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

Write and advise me what to do. Your distracted friend, “M. C.” Writing again on the 13th of October to the same faithful friend, Mrs. Clemm says: — “MY OWN DEAREST ANNIE, — I am not deceived in you, you still wish your poor desolate friend to come to you. . . . I have written to poor Eludra, and have to wait for her answer. They are already making arrangements to publish the works of my darling lost one. I have been waited on by several gentlemen, and have finally arranged with Mr. Griswold to arrange and bring them out, and he wishes it done immediately. Mr. Willis is to share with him this labour of love. They say I am to have the entire proceeds, so you see, Annie, I will not be entirely, destitute. I have had many letters of condolence, and one which has, indeed, comforted me. Neilson Poe, of Baltimore, has written to me, and says he died in the Washington Medical College, not the Hospital, and of congestion of the brain, and not of what the vile, vile papers accuse him. He had many hind friends with him, and was attended to the grave by the literati of Baltimore, and many friends. Severe excitement (and no doubt some imprudence) brought this on; he never had one interval of reason. I cannot tell you all now. . . . They now appreciate him and will do justice to his beloved memory. They propose to raise a monument to his memory. Some of the papers, indeed, nearly all, do him justice. I enclose this article from a Baltimore paper. But this, my dear Annie, will not restore him. Never, oh, never, will I see those dear lovely eyes. I feel so desolate, so wretched, friendless, and alone. . . . I have a beautiful letter from General Morris; he did, indeed, love him. He has many friends, but of what little consequence to him now. I have to go out home — to his home to-day, to arrange his papers. Oh, what will I not suffer.” . . . On the 17th Mrs. Clemm writes to say that she has now heard all the particulars of Poe’s death, and that she has “been very much engaged with Mr. Griswold in looking over his (Poe’s) papers,” and that Mr. Griswold says, “he must have all until the work is published. He thinks I will realise from two to three thousand dollars from the sale of these books, there is so much sympathy and good feeling towards bun, except by a few low envious minds. . . . What do you think I must have suffered when in one of the letters I found some hair of my lost one! . . . His hair, taken from that dear head when cold and insensible. . . . I received a letter from poor dear Elmira: oh, how you will pity her when you read it.” Then, in alluding to the proffered services of Griswold, the poor befooled woman continues; “How nobly they have acted! all done gratis, and you know to literary people that is a great deal. . . . Those gentlemen who have so kindly under, taken the publication of his works, say that I will have a very comfortable income from them.” Within a few days after these and many similar letters equally pathetic were written, Mrs. Clemm went on a lengthy’ visit to “Annie’s” hospitable home. Writing to her step-daughter’s husband, Mr. Neilson Poe, on the 1st of November, she acknowledges a kind letter from Willis, that had been forwarded to her; begs Neilson to forward her the trunk containing Foe’s papers, as in it were articles of “great importance to the publishers of his works;” inveighs bitterly against the poet’s sister, Rosalie, for her claim to share in the anticipated proceeds of the projected publication; furnishes instances of the friendly — attentions paid her by well-known literati, and — declares that she is “with the kindest friends, who do all in their power to comfort her.” Several months passed .on smoothly enough, and Mrs. Clemm was comforted and gratified by the kindly, attentions of friends and strangers, who all cried with each other in aiding the poet’s “more than mother.” In September 1850, the third volume of Poe’s works when published was found to be prefaced by the anxiously looked-for “Memoir” — the “labour of love” of Rufue Griswold. The secret of the man’s disinterested aid was soon manifest; never before had so slanderous a collection of falsehoods and libels — so calumnious a product of envy, hatred, and malice — been offered to the public as this “Memoir” of an ill-fated child of genius. The distress and indignation of Mrs. Clemm were intense, and she continually, when alluding to Griswold, writes of him as “that villain.” Poe’s literary friends gathered round her and promised to expose and refute the slanderous fabrications. “I have received a kind letter from that noble fellow, Graham,” she writes at this period, “telling me to remain quiet, that he had a host of ray Eddie’s friends prepared to do him justice, and that he intends to devote nearly half of the December number to the memory and defence of my injured Eddie.” Mr. Graham, and many others who had been personally acquainted with Poe, took up cudgels in his defence, but, as Griswold’s “Memoir” prefaced the poet’s works, and all refutations and objections were published in the ephemeral pages of periodicals, until 1874 this veritable scandalum magnatum remained unexpunged. Mrs. Clemm continued as a guest at “Annie’s” house for some years, when she was invited to “Stella’s,” where she also spent several years, befriended and introduced to all notable persons. Among distinguished visitors to America who remembered and greeted the poet’s venerable mother-in-law, was Charles Dickens, and he generously entreated her acceptance of one hundred and fifty dollars, accompanying the gift with the assurance of has sympathy. Ultimately, the old lady found a retreat in a charitable institution of Baltimore, the “Church Home and Infirmary,” and expired there on the 16th of February 1871, having lived long beyond the allotted years of sorrow. In accordance with her own request, her papers and records were placed in the hands of Mr. Neilson Poe, whilst her poor worn-out