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

anomalies of his character and by the singular magnetism of his presence.” But it was not until the publication of his poetic chef d’œuvre that he became a society lion. When “The Raven” appeared, electrified as this same lady records, Poe one evening the company assembled at the house of an accomplished poetess in Waverley Place — where a weekly réunion of artists and men of letters was held — by the recitation, at the request of his hostess, of the wonderful poem. No longer merely a somewhat-to-be-dreaded reviewer but now a famous man, it became necessary to include the poet in the biographical critical laudations of “Our Contributors,” published from time to time in Graham’s Magazine. “Edgar Allan Poe” formed the seventeenth article in the series of American literati, so lowly had his merits been gauged, and to James Russell Lowell was intrusted the task of adjudicating upon his claims to a niche in the Pantheon. In many respects Lowell’s critique, published in February 1845, is the best yet given upon certain characteristics of Poe’s genius, and although the estimate formed of his poetic precocity is overdrawn, being founded upon incorrect data, — and although the reviewer evidently lacks sympathy with the reviewed — with the admirable analysis of our poet’s tales, it would be difficult to find fault. In this article, as originally published — and it may be remarked that it has since been greatly revised — Professor Lowell, after styling Poe “the most discriminating, philosophical, and fearless critic upon imaginative works who has written in America,” proceeds to qualify his remarks by adding: — He might be, rather than he always is, for he seems some times to mistake his phial of prussic-acid for his inkstand. If we do not always agree with him in his promises, we are, of least, satisfied that his deductions are logical, and that we are reading the thoughts of a man who thinks for himself, and says what he thinks, and knows well what he is talking about. . . . We do not know him personally, but we suspect him for a man who has one or two pet prejudices on which he prides himself. These sometimes allure him out of the strict path of criticism, but, where they do not interfere, we would put almost entire confidence in his judgments. Had Mr. Poe the control of a magazine of his own, in which to display his critical abilities, he would have been as autocratic, ere this, in America, as Professor Wilson has been in England; and his criticisms, we are sure, would have been far more profound and philosophical than those of the Scotchman.” With reference to the poet’s career apart from literature, Professor Lowell observes that “Remarkable experiences are usually confined to the inner life of imaginative men, but Mr. Poe’s biography displays a vicissitude and peculiarity of interest such as is rarely met with,” and he thereupon furnishes a short résumé of his hero’s adventures. Of Poe’s powers as a writer of fiction he remarks: — “In his tales, he has chosen to exhibit his powers chiefly in that dim region which stretches from the very utmost limits of the probable into the weird confines of superstition and unreality. He combines in a very remarkable manner two faculties which are seldom found united; a power of influencing the mind of the reader by the impalpable shadows of mystery, and a minuteness of detail which does not leave a pin, or a button unnoticed. . . . Even his mystery is mathematical to his own mind. To him x is a known quality. . . . However vague some of his figures may seem, however formless the shadows, to him the outline is as clear and distinct as that of a geometrical diagram. For this reason Mr. Poe has no sympathy with mysticism. The mystic dwells in the mystery, is enveloped with it; it colours all his thoughts. . . . Mr. Poe, on the other hand, is a spectator ab extrâ. He analyses, he dissects, he watches — ‘with an eye serene The very pulse of the machine,’ for such it practically is to him, with wheels and cogs and piston-rods all working to produce a certain end It is this that makes him so good a critic. Nothing baulks him, or throws him of the scent, except now and then a prejudice. “A monomania he paints with great power. He loves to dissect these cancers of the mind, and to trace all the subtle ramifications of its roots. In raising images of horror, also, he has a strange success; conveying to us sometimes by a dusty hint some terrible doubt which is the secret of all horror. He leaves to imagination the task of finishing the picture, a task to which only she is competent: “ ‘For much imaginary work was there; Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, That for Achilles’ image stood his spear, Gripp‘d in an armed hand; himself, behind Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind.’ ” Professor Lowell, alluding to the highly finished and classical form of Poe’s writings, refers, as an example of his style, to “The Fall of the House of Usher,” remarking, “It has a singular charm for us, and we think that no one could read it without being strongly moved by its serene and sombre beauty. Had its author written nothing else, it would alone have been enough to stamp him as a man of genius, and the master of a classic style. In this tale occurs one of the most beautiful of his poems” . . . (i.e., “The Haunted Palace”) — “we know no modern poet who might not have been justly proud of it.” The publication of “The Raven” gave an immediate impetus to Poe’s activity, and aided him to dispose of the result of his labours; the press teemed with his work. The February number of Godey’s magazine contained his “Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade,” a satiric story made up chiefly of odds and ends of scientific wonders, and supposed to relate the ultimate fate of the vizier’s daughter, to whom all the tales in “The Arabian Nights” are ascribed. The poet’s love of hidden hoaxing is well exemplified by the names of the personages in