The year was waning--the year 1838--when Edgar Poe removed his family
from New York. About the hour of noon, upon a pleasant day of the spring
following, he might have been seen to turn from the paved streets of the
"City of Brotherly Love," and to enter, and walk briskly along, a grassy
thoroughfare of Spring Garden--a village-like suburb.
He was going home to Virginia and the Mother--to a new home in this
village which they had been first tempted to explore by its delightful
name and which they had found seeing was to love, for in its appearance
the name was justified. The quiet streets were lined with trees just
coming into leaf, in which birds were building, happy and unafraid, and
spring flowers were blooming in little plots before many of the
unpretentious homes.
The place also possessed a more practical attraction in the
reasonableness of its house-rents. Delightfully low was the price asked
for a small, Dutch-roofed cottage that was just to their minds. It was
small, yet quite large enough to hold the three and their modest
possessions, and about it hung a quaint charm that might have been
wanting in a more ambitious abode. Though in excellent preservation it
had a pleasantly time-worn air and there was moss, in velvety green
patches, on its sloping roof. It was set somewhat back from the street,
with a bit of garden spot in front of it, in whose rich soil violets and
single hyacinths--blue and white--were blooming, and its square porch
supported a climbing rose, heavy with buds, that only needed training
to make it a bower of beauty.
After having tried several more or less unsatisfactory homes during
their brief residence in Philadelphia, they felt that they had at last
found one that filled their requirements, and had promptly moved in.
There were no servants--maids would have been in the way they happily
told each other--but Virginia and her mother had positive genius for
neatness and order. At their touch things seemed to fly by magic into
the places where they would look best and at the same time be most
convenient, and it was astonishing how quickly the arrangement of their
small belongings converted the cottage into a home.
It was with light heart and step that the master of the house took his
way homeward to the mid-day meal. The periodicals of the "City of
Brotherly Love" were keeping him busy, and there was at that moment
money in his pocket--not much, but still it was money--that day received
for his latest story.
As he drew near a corner just around which his new roof-tree stood, he
stopped suddenly--in the attitude of one who listens. Peal after peal of
rippling laughter was filling the air with music. In his vivid eyes, as
he listened, shone the soft light of love and a smile of infinite
tenderness played about his lips. Well he knew from what lovely, girlish
throat came the merry sounds--sweet and clear as a chime of silver
bells. A quickened step brought him instantly in view of her and the
cause of her mirth.
She stood in the rose-hooded doorway leaning upon a broom. Her cheeks
were pink with the exertion she had been making and her sleeves were
rolled up, leaving her dimpled, white arms bare to the elbow. Her soft
eyes were radiant and she was laughing for sheer delight in the picture
the stately "Muddie" made white-washing the palings that enclosed the
wee garden-spot from the street. When she saw her husband at the gate
she dropped her broom and ran into his arms like a child.
"Oh, Buddie, Buddie," she cried, "are not our palings beautiful? Muddie
did them for a surprise for you!"
"Buddie" was enthusiastic in admiration of the white palings and praised
the gentle white-washer to the skies. Then the three happy workers went
inside to their simple repast, which the sauce of content turned into a
banquet.
The door had been left open to the sunshine and the result was an
unexpected guest--a handsome tortoise-shell kitten which strayed in to
ask a share of their meal. She paused, timidly, upon the threshold for a
moment, then fixing her amber eyes upon The Dreamer, made straight for
him and arching her back and waving her tail like a plume, in the air
she rubbed her glossy sides against his ankle in a manner that was truly
irresistible. All three gave her a warm welcome. Edgar regarded her
appearance as a good omen; Virginia was delighted to have a pet, and
"Catalina," as they named her, became from the moment a regular and
favorite member of the family.
* * * * *
The cottage contained but five rooms--three downstairs (including the
kitchen) and upstairs two, with low-pitched, shelving walls and narrow
little slits of windows on a level with the floor. But as has been said,
it was large enough--large enough to shelter love and happiness and
genius--large enough to hold the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored
Grass, with its fair river and its enchanted trees and flowers, in which
the three dreamers lived apart and for each other only.
It was large enough for the freest expansion the world had yet seen of
the vivid-hued imagination of Edgar Poe.
Night and day his brain was busy--"fancy unto fancy linking"--and the
periodicals teemed with his work.
