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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17389-8.txt b/17389-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c355d5a --- /dev/null +++ b/17389-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10959 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Dreamer, by Mary Newton Stanard + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Dreamer + A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe + + +Author: Mary Newton Stanard + + + +Release Date: December 25, 2005 [eBook #17389] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMER*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci, and +the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +THE DREAMER + +A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe + +by + +MARY NEWTON STANARD +(Author of "The Story of Bacon's Rebellion") + + + + + + + + "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which + escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions + they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to + find they have been upon the verge of the great secret." + + --_Edgar Allan Poe, in "Eleanora"_ + + + + +Richmond, Virginia +The Bell Book and Stationery Company +1909 +Copyright 1909 +By Mary Newton Stanard + + + +[Illustration: THE HERMITAGE PRESS +Bindery of L.H. Jenkins +Richmond, Va.] + + + + + In the Sacred Memory + of + My Father and Mother + + + + + +TO THE READER + + +This study of Edgar Allan Poe, poet and man, is simply an attempt to +make something like a finished picture of the shadowy sketch the +biographers, hampered by the limitations of proved fact, must, at best, +give us. + +To this end I have used the story-teller's license to present the facts +in picturesque form. Yet I believe I have told a true story--true to the +spirit if not to the letter--for I think I have made Poe and the other +persons of the drama do nothing they may not have done, say nothing they +may not have said, feel nothing they may not have felt. In many +instances the opinions, and even the words I have placed in Poe's mouth +are his own--found in his published works or his letters. + +I owe much, of course, to the writers of Poe books before and up to my +time. Among these, I would make especial and grateful acknowledgment to +Mr. J.H. Ingram, Professor George E. Woodberry, Professor James A. +Harrison and Mrs. Susan Archer Weiss. + +But more than to any one of his biographers, I am indebted to Poe +himself for the revelations of his personality which appear in his own +stories and poems, the most part of which are clearly autobiographic. + +M.N.S. + + + + +THE DREAMER + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +The last roses of the year 1811 were in bloom in the Richmond gardens +and their petals would soon be scattered broadcast by the winds which +had already stripped the trees and left them standing naked against the +cold sky. + +Cold indeed, it looked, through the small, smoky window, to the eyes of +the young and beautiful woman who lay dying of hectic fever in a dark, +musty room back of the shop of Mrs. Fipps, the milliner, in lower Main +Street--cold and friendless and drear. + +She was still beautiful, though the sparkle in the great eyes fixed upon +the bleak sky had given place to deep melancholy and her face was +pinched and wan. + +She knew that she was dying. Meanwhile, her appearance as leading lady +of Mr. Placide's company of high class players was flauntingly announced +by newspaper and bill-board. + +The advertisement had put society in a flutter; for Elizabeth Arnold Poe +was a favorite with the public not only for her graces of person and +personality, her charming acting, singing and dancing, but she had that +incalculable advantage for an actress--an appealing life-story. It was +known that she had lately lost a dearly loved and loving husband whom +she had tenderly nursed through a distressing illness. It was also known +that the husband had been a descendant of a proud old family and that +the same high spirit which had led his grandfather, General Poe, +passionately denouncing British tyranny, to join the Revolutionary Army, +had, taking a different turn with the grandson, made him for the sake of +the gifted daughter of old England who had captured his heart--actress +though she was--sever home ties, abandon the career chosen for him by +his parents, and devote himself to the profession of which she was a +chief ornament. A brief five years of idylic happiness the pair had +spent together--happiness in spite of much work and some tears;--then +David Poe had succumbed to consumption, leaving a penniless widow with +three children to support. The eldest, a boy, was adopted by his +father's relatives in Baltimore. The other two--a boy of three years in +whom were blended the spirit, the beauty, the talent and the ardent +nature of both parents, and a soft-eyed, cooing baby girl--were clinging +about their mother whenever she was seen off the stage, making a picture +that was the admiration of all beholders. + +The last roses of the year would soon be gone from the gardens, but Mrs. +Fipps' windows blossomed gallantly with garlands and sprays more +wonderful than any that ever grew on tree or shrub. Not for many a long +day had the shop enjoyed such a thriving trade, for no sooner had the +news that Mr. Placide's company would open a season at the theatre been +noised abroad than the town beaux addressed themselves to the task of +penning elegant little notes inviting the town belles to accompany them +to the play, while the belles themselves, scenting an opportunity to +complete the wreck of masculine hearts that was their chief business, +addressed themselves as promptly to the quest of the most ravishing +theatre bonnets which the latest Paris fashions as interpreted by Mrs. +Fipps could produce. As that lady bustled back and forth among her +customers, her mouth full of pins and hands full of ribbons, feathers, +flowers and what not, her face wore, in spite of her prosperity, an +expression of unusual gravity. + +_She could not get the lodger in the back room off her mind._ + +Mr. Placide, who had been to see the sick woman, was confident that her +disorder was "nothing serious," and that she would be able to meet her +engagements, and charged the thrifty dealer in fashionable head-gear and +furnished rooms by no means to let the fact that the star was ill "get +out." But the fever-flush that tinged the patient's pale cheeks and the +cough that racked her wasted frame seemed very like danger signals to +good Mrs. Fipps, and though she did not realize the hopelessness of the +case, her spirits were oppressed by a heaviness that would not be shaken +off. + +Ill as Mrs. Poe, or Miss Arnold, as she was still sometimes called, was, +she had managed by a mighty effort of will and the aid of stimulants to +appear once or twice before the footlights. But her acting had been +spiritless and her voice weak and it finally became necessary for the +manager to explain that she was suffering from "chills and fevers," from +which he hoped rest and skillful treatment would relieve her and make +it possible for her to take her usual place. But she did not appear. +Gradually her true condition became generally known and in the hearts of +a kindly public disappointment gave place to sympathy. Some of the most +charitably disposed among the citizens visited her, bringing comforts +and delicacies for her and presents for the pretty, innocent babes who +all unconscious of the cloud that hung over them, played happily upon +the floor of the dark and bare room in which their mother's life was +burning out. Nurse Betty, an ample, motherly soul, with cheeks like +winter apples and eyes like blue china, and a huge ruffled cap hiding +her straggly grey locks from view--versatile Betty, who was not only +nurse for the children and lady's maid for the star, but upon occasion +appeared in small parts herself, hovered about the bed and ministered to +her dying mistress. + +As the hours and days dragged by the patient grew steadily weaker and +weaker. She seldom spoke, but lay quite silent and still save when +shaken by the torturing cough. On a Sunday morning early in December she +lay thus motionless, but wide-eyed, listening to the sounds of the +church-bells that broke the quiet air. As the voice of the last bell +died away she stirred and requested, in faint accents, that a packet +from the bottom of her trunk be brought to her. When this was done she +asked for the children, and when Nurse Betty brought them to the bedside +she gave into the hands of the wondering boy a miniature of herself, +upon the back of which was written: "For my dear little son Edgar, from +his mother," and a small bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon. She +clasped the baby fingers of the girl about an enameled jewel-case, of +artistic workmanship, but empty, for its contents had, alas, gone to pay +for food. She then motioned that the little ones be raised up and +allowed to kiss her, after which, a frail, white hand fluttered to the +sunny head of each, as she murmured a few words of blessing, then with a +gentle sigh, closed her eyes in her last, long sleep. + +The baby girl began to whimper with fright at the suddenness with which +she was snatched up and borne from the room, and the boy looked with awe +into the face of the weeping nurse who, holding his sister in one arm +dragged him away from the bedside and out of the door, by the hand. +There was much hurried tramping to and fro, opening and closing of doors +and drawing to of window-blinds. These unusual sounds filled the boy +with a vague fear. + +That night the children were put to bed upon a pallet in Mrs. Fipps' own +room and Mrs. Fipps herself rocked the baby Rosalie to sleep and gave +the little Edgar tea-cakes, in addition to his bread and milk, and told +him stories of Heaven and beautiful angels playing upon golden harps. +The next day the children were taken back to their mother's room. The +shutter to the window which let in the one patch of dim light was now +closed and the room was quite dark, save for two candles that stood upon +stands, one at the foot, the other at the head of the bed. The air was +heavy--sickening almost--with the odor of flowers. Upon the bed, all +dressed in white, and with a wreath of white roses on her dark ringlets, +lay their mother, with eyelids fast shut and a lovely smile on her +lips. She was very white and very beautiful, but when her little boy +kissed her the pale lips were cold on his rosy ones, as if the smile had +frozen there. It was very beautiful but the boy was a little frightened. + +"Mother--" he said softly, pleadingly, "Wake up! I want you to wake up." + +The weeping nurse placed her arm around him and knelt beside the bed. + +"She will never wake up again here on earth, Eddie darling. +Never--nevermore. She has gone to live with the angels where you will be +with her some day, but never--nevermore on earth." + +With that she fell to weeping bitterly, hiding her face on his little +shoulder. + +The child, marvelling, softly repeated, "Nevermore--nevermore." The +solemn, musical word, with the picture in the dim light, of the sleeping +figure--asleep to wake nevermore--and so white, so white, all save the +dusky curls, sank deep into his young mind and memory. His great grey +eyes were wistful with the beauty, and the sadness, and the mystery of +it all. + +The next day the boy rode in a carriage with Mrs. Fipps and Nurse Betty +who had left off the big white cap and was enveloped from head to foot +in black, up a long hill, to a white church in a churchyard where the +grass was still green between the tombstones. The bell in the white +steeple was tolling slowly, solemnly. Soft grey clouds hung over the +steeple and snow-flakes as big as rose-leaves began to fill the air. +Presently the bell ceased tolling and he and Nurse Betty moved up the +aisle behind a train of figures in black, with black streamers floating +from their sleeves. The figures bent beneath a heavy burden. It was long +and black and grim, but the flowers that covered it were snow-white and +filled the church with a sweet smell. A white-robed figure led the way +up the aisle, repeating, as he walked, some words so solemn and full of +melody that they sounded almost like music. The church was dim, and +quiet, and nearly empty. The organ began to play--oh, so softly! It was +very beautiful, but still the boy shuddered, for he dimly realized that +the grim box held the sleeping form that seemed to be his mother, but +was not his real mother. _Her_ kisses were not frozen, and _she_ was in +Heaven with the angels. + +The choir sang sweet music and the white-robed priest said more solemn +words that were like spoken music; then the procession moved slowly down +the aisle again and out of the door. The bell in the steeple was silent +now, and the organ was silent. Silently the procession moved--silently +the snow came down. Silently and softly, like white flowers. The green +graves were white with it now, like the flowers on the coffin lid; but +the open grave in the churchyard corner, near the wall--it was dark, and +deep and terrible! The boy's heart almost stood still as, clinging to +Nurse Betty's hand, he stared into its yawning mouth. He felt that he +would choke--would suffocate. They were lowering the box into that deep, +dark pit! What if the sleeping figure should awake, after all--awake to +the darkness and narrowness of that narrow bed! + +With a piercing shriek the child broke from his nurse's hand and thrust +himself upon the arm of one of the black figures who held the ropes, in +a wild effort to stay him; then, still shrieking, was borne from the +spot. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Since it seems you have set your heart upon this thing, I do not forbid +it; but remember, you are acting in direct opposition to my judgment and +advice, and if you ever live to regret it (as I believe you shall) you +will have no one but yourself to blame." + +John Allan's voice was harsher, more positive, than usual; his shoulders +seemed to square themselves and a frowning brow hardened an always +austere face. His whole manner was that of a man consenting against his +will. His young wife hung over his chair vainly endeavoring to smooth, +with little pats of her fair hands, the stubborn locks that _would_ +stand on end, like the bristles of a brush, whatever she did. Her soft +and vivacious beauty was in striking contrast to the strength and +severity of his rugged and at the same time distinguished countenance. +His narrow, steel-blue eyes, deep sunk under bushy brows and a high, but +narrow, forehead, were shrewd and piercing; his nose was large and like +a hawk's beak. His face too, was narrow, with cheek-bones high as an +Indian's. His mouth was large, but firmly closed, and the chin below it +was long and prominent and was carried stiffly above the high stock and +immaculate, starched shirt-ruffles. Her figure, as she leaned against +the chair's high back, was slender and girlish,--childish, almost, in +its low-necked, short-waisted, slim-skirted, "Empire" dress, of some +filmy stuff, the pale yellow of a Marshal Niel rose. Her face was a +pure oval with delicate, regular features. Her reddish-brown hair, +parted in the middle, was piled on top of her small head, and airy +little curls hung down on her brow on either side of the part. Her +eyes--the color of her hair--were gentle and sweet and her mouth was +tenderly curved and rosy. With her imploring attitude, the sweetness of +her eyes and mouth and the warmth of her plea, her fresh beauty glowed +like a flower, newly opened. All unmoved, John Allan repeated, + +"You will have no one but yourself to blame." + +Her ardor undimmed by the chariness of the consent she had gained, she +showered the lowering brow with cool, delicate little kisses until it +grew smooth in spite of itself. + +"Oh, I know I never shall regret it, John," she cooed. "He is such a +beautiful boy--so sweet and affectionate, so merry and clever! Just what +I should like our own little boy to be, John, if God had blessed us with +one." + +"I grant you he seems a bonny little lad enough, Frances. But I realize, +as it seems you do not, the risk of undertaking to rear as your own the +child of any but the most unquestionable parentage. I confess the +thought of introducing into my family the son of professional players is +extremely distasteful to me." + +"But John, dear, you know these Poes were not ordinary players. The +father was one of the Maryland Poes and I understand the mother came of +good English stock. She certainly seemed to be a lady and a good, sweet +woman, poor thing! The Mackenzies have decided to adopt the baby +Rosalie, though they have children, as you know; and with this charming +little Edgar for my very own I shall be the happiest woman alive." + +"Well, well, keep your pretty little pet, but if he turns out to be +other than a credit to you, don't forget that you were warned." + + * * * * * + +And so the little Edgar Poe--the players' child--became Edgar Allan, +with a fond and admiring young mother who became at once and forever his +slave and whose chief object in life henceforth was to stand between him +and the discipline of a not intentionally harsh or unkind, but strict +and uncompromising father; who though he too was fond of the boy, in a +way, and proud of his beauty and little accomplishments, was constantly +on the lookout for the cloven foot which his fixed prejudice against the +child's parentage made him certain would appear. + +In her delight over her acquisition, Frances Allan was like a child with +a new toy. She almost smothered him with kisses when, accepting her +bribe of a spaniel pup and his pockets full of sugar-kisses, he agreed +to call her "Mother." With her own fingers she made him the quaintest +little baggy trousers, of silk pongee, and a velvet jacket, and a tucker +of the finest linen. His cheap cotton stockings were discarded for +scarlet silk ones, and for his head, "sunny over with curls" of bright +nut-brown, she bought from Mrs. Fipps, the prettiest peaked cap of +purple velvet, with a handsome gold tassel that fell gracefully over on +one shoulder. Thus arrayed, she took him about town with her to show +him to her friends who were ecstatic in their admiration of his pensive, +clear-cut features, his big, grey eyes and his nut-brown ringlets; of +his charming smile and the frank, pretty manner in which he gave his +small hand in greeting. + +"Oh, but you should hear him recite and sing," the proud foster-mother +would say. "And he can dance, too." + +She gave a large dinner-party just to exhibit the accomplishments of her +treasure--actually standing him upon the table when it had been cleared, +to sing and recite for the guests. Even her husband unbent so far as to +applaud vigorously the modest, yet self-possessed grace with which the +mite drank the healths of the assembled company--making a neat little +speech that his new mother had taught him. + +The boy's young heart responded to the affection of the foster-mother to +a certain degree; but, mere baby though he was, his real heart lay deep +in the grave on the hill-top, where the earthly part of that other +mother was lying so still, so white, with the roses on her hair and the +frozen smile on her lips. + +The churchyard on the hill was but a short distance away from his new +home, and as spring opened, became a favorite resort of nurses and +children. The negro "mammy" who had replaced Nurse Betty used often to +take him there, and often, as she chatted with other mammies, her charge +would wander from her side to the grave against the wall, where he would +stretch his small body full length upon the turf and whisper the +thoughts of his infant mind to the dear one below; for who knew but +that, even down under ground she might be glad to hear, through her +white sleep, her little boy's words of love and remembrance--though +never, nevermore she could see him on earth. He would even imagine her +replies to him, until the conversations with her became so real that he +half believed they were true. + +At night, when bed-time came, he said his prayers at the knee of his +pretty new mother, who told him jolly stories and sang him jolly songs, +and patted him and soothed him with caresses which he found very +agreeable, and accepted graciously. But he always took the miniature +which had been his dying mother's parting gift to bed with him and he +was glad when the new mother kissed him goodnight and put out the light +and softly closed the door behind her; for it was then, with the picture +close against his breast, that the visions came to him--the visions of +angels making sweet music upon golden harps and among them his lost +mother, with her sweet face saddened but made sweeter still by that +thought of nevermore. + +Oh, that wondrous word nevermore! Its music charmed him, its +hopelessness filled and thrilled him with a strange, a holy sorrow, in +which there was no pain. + +With the lovely vision still about him, the picture still clasped to his +breast, he would sink into healthful sleep to wake on the morrow a +bright, joyous boy, alive to all the pleasures of the new +day--delighting in the beauties of blue sky and sunshine, of whispering +tree and opening flower, ready for sport with his play-fellows and his +pets, and full of all manner of merry pranks and jokes. For in the frame +of this small boy there dwelt two distinct personalities--twin +brothers--yet as utterly unlike as strangers and foreigners, thinking +different thoughts, speaking different languages, and dominating +him--spirit and body--by turns. One of these we will call Edgar +Goodfellow--Edgar the gay, the laughter-loving, the daring, the real, +live, wholesome, normal boy; keen for the society of other boys and +liking to dance, to run, to jump, to climb, even to fight. The other, +Edgar the Dreamer, fond of solitude and silence and darkness, for they +aided him to wander far away from the everyday world to one of make +believe created by himself and filled with beings to whom real people +were but as empty shadows; but a world that the death and burial of his +beautiful and adored young mother and the impression made upon him by +those scenes, had tinged with an eternal sadness which hung over it as a +veil. + +The life of Edgar the Dreamer was filled with the subtle charm of +mystery. It was a secret life. The world in which he moved was a secret +world--an invisible world, to whose invisible door he alone held the +key. Edgar the Dreamer was himself an invisible person, for the only +outward difference between him and his twin brother, Edgar Goodfellow, +lay in a certain quiet, listless air and the solemn look in his big, +dark grey eyes which his playmates--bored and intolerant--took as +indications that "Edgar was in one of his moods," and his +foster-father--eyeing him keenly and with marked displeasure--as an +equally unmistakable indication that he was "hatching mischief." + +There were times when in the midst of the liveliest company this +so-called "mood" would possess the child. He would fall silent; his +mouth would become pensive, his dark grey eyes would seem to be +impenetrably veiled; his chin would drop upon his hand; he would seem +utterly forgetful of his surroundings. The familiar Edgar--Edgar +Goodfellow--would have given place to Edgar the Dreamer, who though +apparently of the company, would really have slipped through that +invisible portal and wandered far afield with the playmates of his +fancy. + +At such times Mrs. Allan would say, "Eddie, what are you thinking +about?" And brought back to her world with a jolt, the boy would answer +quickly (somewhat guiltily it seemed to Mr. Allan--noting the startled +expression), + +"Nothing." It was his first lie, and a very little one, but one that was +often repeated; for he that would guard a secret must be used to +practice deception. + +Mr. Allan would say, "Wake up, wake up, child! Only the idle sit and +stare at nothing and think of nothing. You'll be growing up an idle, +trifling boy if you give way to such a habit." + +Between the Allans and Edgar the Dreamer a great gulf lay--for how +should a dreamer of day-dreams reveal himself to any not of his own +tribe and kind? Upon Edgar Goodfellow Mrs. Allan doted. All of her +friends agreed with her that so remarkable a child--one so precocious +and still so attractive--had never been seen, and Mr. Allan was +secretly, as proud of his wrestling, running, riding and other out-door +triumphs as his wife was of his pretty parlor accomplishments. Their +friends agreed too, that she made him the best of mothers, barring the +fact (for which weakness she was excusable--he was such a love!) that +she spoiled him, and perhaps permitted him to rule her too absolutely. +Was he grateful? Oh, well, that would come in time. Appreciation was not +a quality to be expected in children, and what more natural than that +the boy should accept as a matter of course the good things which she +made plain it was her chief pleasure in life to shower upon him? She was +indeed, as good a mother as it was possible for a mother without a +highly developed imagination to be. + +A most lovely woman was Frances Allan, justly admired and liked by all +who knew her. She was pretty and gracious and sunny-tempered and +sweet-natured; charitable--both to society and the poor--and faithful to +her religious duties. Withal, a notable house-keeper, given to +hospitality, fond of "company" and gifted in the art of making her +friends feel at home under her roof. If she was not gifted with a lively +imagination she did not know it, and so had not missed it. As Mr. +Allan's wife she had not needed it. And so she lavished upon Edgar +Goodfellow everything that heart could wish. She delighted to provide +him with pets and toys and good things to eat, and to fill his little +pockets with money for him to spend upon himself or upon treating his +friends. Fortunately, the other Edgar--Edgar the Dreamer--was not +dependent upon her for his pleasures, for the beauties of sky and river +and garden and wood which nourished his soul were within his own reach. + +If Mrs. Allan had known Edgar the Dreamer, she would have been puzzled +and alarmed. If Mr. Allan had known him he would have been angry. A man +of action was John Allan. A canny Scotchman he, who owed his success as +a tobacco merchant to energy and strict attention to business. If there +were dreams in the bowl of the pipe, there was no room for them in the +counting-house of a thrifty dealer in the weed. Meditation had no part +in his life--was left out of his composition. He believed in _doing_. +Day-dreaming was in his opinion but another name for idling, and idling +was sin. + +The son of their adoption vaguely realized the lack of kinship--the +impossibility of contact between his nature and theirs, and as time went +on drew more and more within himself. The life of Edgar the Dreamer +became more and more secret. So often however, did the warning against +his idle habit fall upon his ears that the plastic conscience of +childhood made note of it--confusing the will of a blind human guardian +with that of God. The Eden of his dreams, guarded by the flaming sword +of his foster-father's wrath, began to assume the aspect (because by +parental command denied him) of an evil place--though none the less +sweet to his soul--and it was with a consciousness of guilt that he +would steal in and wander there. + +Thus the habit that nurtured God-given genius, branded as sin, and +forbidden, might have been broken up, altogether or in part, had not the +special providence that looks after the development of this rare exotic +transplanted it to a more fertile soil--a more congenial clime. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Upon a mellow September afternoon three years after the newspapers had +announced the death, in Richmond, Virginia, of Elizabeth Arnold, the +popular English actress, generally known in the United States as Mrs. +Poe, the ancient town of Stoke-Newington, in the suburbs of London, +dozing in the shadows of its immemorial elms, was aroused to a mild +degree of activity by the appearance upon its green-arched streets of +three strangers--evidently Americans. It was not so much their +nationality as a certain distinguished air that drew attention upon the +dignified and proper gentleman in broadcloth and immaculate linen, the +pretty, gracious-seeming and fashionably dressed lady and especially the +little boy of six or seven summers with the large, wistful eyes and pale +complexion, and chestnut ringlets framing a prominent, white brow and +tumbling over a broad, snowy tucker. He wore pongee knickerbockers and +red silk stockings and on his curls jauntily rested a peaked velvet cap +from which a heavy gold tassel fell over upon his shoulder. + +The denizens of old Stoke-Newington gazed upon this prosperous trio with +frank curiosity; the reader has already recognized John Allan and his +wife, Frances, and little Edgar Poe--their adopted child. + +The sun was still hot, and the refreshing chill in the dusky street, +under its arch of interlacing boughs, was grateful to the tired little +traveller. As he moved along, clinging to Mrs. Allan's hand, his big +eyes gazing as far as they might up the long, cool aisle the trees made, +the hazy green distance invited his mystery-loving fancy. The odors of a +thousand flowering shrubberies were on the air and he felt that it was +good to be in this dreaming old town--as old, it seemed to him, as the +world; and there was born in him at that moment, though he could not +have defined it, a sense of the picturesquesness, the charm, the +fragrance, of old things--old streets, old houses, old trees, old turf +and shrubberies, even--with their haunting suggestions of bygone days +and scenes. + +They passed the ancient Gothic church, standing solemn and serene among +its mossy tombs. In the misty blue atmosphere above the elms the fretted +steeple seemed to the boy to lie imbedded and asleep, but even as he +gazed upon it the churchbell, sounding the hour, broke the stillness +with a deep, hollow roar which thrilled him with mingled awe and +delight. + +Ah, here indeed, was a place made for dreaming! + +In the midst of the town lay the Manor House School where the scholarly +Dr. Bransby, who preached in the Gothic church on Sundays, upon +week-days instructed boys in various branches of polite learning--and +also frequently flogged them. This school was the destination of the +three strangers from America, for here the foundations of young Edgar's +education were to be laid during the several years residence of his +foster-parents in London, in which city the boy himself would pass his +holidays and sometimes be permitted to spend week-ends. + +The ample grounds of the school were enclosed from the rest of the town +by a high and thick brick wall, dingy with years, which seemed to frown +like a prison wall upon the grassy and pleasantly shaded freedom +without. At one corner of this ponderous wall was set a more ponderous +gate, riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged +iron spikes. As the boy passed through it he trembled with delicious awe +which was deepened by the ominous creak of the mighty hinges. He fancied +himself entering upon a domain of mystery and adventure where all manner +of grim and unearthly monsters might cross his pathway to be wrestled +with and destroyed. The path to the house lay through a small parterre +planted with box and other shrubs, and beyond stretched the playgrounds. + +As for the house itself, that appeared to the eyes of the boy as a +veritable palace of enchantment. It was a large, grey, rambling +structure of the Elizabethan age. Within, it was like a labyrinth. Edgar +wondered if there were any end to its windings and incomprehensible +divisions and sub-divisions--to its narrow, dusky passages and its steps +down and up--up and down; to its odd and unexpected nooks and corners. +Scarce two rooms seemed to him to be upon the same level and between +continually going down or up three or four steps in a journey through +the mansion upon which Dr. Bransby guided him and his foster-parents, +the dazed little boy found it almost impossible to determine upon which +of the two main floors he happened to be. It was afterward to become a +source of secret satisfaction to him that he never finally decided upon +which floor was the dim sleeping apartment to which he was introduced +soon after supper, and which he shared with eighteen or twenty other +boys. + +The business of formally entering the pupil about whom the Allans and +Dr. Bransby had already corresponded, in the school, was soon +dispatched, and once more the iron gate swung open upon its weirdly +complaining hinges, then went to again with a bang and a clang, and the +little boy from far Virginia, with the wistful grey eyes and the sunny +curls was alone in a throng of curious school-fellows, and in the +dimness, the strangeness, the vastness of a hoary, mysterious mansion +full of echoes, and of quaint crannies and closets where shadows lurked +by day as well as by candle-light. Alone, yet not unhappy--for Edgar the +Dreamer was holding full sway. With the departure of his foster-father, +all check was removed from his fancy which could, and did, run riot in +this creepy and fascinating old place, and at night he had to comfort +him the miniature of his mother from which he had never been parted for +an hour, and which he still carried to bed with him with unfailing +regularity. + +He had always known that his mother was English-born, and somehow, in +his mind, there seemed to be some mystic connection between this ancient +town and manor house and the green graveyard in Richmond, with its +mouldy tombstones and encompassing wall. + + * * * * * + +Not until the next morning was the new pupil ushered into the +school-room--the largest room in the world it seemed to the small, +lonely stranger. It was long, narrow and low-pitched. Its ceiling was +of oak, black with age, and the daylight struggled fitfully in through +pointed, Gothic windows. Built into a remote and terror-inspiring corner +was a box-like enclosure, eight or ten feet high, of heavy oak, like the +ceiling, with a massy door of the same sombre wood. This, the newcomer +soon learned was the "sanctum" of the head-master--the Rev. Dr. +Bransby--whose sour visage, snuffy habiliments and upraised ferule +seemed so terrible to young Edgar that on the following Sunday when he +went to service in the Gothic church, it was with a spirit of deep +wonder and perplexity that he regarded from the school gallery the +reverend man with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy +and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and +so vast, who, with solemn step and slow, ascended the high pulpit. + +Interspersed about the school-room, crossing and recrossing in endless +irregularity, were benches and desks, black, ancient and time-worn, +piled desperately with much bethumbed books, and so beseamed with +initial letters, names at full length, grotesque figures and other +multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have lost what little of original +form might have been their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket +with water stood at one extremity of the room and a clock, whose +dimensions appeared to the boy to be stupendous, at the other. + +But it was not only Edgar the Dreamer who came to Manor House School, +who passed out of the great iron gate and through the elm avenues to the +Gothic church on Sundays, and who regularly, on two afternoons in the +week, made a decorous escape from the confinement of the frowning walls, +and in company with the whole school, in orderly procession, and duly +escorted by an usher, tramped past the church and into the pleasant +green fields that lay beyond the quaint houses of the village. Edgar +Goodfellow was there too--Edgar the gay, the frolicsome, the lover of +sports and hoaxes and trials of strength. + +Upon the evening of the young American's arrival, his schoolmates kept +their distance, regarding him with shy curiosity, but by the recess hour +next day this timidity had worn off, and they crowded about him with the +pointed questions and out-spoken criticisms which constitute the +breaking in of a new scholar. The boy received their sallies with such +politeness and good humor and with such an air of modest dignity, that +the wags soon ceased their gibes for very shame and the ring-leaders +began to show in their manner and speech, an air of approval in place of +the suspicion with which they had at first regarded him. + +When the questions, "What's your name?"--"How old are you?"--"Where do +you live?" "Were you sick at sea?"--"What made you come to this school?" +"How high can you jump?"--"Can you box?" "Can you fight?"--and the like, +had been promptly and amiably answered, there was a lull. The silence +was broken by young Edgar himself. Drawing himself up to the full height +of his graceful little figure and thumping his chest with his closed +fist, he said, "Any boy who wants to may hit me here, as hard as he +can." + +The boys looked at each other inquiringly for a moment--they were +uncertain, whether this was a specimen of American humor or to be taken +literally. Presently the largest and strongest among them stepped +forward. He was a stalwart fellow for his years, but his excessively +blond coloring, together with the effeminate style in which his mother +insisted upon dressing him, caused the boys to give him the name of +"Beauty," which was soon shortened into "Beaut," and had finally become +"the Beau." + +"Will you let _me_ hit you?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied Edgar. "Count three and hit. You can't hurt me." + +As "the Beau" counted, "One--two--three"--Edgar gently inflated his +lungs, expanding his chest to its fullest extent, and then, at the +moment of receiving the blow, exhaled the air. He did not stagger or +flinch, though his antagonist struck straight from the shoulder, with a +brawny, small fist. + +The rest of the boys, in turn, struck him--each time counting +three--with the same result. Finally "the Beau" said, + +"_You_ hit _me_." + +Edgar counted, "One--two--three"--and struck out with clenched fist, but +"the Beau" not knowing the trick, was promptly bowled over on the +grass--the shock making quick tears start in his forget-me-not blue +eyes. + +The boys were, one and all, open and clamorous in their admiration. + +"Pshaw," said young Edgar, indifferently. "It's nothing. All the boys in +Virginia can do that." + +"Can you play leap-frog?" asked "Freckles"--a wiry looking little +fellow, with carotty locks and a freckled nose, whose leaping had +hitherto been unrivalled. + +"I'll show you," was the reply. + +Instantly, a dozen backs were bent in readiness for the game, and over +them, one by one, vaulted Edgar, with the lightness of a bird, his brown +curls blowing out behind him, as his baggy yellow thighs and thin red +legs flew through the air. + +"Freckles" magnanimously owned himself beaten at his own game. + +"Let's race," said "Goggles"--a lean, long-legged, swathy boy, with a +hooked nose and bulging, black eyes. + +Like a flash, the whole lot of them were off down the gravel walk, under +the elms. Edgar and "Goggles"--abreast--led for a few moments, then +Edgar gradually gained and came out some twenty feet ahead of "Goggles," +and double that ahead of the foremost of the others. + +It was not only these accomplishments in themselves that made the +American boy at once take the place of hero and leader of his form in +this school of old England, but the quiet and unassuming mien with which +he bore his superiority--not seeming in the least to despise the weakest +or most backward of his competitors, and good-humoredly initiating them +all into the little secrets of his success in performing apparently +difficult feats. + +It was the same way with his lessons. Without apparent effort he +distanced all of his class-mates and instead of pluming himself upon it, +was always ready to help them with their Latin or their sums, whose +answers he seemed to find by magic, almost. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +During the winter before Edgar went to Stoke-Newington, he had attended +an "infant school," in Richmond, taught by a somewhat gaunt, but +mild-mannered spinster, with big spectacles over her amiable blue eyes, +a starchy cap and a little bunch of frosty cork-screw curls on each side +of her face. As a child, she had played with Mr. Allan's father on their +native heath, in Ayrshire, and to her, little Edgar was always her "ain +wee laddie." She had spoiled him inordinately and unblushingly. Also, as +she contentedly drew at the pipe filled with the offerings of choice +smoking-tobacco which he frequently turned out of his pockets into her +lap, she had taught him to read in her own broad Scottish accent, and to +cypher. + +She had furthermore drilled him in making "pothooks and hangers," with +which he covered his slate in neat rows, daily. But it was at the Manor +House, in Stoke-Newington, that he was initiated into the mysteries of +writing. His hands were as shapely as a girl's, with deft, taper fingers +that seemed made to hold a pen or brush, and he soon developed a neat, +small, but beautifully clear and graceful hand-writing. + +This new accomplishment became at once a delight to him, and as time +went on opened a new world to Edgar the Dreamer, who now began, when he +could snatch an opportunity to do so unobserved, to put down upon paper +the visions of his awakening soul. Sometimes these scribblings took the +form of little stories--crudely conceived and incoherently expressed, +but rich in the picturesque thought and language of an exceptionably +imaginative and precocious child. Sometimes they were in verse. For +subjects these infant effusions had generally to do with the lonely +grave in the churchyard in Richmond and the sad joy of the heart that +mourns evermore; with the beauty of flowers--the more beautiful because +doomed to a brief life; with the Gothic steeple, asleep in the still, +blue air, and the bell in whose deep iron throat dwelt a note that was +hollow and ghostly; with the great wall around the Manor House grounds +and with the mighty gate that swung upon hinges in which the voice of a +soul in torment seemed to be imprisoned, and with other things which +filled him with a terror that + + "was not fright, + But a tremulous delight." + +His learning to write bore still another fruit. + +When Mrs. Allan had first adopted him and set apart a room in her home +for him, she had placed in a little cabinet therein the packet of +letters his dying mother had given him. She had not opened the packet, +for she felt that the letters were for the actress's child's eye alone. +He, when he looked at it, did so with a feeling of mixed reverence and +fascination which was deepened by his inability to decipher the secrets +bound together by the bit of blue ribbon tied around it. How the sight +of the packet recalled to him that sad, that solemn hour in which it +had been given into his hands! When getting him ready for +boarding-school, Mrs. Allan had packed the letters with his other +belongings, for she was a woman of sentiment, and she felt the child +should not be parted from this gift of his dying mother. But at length, +when a knowledge of writing made it possible for him to read the +letters, he was possessed with a feeling of shrinking from doing so, as +one might shrink from opening a message from the grave. + +What grim, what terrible secrets, might not the little bundle of letters +reveal! + +It was not until his fifth and last year at Stoke-Newington that Edgar +decided one day to look into the packet. He was confined to his bed by +slight indisposition and so had the dormitory to himself and could risk +opening the letters without fear of interruption. He untied the blue +ribbon and the thin, yellowed papers, with fragments of their broken +seals still sticking to them, fell apart. He picked up the one bearing +the earliest date and began to read. It was from his father to his +mother immediately after their betrothal. His interest was at once +intensely aroused and in the order in which the letters came, he read, +and read, and read, with the absorption with which he might have read +his first novel. They were a revelation to him--a revelation of a world +he had not known existed, though it seemed, it lay roundabout him--these +love-letters of his parents, literally throbbing with the exalted +passion of two young, ardent, poetic spirits. The boy had not dreamed +that anything so beautiful could be as this undying love of which they +wrote and the language in which they made their sweet vows to each +other. His own heart throbbed in answer to what he read. His imagination +was violently wrought upon and exquisite feelings such as he had never +known before awakened in his breast. + +Under the spell of the letters the child-poet fell in love--not with any +creature of flesh and blood, for his entire acquaintance and association +was with boys--but with the ideal of his inner vision. From that time, +his poetic outbursts came to be filled with--more than aught else--the +surpassing beauty, the worshipful goodness, the divine love of woman. He +was a naturally reverent boy, but for these more than mortal beings, as +they appeared to his fancy, was reserved the supreme worship of his +romantic soul. Indeed, the adoration of his ideal woman--perfect in +body, in mind and in soul, became, and was to be always, a religion to +him. + +To imagine himself rescuing from a dark prison tower, hid in a deep +wood, or from a watery grave in a black and rock-bound lake, at +midnight, some lovely maiden whose every thought and heart-beat would +thenceforth be for him alone--this became the entrancing inward vision +of Edgar the Dreamer--the poet--the lover, at whom Edgar Goodfellow with +whisper as insistent as the voice of Conscience, scoffed and sneered, +seeking to make him ashamed; but all in vain. + +Of course it was to follow, as the night the day, that the boy would +find someone in whom to dress his ideal. Upon a Sunday soon after his +falling in love, he saw the very maiden of his dreams in the flesh. It +was in the Gothic church. From the remote pew in the gallery where he +sat with his school-mates, he looked down upon a wonderful vision of +white and gold in one of the principal pews of the main aisle. Clad all +in white and with a shower of golden tresses falling over her shoulders, +she was like a glorious lily or a holy angel. Her eyes, uplifted in the +rapture of worship, he divined, rather than saw, were of the hue of +heaven itself. He loved her at once, with all his soul's might. Her +name? Her home? These were mysteries--sacred mysteries--whose +unfathomableness but added to her charm. + +After that, service in the Gothic church was a much more important event +to The Dreamer than before--an event looked forward to with trembling +from Sunday to Sunday. After that too, upon his periodical week-day +walks with the school, he would look up at the quaint old homesteads +they passed, with their hedged gardens, ivied walls and sweet-scented +shrubberies, and try to guess which was the house-wonderful in which she +dwelt. Then suddenly, one sweet May afternoon, he discovered it. + +It was, as was fitting, the most antique, the most distinguished mansion +of them all. He saw her through the bars of the stately entrance gate as +she sat beside her mother, on a garden-seat, tying into nosegays the +flowers that filled her lap. Stupified by the shock of the discovery, he +stood rooted to the ground, letting his school-mates go on ahead of him. +She was much nearer him than she had been in the dusky church, and upon +closer view, she seemed even more lovely, more flower-like, more angelic +than ever before. He stared upon her face with a gaze so compelling +that she looked up and smiled at him; then, with sudden impulse, +gathered her flowers in her apron, and running forward, handed him +through the gate, a fragrant, creamy bud that she happened at the moment +to have in her hand. + +As in a dream, he stretched his fingers for it. He tried to frame an +expression of thanks, but his lips were dry and though they moved, no +sound came. She had returned at once to her seat beside her mother, and +the voice of the usher (who had just missed him) sharply calling to him +to "Come on!" was in his ears. He hurried forward, trembling in all his +limbs. Twice he stumbled and nearly fell. The bud, he had quickly hidden +within his jacket--it was too holy a thing for the profane eyes of his +school-fellows to look upon. + +When strength and reason came back to him he was like a new being. +Happiness gave wings to his feet and he walked on air. A divine song +seemed to be singing in his ears. Mechanically, he went through the +regular routine of school, with no difference that others could see. To +himself, heart and soul--detached and divorced from his body--seemed +soaring in a new and beautiful world in which lessons and teachers had +no place, no part. Whenever it was possible for him to do so unobserved, +he would snatch the rose from his bosom and kiss and caress it. He only +lived to see Sunday come round. + +But on the next Sunday and the next she was absent from her accustomed +place. Such a thing had not happened before since he had first seen her. +He was filled with the first real anxiety he had ever known. Here was a +mystery in which there was no charm! + +The Wednesday after the second Sunday upon which he had missed her was a +day dropped out of heaven. The mild, early summer air that floated +through the open windows into the gloomy, oak-ceiled schoolroom, was +ambrosial with the breathings of flowers. Young Edgar could not fix his +thoughts upon the page before him. The out-of-door world was calling to +him. He found himself listening to the birds in the trees outside and +gazing through the narrow, pointed windows at the waving branches. + +Suddenly his heart stopped. The deep, sweet, hollow, ghostlike voice of +the bell in the steeple, tolling for a funeral, was borne to his ears. +In a moment his fevered imagination associated the tolling with the +absence of his divinity from her pew, and in spite of passionately +assuring himself that it could not be, and recalling how lovely and full +of health she had been when he saw her through the gate, he was +possessed by deep melancholy. + +The days and hours until Sunday seemed an age to him--an age of +foreboding and dread--but they at last passed by. In a fever of anxiety, +he walked with the rest of the boys to church, and mounted the steps to +the school gallery. + +It was early; few of the worshippers had arrived, but in a little while +there was a stir near the door. A group of figures shrouded in the black +habiliments of woe were moving up the aisle--were entering _her_ pew, +from which alas, _she_ was again absent! + +_Then he knew_--knew that she would enter that sacred place +_nevermore_! + +After the service there were inquiries as to the cause of a commotion in +the gallery occupied by the Manor House School, and it was said in reply +that the weather being excessively hot for the season, one of the boys +had fainted. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The June following young Edgar's eleventh birthday found him in Richmond +once more. The village-like little capital was all greenery and roses +and sunshine and bird-song and light-hearted laughter, and he felt, with +a glow, that it was good to be back. + +In the five years of his absence he had grown quite tall for his age, +with a certain dignity and self-possession of bearing acquired from +becoming accustomed to depend upon himself. All that was left of the +nut-brown curls that used to flow over his shoulders were the clustering +ringlets that covered his head and framed his large brow. His absence +had also wrought in him other and more subtle changes which did not +appear to the friends who remarked upon what a great boy he had grown--a +maturity from having lived in another world--from having had his +thoughts expanded by new scenes and quickened by the suggestions of +historic association and surroundings. + +But with his return, England and Stoke-Newington sank into the +shadowy past--their spell weakened, for the time being, by the +thought-absorbing, heart-filling scenes of which he had now become a +part. The years at the Manor House School were as a dream--_this_ was +the real thing--_this_ was Home. _Home_--ah, the charm of that word and +all it implied! His heart swelled, his eyes grew misty as he said it +over and over to himself. The clatter of drays "down town" was like +music in his ears, the dusty streets of the residential section were +fair to his eyes for old time's sake. How he loved the very pavement +under his feet, rough and uneven as it was; how dearly he loved the +trees that he had climbed (and would climb again) which stretched their +friendly boughs over his head! + +In a state of happy excitement he rushed about town, visiting his old +haunts to see if they were still there, and "the same." + +"Comrade," his brown spaniel--his favorite of all his pets--had grown +old and sober and had quite forgotten him, but his love was soon +reawakened. The boys he had played with, too, had almost forgotten him, +but his return called him to mind again and put them all in a flutter. A +boy who had lived five years on the other side of the ocean and had been +to an English boarding school, was not seen in Richmond every day. Mrs. +Allan gave him a party to which all of the children in their circle were +invited. In anticipation of this, he had purchased in London, out of the +abundance of pocket-money with which his doting foster-mother always saw +to it he was provided, a number of little gifts to be distributed among +the boys at home. These, with the distinction his travels gave him, made +him the man of the hour among Richmond children. And how much he had to +tell! At Stoke-Newington it was always the boys at home that were the +heroes of the stories he spun by the yard for the entertainment of his +school-fellows--the literal among whom had come to believe that there +was no feat a Virginia boy could not perform. Now that he was in +Richmond, the Stoke-Newington boys themselves loomed up as the +wonder-workers, and his playmates listened with admiration and with such +expression as, "Caesar's ghost!"--"Jiminy!"--"Cracky!" and the like, as +he narrated his tales of "Freckles," "Goggles," "the Beau," and the +rest. + +One of his first visits after reaching home was to his old black +"Mammy," in the tiny cottage, with its prolific garden-spot, on the +outskirts of the town, in which Mr. Allan had installed her and her +husband, "Uncle Billy," before leaving Virginia. + +"Mammy" was expecting him. With one half of her attention upon the white +cotton socks she was knitting for her spouse and the other half on the +gate of her small garden through which her "chile" would come, she sat +in her doorway awaiting him. She was splendidly arrayed in her new +purple calico and a big white apron, just from under the iron. Her +gayest bandanna "hankercher" covered her tightly "wropped" locks from +view and the snowiest of "neckerchers" was crossed over her ample bosom. +Her kind, black countenance was soft with thoughts of love. + +"Uncle Billy," too, was spruced for the occasion. Indeed, he was quite +magnificent in a "biled shut," with ruffles, and an old dresscoat of +"Marster's." His top-boots were elaborately blacked, and a somewhat +battered stove-pipe hat crowned his bushy grey wool. Each of the old +folks comfortably smoked a corn-cob pipe. + +"Mammy" saw her boy coming first. She could hardly believe it was +he--he was so tall--but she was up and away, down the path, in a flash. +Half-way to the gate that opened on the little back street, she met him +and enveloped him at once in her loving arms. + +"Bless de Lord, O my soul!" she repeated over and over again in a sort +of chant, as she held him against her bosom and rocked back and forth on +her broad feet, tears of joy rolling down her face. + +"De probable am returned," announced Uncle Billy, solemnly. + +"G'long, Billy," she said, contemptuously. "He ain' no _probable_. He +jes' Mammy's own li'l' chile, if he _is_ growed so tall!" + +"I'se only 'peatin' what de Good Book say," replied Uncle Billy, with +dignity. + +Edgar was crying too, and laughing at the same time. + +"Howdy, Uncle Billy," said he, stretching a hand to the old man as soon +as he could extricate himself from Mammy's embrace. "My, my, you do look +scrumptious! How's the rheumatiz?" + +"Now jes' heah dat! Rememberin' uv de ole man's rheumatiz arter all dis +time!" exclaimed the delighted Uncle Billy. "'Twus mighty po'ly, +thankee, li'l Marster, but de sight o' you done make it better a'ready. +I 'clar 'fo' Gracious, if de sight of you wouldn' be good for so' eyes! +Socifyin' wid dem wile furren nations ain' hu't you a bit--'deed it +ain't!" + +"How did you expect them to hurt me, Uncle Billy?" asked Edgar, +laughing. + +"I was 'feard dey mought make a _Injun_, or sum'in' out'n you." + +"G'long, Billy," put in his wife, with increased contempt, "Marse Eddie +ain' been socifyin' wid no Injuns--he been socifyin' wid kings an' +queens' settin' on dey thrones, wid crowns on dey haids an' spectres in +dey han's! Come 'long in de house, Honey, an' set awhile wid Mammy." + +As they crossed the threshold of the humble abode, Edgar looked around +upon its familiar, homely snugness with satisfaction--at the huge, +four-post bed, covered with a cheerful "log cabin" quilt made of scraps +of calico of every known hue and pattern; at the white-washed walls +adorned with pictures cut from old books and magazines; at the "shelf," +as Mammy called the mantel-piece, with its lambrequin of scallopped +strips of newspaper, and its china vases filled with hundred-leaf roses +and pinks; at the spotless bare floor and homemade split-bottomed +chairs; at the small, but bright, windows, with their rows of geraniums +and verbenas, brilliantly blooming in boxes, tin-cans and broken-nosed +tea-pots. + +Almost all that Mammy could say was, + +"Lordy, Lordy, Honey, how you has growed!" Or, "Jes' to think of Mammy's +baby sech a big boy!" + +Presently a shadow crossed her face. "Honey," she said, "You gittin' to +be sech a man now, you won't have no mo' use fur po' ole Mammy. Dar +won't be a thing fur her to do fur sech a big man-chile." + +"Don't you believe that, for a minute, Mammy," was the quick reply. "I +was just wondering if you had forgotten how to make those good +ash-cakes." + +"Now, jes' listen to de chile, makin' game o' his ole Mammy!" she +exclaimed. "Livin' so high wid all dem hifalutin' kings an' queens an' +sech, an' den comin' back here an' makin' ten' he wouldn' 'spise Mammy's +ash-cakes!" + +"I'm in dead earnest, Mammy. Indeed, indeed and double deed, I am. Kings +and queens don't have anything on their tables half as good as one of +your ash-cakes, with a glass of cool butter-milk." + +"Dat so, Honey?" she queried, with wonder. "Den you sho'ly shall have +some, right away. Mammy churn dis ve'y mornin', and dars a pitcher of +buttermilk coolin' in de spring dis minute. You des' make you'se'f at +home an' I'll step in de kitchen an' cook you a ash-cake in a jiffy. +Billy, you pick me some nice, big cabbage leaves to bake it in whilst +I'm mixin' de dough, an' den go an' git de butter-milk an' a pat o' dat +butter I made dis mornin' out'n de spring." + +Edgar and Uncle Billy followed her into the kitchen where she deftly +mixed the corn-meal dough, shaped it in her hands into a thick round +cake, which she wrapped in fresh cabbage leaves and put down in the hot +ashes on the hearth to bake. Meantime the following conversation between +Edgar and the old "Uncle:" + +"Uncle Billy do you ever see ghosts now-adays?" + +"To be sho', li'l' Marster, to be sho'. Sees 'em mos' any time. Saw one +las' Sunday night." + +"What was it like, Uncle Billy?" + +"Like, Honey?--Like ole Mose, dat's what t'wus like. Does you 'member +Mose whar useter drive de hotel hack?" + +"Yes, he's dead isn't he?" + +"Yes, suh, daid as a do' nail. Dat's de cur'us part on it. He's daid an' +was buried las' Sunday ebenin'--buried deep. I know, 'ca'se I wus dar +m'se'f. But dat night when I had gone to bed an' wus gittin' off to meh +fus' nap, I was woke up on a sudden by de noise uv a gre't stompin' an' +trompin' an snortin' in de road. I jump up an' look out de winder, an' I +'clar' 'fo' Gracious if dar warn't Mose, natchel as life, horses an' +hack an' all, tearin' by at a break-neck speed. I'se seed many a ghos' +an' a ha'nt in meh time, uv _humans_, but dat wus de fus' time I uver +heard tell uv a horse or a hack risin' f'um de daid. 'Twus skeery, +sho'!" + +Before Edgar had time for comment upon this remarkable apparition, Mammy +set before him the "snack" she had prepared of smoking ash-cake and +fresh butter, on her best china plate--the one with the gilt band--and +placed at his right hand a goblet and a stone pitcher of cool +butter-milk. A luncheon, indeed, fit to be set before royalty, though it +is not likely that any of them ever had such an one offered them--poor +things! + +Edgar did full justice to the feast and was warm in his praises of it. +Then, before taking his leave, he placed in Mammy's hands a parcel +containing gifts from the other side of the water for her and Uncle +Billy. There is nothing so dear to the heart of an old-time negro as a +present, and as the aged couple opened the package and drew out its +treasures, their black faces fairly shone with delight. Mammy could not +forbear giving her "chile" a hug of gratitude and freshly springing +love, while Uncle Billy heartily declared, + +"De Lord will sho'ly bless you, li'l' Marster, fur de Good Book do +p'intedly say dat He do love one chufful giver." + + * * * * * + +To young Edgar's home-keeping playmates, he seemed to be the luckiest +boy in the world, and indeed, his brief existence had been up to this +time, as fortunate as it appeared to them. Even the beautiful sorrow of +his mother's death had filled his life with poetry and brought him +sympathy and affection in abundant measure. + +But bitterness was soon enough to enter his soul. His thoughts from the +moment of his return to Richmond, had frequently turned to the white +church and churchyard on the hill--and to the grave beside the wall. +Thither he was determined to go as soon as he possibly could, but it was +too sacred a pilgrimage to be mentioned to anyone--it must be as secret +as he could make it; and so he must await an opportunity to slip off +when he would be least apt to be missed. He chose a sultry afternoon +when Mr. and Mrs. Allan were taking a long drive into the country. He +waited until sunset--thinking there would be less probability of meeting +anyone in the churchyard after that hour than earlier--and set out, +taking with him a cluster of white roses from the summer-house in the +garden. + +It was nearly dusk when he reached the church and climbed the steps that +led to the walled graveyard, elevated above the street-level. Never had +the spot looked so fair to him. The white spire, piercing the blue sky, +seemed almost to touch the slender new moon, with the evening star +glimmering by her side. The air was sweet with the breath of roses and +honeysuckle, and the graves were deeply, intensely green. Long he lay +upon the one by the wall, near the head of which he had placed his white +roses--looking up at the silver spire and the silver star and the moon's +silver bow--so long that he forgot the passage of time, and when he +reached home and went in out of the night to the bright dining-room, +blinking his great grey eyes to accustom them to the lamp-light, supper +was over. + +The keen eyes of John Allan looked sternly upon him from under their +fierce brows. The boy saw at once that his foster-father was very angry. + +"Where have you been?" he demanded, harshly. + +"Nowhere," replied the boy. + +"What have you been doing all this time?" + +"Nothing," was the answer. + +"Nowhere? Nothing? Don't nowhere and nothing me, Sir. Those are the +replies--the lying replies--of a boy who has been in mischief. If you +had not been where you shouldn't have been, and doing as you shouldn't +have done, you would not be ashamed to tell. Now, Sir, tell me at once, +where you have been and what you have been doing?" + +The boy grew pale, but made no reply, and in the eyes fixed on Mr. +Allan's face was a provokingly stubborn look. The man's wrath waxed +warmer. His voice rose. In a tone of utter exasperation he cried, "Tell +me at once, I say, or you shall have the severest flogging you ever had +in your life!" + +The boy grew paler still, and his eyes more stubborn. A scowl settled +upon his brow and a look of dogged determination about his mouth, but +still he spoke not a word. + +Mrs. Allan looked from one to the other of these two beings--husband and +son--who made her heart's world. The evening was warm and she wore a +simple white dress with low neck and short sleeves. Anxiety clouded her +lovely face, yet never had she looked more girlishly sweet--more +appealing; but the silent plea in her beautiful, troubled eyes was lost +on John Allan, much as he loved her. + +"Tell him, Eddie dear," she implored. "Don't be afraid. Speak up like a +man!" + +Still silence. + +She walked over to the table where the boy sat before the untouched +supper that had been saved for him, and dropped upon one knee beside +him. She placed her arm around him and drew him against her gentle +bosom--he suffering her, though not returning the caress. + +"Tell _me_, Eddie, darling--tell Mother," she coaxed. + +The grey eyes softened, the brow lifted. "There's nothing to tell, +Mother," he gently replied. + +Mr. Allan rose from his chair. "I'll give you five minutes in which to +find something to tell," he exclaimed, shaking a trembling finger at the +culprit; then stalked out of the room. + +In his absence his wife fell upon the neck of the pale, frowning child, +covering his face and his curly head with kisses, and beseeching him +with honeyed endearments, to be a good boy and obey his father. But the +little figure seemed to have turned to stone in her arms. In less than +the five minutes Mr. Allan was back in the room, trimming a long switch +cut from one of the trees in the garden as he came. + +"Are you ready to tell me the truth?" he demanded. + +No answer. + +Still trimming the switch, he approached the boy. Frances Allan +trembled. Rising from the child's side, she clasped her husband's arm in +both her hands. + +"Don't, John! Don't, please, John dear. I can't stand it," she breathed. +He put her aside, firmly. + +"Don't be silly, Frances. You are interfering with my duty. Can't you +see that I must teach the boy to make you a better return for your +kindness than lying to hide his mischief?" + +"But suppose that he is telling the truth, John, and that he has been +doing nothing worse than wandering about the streets? You know the way +he has always had of roaming about by himself, at times." + +"And do you think roaming about the streets at this time of night proper +employment for a boy of eleven? Would you have him grow up into a +vagabond? A boy dependent upon the bounty of strangers can ill afford to +cultivate such idle habits!" + +The boy's already large and dark pupils dilated and darkened until his +eyes looked like black, storm-swept pools. His already white face grew +livid. He drew back as if he had been struck and fixed upon his +foster-father a gaze in which every spark of affection was, for the +moment, dead. He had been humiliated by the threat of a flogging, but +the prospect of the hardest stroke his body might receive was as nothing +to him now. His sensitive soul had been smitten a blow the smart of +which he would carry with him to his last day. "Dependent upon the +bounty of strangers,"--_of strangers!_ + +Up to this time he had been the darling little son of an over-fond +mother, and though his foster-father had been at times, stern and +unsympathetic with him, no hint had ever before dropped from him to +indicate that the child was not as much his own as the sons of other +fathers were their own--that he was not as much entitled to the good +things of life which were heaped upon him without the asking as an own +son would have been. His comforts--his pleasures had been so easily, so +plentifully bestowed that the little dreamer had never before awaked to +a realization of a difference between his relation with his parents and +the relation of other children with theirs. Brought face to face with +this hard, cold fact for the first time, and so suddenly, he was for the +moment stunned by it. He felt that a flood of deep waters in which he +was floundering helplessly was overwhelming him. + +A deep silence had followed the last words of Mr. Allan, who continued +to trim the switch, while his wife, sinking into a chair, bowed her +face in her arms, folded upon the table, and began to cry softly. The +gentle sounds of her weeping seemed but further to infuriate her +husband. + +"Come with me," he commanded, placing his hand on the shoulder of the +child, who unresistingly suffered himself to be pushed along toward his +foster-father's room. Frances Allan broke into wild sobbing and placed +her fingers against her ears that she might not hear the screams of her +pet. But there were no screams. Silently, and with an air of dignity it +was marvellous so small a figure could command, the beautiful boy +received the blows. When one's soul has been hurt, what matters mere +physical pain? When both the strength and the passion of Mr. Allan had +been somewhat spent, he ceased laying on blows and asked in a calmed +voice, + +"Are you ready to tell me the truth now?" + +In one moment of time the child lived over again the beautiful hour at +his mother's grave. He saw again the silver spire and the silver +half-moon and the silver star--smelled the blended odors of honeysuckle +and rose, made sweeter, by the gathering dews, and felt the coolness and +freshness of the long green grass that covered the grave. Who knew but +that deep down under the sweet grass she had been conscious he was +there--had felt his heart beat and heard his loving whispers as of old, +and loved him still, and understood, though she would see him nevermore? +Share the secret of that holy hour with anyone--of all people, with this +wrathful, blind, unsympathizing man who had just confessed himself a +stranger to him? Never! + +A faint smile, full of peace, settled upon his poet's face, but he +answered never a word. + +There was a stir at the door. John Allan looked toward it. His wife +stood there drying her eyes. He turned to the boy again. + +"Go with your mother and get your supper," he commanded. + +"I don't want it," was the reply. + +"Well, go to bed then, and tomorrow afternoon you are to spend in your +own room, where I hope meditation upon your idle ways may bring you to +something like repentance." + +The boy paused half-way to the door. "Tomorrow is the day I'm going +swimming with the boys. You promised that I might go." + +"Well, I take back the promise, that's all." + +"Don't you think you've punished him enough for this time, John?" +timidly asked his wife. + +"No boy is ever punished enough until he is conquered," was the reply. +"And Edgar is far from that!" + +Mrs. Allan, with her arm about the little culprit's shoulder went with +him to his room. How she wished that he would let her cuddle him in her +lap and sing to him and tell him stories and then hear him his prayers +at her knee and tuck him in bed as in the old days before he went to +boarding-school! Her heart ached for him, though she had no notion of +the bitterness, the rebellion, that were rankling in his. As she kissed +him goodnight she whispered, + +"You shall have your swim, in the river, tomorrow, Eddie darling; I'll +see that you do." + +"Don't you ask _him_ to let me do anything," he protested, passionately. +"I'm going without asking him. He disowned me for a son, I'll disown him +for a father!" + +He loved her but he was glad when the door closed behind her so that he +could think it all out for himself in the dark--the dear dark that he +had always loved so well and that was now as balm to his bruised spirit. +The worst of it was that he could not disown John Allan as a father. He +had to confess to himself with renewed bitterness that he was indeed, +and by no fault of his own--a helpless dependent upon the charity of +this man who had, in taunting him with the fact, wounded him so +grievously. His impulse was to run away--but where could he go? Though +his small purse held at that moment a generous amount of spending money +for a boy "going on twelve," it would be a mere nothing toward taking +him anywhere. It would not afford him shelter and food for a day, and he +knew it--it would not take him to the only place where he knew he had +kindred--Baltimore. And what if he could get as far as Baltimore, would +he care to go there? To assert his independence of the charity of John +Allan only to throw himself upon the charity of relatives who had never +noticed him--whom he hated because they had never forgiven his father +for marrying the angel mother around whose memory his fondest dreams +clung? + +No, he could not disown Mr. Allan--not yet; but the good things of life +received from his hands had henceforth lost their flavor and would be +like Dead Sea fruit upon his lips. Hitherto, though he knew, of course, +that he was not the Allans' own child, he had never once been made to +feel that he was any the less entitled to their bounty. They had adopted +him of their own free will to fill the empty arms of a woman with a +mother's heart who had never been a mother, and that woman had lavished +upon him almost more than a mother's love--certainly more than a prudent +mother's indulgence. He had been the most spoiled and petted child of +his circle, and the bounty had been heaped upon him in a manner that +made him feel--child though he was--the joy that the giving brought the +giver, and therefore no burden of obligation upon himself in receiving. +If Mr. Allan had been strict to a point of harshness with him, at times, +Mr. Allan was a born disciplinarian--it seemed natural for him to be +stern and unsympathetic and those who knew him best took his stiffness +and hardness with many grains of allowance, remembering his upright life +and his open-handed charities. He had administered punishment upon the +little lad when he was naughty in the years before he went away to +school, and the little lad had taken his medicine philosophically like +other naughty boys--had cried lustily, then dried his eyes and forgotten +all about it in the pleasure which the goodies and petting he always had +from his pretty, tender-hearted foster-mother at such times gave him. +But _this_ was different. He was a big lad now--very big and old, he +felt, far too big to be flogged; quite big enough to visit his mother's +grave, if he chose, without having to talk about it. And he had not only +been flogged because he would not reveal his sacred, sweet secret, but +had had his dependence upon charity thrown up at him! + +Henceforth, he felt, his life would be a lonely one, for he now knew +that he was different from other boys, all of whom (in his acquaintance) +had fathers to whose bounty they had a right--the right of sonship. Yes, +he was a very big boy (he told himself) and he had not cried when he was +flogged, but under the cover of the kindly dark, hot tears of +indignation, hurt pride and pity for his own loneliness--his +singularity--made all his pillow wet. + +Comfort came to him from an unexpected source. The door of his room had +been closed, but not latched. It was now pushed open by "Comrade," his +old spaniel, who made straight for his side, first pushing his nose +against his face and then leaping upon the bed and nestling down close +to him, with a sigh of satisfaction. The desolate boy welcomed this +dumb, affectionate companionship. The feel of the warm, soft body, and +the thought of the velvety brown eyes which he could not see in the +dark, but knew were fixed upon him with their intense, loving gaze, were +soothing to his overwrought nerves. Here was something whose love could +be counted upon--something as dependent upon him as he was upon Mr. +Allan; yet what a joy he found in the very dependence of this devoted, +soft-eyed creature! Never would he taunt Comrade with his dependence +upon charity. + +"No;" he said, his hands deep in the silky coat, "I would not insult a +dog as he has insulted me! Never mind, Comrade, old fellow, we'll have +our swim in the river tomorrow, and he may flog me again if he likes." + + * * * * * + +But he was not flogged the next day. An important business engagement +occupied Mr. Allan the whole afternoon, and when he came in late, tired +and pre-occupied, he found Edgar fresh and glowing from his exercise in +the river, the curls still damp upon his forehead, quietly eating his +supper with his mother. _She_ knew, but tender creature that she was, +she was prepared to do anything short of fibbing to shield her pet from +another out-burst. But John Allan, still absorbed in business cares, +hardly looked toward the boy, and asked not a question. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The home of the Allans was never quite the same to Edgar Poe after that +night. A wall had been raised between him and his foster-father that +would never be scaled. He was still indulged in a generous amount of +pocket money which he invariably proceeded to get rid of as fast as he +could--lavishing it upon the enjoyment of his friends as freely as it +had been lavished upon him. He had plenty of pets and toys, went to +dancing school, in which his natural love of dancing made him delight, +and was given stiff but merry little parties, at which old Cy, the black +fiddler played and called the figures, and the little host and his +friends conformed to the strict, ceremonious etiquette observed by the +children as well as the grown people of the day. + +For these indulgences Frances Allan was chiefly responsible. The one +weak spot in the armor of austerity in which John Allan clothed himself +was his love for his wife, and it was often against what he felt to be +his better judgment that he acquiesced in her system of child-spoiling. +He felt a solemn responsibility toward the boy, and he did his duty by +him, as he saw it, faithfully. It was not in the least his fault that he +did _not_ see that under the broad white brow and sunny ringlets was a +brain in which, like the sky in a dew-drop, a whole world was reflected, +with ever changing pageantry, and that the abstracted expression in the +boy's eyes that he thought could only mean that he was "hatching +mischief," really indicated that the creative faculty in budding genius +was awake and at work. + +For a child Edgar's age to be making trials at writing poetry Mr. Allan +regarded as sheer idleness, to be promptly suppressed. Indeed, when he +discovered that the boy had been guilty of such foolishness, he +emphatically ordered him not to repeat it. To counteract the effects of +his wife's spoiling of her adopted son, he felt it his duty to place all +manner of restrictions upon his liberty, which the freedom-loving boy, +with the connivance of his mother and the negro servants who adored him, +disregarded whenever it was possible. Though bathing in the river was +(except upon rare occasions) prohibited, Edgar became before summer was +over, the most expert swimmer and diver of his years in town, and many +an afternoon when Mr. Allan supposed that he was in his room, to which +he had been ordered for the purpose of disciplining his will and +character, or for punishment, he was far beyond the city's limits +roaming the woods, the fields, or the river-banks--joyously, and without +a prick of conscience (for all his disobedience) feeding his growing +soul upon the beauties of tree, and sky, and cliff, and water-fall. + +And so, in spite of the melancholy moods in which he was occasionally +plunged by the bitterness which had found lodgment in his breast, the +summer was upon the whole a happy one to the boy. He was so young and +the world was so beautiful! He could not remember always to be unhappy. +Edgar Goodfellow, as well as Edgar the Dreamer, revelled in the world of +Out-of-Door. To the one all manner of muscular sport and exercise was +as the breath of his nostrils; to the other, whose favorite stories were +ancient myths and fairy-tales, all natural phenomena possessed vivid +personality. He loved to trace pictures in the clouds. In the rustling +of corn or the stirring of leaves in the trees, or in the sound of +running waters he heard voices which spoke to him of delightsome things, +bringing to his full, grey eyes, as he hearkened, a soft, romantic look, +and touching his lips and his cheeks with a radiant spirituality. + +The cottage, on Clay Street, to which the Allans had removed soon after +their return from England, was in a quiet part of the town. The window +of Edgar's own, quaint little room in the dormer roof, with its shelving +walls, gave him a fair view of the sky, and brought him sweet airs +wafted across the garden of old-fashioned flowers below. Here, such +hours as he spent from choice or by command were not lonely, for, +sitting by the little window, many a story or poem was thought out; or +buried in some favorite book his thoughts would be borne away as if on +wings to a world where imagination was king. + + * * * * * + +In the fall he was entered at Mr. Clarke's school. The school-room, with +its white-washed walls and the sun pouring in, unrestricted, through the +commonplace, big, bare windows, was very different from the great, +gloomy Gothic room at old Stoke-Newington--so full of mystery and +suggestion--but Edgar found it a pleasant place in which to be upon that +cool fresh morning in late September, when he made its acquaintance. He +felt full of mental activity and ready to go to work with a will upon +his Latin, his French and his mathematics. Since his return from +England, in June, he had become acquainted with most of the boys who +were to be his school-fellows, and he took at once to the school-master, +Professor Clarke, of Trinity College, Dublin--a middle-aged bachelor of +Irish birth, an accomplished gentleman and a very human creature, with a +big heart, a high ideal of what boys might be and abundant tolerance of +what they generally were. If he had a quick temper, he had also a quick +wit, and a quick appreciation of talent and sympathy with timorous +aspirations. + +It had been Master Clarke's suggestion that his new pupil, who was known +as Edgar Allan, should put his own name upon the school register. Edgar, +looking questioningly up into Mr. Allan's face, was glad to read +approval there, and with a thrill of pride he wrote upon the book, in +the small, clear hand that had become characteristic of him: + +"Edgar Allan Poe." + +He was proud of his name and proud of his father, of whom he remembered +nothing, but in whose veins, he knew, had run patriot blood, and who had +had the independence to risk all for love of the beautiful mother of +worshipped memory. It was with straightened shoulders and a high head +that he took the seat assigned him at the clumsy desk, in the bare, ugly +room of the school in which he was to be known for the first time as +_Edgar Poe_. He felt that in coming into his own name he had come into a +proud heritage. + +Mr. Clarke's Irish heart warmed toward him. He divined in the +big-browed, big-eyed boy a unique and gifted personality and proceeded +with the uttermost tact to do his best toward the cultivation of his +talents. The result was that Edgar not only acquitted himself +brilliantly in his studies, but progressed well in his verse-making, +which though, since Mr. Allan's prohibition, it had been kept secret in +his home, was freely acknowledged to teacher and school-fellows. + +By his class-mates he was deemed a wonder. He was so easily first among +them in everything--in the simple athletics with which they were +familiar, as well as in studies--and his talent for rhyming and drawing +seemed to set him upon a sort of pedestal. + +In the first blush of triumph these little successes gave him, young +Edgar's head was in a fair way to be turned. He saw himself (in fancy) +the leader, the popular favorite of the whole school. Indeed, he +flattered himself he had leaped at a single bound to this position at +the moment, almost, of his entrance. But he soon began to see that he +was mistaken. While he was conscious of the unconcealed admiration of +most, and the ill-concealed envy of a few of the boys, of his mental and +physical abilities, he began, as time went on, to suspect--then to be +sure--that for some reason that baffled all his ingenuity to fathom, he +was not accorded the position in the school that was the natural reward +for superiority of endowment and performance. This place was filled +instead by Nat Howard, a boy who, he told himself, he was without the +slightest vanity bound to see was distinctly second to him in every way. + +He noticed that whatever Nat proposed was invariably done, so that he +was forced either to follow where he should have led, or be left out of +everything. Often when he joined the boys listening with interest to +Nat's heavy jokes and talk, a silence would fall upon the company, which +in a short while would break up--the boys going off in twos and threes, +leaving him to his own society or that of a small minority composed of +two or three boys for the most part younger than himself, who in spite +of the popular taste for Nat, preferred him and were captivated by his +clever accomplishments. + +That there was some reason why he was thus shut out from personal +intimacy by school-mates who acknowledged and admired his powers he felt +sure, and he was determined to ferrit it out. In the meantime his heart, +always peculiarly responsive to affection, answered with warmth to the +devotion of the small coterie who were independent enough to swear +fealty to him. He helped them with their lessons, initiated them into +the mysteries of boxing and other manly exercises, went swimming and +gunning with them, and occasionally delighted them by showing them his +poems and the little sketches with which he sometimes illustrated his +manuscript, in the making. + +It must be confessed that there was little in these compositions to set +the world afire. They would only be counted remarkable as the work of a +school-boy in his early teens, and were practice work--nothing more. +They served their purpose, then sank into the oblivion which was their +meet destiny. But to Jack Preston, Dick Ambler, Rob Stanard and Rob +Sully, and one or two others, they were master-pieces. + +These boys, as well as Edgar, were giving serious attention to their +linen, the care of their hands, and the precise parting of their hair, +just then; and a close observer might often have detected them in the +act of furtively feeling their upper lips with anxious forefinger in the +vain hope of discovering the appearance--if ever so slight--of a downy +growth thereupon. For they, as well as he, were making sheep's eyes at +those wonderful visions in golden locks and jetty locks, with brown eyes +and blue eyes, with fluttering ribbons and snowy pinafores, known as +"Miss Jane Mackenzie's girls," who were the inspiration of most of their +poet-chum's invocations of the muse. The little hymns in praise of the +charms of these girls were generally adorned with pen or pencil sketches +of the fair charmers themselves. + +Poor Miss Jane had a sad time of it. As the accomplished principal of a +choice Young Ladies Boarding and Day School, she enjoyed an enviable +position in the politest society in town. Parents of young ladies under +her care congratulated themselves alike upon her strict rule and her +learning, her refinement of manners and conversation and her +distinguished appearance. She was tall and stately and in her decorous +garb of black silk that could have "stood alone," and an elegant cap of +"real" lace with lavender ribbons softening the precise waves of her +iron-grey hair, she made a most impressive figure--one that would have +inspired with profound respect any male creature living saving that +incorrigible non-respecter of persons and personages, especially of lady +principals--the Boy. For the "forming" of young ladies, Miss Jane had a +positive forte, but the genus boy was an unknown quantity to her, and +worse--he was a positive terror. For one of them to invade the sacred +precincts of her school, or its grounds, seemed to her maiden soul rank +sacrilege; to scale her garden wall after dark for the purpose of +attaching a letter to a string let down from a window to receive it, was +nothing short of criminal. For one of her girls to receive offerings of +candy and original poetry--_love poetry_--from one of these terrible +creatures; such an offence was unspeakably shocking. + +Yet discovery of such offences happened often enough to give her +repeated shocks, and to confirm her in her belief in the total +depravity, the hopeless wickedness of all boys--especially of John +Allan's adopted son. + +In spite of her vigilance, Edgar Poe found the means to outwit her, and +to transmit his effusions, without difficulty, to her fair charges, who +with tresses primly parted and braided and meek eyes bent in evident +absorption upon their books, were the very pictures of docile obedience, +and bore in their outward looks no hint of the guilty consciences that +should, by rights, have been destroying their peace. + +Miss Jane was the sister of Mr. Mackenzie who had adopted little Rosalie +Poe. Rosalie was, at Miss Jane's invitation, a pupil in the school, but +(ungrateful girl that she was) she became, at the suggestion of her +handsome and charming brother Edgar, whom she adored, the willing +messenger of Dan Cupid, and furthered much secret and sentimental +correspondence between the innocent-seeming girls and the young scamps +who admired them. + +In these fascinating flights into the realms of flirtation, as in other +things, Edgar's friends acknowledged his superiority--his romantic +personal beauty and his gift for rhyming giving him a decided advantage +over them all; but they acknowledged it without jealousy, for there was +much of hero worship in their attitude toward him, and they were not +only perfectly contented for him to be first in every way but it would +have disappointed them for him not to be. The captivating charm of his +presence, in his gay moods, made it unalloyed happiness for them to be +with him. They were always ready to follow him as far as he led in +daring adventure--ready to fetch and carry for him and glowing with +pride at the least notice from him. + +Some boys would have taken advantage of this state of things, but not so +Edgar Goodfellow. He, for his part, was always ready to contribute to +their pleasure, and fairly sunned himself in the unstinting love and +praise of these boys who admired, while but half divining his gifts. +Their games had twice the zest when Eddie played with them--he threw +himself into the sport with such heartfelt zeal that they were inspired +to do their best. Many a ramble in the woods and fields around Richmond +he took with them, telling them the most wonderful stories as he went +along; but sometimes, quite suddenly, during these outings, Edgar +Goodfellow would give place to Edgar the Dreamer and they would +wonderingly realize that his thoughts were off to a world where none of +them could follow--none of them unless it were Rob Sully, who was +himself something of a dreamer, and could draw as well as Edgar. + +The transformation would be respected. His companions would look at him +with something akin to awe in their eyes and tell each other in low +tones not to disturb Eddie, he was "making poetry," and confine their +chatter to themselves, holding rather aloof from the young poet, who +wandered on with the abstracted gaze of one walking in sleep--with them, +but not of them. + +There were other, less frequent, times when his mood was as much +respected, when added to the awe there was somewhat of distress in their +attitude toward him. At these times he was not only abstracted, but a +deep gloom would seem to have settled upon his spirit. Without apparent +reason, melancholy claimed him, and though he was still gentle and +courteous, they had a nameless sort of fear of him--he was so unlike +other boys and it seemed such a strange thing to be unhappy about +nothing. It was positively uncanny. + +At these times they did not even try to be with him. They knew that he +could wrestle with what he called his "blue devils" more successfully +alone. A restlessness generally accompanied the mood, and he would +wander off by himself to the churchyard, the river, or the woods; or +spend whole long, golden afternoons shut up in his room, poring over +some quaint old tale, or writing furiously upon a composition of his +own. When he looked at the boys, he did not seem to see them, but would +gaze beyond them--the pupils of his full, soft, grey eyes darkening and +dilating as if they were held by some weird vision invisible to all eyes +save his own; and indeed the belief was general among his friends that +he was endowed with the power of seeing visions. This impression had +been made even upon his old "Mammy," when he was a mite of a lad. Many a +time, when he turned that abstracted gaze upon her, she had said to him, + +"What dat you lookin' at now, Honey? You is bawn to see evil sho'!" + + * * * * * + +And now a glimpse of Edgar Goodfellow--the normal Edgar, whom his chums +saw oftenest and loved best, because they knew him best and understood +him best. + +It was a late Autumn Saturday--one of the Saturdays sent from Heaven for +the delight of school-children--bracing, but not cold; and brilliant. +Little Robert Sully looked pensively out of the window thinking what a +fine day it would be for a country tramp, if only he were like other +boys and could take them. But Rob was of frail build and constitution +and could never stand much exertion. In his eyes was the expression of +settled wistfulness that frequent disappointment will bring to the eyes +of a delicate child; in the droop of his mouth there was a touch of +bitterness, for he was thinking that not only did his weak body make it +impossible for him to keep up with the boys, but that it was no doubt, a +relief to the boys to leave him behind--that when he could be with them +he was perhaps a drag on their pleasure. No doubt they would make a +long day of it, this bright, bracing Saturday, for the persimmons and +the fox-grapes were ripe and the chinquapin and chestnut burrs were +opening. Tears of self-pity sprang to his eyes, but they were quickly +dashed away as he heard his name called and saw his beloved Eddie, +flushed and glowing with anticipated pleasure, at the gate. + +"Come along, Rob," he was calling. "We are going to the Hermitage woods +for chinquapins, and you must come too. Uncle Billy is going for a load +of pine-tags, and we can ride in his wagon, so it won't tire you." + +The other boys were waiting at the corner, all at the highest pitch of +mirth, for they saw that their idol, Eddie, was in one of his happiest +moods, which would mean a morning of unbounded fun to them. And the ride +with old Uncle Billy who, with black and shiny face, beaming upon them +in an excess of kindliness, hair like a full-blown cotton-boll, and +quaint talk, was an unfailing source of delight to them! + +The Saturday freedom was in their blood. Off and away they went in the +jolly, rumbling wagon, past houses and gardens, and fields and into the +enchanting, autumn-colored woods, where "Bob Whites" were calling to +each other and nuts were dropping in the rustling leaves or waiting to +be shaken from their open burrs. + +As they jolted along, the steady stream of conversation between Edgar +and Uncle Billy was as good as a play to the rest of the boys--Edgar, +with grave, courteous manner, discoursing of "cunjurs" and "ha'nts" with +as real an air of belief as that of the old man himself. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The allegiance of his little band of boon companions was all the sweeter +to the young poet because he realized more and more fully as the years +of his school-days passed that for some reason unknown to himself he was +systematically, and plainly with intention, denied intimacy with Nat +Howard and his followers--_snubbed_. As has been said, they did not +hesitate to acknowledge his success in all sorts of mental and physical +trials of skill, but in a formal, impersonal way. There was never the +least familiarity in their intercourse with him. This, naturally, +produced in him a reserve in his manner toward them that they +unreasonably attributed to "airs." Their coldness wounded and chilled +the sensitive boy as much as the love of his devoted adherents warmed +him. + +It was not until near the end of his third session in the school that +the riddle was, quite suddenly, solved. Edgar Poe was now in his +fifteenth year. One perfect May day, when the song of birds, the odors +of flowers, the whisper of soft breezes and the languor of mellow +sunshine outside of the open school windows were wooing all poetic souls +to come out and live, and let musty, dry books go to the deuce, little +Rob Sully found it impossible to fix his mind upon his Latin. As for +Edgar's mind, it was plain from his expression that it was far afield; +but then Edgar had the power of knowing his lessons intuitively, almost. +Rob only "got" his by faithful plodding. When their respective classes +were called, Edgar recited brilliantly, while Rob seemed like one +befuddled and, making a dismal failure, was bidden to stay in and study +at recess. A look of utter woe settled upon his thin, pallid face, which +lifted as, impelled to look toward Edgar's desk, he caught his friend's +eyes fixed upon him with their charming smile. He knew well what the +eyes were saying: + +"Don't worry, Rob, I'll stay in and help you." + +And stay in the owner of the eyes did, patiently going over and over the +lesson with the confused boy until the hard parts were made easy. +Finally, when he saw that Rob had mastered it, Edgar walked out into the +yard for the few minutes left of recess. The boys were all drawn up in a +group a little way from the house and were being harangued by his rival, +Nat Howard. His chums, Rob Stanard, Dick Ambler and Jack Preston, were +standing together a few feet apart from the rest. Their faces were very +red and the haranguing seemed to be addressed directly to them. Edgar +stopped where he was, wondering what it was all about, but shy of +joining a crowd over which Nat was presiding. + +The speaker's voice rose to a higher key. + +"I'll tell you, boys," he was saying, "if you persist in intimacy with +this fellow, you needn't expect to be in with me and my crowd." + +"We don't want you and your crowd," was the response. "He's worth all of +you rolled into one." + +Edgar's heart stood still. "Was Nat Howard talking about _him_?" + +The voice went on: "I grant you the fellow's smart enough and game +enough, but he's not in our class, and I, for one, won't associate with +him intimately." + +"His family's one of the oldest and most honorable in the country," said +Robert Stanard. "I've heard my father say so." + +"Yes, but his father must have been a black sheep to run away with a +common actress--" + +The harangue was brought to an abrupt end. The enraged Edgar had sprung +forward and, with a blow in the face, struck Nat Howard down. Nat's +friends were lifting him up and wiping the blood from his face and +dusting his clothing, while Edgar's own friends gathered around him as +if to restrain him from repeating the attack. He shook them off, gazing +with contempt upon his limp and half-stunned adversary. + +"I'll not hit him again until he repeats his offence," he assured the +boys, "but I want him and all other cowardly dogs to know what's waiting +for them when they insult the memory of my father and mother. Yes! my +mother was an actress! God gave her the gifts to make her one and she +had the pluck to use them to earn bread for herself and for her +children. Yes! she was an actress! She had the lovely face and form, the +high intelligence and the poetic soul for the making of a perfect woman +or for the interpreter of genius--for the personification of a Juliet, a +Rosalind or a Cordelia. Yes! she was an actress! And I'm proud of it as +surely as I'm proud she's an angel in Heaven! And I'm proud that my +father--the son of a proud family--had the spirit, for her sweet sake, +to fly in the face of convention, to count family, fortune and all well +lost to become her husband, and to adopt her profession; to learn of +her, in order that he might be always at her side to protect her and to +live in the light of her presence. If I had choice of all the surnames +and of all the lineage in the world, I would still choose the name of +Poe, and to be the son of David and Elizabeth Poe, players!" + +The boys were silent. The school bell was ringing and Edgar Poe, still +pale and trembling with passion, turned on his heel and strode, with +head up, in the direction of the door. Rob Stanard and Rob Sully walked +one on each side of him, while Dick Ambler and Jack Preston and several +others among his adherents, followed close. A little way behind the +group came the other boys, their still half-dazed leader in their midst. +Good Mr. Burke (who had succeeded Mr. Clarke as school-master) guessed +as they came in and took their seats that there had been an altercation +of some kind, and that his two brag scholars had been prominent in it; +but he was wise in his generation and allowed the boys to settle their +own differences without asking any questions unless he were appealed to, +when his sympathy and interest were found to be theirs to count upon. + +The afternoon session was unsatisfactory, but the master was in an +indulgent mood and apparently did not notice what each boy felt--a +confusion and abstraction. There was a palpable sense of relief when the +closing hour came. + + * * * * * + +At dinner that day Edgar was silent and evidently under a cloud, and +scarcely touched his food. Frances Allan looked toward him anxiously and +her husband suspiciously. When his lack of appetite was remarked upon, +he, truthfully enough, pleaded headache. Mrs. Allan was all sympathy at +once. + +"You study too hard, dear," she said. "You may have a holiday tomorrow +if you like, and go and spend the day in the country with Rosalie and +the Mackenzies." + +"No, no," replied the boy. "I'll just stay quiet, in my room, this +evening. I'll be all right by tomorrow." + +"What have you been eating?" demanded John Allan, gruffly. + +"Nothing, since breakfast, Sir," was the reply. + +"Headaches are for nervous women. When a healthy boy complains of one, +and declines dinner, it generally means that he has been robbing +somebody's strawberry patch or up a cherry-tree, stuffing half-ripe +fruit," he said in the acid, suspicious tone that the boy knew. It was +beyond John Allan's powers to imagine any but physical causes for a +boy's ailments. + + * * * * * + +Not until the door of his own little bed-room was closed behind him did +Edgar Poe even try to collect his thoughts. Then he sat down at his +window and looked out over the fragrant garden to the quiet sky, +contemplation of which had so often soothed his spirit, and tried to +readjust the inner world he lived in, in accordance with the discovery +he had just made. A first such readjustment his world had experienced +three years before, when Mr. Allan had taunted him with his dependence +upon charity. Before that time the world, as he knew it, had held only +love and beauty--sorrow, as he had seen it, being but a solemn and +poetic form of beauty. The change in such a world made by the discovery +that his being an adopted son set him apart in a class different from +other boys--a class unlovely and loveless--had been great, had stolen +much of the joy from living; but he was very young then, and the joy of +mere living and breathing was strong in his blood, and he had gradually +become accustomed--hardened, if you will--to the idea of his dependence +upon charity. + +But here was a change far more terrible, and coming at a time when he +was old enough to feel it far more keenly. He was indeed, in a class by +himself--he was held in contempt because of what his angel mother had +been! His holy of holies had been profaned, the sacred fire that warmed +his inner life had been spat upon. It seemed he had been from the +beginning despised, though he had not dreamed it, for that which he held +most dear--of which he was most proud. The little, aristocratic, +puffed-up world he lived in would doubtless always despise him; but that +was because of its narrowness and ignorance for which he, in turn, would +despise it. With the whimsical, half-belief he had always had that the +dead remain conscious through their long sleep, he wondered if his +beautiful young mother, with the roses on her hair, down under the green +earth, was not aware of the love and loyalty of her boy and if her +spirit soaring the highest heavens, would not aid him in carrying out +the resolution which in the bitterness of his soul, he then and there +made--the resolution to bring this mean little, puffed up world to do +honor to his name--to her name, of which he was prouder in this hour +when others would trample it in the dust than he had ever been before. + +Young boy though he was, he was conscious of his God-given endowments. +He felt that the divine fire of poetic feeling in his breast was an +immortal thing. Up to this time, his singing had been as the singing of +a wood-bird--an impulse, a necessity to express the thoughts and +feelings of his heart. He had never looked far enough ahead to consider +whether he should or should not publish his work; but now ambition +awoke--full-grown at its birth--and set him afire. From those parents +whose memory had been insulted he had received (God willing it) the +precious heritage of brilliant intellect. He would put the work of this +intellect--his stories and his poems--into books. He would give them to +the wide world. He would win recognition for the name of Poe. + +He drew from within his coat the miniature of his mother--her dying +gift. He gazed upon it long and tenderly, and with it still exposed to +view brought from his desk the little packet of yellowed letters in +their faded blue ribbon. He knew them by heart, but he read them--each +one--over again, as carefully as if it had been the first time. They +were not many and those not long; but ah, they were sweet!--those +tender, quaint love-letters that had passed between his parents in their +brief courtship and married life. His father's so manly so strong--like +the letters of a soldier. His mother's so modest, so tender. They did +not stir his pulses so wildly now as they did upon his first reading of +them, when a little lad at old Stoke-Newington--but they were no less +beautiful to him now than then. The sentences made him think of the +dainty, sweet aroma of pressed roses. + +He tied the packet up again and kissed letters and picture, as if to +seal the promise he was making them, then restored them to their +hiding-places. With the bitter knowledge that had come to him, he felt +that years had passed over him--that he would never be young again--this +boy of fourteen! + +He raised his deep, pensive eyes once more to the quiet sky and his +spirit cried to Heaven to grant him power to accomplish this task he had +set himself: to lift the loved name of his parents from the dust where +it lay, and to set it high in the temple of fame, wreathed with immortal +myrtle. + +His resolution gave to his poetic face and his slender figure an air of +mastery, as though some new, high quality had been born within him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +In the days that followed, Edgar's friends found him unusually silent, +yet not morose. Serenity sat on his broad, thoughtful brow and in his +great, soft eyes. Nat Howard and his chums gave him the cold shoulder +and wore, in his presence, the air of offended dignity which the +small-minded are apt to assume when conscious of being in the wrong or +of having committed an injury which the victim has received with credit +and the offender has not forgiven. It is so much easier to grant pardon +for an injury received than for one given! + +Edgar's own friends were more emphatic in their devotion to him than +ever--racking their young brains for ways in which to show their loyalty +and frequently looking into his face with the expression of soft +adoration and trust one sees in the eyes of a faithful dog. Edgar was +touched and gratified, and his sweet, spontaneous smile often rewarded +their efforts; but his face would soon become grave again and the boys +were aware that the mind of their gifted friend was busy with thoughts +in which they had no part. This gave them an impression of distance +between them and him. He all of a sudden, seemed to have become remote, +as though a chasm, by what power they knew not, had opened between +them--making their love for him as "the desire of the moth for the +star." They knew that he was more often than ever before working upon +his poetical and other compositions, but these were seldom shown, or +even mentioned, to them. + +Each boy in his own way sought to bridge the gulf that separated them +from their idol. Robert Sully missed his Latin lesson on purpose in the +hope that Eddie would stay in and help him. And Eddie did, but wore that +same detached air in which there was no intimacy or comfort. When the +lesson was learned Edgar took a slate from the desk before them, rubbed +off the problem that was upon it, and quickly wrote down a little poem +of several stanzas. He held it out, with a smile, to Rob, telling him +that while teaching him his lesson he had been practicing "dividing his +mind," and that while one part of his brain had been putting English +into Latin the other part had composed the verses on the slate. + +The dumfounded Rob read the verses aloud, but before he could express +his amazement Edgar had taken the slate from him and, with one swipe of +the damp spunge, obliterated the rhymes. + +"Write them on paper for me, please," plead Robert. + +The brilliant smile of the boy-poet flashed upon him. "Oh, they were not +worth keeping," said he, indifferently. "They were merely an exercise." +And picking up his books and hat, he walked out of the door, whistling +in clear, high, plaintive notes one of the melodies of his favorite Tom +Moore. + +The boy left behind looked after him with a troubled heart and misty +eyes. This wonderful friend of his was as kind as ever, yet he seemed +changed. It was clear that he had "something on his mind." + +"Will you go swimming with me this evening, Eddie?" said Dick Ambler +one day when school was out. + +"With all the pleasure in life," was the hearty response. + +Dick went home to his dinner with a singing heart. If anything could +bring Edgar down from the clouds to his own level, surely it would be +bathing together. He certainly could not make poetry while diving and +swimming, naked, in the racing and tumbling falls of James River. A +merry battle with those energetic waters kept a fellow's wits as well as +his muscles fully occupied. + +But even this attempt was a failure. If Edgar made any poetry while in +the water he did not mention it; but he was absent-minded and unsociable +all the way to the river and back--sky-gazing for curious cloud-forms, +listening for bird-notes and hunting wild-flowers, and talking almost +none at all. + +In the water he seemed to wake up, and never dived with more grace, or +daring; but no sooner had they started on the way home than he was off +with his dreams again. + +Rob Stanard was more successful in his attempts to interest his friend. +In spite of their intimacy at school and on the playground Edgar had up +to this time never visited the Stanard home. Rob had enlisted his +mother's sympathy in the orphan boy and she had suggested that he should +invite Edgar home with him some day. It now occurred to Rob that this +would be a good time to do so, and knowing his friend's fondness for +dumb animals, he offered his pets as an attraction--asking him to come +and see his pigeons and rabbits. His invitation was accepted with +alacrity. + +Edgar had seen Rob's mother, but only at a distance. He knew her +reputation as one of the town beauties, but lovely women were not rare +in Richmond, and, beauty-worshipper though he was, he had never had any +especial curiosity in regard to Mrs. Stanard. He was altogether +unprepared for the vision that broke upon him. + +Instead of going through the house, Rob had piloted him by way of a side +gate, directly into the walled garden, sweet and gay with roses, lilies +and other flowers of early June. + +Mrs. Stanard, who took almost as much pleasure in her children's pets as +they did, was standing near a clump of arbor-vitae, holding in her hands +a "willow-ware" plate from which the pigeons were feeding. She was at +this time, though the mother of Edgar's twelve-year-old chum, not thirty +years of age, and her pensive beauty was in its fullest flower. Against +the sombre background the arbor-vitae made, her slight figure, clad in +soft, clinging white, seemed airy and sylphlike. Her dark, curling hair, +girlishly bound with a ribbon snood, and her large brown eyes, were in +striking contrast to her complexion, which was pale, with the radiant +and warm palor of a tea-rose or a pearl. Her features were daintily +modelled, and like slender lilies were the hands holding the deep blue +plate from which the pigeons--white, grey and bronze, fed--fluttering +about her with soft cooings. + +The picture was so much more like a poet's dream than a reality, that +the boy-poet stepped back, with an exclamation of surprise. + +"It is only my mother," explained Rob. "She'll be glad to see you." + +The next moment she had perceived the boys, and with quick impulse, set +the plate upon the ground and came forward, and before a word of +introduction could be spoken, had taken the visitor's hand between both +her own fair palms, holding it thus, with gentle, gracious pressure, in +a pretty, cordial way she had, while she greeted him. + +The soft eyes that rested on his face filled with kindness and welcome. + +"So this is my Rob's friend," she was saying, in a low, musical voice. +"Rob's mother is delighted to see you for his sake and for your own too, +Edgar, for I greatly admired _your_ gifted mother. I saw her once only, +when I was a young girl, but I can never forget her lovely face and +sweet, plaintive voice. It was one of the last times she ever acted, and +she was ill and pale, but she was exquisitely beautiful and made the +most charming Juliet. She interested me more than any actress I have +ever seen." + +Edgar Poe longed to fall down and kiss her feet--to worship her. Her +beauty, her gentleness and her gracious words so stirred his soul that +he grew faint. Power of speech almost left him, and, vastly to his +humiliation, he could with difficulty control his voice to utter a few +stumbling words of thanks--he who was usually so ready of speech! + +If she noticed his confusion she did not appear to do so. Her heart had +been touched by all she had heard from her son of the lonely boy, and +she had also been interested in accounts of his gifts that had come to +her from various sources. The beauty, the poetry, the pensiveness of his +face moved her deeply--knowing his history and divining the lack of +sympathy one of his bent would probably find in the Allan home, for all +its indulgences. + +She sat on a garden-bench and talked to him for a time, in her gentle, +understanding way, and then, not wishing to be a restraint upon the +boys, (after placing her husband's fine library at Edgar's disposal, and +urging him to come often to see Rob) withdrew into the house. + +The motherless boy looked after her until she had disappeared, and +stared at the door that had closed upon her until he was recalled from +his reverie by the voice of his friend, suggesting that they now see the +rabbits. Edgar looked at the gentle creatures with unseeing eyes, though +he appeared to be listening to the prattle of his companion concerning +them. Suddenly, in a voice filled with enthusiasm and with a touch of +awe in it, he said: + +"Rob, your mother is divinely beautiful--and _good_." + +"Bully," was the nonchalant reply. "The best thing about her is the way +she takes up for a fellow when he brings in a bad report or gets into a +scrape. Fathers always think it's their sons' fault, you know." + +Edgar flushed. "_Bully_--" he said to himself, with a shudder. The +adjective applied to her seemed blasphemy. + +Aloud, he said, "She's an angel! She's the one I've always dreamed +about." + +"You dreamed about mother when you had never seen her?" questioned the +astonished Rob. "What did you dream?" + +"Nothing, in the way you mean. I meant she is like my idea of a perfect +woman. The kind of woman a man could always be good for, or would gladly +die to serve." + +"Well, I'm not smart enough to think out things like that, Eddie, but +Mother certainly is all right. What you say about her sounds nice, and +she'd understand it, too. I just bet that you and mother'll be the best +sort of cronies when you know each other better. She likes all those +queer old books you think so fine, and she knows whole pages of poetry +by heart. When you and she get together it will be like two books +talking out loud to each other. I won't be able to join in much, but it +will be as good as a play to listen." + +The young poet bent his steps homeward with but one thought, one hope in +his heart, and that a consuming one: to look again upon the lovely face, +to hear again the voice that had enthralled him, had taken his heart by +storm and filled it with a veritable _grande passion_--the rapturous +devotion of the virgin heart of an ardent and romantic youth. First +love--yet so much more than ordinary love--a pure passion of the soul, +in which there was much of worship and nothing of desire. Surely the +most pure and holy passion the world has ever known, for in it there was +absolutely nothing of self. Like Dante after his first meeting with +Beatrice, this Virginia boy-poet had entered upon a _Vita Nuova_--a new +life--made all of beauty. + +What difference did the taunts of schoolmates, the hardness of a +foster-father make now? The wounds they made had been gratefully healed +by the balm of her beauteous words about his mother. Those old wounds +were as nothing--neither they nor anything else had power to harm him +now. In the new life that had opened so suddenly before him he would +bear a charmed existence. + +He went to his room before the usual hour that night, for he wanted to +be alone with his dreams--with his newest, most beautiful dream. To his +room, but not to bed. Life was too beautiful to be wasted in sleep. He +lighted his lamp and holding his mother's picture within its circle of +light, gazed long and devotedly upon it. Did she know of the great light +that had shone out of what seemed a sunless sky upon her boy? Had she, +looking out from high Heaven, seen the gracious greeting of the +beautiful being who was Madonna and Psyche in one? Had she heard her own +cause so sweetly championed, her own name so sweetly cleared of +opprobrium? + +He threw himself upon his lounge and lay with his hands clasped under +his curly head, still dreaming--dreaming--dreaming--until day-dreams +were merged into real dreams, for he was fast asleep. + +In his sleep he saw the lady of his dreams in a situation of peril, from +which he joyfully rescued her. He awoke with a start. His lamp had +burned itself out but a late moon flooded the room with the white light +that he loved. A breeze laden with odors caught from the many +rose-gardens and the heavier-scented magnolias, now in full bloom, it +had come across, stirred the curtain. His nostrils, always sensitive to +the odors of flowers, drank it in rapturously. So honey-sweet it was, +his senses swam. + +He arose and looked out upon the incense-breathing blossoms, like +phantoms, under the moon. A clock in a distant part of the house was +striking twelve. How much more beautiful was the world now--at night's +high noon--than at the same hour of the day. + +All the house, save himself, was asleep. How easy it would be to escape +into this lovely night--to walk through this ambrosial air to the +house-worshipful in which _she_ doubtless lay, like a closed +lily-flower, clasped in sleep. + +A mocking-bird--the Southland's nightingale--in, some tree or bush not +far away, burst into passion-shaken melody that seemed to voice, as no +words could, his own emotion. + +Down the stair he slipped, and out of the door, into the well-nigh +intoxicating beauty of the southern summer's night. Indeed, the odors of +the dew-drenched flowers--the moonlight--the bird-music, together with +his remembrance of his lady's greeting, went to his head like wine. + +As he strolled along some lines of Shelley's which had long been +favorites of his, sang in his brain: + + "I arise from dreams of thee + In the first sweet sleep of night, + When the winds are breathing low + And the stars are shining bright. + I arise from dreams of thee, + And the spirit in my feet + Has led me--who knows how?