CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST YEARS OF IRVING'S LIFE

Some people have thought that Irving's long residence abroad indicated

that he did not care so much as he should for his native land. But the

truth is, the years after his return to the United States were among

the happiest of his life; and more and more he felt that here was his

home.

In 1835 he purchased, as I have already said, a small piece of land on

the Hudson, on which stood the Van Tassel house mentioned in the

"Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It was an old Dutch cottage which had stood

for so many years that it needed to be almost entirely rebuilt; and

Irving spent a considerable sum of money to fit it up as his bachelor

quarters. First he shared it with one of his bachelor brothers; but

soon he invited his brother Ebenezer to come with his family of girls

to occupy it with him.

As the years went on, Irving took a delight in this cottage that can

hardly be expressed. At first he called it "Wolfert's Roost";

afterward the name was changed to "Sunnyside," the name by which it is

still known. Little by little he bought more land, he planted trees,

and cultivated flowers and vegetables. At one time he boasts that he

has become so proficient in gardening that he can raise his own fruits

and vegetables at a cost to him of little more than twice the market

price.

During this period several books were published, among them a

description of a tour on the prairies which he took soon after his

return from abroad; a collection of "Legends of the Conquest of Spain"

which had been lying in his trunk since his residence in the Alhambra

seven or eight years before; and "Astoria," a book of Western life and

adventure, describing John Jacob Astor's settlement on the Columbia

river.

It was his wish to write a history of the conquest of Mexico, for

which he had collected materials in Spain; but hearing that Prescott,

the well-known American historian, was at work on the same subject, he

gave it up to him.

The chief work of his later years was his "Life of George Washington."

This was a great undertaking, of which he had often thought. He was

actually at work on it for many years, and it was finally published

only a short time before his death in 1859.

Irving's friends in the United States had long wished to give him some

honor or distinction. He had been offered several public offices,

among them the secretaryship of the navy; but he had declined them

all. But in 1842, when Daniel Webster was secretary of state, Irving

was nominated minister to Spain. It was Webster's idea, and he took

great delight in carrying out his plan. After the notification of his

nomination had been sent to Irving, and Webster thought time enough

had elapsed for him to receive it, he remarked to a friend:

"Washington Irving is now the most astonished man in the city of New

York."

When Irving heard the news he seemed to think less of the distinction

conferred upon him than of the unhappiness of being once more banished

from his home. "It is hard--very hard," he murmured, half to himself;

"yet," he added, whimsically enough (says his nephew), being struck

with the seeming absurdity of such a view, "I must try to bear it.

_God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb_." Later, however, Irving

speaks of this as the "crowning honor of his life."

He remained abroad four years, when he sent in his resignation, and

hurried home to spend his last years at Sunnyside.

His first thought was to build an addition to his cottage, in order to

have room for all his nieces and nephews. His enjoyment in every

detail of the work was almost that of a boy. Though now an old man, he

seemed as sunny and as gay as ever. Every one who knew him loved him;

and all the people who now read his books must have the same

affectionate fondness for this most delightful of companions.

In the United States he met both Dickens and Thackeray. His friendship

with Dickens was begun by a letter which Irving wrote to the great

novelist, enthusiastically praising his work. At once Dickens replied

in a long letter, fairly bubbling over with delight and friendship.

Here is a part of it:

"There is no man in the world who could have given me the heartfelt

pleasure you have. There is no living writer, and there are very few

among the dead, whose approbation I should feel so proud to earn. And

with everything you have written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts,

and in my heart of hearts, I may honestly and truly say so.

"I have been so accustomed to associate you with my pleasantest and

happiest thoughts, and with my leisure hours, that I rush at once into

full confidence with you, and fall, as it were, naturally, and by the

very laws of gravity, into your open arms.... My dear Washington

Irving, I cannot thank you enough for your cordial and generous

praise, or tell you what deep and lasting gratification it has given

me. I hope to have many letters from you, and to exchange a frequent

correspondence. I send this to say so....

"Always your faithful friend,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

The warmth of feeling which Dickens displays on receiving his first

letter from Irving, we must all feel when we have become as well

acquainted with Irving's works as Dickens was.

Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859, at his dear

Sunnyside, and now lies buried in a cemetery upon a hill near by, in a

beautiful spot overlooking the Hudson river and Sleepy Hollow.

* * * * *

NOTE.--The thanks of the publishers are due to G. P. Putnam's Sons for

kind permission to use extracts from the Works of Washington Irving.

THE STORY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

[Illustration: _EDGAR ALLAN POE_.]

EDGAR ALLAN POE

CHAPTER I

THE ARTIST IN WORDS

Who has not felt the weird fascination of Poe's strangely beautiful

poem "The Raven"? Perhaps on some stormy evening you have read it

until the "silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain" has

"thrilled you, filled you, with fantastic terrors never felt before."

That poem is the almost perfect mirror of the life of the man who

wrote it--the most brilliant poetic genius in the whole range of

American literature, the most unfortunate and unhappy.

Poe had a singular fate. When Longfellow and Bryant and Lowell and

Holmes were winning their way to fame quietly and steadily, Poe was

writing wonderful poems and wonderful stories, and more than that, he

was inventing new principles and new artistic methods, on which other

great writers in time to come should build their finest work; yet he

barely escaped starvation, and the critics made it appear that,

compared with such men as Longfellow and Bryant, he was more notorious

than really great. Lowell in his "Fable for Critics" said:

"There comes Poe,... three fifths of him genius, and two fifths sheer

fudge."

But now, fifty years after his death, we see how great a man Poe was.

Poe invented the modern art of short story writing. His tales were

translated into French by a famous writer named Charles Baudelaire.

Other French writers saw how fine they were and modeled their work

upon them. They learned the art of short story writing from Poe. Then

these French stories were translated into English, and English and

American writers have imitated them and adopted similar methods of

writing.

Conan Doyle's detective stories would probably never have been written

had not Poe first composed "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"; and the

stories of horror and fear so common to-day are possible because Poe

wrote "William Wilson," "The Black Cat," and other stories of the same

kind.

Have you ever learned to scan poetry? If you have, you know that the

rules which tell you that a foot is composed of one long syllable and

one short one, two short syllables and one long one, or whatever else

it may be, are frequently disregarded. You know, too, that some lines

are cut off short at the end, and others are made a little too long.

Why is this permitted? In his "Rationale of Verse," Poe explained all

these things, and showed how the learned of past ages had made

mistakes. In a subsequent chapter we shall see just what the relation

between music and poetry is, and what Poe taught about the art of

making poetry.

For years people thought that Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition,"

in which he tells in what a cold-blooded way he wrote "The Raven," was

a joke; but in later times we have learned to understand what he meant

and to know that he was very sensible in his methods of working.

When Poe was young he was not a very remarkable poet; but, as years

went on and he learned more and more the art of writing, he rewrote

and rewrote his verses until at last in conscious art he was almost,

if not quite, the master poet of America.

CHAPTER II

POE'S FATHER AND MOTHER

Edgar Allan Poe was descended on his father's side from a

Revolutionary hero, General David Poe. The Poes were a good family of

Baltimore, where many of them still live as prominent citizens. It is

said that General Poe was descended from one of Cromwell's officers,

who received grants of land in Ireland. One of the poet's ancestors,

John Poe, emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania; and from there the

Poes went to Maryland. General Poe was an ardent patriot both before

and during the Revolution.

General Poe's son David, the eldest, was not much like his father. In

Baltimore he enjoyed himself with his friends and played at amateur

theatricals with the Thespian Club. He was supposed to be studying

law. For this purpose he went to live with an uncle in Augusta,

Georgia; but his father soon heard that he had given up law to become

an actor. General Poe was very angry and after that allowed the young

man to shift for himself.

Edgar Allan Poe's mother was an English actress, whose mother had also

been an actress. She was born at sea, and as she went with her mother

on her travels from town to town, naturally the daughter learned the

mother's art as a means of self-support, and in time became very

successful.

At seventeen, her mother having married again, Elizabeth Arnold, for

that was her name, was thrown upon her own resources. She joined a

Philadelphia company, and remained with it for the next four years. In

June, 1802, she acted in Baltimore, and perhaps it was there that

David Poe, Jr., first saw her. She was pretty and gay, yet a good girl

and a very fine actress.

She soon married a young Mr. Hopkins, who had been playing with the

company, and for the following two years the young couple lived in

Virginia. It was then that David Poe, Jr., having left his uncle's

home at Augusta and gone on the stage in Charleston, joined the same

company. He was not a very good actor; and he never rose to a high

place in his profession.

In the following year Mr. Hopkins died, and a few months later young

David Poe married Mrs. Hopkins, who had been Elizabeth Arnold.

Mr. and Mrs. David Poe were now husband and wife, and very poor, as

most actors are. Soon after their marriage they went to Boston, and

remained for some years. There Edgar Poe, their second son, was born,

January 19, 1809.

