Among the names that were occasionally mentioned in the brief and
fleeting annals of the stage from the year 1798 to the year 1811, were
those of Mr. David Poe and the beautiful Miss Arnold--afterward Mrs.
Poe,--the father and mother of that most brilliant but erratic genius
Edgar A. Poe.
David Poe was the son of old General Poe, who won his honors in
Revolutionary times and was a man of sterling character and many heroic
qualities. Miss Arnold belonged to the stage by birth, and from earliest
youth had been attached to the theatre in some capacity. It is a most
miserable fate for a child, but she knew of nothing better. She came
before the public with a naivete that was touching, and played her
little airs on the piano and sung her little songs and uttered her
childish sentences always to the very best of her ability, putting up
with the late hours and the hasty and often scanty meals and the general
discomfort of her lot with the utmost amiability and good-nature. No
sheltered home, no days of careless pleasure, no constant and watchful
care over health or manners or morals, fell to her lot; but the frowns
and sometimes the curses of the older actors, the ill-nature of the
manager, and the wearied fretfulness of her mother, who was growing old
in the drudgery of her profession,--for she never rose above that at any
time. Nor does it appear that Miss Arnold had any particular talent,
though she won a moderate share of favor upon the stage; but she was
always much esteemed by those who knew her in private. She sung and
sometimes danced, as did her husband, who was an actor of inferior
merit. There is something very pathetic in the story of the little
second-rate actress who was so conscientious and so persevering, and one
cannot but hope that she received her due share of the applause which
lends such a fascination to the life of the actor that he rarely
abandons it for any other career.
There is a hint of the hardship of her life in the fact that there are
but three short breaks in her dramatic career through all those
years,--the times when the three children were born to them. Edgar was
born Jan. 19, 1809, and his mother appeared upon the stage again
February 10, and played to the end of the season almost incessantly. The
family were poor to the verge of destitution at all times, and the
little woman had need of a brave heart when the children came crowding
into the poor unfurnished nest. One cannot doubt that there was much of
pain and worry in the little creature's heart before the birth of Edgar;
and no doubt the paint covered the traces of many tears on the faded
cheeks, and the smiles which wreathed her face were more artificial than
the usual stage smiles during all those weary months. In 1811 she and
her husband were playing in Richmond, when her health failed her, and
they were brought to great straits for the means of life. The actors
gave her a benefit, but the receipts were small, and the following card
was inserted in the Richmond papers:--
"TO THE HUMANE: On this night Mrs. Poe, lingering on the bed of
disease and surrounded by her children, asks your assistance; _and
asks it perhaps, for the last time_."
Before the second benefit night the Richmond ladies had come to her
relief, and she was tenderly cared for during the brief remainder of her
life by stranger hands. She had never had a home. She had passed her
whole life in poor, mean lodgings, about which no household charm could
linger. In these desolate places had been passed even her honeymoon; in
some garret lodgings had her children been born; here all that she had
known of domestic joy or sorrow had been enacted; here she had doubtless
wept her hot tears and had her little triumphs, and here she had died.
Poor little variety-actress of the olden time! there is one heart at
least that is touched by your lot, even at this distant day, and has
dropped a tear to your memory on the page where she has read your
history.
The three children were cared for by the kind people of Richmond, and
Edgar was adopted by Mrs. John Allan, whose husband gave but a reluctant
consent to the arrangement. Edgar was a most beautiful and precocious
child, and attracted much attention in the new home. If the poor mother
on her dying-bed could have known of the good fortune which awaited him,
it would have eased somewhat the bitter pangs of her parting with her
beautiful and idolized child. He was taken to England, where he spent
several years of his childhood, and when he returned, entered a
classical school, where he was prepared for college. He was described as
"self-willed, capricious, inclined to be imperious, and, though of
generous impulses, not steadily kind or even amiable." He was a facile
scholar and fond of Latin and English poetry. He was nearly always
alone, making few friends among his schoolmates, and was of a dignified
and reserved disposition and inclined to melancholy. He entered the
University of Virginia at the age of seventeen, and it was here that his
fatal habit of drinking was first formed. One of his schoolmates
writes:--
"Poe's passion for strong drink was as marked and peculiar as that
for cards. It was not the _taste_ of the beverage that influenced
him. Without a sip or smack of the mouth he would seize a full
glass, without water or sugar, and send it home at a single gulp.