body was interred beside her beloved Eddy’s, in the old ancestral grave of her father, General Poe. * In Scribner’s Monthly for March 1878. * It was by no means unusual in those days for unprotected strangers to be seized by electioneering agents, confined in a cellar till wanted, or ‘cooped,” as it was termed, and then drugged and dragged about from poll to poll to vote, the superintending officials registering the votes, apparently quite regardless of the condition of the person personifying a voter. * Vide Appendix E. John H. Ingram, “Appendix A,” Edgar Allan Poe: Life, Letters, and Opinions (1880), pp. 245-252 APPENDIX A. POE’S ANCESTRY. IN her charming little book on Edgar Poe and his Critics,the late Mrs. Whitman contended that the Poe family was of Italian origin. The progenitors of this race, according to the lady’s idea, after successive migrations through France, England, and Wales, ultimately settled in Ireland. This theory was based upon the supposition that the Poe and the Le Poer families were identic in origin; but later researches, whilst recognising the great probability, have failed to establish the certainty of this identity, the only datum adduced in proof of it being, apparently, similarity of sound — that least trustworthy of all philological evidence. For those, however, who may like to see the testimony proffered by Mrs. Whitman in support of her hypothesis of the Poe and Le Poer families being descended from the same ancestor, the particulars furnished by her said worktogether with a few additional items on the same theme, gathered by ourselves for our 1874 Memoir of the poet shall be given. Edgar Allan Poe, says our authority, was descended from an ancient Norman family which settled in Ireland in the reign of Henry II., and “those who are curious in tracing the effects of country and lineage in the mental and constitutional peculiarities of men of genius, may be interested in such facts as we have been enabled to gather in relation to the ancestry of the poet. The awakening interest in genealogical researches will make them acceptable to many readers; and in their possible influence on a character so anomalous as that of Edgar Poe, they are certainly worthy of note.” The family of the Le Poers, or De la Poers, was founded by Sir Roger le Poer, one of the companions-in-arms of the famous Strongbow, and of him it was remarked by Geraldus Cambrensis, “It might be said, without offence, that there was not a man who did more valiant acts than Roger le Poer.” The race which sprang from this knightly adventurer made itself conspicuous in the annals of Ireland for heroic daring and romantic deeds, as well as for its improvidence and reckless bravery. The chivalrous conduct of Sir Arnold le Poer, seneschal of Kilkenny Castle, “a knights and instructed in letters,” in interposing, at the ultimate sacrifice of liberty and life, to rescue Lady Alice Kytler from the clutches of the ecclesiastics who accused her and brought her to trial for witchcraft, is fully detailed by Geraldus and other chroniclers. “The disastrous civil war of 1327,” says Mrs. Whitman, “in which all the great barons of the country were involved, was occasioned by a personal feud between Arnold le Poer and Maurice of Desmond, the former having offended the dignity of the Desmond by calling him a rhymer,” little deeming, indeed, that the most famous scion of his own knightly, race would glorify the family more by his rhymings than any other member of it would by his swordsmanship. The Le Poers were involved in the Irish troubles of 1641, and when Cromwell invaded the country they did not escape his pursuit; their families were dispersed, their estates confiscated, and their lands forfeited to the Commonwealth. Of the three leading branches of the family at the time of Cromwell’s invasion, Kilmaedon, Don Isle, and Curraghmore, the last only escaped the vengeance of the Lord Protector, and that, according to Burke, solely by the ingenuity and courage of Alice, daughter of the Lord of Curraghmore. The romantic story of Cromwell’s siege of the sea-girt castle of Don Isle, as told by Burke, in his Romance of the Aristocracy, is replete with interest. The isolated stronghold was bravely defended by a female descendant of Nicholas le Poer, Baron of Don Isle, and this heroine is always styled, in the traditions of the Power family, “the Countess.” “The family of the Le Poers,” remarks Mrs. Whitman, “like that of the Geraldines, and other Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland, passed from Italy into the north of France, and from France, through England and Wales, into Ireland, where, from their isolated position and other causes, they retained for a long period their hereditary traits with far less modification from intermarriage and association with other races than did their English compeers. Meantime the name underwent various changes in accent and orthography. A few branches of the family still bore in Ireland the old Italian name of De la Poi” “The beautiful domain of Powerscourt,” adds this same authority, “took its name from the Le Poers,” and through her father, Edmund Power, the late Lady Blessington claimed descent from the same old family. Some branches of the Power family, it may be remarked, have obtained heraldic sanction for resuming their more ancient patronymic of Le Poer.* Thus far we have ventured to follow the line of argument suggested by Mrs. Whitman, but it must be confessed that the earliest reliable records do not carry the paternal ancestry of Edgar Allan Poe further back than the middle of the last century; but if his ancestors were descended, as is extremely probable, from the Poes of Riverston (County Tipperary, Ireland), the race may be traced back nearly two centuries earlier. The Poës of Riverston are said to have come from the Upper Palatinate of the Rhine, and for upwards of two centuries have held positions of importance, and have intermarried with various families of the aristocracy.