In _The American Museum_, of Baltimore appeared his fantastic
prose-poem, "Ligeia," with his theory of the power of the human will for
a text--his favorite of all of his "tales"--_his_ favorite, in the
weakness of whose own will lay the real tragedy of his life! In _The
Gift_, of Philadelphia, appeared, a little later the dramatic
"conscience-story," "William Wilson," with its clear-cut pictures of
school-life at old Stoke-Newington. _The Baltimore Book_ gave the
thrilling fable, "Silence," to the world. The weirdly beautiful "Haunted
Palace" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" followed in quick
succession--in _The American Museum_.
"The Fall of the House of Usher," brought The Dreamer a pat-on-the back
from "little Tom" White, who in writing of the tale in _The Southern
Literary Messenger_, informed the world: "We always predicted that Mr.
Poe would reach a high grade in American literature; only we wish Mr.
Poe would stick to the department of criticism; there he is an able
professor."
Wrote James Russell Lowell, of the same story,
"Had its author written nothing else it would have been enough
to stamp him as a man of genius."
The cottage in Spring Garden was large enough too, for the sweet uses
of hospitality. By the time the roses on the porch were open, friends
and admirers began to find their way to it, and all who came through the
white-washed gate and sat down in the green-hooded porch or passed
through it into the bright and tasteful rooms felt the poetic charm
which this son of genius and his exquisite bit of a wife and the stately
mother with the "Mater Dolorosa" expression, threw over their simple
surroundings.
Among those who found their way thither was "Billy" Burton, an
Englishman, and an actor, who though a graduate of Cambridge was "better
known as a commedian than as a literary man." He had written several
books, however, and was the publisher of _The Gentleman's Magazine_, of
Philadelphia. Here too, came intimately, Mr. Alexander, one of the
founders of _The Saturday Evening Post_, to which The Dreamer was a
frequent contributor, and Mr. Clarke, first editor of _The Post_ and
others of what Edgar Poe's friend, Wilmer, would have dubbed the "press
gang" of Philadelphia.
To be intimate with The Dreamer meant to adore the little wife with the
face of a Luca della Robbia chorister and the voice which should have
belonged to one--with the merry, irresistible ways of a perfectly happy
child,--and to revere the mother.
The cottage was also found to be large enough (as the fame of its master
grew) to be the destination of letters from the literary stars of the
day. Longfellow and Lowell and Washington Irving, on this side of the
water, and Dickens, in England, were among Edgar Poe's numerous
correspondents while a dweller in the rose-embowered cottage in Spring
Garden.
In addition to the stories, poems, essays and critiques which the
indefatigable Dreamer was putting out, he found time to publish a
collection of his "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," in book form.
He was also (unfortunately for him) induced to prepare a work on
sea-shells for the use of schools--"The Conchologist's First Book," it
was called. This was unmistakably a mere "pot-boiler" and confessedly a
compilation, but it set the little authors whose namby-pamby works the
self-appointed Defender of the Purity of Style in American Letters had
consigned to an early grave, like a nest of hornets buzzing about his
ears.
"Plagarism!" was the burden of their hum.
Even while the discordant chorus was being chanted, however, his
wonderfully original tales continued to make their appearance at
intervals--chiefly in _The Gentleman's Magazine_, whose editor, at
"Billy" Burton's invitation, he had become.
* * * * *
In the midst of all this activity one of his old and most cherished
dreams took more definite shape than ever before--the dream of becoming
himself the founder of a magazine in which he could write as his genius
and his fancy should dictate without having to be constantly making
compromises with editors and proprietors--a periodical which would
fulfil his ideal of magazine literature, which he predicted would be the
leading literature of the future. With his prophetic eye he foresaw the
high pressure under which the American of coming years would live, and
he never lost an opportunity to express the opinion that the reader of
the future would give preference to the essay, or story, or poem which
could be read at a sitting--which would waste no time in preamble or
conclusion, but in which every word would be chosen by the literary
artist with the nicety with which the painter selects the exact tint he
needs, and in which every word would tell. And such works he conceived
it would be especially the province of the magazine to present.
He went so far as to prepare a prospectus and advertise for subscribers
to _The Penn Monthly_, as he proposed naming this child of his hopes,
and his proposition to enter the field of magazine publishing not only
as an editor, but as a proprietor, bade fair to be the rock upon which
he and his friend "Billy" Burton would split. They came to an
understanding finally, however, for when Mr. Burton, a little later,
decided to abandon _The Gentleman's Magazine_ and devote himself
exclusively to the theatre, he said to Mr. George R. Graham, the owner
of _The Gasket_, to whom he sold out,
"By the way, Graham, there's one thing I want to ask, and that is that
you will take care of my young editor."
