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

sustained only by their solace and sympathy, and by the helping hand of the self-sacrificing mother, who loved him as if he had been, indeed, her own son.” Unable to secure a certain income by literature — for it must be remembered that even in his best days his receipts were but small, and, at best, chiefly dependent upon the caprice or continuous goodwill of an employer — the unfortunate poet appears to have thought the attainment of a government post would at least secure him from utter dependence. His literary correspondent, Mr. F. W. Thomas, had recently obtained a situation under government, and Poe hoped, through the influence of his various friends and acquaintances, to be able to do the same; at any rate he determined to try, and the following letter to John Neal would appear to refer to this attempt: “PHILADELPHIA, June 4. “MY DEAR SIR, — As you gave me the first jog in my literary career, you are in a manner bound to protect me and keep me rolling. I therefore now ask you to aid me with your influence in whatever manner your experience shall suggest. It strikes me that I never write to you except to ask a favour, but my friend Thomas will assure you that I bear you always in mind, holding you in the highest respect and esteem. — Most truly yours, EDGAR A. POE. “JOHN NEAL, Esq.” Several of the poet’s influential friends were, doubtless, appealed to, and the following extracts have been given by an American journalist as portions of two letters written on the 26th of June and 4th of July respectively to the late F. W. Thomas:* — “Would to God I could do as you have done! Do you seriously think that an application to Tyler would have a good result? My claims, to be sure, are few. I am a Virginian, at least I call myself one, for I have resided all my life, until within the last few years, in Richmond. My political principles have always been, as nearly as may be, with the existing administration, and I battled with right good will for Harrison when opportunity offered. With Mr. Tyler I have some slight personal acquaintance — although this is a matter which he has possibly forgotten. For the rest, I am a literary man, and I see a disposition in Government to cherish letters. Have I any chance?” Mr. Thomas probably held forth some kind of hope to the distracted poet, as this second communication followed fast upon the above: — “I wish to God I could visit Washington — but the old story, you know — I have no money — not even enough to take me there, saying nothing of getting back. It is a hard thing to be poor — but as I am kept so by an honest motive, I dare not complain. Your suggestion about Mr. Kennedy is well timed; and here, Thomas, you can do me a true service. Call upon Kennedy — you know him I believe — if not, introduce yourself, he is a perfect gentleman, and will give you a cordial welcome. Speak to him of my wishes, and urge him to see the Secretary of War in my behalf — or one of the other Secretaries, or President Tyler. I mention in particular the Secretary of War, because I have been to W. Point, and thus may stand me in some stead. I would be glad to get almost any appointment — even a $500 one — so that I may have something independent of letters for a subsistence. To coin one’s brain into silver, at the nod of a master, is to my thinking the hardest task in the world. Mr. Kennedy has been at all times a true friend to me — he was the first true friend I ever had — I am indebted to him for life itself. He will be willing to help me, I know — but needs urging, for he is always head and ears in business. Thomas, may I depend upon you?” Whether Mr. Thomas found time and inclination to prosecute his friend’s desires or not, is, of course, unknown, but that the — unfortunate poet did not obtain an appointment is but too well known. Could he have procured a permanent government post, it would have lifted him above the most galling petty pecuniary anxieties of the hour, and have left him some leisure, some power, to produce more of his highly-polished and more artistic labours, instead of leaving him to fritter away his genius in hasty and crude work. After Poe’s severance from Graham’s, his wife’s illness, and, during its height, his own inability to ‘Write, are declared to have reduced the little household almost to starvation. “There was then,” says Mr. Harris, “some kind of a society under the care of ladies for helping in a delicate way those who were in need, and would signify it by depositing some articles at the rooms — persons whom common charity could not reach; and to that Mrs. Clemm, the mother, made application. Yet so sensitive and proud was the little family, that it was almost impossible to aid them to any extent, even when they were suffering for the common comforts of life.” Of course these terrible struggles with illness and poverty were not continuous; occasional bursts of hope broke through the clouds of “unmerciful disaster,” and whenever the prospects brightened, the poet plied his pen with renewed vigour. In October, Mr. Graham’s magazine published a critique by Poe on “Rufus Dawes,” one of the forgotten two hundred celebrities of Mr. Griswold’s pantheon. Of him — the then famous now forgotten “poet” — Poe said, “We hesitate not to say that no man in America has been more shamefully over-estimated.” “We say shamefully,” he adds, “for . . . the laudation in this instance, as it stands upon record, must be regarded as a laughable although bitter satire upon the general zeal, accuracy, and independence of that critical spirit which, but a few years ago, pervaded and degraded the land.” After a stringent review of the works of Mr. Dawes, the poet proceeds to remark that that gentleman is known for his amiability and for his many friends, which may have enhanced his literary reputation. “We shall not here insist upon the fact that we,” says Poe, “bear him no personal ill-will. With those who know us, such