WITH OLD FRIENDS.
It must be admitted that Poe, after his affair with Mrs. Osgood and the
severe illness which followed, was never again what he had been. With
health and spirits impaired, his intellect had in a great measure lost
its brilliant creative power--its inspirations, as we may call it--and
thenceforth his writings were no longer the spontaneous and
irrepressible impulse of genius, but the product of mental effort and
labor. In special had his poetic talent in a measure deserted him, as is
evident in his latest poems, with one or two exceptions. Recognizing
this condition--and with what a pang we may imagine--he recalled Mrs.
Shew's advice in regard to a second marriage, and, admitting its wisdom,
began to look about for a suitable matrimonial partner. Finally his
choice fell upon Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, of Providence, Rhode Island,
one of the "poetesses" of the time, and the most brilliant of them all.
A consideration which doubtless chiefly influenced him in this choice
was that Mrs. Whitman, being a lady of literary taste and independent
means, would be likely to take an interest in the _Stylus_, the hope of
establishing which he had never abandoned, and would assist him in
carrying out his plans in regard to it.
Of Mrs. Whitman, at this time about forty-five years of age, I have the
following account from a lady--Mrs. F. H. Kellogg--whose mother was an
intimate friend and near neighbor of hers in Providence:
"She was considered very eccentric--impulsive and regardless of
conventionalities. She dressed always in white, and on the coldest
winter evenings, with snow on the ground, would cross over to our house
in thin slippers and with nothing on her head but a thin, gauzy, white
scarf. She probably thought this aesthetic--and perhaps it was. There was
one thing which I must not omit to mention, because it was a part of
herself--_ether_. The scent accompanied her everywhere. It was said she
could not write except under its influence, but of this I do not know."
As an illustration of her impulsive ways, Mrs. Kellogg says:
"I was one evening, when a little girl, sitting on the front steps when
she and her sister, Miss Powers, crossed over to our house. They went
into the parlor, and I heard Mrs. Whitman ask my sister to sing for her
_The Mocking Bird_. She appreciated my sister's beautiful singing, but
on this occasion, while she was in the very midst of '_Listen to the
Mocking Bird_,' suddenly a cloud of white rushed past me like a tornado,
and I heard Mrs. Whitman's voice exclaiming excitedly, '_I have it! I
have it!_' Of course, we were all astonished and could not understand it
at all, until Miss Powers afterward explained it to us. It seems that
the beautiful music and singing had excited in her some poetic thought
or idea; and, regardless or forgetful of conventionalities, she had
impulsively rushed home to put it in writing, or perhaps in poetry,
before it should vanish away."
Miss Sarah Jacobs, one of Griswold's "_Female Poets_," and a friend of
Mrs. Whitman, describes her as small and dark, with deep-set dreamy eyes
"that looked above and beyond but never _at_ you;" quick, bird-like
motions, and as being a believer in occult influences, as Poe himself
professed to be. "For all the sweet, poetic fragrance of her nature, she
took an interest in common things. She was wise, she was witty; and no
one could be long in her presence without becoming aware of the sweet
and generous sympathy of her nature."
Up to this time Poe and Mrs. Whitman had never met, though Mrs. Osgood
says that the lady had written to him and sent him a valentine, of which
he had taken no notice. This was against him in his present venture, but
he was not discouraged. He set about his courtship in his usual manner,
by addressing to Mrs. Whitman (June 10) some lines--"_To
Helen_"--commencing:
"I saw thee once--once only;--"
supposed to commemorate his first sight of her as, passing her garden
"one July midnight," he beheld her robed in white, reclining on a bank
of violets, with her eyes raised heavenward.
"No footsteps stirred; the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and me. Oh, heaven--oh, God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words--
Save only _thee and me_!"
So, he continues, he gazed entranced until--the hour being past midnight
and a storm-cloud threatening--the lady very properly arose and
disappeared from his sight; all but her eyes. These remained and
followed him home, and had followed him ever since:
"----two sweetly scintillant
Venuses; unextinguished by the sun."
All this must have been very gratifying to Mrs. Whitman--if she believed
in it--but, remembering her neglected valentine, she was in no haste to
acknowledge the poetic offering, and Poe, after waiting some weeks, had
his attention drawn in another direction.
He had written to his friend, Mr. Mackenzie, concerning his matrimonial
aspirations, and he now received an answer, suggesting that he come to
Richmond and try his fortune with an old-time school-girl sweetheart,
Miss Sarah Elmira Royster, now a rich "Widow Shelton," who had several
times of late inquired after him and sent her "remembrances."
Animated by this new hope, he, late in the summer of 1847, proceeded to
Richmond, where he visited among his friends and called upon Mrs.