Edgar Poe was at the moment lost in the happy dream of his own _Penn
Monthly_ which he conceived would not only take care of him and his
family, but would give his genius free rein. He was resolved to put the
best of himself into it, and the best of outside contributions he could
succeed in procuring. Its criticisms should be "sternly just, guided
only by the purest rules of Art, analyzing and urging these rules as it
applied them; holding itself aloof from all personal bias, acknowledging
no fear save that of outraging the right." It would "endeavor to
support the general interests of the republic of letters--regarding the
world at large as the true audience of the author," he determined, and
he declared in his prospectus.
Dear to his heart as was this dream of dreams of his intellectual life,
he was soon to realize that its fulfilment was not to be. At least--not
yet, for he comforted his own heart and Virginia's and "Muddie's" with
the assurance that it was but a case of hope deferred again.
As he was bracing himself for this fresh disappointment, Mr. Graham, the
purchaser of _The Gentlemen's Magazine_ which he proposed to combine
with _The Casket_ in the creation of _Graham's Magazine_, sat in his
office with a paper before him which the initiated would have at once
recognized as an Edgar Poe manuscript. It was a long, narrow strip,
formed by pasting pages together endwise, and had been submitted in a
tight roll which Mr. Graham unrolled as he read. The title at the top of
the strip, in The Dreamer's neat, legible handwriting was, "The Man of
the Crowd."
There was nothing gruesome about Mr. Graham. His candid brow, his
kindling blue eye, his fresh-colored cheeks, the genial curve of his lip
and his strong but amiable chin, spoke of a sunshiny nature, with
neither taste nor turn for the weird. But, as he read, the strange
"conscience-story" moved him--held him in a grip of intense
interest--wove a spell around him. He was on the lookout for original
material--undoubtedly he had it in this manuscript. He recalled "Billy"
Burton's last words to him: "Take care of my young editor."
A smile lighted his pleasant face. He had his own mental
endowments--generous ones--and without the least conceit he knew it;
but he had no ambition to patronize genius.
"The writer of this story is quite able to take care of himself," he
informed his inner consciousness, "And if I can only form a connection
with him it will doubtless be a case of the young editor's taking care
of me."
Upon the next afternoon Mr. Graham set out on a pilgrimage to Spring
Garden. Though it was November the air was mild and the sunshine was
mellow. Was the sky always so blue in Spring Garden, he wondered? He
found the rose-embowered cottage without difficulty, for he had obtained
minute directions. The roses were all gone but the foliage was still
green and the little white-paled garden was bright with the sunset-hued
flowers of autumn. Flowers and cottage stood bathed in the light of the
golden afternoon--the picture of serenity. What marked this quaint,
small homestead?--set back from the quiet village street--tucked away
behind its garden-spot from the din of the world? What made it different
from others of its neighborhood and character? Was it just a notion of
his (Mr. Graham wondered) that made him feel that here was poetry pure
and simple?--_visible_ poetry?
With sensations of keen interest he lifted the knocker. Edgar Poe
himself opened the door and his captivating smile, cordial hand-clasp
and words of warm, as well as courtly, greeting raised the visitor
instantly from the ranks of the caller to the place of a friend. Mr.
Graham had met Edgar Poe before and had felt his charm, but he now told
himself that to know him one must see him under his own roof, and in the
character of host.
As the door was opened a flood of music floated out. A divinely sweet
mezzo-soprano voice was singing to the accompaniment of a harp. As the
master of the house flung wide the sitting-room door and announced the
visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting
upon the gilded strings for a moment, her eyes turned in inquiry toward
the door, then rose and with the simplicity of a child came forward to
place her hand in that of Mr. Graham. Mother Clemm who sat near the
window with a piece of sewing in her lap also arose, and with gentle
dignity came forward to be introduced and to do her part in making the
guest welcome.