While Edgar was still a little child his parents went to Richmond,

Virginia, to fill an engagement in the theater there. Misfortune

followed them. His father died in poverty, and his mother did not

survive him long. Edgar and his brother and sister were thus left

penniless orphans. But good friends took care of them.

Edgar was adopted by a Mrs. Allan, the wife of a wealthy man in the

city of Richmond. She was very fond of the bright little boy, and as

long as she lived he had a good home. He was petted and spoiled; but

those were almost the only years of his life when he had plenty of

money. He was very fond of his adoptive mother, and held her memory

dear to the day of his death. He was now known as Edgar Allan.

CHAPTER III

YOUNG EDGAR ALLAN

Edgar was a beautiful child, with dark eyes, curly dark hair, and

lively manners. At six he could read, draw, and dance. After dessert,

sometimes they would put him up on the old-fashioned table, where he

would make amusement for the company. He could speak pieces, too, and

did it so well that people were astonished. He understood how to

emphasize his words correctly. He had a pony and dogs, with which he

ran about; and everywhere he was a great favorite.

In June, 1815, when Edgar was about six years old, his adoptive father

and mother, with an aunt, went to England to stay several years.

Before starting, Mr. Allan bought a Murray's reader, two Murray's

spelling books, and another book to keep the little fellow busy on the

long sailing voyage across the Atlantic; for at that time a trip to

England occupied several weeks instead of a few days as now. When the

family reached London and were settled down, Edgar was sent to a

famous English school.

This school was at Stoke Newington, a quiet, old-fashioned country

town, only a few miles out from London. Here was the house of

Leicester, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth, whose story you may read

in Scott's "Kenilworth"; and here too was the house of Anne Boleyn's

ill-fated lover, Earl Percy.

The Manor House School, as it was called, was in a quaint and very old

building, with high walls about the grounds, and great spiked,

iron-studded gates. Here the boys lived and studied, seldom returning

home, and seldom going outside the grounds, except when they went with

a teacher.

In this strange school, Edgar Allan lived and studied for five years.

The schoolroom was long, narrow, and low; it was ceiled with dark oak,

and had Gothic windows. The desks were black and irregular, covered

with the names and initials which the boys had cut with their

jackknives. In the corners were what might be called boxes, where sat

the masters--one of them Eugene Aram, the criminal made famous in one

of Bulwer's romances. Back of the schoolroom, reached by winding,

narrow passages, were the bedrooms, one of which Poe occupied. When

the boys went out to walk they passed under the giant elms, amid which

once lived Shakespeare's friend Essex, and they gazed up at the thick

walls, deep windows, and doors massive with locks and bars, behind

which the author of Robinson Crusoe wrote some of his famous works.

Within the walls of this school a large number of boys had a little

world all to themselves; they had their societies and their games and

their tricks, along with hard work in Latin and French and

mathematics; and though such work may seem monotonous and dreary, they

managed to enjoy it. Poe has described his life here very carefully in

his famous story of "William Wilson." "Oh, a fine time were those

years of iron!" says he. The life produced a deep impression on his

mind, and molded it for the strange, weird poetry and fiction which in

later years he was to write.

At last, in 1820, the Allans returned with Edgar to their home in

Richmond, Virginia. The lad now added his own name to that of Edgar

Allan, and became known as Edgar Allan Poe.

He was at once sent to the English and Classical School of Joseph H.

Clarke, where he prepared for college. He did not study very hard, but

was bright and quick, and at one time stood at the head of his class

with but one rival. He was a great athlete, too, being a good runner

and jumper and boxer. He was a remarkable swimmer, and it is stated

that he once swam six miles in the James River, against a strong tide

in a hot sun, and then walked back without seeming in the least tired.

He was slight in figure, but robust and tough, and was a very decided

character among his classmates. He took part in the debating society,

where he was prominent, and was known as a versifier of both love

poems and satire. When Master Clarke retired, in 1823, Poe read an

English ode addressed to the outgoing principal.

One of his friends said of him at this time that he was "self-willed,

capricious, inclined to be imperious, and though of generous impulses,

not steadily kind, nor even amiable." Part of this temper on his part

may have come from the fact that the aristocratic boys of the school

hinted that his father and mother had not been of the best people.

They knew, however, that Mr. Allan belonged to the best society; and

it was chiefly Edgar's imperious manners that made some of them shun

him. He had friends, however, and Mr. Allan gave him money liberally.

It was at this time that he found and lost his first sympathetic

friend.

This was Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard, the mother of one of his younger

schoolmates. When one day he went home with this friend, he met Mrs.

Stanard, a lovely, gentle, and gracious woman, was thrilled by the

tenderness of her tones and her sympathetic manner toward him, and

immediately made her his boyhood friend and confidante. To his great

grief, however, she died not very long afterward. When she was gone he

visited her grave time after time, and in after years when he was

unhappy he often thought and spoke of her.

CHAPTER IV

COLLEGE LIFE

Poe left the English and Classical School in March, 1825, and spent

the next few months in studying with a private tutor.

On the 14th of February, 1826, he wrote his name and the place and

date of his birth, in the matriculation book of the University of

Virginia, the famous college founded by Jefferson and opened about a

year before.

Poe is described at this time as short, thickset, bowlegged, with the

rapid and jerky gait of an English boy. His face, surrounded by dark

curly hair, wore a grave, half-melancholy look; but it would light up

expressively when he talked. He was a noted walker; and being the

adopted child of a rich man, he dressed well and carried himself

proudly. He studied Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian, and

stood well in his classes. At the end of the year he went home with

the highest honors in Latin and French.

Before the term closed, however, Mr. Allan went up to investigate some

stories of Poe's wildness that had reached him, and found that besides

other debts, Poe owed two thousand dollars in "debts of honor"--that

is, gambling debts. Mr. Allan paid all but the latter, and quietly

determined that as soon as the term closed, Poe's college life should

end.

Poe was, however, a studious and well-behaved young man in the opinion

of the professors, and he was never found guilty of any serious

misconduct. He was fond of wandering over the Ragged Mountains,

whither he went alone or with only a dog, and he delighted to fancy

that he was the very first white person to penetrate some lonely glen

or ravine.

He was also something of an artist, and decorated his rooms with

charcoal sketches. He and a classmate bought a volume of Byron with

steel engravings in it. The next time his friend went to see Poe he

found him copying one of these on the ceiling, and he continued this

until he had covered the whole of the walls with figures that were

said to be artistic and striking.

CHAPTER V

FORTUNE CHANGES

At the age of eighteen there came a change in Poe's life. Until then

he had been a petted child in a wealthy family. Mr. Allan did not have

that affection for him which Mrs. Allan had. He did not understand the

boy's peculiar and erratic nature, and was particularly displeased

when he found that Edgar had run into debt at college. There was an

angry scene between the two, and Edgar was told that he must leave the

university and go into the counting-room. It appears that he made some

attempt to tie himself down to figures and accounts and business

routine; but as he had not been brought up to this kind of life, he

soon tired of it, and decided to go into the world to seek his own

fortune. He went to Boston, where he published a volume of poetry.

In the preface to this volume, Poe says that the poems were written

before he was fourteen. Though this may not be strictly true, there is

little doubt that some of them were. While he was still at school he

had collected enough of his poems to make a volume, and Mr. Allan had

taken them up to the master of the English and Classical School to get

his advice about publishing them. This gentleman advised against it on

the ground that it would make Edgar conceited,--a fault from which he

was already suffering. As soon as he was free to do as he pleased,

therefore, it was natural that he should rewrite his poems and publish

them.

The volume was entitled "Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian."

It was published by a young printer named Calvin Thomas, and was a

thin little book, not very attractive in appearance. Several of the

pieces then published are now included in Poe's collected works, but

they have been greatly changed.

Naturally the poems of an obscure young man did not sell, and the

volume was soon suppressed--Poe says "for private reasons." The

"private reasons" were doubtless merely the fact that the book was a

complete failure, and the young, proud poet was much ashamed that he

could not sell even a dozen copies--possibly not even one.

The little money Poe had was now spent, and he was obliged to do

something to keep from starvation. The only chance he saw was to

enlist in the army. He did so under the name of Edgar A. Perry, and

the record of his service may be found in the War Department of our

government at Washington. He was assigned to Battery H, First

Artillery, and conducted himself so well that he was promoted from the

ranks to be sergeant-major. From Boston the company was sent to

Charleston, South Carolina, and a year later to Fortress Monroe,

Virginia.

From Fortress Monroe Poe wrote to Mr. Allan for the first time. He

soon afterwards learned of the illness of Mrs. Allan, who died

February 28, 1829. He got leave of absence to attend her funeral, and

went to Richmond.

Poe was such a bright young man that it seemed a pity for him to

remain in the ranks, when he might become an officer; therefore it was

suggested that he be sent to West Point. Mr. Allan agreed to help him;

but it is said that, after the death of Mrs. Allan, he no longer

entertained any affection for Edgar. In a letter to the Secretary of

War, he said: "Frankly, sir, I do declare that he is no relation to me

whatever; that I have many in whom I have taken an active interest to

promote theirs; with no other feeling than that, every man is my care,

if he be in distress. For myself I ask nothing, but I do request your

kindness to aid this youth in the promotion of his future prospects."

