Where was Edgar Poe?--
Twice since he shook the dust of Richmond joyfully from his feet, fair
Springtide had visited the terraced garden of the Allan home. Twice the
green had come forth, first like a misty veil, then like a mantle
enveloping its trees and its shrubs, its arbors and trellises; twice the
procession of flowers, led by the crocuses in their petticoats of purple
and yellow, had tripped from underground; twice the homing birds had
built in the myrtles and among the snowy pear and cherry blossoms and
filled all the place with music. Twice, too, in this garden, the pageant
of spring and summer and sunset-hued autumn had passed, the birds had
flown away again and winter snows had covered all with their whiteness
and their silence.
And still the garden's true-lover, the poet, The Dreamer, was a
wanderer, where?--
Oh, beautiful "Ligeia," was it not your voice that now and again
whispered in the tree-tops and among the flowers? Could you not--did you
not, bring news of the wanderer?
If she did, there was no human being to whom her language was
intelligible, and the trees and the flowers keep their secrets well.
Within the homestead there was little change save a deepening of the
quietness that had fallen upon it. In the master of the house there was
no visible difference. There are some men who seen from year to year
seem as unchanging as the sphinx. It is only after a long period that
any difference in them can be detected and then they suddenly appear
broken and aged. The fair lady of the manor was as fair as ever, but
with the pale, tremulous fairness of a late star in the grey dawn of a
new day in which it will have no part. Her bloom, her roundness, her
gaiety--all these were gone. She spent more time than ever in the room
which, waiting for its roving tenant, became more and more like a death
chamber. The silence there was not now broken by her sobs even, for it
was with dry-eyed grief that she watched and waited for her boy, these
days--watched and waited and prayed. Ah, how she prayed for him, body
and soul! Prayed that wherever he might be, he might be kept from harm
and strengthened to resist temptation.
Was it her agonized petitions that kept him to the straight and narrow
path of duty during those two years amid uncongenial surroundings and
hard conditions?
Who knows?
Yet the chair and the desk and the books and the vases of fresh flowers
on the mantel, and the fire-wood resting on the shining andirons ready
for a match, and the reading lamp with trimmed wick and bright chimney
on the table, and the canopied white bed still waited, in vain, his
coming.
Many months had passed since the name of Eddie had been spoken between
husband and wife, but though she held her peace, like Mary of old, like
Mary too, she pondered many things in her heart. He, loving her well,
but having no aptitude for divining woman's ways, indulged in secret
satisfaction, for he took her silence to mean that she was coming to her
senses, and regarding the boy as he did. That she no longer importuned
him to enquire into Edgar's whereabouts with the intention of inviting
him home was a source of especial relief to him.
Then, upon a day two years after she had triumphantly placed Eddie's
book and letter in his hands, it was his turn to bring her a letter.
"You see the bad penny has turned up again," he remarked, dryly.
She looked questioningly at the folded sheet. Its post-mark was Fortress
Monroe and the hand-writing was not familiar to her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"A letter from Dr. Archer. He's surgeon at the fort, you know. Read it.
It is about Edgar."
With shaking hands and a blanched face she spread open the sheet. A
nameless dread possessed her. A letter about Eddie--not from him--and
from a surgeon! For a moment darkness seemed to descend upon her and she
could not make out the characters before her. She pressed her hand upon
her heart. In sudden alarm, her husband rushed to a celaret nearby and
brought out a decanter of wine. Pouring a glass he pressed it to her
lips.
"Eddie," she gasped, as soon as she could speak. "Is he well?"
In spite of John Allan's anxiety, he was irritated, and showed it.
"Pshaw, Frances!" he exclaimed. "I hoped you had forgotten the boy. Yes,
he's well, and, I'm glad to say, in a place where he is made to behave."
She calmed herself with an effort and began to read the letter. The
story it told had a smack of romance.
Dr. Archer had (he wrote) been called to the hospital in the fort to
see a private soldier by the name of Edgar A. Perry, who was down with
fever. The patient spoke but little but the Doctor was struck with his
marked refinement of look and manner, and there was something familiar
to him about the prominent brow and full grey eyes, though the name was
strange to him. His attention was aroused and he could not rid himself
of the impression that he had seen the young man before. He mentioned
the fact to some of the officers and found at once that his patient was
a subject of deep interest to them. They felt sure (they told him) that
he had a story. His polished manners and bright and cultivated
conversation seemed to them incongruous with the duties of a private
soldier, and they laughingly said that they suspected they were
entertaining an angel unawares. Yet his duties were performed with the
utmost faithfulness and efficiency. He had never been heard to speak of
himself or his past in a way which would throw any light upon his
history, and his reserve was of the kind which was bound to be
respected. Dr. Archer had grown (he wrote) more and more interested in
his patient as he became better acquainted with him, and being convinced
that the young man had for some reason, gotten out of his proper sphere,
he determined to try and help him back to it.
