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

although glowing imagination,” and, “It is strange, too, that he most strongly enlisted my feelings in behalf of the life of a seaman, when he depicted his more terrible moments of suffering and despair. For the bright side of the painting I had a limited sympathy.” Dreams of the day and of the night are plentiful in Pym’s narrative, and are rather more typical of the psychological introspection of the poet than of the healthy animalism and muscular energy of the sailor. And yet they are not out of harmony with the tone of this work, nor discordant with the overwrought imagination of a sensitive youth. A dreaming fit is described in the second chapter — that whence Pym is aroused by the dog “Tiger” — which fully equals in descriptive terror and power of language any of the English Opium-Eater’s “Confessions;” whilst the analysis of the various mental phases through which the hero passes — as told in Chapter xxiv. — from the time he commences his descent of the soapstone cliff and must not think, until the longing to fall is finally finished by the fall, quite equals in psychological subtlety anything that De Quincey ever did. Another noteworthy passage is that in Chapter xxi., wherein is described the horrible dread, ever recurring with such ghastly effect in Poe’s tales, of entombment alive “The supremeness of mental and bodily distress of living inhumation” continually overshrouds his imagination, and his readers are goaded into believing that the narrator himself must have experienced the so-graphically-portrayed horrors of “the blackness of darkness which envelops the victim, the terrific oppression of lungs, the stifling fumes from the damp earth,” and all the appalling paraphernalia of a death-scene, which be shudderingly declares, even as he describes, are “not to be tolerated — never to be conceived.” The originality of Poe’s genius, as shown in this “Narrative,” will doubtless be the more generally admired, although less real, in such things as where be explains the singular character of the many-hued waters — which never seemed limpid — in the Antarctic island; and in the gradually-revealed horror of the inhabitants of the colour white; or in the ingenuity of the perusal of the torn letter by phosphorus; or in such probably inexplicable psychological facts, as the long ocean travelling voyager, in his delirium, beholding every creation of his “mind’s-eye” in motion — movement being the all predominant idea. Our remarks on “Arthur Gordon Pym” are purposely directed more towards bringing prominently forward certain commonly unnoted characteristics of the tale, than to recalling attention to its generally appreciated, and frequently commented upon, more salient features. Another of Poe’s productions for this year was “Siope: A Fable. [In the manner of the Psychological Autobiographists].” “Siope,” which appeared in the Baltimore Book for 1838, is the weird prose poem now styled “Silence,” and is paralleled in many passages by its author’s sonnet to “Silence” and other later poems. Poe’s inventive genius, indeed, was much more limited than is generally supposed, leading him to frequently repeat and repolish, rather than to originate, over and over again: the same favourite quotation, or pet idea, may be found doing duty in several places. Those readers well acquainted with his earlier as well as later publications, will be able to recall to mind many instances of such repetition. * Published in The Gift in 1842. * L. A. Wilmer, Our Press Gang. * In the New York Evening Mail, December 1870. * In a letter to the late Mrs. Whitman, dated July 8th, 1870. * The poet’s pet name at home. † Letter to Judge Neilson Poe, August 19th, 1860. John H. Ingram, “Chapter 11,” Edgar Allan Poe: Life, Letters, and Opinions (1880), pp. 153-180 CHAPTER XI. IN THE CITY OF PENN. LATE in 1838 Poe removed to Philadelphia. The reason of his removal is uncertain, but it has been suggested that regular literary employment was proffered him in the Quaker city, wherefore, as the independence he had sought to earn by his pen was not obtainable in New York, he migrated thither with his lares et penates. That, or the constitutional restlessness, which like a fiend goaded him hither and thither, may have been the motive power. The whole burden of the household now falling upon his shoulders, for Mrs. Clemm relinquished the New York house and accompanied the Poes to Philadelphia, the poet sought engagements in various quarters. Among other magazines for which he agreed to write was the American Museum, a new publication projected and edited by Dr. N. C. Brooks of Baltimore. Requested by the proprietor to furnish a critique on Washington Irving, Poe replied in the following terms “PHILADELPHIA, September 4, 1838. “MY DEAR SIR, — I duly received your favour with the $ro. Touching the review, I am forced to decline it just now. I should be most unwilling not to execute such a task well, and this I could not do at so short notice, at least now. I have two other engagements which it would be ruinous to defer. Besides this, I am just leaving Arch Street for a small house, and, of course, am somewhat in confusion. “My main reason, however, for declining is what I first alleged, viz.: I could not do the review well at short notice. The truth is, I can hardly say that I am conversant with Irving’s writings, having read nothing of his since I was a boy, save his ‘Granada.’ It would be necessary to give his entire works a reperusal. You see, therefore, the difficulty at once. It is a theme upon which I would like very much to write, for there is a vast deal to be said upon it. Irving is much overrated, and a nice distinction might be drawn between his just and his surreptitious and adventitious reputation — between what is due to the pioneer solely, and what to the writer. “The merit, too, of his tame propriety and faultlessness of style should be candidly weighed. He should be compared with Addison, something being hinted about imitation, and Sir Roger de Coverley should be brought up in judgment. A bold and a priori investigation of Irving’s claims would strike home, take my word for it. The American literary world never saw anything of the kind yet. Seeing, therefore, the opportunity of making a fine hit, I am unwilling to hazard your fame by a failure, and a failure would assuredly be the event were I to undertake the task at present. “The difficulty with you is nothing — for I fancy you are conversant with Irving’s works, old and new, and would not have to read for the task. Had you spoken decidedly when I first saw you, I would have adventured If you can delay the review until the second number I would be most happy to do my best. But this, I presume, is impossible. “I have gotten nearly out of my late embarrassments. — would not aid me, being much pushed himself. He would, no doubt, have aided me, if possible. Present my respects if you see him. — Very truly yours, “EDGAR A. POE. “Suppose you send me proofs of my articles; it might be as well — that is, if you have time. I look anxiously for the first number, from which I date the dawn of a fine literary day in Baltimore. “After the 15th, I shall be more at leisure, and will be happy to do you any literary service in my power. You have but to hint. “E. A. P.” Whether Dr. Brooks made use of the suggestions thrown out, and attempted something that would make “a fine hit,” matters little, but it is consolatory to think that he had not “spoken decidedly when” the poet first saw him, otherwise the world might have had a not too charitable critique on the “surreptitious and adventitious reputation” of Washington Irving, in lieu of the weird story of “Ligeia,” which was Poe’s contribution to the initial number of the periodical. “Ligeia,” the poet’s favourite tale, was suggested, he says,* by a dream — a dream in which the eyes of the heroine produced the intense effect described in the fourth paragraph of the work. “Ligeia,” heralded by one of those splendid passages which begem Joseph Glanvill’s “Essays,” assumes for its motto, “Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.” A theme more congenial to the dream-haunted brain of Poe could scarcely be devised; and in his exposition of the thoughts suggested by its application he has been more than usually successful. The failure of Death to annihilate Will was, indeed, a suggestion that the poet-dreadingly, despairingly, familiar as he was with charnel secrets — could not fail to grasp at with the energy of hope, and adorn with the funereal flowers of his grave-nourished fantasy. In Poe’s gradual and unnoted steps towards proving the impossible possible, his reader’s reason is fettered, and his mind is blinded to the impassible limits of nature with such careful art, that he loses all hold on fact, and is ready and willing for the nonce to credit the reality of any mental chimera the wizard chooses to conjure up. At the dénouement of such a tale, one feels as if awakening from a nightmare: the knowledge that it is fiction is still for a while overclouded with the horrible thought that it might be true. Like most of Poe’s other tales, “Ligeia” was frequently revised and altered, and did not originally contain, as it does now, that most weird and most original of all his poems, “The Conqueror Worm.” The two other literary engagements to which the poet alluded in his letter to Dr. Brooks were with the Pittsburgh Literary Examiner and the Philadelphia Gentleman’s Magazine. The latter was the property of Mr. W. E. Burton, an Englishman, who obtained some reputation in his days as a comedian, and then attempted to add to it as a littérateur, an attempt in which he was scarcely so successful. Poe appears to have contributed some odds and ends to the Gentleman’s Magazine almost from his first arrival in Philadelphia, but it was not until July of the following year, when he was appointed editor, that he published anything of note in its pages. In the last month of 1838, he contributed to the Museum “The Signora Zenobia,” and its pendant “The Scythe of Time,” afterwards respectively renamed “How to Write a Blackwood Article,” and “A Predicament.” In The Gift for 1839 appeared “William Wilson,” one of the poet’s finest tales, and one in many parts confessedly autobiographical. In an eulogistic but discriminative review of Hawthorne, published in Graham’s Magazine, Poe drew attention to certain incidents in “Howe’s Masquerade” that might be deemed to resemble plagiarism from “William Wilson,” and “might be a very flattering coincidence of thought” by his countryman; but the strangest thing about it is, that Poe’s own tale is most closely paralleled in plot by a rare drama, attributed to Calderon, called “El Encapotado,” which Washington Irving had called attention to. The hero of the Spanish story, like “William Wilson,” is throughout life thwarted in all his schemes for the acquisition of wealth, pleasure, or love, by a mysterious stranger, and when he ultimately forces the unknown, at the point of the sword, to unmask, his “Fetch” or double is beheld.* To accuse Poe of plagiarism in this case would be unjust, for the idea of the dual man permeates all civilised literatures, but it is a severe commentary upon some of his own ill-considered critiques — which, however, have been most bitterly avenged. The portions of “William Wilson” referring to the hero’s school-days in England have already been transferred to these pages, but there are other passages — evidently intended to be included in the writer’s confessions — of interest here. Is it not Poe himself who says, “I long for the sympathy — I had nearly said for the pity — of my fellow-men. I would fain have them believe that I have been, in some measure, the slave of circumstances beyond human control. I would wish them to seek out for me some little oasis of