THE POES IN RICHMOND.
When Poe went to Richmond as assistant editor to Mr. White, it had been
with the expectation of resuming his old place among his former friends
and associates--a prospect which, as he himself stated in a letter to
that gentleman, had afforded him very great pleasure. He had no idea of
the altered estimate in which he was held by some of these, and of the
general prejudice existing against him in consequence of the exaggerated
reports concerning his rupture with the Allans and the later story of
his attempt to force himself into Mr. Allan's presence. It is true that
the Mackenzies, the Sullys, Dr. Robert G. Cabell and his wife, with some
others of the best people, remained his firm friends; but he found
himself without social standing and with but few associates among his
former acquaintances. It was even said that when a leading society lady,
enjoying a literary reputation--the mother of Mrs. Julia Mayo Cabell
and Mrs. General Winfield Scott--gave an entertainment to which she
invited the talented young editor of the _Messenger_, two of the most
priggish of these gentlemen declined to attend rather than meet their
former schoolmate, Edgar Poe.
This state of things must undoubtedly have served to irritate and
embitter one of Poe's proud and sensitive nature, and may have partly
led to the dissipated habits in which he now for the first time began to
indulge--besides, in some measure, influencing the extreme bitterness
and severity, or, as it has been called, _venom_ of the criticism for
which the _Messenger_ began to be noted. Never before had he been
accused of unamiability of disposition, but his temper seems suddenly to
have changed, and he was called "haughty, overbearing and quarrelsome."
A great and, it is to be feared, irreparable obloquy has attached to
Poe's name through the utterance of a single individual--a Mr. Ferguson,
who was employed as a printer's assistant in the office of the
_Messenger_ at the time of Poe's editorship of that magazine. Not many
years ago, Mr. Ferguson, who is still living, said, in answer to some
inquiry concerning the poet: "There never was a more perfect gentleman
than Mr. Poe when he was sober," but that at other times "he would just
as soon lie down in the gutter as anywhere else." And this assertion has
been taken up by one and another writer until it appears now to be
received as a fixed fact.
I have often heard this statement indignantly denied by persons who knew
Poe at this time. Howsoever much under the influence of drink he might
be, he was, they say, never at any time or by any person seen staggering
through the streets or lying in a gutter. On the contrary, he was
extremely sensitive about being seen by his friends, and especially
ladies, under the influence of drink.
Poe himself, long after this time, while denying the charge of general
dissipation, confessed that while in Richmond he at long intervals
yielded to temptation, and after each excess was invariably for some
days confined to his bed. And now, in addition to other charges against
him, was that of neglecting his wife and being frequently seen in
attendance on other women; a point on which his motherly friend, Mrs.
Mackenzie, more than once felt herself called upon to remonstrate with
him. He would be, for a week at a time, away from his home, putting up
at various hotels and boarding-houses, and spending his money freely,
instead of, as formerly, committing it to the keeping of his
mother-in-law. Mrs. Clemm, descending from the dignity of a boarder,
tried to open a boarding-house of her own, but failed; and she now
rented a cheap tenement on Seventh street and went back to her
dressmaking, letting out rooms, and probably taking one or two boarders.
But it was seldom that her son-in-law was to be found here; though
always, after one of his excesses, he would seek its seclusion until fit
to again appear in public.
Mr. Hewitt, who was about this time in Richmond, says that he heard a
great deal of gossip about Poe's love affairs; and describes him as, at
this time, of remarkable personal beauty--"graceful, and with dark,
curling hair and magnificent eyes, wearing a Byron collar and looking
every inch a poet." An old gentleman, a distinguished lawyer, once
undertook his defence, saying: "Poe is one of the kind whom men envy and
calumniate and women adore. How many could resist the temptation?"
The Mackenzies spoke of Virginia at this time--now fourteen years of
age--as being small for her age, but very _plump_; pretty, but not
especially so, with sweet and gentle manners and the simplicity of a
child. Rose Poe, now twenty-six years of age, would sometimes take her
young sister-in-law to spend an afternoon at the Mackenzies, where she
appeared as much of a child as any of the pupils, joining in their
sports of swinging and skipping rope. On one occasion her
husband--"Buddy"--came unexpectedly to bring her home, when she
scandalized Miss Jane Mackenzie by rushing into the street and greeting
him with the _abandon_ of a child.
Nearly twenty years after this time there were persons living on Main
street who remembered having almost daily seen about the Old Market, in
business hours, a tall, dignified looking woman, with a market basket
on one arm, while on the other hung a little girl with a round,
ever-smiling face, who was addressed as "Mrs. Poe"! She, too, carried a
basket.
Whatsoever was the cause of Poe's discontent, he never appeared happy or
satisfied while in Richmond. His dissipated habits grew upon him, with a
consequent neglect of editorial duties, which sorely tried the patience
of his good and kind friend, Mr. White, to whom, it must be admitted,
Poe never appeared sufficiently grateful. Whether Mr. White was
compelled at length to reluctantly discharge him, or whether, as Mr.
Kennedy says, Poe himself gave up his place as editor of the
_Messenger_, thinking that with his now established literary reputation
he could do better in the North, is not clear; but in the summer of 1838
he left Richmond and, with his family, removed to New York.
Mrs. Clemm, at least, could not have been averse to the move; for it
seems certain that there was a general prejudice against her on account
of her having made or consented to the match between her little daughter
and a man of Poe's age and dissipated habits.