-- + To thy chamber-window, sweet! + + "The wandering airs they faint + On the dark, the silent stream; + The champak odors fail + Like sweet thoughts in a dream; + The nightingale's complaint, + It dies upon her heart, + As I must die on thine, + Oh, beloved, as thou art! + + "Oh, lift me from the grass! + I die, I faint, I fail! + Let thy love in kisses rain + On my lips and eyelids pale. + My cheek is cold and white, alas! + My heart beats loud and fast. + Oh, press it close to thine again, + Where it will break at last." + +The words of the latter half of this serenade were meaningless as +applied to his case. To have quoted them--even mentally--in any literal +sense, would have seemed to him profanation; yet the whole poem in some +way not to be analysed or defined, expressed his mood--and who so brutal +as to seek to reduce to common-sense the emotions of a poet-lover, in +the springtime of life? + +At length he was before the closed and shuttered house, standing silent +and asleep. Opposite were the grassy slopes of Capitol Square--with the +pillared, white Capitol, in its midst, looking, in the moonlight, like a +dream of old Greece. _Her_ house! He looked upon its moonlit, ivied +walls with adoration. A light still shone from one upper room. Was it +_her_ chamber? Was she, too, awake and alive to the beauty of this magic +night? + +His heart beat tumultuously at the thought. Then--Oh, wonder! His knees +trembled under him--he grew dizzy and was ready, indeed, to cry, "I die, +I faint, I fail!" She crossed the square of light the window made. In +her uplifted hand she carried the lamp from which the light shone, and +for a moment her slight figure, clad all in white as he had seen her in +the garden a few hours before, and softly illuminated, was framed in the +ivy-wreathed casement. But for a moment--then disappeared, but the +trembling boy-lover and poet seemed to see it still, and gazed and gazed +until the light was out and all the house dark. + +He stumbled back through the moonlight to his home, he crept up the +creaking stair again, to his little, dormer-windowed room; but sleep was +now, more than ever, impossible. + +Though the lamp had gone out, a candle stood upon a stand at the head +of his bed. He lighted it, and by its ray, wrote, under the spell of the +hour, the first utterance in which he, Edgar Poe, ascended from the +plane of a maker of "promising" verse, to the realm of the true poet--a +poem to the lady of his heart's dream destined (though he little guessed +it) to make her name immortal and to send the fame of his youthful +passion down the ages as one of the world's historic love-affairs. + +What was her name? he wondered. He had never heard it, but he would call +her Helen--_Helen_, the ancient synonym of womanly beauty, but the +loveliest Helen, he believed, that ever set poet-lover piping her +praise. + +And so, "To Helen," were the words he wrote at the top of his page, and +underneath the name these lines: + + "Helen, thy beauty is to me + Like those Nicean barks of yore, + That gently o'er a perfumed sea, + The weary, wayworn wanderer bore + To his own native shore. + + "On desperate seas long wont to roam, + Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, + Thy Naiad airs have brought me home + To the glory that was Greece + And the grandeur that was Rome. + + "Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche + How statue-like I see thee stand! + The agate lamp within thy hand, + Ah! Psyche, from the regions which + Are Holy Land!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +With his meeting with "Helen," a new life, indeed, seemed to have opened +for Edgar the Dreamer. Not only had her own interest and sympathy been +aroused, but her husband, a learned and accomplished judge of the +Supreme Court of Virginia, also received him cordially and became deeply +interested in him, and he found in their home what his own had lacked +for him, a thoroughly congenial atmosphere. + +"Helen" Stanard listened kindly to his boyish rhapsodies about his +favorite poets, and encouraged him to bring her his own portefolio of +verses, which he did, all but the ones addressed to herself--these he +kept secret. She read all he brought her carefully, and intelligently +criticised them in a way that was a real help to him. + +As has been said, when Mr. Allan had discovered that his adopted son was +a rhymster, he had rebuked him severely for such idle waste of time, and +in a vain attempt to clip the wings of Pegasus, threatened him with +punishment if he should hear of such folly again. Mrs. Allan, on the +contrary, though she was not a bookish woman, had protested against her +husband's command--urging that Edgar be encouraged to cultivate his +talent. The ability to compose verse seemed to her, in a boy of Edgar's +age, little short of miraculous, and, proud of her pet's accomplishment, +she heaped indiscriminate praise upon every line that she saw of his +writing. + +The boy, hardly knowing which way to escape, between these two fires +that bade fair to work the ruin of his gift, turned eagerly to his new +friend. "Helen" gently told him that she believed his talent to be a +sacred trust, and that he would be committing sin to bury it--even +though by so doing he should be fulfilling the wishes of his +foster-father to whom he owed so much. He must, however, not forget his +duty to Mr. Allan in regard to this matter, as in other things, but +treat his views with all the consideration possible. Above all things, +he was never to depart from the truth in talking to him, but to tell him +in a straightforward and respectful way that he believed it his duty +when poetical thoughts presented themselves to his mind, to set them +down, and even to encourage and invite such thoughts. + +At the same time, she earnestly warned him against being overmuch +impressed by the flattering estimates of his work of his friends, +especially of his mother, who was far too partial to him, personally, to +be a safe judge of his writings. + +A happier summer than is often given mortals to know, Edgar the Dreamer +passed at the feet of the lovely young matron who had become a sort of +mother-confessor to him. Happiness which, with a touch of the +superstition that was characteristic of him he often told himself was +too perfect to last. What was it that made him feel sometimes in looking +upon her under the serene sky of that ideal summer that a cloud no +bigger than a man's hand threw its shadow upon her? Was it that faint +hint of sadness in her dark eyes or the ethereal radiance of her pale +complexion that while thrilling him with delight in the exquisite +quality of her beauty, filled him with foreboding? + + * * * * * + +Ere the frosts of autumn had robbed her garden of its glory, blighting +sorrow had fallen upon her tender mother-heart in the death of a darling +baby girl. Beneath this blow the health of sweet "Helen," always frail, +succumbed, and her home became thenceforth as a living tomb, in which +the few who ever saw her again trod softly and spoke in hushed voices. + +When the earliest roses were in bloom in her garden two years after +Edgar Poe first saw her there, she lay in her coffin, and for him, the +world seemed to have come to an end. + +She was laid to rest in the new cemetery on Shockoe Hill, not far from +the Allan home. The bier was followed by its black procession of +mourners, and no one knew that the heart of a youth who followed too, +but at a distance, was breaking. Though husband and children and brother +and sister were bowed with grief, he told himself that there was among +them no sorrow like unto his sorrow who had not even the right of +kinship to mourn for her. Of what business of his (he fancied, out of +the bitterness of his soul, the world saying) of what business of his +was her death? What business had he to mourn? + +Again his feet kept time to the old refrain of never, nevermore, that +hammered in his brain--a refrain that to the unrealizing ear of the +child of three had been sad with a beautiful, rhythmic sadness that was +rather pleasurable than otherwise; that to the youth of sixteen was +still musical and beautiful, though filled with despair. + +As at many another time his poetical gift gave him a merciful vent for +his pent up feeling, so now it came to his aid, and upon the night of +the day when she was laid to rest he poured out his sorrow in "The +Paean"--which he was afterwards to revise and rename, "Lenore"-- + + "An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-- + A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young." + +As during his childhood, and afterwards, he had found a mournful +pleasure in visiting the grave of his mother, in the churchyard on the +hill; so now he found a blessed solace, in his terrible loneliness, in +pilgrimages to the shrine (for as such he held the grave of his saint) +in the new cemetery. These pilgrimages he usually made at night--his +grief was too sacred a thing to be flaunted in broad daylight. Many a +night during the spring and summer found him slipping down the stair, +when the house was asleep, and taking his way through the silent city +of Slumber to that even more silent city of Death. + +Oh, that those that lay there not much more still than they who lay +asleep in their beds in that other city, might arise like them with the +morrow's sun! + +Often, as he walked along, drinking in the perfumed night air that he +loved--the night breeze gratefully lifting the ringlets from his fevered +brow--often he thought of that first summer's night when with the sweet +words of Shelley's serenade: "I arise from dreams of thee," singing +themselves in his heart, he had gone with light feet to worship beneath +her window. + +Ah, the world was young then, for sweet hope was alive! + +The iron gates of the cemetery were locked, but the wall was not very +high. To scale it but added zest to his adventure. He would be a knight +unfit for his vigil if he were to let himself be so easily balked. + +Within the wall the odors of flowers were even heavier, more +oppressively sweet than without, and the silence surpassed the silence +of the outer city even as the stillness of the sleepers here surpassed +the stillness of those yonder. + +He listened and listened to the silence. Surely if she should speak, +even from down under the ground he could hear her across this silence +which was as a void--a black and terrible void. + +His first pilgrimages were by moonlight, but when the moonless nights +came he continued his vigils. He would have known the way by that time +with his eyes shut. + +Sometimes he was afraid--horribly afraid. He seemed, in the shadows, to +descry weird phantom-shapes, moving stealthily; in the silence to hear +ghostly whispers; sometimes he fancied he heard _the silence itself_! +But in the very fear that clutched his throat there was a fascination--a +lure--that made it impossible to turn back. + +His sorrow was exquisite; his terror was exquisite; his loneliness was +oh, how exquisite! Yet in courting them all, here in the dead of night, +prone on her grave, he found the only balm he knew--the only sympathy; +for to his fancy the dark and the quiet had always seemed sentient +things and he felt that they gave him a sympathy he did not--could not +ask of people. + + * * * * * + +A breathless night in July found him at the familiar tryst at an earlier +hour than was his wont. He lay upon the grass at her feet with his hands +clasped under his head and his face turned up to the stars. There was +moonlight as well as starlight, and in its silvery radiance his +features, always pale, had the frigid whiteness of marble. The wide-open +eyes that stared upward to the stars, were larger, darker than in +daylight, and more full of brooding; the white brow, with its crown of +dark ringlets was whiter and more expansive. + +In a dormer-windowed cottage overlooking a rose garden, on Clay Street, +an erect gentleman in an uncompromising stock and immaculate ruffles, +with narrow blue eyes under a beetling brow, and a somewhat hawk-like +nose, sharply questioned a fair and graceful lady, with an anxious +expression on her flower-face, as to why "that boy" did not come home to +his supper. But they were used by now, to the boy's strange, wayward +whims, and so did not marvel much. Only--they had not seen him since the +feat that had set the town ringing with his name and it seemed to them +that it would have been natural for him to come home in the flush of his +triumph and tell them about it. + +Edgar Poe had that day created the sensation of the hour by swimming +from the Richmond wharves to Warwick--a distance of six miles--in the +midsummer sun. + +Richmond was a fair and pleasant little city in those days, in spite of +the fact that our boy-poet found in it so much to make him melancholy. +"The merriest place in America," Thackeray called it some years later, +and would probably have said the same of it then had he been there. The +blight of Civil War had not touched the cheerful temper of its people; +the tenement row had not crowded out grass and flowers. It was more a +large village than a town, with gracious homes--not elbowing each other +for foundation room, but standing comfortably apart, amid their green +lawns, and with wide verandahs overhanging their many-flowered gardens. + +"After tea," on warm nights, the houses overflowed into these +verandahs, and there was much visiting from one to another--much +light-hearted talk and happy laughter; the popular theme being whatever +happened to be "the news." + +It was the day of contentment, for wants were moderate and plentifully +supplied; the day of satisfaction in wholesome domestic joys; the day of +hospitality without grudging; the day when sweetness extracted from +little pleasures did not need spicing, for palates were not jaded; the +day of the ideal simple life. + +Upon this night, as on other nights, young girls who were not yet "gone +to the springs" floated along the fashionable promenades, in airy +muslins, with their cavaliers beside them. Groups of gentlemen and +ladies sat on the porches and children played hide-and-seek, chased +fire-flies, or sat on the steps and listened to the talk of their +elders. And everywhere, in all of the groups, the chief topic was the +boy, Edgar Poe, and his wonderful swim. + +And the boy who had in an afternoon become, for the time being at least, +the foremost figure in town, knew it, but did not care. + +To lie alone on the grass by the grave of his dead divinity and gaze at +the far stars, and brood upon his young sorrows--this gave him more +satisfaction than to be the central figure of any one of the groups +singing his praise; filled him with a romantic despair that to his +high-strung soul had a more delicately sweet flavor than positive +pleasure. + +As to the erect gentleman in the high stock and the pretty lady with +the tender, anxious face--they had, for the present, no part in his +thoughts. It was wrong and ungrateful of him that they should not have, +and if he had remembered them he would have known that it was wrong and +ungrateful; but he would not have cared. And as for his food--he had +supped royally, and without compunction, upon the fruit of an inviting +orchard to which he had helped himself, unblushingly, upon his way into +town. + +A reckless mood, born of the restlessness that was in his blood, was +upon him. + +The truth was, that poignant as was his pleasure in dwelling upon his +poetical sorrow for the adored "Helen"--his "lost Lenore"--it did not +fully satisfy him. His youthful heart was hungry for response to his +out-poured sentiment, for the more robust diet of mutual love. In plain +English, Edgar Poe wanted, and wanted badly, a sweetheart, though he did +not suspect it. + + * * * * * + +When, finally, he scaled the cemetery wall and took his way homeward he +did not go directly to the dormer-windowed cottage where the erect +gentleman and the pretty lady awaited him. Just as he was approaching it +he heard Elmira Royster's guitar in the porch opposite, and he crossed +the street and entered the Royster's gate. + +The Roysters and Allans had been neighbors for years and he and Elmira +had been "brought up together." At the sound of approaching footsteps +the guitar grew suddenly silent and a slight, rather colorless girl in a +white dress, with a white flower in her fluffy blonde hair, came from +out the shadow of the microphilla rose that embowered the porch and +stood in the full light of the moon, giving him greeting. + +"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Eddie," she said. "All of the family but me +have gone to a party, and I'm so lonesome! Besides, I, like everybody +else in town, want a chance to congratulate you." + +"Congratulate?" he replied, with a shrug, as he took a seat beside her, +under the roses, "Congratulate? In their hearts they all despise me." +Then with a smile, + +"You see the blue devils have the upper hand of me tonight, Myra." + +"Well, they are fibbing devils if they tell you you are despised. Dick +Ambler was over at your house looking for you a little while ago, and he +stopped by and told me about your swim. He said he and the other boys +that followed you in the boat had never seen anything so exciting in +their lives. They were expecting you to give out any minute and so much +afraid that if you did you would go under before they could get hold of +you. When you won the wager they were so proud and happy that they were +almost beside themselves." + +"Oh, I know Dick and the rest are the best and truest friends a fellow +ever had--bless their hearts--but they are the exceptions." + +"Nonsense! There's not a boy in town tonight who would not give his +head to be in your shoes, and" (shyly) "the girls are all wild about +you." + +The hero smiled indulgently. No woman was ever thrown with Edgar Poe, +from his birth up, but in some fashion or degree, loved him, and to him +all women were angels. He never, as boy or man, entertained a thought or +wrote a line of one of them that was not reverent. He admired, in +varying degree, all types of feminine loveliness, but Myra, though he +liked her, was not the style that he most cared for. He had always +thought her too "washed out." The soul that shone through her rather +prominent, light-blue eyes was too transparent, too easily read. He +found more interesting the richer-hued brunette type, and the complex +nature that goes with it; the flashes of starlight, the softness and the +warmth, of brown eyes; the mysteries that lie in the shadow of dusky +lashes; the variety of rich, warm tones in chestnut and auburn tresses. + +But Myra was a revelation to him tonight. He had never dreamed that she +could look so pretty--_so very pretty_--as she did now in her white +dress, with the moonlight filtering through the foliage upon her fair +hair and her face (turned full of liking and undisguised admiration upon +him) and her lovely arms, bared to the elbow. She had an ethereal, +fairy-like appearance that was bewitching, and in his despondent mood, +her frank praise was more than sweet. Still his answer was as bitter as +ever, + +"Oh, well, what does it all amount to? They would say the same of any +acrobat in a circus whose joints were a bit more limber than those of +the rest of his tribe. That does not remove their contempt for me, +personally." + +"I don't feel contempt for you, Eddie," she gently replied--just +breathing it. + +(Myra was really wonderful tonight. He had not known her voice could +have so much color in it; and the white flower in her hair--a +cape-jessamine, its excessively sweet fragrance told him--gave her pale +beauty the touch of romance it had always lacked). The poetic eyes that +looked into hers mellowed, the cynical voice softened: + +"Don't you Myra? Well, you'd better cultivate it. Its the fashion, and +it's the only feeling I'm worth." + +"Eddie," she said earnestly--tenderly, "I want you to promise me that +you won't talk that way any more--at least not to _me_--it hurts me." + +Her hand, on his sleeve, was as fair as a petal from the jessamine +flower in her hair. He took it gently in his. + +"Dear little Myra, little playmate--" he said. "You are my friend, I +know, and have been since we were mere babies, in spite of knowing, as +you do, what a naughty, idle, disobedient boy I've been, deserving every +flogging and scolding I've gotten and utterly unworthy all the good +things that have come my way--including your dear friendship." + +"You are breaking your promise already," she said. "You _shall not_ run +yourself down to me. I think you are the nicest boy in town!" + +There was nothing complex about Myra. Her mind was an open book, and he +suddenly found he liked it so--liked it tremendously. Her unveiled +avowal of preference for him was most soothing to his restless, +dissatisfied mood. + +"Thank you, Myra," he said tenderly, kissing the flower-petal hand +before he laid it down. He had a strong impulse to kiss _her_, but +resisted it, with an effort, and abruptly changed the subject. + +"Did you know that we are going to move?" he asked. "And that I'm going +to the University next winter?" + +"_To move_?" she questioned, aghast. "Where?" + +"To the Gallego mansion, at Fifth and Main Streets. Mr. Allan has bought +it. The dear little mother, who, I'd say, if you'd let me, is so much +better to me than I deserve, is full of plans for furnishing it and is +going to fit up a beautiful room in it for me. It will be a delightful +home for us, and quite grand after our modest cottage, but do you know +I'm goose enough to be homesick at the thought of giving up my little +den under the roof? Myself and I have had such jolly times together in +it!" + +She had scarcely heard him, except the first words and the stunning +facts they contained. There was a minute's silence, then she spoke in a +changed, quivering voice. + +"Then that will be the end of our friendship, I suspect! When you get +out of the neighborhood, and are off most of the time at the University, +we will doubtless see little more of you." + +Her clear blue eyes were shining up at him through tears. Her mouth was +tremulous as a distressed child's. The appeal met an instant response +from the tender-hearted poet. _Both_ the flower-like hands were captured +this time, and held fast, in spite of their fluttering. The excessively +sweet fragrance of the blossom in her hair was in his nostrils. Her +quick, short breaths told him of the tempest in her tender young bosom. + +"Myra, little Myra, do you care like that?" he cried. "Then let the +friendship go, and be my dear little sweetheart, won't you? I'm dying of +loneliness and the want of somebody to love and to love me--somebody who +understands me--and you do, don't you, Myra, darling?" + +She was too happy to answer, but she suffered him to put his arms around +her and kiss her soft pale hair--and her brow--and her tremulous +mouth--the first kisses of love to him as well as to her. And ah, how +sweet! + +He laughed happily, lifted out of his gloom by this new, this +deliriously sweet dream. + +"Do you know, little sweetheart," he said, in a voice that was bubbling +with joy, "I feel that you have cast those devils out of me forever. It +was you that I wanted all the time, and did not know it. Some of these +days, when I've been through college and settled down, we will be +married, and wherever our home is, we must always have a porch like +this, with a rose on it, and" (kissing her brow) "you must always wear a +jessamine in your hair." + +And so the boy-poet and his girl play-mate, very much to their own +surprise, parted affianced lovers, and a long vista of sunlit days +seemed to beckon The Dreamer. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +The session at the University did not begin until the middle of +February, so love's young dream was not to be interrupted too soon. +Meantime, its sweetness was only enhanced by thought of the coming +separation. The affair had too, the interest of secrecy, for the +youthful lovers well knew the storm of opposition that would be raised, +in both their homes, if it should be discovered. This need of secrecy +made frequent meetings and exchange of vows impossible, but it gave to +such as occurred the flavor of stolen sweets and kept the young sinners +in a tantalized state which was excruciating and at the same time +delightful, and which still further fed the flames and convinced them of +the realness and intensity of their passion. + +When they did meet, their awed, joyous confessions of mutual love +charmed the lonely, romantic boy by their very novelty. In them his +fairest dreams were fulfilled. How sweet it was in these rare, stolen +moments, to crush the pure young creature, who would be his own some +day, against his wildly beating heart--how passing sweet to hear against +his ear her whispered, hesitating vows of deep, everlasting love! + +In his pretty new room overlooking the terraced garden of the stately +mansion which had become his home, Edgar Poe plunged headlong into +Byron, and in the mood thus induced, penned many a verse, no worse and +not much better than the rhymes of lovelorn youths the world over and +time out of mind, to be copied into Myra's album. + +Between the love-making and preparation for college, time took wings. In +what seemed an incredibly short space summer and fall were gone, +Christmas, with its festivities, was over and the new year--the year +1826--had opened. + +It was upon St. Valentine's Day that, with a feeling of solemnity worthy +of the act, the seventeen year old lover and student wrote the name +Edgar Allan Poe, and the date of his birth, upon the matriculation book +of the University of Virginia--open for its second session. Upon the day +before the beauty and the poetry--_the inspiration_--of the place had +burst upon him, and this first impression still held his soul in thrall. + +Here, in this fair Virginia vale, ringed about with the heaven-kissing +hills of the Blue Ridge, the scholastic village conjured by Jefferson's +fertile imagination lay before him in the clear, winter sunshine. Its +lawns and its gardens were just now white with an unbroken blanket of +new-fallen snow; the young trees which had been planted in avenues along +the lawns, but which were as yet hardly more than shrubs, glittered with +icicles, and above them rose the classic columns of the colonnaded +dormitories and professors' houses; while at one end of the oblong +square the majestic dome and columns of the Rotunda stood out against +the sky. As the entranced Dreamer gazed and gazed, trying to imagine +what it must be like by moonlight--what it would be in spring--what (a +few years later, when the trees should have grown large enough to arch +the walks) in summer--he told himself that surely in this garden-spot of +the Old Dominion, bricks and mortar had sprung into immortal bloom, and +he found himself quoting a line of his own: + + "The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome." + +Upon his earliest opportunity he sat down and wrote Myra a rhapsody upon +it all. Her presence, he felt, and he wrote her, was all needed to make +the place a paradise. + +Under his name upon the matriculation book he had written, with +confidence: + +"Schools of Ancient and Modern Languages." In the school of Ancient +Languages were taught (according to the announcement for the year) +"Hebrew, rhetoric, belles-lettres ancient history and geography;" in the +school of Modern Languages, "French, Spanish, Italian, German, and the +English language in its Anglo Saxon form; also modern history and modern +geography." A list, one would think, to daunt the courage of a seventeen +year old student and make him feel that he had the world on his +shoulders. + +It was quite the contrary with The Dreamer. He felt instead that he had +suddenly developed wings. Learning came easy to him. He was already a +good French and Latin scholar, and the rest did not frighten him. Not +only was he not in the least burdened by thought of the work he was +cutting out for himself, but he was elated by a sense of freedom such as +he had never known before. Always before, both at home and at school, he +had been under surveillance. But now he was to be a partaker of the +benefits of Mr. Jefferson's theories of the treatment of students as men +and gentlemen--letting their conduct be a matter of _noblesse oblige_. + +In the youth of seventeen this sudden withdrawal of oversight and +regulation produced an exhilaration that was indeed pleasurable. Among +the unfrequented hills known as the "Ragged Mountains," not far away, +was a wild and romantic region that invited him to fascinating +exploration--perhaps adventure. Instead of having to beg permission or +to steal off upon the solitary rambles which he loved, to this +enchanting country, he could, and did, go when he chose, openly, and +with no questions asked or rebukes given. + +He held up his head with a new confidence at the thought, and took his +dreams of ambition and love, whenever he could allow himself time to do +so, to the enticing new region (as unlike anything around Richmond as if +it were in a different world) adjacent to which, for the time, his lot +lay. + +He did not neglect his classes, however. They were regularly attended +and his standing was excellent; so the professors had no cause for +making inquiry into the pursuits of his private hours. The library, +too, in the beautiful Rotunda, was a new, if different, field for his +exploration and one that gave him great delight, for he found there many +volumes of quaint and curious lore whose acquaintance he had never +before made. + + * * * * * + +His imaginary wings were soon enough to be clipped--his exhilaration to +drop from him as suddenly as it had come. + +_He did not hear from Myra!_ + +He watched eagerly for the mails, and as day after day passed without +bringing him a letter, deep dejection claimed him. Finally he wrote to +her again--and then again--and again--frantically appealing to her to +write to him and assure him of her constancy if she would save his life. + +Still, no word from her. + +The truth was that Myra, at home in Richmond, was awaiting each +mail-time as feverishly as he. The faint suggestion of rose her cheeks +usually wore, had entirely disappeared and deep circles caused by lack +of sleep and lost appetite made her light blue eyes appear more +prominent than ever before. The ethereal look that had been her chief +claim to beauty had become exaggerated into a ghastliness that was not +in the least bewitching. She, like Edgar, had pocketed her pride and +followed her first letter with others more and more expressive of her +tender maiden passion; but her father, who had begun to suspect an +affair between her and the players' son a short time before Edgar left +for the University, had kept diligent watch for the passage of letters, +and had successfully intercepted them. + +And so the unhappy pair pined and sighed and gloomed, each reckoning the +other faithless and believing that life was forever robbed of joy. + +Edgar Poe had never really loved the girl. He had merely loved the dream +to which her tender words and timid caresses gave an adorable reality; +but now in his disappointment at not hearing from her he felt that her +love and loyalty to him were the only things in the world worth having +and persuaded himself that without her there as no incentive to live or +to strive. His misery was increased by an over-whelming homesickness, to +escape from which, he wandered restlessly about, vainly seeking +excitement and forgetfulness. + +In this mood, he eagerly accepted an invitation to spend the evening +from a class-mate whose room in "Rowdy Row" had a reputation for +conviviality. His own room, shared by a quiet and steady Richmond boy +with whom he had a slight acquaintance at home, was in one of the +cloister-like dormitories opening upon the main lawn. + +While Edgar Poe had been a somewhat wayward and at times a disobedient +boy, at home, he had never been a _bad_ boy except when judged by John +Allan's standards, and had never been in the least wild. Wines were used +upon the table of his foster-father, as upon the tables of other +gentlemen whose homes he had visited, and he had always been permitted +to drink a small quantity at a time, at dinner, or to sip a little +mint-julep from the goblet passed around before breakfast and supposed +to be conducive to appetite and healthful digestion; but he had never +thought of exceeding this allowance. As to cards, he knew nothing of +them save as an innocent, social pastime in which he found pleasure, as +in all other games and sports--especially such as required exercise of +ingenuity or mental skill. + +The evening in "Rowdy Row" was therefore a revelation, as well as a +diversion to him. As he approached the end of this arcaded row in which +his new friend's room was situated his interest received a spur from the +sounds of hilarity that greeted him, and his spirits began to rise. In a +few moments more he found himself in the midst of a group of exceedingly +jolly youths evidently prepared to make a night of it. Several of them +were gathered about a huge bowl in which they were mixing a variety of +punch which they called "peach-honey." Others were seated around a card +table while one of their number entertained the rest with what seemed to +be almost magical tricks. These Edgar joined. His interest was +immediately aroused and he fixed his eyes with intentness upon the +juggler. The tricks were new to him, but he soon amazed the crowd by +showing the solution of them all. + +Finally, the punch was declared to be ready; other packs of cards were +produced and the real sport of the evening began. It was Edgar's first +experience in drinking with boys and his conscience, not yet hardened +to it, kept him in check without worrying him enough to destroy his +pleasure. Somewhat of his old exhilaration returned to him at the bare +thought, for he felt himself a man, following his own will and yet not +disobeying any direct command. + +In spite of much urging, he only drank one glass of the peach-honey, but +thanks to a jovial ancestor of whom he had never heard, but of some of +whose sins (in accordance with the ancient law) he bore the marks in his +temperament, he was peculiarly susceptible to the influences of strong +drink, and as he drained the glass at a gulp, a new freedom seemed to +enter his soul. The dejection which had oppressed him dropped from him +instantly, and with his great eyes glowing like lamps with new zest in +life, he sat down at a card table to be initiated into the mysteries of +the fascinating game of _loo_, which had lately become the fashion, and +at the same time into his first experience in playing for money. + +He had beginner's luck--held good hands and won straight through the +game. His success, with the effects of the punch, developed his wittiest +vein and Edgar Goodfellow assumed complete ascendancy. + +His new acquaintances were charmed, and encouraged his mood by loud +applause and congratulated themselves upon having added to their number +such good company. + +From that night Edgar Poe's new friends, who constituted what was known +as the "fast set" at the University, became his boon companions. It was +in the card-table, much more than the punch-bowl that the charm for him +lay, for the gambling fever had entered his blood with his first +winnings, but in the combination of the two he found, for the present, a +sure cure for his "blue devils." + +Alas, Helen! Where was your sweet spirit that it did not hover, as +guardian angel, about the head of this wayward child of genius in his +hour of sore need, when temptations gathered thick around his pathway +and there was no one to steer him into safer waters; no one to restrain +his feet from their first blind steps toward that Disaster to which +ruinous companionship invited him, with syren voice? + +True, his staid room-mate, Miles George, raised his voice in warning +against the dangerous intimacies he was forming but Miles' view seemed +extreme to him. Besides, he found at the University the same caste +feeling that had cut him off from familiar intercourse with the leaders +among his Richmond schoolmates. It was but natural, therefore, that he +should have turned gratefully, to the society where his welcome was +sure. + +Finally words passed between him and Miles, ending in a formal meeting, +with seconds on both sides. Their only weapons were their fists, and +they shook hands afterward; but the idea of continuing to share the same +bed-room was out of the question. Of the vacant rooms to be had, Edgar +promptly decided upon Number 13, Rowdy Row, and the second step in a +wrong direction quickly followed the first. + +He was hailed by the rest of the "Row" with delight, and he promptly +decided to return their many hospitalities in his new room, which he +proceeded to elaborately prepare for their reception. + +The result was an early and noisy house-warming. The guests were filled +with admiration to find the walls of Number 13 decorated in honor of the +occasion with charcoal sketches representing scenes from Byron's works +done by the clever hand of the new occupant himself. They also found +Edgar Goodfellow in the character of host, presiding over his own +card-table and his own bowl--a generous one--of peach-honey, in the +highest feather and his most captivating mood. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Erelong Number 13 was the liveliest and most popular room in the Row, +but of the orgies held there the faculty rested in blissful +unconsciousness. At class-time young Poe was invariably in his place and +invariably the pale, thoughtful, student-like and faultlessly neat and +gentle-mannered youth whose intelligent attention and admirable +recitations were the joy of his masters. They heard rumors that he was +something of a poet and were not surprised, the suggestions of ideality +in the formation of his brow and the expression of his eyes hinted at +such talent, and so long as he did not let the Muse come between him and +his regular work, he should not be discouraged or restrained. + +Indeed, in spite of the sway of Edgar Goodfellow at this time, Edgar the +Dreamer was often present too, and during solitary tramps into the wild +fastenesses of the Ragged Mountains, he not only conceived many fancies +to be worked into poems, but made mentally, the first draft of a story +to win fame. + +The love of no real woman came to supplant the seemingly faithless +Elmira, and though he still carried his mother's miniature with him and +gazed often and fondly upon it, the sense of nearness between her spirit +and his and the soul satisfaction he had found in this nearness in the +past, were gone. The gambling fever that had fired his veins and the +nightly potations of peach-honey created an excitement and restlessness +that blurred the images his memory held of the angel mother who had +dominated his childhood and of the madonna-like mistress who had filled +the dreams of his early youth. These holy dreams became for the time +being, a reproach to him, for they aroused his conscience to an +unpleasant activity which required more frequent recourse to peach-honey +to quiet. + + * * * * * + +Love was, nevertheless, as necessary to this poet's soul as meat and +drink were to his body, and in the No Man's Land, "out of space, out of +time," which his fancy created and where it loved to stray, he fashioned +for himself the weirdest, strangest lady ever loved by mortal. The name +he gave her was "Ligeia." She laid upon him no exactions, chastened him +with no rebukes, demanded of him no service save that he should +dream--and dream--and dream; for was not she herself formed from "such +stuff as dreams are made of?" + +The music of nature had long possessed a sort of personality for Edgar +Poe, and now the voices, the motions, the numberless colors of the world +about him took definite shape in his fancy of a wonderous fairy-woman +whom he worshipped with an unearthly, poetic passion that was compared +to the passion of the normal man to flesh and blood woman as moonlight +to sunshine--a passion which was luminous without heat. + +Dim and elusive as is the very conception of "Ligeia" to the ordinary +mind, she was perfectly real to her creator. In the summer-night breeze +he heard the music of her voice and felt the delicious coolness of her +caress. Tall, swaying trees spoke to him of her height, her majesty and +her grace. He perceived the softness and lightness of her footfalls in +the passage of evening shadows across a lake or meadow, the perfection +of her features in the form and finish of flower petals and the delicate +tints of her beauty in the coloring of flowers; the raven hue and +sweeping length of of her tresses in the drowning shades of midnight and +the entrancing veil of her lashes in deep mysterious woods; and when, in +fancy, he looked beneath that veil into her eyes, as unfathomable as the +ocean itself, he was struck dumb with reverence and wonder, for they +held in keeping all the secrets of the moon and the stars, of dawn and +sunset, of green things growing and flowers in bloom, of the butterfly +in the crysalis and on the wing, of still waters and of running brooks. + +To the inner vision of this most unusual youth, "Ligeia"--this myth +called into being by the enchantment of his own fancy--not only became +as real as if she had been flesh and blood; his pagan soul bowed down +before her and she blotted from his mind, for the time, all thought or +consciousness of more robust womanhood. She became, in imagination, the +sharer of his studies, the wife of his bosom, and he sat at her feet and +gladly learned from her the beautiful, strange secrets of this fearfully +and wonderfully made world. + +He was sometimes haunted by another, and a far less agreeable vision. In +spite of the absence of restraint under which he lived and the fact +that between his dreams, his books and his dissipations there seemed +little opportunity left for the still, small voice to make itself heard, +there were times when his better self shook off slumber and rose before +him like a ghost that, for all his efforts, would not be laid--a ghost +like him in all regards save for the sternness of its look and of the +voice which accused him in whispers to which all others ears were deaf, +but his own intensely, horribly sensitive. + +It was generally at the very height of excitement in play, when he had +just been dealt a hand which he told himself, with exultation, would win +him all the money in the pool, or, perhaps at the moment when he raised +the glass to his lips, anticipating the delicious exhilaration of the +seductive peach-honey, that the unwelcome spectre would, with startling +suddenness, appear before his eyes. His face would blanch, his own voice +become almost as hoarse as the warning whisper that was in his ear, and +with trembling hand he would put down the cards or the cup and refuse to +have anything more to do with the evening's sport. + +His companions at first thought these attacks the result of some +physical weakness but finally became accustomed to them and attributed +them to his "queerness." + + * * * * * + +Thus the youthful poet passed his year at college--dividing his time +between his dreams, his classes and his carousals. The session closed in +December. The final examinations occupied the early part of the month +and when the faculty met upon the 14th., it was found that Edgar Poe +had not only stood well in all of his studies, but in two of them--Latin +and French--he had taken the highest honors. + +In spite of this, and of the fact that at no time during the session had +he come under the censure of the faculty, a startling revelation was +made. Edgar Poe, model student as he seemed to be, whose only fault--if +it could be called a fault--as the faculty knew him, had been a tendency +toward a romantic dreaminess that had led him upon lonely rambles among +the hills rather eccentric in a boy of seventeen; Edgar Poe, the quiet, +the gentlemanly, the immaculately neat, the scholarly, the poetic, had +been a spendthrift and a reckless gambler. His debts, for a boy of his +age, were astounding. No one was more amazed at the sum of them than +Edgar himself. He had always had the lordly indifference to money, and +the contempt for keeping account of it, that was the natural result of +being used to have what seemed to him to be an unlimited supply to draw +upon, with the earning of which he had nothing to do. As to hoarding it, +he would as soon have thought of hoarding the air he breathed which came +to him with no less effort. He was, unfortunately, as heedless of what +he owed as what he spent--lavishing it upon his companions as long as it +lasted and when his supply of cash was exhausted running up accounts +with little thought of a day of reckoning--though of course he fully +intended to pay. + +His mind was, indeed, too much engrossed with the charming creations of +his brain to leave him time for brooding upon such sordid matters as the +keeping of accounts, or the making of two ends meet. The amount of his +indebtedness was now, however, sufficient to give him a shock which +thoroughly aroused him, and he was genuinely distressed; for he had no +wish to ruthlessly pain his foster-father. The haunting better self not +only arose and confronted him, but remained with him, keeping close step +with him and upbraiding him and condemning him in the whisper audible to +his quick imagination and so terrifying. + +Still, the thought that Mr. Allan had plenty of money, and that no +severe sacrifice would be needful for the payment of his debts relieved +his penitence of much of its poignancy. That Mr. Allan would settle +these "debts of honor," as he called them, as the fathers and guardians +of boys as reckless as himself had done, he had not the slightest doubt. +But, as will be seen, he reckoned without Mr. Allan. + +He wrote Mrs. Allan a dutiful letter, confessing all and expressing his +sorrow, and begging to be permitted to repay Mr. Allan for settling his +affairs at the University with work as a clerk in the counting house. + +The letter filled the tender heart of the foster-mother with yearning. +The sum frightened her, though she, like the boy, comforted herself with +the thought that her husband could pay it without embarrassment. Still, +she trembled to think of his wrath. Her chief feeling was one of +sympathy for her erring, penitent boy. How natural it was for one of his +age to be led away by evil associates! All boys--she supposed--must sow +some wild oats, though few, she was confident, showed such a beautifully +penitent spirit, and it would be a small matter in future years when he +should have become the great and good man she knew he was going to be. + +How noble it was of him to offer to give up or postpone the completion +of the education so dear to his heart and tie himself to a desk in that +tiresome counting-house in order to pay his debts--he that was born to +shine as a poet. She exulted that he had offered to make such a +sacrifice, but he should never make it, never while _she_ had breath in +her body to protest! + +How her heart bled for him in his sorrow over his wrong-doing! How she +longed to fold his dear curly head against her breast and tell him that +he was quite, quite forgiven! She would reward him for the splendid +stand in his classes and at the same time make him forget his troubles +on account of the debts by giving him the loveliest imaginable +Christmas. Uncle Billy must search the woods for the brightest greens, +the prettiest holly; for the house must look its merriest for the +home-coming of its young master, covered with honors! There must be +mistletoe, too she told herself, her mouth dimpling and a suspicion of a +twinkle flashing out from under her dewy lashes. The fatted calf should +be killed, her boy should make merry with his friends. + +The dear letter was kissed and cried over until it took much smoothing +on her knee to make it presentable to hand over to her husband for +perusal. Her fingers were still busy stroking out the crumples, though +her tears were dried, and her thoughts were happily engaged with plans +for a Christmas party worthy to celebrate the home-coming of her +darling, when Mr. Allan came in to supper. She was brought back to +recollection of the confession in the letter and her apprehensions as to +how it would be received, with a start, and before timidly handing her +husband the open letter, she began preparing him for its contents and +excusing the writer. + +"A letter from Eddie, John, dear. He has stood splendidly in his +classes, but asks your forgiveness for having done wrong in his spare +time. He is so manly and noble in his confession, John, and in his offer +to make reparation!" + +John Allan's face clouded and hardened instantly. + +"What is this? Confession? Reparation?--Give me the letter!" + +But she held it away from him. + +"It seems he has gotten into a card-playing set who have led him away +further than he realized. Oh, don't look like that, John! He is so +young, and you know how evil association can influence the best of +boys!" + +But the storm gathered fast and faster on John Allan's face. + +"Card-playing? Do you mean the boy has been gambling? Give me the +letter." + +She could withhold it no longer, but as he sat down to read it she threw +herself upon an ottoman at his feet and clasping his knees hid her face +against them, crying, + +"Oh, John, have pity, have pity!" + +But even as she sobbed out the words, she felt their futility. She knew +that there was no pity to be expected from the owner of that face of +stone, that eye of steel. + +As he read, his rage became too great for the relief of an outburst. A +still, but icy calm settled upon him. For some minutes he spoke no word +and seemed unconscious of the tender creature so appealing in her +loveliness and in the humility of her attitude, beseeching at his knee. +The truth was, that much as he loved her, his contempt for what he +called her "weakness" for the son of her adoption, but added to his +harshness in judging the boy. + +Presently he arose, impatiently pushing her away from him as he did so, +saying; + +"Pack my bag and order an early breakfast. I'm going to take the morning +stage for the University." + +It was a difficult evening for the little foster-mother. In the stately, +octagon-shaped dining-room soft lamplight was cheerily reflected by +gleaming mahogany and bright silver and china, upon which was served the +most toothsome of suppers; but the meal was almost untouched and the +mere pretense of eating was carried through in silence and gloom. In the +drawing-room, afterward, the firelight leaped saucily against shining +andirons and fender, bringing forgetfulness of the frosty night outside, +while the carved wood-work and the great mirrors and soft-hued +paintings, in their gilded frames, on the walls, and the deep carpets on +the floors spoke of comfort. But the beautiful room was a mockery, for +the promised comfort, was not there--only futile luxury. Upon that +bright hearth was warmth for the body, but none for the spirit, for +before it sat the master and mistress--the presiding geniuses of the +house--upon whose oneness the structure of the _home_ must stand, or +without it fall into ruin; there they sat, wrapped in moods so out of +sympathy and tune that speech was as impossible between them as if they +had been of different tongues, and each unknown to the other. + +Meantime, Edgar Poe was spending his last hours at the University in the +dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No +farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking. Only one of his friends was +invited to his room that night and he no denizen of "Rowdy Row," but the +quiet, irreproachable librarian. To this gentle guest The Dreamer +confided his past sins and his penitence, while he laid upon the glowing +coals the year's accumulation of exercise books, and the like, which had +served their purpose and were finished and done with, and watched the +devouring flames leap from the little funeral pyre they made into the +chimney. + +More than anything he had ever done in his life, he told his companion, +he regretted the making of the gambling debts for which Mr. Allan would +have to advance the money to pay. But, as has been said, he reckoned +without Mr. Allan, who settled all other obligations, but utterly +ignored the so-called "debts of honor." + +"Debts of honor?" he queried with contempt. "Debts of _dishonor_, I +consider them." + +And that was his last word upon the subject. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +The late January night was bitterly cold, and clear as crystal. There +was a metallic glitter about the round moon, shining down from a +cloudless, blue sky--too bright to show a star--upon the black and bare +trees and shrubbery in the terraced garden of the Allan homestead. + +Edgar Poe looked from his casement upon the splendor of the beautiful, +but frigid and unsympathetic night. Bitterness was in his heart +contending with a fierce joy. At last it had come--the breach with Mr. +Allan--and he was going away! He knew not where, but he was going, going +into the wide world to seek fame and fortune. + +He had much to regret. He loved Richmond--loved it for the joy and pain +he had felt in it; for the dreams he had dreamed in it. He loved it +exceedingly for the two dear graves, one in the churchyard on the hill +and one in the new cemetery, that held his beloved dead. + +Yes, he was sorry to leave this _home_-city, if not of his birth, at +least of his childhood and early youth, and his soul was still shaken by +the scene with his foster-parents through which he had just passed. But +in spite of all, his heart--rejoicing in the nearness of the freedom for +which he had so fiercely longed, sang, and stilled his sorrow. + +But a few weeks had passed since his return from the University. A few +weeks? They seemed to him years, and each one had left a feeling of +increased age upon his spirit. + +The home-coming had not been altogether unhappy--humiliating as it was. +In spite of the black looks of his foster-father, the little mother +(bless her!) had welcomed him with out-stretched arms and eyes beaming +with undimmed love. Never had she been more tenderly sweet and dear. She +had given the most beautiful Christmas party, with all his best friends +invited, and everything just as she knew he would like it. Her husband +had frowningly consented to this, but her tears and entreaties were all +of no avail to win his consent for the boy's return to college. Vainly +had she plead his talents which she believed should be cultivated, and +the injustice (since they had voluntarily assumed the responsibility of +rearing him) of cutting short his education at such an early age. John +Allan was adamant. + +And so, after the holidays, he had taken his place in the counting-house +of "Ellis and Allan." + +Distasteful as the new work was to the young poet, he was determined to +stick to it, and would probably have done so, but the strict +surveillance he soon realized he was under (as if he could not be +trusted!) and the manner of Mr. Allan who rarely spoke to him except +when it was absolutely necessary, and seemed to regard him as a hopeless +criminal, would have been unbearable to a far less proud and sensitive +nature than Edgar Poe's. Both at the office and at home, Mr. Allan's +narrow, steel-colored eyes seemed to keep constant watch, under their +beetling brows, for faults or blunders; and it seemed to the driven boy +that no matter what he did or said, he should have done or said just the +reverse. He felt constantly that a storm was brewing which must sooner +or later, certainly break, and that night it had burst forth with all +the fury of the tempest which has been a long time gathering. + +He hardly knew what had brought it on, or how it had begun. Its violence +was so great as to almost stun him until at length, without being more +than half conscious of the significance of his own words he had asked if +it would not be better for him to go away and earn his own living; and +then came his foster-father's startlingly ready consent, with the +warning that if he did go he must look for no further aid from him. + +His heart ached for the pretty, tender little mother. How soft the arms +that had clung about his neck, the lips that had pressed his hot brow! +How piteous her dear tears! They had almost robbed him of his +resolution, but he had succeeded in steeling himself against this +weakness. He had folded her close in his arms and kissed her, and vowed +that, come what might, he could never forget her or cease to love her, +and that he should always think of her as his mother and himself as her +child. Then he had put her gently from him for, for all his vows, she +was inseparably bound up in the old life from which he was breaking +away--his life as John Allan's adopted son--she could have no real place +in his future. + +Yet the tie that bound him to her was the strongest in his life and +could not be severed without keen pain. In the world into which he was +going to fight the battle of life (he told himself) memory of her would +be one of his inspirations. + +But where was that battle to be fought, and with what weapons? He had +been brought up as a rich man's son, and with the expectation of being a +rich man's heir. He had been trained to no money-making work, physical +or mental; and now he was to fare forth into the great world where there +was not a familiar face, even, to earn his bread! What could he do that +would bring him the price of a loaf?-- + +Did the question appal him? Not in the least. He had youth, he had +health, he had hope, he had his beloved talent and the secret training +he had given himself toward its cultivation. His "heart-strings were a +lute"--he felt it, and with an optimism rare for him he also felt that +he had but to strike upon that lute and the world must needs stop and +listen. + +What he did not have was experience and knowledge of the world. Little +did he dream how small a part of the busy hive would turn aside to hear +his music or how little poetry had to do with the earning of daily +bread. + +His trunk was standing open, half packed, though his destination was +still undecided; and among the first things that had gone into it was a +box containing a number of small rolls of neat manuscript. As he thought +of them his heart warmed and his eyes grew soft. + +"The world's mine oyster, and with my good pen I'll open it," he +joyously paraphrased. But toward what part of the world should he turn +his face--to what market take his precious wares? That was the +all-important question! How much his fortune might depend upon his +decision! + +As he stood at the window, he stared into the brilliancy and the shadows +of the icy, unresponsive night--seeking a sign. But the cold splendor of +the cloudless sky and glittering moon and the inscrutible shadows in the +garden below where the leafless trees and bushes cast monster shapes +upon the frozen ground, alike mocked him. + +Presently there was the first hint of softness in the night. It came +like a sigh of tender pity across the stillness and he bent his head to +listen. It was the voice of the faintest of breezes blowing up from the +south and passing his window. He threw wide his arms to empty space as +if to embrace some invisible form. + +"Ligeia, Ligeia, my beautiful one," he breathed, invoking his +dream-lady, "Be my counsellor and guide! Let thy sweet voice whisper +whither I must go!" + +But the voice was silent and all the night was still again. + +He turned from the window and threw himself into his arm-chair, letting +his eyes rove about the room as though he would seek a sign from its +walls. Suddenly he sat erect, his dilated pupils fixed upon a point +above the chimney-piece--upon a small picture. It was a little +water-color sketch done by the hand of his versatile mother, and found +among her belongings after her death. Like her miniature and her +letters, the picture had followed him through his life and had always +adorned the walls of his room. Often and over he had studied it until he +knew by heart every stroke of the brush that entered into its +composition. Yet he stared at it now as if he had never seen it before. +Finally he took it down from its place on the chimney and held it in his +hands, gazing upon it in deep abstraction. + +Underneath the picture was written its title: "Boston Harbor--Morning," +and upon its back, + +"For my little boy, Edgar, who must love Boston, the place of his birth, +and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic friends." + +The picture gave him the sign! With rising excitement he decided that +it must be accepted. To Boston, of course, he would go. Boston, the +place of his birth and where his angel mother had found her "best, most +sympathetic friends." + +He would get away as early the next morning as possible, he told +himself. He would waste no time in goodbyes, for, he remembered with +some bitterness, there were few to say goodbye to. The boys were all off +at college again, now that the holidays were over, and as for Myra, she +had quickly consoled herself and was already a wife! He had addressed +some reproachful verses to her as a bride; then dismissed her from his +thoughts. + +He arose and placed the picture carefully in the trunk with the rest of +his treasures and then went to bed to fall into the easy slumber of one +whose mind is well made up. + + * * * * * + +A few days later Edgar Poe had looked with delight and ineffable emotion +upon the real Boston Harbor, with its rocky little islets and its varied +shipping and its busy wharves, and--for him--its suggestions of one in +Heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Upon his arrival in Boston, our errant knight, before setting out upon +his quest for the Fame and Fortune to whose service he was sworn, spent +some hours in wandering about the old town, with mind open to the +quickening influences of historic association and eye to the irregular, +picturesque beauty about him. + +It was one of those rare days that come sometimes in the month of +February when, though according to the callendar it should be cold, +there is a warmth in the sunshine that seems borrowed from Spring. Tired +out by his tramp, young Edgar at length sat down upon a bench in the +Common, under an elm, great of girth and wide-spreading. The sunshine +fell pleasantly upon him, through the bare branches. Roundabout were +other splendid, but now bare elms and he sat gazing upward into their +sturdy brown branches and dreamily picturing to himself the beauty of +these goodly trees clothed in the green vesture of summer. Suddenly, by +a whimsical sequence of suggestion, the pleasure he felt in the sunshine +of February as it reached him under the tree in Boston Common, vividly +called to mind the refreshing coolness of the shade of the elms, in full +leaf, as he, a little lad of six, had walked the streets of old +Stoke-Newington for the first time. + +There was little relation between that first and this present parting +with the Allans, yet in his mind they became inseparably connected. He +recalled his happiness in his first essays at composition, made at the +Manor School, and told himself that, though he did not know it at the +time, that was the first step toward his life work. He was now, here in +Boston, the city of his birth, about to take the second; for the hour +had arrived when his work would be given to the world! + +Across his knees he held the box containing his precious manuscripts. He +arose from the bench and turning toward the lower end of the Common, +walked, with brisk, hopeful step down town, in the direction of a +well-known publishing house whose location he had already ascertained. + +Edgar Poe had known sorrow, real and imaginary; he was now to have his +first meeting with Disappointment, bitter and grim. + +Of all the persons who had ever seen his work, every one had been warm +in its praise--everyone saving John Allan only. Some had been positively +glowing. True, they had not been publishers, yet among them there had +been gentlemen and ladies of taste and culture. But here was a different +matter. Here was a personage with whom he had not reckoned, but who was +the door, as it were, through which his work must pass into the world. +He was unmistakably a personage. His bearing, though modest, spoke of +power. His dress, though unobtrusive, was in the perfect taste which +only the prosperous can achieve and maintain. His features were cast in +the mold of the well-bred. He was past middle age and his naturally fine +countenance was beautiful with the ennobling lines which time leaves +upon the face of the seeker after truth. He was courteous--most +Bostonians and many publishers are. He was sympathetic. He was +undoubtedly intellectual, but the eyes that regarded through big, +gold-rimmed spectacles, the romantic beauty, the prominent brow and the +distinguished air of the sweet-voiced youth before him, wore a not only +thoughtful, but something more--a distinctly shrewd and practical +expression. In them was no awe of the bare mention of "original poetry." + +He took the little rolls of manuscript into his strong, and at the same +time smooth and well-shapen hands, and drew them out to their full +length with the manner of one who handled as good every day. He cast his +eyes rapidly down the sheets--_too_ rapidly, it seemed to the poet--with +a not unkind, yet critical air, while the sensitive youth before him +turned red and white, hot and cold, by turns, and learned something of +the horrors of the Inquisition. + +It was really but a very short space, but to the boy who seemed +suspended between a life and a death sentence, it was an age. + +Finally, he experienced something like a drowning sensation while he +heard a voice that barely penetrated the flood of deep waters that was +rolling over his head, saying words that were intended to be kind about +the work showing promise, in spite of an absence of marketable value. + +"Marketable value?" Heavens! Was he back in John Allan's counting house? +What could the man mean? It was as literature, not as merchandize that +he wanted his poetry to be judged! + +In his dismay, he stammered something of the sort, only to be told that +when his poetry was made into a book it would become merchandize and it +mattered not how good, as poetry--it might be, the publisher could do +nothing with it unless as merchandize it would probably be valuable too. + +Then--he had been politely bowed out, with his package still under his +arm! + +During the few minutes he had spent in the publisher's office the sky +had become overcast and a biting east wind had blown up from the river; +but the change in the outside world was as nothing to that within him. +He had not known how large a part of himself was his dream of becoming a +poet. It now seemed to him that it was all of him--had from the +beginning of his life been all of him. Since those old days at +Stoke-Newington, he had been building--building--building--this castle +in the air; now, at one fell blow, the whole fabric was laid in ruin! + +Weakness seized his limbs and deep dejection his spirits. His life might +as well come to an end for there was nothing left for him to live for. +How indeed, was he to live when the only work he knew how to do had "no +marketable value?" The money with which Mrs. Allan supplied him, before +he left home--"to give him a start"--would soon be exhausted. What if he +should not be able to make more? + +Though he was in the city of his birth, he found himself an absolute +stranger. If any of those who had been sympathetic friends to his mother +were left, he had no idea who or where they were. + +He went back to the lodgings he had engaged to a night of bitter, +sleepless tossing. + +But with the new day, youth and hope asserted themselves. He decided +that he would not accept as final the verdict of any one publisher, +though that one stood at the head of the list. With others, however, it +was just the same; and another night of even greater wretchedness +followed. + +Upon his third day in Boston (he felt that he had been there a year!) +he wandered aimlessly about, spirit broken, ambition gone. Finally, in +Washington Street, he discovered, upon a small door, a modest sign +bearing the legend: + +"Calvin F.S. Thomas. Printer." + +With freshly springing hope, he entered the little shop and was received +by a pale, soft-eyed, sunken-chested and somewhat threadbare youth of +about his own age, who in reply to his inquiry, announced himself as +"Mr. Thomas." + +Between these two boys, as they stood looking frankly into each other's +eyes, that mysterious thing which we call sympathy, which like the wind +"bloweth where it listeth and no man knoweth whence it cometh or whither +it goeth," sprang instantly into being. The one found himself without +his usual diffidence declaring himself a poet in search of a publisher, +and the other was at once alert with interest. + +Calvin Thomas had but just--timorously, for he was poor as well as +young--set up his little shop, hoping to build up a trade as a printer. +To be a publisher had not entered into his wildest imaginings--much less +a publisher for a poet! But he was, like his visitor, a dreamer, and +like him ambitious. Why should he not be a publisher as well as a +printer? The poet had not his manuscripts with him, but offered to +recite some extracts, which he did, with glowing voice and +gesture--explaining figures of speech and allusions as he went along. + +Edgar Poe sat easily upon a high stool in the little shop. His dress was +handsome and, as always, exquisite in its neatness and taste. His whole +appearance and bearing were marked by an "air" which deeply impressed +the young printer who had promptly fallen under the spell of his +personal charm. He had laid his hat upon the desk, baring the glossy +brown ringlets that clustered about his large, pale brow. His clear-cut +features were mobile and eager; his dark grey eyes full of life. His +voice had a wonderful musical quality, becoming passionate when, as at +present, his feeling was deeply aroused. + +His poetry, recited thus, gained much of distinction. Its crudities +would have been lost, to a great extent, even upon a critic. But Thomas +was no critic. He was simply a dreamy, half-educated youth with a mind +open to the beautiful and the romantic. The flights of the poet's fancy +did not seem to him obscure or too fantastic. They admitted him to a +magic world in which he sat spell-bound until silence brought him back +to his tiny bare shop which seemed suddenly to have been glorified. + +"It is wonderful--_wonderful_!" he breathed. + +He began to picture himself as not only sharing the wealth, but the fame +which the publication of these gems was bound to bring. But he had to +explain that he was poor, and that he could not bring out the poems +without financial aid. The money which had been given Edgar to set out +in the world with, was already dwindling, but he managed to subscribe a +sum which Thomas declared would be sufficient, with the little he +himself could add, for the printing of a modest edition, in a very +modest garb. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +In the Allan mansion, in Richmond, there was a stillness that was +oppressive. No young foot-falls sounded upon the stair; no boyish +laughter rang out in rooms or hall. There were handsome and formal +dinners occasionally, when some elderly, distinguished stranger was +entertained, but there were no more merry dancing parties, with old Cy +playing the fiddle and calling the figures. + +Frances Allan, fair and graceful still, though looking somewhat out of +health and "broken," as her friends remarked to one another, trod softly +about the stately rooms with no song on her lip, no gladness in her +step. Her husband was grown suddenly prematurely old and his speech was +less frequent and harsher than before. He was more immersed in business +than ever and was prospering mightily, but the fact seemed to bring him +no satisfaction. Even the old servants had lost much of their mirth. +Their black faces were grown solemn and their tread heavy. They looked +with awe upon their mistress when, as frequently happened, they saw her +quietly enter "Marse Eddie's" room and close the door behind her. + +In that room and there alone, the fair, gentle, woful creature gave free +reign to the grief of her stricken mother-heart. The room was kept just +as her boy had left it, for she constantly hoped against hope that he +would return. Hers was the aching, pent-up grief of a mother whose child +is dead, yet she is denied the solace of mourning. + +Here was the bed which had pillowed his dear, sunny ringlets. Here were +his favorite chair--his desk--his books. In a little trunk against the +wall were his toys with some of the pretty clothes made with her own +fingers, in which it had been her pride to dress him when he was a wee +laddie. How she loved to finger and fondle them! + +Fifteen years she had been his mother--now this was all she had! +Somewhere in the same world with her he was living, was walking about, +talking, eating, sleeping; yet he was dead to her! Oh, if she could only +know that he was happy, that he was well, that he lacked nothing in the +way of creature comfort; if she could know where he was, picture him at +work or in his leisure hours, it would not be so hard to bear. + +But she knew nothing--nothing--save that he had gone to Boston. + +One letter she had had from him there--such a dear one!--she knew it by +heart. In it he had called her "Mother" and assured her of his constant +love and thought of her. He had arrived safely, he said, and would soon +be busy making his living. Boston was a fine city and full of interest +to him. When his ship came in he was going to have her come on and pay +him a visit there. He would write again when he had anything worth +telling. + +Days had passed--weeks--and no word had come. Had he failed to obtain +employment? Had he gone further--to New York, perhaps, or Philadelphia? +She did not know. Oh, if she could but _know_! + +Was he ill? Fear clutched her heart and made her faint. The suspense was +terrible, and she had no one to go to for sympathy--no one. She dared +not mention her anxiety to her husband; it made him furious. He could +not stand the sound of Eddie's name, even--her darling, beautiful Eddie! +Her arms felt so empty they ached. + +Winter was passing. The garden that Eddie loved so dearly was coming to +life. The crocuses for which he always watched with so much interest +were come and gone. The jonquils were in bloom and the first sweet +hyacinths, blue as turquoises, she had gathered and put in his room. It +cheered her to see them there. Somehow, they made the room look more +"ready" than usual--as if he might come home that day. + +He did not come, but something else did. A letter with the Boston +post-mark she had so longed to see, and a small, flat package addressed +to her in his dear hand. She broke the seal of the letter first--she was +so hungry for the sight of the familiar, "Mother dear," and to know how +he fared. + +It was a short letter, but, ah, the blessed relief of knowing he was +well and happy! And _prospering_--prospering famously--for he told her +he was sending her the first copy off the press of his book of poems! It +was a _very little_ book, he said, but it was a beginning. He felt +within him that he would have much bigger and better things to show her +erelong. For the present, he was hard at work making ready for a revised +and enlarged edition of his book, if one should be called for. + +There was a jubilant note in the letter that delighted her and +communicated itself to her own spirits. She eagerly tore the wrappings +from the package, and pressed the contents against her lips and her +heart. It was but a slender volume, cheaply printed and bound, but it +was her boy's first published work and a wonderful thing in her eyes. +She already saw him rich and famous--saw him come home to her crowned +with honor and success--_vindicated_. + +She turned the pages of the book. He had written upon the fly-leaf some +precious words of presentation to her. She kissed them rapturously and +passed on to the title-page: + +"Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian. Boston: Calvin F.S. Thomas, +Printer." + +She was still gloating over her treasure when the brass knocker on the +front door was sounded, and a minute later Myra Royster--now Mrs. +Shelton--was announced. Taking the book with her, she tripped +downstairs, singing as she went, and burst in upon Myra as she sat in +state in the drawing-room, in all her bridal finery. + +Myra noticed as she kissed her, her glowing cheeks and shining eyes. + +"How well you are looking today, Mrs. Allan," she exclaimed. + +"It is happiness, dear. I've just had such a delightful letter from +Eddie, and this darling little book. It is his poems, Myra!" + +Myra was all interest. "To think of knowing a real live author!" she +exclaimed. "I was sure Eddie would be famous some day, but had no idea +it would come so soon." + +"Don't you wish you had waited for him?" teased Mrs. Allan, laughing +happily. + +They chatted over the wonderful news until nearly dinner-time, and after +they had parted Mrs. Allan sat at the window watching for her husband to +come home that she might impart it to him at the earliest moment +possible. But when at last he appeared she put off the great moment +until after dinner, and then when he was comfortably smoking a fragrant +cigar she approached him timidly and placed the letter and the book in +his lap without a word. + +"What's all this?" he questioned sharply. + +She made no reply, but hovered about his chair, too excited to trust +herself to speak. + +He picked up the letter and read it with a deepening frown, then opened +the book and ran his eyes hurriedly down one or two of its pages. At +length he spoke: + +"So this is the way he's wasting his time and, I dare say, his money +too. Will the boy ever amount to anything, I wonder?" + +The happiness in Frances Allan's face gave place to quick distress. + +"Oh, John," she cried, "Don't you think it amounts to anything for a boy +of eighteen to have written and published a book of poetry?" + +"Poetry? This stuff is bosh--utter bosh!" + +For the first time in her life, there was defiance in her gentle face. +Her clinging air was discarded. She raised her head and with flashing +eyes and rising color, faced him. + +"You think that, because you cannot understand or appreciate it," she +retorted, with spirit. "Neither do I understand it, but I can see that +it is wonderful poetry. If he can do this at eighteen I have no doubt he +will make himself and us famous before many years are past!" + +Her husband's only reply was an astonished and piercing stare which she +met without flinching, then turned and swept from the room, leaving him +with a feeling of surprise to see that she was so tall. + +Her self assertion was but momentary. As she ascended the stair and +entered Eddie's room, all the elasticity was gone from her step, all the +brightness from her cheeks and eyes and, still clasping her boy's letter +and book to her heart, she threw herself upon his bed and burst into a +passion of tears. + + * * * * * + +Meantime, the elms on Boston Common were clothed with tender April green +and under foot sweet, soft grass was springing. In this inspiring +cathedral walked Edgar Poe, his pale face and deep eyes, passionate with +the worship of beauty that filled his soul, lifted to the greening +arches above him, his sensitive ears entranced with the bird-music that +fluted through the cool aisles. His mind was teeming with new poems in +the making and with visions of what he should do if his book should +sell. + +But it did not sell. The leading magazines acknowledged its receipt in +their review columns, but with the merest mention, which was exceedingly +disconcerting. It was discussed (but with disappointment) for a week by +his friends at home and at the University, to whom he sent copies. Then +was forgotten. + +And now its author was, for the first time within his recollection, +beginning to feel the pinch of poverty. His money was almost gone and he +saw no immediate hope of getting more. He moved to the cheapest boarding +house he could find but he did not mind that so much as the prospect +that faced him of soon beginning to present a shabby appearance in +public. His shoes were already showing wear, and he found that to keep +his linen as immaculate as he had always been accustomed to have it cost +money and he actually had to economize in the quantity of clothing he +had laundered. This to his proud and fastidious nature was humiliating +in the extreme. + +He and Calvin Thomas held frequent colloquies as to ways and means of +giving his book wider circulation. He visited the offices of the several +newspapers of the town in the hope of getting work in the line of +journalism--reporting, reviewing, story-writing, anything in the way of +the only business or profession for which he felt that he had any +aptitude or preparation; but without success. + +At length the sign of "Calvin F.S. Thomas, Printer" had suddenly +disappeared from the little shop in Washington Street, and a dismal "To +Let," was in its place. + +At about the same time Mrs. Blanks lost the handsome, quiet young +gentleman, who had evidently seen better days, from her unpretentious +lodging house, and the walks under the elms in Boston Common were no +longer trodden by The Dreamer from Virginia. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Where was Edgar Poe?-- + +Twice since he shook the dust of Richmond joyfully from his feet, fair +Springtide had visited the terraced garden of the Allan home. Twice the +green had come forth, first like a misty veil, then like a mantle +enveloping its trees and its shrubs, its arbors and trellises; twice the +procession of flowers, led by the crocuses in their petticoats of purple +and yellow, had tripped from underground; twice the homing birds had +built in the myrtles and among the snowy pear and cherry blossoms and +filled all the place with music. Twice, too, in this garden, the pageant +of spring and summer and sunset-hued autumn had passed, the birds had +flown away again and winter snows had covered all with their whiteness +and their silence. + +And still the garden's true-lover, the poet, The Dreamer, was a +wanderer, where?-- + +Oh, beautiful "Ligeia," was it not your voice that now and again +whispered in the tree-tops and among the flowers? Could you not--did you +not, bring news of the wanderer? + +If she did, there was no human being to whom her language was +intelligible, and the trees and the flowers keep their secrets well. + +Within the homestead there was little change save a deepening of the +quietness that had fallen upon it. In the master of the house there was +no visible difference. There are some men who seen from year to year +seem as unchanging as the sphinx. It is only after a long period that +any difference in them can be detected and then they suddenly appear +broken and aged. The fair lady of the manor was as fair as ever, but +with the pale, tremulous fairness of a late star in the grey dawn of a +new day in which it will have no part. Her bloom, her roundness, her +gaiety--all these were gone. She spent more time than ever in the room +which, waiting for its roving tenant, became more and more like a death +chamber. The silence there was not now broken by her sobs even, for it +was with dry-eyed grief that she watched and waited for her boy, these +days--watched and waited and prayed. Ah, how she prayed for him, body +and soul! Prayed that wherever he might be, he might be kept from harm +and strengthened to resist temptation. + +Was it her agonized petitions that kept him to the straight and narrow +path of duty during those two years amid uncongenial surroundings and +hard conditions? + +Who knows? + +Yet the chair and the desk and the books and the vases of fresh flowers +on the mantel, and the fire-wood resting on the shining andirons ready +for a match, and the reading lamp with trimmed wick and bright chimney +on the table, and the canopied white bed still waited, in vain, his +coming. + +Many months had passed since the name of Eddie had been spoken between +husband and wife, but though she held her peace, like Mary of old, like +Mary too, she pondered many things in her heart. He, loving her well, +but having no aptitude for divining woman's ways, indulged in secret +satisfaction, for he took her silence to mean that she was coming to her +senses, and regarding the boy as he did. That she no longer importuned +him to enquire into Edgar's whereabouts with the intention of inviting +him home was a source of especial relief to him. + +Then, upon a day two years after she had triumphantly placed Eddie's +book and letter in his hands, it was his turn to bring her a letter. + +"You see the bad penny has turned up again," he remarked, dryly. + +She looked questioningly at the folded sheet. Its post-mark was Fortress +Monroe and the hand-writing was not familiar to her. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"A letter from Dr. Archer. He's surgeon at the fort, you know. Read it. +It is about Edgar." + +With shaking hands and a blanched face she spread open the sheet. A +nameless dread possessed her. A letter about Eddie--not from him--and +from a surgeon! For a moment darkness seemed to descend upon her and she +could not make out the characters before her. She pressed her hand upon +her heart. In sudden alarm, her husband rushed to a celaret nearby and +brought out a decanter of wine. Pouring a glass he pressed it to her +lips. + +"Eddie," she gasped, as soon as she could speak. "Is he well?" + +In spite of John Allan's anxiety, he was irritated, and showed it. + +"Pshaw, Frances!" he exclaimed. "I hoped you had forgotten the boy. Yes, +he's well, and, I'm glad to say, in a place where he is made to behave." + +She calmed herself with an effort and began to read the letter. The +story it told had a smack of romance. + +Dr. Archer had (he wrote) been called to the hospital in the fort to +see a private soldier by the name of Edgar A. Perry, who was down with +fever. The patient spoke but little but the Doctor was struck with his +marked refinement of look and manner, and there was something familiar +to him about the prominent brow and full grey eyes, though the name was +strange to him. His attention was aroused and he could not rid himself +of the impression that he had seen the young man before. He mentioned +the fact to some of the officers and found at once that his patient was +a subject of deep interest to them. They felt sure (they told him) that +he had a story. His polished manners and bright and cultivated +conversation seemed to them incongruous with the duties of a private +soldier, and they laughingly said that they suspected they were +entertaining an angel unawares. Yet his duties were performed with the +utmost faithfulness and efficiency. He had never been heard to speak of +himself or his past in a way which would throw any light upon his +history, and his reserve was of the kind which was bound to be +respected. Dr. Archer had grown (he wrote) more and more interested in +his patient as he became better acquainted with him, and being convinced +that the young man had for some reason, gotten out of his proper sphere, +he determined to try and help him back to it. + +By the time the young soldier was convalescent the Doctor had won his +confidence and obtained from him the confession that the name of Perry +was an assumed one, and that he was none other than Mr. Allan's adopted +son, Edgar Poe, whom Dr. Archer had not seen since he was a small boy. + +The discovery of his identity had greatly increased the good Doctor's +interest and he and the officers of the fort were of the opinion that as +young Poe had made a model soldier (having been promoted to the rank of +sergeant-major, for good conduct) the best thing that could be done for +him was to secure his discharge and get him an appointment to West +Point. This, Mr. Allan could bring about, he thought, through men of +influence whose friendship the Doctor knew he enjoyed. Edgar had +enlisted for five years. He had confessed that at the time he had been +almost upon the point of starvation and had turned to the army when +every effort to find other means of livelihood had failed. + +The Doctor and other officers thought that it would be a great sacrifice +to leave a young gentleman of Edgar's abilities to three more years of +such uncongenial life. + +He was quite recovered and in accordance with a promise made the Doctor, +was writing to Mr. Allan at that moment. + +"Did Eddie's letter come too?" Mrs. Allan asked, as she finished the one +in her hand. + +Without a word, her husband handed it over to her. In it Edgar expressed +much contrition for the trouble which his larger experience in life told +him he had cost his foster-father, and asked his forgiveness. He also +asked that Mr. Allan would follow the suggestion of Dr. Archer, and +apply for a discharge from the army for him, and an appointment to West +Point. + +He had not written his "Mother" in the past because he had unfortunately +nothing to tell which he believed could give her any pleasure, but he +sent her his undying love. + +Frances Allan looked through wet lashes into her husband's face, but her +eyes were shining through the tears. + +"Oh, John," she said breathlessly, "You will have him to come and make +us a little visit before he goes to West Point, won't you?" + +"I'll have nothing to do with him!" was the emphatic reply. "He seems to +be getting along very well where he is. Let him stick it out!" + +Feeling how vain her pleadings would be, yet not willing to give up +hope, she wept, she prayed, she hung upon John Allan's neck. She brought +every argument that starved motherhood could conceive to bear upon him. + +To think that Eddie was in Virginia--just down at Old Point! The cup of +joy was too near her lips to let it pass without a mighty effort. But +finally she gave up and shrank within herself, drooping like the palest +of lilies. + +Then came a day when a stillness such as it had never known before hung +over the Allan home. The garden was at its fairest. The halls and the +drawing-rooms, with their rich furnishings and works of art were as +beautiful as ever; but there was not even a bereaved mother, with an +expression on her face like that of Mary at the foot of the cross, to +tread the lonely floors. The luxurious rooms were quite, quite +empty--all save one--an upper chamber, where upon a stately carved and +canopied bed lay all that was mortal of Frances Allan, like a lily +indeed, when pitiless storm has laid it low! + +The learned doctors who had attended her had given long Latin names to +her malady. In their books there was mention of no such ailment as +heartbreak, and so happily, the desolate man left to preside in lonely +state, over the goodly roof-tree which her presence had filled and made +sweet and satisfying, was spared a suspicion even, of the real cause of +her untimely end. + +His one consuming desire for the present was that all things should be +done just as she would wish, and so--all minor bitternesses drowned in +the one overwhelming bitterness of his loss--he scribbled a few hurried +lines to Edgar Poe acquainting him with the sad news and telling him to +apply for a leave and come "home" at once. + +But the mails and travel were slow in those days, and when the young +soldier reached Richmond the last, sad rites were over, and for the +third time in his brief career the grave had closed over a beautiful +woman who had loved him and upon whose personality had been based in +part, that ideal of woman as goddess or angel before which his spirit +throughout his life, with all its vicissitudes, bowed down. As the +lumbering old stage crawled along the road toward Richmond, he lived +over again the years spent in the sunshine of her presence. Her death +was a profound shock to him. How strange that one so fair, so merry, so +bubbling with _life_ should cease to be! Would it always be his fate, he +wondered, to love where untimely death was lying in wait? + +Upon the night when he reached "home" and every night till, his furlough +over, he returned to his post of duty at Fortress Monroe, he lay in his +old room with his old household gods--his books in their shelves, his +pictures on the walls, his desk and deep arm-chair, and other objects +made dear by daily use in their accustomed places, and "the lamplight +gloating o'er," around him. He was touched at the sweet, familiar look +of it all and at the thoughtfulness of himself of which he saw signs +everywhere. Could it be that he had been two years an exile from these +homelike comforts or had it been only one of his dreams? In spite of the +void her absence made, it was good to be back--good after his wanderings +to come into his own again. + +In the hush and loneliness of those few days under the same roof, the +grief-stricken man and youth, their pride broken by their common sorrow, +came nearer together than they ever had been before. It seemed that the +gentle spirit of her whom each had loved hovered about them, binding +them to each other by invisible, but sacred, cords. John Allan spoke to +the players' son in tones that were almost fatherly and with quick +response, the tender-hearted youth became again the Edgar of the days +before reminders of his dependence upon charity had opened his eyes to +the difference between a real and an adopted father. + +Under this reconciling influence, the youth poured out expressions of +penitence for the past and made resolutions for the future and Mr. Allan +promised to apply for the desired appointment to West Point, but added +that thereafter, he should consider himself relieved of all +responsibility concerning Edgar. + +This blunt and ungracious assurance strained the bond between the +adopted father and son; the promised letter of application to the +Secretary of War, ruthlessly shattered it. That his indulgencies during +his year at the University of Virginia, so freely and earnestly +repented, should have been exposed in the letter seemed to the boy +unnecessary and cruel, but the man who had been fifteen years his +father, the husband of her over whom the grave had but just closed and +who had always loved him--Edgar--as an own and only son, had seen fit to +add to the declaration, + +"He left me in consequence of some gambling debts at the University," a +disclaimer of even a sentimental interest in him! + +"Frankly, Sir," the letter said, "I do declare that Edgar Poe is no +relation to me whatever; that I have many in whom I have taken an active +interest in order to promote theirs, with no other feeling than that +every man is my care, if he be in distress." + +Edgar Poe duly presented the letter, but the bitterness which during his +brief visit home had been put to sleep, raised its head and robbed him +of all pleasure in his anticipated change and of much of the incentive +to put forth his best effort in it. He felt that the result of this +ungracious letter must be to blot the new leaf which he had so ardently +desired to turn with shadows of his past which no effort of his own +could entirely obliterate. + +For the soreness of finding himself disowned as Mr. Allan's son--this +time publicly, in a manner--he found somewhat of balm in the letter of +cordial praise addressed to the Honorable Secretary of War in his +behalf, by the father of his old friend, Jack Preston. Mr. Preston +described him as a young gentleman of genius who had already gained +reputation for talents and attainments at the University of Virginia, +and added, + +"I would not write this recommendation if I did not believe he would +remunerate the Government at some future day by his services and +talents, for whatever may be done for him." + +Happily for the, at times, morbidly, sensitive youth, he had soon +forgotten the sting caused by the letter in a return to the dreams which +he regarded as not only the chief joy but the chief business of his +life; for though he was preparing himself for the profession of a +soldier, he had never for a moment, forsworn the Muse of Poetry. For a +whole year before being transferred to Fortress Monroe he had been +stationed at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. There his wonderful +dream-lady, "Ligeia," had seemed especially near to him, and often, when +the day's work was done and he recognized her voice in the music of the +waves or felt her kiss in the soft, southern air, blown across spicey +islets, he would up and away with her across the world, on the moon's +silver track; or on nights when no moon came up out of the sea, would +wander with her through the star-sown sky. + +There was one fair star that invited his fancy with peculiar insistence. +It seemed to beckon to him with the flashes of its beams. He questioned +"Ligeia" of it and she told him that it was none other than Al Aaraaf, +the great star discovered by Tycho Brahe, which after suddenly appearing +and shining for a few nights with a brilliancy surpassing that of +Jupiter, disappeared never to be seen again; never except by him--The +Dreamer--to whom it was given not only to gaze upon it from the far +earth, but, with her as his guide, to visit it and to explore its fairy +landscape where the spirits of lost sculptures enjoyed immortality. + +The result of this flight of fancy to a magical world was the poem, "Al +Aaraaf." + +He spent the interim between his honorable discharge from the army and +his entrance at West Point in a happy visit to Baltimore, where he made +the acquaintance of his father's kindred and succeeded in publishing the +new poem, with a revised edition of the old ones. + +For the first time, his work appeared under his own signature: + +"Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems. By Edgar A. Poe." + +The new poem was unintelligible to the critics--but what of that? he +asked himself. One of his optimistic moods was upon him. He despised the +critics for their lack of perception and as he held the slim volume in +his hands and gazed upon that, to him, wondrous title-page, his +countenance shone as though it had caught the reflection of the magic +star itself. What mattered all the wounds, all the woes of his past +life? He had entered into a land where dreams came true! + +For the first time, too, his work received recognition as poetry, in the +literary world. It was but a nod, yet it was a beginning; and it pleased +him to think that this first nod of greeting as a poet came to him from +Boston, where his mother had found "her best, most sympathetic friends." +Before publishing his new book he had sent some extracts from it to Mr. +John Neal, Editor of the _Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette_, who +promptly gave them a place in his paper, with some kind words commending +them to lovers of "genuine poetry." + +"He is entirely a stranger to me," wrote the Boston editor, of the +twenty-year-old poet, "but with all his faults, if the remainder of Al +Aaraaf and Tamerlane are as good as the body of the extracts here given, +he will deserve to stand high--very high--in the estimation of the +shining brotherhood." + +In a burst of gratitude the happy poet wrote to Mr. Neal his thanks for +these "very first words of encouragement," he had received. + +"I am young," he confided to this earliest friend in the charmed world +of letters, "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." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Upon a dark and drizzling November night of the year 1830, four cadets +of West Point Academy sat around a cosy open fire in Room 28, South +Barracks, spinning yarns for each other's amusement. + +One of them--the one with the always handsome and scholarly, at times +soft and romantic, but tonight, dare-devil face, was easily recognizable +as Edgar the Goodfellow, frequently appearing in the quite opposite +character of Edgar the Dreamer, and commonly known as Edgar Poe. His +fellow cadets had dubbed him, "the Bard." Two of this young man's +companions were his room-mates in Number 28, "Old P," and "Gibs," and +the third was a visitor from North Barracks. + +Taps had sounded sometime since, and the Barracks were supposed to be +wrapt in slumber, but for these young men the evening had just begun. +Several hours had elapsed since supper and it is a well-known fact that +there is never a time or a season when a college boy is not ready to +eat. Someone suggested that politeness demanded they should entertain +their guest with a fowl and a bottle of brandy from Benny Haven's shop, +and proposed that they should draw straws to determine which of the +three hosts should fetch the necessary supplies. They had no money, but +the accommodating "Bard" agreed to sacrifice his blanket in the cause of +hospitality; and armed with that and several pounds of tallow candles, +"Gibs," upon whom the lot had fallen, set forth to run the blockade to +Benny's. This was a risky business, for the vigilance of Lieutenant +Joseph Locke, one of the instructors in tactics who was also a sort of +supervisor of the morals and conduct of cadets, was hard to elude. As +one of the Bard's own effusions ran, + + "John Locke was a very great name; + Joe Locke was a greater, in short, + The former was well known to Fame, + The latter well known to Report." + +The best that Benny would give, in addition to the bottle, for the +blanket and candles, was an old gander, whose stentorian and tell-tale +voice he obligingly hushed by chopping off its head. Under cover of the +darkness and the storm, "Gibs" succeeded in safely returning to the +Barracks but not until his hands and his shirt were reeking with the +gander's gore. "The Bard," who was anxiously awaiting the result of the +foraging expedition ventured outside to meet him. When he beheld the +prize, he exclaimed, in a whisper, + +"Good for you! But you look like a murderer caught red-handed." + +His own words, almost before they left his lips, suggested to him an +idea for a mammoth hoax--the best they had tried yet, he told himself. +He hastily, and in whispers, unfolded it to "Gibs," whom he found all +sympathy, then returned alone, to his friends in Number 28, reporting +that he had seen nothing of their messenger, and expressing fear that he +had met with an accident. + +All began to watch the door with anxiety. After some minutes it burst +open and "Gibs," who had carefully laid the gander down outside, +staggered into the room, appearing to be very drunk and brandishing a +knife, which he had rubbed against the fowl's bleeding neck. "Old P." +and the visitor from North Barracks, too frightened for words, sat as +though rooted to their chairs, while "the Bard" sprang to his feet and +in a horror-stricken voice, exclaimed, + +"Heavens, Gibs! What has happened?" + +"Joe Locke--Joe Locke--" gasped "Gibs." + +"Well, what of Joe Locke? Speak man!" + +"He won't report me any more. I've killed him!" + +"Pshaw!" exclaimed "the Bard," in disgust. "This is another of your +practical jokes, and you know it." + +"I thought you would say that, so I cut off his head and brought it +along. Here it is!" + +With that he quickly opened the door and picked up the gander and, +whirling it around his head, dashed it violently at the one candle which +was thus knocked over and extinguished, leaving the room in darkness but +for a few smouldering embers on the hearth, and with the gruesome +addition to the company of what two of those present believed to be the +severed head of Lieutenant Locke. + +The visitor with one bound was out of the room through the window, and +made good his escape to his own quarters in North Barracks, where he +spread the astounding news that "Gibs" had murdered Joe Locke; it was +certainly so, for his head was then in Number 28, South Barracks. + +"Old P." nearly frozen with fright, did not move from his place, and it +was with some difficulty that "the Bard" and "Gibs" brought him back to +a normal condition and induced him to assist in preparing the fowl which +had played the part of Joe Locke's head, in the little comedy, for the +belated feast--which was merrily partaken of, but without the guest of +honor. + + * * * * * + +Edgar Poe had entered West Point in July, but hardly had its doors +closed behind him when his optimism gave place to wretchedness and he +began to feel that his appointment was a mistake. He had taken a fine +stand in his classes, but he recognized at once a state of things most +unpleasant for him for which he had not been prepared. As in his +schooldays in Richmond and at the University, a number of the boys had +withheld their intimacy from him on account of caste feeling, so now at +West Point he found history repeating itself, but with a difference. In +Richmond and at the University it had been as the child of the stage and +as a dependent upon charity, that the line was drawn against him. With +the aristocratic cadets, it was because of his promotion from the ranks. +Yet the very experience which brought their contempt upon him gave him a +sense of superiority that made their manner toward him the harder to +bear, and drilling with green boys after having been two years a +soldier, he found most irksome. + +While the snubbing to which he was subjected was general enough to make +his situation extremely unpleasant, however, it was by no means +unanimous. "Gibs" and "Old P." his convivial room-mates in Number 28, +took him to their hearts at once, and he really liked them when he was +in the mood for companions of their type, but they wore cruelly upon his +nerves when the divine fire within him was burning. So indeed would any +room-mates, for at home always, and most of the time at the University, +one of his chief comforts had been his own room where he could shut out +all the world and be alone with his dreams. + +There was, at West Point, nothing like a repetition of his course at the +University. The trouble which his attack of gambling fever had gotten +him into had proved a severe but wholesome lesson, and he had let cards +alone at once and forever. In his ignorance of his own family history, +he did not know that for one of his blood, the only safety lay in total +abstinence from the cup that cheers, but the intense and instantaneous +excitement he found a single glass of wine produced in his brain--an +excitement amounting almost to madness--was in itself a warning to him, +and kept him strictly within the bounds of moderation. + +There were times, however, when with a chicken and a bottle of brandy, +purchased secretly from old Benny, and smuggled, at great hazard, into +the room, Edgar Goodfellow could, with zest join his rolicking +room-mates in making merry, and in spite of his strict adherence to the +single glass, generally out-do them at their own games. + +But there was no place in that room for Edgar the Dreamer; and between +the spirit-dulling routine and discipline of classes and drills with +youths for the most part younger than himself and inferior in mentality +and cultivation, but who bore themselves as his superiors, and the +impossibility of an hour of solitude, the lovely "Ligeia" became unreal +and remote. He could no longer catch the sounds of her voice, or feel +her presence near. His muse, too, had become shy and difficult and when +she deigned to visit him at all, it was generally in the quite new +character of jester in cap and bells, under whose influence he dashed +off humorous and satirical squibs at the expense of the professors and +students, of which the lines on Lieutenant Locke are a specimen. These +he recited for the benefit of the little parties that gathered in Number +28, by whom they were regarded as master-pieces of wit and were +circulated through the school. + +But he took no real pleasure in this perversion of his poetical gift, +and feeling his soul cramped and cabined by the uncongeniality of his +surroundings, he soon became convinced that West Point was not the place +for him, and that he should leave it as soon as possible. He wrote Mr. +Allan of his dissatisfaction--begging his assistance in securing a +discharge. At no time would this request have been granted but it came +at the most inopportune moment imaginable. + +Some time before, certain ladies in Richmond who professed "to know the +signs," had given out the interesting news that Mr. Allan was "taking +notice." True it was that though such a thing had seemed impossible, his +stocks were higher and more precisely folded than ever, his broadcloth +was of a finer texture, his knee-buckles shone with a brighter lustre, +but the most marked change in him was a certain springiness of gait +altogether new to his silk-stockinged calves, and almost youthful, and a +pleased expression of the hitherto stern eyes and mouth which made his +usually solemn vizage look as if it might break out into smiles at any +moment. + +The signs, the ladies said, dated from the arrival of at "Powhatan," the +country seat of the Mayo family, just below Richmond, of a fair +guest--Miss Louisa Patterson, of Philadelphia. This lady was no longer +young, according to the severe standards of that time of early marriages +and correspondingly early "old-maidenhood," but so much the better, as +she was therefore of suitable age for the elderly though spruce and +prosperous widower. She was, withal, a decidedly personable woman with +the elegant manners and conversation of the inner circles of the +exclusive, stately society in which she had been nurtured--just the +woman, the fair prophetesses said, to rule over John Allan (for +everybody knew that a man who ruled his first wife was invariably ruled +by his second) and to preside with distinction and taste over his +drawing-room and his board. She was as suitable, in fact for the wife of +ripe age as the flower-like Frances had been for the wife of youth. So +Richmond gave its unqualified approval. + +Nothing could have been more out of harmony with the sound of the +"mellow wedding bells" pealing for this happy pair, than a reminder of +the first wife of the bridegroom in the shape of a letter from Edgar +Poe. + +When Poe had entered West Point his foster-father had drawn a long +breath of relief. He believed that the idle youth with whom his dead +wife had been so strangely infatuated was off his hands for good and +all. When the letter came to jar upon his new dream of love he was +irritated, and in his brief mention of the matter to his bride it was +very apparent, and left upon her mind the impression that Frances Allan +must have been a weak and silly creature indeed, to have fancied an +idle, ungrateful boy who spent his time drinking, gambling and +scribbling ridiculous poetry. _And the son of an actress!