Midsummer found Edgar Poe in Richmond and regularly at work upon his new
duties in the office of _The Southern Literary Messenger_. He felt that
if he had not actually reached the end of the rainbow, it was at least
in sight and it rested upon the place of all others most gratifying to
him--the dear city of his boyhood whose esteem he so ardently desired.
Most soothing to his pride, he found it, after his several ignominious
retreats, to return in triumph, a successful author, called to a place
of acknowledged distinction, for all its meagre income.
The playmates of his youth--now substantial citizens of the little
capital--called promptly upon him at his boarding-house. They were glad
to have him back and they showed it; glad of his success and glad and
proud to find their early faith in his powers justified, their early
astuteness proven.
All Richmond, indeed, received him with open arms and if there were some
few persons who could not forget his wild-oats at the University and his
seeming ingratitude to Mr. Allan, who they declared had been the kindest
and most indulgent of fathers to him, and who did not invite him to
their homes or accept invitations to parties given in his honor, they
were the losers--he had friends and to spare.
Yet he was not happy. The ivy had been torn from the oak and there was
no sweet heartsease blossom to make glad his road--to made
daily--hourly--offerings to him and him alone of the beauty, physical
and spiritual, that his soul worshipped--of beauty and of unquestioning
love and sympathy and approbation. In other words, The Dreamer was sick,
miserably sick, with the disease of longing; longing for the modest home
and the invigorating presence of the Mother; longing that was exquisite
pain for the sight, the sound, the touch, the daily companionship of the
child who without losing one whit of the purity, the innocence, the
charm of childhood, had so suddenly, so sweetly become a woman--a woman
embodying all of his dreams--a woman who lived with no other thought
than to love and be loved by him.
Life, no matter what else it might give, life without the soft glance of
her eye, the sweet sound of her voice, the pure touch of her hand within
his hand, her lips upon his lips, was become an empty, aching void.
After two years of the sheltered fireside in Baltimore whose seclusion
had made the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass possible, the
boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its
commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home. It was stifling.
How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house? He was even homesick
for the purr and the comfortable airs of the old white cat!
Whenever he could he turned his back upon the boarding-house and tried
to forget it, but the clatter and the gossip seemed to follow him, their
din lingering in his ears as he paced the streets in a fever of disgust
and longing. For the first time since Edgar Poe had opened his eyes upon
the tasteful homelikeness of the widow Clemm's chamber and the tender,
dark eyes of Virginia searching his face with soft wonder, the old
restlessness and dissatisfaction with life and the whole scheme of
things were upon him--the blue devils which he believed had been
exorcised forever had him in their clutches. Whither should he fly from
their harrassments? By what road should he escape?
At the answer--the only answer vouchsafed him--he stood aghast.
"No, no!" he cried within him, "Not that--not that!" Seeking to deafen
his ears to a voice that at once charmed and terrified him, for it was
the voice of a demon which possessed the allurements of an angel--a
demon he reckoned he had long ago fast bound in chains from which it
would never have the strength to arise. It was the voice that dwelt in
the cup--the single cup--so innocent seeming, so really innocent for
many, yet so ruinous for him; for, with all its promises of cheer and
comfort it led--and he knew it--to disaster.
Bitterly he fought to drown the sounds of the voice, but the more he
deafened his ears the more insistent, the clearer, the more alluring its
tones became.
And it followed him everywhere. At every board where he was a guest the
brimming cup stood beside his plate, at every turn of the street he was
buttonholed by some friend old or new, with the invitation to join him
in the "cup of kindness." At every evening party he found himself
surrounded by bevies of charming young Hebes, who, as innocent as angels
of any intention of doing him a wrong, implored him to propose them a
toast.
How could he refuse them? Especially when acquiescence meant escape from
this horrible, horrible soul-sickness, this weight that was bearing his
spirits down--crushing them.
Therein lay the tempter's power. Not in appetite--he was no swine to
swill for love of the draught. When he did yield he drained the cup
scarce tasting its contents. But ah, the freedom from the sickness that
tortured him, the weight that oppressed him! And ah, the exhilaration,
physical and mental, the delightful exhilaration which put melancholy to
flight, loosed his tongue and started the machinery of his brain--which
robbed the past of regret and made the present and the future rosy!
It was in the promise of this exhilaration that the seductiveness of the
dreaded tones lay.
Even his kindly old physician, diagnosing the pallor of his cheeks and
melancholy in his eyes as "a touch of malaria," added a note of
insistence to the voice, as he prescribed that panacea of the day, "a
mint julep before breakfast."