Poe did not like the life at West Point in the least, though he amused

his mates by writing satirical verses about the professors. After a

few months he asked to be discharged; but Mr. Allan would not consent.

So Poe made up his mind that he would have himself expelled. He stayed

away from parade, roll-call, and guard duty. As a court-martial was

then in session, he was summoned before it. He denied the most

flagrant charge against him; but this only made his case worse, and he

was expelled from the academy.

CHAPTER VI

LIVING BY LITERATURE

Once more the young poet found himself cast out on the world, without

home or friends. He could hope for nothing more from Mr. Allan, after

his disgrace at the military academy, and he had found out that army

life was not so fine a refuge from starvation as he had thought it. He

was a proud, melancholy young man, and in school and college had

learned many bad habits. He had no trade nor practical knowledge of

any kind of work, though he was quick and ingenious. He had studied

the art of writing, and this alone offered him the means of earning a

livelihood. How poor and precarious a chance it was, we shall see as

we go on.

While waiting for appointment to the Military Academy the preceding

year, Poe had made acquaintance with his father's relatives in

Baltimore. He formed some literary connections there, and had a volume

of his poems published. It was entitled "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and

Minor Poems, by Edgar A. Poe." "Al Aaraaf" was a poem about a star

that a great astronomer had seen blaze forth and then disappear.

When he left West Point in April, 1831, nearly two years after the

publication of his Baltimore volume, Poe was short of money; and to

supply his needs his fellow-students subscribed for a new edition of

his poems. For this, seventy-five cents was stopped out of the pay of

each, and a publisher in New York agreed to issue the book in good

style. The cadets thought his volume would contain the many funny

squibs he had written on the professors; but they were disappointed.

Poe next went to Baltimore. There he tried to get employment in vain.

Friends helped him, but it was some time before he made his first

literary success.

It happened at last that a weekly paper called the _Saturday Visiter_

was started in Baltimore. To give the paper popularity, two prizes

were offered, one of a hundred dollars for the best short story, and

the other of fifty for the best poem. Poe tried for both. He had six

short stories, which he copied in a neat little manuscript volume

entitled "Tales of the Folio Club." The poem he sent was "The

Coliseum."

The judges were well-known gentlemen of the city of Baltimore, one of

whom, John P. Kennedy, afterward became Poe's intimate friend. When

they met they looked over several stories, which did not interest them

very much. They then came to the "Tales of the Folio Club." One was

read aloud, and the three gentlemen were so much interested that they

kept on till they had read all, and at once decided to give the prize

to one of these. They chose Poe's famous story "A MS. Found in a

Bottle." Afterward they decided that his poem was the best submitted;

but noticing that it was in the same handwriting as the stories, they

thought it best to give the prize to another. When they made their

report they greatly complimented the stories Poe had sent in, and said

they should be published in a volume.

We have said that one of the judges, Mr. Kennedy, became Poe's friend.

To show how very poor Poe was, I copy this passage from Mr. Kennedy's

diary: "It was many years ago that I found Poe in Baltimore in a

state of starvation. I gave him clothing, free access to my table, and

the use of a horse for exercise whenever he chose; in fact, I brought

him up from the very verge of despair."

Here, too, is an extract from a letter from Poe to Mr. Kennedy:

"Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come

for reasons of the most humiliating nature--my personal appearance.

You may imagine my mortification in making this disclosure to you, but

it is necessary."

Mr. Kennedy did all that a friend could do for the future poet and

story-writer. Says Poe: "He has been at all times a true friend to

me--he was the first true friend I ever had--I am indebted to him for

_life itself_."

Poe now contributed regularly to the _Saturday Visiter,_ its young

editor, Lambert A. Wilmer, becoming his friend and constant companion.

It is said that at this time he dressed very neatly, though

inexpensively, "wore Byron collars and a black stock, and looked the

poet all over."

CHAPTER VII

POE'S EARLY POETRY

We have seen how persistently Poe clung to his poetry. Three times he

published the little volume of his verses, revising, enlarging, and

strengthening. In those days there was no market for poetic writing,

and as Poe wrote in a strange, weird style, it is not remarkable that

no one took any notice of the contents of his little volumes. It was

his own opinion, however, that these early poems contained more real

poetic imagination than his later successes, and it is perhaps as well

that we should begin our study of Poe with some of the first fruits of

his genius.

First let us read that most pathetic of autobiographical poems,

"Alone." With strange sincerity and directness the poet tells us how

his spirit grew and learned the burden of its melancholy, yet

scintillating song:

From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were,--I have not seen

As others saw,--I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then--in my childhood--in the dawn

Of a most stormy life was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,--

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by,--

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.

As a poem written in early youth we should not expect this to be as

perfect as "The Raven," for instance. Let us see if we can find some

of its faults, as well as some of its beauties:

First, we notice that it ends rather abruptly, as if it were

unfinished. In his essay on "The Poetic Principle" Poe pointed out

that many a poem fails of its effect by being too short. It must not

be so long that one is wearied out before it can be read through; at

the same time it must be long enough to convey the whole of the idea.

This poem of his own is an example of the fault he himself pointed

out. It is too short to give us clear ideas of all he evidently had in

his mind. We notice, also, that it is rhymed in couplets, that is,

every two lines are rhymed together. Now the couplets in the last half

of the poem seem to strike the ear with more satisfaction than those

in the first part. For instance, we are pleased with the sound of

these lines:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain.

But in some of the lines the pauses of punctuation do not come at the

right points to make smooth reading:

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, _I_ loved alone.

The semicolon after "sorrow" should have come at the end of the line

instead of in the middle. Poe had not yet learned the secret of the

rhythmic flow which we find in such perfection in "The Bells," for

instance.

But in the last part of the poem we find a beauty of image and

comparison that thrills us, and something of that strange, weird

suggestiveness which was characteristic of all of Poe's poetry, the

thing he has in common with no other poet.

This weird suggestiveness is found in still greater vividness in

another poem entitled "The Lake." In this, besides, we see how Poe had

a sort of fascination for the horrible. Notice how he says:

Yet that terror was not fright,

But a tremulous delight.

Here is the complete poem. The young student of poetry may study it

for himself, and discover, if he can, its shortcomings, as we have

pointed out the faults in the poem "Alone."

In spring of youth it was my lot

To haunt of the wide world a spot

The which I could not love the less,--

So lovely was the loveliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,

And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the night had thrown her pall

Upon that spot as upon all,

And the mystic wind went by

Murmuring in melody,--

Then,--ah, then I would awake

To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,

But a tremulous delight,--

A feeling not the jeweled mine

Could teach or bribe me to define,--

Nor Love--although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,

And its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring

To his lone imagining,--

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.

These poems are chiefly interesting as they give us some idea of the

nature of the young poet's mind. Poe had what may be called a

scientific mind, infused through and through with poetry. At times he

was exact, keen-minded, and patient as the scientist; then again he

wandered away into mere fanciful suggestion of things that "never were

on land or sea." His scientific turn we see in his detective stories;

his poetic nature we see struggling against this intellectual

exactness in the following sonnet:

Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou upon the poet's heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

CHAPTER VIII

POE'S CHILD WIFE

While Poe was in Baltimore, after he had begun to earn something by

his pen, he went to live with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm. She was very poor,

and whatever Poe earned went toward the support of the whole family,

which included not only Poe and his aunt, but her young daughter

Virginia, at this time only eleven years of age.

Virginia was an exceedingly delicate and beautiful girl. She had dark

hair and eyes, and a fine, transparent complexion. She was very modest

and quiet; but she had a fine mind, and a very sweet and winning

manner. She had also a poetic nature, and became an accomplished

musician.

Mrs. Clemm, on the other hand, was a large, coarsely formed woman, and

it seemed impossible that she could be the mother of so delicate and

graceful a girl. She was very faithful and hardworking, however, and

sincerely devoted to Poe as well as to her daughter. She had the

business ability to manage Poe's small income in the best way, and

made for him a home that would have been extremely happy had it not

been for poverty and other misfortunes.

While Poe lived in Baltimore he would go out to walk nearly every day

with the editor of the _Saturday Visiter_; but he sometimes walked

alone or with Virginia.

After a time the young poet and story-writer decided to go to

Richmond, his early home. He had many friends there, who welcomed him

back, and a good position was offered him. The _Southern Literary

Messenger_ had been started by a Mr. White, and Poe was made assistant

editor.

He had become very much attached to Mrs. Clemm and Virginia while in

Baltimore, and now wished to marry Virginia. She was but fourteen

years of age,--indeed, not quite fourteen,--and Mrs. Clemm's friends

thought the girl too young to marry. But Poe gained the mother's

consent, and he and Virginia were united in May, 1836.