_ It would have +been impossible for such a low character and herself to have remained +under the same roof for a day, she was sure, and she told her husband +so--imparting to her tone somewhat of the pity she felt to think of his +having been yoked for years to such a morally frail specimen of +womanhood as she conceived the first Mrs. Allan to have been. + +So Mr. Allan's letter of refusal to help Edgar escape the life that was +growing more and more irksome to him was as decided as it was brief. But +Edgar was unshaken in his resolve to get away as soon as possible. In +the meantime, finding no outlet for his restless creative faculty that +would not remain inactive though there was no opportunity for its +satisfaction, he gave himself over by turns, to deepest dejection and +wildest hilarity. + +Finally, as no other relief was at hand, he decided to force his +discharge by deliberate and systematic neglect of the rules. The plan +succeeded so well that before the session was out he was expelled from +the Academy for disobedience of orders and failure to attend roll-calls, +classes and guard-duty. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Happily, the restraints of the Academy and his environment there, +instead of crushing out young Edgar's impulse to dream and to put his +dreams into writing (as a longer period of the same restraints and +conditions might have done) had but quickened and strengthened these +very impulses, and he had now but one wish, one aspiration in regard to +his newly acquired freedom, and that was to dedicate it to the art of +literature which had become more and more his passion and his mistress, +and which since he had given up all idea of the army, he was resolved to +make his sole profession. + +His first step toward this end was to arrange, before leaving New York, +for a new edition of his already published work, adding some hitherto +unpublished poems which even in the unsympathetic atmosphere of Number +28 South Barracks had been undergoing a refining process in the seething +crucible of his brain. + +The money for this venture dropped into his lap, as it were, for when +the new friends in whom he had confided passed the word around that "the +Bard" was going to get out a book of poetry, the cadets (in anticipation +of a collection of ditties cleverly hitting off the peculiarities and +characteristics of the professors) to a man, subscribed in advance--at +seventy-five cents per copy. In appreciation of their recognition of his +genius, and little guessing what manner of book they expected it to be, +"the Bard" gratefully dedicated the new volume "To the United States +Corps of Cadets." + +Happy it was for him that he was not present to hear those he had thus +honored set up their throats in unanimous expressions of disgust +when--the dedication leaf turned--they were confronted by a reprint of +"Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf," with the shorter poems, "To Helen," "A +Pæan," "Israfel," "Fairy-Land," and other "rubbish," as they promptly +pronounced the entire contents of the book. + +"Listen, fellows!" said one of the disgusted lot, with the open volume +in his hand. + + "'In Heaven a spirit doth dwell + Whose heartstrings are a lute. + None sing so wildly well + As the angel, Israfel, + And the giddy stars (so legends tell) + Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell + Of his voice, all mute.'" + +As he finished this opening stanza of what posterity has ranked as one +of the most exquisite lyrics in the English tongue, but which was +received by the audience of cadets with guffaws of derision, the reader +closed the book with a snap, and dashed it across the room and into the +open fire. + +"Did you ever hear crazier rubbish?" he asked, with contempt. "Highway +robbery, I call it, to send us such stuff for our good, hard cash!" + +"The joke's on us this time, and no doubt about it," said the also +chagrinned, but more philosophically inclined "Gibs." "The Bard means +well, though, and no doubt he thinks the stuff is poetry." + +"Old P." solemnly tapped his forehead with his forefinger. + +"Something wrong here," he remarked, ominously, "I suspected it all +along." + +The business of getting his book published dispatched, the poet's +thoughts turned lovingly toward Richmond which he still called "home," +and carpet-bag in hand and a package of copies of his book which he +intended as presents to his old chums under his arm, he set out upon the +journey thither. + +The streets of New York had been cold and bleak but he told himself as +he journeyed, that April days at home were quite different. The grass +would be already green upon the hillsides, many of the trees in leaf, +and the dear spring flowers in bloom. He pictured the ample comforts of +the Allan homestead, and of his own room in it, with its familiar +furnishings. Of course he had no idea of looking to Mr. Allan for +support--his pen must give him that now--but during the visit which he +was going to make "at home" it would be pleasant to sleep once more in +that room with all of its associations, though many of these were with +the blunders of a blinded youth. + +As he thought of Mr. Allan and his last meeting with him, his heart +softened. He would try and keep their intercourse upon the friendly +basis upon which his last sad visit home had placed it; would as far as +possible, put himself in his foster-father's place and see things as he +saw them. + +How desolate the widowed man had seemed in the big, empty house during +those chill, sorrow-stricken, February days! No wonder he had sought +escape from his desolation in another marriage--his loneliness without +the lovely little mother must have been unbearable. What was the new +wife like, he wondered? Was she like the lady of the manor he +remembered? Could there be another such gentle, tender, flower-like +woman on earth? + +In his unworldly, unpractical dreamer's soul it did not occur to him for +one moment that her existence might make him any less Mr. Allan's +adopted son, or even that, with all the rooms in the big house at her +disposal, she might have taken a fancy to rearrange the one which, from +the time the house became Mr. Allan's property, had been "Eddie's room," +and which had so long stood ready for his occupancy--dedicated as it was +to his own belongings. + + * * * * * + +At last he was on the sacred soil! + +How fair and comfortable the old homestead looked in its setting of +greening lawn and flowering garden, with the pleasant sunshine of the +April afternoon over all! How cheerful--how ample--how homelike! + +He ran up the steps of the commodious front porch and was on the point +of opening the door when some impulse he could not define made him pause +and, instead of turning the knob, announce himself with a rap upon the +shining brass knocker. + +One of the old family servants whom he had known and loved from his +infancy, and with whom he had always been a pet, opened the door, and +with beaming face and eager voice greeted him with the enthusiastic +hospitality of his kind--lifting up his voice and his hands in praise to +God that he was once more in this world permitted to look upon the face +of "Marse Eddie." + +The whilom young master of the house was equally, if less picturesquely, +warm in his expressions of pleasure at seeing the old man again, and +gave him his carpet-bag with instructions to take it to his room and to +tell Mrs. Allan that he was there. + +The venerable darkey's face fell. The "new Mistis" had "changed the +house around some," he explained, apologetically, and "Marse's Eddie's" +things had been moved to one of the servants' rooms, but "Marse Eddie's" +old room was a guest chamber, and he "reckoned" that would be the place +to take the bag. + +The visitor's whole manner changed at once--_froze_. The flush of +pleasure died out of his face and left it pale, cold and stern. A fierce +and unreasonable rage possessed him. _She had dismantled the room that +his little mother had arranged for him and sent his things to a +servant's room!_ Was this insult intentional, he wondered? + +To his mind, his "little Mother" was so entirely the presiding genius of +the place--he could not realize the right of anyone, not even a "new +mistis," to come in and "change the house around." + +Cut to the quick, he directed the old butler to leave the bag where it +was and to let Mrs. Allan know that he was in the drawing-room. + +No announcement could have given that lady greater surprise. She +regarded Edgar's leaving West Point after her husband's letter, as +direct disobedience, and his presenting himself at her door as the +height of impertinence. Something of this was in the frigid dignity with +which she received him--standing, and drawn up to the full height of her +imposing figure. + +She had never been within speaking distance of anyone drunk to the point +of intoxication, but, somehow, she had received an impression that this +was pretty generally the case with the young man now before her, and +when he began somewhat incoherently (in his foolish rage) to ask her +confirmation of the old servant's statement that his room had been +dismantled, she was convinced that it was his condition at the moment. +Turning, with the grand air for which she was noted, to the hoary butler +who stood in the doorway between drawing-room and hall, respectfully +awaiting orders as to "Marse Eddie's" bag, she said, + +"Put this drunken man out of the house!" + +The aged slave stood aghast. Between the stately new mistress whom it +was his duty to serve, and the beloved young master whose home-coming +had warmed his old heart, what should he do? + +He stood in silence, his lined black face filled with sadness, his chin +in his hand, his eyes bent in sorrow and shame upon the floor. What +should he do?-- + +Fortunately, the new mistress did not see his indecision as she swept +from the room, and "Marse Eddie" quickly relieved him of the +embarrassing dilemma by picking up the carpet-bag and passing out of the +door, closing it behind him. + +It was all a mistake--a miserable mistake; but one of those mistakes in +understanding between blind, prejudiced human beings by which hearts are +broken, souls lost. + +At the foot of the steps Edgar Poe paused and looked back at the +massive closed door. _Never_--_nevermore_, it seem to say to +him.--_Never_--_nevermore_! + +While he had been inside the house one of those sudden changes in the +face of nature of which his superstitious soul always made note, had +taken place. A shower from a passing cloud had filled the depressions in +the uneven pavement, where before only sunshine lay, with little pools +of water, and had left the trees "weeping," as he fancifully described +them to himself. + +He walked along the wet streets for a few steps, by the side of the wall +that enclosed house and grounds. Then he paused again and looked over +into the dripping garden while he held consultation with himself as to +what he should do next. As he looked the breath of drenched violets +greeted his nostrels. He noticed that the lilacs were coming into +blossom. The fruit trees already stood like brides veiled in their fresh +bloom. The tulip and hyacinth and daffodil beds were gay with color. How +their newly washed faces shone in the sunshine, just then bursting +through the clouds! + +Near him, just inside the wall, was a bed of lily-of-the-valley. He was +seized with an almost irresistible desire to go down upon his knees by +it and search among the glistening green leaves to see if the lilies +were in bloom. + +But the garden-gate, like the house door, was closed upon him and seemed +to repeat the fateful word--Nevermore. + +Whither should he turn his steps? To Mr. Allan's office?--Never! + +His intention had been to submit himself to Mr. Allan as far as his +self-respect would let him. To consult him in regard to the literary +career he felt himself committed to now that (as he recalled with +satisfaction) the bridges between him and any other profession were +burnt behind him. His own plan, upon which he was resolved to ask Mr. +Allan's opinion, would be to seek a position in the line of journalism +which would give him a living while he was waiting for his more +ambitious work to find buyers. + +But since the interview with Mrs. Allan he realized the folly of this +dream. + +Then, whither should he go?--To the chums of his boyhood?--Rob Stanard, +Dick Ambler, Rob Sully, Jack Preston, where were they?--Good, dear +friends they had been, but it seemed so long since they had played +together! What should they find to say to each other now? They were busy +with their various avocations and interests--what room in their hearts +and homes could there be for a wanderer like himself? + +At the age of one and twenty, at the springtime of his life, as of the +year--he felt himself to be as friendless, as much a stranger in the +city which he called home, as Rip Van Winkle after his long sleep had +felt in his. The only spots toward which he could turn with any +confidence for sympathy were those two quiet cities within this city +where lay his loved and lovely dead--"The doubly dead in that they died +so young." + +"How different my life would be if they had lived!" he murmured to the +flowers. + +Yet how fair was this world in which he had no place--even to a mere +looker-on. How fair was this mansion, in its setting of April green and +bloom, which had once owned him as its young--its future master. Above +it Hope stretched her shining wings, but the hope was not for him. For +him the closed door and the closed gate said only, "no more--nevermore." + +But whither should he go?--whither? + +As he turned from the garden and walked slowly, aimlessly, down the +street, his great grey eyes fixed ponderingly upon the breaking clouds, +a rainbow--bright symbol of promise--spanned the heavens. His eyes +widened, his lips parted at the wonder and the beauty and the suddenness +of it. + +Whither should he go? Behold an answer meet for a poet! + +Whither?--Whither?--The dark eyes in the pale cameo face turned +skyward--the eyes of him who had declared himself to be a deep +worshipper of all beauty grew more dreamy. Whither, indeed, but to the +end of the rainbow! + +By what "path obscure and lonely," the quest would lead him he knew not, +but he would follow it to the bitter end, for there, perchance, he would +find if not the traditional pot of gold, at least a wreath of laurel. + +As he wandered down the street, his eyes still upon the bow, his dream +was suddenly interrupted by the hearty voice of one of his boyhood's +friends, and his sister Rosalie's adopted brother, Jack Mackenzie. + +"Hello, Edgar!" he cried. "Did you drop from the clouds? Evidently, for +I see your head is still in them." + +He returned the greeting with joy. How good it was to feel the +hand-clasp of friendship and welcome! He had always liked Jack--for the +moment he loved him. + +"And where are you bound--you and your bag?" asked Jack. "Not to Mr. +Allan's, for you are going in the wrong direction." + +"No," replied The Dreamer, with a whimsical smile. "I was going there, +but I found the door shut, so I changed my mind, and had just decided to +make the end of the rainbow my destination." + +Jack's spontaneous laugh rang out. "The same old Edgar!" he said. "Well +I won't interfere with your journey except to defer it a bit. You are +going home with me, to 'Duncan Lodge,' now--at least to supper and spend +the night; and to stay as much longer as pleases you. Rose and the rest +will be delighted to see you." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +Where was Edgar Poe? Again the question was being asked. In many +quarters and with varying degrees of interest it was repeated. But it +still remained unanswered. + +In Richmond it was asked by the chums of his youth as they sat under +their comfortable vines and fig-trees, or stopped each other on a corner +for a few moments' social chat, or--catching some one of the rumors that +were afloat concerning the gifted companion of their golden days--looked +up from their desks in office or counting-house to ask each other the +question. Their faces were keen with interest for their admiration and +affection for The Dreamer had been sincere; yet it was not strong enough +after the lapse of years to make any one of them lay down work and go +forth to seek a solution of the mystery. Such an errand not one of them +felt to be his business. A quixotic errand it would indeed have been +considered and one which, if half the rumors were true, might have +necessitated a journey to the ends of the earth, to prove but a fool's +errand after all. + +The oft-repeated question was one with which John Allan little concerned +himself. A robust son and heir had come in his late middle age to fill +all his thoughts with new interest and plans for the present and the +future. The patter of little feet of his own child on the stairs and +halls of his home, drowned the ghostly memories of other and less +welcome footfalls that had once echoed there. + +He too, had heard rumors of the adventures and the misadventures of +Edgar Poe, but he did not consider it his business, as it was certainly +not his pleasure, to investigate them. + +In Baltimore too, the question was asked by the kinsfolk whose +acquaintance Edgar had made during his visit there. But they had never +held themselves in the least responsible for this eccentric son of their +brother David, the actor--the black sheep of the family. Surely it was +none of _their_ business to follow him upon any chase his foolish fancy +might lead him. + +But still, when the rumors that were rife reached their ears, it was +with no small degree of curiosity that they asked each other the +question: Where was Edgar Poe?--What had become of him?--Had he, as some +believed, met death upon the high seas or in a foreign land?--Was he the +real hero of stories of adventure which floated across the ocean from +Russia--from France--from Greece? + +He had certainly contemplated going abroad--the Superintendent of West +Point Academy had had a letter from him sometime after he left there, +declaring his intention of seeking an appointment in the Polish army. +Had he gone, or was he, as some would have it, going in and out among +them, there in Baltimore, but unknown and unrecognized--his identity +hidden under assumed name and ingenious disguise? + +Who could tell? + +The wonder of it was not in the existence of the unanswered question--of +the mystery--but that the question could remain unanswered--the mystery +remain unsolved--and no attempt be made to lift the veil. That a young +man, a gentleman, of prominent connections, of handsome features and +distinguished bearing and address, of rare mental gifts and cultivation, +and of magnetic personality, could disappear from the face of the +earth--could, almost before the very eyes of his fellows, step from the +glare of the world in which he moved into the abyss of absolute +obscurity or impenetrable mystery, and create no stir--that no one +should deem it his or her business to seek or to find an answer to the +question, a reading of the riddle. + +Not until two years after Edgar Poe had turned his back upon the closed +door of the Allan mansion, in Richmond, and stepped, as it seemed from +the edge of a world in which he was not wanted into the unknown, did +such an one arise. And that one was, as an especially good friend of +Edgar Poe's was most likely to be--a woman. + +Between this woman:--Mrs. Maria Poe Clemm--a widow of middle age, and +The Dreamer, there existed the close blood-tie of aunt and nephew, for +she was the own sister of his father, David Poe. + +More than that--there existed, though they had never seen each other, a +soul kinship rare between persons of the same blood, and which (for all +they had never seen each other) she, with the woman's unerring instinct +that sometimes seems akin to inspiration, divined. She too was something +of a dreamer, with an ear for the voices of Nature and a mind open to +the influences of its beauty, but with a goodly ballast of strong common +sense. + +She was but a young girl when her handsome and idolized brother David +scandalized the family by marrying an actress and himself taking to the +stage. But she had seen the bewitching "Miss Arnold" at the theatre in +Baltimore--had, with fascinated eyes, followed her twinkling feet +through the mazy dance, had listened with charmed ears to her exquisite +voice, had sat spell-bound under her acting. To her childish mind, the +stage had become a fairy-land and Miss Arnold its presiding genius. That +brother David should love and marry her seemed like something out of a +fairy book. _She_ did not blame brother David; she secretly entirely +approved of him. + +In her later years the death of the husband of her own youth who had +been romantically, passionately loved, had left her penniless but not +disillusioned; with her own living to get and a little daughter with a +face like a Luca Della Robbia chorister, and a voice that went with the +face, but who had the requirements of other flesh and blood children, to +be provided for. This child was the sunshine of the lonely widow's life, +yet she only in part filled the great mother's heart of her. Nature had +made her to be the mother of a son as well as a daughter, then +mockingly, it would seem, denied her. + +But in her dreams she worshipped the son she had never borne, and deep +in her heart was stored, like unshed tears, the love she would have +lavished upon him had her whole mission in life been fulfilled. + +She had heard little of her brother David's son Edgar, but that little +had always interested her. She was living away from Baltimore during his +visit there just before he entered West Point, and so she did not meet +him; but upon the death of her husband, soon afterward, she had returned +to the home of her girlhood, and established herself in modest, but +respectable quarters, to earn a livelihood for the little Virginia and +herself by the use of her skillful needle. + +It was soon afterward that with a concern which no one but herself had +felt, she learned of the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of her +nephew. + +She yearned over the wanderer and longed to mother him, as, somehow, she +knew he needed to be mothered. She kept near her a copy of his last +little book of poems which she had read again and again. In the earlier +ones she saw a loose handful of jewels in the rough, yet she recognized +the sparkle which distinguishes the genuine from the false. In the later +ones she perceived gems "of purest ray serene," polished and strung and +ready to be passed on from generation to generation--priceless +heir-looms. + +She was a tall woman, and deep-bosomed, with large but clear-cut and +strong features, and handsome, deepset gray eyes which habitually wore +the expression of one who has loved much and sorrowed much. She had been +called stately before her proud spirit had bowed itself in submission to +the chastenings of grief--since when she had borne the seal of meekness. +But there was a distinction about her that neither grief nor poverty +could destroy. She was so unmistakably the gentle-woman. In the simple, +but dainty white cap, with its floating strings, which modestly covered +her dark waving hair, the plain black dress and prim collar fastened +with its mourning pin, she made a reposeful picture of the old-fashioned +conception of "a widow indeed." + +Her hands were not her least striking feature. They were large, but +perfectly modelled, and they were deft, capable, full of character and +feeling. In their touch there was a wonderfully soothing quality. In +winter they always possessed just the pleasantest degree of warmth; in +summer just the most grateful degree of coolness. No one ever received a +greeting from them without being impressed with the friendliness, the +sympathy of their clasp. + +As she bent her fine, deeply-lined face over them, and the work they +held, while the little Virginia sat nursing a doll at her feet, she +often stitched into the garments that they fashioned yearnings, +thoughts, questionings of the youth--her brother's child--whose picture, +as she had conceived him from descriptions she had heard, she carried in +her heart. She knew too well the weakness that was his inheritance and +she knew too, what perils were in waiting to ensnare the feet of untried +youth--poor, homeless and without the restraining influences of friends +and kindred--whatever their inheritance might be. + +Sometimes she felt that the yearning was almost more than she could +bear, and that she must arise and go forth and seek this straying sheep +of the fold of Poe. But alas, she was but a woman, without money and +without a clue upon which to begin to work save such as wild, improbable +and contradictory rumors afforded. That was, after all, what she most +needed--a clue. If she could only find a clue, poor as she was, she +would follow it to the ends of the earth! + +Upon a summer's day two years after Edgar's disappearance, and when she +had almost given up hope, the clue came. It was placed in her hand by +her cousin, and Edgar's, Neilson Poe, who had no faith in its value but +passed it on to her as it had come to him--"for what it was worth," as +he expressed it. + +It was a strange story that Mrs. Clemm's cousin Neilson told her, and +which had been told him, he said, by an acquaintance of his from +Richmond who had known Edgar Poe in his boyhood. + +It seems that this Richmond man had during a visit to Baltimore gone to +a brickyard to arrange for the shipment home of bricks for a new house +he was building. As he sat in the office talking to the manager of the +yard, a line of men bearing freshly molded bricks to the kiln passed the +open window. There was something about the appearance of one of the +laborers that struck the Richmond man as familiar and he turned quickly +to the manager and asked the name of the man, pointing him out. The name +given him was a strange one to him and he dismissed the matter from his +thoughts and returned to his business talk. + +Upon his way to his hotel, however, the appearance of the brick-carrier, +and the impression that somewhere, he had seen him before, returned to +his mind and it came upon him in a flash, first that the likeness was to +Edgar Poe, and then the conviction that the man was none other than Poe +himself, though emaciated and aged to a degree that, with his shabby +dress and unshaven chin, made him scarcely recognizable. Though he had +been but a casual acquaintance of Edgar's, he was deeply touched at +seeing him so evidently in distress, and returned to the brickyard early +the next morning for the purpose of speaking to him and of helping him +back into the sphere in which he belonged and from which he had so long +disappeared. But the man he sought was not there and no one knew where +his lodgings were. He was a recent employe of the yard, they said, and +so gloomy and unsociable that he had made no friends. He was capable of +a great amount of work, which he performed faithfully, but kept to +himself and had little to say to anybody. + +Upon the day before he had looked ill and had stopped work before the +day was over. He was evidently suffering from exhaustion, but had +declared that he needed nothing, and after sitting down to rest upon a +pile of bricks for a while, had gone off to his home--wherever that +might be--as usual, alone. + + * * * * * + +This story Neilson Poe set down as highly sensational. He did not +believe, he said with a laugh, that his cousin, when found, would be +doing anything half so energetic or useful as carrying bricks--he would +have more hope of him if he could believe it. The laborer's real, or +fancied, likeness to Edgar was but a case of chance resemblance, that +was all. + +But that was not enough for Maria Clemm. She folded her sewing and laid +it away with an air of finality which plainly said that she had found +other and more pressing work to do. The sewing must wait a more +convenient season. + +Then she went out into the streets sweltering in the summer heat, and +turned her face toward that obscure quarter of the town where human +beings who could not afford to rest or to dine might at least secure a +corner in which to "lodge" and the right, if not the appetite, to "eat," +for an infinitesimal sum; for it was in this quarter that strange as it +might, seem, her instinct told her her search must be made--in this +quarter that Edgar Poe, the rich merchant's pampered foster-child, Edgar +Poe, the poet, the scholar, the exquisite in dress, in taste and in +manners, would be found. + +When she did find him the mystery that had surrounded him was stripped +of the last shred of its romance. In a room compared to which the little +chamber back of the shop of Mrs. Fipps, the milliner, in which his +mother had drawn her last breath, and in which Frances Allan had found +and fallen in love with him, was luxurious, he lay upon a bed of straw +thrown into a dark corner, tossing with fever and in his delirium, +literally "babbling of green fields." + +The kind-hearted, but ignorant and uncleanly slattern who sought with +"lodgings to let" to keep the souls of herself and family in their +bodies, gave him as much attention as the demands of a numerous brood of +little slatterns and a drunken husband would permit, and sighed with +real sorrow as she admitted that the "poor gentleman" was in a very bad +way. It was her opinion he had seen better days she confided to the +three other lodgers who were just then renting the three straw beds in +the three other corners of the same dark, squalid and evil-smelling +room. He was "so soft-spoken and elegant-like, if he _was_ poor as a +church mouse. Pity he had no folks nor nobody to keer nothin' about +'im." + +It was not at once that Mrs. Clemm found him. She had sought him +diligently in what would to-day be known as the slum districts of the +city, descending the scale of respectability lower and lower until she +thought she had reached the bottom, but without success. + +Then, upon the fourth or fifth day of her search, late in the afternoon, +when the little Virginia was watching anxiously from the sitting-room +window for "Muddie's" return, a wagon stopped before her door and out of +it and into the house was borne a stretcher upon which lay an apparently +dying man--ghastly, unshaven, and muttering broken unintelligible +sentences. + +Keeping pace with the wagon as it crept along the street, might have +been seen the stately, sad-eyed Widow Clemm. When the wagon stopped, she +stopped, and directed the careful lifting of the stretcher from it. Then +she turned and opened the door of her small house and led the way to her +neat bed-chamber where, upon her own immaculate bed, the sick man was +gently laid--henceforth, as long as need be, a cot in the sitting-room +would be good enough for her. + +The little Virginia, her soft eyes filled with wonder, had followed her +mother upon tip-toe. + +"Who is it, Muddie?" she questioned in an awed whisper. + +The anxiety in the widow's face gave place to a look of exaltation which +fairly transfigured her. Her deep eyes shone with the hoarded love for +the son so long denied her. She gathered her little daughter to her +breast and kissed her tenderly. + +"It is your brother, darling," she gently said. "God has given me a +son!" + +Well she knew that he was not yet entirely her own--that she would have +to wrestle fiercely with Death for his possession. But she had made up +her mind that she would win the battle. + +"Death _shall_ not have him," she passionately told herself. + +But the next moment, overwhelmed with a realization of human +helplessness, she was upon her knees at his bedside, crying: + +"Oh, God, do not let him die! I have but just found him! Spare him to me +now, if but a little while!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +For many days the sick man lay with eyes closed in uneasy sleep or open, +but unseeing, and with body writhing and tongue loosed but incoherent, +showing that these half-waking hours, as well as the sleeping ones, were +"horror haunted." + +Finally the most terrible of dreams visited him. The circumstances of +his life had caused him from his infancy to dwell much upon the subject +of death. He had oftentimes taken a gruesome pleasure in trying to +imagine all the sensations of the grim passage into the "Valley of the +Shadow"--even to the closing of the coffin-lid and the descent into the +grave. Now, in his fever-dream, the dreadful details and sensations +imagined in health came to him, but with tenfold vividness. At the point +when in the blackness and suffocation of conscious burial horror had +reached its extremest limit and the sufferer was upon the verge of real +death from sheer terror, relief came. He seemed to feel himself freed +from the closeness, the maddening fight for breath, of the coffin, and +gently, surely, borne upward out of the abyss ... upward ... upward ... +into air--light--life! + +For a long while he lay quite still, too exhausted to move hand or +foot--to raise his eyelids even; but content--more--happy, perfectly +happy, in the glorious consciousness of being able just to lie still and +breathe the sweet air of day. + +Presently, as he began to feel rested, the great grey eyes opened. For +the first time since the conqueror, Fever, had overthrown him and bound +him to the uneasy bed of straw, they were clear as the sky after a +storm--swept clean of every cob-web cloud; but their lucid depths were +filled with surprise, for they opened upon a cool, light, homelike +chamber. The walls around him were white, but were relieved here and +there by restful prints in narrow black frames. The four-post bed upon +which he lay was canopied and the large, bright windows were curtained +with snowiest dimity, but the draperies of both were drawn and he could +look out at the trees and the sky now roseate with the hues of evening. +In a set of shelves that nearly reached the ceiling stood row on row of +friendly looking books. Upon a high mahogany chest of drawers, with its +polished brass trimmings and little swinging looking-glass, stood a +white and gold porcelain vase filled with asters--purple, white and +pink--while before it, in a deep arm-chair, a little girl of ten or +eleven years, with a face like a Luca della Robbia chorister, or like +one of the children of sunny Italy that served for old Luca's model, was +curled up, stroking a large white cat which lay purring in her lap. + +Upon the child the wondering eyes of the sick man lingered longest and +to her they returned when their survey of the rest of the room was done. +Suddenly, impelled by the steadiness of his gaze, she lifted her own +dark, soft eyes and let them rest for a moment upon his. She +started--then was up and across the floor in a flash, carrying the cat +upon her shoulder. + +"Muddie, Muddie," she cried from the door, "The new Buddie is awake!" + +Then, still carrying her pet, she walked, to his bedside and gazed +earnestly and unabashed into the "new Buddie's" face. Her eyes had the +velvety softness of pansy petals and as they looked into the eyes of the +sick man recalled to his clearing mind the expression of mixed love and +questioning in the eyes of his spaniel, "Comrade," the faithful friend +of his boyhood. + +At length he spoke. + +"Who is 'Muddie'?" + +"She's my mother, and you are my new brother that has come to live with +us always." + +A radiant smile illumined the pale and haggard face. "Thank Heaven for +that!" he said. "And who brought me up out of the grave?" + +The child was spared the necessity of puzzling over this startling +question. _Surely it was no other than she_, he thought--she who at this +moment appeared at the open door--the tall figure of a woman or angel +who in the next moment was kneeling beside him with a heaven of +protecting love in her face. _She it was, no other!_ Through all of his +dreams he had been dimly conscious of her--saving him from death and +despair. Now for the first time, in the light of life, and in his new +consciousness he saw her plainly. + + * * * * * + +Edgar Poe's convalescence was slow but it was steady, and even in his +weakness he felt a peace and happiness such as he had rarely tasted. +This frugal but restful home in which he found himself, with the +ministrations of "Muddie" and "Sissy," as he playfully called his aunt +and the little cousin who had adopted him as her "Buddie," were to him, +after his struggle with hunger, fever and death, like a safe harbor to a +storm-tossed sailor. + +The little Virginia claimed him as her own from the beginning. As long +as he was weak enough to need to be waited upon her small feet and hands +never wearied in his service but as he grew better, it was he who served +her. There never were such stories as he could tell, such games as he +could play, and he took her cat to his heart with gratifying promptness. +When they walked out together the world seemed turned into a fairyland +as with her hand held fast in his he told her wonderful secrets about +the clouds, the trees, the flowers, the birds and even about the stones +under her feet. It was fascinating to her too, to lie and listen to him +read and talk with "Muddie." She was not wise enough to understand much +that they said, but at night, when she had been tucked into bed, he +would sit under the lamp and read aloud from one of the books in the +shelves, or from the long strips of paper upon which he wrote and wrote; +and though she did not understand the words, she delighted to listen, +for his voice made the sweetest lullaby music. + +With the return of health and strength, energy and the impulse for +life's battle began to return to Edgar Poe, and with them a new +incentive. He began to awaken to the fact that "Muddie" and "Sissy" were +poor and that his presence in their home was making them poorer--that +the struggle to support this modest establishment was a severe one, and +that he must arise and add what he could to the earnings of the deft +needle. The three little editions of his poems had brought him no +money--he had begun to despair of their ever bringing him any. He had +sometime since turned his attention to prose but the manuscripts of such +stories as he had offered the publishers had come back to him with +unflattering promptness. He began now, however, with fresh heart to +write and to arrange a number of those that seemed to him to be his +best, for a book, to which he proposed to give the title, "Tales of the +Folio Club." + +But the new tide of hope was soon at a low ebb. The editors and +publishers would have none of his work. + +When the repeated return to him of the stories, poems and essays he sent +out had begun to make him lose faith in their merit and to question his +own right to live since the world had no use for the only commodity he +was capable of producing, "Muddie" came in one evening with an unusually +bright, eager look in her eyes and a copy of _The Saturday Visitor_ (a +weekly paper published in Baltimore) in her hand. + +"Here's your chance, Eddie," she said. + +In big capitals upon the first page of the paper was an announcement to +the effect that the _Visitor_ would give two prizes--one of one hundred +dollars for the best short story, and one of fifty dollars for the best +poem submitted to it anonymously. Three well-known gentlemen of the city +would act as judges, and the names of the successful contestants would +be published upon the twelfth of October. + +With trembling hands the discouraged young applicant for place as an +author made a neat parcel of six of his "Tales of the Folio Club" and a +recently written poem, "The Coliseum," and left them, that very night, +at the door of the office of _The Saturday Visitor_. + +How eagerly he and "Muddie" and "Sissy" awaited the fateful twelfth! The +hours and the days dragged by on leaden wings. But the twelfth came at +last. It found Edgar Poe at the office of the _Visitor_ an hour before +time for the paper to be issued, but at length he held the scarcely dry +sheet in his hand and there, with his name at the end, was the story +that had taken the prize--"The MS. Found in a Bottle." + +More!--In the following wonderful--most wonderful words, it seemed to +him--the judges declared their decision: + + "Among the prose articles were many of various and + distinguished merit, but the singular force and beauty of those + sent by the author of 'Tales of the Folio Club' leave us no + room for hesitation in that department. We have awarded the + premium to a tale entitled, 'The MS. Found in a Bottle.' It + would hardly be doing justice to the writer of this collection + to say that the tale we have chosen is the best of the six + offered by him. We cannot refrain from saying that the author + owes it to his own reputation as well as to the gratification + of the community to publish the entire volume. These tales are + eminently distinguished by a wild, vigorous and poetical + imagination, a rich style, a fertile invention and varied, + curious learning. + + (Signed) + "JOHN P. KENNEDY, + J.H.B. LATROBE, + JAMES H. MILLER, + _Committee._" + +Here was the fulfilment of hope long deferred! Here was a brimming cup +of joy which the widowed aunt and little cousin who had taken him in and +made him a son and brother could share with him! It seemed almost too +good to be true, yet there it was in plain black and white with the +signatures of the three gentlemen whose opinion everyone would respect, +at the end. What wealth that hundred dollars--the first earnings of his +pen--seemed. What comforts for the modest home it would buy! This was no +mere nod of recognition from the literary world, but a cordial +hand-clasp, drawing him safely within that magic, but hitherto frowning +portal. + +He felt as if he were walking on air as he hurried home to tell "Muddie" +and "Sissy" of his and their good fortune. And how proud "Muddie" was of +her boy! How lovingly little "Sissy" hung on his neck and gave him +kisses of congratulation--though but little realizing the significance +of his success. And how he, in turn, beamed upon them! The grey eyes had +lost all of their melancholy and seemed suddenly to have become wells of +sunshine. In imagination he pictured these loved ones raised forever +from want, for he told himself that he would not only sell for a goodly +price all the rest of the "Tales of the Folio Club," but under the happy +influence of his success he would write many more and far better stories +still, to be promptly exchanged for gold. + +Bright and early Monday morning he made ready (with "Muddie's" aid) for +a round of visits to the members of the committee, to thank them for +their kind words. His clothes, hat, boots and gloves were all somewhat +worse for wear and his old coat hung loosely upon his shoulders--wasted +as they still were by the effects of his long illness; but he whistled +while he brushed and "Muddie" darned and carefully inked the worn seams, +and finally it was with a feeling that he was quite presentable that he +kissed his hands to his two good angels and ran gaily down the steps. +Hope gave him a debonair mien that belied his shabby-genteel apparel. + +A quarter of an hour later Mr. John Kennedy, prominent lawyer and the +author of that pleasant book "Swallow Barn," then newly published and +the talk of the town, answered a knock upon his office door with a +quick, "Come in!" + +At the same time he raised his eyes and confronted those of the young +author whom he had been instrumental in raising from the "verge of +despair." + +The face of the older man was one of combined strength and amiability. +Evidences of talent were there, but combined with common sense. There +was benevolence in the expansive brow and kindliness and humor as well +as character, about the lines of the nose and the wide, full-lipped +mouth, and the eyes diffused a light which was not only bright but +genial, and which robbed them of keenness as they rested upon the +pathetic and at the same time distinguished figure before him. What the +kindly eyes took in a glance was that the pale and haggard young +stranger with the big brow and eyes and the clear-cut features, the +military carriage and the shabby, but neat, frock coat buttoned to the +throat where it met the fashionable black stock, and with the modest and +exquisite manners, was a gentleman and a scholar--but poor, probably +even hungry. They kindled with added interest when the visitor +introduced himself as Edgar Poe--the author of "Tales of the Folio +Club." + +The strong, pleasant face and the cordial hand that grasped his own, +then placed a chair for him, invited the young author's confidence--a +confidence that always responded promptly to kindness--and he had soon +poured into the attentive ear of John Kennedy not only profuse thanks +for the encouraging words in the _Visitor_ but his whole history. Deeply +touched by the young man's refined and intellectual beauty--partially +obscured as it was by the unmistakable marks of illness and want--by +his frank, confiding manners, by the evidences in thought and expression +of gifts of a high order, and by the moving story he told, Mr. Kennedy's +heart went out to him and he sent him on his way to pay his respects to +the other members of the committee, rejoicing in offers of friendship +and hospitality and promises of aid in securing publishers for his +writings. + +Edgar Poe had been loved of women, he had been adored by small boys, he +had received many material benefits from his foster father, he had been +kindly treated by his teachers, but he was now for the first time taken +by the hand spiritually as well as physically, by a _man_, a man of +mental and moral force and of position in the world; a man, moreover, +who with rare divination appreciated, out of his own strength, the +weaknesses and the needs as well as the gifts and graces of his new +acquaintance, and who took his dreams and ambitions seriously. The sane, +wholesome companionship which The Dreamer found in him and at his +hospitable fireside acted like a tonic upon his spirits and improvement +in his health both of mind and body were rapid. + +Though warning him against being over much elated at his success, and an +expectation of growing suddenly either rich or famous, Mr. Kennedy was +as good as his word in regard to helping him find a market for his work. +A proud moment it was when the young author received a note from his +patron inviting him to dine with Mr. Wilmer, the editor of _The Saturday +Visitor_ which had given him the prize, and some other gentlemen of the +profession of journalism. But his pleasure was followed by quick +mortification. _What should he wear?_ Still holding the open note in +his hand, he looked down ruefully at his clothes--his only ones. For all +their brushing and darning they were unmistakably shabby--utterly unfit +to grace a dinner-party. Nearly all of the hundred dollars which had +seemed such a fortune had already been spent to pay bills incurred +during his illness and to buy provisions for the bare little home which +had sheltered him in his need and which had become so dear to his heart. +No, he could not go to the dinner, but what excuse could he make that +would seem to Mr. Kennedy sufficient to warrant him in not only +declining his hospitality but putting from him the chance of meeting the +editor of the _Visitor_ under such auspices? + +At length he decided that in this case absolute frankness was his only +course. + +"My dear Mr. Kennedy," he wrote, + +"Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come +for reasons of the most humiliating nature--my personal appearance. You +may imagine my mortification in making this disclosure to you, but it is +necessary." + +As he was about, in bitterness of soul, to add his signature a sudden +thought caused him to pause, pen poised in air. A thought?--A temptation +would perhaps be a better word. It bade him consider carefully before +throwing away his chance. Who knew, who could tell, it questioned, how +much might depend upon this meeting? His fortune might be made by it! +Almost certainly it would lead to the sale of some more of his stories +to the _Visitor_. Mr. Kennedy believed that it would have this +result--for this purpose he had arranged it. After taking so much pains +for his benefit he would undoubtedly be disappointed--seriously +disappointed--if his plan should fail. Mr. Kennedy had been so kind, so +generous--doubtless he would gladly advance him a sum sufficient to make +himself presentable for the dinner--to be paid by the first check +received as a result of the meeting. A very modest sum would do. He +might manage it, he thought, with twenty dollars. + +Finally, he drew his unfinished note before him again and added to what +he had written, + +"If you will be my friend so far as to loan me twenty dollars, I will be +with you tomorrow--otherwise it will be impossible, and I must submit to +my fate. Sincerely yours, + + "E.A. POE." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +The dinner went off charmingly. In addition to several journalists, Mr. +Latrobe and Mr. Miller who, with Mr. Kennedy, had formed the committee +that awarded the prize to Edgar Poe, were there and the meeting between +the young guest of honor and his patrons engendered a spirit of +_bon-homie_ that was palpable to all. Under its spell The Dreamer's +spirits rose. Yet he was quiet, listening with deep attention to the +conversation of his elders, but having little to say, until the repast +was half over, when he responded to the evident desire of his host to +draw him out. The conversation had turned upon a favorite theme of +his--the power of words. He threw himself into it with zest, and with +brilliant play of expression animating his splendid eyes and pale +features, and the graceful, unrestrained gestures of one thoroughly at +ease and entirely unconscious of self, he held the table spell-bound +with a flow of sparkling talk in which his own exquisite choice of words +delighted his hearers no less than the originality and beauty of his +thought. + +In the young editor of _The Saturday Visitor_ he promptly found a second +friend among men of letters. Mr. Wilmer, already prejudiced in his favor +by the success of the "MS. Found in a Bottle," and its cordial reception +by the public, and by Mr. Kennedy's warm words of recommendation, +yielded at once to the witchery of the poetic eyes, the courtly manners +and the charmed tongue, and not only befriended him by inviting and +accepting his writings for publication, but gave him, as time went on, +what proved to be a stimulant to good work as well as one of his +greatest pleasures--the intimate companionship of a man of congenial +tastes and near his own age. + + * * * * * + +The winter that followed was one of the happiest of The Dreamer's +life--a lull in a tempest, a dream of peace within a dream of storm and +stress. + +He was soon able to return the twenty dollars to Mr. Kennedy. The +newspapers kept him busy and while the returns were--so far--small, he +was hopeful. He felt that he had made a beginning, and that the future +promised well. His work was praised and he became something of a +lion--the doors of many a proud Baltimore home opening graciously to his +touch. + +He cared little for general society, however. His greatest pleasure he +found in his evenings with the Kennedys (for Mrs. Kennedy had taken him +in as promptly as her husband) or in a canter far into the country on +the saddle horse which Mr. Kennedy, noting his pallor and thinking that +out-door exercise would be of benefit to him, kindly placed at his +disposal, or in walks in the fields and lanes beyond the city with his +new chum Wilmer. Many a fine afternoon saw these two cronies, often +accompanied by the sprite, Virginia, with her airy movements and vivid +beauty, rambling in the suburbs, and beyond, with heads close in +intimate communion of thought and fancy. + +What he enjoyed most of all was the time spent at his desk, in the +shelter of the new-found haven of rest, with the happy "Muddie" and +"Sissy" nearby. + +This little family circle was unique. There was an unmistakably oak-like +element in the nature of the widow which was apparent to some degree +even in her outward appearance, in the stateliness and dignity of her +figure and carriage--an element of sturdiness and self-reliance which +made it her pleasure to be clung to, looked up to, leaned upon. The +character of her new-found son was, on the contrary, vine-like. He was +constantly reaching out tendrils of craving for love, for appreciation, +for understanding. More--for advice, for guidance. Such tendrils seeking +a foot-hold, make a strong appeal to every womanly woman. She sees in +them a call to her nobility of soul, to the mother that is a part of her +spiritual nature--a call that gives her pleasant good-angel sensations, +that soften her heart and flatter her self-esteem. To the Widow Clemm, +with her self-reliance and her highly developed maternal instinct, the +appeal was irresistible and between her and The Dreamer the ivy and oak +relation was promptly established, while in the little Virginia he found +a heartsease blossom to be loved and sheltered by both--the loveliest of +heartsease blossoms whose beauty, whose purity and innocence and the +stored sweets of whose nature were all for him. + +The three lived, indeed, for each other only, in a dream-valley apart +from and invisible to, the rest of the world, for their dreams of which +it was constructed made it theirs and theirs alone. Their dreams piled +beautiful mountains around the valley through which peace flowed as a +gentle river, while love and contentment and innocent pleasures were as +flowers besprinkling the grass and speaking to their hearts of the love +and the glory of God, and the fancies with which they beguiled the time +were as tall, fantastic trees, moved by soft zephyrs. And because of the +bright flowers ever springing in the green turf that carpeted the +valley, they named it the _Valley of the Many-Colored Grass_. And to the +three the dream-valley, with its peace and its beauty and its sweet +seclusion, was the real world, while all the wilderness outside of it, +where other men dwelt was the unreal. + + * * * * * + +One happy effect of these peaceful days upon The Dreamer was that there +was in them no temptation to excess--no restless craving for excitement. +The Bohemian--the Edgar Goodfellow--side of him found, it is true, an +outlet, but a harmless one. He found it in the genial atmosphere of the +Widow Meagher's modest eating-house where he and his new crony, Wilmer, +passed many a jolly hour. The widow, an elderly, portly dame, with a +kind Irish heart and keen Irish wit, had the power of diffusing a +wonderful cheerfulness around her. Her shop was clean, if plain, her +oysters were savory, if cheap. Like all women, she petted Edgar Poe, and +hearing from Wilmer that he was a poet, she at once gave him the name by +which the West Point boys had called him, and to all of the frequenters +of her shop he was known as "the Bard." + +Her shop had not only an oyster counter, but a bar and a room for cards +and smoking but these had little attraction for Poe at this period of +his career--much to the widow's dissatisfaction, for she wished "the +Bard" to be merry, and did not like to see him neglect what she honestly +and unblushingly believed to be the really good things of life. But +though to her pressing invitations, "Bard take a hand," "Bard take a +nip," he was generally deaf, he was more accomodating when, after +getting off an unusually clever bit of pleasantry (putting her +customers into an uproar of laughter) she would turn to him with, "Bard +put it in poethry." And put it "in poethry" he did--to the increased +hilarity of the crowd. + + * * * * * + +The month of February brought an interruption to the smooth and pleasant +course of The Dreamer's life. A long time had passed since he had heard +anything of his friends down in Virginia, and it was therefore with +quick interest that he broke the seal of a letter bearing the Richmond +post-mark and addressed to him in the unforgotten hand of his early +admirer, Rob Sully. Dear old Rob, the sight of the familiar hand-writing +alone warmed The Dreamer's heart and brought the soft, melting +expression to his eyes! + +The object of the letter was to tell him that Mr. Allan was extremely +ill--dying, some thought, though the end might not be immediate. Rob was +taking it upon himself to write because he felt that Eddie ought to +know. Mr. Allan had lately been heard to speak kindly of Eddie, he had +been told, and it had occurred to him that Eddie might like to come on +and have a word of forgiveness from him before he died. + +As "Eddie" read, the pleasure the first sight of the letter had given +him turned to sudden, sharp pain. Mr. Allan and--_death_! He had never +thought of associating the two. Under the influence of the shock his +heart became all tenderness and regret. + +He hurriedly packed his carpet-bag, kissed Mrs. Clemm and Virginia +goodbye, and set out post-haste for Richmond and the homestead on Main +and Fifth Streets. + +He did not stop to lift the brass knocker this time. The forlorn +details of his last visit, his lack of right to cross that threshold +uninvited--what mattered such considerations now? They were, indeed, +forgotten. Everything was forgotten--everything save that the man who +had stood in the position of father to him was dying--dying without a +word of pardon to him, the most wayward (he felt at that moment of +severe contrition)--_the most wayward_ of prodigal sons. Everything was +forgotten save that he was having a race with death--a race for a +father's blessing! + +He flung wide the massive front door and hastened through the spacious +hall, up the stair and into the room where the ill man sat in an +arm-chair. On the threshold he paused for a moment. Mr. Allan saw and +recognized him, and at once the misunderstanding of the actions of his +adopted son for which he seemed to have a gift, asserted itself, +construing the visit as an unpardonable liberty. The only motive Mr. +Allan could imagine which could have prompted Edgar Poe to force +himself, as it seemed to him, into his presence at this time was a +mercenary one, and burning with indignation, his eyes gleaming with +something like their old fire, he half raised himself from the chair. + +"How dare you?" he screamed in the grating tones of angry old age. Then, +grasping the cane at his side in trembling fingers and raising it with +threatening gesture, he ordered his visitor to leave the room at once. + +Edgar Poe stood aghast for a moment, then fled down the stair and out of +the door and turning his back for the last time upon the house whose +young master he had been, with the word "Nevermore" ringing like a knell +in his ears, made his way again to the abode of love and peace in +Baltimore, which held his whole heart and which had become his home. + +A few weeks later Mr. Allan died, leaving the whole of his fortune to +his second wife and her children. + + * * * * * + +It now became more important than ever for Edgar Poe to earn a living. +In spite of the fact that Mr. Allan was known to have lost all regard +for him, his friends had always believed that he would be remembered in +the will. They believed that John Allan's rigid, sometimes even +strained, idea of justice would cause him to provide for the boy for +whom he had voluntarily, albeit against his own judgment, made himself +responsible. The fact that the boy had turned out to be, in Mr. Allan's +opinion, "trifling," that he refused to engage in any "useful" work and +that at five and twenty years of age he had not established himself in +any "paying business" would, those who knew Mr. Allan best believed, be +with him but another reason for ensuring against want his first wife's +spoiled darling who was evidently incapable of taking care of himself +and therefore (so they believed he would argue) so much the more his +care. + +Possibly The Dreamer may have taken this view himself. However that may +be, the opening of the will silenced all conjecture, and as has been +said, made the need of his making his work produce money more pressing +than ever. His friend Wilmer did his best for him--publishing his +stories in _The Saturday Visitor_ from time to time and paying him as +well as he was able. But Wilmer and his paper were poor themselves. _The +Visitor_ was only a small weekly, with a modest subscription list. It +had little to pay, however good the "copy" and that little and Mother +Clemm's earnings put together barely kept the wolf from the door. + +When the frequent and welcome summons to the bountiful board of the +Kennedys came the young poet blushed for shame in the pleasure he could +not help feeling in anticipation of the chance to satisfy his chastened +appetite, and he often found himself fearing that the hunger with which +he ate the good things which these kind friends placed upon his plate +would betray the necessary frugality of the dear "Muddie's" +house-keeping, which was one of the sacred secrets of the sweet home. +Sometimes his pride would make him go so far as to decline delicious +morsels in the hope of correcting such an impression, if it should +exist. + +He racked his brain to find a means of making his work bring him more +money. Upon Mr. Kennedy's advice, he sent his "Tales of the Folio Club" +to the Philadelphia publishing house of "Carey and Lea." After several +weeks of anxious waiting he received a letter accepting the collection +for publication but frankly admitting that his receiving any profit from +the sale of the book was an exceedingly doubtful matter. They suggested, +however, that they be permitted to sell some of the tales to publishers +of the then popular "annuals," reserving the right to reprint them in +the book. To this the author gladly consented and received with a joy +that was pathetic the sum of fifteen dollars from "The Souvenir," which +had purchased one of the tales at a dollar a printed page. + +He and Wilmer put their heads together in dreams of literary work by +which a man could live. One of these dreams took form in the prospectus +of a purely literary journal of the highest class which was to be in +its criticisms and editorial opinions "fearless, independent and sternly +just." + +But the scheme required capital and never got beyond the glowing +prospectus. + +In spite of the small sums that came to him as veritable God-sends from +the sale of his stories and from odd jobs on the _Visitor_ and other +journals, Edgar Poe was poor--miserably poor. And just as he had begun +to flatter himself that he did not mind, that he would bear it with the +nonchalance of the true philosopher he believed he had become, it +assumed the shape of horror unspeakable to him. Not for himself, if +there were only himself to think of, he felt assured, he could laugh +poverty--want even--to scorn; but that his little Virginia should feel +the pinch was damnable! + +Two years had made marked changes in Virginia. She was losing the +formless plumpness of childhood and growing rapidly into a slight and +graceful maiden--a "rare and radiant maiden," with the tender light of +womanhood beginning to dawn in her velvet eyes and to sweeten the curves +of her lips. A maiden lovelier by far than the child had been but with +the same divine purity and innocence that had always been hers--that +were his, for her beauty, her purity and innocence and the stored sweets +of her nature were still for him alone and for him alone too, was her +sweet companionship--her comradeship--of which he never wearied. + +Under his guidance her mind had unfolded like a flower. She was +beginning to speak fluently in French and in Italian. How he loved the +musical southern accents on her tongue! And she was developing an +exquisite singing voice. Her voice was her crowning grace--her voice +was his delight of delights! As he gazed into the shadows that lay under +her long black lashes and listened to her voice, with its hint of hidden +springs of passion, his pulses stirred at the thought that this lovely +flower of dawning womanhood was his little Virginia, and his own heart +ached to think that any desire of hers should ever be denied. + +In his desperation he thought of teaching and applied for a position in +a school, but without success. + +But relief was at hand. + +While the Dreamer and his friend the editor of _The Saturday Visitor_ +had been building literary air-castles in Baltimore, a journal destined +to take something approaching such a stand as their ideal was actually +founded, in Richmond, under the title of _The Southern Literary +Messenger_. Its owner and publisher, Mr. Thomas W. White, was no +dreamer, but a practical printer and an enterprising man of business. +Early in this year--the year 1835--Mr. White wrote to Mr. Kennedy, +requesting a contribution from his pen for the new magazine, and, as was +to be expected, Mr. Kennedy, with his wonted thoughtfulness of his +literary protegé, wrote back commending to Mr. White's notice the work +of "a remarkable young man by the name of Edgar Poe." + +At Mr. Kennedy's suggestion Edgar bundled off some of the "Tales of the +Folio Club" for Mr. White's inspection, with the result that in the +March number of the _Messenger_ the weird story "Berenice," appeared. It +and its author became at once the talk of the hour, and when the history +of "The Adventures of Hans Phaal" came out in the June number it found +the reading public ready and waiting to fall upon and devour it. + +Other stories and articles followed in quick succession and the pungent +critiques and reviews of the new pen were looked for and read with as +great interest as the tales. + +In a glow over the prosperity which the popularity of the new writer was +bringing his magazine, Mr. White wrote to him offering him the position +of assistant editor, with a salary of five hundred and twenty dollars a +year, to begin with. Of course the offer was to be accepted! The salary, +small as it was, seemed to The Dreamer in comparison to the diminutive +and irregular sums he had been accustomed to receive, almost like +wealth. But its acceptance would mean, for the present, anyhow, +separation--a break in the small home circle where had been, with all of +its deprivations, so much of joy--a dissolving of the magical Valley of +the Many-Colored Grass. Not for a moment, he vowed to Mother Clemm and +Virginia, was this separation to be looked upon as permanent. Just so +soon as he should be able to provide a home for them in Richmond he +would have them with him again, and there they would reconstruct their +dream-valley. But for the present--. + +The present, in spite of the new prosperity, was unbearable! + +In vain the Mother with the patience born of her superior years and +experience, assured them that time had wings, and that the days of +absence would be quickly past. To the youthful poet and the little maid +who lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him a +month--a week--a day apart, seemed an eternity. + +In the midst of their woe at the prospect a miracle happened--a miracle +and a discovery. + +It fell upon a serene summer's afternoon when the two children--they +were both that at heart--wandered along a sweet, shady lane leading from +the outskirts of town into the country. It was to be their last walk +together for who knew, who could tell how long? The poet's great grey +eyes wore their deepest melancholy and the little maid's soft brown ones +too, were full of trouble, for had not their love turned to pain? They +spoke little, for the love and the pain were alike too deep for words, +but the heart of each was filled with broodings and musings upon the +love it bore the other and upon the agony of parting. + +How could he leave her? the poet asked himself. His cherished comrade +whose beauty, whose purity and innocence, the stored sweets of whose +nature were for him alone? Into his life of loneliness, of lovelessness, +of despair--a life from which everyone who had really cared for him had +been snatched by untimely death and shut away from him forever in an +early grave--a life where there had been not only sorrow, but +bitterness--where there had been pain and want and homelessness and +desolate wanderings and longings for the unattainable--where there had +been misunderstanding and distrust and temptation and defeat--into such +a life this wee bit of maidenhood--this true heartsease--had crept and +blossomed, filling heart and life with beauty and hope and love--with +blessed healing. + +How could he leave her? To others she seemed wrapped in timid reserve. +He only had the key to the fair realm of her unfolding mind. How could +he bear to leave her for even a little while? How barren his life would +be without her! How shorn of all beauty and grace! + +And what would her life be without him, to whom had been offered up all +her beauty and the stored sweets of her nature? Who would guard her from +other eyes, that as her beauty and charm came to their full bloom might +look covetously upon her? + +For the first time (and the bare suggestion seemed profanation) it +occured to him that a day might come when, as this slip of maidenhood +walked forth in her surpassing beauty and her precious innocence and +purity the eyes of a man might make note of her loveliness, her +altogether desirableness--might rest upon her with hopes of +possession--and he not there to kill him upon the spot. What if in his +absence another's hand should be stretched to pluck his heartsease +blossom--that left unguarded, unprotected by him, another should snatch +it, in its beauty, its purity and innocence, to his bosom? + +The thought was hell! + +Faint and trembling, he gazed down upon her as they strolled along, +compelling her soft eyes to meet his anguished ones. His face was white +and strained with his misery. She was pale and trembling, too, and there +was dew on the sweeping lashes, and as she lifted them and looked into +his face she trembled more. He looked upon her, tenderly marvelling to +see in her at once the loveliest of children and of women--a woman with +her first grief! + +There was heart-break in his voice, for himself and for her, as he +murmured (brokenly) words of love and of comfort in her ear, and in her +voice as she, brokenly, answered him. + +The sun was setting--a pageant in which they both were wont to take +exquisite delight--but they could not look at the glowing heavens for +the heaven of love and of beautiful sorrow that each found in the eyes +of the other. + +Suddenly, they knew! + +The knowledge burst upon them like an illumining flood. How or whence it +came they could not tell, nor did they question--but they knew that the +love they bore each other was no brother and sister love, but that what +time they had been calling each other "Buddie," and "Sissy," there had +been growing--growing in their hearts the red, red rose of romance--the +love betwixt man and maid of which poets tell--knew that in that sweet, +that sad, that wondrous eventide the rose had burst into glorious +flower. + +They trembled in the presence of this sweetest miracle. The beauty and +solemnity of it well nigh deprived them of the power of speech. A divine +silence fell upon them and they slowly, softly took their way homeward +through the gathering dusk, hand in hand--but with few words--to tell +the Mother. + +To the widow their disclosure came as a shock. At first she thought the +silly pair must be joking--then that they were mad. Finally she realized +their earnestness and their happiness and saw that the situation was +serious and must be dealt with with the utmost tact. Still, she could +hardly believe what she saw and heard. Was it possible that the demure +girl talking to her so seriously of love and marriage was her little +Virginia--her baby? And that these two should have thought of such a +thing! Cousins!--Brother and sister, almost!--And with such disparity in +ages--thirteen and six-and-twenty! + +She had lived long enough, however, to know that love is governed by no +rules or regulations and besides, she had kept through all the changes +and chances of her checkered life, a belief in true love as fresh as a +girl's. This was too sacred a thing to be carelessly handled--only, it +was not what she would have chosen.... Yet--was it not? + +A new thought came to her--a revelation--inspiration--what you will, and +sunk her in deep revery. + +Why was this not what she would have chosen? Why not a union between her +children--her all? Her own days were fast running out. She could not +live and make a home for them always--then, what would become of them? +She would die happy, when her time came, if she could see them in their +own home, bound by the most sacred, the most indissoluble of ties--bound +together until death should part them! + +She fell asleep with a heart full of thankfulness to God for his +mercies. + +A quite different view of the matter was taken by other members of the +Poe connection in Baltimore--particularly the men, who positively +refused to regard the love affair as anything more than sentimental +nonsense--"moonshine"--they called it, which would be as fleeting as it +was foolish. Their cousin, Judge Neilson Poe, who had made a pet of +Virginia, was especially active in his opposition and brought every +argument he could think of to bear upon the young lovers and upon Mrs. +Clemm in his endeavor to induce them to break the engagement; but he +only succeeded in sending Virginia flying with frightened face to +"Buddie's" arms, vowing (as, much to Cousin Neilson's disgust, she hung +upon his neck) that she would never give him up, while "Buddie," holding +her close, assured her, in the story-book language that they both loved, +that "all the king's horses and all the king's men" would not be strong +enough to take her from him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +Midsummer found Edgar Poe in Richmond and regularly at work upon his new +duties in the office of _The Southern Literary Messenger_. He felt that +if he had not actually reached the end of the rainbow, it was at least +in sight and it rested upon the place of all others most gratifying to +him--the dear city of his boyhood whose esteem he so ardently desired. +Most soothing to his pride, he found it, after his several ignominious +retreats, to return in triumph, a successful author, called to a place +of acknowledged distinction, for all its meagre income. + +The playmates of his youth--now substantial citizens of the little +capital--called promptly upon him at his boarding-house. They were glad +to have him back and they showed it; glad of his success and glad and +proud to find their early faith in his powers justified, their early +astuteness proven. + +All Richmond, indeed, received him with open arms and if there were some +few persons who could not forget his wild-oats at the University and his +seeming ingratitude to Mr. Allan, who they declared had been the kindest +and most indulgent of fathers to him, and who did not invite him to +their homes or accept invitations to parties given in his honor, they +were the losers--he had friends and to spare. + +Yet he was not happy. The ivy had been torn from the oak and there was +no sweet heartsease blossom to make glad his road--to made +daily--hourly--offerings to him and him alone of the beauty, physical +and spiritual, that his soul worshipped--of beauty and of unquestioning +love and sympathy and approbation. In other words, The Dreamer was sick, +miserably sick, with the disease of longing; longing for the modest home +and the invigorating presence of the Mother; longing that was exquisite +pain for the sight, the sound, the touch, the daily companionship of the +child who without losing one whit of the purity, the innocence, the +charm of childhood, had so suddenly, so sweetly become a woman--a woman +embodying all of his dreams--a woman who lived with no other thought +than to love and be loved by him. + +Life, no matter what else it might give, life without the soft glance of +her eye, the sweet sound of her voice, the pure touch of her hand within +his hand, her lips upon his lips, was become an empty, aching void. + +After two years of the sheltered fireside in Baltimore whose seclusion +had made the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass possible, the +boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its +commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home. It was stifling. +How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house? He was even homesick +for the purr and the comfortable airs of the old white cat! + +Whenever he could he turned his back upon the boarding-house and tried +to forget it, but the clatter and the gossip seemed to follow him, their +din lingering in his ears as he paced the streets in a fever of disgust +and longing. For the first time since Edgar Poe had opened his eyes upon +the tasteful homelikeness of the widow Clemm's chamber and the tender, +dark eyes of Virginia searching his face with soft wonder, the old +restlessness and dissatisfaction with life and the whole scheme of +things were upon him--the blue devils which he believed had been +exorcised forever had him in their clutches. Whither should he fly from +their harrassments? By what road should he escape? + +At the answer--the only answer vouchsafed him--he stood aghast. + +"No, no!" he cried within him, "Not that--not that!" Seeking to deafen +his ears to a voice that at once charmed and terrified him, for it was +the voice of a demon which possessed the allurements of an angel--a +demon he reckoned he had long ago fast bound in chains from which it +would never have the strength to arise. It was the voice that dwelt in +the cup--the single cup--so innocent seeming, so really innocent for +many, yet so ruinous for him; for, with all its promises of cheer and +comfort it led--and he knew it--to disaster. + +Bitterly he fought to drown the sounds of the voice, but the more he +deafened his ears the more insistent, the clearer, the more alluring its +tones became. + +And it followed him everywhere. At every board where he was a guest the +brimming cup stood beside his plate, at every turn of the street he was +buttonholed by some friend old or new, with the invitation to join him +in the "cup of kindness." At every evening party he found himself +surrounded by bevies of charming young Hebes, who, as innocent as angels +of any intention of doing him a wrong, implored him to propose them a +toast. + +How could he refuse them? Especially when acquiescence meant escape from +this horrible, horrible soul-sickness, this weight that was bearing his +spirits down--crushing them. + +Therein lay the tempter's power. Not in appetite--he was no swine to +swill for love of the draught. When he did yield he drained the cup +scarce tasting its contents. But ah, the freedom from the sickness that +tortured him, the weight that oppressed him! And ah, the exhilaration, +physical and mental, the delightful exhilaration which put melancholy to +flight, loosed his tongue and started the machinery of his brain--which +robbed the past of regret and made the present and the future rosy! + +It was in the promise of this exhilaration that the seductiveness of the +dreaded tones lay. + +Even his kindly old physician, diagnosing the pallor of his cheeks and +melancholy in his eyes as "a touch of malaria," added a note of +insistence to the voice, as he prescribed that panacea of the day, "a +mint julep before breakfast." + +Yet he still sternly and stoutly turned a deaf ear to the voice of the +charmer, while dejection drew him deeper and deeper into its depths +until one day he found he could not write. His pen seemed suddenly to +have lost its power. He sat at his desk in the office of the _Messenger_ +with paper before him, with pens and ink at hand, but his brain refused +to produce an idea, and for such vague half-thoughts as came to him, he +could find no words to give expression. + +He was seized upon by terror. + +Had his gift of the gods deserted him? Better death than life without +his gift! Without it the very ground under his feet seemed uncertain and +unsafe! + +Then he fell. Driven to the wall, as it seemed to him, he took the only +road he saw that led, or seemed to lead, to deliverance. He yielded his +will to the voice of the tempter, he tasted the freedom, the +exhilaration, the wild joy that his imagination had pictured--drank deep +of it! + +And then he paid the price he had known all along he would have to pay, +though in the hour of his severest temptation the knowledge had not had +power to make him strong. Neither, in that hour, had he been able to +foresee how hard the price would be. That shadowy, yet very real other +self, his avenging conscience, in whose approval he had so long happily +rested, arose in its wrath and rebuked him as he had never been rebuked +before. It scourged him. It held up before him his bright prospects, his +lately acquired and enviable social position, assuring him as it held +them up, of their insecurity. It pointed with warning finger to the end +of the rainbow and the road leading to it seemed to have suddenly grown +ten times longer and rougher than before. + +Finally it held up the images of his two good angels, "Muddie," with her +heart of oak, and her tender, sorrow-stricken face, and Virginia, whose +soft eyes were a heaven of trustful love--whose beauty, whose purity and +innocence, the stored sweets of whose nature were for him alone, and to +whom he was as faultless, as supreme as the sun in heaven. + +It was too much. The dejection into which his "blue devils" had cast him +was as nothing to the remorse that overwhelmed him now. On his knees +before Heaven he confessed that his last estate was worse than his +first, and cried aloud for forgiveness for the past and strength for the +future. + +In this mood he sat down to write to Mr. Kennedy (who had been absent +upon a summer vacation when he left Baltimore) a letter of +acknowledgment for his benefactions--for whatever The Dreamer was, it is +very certain that he was _not_ ungrateful. + +The date he placed at the top of his page was "September 11, 1835." + +"I received a letter yesterday," he wrote, "which tells me you are back +in town. I hasten therefore, to write you and express by letter what I +have always found it impossible to express orally--my deep sense of +gratitude for your frequent and effectual assistance and kindness. + +"Through your influence Mr. White has been induced to employ me in +assisting him with the editorial duties of his Magazine--at a salary of +$520 per annum." + +He had not intended to mention his troubles to Mr. Kennedy, but with +each word he wrote the impulse to unburden himself which he always felt +when talking to this kind, sympathetic man, grew stronger and he found +his pen almost automatically taking an unexpected turn. It was out of +the abundance of his anguished heart that he added: + +"The situation is agreeable to me for many reasons--but alas! it appears +that nothing can now give me pleasure--or the slightest gratification. +Excuse me, my Dear Sir, if in this letter you find much incoherency. My +feelings at this moment are pitiable indeed. You will believe me when I +say that I am still miserable in spite of the great improvement in my +circumstances; for a man who is writing for effect does not write thus. +My heart is open before you--if it be worth reading, read it. I am +wretched and know not why. Console me--for you can. Convince me that it +is worth one's while to live. Persuade me to do what is right. You will +not fail to see that I am suffering from a depression of spirits which +will ruin me if it be long continued. Write me then, and quickly. Urge +me to do what is right. Your words will have more weight with me than +the words of others--for you were my friend when no one else was." + +Some men of more goodness than wisdom might have read this letter with +impatience--perhaps disgust, and tossed it into the waste basket, not +deeming it worth an answer, or pigeon-holed it to be answered in a more +convenient season--which would probably never have arrived. It is easy +to imagine the contempt with which John Allan would have perused it. Not +so John Kennedy. Busy lawyer and successful man of letters and of the +world though he was, he had gone out of his way to stretch a hand to the +gifted starveling he had discovered struggling for a foothold on the +bottommost rung of the ladder of literary fame, and had not only helped +him up the ladder but had drawn him, in his weakness and his strength, +into the circle of his friendship, and now he had no idea of letting him +go. Mr. Kennedy was a great lawyer with a great tenderness for human +nature, born of a great knowledge of it. He did not expect young +men--even talented ones--to be faultless or to be fountains of sound +sense, or even always to be strong of will. When he received Edgar Poe's +wail he had just returned to his office after a long vacation and found +himself over head and ears in work; but he responded at once. If it had +seemed to him a foolish letter he did not say so. If it had shocked or +disappointed him, he did not say so. He wrote in the kindly tolerant and +understanding tone he always took with his protegé a letter wholesome +and bracing as a breath from the salt sea. + +"My dear Poe," he began, in his simple familiar way, "I am sorry to see +you in such plight as your letter shows you in. It is strange that just +at the time when everybody is praising you and when Fortune has begun to +smile upon your hitherto wretched circumstances you should be invaded by +these villainous blue devils. It belongs however, to your age and temper +to be thus buffeted--but be assured it only wants a little resolution to +master the adversary forever. Rise early, live generously, and make +cheerful acquaintances and I have no doubt you will send these +misgivings of the heart all to the Devil. You will doubtless do well +henceforth in literature and add to your comforts as well as your +reputation which it gives me great pleasure to tell you is everywhere +rising in popular esteem." + +This and more he wrote, in kind, encouraging vein, and closed his letter +with a friendly invitation: + +"Write to me frequently, and believe me very truly + + "Yours, + + "JOHN P. KENNEDY." + +The same post that brought Mr. Kennedy's letter brought The Dreamer +other mail from Baltimore--brought him letters from both Virginia and +Mother Clemm. + +They had an especial reason for writing, each said. They had news for +him--news which was most disturbing to them and they feared it would be +to him. + +Disturbing indeed, was the news the letters brought. It drove him into a +rage and aroused him into action which made him forget all of his late +troubles. + +Their Cousin Neilson and his wife, they wrote him, had not ceased to +bring every argument they could think of to bear upon Virginia to induce +her to break her engagement and had finally proposed that they should +take her into their home, treat her as an own daughter or young sister, +providing for her all things needful and desirable for a young girl of +her station, until her eighteenth birthday, after which if she and Edgar +had not changed their minds, they could be married. + +He dashed off and posted answers to the letters at once, making violent +protest against a scheme that seemed to him positively iniquitous and +pleading with "Muddie" to keep Virginia for him. But writing was not +enough. He determined to answer in person. + +A day or two later Virginia and her mother were in the act of discussing +his letters, which had just come, when the sitting-room door quietly +opened, and there stood the man who was all the world to them! + +Virginia, with a scream of delight, was in his arms in a flash and began +telling him, breathlessly, what a fright she had been in for fear +"Cousin Neilson" would take her away and she would never see him again. + +With a rising tide of tenderness for her and rage against their cousin, +he kissed the trouble from her eyes. + +"Don't be afraid, sweetheart," he murmured, "He shall never take you +from me. I have come back to marry you!" + +"To marry her?" exclaimed Mrs. Clemm. "At once, do you mean?" + +"At once! Today or tomorrow--for I must be getting back to Richmond as +soon as possible. Don't you see, Muddie, that this is just a plot of +Neilson's to separate us? He never cared for me--he loves Virginia and +is determined I shall not have her. But we'll outwit him! We'll be +married at once. We'll have to keep it secret at first--until I am able +to provide a home for my little wife and our dear mother in Richmond, +but I will go away with peace of mind and leave her in peace of mind, +for once she is mine only death can come between us. We will keep it +secret dear," he added, with his lips on the dusky hair of the little +maid who was still held fast in his arms. "We will keep it secret, but +if Neilson Poe becomes troublesome you will only have to show him your +marriage certificate." + +Virginia joyfully agreed to this plan, while the widow, finding +opposition useless, finally consented too--and the impetuous lover was +off post-haste for a license. + +It was a unique little wedding which took place next day in Christ +Church, when a beautiful, dreamy looking youth, with intellectual brow +and classic profile and a beautiful, dreamy-looking maid, half his age, +plighted their troth. The only attendant was Mother Clemm in her +habitual plain black dress and widow's cap, with floating cap-strings, +sheer and snowy white. No music, no flowers, no witnesses even, save the +widowed mother and the aged sexton who was bound over to strict secrecy. + +But in the dim, still, empty church the beautiful words of the old, old +rite seemed to this strange pair of lovers to take on new solemnity as +they fell from the lips of the white robed priest and sank deep into +their young hearts, filling and thrilling them with fresh hope and faith +and love and high resolve. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +In the following spring Edgar Poe and Virginia Clemm were, strange as it +may seem, principals in another wedding. The months intervening between +the two ceremonies had been teeming with interest to them both--filled +with work and with happiness just short of that perfect +satisfaction--that completeness--that unattainable which it is part of +being a mortal with an immortal mind and soul to be continually striving +after, and missing, and will be until the half-light of this world is +merged into the light ineffable of the one to come. + +The Dreamer had returned from his brief visit to Baltimore a new man. +The blue devils were gone. The heart and mind which they had made their +dwelling-place were swept clean of every vestige of them and were filled +to overflowing with a sweet and rare presence--the presence of her who +lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him; for he +felt that her spirit was with him at every moment of the day, though her +fair body was other whither. The consciousness of the secret he carried +in his heart flooded his nature with sunshine. Because of it he carried +his head more proudly--wore a new dignity which his friends attributed +entirely to the success of his work upon the magazine. He was filled +with peace and good will to all the world. He was happy and wanted +everybody else to be happy--it was apparent in himself and in his work. +In his dreamy moods his fancy spread a broader, a stronger wing, and +soared with new daring to heights unexplored before. When Edgar +Goodfellow was in the ascendency he threw himself with unwonted zest +into the pleasures that were "like poppies spread" in the way of the +successful author and editor--the literary lion of the town. + +He had always been an enthusiastic and graceful dancer and now nothing +else seemed to give him so natural a vent for the happiness that was +beating in his veins. His feet seemed like his pen, to be inspired. He +felt that he could dance till Doomsday and all the prettiest, most +bewitching girls let him see how pleased they were to have him for a +partner. In the brief, glowing rests between the dances he rewarded them +with charming talk, and verses in praise of their loveliness which +seemed to fall without the slightest effort from his tongue into their +pretty, delighted ears or from his pencil into their albums. + +There was at least one fair damsel--a slight, willowy creature with +violet eyes and flaxen ringlets, who treasured the graceful lines he +dedicated to her with a feeling warmer than friendship. She was pretty +Eliza White, the daughter of his employer, the owner of the _Southern +Literary Messenger_. She was herself a lover of poetry and romance, and +a dreamer of dreams, all of which had erelong merged into one sweet +dream so secret, so sacred that she scarce dared own it to her own inner +self, and its central figure was her father's handsome assistant editor, +who rested in blissful ignorance of the havoc he was making in her +maiden heart, engrossed as he was in his own secret--his own romance. + +New energy, new zest, new life seemed to have entered his blood. He had +endless capacity for work as well as for pleasure and could write all +day and dance half the night and then lie awake star-gazing the other +half and rise ready and eager for the day's work in the morning. Such a +tonic--such a stimulant did his love for his faraway bride and his +consciousness of her love for him prove. + +He was happy--very, very happy, but he desired to be happier still. The +simple, beautiful words of the old, old rite uttered in the dim, empty +church had woven an invisible bond between him and the maiden whom he +loved to call in his heart his wife though the time when he could claim +her before the world was not yet. + +The miracle that this bond wrought in him was a revelation to him. Was +the priest a wizard? Did the words of the ancient rite possess any +intrinsic power of enchantment undreamed of by the uninitiated? + +He had not believed it possible for mortal to love more wholly--more +madly than he had loved the little Virginia before that sacred ceremony, +but after it he knew there were heights of love of which he had not +hitherto had a glimpse. Just the right to say to his heart "She is my +own--my wife--" made her tenfold more precious than she had ever been +before, but it also made the separation tenfold harder to bear--made it +beyond his power to bear! + +The Valley of the Many-Colored Grass had been dissolved--the spell that +had brought it into being broken, by the separation, and he longed with +a longing that was as hunger and thirst to reconstruct this magical +world in which he and his Virginia dwelt apart with her who was mother +to them both, in Richmond. And so, poor as he was, he arranged to bring +Virginia and Mother Clemm to Richmond and establish them in a boarding +house where he could see them often and wait with better grace the still +happier day of making his marriage public. + +The day came more speedily than they had let themselves hope. The +popularity of the _Messenger_ and the fame of its assistant editor had +grown with leaps and bounds. The new year brought the welcome gift of +promotion to full editorship, with an increase of salary. With the +opening spring began plans for the divulging of the great secret--for +public acknowledgment of the marriage. But how was it to be done?--That +was the question! Edgar Poe knew too well the disapproval with which the +world regarded secret marriages--with which he himself regarded them, +ordinarily. His sense of refinement of fitness, of the sacredness of the +marriage tie, revolted from the very idea. + +In what fashion then, could he and his little bride proclaim their +secret that would not do violence to their own taste or set a buzz of +gossip going? That the horrid lips of gossip should so much as breathe +the name of his Virginia--that Mrs. Grundy should dare shrug her +decorous shoulders, if ever so slightly, at mention of that sacred +name--. The bare suggestion was intolerable! + +At last a solution offered itself to his mind. Not for an instant did he +regret the sacred ceremony in Christ Church, Baltimore. Not for worlds +would he have cut short for one moment of time the duration of the +beautiful spiritual marriage when he had been able to say to himself: +"She whose presence fills my heart and my life--whose spirit I can feel +near me at my work, in my hours of recreation and in my dreams, is my +wife." But of this exquisite, this inexpressibly dear union the world +was in utter ignorance. It was known only to the Mother, the priest and +the aged sexton. To these witnesses always, as to themselves, their +marriage would date from the moment when the blessing was invoked above +their bowed heads in Christ Church, but to the world--why not let it +date from the day in which they would claim each other before the world, +in Richmond? + +The thing was most simple! A second ceremony in the presence of a few +friends--a brief announcement in next day's paper--and their life would +be begun with the dignity, the prestige, of public marriage. + + * * * * * + +The sixteenth of May was the day chosen for the event which was more +like a wedding in Arcady than in latter-day society. As at the secret +ceremony, the customary preparations for a wedding were conspicuously +absent; yet was not the whole town gala with sunshine and verdure and +May-bloom and bird-song? + +Edgar Poe looked every inch a bridegroom as, with his girl-wife upon his +arm, he stepped forth from Mrs. Yarrington's boarding-house, opposite +the green slopes of Capitol Square. A bridegroom indeed!--plainly, but +perfectly apparelled--handsome, proud, fearless--his great eyes luminous +with solemn joy. + +The simplest of white frocks became Virginia's innocence and beauty more +than costly bridal array and the nosegay of white violets above her +chaste bosom was her only ornament. + +With this sweet pair came the happy mother and a little train of close +friends. It was late afternoon. The sunshine was mellow and the air was +filled with the delicious insense which in mid-May the majestic +paulonia tree drops from its purple bells and which is the very breath +of the warm-natured South. + +No line of carriages stood at the door. No awning shut the picture they +made from admiring eyes, but happily the little party chatted together +as they strolled under over-arching greenery to the corner of Main and +Seventh Streets, where in the prim parlor of the Presbyterian minister, +the words were pronounced which told the world that Edgar Poe and +Virginia Clemm were one. + +Upon the return of the party to Mrs. Yarrington's, a cake was cut, the +health and happiness of the bride and groom were drunk in wine of +"Muddie's" own make, and the modest festival was over. + + * * * * * + +How happy the young lovers and dreamers were in their home-making! Their +housekeeping and furnishings were the simplest, but love made everything +beautiful and sufficient. They had a garden in which they planted all +their favorite flowers and to which came the birds--the birds with whom +they had discovered a sudden kinship, for they too, were nesting--and +filled it with music. And they sang and chatted as happily as the birds +themselves as the pretty business progressed. + +How delightful it was to receive their friends, together, in their own +home and at their own board--Eddie's old friends, especially. Rob +Stanard, now a prosperous lawyer, and Rob Sully whose reputation as an +artist was growing, were the first to call and present their compliments +to the bride and groom; and how cordial they were! How affectionate to +Eddie--how warm in their expressions of friendship for the girl-wife! + +Virginia found it the greatest fun imaginable to go to market with +"Muddie," with a basket hanging from her pretty arm. The market men and +women began to daily watch for the sweet face and tripping step of the +exquisite child whom it seemed so comical to address as "_Mrs._ Poe," +and who rewarded their open admiration with the loveliest smile, the +prettiest words of greeting and interest, the merriest rippling laugh +that rang through the market place and waked echoes in many a heart that +had believed itself a stranger to joy. + +And the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass was reconstructed in even more +than its old beauty. The flowers of love and contentment and innocent +pleasure that besprinkled its green carpet had never been so many or so +gay, the dream-mountains that shut it in from the rest of the world were +as fair as sunset clouds, and the peace that flowed through it as a +river broke into singing as it flowed. + + * * * * * + +Meantime Edgar Poe worked--and worked--and worked. + +Every number of the _Messenger_ contained page after page of the +brilliantly conceived and artistically worded product of his brain and +pen. His heart--his imagination satisfied and at rest in the love and +comradeship of a woman who fulfilled his ideal of beauty, of character, +and of charm, whose mind he himself had taught and trained to appreciate +and to love the things that meant most to him, whose sympathy responded +to his every mood, whose voice soothed his tired nerves with the music +that was one of the necessities of his temperament, a woman, withal, who +lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him--his +harassing devils cast out by this true heartsease, Edgar Poe's industry +and his power of mental production were almost past belief. + +As he worked a dream that had long been half-formed in his brain took +definite shape and became the moving influence of the intellectual side +of his life. His literary conscience had always been strict--even +exacting--with him, making him push the quest for the right word in +which to express his idea--just the right word, no other--to its +farthest limit. Urged by this conscience, he could rarely ever feel that +his work was finished, but kept revising, polishing and republishing it +in improved form, even after it had been once given to the world. He had +in his youth contemplated serving his country as a soldier. He now began +to dream of serving her as a captain of literature, as it were--as a +defender of purity of style; for this dream which became the most +serious purpose of his life was of raising the standard of American +letters to the ideal perfection after which he strove in his own +writings. + +For his campaign a trusty weapon was at hand in the editorial department +of the _Southern Literary Messenger_, which he turned into a sword of +fearless, merciless criticism. + +Literary criticism (so called) in America had been hitherto mere +puffery--puffery for the most part of weak, prolix, commonplace +scribblings of little would-be authors and poets. A reformation in +criticism, therefore, Edgar Poe conceived to be the only remedy for the +prevalent mediocrity in writing that was vitiating the taste of the day, +the only hope of placing American literature upon a footing of equality +with that of England--in a word, for bringing about anything approaching +the perfection of which he dreamed. + +The new kind of criticism to which he introduced his readers created a +sensation by reason of its very novelty. His brilliant, but withering +critiques were more eagerly looked for than the most thrilling of his +stories, and though the little, namby-pamby authors whom the gleaming +sword mowed down by tens were his and the _Messenger's_ enemies for +life, the interested readers that were gathered in by hundreds were loud +in their praise of the progressiveness of the magazine and the genius of +the man who was making it. + +In the North as well as the South the name of Edgar Poe was now on many +lips and serious attention began to be paid to the opinion of the +_Southern Literary Messenger_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +Between his literary work, his home and his social life in Richmond, it +would seem that every need of The Dreamer's being was now satisfied and +the days of his life were moving in perfect harmony. But "the little +rift within the lute" all too soon made its appearance. It was caused by +the alarm of Mr. White, the owner and founder of the _Messenger_. + +"Little Tom White" was a most admirable man--within his limitations. If +he was not especially interesting, his daughter Eliza of the violet eyes +was, and he was reliable--which was better. He had a kind little heart +and a clear little business head and his advice upon all matters (within +his experience) was safe. Though he saw from the handsome increase in +the number of the _Messenger's_ subscribers that his young editor was a +valuable aid, he did not realize how valuable. Indeed, Edgar Poe and his +style of writing were entirely outside of Mr. White's experience. They +were so altogether unlike anything he had known before that in spite of +the praise of the thousands of readers which they had brought to the +magazine the dissatisfaction of the tens of little namby-pamby authors +alarmed him. Edgar Poe found him one morning in a state of positive +trepidation. He sat at his desk in the _Messenger_ office with the +morning's mail--an unusually large pile of it--before him. In it there +were a number of new subscriptions, several letters from the little +authors protesting against the manner in which their works were handled +in the review columns of the magazine and one or two from well-known +and highly respected country gentlemen expressing their disapproval of +the _strangeness_ in Edgar Poe's tales and poems. + +Mr. White appreciated the genius of his editor--within his +limitations--but he was afraid of it and these letters made him more +afraid of it. He saw that he must speak to Edgar--add his protest to the +protests of the little authors and the country gentlemen and see if he +could not persuade him to tone down the sharpness of his criticisms and +the strangeness of his stories. + +It was with a feeling of relief that he saw the trim, black-clad figure +of the young editor and author at the door, for he would like to settle +the business before him at once. His manner was grave--solemn--as he +approached the subject upon which his employe must be spoken to. + +"Edgar," he said, when good-mornings had been exchanged, "I want you to +read these letters. They are in the same line as some others we have +been receiving lately--but more so--decidedly more so." + +"Ah?" said The Dreamer, as he seated himself at the desk and began to +unfold and glance over the letters. + +"Little Tom" watched his face with a feeling of wonder at the look of +mixed scorn and amusement that appeared in the expressive eyes and mouth +as he read. Finally the anxious little man laid his hand upon the arm of +his unruly assistant, with an air of kindly patronage. + +"You have talent, Edgar," he said, with a touch of condescension, "Good +talent--especially for criticism--and will some day make your mark in +that line if you will stick to it and let these weird stories alone. We +must have fewer of the stories in future and more critiques, but milder +ones. It is the critiques that the readers want; but in both stories and +critiques you must put a restraint on that pen of yours, Edgar. In the +stories less of the weird--the strange--in the critiques, less of the +satirical. Let moderation be your watchword, my boy. Cultivate +moderation in your writing, and with your endowment you will make a name +for yourself as well as the magazine." + +Edgar Poe was all attention--respectful attention that was most +encouraging--while Mr. White was speaking, and when he had finished sat +with a contemplative look in his eyes, as if weighing the words he had +just heard. Presently he looked up and with the expression of face and +voice of one who in all seriousness seeks information, asked, + +"Is moderation really the word you are after, Mr. White, or is it +mediocrity?" + +The announcement at the very moment when the question was put, of a +visitor--a welcome one, for he brought a new subscription--precluded a +reply, and in the busy day that followed the broken thread of +conversation was never taken up again. But the unanswered question left +Mr. White with a confused sense which stayed with him during the whole +day and at intervals all through it he was asking himself what Edgar Poe +meant. Truly his talented employe was a puzzling fellow! Could it be +possible that the question asked with that serious face, that quiet +respectful air, was intended for a joke? That the impudent fellow could +have been quizzing him? No wonder his stories gave people +shivers--there was at times something about the fellow himself which was +positively uncanny! + +That he and "little Tom" would always see opposite sides of the picture +became more and more apparent to The Dreamer as time went on and along +with this difficulty another and a more serious one arose. + +Though the amount of work--of successful work, for it brought the +_Messenger_ a steadily increasing stream of new subscribers--which he +was now putting forth, should have surrounded the beloved wife and +mother with luxuries and placed him beyond the reach of financial +embarrassment, the returns he received from the entire fruitage of his +brilliant talent--his untiring pen--at this the prime-time of his +life--in the fullness of mental and physical vigour, was so small that +he was constantly harrassed by debt and frequently reduced to the +humiliating necessity of borrowing from his friends to make two ends +meet. + +The plain truth was gradually borne in upon him--the prizes of fame and +wealth that for the sake of his sweet bride he coveted more earnestly +than ever before, were not to be found, by him, in Richmond, or as an +employe of Mr. White. But the hues of the bow of promise with which hope +spanned the sky of his inward vision were still bright, and he believed +that at its end the coveted prizes would surely still be found--provided +he did not lose heart and give up the quest. Indications of the growth +of his reputation at the North had been many. In the North the +facilities for publishing were so much more abundant than in the South. +The publishing houses and the periodicals of New York, of Boston, and of +Philadelphia would create a demand for literary work--and from these +large cities his message to the world would go out with greater +authority than from a small town like Richmond. + +It was not until the year 1838 that he finally resolved to make the +break and sent in his resignation to the _Messenger_. In the three years +since his first appearance in its columns the number of names upon its +subscription list had increased from seven hundred to five thousand. + +Though Edgar Poe's connection with the magazine as editor was at an end, +Mr. White took pains to announce that he was to continue to be a regular +contributor and the appearance of his serial story, "Arthur Gordon Pym," +then running, was to be uninterrupted. + + * * * * * + +It was a far cry from the gardens and porches and open houses of +Richmond to the streets of New York--from the easy going country town +where society held but one circle, to a city, with its locked doors and +its wheels within wheels. Indeed, the single circle in Richmond, bound +together as it was by the elastic, but secure, tie of Virginia +cousinship and neighborliness then regarded as almost the same thing as +relationship, was practically one big family. Whoever was not your +cousin or your neighbor was the next best thing--either your neighbor's +cousin or your cousin's neighbor--so there you were. + +Though Edgar and Virginia Poe and the Widow Clemm had no blood kin in +Richmond they were, during those two years' residence there, taken into +the very heart of this pleasant, kindly circle, and it was with keen +homesickness that they realized that "in a whole cityful friends they +had none." + +But if this trio of dreamers felt strangely out of place in the streets +of New York, they looked more so. As they sauntered along, in their +leisurely southern fashion, their picturesque appearance arrested the +gaze of many a hurrying passer-by. In contrast to the up-to-date, alert, +keen-eyed crowd upon the busy streets, the air of distinction which +marked them everywhere was more pronounced than ever. They gave the +impression of a certain exquisite fineness of quality, combined with +quaintness, that one is sensible of in looking upon rare china. + +In and out--in and out--among the crowds of these streets where being a +stranger he felt himself peculiarly alone, Edgar the Dreamer walked many +days in his quest for work. Here, there and everywhere, his pale face +and solemn eyes with less and less of hope in them were seen. He had +been right in believing that his reputation was growing and had reached +New York--yet no one wanted his work. The supply of literature exceeded +the demand, he was told everywhere. It is true that he succeeded in +placing an occasional article, for which he would be paid the merest +pittance. Man should not expect to live by writing alone, he found to be +the general opinion--he should have a business or profession and do his +scribbling in the left-over hours. + +Still, his appearance at the door of a newspaper, magazine or book +publisher's office, accompanied by the announcement of his name, brought +him respect and a polite hearing--if that could afford any satisfaction +to a man whose darling wife was growing wan from insufficient food. + +One devoted friend he and his family made in Mr. Gowans, a Scotchman and +a book-collector of means and cultivation, whose fancy for them went so +far as to induce him to become a member of the unique little family in +the dingy wooden shanty which they had succeeded in renting for a song. +To this old gentleman, who had the reputation of being something of a +crank, The Dreamer's conversation and Virginia's beauty and exquisite +singing were never-failing wells of delight, while the generous sum that +he paid for the privilege of sharing their home was an equal benefit to +them and went a long way toward supplying the simple table. The little +checks which "little Tom" White sent for the monthly instalments of +"Arthur Gordon Pym," upon which his ex-editor industriously worked, were +also most welcome. But with all they could scrape together the income +was insufficient to keep three souls within three bodies, and three +bodies decently covered. + +Before the year in New York was out the rainbow was pale in the sky--its +colors were faded and its end was invisible--obscured by lowering +clouds. At the moment when it seemed faintest it came out clear +again--this time setting toward Philadelphia, whose name the hope that +rarely left him for long at a time whispered in The Dreamer's ear. + +Why not Philadelphia? Philadelphia--then the acknowledged seat of the +empire of Letters. Philadelphia--the city of Penn, the "City of +Brotherly Love." There was for one of The Dreamer's superstitious turn +of mind and his love of words and belief in their power, an +attraction--a significance in the very names. He said them over and over +again to himself--rolled them on his tongue, fascinated with their sound +and with their suggestiveness. + +He bade Virginia and "Muddie" keep up brave hearts, for they would turn +their backs upon this cold, inhospitable New York and set up their +household gods in the "City of Brotherly Love." The city of Penn, he +added, was the place for one of his calling--laughing as he spoke, at +the feeble pun--but there was new hope and life in the laugh. In Penn's +city, even if disappointments should come they would be able to bear +them, for how should human beings suffer in the "City of Brotherly +Love?