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 (I 
 
THE POE CULT 
 
 and 
 
 OTHER POE PAPERS 
 
 With a New Memoir 
 
 By 
 
 EUGENE L. DIDIER 
 
 • 
 
 Broadway Publishing Company 
 
 835 Broadway, New York 
 

 Copyright, 1909, 
 
 BY 
 
 Eugene L. Didier. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
In Memory of 
 
 my only Son, 
 
 J. D'ARCY DIDIER, 
 
 the Pride of my Heart, and the Hope of his 
 
 Family, who Died on the 23d of August, 
 
 1907, in the Bright Promise of 
 
 Early Manhood. 
 
NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. 
 The twenty-three separate articles comprised 
 in this volume have been published in vari- 
 ous American magazines during the last 
 thirty-five years. In reading them over in 
 proof, I find that some expressions, and even 
 some statements, have been repeated. It 
 was almost impossible to avoid such repeti- 
 tions, written, as the articles were so many 
 years apart, and for so many different mag- 
 azines. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 From my boyhood the zvritings of Bdgar A. 
 Poe have possessed a singular fascination for 
 me. Admiration of his works led me to a close 
 and exhaustive study of the poefs strange and 
 romantic life. Although sixty years have 
 elapsed since Poe's death, an amazing amount 
 of ignorance still exists upon the subject of 
 his life and character. It is hoped that the 
 present volume will do something tozvard dis- 
 pelling this ignorance, and present the author 
 of ''The Raven'' to his countrymen, and the 
 world, in some of the most interesting phases 
 of his remarkable career. 
 
 For a quarter of a century after Poe's death, 
 his name and fame were under a cloud. But 
 during the present generation a great and won- 
 derful change has taken place 
 
 ''Through many a- year his fame has grown, — 
 Like midnight vast, like starlight sweet, — 
 Till now his genius tills a throne, 
 And nations marvel at his feet." 
 
 BUGBNB L. DIDIBR. 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Memoir of Bdgar A. Poe / 
 
 The Poe Cult /5 
 
 Poe: Real and Reputed 8y 
 
 The Boyhood of Edgar A. Poe g6 
 
 Poe's Female Friends 102 
 
 Poe and Mrs. Whitm.an iiy 
 
 The Loves of Bdgar A. Poe 12^ 
 
 Poe and Stoddard i^^ 
 
 Ingram's Life of Poe 140 
 
 Woodherry's Life of Poe 14^ 
 
 Recent Biographies of Bdgar A. Poe 1^0 
 
 The True Story of Poe's Death 775 
 
 The Grave of Poe 180 
 
 The Poe Monument 184 
 
 Portraits of Poe ipi 
 
 The Poe Mania 20^ 
 The Semi-Centennial of America's Great-^ 
 
 est Poet 2oy 
 
 The Truth about Bdgar A. Poe 216 
 
 Poe in Society 241 
 Recollections of Poe by the Witnesses of 
 
 His Life 2^2 
 Poe as Seen by Stoddard, Stedman, and 
 
 Harrison 261 
 
 The ''Discoverer'' of Poe 272 
 
 Poe and the University of Virginia 2/^ 
 The Centennial of the Birth of Bdgar A. 
 
 Poe 384 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Edgar A. Poe Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE ,^ 
 
 Elizabeth Poe 8 
 
 Maria Qemm . 33 "^ 
 
 Geo. R. Graham (Editor Graham's Magazine) . . . 45 ^' 
 
 Washington Coll. Univ. Hospital 74 ^-^^ 
 
 Sarah Helen Whitman 117 > 
 
 Poe Monument, Baltimore 184 v/ 
 
 Marie Louise Shew 273 v'' 
 
The Poe Cult 
 
 MEMOIR OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 The year of Edgar A. Poe's birth — 1809 — 
 was an annus mirabilis in Hterary history. In 
 that year were born Alfred Tennyson, EHza- 
 beth Barrett Browning, Edward Fitzgerald, 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Darwin, 
 William E. Gladstone, besides the subject of 
 this Memoir. Among these illustrious names, 
 Edgar A. Poe was the first in point of time, 
 and, in the estimation of many, the first in 
 genius. For three score years and more the 
 time and place of his birth were unknown. His 
 early biographers gave 181 1 as the time, and 
 Baltimore as the place of his birth. In order 
 to ascertain the truth about the matter, I con- 
 sulted Mrs. Maria Clemm, the poet's aunt and 
 mother-in-law, who told me that he was born 
 in Boston, on the 19th of January, 1809. 
 
 Although more than a dozen lives of Poe 
 have been written, there is an amazing amount 
 of ignorance upon the subject. This ignorance 
 is not confined to the "average reader,'' but I 
 have known college professors — professors of 
 English in reputable colleges — so grossly ig- 
 norant of the facts of Poe's life that they did 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 not know when and where some of his most 
 remarkable tales were written; and who ac- 
 cepted with childish credulity the malicious and 
 mendacious stories told of him. by his enemies. 
 David Poe, Junior, the father of the poet, 
 was the eldest son of General David Poe, of 
 Baltimore. As the younger Poe grew to man- 
 hood, he displayed a fondness for amateur act- 
 ing, and, with some other youths, formed a 
 Thespian Club which met in an attic room of 
 his father's house. David Poe was a law stu- 
 dent, but so great was his passion for the 
 stage, that, in 1804, he threw aside his law 
 books, and joined a troup of strolling players. 
 C. D. Hopkins, the light comedian of the com- 
 pany, died in 1805, ^^^y ^^ ^ f^^ months, Poe 
 married his widow, whose maiden name was 
 Elizabeth Arnold. She was of English birth — 
 pretty, clever, sprightly, vivacious, and a great 
 favorite on the stage. After their marriage 
 they continued their wandering theatrical life, 
 traveling up and down the Atlantic Coast from 
 Boston to Charleston. When they died — Mrs. 
 Poe on December 8, 181 1, in Richmond, her 
 husband, in Norfolk, a few weeks previously 
 — they left three helpless children — the eldest, 
 William Henry Leonard, was adopted by his 
 grandfather, General Poe ; Edgar was adopted 
 by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan, of Richmond, and 
 
 8 
 
ELIZABETH POE, 
 Mother of the Poet. 
 
t)e poe Cult 
 
 Rosalie, by Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, of the 
 same city. The future poet was early taught 
 to read, write, draw, and recite verses. On 
 the 17th of June, 1815, Mr. and Mrs. Allan 
 sailed for London, taken their adopted son 
 with them. They remained abroad five years, 
 during which time Edgar was a pupil of Dr. 
 Bransby's Manor House School, at Stoke- 
 Newington, near London. This school and its 
 surroundings made a lasting impression upon 
 the receptive mind of the young student, and 
 he described it with minute accuracy in 'Will- 
 iam Wilson," one of his most striking and 
 original tales. 
 
 When the Allans returned to Richmond, in 
 1820, Edgar became successively a pupil of 
 the schools of Joseph H. Clarke and William 
 Burke. He stood high in all his classes, and 
 was a great favorite of his teachers and fel- 
 low students. Professor Clarke told me that 
 Edgar wrote genuine poetry even in those early 
 days; he was a born poet; his poetical com- 
 positions were universally admitted to be the 
 best in the school, while the other boys wrote 
 mere mechanical verses. As a scholar, he was 
 ambitious and always acquitted himself well in 
 his studies. During the three years he was at 
 Professor Clarke's school, he read the prin- 
 cipal Latin and Greek authors ; but he had no 
 
Ci>e poe Cult 
 
 love for mathematics. He had a sensitive and 
 tender heart, and would do anything to serve 
 a friend. His nature was entirely free from 
 selfishness, the predominant defect of boyhood. 
 At the end of the scholastic year, in the sum- 
 mer of 1823, Professor Clarke removed from 
 Richmond, upon which occasion Poe addressed 
 a poetical tribute to him. 
 
 William Burke took Professor Clarke's 
 school and most of his pupils; among them 
 Edgar Poe. Several years ago Andrew John- 
 ston, of Richmond, furnished me with the fol- 
 lowing particulars: 
 
 ''I entered Mr. Burke's school on the first of 
 October, 1823, and found Edgar A. Poe al- 
 ready there. I knew him before, but not well, 
 there being two, if not three, years difference 
 in our ages. He attended the school all 
 through 1824, and part of 1825. Some time 
 in the latter year he left. He was a much 
 more advanced scholar than any of us; but 
 there was no other class for him— that being 
 the highest — and he had nothing to do, or but 
 little, to keep at the head of the school. I dare 
 say he liked it very well, for he was fond of 
 general reading, and even then he wrote verses 
 very clever for a boy of his age, and sometimes 
 satirical. We all recognized and admired his 
 great and varied talents, and were proud of 
 
 10 
 
Clie poe Cult 
 
 him as the most distinguished schoolboy in 
 Richmond. 
 
 ''At that time Poe was sHght in person, but 
 well-made, active, sinewy, and graceful. In 
 athletic exercises he was foremost: especially, 
 he was the best, the most daring, and most en- 
 during swimmer that I ever saw in the water. 
 When about sixteen years old, he performed 
 his well-known feat of swimming from Rich- 
 mond to Warwick, a distance of five or six 
 miles. He was accompanied by two boats, and 
 it took him several hours to accomplish the 
 task, the tide changing during the time. 
 
 "Poe was always neat in his dress, but not 
 foppish. His disposition was amiable, and his 
 manners pleasant and courteous.'' 
 
 After leaving Burke's school in March, 
 1825, Mr. Allan placed Edgar under the best 
 private tutors in order to prepare him for the 
 University of Virginia. He devoted himself 
 to the classics, modern languages, and belles- 
 lettres. Richmond at that time, as now, was 
 celebrated for its polished society. Into this 
 society Edgar Poe was early welcome — a boy 
 in years, but a man in mind and manners. The 
 refined grace and courtesy toward women that 
 ever distinguished him may have been then ac- 
 quired in the best society of Virginia's beauti- 
 ful capital. 
 
 II 
 
^ht Poe Cult 
 
 On the 14th of February, 1826, Poe entered 
 the University of Virginia. The studies which 
 he selected were ancient and modern lan- 
 guages, and he attended lectures in Latin, 
 Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian. He read 
 and wrote Latin and French with ease and ac- 
 curately, and, at the close of the session, was 
 mentioned as excellent in those languages. 
 His literary tastes were marked while at the 
 University, and among the professors he was 
 regarded as well behaved and studious. At the 
 end of the session, December 15, 1826, he 
 graduated in Latin and French, and returned 
 to Richmond. Soon after his return, Mr. Allan 
 placed him in his counting room, but the fu- 
 ture poet could not brook the dull life of a 
 clerk, and, in a few weeks, took French leave. 
 Now^ commenced that restless, w^andering life 
 which continued until the end. In the Spring 
 of 1827, he found himself in Boston, his na- 
 tive city, where his mother had made many 
 friends before his birth. Here the first edition 
 of his ''Tamerlane and Other Poems,'' was 
 printed — forty copies. This tiny volume of 
 less than forty pages has become one of the 
 rarest books in the world, only three or four 
 copies are known to be in existence, and has 
 sold as high as $2,550. 
 
 Having no money, and no prospect of mak- 
 
 ^ 12 
 
Clie Poe Cult 
 
 ing any, on May 26, 1827, he enlisted as a 
 private soldier in the United States Army, 
 under the name of Edgar A. Perry, and was 
 assigned to Battery H of the ist artillery. 
 After a short service in Boston his battery was 
 ordered to Fort Moultrie, near Charleston, S. 
 C. It was while stationed there that the story 
 of a buried treasure was suggested to him, 
 which was afterward made the subject of one 
 of his most remarkable tales — ''The Gold 
 Bug/' By 1829 he was at Fortress Monroe, 
 his good conduct and strict attention to his 
 duties having earned his promotion to the rank 
 of sergeant-major. The officers under whom 
 he served soon discovered that he was far su- 
 perior in education to his position, and he was 
 employed as^ranpany clerk and assistant in the 
 Commissary'Department. The discovery of 
 Poe's army record, taken from the Records of 
 the War Department at Washington, disproves 
 at once and forever the romantic story that he 
 went to Europe after leaving the University of 
 Virginia for the purpose of engaging in the 
 struggle for Grecian independence, to w^hich 
 the death of Byron had attracted the attention 
 of the world. 
 
 On February 28, 1829, his kind, indulgent 
 mother, by adoption, Mrs. Allan, died. Her 
 death was a great misfortune to Poe, as she 
 
 13 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 had always stood between him and her stern, 
 relentless husband. On April 15, 1829, having 
 secured a substitute, our sergeant-major was 
 honorably discharged from the army, and paid 
 a visit to Baltimore, probably in order to look 
 up his relatives there. His second book, "Al 
 Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems,'' was 
 published in Baltimore in 1829 — a thin volume 
 of seventy-one pages. A copy of this edition, 
 enriched with notes by the author, has ad- 
 vanced in price from $75, in 1892, to $1,825, in 
 1903. 
 
 Mr. Allan, wishing to place his wayward 
 ward where he could earn a living, and, at the 
 same time, be free from all future responsibil- 
 ity, obtained his appointmen^^|i^est Point. 
 He entered the academy on ^^^^1830, per- 
 haps the most brilliant and gifted cadet that 
 ever went there. He was in the flower of 
 youth, and in the first bloom of that remarkable 
 beauty of face and form which distinguished 
 him through life. His rich, dark hair fell in 
 abundant clusters over his high, white, mag- 
 nificent forehead, beneath which shone the 
 most beautiful, the most expressive of mortal 
 eyes. He was of medium height, but elegantly 
 formed, his bearing being proud, lofty, and 
 fearless. 
 
 14 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 Poe stood high in his classes, especially in 
 French and mathematics — his great fault was 
 his neglect of, and apparent contempt for, his 
 military dtities: His capricious temper made 
 him, at times, utterly oblivious or indifferent to 
 the ordinary routine of roll-calls, drills, and 
 guard duty. These were all and each utterly 
 distasteful to the young poet, whose soul was 
 filled with a burning ambition. He turned with 
 delight from military tactics to the classic 
 pages of Virgil ; he neglected mathematics for 
 the fascinating essays of Macaulay, which 
 were just then beginning to charm the world; 
 he escaped from the evening parade to wander 
 along the beautiful banks of the Hudson, 
 meditating his tuneful 'Israfel," and, perhaps, 
 planning "Jmrn^T or, ''The Fall of the House 
 of Usher.^^^^ 
 
 These irregular habits subjected the cadet 
 to frequent arrests and punishments, and 
 effectually prevented his learning to discharge 
 the duties of a soldier. Before Poe had been 
 at West Point six months, he found the rigid 
 discipline so intolerable that he asked permis- 
 sion of Mr. Allan to resign. This was perem- 
 torily refused. The reason was obvious : within 
 a year after the death of his first wife, Mr. 
 Allan married Louise Gabrielle Patterson, of 
 New Jersey, and, a son being born, Edgar Poe 
 
 15 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 was no longer the heir to his princely fortune, 
 and he wished to keep his ward in an honorable 
 profession which would give him a support for 
 life. Hence he refused to allow him to leave 
 West Point — consent of father or guardian 
 being required before a cadet could resign. 
 But Poe was determined to get away from the 
 academy, with or without Mr. Allan's consent. 
 So he commenced a regular and deliberate neg- 
 lect of duties and disobedience of rules: he 
 cut his classes, shirked the drill, and refused to 
 do guard duty. The desired result followed: 
 on January 7th, 1831, cadet Edgar A. Poe was 
 brought before a general court-marshal, 
 charged with ''gross neglect of all duty, and 
 disobedience of orders.'' The accused promptly 
 pleaded ''guilty" to all the speci|cations, and, 
 to his great delight, w^as semen^B "to be dis- 
 missed from the service of the United 
 States." 
 
 About the time that Poe was dismissed from 
 West Point, he published a third volume, en- 
 titled "Poems, by Edgar A. Poe." The vol- 
 ume contained "Al Aaraef," and "Tamerlane," 
 from the edition of 1829, omitting all the 
 others, but adding the exquisite lines "To 
 Helen," which has won the admiration of all 
 readers; the tuneful "Israfel," "Irene" (after- 
 ward remodeled into "The Sleeper"), and four 
 
 16 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 smaller poems. The book was dedicated to the 
 United States Corps of Cadets, an honor which 
 the cadets did not deserve, for they declared 
 the verses ''ridiculous doggerel 
 
 n 
 
 When Poe was dismissed from West Point, 
 he was in the situation of Adam when he was 
 expelled from the Garden of Eden — the world 
 was all before where to choose. He was home- 
 less, penniless, friendless. He had been taught 
 to spend thousands, but had never been taught 
 to earn a dollar. In this emergency he made 
 his way to Richmond, and presented himself at 
 the home of his youth — the only home he had 
 ever known — the Allan mansion on the corner 
 of Fifth and Main Streets. His reception was 
 not that of the Prodigal Son when he returned 
 to his father's house: no fatted calf was killed 
 — no friends were invited to meet him — no 
 feast was spread to welcome the -wanderer 
 home. He was coldly received, where he had 
 once been the idolized child of the house. We 
 all know the influence of a young wife upon a 
 fond, doting old husband. The second Mrs. 
 Allan looked with disfavor upon Poe's pres- 
 ence in the house, and when he appeared, he 
 was told that his former room, which was al- 
 ways kept ready for him by the first Mrs. Al- 
 lan, was now a guest chamber, and he was as- 
 
 17 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 signed to a small room at the back of the 
 house, which had been occupied by Mrs. 
 Allan's maid. The proud and high-spirited 
 young man keenly felt this indignity, and, re- 
 fusing to allow his satchel to be carried to the 
 room, determined to see Mrs. Allan. A 
 stormy interview followed, and Poe left the 
 house forever. A letter written to me by a 
 Richmond lady, who claimed to be ''a confi- 
 dent of Mr. Poe's,'' says the cause of the quar- 
 rel between Poe and Allan ''was very simple 
 and very natural under the circumstances, and 
 completely exonerates Poe from ingratitude 
 to his adopted father.'' Whatever was the 
 cause, the result was that Poe left the house as 
 already mentioned. Writing many years af- 
 terward to one who possessed his entire confi- 
 dence, Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, he used 
 this passionate language: 
 
 ''By the God who reigns in heaven, I swear 
 to you that I am incapable of dishonor. I can 
 call to mind no act of my life which would 
 bring a blush to my cheek or to yours. If I 
 have erred at all, in this regard, it has been 
 on the side of what the world would call a 
 Quixotic sense of the honorable — of the chival- 
 rous. The indulgence of this sense has been 
 the true voluptuousness of my life. It was for 
 this species of luxury that in early youth I 
 
 i8 
 
Cf)e Poe Cult 
 
 deliberately threw away from me a large for- 
 tune, rather than endure a trivial wrong!' 
 
 After the affair with Mrs. Allan, just men- 
 tioned, Poe probably went to Baltimore, and 
 resided with his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm. For 
 the next two years all trace of him is lost, ex- 
 cepting a letter which he wrote on May 6th, 
 1 83 1, in which he asked William Gwynn, a 
 Baltimore editor, for employment in his office. 
 Not meeting with any encouragement, he next 
 applied to Dr. N. C. Brooks for a position in 
 the school which he had recently established 
 at Riestertown, in Baltimore County. Fifty- 
 eight years afterward. Dr. Brooks told me 
 of this, and said he regretted at the time there 
 was no vacancy, as he knew that Poe was an 
 accomplished scholar. 
 
 During those two years Poe was not idle, 
 for, when the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, in 
 the summer of 1833, offered one hundred dol- 
 lars for the best prose story, and fifty dollars 
 for the best poem, he submitted his ''Tales of 
 the Folio Club,'' comprising ''A Manuscript 
 Found in a Bottle,'' ''A Descent into the Mael- 
 strom," ''Adventures of Hans Pfaall," 
 ^'Berenice," "Lionizing," "A Tale of the 
 Ragged Mountain," etc. He also sent in for 
 competition a poem, "The Coliseum." Both 
 prizes were awarded to Poe by the committee, 
 
 19 
 
Cf)e poe Cult 
 
 but, as it was not deemed expedient by the 
 proprietor of the Saturday Visitor to bestow 
 both prizes upon the same person, he was 
 awarded the hundred-dollar prize for "A 
 Manuscript Found in a Bottle," and an un- 
 known local genius was given the fifty dollars 
 for the best poem, which was no poem at all. 
 
 The hundred-dollar prize was the first money 
 that Poe ever received from literary work, 
 and, from that time until his death, he never 
 earned a dollar except by his pen. He was at 
 that time twenty-four years old, unconscious 
 that there was before him sixteen years of 
 sufifering and sorrow, of heroic struggle, of 
 splendid achievement, and immortal fame! 
 
 In winning the hundred-dollar prize, Poe 
 won, at the same time, a good and true friend 
 in John P.jKennedy, who was one of the three 
 gentlemen who composed the committee of 
 award. Every admirer of Poe should appre- 
 ciate Mr. Kennedy's kindness to the young 
 poet. He alone, of the committee, extended a 
 helping hand to the unknown but ambitious 
 young author. He invited him to his house, 
 made him welcome at his table, and furnished 
 him with a saddle horse, that he might take 
 exercise whenever he pleased. He did more: 
 he introduced him to Thomas W. White, pro- 
 prietor of the Southern Literary Messenger, 
 
 20 
 
Clje Poe Cult 
 
 then recently started in Richmond, and recom- 
 mended him as being 'Very clever with his 
 pen, classical, and scholar-like." Mr. White 
 invited Poe to send him a contribution, and, 
 in the March number, 1835, his strangely beau- 
 tiful tale, ''Berenice,'' was published in the 
 Messenger, and attracted immediate attention. 
 From that time, for two years, Poe was a reg- 
 ular contributor to that magazine, and was 
 rapidly making his name and that of the Mes- 
 senger known through the country. 
 
 Malice and ignorance have caused Poe to 
 be charged with pride and ingratitude. That 
 these vices were foreign to his nature, we have 
 abundant evidence, all through his life. Here 
 are two examples which occurred at the period 
 about which we are now writing : He visited 
 each of the gentlemen who awarded him the 
 prize, and thanked them for their approval of 
 his literary work. Again, in order to show 
 Poe's gratitude to Mr. Kennedy, I quote two 
 passages from a letter written to Mr. White, 
 dated Baltimore, May 30, 1835. He had writ- 
 ten a criticism of Kennedy's once famous his- 
 torical novel, "Horse-Shoe Robinson," and 
 apologizing for the hasty sketch he sent, in- 
 stead of the thorough review which he in- 
 tended, says, "At the time I was so ill as to be 
 hardly able to see the paper on which I wrote, 
 
 21 
 
Cfie poe Cult 
 
 and I finished it in a state of complete ex- 
 haustion. I have not, therefore, done any- 
 thing Hke justice to the book, and I am vexed 
 about the matter, for Mr. Kennedy proved 
 himself a true friend to me in every respect, 
 and / am sincerely grateful to him for many 
 acts of generosity and attention/' In that same 
 letter, in answer to Mr. White's query, whether 
 he was satisfied with the pay he was receiv- 
 ing for his work on the Messenger, Poe wrote : 
 ''I reply that I am, entirely. My poor services 
 are not zvorth what you give me for them/' 
 
 For two or three years, Edgar Poe had been 
 engaged in the most delightful of occupations 
 — the instruction of a young girl, singularly 
 beautiful, interesting, and truly loved. For 
 two or three years Virginia — his starry-eyed 
 young cousin — had been his pupil. Never had 
 teacher so lovely a pupil, never a pupil so 
 tender a teacher. They were both young; she 
 was a child 
 
 ''But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
 Of those who were older than we." 
 
 Under the name of Eleonora, Edgar tells the 
 story of their love: ''The loveliness of Eleo- 
 nora was that of the seraphim, and she was a 
 maiden artless and innocent as the brief life 
 she had led among the flowers — I, and my 
 cousin, and her mother/' 
 
 22 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 Mr. White soon saw how valuable to his 
 magazine were the contributions of Edgar 
 Poe, and in the summer of 1835 he offered 
 him the position of assistant editor of the Mes- 
 senger, at a salary of ten dollars a week. He 
 gladly accepted this offer, and prepared to re- 
 move to Richmond immediately, and his letters 
 show that, on the 20th of August, 1835, he was 
 in that city. 
 
 In spite of his rising fortune and increasing 
 fame, he felt most keenly the separation from 
 *'her he loved so dearly.'' For years Virginia 
 had been his daily companion and confidante. 
 Like Abelard and Heloise, they had but one 
 home and one heart. In the first days of this 
 separation he wrote his friend, Mr. Kennedy, 
 a letter, dated Richmond, September 11, 1835, 
 in which, after expressing a deep sense of his 
 gratitude for his frequent kindness and as- 
 sistance, he says: ''I am suffering under a 
 depression of spirits such as I never felt be- 
 fore. I have struggled in vain against the in- 
 fluence of this melancholy ; you will believe me 
 when I say that I am still miserable, in spite 
 of the great improvement in my circum- 
 stances. Write me immediately; convince me 
 that it is worth one's while — that it is at all 
 necessary — to live, and you will prove indeed 
 my friend. Persuade me to do what is right. 
 
 23 
 
CDe poe Cult 
 
 I do, indeed, mean this. Write me, then, and 
 quickly. Your words will have more weight 
 with me than the words of others, for you were 
 my friend when no one else was.'' 
 
 So great satisfaction did Poe give by his 
 work as assistant editor of the Messenger, 
 that, in December, 1835, White made him the 
 editor of the magazine, and increased his sal- 
 ary to $800 a year. 
 
 As his pecuniary prospects brightened, his 
 first thought w^as to bring his aunt and cousin 
 to Richmond, where, in May, 1836, Edgar and 
 Virginia were married. 
 
 During the nineteen months that Poe was 
 with the Messenger, the circulation of the 
 magazine increased from 700 to 5,000. This 
 remarkable increase of circulation' was chiefly 
 due to Poe's brilliant contributions, which at- 
 tracted the attention of the whole country. 
 Between December, 1835, and September, 
 1836, he wrote ninety-four reviews, more or 
 less elaborate, but all striking. Even at that 
 early period of his literary life, he showed that 
 artistic finish of style which distinguished his 
 whole career, and that power of analysis and 
 abhorrence of careless writing which was al- 
 ways one of his marked characteristics. These 
 early critiques were not by any means condem- 
 natory. In fact, only three of the whole 
 
 24 
 
Cl&c Poe Cult 
 
 ninety- four were decidedly harsh. No Ameri- 
 can critic had a more sincere appreciation of 
 literary excellence than Poe, and he showed 
 it in his criticism. George Parsons Lathrop, 
 whose worship of Hawthorne was inspired by 
 h^s love of Hawthorne's lovely daughter, Rose, 
 was unjust and unappreciative of Poe, but he 
 was forced to admit that, ''we owe to Poe the 
 first agile and determined movement of crit- 
 icism in this country, and, although it was a 
 startling dexterity which winged his censorial 
 shafts, he was excellently fitted for the critic's 
 office in one way, because he knew positively 
 of what standards he meant to judge by, and 
 kept up an inflexible hostility to any offense 
 against them. He had an acute instinct in 
 matters of literary form ; it amounted, indeed, 
 to a passion, as all his instincts and perceptions 
 did ; he had, also, the knack of finding reasons 
 for his opinions, and of stating them well. All 
 this is essential to the equipment of the critic.'' 
 An estimate of Poe as a poet by the same 
 unfriendly critic is worth preserving: ''As a 
 mere potency, Poe must be rated almost high- 
 est among American poets; and high among 
 prosaists ; no one else offers so much pungency, 
 such impetuous and frightful energy crowded 
 into such small space. . . . Let us call Poe 
 a positive genius. He would have flourished 
 
 25 
 
€:bt Poe Cult 
 
 anywhere in much the same way as he did in 
 America/' 
 
 Hawthorne said: ''I do not want to be a 
 doctor and live by men's diseases, nor a min- 
 ister and Hve by their sins, nor a lawyer and 
 live by their quarrels. So, I do not know that 
 there is anything for me but to be an author/' 
 His relatives urged him to go into business, his 
 genius forbade it. He was made to feel that 
 he was a useless dreamer, and this drove him in 
 upon himself ; but he persisted. Poe must have 
 felt the same way, saying, '1 do not want to 
 be a soldier and kill men, and I won't; I will 
 be an author;" and he was. Hawthorne was 
 the natural result of the grim, gloomy, stern 
 Puritan spirit, but Poe had no literary an- 
 cestors: he stands alone as a strange, unique, 
 mysterious, fascinating figure in the literature 
 of the world, representing no country, no race, 
 no time. His genius was alien to American 
 soil. He stands alone among American poets 
 as Shakespeare stands alone among the poets 
 of the world. He had no predecessor ; he has 
 had no successors. His appearance in the 
 literary world was as sudden and unexpected 
 as it was strange and wonderful. His original 
 and distinct genius astonished the world like 
 a new, brilliant planet suddenly appearing in 
 the heavens. 
 
 26 
 
C!)e Poe Cult 
 
 Poe's message to the world was that man 
 does not Hve by bread alone — that there is a 
 higher, nobler, grander ideal to be realized 
 than money-getting, commercialism, materi- 
 alism. Poe's genius was a revelation to 
 the world — his extraordinary gifts elevated 
 him far above all his contemporaries, and 
 placed him as a star, apart. His own coun- 
 trymen were not ready to receive him when 
 he came, and he suffered accordingly. One 
 poet like Poe is worth more to the world than 
 a hundred Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Goulds, 
 Carnegies, and Harrimans. Such men are the 
 natural product of American life, but Al- 
 mighty God alone can produce a poet of in- 
 spired genius. Poe had the culture that some- 
 times is lacking in genius; he had the refine- 
 ment which is sometimes wanting in great! 
 minds. It is not the millionaire, but the poetji 
 that makes life worth living. The millionaire] 
 is really a blot upon American civilization ; tha 
 poet gives life a tone and a color. It has beeffl 
 said that the memories of kings and conquerors 
 flit like troubled ghosts through the pages oi 
 history; but it is only the name of the thinker 
 of great thoughts, the poet of rare gifts that 
 foreign nations and after generations cherish. 
 Like Bacon, Poe might have left his ''name 
 to the next ages and to foreign nations." For 
 
 27 
 
Cf)e Poe Cult 
 
 his fame has grown steadily since his tragical 
 death, not only in his own land, but among 
 ''foreign nations/' 
 
 It should be mentioned that Poe was only 
 twenty-six years old when he was made editor 
 of the Southern Literary Messenger, and that, 
 in less than two years, he gave it a command- 
 ing position among American magazines. 
 Perhaps no similar enterprise ever prospered 
 so largely in its commencement, and none in 
 the same length of time — not even Blackwood, 
 in the brilliant days of Maginn, ever published 
 so many dazzling articles from the same pen. 
 Strange stories of the German school, akin to 
 the most fanciful legends of the Rhine, fasci- 
 nating and astonishing the reader with the 
 verisimilitude of their improbability, appeared 
 in the same number with lyrics plaintive and 
 wondrous sweet, the earliest vibrations of 
 those chords which have since sounded through 
 the world. 
 
 In January, 1837, the blood of the wan- 
 derer, which he derived from his actress- 
 mother, drove him from Richmond to New 
 York, in which city Mrs. Clemm started a 
 boarding house on Carmine Street. One of 
 the few boarders was William Gowans, the 
 eminent second-hand bookseller, who has left 
 
 28 
 
Cfje Poe Cult 
 
 an interesting account of Poe at that time: 
 ''For eight months or more 'one house con- 
 tained us, as one table fed/ During that time 
 I saw much of Edgar A. Poe, and had an 
 opportunity of conversing with him often, and, 
 I must say that, I never saw him the least af- 
 fected with liquor, nor even descend to any 
 vice, while he was one of the most courteous, 
 gentlemanly, and intelligent companions I have 
 met with during my journeyings and haltings 
 through divers divisions of the globe; beside, 
 he had an extra inducement to be a good man 
 as well as a good husband, for he had a wife 
 of matchless beauty and loveliness; her eye 
 could match that of any houri, and her face 
 defy the genius of a Canova to imitate; a 
 temper and a disposition of surpassing sweet- 
 ness; besides, she seemed as much devoted to 
 him and his every interest as a young mother 
 to her first-born. Poe had a remarkably pleas- 
 ing and prepossessing countenance, what the 
 ladies would call decidedly handsome/' 
 
 Poe's object in removing to New York, at 
 this time, was because he thought that city 
 offered greater advantages to a professional 
 man of letters than the provincial town of 
 Richmond. He was promised a position on the 
 New York Review, but that periodical was al- 
 ready in the throes of dissolution, and did not 
 
 29 
 
Cle Poe Cult 
 
 long survive the financial panic of 1837. Poe's 
 only contribution to it was an elaborate review 
 of Stephens' ''Incidents of Travel in Egypt, 
 Arabia, Petraea, and the Holy Land/' 
 
 In the number of the Southern Literary 
 Messenger which announced Poe's retirement, 
 Mr. White promised that he would ''continue 
 to furnish its columns from time to time with 
 the effusions of his vigorous and powerful 
 pen." In the January number of the Mes- 
 senger, 1837, which was the last under Poe's 
 editorship, appeared the first installment of 
 "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," 
 which was continued in the February number, 
 and afterward published in book form in New 
 York and London. As usual with Poe's 
 works, it attracted more attention abroad than 
 at home. It should be mentioned that he never 
 relinquished his early interest in the Mes- 
 senger, but wrote for it as long as he lived. As 
 some of his earliest, so some of his latest, writ- 
 ings first appeared in that magazine. 
 
 Poe's first residence in New York lasted 
 from the winter of 1837 to the summer of 
 1838, when he removed to Philadelphia. Soon 
 after his arrival in the Quaker City, he was 
 asked by his old friend, Dr. N. C. Brooks, to 
 write the leading article for the first number 
 of The American Museum, a monthly maga- 
 
 30 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 zine about to be started in Baltimore, and des- 
 tined to add to the collection of dead maga- 
 zines for which that city enjoys an unenviable 
 reputation ; in fact, while many magazines have 
 been born and died in the Monumental City, it 
 can boast of no living monthly, although it 
 boasts of a population of 600,000 inhabi- 
 tants. 
 
 Dr. Brooks suggested that Poe should write 
 an article on Washington Irving. In answer 
 to this request, Poe wrote a letter which Pro- 
 fessor Harrison credits to an Englishman who 
 claims to have ^'discovered'' Poe, but he did 
 not ''discover'' this letter, for I saw the orig- 
 inal, in 1873, and printed it in my first "Life 
 of Poe," which was published in 1876, al- 
 though the book was dated for the next year. 
 From my work, the Englishman copied the let- 
 ter into his Memoir, which was not published 
 until 1880. Poe did not write the article on 
 Washington Irving for Dr. Brooks, but the 
 first number of the American Museum con- 
 tained "Ligeia," which its author regarded as 
 his best story, because it displays the highest 
 range of imagination. In this same magazine 
 he published his clever satirical sketch, "The 
 Signora Psyche Zenobia," "Literary Small 
 Talk," and the dainty, airy, exquisite "Haunted 
 Palace." A Northern critic, who is not over- 
 
 31 
 
Cije Poe Cult 
 
 favorable to Poe, pronounces 'Xigeia'' a story 
 '^as faultless as humanity can fashion.'' 
 
 Poe had several homes during the six years 
 that he lived in Philadelphia — from 1838 to 
 1844 — but he resided for the longest time at 
 Spring Garden, then a suburb of the city. It 
 was there that Captain Mayne Reid visited 
 him, and wrote a most delightful description 
 of his home and family. The house was small, 
 but furnished with much taste ; flowers bloomed 
 around the porch, and the singing of birds was 
 heard. It was, indeed, the very home for a 
 poet. 'In this humble domicile,'' says Mayne 
 Reid, ''I have spent some of the pleasantest 
 hours of my life — certainly, some of the most 
 intellectual. They were passed in the company 
 of the poet and his wife — a lady angelically 
 beautiful in person, and not less beautiful in 
 spirit. No one who remembers the dark- 
 haired, dark-eyed daughter of the South — her 
 face so exquisitely lovely — her gentle, graceful 
 demeanor — no one who has been an hour in 
 her society, but will indorse what I have said 
 of this lady, who was the most delicate realiza- 
 tion of the poet's rarest ideal. But the bloom 
 upon her cheek was too pure, too bright for 
 earth. It was consumption's color — that sadly 
 beautiful light that beckons to an early grave. 
 
 ''With the poet and his wife there lived an- 
 
 32 
 
MARIA CLE MM. 
 From her last photograph from life, 1868; aged seventy-eight years. 
 
Cliepoe Cult 
 
 other person — Mrs. Clemm. She was the 
 mother of Mrs. Poe, and one of those proud 
 Southern women who have inspired the song 
 and chivalry of their beautiful land. Mrs. 
 Clemm was the ever-vigilant guardian of the 
 house, watching over the comfort of her two 
 children, keeping everything neat and clean, 
 so as to please the fastidious eyes of the poet — 
 going to market, and bringing home little deli- 
 cacies that their limited means would allow; 
 going to editors with a poem, a critique, or a 
 story, and often returning without the much- 
 needed money." 
 
 This is a very pleasing glimpse at the home 
 life of our poet, and all the more valuable, 
 coming as it does, spontaneously from a for- 
 eigner. Such scenes show more truly a man's 
 real character than volumes of human analy- 
 sis. I shall close this personal description of 
 the poet with some particulars which Mrs. 
 Clemm furnished me toward the close of her 
 life, and which I took down in shorthand at the 
 time: ^'Eddie had no idea of the value of 
 money. I had to attend to all his pecuniary 
 affairs. I even bought his clothes for him ; he 
 never bought a pair of gloves or a cravat for 
 himself; he was very charitable, and would 
 empty his pockets to a beggar. He loved Vir- 
 ginia with a tenderness and a devotion which 
 
 33 
 
Cle poe Cult 
 
 no words can express, and he was the most 
 affectionate of sons to me/' 
 
 Not long after Poe's removal to Phila- 
 delphia, he was engaged as a contributor for 
 The Gentleman's Magazine, which was owned 
 by William E. Burton, an English comedian, 
 who is better remembered as an actor than as 
 an editor and publisher. He drew immediate 
 attention to the magazine by his powerful 
 criticisms and strange, fascinating tales. 
 Among the latter was ''The Fall of the House 
 of Usher,'' which is regarded by most readers 
 as Poe's masterpiece in imaginative fiction; 
 but, as already mentioned, he gave that pref- 
 erence to 'Xigeia." It has been said that "both 
 have the unquestionable stamp of genius. The 
 analysis of the growth of madness in one, and 
 the thrilling revelation of the existence of a 
 first wife in the person of a second, in the 
 other, are made with consummate skill ; and the 
 strange, and solemn and fascinating beauty, 
 which informs the style, and invests the cir- 
 cumstances of both, drugs the mind, and makes 
 us forget the improbabilities of their general 
 design, 
 
 yf 
 
 So well pleased was Burton with Poe's con- 
 tributions to The Gentleman's Magazine, that, 
 in May, 1839, he made him its editor. The 
 
 34 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 pay was small — ten dollars a week — a paltry- 
 salary for a man of Poe's genius and reputa- 
 tion. In the Autumn of 1840, Burton sold his 
 magazine to George R. Graham, owner of 
 The Casket. The two periodicals were merged 
 into one under the name of Graham's Maga- 
 zine, with Poe as its editor. In two years he 
 raised the circulation from 5,000 to 50,000. In 
 the April, 1841, number of Graham's ap- 
 peared the extraordinary, analytical story, 
 ''The Murders in the Rue Morgue,'' which 
 first introduced him to French readers, and, 
 also, made his name known to the French 
 courts. A Paris Bohemian, having come 
 across the story, dressed it up to suit the Pari- 
 sian palate, published it in Le Commerce, as an 
 original tale, under the name of 'X'Orang- 
 otang.'' Not long afterward, another French 
 journal. La Quotidienne, published a transla- 
 tion of the story under another name. There- 
 upon Le Steele charged La Quotidienne with 
 having stolen said feuilleton from one previ- 
 ously published in Le Commerce. This led to 
 a war of words between the editors of La 
 Quotidienne and Le Steele. The quarrel be- 
 came so warm that it was taken to the law 
 courts for settlement, where the aforesaid 
 Bohemian proved that he had stolen the story 
 from Monsieur Edgar Poe, an American 
 
 35 
 
Clje Poe Cult 
 
 writer. It was shown that the writer in La 
 Quotidienne was himself an impudent plagiar- 
 ist, for he had taken Monsieur Poe's story 
 without a word of acknowledgment ; while the 
 editor of Le Siecle was forced to admit that 
 not only had he never read any of Poe's works, 
 but had not even heard of him. The public 
 attention having been thus directed to Poe, 
 his best tales were translated by Madame Isa- 
 belle Mennier, and published in several French 
 magazines. The leading Parisian journals 
 showered praises upon our author for the re- 
 markable power and amazing ingenuity dis- 
 played in these tales. Many years afterward, 
 Charles Baudelaire, having thoroughly imbued 
 himself with the spirit of Poe's prose writings, 
 published a translation of them in five vol- 
 umes. Poe is the only American author who 
 is known, or, at least, popular, in France; and 
 that he is known there is due, in a great meas- 
 ure, to the patient industry of Baudelaire. 
 
 ''The Murders in the Rue Morgue'' was fol- 
 lowed, in November, 1841, by ''The Mystery 
 of Marie Roget,'' in which the scene of the 
 murder of a cigar girl, named Mary Rogers, 
 in the vicinity of New York, was transferred 
 to Paris, and, by a wonderful train of analyt- 
 ical reasoning, the mystery that surrounded 
 the affair was completely disentangled. These, 
 
 36 
 
Cl^e poe Cult 
 
 and a succeeding story, ''The Purloined Let- 
 ter," are the most ingenious tales of ratiocina- 
 tion in the English language, and were the 
 foundation of the modern detective story, so 
 successfully carried out by Conan Doyle, the 
 creator of ''Sherlock Holmes,'' Robert Louis 
 Stevenson and others, who have frankly ad- 
 mitted their indebtedness to Poe. It will be 
 
 interesting to know that Monsieur G , the 
 
 Prefect of the Parisian police, who is men- 
 tioned in these stories, was Monsieur Grisquet, 
 for many years Chief of the Paris Police, who 
 died in February, 1866. 
 
 The most extraordinary of Poe's successful 
 efforts at ratiocination was that in which he 
 pointed out what must be the plot of Dickens' 
 celebrated novel, "Barnaby Rudge," when only 
 the beginning of the story had been published. 
 In the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post of 
 May I, 1841, Poe printed what he called "a 
 prospective notice'' of the novel, in which he 
 used the following words : 
 
 "That Barnaby is the son of the murdered 
 man may not appear evident to our readers; 
 but we will explain : The person murdered is 
 Mr. Reuben Haredale. His steward (Mr. 
 Rudge, Senior), and his gardener, are miss- 
 ing. At first both are suspected. 'Some 
 months afterward,' in the language of the 
 
 37 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 story, 'the steward's body, scarcely to be recog- 
 nized, but by his clothes and the watch and 
 the ring he wore, was found at the bottom of 
 a piece of water in the grounds, with a deep 
 gash in the breast, where he has been stabbed 
 by a knife,' etc., etc. 
 
 ''Now, be it observed, it is not the author 
 himself who asserts that the steward's body 
 was found; he has put the words in the mouth 
 of one of his characters. His design is to 
 make it appear in the denouement that the 
 steward, Rudge, first murdered the gardener, 
 then went to his master's chamber, murdered 
 him, was interrupted by his (Rudge's) wife, 
 whom he seized and held by the wrist, to pre- 
 vent her giving the alarm, that he then, after 
 possessing himself of the booty desired, re- 
 turned to the gardener's room, exchanged 
 clothes with him, put upon the corpse his own 
 watch and ring, and secreted it where it was 
 afterward discovered at so late a period that 
 the features could not be identified." 
 
 Readers who are familiar with the plot of 
 "Barnaby Rudge," will perceive that the dif- 
 ferences between Poe's preconceived ideas and 
 the actual facts of the story are immaterial. 
 Dickens expressed his admiring appreciation 
 of Poe's analysis of "Barnaby Rudge." He 
 would not have expressed the same apprecia- 
 
 38 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 tion of Poe's opinion of him, when reviewing 
 the completed novel. At the time when Charles 
 Dickens was the most popular writer in the 
 world, Edgar Poe (who could never be made 
 to bow his supreme intellect to any idol) 
 boldly declared that he ''failed peculiarly in 
 pure narrative," pointing out, at the same 
 time, several grammatical mistakes of the 
 great Boz. He also showed that Dickens occa- 
 sionally lapsed into a gross imitation of what 
 itself is a gross imitation — the manner of 
 Charles Lamb — a manner based in the Latin 
 construction. He further showed that Dick- 
 ens's great success as a novelist consisted in 
 the delineation of character, and that those 
 characters vv^ere grossly exaggerated carica- 
 tures—all of which is now admitted by judic- 
 ious readers; but it required considerable 
 courage to announce such an opinion at the 
 time w^hen Poe proclaimed it at the height of 
 Dickens's popularity. When Dickens visited 
 the United States in 1842, Poe had two long 
 interviews with him. He made a lasting im- 
 pression upon the impressible Boz, and when 
 he made his last visit to this country in 1867-8, 
 he called upon Mrs. Clemm, in Baltimore, and 
 presented her with $150.00. 
 
