A MORNING WITH POE AND "THE RAVEN."
(A Leaf from a Journal.)
One pleasant though slightly drizzly morning in the latter part of
September I sat in our parlor at Talavera at a table on which were some
new magazines and a vase of tea roses freshly gathered. Opposite me sat
Mr. Poe. A basket of grapes--his favorite fruit--had been placed between
us; and as we leisurely partook of them we chatted lightly.
He inquired at length what method I pursued in my writing. The idea was
new to me, and on my replying that I wrote only on the impulse of a
newly conceived idea, he proceeded to give me some needed advice. I must
make a _study_ of my poem, he said, line by line and word by word, and
revise and correct it until it was as perfect as it could be made. It
was in this way that he himself wrote. And then he spoke of _The
Raven_.
He had before told me of the difficulties which he had experienced in
writing this poem and of how it had lain for more than _ten years_ in
his desk unfinished, while he would at long intervals work on it, adding
a few words or lines, altering, omitting and even changing the plan or
idea of the poem in the endeavor to make of it something which would
satisfy himself.
His first intention, he said, had been to write a short poem only, based
upon the incident of an _Owl_--a night-bird, the bird of wisdom--with
its ghostly presence and inscrutable gaze entering the window of a vault
or chamber where he sat beside the bier of the lost _Lenore_. Then he
had exchanged the Owl for the Raven, for sake of the latter's
"_Nevermore_"; and the poem, despite himself, had grown beyond the
length originally intended.
Does not this explain why the Raven--though not, like the Owl, a
night-bird--should be represented as attracted by the lighted window,
and, perching "upon the _bust of Pallas_," which would be more
appropriate to the original Owl, Minerva's bird? Also, we recognize the
latter in the lines:
"By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore."[9]
[9] As by also:
"And its eyes have all the seeming
Of a demon that is dreaming."
Poe, in adopting the Raven, evidently did not obliterate all traces of
the Owl.
Of these troubles with the poem he had before informed me, and now, in
answer to a remark of mine, he said, in effect:
"_The Raven_ was never completed. It was published before I had given
the final touches. There were in it certain knotty points and tangles
which I had never been able to overcome, and I let it go as it was."
He told how, toward the last, he had become heartily tired of and
disgusted with the poem, of which he had so poor an opinion that he was
many times on the point of destroying it. I believe that his having
published it under the _nom de plume_ of "_Quarles_" was owing to this
lack of confidence in it, and that had it proven a failure he would
never have acknowledged himself the author. He feared to risk his
literary reputation on what appeared to him of such uncertain merit.
He now, in speaking of the poem, regretted that he had not fully
completed before publishing it.
"If I had a copy of it here," he said, "I could show you those knotty
points of which I spoke, and which I have found it impossible to do away
with," adding: "Perhaps you will help me. I am sure that you can, if you
will."
I did not feel particularly flattered by this proposal, knowing that
since his coming to Richmond he had made a similar request of at least
two other persons. However, I cleared the table of the fruit and the
flowers and placed before him several sheets of generous foolscap, on
which I had copied for a friend _The Raven_ as it was first published.
He requested me to read it aloud, and as I did so, slowly and carefully,
he sat, pencil in hand, ready to mark the difficult passages of which he
had spoken.
I paused at the third line. Had I not myself often noted the incongruity
of representing the poet as pondering over _many_ a volume instead of a
single one? I glanced inquiringly at Mr. Poe and, noting his unconscious
look, proceeded. When I reached the line,
"And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor;"
he gave a slight shiver or shrug of the shoulders--an expressive motion
habitual to him--and the pencil came down with an emphatic stroke
beneath the six last words.
This was one of the hardest knots, he said, nor could he find a way of
getting over it. "_Ember_" was the only word rhyming with the two
preceding lines, but in no way could he dispose of it except as he had
done--thus producing the worst line in the poem.
We "pondered" over it for awhile and finally gave it up.
(But I may here mention that I have since, in studying the poem, made a
discovery which, strangely enough, seems never to have occurred to the
author. This was that in this particular stanza he had unconsciously
reversed the order or arrangement of the lines, placing those of the
triple rhymes first and the rhyming couplet last. Thus all his long
years of worry over that unfortunate "_ember_" had been unnecessary,
since the construction of the verse required not only the omission of
the word as a rhyme, but of the whole line of
"And each separate dying ember;"
when the succeeding objectionable words,
"Wrought its ghost upon the floor,"
could have been easily altered; and the addition of a third line to the
succeeding couplet would have made the stanza correct.)
