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

too correct. This may not be understood, — but the old Goths of Germany would have understood it, who used to debate matters of importance to their State twice, once when drunk, and once when sober — sober that they might not be deficient in formality — drunk lest they should be destitute of vigour. “The long wordy discussions by which he tries to reason us into admiration of his poetry speak very little in his favour: they are full of such assertions as this (I have opened one of his volumes at random) — ‘Of genius the only proof is the act of doing well what is worthy to be done, and what was never done before’ — indeed? then it follows that in doing what is unworthy to be done, or what has been done before, no genius can be evinced; yet the picking of pockets is an unworthy act, pockets have been picked time immemorial, and Barrington, the pickpocket, in point of genius, would have thought hard of a comparison with William Wordsworth, the poet, “Again — in estimating the merit of certain poems, whether they be Ossian’s or Macpherson’s can surely be of little consequence, yet, in order to prove their worthlessness, Mr. W. has expended many pages in the controversy. Tantœme animis? Can great minds descend to such absurdity? But worse still: that he may bear down every argument in favour of these poems, he triumphantly drags forward a passage, in his abomination of which he expects the reader to sympathise. It is the beginning of the epic poem ‘Temora.’ ‘The blue waves of Erin roll in light. The mountains are covered with day. Trees shake their dusky heads in the breeze.’ And this — this gorgeous, yet simple imagery, where all is alive and panting with immortality — this, William Wordsworth, the author of ‘Peter Bell,’ has selected for his contempt. We shall see what better he, in his own person, has to offer. Imprimis: “ ‘And now she’s at the pony’s tail, And now she’s at the pony’s head On that side now, and now on this; And, almost stifled with her bliss, A few sad tears does Betty shed. . . . She pats the pony, where or when She knows not, happy Betty Foy! Oh Johnny, never mind the Doctor!’ “Secondly: “ ‘The dew was falling fast, the — stars began to blink; I heard a voice: it said, drink, pretty creature, drink! And, looking o’er the hedge, before me I espied A snow-white mountain lamb, with a — maiden at its side. No other sheep were near — the lamb was all alone, And by a slender cord was — tether'd to a stone.’ “Now, we have no doubt this is all true: we will believe it, indeed, we will, Mr. W. Is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite? I love a sheep from the bottom of my heart. “But there are occasions, dear B——, there are occasions when even Wordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end, and the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an extract from his preface — “ ‘Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to a conclusion (impossible l) will, no doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha! ha! ha!) they will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!), and will be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts have been permitted to assume that title.’ Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! “Yet, let not Mr. W. despair; he has given immortality to a waggon, and the bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe, and dignified a tragedy with a chorus of turkeys.* “Of Coleridge, I cannot speak but with reverence. His towering intellect! his gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself, ‘J‘ai trouvé souvent que la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une bonne partie de ce qu‘elles avancent, mais non pas en ce qu‘elles nient.’ And to employ his oven language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by the barrier he has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its perfume upon the night alone. In reading that man’s poetry, I tremble like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious, from the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below, “What is poetry? — Poetry! that Proteus — like idea, with as many appellations as the nine-titled Corcyra! ‘Give me,’ I demanded of a scholar some time ago, ‘give me a definition of poetry.’ ‘Tres-volontiers;’ and he proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr. Johnson, and overwhelmed me with a definition. Shade of the immortal Shakespeare! I imagine to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of that scurrilous Ursa Major. Think of poetry, dear B ——, think of poetry, and then think of Dr. Samuel Johnson Think of all that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all that is hideous and unwieldy; think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and then — and then think of the Tempest — the Midsummer:Night’s Dream-Prospero-Oberon-and Titania! “A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having, for its object, an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness. “What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his soul? “To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B——, what you, no doubt, perceive, for the metaphysical poets as poets, the most sovereign contempt. That they have followers proves nothing — “No Indian prince has to his palace More followers than a thief to the gallows.’ ” Apart from the fact that the theory herein enunciated as to the object and aim of poetry is one which its author never through life deviated from, this letter is valuable and most interesting as the earliest known specimen of Poe’s prose work. In the 1831 volume it is followed by a poetical “Introduction” of sixty-six lines, an expansion of the twenty-one lines of the 1829 “Preface.” These additional verses were subsequently suppressed, but a portion of them is well worthy preservation here, not only as a fair sample of their youthful inditer’s poetic powers, but also for their autobiographical allusions: — “Succeeding years, too wild for song, Then rolled like tropic storms along; Where, though the garish lights that fly Dying along the troubled sky, Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven, The blackness of the general heaven; That very blackness yet doth fling Light on the lightning’s silver wiug. “For, being an idle boy lang syne, Who read Anacreon and drank wine, I early found Anacreon-rhymes Were almost passionate sometimes — And by strange alchemy of brain His pleasures always turned to pain — His naïveté to wild desire — His wit to love — his wine to fire; And so, being young and dipt in folly, I fell in love with melancholy, And used to throw my earthly rest And quiet all away in jest. I could not love except where Death Was mingling his with Beauty’s breath Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny Were stalking between her and me. . . . “But now my soul hath too much room Gone are the glory and the gloom; The black hath mellowed into gray, And all the fires are fading away. “My draught of passion hath been deep — I revelled, and I now would sleep And after drunkenness of soul Succeeds the glories of the bowl An idle longing night and day To dream my very life away. . .” To those acquainted with Poe’s history thus far, the, pathos of the four final lines of the second stanza will not be overlooked. These idiosyncrastic verses are followed by the exquisite lyric “To Helen,”* a poem written in commemoration of Mrs. Stannard, as Poe himself afterwards acknowledged; then comes the earliest known version of “Israfel;” which is succeeded by “The Dogmed City” — a poem afterwards improved and re-christened “The City in the Sea” expanded and weakened versions of “Fairyland,” and “The Sleeper,” follow; next comes “A Paean,” chiefly remarkable as being the germ of that melodious, exultant defiance of death “Lenore” — and then, finally, so far as the “Miscellaneous Poems” are concerned, some lines entitled “The Valley Nis” — ultimately revised and published as “The Valley of Unrest.” The collection concludes with expanded reprints of “Al Aaraaf,” and “Tamerlane,” but the additions and variations are, generally, inferior in poetic value to the earlier versions. Ultimately, upon their next republication, the poet’s more matured judgment caused him to curtail the proportions of most of the pieces in this “second edition,” by discarding the so strangely added new lines. It should also be noted, in connection with this 1831 volume, that the punctuation is not so good nor so characteristic as in its immediate predecessor, and that the whole book has the appearance of having been very hastily prepared for the press. The profits, if any, on his “Poems,” could not have sufficed long for Poe’s maintenance, and, indeed, in a very short space of time he appears to have retraced his journey to Richmond. Upon his arrival at Mr. Allan’s he did not receive a very gracious reception, as may be readily imagined, from his godfather’s second wife. Mr. Allan, he was told, was confined to his bed by severe illness, and his request to be admitted to the sick man’s chamber was refused. Excited by the refusal, he quarrelled with Mrs. Allan and left the house-the only home he had ever known — for ever, and in wrath. Mr. Allan was informed of the visit, and his godson’s conduct was, apparently, represented to him in anything but favourable colours, for he wrote an angry letter forbidding him the house. The poet answered in a similar spirit, and never again, it is believed, held any further communication with his adopted father) — with the man whom he had been taught to look to for aid and support, and whose property he had been led to believe was destined to be his own inheritance. All was over now, and he who a short time before had been regarded as the spoilt child of Fortune, was now homeless and penniless! All attempts hitherto made to explain what Poe did, and whither he wandered, during the next two years succeeding his expulsion from his godfather’s home, have signally failed. The assertion that he was residing at Baltimore with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, is not in accordance with fact, her correspondence proving that she never did know where her nephew was during this interregnum in his history, and the poet himself does not appear to have ever afforded any reliable clue to the truth. Powell, in his well-meaning, but somewhat imaginative, sketch of Poe, asserts that the chivalrous youth left Richmond with the intention of offering his services to the Poles in their heroic struggle against Russia. Another biographer, of proven unreliability, suggests that Poe enlisted in the army, but after a short service deserted, although, in a previous sketch of the poet, this same writer stated that during the period referred to the youth endeavoured to subsist by author-craft, only “his contributions to the journals attracted little attention, and his hopes of gaining a livelihood by the profession of literature were nearly ended at length in sickness, poverty, and despair.” Other attempts, all more or less romantic, have been made to bridge over this chasm in Poe’s life, but none possess such probability as that last cited. In no portion of his career did the poet prove the waters of Helicon Pactolian, and in his earliest efforts to obtain a subsistence by literary labour it almost necessarily follows — considering the then position of American letters — that his