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It would be well for all poets if nothing more were known of their
lives than what they themselves infuse into their poetry. Too close
a knowledge of the weaknesses and errors of the inspired children
of Parnassus, cannot but impair, in some degree, the delicate aroma
of their songs. The inner life of the poet, the secrets of his
inspiration, the mysterious processes by which his pearls of thought
are produced, can never be made known, and the accidents of his daily
life have but little more interest than those which fall to common men.
Under all circumstances the poet is a mystery, and the utterances of
his fancy are but the drapery of the veiled statue which still leaves
the figure itself unknown. A dissection of the song-bird gives us no
insight into the secret of his melodious notes. Some of the great
modern poets have had their whole lives exposed with minute accuracy;
but in what are we the wiser for the knowledge we have obtained of
them? We only know they lived and suffered like other men, and their
inspirations are still a cause of wonder and delight. The subtle secret
of their power is still hidden from our search; and though we know more
of the daily habits of the men, we know no more of the hidden power
of the poet. But there is still a yearning to know how the men lived
whose genius has charmed and instructed us, and a vague feeling exists,
that in probing the lives of poets we may learn something of the art by
which they produced their works. But it is like the useless labour of
Reynolds, who scraped a painting by Titian to learn the secret of his
colouring.
Of all the poets whose lives have been a puzzle and a mystery to the
world, there is no one more difficult to be understood than Edgar
Allan Poe. It is impossible to carry in the mind a double idea of
a man, and to believe him to be both a saint and a fiend; yet such
is the embarrassment felt by those who have first read the poems of
this strange being, and then read any of the biographies of him which
pretend to anything like an accurate account of his life. Like his
own Raven, he is, to his readers, “bird or fiend,” they know not
which. But a close study of his works will reveal the fact, which
may serve in some degree to remove this embarrassment, that there is
nowhere discoverable in them a consciousness of moral responsibility.
They are full of the subtleties of passion, of grief, despair, and
longing, but they contain nothing that indicates a sense of moral
rectitude. They are the productions of one whose religion was a
worship of the Beautiful, and who knew no beauty but that which was
purely sensuous. There were but two kinds of beauty for him, and they
were Form and Colour. He revelled in an ideal world of perfect shows,
and was made wretched by any imperfections of art. The Leonore whose
loss he deplored was a being fair to the eye, a beautiful creature,
like Undine, without a soul. With this key to the character of the
poet, there is no difficulty in fully comprehending the strange
inconsistencies, the basenesses and nobleness which his wayward life
exhibited.
Some of the biographers of Poe have been harshly judged for the view
given of his character, and it has naturally been supposed that private
pique has led to the exaggeration of his personal defects. But such
imputations are unjust; a truthful delineation of his career would give
a darker hue to his character than it has received from any of his
biographers. In fact, he has been more fortunate than most poets in his
historians. Lowell and Willis have sketched him with gentleness and a
reverent feeling for his genius; and Griswold, his literary executor,
in his fuller biography, has generously suppressed much that he might
have given. This is neither the proper time nor place to write a full
history of this unhappy genius; those who scan his marvellous poems
closely, may find therein the man, for it is impossible for the true
poet to veil himself from his readers. What he writes he is.
The waywardness of Poe was an inheritance; though descended from a
family of great respectability, his immediate parents were dissolute
in their morals, and members of a profession which almost always
begets irregularity of habits. The paternal grandfather of the poet
was a distinguished officer in the Maryland line during the war of the
Revolution, and his great grandfather, John Poe, married a daughter of
Admiral McBride, of the British Navy. His father, the fourth son of
the Revolutionary officer, was a native of Maryland, and studied for
the bar; but becoming enamoured of a beautiful actress named Elizabeth
Arnold, he abandoned the law and adopted the stage as a profession.
They lived together six or seven years, wandering from theatre to
theatre, when they both died within a very short time of each other,
in Richmond, Virginia, leaving three children in utter destitution.
Edgar, the second child, who was born in Baltimore in January 1811, was
a remarkably bright and beautiful boy; and he attracted the attention
of a wealthy merchant in Richmond, who had known his parents, and who
had no children of his own. Mr. Allan adopted the little orphan, and
he was afterwards called Edgar Allan. The precocious child was petted
by his adopted parents, who took pride in his forwardness and beauty;
he was sent to the best schools, and was regarded as the heir to their
property. In 1816 Mr. and Mrs. Allan made a journey to Europe, and
Edgar accompanied them. He was placed at the school of the Rev. Dr.