 Poe's restless spirit grew tired of the ''end- 
 less toil" of the editorial work on Graham's 
 
 39 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 Magazine, and he endeavored to obtain more 
 certain and more remunerative employment. 
 His intimate friend and lifetime correspond- 
 ent, F. W. Thomas, of Baltimore, author of 
 ''Clinton Bradshaw,'' ''East and West," and 
 other novels of some repute sixty or seventy 
 years ago, had obtained a Government clerk- 
 ship in one of the Departments in Washing- 
 ton. In 1842, Poe wrote to Thomas, express- 
 ing a wish to get a similar position, saying 
 that he ''would be glad to get almost any ap- 
 pointment — even a five hundred dollar clerk- 
 ship — so that I have something independent of 
 letters for a subsistence. To coin one's brain 
 into silver, at the nod of a master, is, I am 
 thinking, the hardest task in the world." At 
 the conclusion of his letter, he says he hopes 
 some day to have a "beautiful little cottage, 
 completely buried in vines and flowers." How 
 fortunately for the world that Edgar Poe did 
 not secure "even a five hundred dollar clerk- 
 ship !" Had he settled down to the dull routine 
 of official life in Washington, he would prob- 
 ably not have written "The Raven," "Eureka," 
 "The Literati of New York," "Ulalume," 
 "The Bells," and other productions that 
 form an imperishable portion of American 
 literature. 
 
 About a year after Poe removed to Phila- 
 
 40 
 
 / 
 
Clie Poe Cult 
 
 delphia, he collected his stories, including 
 "Ligeia," "The Fall of the House of Usher," 
 "The Ms. Found in a Bottle, "Morella," "The 
 Assignation,'' and others less known, and pub- 
 lished them, in 1840, under the title of "Tales 
 of the Grotesque and Arabesque/' The edition 
 was small, and small was the notice it re- 
 ceived from the press and the public. The 
 publishers allowed Poe no remuneration for 
 this first edition of his Prose Tales, and gave 
 him only twenty copies for distribution. Two 
 years after the book was issued, he was in- 
 formed that the edition was not all sold, and 
 that it had not paid expenses. Yet, within 
 a few years, this same edition of these same 
 tales has sold at a fabulous price at the book 
 auctions in New York. 
 
 During his early residence in Philadelphia, 
 Poe edited a work on Conchology which caused 
 some controversy at the time, of little interest 
 then, and of no interest now. 
 
 Although Poe's own countrymen were 
 slow to recognize his genius, he was quick in 
 recognizing the genius of others, and in be- 
 stowing generous praise upon all deserving 
 contemporaries. He was the first American 
 critic to proclaim the genius of Mrs. Brown- 
 ing (then Miss Barrett) to the world; and 
 when ht collected his poems into a volume, the 
 
 41 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 book was dedicated to her, as ''To the noblest 
 of her sex, with the most enthusiastic admira- 
 tion, and with the most sincere esteem/' He 
 was the first to introduce to American readers 
 the then unknown poet, Tennyson, and boldly 
 declared him to be ''The noblest poet that ever 
 lived,'' at a time when the English critics had 
 failed to discover the genius of the future 
 Poet-Laureate. He discovered the morbid 
 genius of Hawthorne, when the latter was, as 
 he said of himself, ''the most obscure literary 
 man in America/' Poe's estimate of Willis, 
 Halleck, Cooper, Simms, Longfellow, and 
 other contemporaries, was eminently just. He 
 placed the last the first among American 
 poets; the position which Poe himself now 
 holds, in the opinion of the leading scholars of 
 England, France and Germany. It should be 
 added that he qualified this praise of Long- 
 fellow by declaring that he was over-rated as 
 an original poet. 
 
 Edmund Clarence Stredman, who had only 
 a half-hearted appreciation of Poe, was honest 
 enough to say that he "was a critic of ex- 
 ceptionable ability," and agreed with James 
 Russell Lowell that "his more dispassionate 
 judgments have all been justified by time," 
 and that he "was a master in his own chosen 
 field" of poetry. It has been well and truly 
 
 42 
 
^bt Poe Cult 
 
 said by an unknown writer in the Atlantic 
 Monthly, of April, 1896, in an article on ''The 
 New Poe/^ that until ''we have a critic of the 
 History of the Intellectual Development of this 
 Country during the 19th Century, ... it 
 is impossible to form any conclusions in regard 
 to Poe that can be considered final/' Charles 
 Leonard Moore, in a carefully written article 
 in the Chicago Dial of February 16, 1903, pays 
 a just tribute to Poe's critical powers when 
 he says: "Undoubtedly, Poe performed one 
 of the most difficult feats of criticism. With 
 almost unerring instinct, he separated the* 
 wheat from the chaff of his contemporary 
 literature.'' In this same article, Mr. Moore 
 declares that "Poe is the most sublime poet 
 since Milton — a sublimity which stirs even in 
 his most grotesque and fanciful sketch. It 
 rears full-fronted in the concluding pages of 
 the 'Narrative of A. Gordon Pym.' It thrills 
 us in the many-colored chambers of 'The 
 Mask of the Red Death.' It overwhelms us 
 with horror in 'The Murders of the Rue 
 Morgue.' It is sublime and awe-inspiring in 
 'Ligeia,' 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' in 
 'Ulalume,' and 'The Raven.' He reaches a 
 climax of almost too profound thought in 'The 
 Colloquy of Monos and Una,' 'The Power of 
 Words,' and 'Eureka.' His sublimity ac- 
 
 43 
 
Cije Poe Cult 
 
 counts for his fate with the American public. 
 A true Democracy, it abhors greatness and 
 ridicules sublimity.'' Mr. Moore says, fur- 
 ther : ''The total effect of his work is lofty 
 and noble. His men are all brave and his 
 women are pure. He is the least vulgar of 
 mortals. In every land which boasts of literary 
 culture, or civil enlightenment, Poe's poems 
 and tales are read, and he is regarded as a 
 distinctive genius." 
 
 The first four years of Poe's residence in 
 Philadelphia — 1838-42 — were the most prod- 
 uctive of his literary life. These four years 
 show the most extraordinary amount of first- 
 class literary work that has even been ac- 
 complished in this country in the same space 
 of timxC. Unfortunately, the author of all of 
 this fine, artistic work received only a pittance 
 as his pecuniary reward. All this time he was 
 poor — desperately poor — and in the last of 
 these four years of surpassing achievements, 
 a great affliction came upon him — his wife — 
 his idolized Virginia — broke a blood-vessel in 
 singing. From that hour until her death, five 
 years afterwards, the delicate condition of his 
 wife's health was a constant source of care 
 and anxiety to the devoted husband. While 
 struggling against poverty, and in the midst 
 of the most disheartening surroundings, his 
 
 44 
 
^-^^ 
 
 Cc^^ 
 
 ESQirora ©P ©m^CQ^Ka^'S (Sa^®£\2QRlE 
 
Cfje Poe Cult 
 
 wonderful imagination filled his soul with 
 dreams of princely palaces and royal gardens, 
 in which lived and moved forms of more than 
 earthly beauty. 
 
 Friends and foes alike agree in testifying to 
 Poe's tender devotion to his darling wife, ''in 
 sickness and in health." The most unrelenting 
 of his enemies mentions having been sent for 
 to visit him ''during a period of illness, caused 
 by protracted and anxious watching at the side 
 of his sick wife.'' George R. Graham, in a 
 generous defense of the dead poet, said, "I 
 shall never forget how solicitous of the happi- 
 ness of his wife and mother-in-law he was, 
 whilst editor of Graham's Magazine. His 
 whole efforts seemed to be to procure the com- 
 fort and welfare of his home. . . . His 
 love for his wife was a sort of rapturous wor- 
 ship of the spirit of beauty which he felt was 
 fading before his eyes. I have seen him hover- 
 ing over her, when she was ill, with all the 
 fond fear and tender anxiety of a mother for 
 her first-born; her slightest cough causing in 
 him a shudder, a heart-chill that was visible. I 
 rode out one summer evening with them, and 
 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 
 
 45 
 
Clbc Poc Cult 
 
 her loss that made him a sad and thoughtful 
 man, and lent an undying melody to his undy- 
 ing song/' 
 
 In the spring of 1842, Poe retired from 
 Graham's Magazine. His reputation as the 
 most brilliant editor in America ; his fame as a 
 poet and as a writer of purely imaginative 
 tales, and his success in making Graham's 
 Magazine the most profitable in the United 
 States, made him feel the very natural am- 
 bition of having a magazine of his own — a 
 magazine in which he would be perfectly un- 
 trammeled, entirely free from the control of 
 timid publishers. With this object, he issued 
 the prospectus of a magazine to be called The 
 Stylus. Contributors and illustrators were en- 
 gaged; the day was fixed for the appearance 
 of the first number ; everything w^as ready but 
 the most important thing of all — the money 
 to publish it. So the enterprise w^as tempor- 
 arily abandoned, to be taken up again and 
 again until the close of Poe's life. 
 
 In 1843 he won the hundred dollar prize of- 
 fered by the Dollar Magazine, of Philadelphia, 
 for the best short story. It was one of his 
 most popular tales, ''The Gold Bug,'' which 
 gained this prize. It is founded on the dis- 
 covery of the supposed buried treasure of Cap- 
 tain Kyd. The story displays a remarkable 
 
 46 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 illustration of Poe's theory that human in- 
 genuity can construct no enigma which the 
 human mind, by proper application, cannot 
 solve. The chief interest centres on the solu- 
 tion of an abstruse cryptogram. 
 
 This one hundred dollar prize came when 
 Poe was much in need of money, for after 
 leaving Graham's Magazine, he was without 
 any regular work during the rest of his stay 
 in Philadelphia. He wrote for James Russell 
 Lowell's short-lived magazine. The Pioneer, 
 and some notable reviews for Graham's Maga- 
 zine. After the issue of three numbers. The 
 Pioneer was discontinued, and Lowell was 
 very much distrest because he could* not pay 
 his contributors, among them Poe, who, al- 
 though wanting the money, wrote to the un- 
 fortunate editor: ''As for the few dollars 
 you owe me ($35.00), give yourself not one 
 moment's concern about them. I am poor, but 
 must be much poorer, indeed, when I even 
 think of demanding them.'' Lowell requited 
 Poe's generosity very ungratefully, when, in 
 A Fable for the Critics, he thus characterized 
 his former friend: 
 
 ''There comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge 
 Three-fifth of him genius and two-fifth sheer fudge — 
 
 4Z 
 
Cije poc QLult 
 
 Who has written some things quite the best of their 
 
 kind, 
 But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the 
 
 mind." 
 
 Poe showed a great deal of ''heart" when 
 he refused to ask Lowell for money due him 
 for his contributions to The Pioneer, In re- 
 turn for Lowell's base ingratitude, Poe de- 
 nounced him as ''one of the most rabid of the 
 Abolition fanatics — a fanatic simply for the 
 sake of fanaticism/' 
 
 In April, 1844, Poe again removed to New 
 York, hoping to find a better field for his 
 literary work than Philadelphia had proved 
 since he retired from Graham's Magazine. On 
 Saturday, April 13, within a week after his 
 arrival in New York, the Sun, of that city, 
 published his famous "Balloon Hoax/' In this 
 extraordinary narrative, Poe anticipated the 
 w^onderful achievements of the twentieth cen- 
 tury in crossing the Atlantic. It created an im- 
 mense sensation at the time. In the same 
 month, "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains'' 
 was published in Godey's Lady's Book, and, in 
 June, his poem, "Dreamland," in Graham's 
 Magazine. 
 
 In the spring of 1844, Poe resumed his cor- 
 respondence with James Russell Lowell. From 
 
 48 
 
Cl^e poe Cult 
 
 the first of these letters, dated May 24, 1844, 
 we learn that six of his stories were in the 
 hands of different editors waiting publication. 
 Poe was an industrious, painstaking, fascinat- 
 ing writer; he was known as the author of 
 some of the best short stories that had ever 
 been published in an American magazine yet, 
 after ten years of unceasing work, he could 
 not find a ready market for his writings, and 
 when published, he received a wretched re- 
 muneration for the highest kind of imagina- 
 tive prose — compositions that have taken a 
 front rank in the literature of the world. 
 
 In October, 1844, Poe was engaged by N. P. 
 Willis as assistant on the Evening Mirror. 
 For a small weekly salary, the greatest Ameri- 
 can writer was obliged to drudge seven hours 
 in a corner of the Evening Mirror office — from 
 nine to four — ''ready to be called upon for any 
 of the miscellaneous work of the day.'' Willis 
 furnishes the following tribute to his gifted 
 ''assistant": "With the highest admiration 
 for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone 
 for more than ordinary irregularity, we were 
 led by common report to expect a very ca- 
 pricious attention to his duties, and, occa- 
 sionally, a scene of violence and difficulty. 
 Time went on, however, and he was invariably 
 punctual and industrious. With his pale, 
 
 49 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 beautiful, intellectual face, as a reminder of 
 what genius was in him, it was impossible, of 
 course, not to treat him with deferential 
 courtesy, and, to our occasional request that 
 he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or 
 that he would erase a passage colored too 
 deeply with his resentments against society and 
 mankind, he readily and courteously assented 
 — far more yielding than most men, we 
 thought, on points so excusably sensitive. With 
 a prospect of taking the lead in another 
 periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his 
 employment with us, and, through all this con- 
 siderable period, we had seen but one present- 
 ment of the man — a quiet, patient, industrious, 
 and most gentlemanly person, commanding the 
 utmost respect and good feeling by his un- 
 varing deportment and ability/' 
 
 The other periodical, in which he was ^'to 
 take the lead,'' was The Broadway Journal^ a 
 weekly paper which had been started m New 
 York in January, 1845. I^ March, of that 
 year, Poe became associate editor and one-third 
 owner. In July, when the paper was slowly 
 dying, Poe became its sole editor. Looking 
 over the volumes of the Broadway Journal, I 
 was astonished to see so many highly finished 
 articles from his pen, at the very time, too, 
 when his adored wife was ill, almost dying, and 
 
 50 
 
Cl)e poe Cult 
 
 when he himself was in poor health, and 
 harassed by cares and troubles of all kinds. 
 
 While Poe was still working for N. P. 
 Willis as assistant on the Evening Mirror, he 
 electrified the world by the publication of The 
 Raven. This famous poem was originally pub- 
 lished in The American Review — a New York 
 Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and 
 Science — in the number for February, 1845. 
 It has been truly said that the first perusal 
 of The Raven leaves no distinct impression 
 upon the mind, but fascinates the reader with 
 a strange and thrilling interest. It produces 
 upon the mind and heart a vague impression 
 of fate, of mystery, of hopeless sorrow. It 
 sounds like the utterance of a full heart, poured 
 out — not for the sake of telling its own sad 
 story to a sjonpathetic ear — ^but because he is 
 mastered by his emotions, and cannot help 
 giving vent to them. It more resembles the 
 soliloquies of Hamlet, in which he betrays his 
 struggling thoughts and feelings, and in which 
 he reveals the workings of his soul, stirred to 
 its utmost depth by his terrible forebodings. 
 
 Dr. Henry E. Shepherd, the distinguished 
 Southern scholar, critic, and educationalist, 
 has furnished the most admirable study of The 
 Raven that has ever been written. After as- 
 signing to Poe a place in that illustrious pro- 
 Si 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 cession of classical poets, which includes Mil- 
 ton, Ben Johnson, Herrick, Shelley and Keats, 
 he says of The Raven: "No poem in our 
 language presents a more griaceful grouping 
 of metrical appliances and devices. The power 
 of peculiar letters is evolved with a magnifi- 
 cent touch; the thrill of the liquids is a char- 
 acteristic feature, not only of the refrain, but 
 throughout the compass of the poem; their 
 Xinked sweetness long drawn out,' falls with a 
 mellow cadence, revealing the poet's mastery 
 of those mysterious harmonies which lie at the 
 basis of human speech. The continuity of the 
 rhythm, illustrating Milton's ideal of true 
 musical delight, in which the sense is variously 
 drawn out from one verse into another; the 
 alliteration of the Norse minstrel and the 
 Saxon bard; the graphic delineation and the 
 sustained interest, are some of the features 
 which place The Raven foremost among the 
 creations of a poetic art in our age and clime." 
 Dr. Shepherd, continuing his beautiful ad- 
 dress, proceeded to show ''the versatile char- 
 acter of Poe's genius, the consummate, as well 
 as the conscious, art of his poetry, the grace- 
 ful blending of the creative and the critical 
 faculty — a combination perhaps the rarest that 
 the history of literature affords — his want of 
 a deference to prototypes or models, the chaste 
 
 52 
 
Cfie poe Cult 
 
 and scholarly elegance of his diction, the Attic 
 smoothness and the Celtic magic of his 
 style . . . Much of his work will perish 
 only with the English language. His riper 
 productions have received the most enthusias- 
 tic tributes from the sober and dispassionate 
 critics of the Old World. I shall ever remem- 
 ber the thrill of grateful appreciation with 
 which I read the splendid eulogium upon the 
 genius of Poe in The London Quarterly Re- 
 view J in which he is ranked far above his con- 
 temporaries, and pronounced one of the most 
 consummate literary artists of our era, poten- 
 tially the greatest critic that ever lived, and 
 possessing perhaps the finest ear for rhythm 
 that was ever formed. You are doubtless fa- 
 miliar with the impressions produced by The 
 Raven upon the mind of Mrs. Browning, who 
 has been called 'Shakespeare's daughter and 
 Tennyson's sister.' It was but recently that 
 one of the master spirits of the new poetic 
 school has accorded to Poe the pre-eminence 
 among American poets. Alfred Tennyson has 
 expressed his admiration of our poet, who, 
 with true poetic ken, was among the first to 
 appreciate the novelty and delicacy of his 
 method, and who, at a time when the 
 Laureate's fame was obscured by adverse and 
 undiscerning criticism, plainly foretold the 
 
 S3 
 
Cl)e poe Cult 
 
 serene* splendor of his matured greatness." 
 The address of Dr. Shepherd was dehvered 
 upon the occasion of the unveiHng of the Poe 
 Monument in Baltimore on the 17th of Novem- 
 ber, 1875. He concluded his remarks in the 
 following lofty language: ''This graceful 
 marble, fit emblem of our poet, is the expres- 
 sion — perhaps unconscious, undesigned, but 
 none the less effective, of sympathy with this 
 grand intellectual movement of our era. While 
 we pay the last tributes of respect to the 
 memory of him who alone was worthy, among 
 American poets, to be ranked in that illustrious 
 procession of bards around whose names is 
 concentrated so much of the glory of the Eng- 
 lish tongue, from Chaucer to Tennyson, let us 
 cherish the admonition to nurture and stimu- 
 late the poetry of our land, until it ascend, 
 'with no middle flight,' into the 'brightest 
 heaven of invention,' and the region of the 
 purest phantasy.'' 
 
 Poe's own account of the composition of 
 The Raven is one of the strangest revelations 
 that any author has ever given to the world; 
 indeed, it would be incredible if told by any 
 other person than the poet himself. Setting 
 out with the intention of composing a poem 
 that should suit at once the popular and the 
 critical taste, and keeping originality always 
 
 54 
 
Ci)e poe Cult 
 
 in view, the work proceeded, says Poe, step 
 by step until its completion, with the precision 
 and rigid consequences of a mathematical 
 problem. One of Poe's peculiar theories be- 
 ing that a long poem does not and cannot exist, 
 he limited his poem to one hundred and eight 
 lines. He next considered the impression, or 
 effort, to be produced, and he declares that he 
 kept steadily in view the design of rendering 
 the work universally appreciable. Regarding 
 beauty as the only legitimate province of 
 poetry, and sadness as the highest manifesta- 
 tion of its tone, he selected the idea of a lover 
 lamenting the death of his beautiful beloved as 
 the grand work of the poem. He then be- 
 thought himself of some keynote, some pivot, 
 upon which the whole structure might turn, 
 and decided upon the refrain; determining to 
 produce continuously novel effects by the varia- 
 tion of the application of the refrain, the re- 
 frain itself remaining, for the most part, un- 
 varied. The next thing in order was to select 
 a word which would be in the fullest possible 
 keeping with the melancholy tone of the poem. 
 The word ''nevermore'' was the very first that 
 presented itself. Then it was necessary to 
 have some pretext for the repetition of the 
 one word, ''nevermore.'' The poet says he saw 
 at once that it would not do to put the monot- 
 
 55 
 
Cle Poe Cult 
 
 onous word into the mouth of a human being. 
 Immediately, the idea arose of a non-reason- 
 ing creature capable of speech, and very 
 naturally a parrot, in the first instance, sug- 
 gested itself; but was superseded forthwith 
 by a raven, as infinitely more in keeping with 
 the intended melancholy tone. 
 
 Having then decided upon the rhythm of 
 the poem, the next point to be considered was 
 the mode of bringing together the lover and 
 the raven. The poet determined to place the 
 lover in the chamber rendered sacred by 
 memories of her who had frequented it. The 
 bird v/as next to be introduced. The night 
 was made tempestuous, to account for the 
 raven's seeking admission, and also for the 
 effect of contrast with the physical serenity 
 within the chamber. The bird was made to 
 alight on the bust of Pallas, also, for the effect 
 of contrast between the marble and the 
 plumage, the bust of Pallas being chosen as 
 most in keeping with the scholarship of the 
 lover. The poem then proceeds, in mournful 
 but melodious numbers, to the denouement, 
 when we are told the soul of the unhappy 
 poet, from out the shadow of the raven, that 
 lies floating on the floor, shall be lifted never- 
 more. 
 
 This is a mere outline of Poe's masterly 
 
 S6 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 analyvsis of his most extraordinary poem. The 
 world should be grateful to the poet for his 
 ''confidential disclosures'' in regard to The 
 Raven. With what delight would the world 
 have welcomed Shakespeare's own account of 
 the conception and composition of 'Xear," of 
 "Macbeth/' of "Hamlet" ! 
 
 Of all the writers of his time, Poe was the 
 only one who could not have been foreseen. 
 This of itself shows the originality of his 
 work, and the strong, distinct individuality of 
 his genius, which has given him a high place, 
 not only in the literature of America, but in 
 the literature of the world. The quantity of 
 Poe's poetry is small, but, as has been said of 
 it by a judicious critic, "its quality is perfect.'' 
 
 The Raven established Poe's fame as the 
 most original, the most remarkable of Ameri- 
 can poets. The Edinburgh Review, in a harsh 
 article, was forced to admit that, "The 
 Raven has taken rank all over the world as 
 the very first poem yet produced on the Ameri- 
 can Continent." The poem has been trans- 
 lated into most of the modern and several of 
 the ancient languages. Stephen Mallarme 
 translated and published, in Paris, a superbly 
 illustrated edition of The Raven, in 1876. He 
 sent Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman a copy of the 
 volume, with a highly appreciative letter, from 
 
 57 
 
Clje Poe Cult 
 
 which I was permitted to make the following 
 extracts : 
 
 ''Whatever is done to honor the memory of 
 a genius the most truly sublime the world has 
 ever seen, ought it not first to obtain your 
 sanction? Such of Poe's works as our great 
 Baudelaire has left untranslated, this is to say, 
 the poems, and many of the critical fragments, 
 I hope to make known to France, and my first 
 attempt (The Raven) is intended to attract 
 attention to a future work, now nearly com- 
 pleted. . . . Fascinated with the works 
 of Poe from my infancy, it is already a very 
 long time since your name became associated 
 with his in my earliest and most intimate 
 sympathies/' In a letter addressed to one of 
 his relatives in Baltimore, a few months after 
 the publication of The Raven, Edgar Poe al- 
 ludes, with just pride, to the renown which 
 his poetical reputation had conferred upon the 
 family name. A writer in the Southern Liter- 
 ary Messenger declared with equal truth and 
 beauty, that on the dusky wings of The Raven, 
 Edgar A. Poe will sail securely over the gulf 
 of oblivion to the eternal shore. So much in- 
 terest has this immortal poem created in the 
 world of letters, that it has caused a litera- 
 ture of its own to be written. 
 
 In the winter of 1845-6, the literary repu- 
 
 58 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 tation of Edgar A. Poe had attained its 
 greatest brilliancy. A cousin of the poet, 
 Judge Neilson Poe, of Baltimore, told me that 
 he visited him during that time, and Edgar, 
 Virginia, and Mrs. Clemm formed the hap- 
 piest little family he had ever seen. Edgar 
 was sick at the time of the visit, and the visi- 
 tor was invited to his chamber. He found the 
 poet reclining on a lounge, with Mrs. Clemm 
 and Virginia in attendance upon him. A small 
 table by his side held three or four books, a 
 bouquet of sweet flowers, and some delicacies. 
 Mrs. Osgood and other ladies called. Edgar 
 Poe, lying sick upon his lounge, was the centre 
 of attraction. The conversation, in such com- 
 pany, naturally took a literary turn. The in- 
 valid poet directed it, and all listened, en- 
 chanted by his low, rich, musical voice, and 
 the brilliant play of his imagination. 
 
 Mrs. Osgood, writing after Poe's death, 
 speaking of her first acquaintance with Poe, 
 soon after the publication of The Raven, said: 
 ''Of the charming love and confidence that ex- 
 isted between his wife and himself, I cannot 
 speak too earnestly, too warmly. It was in 
 his own simple yet poetical home that, to me, 
 the character of Edgar Poe appeared in its 
 most beautiful light. Playful, affectionate, 
 witty; alternately docile and wayward as a 
 
 59 
 
Cf)e Poe Cult 
 
 petted child; for his young, gentle, idoHzed 
 wife, and for all who came, he had, even in 
 the midst of the harassing literary work, a 
 kind word, a pleasant smile, a graceful and 
 courteous attention/' 
 
 Poe was the most accompHshed literary man 
 we have ever had. He possessed wonderful 
 skill as a literary artist. All through his life 
 he was refining and improving his work, and 
 was never satisfied until he had made it as 
 perfect as possible. Compare, for instance, 
 ''A Paean,'' of 1831, and 'Xenore," of 1843. 
 The only fair way to examine an author is 
 with the enthusiasm of a lover and the intel- 
 ligence of a scholar. Poe has seldom been 
 thus examined: His critics have been either 
 devoted admirers w^ho could see no fault in 
 him, or enemies who could see no good. An- 
 other class of critics has appeared within the 
 present generation who have examined him 
 with a candid judgment and unprejudiced 
 minds. These have not been his own country- 
 men, except in rare cases, but the scholars of 
 England, France and Germany. Poe showed 
 his mastery of artistic composition in his re- 
 markable restraint, in his wonderful concen- 
 tration. Goethe says ''in his illiminations the 
 master shows himself." 
 
 In May, 1846, Poe commenced a prose dun- 
 
 60 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 ciad in Godey's Lady's Book, his celebrated 
 critical papers, ''The Literati of New York/' 
 The majority of these 'Xiterati'' have passed 
 to their merited oblivion, but the series, which 
 ran from May to October, caused an immense 
 sensation among the dunces and their friends 
 as well as the reading public generally. Poe 
 caused as much terror among the literary pig- 
 mies as Gulliver caused among the Lilliputian 
 pigmies. As the natural result of such just but 
 severe criticism, he made a ''host of enemies 
 among persons toward whom he entertained 
 no personal ill-will.'' These little men and 
 their friends nursed their wrath, and kept it 
 warm until Poe died, then they attacked the 
 character of the defenseless poet, inventing 
 lies, grossly exaggerating the truth, and be- 
 smirching the honor of him who was the soul 
 of honor. Poe has been dead sixty years, yet 
 these libels still live and circulate, and are be- 
 lieved by ignorant or malicious persons, al- 
 though they have been refuted a hundred 
 times. 
 
 Poe was one of the first American writers 
 who appeared on the lecture platform. He 
 possessed a personal magnetism which com- 
 pletely fascinated his audience. His voice was 
 beautifully modulated, his language was ele- 
 
 6i 
 
Cl)e poe Cult 
 
 gant, and his opinions were bold, original, and 
 always forcefully expressed. His first lecture, 
 or at least, the first one of which we have 
 record, was delivered before the William Wirt 
 Institute, in Philadelphia, on the 25th of No- 
 vember, 1843. 'The subject was ''The Poets 
 and Poetry of America/' It was in this lec- 
 ture that Poe gave public utterance to his 
 private opinion of Rufus W. Griswold's pre- 
 tentious compilation, bearing a similar title to 
 that of Poe's lecture. His criticism was just, 
 but extremely severe, and excited much at- 
 tention in Philadelphia, where both Poe and 
 Griswold lived at the time. The latter person 
 was highly indignant, and never forgave his 
 assailant, but, although he took no notice of it 
 at the time, he waited until Poe was in his 
 grave, and then published the Memoir which 
 has been pronounced one of the three most in- 
 famous Memoirs ever written — the other two 
 being Froude's Life of Carlyle, and Hogg's 
 ''Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir 
 Walter Scott.'' 
 
 Poe repeated the lecture on "The Poets and 
 Poetry of America" in New York, on the 25th 
 of February, 1845, after the publication of The 
 Raven had made him famous. Of this lecture, 
 he himself said: "I took occasion to speak 
 what I know to be the truth. I told these 
 
 62 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 gentlemen (the audience was composed chiefly 
 of editors and pubHshers), with a few noble 
 exceptions they had been engaged for many 
 years in a system of indiscriminate praise and 
 puffery of American books." 
 
 As the summer of 1846 approached, the 
 health of Mrs. Poe continued to decline, and 
 dreading the effects of the city heat upon the 
 already feeble health of the lovely and loved 
 invalid, the little family removed to Fordham. 
 The new home was a tiny Dutch cottage, con- 
 taining four rooms, but it was cool, quiet, and 
 away from the excitement and temptation of 
 New York. The parlor was the poet's study. 
 Here he wrote ''Ulalume,'' ''Eureka,'' and 
 other productions of his ''lonesome, latter 
 years." The room was neatly furnished: red 
 and white matting covered the floor; four 
 cane-seat chairs, a small table, a set of hanging 
 bookshelves, and two or three engravings com- 
 pleted the furniture. A lady, Mrs. Gove- 
 Nichols, who visited Poe's cottage home, in 
 1846, says: "There was an air of taste and 
 gentility about the place that must have been 
 lent to it by the presence of its inmates. So 
 neat, so poor, so unfurnished, and yet so 
 charming a dwelling I never saw. There was 
 an acre or two of greensward fenced in about 
 the house, as smooth as velvet, and as clean as 
 
 63 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 the best-kept carpet. Mr. Poe was so hand- 
 some, so impassive in his wonderful, intellec- 
 tual beauty, so proud and reserved, so entirely 
 a gentleman upon all occasions — ^^so good a 
 talker that he impressed himself and his wishes 
 even without words upon those with whom he 
 spoke. His voice was melody itself. He 
 always spoke low, even in a violent discussion, 
 compelling his hearers to listen if they would 
 know his opinion, his facts, fancies, or phi- 
 losophy. Mrs. Poe looked very young ; she had 
 large black eyes, and a pearly whiteness of 
 complexion which was a perfect pallor. Her 
 pale face, her brilliant eyes, and her raven 
 hair gave her an unearthly look. One felt 
 that she was almost a disrobed spirit, and when 
 she coughed, it was made certain that she was 
 rapidly passing away.' 
 
 }} 
 
 Darker and darker grew the shadows over 
 the Fordham cottage — sadder and sadder 
 grew the hearts of the devoted husband and 
 mother as the autumn passed, and the winter 
 of 1846-7 drew near. The sickness of his 
 wife, and his own ill health incapacitated Poe 
 from literary work, his only source of revenue, 
 and, consequently, the family were reduced to 
 the last extremity, wanting even the barest 
 necessaries of life — at a time, too, when Mrs. 
 
 64 
 
Cfje Poc Cult 
 
 Poe required the little delicacies so grateful to 
 the sick. At this, the darkest hour o£ Poe's 
 life, an angel of mercy in the person of Mrs. 
 Mary Louise Shew appeared on the scene, and 
 relieved the wants of the family, and brought 
 comfort to the sick room of the dying wife. 
 I have not the heart to linger over the death- 
 bed, which was as sad and pathetic as ever told 
 by poet or romance writer. The weather was 
 intensely cold — for it was midwinter — and 
 Mrs. Poe suffered from the chills that followed 
 the hectic fever of consumption. The bed was 
 of straw, and covered only with spread and 
 sheets; no blanket. Here the dying lady lay, 
 wrapped in her husband's overcoat, with a 
 large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The cat 
 and the coat afforded the only warmth to the 
 sufferer, except that imparted by her mother 
 chafing her feet and her husband her hands. 
 And thus died, on January 30, 1847, ^^ the 
 early age of twenty-five, the wife of America's 
 greatest genius. 
 
 This loss, though long expected, was not the 
 less crushing when it came at last. To a lady 
 of Massachusetts, who had sent him expres- 
 sions of sympathy, Edgar Poe wrote, a few 
 weeks after his wife's death: ''I was over- 
 whelmed by a sorrow so poignant as to de- 
 prive me, for several weeks, of all power of 
 
 65 
 
Cfje Poe Cult 
 
 thoug-ht or action/' Mrs. Clemm told me that 
 ''Eddie'' often wandered to his wife's grave 
 at midnight, in the snow and rain, and threw 
 himself upon the mound of earth, calling upon 
 her in words of devoted love, and invoking her 
 gentle spirit to watch over him. It is now 
 known that Edgar Poe was never the same 
 man after the death of his idolized young wife. 
 For weeks and months after that crushing 
 sorrow, he was buried in an agony of grief, 
 from which nothing could arouse him. His 
 books and studies were abandoned; his pen 
 was thrown aside; his usual occupations were 
 neglected. He wandered up and down the 
 country by day, and at night kept long and 
 solitary vigil at the grave of his -'Lost 
 Lenore." He who rarely smiled and never 
 laughed before, now might almost be said to 
 have ''never smiled again." The unhappy 
 Master of the Raven, tortured by intolerable 
 memories of the lost one, sought to drown his 
 sorrow in the waters of Lethe. It was not for 
 pleasure that he thus sank his noble intellect. 
 "I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimu- 
 lants to which I sometimes so madly indulge," 
 he wrote within a year of his death. "It has 
 not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have 
 periled life and reputation and reason. It has 
 been in the desperate attempt to escape from 
 
 66 
 
Ci)c poe Cult 
 
 torturing memories, from a sense of insuper- 
 able loneliness^ and a dread of some strange, 
 impending doom/' 
 
 But it must not be supposed that this ''mad 
 indulgence'' was habitual. It was only occa- 
 sional, only when driven to despair by ''in- 
 tolerable sorrow," that he was guilty of follies 
 and excesses, "which," as he very justly com- 
 plained, "are hourly committed by others with- 
 out attracting any notice whatever." But he 
 was famous — he was the author of The Raven 
 — they were unknown, and, therefore, un- 
 noticed. It is very easy for men who live in 
 comfort, men who have no trials of poverty 
 and sorrow, to condemn Edgar Poe as a 
 drunkard; whereas, if the truth were known, 
 he seldom drank, while they are regular 
 drinkers, and for mere sensual gratification, 
 but he only when driven to it by misery and 
 despair. This is proved by the unimpeachable 
 testimony of such persons as N. P. Willis, who 
 was in daily intercourse with him for months, 
 and saw nothing of the "frequent fits of in- 
 toxication," of which his malicious biographer 
 spoke; L. A. Wilmer, during an intimate 
 friendship of twelve years, saw nothing of it; 
 George R. Graham, who was associated with 
 him daily for two years, saw nothing of it ; S. 
 D. Lewis, the husband of Estelle Anna Lewis, 
 
 67 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 and who lived in the closest intimacy with Poe, 
 never saw him drink a glass of beer, wine, or 
 liquor of any kind. In fact, it has been proved 
 beyond a doubt, that it was only at rare in- 
 tervals, and more especially after the death of 
 his adored wife, that he indulged in stimu- 
 lants at all. Upon these occasions, the lines in 
 Dermody's ''Enthusiast,'' might be applied to 
 Poe: 
 
 ''He who such polished lines so well could form, 
 Was Passion's slave, Intoxication's child ; 
 
 Now earth-enamored, a groveling worm, 
 
 Now seraph-plumed, the wonderful, the wild." 
 
 In the autumn of the year in which Poe lost 
 his wife, he wrote that strange, mysterious, 
 fascinating poem, ''Ulalume,'' which was pub- 
 lished in the American Review, for December, 
 1847. Willis copied the poem in the Home 
 Journal, January i, 1848, with the following 
 remarks: ''We do not know how many 
 readers we have who will enjoy as we do this 
 exquisitely piquant and skillful exercise of 
 variety and niceness of language. It is a poem 
 full of beauty — a curiosity (and a delicious 
 one, we think), in philologic flavor.'' When 
 Willis wrote this notice, it was not known that 
 Poe was the author of the poem, v/hich was 
 published anonymously. Mrs. Whitman, speak- 
 ing of this strange threnody, says : ''This poem, 
 
 68 
 
C!)e Poe Cult 
 
 perhaps the most original and weirdly suggest- 
 ive of all his poemSj resembles, at first sight, 
 some of Turner's landscapes, being, appar- 
 ently, without form, and void, and having 
 darkness on the face of it. It is, nevertheless, 
 in its basis, although not in the precise cor- 
 respondence of time, simply historical. Such 
 was the poet's lonely midnight walk; such, 
 amid desolate memories and sceneries of the 
 hour, was the new-born hope enkindled within 
 his heart at the sight of the morning star — 
 'Astarte's be-diamond crescent' — booming up 
 as the beautiful harbinger of love and happi- 
 ness, yet awaiting him in the untried future," 
 etc. 
 
 The original autograph of ''Ulalume" was 
 sold at auction, in New York, several years 
 ago, which contained a stanza that was sup- 
 pressed before the poem was published. Poe 
 once recited the whole poem at an evening 
 gathering in Richmond, Va. One of the 
 guests. Miss Susanna Ingram, was deeply af- 
 fected, but confessed that she could not under- 
 stand it at a first hearing, and asked the 
 privilege of seeing it in manuscript. The next 
 morning Poe sent her a copy of the poem ac- 
 companied by a characteristic note, which runs 
 as follows: "Monday evening. I have tran- 
 scribed 'Ulalume' with much pleasure, dear 
 
 69 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 Miss Ingram, as I am sure I would do any- 
 thing at your bidding, but I fear you will find 
 the verses scarcely more intelligible to-day in 
 my manuscript than last night in my recita- 
 tion. I would endeavor to explain to you what 
 I really meant by the poem if it were not that 
 I remember Dr. Johnson's bitter and rather 
 just remarks about the folly of explaining 
 what, if worth explaining, would explain itself. 
 He has a happy witticism, too, about some book 
 which he calls 'as obscure as an explanatory 
 note.' Leaving 'Ulalume' to its fate, there- 
 fore, and in good hands, I am yours truly, 
 Edgar A. Poe." 
 
 Although Poe published only this one poem 
 in 1847 — his ''most immemorial year,'' his 
 busy brain was not idle. It was during the 
 last months of that year "Eureka" was 
 planned, thought out, and mostly written. Mrs. 
 Clemm told me that, when engaged upon the 
 composition of this extraordinary prose-poem, 
 he would walk up and down the porch in front 
 of the cottage in the coldest nights of Decem- 
 ber, with an overcoat thrown over his shoul- 
 der, gazing at the stars, and "pondering the 
 deep problem" of the universe, until long after 
 midnight. Having finished "Eureka," Poe 
 used it as a lecture, which he delivered in New 
 York on Thursday evening, February 3, 1848. 
 
 70 
 
Cfie poe Cult 
 
 The night was stormy, but there was present a 
 ''select but highly appreciative audience that 
 remained attentive and interested for nearly 
 three hours, under the lecturer's powerful, 
 able, and profound analytical exposition of his 
 peculiar theory on the origin, creation, and 
 final destiny of the universe/' ''Mr. Poe's de- 
 livery" was described as "pure, finished, and 
 chaste in style; his power of reasoning acute, 
 his analytic perceptions keen. The lecturer ap- 
 peared inspired; his eyes seemed to glow like 
 those of his own Raven." 
 
 The special object of the lecture was to ob- 
 tain funds to start The Stylus, a magazine in 
 which he intended "to maintain a sincere and 
 fearless opinion," and "absolutely independent 
 criticism," guided by the "intelligible laws of 
 art." 
 
 Having failed to make any money by 
 "Eureka" as a lecture, he determined to pub- 
 lish it in book form. Having carefully re- 
 vised and enlarged it, that generous patron of 
 literature, George P. Putnam, published the 
 work in the Spring of 1848. "Eureka" was 
 the most ambitious production of Poe's pen, 
 and the least successful. 
 
 Early in the Summer of 1848, Poe visited 
 Richmond, and became acquainted with John 
 R. Thompson, the editor of the Southern 
 
 71 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 Literary Messenger, who engaged him to write 
 for the magazine. The September number 
 contained an elaborately eulogistic review of 
 Mrs. Estelle Anna Lewis's poems; and the 
 October number was enriched by Poe's famous 
 ^^The Rationale of Verse.'' While in Rich- 
 mond, at this time, he renewed his acquaint- 
 ance with his early sweetheart, Elmira Roy- 
 ster (now Mrs. Shelton, a rich widow). 
 Rumor has it that he was about to engage 
 himself to this lady when he received a com- 
 plimentar}^ poem from Mrs. Sarah Helen 
 Whitman, whom he had first seen in 1845, 
 when he was returning from Boston to New 
 York, and had stopped in Providence en route. 
 The two had never met until in October, 1848, 
 when Poe, provided with a letter of introduc- 
 tion, called upon her, and after a short ac- 
 quaintance of forty-eight hours, asked her to 
 marry him. As the story of Poe's affair with 
 Mrs. Whitman is told at length in other por- 
 tions of this volume, it need not be repeated 
 here; suffice it to say that they were engaged, 
 and were on the eve of being married, when 
 the engagement was broken off forever. Mrs. 
 Whitman died on the 27th of June, 1878, re- 
 maining to the last an enthusiastic admirer 
 and defender of Edgar A. Poe. 
 
 72 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 Edgar Poe passed the Winter and Spring 
 of 1849 ^t his cottage in Fordham. The only- 
 variety in the monotony of his secluded life 
 was the occasional visit of a friend, or a visit 
 of a few days by Mrs. Clemm and himself to 
 their friend, Mrs. Estelle Anna Lewis, in 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 On the 30th of June, 1849, Po^ departed 
 from this lady's house, where he and Mrs. 
 Clemm had passed the previous night, on his 
 last journey to the South. July, August and 
 September were spent in Richmond and Nor- 
 folk, and in both cities he delivered his lecture 
 on ''The Poetic Principle," and was every- 
 where received with cordial appreciation. In 
 September he became engaged to Mrs. Shel- 
 ton, and he wrote to Mrs. Clemm that his 
 marriage would take place on the 17th of Octo- 
 ber. This letter, although announcing the 
 ^'happy event," was very sad, as though the 
 writer was oppressed by a sense of impending 
 doom. On Tuesday, the 2d of October, he 
 left Richmond by boat for Baltimore, where 
 he arrived the next morning. His intention 
 was to go to Fordham and to bring Mrs.' 
 Clemm to Richmond for his wedding. He told 
 her to be ready to return with him on the loth, 
 that he had determined to pass the rest of his 
 life amid the scenes of his happy youth. What 
 
 73 
 
Cl)e poe Cult 
 
 became of Poe, after he arrived in Baltimore 
 on that October morning, will probably never 
 be known. It was an election day. His 
 cousin, the late Judge Neilson Poe, told me 
 that, on the evening of October 3d, he was in- 
 formed that a gentleman named Poe was in a 
 back room of the Fourth Ward polls, on Lom-' 
 bard Street, between High and Exeter Streets. 
 On going there, he found Edgar Poe in a 
 state of stupefaction. He was told that his 
 cousin had been ''cooped^^ and voted all over 
 the city. The dying poet was taken to the 
 Washington College Hospital, on Broadway, 
 now the Church Home and Infirmary. There, 
 on the following Sunday, October 7th, he 
 died;, and was buried the next afternoon at four 
 o'clock. It was a dull, cold, dreary day — such 
 a day as he had described in 'Ulalume' :'' 
 
 "The skies they were ashen and sober, 
 The leaves they were crisped and sere." 
 
 74 
 

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Cfje poe Cult 
 
 THE POE CULT. 
 
 One of the most astonishing facts in the 
 literary annals of America, if not of the world, 
 is the amazing rise of what may be called the 
 Poe cult. The unhappy master of ''The 
 Raven'' was the victim of a fate more strange, 
 more romantic, more tragical than poet ever 
 imagined or novelist ever penned. His life 
 was one of suffering, sorrow, and song; he 
 died a wretched death in a public hospital, 
 
 Unwept, unhonored, unsung. 
 His funeral was pathetic in its meagre at- 
 tendance, its scant ceremony and absence of 
 mourning. Only eight persons were present 
 at the funeral of one of the immortals of 
 earth. 
 
 At the time of this humble funeral, on Octo- 
 ber 8, 1849, no one could have dreamed that 
 within twenty-five years Edgar Poe would be 
 regarded by the cultured people of all lands as 
 the most unique and remarkable genius in 
 American literature. Equally astonishing is 
 the fact that many persons who were old 
 enough to remember Poe are still alive, when 
 his letters possess a market value of five times 
 
 75 
 
Clie Poe Cult 
 
 as great as that of Byron's, twice as great as 
 Shelley's, a hundred times as great as Bry- 
 ant's, Longfellow's, Lowell's, and other con- 
 temporaneous American authors. Still more 
 remarkable is the fact that the manuscripts of 
 those poems, for which he received trifling 
 sums, have become as precious as the Sibylline 
 leaves, and are worth their weight in gold. If 
 the original manuscript of ''The Raven" were 
 still in existence, American millionaires would 
 contend for its possession, and $10,000 would 
 be gladly paid for the inestimable treasure. 
 Yet, for this poem, which has brought more 
 honor upon American literature than any 
 other single American poem, and established 
 Poe's fame as the most original of America 
 poets — a poem which stands alone in poetr 
 as the ''Venus" in sculpture and "The Trans 
 figuration" in painting — for this wonderful 
 poem whose weird and mysterious fascination 
 has thrilled the w^orld, Poe was paid only ten 
 dollars, a sum which is now paid for an ordi- 
 nary love story in a weekly newspaper. 
 
