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

William Henry Leonard,* whilst Edgar himself, it has been suggested by a writer claiming personal knowledge of him, resided for some time in London, formed the acquaintance of Leigh Hunt and Theodore Hook, and, like them, lived by literary labour. According to Poe’s own story — which apparently accounts only for a portion of his time - he arrived, eventually, at a certain seaport in France. Here lie was drawn into a quarrel about a lady, and in a fight which ensued was wounded by his antagonist, a much more skilful swordsman than he was. Taken to his lodgings, and, possibly, ill tended, he fell into a fever. A poor woman, who attended to his needs and pitied him, made his case known to a Scotch lady of position, who was visiting the town in the hope of persuading a prodigal brother to relinquish his evil ways and return home with her. This lady came to see the wounded stranger, and for thirteen weeks had him cared for, providing for all his wants, including the attendance of a skilled nurse, whose place, indeed, she often took herself. Whilst Poe was in a precarious condition she visited him daily, and even persuaded her brother to come and see the young Englishman, as his language led them to believe he was. When the patient became convalescent he was, naturally, intensely grateful to his generous benefactor. As the only means he possessed at that time of showing his gratitude he wrote a poem to her, which he entitled “Holy Eyes,” with reference to the trust, sympathy, and faith which he deemed her blue eyes typical of. Indeed, according to Poe’s description, this lady’s eyes were her chief personal attraction, she being otherwise plain, large-featured, and old maidish. Owing to the peculiarity of her position in this foreign seaport, she did not wish her name made public, and impressed this upon the youthful poet. She made him promise to return to America — and perhaps supplied the means for him to do so — and adopt a profession, in which she expressed a hope of some day hearing that he had become famous. During his stay in France, so runs Poe’s narration, he wrote a novel, in which his own adventures were described under the garb of fiction. The manuscript of this story he carried back with him to America, and retained it in his possession until, at least, some few years before his death. When asked why he had not published it, he replied that a French version of it had been published, and had been accredited to Eugene Sue, but that he would not sanction its publication in English, because it was too sensational; that it was not to his taste; that it had too much of the “yellow cover novel style” for him to be proud of it, and, moreover, that it contained “scenes and pictures so personal, that it would have made him many enemies among his kindred, who hated him for his vanity and pride already, and in some respects very justly — the faults of his early education.” The truth in his story, he asserted, was yet more terrible than the fiction. “The Life of an Artist at Home and Abroad” was the title by which Poe at one time designated this youthful novel; it was written entirely in the third person, and was pronounced by its author to be “commonplace.” Such is the story dictated by Poe from what, it was deemed at the time, might be his deathbed. Whether it was fact, or fact and fiction deliriously interwoven, or mere fiction, invented in such a spirit of mischief as, like Byron, he frequently indulged in at the expense of his too inquisitive questioners, is, at this late date, difficult to decide. As he told the tale to one whom he trusted, so it is here recounted. After his long absence from home, if Mr. Allan’s residence may so be termed, Poe reached Richmond safely in the beginning of March 1829, with little besides a trunk load of books and manuscripts. His adopted mother had died during his absence: unfortunately he arrived too late to take a last farewell of her, she having been interred the day before his arrival. Mrs. Allan was buried in the family grave at Shockoe Hill Cemetery, and a stone bearing the following inscription was erected over her remains: — Sacred to the Memory of FRANCES KEELING ALLAN, who departed this transitory life on the Morning of the 28th of February 1829. This Monument is erected by JOHN ALLAN, her Husband, in testimony of his gratitude for her unabated affection to him, her zeal to discharge her domestic duties, and the fervour she manifested, both by precept and example, in persuading all to trust in the promises of the Gospel. Apparently, the deceased lady had exercised conciliatory influence in the Allan household, indeed, it is stated it was not unfrequently needed, and the poor tempest-tossed youth — who in after life always referred to her with affection — soon had to experience the effects of her loss. Mr. Allan does not appear to have manifested much pleasure at the prodigal’s return, and it was not long before Poe again departed. He visited some of his paternal relatives, and is believed to have inspired one of his uncles, probably Mr. George Poe, with a belief in his genius. This relative seems to have taken some interest in his nephew’s welfare, and at this time wrote to the late John Neal to solicit his confidential opinion as to the youth’s poetic abilities. The reply was not altogether unfavourable, and the consequence of it was that Poe wrote to Neal, and proposed to publish a volume of poems dedicated to him. This proposition Neal sought to discourage, so far as regarded the intended dedication, contending that his unpopularity in the United States might injure the sale of the book. This remonstrance was not calculated to have much effect upon one of Poe’s disposition — in fact, when shortly after this he published a new version of “Tamerlane,” he dedicated it to his first literary correspondent. After a short absence, the poet returned once more to Richmond, and it is