"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."
Thus Edgar A. Poe wrote to a friend. The fact of his birth in Boston
he regarded as merely an unfortunate accident, or perhaps the work of
that malevolent "Imp of the Perverse" which apparently dominated his
life. That it constituted any tie between him and the "Hub of the
Universe," unless it might be the inverted tie of opposition, he never
admitted. The love which his charming little actress mother cherished
for the city in which she had enjoyed her greatest triumphs seemed to
have turned to hatred in the heart of her brilliant and erratic son.
In his short and disastrous sojourn in Boston, when his fortunes were
at their lowest ebb, it is not likely that his thought once turned to
the old house on Haskins, now Carver, Street, where his ill-starred
life began.
The reason given by Poe, "I have resided there all my life until
within the last few years," suggests but slight cause for his love of
Richmond, the home of his childhood, the darkening clouds of which,
viewed through the softening lens of years, may have shaded off to
brighter tints, as the roughness of a landscape disappears and melts
into mystic, dreamy beauty as we journey far from the scene.
The three women who had been the stars in the troubled sky of his
youth irradiated his memory of the Queen City of the South. In the
churchyard of historic old Saint John's, that once echoed to the words
of Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death!" Poe's mother lay
in an unidentified grave. In Hollywood slept his second mother, who
had surrounded his boyhood with the maternal affection that, like an
unopened rose in her heart, had awaited the coming of the little child
who was to be the sunbeam to develop it into perfect flowering. On
Shockoe Hill was the tomb of "Helen," his chum's mother, whose beauty
of face and heart brought the boyish soul
To the Glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Through the three-fold sanctification of the twin priestesses, Love and
Sorrow, Richmond was his home.
So Virginia claims her poet son, the tragedy of whose life is a gloomy,
though brilliant, page in the history of American literature.
There are varying stories told of Poe's Richmond home. The impression
that he was the inmate of a stately mansion, where he was trained to
extravagance which wrought disaster in later years, is not borne out
by the evidence. When the loving heart and persistent will of Mrs.
Allan opened her husband's reluctant door to the orphaned son of
the unfortunate players, that door led into the second story of the
building at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Tobacco Alley, in which
Messrs. Ellis & Allan earned a comfortable, but not luxurious, living
by the sale of the commodity which gave the alley its name. As it was
customary in those days for merchants to live in the same building with
their business, the fact that he did so does not argue that Mr. Allan
was "down on his luck," but neither does it presuppose that he was the
possessor of wealth. But it was a home in the truest sense for little
Edgar, for it was radiant with the love of the tender-hearted woman who
had brought him within its friendly walls.
From this home Mr. Allan went to London to establish a branch of the
Company business. He was accompanied by Mrs. Allan and Edgar, and the
boy was placed in the school of Stoke-Newington, shadowy with the dim
procession of the ages and gloomed over by the memory of Eugene Aram.
The pictured face of the head of the Manor School, Dr. Bransby,
indicates that the hapless boys under his care had stronger than
historic reasons for depression in that ancient institution.
England was thrilling with the triumph of Waterloo, and even
Stoke-Newington must have awakened to the pulsing of the atmosphere.
Not far away were Byron, Shelley, and Keats, at the beginning of their
brief and brilliant careers, the glory and the tragedy of which may
have thrown a prophetic shadow over the American boy who was to travel
a yet darker path than any of these.
Under the elms that bordered the old Roman road, what forms of antique
romance would lie in wait for the dreamy lad, joining him in his
Saturday afternoon walks and telling him stories of their youth in the
ancient days to mingle with the age-youth in the heart of the
dual-souled boy. The green lanes were haunted by memories of
broken-hearted lovers: Earl Percy, mourning for the fair and fickle
Anne; Essex, calling vainly for the royal ring that was to have saved
him; Leicester, the Lucky, a more contented ghost, returning in
pleasing reminiscence to the scenes of his earthly triumphs,
comfortably oblivious of his earthly crimes. What boy would not have
found inspiration in gazing at the massive walls, locked and barred
against him though they were, within which the immortal Robinson
Crusoe sprang into being and found that island of enchantment, the
favorite resort of the juvenile imagination in all the generations
since?
At Stoke-Newington the introspective boy found little to win him from
that self-analysis which later enabled him to mystify a world that
rarely pauses to take heed of the ancient exhortation, "Know thyself."
In the depths of his own being he found the story of "William Wilson,"
with its atmosphere of weird romance and its heart of solemn truth.
Incidentally, he uplifted the reputation of the American boy, so far as
regarded Stoke-Newington's opinion, by assuring his mates when they
marvelled over his athletic triumphs and feats of skill that all the
boys in America could do those things.