Bransby, at Stoke Newington, near London, where he remained some four
or five years; but all that we know of him during this period of his
life, is what he has himself told us in the tale entitled “William
Wilson,” wherein he describes with great minuteness his recollections
of his school-days in England, and gives a characteristic picture of
the school-house and its surroundings.
On his return to the United States, in the year 1822, he was placed
for a few months at an academy at Richmond, and then was transferred
to the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville. The students at
Charlottesville were noted, at that time, for their reckless and
dissolute manner of life, and young Poe was the most dissolute and
reckless among them. Though extremely slight in person, and almost
effeminate in his manner, he is represented to have been foremost in
all athletic sports and games, and there is good testimony to his
having performed the almost impossible feat of swimming, for a wager,
from Richmond to Warwick, a distance of seven miles, against a current
of two or three knots an hour. Notwithstanding his dissolute habits and
extravagance at the University, he excelled in his studies, was always
at the head of his class, and would, doubtless, have graduated with
honour, had he not been expelled on account of his profligacy and wild
excesses.
His allowance of money had been liberal at the University, but he
quitted it in debt; and when his indulgent friend refused to accept his
drafts to meet his gambling losses, Poe wrote him an abusive letter,
and quitted the country with the design of offering his services to
the Greeks, who were then fighting for their emancipation from the
Turks. But he never reached Greece, and all that is known of his
career in Europe is, that he found himself in St. Petersburgh, in
extreme destitution, where the American Minister, Mr. Middleton, was
called upon to save him from arrest, on account of an indiscretion;
through the kind offices of this gentleman the young adventurer was
sent home to America, and, on his arrival in Richmond, Mr. Allan
received him with kindness, forgave him his past misconduct, and
procured him a cadetship at the United States Military Academy at
West Point. Unfortunately for him, just before he left Richmond for
his new appointment, Mrs. Allan, the wife of his benefactor, died.
She had always treated him with motherly affection, and he had paid
more deference to her than to any one else. At West Point he applied
himself with great energy and success for a while to his new course of
studies; but the rigid discipline of that institution ill sorted with
the irrepressible recklessness of his nature, and after ten months he
was ignominiously expelled.
After leaving “the Point” he returned to Richmond, and was again kindly
received and welcomed to his home by Mr. Allan. But there was a change
in the house where the wayward boy had been a pet. There was a new and
a younger mistress. Mr. Allan had taken a second wife, a lady much
younger than himself, and who was disposed to treat the expelled cadet
as a son. But he soon contrived to quarrel with her, and was compelled
to abandon the house of his adopted father, never to return. The cause
of the quarrel which led to this final disruption between Poe and his
generous patron has been variously stated; the family of Mr. Allan
give a version of it which throws a dark shade on the character of the
poet; but let it have been as it may, it must have been of a very grave
nature, for, on the death of Mr. Allan, shortly after, in 1834, the
name of his adopted son, who it was supposed would have inherited all
his wealth, was not mentioned in his will.
On leaving the house of his benefactor for the last time, Poe was
left without a friend, and thrown upon his own resources. He had
published a volume of poems in Baltimore, just after his expulsion
from West Point, under the title of “Al Aaraaf” and “Tamerlane,” to
which a few smaller poems were added. These were the production of
his early years, probably between his fifteenth and sixteenth years,
though the exact date of their production cannot be ascertained. The
commendations bestowed upon these precocious poems encouraged him to
devote himself to literature for a profession. But his first attempts
to earn a living by literature must have been discouraging, for soon
after publishing his first volume, he was driven by his necessities
to enlist as a private soldier in the army. Here he was recognised by
officers who had known him at West Point, and who interested themselves
to obtain his discharge, and, if possible, a commission. But their kind
intentions were frustrated by his desertion. The next attempt he made
in literature proved more successful; he had fruitlessly tried to find
a publisher for a volume of stories; but on a premium of one hundred
dollars, for a tale in prose, and a similar reward for a poem, being
offered by the publisher of a literary periodical in Baltimore, Poe
obtained both prizes; though he was only allowed to retain the prize
for the tale, as it was thought not prudent to give both prizes to the
same writer. The tale chosen was the “Manuscript found in a Bottle,”
a composition which contains many of his most marked peculiarities
of style and invention. The award was made in October 1833, and,
fortunately for the young author, there was one gentleman on the
committee who made the decision, who had it in his power to render him
essential service.