Shelton, but especially paid attention to a pretty widow, a Mrs. Clarke.
This lady, when a resident of Louisville, Kentucky, many years after
Poe's death, gave to the editor of a paper some reminiscences of him at
this time.
"The good lady was deeply interested that the world might think well of
Poe, and grew warm on the subject of his wrongs. She claimed that the
poet was a Virginian, and, like most Virginians, she is very proud of
her State. She wondered where Gill had gotten the material for Poe's
vindication. She had first met Poe at the Mackenzies, when he was editor
of the _Southern Literary Messenger_, and he afterward boarded at the
same hotel as herself; but she saw most of him on his visit to Richmond
previous to his last. He was then at her house daily, and sometimes two
or three times a day. He came there, as he said, to rest.
"If there happened to be friends present he was often obliging enough
to read, and would sometimes read some of his own poems; but he would
never read _The Raven_ unless he felt in the mood for it. When in
Richmond he generally stayed with the Mackenzies at _Duncan Lodge_, and
would drive in with them at any time. One day he came in with his sister
and two of the Mackenzies and stopped with me. There were some other
people present, and he read _The Raven_ for us. He shut out the daylight
and read by an astral lamp on the table. When he was through all of us
that had any tact whatever spared our comments and let our thanks be
brief; for he was most impatient of both."
Of Poe's reading, Mrs. Clark spoke with enthusiasm. "It was altogether
peculiar and indescribable," she said. "I have heard _The Raven_ read by
his friend, John R. Thompson, and others, but it sounded so strange and
affected, compared with his own delivery. Poe had a wonderful
voice--rich, mellow and sweet. I cannot give you any idea of it. Edwin
Booth sometimes reminds me of him in his eyes and expression, but Poe's
voice was peculiar to himself. I have never heard anything like it. He
often read from Shelley and other poets. One day he pointed out to me
in one of Shelley's poems what he considered the truest characteristic
of hopeless love that he knew of:
"'The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow.'
"I enjoyed a good deal of his society during that visit in 1847. On his
last visit I saw less of him. He was then said to be engaged to a Mrs.
Shelton. Some said he was marrying her for her money. There was a good
deal of gossip at that time concerning Poe. His intemperate habits
especially were exaggerated and made the most of by those who did not
like him, while his companions in dissipation escaped unnoticed. When he
was in company at a party for instance--you might see a little of him in
the earlier part of the evening, but he would presently be off
somewhere. Then his eccentricities; I think that when a very young man
he imitated Byron."
Mrs. Clarke said she had seldom seen a good likeness of Poe. The best
she had cut from an old magazine. "This engraving," she said, showing
it, reflects at once the fastidiousness and the virility characteristic
of his temperament. All the others have an expression pitiably weak.
His worst calumniators could hardly desire for him a harder fate than
the continual reproduction of that feeble visage. When he had money he
was lavish and over-generous with it. He was always refined. You felt it
in his very presence. And as long as I knew him, and as much as I was
with him, I never saw him in the least intoxicated. I have seen him when
he had had enough wine to make him talk with even more than his usual
brilliancy. Indeed, to talk in a large general company, some little
stimulant was necessary to him. Dr. Griswold says he was arrogant,
dogmatic and impatient of contradiction. I have heard him engage in
discussions frequently; oftenest with diffidence, always with
consideration for others. In a large company it was only when
exhilarated with wine that he spoke out his views and ideas with any
degree of self-assertion."
Mrs. Clarke said that his sister, Rosalie, was rather pretty and
resembled himself somewhat in appearance, but "was as different as
possible in mental capacity. She was amiable, patient and
sweet-tempered, but as a companion wholly tiresome and monotonous. She
seemed to have had little or no individuality or force of character. She
thought a great deal of her brother, but during the greater part of
their lives they had seen nothing of each other. The family of Mr.
Mackenzie treated her affectionately and kindly, and until the breaking
up of the household she remained with them, and then went to Baltimore
to her relatives, the Poes. I don't know what became of her afterwards."
Mrs. Clarke speaks of Poe's reading and lectures during his first visit
to Richmond; but these were mere small social entertainments at the
houses of various acquaintances. He really gave but one public lecture
during this visit to Richmond. One evening at Mrs. Mackenzie's she said
to him: "Edgar, since people appear so eager to hear you repeat _The
Raven_, why not give a public recital, which might benefit you
financially?" Being further urged, he finally yielded. One hundred
tickets were advertised, at fifty cents each, and the music hall of the
fashionable Exchange Hotel engaged for the occasion. On the appointed
evening Poe stepped upon the platform to face an audience of _thirteen_
persons, including the janitor and several to whom complimentary tickets
had been presented. Of these was Mrs. Shelton, who occupied a seat
directly in front of the platform. Poe was cool and selfpossessed, but
his delivery mechanical and rather hurried, and on concluding he bowed
and abruptly retired. One of the audience remarked upon the unlucky
number of thirteen; and Mrs. Julia Mayo Cabell commented indignantly
upon the indifference of the Richmond people to "their own great poet."