Virginia was Poe's ideal of womanhood, and we find her figuring as the

model for nearly all the heroines of his poems. In a letter after the

death of both Virginia and her poet husband, Mrs. Clemm wrote, "She

was an excellent linguist and a perfect musician, and she was very

beautiful. How often has Eddie said, 'I see no one so beautiful as my

sweet little wife.'" Poe undertook her education as soon as they were

married, and was very proud of her brilliant accomplishments.

As she was the source of his greatest happiness, her loss was the

occasion of his greatest sorrow. A year after their marriage she burst

a blood vessel while singing. The following extract from a letter of

Poe's to a friend will explain how this misfortune affected him.

"You say," he writes, "'Can you hint to me what was the terrible evil

which caused the irregularities so profoundly lamented?' Yes, I can do

more than hint. This 'evil' was the greatest which can befall a man.

Six years ago, a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved before,

ruptured a blood vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. 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 blood

vessel broke again. 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 her

disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more

desperate pertinacity."

Virginia gradually grew worse and finally died at their home at

Fordham, near New York. After this sad event Poe wrote a poem which is

a sort of requiem for her death. It was not published during his life,

but after his death it appeared in the _New York Tribune_. Immediately

it took rank as one of the three greatest poems Poe ever wrote. It is

long enough to be complete, it has none of those metrical

imperfections found in his earlier poems, and it possesses in a

wonderful degree that haunting thrill so characteristic of all the

best things Poe wrote. Moreover, it has a musical flow surpassing any

other of Poe's poems except "The Bells," and in some respects it is

even more pleasing to the ear when read aloud than is "The Bells."

ANNABEL LEE.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

_I_ was a child and _she_ was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea:

But we loved with a love that was more than love,--

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulcher

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me,--

Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we,--

Of many far wiser than we;

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,

In the sepulcher there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

CHAPTER IX

POE'S LITERARY HISTORY

As assistant editor of the _Southern Literary Messenger_, Poe achieved

great literary success. In this paper he began those spirited

criticisms of the writers of the day, which attracted attention

everywhere. He also published numerous stories. Poetry was almost

completely abandoned for prose.

The circulation of the magazine increased by the thousands, and there

could be no doubt that its success was due chiefly to Poe. At first

his salary was ten dollars a week; later, it was raised to fifteen

dollars, and was to have been raised to twenty, but Poe suddenly

resigned his position. Precisely why he did this is not known.

Experiences similar to that with the _Southern Literary Messenger_

were repeated many times afterward, during his literary career. Just

as he was getting well settled at his work, he would have some

difficulty with the proprietor, or commit some indiscretion, and then

he must find some other place. In those days, when a great New York

daily paper like Bryant's _Evening Post_ could be bought for from

$5,000 to $10,000, there was not much money to be made in publishing

or in literature. To make money, Poe should have been a business man,

and he was not so in any sense. Many another literary man, even in our

own times, has had similar misfortunes, even without those faults of

character and that fatality for falling out with everything and

everybody which distinguished Poe.

From Richmond, Poe went with his family to New York, where Mrs. Clemm

supported the household by keeping boarders. Poe himself spent the

winter chiefly in writing "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," a tale

of the sea, which was first published by Messrs. Harper and Brothers.

From New York he went to Philadelphia, where he wrote various magazine

articles and stories, and did part of the work of preparing a school

textbook on "Conchology." He soon became associate editor of _The

Gentleman's Magazine_ with its proprietor Burton. The following year,

1840, his first volume of stories was published, under the title,

"Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque." The volume was not a popular

success. An edition of seven hundred and fifty copies was barely

disposed of, and all that Poe received was twenty copies for

distribution among his friends.

His connection with Burton's magazine did not last above a year.

Burton had been a comic actor, and offered prizes which Poe says he

never intended to pay. Poe's remarks on this transaction caused the

rupture.

Poe had already been thinking about starting a periodical of his own,

and now he sent out the prospectus of _The Penn Magazine_. To found a

magazine which should be better and higher in literary art than any

other in America was his lifelong ambition. He tried again and again

to do this, first with _The Penn Magazine_, and later with a

periodical to be called _The Stylus_. He never succeeded, however.

George R. Graham, proprietor of the _Saturday Evening Post_, now

bought _The Gentleman's Magazine_, united it with a periodical of his

own called _The Casket_, and named the new venture _Graham's

Magazine_. Of this Poe soon became the editor.

After Poe's death, Mr. Graham published an article in which he said

that, while he was in Philadelphia, Poe seemed to think only of the

happiness and welfare of his family. There were but two things for

which he cared to have money--to give them comforts and to start a

magazine of his own. He never spent any money on himself. Everything

was intrusted to Mrs. Clemm, who managed all his household affairs.

His love for his wife was a sort of rapturous worship of the spirit of

beauty, which he felt was fading before his eyes. "I have seen him,"

says Mr. Graham, "hovering around her when she was ill, with all the

fond fear and tender anxiety of a mother for her first-born--her

slightest cough causing him a shudder, a heart chill, that was

visible. I rode out one summer evening with them, and the remembrance

of his watchful eyes, eagerly bent upon the slightest change of hue in

that loved face, haunts me yet as the memory of a sad strain. It was

this hourly anticipation of her loss which made him a sad and

thoughtful man, and lent a mournful melody to his undying song."

At last he left Philadelphia and returned to New York, where he

remained for the rest of his life. This is the childlike way he writes

to his mother-in-law concerning the journey:

"My Dear Muddy,

"We have just this minute done breakfast, and I now sit down to write

you about everything. * * * In the first place, we arrived safe at

Walnut St. wharf. The driver wanted to make me pay a dollar, but I

wouldn't. Then I had to pay a boy a levy to put the trunks in the

baggage car.

"In the meantime I took Sis [Virginia] in the Depot Hotel. * * * We

went in the cars to Amboy, * * * and then took the steamboat the rest

of the way. Sissy coughed none at all. I left her on board the boat. *

* * Then I went up Greenwich St. and soon found a boarding house. * *

* I made a bargain in a few minutes and then got a hack and went for

Sis. * * * When we got to the house we had to wait about half an hour

before the room was ready. The house is old and looks buggy, * * * the

cheapest board I ever knew, taking into consideration the central

situation and the _living_. I wish Kate [Catterina, the cat] could see

it--she would faint."

They had a little cottage at Fordham, in the country just out of New

York. It was a very humble place, but the scenery about it was

beautiful. Poe himself became ill, and his dear Virginia was dying of

consumption. They were so poor that friends had to help them. One of

these friends wrote:

"There was no clothing on the bed, which was only straw, but a

snow-white counterpane and sheets. The weather was cold and the sick

lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of

consumption. She lay on the bed wrapped in her husband's great-coat,

with a large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom."

On one Saturday in January, 1847, Virginia died. Her husband, wrapped

in the military cloak that had once covered her, followed the body to

the tomb in the family vault of the Valentines, relatives of the

family.

CHAPTER X

POE AS A STORY-WRITER

Next to "The Raven," Poe's most famous work is that fascinating story,

"The Gold-Bug," perhaps the best detective story that was ever

written, for it is based on logical principles which are instructive

as well as interesting. Poe's powerful mind was always analyzing and

inventing. It is these inventions and discoveries of his which make

him famous.

The story of the gold-bug is that of a man who finds a piece of

parchment on which is a secret writing telling where Captain Kidd hid

his treasure off the coast of South Carolina. The gold-beetle has

nothing whatever to do with the real story, and is only introduced to

mystify. It is one of the principles of all conjuring tricks to have

something to divert the attention. Poe's detective story is a sort of

conjuring trick, but it is all the more interesting because he fully

explains it.

Cryptographs are systems of secret writing. The letter _e_ is

represented by some strange character, perhaps the figure 8. In "The

Gold-Bug" _t_ is a semicolon and _h_ is 4, so that; 48 means _the_.

Sometimes the letter _e_ is represented by several signs, any one of

which the writer may use; and perhaps the word _the_, which occurs so

often, is represented by a single character, like _x_. Often, too, the

words are run together, so that at first sight you cannot tell where

one word begins and another ends.

Solving a cryptograph is like doing a mathematical problem, and Poe

was very clever at it.

He published a series of articles on "Cryptography" or systems of

secret writing, in _Alexander's Weekly Messenger_, and challenged any

reader to send in a cipher which he could not translate into ordinary

language. Hundreds were sent to him, and he solved them all, though it

took up a great deal of his time.

In the same line with this was another feat of his. Dickens's story,

"Barnaby Rudge," was coming out in parts from week to week, as a

serial publication. From the first chapters Poe calculated what the

outcome of the plot would be, and published it in the _Saturday

Evening Post_. He guessed the story so accurately that Dickens was

greatly surprised and asked him if he were the devil.