This was John P. Kennedy, the novelist, author of “Horse Shoe
Robinson,” and eminent as a lawyer and a statesman. To this gentleman
Poe came on hearing of his success, poorly clad, pale, and emaciated;
he told his story, and his ambition, and at once gained the confidence
and affection of the more prosperous author. He was in utter want, and
had not yet received the amount to which he was entitled for his story.
Mr. Kennedy took him by the hand, furnished him with means to render
him immediately comfortable, and enabled him to make a respectable
appearance; and in a short time afterwards procured for him a situation
as editor of the “Literary Messenger,” a monthly magazine published in
Richmond. In his new place he continued for a while to work with great
industry, and wrote a great number of reviews and tales; but he fell
into his old habits, and after a debauch quarrelled with the proprietor
of the “Messenger,” and was dismissed.
It was one of the strange peculiarities of Poe to make humble and
penitent appeals for forgiveness and reconciliation to those he had
offended by his abuse and insolence, and he was no sooner conscious of
his error in quarrelling with the publisher of the “Messenger” than
he endeavoured to regain the position he had lost. He was successful;
and though he often fell into his old habits, yet he retained his
connexion with the work until January, 1837, when he abandoned the
“Messenger” and left Richmond for New York. During his last residence
in Richmond, while working for a salary of ten dollars a week, he
married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a young, amiable, and gentle
girl, without fortune or friends, and as ill-calculated as himself to
buffet the waves of an adverse fortune. In New York he wrote for the
literary periodicals, but soon removed to Philadelphia, where he was
employed as editor of “Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine;” he continued but
a year in his post, and after several quarrels with the proprietor of
the magazine, left him to establish a magazine of his own. To have a
magazine of his own, which he could manage as he pleased, was always
the great ambition of his life. He had invented a title, selected a
motto, written an introduction, and made the entire plans for the great
work, which was to be called the “Stylus;” it was the chimera which
he nursed, the castle in the air which he longed for, the rainbow of
his cloudy hopes. But he did not succeed in establishing it then, and
was soon installed as editor of “Graham’s Magazine.” As a matter of
course he quarrelled with Graham, and then went to New York, where
he engaged as a sub-editor on the “Mirror,” a daily paper, of which
his friend Willis was editor. But he did not remain long at this
employment, which was wholly unsuited to him, and he left the “Mirror”
without quarrelling with the proprietor. During his engagements with
these different periodicals, he had written some of his finest prose
tales, had published an anonymous work in the style of Robinson Crusoe,
entitled the “Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym,” and a collection of
his tales in a volume, which he called “Tales of the Grotesque and the
Arabesque,” and gained another prize by his story of the Gold Bug.
He was beginning to be known as a fierce and terrible critic, rather
than as a poet or a writer of tales, when the publication of his poem
of the Raven in the “American Review,” a New York monthly magazine,
first attracted the attention of the literary world to his singular
and powerful genius. Up to the appearance of this wild fantasy, he
had not been generally recognised as a poet, and had known nothing of
society. But he became at once a lion, and his writings were eagerly
sought after by publishers. The prospect lay bright before him; he
abandoned for awhile the vices which so fearfully beset him; he was
living quietly in a pleasant rural neighbourhood in Westchester, near
the city, with his delicate wife and her mother, and a brilliant future
appeared to be in store for him. But he could never keep clear from
magazine editing, and he joined Mr. C. F. Briggs in publishing the
“Broadway Journal,” a literary weekly periodical; but the inevitable
quarrel ensued, and this project was abandoned at the end of a year.
