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

no alleviation — no sympathy from an everyday world that cannot understand his necessities, and that would pretend not to understand them if it comprehended them ever so well — this young author is politely requested to compose an article, for which he will ‘be handsomely paid.’ Enraptured, he neglects perhaps for a month the sole employment which affords him the chance of a livelihood, and having starved through the month (he and his family) completes at length the month of starvation and the article, and despatches the latter, (with a broad hint about the former,) to the pursy ‘editor’ and bottle-nosed ‘proprietor’ who has condescended to honour him (the poor devil) with his patronage. A month (starving stir), and no reply. Another month — still none. Two months more — still none. A second letter, modestly hinting that the article may not have reached its destination — still no reply. At the expiration of six additional months, personal application is made at the ‘editor and proprietor’s’ office. Call again. The poor devil goes out, and does not fail to call again. Still call again; and call again is the word for three or four months more. His patience exhausted, the article is demanded. No — he can’t have it — (the truth is, it — was too good to be given up so easily) — ‘it is in print,’ and ‘contributions of this character are never paid for (it is a rule we have) under six months after publication. Call in six months after the issue of your affair, and your money is ready for you — for we are business men ourselves — prompt.’ With this the poor devil is satisfied, and makes up his mind that the ‘editor and proprietor’ is a gentleman, and that of course he (the poor devil) will wait as requested. And it is supposable that he would have waited if he could — but Death in the meantime would not. He dies, and by the good luck of his decease, (which came by starvation,) the fat ‘editor and proprietor’ is fatter henceforward, and for ever, to the amount of five and twenty dollars, very cleverly saved, to be spent generously in canvas-backs and champagne. “There are two things which we hope the reader will not do as he runs over this article: first, we hope that he will not believe that we write from any personal experience of our own, for we have only the reports of actual sufferers to depend upon; and second, that he will not make any personal application of our remarks to any Magazine publisher now living, it being well known that they are all as remarkable for their generosity and urbanity, as for their intelligence and appreciation of Genius.” On Friday, February 28th, Poe delivered a lecture in the Library of the New York Historical Society, on the “Poets and Poetry of America.” The discourse attracted much attention, not only on account of the lecturer’s eloquence, personal beauty, and the magnetic fascination of his presence, but, also, by the originality and courage of his remarks. He daringly attacked the ephemeral favourites of the day, and did not forbear from vigorous onslaughts upon the editors and compilers who had belauded them into temporary notoriety. The result of this lecture was that the attacked poured forth torrents of abuse, none the less annoying because anonymous, none the less effective because false. A few friends defended the poet in such publications as were open to them: the American Review referred to “the devoted spirit in which he advocated the claims and urged the responsibilities of literature. The necessity of a just and independent criticism,” says this journal, “was his main topic. He made unmitigated war upon the prevalent Puffery, and dragged several popular idols from their pedestals. His closest critical remarks were given to an examination of the poetry of Mrs. Sigourney and the Davidsons. Bryant, Halleck, and Willis were spoken of briefly, but any neglect in this particular was compensated by several choicely delivered recitations from their verses. . . . There has been a great deal said about this lecture which should be either repeated or printed.” This lecture of the now famous Edgar Poe was a nine-days’ wonder, and, on the Sth March following its delivery, the poet himself thus wrote about it: “In the late lecture on the ‘Poets and Poetry of America,’ delivered before an audience made up chiefly of editors and their connections, I took occasion to speak what I know to be the truth, and I endeavoured so to speak it that there should be no chance of misunderstanding what it was I intended to say. I told these gentlemen to their teeth, that, with a very few noble exceptions, they had been engaged for many years in a system of indiscriminate laudation of American books-a system which, more than any other one thing in the world, had tended to the depression of that ‘American Literature’ whose elevation it was designed to effect. I said this, and very much more of a similar tendency, with as thorough a distinctness as I could command. Could I, at the moment, have invented any terms more explicit, wherewith to express my contempt of our general editorial course of corruption and puffery, I should have employed them beyond the shadow of a doubt; and should I think of anything more expressive hereafter, I will endeavour either to find or to make an opportunity for its introduction to the public. “And what, for all this, had I to anticipate 1 In a very few cases the open, and, in several, the silent approval of the more chivalrous portion of the press; but in a majority of instances, I should have been weak indeed to look for anything but abuse. To the Willises — the O’Sullivans — the Duyckincks — to the choice and magnanimous few who spoke promptly in my praise, and who have since taken my hand with a more cordial and a more impressive grasp than everto these, I return, of course, my acknowledgments, for that they have rendered me my due. To my vilifiers I return also such thanks as they deserve, inasmuch as without what they have clone me the honour to say there would have been much of point wanting in the compliments of my friends. Had I, indeed, from the former received any less equivocal tokens of disapprobation, I should at this moment have been looking about me to discover what sad blunder I had committed. “I am most sincere in what I say. I thank these, my opponents, for their goodwill, — manifested, of course, after their own fashion. No doubt they mean me well — if they could only be brought to believe it; and I shall expect more reasonable things from them hereafter. In the meantime, I await patiently the period when they shall have fairly made an end of what they have to say — when they shall have sufficiently exalted themselves in their own opinion — and when, especially, they shall have brought me over to that precise view of the question which it is their endeavour to have me adopt. E. A. P.” As a pleasing pendant to the whirlwind which some portions of this lecture aroused may be mentioned the fact that, during his discourse, Poe had recited, with approving comments, “Florence Vane,” a beautiful lyric by Philip P. Cooke, a young Virginian, who died a few years later in his youthful and budding promise of fame. Poe’s sympathetic delivery, and the warm encomia he awarded the poem and its author, excited considerable interest, and caused “Florence Vane” to take a place in American literary selections which, however deserved, it might not otherwise so readily have succeeded in obtaining. On the same day that the above — letter was written Poe associated himself with two journalists in the editorial management of the Broadway Journal. In consequence of this new undertaking, the poet resigned the position he had held on the Evening Mirror, but, in bidding farewell to its wretched drudgery, he entered into trials and troubles almost as bad, and commenced a series of episodes not only as romantic, but, also, quite as unfortunate, as the earlier years of his life. END OF VOL. I. ———————————— PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON * Home Journal, Saturday, October 13, 1849. * From Idlewild, October 17, 1859 . * This is a mistake: Poe did not remove to Fordham until 1846. — J. H. I. * Vide p. 189. Historical illustrations supplied with this record: jhi800f1.jpg