Yet he still sternly and stoutly turned a deaf ear to the voice of the
charmer, while dejection drew him deeper and deeper into its depths
until one day he found he could not write. His pen seemed suddenly to
have lost its power. He sat at his desk in the office of the _Messenger_
with paper before him, with pens and ink at hand, but his brain refused
to produce an idea, and for such vague half-thoughts as came to him, he
could find no words to give expression.
He was seized upon by terror.
Had his gift of the gods deserted him? Better death than life without
his gift! Without it the very ground under his feet seemed uncertain and
unsafe!
Then he fell. Driven to the wall, as it seemed to him, he took the only
road he saw that led, or seemed to lead, to deliverance. He yielded his
will to the voice of the tempter, he tasted the freedom, the
exhilaration, the wild joy that his imagination had pictured--drank deep
of it!
And then he paid the price he had known all along he would have to pay,
though in the hour of his severest temptation the knowledge had not had
power to make him strong. Neither, in that hour, had he been able to
foresee how hard the price would be. That shadowy, yet very real other
self, his avenging conscience, in whose approval he had so long happily
rested, arose in its wrath and rebuked him as he had never been rebuked
before. It scourged him. It held up before him his bright prospects, his
lately acquired and enviable social position, assuring him as it held
them up, of their insecurity. It pointed with warning finger to the end
of the rainbow and the road leading to it seemed to have suddenly grown
ten times longer and rougher than before.
Finally it held up the images of his two good angels, "Muddie," with her
heart of oak, and her tender, sorrow-stricken face, and Virginia, whose
soft eyes were a heaven of trustful love--whose beauty, whose purity and
innocence, the stored sweets of whose nature were for him alone, and to
whom he was as faultless, as supreme as the sun in heaven.
It was too much. The dejection into which his "blue devils" had cast him
was as nothing to the remorse that overwhelmed him now. On his knees
before Heaven he confessed that his last estate was worse than his
first, and cried aloud for forgiveness for the past and strength for the
future.
In this mood he sat down to write to Mr. Kennedy (who had been absent
upon a summer vacation when he left Baltimore) a letter of
acknowledgment for his benefactions--for whatever The Dreamer was, it is
very certain that he was _not_ ungrateful.
The date he placed at the top of his page was "September 11, 1835."
"I received a letter yesterday," he wrote, "which tells me you are back
in town. I hasten therefore, to write you and express by letter what I
have always found it impossible to express orally--my deep sense of
gratitude for your frequent and effectual assistance and kindness.
"Through your influence Mr. White has been induced to employ me in
assisting him with the editorial duties of his Magazine--at a salary of
$520 per annum."
He had not intended to mention his troubles to Mr. Kennedy, but with
each word he wrote the impulse to unburden himself which he always felt
when talking to this kind, sympathetic man, grew stronger and he found
his pen almost automatically taking an unexpected turn. It was out of
the abundance of his anguished heart that he added:
"The situation is agreeable to me for many reasons--but alas! it appears
that nothing can now give me pleasure--or the slightest gratification.
Excuse me, my Dear Sir, if in this letter you find much incoherency. My
feelings at this moment are pitiable indeed. You will believe me when I
say that I am still miserable in spite of the great improvement in my
circumstances; for a man who is writing for effect does not write thus.
My heart is open before you--if it be worth reading, read it. I am
wretched and know not why. Console me--for you can. Convince me that it
is worth one's while to live. Persuade me to do what is right. You will
not fail to see that I am suffering from a depression of spirits which
will ruin me if it be long continued. Write me then, and quickly. Urge
me to do what is right. Your words will have more weight with me than
the words of others--for you were my friend when no one else was."
Some men of more goodness than wisdom might have read this letter with
impatience--perhaps disgust, and tossed it into the waste basket, not
deeming it worth an answer, or pigeon-holed it to be answered in a more
convenient season--which would probably never have arrived. It is easy
to imagine the contempt with which John Allan would have perused it. Not
so John Kennedy. Busy lawyer and successful man of letters and of the
world though he was, he had gone out of his way to stretch a hand to the
gifted starveling he had discovered struggling for a foothold on the
bottommost rung of the ladder of literary fame, and had not only helped
him up the ladder but had drawn him, in his weakness and his strength,
into the circle of his friendship, and now he had no idea of letting him
go. Mr. Kennedy was a great lawyer with a great tenderness for human
nature, born of a great knowledge of it. He did not expect young
men--even talented ones--to be faultless or to be fountains of sound
sense, or even always to be strong of will. When he received Edgar Poe's
wail he had just returned to his office after a long vacation and found
himself over head and ears in work; but he responded at once. If it had
seemed to him a foolish letter he did not say so. If it had shocked or
disappointed him, he did not say so. He wrote in the kindly tolerant and
understanding tone he always took with his protegé a letter wholesome
and bracing as a breath from the salt sea.