 Upon the rare occasions when the first edi- 
 tions of Poe's poems have been offered for sale 
 at auction, the excitement has run high, the 
 bidding has been spirited, and the prices have 
 broken the record. The first edition of Tamer- 
 lane and Other Poems (Boston, 1827), was 
 
 76 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 never offered at public auction until the Spring 
 of 1892. In fact, for sixty years, one copy 
 only, and that an iqiperfect one, was known to 
 exist, and that was in the locked room of the 
 British Museum, there to stay ''for evermore/' 
 So when it was announced that a second copy 
 of the precious volume was to be sold at 
 auction, the excitement among wealthy collec- 
 tors was great. As no copy had ever been 
 sold, there was no record price. The bidding 
 was high and rapid — $500, $750, $1,000, $1,- 
 500, $1,750; finally the tiny paper volume of 
 forty pages, whose intrinsic value was about 
 ten cents, was knocked down for the enormous 
 sum of $1,850. The purchaser, proud of his 
 prize, sent it to Paris and had it bound in 
 mosaic at a cost of $300. In the Spring of 
 1894 another copy of the first edition of 
 Tamerlane was discovered by an obscure 
 young lawyer in an obscure town in Vermont. 
 The finding of a third copy naturally lessened 
 the value of the work as a unique or rare 
 book, and when it was offered to several per- 
 sons who are interested in literary curios, no 
 offer above $1,200 could be secured for it. 
 What became of that copy of Tamerlane I 
 have no means of knowing. In the Autumn 
 of 1900, a copy was sold at auction, bringing 
 the record price of $2,050. 
 
 77 
 
Cl^e Poe Cult 
 
 The immense price paid for an exemplar of 
 the first edition of Tamerlane shows the re- 
 markable advance that has taken place in the 
 value of Poeana during the last ten years. But 
 all records were broken in this respect at the 
 sale of Mr. Frederick William French's 
 library on the 23d, 24th and 25th of April, 
 1901. The second edition of Tamerlane, 
 Baltimore, 1829, a beautiful copy in the origi- 
 nal boards, uncut, was sold to a dealer for 
 $1,300, an advance of $200 on the price of the 
 McKee copy sold in November, 1900. No. i 
 of the Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, con- 
 taining ''The Murders in the Rue Morgue'' 
 and ''The Man that Was Used Up" in the 
 original brown paper wrapper's, brought an 
 even $1,000; an enormous price, but only two 
 copies are known to be in existence. Two 
 autograph letters of Poe's at the same sale 
 fetched, respectively, $250 and $210. 
 
 In mentioning these fabulous prices paid for 
 Poe rarities, I cannot help thinking that the 
 pity of it is that the unhappy master of "The 
 Raven'^ should have lived in poverty, often in 
 absolute want, when the price of one of his 
 rare editions would have made him com- 
 fortable for years; when the price of one of 
 his autograph letters would have provided 
 heat to warm the benumbed limbs of his dying 
 
 78 
 
C|e poe Cult 
 
 wife, wine to stimulate her physical weakness, 
 and delicate food to nourish her body, ex- 
 hausted by consumption. 
 
 Mr. William Nelson, of Paterson, New 
 Jersey, a few years ago, was fortunate enough 
 to secure the original manuscript of ''The 
 Bells" for $275. He is an enthusiastic Poe 
 man, and his collection contains several first 
 editions; also, The Southern Literary Mes- 
 senger and Graham's Magazine, of both of 
 which Poe was editor. He has also a large and 
 interesting collection of newspaper clippings 
 relating to Poe, running from a single para- 
 graph to long editorials. Mr. Nelson has spent 
 much time and money in forming his collec- 
 tion, but when the Poe mania takes possession 
 of a man, time counts for nothing, and money 
 is thrown away with reckless prodigality.* 
 
 The Poe cult is progressive : beginning with 
 admiration of his melodious poems and ex- 
 traordinary prose tales, the adm^iration of the 
 poetry leads to an enthusiasm for the poet and 
 an interest in everything relating to him. The 
 shabby little homes in which he lived, and 
 loved, and worked, become pilgrims' shrines. 
 The few books which he owned become 
 precious rehcs. When the old Allan mansion 
 
 *Smce the above was written, Mr. Nelson has sold kis Poe 
 rarities, "The Bells" bringing $2,100. 
 
 79 
 
Cfje Poe Cult 
 
 in Richmond, Virginia, was pulled down a few 
 years ago, there was a pretty scramble for Poe 
 relics, for in that house Poe's happy childhood 
 and youth were passed. Thirty dollars was 
 asked for the mantelpiece of the poet's room, 
 thirty-five for the bureau, five for the lock, 
 etc. The cane with which old Mr. Allan, Poe's 
 adopted father, threatened to strike the way- 
 ward poet if he did not leave the house after 
 their irreconcilable quarrel, should have 
 brought a fabulous price could it have been 
 found among the curios collected there. Had 
 any of Poe's juvenile verses been discovered, 
 they would have brought hundreds, yes, thou- 
 sands of dollars. What became of those 
 precious manuscripts containing poems to his 
 boyish sweethearts will never be known. 
 
 It is strange that there are so few of Poe's 
 letters in existence, for he was a voluminous 
 letter writer, and had many correspondents 
 among the literary men and women of his 
 time. The late Judge Neilson Poe, of Balti- 
 more, who was a cousin of the poet, had 
 several very interesting letters from Edgar 
 Poe, which I have seen. These disappeared 
 soon after the Judge's death, and have never 
 been traced. Their publication would throw 
 much light on certain periods of Poe's life. 
 Mrs, Clemm was in possession of several 
 
 80 
 
Cije Poe Cult 
 
 valuable Poe letters and other things at the 
 time of her death in Baltimore, on February 
 1 6, 1 87 1. These also disappeared, no one 
 knows whither. 
 
 The present Poe cult commenced at the time 
 of the unveiling of the monument to the poet 
 in Baltimore on the 17th of November, 1875. 
 It was a memorable occasion, not only for 
 American literature, but for the literature of 
 the world. It was the first recognition of the 
 extraordinary genius of the author of ''The 
 Raven.'' It drew together a notable as- 
 semblage, including several who had been as- 
 sociated with Poe in his youth and early man- 
 hood. Among these were Professor Joseph H. 
 Clarke, Poe's first teacher in Richmond, who 
 died in Baltimore in 1886, in the ninety-second 
 year of his age; John H. B. Latrobe, the dis- 
 tinguished Southern lawyer, the last survivor 
 of the three gentlemen, who, by awarding to 
 Poe the prize for the best prose tale, gave him 
 the first lift up the literary ladder; John H. 
 Hewett, the editor of the Saturday Visitor, in 
 which the prize story, ''The Manuscript Found 
 in a Bottle,'' was published; Dr. John E. Snod- 
 grass, the last editor of the Saturday Visitor, 
 and associate editor of the American Museum, 
 in which several of Poe's early poems and tales 
 were published; Dr. Nathan Covington 
 
 81 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 Brooks, editor of the American Museum; 
 Doctor John G. Morris, president of the Mary« 
 land Historical Society; Nathaniel H. Mori- 
 son, Provost of the Peabody Institute, Balti- 
 more; Judge Neilson Poe, the nearest sur- 
 viving relative of the poet; and Walt Whit- 
 man, the last in name, but first in fame. (An 
 extended account of the unveiling of the Poe 
 monument is given in a later article in this 
 volume, entitled, ''The Truth about Edgar 
 Allan Poe.") 
 
 Dr. Johnson said that Oliver Goldsmith 
 touched nothing which he did not ornament. 
 It can be as truly said of Poe that he touched 
 nothing which he did not immortalize. The 
 room at the University of Virginia, where he 
 spent a few months of his early manhood, is 
 more frequently visited than are the dormi- 
 tories of the long line of orators, statesmen 
 and scholars who were educated at that cele- 
 brated seat of learning. Every magazine 
 with which he was associated, either as editor 
 or contributor— GraAam'^, Godey's, the South- 
 ern Literary Messenger and other periodicals 
 — has been remembered simply because Poe's 
 name was connected with it. The little cottage 
 at Fordham, where the saddest years of his life 
 were spent^ — those lonesome latter years after 
 the death of his wife — is visited by strangers 
 
 82 
 
Cfee poe Cult 
 
 from distant lands because it was the home of 
 the poet, where, wifeless, moneyless, hopeless, 
 he made his last desperate, despairing strug- 
 gle with pitiless fortune. His tomb in West- 
 minster churchyard, Baltimore, where the 
 poet's '^tantalized spirit blandly reposes," has 
 made the spot the 'Toefs Corner" of the 
 Westminster of the Monumental City. Men 
 and women's names have been saved irom 
 oblivion because they were in some way or 
 other associated with Poe, either as friends or 
 enemies. The gentle Mrs. Osgood, the ma- 
 lignant Griswold, the devoted Mrs. Whitman, 
 the ferocious Briggs, the genial General Wet- 
 more, the accomplished John R. Thompson, 
 and many others will occur to all students of 
 the life and works of the author of ''The 
 Raven." 
 
 Carlyle regarded it as a remarkable fact 
 that six lives of Burns had been published 
 within a generation after his death. Within 
 the same space of time, nine lives of Poe were 
 published, while several others have been is- 
 sued during the last decade. These numerous 
 biographies show that the Poe cult is ever on 
 the increase, and that the reading public wel- 
 comes every addition to its knowledge of the 
 most interesting and picturesque figure in 
 American literature. 
 
 83 
 
Cfie poc Cult 
 
 The Poe cult is not confined to any one, two 
 or three countries. It has spread through the 
 civihzed world. It includes the cultured peo- 
 ple of Europe, America, and in the lands be- 
 yond the sea. It has made Edgar A. Poe a 
 classic. Numerous editions of his works have 
 been published in London and Edinburgh. In 
 France he is as much admired as many French 
 authors. A dozen editions of his poems and 
 tales have appeared in Germany ; his tales have 
 been published in Spain and Italy; his poetical 
 works in Austraha; and one of his stories, 
 ''The Oval Portrait,'' has been translated into 
 modern Greek and published at Athens. The 
 end of the Poe cult cannot be foretold. It 
 has not reached its height. Even while I 
 write, a new edition of his works in seventeen 
 volumes has been pubHshed. 
 
 It should always be remembered that the 
 Poe cult owes its origin and stimulus to the 
 gifted and fearless Sarah Helen Whitman. 
 When malice had exhausted itself in heaping 
 insult upon the name of the dead poet, it was 
 the delicate affection of Mrs. Whitman — who 
 loved him and whom he loved — that dared to 
 penetrate the ''mournful corridors'' of that 
 sad, desolate heart, with its "halls of tragedy 
 and chambers of retribution," and tell the true, 
 but melancholy, story of the author of "The 
 
 84 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 Raven/^ It was she who generously came 
 forward as ''One of the Friends" of him who 
 was said to have no friends. She was his 
 steady champion from first to last. Whether 
 it was some crack-brained scribbler who tried 
 to prove Poe ''mad/' or some accomplished 
 scholar who endeavored to disparage him in 
 order to magnify some other writer, or some 
 silly woman who attempted to foist herself 
 into a little brief notice by relating "imaginary 
 facts" about the poet's hidden life, Mrs. Whit- 
 man was always ready to defend her dead 
 friend. 
 
 After a long and exhaustive study of the 
 life of Edgar A. Poe during a quarter of a 
 century, I have come to the conclusion that 
 he was neither the demon painted by some of 
 his early, nor the angel described by some of 
 his later biographers. He mingled among 
 men neither as a "prying fiend" nor as a "be- 
 wildered angel." He was a man of rare and 
 remarkable genius, with the infirmities that 
 often accompany it. While endowed with ex- 
 traordinary intellectual gifts, he was a most 
 unfortunate victim of circumstances. Left 
 an orphan in his infancy, he was adopted by 
 a man who reared him in luxury as the heir 
 of a splendid fortune, when suddenly, in his 
 twentieth year, he was thrown upon the world 
 
 85 
 
Cf)e pee Cult 
 
 without a dollar. Then began that long, des- 
 perate, never-ending struggle for bread. The 
 pen was his weapon, literature his pursuit, 
 poverty his fate, fame his reward. 
 
 86 
 
C!je Poe Cult 
 
 POE : REAL AND REPUTED. 
 
 We are told that 
 ''Seven Grecian cities claimed Homer dead, 
 In which the living Homer begged his bread/* 
 
 It is not so astonishing that the birthplace 
 of the Father of Poetry should be unknown, 
 for he lived at the dawn of literature, at a 
 prehistoric period; but it is strange that so 
 famous a poet as Edgar A. Poe — a poet of 
 our own century, of our country, and almost 
 of our own age — should have lived and died a 
 mystery to his contemporaries, and remain in 
 many respects a mystery still, although nearly 
 sixty years have elapsed since his death, and 
 nine lives of him have been written. 
 
 For twenty years after his death, the time 
 of his birth was unknov/n, and the place of his 
 birth was uncertain. The present writer knew 
 Mrs. Clemm, the poet's aunt and ''more than 
 mother,'' in her last years ; she said positively 
 that "Eddie was born on the 19th of January, 
 1809, ^t Boston." Thus, Poe was one of that 
 illustrious group whose genius was the glory 
 of the nineteenth century: Tennyson, Glad- 
 
 87 
 
Cle poe Cult 
 
 stone, Holmes, and Mrs. Browning, the great- 
 est of all poetesses. At the time of our 
 poet's birth, Byron, Scott, Shelley, Coleridge, 
 Southey, Campbell, and Tom Moore had re- 
 vived the glory of the ''elder day'' of English 
 poetry, and ''the delusive splendor that had so 
 long gilded the Augustan age of Anne paled 
 before the comprehensive culture, the marvel- 
 ous intellectual expansion, that distinguished 
 the first thirty years of the present century."* 
 Not since the "spacious times of great Eliza- 
 beth" had the English language been enriched 
 by so brilliant a galaxy of poets. 
 
 For several years after Poe's death, his 
 grave was unknown, and for more than a 
 quarter of a century no stone marked the rest- 
 ing-place of the poet whose genius has con- 
 ferred more glory upon American literature 
 than any other American writer. Strangers 
 from far-off countries came to Baltimore and 
 visited Poe's grave as a pilgrim's shrine, and 
 great was their astonishment when they dis- 
 covered, after much inquiry and diligent 
 search, the poet's grave in a neglected spot of 
 an obscure churchyard. 
 
 Poe was a most refined and cultured gentle- 
 
 *From Prof. Henry E. Shepherd's Address at the Unveiling 
 of the Poe Monument in Baltimore, November 17, 1875. 
 
 88 
 
Ctie Poe Cult 
 
 man, whose friends were the purest and love- 
 liest ladies in the land — a man whose society- 
 was sought by all who admired genius and 
 pitied the misfortunes that often attend it. 
 
 Tom Moore had his Russell, Carlyle his 
 Froude, Poe his Griswold. Rufus W. Gris- 
 wold was the self-chosen biographer of Poe, 
 and he produced the most infamous biography 
 that has ever been published in any language. 
 Lies were invented, facts falsified, the truth 
 tortured into falsehood, and everything was 
 done to blast forever the poet's memory. 
 
 Upon this unscrupulous memoir the author 
 of ''The Raven" has been misjudged by many 
 persons for more than fifty years. It is much 
 easier to start a falsehood than to stop it when 
 once on its travels. No man has suffered 
 more from slander, Hving and dead, than Ed- 
 gar A. Poe. I have been at much trouble in 
 order to obtain the truth about the poet, from 
 his earliest years to his tragical death. I have 
 consulted with the living, and unearthed the 
 opinions of the dead, and this is the result: 
 
 When a schoolboy in Richmond, Poe's 
 teacher was Prof. Joseph H. Clarke, who, 
 in speaking of his famous pupil, described him 
 as having a ''tender and sensitive heart''; he 
 said he was "a boy who would do anything to 
 serve a friend," and that "his nature was en- 
 
 89 
 
Clbe Poe Cult 
 
 tirely free from selfishness, the most common 
 fault of boyhood/' One of his classmates, 
 Col. John T. L. Preston, late professor at 
 the Virginia Military Institute, says that Ed- 
 gar A. Poe was ''a generous, free-hearted boy, 
 kind to his companions, and always ready to 
 assist them with hand and head/' 
 
 I quote these estimates of Poe because they 
 show that he possessed the very qualities which 
 have been denied him, namely, kindness of 
 heart, and an unusual freedom from selfish- 
 ness. 
 
 The most malignant enemy of Poe accuses 
 him of but one vice, and with injustice un- 
 paralleled, makes what was an occasional fall, 
 an habitual sin. Upon this subject we have 
 the testimony of many witnesses of unimpeach- 
 able integrity. 
 
 T. W. Gibson, his roommate at West Point, 
 describes the class of 1830 as having many 
 wild fellows in it, but he says that he does not 
 think 'Toe was intoxicated while at the Acad- 
 emy.'' N. P. Willis, with whom he was asso- 
 ciated for six months in editing the Nezv York 
 Mirror, testifies to his regular attendance at 
 the office, and his perfect propriety of conduct ; 
 Lambert A. Wilmer, during an intimate 
 friendship of twelve years, saw nothing of 
 his alleged dissipated habits; George R. Gra- 
 
 90 
 
CJie Poe Cult 
 
 ham, who was in daily intercourse with him 
 for two years, saw nothing of it. 
 
 George Gilfillan, an extravagant EngHsh 
 writer, long since forgotten, who was nothing 
 if not sensational, published, in the London 
 Critic, a brutally unjust article on Poe, charg- 
 ing him with having ''no heart, no honorable 
 feelings, not having even one virtue linked to 
 his thousand crimes''; denounced him as a 
 ''combination of the fiend, the brute, and the 
 genius''; declaring that ''his tongue was set 
 afire of hell"; that he "rushed into every ex- 
 cess of riot"; ending his monstrous tirade of 
 lies by the assertion that Poe "caused the death 
 of his wife that he might have a fitting theme 
 for 'The Raven,' "repeating what a more po- 
 etical, but not more truthful writer had al- 
 ready said — that the poet "deliberately sought 
 his wife's death that he might embalm her 
 memory in immortal dirges." Gilfillan did not 
 know or care that "The Raven" was written 
 more than a year before the event happened 
 which the poem was said to commemorate. 
 
 Boyd, the "Country Parson," after calling 
 Poe "a black sheep," censuring him for his 
 "drunken degradation" and "inveterate self- 
 ishness," coolly adds that he "starved his wife 
 and broke her heart." Why these writers 
 should malign the unofifending dead is 
 
 91 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 stranger than the fiction that they invented for 
 their purpose. We can only account for it upon 
 the supposition that slander loves a shining 
 mark. The splendid and ever-increasing fame 
 of Poe made him a shining mark, and many, 
 who would not have dared to attack him while 
 he was alive, have since his death shot their 
 poisoned arrows at him — ''Mortuo leoni et 
 lepores insultant,'' which may be freely ren- 
 dered ''asses kicking at a dead lion.'' 
 
 Poe's love for his child-wife, and his devo- 
 tion to her in sickness, was one of the most 
 beautiful traits in his character, remarked and 
 admired by all who knew the poet and his lit- 
 tle family. Even Griswold, who seldom found 
 anything to admire in Poe, speaks of calling 
 upon the poet, once in Philadelphia, and find- 
 ing him worn out from long attendance at the 
 sick bed of his wife. 
 
 There is nothing sadder in romance — noth- 
 ing more pathetic in poetry, nothing more 
 touching in real life, than the deathbed of Vir- 
 ginia Poe. She died in midwinter, and her 
 disease was consumption. The weather was 
 intensely cold, and the dying woman suffered 
 terribly from the chills that followed the hec- 
 tic fever of that insidious malady. She lay 
 upon a straw bed, her only covering being a 
 spread and sheets, no blankets. In this piti- 
 
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C!)e Poe Cult 
 
 able condition, dying by inches, the only 
 warmth that relieved her ahnost freezing body 
 was imparted by her husband's overcoat, in 
 which she was wrapped, and a large tortoise- 
 shell cat in her bosom. At her head stood the 
 poet chafing her hands, while her mother 
 rubbed her feet. Thus died, at the early age 
 of twenty-five, the wife of the poet who has 
 conferred such lustre upon American litera- 
 ture. 
 
 The lovely and gifted Mrs. Frances Sargent 
 Osgood, who was a favorite visitor at the 
 home of the poet, wrote a sketch of Poe, a 
 few weeks before her own early death, in 
 which she said: ''Of the charming confidence 
 that existed between Poe and his wife, I can- 
 not speak too earnestly, too warmly. I be- 
 lieve she was the only woman he ever truly 
 loved; and this is evidenced by the exquisite 
 little poem, 'Annabel Lee,' of which she was 
 the subject, and which is by far the most ten- 
 der and touchingly beautiful of all his songs. 
 The most lovely of its verses describes in lan- 
 guage of true poetical beauty the death of the 
 loved and unforgotten wife: 
 
 The wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 
 
 My beautiful Annabel Lee. 
 So that her high-born kinsmen came 
 
 And bore her away from me.' '* 
 
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Cfte poe Cult 
 
 A more than sufficient answei to the cruel 
 and reckless assertion that Poe treated his wife 
 unkindly is found in the fact that Mrs. Clemm, 
 Virginia's mother, loved her son-in-law wkh 
 more than maternal devotion, and never de- 
 serted him in sickness, in poverty, in distress; 
 that she fondly cherished his memory during 
 her life, and in dying, asked to be buried by 
 the side of her ''darling Eddie/' I assert this 
 of my own knowledge. 
 
 After the death of his wife, Poe became ac- 
 quainted with Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, 
 whom he had previously seen and admired. 
 He first saw her, one moonlight night, when 
 he was visiting Providence, where she lived. 
 Jt was midnight; the poet was passing her 
 home, when he saw her strolling in the garden. 
 She was clad all in white. The place, the hour, 
 the scene, made an immediate and indelible 
 impression upon his poetical imagination, and 
 he related the circumstance in one of his most 
 beautiful poems, worthy of himself, of her, 
 and of the most exalted passion. Some time 
 after this he met her, and after a short but 
 ardent courtship, they became engaged, but the 
 affair was broken off upon the eve of the mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Mrs. Whitman survived her poet-lover 
 twenty-eight years. When they parted for- 
 
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Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 ever, not in sorrow, or in anger, her last words 
 were, ''I love you." That she loved him truly, 
 sincerely, faithfully, she proved during all the 
 years that elapsed between his death and hers. 
 She was his defender at all times, and under 
 all circunystances. Perhaps the most passion- 
 ate poems ever penned by any American poet 
 were inspired by the memory of her dead but 
 un forgotten lover. 
 
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C[)e poe Cult 
 
 THE BOYHOOD OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 If, as the poet says, the child is father to the 
 man, the strange and romantic story of the 
 youth of Edgar A. Poe must be both interest- 
 ing and instructive to readers, young and old. 
 Poe's parents were actors, and he was born 
 almost in the greenroom. His wanderings, 
 which never ceased, began five weeks after his 
 birth, when he w^as taken to the home of his 
 paternal grandfather in Baltimore. 
 
 During the next two years, young Edgar 
 accompanied his parents on their professional 
 tour ; going from city to city, knowing neither 
 the happiness nor the comforts of a home, but 
 suif ering often from cold, and sometimes from 
 hunger. Before he was three years old, he 
 was left an orphan by the almost simultaneous 
 death of both of his parents, the mother in 
 Richmond, and the father in Norfolk, Va. 
 Mr. Allan, a rich, childless merchant of the 
 former city, attracted by the beauty and pre- 
 cocious wit of the little fellow, adopted him. 
 The change which now took place in Edgar's 
 
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 I 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 life reads like a fairy tale: from poverty, want, 
 and misery, he passed to a home of luxury, 
 where he soon became the idol of the house, 
 being treated as a young prince, clothed in 
 velvet, and faring sumptuously every day. 
 His proud, imperious temper, instead of being 
 controlled, was encouraged; his voice soon be- 
 came the law of the house. The boy was 
 bright, clever, and fascinating, and his adopted 
 father petted and spoiled him by over indul- 
 gence, and by unduly stimulating his natural 
 gifts. He was early taught dancing, drawing, 
 and dramatic recitation, and before he was six 
 years old, was made a sort of show-child, be- 
 ing brought into the parlor to entertain the 
 company by reciting speeches and dramatic 
 pieces. This was all wrong, and Mr. Allan, 
 while amusing his guests, was injuring the 
 boy for life. 
 
 When Edgar was sent to school, the teacher 
 was forbidden to punish him. Adjoining the 
 play ground was a vegetable garden, which the 
 boys were not allowed to enter under the pen- 
 alty of wearing a turnip, carrot, or cabbage 
 around the neck during school hours. One 
 day Edgar violated the rule, and was com- 
 pelled to wear one of the vegetables suspended 
 around his neck. After school, he ran home 
 still wearing the obnoxious carrot, or turnip. 
 
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Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 Mr. Allan was incensed that his boy should be 
 treated so disrespectfully. He went at once to 
 the school, and, after lecturing the teacher, 
 paid what was due, and took the child from 
 school. 
 
 Mr. Allan passed part of the Summer at the 
 White Sulphur Springs, then as now the most 
 fashionable watering place in the South. Here 
 young Edgar shone brilliantly with his fine 
 clothes, his pony, his pocket money, his watch, 
 jewelry, etc. He was allowed to take his place 
 in the ball room, and dance with the young 
 girls. Prococious in all things, he had his 
 sweethearts before he was fairly in his teens, 
 and wrote sentimental verses to his little favor- 
 ites. Mr. Allan, who saw good in everything 
 the boy did at this time, was delighted with 
 his rhymes, and was going to have them pub- 
 lished, but he was dissuaded from doing so by 
 a gentleman whom he consulted about the mat- 
 ter. He told Mr. Allan that Edgar's natural 
 pride and egotism would be injuriously af- 
 fected by the appearance of his verses in a 
 book; and so, the matter was dropped. 
 
 When Edgar was eleven years old, he was 
 placed in an English and classical school. 
 Here, he soon became conspicuous for his 
 cleverness, and without being a close student, 
 his brilliant intellectual gifts, and fine physical 
 
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Cl)e poe Cult 
 
 qualities, made him by common consent the 
 head of the school, before he was there three 
 years. In all athletic sports, he was a perfect 
 master; he could run with the swiftness and 
 endurance of an Indian ; he was a great leaper ; 
 a good boxer, as one of his old school friends 
 once wrote to me ''he was the best, the most 
 daring, and most enduring swimmer that I 
 ever saw in the water/' One of his swimming 
 feats is still remembered in Richmond. It was 
 swimming from Ludlam's wharf to Warwick 
 Bar, six miles down the James River, on a 
 hot summer day. A gentleman of Richmond 
 who witnessed the daring feat said Poe did not 
 seem at all fatigued, and walked back to the 
 city immediately after landing. Poe was only 
 fifteen years old at the time he accomplished 
 this aquatic feat, which was done against one 
 of the strongest tides ever known in the James 
 River. The boys of Richmond were proud 
 of their bold companion, and they deemed his 
 youthful exploit greater than Byron's famous 
 feat of swimming across the Hellespont. A 
 more foolish aquatic exploit is recorded of 
 Poe: One winter day, he and a companion 
 were standing on the banks of the James when 
 Poe dared his friend to jump in the river and 
 swim to a certain point with him. No sooner 
 said than done, and the boys were soon floun- 
 
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Ctie Poe Cult 
 
 dering in the half frozen water. Benumbed 
 and exhausted, they landed more dead than 
 alive, and paid very dear for their foolish feat 
 by an illness of several weeks. Poe is de- 
 scribed at this time as a haughty, handsome, 
 self-willed, impetuous, pugnacious boy, always 
 ready to engage in either mental or physical 
 fights, and generally coming off victorious. 
 
 Had it been the deliberate purpose of Poe's 
 early friends to destroy his naturally fine, 
 frank, generous disposition, they could not 
 have adopted better means to accomplish their 
 intention than they did. While his pride and 
 vanity were stimulated his heart was not cul- 
 tivated; although Mr. Allan lavished his 
 money upon the boy, he did not foster his af- 
 fectionate disposition, and utterly failed to 
 touch the cords of sympathy that lay dormant 
 in the young orphan's heart. That Edgar Poe 
 was touched by aJffection and appreciated kind- 
 ness is shown by his gratitude to Mrs. Stan- 
 nard. This lady was the mother of Robert 
 Stannard, one of his friends. Poe went home 
 with him one day, and Mrs. Stannard wel- 
 comed him with some kind and gracious words. 
 The heart of the boy was touched, and from 
 that hour, Mrs. Stannard became, as he him- 
 self long afterward said: ''The one idolat- 
 rous, purely ideal love of my tempest-tossed 
 
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Cfte Poe Cult. 
 
 boyhood/' His exquisite lines ''To Helen," 
 were inspired by the memory of this lady, who 
 became the confidante of his boyish troubles, 
 and when she died Poe, who was only fourteen 
 at the time, was in the habit of visiting her 
 grave every night, and passing hours in soli- 
 tary vigils. 
 
 Edgar Poe v\ras brought up with the expec- 
 tation of inheriting a princely fortune; every 
 youthful whim was indulged, and every ex- 
 travagant fancy encouraged, but when he 
 reached his twenty-first year, he was turned 
 adrift upon the world without a dollar, and 
 from that time until his melancholy death, 
 twenty years later, he never earned a cent, ex- 
 cept by his pen, and very little by that, for he 
 lived at a time when literature was scarcely 
 recognized as a profession. The conduct of 
 Mr. Allan in driving Poe from his house has 
 never been satisfactorily explained, but had 
 the author of the Raven remained in the lux- 
 urious home of his youth, our country might 
 have wanted its most remarkable genius. 
 
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Cf)e poe Cult 
 
 POE'S FEMALE FRIENDS. 
 
 Edgar Poe's life was not all dark and deso- 
 late. It was his singular good fortune, from 
 his birth to his death, to win and hold the love 
 and friendship of many sweet and sympathetic 
 women. Carlyle says the ''story of genius has 
 its bright sides as well as dark.'' The bright 
 side of Poe's life was, as Washington Irving 
 expresses it, when it ''was gladdened by blessed 
 womankind.'' The poet possessed many of 
 those personal qualities and intellectual gifts 
 which interest and fascinate the gentle sex: 
 he was handsome, polished, and richly imagi- 
 native, and a perfect master of all the graceful 
 refinements of language. Perhaps there never 
 lived a poet so truly appreciative of the love- 
 liness of woman as Edgar Poe. He was a 
 worshiper of beauty, believing, with a recent 
 poet, that of all beauty a beautiful woman is 
 the supremest. His was the delicate, ethereal, 
 poetical sentiment of the Greek worship of an 
 ideal beauty, so exquisitely personified by Nau- 
 sicaa in the Odyssey. 
 
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Cf)e poe Cult 
 
 Poe's female friends, with one or two excep- 
 tions, were women who were able to sympa- 
 thize with his lofty intellectual ambition, able 
 to ''point to higher worlds,'' although, perhaps, 
 not capable of ''leading the way'' for him to 
 follow. Proud, solitary, and ambitious, he 
 found a never-failing congeniality and sym- 
 pathy in the society of bright and lovely 
 women, some of whom almost realized the 
 creations of his wonderful imagination: Li- 
 geia, Morella, Lenore. 
 
 Mrs. Allan, who adopted Edgar Poe when 
 he was left a homeless orphan, was his first 
 female friend. She always stood between him 
 and her cold, stern husband. But, unfortu- 
 nately, she died just as the young poet reached 
 his manhood. Another early friend of Poe 
 was Mrs. Helen Stannard, the mother of one 
 of his schoolmates. She died when he was 
 fourteen, and night after night he visited her 
 grave, oppressed by the thought that she was 
 lying there all alone. It was during those lone- 
 some vigils that he became fascinated b}^ the 
 unfathomable mysteries of the other world, 
 which impressed his v/hole life and much of his 
 life work. To his mind and heart, the dead, 
 although unseen, were ever present, seeing, 
 knowing, hearing him. Those midnight 
 churchyard vigils, v^/ith their unforgotten 
 
 103 
 
Ciie Poe Cult 
 
 memories, furnish a key to some of the 
 strange, mysterious circumstances of his ex- 
 traordinary Hfe. In those silent, soHtary com- 
 munions with the beloved dead, questions arose 
 in the sombre chambers of his imagination 
 which were long afterward remembered in the 
 musical cadences of his stately verse. 
 
 The pervading and enforcing spirit of some 
 of his most wonderful productions, prose and 
 verse, is the ^'awful mystery of death/' Those 
 familiar with his writings will recall the sad, 
 beautiful story of 'Xigeia,'' which displays 
 more than any of his remarkable tales, ''an im- 
 agination, royally dowered and descended." 
 So, also, in ''Morella,'' the characters are pro- 
 foundly interested in the same mystic investi- 
 gation of life and death, of love that outlives 
 death, of death that cannot quench love. The 
 sombre mystery of the grave inspired the ex- 
 quisite poem, ''The Sleeper,'' which tells in 
 words of mournful music of a beautiful 
 woman, coffined in her deep and lasting sleep. 
 More sombre still is the "Conqueror Worm," 
 which is a wild, despairing wail over the hope- 
 lessness of receiving tidings of the dead. In 
 the lyric, "For Annie," the treatment, though 
 the subject is still of the dead, is free from 
 that dark despair which broods over most of 
 his wonderful verse. But, of all the poetry in- 
 
 104 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 spired by his grateful memory of Mrs. Stan- 
 nard, the best, the most beautiful, the most elo- 
 quent is 'Xenore," commencing, 
 
 "Ah, broken is the golden bowl, the spirit flown for- 
 ever ! 
 
 Let the bell toll ! A saintly soul floats on the Stygian 
 river !" 
 
 Another poem addressed to this lady has a 
 Still more classic grace. I refer to the 'Xines 
 to Helen,'' commencing, 
 
 '^Helen, thy beauty was to me." 
 
 This dainty poem w^as written before Poe 
 had reached his fifteenth year. James Rus- 
 sell Lowell says these lines have a grace and 
 symmetry of outline such as few poets ever 
 attain, and they are valuable as displaying 
 ''what can only be expressed by a contradictory 
 phrase, innate experience.'' 
 
 Thus some of the most remarkable of Poe's 
 poems were inspired by her of whom he wrote, 
 a year or two before his death : "As the friend 
 of my boyhood, the truest, tenderest of this 
 world's most womanly souls, and an angel to 
 my forlorn and darkened nature." 
 
 In 1836 Poe married his fair young cousin, 
 Virginia Clemm. All who knew Virginia Poe 
 speak of her matchless beauty and loveliness. 
 Captain Mayne Reid, who frequently visited 
 the family when they were residing in one of 
 
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Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 the suburbs of Philadelphia, described their 
 home as small but beautified by flowers, en- 
 livened by the singing of birds, and illumined 
 by the presence of the poet's young wife, who 
 was "angelically beautiful in person, and not 
 less beautiful in spirit. No one who remembers 
 the dark-eyed daughter of the South, her face 
 so exquisitely lovely, her gentle, graceful de- 
 meanor, no one who has spent an hour in her 
 society, but will endorse what I have said of 
 this lady, who was the most delicate realiza- 
 tion of the poet's ideal. But, the bloom upon 
 her cheek was too pure, too bright, for earth. 
 It was consumption's color — that sadly beauti- 
 ful light beckons to an early grave." 
 
 The tender grace of the love of Edgar and 
 Virginia Poe inspired his exquisite ballad, 
 ''Annabel Lee," of which she was the heroine. 
 Nothing could be more beautiful and suggest- 
 ive than these lines: 
 
 "A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 
 
 My beautiful Annabel Lee; 
 So that her high-born kinsmen came, 
 
 And bore her away from me." 
 
 Edgar Poe was a very domestic man, and 
 found his best and truest happiness in the so- 
 ciety of his wife and mother, who loved him 
 devotedly and never lost confidence in him. 
 
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Clie poe Cult 
 
 He was seldom away from home for an hour, 
 unless his darling Virginia or Mrs. Clemm was 
 with him, except when engaged in his literary 
 pursuits. ''The three lived one for the other/' 
 said Mrs. Clemm. Poe's devotion to his deli- 
 cate wife was one of the most beautiful traits 
 in his character, and her death at the early age 
 of twenty-five was the greatest grief of his 
 life. It was in memory of her that he wrote 
 his weird requiem of ''Ulalume/' a poem that 
 has pleased and puzzled alike the most thought- 
 ful and imaginative minds. 
 
 The unceasing love and devotion of Mrs. 
 Clemm to Edgar Poe — a devotion that outlived 
 the life of the poet's wife, a love that only 
 ended with Mrs. Clemm's death — was the 
 natural result of his love and devotion to her 
 daughter. To Mrs. Clemm he addressed a son- 
 net shov/ing his appreciation of her great kind- 
 ness and unfailing patience and sweetness of 
 disposition. The last lines are particularly 
 beautiful : 
 
 ^'My mother — my own mother — who died early, 
 Was but the mother of myself; but you 
 
 Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, 
 
 And thus are dearer than the mother whom I knew, 
 
 By that infinity with which my wife 
 Is dearer to my soul than its soul-life." 
 
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Cfte poe Cult 
 
 Soon after the publication of ''The Raven" 
 Poe met a lady who was destined to exercise 
 a good and powerful influence over his life. 
 This lady was Mrs. Sargent Osgood, one of 
 the most gifted and impassioned poets of the 
 decade of American literature between 1840 
 and 1850. She has furnished a very interest- 
 ing account of her first meeting with Poe: 
 
 ''My first meeting with the poet was at the 
 Astor House. A few days previous Mr. Willis 
 handed me, at the table d'hote, that strange 
 and thrilling poem, 'The Raven, ^ saying that 
 the author wanted my opinion of it. Its effect 
 upon me was so singular, so like that of 'weird, 
 unearthly music,' that it was with a feeling 
 almost of dread that I heard that he desired 
 an introduction. Yet I could not refuse with- 
 out seeming ungrateful, because I had just 
 heard of his enthusiastic and partial eulogy 
 of my writings, in his lecture on American 
 Literature. I shall never forget the morning 
 when I was summoned to the drawing room to 
 receive him. With his proud and beautiful 
 head erect, his dark eyes flashing with the 
 electric light of feeling and thought, a peculiar 
 and indescribable blending of hauteur and 
 sweetness in his expression and manner, he 
 greeted me calmly, gravely, almost coldly — yet 
 with so marked an earnestness that I could not 
 
 108 
 
Ct)e Poe Cult 
 
 help feeling deeply impressed by it. From that 
 moment until his death we were friends/' 
 
 In another communication Mrs. Osgood 
 speaks of her ''affectionate interest'' in the 
 poet, adding: 
 
 ''I think no one knew him, no one has known 
 him personally — certainly no woman — with- 
 out feeling the same interest. I can sincerely 
 say that I have never seen him otherwise than 
 gentle, generous, well-bred, and fastidiously 
 refined. To a sensitive and delicately nurtured 
 woman, there was a peculiar and irresistible 
 charm in the chivalry, grace, and almost rever- 
 ence with which he approached all women who 
 won his respect. It was this which first won 
 and always retained my regard for him." 
 
 Mrs. Osgood furnishes a charming glimpse 
 of the poet in his own home, sitting beneath the 
 romantic picture of his lost Lenore, spending 
 hour after hour in literary composition, trac- 
 ing in the most exquisite hand ever written by 
 poet the rare and radiant fancies as they 
 flashed through his wonderful brain. She de- 
 scribes a visit at his house toward the close of 
 his residence in New York, when he seemed 
 unusually gay and light-hearted. Mrs. Os- 
 good's narrative runs as follows: 
 
 ''Virginia, his sweet wife, had written me a 
 pressing invitation to come to them — and I 
 
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Cfee Poe Cult 
 
 who never could resist her affectionate sum- 
 mons, and who enjoyed his society far more in 
 his own house than elsewhere, hastened to 
 Amity Street. I found him just completing 
 his series of papers entitled 'The Literati of 
 New York/ 'See,' said he, displaying in 
 laughing triumph several little rolls of narrow 
 paper, 'I am going to show you, by the differ- 
 ence in length of these, the different degrees of 
 estimation in which I hold all you literary peo- 
 ple. In each of these, one of you is rolled up 
 and fully discussed. Come, Virginia, help 
 me !' And one by one they unfolded them. At 
 last they came to one that seemed interminable. 
 Virginia, laughing, ran to the side of the room 
 with one end, and her husband to- the opposite 
 with the other. 'And whose linked sweetness 
 long drawn out is this?' said I. 'Hear her!' 
 he cried, 'just as if her vain little heart didn't 
 tell her it's herself.' " 
 
 Mrs. Osgood's friendship for the poet lasted 
 until his death, and she survived him only 
 seven months. In the last edition of her 
 poems is one inspired by her friendship for 
 Poe. I quote the last verse : 
 
 "Love's silver lyre he played so well 
 
 Lies shattered on his tomb; 
 But still in air its music spell 
 
 Floats on through light and gloom; 
 
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C!)e poe Cult 
 
 And in the hearts where soft they fell 
 His words of beauty bloom 
 
 Forevermore." 
 
 Mrs. Osgood was worthy of Poe's enthusi- 
 astic admiration : her mind and heart, her face 
 and figure, were alike exquisite. She was of 
 medium height, slender, dainty, and grace- 
 ful ; her eyes were large, luminous, and full of 
 expression; her complexion was pale, and of- 
 fered a striking contrast to her dark hair ; her 
 features were refined and her whole appear- 
 ance possessed a rare, delicate beauty, which 
 was both interesting and charming. No per- 
 son can look upon the face of this lady, a face 
 glowing with enthusiasm and a dreamy, trop- 
 ical sunshine, and wonder that a man of Poe's 
 deep and earnest feeling, a man of his passion- 
 ate appreciation of beauty and genius, should 
 have been so prodigal and eloquent in his praise 
 of her person and poetry. 
 
 Soon after Poe moved to Fordham, in the 
 summer of 1846, he became acquainted with 
 Mary Louise Shew. The poet's wife was d}^- 
 ing of consumption, and the anxiety caused by 
 her sickness prevented him from engaging in 
 any literary work; thus his only source of in- 
 come was cut ofif. The situation of the little 
 household grew worse and worse every day, 
 
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Cfje poe Cult 
 
 and absolute starvation threatened them. At 
 this critical moment Mrs. Shew's kind offices 
 were enlisted in their behalf ; she raised money, 
 bought comforts for the dying wife, and be- 
 came the ministering angel of the family. 
 
 After the death of Mrs. Poe, Mrs. Shew 
 continued her gentle charity to the stricken 
 members of the Fordham cottage. It was 
 chiefly through her exertions that a purse of 
 one hundred dollars was raised at the Union 
 Club of New York. Among the contributors 
 was Gen. Winfield Scott, who said, ''true- 
 hearted Americans should take care of their 
 poets as well as of their soldiers.'^ 
 
 Mrs. Estelle Anna Lewis, who is known in 
 the literary world as ''Stella,'' was another 
 kind friend who assisted Poe at this time of 
 his greatest need. This lady — author of the 
 imaginative poem, "Records of the Heart,'' and 
 other poetical works, including "The Child of 
 the Sea," which Poe mentioned as "strikingly 
 original" and "warmly imaginative" — was one 
 of the last and truest friends the poet ever 
 had. He himself said that he had for her the 
 affection of a brother." Mrs. Lewis wrote: 
 I saw much of Mr. Poe during the last year 
 of his life. He was one of the most sensitive 
 and refined gentleman I ever met. My girlish 
 poem, "The Forsaken," made us acquainted, 
 
 
€:bt poc Cult 
 
 He had seen it floating the rounds of the press, 
 and wrote to tell me how much he liked it — 
 'It is inexpressibly beautiful/ he said, 'and I 
 should very much like to know the young 
 author/ '' 
 
 The day before Poe left New York for 
 Richmond (June 30, 1849), he and Mrs. 
 Clemm dined with Mr. and Mrs. Lewis and 
 stayed at their house all night. The latter, in 
 giving an account of this last visit, said: 
 
 ''Mr. Poe seemed very sad and retired early. 
 On leaving the next day, he took my hand in 
 his, and said, 'Dear Stella, my much beloved 
 friend, I have a presentiment that I shajl never 
 see you again. If I never return, write my 
 life. You can and will do me justice.' '' 
 
 Mrs. Lewis promised, and they parted to 
 meet no more in this life. 
 
 The name of Sarah Helen Whitman will be 
 forever associated with the name of Edgar A. 
 Poe, as that of the woman he most passion- 
 ately loved during life, and who most jeal- 
 ously guarded and defended his memory when 
 he was dead. Their names will be linked to- 
 gether like the name of Surrey and the Fair 
 Geraldine, Byron and Mary Chaworth, Burns 
 and Highland Mary. It is well known that 
 after the death of his child-wife, Virginia 
 Clemm, Poe, seeking "surcease of sorrow for 
 
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Clie pee Cwlt 
 
 his lost Lenore/' become engaged to Mrs. 
 Whitman. Of this short-Hved engagement it 
 has been said : ''It opened a prospect of hap- 
 piness — even for him, the desolate and de- 
 spairing. Like the gleam of the light that 
 cheered Sinbad in the Cave of Death and re- 
 stored him to life, did this engagement hold 
 out a saving hope to the soul of the unhappy 
 master of 'The Raven,' and promise to re- 
 store him once again to love." 
 