At the end of the year in which the family returned from
Stoke-Newington Mr. Allan moved into a plain little cottage a story and
a half high, with five rooms on the ground floor, at the corner of Clay
and Fifth Streets. Here they lived until, in 1825, Mr. Allan inherited
a considerable amount of money and bought a handsome brick residence at
the corner of Main and Fifth Streets, since known as the Allan House.
With the exception of two very short intervals, from June of this year
until the following February was all the time that Poe spent in the
Allan mansion.
The Allan House, in its palmy days, might appeal irresistibly to the
mind of a poet, attuned to the harmonies of artistic design and
responsive to the beauties of romantic environment. It was a two-story
building with spacious rooms and appointments that suggested the taste
of the cultivated mistress of the stately dwelling. On the second floor
was "Eddie's room," as she lovingly called it, wherein her affectionate
imagination as well as her skill expended themselves lavishly for the
pleasure of the son of her heart.
A few years later, upon his sudden return after a long absence, it was
his impetuous inquiry of the second Mrs. Allan as to the dismantling of
this room that led to his hasty retreat from the house, an incident
upon which his early biographers, led by Dr. Griswold, based the
fiction that Mr. Allan cherished Poe affectionately in his home until
his conduct toward "the young and beautiful wife" forced the expulsion
of the poet from the Allan house. The fact is that Poe saw the second
Mrs. Allan only once, for a moment marked by fiery indignation on his
part, and on hers by a cold resentment from which the unfortunate
visitor fled as from a north wind; the second Mrs. Allan's strong point
being a grim and middle-aged determination, rather than "youth and
beauty." Not that the thirty calendar years of that lady would
necessarily have conducted her across the indefinite boundaries of the
uncertain region known as "middle age," but the second Mrs. Allan was
born middle-aged, and the almanac had nothing to do with it.
It was in the sunshine of youth and the warmth of love and the
fragrance of newly opening flowers of poetry that Edgar Poe lived in
the new Allan home and from the balcony of the second story looked out
upon the varied scenes of the river studded with green islets, the
village beyond the water, and far away the verdant slopes and forested
hills into the depths of which he looked with rapt eyes, seeing visions
which that forest never held for any other gaze. Mayhap, adown those
dim green aisles he previsioned the "ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir"
with the tomb of Ulalume at the end of the ghostly path through the
forest--the road through life that led to the grave where his heart lay
buried. Through the telescope on that balcony he may first have
followed the wanderings of Al Araaf, the star that shone for him alone.
In the dim paths of the moonlit garden flitted before his eyes the
dreamful forms that were afterward prisoned in the golden net of his
wondrous poesy.
[Illustration: EDGAR ALLAN POE
From the daguerreotype formerly owned by Edmund Clarence Stedman]
To these poetic scenes he soon bade farewell, and on St. Valentine's
day, 1826, entered the University of Virginia, where Number 13, West
Range, is still pointed out as the old-time abiding place of
Virginia's greatest poet, whose genius has given rise to more
acrimonious discussion than has ever gathered about the name of any
other American man of letters. The real home of Poe at this time was
the range of hills known as the Ragged Mountains, for it was among
their peaks and glens and caverns and wooded paths and rippling
streams that he roamed in search of strange tales and mystic poems
that would dazzle his readers in after days. His rambles among the
hills of the University town soon came to a close. Mr. Allan, being
confronted by a gaming debt which he regarded as too large to fit the
sporting necessities of a boy of seventeen, took him from college and
put him into the counting-room of Ellis & Allan, a position far from
agreeable to one accustomed to counting only poetic feet.
The inevitable rupture soon came, and Poe went to Boston, the city of
his physical birth and destined to become the place of his birth into
the tempestuous world of authorship. Forty copies of "Tamerlane and
Other Poems" appeared upon the shelf of the printer--and nowhere else.
It is said that seventy-three years later a single copy was sold for
$2,250. Had this harvest been reaped by the author in those early
days, who can estimate the gain to the field of literature?
Boston proving inhospitable to the firstling of her gifted son's
imagination, the Common soon missed the solitary, melancholy figure
that had for months haunted the old historic walks. Edgar A. Poe
dropped out of the world, or perhaps out of the delusion of fancying
himself in the world, and Edgar A. "Perry" appeared, an enlisted
soldier in the First Artillery at Fort Independence. For two years
"Perry" served his country in the sunlight, and Poe, under night's
starry cover, roamed through skyey aisles in the service of the Muse
and explored "Al Araaf," the abode of those volcanic souls that rush
in fatal haste to an earthly heaven, for which they recklessly
exchange the heaven of the spirit that might have achieved
immortality.