Again at a later date Poe wrote a remarkable story, "The Mystery of

Marie Roget." A young girl had been murdered in New York. The

newspapers were full of accounts of the crime, but the police could

get no clew to the murderers. In Poe's story he wrote out exactly what

happened on the night of the murder, and explained the whole thing, as

if he were an expert detective. Afterward, by the confessions of two

of the participants, it was proved that his solution of the mystery

was almost exactly the truth.

"The Gold-Bug" was not published until sometime later, but it was as

editor of _Graham's Magazine_ that Poe first became known as a writer

of detective stories. One of the most famous is "The Murders of the

Rue Morgue." It is an imaginary story, but none the less interesting.

A murder was committed in Paris by an orang-outang, which had climbed

in at a window and then closed the window behind it. The police could

find no clew; but the hero of Poe's story follows the facts out by a

number of clever observations of small facts.

"The Gold-Bug" seems to have been written in 1842 for Poe's projected

magazine, _The Stylus_. F.O.C. Darley, the well-known artist, was to

draw pictures for it at seven dollars each. Poe himself took to him

the manuscript of "The Gold-Bug" and that of "The Black Cat."

As this magazine was never published, the story of "The Gold-Bug" was

sent to Graham some time after Poe had left him; but he did not like

it, and made some criticisms upon it. Poe got it back from Graham in

order to submit it for a prize of $100 offered by _The Dollar

Newspaper_. It won the prize, and became Poe's most popular story.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI

HOW "THE RAVEN" WAS WRITTEN

"The Raven" was published in New York just two years before Mrs. Poe

died; it instantly made its author famous, although it brought him

little or no money. It is said that he was paid only ten dollars for

the poem; but as soon as it appeared it was the talk of the

nation,--being copied into almost every newspaper. Poe had written

and published many other poems, but none of them had attracted much

attention.

We have spoken of Poe as a story-writer, and now in "The Raven" we see

him a great poet.

It is not unusual to think of poetry as the work of inspiration or

genius; but how it is written, nobody knows. Poe maintained that

literary art is something that can be studied and learned. To

illustrate this he told how he wrote "The Raven." Some people

considered this a sort of joke; but it was not. When Poe began to

write, his work was not at all good; as years went on, he learned by

patient practice to write well. It was more than anything else this

long course of training that made him so great.

The essay in which he tells how he wrote "The Raven," begins by saying

that when he thought of writing it he decided that it must not be too

long nor too short. It must be short enough so that one could read it

through at a sitting; but also it must be long enough to express fully

the idea which he had in mind.

Then, it must be beautiful. All true poetry is about beauty. It

doesn't teach anything useful, or analyze anything, but it simply

makes the reader feel a certain effect. When you read "The Raven" you

hardly know what the poet is saying; but you feel the ghostly scene,

and it makes you shudder; and there is a strange fascination about it

that makes you like it, even if it is horrible.

He goes on to say that he decided to have a refrain at the end of each

stanza, the single word "Nevermore." At first he thought he would have

a parrot utter it; but a raven can talk as well as a parrot, and is

more picturesque. The most striking subject he could think of was the

death of a beautiful woman--this he felt to be so because of his own

impressions concerning the approaching death of his sweet wife.

Besides this, Poe said that poetry and music are much alike, and he

tried to have his poem produce the effect of solemn music. All his

best poetry is very much like music.

With these materials at his command, he now turned his attention to

the construction of the poem. He would ask questions, and the raven

would always reply by croaking "Nevermore." As an answer to some

questions, this would sound very terrible. Says he: "I first

established in my mind the climax, or concluding query,--that query in

reply to which the word 'nevermore' should involve the utmost

conceivable amount of sorrow and despair. Here, then, the poem may be

said to have its beginning--at the end, where all works of art should

begin--for it was here, at this point of my preconsiderations, that I

first put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza:--

"'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!

By the heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore!--

Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore,--

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.'

Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"

This principle of beginning at the end or climax to write a poem or

story was one so important that Poe insisted on it at great length. In

the "Murders in the Rue Morgue" the author necessarily began at the

end, imagined the solution of the mystery, and gradually worked back

to the beginning, bringing in his detective after everything had been

carefully constructed for him, though to the ordinary reader of the

story it seems as if the detective came to a real mystery.

It may be observed that all of Poe's stories and poems are built up

about some principle of the mind. They illustrate how the mind works.

After the principle is stated the illustration is given.

Can anything be more important and interesting than to know how the

mind thinks, how it is inspired with terror or love or a sense of

beauty? If you know just how the mind of a man works in regard to

these things, you can yourself create the conditions which will make

others laugh or cry, be filled with horror, or overflow with a sense

of divine holiness. Ordinary story-tellers and ordinary poets write

poems or stories that are pretty and amusing; but it is only a master

like Poe who writes to illustrate and explain some great principle.

His stories teach us how we may go about producing similar effects in

the affairs of life. We wish success in business, in society, in

politics. To gain it we must make people think and feel as we think

and feel. To do that we must understand the principles on which men's

minds work, and no poet or writer analyzed and illustrated those

principles so clearly as Poe.

CHAPTER XII

MUSIC AND POETRY

Poe always maintained that music and poetry are very near of kin, and

in nearly all his greatest poems he seems to write in such a way as to

produce the impression of music. As you read his verses you seem to

hear a musical accompaniment to the words, which runs through the very

sounds of the words themselves.

Poe explained that poetry and music are alike in that both obey

absolute laws of time, and that the laws of time or rhythm in poetry

are just as exact as the laws of time in music. He wrote an essay

entitled "The Rationale of Verse," in which he demonstrated that all

the rules for scanning poetry are defective. Every one knows that the

ordinary rules for meter have numerous exceptions, but that if the

rules were exact in the first place, there would be no exceptions.

Perhaps you know something about musical notes. If so, a simple

illustration will show you what "feet" in poetry are. You have perhaps

been taught that a "foot" in verse is an accented syllable with one or

more unaccented syllables, and you scan poetry by marking all the

accented syllables. In Latin, poetry was scanned by marking long

vowels and short. Let us scan the first two lines of "The Raven":

"Ónce up | ón a mídnight | dréary, || whíle I | póndered

| wéak and | wéary,

Óver | mány a | quáint and | cúrious | vólume | óf

for | gótten | lóre."

Observe that most of the feet have two syllables each, while two have

three. But if you read the lines in a natural tone you will see that

you give just as much time to one foot as to another, and where there

are three syllables they are short and can be pronounced quickly. Some

syllables take more time to pronounce than other syllables; and to

accent a syllable simply means to give it more time in pronouncing. In

music, time is accurately represented by notes, and a bar of music

always contains exactly the same amount of time, no matter how it is

divided by the notes; for if you wish, in place of a half note you can

use two quarter notes, or in place of a quarter note you can use two

eighth notes. Represented in music, our lines will be as follows:

[Illustration: (music) Once up on a midnight dreary, as I pondered,

weak and weary, O-ver man-y a quaint and cur-i--ous vol-ume of for-

got-ten lore.]

We see this still further illustrated in a poem of Tennyson's, where a

foot consists of but one long syllable, thus:

[Illustration: (music) Break, break, break, On thy cold grey stones, O

sea!]

One of Poe's greatest poems, "The Bells," was written for the express

purpose of imitating music in verse. The story of how it was first

written is as follows:

Poe went one Sunday morning to call on a lady friend of his, Mrs.

Shaw, who was something of a physician and had been very kind to his

wife. It was a bright morning, and the church bells were ringing. For

all that, Poe felt moody, and the church bells seemed to jangle.

"I must write a poem," said he, "and I haven't an idea in my head. For

some reason the bells seem frightfully out of tune this morning, and

nearly drive me distracted."

After he had been chatting with Mrs. Shaw for some time, he evidently

felt in better mood, and the sound of the bells grew more musical; or

perhaps their actual sound had stopped and his imagination suggested

bells that were indeed musical.

As he kept on complaining about his inability to write a poem, Mrs.

Shaw placed pen and ink and paper before him, first writing at the top

of a sheet the title, "The Bells, by E. A. Poe." Underneath she wrote,

"The bells, the little silver bells." Poe caught the idea, and

immediately wrote the first draft of the following stanza. According

to his habit he rewrote this poem many, many times. The original

stanza began with the words Mrs. Shaw had written. Here are the verses

as they may now be read in Poe's works:

Hear the sledges with the bells--

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that oversprinkle

All the heaven, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells,--

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Mrs. Shaw then wrote the words, "The heavy iron bells." Poe

immediately completed the stanza which now reads:

Hear the tolling of the bells,--

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people--ah, the people--

They that dwell up in the steeple,

All alone,

And who tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone!

They are neither man nor woman,--

They are neither brute nor human,--

They are Ghouls;

And their king it is who tolls,--

And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls a paean from the bells!

And his merry bosom swells

With the paean of the bells!

And he dances, and he yells,

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the paean of the bells,

Of the bells.

The other stanzas were written afterward. There is music in these

words; but do not think that the music is all. Underneath is the deep

harmony of human suggestion, as in the lines,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone.