a declaration ‘Would appear supererogatory; and by those who know us not it would, doubtless, be received with incredulity. What we have said, however, is not in opposition to Mr. Dawes, nor even so much in opposition to the poems of Mr. Dawes, as in defence of the many true souls which, in Mr. Dawes’s apotheosis, are aggrieved. The laudation of the unworthy is to the worthy the most bitter of all wrong. But it is unbecoming in him who merely demonstrates a truth to offer reason or apology for the demonstration.” These critiques were, of course, continually enlargening the circle of the poet’s foes and shutting him out from publications where, had he been contented to, or, perhaps, permitted by publishers to, have written only tales and poems, his services would have been eagerly sought for. After having been long promised to the reading public as about to write for Snowden’s Lady’s Companion, that journal at last, in October 1842, published “The Landscape Garden,” subsequently enlarged and called “The Domain of Arnheim,” from his admired but dreaded pen. This essay, for it can scarcely be styled a tale, is used as a medium by the poet for the expression of his views on the employment of personal wealth in the pursuit of happiness. As the peg whereon to hang several of his own views of society he selects the common idea — “a grossly exaggerated one,” as he admits — as to the amount of property accumulated in the celebrated Thelluson case, and proceeds to depict the ideas and aims of the presumed inheritor of this immense fortune, this fabled “ninety millions of pounds.” In the contemplation of thus enormous wealth the mind of Edgar Poe could find at once scope for his imagination and solace for his cravings after splendour. The opinions and idiosyncrasies of the hero of the sketch are the barely hidden opinions and idiosyncrasies of the poet himself, and as such are doubly interesting to his readers. A believer in the reality of happiness, although never the possessor of that chimera, he thus discourses on the theme: — “In the brief existence of Ellison I fancy that I have seen refuted the dogma, that in man’s very nature lies some hidden principle, the antagonist of bliss. An anxious examination of his career has given me to understand that, in general, from the violation of a few simple laws of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind; that as a species we have in our possession the as yet unwrought elements of content; and that, even now, in the present darkness and madness of all thought on the great question of the social condition, it is not impossible that man, the individual, under certain unusual and bighly fortuitous conditions, may be happy.” To refute this proposition — the premises providing for the indefinite “unusual and highly fortuitous conditions” — may be difficult; but a palpable fallacy appears to lurk in the poet’s further suggestion that “while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is above that which is termed ambition. And may it not thus happen,” he demands, “that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained mute and inglorious?” “I believe,” is his avowed conclusion, “that the world has never seen — and that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never see — that full extent of triumphant execution in the richer domains of art, of which the human nature is absolutely capable.” Of course, as in the previous case, the poet has allowed himself a certain loophole of escape, in the apparent fact that the greatest genius being contented to remain unknown, the existence of his superior capability cannot be disproved, but to us it appears self-evident that genius is itself the motive power that impels to production, and the greater the genius the stronger the impulse to produce, irrespective of “distasteful exertion” or impediment. The elements of happiness, as propounded by the creator of Arnheim’s gorgeous domain, apply more strictly to the seeker after physical rather than mental enjoyment, and his third elementary principle might seem to be contradictory to the fourth; these are his conditions of earthly bliss: — “That which he considered chief was the simple and purely physical one of free exercise in the open air. . . . His second condition was the love of woman. His third, and most difficult of realisation, was the contempt of ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit.” That Ellison, or, rather, his alter ego, Poe, should have little or no faith in the possibility of the improvement of the general condition of man, is scarcely surprising, although it hardly accords with the doctrines he is presupposed to have imbibed from Condorcet and other Human Perfectibility advocates. In his proposition that the elements of beauty in art are as certain and as unchangeable, although not so demonstrable, as the rules of mathematics, he will have the credence and sympathy of all his brethren. His suggestion that genius cannot be gained by study of rules, although rules may be adduced from works of genius — that “we may be instructed to build a ‘Cato’ (i.e., Addison’s), but we are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or an ‘Inferno’ ” — is, indeed, little more than a new application of the old adage poeta nascitur non fit. But “The Domain of Arnheim,” apart from any interest it may derive from its author’s personal views, will always charm the intelligent reader by its gorgeous and glowing scenery — the comprehensive realisation of a poet’s vast and most exuberant imagination. In November Snowden’s Lady’s Companion began the publication of “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” one of the most marvellous examples of Poe’s capability of dealing with, and analysing, the mysteries of the human mind. This tale, which occupied a large portion of three monthly numbers of the journal in which it was first issued, made a profound impression upon the public, not that it was so interesting as a