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +The year was waning--the year 1838--when Edgar Poe removed his family +from New York. About the hour of noon, upon a pleasant day of the spring +following, he might have been seen to turn from the paved streets of the +"City of Brotherly Love," and to enter, and walk briskly along, a grassy +thoroughfare of Spring Garden--a village-like suburb. + +He was going home to Virginia and the Mother--to a new home in this +village which they had been first tempted to explore by its delightful +name and which they had found seeing was to love, for in its appearance +the name was justified. The quiet streets were lined with trees just +coming into leaf, in which birds were building, happy and unafraid, and +spring flowers were blooming in little plots before many of the +unpretentious homes. + +The place also possessed a more practical attraction in the +reasonableness of its house-rents. Delightfully low was the price asked +for a small, Dutch-roofed cottage that was just to their minds. It was +small, yet quite large enough to hold the three and their modest +possessions, and about it hung a quaint charm that might have been +wanting in a more ambitious abode. Though in excellent preservation it +had a pleasantly time-worn air and there was moss, in velvety green +patches, on its sloping roof. It was set somewhat back from the street, +with a bit of garden spot in front of it, in whose rich soil violets and +single hyacinths--blue and white--were blooming, and its square porch +supported a climbing rose, heavy with buds, that only needed training +to make it a bower of beauty. + +After having tried several more or less unsatisfactory homes during +their brief residence in Philadelphia, they felt that they had at last +found one that filled their requirements, and had promptly moved in. +There were no servants--maids would have been in the way they happily +told each other--but Virginia and her mother had positive genius for +neatness and order. At their touch things seemed to fly by magic into +the places where they would look best and at the same time be most +convenient, and it was astonishing how quickly the arrangement of their +small belongings converted the cottage into a home. + +It was with light heart and step that the master of the house took his +way homeward to the mid-day meal. The periodicals of the "City of +Brotherly Love" were keeping him busy, and there was at that moment +money in his pocket--not much, but still it was money--that day received +for his latest story. + +As he drew near a corner just around which his new roof-tree stood, he +stopped suddenly--in the attitude of one who listens. Peal after peal of +rippling laughter was filling the air with music. In his vivid eyes, as +he listened, shone the soft light of love and a smile of infinite +tenderness played about his lips. Well he knew from what lovely, girlish +throat came the merry sounds--sweet and clear as a chime of silver +bells. A quickened step brought him instantly in view of her and the +cause of her mirth. + +She stood in the rose-hooded doorway leaning upon a broom. Her cheeks +were pink with the exertion she had been making and her sleeves were +rolled up, leaving her dimpled, white arms bare to the elbow. Her soft +eyes were radiant and she was laughing for sheer delight in the picture +the stately "Muddie" made white-washing the palings that enclosed the +wee garden-spot from the street. When she saw her husband at the gate +she dropped her broom and ran into his arms like a child. + +"Oh, Buddie, Buddie," she cried, "are not our palings beautiful? Muddie +did them for a surprise for you!" + +"Buddie" was enthusiastic in admiration of the white palings and praised +the gentle white-washer to the skies. Then the three happy workers went +inside to their simple repast, which the sauce of content turned into a +banquet. + +The door had been left open to the sunshine and the result was an +unexpected guest--a handsome tortoise-shell kitten which strayed in to +ask a share of their meal. She paused, timidly, upon the threshold for a +moment, then fixing her amber eyes upon The Dreamer, made straight for +him and arching her back and waving her tail like a plume, in the air +she rubbed her glossy sides against his ankle in a manner that was truly +irresistible. All three gave her a warm welcome. Edgar regarded her +appearance as a good omen; Virginia was delighted to have a pet, and +"Catalina," as they named her, became from the moment a regular and +favorite member of the family. + + * * * * * + +The cottage contained but five rooms--three downstairs (including the +kitchen) and upstairs two, with low-pitched, shelving walls and narrow +little slits of windows on a level with the floor. But as has been said, +it was large enough--large enough to shelter love and happiness and +genius--large enough to hold the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass, with its fair river and its enchanted trees and flowers, in which +the three dreamers lived apart and for each other only. + +It was large enough for the freest expansion the world had yet seen of +the vivid-hued imagination of Edgar Poe. + +Night and day his brain was busy--"fancy unto fancy linking"--and the +periodicals teemed with his work. + +In _The American Museum_, of Baltimore appeared his fantastic +prose-poem, "Ligeia," with his theory of the power of the human will for +a text--his favorite of all of his "tales"--_his_ favorite, in the +weakness of whose own will lay the real tragedy of his life! In _The +Gift_, of Philadelphia, appeared, a little later the dramatic +"conscience-story," "William Wilson," with its clear-cut pictures of +school-life at old Stoke-Newington. _The Baltimore Book_ gave the +thrilling fable, "Silence," to the world. The weirdly beautiful "Haunted +Palace" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" followed in quick +succession--in _The American Museum_. + +"The Fall of the House of Usher," brought The Dreamer a pat-on-the back +from "little Tom" White, who in writing of the tale in _The Southern +Literary Messenger_, informed the world: "We always predicted that Mr. +Poe would reach a high grade in American literature; only we wish Mr. +Poe would stick to the department of criticism; there he is an able +professor." + +Wrote James Russell Lowell, of the same story, + + "Had its author written nothing else it would have been enough + to stamp him as a man of genius." + +The cottage in Spring Garden was large enough too, for the sweet uses +of hospitality. By the time the roses on the porch were open, friends +and admirers began to find their way to it, and all who came through the +white-washed gate and sat down in the green-hooded porch or passed +through it into the bright and tasteful rooms felt the poetic charm +which this son of genius and his exquisite bit of a wife and the stately +mother with the "Mater Dolorosa" expression, threw over their simple +surroundings. + +Among those who found their way thither was "Billy" Burton, an +Englishman, and an actor, who though a graduate of Cambridge was "better +known as a commedian than as a literary man." He had written several +books, however, and was the publisher of _The Gentleman's Magazine_, of +Philadelphia. Here too, came intimately, Mr. Alexander, one of the +founders of _The Saturday Evening Post_, to which The Dreamer was a +frequent contributor, and Mr. Clarke, first editor of _The Post_ and +others of what Edgar Poe's friend, Wilmer, would have dubbed the "press +gang" of Philadelphia. + +To be intimate with The Dreamer meant to adore the little wife with the +face of a Luca della Robbia chorister and the voice which should have +belonged to one--with the merry, irresistible ways of a perfectly happy +child,--and to revere the mother. + +The cottage was also found to be large enough (as the fame of its master +grew) to be the destination of letters from the literary stars of the +day. Longfellow and Lowell and Washington Irving, on this side of the +water, and Dickens, in England, were among Edgar Poe's numerous +correspondents while a dweller in the rose-embowered cottage in Spring +Garden. + +In addition to the stories, poems, essays and critiques which the +indefatigable Dreamer was putting out, he found time to publish a +collection of his "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," in book form. +He was also (unfortunately for him) induced to prepare a work on +sea-shells for the use of schools--"The Conchologist's First Book," it +was called. This was unmistakably a mere "pot-boiler" and confessedly a +compilation, but it set the little authors whose namby-pamby works the +self-appointed Defender of the Purity of Style in American Letters had +consigned to an early grave, like a nest of hornets buzzing about his +ears. + +"Plagarism!" was the burden of their hum. + +Even while the discordant chorus was being chanted, however, his +wonderfully original tales continued to make their appearance at +intervals--chiefly in _The Gentleman's Magazine_, whose editor, at +"Billy" Burton's invitation, he had become. + + * * * * * + +In the midst of all this activity one of his old and most cherished +dreams took more definite shape than ever before--the dream of becoming +himself the founder of a magazine in which he could write as his genius +and his fancy should dictate without having to be constantly making +compromises with editors and proprietors--a periodical which would +fulfil his ideal of magazine literature, which he predicted would be the +leading literature of the future. With his prophetic eye he foresaw the +high pressure under which the American of coming years would live, and +he never lost an opportunity to express the opinion that the reader of +the future would give preference to the essay, or story, or poem which +could be read at a sitting--which would waste no time in preamble or +conclusion, but in which every word would be chosen by the literary +artist with the nicety with which the painter selects the exact tint he +needs, and in which every word would tell. And such works he conceived +it would be especially the province of the magazine to present. + +He went so far as to prepare a prospectus and advertise for subscribers +to _The Penn Monthly_, as he proposed naming this child of his hopes, +and his proposition to enter the field of magazine publishing not only +as an editor, but as a proprietor, bade fair to be the rock upon which +he and his friend "Billy" Burton would split. They came to an +understanding finally, however, for when Mr. Burton, a little later, +decided to abandon _The Gentleman's Magazine_ and devote himself +exclusively to the theatre, he said to Mr. George R. Graham, the owner +of _The Gasket_, to whom he sold out, + +"By the way, Graham, there's one thing I want to ask, and that is that +you will take care of my young editor." + +Edgar Poe was at the moment lost in the happy dream of his own _Penn +Monthly_ which he conceived would not only take care of him and his +family, but would give his genius free rein. He was resolved to put the +best of himself into it, and the best of outside contributions he could +succeed in procuring. Its criticisms should be "sternly just, guided +only by the purest rules of Art, analyzing and urging these rules as it +applied them; holding itself aloof from all personal bias, acknowledging +no fear save that of outraging the right." It would "endeavor to +support the general interests of the republic of letters--regarding the +world at large as the true audience of the author," he determined, and +he declared in his prospectus. + +Dear to his heart as was this dream of dreams of his intellectual life, +he was soon to realize that its fulfilment was not to be. At least--not +yet, for he comforted his own heart and Virginia's and "Muddie's" with +the assurance that it was but a case of hope deferred again. + +As he was bracing himself for this fresh disappointment, Mr. Graham, the +purchaser of _The Gentlemen's Magazine_ which he proposed to combine +with _The Casket_ in the creation of _Graham's Magazine_, sat in his +office with a paper before him which the initiated would have at once +recognized as an Edgar Poe manuscript. It was a long, narrow strip, +formed by pasting pages together endwise, and had been submitted in a +tight roll which Mr. Graham unrolled as he read. The title at the top of +the strip, in The Dreamer's neat, legible handwriting was, "The Man of +the Crowd." + +There was nothing gruesome about Mr. Graham. His candid brow, his +kindling blue eye, his fresh-colored cheeks, the genial curve of his lip +and his strong but amiable chin, spoke of a sunshiny nature, with +neither taste nor turn for the weird. But, as he read, the strange +"conscience-story" moved him--held him in a grip of intense +interest--wove a spell around him. He was on the lookout for original +material--undoubtedly he had it in this manuscript. He recalled "Billy" +Burton's last words to him: "Take care of my young editor." + +A smile lighted his pleasant face. He had his own mental +endowments--generous ones--and without the least conceit he knew it; +but he had no ambition to patronize genius. + +"The writer of this story is quite able to take care of himself," he +informed his inner consciousness, "And if I can only form a connection +with him it will doubtless be a case of the young editor's taking care +of me." + +Upon the next afternoon Mr. Graham set out on a pilgrimage to Spring +Garden. Though it was November the air was mild and the sunshine was +mellow. Was the sky always so blue in Spring Garden, he wondered? He +found the rose-embowered cottage without difficulty, for he had obtained +minute directions. The roses were all gone but the foliage was still +green and the little white-paled garden was bright with the sunset-hued +flowers of autumn. Flowers and cottage stood bathed in the light of the +golden afternoon--the picture of serenity. What marked this quaint, +small homestead?--set back from the quiet village street--tucked away +behind its garden-spot from the din of the world? What made it different +from others of its neighborhood and character? Was it just a notion of +his (Mr. Graham wondered) that made him feel that here was poetry pure +and simple?--_visible_ poetry? + +With sensations of keen interest he lifted the knocker. Edgar Poe +himself opened the door and his captivating smile, cordial hand-clasp +and words of warm, as well as courtly, greeting raised the visitor +instantly from the ranks of the caller to the place of a friend. Mr. +Graham had met Edgar Poe before and had felt his charm, but he now told +himself that to know him one must see him under his own roof, and in the +character of host. + +As the door was opened a flood of music floated out. A divinely sweet +mezzo-soprano voice was singing to the accompaniment of a harp. As the +master of the house flung wide the sitting-room door and announced the +visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting +upon the gilded strings for a moment, her eyes turned in inquiry toward +the door, then rose and with the simplicity of a child came forward to +place her hand in that of Mr. Graham. Mother Clemm who sat near the +window with a piece of sewing in her lap also arose, and with gentle +dignity came forward to be introduced and to do her part in making the +guest welcome. + +As he took the seat proffered him and entered upon the exchange of +commonplace phrases with which a visit of a comparative stranger is apt +to begin, Mr. Graham's blue eyes gathered in the details of the +reposeful picture of which he had become a part. The open fire, the +sunshine lying on the bare but spotless floor, the vases filled with +flowers, the few simple pieces of furniture so fitly disposed that they +produced a sense of unusual completeness and satisfaction--the row of +books, the harp, the cat dosing upon the hearth,--and finally, the +people. The master of the house--distinguished, handsome, dominant, +genial, his young wife, the embodiment of soft, poetic beauty, and the +mother with her saint-like face and gentle, composed manner--her +expressive hands busy with her needle work. Was it possible that such a +home--such a household--was always there, keeping the even tenor of its +way among the unpicturesque conventions of the modern world? + +After the first formalities had been exchanged he had delicately +intimated that he had come on business, but he soon began to see that +whatever his business might be it was to be dispatched right there, in +the bosom of the family. This was irregular and unusual, yet, somehow, +it did not seem unnatural, and he found that the presence of the women +of the poet's household was not the least restraint upon the freedom of +their discussion. + +After some words of commendation of the story, "The Man of the Crowd," +which he accepted for the next number of his magazine, he came to the +real business of the afternoon. + +"Mr. Poe," said he, "I believe you know that with the new year _The +Gentleman's Magazine_ and _The Casket_ will be combined to form +_Graham's Magazine_ which it is my intention to make the best monthly, +in contributed articles and editorial opinion, in this country. Mr. Poe +I want an editor capable of making it this. _I want you._ What do you +say to undertaking it?" + +As he sat with his eyes fixed upon The Dreamer's eyes waiting for an +answer he could not see the quick clasping of the widow's hands the +uplifting of her expressive face which plainly said "Thank God," or the +sudden illumination in the soft eyes of Virginia. But the transformation +in the beautiful face of the man before him held him spell-bound. Edgar +Poe's great eyes were glowing with sudden pleasure the curves of his +mouth grew sweet, his whole countenance softened. + +"This is very good of you, Mr. Graham," he said, his low, musical voice, +warm with feeling. "Your offer places me upon firm ground once more. To +be frank with you, the failure, through lack of capital, of my attempt +to establish a magazine of my own (since the severing of my connection +with Burton, which gave me my only regular income) has left me hanging +by the eyelids, as it were, and I have been wondering how long I could +hold on with only the small, irregular sums coming in from the sale of +my stories to depend upon. Your offer at this time means more to me than +I can express." + +His girl-wife stole to his side and with pretty grace, unembarrassed by +the presence of Mr. Graham, leaned over his chair and pressed her lips +upon his brow. + +"But you know, Buddie," she murmured in a voice that was like a dove's, +"I always told you something would come along!" + + * * * * * + +Darkness fell and lamps were lighted, and still Mr. Graham sat on and on +as though too fascinated by the charm of the little circle to move. To +his own surprise he found himself accepting the invitation to remain to +supper. The simple table was beautiful with the dainty touch of Mother +Clemm and Virginia, and the very frugality of the meal seemed a virtue. + +After supper his host, not the least of whose accomplishments was the +rare one of reading aloud acceptably, was persuaded to read some of his +own poems--Mr. Graham asking for certain special pieces. Among these +were the lines "To Helen," which were recited with a fervor approaching +solemnity. + +"Tell him about Helen, Eddie," murmured Virginia, who sat by his side. + +"Yes, do tell me!" urged Mr. Graham, quickly. And with his eyes brooding +and dreamy, the poet went over, in touching and beautiful words, the +story of what he always felt and declared to be "the first pure passion +of his soul." + +In the silence that followed he arose and took from the wall a small +picture--a pencil-sketch of a lovely head. + +"This is a drawing of her made by myself," he said. "It was done from +memory, but is a good likeness. I needed no sitting to make her +likeness." + +When he had shown Mr. Graham the picture, he hung it back in its place +and a gentle hush fell upon the little group. Speech seemed out of place +after the moving recital and the four sat gazing into the embers, each +sunk in his or her own dreams. + +The poet was the first to speak. + +"Some music Sissy," he said turning to Virginia. "I want Mr. Graham to +hear you." + +She arose at once and seating herself at the harp, struck some soft, +bell-like chords while she waited for "Buddie" to decide what she should +sing. + +"Let it be something sweet and low," he said, "and simple. Something of +Tom Moore's, for instance. You know my theory, anything but the simplest +music to be appreciated--to reach the soul--must be heard alone." + +The harp accompaniment rippled forth, and in a moment more melted into +the rich, sweet passionate tones of her voice as she told in musical +numbers a heart-breaking story of love and parting. + +Ballad after ballad followed while the little audience sat entranced. +Finally when the singer returned to her seat by the side of her husband, +the conversation turned upon music. Mr. Graham commented upon his host's +theory that all music but the simplest should, for its best effect, be +listened to in solitude. + +"Yes," said The Dreamer, "It is (like the happiness felt in the +contemplation of natural scenery) much enhanced by seclusion. The man +who would behold aright the glory of God as expressed in dark valleys, +gray rocks, waters that silently smile and forests that sigh in uneasy +slumbers, and the proud, watchful mountains that look down upon all--the +man that would not only look upon these with his natural eye but feed +his soul upon them as a sacrament, must do so in solitude. And so too, I +hold, should one listen to the deep harmonies of music of the highest +class." + +At length the hour came when Mr. Graham felt that he must tear himself +away--bring this strange visit to an end. Before going he felt moved by +an impulse to express something of the effect it had had upon him. + +"Mr. Poe," he said, "I wish to thank you for one of the most delightful +evenings of my life and for having taken me into the heart of your home. +I can find no words in which to express my appreciation. Tonight, at +your fireside, it seems to me that I have had for the first time in my +life a clear understanding of the word happiness." + +Edgar Poe smiled, dreamily. + +"Why should we not be happy here?" he answered. "Concerning happiness, +my dear Mr. Graham, I have a little creed of my own. If I could only +persuade others to adopt it there would be more happy people--far more +contented ones--in the world." + +"And the articles of your creed?" queried Mr. Graham. + +"Are only four. First, free exercise in the open air, and plenty of it. +This brings health--which is a kind of happiness in itself--that +attainable by any other means is scarcely worth the name. Second, love +of woman. I need not tell you that my life fulfils that condition." (As +he spoke, his eyes, with an expression of ineffable tenderness, wandered +for a moment--and it seemed involuntarily--in the direction of his +wife). "The third condition is contempt for ambition. Would that I could +tell you that I have attained to that! When I do, there will be little +in this world to be desired by me. The fourth and last is an object of +unceasing pursuit. This is the most important of all, for I believe that +the extent of one's happiness is in proportion to the spirituality of +this object. In this I am especially fortunate, for no more elevating +pursuit exists, I think, than that of systematically endeavoring to +bring to its highest perfection the art of literature." + +"I notice you do not mention money in your creed," remarked his guest. + +"No, neither do I mention air. Both the one and the other are essential +to life, and to the keeping together of body and soul. It goes without +saying that the necessities of life are necessary to happiness. But +money--meaning wealth--while it makes indulgence in pleasures possible, +has nothing to do with happiness. Indeed the very pleasure it ensures +often obscure highest happiness--the happiness of exaltation of the +soul, of exercise of the intellect. What has money to do with happiness? +It is a happiness to wonder--it is a happiness to dream. Your over-fed, +jewel-decked, pleasure-drunk rich man or woman is too deeply embedded in +flesh and sense to do either. No"--he mused, his eyes on the glowing +coals in the grate, "No--I have no desire for wealth--for more than +enough money to keep my wife and mother comfortable. They, like myself, +have learned the lesson of being poor and happy. But I _must_ keep them +above want--I _will_ keep them above want!" As he repeated the words the +meditative mood dropped from him. He straightened himself in his chair +with sudden energy, his voice trembled and sunk almost to a whisper, in +place of the dreamy look his eyes flamed with passion. + +"Mr. Graham," he exclaimed, "to see those you love better than your own +soul in want, and, in spite of working like mad, to be powerless to +raise them out of it, is hell!" + +A second time the exquisite child-wife slipped quickly, noiselessly, to +his side and with the same easy grace leaned over and touched his brow +with her lips, but this time instead of moving away, remained hanging +over the back of his chair, her fair hand gently toying with the +ringlets on his brow. He was calm in an instant. + +"I mean, of course, such a condition would be intolerable provided it +should ever exist," he added. + + * * * * * + +As the visitor stepped from the cottage door into the chill of the +bright November night, and made his way down the little path of +flagstones--irregularly shaped and clumsily laid down, so that mossy +turf which was still green, appeared between them--he felt that he was +stepping back into a flat, stale and unprofitable world from one of the +enchanted regions, "out of space, out of time," of Poe's own creation. + +He had indeed, had a revelation of harmonious home-life such as he had +not guessed existed in a work-a-day world--of the music, the poetry of +living. He had had a glimpse into the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +The next morning found Mr. Graham still under the spell of the evening +with the Poes. He caught himself impatiently watching the clock, for the +man under whose charm he had come was to call at a certain hour, to +confer with him in regard to the magazine. He could hear him coming +(stepping briskly and whistling a "Moore's Melody") before the rap upon +the door announced him. He came in with the bright, alert air of a man +ready for action for which he has appetite. His rarely heard laugh rang +out, fresh and spontaneous, several times during the interview. His +manners were at all times those of a prince, but Mr. Graham had never +seen him so genial, so gay. The mantle of dreamer and poet had suddenly +dropped from him, but the new mood had a charm all its own. + +When business had been dispatched and they sat on to finish their +cigars, Mr. Graham reiterated his expressions of pleasure in his visit +of the evening before. + +"You gave me food for thought, Mr. Poe," said he. "I've been pondering +on that creed of yours for finding and keeping the secret of true +happiness. It is about the most wholesome and sane doctrine I've met +with for some time. I've determined to adopt it, and to, at least +endeavor, to practice it." + +His companion smiled. + +"Good!" said he. "I only hope you'll have better success in living up to +it than I have." + +Mr. Graham's eyebrows went up. "I thought that was just what you did," +was his answer. + +"So it is, at times; but when the blues or the imp of the perverse get +hold of me all my philosophy goes to the devil, and I realize what an +arch humbug I am." + +"The imp of the perverse?" questioned Mr. Graham. + +"That is my name for the principle that lies hidden in weak human +nature--the principle of antagonism to happiness, which, with unholy +impishness, tempts man to his own destruction. Don't you think it an apt +name?" + +"I don't believe I follow you." + +"Then let me explain. Did you never, when standing upon some high point, +become conscious of an influence irresistibly urging you to cast +yourself down? As you listened--fascinated and horrified--to the voice, +did you not feel an almost overwhelming curiosity to see what the +sensations accompanying such a fall would be--to know the extremest +terror of it? Your tempter was the _Imp of the Perverse_. + +"Did you never feel a sense of glee to find that something you had said +or done had shocked someone whose good opinion you should have desired? +Did you never feel a desire to depart from a course you knew to be to +your interest and follow one that would bring certain harm--possible +disaster--upon you? Did you never feel like breaking loose from all the +restraints which you knew to be for your good--throwing off every +shackle of propriety, and right, and decency?--Mr. Graham, did you never +feel like throwing yourself to the devil for no reason at all other than +the desire to be perverse? Could any desire be more impish?--I will +illustrate by my own case, I am in one respect not like other men. An +exceptionally high-strung nervous temperament makes alcoholic +stimulants poison to me. It works like madness in my brain and in my +blood. The glass of wine that you can take with pleasure and perhaps +with benefit drives me wild--makes me commit all manner of reckless +deeds that in my sane moments fill me with sorrow!--and sometimes +produces physical illness followed by depression of spirits, horrible in +the extreme. More--an inherited desire for stimulation and the +exhilaration produced by wine, makes it well nigh impossible for me, +once I have yielded my will so far as to take the single glass, to +resist the second, which is more than apt to be followed by a third, and +so on. I am fully aware therefore, of the danger that lies for me in a +thing harmless to many men, and that my only safety and happiness and +the happiness of those far dearer to me than myself, lies in the +strictest, most rigid abstinence. Knowing all this, one would suppose +that I would fly from this temptation as it were the plague. I do +generally. At present, several years have passed since I yielded an +inch. But there have been times--and there may be times again--when the +Imp of the Perverse will command me to drink and, fully aware of the +risk, I _will_ drink, and will go down into hell for a longer or shorter +period afterward." + +During this lecture upon one of his favorite hobbies, the low voice of +The Dreamer was vibrant with earnestness. He spoke out of bitter +experience and as he who bore the reputation of a reserved man, laid his +soul bare, his vivid eyes held the eyes of his companion by the very +intensity--the deep sincerity of their gaze. + +Mr. Graham's last conversation with his new editor had dazed him; this +one dazed him still more. What manner of man was this? (he asked +himself) with whom he had formed a league? He could not say--beyond the +fact that he was undoubtedly original--and interesting. Admirable +qualities for an editor--both! + +The readers of the new monthly thoroughly agreed with him. The history +of Edgar Poe's career as editor of _The Southern Literary Messenger_ +promptly began to repeat itself with _Graham's Magazine_. The +announcement that he had been engaged as editor immediately drew the +attention of the reading world toward _Graham's_, and it soon became +apparent that in the new position he was going to out-do himself. The +rapidity with which his brilliant and caustic critiques and essays, and +weird stories, followed upon the heels of one another was enough to take +one's breath away. He alternately raised the hair of his readers with +master-pieces of unearthly imaginings and diverted them with playful +studies in autography and exhibitions of skill in reading secret +writing. + +About the time of his beginning his duties at _Graham's_ he must needs +have had a visit from some fairy godmother, the touch of whose enchanted +wand left him with a new gift. This was a wonderfully developed power of +analysis which he found pleasure in exercising in every possible way. To +quote his own words, "As the strong man exults in his physical ability, +delighting in such exercises as bring his muscles into action, so +glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He +derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his +talent into play." + +He tried the newly discovered talent upon everything. In his papers on +"Autography" he practised it in the reading of character from +hand-writing, and in his deciphering of secret writing he carried it so +far and awakened the interest and curiosity of the public to such extent +that it bade fair to be the ruin of him; for it seemed his +correspondents would have him drop literature and devote himself and the +columns of _Graham's Magazine_ for the rest of his life, to the solving +of these puzzles. Finally, having proved that it was impossible for any +of them to compose a cypher he could not read in less time than its +author had spent in inventing it, he took advantage of his only +safeguard, and positively declined to have anything more to do with +them. + +But he found a much more interesting way of exercising his power of +analysis. In the April number of _Graham's_ he tried it upon a +story--"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"--which set all the world buzzing, +and drew the interested attention of France upon him. In the next +number, while the "Murders" were still the talk of the hour, he made an +excursion into the world of _pseudo_-science the result of which was his +thrilling "Descent into the Maelstrom;" but later in the same month he +returned to his experiments in analysis--publishing in _The Saturday +Evening Post_ an _advance_ review of Charles Dickens' story "Barnaby +Rudge," which was just beginning to come out in serial form. In the +review he predicted, correctly, the whole development and conclusion of +the story. It brought him a letter from Dickens, expressing +astonishment, owning that the plot was correct, and enquiring if Edgar +Poe had "dealings with the devil." + +Soon followed the "Colloquy of Monos and Una," in which in the exquisite +prose poetry of which The Dreamer was a consummate master, his +imagination sought to pierce the veil between this world and the +next--to lay bare the secrets of the soul's passage into the "Valley of +the Shadow." + +Whatever else Edgar Poe wrote, he continued to pour out through the +editorial columns of _Graham's Magazine_ a steady stream of criticism of +current books. While entertaining or amusing the public as far as power +to do so in him lay, he did not for a moment permit anything to come +between him and the duties of his post as Defender of Purity of Style in +American Letters. He was unsparing in the use of his pruning hook upon +the work of his contemporaries and the height of art to which by his +fearless, candid and, at times, cruel criticism, he sought to bring +others, he exacted of himself. In spite of the amount of work he +produced, each sentence that dropped from his pen in this time of his +maturity--his ripeness--was the perfection of clear and polished +English. + +But the evidences of this conscientiousness in his own work did not make +the little authors one whit less sore under his lash. Privately they +writhed and they squirmed--publicly they denounced. All save one--an +ex-preacher, Dr. Rufus Griswold--himself a critic of ability, who would +like to have been, like The Dreamer, a poet as well as a critic. + +When Edgar Poe praised the prose writings of Dr. Griswold, but said he +was "no poet," Dr. Griswold like the other little authors writhed and +squirmed secretly--very secretly--but openly he smiled and in smooth, +easy words professed friendship for Mr. Poe--and bided his time. + +As for Poe himself, he had by close and devoted study of the rules which +govern poetic and prose composition--rules which he evolved for himself +by analysis of the work of the masters--so added to his own natural +gifts of imagination and power of expression, so perfected his taste, +that crude writing was disgusting to his literary palate. He had made +Literature his intellectual mistress, and from the day he had declared +his allegiance to her he had served her faithfully--passionately--and he +could brook no flagging service in others. + +Both his growing power of analysis and his highly developed artistic +feeling were brought into full play in this review work. Under his +guidance the writings of his contemporaries, whether they were the +little authors or the giants such as, in England, Tennyson (who was a +prime favorite with him), Macauley, Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett, or in +America, Longfellow, Lowell, Hawthorne, Irving, Emerson, stood forth +illumined--the weak spots laid bare, the strong points gleaming bright. + +He unfalteringly declared his admiration of Hawthorne (then almost +unknown) in which the future so fully justified him. The tales of +Hawthorne, he declared, belonged to "the highest region of Art--an Art +subservient to genius of a very lofty order." + +Even the work of the little authors was indebted to him for many a good +word, but the little authors hated him and returned the brilliant +sallies his pungent pen directed toward their writings with vollies of +mud aimed at his private character. + +No matter what his subject, however, Edgar Poe always wrote with +power--with intensity. He seemed by turns to dip his pen into fire, into +gall, into vitriol--at times into his own heart's blood. + +Of the last named type was the story "Eleonora," which appeared, not in +_Graham's_, but in _The Gift_ for the new year, and wherein was set +forth in phrases like strung jewels the story of the "Valley of the +Many-Colored Grass." The whole fabric of this loveliest of his +conceptions is like a web wrought in some fairy loom of bright strands +of silk of every hue, and studded with fairest gems. In it is no hint of +the gruesome, or the sombre--even though the Angel of Death is there. It +is all pure beauty--a perfect flower from the fruitful tree of his +genius at the height of its power. + +All of Edgar Poe's work gains much by being read aloud, for the eye +alone cannot fully grasp the music that is in his prose as well as his +verse. "Eleonora" was read aloud in every city and hamlet of the United +States, and at firesides far from the beaten paths--the traveled +roads--that led to the cities; for it was written when every word from +the pen of Edgar Poe was looked for, waited for, with eager impatience, +and when _Graham's Magazine_ had been made in one little year, by his +writing, and the writing of others whom he had induced to contribute to +its pages, to lead the thought of the day in America. + +And the success of The Dreamer made him a lion in the "City of Brotherly +Love" as it had made him a lion in Richmond. The doors of the most +exclusive--the most cultivated--homes of that fastidious city stood open +to welcome him. The loveliest women, whether the grey ladies of the +"Society of Friends" or the brightly plumaged birds of the gayer world, +smiled their sweetest upon him. As he walked along the streets +passers-by would whisper to one another, + +"There goes Mr. Poe. Did you notice his eyes? They say he has the most +expressive eyes in Philadelphia." + + * * * * * + +Throughout this year of almost dazzling triumph the little cottage with +its rose-hooded porch, in Spring Garden, had been a veritable snug +harbor to The Dreamer. In winter when the deep, spotless snow lay round +about it, in spring when the violets and hyacinths came back to the +garden-spot and the singing birds to the trees that overhung it, in +summer when the climbing green rose was heavy with bloom and in autumn +when the wind whistled around it, but there was a bright blaze upon the +hearth inside, his heart turned joyously many times a day, and his feet +at eventide, when his work at the office in the city was over, toward +this sacred haven. + +And Edgar the Dreamer was happy. He should have been rich and would have +been but for the meagre returns from literary work in his time. Men were +then supposed to write for fame, and very little money was deemed +sufficient reward for the best work. The poverty of authors was +proverbial and to starve cheerfully was supposed to be part of being +one. + +Still, with his post as editor of _Graham's_ and the frequency with +which his signature was seen in other magazines, he was making a living. +The howl of the wolf or his sickening scratching at the door were no +more heard, and in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass the three +dreamers laughed together, and in the streets of the "City of Brotherly +Love" Edgar Goodfellow whistled a gay air, or arm in arm with some boon +companion of the "Press gang" threaded his way in and out among of the +human stream, with a smile on his lips and the light of gladness in +living in his eyes. + +And why should he not be happy? he asked himself. He had the snuggest +little home in the world and, in it, the loveliest little wife in the +world and the dearest mother in the world. He was upon the top of the +wave of prosperity. His fame was growing--had already reached France, +where "The Murders" were still being talked about. Why should he not be +happy? His devils had ceased to plague him this long while. The +blues--he was becoming a stranger to them. The Imp--he had not had a +single glimpse of him during the year. He was temperate--ah, therein lay +man's safety and happiness! By strict abstinence his capacity for +enjoyment was exalted--purified. He would let the cup forever +alone--upon that he was resolved! + +This was not always easy. Sometimes it had been exceedingly hard and +there had been a fierce battle between himself and the call that was in +his blood--the thirst, not for the stuff itself, but for its effects, +for the excitement, the exhilaration; but he had won every time and he +felt stronger for the battle and for the victory--the victory of will. +"Man doth not yield himself to the angels or to death utterly" (he +quoted) "save only through the weakness of his feeble will." Upon +continued resistence--continued victory--he was resolved, and in the +resolution he was happy. + +Best of all, Virginia was happy, and "Muddie"--dear, patient "Muddie!" +The two women chatted like magpies over their sewing or house-work, or +as they watered the flowers. They, like himself, had made friends. +Neighbors dropped in to chat with them or to borrow a pattern, or to +hear Virginia sing. And they had had a long visit from the violet-eyed +Eliza White. What a pleasure it had been to have the sweet, fair +creature with them! (He little guessed how tremulously happy the little +Eliza had been to bask for a time in his presence--just to be near the +great man--and meanwhile guard all the more diligently the secret that +filled her white soul and kept her, for all her beauty and charm, and +her many suitors, a spinster). + +Eliza had brought them a great budget of Richmond news. It had been like +a breath of spring to hear it. She talked and they listened and they all +laughed together from pure joy. How Virginia's laugh had rippled out +upon the air--it filled all the cottage with music! + +It was mid-January, and he sat gazing into the rose-colored heart of the +open coal fire going over it all--the whole brilliant, full year. + +"Sissy," he said suddenly, "Do you remember the birthday parties I used +to tell you about--that I had given me when I was a boy living with the +Allans?" + +"Yes, indeed! and the cake with candles on it and all your best friends +to wish you many happy returns." + +"Well, you know the nineteenth will be my birthday, and I want to have a +party and a cake with candles and all our best friends here to wish you +and me many happy returns of the happiest birthday we have spent +together. I only wish old Cy were here to play for us to dance! I'd give +something pretty to have him and his fiddle here, just to see what these +sober-sided Penn folk would think of them. My, wouldn't they make a +sensation in the 'City of Brotherly Love!'" He began whistling as +clearly and correctly as a piccolo the air of a recently published +waltz. After a few bars he sprang to his feet and--still +whistling--quickly shoved the table and chairs to the wall, clearing the +middle of the floor. The tune stopped long enough for him to say, + +"Come, Sweetheart, you must dance this with me. My feet refuse to be +still tonight!"--then was taken up again. + +The beautiful girl was in his arms in an instant and while "Muddie," in +her seat by the window, lifted her deep eyes from the work in her +ever-busy hands and let them rest with a smile of indulgent bliss upon +her "children," they glided round and round the room to the time of the +fascinating new dance. + +At length they stopped, breathless and rosy, and the poet, with +elaborate ceremony, handed his fair partner to a chair and began fanning +her with "Muddie's" turkey-tail fan. He was in a glow of warmth and +pleasure. His wonderful eyes shone like lamps. His pale cheeks were +tinged with faint pink. While fanning Virginia with one hand he gently +mopped the pleasant moisture from his brow with the other. Virginia's +eyes shot sunshine. Her laughter bubbled up like a well-spring of pure +joy. + +"What would people say if they could see the great Mr. Poe--the grand, +gloomy and peculiar Mr. Poe--the author of 'Tales of the Grotesque and +Arabesque,' who's supposed to be continually 'dropping from his Condor +wings invisible woe?'" said she, as soon as she could speak. The idea +was so vastly amusing to her that she laughed until the shining eyes +were filled with dew. + +"If they could know half the pleasure I got out of that they wouldn't +say anything," he replied. "They would be dumb with envy. I suppose it's +my mother in me, but I just _must_ dance sometimes. And this waltz! In +spite of all the prudes say against it, it is the divinest thing in the +way of motion that ever was invented. It's exercise fit for the gods!" + +He drew her to him and kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her lips. + +"It was heavenly--heavenly, Sis," said he, "And I don't suppose even the +prudes could object to a man's waltzing with his own wife. I wonder will +we ever dance to old Cy's fiddle again?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +It was a very modest party, but a merry one. The ground was covered with +the unsullied whiteness of new-fallen snow and the coming of most of the +guests was heralded by the tintinnabulation of the little silver bells +so charming to the ear of the host. + +The Grahams were among the first to be welcomed out of the frosty night +into the glow of lamp and candle and firelight, by the cordial hand and +voice of Edgar Goodfellow. Mr. Graham was in tune to most heartily take +part in the commemoration of the birthday of the man who was making +_Graham's Magazine_ the success of the publishing world in America. His +kindling blue eyes had never been kinder, his smile never more bland. +Mr. Alexander, founder of _The Saturday Evening Post_ which so gladly +published and paid for everything that Edgar Poe would spare it from +_Graham's_ was the next, and close following him, Mr. Cottrell Clarke, +first editor of the _Post_, and his charming wife. Captain and Mrs. +Mayne Reid, who were among the most admiring and affectionate friends of +the Poe trio were also there, and other congenial spirits. + +They came in twos and threes, their laughter as light and clear as the +tinkle of their sleigh-bells. + +And Rufus Griswold was there. The Dreamer with his deep reverence for +intellectual ability had a sincere admiration for Dr. Griswold--though +he did say he was "no poet." He desired the approval--the friendship--of +this brainy man and was proud and happy to have him of his party. + +Coming in after the rest of the company had assembled, the brainy man's +big frame, topped by his big head, with his prominent brow and piercing +eyes, his straight, thick nose, his large full-lipped close-set mouth, +his square jaw with the fringe of beard sharply outlining it, produced a +decided effect. He seemed to fill up a surprisingly large portion of the +room. Instinctively, the gentleman who had occupied the largest and +heaviest chair vacated it and invited him to be seated in it--which he +did, instinctively. He was a young man--under thirty--but looked much +older. His face was a strange one. It could not have been called ugly. +By some, indeed, it was considered handsome. It was strong, but it was +strange. There was an indefinable something unpleasant, something to +awaken distrust--fear--about it. Across the dome of the brow ran, +horizontally, a series of wavy furrows that produced, in place of the +benevolent air the lofty brow might have given, a sinister expression. +The eyes beneath the wrinkled brow were piercing and spoke of the fire +of active mentality, but they were always downcast and turned slightly +askance, so that few people caught the full force of their gleam, and +there was sternness and coldness, as well as will, in the prominent chin +and jaw. + +He came late, but he was a little more cordial in his expressions of +pleasure in coming than any of those before him. His bows to Virginia +and Mrs. Clemm were more profound--his estimation of Virginia's beauty +he made at once apparent in the intense, admiring gaze he bestowed upon +her. His words of congratulation and good will for his host were more +extravagant than those of any of the others and were uttered in a voice +as smooth--as fluent--as oil; while he rubbed his large, fleshy hands +together in a manner betokening cordiality. When his host spoke, he +turned his ear toward him (though his eyes glanced aside and downward) +with an air of marked attention, and agreed emphatically with his views +or laughed uproariously at his pleasantries. + +Yet at Rufus Griswold's heart jealousy was gnawing. Heaven had endowed +him with mind to recognize genius, yet had denied him its possession. He +that would have worn the laurel himself, was born to be but the +trumpeter of others' victories. He, like Edgar Poe, had an open eye and +ear for beauty--for harmony. He could feel the divine fire of +inspiration in the creations of master minds--yet he could not himself +create. He was a brilliant critic, but (as has been said) his ambition +was to be, like Poe, also a poet. His quick intuition had divined the +genius of Poe at their first meeting. He knew in a flash, that the neat, +slender, polished gentleman, with the cameo face, the large brow and the +luminous eyes, and with the deep-toned, vibrant voice, was one of the +few he had ever met of whom he could say with assurance, "There goes a +genius--" and of those few the topmost. Poe's writing, especially his +poetry, enthralled him. To have been able to come before the world as +the author of such work he would have sold his soul. + +And this man who had caught him in a net woven of mingled fascination, +and envy, and hate, had, oh, bitter!--while generously applauding him as +a critic and reviewer--as a compiler and preserver of other men's +work--had added, "But--but--he is no poet." + +He had received the stab without an apparent flinch. He had even laughed +and declared that Mr. Poe was right. That he himself knew he was no +poet--he did not aspire to be a real one, but only dropped into verse +now and then by way of pastime. The lie had slipped easily from his +tongue, but his eyes drooped ever so little more than usual as it did +so, their shifty gleam glanced ever so little more sidewise. + +And though he came late to the birthday feast, his words of friendship +were emphatic and the laugh that told of his pleasure in being there was +loud and frequent. And he smiled and rubbed his hands together--and +bided his time. + +And Edgar Poe was pleased--immensely pleased--on his gala night, with +the complimentary manner and the complimentary words of this welcome +guest--of this big, brainy man whose good opinion he so much desired. + +Alas, hapless Dreamer! Did the gleam of those eyes cast alway slightly +downward, slightly askance--give you no discomfort? Did the fang-like +teeth when the thick lips opened to pour forth birthday wishes or +streams of uproarious laughter, and the square lines of the jaw, suggest +to your ready imagination no hint of cruelty? If you could but have +known that what time he laughed and talked with your guests and feasted +at your board, with its tasty viands and its cake with lighted candles, +and bent his furtive glance upon the beauty of your guileless +Virginia--if you could but have known that in his black heart the canker +jealousy was gnawing and that, behind the smile he wore as a mask, the +brainy man was biding his time! + +It was a goodly little company--a coming together of bright wits and +(for the most part) of kind hearts, and the talk was crisp, and fresh, +and charming. + +Supper was served early. + +"My wife and her mother have thought that you Penn folk might like to +sit down to a Virginia supper," said the host, as he led Mrs. Graham to +the table, and stood for a moment while Virginia designated the seats to +be taken. Then still standing, said, + +"Every man a priest to his own household, is our Virginia rule, but as +we have with us tonight one who before he took up Letters wore the +cloth, I'm going to abdicate in his favor. Dr. Griswold will you ask a +blessing?" + +All heads were bowed while the time-honored little ceremonial was +performed, then seats were taken and the repast begun. + +Virginia presided over the "tea-things," while Mrs. Clemm occupied the +seat nearest the door opening on the kitchen, that she might slip as +unobtrusively as possible out and back again when necessary; but most of +the serving was done by the guests themselves, each of whom helped the +dish nearest his or her plate, and passed the plates from hand to hand. +All of the supper, save the dessert and fresh supplies of hot waffles +was on the table. There were oysters and turkey salad and Virginia ham. +And there were hot rolls and "batter-bread" (made of Virginia meal with +plenty of butter, eggs and milk, and a spoonful of boiled rice stirred +in) and there was a "Sally Lunn"--light, brown, and also hot, and plenty +of waffles. In the little spaces between the more important dishes there +were pickles and preserves--stuffed mangoes and preserved quinces and +currant jelly. And in the centre of the table was the beautiful birthday +cake frosted by Virginia's dainty fingers and brilliant with its +thirty-three lighted candles. + +There was just enough room left for the three slender cut-glass +decanters that were relics of Mother Clemm's better days. + +"The decanter before you, Mr. Graham, contains the Madeira; the Canary +is before you, Captain Reid, and I have here a beverage with which I am +very much in love at present--_apple wine_--" Edgar Poe said, tapping +the stopper of a decanter of cider near his plate. + +All understood. He had served the cider that he might join with them in +their pledges of friendship and good will without breaking through the +rule of abstemiousness in which he was finding so much benefit. + +The toasts were clever as well as complimentary, and the table-talk +light and sparkling. Finally both Mrs. Clemm and Virginia arose to clear +the table for the dessert. + +"You see, my friends, we keep no maid or butler," said the host, "but +I'm sure you will all agree with me in feeling that we would not +exchange our two Hebes for any, and they take serving you as a +privilege." + +The cake was cut and served with calves-foot jelly--quivering and ruby +red--and velvety _blanc mange_. + +After supper Virginia's harp was brought out of its corner and she sang +to them. With adorable sweetness and simplicity she gave each one's +favorite song as it was asked for--filling all the cottage with her pure +sweet tones accompanied by the bell-like, rippling notes of the harp. +The company sat entranced--all eyes upon the lovely girl from whose +throat poured the streams of melody. + +She seemed but a child; for all she had been married six years she had +but just passed out of her "teens" and might easily have been taken for +a girl of fifteen. Her hair, it is true, was "tucked up," but the +innocence in the upturned, velvet eyes, the soft, childish outlines of +the face, the dimpled hands and arms against the harp's glided strings, +the simple little frock of white dimity, all combined to give her a +"babyfied" look which was most appealing, and which her title of "Mrs. +Poe" seemed rather to accentuate than otherwise. + +Rufus Griswold's furtive eye rested balefully upon her. And this +exquisite being too, belonged to that man--as if the gods had not +already given him enough! + +From a far corner of the room her husband gazed upon her, and bathed his +senses in contemplation of her beauty while his soul soared with her +song. Mother Clemm noiselessly passing near him to snuff a candle on the +table upon which his elbow, propping his head, rested, paused for a +moment and laid a caressing hand upon his hair. He impulsively drew her +down to a seat beside him. + +"Oh, Muddie, Muddie, look at her--look at her!" he whispered. "There is +no one anywhere so beautiful as my little wife! And no voice like hers +outside of Heaven!... Ah--" + +What was the matter? Was his Virginia ill? Even as he spoke her voice +broke upon the middle of a note--then stopped. One hand clutched the +harp, the other flew to her throat from which came only an inarticulate +sound like a struggle for utterance. Terror was in the innocent eyes +and the deathly white, baby face. + +For a tense moment the little company of birthday guests sat rooted to +their places with horror, then rushed in a mass toward the singer, but +her husband was there first--his face like marble. His arms were around +her but with a repetition of that inarticulate, gurgling sound she fell +limp against his breast in a swoon. From the sweet lips where so lately +only melody had been a tiny stream of blood oozed and trickled down and +stained her pretty white dress. + +"Back!--All of you!" commanded the low, clear voice of Edgar Poe, as +with the dear burden still in his arms he sank gently to the floor and +propping her head in his lap, disposed her limbs in comfortable, and her +dress in orderly manner. "Back--don't crowd! A doctor!" + +One of the guests from nearby, who knew the neighborhood, had already +slipped from the door and gone to fetch the nearest doctor. The others +sat and listened for his step in breathless stillness. + +Edgar Poe bent his marble face above the prostrate form of his wife, +calling to her in endearing whispers while, with his handkerchief he +wiped from her lips the oozing, crimson stream. His teeth chattered. +Once before he had seen such a stream. It was long ago--long ago, but he +remembered it well. He was back--a little boy, a mere baby--in the +small, dark room behind Mrs. Fipps' millinery shop, in Richmond, and a +stream like this came from the lips of his mother who lay so still, so +white, upon the bed. And his mother had been dying. He had seen her +thus--he would see her nevermore!... Would the doctor never come?-- + + * * * * * + +Many days the Angel of Death spread his wings over the cottage in the +Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. Their shadow cast a great stillness +upon the cottage. Outside was a white, silent world. Snow had +fallen--snow on snow--until it lay deep, deep upon the garden-spot and +deep in the streets outside. There was no wind and the ice-sheathed +trees that were as sentinels round about the cottage stood still. They +seemed to listen and to wait. + +Inside, in the bed-chamber upstairs, under the shelving walls of the low +Dutch roof, The Dreamer's heartsease blossom lay broken and wan upon the +white bed. It was a very white little blossom and the dark eyes seemed +darker, larger than ever before as they looked out from the pale face. +But they had never seemed so soft and a smile like an angel's played now +and again about her lips. + +Beside her, with his lips pressed upon the tiny white hand which he held +in both his own was the bowed figure of a man--of a poet and a lover who +like the ice-sheathed trees seemed to listen and to wait--of a man whose +countenance from being pale was become ghastly, whose eyes from being +luminous were wild with a "divine despair." + +At the foot of the bed sat a silver-haired woman with saintlike face +uplifted in resignation and aspiration. For once the busy hands were +idle and were clasped in her lap. She too, listened and waited, as she +had listened and waited for days. Oh Love! Oh Life! Are these the happy +trio who lived for each other only in the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass? + +The silence was only broken when the lips of the invalid moved to murmur +some loving words or to babble of the flowers in the Valley. She was in +no pain but she was very tired. She was not unhappy, for the two whom +she loved and who loved her were with her and though she was tired she +soon would rest--in Heaven. When she spoke of going the man's heart +stood still with terror. He held the hand closer and pressed his lips +more fiercely upon it. + +He would not let her go, he vowed. There was no power in Heaven or hell +to whom he would yield her. + +But she sweetly plead that he would not try to detain her--that he would +learn to bear the idea of her leaving him which now gave her no +unhappiness but for one thought--the thought that after a season he +might, in the love of some other maiden, forget the sweet life he had +lived with her in the Valley, and that because of his forgetting, it +would not be given to him to join her at last, in the land where she +would be waiting for him--the land of Rest. + +At her words, he flung himself upon his knees beside her bed and offered +up a vow to herself and to Heaven that he would never bind himself in +marriage to any other daughter of earth, or in any way prove himself +forgetful of her memory and her love, and to make the vow the stronger, +he invoked a curse upon his head if he should ever prove false to his +promise. + +And as she listened her soft eyes grew brighter and she, in turn, made a +vow to him that even after her departure she would watch over him in +spirit and if it were permitted her, would return to him visibly in the +watches of the night, but if that were beyond her power, would at least +give him frequent indications of her presence--sighing upon him in the +evening winds or filling the air which he breathed with perfume from the +censers of the angels. + +And she sighed as if a deadly burden had been lifted from her breast, +and trembled and wept and vowed that her bed of death had been made easy +by his vow. + + * * * * * + +But it was not to be the bed of death. Little by little the shadow +lifted from over the cottage--the shadow of the wings of the Angel of +Death--and sunshine fell where the shadow had been, and a soft zephyr +made music, that was like the music of the voice of "Ligeia," in the +trees which dropped their sheath of ice. And the snow disappeared from +the streets and from the garden-spot which was all green underneath, and +by the time the crocuses were up health and happiness reigned once more +in the cottage. + +But it was a happiness with a difference. A happiness which for all it +was so sweet, was tinctured with the bitter of remorse. + +During the illness of his beloved wife, Edgar Poe had lived over and +over again through the horror of her death and burial with all of the +details with which the circumstances of his life had so early made him +familiar--and had tasted the desolation for him which must follow. While +his soul had been overwhelmed with this supreme sorrow his mind had been +unusually clear and alert. He had been alive to the slightest change in +her condition. Anticipating her every whim, he had nursed her with the +tenderness the untiring devotion, of a mother with her babe. Through +all his grief he was quiet, self-possessed, efficient. + +But with the first glimmer of hope, his head reeled. His reason which +had stood the shock of despair, or seemed to stand it, gave way before +the return of happiness. A wild delirium possessed him. Joy drove him +mad, and already drunk with joy--mad with it--he flung prudence, +philosophy, resolutions to the wind and drank wine--and drank--and +drank. When--where--how much--he did not know; but at last merciful +illness overtook him and stopped him in his wild career. + +With his convalescence his right mind returned to him; but he felt as he +did when he awoke to consciousness in Mother Clemm's bed-chamber in +Baltimore--that he had been down into the grave and back again. +Only--then there was no remorse--no fiercely accusing conscience to make +him wish from his soul that he might have remained in the abyss. + + * * * * * + +In dressing-gown and slippers he sat--weak and tremulous--in an +arm-chair drawn close to the open fire in the cottage sitting-room. +About him hovered his two angels, anticipating his every need, pausing +at his side now and again to bestow a delicate caress. Virginia was more +beautiful since her illness. Her face and figure had lost their +plumpness and with it their childish curves--but a something exalted and +ethereal had taken their place. Her eyes were softer, more wistful than +ever. Through her fair, transparent skin glowed the faintest, most +exquisite bloom. Her harp was mute. Her singing voice was gone. But the +deep, low tones of her speaking voice, full of restrained feeling, could +only be compared by her husband to the melodious voice of the +dream-woman, "Ligeia." They recalled to him the impression that the +voice of the priest as he read the funeral rite over his dead mother had +made upon his infant mind--the impression of _spoken_ music. His +Virginia could no longer sing, but every word that fell from her lips +was music. + +As she and her tall, nun-like mother quietly stepped about the rooms +ministering to his comfort, lifting the work of preparing the simple +meals, mending the fire, and keeping the rooms bright into a sacred rite +by the grace, the care, the dignity with which it was performed, no +word, no look escaped either save of tenderness, patience, and boundless +love. All the reproaches came from within his own breast--from that +inner self that boldly tearing the veil from his deeds filled him with +loathing of himself. + +The years, his troubles, and his illness, had wrought a great change in +him--outwardly. The dark ringlets that framed his face were still +untouched with rime, and the dark grey eyes were as vivid, as +ever-varying in expression as before, but the large brow wore a furrow +and over it and the clear-cut features and the emaciated cheeks was a +settled pallor. The face was still very beautiful, but in repose it was +melancholy and about the mouth there was a touch of bitterness. The +illumining smile still flashed out at times, and filled all his +countenance with sweetness and light--but it was rarer than formerly. + +He had many reasons for being happy--for being thankful. The genius with +which he was conscious he was endowed in larger measure than others of +his generation was being recognized. He had fame--growing fame--and +money enough for his needs. He had what was as necessary to his soul as +meat was to his body--the love of a woman who understood him in all his +moods and who was beautiful enough in mind and in body and pure enough +in spirit for him to worship as well as to love--to satisfy his soul as +well as his senses. And this woman, at the very moment when he thought +himself about to lose her forever, had been given back to him--given +back clothed upon with a finer a more exquisite beauty than she had +possessed before. + +He had indeed found the end of the rainbow, but what did it amount to? +He was dissatisfied--not with what life was giving him, but with what he +was doing with his life. At the moment when his cup was fairly +overflowing with happiness and he should have been strongest, he had +suffered himself to be led away by the Imp of the Perverse, and had +spoiled all. Nothing he had ever been made to taste he told himself, was +so unbearably bitter as this dissatisfaction--this disgust with self. + + * * * * * + +Yet when again the tiny crimson stream stained the sweet lips of his +Virginia, and again the Angel of Death spread a dread wing for a season +over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, all his knowledge of the +bitterness--the loathing--of remorse was not sufficient to make him +strong for the struggle with grief and despair. + +Again the reason of Edgar Poe gave way before the strain, and again he +fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +A day when the porch was rose-embowered once more and the garden-spot a +riot of color and the birds singing in the trees round about, found Mr. +Graham seated at Edgar Poe's desk in the office of _Graham's Magazine_. +The door behind him opened, and he raised his head from his writing and +quickly glanced over his shoulder. The look of inquiry in his blue eyes +instantly kindled into one of welcome. + +"Come in! Come in! Dr. Griswold," he exclaimed. "I am more than glad to +see you! We are overwhelmed with work just now and perhaps we'll induce +you to lend a hand." + +The visitor came forward with outstretched hand, stooping and bowing his +huge bulk as he came in a manner that to a less artless mind than Mr. +Graham's might have suggested a touch of the obsequious. His furtive but +watchful eye had already marked the fact that it was at Mr. Poe's +desk--not his own--that Mr. Graham sat--which was as he had anticipated. + +"Mr. Poe laid up again?" he queried. + +"Yes; he seems to be having quite an obstinate attack this time." + +The visitor sadly shook his head. "Ah?--poor fellow, poor fellow!" + +"Do you think his condition serious?" asked Mr. Graham, with anxiety. + +Dr. Griswold cast a glance of the furtive eye over his shoulder and +around the room; then stooped nearer Mr. Graham. + +"Didn't you know?" he questioned, in a lowered tone. + +"Only that the failure of his wife's health has been a sad blow to him +and that after each of her attacks he has had a break-down. Is there +anything more?" + +Dr. Griswold stooped nearer still and brought his voice to a yet lower +key. + +"Whiskey"--he whispered. + +Mr. Graham drew back and the candid brows went up. + +"Ah--ah" he exclaimed. Then fell silent and serious. + +"Did you never suspect it?" asked his companion. + +"Never. I used to hear rumors when he was with Billy Burton, but I never +saw any indications that they were true, and didn't believe them. How +could I? Think of the work the man turns out--its quantity, its quality! +He is at once the most brilliant and the most industrious man it has +been my good fortune to meet--and withal the most perfect +gentleman--exquisite in his manners and habits, and the soul of honor. +Did you ever know a man addicted to drink to be so immaculately neat as +he always is? Or so refined in manners and speech? Or so exact in his +dealings? There is no one to whom I would more readily advance money, or +with greater assurance that it will be faithfully repaid in his best, +most painstaking work--to the last penny!" + +Dr. Griswold's face took on a look of deep concern. + +"The more's the pity--the more's the pity!" said he. "A good man gone +wrong!" Then with a hesitating, somewhat diffident air. + +"You say that you need help which I might, perhaps, give?" + +Mr. Graham was the energetic business man once more. Dr. Griswold's +visit was most opportune, he said, for while he had on hand a good deal +of "copy" for the next number of the magazine--furnished by Mr. Poe +before his illness--there were one or two important reviews that must be +written and Dr. Griswold would be the very man to write them, if he +would. + +As Rufus Griswold seated himself at Edgar Poe's desk a look that was +almost diabolic came into his face. The temporary substitution was but a +step, he told himself, to permanent succession. As editor of the +magazine which under Poe's management had come to dominate thought in +America, he could speak to an audience such as he had not had before. +_He_ could make or mar literary reputations and he could bring the +public to recognize him as a poet! + +It so chanced that upon that very day the editor of _Graham's Magazine_ +found himself sufficiently recovered from his illness to go out for the +first time. As he fared forth, gaunt and tremulous, the midsummer beauty +of out-of-doors effected him curiously. It seemed strange to him that +the rose on the porch should be so gay, that the sunshine should lie so +golden upon the houses and in the streets of Spring Garden--that birds +should be singing and the whole world going happily on when his heart +held such black despair. As he went on, however, the fresh sweet air +gave him a sense of physical well-being that buoyed his spirits in spite +of the bitterness of his thoughts. + +He was going to work again, and he was glad of it--but he made no +resolutions for the future. In the past when he had fallen and had +braced himself up again, he had sworn to himself that he would be strong +thereafter--that he would never, never yield to the temptation to touch +wine again. But he had not been strong. And now he looked the deplorable +truth straight in the face. He hoped with all his soul that he would not +fall again. He would give everything he possessed to ensure himself from +yielding to the temptation to taste the wild exhilaration--the +freedom--the forgetfulness--to say to the cup "Nevermore"--to ensure +himself from having to pay the price of his yielding in the agony of +remorse that was a descent into hell. + +But he would deceive himself with no lying pledges. He hoped--he longed +to be strong; but he could not swear that he would be--he did not know +whether he would be or not. The temptation was not upon him now--he +loathed the very thought of it now; but the temptation would most +certainly return sooner or later. He hoped from the bottom of his soul +that he would resist it, but he feared--nay, in his secret heart he +believed--that he would yield. And because he believed it he loathed +himself. + +As he drew near the office he thought of Mr. Graham,--how kind he +was--how trustful. He wondered if Mr. Graham knew the cause of his +illnesses and if not how long it would before he would know it; and if +the attacks were repeated how long he would be able to hold the place +that had shown him the end of the rainbow? How bitter it would be to +some day find, added to all the other disastrous results of his weakness +of will--to find another in the editorial chair of _Graham's_. + +Just at this point in his soliliquy he reached his destination. He +mounted the steps leading to the office of _Graham's Magazine_ and +opened the door--quietly. + +For a moment the two men in the office--each deep in his own work--were +unaware of his presence, and he stood staring upon their backs as they +sat at their desks. Mr. Graham was in his accustomed seat and in +his--The Dreamer's--the giant frame of the man whose big brain he +admired--though he was "no poet,"--the frame of Rufus Griswold! + +Horror clutched his heart. Mr. Graham evidently knew, and knowing had +supplied his place without deeming him worth the trouble of notifying, +even. Had supplied it, moreover, with the one man who he himself +believed would fill it with credit. The readers would be satisfied. He +would not be missed. He turned and stumbled blindly down the stairs. Mr. +Graham heard him, and hurrying to the door, recognized and followed +him--trying to explain and to persuade him to return. But he was too +much excited to listen. His reason prompted him to listen, but the Imp +of the Perverse laughed reason to scorn. Seeing disaster ahead he rushed +headlong to embrace it. + +He understood--he understood, he reiterated. There was nothing to +explain. Mr. Graham had secured Dr. Griswold's services. Mr. Graham had +done well. No, not for any inducement would he consider returning. + +He was gone! He was in the street--a wanderer! A beggar, he told +himself! + + * * * * * + +He wandered aimlessly about for an hour, then foot-sore--exhausted in +mind and body--he turned his face wearily in the direction of Spring +Garden, with its rose-embowered cottage sheltering exquisite +beauty--unalterable love--unfailing forgiveness--_heartsease_. He must +go home and tell "Muddie" and "Sissy" that he was a ruined man! Oh, if +they would only give him his desert for once! If they would only punish +him as he felt he should be punished. But they would not! They could +not--for they were angels. They were more--they were loving women filled +with that to which his mind and his soul bowed down and worshipped as +reverently as they worshipped God in Heaven--woman's love, with its +tenderness, its purity, and its unwavering steadfastness. They would +suffer--that horrible fear, the fear of the Wolf at the door which they +had not known in their beloved Spring Garden and since he had been with +_Graham's_ would again rob them of peace. They would bear it with meek +endurance, but they would not be able to hide it from him. He would see +it in the wistful eyes of Virginia and in the patient eyes of "Muddie." +But they would utter no reproach. They would soothe him with winning +endearments and bid him be of good cheer and would make a gallant fight +to show him that they were perfectly happy. + + * * * * * + +During the year and a half of Edgar Poe's connection with _Graham's +Magazine_ he had raised the number of subscribers from five thousand to +thirty-seven thousand. His salary, like that he had received from _The +Messenger_, had been a mere pittance for such service as he gave, but +also, like what he received from _The Messenger_ it had been a regular +income--a dependence. With the addition of the little checks paid him +for brilliant work in other periodicals, it had amply served, as has +been said, to keep the Wolf from the door. In order to make as much +without a regular salary it would be necessary for him to sell a great +many articles and that they should be promptly paid for. And so he +wrote, and wrote, and wrote, while "Muddie" took the little rolls of +manuscript around and around seeking a market for them. Her stately +figure and saintlike face became familiar at the doors of all the +editors and publishers in Philadelphia. + +It was a weary business but her strength and courage seemed never to +flag. Sometimes she succeeded in selling a story or a poem promptly and +receiving prompt pay. Then there was joy in the rose-embowered cottage. +Sometimes after placing an article payment was put off time and time +again until hope deferred made sick the hearts of all three dwellers in +the cottage. + +Oftentimes they were miserably poor--sometimes they were upon the verge +of despair--yet through all there was an undercurrent of happiness that +nothing could destroy--they had each other and even at the worst they +still dreamed the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, even +though the heartsease blossom drooped and drooped. + +Virginia's attacks continued to come at intervals, and each time the +shadow hung more persistently and with deeper gloom over the cottage. It +would be lifted at length, but not until the husband and mother had +suffered again all the agonies of parting--not until what they believed +to be the last goodbyes had been said and the imagination, running ahead +of the actual, had gone through each separate detail of death and +burial. + +The Dreamer's thoughts dwelt constantly upon these scenes and details +until finally the "dirges of his hope one melancholy burden bore--of +Never--Nevermore." + +Under the influence of the state of mind that was thus induced, a new +poem began to take shape in his brain--a poem of the death of a young +and beautiful woman and the despair and grief of the lover left to mourn +her in loneliness. As it wrote itself in his mind the word that had +thrilled and charmed and frightened him at the bedside of his mother and +to whose time his feet had so often marched, as to a measure--the +mournful, mellifluous word, Nevermore--became its refrain. + +The composition of his new poem became an obsession with him. His brain +busied itself with its perfection automatically. Not only as he sat at +his desk, pen in hand; frequently it happened that at these times the +divine fire refused to kindle--though he blew and blew. But at other +times, without effort on his part, the spark was struck, the flames +flashed forth and ran through his thoughts like wild-fire. When he was +helping Virginia to water the flowers in the garden; when he walked the +streets with dreaming eyes raised skyward, studying the clouds; when he +sat with Virginia and the Mother under the evening lamp or with feet on +the fender gazed into the heart of the red embers, or when he lay in his +bed in the quiet and dark--wherever he was, whatever he did, the phrases +and the rhythm of the new poem were filtering through his +sub-consciousness, being polished and made perfect. + +Indeed the poem in the making cast a spell upon him and he passed his +days and his nights as though in a trance. Virginia and Mother Clemm +knew that he was in the throes of creation, and they respected his +brown-study mood--stepping softly and talking little; but often by a +silent pressure of his hand or a light kiss upon his brow, saying that +they understood. They were happy, for they knew the state of mind that +enveloped him to be one of profound happiness to him--though the +brooding look that was often in his grey eyes told them that the visions +he was seeing had to do with sorrow. They waited patiently, feeling +certain that in due course would be laid before them a work in prose or +verse, presenting in jewel-like word and phrase, scenes in some strange, +fascinating country which it would charm them to explore. + +At last it was done! He told them while they sat at the evening meal. + +"I have something to read to you two critics after supper," he said. "A +poem upon which I have been working. I don't know whether it is of any +account or not." + +The two gentle critics were all interest. Virginia was breathless with +enthusiasm and could hardly wait to finish her supper. + +"I knew you were doing something great," she exclaimed. "I _know_ it is +great! Nothing you have ever done has wrapped you up so completely. +You've been in a beautiful trance for weeks and Muddie and I have been +almost afraid to breathe for fear of waking you up too soon." + +As soon as supper was over he brought out one of the familiar narrow +rolls of manuscript and smilingly drew it out for them to see its +length--giving Virginia one end to hold while he held the other. + +She read aloud, in pondering tone, the two words that appeared at the +top: "The Raven."-- + +Then, as she let go the end she held, the manuscript coiled up as if it +had been a spring, and the poet rolled it closely in his hands and with +his eyes upon the fire, began, not to read, but slowly to recite. His +voice filled the room with deep, sonorous melody, saving which there +was no sound. + +When the last words, + +"And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, + + Shall be lifted--nevermore!" + +had been said, there was a moment of tense silence. Then Virginia cast +herself into his arms in a passion of tears. + +"Oh, Eddie," she sobbed, "it is beautiful--beautiful! But so sad! I feel +as I were the 'lost Lenore' and you the poor lover; but when I leave you +you must not break your heart like that. You and Muddie will have each +other and soon you will come after me and we will all be happy together +again--in Heaven!" + +No word passed the lips of the mother. Her silvered head was bowed in +grief and prayer. She too saw in "Lenore" her darling child, and she +felt in anticipation the loneliness and sorrow of her own heart. She +spoke no word, but from her saintly eyes two large bright tears rolled +down her patient cheeks upon the folded hands in her lap. + +And thus "The Raven" was heard for the first time. + +Soon afterward it was recited again. Edgar Poe carried it himself to Mr. +Graham and offered it for the magazine. Mr. Graham promised to examine +it and give him an answer next day. That night he read it over several +times, but for the life of him he could not make up his mind about it. +Its weirdness, its music, its despair, affected him greatly. But Mr. +Graham was a business man and he doubted whether, from a business point +of view, the poem was of value. Would people like it? Would it _take_? +He would consult Griswold about it--Griswold was a man of safe judgment +regarding such matters. + +Dr. Griswold was indeed, a man of literary judgment and of taste. The +beauty of the poem startled him. It would bring to the genius of Edgar +Poe (he said to himself)--the poetic genius--acknowledgment such as it +had never had before. It was _too good_ a poem to be published. He had +bided his time and the hour of his revenge was come. He would have given +his right hand to have been able to publish such a poem over his own +signature--but the world must not know that Poe could write such an one! + +The candid eyes of Mr. Graham as he awaited his opinion were upon his +face. His own eyes wore their most furtive look--cast down and sidelong. +His tone was depressed and full of pity as he said, + +"Poor Poe! It is too bad that when he must be in need he cannot, or does +not, write something saleable. Of course you could not set such stuff as +this before the readers of _Graham's_!" + +For once Mr. Graham was disposed to question his opinion. + +"I don't know about that," he said. "The poem has a certain power, it +seems to me. It might repel--it might fascinate. I should like to buy it +just to give the poor fellow a little lift. The lovely eyes of that +fragile wife of his haunt me." + +It was finally decided to let Mr. Poe read the poem to the office force, +and take the vote upon it. + +They were all drawn up in a semi-circle, even the small office boy, who +sat with solemn eyes and mouth open and who felt the importance of +being called upon to sit in judgment upon a "piece of poetry." Edgar Poe +stood opposite them and for the second time recited his new poem--then +withdrew while the vote was taken. + +Dr. Griswold was the first to cast his vote and at once emphatically +pronounced his "No!" + +The rest agreed with him that the poem was "too queer," but as a solace +for the poet's disappointment some one passed around a hat and the next +day a hamper of delicacies was sent to Mrs. Poe, with the "compliments +of the staff at _Grahams_." + +Albeit "The Raven" was rejected by Graham's Magazine and others, enough +of Edgar Poe's work was bought and published to keep his name and fame +before the public--just enough (poorly paid as it was) to keep the souls +of himself and his wife and his "more than mother," within their bodies. + +And though Mr. Graham would none of "The Raven," he paid its author +fifty-two dollars for a new story--"The Gold Bug." This sum seemed a +small fortune to The Dreamer at the time, but he was to do better than +that with his story. _The Dollar Magazine_ of New York offered a prize +of one hundred dollars for the best short story submitted to it. Poe had +nothing by him but some critical essays, but remembering his early +success in Baltimore with "The MS. Found in a Bottle," he was anxious to +try. So he hastened with the critiques to _Graham's_ and offered them in +place of the story. + +Mr. Graham agreed to the exchange and "The Gold Bug" was promptly +dispatched to New York, where it was awarded the prize. + +When it was published in _The Dollar Magazine_ it made a great noise in +the world and a red-letter day in the life of Edgar Poe. + + * * * * * + +The hundred dollars brought indeed, a season of comfort and cheer in the +midst of the hardest times the cottage in Spring Garden had known. But +the last penny was finally spent. + +Winter came on--the winter of 1843. It was a severe winter to the +cottage. The bow of promise that had spanned it seemed to have withdrawn +to such a vast height above it that its outlines were indistinct--its +colors well nigh faded out. + +The reading public still trumpeted the praise of Edgar the Dreamer--his +friends still believed in him--from many quarters their letters and the +letters of the great ones of the day fluttered to the cottage. And not +only letters came, but the _literati_ of the day in person--glad to sit +at Edgar Poe's feet, their hearts glowing with the eloquence of his +speech and aching as they recognized in the lovely eyes of the girl-wife +"the light that beckons to the tomb." + +But there were other visitors that winter, and less welcome ones. Though +the master of the cottage wrote and wrote, filling the New York and +Philadelphia papers and magazines with a stream of translations, +sketches, stories and critiques, for which he was sometimes paid and +sometimes not, the aggregate sum he received was pitifully small and the +Wolf scratched at the door and the gaunt features of Cold and Want +became familiar to the dwellers in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. + +In desperation the driven poet turned this way and that in a wild effort +to provide the necessities of life for himself and those who were +dearer to him than self--occasionally appearing upon the lecture +platform, and finally attempting, but without success, to secure +government office in Washington. + +And oftener and oftener, and for longer each time the Shadow rested upon +the cottage--making the Valley dark and drear and dimming the colors of +the grass and the flowers--the dread shadow of the wing of the Angel of +Death. + +Even at such times The Dreamer made a manful struggle to coin his brains +into gold--to bring to the cottage the comforts, the conveniences, the +delicacies that the precious invalid should have had. An exceedingly +appealing little invalid, she lay upon her bed in the upper chamber +whose shelving ceiling almost touched her head; and sometimes "Muddie" +and "Eddie" fanned her and sometimes they chafed her hands and her feet +and placed her pet, "Catalina," grown now to a large, comfortable cat, +in her arms, that the warmth of the soft body and thick fur might +comfort her shuddering frame. And oftentimes as she lay there "Eddie" +sat at a table nearby and wrote upon the long strips of paper which he +rolled into the neat little rolls which he or "Muddie" took around to +the editors. + +And sometimes the editors were glad to have them, and to pay little +checks for them, and sometimes not. + +The truth was, that though the fame of Edgar Poe was well established, +there was an undercurrent of opposition to him, that kept the price of +his work down. The little authors--venomous with spite and jealousy--the +little authors, chief among whom was Rufus Griswold of the furtive eye +and deprecating voice, were sending forth little whispers defaming his +character, exaggerating his weakness and damning his work with faint +praise, or emphatic abuse. + +A day came when Edgar Poe realized that he must move on--that the "City +of Brotherly Love" had had enough of him--that to remain must mean +starvation. What removal would mean he did not know. That might mean +starvation too, but, as least, he did not know it. + +It was hard to leave the rose-embowered cottage. It was April and about +Spring Garden and the cottage the old old miracle of the renewal of life +was begun. The birds were nesting and the earliest flowers were in +bloom. It was bitter to leave it--but, there was no money for the rent. +His fame had been greatest in New York, of late. The New York papers had +been the most hospitable to his work. It was bitter to leave Spring +Garden, but perhaps somewhere about New York they would find another +rose-embowered cottage. Virginia was unusually well for the present and +the prospect of a change carried with it a possibility of prosperity. +Who could tell what good fortune they might fall upon in New York? + +Edgar Goodfellow had suddenly made his appearance for the first time in +many moons. _A change_ was the thing they all needed, he told himself. +In change there was hope! + +He placed Mother Clemm and "Catalina" temporarily with some friends of +the "City of Brotherly Love" who had invited them, and accompanied by +his Virginia who was looking less wan than for long past, fared forth, +in the highest spirits, to seek, for the second time a home in New York. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +New York once more! They went by rail to Amboy and the remaining forty +miles by steamboat. + +Certain cities, like certain persons, are witches; they have power to +cast a spell. New York is one of them. + +Edgar and Virginia Poe had known hard times in New York--the bitterness +of hard times in a city large enough for each man to mind his own +business and leave his neighbors to mind theirs. Yet as the boat slowed +down and neared the wharf, and--past the shipping--they descried the +houses and spires of town looming, ghostlike, through the enveloping +mist of the soft, grey April day, it was with a thrill that these two +standing hand in hand--like children--upon the deck, clasped each +other's fingers with closer pressure and whispered, + +"New York once more!" + +It was their first little journey in the world just together, just they +two, and much as they loved the dear mother--their kind earthly +Providence, as they laughingly called her--there was something very +sweet about it. It was almost like a wedding journey. The star of hope +which never deserted them for long, no matter what their disappointments +and griefs might be, shone bright above their horizon--their beautiful +faces reflected its light. By it the lines of care and bitterness seemed +suddenly to have been smoothed out of Edgar's face, and under its +influence Virginia's merry laugh rippled out upon the moist air, causing +the eyes of her fellow-travellers to turn admiringly her way many +times. + +Her husband hovered tenderly near her, drawing her shawl with solicitous +hand closer about her shoulders and standing upon the windward side of +her to protect her from the damp and keen breeze. He noted with delight +the fresh color of her cheeks--the life and color in her eyes. + +"Do you know, Sweetheart," he said, "You have not coughed once since we +left Philadelphia! The change is doing you good already." + +Both were blythe as birds. As the boat tied up at the wharf a gentle +shower set in, but it did not effect their spirits. He left her on board +with some ladies whose acquaintance she had made during the journey, +while he fared forth in the rain in quest of a boarding-house. As he +stepped ashore he met a man selling second-hand umbrellas. He bought +quite a substantial one for sixty-two cents and went on his way +rejoicing in the lucky meeting and the good bargain. + +In Greenwich Street he found what he sought--a genteel-looking house +with "Boarders wanted," upon a card in the window. Another good bargain +was made, and hailing a passing "hack" he hastened back to the boat for +Virginia and her trunk and soon they were rattling over the +cobblestones. + +"Why this is quite a mansion," exclaimed the little wife, as she peered +out at the house before which the carriage stopped--for while the +gentility of the establishment was of the proverbial "shabby" variety, +the brown-stone porch and pillars gave it an air of unmistakable +dignity. + +Not long after their arrival the supper-bell rang, and they found +themselves responding with alacrity. When they took the seats assigned +them and their hungry eyes took in the feast spread before them, they +squeezed each other's hands under the table--these romantic young lovers +and dreamers. They had been happy in spite of frugality. Many a time +while hunger gnawed they had kissed each other and vowed they wanted +nothing (high Heaven pardoning the gallant lie!) Yet now, the +traveller's appetite making their palates keen--the travellers weariness +in their limbs--they were seized upon by an unblushing joy at finding +themselves seated at an ample board with a kindly landlady at the head +pouring tea--strong and hot--whose aroma was as the breath of roses in +their nostrels, while her portly and beaming spouse, at the foot, with +blustering hospitality pressed the bounty of the table upon them. A +bounteous table indeed, this decidedly cheap and somewhat shabby +boarding-house spread, and to their eager appetites everything seemed +delicious. + +There were wheat bread and rye bread, butter and cheese, cold country +ham and cold spring veal--generous slices of both, piled up like little +mountains--and tea-cakes in like abundance. + +They feasted daintily--exquisitely, as they did everything, but they +feasted heartily for the first time in months. + +After supper they went to their room--a spacious and comfortably, though +plainly, furnished one, with a bright fire burning in a jolly little +stove. Their spirits knew no bounds. + +"What would Catalina say to this solid comfort, Sis?" queried Eddie. "I +think she would faint for joy." + +For answer Virginia smiled upon him through a mist of tears. + +"Why Virginia--my Heart--" he cried in amazement. "What is it?" + +"Only that it is too beautiful!" she managed to say. "And to think that +Muddie and Catalina are not here to share it with us!" + +"Just as soon as I can scrape together enough money to pay for Muddie's +board and travelling expenses we will have them with us," he assured +her. + +She dried her eyes and perched upon his knee while he went through his +pockets and bringing out all the money he had, counted it into her palm. + +"Four dollars and a half," he said. "Not much, but we are fortunate to +have that. And with such fine living as we get here so cheap it will go +quite a long way. Let me see--the price of board and lodging is only +three and a half a week for both of us. Seven dollars would pay our way +for a fortnight--and in a fortnight's time there's no telling what may +turn up! Some editor might buy 'The Raven,' or money due me for work +already sold might come in. If I could only contrive to raise this sum +to seven dollars we could rest easy for at least a fortnight." + +"I'll tell you how," said Virginia. "You have acquaintances here--hunt +up some of them and borrow three dollars. Then you would have enough to +pay two weeks board ahead and fifty cents over for pocket money." + +"Wise little head!" exclaimed he, tapping her brow, "The very idea!" + +And forthwith all care as to ways and means was thrown from both their +minds, and they gave themselves up to an evening of enjoyment of the +comforts of their brown-stone mansion. + +While Virginia was resting her husband went out for a little shopping to +be done with part of the fifty cents they had allowed themselves for +spending money. First he exchanged a few cents for a tin pan to be +filled with water and placed on top of the stove, for the comfort of +Virginia who had been oppressed by the dry heat. Then a few cents more +went for two buttons his coat lacked, a skein of thread to sew them on +with, and a skein of silk with which Virginia would mend a rent in his +trousers made by too close contact with a nail on deck of the steamboat. + +Next day was a bright, beautiful, spring Sunday. The sky and budding +trees had the newly-washed aspect often seen after a season of rain. The +sound of church-bells was on the air; the streets were filled with +people in their best clothes, and the new boarders in Greenwich Street, +fortified with a breakfast of ham and eggs and coffee, jubilantly joined +that stream of humanity which flowed toward the point above which +Trinity Church spire pierced the clear sky. + + * * * * * + +On Monday, Edgar Poe was taken with what he called a "writing fit." For +several days (during which Edgar Goodfellow remained in the ascendency) +the fit remained on him, and he wrote incessantly--only pausing long +enough, now and then, to read the result to Virginia. + +"This will earn us the money to bring Muddie and Catalina to New York," +he said with confidence. + +At last the manuscript was finished and no sooner was the ink dry upon +the paper than he took it to _The Sun_, which promptly bought and paid +for it, and upon the next Sunday, April 13, printed it not as a story, +but as news. + +"Astounding News by Express, _via_ Norfolk!" (The headlines said). "The +Atlantic crossed in Three Days." Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's +Flying Machines!!! + +"Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, S.C., of Mr. Mason, Mr. +Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in +the Steering Balloon, 'Victoria,' after a passage of seventy-five hours +from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the Voyage!" + +Strange as it may seem, the "astounding news" was received by the people +of New York for fact. There was a rush for copies of the _Sun_ which +announced with truth that it was the only paper in possession of the +"news," and not until denial came from Charleston, several days later, +was it suspected that the "news" was all a hoax and that Edgar +Goodfellow was simply having a little fun at the expense of the public. + +The story did, indeed, earn money with which to bring "Muddie" and +"Catalina" to New York. It did more--it brought the editors to Greenwich +Street looking for manuscript. They begged for stories as clever and as +sensational as "The Balloon Hoax," but in vain. Edgar Goodfellow had +vanished and in his place was Edgar the Dreamer who only had to tell of, + + "A wild, weird clime that lieth sublime + Out of Space--out of Time, + + * * * * * + + Where the traveller meets aghast + Sheeted Memories of the Past,-- + + Shrouded forms that start and sigh + As they pass the wanderer by,-- + White-robed forms of friends long given + In agony to the Earth and Heaven." + +It was in vain that the editors besought him to try something else in +the vein of "The Balloon Hoax," assuring him that that was what his +readers were expecting of him, after his recent "hit"--that was what +they would be willing to pay him for--pay him well. Was it the Imp of +the Perverse that caused him to positively decline, and to persist that +"Dreamland" was all he had to offer just then? + +It was Mr. Graham who finally accepted this quaint and beautiful poem, +and who published it--in the June number of _Graham's Magazine_. + + * * * * * + +In October following the return of the Poes to New York--October of the +year 1844--Mr. Nathaniel P. Willis who was then editor of _The Evening +Mirror_, and had been editor of _The Dollar Magazine_, when it awarded +the prize of a hundred dollars to "The Gold Bug," was seated at his desk +in the "Mirror" office, when in response to his "Come in," a stranger +appeared in his doorway--a woman--a lady in the best sense of a word +almost become obsolete. A _gentlewoman_ describes her best of all. She +was a gentlewoman, then, past middle age, yet beautiful with the high +type of beauty that only ripe years, beautifully lived, can bring--the +beauty that compensates for the fading of the rose on cheek and lip, the +dimming of the light in the eyes, for the frost on the brow--the beauty +of patience, of tenderness, of faith unquenchable by fire or flood of +adversity. A history was written on the face--a history in which there +was plainly much of tragedy. Yet not one bitter line was there. + +It was a face, withal, which could only have belonged to a mother, and +might well have belonged to the mother, Niobe. + +In figure she was tall and stately, with a gentle dignity. Her dress was +simple to plainness, and might have been called shabby had it been less +beautifully neat. It was of unrelieved black, and she wore a +conventional widow's bonnet, with floating white strings. + +The reader needs no introduction to this stranger to Mr. Willis, who in +a gentle, well-bred voice, with a certain mournful cadence in it, +announced herself as "Mrs. Clemm--the mother-in-law of Mr. Poe." + +No connection with a famous author was needed to inspire Mr. Willis with +respect for his visitor. She seemed to him to be an "angel upon earth," +and it was with an air approaching reverence that he handed her to the +most comfortable chair the office afforded. + +Her errand was quickly made known. Edgar Poe was ill and not able to +come out himself. His wife was an invalid, and so it devolved upon her +to seek employment for him. In spite of his fame, she said, and of his +industry, his manuscripts brought him so little money that he was in +need of the necessities of life. Regular work with a regular income, +however small, she felt to be his only hope of being able to rise above +want. + +Mr. Willis was distressed and promptly offered all he could. It was not +much, but it was better than nothing--it was the place of assistant +editor of his paper. + +For months following, the figure of Edgar Poe was a familiar one in the +office of the _Evening Mirror_. Neither in his character of Edgar the +Dreamer nor that of Edgar Goodfellow was he especially known there, but +simply as a modest, industrious sub-editor, doing the work of a +mechanical paragraphist as quietly, as unobtrusively, as a machine. With +rarely a smile and rarely a word, he stood from morning till night at +his desk in a corner of the editorial room--pale, still and beautiful as +a statue, punctual and efficient and the embodiment of courtesy always. + +And quietly and unobtrusively his personality made itself felt. Mr. +Willis came to love him for his innate charm and for his faithfulness to +duty. + + * * * * * + +But the desk of a sub-editor could not long hold a genius like Edgar +Poe. He bore its drudgery without complaint, but when an opening that +seemed to invite his ambition, as well as to promise better pay came, he +hailed it with enthusiasm. In March of the next year he formed a +partnership with two New York journalists, as editors and managers of +_The Broadway Journal_. A few months later saw him sole proprietor as +well as editor, and for a short, bright period his old dream of a +magazine of his own, in which he could write as he pleased, came true. +Its realization seemed to inspire him with new energy. How many heads, +how many right hands had the man--his readers asked each other--that he +could turn out such a mass of work of such high order? His own and many +other of the magazines of the day were filled with reviews and +criticisms that made him the terror of other writers, and with stories +and poems that made him the marvel of readers everywhere. + +His works were translated into the tongues of France, Germany and Spain, +and his fame grew in all of those countries. + +Yet the most that he could afford in the way of a home was up two +flights of stairs--two rooms in the third story of a dingy old house in +East Broadway. Mother Clemm and Virginia kept them bright and spotless +and "Catalina" dosing on the hearth gave a final touch of comfort, and +they were far above the noise and dust of the streets, with windows +opening upon a goodly view of the sky. They had a front and a back room, +so that the beauties of the dawn and the noontide--of sunset and +moonrise--were all theirs. + +And the Wolf came not near the door, and the three whose natures were +like to the natures of the oak, the vine and the heartsease, and who +lived for each other only, dreamed again the dream of the wonderful +valley--the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +Up, up the stairs, two steps at a time, sprang The Dreamer, one white +January day, and burst in upon Mother Clemm who was preparing dinner, +and Virginia who was mending his coat. He was in a great glee. He caught +"Muddie" in his arms where she stood with her hands deep in a tray of +dough, and kissed her, then stooped over Virginia and kissed _her_, and +dropped into her lap a crisp ten dollar bank note. She gave a little +scream of delight. + +"Where did you get it?" she cried? + +"From Willis. I've sold him 'The Raven.' He's vastly taken with it and +not only paid me the ten, in advance, but will give the poem an +editorial puff in the _Mirror_ of the nineteenth. He showed me a rough +draft. He will say that it is 'the most effective example of fugitive +poetry ever published in this country,' and predict that it will 'stick +in the memory of everybody who reads it!'" + +"And it will! It will!" cried Virginia. "Especially that 'Nevermore.' +I've done everything in time to it since the first night you read it to +us." + +"I've done everything in time to it since I was three years old," +murmured her husband. He drew the miniature from the inside pocket of +his coat where he had carried it, close against his heart, throughout +his life, and gazed long upon it. In his grey eyes was the tender, +brooding expression which the picture always called forth. "Ever since I +heard that word for the first time from the lips of my old nurse when +she took me in to see my mother robed for the grave, my feet and my +thoughts have kept time to it; and generally when my steps and my face +have been set toward hope and happiness it has risen before me like a +wall, blocking my way." + +Virginia arose from her chair letting her work and the bank note fall +unheeded from her lap, and went to him. Gently taking the miniature from +his hands she restored it to its place in his pocket and then with a +hand on each of his shoulders lifted her eyes to his. + +"Buddie," she said, calling him by the old pet name of their earliest +days, "You frighten me sometimes. The miniature is beautiful but it +makes you so sad. And when you talk that way about 'The Raven,' I feel +as if I could hear your tears dropping on my coffin-lid!" Then, with a +sudden change of mood, her laugh rang out, and she pressed her lips upon +his. + +"I'll have you know," she said, "I'm not dead yet, and you will not have +to journey to any 'distant Aidenn' to 'clasp' me." + +"No, thank God!" he breathed, crushing her to him. + + * * * * * + +It was upon January 29, 1845, that "The Raven" appeared, with Willis's +introductory puff. In spite of Dr. Griswold and the staff of _Graham's +Magazine_, it created an instant furor. It was published and republished +upon both sides of the Atlantic. To quote a contemporary writer, +everybody was "raven-mad" about it, except a few "waspish foes" who +would do its author "more good than harm." + +It brought to the two bright rooms up the two flights of stairs visitors +by the score, eager to congratulate the poet, to make the acquaintance +of his interesting wife and mother and to assure all three of their +welcome to homes approached by brown-stone steps. + +And it brought letters by the score--some from the other side of the +Atlantic. Among these was one from Miss Elizabeth Barrett, soon to +become the wife of Mr. Robert Browning. + +"Your 'Raven' has produced a sensation here in England," she wrote. +"Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it, and some by its music. +I hear of persons haunted by the 'Nevermore,' and one of my friends who +has the misfortune of possessing a bust of Pallas never can bear to look +at it in the twilight. Mr. Browning is much struck by the rhythm of the +poem. + +"Then there is that tale of yours, 'The Case of M. Valdemar,' throwing +us all into a 'most admired disorder,' and dreadful doubts as to whether +'it can be true,' as children say of ghost stories. The certain thing in +the tale in question is the power of the writer and the faculty he has +of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar." + +Of all the letters from far and near, this was the one that gave The +Dreamer most pleasure, and as for Virginia and the Mother, they read it +until they knew it by heart. + +When, some months later, his new book, "The Raven and Other Poems," came +out, its dedication was, "To the noblest of her sex--Miss Elizabeth +Barrett, of England." + + * * * * * + +And there was joy in the two rooms up two flights of stairs where Edgar +Poe sat at his desk reeling off his narrow little strips of manuscript +by the yard. His work filled _The Broadway Journal_ and overflowed into +many other periodicals. + +While he created stories and poems, he gave more attention than ever to +the duties of his cherished post as Defender of Purity of Style for +American Letters, and the fame to which he had risen giving him new +authority, he made or marred the reputation of many a literary aspirant. + +Exposition of plagiarism became a hobby with him, and his attacks upon +Longfellow upon this ground, brought on a controversy between him and +the gentle poet which reached such a heat that it was dubbed "The +Longfellow War." All attempts of friends and fellow journalists to make +him more moderate in his criticisms were in vain; they seemed indeed, +but to excite the Imp of the Perverse, under whose influence he became +more merciless than ever. An admirer of this virtue carried to such an +extreme that it became a serious fault, as it was assuredly a grievous +mistake, humorously characterized him in a parody upon "The Raven," +containing the following stanza: + + "Neither rank nor station heeding, with his foes around him bleeding, + Sternly, singly and alone, his course he kept upon that floor; + While the countless foes attacking, neither strength nor valor lacking, + On his goodly armor hacking, wrought no change his visage o'er, + As with high and honest aim he still his falchion proudly bore, + Resisting error evermore." + +Many of the "waspish foes" thus made turned their stings upon his +private character, against which there was already a secret poison +working--the poison that fell from the tongue, and the pen of Rufus +Griswold. He had the ear of numbers of Edgar Poe's friends in the +literary world, and what time The Dreamer dreamed his dreams in utter +ignorance of the unfriendliness toward him of the big man whose big +brain he admired, the big man watched for his chance to insert the +poison. It was invariably hidden in a coating of sugar. Poe was a +wonderful genius, he would declare, his imagination--his style--they +were marvellous! Marvelous! His _head_ was all right, but--. The "but" +always came in a lowered tone, full of commiseration, "_but_--his +_heart_!