This frequently used him up; but if not, he rarely returned to the
charge."
This, for a lad of seventeen, with an excitable temperament, was
sufficient to sow the seeds of all his future woe. The youthful brain
inflamed with alcohol never really recovers its normal condition, even
when abstinence follows, and Poe's life-long struggle with his adversary
began at this tender age. Dr. Day, long connected with the inebriate
asylum at Binghamton, N. Y., once had an opportunity to examine the
brain of a man who, after having been a drunkard, reformed and lived for
some years as a teetotaller. He found to his surprise that the globules
of the brain had not shrunk to their natural size. They did not exhibit
the inflammation of the drunkard's brain, but they were still enlarged,
and seemed ready on the instant to absorb the fumes of alcohol and
resume their former condition. He thought he saw in this morbid
condition of the brain the physical part of the reason why a man who has
once been habituated to liquor falls so easily under its sway again in
spite of every moral reason for refraining. Doubtless he was right, and
poor Poe was only one of a vast number of men of brilliant intellects
and kind hearts, who after a life-long struggle are defeated by the
enemy they have taken into their stomachs to destroy their brains.
It is not our purpose to trace the poet through all the devious windings
of his life, but to dwell for a little while upon the course of his
domestic life and give some of the striking points in his character. We
will pass over the close of his college career and the episode at West
Point, as well as the publication of his earliest volume of poems, and
look at him as we find him in the summer of 1833, living in Baltimore.
He had a home here with his father's widowed sister, Mrs. Clemm, who
with her daughter Virginia lived in a very humble way in that city. The
little Poe could earn--for he was then at one of his lowest financial
periods--went into the common stock, and the three struggled along
together. Virginia was a child of eleven, beautiful, delicate, refined;
and Mrs. Clemm was then, as always thereafter, the best and kindest of
friends to the poet. She had little to offer him, save kindness and
motherly love; but she gave these most abundantly, and they were of
priceless value to Poe. For many months he kept himself from his
besetting sin, and worked faithfully at whatever literary work he could
get to do. But he was poor to the point of destitution, and the mental
strain upon him was great, with his extraordinary pride and
sensitiveness. He had been well reared, with fine and delicate tastes,
and accustomed to money; and privation was very bitter to him. He was
naturally an aristocrat, too, and found in the associations to which he
was almost compelled by poverty a heavy cross. At the end of two years
he felt himself forced to leave Baltimore, and thought he could obtain
employment in Richmond. He had become greatly attached to Virginia, and
she was equally so to him; and although she was but a child of thirteen,
Poe proposed to marry her and take her and Mrs. Clemm with him to his
new destination. The youth of Virginia seems to have been the only
obstacle in the mind of Mrs. Clemm, who had conceived the deepest
affection for Poe and had great confidence in his abilities. She was
friendless and unable to take care of herself and her daughter, and
after some hesitation she consented to the marriage. It did not take
place, however, till Virginia was fourteen years old.
Ill-starred and ill-timed as this marriage seemed to be, it was the one
bright and beautiful thing about the life of Poe. He remained
passionately devoted to the youthful wife as long as she lived; and it
is thought by those who knew him best that, despite his numerous
romantic passages with ladies after her death, Virginia was the only
woman he ever really loved. In spite of the bad habits which clung to
him so persistently, he seems to have been a really kind and devoted
husband to the end. She, on her part, worshipped him with a supreme
infatuation that was blind to all his faults. The romance of the first
months of married life seemed never to wear off, and through all their
sorrows--and they were many and bitter--their love burned as brightly
as at first.