 Mrs. Whitman v^as the very type of woman 
 to interest such a man as Poe. Dr. W. E. 
 Anthony, of Providence, R. L, who knew her, 
 has furnished me with a sketch of Mrs. Whit- 
 man. He says her nature was essentially 
 feminine, having a great personal magnetism ; 
 her conversation was replete with wit, imagi- 
 nation and sentiment. She had a beautiful, in- 
 tellectual face, a fine figure, and a brilliant 
 complexion. She always wore one style of 
 dress, winter and summer, year in and 
 year out. It was strikingly original and 
 set oflf her personal charms to the best ad- 
 vantage. A profusion of curls fell over her 
 exquisitely shaped forehead, while over the 
 back of her head was thrown a white veil, 
 which fell to her shoulders. She received visi- 
 tors in a room lighted by rose-colored lamps, 
 and the room seemed a shrine and she a sibyl. 
 
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Cfje poe Cult 
 
 To win the hand of this woman seemed to 
 Poe his last chance to reestabUsh his desolate 
 home, and he pleaded with such passionate 
 ardor, such burning eloquence, such irresist- 
 able love, that, in spite of the entreaties of 
 her mother and the warnings of her friends, 
 Mrs. Whitman engaged herself to him. Hav- 
 ing won this advantage, he urged an immediate 
 marriage. Again she yielded to his passionate 
 pleading, and late in November he arrived in 
 Providence full of anticipation of happiness. 
 When he called upon Mrs. Whitman, that lady 
 met him, and, as she herself relates: 
 
 ''Gathering together some papers which he 
 had intrusted to my keeping, I placed them in 
 his hands without a word of explanation or 
 reproach, and, utterly worn out and exhausted 
 by the mental conflicts and anxieties of the 
 last few days, I drenched my handkerchief 
 with ether and threw myself on a sofa, hoping 
 to lose myself in utter unconsciousness. Sink- 
 ing upon his knees beside me, he entreated me 
 to speak to him. I responded almost inaudibly, 
 'What can I say?' 'Say that you love me, 
 Helen.' 7 love you.' These were the last 
 words I ever spoke to him.'' 
 
 Poe left the house without another word, 
 and never saw Mrs. Whitman again. The 
 breaking off of this famous engagement gave 
 
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Ctie Poe Cult 
 
 rise to all sorts of rumors, the most scandalous 
 of which Rufus W. Griswold enlarged and 
 embellished. Mrs. Whitman denied Gris- 
 wold's story, as shown in ''The Truth about 
 Edgar Allan Poe/' printed later on in this 
 work. 
 
 Mrs. Whitman died on the 27th of June, 
 1878, in the seventy-sixth year of her age. 
 She was a believer in spiritualism, and, at her 
 funeral, instead of religious service, several 
 of her friends pronounced eulogies. Over her 
 casket was thrown a white drapery, in the 
 folds of which were green ivy leaves. Her 
 grave was lined with laurel and evergreens, 
 and each friend dropped flowers; and thus in 
 love and tender sympathy the last gentle 
 service was rendered to the last of Poe's 
 Female Friends. 
 
 116 
 
1 
 
 SARAH HELEN WHITMAN, 
 
Ci)e poe Cult 
 
 POE AND MRS. WHITMAN. 
 
 Burns' Highland Mary, Petrarch's Laura, 
 and other real and imaginary loves of the 
 poets, have been immortalized in song, but 
 we doubt whether any of the numerous objects 
 of poetical adoration were more worthy of 
 honor than Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, the 
 friend and defender of Edgar A. Poe. That 
 he should have inspired so deep and lasting a 
 love in the heart of so true and pure a woman 
 would alone prove that he was not the social 
 pariah his vindictive enemies have held up to 
 the world's wonder and detestation. The poet's 
 love for Mrs. Whitman was the one gleam of 
 hope that cheered the last sad years of his 
 life. His letters to her breathed the most pas- 
 sionate devotion and the most enthusiastic 
 admiration. One eloquent extract from his 
 love letters to Mrs. Whitman will suffice. In 
 response to a passage in one of her letters in 
 which she says, ''How often have I heard men, 
 and even women, say of you, 'He has great in- 
 tellectual power, but no principle, no moral 
 
 117 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 sense !' He exclaims, 'I love you too truly ever 
 to have offered you my hand, even to have 
 sought your love, had I known my name to be 
 so stained as your expressions imply. There 
 is no oath which seems to me so sacred as that 
 sworn by the all-divine love I bear you. By 
 this love, then, and by the God who reigns in 
 heaven, I swear to you that my soul is in- 
 capable of dishonor. I can call to mind no act 
 of my life which would bring a blush to my 
 cheek or to yours.' '' 
 
 Why the engagement was broken, and by 
 whom, still remains buried in mystery, but that 
 Poe was guilty of any ''outrage" at her house 
 upon the eve of their intended marriage was 
 emphatically denied by Mrs. Whitman. She 
 pronounced the whole story a ''calumny.'' In 
 a letter before me she says: "I do not think 
 it possible to overstate the gentlemanly re- 
 ticence and amenity of his habitual manner. 
 It was stamped through and through with the 
 impress of nobility and gentleness. I have 
 seen him in many moods and phases in those 
 'lonesome latter years' which were rapidly 
 merging into the mournful tragedy of death. 
 I have seen him sullen and moody under a 
 sense of insult and imaginary wrong. I have 
 never seen in him the faintest indication of 
 savagery and rowdyism and brutality." 
 
 ii8 
 
Ci)e poe Cult 
 
 Some of the most tenderly passionate of 
 Mrs. Whitman's verses were inspired by her 
 affection for Poe. She wrote six sonnets to 
 his memory, overflowing with the most ex- 
 alted love and generous sympathy. The first 
 of these sonnets ends thus : 
 
 "Thou wert my destiny : thy song, thy fame, 
 
 The. wild enchantments clustering round thy name, 
 
 Were my soul's heritage — its regal dower. 
 Its glory, and its kingdom, and its power. 
 
 In one of Mrs. Whitman's letters, now lying 
 before me, she says : ''So much has been writ- 
 ten, and so much still continues to be writ- 
 ten, about Poe by persons who are either his 
 avowed or secret enemies, that I joyfully wel- 
 come every friendly or impartial word spoken 
 in his behalf. His enemies are uttering their 
 venomous fabrications in every newspaper, 
 and so few voices can obtain a hearing in his 
 defense. My own personal knowledge of Mr. 
 Poe was very brief, although it comprehended 
 memorable incidents, and was doubtless, as he 
 kindly characterized it in one of his letters of 
 the period, 'the most earnest epoch of his life;' 
 and such I believe it to have been. You ask 
 me to furnish you with extracts from his let- 
 ters, literary or otherwise. There are impera- 
 tive reasons why these letters cannot and 
 ought not be published at present — not that 
 
 119 
 
Cf)e Pee Cult 
 
 there was a word or a thought in them dis- 
 creditable to Poe, though some of them were 
 imprudent, doubtless, and liable to be con- 
 strued wrongly by his enemies. They are for 
 the most part strictly personal. The only ex- 
 tract from them of which I have authorized 
 the publication is a fac simile of a paragraph 
 inserted between the 68th and 69th pages of 
 Mr. Ingram's memoir in Black's (Edinburgh) 
 edition of the complete works of Poe. The 
 paragraph in the original letter (dated Nov. 
 24, 1848) consists of only eight lines: 'The 
 agony which I have so lately endured — an 
 agony known only to my God and myself — 
 seems to have passed my soul through fire, 
 and purified it from all that is weak. Hence- 
 forward I am strong: this those who love me 
 shall see, as well as those who have relent- 
 lessly endeavored to ruin me. It only needed 
 some such trials as I have just undergone to 
 make me what I was born to be by making me 
 conscious of my own strength.' This was a 
 protest against the charges of indifference to 
 moral obligations so often urged against him, 
 which I permitted Mr. Gill to extract for pub- 
 lication from a long letter filled with eloquent 
 and proud remonstrance against the injustice 
 of such a charge, are the only passages of 
 ' which I have authorized the publication. 
 
 120 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 Other letters have been published without my 
 consent. I have endeavored to reconcile my- 
 self to the unauthorized use of private letters 
 and papers, since the effect of their publica- 
 tion has been on the whole regarded as favor- 
 able to Poe/' 
 
 It was Mrs. Whitman who first attempted 
 to trace Edgar Poe's descent from the old Nor- 
 man family of Le Poer, which emigrated to 
 Ireland during the reign of Henry 11. of Eng- 
 land. Lady Blessington, through her father, 
 Edmund Power, claimed the same illustrious 
 descent. The Le Poers were distinguished for 
 being improvident, daring and reckless. The 
 family originally belonged to Italy, whence 
 they passed to the north of France, and went 
 to England with William the Conqueror. 
 
 When Stephane Mallarme, an enthusias- 
 tic admirer of Poe, undertook to translate 
 his works into PVench, he addressed Mrs. 
 Whitm.an in a complimentary letter, from 
 which the following passages are translated: 
 ''Whatever is done to honor the memory of a 
 genius, the most truly divine the world has 
 seen, ought it not first to obtain your sanc- 
 tion? Such of Poe's works as our great 
 Beaudelaire left untranslated — that is to say, 
 the poems and many of the literary criticisms 
 — I hope to make known to France. My first 
 
 121 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 attempt, Xe Corbeau/ of which I send you a 
 specimen, is intended to attract attention to a 
 future work now nearly completed. I trust 
 that the attempt will meet your approval, but 
 no possible success of my future design could 
 cause you, Madam, a satisfaction equal to the 
 joy, vivid, profound and absolute, caused by 
 an extract from one of your letters in which 
 you expressed a wish to see a copy of my 'Cor- 
 beau/ Not only in space — which is nothing — 
 but in time, made up for each of us of the 
 hours we deem most memorable in the past, 
 your wish seemed to come to me from so far, 
 and to bring with it the most delicious return 
 of long cherished memories; for, fascinated 
 with the works of Poe from my infancy, it 
 has been a long time that your name has been 
 associated with his in my earliest and most 
 intimate sympathies. Receive, Madam, this 
 expression of gratitude such as your poetical 
 soul may comprehend, for it is my inmost heart 
 that thanks you/' 
 
 122 
 
Ciie pot Cult 
 
 THE LOVES OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 The splendid fame that has crowned the 
 name of Edgar A. Poe within the memory of 
 Hving men has made him one of the most in- 
 teresting personaHties, not only in American 
 Literature, but in the literature of the world. 
 Proudly conscious of his rare and remark- 
 able genius, the author of The Raven mingled 
 in a cold and unsympathetic world with a 
 haughty defiance. But, beneath that stern and 
 cynical exterior, was a heart full of romantic 
 sentiment, and quickly responsive to kindness 
 and affection. 
 
 Poe, himself, was the offspring of a roman- 
 tic marriage between a young actress and a 
 Baltimore law student, and he proved himself 
 a worthy son of his parents. Before he had 
 completed his sixteenth year, he wooed and 
 won the heart of a young girl in Richmond 
 who was destined to be his first and his last 
 love, also. Elmira Royster was the fair 
 daughter of one of the proudest families of 
 the Old Dominion, and Poe, although the son 
 of a poor player {poor in every respect), was 
 
 123 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 the recognized peer of the best in Virginia's 
 capital. Years afterwards, the poet, speaking 
 of youthful love, quotes the assertion of 
 George Sand that ''les anges ne sont plus pures 
 que le coeur d' un jeune homme qui aime en 
 verite,'' and remarks that it would be truth 
 itself were it averred of the love of him who 
 is at the same time young and a poet. He 
 cites the boyish love of Byron for Mary Cha- 
 worth which affected the whole subsequent life 
 of the noble bard, adding, ''she to him was the 
 Egeria of his dreams — the Venus Aphrodite 
 that sprang, in full and supernal loveliness, 
 from the bright foam upon the storm-tor- 
 mented ocean of his thoughts.'' Miss Royster 
 lived opposite to Poe's home in Richmond, and, 
 naturally, they became acquainted — an ac- 
 quaintance which soon ripened into mutual 
 love. 
 
 This youthful love affair continued until 
 Poe left Richmond for the University of Vir- 
 ginia. They agreed to keep up a frequent cor- 
 respondence during their separation, but the 
 father of the young lady, who disapproved of 
 the affair, intercepted his letters. 
 
 He hastened to marry his daughter to a 
 more desirable husband. It was not until a 
 year or two after she became Mrs. Shelton 
 that Poe learned why his passionate love let- 
 
 124 
 
 I 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 ters received no answer from his sweetheart. 
 The effect of this boyish attachment is per- 
 ceptible in many of the poef s juvenile verses. 
 
 Long years after the death of her poet-lover, 
 Mrs. Shelton recalled him as ''a beautiful 
 boy;" quiet, agreeable, but sad-mannered; 
 "'full of strong prejudices, and passionately 
 fond, even in those early days, of everything 
 beautiful and having a natural invincible de- 
 testation of everything coarse and unrefined.'' 
 He drew beautifully; ''he drew a pencil like- 
 ness of me in a few minutes." He was, also, 
 very fond of music. ''Edgar," continues the 
 lady, "was very generous, and warm and zeal- 
 ous in any cause he was interested in, being 
 enthusiastic and impulsive." 
 
 When Poe's adopted father, John Allan, a 
 wealthy merchant of Richmond, drove him 
 from the only home he had known for twenty- 
 two years, the outcast was received into the 
 family of his aunt, Mrs. Marie Clemm, in 
 Baltimore, and, until his unhappy life ended, 
 his home was with her, whether in Richmond, 
 Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York. 
 
 Mrs. Clemm was the daughter of Gen. 
 David Poe, whose services and sacrifices in 
 the American Revolution entitled him to the 
 respect of his countrymen. His daughter was 
 poor, but she gave "Eddie," as she always 
 
Cl)e poe Cult 
 
 called the poet, a home rich in love. Her only 
 child, Virginia, was at that time a lovely girl 
 of about ten years old. Poe became her 
 teacher. They were both young, and daily 
 and hourly together. Naturally, they fell in 
 love with each other. Upon their youthful 
 love, Poe founded one of his early tales, 
 'Xeonora,'' the scenes of which are laid in the 
 Valley of the Many-colored Grass. He de- 
 scribes the ''sweet recesses of the vale;" the 
 ''Deep and narrow river, brighter than all save 
 the eyes of Eleonora ;'' "the soft, green grass, 
 besprinkled with yellow buttercup, the white 
 daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red 
 asphodel — all so beautiful that it spoke to our 
 hearts of the love and glory of God.'' Here 
 they "lived all alone, knowing nothing of the 
 world without the valley — I, and my cousin 
 and her mother f' "The loveliness of Eleonora 
 was that of the seraphim, and she was a 
 maiden artless and innocent as the brief life 
 she had led among the flowers; no guile dis- 
 guised the fervor of love which animated her 
 heart.'' 
 
 In 1835, Poe was appointed editor of the 
 Southern Literary Messenger, a magazine 
 which had been started in Richmond a short 
 time before. Under his management the Mes- 
 
 126 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 senger soon gained a national reputation, and 
 within one year its circulation increased from 
 seven hundred to five thousand, which was a 
 large circulation for a magazine sixty years 
 ago. But, in the midst of his brilliant literary 
 success, Poe felt most painfully his absence 
 from her who had been his companion for four 
 years. During all these years he had watched 
 her as she grew more lovely, more charming, 
 more interesting, and now when he wished to 
 make her his wife, she was two hundred miles 
 away. He became depressed, morbid, melan- 
 choly. At his solicitation, Mrs. Clemm re- 
 moved to Richmond with her daughter, and, 
 on the 1 6th of May, 1836, he was married to 
 his cousin, she being not quite fourteen years 
 old. The rest of that year was perhaps the 
 brightest and happiest of Poe^s life. His 
 salary, indeed, was small ($15.00 a week), but 
 it afforded sufficient support . for the little 
 family. Mrs. Clemm was a wonderful mana- 
 ger, and proved the truth of Goethe's saying 
 that beauty is cheap when taste is the pur- 
 chaser. 
 
 I have told the story of Poe's married life 
 in another article — of his perfect devotion in 
 sickness and in health- — of his sorrow and 
 desolation when a cruel death took her from 
 him forever. One who knew the family well 
 
 127 
 
ije poe Cult 
 
 describes Virginia a year or two after her 
 marriage as possessing a matchless beauty and 
 loveHness; her eyes were as bright as any 
 houri; and her face defied the genius of 
 Canova to imitate. Added to the charms of 
 person was a disposition of surpassing sweet- 
 ness. The tender love and devotion existing 
 between the poet and his beautiful young wife 
 was remarked by all who knew them. Poe's 
 unhappiness was inborn, and came not from 
 any domestic cause, for both Mrs. Clemm and 
 her daughter cared for him as though he were 
 a child. They spared him all those little per- 
 sonal matters which annoy sensitive people. 
 They selected his collars and cravats, his 
 gloves and cuffs. He was always neatly 
 dressed ; Mrs. Clemm told me he preferred for 
 ordinary wear a dark-gray suit, with a turn- 
 down collar and black cravat. She said she 
 had often heard Eddie declare that he never 
 saw any person so beautiful as his own sweet 
 little wife. He did not know, at that time, that 
 Virginia's beauty was of that fatal kind which 
 consumption imparts to its victim, and that 
 "she had been made perfect in loveliness only 
 to die.'' In a letter written to her relative, 
 the late Judge Neilson Poe, Mrs. Clemm gives 
 some interesting details of the domestic life 
 of the poet. 
 
 128 
 
Cf)e Poe Cult 
 
 ''Eddie was domestic in all his habits, sel- 
 dom leaving home for an hour unless his 
 darling Virginia or myself were with him. 
 He was truly an affectionate, kind husband, 
 and a devoted son to me. He was impulsive, 
 generous, affectionate, noble. His tastes were 
 very simple, and his admiration for all that 
 was good and beautiful very great. We three 
 lived only for each other." 
 
 Theodore Parker said that every man of 
 genius has to hew out for himself, from the 
 hard marble of life, the white statue of Tran- 
 quillity. Applying this to Poe, Mrs. Whit- 
 man with all her womanly sympathy asked the 
 world to look with pity and reverent awe upon 
 the unhappy poet's efforts to achieve that 
 beautiful and august statue of Peace. She re- 
 marks further that one clear glance into the 
 corridors of his life — ''its halls of tragedy and 
 chambers of retribution,'' would appall the 
 stoutest heart. It was after the death of his 
 charming child-wife that the poet's heart be- 
 came so desolate and suffered from what he 
 himself describes as "a sense of insupportable 
 loneliness and a dread of some strange im- 
 pending doom.'^ Like many highly imagina- 
 tive men, Poe was deeply interested in the 
 awful mystery of death. In most of his poetry 
 and in many of his prose tales, he seeks to un- 
 
 129 
 
Cf)c poe Cult 
 
 ravel the impenetrable secrets of the grave, 
 finding a never-ceasing fascination in its 
 gloomy recesses. Mrs. Clemm told me that 
 ''Eddie'' often wandered to his wife's grave 
 at midnight, in the snow and rain, and threw 
 himself upon the mound of earth, calling upon 
 her in words of most tender affection to watch 
 over him. For weeks and months after this, 
 the crowning sorrow of his life of sorrow, the 
 poet was crushed with grief. His usual oc- 
 cupations were neglected, his pen was thrown 
 aside ; his books were not opened ; he wandered 
 about the country by day, and at night kept 
 long and solitary vigil at the grave of his 
 "lost Lenore." From that time, he was a 
 changed man: he who never laughed and 
 rarely ever smiled, scarcely ever smiled again. 
 In the autumn of 1848, a gleam of sunlight 
 illumined Poe's dark and fateful life, for at 
 that time he first became personally acquainted 
 with Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman. Twenty- 
 four years afterwards, Mrs. Whitman wrote 
 a long and interesting account of her love af- 
 fair with the poet. It appears that he called 
 upon her at her residence in Providence, R. I., 
 bringing a letter of introduction from a mutual 
 friend, Miss Maria J. Mcintosh. Mrs. Whit- 
 man's presence seemed to inspire him with an 
 immediate hope that she could, if she would, 
 
 130 
 
Cfje Poe Cult 
 
 raise him from the misery and despair from 
 which he had been suffering since the death of 
 his wife, nearly two years before; and, also, 
 that she could give an inspiration to his genius, 
 of which he had, said Poe, as yet given no 
 token. ''Notwithstanding the eloquence wath 
 which he urged upon me his wishes,'' said Mrs. 
 Whitman, ''I knew too well that I could not 
 exercise over him the power that he described 
 to me. In parting with him, I promised that 
 I would reply to him and tell him what I could 
 not then say to him." Poe wrote to Mrs. 
 Whitman soon after leaving her, but she de- 
 layed writing from day to day, unwilling to 
 give him pain by a refusal, and yet fearing to 
 mislead him and compromise herself by any 
 word of friendly sympathy and encourage- 
 ment. However, after a few weeks, an ardent 
 courtship won the lady's consent to a condi- 
 tional engagement, followed by her consent to 
 an immediate marriage. On Saturday, De- 
 cember 24, 184S, Poe VvTote to a minister, ask- 
 ing him to perform the ceremony on the fol- 
 lowing Monday evening ; he wrote at the same 
 time to Mrs. Clemm that he and his bride 
 should arrive in New York on Tuesday, De- 
 cember 27th. The condition upon which Mrs. 
 Whitman consented to marry Poe was that 
 he should not touch liquor of any kind. Mrs. 
 
 131 
 
Cf)e poe Cult 
 
 Whitman says her friends were anxious to 
 break the rash engagement, and were strongly 
 opposed to the hasty marriage. On Saturday 
 afternoon, she received a note informing her 
 that Poe had that very morning broken his 
 promise by drinking wine in the barroom of 
 the Earl House ; he took but a single glass, and 
 showed no evidence of excitement in his man- 
 ner or appearance; but this proof of his in- 
 firmity of purpose at such a moment convinced 
 his fiancee that no influence of hers could avail 
 to save him, and she broke the engagement. 
 He returned to New York that evening, and 
 the lovers never met again, but Poe's love for 
 her was one of the cherished memories of Mrs. 
 Whitman's life, and her deep interest in his 
 name and fame ceased only with her own 
 death, which took place on the 27th of June, 
 1876. 
 
 In the summer of 1849, Poe visited Rich- 
 mond, and there among the scenes of his youth 
 and early manhood, he resumed his acquaint- 
 ance with the object of his first love, Elmira 
 Royster, who was at that time the widow Shel- 
 ton. Their love was renewed, and an en- 
 gagement quickly followed, and the marriage 
 was fixed for the ensuing October. While on 
 his way to New York, to bring Mrs. Clemm 
 to Richmond, which was to be their future 
 
 132 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 home, Poe was overtaken by the calamity in 
 Baltimore, which resulted in his death on the 
 7th of October, 1849. 
 
 Besides these various loves of Edgar Poe, 
 he had several friendships, more or less ardent. 
 His friendship for Mrs. Frances Sargent Os- 
 good was cemented by a congeniality of taste 
 and a poetical sympathy. Each celebrated the 
 other in verse, and Mrs. Osgood, a few months 
 before her own early death — she survived Poe 
 only seven months — wrote a most interesting 
 personal sketch of the poet, giving a detailed 
 account of his home life in New York, after 
 the publication of The Raven had placed him 
 among the first of living poets. In a well- 
 known drawing room in New York, once the 
 favorite resort of the literati, there hung a 
 portrait of Poe, which was described as hav- 
 ing the aspect of a beautiful and desolate 
 shrine from which the Genius had departed, 
 recalling certain lines in one of the antique 
 marbles : 
 
 "Oh melancholy eyes! 
 
 Oh empty eyes, from which the soul has gone 
 
 To see the far-off countries.'' 
 
 Near this luminous but impassive face, with 
 its sad and soulless eyes, says Mrs. Whitman, 
 was a portrait of Poe's unrelenting biographer, 
 Griswold. In a recess opposite hung a por- 
 
 133 
 
Cije poe Cult 
 
 trait of the fascinating Mrs. Osgood, whose 
 genius both had so fervently admired, and for 
 whose coveted praise and friendship both had 
 been competitors. Looking at the beautiful 
 face of this lady, so full of enthusiasm, and 
 dreamy, tropical sunshine — remembering the 
 eloquent words of her praise, as expressed in 
 the prodigal and passionate exaggerations of 
 her verse, one ceases to wonder at the rivalries 
 and enmities enkindled within the hearts of 
 those who admired her genius and grace — 
 rivalries and enmities which the grave itself 
 could not cancel or appease. 
 
 The lover and his loves are long since dead, 
 but, so immortal is the touch of genius, the 
 memory of those ladies is embalmed in their 
 country's literary history. This sketch of the 
 loves of Edgar A. Poe cannot be more ap- 
 propriately concluded than by quoting two 
 verses from an exquisite poem of Sarah Helen 
 Whitman, entitled, ''The Portrait of Poe.'' 
 
 Sweet, mournful eyes, long closed upon earth's sorrow, 
 Sleep restfully, after life's fevered dream! 
 
 Sleep, wayward heart ! till some cool bright morrow, 
 Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning's beam. 
 
 Though cloud and shadow rest upon your story. 
 And rude hands lift the drapery of thy pall, 
 
 Time, as a birthright, shall restore thy glory, 
 And Heaven rekindle all the stars that fall." 
 
 134 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 POE AND STODDARD. 
 
 The death o£ Richard Henry Stoddard, on 
 the 1 2th of May, 1903, removed from the 
 world the last of the Hterary contemporaries 
 of Edgar A. Poe. Their acquaintance began 
 in the Summer of 1845, when Poe was the edi- 
 tor, owner, and principal contributor to the 
 Broadway Journal. Mr. Stoddard has told 
 the story of his acquaintance with Poe — told it 
 often and well — told it with interesting em- 
 bellishment, blending fact and fiction in equal 
 portions. The courtesies of journalism are 
 more regarded now than they were twenty- 
 four years ago. I have before me an article 
 from a leading New York newspaper, of May 
 3, 1885, headed, ''Reminiscences of Poe, Poet, 
 Lover, Liar." By Richard Henry Stoddard. 
 He says : ''When I was in the twentieth year 
 of mxy age, I was under the delusion that I 
 could write poetry. I belonged to the school 
 of Keats, though I was only in the infant 
 class. Something that I had read suggested 
 an Ode to a Grecian Flute, and I wrote one, 
 
 135 
 
Cfje Poe Cult 
 
 or tried to, which is not precisely the same 
 thing. I made a fair copy of the effusion, and 
 sent it to the great Mr. Poe, who was then 
 editing the Broadway Journal, It was pub- 
 Hshed. in CHnton Hall, not far from where 
 Temple Court is. I waited patiently two or 
 three weeks, at the end of which time, the im- 
 mortality of print being denied me, I took a 
 day and went down to the office of the Broad- 
 way JoiirnaL Mr. Poe was not there, but I 
 obtained his address, and retraced my steps. 
 I found the house in which he lodged. It was 
 on the southerly side of East Broadway, prob- 
 ably in the neighborhood of Clinton Street. I 
 was directed to his rooms, which were on the 
 second floor. He was dressed in black, I re- 
 member, and was very courteous to me. The 
 Ode should appear next week. I thanked him, 
 and rising to leave, saw that his wife, who 
 was, also, in black, was lying asleep on a bed— 
 a fragile gentlewoman, whom I pitied, for I 
 felt she had not long to live. I saw her 
 mother at that same time, who was also in 
 black. I bowed to her, and departed. The 
 Ode did not appear next week, but there was 
 a reference to it in the earner devoted to Cor- 
 respondents. The editor doubted the original- 
 ity of my verse, and declined to publish it un- 
 less he could be assured of its authenticity. I 
 
 136 
 
Cf)e poe Cult 
 
 was startled, but complimented, for had I not 
 written so well that Poe suspected that I was 
 a literary thief. I was hurt, but I was flat- 
 tered and bettered, for I was no longer afraid 
 of the poet's criticism. I took another fore- 
 noon, a week later, and went again to the of- 
 fice of the Broadway Journal. It was a boil- 
 ing day in June. The editor was not in his 
 chair, but was expected to return soon. I 
 walked up and down the hot street, and at 
 the end of an hour, returned, and was in- 
 formed that Mr. Poe was in, and was shown 
 to his room. He was in black, as before, asleep 
 in his chair. The publisher wakened him. 
 'What do you want?' he snapped out. 'I have 
 come, Mr. Poe, to assure you of the authen- 
 ticity of the ''Ode on a Grecian Flute.'' ' He 
 glared at me, and without waiting to hear 
 what I had to say, declared that I was a Har, 
 and consigned me to instant perdition. Then 
 he rose surlily, and threatened to kick me out 
 of the office if I did not get out at once ; which 
 I did." 
 
 Mr. Stoddard said, several years ago, that 
 he had made over $700 by writing this anec- 
 dote in various shapes, style, length and 
 breadth. The whirligig of time has brought 
 about many changes, and none equal to the 
 change that has taken place in the estimation 
 
 137 
 
C!)e Poe Cult 
 
 of Poe. For twenty-five years after his death, 
 the dead Hon was kicked by living asses — the 
 dead raven was plucked by living buzzards, 
 and other foul birds. Richard Henry Stod- 
 dard was neither an ass nor a buzzard, but he 
 did much to keep Poe from coming to his 
 kingdom. He defended Griswold, while con- 
 demning Poe. He declared that ''Griswold 
 was not more the enemy of Poe than I was, or 
 am.'' That's true. They were both enemies, 
 one as much as the other. Stoddard's dislike 
 of the poet was caused by that threat to kick 
 him out of his office. On that he claims to 
 have made $700, and has associated his name 
 with that of the author of The Raven ; had the 
 threat been actually carried out, Stoddard 
 might have made twice as much money, and 
 gained an immortal fame. See what he missed 
 by his precipitous retreat from the sanctum 
 of the irate poet ? To be kicked into fame sel- 
 dom happens to a man. By acting the better 
 part of valor, and running away, Stoddard 
 lost the opportunity of his life. 
 
 Walt Whitman told of a very different ex- 
 perience which he had with Poe. He saw 
 him once, when he called at the office of the 
 Broadway Journal, as Stoddard did, to inquire 
 about a piece. He says that Poe was very 
 cordial: "I have a distinct and pleasant re- 
 
 138 
 
Clje Poc Cult 
 
 membrance of his looks, voice, manner and 
 matter; he was very kindly and human, but 
 subdued, and perhaps a little agitated/' 
 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman, in his admirable 
 essay entitled, ''Edgar Allan Poe,'' was the 
 first to draw public attention to the fact that 
 the poet never made a dollar except by his pen, 
 and he says, moreover, the duty of self-support 
 was not one to which he had been trained, and 
 he adds, ''Imagine Shelley, who made his paper 
 boats of bank notes, Byron and Landor, who 
 had their old estates, forced to write by the 
 column for their weekly board/' Then, re- 
 member that Poe was brought up in luxury, 
 and taught to expect a handsome fortune — 
 that when he reached manhood, he was turned 
 adrift without a dollar. Gifted as few are 
 gifted, he made a splendid fight against fate. 
 
 139 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 INGRAM'S LIFE OF POE. 
 
 Ten years after Edgar A. Poe's death, a 
 reaction in his favor set in, beginning with 
 Mrs. Whitman's graceful Httle book, Bdgar 
 Poe and his Critics. This reaction has cul- 
 minated in the biography now under consid- 
 eration. Like Mr. William F. Gill, and others 
 w^e could name, Mr. Ingram became fascinated 
 by the strange and romantic career 6i the au- 
 thor of ''The Raven.'' Fascination soon be- 
 came infatuation ; and for nearly ten years he 
 devoted money, time, and labor to collecting 
 material for a biography, which should have 
 the same effect upon the other biographies of 
 Poe as Aaron's rod had upon the rods of the 
 Egyptians. 
 
 In his preface, Mr. Ingram makes the 
 sweeping charge that all the biographies of 
 Poe that have appeared since his vindicatory 
 memoir in 1874 — except one ''based upon Gris- 
 wold's sketch" — have "reproduced the whole 
 of his (Ingram's) material, and with scarcely 
 an additional item of interest or value." Yet, 
 
 140 
 
Cije poc Cult 
 
 notwithstanding this, he quotes many interest- 
 ing passages from biographies of Poe which 
 have appeared since 1874; in some instances 
 giving credit, in others not. In common jus- 
 tice he should have given credit to the biog- 
 rapher who discovered and rescued Poe's re- 
 markable letter about the "tame propriety'' of 
 Washington Irving's style, which Mr. Ingram 
 copies in full on p. 154, Vol. i, of his work. 
 
 Poe required no ancestors. His genius has 
 thrown distinction upon a name which, other- 
 wise, would long ere this have passed into 
 oblivion. It was not necessary, therefore, for 
 Mr. Ingram to claim that the grandfather of 
 the poet ''greatly distinguished himself during 
 the War of Independence.'' Even were such 
 the fact, it would add nothing to Edgar Poe's 
 reputation. But such was not the fact. The 
 grandfather of Edgar Poe, called by courtesy 
 Gen. Poe, was simply deputy quartermaster of 
 the Maryland Line during the American Revo- 
 lution. He performed his duty well and faith- 
 fully, but it was not a position which gave him 
 an opportunity to "distinguish" himself. 
 
 The admirers of Poe will read with interest 
 and pleasure Mr. Ingram's story of the ro- 
 mantic love affair between Mrs. Whitman and 
 the poet. It is the fullest and most satisfac- 
 tory account of what has hitherto been a mys- 
 
 141 
 
Ciie poe Cult 
 
 terious episode in Poe's career. His letters to 
 his ''promised bride'' during the period of their 
 brief engagement are replete with expressions 
 of the most exalted passion and the most en- 
 thusiastic devotion. The breaking off of the 
 engagement is thus told by Mr. Ingram: 
 
 ''He arrived in Providence full of the most 
 sanguine hopes; he had proposed to himself a 
 career of literary success, dwelling with en- 
 kindling enthusiasm upon his long-cherished 
 scheme of establishing a magazine that should 
 give him supreme control of intellectual so- 
 ciety in America. His dreams of love and 
 triumph were rapidly destroyed. In a few 
 days he was to be married ; he had advised his 
 aunt, Mrs. Clemm, to expect his and his bride's 
 arrival in New York early the following week, 
 when information was given to Mrs. Whitman 
 and to her relatives that he had violated the 
 solemn pledge of abstinence so recently given. 
 Whether this information was true, no one 
 living, perchance, can say. When he arrived 
 at the dwelling of Mrs. Whitman, "no token 
 of the infringement of his promise was visible 
 in his appearance or manner," said that lady, 
 "but I was at last convinced that it would be 
 in vain longer to hope against hope. I knew 
 that he had irrevocably lost the power of self- 
 recovery. . . /^ 
 
 142 
 
C6e poe Cult 
 
 This scene is certainly highly dramatic, and 
 is a fit termination of so wild and romantic a 
 love affair. Poe never knew the real cause of 
 the rupture of the engagement, and, ''up to the 
 time of his death does not appear to have al- 
 luded to Mrs. Whitman again save in the most 
 conventional manner, but the lady always 
 cherished, with unfaded affection, the memory 
 of her connection with the poet; and in- 
 variably contrived to bring more prominently 
 forward the brighter traits of her hero's char- 
 acter than has been accomplished by any other 
 person/' 
 
 We admire Mr. Ingram's industry in getting 
 the hitherto unpublished letters of Poe; some 
 of them throw light on the complex character 
 of this strange being, who, as was said of John 
 Randolph, of Roanoke, ''lived and died a mys- 
 tery to those who knew him best." We must, 
 however, question the taste and propriety of 
 resurrecting the unsavory controversy be- 
 tween Poe and English. The whole affair was 
 disgraceful, and reflected credit on neither. A 
 biographer should know what to blot. The 
 work of even the greatest writer is not all 
 interesting. We have no doubt that Shake- 
 speare's writing desk, if he had one, con- 
 tained much that was consigned to well- 
 merited oblivion. When we read of Poe taking 
 
 143 
 
C!)e Poe €n\t 
 
 credit to himself for ''running his pen 
 through certain sentences referring to the 
 brandy nose of Mr. Briggs (since Mr. Briggs 
 is only one-third described when this nose is 
 omitted),- and to the family resemblance be- 
 tween the noble visage of Mr. English and 
 that of the best looking but most unprincipled 
 of Mr. Barnum's baboons/' we feel that Poe 
 has done himself infinitely more harm than 
 he has done either Mr. Briggs or Mr. Eng- 
 lish by indulging in language that should be 
 confined to Billingsgate, where they ''sell the 
 best fish and speak the worst English." 
 
 We will not stop to point out several unim- 
 portant errors made by Mr. Ingram, but we 
 have to condemn the ungenerous spirit that 
 prompted him to omit all mention of Mr. Gill 
 from the work. The latter has done very 
 worthy, if Quixotic, service in the Poe cause. 
 We are afraid that Mr. Ingram is a Httle bit 
 jealous of what others have done in this mat- 
 ter; that, like the Turk, he wishes to reign 
 alone, and will not permit anyone else to share 
 his self-assumed throne. 
 
 144 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 WOODBERRY'S LIFE OF POE. 
 
 The interest in the strange and romantic 
 story of Poe's Hfe seems to increase rather 
 than diminish. Already nine Hves have been 
 given to the world — some written by bitter 
 enemies, others by injudicious friends, all 
 wanting, more or less, in that calm, dispas- 
 sionate tone which should characterize works 
 of literary and historical interest. A tenth 
 life of Poe has been written by Mr. George 
 E. Woodberry, for the American Men of Let- 
 ters series. In a compact volume of three 
 hundred and fifty pages, we have a complete, 
 reliable and interesting life of the author of 
 The Raven, written with absolute literary 
 candor and entirely free from prejudice, one 
 way or the other. In fact, he has produced 
 a work which should satisfy all readers for a 
 long time to come. 
 
 Mr. Woodberry has anticipated the possible 
 cavils of the critics by carefully substantiating, 
 as far as possible, the fresh and interesting in- 
 formation which he has added to what was 
 already known of Poe's romantic and erratic 
 
 145 
 
Clie Poe Cult 
 
 career. The fact of his enlisting in the United 
 States Army has been hinted at before, but 
 Mr. Woodberry proves by the records of the 
 war department that Poe enhsted on the 
 26th of May, 1828, and served for nearly 
 twelve months, being discharged on the 15th 
 of April, 1829, his friends having put a sub- 
 stitute in his place w4th a view of getting him 
 appointed a cadet to West Point. Mr. Wood- 
 berry has thus filled up a gap in Poe's life 
 which had baffled all other biographers of the 
 poet. 
 
 One of the most disagreeable accusations 
 brought against the dead Poe by Griswold 
 was, that while Poe was the editor of the Gen- 
 tleman's Magazine, of which William E. Bur- 
 ton, the comedian, was the owner, he had taken 
 advantage of the latter's temporary absence 
 to supplant him by starting a new magazine, 
 and had obtained transcripts of the subscrip- 
 tion and account books for that purpose. 
 When Burton returned home, at the end of a 
 fortnight, he was told that not a line of copy 
 for the next number of the magazine had been 
 given to the printers, and after some time 
 Poe was found late in the evening at one of 
 his accustomed haunts and was thus ad- 
 dressed: ''Mr. Poe, I am astonished. Give 
 me my manuscript, so that I can attend to the 
 
 146 
 
Cfie poe Cult 
 
 duties which you have so shamefully neglected, 
 and when you are sober we will settle/' To 
 which Poe is reported to have replied : ''Who 
 are you that presumes to address me in this 
 manner ? Burton, I am the editor of the Penn 
 Magazine, and you are (hiccup) a fool." Of 
 course, this ended his relations with the Gen- 
 tleman's. 
 
 Such is Griswold's story, which is now 
 known to be false in every particular. Poe 
 himself in a letter written to Dr. Joseph E. 
 Snodgrass, editor of the Baltimore Saturday 
 Visitor, says that he left thci Gentleman's 
 Magazine because he disapproved of Burton's 
 conduct in the matter of certain prizes of- 
 fered for manuscripts. They quarreled and 
 separated. Poe in his letter to Dr. Snodgrass, 
 dated Philadelphia, April i, 1841, explaining 
 the cause of his leaving Burton, says: ''I 
 pledge you before God the solemn word of a 
 gentleman, that I am temperate even to rigor. 
 From the hour in which I first saw this beast 
 of calumniators to the hour in which I retired 
 from his office in uncontrollable disgust at his 
 chicanery, arrogance, ignorance, and brutality, 
 nothing stronger than water ever passed my 
 lips. You Will never be brought to believe 
 that I could write what I daily write, as I 
 write it, were I as this man would induce those 
 
 147 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 who know me not to believe. At no period of 
 my life was I ever what men call intemperate. 
 I was never in the habit of intoxication. I 
 never drunk drams, etc., but for a brief period, 
 while I resided in Richmond and edited the 
 Messenger, I certainly did give way, at long 
 intervals, to the temptation held out on all sides 
 by the spirit of Southern conviviality. My 
 sensitive temperament could not stand an ex- 
 citement which was an every-day matter to 
 my companions. In short, it sometimes hap- 
 pened that I was completely intoxicated. For 
 some days after each excess I was invariably 
 confined to bed. But it is now quite four years 
 since I have abandoned every kind of alcho- 
 holic drink — four years with the exception of 
 a single deviation, which occurred shortly after 
 my leaving Burton, and when I was induced 
 to resort to the occasional use of cider, with 
 the hope of relieving a nervous attack. You 
 wall thus see, frankly stated, the whole amount 
 of my sin.'' 
 
 Mr. Woodberry has done a good work by 
 rescuing this important correspondence from 
 the columns of a daily newspaper and giving 
 it a permanent place in American literary 
 biography. 
 
 For nearly a quarter of a century after Poe's 
 untimely death, Griswold's infamous memoir 
 
 148 
 
C[)e poe Cult 
 
 was accepted by the world as correct, and 
 followed by other biographers until 1875, when 
 the er€;ction of the monument over the poet's 
 long-neglected grave in Baltimore led to a 
 new investigation of his life. This, continued 
 to the present time, has resulted in the com- 
 plete refutation of all of Griswold's slanders 
 and the bringing to light, from time to time, of 
 important facts, affecting Poe as a man and 
 a poet, until, as we have before remarked, the 
 whole story of his life has been related in Mr. 
 Woodberry's work. 
 
 Poe has had a singular literary fate; long 
 neglected by his own countrymen, the Eng- 
 lish, French and German critics recognized 
 him as the most original of all the American 
 poets. 
 
 149 
 
^ht poe Cult 
 
 RECENT BIOGRAPHIES OF EDGAR A. 
 
 POE.* 
 
 When Dr. Johnson heard that Boswell in- 
 tended to write his Hfe, he is reported to have 
 said that he would prevent so great a calamity 
 by taking the life of his presumptive biog- 
 rapher. In this matter, as, indeed, in many 
 others, Johnson was wrong. Those profound 
 philosophical works, by which he hoped to be 
 long remembered, are not now read by one in 
 ten thousand, but Boswell's biography will 
 keep alive an interest in Johnson to the most 
 distant posterity. Had Edgar A. Poe known 
 how Griswold would write his life, he might 
 more justly have entertained the murderous 
 feeling attributed to Dr. Johnson. Yet Gris- 
 wold's memoir of Poe has been an advantage 
 to the poet. Had he written a truthful and 
 satisfactory biography, it would have been 
 accepted as such by the world, and perhaps 
 long since have been consigned to the 
 neglected shelves of public and private li- 
 
 *International Review, January, i88l. 
 
 150 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 braries; but the manifest injustice of Gris- 
 wold's sketch induced the friends and ad- 
 mirers of Poe to examine his biographer's 
 damaging statements, to sweep away the 
 falsehood from his disgraceful stories, and 
 to give to the world all the strange and re- 
 markable incidents which made the life of the 
 author of ''The Raven'" more romantic than 
 fiction. 
 
 Carlyle says that ''a well-written life is 
 almost as rare as a well-spent one/' Eight 
 lives of Poe have been published. That so 
 many biographies should be written of one 
 author is a very noticeable circumstance. 
 Byron, who occupied the attention of the world 
 more than any other modern writer, had only 
 three or four biographies written of him; 
 Dickens, the most popular author of the last 
 century, has had only two or three; Bulwer 
 has had none; Bryant, one; Irving, two; Hal- 
 leck, one; Moore, one, and Thackeray, if we 
 except one or two imperfect sketches and the 
 execrable stuff published by Anthony Trollope, 
 has had none. 
 
