E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci, and
the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net/)
THE DREAMER
A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe
by
MARY NEWTON STANARD
(Author of "The Story of Bacon's Rebellion")
"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which
escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions
they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to
find they have been upon the verge of the great secret."
--_Edgar Allan Poe, in "Eleanora"_
Richmond, Virginia
The Bell Book and Stationery Company
1909
Copyright 1909
By Mary Newton Stanard
[Illustration: THE HERMITAGE PRESS
Bindery of L.H. Jenkins
Richmond, Va.]
In the Sacred Memory
of
My Father and Mother
TO THE READER
This study of Edgar Allan Poe, poet and man, is simply an attempt to
make something like a finished picture of the shadowy sketch the
biographers, hampered by the limitations of proved fact, must, at best,
give us.
To this end I have used the story-teller's license to present the facts
in picturesque form. Yet I believe I have told a true story--true to the
spirit if not to the letter--for I think I have made Poe and the other
persons of the drama do nothing they may not have done, say nothing they
may not have said, feel nothing they may not have felt. In many
instances the opinions, and even the words I have placed in Poe's mouth
are his own--found in his published works or his letters.
I owe much, of course, to the writers of Poe books before and up to my
time. Among these, I would make especial and grateful acknowledgment to
Mr. J.H. Ingram, Professor George E. Woodberry, Professor James A.
Harrison and Mrs. Susan Archer Weiss.
But more than to any one of his biographers, I am indebted to Poe
himself for the revelations of his personality which appear in his own
stories and poems, the most part of which are clearly autobiographic.
M.N.S.
THE DREAMER
CHAPTER I.
The last roses of the year 1811 were in bloom in the Richmond gardens
and their petals would soon be scattered broadcast by the winds which
had already stripped the trees and left them standing naked against the
cold sky.
Cold indeed, it looked, through the small, smoky window, to the eyes of
the young and beautiful woman who lay dying of hectic fever in a dark,
musty room back of the shop of Mrs. Fipps, the milliner, in lower Main
Street--cold and friendless and drear.
She was still beautiful, though the sparkle in the great eyes fixed upon
the bleak sky had given place to deep melancholy and her face was
pinched and wan.
She knew that she was dying. Meanwhile, her appearance as leading lady
of Mr. Placide's company of high class players was flauntingly announced
by newspaper and bill-board.
The advertisement had put society in a flutter; for Elizabeth Arnold Poe
was a favorite with the public not only for her graces of person and
personality, her charming acting, singing and dancing, but she had that
incalculable advantage for an actress--an appealing life-story. It was
known that she had lately lost a dearly loved and loving husband whom
she had tenderly nursed through a distressing illness. It was also known
that the husband had been a descendant of a proud old family and that
the same high spirit which had led his grandfather, General Poe,
passionately denouncing British tyranny, to join the Revolutionary Army,
had, taking a different turn with the grandson, made him for the sake of
the gifted daughter of old England who had captured his heart--actress
though she was--sever home ties, abandon the career chosen for him by
his parents, and devote himself to the profession of which she was a
chief ornament. A brief five years of idylic happiness the pair had
spent together--happiness in spite of much work and some tears;--then
David Poe had succumbed to consumption, leaving a penniless widow with
three children to support. The eldest, a boy, was adopted by his
father's relatives in Baltimore. The other two--a boy of three years in
whom were blended the spirit, the beauty, the talent and the ardent
nature of both parents, and a soft-eyed, cooing baby girl--were clinging
about their mother whenever she was seen off the stage, making a picture
that was the admiration of all beholders.
The last roses of the year would soon be gone from the gardens, but Mrs.
Fipps' windows blossomed gallantly with garlands and sprays more
wonderful than any that ever grew on tree or shrub. Not for many a long
day had the shop enjoyed such a thriving trade, for no sooner had the
news that Mr. Placide's company would open a season at the theatre been
noised abroad than the town beaux addressed themselves to the task of
penning elegant little notes inviting the town belles to accompany them
to the play, while the belles themselves, scenting an opportunity to
complete the wreck of masculine hearts that was their chief business,
addressed themselves as promptly to the quest of the most ravishing
theatre bonnets which the latest Paris fashions as interpreted by Mrs.
Fipps could produce. As that lady bustled back and forth among her
customers, her mouth full of pins and hands full of ribbons, feathers,
flowers and what not, her face wore, in spite of her prosperity, an
expression of unusual gravity.
_She could not get the lodger in the back room off her mind._
Mr. Placide, who had been to see the sick woman, was confident that her
disorder was "nothing serious," and that she would be able to meet her
engagements, and charged the thrifty dealer in fashionable head-gear and
furnished rooms by no means to let the fact that the star was ill "get
out." But the fever-flush that tinged the patient's pale cheeks and the
cough that racked her wasted frame seemed very like danger signals to
good Mrs. Fipps, and though she did not realize the hopelessness of the
case, her spirits were oppressed by a heaviness that would not be shaken
off.
Ill as Mrs. Poe, or Miss Arnold, as she was still sometimes called, was,
she had managed by a mighty effort of will and the aid of stimulants to
appear once or twice before the footlights. But her acting had been
spiritless and her voice weak and it finally became necessary for the
manager to explain that she was suffering from "chills and fevers," from
which he hoped rest and skillful treatment would relieve her and make
it possible for her to take her usual place. But she did not appear.
