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

to, at least in after years, even if he had not then already essayed its powers. It is noteworthy to find him declaring, in 1845, in connection with De Quincey’s “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater,” “there is yet room for a book on opium-eating, which shall be the most profoundly interesting volume ever penned.” Returning to an analysis of “Berenice” — that “Berenice” who is depicted as the hero’s cousin — we find, as in so many of his youthful works, constant allusions to hereditary traits and visions of ancestral glories; but these boyish dreams are not, as generally supposed, referable to paternal but to maternal bygone splendours: to Arnheim — to the hold or home of the Arns (i.e., the Arnolds) — to the Arnheim of the first and of the last of his stories. But perhaps the most representative — the almost prophetic — record of its author’s idiosyncrasies, the trait which through after life would have most faithfully portrayed him, is contained in these words of the tale: “In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind.” In the next month, April, appeared “Morelia,” one of Poe’s favourite stories, and one which elicited from the Editor of the Messenger the comment that, whilst it would unquestionably prove its author’s “great powers of imagination, and a command of language seldom surpassed,” yet called forth the “lament that he has drunk so deep at some enchanted fountain, which seems to blend in his fancy the shadows of the tomb with the clouds and sunshine of life.” “Morella,” amid much that is typical, alludes to that all overpowering and overshadowing horror of Poe’s life, to the notion that the consciousness of our identity is not lost at death, and that sentience survives the entombment. The early version of this tale contained “a Catholic hymn,” which subsequently, much revised, appeared as a separate poem. Mr. Kennedy had now had eighteen months’ experience of Poe without discovering anything to alter the favourable opinion he originally formed of him, and he thus expressed himself to Mr. White on the subject: — “BALTIMORE, April 13, 1835, “DEAR SIR, — Poe did right in referring to me. clever with his pen-classical and scholar-like. He wants experience and direction, but I have no doubt he can be made very useful to you. And, poor fellow! he is very poor. I told him to write something for every number of your magazine, and that you might find it to your advantage to give him some permanent employ. He has a volume of very bizarre tales in the hands of ——, in Philadelphia, who for a year past has been promising to publish them. This young fellow is highly imaginative, and a little given to the terrific. He is at work upon a tragedy, but I have turned him to drudging upon whatever may make money, and I have no doubt you and he will find your account in each other.” In the May number of the Messenger appeared “Lionizing,” one of the “Folio Club Tales,” and on the 30th of the same month its author is stated to have said in a letter to Mr. White: “In regard to my critique of Mr. Kennedy’s novel I seriously feel ashamed of what I have written. I fully intended to give the work a thorough review and examine it in detail. Ill health alone prevented me from so doing. At the time I made the hasty sketch I sent you, I was so ill as to be hardly able to see the paper on which I wrote, and I finished it in a state of complete exhaustion. I have not, therefore, done anything like justice to the book, and I am vexed about the matter; for Mr. Kennedy has proved himself a kind friend to me in every respect, and I am sincerely grateful to him for many acts of generosity and attention. You ask me if I am perfectly satisfied with your course. I reply that I am entirely. My poor services are not worth what you give me for them.” Besides his intercourse with Mr. Kennedy, Poe, says Mr. Latrobe (who will be recollected as another of the Saturday Visiter’s committee), “at my instance called upon me sometimes, and entered at length into the discussion of subjects on which he proposed to employ his pen. When he warmed up he was most eloquent . . . He seemed to forget the world around him, as wild fancy, logical truth, mathematical analysis, and wonderful combination of facts, flowed in strange commingling from his lips, in words choice and appropriate, as though the result of the closest study. I remember being particularly struck with the power that he seemed to possess of identifying himself with whatever he was describing. He related to me all the facts of a voyage to the moon, I think (which he proposed to put upon paper), with an accuracy of minute detail, and a truthfulness as regarded philosophical phenomena, that impressed you with the idea that he had just returned from the journey.” The voyage to the moon referred to by Mr. Latrobe is the famous “Hans Pfaall,” or “Phaall,” as it was originally spelt, which appeared in the June number of the Messenger, and created quite a furor at the time. Three weeks after the appearance of Poe’s story, the notorious “Moon Hoax” of Richard Adams Locke was published by the New York Sun; and both jeux d‘esprit were presumed, by some journalists, to have been the work of one author. As even now some confusion exists between the respective dates of publication of the ephemeral hoax and the immortal story, Poe’s own version, corroborated by independent evidence, shall be given: — “About six months before this occurrence,* the Harpers had issued an American edition of Sir John Herschel’s ‘Treatise on Astronomy,’ and I had been much interested in what is there said respecting the possibility of future lunar investigations. The theme excited my fancy, and I longed to give free rein to it in depicting my day-dreams about the scenery of the moon — in short, I longed to write a story embodying these dreams. The obvious difficulty, of course, was that of accounting for the