 We propose in this article to examine two 
 recent lives of Poe. Mr. Gill's book was writ- 
 ten with a twofold object — the deification of 
 Poe and the damnation of Griswold. It is 
 hard to say which feeling predominates. For 
 
 151 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 our own part, we do not believe that Poe was 
 so good as Gill represents him or that Gris- 
 wold was so bad. Mr. Gill claims that his is 
 the most complete life of Poe that has been 
 published. He begins his life by a sketch of 
 Poe's imaginary Italian ancestry, which the 
 late Sarah Helen Whitman invented, and first 
 pubHshed in her 'Toe and his Critics." In a 
 letter written to me by Mrs. Whitman the year 
 before her death, she says : ''For all I said on 
 the subject I alone am responsible. A distant 
 relative of mine, a descendant, like myself, of 
 Nicholas Le Poer, had long ministered to my 
 genealogical proclivities by stories which, from 
 my childhood, had vaguely haunted and 
 charmed my imagination. When I discovered 
 certain facts in Poe's history, of which he had 
 previously made little account, he seemed 
 greatly impressed by my theory of our rela- 
 tionship. Of course, I endowed him with my 
 traditionary heirlooms. An aptitude for gene- 
 alogical researches is my specialty, and it 
 would require but a few slender links to con- 
 nect your Franco-Italian name with that 
 Didier King of Lombardy, who surrendered 
 his Iron crown to Charlemagne and gave him 
 his daughter in marriage.''^ 
 
 So much for Poe's ''long descent.'' But he 
 could well afford to be the first of his name; he 
 
 152 
 
Ctie poe Cult 
 
 did not require ancestors, coats o£ arms, or 
 coronets. We seek not for ancestors, im- 
 mediate or remote, of Shakespeare, Dante, or 
 Virgil ; they have crowned their names with a 
 lustre which kings cannot bestow. 
 
 Mr. Gill is guilty of some mistakes which 
 should be corrected. Edgar Poe's father was 
 not the fourth, but the eldest son of his 
 parents. It was not after the breach between 
 Poe and Mr. Allan that the latter married his 
 second wife: it was before; the marriage was 
 the cause of the quarrel. Poe did not utter on 
 his deathbed the nonsense about ''the Elysian 
 bowers of the undiscovered spirit world'' — 
 Judge Neilson Poe, his nearest living relative, 
 who was present at the death of his cousin, 
 says : ''He was taken in a dying condition to 
 the University Hospital, where he remained 
 insensible to the last." 
 
 We regret that we cannot truthfully praise 
 Mr. Gill's literary style. In mentioning the sim- 
 ple fact that Poe printed "The Raven" anony- 
 mously, he thus expresses himself: "When in 
 his silent vigils, enthralled by the imaginative 
 ecstasy which often possessed and over- 
 powered him, he conceived and wrought out 
 this marvelous inspiration, what wonder is it 
 that his delicate sensibility should prompt him 
 to conceal from the rude gaze of his material 
 
 153 
 
^ht poe Cult 
 
 audience the secret springs o£ his inner con- 
 sciousness, by printing- his chef-d'oeuvre over 
 an assumed name, and hedging its origin about 
 with the impenetrable veil of fiction?'' In an 
 elaborate analysis of the same poem, Mr. Gill 
 indulges in the following language: ''Postu- 
 lating the opinion which we venture to ad- 
 vance here upon the result of a process of 
 psychological introversion, which conclusion is 
 confirmed by several of Poe's most intimate 
 acquaintances now living, strengthened by a 
 chain of conclusive circumstantial evidence, we 
 have arrived at a theory of the origin of the 
 poem that has received the approval of, etc/' 
 Here is a still higher flight: ''That some of 
 the most exquisite imaginative fabrics ever 
 constructed have been wrought from the sug- 
 gestions afiforded by some especial experience, 
 or by a chance incident of circumstance, there 
 are many familiar examples to demonstrate.'^ 
 When stripped of its covering of verbiage, this 
 means simply that authors frequently write 
 from their own experience — a truism which 
 will scarcely be denied. 
 
 Mr. Gill's grammar is not always as Caesar's 
 wife was required to be, above suspicion. In 
 fact, he sometimes lapses into such mistakes 
 as these: "Some of his best prose tales were 
 done at this time, when the yoke of privation 
 
 154 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 sat but lightly upon his shoulders/ In speak- 
 ing of Poe's reading of ''The Raven," he says, 
 ^'He was too good an elocutionist to fail to 
 adequately voice his conceptions/' Again : ''By 
 matter-of-fact minds, incapable of sensing deli- 
 cate distinctions, poets, from Shakespeare 
 down, have been, and will continue to be, ad- 
 judged guilty of arrant plagiarism/' It is a 
 pity that Mr. Gill does not know the "delicate 
 distinction'' between a verb and a noun. 
 
 We mark these errors in no unkind spirit, 
 but we think it is the critic's duty to discover 
 and expose faults more than to praise beauties. 
 We thank Mr. Gill for giving us the severe 
 criticism which Poe wrote upon Griswold's 
 "Poets and Poetry of America/' This was the 
 secret cause of Griswold's enmity. He nursed 
 his anger for ten years, and, when Poe was 
 helpless in his grave, vilified the character of 
 the deceased under the guise of friendship 
 Poe certainly handled Griswold's book with- 
 out gloves. He called it "miserable" and its 
 authory "a toady;" he declared that "reason- 
 ing and thinking were entirely out of Gris- 
 wold's sphere," etc. With prophetic ken, Poe 
 declared at the close of the article that Gris- 
 wold would be "forgotten, save only by those 
 whom he had injured and insulted; he will 
 sink into oblivion, without leaving a landmark 
 
 155 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 to tell that he once existed ; or, if he is spoken 
 of hereafter, he will be quoted as the unfaith- 
 ful servant who abused his trust/' 
 
 Entertaining as Poe's criticisms always are, 
 still we think that an original genius, capable 
 of producing so remarkable a poem as ''The 
 Raven," is better employed in affording sub- 
 jects for criticism than in acting as a critic 
 himself. Dunces have to be scourged, the 
 literary temple has to be swept clean ; but such 
 work belongs not to a poet of exquisite genius. 
 We do not cut blocks with a razor ; we should 
 not put Pegasus under the saddle. Goldsmith 
 was a fine critic, yet who reads his criticisms 
 now? But his ''Traveller,'' his "Deserted Vil- 
 lage,'' his "Vicar of Wakefield," are immortal. 
 Tennyson might have written admirable 
 criticism of poetry, but the world would not 
 have taken it in fair exchange for "In 
 Memoriam," "The Princess," and "The Idyls 
 of the King." Wordsworth calls criticism an 
 "inglorious employment," and adds: "If the 
 time consumed in writing critiques on the 
 works of others were given to original com- 
 position, it would be much better employed." 
 We take the liberty of differing from this 
 opinion, thinking on the contrary, that criticism 
 is a most important department of letters, and 
 of infinite value to literature. Goethe was a 
 
 156 
 
Cfje Poe Cult 
 
 critic, Sainte-Beuve was a critic, Macaulay 
 was a critic, Matthew Arnold is a critic. 
 Surely their ''employment" was not ''in- 
 glorious/' But we do think that a writer of 
 Poe's peculiar gifts should have been much 
 better employed in original composition than 
 in writing criticisms, however brilliant. The 
 following passage will show how Poe's ability 
 in this department was appreciated in his life- 
 time by one of the most fastidious of American 
 scholars — Horace Binney Wallace: 
 
 "As an analytical critic, Poe possessed abil- 
 ities quite unrivalled in this country, and per- 
 haps on the other side of the water. We have 
 scarcely ever taken up one of his more critical 
 papers on some author or work worthy of his 
 strength, without a sense of surprise at the 
 novel and profound views from which his in- 
 quiries began, nor followed their development 
 without the closest interest, nor laid the essay 
 down without admiration and respect for the 
 masculine and acute understanding with which 
 we had coped during the perusal.'' 
 
 While according such high praise to Poe's 
 critical abilities, Mr. Wallace adds that, "in the 
 case of inventive genius so brilliant and vigor- 
 ous as shown in his poems, we feel that criti- 
 cism, even of the highest kind, is an employ- 
 ment below the true measure of its dignity, 
 
 157 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 and, we may say, its duty ; for to be a tender of 
 a light in another man's tomb is not fit occupa- 
 tion for one whose ray may abide against all 
 the fears of night and storm and time. Poe 
 possessed unusual powers of close logical rea- 
 soning; he was gifted with a miraculous power 
 of sarcasm, and to him the torva vohtptas of 
 literary controversy possessed a fatal fascina- 
 tion/^ 
 
 While lamenting that Poe did not develop 
 more fully his unrivalled gifts in original com- 
 position, we must remember that during all his 
 later life he was a sufferer from res an^usta 
 domi, and whatever found the readiest market 
 was what he was compelled to produce. He 
 could not enjoy the luxury of devoting his 
 genius to the composition of such poems as 
 "'The Raven," which paid him ten dollars, when 
 a criticism like that on ''Flaccus,'' which he 
 could dash off carrente calamo, paid him fif- 
 teen dollars. 
 
 Poetry occupied very little of Poe's intel- 
 lectual life : it was for him but a ''divine play- 
 thing,'^ as Heinp said of himself. Poe's poems 
 were attempts to represent in verse the beauti- 
 ful and unearthly beings whom his soul wor- 
 •shipped. In speaking of Maurice de Guerin, 
 Matthew Arnold's says: ''To a nature like 
 his, endowed with a passion for perfection, the 
 
 158 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 necessity to produce constantly, to produce 
 whether in the vein, to produce something good 
 or bad or middhng as it may happen, but at all 
 events something, is the most intolerable of 
 tortures/' It was his passion for perfection, 
 his disdain for all imperfect poetical work, 
 which made Poe so severe a critic. 
 
 Mr. Gill devotes the greater part of his ap- 
 pendix to an account of the proceedings attend- 
 ing the unveiling of the Poe Monument in 
 Baltimore in November, 1875. We must con- 
 demn his bad taste in quoting from the con- 
 temporary account of the ceremonial such pas- 
 sages as these : ''Mr. William F. Gill, who has 
 done much by his written vindication of the 
 poet's memory to remove false impressions, 
 gave the finest rendition of ''The Raven'' to 
 which we have ever listened. The large audi- 
 ence was spellbound by his perfect elocution, 
 and his resemblance to the recognized ideals 
 of Mr. Poe himself made the personation of 
 his horror and despair almost painful." We 
 were present on this occasion, but we saw no 
 person "spellbound." We have seen every 
 likeness of Poe extant, but we fail to dis- 
 cover any resemblance between the author of 
 "The Raven" and Mr. Gill. Again he quotes: 
 "After the monument was unveiled, 'Annabel 
 Lee' was recited in the same masterly manner 
 
 159 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 by Mr. Gill/' Further on he says: 'Toe's 
 famous poem, ''The Raven/' was read by Mr. 
 Gill, who was made the recipient of an ovation 
 at its close at the hands of the audience.'' Our 
 presence at the time does not enable us clearly 
 to understand what he means by "an ovation 
 at the hands of the audience." 
 
 The melancholy life and death of the un- 
 happy master of "The Raven" seem to have 
 thrown a spell over all his later biographers, 
 especially those who did not know him in life. 
 In their endeavor to present him to the world 
 in the most favorable light, they have not been 
 satisfied to represent him under the form of a 
 cloud with a silver lining, but almost as a re- 
 splendent sun. If this be right, then the pres- 
 ent writer is wrong. But Mr. Gill stands 
 facile princeps in this particular. He set out 
 with the fixed determination to whiten Poe and 
 blacken Griswold. Like the famous knight of 
 La Mancha, he attacked all obstructions which 
 stood in the way, and the result has been that 
 those who knew Poe will scarcely recognize 
 him as painted by Mr. Gill. Still, with all its 
 faults, the work is interesting; but it would 
 have been much more valuable had the ma- 
 terial it contains been placed in the hands of 
 a skifled literary man. 
 
 We now turn to Mr. Ingram's biography. 
 
 i6o 
 
Cl)e poe Cult 
 
 To him belongs the credit of having produced 
 the most elaborate and complete Life of Poe 
 which has yet been given to the world. He de- 
 tails the poet's history from his birth in Bos- 
 ton in 1809, to his death in Baltimore in 1849. 
 
 Mr. Ingram has been very industrious in 
 collecting the material for his work. He has 
 gathered all facts obtainable ; but he has writ- 
 ten his biography in a spirit of childish ad- 
 miration of Poe, and determined hostility 
 toward all other biographers of the poet. He 
 seems to labor under the delusion that Ameri- 
 cans neither appreciated the genius nor knew 
 anything about the life of Poe until he kindly 
 enlightened them. Carlyle says the fact that, a 
 quarter of a century after his death, interest in 
 Burns continued unabated proves that the poet 
 was not a common man. Interest in Poe has 
 not only not abated during the more than a 
 quarter of a century which has elapsed since 
 his death, but year after year it has continued 
 to increase. 
 
 When Alexander set out at the age of 
 twenty to conquer the world, he depended 
 upon his sword, with hope for inspiration. 
 When Edgar A. Poe set out at the age of 
 twenty to win fame and fortune, he depended 
 upon his pen. It was a brave act in those days 
 of our country's literary poverty. The time 
 
 161 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 had passed when poets were the chosen com- 
 panions of statesmen and princely merchants; 
 the time had not arrived when Uterary men 
 could live by their pens — yet Poe, with a 
 knightly disdain of fear, rushed into the arena, 
 choosing Sydney's brave motto, ''Atit viam in- 
 veniam aut faciamf' Collecting his verses to- 
 gether, he published them under the name of 
 ^'Tamerlane and Minor Poems,'' having pre- 
 viously sent specimens to John Neal, who, fifty 
 years ago, was a prominent journalist. He 
 was at that time the editor of the ''Yankee," 
 and replied to the aspiring young poet in the 
 columns of his paper: ''If E. A. P., of Balti- 
 more, whose lines about heaven, which, al- 
 though nonsense, are rather exquisite non- 
 sense, would do himself justice, he might make 
 a beautiful and, perhaps, a magnificent poem." 
 The lines referred to are in "Fairy-Land." In 
 response to this first recognition of his ability 
 to do something, Poe wrote the following note : 
 "I am young, not yet twenty; am a poet, if 
 deep worship of all beauty can make me one, 
 and wish to be so in the common meaning of 
 the word. I would give the world to embody 
 one-half the ideas afloat in my imagina- 
 tion ... I appeal to you as a man that 
 loves the same beauty that I adore— the beauty 
 of the natural blue sky and the sunshiny earth. 
 
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Cle Poe Cult 
 
 There can be no tie more strong than that of 
 brother for brother. It is not so much that 
 they love one another as that they both love the 
 same parent; their affections are always 
 running in the same direction, the same chan- 
 nel, and cannot help mingling. I am, and have 
 been from my childhood, an idler. It cannot, 
 therefore, be said that — 
 
 *I left a calling for this idle trade, 
 A duty broke, a father disobeyed/ 
 
 for I have no father nor mother.'' 
 
 It does not appear that Poe's first literary 
 venture attracted any attention or had any 
 sale; yet the little volume contains thoughts 
 and suggestions superior in point of imagina- 
 tion to anything in Byron's early poems. In- 
 deed, the delicate grace and musical rhythm 
 of portions of ''Tamerlane" give a promise of 
 the metrical sweetness which distinguishes all 
 Poe's poetry. 
 
 The young poet soon discovered that the way 
 of Hterature was far from being a 'Trimrose 
 path;" that it led through thorns and briers, 
 with but a few flowers to cheer the weary way. 
 After ten years of literary struggle, we find 
 him, in 1842, anxious to obtain a livelihood 
 ''independent of letters." Poe had, by this 
 time, made a national reputation by his writ- 
 
 163 
 
Cfie poe Cult 
 
 ings. He had edited with distinguished suc- 
 cess the ''Southern Literary Messenger/' the 
 ''Gentleman's Magazine/' and "Graham's 
 Magazine/' he had written "The Fall of the 
 House of Usher/' "Ligeia/' "William Wilson/' 
 the "Murders in the Rue Morgue/' and other 
 tales of mystery and imagination ; he had pub- 
 lished his best critical essays, and some of his 
 sweetest lyrics — yet he writes this almost de- 
 spairing letter to a friend, asking his assist- 
 ance in securing a small government clerkship 
 in Washington : 
 
 "I wash to God I could visit Washington. 
 But the old story, you know — I have no money, 
 not even enough to take me there, saying noth- 
 ing of getting back. It is a hard thing to be 
 poor, but as I am kept so by an honest mo- 
 tive, I dare not complain. Your suggestion 
 about Mr. Kennedy is well timed; and here, 
 Thomas, you can do me a true service. Call 
 upon Mr. Kennedy — you know him, I believe; 
 if not introduce yourself; he is a perfect gen- 
 tleman, and will give you a cordial welcome. 
 Speak to him of my wishes, and urge him to 
 see the Secretary of War in my behalf, or one 
 of the other Secretaries, or President Tyler. I 
 mention, in particular, the Secretary of War, 
 because I have been at West Point, and this 
 may stand me in some stead. I would be glad 
 
 164 
 
C^e Poe Cult 
 
 to get almost any appointment — even a $500 
 one — so that I may have something independ- 
 ent of letters for a subsistence. To coin one's 
 brain into silver, at the nod of a master, is, to 
 my thinking, the hardest task in the world. 
 Mr. Kennedy 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. He 
 will be willing to help me I know, but needs 
 urging, for he is always head and ears in busi- 
 ness. Thomas, may I depend upon you?'' 
 
 It is not known what steps were taken to ad- 
 vance Poe's interest in this matter, but we 
 know that he failed to secure ''even a five-hun- 
 dred-dollar" clerkship. Had he obtained a 
 government appointment, it is not very likely 
 that he would have kept it. He would have 
 found the dull routine of official life even a 
 harder task than ''coining one's brain into sil- 
 ver, at the nod of a master ;" and the nervous 
 restlessness which he said haunted him as a 
 fiend, would have driven him back to literature 
 as a relief. 
 
 In the Winter of 1845 the fame of Edgar A. 
 Poe was established by the production of "The 
 Raven." The almost universal verdict of the 
 world has placed this among the famous single 
 poems, like the "Elegy in a Country Church- 
 yard," the "Deserted Village," etc. "The 
 
 165 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 Raven'' fixes the attention by its sad and mys- 
 terious story, its rich but sombre coloring, and 
 by the almost miraculous melody of its rhythm. 
 It seems wild and meaningless upon the first 
 perusal, but we turn to it again and again, and 
 our interest grows by what it feeds upon. Mr. 
 James E. Murdock, the elocutionist, prefaced 
 his reading of the poem by saying he knew Poe 
 well, and from his conversations with the poet 
 he understood that Lenore was intended to rep- 
 resent his happy and innocent youth, and The 
 Raven his dark and unhappy manhood. Be 
 this as it may, the informing spirit of the poem 
 is: 
 
 "The rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named 
 Lenore." 
 
 An ordinary versifier would have repeated 
 this beautiful name continually. Poe was too 
 consummate a literary artist for that : he pro- 
 duced a better effect by a ''masterly frugality 
 of repetition.'' In the second and fifth verses, 
 by its ''quick and sudden duplication" he fixes 
 Lenore in the mind of the reader, and con- 
 tinually suggests it in all the other verses, until 
 the poem closes with the despairing wail — 
 
 "And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating 
 on the floor 
 
 Shall be lifted — nevermore!'' 
 
 i66 
 
fie poc Cult 
 
 It has been said, with equal truth and 
 beauty, that on the dusky wings of the 
 ''Raven,'' Edgar A. Poe will sail securely over 
 the gulf of oblivion to the eternal shore. 
 
 The increased reputation which followed the 
 publication of ''The Raven" stimulated Poe's 
 literary activity. But, with all his fame and 
 work, he still felt it hard to keep the wolf from 
 the door with no other weapon than his pen. 
 A few weeks after "The Raven" had made Poe 
 the lion of the season, we find him writing in 
 the "Broadway Journal" an article entitled, 
 "Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison 
 House," which "throws a lurid light upon the 
 mysteries of the unfortunate poet's impecunios- 
 ity." In this mournful paper occurs the fol- 
 lowing paragraph : 
 
 "The want of an international copyright 
 law by rendering it nearly impossible to obtain 
 anything from the booksellers in the way of 
 remuneration for literary labor, has had the 
 efifect of forcing many of our best writers into 
 service of the magazines and reviews, which, 
 with a pertinacity that does them credit, keep 
 up in a certain or uncertain degree the good 
 old saying that even in the thankless field of 
 letters the laborer is worthy of his hire. How 
 — by dint of what dogged instinct of the honest 
 and proper — these journals have continued to 
 
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Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 persist in their paying practices is a point we 
 have had much difficulty in settHng to our satis- 
 faction, and we have been forced to settle it 
 at last upon no more reasonable ground than 
 that of a still lingering esprit de patrie. That 
 magazines can live and not only live but thrive, 
 and not only thrive but afford to disburse 
 money for original contributions, are facts 
 which can only be solved, under the circum- 
 stances, by the really fanciful but still agree- 
 able supposition that there is somewhere still 
 existing an ember not altogether quenched 
 among the fires of good feeling for letters and 
 literary men that once animated the American 
 bosom. These magazine editors and pro- 
 prietors pay (that is the word) ; and with your 
 true poor-devil author the smallest favors are 
 sure to be thankfully received. No; the il- 
 liberality lies at the door of the demagogue- 
 ridden public, who suffer their anointed dele- 
 gates (or perhaps aroynted, which is it?) to 
 insult the common sense of them (the public) 
 by making orations in our national halls on the 
 beauty and conveniency of robbing the literary 
 Europe on the highway, and on the gross ab- 
 surdity in especial of admitting so unprincipled 
 a principle that a man has any right and title 
 either to his own brains or the flimsy material 
 that he chooses to spin out of them, like a con- 
 
 i68 
 
Clie Poe Cult 
 
 founded caterpillar as he is. If anything of 
 this gossamer character stands in need of pro- 
 tection, why, we have our hands full at once 
 with the silkworms and the morns multicaulis/' 
 
 Poe suffered as much as any author of his 
 time from the want of an international copy- 
 right law between the United States and Great 
 Britain. His tales were copied constantly into 
 the English periodicals and translated into the 
 French Journals. As to the effects of travel 
 on literary wares, he says: 
 
 ''It is astonishing to see how a magazine 
 article, like a traveller, spruces up after cross- 
 ing the sea. We ourselves have had the honor 
 of being pirated without mercy; but as we 
 found our articles improved by the process (at 
 least in the opinion of our countrymen), we 
 said nothing, as a matter of course. We have 
 written paper after paper which attracted no 
 attention at all until it appeared as original in 
 Bentley's 'Miscellany' or the Paris 'Charivari.' 
 The Boston 'Notion' (edited by Rufus W. Gris- 
 wold) once abused us very lustily for having 
 written 'The House of Usher.' Not long 
 afterwards Bentley published it anonymously, 
 as original with itself; whereupon 'The No- 
 tion,' having forgotten that we wrote it, not 
 only lauded it ad nauseam, but copied it in 
 totor 
 
 169 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 We regret that Mr. Ingram should have 
 violated good taste and decorum by entering 
 into the disgraceful squabbles which embit- 
 tered the last years of Poe's life. It would 
 have been better had they been allowed to re- 
 main buried in the long forgotten journals in 
 which they were first published. Whether 
 Mr. English was thrashed or Mr. Briggs had 
 a bottle-nose are questions about which the 
 present and future generations of readers will 
 care very little. Whether one man was a 
 'Vagabond'' and another the ''autocrat of all 
 the asses'' is something in which we are very 
 slightly interested; but in Poe himself, both 
 as a man and a poet, the world has an ever in- 
 creasing interest. We think, therefore, that it 
 will be a pleasure to read what Prof. Valen- 
 tine, of Richmond, says of his personal appear- 
 ance: 
 
 "His brow was fine and expressive, his 
 eyes dark and restless ; in the mouth, firmness 
 mingled with an element of scorn and discon- 
 tent. His gait was firm and erect, but his 
 manner nervous and emphatic. He was of fine 
 address and cordial in his intercourse with his 
 friends, but looked as though he rarely smiled 
 from joy, to which he seemed to be a stranger ; 
 that mxight be partly attributed to the great 
 struggle for self-control in which he seemed 
 
 170 
 
Cfee poe Cult 
 
 to be constantly engaged. There was little 
 variation and much sadness in the intonation 
 of his voice, yet this very sadness was so com- 
 pletely in harmony with his history as to ex- 
 cite on the part of this community a deep in- 
 terest in him both as a lecturer and a reader/' 
 
 The Spring of 1849 found Poe still strug- 
 gling to make a living by literary work. He 
 had been ill, and upon becoming convalescent, 
 had lapsed into a melancholy state of mind, to 
 which he now became habitually subject. He 
 believed himself destined to an early death, but 
 his haughty soul ''defied all portents of im- 
 pending doom.'' To an astonishing degree he 
 retained his hope for the future even in the 
 midst of his dreary present. Undaunted by the 
 worst blows that ''unmerciful disaster" in- 
 flicted upon him, he determined to struggle on 
 and on, hoping against hope, or, if despairing, 
 to follow the noble advice of Burke — "even 
 in despair to work on." This determination 
 is forcibly expressed in a letter, which about 
 this time he wrote to "Annie," one of the most 
 cherished friends of his lonesome later years: 
 
 "You know how cheerfully I wrote to you 
 not long ago — about my prospects, hopes ; how 
 I anticipated soon being out of difficulty. Well ! 
 all seems to be frustrated, at least for the pres- 
 ent. As usual, misfortune never comes single, 
 
 171 
 
Cije poe Cult 
 
 and I have met one disappointment after an- 
 other. The 'Columbian' in the first place, 
 failed; then 'Post's Union' (taking with it my 
 principal dependence) ; then the 'Whig Review' 
 was forced to stop paying for contributions; 
 then the 'Democratic,' then (on account of his 
 oppression and insolence) I was obliged to 
 
 quarrel finally with ; and then, to crown 
 
 all, the ' ' (from which I anticipated so 
 
 much, and with which I had made a regular 
 engagement for ten dollars a week through- 
 out the year) has written a circular to cor- 
 respondents, pleading poverty, and declining 
 to receive any more articles; more than this, 
 the 'S. L. Messenger,' which owes me a great 
 deal, cannot pay just yet; and, altogether, I am 
 reduced to 'Sartain' and 'Graham' — both very 
 precarious. No doubt, Annie, you attribute 
 my 'gloom' to these events, but you would be 
 wrong. It is not in the power of any merely 
 worldly considerations, such as these, to de- 
 press me. . . . No; my sadness is imac- 
 countable — and this makes me the more sad. I 
 am full of dark forebodings. Nothing cheers 
 or comforts me. My life seems wasted — the 
 future looks a dreary blank ; but I will struggle 
 on, and 'hope against hope.' " 
 
 In a few months the struggle ended, as we 
 all know. 
 
 172 
 
Cfee poe Cult 
 
 From a long and careful study of Poe's 
 character, it does not appear that he was one 
 of the most amiable of human beings; but at 
 the same time it must in justice be admitted 
 that he suffered more than the common lot 
 from ''the slings and arrows of outrageous 
 fortune/^ From his secorfd to his eighteenth 
 year, he lived in affluence, and was taught to 
 consider himself the sole heir to a splendid 
 fortune, when suddenly, without warning, he 
 was thrown upon the world friendless and 
 alone. When Tom Jones was turned out of 
 the house of his adopted father. Squire All- 
 worthy, the Squire gave him sufficient money 
 to enable him to earn an honest livelihood, say- 
 ing, ''As I have educated you like a child of 
 my own, I will not turn you naked into the 
 world." Poe received no such treatment from 
 his adopted father : he was dismissed penniless. 
 The rest of his life was one continued struggle 
 against poverty and want, at times without 
 the simplest necessaries of life. Conscious of 
 possessing rare intellectual gifts, he saw him- 
 self often neglected by the world and con- 
 demned by men infinitely his inferiors in all 
 things except worldly knowledge. It cannot 
 be said of Poe that, like a block of marble, he 
 became more polished and statue-like by every 
 stroke of misfortune. On the contrary, he be- 
 
 173 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 came more defiant, desperate, reckless, but not 
 more admirable. The companions of his boy- 
 hood and early youth unite in saying that he 
 was a fine, generous and high-spirited nature, 
 and attribute the change which took place in 
 his character to the quarrel with Mr. Allan and 
 its consequences. Some of his summer friends 
 turned away from him, while others re- 
 proached him for ingratitude, not knowing the 
 circumstances of the case. His proud and 
 sensitive spirit keenly felt the sudden change 
 from wealth to poverty, from social position 
 to neglect ; and then began that unequal battle 
 with the world which ended in a charity hos- 
 pital in Baltimore. Swift's epitaph should be 
 Poe's; for does not he also sleep ''ubi saeva 
 indi^natio cor ulterius lac er are neqitif? 
 
 174 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 THE TRUE STORY OF POE'S DEATH. 
 
 Sleep restfully after life's fevered dream! 
 Sleep wayward heart ! 
 
 Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman. 
 
 No American poet has attracted more at- 
 tention, living and dead, than Edgar A. Poe. 
 Nine Hves of him have been written, yet about 
 no celebrated writer of modern times has it 
 been so difficult to get the real facts of his Hfe 
 and death. According to some of his biog- 
 raphers he mingled among men like a bewild- 
 ered angel ; while others describe him as a pry- 
 ing fiend, or an Ismaelite, with his hands 
 against everyone and everyone's against him. 
 The time and place of his birth were for many 
 years uncertain; even now some of his biog- 
 raphers still differ as to that matter. The 
 place of his burial was at one time undecided, 
 but that was definitely settled, in 1875, when 
 his remains were discovered in Westminster 
 churchyard, Baltimore, and a monument seven 
 and a half feet high erected over his grave. 
 The cause of his death, and the circumstances 
 
 175 
 
Ci)e I^oe Cult 
 
 attending it, have not yet been definitely de- 
 termined, and everything that throws any light 
 upon the subject will prove interesting to his 
 many admirers. 
 
 A former Baltimorean, now living in San 
 Francisco, gives what he claims to be a true 
 account of the poet's last days and death. 
 This is his story: ''I was an intimate asso- 
 ciate of Edgar Allan Poe for years. Much 
 that has been said and written regarding his 
 death is false. His habitual resort in Balti- 
 more was the Widow Meagher's place. This 
 was an oyster-stand and liquor-bar on the city 
 front, corresponding in some respects wath the 
 coffee houses of San Francisco. It was fre- 
 quented much by printers, and ranked as a re- 
 spectable place, where parties could enjoy a 
 game of cards, or engage in social conversa- 
 tion. Poe was a great favorite with the old 
 woman. His favorite seat was just behind 
 the stand, and about as quiet and sociable as 
 an oyster himself. He went by the name of 
 'Bard,' and when parties came into the shop, 
 it was 'Bard, come up and take a nip;' or, 
 'Bard, come and take a hand in this game.' 
 
 "Whenever the Widow Meagher met with 
 any incident or idea that tickled her fancy, 
 she would ask the 'Bard' to versify it. Poe 
 always complied, writing many a witty couplet, 
 
 176 
 
Cfie Poe Cult 
 
 and at times poems of some length. These 
 verses, quite as meritorious as some by which 
 his name was immortaHzed, were thus frit- 
 tered into obscurity. It was in this little shop 
 that Poe's attention was called to an advertise- 
 ment in a Philadelphia paper of a prize for 
 the best story ; and it was there that he wrote 
 his famous 'Gold Bug/ which carried off the 
 hundred dollar prize. [Incorrect.] 
 
 "Poe had been shifting for several years be- 
 tween Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. 
 He had been away from Baltimore for three or 
 four months, when he turned up one evening 
 at the Widow Meagher's. I was there when 
 he came in. He privately told me that he had 
 been to Richmond, and was on his way North 
 to get ready for his wedding. It was drink- 
 ing all around and repeat, until the crowd was 
 pretty jolly. It was the night before election, 
 and four of us, including Poe, started uptown. 
 We had not gone half a dozen squares when 
 we were nabbed by a gang of men who were 
 on the lookout for voters to 'coop.' It was the 
 practice in those days to seize people, whether 
 drunk or sober, lock them up until the polls 
 were opened, and then march them around to 
 every precinct, where they were made to vote 
 the ticket of the party that controlled the 
 coop. Our coop was in the rear of an engine 
 
 177 
 
Clie Poe Cult 
 
 house on Calvert Street. It was part of the 
 game to stupefy the prisoners with drugged 
 liquor. Well, the next day, we were voted at 
 thirty-one different places, and over and over, 
 it being as much a man's life was worth to 
 rebel. Poe was so badly drugged that after 
 he was carried on two or three different 
 rounds, the gang said it was no use to vote a 
 dead man any longer, so they shoved him into 
 a cab and sent him to a hospital to get him out 
 of the way. 
 
 ''The commonly accepted story that Poe died 
 from the effects of dissipation is all bosh. It 
 was nothing of the kind. He died from lauda- 
 num, or some other poison, that was forced 
 upon him in the coop. He was in a dying con- 
 dition while he v/as being voted around the 
 city. The story by Griswold of Poe's having 
 been on a week's spree and being picked up on 
 the street is false. I saw him shoved into the 
 cab myself, and he told me he had just ar- 
 rived in the city.'^ 
 
 The above narrative will form an interest- 
 ing chapter in the life and death of the poet 
 whose life was a romance and whose death 
 was a tragedy. The account of Poe's last days 
 agrees in several respects with the account 
 which the late Chief Judge Neilson Poe, of 
 Baltimore, gave to the present writer. It's 
 
 178 
 
€:iit poe Cult 
 
 painful to think that a man of Poe's wonderful 
 genius should, after a life of intolerable 
 misery, die in the wretched manner above de- 
 scribed. But, it must now be admitted that 
 the author of the Raven was ''cooped" and 
 drugged to death by political roughs, who 
 used the hapless poet as a ''repeater" at a local 
 election. Others have vaguely stated this be- 
 fore, and the detailed account now given by 
 one who was with Poe at the time confirms 
 the horrible story. 
 
 179 
 
C6e poe Cult 
 
 THE GRAVE OF POE.* 
 
 It was on a cold, dull and dreary day, in the 
 Winter of 1871, while attending the funeral 
 of Mrs. Maria Clemm, the aunt and mother- 
 in-law of Edgar A. Poe, that I first saw the 
 nameless grave of that gifted but most un- 
 fortunate poet. She died the day before, and 
 her last request w^as to be buried by the side 
 of her ''darling Eddie,'' in Westminster 
 churchyard, corner of Fayette and Greene 
 Streets, Baltimore. No stone has ever marked 
 the place of his burial, though, shortly after 
 his death, a marble was prepared, which was 
 accidentally broken in the stonecutter's shop, 
 only a few days before it was to be erected. It 
 bore the following inscription : 
 
 "HIC 
 
 TANDEM FELICIS 
 
 CONDUNTUR RELIQUIAE 
 
 EDGARI ALLAN POE. 
 
 OBIIT OCT. 7, 1849, 
 
 AET 40. 
 
 *Appleton's Journal, January 27, 1872. 
 
 ^Several statements in this article I have since discovered 
 were incorrect. 
 
 180 
 
Cfje Poe Cult 
 
 ''Hie tandem felicis!'' Here at last he is 
 happy ! 
 
 Can anything be more beautifully pathetic? 
 Here, misguided child of genius, victim of 
 want, of disappointment, and of thy own fiery 
 passions, thou didst find that peace which was 
 denied thee during life! 
 
 In my conversations with Mrs. Clemm, she 
 gave me many interesting facts about Poe's 
 personal appearance, his dress, etc. He was 
 five feet eight and a quarter inches high; 
 slightly but elegantly formed; his eyes were 
 dark gray, almond-shaped, with long black 
 lashes; his forehead was broad, massive, and 
 white; his mouth and teeth were beautiful; he 
 wore a long but not heavy mustache; his hair 
 w^as dark brown, almost black, and curly; his 
 feet and hands small as a woman's. He was 
 very neat — even fastidious — about his dress; 
 was fond of gray clothes; he always wore a 
 turndown collar and black cravat. 
 
 His custom was to walk up and down his 
 library when engaged in literary composition. 
 He never sat down to write until he had ar- 
 ranged the plot, the characters, and even the 
 language he was to use. To this may be at- 
 tributed the extraordinary finish which his 
 compositions display. 
 
 The true story of Poe's death has never 
 
 i8i 
 
Cl)c Poe Cult 
 
 been correctly told. It is this : In the Summer 
 of 1849, h^ l^f^ New York for Virginia. In 
 Richmond he met Mrs. Elmira Shelton, whom 
 he had known in his youth, renewed his ac- 
 quaintance, and in a few weeks they were en- 
 gaged to be married. He wrote to his friends 
 in the North that he should pass the remainder 
 of his life in Virginia, where the happiest days 
 of his youth had been spent. Early in Octo- 
 ber he set out from Richmond to fulfill a liter- 
 ary engagement in New York, and to prepare 
 for his marriage, which was to take place on 
 the 17th of the month. Arriving in Baltimore, 
 he found that he had missed the Philadelphia 
 train which he expected to take, and would 
 have to wait two or three hours for the next 
 train. He went to a restaurant near the depot 
 to get some refreshments. There he met some 
 of his old West Point friends, who invited him 
 to a champagne supper that night. He ac- 
 cepted the invitation, and went. At first he re- 
 fused to drink, but at last he was induced to 
 take a glass of champagne. That set him off, 
 and in a few hours he was madly drunk. In 
 this state he wandered off from his friends, 
 was robbed and beaten by ruffians, and left in- 
 sensible in the street all night. The next morn- 
 ing he was picked up and taken to the Wash- 
 ington Hospital. He was delirious with brain 
 
 182 
 
^bt poe Cult 
 
 fever. He was well cared for by the physicians 
 of the Hospital, but he was beyond the skill 
 of doctors. He lingered two or three days, and 
 died on Sunday, October 7, 1849. The above 
 was told me by Mrs. Clemm. 
 
 Washington Irving sweetly says of the 
 grave: ''It buries every error, covers every 
 defect, extinguishes every resentment. From 
 its peaceful bosom springs none but fond re- 
 grets and tender recpllections. Who can look 
 down upon the grave even of an enemy, and 
 feel not a compunctious throb that he should 
 ever have warred with the poor handful of 
 dust that lies mouldering before him !'' 
 
 Let us, then, forget the errors of Edgar Poe, 
 remembering the lines of Stoddard : 
 
 "He lies in dust, and the stone is rolled 
 
 Over the sepulchre dim and cold; 
 
 He has cancelled all he has done or said, 
 
 And gone to the dear and holy dead. 
 
 Let us forget the path he trod, 
 
 And leave him now to his Maker, God !" 
 
 183 
 
Clje Poe Cult 
 
 THE POE MONUMENT. 
 
 For a quarter o£ a century the author of 
 ''The Raven'' has been sleeping in the quiet 
 graveyard attached to Westminster church, in 
 the city of Baltimore. Among the beautiful 
 monuments which adorn the fair Monumental 
 City, not even the humblest has been reared in 
 honor of him whose genius the world delights 
 to honor. Baltimore has commemorated the 
 patriot, the soldier, the mechanic ; but her most 
 gifted son has hitherto been neglected — as no 
 stone has ever marked the hallowed spot where 
 genius reposes. Strangers have come from 
 distant lands to visit the grave of Poe as to a 
 pilgrim's shrine. They anticipated no diffi- 
 culty in finding the grave of so distinguished 
 a poet ; they expected to be guided to the spot 
 by a suitable monument, and to meet there 
 other admirers of Poe, bending in respect and 
 reverence, perchance plucking a flower, a leaf, 
 a twig, from the well-kept grave. Great has 
 been the astonishment of these distant travel- 
 lers, when, after much inquiry and diligent 
 search, they at last found the grave of Edgar 
 
 184 
 
EDGAR ALLAN POE MONUMENT, BALTIMORE. 
 (Unveiled Nov. 17, 1875.) 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 A. Poe — a wretched, forlorn, forsaken spot, 
 in an obscure corner of an obscure churchyard. 
 Rank weeds cover the neglected mound — but 
 none of the violets and roses and pansies which 
 the poet loved. 
 
 Such for more than twenty-five years was 
 the last resting place of Edgar A. Poe, until 
 the 17th of November, 1875, when the monu- 
 ment in honor of the poet was dedicated. In 
 striking contrast with this interesting occasion 
 was the scant ceremony, on the dreary Autumn 
 afternoon, twenty-six years before, when the 
 mortal remains of the author of the Raven 
 were privately buried among his ancestors in 
 Westminster churchyard. On the 8th of Octo- 
 ber, 1849, ^ single carriage followed the poet's 
 body to the grave. On the 17th of November, 
 1875, the Poe monument was unveiled in the 
 presence of an immense assemblage represent- 
 ing the wealth and culture of Baltimore. The 
 ceremonies began with the performance of the 
 'Tilgrim's Chorus,'^ of Verdi, by the Phil- 
 harmonic Society ; followed by a history of the 
 movement which culminated in the erection of 
 the monument. Upon the conclusion of this 
 address, Miss Sara Sigourney Rice, professor 
 of elocution of the Western Female High 
 School of Baltimore, read the letters received 
 from the poets and other distinguished persons 
 
 185 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 who were invited to be present at the unveihng. 
 The orator of the occasion, Prof. Henry E. 
 Shepherd, at that time the Superintendent of 
 PubHc Instruction in Baltimore, then deHvered 
 a scholarly address upon the Character and 
 Literary Genius of Foe, in which he said that 
 in him literary culture and artistic taste were 
 combined with poetic genius, producing the 
 richest and rarest results that any poet in the 
 century had done, and, in those remarkable 
 productions of his genius, the ''Raven'' and 
 ''Annabel Lee,'' he attained a graceful mastery 
 over the subtle and delicate metrical forms, 
 even those to whose successful production the 
 spirit of the English tongue is not congenial. 
 After alluding to the frequent tributes to Foe's 
 genius which had appeared in leading British 
 periodicals, the orator went on to say that this 
 "lofty estimate of his powers is not confined 
 to those lands in which the English language 
 is the vernacular speech; it has extended into 
 foreign climes, and aroused appreciative ad- 
 miration where English literature is imper- 
 fectly known and slightly regarded." 
 
 Then followed some personal reminiscences 
 of Foe by Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, a dis- 
 tinguished lawyer of Baltimore. He said: 
 About the year 1832 there was a newspaper in 
 Baltimore called The Saturday Visitor. One 
 
 186 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 of its efforts was to procure original tales, and 
 to this end it offered on this occasion two 
 prizes, one for the best story, and the other for 
 the best short poem — $ioo for the first, and 
 $50 for the last. The judges appointed by the 
 editor of the Visitor were the late John P. 
 Kennedy, Dr. James H. Miller, also deceased, 
 and myself; and accordingly we met, one pleas- 
 ant afternoon in October, 1833. As I hap- 
 pened to be the youngest of the three, I was 
 requested to open the packages of poetry and 
 prose, respectively, and read the contents. 
 Alongside of me was a basket to hold what 
 w^e might reject. Most of the manuscripts 
 were namby-pamby in the extreme, and the 
 committee had about made up their minds that 
 there was nothing to which they could award 
 a prize, when I noticed a small quarto bound 
 book that had, until then, accidentally escaped 
 attention, possibly because so unlike externally 
 the bundles of manuscripts it was to compete 
 with. Opening it, an envelope with a motto 
 corresponding with one in the book appeared, 
 and we found that our prose examination was 
 still incomplete. Instead of the common manu- 
 script, the writing was in Roman characters — 
 an imitation. As I read we all became deeply 
 interested, and I was constantly interrupted 
 by such exclamations as ''Capital, ''excellent,'" 
 
 187 
 
Cl)e poc Cult 
 
 ''how odd/' and the Hke. There was genius 
 in every Hne, there was no uncertain gram- 
 mar, no feeble phraseology ; no ill-placed 
 punctuation, no worn-out truisms, no strong 
 thought elaborated into weakness. Logic and 
 imagination were combined in rare consist- 
 ency. When the reading was completed, there 
 was a difference of choice ; but finally the com- 
 mittee selected ''A Manuscript found in a Bot- 
 tle." One of the series was called ''A Descent 
 into the Maelstrom,'' and this was at one time 
 preferred. There must have been six or eight 
 tales in all. The statement in Dr. Griswold's 
 life prefixed to the common edition of Poe's 
 works, that ''it was unanimously decided by 
 the committee that the prize should be given 
 to the first of geniuses who had written legibly 
 — not another manuscript was unfolded,'' is 
 absolutely untrue. The selection Being made, 
 and the $ioo prize awarded because of the un- 
 questionable genius and great originality of the 
 writer, we were at liberty to open the envelope 
 that identified him, and there we found, in the 
 note whose motto corresponded with that on 
 the little volume, the name of Edgar A. Poe. 
 
 Mr. Poe called at my office the following 
 Monday to thank me, as one of the commit- 
 tee, for the award in his favor. I asked him 
 then if he wafe occupied with any literary labor. 
 
 i88 
 
Ci)e Poe Cult 
 
 He replied that he was engaged in a voyage 
 to the moon ! and at once began to describe 
 the journe}^ with so much animation that for 
 all that I now remember, I may have fancied 
 myself the companion of his aerial journey. 
 When he had finished his description, he apolo- 
 gized for his excitability, which he laughed at 
 himself. Dr. Griswold's statement ''that Mr. 
 Kennedy accompanied Poe to a clothing store 
 and purchased for him a respectable suit, with 
 a change of linen, and sent him to a bath" is 
 a sheer fabrication. I never saw Poe again. 
 
 At the close of Mr. Latrobe's address the 
 assemblage withdrew from the hall and went 
 to the churchyard, where the interesting cere- 
 mony of unveiling the Monument took place. 
 This was performed by Miss Sara S. Rice, 
 who, from first to last, had taken the most 
 active interest in the erection of the monu- 
 ment. She was assisted by the ladies who 
 took part in the first literary entertainment in 
 aid of the Poe Monument Association, in the 
 Autumn of 1865. As the drapery gracefully 
 fell from the marble, the Philharmonic Society 
 of Baltimore, composed of one hundred of the 
 best singers in the city, chanted a dirge which 
 had been composed for the occasion by Mrs. 
 Eleanor A. Fullerton. 
 