Our next pause was at the word "_beast_," through which he ran his
pencil.
"Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above my chamber door."
"I must get rid of that word," he said; "for, of course, no beast could
be expected to occupy such a position."
"Oh, yes; a mouse, for instance," I suggested, at which he gave me one
of his rare humorous smiles.
Leaving this point for future consideration, we passed on to a more
serious difficulty.
"This and more I sat divining,
With my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet _lining_, with the lamplight gloated o'er."
The knotty point here was in the word "lining"--a blunder obvious to
every reader. Poe said that the only way he could see of getting over
the difficulty was by omitting the whole stanza. But he was unwilling to
give up that "violet velvet" chair, which, with the "purple silken
curtain," he considered a picturesque adjunct to the scene, imparting to
it a character of luxury which served as a relief to the more sombre
surroundings. I had so often heard this impossible "lining" criticised
that when he inquired, "Shall I omit or retain the stanza?" I ventured
to suggest that it might be better to give up the stanza than have the
poem marred by a defect so conspicuous. For a moment he held the pencil
poised, as if in doubt, and I have since wondered what would have been
his decision.
But just here we were interrupted by the tumultuous entrance of my
little dog, Pink, in hot pursuit of the family cat. The latter took
refuge beneath the table at which we were seated, and there ensued a
brisk exchange of duelistic passes, until I called off Pink and Mr. Poe
took up the cat and, placing her on his knee, stroked her soothingly,
inquiring if she were my pet. Upon my disclaiming any partiality for
felines, he said, "I like them," and continued his gentle caressing.
(Was he thinking of _Catalina_, his wife's pet cat, which he had left at
home at Fordham, and which after her death had sat upon his shoulder as
he wrote far into the night? Recalling his grave and softened
expression, I think that it must have been so. But at that time I had
never heard of Catalina.)
But now came the final and most difficult "tangle" of all--the blunder
apparent to the world--the defect which mars the whole poem, and yet is
contained in but a single line:
"And the lamplight o'er him streaming casts his shadow on the floor."
Poe declared this to be hopeless, and that it was, in fact, the chief
cause of his dissatisfaction with the poem. Indeed, it may well excite
surprise that he, so careful and fastidious as to the completeness of
his work, should have allowed _The Raven_ to go from his hands marred by
a defect so glaring, but this is proof that he did indeed regard it as
hopeless.
* * * * *
When Mr. Poe left us on this September morning he took with him this
manuscript copy of _The Raven_; which, however, he on the following day
handed to me, begging that I would keep it until his return from New
York. I found that he had marked several minor defects in the poem, one
of which was his objection to the word "shutter," as being too
commonplace and not agreeing with the word "lattice," previously used.
He remarked, before leaving for New York, that he intended having _The
Raven_, after some further work upon it, published in an early number of
the _Stylus_. I do not doubt but that, had he lived, he would have made
it much more perfect than it now is.
After his death his friend, Mr. Robert Sully, the Richmond artist, was
desirous of making a picture of the _Raven_, but explained to me why it
could not be done--all on account of that impossible "shadow on the
floor." Of course, said he, to produce such an effect the lamplight must
come from above and behind the bust and the bird. No; it was
impracticable."
This set me to thinking; and the result was that I, some time after,
went to Mr. Sully's studio and said to him: "How would it do to have a
glass transom above the door; one of those large fan-shaped transoms
which we sometimes find in old colonial mansions, opening on a lofty
galleried hall?"
It would do, he said. Indeed, with such an arrangement, and the lamp
supposed to be suspended from the hall ceiling, as in those old
mansions, there would be no difficulty with either the poem or the
picture. And we were both delighted at our discovery, and thought how
pleased Poe would have been with the idea--so effective in explaining
that mysterious shadow on the floor.
Mr. Sully commenced upon his picture, but died before completing it.
* * * * *
This manuscript copy of _The Raven_, with all its pencil-marks, as made
by Mr. Poe on that September morning, remained in my possession for many
years. It is yet photographed upon my memory, with all the details here
given from an odd leaf of a journal which I kept about that time--the
quiet parlor, the outside drizzle, the books, the roses, and the face
and figure of Mr. Poe as he gravely bent over that manuscript copy of
his immortal poem of _The Raven_.
Had he no premonition that even then a darker shadow than that of the
_Raven_ was hovering over him? It was one of the last occasions on which
I ever saw him.