It was while editing the “Broadway Journal” that he engaged in furious
onslaught upon Longfellow, whom he accused of plagiarising from his
poems, and, at the same time, involved himself in numberless disputes
and quarrels with other authors. But he also gained the affection and
admiration of many estimable literary people, some of whom he alienated
by appearing before them when in a state of intoxication. He delivered
a lecture on poetry, but attracted no hearers, and he was so chagrined
by his disappointment, that he fell again into his old habits, and
disgusted his new friends by his gross misconduct; he involved himself
in another quarrel with some of the literati of Boston, and to show his
contempt for them, went there and delivered a poem in public, which
he pretended to have written in his tenth year. On his return to New
York he was again reduced to great straits; and in 1848 he advertised
a series of lectures, in order to raise sufficient means to put into
execution his long-cherished plan of a magazine; but he delivered only
one lecture on the Cosmogony of the Universe, which was afterwards
published under the title of “Eureka, a Prose Poem.” His wife had died
the year previously, and during her illness he was reduced to such
extremities that public appeals, which were generously responded to,
were made in his behalf by the papers of New York.
Not long after the death of his wife he formed an intimacy with an
accomplished literary lady of Rhode Island, a widow, and was engaged to
be married to her. It was to her that he addressed the poem “Annabel
Lee;” the day was appointed for their marriage; but he had, in the
meantime, formed other plans; and, to disentangle himself from this
engagement, he visited the house of his affianced bride, where he
conducted himself with such indecent violence that the aid of the
police had to be called in to expel him. This, of course, put an end
to the engagement. In a short time after he went to Richmond, and
there gained the confidence and affections of a lady of good family
and considerable fortune. The day was appointed for their marriage,
and he left Virginia to return to New York to fulfil some literary
arrangements previous to the consummation of this new engagement.
He had written to his friends that he had, at last, a prospect of
happiness. The Lost Lenore was found. He arrived in Baltimore on his
way to the north, and gave his baggage into the charge of a porter,
intending to leave in an hour for Philadelphia. Stepping into an hotel
to obtain some refreshments, he met some of his former companions, who
invited him to drink with them. In a few moments all was over with
him. He spent the night in revelry, wandered out into the street in a
state of insanity, and was found in the morning literally dying from
exposure, and a single night’s excesses. He was taken to a hospital,
and, on the 7th October, 1849, at the age of thirty-eight, he closed
his troubled life. Three days before he had left his newly-affianced
bride to prepare for their nuptials. He lies in a burying-ground in
Baltimore, his native city, without a stone to mark the place of his
last rest.
In person Edgar Allan Poe was slight, and hardly of the medium height;
his motions were quick and nervous, his air was abstracted, and his
countenance generally serious and pale. He never laughed, and rarely
smiled; but in conversation he was vivacious, earnest, and respectful;
and though he appeared generally under restraint, as though guarding
against a half-subdued passion, yet his manners were engaging, and he
never failed to win the confidence and kind feelings of those with whom
he conversed for the first time; and there were a few who knew him
long and intimately who could never believe that he was ever otherwise
than the pleasant, intelligent, respectful, and earnest companion he
appeared to them. Though he was at times so reckless and profligate
in his conduct, and so indifferent to external proprieties, he was
generally scrupulously exact in everything he did. He dressed with
extreme neatness and perfectly good taste, avoiding all ornaments and
everything of a bizarre appearance. He was painfully alive to all
imperfections of art; and a false rhyme, an ambiguous sentence, or
even a typographical error, threw him into an ecstasy of passion. It
was this sensitiveness to all artistic imperfections, rather than any
malignity of feeling, which made his criticisms so severe, and procured
him a host of enemies among persons towards whom he never entertained
any personal ill-will. He criticised his own productions with the same
severity that he exercised towards the writings of others; and all his
poems, though he sometimes represented them as offsprings of a sudden
inspiration, were the work of elaborate study. His handwriting was
always neat and singularly uniform, and his manuscripts were invariably
on long slips of paper about four inches wide, which he never folded,
but always made into a roll. Nothing he ever did had the appearance of
haste or slovenliness, and he preserved with religious care every scrap
he had ever written, and every letter he ever received, so that he left
behind him the amplest materials for the composition of his literary
life. At his own request these remnants of his existence were entrusted
to Doctor Griswold, a gentleman with whom he had quarrelled, and had
lampooned in his lectures; Doctor Griswold, in a generous spirit,
accepted the charge, and produced from the papers entrusted to him, the
best biography of the strange being that has been published, which was
appended to the collection of his works in four volumes issued in New
York.
_June, 1857._