 The dirge was listened to in silence, and with 
 
 189 
 
Ci)e Poe Cult 
 
 bowed heads, by the immense assemblage. As 
 the voices died away, Mrs. James A. Oates, 
 who was then performing at Ford's Opera 
 House, and in behalf of the joint companies 
 of the theatres of Baltimore, placed a magnifi- 
 cent crown on the top of the monument. 
 
 The monument is made of the purest white 
 marble from Maryland quarries. It stands 
 upon a granite base about eight feet high, and 
 is placed over the poet's grave in the most con- 
 spicuous corner of the cemetery. The monu- 
 ment is simple and chaste, having few orna- 
 ments. It recalls in some respects the monu- 
 ment to Shakespeare, recently erected at Vic- 
 toria Park, Bath, England, though it is su- 
 perior to this, however, in the simplicity of its 
 design. It also bears a resemblance to the 
 Wordsworth monument at Grasmere, Eng- 
 land. It has on one side a finely executed me- 
 dallion bust of the poet, taken from a photo- 
 graph copy of an original daguerreotype. It 
 is said to be an excellent likeness. Beneath the 
 bust is inscribed the name, "Edgar Allan Poe/' 
 On the opposite side is the follo\?ing inscrip- 
 tion : 
 
 Born January 19th, 1809. 
 
 Died October 7th, 1849. 
 
 190 
 
Clje Poe Cult 
 
 PORTRAITS OF POE. 
 
 One of Mrs. Whitman's most striking poems 
 was inspired by a portrait of Edgar A. Poe, 
 received many years after the death of the 
 poet: 
 
 Slowly I raised the purple folds concealing 
 That face, magnetic as the morning's beam 
 
 While slumbering memory thrilled at its revealing, 
 Like Memnon waking from his marble dream. 
 
 Again I saw the brow's translucent pallor. 
 The dark hair floating o'er it like a plume; 
 
 The sweet imperious mouth, whose haughty valor 
 Defied all portents of impending doom. 
 
 The eyes of her poet-lover made an indehble 
 impression upon her mind and heart, and 
 twenty-five years after their sad separation, in 
 recalling the poetic beauty of his face, she thus 
 described them : 
 
 Eyes planet calm, with something in their vision 
 That seemed not of earth's mortal mixture born ; 
 
 Strange mythic faiths and fantasies Elysian, 
 And far, sweet dreams of ''fairy lands forlorn." 
 
 191 
 
CI)e poe Cult 
 
 Unfathomable eyes that held the sorrow 
 Of vanished ages in their shadowy deeps, 
 
 Lit by that prescience of a heavenly, morrow 
 Which in high hearts the immortal spirit keeps. 
 
 Sweet mournful eyes, long closed upon earth's sorrow, 
 Sleep restfully after life's fevered dream ! 
 
 Sleep, wayward heart; till on some cool, bright 
 morrow, 
 Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning's beam. 
 
 The picture that inspired these remarkable 
 verses v^as taken at Providence, R. L, at the 
 time of Poe's engagement to Mrs. Whitman. 
 It represents the poet in the full maturity of 
 his manly beauty, before his fine mobile mouth 
 had become disfigured by the habitual sneer 
 which so plainly marked his ''lonesome latter 
 years.'' One of the last pictures of the author 
 of the Raven, of which the vignette upon 
 the title page of Mr. E. C. Stedman's dainty 
 little work, ''Edgar Allan Poe,'' is a re- 
 duced copy, was from a daguerreotype of the 
 poet, owned by Dr. H. S. Cornwell, of New 
 London, Conn., who thus describes it: "The 
 aspect is one of mental misery, bordering 
 on wildness, disdain of human sympathy, and 
 scornful intellectual superiority. There is 
 also in it, I think, dread of imminent calamity, 
 coupled with despair and defiance, as of a 
 hunted soul at bay." 
 
 192 
 
Ci)e poe Cult 
 
 Mr. Stedman, whose brochure on Poe, as 
 revised and corrected from the Scrihner 
 Monthly article, is one of the finest and most 
 appreciative critiques on the life and genius of 
 the poet that has ever been v^ritten, devotes 
 considerable attention to his portraits, and thus 
 characterizes the man from his early and later 
 pictures : 
 
 Even as we drive out of mind the popular 
 conceptions of his nature, and look only at the 
 portraits of him in the flesh, we needs must 
 pause and contemplate, thoughtfully, and with 
 renewed feeling, one of the marked ideal faces 
 that seem — like those of Byron, De Musset, 
 Heine — to fulfill all the traditions of genius, of 
 picturesqueness, of literary and romantic 
 effect. 
 
 We see one they describe as slight but erect 
 of figure, athletic and well molded, of middle 
 height, but so proportioned as to seem every 
 inch a man ; his forehead and temples large and 
 not unlike those of Bonaparte; his hands fair 
 as a woman's — in all, a graceful, well-dressed 
 gentleman — one, even in the garb of poverty, 
 ''with gentleman written all over him.'' We 
 see the handsome, intellectual face, the dark 
 and clustering hair, the clear and sad eyes, 
 large, lustrous, glowing with expression— the 
 mouth, whose smile at least was sweet and 
 
 193 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 winning. We imagine the soft, musical voice 
 (a delicate thing in man or woman), the easy, 
 quiet movement, the bearing that no failure 
 could humble. And this man had not only the 
 gift of beauty — but the passionate love of 
 beauty — either of which may be as great a 
 blessing or peril as can befall a human 
 being stretched upon the rack of this tough 
 world. 
 
 But look at some daguerreotype taken 
 shortly before his death, and it is like an in- 
 auspicious mirror, that shows all too clearly 
 the -^ravage made by a vexed spirit within, and 
 loses the qualities which only a living artist 
 could feel and capture. Here is a dramatic, 
 defiant bearing, but with it the bitterness of 
 scorn. The disdain of an habitual sneer has 
 found an abode on the mouth, yet scarcely can 
 hide the tremor of irresolution. In Bendann's 
 likeness, indubitably faithful, we find those 
 hardened lines of the chin and neck that are 
 often visible in men who have gambled heavily, 
 which Poe did not in his mature years, or who 
 have lived loosely and slept ill. The face tells 
 of battling, of conquering external enemies, 
 of many a defeat when the man was at war 
 with his meaner self. 
 
 The ''Bandann'' likeness above alluded to, is 
 said to be copied from the last daguerreotype 
 
 194 
 
Cfje poc Cult 
 
 taken in Richmond, just ten days before Poe's 
 untimely death. A photograph of this daguer- 
 reotype forms the frontispiece to the Memorial 
 Volume of the ceremonial attending the unveil- 
 ing of the Poe Monument in Baltimore, No- 
 vember 17, 1875. Mrs. Whitman, in a letter 
 to the present writer, dated Providence, July 2, 
 1876, thus alludes to another copy of the same 
 portrait : 
 
 Harper's Weekly, in its account of the 
 Memorial services, had a wood-cut taken from 
 this portrait, whether from the original or 
 some copy I cannot say, but it was the finest 
 portrait of him, the handsomest and most life- 
 like that I have ever seen. Do you remember 
 it? I should like to see a fine engraving of 
 that portrait as it is presented in Harper. It 
 would be invaluable. The expression is en- 
 tirely different from the copies of the same por- 
 trait in Widdleton's. 
 
 In another letter Mrs. Whitman says: 
 
 The picture in the Memorial Volume is 
 from Redfield's illustrated 8vo edition of the 
 poems, but the proportions are changed: the 
 chest seems narrower and more contracted; 
 the neck is longer ; the shoulders more sloping, 
 and the whole figure has a clerkly and clerical 
 air very unlike the original. 
 
 One of the earliest pictures of Poe was a 
 
 195 
 
Cl)e Poc Cult 
 
 miniature once owned by Duval, in Philadel- 
 phia, from which w^as copied the lithograph 
 published in the Saturday Museum in 1843, 
 which may still be seen (in proof) in the 
 Pennsylvania Historical Society Collection of 
 lithographs. Next in order of time may be 
 mentioned the engraving in Graham's Maga- 
 zine in 1845, accompanying the now famous 
 article on Poe by James Russell Lowell. One 
 who knew the poet at this period of his life 
 says: 
 
 Everything about him distinguished him as 
 a man of mark; his countenance, person, and 
 gait w^ere alike characteristic. His features 
 wxre regular and decidedly handsome. His 
 complexion was clear and dark; the color of 
 his fine eyes seemingly a dark gray, but on 
 closer inspection they were seen to be of that 
 neutral, violet tint which is so difficult to de- 
 fine. His forehead was without exception the 
 finest in proportion and expression that we 
 have ever seen. The perceptive organs were 
 not deficient, but seemed pressed out of the 
 way by causality, comparison, and construct- 
 iveness. Close to these rose the proud arches 
 of ideality. 
 
 Some who knew Poe personally say his fore- 
 head retreated. This feature is brought out 
 only in the Graham picture. In all the others 
 
 196^ 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 he is so posed as to give the effect of great 
 fullness to the brows. Mrs. Whitman, who re- 
 membered Poe as distinctly as any person who 
 had seen him in life, said the engraved por- 
 traits of the poet have very little individuality ; 
 that prefixed to the volumes edited by Dr. 
 Griswold suggests, at first view, something of 
 the general contour of his face, but is utterly 
 void of character and expression; it has no 
 sub-surface. The original painting, now in 
 possession of the New York Historical So- 
 ciety, has the same cold, automatic look that 
 makes the engraving so valueless as a portrait 
 to those who remember the unmatched glory 
 of his face, when roused from its habitually 
 introverted and abstracted look by some 
 favorite theme or profound emotion. Perhaps, 
 from its peculiarly changeful and translucent 
 character, any adequate transmission of its 
 variable and subtle moods was impossible. By 
 writers personally unacqauinted with Poe, this 
 engraving has often been favorably noticed. 
 Hannay, in a memoir prefixed to the first Lon- 
 don edition of Poe's Poems, calls it an interest- 
 ing and characteristic portrait: 
 
 A fine, thoughtful face, with lineaments of 
 delicacy, such as belong only to genius or high 
 blood — the forehead grand and pale, the eye 
 dark and gleaming with sensibility and soul— 
 
 197 
 
Cfje poc Cult 
 
 a face to inspire men with interest and 
 curiosity. 
 
 In the Winter of 1855-56, Mrs. Whitman 
 was an occasional visitor at the house of AHce 
 and Phoebe Gary, which formed a ''sort of 
 fragrant and dehcious clovernook'' in the heart 
 of New York. The home of the gifted sisters 
 was at that time the favorite resort of poets, 
 artists, and men of letters. In their little 
 drawing room then hung the portrait of Poe 
 by Osgood, now in the New York Historical 
 Gallery (already mentioned). Mrs. Whitman 
 relates that she heard one of the party say of 
 the portrait that its aspect was that of a beau- 
 tiful and desolate shrine from which the 
 genius had departed, and that it recalled cer- 
 tain lines to one of the antique marbles: 
 
 Oh melancholy eyes ! 
 Oh empty eyes, from which the soul has gone 
 
 To see the far-off countries ! 
 
 Near this luminous but impassive face, with 
 its sad and soulless eyes, says Mrs. Whitman, 
 was a portrait of Poe's unrelenting biog- 
 raphist, Griswold. In a recess opposite hung 
 a picture of the fascinating Mrs. Frances Sar- 
 gent Osgood, whose genius both had so fer- 
 vently admired, and for whose coveted praise 
 and friendship both had been competitors. 
 Looking at the beautiful portrait of this lady 
 
 198 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 — the face so full of enthusiasm, and dreamy, 
 tropical sunshine — remembering the eloquent 
 words of her praise, as expressed in the prodi- 
 gal and passionate exaggerations of her verse, 
 one ceases to wonder at the rivalries and 
 emnities which the grave itself could not can- 
 cel or appease. 
 
 Of the portrait prefixed to the illustrated 
 poems, published by Redfield in 1859, N. P. 
 Willis says: 
 
 The reader who has the volume in his hand 
 turns back musingly to look upon the features 
 of the poet, in whom resided such inspiration. 
 But, though well engraved and useful as re- 
 calling his features to those who knew them, 
 with the angel shining through, the picture is 
 from a daguerreotype, and gives no idea of 
 the beauty of Edgar Poe. The exquisitely 
 chiselled features, the habitual but intellectual 
 melancholy, the clear pallor of the complexion, 
 and the calm eye like the molten stillness of a 
 slumbering volcano, composed a countenance 
 of which this portrait is but the skeleton. 
 After reading the Raven, Ulalume, Lenore, 
 and Annabel Lee, the luxuriast in poetry will 
 better conceive what his face might have 
 been. 
 
 Nine lives of Poe have been published, each 
 of which contains a portrait, more or less dif- 
 
 199 
 
Cije poe Cult 
 
 ferent, but all claiming to be the ''best" like- 
 ness. Ingram's ambitious but egotistical 
 Memoir contains a photographic copy of a 
 daguerreotype belonging to Mrs. Estelle Anna 
 Lewis. It is a very forbidden likeness, and 
 must have been taken when 
 
 Unmerciful Disaster 
 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one 
 
 burden bore — 
 Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden 
 bore 
 
 of Never — nevermore. 
 
 We turn away with a shudder from this ''sor- 
 row-laden'' face, wondering what had wrought 
 the terrible change in him whose early beauty 
 had won the highest admiration of both men 
 and women. Was it his own hand that struck 
 the fatal blow that destroyed at once his beauty 
 and happiness? Was the change caused by 
 retributions of conscience, which he had de- 
 scribed with such awful fidelity in William 
 Wilson, the Tell-Tale Heart, and The Man of 
 the Crozvd? The rapid descent in crime as de- 
 lineated in William Wilson reminded Mrs. 
 Whitman of the subterranean staircase by 
 which Vathek and Nouronihar reached the 
 Hall of Eblis, where, as they descended, they 
 felt their steps frightfully accelerated till they 
 seemed falling from a precipice. 
 
 200 
 
Clje Poe Cult 
 
 In Gill's quixotic Memoir is a portrait copied 
 from a daguerreotype taken from life, which 
 the biographer says ''represents the poet in his 
 youthful prime, and by one, a near friend of 
 Poe, who has seen all his pictures known to be 
 in existence, is pronounced the best likeness ex- 
 tant/' The same portrait is in the Red Line 
 edition of Poe's Poems. An idealized engrav- 
 ing of the Osgood portrait accompanies the 
 Life of Poe by the writer of this article. It re- 
 calls the striking face of the poet to the few 
 now living who knew him in his better days. 
 The portrait in Mr. George E. Woodberry's 
 Life of Poe, recently published, is from an 
 original daguerreotype, from which the en- 
 graving in the English edition of the complete 
 works was taken. It is owned by Mr. Sted- 
 man, and was a gift from Mr. Benjamin H. 
 Ticknor. 
 
 The likeness known as the ''J^^hn Thomp- 
 son" daguerreotype has been reproduced life 
 size in crayon, and has been pronounced the 
 most satisfactory likeness of Poe. The two 
 engravings made by Sartain, of Philadelphia, 
 were very good in proof, but less successful 
 in their completed state. In the rooms of the 
 Long Island Historical Society, Brooklyn, 
 is a curious portrait made from memory after 
 Foe's death by Gabriel Harrison, author of the 
 
 20 1 
 
Cfjc Idoc Cult 
 
 Life of John Hozvard Payne. I have never 
 seen it. but it has been warmly praised by some 
 who have. 
 
 When we remember the strange diversity of 
 character displayed in the portraits of Edgar 
 A. Poe. we are more and more inclined to be- 
 lieve that 
 
 Two natures in him strove 
 Like day with night, his sunshine and his gloom. 
 
 202 
 
Ci)C |3oc Cult 
 
 THE POE MANIA. 
 
 The irony of fate was never more strikingly 
 displayed than in the case of Edgar A. Poe. 
 A life of sorrow and suffering, a wTetched 
 death, and a splendid posthumous fame — such 
 was the malevolent destiny of America's great- 
 est genius. The first editions of those ex- 
 traordinary tales and marvelous poems, for 
 which Poe received a beggarly compensation, 
 are now fought for by wealthy collectors. In 
 1827 the first edition of Poe's Poems was 
 printed in Boston — printed, but not pubhshed, 
 "for private reasons." I strongly suspect that 
 ''the private reasons'' why the first edition of 
 Poe's Poems was not published was because the 
 poet had not the money to pay for the print- 
 ing. That little book of fortv' pages in the 
 course of time became one of the rarest books 
 in the world. As it is one of the curiosities of 
 literature, it will be interesting to many readers 
 to have its title page in full. I have copied it, 
 as follows: 
 
 ^3 
 
Cfie poe Cult 
 
 TAMERLANE, AND OTHER POEMS, 
 By a Bostonian. 
 Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are warm, 
 And make mistakes for manhood to reform. 
 
 Cowper. 
 BOSTON : 
 CALVIN F. S. F. THOMAS, PRINTER. 
 
 1827. 
 
 An autograph dealer, not renowned for pay- 
 ing extravagant prices for what he buys, of- 
 fered $500 for the original manuscript of the 
 Raven. The pecuniary value placed upon it by 
 the present owner is $10,000. 
 
 One of the most enthusiastic admirers of 
 Poe is John H. Ingram, of London. He spent 
 several years and some money in collecting 
 everything bearing upon his favorite subject 
 — books, portraits, letters, magazine articles, 
 etc. He had agents in several cities of the 
 United States picking up material of every de- 
 scription. He not only collected portraits of 
 Poe, but of every person in any way associated 
 with him. For instance, he wanted a portrait 
 of Thomas Jefferson, not because he was the 
 author of the Declaration of Independence and 
 President of the United States, but because he 
 was the Founder of the University of Vir- 
 ginia, where Poe was educated; he wanted a 
 likeness of Lafayette, not because he was a 
 hero and a patriot, but because he was a friend 
 
 204 
 
C6e Poe Cult 
 
 of the poet's grandfather, Gen. Poe of the 
 American Revolution ; he wanted a portrait of 
 Margaret J. Preston, not because she was a 
 gifted poetess, but because her husband was a 
 schoolmate of Poe in Richmond; he wanted a 
 portrait of George W. Childs, not because he 
 was a famous American editor, but because 
 he contributed largely toward the Poe monu- 
 ment which was erected in Baltimore in No- 
 vember, 1875; he wanted a portrait of John 
 Tyler, not iDecause he was a President of the 
 United States, but because his son, Robert 
 Tyler, was one of Poe's early friends, and so 
 on. These things show what a wonderful 
 hold Poe has upon those afflicted with the Poe 
 mania. The literature of the world scarcely 
 offers anything to compare with it. Byron, 
 Milton, Tennyson, Keats, Shelley, and other 
 famous poets do not possess the same in- 
 terest. 
 
 A file of the Broadway Journal, of which 
 Poe was the editor, will sell for a sum that 
 would have supported the little family at Ford- 
 ham in comfort for a year. It was in the cot- 
 tage there that the poet's wife died in un- 
 speakable wretchedness in the Winter of 1847, 
 a calamity which, as the distracted husband 
 wrote at the time, so overwhelmed him as to 
 deprive him for several weeks of all power of 
 
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Cfte poe Cult 
 
 thought or action. It was at this cottage that 
 he wrote the Bells, Annabel Lee, and the won- 
 derful prose poem, Eureka. 
 
 Old magazines in which Poe's poems and 
 tales originally appeared are eagerly sought 
 for by Poe enthusiasts. I have known odd vol- 
 umes of Southern Literary Messenger to bring 
 as high as $5.00 a volume simply because Poe 
 was once its editor. For the same reason 
 Graham's Magazine brings an extravagant 
 price; it would have little value except for 
 Poe's association with it, although at one time 
 it had a circulation of 40,000 a month — an 
 enormous circulation sixty years ago. 
 
 This extraordinary Poe mania began about 
 thirty years ago, and has continued with ever- 
 increasing violence ever since. It is confined, 
 generally, to one sex, but extends to all classes 
 and conditions of men — lawyers, editors, au- 
 thors, professors, men of leisure, etc. The 
 beginner never knows where he will end. In 
 fact, he ends only with his money, or his life. 
 The most patient wife must have her temper 
 ruffled when she sees her house littered up with 
 a miscellaneous collection of stuff, neither use- 
 ful nor ornamental, purchased at an outlay 
 which, if expended on furniture and decora- 
 tions, would have made her home the House 
 Beautiful. 
 
 206 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF AMER- 
 ICA'S FAMOUS POET. 
 
 The semi-centennial of the death of Edgar 
 Allan Poe possesses a melancholy interest for 
 all who admire genius, and have a pity for the 
 misfortunes that so often attend those who 
 receive the fateful gift. No American poet, 
 living or dead, has attracted more attention 
 than the author of ''The Raven." Nine lives 
 of him have been written, yet about no cele- 
 brated poet of modern times has it been more 
 difficult to obtain the real facts of both his life 
 and death. According to some of his biog- 
 raphers, he mingled among men as a be- 
 wildered angel ; while others describe him as a 
 prying fiend; or, an Ishmaelite, with his hands 
 against everyone, and everyone's against him. 
 The time and place of his birth were for many 
 years uncertain; even now some of his biog- 
 raphers still differ upon the subject. The 
 place of his burial was at one time undecided, 
 but that was definitely settled, in 1875, when 
 his remains were discovered in Westminster 
 churchyard, Baltimore, and a monument 
 erected over his grave. 
 
 Born in poverty, reared in luxury, and 
 
 207 
 
Cl)c poe Cult 
 
 thrown upon the world without a dollar, he 
 lived and died a mystery. When Alexander 
 the Great set out to conquer the world, he de- 
 pended upon his sword. Edgar Poe, at the 
 same age as the great Macedonian, was com- 
 pelled to depend upon his pen for a living at a 
 time when literature was not recognized as a 
 profession in this country, and when the re- 
 wards of even the highest literary talent wxrc 
 beggarly in the extreme. 
 
 The sad and romantic story of Poe's life has 
 touched a sympathetic chord in the heart of 
 the world. Never before or since has so much 
 misery been united to so much genius. Be- 
 lievers in heredity see in him a remarkable ex- 
 ample of the truth of their opinion. His 
 father, David Poe, Jr., a Baltimore law stu- 
 dent, ran off with and married EHzabeth 
 Arnold, an English actress. The husband 
 adopted his wife's profession. After a w^an- 
 dering life of toil and poverty, they both died 
 within a few weeks of each other^ leaving 
 three children. Edgar, the second son, was 
 adopted by a Mr. Allan, a wealthy merchant 
 of that city, who, after rearing him as the 
 heir of a princely fortune, cut him off without 
 a shilling. Homeless and penniless, Edgar 
 wandered to Baltimore, where he found a home 
 in the house of Mrs. Clemm, his father's sis- 
 
 208 
 
Ciie Poe Cult 
 
 ter. He married his lovely young cousin, Vir~ 
 ginia Clemm, and the three formed a happy 
 little household until the death of his child- 
 wife in the midst of heartrending poverty, 
 caused by the constant v^atching of the poet by 
 the sick bed of the sufferer, deprived him of 
 his only means of support — his pen. 
 
 ''Ah, broken is the golden bowl ! the spirit flown for- 
 ever ! 
 
 Let this bell toll! a saintly soul floats on the Stygian 
 river ! 
 
 Come, let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be 
 sung! 
 
 An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so 
 young — 
 
 A dirge for her, the doubly dead, in that she died so 
 young." 
 
 In Lenore, in Annabel Lee, in Eulalie, and 
 other poems, Poe embalmed the memory of his 
 wife in immortal dirges. 
 
 From the intolerable sorrow, caused by the 
 loss of his fair and gentle wife, Poe was 
 aroused to a temporary forgetfulness by the 
 affectionate sympathy of Sarah Helen Whit- 
 man, the most gifted poetess of New England. 
 For a few brief weeks the}^ were engaged to 
 be married. Why the engagement was broken 
 has never been satisfactorily explained, but 
 that Poe was not blameable in the matter is 
 proved by the fact that Mrs. Whitman re- 
 
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Ci)c poe Cult 
 
 mained his friend, and was his enthusiastic de- 
 fender as long as she Hved. One of her last 
 poems was to ''The Portrait of Poe/' in which 
 she pays a beautiful tribute to his genius, and 
 offers a touching proof of her devotion to his 
 memory. 
 
 In striking contrast were the first and last 
 funerals of Edgar A. Poe. On that dreary 
 Autumn day in 1849, when the most original 
 of American poets was laid to rest among his 
 ancestors, in Westminster churchyard, only one 
 carriage followed the remains to the grave. 
 The ceremony was scant, and the attendants 
 were scantier, for eight persons only were pres- 
 ent. Poe had died under a cloud — the hapless 
 victim of ''unmerciful disaster" — his last hours 
 were passed in the charity ward of a pubhc 
 hospital; he was buried in a poplar coffin, 
 stained to imitate walnut; it was a funeral 
 such as a poor man, with few friends and no 
 relatives, might have had. 
 
 The account given of Poe's funeral, by Dr. 
 John J. Moran, in his "Defense of Edgar A. 
 Poe,'' is known to be incorrect and misleading. 
 For instance, he gives the names of eight per- 
 sons as present at the funeral, only two of 
 whom were there. They were Rev. W. T. D. 
 Clemm and Mr. Henry Herring, both of whom 
 
 were relatives of Poe. The other persons who 
 
 210 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 attended the first burial were : Z. Collins Lee, 
 afterwards judge of the Superior Court of 
 Baltimore, who had been a classmate of Poe 
 at the University of Virginia; Neilson Poe, 
 afterwards chief judge of the Orphans' Court 
 of Baltimore; Edmund Smith, a well-known 
 school-teacher in Baltimore fifty years ago, 
 and his wife, who was a first cousin of the 
 poet; Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, the last editor of 
 the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, the paper from 
 which Poe received the $ioo prize offered for 
 the best story. 
 
 Another of Dr. Moran's misstatements is 
 that the body of the poet was laid in state 
 in the large room in the rotunda of the college 
 building adjoining the hospital, that ''hundreds 
 of his friends and acquaintances came to see 
 him, that at least fifty ladies received locks 
 of his hair.'' Poe had not a dozen friends in 
 Baltimore, and if ''fifty ladies received locks 
 of his hair," the poet's cranium must have been 
 reduced to the appearance of a billiard ball. 
 What became of those coveted "locks" from 
 the head that conceived "The Raven," "The 
 Gold Bug," "The Fall of the House of Usher," 
 *^The Bells," and other marvelous tales and 
 poems that have thrilled the world for fifty 
 years? In these days, when a letter written 
 by Poe readily brings $200 in the autograph 
 
 211 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 market, a lock of the poet's hair would be 
 worth a small fortune to its owner. The ''fifty 
 ladies'' who received ''locks of Poe's hair" ex- 
 isted only in Dr. Moran's imagination; he 
 wished to throvv^ a little sympathy and senti- 
 ment around the horrible tragedy of Poe's 
 wretched death. The doctor's intention was 
 good, but we are dealing with facts, not fiction 
 — we are writing history, not romance. The 
 picture, stripped of all romance and sentiment, 
 is ghastly enough to suit the most melodra- 
 matic play that ever stirred the lieges in the 
 Bowery Theatre. 
 
 The second burial of Edgar A. Poe took 
 place on the 17th of November, 1875. The 
 occasion was interesting and remarkable. The 
 ceremonies took place in the large hall of the 
 building then used as the Western Female 
 High School, on the corner of Fayette and 
 Greene Streets, adjoining Westminster church, 
 in the graveyard of which the body of the 
 poet had rested for twenty-six years without 
 a stone to show that it was the grave of the 
 most unique genius that America has given to 
 the world. Among those seated upon the plat- 
 form were: Walt Whitman, Dr. Nathan Cov- 
 ington Brooks, in whose Baltimore Magazine 
 some of Poe's early writings had appeared; 
 Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, Prof. Joseph Clarke, who 
 
 212 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 was Poe's first teacher in Richmond; John T. 
 Morris, the President of the Baltimore School 
 Board ; Neilson Poe, Rev. Dr. John G. Morris, 
 Vice President and afterwards President of 
 the Maryland Historical Society; John T. 
 Fordj Manager of Ford's Grand Opera House; 
 Prof. William Elliot, Jr., President of the 
 Baltimore City College; Henry E. Shepherd, 
 Superintendent of the Public Schools of Balti- 
 more. 
 
 The exercises opened with the reading of 
 the history of the movement for the erection 
 of the monument, by Prof. Elliot; this was fol- 
 lowed by the reading of the letters written by 
 Tennyson, Swinburne, Longfellow, Holmes, 
 Aldrich, Mrs. Margaret J. Preston, and Mrs. 
 Sarah Helen Whitman; with poetic tributes 
 from Paul H. Hayne and Stephane Mallarme, 
 the French admirer of Poe. The best of the 
 poetic tributes was written by William Winter, 
 entitled, ''At Poe's Grave.'' Two stanzas from 
 this touchingly sympathetic poem will give an 
 idea of the tender grace of charity that in- 
 spired the poet : 
 
 Through many a year his fame has grown — 
 Like midnight, vast ; like starHght, sweet — 
 
 Till now his genius fills a throne, 
 And Nations marvel at his feet. 
 
 213 
 
Cl^e pae Cult 
 
 One meed of justice long delayed, 
 
 One crowning grace his virtues crave— ^ 
 
 Ah, take, thou great and injured shade. 
 The love that sanctifies the grave. 
 
 Prof. Shepherd delivered a masterly address 
 on the ''Genius and Literary Character of 
 Poe/' at the conclusion of w^hich he con- 
 gratulated the audience that "The Poetic cor- 
 ner of our Westminster w^as at last rescued 
 from the ungrateful neglect v^hich for a quar- 
 ter of a century has constituted the just re- 
 proach of our state and our metropolis. In 
 the dedication of this monument to the memory 
 of our poet, I recognize an omen of highest 
 and noblest import, reaching far beyond the 
 mere preservation of his fame by the 'dull, 
 cold marble,' v^hich marks his long-neglected 
 grave.'' Prof. Shepherd's address was listened 
 to v^ith profound attention. Mr. John H. B. 
 Latrobe, the last survivor of the committee of 
 three gentlemen who awarded the prize to 
 Poe for the best prose tale, then gave some 
 personal reminiscences of the poet, after which 
 the audience proceeded to Westminster church- 
 yard, where the unveiling of the monument 
 took place. During the ceremony of the un- 
 veiling the Philharmonic Society chanted the 
 dirge, "Sleep and Rest," which was adapted 
 from Tennyson's "Sweet and Low," by Mrs. 
 
 214 
 
Cle Pee Cult 
 
 Eleanor Fullerton. Poe's mother had been an 
 actress at the HolHday Street Theatre, Balti- 
 more, and an interesting feature of the cere- 
 monies upon the occasion of the last burial of 
 our poet was the placing upon the monument 
 of a beautiful wreath composed of camelias, 
 lilies and tea roses, a tribute from the com- 
 pany at Ford's Grand Opera House, gotten up 
 through the active zeal of Mrs. Germon, the 
 veteran actress. The funds for this monu- 
 ment were largely raised through the efforts 
 of Miss Sara S. Rice, of the Western Female 
 High School, who also took a prominent part 
 in the exercises. 
 
 How striking the difference between the first 
 and last burial of Edgar A. Poe ! The former 
 was a funeral such as is given to the poor, the 
 obscure, the friendless; the latter was a 
 magnificent demonstration in honor of a poet 
 who has bestowed more glory upon American 
 literature than any other American author. 
 
 215 
 
C!)e Poe Cult 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 For a quarter of a century after Poe^s death, 
 his enemies had the ear of the world. The 
 weakness of human nature makes us Hsten 
 with wilHng ears, and with more pleasure to 
 blame than to praise. The lies that were told 
 about Poe, the crimes that were recklessly im- 
 puted to him, the dark stories that were laid at 
 his door, the vile slanders that were repeated 
 about him, with ''ghoulish glee,'' must have 
 delighted ''the demons down under the sea.'' 
 Poe was scarcely cold in his grave before 
 Rufus W. Griswold published his malignant 
 Memoir of the Poet, which, for twenty-five 
 years, was accepted as the true story of the 
 life and death of the author of "The Raven.'' 
 With few exceptions, this mendacious memoir 
 was followed in all subsequent biographies 
 of Poe; and, naturally, for Griswold was sup- 
 posed to be his trusted friend and chosen biog- 
 rapher. The world did not know that Gris- 
 wold, smarting under Poe's severe but well- 
 deserved criticism of his "Poets and Poetry of 
 America," had nursed his wrath and kept it 
 
 216 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 warm until the poet was dead and helpless, and 
 then told his venomous story. Of this biog- 
 raphy, one who knew Poe well has truly said, 
 that, ''compared with its remorseless violations 
 of confided trust, the unhallowed act of Tre- 
 lawney in removing the pall from the feet of 
 the dead Byron, seems guiltless/' 
 
 It should be unnecessary, at this late day, 
 when ten lives of Poe have been published, to 
 point out Griswold's numerous misstatements, 
 false charges, and insinuations, which were 
 employed with the devilish ingenuity of lago, 
 were it not much easier to start a falsehood 
 than to stop it when it is once on its travels. 
 
 Conversing with an accomplished woman, 
 one evening, the name of Poe was mentioned, 
 when she exclaimed: 
 
 ''What a strange contrast between the poet 
 and his poetry! In his poetry he ascends to 
 the sky; in his life he grovelled upon the earth. 
 With a love of the beautiful that takes us back 
 to the most glorious days of Greece, his de- 
 graded life takes us back to the days of the 
 drunken Helots. His poetry is all as sweet and 
 pure as wild flowers, while his life was one 
 wild debauch.'' 
 
 This is given as a fair specimen of the opin- 
 ion that still prevails among many intelligent 
 persons of the poet. Too many persons who 
 
 217 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 should know better still believe that Poe was 
 a drunken vagabond, a literary Ishmael, a 
 Pariah among poets. He was devoted to his 
 young, beautiful, and accomplished wife, and 
 her death, under distressing circumstances, 
 unparalleled in literary annals, destroyed his 
 health, and, for a time, drove reason from its 
 imperial throne. I knew Mrs. Clemm, in the 
 last years of her Hfe, and visited her with 
 youthful enthusiasm, as the ''more than 
 mother'' of the poet. She told me that ''Eddie" 
 (as she always called him) was the most 
 gentle, affectionate and devoted of husbands 
 and sons — that he never went to bed at night 
 without asking her blessing, and, if he had 
 done anything to displease her, he would kneel 
 at her feet, and humbly ask her forgiveness. 
 This was the man who, Gr is wold said, "had 
 no faith in man or woman.'' This was the 
 man whom Griswold pronounced "naturally 
 unamiable, irascible, envious, self-satisfied, 
 self-confident." N. P. Willis, who knew Poe 
 intimately, declared that he possessed the very 
 qualities which his enemies denied to him — 
 humility, belief in another's kindness, and 
 capability of cordial and grateful friendship. 
 Willis remembered him with respect and ad- 
 miration, saying that his "modesty and un- 
 affected humility as to his own deservings were 
 
 218 
 
Cl)c Poe Cult 
 
 a constant charm to his character/' Poe not 
 only had the greatest ''faith in woman/' but 
 women, the best, the most refined, the most 
 cultivated women, had the greatest faith in 
 him. Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, speaking 
 of her own ''aflfectionate interest" in Poe, said: 
 ''No woman could know him personally with- 
 out feeling the same interest — he was so 
 gentle, generous, well-bred and refined. To a 
 sensitive and delicately nurtured woman, there 
 was a peculiar and irresistible charm in the 
 chivalric, graceful and almost tender rever- 
 ence with which he approached all women." 
 "So far from being selfish and heartless," said 
 Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, "his devotional 
 fidelity to those he loved w^ould, by the world, 
 be regarded as fanatical." He carried his 
 chivalry to the fair sex so far that when 
 women were the subjects of his criticism, his 
 usually stern and severe opinions were greatly 
 modified, and, as he himself said, "I cannot 
 point an arrow against any woman." 
 
 Poe lived and died a mystery to himself, to 
 his friends, and to the world. We know that 
 his life was a romance, his death a tragedy, 
 that his fame is immortal, and that never be- 
 fore nor since has so much misery been united 
 to so much genius. He is the most interesting 
 and picturesque personality in American lit- 
 
 219 
 
Cfte poc Cult 
 
 ^ature. His strange and romantic life has 
 ^ always possessed a singular fascination for me, 
 while his wonderful poems, and still more 
 wonderful tales have been my literary passion 
 since boyhood. When still in my teens, I was 
 presented with the original four-volume edi- 
 tion of Poe's works containing Griswold's in- 
 famous memoir. I could not reconcile the dark 
 story of the poet's life, as there told, with the 
 purity, beauty, and refinement of his writings. 
 I began a systematic study of his life; I put 
 myself in communication with his surviving 
 friends and relatives, personally and by letter ; 
 I saw Professor Joseph H. Clarke, his first 
 teacher in Richmond; I visited the University 
 of Virginia, and secured the recollections of 
 Mr. William Wertenbaker, the librarian, who 
 was at the University when Poe was a stu- 
 dent there; I corresponded with Col. J. T. L. 
 Preston, a former schoolmate of the poet; I 
 consulted my father-in-law, the late Gen. 
 Lucius Bellinger Northrop, who was the last 
 survivor of Poe's classmates at West Point ; I 
 called on Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, one of the 
 committee of gentlemen who awarded the prize 
 to Poe for the best tale; I interviewed Judge 
 Neilson Poe, the nearest surviving relative of 
 the poet; I became acquainted with Mrs. 
 Clemm, in the last years of her life; I sought 
 
 220 
 
Cl)c Poe Cult 
 
 out Gabriel H. Harrison, one of the last of 
 Poe's friends; I went to Richmond, and had a 
 talk with Mr. Valentine, the brother of 
 Edward V. Valentine, the distinguished sculp- 
 tor, who retained a vivid recollection of Poe's 
 appearance when he delivered his lecture in 
 Richmond on ''The Poetic Principle,'' on his 
 last visit there in 1849; but the best of all my 
 achievements in search of Poeana was a cor- 
 respondence with Sarah Helen Whitman, 
 Poe's most devoted friend. 
 
 Professor Clarke, after over half a century, 
 recalled with much interest and manifest pleas- 
 ure Edgar Poe as one of his pupils at his school 
 in Richmond. He said : ''The boy was a born 
 poet, and, as a scholar, he was anxious to excel, 
 and always acquitted himself well in his 
 classes. He was remarkable for self-respect, 
 without haughtiness. In his demeanor toward 
 his playmates, he was strictly just and correct, 
 which made him a general favorite. His pre- 
 dominant passion seemed to me to be an en- 
 thusiastic ardor in everything he undertook. 
 Even in those early years, he displayed the 
 germs of that wonderfully rich and splendid 
 imagination which has placed him in the front 
 rank of the purely imaginative poets of the 
 world. While the other boys wrote mere me- 
 chanical verses, Poe wrote genuine poetry, and 
 
 221 
 
Ci)e poe Cult 
 
 he wrote it not as a task, but con amove/' 
 When Professor Clarke left Richmond in 1823, 
 young Poe addressed to his beloved teacher a 
 poem which was a remarkable production for 
 a boy of fourteen. In after years, the Profes- 
 sor was proud of his distinguished pupil, and 
 referred, to his dying day, to the fact that Poe 
 always called upon him when he visited Balti- 
 more, to which city Mr. Clarke removed from 
 Richmond. 
 
 Colonel John T. L. Preston was one of Poe's 
 schoolmates at Clarke's Academy, and fur- 
 nished me with some interesting particulars 
 of the future poet's school-days in Richmond: 
 "'As a scholar, he was distinguished specially 
 for Latin and French; in poetical composi- 
 tion, he was facile princeps. He was the best 
 boxer, the swiftest runner, and the most dar- 
 ing swimmer at Clarke's school. Indeed, his 
 swimming feats at the Great Falls of the James 
 River were not surpassed by the more cele- 
 brated feat of Byron in swimming from Sestos 
 to Abydos. 
 
 Griswold's most reckless and untruthful 
 statement about Poe was that, ''in 1822 he 
 entered the University of Virginia, where he 
 led a very dissipated life, and was known as 
 the wildest student of his class; but his un- 
 usual opportunities, and the remarkable ease 
 
 222 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 with which he mastered the most difficuh 
 studies, kept him all the while in the first rank 
 for scholarship, and he would have graduated 
 with the highest honors, had not his gambling, 
 intemperance, and other vices induced his ex- 
 pulsion from the university/' So much for 
 the Reverend Rufus Wilmot Griswold! This 
 reverend defamer of the dead had given Poe's 
 birth as having taken place in January, 1811, 
 thus making him a gambler, drunkard, and 
 debauche at the tender age of eleven years ! — 
 surpassing in precocious vice the infamous 
 Elagabalus. The fact is that Poe was born in 
 1809, the annus mirabilis which produced Mrs. 
 Browning, Tennyson, Gladstone, and other 
 illustrious men. To ascertain the truth about 
 Poe at the University of Virginia, I went 
 there, and interviewed Mr. William Werten- 
 baker, the librarian, who had been a classmate 
 of the poet. He gave me the following facts : 
 ''Edgar Poe entered the University February 
 14, 1C20, and remained until the 15th of De- 
 cember of the same year. He entered the 
 schools of ancient and modern languages, at- 
 tending the lectures on Latin, Greek, French, 
 Spanish, and Italian. I was myself a merhber 
 of the last three classes, and can testify that 
 he was regular in attendance, and a very suc- 
 cessful student, having obtained distinction at 
 
€:bt Poe Cult 
 
 the final examination in Latin and French. 
 This would have entitled him to graduate in 
 those two languages. I often saw Mr. Poe in 
 the lecture room and in the library, but never 
 in the slightest degree under the influence of 
 intoxicating liquors. Among the professors 
 he had the reputation of being a sober, quiet, 
 and orderly young man. To them, and to the 
 officers, his deportment was universally that of 
 an intelligent and polished gentleman. The 
 records of the university, of which I was then, 
 and am still, the custodian, attest that at no 
 time during the session did he fall under the 
 censure of the Faculty. It will gratify the 
 many admirers of Poe to know that his works 
 are more in demand and more read than those 
 of any other author, American or foreign, now 
 in the library.'' 
 
 General Lucius Bellinger Northrop, the last 
 survivor of the classmates of Poe at West 
 Point, told me that Edgar Poe, at West Point, 
 was the wrong man in the wrong' place — al- 
 though, from an intellectual point of view, he 
 stood high there, as elsewhere : the records of 
 the academy show that he was third in French, 
 and seventeenth in mathematics in a class of 
 eighty-seven. The severe studies and dull rou- 
 tine duties were extremely distasteful to the 
 young poet, and, at the end of six months, he 
 
 224 
 
Cl^e pae Cult 
 
 applied to his adopted father, Mr. Allan, for 
 permission to leave the academy, which request 
 was promptly refused. Poe then determined 
 to find a way for himself, and began a syste- 
 matic neglect of his duties, and a regular dis- 
 obedience of orders. He was summoned be- 
 fore a court-martial, charged with the ''gross 
 neglect of all his duties, and of disobedience 
 of orders.'' To these charges he pleaded 
 guilty, and was at once sentenced to be dis- 
 missed from the service of the United States. 
 Poe was as much out of place at West Point 
 as Achilles was when he was hid among the 
 women in his youth. The rough sports and 
 practical jokes of the cadets were utterly re- 
 pugnant to the proud, sensitive, and dreamy 
 young poet who already aspired to be the 
 American Byron. 
 
 In my search after Poe material, I called 
 upon Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, who, as already 
 mentioned, was one of the three gentlemen 
 who awarded him the prize of $ioo for the 
 best prose tale. He said that Poe showed his 
 gratitude by calling on each of the gentlemen 
 composing the committee, and thanking them 
 for awarding the prize to him. 
 
 Neilson Poe told me his cousin Edgar was 
 one of the best-hearted men that ever lived. 
 In society, his manner was sometimes cold and 
 
 225 
 
Ci)e poe Cult 
 
 his bearing proud and haughty, but at home, 
 and among intimate friends, his kind and af- 
 fectionate nature manifested itself in all its 
 sweetness. The late Dr. Nathan Covington 
 Brooks, of Baltimore, who was Poe's friend 
 from first to last, said to me that ''Edgar Poe 
 impressed him as a man inspired by noble and 
 exalted sentiments." 
 
 Count de Maistre declared that ''history for 
 the last three hundred years has been a con- 
 spiracy against the truth.'' With equal truth 
 we might say that American literature for the 
 last fifty years has been a conspiracy against 
 the truth so far as Edgar A. Poe is concerned. 
 The unimpeachable witnesses already pro- 
 duced, and those that follow, should convince 
 every unprejudiced mind that America's most 
 illustrious poet possessed the very virtues 
 which have been persistently denied to him. 
 
 I wish to repeat here what I have said be- 
 fore, namely, that Burns' Highland Mary, Pe- 
 trarch's Laura, Byron's Mary Chaworth, 
 Dante's Beatrice, Surrey's Fair Geraldine, 
 Spenser's Rosalind, Carew's Celia, Waller's 
 Sacharissa, Klopstock's Meta, Swift's Stella, 
 Lemartine's Elvire, Campbell's Caroline, 
 Wordsv/orth's Lucy, Allan Cunningham's 
 Bonnie Jean, and other real and imaginary 
 loves of the poets, who have been immortalized 
 
 226 
 
Cle pne Cult 
 
 in song, were not more worthy of poetical 
 adoration than Sarah Helen Whitman, the 
 friend and defender of Edgar A. Poe. Of 
 this gifted lady it has been beautifully said: 
 ''She was ever sensitive to the slightest criti- 
 cism of Poe's faults, walking softly backward 
 and throwing over them the shielding mantle 
 of her love. Heedless of the world's cold 
 sneer, she seized her pen whenever she thought 
 him treated with injustice, and defended his 
 memory with all the warmth of a woman and 
 a poet/' Some, of her most beautiful verses 
 were inspired by the recollections of her poet- 
 lover. Of these, one not known to the present 
 generation of readers has always been a par- 
 ticular favorite of mine. It is called: 
 
 The Portrait of Poe. 
 