within the recollection of Mr. Bolling, his fellow-student at the University, that he accidentally met Poe the second night after he got back. The wanderer gave him a long account of the hardships he had had to endure, and what shifts he had been put to for a living, remarking that he had, as the only alternative for relief, betaken himself to authorship. The publication of “Al Aaraaf” was one result of this exertion. The poem, he informed his old friend, was then on sale at Sanxy’s, a bookseller of Richmond, and he desired him to call there and obtain as many copies as he wished, adding, that should Bolling meet with any of their old college mates who would care to see the volume, he would like them presented with a copy; only it was to be presented as coming from Bolling, and not as from the author. The following day Poe accompanied his friend to Sanxy’s store, gave him a copy of the book in question, and left the requisite instructions with the bookseller for Mr. Bolling to have as many more copies as he might require. Previous to the publication of this, his first acknowledged collection of poems, Edgar Poe, as already remarked, wrote from Baltimore to John Neal, who was then editing The Yankee, in order to obtain his candid opinion of the forthcoming volume, sending him specimens of the contents. Through the columns of his paper, the editor replied, “If E. A. P. of Baltimore, whose lines about Heaven — though he professes to regard them as altogether superior to any in the whole range of American poetry, save two or three trifles referred to, — are, though nonsense, rather exquisite nonsense, would but do himself justice, he might a beautiful, and perhaps a magnificent poem. is a good deal to justify such a hope in — Dim vales and shadowy floods — And cloudy-looking woods; Whose forms we can’t discover, For the trees that drip all over. . . . . . The moonlight . . . . falls Over hamlets, over halls, Wherever they may be, O’er the strange woods, o’er the sea, O’er spirits on the wing, O’er every drowsy thing, And buries them up quite In a labyrinth of light. And then, how deep! Oh deep, Is the passion of their sleep.’ We have no room for others.” In response to this praise — this faint first recognition of his ability to do something meritorious — Poe’s gratitude and craving for sympathy prompted him to send the following letter: — “I am young — not yet twenty — am a poet — if deep worship of all beauty can make me one-and wish to be so in the common meaning of the word. I would give the world to embody one half the ideas afloat in my imagination. (By the way, do you remember, or did you ever read, the exclamation of Shelley about Shakespeare, ‘What a number of ideas must have been afloat before such an author could arise!’) I appeal to you as a man that loves the same beauty which I adore — the beauty of the natural blue sky and the sunshiny earth — there can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother. It is not so much that they love one another, as that they both love the same parent — their affections are always running in the same direction — the same channel, and cannot help mingling. I am, and have been from my childhood, an idler. It cannot therefore be said that — “ ‘I left a calling for this idle trade, A duty broke — a father disobeyed’ — for I have no father — nor mother. “I am about to publish a volume of ‘Poems’ — the greater part written before I was fifteen. Speaking about ‘Heaven’ the editor of The Yankee says, ’ He might write a beautiful, if not a magnificent poem’ — (the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard). I am very certain that as yet I have not written either — but that I can, I will take my oath — if they will give me time. “The poems to be published are ‘Al Aaraaf,’ ‘Tamerlane,’ one about four, the other about three hundred lines, with smaller pieces. ‘Al Aaraaf’ has some good poetry and much extravagance, which I have not had time to throw away. “ ‘Al Aaraaf’ is a tale of another world — the star discovered by Tycho Brahe, which appeared and disappeared so suddenly — or rather it is not a tale at all. I will insert an extract about the palace of its presiding deity, in which you will see that I have supposed many of the lost sculptures of our world to have flown (in spirit) to the star ‘Al Aaraaf’ — a delicate place more suited to their divinity: “ ‘Upreared upon such height arose a pile,’ &c.”* After this the youthful poet quotes another passage of eight lines, beginning “Silence is the voice of God,” and ending with “And the red woods are withering in the sky,” and then two lengthy passages from “Tamerlane,” and the following fourteen lines from an untitled poem: — If my peace hath flown away In a night — or in a day In a vision — or in none Is it therefore the less gone? I am standing ‘mid the roar Of a weather-beaten shore, And I hold within my hand Some particles of sand How few! and how they creep Through my fingers to the deep My early hopes? No — they Went gloriously away, Like lightning from the sky At once — and so will I.” In acknowledgment of this communication, John Neal gave Poe generous notice, at the same time letting him know that, in his opinion, if the remainder of “Al Aaraaf” and “Tamerlane” was as good as the extracts given, with all their faults, to say nothing of the more valuable portions, their author “deserved to stand high, very high, in the estimation of the shining brotherhood.” Whether Poe would do so, however, he opined must depend not so much upon his present as upon his future worth, and he exhorted him to attempts yet loftier and more generous, alluding, — these, of course, being Neal’s own words, — “to the stronger properties of the mind — to the magnanimous determination that enables a youth to endure the present, whatever the present may be, in the hope or rather in the belief — the fixed, unwavering belief — that in the future lie will find his reward.” It is, of course, quite