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

I not a right to hate this fiend and to caution you against her? You will now comprehend what I mean in saying that the only thing for which I found it impossible to forgive Mrs. Osgood was her reception of Mrs E. “Be careful of your health, dearest Helen, and perhaps all will yet go well. Forgive me that I let these wrongs prep upon me — I did not so bitterly feel them until they threatened to deprive me of you . . . but for your dear sake I will endeavor to be calm. “Your lines ‘To Arcturus ‘are truly beautiful.” This letter was speedily followed by the poet himself. He arrived in Providence fall of the most sanguine hopes; he had proposed to himself a career of literary success, dwelling with enkindling enthusiasm upon his long-cherished scheme of establishing a magazine that should give him supreme control of intellectual society in America. His dreams of love and triumph were rapidly destroyed. In a few days he was to be married; he had advised his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, to expect his and his bride’s arrival in New York early the following week, when information was given to Mrs. Whitman and to her relatives that he had violated the solemn pledge of abstinence so recently given. Whether this information was true no one living, perchance, can say. When he arrived at the dwelling of Mrs. Whitman, “no token of the infringement of his promise was visible in his appearance or manner,” says that lady, “but 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 warn 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.” In company with his friend, Mr. Pabodie, Poe left the house, and for ever. The rupture of the much-commented-upon engagement gave rise to the wildest and most scandalous reports. The cause of the separation was almost universally ascribed to the poet. Unable to rest under the ridiculous and humiliating charges, which obtained such general currency that even some of his dearest friends at last gave credence to them, Poe wrote to Mrs. Whitman earnestly entreating her to send him a few words, for the satisfaction of those dear to him, in denial of the vile rumours about their separation. “No amount of provocation,” he wrote to her, “shall induce me to speak ill of you, even in my own defence. If to shield myself from calumny, however undeserved, or how ever unendurable, I find a need of resorting to explanations that might condemn or pain you, most solemnly do I assure you that I will patiently endure such calumny, rather than avail myself of any such means of refuting it. You will see, then, that so far I am at your mercy — but in making you such assurances, have I not a right to ask of you some forbearance in return I . . . That you have in any way countenanced this pitiable falsehood, I do not and cannot believe — some person, equally your enemy and mine, has been its author — but what I beg of you is, to write me at once a few lines in explanation — you know, of course, that by reference either to Mr. Pabodie or . . . I can disprove the facts stated in the most satisfactory manner — but there can be no need of disproving what I feel confident was never asserted by you — your simple disavowal is all that I wish — You will, of course, write me immediately on receipt of this. . . . Heaven knows that I would shrink from wounding or grieving you! . . . May Heaven shield you from all ill! . . . Let my letters and acts speak for themselves. It has been my intention to say simply that our marriage was postponed simply on account of your ill-health. Have you really said or done anything which can preclude our placing the rupture on such footing? If not, I shall persist in the statement and thug this unhappy matter will die quietly away.” “His letter I did not dare to answer,” said Mrs. Whitman. Evidently Edgar Poe did not know the real cause of the rupture of the engagement, and for upwards of thirty years his character has suffered under charges he was powerless to refute. * Beginning, “I saw thee once — once only — years ago.” * Vide vol. ii, p. 193. * In version given to me by Mrs. Whitman. — J. H. I. † Vide vol. ii. pp. 70, 71. John H. Ingram, “Chapter 20,” Edgar Allan Poe: Life, Letters, and Opinions (1880), pp. 187-221 CHAPTER XX. “ANNIE.” IT will now be necessary to turn back some months, to resume the poet’s story where it was broken off in order to complete the episodical narrative of his engagement to Mrs. Whitman. In the early summer of 1848 Poe, as already stated, lectured at Lowell, on “The Female Poets of America.” Some months later he again visited the city and lectured upon “The Poetic Principle.” During this sojourn in the “American Manchester,” the poet was the guest of the Richmonds, a family whose acquaintance he had made upon the occasion of his former visit. The friendship which Poe formed with this amiable family, although, unfortunately, so near the close of his sad career, was one of its brightest incidents: they aided him in the darkest days of his “lonesome latter years;” they believed in him when he was calumniated; they received him as an honoured guest when the world contemned him; they remained faithful to him through all adversity; and, when death released his wearied spirit, afforded a lengthy and hospitable shelter to his broken-hearted mother, Mrs. Clemm. Miss Heywood, a member of this generous family, has favoured us with some fresh and charming recollections of Edgar Poe, as he appeared to her girlish but appreciative ken: — “I have ‘in my mind’s eye,” she remarks, “a figure somewhat below medium height, perhaps, but so perfectly proportioned, and crowned with such a noble head, so