 Slowly I raised the purple folds concealing 
 That face, magnetic as the morning's beam; 
 
 While slumbering memory thrilled at its revealing, 
 Like Memnon waking from his marble dream. 
 
 Again I saw the brow's translucent pallor, 
 The dark hair floating o'er it like a plume ; 
 
 The sweet imperious mouth, whose haughty valor 
 Defied all portents of impending doom. 
 
 Eyes planet calm, with something in their vision 
 That seemed not of earth's mortal mixture born ; 
 
 Strange mythic faiths and fantasies Elysian, 
 And far, sweet dreams of ''fairy lands forlorn." 
 
 22^ 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 Unfathomable eyes that held the sorrow 
 Of vanished ages in their shadowy deeps; 
 
 Lit by that prescience of a heavenly morrow 
 Which in high hearts the immortal spirit keeps. 
 
 Oft has that pale poetic presence haunted 
 My lonely musing at the twilight hour, 
 
 Transforming the dull earth-life it enchanted, 
 With marvel, and with mystery, and with power. 
 
 Oft have I heard the sullen sea-wind moaning 
 Its dirge-like requiems on the lonely shore, 
 
 Or listened to the autumn woods intoning 
 The wild sweet legend of the lost Lenore. 
 
 Oft in some ashen evening of October, 
 
 Have stood entranced beside a mouldering tomb, 
 Hard by that visionary tarn of Auber, 
 
 Where sleeps the shrouded form of Ulalume. 
 
 Oft in chill, starlit nights have heard the chiming 
 Of far-off mellow bells on the keen air, 
 
 And felt their molten-golden music timing 
 To the heart's pulses answering unaware. 
 
 Sweet, mournful eyes, long closed upon earth's sorrow. 
 Sleep restfully after life's fevered dream! 
 
 Sleep, wayward heart! till on some cool, bright mor- 
 row. 
 Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning's beam. 
 
 Though cloud and shadow rest upon thy story, 
 And rude hands lift the drapery of thy pall. 
 
 Time, as a birthright, shall restore thy glory, 
 And Heaven rekindle all the stars that falL 
 
 228 
 
Cl^e poe Cult 
 
 The prophecy contained in the last verse of 
 Mrs. Whitman's poem has been gloriously ful- 
 filled. Time has not only ''restored'' his 
 ''glory," but placed him first among American 
 poets. The strange, imaginary mythology used 
 so effectively by Poe, is very happily intro- 
 duced by Mrs. Whitman in the above poem. 
 She was deeply imbued with the spirit of Poe's 
 genius, and her pure, poetic soul responded 
 with delicate, feminine grace to the inspiration 
 of his divinely beautiful poetry. 
 
 It was Mrs. Whitman, and other refined and 
 cultured women, including Mrs. Frances Sar- 
 gent Osgood, Mrs. Estella Anna Lewis, etc., 
 who first began the Poe cult, which has since 
 spread over the civilized world. While many 
 ignorant or prejudiced men have attacked Poe, 
 few, if any, self-respecting women have taken 
 part in his defamation. It was this fact that 
 first convinced me that there was good in the 
 author of "The Raven." The defamers of 
 the poet have invented a Frankenstein monster 
 — a being devoid of all human affection, sym- 
 pathy, and feeling — and labelled it Edgar Al- 
 lan Poe. 
 
 The most disgraceful story invented by Gris- 
 wold about Poe was in regard to the breaking 
 off his engagement with Mrs. Whitman. He 
 said that Poe, washing to break the engage- 
 
 229 
 
Cf)e poe Cult 
 
 ment, went to her house in a state of intoxica- 
 tion, and behaved so outrageously that the 
 pohce had to be called in to expel the drunken 
 intruder. This scandalous story was believed, 
 and did more to injure Poe's character than 
 any of the many lies that have been invented 
 about him. Mrs. Whitman emphatically denied 
 Griswold's story: ''No such scene as that de- 
 scribed by Dr. Griswold ever transpired in my 
 presence. No one, certainly no woman, who 
 had the slightest acquaintance with Edgar Poe 
 could have credited the story for an instant. 
 He was essentially, and instinctively a gentle- 
 man, utterly incapable, even in moments of ex- 
 citement and delirium, of such an outras^e as 
 Dr. Griswold has ascribed to him. . . . 
 During one of his visits in the autumn of 1848, 
 I once saw him after one of those nights of 
 wild excitement, before reason had fully re- 
 gained its throne. Yet even then, in those 
 frenzied moments, when the door of the mind's 
 'Haunted Palace' was left all unguarded, his 
 words were the words of a princely intellect 
 overwrought, and of a heart only too sensi- 
 tive and too finely strung. I repeat that no 
 one acquainted with Edgar Poe could have 
 .given Dr. Griswold's anecdote a moment's 
 credence." 
 
 A man is known by his enemies as well as by 
 
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C!)e poe Cult 
 
 his friends. Who were Poe's enemies? It is 
 not necessary to mention any others, as it 
 would only serve to keep alive their ignoble 
 names ; they were men whose malignancy was 
 equalled by their mendacity. He has out- 
 lived their worst enmity, and while they have 
 disappeared in a sea of oblivion, he has landed 
 safely on the shore of immortality. While 
 Poe's enemies have in the end injured them- 
 selves, his friends have builded better than 
 they knew, and their names shall live with his 
 in American literature. Perhaps the time 
 will come when N. P. Willis — the once popular 
 poet and magazinist — shall be known only as 
 Poe's generous friend and defender, when the 
 literary jackals were rending his defenceless 
 remains. The name of George R. Graham 
 should long since have passed av/ay but for the 
 fact that Poe was the editor of Graham's 
 Magazine, whose publisher wrote a splendid 
 defence of the poet, in which he denounced 
 Grisw^old's Memoir as ''an immortal infamy — 
 the fancy sketch of a perverted, jaundiced 
 vision." Such a ''devilish" piece of work 
 should not have accompanied Poe's writings, 
 being, said Graham, "the death's-head over 
 the entrance to the garden of beauty, a horror 
 that clings to the brow of the morning, whis- 
 pering of murder." 
 
 231 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 When the Poe monument was unveiled in 
 Baltimore, on the 17th of November, 1875, 
 many of the American poets were invited to 
 the ceremonial, but, excepting Walt Whitman, 
 they sent ''regrets/^ James Russell Lowell 
 wrote : ''I need not assure you that I sympa- 
 thize very heartily with the sentiment which 
 led to the erection of the monument/'' Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes expressed himself more at 
 length, and more enthusiastically, as follows: 
 ''No one, surely, needs a monument less than 
 the poet. 
 
 His monument shall be his gentle verse, 
 
 Which eyes not yet created shall o'er read. 
 
 And tongues to be his being shall rehearse, 
 When all the breathers of this world are dead. 
 
 Yet we would not leave him without a stone 
 to mark the spot where the hands 'that waked 
 to ecstasy the living lyre' were laid in the dust. 
 He that can confer an immortality which out- 
 lasts bronze and granite deserves this poor 
 tribute, not for his sake so much as ours. The 
 hearts of all who reverence the inspiration of 
 genius, who can look tenderly upon the in- 
 firmities too often attending it, who can feel 
 for its misfortunes, will sympathize with you 
 as you gather around the resting place of all 
 that was mortal of Edgar Allan Poe, and raise 
 the stone inscribed with one of the few names 
 
 232 
 
Cije poe Cult 
 
 which will outlive the graven record meant to 
 perpetuate its remembrance/' Sarah Helen 
 Whitman, Poe's gifted and devoted friend, 
 whose beautiful little volume, ''Edgar Poe and 
 his Critics/' was one of the first as it was the 
 best defence of the poet from the malicious 
 aspersions of Griswold, sent a very feeling 
 note, in which she said: '1 need not assure 
 you that the generous efforts of the association 
 in whose behalf you write, have called forth 
 my warmest sympathy and most grateful ap- 
 preciation/' Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote: 
 ''Your desire to honor the genius of Edgar A. 
 Poe is in the heart of every man of letters, 
 though perhaps no American author stands 
 so little in need of a monument as the author 
 of 'The Raven/ His imperishable fame is in 
 all lands/' One of the most eloquent tributes 
 came from S. D. Lewis, the husband of Estelle 
 Anna Lewis, who was one of Poe's most cher- 
 ished friends. His interesting letter is too long 
 to be quoted entire, but the following para- 
 graph speaks for itself: "Edgar Poe was 
 one of the most affectionate, kind-hearted men 
 I ever knew. I never witnessed so much ten- 
 der affection and devoted love as existed in 
 that family of three persons. I have spent 
 several weeks in the closest intimacy with him, 
 and I never saw him drink a drop of liquor, or 
 
 233 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 beer, in my life. He was always in my pres- 
 ence the polished gentleman, the profound 
 scholar, the true critic, the inspired oracular 
 poet — dreamy and spiritual, lofty, but sad/' 
 Longfellow, who was asked to suggest an ap- 
 propriate inscription for the monument, wrote 
 that ''the only lines of Mr. Poe that I now re- 
 call as in any way appropriate to the purpose 
 you mention are from a poem entitled 'For An- 
 nie/ They are, 
 
 'The fever called living 
 Is conquered at last.' " 
 
 From across the sea came tributes from 
 Tennyson, Swinburne, Richard H. Home, and 
 Mallarme, the French poet. Tennyson's note 
 was brief, saying simply: "I have long been 
 acquainted with Poe's works, and am an ad- 
 mirer of them.'' A poet whose verses brought 
 five pounds a line, could not afford to spend 
 many lines on the subject of a monument to a 
 brother-poet although that poet had been one 
 of the first to recognize the other's genius, and 
 before his own countrymen had begun to ap- 
 preciate him had pronounced him "the noblest 
 poet that ever lived." Swinburne, full of the 
 glowing enthusiasm of youth, paid a noble 
 tribute to Poe : ''The genius of Edgar Poe has 
 won, on this side of the Atlantic, such wide 
 
 234 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 and warm recognition that the sympathy which 
 I cannot hope fitly or fully to express in ade- 
 quate words, is undoubtedly shared at this mo- 
 ment by hundreds, not in England only but 
 France as well. ... It is not for me to 
 offer any tribute here to the fame of your great 
 countryman, or dilate, with superfluous and 
 intrusive admiration, on the special quality of 
 his strong and delicate genius — so sure of aim, 
 and faultless of touch, in all the finer and 
 better part of the work he has left us. Widely 
 as the fame of Poe has already spread, and 
 deeply as it is already rooted in Europe, it is 
 even now growing wider and striking deeper 
 as time advances, the surest presage that time, 
 the eternal enemy of small and shallow repu- 
 tations, will prove, in this case also, the con- 
 stant and trusty friend and keeper of a true 
 poet's full-grown fame.'' Mallarme, with the 
 grace of a true Frenchman, placed a poem on 
 
 The Tomb of Edgar Poe. 
 
 Even as eternity his soul reclaimed, 
 
 The poet's song ascended in a strain 
 So pure, the astonished age that had defamed, 
 
 Saw death transformed in that divine refrain.* 
 
 While writhing coils of hydra-headed wrong, 
 
 Listening, and wondering at that heavenly song, 
 
 Deemed they had drank of some foul mixture brewed 
 In Circe's maddening cup, with sorcery imbued. 
 ^Annabel Lee. 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 Alas ! if from an alien to his clime, 
 
 No bas-relief may grace that front sublime. 
 
 Stern block, in some obscure disaster hurled 
 From the rent heart of a primeval world. 
 
 Through storied centuries thou shalt proudly stand 
 
 In the memorial city of his land, 
 A silent monitor, austere and gray. 
 
 To warn the clamorous brood of harpies from their 
 prey. 
 
 This poem was translated by Sarah Helen 
 Whitman from the original copy which the 
 French poet sent to her. Mrs. Whitman was 
 good enough to furnish the present writer with 
 a copy of her translation. 
 
 Of all the tributes to Poe, prose or poetry, 
 inspired by the unveiling of the monument, 
 the poem by William Winter was by far the 
 most beautiful. 
 
 At Poe's Grave. 
 
 Cold is the paean honor sings. 
 
 And chill is glory's icy breath, 
 And pale the garland memory brings 
 
 To grace the iron doors of death. 
 
 Fame's echoing thunders, long and loud, 
 The pomp of pride that decks the pall, 
 
 The plaudits of the vacant crowd — 
 One word of love is worth them all. 
 
 236 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 With dews of grief our eyes are dim ; 
 
 Ah, let the tear of sorrow start, 
 And honor, in ourselves and him, 
 
 The great and tender human heart ! 
 
 Through many a night of want and woe 
 His frenzied spirit Vv^andered wild — 
 
 Till kind disaster laid him low, 
 And Heaven reclaimed its wayward child. 
 
 Through many a year his fame has grown, — 
 Like midnight, vast, like starlight sweet. 
 
 Till now his genius fills a throne, 
 And nations marvel at his feet. 
 
 One meed of justice long delayed, 
 
 One crowning grace his virtues crave : — 
 
 Ah, take, thou great and injured shade, 
 The love that sanctifies the grave ! 
 
 God's mercy guard in peaceful sleep, 
 
 The sacred dust that slumbers here : 
 . And, while around this tomb we weep, 
 God bless, for us, the mourner's tear ! 
 
 And may his spirit hovering nigh. 
 
 Pierce the dense cloud of darkness through. 
 
 And know, with fame that cannot die. 
 He has the world's aflFection, too ! 
 
 The greatest critics of England and France 
 have pronounced Poe the most consummate 
 literary artist of the nineteenth century, the 
 greatest critic of his age, and one of the most 
 
 237 
 
Cl)e Poe Cult 
 
 remarkable geniuses of all time. Swinburne, 
 the master-spirit of the new school of English 
 poetry, places Poe first among the American 
 poets. Tennyson's admiration of the poet who 
 was the first to recognize his own youthful 
 genius has been already mentioned. The im- 
 pression made upon Mrs. Brow^ning by ''The 
 Raven'' is familiar to all readers. 
 
 The impetus given to the fame of Poe by the 
 erection of the monument to his memory in his 
 own city of Baltimore attracted the attention 
 of an Englishman who w^as otherwise un- 
 known. This obscure individual claimed to 
 have ''discovered" Edgar A. Poe, and to have 
 introduced that poet to his countrymen and 
 ours. This claim, preposterous as it may seem 
 now, when the name and fame of Poe has gone 
 abroad into all civilized lands, was not abso- 
 lutely without foundation a quarter of a cen- 
 tury ago. Poe's fame, which rose high after 
 the publication of "The Raven" in 1845, ^^^k 
 low after his wretched death in 1849. When 
 he could no longer wield his powerful pen, his 
 name and fame were assailed by a crowd of 
 writers whose literary pretensions he had ex- 
 posed with merciless severity. It was a case 
 of asses kicking at a dead lion. These men 
 and their friends had access to the periodicals 
 of the time, and they painted Poe in such dark 
 
 238 
 
Cl)c poe Cult 
 
 colors that his fame was obscured, and his 
 name covered with obloquy. Some of these 
 literary jackals are still alive, and they have 
 lived to see the fame of Poe cover the world, 
 having burst in triumphant splendor through 
 the dark clouds with which they had hoped to 
 cover it forever. 
 
 In 1869, a copy of Poe's Poems, New York, 
 183 1, in the original boards, was knocked down 
 at auction for $1. In 1902, a copy of the same 
 edition brought $360 under the hammer. For 
 ''The Raven," one of the most remarkable 
 poems in all literature, Poe was paid $10. For 
 the original manuscript of the same poem the 
 present fortunate owner asks $10,000. Such 
 is fame! I can myself remember when the 
 poet's grave was unknown — the place uncer- 
 tain — the very churchyard a matter of doubt 
 and dispute. 
 
 Edgar Poe fought a desperate battle against 
 a pitiless fate, and fell in the midst of the 
 struggle, wounded, defeated, and destroyed. 
 He never earned a dollar except by his pen, and 
 he was miserably paid for his elegant and 
 scholarly work. As the editor of the leading 
 American magazine, his salary was only $10 
 a week, the pay of many boys of seventeen, as 
 shorthand writers, at the present day. His 
 life of sadness and suffering, of sorrow and 
 
 239 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 song, was brought to a sudden close, when a 
 brighter future seemed to be opening for him 
 whom 
 
 ''Unmerciful disaster 
 Had followed fast, and followed faster, 
 Till his songs one burden bore 
 
 Of 'never — nevermore/ *' 
 
 240 
 
Clie poe Cult 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE IN SOCIETY. 
 
 Although more than a dozen lives of Edgar 
 Allan Poe have been published, as well as in- 
 numerable magazine and newspaper articles, 
 very little has been said of one of the most 
 charming and interesting phases of his life. 
 I refer to the subject of this article — Poe in 
 society. Sixty-five years ago, fashionable 
 American society was not frequented by poets 
 any more than it is at present, but Poe was a 
 welcome guest in the most cultured circles 
 which New York could then boast. After the 
 publication of ''The Raven,'' in the American 
 Review, in February, 1845, Pc>e became, not 
 only the talk of the town, but the talk of the 
 nation. His presence was much sought in the 
 best society of the metropolis, where he was 
 the object of universal attention, as Lord 
 Byron had been in the most exclusive London 
 society after the publication of Childe Harold's 
 Pilgrimage. 
 
 It is admitted, even by Poe's worst enemies, 
 that he possessed all the qualifications that 
 make a man shine in society. His manners 
 
 241 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 were graceful and refined, his voice was low, 
 musical, and exquisitely modulated, his eyes 
 were large, dark, luminous, and wonderfully 
 expressive, and there was about him that air 
 of unmistakable distinction, which ordinary 
 men cannot assume, and which few men ever 
 have. Friends and foes agree as to the singu- 
 lar fascination of Poe's conversation. It was 
 my privilege to receive many letters from Mrs. 
 Sarah Helen Whitman in the last years of her 
 life. During her brief engagement to the poet 
 she had the best opportunity to form an opinion 
 of his conversational powers. She said she had 
 heard Walter Savage Landor, who was pro- 
 nounced the best talker in England; had lis- 
 tened to George William Curtis talk of the 
 gardens of Damascus till the air seemed pur- 
 pled and perfumed with its roses; had heard 
 the Autocrat's trenchant and vivid talk, had 
 heard the racy talk of Dr. O. A. Brownson in 
 the old days of his freedom and power; had 
 listened to the brilliant and exhaustless col- 
 loquial resources of John Neal and Margaret 
 Fuller, and the serene wisdom of Alcott; but, 
 unlike the conversational power of any of these 
 was the earnest, opulent, unpremeditated 
 speech of Edgar Allan Poe. The charm of his 
 conversation was in its genuineness — its won- 
 derful directness and sincerity. What added 
 
 242 
 
Ci)e poe Cult 
 
 to the charm of his presence in society was his 
 simple, natural, unconventional courtesy and 
 the perfectly sincere grace of his manner. 
 Mrs. Whitman said that his proud reserve, his 
 profound melancholy, and his entire unworldli- 
 ness added to the fascination of his personal 
 presence in society. 
 
 Poe, unlike his distinguished contemporary, 
 Hawthorne, really enjoyed society, and in 
 whatever city he lived he was a favorite in the 
 most cultivated circles. In his boyhood he was 
 early introduced to the most exclusive society 
 of Virginia's capital. When just emerging 
 from obscurity he made the acquaintance of 
 John P. Kennedy, the Baltimore author, whose 
 novels, Horseshoe Robinson, Swallow Barn 
 and so forth, were very popular in the first 
 half of the nineteenth century. Mr. Kennedy 
 was a lawyer as well as a writer, and was a 
 member of Congress and Secretary of the 
 Navy under the administration of President 
 Fillmore. His social position was the best in 
 Baltimore at the time when the society of the 
 Monumental City was the most exclusive in 
 America. It was at that time N. P. Willis pro- 
 nounced Baltimore ''The Social Athens of 
 America." Mr. Kennedy invited Poe to his 
 table, gave him a horse to ride, and did every- 
 thing, as the poet always gratefully remem- 
 
 243 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 bered, to raise him from the depths of despair. 
 There are few persons now Uving who knew 
 Poe, but when I first became interested in the 
 poet, I had the good fortune to meet several 
 who were acquainted with him at the most in- 
 teresting period of his Hfe. The first of these 
 was his aunt and mother-in-law — ''more than 
 mother" he said she was to him — Mrs. Maria 
 Clemm. I visited her at the Church Home in 
 Baltimore, where she spent the last years of 
 her life, and where she died on February i6, 
 1 87 1, it being the same building where Poe 
 died on October 7, 1849. Mrs. Clemm never 
 tired of talking about her ''darling Eddie," as 
 she always called the poet. She was fond of 
 speaking of his beautiful manners, of his ex- 
 quisite taste in dress, and above all things, she 
 loved to tell of the many ladies who admired 
 him. Their friendship was the chief comfort 
 and solace of a life of sorrow, suffering and 
 song. Poe was a worshipper of beauty, and 
 of all beauty, he thought a beautiful woman 
 was the supremest. His sentimental feeling 
 for woman was the delicate, poetical Greek 
 worship of an ideal beauty, so exquisitely per- 
 sonified by Nausica in the Odyssey. Proud, 
 solitary, and ambitious, he found in his female 
 friends the sympathy which his mind and heart 
 longed for. 
 
 244 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 In the winter of 1845-46, Poe was the most 
 distinguished visitor in the circles that gath- 
 ered at the houses of the Honorable John R. 
 Bartlett, Dr. Dewey, Miss Anne C. Lynch, 
 afterward Mrs. Botta, and others who held 
 weekly receptions of the best intellectual so- 
 ciety of New York. Mrs. Whitman, in speak- 
 ing of Poe's social prestige, relates an anecdote 
 showing his habitual courtesy and good nature, 
 which was noticeable to all who best knew him 
 in domestic and social life. The incident oc- 
 curred at one of the soirees above mentioned. 
 A lady who prided herself on her knowledge of 
 languages, ancient and modern, wished to ex- 
 pose the ignorance of a pretender to classical 
 knowledge, and proposed inviting him to trans- 
 late a difficult passage in a Greek author, of 
 which language he was profoundly ignorant, 
 although in his writings he was in the habit of 
 sprinkling Greek quotations very profusely. 
 Poe was present upon the occasion, and when 
 he heard of the lady's malicious intention, he 
 remonstrated with her so earnestly that she 
 was induced to forego the embarrassing test. 
 
 Another evening Poe engaged in an intel- 
 lectual controversy with the aggressive and 
 self-opinionated Margaret Fuller. This lady, 
 in her usual ''lofty and autocratic style," was 
 annihilating a young author with merciless 
 
 245 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 scorn. Poe came to the rescue of the van- 
 quished author, and in a few sharp, trenchant 
 remarks destroyed all the effect of the learned 
 lady's eloquence, and completely discomfited 
 her. This was accomplished by Poe in the 
 most polished manner. Some one present 
 whispered, ''The Raven has perched upon the 
 casque of Pallas, and pulled all of her feathers 
 out of her cap.'' 
 
 Sometimes, but not often, his child-wife, 
 Virginia, accompanied her husband to these 
 weekly assemblages. She took little or no part 
 in the evening's conversation, but her pride in 
 the poet's brilliant social success illuminated 
 her sweet, girlish face. Mrs. Clemm told me 
 that Virginia, Eddie, and herself formed an 
 ideal family, and that the poet and his young 
 wife were perfectly devoted to each other. In 
 spite of this, it has been cruelly and recklessly 
 asserted that Poe neglected his lovely wife and 
 caused her early death. A shallow English 
 writer, Gilfillan, even went so far as to say that 
 Poe caused the death of his wife that he might 
 have a fitting theme for ''The Raven." Mrs. 
 Whitman, commenting upon this horrible and 
 wicked assertion, sarcastically says that a 
 serious objection to this ingenious theory may 
 perhaps be found in the "refractory fact" that 
 the poem was published more than a year be- 
 
 246 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 fore the event which it is assumed it was in- 
 tended to commemorate. 
 
 Another of Poe's friends, Mrs. E. Oakes- 
 Smith, who met him during this time of his 
 greatest social success, at the houses mentioned 
 above, says his manners at these reunions were 
 pleasing and refined, and his style and scope 
 of conversation that of a gentleman and 
 scholar; that he delighted in the society of 
 superior women, and had an exquisite percep- 
 tion of all the graces of manner and shades of 
 expression; and that he was an admiring lis- 
 tener and an unobtrusive observer. 
 
 So much abuse has been heaped on Poe's 
 head by ignorant or malicious persons that it 
 is not only a pleasure biit a duty to let the 
 world know how he was regarded by those who 
 had the best opportunity of seeing him. There 
 was only one woman in all his social experience 
 who disliked him, and she disliked him because 
 he, very naturally, resented her attempt to 
 destroy his friendship with Mrs. Frances Sar- 
 gent Osgood, who was one of the loveliest and 
 most accomplished women of her time, and the 
 object of the poet's enthusiastic admiration. 
 In her society he found a never-failing nepen- 
 the for his sorrows and troubles. The poet and 
 poetess were congenial spirits, and celebrated 
 
 247 
 
Clje poc Cult 
 
 their devoted friendship in Hnes worthy of the 
 most exalted affection. 
 
 Mrs. Osgood addressed the following lines 
 to Poe: 
 
 I cannot tell the ivorld how thrills my heart 
 To every touch that flies thy lyre along; 
 
 How the wild Nature and the wondrous Art 
 Blend into Beauty in thy passionate song — 
 
 But this / know — in thine enchanted slumbers, 
 Heaven's poet, Israfel — with minstrel fire — 
 Taught the music of his own sweet numbers, 
 And tuned — to chord with his — thy glorious lyre ! 
 
 These verses inspired the following delicate 
 response : 
 
 To F ^s S. O ^D. 
 
 Thou wouldst be loved ? — ^then let thy heart 
 
 From its present pathway part not, 
 Bring everything which now thou art, 
 Be nothing which thou art not. 
 
 So with the world thy gentle ways, 
 Thy grace — thy more than beauty — 
 
 Shall be an endless theme of praise, 
 And love — a simple duty. 
 
 Poe possessed that best of all social qualities 
 — he was a good listener. When he took his 
 pen in hand he was sometimes fierce and ag- 
 gressive, but in society he was conspicuous for 
 his quiet dignity, his unobtrusive manner, his 
 
 248 
 
Clie poe Cult 
 
 elegant reserve. He was more impressive and 
 infinitely more agreeable than the tiresome, 
 loquacious, so-called good talkers who often 
 eclipse the gaiety of drawing rooms, and make 
 listeners long for a ''few brilliant flashes of 
 silence/' 
 
 Poe was extremely fortunate in the ''lone- 
 some latter years'' which followed the death of 
 his wife to be admitted to the intimate so- 
 ciety of Mrs. Annie L. Richmond, of Lowell, 
 Massachusetts. It was this lady to whom the 
 poet addressed his well-known poem, "For An- 
 nie/' beginning: 
 
 Thank Heaven ! the crisis, 
 
 The danger, is past, 
 And the lingering illness 
 
 Is over at last, 
 And the fever called "Living" 
 
 Is conquered at last. 
 
 At Mrs. Richmond's house he met the best 
 society of Lowell, and a gentleman, Mr. Hey- 
 wood, who was a member of the family, spoke 
 with great enthusiasm of the poet's demeanor 
 and the grace of his conversation. "I have 
 never seen it equalled," he said. A lady who 
 was present at Mrs. Richmond's one evening 
 when Poe was there differed from the poet 
 upon some subject that was under discussion 
 
 249 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 and expressed her opinions very strongly. He 
 listened to her objection with the most perfect 
 deference, and replied to her with the utmost 
 politeness. His conversational tone was low 
 but distinct; he never showed the least excite- 
 ment even when discussing the most animated 
 subject. 
 
 It is the consensus of all who met Poe in so- 
 ciety that while he was gentle and refined and 
 seldom attacked any person's opinion, and 
 maintained his own with modest confidence, he 
 took every opportunity to defend any person 
 who was attacked, especially when such person 
 was dead or absent, protecting him or her with 
 the tender grace of charity — that charity which 
 has so seldom been exercised in his behalf, 
 either during life or since his early death. 
 
 On rare occasions Poe was persuaded to 
 recite "The Raven'' when attending social 
 gatherings in New York, especially when his 
 wife added her request to the entreaties of his 
 host or hostess. It was the opinion of those 
 who heard him that it was a thrilling, an en- 
 thralling, an overpowering exhibition of fer- 
 vid frenzy and mental exaltation. Once heard 
 it was never forgotten. 
 
 In the last months of the last year of Poe's 
 unhappy life, a gleam of light like that which 
 cheered Sinbad in the Cave of Death, bright- 
 
 250 
 
Cije Poe Cult 
 
 ened the poef s gloomy existence. This was 
 his return to his early home in Richmond, re- 
 viving dead memories, and resuming his place 
 in that fine old Virginia society which threw 
 open its hospitable doors to welcome back its 
 most gifted son. But it was the last flicker of 
 life's candle, soon to be extinguished forever 
 by the mournful tragedy of his mysterious 
 death in Baltimore on that fatal autumn morn- 
 ing of October 7, 1849. 
 
 251 
 
Cle poc Cult 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 By the Witnesses of his Life. 
 
 Edgar Poe Hved and died a mystery to the 
 world, and, although more than a half century 
 has elapsed since his death, to many persons 
 he remains a mystery still. 
 
 The intention of the present article is to 
 show Poe in a brighter and lovelier light — to 
 see him as he appeared to the witnesses of his 
 life. During the many years that I have been 
 devoted to the investigation of Poe's life, I 
 have made the acquaintance of several persons 
 who were more or less associated with him 
 from his childhood until his death. They were 
 men and women who spoke of their own 
 knowledge of the poet, and they were, there- 
 fore, the most competent witnesses to testify 
 to the truth concerning him. 
 
 I was personally acquainted with a gentle- 
 man who knew little Edgar when a boy — knew 
 him intimately — who saw him every day. This 
 was Professor Joseph H. Clarke, of Trinity 
 College, Dublin, who was the Principal of an 
 English and classical school in Richmond from 
 i8i8 to 1823. [His recollections of Poe will 
 be found elsewhere in this book.] 
 
 252 
 
C^e poe Cult 
 
 Among Poe's fellow cadets at West Point 
 was Lucius Bellinger Northrop, of South 
 Carolina, afterward the confidential friend of 
 Jeiferson Davis and Commissary General of 
 the Confederate Army, and one of the last 
 survivors of Poe's classmates at West Point. 
 Young Northrop was two years Poe's junior, 
 but, even at that early day, he manifested that 
 firm and determined character which distin- 
 guished him through life, and made him fol- 
 low what he believed to be the right, although 
 on one memorable instance it caused a tem- 
 porary break in his lifelong friendship with 
 Jefferson Davis. 
 
 I met General Northrop long after he had 
 retired from public life, and was spending his 
 last years on his farm amid the grand old Blue 
 Ridge Mountains, near Charlottesville, Va. I 
 was a guest at his house, and ascertaining that 
 he had been at V/est Point with Poe, I lost no 
 time in interviewing him on the subject. His 
 recollection was that Poe was entirely out of 
 place at West Point — that the routine of mili- 
 tary duties was utterly repugnant to his tastes : 
 the severe studies, the strict discipline, the roll- 
 call, the morning drill, the evening parade, the 
 guard duty were each and all distasteful to the 
 poetical young dreamer. He was shy, proud, 
 sensitive, and unsociable with the other cadets. 
 
 253 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 He spent more time in reading than in study. 
 This literary taste kept him away from his un- 
 congenial classmates: he was absorbed in his 
 thoughts, his poetical dreams, his golden as- 
 pirations, for he was at that time preparing a 
 third edition of his poems for the press, the 
 second having been published in Baltimore, in 
 1829. The rough sports of the West Point 
 boys — their youthful pranks, their practical 
 jokes, their childish follies — possessed no at- 
 tractions to the young poet who aspired to be 
 the American Byron, or Shelley. 
 
 During his short stay at West Point, Poe 
 made a high reputation for poetical genius, and 
 when it was announced that he intended to 
 publish his poems, great expectations were 
 formed of the book. Gen. Northrop informed 
 me that the cadets eagerly subscribed for the 
 volume. Although he made few friends at 
 West Point, he made no enemies there ; or else- 
 where, except among the small poets and prose 
 writers whose shortcomings were shown up in 
 his critical capacity. 
 
 After leaving West Point, as already men- 
 tioned, Poe found a home in the family of his 
 aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm, in Baltimore. She 
 was his nearest living relative, and the in- 
 timacy thus begun was the most fortunate 
 event in the poet's unhappy life. From that 
 
 254 
 
Clie Poe Cult 
 
 time, however dark his prospects, however suf- 
 fering his condition, however sad his thoughts, 
 this devoted woman, this ''more than Mother,*' 
 as he called her, was always by his side as 
 friend and comforter. I knew Mrs. Clemm in 
 her last years, when she was an inmate of the 
 Church Home, in Baltimore. She was then 
 four score years old. In my youthful admira- 
 tion of Poe, I sought her out, made her ac- 
 quaintance, got her to talk about Poe. All the 
 world knows that he married her daughter, 
 Virginia Clemm. But all the world does not 
 know of his constant devotion to his child- 
 wife (she was only fourteen years old at the 
 time of her marriage) in sickness and in 
 health. Mrs. Clemm never tired of speaking 
 about ''Eddie's'' unceasing love of her daugh- 
 ter, and of his filial affection for herself. 
 
 Mrs. Clemm said Poe was most industrious 
 with his pen, and would sometimes sit down at 
 his desk at nine in the morning, and write until 
 six in the evening, finishing five pages of 
 Graham's Magazine during that time. 
 
 In my enthusiasm I persuaded Mrs. Clemm 
 to visit a photographer's and have her picture 
 taken. When it was finished, she looked at it 
 for some time, and asked "Do I look as old and 
 ugly as that?" (forgetting that forty years had 
 passed since her last picture was painted). It 
 
 255 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 is a copy of that photograph which is used in 
 this article. I continued my visits to her as 
 long as she lived, and when she died, I saw 
 her laid by the side of her ''Darling Eddie" in 
 Westminster Churchyard, Baltimore. 
 
 It was while Poe was living in Baltimore, 
 with his aunt, that he made his first success in 
 literature, by gaining the $ioo prize, offered 
 by the Saturday Visitor for the best tale. The 
 limits of this article will not permit me to give 
 the particulars of this contest, especially as it 
 has been told more than once ; but the late John 
 H. B. Latrobe, one of the committee who be- 
 stowed the prize, was kind enough to furnish 
 me the following account of the affair, a few 
 years before his death: ''John P. Kennedy, 
 Dr. James Miller and I were selected by the 
 publishers of the Saturday Visitor to decide 
 the best story and poem for the two prizes, one 
 of $100 and the other of $50. We met, one 
 evening, in my back parlor, on Mulberry 
 Street, Baltimore. The Mss. were piled on a 
 table, with a waste basket conveniently at 
 hand. I sat at the head of the table, with Mr. 
 Kennedy on one side, and Dr. Miller on the 
 other, with a decanter of good old sherry and 
 a box of fine havanas between them. Most of 
 the Mss. were utter rubbish, and I, who acted 
 as reader, was getting tired of reading, and 
 
 256 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 the other gentlemen of listening to, the silly 
 love stories, and sillier verses, when at the very 
 bottom of the pile was found a small book, 
 inscribed ''A Manuscript Found in a Bottle, 
 and other Tales of the Folio Club,'' with sev- 
 eral poems, including ''The Coliseum." We 
 decided that Edgar A. Poe, whose unknown 
 name was found in the envelope that accom- 
 panied his Mss., was entitled to both prizes, 
 but the publishers of tht Visitor did not wish 
 the same person to receive both, and Poe was 
 given $ioo for the best story, and $50 was 
 awarded to a local versifier/' 
 
 After the prize was awarded, Poe called 
 upon each of the gentlemen who composed the 
 committee in order to thank them. Mr. Lat- 
 robe, who had graduated at West Point, first 
 in his class, and afterward studied law, was 
 impressed by Poe's erect, soldier-like bearing, 
 as well as by the grace and elegance of his 
 manners and the remarkable originality of his 
 conversation. Mr. Latrobe said it was abso- 
 lutely untrue, as stated by Poe's early biog- 
 raphers, that the prize was awarded to him on 
 account of his beautiful handwriting; the de- 
 cision of the committee was made because of 
 the "unquestionable genius and great origi- 
 nality of the writer." 
 
 On the 17th of March, 1894, I called to see 
 
 257 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 Mr. Gabriel Harrison, at his pretty, artistic 
 home on Madison Street, in Brooklyn. The 
 object of my visit was to learn some particulars 
 of his acquaintance with Poe. He said his 
 personal knowledge of the poet was in 1846-7 
 when his fame had reached its zenith by the 
 publication of the ''Raven/' ''He read the 
 poem to me from a newspaper,'^ said Mr. Har- 
 rison, "and, of course, I was struck with its 
 many beauties, and was delighted to know the 
 man who had the genius to compose so won- 
 derful a piece of alliteration and harmony. 
 When I praised those special and distinctive 
 qualities in the poem, he said, 'alliteration and 
 euphony of words are the genius of poetry.' 
 The next time we met, I said, 'Poe, I am going 
 to recite a fine poem to you; sit down and lis- 
 ten.' I then recited "The Raven." While I 
 was repeating it, his eyes were suffused with 
 tears, and when I got through, he cried, 'My 
 God, Harrison, did I write that?' He then 
 took me by the hand, and said, 'by the power 
 of your elocution, you have made me see beau- 
 ties in my poem that I did not think it pos- 
 sessed.' From that time he and I became con- 
 stant companions. Many an afternoon did we 
 walk to a favorite spot on the banks of the 
 East River, where I read to him passages from 
 Shelley and Byron, and heard him express his 
 
 258 
 
Cfje poe Cult 
 
 passionate admiration of the former poet/' 
 Mr. Harrison was a witness of Poe's devotion 
 to his deHcate young wife. ''They vv^ere in 
 perfect accord : the one was the Harp, the 
 other the Strings upon it, and what the one 
 uttered the other vibrated back the concord- 
 ance. They were, indeed, 'two souls with but 
 a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.' 
 Poe had a melancholy and worried expression 
 of countenance. His voice was a low mezzo 
 tone. His articulation was fine, and from his 
 lips and tongue fell his words like the tones 
 of a well-tuned lute. His soul was all in har- 
 mony with perfect sounds, and he was always 
 deeply affected by anything tender and pa- 
 thetic. Often when he was reading to me, and 
 came to a pathetic passage, the tears would 
 blur his eyes, and he was obliged to hand me 
 the poem to finish. He was always refined. 
 Gentleman was written all over him. His 
 thoughts were elevated; his language inspir- 
 ing; his ambition high and noble. He was a 
 remarkable man, and when once acquainted 
 with him, he could not be forgotten.'' 
 
 The fame of Edgar A. Poe has passed into 
 many lands. His genius is one of the greatest 
 intellectual gifts that America has bestowed 
 upon the world. While we are justly proud 
 of him as a poet, we have no cause to be 
 
 259 
 
Cl)e' Poc Cult 
 
 ashamed of him as a man, for the true wit- 
 nesses of his Hfe prove beyond question that 
 he possessed the very quahties that his enemies 
 have willfully and persistently denied him. 
 From their unbiased testimony, I have shown 
 that he was gentle, affectionate, grateful, and 
 ''incapable of dishonor/' 
 
 2ex) 
 
Clbe poe Cult 
 
 POE AS SEEN BY STODDARD, STED- 
 MAN, AND HARRISON. 
 
 Of the many biographies of Edgar A. Poe, 
 I cannot say that Richard Henry Stoddard's 
 is the best. In his preface, he makes the bold 
 claim that his ''is the only life of Poe written 
 with no intention but that of telling the truth 
 . . . the only life in which the poet's career 
 from beginning to end is clearly and intelli- 
 gently traced '' that ''it deals with facts, 
 
 and not with fancies,'' etc. Yet he accepts 
 with childish confidence, and repeats the sub- 
 stance of Dr. Moran's so-called account of 
 Poe's last hours, which was contradicted by 
 the relative of Poe who was present at the 
 deathbed. It is now known that Dr. Moran's 
 statement was purely imaginary. He says 
 that "Poe was taken to the hospital on the 
 morning of the 7th of October, and died about 
 midnight of the same day," that he "was found 
 lying on a bench on Pratt Street Wharf." 
 The facts are that Poe was taken to the hos- 
 pital on the 3d of October, 1849, where he 
 lingered in an unconscious state until the 7th, 
 
 261 
 
Cije poe Cult 
 
 when he died — that he wai found at a polHng 
 place on Lombard Street. Dr. Moran gives 
 a detailed account of 'Toe's last words.'' Here 
 is a specimen: ''The arched heavens encom- 
 pass me, and God has his decrees legibly writ- 
 ten upon the frontlets of every human being, 
 and demons incarnate; their goal will be the 
 seething waves of black despair. Where is the 
 buoy, life-boat, ship of fire, sea of brass, shore 
 no more." Dr. Moran was the resident physi- 
 cian of the hospital, but Poe died in the arms 
 of Dr. William M. Cullan, the physician whose 
 duty it was to attend to the patients; and we 
 have his authority for saying that the wild 
 and incoherent words attributed to the poet 
 were never uttered by him on his deathbed. It 
 is only justice to add that Mr. Stoddard re- 
 jects that part of Dr. Moran's "recollection." 
 Mr. Stoddard scrupulously avoids mention- 
 ing by name any of the eight biographers of 
 Poe; but he has not scrupled to appropriate 
 their material and incorporate it in his memoir, 
 without any credit whatever. The present 
 writer has, perhaps, suifered more than any 
 other in this respect, especially in the early por- 
 tion of the memoir. Living in Baltimore, 
 among the friends and relatives of Poev I have 
 been enabled to gather information not access- 
 ible to persons at a distance. That portion 
 
 262 
 
€:ht poe Cult 
 
 of Mr. Stoddard's work relating to the poet's 
 grandfather and to his father's early infatua- 
 tion for the stage, as well as the whole account 
 of Poe's schooldays in Richmond, is taken 
 from my memoir which was published in 1876. 
 The latter was given to me by Prof. Joseph H. 
 Clarke, Poe's teacher, who was then living in 
 Baltimore at the advanced age of ninety years. 
 
 Mr. Stoddard has surpassed the other biog- 
 raphers of Poe in one particular at least — he 
 has invented a birthday for him. He says: 
 ''As it might have been on the 19th of Febru- 
 ary, I have fixed upon that day for his birth- 
 day.'' Certainly an original reason for de- 
 ciding a man's birthday — because ''it might 
 have been." It might have been also on the 
 19th of May or June. The doctors will have 
 to decide whether Mrs. Poe could have played 
 on the stage on the 24th of February after the 
 birth of her son on the 19th. Mrs. Clemm 
 told me that he was born on the 19th of Jan- 
 uary, 1809. 
 
 Viewing Mr. Stoddard's biographic sketch 
 in the most favorable light, we cannot dis- 
 cover that he has added anything to our knowl- 
 edge of Poe which had not been made known 
 by previous writers. 
 
 We deem it only justice to say that the pres- 
 ent reaction in favor of Edgar A. Poe is 
 
 263 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 greatly due to the intelligent appreciation of 
 Mr. Widdleton, the American, publisher of his 
 works. He generously aided and encouraged 
 every attempt to vindicate the poet's memory. 
 Mr. Stedman has written the most careful 
 analysis of Poe's genius that has yet been 
 given to the world. The students and scholars 
 of this and other countries will be glad that 
 he has taken his admirable essay from the 
 soon forgotten pages of a magazine, and pre- 
 served it in the exquisitely dainty little volume 
 before us. He has evidently studied Poe's 
 works with conscientious diligence; and, 
 though we do not wholly agree with his esti- 
 mate of the poet, we frankly admit that nine- 
 tenths of his readers will. He manifests a 
 genuine feeling for the ''sensitive feminine 
 spirit,'^ whose life was darkened by sorrow and 
 suffering. He says that Poe was ''an apostle 
 of the art that refuses to take its color from a 
 given time or country, and of the revolt 
 against commonplace, and his inventions par- 
 took of the romantic and the wonderful. He 
 added to the Greek perception of form the 
 Oriental passion for decoration. All the ma- 
 terial of the wizard's craft were at his com- 
 mand. He was not a pupil of Beckford, God- 
 win, Maturin, Hoffmann, or Fouque; and yet 
 if these writers were to be grouped we should 
 
 264 
 
Ci)e poc Cult 
 
 think also of Poe, and give him no second place 
 among them/' 
 
 Mr. Stedman pronounces the 'Xiterati" a 
 prose Dunciad; but he does not do full justice 
 to Poe's powerful analytical criticism which 
 drove the dunces from our literary temple. 
 He also depreciates Poe's scholarship: ''He 
 easily threw a glamour of erudition about his 
 work by the use of phrases from old authors 
 he had read. It was his knack to cull sentences 
 which, taken by themselves, produce a weird 
 or impressive effect, and to ref rame them skill- 
 fully. This plan was clever, but it partook of 
 trickery, even in its art.'' Poe was a consum- 
 mate literary artist, whose writings are more 
 carefully finished than any American writer 
 of his time. As Kennedy said of him : ''His 
 taste was replete with classical flavor, and he 
 wrote in the spirit of an old Greek Philoso- 
 pher." In conclusion let us say, with Mr. Sted- 
 man, that, "instead of recounting Poe's in- 
 firmities, and deriding them, we should hedge 
 him round with our protection. We can find 
 one man of sense among a thousand, but how 
 rarely a poet with such a gift !" 
 