--Allowance should, of course, be made for his innate lack of +principle--he should not be held _too_ responsible. His habits--well +known to everyone of course!" + +No--they were not even suspected, many of his listeners replied. Might +not Dr. Griswold be mistaken? they asked. Was it possible that an +habitual drunkard could turn out such a mass of brilliant and artistic +work? And consider the exquisite neatness of his manuscript! + +Peradventure the listener persisted in believing his informant +mistaken--peradventure he at once accepted the damaging statements; but +in every case the poison had been administered, and was at work. + + * * * * * + +There was just one class among the writers of the day sacred from the +attacks of Edgar Poe's pen. Before almost everything else The Dreamer +was chivalrous. The "starry sisterhood of poetesses" and authoresses, +therefore, escaped his criticisms. One of his contemporaries said of +him that he sometimes mistook his vial of prussic acid for his ink-pot. +In writing of authors of the gentle sex, his ink-pot became a pot of +honey. + +Several of these literary ladies living in New York had their salons, +where they received, upon regular days, their brothers and sisters of +the pen, and at which The Dreamer became a familiar figure. + +"I meet Mr. Poe very often at the receptions," gossiped one of the fair +poetesses in a letter to a friend in the country. "He is the observed of +all observers. His stories are thought wonderful and to hear him repeat +'The Raven' is an event in one's life. People seem to think there is +something uncanny about him, and the strangest stories are told and what +is more, _believed_, about his mesmeric experiences--at the mention of +which he always smiles. His smile is captivating! Everybody wants to +know him, but only a few people seem to get well acquainted with him." + +Chief among the salons of New York was that of Miss Anne Charlotte +Lynch--who was afterward Mrs. Botta. An entré to her home was the +most-to-be-desired social achievement New York could offer, for it meant +not only to know the very charming lady herself, but to meet her +friends; and she had drawn around her a circle made up of the persons +and personages--men and women--best worth knowing. She became one of The +Dreamer's most intimate friends, and always made him and his wife +welcome at her "evenings." It was not long after "The Raven" had set the +town marching to the word "nevermore," that he made his first visit +there--a visit which long stood out clear in the memories of all +present. + +In the cavernous chimney a huge grate full of glowing coals threw a +ruddy warmth into Miss Lynch's spacious drawing-room. Waxen tapers in +silver and in crystal candelabra, and in sconces, filled the apartment +with a blaze of soft light, lit up the sparkling eyes and bright, +intellectual faces of the assembled company, and showed to advantage the +jewels and laces of the ladies and the broadcloth of the gentlemen. + +Miss Lynch stood at one end of the room between the richly curtained +windows and immediately in front of a narrow, gold-framed mirror which +reached from the frescoed ceiling to the floor and reflected her +gracious figure to advantage. She was listening with interested +attention to Mr. Gillespie, the noted mathematician, whose talk was +worth hearing in spite of the fact that he stammered badly. His subject +tonight happened to be the versatility of "Mr. P-P-Poe." + +"He might have been an eminent m-m-mathematician if he had not elected +to be an eminent p-p-poet," he was saying. + +To her right Mr. Willis's daughter, Imogen, was flirting with a tall, +lanky young man with sentimental eyes, a drooping moustache and thick, +straight, longish hair, whose lately published ballad, "Oh, Don't You +Remember Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?" was all the rage. + +To her left the Minerva-like Miss Margaret Fuller whose critical papers +in the _New York Tribune_ were being widely read and discussed, was +amiably quarreling with Mr. Horace Greely, and upon a sofa not far away +Mr. William Gilmore Simms, the novelist and poet, was gently disagreeing +with Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith in her contention for Woman's Rights. + +At the opposite end of the room a lovely woman in a Chippendale chair +was the central figure of a group of ladies and gentlemen each of whom +hung upon her least word with an interest amounting to affection. She +was a woman who looked like a girl, for thirty years had been kind to +her. Glossy brown hair parted in the middle and brushed smoothly down in +loops that nearly covered her ears framed an oval face, with delicate, +clear-cut features, pale complexion and eyes as brown and melting as a +gazelle's. + +She was none other than Mrs. Frances Osgood, the author, or authoress, +as she would have styled herself, of "The Poetry of Flowers"--so much +admired by her contemporaries--whose husband, Mr. S.S. Osgood, the well +known artist, had won her heart while painting her portrait. + +Conspicuous in the group of literary lights surrounding her was Dr. +Griswold in whose furtive glance, had she been less free from guile, she +might have read an admiration fiercer than that of friendship or even of +platonic love, and to whose fires she had unwittingly added fuel by +expressing admiration for his poems--Mr. Poe's opinion to the contrary. + +Mr. Locke, author of "The Moon Hoax," was of the group; and the Reverend +Ralph Hoyt, who was a poet as well as a preacher; and Mr. Hart, the +sculptor; and James Russell Lowell, who happened to be in town for a few +days; and Mr. Willis and his new wife; and Mrs. Embury whose volume of +verse, "Love's Token Flowers," was just out and being warmly praised; +and George P. Morris, Willis's partner in the _Mirror_, whose "Woodman, +Spare that Tree!" and "We were Boys Together," had (touching a human +chord) made him popular. + +The beloved physician, Dr. Francis, seemed to be everywhere at once, as +he moved about from group to group with a kindly word for +everybody--the candle-light falling softly upon his flowing silver locks +and his beaming, ruddy countenance. + +Suddenly, there was a slight stir in the room--a cessation of talk--a +turning toward one point. + +"There is Mr. P-P-Poe now," said Mr. Gillespie to Miss Lynch, and +followed her as, with out-stretched hand and cordial smile, she hastened +toward the door where stood the trim, erect, black-clad figure of Edgar +Poe, with his prominent brow and his big dreamy eyes, and his wife, pale +as a snow-drop after her many illnesses, and as lovely as one, and still +looking like a child, upon his arm. + +Instant pleasure and welcome were written upon every face present save +one, and even that quickly assumed a smile as its owner came forward +bowing and stooping in an excess of courtesy. + +The pair became immediately the centre of attraction. Everybody wanted +to have a word with them. It made Virginia thoroughly happy to see +"Eddie" appreciated, and she chatted blythely and freshly with all--her +spontaneous laugh bearing testimony to her enjoyment--while The Dreamer +yielded himself with his wonted modesty and grace to the hour--answering +questions as to whether he _really did_ believe in ghosts and whether +the experiments in mesmerism in his story, "The Case of M. Valdemar" had +_any_ foundation in fact, with his captivating but enigmatic smile, and +a little Frenchified shrug of the shoulders. + +It would have seemed at first that he had diverted attention from the +fair author of "The Poetry of Flowers" to himself, but erelong--no one +knew just how it came to pass--Edgar Poe was sitting upon an ottoman +drawn close to the Chippendale chair, and the two lions were deep in +earnest and intimate conversation upon which no one else dared intrude. +The furtive eye of Rufus Griswold marked well the evident attraction +between these two beautiful and gifted beings--_poets_--and something +like murder awoke in his heart. + +The tete-a-tete was interrupted by Miss Lynch, who declared that she +voiced the wish of all present in requesting that Mr. Poe would recite +"The Raven." + +All the candles save enough to make (with the fire's glow) a dim +twilight, were put out, and the poet took his stand at one end of the +long room. + +A hush fell upon the company and in a quiet, clear, musical voice, he +began the familiar words. + +There was scarcely a gesture--just the motionless figure, the pale, +classic face, which was dim in the half-light, and the deep, rich voice. + +Miss Lynch was the first to break the silence following the final +"Nevermore." Moving toward him with her easy, distinguished step, she +thanked him in a few low-spoken words. Mrs. Osgood, rising gracefully +from her chair, followed her example, with Dr. Griswold at her heels, +and in a few moments more the whole room was in an awed and subdued hum. + +The girl-wife came in for her share of the lionizing. Her appearance was +in marked contrast to that of the richly apparelled women about her. The +simplest dress was the only kind within her reach--for which she may +have consoled herself with the thought that it was the kind that most +adorned her. She wore tonight a little frock made by her own fingers, of +some crimson woolen stuff, without a vestige of ornament save a bit of +lace, yellow with age, at the throat. Her hair was parted above the +placid brow, looped over her ears and twisted in a loose knot at the +back of her head, in the prevailing fashion for a young matron; which +with her youthful face, gave her a most quaint and charming appearance. + +Her husband's coat had seen long service, but it was neatly brushed and +darned, and the ability to wear threadbare clothing with distinction was +not the least of Edgar Poe's talents. Beside his worn, but cared-for +apparel, costly dress often seemed tawdry. + + * * * * * + +Out from the warmth and the light and the perfume and the luxury and the +praise of the beautiful drawing-room with its distinguished +assemblage,--out into the streets of New York--into the bleakness and +the darkness of the winter's night--stepped Edgar Poe and his wife. +Virginia was wrapped against the cold in a Paisley shawl that had been +one of Mother Clemm's bridal presents, while Edgar wore the military +cape he had at West Point and which, except in times of unusual +prosperity, had served him as a great-coat ever since. + +Through the dimly-lit streets, slippery with ice, and wind-swept, they +made their way to the two rooms up two flights of stairs, where the +Widow Clemm mended the fire with a few coals at a time and sewed by a +single candle, as she waited for them--the lion of the most +distinguished circle in America and his beautiful wife! + +Back from a world of dreams created by a company of dreamers to the +reality of an empty larder and a low fuel pile and a dun from the +landlord from whom they rented the two rooms. + +"The Raven" had brought its author laurels in abundance, but only ten +dollars in money. Editors were clamoring for his work and he was +supplying it as fast as one brain and one right hand could; and some of +them were sending their little checks promptly in return and some were +promising little checks some day; but _The Broadway Journal_ had failed +for lack of capital. It was the old story. He had no regular income and +the irregularly appearing little checks only provided a +from-hand-to-mouth sort of living for the three. + +Yet they had their dreams. Landlords might turn them out of house and +home but they were powerless to deprive them of their dreams. + +Mother Clemm's one candle was burning low--its light and that of the +dying fire barely relieved the room from darkness and did not prevent +the rays of the newly arisen full moon from coming through the lattice +and pouring a heap of silver upon the bare floor. + +"Look Muddie! Look Sissy!" cried the poet. "If we lived in a blaze of +light, like your rich folk, we should have to go out of doors to see the +moon. Who says there are not compensations in this life?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +But it was not always possible to take a hopeful view. Continued poverty +which oftentimes reached the degree of positive want, anxiety for +Virginia's health and inability to provide for her the remedies and +comforts he felt might preserve her life, were enough to arouse Edgar +Poe's blue devils, and they did. + +Why detail the harassments of the rest of that winter, during which The +Dreamer led a strange double life--a life in the public eye of +distinction, prosperity, popularity, but in private, a hunted life--a +life of constant dread of the wrath of a too long indulgent landlord or +grocer--a flitting from one cheap lodgement to another. + +One gleam of genuine sunshine brightened the dreary days. The +acquaintance with Frances Osgood begun at Miss Lynch's salon soon +ripened into close friendship. She found her way up the two flights of +stairs and Edgar and Virginia and the Mother received her with as ready +courtesy and welcome as though the two rooms that looked on the sky had +been a palace. Her intimacy became so complete--her understanding of, +and sympathy with, the three who lived for each other only so perfect +that it was almost as if she had been admitted to the Valley of the +Many-Colored Grass. + +Upon her The Dreamer bestowed in abundant measure that poetic love which +the normal heart is no more capable of feeling than the normal mind is +capable of producing his poetry. A love which was like his landscapes, +not of this world or of the earth earthy--a love of the mind, the +imagination, the poetic faculty. A love whose desire was not to possess, +but to kneel to. In his rhapsodies over the phantasmal women his genius +created or the real ones whose charm he felt, it was never of flesh and +blood beauty--of blooming cheek or rounded form--that he sang, but of +the expression of the eye, the tones of the voice, the graces and gifts +of the spirit and the intellect. + +In return for this love he asked only sympathy--sympathy such as he drew +from the sky and the forest and the rock-bound lake and the winds of +heaven--mood sympathy. + +It was a love quite beyond the imagination of Rufus Griswold to conceive +of, even. His furtive eye was on the watch, his jealous heart was filled +with foul surmises and he added a new poison to the old, with which he +was working, drop by drop, upon the good name of Edgar Poe. + +Meantime the poet, harassed by troubles of divers kinds but innocent of +the new poison as he had been of the old, welcomed the intimacy of this +congenial woman friend as balm to his tried spirit; and delved away at +his work. + +Upon his desk one morning, were piled a number of the small rolls of +narrow manuscript with which the reader is familiar. These were a series +of critical sketches entitled "The Literati of New York," by which he +hoped to keep the pot boiling some days. Virginia was listening for a +step on the stair, for she had written Mrs. Osgood a note that morning, +begging her to come to them, and she knew that she would respond. The +door opened and the slight, graceful figure and delicate face with the +gentle eyes, she looked for, appeared. + +"What are all these?" asked the visitor, when she had embraced Virginia +warmly and when the poet had, after bowing over her hand, which he +lightly touched with his lips, led her to a chair. + +Her eyes were fixed upon the pile of manuscripts. + +"One of them is yourself, Madam," replied the poet. + +"Myself?" she questioned, in amazement. + +He bowed, gravely. "Yourself--as one of the Literati of New York. In +each one of these one of you is rolled up and discussed. I will show you +by the difference in their length the varying degrees of estimation in +which I hold you literary folk. Come Virginia, and help me!" + +The fair visitor smiled as they drew out to the full length roll after +roll of the manuscript--letting them fly together again as if they had +been spiral springs. The largest they saved for the last. The poet +lifted it from its place and gave an end to his wife and like two merry, +laughing children they ran to opposite corners, stretching the +manuscript diagonally across the entire space between. + +"And whose 'linked sweetness long drawn out' is that?" asked the +visitor. + +"Hear her!" cried Edgar Goodfellow who was in the ascendent for the +first time in many a long day. "Hear her! Just as if her vain little +heart didn't tell her it's herself!" + +But the moment of playfulness was a rarity, and all the more enjoyed for +that. + +The papers came out in due course, serially, and created a new sensation +and brought their little reward, but they also plunged their author into +a succession of unsavory quarrels. As each one appeared, it was looked +for with eagerness and read with intense interest by the public, but +frequently with as intense anger by the subject. + +Perhaps the most caustic of all the critiques was the one upon the work +of Mr. Thomas Dunn English, whom Poe contemptuously dubbed, "Thomas Done +Brown." + +Mr. English bitterly retorted with an attack upon his critic's private +character. A fierce controversy followed in which English became so +abusive that Poe sued and recovered two hundred and twenty-five dollars +damages--which goes to prove that even an ill wind can blow good. + +Long after the papers had been published the scene of playful idleness, +with all its holiday charm, when Edgar Poe drew out the strips of +manuscript in which were rolled up "The Literati of New York" remained +in Mrs. Osgood's memory, and in his own. To him it was indeed a gleam of +brightness amid a throng of "earnest woes," a season of calm in a +"tumultous sea." + +But, as been said, why dwell upon the details of that bleak, despairing +winter? Spring brought a change which makes a more pleasant picture. + + * * * * * + +Ever since they had left Philadelphia the Poes had clung, in memory, to +the rose-embowered cottage in Spring Garden. There, they told each +other, they had a home to their minds. It was the dear "Muddie," their +ever faithful earthly Providence to whom they were already so deeply +indebted, who discovered in the suburb of Fordham, a tiny cottage which +had much of the charm of which they dreamed--even to the infinitesimal +price for which it could be rented. + +It was only a story and a half high, but there was a commodious and +cheerful room down stairs, with four windows, and from the narrow +hallway a quaint little winding stair led to an attic which though its +roof was low and sloping contained a room large enough to serve the +double purpose of bed-chamber and study. + +There was a pleasant porch across the front of the cottage which would +make an ideal summer sitting-room and study, when the half-starved +rose-bush upon it should have been nursed and trained to screen it from +the sun. + +The cottage stood upon a green hill, half-buried in cherry trees--just +then in full bloom and filled with bird-song. Nearby was a grove of +pines and a short walk away was the Harlem River, with its picturesque, +high, stone bridge. It was an abode fit to be in Paradise, Edgar told +Virginia and the Mother, and within a few days they and their few small +possessions--including Catalina--were as well established there as if +they had never known any other home. + +The moving in recalled the earliest days of their life at Spring Garden. +Again "Muddie" was busy, not with soap and water only, but with the +whitewash brush. Again their hearts were blythe with the pleasing sense +of change--of the opening up of a new vista of there was no knowing what +happiness--just as children welcome any change for the change itself, +always expecting to find pleasant surprises upon a new and untried road. + +But there was a difference in themselves since the moving into the +Spring Garden Cottage, which had been so gradual that they were scarcely +conscious of it. The years since then lay heavily upon them. They showed +plainly in the deepened lines in Mother Clemm's face, in the deepened +anxiety in her Mater Dolorosa eyes, in the frost upon the locks that +peeped from under her immaculate widow's cap. They showed in the +fragile figure of Virginia--once so full of sweet curves;--in the +ethereal look that had come into the once rounded cheeks and full +pouting lips, in the transparency of her skin and in the sweet eyes that +when not filled with the merry laughter that had through thick and thin +filled her dwelling place with sunshine and music, had a faraway +expression in them, as if they were looking into another world. + +They showed most of all in The Dreamer himself. To him these years had +been years of fierce battle; battle, not for wealth, but for bread; +battle not so much for selfish ambition as for his country, and in a +high sense--for he had fought valiantly to win a place for America in +the world of letters; battle with himself--with the devils that sought +mastery over his spirit--the devil of excitement and exhilaration that +lay in the bottom of the cup, the devil of blessed forgetfulness, +accompanied by magical dreams that dwelt in the heart of the poppy, the +devil of melancholy and gloom to whom he felt a certain charm in +yielding himself, the devil of restlessness and dissatisfaction with +whatsoever lay within his grasp--a dog-and-shadow sort of desire to drop +the prize in hand in a chase after that of his vision,--the impish devil +of the perverse. + +At times he had been victorious, at other times there had been defeat. +But always the warfare had been fierce and the scars remained to tell +the story. They remained in the emaciation and the deep lines of his +still beautiful face; remained in the drooping curves of the mouth; +remained above all in the ineffable sadness of the large, deep, luminous +eyes. + +Yet that sweet spring day when the three were moving into Fordham +cottage, the years that had wrought upon them thus were as they had not +been. + +Their little possessions had dwindled pitifully. Virginia's golden harp +that had been the glory of the sitting-room was gone to pay a debt. One +by one others of their household gods had provided bread. But the spurt +of prosperity the damages recovered in the "Thomas Done Brown" suit +brought, made possible a new checked matting for the sitting-room floor +and so bright and clean did it look that they felt it almost furnished +the room of itself. It would mean much to them in saving the dear Mother +the most laborious feature of her labor. It was a more difficult matter +than formerly for her to get down upon her knees to scrub the floor and +it had become impossible for the frail Virginia to help her in such +work; yet as long as the floor was bare she had kept it as spotless and +nearly as white as new fallen snow. When the matting had been laid, +Eddie took her beautiful worn hands in his and kissed first one and then +the other. + +"No more scrubbing of the sitting-room floor, dear hands," he playfully +said. + +In addition to the matting there were in the way of furnishings only a +few chairs, some book-shelves, a picture or two, vases for flowers, some +sea-shells, and, of course, Edgar's desk. Above the desk hung the +pencil-sketch of "Helen" from which somehow, he was always able to draw +inspiration. Sometimes the wings of his imagination would droop, his pen +would halt. In desperation he would look up at the picture.--Could it be +(he would ask himself) that her spirit had come to dwell in this +representation of her which he had made from memory? Her eyes seemed to +look at him through the eyes in the picture--the past came back to him +as it sometimes did when the mingled scent of magnolias and roses on +the summer night air placed him back beneath her window. + +From this portrait of the lovely dead upon the wall, from the miniature +of the lovely dead that he carried always next his heart, and from the +lovely being who walked, in life, by his side, but toward whose bosom +death had this long time pointed a warning finger, came all his +inspiration in the new, as in each of the old homes. + +Upstairs, close under the sloping roof, was the bare bed-room, barer +than the one below--for there was no checked matting upon the floor, and +there were only such pieces of furniture as were an absolute necessity; +but against a small window in the end of the room leaned a great +cherry-tree. The windows were open and the faint fragrance of the +blossoms floated in with the song and gossip of the nesting birds. Edgar +and Virginia laughed together like happy children and told each other +that they would "play" that their room under the roof was a nest in the +tree--which was so much more poetical than living in an attic. + +And roundabout the cottage on the green hill, with its screen of +blossoming cherry trees and (hardby) its dusky grove of Heaven-kissing +pines, and its views of the river and walk leading to the stone-arched +bridge, the three who lived for each other only had erelong +reconstructed the wonderful dream-valley--the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass. + +And the cottage at Fordham became a Mecca to the "literati of New York," +even as the cottage at Spring Garden had been a Mecca to the literati of +Philadelphia. Among those who made pilgrimages thither were many of the +"starry sisterhood of poetesses"--chief of whom was the fair Frances +Osgood. Yet in his retirement The Dreamer enjoyed for the first time +since he had left Spring Garden long intervals of relief from company, +and in the pine-wood and on the bridge overlooking the river, he found +what his soul had long hungered for--silence and solitude. Under their +influence he conceived the idea of a new work--a more ambitious work +than anything he had hitherto attempted--a work in the form of a prose +poem upon no less subject than "The Universe," whose deep secrets it was +designed to reveal, with the title "Eureka!" + + * * * * * + +Ah, Dreamer, could we but call the curtain here!--Could we but leave you +in your cottage on the hill-top, overlooking the river, with the trees +full of blossom and music about it, and the wood inviting your fancy, +where as you pace back and forth with your hands clasped behind you your +great deep eyes are filled with the mellow light that illumines them +when they are turned inward exploring the treasures of your brain--leave +you deep in the high joy of meditation upon God's Universe! + +But "the play is the tragedy, 'Man,'" and it is only for the dread +"Conqueror" to give the word, "Curtain down--lights out!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +All too soon the Wolf scratched at the door of the cottage on Fordham +Hill. All too soon the shadow that had so often enveloped the +rose-embowered cottage in Spring Garden--the shadow from the wing of the +Angel of Death--fell upon the cottage among the cherry trees. + +The Dreamer sat before his desk under the picture of "Helen," for hours +and hours, or when Virginia was too ill to be up, at a little table +beside her bed in the chamber which was like a nest in a tree. In fair +weather and foul the stately figure and sorrowful eyes of Mother Clemm +were to be seen upon the streets of New York as she went about offering +the narrow rolls of manuscript for sale as fast as they were finished, +or trying to collect the little, over-due checks from those already sold +and published. Yet, with all they could do, had it not been for the +generous gifts of friends the three must needs have succumbed to cold +and hunger. And all the time the poison that fell from Rufus Griswold's +tongue was at work. Even the visits of the angels of mercy who +ministered to him and his invalid wife in this their darkest hour were +made, by the working of this poison, to appear as things of evil. How +was one of the furtive eye and the black heart of a Rufus Griswold to +understand love of woman of which reverence was a chief ingredient? + +These ministering angels--Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Gove, Mrs. Marie Louise +Shew, and others whose love for the racked and broken Dreamer and for +herself Virginia so perfectly understood--Virginia the guileless, with +her sense for spiritual things and her warm, responsive heart--brought +to the cottage not only encouragement and sympathy, but medicines and +delicacies which were offered in such manner that even one of Edgar +Poe's sensitive pride could accept them without shame. + +Summer passed, and autumn, and winter drew on--filling the dwellers in +Fordham cottage with fear of they knew not what miseries. There had been +ups and downs; there had been happiness and woe; there had been times of +strength and times of weakness--of weakness when The Dreamer, unable to +hold out in the desperate battle of life as he knew it; hungry, cold and +heartbroken at the sight of his wife with that faraway look in her eyes, +had fallen--had sought and found forgetfulness only to know a horrible +awakening that was despair and that was oftentimes accompanied by +illness. Now, there was added to every thing else the knowledge that +she--his wife--his heartsease flower, and the Mother, in spite of all +his striving for them, were objects of charity. + +When some of his friends, in the kindness of their hearts, published in +one of the papers an appeal to the admirers of Edgar Poe's work for aid +for him and his family in their distress, he came out in a proud denial +of their need for aid. The need was great enough, God knows!--but the +pitiful exposure was more painful than the pangs of cold and hunger. + + * * * * * + +At last the day drew near of whose approach all who had visited the +cottage knew but of which they had schooled themselves not to think. + +January 1847 was waning. For many days the ground had not been seen. The +branches of the cherry trees gleamed--not with flowers, but with +icicles--as they leaned against the windows of the bed-chamber under +the roof. Sometimes as the winter blast stirred them, they knocked +against the panes with a sound the knuckles of a skeleton might have +made. There was not the slightest suggestion of the soft-voiced "Ligeia" +in that harsh, horrible sound. + +Upon the bed the girl-wife lay well nigh as still and as white as the +snow outside. Now and again she coughed--a weak, ghostly sort of cough. +Over her wasted body, in addition to the thin bed-clothing, lay her +husband's old military cape. Against her breast nestled Catalina, +purring contentedly while she kept the heart of her mistress warm a +little longer. Near the foot of her bed the Mother sat--a more perfect +picture than ever of the Mater Dolorosa--chafing the tiny cold feet; at +the head her husband bent over her and chafed her hands. About the room, +but not near enough to intrude upon the sacred grief of the stricken +mother and husband, sat several of the good women whose friendship had +been the mainstay of the three. Through the window, gaining brilliance +from the ice-laden branches outside, fell the rays of the setting sun, +glorifying the room and the bed. Scarce a word was spoken, but upon the +request of the dying girl for music one of the visitors began to sing in +low, tremulous tones, the beautiful old hymn, "Jerusalem the Golden." To +the man, bowed beneath his woe as it had been a physical weight, the +words came as a knell, and a blacker despair than ever settled upon his +wild eyes and haggard face. To his dying wife they were a promise--the +smile upon her lip and the look of wonder in her eyes showed that she +was already beholding the glories of which the old hymn told. + +And so wandered her spirit out of the cold and the want and the gloom +that had darkened and chilled the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, into +the regions of "bliss beyond compare." + +But her husband, left behind, was as the man in his own story, +"Silence," who sat upon a rock--the gray and ghastly rock of +"Desolation." "With his brow lofty with thought and his eyes wild with +care and the fables of sorrow and weariness and disgust with mankind +written in furrows upon his cheek," he sat upon the lonely grey rock and +leaned his head upon his hand and looked out upon the desolation. She +was no more--no more!--the maiden who lived with no other thought than +to love and be loved by him;--his wife--in all the storm and stress of +his troubled life his true heartsease! + +Out of the desolation he perceived a thing that was formless, that was +invisible--but that was appalling--_silence_. Silence that made him +shrink and quake--he that had loved, had longed for silence! Silence +would crush him now. And solitude!--how often he had craved it! He had +solitude a plenty now. + +Like a hunted animal, he looked about for a refuge from the Silence and +the Solitude that gave him chase, but he knew that however fast he might +flee they would be hard on his heels. + +How white she was--and how still! Nevermore to hear the sounds of her +low sweet voice, nevermore to hear her merry laughter, nevermore her +light foot-step that--like her voice and her laugh--was music to his +ears! Nevermore!--for she was wrapped in the Silence--the last great +silence of all. + +Nevermore would she sit beside him as he worked, or plant flowers about +the door, or lay her hand in his and explore with him the wonderful +dream-valley; nevermore lay her sweet lips upon his or raise the +snow-white lids from her eyes and shine on him from under their long, +jetty fringes. Henceforth a Solitude as vast as the Silence would be his +portion. + +Their sweet friend Marie Louise Shew robed her for the tomb and over the +snow they bore her to rest in a vault in the village churchyard. + +Then, for many weeks Edgar Poe lay in the bed-chamber under the roof, +desperately ill--for the most part unconscious. The mother bereaved of +her child had no time to give herself over to mourning, for as she had +wrestled with death for the possession of a son when he was first given +into her keeping, even more fiercely did she wrestle now that he must be +son and daughter too. The kind friends who had made Virginia's last days +comfortable aided her in the battle, and finally the victory was +won,--pale, shaken, wraith-like, the personification of woe made +beautiful--The Dreamer came forth into the air of heaven once more, and +as spring opened was to be seen, as of old, walking among the pines or +beside the river. + +And ever and anon his clear-cut, chastened features and his great, +solemn eyes were turned skyward--especially at night when the heavens +were sown with stars; for from some one of those bright worlds, +peradventure, would she whose absence made the Solitude and the Silence +be looking down upon him. And as he gazed and dreamed, high thoughts +took form in his brain--thoughts of the "Material and Spiritual +Universe; its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition +and its Destiny,"--thoughts to be made into a book dedicated to "Those +who feel rather than to those who think--to the dreamers and those who +put faith in dreams as in the only realities"--thoughts for his +projected work, "Eureka!" Out of the Silence and the Solitude came the +development and completion of this strange prose poem. + +Like an uneasy spirit he wandered, night and day, up and down the river +bank, in the wood or in the churchyard that held the tomb of his +Virginia. + +Meanwhile the Mother still kept the cottage bright. She asked no +questions when he went forth, night or day, or when he came in, night or +day; but her heart bled for him and sometimes when he would throw +himself into a deep chair and sit by the hour, seemingly staring at +nothing, but really (she knew by the harassed and brooding look in the +great, deep eyes) "dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream +before," she would steal gently to his side and with her long, slim, +expressive fingers stroke the large brow until natural sleep brought +respite from painful memories. Her ministrations were grateful to him, +yet he was barely conscious of her presence. Not even for her, and far +less for any other human being, did he feel kinship at this time. His +vision, when not turned within, looked far beyond human companionship to +the wonders of the universe--the stars and the mountains and the forests +and the rivers; but his only real companion was his own stricken heart. +Many times he said to his heart in the prophetic words of his fantastic +creation, "Morella," + +"Thy days henceforth shall be days of sorrow--that sorrow which is the +most lasting of impressions as the cypress is the most enduring of +trees. For the hours of thy happiness are over, and joy is not gathered +twice in a lifetime as the roses of Paestum twice in a year." + +Yet as the back is fitted to the burden and the wind tempered to the +shorn lamb, so again, as in his early griefs, the sorrow of The Dreamer +was not all pain, there was an element of beauty--of poetry--in it that +made it possible to be endured. Out of the depths of the Solitude and +the Silence he said to his soul, + +"It is a happiness to wonder--it is a happiness to dream." And more than +ever before in his life his whole existence had become a dream--the +realities being mere shadows. + +To dream, to wonder, to work; to work, to wonder, to dream--thus were +the hours, the hours of sorrow, spent. The hours of which the poet lost +all count, for between his dreams and his work so intensely full were +the hours of vivid mental living that each day was as a lifetime in +itself. + +And as he wandered under the pines or along the river, wrapped in his +dreams and wondering thoughts of heaven and earth, or leaned from the +window of the chamber under the low sloping roof--the chamber that had +been the chamber of death--and looked beyond the embowering cherry trees +upon the sky; or at dead of night sat under his lamp pondering over his +books--always, everywhere, he listened--listened for the voice and the +foot-falls of Virginia as he had listened in his earlier days for the +voice and the footfalls of the mythical "Ligeia." For had she not +promised that she would watch over him in spirit and, if possible, give +him frequent indications of her presence--sighing upon him in the +evening winds or filling the air which he breathed with perfume from the +censers of the angels? + +And her promises were faithfully kept, for often as he listened he heard +the sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels, and streams of +a holy perfume floated about him, and when his heart beat heavily the +winds that bathed his brow came to him laden with soft sighs, and +indistinct murmurs filled the night air. + + * * * * * + +And so the green spring and the flowery summer passed, and autumn drew +on. + +Then came a day of days--a soft October day when merely to exist was to +be happy and to hope. And new life, like some sweet, rejuvenating +cordial seemed to enter and course through the veins of The Dreamer and +for the first time since the Silence and the Solitude had enveloped the +cottage he laughed as he flung wide the windows of the chamber that had +been the chamber of death, to let in the day. And as he looked forth he +said, again quoting the words of his "Morella," + +"The winds lie still in heaven. There is a dim moisture over all the +earth and a warm glow upon the waters, and upon the forest a rainbow--a +bow of promise--from the firmament has surely fallen. It is not a day +for sorrow but for joy, for it is a day out of Aidenn itself, and I feel +that ere it has passed I shall hold sweeter, more real communion with +her that is in Aidenn than ever before." + +He went forth and wandered through the radiance of that perfect day +hours on hours, and as he paced the solemn aisles of the pine wood, or +strolled along the river walk which was veiled in a golden haze and +carpeted thick with the yellow and crimson and brown leaves of October, +he heard, clearly, the sound of the swinging of the censers of the +angels, as his senses were bathed in the holy perfume, and the zephyrs +that blew about his brow were laden with audible sweet murmurs. + +As evening fell a pleasant languor possessed his limbs--a wholesome +weariness from his long wanderings--and he lay down upon a bank littered +with fallen leaves and slept. And as he slept in the fading light, the +spirit of Virginia approached him more nearly--more tangibly--than ever +before; and finally, when the red sun had sunk into the river, and when +the afterglow in the sky and the rainbow that lay upon the forest were +alike blotted out by the shadows of night, and the moon--a lustrous blur +through the haze--wandered uncertainly up the sky, she drew nearer and +nearer, and pressed a fluttering kiss--such a kiss as a butterfly might +bestow upon a flower--upon his lips; then, sighing, drew away. + +The sleeper awoke with a start--a start of heavenly bliss followed by +instant pain--for as he peered into the night he saw that he was +alone--with the Silence and the Solitude. The winds lay still in heaven +and bore him no whisper or sigh. The perfume from the censers of the +angels still filled the air, but he was conscious of a great void--a +pain unbearable. The kiss had awakened a thousand thronging memories; +the kiss had robbed of their charm the elusive perfume, and the ghostly +whisper of fluttering garments, and the shadowy foot-falls, and the +faint, faraway sighs. Henceforth these would cease to satisfy. The kiss +had made him know the want of his heart for love and companionship, such +as the living Virginia had given him. + +He listened and listened, but the winds lay still in heaven, and he was +alone with the Silence--the dread Silence--and the heart-hunger, and the +despair. + +Then he arose from his bed of withered and sere leaves and as one +distraught, wandered through the shadows of the misty, weird night. In +the wood and by the waters he wandered, while the night wore on and the +moon held its way--still a lustrous blur in the heavens. + +On, on he wandered, seeking peace for his soul and finding none, till +the moon was out and the stars fainted in the twilight of the +approaching day, when lo, above the end of the path through the wood, +the morning star--"Astarte's bediamonded crescent"--arose upon his +vision! + +And as he gazed with wonder and delight upon the beautiful star, hope +was born anew in his heart, for he said, + +"It is the Star of Love!" + +He that had always looked for signs in the skies, had he not found one? +What could it mean, this rising of the Star of Love upon the hour of his +bitterest need but a sign of hope, of peace? + +Vainly did his soul upbraid him and warn him not to trust the beacon--to +fly from its alluring light and cast aside its spell. All deaf to the +warning, he eagerly followed the star which promised renewal of hope and +love and relief from the Solitude and the Silence--the desolation that +the kiss had made so real and intolerable. + +But alas, as he wandered on and on, his eyes upon the star, his feet +following blindly, without marking the path into which they had turned, +his progress was suddenly checked. Through the misty twilight of the +approaching dawn there loomed an obstacle to his steps. It was with +horror unspeakable that he recognized the vault in which lay, in her +last sleep, his loved Virginia.... + + "Then his heart it grew ashen and sober + As the leaves that were crispéd and sere,-- + As the leaves that were withering and sere!" + +The Star of Love was fading in the eastern sky and through the ghostly +dawn he turned and fled aghast to the cottage among the cherry trees. + + * * * * * + +Mother Clemm who had lain waiting and watching for him all night arose +from her uneasy couch when she heard the latch of the gate lifted, and +opened the door. He came in and walked past her like a wraith. His eyes +were wild, his face was bloodless and haggard, his hair damp and +disordered. The Mother's eyes were filled with dumb pain. He suffered +her to take his hand in hers and to gaze into his eyes with pity and +even raised the hand that held his own to his lips, as though to +reassure her; but he spake no word--made no attempt at explanation--and +she asked no questions. + +For a moment he remained beside her, then straight to his desk he walked +and began arranging writing materials before him, while she disappeared +into the kitchen and started a blaze under a pot of coffee that stood +upon the little stove. + +He wrote rapidly--furiously--without pausing for thought or for the +fastidious choice of words that was apt to make him halt frequently in +the act of composition, and the words that he wrote were the wild +words--wild, but beautiful and moving as an echo from Israfel's own +lute--of the poem, "Ulalume:" + + "The skies they were ashen and sober; + The leaves they were crispéd and sere,-- + The leaves they were withering and sere,-- + It was night in the lonesome October + Of my most immemorial year." + + * * * * * + +After that eventful night a change came over him that sat upon the Rock +of Desolation. The Solitude and the Silence still enfolded him, but the +Star of Love had arisen in his firmament, ushering in a new day and new +hope to his soul. And he no longer trembled as he sat upon the rock, but +with new energy he worked and with exceeding patience he waited. And as +he worked interest in life returned to him, and ambition returned. + +One day he copied "Ulalume" upon a long, narrow slip of paper and rolled +it into one of the tight little rolls that all the editors knew and +Mother Clemm made a pilgrimage to the city especially on account of it. +First she tried it at _The Union Magazine_, which promptly rejected it. +It was too "queer" the editor said. But _The American Review_ agreed to +take it and to print it without signature--for this poem must be +published anonymously, if at all, the poet insisted. It soon afterward +appeared and Mr. Willis copied it into the next number of _The Home +Journal_ with complimentary editorial comment. + +The result was a new sensation--the reader everywhere declared himself +to be brought under a magic spell by the words of this remarkable +poem--though he frankly owned that he did not in the least understand +them; which was as Edgar Poe intended. + + * * * * * + +Even the old dream of founding a magazine returned and possessed him as +it had so often possessed him before. It was in the interest of the +magazine, which he still proposed to name _The Stylus_, that he +determined to give his new work, "Eureka!" as a lecture, in various +places. He did give it once--in New York--coming out of his seclusion +for the first time, upon a frosty February night. The rhapsody, +delivered in his low but musical and dramatic tones, thrilled his +audience, but it was a small audience, and when soon afterward, the work +was published by the _Putnams_ it was a small number of copies that was +sold. + +And again Edgar Poe was desperately poor. Yet he had seen the Star of +Love--"Astarte's bediamonded crescent"--usher in a new morning; and he +waited and worked in hope. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +Autumn with its enchanted October night, and winter filled with work and +spent in deep seclusion at Fordham, and spring with its revival of plans +for _The Stylus_, and the appearance of "Eureka!" as a book, and its +author's return to the world as a lecturer, slipped by. + +About midsummer The Dreamer lay a night in the old town of Providence. +It was a warm night and the window of his room was open--letting in a +flood of light from the full moon. He leaned from the window which +looked upon a plot of flowers whose many odors rising, enveloped him in +incense sweet as the incense from the censers of the angels when the +spirit of his Virginia was near. But it was not of Virginia that the +fragrance told him tonight. Something about the blended odors, combined +with the sensuous warmth of the night and the light of the moon, +transported him suddenly, magically, back through the years to his +boyhood and to the little room in the Allan cottage on Clay Street, +hanging, like this room, over a space of flowers--the night following +the day when he had first seen Rob Stanard's mother. + +Back, back into the long dead past he wandered! The broken and jaded +Edgar Poe was dreaming again the dream of the fresh, enthusiastic boy, +Edgar Poe. + +How every incident of that day and night stood out in his memory! He +could feel again the wonder that he felt when he saw the beautiful +"Helen" standing against the arbor-vitæ in the garden; could see her +graceful approach to meet and greet him--the lonely orphan boy--could +hear her gracious words in praise of his mother while she held his hand +in both her own. As he lived it all over again, with the silver +moonlight enfolding him and the breath of the flowers filling his +nostrils, a clock somewhere in the house struck the night's noon hour. +He started--even so it had been that other night in the long past. He +half believed that if he should go forth into this night as he had gone +into that he should see once more the lady of his dream, with the lamp +in her hand, framed in the ivy-wreathed window, and seeing, worship as +he had worshipped then. + +Scarce knowing what he did, he arose and hurrying down the stair was in +the street. The streets were strange to him but there was a pleasant +sense of adventure in wandering through them--he knew not whither--and +the sweet airs of the flowers were everywhere. + +Suddenly he stopped. While all the town slept there was one beside +himself, who kept vigil. Clad all in white, she half reclined upon a +violet bank in an old garden where the moon fell on the upturned faces +of a thousand roses and on her own, "upturned,--alas, in sorrow!" + +Faint with the beauty and the poetry of the scene he leaned upon the +gate of the + + "enchanted garden + Where no wind dared to stir unless on tiptoe." + +He dared not speak or give any sign of his presence, but he gazed and +gazed until to his entranced eyes it seemed that + + "The pearly lustre of the moon went out: + The mossy banks and the meandering paths-- + The happy flowers and the repining trees-- + Were seen no more." + +All was lost to his vision-- + + "Save only the divine light in those eyes-- + Save but the soul in those uplifted eyes." + + * * * * * + +He continued to gaze until the moon disappeared behind a bank of cloud +and he watched the white-robed figure glide away like "a ghost amid the +entombing trees." Yet still (it seemed to him) the eyes remained. They +lighted his lonely footsteps home that night and he told himself that +they would light him henceforth, through the years. + +Nearly a year had passed since that October night when the Star of Love +ushering in a new morning had prophesied to him of new hope--nearly a +year through which he had waited patiently, but not in vain. The time +had evidently come for the prophecy to be fulfilled and Fate had led him +to this town and the spot in this town where she that was to be (he was +convinced) the hope, the guide, the savior, of his "lonesome latter +years" awaited him. + +Who was she?-- + +So spirit-like, so ethereal, she seemed, as robed in white and veiled in +silvery moon-beams she sat among the slumbering roses, and as she was +gathered into the shadows of the entombing trees, that she might almost +have been the "Lady Ligeia." Yet he knew that she was not. The "Lady +Ligeia" had been but the creation of his own brain. Very fair she had +been to his dreaming vision, very sweet her companionship had been to +his imagination--sufficient for all the needs of his being in his +youthful days when sorrow was but a beautiful sentiment, when "terror +was not fright, but a tremulous delight" but how was such an one as she +to bind up the broken heart of a man? It was the _human_ element in the +eyes of her that sat among the roses that enchained him. +Ethereal--spirit-like--as she was, the eyes upturned in sorrow were the +eyes of no spirit, but of a woman; from them looked a human soul with +the capacity and the experience to offer sympathy meet for human +needs--the needs even, of a broken-hearted man. + +How dark the woe!--how sublime the hope!--how intense the pride!--how +daring the ambition!--how deep, how fathomless the capacity for +love!--that looked (as from a window) from those eyes upturned in +sorrow, in the moonlight while all the town slept! + +Who was she?--this lady of sorrows. And by what sweet name was she known +to the citizens of this old town?--Surely Fate that had brought her to +the bank of violets beneath the moon--Fate that had led him to her +garden gate, would in Fate's own time reveal! + + * * * * * + +As Helen Whitman flitted as noiselessly as the ghost she seemed to be up +the dark stairway to her chamber, and without closing the casement that +admitted the moonlight and the garden's odors, lay down upon her +canopied bed, she trembled. What was it that she had been aware of in +the garden?--that presence--that consciousness of communion between her +spirit and his upon whom all her thoughts had dwelt of late? Herself a +poet, from her earliest knowledge of the work of Edgar Poe she had +seemed to feel a kinship between her mind and his such as she had known +in regard to no other. She had followed his career step by step, and out +of the many sorrows of her own life had been born deep sympathy for him. +Since his last, greatest blow, she had more than ever mourned with him +in spirit, for she too was widowed--she too had sat upon the Rock of +Desolation and knew the Silence and the Solitude. + +She and The Dreamer had at least one mental trait in common--a tendency +toward spiritualism--a more than half belief in the communion of the +spirits of the dead with those of the living and of those of the living +with each other. + +What had led her into the moonlit garden when all the world slept? + +She knew not. She only knew that she had felt an impelling influence--a +call to her spirit--to come out among the slumbering roses. She had not +questioned nor sought to define it. She had heard it, and she had +obeyed. And then the presence!-- + +She had never seen Edgar Poe, yet she felt that he had been there in the +spirit, if not in the flesh--she had felt his eyes upon her eyes and she +had half expected him to step from the shadows around her and to say, + +"I, upon whom your thoughts have dwelt--I, who am the comrade and the +complement of your inner life--I, whose spirit called to you ere you +came into the garden--I am here." + + * * * * * + +It was almost immediately upon The Dreamer's return to Fordham, and when +he was still under the spell of the night at Providence, that the +identity of the lady of the garden was revealed to him, in a manner +seemingly accidental, but which he felt to be but another manifestation +of the divinity that shapes our ends. Some casual words concerning the +appearance and character of Mrs. Whitman, spoken by a casual visitor, +lifted the curtain. + +So the lady of the garden was Helen Whitman! whose poetry had impressed +him favorably and whose acquaintance he had desired. Helen +Whitman--_Helen_! As he repeated the name his heart stood still,--even +in her name he heard the voice of Fate. _Helen_--the name of the good +angel of his boyhood! Were his dreams of "Morella" and of "Ligeia" to +come true? Was he to know in reality the miracle he had imagined and +written of in these two phantasies?--the reincarnation of personal +identity? Was he in this second Helen, in this second garden, to find +again the worshipped Helen of his boyhood? + +He turned to the lines he had written so long ago, in Richmond, when he +had gone forth into the midsummer moonlight, even as he had gone forth +in Providence, and had worshipped under a window, even as he had +worshipped at a garden gate. He read the first two stanzas through. + +As he read he gave himself up to an overwhelming sense of fatality. +Could anything be more fitting--more descriptive? The end of the days of +miracles was not yet--this _was_ his "Helen of a thousand dreams!" + +His impulse was to seek an introduction at once, but this seemed too +tamely conventional. Besides--he was in the hands of Fate--he dared not +stir. Fate, having so clearly manifested itself, would find a way. + +His correspondence was always heavy. Letters, clippings from papers and +so forth, came to him by every post from friends and from enemies, with +and without signatures. Yet from all the mass, he knew at once that the +"Valentine," unsigned as it was, was from her. + +By way of acknowledgment, he turned down a page of a copy of "The Raven +and Other Poems" at the lines, "To Helen," and mailed it to her. He +waited in anxious suspense for a reply, but the lady was coy. Days +passed and still no answer. The desire for communication with her became +irresistible and taking pen and paper he wrote at the top of the page, +even as long ago he had written, the words, "To Helen," and underneath +wrote a new poem especially for this new Helen in which he described the +vision of her in the garden (but placing it in the far past) and his +feelings as he gazed upon her: + + "I saw thee once--once only--years ago; + I must not say _how_ many--but not many. + + * * * * * + + Clad all in white, upon a violet bank + I saw thee half reclining; while the moon + Fell on the upturned faces of the roses, + And on thine own, upturned,--alas in sorrow! + Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-- + Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow) + That bade me pause before that garden-gate + To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? + No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept, + Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!--oh, God! + How my heart beats in coupling those two words!) + Save only thee and me!" ... + +The paper trembled in the hands--tiny and spirit-like--of Helen Whitman. +Her soul answered emphatically, + +"It _is_ Fate!" + +So he had been there in the flesh--near her--in the shadows of that +mystic night! The presence was no creation of an overwrought +imagination. It was Fate. + +Tremulously she penned her answer to his appeal, but was it Fate again, +which caused the letter to miscarry? It reached him finally, in +Richmond--_Richmond_, of all places!--whither he had gone to deliver to +audiences of his old friends, his lecture upon "The Poetic Principle," +in the interest of the establishment of his magazine, _The Stylus_. What +could have been more fitting than that the gracious words of "Helen of a +thousand dreams" should come to him in Richmond? + + * * * * * + +Not many days later and he was under her own roof in Providence. + +He waited in the dimness of her curtained drawing-room, ear strained for +the first sound of her footstep. Noiselessly as a sunbeam or a shadow +she entered the room, her gauzy white draperies floating about her +slight figure as she came, while his great eyes drank in with reverent +joy each detail of her ethereal loveliness--her face, the same he had +seen in the garden, pale as a pearl and as softly radiant, and framed in +clustering dark ringlets which escaped in profusion from the confinement +of a lacy widow's cap--the tremulous mouth--the eyes, mysterious and +unearthly, from which the soul looked out. + +For one moment she paused in the doorway, her hand pressed upon her +wildly beating heart--then, with hesitating step advanced to meet him. +Her words of greeting were few, and so low and faltering as to be quite +unintelligible, but the tones of her voice fell on his ear like +strangely familiar music. + +The man spoke no word. As her eyes rested for one brief moment upon his, +then fell before the intensity of his gaze, he was conscious of +spiritual influences beyond the reach of reason. In a tremulous ecstacy +he bent and pressed his lips upon the hand that lay within his own and +it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from falling upon his +knees before her in actual worship. + +Three evenings of "all heavenly delight" he spent in her +companionship--sometimes in the seclusion and dusk of her quiet +drawing-room, sometimes walking among the roses in her garden, or among +the mossy tombs in the town cemetery--their sympathetic natures finding +expression in such conversation as poets delight in. Under the +intoxicating spell of her presence all other dreams passed, for the +time, into nothingness and he passionately cried, + +"Helen, I love now--_now_--for the first and only time!" + +Yet he was poor, and the weaknesses which had caused him to fall in the +past might cause him to fall in the future. How could he plead for a +return of his love? + +His very self-abasement made his plea more strong. Still, she did not +yield too suddenly. True, she too, was under the spell, but she resisted +it. As he found his voice, and his eloquence filled the room a +restlessness possessed her. Now she sat quite still by his side, now +rose and wandered about the apartment--now stood with her hand resting +upon the back of his chair while his nearness thrilled her. + +There were objections, she told him--she was older than he. + +"Has the soul age, Helen?" he answered her. "Can immortality regard +time? Can that which began never and shall never end consider a few +wretched years of its incarnate life? Do you not perceive that it is my +diviner nature--my spiritual being, that burns and pants to commingle +with your own?" + +She urged her frail health as an objection. + +For that he would love--worship her--the more, he said. He plead for her +pity upon his loneliness--his sorrows--and swore that he would comfort +and soothe her in hers, through life, and when death should come, +joyfully go down with her into the night of the grave. + +Finally he appealed to her ambition. + +"Was I right, Helen, in my first impression of you?--in the impression +that you are ambitious? If so, and if you will have faith in me, I can +and will satisfy your wildest desires. Would it not be glorious to +establish in America, the sole unquestionable aristocracy--that of the +intellect--to secure its supremacy--to lead and control it?" + +Still the _yes_ that so often seemed trembling upon her lips was not +spoken. She received his almost daily letters and his frequent visits, +listened to his rapturous love-making--trembling, blushing, letting him +see that she was under the spell, that she loved him. Indeed she could +not have helped his seeing it had she wished; but when he spoke of +marriage she hesitated--tantalizing him to the point of madness, almost. + +What was it that held her back?--She too, believed that it was the hand +of Fate that had brought them together--that they were pre-ordained to +cheer each other's latter years, to establish that intellectual +aristocracy of which he dreamed. Yet she shrank from taking the step. +When his great solemn eyes were upon her, his beautiful face pale and +haggard with excess of feeling, turned toward her, his eloquent words of +love in her ears, she sat as one entranced--bewitched; yet she would not +give the word he longed for--the word of willingness to embark with him +upon the sea of life. _Fear_ checked her. Such an uncharted sea it +seemed to her--she dared not say him yea! + +The truth was the poison was working--the Griswold poison. The wildest +rumors came to her ears of the worse than follies of her lover. She knew +that they were at least, overdrawn--possibly altogether false--yet they +frightened her. + +"Do you know Helen Whitman?" wrote one of The Dreamer's enemies to Dr. +Griswold. "Of course you have heard it rumored that she is to marry Poe. +Well, she has seemed to me a good girl and--you know what Poe is. Has +Mrs. Whitman no friend in your knowledge that can faithfully explain Poe +to her?" + +But Rufus Griswold had already "explained Poe" to those whom he knew +would take pains to pass the explanation on to "Helen"--had dropped the +poison where he reckoned it would work with the greatest speed and +effect. The explanation, with the usual indirectness of a Griswold, was +sugared with a compliment. + +"Poe has great intellectual power," he said with emphasis, "_great_ +intellectual power, but," he added, with a sidelong glance of the +furtive eye and a confidential drop in the voice, "but--he has no +principle--no moral sense." + +The poison reached the destination for which it was intended--the ears +of Helen Whitman--in due course, and it terrified her as had none of +the rumors she had heard before. Still her lover floundered in the +dark--baffled--wondering--not able to make her out. Why did she +tantalize him--torture him, thus?--keeping him dangling between Heaven +and hell?--he asked himself, and he asked her, over and over again. He +became more and more convinced that there was a reason,--what was it? + +Finally she gave it to him in its baldness and its brutality, just as it +had come to her--wrote it to him in a letter. It brought him a rude +awakening from his dream of bliss. That such a charge should be brought +against him at all was bitter enough, but that it could be repeated to +him by "Helen" seemed unbelievable. + +"You do not love me," he sadly wrote in reply, "or you would not have +written these terrible words." Then he swore a great oath: "By the God +who reigns in Heaven, I swear to you that my soul is incapable of +dishonor--that with the exception of occasional follies and excesses +which I bitterly lament, but to which I have been driven by intolerable +sorrow, I can call to mind no act of my life which would bring a blush +to my cheek--or to yours." + +He followed the letter with a visit--again throwing himself at her feet +and thrilling her with his eloquence and with the magic of his +personality. + +She gave him a half promise and said she would write to him in Lowell, +where he had engaged to deliver a lecture. + +In this town was a roof-tree which was a haven of rest to The Dreamer. +Beneath it dwelt his friend and confidant, "Annie" Richmond--his soul's +sweet "sister," as he loved to call her. And there he waited with a +chastened joy, for he felt assured that the long wished for _yes_ was +about to be said, yet dared not give himself over prematurely, to the +ecstacy that would soon be his. In the pleasant, friendly family circle +of the Richmonds, he sat during those chill November evenings, seeing +pictures in the glowing fire, as he held sweet "Annie's" sympathetic +hand in his, while the only sound that broke the silence was the ticking +of the grandfather's clock in a shadowy corner. + +Thus quietly, patiently, he waited. + + * * * * * + +But in Providence the Griswold poison was at work. All the friends and +relatives of "Helen" were possessed of full vials of it--which they +industriously poured into her ears. Against it the recollection of the +night in the garden and her belief that Fate had ordained her union with +the poet, had no avail. The letter that she sent her lover was more +non-committal--colder--than any he had received from her before, yet +there was still enough of indecision in it to keep him tantalized. In a +state of mind well nigh distraction, he bade "Annie" and her cheerful +fireside farewell and set his face toward Providence; but he went in a +dream--the demon Despair, possessing him. + +Unstrung, unmanned, almost bereft of reason, his old dissatisfaction +with himself and the world overtook him--a longing to be out of it all, +for forgetfulness, for peace, yea, even the peace of the grave,--why +not? + +A passionate longing--a homesickness--for the sure, the steadfast, the +unvariable love of his beautiful Virginia consumed him. Oh, if he could +but lie down and sleep and forget until one sweet day he should wake in +the land where she awaited him, and where they would construct anew, and +for eternity, the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass! + +He listened.... For the first time since the Star of Love had ushered in +a new day in his life, he heard the swinging of the censers of the +angels--he inhaled the incense--he heard the voice of Virginia in the +sighing wind. She seemed to call to him. + +"I am coming, Heartsease!" he whispered as he quaffed the potion that he +reckoned would bear him to her. + + * * * * * + +But it was not to be. When he awaked, weak and ill, but sane, he found +himself with friends. Calmness and strength returned and with them, +horror at the deed he had so nearly committed, and deep contrition. + +With all haste he again presented himself at the door of "Helen," +beseeching her to marry him at once and save him, as he believed she +only could, from himself. And the consequences of her indecision making +her more alarmed for him than she had formerly been for herself, she +agreed to an engagement, though not to immediate marriage. + +He returned to Fordham and to faithful Mother Clemm a wreck of his +former self, but engaged to be married! + +Yet he was not happy--a new horror possessed him. As in the night when +the Star of Love first rose upon his vigil it had stopped over the door +of "a legended tomb," so now again was his pathway closed. Turn which +way he would, the tomb of Virginia seemed to frown upon him. He +remembered his promise to her that upon no other daughter of earth +would he look with the eyes of love. Vainly did he seek to justify +himself to his own heart for breaking the promise. No one could ever +supplant her, or fill the void in his life her death had made, he told +himself--this new love was something different, and in no way disturbed +her memory. + +But the tomb still stood in his way. + +"I am calm and tranquil," he wrote "Helen," "and but for a strange +shadow of coming evil which haunts me I should be happy. That I am not +supremely happy, even when I feel your dear love at my heart, terrifies +me." + +Later he wrote, + +"You say that all depends on my own firmness. If this be so all is safe. +Henceforward I am strong. But all does not depend, dear Helen, upon my +firmness--all depends upon the sincerity of your love." + + * * * * * + +A month later the skies of Providence shone brightly upon him. He +returned there, was received by Mrs. Whitman as her affianced lover, +delivered his brilliant lecture upon "The Poetic Principle" to a great +throng of enthusiastic hearers, and won a promise from his lady to marry +him at once and return with him to Fordham. He scribbled a line to +Mother Clemm notifying her to be ready to receive him and his bride and +went so far as to engage the services of a clergyman, and to sign a +marriage contract, in which Mrs. Whitman's property was made over to her +mother. + +But--just at this point a note was slipped into the hand of "Helen," +informing her that her lover had been seen drinking wine in the hotel. +When he called at her house soon afterward she received him surrounded +by her family and though there were no signs of the wine, said "no" to +him, emphatically--for the first time. + +He plead, but she remained firm--receiving his passionate words of +remonstrance with sorrowful silence, while her mother, impatient at his +persistence, showed him the door. He prayed that she would at least +speak one word to him in farewell. + +"What can I say?" she questioned. + +"Say that you love me, Helen." + +"I love you!" + +With these words in his ears he was gone. As he passed out of the gate +and out of her life he saw, or fancied he saw, through the veiled +window, a white figure beckoning to him, but his steps were sternly set +toward the opposite direction--his whole being crying within him, +"Nevermore--nevermore!" She had stretched out her spiritlike hands, but +to draw them back again, in the fashion that fascinated and at the same +time maddened him, once too often. The wave of romantic feeling which +had borne him along since his vision of her in the garden suddenly +subsided, leaving him disillusioned--cold. The reaction was so violent +that instead of the magnetic attraction she had had for him he felt +himself positively repelled by the thought of her unearthly beauty--her +mysterious eyes. + +He went straight to the depot and took the train just leaving, which +would bear him back to the cottage among the cherry trees. + +Mother Clemm, expecting him to bring home a bride, had spent the day +putting an extra touch of brightness upon the simple but already +spotless, home. A cheerful fire was in the grate; branches of holly, +cedar and such other such bits of beauty as the woods afforded were +everywhere about the house, and the Mother herself, in the snowiest of +caps with the sheerest of floating strings and a gallant look of welcome +upon her sorrowful face, stood at the window and watched for the coming +of the son that Heaven had given her, and the woman who was to take the +place of the daughter that Heaven had taken away from her. Her oak-like +nature had quailed at the thought--but it had withstood many a blast, it +could weather one more, and after all, if "Eddie" were happy--. + + * * * * * + +In the far distance a figure emerged out of the gathering dusk--a man. +Could it be Eddie?--Alone? + +Yes! It surely was he! The carriage of the head--the military cloak--the +walk--were unmistakable. + +But he was alone!--She grew weak in the knees.--The shock of joy more +nearly unnerved her than had the pain. She had braced herself to bear +the pain. + +She recovered her composure and hastened to the door just in time to be +folded into the arms of the figure in the cloak. + +"Helen?"--she queried. + +"Is dead--to me," he answered, with his arms still about her. "We will +have nothing more to say of her except this: Muddie, I have been in a +dream from which, thank God, I am now awake. In the darkness of my +loneliness--of my misery, of which you alone have the slightest +conception, I saw a light which I fancied would lead me to the love for +which my soul is starving--to the sympathy which is sweeter even than +love to the broken heart of a man. I followed it. I was deceived. It was +no real light, but a mere will o' the wisp bred in the dank tarn of +despair." + +He released her to hang up the cloak in the little entrance hall, then +taking her hand, which he raised to his lips, drew her into the sitting +room. + +"Ah, but it is good to be at home again!" he exclaimed. + +His whole manner changed; a mighty weight seemed to roll from his +shoulders as he stretched his legs before the fire. His old merry +laugh--the laugh of Edgar Goodfellow--rang out as he told "Muddie" of +the success of his lecture, in Providence,--of the great audience and +the applause. + +"Muddie," he cried, "my dream of _The Stylus_ will come true yet! A few +more such audiences and the money will be in sight! And let me add, I am +done with literary women--henceforth literature herself shall be my sole +mistress. I am more than ever convinced that the profession of letters +is the only one fit for a man of brain. There is little money in it, of +course, but I'd rather be a poor-devil author earning a bare living than +a king. Beyond a living, what does a man of brain want with money +anyhow?--Muddie, did it ever strike you that all that is really valuable +to a man of talent--especially to a poet--is absolutely +unpurchasable?--Love, fame, the dominion of intellect, the consciousness +of power, the thrilling sense of beauty, the free air of Heaven, +exercise of body and mind with the physical and moral health that these +bring;--these, and such as these are really all a poet cares about. Then +why should he mind what the world calls poverty?" + +"Why indeed?" echoed happy "Muddie." It was so delightful to have her +son back at home, and in this hopeful, contented frame, she would have +agreed with him in almost any statement he chose to make. + +He gave her loving messages from "Annie" and told her in the bright, +humorous way which was characteristic of Edgar Goodfellow, of many +pleasant little incidents of his journey. One of the nights to look back +upon and to gloat over in memory was this night by the fireside at +Fordham cottage with the Mother--a night of calm and content under the +home-roof after tempestuous wandering. + +A quiet, sweet Christmas they spent together--he reading, writing or +talking over plans for new work, while she sat by with her sewing and +Catalina dozed on the hearth. Part of every day (wrapped in the old +cape) he walked in the pine wood or beside the ice-bound river, and for +the first time since the feverish dream of new love had come to him he +was able to visit the tomb of Virginia and to dwell with happiness, and +with a clear conscience, upon her memory. During these days of serenity +a ballad suggested by thoughts of her and his life with her in the +lovely Valley of the Many-Colored Grass took form in his mind. It was no +dirge-like song of the "dank tarn of Auber," but a song of a fair +"kingdom by the sea" and in contrast to the sombre "Ulalume" he gave to +the maiden in the new poem the pleasant sounding name of "Annabel Lee." +Out of these days too, came "the Bells" and the exquisite sonnet to his +"more than Mother." + +One flash of the false light that had lured him reached The Dreamer at +Fordham. He held a letter addressed to him in the familiar handwriting +of Helen Whitman long in his hand without opening it. This flame was +burned out, he told himself--why rake its cold ashes? Yet he felt that +nothing that she could say would have power to disturb his new peace. +Still the Mother, though she kept her own counsel, trembled for herself +and for him as she was aware (without looking up from her sewing) that +he had broken the seal. Some minutes of tense stillness passed--then, + +"Shall I read you her letter?" he asked. + +"As you will." + +"Then I will!--It is in verse and the place from which she dates it is, + +"Our Island of Dreams," which she explains in a sub-heading is + + "By the foam + Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn" + +--a line which she has borrowed from Keats. This is what she writes: + + "Tell him I lingered alone on the shore, + Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet nevermore; + The night-wind blew cold on my desolate heart + But colder those wild words of doom, 'Ye must part!' + + "O'er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a cry; + Save the wail of those waters there came no reply. + I longed, like a bird, o'er the billows to flee, + From our lone island home and the moan of the sea: + + "Away,--far away--from the wild ocean shore, + Where the waves ever murmur, 'No more, nevermore,' + Where I wake, in the wild noon of midnight, to hear + The lone song of the surges, so mournful and drear. + + "Where the clouds that now veil from us heaven's fair light, + Their soft, silver lining turn forth on the night; + When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel + He shall know if I loved him; but never how well." + +Silence followed the reading of the poem-letter. Finally the mother +asked, + +"Will you go back?" + +He placed the letter upon the top of a pile in the same handwriting, +tied them together with a bit of ribbon and laid them in a small drawer +of his desk. Then, rising, he leaned over the back of "Muddie's" chair +and lightly touching her seamed forehead with his lips replied, + + "Quoth the raven, nevermore!" + +Then took up a garland of evergreen which he had been making when the +Mother came in with the mail, and set out in the direction of the +churchyard with its "legended tomb." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +Back in Richmond!--The Richmond he loved best--Richmond full of sunshine +and flowers and the sweet southern social life out of doors, in gardens +and porches; Richmond in summertime! + +In spite of the changes his observant eye marked as he rattled over the +cobblestones toward the "Swan Tavern," on Broad and Ninth Streets, he +almost felt that he was back in boyhood. It was just such a day, just +this time of year, that--as a lad of eleven--he had seen Richmond first +after his five years absence in England. + +How good it was to be back upon the sacred soil! How sweet the air was, +and how beautiful were the roses! When before, had he seen a magnolia +tree in bloom?--with its dense shade, its dark green shining foliage, +and its snow-white blossoms. Was there anything in the world so sweet as +its odor, combined with that of the roses and the other flowers that +filled the gardens? It was worth coming all the way from New York just +to see and to smell them. + +He caught glimpses of one or two familiar figures as he drove along. How +impatient he was to see his old friends--everybody--white and colored, +old and young, masculine and feminine. He could hardly wait to get to +the tavern, remove the dust of travel and sally forth upon the round of +visits he intended to make. His spirits went up--and up, and finally it +was Edgar Goodfellow in the flesh who stepped jauntily from the door of +"Swan Tavern," arrayed for hot-weather calling. In spite of the summer +temperature, he looked the personification of coolness and comfort. The +taste of prosperity his lectures had brought him was evident in his +modest but spruce apparel. He had discarded the habitual black cloth for +a coat and trousers of white linen (exquisitely laundered by Mother +Clemm's capable and loving hands) which he wore with a black velvet vest +for which he had also to thank the Mother and her skilled needle. A +broad-brimmed Panama hat shaded his pale features and the grey eyes, +which glowed with happiness. As with proudly carried head and quick, +easy gait, he bore westward up Broad Street, no single person passed him +that did not turn to look with admiration upon the handsome, +distinguished stranger, and to mentally ask "Who is he?" + +It so happened that Jack Mackenzie was the first acquaintance he met. + +"Edgar," he said, as their hands joined in affectionate grasp, "Do you +remember once, years ago, I met you in the street and you said you were +going to look for the end of the rainbow? Well, you look as if you had +found it!" + +"I have," was the reply. "An hour ago. It was here in Richmond all the +time and I didn't know it, and like a poor fool, have been wandering the +world over in a vain search for it. The trouble is, I was looking for +the wrong thing. I was looking for fame and fortune, thought of which +blinded my eyes to something far better--scenes and friendships of _lang +syne_. Jack--" he continued, as--arm in arm--the two friends made their +way up the street. "Jack, life is a great schoolmaster, but why does it +take so long to drub any sense into these blockheads of ours?" + +"Damned if I know," replied his companion, who was more truthful always +than either poetic or philosophic, "but if you mean that you've decided +to come back to Richmond to live, I'm mighty glad to hear it." + +"That's what I mean. I came only for a visit and to lecture, but made up +my mind on the way from the depot to come for good as soon as I can +arrange to do so. I think it was a magnolia tree in bloom--the first I +had seen in many a year--that decided me." + +"Well, all of your old friends will be glad to have you back; there's +one in particular that I might mention. Do you remember Elmira Royster? +She's a comely widow now, with a comfortable fortune, and she's always +had a lingering fondness for you. I advise you to hunt her up." + +The Dreamer's face clouded. + +"Women are angels, Jack," he said. "They are the salt that will save +this world, if it is to be saved, and for poor sinners like me there +would be simply no hope in either this world or the next but for them; +but they will have no more part in my life, save as friends. A true +friend of mine, however, I believe Myra is. I saw her during my brief +visit here last fall.--Ah, Rob! my boy! Howdy!" + +The two friends had turned into Sixth Street and as they drew near the +corner of Sixth and Grace, almost ran into Rob Stanard--now a prominent +lawyer and one of the leading gentlemen of the town. + +"Eddie Poe, as I'm alive!" he exclaimed, with a hearty hand-clasp. "My, +my, what a pleasure! I'm on my way home to dinner, boys. Come in, both +of you and take pot-luck with us. My wife will be delighted to see you!" + +The invitation was accepted as naturally as it was given, and the three +mounted together the steps of the beautiful house and were received in +the charmingly homelike drawing-room opening from the wide hall, by +Rob's wife, a Kentucky belle who had stepped gracefully into her place +as mistress of one of the notable homes in Virginia's capital. As she +gave her jewelled hand to Edgar Poe her handsome black eyes sparkled +with pleasure. She was not only sincerely glad to receive the friend of +her husband's boyhood, but keen appreciation of intellectual gifts made +her feel that to know him was a distinction. Some of the servants who +had known "Marse Eddie" in the old days were still of the +household--having come to Robert Stanard as part of his father's +estate--and they were to their intense gratification, pleasantly greeted +by the visitor. + +That evening--and many subsequent evenings--The Dreamer spent at "Duncan +Lodge" with the Mackenzies and their friends. A series of sunlit days +followed--days of lingering in Rob Sully's studio or in the familiar +office of _The Southern Literary Messenger_ where the editor, Mr. John +R. Thompson--himself a poet--gave him a warm welcome always, and gladly +accepted and published in _The Messenger_ anything the famous former +editor would let him have; days of wandering in the woods or by the +tumbling river he had loved as a lad; days of searching out old haunts +and making new ones. + +And everywhere he found welcome. Delightful little parties were given in +his honor, when in return for the courtesies paid him he charmed the +company by reciting "The Raven" as he alone could recite it. His +lectures upon "The Poetic Principle" and "The Philosophy of +Composition," and his readings in the assembly rooms of the Exchange +Hotel, drew the elite of the city, who sat spellbound while he, erect +and still and pale as a statue, filled their ears with the music of his +voice, and their souls with wonder at the brilliancy of his thought and +words. Subscriptions to _The Stylus_ poured in. At last, this dream of +his life seemed an assured fact. + +One door--one only in all the town did not swing wide to receive him. +The closed portal of the mansion of which he had been the proud young +master, still said to him "Nevermore"--and he always had a creepy +sensation when he passed it, which even the sight of the flower-garden +he had loved, in fullest bloom, did not overcome. + +The golden days ran into golden weeks and the weeks into months, and +still Edgar Poe was making holiday in Richmond--the first holiday he had +had since, as a youth of seventeen he had quarrelled with John Allan and +gone forth to the battle of life. In the long, long battle since then +there had been more of joy than they knew who looking on had seen the +toil and the defeat and the despair, but from whose eyes the exaltation +he had felt in the act of creation or in the contemplation of the works +of nature, and the happiness he found in his frugal home, were hidden. +But, as has been said, there had been no holiday, until now when he had +come back to Richmond an older and a sadder and a more experienced Edgar +Poe--an Edgar Poe upon whom the Silence and the Solitude had fallen and +had left shaken--broken. + +Yet that personal identity upon the mystery of which he liked to +ponder--the unquenchable, immortal _ego_ was there; and it was, for all +the outward and inward changes, the same Edgar Poe, with his two +natures--Dreamer and Goodfellow--alternately dominating him, who had +come back to find the real end of the rainbow in revisiting old scenes, +renewing old friendships, awakening old memories--and had paused to make +holiday. + +Even in these golden days there were occasional falls, for the cup of +kindness was everywhere and in his blood was the same old strain which +made madness for him in the single glass--the single drop, almost; and +in spite of all the great schoolmaster, Life, had taught him, there was +in his will the same old element of weakness. Had it been otherwise he +had not been Edgar Poe. At times, too, the blue devils raised their +heads. Had it been otherwise he had not been Edgar Poe. + +But on the whole the holiday was a bright dream of Paradise regained at +a time when more than ever before his feet had seemed to march only to +the cadence of the old, sad word, Nevermore. + +Two sacred pilgrimages he made early in this holiday--to the two shrines +of his romantic boyhood--to Shockoe Cemetery, where he not only visited +"Helen's" tomb, but laid a wreath upon the grave of Frances Allan--his +little foster mother, and to the churchyard on the hill. The white +steeple still slept serenely in the blue atmosphere above the church +and, as of yore, the bell called in deep, sweet tones to prayer. But how +the churchyard had filled since he saw it last! Graves, graves +everywhere. It was appalling! He stepped between the graves, old and +new, stooping to read the inscriptions upon the slabs. So many that he +remembered as merry boys and girls and hale men and women still in their +prime--could they really be dead?--gone forever from the scenes which +had known them and of which they seemed an integral part? Oh, mystery of +mysteries, how was it possible?--Yet here were their names plainly +written upon the marbles! The church builded by men's hands, the trees +planted by men's hands, the monuments fashioned by men's hands remained, +but the living, breathing men, where were they? Could it be that God's +highest creation was a more perishable thing than the lifeless work of +its own hand? His spirit cried out within him against such a thought. +No, it could not be! Gone from earth, or holden from mortal vision they +assuredly were--departed--but dead? No! + +Finally he came to the grave beside the wall. No marble tomb told the +passer-by that there lay the body of Elizabeth Poe. Yet, what +matter?--Was her sleep the less peaceful? Was her tired spirit the less +free?--If in its flight it should visit this spot where it had laid the +burden of the body down, surely it would find, for all there was no +carven stone to mark it, a most sweet spot. The greenest of grass, and +clover with blossoms white and red, waved over it--the summer breeze +rippling through them with pleasant sound,--and the tall trees hung a +green canopy between it and the midday sun. + +As he laid his offering of roses among the clover blooms and turned to +go away the bell in the steeple began to toll. How the past came +back!--He stood with uncovered and bowed head and counted the strokes. +Suddenly, there was a sound of horses tramping in the street below the +wall. Then through the gate and down the walk it came--the solemn +procession. + +He waited until the last of the mourners had passed into the church, +then followed, and as the bell stopped tolling and the organ began to +play the familiar, moving chant, he passed in and took a seat near the +door. Whose funeral service he was attending he knew not--but he was +back in childhood, and it was beautiful to him to hear once more, in +this very church, the words of spoken music and the old familiar hymns +he had heard that day when his infant heart had been filled with a +beautiful sorrow that was not pain. + +More than one pair of eyes turned to see the owner of the fine tenor +voice that joined in the singing of the hymns, and resting for a moment +upon the dark, uplifted eyes of Edgar Poe, caught a glimpse of something +not of this earth. + +As he left the church and churchyard, he noted many changes in its +immediate neighborhood but the only one upon which his eye lingered was +a smug brick house of commodious proportions and genteel aspect. A +pleasant green yard afforded space for a few trees and flowers. A +dignified and prosperous, but not in the least romantic house it was. A +house with no rambling wings giving opportunities for winding +passageways and odd nooks and corners; no unexpected closets where +skeletons might be in hiding, or dusky stairways to creak in the dead of +night, or upon which, even by day, one was almost certain he caught a +glimpse of a shadowy figure flying before him as he groped his way up or +down them. A house with no mysteries--just the house in which one might +have expected to find Elmira Royster who, as the Widow Shelton, the +prudent housewife and good manager of a prosperous estate, was simply +the frank, clear-eyed girl he had known, grown older. + +He would call upon Elmira sometime, but not now little son, so that she +could only use the income, was duly signed and sealed. The wedding ring +was bought. + +With visions of a new start in life, of which there were many happy +years in store for him (why not?--He was only forty!) The Dreamer set +out on his way back to Fordham to settle up his affairs and bring Mother +Clemm to Richmond to witness his marriage and to take up her abode with +him and his bride, in the brick house on the hill. He had been upon a +holiday, but he carried with him a goodly sum of money realized from his +lectures, and a long list of subscribers to _The Stylus_. Surely, +Fortune had never shown him a more smiling face! + + * * * * * + +Baltimore!-- + +Why did his way lie through Baltimore? Baltimore, with its memories of +Virginia--Baltimore where he had come up out of the grave to the heaven +of her love, and where had been first constructed the most beautiful of +all his dreams--the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, in +which he and she and the Mother had lived for each other only! + +In Baltimore again he found his way stopped by the vision of "a legended +tomb." It was paralyzing! He could go no further upon his journey, but +lingered in Baltimore, wandering the streets like one bereft. + +The words--the prophetic words--of his own poem "To One in Paradise," +haunted him: + + "A voice from out the future cries, + 'On! on!' But o'er the Past + (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies + Mute, motionless, aghast!" + +And again, the words of his "Bridal Ballad"--more prophetic still: + + "Would to God I could awaken! + For I dream I know not how; + And my soul is sorely shaken + Lest an evil step be taken,-- + Lest the dead who is forsaken + May not be happy now." + +And that merciless other self, his accusing Conscience, arose, and with +whisper louder and more terrible than ever before, upbraided +him--reminding him of the vow he had made his wife upon her bed of +death. + +Alas, the vow!--that solemn, sacred vow! How could he have so utterly +forgotten it? How plainly he could see her lying upon the snowy +pillow--her face not much less white--her trustful eyes on his eyes as +he knelt by her side and swore that he would never bind himself in +marriage to another--invoking from Heaven a terrible curse upon his soul +if he should ever prove traitorous to his oath. + +Alas, where had been his will that he had so soon forgotten his vow? How +he despised himself for his weakness--he that had boasted in the words +of old Joseph Glanvil, until he had almost made them his own words: + +"'Man doth not yield himself to the angels nor unto death utterly, save +only through the weakness of his will.'" + + * * * * * + +Hours on hours he wandered the streets of the city whose every paving +stone seemed to speak to him of his Virginia--the city where he had +walked with her--where he had first spoken of love to her and heard her +sweet confession--where, in the holy church, the beautiful words of the +old, old rite had made them one. + +All day he wandered, and all night--driven, cruelly driven--by the +upbraiding whisper in his ear, while before him still he saw her white +face with the soft eyes looking out--it seemed to him in reproach. + +Finally the longing which had come upon him in Providence--the longing +for the peace of the grave and reunion, in death, with Virginia, was +strong upon him again--pressed him hard--mastered him. + +It was sometime in the early morning that he swallowed the draught--the +draught that would free his spirit, that would enable him to lay down +the burden of his body and to fly from the steps that dogged _his_ +steps--from the voice that whispered upbraidings. He would lay his body +down by the side of her body in the "legended tomb" while his spirit +would fly to join her spirit in that far Aidenn where they would be +happy together forever. + +As he fell asleep he murmured (again quoting himself): + + "And neither the angels in heaven above, + Nor the demons down under the sea, + Can ever dissever my soul from the soul + Of the beautiful Annabel Lee." + +When he opened his wondering eyes upon the white walls of the hospital +he was feeble and weak in his limbs as an infant, but his brain was +unclouded. Gentle hands ministered to him and a woman's voice read him +spirit-soothing words from the Gospel of St. John. But the draught had +done its work. He lingered some days and then, on Sunday morning, the +seventh day of October of the year 1849, his spirit took its flight. His +last words were a prayer: + + "Lord, have mercy on my poor soul!" + +Many were the friends who rose up to comfort the stricken mother and who +hastened to bring rosemary to the poet's grave. But there was one whom +he had believed to be his friend--a big man whose big brain he had +admired--in whose furtive eye was an unholy glee, about whose thick lips +played a smile which slightly revealed his fang-like teeth. To him was +entrusted the part of literary executor--it had been The Dreamer's own +request. In his power it would lie to give to the world his own account +of this man who had said he was no poet and had distanced him in the +race for a woman's favor. + +The day was at hand when Rufus Griswold would have his full revenge upon +the fair fame of Edgar the Dreamer. + + * * * * * + + "Out--out are the lights--out all! + And, over each quivering form, + The curtain, a funeral pall, + Comes down with the rush of a storm; + And the angels, all pallid and wan, + Uprising, unveiling, affirm + That the play is the tragedy, 'Man,' + And its hero the Conqueror Worm." + + + * * * * * + + +Transcriber's note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMER*** + + +******* This file should be named 17389-8.txt or 17389-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/3/8/17389 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Dreamer</p> +<p> A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe</p> +<p>Author: Mary Newton Stanard</p> +<p>Release Date: December 25, 2005 [eBook #17389]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMER***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h1>The Dreamer</h1> + +<h2>A ROMANTIC RENDERING OF THE LIFE-STORY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>MARY NEWTON STANARD<br /> +(Author of "The Story of Bacon's Rebellion")</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which +escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions +they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to +find they have been upon the verge of the great secret."</p> + +<p>—<i>Edgar Allan Poe, in "Eleanora"</i></p></div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center"> +RICHMOND, VIRGINIA<br /> +THE BELL BOOK AND STATIONERY COMPANY<br /> +1909<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +COPYRIGHT 1909<br /> +BY MARY NEWTON STANARD<br /> +<br /> +THE HERMITAGE PRESS<br /> +<br /> +BINDERY OF L.H. JENKINS<br /> +RICHMOND, VA.<br /> +</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4>In the Sacred Memory</h4> +<h4>of</h4> +<h4>My Father and Mother</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> + +<h3>Contents</h3> +<p> +<a href="#TO_THE_READER"><b>TO THE READER</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><b>CHAPTER XXXI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><b>CHAPTER XXXII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXIII.</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TO_THE_READER" id="TO_THE_READER"></a>TO THE READER</h2> + + +<p>This study of Edgar Allan Poe, poet and man, is simply an attempt to +make something like a finished picture of the shadowy sketch the +biographers, hampered by the limitations of proved fact, must, at best, +give us.</p> + +<p>To this end I have used the story-teller's license to present the facts +in picturesque form. Yet I believe I have told a true story—true to the +spirit if not to the letter—for I think I have made Poe and the other +persons of the drama do nothing they may not have done, say nothing they +may not have said, feel nothing they may not have felt. In many +instances the opinions, and even the words I have placed in Poe's mouth +are his own—found in his published works or his letters.</p> + +<p>I owe much, of course, to the writers of Poe books before and up to my +time. Among these, I would make especial and grateful acknowledgment to +Mr. J.H. Ingram, Professor George E. Woodberry, Professor James A. +Harrison and Mrs. Susan Archer Weiss.</p> + +<p>But more than to any one of his biographers, I am indebted to Poe +himself for the revelations of his personality which appear in his own +stories and poems, the most part of which are clearly autobiographic.</p> + +<p>M.N.S.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_DREAMER" id="THE_DREAMER"></a>THE DREAMER</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + + +<p>The last roses of the year 1811 were in bloom in the Richmond gardens +and their petals would soon be scattered broadcast by the winds which +had already stripped the trees and left them standing naked against the +cold sky.</p> + +<p>Cold indeed, it looked, through the small, smoky window, to the eyes of +the young and beautiful woman who lay dying of hectic fever in a dark, +musty room back of the shop of Mrs. Fipps, the milliner, in lower Main +Street—cold and friendless and drear.</p> + +<p>She was still beautiful, though the sparkle in the great eyes fixed upon +the bleak sky had given place to deep melancholy and her face was +pinched and wan.</p> + +<p>She knew that she was dying. Meanwhile, her appearance as leading lady +of Mr. Placide's company of high class players was flauntingly announced +by newspaper and bill-board.</p> + +<p>The advertisement had put society in a flutter; for Elizabeth Arnold Poe +was a favorite with the public not only for her graces of person and +personality, her charming acting, singing and dancing, but she had that +incalculable advantage for an actress—an appealing life-story. It was +known that she had lately lost a dearly loved and loving husband whom +she had tenderly nursed through a distressing illness. It was also known +that the husband had been a descendant of a proud old family and that +the same high spirit which had led his grandfather, General Poe, +passionately denouncing British tyranny, to join the Revolutionary Army, +had, taking a different turn with the grandson, made him for the sake of +the gifted daughter of old England who had captured his heart—actress +though she was—sever home ties, abandon the career chosen for him by +his parents, and devote himself to the profession of which she was a +chief ornament. A brief five years of idylic happiness the pair had +spent together—happiness in spite of much work and some tears;—then +David Poe had succumbed to consumption, leaving a penniless widow with +three children to support. The eldest, a boy, was adopted by his +father's relatives in Baltimore. The other two—a boy of three years in +whom were blended the spirit, the beauty, the talent and the ardent +nature of both parents, and a soft-eyed, cooing baby girl—were clinging +about their mother whenever she was seen off the stage, making a picture +that was the admiration of all beholders.</p> + +<p>The last roses of the year would soon be gone from the gardens, but Mrs. +Fipps' windows blossomed gallantly with garlands and sprays more +wonderful than any that ever grew on tree or shrub. Not for many a long +day had the shop enjoyed such a thriving trade, for no sooner had the +news that Mr. Placide's company would open a season at the theatre been +noised abroad than the town beaux addressed themselves to the task of +penning elegant little notes inviting the town belles to accompany them +to the play, while the belles themselves, scenting an opportunity to +complete the wreck of masculine hearts that was their chief business, +addressed themselves as promptly to the quest of the most ravishing +theatre bonnets which the latest Paris fashions as interpreted by Mrs. +Fipps could produce. As that lady bustled back and forth among her +customers, her mouth full of pins and hands full of ribbons, feathers, +flowers and what not, her face wore, in spite of her prosperity, an +expression of unusual gravity.</p> + +<p><i>She could not get the lodger in the back room off her mind.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Placide, who had been to see the sick woman, was confident that her +disorder was "nothing serious," and that she would be able to meet her +engagements, and charged the thrifty dealer in fashionable head-gear and +furnished rooms by no means to let the fact that the star was ill "get +out." But the fever-flush that tinged the patient's pale cheeks and the +cough that racked her wasted frame seemed very like danger signals to +good Mrs. Fipps, and though she did not realize the hopelessness of the +case, her spirits were oppressed by a heaviness that would not be shaken +off.</p> + +<p>Ill as Mrs. Poe, or Miss Arnold, as she was still sometimes called, was, +she had managed by a mighty effort of will and the aid of stimulants to +appear once or twice before the footlights. But her acting had been +spiritless and her voice weak and it finally became necessary for the +manager to explain that she was suffering from "chills and fevers," from +which he hoped rest and skillful treatment would relieve her and make +it possible for her to take her usual place. But she did not appear. +Gradually her true condition became generally known and in the hearts of +a kindly public disappointment gave place to sympathy. Some of the most +charitably disposed among the citizens visited her, bringing comforts +and delicacies for her and presents for the pretty, innocent babes who +all unconscious of the cloud that hung over them, played happily upon +the floor of the dark and bare room in which their mother's life was +burning out. Nurse Betty, an ample, motherly soul, with cheeks like +winter apples and eyes like blue china, and a huge ruffled cap hiding +her straggly grey locks from view—versatile Betty, who was not only +nurse for the children and lady's maid for the star, but upon occasion +appeared in small parts herself, hovered about the bed and ministered to +her dying mistress.</p> + +<p>As the hours and days dragged by the patient grew steadily weaker and +weaker. She seldom spoke, but lay quite silent and still save when +shaken by the torturing cough. On a Sunday morning early in December she +lay thus motionless, but wide-eyed, listening to the sounds of the +church-bells that broke the quiet air. As the voice of the last bell +died away she stirred and requested, in faint accents, that a packet +from the bottom of her trunk be brought to her. When this was done she +asked for the children, and when Nurse Betty brought them to the bedside +she gave into the hands of the wondering boy a miniature of herself, +upon the back of which was written: "For my dear little son Edgar, from +his mother," and a small bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon. She +clasped the baby fingers of the girl about an enameled jewel-case, of +artistic workmanship, but empty, for its contents had, alas, gone to pay +for food. She then motioned that the little ones be raised up and +allowed to kiss her, after which, a frail, white hand fluttered to the +sunny head of each, as she murmured a few words of blessing, then with a +gentle sigh, closed her eyes in her last, long sleep.</p> + +<p>The baby girl began to whimper with fright at the suddenness with which +she was snatched up and borne from the room, and the boy looked with awe +into the face of the weeping nurse who, holding his sister in one arm +dragged him away from the bedside and out of the door, by the hand. +There was much hurried tramping to and fro, opening and closing of doors +and drawing to of window-blinds. These unusual sounds filled the boy +with a vague fear.</p> + +<p>That night the children were put to bed upon a pallet in Mrs. Fipps' own +room and Mrs. Fipps herself rocked the baby Rosalie to sleep and gave +the little Edgar tea-cakes, in addition to his bread and milk, and told +him stories of Heaven and beautiful angels playing upon golden harps. +The next day the children were taken back to their mother's room. The +shutter to the window which let in the one patch of dim light was now +closed and the room was quite dark, save for two candles that stood upon +stands, one at the foot, the other at the head of the bed. The air was +heavy—sickening almost—with the odor of flowers. Upon the bed, all +dressed in white, and with a wreath of white roses on her dark ringlets, +lay their mother, with eyelids fast shut and a lovely smile on her +lips. She was very white and very beautiful, but when her little boy +kissed her the pale lips were cold on his rosy ones, as if the smile had +frozen there. It was very beautiful but the boy was a little frightened.</p> + +<p>"Mother—" he said softly, pleadingly, "Wake up! I want you to wake up."</p> + +<p>The weeping nurse placed her arm around him and knelt beside the bed.</p> + +<p>"She will never wake up again here on earth, Eddie darling. +Never—nevermore. She has gone to live with the angels where you will be +with her some day, but never—nevermore on earth."</p> + +<p>With that she fell to weeping bitterly, hiding her face on his little +shoulder.</p> + +<p>The child, marvelling, softly repeated, "Nevermore—nevermore." The +solemn, musical word, with the picture in the dim light, of the sleeping +figure—asleep to wake nevermore—and so white, so white, all save the +dusky curls, sank deep into his young mind and memory. His great grey +eyes were wistful with the beauty, and the sadness, and the mystery of +it all.</p> + +<p>The next day the boy rode in a carriage with Mrs. Fipps and Nurse Betty +who had left off the big white cap and was enveloped from head to foot +in black, up a long hill, to a white church in a churchyard where the +grass was still green between the tombstones. The bell in the white +steeple was tolling slowly, solemnly. Soft grey clouds hung over the +steeple and snow-flakes as big as rose-leaves began to fill the air. +Presently the bell ceased tolling and he and Nurse Betty moved up the +aisle behind a train of figures in black, with black streamers floating +from their sleeves. The figures bent beneath a heavy burden. It was long +and black and grim, but the flowers that covered it were snow-white and +filled the church with a sweet smell. A white-robed figure led the way +up the aisle, repeating, as he walked, some words so solemn and full of +melody that they sounded almost like music. The church was dim, and +quiet, and nearly empty. The organ began to play—oh, so softly! It was +very beautiful, but still the boy shuddered, for he dimly realized that +the grim box held the sleeping form that seemed to be his mother, but +was not his real mother. <i>Her</i> kisses were not frozen, and <i>she</i> was in +Heaven with the angels.</p> + +<p>The choir sang sweet music and the white-robed priest said more solemn +words that were like spoken music; then the procession moved slowly down +the aisle again and out of the door. The bell in the steeple was silent +now, and the organ was silent. Silently the procession moved—silently +the snow came down. Silently and softly, like white flowers. The green +graves were white with it now, like the flowers on the coffin lid; but +the open grave in the churchyard corner, near the wall—it was dark, and +deep and terrible! The boy's heart almost stood still as, clinging to +Nurse Betty's hand, he stared into its yawning mouth. He felt that he +would choke—would suffocate. They were lowering the box into that deep, +dark pit! What if the sleeping figure should awake, after all—awake to +the darkness and narrowness of that narrow bed!</p> + +<p>With a piercing shriek the child broke from his nurse's hand and thrust +himself upon the arm of one of the black figures who held the ropes, in +a wild effort to stay him; then, still shrieking, was borne from the +spot.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + + +<p>"Since it seems you have set your heart upon this thing, I do not forbid +it; but remember, you are acting in direct opposition to my judgment and +advice, and if you ever live to regret it (as I believe you shall) you +will have no one but yourself to blame."</p> + +<p>John Allan's voice was harsher, more positive, than usual; his shoulders +seemed to square themselves and a frowning brow hardened an always +austere face. His whole manner was that of a man consenting against his +will. His young wife hung over his chair vainly endeavoring to smooth, +with little pats of her fair hands, the stubborn locks that <i>would</i> +stand on end, like the bristles of a brush, whatever she did. Her soft +and vivacious beauty was in striking contrast to the strength and +severity of his rugged and at the same time distinguished countenance. +His narrow, steel-blue eyes, deep sunk under bushy brows and a high, but +narrow, forehead, were shrewd and piercing; his nose was large and like +a hawk's beak. His face too, was narrow, with cheek-bones high as an +Indian's. His mouth was large, but firmly closed, and the chin below it +was long and prominent and was carried stiffly above the high stock and +immaculate, starched shirt-ruffles. Her figure, as she leaned against +the chair's high back, was slender and girlish,—childish, almost, in +its low-necked, short-waisted, slim-skirted, "Empire" dress, of some +filmy stuff, the pale yellow of a Marshal Niel rose. Her face was a +pure oval with delicate, regular features. Her reddish-brown hair, +parted in the middle, was piled on top of her small head, and airy +little curls hung down on her brow on either side of the part. Her +eyes—the color of her hair—were gentle and sweet and her mouth was +tenderly curved and rosy. With her imploring attitude, the sweetness of +her eyes and mouth and the warmth of her plea, her fresh beauty glowed +like a flower, newly opened. All unmoved, John Allan repeated,</p> + +<p>"You will have no one but yourself to blame."</p> + +<p>Her ardor undimmed by the chariness of the consent she had gained, she +showered the lowering brow with cool, delicate little kisses until it +grew smooth in spite of itself.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know I never shall regret it, John," she cooed. "He is such a +beautiful boy—so sweet and affectionate, so merry and clever! Just what +I should like our own little boy to be, John, if God had blessed us with +one."</p> + +<p>"I grant you he seems a bonny little lad enough, Frances. But I realize, +as it seems you do not, the risk of undertaking to rear as your own the +child of any but the most unquestionable parentage. I confess the +thought of introducing into my family the son of professional players is +extremely distasteful to me."</p> + +<p>"But John, dear, you know these Poes were not ordinary players. The +father was one of the Maryland Poes and I understand the mother came of +good English stock. She certainly seemed to be a lady and a good, sweet +woman, poor thing! The Mackenzies have decided to adopt the baby +Rosalie, though they have children, as you know; and with this charming +little Edgar for my very own I shall be the happiest woman alive."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, keep your pretty little pet, but if he turns out to be +other than a credit to you, don't forget that you were warned."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>And so the little Edgar Poe—the players' child—became Edgar Allan, +with a fond and admiring young mother who became at once and forever his +slave and whose chief object in life henceforth was to stand between him +and the discipline of a not intentionally harsh or unkind, but strict +and uncompromising father; who though he too was fond of the boy, in a +way, and proud of his beauty and little accomplishments, was constantly +on the lookout for the cloven foot which his fixed prejudice against the +child's parentage made him certain would appear.</p> + +<p>In her delight over her acquisition, Frances Allan was like a child with +a new toy. She almost smothered him with kisses when, accepting her +bribe of a spaniel pup and his pockets full of sugar-kisses, he agreed +to call her "Mother." With her own fingers she made him the quaintest +little baggy trousers, of silk pongee, and a velvet jacket, and a tucker +of the finest linen. His cheap cotton stockings were discarded for +scarlet silk ones, and for his head, "sunny over with curls" of bright +nut-brown, she bought from Mrs. Fipps, the prettiest peaked cap of +purple velvet, with a handsome gold tassel that fell gracefully over on +one shoulder. Thus arrayed, she took him about town with her to show +him to her friends who were ecstatic in their admiration of his pensive, +clear-cut features, his big, grey eyes and his nut-brown ringlets; of +his charming smile and the frank, pretty manner in which he gave his +small hand in greeting.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you should hear him recite and sing," the proud foster-mother +would say. "And he can dance, too."</p> + +<p>She gave a large dinner-party just to exhibit the accomplishments of her +treasure—actually standing him upon the table when it had been cleared, +to sing and recite for the guests. Even her husband unbent so far as to +applaud vigorously the modest, yet self-possessed grace with which the +mite drank the healths of the assembled company—making a neat little +speech that his new mother had taught him.</p> + +<p>The boy's young heart responded to the affection of the foster-mother to +a certain degree; but, mere baby though he was, his real heart lay deep +in the grave on the hill-top, where the earthly part of that other +mother was lying so still, so white, with the roses on her hair and the +frozen smile on her lips.