By the time the young soldier was convalescent the Doctor had won his
confidence and obtained from him the confession that the name of Perry
was an assumed one, and that he was none other than Mr. Allan's adopted
son, Edgar Poe, whom Dr. Archer had not seen since he was a small boy.
The discovery of his identity had greatly increased the good Doctor's
interest and he and the officers of the fort were of the opinion that as
young Poe had made a model soldier (having been promoted to the rank of
sergeant-major, for good conduct) the best thing that could be done for
him was to secure his discharge and get him an appointment to West
Point. This, Mr. Allan could bring about, he thought, through men of
influence whose friendship the Doctor knew he enjoyed. Edgar had
enlisted for five years. He had confessed that at the time he had been
almost upon the point of starvation and had turned to the army when
every effort to find other means of livelihood had failed.
The Doctor and other officers thought that it would be a great sacrifice
to leave a young gentleman of Edgar's abilities to three more years of
such uncongenial life.
He was quite recovered and in accordance with a promise made the Doctor,
was writing to Mr. Allan at that moment.
"Did Eddie's letter come too?" Mrs. Allan asked, as she finished the one
in her hand.
Without a word, her husband handed it over to her. In it Edgar expressed
much contrition for the trouble which his larger experience in life told
him he had cost his foster-father, and asked his forgiveness. He also
asked that Mr. Allan would follow the suggestion of Dr. Archer, and
apply for a discharge from the army for him, and an appointment to West
Point.
He had not written his "Mother" in the past because he had unfortunately
nothing to tell which he believed could give her any pleasure, but he
sent her his undying love.
Frances Allan looked through wet lashes into her husband's face, but her
eyes were shining through the tears.
"Oh, John," she said breathlessly, "You will have him to come and make
us a little visit before he goes to West Point, won't you?"
"I'll have nothing to do with him!" was the emphatic reply. "He seems to
be getting along very well where he is. Let him stick it out!"
Feeling how vain her pleadings would be, yet not willing to give up
hope, she wept, she prayed, she hung upon John Allan's neck. She brought
every argument that starved motherhood could conceive to bear upon him.
To think that Eddie was in Virginia--just down at Old Point! The cup of
joy was too near her lips to let it pass without a mighty effort. But
finally she gave up and shrank within herself, drooping like the palest
of lilies.
Then came a day when a stillness such as it had never known before hung
over the Allan home. The garden was at its fairest. The halls and the
drawing-rooms, with their rich furnishings and works of art were as
beautiful as ever; but there was not even a bereaved mother, with an
expression on her face like that of Mary at the foot of the cross, to
tread the lonely floors. The luxurious rooms were quite, quite
empty--all save one--an upper chamber, where upon a stately carved and
canopied bed lay all that was mortal of Frances Allan, like a lily
indeed, when pitiless storm has laid it low!
The learned doctors who had attended her had given long Latin names to
her malady. In their books there was mention of no such ailment as
heartbreak, and so happily, the desolate man left to preside in lonely
state, over the goodly roof-tree which her presence had filled and made
sweet and satisfying, was spared a suspicion even, of the real cause of
her untimely end.
His one consuming desire for the present was that all things should be
done just as she would wish, and so--all minor bitternesses drowned in
the one overwhelming bitterness of his loss--he scribbled a few hurried
lines to Edgar Poe acquainting him with the sad news and telling him to
apply for a leave and come "home" at once.
But the mails and travel were slow in those days, and when the young
soldier reached Richmond the last, sad rites were over, and for the
third time in his brief career the grave had closed over a beautiful
woman who had loved him and upon whose personality had been based in
part, that ideal of woman as goddess or angel before which his spirit
throughout his life, with all its vicissitudes, bowed down. As the
lumbering old stage crawled along the road toward Richmond, he lived
over again the years spent in the sunshine of her presence. Her death
was a profound shock to him. How strange that one so fair, so merry, so
bubbling with _life_ should cease to be! Would it always be his fate, he
wondered, to love where untimely death was lying in wait?
Upon the night when he reached "home" and every night till, his furlough
over, he returned to his post of duty at Fortress Monroe, he lay in his
old room with his old household gods--his books in their shelves, his
pictures on the walls, his desk and deep arm-chair, and other objects
made dear by daily use in their accustomed places, and "the lamplight
gloating o'er," around him. He was touched at the sweet, familiar look
of it all and at the thoughtfulness of himself of which he saw signs
everywhere. Could it be that he had been two years an exile from these
homelike comforts or had it been only one of his dreams? In spite of the
void her absence made, it was good to be back--good after his wanderings
to come into his own again.
In the hush and loneliness of those few days under the same roof, the
grief-stricken man and youth, their pride broken by their common sorrow,
came nearer together than they ever had been before. It seemed that the
gentle spirit of her whom each had loved hovered about them, binding
them to each other by invisible, but sacred, cords. John Allan spoke to
the players' son in tones that were almost fatherly and with quick
response, the tender-hearted youth became again the Edgar of the days
before reminders of his dependence upon charity had opened his eyes to
the difference between a real and an adopted father.