narrator’s acquaintance with the satellite; and the equally obvious mode of surmounting the difficulty was the supposition of an extraordinary telescope. I saw at once that the chief interest of such a narrative must depend upon the reader’s yielding his credence in some measure as to details of actual fact. At this stage of my deliberations, I spoke of the design to one or two friends — to Mr. John P. Kennedy, the author of ‘Swallow Barn,’ among others — and the result of my conversations with them was, that the optical difficulties of constructing such a telescope as I conceived were so rigid and so commonly understood, that it would be in vain to attempt giving due verisimilitude to any fiction having the telescope as a basis. Reluctantly, therefore, and only half convinced (believing the public, in fact, more readily gullible than did my friends), I gave up the idea of imparting very close verisimilitude to what I should write — that is to say, so close as really to deceive. I fell back upon a style half plausible, half bantering, and resolved to give what interest I could to an actual passage from the earth to the moon, describing the lunar scenery as if surveyed and personally examined by the narrator. In this view I wrote a story which I called ‘Hans Pfaall,’ publishing it about six months afterwards in The Southern Literary Messenger. “It was three weeks after the issue of the Messenger containing ‘Hans Pfaall,’ that the first of the ‘Moon Hoax’ editorials made its appearance in the Sun, and no sooner had I seen the paper than I understood the jest, which not for a moment could I doubt had been suggested by my own jeu d‘esprit. Some of the New York journals (the Transcript among others) saw the matter in the same light, and published the ‘Moon Story’ side by side with ‘Hans Pfaall,’ thinking that the author of the one had been detected in the author of the other. Although the details are, with some exception, very dissimilar, still I maintain that the general features of the two compositions are nearly identical. Both are hoaxes (although one is in a tone of mere banter, the other of downright earnest); both hoaxes are on one subject, astronomy; both on the same point of that subject, the moon; both professed to have derived exclusive information frem a foreign country; and both attempt to give plausibility by minuteness of scientific detail. Add to all this, that nothing of a similar nature had ever been attempted before these two hoaxes, the one of which followed immediately upon the heels of the other. “Having stated the case, bound to do Mr. Locke the having seen my article prior to the publication of his own; I am bound to add, also, that I believe him. “Immediately on the completion of the ‘Moon Story’ (it was three or four days in getting finished), I wrote an examination of its claims to credit, showing distinctly its fictitious character, but was astonished at finding that I could obtain few listeners, so really eager were all to be deceived, so magical were the charms of a style that served as the vehicle of an exceedingly clumsy invention. “It may afford even now some amusement to see pointed out those particulars of the hoax which should have sufficed to establish its real character. Indeed, however rich the however, in this form, I am justice to say, that he denies imagination displayed in this fiction, it wanted much of the force which might have been given it by a more scrupulous attention to general analogy and to fact. That the public were misled, even for an instant, merely proves the gross ignorance which is so generally prevalent upon subjects of an astronomical nature.” The singular blunders to which he referred included a literal reproduction, in a winged man-bat, of Peter Wilkins’ flying islanders, and it is impossible to refrain from expressing, with foe, our wonder at the prodigious success of the hoax. “Not one person in ten discredited it,” he says, “and, (strangest point of all!) the doubters were chiefly those who doubted without being able to say why — the ignorant, those uninformed in astronomy — people who would not believe because the thing was so novel, so entirely ‘out of the usual way.’ A grave professor of mathematics in a Virginian college told me seriously that he had no doubt of the truth of the whole affair! The great effect wrought upon the public mind is referable, first, to the novelty of the idea; secondly, to the fancy-exciting and reason-repressing character of the alleged discoveries; thirdly, to the consummate tact with which the deception was brought forth; fourthly, to the exquisite vraisemblance of the narration. The hoax was circulated to an immense extent, was translated into various languages — was even made the subject of (quizzical) discussion in astronomical societies; drew down upon itself the grave denunciations of Dick,* and was, upon the whole, decidedly the greatest hit in the way of sensation — of merely popular sensation — ever made by any similar fiction either in America or in Europe. “Having read the ‘Moon Story’ to an end,” continues Poe, “and found it anticipative of all the main points of in, ‘Hans Pfaall,’ I suffered the latter to remain unfinished. The chief design in carrying my hero to the moon was to afford him an opportunity of describing the lunar scenery, but I found that he could add very little to the minute and authentic account of Sir John Herschel. The first part of ‘Hans Pfaall,’ occupying about eighteen pages of the Messenger, embraced merely a journal of the passage between the two orbs, and a few words of general observation on the most obvious features of the satellite; the second part will most probably never appear. I did not think it advisable even to bring my voyager back to his parent earth. He remains where I left him, and is still, I believe, ‘the man in the moon.’ ” Had Poe carried out his design of describing lunar scenery, what a rich feast of fantasy would have been provided for