</p> + +<p>The churchyard on the hill was but a short distance away from his new +home, and as spring opened, became a favorite resort of nurses and +children. The negro "mammy" who had replaced Nurse Betty used often to +take him there, and often, as she chatted with other mammies, her charge +would wander from her side to the grave against the wall, where he would +stretch his small body full length upon the turf and whisper the +thoughts of his infant mind to the dear one below; for who knew but +that, even down under ground she might be glad to hear, through her +white sleep, her little boy's words of love and remembrance—though +never, nevermore she could see him on earth. He would even imagine her +replies to him, until the conversations with her became so real that he +half believed they were true.</p> + +<p>At night, when bed-time came, he said his prayers at the knee of his +pretty new mother, who told him jolly stories and sang him jolly songs, +and patted him and soothed him with caresses which he found very +agreeable, and accepted graciously. But he always took the miniature +which had been his dying mother's parting gift to bed with him and he +was glad when the new mother kissed him goodnight and put out the light +and softly closed the door behind her; for it was then, with the picture +close against his breast, that the visions came to him—the visions of +angels making sweet music upon golden harps and among them his lost +mother, with her sweet face saddened but made sweeter still by that +thought of nevermore.</p> + +<p>Oh, that wondrous word nevermore! Its music charmed him, its +hopelessness filled and thrilled him with a strange, a holy sorrow, in +which there was no pain.</p> + +<p>With the lovely vision still about him, the picture still clasped to his +breast, he would sink into healthful sleep to wake on the morrow a +bright, joyous boy, alive to all the pleasures of the new +day—delighting in the beauties of blue sky and sunshine, of whispering +tree and opening flower, ready for sport with his play-fellows and his +pets, and full of all manner of merry pranks and jokes. For in the frame +of this small boy there dwelt two distinct personalities—twin +brothers—yet as utterly unlike as strangers and foreigners, thinking +different thoughts, speaking different languages, and dominating +him—spirit and body—by turns. One of these we will call Edgar +Goodfellow—Edgar the gay, the laughter-loving, the daring, the real, +live, wholesome, normal boy; keen for the society of other boys and +liking to dance, to run, to jump, to climb, even to fight. The other, +Edgar the Dreamer, fond of solitude and silence and darkness, for they +aided him to wander far away from the everyday world to one of make +believe created by himself and filled with beings to whom real people +were but as empty shadows; but a world that the death and burial of his +beautiful and adored young mother and the impression made upon him by +those scenes, had tinged with an eternal sadness which hung over it as a +veil.</p> + +<p>The life of Edgar the Dreamer was filled with the subtle charm of +mystery. It was a secret life. The world in which he moved was a secret +world—an invisible world, to whose invisible door he alone held the +key. Edgar the Dreamer was himself an invisible person, for the only +outward difference between him and his twin brother, Edgar Goodfellow, +lay in a certain quiet, listless air and the solemn look in his big, +dark grey eyes which his playmates—bored and intolerant—took as +indications that "Edgar was in one of his moods," and his +foster-father—eyeing him keenly and with marked displeasure—as an +equally unmistakable indication that he was "hatching mischief."</p> + +<p>There were times when in the midst of the liveliest company this +so-called "mood" would possess the child. He would fall silent; his +mouth would become pensive, his dark grey eyes would seem to be +impenetrably veiled; his chin would drop upon his hand; he would seem +utterly forgetful of his surroundings. The familiar Edgar—Edgar +Goodfellow—would have given place to Edgar the Dreamer, who though +apparently of the company, would really have slipped through that +invisible portal and wandered far afield with the playmates of his +fancy.</p> + +<p>At such times Mrs. Allan would say, "Eddie, what are you thinking +about?" And brought back to her world with a jolt, the boy would answer +quickly (somewhat guiltily it seemed to Mr. Allan—noting the startled +expression),</p> + +<p>"Nothing." It was his first lie, and a very little one, but one that was +often repeated; for he that would guard a secret must be used to +practice deception.</p> + +<p>Mr. Allan would say, "Wake up, wake up, child! Only the idle sit and +stare at nothing and think of nothing. You'll be growing up an idle, +trifling boy if you give way to such a habit."</p> + +<p>Between the Allans and Edgar the Dreamer a great gulf lay—for how +should a dreamer of day-dreams reveal himself to any not of his own +tribe and kind? Upon Edgar Goodfellow Mrs. Allan doted. All of her +friends agreed with her that so remarkable a child—one so precocious +and still so attractive—had never been seen, and Mr. Allan was +secretly, as proud of his wrestling, running, riding and other out-door +triumphs as his wife was of his pretty parlor accomplishments. Their +friends agreed too, that she made him the best of mothers, barring the +fact (for which weakness she was excusable—he was such a love!) that +she spoiled him, and perhaps permitted him to rule her too absolutely. +Was he grateful? Oh, well, that would come in time. Appreciation was not +a quality to be expected in children, and what more natural than that +the boy should accept as a matter of course the good things which she +made plain it was her chief pleasure in life to shower upon him? She was +indeed, as good a mother as it was possible for a mother without a +highly developed imagination to be.</p> + +<p>A most lovely woman was Frances Allan, justly admired and liked by all +who knew her. She was pretty and gracious and sunny-tempered and +sweet-natured; charitable—both to society and the poor—and faithful to +her religious duties. Withal, a notable house-keeper, given to +hospitality, fond of "company" and gifted in the art of making her +friends feel at home under her roof. If she was not gifted with a lively +imagination she did not know it, and so had not missed it. As Mr. +Allan's wife she had not needed it. And so she lavished upon Edgar +Goodfellow everything that heart could wish. She delighted to provide +him with pets and toys and good things to eat, and to fill his little +pockets with money for him to spend upon himself or upon treating his +friends. Fortunately, the other Edgar—Edgar the Dreamer—was not +dependent upon her for his pleasures, for the beauties of sky and river +and garden and wood which nourished his soul were within his own reach.</p> + +<p>If Mrs. Allan had known Edgar the Dreamer, she would have been puzzled +and alarmed. If Mr. Allan had known him he would have been angry. A man +of action was John Allan. A canny Scotchman he, who owed his success as +a tobacco merchant to energy and strict attention to business. If there +were dreams in the bowl of the pipe, there was no room for them in the +counting-house of a thrifty dealer in the weed. Meditation had no part +in his life—was left out of his composition. He believed in <i>doing</i>. +Day-dreaming was in his opinion but another name for idling, and idling +was sin.</p> + +<p>The son of their adoption vaguely realized the lack of kinship—the +impossibility of contact between his nature and theirs, and as time went +on drew more and more within himself. The life of Edgar the Dreamer +became more and more secret. So often however, did the warning against +his idle habit fall upon his ears that the plastic conscience of +childhood made note of it—confusing the will of a blind human guardian +with that of God. The Eden of his dreams, guarded by the flaming sword +of his foster-father's wrath, began to assume the aspect (because by +parental command denied him) of an evil place—though none the less +sweet to his soul—and it was with a consciousness of guilt that he +would steal in and wander there.</p> + +<p>Thus the habit that nurtured God-given genius, branded as sin, and +forbidden, might have been broken up, altogether or in part, had not the +special providence that looks after the development of this rare exotic +transplanted it to a more fertile soil—a more congenial clime.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + + +<p>Upon a mellow September afternoon three years after the newspapers had +announced the death, in Richmond, Virginia, of Elizabeth Arnold, the +popular English actress, generally known in the United States as Mrs. +Poe, the ancient town of Stoke-Newington, in the suburbs of London, +dozing in the shadows of its immemorial elms, was aroused to a mild +degree of activity by the appearance upon its green-arched streets of +three strangers—evidently Americans. It was not so much their +nationality as a certain distinguished air that drew attention upon the +dignified and proper gentleman in broadcloth and immaculate linen, the +pretty, gracious-seeming and fashionably dressed lady and especially the +little boy of six or seven summers with the large, wistful eyes and pale +complexion, and chestnut ringlets framing a prominent, white brow and +tumbling over a broad, snowy tucker. He wore pongee knickerbockers and +red silk stockings and on his curls jauntily rested a peaked velvet cap +from which a heavy gold tassel fell over upon his shoulder.</p> + +<p>The denizens of old Stoke-Newington gazed upon this prosperous trio with +frank curiosity; the reader has already recognized John Allan and his +wife, Frances, and little Edgar Poe—their adopted child.</p> + +<p>The sun was still hot, and the refreshing chill in the dusky street, +under its arch of interlacing boughs, was grateful to the tired little +traveller. As he moved along, clinging to Mrs. Allan's hand, his big +eyes gazing as far as they might up the long, cool aisle the trees made, +the hazy green distance invited his mystery-loving fancy. The odors of a +thousand flowering shrubberies were on the air and he felt that it was +good to be in this dreaming old town—as old, it seemed to him, as the +world; and there was born in him at that moment, though he could not +have defined it, a sense of the picturesquesness, the charm, the +fragrance, of old things—old streets, old houses, old trees, old turf +and shrubberies, even—with their haunting suggestions of bygone days +and scenes.</p> + +<p>They passed the ancient Gothic church, standing solemn and serene among +its mossy tombs. In the misty blue atmosphere above the elms the fretted +steeple seemed to the boy to lie imbedded and asleep, but even as he +gazed upon it the churchbell, sounding the hour, broke the stillness +with a deep, hollow roar which thrilled him with mingled awe and +delight.</p> + +<p>Ah, here indeed, was a place made for dreaming!</p> + +<p>In the midst of the town lay the Manor House School where the scholarly +Dr. Bransby, who preached in the Gothic church on Sundays, upon +week-days instructed boys in various branches of polite learning—and +also frequently flogged them. This school was the destination of the +three strangers from America, for here the foundations of young Edgar's +education were to be laid during the several years residence of his +foster-parents in London, in which city the boy himself would pass his +holidays and sometimes be permitted to spend week-ends.</p> + +<p>The ample grounds of the school were enclosed from the rest of the town +by a high and thick brick wall, dingy with years, which seemed to frown +like a prison wall upon the grassy and pleasantly shaded freedom +without. At one corner of this ponderous wall was set a more ponderous +gate, riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged +iron spikes. As the boy passed through it he trembled with delicious awe +which was deepened by the ominous creak of the mighty hinges. He fancied +himself entering upon a domain of mystery and adventure where all manner +of grim and unearthly monsters might cross his pathway to be wrestled +with and destroyed. The path to the house lay through a small parterre +planted with box and other shrubs, and beyond stretched the playgrounds.</p> + +<p>As for the house itself, that appeared to the eyes of the boy as a +veritable palace of enchantment. It was a large, grey, rambling +structure of the Elizabethan age. Within, it was like a labyrinth. Edgar +wondered if there were any end to its windings and incomprehensible +divisions and sub-divisions—to its narrow, dusky passages and its steps +down and up—up and down; to its odd and unexpected nooks and corners. +Scarce two rooms seemed to him to be upon the same level and between +continually going down or up three or four steps in a journey through +the mansion upon which Dr. Bransby guided him and his foster-parents, +the dazed little boy found it almost impossible to determine upon which +of the two main floors he happened to be. It was afterward to become a +source of secret satisfaction to him that he never finally decided upon +which floor was the dim sleeping apartment to which he was introduced +soon after supper, and which he shared with eighteen or twenty other +boys.</p> + +<p>The business of formally entering the pupil about whom the Allans and +Dr. Bransby had already corresponded, in the school, was soon +dispatched, and once more the iron gate swung open upon its weirdly +complaining hinges, then went to again with a bang and a clang, and the +little boy from far Virginia, with the wistful grey eyes and the sunny +curls was alone in a throng of curious school-fellows, and in the +dimness, the strangeness, the vastness of a hoary, mysterious mansion +full of echoes, and of quaint crannies and closets where shadows lurked +by day as well as by candle-light. Alone, yet not unhappy—for Edgar the +Dreamer was holding full sway. With the departure of his foster-father, +all check was removed from his fancy which could, and did, run riot in +this creepy and fascinating old place, and at night he had to comfort +him the miniature of his mother from which he had never been parted for +an hour, and which he still carried to bed with him with unfailing +regularity.</p> + +<p>He had always known that his mother was English-born, and somehow, in +his mind, there seemed to be some mystic connection between this ancient +town and manor house and the green graveyard in Richmond, with its +mouldy tombstones and encompassing wall.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Not until the next morning was the new pupil ushered into the +school-room—the largest room in the world it seemed to the small, +lonely stranger. It was long, narrow and low-pitched. Its ceiling was +of oak, black with age, and the daylight struggled fitfully in through +pointed, Gothic windows. Built into a remote and terror-inspiring corner +was a box-like enclosure, eight or ten feet high, of heavy oak, like the +ceiling, with a massy door of the same sombre wood. This, the newcomer +soon learned was the "sanctum" of the head-master—the Rev. Dr. +Bransby—whose sour visage, snuffy habiliments and upraised ferule +seemed so terrible to young Edgar that on the following Sunday when he +went to service in the Gothic church, it was with a spirit of deep +wonder and perplexity that he regarded from the school gallery the +reverend man with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy +and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and +so vast, who, with solemn step and slow, ascended the high pulpit.</p> + +<p>Interspersed about the school-room, crossing and recrossing in endless +irregularity, were benches and desks, black, ancient and time-worn, +piled desperately with much bethumbed books, and so beseamed with +initial letters, names at full length, grotesque figures and other +multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have lost what little of original +form might have been their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket +with water stood at one extremity of the room and a clock, whose +dimensions appeared to the boy to be stupendous, at the other.</p> + +<p>But it was not only Edgar the Dreamer who came to Manor House School, +who passed out of the great iron gate and through the elm avenues to the +Gothic church on Sundays, and who regularly, on two afternoons in the +week, made a decorous escape from the confinement of the frowning walls, +and in company with the whole school, in orderly procession, and duly +escorted by an usher, tramped past the church and into the pleasant +green fields that lay beyond the quaint houses of the village. Edgar +Goodfellow was there too—Edgar the gay, the frolicsome, the lover of +sports and hoaxes and trials of strength.</p> + +<p>Upon the evening of the young American's arrival, his schoolmates kept +their distance, regarding him with shy curiosity, but by the recess hour +next day this timidity had worn off, and they crowded about him with the +pointed questions and out-spoken criticisms which constitute the +breaking in of a new scholar. The boy received their sallies with such +politeness and good humor and with such an air of modest dignity, that +the wags soon ceased their gibes for very shame and the ring-leaders +began to show in their manner and speech, an air of approval in place of +the suspicion with which they had at first regarded him.</p> + +<p>When the questions, "What's your name?"—"How old are you?"—"Where do +you live?" "Were you sick at sea?"—"What made you come to this school?" +"How high can you jump?"—"Can you box?" "Can you fight?"—and the like, +had been promptly and amiably answered, there was a lull. The silence +was broken by young Edgar himself. Drawing himself up to the full height +of his graceful little figure and thumping his chest with his closed +fist, he said, "Any boy who wants to may hit me here, as hard as he +can."</p> + +<p>The boys looked at each other inquiringly for a moment—they were +uncertain, whether this was a specimen of American humor or to be taken +literally. Presently the largest and strongest among them stepped +forward. He was a stalwart fellow for his years, but his excessively +blond coloring, together with the effeminate style in which his mother +insisted upon dressing him, caused the boys to give him the name of +"Beauty," which was soon shortened into "Beaut," and had finally become +"the Beau."</p> + +<p>"Will you let <i>me</i> hit you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Edgar. "Count three and hit. You can't hurt me."</p> + +<p>As "the Beau" counted, "One—two—three"—Edgar gently inflated his +lungs, expanding his chest to its fullest extent, and then, at the +moment of receiving the blow, exhaled the air. He did not stagger or +flinch, though his antagonist struck straight from the shoulder, with a +brawny, small fist.</p> + +<p>The rest of the boys, in turn, struck him—each time counting +three—with the same result. Finally "the Beau" said,</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> hit <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>Edgar counted, "One—two—three"—and struck out with clenched fist, but +"the Beau" not knowing the trick, was promptly bowled over on the +grass—the shock making quick tears start in his forget-me-not blue +eyes.</p> + +<p>The boys were, one and all, open and clamorous in their admiration.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw," said young Edgar, indifferently. "It's nothing. All the boys in +Virginia can do that."</p> + +<p>"Can you play leap-frog?" asked "Freckles"—a wiry looking little +fellow, with carotty locks and a freckled nose, whose leaping had +hitherto been unrivalled.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you," was the reply.</p> + +<p>Instantly, a dozen backs were bent in readiness for the game, and over +them, one by one, vaulted Edgar, with the lightness of a bird, his brown +curls blowing out behind him, as his baggy yellow thighs and thin red +legs flew through the air.</p> + +<p>"Freckles" magnanimously owned himself beaten at his own game.</p> + +<p>"Let's race," said "Goggles"—a lean, long-legged, swathy boy, with a +hooked nose and bulging, black eyes.</p> + +<p>Like a flash, the whole lot of them were off down the gravel walk, under +the elms. Edgar and "Goggles"—abreast—led for a few moments, then +Edgar gradually gained and came out some twenty feet ahead of "Goggles," +and double that ahead of the foremost of the others.</p> + +<p>It was not only these accomplishments in themselves that made the +American boy at once take the place of hero and leader of his form in +this school of old England, but the quiet and unassuming mien with which +he bore his superiority—not seeming in the least to despise the weakest +or most backward of his competitors, and good-humoredly initiating them +all into the little secrets of his success in performing apparently +difficult feats.</p> + +<p>It was the same way with his lessons. Without apparent effort he +distanced all of his class-mates and instead of pluming himself upon it, +was always ready to help them with their Latin or their sums, whose +answers he seemed to find by magic, almost.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + + +<p>During the winter before Edgar went to Stoke-Newington, he had attended +an "infant school," in Richmond, taught by a somewhat gaunt, but +mild-mannered spinster, with big spectacles over her amiable blue eyes, +a starchy cap and a little bunch of frosty cork-screw curls on each side +of her face. As a child, she had played with Mr. Allan's father on their +native heath, in Ayrshire, and to her, little Edgar was always her "ain +wee laddie." She had spoiled him inordinately and unblushingly. Also, as +she contentedly drew at the pipe filled with the offerings of choice +smoking-tobacco which he frequently turned out of his pockets into her +lap, she had taught him to read in her own broad Scottish accent, and to +cypher.</p> + +<p>She had furthermore drilled him in making "pothooks and hangers," with +which he covered his slate in neat rows, daily. But it was at the Manor +House, in Stoke-Newington, that he was initiated into the mysteries of +writing. His hands were as shapely as a girl's, with deft, taper fingers +that seemed made to hold a pen or brush, and he soon developed a neat, +small, but beautifully clear and graceful hand-writing.</p> + +<p>This new accomplishment became at once a delight to him, and as time +went on opened a new world to Edgar the Dreamer, who now began, when he +could snatch an opportunity to do so unobserved, to put down upon paper +the visions of his awakening soul. Sometimes these scribblings took the +form of little stories—crudely conceived and incoherently expressed, +but rich in the picturesque thought and language of an exceptionably +imaginative and precocious child. Sometimes they were in verse. For +subjects these infant effusions had generally to do with the lonely +grave in the churchyard in Richmond and the sad joy of the heart that +mourns evermore; with the beauty of flowers—the more beautiful because +doomed to a brief life; with the Gothic steeple, asleep in the still, +blue air, and the bell in whose deep iron throat dwelt a note that was +hollow and ghostly; with the great wall around the Manor House grounds +and with the mighty gate that swung upon hinges in which the voice of a +soul in torment seemed to be imprisoned, and with other things which +filled him with a terror that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"was not fright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But a tremulous delight."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His learning to write bore still another fruit.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Allan had first adopted him and set apart a room in her home +for him, she had placed in a little cabinet therein the packet of +letters his dying mother had given him. She had not opened the packet, +for she felt that the letters were for the actress's child's eye alone. +He, when he looked at it, did so with a feeling of mixed reverence and +fascination which was deepened by his inability to decipher the secrets +bound together by the bit of blue ribbon tied around it. How the sight +of the packet recalled to him that sad, that solemn hour in which it +had been given into his hands! When getting him ready for +boarding-school, Mrs. Allan had packed the letters with his other +belongings, for she was a woman of sentiment, and she felt the child +should not be parted from this gift of his dying mother. But at length, +when a knowledge of writing made it possible for him to read the +letters, he was possessed with a feeling of shrinking from doing so, as +one might shrink from opening a message from the grave.</p> + +<p>What grim, what terrible secrets, might not the little bundle of letters +reveal!</p> + +<p>It was not until his fifth and last year at Stoke-Newington that Edgar +decided one day to look into the packet. He was confined to his bed by +slight indisposition and so had the dormitory to himself and could risk +opening the letters without fear of interruption. He untied the blue +ribbon and the thin, yellowed papers, with fragments of their broken +seals still sticking to them, fell apart. He picked up the one bearing +the earliest date and began to read. It was from his father to his +mother immediately after their betrothal. His interest was at once +intensely aroused and in the order in which the letters came, he read, +and read, and read, with the absorption with which he might have read +his first novel. They were a revelation to him—a revelation of a world +he had not known existed, though it seemed, it lay roundabout him—these +love-letters of his parents, literally throbbing with the exalted +passion of two young, ardent, poetic spirits. The boy had not dreamed +that anything so beautiful could be as this undying love of which they +wrote and the language in which they made their sweet vows to each +other. His own heart throbbed in answer to what he read. His imagination +was violently wrought upon and exquisite feelings such as he had never +known before awakened in his breast.</p> + +<p>Under the spell of the letters the child-poet fell in love—not with any +creature of flesh and blood, for his entire acquaintance and association +was with boys—but with the ideal of his inner vision. From that time, +his poetic outbursts came to be filled with—more than aught else—the +surpassing beauty, the worshipful goodness, the divine love of woman. He +was a naturally reverent boy, but for these more than mortal beings, as +they appeared to his fancy, was reserved the supreme worship of his +romantic soul. Indeed, the adoration of his ideal woman—perfect in +body, in mind and in soul, became, and was to be always, a religion to +him.</p> + +<p>To imagine himself rescuing from a dark prison tower, hid in a deep +wood, or from a watery grave in a black and rock-bound lake, at +midnight, some lovely maiden whose every thought and heart-beat would +thenceforth be for him alone—this became the entrancing inward vision +of Edgar the Dreamer—the poet—the lover, at whom Edgar Goodfellow with +whisper as insistent as the voice of Conscience, scoffed and sneered, +seeking to make him ashamed; but all in vain.</p> + +<p>Of course it was to follow, as the night the day, that the boy would +find someone in whom to dress his ideal. Upon a Sunday soon after his +falling in love, he saw the very maiden of his dreams in the flesh. It +was in the Gothic church. From the remote pew in the gallery where he +sat with his school-mates, he looked down upon a wonderful vision of +white and gold in one of the principal pews of the main aisle. Clad all +in white and with a shower of golden tresses falling over her shoulders, +she was like a glorious lily or a holy angel. Her eyes, uplifted in the +rapture of worship, he divined, rather than saw, were of the hue of +heaven itself. He loved her at once, with all his soul's might. Her +name? Her home? These were mysteries—sacred mysteries—whose +unfathomableness but added to her charm.</p> + +<p>After that, service in the Gothic church was a much more important event +to The Dreamer than before—an event looked forward to with trembling +from Sunday to Sunday. After that too, upon his periodical week-day +walks with the school, he would look up at the quaint old homesteads +they passed, with their hedged gardens, ivied walls and sweet-scented +shrubberies, and try to guess which was the house-wonderful in which she +dwelt. Then suddenly, one sweet May afternoon, he discovered it.</p> + +<p>It was, as was fitting, the most antique, the most distinguished mansion +of them all. He saw her through the bars of the stately entrance gate as +she sat beside her mother, on a garden-seat, tying into nosegays the +flowers that filled her lap. Stupified by the shock of the discovery, he +stood rooted to the ground, letting his school-mates go on ahead of him. +She was much nearer him than she had been in the dusky church, and upon +closer view, she seemed even more lovely, more flower-like, more angelic +than ever before. He stared upon her face with a gaze so compelling +that she looked up and smiled at him; then, with sudden impulse, +gathered her flowers in her apron, and running forward, handed him +through the gate, a fragrant, creamy bud that she happened at the moment +to have in her hand.</p> + +<p>As in a dream, he stretched his fingers for it. He tried to frame an +expression of thanks, but his lips were dry and though they moved, no +sound came. She had returned at once to her seat beside her mother, and +the voice of the usher (who had just missed him) sharply calling to him +to "Come on!" was in his ears. He hurried forward, trembling in all his +limbs. Twice he stumbled and nearly fell. The bud, he had quickly hidden +within his jacket—it was too holy a thing for the profane eyes of his +school-fellows to look upon.</p> + +<p>When strength and reason came back to him he was like a new being. +Happiness gave wings to his feet and he walked on air. A divine song +seemed to be singing in his ears. Mechanically, he went through the +regular routine of school, with no difference that others could see. To +himself, heart and soul—detached and divorced from his body—seemed +soaring in a new and beautiful world in which lessons and teachers had +no place, no part. Whenever it was possible for him to do so unobserved, +he would snatch the rose from his bosom and kiss and caress it. He only +lived to see Sunday come round.</p> + +<p>But on the next Sunday and the next she was absent from her accustomed +place. Such a thing had not happened before since he had first seen her. +He was filled with the first real anxiety he had ever known. Here was a +mystery in which there was no charm!</p> + +<p>The Wednesday after the second Sunday upon which he had missed her was a +day dropped out of heaven. The mild, early summer air that floated +through the open windows into the gloomy, oak-ceiled schoolroom, was +ambrosial with the breathings of flowers. Young Edgar could not fix his +thoughts upon the page before him. The out-of-door world was calling to +him. He found himself listening to the birds in the trees outside and +gazing through the narrow, pointed windows at the waving branches.</p> + +<p>Suddenly his heart stopped. The deep, sweet, hollow, ghostlike voice of +the bell in the steeple, tolling for a funeral, was borne to his ears. +In a moment his fevered imagination associated the tolling with the +absence of his divinity from her pew, and in spite of passionately +assuring himself that it could not be, and recalling how lovely and full +of health she had been when he saw her through the gate, he was +possessed by deep melancholy.</p> + +<p>The days and hours until Sunday seemed an age to him—an age of +foreboding and dread—but they at last passed by. In a fever of anxiety, +he walked with the rest of the boys to church, and mounted the steps to +the school gallery.</p> + +<p>It was early; few of the worshippers had arrived, but in a little while +there was a stir near the door. A group of figures shrouded in the black +habiliments of woe were moving up the aisle—were entering <i>her</i> pew, +from which alas, <i>she</i> was again absent!</p> + +<p><i>Then he knew</i>—knew that she would enter that sacred place +<i>nevermore</i>!</p> + +<p>After the service there were inquiries as to the cause of a commotion in +the gallery occupied by the Manor House School, and it was said in reply +that the weather being excessively hot for the season, one of the boys +had fainted.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + + +<p>The June following young Edgar's eleventh birthday found him in Richmond +once more. The village-like little capital was all greenery and roses +and sunshine and bird-song and light-hearted laughter, and he felt, with +a glow, that it was good to be back.</p> + +<p>In the five years of his absence he had grown quite tall for his age, +with a certain dignity and self-possession of bearing acquired from +becoming accustomed to depend upon himself. All that was left of the +nut-brown curls that used to flow over his shoulders were the clustering +ringlets that covered his head and framed his large brow. His absence +had also wrought in him other and more subtle changes which did not +appear to the friends who remarked upon what a great boy he had grown—a +maturity from having lived in another world—from having had his +thoughts expanded by new scenes and quickened by the suggestions of +historic association and surroundings.</p> + +<p>But with his return, England and Stoke-Newington sank into the +shadowy past—their spell weakened, for the time being, by the +thought-absorbing, heart-filling scenes of which he had now become a +part. The years at the Manor House School were as a dream—<i>this</i> was +the real thing—<i>this</i> was Home. <i>Home</i>—ah, the charm of that word and +all it implied! His heart swelled, his eyes grew misty as he said it +over and over to himself. The clatter of drays "down town" was like +music in his ears, the dusty streets of the residential section were +fair to his eyes for old time's sake. How he loved the very pavement +under his feet, rough and uneven as it was; how dearly he loved the +trees that he had climbed (and would climb again) which stretched their +friendly boughs over his head!</p> + +<p>In a state of happy excitement he rushed about town, visiting his old +haunts to see if they were still there, and "the same."</p> + +<p>"Comrade," his brown spaniel—his favorite of all his pets—had grown +old and sober and had quite forgotten him, but his love was soon +reawakened. The boys he had played with, too, had almost forgotten him, +but his return called him to mind again and put them all in a flutter. A +boy who had lived five years on the other side of the ocean and had been +to an English boarding school, was not seen in Richmond every day. Mrs. +Allan gave him a party to which all of the children in their circle were +invited. In anticipation of this, he had purchased in London, out of the +abundance of pocket-money with which his doting foster-mother always saw +to it he was provided, a number of little gifts to be distributed among +the boys at home. These, with the distinction his travels gave him, made +him the man of the hour among Richmond children. And how much he had to +tell! At Stoke-Newington it was always the boys at home that were the +heroes of the stories he spun by the yard for the entertainment of his +school-fellows—the literal among whom had come to believe that there +was no feat a Virginia boy could not perform. Now that he was in +Richmond, the Stoke-Newington boys themselves loomed up as the +wonder-workers, and his playmates listened with admiration and with such +expression as, "Caesar's ghost!"—"Jiminy!"—"Cracky!" and the like, as +he narrated his tales of "Freckles," "Goggles," "the Beau," and the +rest.</p> + +<p>One of his first visits after reaching home was to his old black +"Mammy," in the tiny cottage, with its prolific garden-spot, on the +outskirts of the town, in which Mr. Allan had installed her and her +husband, "Uncle Billy," before leaving Virginia.</p> + +<p>"Mammy" was expecting him. With one half of her attention upon the white +cotton socks she was knitting for her spouse and the other half on the +gate of her small garden through which her "chile" would come, she sat +in her doorway awaiting him. She was splendidly arrayed in her new +purple calico and a big white apron, just from under the iron. Her +gayest bandanna "hankercher" covered her tightly "wropped" locks from +view and the snowiest of "neckerchers" was crossed over her ample bosom. +Her kind, black countenance was soft with thoughts of love.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Billy," too, was spruced for the occasion. Indeed, he was quite +magnificent in a "biled shut," with ruffles, and an old dresscoat of +"Marster's." His top-boots were elaborately blacked, and a somewhat +battered stove-pipe hat crowned his bushy grey wool. Each of the old +folks comfortably smoked a corn-cob pipe.</p> + +<p>"Mammy" saw her boy coming first. She could hardly believe it was +he—he was so tall—but she was up and away, down the path, in a flash. +Half-way to the gate that opened on the little back street, she met him +and enveloped him at once in her loving arms.</p> + +<p>"Bless de Lord, O my soul!" she repeated over and over again in a sort +of chant, as she held him against her bosom and rocked back and forth on +her broad feet, tears of joy rolling down her face.</p> + +<p>"De probable am returned," announced Uncle Billy, solemnly.</p> + +<p>"G'long, Billy," she said, contemptuously. "He ain' no <i>probable</i>. He +jes' Mammy's own li'l' chile, if he <i>is</i> growed so tall!"</p> + +<p>"I'se only 'peatin' what de Good Book say," replied Uncle Billy, with +dignity.</p> + +<p>Edgar was crying too, and laughing at the same time.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Uncle Billy," said he, stretching a hand to the old man as soon +as he could extricate himself from Mammy's embrace. "My, my, you do look +scrumptious! How's the rheumatiz?"</p> + +<p>"Now jes' heah dat! Rememberin' uv de ole man's rheumatiz arter all dis +time!" exclaimed the delighted Uncle Billy. "'Twus mighty po'ly, +thankee, li'l Marster, but de sight o' you done make it better a'ready. +I 'clar 'fo' Gracious, if de sight of you wouldn' be good for so' eyes! +Socifyin' wid dem wile furren nations ain' hu't you a bit—'deed it +ain't!"</p> + +<p>"How did you expect them to hurt me, Uncle Billy?" asked Edgar, +laughing.</p> + +<p>"I was 'feard dey mought make a <i>Injun</i>, or sum'in' out'n you."</p> + +<p>"G'long, Billy," put in his wife, with increased contempt, "Marse Eddie +ain' been socifyin' wid no Injuns—he been socifyin' wid kings an' +queens' settin' on dey thrones, wid crowns on dey haids an' spectres in +dey han's! Come 'long in de house, Honey, an' set awhile wid Mammy."</p> + +<p>As they crossed the threshold of the humble abode, Edgar looked around +upon its familiar, homely snugness with satisfaction—at the huge, +four-post bed, covered with a cheerful "log cabin" quilt made of scraps +of calico of every known hue and pattern; at the white-washed walls +adorned with pictures cut from old books and magazines; at the "shelf," +as Mammy called the mantel-piece, with its lambrequin of scallopped +strips of newspaper, and its china vases filled with hundred-leaf roses +and pinks; at the spotless bare floor and homemade split-bottomed +chairs; at the small, but bright, windows, with their rows of geraniums +and verbenas, brilliantly blooming in boxes, tin-cans and broken-nosed +tea-pots.</p> + +<p>Almost all that Mammy could say was,</p> + +<p>"Lordy, Lordy, Honey, how you has growed!" Or, "Jes' to think of Mammy's +baby sech a big boy!"</p> + +<p>Presently a shadow crossed her face. "Honey," she said, "You gittin' to +be sech a man now, you won't have no mo' use fur po' ole Mammy. Dar +won't be a thing fur her to do fur sech a big man-chile."</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe that, for a minute, Mammy," was the quick reply. "I +was just wondering if you had forgotten how to make those good +ash-cakes."</p> + +<p>"Now, jes' listen to de chile, makin' game o' his ole Mammy!" she +exclaimed. "Livin' so high wid all dem hifalutin' kings an' queens an' +sech, an' den comin' back here an' makin' ten' he wouldn' 'spise Mammy's +ash-cakes!"</p> + +<p>"I'm in dead earnest, Mammy. Indeed, indeed and double deed, I am. Kings +and queens don't have anything on their tables half as good as one of +your ash-cakes, with a glass of cool butter-milk."</p> + +<p>"Dat so, Honey?" she queried, with wonder. "Den you sho'ly shall have +some, right away. Mammy churn dis ve'y mornin', and dars a pitcher of +buttermilk coolin' in de spring dis minute. You des' make you'se'f at +home an' I'll step in de kitchen an' cook you a ash-cake in a jiffy. +Billy, you pick me some nice, big cabbage leaves to bake it in whilst +I'm mixin' de dough, an' den go an' git de butter-milk an' a pat o' dat +butter I made dis mornin' out'n de spring."</p> + +<p>Edgar and Uncle Billy followed her into the kitchen where she deftly +mixed the corn-meal dough, shaped it in her hands into a thick round +cake, which she wrapped in fresh cabbage leaves and put down in the hot +ashes on the hearth to bake. Meantime the following conversation between +Edgar and the old "Uncle:"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Billy do you ever see ghosts now-adays?"</p> + +<p>"To be sho', li'l' Marster, to be sho'. Sees 'em mos' any time. Saw one +las' Sunday night."</p> + +<p>"What was it like, Uncle Billy?"</p> + +<p>"Like, Honey?—Like ole Mose, dat's what t'wus like. Does you 'member +Mose whar useter drive de hotel hack?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's dead isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, suh, daid as a do' nail. Dat's de cur'us part on it. He's daid an' +was buried las' Sunday ebenin'—buried deep. I know, 'ca'se I wus dar +m'se'f. But dat night when I had gone to bed an' wus gittin' off to meh +fus' nap, I was woke up on a sudden by de noise uv a gre't stompin' an' +trompin' an snortin' in de road. I jump up an' look out de winder, an' I +'clar' 'fo' Gracious if dar warn't Mose, natchel as life, horses an' +hack an' all, tearin' by at a break-neck speed. I'se seed many a ghos' +an' a ha'nt in meh time, uv <i>humans</i>, but dat wus de fus' time I uver +heard tell uv a horse or a hack risin' f'um de daid. 'Twus skeery, +sho'!"</p> + +<p>Before Edgar had time for comment upon this remarkable apparition, Mammy +set before him the "snack" she had prepared of smoking ash-cake and +fresh butter, on her best china plate—the one with the gilt band—and +placed at his right hand a goblet and a stone pitcher of cool +butter-milk. A luncheon, indeed, fit to be set before royalty, though it +is not likely that any of them ever had such an one offered them—poor +things!</p> + +<p>Edgar did full justice to the feast and was warm in his praises of it. +Then, before taking his leave, he placed in Mammy's hands a parcel +containing gifts from the other side of the water for her and Uncle +Billy. There is nothing so dear to the heart of an old-time negro as a +present, and as the aged couple opened the package and drew out its +treasures, their black faces fairly shone with delight. Mammy could not +forbear giving her "chile" a hug of gratitude and freshly springing +love, while Uncle Billy heartily declared,</p> + +<p>"De Lord will sho'ly bless you, li'l' Marster, fur de Good Book do +p'intedly say dat He do love one chufful giver."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>To young Edgar's home-keeping playmates, he seemed to be the luckiest +boy in the world, and indeed, his brief existence had been up to this +time, as fortunate as it appeared to them. Even the beautiful sorrow of +his mother's death had filled his life with poetry and brought him +sympathy and affection in abundant measure.</p> + +<p>But bitterness was soon enough to enter his soul. His thoughts from the +moment of his return to Richmond, had frequently turned to the white +church and churchyard on the hill—and to the grave beside the wall. +Thither he was determined to go as soon as he possibly could, but it was +too sacred a pilgrimage to be mentioned to anyone—it must be as secret +as he could make it; and so he must await an opportunity to slip off +when he would be least apt to be missed. He chose a sultry afternoon +when Mr. and Mrs. Allan were taking a long drive into the country. He +waited until sunset—thinking there would be less probability of meeting +anyone in the churchyard after that hour than earlier—and set out, +taking with him a cluster of white roses from the summer-house in the +garden.</p> + +<p>It was nearly dusk when he reached the church and climbed the steps that +led to the walled graveyard, elevated above the street-level. Never had +the spot looked so fair to him. The white spire, piercing the blue sky, +seemed almost to touch the slender new moon, with the evening star +glimmering by her side. The air was sweet with the breath of roses and +honeysuckle, and the graves were deeply, intensely green. Long he lay +upon the one by the wall, near the head of which he had placed his white +roses—looking up at the silver spire and the silver star and the moon's +silver bow—so long that he forgot the passage of time, and when he +reached home and went in out of the night to the bright dining-room, +blinking his great grey eyes to accustom them to the lamp-light, supper +was over.</p> + +<p>The keen eyes of John Allan looked sternly upon him from under their +fierce brows. The boy saw at once that his foster-father was very angry.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been?" he demanded, harshly.</p> + +<p>"Nowhere," replied the boy.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing all this time?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," was the answer.</p> + +<p>"Nowhere? Nothing? Don't nowhere and nothing me, Sir. Those are the +replies—the lying replies—of a boy who has been in mischief. If you +had not been where you shouldn't have been, and doing as you shouldn't +have done, you would not be ashamed to tell. Now, Sir, tell me at once, +where you have been and what you have been doing?"</p> + +<p>The boy grew pale, but made no reply, and in the eyes fixed on Mr. +Allan's face was a provokingly stubborn look. The man's wrath waxed +warmer. His voice rose. In a tone of utter exasperation he cried, "Tell +me at once, I say, or you shall have the severest flogging you ever had +in your life!"</p> + +<p>The boy grew paler still, and his eyes more stubborn. A scowl settled +upon his brow and a look of dogged determination about his mouth, but +still he spoke not a word.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Allan looked from one to the other of these two beings—husband and +son—who made her heart's world. The evening was warm and she wore a +simple white dress with low neck and short sleeves. Anxiety clouded her +lovely face, yet never had she looked more girlishly sweet—more +appealing; but the silent plea in her beautiful, troubled eyes was lost +on John Allan, much as he loved her.</p> + +<p>"Tell him, Eddie dear," she implored. "Don't be afraid. Speak up like a +man!"</p> + +<p>Still silence.</p> + +<p>She walked over to the table where the boy sat before the untouched +supper that had been saved for him, and dropped upon one knee beside +him. She placed her arm around him and drew him against her gentle +bosom—he suffering her, though not returning the caress.</p> + +<p>"Tell <i>me</i>, Eddie, darling—tell Mother," she coaxed.</p> + +<p>The grey eyes softened, the brow lifted. "There's nothing to tell, +Mother," he gently replied.</p> + +<p>Mr. Allan rose from his chair. "I'll give you five minutes in which to +find something to tell," he exclaimed, shaking a trembling finger at the +culprit; then stalked out of the room.</p> + +<p>In his absence his wife fell upon the neck of the pale, frowning child, +covering his face and his curly head with kisses, and beseeching him +with honeyed endearments, to be a good boy and obey his father. But the +little figure seemed to have turned to stone in her arms. In less than +the five minutes Mr. Allan was back in the room, trimming a long switch +cut from one of the trees in the garden as he came.</p> + +<p>"Are you ready to tell me the truth?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>Still trimming the switch, he approached the boy. Frances Allan +trembled. Rising from the child's side, she clasped her husband's arm in +both her hands.</p> + +<p>"Don't, John! Don't, please, John dear. I can't stand it," she breathed. +He put her aside, firmly.</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly, Frances. You are interfering with my duty. Can't you +see that I must teach the boy to make you a better return for your +kindness than lying to hide his mischief?"</p> + +<p>"But suppose that he is telling the truth, John, and that he has been +doing nothing worse than wandering about the streets? You know the way +he has always had of roaming about by himself, at times."</p> + +<p>"And do you think roaming about the streets at this time of night proper +employment for a boy of eleven? Would you have him grow up into a +vagabond? A boy dependent upon the bounty of strangers can ill afford to +cultivate such idle habits!"</p> + +<p>The boy's already large and dark pupils dilated and darkened until his +eyes looked like black, storm-swept pools. His already white face grew +livid. He drew back as if he had been struck and fixed upon his +foster-father a gaze in which every spark of affection was, for the +moment, dead. He had been humiliated by the threat of a flogging, but +the prospect of the hardest stroke his body might receive was as nothing +to him now. His sensitive soul had been smitten a blow the smart of +which he would carry with him to his last day. "Dependent upon the +bounty of strangers,"—<i>of strangers!</i></p> + +<p>Up to this time he had been the darling little son of an over-fond +mother, and though his foster-father had been at times, stern and +unsympathetic with him, no hint had ever before dropped from him to +indicate that the child was not as much his own as the sons of other +fathers were their own—that he was not as much entitled to the good +things of life which were heaped upon him without the asking as an own +son would have been. His comforts—his pleasures had been so easily, so +plentifully bestowed that the little dreamer had never before awaked to +a realization of a difference between his relation with his parents and +the relation of other children with theirs. Brought face to face with +this hard, cold fact for the first time, and so suddenly, he was for the +moment stunned by it. He felt that a flood of deep waters in which he +was floundering helplessly was overwhelming him.</p> + +<p>A deep silence had followed the last words of Mr. Allan, who continued +to trim the switch, while his wife, sinking into a chair, bowed her +face in her arms, folded upon the table, and began to cry softly. The +gentle sounds of her weeping seemed but further to infuriate her +husband.</p> + +<p>"Come with me," he commanded, placing his hand on the shoulder of the +child, who unresistingly suffered himself to be pushed along toward his +foster-father's room. Frances Allan broke into wild sobbing and placed +her fingers against her ears that she might not hear the screams of her +pet. But there were no screams. Silently, and with an air of dignity it +was marvellous so small a figure could command, the beautiful boy +received the blows. When one's soul has been hurt, what matters mere +physical pain? When both the strength and the passion of Mr. Allan had +been somewhat spent, he ceased laying on blows and asked in a calmed +voice,</p> + +<p>"Are you ready to tell me the truth now?"</p> + +<p>In one moment of time the child lived over again the beautiful hour at +his mother's grave. He saw again the silver spire and the silver +half-moon and the silver star—smelled the blended odors of honeysuckle +and rose, made sweeter, by the gathering dews, and felt the coolness and +freshness of the long green grass that covered the grave. Who knew but +that deep down under the sweet grass she had been conscious he was +there—had felt his heart beat and heard his loving whispers as of old, +and loved him still, and understood, though she would see him nevermore? +Share the secret of that holy hour with anyone—of all people, with this +wrathful, blind, unsympathizing man who had just confessed himself a +stranger to him? Never!</p> + +<p>A faint smile, full of peace, settled upon his poet's face, but he +answered never a word.</p> + +<p>There was a stir at the door. John Allan looked toward it. His wife +stood there drying her eyes. He turned to the boy again.</p> + +<p>"Go with your mother and get your supper," he commanded.</p> + +<p>"I don't want it," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Well, go to bed then, and tomorrow afternoon you are to spend in your +own room, where I hope meditation upon your idle ways may bring you to +something like repentance."</p> + +<p>The boy paused half-way to the door. "Tomorrow is the day I'm going +swimming with the boys. You promised that I might go."</p> + +<p>"Well, I take back the promise, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think you've punished him enough for this time, John?" +timidly asked his wife.</p> + +<p>"No boy is ever punished enough until he is conquered," was the reply. +"And Edgar is far from that!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Allan, with her arm about the little culprit's shoulder went with +him to his room. How she wished that he would let her cuddle him in her +lap and sing to him and tell him stories and then hear him his prayers +at her knee and tuck him in bed as in the old days before he went to +boarding-school! Her heart ached for him, though she had no notion of +the bitterness, the rebellion, that were rankling in his. As she kissed +him goodnight she whispered,</p> + +<p>"You shall have your swim, in the river, tomorrow, Eddie darling; I'll +see that you do."</p> + +<p>"Don't you ask <i>him</i> to let me do anything," he protested, passionately. +"I'm going without asking him. He disowned me for a son, I'll disown him +for a father!"</p> + +<p>He loved her but he was glad when the door closed behind her so that he +could think it all out for himself in the dark—the dear dark that he +had always loved so well and that was now as balm to his bruised spirit. +The worst of it was that he could not disown John Allan as a father. He +had to confess to himself with renewed bitterness that he was indeed, +and by no fault of his own—a helpless dependent upon the charity of +this man who had, in taunting him with the fact, wounded him so +grievously. His impulse was to run away—but where could he go? Though +his small purse held at that moment a generous amount of spending money +for a boy "going on twelve," it would be a mere nothing toward taking +him anywhere. It would not afford him shelter and food for a day, and he +knew it—it would not take him to the only place where he knew he had +kindred—Baltimore. And what if he could get as far as Baltimore, would +he care to go there? To assert his independence of the charity of John +Allan only to throw himself upon the charity of relatives who had never +noticed him—whom he hated because they had never forgiven his father +for marrying the angel mother around whose memory his fondest dreams +clung?</p> + +<p>No, he could not disown Mr. Allan—not yet; but the good things of life +received from his hands had henceforth lost their flavor and would be +like Dead Sea fruit upon his lips. Hitherto, though he knew, of course, +that he was not the Allans' own child, he had never once been made to +feel that he was any the less entitled to their bounty. They had adopted +him of their own free will to fill the empty arms of a woman with a +mother's heart who had never been a mother, and that woman had lavished +upon him almost more than a mother's love—certainly more than a prudent +mother's indulgence. He had been the most spoiled and petted child of +his circle, and the bounty had been heaped upon him in a manner that +made him feel—child though he was—the joy that the giving brought the +giver, and therefore no burden of obligation upon himself in receiving. +If Mr. Allan had been strict to a point of harshness with him, at times, +Mr. Allan was a born disciplinarian—it seemed natural for him to be +stern and unsympathetic and those who knew him best took his stiffness +and hardness with many grains of allowance, remembering his upright life +and his open-handed charities. He had administered punishment upon the +little lad when he was naughty in the years before he went away to +school, and the little lad had taken his medicine philosophically like +other naughty boys—had cried lustily, then dried his eyes and forgotten +all about it in the pleasure which the goodies and petting he always had +from his pretty, tender-hearted foster-mother at such times gave him. +But <i>this</i> was different. He was a big lad now—very big and old, he +felt, far too big to be flogged; quite big enough to visit his mother's +grave, if he chose, without having to talk about it. And he had not only +been flogged because he would not reveal his sacred, sweet secret, but +had had his dependence upon charity thrown up at him!</p> + +<p>Henceforth, he felt, his life would be a lonely one, for he now knew +that he was different from other boys, all of whom (in his acquaintance) +had fathers to whose bounty they had a right—the right of sonship. Yes, +he was a very big boy (he told himself) and he had not cried when he was +flogged, but under the cover of the kindly dark, hot tears of +indignation, hurt pride and pity for his own loneliness—his +singularity—made all his pillow wet.</p> + +<p>Comfort came to him from an unexpected source. The door of his room had +been closed, but not latched. It was now pushed open by "Comrade," his +old spaniel, who made straight for his side, first pushing his nose +against his face and then leaping upon the bed and nestling down close +to him, with a sigh of satisfaction. The desolate boy welcomed this +dumb, affectionate companionship. The feel of the warm, soft body, and +the thought of the velvety brown eyes which he could not see in the +dark, but knew were fixed upon him with their intense, loving gaze, were +soothing to his overwrought nerves. Here was something whose love could +be counted upon—something as dependent upon him as he was upon Mr. +Allan; yet what a joy he found in the very dependence of this devoted, +soft-eyed creature! Never would he taunt Comrade with his dependence +upon charity.</p> + +<p>"No;" he said, his hands deep in the silky coat, "I would not insult a +dog as he has insulted me! Never mind, Comrade, old fellow, we'll have +our swim in the river tomorrow, and he may flog me again if he likes."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But he was not flogged the next day. An important business engagement +occupied Mr. Allan the whole afternoon, and when he came in late, tired +and pre-occupied, he found Edgar fresh and glowing from his exercise in +the river, the curls still damp upon his forehead, quietly eating his +supper with his mother. <i>She</i> knew, but tender creature that she was, +she was prepared to do anything short of fibbing to shield her pet from +another out-burst. But John Allan, still absorbed in business cares, +hardly looked toward the boy, and asked not a question.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + + +<p>The home of the Allans was never quite the same to Edgar Poe after that +night. A wall had been raised between him and his foster-father that +would never be scaled. He was still indulged in a generous amount of +pocket money which he invariably proceeded to get rid of as fast as he +could—lavishing it upon the enjoyment of his friends as freely as it +had been lavished upon him. He had plenty of pets and toys, went to +dancing school, in which his natural love of dancing made him delight, +and was given stiff but merry little parties, at which old Cy, the black +fiddler played and called the figures, and the little host and his +friends conformed to the strict, ceremonious etiquette observed by the +children as well as the grown people of the day.</p> + +<p>For these indulgences Frances Allan was chiefly responsible. The one +weak spot in the armor of austerity in which John Allan clothed himself +was his love for his wife, and it was often against what he felt to be +his better judgment that he acquiesced in her system of child-spoiling. +He felt a solemn responsibility toward the boy, and he did his duty by +him, as he saw it, faithfully. It was not in the least his fault that he +did <i>not</i> see that under the broad white brow and sunny ringlets was a +brain in which, like the sky in a dew-drop, a whole world was reflected, +with ever changing pageantry, and that the abstracted expression in the +boy's eyes that he thought could only mean that he was "hatching +mischief," really indicated that the creative faculty in budding genius +was awake and at work.</p> + +<p>For a child Edgar's age to be making trials at writing poetry Mr. Allan +regarded as sheer idleness, to be promptly suppressed. Indeed, when he +discovered that the boy had been guilty of such foolishness, he +emphatically ordered him not to repeat it. To counteract the effects of +his wife's spoiling of her adopted son, he felt it his duty to place all +manner of restrictions upon his liberty, which the freedom-loving boy, +with the connivance of his mother and the negro servants who adored him, +disregarded whenever it was possible. Though bathing in the river was +(except upon rare occasions) prohibited, Edgar became before summer was +over, the most expert swimmer and diver of his years in town, and many +an afternoon when Mr. Allan supposed that he was in his room, to which +he had been ordered for the purpose of disciplining his will and +character, or for punishment, he was far beyond the city's limits +roaming the woods, the fields, or the river-banks—joyously, and without +a prick of conscience (for all his disobedience) feeding his growing +soul upon the beauties of tree, and sky, and cliff, and water-fall.</p> + +<p>And so, in spite of the melancholy moods in which he was occasionally +plunged by the bitterness which had found lodgment in his breast, the +summer was upon the whole a happy one to the boy. He was so young and +the world was so beautiful! He could not remember always to be unhappy. +Edgar Goodfellow, as well as Edgar the Dreamer, revelled in the world of +Out-of-Door. To the one all manner of muscular sport and exercise was +as the breath of his nostrils; to the other, whose favorite stories were +ancient myths and fairy-tales, all natural phenomena possessed vivid +personality. He loved to trace pictures in the clouds. In the rustling +of corn or the stirring of leaves in the trees, or in the sound of +running waters he heard voices which spoke to him of delightsome things, +bringing to his full, grey eyes, as he hearkened, a soft, romantic look, +and touching his lips and his cheeks with a radiant spirituality.</p> + +<p>The cottage, on Clay Street, to which the Allans had removed soon after +their return from England, was in a quiet part of the town. The window +of Edgar's own, quaint little room in the dormer roof, with its shelving +walls, gave him a fair view of the sky, and brought him sweet airs +wafted across the garden of old-fashioned flowers below. Here, such +hours as he spent from choice or by command were not lonely, for, +sitting by the little window, many a story or poem was thought out; or +buried in some favorite book his thoughts would be borne away as if on +wings to a world where imagination was king.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the fall he was entered at Mr. Clarke's school. The school-room, with +its white-washed walls and the sun pouring in, unrestricted, through the +commonplace, big, bare windows, was very different from the great, +gloomy Gothic room at old Stoke-Newington—so full of mystery and +suggestion—but Edgar found it a pleasant place in which to be upon that +cool fresh morning in late September, when he made its acquaintance. He +felt full of mental activity and ready to go to work with a will upon +his Latin, his French and his mathematics. Since his return from +England, in June, he had become acquainted with most of the boys who +were to be his school-fellows, and he took at once to the school-master, +Professor Clarke, of Trinity College, Dublin—a middle-aged bachelor of +Irish birth, an accomplished gentleman and a very human creature, with a +big heart, a high ideal of what boys might be and abundant tolerance of +what they generally were. If he had a quick temper, he had also a quick +wit, and a quick appreciation of talent and sympathy with timorous +aspirations.</p> + +<p>It had been Master Clarke's suggestion that his new pupil, who was known +as Edgar Allan, should put his own name upon the school register. Edgar, +looking questioningly up into Mr. Allan's face, was glad to read +approval there, and with a thrill of pride he wrote upon the book, in +the small, clear hand that had become characteristic of him:</p> + +<p>"Edgar Allan Poe."</p> + +<p>He was proud of his name and proud of his father, of whom he remembered +nothing, but in whose veins, he knew, had run patriot blood, and who had +had the independence to risk all for love of the beautiful mother of +worshipped memory. It was with straightened shoulders and a high head +that he took the seat assigned him at the clumsy desk, in the bare, ugly +room of the school in which he was to be known for the first time as +<i>Edgar Poe</i>. He felt that in coming into his own name he had come into a +proud heritage.</p> + +<p>Mr. Clarke's Irish heart warmed toward him. He divined in the +big-browed, big-eyed boy a unique and gifted personality and proceeded +with the uttermost tact to do his best toward the cultivation of his +talents. The result was that Edgar not only acquitted himself +brilliantly in his studies, but progressed well in his verse-making, +which though, since Mr. Allan's prohibition, it had been kept secret in +his home, was freely acknowledged to teacher and school-fellows.</p> + +<p>By his class-mates he was deemed a wonder. He was so easily first among +them in everything—in the simple athletics with which they were +familiar, as well as in studies—and his talent for rhyming and drawing +seemed to set him upon a sort of pedestal.</p> + +<p>In the first blush of triumph these little successes gave him, young +Edgar's head was in a fair way to be turned. He saw himself (in fancy) +the leader, the popular favorite of the whole school. Indeed, he +flattered himself he had leaped at a single bound to this position at +the moment, almost, of his entrance. But he soon began to see that he +was mistaken. While he was conscious of the unconcealed admiration of +most, and the ill-concealed envy of a few of the boys, of his mental and +physical abilities, he began, as time went on, to suspect—then to be +sure—that for some reason that baffled all his ingenuity to fathom, he +was not accorded the position in the school that was the natural reward +for superiority of endowment and performance. This place was filled +instead by Nat Howard, a boy who, he told himself, he was without the +slightest vanity bound to see was distinctly second to him in every way.</p> + +<p>He noticed that whatever Nat proposed was invariably done, so that he +was forced either to follow where he should have led, or be left out of +everything. Often when he joined the boys listening with interest to +Nat's heavy jokes and talk, a silence would fall upon the company, which +in a short while would break up—the boys going off in twos and threes, +leaving him to his own society or that of a small minority composed of +two or three boys for the most part younger than himself, who in spite +of the popular taste for Nat, preferred him and were captivated by his +clever accomplishments.</p> + +<p>That there was some reason why he was thus shut out from personal +intimacy by school-mates who acknowledged and admired his powers he felt +sure, and he was determined to ferrit it out. In the meantime his heart, +always peculiarly responsive to affection, answered with warmth to the +devotion of the small coterie who were independent enough to swear +fealty to him. He helped them with their lessons, initiated them into +the mysteries of boxing and other manly exercises, went swimming and +gunning with them, and occasionally delighted them by showing them his +poems and the little sketches with which he sometimes illustrated his +manuscript, in the making.</p> + +<p>It must be confessed that there was little in these compositions to set +the world afire. They would only be counted remarkable as the work of a +school-boy in his early teens, and were practice work—nothing more. +They served their purpose, then sank into the oblivion which was their +meet destiny. But to Jack Preston, Dick Ambler, Rob Stanard and Rob +Sully, and one or two others, they were master-pieces.</p> + +<p>These boys, as well as Edgar, were giving serious attention to their +linen, the care of their hands, and the precise parting of their hair, +just then; and a close observer might often have detected them in the +act of furtively feeling their upper lips with anxious forefinger in the +vain hope of discovering the appearance—if ever so slight—of a downy +growth thereupon. For they, as well as he, were making sheep's eyes at +those wonderful visions in golden locks and jetty locks, with brown eyes +and blue eyes, with fluttering ribbons and snowy pinafores, known as +"Miss Jane Mackenzie's girls," who were the inspiration of most of their +poet-chum's invocations of the muse. The little hymns in praise of the +charms of these girls were generally adorned with pen or pencil sketches +of the fair charmers themselves.</p> + +<p>Poor Miss Jane had a sad time of it. As the accomplished principal of a +choice Young Ladies Boarding and Day School, she enjoyed an enviable +position in the politest society in town. Parents of young ladies under +her care congratulated themselves alike upon her strict rule and her +learning, her refinement of manners and conversation and her +distinguished appearance. She was tall and stately and in her decorous +garb of black silk that could have "stood alone," and an elegant cap of +"real" lace with lavender ribbons softening the precise waves of her +iron-grey hair, she made a most impressive figure—one that would have +inspired with profound respect any male creature living saving that +incorrigible non-respecter of persons and personages, especially of lady +principals—the Boy. For the "forming" of young ladies, Miss Jane had a +positive forte, but the genus boy was an unknown quantity to her, and +worse—he was a positive terror. For one of them to invade the sacred +precincts of her school, or its grounds, seemed to her maiden soul rank +sacrilege; to scale her garden wall after dark for the purpose of +attaching a letter to a string let down from a window to receive it, was +nothing short of criminal. For one of her girls to receive offerings of +candy and original poetry—<i>love poetry</i>—from one of these terrible +creatures; such an offence was unspeakably shocking.</p> + +<p>Yet discovery of such offences happened often enough to give her +repeated shocks, and to confirm her in her belief in the total +depravity, the hopeless wickedness of all boys—especially of John +Allan's adopted son.</p> + +<p>In spite of her vigilance, Edgar Poe found the means to outwit her, and +to transmit his effusions, without difficulty, to her fair charges, who +with tresses primly parted and braided and meek eyes bent in evident +absorption upon their books, were the very pictures of docile obedience, +and bore in their outward looks no hint of the guilty consciences that +should, by rights, have been destroying their peace.</p> + +<p>Miss Jane was the sister of Mr. Mackenzie who had adopted little Rosalie +Poe. Rosalie was, at Miss Jane's invitation, a pupil in the school, but +(ungrateful girl that she was) she became, at the suggestion of her +handsome and charming brother Edgar, whom she adored, the willing +messenger of Dan Cupid, and furthered much secret and sentimental +correspondence between the innocent-seeming girls and the young scamps +who admired them.</p> + +<p>In these fascinating flights into the realms of flirtation, as in other +things, Edgar's friends acknowledged his superiority—his romantic +personal beauty and his gift for rhyming giving him a decided advantage +over them all; but they acknowledged it without jealousy, for there was +much of hero worship in their attitude toward him, and they were not +only perfectly contented for him to be first in every way but it would +have disappointed them for him not to be. The captivating charm of his +presence, in his gay moods, made it unalloyed happiness for them to be +with him. They were always ready to follow him as far as he led in +daring adventure—ready to fetch and carry for him and glowing with +pride at the least notice from him.</p> + +<p>Some boys would have taken advantage of this state of things, but not so +Edgar Goodfellow. He, for his part, was always ready to contribute to +their pleasure, and fairly sunned himself in the unstinting love and +praise of these boys who admired, while but half divining his gifts. +Their games had twice the zest when Eddie played with them—he threw +himself into the sport with such heartfelt zeal that they were inspired +to do their best. Many a ramble in the woods and fields around Richmond +he took with them, telling them the most wonderful stories as he went +along; but sometimes, quite suddenly, during these outings, Edgar +Goodfellow would give place to Edgar the Dreamer and they would +wonderingly realize that his thoughts were off to a world where none of +them could follow—none of them unless it were Rob Sully, who was +himself something of a dreamer, and could draw as well as Edgar.</p> + +<p>The transformation would be respected. His companions would look at him +with something akin to awe in their eyes and tell each other in low +tones not to disturb Eddie, he was "making poetry," and confine their +chatter to themselves, holding rather aloof from the young poet, who +wandered on with the abstracted gaze of one walking in sleep—with them, +but not of them.</p> + +<p>There were other, less frequent, times when his mood was as much +respected, when added to the awe there was somewhat of distress in their +attitude toward him. At these times he was not only abstracted, but a +deep gloom would seem to have settled upon his spirit. Without apparent +reason, melancholy claimed him, and though he was still gentle and +courteous, they had a nameless sort of fear of him—he was so unlike +other boys and it seemed such a strange thing to be unhappy about +nothing. It was positively uncanny.</p> + +<p>At these times they did not even try to be with him. They knew that he +could wrestle with what he called his "blue devils" more successfully +alone. A restlessness generally accompanied the mood, and he would +wander off by himself to the churchyard, the river, or the woods; or +spend whole long, golden afternoons shut up in his room, poring over +some quaint old tale, or writing furiously upon a composition of his +own. When he looked at the boys, he did not seem to see them, but would +gaze beyond them—the pupils of his full, soft, grey eyes darkening and +dilating as if they were held by some weird vision invisible to all eyes +save his own; and indeed the belief was general among his friends that +he was endowed with the power of seeing visions. This impression had +been made even upon his old "Mammy," when he was a mite of a lad. Many a +time, when he turned that abstracted gaze upon her, she had said to him,</p> + +<p>"What dat you lookin' at now, Honey? You is bawn to see evil sho'!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>And now a glimpse of Edgar Goodfellow—the normal Edgar, whom his chums +saw oftenest and loved best, because they knew him best and understood +him best.</p> + +<p>It was a late Autumn Saturday—one of the Saturdays sent from Heaven for +the delight of school-children—bracing, but not cold; and brilliant. +Little Robert Sully looked pensively out of the window thinking what a +fine day it would be for a country tramp, if only he were like other +boys and could take them. But Rob was of frail build and constitution +and could never stand much exertion. In his eyes was the expression of +settled wistfulness that frequent disappointment will bring to the eyes +of a delicate child; in the droop of his mouth there was a touch of +bitterness, for he was thinking that not only did his weak body make it +impossible for him to keep up with the boys, but that it was no doubt, a +relief to the boys to leave him behind—that when he could be with them +he was perhaps a drag on their pleasure. No doubt they would make a +long day of it, this bright, bracing Saturday, for the persimmons and +the fox-grapes were ripe and the chinquapin and chestnut burrs were +opening. Tears of self-pity sprang to his eyes, but they were quickly +dashed away as he heard his name called and saw his beloved Eddie, +flushed and glowing with anticipated pleasure, at the gate.</p> + +<p>"Come along, Rob," he was calling. "We are going to the Hermitage woods +for chinquapins, and you must come too. Uncle Billy is going for a load +of pine-tags, and we can ride in his wagon, so it won't tire you."</p> + +<p>The other boys were waiting at the corner, all at the highest pitch of +mirth, for they saw that their idol, Eddie, was in one of his happiest +moods, which would mean a morning of unbounded fun to them. And the ride +with old Uncle Billy who, with black and shiny face, beaming upon them +in an excess of kindliness, hair like a full-blown cotton-boll, and +quaint talk, was an unfailing source of delight to them!</p> + +<p>The Saturday freedom was in their blood. Off and away they went in the +jolly, rumbling wagon, past houses and gardens, and fields and into the +enchanting, autumn-colored woods, where "Bob Whites" were calling to +each other and nuts were dropping in the rustling leaves or waiting to +be shaken from their open burrs.</p> + +<p>As they jolted along, the steady stream of conversation between Edgar +and Uncle Billy was as good as a play to the rest of the boys—Edgar, +with grave, courteous manner, discoursing of "cunjurs" and "ha'nts" with +as real an air of belief as that of the old man himself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + + +<p>The allegiance of his little band of boon companions was all the sweeter +to the young poet because he realized more and more fully as the years +of his school-days passed that for some reason unknown to himself he was +systematically, and plainly with intention, denied intimacy with Nat +Howard and his followers—<i>snubbed</i>. As has been said, they did not +hesitate to acknowledge his success in all sorts of mental and physical +trials of skill, but in a formal, impersonal way. There was never the +least familiarity in their intercourse with him. This, naturally, +produced in him a reserve in his manner toward them that they +unreasonably attributed to "airs." Their coldness wounded and chilled +the sensitive boy as much as the love of his devoted adherents warmed +him.</p> + +<p>It was not until near the end of his third session in the school that +the riddle was, quite suddenly, solved. Edgar Poe was now in his +fifteenth year. One perfect May day, when the song of birds, the odors +of flowers, the whisper of soft breezes and the languor of mellow +sunshine outside of the open school windows were wooing all poetic souls +to come out and live, and let musty, dry books go to the deuce, little +Rob Sully found it impossible to fix his mind upon his Latin. As for +Edgar's mind, it was plain from his expression that it was far afield; +but then Edgar had the power of knowing his lessons intuitively, almost. +Rob only "got" his by faithful plodding. When their respective classes +were called, Edgar recited brilliantly, while Rob seemed like one +befuddled and, making a dismal failure, was bidden to stay in and study +at recess. A look of utter woe settled upon his thin, pallid face, which +lifted as, impelled to look toward Edgar's desk, he caught his friend's +eyes fixed upon him with their charming smile. He knew well what the +eyes were saying:</p> + +<p>"Don't worry, Rob, I'll stay in and help you."</p> + +<p>And stay in the owner of the eyes did, patiently going over and over the +lesson with the confused boy until the hard parts were made easy. +Finally, when he saw that Rob had mastered it, Edgar walked out into the +yard for the few minutes left of recess. The boys were all drawn up in a +group a little way from the house and were being harangued by his rival, +Nat Howard. His chums, Rob Stanard, Dick Ambler and Jack Preston, were +standing together a few feet apart from the rest. Their faces were very +red and the haranguing seemed to be addressed directly to them. Edgar +stopped where he was, wondering what it was all about, but shy of +joining a crowd over which Nat was presiding.</p> + +<p>The speaker's voice rose to a higher key.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you, boys," he was saying, "if you persist in intimacy with +this fellow, you needn't expect to be in with me and my crowd."</p> + +<p>"We don't want you and your crowd," was the response. "He's worth all of +you rolled into one."</p> + +<p>Edgar's heart stood still. "Was Nat Howard talking about <i>him</i>?"</p> + +<p>The voice went on: "I grant you the fellow's smart enough and game +enough, but he's not in our class, and I, for one, won't associate with +him intimately."</p> + +<p>"His family's one of the oldest and most honorable in the country," said +Robert Stanard. "I've heard my father say so."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but his father must have been a black sheep to run away with a +common actress—"</p> + +<p>The harangue was brought to an abrupt end. The enraged Edgar had sprung +forward and, with a blow in the face, struck Nat Howard down. Nat's +friends were lifting him up and wiping the blood from his face and +dusting his clothing, while Edgar's own friends gathered around him as +if to restrain him from repeating the attack. He shook them off, gazing +with contempt upon his limp and half-stunned adversary.</p> + +<p>"I'll not hit him again until he repeats his offence," he assured the +boys, "but I want him and all other cowardly dogs to know what's waiting +for them when they insult the memory of my father and mother. Yes! my +mother was an actress! God gave her the gifts to make her one and she +had the pluck to use them to earn bread for herself and for her +children. Yes! she was an actress! She had the lovely face and form, the +high intelligence and the poetic soul for the making of a perfect woman +or for the interpreter of genius—for the personification of a Juliet, a +Rosalind or a Cordelia. Yes! she was an actress! And I'm proud of it as +surely as I'm proud she's an angel in Heaven! And I'm proud that my +father—the son of a proud family—had the spirit, for her sweet sake, +to fly in the face of convention, to count family, fortune and all well +lost to become her husband, and to adopt her profession; to learn of +her, in order that he might be always at her side to protect her and to +live in the light of her presence. If I had choice of all the surnames +and of all the lineage in the world, I would still choose the name of +Poe, and to be the son of David and Elizabeth Poe, players!"</p> + +<p>The boys were silent. The school bell was ringing and Edgar Poe, still +pale and trembling with passion, turned on his heel and strode, with +head up, in the direction of the door. Rob Stanard and Rob Sully walked +one on each side of him, while Dick Ambler and Jack Preston and several +others among his adherents, followed close. A little way behind the +group came the other boys, their still half-dazed leader in their midst. +Good Mr. Burke (who had succeeded Mr. Clarke as school-master) guessed +as they came in and took their seats that there had been an altercation +of some kind, and that his two brag scholars had been prominent in it; +but he was wise in his generation and allowed the boys to settle their +own differences without asking any questions unless he were appealed to, +when his sympathy and interest were found to be theirs to count upon.</p> + +<p>The afternoon session was unsatisfactory, but the master was in an +indulgent mood and apparently did not notice what each boy felt—a +confusion and abstraction. There was a palpable sense of relief when the +closing hour came.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At dinner that day Edgar was silent and evidently under a cloud, and +scarcely touched his food. Frances Allan looked toward him anxiously and +her husband suspiciously. When his lack of appetite was remarked upon, +he, truthfully enough, pleaded headache. Mrs. Allan was all sympathy at +once.</p> + +<p>"You study too hard, dear," she said. "You may have a holiday tomorrow +if you like, and go and spend the day in the country with Rosalie and +the Mackenzies."</p> + +<p>"No, no," replied the boy. "I'll just stay quiet, in my room, this +evening. I'll be all right by tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"What have you been eating?" demanded John Allan, gruffly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, since breakfast, Sir," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Headaches are for nervous women. When a healthy boy complains of one, +and declines dinner, it generally means that he has been robbing +somebody's strawberry patch or up a cherry-tree, stuffing half-ripe +fruit," he said in the acid, suspicious tone that the boy knew. It was +beyond John Allan's powers to imagine any but physical causes for a +boy's ailments.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Not until the door of his own little bed-room was closed behind him did +Edgar Poe even try to collect his thoughts. Then he sat down at his +window and looked out over the fragrant garden to the quiet sky, +contemplation of which had so often soothed his spirit, and tried to +readjust the inner world he lived in, in accordance with the discovery +he had just made. A first such readjustment his world had experienced +three years before, when Mr. Allan had taunted him with his dependence +upon charity. Before that time the world, as he knew it, had held only +love and beauty—sorrow, as he had seen it, being but a solemn and +poetic form of beauty. The change in such a world made by the discovery +that his being an adopted son set him apart in a class different from +other boys—a class unlovely and loveless—had been great, had stolen +much of the joy from living; but he was very young then, and the joy of +mere living and breathing was strong in his blood, and he had gradually +become accustomed—hardened, if you will—to the idea of his dependence +upon charity.</p> + +<p>But here was a change far more terrible, and coming at a time when he +was old enough to feel it far more keenly. He was indeed, in a class by +himself—he was held in contempt because of what his angel mother had +been! His holy of holies had been profaned, the sacred fire that warmed +his inner life had been spat upon. It seemed he had been from the +beginning despised, though he had not dreamed it, for that which he held +most dear—of which he was most proud. The little, aristocratic, +puffed-up world he lived in would doubtless always despise him; but that +was because of its narrowness and ignorance for which he, in turn, would +despise it. With the whimsical, half-belief he had always had that the +dead remain conscious through their long sleep, he wondered if his +beautiful young mother, with the roses on her hair, down under the green +earth, was not aware of the love and loyalty of her boy and if her +spirit soaring the highest heavens, would not aid him in carrying out +the resolution which in the bitterness of his soul, he then and there +made—the resolution to bring this mean little, puffed up world to do +honor to his name—to her name, of which he was prouder in this hour +when others would trample it in the dust than he had ever been before.</p> + +<p>Young boy though he was, he was conscious of his God-given endowments. +He felt that the divine fire of poetic feeling in his breast was an +immortal thing. Up to this time, his singing had been as the singing of +a wood-bird—an impulse, a necessity to express the thoughts and +feelings of his heart. He had never looked far enough ahead to consider +whether he should or should not publish his work; but now ambition +awoke—full-grown at its birth—and set him afire. From those parents +whose memory had been insulted he had received (God willing it) the +precious heritage of brilliant intellect. He would put the work of this +intellect—his stories and his poems—into books. He would give them to +the wide world. He would win recognition for the name of Poe.</p> + +<p>He drew from within his coat the miniature of his mother—her dying +gift. He gazed upon it long and tenderly, and with it still exposed to +view brought from his desk the little packet of yellowed letters in +their faded blue ribbon. He knew them by heart, but he read them—each +one—over again, as carefully as if it had been the first time. They +were not many and those not long; but ah, they were sweet!—those +tender, quaint love-letters that had passed between his parents in their +brief courtship and married life. His father's so manly so strong—like +the letters of a soldier. His mother's so modest, so tender. They did +not stir his pulses so wildly now as they did upon his first reading of +them, when a little lad at old Stoke-Newington—but they were no less +beautiful to him now than then. The sentences made him think of the +dainty, sweet aroma of pressed roses.</p> + +<p>He tied the packet up again and kissed letters and picture, as if to +seal the promise he was making them, then restored them to their +hiding-places. With the bitter knowledge that had come to him, he felt +that years had passed over him—that he would never be young again—this +boy of fourteen!</p> + +<p>He raised his deep, pensive eyes once more to the quiet sky and his +spirit cried to Heaven to grant him power to accomplish this task he had +set himself: to lift the loved name of his parents from the dust where +it lay, and to set it high in the temple of fame, wreathed with immortal +myrtle.</p> + +<p>His resolution gave to his poetic face and his slender figure an air of +mastery, as though some new, high quality had been born within him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + + +<p>In the days that followed, Edgar's friends found him unusually silent, +yet not morose. Serenity sat on his broad, thoughtful brow and in his +great, soft eyes. Nat Howard and his chums gave him the cold shoulder +and wore, in his presence, the air of offended dignity which the +small-minded are apt to assume when conscious of being in the wrong or +of having committed an injury which the victim has received with credit +and the offender has not forgiven. It is so much easier to grant pardon +for an injury received than for one given!</p> + +<p>Edgar's own friends were more emphatic in their devotion to him than +ever—racking their young brains for ways in which to show their loyalty +and frequently looking into his face with the expression of soft +adoration and trust one sees in the eyes of a faithful dog. Edgar was +touched and gratified, and his sweet, spontaneous smile often rewarded +their efforts; but his face would soon become grave again and the boys +were aware that the mind of their gifted friend was busy with thoughts +in which they had no part. This gave them an impression of distance +between them and him. He all of a sudden, seemed to have become remote, +as though a chasm, by what power they knew not, had opened between +them—making their love for him as "the desire of the moth for the +star." They knew that he was more often than ever before working upon +his poetical and other compositions, but these were seldom shown, or +even mentioned, to them.</p> + +<p>Each boy in his own way sought to bridge the gulf that separated them +from their idol. Robert Sully missed his Latin lesson on purpose in the +hope that Eddie would stay in and help him. And Eddie did, but wore that +same detached air in which there was no intimacy or comfort. When the +lesson was learned Edgar took a slate from the desk before them, rubbed +off the problem that was upon it, and quickly wrote down a little poem +of several stanzas. He held it out, with a smile, to Rob, telling him +that while teaching him his lesson he had been practicing "dividing his +mind," and that while one part of his brain had been putting English +into Latin the other part had composed the verses on the slate.</p> + +<p>The dumfounded Rob read the verses aloud, but before he could express +his amazement Edgar had taken the slate from him and, with one swipe of +the damp spunge, obliterated the rhymes.</p> + +<p>"Write them on paper for me, please," plead Robert.</p> + +<p>The brilliant smile of the boy-poet flashed upon him. "Oh, they were not +worth keeping," said he, indifferently. "They were merely an exercise." +And picking up his books and hat, he walked out of the door, whistling +in clear, high, plaintive notes one of the melodies of his favorite Tom +Moore.</p> + +<p>The boy left behind looked after him with a troubled heart and misty +eyes. This wonderful friend of his was as kind as ever, yet he seemed +changed. It was clear that he had "something on his mind."</p> + +<p>"Will you go swimming with me this evening, Eddie?" said Dick Ambler +one day when school was out.</p> + +<p>"With all the pleasure in life," was the hearty response.</p> + +<p>Dick went home to his dinner with a singing heart. If anything could +bring Edgar down from the clouds to his own level, surely it would be +bathing together. He certainly could not make poetry while diving and +swimming, naked, in the racing and tumbling falls of James River. A +merry battle with those energetic waters kept a fellow's wits as well as +his muscles fully occupied.</p> + +<p>But even this attempt was a failure. If Edgar made any poetry while in +the water he did not mention it; but he was absent-minded and unsociable +all the way to the river and back—sky-gazing for curious cloud-forms, +listening for bird-notes and hunting wild-flowers, and talking almost +none at all.</p> + +<p>In the water he seemed to wake up, and never dived with more grace, or +daring; but no sooner had they started on the way home than he was off +with his dreams again.</p> + +<p>Rob Stanard was more successful in his attempts to interest his friend. +In spite of their intimacy at school and on the playground Edgar had up +to this time never visited the Stanard home. Rob had enlisted his +mother's sympathy in the orphan boy and she had suggested that he should +invite Edgar home with him some day. It now occurred to Rob that this +would be a good time to do so, and knowing his friend's fondness for +dumb animals, he offered his pets as an attraction—asking him to come +and see his pigeons and rabbits. His invitation was accepted with +alacrity.</p> + +<p>Edgar had seen Rob's mother, but only at a distance. He knew her +reputation as one of the town beauties, but lovely women were not rare +in Richmond, and, beauty-worshipper though he was, he had never had any +especial curiosity in regard to Mrs. Stanard. He was altogether +unprepared for the vision that broke upon him.</p> + +<p>Instead of going through the house, Rob had piloted him by way of a side +gate, directly into the walled garden, sweet and gay with roses, lilies +and other flowers of early June.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stanard, who took almost as much pleasure in her children's pets as +they did, was standing near a clump of arbor-vitae, holding in her hands +a "willow-ware" plate from which the pigeons were feeding. She was at +this time, though the mother of Edgar's twelve-year-old chum, not thirty +years of age, and her pensive beauty was in its fullest flower. Against +the sombre background the arbor-vitae made, her slight figure, clad in +soft, clinging white, seemed airy and sylphlike. Her dark, curling hair, +girlishly bound with a ribbon snood, and her large brown eyes, were in +striking contrast to her complexion, which was pale, with the radiant +and warm palor of a tea-rose or a pearl. Her features were daintily +modelled, and like slender lilies were the hands holding the deep blue +plate from which the pigeons—white, grey and bronze, fed—fluttering +about her with soft cooings.</p> + +<p>The picture was so much more like a poet's dream than a reality, that +the boy-poet stepped back, with an exclamation of surprise.</p> + +<p>"It is only my mother," explained Rob. "She'll be glad to see you."</p> + +<p>The next moment she had perceived the boys, and with quick impulse, set +the plate upon the ground and came forward, and before a word of +introduction could be spoken, had taken the visitor's hand between both +her own fair palms, holding it thus, with gentle, gracious pressure, in +a pretty, cordial way she had, while she greeted him.</p> + +<p>The soft eyes that rested on his face filled with kindness and welcome.</p> + +<p>"So this is my Rob's friend," she was saying, in a low, musical voice. +"Rob's mother is delighted to see you for his sake and for your own too, +Edgar, for I greatly admired <i>your</i> gifted mother. I saw her once only, +when I was a young girl, but I can never forget her lovely face and +sweet, plaintive voice. It was one of the last times she ever acted, and +she was ill and pale, but she was exquisitely beautiful and made the +most charming Juliet. She interested me more than any actress I have +ever seen."</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe longed to fall down and kiss her feet—to worship her. Her +beauty, her gentleness and her gracious words so stirred his soul that +he grew faint. Power of speech almost left him, and, vastly to his +humiliation, he could with difficulty control his voice to utter a few +stumbling words of thanks—he who was usually so ready of speech!</p> + +<p>If she noticed his confusion she did not appear to do so. Her heart had +been touched by all she had heard from her son of the lonely boy, and +she had also been interested in accounts of his gifts that had come to +her from various sources. The beauty, the poetry, the pensiveness of his +face moved her deeply—knowing his history and divining the lack of +sympathy one of his bent would probably find in the Allan home, for all +its indulgences.</p> + +<p>She sat on a garden-bench and talked to him for a time, in her gentle, +understanding way, and then, not wishing to be a restraint upon the +boys, (after placing her husband's fine library at Edgar's disposal, and +urging him to come often to see Rob) withdrew into the house.</p> + +<p>The motherless boy looked after her until she had disappeared, and +stared at the door that had closed upon her until he was recalled from +his reverie by the voice of his friend, suggesting that they now see the +rabbits. Edgar looked at the gentle creatures with unseeing eyes, though +he appeared to be listening to the prattle of his companion concerning +them. Suddenly, in a voice filled with enthusiasm and with a touch of +awe in it, he said:</p> + +<p>"Rob, your mother is divinely beautiful—and <i>good</i>."</p> + +<p>"Bully," was the nonchalant reply. "The best thing about her is the way +she takes up for a fellow when he brings in a bad report or gets into a +scrape. Fathers always think it's their sons' fault, you know."</p> + +<p>Edgar flushed. "<i>Bully</i>—" he said to himself, with a shudder. The +adjective applied to her seemed blasphemy.</p> + +<p>Aloud, he said, "She's an angel! She's the one I've always dreamed +about."</p> + +<p>"You dreamed about mother when you had never seen her?" questioned the +astonished Rob. "What did you dream?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, in the way you mean. I meant she is like my idea of a perfect +woman. The kind of woman a man could always be good for, or would gladly +die to serve."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not smart enough to think out things like that, Eddie, but +Mother certainly is all right. What you say about her sounds nice, and +she'd understand it, too. I just bet that you and mother'll be the best +sort of cronies when you know each other better. She likes all those +queer old books you think so fine, and she knows whole pages of poetry +by heart. When you and she get together it will be like two books +talking out loud to each other. I won't be able to join in much, but it +will be as good as a play to listen."</p> + +<p>The young poet bent his steps homeward with but one thought, one hope in +his heart, and that a consuming one: to look again upon the lovely face, +to hear again the voice that had enthralled him, had taken his heart by +storm and filled it with a veritable <i>grande passion</i>—the rapturous +devotion of the virgin heart of an ardent and romantic youth. First +love—yet so much more than ordinary love—a pure passion of the soul, +in which there was much of worship and nothing of desire. Surely the +most pure and holy passion the world has ever known, for in it there was +absolutely nothing of self. Like Dante after his first meeting with +Beatrice, this Virginia boy-poet had entered upon a <i>Vita Nuova</i>—a new +life—made all of beauty.</p> + +<p>What difference did the taunts of schoolmates, the hardness of a +foster-father make now? The wounds they made had been gratefully healed +by the balm of her beauteous words about his mother. Those old wounds +were as nothing—neither they nor anything else had power to harm him +now. In the new life that had opened so suddenly before him he would +bear a charmed existence.</p> + +<p>He went to his room before the usual hour that night, for he wanted to +be alone with his dreams—with his newest, most beautiful dream. To his +room, but not to bed. Life was too beautiful to be wasted in sleep. He +lighted his lamp and holding his mother's picture within its circle of +light, gazed long and devotedly upon it. Did she know of the great light +that had shone out of what seemed a sunless sky upon her boy? Had she, +looking out from high Heaven, seen the gracious greeting of the +beautiful being who was Madonna and Psyche in one? Had she heard her own +cause so sweetly championed, her own name so sweetly cleared of +opprobrium?</p> + +<p>He threw himself upon his lounge and lay with his hands clasped under +his curly head, still dreaming—dreaming—dreaming—until day-dreams +were merged into real dreams, for he was fast asleep.</p> + +<p>In his sleep he saw the lady of his dreams in a situation of peril, from +which he joyfully rescued her. He awoke with a start. His lamp had +burned itself out but a late moon flooded the room with the white light +that he loved. A breeze laden with odors caught from the many +rose-gardens and the heavier-scented magnolias, now in full bloom, it +had come across, stirred the curtain. His nostrils, always sensitive to +the odors of flowers, drank it in rapturously. So honey-sweet it was, +his senses swam.</p> + +<p>He arose and looked out upon the incense-breathing blossoms, like +phantoms, under the moon. A clock in a distant part of the house was +striking twelve. How much more beautiful was the world now—at night's +high noon—than at the same hour of the day.</p> + +<p>All the house, save himself, was asleep. How easy it would be to escape +into this lovely night—to walk through this ambrosial air to the +house-worshipful in which <i>she</i> doubtless lay, like a closed +lily-flower, clasped in sleep.</p> + +<p>A mocking-bird—the Southland's nightingale—in, some tree or bush not +far away, burst into passion-shaken melody that seemed to voice, as no +words could, his own emotion.</p> + +<p>Down the stair he slipped, and out of the door, into the well-nigh +intoxicating beauty of the southern summer's night. Indeed, the odors of +the dew-drenched flowers—the moonlight—the bird-music, together with +his remembrance of his lady's greeting, went to his head like wine.</p> + +<p>As he strolled along some lines of Shelley's which had long been +favorites of his, sang in his brain:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I arise from dreams of thee<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the first sweet sleep of night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the winds are breathing low<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the stars are shining bright.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I arise from dreams of thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the spirit in my feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has led me—who knows how?—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To thy chamber-window, sweet!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The wandering airs they faint<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On the dark, the silent stream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The champak odors fail<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like sweet thoughts in a dream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nightingale's complaint,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It dies upon her heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I must die on thine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Oh, beloved, as thou art!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, lift me from the grass!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I die, I faint, I fail!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let thy love in kisses rain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On my lips and eyelids pale.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My cheek is cold and white, alas!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My heart beats loud and fast.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, press it close to thine again,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where it will break at last."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The words of the latter half of this serenade were meaningless as +applied to his case. To have quoted them—even mentally—in any literal +sense, would have seemed to him profanation; yet the whole poem in some +way not to be analysed or defined, expressed his mood—and who so brutal +as to seek to reduce to common-sense the emotions of a poet-lover, in +the springtime of life?</p> + +<p>At length he was before the closed and shuttered house, standing silent +and asleep. Opposite were the grassy slopes of Capitol Square—with the +pillared, white Capitol, in its midst, looking, in the moonlight, like a +dream of old Greece. <i>Her</i> house! He looked upon its moonlit, ivied +walls with adoration. A light still shone from one upper room. Was it +<i>her</i> chamber? Was she, too, awake and alive to the beauty of this magic +night?</p> + +<p>His heart beat tumultuously at the thought. Then—Oh, wonder! His knees +trembled under him—he grew dizzy and was ready, indeed, to cry, "I die, +I faint, I fail!" She crossed the square of light the window made. In +her uplifted hand she carried the lamp from which the light shone, and +for a moment her slight figure, clad all in white as he had seen her in +the garden a few hours before, and softly illuminated, was framed in the +ivy-wreathed casement. But for a moment—then disappeared, but the +trembling boy-lover and poet seemed to see it still, and gazed and gazed +until the light was out and all the house dark.</p> + +<p>He stumbled back through the moonlight to his home, he crept up the +creaking stair again, to his little, dormer-windowed room; but sleep was +now, more than ever, impossible.</p> + +<p>Though the lamp had gone out, a candle stood upon a stand at the head +of his bed. He lighted it, and by its ray, wrote, under the spell of the +hour, the first utterance in which he, Edgar Poe, ascended from the +plane of a maker of "promising" verse, to the realm of the true poet—a +poem to the lady of his heart's dream destined (though he little guessed +it) to make her name immortal and to send the fame of his youthful +passion down the ages as one of the world's historic love-affairs.</p> + +<p>What was her name? he wondered. He had never heard it, but he would call +her Helen—<i>Helen</i>, the ancient synonym of womanly beauty, but the +loveliest Helen, he believed, that ever set poet-lover piping her +praise.</p> + +<p>And so, "To Helen," were the words he wrote at the top of his page, and +underneath the name these lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Helen, thy beauty is to me<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like those Nicean barks of yore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That gently o'er a perfumed sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The weary, wayworn wanderer bore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To his own native shore.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"On desperate seas long wont to roam,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy Naiad airs have brought me home<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the glory that was Greece<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the grandeur that was Rome.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How statue-like I see thee stand!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The agate lamp within thy hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ah! Psyche, from the regions which<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are Holy Land!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + + +<p>With his meeting with "Helen," a new life, indeed, seemed to have opened +for Edgar the Dreamer. Not only had her own interest and sympathy been +aroused, but her husband, a learned and accomplished judge of the +Supreme Court of Virginia, also received him cordially and became deeply +interested in him, and he found in their home what his own had lacked +for him, a thoroughly congenial atmosphere.</p> + +<p>"Helen" Stanard listened kindly to his boyish rhapsodies about his +favorite poets, and encouraged him to bring her his own portefolio of +verses, which he did, all but the ones addressed to herself—these he +kept secret. She read all he brought her carefully, and intelligently +criticised them in a way that was a real help to him.</p> + +<p>As has been said, when Mr. Allan had discovered that his adopted son was +a rhymster, he had rebuked him severely for such idle waste of time, and +in a vain attempt to clip the wings of Pegasus, threatened him with +punishment if he should hear of such folly again. Mrs. Allan, on the +contrary, though she was not a bookish woman, had protested against her +husband's command—urging that Edgar be encouraged to cultivate his +talent. The ability to compose verse seemed to her, in a boy of Edgar's +age, little short of miraculous, and, proud of her pet's accomplishment, +she heaped indiscriminate praise upon every line that she saw of his +writing.</p> + +<p>The boy, hardly knowing which way to escape, between these two fires +that bade fair to work the ruin of his gift, turned eagerly to his new +friend. "Helen" gently told him that she believed his talent to be a +sacred trust, and that he would be committing sin to bury it—even +though by so doing he should be fulfilling the wishes of his +foster-father to whom he owed so much. He must, however, not forget his +duty to Mr. Allan in regard to this matter, as in other things, but +treat his views with all the consideration possible. Above all things, +he was never to depart from the truth in talking to him, but to tell him +in a straightforward and respectful way that he believed it his duty +when poetical thoughts presented themselves to his mind, to set them +down, and even to encourage and invite such thoughts.</p> + +<p>At the same time, she earnestly warned him against being overmuch +impressed by the flattering estimates of his work of his friends, +especially of his mother, who was far too partial to him, personally, to +be a safe judge of his writings.</p> + +<p>A happier summer than is often given mortals to know, Edgar the Dreamer +passed at the feet of the lovely young matron who had become a sort of +mother-confessor to him. Happiness which, with a touch of the +superstition that was characteristic of him he often told himself was +too perfect to last. What was it that made him feel sometimes in looking +upon her under the serene sky of that ideal summer that a cloud no +bigger than a man's hand threw its shadow upon her? Was it that faint +hint of sadness in her dark eyes or the ethereal radiance of her pale +complexion that while thrilling him with delight in the exquisite +quality of her beauty, filled him with foreboding?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Ere the frosts of autumn had robbed her garden of its glory, blighting +sorrow had fallen upon her tender mother-heart in the death of a darling +baby girl. Beneath this blow the health of sweet "Helen," always frail, +succumbed, and her home became thenceforth as a living tomb, in which +the few who ever saw her again trod softly and spoke in hushed voices.</p> + +<p>When the earliest roses were in bloom in her garden two years after +Edgar Poe first saw her there, she lay in her coffin, and for him, the +world seemed to have come to an end.</p> + +<p>She was laid to rest in the new cemetery on Shockoe Hill, not far from +the Allan home. The bier was followed by its black procession of +mourners, and no one knew that the heart of a youth who followed too, +but at a distance, was breaking. Though husband and children and brother +and sister were bowed with grief, he told himself that there was among +them no sorrow like unto his sorrow who had not even the right of +kinship to mourn for her. Of what business of his (he fancied, out of +the bitterness of his soul, the world saying) of what business of his +was her death? What business had he to mourn?</p> + +<p>Again his feet kept time to the old refrain of never, nevermore, that +hammered in his brain—a refrain that to the unrealizing ear of the +child of three had been sad with a beautiful, rhythmic sadness that was +rather pleasurable than otherwise; that to the youth of sixteen was +still musical and beautiful, though filled with despair.</p> + +<p>As at many another time his poetical gift gave him a merciful vent for +his pent up feeling, so now it came to his aid, and upon the night of +the day when she was laid to rest he poured out his sorrow in "The +Paean"—which he was afterwards to revise and rename, "Lenore"—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As during his childhood, and afterwards, he had found a mournful +pleasure in visiting the grave of his mother, in the churchyard on the +hill; so now he found a blessed solace, in his terrible loneliness, in +pilgrimages to the shrine (for as such he held the grave of his saint) +in the new cemetery. These pilgrimages he usually made at night—his +grief was too sacred a thing to be flaunted in broad daylight. Many a +night during the spring and summer found him slipping down the stair, +when the house was asleep, and taking his way through the silent city +of Slumber to that even more silent city of Death.