Now let us see if we can represent by musical notes the meter in which

this poem is written. We must remember that a punctuation mark at the

end of a line often makes a complete pause, which is represented in

music by a rest. In music a rest has the same effect in completing a

bar as the corresponding note. Here are the first two lines:

[Illustration: (music) Hear the sledg-es with the bells, Sil-ver

bells!]

In the two following lines the commas in the middle of the line stand

for rests, like the punctuation at the end of the first line; or if we

wish we can make the words "time, time, time," three longer notes. It

all depends on how we pronounce them:

[Illustration: (music) Keep--ing time, time, time, in a sort of Ru-nic

rhyme.]

CHAPTER XIII

POE'S LATER YEARS

Poe had the hardest time of his life when he was at New York, living

in that little cottage at Fordham, where his poor wife died. He was

always borrowing money, from sheer necessity, to keep himself and his

wife from starvation. Once while in New York he was so hard pressed

that Mrs. Clemm went out to see if she could not get work for him. She

went to the office of Nathaniel P. Willis, who was the editor and

proprietor of _The Mirror_. Willis was then starting _The Evening

Mirror_, and said he would give Poe work. So the poet came; he had

his little desk in the corner, and did his work meekly and

regularly,--poor hack work for which he was paid very little.

Later he had an interest in a paper called _The Broadway Journal_.

When it was about to cease publication Poe bought it himself for fifty

dollars, giving a note which Horace Greeley endorsed and finally paid.

Once a young man wrote to Greeley, saying, "Doubtless among your

papers you have many autographs of the poet, Edgar Allan Poe," and

intimated that he should like to have one of them. Greeley wrote back

that he had just one autograph of Poe among his papers; it was

attached to a note for fifty dollars, and Greeley's own signature was

across the back. The young man might have it for just half its face

value.

But after Poe bought _The Broadway Journal_ he had no money to carry

it on, and its publication was soon suspended.

He earned his livelihood mainly by writing stories or articles for

various magazines and papers, which paid him from $5 to $50 each. It

was a hand to mouth way of living, for he was often, often

disappointed.

In 1845, a volume entitled, "Tales. By Edgar A. Poe," was published by

Wiley and Putnam, and in the same year "The Raven and Other Poems"

appeared in book form from the same publishing house. Poe also

delivered lectures, and by way of criticism carried on what was called

the "Longfellow War." Though he considered Longfellow the greatest

American poet, he accused him of plagiarism, or stealing some of his

ideas, which was very unjust on the part of Poe. Hawthorne and Lowell

he praised highly.

After the death of his wife, Poe was very melancholy. He went to

lecture, and to visit friends in Providence, Rhode Island, and in

Lowell, Massachusetts, and afterward went south to Richmond, where he

planned to raise enough money by lecturing to start _The Stylus_.

He was hospitably entertained in Richmond, and became engaged to marry

his boyhood's first love, Miss Royster, now the widow, Mrs. Shelton.

Their marriage was to take place at once, and Poe started north to

close up his business in New York and bring Mrs. Clemm south. In

Baltimore it seems that he fell in with some politicians who were

conducting an election. They took him about from one polling place to

another to vote illegally; then some one drugged him, and left him on

a bench near a saloon. Here he was found by a printer, who notified

his friends, and they sent him to the hospital, where he died on the

7th of October, 1849. He was nearly forty-one years old.

Poe had a great and wonderful mind. In the latter part of his life he

gave much of his time to a book called "Eureka," which was intended to

explain the meaning of the universe. Of course he was not a

philosopher; but he wrote some things in that book which were destined

afterward to be accepted by such great men as Darwin and Huxley and

many others.

His life was so full of work and poverty, so crossed and crossed again

by unhappiness and hardship, that he never had time or strength of

mind to think out anything as he would otherwise have done. All his

work is fragmentary, broken bits on this subject or on that. He wrote

very few poems, not many stories, and only a little serious criticism.

But a Frenchman will tell you that Poe, among American poets and

writers, is the greatest; his writings have been translated into

nearly every European language. In England, too, he is spoken of as

our one great poet and critic, our first great story-writer, the

inventor of the artistic short story.

Poor, unhappy Poe! After his death a monument was to have been erected

over his grave; but by a strange fatality it was destroyed before it

was finished. Twenty-five years later admiring friends placed over his

remains the first monument to an American poet. No such memorial was

needed, however, for American hearts will never cease to thrill at the

weird, beautiful music of "Annabel Lee," "The Bells," and "The Raven."

THE STORY OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

[Illustration: _JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL_.]

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

CHAPTER I

ELMWOOD

James Russell Lowell was born on the 22d of February, 1819, in

Cambridge, Massachusetts. Elmwood, the home of the Lowells, was to the

west of the village of Cambridge, quite near Mount Auburn cemetery.

When James Russell was a boy, Elmwood was practically in the country,

and was surrounded on nearly all sides by woods, meadows, and

pastures. The house stood on a triangular piece of land surrounded by

a very high and thick hedge, made up of all sorts of trees and shrubs,

such as pines, spruces, willows, and oaks, with smaller shrubs at the

bottom so as to form a thick wall of green. In front of the house were

some fine English elms, quite different from the American variety,

and from these the house got its name. It was a large, square,

old-fashioned wooden house, and though it had stood for over a hundred

years, it remained during Lowell's life in perfect condition.

The house was surrounded by a fine, well-kept lawn, and at the back

were pasture, orchard, and garden, while half a mile away lay Fresh

Pond, the haunt of herons and other shy birds and land creatures. From

the upper windows one could look out on beautiful Mount Auburn

cemetery, which was to the south, while to the east was a low hill

called Symonds's Hill, beyond which could be seen a bright stretch of

the Charles River.

Elmwood faced on a lane, between two roads. In his essay in "Fireside

Travels," entitled "Cambridge Thirty Years Ago," Lowell describes the

scene towards the village as it was in his childhood. Approaching

"from the west, by what was then called the New Road (it is called so

no longer, for we change our names whenever we can, to the great

detriment of all historical association), you would pause on the brow

of Symonds's Hill to enjoy a view singularly soothing and placid.

In front of you lay the town, tufted with elms, lindens, and

horse-chestnuts.... Over it rose the noisy belfry of the college, the

square brown tower of the church, and the slim yellow spire of the parish

meeting-house, by no means ungraceful, and then an invariable

characteristic of New England religious architecture. On your right

the Charles slipped smoothly through green and purple salt meadows,

darkened here and there with the blossoming black grass as with a

stranded cloud-shadow. Over these marshes, level as water but without

its glare, and with softer and more soothing gradations of

perspective, the eye was carried to a horizon of softly rounded hills.

To your left upon the Old Road you saw some half dozen dignified old

houses of the colonial time, all comfortably fronting southward." One

of these, the largest and most stately, was the Craigie House, famous

as the headquarters of Washington in 1776, and afterwards as the home

of Longfellow. And at the end of the New Road toward Cambridge was a

row of six fine willows, which had remained from the stockade built in

early days as a defense against the Indians.

And here is Harvard Square, where stand the buildings of the famous

college:

"A few houses, chiefly old, stood around the bare Common, with ample

elbow-room, and old women, capped and spectacled, still peered through

the same windows from which they had watched Lord Percy's artillery

rumble by to Lexington, or caught a glimpse of the handsome Virginia

general who had come to wield our homespun Saxon chivalry. People

still lived who regretted the unhappy separation from the mother

island. . . The hooks were to be seen from which swung the hammocks of

Burgoyne's captive redcoats. If memory does not deceive me, women

still washed clothes in the town spring, clear as that of Bandusia.

Commencement had not ceased to be the great holiday of the Puritan

Commonwealth, and a fitting one it was--the festival of Santa

Scholastica, whose triumphal path one may conceive strewn with leaves

of spelling-books instead of bay."

James was the youngest of four brothers and two sisters, a handsome

boy, and his mother's darling. He always thought he inherited his love

of nature and poetic aspirations from her, whose family was from the

Orkneys--those islands at the extreme north of Scotland.

His father was a strikingly handsome man, gracious and of rare

personal qualities, and a faithful pastor over his flock. Often he

took his youngest son on long drives with him, when he went to

exchange pulpits with neighboring clergymen. Because of his wide

family connection, and his father's position, James saw not a little

of New England society as it was in those days, pure Yankee through

and through.

CHAPTER II

AN IMPETUOUS YOUNG MAN

Young James was sent first to a dame school, as a private school for

very small children kept by a lady in her own house was called in

those days. But when he was eight or nine he was sent to a boarding

school near Elmwood--going, of course, only as a day scholar. This

school was kept by an Englishman named Wells, who had belonged to a

publishing firm in Boston which had failed. This teacher was very sharp

and severe, but he made all his boys learn Latin, as you may see by

reading the learned notes and introductions to the "Biglow Papers,"

supposed to have been written by "Parson Wilbur," but in reality by Lowell

himself.