"My dear Poe," he began, in his simple familiar way, "I am sorry to see
you in such plight as your letter shows you in. It is strange that just
at the time when everybody is praising you and when Fortune has begun to
smile upon your hitherto wretched circumstances you should be invaded by
these villainous blue devils. It belongs however, to your age and temper
to be thus buffeted--but be assured it only wants a little resolution to
master the adversary forever. Rise early, live generously, and make
cheerful acquaintances and I have no doubt you will send these
misgivings of the heart all to the Devil. You will doubtless do well
henceforth in literature and add to your comforts as well as your
reputation which it gives me great pleasure to tell you is everywhere
rising in popular esteem."
This and more he wrote, in kind, encouraging vein, and closed his letter
with a friendly invitation:
"Write to me frequently, and believe me very truly
"Yours,
"JOHN P. KENNEDY."
The same post that brought Mr. Kennedy's letter brought The Dreamer
other mail from Baltimore--brought him letters from both Virginia and
Mother Clemm.
They had an especial reason for writing, each said. They had news for
him--news which was most disturbing to them and they feared it would be
to him.
Disturbing indeed, was the news the letters brought. It drove him into a
rage and aroused him into action which made him forget all of his late
troubles.
Their Cousin Neilson and his wife, they wrote him, had not ceased to
bring every argument they could think of to bear upon Virginia to induce
her to break her engagement and had finally proposed that they should
take her into their home, treat her as an own daughter or young sister,
providing for her all things needful and desirable for a young girl of
her station, until her eighteenth birthday, after which if she and Edgar
had not changed their minds, they could be married.
He dashed off and posted answers to the letters at once, making violent
protest against a scheme that seemed to him positively iniquitous and
pleading with "Muddie" to keep Virginia for him. But writing was not
enough. He determined to answer in person.
A day or two later Virginia and her mother were in the act of discussing
his letters, which had just come, when the sitting-room door quietly
opened, and there stood the man who was all the world to them!
Virginia, with a scream of delight, was in his arms in a flash and began
telling him, breathlessly, what a fright she had been in for fear
"Cousin Neilson" would take her away and she would never see him again.
With a rising tide of tenderness for her and rage against their cousin,
he kissed the trouble from her eyes.
"Don't be afraid, sweetheart," he murmured, "He shall never take you
from me. I have come back to marry you!"
"To marry her?" exclaimed Mrs. Clemm. "At once, do you mean?"
"At once! Today or tomorrow--for I must be getting back to Richmond as
soon as possible. Don't you see, Muddie, that this is just a plot of
Neilson's to separate us? He never cared for me--he loves Virginia and
is determined I shall not have her. But we'll outwit him! We'll be
married at once. We'll have to keep it secret at first--until I am able
to provide a home for my little wife and our dear mother in Richmond,
but I will go away with peace of mind and leave her in peace of mind,
for once she is mine only death can come between us. We will keep it
secret dear," he added, with his lips on the dusky hair of the little
maid who was still held fast in his arms. "We will keep it secret, but
if Neilson Poe becomes troublesome you will only have to show him your
marriage certificate."
Virginia joyfully agreed to this plan, while the widow, finding
opposition useless, finally consented too--and the impetuous lover was
off post-haste for a license.
It was a unique little wedding which took place next day in Christ
Church, when a beautiful, dreamy looking youth, with intellectual brow
and classic profile and a beautiful, dreamy-looking maid, half his age,
plighted their troth. The only attendant was Mother Clemm in her
habitual plain black dress and widow's cap, with floating cap-strings,
sheer and snowy white. No music, no flowers, no witnesses even, save the
widowed mother and the aged sexton who was bound over to strict secrecy.
But in the dim, still, empty church the beautiful words of the old, old
rite seemed to this strange pair of lovers to take on new solemnity as
they fell from the lips of the white robed priest and sank deep into
their young hearts, filling and thrilling them with fresh hope and faith
and love and high resolve.