Gradually her true condition became generally known and in the hearts of
a kindly public disappointment gave place to sympathy. Some of the most
charitably disposed among the citizens visited her, bringing comforts
and delicacies for her and presents for the pretty, innocent babes who
all unconscious of the cloud that hung over them, played happily upon
the floor of the dark and bare room in which their mother's life was
burning out. Nurse Betty, an ample, motherly soul, with cheeks like
winter apples and eyes like blue china, and a huge ruffled cap hiding
her straggly grey locks from view--versatile Betty, who was not only
nurse for the children and lady's maid for the star, but upon occasion
appeared in small parts herself, hovered about the bed and ministered to
her dying mistress.
As the hours and days dragged by the patient grew steadily weaker and
weaker. She seldom spoke, but lay quite silent and still save when
shaken by the torturing cough. On a Sunday morning early in December she
lay thus motionless, but wide-eyed, listening to the sounds of the
church-bells that broke the quiet air. As the voice of the last bell
died away she stirred and requested, in faint accents, that a packet
from the bottom of her trunk be brought to her. When this was done she
asked for the children, and when Nurse Betty brought them to the bedside
she gave into the hands of the wondering boy a miniature of herself,
upon the back of which was written: "For my dear little son Edgar, from
his mother," and a small bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon. She
clasped the baby fingers of the girl about an enameled jewel-case, of
artistic workmanship, but empty, for its contents had, alas, gone to pay
for food. She then motioned that the little ones be raised up and
allowed to kiss her, after which, a frail, white hand fluttered to the
sunny head of each, as she murmured a few words of blessing, then with a
gentle sigh, closed her eyes in her last, long sleep.
The baby girl began to whimper with fright at the suddenness with which
she was snatched up and borne from the room, and the boy looked with awe
into the face of the weeping nurse who, holding his sister in one arm
dragged him away from the bedside and out of the door, by the hand.
There was much hurried tramping to and fro, opening and closing of doors
and drawing to of window-blinds. These unusual sounds filled the boy
with a vague fear.
That night the children were put to bed upon a pallet in Mrs. Fipps' own
room and Mrs. Fipps herself rocked the baby Rosalie to sleep and gave
the little Edgar tea-cakes, in addition to his bread and milk, and told
him stories of Heaven and beautiful angels playing upon golden harps.
The next day the children were taken back to their mother's room. The
shutter to the window which let in the one patch of dim light was now
closed and the room was quite dark, save for two candles that stood upon
stands, one at the foot, the other at the head of the bed. The air was
heavy--sickening almost--with the odor of flowers. Upon the bed, all
dressed in white, and with a wreath of white roses on her dark ringlets,
lay their mother, with eyelids fast shut and a lovely smile on her
lips. She was very white and very beautiful, but when her little boy
kissed her the pale lips were cold on his rosy ones, as if the smile had
frozen there. It was very beautiful but the boy was a little frightened.
"Mother--" he said softly, pleadingly, "Wake up! I want you to wake up."
The weeping nurse placed her arm around him and knelt beside the bed.
"She will never wake up again here on earth, Eddie darling.
Never--nevermore. She has gone to live with the angels where you will be
with her some day, but never--nevermore on earth."
With that she fell to weeping bitterly, hiding her face on his little
shoulder.
The child, marvelling, softly repeated, "Nevermore--nevermore." The
solemn, musical word, with the picture in the dim light, of the sleeping
figure--asleep to wake nevermore--and so white, so white, all save the
dusky curls, sank deep into his young mind and memory. His great grey
eyes were wistful with the beauty, and the sadness, and the mystery of
it all.
The next day the boy rode in a carriage with Mrs. Fipps and Nurse Betty
who had left off the big white cap and was enveloped from head to foot
in black, up a long hill, to a white church in a churchyard where the
grass was still green between the tombstones. The bell in the white
steeple was tolling slowly, solemnly. Soft grey clouds hung over the
steeple and snow-flakes as big as rose-leaves began to fill the air.
Presently the bell ceased tolling and he and Nurse Betty moved up the
aisle behind a train of figures in black, with black streamers floating
from their sleeves. The figures bent beneath a heavy burden. It was long
and black and grim, but the flowers that covered it were snow-white and
filled the church with a sweet smell. A white-robed figure led the way
up the aisle, repeating, as he walked, some words so solemn and full of
melody that they sounded almost like music. The church was dim, and
quiet, and nearly empty. The organ began to play--oh, so softly! It was
very beautiful, but still the boy shuddered, for he dimly realized that
the grim box held the sleeping form that seemed to be his mother, but
was not his real mother. _Her_ kisses were not frozen, and _she_ was in
Heaven with the angels.
The choir sang sweet music and the white-robed priest said more solemn
words that were like spoken music; then the procession moved slowly down
the aisle again and out of the door. The bell in the steeple was silent
now, and the organ was silent. Silently the procession moved--silently
the snow came down. Silently and softly, like white flowers. The green
graves were white with it now, like the flowers on the coffin lid; but
the open grave in the churchyard corner, near the wall--it was dark, and
deep and terrible! The boy's heart almost stood still as, clinging to
Nurse Betty's hand, he stared into its yawning mouth. He felt that he
would choke--would suffocate. They were lowering the box into that deep,
dark pit! What if the sleeping figure should awake, after all--awake to
the darkness and narrowness of that narrow bed!
With a piercing shriek the child broke from his nurse's hand and thrust
himself upon the arm of one of the black figures who held the ropes, in
a wild effort to stay him; then, still shrieking, was borne from the
spot.