 Professor James A. Harrison, of the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia, has edited the most ambi- 
 tious, the most voluminous, the most vexatious 
 edition of Poe's works that has been vouch- 
 
 265 
 
Ci)e Poe Cult 
 
 safed to an eagerly expectant world. The first 
 of the seventeen volumes of this edition con- 
 tains a Biography by Professor Harrison. I 
 have read this Life of Poe with the greatest 
 care, page by page, several times, and I have 
 found it a careless, rambling, disconnected, un- 
 scientific piece of work. It displays extraor- 
 dinary industry in collecting the material, 
 but it is put together with no literary skill: 
 like the would-be magician in the Eastern tale, 
 the writer wants the magic touch. The most 
 interesting portions of the biography are in 
 quotation marks. Professor Harrison writes 
 like an ambitious schoolboy, using all the big- 
 gest words in his vocabulary. Here are sev- 
 eral specimens: 
 
 "In The Philosophy of Composition/ he (Poe) lifts 
 the lid from the cauldron where glowed the constitu- 
 ent elements of his wonderful poem-philtre and reveals 
 to us its mechanism: the poem was to be about one 
 hundred lines long, made up of eqi^ proportions of 
 Beauty and Quaintness intermingled with Melancholy. 
 A strange and thrilling refrain was to impress this 
 combination on the reader by means of long sonorous 
 o's and r's swelling on the ear and the memory in 
 anthem-like undulations, reverberations of waves on the 
 shore, clothed, the whole, in rhythms whose luxuriance 
 of alliteration, susurrus of honeyed vow^els and liquids, 
 and rise and fall of Eolian cadences would attune the 
 very soul to melody and make the poem as sweet as 
 the dissolving notes of Apollo's lute." (P. 215.) 
 
 266 
 
Clje Poe Cult 
 
 In defending Longfellow from the charge 
 of plagiarism brought against him by Poe, 
 Professor Harrison writes thus: 
 
 **Lx)ngfellow had access to many languages . . 
 he would have been more than mortal if assimilabh 
 particles of the foreign gold had not clung to his mem- 
 ory and inwrought themselves here and there with 
 the filaments of a most malleable and plastic nature. 
 The student of 'The Golden Legion' feels the Schiller 
 background shimmering through the rich texture of 
 woven gold as the bit of verbal Gobelins is being fin- 
 gered," &c. 
 
 Here is another specimen of Professor 
 Harrison's ''fine" writing. 
 
 ''Foe's work was so strange, so extraordinary, so 
 original as it towered and sparkled in columnar beauty 
 amid the flat commonplace of the time, that it is no 
 wonder if editors were startled and looked askance 
 . . . as one might imagine the aborigines of 
 Nubia gazing at the gorgeous bark of Cleopatra as it 
 swept flashing down the Nile with all its oriental 
 splendor and paraphernalia, a vision of light, per- 
 fume, and beauty." (P. 271.) 
 
 But this is enough. 
 
 Professor Harrison takes a childish delight 
 in airing his scraps of knowledge: he kindly 
 tells us that Poe and the Allans sailed for 
 England "in June, 181 5, the day before the 
 Battle of Waterloo." Why not say on June 
 17, they sailed? He, also, kindly informs us 
 
 267 
 
t[!:ttt Poe Cult 
 
 that, in 1809, the year of Poe's birth, ''Madi- 
 son was President of the United States, Met- 
 termich was Prime Minister of Austria, and 
 the Battle of Wagram was fought.'' 
 
 When he comes to speak of Poe at the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia, Professor Harrison treats 
 us to a history of Albemarle County, in which 
 the University is situated, and describes the 
 surrounding country, not omitting Monticello, 
 the home of Thomas Jefferson, and mentions 
 him, ''from his own Parnassus, three miles 
 away, looking down and beholding the spacious 
 vale w^herein the cunning magic of his persua- 
 sive tongue had evoked a scene of Grecian 
 beauty that breathed the spirit of Old World 
 enchantment'' ; not forgetting to embellish the 
 picture with this "fine" touch: "The poetic 
 mountain sprites exercise their ingenuity in 
 carving out graceful vales, long undulating 
 slopes, the winding labyrinths of silver rivers, 
 and wooded dells thick with Vallambrosan 
 shades." 
 
 When Professor Harrison speaks of Poe in 
 Richmond, he is good enough to remind us 
 that Patrick Henry, "the Great Orator of the 
 Revolution," was buried in that city ; also, that 
 John Randolph, of Roanoke, "celebrated for 
 his silvery voice and stinging sarcasm," was 
 "a familiar figure in Richmond streets," etc. 
 
 "^ 268 
 
tCfte poe Cult 
 
 Harrison is a man of note, or, rather, Notes, 
 for his seventeen volumes are loaded down 
 with all sorts of notes, and the most notable 
 thing about them is that they are chiefly about 
 things not worth noting. He quotes Poe as 
 saying: ''I am naturally anxious that what I 
 have written should circulate as I wrote it, if 
 it circulate at all/' Poe left corrected copies 
 of his works, and, although he should be pub- 
 lished as he wished, that does not mean that 
 everything he wrote — the sweepings of his 
 library and the scraps from his waste-basket 
 — should be preserved. Nor did he want, or 
 expect, that his works should be printed with 
 every verbal change in different editions 
 forced upon the reader's attention in a series 
 of distracting ''notes.'' An editor should know 
 what to omit and what to retain. Jove some- 
 times nodded, Shakespeare was not always 
 sublime, Poe wrote many things which his own 
 fastidious taste would not have preserved. 
 Professor Harrison claims great merit for 
 hunting up every little scrappy book notice 
 that Poe wrote, and boasts that he has given 
 to the world, ''a new Poe in the realm of criti- 
 cism." In his eagerness to do something that 
 had not been done before, he not only prints 
 these trifling book notices, but ''attributes" to 
 Poe two volumes of criticism which should 
 
 269 
 
C|e Poe Cult 
 
 have been allowed to rest in the grave of dead 
 magazines. In fact, he prints everything by, 
 or supposed to be by, Poe, not even omitting 
 ''Big Abel and Little Manhattan/' and ''Street 
 Paving/' 
 
 Among the poems attributed to Poe, Pro- 
 fessor Harrison includes "Alone,'' which I 
 happen to know is genuine, for I discovered 
 it in the autograph album of Mrs. Balderston, 
 the wife of Judge Balderston, formerly Chief 
 Judge of the Orphans' Court of Baltimore. I 
 had it engraved and published in Scribner's 
 Monthly. I gave the poem the name of 
 "Alone," and dated it, as it had neither name 
 nor date, but the poem and signature as pub- 
 lished in the magazine are an exact fac simile 
 of the writing in the album. 
 
 Professor Harrison, Dr. Charles W. Kent, 
 and Dr. R. A. Stewart have formed a Mutual 
 Admiration Society, and have used the Vir- 
 ginia edition of Poe's Works to exploit them- 
 selves and show off their "learning," much to 
 their own satisfaction, no doubt, but not to the 
 entertainment of their readers. It works 
 beautifully from a narrow, provincial point 
 of view, but thinking persons only laugh at 
 such transparent folly. A man is written up, 
 or written down by himself, and by himself 
 alone. The thousands of verbal notes scat- 
 
 270 
 
Cfee poe Cult 
 
 tered through the seventeen volumes by these 
 industrious gentlemen, are useless, annoying, 
 and distracting. 
 
 In conclusion, I take pleasure in saying that 
 Professor Harrison has my best wishes, but I 
 respectfully advise him, in future, should he 
 undertake to edit a literary work, to do the 
 hunting himself, but to turn the material over 
 to an experienced literary expert ; because, with 
 the most friendly feeling, I am compelled to 
 say that, when he tries to be instructive, he 
 becomes laughable; when he tries to be pro- 
 found, he is silly; when he attempts to sketch 
 Poe's wonderful stories, he is simply ridicu- 
 lous; and when he attempts to be critical, he 
 is enough to make a stuffed owl die of laugh- 
 ter. 
 
 271 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 THE ^^DISCOVERER" OF POE. 
 
 Every schoolboy knows who discovered 
 America, but many intelHgent men and women 
 do not know who ''discovered'' Edgar A, Poe. 
 Some years ago, an obscure EngHshman 
 claimed to have discovered Poe and made him 
 known to the American people. Not only did 
 this obscure Englishman claim to have intro- 
 duced Poe to American readers, but he at- 
 tempted to belittle and read out of court all 
 Americans who presumed to write about their 
 own countryman. But while attempting to 
 undervalue their work, he did not hesitate to 
 appropriate — I like a gentle word — their ma- 
 terial. I was a student of Poe's Life and 
 Works before this presumptuous Englishman 
 had emerged from his original obscurity. My 
 early investigations made me acquainted with 
 many facts about Poe which were before un- 
 known, and brought me into contact with per- 
 sons who knew the poet. It was my privilege 
 to know Mrs. Maria Clemm in the last years 
 of her life, and our conversation was almost 
 entirely about ''Eddie'' as she always called 
 
 2^2 
 
MARIE LOUISE SHEW. 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 him. Much information thus obtained was 
 published in my first — which was a ''pioneer'' 
 —Life of Poe, issued four j^ears before the 
 EngHshman's pretentious biography had ap- 
 peared. 
 
 r confess I have been astonished at what I 
 have heard regarding the ''peculiar'' methods 
 this ''Discoverer" has used in adding to his 
 Poeana. One of Poe's best friends at the 
 time when he most needed friends — before, at 
 the time, and immediately after the death of 
 his wife— was Mrs. Mary Louise Shew, after- 
 ward Mrs. Harcourt, who nursed him back to 
 life from the desperate illness which followed 
 the death of his wife. With his usual grati- 
 tude for favors received, Poe addressed two 
 poems to this lady — "To M. L. S./' and a poem 
 in blank verse, "To ," commencing, 
 
 ^'Not long ago, the writer of these lines." 
 
 The "Discoverer" of Poe discovered that the 
 former Mrs. Shew — now Mrs. Harcourt — 
 was in possession of four original poems and 
 many letters from the poet. He wrote to Mrs. 
 Harcourt to aid him in the defence of her 
 friend. In the goodness of her heart, she sent 
 him all the manuscripts, letters, and a minia- 
 ture of Poe's mother, Elizabeth Poe. Among 
 these poems was the original first draft of 
 
 273 
 
Cfje poe Cwit 
 
 ''The Bells/' which was written at Mrs. Shew's 
 suggestion. This is a manuscript of priceless 
 value. I have been furnished with the follow- 
 ing extracts from the ''Discoverer's'' letters to 
 Mrs. Harcourt and her daughter, Mrs. Wil- 
 liam Wiley: 
 
 "January 28, 1875 — I have not returned the 
 letter from Poe, enclosed in your daughter's, 
 as I think I should like it lithographed, if you 
 do not see any objection.'' 
 
 "March 12, 1875 — I have carefully read 
 through, and taken notes of your most inter- 
 esting 44 pages. . . . You have a portrait 
 of Poe's mother. I should so value a copy, 
 and would gladly pay for it, if you would have 
 it copied? Will you allow this?" (Mrs. Har- 
 court sent him the original.) 
 
 "April 16, 1875 — I am just sending you a 
 few lines to acknowledge your kind letters, and 
 to let you know that the two poems are safely 
 to hand. These latter I will take every care 
 of, and should like to have fac similes taken 
 of them, if you do not object." 
 
 "March 11, 1876 — A French translation of 
 Poe's Poems is shortly to be published in 
 Paris. May I let them have a fac simile made 
 of the shorter of the two poems addressed to 
 you ? The larger one I do not want to appear 
 anywhere but in my forthcoming Life of Poe." 
 
 274 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 ''February 24, 1876 — Your copies of Poe's 
 poems are perfectly safe, and I am keeping 
 them until I can have them f ac similed for the 
 Life. I guard them as the apple of my eye V' 
 
 ''May 2y, 1879 (to Mrs. Wiley) — I have not 
 completed my Life of Poe, and not deeming, 
 from your kind mamma's correspondence, that 
 there ever would be any haste for the return 
 of the poems, I do not hurry. Of course, now 
 you and your sister stand in her place, and 
 as soon as I hear from you again, I will for- 
 ward them to you." 
 
 "January 22, 1880 — Mr. has received 
 
 Mrs. Wiley's letter of December 22, 1879, ^^^ 
 will reply to it in a few days, and will return 
 the poems asked for as soon as he can find 
 them among Mrs. Harcourt's letters and 
 papers, doubtless within the week." (Note by 
 Mr. Wiley.) "He had to hunt among Mrs. 
 Harcourt's papers for what he 'guarded as the 
 apple of his eye.' One poem, 'To M. L. S.,' 
 was returned in June, 1880." 
 
 The "Discoverer" claimed that Mrs. Har- 
 court gave him certain of the poems, and the 
 letters, and in one of his last communications 
 to Mrs. Wiley, he said he had her letter, and 
 would show it to any friend. Mrs. Wiley says 
 that such a proposition as giving away any- 
 thing written by Poe was not thought of, 
 
 275 
 
tli:fft poe Cult 
 
 talked of, or written about. Mrs. Gove-Nich- 
 olls, who knew Mrs. Shew, and took her to see 
 the Poes at Fordham, told the ''Discoverer" 
 about the friendship between Poe and Mrs. 
 Shew, and hence the correspondence. 
 
 Mr. Wiley writes me that 'It is unreason- 
 able to suppose that my mother (Mrs. Har- 
 court), who treasured these precious me- 
 morials of Poe for over twenty-five years, 
 showing them often to her children and 
 friends, would give them to a stranger in a 
 foreign land. You know that Poe wrote "The 
 Bells'' in her library. The story of its origin 
 is true. ]\Iore than anything else she prized 
 that poem. After her death, her children, in- 
 spired by her feeling for the poet, kept, as a 
 sacred object, the table on which the first draft 
 of "The Bells'' was written. They learned 
 to reverence everything that came to them 
 through their mother's relations to the poet." 
 
 276 
 
Ijc poe CUii 
 
 POE AND THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 When the University of Virginia announced 
 a four days' celebration of the Centennial of 
 the birth of Edgar A. Poe, I was astonished 
 to see Professor Barrett Wendell, of Harvard 
 University, named as the principal speaker 
 upon the occasion. I expressed my astonish- 
 ment in the following communication to the 
 Baltimore American: 
 
 To THE Editor: It is right, proper, and 
 just that the University of Virginia should 
 celebrate the centennial of the birth of Edgar 
 Allan Poe, her most distinguished alumnus. 
 Few American universities can boast of such a 
 son and in honoring him it does a greater 
 honor to herself. But why this long-delayed 
 recognition of Poe's genius — why wait until 
 
 Through many a year his fame has grown, 
 Like midnight, vast ; Hke sunlight, sweet, 
 
 Till now his genius fills a throne 
 And nations marvel at his feet. 
 
 During his life of sorrow, suffering, and 
 song his alma mater said no word of encour- 
 
 277 
 
C!)e poe Cult 
 
 agement — it offered him no chair, no reward, 
 
 no fellowship, when 
 
 Unmerciful disaster 
 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one 
 
 burden bore — 
 Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore 
 Of ''never — nevermore/' 
 
 When the University of Virginia offers her 
 tardy tribute to Poe lOO years after his birth, 
 Vvhy does she select a New Englander to be 
 the principal speaker upon the occasion — Prof. 
 Barrett Wendell, of Harvard University? Is 
 the South so destitute of literary men that its 
 leading university could not find a Southern 
 man to honor the memory of its greatest poet? 
 
 Astonished as I am that the University of 
 Virginia should select Professor Wendell to 
 do honor to Poe, my wonder grows that he 
 should accept the invitation, in view of his 
 deliberately expressed opinion of the poet in 
 his 'Xiterary History of America," where he 
 denounces Poe as ''a man, in his life, of doubt- 
 ful repute,'' adding that ''his life was ugly, sin- 
 ful, sordid,'' and that "there are a thousand 
 errors in his personal life." I am not surprised 
 that he should express such an opinion of Poe's 
 life when he displays such ignorance of what 
 he is talking about. Here are a few speci- 
 mens : "In 1826 he was for a year at the Uni- 
 
 278 
 
Cfee poe Cult 
 
 versity of Virginia, where his career was 
 brought to an end by a gambling scrape/' 
 
 So Professor Wendell accepts, with childish 
 credulity the oft-disproved story of Rufus W. 
 Griswold. Again: ''The story goes that he 
 — Poe — was passing through Baltimore either 
 on his way to see his betrothed, or on his way 
 from a visit to her/' Such ignorance is truly 
 refreshing. Here is another: ''Some petty 
 politicians . . . picked him up . . . and 
 made him vote all over town. Having thus 
 exhausted his political usefulness, they left 
 him in the gutter, from whence he found his 
 way to a hospital, where he certainly died.'' 
 
 It is certainly true that Poe died in a hos- 
 pital, and that is one grain of truth in Pro- 
 fessor Wendell's last statement. Let us hope 
 that he has read some of the dozen lives of 
 Poe that have been written since GriswokFs 
 mendacious biography and that he knows more 
 about Poe's life than he did when he wrote 
 his "Literary History of America," otherwise 
 his audience at the University of Virginia 
 celebration on January 19 will not only be 
 astonished, but, I fear, disappointed and dis- 
 gusted. 
 
 Euge;ne L. Didier. 
 
 1722 North Calvert Street. 
 
 279 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 This letter fell like an unexpected bomb- 
 shell among the faculty of the University of 
 Virginia, in the midst of their pretentious at- 
 tempt to ''honor'' Poe upon his centenary. One 
 of the professors, who is said to have secured 
 his professorship through the generosity of his 
 sister-in-law, who denoted $60,000 for the 
 foundation of the chair which he occupies, was 
 so incensed at the severe truths in my article 
 that, he wrote me a letter so furious, so fran- 
 tic, and so foolish that his more sensible wife 
 persuaded him not to send it. 
 
 Does this provincial professor suppose that 
 I, a man of the world, I who have traveled in 
 many lands, and met some of the greatest men 
 of Europe and America — would care for his 
 petulant and childish anger? 
 
 The University of Virginia showed no in- 
 terest in Poe until the Semi-Centennial of his 
 death, October 7, 1899, when, ''with many a 
 flirt and flutter," a bust of the poet was un- 
 veiled in an alcove of the Rotunda Library. 
 Hamilton W. Mabie was chosen to deliver the 
 address upon the occasion. I have nothing to 
 say about the propriety of selecting a Northern 
 man to eulogize a Southern poet. I do not 
 propose to question the ability of the South to 
 furnish a speaker for such an occasion, but I 
 do not hesitate to say, and I wish to say it most 
 
 280 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 emphatically, that the selection of Mr, Mabie, 
 or any other Northern man, was a direct and 
 distinct insult — a slap in the face of every man 
 of letters in the South ; an open slur upon hun- 
 dreds of men who were quite as capable of 
 eulogizing their poet as Mr. Mabie, or any 
 other Northern man. If the committee having 
 the matter in charge intended to proclaim the 
 literary poverty of the South, it is an admis- 
 sion which I, for one, will never make. Mr. 
 Mabie was the wrong man for the place, but 
 he did show a certain appreciation of Poe, 
 when he announced that he was entitled to the 
 first place in American letters by virtue of pos- 
 sessing a most exact literary conscience and 
 producing works of the clearest and finest art. 
 The connection of Poe with the University 
 of Virginia is the most interesting fact in its 
 history, yet, it completely ignored him until 
 half a century after his death, when it joined 
 in the chorus of the world's applause. This 
 late recognition of America's greatest genius 
 does not reflect much credit upon his Alma 
 Mater. The ''meed of justice" was so ''long 
 delayed,'' that the University of Virginia de- 
 serves the disgraceful reproach of treating her 
 most illustrious son with the cold and heart- 
 less indifference of a stepmother, instead of 
 
 281 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 cherishing him with the tender and loving care 
 of a fond and devoted parent.. 
 
 When the University of Virginia sought to 
 make amends for its belated recognition of 
 Poe, the Committee having charge of the Cen- 
 tennial celebration, stultified itself most igno- 
 miniously by inviting Professor Barrett Wen- 
 dell to deliver the principal address. The 
 Committee was either grossly ignorant of 
 American literature, or insultingly defiant of 
 Southern feeling when it selected such a man 
 for such an occasion — a man who had shown 
 himself disgracefully ignorant of Poe's life, 
 and outrageously prejudiced against him. 
 
 The selection of this Harvard professor to 
 deliver the principal address at the Poe Cen- 
 tennial is most extraordinary in view of the 
 fact that Dr. Charles William Kent is the 
 Literary Editor of a ''Library of Southern 
 Literature,'' which claims to be ''a scholarly 
 venture,'' ''Southern in tone," whose "purpose 
 is the frank and patriotic desire to lay more 
 deeply the foundations of our greatness, by 
 establishing that not New England alone, but 
 the South as well, has enjoyed the gift of ut- 
 terance." Yet, in the face of this declaration, 
 a New England professor was invited to take 
 the leading part in "honoring" Edgar A. Poe. 
 It was a piece of amazing folly unsurpassed 
 
 282 
 
 .? 
 
Cle Poe Cult 
 
 in the annals of literature, since letters were 
 first invented, or since the Father of Poetry 
 sang his immortal songs through the cities of 
 Greece. However, we should not be so as- 
 tonished at this foolish action of the Committee 
 of the University of Virginia, when we re- 
 member that the President of that institution 
 awarded the prize of one hundred dollars of- 
 fered by the United Daughters of the Con- 
 federacy for the best essay on ''Robert E. 
 Lee," to Miss Christine Boysen, of Minnesota, 
 who spoke of what Lee did as ''treason'' that 
 he "chose the wrong side'' etc. Dr. Alder- 
 man, either did not read the essay before 
 awarding the prize, or he agreed with the 
 writer of the essay who pronounced General 
 Lee a ''traitor." In either case, he is unfit to 
 be the President of the leading University of 
 the South. 
 
 283 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 THE CENTENNIAL OF THE BIRTH OF 
 EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 The splendor of Poe's fame, the extraor- 
 dinary and distinct quality of his genius, 
 and the universality of its recognition, made 
 the Centennial of his birth on the 19th of 
 January, 1909, one of the most interesting 
 events in the literary history of the United 
 States, if not in the world. 
 
 When Edgar A. Poe was born, it would 
 have required an astrologer of divine gifts to 
 have drawn the horoscope of his life. The 
 child of strolling players, left a destitute 
 orphan at the age of two years, brought up 
 in luxury, taught to expect to inherit a splendid 
 fortune, he was turned out on the world at 
 the most critical period of his youth without 
 experience, without a guide, without a dollar, 
 but, by the divine right of genius, he has con- 
 ferred more glory upon American literature 
 than any other American writer, and taken a 
 place among the few, the immortal names that 
 are not born to die. Other writers of his time 
 lived, wrote, and died, and in the course of a 
 
 284 
 
Cije poe Cult 
 
 few years, their works were forgotten, and 
 their Hves possess no interest to the genera- 
 tions that succeeded them. Who reads WilHs, 
 Halleck, Hoffman, Drake, Paulding, Whipple, 
 Tuckerman, Headley, Simms, and others — 
 how few now read even Bryant, Lowell, Long- 
 fellow, Irving, Prescott, and Cooper? While 
 these once prominent writers are forgotten, or 
 seldom read, edition after edition of Poe's 
 Works are required to supply the ever-increas- 
 ing demand. Twelve lives of Poe have been 
 published, and the end is not yet. Magazine 
 and newspaper articles, more or less false, are 
 eagerly read. 
 
 The universal voice of two continents has 
 pronounced Edgar A. Poe the most extraor- 
 dinary genius of the nineteenth century. 
 After a life of sorrow, suffering, and song, he 
 died when a better and a brighter day was 
 about to dawn upon the ''unhappy Master of 
 ^The Raven,' '' who had lived and died a mys- 
 tery to the world, to his friends, and to him- 
 self. He died under a cloud, and for a quar- 
 ter of a century, his name and fame were 
 blackened by the vindictive malice of his ene- 
 mies. The literary lion died, and asses kicked 
 and mangled the defenceless poet; with fiend- 
 ish delight, the literary jackals revelled in 
 
 28s 
 
Cfie Poc Cult 
 
 their prey. The maHce of Poe's def amers was 
 only equalled by their ignorance. 
 
 ''In this dismal room fame was won/' said 
 Hawthorne, after the Scarlet Letter had made 
 him famous. He had waited long and pa- 
 tiently for fame to come to him : for more than 
 ten years he was ''the most obscure literary 
 man in America/' as he said of himself. He 
 was nearly fifty years old when he ceased to 
 be "the most obscure literary man in America/' 
 and became one of the most famous. To Poe 
 fame came early in life: before he was twenty- 
 seven years old he had acquired a national 
 reputation by his tales and criticisms. He was 
 only thirty-four when "The Raven" was pub- 
 lished, which showed him to be the most 
 original writer of his time. But, after his 
 tragical and untimely death — he was only 
 forty — in the full splendor of his mental vigor, 
 his name and fame passed under a cloud which 
 grew blacker and blacker, until, in the course 
 of time, America rejected her most marvelous 
 genius, and worshipped at the shrine of false 
 poetical idols. He passed so absolutely out of 
 the world's thoughts that even the time and 
 place of his birth were uncertain, and the time 
 of death and the place of his burial were un- 
 known. 
 
 The unveiling of the Poe monument, in Bal- 
 
 286 
 
Cije poc Cult 
 
 timore, on the 17th of November, 1875, started 
 a revival of interest in the life and works of 
 Poe. Since which time no American, and few 
 writers of any nation, have been so written 
 about in books, magazines, and newspapers. 
 Careful and systematic investigation has dis- 
 covered that he possessed the very virtues and 
 attributes — gratitude, sincerity, and affection 
 — which were denied to him by his early biog- 
 raphers. ^ To the Honorable John P. Kennedy, 
 his first literary friend, he always expressed 
 the most unbounded gratitude on every occa- 
 sion. In a letter dated Richmond, Va., Jan- 
 uary 22, 1836, after speaking of his restored 
 health and bright prospects, he says : ''I shall 
 never forget to whom all this happiness is, in 
 a great degree to be attributed. I know with- 
 out your timely aid I should have sunk under 
 my trials.^^ From a letter of Mr. Kennedy to 
 Poe, dated Baltimore, December 22, 1834, we 
 learn that Poe was paid only one dollar a 
 printed page for his contributions to Miss 
 Leslie's ''Souvenir," one of those namby- 
 pamby "Annuals,'' ''Keepsakes," or "Gift- 
 Books," which flourished in England and the 
 United States between 1830 and 1850. 
 
 The amazing growth of Poe's fame is shown 
 by the extraordinary prices that the first edi- 
 tions of his works command in the book auc- 
 
 287 
 
Cl)e Poc Cult 
 
 tion market, and by the universal interest in 
 everything connected with his. works, and es- 
 pecially with his life. One of the tests of an 
 enduring literary rank is that of cosmopolitan 
 approval. That Poe stands this test is shown 
 by his rank as a world-poet. An American 
 writer, who is not especially noted for bestow- 
 ing indiscriminate praise — Prof. William P. 
 Trent, of Columbia University — declares that 
 Poe is a 'Trince in the Court of Fame,'' and 
 that the 'Talm of immortality is upon his 
 head." 
 
 Naturally, the great occasion of the Poe 
 Centennial caused many articles to be pub- 
 lished about the poet in the newspapers and 
 magazines. Most of these articles were in- 
 spired by either ignorance, indifference, or in- 
 justice. It is a singular fact that, even at this 
 late day, when so much has been written about 
 Poe, it is impossible for the average writer 
 to tell the simple truth about him. The poet's 
 portrait, as drawn by the press, resembles a 
 ruined palace attempted to be restored by un- 
 skillful apprentices, in which stately columns 
 stand in the midst of ghastly desolation, and 
 once beautiful frescoes are bespattered with 
 mud. 
 
 The early biographers of Poe were actuated 
 by envy and malice, and invented lies to 
 
 288 
 
CDe poe Cult 
 
 blacken his name and cloud his fame. No of- 
 fence was too grave, no crime too monstrous 
 for the diabolical ingenuity of his enemies to 
 lay at his door. The world read, wondered, 
 and believed. The devil's work that the im- 
 mortally infamous Griswold did was in accept- 
 ing the position of Poe's biographer and edi- 
 tor, when his heart was full of hate and malice. 
 The law of biography is that the best should 
 be told, and when this false biographer told 
 the evil things about Poe, the world believed 
 that he had made the best of a bad story ; and, 
 thus an injustice was done to Poe that still 
 overshadows his memory. Dr. Goldwin Smith, 
 in the garrulousness of old age, prates of Poe 
 as being untrue to his art. Either Dr. Smith 
 has not read Poe's works, or he has outlived 
 the capability of understanding them. All 
 readers of Poe know that he was true to his 
 art even in his slightest story, and this fidelity 
 has caused him to be regarded as one of the 
 most artistic writers that has enriched the 
 literature of the world. 
 
 The most laughable ignorance about Poe 
 was displayed by a writer who claims to be a 
 relative of the poet. A magazine of some 
 standing was found easy enough to publish 
 this absurd article in which Baltimore is 
 claimed as the birthplace of the author of 
 
 289 
 
^f)t poe Cult 
 
 ''The Raven/' Baltimore was, undoubtedly, 
 the right place for the birthplace of our poet, 
 but, unfortunately, fate decreed that he was 
 born in Boston, a city which he heartily de- 
 spised. The article under discussion contains 
 scarcely a correct statement; I have neither 
 time nor space to mention all of them. These 
 will suffice: speaking of the present Holliday 
 Street Theatre, Baltimore, she says, ''fifty 
 years ago a noble player folk thronged its 
 board. There in the dim ago, stood young 
 Elizabeth Arnold, afterward the mother of 
 Edgar Allan Poe.'' The old Holliday Street 
 Theatre was not opened until the Spring of 
 1812, months after Elizabeth Poe's death; it 
 was burned down on the loth of September, 
 1873, ^^d the present theatre erected, so "fifty 
 years ago, a noble player folk" could not have 
 "thronged its boards." In a rambling sort of 
 a way the article goes on to speak of Poe's 
 "wanderings in Greece and Turkey." All in- 
 telligent readers know that Poe never went to 
 Greece and Turkey. She further says that 
 "Mrs. Allan died while Poe was at West 
 Point." In fact, Mrs. Allan died on the 28th 
 of February, 1829, and Poe did not enter West 
 Point until July i, 1830. She says "Mrs. 
 Clemm died only a few years ago." Mrs. 
 Clemm died on February 16, 1871. She says 
 
 290 
 
€:bt Poe Cult 
 
 John p. Kennedy, one of the committee who 
 awarded the prize to Poe, ''was, afterward, 
 Postmaster General under President Tyler/' 
 He was nothing of the kind — he was Secretary 
 of the Navy under President Fillmore. Speak- 
 ing of Poe's strange, mysterious death, she 
 says, "on the night of October 4, 1849, he ar- 
 rived in Baltimore from Richmond, by train." 
 On the contrary, he left Richmond by boat and 
 arrived in Baltimore on the morning of the 3d 
 of October. She says, further, that he ''was 
 drugged by Plug Uglies, by whom he was 
 voted around the city." In fact, the political 
 roughs known as Plug Uglies were not heard 
 of in Baltimore until nearly ten years after 
 Poe's death, that is to say, about 1857. Again, 
 she says he "was found on the steps of the old 
 Baltimore Museum, corner of Baltimore and 
 Calvert Streets." He was found at the Fourth 
 Ward polls, on Lombard Street, between High 
 and Exeter Streets. She says he "was fol- 
 lowed to the grave by Mrs. Clemm and a few 
 classmates." Mrs. Clemm did not know of his 
 death until after he was buried, and only one 
 of his classmates attended the funeral — Z. Col- 
 lins Lee, afterward Judge of the Superior 
 Court of Baltimore. She calls Sarah Helen 
 Whitman Sarah Osgood Whitman. The ar- 
 ticle, from beginning to end, is a tissue of er- 
 
 291 
 
Clje poe Cult 
 
 rors. How such stuff gets printed would be a 
 w^onder did we not know how profoundly ig- 
 norant is the run of magazine editors. 
 
 Amid the almost universal paeans of praise, 
 of national pride, and international apprecia- 
 tion evoked by the Centennial of the birthday 
 of Edgar A. Poe, a few discordant notes were 
 heard, piped by puny, petty, petulant men and 
 women, who are either grossly ignorant of the 
 poet's life and works, or envious of his splendid 
 fame. While these few shallow, discredited 
 American critics employed falsehood, insinua- 
 tion, and vituperation in a vain attempt to be- 
 little their own poet, the English reviewers 
 celebrated the centenary of Poe's birth by ar- 
 ticles distinguished by rare and discriminating 
 appreciation, by fine literary style, exquisite 
 culture, and ripe scholarship. 
 
 As a specimen of the narrow-minded spirit 
 still prevailing in some portions of this coun- 
 try, it is only necessary to quote the language 
 of Professor Arthur D. Hadley, of Yale Uni- 
 versity, in attempting to explain the second re- 
 jection of Poe for a place in the so-called Hall 
 of Fame: ''Because nearly everything he 
 wrote reads like the work of a man who was 
 occasionally intemperate, and who did not 
 habitually pay his debts." 
 
 292 
 
Clje poc Cult 
 
 What folly! What supreme ignorance! 
 How convincing such a statement is that your 
 college professor, outside of his own narrow 
 sphere, is the most ignorant of men, excepting 
 a police officer. 
 
 Strange that men so fastidious in regard to 
 the moralities could conscientiously vote for 
 Henry Ward Beecher, or Ralph Waldo Emer- 
 son, who pronounced John Brown a ''saint,'' 
 or John Greenleaf Whittier, who was an 
 avowed Abolitionist. Poe's scorn of mediocre 
 men would have made him unwilling to be in 
 such ill-sorted company as this absurd attempt 
 at an American Valhalla has gathered to- 
 gether by the votes of ignorant and prejudiced 
 electors. 
 
 All true friends of Poe should rejoice at the 
 colossal stupidity which has kept him out of 
 this incongruous and heterogeneous mess. Can 
 we imagine a French Hall of Fame without 
 Victor Hugo — an English Hall of Fame with- 
 out Byron — a German Hall of Fame without 
 Goethe ? And Poe was an archangel of virtue 
 compared with these famous men. 
 
 The asinine conduct of the electors of our 
 so-called Hall of Fame inspired the blind-poet 
 of the South, Father Tabb, to write this 
 quatrain : 
 
 293 
 
€:bt poe Cult 
 
 Into the charnal Hall of Fame 
 
 None but the dead should go; 
 Then carve not there the living name 
 
 Of Edgar Allan Poe. 
 
 Some men have been foolish enough to say- 
 that Shakespeare was no poet. Shallow, nar- 
 row-minded critics have said that Poe was no 
 genius. The world has decided otherwise. Ig- 
 norant people have said that Poe's wonderful 
 poems and tales v/ere the work of a madman 
 or a drunkard. It is a well-known fact that 
 crazy people believe all others insane. The 
 conclusion is irresistible that those persons who 
 say Poe was mad because he wrote such mar- 
 velous poems and tales are themselves fit sub- 
 jects for the lunatic asylum, or the strait- 
 jacket. As to those splendid works emanating 
 from the brain of a drunkard, I have only to 
 say that it would be wxll to supply some of the 
 present American authors with the same brand 
 of whisky that inspired Poe so that our litera- 
 ture would be more worthy of our place as 
 the foremost nation of the world. 
 
 Compared with his detractors, Poe's genius 
 is that of the electric search light to a tallow 
 candle. The small fry of American literature 
 cannot harm the author of ''The Raven" by 
 their malice and mendacity : he is too far above 
 them to be hit by their pointless arrows. 
 
 When Alexander the Great was asked 
 
 294 
 
Cfte Poe Cult 
 
 whether he would contend at the Olympian 
 Games, he answered royally: ''Yes, if Kings 
 are my antagonists/' So, I claim that Edgar 
 A. Poe should be judged by his peers, if any 
 can be found, and not by the small fry of 
 American literature, such as some of those who 
 have bobbed up in this his centennial year. 
 
 A handful of fanatics, mad with impotent 
 rage, rush out of the desert, and hurl their 
 javelins at the Pyramids. The furious fanat- 
 ics retire, in confusion, to their desert home, 
 leaving the Pyramids unharmed by their futile 
 frenzy. They stand, the imperishable monu- 
 ments of the ancient, and the admiration of 
 the modern, world. So the fame of Edgar A. 
 Poe has outlived the vicious but impotent at- 
 tacks of envy, stupidity, imbecility, and medioc- 
 rity. 
 
 Availing himself of the universal interest in 
 Poe on account of his centennial, an obscure 
 writer in Scrihner's Magazine attempted to 
 dress himself in a little brief notoriety by at- 
 tacking a literary artist whose intellectual 
 shoes he is not worthy to loose. We all know 
 who Edgar Poe is, but who is this obscure 
 scribbler — what has he done in literature that 
 quahfies him to judge such a man as the au- 
 thor of ''The Raven''? He shall not enjoy 
 even the unenviable infamy of Griswold, for 
 
 295 
 
Cfie Poe Cult 
 
 he is one of the unknown writers whom the 
 world will willingly let die. Careful research 
 and systematic investigation having exposed 
 the lies told of Poe by his earlier biographers, 
 later writers have attempted to depreciate his 
 genius, but, in this they have succeeded, not 
 in endangering Poe's fame, for that is world- 
 wide, but simply in writing themselves down as 
 being of the long-eared kind, to use no harsher 
 term. Poe's Works stand, and will ever stand 
 as the imperishable monuments of his rare and 
 remarkable genius. There they are. They ' 
 cannot be written out of the world's literature 
 by the puny attacks of ignorant, malicious, and 
 jealous scribblers. Unfortunate would it be 
 for American literature should the impotent 
 ravings of such poor creatures be heeded. 
 
 I determined not to lend even my mite to 
 keep alive the ignoble names of the later de- 
 famers of Poe. One journal of imfamous his- 
 tory opened its columns to articles inspired by 
 jaundiced imbecility, premeditated malice, and 
 vulgar spite. Oh, for the powerful pen of 
 Poe to strike down these wretched scribblers 
 who, in their mad jealousy, have assailed the 
 master-genius of American literature in the 
 hour of his glory. One of these writers is so 
 ignorant of American literary biography that 
 he speaks of Poe as a native of Virginia, and 
 
 296 
 
Ciie poe Cult 
 
 of the exquisite Maryland poet, Edward C. 
 Pinkney, as a South CaroHnian! Think of 
 such an ignoramus having the audacity to at- 
 tempt to behttle Edgar A. Poe, whose genius 
 is the admiration of two continents and the 
 glory of his own ! Think of such a man dar- 
 ing to speak of Poe's stories, which have filled 
 the world with wonder, as ''apprenticepieces r 
 Think of such a man who writes rubbish which 
 no intelligent person can read, and which have 
 long since been thrown on the trash pile — 
 think of such a man, who has no more imagina- 
 tion than a street-digger — having the supreme 
 insolence to say that Poe has no imagination, 
 when all the world has wondered at his aston- 
 ishing imagination ! Think of such a man hav- 
 ing the effrontery to say that ''this generation 
 is doing work entirely surpassing Poe's in 
 beauty/' Where is this wonderful work? 
 Certainly not in this fellow's terrible trash. 
 Poe's works are eagerly read sixty years after 
 his death, while it is impossible to read this 
 fellow's realistic rubbish, although he is still 
 alive. He, also, says that the ''leading maga- 
 zines of the present day would not have Poe, 
 if he were writing now, and the theatres would 
 no more have Shakespeare." No doubt, the 
 magazines that print his stuff would not 
 "have" Poe's fine, artistic work. He says, 
 
 297 
 
bt Poe Cult 
 
 further, he could not give his whole heart to 
 more than three or four of his pieces, and in 
 these not to above a stanza or two/' He says" 
 of "The Raven'' itself, I would wilHngly part 
 with far the greater portion, and I would be- 
 stow in charity the untouched entirety of the 
 'Ulalumes,' and Xenores,' and 'Annabel Lees,' 
 and others of that make, but I should like to 
 keep for myself . . . nearly all of the 
 poem, 'To Helen,' because of two lines: 
 
 To the glory that was Greece 
 And the grandeur that was Rome. 
 
 Such criticism is worthy of a crude, shallow, 
 uncultured mind — to depreciate the exquisite 
 gems which the world has admired for over 
 sixty years, and to praise two lines of a juve- 
 nile poem written at the age of fourteen ! It is 
 a silly, transparent, mean attempt to destroy 
 Poe's poetical reputation, but such criticism is 
 taken for what it is worth by the reading pub- 
 lic, and it is worth nothing at all. Literature 
 to me is a ''dainty goddess," and I cannot bear 
 to see it drest in the garb of imbeciles and pre- 
 tenders. 
 
 In striking contrast with the disparaging 
 tone of some so-called American critics was the 
 exalted praise bestowed upon Poe by European 
 scholars and critics. An eminent French 
 
 298 
 
Cfte poe Cult 
 
 writer, Teodor de Wyzewn, declares in the 
 Revue des Deux Mondes, that 'Toe's verse is 
 the most magnificent which the EngHsh lan- 
 guage possesses, and his poems masterpieces 
 of emotion and music/' Baudelaire makes 
 American materialism responsible for Poe's 
 misfortunes. He is not very complimentary 
 in speaking of our country, saying ''this bar- 
 barity — referring to America — crushed, villi- 
 fied, murdered him/' Poe, according to Bau- 
 delaire, "in this seething mass of mediocrity 
 and commonplace, cared only for the excep- 
 tional, and painted it with rare beauty and ex- 
 quisite art/' Another French writer, Barbey 
 d'Aurevilly, treats Poe as "the most beautiful 
 thing which that off scouring of humanity — 
 America — has produced/' Poe, stranded "on 
 that desert waste was trampled to death by 
 the elephantine feet of American materialism/' 
 Still another Frenchman, Peladan, in his in- 
 troduction to a translation of Poe's Poems, at- 
 tacks this land "without civilization, without 
 art, without nationality, without a language, 
 as the murderer of the greatest genius of the 
 nineteenth century/' 
 
 Twenty-three editions of Poe's Works have 
 been published in France where he is regarded 
 as a native writer. This unique distinction 
 makes him a world-poet. 
 
 299 
 
Cl>e Poe Cult 
 
 Among German scholars, Poe enjoys the 
 first place as poet and prose writer. Dr. Eric 
 Schmidt, of the University of Berlin, sees in 
 Poe's works ''the rare union of the boldest 
 fancy and the keenest intelligence.'' Professor 
 Wulker, of the University of Leipsic, pro- 
 nounces him ''the first poet of North America/' 
 Dr. William Victor, of the University of Mar- 
 burg, says, "the cultivated world owes much 
 to Poe's genius." England is equally enthu- 
 siastic. Swinburne, her leading poet, speaks of 
 Poe's "strong and delicate genius — so sure of 
 aim, and faultless of touch, in all the better and 
 finer part of work he has left us." He adds : 
 "I take leave to express my firm conviction 
 that, widely as the fame of Poe has already 
 spread, and deeply as it is already rooted in 
 Europe, it is even now growing wider and 
 striking deeper as time advances; the surest 
 presage that time, the eternal enemy of small 
 and shallow reputations, will prove, in this 
 case also, the constant and trusty keeper of a 
 true poet's full-grown fame." Maurice Hew- 
 lett writes, "Nothing that I could say could add 
 to Edgar Poe's fame. So far as Europe is 
 concerned, he is sure of his immortality." 
 Israel Zangwell says, "while nobody has been 
 able to imitate his poetry, his prose has cre- 
 ated a school in France, in Germany, and in 
 
 300 
 
Cf)e Poe Cult 
 
 England/' George Bernard Shaw places Poe 
 above Tennyson, Dickens, Thackeray, and 
 speaks of his ''superb distinction'' as an author, 
 and pronounces him ''the most classical of 
 modern writers." Walter A. Raleigh, of Ox- 
 ford University, writes "I have the profound- 
 est admiration for Poe, and his influence on 
 European literature has been enormous." 
 
 A writer in the Nation of January 14, 1909, 
 Curtis H. Page, declares emphatically that 
 Poe "is vastly superior to all his American 
 rivals for fame, as an artist pure and simple, 
 whether in the short story, or in verse. There- 
 fore, he is the one American who has been ac- 
 cepted and acclaimed by the majority of intel- 
 ligent Frenchmen." 
 
 After all of these magnificent tributes to 
 Poe's genius, the discordant croakings of his 
 detractors will have no more effect upon the 
 established fame of our poet than the hooting 
 of a night-owl has upon the destiny of nations. 
 
 TH:e lEND. 
 
 301 
 
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 By Susan Archer Weiss. 
 Home Life of Poe (3d ed.) 1.50 
 
 By Irving Wilson Voorhees, M.D. 
 Teachings of Thomas Henry Huxley (2d ed.) . i.oo 
 
 By Mrs. Annie Riley Hale. 
 Rooseveltian Fact and Fable i.oo 
 
 By Hon. D. W. Higgins. 
 The Mystic Spring 1.5© 
 
 By Edith NichoU Ellison. 
 The Burnt-Offering 1^5 
 
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