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

expectations, for, she remarks, “I did not expect him to live long; I knew that organic disease had been gaining upon his physical frame through the many trials and privations of his eventful life. I told him in all candour that nothing could or would save him from sudden death but a prudent life of calm, with a woman fond enough and strong enough to manage his affairs for him. I was often subjected to his irony for my lectures, coming, as they dial, from a woman so little skilled in worldly troubles or cares as I was then. . . . He said I had never troubled myself to read his works, or poems; which was true, for my heart found so much sorrow to sympathise with in the griefs of those I came in contact with, that there was — no need of resorting to ideal woe; . . . but ‘I was a rest for his spirit,’ for this very reason” The quiet and studious life Poe lived at Fordham, meanwhile, was very different to that ascribed to him by the paragraph-mongers of the press, and the scarified victims of his pen. Many interesting recollections have been given by his visitors of the calm and solitary way in which he spent his time, during his residence at the quaint little Dutch cottage, but none more valuable than these autobiographic glimpses afforded by one of his unpublished letters: — “The editor of the Weekly Universe speaks kindly, and I find no fault with his representing my habits as ’shockingly irregular.’ He could not have had the ‘personal acquaintance’ with me, of which he writes, but has fallen into a very natural error. The fact is thus: — 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. But this is my private life — my studious and literary life — and of course escapes the eye of the world. The desire for society comes upon me only when I have become 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. In the meantime I shall turn the general error to account. But enough of this — the causes which maddened me to the drinking point are no more, and I am done with drinking for ever. I do not know the editors and contributors of the Universe, and was not aware of the existence of such a paper. Who are they? or is it a secret?” This self revelation, even if to be accepted cum granô salis, must be regarded as a most important contribution towards a thorough comprehension of the apparently complex and dual nature of Poe’s existence. Further side-lights are flung upon his story, so far as this period of it is concerned, by the reminiscences of his various visitors at Fordham. An author who visited the poet’s cottage during the summer of 1847, “described it as half buried in fruit-trees, and as having a thick grove of pines in its immediate neighbourhood.” “The proximity of the railroad,” says Mrs. Whitman, “and the increasing population of the little village, have since wrought great changes in the place. Round an old cherry-tree, near the door, was a broad bank of greenest turf. The neighbouring beds of I mignonette and heliotrope, and the pleasant shade above, made this a favourite seat. Rising at four o’clock — in the morning, for a walk to the magnificent aqueduct bridge over Harlem river, our informant found the poet, with his mother (Mrs. Clemm), standing on the turf beneath the cherry-tree, eagerly watching the movements of two beautiful birds that seemed contemplating a settlement in its branches. He had some rare tropical birds in cages, which he cherished and petted with assiduous care.” An English lady, as Mrs. Whitman further records, “passed several weeks at the little cottage in Fordham, in the early autumn of 1847, and described to us, with a truly English appreciativeness, its unrivalled neatness, and the quaint simplicity of its interior and surroundings. It was at the time bordered by a flower-garden, whose clumps of rare dahlias and brilliant beds of autumnal flowers showed, in the careful culture bestowed upon them, the fine floral taste of the inmates.” “Our English friend described the poet,” resumes Mrs. Whitman, “as giving to his birds and his flowers a delighted attention that seemed quite inconsistent with the gloomy and grotesque character of his writings. A favourite cat, too, enjoyed his friendly patronage, and often when he was engaged in composition it seated itself on his shoulder, purring as if in complacent approval of the work proceeding under its supervision.” “During Poe’s residence at Fordham a walk to High Bridge,” continues our authority, “was one of his favourite and habitual recreations. The water of the aqueduct is conveyed across the river on a range of lofty granite arches, which rise to the height of a hundred and forty-five feet above high-water level. On the top a turfed and grassy road, used only by foot-passengers, and flanked on either side by a low parapet of granite, makes one of the finest promenades imaginable. “The winding river and the high rocky shores at the western extremity of the bridge are seen to great advantage from this lofty avenue. In the last melancholy years of his life — ‘the lonesome latter years’ — Poe was accustomed to walk there at all times of the day and night; often pacing the then solitary pathway for hours without meeting a human being. A little to the east of the cottage ‘rises a ledge of rocky ground, partly covered with pines and cedars, commanding a fine view of the surrounding country and of the picturesque College of St. John’s, which had at that time in its neighbourhood an avenue of venerable old trees. This rocky ledge was also one of the poet’s favourite resorts. Here, through long summer days, and through solitary, star-lit nights, he loved to sit, dreaming his gorgeous waking dreams, or pondering the deep problems of the Universe, — that grand ‘prose-poem’ to which he devoted