this little romance; for instance, the heroine is “Scheherazade,” (She her has said,) and the incidents are assumedly derived from the Oriental work, “Tellmenow Isitsoarnot,” (Tell me now is it so or not,) which is compared, for its rarity, with the “Zohar,” (So ah,) of “Jochaides,” (Joke aides.) These trifles, and similar ones, occurring frequently in the poet’s prose works, are emanations of the spirit which excelled in, and even delighted at, “The Balloon Hoax,” the “Von Kempelen Discovery,” and, in a higher degree, the analyses of “Marie Roget,” the “Case of M. Valdemar,” and others of that genus. For the Evening Mirror of February 3d Poe wrote an article on “Didacticism,” in which he inveighed strongly against those who deemed poetry a fit medium for the dissemination of “morals;” all the more salient portions of the essay were embodied in subsequent critiques. On the 8th of the month he reviewed, in the Broadway Journal, an American selection from the poems of Bulwer, and rated the editor of the book for giving a selection only; he should, he considers, “in common justice, have either given us all the poems of the author, or something that should have worn at least the semblance of an argument in objection to the poems omitted,” and concludes with the request that in any future edition this editor “will cut out his introduction, and give in place of it the poems of Bulwer which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, have been omitted.” “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House” appeared in the Journal for the 15th of February, and, undoubtedly, throw a lurid light upon the mysteries of the unfortunate poet’s impecuniosity; that the references are to himself no one acquainted with his career can doubt. As this short paper is unknown to many of the poet’s admirers, and as it is explanatory of some of the miseries of his life, we give it in extensô: — “The want of an International Copyright Law, by rendering it nearly impossible to obtain anything from the booksellers in the way of remuneration for literary labour, has had the effect of forcing many of our very best writers into the service of the Magazines and Reviews, which, with a pertinacity that does them credit, keep up in a certain or uncertain degree the good old saying that even in the thankless field of Letters the labourer is worthy of his hire. How — by dint of what dogged instinct of the honest and proper — these journals have contrived to persist in their paying practices, in the very teeth of the opposition got up by the Fosters and Leonard Scotts, who furnish for eight dollars any four of the British periodicals for a year, is a point we have had much difficulty in settling to our satisfaction, and we have been forced to settle it at last upon no more reasonable ground than that of a still lingering esprit de patrie. That Magazines can live, and not only live but thrive, and not only thrive but afford to disburse money for original contributions, are, facts which can only be solved, under the circumstances, by the really fanciful, but still agreeable supposition, that there is somewhere still existing an ember not altogether quenched among the fires of good feeling for letters and literary men that once animated the American bosom. “It would not do (perhaps this is the idea) to let our poor devil authors absolutely starve while we grow fat, in a literary sense, on the good things of which we unblushingly pick the pocket of all Europe: it would not be exactly the thing, comme il faut, to permit a positive atrocity of this kind; and hence we have Magazines, and hence we have a portion of the public who subscribe to these Magazines (through sheer pity), and hence we have Magazine publishers (who sometimes take upon themselves the duplicate title of ‘editor and proprietor’), — publishers, we say, who, under certain conditions of good conduct, occasional puffs, and decent subserviency at all times, make it a point of conscience to encourage the poor-devil author with a dollar or two, more or less as he behaves himself properly, and abstains from the indecent habit of turning up his nose. “We hope, however, that we are not so prejudiced, or so vindictive, as to insinuate that what certainly does look like illiberality on the part of them, (the Magazine publishers,) is really an illiberality chargeable to them. In fact, it will be seen at once that what we have said has a tendency directly the reverse of any such accusation. These publishers pay something — other publishers nothing at all. Here certainly is a difference — although a mathematician might contend that the difference might be infinitesimally small. Still, these Magazine editors and proprietors pay (that is the word), and with your true poor-devil author the smallest favours are sure to be thankfully received. No: the illiberality lies at the door of the demagogue-ridden public, who suffer their anointed delegates (or perhaps arointed — which is it?) to insult the common sense of them (the public) by making orations in our national halls on the beauty and conveniency of robbing the Literary Europe on the highway, and on the gross absurdity in especial of admitting so unprincipled a principle that a man has any right and title either to his own brains, or the flimsy material that he chooses to spin out of them, like a confounded caterpillar as he is. If anything of this gossamer character stands in need of protection, why we have our hands full at once with the silkworms and the morus multicaulis. “But if we cannot, under the circumstances, complain of the absolute illiberality of the Magazine publishers (since pay they do), there is at least one particular in which we have against them good grounds of accusation. Why, (since pay they must,) do they not pay with a good grace and promptly? Were we in an ill-humour at this moment we could a tale unfold which would erect the hair on the head of Shylock. A young author, struggling with Despair itself in the shape of a ghastly poverty, which has