A severe illness resulted in the disclosure of the identity of the
young soldier, and a message was sent to Mr. Allan, who effected his
discharge and helped secure for him an appointment to West Point. On
his way to the Academy he stopped in Baltimore and arranged for the
publication of a new volume, to contain "Al Araaf," a revised version
of "Tamerlane," and some short poems.
Some months later No. 28 South Barracks, West Point, was the despair
of the worthy inspector who spent his days and nights in unsuccessful
efforts to keep order among the embryo protectors of his country. Poe,
the leader of the quartette that made life interesting in Number 28,
was destined never to evolve into patriotic completion. He soon
reached the limit of the endurance of the officials, that being, in
the absence of a pliant guardian, the only method by which a cadet
could be freed from the walls of the Academy.
Soon after leaving the military school Poe made a brief visit to
Richmond, the final break with Mr. Allan took place, and the poet went
to Baltimore.
Number 9 Front Street, Baltimore, is claimed as the birthplace of Poe.
There is a house in Norfolk that is likewise so distinguished. There
are other places, misty with passing generations, similarly known to
history. Poe, though not Homeric in his literary methods, had much the
same post-mortem experience as the Father of the Epicists.
At the time of the Poet-wanderer's return to Baltimore his aunt, Mrs.
Clemm, had her humble but neat and comfortable home on Eastern Avenue,
then Wilks Street, and here he found the first home he had known since
his childhood and, incidentally, his charming child cousin, Virginia,
who was to make his home bright with her devotion through the
remainder of her brief life.
In these early days no thought of any but a cousinly affection had
rippled the smooth surface of Virginia's childish mind, and she was
the willing messenger between Poe and his "Mary," who lived but a
short distance from the home of the Clemms, and who, when the frosts
of years had descended upon her, denied having been engaged to
him--apparently because her elders were more discreet than she
was--but admitted that she cried when she heard of his death.
In his attic room on Wilks Street he toiled over the poems and tales
that some time would bring him fame.
Poe was living in Amity Street when he won the hundred-dollar prize
offered by the _Saturday Visitor_, with his "Manuscript Found in a
Bottle," and wrote his poem of "The Coliseum," which failed of a prize
merely because the plan did not admit of making two awards to the same
person. A better reward for his work was an engagement as assistant
editor of the _Southern Literary Messenger_, which led to his removal
to Richmond.
The _Messenger_ was in a building at Fifteenth and Main Streets, in
the second story of which Mr. White, the editor, and Poe, had their
offices. The young assistant soon became sole editor of the
publication, and it was in this capacity that he entered upon the
critical work which was destined to bring him effective enemies to
assail his reputation, both literary and personal, when the grave had
intervened to prevent any response to their slanders. Not but that he
praised oftener than he censured, but the thorn of censure pricks
deeply, and the rose of praise but gently diffuses its fragrance to be
wafted away on the passing breeze. The sharp satire attracted
attention to the _Messenger_, as attested by the rapid growth of the
subscription list.
Here Poe was surrounded by memories of his childhood. The building was
next door to that in which Ellis & Allan had their tobacco store in
Poe's school days in Richmond. The old Broad Street Theatre, on the
site of which now stands Monumental Church, was the scene of his
beautiful mother's last appearance before the public. Near Nineteenth
and Main she died in a damp cellar in the "Bird in Hand" district,
through which ran Shockoe Creek. Eighteen days later the old theatre
was burned, and all Richmond was in mourning for the dead.
At the northwest corner of Fifth and Main Streets, opposite the Allan
mansion, was the MacKenzie school for girls, which Rosalie Poe
attended in Edgar's school days. He was the only young man who enjoyed
the much-desired privilege of being received in that hall of learning,
and some of the bright girls of the institution beguiled him into
revealing the authorship of the satiric verses, "Don Pompioso," which
caused their victim, a wealthy and popular young gentleman of
Richmond, to quit the city with undue haste. The verses were the boy's
revenge upon "Don Pompioso" for insulting remarks about the position
of Poe as the son of stage people.
On Franklin Street, between First and Second, was the Ellis home,
where Poe, with Mr. and Mrs. Allan, lived for a time after their
return from England. On North Fifth Street, near Clay, still stood the
cottage that was the next home of the Allans. At the southeast corner
of Eleventh and Broad Streets was the school which Poe had attended,
afterward the site of the Powhatan Hotel. Near it was the home of Mrs.
Stanard, whose memory comes radiantly down to us in the lines "To
Helen."
Ever since the tragedy of the Hellespont, it has been the ambition of
poets to perform a noteworthy swimming feat, and one of Poe's
schoolboy memories was of his six-mile swim from Ludlam's Wharf to
Warwick Bar.
On May 16, 1836, in Mrs. Yarrington's boarding-house, at the corner of
Twelfth and Bank Streets, Poe and Virginia Clemm were married. The
house was burned in the fire of 1865.