As he took the seat proffered him and entered upon the exchange of
commonplace phrases with which a visit of a comparative stranger is apt
to begin, Mr. Graham's blue eyes gathered in the details of the
reposeful picture of which he had become a part. The open fire, the
sunshine lying on the bare but spotless floor, the vases filled with
flowers, the few simple pieces of furniture so fitly disposed that they
produced a sense of unusual completeness and satisfaction--the row of
books, the harp, the cat dosing upon the hearth,--and finally, the
people. The master of the house--distinguished, handsome, dominant,
genial, his young wife, the embodiment of soft, poetic beauty, and the
mother with her saint-like face and gentle, composed manner--her
expressive hands busy with her needle work. Was it possible that such a
home--such a household--was always there, keeping the even tenor of its
way among the unpicturesque conventions of the modern world?
After the first formalities had been exchanged he had delicately
intimated that he had come on business, but he soon began to see that
whatever his business might be it was to be dispatched right there, in
the bosom of the family. This was irregular and unusual, yet, somehow,
it did not seem unnatural, and he found that the presence of the women
of the poet's household was not the least restraint upon the freedom of
their discussion.
After some words of commendation of the story, "The Man of the Crowd,"
which he accepted for the next number of his magazine, he came to the
real business of the afternoon.
"Mr. Poe," said he, "I believe you know that with the new year _The
Gentleman's Magazine_ and _The Casket_ will be combined to form
_Graham's Magazine_ which it is my intention to make the best monthly,
in contributed articles and editorial opinion, in this country. Mr. Poe
I want an editor capable of making it this. _I want you._ What do you
say to undertaking it?"
As he sat with his eyes fixed upon The Dreamer's eyes waiting for an
answer he could not see the quick clasping of the widow's hands the
uplifting of her expressive face which plainly said "Thank God," or the
sudden illumination in the soft eyes of Virginia. But the transformation
in the beautiful face of the man before him held him spell-bound. Edgar
Poe's great eyes were glowing with sudden pleasure the curves of his
mouth grew sweet, his whole countenance softened.
"This is very good of you, Mr. Graham," he said, his low, musical voice,
warm with feeling. "Your offer places me upon firm ground once more. To
be frank with you, the failure, through lack of capital, of my attempt
to establish a magazine of my own (since the severing of my connection
with Burton, which gave me my only regular income) has left me hanging
by the eyelids, as it were, and I have been wondering how long I could
hold on with only the small, irregular sums coming in from the sale of
my stories to depend upon. Your offer at this time means more to me than
I can express."
His girl-wife stole to his side and with pretty grace, unembarrassed by
the presence of Mr. Graham, leaned over his chair and pressed her lips
upon his brow.
"But you know, Buddie," she murmured in a voice that was like a dove's,
"I always told you something would come along!"
* * * * *
Darkness fell and lamps were lighted, and still Mr. Graham sat on and on
as though too fascinated by the charm of the little circle to move. To
his own surprise he found himself accepting the invitation to remain to
supper. The simple table was beautiful with the dainty touch of Mother
Clemm and Virginia, and the very frugality of the meal seemed a virtue.
After supper his host, not the least of whose accomplishments was the
rare one of reading aloud acceptably, was persuaded to read some of his
own poems--Mr. Graham asking for certain special pieces. Among these
were the lines "To Helen," which were recited with a fervor approaching
solemnity.
"Tell him about Helen, Eddie," murmured Virginia, who sat by his side.
"Yes, do tell me!" urged Mr. Graham, quickly. And with his eyes brooding
and dreamy, the poet went over, in touching and beautiful words, the
story of what he always felt and declared to be "the first pure passion
of his soul."
In the silence that followed he arose and took from the wall a small
picture--a pencil-sketch of a lovely head.
"This is a drawing of her made by myself," he said. "It was done from
memory, but is a good likeness. I needed no sitting to make her
likeness."
When he had shown Mr. Graham the picture, he hung it back in its place
and a gentle hush fell upon the little group. Speech seemed out of place
after the moving recital and the four sat gazing into the embers, each
sunk in his or her own dreams.
The poet was the first to speak.
"Some music Sissy," he said turning to Virginia. "I want Mr. Graham to
hear you."
She arose at once and seating herself at the harp, struck some soft,
bell-like chords while she waited for "Buddie" to decide what she should
sing.
"Let it be something sweet and low," he said, "and simple. Something of
Tom Moore's, for instance. You know my theory, anything but the simplest
music to be appreciated--to reach the soul--must be heard alone."
The harp accompaniment rippled forth, and in a moment more melted into
the rich, sweet passionate tones of her voice as she told in musical
numbers a heart-breaking story of love and parting.