To Mrs. Clemm, also, Poe was always a devoted son, and through all his
waywardness; and folly and sin she clung to him with the devotion of a
true mother. The sturdy figure of this woman shows through all the dark
spots of his life, casting a gleam of brightness. She was a strong,
masculine-looking woman, full of energy, and took upon herself all the
practical affairs of the little household. She received the money from
Poe, and expended it in her own way; and she had a faculty of getting a
good deal of comfort out of a very little money. So their home was
almost always comfortable, even when they were poorest. And she never
gave way to reproaches, even when Poe was at his worst. She seemed to
consider his failing only in the light of a misfortune, and never
blamed, but always pitied him. She worshipped his genius almost as
blindly as did Virginia, and it is pleasant to think that with all their
misfortunes and privations, they had much real happiness in their little
home. Poe was very proud and very fond of Virginia, and liked to take
strangers to see her. She had a voice of wonderful sweetness and sung
exquisitely, and in some of their more prosperous days she had her harp
and piano. One evening when she was singing she ruptured a blood-vessel,
and for a time her life was despaired of Poe describes the affliction
long afterwards in a letter as follows:--
"Six years ago a wife whom I loved as no man ever loved before,
ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. I took leave of her forever,
and underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered
partially, and I again hoped. At the end of a year the vessel again
broke. I went through precisely the same scene. Then
again--again--and even once again at varying intervals. Each time I
felt all the agonies of her death, and at each accession of the
disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more
desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally
sensitive,--nervous to an unusual degree. I became insane, with
long intervals of possible sanity. During these fits of absolute
unconsciousness, I drank--God only knows how often or how much. As
a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink,
rather than the drink to the insanity."
Although Poe's word is not always to be taken in regard to his own
affairs, this doubtless describes his feelings over Virginia's condition
quite truthfully; and whether the drinking was cause or effect we shall
probably never really know.
During one of the periods of Virginia's improved health Poe took her and
went to New York, leaving Mrs. Clemm behind to settle up domestic
affairs. In a letter which he wrote to his mother-in-law, we have a
glimpse of the kindlier side of the man's nature and of his real
affection for this devoted friend, as well as some hints of the straits
of poverty to which they had been accustomed, by the fulness of his
descriptions of the plenty upon which they had fallen. He is speaking of
his boarding-house:--
"I wish Catarina [the cat] could see it; she would faint. Last
night for supper we had the nicest tea you ever drank,--strong and
hot,--wheat and rye bread, cheese, tea-cakes (elegant--a great
dish), two dishes of elegant ham and two of cold veal, piled up
like a mountain and large slices, three dishes of the cakes, and
everything in the greatest profusion. No fear of starving here. The
landlady seemed as if she couldn't press us enough, and we were at
home directly. For breakfast we had excellent-flavored coffee, hot
and strong,--not very clear and no great deal of
cream,--veal-cutlets, elegant ham and eggs, and nice bread and
butter. I never sat down to a more plentiful or a nicer breakfast.
I wish you could have seen the eggs and the great dishes of meat.
Sis is delighted, and we are both in excellent spirits. She has
coughed hardly any, and had no night-sweat. She is now busy mending
my pants, which I tore against a nail. I went out last night and
bought a skein of silk, a skein of thread, two buttons, a pair of
slippers, and a tin pan for the stove. The fire kept all night. We
have now got four dollars and a half left. To-morrow I am going to
try and borrow three dollars, so that I may have a fortnight to go
upon. I feel in excellent spirits, and haven't drank a drop--so
that I hope soon to get out of trouble. The very instant I scrape
together enough money I will send it on. You can't imagine how much
we both do miss you. Sissy had a hearty cry last night because you
and Catarina weren't here. We hope to send for you very soon."
It is hard to read of the straits to which Poe was often reduced for a
little money, and to know that all this time he was writing those
immortal tales which would now make a man's fortune as soon as produced.
It is true that he had two or three times good salaried positions,--good
for that day,--but he never kept them long, and his chronic state was
one of poverty, if not of destitution.