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

‘Washingtonian Teetotaler’ is edited by a little old lady in a mobcap and spectacles — at least we presume so, for every second paper in Boston is.” Here it should be explained, for those who, knowing Poe’s invariable courtesy towards women, fail to recognise the subject of his satire, that the publica tion alluded to was edited by Mr. Edmund Burke, who, said the poet, “assured us, with tears in her eyes, that she was not a little old lady in a mobcap and spectacles.” From the postscriptum to this editorial may be cited these few more sentences: “Miss Walters (the Siren!) has seen cause, we find, to recant all the ill natured little insinuations she has been making against us (mere white lies — she need not take them so much to heart), and is now overwhelming us with apologies — things which we have never yet been able to withstand. She defends our poem on the ground of its being ‘juvenile,’ and we think the more of her defence because she herself has been juvenile so long as to be a judge of juvenility.” During the following weeks Poe delivered a few more Parthian darts at these Bostonian editors, but, so far as the Broadway Journal was concerned, this was the end of the far-famed, attack on Frogpondium. The whole squabble was petty, and little worthy of the strenuous exertions it aroused against the poet. Those hurried jocular, although overstrained, newspaper jottings, — thrown off in the midst of cares and anxieties of all kinds, and whilst their unfortunate writer, suffering under almost chronic impecuniosity, and unable to pay for literary aid, was obliged to supply “copy” for nearly the whole of the Journal, — have been referred to, and adduced from, as evidence of Poe’s irretrievably bad nature. Work of a more pleasing nature, however, was now occupying his attention and time. In October he published in his journal the poetically worded sketch of “The Island of the Fay,” in which some of his most salient traits of thoughts are expressed. In this composition he pointed out how human figures disfigure a landscape; reiterated his ofttold love of solitude; and affected to believe, with the old geographer Pomponious Mela, that the earth is a living sentient being. In this same prose poem Poe, in drawing attention to the palpable fact that space is an object in our universe, laid down a proposition that really contained the germ of his subsequent great work “Eureka.” In the Following month of November, the tale of “Spectacles” appeared in the Broadway Journal, which also contained the announcement that Poe was now its “sole proprietor and editor;” Graham’s Magazine contained “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether,” and “Mesmeric Revelations” was published in the Columbian Magazine. This last story, and its sequel of “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” — published next month in the American Review created a more profound and wider-spread excitement than any other of his previous works. He was overwhelmed with inquiries as to their being fact or fiction, and carefully avoided giving the public a definite answer. Commenting upon The Tribune’s remarks about the latter tale — that terrible tale of mesmerising a man in articulo mortis — Poe said, “For our past, we find it difficult to understand how any dispassionate transcendentalist can doubt the. facts as we state them; they are by no means so incredible as the marvels which are hourly narrated, and believed, on the topic of mesmerism. Why cannot a man’s death be postponed indefinitely by mesmerism? why cannot a man talk after he is dead? why? — why? — that is the question; and as soon as the Tribune has answered it to our satisfaction we will talk to it further.” And in reprinting “The Facts” in his journal, he notes that the article “has given rise to some discussion — especially in regard to the truth or falsity of the statement made. It does not become us, of course,” he adds, “to offer one word on the point at issue. We have been requested to reprint the article, and do so with pleasure. We leave it to speak for itself. We may observe, however, that there are a certain class of people who pride themselves upon Doubt as a profession.” The wordy warfare as to the facts of “The Facts” being a record of real circumstance or not, waxed warmer, and even people who should have known better took the side of the believers. Dr. Collyer, a well-known mesmerist, was among the many who expressed their belief as to the “case of Monsieur Valdemar” being a true one, and he wrote this letter to Poe on the subject: — “BOSTON, December 16, 1845 “DEAR SIR — Your account of M. Valdemar’s case has been universally copied in this city, and has created a very great sensation. It requires from me no apology, in stating, that I have not the least doubt of the possibility of such a phenomenon; for I did actually restore to active animation a person who died from excessive drinking of ardent spirits. He was placed in his coffin ready for interment. “You are aware that death very often follows excessive excitement of the nervous system; this arising from the extreme prostration which follows; so that the vital powers have not sufficient energy to react. “I will give you the detailed account on your reply to this, which I require for publication, in order to put at rest the growing impression that your account is merely a splendid creation of your own brain, not having any truth in fact. My dear sir, I have battled the storm of public derision too long on the subject of Mesmerism, to be now found in the rear ranks — though I have not publicly lectured for more than two years, I have steadily made it a subject of deep investigation. “I sent the account to my friend Dr. Elliotson of London; also to The Zoist — to which journal I have regularly contributed. “Your early