We sometimes find it difficult to believe that a great man whom we

admire was ever an ordinary human being, with faults and errors like

our own. But when we do find natural, childish letters, or read

anecdotes of youthful naughtiness, we immediately feel like shaking

hands with the scapegrace, and a real liking for him begins.

Lowell was so reserved in after life, and so very correct and elegant

both in his writing and in his deportment, that when we come across

two letters written at about nine years of age, badly punctuated and

badly spelled, but displaying all the natural spirits of a boy, we

begin at once to feel at home with him and to have a genuine affection

for the man we had before only admired as a very great and learned

author. Here are the two letters just as they were written. It will be

a good exercise for you to rewrite them, correcting the spelling,

punctuation, and other faults.

Jan. 25, 1827.

My dear brother The dog and the colt went down to-day with our boy for

me and the colt went before and then the horse and slay and dog--I

went to a party and I danced a great deal and was very happy--I read

french stories--The colt plays very much--and follows the horse when

it is out. Your affectionate brother,

James R. Lowell.

I forgot to tell you that sister mary has not given me any present but

I have got three books

Nov. 2, 1828.

My Dear Brother,--I am now going to tell you melancholy news. I have

got the ague together with a gumbile. I presume you know that

September has got a lame leg, but he grows better every day and now is

very well but limps a little. We have a new scholar from round hill,

his name is Hooper and we expect another named Penn who I believe also

comes from there. The boys are all very well except Nemaise, who has

got another piece of glass in his leg and is waiting for the doctor to

take it out, and Samuel Storrow is also sick. I am going to have a new

suit of blue broadcloth clothes to wear every day and to play in.

Mother tells me I may have any sort of buttons I choose. I have not

done anything to the hut, but if you wish I will. I am now very happy;

but I should be more so if you were there. I hope you will answer my

letter if you do not I shall write you no more letters, when you write

my letters you must direct them all to me and not write half to mother

as generally do. Mother has given me the three volumes of tales of a

grandfather

farewell

Yours truly James R. Lowell.

You must excuse me for making so many mistakes. You must keep what I

have told you about my new clothes a secret if you don't I shall not

divulge any more secrets to you. I have got quite a library. The

Master has not taken his rattan out since the vacation. Your little

kitten is as well and as playful as ever and I hope you are to for I

am sure I love you as well as ever. Why is grass like a mouse you cant

guess that he he he ho ho ho ha ha ha hum hum hum.

Young Lowell's life was so very quiet and uneventful that we have very

little account of his boyhood and youth. We know, however, that he was

fond of books and was rather lazy, and did pretty much as he pleased.

A poem which in later years he dedicated to his friend Charles Eliot

Norton gives a very good picture of the life at Elmwood:

The wind is roistering out of doors,

My windows shake and my chimney roars;

My Elmwood chimneys seem crooning to me,

As of old, in their moody, minor key,

And out of the past the hoarse wind blows,

As I sit in my arm-chair and toast my toes.

"Ho! ho! nine-and-forty," they seem to sing,

"We saw you a little toddling thing.

We knew you child and youth and man,

A wonderful fellow to dream and plan,

With a great thing always to come,--who knows?

Well, well! 'tis some comfort to toast one's toes.

"How many times have you sat at gaze

Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze,

Shaping among the whimsical coals

Fancies and figures and shining goals!

What matters the ashes that cover those?

While hickory lasts you can toast your toes.

"O dream-ship builder! where are they all,

Your grand three-deckers, deep-chested and tall,

That should crush the waves under canvas piles,

And anchor at last by the Fortunate Isles?

There's gray in your beard, the years turn foes,

While you muse in your arm-chair and toast your toes."

I sit and dream that I hear, as of yore,

My Elmwood chimneys' deep-throated roar;

If much be gone, there is much remains;

By the embers of loss I count my gains,

You and yours with the best, till the old hope glows

In the fanciful flame as I toast my toes.

Lowell entered Harvard College when he was but fifteen years old, very

nearly the youngest man in his class. In those days the college was

small, there were few teachers, and only about fifty students in a

class.

CHAPTER III

COLLEGE AND THE MUSES

Soon after he entered college, young Lowell made the acquaintance of a

senior, W.H. Shackford, to whom many of his published letters of

college life are addressed. Another intimate friend was George Bailey

Loring, who afterward became distinguished in politics. To one or

other of these men he was constantly writing of his literary

ambitions, always uppermost in his mind.

Josiah Quincy was president of Harvard when Lowell was there, and

afterward Lowell wrote an essay on "A Great Public Character," which

describes this distinguished president. In it he refers to college

life in a way that shows he thoroughly enjoyed it.

"Almost every one," he writes, "looks back regretfully to the days of

some Consul Plancus. Never were eyes so bright, never had wine so much

wit and good-fellowship in it, never were we ourselves so capable of

the various great things we have never done.... This is especially

true of college life, when we first assume the titles without the

responsibilities of manhood, and the president of our year is apt to

become our Plancus very early."

In another of his essays he tells one of the standing college jokes,

which is worth repeating. The students would go into one of the

grocery stores of the town, whose proprietor was familiarly called

"The Deacon."

"Have you any sour apples, Deacon?" the first student to enter would

ask.

"Well, no, I haven't any just now that are exactly sour," he would

answer; "but there's the bellflower apple, and folks that like a sour

apple generally like that."

Enter the second student. "Have you any sweet apples, Deacon?"

"Well, no, I haven't any now that are exactly sweet; but there's the

bellflower apple, and folks that like a sweet apple generally like

that."

"There is not even a tradition of any one's ever having turned the

wary Deacon's flank," says

Lowell, "and his Laodicean apples persisted to the end, neither one

thing nor another."

It did not take young Lowell long to find out that he had a weakness

for poetry (as his seniors sometimes spoke of it). Writing to his

friend Loring, probably at the beginning of the Christmas vacation,

1836, he says, "Here I am alone in Bob's room with a blazing fire, in

an atmosphere of 'poesy' and soft coal smoke. Pope, Dante, a few of

the older English poets, Byron, and last, not least, some of my own

compositions, lie around me. Mark my modesty. I don't put myself in

the same line with the rest, you see.... Been quite 'grouty' all the

vacation, 'black as Erebus.' Discovered two points of very striking

resemblance between myself and Lord Byron; and if you will put me in

mind of it, I will propound next term, or in some other letter,

'Vanity, thy name is Lowell!'"

And again, in a letter to his mother, he says, "I am engaged in

several poetic effusions, one of which I dedicated to you, who have

always been the patron and encourager of my youthful muse.

If you wish to see me as much as I do you, I shall be satisfied."

This is Mrs. Lowell's answer to the last wish. She and Dr. Lowell were

then making a visit to Europe: "Babie Jamie: Your poetry was very

pleasing to me, and I am glad to have a letter, but not to remind me

of you, for you are seldom long out of my head.... Don't leave your

whistling, which used to cheer me so much. I frequently listen to it

here, though far from you." In later years Lowell would often tell how

he used to whistle as he came near home from school, in order to let

his mother know he was coming, and she seldom failed to be sitting at

her window to welcome him.

Early in 1837 Lowell was elected to the Hasty Pudding Club. "At the

very first meeting I attended," he writes to his friend, Shackford, "I

was chosen secretary, which is considered the most honorable office in

the club, as the records are kept in _verse (mind,_ I do not say

_poetry_). This first brought my rhyming powers into notice, and since

that I have been chosen to deliver the next anniversary poem by a vote

of twenty out of twenty-four."

Not long afterward he writes to his friend Loring, "I have written

about a hundred lines of my poem (?), and I suspect it is going to be

pretty good. At least, some parts of it will take." And after a few

lines he goes on, "I am as busy as a bee--almost. I study and read and

write all the time." A little later he writes a letter to Loring in

Scotch dialect verse.

This was not the sort of work, however, that the college authorities

expected of him. He was lazy and got behind his classes, so that near

the end of his course he was rusticated, or suspended from college for

some weeks. He had been chosen class poet, but on account of his

suspension he could not read his poem, though it was printed.

He was sent to Concord during this interval to carry on his studies

under the minister of the town. Here he found it pretty dull, though

Emerson and Thoreau were there. But he did not then care for either

one of them. In one of his letters he said, "I feel like a fool. I

must go down and see Emerson and if he doesn't make me feel more like

one, it won't be for want of sympathy. He is a good-natured man in

spite of his doctrines."

Of Thoreau he said, "I met (him) last night, and it is exquisitely

amusing to see how he imitates Emerson's tone and manner. With my eyes

shut I shouldn't know them apart."

In the autumn he came back to Cambridge and took his degree of

Bachelor of Arts with his class.

CHAPTER IV

HOW LOWELL STUDIED LAW

While at Concord, Lowell wrote to his friend Loring, as though

explaining himself.