Under this reconciling influence, the youth poured out expressions of
penitence for the past and made resolutions for the future and Mr. Allan
promised to apply for the desired appointment to West Point, but added
that thereafter, he should consider himself relieved of all
responsibility concerning Edgar.
This blunt and ungracious assurance strained the bond between the
adopted father and son; the promised letter of application to the
Secretary of War, ruthlessly shattered it. That his indulgencies during
his year at the University of Virginia, so freely and earnestly
repented, should have been exposed in the letter seemed to the boy
unnecessary and cruel, but the man who had been fifteen years his
father, the husband of her over whom the grave had but just closed and
who had always loved him--Edgar--as an own and only son, had seen fit to
add to the declaration,
"He left me in consequence of some gambling debts at the University," a
disclaimer of even a sentimental interest in him!
"Frankly, Sir," the letter said, "I do declare that Edgar Poe is no
relation to me whatever; that I have many in whom I have taken an active
interest in order to promote theirs, with no other feeling than that
every man is my care, if he be in distress."
Edgar Poe duly presented the letter, but the bitterness which during his
brief visit home had been put to sleep, raised its head and robbed him
of all pleasure in his anticipated change and of much of the incentive
to put forth his best effort in it. He felt that the result of this
ungracious letter must be to blot the new leaf which he had so ardently
desired to turn with shadows of his past which no effort of his own
could entirely obliterate.
For the soreness of finding himself disowned as Mr. Allan's son--this
time publicly, in a manner--he found somewhat of balm in the letter of
cordial praise addressed to the Honorable Secretary of War in his
behalf, by the father of his old friend, Jack Preston. Mr. Preston
described him as a young gentleman of genius who had already gained
reputation for talents and attainments at the University of Virginia,
and added,
"I would not write this recommendation if I did not believe he would
remunerate the Government at some future day by his services and
talents, for whatever may be done for him."
Happily for the, at times, morbidly, sensitive youth, he had soon
forgotten the sting caused by the letter in a return to the dreams which
he regarded as not only the chief joy but the chief business of his
life; for though he was preparing himself for the profession of a
soldier, he had never for a moment, forsworn the Muse of Poetry. For a
whole year before being transferred to Fortress Monroe he had been
stationed at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. There his wonderful
dream-lady, "Ligeia," had seemed especially near to him, and often, when
the day's work was done and he recognized her voice in the music of the
waves or felt her kiss in the soft, southern air, blown across spicey
islets, he would up and away with her across the world, on the moon's
silver track; or on nights when no moon came up out of the sea, would
wander with her through the star-sown sky.
There was one fair star that invited his fancy with peculiar insistence.
It seemed to beckon to him with the flashes of its beams. He questioned
"Ligeia" of it and she told him that it was none other than Al Aaraaf,
the great star discovered by Tycho Brahe, which after suddenly appearing
and shining for a few nights with a brilliancy surpassing that of
Jupiter, disappeared never to be seen again; never except by him--The
Dreamer--to whom it was given not only to gaze upon it from the far
earth, but, with her as his guide, to visit it and to explore its fairy
landscape where the spirits of lost sculptures enjoyed immortality.
The result of this flight of fancy to a magical world was the poem, "Al
Aaraaf."
He spent the interim between his honorable discharge from the army and
his entrance at West Point in a happy visit to Baltimore, where he made
the acquaintance of his father's kindred and succeeded in publishing the
new poem, with a revised edition of the old ones.
For the first time, his work appeared under his own signature:
"Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems. By Edgar A. Poe."
The new poem was unintelligible to the critics--but what of that? he
asked himself. One of his optimistic moods was upon him. He despised the
critics for their lack of perception and as he held the slim volume in
his hands and gazed upon that, to him, wondrous title-page, his
countenance shone as though it had caught the reflection of the magic
star itself. What mattered all the wounds, all the woes of his past
life? He had entered into a land where dreams came true!
For the first time, too, his work received recognition as poetry, in the
literary world. It was but a nod, yet it was a beginning; and it pleased
him to think that this first nod of greeting as a poet came to him from
Boston, where his mother had found "her best, most sympathetic friends."
Before publishing his new book he had sent some extracts from it to Mr.
John Neal, Editor of the _Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette_, who
promptly gave them a place in his paper, with some kind words commending
them to lovers of "genuine poetry."
"He is entirely a stranger to me," wrote the Boston editor, of the
twenty-year-old poet, "but with all his faults, if the remainder of Al
Aaraaf and Tamerlane are as good as the body of the extracts here given,
he will deserve to stand high--very high--in the estimation of the
shining brotherhood."
In a burst of gratitude the happy poet wrote to Mr. Neal his thanks for
these "very first words of encouragement," he had received.
"I am young," he confided to this earliest friend in the charmed world
of letters, "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."