Ballad after ballad followed while the little audience sat entranced.
Finally when the singer returned to her seat by the side of her husband,
the conversation turned upon music. Mr. Graham commented upon his host's
theory that all music but the simplest should, for its best effect, be
listened to in solitude.
"Yes," said The Dreamer, "It is (like the happiness felt in the
contemplation of natural scenery) much enhanced by seclusion. The man
who would behold aright the glory of God as expressed in dark valleys,
gray rocks, waters that silently smile and forests that sigh in uneasy
slumbers, and the proud, watchful mountains that look down upon all--the
man that would not only look upon these with his natural eye but feed
his soul upon them as a sacrament, must do so in solitude. And so too, I
hold, should one listen to the deep harmonies of music of the highest
class."
At length the hour came when Mr. Graham felt that he must tear himself
away--bring this strange visit to an end. Before going he felt moved by
an impulse to express something of the effect it had had upon him.
"Mr. Poe," he said, "I wish to thank you for one of the most delightful
evenings of my life and for having taken me into the heart of your home.
I can find no words in which to express my appreciation. Tonight, at
your fireside, it seems to me that I have had for the first time in my
life a clear understanding of the word happiness."
Edgar Poe smiled, dreamily.
"Why should we not be happy here?" he answered. "Concerning happiness,
my dear Mr. Graham, I have a little creed of my own. If I could only
persuade others to adopt it there would be more happy people--far more
contented ones--in the world."
"And the articles of your creed?" queried Mr. Graham.
"Are only four. First, free exercise in the open air, and plenty of it.
This brings health--which is a kind of happiness in itself--that
attainable by any other means is scarcely worth the name. Second, love
of woman. I need not tell you that my life fulfils that condition." (As
he spoke, his eyes, with an expression of ineffable tenderness, wandered
for a moment--and it seemed involuntarily--in the direction of his
wife). "The third condition is contempt for ambition. Would that I could
tell you that I have attained to that! When I do, there will be little
in this world to be desired by me. The fourth and last is an object of
unceasing pursuit. This is the most important of all, for I believe that
the extent of one's happiness is in proportion to the spirituality of
this object. In this I am especially fortunate, for no more elevating
pursuit exists, I think, than that of systematically endeavoring to
bring to its highest perfection the art of literature."
"I notice you do not mention money in your creed," remarked his guest.
"No, neither do I mention air. Both the one and the other are essential
to life, and to the keeping together of body and soul. It goes without
saying that the necessities of life are necessary to happiness. But
money--meaning wealth--while it makes indulgence in pleasures possible,
has nothing to do with happiness. Indeed the very pleasure it ensures
often obscure highest happiness--the happiness of exaltation of the
soul, of exercise of the intellect. What has money to do with happiness?
It is a happiness to wonder--it is a happiness to dream. Your over-fed,
jewel-decked, pleasure-drunk rich man or woman is too deeply embedded in
flesh and sense to do either. No"--he mused, his eyes on the glowing
coals in the grate, "No--I have no desire for wealth--for more than
enough money to keep my wife and mother comfortable. They, like myself,
have learned the lesson of being poor and happy. But I _must_ keep them
above want--I _will_ keep them above want!" As he repeated the words the
meditative mood dropped from him. He straightened himself in his chair
with sudden energy, his voice trembled and sunk almost to a whisper, in
place of the dreamy look his eyes flamed with passion.
"Mr. Graham," he exclaimed, "to see those you love better than your own
soul in want, and, in spite of working like mad, to be powerless to
raise them out of it, is hell!"
A second time the exquisite child-wife slipped quickly, noiselessly, to
his side and with the same easy grace leaned over and touched his brow
with her lips, but this time instead of moving away, remained hanging
over the back of his chair, her fair hand gently toying with the
ringlets on his brow. He was calm in an instant.
"I mean, of course, such a condition would be intolerable provided it
should ever exist," he added.
* * * * *
As the visitor stepped from the cottage door into the chill of the
bright November night, and made his way down the little path of
flagstones--irregularly shaped and clumsily laid down, so that mossy
turf which was still green, appeared between them--he felt that he was
stepping back into a flat, stale and unprofitable world from one of the
enchanted regions, "out of space, out of time," of Poe's own creation.
He had indeed, had a revelation of harmonious home-life such as he had
not guessed existed in a work-a-day world--of the music, the poetry of
living. He had had a glimpse into the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.