reply will oblige, which I will publish, with your consent, in connection with the case I have referred to. Believe me yours, most respectfully, “ROBERT H. COLLYER.” In public allusion to this communication, Poe humorously said, “We have no doubt that Dr. Collyer is perfectly correct in all that he says, and all that he desires us to say; but the truth is, there is a very small modicum of truth in the case of M. Valdemar, which, in consequence, may be called a hard case very hard for M. Valdemar, for Dr. Collyer, and ourselves. If the story was not true, however, it should have been, and perhaps The Zoist may discover that it is true, after all.” In England “Valdemar’s Case” also startled the public, and actually found certain pseudo scientific writers ready to accept it as a narration of facts. The Popular Record of Modern Science, a London weekly paper sub-styling itself “A Journal of Philosophy and General Information,” reprinted the tale with the comment, “It bears internal evidence of authenticity!” and in criticising the remarks of the Morning Post — which also reprinted the narratio — took occasion to say: “Credence is understood to be given to it at New York, within a few miles of which city the affair took place, and where, consequently, the most ready means must be found for its authentication or disproval. The initials of the medical men, and of the young medical student, must be sufficient in the immediate locality to bush their identity, especially as M. Valdemar was well known, and had been so long ill as to render it out of the question that there should be any difficulty in ascertaining the names of the physicians by whom he had been attended. In the same way the nurses and servants, under whose cognisance the case must have come during the seven months which it occupied, are of course accessible to sorts of inquiries. It will therefore appear that there must have been too many parties concerned to render prolonged deception practicable. The angry excitement and various rumours, which have at length rendered a public statement necessary, are also sufficient to show that something extraordinary must have taken place. No steamer will leave England for America till the 3rd of February, but within a few weeks of that time, we doubt not, it will be possible to lay before the readers of The Record information which will enable them to come to a pretty accurate conclusion.” It is easy to imagine the delight with which Poe chuckled over the absurd sophistry of these pseudo scientists, and over the success, in an English self-titled philosophical paper, of his “ ‘Valdemar Case’ hoax,” as he called it in a letter to a friend. He would find more true gratification, however, in these allusions to the work in a letter of Mrs. Browning’s: — “Then there is a tale of his which I do not find in this volume,* but which is going the rounds of the newspapers, about mesmerism, throwing us all into most admired disorder, “or dreadful doubts as to whether it can be true, as the children say of ghost stories. The certain thing in the tale in question is the power of the writer, and the faculty he has of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar.” To Mrs. Browning Poe now dedicated, in most enthusiastic terms, a new collection of his poems, published in November by Messrs. Wiley and Putnam, as “The Raven and other Poems.” In the Preface to the volume the poet pathetically remarks, “Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not — they cannot at will be excited with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.” And, in a note to the Poems written in Youth, he says, — chiefly with reference to the remark of Charles Dickens in the Foreign Quarterly Review, that Poe “had all Tennyson’s spirituality, and might be considered as the best of his imitators” — “Private reasons — some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tennyson’s first poems — have induced me, after some hesitation, to republish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood.” The volume of poetry did not appear to make such a deep impression upon the public as did the volume of “Tales,” partly, perchance, on account of the contents being already well known through reprints, and partly because it contained little beyond “The Raven” likely to earn the approbation of the multitude. On turning to the less literary, although scarcely less public, life of Poe at this period, he is seen mixing in the best society New York could boast of, and charming every one by the fascination of his manners and the brilliancy of his conversational powers. Mrs. Oakes Smith informs us, that “It was in the brilliant circles that assembled in the winter of 1845-46 at the houses of Dr. Dewey, Miss Anna C. Lynch, Mr. Lawson, and others, that we first met Edgar Poe. His manners were, athese reunions, refined and pleasing, and his style and scope of conversation that of a gentleman and a scholar. Whatever may have been his previous career, there was nothing in his appearance or manner to indicate his excesses. He delighted in the society of superior women, and had an exquisite perception of all the graces of manner and shades of expression. He was an admiring listener, and an unobtrusive observer. We all recollect the interest felt at the time in everything emanating from his pen — the relief it was from the dulness of ordinary writers, the certainty of something fresh and suggestive. His critiques were read with avidity; not that he convinced the judgment, but that people felt their ability and courage. Right or wrong he was terribly in earnest.” “Like De Quincey,” as Mrs. Whitman remarks, “he never supposed anything, he always knew.” This last named lady, in her beautiful monograph on “Poe and his Critics,” instances, as evidence of the habitual kindliness and courtesy of the poet’s nature, an incident that