</p> + +<p>Oh, that those that lay there not much more still than they who lay +asleep in their beds in that other city, might arise like them with the +morrow's sun!</p> + +<p>Often, as he walked along, drinking in the perfumed night air that he +loved—the night breeze gratefully lifting the ringlets from his fevered +brow—often he thought of that first summer's night when with the sweet +words of Shelley's serenade: "I arise from dreams of thee," singing +themselves in his heart, he had gone with light feet to worship beneath +her window.</p> + +<p>Ah, the world was young then, for sweet hope was alive!</p> + +<p>The iron gates of the cemetery were locked, but the wall was not very +high. To scale it but added zest to his adventure. He would be a knight +unfit for his vigil if he were to let himself be so easily balked.</p> + +<p>Within the wall the odors of flowers were even heavier, more +oppressively sweet than without, and the silence surpassed the silence +of the outer city even as the stillness of the sleepers here surpassed +the stillness of those yonder.</p> + +<p>He listened and listened to the silence. Surely if she should speak, +even from down under the ground he could hear her across this silence +which was as a void—a black and terrible void.</p> + +<p>His first pilgrimages were by moonlight, but when the moonless nights +came he continued his vigils. He would have known the way by that time +with his eyes shut.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he was afraid—horribly afraid. He seemed, in the shadows, to +descry weird phantom-shapes, moving stealthily; in the silence to hear +ghostly whispers; sometimes he fancied he heard <i>the silence itself</i>! +But in the very fear that clutched his throat there was a fascination—a +lure—that made it impossible to turn back.</p> + +<p>His sorrow was exquisite; his terror was exquisite; his loneliness was +oh, how exquisite! Yet in courting them all, here in the dead of night, +prone on her grave, he found the only balm he knew—the only sympathy; +for to his fancy the dark and the quiet had always seemed sentient +things and he felt that they gave him a sympathy he did not—could not +ask of people.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A breathless night in July found him at the familiar tryst at an earlier +hour than was his wont. He lay upon the grass at her feet with his hands +clasped under his head and his face turned up to the stars. There was +moonlight as well as starlight, and in its silvery radiance his +features, always pale, had the frigid whiteness of marble. The wide-open +eyes that stared upward to the stars, were larger, darker than in +daylight, and more full of brooding; the white brow, with its crown of +dark ringlets was whiter and more expansive.</p> + +<p>In a dormer-windowed cottage overlooking a rose garden, on Clay Street, +an erect gentleman in an uncompromising stock and immaculate ruffles, +with narrow blue eyes under a beetling brow, and a somewhat hawk-like +nose, sharply questioned a fair and graceful lady, with an anxious +expression on her flower-face, as to why "that boy" did not come home to +his supper. But they were used by now, to the boy's strange, wayward +whims, and so did not marvel much. Only—they had not seen him since the +feat that had set the town ringing with his name and it seemed to them +that it would have been natural for him to come home in the flush of his +triumph and tell them about it.</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe had that day created the sensation of the hour by swimming +from the Richmond wharves to Warwick—a distance of six miles—in the +midsummer sun.</p> + +<p>Richmond was a fair and pleasant little city in those days, in spite of +the fact that our boy-poet found in it so much to make him melancholy. +"The merriest place in America," Thackeray called it some years later, +and would probably have said the same of it then had he been there. The +blight of Civil War had not touched the cheerful temper of its people; +the tenement row had not crowded out grass and flowers. It was more a +large village than a town, with gracious homes—not elbowing each other +for foundation room, but standing comfortably apart, amid their green +lawns, and with wide verandahs overhanging their many-flowered gardens.</p> + +<p>"After tea," on warm nights, the houses overflowed into these +verandahs, and there was much visiting from one to another—much +light-hearted talk and happy laughter; the popular theme being whatever +happened to be "the news."</p> + +<p>It was the day of contentment, for wants were moderate and plentifully +supplied; the day of satisfaction in wholesome domestic joys; the day of +hospitality without grudging; the day when sweetness extracted from +little pleasures did not need spicing, for palates were not jaded; the +day of the ideal simple life.</p> + +<p>Upon this night, as on other nights, young girls who were not yet "gone +to the springs" floated along the fashionable promenades, in airy +muslins, with their cavaliers beside them. Groups of gentlemen and +ladies sat on the porches and children played hide-and-seek, chased +fire-flies, or sat on the steps and listened to the talk of their +elders. And everywhere, in all of the groups, the chief topic was the +boy, Edgar Poe, and his wonderful swim.</p> + +<p>And the boy who had in an afternoon become, for the time being at least, +the foremost figure in town, knew it, but did not care.</p> + +<p>To lie alone on the grass by the grave of his dead divinity and gaze at +the far stars, and brood upon his young sorrows—this gave him more +satisfaction than to be the central figure of any one of the groups +singing his praise; filled him with a romantic despair that to his +high-strung soul had a more delicately sweet flavor than positive +pleasure.</p> + +<p>As to the erect gentleman in the high stock and the pretty lady with +the tender, anxious face—they had, for the present, no part in his +thoughts. It was wrong and ungrateful of him that they should not have, +and if he had remembered them he would have known that it was wrong and +ungrateful; but he would not have cared. And as for his food—he had +supped royally, and without compunction, upon the fruit of an inviting +orchard to which he had helped himself, unblushingly, upon his way into +town.</p> + +<p>A reckless mood, born of the restlessness that was in his blood, was +upon him.</p> + +<p>The truth was, that poignant as was his pleasure in dwelling upon his +poetical sorrow for the adored "Helen"—his "lost Lenore"—it did not +fully satisfy him. His youthful heart was hungry for response to his +out-poured sentiment, for the more robust diet of mutual love. In plain +English, Edgar Poe wanted, and wanted badly, a sweetheart, though he did +not suspect it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When, finally, he scaled the cemetery wall and took his way homeward he +did not go directly to the dormer-windowed cottage where the erect +gentleman and the pretty lady awaited him. Just as he was approaching it +he heard Elmira Royster's guitar in the porch opposite, and he crossed +the street and entered the Royster's gate.</p> + +<p>The Roysters and Allans had been neighbors for years and he and Elmira +had been "brought up together." At the sound of approaching footsteps +the guitar grew suddenly silent and a slight, rather colorless girl in a +white dress, with a white flower in her fluffy blonde hair, came from +out the shadow of the microphilla rose that embowered the porch and +stood in the full light of the moon, giving him greeting.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Eddie," she said. "All of the family but me +have gone to a party, and I'm so lonesome! Besides, I, like everybody +else in town, want a chance to congratulate you."</p> + +<p>"Congratulate?" he replied, with a shrug, as he took a seat beside her, +under the roses, "Congratulate? In their hearts they all despise me." +Then with a smile,</p> + +<p>"You see the blue devils have the upper hand of me tonight, Myra."</p> + +<p>"Well, they are fibbing devils if they tell you you are despised. Dick +Ambler was over at your house looking for you a little while ago, and he +stopped by and told me about your swim. He said he and the other boys +that followed you in the boat had never seen anything so exciting in +their lives. They were expecting you to give out any minute and so much +afraid that if you did you would go under before they could get hold of +you. When you won the wager they were so proud and happy that they were +almost beside themselves."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know Dick and the rest are the best and truest friends a fellow +ever had—bless their hearts—but they are the exceptions."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! There's not a boy in town tonight who would not give his +head to be in your shoes, and" (shyly) "the girls are all wild about +you."</p> + +<p>The hero smiled indulgently. No woman was ever thrown with Edgar Poe, +from his birth up, but in some fashion or degree, loved him, and to him +all women were angels. He never, as boy or man, entertained a thought or +wrote a line of one of them that was not reverent. He admired, in +varying degree, all types of feminine loveliness, but Myra, though he +liked her, was not the style that he most cared for. He had always +thought her too "washed out." The soul that shone through her rather +prominent, light-blue eyes was too transparent, too easily read. He +found more interesting the richer-hued brunette type, and the complex +nature that goes with it; the flashes of starlight, the softness and the +warmth, of brown eyes; the mysteries that lie in the shadow of dusky +lashes; the variety of rich, warm tones in chestnut and auburn tresses.</p> + +<p>But Myra was a revelation to him tonight. He had never dreamed that she +could look so pretty—<i>so very pretty</i>—as she did now in her white +dress, with the moonlight filtering through the foliage upon her fair +hair and her face (turned full of liking and undisguised admiration upon +him) and her lovely arms, bared to the elbow. She had an ethereal, +fairy-like appearance that was bewitching, and in his despondent mood, +her frank praise was more than sweet. Still his answer was as bitter as +ever,</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, what does it all amount to? They would say the same of any +acrobat in a circus whose joints were a bit more limber than those of +the rest of his tribe. That does not remove their contempt for me, +personally."</p> + +<p>"I don't feel contempt for you, Eddie," she gently replied—just +breathing it.</p> + +<p>(Myra was really wonderful tonight. He had not known her voice could +have so much color in it; and the white flower in her hair—a +cape-jessamine, its excessively sweet fragrance told him—gave her pale +beauty the touch of romance it had always lacked). The poetic eyes that +looked into hers mellowed, the cynical voice softened:</p> + +<p>"Don't you Myra? Well, you'd better cultivate it. Its the fashion, and +it's the only feeling I'm worth."</p> + +<p>"Eddie," she said earnestly—tenderly, "I want you to promise me that +you won't talk that way any more—at least not to <i>me</i>—it hurts me."</p> + +<p>Her hand, on his sleeve, was as fair as a petal from the jessamine +flower in her hair. He took it gently in his.</p> + +<p>"Dear little Myra, little playmate—" he said. "You are my friend, I +know, and have been since we were mere babies, in spite of knowing, as +you do, what a naughty, idle, disobedient boy I've been, deserving every +flogging and scolding I've gotten and utterly unworthy all the good +things that have come my way—including your dear friendship."</p> + +<p>"You are breaking your promise already," she said. "You <i>shall not</i> run +yourself down to me. I think you are the nicest boy in town!"</p> + +<p>There was nothing complex about Myra. Her mind was an open book, and he +suddenly found he liked it so—liked it tremendously. Her unveiled +avowal of preference for him was most soothing to his restless, +dissatisfied mood.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Myra," he said tenderly, kissing the flower-petal hand +before he laid it down. He had a strong impulse to kiss <i>her</i>, but +resisted it, with an effort, and abruptly changed the subject.</p> + +<p>"Did you know that we are going to move?" he asked. "And that I'm going +to the University next winter?"</p> + +<p>"<i>To move</i>?" she questioned, aghast. "Where?"</p> + +<p>"To the Gallego mansion, at Fifth and Main Streets. Mr. Allan has bought +it. The dear little mother, who, I'd say, if you'd let me, is so much +better to me than I deserve, is full of plans for furnishing it and is +going to fit up a beautiful room in it for me. It will be a delightful +home for us, and quite grand after our modest cottage, but do you know +I'm goose enough to be homesick at the thought of giving up my little +den under the roof? Myself and I have had such jolly times together in +it!"</p> + +<p>She had scarcely heard him, except the first words and the stunning +facts they contained. There was a minute's silence, then she spoke in a +changed, quivering voice.</p> + +<p>"Then that will be the end of our friendship, I suspect! When you get +out of the neighborhood, and are off most of the time at the University, +we will doubtless see little more of you."</p> + +<p>Her clear blue eyes were shining up at him through tears. Her mouth was +tremulous as a distressed child's. The appeal met an instant response +from the tender-hearted poet. <i>Both</i> the flower-like hands were captured +this time, and held fast, in spite of their fluttering. The excessively +sweet fragrance of the blossom in her hair was in his nostrils. Her +quick, short breaths told him of the tempest in her tender young bosom.</p> + +<p>"Myra, little Myra, do you care like that?" he cried. "Then let the +friendship go, and be my dear little sweetheart, won't you? I'm dying of +loneliness and the want of somebody to love and to love me—somebody who +understands me—and you do, don't you, Myra, darling?"</p> + +<p>She was too happy to answer, but she suffered him to put his arms around +her and kiss her soft pale hair—and her brow—and her tremulous +mouth—the first kisses of love to him as well as to her. And ah, how +sweet!</p> + +<p>He laughed happily, lifted out of his gloom by this new, this +deliriously sweet dream.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, little sweetheart," he said, in a voice that was bubbling +with joy, "I feel that you have cast those devils out of me forever. It +was you that I wanted all the time, and did not know it. Some of these +days, when I've been through college and settled down, we will be +married, and wherever our home is, we must always have a porch like +this, with a rose on it, and" (kissing her brow) "you must always wear a +jessamine in your hair."</p> + +<p>And so the boy-poet and his girl play-mate, very much to their own +surprise, parted affianced lovers, and a long vista of sunlit days +seemed to beckon The Dreamer.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + + +<p>The session at the University did not begin until the middle of +February, so love's young dream was not to be interrupted too soon. +Meantime, its sweetness was only enhanced by thought of the coming +separation. The affair had too, the interest of secrecy, for the +youthful lovers well knew the storm of opposition that would be raised, +in both their homes, if it should be discovered. This need of secrecy +made frequent meetings and exchange of vows impossible, but it gave to +such as occurred the flavor of stolen sweets and kept the young sinners +in a tantalized state which was excruciating and at the same time +delightful, and which still further fed the flames and convinced them of +the realness and intensity of their passion.</p> + +<p>When they did meet, their awed, joyous confessions of mutual love +charmed the lonely, romantic boy by their very novelty. In them his +fairest dreams were fulfilled. How sweet it was in these rare, stolen +moments, to crush the pure young creature, who would be his own some +day, against his wildly beating heart—how passing sweet to hear against +his ear her whispered, hesitating vows of deep, everlasting love!</p> + +<p>In his pretty new room overlooking the terraced garden of the stately +mansion which had become his home, Edgar Poe plunged headlong into +Byron, and in the mood thus induced, penned many a verse, no worse and +not much better than the rhymes of lovelorn youths the world over and +time out of mind, to be copied into Myra's album.</p> + +<p>Between the love-making and preparation for college, time took wings. In +what seemed an incredibly short space summer and fall were gone, +Christmas, with its festivities, was over and the new year—the year +1826—had opened.</p> + +<p>It was upon St. Valentine's Day that, with a feeling of solemnity worthy +of the act, the seventeen year old lover and student wrote the name +Edgar Allan Poe, and the date of his birth, upon the matriculation book +of the University of Virginia—open for its second session. Upon the day +before the beauty and the poetry—<i>the inspiration</i>—of the place had +burst upon him, and this first impression still held his soul in thrall.</p> + +<p>Here, in this fair Virginia vale, ringed about with the heaven-kissing +hills of the Blue Ridge, the scholastic village conjured by Jefferson's +fertile imagination lay before him in the clear, winter sunshine. Its +lawns and its gardens were just now white with an unbroken blanket of +new-fallen snow; the young trees which had been planted in avenues along +the lawns, but which were as yet hardly more than shrubs, glittered with +icicles, and above them rose the classic columns of the colonnaded +dormitories and professors' houses; while at one end of the oblong +square the majestic dome and columns of the Rotunda stood out against +the sky. As the entranced Dreamer gazed and gazed, trying to imagine +what it must be like by moonlight—what it would be in spring—what (a +few years later, when the trees should have grown large enough to arch +the walks) in summer—he told himself that surely in this garden-spot of +the Old Dominion, bricks and mortar had sprung into immortal bloom, and +he found himself quoting a line of his own:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome."</p></div> + +<p>Upon his earliest opportunity he sat down and wrote Myra a rhapsody upon +it all. Her presence, he felt, and he wrote her, was all needed to make +the place a paradise.</p> + +<p>Under his name upon the matriculation book he had written, with +confidence:</p> + +<p>"Schools of Ancient and Modern Languages." In the school of Ancient +Languages were taught (according to the announcement for the year) +"Hebrew, rhetoric, belles-lettres ancient history and geography;" in the +school of Modern Languages, "French, Spanish, Italian, German, and the +English language in its Anglo Saxon form; also modern history and modern +geography." A list, one would think, to daunt the courage of a seventeen +year old student and make him feel that he had the world on his +shoulders.</p> + +<p>It was quite the contrary with The Dreamer. He felt instead that he had +suddenly developed wings. Learning came easy to him. He was already a +good French and Latin scholar, and the rest did not frighten him. Not +only was he not in the least burdened by thought of the work he was +cutting out for himself, but he was elated by a sense of freedom such as +he had never known before. Always before, both at home and at school, he +had been under surveillance. But now he was to be a partaker of the +benefits of Mr. Jefferson's theories of the treatment of students as men +and gentlemen—letting their conduct be a matter of <i>noblesse oblige</i>.</p> + +<p>In the youth of seventeen this sudden withdrawal of oversight and +regulation produced an exhilaration that was indeed pleasurable. Among +the unfrequented hills known as the "Ragged Mountains," not far away, +was a wild and romantic region that invited him to fascinating +exploration—perhaps adventure. Instead of having to beg permission or +to steal off upon the solitary rambles which he loved, to this +enchanting country, he could, and did, go when he chose, openly, and +with no questions asked or rebukes given.</p> + +<p>He held up his head with a new confidence at the thought, and took his +dreams of ambition and love, whenever he could allow himself time to do +so, to the enticing new region (as unlike anything around Richmond as if +it were in a different world) adjacent to which, for the time, his lot +lay.</p> + +<p>He did not neglect his classes, however. They were regularly attended +and his standing was excellent; so the professors had no cause for +making inquiry into the pursuits of his private hours. The library, +too, in the beautiful Rotunda, was a new, if different, field for his +exploration and one that gave him great delight, for he found there many +volumes of quaint and curious lore whose acquaintance he had never +before made.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>His imaginary wings were soon enough to be clipped—his exhilaration to +drop from him as suddenly as it had come.</p> + +<p><i>He did not hear from Myra!</i></p> + +<p>He watched eagerly for the mails, and as day after day passed without +bringing him a letter, deep dejection claimed him. Finally he wrote to +her again—and then again—and again—frantically appealing to her to +write to him and assure him of her constancy if she would save his life.</p> + +<p>Still, no word from her.</p> + +<p>The truth was that Myra, at home in Richmond, was awaiting each +mail-time as feverishly as he. The faint suggestion of rose her cheeks +usually wore, had entirely disappeared and deep circles caused by lack +of sleep and lost appetite made her light blue eyes appear more +prominent than ever before. The ethereal look that had been her chief +claim to beauty had become exaggerated into a ghastliness that was not +in the least bewitching. She, like Edgar, had pocketed her pride and +followed her first letter with others more and more expressive of her +tender maiden passion; but her father, who had begun to suspect an +affair between her and the players' son a short time before Edgar left +for the University, had kept diligent watch for the passage of letters, +and had successfully intercepted them.</p> + +<p>And so the unhappy pair pined and sighed and gloomed, each reckoning the +other faithless and believing that life was forever robbed of joy.</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe had never really loved the girl. He had merely loved the dream +to which her tender words and timid caresses gave an adorable reality; +but now in his disappointment at not hearing from her he felt that her +love and loyalty to him were the only things in the world worth having +and persuaded himself that without her there as no incentive to live or +to strive. His misery was increased by an over-whelming homesickness, to +escape from which, he wandered restlessly about, vainly seeking +excitement and forgetfulness.</p> + +<p>In this mood, he eagerly accepted an invitation to spend the evening +from a class-mate whose room in "Rowdy Row" had a reputation for +conviviality. His own room, shared by a quiet and steady Richmond boy +with whom he had a slight acquaintance at home, was in one of the +cloister-like dormitories opening upon the main lawn.</p> + +<p>While Edgar Poe had been a somewhat wayward and at times a disobedient +boy, at home, he had never been a <i>bad</i> boy except when judged by John +Allan's standards, and had never been in the least wild. Wines were used +upon the table of his foster-father, as upon the tables of other +gentlemen whose homes he had visited, and he had always been permitted +to drink a small quantity at a time, at dinner, or to sip a little +mint-julep from the goblet passed around before breakfast and supposed +to be conducive to appetite and healthful digestion; but he had never +thought of exceeding this allowance. As to cards, he knew nothing of +them save as an innocent, social pastime in which he found pleasure, as +in all other games and sports—especially such as required exercise of +ingenuity or mental skill.</p> + +<p>The evening in "Rowdy Row" was therefore a revelation, as well as a +diversion to him. As he approached the end of this arcaded row in which +his new friend's room was situated his interest received a spur from the +sounds of hilarity that greeted him, and his spirits began to rise. In a +few moments more he found himself in the midst of a group of exceedingly +jolly youths evidently prepared to make a night of it. Several of them +were gathered about a huge bowl in which they were mixing a variety of +punch which they called "peach-honey." Others were seated around a card +table while one of their number entertained the rest with what seemed to +be almost magical tricks. These Edgar joined. His interest was +immediately aroused and he fixed his eyes with intentness upon the +juggler. The tricks were new to him, but he soon amazed the crowd by +showing the solution of them all.</p> + +<p>Finally, the punch was declared to be ready; other packs of cards were +produced and the real sport of the evening began. It was Edgar's first +experience in drinking with boys and his conscience, not yet hardened +to it, kept him in check without worrying him enough to destroy his +pleasure. Somewhat of his old exhilaration returned to him at the bare +thought, for he felt himself a man, following his own will and yet not +disobeying any direct command.</p> + +<p>In spite of much urging, he only drank one glass of the peach-honey, but +thanks to a jovial ancestor of whom he had never heard, but of some of +whose sins (in accordance with the ancient law) he bore the marks in his +temperament, he was peculiarly susceptible to the influences of strong +drink, and as he drained the glass at a gulp, a new freedom seemed to +enter his soul. The dejection which had oppressed him dropped from him +instantly, and with his great eyes glowing like lamps with new zest in +life, he sat down at a card table to be initiated into the mysteries of +the fascinating game of <i>loo</i>, which had lately become the fashion, and +at the same time into his first experience in playing for money.</p> + +<p>He had beginner's luck—held good hands and won straight through the +game. His success, with the effects of the punch, developed his wittiest +vein and Edgar Goodfellow assumed complete ascendancy.</p> + +<p>His new acquaintances were charmed, and encouraged his mood by loud +applause and congratulated themselves upon having added to their number +such good company.</p> + +<p>From that night Edgar Poe's new friends, who constituted what was known +as the "fast set" at the University, became his boon companions. It was +in the card-table, much more than the punch-bowl that the charm for him +lay, for the gambling fever had entered his blood with his first +winnings, but in the combination of the two he found, for the present, a +sure cure for his "blue devils."</p> + +<p>Alas, Helen! Where was your sweet spirit that it did not hover, as +guardian angel, about the head of this wayward child of genius in his +hour of sore need, when temptations gathered thick around his pathway +and there was no one to steer him into safer waters; no one to restrain +his feet from their first blind steps toward that Disaster to which +ruinous companionship invited him, with syren voice?</p> + +<p>True, his staid room-mate, Miles George, raised his voice in warning +against the dangerous intimacies he was forming but Miles' view seemed +extreme to him. Besides, he found at the University the same caste +feeling that had cut him off from familiar intercourse with the leaders +among his Richmond schoolmates. It was but natural, therefore, that he +should have turned gratefully, to the society where his welcome was +sure.</p> + +<p>Finally words passed between him and Miles, ending in a formal meeting, +with seconds on both sides. Their only weapons were their fists, and +they shook hands afterward; but the idea of continuing to share the same +bed-room was out of the question. Of the vacant rooms to be had, Edgar +promptly decided upon Number 13, Rowdy Row, and the second step in a +wrong direction quickly followed the first.</p> + +<p>He was hailed by the rest of the "Row" with delight, and he promptly +decided to return their many hospitalities in his new room, which he +proceeded to elaborately prepare for their reception.</p> + +<p>The result was an early and noisy house-warming. The guests were filled +with admiration to find the walls of Number 13 decorated in honor of the +occasion with charcoal sketches representing scenes from Byron's works +done by the clever hand of the new occupant himself. They also found +Edgar Goodfellow in the character of host, presiding over his own +card-table and his own bowl—a generous one—of peach-honey, in the +highest feather and his most captivating mood.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + + +<p>Erelong Number 13 was the liveliest and most popular room in the Row, +but of the orgies held there the faculty rested in blissful +unconsciousness. At class-time young Poe was invariably in his place and +invariably the pale, thoughtful, student-like and faultlessly neat and +gentle-mannered youth whose intelligent attention and admirable +recitations were the joy of his masters. They heard rumors that he was +something of a poet and were not surprised, the suggestions of ideality +in the formation of his brow and the expression of his eyes hinted at +such talent, and so long as he did not let the Muse come between him and +his regular work, he should not be discouraged or restrained.</p> + +<p>Indeed, in spite of the sway of Edgar Goodfellow at this time, Edgar the +Dreamer was often present too, and during solitary tramps into the wild +fastenesses of the Ragged Mountains, he not only conceived many fancies +to be worked into poems, but made mentally, the first draft of a story +to win fame.</p> + +<p>The love of no real woman came to supplant the seemingly faithless +Elmira, and though he still carried his mother's miniature with him and +gazed often and fondly upon it, the sense of nearness between her spirit +and his and the soul satisfaction he had found in this nearness in the +past, were gone. The gambling fever that had fired his veins and the +nightly potations of peach-honey created an excitement and restlessness +that blurred the images his memory held of the angel mother who had +dominated his childhood and of the madonna-like mistress who had filled +the dreams of his early youth. These holy dreams became for the time +being, a reproach to him, for they aroused his conscience to an +unpleasant activity which required more frequent recourse to peach-honey +to quiet.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Love was, nevertheless, as necessary to this poet's soul as meat and +drink were to his body, and in the No Man's Land, "out of space, out of +time," which his fancy created and where it loved to stray, he fashioned +for himself the weirdest, strangest lady ever loved by mortal. The name +he gave her was "Ligeia." She laid upon him no exactions, chastened him +with no rebukes, demanded of him no service save that he should +dream—and dream—and dream; for was not she herself formed from "such +stuff as dreams are made of?"</p> + +<p>The music of nature had long possessed a sort of personality for Edgar +Poe, and now the voices, the motions, the numberless colors of the world +about him took definite shape in his fancy of a wonderous fairy-woman +whom he worshipped with an unearthly, poetic passion that was compared +to the passion of the normal man to flesh and blood woman as moonlight +to sunshine—a passion which was luminous without heat.</p> + +<p>Dim and elusive as is the very conception of "Ligeia" to the ordinary +mind, she was perfectly real to her creator. In the summer-night breeze +he heard the music of her voice and felt the delicious coolness of her +caress. Tall, swaying trees spoke to him of her height, her majesty and +her grace. He perceived the softness and lightness of her footfalls in +the passage of evening shadows across a lake or meadow, the perfection +of her features in the form and finish of flower petals and the delicate +tints of her beauty in the coloring of flowers; the raven hue and +sweeping length of of her tresses in the drowning shades of midnight and +the entrancing veil of her lashes in deep mysterious woods; and when, in +fancy, he looked beneath that veil into her eyes, as unfathomable as the +ocean itself, he was struck dumb with reverence and wonder, for they +held in keeping all the secrets of the moon and the stars, of dawn and +sunset, of green things growing and flowers in bloom, of the butterfly +in the crysalis and on the wing, of still waters and of running brooks.</p> + +<p>To the inner vision of this most unusual youth, "Ligeia"—this myth +called into being by the enchantment of his own fancy—not only became +as real as if she had been flesh and blood; his pagan soul bowed down +before her and she blotted from his mind, for the time, all thought or +consciousness of more robust womanhood. She became, in imagination, the +sharer of his studies, the wife of his bosom, and he sat at her feet and +gladly learned from her the beautiful, strange secrets of this fearfully +and wonderfully made world.</p> + +<p>He was sometimes haunted by another, and a far less agreeable vision. In +spite of the absence of restraint under which he lived and the fact +that between his dreams, his books and his dissipations there seemed +little opportunity left for the still, small voice to make itself heard, +there were times when his better self shook off slumber and rose before +him like a ghost that, for all his efforts, would not be laid—a ghost +like him in all regards save for the sternness of its look and of the +voice which accused him in whispers to which all others ears were deaf, +but his own intensely, horribly sensitive.</p> + +<p>It was generally at the very height of excitement in play, when he had +just been dealt a hand which he told himself, with exultation, would win +him all the money in the pool, or, perhaps at the moment when he raised +the glass to his lips, anticipating the delicious exhilaration of the +seductive peach-honey, that the unwelcome spectre would, with startling +suddenness, appear before his eyes. His face would blanch, his own voice +become almost as hoarse as the warning whisper that was in his ear, and +with trembling hand he would put down the cards or the cup and refuse to +have anything more to do with the evening's sport.</p> + +<p>His companions at first thought these attacks the result of some +physical weakness but finally became accustomed to them and attributed +them to his "queerness."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Thus the youthful poet passed his year at college—dividing his time +between his dreams, his classes and his carousals. The session closed in +December. The final examinations occupied the early part of the month +and when the faculty met upon the 14th., it was found that Edgar Poe +had not only stood well in all of his studies, but in two of them—Latin +and French—he had taken the highest honors.</p> + +<p>In spite of this, and of the fact that at no time during the session had +he come under the censure of the faculty, a startling revelation was +made. Edgar Poe, model student as he seemed to be, whose only fault—if +it could be called a fault—as the faculty knew him, had been a tendency +toward a romantic dreaminess that had led him upon lonely rambles among +the hills rather eccentric in a boy of seventeen; Edgar Poe, the quiet, +the gentlemanly, the immaculately neat, the scholarly, the poetic, had +been a spendthrift and a reckless gambler. His debts, for a boy of his +age, were astounding. No one was more amazed at the sum of them than +Edgar himself. He had always had the lordly indifference to money, and +the contempt for keeping account of it, that was the natural result of +being used to have what seemed to him to be an unlimited supply to draw +upon, with the earning of which he had nothing to do. As to hoarding it, +he would as soon have thought of hoarding the air he breathed which came +to him with no less effort. He was, unfortunately, as heedless of what +he owed as what he spent—lavishing it upon his companions as long as it +lasted and when his supply of cash was exhausted running up accounts +with little thought of a day of reckoning—though of course he fully +intended to pay.</p> + +<p>His mind was, indeed, too much engrossed with the charming creations of +his brain to leave him time for brooding upon such sordid matters as the +keeping of accounts, or the making of two ends meet. The amount of his +indebtedness was now, however, sufficient to give him a shock which +thoroughly aroused him, and he was genuinely distressed; for he had no +wish to ruthlessly pain his foster-father. The haunting better self not +only arose and confronted him, but remained with him, keeping close step +with him and upbraiding him and condemning him in the whisper audible to +his quick imagination and so terrifying.</p> + +<p>Still, the thought that Mr. Allan had plenty of money, and that no +severe sacrifice would be needful for the payment of his debts relieved +his penitence of much of its poignancy. That Mr. Allan would settle +these "debts of honor," as he called them, as the fathers and guardians +of boys as reckless as himself had done, he had not the slightest doubt. +But, as will be seen, he reckoned without Mr. Allan.</p> + +<p>He wrote Mrs. Allan a dutiful letter, confessing all and expressing his +sorrow, and begging to be permitted to repay Mr. Allan for settling his +affairs at the University with work as a clerk in the counting house.</p> + +<p>The letter filled the tender heart of the foster-mother with yearning. +The sum frightened her, though she, like the boy, comforted herself with +the thought that her husband could pay it without embarrassment. Still, +she trembled to think of his wrath. Her chief feeling was one of +sympathy for her erring, penitent boy. How natural it was for one of his +age to be led away by evil associates! All boys—she supposed—must sow +some wild oats, though few, she was confident, showed such a beautifully +penitent spirit, and it would be a small matter in future years when he +should have become the great and good man she knew he was going to be.</p> + +<p>How noble it was of him to offer to give up or postpone the completion +of the education so dear to his heart and tie himself to a desk in that +tiresome counting-house in order to pay his debts—he that was born to +shine as a poet. She exulted that he had offered to make such a +sacrifice, but he should never make it, never while <i>she</i> had breath in +her body to protest!</p> + +<p>How her heart bled for him in his sorrow over his wrong-doing! How she +longed to fold his dear curly head against her breast and tell him that +he was quite, quite forgiven! She would reward him for the splendid +stand in his classes and at the same time make him forget his troubles +on account of the debts by giving him the loveliest imaginable +Christmas. Uncle Billy must search the woods for the brightest greens, +the prettiest holly; for the house must look its merriest for the +home-coming of its young master, covered with honors! There must be +mistletoe, too she told herself, her mouth dimpling and a suspicion of a +twinkle flashing out from under her dewy lashes. The fatted calf should +be killed, her boy should make merry with his friends.</p> + +<p>The dear letter was kissed and cried over until it took much smoothing +on her knee to make it presentable to hand over to her husband for +perusal. Her fingers were still busy stroking out the crumples, though +her tears were dried, and her thoughts were happily engaged with plans +for a Christmas party worthy to celebrate the home-coming of her +darling, when Mr. Allan came in to supper. She was brought back to +recollection of the confession in the letter and her apprehensions as to +how it would be received, with a start, and before timidly handing her +husband the open letter, she began preparing him for its contents and +excusing the writer.</p> + +<p>"A letter from Eddie, John, dear. He has stood splendidly in his +classes, but asks your forgiveness for having done wrong in his spare +time. He is so manly and noble in his confession, John, and in his offer +to make reparation!"</p> + +<p>John Allan's face clouded and hardened instantly.</p> + +<p>"What is this? Confession? Reparation?—Give me the letter!"</p> + +<p>But she held it away from him.</p> + +<p>"It seems he has gotten into a card-playing set who have led him away +further than he realized. Oh, don't look like that, John! He is so +young, and you know how evil association can influence the best of +boys!"</p> + +<p>But the storm gathered fast and faster on John Allan's face.</p> + +<p>"Card-playing? Do you mean the boy has been gambling? Give me the +letter."</p> + +<p>She could withhold it no longer, but as he sat down to read it she threw +herself upon an ottoman at his feet and clasping his knees hid her face +against them, crying,</p> + +<p>"Oh, John, have pity, have pity!"</p> + +<p>But even as she sobbed out the words, she felt their futility. She knew +that there was no pity to be expected from the owner of that face of +stone, that eye of steel.</p> + +<p>As he read, his rage became too great for the relief of an outburst. A +still, but icy calm settled upon him. For some minutes he spoke no word +and seemed unconscious of the tender creature so appealing in her +loveliness and in the humility of her attitude, beseeching at his knee. +The truth was, that much as he loved her, his contempt for what he +called her "weakness" for the son of her adoption, but added to his +harshness in judging the boy.</p> + +<p>Presently he arose, impatiently pushing her away from him as he did so, +saying;</p> + +<p>"Pack my bag and order an early breakfast. I'm going to take the morning +stage for the University."</p> + +<p>It was a difficult evening for the little foster-mother. In the stately, +octagon-shaped dining-room soft lamplight was cheerily reflected by +gleaming mahogany and bright silver and china, upon which was served the +most toothsome of suppers; but the meal was almost untouched and the +mere pretense of eating was carried through in silence and gloom. In the +drawing-room, afterward, the firelight leaped saucily against shining +andirons and fender, bringing forgetfulness of the frosty night outside, +while the carved wood-work and the great mirrors and soft-hued +paintings, in their gilded frames, on the walls, and the deep carpets on +the floors spoke of comfort. But the beautiful room was a mockery, for +the promised comfort, was not there—only futile luxury. Upon that +bright hearth was warmth for the body, but none for the spirit, for +before it sat the master and mistress—the presiding geniuses of the +house—upon whose oneness the structure of the <i>home</i> must stand, or +without it fall into ruin; there they sat, wrapped in moods so out of +sympathy and tune that speech was as impossible between them as if they +had been of different tongues, and each unknown to the other.</p> + +<p>Meantime, Edgar Poe was spending his last hours at the University in the +dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No +farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking. Only one of his friends was +invited to his room that night and he no denizen of "Rowdy Row," but the +quiet, irreproachable librarian. To this gentle guest The Dreamer +confided his past sins and his penitence, while he laid upon the glowing +coals the year's accumulation of exercise books, and the like, which had +served their purpose and were finished and done with, and watched the +devouring flames leap from the little funeral pyre they made into the +chimney.</p> + +<p>More than anything he had ever done in his life, he told his companion, +he regretted the making of the gambling debts for which Mr. Allan would +have to advance the money to pay. But, as has been said, he reckoned +without Mr. Allan, who settled all other obligations, but utterly +ignored the so-called "debts of honor."</p> + +<p>"Debts of honor?" he queried with contempt. "Debts of <i>dishonor</i>, I +consider them."</p> + +<p>And that was his last word upon the subject.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + + +<p>The late January night was bitterly cold, and clear as crystal. There +was a metallic glitter about the round moon, shining down from a +cloudless, blue sky—too bright to show a star—upon the black and bare +trees and shrubbery in the terraced garden of the Allan homestead.</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe looked from his casement upon the splendor of the beautiful, +but frigid and unsympathetic night. Bitterness was in his heart +contending with a fierce joy. At last it had come—the breach with Mr. +Allan—and he was going away! He knew not where, but he was going, going +into the wide world to seek fame and fortune.</p> + +<p>He had much to regret. He loved Richmond—loved it for the joy and pain +he had felt in it; for the dreams he had dreamed in it. He loved it +exceedingly for the two dear graves, one in the churchyard on the hill +and one in the new cemetery, that held his beloved dead.</p> + +<p>Yes, he was sorry to leave this <i>home</i>-city, if not of his birth, at +least of his childhood and early youth, and his soul was still shaken by +the scene with his foster-parents through which he had just passed. But +in spite of all, his heart—rejoicing in the nearness of the freedom for +which he had so fiercely longed, sang, and stilled his sorrow.</p> + +<p>But a few weeks had passed since his return from the University. A few +weeks? They seemed to him years, and each one had left a feeling of +increased age upon his spirit.</p> + +<p>The home-coming had not been altogether unhappy—humiliating as it was. +In spite of the black looks of his foster-father, the little mother +(bless her!) had welcomed him with out-stretched arms and eyes beaming +with undimmed love. Never had she been more tenderly sweet and dear. She +had given the most beautiful Christmas party, with all his best friends +invited, and everything just as she knew he would like it. Her husband +had frowningly consented to this, but her tears and entreaties were all +of no avail to win his consent for the boy's return to college. Vainly +had she plead his talents which she believed should be cultivated, and +the injustice (since they had voluntarily assumed the responsibility of +rearing him) of cutting short his education at such an early age. John +Allan was adamant.</p> + +<p>And so, after the holidays, he had taken his place in the counting-house +of "Ellis and Allan."</p> + +<p>Distasteful as the new work was to the young poet, he was determined to +stick to it, and would probably have done so, but the strict +surveillance he soon realized he was under (as if he could not be +trusted!) and the manner of Mr. Allan who rarely spoke to him except +when it was absolutely necessary, and seemed to regard him as a hopeless +criminal, would have been unbearable to a far less proud and sensitive +nature than Edgar Poe's. Both at the office and at home, Mr. Allan's +narrow, steel-colored eyes seemed to keep constant watch, under their +beetling brows, for faults or blunders; and it seemed to the driven boy +that no matter what he did or said, he should have done or said just the +reverse. He felt constantly that a storm was brewing which must sooner +or later, certainly break, and that night it had burst forth with all +the fury of the tempest which has been a long time gathering.</p> + +<p>He hardly knew what had brought it on, or how it had begun. Its violence +was so great as to almost stun him until at length, without being more +than half conscious of the significance of his own words he had asked if +it would not be better for him to go away and earn his own living; and +then came his foster-father's startlingly ready consent, with the +warning that if he did go he must look for no further aid from him.</p> + +<p>His heart ached for the pretty, tender little mother. How soft the arms +that had clung about his neck, the lips that had pressed his hot brow! +How piteous her dear tears! They had almost robbed him of his +resolution, but he had succeeded in steeling himself against this +weakness. He had folded her close in his arms and kissed her, and vowed +that, come what might, he could never forget her or cease to love her, +and that he should always think of her as his mother and himself as her +child. Then he had put her gently from him for, for all his vows, she +was inseparably bound up in the old life from which he was breaking +away—his life as John Allan's adopted son—she could have no real place +in his future.</p> + +<p>Yet the tie that bound him to her was the strongest in his life and +could not be severed without keen pain. In the world into which he was +going to fight the battle of life (he told himself) memory of her would +be one of his inspirations.</p> + +<p>But where was that battle to be fought, and with what weapons? He had +been brought up as a rich man's son, and with the expectation of being a +rich man's heir. He had been trained to no money-making work, physical +or mental; and now he was to fare forth into the great world where there +was not a familiar face, even, to earn his bread! What could he do that +would bring him the price of a loaf?—</p> + +<p>Did the question appal him? Not in the least. He had youth, he had +health, he had hope, he had his beloved talent and the secret training +he had given himself toward its cultivation. His "heart-strings were a +lute"—he felt it, and with an optimism rare for him he also felt that +he had but to strike upon that lute and the world must needs stop and +listen.</p> + +<p>What he did not have was experience and knowledge of the world. Little +did he dream how small a part of the busy hive would turn aside to hear +his music or how little poetry had to do with the earning of daily +bread.</p> + +<p>His trunk was standing open, half packed, though his destination was +still undecided; and among the first things that had gone into it was a +box containing a number of small rolls of neat manuscript. As he thought +of them his heart warmed and his eyes grew soft.</p> + +<p>"The world's mine oyster, and with my good pen I'll open it," he +joyously paraphrased. But toward what part of the world should he turn +his face—to what market take his precious wares? That was the +all-important question! How much his fortune might depend upon his +decision!</p> + +<p>As he stood at the window, he stared into the brilliancy and the shadows +of the icy, unresponsive night—seeking a sign. But the cold splendor of +the cloudless sky and glittering moon and the inscrutible shadows in the +garden below where the leafless trees and bushes cast monster shapes +upon the frozen ground, alike mocked him.</p> + +<p>Presently there was the first hint of softness in the night. It came +like a sigh of tender pity across the stillness and he bent his head to +listen. It was the voice of the faintest of breezes blowing up from the +south and passing his window. He threw wide his arms to empty space as +if to embrace some invisible form.</p> + +<p>"Ligeia, Ligeia, my beautiful one," he breathed, invoking his +dream-lady, "Be my counsellor and guide! Let thy sweet voice whisper +whither I must go!"</p> + +<p>But the voice was silent and all the night was still again.</p> + +<p>He turned from the window and threw himself into his arm-chair, letting +his eyes rove about the room as though he would seek a sign from its +walls. Suddenly he sat erect, his dilated pupils fixed upon a point +above the chimney-piece—upon a small picture. It was a little +water-color sketch done by the hand of his versatile mother, and found +among her belongings after her death. Like her miniature and her +letters, the picture had followed him through his life and had always +adorned the walls of his room. Often and over he had studied it until he +knew by heart every stroke of the brush that entered into its +composition. Yet he stared at it now as if he had never seen it before. +Finally he took it down from its place on the chimney and held it in his +hands, gazing upon it in deep abstraction.</p> + +<p>Underneath the picture was written its title: "Boston Harbor—Morning," +and upon its back,</p> + +<p>"For my little boy, Edgar, who must love Boston, the place of his birth, +and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic friends."</p> + +<p>The picture gave him the sign! With rising excitement he decided that +it must be accepted. To Boston, of course, he would go. Boston, the +place of his birth and where his angel mother had found her "best, most +sympathetic friends."</p> + +<p>He would get away as early the next morning as possible, he told +himself. He would waste no time in goodbyes, for, he remembered with +some bitterness, there were few to say goodbye to. The boys were all off +at college again, now that the holidays were over, and as for Myra, she +had quickly consoled herself and was already a wife! He had addressed +some reproachful verses to her as a bride; then dismissed her from his +thoughts.</p> + +<p>He arose and placed the picture carefully in the trunk with the rest of +his treasures and then went to bed to fall into the easy slumber of one +whose mind is well made up.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A few days later Edgar Poe had looked with delight and ineffable emotion +upon the real Boston Harbor, with its rocky little islets and its varied +shipping and its busy wharves, and—for him—its suggestions of one in +Heaven.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + + +<p>Upon his arrival in Boston, our errant knight, before setting out upon +his quest for the Fame and Fortune to whose service he was sworn, spent +some hours in wandering about the old town, with mind open to the +quickening influences of historic association and eye to the irregular, +picturesque beauty about him.</p> + +<p>It was one of those rare days that come sometimes in the month of +February when, though according to the callendar it should be cold, +there is a warmth in the sunshine that seems borrowed from Spring. Tired +out by his tramp, young Edgar at length sat down upon a bench in the +Common, under an elm, great of girth and wide-spreading. The sunshine +fell pleasantly upon him, through the bare branches. Roundabout were +other splendid, but now bare elms and he sat gazing upward into their +sturdy brown branches and dreamily picturing to himself the beauty of +these goodly trees clothed in the green vesture of summer. Suddenly, by +a whimsical sequence of suggestion, the pleasure he felt in the sunshine +of February as it reached him under the tree in Boston Common, vividly +called to mind the refreshing coolness of the shade of the elms, in full +leaf, as he, a little lad of six, had walked the streets of old +Stoke-Newington for the first time.</p> + +<p>There was little relation between that first and this present parting +with the Allans, yet in his mind they became inseparably connected. He +recalled his happiness in his first essays at composition, made at the +Manor School, and told himself that, though he did not know it at the +time, that was the first step toward his life work. He was now, here in +Boston, the city of his birth, about to take the second; for the hour +had arrived when his work would be given to the world!</p> + +<p>Across his knees he held the box containing his precious manuscripts. He +arose from the bench and turning toward the lower end of the Common, +walked, with brisk, hopeful step down town, in the direction of a +well-known publishing house whose location he had already ascertained.</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe had known sorrow, real and imaginary; he was now to have his +first meeting with Disappointment, bitter and grim.</p> + +<p>Of all the persons who had ever seen his work, every one had been warm +in its praise—everyone saving John Allan only. Some had been positively +glowing. True, they had not been publishers, yet among them there had +been gentlemen and ladies of taste and culture. But here was a different +matter. Here was a personage with whom he had not reckoned, but who was +the door, as it were, through which his work must pass into the world. +He was unmistakably a personage. His bearing, though modest, spoke of +power. His dress, though unobtrusive, was in the perfect taste which +only the prosperous can achieve and maintain. His features were cast in +the mold of the well-bred. He was past middle age and his naturally fine +countenance was beautiful with the ennobling lines which time leaves +upon the face of the seeker after truth. He was courteous—most +Bostonians and many publishers are. He was sympathetic. He was +undoubtedly intellectual, but the eyes that regarded through big, +gold-rimmed spectacles, the romantic beauty, the prominent brow and the +distinguished air of the sweet-voiced youth before him, wore a not only +thoughtful, but something more—a distinctly shrewd and practical +expression. In them was no awe of the bare mention of "original poetry."</p> + +<p>He took the little rolls of manuscript into his strong, and at the same +time smooth and well-shapen hands, and drew them out to their full +length with the manner of one who handled as good every day. He cast his +eyes rapidly down the sheets—<i>too</i> rapidly, it seemed to the poet—with +a not unkind, yet critical air, while the sensitive youth before him +turned red and white, hot and cold, by turns, and learned something of +the horrors of the Inquisition.</p> + +<p>It was really but a very short space, but to the boy who seemed +suspended between a life and a death sentence, it was an age.</p> + +<p>Finally, he experienced something like a drowning sensation while he +heard a voice that barely penetrated the flood of deep waters that was +rolling over his head, saying words that were intended to be kind about +the work showing promise, in spite of an absence of marketable value.</p> + +<p>"Marketable value?" Heavens! Was he back in John Allan's counting house? +What could the man mean? It was as literature, not as merchandize that +he wanted his poetry to be judged!</p> + +<p>In his dismay, he stammered something of the sort, only to be told that +when his poetry was made into a book it would become merchandize and it +mattered not how good, as poetry—it might be, the publisher could do +nothing with it unless as merchandize it would probably be valuable too.</p> + +<p>Then—he had been politely bowed out, with his package still under his +arm!</p> + +<p>During the few minutes he had spent in the publisher's office the sky +had become overcast and a biting east wind had blown up from the river; +but the change in the outside world was as nothing to that within him. +He had not known how large a part of himself was his dream of becoming a +poet. It now seemed to him that it was all of him—had from the +beginning of his life been all of him. Since those old days at +Stoke-Newington, he had been building—building—building—this castle +in the air; now, at one fell blow, the whole fabric was laid in ruin!</p> + +<p>Weakness seized his limbs and deep dejection his spirits. His life might +as well come to an end for there was nothing left for him to live for. +How indeed, was he to live when the only work he knew how to do had "no +marketable value?" The money with which Mrs. Allan supplied him, before +he left home—"to give him a start"—would soon be exhausted. What if he +should not be able to make more?</p> + +<p>Though he was in the city of his birth, he found himself an absolute +stranger. If any of those who had been sympathetic friends to his mother +were left, he had no idea who or where they were.</p> + +<p>He went back to the lodgings he had engaged to a night of bitter, +sleepless tossing.</p> + +<p>But with the new day, youth and hope asserted themselves. He decided +that he would not accept as final the verdict of any one publisher, +though that one stood at the head of the list. With others, however, it +was just the same; and another night of even greater wretchedness +followed.</p> + +<p>Upon his third day in Boston (he felt that he had been there a year!) +he wandered aimlessly about, spirit broken, ambition gone. Finally, in +Washington Street, he discovered, upon a small door, a modest sign +bearing the legend:</p> + +<p>"Calvin F.S. Thomas. Printer."</p> + +<p>With freshly springing hope, he entered the little shop and was received +by a pale, soft-eyed, sunken-chested and somewhat threadbare youth of +about his own age, who in reply to his inquiry, announced himself as +"Mr. Thomas."</p> + +<p>Between these two boys, as they stood looking frankly into each other's +eyes, that mysterious thing which we call sympathy, which like the wind +"bloweth where it listeth and no man knoweth whence it cometh or whither +it goeth," sprang instantly into being. The one found himself without +his usual diffidence declaring himself a poet in search of a publisher, +and the other was at once alert with interest.</p> + +<p>Calvin Thomas had but just—timorously, for he was poor as well as +young—set up his little shop, hoping to build up a trade as a printer. +To be a publisher had not entered into his wildest imaginings—much less +a publisher for a poet! But he was, like his visitor, a dreamer, and +like him ambitious. Why should he not be a publisher as well as a +printer? The poet had not his manuscripts with him, but offered to +recite some extracts, which he did, with glowing voice and +gesture—explaining figures of speech and allusions as he went along.</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe sat easily upon a high stool in the little shop. His dress was +handsome and, as always, exquisite in its neatness and taste. His whole +appearance and bearing were marked by an "air" which deeply impressed +the young printer who had promptly fallen under the spell of his +personal charm. He had laid his hat upon the desk, baring the glossy +brown ringlets that clustered about his large, pale brow. His clear-cut +features were mobile and eager; his dark grey eyes full of life. His +voice had a wonderful musical quality, becoming passionate when, as at +present, his feeling was deeply aroused.</p> + +<p>His poetry, recited thus, gained much of distinction. Its crudities +would have been lost, to a great extent, even upon a critic. But Thomas +was no critic. He was simply a dreamy, half-educated youth with a mind +open to the beautiful and the romantic. The flights of the poet's fancy +did not seem to him obscure or too fantastic. They admitted him to a +magic world in which he sat spell-bound until silence brought him back +to his tiny bare shop which seemed suddenly to have been glorified.</p> + +<p>"It is wonderful—<i>wonderful</i>!" he breathed.</p> + +<p>He began to picture himself as not only sharing the wealth, but the fame +which the publication of these gems was bound to bring. But he had to +explain that he was poor, and that he could not bring out the poems +without financial aid. The money which had been given Edgar to set out +in the world with, was already dwindling, but he managed to subscribe a +sum which Thomas declared would be sufficient, with the little he +himself could add, for the printing of a modest edition, in a very +modest garb.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + + +<p>In the Allan mansion, in Richmond, there was a stillness that was +oppressive. No young foot-falls sounded upon the stair; no boyish +laughter rang out in rooms or hall. There were handsome and formal +dinners occasionally, when some elderly, distinguished stranger was +entertained, but there were no more merry dancing parties, with old Cy +playing the fiddle and calling the figures.</p> + +<p>Frances Allan, fair and graceful still, though looking somewhat out of +health and "broken," as her friends remarked to one another, trod softly +about the stately rooms with no song on her lip, no gladness in her +step. Her husband was grown suddenly prematurely old and his speech was +less frequent and harsher than before. He was more immersed in business +than ever and was prospering mightily, but the fact seemed to bring him +no satisfaction. Even the old servants had lost much of their mirth. +Their black faces were grown solemn and their tread heavy. They looked +with awe upon their mistress when, as frequently happened, they saw her +quietly enter "Marse Eddie's" room and close the door behind her.</p> + +<p>In that room and there alone, the fair, gentle, woful creature gave free +reign to the grief of her stricken mother-heart. The room was kept just +as her boy had left it, for she constantly hoped against hope that he +would return. Hers was the aching, pent-up grief of a mother whose child +is dead, yet she is denied the solace of mourning.</p> + +<p>Here was the bed which had pillowed his dear, sunny ringlets. Here were +his favorite chair—his desk—his books. In a little trunk against the +wall were his toys with some of the pretty clothes made with her own +fingers, in which it had been her pride to dress him when he was a wee +laddie. How she loved to finger and fondle them!</p> + +<p>Fifteen years she had been his mother—now this was all she had! +Somewhere in the same world with her he was living, was walking about, +talking, eating, sleeping; yet he was dead to her! Oh, if she could only +know that he was happy, that he was well, that he lacked nothing in the +way of creature comfort; if she could know where he was, picture him at +work or in his leisure hours, it would not be so hard to bear.</p> + +<p>But she knew nothing—nothing—save that he had gone to Boston.</p> + +<p>One letter she had had from him there—such a dear one!—she knew it by +heart. In it he had called her "Mother" and assured her of his constant +love and thought of her. He had arrived safely, he said, and would soon +be busy making his living. Boston was a fine city and full of interest +to him. When his ship came in he was going to have her come on and pay +him a visit there. He would write again when he had anything worth +telling.</p> + +<p>Days had passed—weeks—and no word had come. Had he failed to obtain +employment? Had he gone further—to New York, perhaps, or Philadelphia? +She did not know. Oh, if she could but <i>know</i>!</p> + +<p>Was he ill? Fear clutched her heart and made her faint. The suspense was +terrible, and she had no one to go to for sympathy—no one. She dared +not mention her anxiety to her husband; it made him furious. He could +not stand the sound of Eddie's name, even—her darling, beautiful Eddie! +Her arms felt so empty they ached.</p> + +<p>Winter was passing. The garden that Eddie loved so dearly was coming to +life. The crocuses for which he always watched with so much interest +were come and gone. The jonquils were in bloom and the first sweet +hyacinths, blue as turquoises, she had gathered and put in his room. It +cheered her to see them there. Somehow, they made the room look more +"ready" than usual—as if he might come home that day.</p> + +<p>He did not come, but something else did. A letter with the Boston +post-mark she had so longed to see, and a small, flat package addressed +to her in his dear hand. She broke the seal of the letter first—she was +so hungry for the sight of the familiar, "Mother dear," and to know how +he fared.</p> + +<p>It was a short letter, but, ah, the blessed relief of knowing he was +well and happy! And <i>prospering</i>—prospering famously—for he told her +he was sending her the first copy off the press of his book of poems! It +was a <i>very little</i> book, he said, but it was a beginning. He felt +within him that he would have much bigger and better things to show her +erelong. For the present, he was hard at work making ready for a revised +and enlarged edition of his book, if one should be called for.</p> + +<p>There was a jubilant note in the letter that delighted her and +communicated itself to her own spirits. She eagerly tore the wrappings +from the package, and pressed the contents against her lips and her +heart. It was but a slender volume, cheaply printed and bound, but it +was her boy's first published work and a wonderful thing in her eyes. +She already saw him rich and famous—saw him come home to her crowned +with honor and success—<i>vindicated</i>.</p> + +<p>She turned the pages of the book. He had written upon the fly-leaf some +precious words of presentation to her. She kissed them rapturously and +passed on to the title-page:</p> + +<p>"Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian. Boston: Calvin F.S. Thomas, +Printer."</p> + +<p>She was still gloating over her treasure when the brass knocker on the +front door was sounded, and a minute later Myra Royster—now Mrs. +Shelton—was announced. Taking the book with her, she tripped +downstairs, singing as she went, and burst in upon Myra as she sat in +state in the drawing-room, in all her bridal finery.</p> + +<p>Myra noticed as she kissed her, her glowing cheeks and shining eyes.</p> + +<p>"How well you are looking today, Mrs. Allan," she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"It is happiness, dear. I've just had such a delightful letter from +Eddie, and this darling little book. It is his poems, Myra!"</p> + +<p>Myra was all interest. "To think of knowing a real live author!" she +exclaimed. "I was sure Eddie would be famous some day, but had no idea +it would come so soon."</p> + +<p>"Don't you wish you had waited for him?" teased Mrs. Allan, laughing +happily.</p> + +<p>They chatted over the wonderful news until nearly dinner-time, and after +they had parted Mrs. Allan sat at the window watching for her husband to +come home that she might impart it to him at the earliest moment +possible. But when at last he appeared she put off the great moment +until after dinner, and then when he was comfortably smoking a fragrant +cigar she approached him timidly and placed the letter and the book in +his lap without a word.</p> + +<p>"What's all this?" he questioned sharply.</p> + +<p>She made no reply, but hovered about his chair, too excited to trust +herself to speak.</p> + +<p>He picked up the letter and read it with a deepening frown, then opened +the book and ran his eyes hurriedly down one or two of its pages. At +length he spoke:</p> + +<p>"So this is the way he's wasting his time and, I dare say, his money +too. Will the boy ever amount to anything, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>The happiness in Frances Allan's face gave place to quick distress.</p> + +<p>"Oh, John," she cried, "Don't you think it amounts to anything for a boy +of eighteen to have written and published a book of poetry?"</p> + +<p>"Poetry? This stuff is bosh—utter bosh!"</p> + +<p>For the first time in her life, there was defiance in her gentle face. +Her clinging air was discarded. She raised her head and with flashing +eyes and rising color, faced him.</p> + +<p>"You think that, because you cannot understand or appreciate it," she +retorted, with spirit. "Neither do I understand it, but I can see that +it is wonderful poetry. If he can do this at eighteen I have no doubt he +will make himself and us famous before many years are past!"</p> + +<p>Her husband's only reply was an astonished and piercing stare which she +met without flinching, then turned and swept from the room, leaving him +with a feeling of surprise to see that she was so tall.</p> + +<p>Her self assertion was but momentary. As she ascended the stair and +entered Eddie's room, all the elasticity was gone from her step, all the +brightness from her cheeks and eyes and, still clasping her boy's letter +and book to her heart, she threw herself upon his bed and burst into a +passion of tears.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Meantime, the elms on Boston Common were clothed with tender April green +and under foot sweet, soft grass was springing. In this inspiring +cathedral walked Edgar Poe, his pale face and deep eyes, passionate with +the worship of beauty that filled his soul, lifted to the greening +arches above him, his sensitive ears entranced with the bird-music that +fluted through the cool aisles. His mind was teeming with new poems in +the making and with visions of what he should do if his book should +sell.</p> + +<p>But it did not sell. The leading magazines acknowledged its receipt in +their review columns, but with the merest mention, which was exceedingly +disconcerting. It was discussed (but with disappointment) for a week by +his friends at home and at the University, to whom he sent copies. Then +was forgotten.</p> + +<p>And now its author was, for the first time within his recollection, +beginning to feel the pinch of poverty. His money was almost gone and he +saw no immediate hope of getting more. He moved to the cheapest boarding +house he could find but he did not mind that so much as the prospect +that faced him of soon beginning to present a shabby appearance in +public. His shoes were already showing wear, and he found that to keep +his linen as immaculate as he had always been accustomed to have it cost +money and he actually had to economize in the quantity of clothing he +had laundered. This to his proud and fastidious nature was humiliating +in the extreme.</p> + +<p>He and Calvin Thomas held frequent colloquies as to ways and means of +giving his book wider circulation. He visited the offices of the several +newspapers of the town in the hope of getting work in the line of +journalism—reporting, reviewing, story-writing, anything in the way of +the only business or profession for which he felt that he had any +aptitude or preparation; but without success.</p> + +<p>At length the sign of "Calvin F.S. Thomas, Printer" had suddenly +disappeared from the little shop in Washington Street, and a dismal "To +Let," was in its place.</p> + +<p>At about the same time Mrs. Blanks lost the handsome, quiet young +gentleman, who had evidently seen better days, from her unpretentious +lodging house, and the walks under the elms in Boston Common were no +longer trodden by The Dreamer from Virginia.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + + +<p>Where was Edgar Poe?—</p> + +<p>Twice since he shook the dust of Richmond joyfully from his feet, fair +Springtide had visited the terraced garden of the Allan home. Twice the +green had come forth, first like a misty veil, then like a mantle +enveloping its trees and its shrubs, its arbors and trellises; twice the +procession of flowers, led by the crocuses in their petticoats of purple +and yellow, had tripped from underground; twice the homing birds had +built in the myrtles and among the snowy pear and cherry blossoms and +filled all the place with music. Twice, too, in this garden, the pageant +of spring and summer and sunset-hued autumn had passed, the birds had +flown away again and winter snows had covered all with their whiteness +and their silence.</p> + +<p>And still the garden's true-lover, the poet, The Dreamer, was a +wanderer, where?—</p> + +<p>Oh, beautiful "Ligeia," was it not your voice that now and again +whispered in the tree-tops and among the flowers? Could you not—did you +not, bring news of the wanderer?</p> + +<p>If she did, there was no human being to whom her language was +intelligible, and the trees and the flowers keep their secrets well.</p> + +<p>Within the homestead there was little change save a deepening of the +quietness that had fallen upon it. In the master of the house there was +no visible difference. There are some men who seen from year to year +seem as unchanging as the sphinx. It is only after a long period that +any difference in them can be detected and then they suddenly appear +broken and aged. The fair lady of the manor was as fair as ever, but +with the pale, tremulous fairness of a late star in the grey dawn of a +new day in which it will have no part. Her bloom, her roundness, her +gaiety—all these were gone. She spent more time than ever in the room +which, waiting for its roving tenant, became more and more like a death +chamber. The silence there was not now broken by her sobs even, for it +was with dry-eyed grief that she watched and waited for her boy, these +days—watched and waited and prayed. Ah, how she prayed for him, body +and soul! Prayed that wherever he might be, he might be kept from harm +and strengthened to resist temptation.</p> + +<p>Was it her agonized petitions that kept him to the straight and narrow +path of duty during those two years amid uncongenial surroundings and +hard conditions?</p> + +<p>Who knows?</p> + +<p>Yet the chair and the desk and the books and the vases of fresh flowers +on the mantel, and the fire-wood resting on the shining andirons ready +for a match, and the reading lamp with trimmed wick and bright chimney +on the table, and the canopied white bed still waited, in vain, his +coming.</p> + +<p>Many months had passed since the name of Eddie had been spoken between +husband and wife, but though she held her peace, like Mary of old, like +Mary too, she pondered many things in her heart. He, loving her well, +but having no aptitude for divining woman's ways, indulged in secret +satisfaction, for he took her silence to mean that she was coming to her +senses, and regarding the boy as he did. That she no longer importuned +him to enquire into Edgar's whereabouts with the intention of inviting +him home was a source of especial relief to him.</p> + +<p>Then, upon a day two years after she had triumphantly placed Eddie's +book and letter in his hands, it was his turn to bring her a letter.</p> + +<p>"You see the bad penny has turned up again," he remarked, dryly.</p> + +<p>She looked questioningly at the folded sheet. Its post-mark was Fortress +Monroe and the hand-writing was not familiar to her.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"A letter from Dr. Archer. He's surgeon at the fort, you know. Read it. +It is about Edgar."</p> + +<p>With shaking hands and a blanched face she spread open the sheet. A +nameless dread possessed her. A letter about Eddie—not from him—and +from a surgeon! For a moment darkness seemed to descend upon her and she +could not make out the characters before her. She pressed her hand upon +her heart. In sudden alarm, her husband rushed to a celaret nearby and +brought out a decanter of wine. Pouring a glass he pressed it to her +lips.</p> + +<p>"Eddie," she gasped, as soon as she could speak. "Is he well?"</p> + +<p>In spite of John Allan's anxiety, he was irritated, and showed it.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, Frances!" he exclaimed. "I hoped you had forgotten the boy. Yes, +he's well, and, I'm glad to say, in a place where he is made to behave."</p> + +<p>She calmed herself with an effort and began to read the letter. The +story it told had a smack of romance.</p> + +<p>Dr. Archer had (he wrote) been called to the hospital in the fort to +see a private soldier by the name of Edgar A. Perry, who was down with +fever. The patient spoke but little but the Doctor was struck with his +marked refinement of look and manner, and there was something familiar +to him about the prominent brow and full grey eyes, though the name was +strange to him. His attention was aroused and he could not rid himself +of the impression that he had seen the young man before. He mentioned +the fact to some of the officers and found at once that his patient was +a subject of deep interest to them. They felt sure (they told him) that +he had a story. His polished manners and bright and cultivated +conversation seemed to them incongruous with the duties of a private +soldier, and they laughingly said that they suspected they were +entertaining an angel unawares. Yet his duties were performed with the +utmost faithfulness and efficiency. He had never been heard to speak of +himself or his past in a way which would throw any light upon his +history, and his reserve was of the kind which was bound to be +respected. Dr. Archer had grown (he wrote) more and more interested in +his patient as he became better acquainted with him, and being convinced +that the young man had for some reason, gotten out of his proper sphere, +he determined to try and help him back to it.</p> + +<p>By the time the young soldier was convalescent the Doctor had won his +confidence and obtained from him the confession that the name of Perry +was an assumed one, and that he was none other than Mr. Allan's adopted +son, Edgar Poe, whom Dr. Archer had not seen since he was a small boy.</p> + +<p>The discovery of his identity had greatly increased the good Doctor's +interest and he and the officers of the fort were of the opinion that as +young Poe had made a model soldier (having been promoted to the rank of +sergeant-major, for good conduct) the best thing that could be done for +him was to secure his discharge and get him an appointment to West +Point. This, Mr. Allan could bring about, he thought, through men of +influence whose friendship the Doctor knew he enjoyed. Edgar had +enlisted for five years. He had confessed that at the time he had been +almost upon the point of starvation and had turned to the army when +every effort to find other means of livelihood had failed.</p> + +<p>The Doctor and other officers thought that it would be a great sacrifice +to leave a young gentleman of Edgar's abilities to three more years of +such uncongenial life.</p> + +<p>He was quite recovered and in accordance with a promise made the Doctor, +was writing to Mr. Allan at that moment.</p> + +<p>"Did Eddie's letter come too?" Mrs. Allan asked, as she finished the one +in her hand.</p> + +<p>Without a word, her husband handed it over to her. In it Edgar expressed +much contrition for the trouble which his larger experience in life told +him he had cost his foster-father, and asked his forgiveness. He also +asked that Mr. Allan would follow the suggestion of Dr. Archer, and +apply for a discharge from the army for him, and an appointment to West +Point.</p> + +<p>He had not written his "Mother" in the past because he had unfortunately +nothing to tell which he believed could give her any pleasure, but he +sent her his undying love.</p> + +<p>Frances Allan looked through wet lashes into her husband's face, but her +eyes were shining through the tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, John," she said breathlessly, "You will have him to come and make +us a little visit before he goes to West Point, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll have nothing to do with him!" was the emphatic reply. "He seems to +be getting along very well where he is. Let him stick it out!"</p> + +<p>Feeling how vain her pleadings would be, yet not willing to give up +hope, she wept, she prayed, she hung upon John Allan's neck. She brought +every argument that starved motherhood could conceive to bear upon him.</p> + +<p>To think that Eddie was in Virginia—just down at Old Point! The cup of +joy was too near her lips to let it pass without a mighty effort. But +finally she gave up and shrank within herself, drooping like the palest +of lilies.</p> + +<p>Then came a day when a stillness such as it had never known before hung +over the Allan home. The garden was at its fairest. The halls and the +drawing-rooms, with their rich furnishings and works of art were as +beautiful as ever; but there was not even a bereaved mother, with an +expression on her face like that of Mary at the foot of the cross, to +tread the lonely floors. The luxurious rooms were quite, quite +empty—all save one—an upper chamber, where upon a stately carved and +canopied bed lay all that was mortal of Frances Allan, like a lily +indeed, when pitiless storm has laid it low!</p> + +<p>The learned doctors who had attended her had given long Latin names to +her malady. In their books there was mention of no such ailment as +heartbreak, and so happily, the desolate man left to preside in lonely +state, over the goodly roof-tree which her presence had filled and made +sweet and satisfying, was spared a suspicion even, of the real cause of +her untimely end.</p> + +<p>His one consuming desire for the present was that all things should be +done just as she would wish, and so—all minor bitternesses drowned in +the one overwhelming bitterness of his loss—he scribbled a few hurried +lines to Edgar Poe acquainting him with the sad news and telling him to +apply for a leave and come "home" at once.</p> + +<p>But the mails and travel were slow in those days, and when the young +soldier reached Richmond the last, sad rites were over, and for the +third time in his brief career the grave had closed over a beautiful +woman who had loved him and upon whose personality had been based in +part, that ideal of woman as goddess or angel before which his spirit +throughout his life, with all its vicissitudes, bowed down. As the +lumbering old stage crawled along the road toward Richmond, he lived +over again the years spent in the sunshine of her presence. Her death +was a profound shock to him. How strange that one so fair, so merry, so +bubbling with <i>life</i> should cease to be! Would it always be his fate, he +wondered, to love where untimely death was lying in wait?</p> + +<p>Upon the night when he reached "home" and every night till, his furlough +over, he returned to his post of duty at Fortress Monroe, he lay in his +old room with his old household gods—his books in their shelves, his +pictures on the walls, his desk and deep arm-chair, and other objects +made dear by daily use in their accustomed places, and "the lamplight +gloating o'er," around him. He was touched at the sweet, familiar look +of it all and at the thoughtfulness of himself of which he saw signs +everywhere. Could it be that he had been two years an exile from these +homelike comforts or had it been only one of his dreams? In spite of the +void her absence made, it was good to be back—good after his wanderings +to come into his own again.</p> + +<p>In the hush and loneliness of those few days under the same roof, the +grief-stricken man and youth, their pride broken by their common sorrow, +came nearer together than they ever had been before. It seemed that the +gentle spirit of her whom each had loved hovered about them, binding +them to each other by invisible, but sacred, cords. John Allan spoke to +the players' son in tones that were almost fatherly and with quick +response, the tender-hearted youth became again the Edgar of the days +before reminders of his dependence upon charity had opened his eyes to +the difference between a real and an adopted father.</p> + +<p>Under this reconciling influence, the youth poured out expressions of +penitence for the past and made resolutions for the future and Mr. Allan +promised to apply for the desired appointment to West Point, but added +that thereafter, he should consider himself relieved of all +responsibility concerning Edgar.</p> + +<p>This blunt and ungracious assurance strained the bond between the +adopted father and son; the promised letter of application to the +Secretary of War, ruthlessly shattered it. That his indulgencies during +his year at the University of Virginia, so freely and earnestly +repented, should have been exposed in the letter seemed to the boy +unnecessary and cruel, but the man who had been fifteen years his +father, the husband of her over whom the grave had but just closed and +who had always loved him—Edgar—as an own and only son, had seen fit to +add to the declaration,</p> + +<p>"He left me in consequence of some gambling debts at the University," a +disclaimer of even a sentimental interest in him!</p> + +<p>"Frankly, Sir," the letter said, "I do declare that Edgar Poe is no +relation to me whatever; that I have many in whom I have taken an active +interest in order to promote theirs, with no other feeling than that +every man is my care, if he be in distress."</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe duly presented the letter, but the bitterness which during his +brief visit home had been put to sleep, raised its head and robbed him +of all pleasure in his anticipated change and of much of the incentive +to put forth his best effort in it. He felt that the result of this +ungracious letter must be to blot the new leaf which he had so ardently +desired to turn with shadows of his past which no effort of his own +could entirely obliterate.</p> + +<p>For the soreness of finding himself disowned as Mr. Allan's son—this +time publicly, in a manner—he found somewhat of balm in the letter of +cordial praise addressed to the Honorable Secretary of War in his +behalf, by the father of his old friend, Jack Preston. Mr. Preston +described him as a young gentleman of genius who had already gained +reputation for talents and attainments at the University of Virginia, +and added,</p> + +<p>"I would not write this recommendation if I did not believe he would +remunerate the Government at some future day by his services and +talents, for whatever may be done for him."</p> + +<p>Happily for the, at times, morbidly, sensitive youth, he had soon +forgotten the sting caused by the letter in a return to the dreams which +he regarded as not only the chief joy but the chief business of his +life; for though he was preparing himself for the profession of a +soldier, he had never for a moment, forsworn the Muse of Poetry. For a +whole year before being transferred to Fortress Monroe he had been +stationed at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. There his wonderful +dream-lady, "Ligeia," had seemed especially near to him, and often, when +the day's work was done and he recognized her voice in the music of the +waves or felt her kiss in the soft, southern air, blown across spicey +islets, he would up and away with her across the world, on the moon's +silver track; or on nights when no moon came up out of the sea, would +wander with her through the star-sown sky.</p> + +<p>There was one fair star that invited his fancy with peculiar insistence. +It seemed to beckon to him with the flashes of its beams. He questioned +"Ligeia" of it and she told him that it was none other than Al Aaraaf, +the great star discovered by Tycho Brahe, which after suddenly appearing +and shining for a few nights with a brilliancy surpassing that of +Jupiter, disappeared never to be seen again; never except by him—The +Dreamer—to whom it was given not only to gaze upon it from the far +earth, but, with her as his guide, to visit it and to explore its fairy +landscape where the spirits of lost sculptures enjoyed immortality.</p> + +<p>The result of this flight of fancy to a magical world was the poem, "Al +Aaraaf."</p> + +<p>He spent the interim between his honorable discharge from the army and +his entrance at West Point in a happy visit to Baltimore, where he made +the acquaintance of his father's kindred and succeeded in publishing the +new poem, with a revised edition of the old ones.</p> + +<p>For the first time, his work appeared under his own signature:</p> + +<p>"Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems. By Edgar A. Poe."</p> + +<p>The new poem was unintelligible to the critics—but what of that? he +asked himself. One of his optimistic moods was upon him. He despised the +critics for their lack of perception and as he held the slim volume in +his hands and gazed upon that, to him, wondrous title-page, his +countenance shone as though it had caught the reflection of the magic +star itself. What mattered all the wounds, all the woes of his past +life? He had entered into a land where dreams came true!</p> + +<p>For the first time, too, his work received recognition as poetry, in the +literary world. It was but a nod, yet it was a beginning; and it pleased +him to think that this first nod of greeting as a poet came to him from +Boston, where his mother had found "her best, most sympathetic friends." +Before publishing his new book he had sent some extracts from it to Mr. +John Neal, Editor of the <i>Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette</i>, who +promptly gave them a place in his paper, with some kind words commending +them to lovers of "genuine poetry."</p> + +<p>"He is entirely a stranger to me," wrote the Boston editor, of the +twenty-year-old poet, "but with all his faults, if the remainder of Al +Aaraaf and Tamerlane are as good as the body of the extracts here given, +he will deserve to stand high—very high—in the estimation of the +shining brotherhood."</p> + +<p>In a burst of gratitude the happy poet wrote to Mr. Neal his thanks for +these "very first words of encouragement," he had received.</p> + +<p>"I am young," he confided to this earliest friend in the charmed world +of letters, "I am young—not yet twenty—<i>am</i> a poet if deep worship of +all beauty can make me one—and wish to be so in the common meaning of +the word."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + + +<p>Upon a dark and drizzling November night of the year 1830, four cadets +of West Point Academy sat around a cosy open fire in Room 28, South +Barracks, spinning yarns for each other's amusement.</p> + +<p>One of them—the one with the always handsome and scholarly, at times +soft and romantic, but tonight, dare-devil face, was easily recognizable +as Edgar the Goodfellow, frequently appearing in the quite opposite +character of Edgar the Dreamer, and commonly known as Edgar Poe. His +fellow cadets had dubbed him, "the Bard." Two of this young man's +companions were his room-mates in Number 28, "Old P," and "Gibs," and +the third was a visitor from North Barracks.</p> + +<p>Taps had sounded sometime since, and the Barracks were supposed to be +wrapt in slumber, but for these young men the evening had just begun. +Several hours had elapsed since supper and it is a well-known fact that +there is never a time or a season when a college boy is not ready to +eat. Someone suggested that politeness demanded they should entertain +their guest with a fowl and a bottle of brandy from Benny Haven's shop, +and proposed that they should draw straws to determine which of the +three hosts should fetch the necessary supplies. They had no money, but +the accommodating "Bard" agreed to sacrifice his blanket in the cause of +hospitality; and armed with that and several pounds of tallow candles, +"Gibs," upon whom the lot had fallen, set forth to run the blockade to +Benny's. This was a risky business, for the vigilance of Lieutenant +Joseph Locke, one of the instructors in tactics who was also a sort of +supervisor of the morals and conduct of cadets, was hard to elude. As +one of the Bard's own effusions ran,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"John Locke was a very great name;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Joe Locke was a greater, in short,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The former was well known to Fame,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The latter well known to Report."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The best that Benny would give, in addition to the bottle, for the +blanket and candles, was an old gander, whose stentorian and tell-tale +voice he obligingly hushed by chopping off its head. Under cover of the +darkness and the storm, "Gibs" succeeded in safely returning to the +Barracks but not until his hands and his shirt were reeking with the +gander's gore. "The Bard," who was anxiously awaiting the result of the +foraging expedition ventured outside to meet him. When he beheld the +prize, he exclaimed, in a whisper,</p> + +<p>"Good for you! But you look like a murderer caught red-handed."</p> + +<p>His own words, almost before they left his lips, suggested to him an +idea for a mammoth hoax—the best they had tried yet, he told himself. +He hastily, and in whispers, unfolded it to "Gibs," whom he found all +sympathy, then returned alone, to his friends in Number 28, reporting +that he had seen nothing of their messenger, and expressing fear that he +had met with an accident.</p> + +<p>All began to watch the door with anxiety. After some minutes it burst +open and "Gibs," who had carefully laid the gander down outside, +staggered into the room, appearing to be very drunk and brandishing a +knife, which he had rubbed against the fowl's bleeding neck. "Old P." +and the visitor from North Barracks, too frightened for words, sat as +though rooted to their chairs, while "the Bard" sprang to his feet and +in a horror-stricken voice, exclaimed,</p> + +<p>"Heavens, Gibs! What has happened?"</p> + +<p>"Joe Locke—Joe Locke—" gasped "Gibs."</p> + +<p>"Well, what of Joe Locke? Speak man!"</p> + +<p>"He won't report me any more. I've killed him!"</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" exclaimed "the Bard," in disgust. "This is another of your +practical jokes, and you know it."</p> + +<p>"I thought you would say that, so I cut off his head and brought it +along. Here it is!"</p> + +<p>With that he quickly opened the door and picked up the gander and, +whirling it around his head, dashed it violently at the one candle which +was thus knocked over and extinguished, leaving the room in darkness but +for a few smouldering embers on the hearth, and with the gruesome +addition to the company of what two of those present believed to be the +severed head of Lieutenant Locke.</p> + +<p>The visitor with one bound was out of the room through the window, and +made good his escape to his own quarters in North Barracks, where he +spread the astounding news that "Gibs" had murdered Joe Locke; it was +certainly so, for his head was then in Number 28, South Barracks.</p> + +<p>"Old P." nearly frozen with fright, did not move from his place, and it +was with some difficulty that "the Bard" and "Gibs" brought him back to +a normal condition and induced him to assist in preparing the fowl which +had played the part of Joe Locke's head, in the little comedy, for the +belated feast—which was merrily partaken of, but without the guest of +honor.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Edgar Poe had entered West Point in July, but hardly had its doors +closed behind him when his optimism gave place to wretchedness and he +began to feel that his appointment was a mistake. He had taken a fine +stand in his classes, but he recognized at once a state of things most +unpleasant for him for which he had not been prepared. As in his +schooldays in Richmond and at the University, a number of the boys had +withheld their intimacy from him on account of caste feeling, so now at +West Point he found history repeating itself, but with a difference. In +Richmond and at the University it had been as the child of the stage and +as a dependent upon charity, that the line was drawn against him. With +the aristocratic cadets, it was because of his promotion from the ranks. +Yet the very experience which brought their contempt upon him gave him a +sense of superiority that made their manner toward him the harder to +bear, and drilling with green boys after having been two years a +soldier, he found most irksome.</p> + +<p>While the snubbing to which he was subjected was general enough to make +his situation extremely unpleasant, however, it was by no means +unanimous. "Gibs" and "Old P." his convivial room-mates in Number 28, +took him to their hearts at once, and he really liked them when he was +in the mood for companions of their type, but they wore cruelly upon his +nerves when the divine fire within him was burning. So indeed would any +room-mates, for at home always, and most of the time at the University, +one of his chief comforts had been his own room where he could shut out +all the world and be alone with his dreams.</p> + +<p>There was, at West Point, nothing like a repetition of his course at the +University. The trouble which his attack of gambling fever had gotten +him into had proved a severe but wholesome lesson, and he had let cards +alone at once and forever. In his ignorance of his own family history, +he did not know that for one of his blood, the only safety lay in total +abstinence from the cup that cheers, but the intense and instantaneous +excitement he found a single glass of wine produced in his brain—an +excitement amounting almost to madness—was in itself a warning to him, +and kept him strictly within the bounds of moderation.</p> + +<p>There were times, however, when with a chicken and a bottle of brandy, +purchased secretly from old Benny, and smuggled, at great hazard, into +the room, Edgar Goodfellow could, with zest join his rolicking +room-mates in making merry, and in spite of his strict adherence to the +single glass, generally out-do them at their own games.</p> + +<p>But there was no place in that room for Edgar the Dreamer; and between +the spirit-dulling routine and discipline of classes and drills with +youths for the most part younger than himself and inferior in mentality +and cultivation, but who bore themselves as his superiors, and the +impossibility of an hour of solitude, the lovely "Ligeia" became unreal +and remote. He could no longer catch the sounds of her voice, or feel +her presence near. His muse, too, had become shy and difficult and when +she deigned to visit him at all, it was generally in the quite new +character of jester in cap and bells, under whose influence he dashed +off humorous and satirical squibs at the expense of the professors and +students, of which the lines on Lieutenant Locke are a specimen. These +he recited for the benefit of the little parties that gathered in Number +28, by whom they were regarded as master-pieces of wit and were +circulated through the school.</p> + +<p>But he took no real pleasure in this perversion of his poetical gift, +and feeling his soul cramped and cabined by the uncongeniality of his +surroundings, he soon became convinced that West Point was not the place +for him, and that he should leave it as soon as possible. He wrote Mr. +Allan of his dissatisfaction—begging his assistance in securing a +discharge. At no time would this request have been granted but it came +at the most inopportune moment imaginable.</p> + +<p>Some time before, certain ladies in Richmond who professed "to know the +signs," had given out the interesting news that Mr. Allan was "taking +notice." True it was that though such a thing had seemed impossible, his +stocks were higher and more precisely folded than ever, his broadcloth +was of a finer texture, his knee-buckles shone with a brighter lustre, +but the most marked change in him was a certain springiness of gait +altogether new to his silk-stockinged calves, and almost youthful, and a +pleased expression of the hitherto stern eyes and mouth which made his +usually solemn vizage look as if it might break out into smiles at any +moment.</p> + +<p>The signs, the ladies said, dated from the arrival of at "Powhatan," the +country seat of the Mayo family, just below Richmond, of a fair +guest—Miss Louisa Patterson, of Philadelphia. This lady was no longer +young, according to the severe standards of that time of early marriages +and correspondingly early "old-maidenhood," but so much the better, as +she was therefore of suitable age for the elderly though spruce and +prosperous widower. She was, withal, a decidedly personable woman with +the elegant manners and conversation of the inner circles of the +exclusive, stately society in which she had been nurtured—just the +woman, the fair prophetesses said, to rule over John Allan (for +everybody knew that a man who ruled his first wife was invariably ruled +by his second) and to preside with distinction and taste over his +drawing-room and his board. She was as suitable, in fact for the wife of +ripe age as the flower-like Frances had been for the wife of youth. So +Richmond gave its unqualified approval.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more out of harmony with the sound of the +"mellow wedding bells" pealing for this happy pair, than a reminder of +the first wife of the bridegroom in the shape of a letter from Edgar +Poe.</p> + +<p>When Poe had entered West Point his foster-father had drawn a long +breath of relief. He believed that the idle youth with whom his dead +wife had been so strangely infatuated was off his hands for good and +all. When the letter came to jar upon his new dream of love he was +irritated, and in his brief mention of the matter to his bride it was +very apparent, and left upon her mind the impression that Frances Allan +must have been a weak and silly creature indeed, to have fancied an +idle, ungrateful boy who spent his time drinking, gambling and +scribbling ridiculous poetry. <i>And the son of an actress!</i> It would have +been impossible for such a low character and herself to have remained +under the same roof for a day, she was sure, and she told her husband +so—imparting to her tone somewhat of the pity she felt to think of his +having been yoked for years to such a morally frail specimen of +womanhood as she conceived the first Mrs. Allan to have been.</p> + +<p>So Mr. Allan's letter of refusal to help Edgar escape the life that was +growing more and more irksome to him was as decided as it was brief. But +Edgar was unshaken in his resolve to get away as soon as possible. In +the meantime, finding no outlet for his restless creative faculty that +would not remain inactive though there was no opportunity for its +satisfaction, he gave himself over by turns, to deepest dejection and +wildest hilarity.</p> + +<p>Finally, as no other relief was at hand, he decided to force his +discharge by deliberate and systematic neglect of the rules. The plan +succeeded so well that before the session was out he was expelled from +the Academy for disobedience of orders and failure to attend roll-calls, +classes and guard-duty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + + +<p>Happily, the restraints of the Academy and his environment there, +instead of crushing out young Edgar's impulse to dream and to put his +dreams into writing (as a longer period of the same restraints and +conditions might have done) had but quickened and strengthened these +very impulses, and he had now but one wish, one aspiration in regard to +his newly acquired freedom, and that was to dedicate it to the art of +literature which had become more and more his passion and his mistress, +and which since he had given up all idea of the army, he was resolved to +make his sole profession.</p> + +<p>His first step toward this end was to arrange, before leaving New York, +for a new edition of his already published work, adding some hitherto +unpublished poems which even in the unsympathetic atmosphere of Number +28 South Barracks had been undergoing a refining process in the seething +crucible of his brain.</p> + +<p>The money for this venture dropped into his lap, as it were, for when +the new friends in whom he had confided passed the word around that "the +Bard" was going to get out a book of poetry, the cadets (in anticipation +of a collection of ditties cleverly hitting off the peculiarities and +characteristics of the professors) to a man, subscribed in advance—at +seventy-five cents per copy. In appreciation of their recognition of his +genius, and little guessing what manner of book they expected it to be, +"the Bard" gratefully dedicated the new volume "To the United States +Corps of Cadets."</p> + +<p>Happy it was for him that he was not present to hear those he had thus +honored set up their throats in unanimous expressions of disgust +when—the dedication leaf turned—they were confronted by a reprint of +"Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf," with the shorter poems, "To Helen," "A +Pæan," "Israfel," "Fairy-Land," and other "rubbish," as they promptly +pronounced the entire contents of the book.</p> + +<p>"Listen, fellows!" said one of the disgusted lot, with the open volume +in his hand.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'In Heaven a spirit doth dwell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose heartstrings are a lute.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None sing so wildly well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the angel, Israfel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the giddy stars (so legends tell)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of his voice, all mute.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As he finished this opening stanza of what posterity has ranked as one +of the most exquisite lyrics in the English tongue, but which was +received by the audience of cadets with guffaws of derision, the reader +closed the book with a snap, and dashed it across the room and into the +open fire.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear crazier rubbish?" he asked, with contempt. "Highway +robbery, I call it, to send us such stuff for our good, hard cash!"</p> + +<p>"The joke's on us this time, and no doubt about it," said the also +chagrinned, but more philosophically inclined "Gibs." "The Bard means +well, though, and no doubt he thinks the stuff is poetry."</p> + +<p>"Old P." solemnly tapped his forehead with his forefinger.</p> + +<p>"Something wrong here," he remarked, ominously, "I suspected it all +along."</p> + +<p>The business of getting his book published dispatched, the poet's +thoughts turned lovingly toward Richmond which he still called "home," +and carpet-bag in hand and a package of copies of his book which he +intended as presents to his old chums under his arm, he set out upon the +journey thither.</p> + +<p>The streets of New York had been cold and bleak but he told himself as +he journeyed, that April days at home were quite different. The grass +would be already green upon the hillsides, many of the trees in leaf, +and the dear spring flowers in bloom. He pictured the ample comforts of +the Allan homestead, and of his own room in it, with its familiar +furnishings. Of course he had no idea of looking to Mr. Allan for +support—his pen must give him that now—but during the visit which he +was going to make "at home" it would be pleasant to sleep once more in +that room with all of its associations, though many of these were with +the blunders of a blinded youth.</p> + +<p>As he thought of Mr. Allan and his last meeting with him, his heart +softened. He would try and keep their intercourse upon the friendly +basis upon which his last sad visit home had placed it; would as far as +possible, put himself in his foster-father's place and see things as he +saw them.</p> + +<p>How desolate the widowed man had seemed in the big, empty house during +those chill, sorrow-stricken, February days! No wonder he had sought +escape from his desolation in another marriage—his loneliness without +the lovely little mother must have been unbearable. What was the new +wife like, he wondered? Was she like the lady of the manor he +remembered? Could there be another such gentle, tender, flower-like +woman on earth?</p> + +<p>In his unworldly, unpractical dreamer's soul it did not occur to him for +one moment that her existence might make him any less Mr. Allan's +adopted son, or even that, with all the rooms in the big house at her +disposal, she might have taken a fancy to rearrange the one which, from +the time the house became Mr. Allan's property, had been "Eddie's room," +and which had so long stood ready for his occupancy—dedicated as it was +to his own belongings.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At last he was on the sacred soil!</p> + +<p>How fair and comfortable the old homestead looked in its setting of +greening lawn and flowering garden, with the pleasant sunshine of the +April afternoon over all! How cheerful—how ample—how homelike!</p> + +<p>He ran up the steps of the commodious front porch and was on the point +of opening the door when some impulse he could not define made him pause +and, instead of turning the knob, announce himself with a rap upon the +shining brass knocker.</p> + +<p>One of the old family servants whom he had known and loved from his +infancy, and with whom he had always been a pet, opened the door, and +with beaming face and eager voice greeted him with the enthusiastic +hospitality of his kind—lifting up his voice and his hands in praise to +God that he was once more in this world permitted to look upon the face +of "Marse Eddie."</p> + +<p>The whilom young master of the house was equally, if less picturesquely, +warm in his expressions of pleasure at seeing the old man again, and +gave him his carpet-bag with instructions to take it to his room and to +tell Mrs. Allan that he was there.</p> + +<p>The venerable darkey's face fell. The "new Mistis" had "changed the +house around some," he explained, apologetically, and "Marse's Eddie's" +things had been moved to one of the servants' rooms, but "Marse Eddie's" +old room was a guest chamber, and he "reckoned" that would be the place +to take the bag.</p> + +<p>The visitor's whole manner changed at once—<i>froze</i>. The flush of +pleasure died out of his face and left it pale, cold and stern. A fierce +and unreasonable rage possessed him. <i>She had dismantled the room that +his little mother had arranged for him and sent his things to a +servant's room!</i> Was this insult intentional, he wondered?</p> + +<p>To his mind, his "little Mother" was so entirely the presiding genius of +the place—he could not realize the right of anyone, not even a "new +mistis," to come in and "change the house around."</p> + +<p>Cut to the quick, he directed the old butler to leave the bag where it +was and to let Mrs. Allan know that he was in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>No announcement could have given that lady greater surprise. She +regarded Edgar's leaving West Point after her husband's letter, as +direct disobedience, and his presenting himself at her door as the +height of impertinence. Something of this was in the frigid dignity with +which she received him—standing, and drawn up to the full height of her +imposing figure.</p> + +<p>She had never been within speaking distance of anyone drunk to the point +of intoxication, but, somehow, she had received an impression that this +was pretty generally the case with the young man now before her, and +when he began somewhat incoherently (in his foolish rage) to ask her +confirmation of the old servant's statement that his room had been +dismantled, she was convinced that it was his condition at the moment. +Turning, with the grand air for which she was noted, to the hoary butler +who stood in the doorway between drawing-room and hall, respectfully +awaiting orders as to "Marse Eddie's" bag, she said,</p> + +<p>"Put this drunken man out of the house!"</p> + +<p>The aged slave stood aghast. Between the stately new mistress whom it +was his duty to serve, and the beloved young master whose home-coming +had warmed his old heart, what should he do?</p> + +<p>He stood in silence, his lined black face filled with sadness, his chin +in his hand, his eyes bent in sorrow and shame upon the floor. What +should he do?—</p> + +<p>Fortunately, the new mistress did not see his indecision as she swept +from the room, and "Marse Eddie" quickly relieved him of the +embarrassing dilemma by picking up the carpet-bag and passing out of the +door, closing it behind him.</p> + +<p>It was all a mistake—a miserable mistake; but one of those mistakes in +understanding between blind, prejudiced human beings by which hearts are +broken, souls lost.</p> + +<p>At the foot of the steps Edgar Poe paused and looked back at the +massive closed door. <i>Never</i>—<i>nevermore</i>, it seem to say to +him.—<i>Never</i>—<i>nevermore</i>!</p> + +<p>While he had been inside the house one of those sudden changes in the +face of nature of which his superstitious soul always made note, had +taken place. A shower from a passing cloud had filled the depressions in +the uneven pavement, where before only sunshine lay, with little pools +of water, and had left the trees "weeping," as he fancifully described +them to himself.