruit-trees were all in bloom and the grass in its freshest verdure, that he brought his Virginia to die.” His literary engagements occasionally called the poet to New York, but in such cases it was usual for his mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm, to accompany him. Once, soon after the removal to Fordham, being detained all night in town, he sent the following tender lines to his wife, to reassure her. As the note written on a rough page of his pocket-book-is the only one known to have been addressed by Poe to his wife, it is deserving citation: — “June 12, 1846. “MY DEAR HEART — MY DEAR VIRGINIA — Our mother will explain to you why I stay away from you this night. I trust the interview I am promised will result in some substantial good for me — for your dear sake and here — keep up your heart in all hopefulness, and trust yet a little longer. On my last great disappointment I should have lost my courage but for you — my little darling wife. You are my greatest and only stimulus now, to battle with this uncongenial, unsatisfactory, and ungrateful life. “I shall be with you to-morrow (illegible) P.M., and be assured until I see you I will keep in loving remembrance your last words, and your fervent prayer! “Sleep well, and may God grant you a peaceful summer with your devoted EDGAR.” What was the promised good, and whether the promise was fulfilled, are unknown. During the sad summer months the poet alternately occupied his time, when anxiety about his wife permitted him to work, in writing out his pithy “Marginalia” for Graham’s Magazine and the Democratic Review, and the “Literati” for the Lady’s Book, and in beautifying the green sward about his little cottage — “the sweetest little cottage imaginable,” says Mrs. Clemm; adding: — “Oh, hove supremely happy we were in our dear cottage home! We three lived only for each other. Eddie rarely left his beautiful home. I attended to his literary business, for he, poor fellow, knew nothing about money transactions. How should he, brought up in luxury and extravagance I “He passed the greater part of the morning in his study, and, after he had finished his task for the day, he worked in our beautiful flower garden, or read and recited poetry to us. Every one who knew him intimately loved him. Judges pronounced him the best conversationalist living. We had very little society except among the literati, but this was exceedingly pleasant.”* Among the literary friends who visited the Poes at their pleasant country, home was Mrs. Gove-Nichols. Of her first excursion to Fordham, she records: — “I found the poet, and his wife, and his wife’s mother — who was his aunt — living in a little cottage at the top of a hill. There was an acre or two of green sward, fenced in about the house, as smooth as velvet and as clean as the best kept carpet.* There were some grand old cherry-trees in the yard, that threw a massive shade around them. The house had three rooms — a kitchen, a sitting-room, and “a bedchamber over the sitting-room.† There was a piazza in front of the house that was a lovely place to sit in in summer, with the shade of cherry-trees before it. There was no cultivation, no flowers — nothing but the smooth green sward and the majestic trees. “On the occasion of this, my first, visit to the poet, I was a good deal plagued — Poe had somehow caught a full-grown bob-o’-link. He had put him in a cage, which he had hung on a nail driven into the trunk of a cherry-tree. The poor bird was as unfit to live in a cage as his captor was to live in the world. He was as restless as his jailer, and sprang continually, in a fierce, frightened way, from one side of the cage to the other. I pitied him, but Poe was bent on taming hire. There he stood with his arms crossed before the imprisoned bird, his sublime trust in attaining the impossible apparent in his whole self. So handsome, so impassive in his wonderful intellectual beauty, so proud and so reserved, and yet so confidentially communicative, so entirely a gentleman upon all occasions that I ever saw him — so tasteful, so good a talker was Poe, that he impressed himself and his wishes, even without words, upon those with whom he spoke. However, I remonstrated against the imprisonment of Robert of Lincoln Green’ “ ‘You are wrong,’ said he quietly, ‘in wishing me to free the bird. He is a splendid songster, and as soon as he is tamed he will delight our home with his musical gifts. You should hear him ring out like a chime of joy-bells his wonderful song.’ “Poe’s voice was melody itself. He always spoke low, when in a violent discussion, compelling his hearers to listen if they would know his opinion, his facts, fancies, or philo sophy, or his weird imaginings. These last usually flowed from his pen, seldom from his tongue. “On this occasion I was introduced to the young wife of the poet, and to the mother, then more than sixty years of age. She was a tall, dignified old lady, with’ a most lady like manner, and her black dress, though old and much worn, looked really elegant on her. She wore a widow’s cap, of the genuine pattern, and it suited excellently with her snow-white hair: Her features were large, and corresponded with her stature, and it seemed strange how such a stalwart and queenly woman could be the mother of her petite daughter. Mrs. Poe looked very young; she had large black eyes, and a pearly whiteness of complexion, which was a perfect pallor. Her pale face, her brilliant eyes, and her raven hair, gave her an unearthly look. One felt that she was almost a dissolved spirit, and when she coughed it was made certain that she was rapidly passing away. “The mother seemed hale and strong, and appeared to be a sort of universal Providence for her strange children. “The cottage had an air of taste and gentility that must have been lent to it by the presence of its inmates. So neat, so poor, so unfurnished, and yet so charming, a dwelling I never saw. The floor of the kitchen was white as wheaten flour. A table, a chair, and a little stove that it contained, seemed to furnish it completely. The sitting-room floor was laid with check matting; four chairs, a light stand, and a hanging book-shelf, composed its furniture. There were pretty presentation copies of books on the little shelves, and the Brownings had posts of honour on the stand. With quiet exultation Poe drew from his side-pocket a letter he had recently received from Elizabeth Barrett Browning). He read it to us. It was very flattering. She told Poe that his ‘poem of the Raven had awakened a fit of horror in England.’* This was what he loved to do. To make the flesh creep, to make one shudder 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. “On the book-shelf there lay a volume of Poe’s poems. He took it down, wrote my name in it, and gave it to me. I think he did this from a feeling of sympathy, for I could not be of advantage to him, as my two companions could,† I had sent him an article when he edited the Broadway Journal, which had pleased him. It was a sort of wonder article, and he published it without knowing the authorship, and he was pleased to find his anonymous contributor in me, He was at this time greatly depressed. Their extreme poverty, the sickness of his wife, and his own inability to write, sufficiently accounted for this. We spent half an hour in the house, when some more company came, which included ladies, and then we all went out for a walk. “ ‘We strolled away into the woods, and had a very cheerful time, till some one proposed a game at leaping I think it must have been Poe, as he was expert in the exercise. Two or three gentlemen agreed to leap with him, and although one of them was tall, and had been a hunter in times past, Poe still distanced them all. Buts alas! his gaiters (i.e., gaiter-shoes), long worn and carefully kept, were both burst in the grand leap that made him victor. I had pitied the poor bob-o’link in his hard and hopeless imprisonment, but I pitied poor Poe more now. I was certain he had no other shoes, boots, or gaiters. Who among us could offer him money to buy another pair? If any one had money, who had the effrontery to offer it to the poet? When we reached the cottage, I think all felt that we must not go in, to see the shoeless unfortunate sitting or standing in our midst. I had an errand, however; I had left the volume of Poe’s poems, and I entered the house to get it. The poor old mother looked at his feet with a dismay that I shall never forget’ “ ‘O Eddie!’ said she, ‘how did you burst your gaiters?’ “Poe seemed to have fallen into a semi-torpid state as soon as he saw his mother. . . . “I related the cause of the mishap, and she drew me into the kitchen. “ ‘Will you speak to Mr. ——’ (the reviewer), she said, about Eddie’s last poem? ’ “ ‘If he will only take the poem, Eddie can have a pair of shoes. He has it — I carried it last week, and Eddie says it is his best. You will speak to him about it, won’t you?’ “We had already read the poem in