"Everybody almost is calling me 'indolent.' 'Blind dependent on my own

powers' and 'on fate.' Confound everybody! since everybody confounds

me. Everybody seems to see but one side of my character, and that the

worst. As for my dependence on my own powers, 'tis all fudge. As for

fate, I believe that in every man's breast are the stars of his

fortune, which, if he choose, he may rule as easily as does the child

the mimic constellations in the orrery he plays with. I acknowledge,

too, that I have been something of a dreamer, and have sacrificed,

perchance, too assiduously on that altar to the 'unknown God,' which

the Divinity has builded not with hands in the bosom of every decent

man, sometimes blazing out clear with flame, like Abel's sacrifice,

heaven-seeking; sometimes smothered with greenwood and earthward, like

that of Cain. Lazy quota! I haven't dug, 'tis true, but I have done as

well, and 'since my free soul was mistress of her choice, and could of

books distinguish her election,' I have chosen what reading I pleased

and what friends I pleased, sometimes scholars and sometimes not."

Once out of college he had to take up some profession. Had poetry been

a profession, he would have taken that; but such a choice at that time

would have been considered sheer folly. He did not consider that he

had any "call" to be a minister, still less a doctor. As there was

nothing else left, he began the study of law. It is truly amusing to

see how he manages to "wriggle along" until he takes his degree of

LL.B. and is admitted to the bar.

First, he announces that he is "reading Blackstone with as good a

grace and as few wry faces as he may." Only a few days later he

declares, "A very great change has come o'er the spirit of my dreams.

I have renounced the law." He is going to be a business man, and sets

about looking for a place, in a store. He is going to give up all

thoughts of literary pursuits and devote himself to money-making. He

also says, "I have been thinking seriously of the ministry, but

then--I have also thought of medicine, but then--still worse!"

A few days pass by. He goes into Boston and hears Webster speak in a

case before the United States Court. "I had not been there an hour

before I determined to continue in my profession and study as well as

I could."

Still, it was hard work to keep at his law studies. He is soon writing

to his friend George Loring, "I sometimes think that I have it in me,

and shall one day do somewhat; meantime I am schooling myself and

shaping my theory of poesy."

Six weeks later: "I have written a great deal of _pottery_ lately. I

have quitted the law forever." Then he inquires if he can make any

money by lecturing at Andover. He already has an engagement to lecture

at Concord, where he has hopes to "astonish them a little."

A fortnight later we find him in a "miserable state. The more I think

of business the more really unhappy do I feel, and think more and more

of studying law." What he really wants to do all the time is to write

poetry. "I don't know how it is," he says, "but sometimes I actually

_need_ to write somewhat in verse." Sunday is his work day in the

"pottery business."

As for the law, it is settled at last. He writes to his friend,

"Rejoice with me, for to-morrow I shall be free. Without saying a word

to any one, I shall quietly proceed to Dane Law College to recitation.

Now shall I be happy again as far as that is concerned."

A fortnight later he declares, "I begin to like the law, and therefore

it is quite interesting. I am determined that I _will_ like it and

therefore I _do_."

In the summer of 1840 he completed his studies and was admitted to the

bar. A little later he opened an office in Boston. Misfortune had

overtaken his father, and his personal property had been nearly swept

away. It was now necessary for the young man to earn his own living.

His friends were therefore glad that he had his profession to depend

on.

CHAPTER V

LOVE AND LETTERS

Lowell always had a presentiment that he should never practice law. He

was always dreaming of becoming independent in some other way. "Above

all things," he declares, "should I love to sit down and do something

literary for the rest of my natural life."

He did not then think of marrying, and it does not require much to

support a single man. Though he opened a law office in Boston, it does

not appear that he did any business. He wrote a story entitled "My

First Client," but one of his biographers unkindly suggests that this

may have been purely imaginary.

All through his letters we see his ambitious yearning. "George," says

he in one place, "before I die your heart shall be gladdened by seeing

your wayward, vain, and too often selfish friend do something that

shall make his name honored. As Sheridan once said, 'It's _in_ me,

and' (we'll skip the oath) 'it shall come _out_!'"

His bachelor dreams were soon dissipated, however. He went to visit a

friend of his, W.A. White, and there met the young man's sister Maria.

He thought her a very pleasant and pleasing young lady, and he

discovered that she knew a great deal of poetry. She could repeat more

verse than any other one of his acquaintances, though he laments that

she was more familiar with modern poets than with the "pure

wellsprings of English poesy."

The friendship grew apace. In the same fall that he began the

pretended practice of law he became engaged to her, and she caused a

fresh and voluminous outpouring of verse. His productions were printed

in various periodicals, such as the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, to which

Longfellow had contributed, and the _Southern Literary Messenger_,

which Poe once edited.

Miss White was a most charming and interesting young lady. She was

herself a poet, and had a delicate intellectual sympathy that enabled

her to enter into her lover's ambitions, and assist him even in the

minutest details of his work.

It is fair to suppose that Lowell's friends brought every possible

pressure to bear upon him to make him give up poetry and _dig_ at the

law. His father's financial losses had left him without an inherited

income; he was engaged to a beautiful girl and anxious to be married;

in some way he must earn his living, and if possible do more. Such was

not the effect, however. He devoted himself to poetry with an almost

feverish activity. He has made up his mind that he will do something

great; for only so can he hope possibly to make literature a paying

profession.

It was Maria who inspired most of his verse at this time. One of his

best poems even to this day was written directly for her. It is called

"Irene'." It may be taken as the best possible description of his lady

herself:

Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear;

Calm beneath her earnest face it lies,

Free without boldness, meek without a fear,

Quicker to look than speak its sympathies;

Far down into her large and patient eyes

I gaze, deep-drinking of the infinite,

As, in the mid-watch of a clear, still night,

I look into the fathomless blue skies.

As the struggle between money and law on the one side and literature

on the other still went on, he expressed his feelings on the subject

to his friend Loring in the following stanza, which puts the whole

argument into a nutshell:

They tell me I must study law.

They say that I have dreamed and dreamed too long,

That I must rouse and seek for fame and gold;

That I must scorn this idle gift of song,

And mingle with the vain and proud and cold.

Is, then, this petty strife

The end and aim of life,

All that is worth the living for below?

_O God! then call me hence, for I would gladly go_!

Thus he had finally come to the conclusion that he would rather die

than give up literature.

"Irené" won the good opinion of many. The young poet, though but

twenty-one, felt that he was beginning to be a lion. His next definite

step was to publish a volume of verses. Says he, "I shall print my

volume. Maria wishes me to do it, and that is enough."

So his first volume, "A Year's Life," was published, with the motto in

German, "I have lived and loved."

The young poet's friends were very much opposed to this publication,

for the reason that a rising young lawyer is not helped on in his

profession at all by being known as a poet. Who would employ a _poet_

to defend his business in a court room? No one! A hard-headed business

man is wanted. Walter Scott was a lawyer of much such a temperament as

Lowell's, and when he put forth a similar volume he suffered as it was

certain that Lowell would suffer. But it is probable that Lowell was

now fully determined to give up law altogether.

"I know," he declares passionately, "that God has given me powers such

as are not given to all, and I will not 'hide my talent in mean clay.'

I do not care what others may think of me or of my book, because if I

am worth anything I shall one day show it. I do not fear criticism as

much as I love truth. Nay, I do not fear it at all. In short, I am

happy. Maria fills my ideal and I satisfy her. And I mean to live as

one beloved by such a woman should live. She is every way noble.

People have called 'Irene' a beautiful piece of poetry. And so it is.

It owes all its beauty to her."

It is very plain that she was on the side of the poet, not of the

worldly-minded persons who advocated the law, business, money-making.

She did not dread the prospect of being a poor man's wife. To be the

wife of a poet, a man of courage and ambition and nobleness of heart,

was far more to her. The turning point in Lowell's life was past; and

he had been led to that turning point by the little woman who was soon

to become his wife.

CHAPTER VI

THE UNCERTAIN SEAS OF LITERATURE

As far as is known, Lowell never earned a dollar by the law. He soon

began to pick up a five or a ten dollar bill here and there by writing

for current periodicals. His book brought him some reputation, but not

much. A few hundred copies were sold, and most of the reviews and

criticisms were favorable. He received a slating from the _Morning

Post_ in Boston, however, just as an inkling of what a literary man

might expect.

Three years of hard literary work now followed. Lowell wrote

assiduously and heroically, getting what happiness he could in the

meantime out of his love. He was young and strong, and life was not a

burden. He tells us of having spent an evening at the house of a

friend "where Maria is making sunshine just now," and he declared that

he had been exceedingly funny. He had in the course of the evening

recited "near upon five hundred extempore macaronic verses; composed

and executed an oratorio and opera" upon a piano without strings,

namely the center-table; drawn "an entirely original view of Nantasket

Beach"; made a temperance address; and given vent to "innumerable

jests, jokes, puns, oddities, quiddities and nothings," interrupted by

his own laughter and that of his hearers. Besides this, he had eaten

"an indefinite number of raisins, chestnuts(!), etc., etc., etc.,

etc., etc."