the last and maturest energies of his wonderful intellect.” In this way the poet lived — “in a world of things ideal” — spending his time in musing over the unforgotten past, and in devising schemes for a famous future. At times his solitude was broken in upon not only by his ever-welcome friends, but, also, by those most malignant pests of literary society, female bores, who wanted to make the renowned poet’s acquaintance and engage his pen on their behalf in friendly criticism. Mrs. Shew records that she often found such persons “sitting in Mrs. Clemm’s little room, waiting to see the man of genius who bad rushed out, to escape to the fields or forest, or to the grounds of the Catholic school in the vicinity. I remember,” she relates, “Mrs. Clemm one day sending me after him in great secrecy, and I found him sitting on a favourite rock muttering his desire to die, and get rid of literary bores. He liked me for my ignorance and indifference, no doubt, to worldly honours, and lamented, in sincere sorrow, when I grew like the rest of the world by my duties and position.” During this period of mental incubation the poet published little, and that little had been chiefly written previous to 1847. “Eureka” greatly engaged his mind, but, so he frequently alleged, its publication was only to be regarded as the stepping-stone to the furtherance of starting a magazine of his own, on a safe and certain basis. This life-long dream gradually began to assume a more definite shape than it had hitherto worn; the name of the Stylus was permanently adopted for the projected publication, and a well-arranged plan devised for setting it afloat. Besides his “prose-poem,” few literary compositions were attempted, and of these, the weird monody of “Ulalume” was the only one important. It was towards the close of this ,most immemorial year” — this year in which he had lost his cousin-bride, — that this “most musical, most melancholy” dirge was written. Like so much of his poetry, it was autobiographical, and, on his own authority we have it, was in its basis, although not in the precise correspondence of time, simply historical. “Such was the poet’s lonely midnight walk,” says Mrs. Whitman; “such, amid the desolate memories and sceneries of the hour, was the new-barn hope enkindled within his heart at sight of the morning star — ‘Astarte’s bediamonded crescent’ — coming up as the beautiful harbinger of love and happiness yet awaiting him in the untried future, and such the sudden transition. of feeling, the boding dread, that supervened on discovering that which had at first been unnoted, that it shone, as if in mockery or in warning, directly over the sepulchre of the lost ‘Ulalume.’ ” This marvellously melodious poem first appeared anonymously, in Colton’s American Review for December 1847, as “Ulalume: a Ballad,” and, being reprinted in the Home Journal, was, by an absurd mistake, on a subsequent republication, ascribed to the then editor, N. P. Willis. The poem originally possessed an additional stanza which, at the suggestion of Mrs. Whitman, Poe eventually omitted, and, thereby, greatly strengthened the effect. In after years, however, the lady regretted the suppression of these final lines, deeming them essential to the comprehension of the entire poem. Few persons will be likely to share this regret on reading the excluded verses, which read thus: — “Said we then — the two, then — ’Ah, can it Have been that the woodlandish ghouls — The pitiful, the merciful ghouls — To bar up our path and to ban it From the secret that lies in these wolds — Had drawn up the spectre of a planet From the limbo of lunacy souls — This sinfully scintillant planet From the Hell of the planetary souls?’ ” Another poetical essay belonging to this year was the fanciful little piece entitled “An Enigma,” written for “Stella” (Mrs. Estelle Anna Lewis), a lady already alluded to as having among others assisted Poe in the hour of his extreme need. This little effusion of gratitude did not appear in public until its issue in March 1848, in the Union Magazine, although it had been sent off several months before, as the following notelet shows: — “November 27, 1847. “DEAR MRS. LEWIS — A thousand thanks for your repeated kindness, and, above all, for the — comforting and cheering words of your note. Your advice I feel as a command which neither my heart nor my Lemon would venture to disobey. May Heaven for ever bless you and yours! “A day or two ago I sent to one of the Magazines the sonnet enclosed. Its tone is somewhat too light; but it embodies a riddle which I wish to put you to the trouble of expounding. Will you try? “My best regards, with those of Mrs. Clemm, to Mr. Lewis, and believe me, with all the affection of a brother. — Yours always, EDGAR A. POE.” * Vide, p. 69, vol. ii. * The libel suit against the Evening Mirror had not yet commenced. — J. H. I. * The Lady’s Book. † Vide title-page, p. 102. * Did not appear until June 1847, and then as “Tale-Writing Hawthorne.” — J. H. I. † Appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger, October and November 1848. — J. H. I. ‡ The MS. of this work disappeared after Poe’s death; all his papers, that had been left in charge of Mrs. Clemm, passed into the possession of Mr. Griswold. — J. H. I. * Subsequently stolen from Mrs. Shew. — J. H. I. * Probably a branch of the Virginian Valentines, of which family the first Mrs. Allan was a member. — J H. I. † Letter from John P. Poe, Esq. — J. H. I. * Vide pp. 167, 168, vol i., concerning the Conchology story. — J. H. I. * Now in my possession — J. H. I. John H. Ingram, “Chapter 18,” Edgar Allan Poe: Life, Letters, and Opinions (1880), pp. 129-159 CHAPTER XVIII. EUREKA!. WITH the new year (1848) Edgar Poe’s literary activity recommenced. In the first instance, he