In January, 1837, Poe left the _Messenger_ and went north, after which
most of his work was done in New York and Philadelphia. "The Fall of
the House of Usher" was written when he lived on Sixth Avenue, near
Waverley Place, and "The Raven" perched above his chamber door in a
house on the Bloomingdale Road, now Eighty-Fourth Street.
When living in Philadelphia Poe went to Washington for the double
purpose of securing subscribers for his projected magazine, and of
gaining a government appointment. The house in which he stayed during
his short and ill-starred sojourn in the Capital is on New York
Avenue, on a terrace with steps to a landing whence a longer flight
leads to a side entrance lost in a greenery of dark and heavy bushes.
On the opposite side is a small, square veranda. The building, which
is two stories and a half high, was apparently a cheerful yellow color
in the beginning, but it has become dingy with time and weather. The
scars of its long battle with fate give it the appearance of being
about to crumble and crash, after the fashion of the "House of Usher."
It has windows with gloomy casements, opening even with the ground in
the first story, and in the second upon a narrow balcony. A sign on
the front of the building invites attention to a popular make of
glue.[1]
[1] Since this was written the old house has been torn down.
In 1849, about two years after the passing of the gentle soul of
Virginia, Poe returned to Richmond. He went first to the United States
Hotel, at the southwest corner of Nineteenth and Main Streets, in the
"Bird in Hand" neighborhood where he had looked for the last time on
the face of his young mother. He soon removed to the "Swan," because
it was near Duncan Lodge, the home of his friends, the MacKenzies,
where his sister Rose had found protection. The Swan was a long,
two-storied structure with combed roof, tall chimneys at the ends, and
a front piazza with a long flight of steps leading down to the street.
It was famous away back in the beginning of the century, having been
built about 1795. When it sheltered Poe it wore a look of having stood
there from the beginning of time and been forgotten by the passing
generations.
Duncan Lodge, now an industrial home, was then a stately mansion,
shaded by magnificent trees. Here Poe spent much of his time, and one
evening in this friendly home he recited "The Raven" with such
artistic effect that his auditors induced him to give it as a public
reading at the Exchange Hotel. Unfortunately, it was in midsummer, and
both literary Richmond and gay Richmond were at seashore and mountain,
and there were few to listen to the poem read as only its author could
read it. Later in the same hall he gave, with gratifying success, his
lecture on "The Poetic Principle."
In early September, with some friends, he spent a Sunday in the Hygeia
Hotel at Old Point. At the request of one of the party he recited "The
Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "Ulalume," saying that the last stanza of
"Ulalume" might not be intelligible to them, as it was not to him and
for that reason had not been published. Even if he had known what it
meant, he objected to furnishing it with a note of explanation,
quoting Dr. Johnson's remark about a book, that it was "as obscure as
an explanatory note."
Miss Susan Ingram, an old friend of Poe, and one of the party at Old
Point, tells of a visit he made at her home in Norfolk following the
day at Point Comfort. Noting the odor of orris root, he said that he
liked it because it recalled to him his boyhood, when his adopted
mother kept orris root in her bureau drawers, and whenever they were
opened the fragrance would fill the room.
Near old St. John's in Richmond was the home of Mrs. Shelton, who, as
Elmira Royster, was the youthful sweetheart from whom Poe took a
tender and despairing farewell when he entered the University of
Virginia. Here he spent many pleasant evenings, writing to Mrs. Clemm
with enthusiasm of his renewed acquaintance with his former lady-love.
Next to the last evening that Poe spent in Richmond he called on Susan
Talley, afterward Mrs. Weiss, with whom he discussed "The Raven,"
pointing out various defects which he might have remedied had he
supposed that the world would capture that midnight bird and hang it
up in the golden cage of a "Collection of Best Poems." He was haunted
by the "ghost" which "each separate dying ember wrought" upon the
floor, and had never been able to explain satisfactorily to himself
how and why, his head should have been "reclining on the cushion's
velvet lining" when the topside would have been more convenient for
any purpose except that of rhyme. But it cannot be demanded of a poet
that he should explain himself to anybody, least of all to himself. To
his view, the shadow of the raven upon the floor was the most glaring
of its impossibilities. "Not if you suppose a transom with the light
shining through from an outer hall," replied the ingenious Susan.
When Poe left the Talley home he went to Duncan Lodge, a short
distance away, and spent the night. The next night he was at Sadler's
Old Market Hotel, leaving early in the morning for Philadelphia, but
stopping in Baltimore, where came to him the tragic, mysterious end of
all things.
Poe knew men as little as he knew any of the other every-day facts of
life. In the depths of that ignorance he left his reputation in the
hands of the only being he ever met who would tear it to shreds and
throw it into the mire.
"THE SUNRISE POET"