Poe was undoubtedly in a degree mortified, not at the indifference
manifested, but at the picture presented by the large and brilliantly
lighted hall and himself addressing the group of thirteen which
constituted the audience. But his failure may be explained by the fact
that in this month of August the _elite_ and educated people of the city
were mostly absent in the mountains and by the sea-shore; and the
weather being extremely sultry, few were inclined to exchange the cool
breezes of the "city of the seven hills" for a crowded and heated
lecture room, even to hear _The Raven_ read by its author.
During this visit of Poe to Richmond, I, with my mother and sister, was
away from home, in the mountains, and we thus missed seeing him. On our
return shortly after his departure, we heard various anecdotes
concerning him, one or two of which I subjoin as illustrative of his
natural disposition.
One evening, quite late, an alarm of fire was raised, and all the young
men of Duncan Lodge, accompanied by Poe, hastened to the scene of
disaster, about a mile further in the country. Finding a great crowd
collected, and that their services were not required, they sat on a
fence looking on, and it was past midnight when they thought of
returning home. Gay young Dr. "Tom" Mackenzie remarked that it would
never do to return in their immaculate white linen suits, as they would
be sure to get a "wigging" from the old ladies for not having helped to
put out the fire, and, besides, they were all hungry, and he knew how
they could get a good supper. With that he seized a piece of charred
wood and commenced besmirching their white garments and their hands and
faces, including Poe's. Arriving at home in an apparently exhausted
condition, they were treated by Mrs. Mackenzie herself, who would not
disturb her servants, to the best that the pantry afforded, nor was the
trick discovered until the following day. Mrs. Mackenzie laughed, but
from Mrs. Carter, the mother of two of the culprits, and who was gifted
with eloquence, they got the "wigging" which they had been anxious to
avoid. And from accounts, Poe enjoyed it all immensely.
A lady told me that one evening, going over to Duncan Lodge, her
attention was attracted by the sound of voices in the garden, where she
beheld all the young men in the broad central alley engaged in the
classic game of "leapfrog." When it came to Mr. Poe's turn, she said,
"he took a swift run and skimmed over their backs like a bird, seeming
hardly to touch the ground. I never saw the like." Mr. Jones, Mrs.
Mackenzie's son-in-law, who was rather large and heavy, came to grief in
his performance, and no one laughed more heartily than did Poe.
Was this the melancholy, morbid, "weird and wholly incomprehensible
being" that the world has pictured the author of _The Raven_? Among
these youthful spirits and his old friends, the depressing influences of
his late life and home--the poverty, the friendlessness--seemed to
vanish, and his real disposition reasserted itself. Pity that it could
not have been always so. I am convinced that a great deal of Poe's
unhappiness and apparent reserve and solitariness was owing to his
obscure home life, which kept him apart from all genial social
influences. At the North, wherever seen out of his business hours, he
appears to have been "alone and solitary, proud and melancholy
looking," says one, who had no idea of the loneliness of spirit, the
lack of genial companionship, which made him so. With a few he was on
friendly terms, but of intimate friends or associates he had not one so
far as is known.
Of the Mackenzies, so closely associated with Poe during his lifetime,
I may be allowed to say that a more attractive family group I have
rarely known. Beside those I have mentioned were the two youngest
members, "Mr. Dick" and Mattie or "Mat"--wayward, generous, warm-hearted
Mat, indifferent to people's opinion and heedless of conventionalities.
She cared for nothing so much as her horse and dog, and spent an hour
each day in the stables, while her aunt, Miss Jane, would exclaim in
despair: "I don't know what to do with Martha. I cannot make a lady of
her;" to which she would answer with a satisfied assurance that nature
had never intended her to be a lady.
But about this time--in October--Mat was married. There are ladies
living who have heard from their mothers, at that time young girls,
accounts of this famous wedding. The festivities were kept up for full
two weeks, with ever-changing house parties, and each evening music and
dancing, with unbounded hospitality. Miss Jane Mackenzie, upon whom the
family chiefly depended, and whose fortune they expected to inherit, was
gone on a visit to her brother in London; but she had given Mat a
liberal sum wherewith to celebrate her wedding. Sadly my thoughts pass
from this gay time over the next ten years or so to the time of "the
war" and the changes which it brought to this family and to us all.