regally carried, that, to my girlish apprehension, he gave the impression of commanding stature. Those clear sad eyes seemed to look from an eminence, rather than from the ordinary level of humanity, while his conversational tone was so low and deep, that one could easily fancy it borne to the ear from some distant height. I saw him first in Lowell, and there heard him give a Lecture on Poetry, illustrated by readings and recitations. His manner of rendering some of the selections constituted my only remembrance of the evening: it fascinated me, although he gave no attempt at dramatic effect. Everything was rendered with pure intonation and perfect enunciation, marked attention being paid to the rhythm: he almost sang the more musical versifications. I recall more perfectly than anything else, the modulations of his smooth baritone voice, as he recited the opening lines of Byron’s ‘Bride of Abydos’ — ‘Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle’ — measuring the dactylic movement as perfectly as if be were scanning it: the effect was very pleasing. He insisted strongly upon an even metrical flow in versification, and said that hard and ‘unequally stepping poetry’ had better be done into prose. He made no selections of a humorous character, either in his public or parlour readings; indeed, anything -of that kind seems entirely incompatible with his personality. He smiled but seldom and never laughed, or said anything to excite mirth in others. His manner was always quiet and grave — ‘John Brown of Edinboro’ ’ might have characterised it as ‘lonely!’ In thinking of Mr. Poe in later years, I have often applied to him the line of Wordsworth’s Sonnet (on Milton), ‘Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart.’ “I did not hear the conversation at Mrs. Richmond’s after the lecture, when a few persons came in to meet him, but I remember that my brother spoke with great enthusiasm of Mr. Poe’s demeanour and the grace of his conversation. In alluding to it he always says, ‘I have never seen it equalled.’ A lady in the company differed from Mr. Poe, and expressed her opinions very strongly. His deference in listening was perfect, and his replies were models of respectful politeness. Of his great satirical power his pen was generally the medium; if he used the polished weapon in conversation, it was so delicately and skilfully handled that only a quick eye would detect the gleam. Obtuseness was always perfectly safe in his presence, although in his capacity of literary critic he gave his victim many a ‘palpable hit!’ ” “A few months later than this,” resumes Miss Heywood, “Mr. Poe came out to our home in Westford. My recollections of that visit are fragmentary, but very vivid. During the day he strolled off by himself, ‘to look at the bills,’ he said. I remember standing in the low porch with my sister, as we saw him returning, and as soon as he stepped from the dusty street on to the green award which sloped from our door, he removed his hat, and came to us with uncovered head, his eyes seeming larger and more luminous than ever with the exhilaration of his wall I recall his patiently unwinding from a nail a piece of twine that had been carelessly twisted and knotted around it, and then hanging it back again on the nail in long straight loops. It was a half-unconscious by-play of that ingenious mind which deciphered cryptographs, solved enigmas of all kinds, and wrote the ‘Gold Bug,’ and the ‘Balloon Hoax.’ “My memory photographs him again,‘’ the lady continues, “sitting before an open wood fire, in the early autumn evening, gazing intently into the glowing coal, holding the hand of a dear friend — ‘Annie’ — while for a long time no one spoke, and the only sound was the ticking of the tail old clock in the corner of the room. (I wish I could tell you what he was thinking about during that rapt silence!) “Later in the evening he recited, before a little Reading Club, several of his own poems; one of Willis’s commencing, ‘The shadows lay along Broadway’ (which he said was a special favourite with him), and one or two of Byron’s shorter poems. To me everything seemed perfect, though some said more effect might be given to his own unique poems. I suppose his voice and manner expressed the ‘Runic rhyme’ better than the ‘tintinnabulation of the Bells — bells — bells.’ That poem was then fresh from the author’s brain, and we had the privilege of hearing it before it was given to the world. “The next morning I was to go to school, and before I returned he would be gone. I went to say ‘Good-bye’ to him, when, with that ample gracious courtesy of his which included even the rustic school-girl, he said, ‘I will walk with you.’ He accompanied me to the door, taking leave of me there in such a gentle, kingly manner, that the thought of it now brings tears to the eyes that then looked their last upon that finished scholar and winning, refined gentleman.” The “dear friend” above alluded to was the lady to whom the poet indited his most melodious poem of “For Annie.” “Annie” was one of those “rare and radiant” spirits it was Poe’s happiness — amid all his woe — to meet with in his journey through life. With her he carried on a most voluminous and characteristic correspondence during the last year of his eventful life, but, as a considerable portion of it refers to persons who have not yet followed the writer into the “Hollow Vale,” only detached portions can be quoted. Poe’s letters, as Mrs. Osgood phrased it, “were divinely beautiful,” but their tenor is often liable to be miscomprehended, and misrepresented, by those accustomed only to the coldly — conventional manufactured epistles of everyday folk. A spirit kindred