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

full length, grotesque figures, and other multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original form might have been their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimensions at the other.” “The ardour, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness,” which are declared to have rendered the “William Wilson” of the story a marked character among his schoolmates, so that by slow but natural gradations he obtained an ascendency over all not greatly older than himself, may safely be assumed to represent Poe’s own idiosyncrasies, even at this early epoch of his life. A consistency of passion and thought, however diverted or thwarted by occasional circumstance, runs through Poe’s whole career, and what was truly representative of him at the first is found a faithful portraiture at the last. “In childhood,” he exclaims, “I must have felt with the energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid, as deep, and as durable, as the exergues of the Carthaginian medals.” The lad was recalled to America in 1821, and for some months spent his time in what lie termed “mere idleness,” but which really consisted in composing verses, and in thinking out future poems. Indeed, as he subsequently states, in the interesting Preface to his first printed book, its contents were written during the years 1821-22, and before the author had completed his fourteenth year. * Mrs. Clemm’s Letters to Judge Neilson Poe. † Athenæum, No. 2660, pp, 496-97, October 19, 1878. John H. Ingram, “Chapter 03,” Edgar Allan Poe: Life, Letters, and Opinions (1880), pp. 20-36 CHAPTER III. BOYHOOD. IN 1822 Mr. Allan placed his adopted son, who now reassumed his own surname of Poe, in.an academy in Richmond, Virginia, in which city the Allans continued to reside. Many most interesting reminiscences of the embryo poet during his attendance at this preparatory school, then kept by Mr. John Clarke, have been placed at our disposal by fellow pupils of Poe, and the following, from the pen of Colonel John T. L. Preston, husband of Mrs. Margaret J. Preston, the poetess, cannot fail to charm: “Although I was several years Poe’s junior, we sat together at the same form for a year or more at a classical school in Richmond, Virginia. Our master was John Clarke, of Trinity College, Dublin. At that time his school was the one of highest repute in the metropolis. Master Clarke was a hot-tempered, pedantic, bachelor Irishman; but a Latinist of the first order, according to the style of scholarship of that date, he unquestionably was. I have often heard my mother amuse herself by repeating his pompous assurance that in his school her boy should be taught ‘only the pure Latinity of the Augustan age.’ It is due to his memory* to say, that if her boy was not properly grounded in his rudiments, it was not the fault of his teacher. What else we were taught I have forgotten; but my drilling in Latin, even to its minutiæ, is clear to my view as if lying on the surface of yesterday. “Edgar Poe might have been at this time fifteen or sixteen, he being one of ‘the oldest boys in the school, and I one of the youngest. His power and accomplishments captivated me, and something in me, or in him, made him take a fancy to me. In the simple school athletics of those days, when a gymnasium had not been heard of, he was facile princeps. He was a swift runner, a wonderful leaper, and what was more rare, a boxer, with some slight training. I remember, too, that he would allow the strongest boy in the school to strike him with full force in the chest. He taught me the secret, and I imitated him, after my measure. It was to inflate the lungs to the uttermost, and at the moment of receiving the blow to exhale the air. It looked surprising, and was, indeed, a little rough; but with a good breast-bone, and some resolution, it was not difficult to stand it. For swimming he was noted, being in many of his athletic proclivities surprisingly like Byron in his youth. There was no one among the schoolboys who would so dare in the midst of the rapids of the James River. I recall one of his races. A challenge to a foot-race had been passed between tire two classical schools of the city: we selected Poe as our champion. The race came off one bright May morning at sunrise, in the Capitol Square. Historical truth compels me to add that on this occasion our school was beaten, and we had to pay up our small bets. Poe ran well, but his competitor was a long legged, Indian-looking fellow, who would have outstripped Atalanta without the help of the golden apples. Ah, how many of those young racers on Capitol Square that fair May morning, and how many of the crowd that so eagerly looked on, are very still now! “In our Latin exercises in school Poe was among the first — not first without dispute. We had competitors who fairly disputed the palm. Especially one — Nat Howard — afterwards known as one of the ripest scholars in Virginia, and distinguished also as a profound lawyer. If Howard was less brilliant than Poe, he was far more studious; for even then the germs of waywardness were developing in the nascent poet, and even then no inconsiderable portion of his time was given to versifying. But if I put Howard as a Latinist on a level with Poe, I do him full justice. One exercise of the school was a favourite one with Poe: it was what was called ‘capping verses.’ The practice is so absolutely obsolete now, at least in our country, that the term may require explanation. “Before the close of the school, all the Latinists, without regard to age or respective advancement in the language, were drawn up in a line for ‘capping verses;’ just as, in old-fashioned schools, all scholars had to take their place in the spelling line before dismission. At the head of the line stood the best scholar, who gave from memory some verse of Latin poetry to be ‘capped:’ that is, he challenged all the line to give from memory another verse beginning with the same letter. Whoever was able to do this, took the place of the leader; and in his turn propounded another verse to be capped in like manner. This we called ’simple capping.’ ‘Double capping’ was more difficult, inasmuch as the responding verse must both begin and end with the same letters as the propounded verse. To give an example, and at the same time to illustrate how a memory, like a sieve, may let through what is valuable, and yet retain in its reticulations a worthless speck, I recall a ‘capping’ which, while I have forgotten ten thousand things that would have been serviceable if remembered, comes back to me with distinctness after the lapse of so many years. “Nat Howard stood at the head of the line, and gave out for double capping al-verse beginning with d, and ending with m, It passed Edgar Poe, it passed other good scholars, as well it might, until it reached me, a tyro, away down the line. To the surprise of everybody, and not less to my own, there popped into my mind the line of Virgil: — ‘Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnim.’ And with pride and amazement I saw myself where I never was before and never was afterwards, — above Nat Howard and Edgar Poe. “The practice looks absurd, and so it would be now. True, it stored the memory with many good quotations for ready use. But after the fashion of Master Clark — a fashion brought from Trinity — this ‘capping verses’ was much in vogue, and Edgar Poe was an expert at it. “He was very fond of the Odes of Horace, and repeated them so often in my hearing that I learned by sound the words of many, before I understood their meaning. In the lilting rhythm of the Sapphics and Iambics, his ear, as yet untutored in more complicated harmonies, took special delight. Two odes, in particular, have been humming in my ear all my life since, set to the tune of his recitation: — ‘Jam satis terris nivis atque diræ Grandinis misit Pater, et rubente’ — and, ‘Non ebur neque aureum Mea renidet in domo lacunar,’ &c, “When I think of his boyhood, his career, and his fate, the poet, whose lines I first learned from his musical lips, supplies me with his epitaph: ‘Ille, mordaci velut icta ferro Pinus, out impulsa cupressus Euro, Procidit late, posuitque collum in Pulvere Teucro.’ “I remember that Poe was also a very fine French scholar. Yet, with all his superiorities, he was not the master-spirit, nor even the favourite, of the school. I assign, from my recollection, this place to Howard. Poe, as I recall my impressions now, was self-willed, capricious, inclined to be imperious, and though of generous impulses, not steadily kind, or even amiable; and so what he would exact was refused to him. I add another thing which had its influence, I am sure. “At the time of which I speak, Richmond was one of the most aristocratic cities on this side the Atlantic. I hasten to say that this is not so now. Aristocracy, like capping verses, has fallen into desuetude — perhaps for the same reason: times having changed, other things pay better. Richmond was certainly then very, English, and very aristocratic. A school is, of its nature, democratic; but still boys will unconsciously bear about the odour of their fathers’ notions, good or bad. Of Edgar Poe it was known that his parents had been players, and that he was dependent upon the bounty that is bestowed upon an adopted son. All this had the effect of making the boys decline his leadership and on looking back on it since, I fancy it gave him a fierceness he would otherwise not have had. . . . “Not a little of Poe’s time in school, and out of it, was occupied with writing verses. As we sat together, he would show them to me, and even sometimes ask my opinion, and now and then my assistance. I recall at this moment his consulting me about one particular line, as Ito whether the word ‘great’ would properly rhyme with ‘not.’ It would not surprise me now if I should be able, by looking over his juvenile poems, to identify that very line. As it is my only chance for poetic fame, I must, I think, undertake the search. “My boyish admiration was so great for my schoolfellow’s genius, that I requested his permission to carry his portfolio home for the inspection of my mother. If her enthusiasm was less than mine, her judgment did not hesitate to praise the verses very highly; and her criticism might well gratify the boyish poet; for she was a lady who to a natural love for literature, inherited from her father, Edmund Randolph,* had added the most thorough and careful culture obtained by the most extensive reading of the English classics, — the established mode of female education in those days. Here, then, you have the first critic to whom were submitted the verses of our world-famed poet. Her warm appreciation of the boy’s genius and work was proof of her own critical taste.” One paragraph of Colonel Preston’s recollections throws a lurid and most suggestive light upon the causes which rendered the boy’s early life unhappy, and tended to blight his budding hopes. Although, as seen, mixing with scions of the best families, and endowed with the innate pride derivable from gentle birth — fostered by all the indulgences of wealth and the consciousness of intellect — Edgar Poe was made to feel that his parentage was obscure, and his position in society dependent upon the charitable caprice of a benefactor. Many boys might have endured such a condition of life with equanimity, but to one of this lad’s temperament it must have been a source of continual torment, and all allusions to it ball and wormwood for his haughty spirit. Generally, Mr. Allan appears to have been proud of his handsome and precocious godson, and willing enough to provide him with the advantages proffered by educational institutions; but of parental affection, and of that family sympathy for which the poor orphan boy yearned — as his words and works prove —