</p> + +<p>He walked along the wet streets for a few steps, by the side of the wall +that enclosed house and grounds. Then he paused again and looked over +into the dripping garden while he held consultation with himself as to +what he should do next. As he looked the breath of drenched violets +greeted his nostrels. He noticed that the lilacs were coming into +blossom. The fruit trees already stood like brides veiled in their fresh +bloom. The tulip and hyacinth and daffodil beds were gay with color. How +their newly washed faces shone in the sunshine, just then bursting +through the clouds!</p> + +<p>Near him, just inside the wall, was a bed of lily-of-the-valley. He was +seized with an almost irresistible desire to go down upon his knees by +it and search among the glistening green leaves to see if the lilies +were in bloom.</p> + +<p>But the garden-gate, like the house door, was closed upon him and seemed +to repeat the fateful word—Nevermore.</p> + +<p>Whither should he turn his steps? To Mr. Allan's office?—Never!</p> + +<p>His intention had been to submit himself to Mr. Allan as far as his +self-respect would let him. To consult him in regard to the literary +career he felt himself committed to now that (as he recalled with +satisfaction) the bridges between him and any other profession were +burnt behind him. His own plan, upon which he was resolved to ask Mr. +Allan's opinion, would be to seek a position in the line of journalism +which would give him a living while he was waiting for his more +ambitious work to find buyers.</p> + +<p>But since the interview with Mrs. Allan he realized the folly of this +dream.</p> + +<p>Then, whither should he go?—To the chums of his boyhood?—Rob Stanard, +Dick Ambler, Rob Sully, Jack Preston, where were they?—Good, dear +friends they had been, but it seemed so long since they had played +together! What should they find to say to each other now? They were busy +with their various avocations and interests—what room in their hearts +and homes could there be for a wanderer like himself?</p> + +<p>At the age of one and twenty, at the springtime of his life, as of the +year—he felt himself to be as friendless, as much a stranger in the +city which he called home, as Rip Van Winkle after his long sleep had +felt in his. The only spots toward which he could turn with any +confidence for sympathy were those two quiet cities within this city +where lay his loved and lovely dead—"The doubly dead in that they died +so young."</p> + +<p>"How different my life would be if they had lived!" he murmured to the +flowers.</p> + +<p>Yet how fair was this world in which he had no place—even to a mere +looker-on. How fair was this mansion, in its setting of April green and +bloom, which had once owned him as its young—its future master. Above +it Hope stretched her shining wings, but the hope was not for him. For +him the closed door and the closed gate said only, "no more—nevermore."</p> + +<p>But whither should he go?—whither?</p> + +<p>As he turned from the garden and walked slowly, aimlessly, down the +street, his great grey eyes fixed ponderingly upon the breaking clouds, +a rainbow—bright symbol of promise—spanned the heavens. His eyes +widened, his lips parted at the wonder and the beauty and the suddenness +of it.</p> + +<p>Whither should he go? Behold an answer meet for a poet!</p> + +<p>Whither?—Whither?—The dark eyes in the pale cameo face turned +skyward—the eyes of him who had declared himself to be a deep +worshipper of all beauty grew more dreamy. Whither, indeed, but to the +end of the rainbow!</p> + +<p>By what "path obscure and lonely," the quest would lead him he knew not, +but he would follow it to the bitter end, for there, perchance, he would +find if not the traditional pot of gold, at least a wreath of laurel.</p> + +<p>As he wandered down the street, his eyes still upon the bow, his dream +was suddenly interrupted by the hearty voice of one of his boyhood's +friends, and his sister Rosalie's adopted brother, Jack Mackenzie.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Edgar!" he cried. "Did you drop from the clouds? Evidently, for +I see your head is still in them."</p> + +<p>He returned the greeting with joy. How good it was to feel the +hand-clasp of friendship and welcome! He had always liked Jack—for the +moment he loved him.</p> + +<p>"And where are you bound—you and your bag?" asked Jack. "Not to Mr. +Allan's, for you are going in the wrong direction."</p> + +<p>"No," replied The Dreamer, with a whimsical smile. "I was going there, +but I found the door shut, so I changed my mind, and had just decided to +make the end of the rainbow my destination."</p> + +<p>Jack's spontaneous laugh rang out. "The same old Edgar!" he said. "Well +I won't interfere with your journey except to defer it a bit. You are +going home with me, to 'Duncan Lodge,' now—at least to supper and spend +the night; and to stay as much longer as pleases you. Rose and the rest +will be delighted to see you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + + +<p>Where was Edgar Poe? Again the question was being asked. In many +quarters and with varying degrees of interest it was repeated. But it +still remained unanswered.</p> + +<p>In Richmond it was asked by the chums of his youth as they sat under +their comfortable vines and fig-trees, or stopped each other on a corner +for a few moments' social chat, or—catching some one of the rumors that +were afloat concerning the gifted companion of their golden days—looked +up from their desks in office or counting-house to ask each other the +question. Their faces were keen with interest for their admiration and +affection for The Dreamer had been sincere; yet it was not strong enough +after the lapse of years to make any one of them lay down work and go +forth to seek a solution of the mystery. Such an errand not one of them +felt to be his business. A quixotic errand it would indeed have been +considered and one which, if half the rumors were true, might have +necessitated a journey to the ends of the earth, to prove but a fool's +errand after all.</p> + +<p>The oft-repeated question was one with which John Allan little concerned +himself. A robust son and heir had come in his late middle age to fill +all his thoughts with new interest and plans for the present and the +future. The patter of little feet of his own child on the stairs and +halls of his home, drowned the ghostly memories of other and less +welcome footfalls that had once echoed there.</p> + +<p>He too, had heard rumors of the adventures and the misadventures of +Edgar Poe, but he did not consider it his business, as it was certainly +not his pleasure, to investigate them.</p> + +<p>In Baltimore too, the question was asked by the kinsfolk whose +acquaintance Edgar had made during his visit there. But they had never +held themselves in the least responsible for this eccentric son of their +brother David, the actor—the black sheep of the family. Surely it was +none of <i>their</i> business to follow him upon any chase his foolish fancy +might lead him.</p> + +<p>But still, when the rumors that were rife reached their ears, it was +with no small degree of curiosity that they asked each other the +question: Where was Edgar Poe?—What had become of him?—Had he, as some +believed, met death upon the high seas or in a foreign land?—Was he the +real hero of stories of adventure which floated across the ocean from +Russia—from France—from Greece?</p> + +<p>He had certainly contemplated going abroad—the Superintendent of West +Point Academy had had a letter from him sometime after he left there, +declaring his intention of seeking an appointment in the Polish army. +Had he gone, or was he, as some would have it, going in and out among +them, there in Baltimore, but unknown and unrecognized—his identity +hidden under assumed name and ingenious disguise?</p> + +<p>Who could tell?</p> + +<p>The wonder of it was not in the existence of the unanswered question—of +the mystery—but that the question could remain unanswered—the mystery +remain unsolved—and no attempt be made to lift the veil. That a young +man, a gentleman, of prominent connections, of handsome features and +distinguished bearing and address, of rare mental gifts and cultivation, +and of magnetic personality, could disappear from the face of the +earth—could, almost before the very eyes of his fellows, step from the +glare of the world in which he moved into the abyss of absolute +obscurity or impenetrable mystery, and create no stir—that no one +should deem it his or her business to seek or to find an answer to the +question, a reading of the riddle.</p> + +<p>Not until two years after Edgar Poe had turned his back upon the closed +door of the Allan mansion, in Richmond, and stepped, as it seemed from +the edge of a world in which he was not wanted into the unknown, did +such an one arise. And that one was, as an especially good friend of +Edgar Poe's was most likely to be—a woman.</p> + +<p>Between this woman:—Mrs. Maria Poe Clemm—a widow of middle age, and +The Dreamer, there existed the close blood-tie of aunt and nephew, for +she was the own sister of his father, David Poe.</p> + +<p>More than that—there existed, though they had never seen each other, a +soul kinship rare between persons of the same blood, and which (for all +they had never seen each other) she, with the woman's unerring instinct +that sometimes seems akin to inspiration, divined. She too was something +of a dreamer, with an ear for the voices of Nature and a mind open to +the influences of its beauty, but with a goodly ballast of strong common +sense.</p> + +<p>She was but a young girl when her handsome and idolized brother David +scandalized the family by marrying an actress and himself taking to the +stage. But she had seen the bewitching "Miss Arnold" at the theatre in +Baltimore—had, with fascinated eyes, followed her twinkling feet +through the mazy dance, had listened with charmed ears to her exquisite +voice, had sat spell-bound under her acting. To her childish mind, the +stage had become a fairy-land and Miss Arnold its presiding genius. That +brother David should love and marry her seemed like something out of a +fairy book. <i>She</i> did not blame brother David; she secretly entirely +approved of him.</p> + +<p>In her later years the death of the husband of her own youth who had +been romantically, passionately loved, had left her penniless but not +disillusioned; with her own living to get and a little daughter with a +face like a Luca Della Robbia chorister, and a voice that went with the +face, but who had the requirements of other flesh and blood children, to +be provided for. This child was the sunshine of the lonely widow's life, +yet she only in part filled the great mother's heart of her. Nature had +made her to be the mother of a son as well as a daughter, then +mockingly, it would seem, denied her.</p> + +<p>But in her dreams she worshipped the son she had never borne, and deep +in her heart was stored, like unshed tears, the love she would have +lavished upon him had her whole mission in life been fulfilled.</p> + +<p>She had heard little of her brother David's son Edgar, but that little +had always interested her. She was living away from Baltimore during his +visit there just before he entered West Point, and so she did not meet +him; but upon the death of her husband, soon afterward, she had returned +to the home of her girlhood, and established herself in modest, but +respectable quarters, to earn a livelihood for the little Virginia and +herself by the use of her skillful needle.</p> + +<p>It was soon afterward that with a concern which no one but herself had +felt, she learned of the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of her +nephew.</p> + +<p>She yearned over the wanderer and longed to mother him, as, somehow, she +knew he needed to be mothered. She kept near her a copy of his last +little book of poems which she had read again and again. In the earlier +ones she saw a loose handful of jewels in the rough, yet she recognized +the sparkle which distinguishes the genuine from the false. In the later +ones she perceived gems "of purest ray serene," polished and strung and +ready to be passed on from generation to generation—priceless +heir-looms.</p> + +<p>She was a tall woman, and deep-bosomed, with large but clear-cut and +strong features, and handsome, deepset gray eyes which habitually wore +the expression of one who has loved much and sorrowed much. She had been +called stately before her proud spirit had bowed itself in submission to +the chastenings of grief—since when she had borne the seal of meekness. +But there was a distinction about her that neither grief nor poverty +could destroy. She was so unmistakably the gentle-woman. In the simple, +but dainty white cap, with its floating strings, which modestly covered +her dark waving hair, the plain black dress and prim collar fastened +with its mourning pin, she made a reposeful picture of the old-fashioned +conception of "a widow indeed."</p> + +<p>Her hands were not her least striking feature. They were large, but +perfectly modelled, and they were deft, capable, full of character and +feeling. In their touch there was a wonderfully soothing quality. In +winter they always possessed just the pleasantest degree of warmth; in +summer just the most grateful degree of coolness. No one ever received a +greeting from them without being impressed with the friendliness, the +sympathy of their clasp.</p> + +<p>As she bent her fine, deeply-lined face over them, and the work they +held, while the little Virginia sat nursing a doll at her feet, she +often stitched into the garments that they fashioned yearnings, +thoughts, questionings of the youth—her brother's child—whose picture, +as she had conceived him from descriptions she had heard, she carried in +her heart. She knew too well the weakness that was his inheritance and +she knew too, what perils were in waiting to ensnare the feet of untried +youth—poor, homeless and without the restraining influences of friends +and kindred—whatever their inheritance might be.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she felt that the yearning was almost more than she could +bear, and that she must arise and go forth and seek this straying sheep +of the fold of Poe. But alas, she was but a woman, without money and +without a clue upon which to begin to work save such as wild, improbable +and contradictory rumors afforded. That was, after all, what she most +needed—a clue. If she could only find a clue, poor as she was, she +would follow it to the ends of the earth!</p> + +<p>Upon a summer's day two years after Edgar's disappearance, and when she +had almost given up hope, the clue came. It was placed in her hand by +her cousin, and Edgar's, Neilson Poe, who had no faith in its value but +passed it on to her as it had come to him—"for what it was worth," as +he expressed it.</p> + +<p>It was a strange story that Mrs. Clemm's cousin Neilson told her, and +which had been told him, he said, by an acquaintance of his from +Richmond who had known Edgar Poe in his boyhood.</p> + +<p>It seems that this Richmond man had during a visit to Baltimore gone to +a brickyard to arrange for the shipment home of bricks for a new house +he was building. As he sat in the office talking to the manager of the +yard, a line of men bearing freshly molded bricks to the kiln passed the +open window. There was something about the appearance of one of the +laborers that struck the Richmond man as familiar and he turned quickly +to the manager and asked the name of the man, pointing him out. The name +given him was a strange one to him and he dismissed the matter from his +thoughts and returned to his business talk.</p> + +<p>Upon his way to his hotel, however, the appearance of the brick-carrier, +and the impression that somewhere, he had seen him before, returned to +his mind and it came upon him in a flash, first that the likeness was to +Edgar Poe, and then the conviction that the man was none other than Poe +himself, though emaciated and aged to a degree that, with his shabby +dress and unshaven chin, made him scarcely recognizable. Though he had +been but a casual acquaintance of Edgar's, he was deeply touched at +seeing him so evidently in distress, and returned to the brickyard early +the next morning for the purpose of speaking to him and of helping him +back into the sphere in which he belonged and from which he had so long +disappeared. But the man he sought was not there and no one knew where +his lodgings were. He was a recent employe of the yard, they said, and +so gloomy and unsociable that he had made no friends. He was capable of +a great amount of work, which he performed faithfully, but kept to +himself and had little to say to anybody.</p> + +<p>Upon the day before he had looked ill and had stopped work before the +day was over. He was evidently suffering from exhaustion, but had +declared that he needed nothing, and after sitting down to rest upon a +pile of bricks for a while, had gone off to his home—wherever that +might be—as usual, alone.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>This story Neilson Poe set down as highly sensational. He did not +believe, he said with a laugh, that his cousin, when found, would be +doing anything half so energetic or useful as carrying bricks—he would +have more hope of him if he could believe it. The laborer's real, or +fancied, likeness to Edgar was but a case of chance resemblance, that +was all.</p> + +<p>But that was not enough for Maria Clemm. She folded her sewing and laid +it away with an air of finality which plainly said that she had found +other and more pressing work to do. The sewing must wait a more +convenient season.</p> + +<p>Then she went out into the streets sweltering in the summer heat, and +turned her face toward that obscure quarter of the town where human +beings who could not afford to rest or to dine might at least secure a +corner in which to "lodge" and the right, if not the appetite, to "eat," +for an infinitesimal sum; for it was in this quarter that strange as it +might, seem, her instinct told her her search must be made—in this +quarter that Edgar Poe, the rich merchant's pampered foster-child, Edgar +Poe, the poet, the scholar, the exquisite in dress, in taste and in +manners, would be found.</p> + +<p>When she did find him the mystery that had surrounded him was stripped +of the last shred of its romance. In a room compared to which the little +chamber back of the shop of Mrs. Fipps, the milliner, in which his +mother had drawn her last breath, and in which Frances Allan had found +and fallen in love with him, was luxurious, he lay upon a bed of straw +thrown into a dark corner, tossing with fever and in his delirium, +literally "babbling of green fields."</p> + +<p>The kind-hearted, but ignorant and uncleanly slattern who sought with +"lodgings to let" to keep the souls of herself and family in their +bodies, gave him as much attention as the demands of a numerous brood of +little slatterns and a drunken husband would permit, and sighed with +real sorrow as she admitted that the "poor gentleman" was in a very bad +way. It was her opinion he had seen better days she confided to the +three other lodgers who were just then renting the three straw beds in +the three other corners of the same dark, squalid and evil-smelling +room. He was "so soft-spoken and elegant-like, if he <i>was</i> poor as a +church mouse. Pity he had no folks nor nobody to keer nothin' about +'im."</p> + +<p>It was not at once that Mrs. Clemm found him. She had sought him +diligently in what would to-day be known as the slum districts of the +city, descending the scale of respectability lower and lower until she +thought she had reached the bottom, but without success.</p> + +<p>Then, upon the fourth or fifth day of her search, late in the afternoon, +when the little Virginia was watching anxiously from the sitting-room +window for "Muddie's" return, a wagon stopped before her door and out of +it and into the house was borne a stretcher upon which lay an apparently +dying man—ghastly, unshaven, and muttering broken unintelligible +sentences.</p> + +<p>Keeping pace with the wagon as it crept along the street, might have +been seen the stately, sad-eyed Widow Clemm. When the wagon stopped, she +stopped, and directed the careful lifting of the stretcher from it. Then +she turned and opened the door of her small house and led the way to her +neat bed-chamber where, upon her own immaculate bed, the sick man was +gently laid—henceforth, as long as need be, a cot in the sitting-room +would be good enough for her.</p> + +<p>The little Virginia, her soft eyes filled with wonder, had followed her +mother upon tip-toe.</p> + +<p>"Who is it, Muddie?" she questioned in an awed whisper.</p> + +<p>The anxiety in the widow's face gave place to a look of exaltation which +fairly transfigured her. Her deep eyes shone with the hoarded love for +the son so long denied her. She gathered her little daughter to her +breast and kissed her tenderly.</p> + +<p>"It is your brother, darling," she gently said. "God has given me a +son!"</p> + +<p>Well she knew that he was not yet entirely her own—that she would have +to wrestle fiercely with Death for his possession. But she had made up +her mind that she would win the battle.</p> + +<p>"Death <i>shall</i> not have him," she passionately told herself.</p> + +<p>But the next moment, overwhelmed with a realization of human +helplessness, she was upon her knees at his bedside, crying:</p> + +<p>"Oh, God, do not let him die! I have but just found him! Spare him to me +now, if but a little while!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + + +<p>For many days the sick man lay with eyes closed in uneasy sleep or open, +but unseeing, and with body writhing and tongue loosed but incoherent, +showing that these half-waking hours, as well as the sleeping ones, were +"horror haunted."</p> + +<p>Finally the most terrible of dreams visited him. The circumstances of +his life had caused him from his infancy to dwell much upon the subject +of death. He had oftentimes taken a gruesome pleasure in trying to +imagine all the sensations of the grim passage into the "Valley of the +Shadow"—even to the closing of the coffin-lid and the descent into the +grave. Now, in his fever-dream, the dreadful details and sensations +imagined in health came to him, but with tenfold vividness. At the point +when in the blackness and suffocation of conscious burial horror had +reached its extremest limit and the sufferer was upon the verge of real +death from sheer terror, relief came. He seemed to feel himself freed +from the closeness, the maddening fight for breath, of the coffin, and +gently, surely, borne upward out of the abyss ... upward ... upward ... +into air—light—life!</p> + +<p>For a long while he lay quite still, too exhausted to move hand or +foot—to raise his eyelids even; but content—more—happy, perfectly +happy, in the glorious consciousness of being able just to lie still and +breathe the sweet air of day.</p> + +<p>Presently, as he began to feel rested, the great grey eyes opened. For +the first time since the conqueror, Fever, had overthrown him and bound +him to the uneasy bed of straw, they were clear as the sky after a +storm—swept clean of every cob-web cloud; but their lucid depths were +filled with surprise, for they opened upon a cool, light, homelike +chamber. The walls around him were white, but were relieved here and +there by restful prints in narrow black frames. The four-post bed upon +which he lay was canopied and the large, bright windows were curtained +with snowiest dimity, but the draperies of both were drawn and he could +look out at the trees and the sky now roseate with the hues of evening. +In a set of shelves that nearly reached the ceiling stood row on row of +friendly looking books. Upon a high mahogany chest of drawers, with its +polished brass trimmings and little swinging looking-glass, stood a +white and gold porcelain vase filled with asters—purple, white and +pink—while before it, in a deep arm-chair, a little girl of ten or +eleven years, with a face like a Luca della Robbia chorister, or like +one of the children of sunny Italy that served for old Luca's model, was +curled up, stroking a large white cat which lay purring in her lap.</p> + +<p>Upon the child the wondering eyes of the sick man lingered longest and +to her they returned when their survey of the rest of the room was done. +Suddenly, impelled by the steadiness of his gaze, she lifted her own +dark, soft eyes and let them rest for a moment upon his. She +started—then was up and across the floor in a flash, carrying the cat +upon her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Muddie, Muddie," she cried from the door, "The new Buddie is awake!"</p> + +<p>Then, still carrying her pet, she walked, to his bedside and gazed +earnestly and unabashed into the "new Buddie's" face. Her eyes had the +velvety softness of pansy petals and as they looked into the eyes of the +sick man recalled to his clearing mind the expression of mixed love and +questioning in the eyes of his spaniel, "Comrade," the faithful friend +of his boyhood.</p> + +<p>At length he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Who is 'Muddie'?"</p> + +<p>"She's my mother, and you are my new brother that has come to live with +us always."</p> + +<p>A radiant smile illumined the pale and haggard face. "Thank Heaven for +that!" he said. "And who brought me up out of the grave?"</p> + +<p>The child was spared the necessity of puzzling over this startling +question. <i>Surely it was no other than she</i>, he thought—she who at this +moment appeared at the open door—the tall figure of a woman or angel +who in the next moment was kneeling beside him with a heaven of +protecting love in her face. <i>She it was, no other!</i> Through all of his +dreams he had been dimly conscious of her—saving him from death and +despair. Now for the first time, in the light of life, and in his new +consciousness he saw her plainly.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Edgar Poe's convalescence was slow but it was steady, and even in his +weakness he felt a peace and happiness such as he had rarely tasted. +This frugal but restful home in which he found himself, with the +ministrations of "Muddie" and "Sissy," as he playfully called his aunt +and the little cousin who had adopted him as her "Buddie," were to him, +after his struggle with hunger, fever and death, like a safe harbor to a +storm-tossed sailor.</p> + +<p>The little Virginia claimed him as her own from the beginning. As long +as he was weak enough to need to be waited upon her small feet and hands +never wearied in his service but as he grew better, it was he who served +her. There never were such stories as he could tell, such games as he +could play, and he took her cat to his heart with gratifying promptness. +When they walked out together the world seemed turned into a fairyland +as with her hand held fast in his he told her wonderful secrets about +the clouds, the trees, the flowers, the birds and even about the stones +under her feet. It was fascinating to her too, to lie and listen to him +read and talk with "Muddie." She was not wise enough to understand much +that they said, but at night, when she had been tucked into bed, he +would sit under the lamp and read aloud from one of the books in the +shelves, or from the long strips of paper upon which he wrote and wrote; +and though she did not understand the words, she delighted to listen, +for his voice made the sweetest lullaby music.</p> + +<p>With the return of health and strength, energy and the impulse for +life's battle began to return to Edgar Poe, and with them a new +incentive. He began to awaken to the fact that "Muddie" and "Sissy" were +poor and that his presence in their home was making them poorer—that +the struggle to support this modest establishment was a severe one, and +that he must arise and add what he could to the earnings of the deft +needle. The three little editions of his poems had brought him no +money—he had begun to despair of their ever bringing him any. He had +sometime since turned his attention to prose but the manuscripts of such +stories as he had offered the publishers had come back to him with +unflattering promptness. He began now, however, with fresh heart to +write and to arrange a number of those that seemed to him to be his +best, for a book, to which he proposed to give the title, "Tales of the +Folio Club."</p> + +<p>But the new tide of hope was soon at a low ebb. The editors and +publishers would have none of his work.</p> + +<p>When the repeated return to him of the stories, poems and essays he sent +out had begun to make him lose faith in their merit and to question his +own right to live since the world had no use for the only commodity he +was capable of producing, "Muddie" came in one evening with an unusually +bright, eager look in her eyes and a copy of <i>The Saturday Visitor</i> (a +weekly paper published in Baltimore) in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Here's your chance, Eddie," she said.</p> + +<p>In big capitals upon the first page of the paper was an announcement to +the effect that the <i>Visitor</i> would give two prizes—one of one hundred +dollars for the best short story, and one of fifty dollars for the best +poem submitted to it anonymously. Three well-known gentlemen of the city +would act as judges, and the names of the successful contestants would +be published upon the twelfth of October.</p> + +<p>With trembling hands the discouraged young applicant for place as an +author made a neat parcel of six of his "Tales of the Folio Club" and a +recently written poem, "The Coliseum," and left them, that very night, +at the door of the office of <i>The Saturday Visitor</i>.</p> + +<p>How eagerly he and "Muddie" and "Sissy" awaited the fateful twelfth! The +hours and the days dragged by on leaden wings. But the twelfth came at +last. It found Edgar Poe at the office of the <i>Visitor</i> an hour before +time for the paper to be issued, but at length he held the scarcely dry +sheet in his hand and there, with his name at the end, was the story +that had taken the prize—"The MS. Found in a Bottle."</p> + +<p>More!—In the following wonderful—most wonderful words, it seemed to +him—the judges declared their decision:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Among the prose articles were many of various and +distinguished merit, but the singular force and beauty of those +sent by the author of 'Tales of the Folio Club' leave us no +room for hesitation in that department. We have awarded the +premium to a tale entitled, 'The MS. Found in a Bottle.' It +would hardly be doing justice to the writer of this collection +to say that the tale we have chosen is the best of the six +offered by him. We cannot refrain from saying that the author +owes it to his own reputation as well as to the gratification +of the community to publish the entire volume. These tales are +eminently distinguished by a wild, vigorous and poetical +imagination, a rich style, a fertile invention and varied, +curious learning.</p></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(Signed)<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">"John P. Kennedy,</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">J.H.B. Latrobe,</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">James H. Miller,</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Committee.</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here was the fulfilment of hope long deferred! Here was a brimming cup +of joy which the widowed aunt and little cousin who had taken him in and +made him a son and brother could share with him! It seemed almost too +good to be true, yet there it was in plain black and white with the +signatures of the three gentlemen whose opinion everyone would respect, +at the end. What wealth that hundred dollars—the first earnings of his +pen—seemed. What comforts for the modest home it would buy! This was no +mere nod of recognition from the literary world, but a cordial +hand-clasp, drawing him safely within that magic, but hitherto frowning +portal.</p> + +<p>He felt as if he were walking on air as he hurried home to tell "Muddie" +and "Sissy" of his and their good fortune. And how proud "Muddie" was of +her boy! How lovingly little "Sissy" hung on his neck and gave him +kisses of congratulation—though but little realizing the significance +of his success. And how he, in turn, beamed upon them! The grey eyes had +lost all of their melancholy and seemed suddenly to have become wells of +sunshine. In imagination he pictured these loved ones raised forever +from want, for he told himself that he would not only sell for a goodly +price all the rest of the "Tales of the Folio Club," but under the happy +influence of his success he would write many more and far better stories +still, to be promptly exchanged for gold.</p> + +<p>Bright and early Monday morning he made ready (with "Muddie's" aid) for +a round of visits to the members of the committee, to thank them for +their kind words. His clothes, hat, boots and gloves were all somewhat +worse for wear and his old coat hung loosely upon his shoulders—wasted +as they still were by the effects of his long illness; but he whistled +while he brushed and "Muddie" darned and carefully inked the worn seams, +and finally it was with a feeling that he was quite presentable that he +kissed his hands to his two good angels and ran gaily down the steps. +Hope gave him a debonair mien that belied his shabby-genteel apparel.</p> + +<p>A quarter of an hour later Mr. John Kennedy, prominent lawyer and the +author of that pleasant book "Swallow Barn," then newly published and +the talk of the town, answered a knock upon his office door with a +quick, "Come in!"</p> + +<p>At the same time he raised his eyes and confronted those of the young +author whom he had been instrumental in raising from the "verge of +despair."</p> + +<p>The face of the older man was one of combined strength and amiability. +Evidences of talent were there, but combined with common sense. There +was benevolence in the expansive brow and kindliness and humor as well +as character, about the lines of the nose and the wide, full-lipped +mouth, and the eyes diffused a light which was not only bright but +genial, and which robbed them of keenness as they rested upon the +pathetic and at the same time distinguished figure before him. What the +kindly eyes took in a glance was that the pale and haggard young +stranger with the big brow and eyes and the clear-cut features, the +military carriage and the shabby, but neat, frock coat buttoned to the +throat where it met the fashionable black stock, and with the modest and +exquisite manners, was a gentleman and a scholar—but poor, probably +even hungry. They kindled with added interest when the visitor +introduced himself as Edgar Poe—the author of "Tales of the Folio +Club."</p> + +<p>The strong, pleasant face and the cordial hand that grasped his own, +then placed a chair for him, invited the young author's confidence—a +confidence that always responded promptly to kindness—and he had soon +poured into the attentive ear of John Kennedy not only profuse thanks +for the encouraging words in the <i>Visitor</i> but his whole history. Deeply +touched by the young man's refined and intellectual beauty—partially +obscured as it was by the unmistakable marks of illness and want—by +his frank, confiding manners, by the evidences in thought and expression +of gifts of a high order, and by the moving story he told, Mr. Kennedy's +heart went out to him and he sent him on his way to pay his respects to +the other members of the committee, rejoicing in offers of friendship +and hospitality and promises of aid in securing publishers for his +writings.</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe had been loved of women, he had been adored by small boys, he +had received many material benefits from his foster father, he had been +kindly treated by his teachers, but he was now for the first time taken +by the hand spiritually as well as physically, by a <i>man</i>, a man of +mental and moral force and of position in the world; a man, moreover, +who with rare divination appreciated, out of his own strength, the +weaknesses and the needs as well as the gifts and graces of his new +acquaintance, and who took his dreams and ambitions seriously. The sane, +wholesome companionship which The Dreamer found in him and at his +hospitable fireside acted like a tonic upon his spirits and improvement +in his health both of mind and body were rapid.</p> + +<p>Though warning him against being over much elated at his success, and an +expectation of growing suddenly either rich or famous, Mr. Kennedy was +as good as his word in regard to helping him find a market for his work. +A proud moment it was when the young author received a note from his +patron inviting him to dine with Mr. Wilmer, the editor of <i>The Saturday +Visitor</i> which had given him the prize, and some other gentlemen of the +profession of journalism. But his pleasure was followed by quick +mortification. <i>What should he wear?</i> Still holding the open note in +his hand, he looked down ruefully at his clothes—his only ones. For all +their brushing and darning they were unmistakably shabby—utterly unfit +to grace a dinner-party. Nearly all of the hundred dollars which had +seemed such a fortune had already been spent to pay bills incurred +during his illness and to buy provisions for the bare little home which +had sheltered him in his need and which had become so dear to his heart. +No, he could not go to the dinner, but what excuse could he make that +would seem to Mr. Kennedy sufficient to warrant him in not only +declining his hospitality but putting from him the chance of meeting the +editor of the <i>Visitor</i> under such auspices?</p> + +<p>At length he decided that in this case absolute frankness was his only +course.</p> + +<p>"My dear Mr. Kennedy," he wrote,</p> + +<p>"Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come +for reasons of the most humiliating nature—my personal appearance. You +may imagine my mortification in making this disclosure to you, but it is +necessary."</p> + +<p>As he was about, in bitterness of soul, to add his signature a sudden +thought caused him to pause, pen poised in air. A thought?—A temptation +would perhaps be a better word. It bade him consider carefully before +throwing away his chance. Who knew, who could tell, it questioned, how +much might depend upon this meeting? His fortune might be made by it! +Almost certainly it would lead to the sale of some more of his stories +to the <i>Visitor</i>. Mr. Kennedy believed that it would have this +result—for this purpose he had arranged it. After taking so much pains +for his benefit he would undoubtedly be disappointed—seriously +disappointed—if his plan should fail. Mr. Kennedy had been so kind, so +generous—doubtless he would gladly advance him a sum sufficient to make +himself presentable for the dinner—to be paid by the first check +received as a result of the meeting. A very modest sum would do. He +might manage it, he thought, with twenty dollars.</p> + +<p>Finally, he drew his unfinished note before him again and added to what +he had written,</p> + +<p>"If you will be my friend so far as to loan me twenty dollars, I will be +with you tomorrow—otherwise it will be impossible, and I must submit to +my fate. Sincerely yours,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">"E.A. Poe</span>."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + + +<p>The dinner went off charmingly. In addition to several journalists, Mr. +Latrobe and Mr. Miller who, with Mr. Kennedy, had formed the committee +that awarded the prize to Edgar Poe, were there and the meeting between +the young guest of honor and his patrons engendered a spirit of +<i>bon-homie</i> that was palpable to all. Under its spell The Dreamer's +spirits rose. Yet he was quiet, listening with deep attention to the +conversation of his elders, but having little to say, until the repast +was half over, when he responded to the evident desire of his host to +draw him out. The conversation had turned upon a favorite theme of +his—the power of words. He threw himself into it with zest, and with +brilliant play of expression animating his splendid eyes and pale +features, and the graceful, unrestrained gestures of one thoroughly at +ease and entirely unconscious of self, he held the table spell-bound +with a flow of sparkling talk in which his own exquisite choice of words +delighted his hearers no less than the originality and beauty of his +thought.</p> + +<p>In the young editor of <i>The Saturday Visitor</i> he promptly found a second +friend among men of letters. Mr. Wilmer, already prejudiced in his favor +by the success of the "MS. Found in a Bottle," and its cordial reception +by the public, and by Mr. Kennedy's warm words of recommendation, +yielded at once to the witchery of the poetic eyes, the courtly manners +and the charmed tongue, and not only befriended him by inviting and +accepting his writings for publication, but gave him, as time went on, +what proved to be a stimulant to good work as well as one of his +greatest pleasures—the intimate companionship of a man of congenial +tastes and near his own age.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The winter that followed was one of the happiest of The Dreamer's +life—a lull in a tempest, a dream of peace within a dream of storm and +stress.</p> + +<p>He was soon able to return the twenty dollars to Mr. Kennedy. The +newspapers kept him busy and while the returns were—so far—small, he +was hopeful. He felt that he had made a beginning, and that the future +promised well. His work was praised and he became something of a +lion—the doors of many a proud Baltimore home opening graciously to his +touch.</p> + +<p>He cared little for general society, however. His greatest pleasure he +found in his evenings with the Kennedys (for Mrs. Kennedy had taken him +in as promptly as her husband) or in a canter far into the country on +the saddle horse which Mr. Kennedy, noting his pallor and thinking that +out-door exercise would be of benefit to him, kindly placed at his +disposal, or in walks in the fields and lanes beyond the city with his +new chum Wilmer. Many a fine afternoon saw these two cronies, often +accompanied by the sprite, Virginia, with her airy movements and vivid +beauty, rambling in the suburbs, and beyond, with heads close in +intimate communion of thought and fancy.</p> + +<p>What he enjoyed most of all was the time spent at his desk, in the +shelter of the new-found haven of rest, with the happy "Muddie" and +"Sissy" nearby.</p> + +<p>This little family circle was unique. There was an unmistakably oak-like +element in the nature of the widow which was apparent to some degree +even in her outward appearance, in the stateliness and dignity of her +figure and carriage—an element of sturdiness and self-reliance which +made it her pleasure to be clung to, looked up to, leaned upon. The +character of her new-found son was, on the contrary, vine-like. He was +constantly reaching out tendrils of craving for love, for appreciation, +for understanding. More—for advice, for guidance. Such tendrils seeking +a foot-hold, make a strong appeal to every womanly woman. She sees in +them a call to her nobility of soul, to the mother that is a part of her +spiritual nature—a call that gives her pleasant good-angel sensations, +that soften her heart and flatter her self-esteem. To the Widow Clemm, +with her self-reliance and her highly developed maternal instinct, the +appeal was irresistible and between her and The Dreamer the ivy and oak +relation was promptly established, while in the little Virginia he found +a heartsease blossom to be loved and sheltered by both—the loveliest of +heartsease blossoms whose beauty, whose purity and innocence and the +stored sweets of whose nature were all for him.</p> + +<p>The three lived, indeed, for each other only, in a dream-valley apart +from and invisible to, the rest of the world, for their dreams of which +it was constructed made it theirs and theirs alone. Their dreams piled +beautiful mountains around the valley through which peace flowed as a +gentle river, while love and contentment and innocent pleasures were as +flowers besprinkling the grass and speaking to their hearts of the love +and the glory of God, and the fancies with which they beguiled the time +were as tall, fantastic trees, moved by soft zephyrs. And because of the +bright flowers ever springing in the green turf that carpeted the +valley, they named it the <i>Valley of the Many-Colored Grass</i>. And to the +three the dream-valley, with its peace and its beauty and its sweet +seclusion, was the real world, while all the wilderness outside of it, +where other men dwelt was the unreal.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>One happy effect of these peaceful days upon The Dreamer was that there +was in them no temptation to excess—no restless craving for excitement. +The Bohemian—the Edgar Goodfellow—side of him found, it is true, an +outlet, but a harmless one. He found it in the genial atmosphere of the +Widow Meagher's modest eating-house where he and his new crony, Wilmer, +passed many a jolly hour. The widow, an elderly, portly dame, with a +kind Irish heart and keen Irish wit, had the power of diffusing a +wonderful cheerfulness around her. Her shop was clean, if plain, her +oysters were savory, if cheap. Like all women, she petted Edgar Poe, and +hearing from Wilmer that he was a poet, she at once gave him the name by +which the West Point boys had called him, and to all of the frequenters +of her shop he was known as "the Bard."</p> + +<p>Her shop had not only an oyster counter, but a bar and a room for cards +and smoking but these had little attraction for Poe at this period of +his career—much to the widow's dissatisfaction, for she wished "the +Bard" to be merry, and did not like to see him neglect what she honestly +and unblushingly believed to be the really good things of life. But +though to her pressing invitations, "Bard take a hand," "Bard take a +nip," he was generally deaf, he was more accomodating when, after +getting off an unusually clever bit of pleasantry (putting her +customers into an uproar of laughter) she would turn to him with, "Bard +put it in poethry." And put it "in poethry" he did—to the increased +hilarity of the crowd.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The month of February brought an interruption to the smooth and pleasant +course of The Dreamer's life. A long time had passed since he had heard +anything of his friends down in Virginia, and it was therefore with +quick interest that he broke the seal of a letter bearing the Richmond +post-mark and addressed to him in the unforgotten hand of his early +admirer, Rob Sully. Dear old Rob, the sight of the familiar hand-writing +alone warmed The Dreamer's heart and brought the soft, melting +expression to his eyes!</p> + +<p>The object of the letter was to tell him that Mr. Allan was extremely +ill—dying, some thought, though the end might not be immediate. Rob was +taking it upon himself to write because he felt that Eddie ought to +know. Mr. Allan had lately been heard to speak kindly of Eddie, he had +been told, and it had occurred to him that Eddie might like to come on +and have a word of forgiveness from him before he died.</p> + +<p>As "Eddie" read, the pleasure the first sight of the letter had given +him turned to sudden, sharp pain. Mr. Allan and—<i>death</i>! He had never +thought of associating the two. Under the influence of the shock his +heart became all tenderness and regret.</p> + +<p>He hurriedly packed his carpet-bag, kissed Mrs. Clemm and Virginia +goodbye, and set out post-haste for Richmond and the homestead on Main +and Fifth Streets.</p> + +<p>He did not stop to lift the brass knocker this time. The forlorn +details of his last visit, his lack of right to cross that threshold +uninvited—what mattered such considerations now? They were, indeed, +forgotten. Everything was forgotten—everything save that the man who +had stood in the position of father to him was dying—dying without a +word of pardon to him, the most wayward (he felt at that moment of +severe contrition)—<i>the most wayward</i> of prodigal sons. Everything was +forgotten save that he was having a race with death—a race for a +father's blessing!</p> + +<p>He flung wide the massive front door and hastened through the spacious +hall, up the stair and into the room where the ill man sat in an +arm-chair. On the threshold he paused for a moment. Mr. Allan saw and +recognized him, and at once the misunderstanding of the actions of his +adopted son for which he seemed to have a gift, asserted itself, +construing the visit as an unpardonable liberty. The only motive Mr. +Allan could imagine which could have prompted Edgar Poe to force +himself, as it seemed to him, into his presence at this time was a +mercenary one, and burning with indignation, his eyes gleaming with +something like their old fire, he half raised himself from the chair.</p> + +<p>"How dare you?" he screamed in the grating tones of angry old age. Then, +grasping the cane at his side in trembling fingers and raising it with +threatening gesture, he ordered his visitor to leave the room at once.</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe stood aghast for a moment, then fled down the stair and out of +the door and turning his back for the last time upon the house whose +young master he had been, with the word "Nevermore" ringing like a knell +in his ears, made his way again to the abode of love and peace in +Baltimore, which held his whole heart and which had become his home.</p> + +<p>A few weeks later Mr. Allan died, leaving the whole of his fortune to +his second wife and her children.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It now became more important than ever for Edgar Poe to earn a living. +In spite of the fact that Mr. Allan was known to have lost all regard +for him, his friends had always believed that he would be remembered in +the will. They believed that John Allan's rigid, sometimes even +strained, idea of justice would cause him to provide for the boy for +whom he had voluntarily, albeit against his own judgment, made himself +responsible. The fact that the boy had turned out to be, in Mr. Allan's +opinion, "trifling," that he refused to engage in any "useful" work and +that at five and twenty years of age he had not established himself in +any "paying business" would, those who knew Mr. Allan best believed, be +with him but another reason for ensuring against want his first wife's +spoiled darling who was evidently incapable of taking care of himself +and therefore (so they believed he would argue) so much the more his +care.</p> + +<p>Possibly The Dreamer may have taken this view himself. However that may +be, the opening of the will silenced all conjecture, and as has been +said, made the need of his making his work produce money more pressing +than ever. His friend Wilmer did his best for him—publishing his +stories in <i>The Saturday Visitor</i> from time to time and paying him as +well as he was able. But Wilmer and his paper were poor themselves. <i>The +Visitor</i> was only a small weekly, with a modest subscription list. It +had little to pay, however good the "copy" and that little and Mother +Clemm's earnings put together barely kept the wolf from the door.</p> + +<p>When the frequent and welcome summons to the bountiful board of the +Kennedys came the young poet blushed for shame in the pleasure he could +not help feeling in anticipation of the chance to satisfy his chastened +appetite, and he often found himself fearing that the hunger with which +he ate the good things which these kind friends placed upon his plate +would betray the necessary frugality of the dear "Muddie's" +house-keeping, which was one of the sacred secrets of the sweet home. +Sometimes his pride would make him go so far as to decline delicious +morsels in the hope of correcting such an impression, if it should +exist.</p> + +<p>He racked his brain to find a means of making his work bring him more +money. Upon Mr. Kennedy's advice, he sent his "Tales of the Folio Club" +to the Philadelphia publishing house of "Carey and Lea." After several +weeks of anxious waiting he received a letter accepting the collection +for publication but frankly admitting that his receiving any profit from +the sale of the book was an exceedingly doubtful matter. They suggested, +however, that they be permitted to sell some of the tales to publishers +of the then popular "annuals," reserving the right to reprint them in +the book. To this the author gladly consented and received with a joy +that was pathetic the sum of fifteen dollars from "The Souvenir," which +had purchased one of the tales at a dollar a printed page.</p> + +<p>He and Wilmer put their heads together in dreams of literary work by +which a man could live. One of these dreams took form in the prospectus +of a purely literary journal of the highest class which was to be in +its criticisms and editorial opinions "fearless, independent and sternly +just."</p> + +<p>But the scheme required capital and never got beyond the glowing +prospectus.</p> + +<p>In spite of the small sums that came to him as veritable God-sends from +the sale of his stories and from odd jobs on the <i>Visitor</i> and other +journals, Edgar Poe was poor—miserably poor. And just as he had begun +to flatter himself that he did not mind, that he would bear it with the +nonchalance of the true philosopher he believed he had become, it +assumed the shape of horror unspeakable to him. Not for himself, if +there were only himself to think of, he felt assured, he could laugh +poverty—want even—to scorn; but that his little Virginia should feel +the pinch was damnable!</p> + +<p>Two years had made marked changes in Virginia. She was losing the +formless plumpness of childhood and growing rapidly into a slight and +graceful maiden—a "rare and radiant maiden," with the tender light of +womanhood beginning to dawn in her velvet eyes and to sweeten the curves +of her lips. A maiden lovelier by far than the child had been but with +the same divine purity and innocence that had always been hers—that +were his, for her beauty, her purity and innocence and the stored sweets +of her nature were still for him alone and for him alone too, was her +sweet companionship—her comradeship—of which he never wearied.</p> + +<p>Under his guidance her mind had unfolded like a flower. She was +beginning to speak fluently in French and in Italian. How he loved the +musical southern accents on her tongue! And she was developing an +exquisite singing voice. Her voice was her crowning grace—her voice +was his delight of delights! As he gazed into the shadows that lay under +her long black lashes and listened to her voice, with its hint of hidden +springs of passion, his pulses stirred at the thought that this lovely +flower of dawning womanhood was his little Virginia, and his own heart +ached to think that any desire of hers should ever be denied.</p> + +<p>In his desperation he thought of teaching and applied for a position in +a school, but without success.</p> + +<p>But relief was at hand.</p> + +<p>While the Dreamer and his friend the editor of <i>The Saturday Visitor</i> +had been building literary air-castles in Baltimore, a journal destined +to take something approaching such a stand as their ideal was actually +founded, in Richmond, under the title of <i>The Southern Literary +Messenger</i>. Its owner and publisher, Mr. Thomas W. White, was no +dreamer, but a practical printer and an enterprising man of business. +Early in this year—the year 1835—Mr. White wrote to Mr. Kennedy, +requesting a contribution from his pen for the new magazine, and, as was +to be expected, Mr. Kennedy, with his wonted thoughtfulness of his +literary protegé, wrote back commending to Mr. White's notice the work +of "a remarkable young man by the name of Edgar Poe."</p> + +<p>At Mr. Kennedy's suggestion Edgar bundled off some of the "Tales of the +Folio Club" for Mr. White's inspection, with the result that in the +March number of the <i>Messenger</i> the weird story "Berenice," appeared. It +and its author became at once the talk of the hour, and when the history +of "The Adventures of Hans Phaal" came out in the June number it found +the reading public ready and waiting to fall upon and devour it.</p> + +<p>Other stories and articles followed in quick succession and the pungent +critiques and reviews of the new pen were looked for and read with as +great interest as the tales.</p> + +<p>In a glow over the prosperity which the popularity of the new writer was +bringing his magazine, Mr. White wrote to him offering him the position +of assistant editor, with a salary of five hundred and twenty dollars a +year, to begin with. Of course the offer was to be accepted! The salary, +small as it was, seemed to The Dreamer in comparison to the diminutive +and irregular sums he had been accustomed to receive, almost like +wealth. But its acceptance would mean, for the present, anyhow, +separation—a break in the small home circle where had been, with all of +its deprivations, so much of joy—a dissolving of the magical Valley of +the Many-Colored Grass. Not for a moment, he vowed to Mother Clemm and +Virginia, was this separation to be looked upon as permanent. Just so +soon as he should be able to provide a home for them in Richmond he +would have them with him again, and there they would reconstruct their +dream-valley. But for the present—.</p> + +<p>The present, in spite of the new prosperity, was unbearable!</p> + +<p>In vain the Mother with the patience born of her superior years and +experience, assured them that time had wings, and that the days of +absence would be quickly past. To the youthful poet and the little maid +who lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him a +month—a week—a day apart, seemed an eternity.</p> + +<p>In the midst of their woe at the prospect a miracle happened—a miracle +and a discovery.</p> + +<p>It fell upon a serene summer's afternoon when the two children—they +were both that at heart—wandered along a sweet, shady lane leading from +the outskirts of town into the country. It was to be their last walk +together for who knew, who could tell how long? The poet's great grey +eyes wore their deepest melancholy and the little maid's soft brown ones +too, were full of trouble, for had not their love turned to pain? They +spoke little, for the love and the pain were alike too deep for words, +but the heart of each was filled with broodings and musings upon the +love it bore the other and upon the agony of parting.</p> + +<p>How could he leave her? the poet asked himself. His cherished comrade +whose beauty, whose purity and innocence, the stored sweets of whose +nature were for him alone? Into his life of loneliness, of lovelessness, +of despair—a life from which everyone who had really cared for him had +been snatched by untimely death and shut away from him forever in an +early grave—a life where there had been not only sorrow, but +bitterness—where there had been pain and want and homelessness and +desolate wanderings and longings for the unattainable—where there had +been misunderstanding and distrust and temptation and defeat—into such +a life this wee bit of maidenhood—this true heartsease—had crept and +blossomed, filling heart and life with beauty and hope and love—with +blessed healing.</p> + +<p>How could he leave her? To others she seemed wrapped in timid reserve. +He only had the key to the fair realm of her unfolding mind. How could +he bear to leave her for even a little while? How barren his life would +be without her! How shorn of all beauty and grace!</p> + +<p>And what would her life be without him, to whom had been offered up all +her beauty and the stored sweets of her nature? Who would guard her from +other eyes, that as her beauty and charm came to their full bloom might +look covetously upon her?</p> + +<p>For the first time (and the bare suggestion seemed profanation) it +occured to him that a day might come when, as this slip of maidenhood +walked forth in her surpassing beauty and her precious innocence and +purity the eyes of a man might make note of her loveliness, her +altogether desirableness—might rest upon her with hopes of +possession—and he not there to kill him upon the spot. What if in his +absence another's hand should be stretched to pluck his heartsease +blossom—that left unguarded, unprotected by him, another should snatch +it, in its beauty, its purity and innocence, to his bosom?</p> + +<p>The thought was hell!</p> + +<p>Faint and trembling, he gazed down upon her as they strolled along, +compelling her soft eyes to meet his anguished ones. His face was white +and strained with his misery. She was pale and trembling, too, and there +was dew on the sweeping lashes, and as she lifted them and looked into +his face she trembled more. He looked upon her, tenderly marvelling to +see in her at once the loveliest of children and of women—a woman with +her first grief!</p> + +<p>There was heart-break in his voice, for himself and for her, as he +murmured (brokenly) words of love and of comfort in her ear, and in her +voice as she, brokenly, answered him.</p> + +<p>The sun was setting—a pageant in which they both were wont to take +exquisite delight—but they could not look at the glowing heavens for +the heaven of love and of beautiful sorrow that each found in the eyes +of the other.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, they knew!</p> + +<p>The knowledge burst upon them like an illumining flood. How or whence it +came they could not tell, nor did they question—but they knew that the +love they bore each other was no brother and sister love, but that what +time they had been calling each other "Buddie," and "Sissy," there had +been growing—growing in their hearts the red, red rose of romance—the +love betwixt man and maid of which poets tell—knew that in that sweet, +that sad, that wondrous eventide the rose had burst into glorious +flower.</p> + +<p>They trembled in the presence of this sweetest miracle. The beauty and +solemnity of it well nigh deprived them of the power of speech. A divine +silence fell upon them and they slowly, softly took their way homeward +through the gathering dusk, hand in hand—but with few words—to tell +the Mother.</p> + +<p>To the widow their disclosure came as a shock. At first she thought the +silly pair must be joking—then that they were mad. Finally she realized +their earnestness and their happiness and saw that the situation was +serious and must be dealt with with the utmost tact. Still, she could +hardly believe what she saw and heard. Was it possible that the demure +girl talking to her so seriously of love and marriage was her little +Virginia—her baby? And that these two should have thought of such a +thing! Cousins!—Brother and sister, almost!—And with such disparity in +ages—thirteen and six-and-twenty!</p> + +<p>She had lived long enough, however, to know that love is governed by no +rules or regulations and besides, she had kept through all the changes +and chances of her checkered life, a belief in true love as fresh as a +girl's. This was too sacred a thing to be carelessly handled—only, it +was not what she would have chosen.... Yet—was it not?</p> + +<p>A new thought came to her—a revelation—inspiration—what you will, and +sunk her in deep revery.</p> + +<p>Why was this not what she would have chosen? Why not a union between her +children—her all? Her own days were fast running out. She could not +live and make a home for them always—then, what would become of them? +She would die happy, when her time came, if she could see them in their +own home, bound by the most sacred, the most indissoluble of ties—bound +together until death should part them!</p> + +<p>She fell asleep with a heart full of thankfulness to God for his +mercies.</p> + +<p>A quite different view of the matter was taken by other members of the +Poe connection in Baltimore—particularly the men, who positively +refused to regard the love affair as anything more than sentimental +nonsense—"moonshine"—they called it, which would be as fleeting as it +was foolish. Their cousin, Judge Neilson Poe, who had made a pet of +Virginia, was especially active in his opposition and brought every +argument he could think of to bear upon the young lovers and upon Mrs. +Clemm in his endeavor to induce them to break the engagement; but he +only succeeded in sending Virginia flying with frightened face to +"Buddie's" arms, vowing (as, much to Cousin Neilson's disgust, she hung +upon his neck) that she would never give him up, while "Buddie," holding +her close, assured her, in the story-book language that they both loved, +that "all the king's horses and all the king's men" would not be strong +enough to take her from him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + + +<p>Midsummer found Edgar Poe in Richmond and regularly at work upon his new +duties in the office of <i>The Southern Literary Messenger</i>. He felt that +if he had not actually reached the end of the rainbow, it was at least +in sight and it rested upon the place of all others most gratifying to +him—the dear city of his boyhood whose esteem he so ardently desired. +Most soothing to his pride, he found it, after his several ignominious +retreats, to return in triumph, a successful author, called to a place +of acknowledged distinction, for all its meagre income.</p> + +<p>The playmates of his youth—now substantial citizens of the little +capital—called promptly upon him at his boarding-house. They were glad +to have him back and they showed it; glad of his success and glad and +proud to find their early faith in his powers justified, their early +astuteness proven.</p> + +<p>All Richmond, indeed, received him with open arms and if there were some +few persons who could not forget his wild-oats at the University and his +seeming ingratitude to Mr. Allan, who they declared had been the kindest +and most indulgent of fathers to him, and who did not invite him to +their homes or accept invitations to parties given in his honor, they +were the losers—he had friends and to spare.</p> + +<p>Yet he was not happy. The ivy had been torn from the oak and there was +no sweet heartsease blossom to make glad his road—to made +daily—hourly—offerings to him and him alone of the beauty, physical +and spiritual, that his soul worshipped—of beauty and of unquestioning +love and sympathy and approbation. In other words, The Dreamer was sick, +miserably sick, with the disease of longing; longing for the modest home +and the invigorating presence of the Mother; longing that was exquisite +pain for the sight, the sound, the touch, the daily companionship of the +child who without losing one whit of the purity, the innocence, the +charm of childhood, had so suddenly, so sweetly become a woman—a woman +embodying all of his dreams—a woman who lived with no other thought +than to love and be loved by him.</p> + +<p>Life, no matter what else it might give, life without the soft glance of +her eye, the sweet sound of her voice, the pure touch of her hand within +his hand, her lips upon his lips, was become an empty, aching void.</p> + +<p>After two years of the sheltered fireside in Baltimore whose seclusion +had made the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass possible, the +boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its +commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home. It was stifling. +How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house? He was even homesick +for the purr and the comfortable airs of the old white cat!</p> + +<p>Whenever he could he turned his back upon the boarding-house and tried +to forget it, but the clatter and the gossip seemed to follow him, their +din lingering in his ears as he paced the streets in a fever of disgust +and longing. For the first time since Edgar Poe had opened his eyes upon +the tasteful homelikeness of the widow Clemm's chamber and the tender, +dark eyes of Virginia searching his face with soft wonder, the old +restlessness and dissatisfaction with life and the whole scheme of +things were upon him—the blue devils which he believed had been +exorcised forever had him in their clutches. Whither should he fly from +their harrassments? By what road should he escape?</p> + +<p>At the answer—the only answer vouchsafed him—he stood aghast.</p> + +<p>"No, no!" he cried within him, "Not that—not that!" Seeking to deafen +his ears to a voice that at once charmed and terrified him, for it was +the voice of a demon which possessed the allurements of an angel—a +demon he reckoned he had long ago fast bound in chains from which it +would never have the strength to arise. It was the voice that dwelt in +the cup—the single cup—so innocent seeming, so really innocent for +many, yet so ruinous for him; for, with all its promises of cheer and +comfort it led—and he knew it—to disaster.</p> + +<p>Bitterly he fought to drown the sounds of the voice, but the more he +deafened his ears the more insistent, the clearer, the more alluring its +tones became.</p> + +<p>And it followed him everywhere. At every board where he was a guest the +brimming cup stood beside his plate, at every turn of the street he was +buttonholed by some friend old or new, with the invitation to join him +in the "cup of kindness." At every evening party he found himself +surrounded by bevies of charming young Hebes, who, as innocent as angels +of any intention of doing him a wrong, implored him to propose them a +toast.</p> + +<p>How could he refuse them? Especially when acquiescence meant escape from +this horrible, horrible soul-sickness, this weight that was bearing his +spirits down—crushing them.</p> + +<p>Therein lay the tempter's power. Not in appetite—he was no swine to +swill for love of the draught. When he did yield he drained the cup +scarce tasting its contents. But ah, the freedom from the sickness that +tortured him, the weight that oppressed him! And ah, the exhilaration, +physical and mental, the delightful exhilaration which put melancholy to +flight, loosed his tongue and started the machinery of his brain—which +robbed the past of regret and made the present and the future rosy!</p> + +<p>It was in the promise of this exhilaration that the seductiveness of the +dreaded tones lay.</p> + +<p>Even his kindly old physician, diagnosing the pallor of his cheeks and +melancholy in his eyes as "a touch of malaria," added a note of +insistence to the voice, as he prescribed that panacea of the day, "a +mint julep before breakfast."</p> + +<p>Yet he still sternly and stoutly turned a deaf ear to the voice of the +charmer, while dejection drew him deeper and deeper into its depths +until one day he found he could not write. His pen seemed suddenly to +have lost its power. He sat at his desk in the office of the <i>Messenger</i> +with paper before him, with pens and ink at hand, but his brain refused +to produce an idea, and for such vague half-thoughts as came to him, he +could find no words to give expression.</p> + +<p>He was seized upon by terror.</p> + +<p>Had his gift of the gods deserted him? Better death than life without +his gift! Without it the very ground under his feet seemed uncertain and +unsafe!</p> + +<p>Then he fell. Driven to the wall, as it seemed to him, he took the only +road he saw that led, or seemed to lead, to deliverance. He yielded his +will to the voice of the tempter, he tasted the freedom, the +exhilaration, the wild joy that his imagination had pictured—drank deep +of it!</p> + +<p>And then he paid the price he had known all along he would have to pay, +though in the hour of his severest temptation the knowledge had not had +power to make him strong. Neither, in that hour, had he been able to +foresee how hard the price would be. That shadowy, yet very real other +self, his avenging conscience, in whose approval he had so long happily +rested, arose in its wrath and rebuked him as he had never been rebuked +before. It scourged him. It held up before him his bright prospects, his +lately acquired and enviable social position, assuring him as it held +them up, of their insecurity. It pointed with warning finger to the end +of the rainbow and the road leading to it seemed to have suddenly grown +ten times longer and rougher than before.</p> + +<p>Finally it held up the images of his two good angels, "Muddie," with her +heart of oak, and her tender, sorrow-stricken face, and Virginia, whose +soft eyes were a heaven of trustful love—whose beauty, whose purity and +innocence, the stored sweets of whose nature were for him alone, and to +whom he was as faultless, as supreme as the sun in heaven.</p> + +<p>It was too much. The dejection into which his "blue devils" had cast him +was as nothing to the remorse that overwhelmed him now. On his knees +before Heaven he confessed that his last estate was worse than his +first, and cried aloud for forgiveness for the past and strength for the +future.</p> + +<p>In this mood he sat down to write to Mr. Kennedy (who had been absent +upon a summer vacation when he left Baltimore) a letter of +acknowledgment for his benefactions—for whatever The Dreamer was, it is +very certain that he was <i>not</i> ungrateful.</p> + +<p>The date he placed at the top of his page was "September 11, 1835."</p> + +<p>"I received a letter yesterday," he wrote, "which tells me you are back +in town. I hasten therefore, to write you and express by letter what I +have always found it impossible to express orally—my deep sense of +gratitude for your frequent and effectual assistance and kindness.</p> + +<p>"Through your influence Mr. White has been induced to employ me in +assisting him with the editorial duties of his Magazine—at a salary of +$520 per annum."</p> + +<p>He had not intended to mention his troubles to Mr. Kennedy, but with +each word he wrote the impulse to unburden himself which he always felt +when talking to this kind, sympathetic man, grew stronger and he found +his pen almost automatically taking an unexpected turn. It was out of +the abundance of his anguished heart that he added:</p> + +<p>"The situation is agreeable to me for many reasons—but alas! it appears +that nothing can now give me pleasure—or the slightest gratification. +Excuse me, my Dear Sir, if in this letter you find much incoherency. My +feelings at this moment are pitiable indeed. You will believe me when I +say that I am still miserable in spite of the great improvement in my +circumstances; for a man who is writing for effect does not write thus. +My heart is open before you—if it be worth reading, read it. I am +wretched and know not why. Console me—for you can. Convince me that it +is worth one's while to live. Persuade me to do what is right. You will +not fail to see that I am suffering from a depression of spirits which +will ruin me if it be long continued. Write me then, and quickly. Urge +me to do what is right. Your words will have more weight with me than +the words of others—for you were my friend when no one else was."</p> + +<p>Some men of more goodness than wisdom might have read this letter with +impatience—perhaps disgust, and tossed it into the waste basket, not +deeming it worth an answer, or pigeon-holed it to be answered in a more +convenient season—which would probably never have arrived. It is easy +to imagine the contempt with which John Allan would have perused it. Not +so John Kennedy. Busy lawyer and successful man of letters and of the +world though he was, he had gone out of his way to stretch a hand to the +gifted starveling he had discovered struggling for a foothold on the +bottommost rung of the ladder of literary fame, and had not only helped +him up the ladder but had drawn him, in his weakness and his strength, +into the circle of his friendship, and now he had no idea of letting him +go. Mr. Kennedy was a great lawyer with a great tenderness for human +nature, born of a great knowledge of it. He did not expect young +men—even talented ones—to be faultless or to be fountains of sound +sense, or even always to be strong of will. When he received Edgar Poe's +wail he had just returned to his office after a long vacation and found +himself over head and ears in work; but he responded at once. If it had +seemed to him a foolish letter he did not say so. If it had shocked or +disappointed him, he did not say so. He wrote in the kindly tolerant and +understanding tone he always took with his protegé a letter wholesome +and bracing as a breath from the salt sea.</p> + +<p>"My dear Poe," he began, in his simple familiar way, "I am sorry to see +you in such plight as your letter shows you in. It is strange that just +at the time when everybody is praising you and when Fortune has begun to +smile upon your hitherto wretched circumstances you should be invaded by +these villainous blue devils. It belongs however, to your age and temper +to be thus buffeted—but be assured it only wants a little resolution to +master the adversary forever. Rise early, live generously, and make +cheerful acquaintances and I have no doubt you will send these +misgivings of the heart all to the Devil. You will doubtless do well +henceforth in literature and add to your comforts as well as your +reputation which it gives me great pleasure to tell you is everywhere +rising in popular esteem."</p> + +<p>This and more he wrote, in kind, encouraging vein, and closed his letter +with a friendly invitation:</p> + +<p>"Write to me frequently, and believe me very truly</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Yours,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">"John P. Kennedy.</span>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The same post that brought Mr. Kennedy's letter brought The Dreamer +other mail from Baltimore—brought him letters from both Virginia and +Mother Clemm.</p> + +<p>They had an especial reason for writing, each said. They had news for +him—news which was most disturbing to them and they feared it would be +to him.</p> + +<p>Disturbing indeed, was the news the letters brought. It drove him into a +rage and aroused him into action which made him forget all of his late +troubles.</p> + +<p>Their Cousin Neilson and his wife, they wrote him, had not ceased to +bring every argument they could think of to bear upon Virginia to induce +her to break her engagement and had finally proposed that they should +take her into their home, treat her as an own daughter or young sister, +providing for her all things needful and desirable for a young girl of +her station, until her eighteenth birthday, after which if she and Edgar +had not changed their minds, they could be married.</p> + +<p>He dashed off and posted answers to the letters at once, making violent +protest against a scheme that seemed to him positively iniquitous and +pleading with "Muddie" to keep Virginia for him. But writing was not +enough. He determined to answer in person.</p> + +<p>A day or two later Virginia and her mother were in the act of discussing +his letters, which had just come, when the sitting-room door quietly +opened, and there stood the man who was all the world to them!</p> + +<p>Virginia, with a scream of delight, was in his arms in a flash and began +telling him, breathlessly, what a fright she had been in for fear +"Cousin Neilson" would take her away and she would never see him again.</p> + +<p>With a rising tide of tenderness for her and rage against their cousin, +he kissed the trouble from her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, sweetheart," he murmured, "He shall never take you +from me. I have come back to marry you!"</p> + +<p>"To marry her?" exclaimed Mrs. Clemm. "At once, do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"At once! Today or tomorrow—for I must be getting back to Richmond as +soon as possible. Don't you see, Muddie, that this is just a plot of +Neilson's to separate us? He never cared for me—he loves Virginia and +is determined I shall not have her. But we'll outwit him! We'll be +married at once. We'll have to keep it secret at first—until I am able +to provide a home for my little wife and our dear mother in Richmond, +but I will go away with peace of mind and leave her in peace of mind, +for once she is mine only death can come between us. We will keep it +secret dear," he added, with his lips on the dusky hair of the little +maid who was still held fast in his arms. "We will keep it secret, but +if Neilson Poe becomes troublesome you will only have to show him your +marriage certificate."</p> + +<p>Virginia joyfully agreed to this plan, while the widow, finding +opposition useless, finally consented too—and the impetuous lover was +off post-haste for a license.</p> + +<p>It was a unique little wedding which took place next day in Christ +Church, when a beautiful, dreamy looking youth, with intellectual brow +and classic profile and a beautiful, dreamy-looking maid, half his age, +plighted their troth. The only attendant was Mother Clemm in her +habitual plain black dress and widow's cap, with floating cap-strings, +sheer and snowy white. No music, no flowers, no witnesses even, save the +widowed mother and the aged sexton who was bound over to strict secrecy.</p> + +<p>But in the dim, still, empty church the beautiful words of the old, old +rite seemed to this strange pair of lovers to take on new solemnity as +they fell from the lips of the white robed priest and sank deep into +their young hearts, filling and thrilling them with fresh hope and faith +and love and high resolve.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + + +<p>In the following spring Edgar Poe and Virginia Clemm were, strange as it +may seem, principals in another wedding. The months intervening between +the two ceremonies had been teeming with interest to them both—filled +with work and with happiness just short of that perfect +satisfaction—that completeness—that unattainable which it is part of +being a mortal with an immortal mind and soul to be continually striving +after, and missing, and will be until the half-light of this world is +merged into the light ineffable of the one to come.</p> + +<p>The Dreamer had returned from his brief visit to Baltimore a new man. +The blue devils were gone. The heart and mind which they had made their +dwelling-place were swept clean of every vestige of them and were filled +to overflowing with a sweet and rare presence—the presence of her who +lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him; for he +felt that her spirit was with him at every moment of the day, though her +fair body was other whither. The consciousness of the secret he carried +in his heart flooded his nature with sunshine. Because of it he carried +his head more proudly—wore a new dignity which his friends attributed +entirely to the success of his work upon the magazine. He was filled +with peace and good will to all the world. He was happy and wanted +everybody else to be happy—it was apparent in himself and in his work. +In his dreamy moods his fancy spread a broader, a stronger wing, and +soared with new daring to heights unexplored before. When Edgar +Goodfellow was in the ascendency he threw himself with unwonted zest +into the pleasures that were "like poppies spread" in the way of the +successful author and editor—the literary lion of the town.</p> + +<p>He had always been an enthusiastic and graceful dancer and now nothing +else seemed to give him so natural a vent for the happiness that was +beating in his veins. His feet seemed like his pen, to be inspired. He +felt that he could dance till Doomsday and all the prettiest, most +bewitching girls let him see how pleased they were to have him for a +partner. In the brief, glowing rests between the dances he rewarded them +with charming talk, and verses in praise of their loveliness which +seemed to fall without the slightest effort from his tongue into their +pretty, delighted ears or from his pencil into their albums.</p> + +<p>There was at least one fair damsel—a slight, willowy creature with +violet eyes and flaxen ringlets, who treasured the graceful lines he +dedicated to her with a feeling warmer than friendship. She was pretty +Eliza White, the daughter of his employer, the owner of the <i>Southern +Literary Messenger</i>. She was herself a lover of poetry and romance, and +a dreamer of dreams, all of which had erelong merged into one sweet +dream so secret, so sacred that she scarce dared own it to her own inner +self, and its central figure was her father's handsome assistant editor, +who rested in blissful ignorance of the havoc he was making in her +maiden heart, engrossed as he was in his own secret—his own romance.</p> + +<p>New energy, new zest, new life seemed to have entered his blood. He had +endless capacity for work as well as for pleasure and could write all +day and dance half the night and then lie awake star-gazing the other +half and rise ready and eager for the day's work in the morning. Such a +tonic—such a stimulant did his love for his faraway bride and his +consciousness of her love for him prove.</p> + +<p>He was happy—very, very happy, but he desired to be happier still. The +simple, beautiful words of the old, old rite uttered in the dim, empty +church had woven an invisible bond between him and the maiden whom he +loved to call in his heart his wife though the time when he could claim +her before the world was not yet.</p> + +<p>The miracle that this bond wrought in him was a revelation to him. Was +the priest a wizard? Did the words of the ancient rite possess any +intrinsic power of enchantment undreamed of by the uninitiated?</p> + +<p>He had not believed it possible for mortal to love more wholly—more +madly than he had loved the little Virginia before that sacred ceremony, +but after it he knew there were heights of love of which he had not +hitherto had a glimpse. Just the right to say to his heart "She is my +own—my wife—" made her tenfold more precious than she had ever been +before, but it also made the separation tenfold harder to bear—made it +beyond his power to bear!</p> + +<p>The Valley of the Many-Colored Grass had been dissolved—the spell that +had brought it into being broken, by the separation, and he longed with +a longing that was as hunger and thirst to reconstruct this magical +world in which he and his Virginia dwelt apart with her who was mother +to them both, in Richmond. And so, poor as he was, he arranged to bring +Virginia and Mother Clemm to Richmond and establish them in a boarding +house where he could see them often and wait with better grace the still +happier day of making his marriage public.</p> + +<p>The day came more speedily than they had let themselves hope. The +popularity of the <i>Messenger</i> and the fame of its assistant editor had +grown with leaps and bounds. The new year brought the welcome gift of +promotion to full editorship, with an increase of salary. With the +opening spring began plans for the divulging of the great secret—for +public acknowledgment of the marriage. But how was it to be done?—That +was the question! Edgar Poe knew too well the disapproval with which the +world regarded secret marriages—with which he himself regarded them, +ordinarily. His sense of refinement of fitness, of the sacredness of the +marriage tie, revolted from the very idea.</p> + +<p>In what fashion then, could he and his little bride proclaim their +secret that would not do violence to their own taste or set a buzz of +gossip going? That the horrid lips of gossip should so much as breathe +the name of his Virginia—that Mrs. Grundy should dare shrug her +decorous shoulders, if ever so slightly, at mention of that sacred +name—. The bare suggestion was intolerable!</p> + +<p>At last a solution offered itself to his mind. Not for an instant did he +regret the sacred ceremony in Christ Church, Baltimore. Not for worlds +would he have cut short for one moment of time the duration of the +beautiful spiritual marriage when he had been able to say to himself: +"She whose presence fills my heart and my life—whose spirit I can feel +near me at my work, in my hours of recreation and in my dreams, is my +wife." But of this exquisite, this inexpressibly dear union the world +was in utter ignorance. It was known only to the Mother, the priest and +the aged sexton. To these witnesses always, as to themselves, their +marriage would date from the moment when the blessing was invoked above +their bowed heads in Christ Church, but to the world—why not let it +date from the day in which they would claim each other before the world, +in Richmond?</p> + +<p>The thing was most simple! A second ceremony in the presence of a few +friends—a brief announcement in next day's paper—and their life would +be begun with the dignity, the prestige, of public marriage.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The sixteenth of May was the day chosen for the event which was more +like a wedding in Arcady than in latter-day society. As at the secret +ceremony, the customary preparations for a wedding were conspicuously +absent; yet was not the whole town gala with sunshine and verdure and +May-bloom and bird-song?</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe looked every inch a bridegroom as, with his girl-wife upon his +arm, he stepped forth from Mrs. Yarrington's boarding-house, opposite +the green slopes of Capitol Square. A bridegroom indeed!—plainly, but +perfectly apparelled—handsome, proud, fearless—his great eyes luminous +with solemn joy.</p> + +<p>The simplest of white frocks became Virginia's innocence and beauty more +than costly bridal array and the nosegay of white violets above her +chaste bosom was her only ornament.</p> + +<p>With this sweet pair came the happy mother and a little train of close +friends. It was late afternoon. The sunshine was mellow and the air was +filled with the delicious insense which in mid-May the majestic +paulonia tree drops from its purple bells and which is the very breath +of the warm-natured South.</p> + +<p>No line of carriages stood at the door. No awning shut the picture they +made from admiring eyes, but happily the little party chatted together +as they strolled under over-arching greenery to the corner of Main and +Seventh Streets, where in the prim parlor of the Presbyterian minister, +the words were pronounced which told the world that Edgar Poe and +Virginia Clemm were one.</p> + +<p>Upon the return of the party to Mrs. Yarrington's, a cake was cut, the +health and happiness of the bride and groom were drunk in wine of +"Muddie's" own make, and the modest festival was over.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>How happy the young lovers and dreamers were in their home-making! Their +housekeeping and furnishings were the simplest, but love made everything +beautiful and sufficient. They had a garden in which they planted all +their favorite flowers and to which came the birds—the birds with whom +they had discovered a sudden kinship, for they too, were nesting—and +filled it with music. And they sang and chatted as happily as the birds +themselves as the pretty business progressed.</p> + +<p>How delightful it was to receive their friends, together, in their own +home and at their own board—Eddie's old friends, especially. Rob +Stanard, now a prosperous lawyer, and Rob Sully whose reputation as an +artist was growing, were the first to call and present their compliments +to the bride and groom; and how cordial they were! How affectionate to +Eddie—how warm in their expressions of friendship for the girl-wife!</p> + +<p>Virginia found it the greatest fun imaginable to go to market with +"Muddie," with a basket hanging from her pretty arm. The market men and +women began to daily watch for the sweet face and tripping step of the +exquisite child whom it seemed so comical to address as "<i>Mrs.</i> Poe," +and who rewarded their open admiration with the loveliest smile, the +prettiest words of greeting and interest, the merriest rippling laugh +that rang through the market place and waked echoes in many a heart that +had believed itself a stranger to joy.</p> + +<p>And the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass was reconstructed in even more +than its old beauty. The flowers of love and contentment and innocent +pleasure that besprinkled its green carpet had never been so many or so +gay, the dream-mountains that shut it in from the rest of the world were +as fair as sunset clouds, and the peace that flowed through it as a +river broke into singing as it flowed.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Meantime Edgar Poe worked—and worked—and worked.</p> + +<p>Every number of the <i>Messenger</i> contained page after page of the +brilliantly conceived and artistically worded product of his brain and +pen. His heart—his imagination satisfied and at rest in the love and +comradeship of a woman who fulfilled his ideal of beauty, of character, +and of charm, whose mind he himself had taught and trained to appreciate +and to love the things that meant most to him, whose sympathy responded +to his every mood, whose voice soothed his tired nerves with the music +that was one of the necessities of his temperament, a woman, withal, who +lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him—his +harassing devils cast out by this true heartsease, Edgar Poe's industry +and his power of mental production were almost past belief.</p> + +<p>As he worked a dream that had long been half-formed in his brain took +definite shape and became the moving influence of the intellectual side +of his life. His literary conscience had always been strict—even +exacting—with him, making him push the quest for the right word in +which to express his idea—just the right word, no other—to its +farthest limit. Urged by this conscience, he could rarely ever feel that +his work was finished, but kept revising, polishing and republishing it +in improved form, even after it had been once given to the world. He had +in his youth contemplated serving his country as a soldier. He now began +to dream of serving her as a captain of literature, as it were—as a +defender of purity of style; for this dream which became the most +serious purpose of his life was of raising the standard of American +letters to the ideal perfection after which he strove in his own +writings.</p> + +<p>For his campaign a trusty weapon was at hand in the editorial department +of the <i>Southern Literary Messenger</i>, which he turned into a sword of +fearless, merciless criticism.</p> + +<p>Literary criticism (so called) in America had been hitherto mere +puffery—puffery for the most part of weak, prolix, commonplace +scribblings of little would-be authors and poets. A reformation in +criticism, therefore, Edgar Poe conceived to be the only remedy for the +prevalent mediocrity in writing that was vitiating the taste of the day, +the only hope of placing American literature upon a footing of equality +with that of England—in a word, for bringing about anything approaching +the perfection of which he dreamed.</p> + +<p>The new kind of criticism to which he introduced his readers created a +sensation by reason of its very novelty. His brilliant, but withering +critiques were more eagerly looked for than the most thrilling of his +stories, and though the little, namby-pamby authors whom the gleaming +sword mowed down by tens were his and the <i>Messenger's</i> enemies for +life, the interested readers that were gathered in by hundreds were loud +in their praise of the progressiveness of the magazine and the genius of +the man who was making it.</p> + +<p>In the North as well as the South the name of Edgar Poe was now on many +lips and serious attention began to be paid to the opinion of the +<i>Southern Literary Messenger</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + + +<p>Between his literary work, his home and his social life in Richmond, it +would seem that every need of The Dreamer's being was now satisfied and +the days of his life were moving in perfect harmony. But "the little +rift within the lute" all too soon made its appearance. It was caused by +the alarm of Mr. White, the owner and founder of the <i>Messenger</i>.</p> + +<p>"Little Tom White" was a most admirable man—within his limitations. If +he was not especially interesting, his daughter Eliza of the violet eyes +was, and he was reliable—which was better. He had a kind little heart +and a clear little business head and his advice upon all matters (within +his experience) was safe. Though he saw from the handsome increase in +the number of the <i>Messenger's</i> subscribers that his young editor was a +valuable aid, he did not realize how valuable. Indeed, Edgar Poe and his +style of writing were entirely outside of Mr. White's experience. They +were so altogether unlike anything he had known before that in spite of +the praise of the thousands of readers which they had brought to the +magazine the dissatisfaction of the tens of little namby-pamby authors +alarmed him. Edgar Poe found him one morning in a state of positive +trepidation. He sat at his desk in the <i>Messenger</i> office with the +morning's mail—an unusually large pile of it—before him. In it there +were a number of new subscriptions, several letters from the little +authors protesting against the manner in which their works were handled +in the review columns of the magazine and one or two from well-known +and highly respected country gentlemen expressing their disapproval of +the <i>strangeness</i> in Edgar Poe's tales and poems.</p> + +<p>Mr. White appreciated the genius of his editor—within his +limitations—but he was afraid of it and these letters made him more +afraid of it. He saw that he must speak to Edgar—add his protest to the +protests of the little authors and the country gentlemen and see if he +could not persuade him to tone down the sharpness of his criticisms and +the strangeness of his stories.</p> + +<p>It was with a feeling of relief that he saw the trim, black-clad figure +of the young editor and author at the door, for he would like to settle +the business before him at once. His manner was grave—solemn—as he +approached the subject upon which his employe must be spoken to.</p> + +<p>"Edgar," he said, when good-mornings had been exchanged, "I want you to +read these letters. They are in the same line as some others we have +been receiving lately—but more so—decidedly more so."</p> + +<p>"Ah?" said The Dreamer, as he seated himself at the desk and began to +unfold and glance over the letters.</p> + +<p>"Little Tom" watched his face with a feeling of wonder at the look of +mixed scorn and amusement that appeared in the expressive eyes and mouth +as he read. Finally the anxious little man laid his hand upon the arm of +his unruly assistant, with an air of kindly patronage.</p> + +<p>"You have talent, Edgar," he said, with a touch of condescension, "Good +talent—especially for criticism—and will some day make your mark in +that line if you will stick to it and let these weird stories alone. We +must have fewer of the stories in future and more critiques, but milder +ones. It is the critiques that the readers want; but in both stories and +critiques you must put a restraint on that pen of yours, Edgar. In the +stories less of the weird—the strange—in the critiques, less of the +satirical. Let moderation be your watchword, my boy. Cultivate +moderation in your writing, and with your endowment you will make a name +for yourself as well as the magazine."</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe was all attention—respectful attention that was most +encouraging—while Mr. White was speaking, and when he had finished sat +with a contemplative look in his eyes, as if weighing the words he had +just heard. Presently he looked up and with the expression of face and +voice of one who in all seriousness seeks information, asked,</p> + +<p>"Is moderation really the word you are after, Mr. White, or is it +mediocrity?"</p> + +<p>The announcement at the very moment when the question was put, of a +visitor—a welcome one, for he brought a new subscription—precluded a +reply, and in the busy day that followed the broken thread of +conversation was never taken up again. But the unanswered question left +Mr. White with a confused sense which stayed with him during the whole +day and at intervals all through it he was asking himself what Edgar Poe +meant. Truly his talented employe was a puzzling fellow! Could it be +possible that the question asked with that serious face, that quiet +respectful air, was intended for a joke? That the impudent fellow could +have been quizzing him? No wonder his stories gave people +shivers—there was at times something about the fellow himself which was +positively uncanny!</p> + +<p>That he and "little Tom" would always see opposite sides of the picture +became more and more apparent to The Dreamer as time went on and along +with this difficulty another and a more serious one arose.</p> + +<p>Though the amount of work—of successful work, for it brought the +<i>Messenger</i> a steadily increasing stream of new subscribers—which he +was now putting forth, should have surrounded the beloved wife and +mother with luxuries and placed him beyond the reach of financial +embarrassment, the returns he received from the entire fruitage of his +brilliant talent—his untiring pen—at this the prime-time of his +life—in the fullness of mental and physical vigour, was so small that +he was constantly harrassed by debt and frequently reduced to the +humiliating necessity of borrowing from his friends to make two ends +meet.</p> + +<p>The plain truth was gradually borne in upon him—the prizes of fame and +wealth that for the sake of his sweet bride he coveted more earnestly +than ever before, were not to be found, by him, in Richmond, or as an +employe of Mr. White. But the hues of the bow of promise with which hope +spanned the sky of his inward vision were still bright, and he believed +that at its end the coveted prizes would surely still be found—provided +he did not lose heart and give up the quest. Indications of the growth +of his reputation at the North had been many. In the North the +facilities for publishing were so much more abundant than in the South. +The publishing houses and the periodicals of New York, of Boston, and of +Philadelphia would create a demand for literary work—and from these +large cities his message to the world would go out with greater +authority than from a small town like Richmond.</p> + +<p>It was not until the year 1838 that he finally resolved to make the +break and sent in his resignation to the <i>Messenger</i>. In the three years +since his first appearance in its columns the number of names upon its +subscription list had increased from seven hundred to five thousand.</p> + +<p>Though Edgar Poe's connection with the magazine as editor was at an end, +Mr. White took pains to announce that he was to continue to be a regular +contributor and the appearance of his serial story, "Arthur Gordon Pym," +then running, was to be uninterrupted.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was a far cry from the gardens and porches and open houses of +Richmond to the streets of New York—from the easy going country town +where society held but one circle, to a city, with its locked doors and +its wheels within wheels. Indeed, the single circle in Richmond, bound +together as it was by the elastic, but secure, tie of Virginia +cousinship and neighborliness then regarded as almost the same thing as +relationship, was practically one big family. Whoever was not your +cousin or your neighbor was the next best thing—either your neighbor's +cousin or your cousin's neighbor—so there you were.</p> + +<p>Though Edgar and Virginia Poe and the Widow Clemm had no blood kin in +Richmond they were, during those two years' residence there, taken into +the very heart of this pleasant, kindly circle, and it was with keen +homesickness that they realized that "in a whole cityful friends they +had none."</p> + +<p>But if this trio of dreamers felt strangely out of place in the streets +of New York, they looked more so. As they sauntered along, in their +leisurely southern fashion, their picturesque appearance arrested the +gaze of many a hurrying passer-by. In contrast to the up-to-date, alert, +keen-eyed crowd upon the busy streets, the air of distinction which +marked them everywhere was more pronounced than ever. They gave the +impression of a certain exquisite fineness of quality, combined with +quaintness, that one is sensible of in looking upon rare china.</p> + +<p>In and out—in and out—among the crowds of these streets where being a +stranger he felt himself peculiarly alone, Edgar the Dreamer walked many +days in his quest for work. Here, there and everywhere, his pale face +and solemn eyes with less and less of hope in them were seen. He had +been right in believing that his reputation was growing and had reached +New York—yet no one wanted his work. The supply of literature exceeded +the demand, he was told everywhere. It is true that he succeeded in +placing an occasional article, for which he would be paid the merest +pittance. Man should not expect to live by writing alone, he found to be +the general opinion—he should have a business or profession and do his +scribbling in the left-over hours.</p> + +<p>Still, his appearance at the door of a newspaper, magazine or book +publisher's office, accompanied by the announcement of his name, brought +him respect and a polite hearing—if that could afford any satisfaction +to a man whose darling wife was growing wan from insufficient food.</p> + +<p>One devoted friend he and his family made in Mr. Gowans, a Scotchman and +a book-collector of means and cultivation, whose fancy for them went so +far as to induce him to become a member of the unique little family in +the dingy wooden shanty which they had succeeded in renting for a song. +To this old gentleman, who had the reputation of being something of a +crank, The Dreamer's conversation and Virginia's beauty and exquisite +singing were never-failing wells of delight, while the generous sum that +he paid for the privilege of sharing their home was an equal benefit to +them and went a long way toward supplying the simple table. The little +checks which "little Tom" White sent for the monthly instalments of +"Arthur Gordon Pym," upon which his ex-editor industriously worked, were +also most welcome. But with all they could scrape together the income +was insufficient to keep three souls within three bodies, and three +bodies decently covered.</p> + +<p>Before the year in New York was out the rainbow was pale in the sky—its +colors were faded and its end was invisible—obscured by lowering +clouds. At the moment when it seemed faintest it came out clear +again—this time setting toward Philadelphia, whose name the hope that +rarely left him for long at a time whispered in The Dreamer's ear.</p> + +<p>Why not Philadelphia? Philadelphia—then the acknowledged seat of the +empire of Letters. Philadelphia—the city of Penn, the "City of +Brotherly Love." There was for one of The Dreamer's superstitious turn +of mind and his love of words and belief in their power, an +attraction—a significance in the very names. He said them over and over +again to himself—rolled them on his tongue, fascinated with their sound +and with their suggestiveness.</p> + +<p>He bade Virginia and "Muddie" keep up brave hearts, for they would turn +their backs upon this cold, inhospitable New York and set up their +household gods in the "City of Brotherly Love." The city of Penn, he +added, was the place for one of his calling—laughing as he spoke, at +the feeble pun—but there was new hope and life in the laugh. In Penn's +city, even if disappointments should come they would be able to bear +them, for how should human beings suffer in the "City of Brotherly +Love?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + + +<p>The year was waning—the year 1838—when Edgar Poe removed his family +from New York. About the hour of noon, upon a pleasant day of the spring +following, he might have been seen to turn from the paved streets of the +"City of Brotherly Love," and to enter, and walk briskly along, a grassy +thoroughfare of Spring Garden—a village-like suburb.</p> + +<p>He was going home to Virginia and the Mother—to a new home in this +village which they had been first tempted to explore by its delightful +name and which they had found seeing was to love, for in its appearance +the name was justified. The quiet streets were lined with trees just +coming into leaf, in which birds were building, happy and unafraid, and +spring flowers were blooming in little plots before many of the +unpretentious homes.</p> + +<p>The place also possessed a more practical attraction in the +reasonableness of its house-rents. Delightfully low was the price asked +for a small, Dutch-roofed cottage that was just to their minds. It was +small, yet quite large enough to hold the three and their modest +possessions, and about it hung a quaint charm that might have been +wanting in a more ambitious abode. Though in excellent preservation it +had a pleasantly time-worn air and there was moss, in velvety green +patches, on its sloping roof. It was set somewhat back from the street, +with a bit of garden spot in front of it, in whose rich soil violets and +single hyacinths—blue and white—were blooming, and its square porch +supported a climbing rose, heavy with buds, that only needed training +to make it a bower of beauty.</p> + +<p>After having tried several more or less unsatisfactory homes during +their brief residence in Philadelphia, they felt that they had at last +found one that filled their requirements, and had promptly moved in. +There were no servants—maids would have been in the way they happily +told each other—but Virginia and her mother had positive genius for +neatness and order. At their touch things seemed to fly by magic into +the places where they would look best and at the same time be most +convenient, and it was astonishing how quickly the arrangement of their +small belongings converted the cottage into a home.</p> + +<p>It was with light heart and step that the master of the house took his +way homeward to the mid-day meal. The periodicals of the "City of +Brotherly Love" were keeping him busy, and there was at that moment +money in his pocket—not much, but still it was money—that day received +for his latest story.</p> + +<p>As he drew near a corner just around which his new roof-tree stood, he +stopped suddenly—in the attitude of one who listens. Peal after peal of +rippling laughter was filling the air with music. In his vivid eyes, as +he listened, shone the soft light of love and a smile of infinite +tenderness played about his lips. Well he knew from what lovely, girlish +throat came the merry sounds—sweet and clear as a chime of silver +bells. A quickened step brought him instantly in view of her and the +cause of her mirth.</p> + +<p>She stood in the rose-hooded doorway leaning upon a broom. Her cheeks +were pink with the exertion she had been making and her sleeves were +rolled up, leaving her dimpled, white arms bare to the elbow. Her soft +eyes were radiant and she was laughing for sheer delight in the picture +the stately "Muddie" made white-washing the palings that enclosed the +wee garden-spot from the street. When she saw her husband at the gate +she dropped her broom and ran into his arms like a child.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Buddie, Buddie," she cried, "are not our palings beautiful? Muddie +did them for a surprise for you!"</p> + +<p>"Buddie" was enthusiastic in admiration of the white palings and praised +the gentle white-washer to the skies. Then the three happy workers went +inside to their simple repast, which the sauce of content turned into a +banquet.</p> + +<p>The door had been left open to the sunshine and the result was an +unexpected guest—a handsome tortoise-shell kitten which strayed in to +ask a share of their meal. She paused, timidly, upon the threshold for a +moment, then fixing her amber eyes upon The Dreamer, made straight for +him and arching her back and waving her tail like a plume, in the air +she rubbed her glossy sides against his ankle in a manner that was truly +irresistible. All three gave her a warm welcome. Edgar regarded her +appearance as a good omen; Virginia was delighted to have a pet, and +"Catalina," as they named her, became from the moment a regular and +favorite member of the family.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The cottage contained but five rooms—three downstairs (including the +kitchen) and upstairs two, with low-pitched, shelving walls and narrow +little slits of windows on a level with the floor. But as has been said, +it was large enough—large enough to shelter love and happiness and +genius—large enough to hold the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass, with its fair river and its enchanted trees and flowers, in which +the three dreamers lived apart and for each other only.</p> + +<p>It was large enough for the freest expansion the world had yet seen of +the vivid-hued imagination of Edgar Poe.</p> + +<p>Night and day his brain was busy—"fancy unto fancy linking"—and the +periodicals teemed with his work.</p> + +<p>In <i>The American Museum</i>, of Baltimore appeared his fantastic +prose-poem, "Ligeia," with his theory of the power of the human will for +a text—his favorite of all of his "tales"—<i>his</i> favorite, in the +weakness of whose own will lay the real tragedy of his life! In <i>The +Gift</i>, of Philadelphia, appeared, a little later the dramatic +"conscience-story," "William Wilson," with its clear-cut pictures of +school-life at old Stoke-Newington. <i>The Baltimore Book</i> gave the +thrilling fable, "Silence," to the world. The weirdly beautiful "Haunted +Palace" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" followed in quick +succession—in <i>The American Museum</i>.</p> + +<p>"The Fall of the House of Usher," brought The Dreamer a pat-on-the back +from "little Tom" White, who in writing of the tale in <i>The Southern +Literary Messenger</i>, informed the world: "We always predicted that Mr. +Poe would reach a high grade in American literature; only we wish Mr. +Poe would stick to the department of criticism; there he is an able +professor."</p> + +<p>Wrote James Russell Lowell, of the same story,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Had its author written nothing else it would have been enough +to stamp him as a man of genius."</p></div> + +<p>The cottage in Spring Garden was large enough too, for the sweet uses +of hospitality. By the time the roses on the porch were open, friends +and admirers began to find their way to it, and all who came through the +white-washed gate and sat down in the green-hooded porch or passed +through it into the bright and tasteful rooms felt the poetic charm +which this son of genius and his exquisite bit of a wife and the stately +mother with the "Mater Dolorosa" expression, threw over their simple +surroundings.</p> + +<p>Among those who found their way thither was "Billy" Burton, an +Englishman, and an actor, who though a graduate of Cambridge was "better +known as a commedian than as a literary man." He had written several +books, however, and was the publisher of <i>The Gentleman's Magazine</i>, of +Philadelphia. Here too, came intimately, Mr. Alexander, one of the +founders of <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i>, to which The Dreamer was a +frequent contributor, and Mr. Clarke, first editor of <i>The Post</i> and +others of what Edgar Poe's friend, Wilmer, would have dubbed the "press +gang" of Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>To be intimate with The Dreamer meant to adore the little wife with the +face of a Luca della Robbia chorister and the voice which should have +belonged to one—with the merry, irresistible ways of a perfectly happy +child,—and to revere the mother.</p> + +<p>The cottage was also found to be large enough (as the fame of its master +grew) to be the destination of letters from the literary stars of the +day. Longfellow and Lowell and Washington Irving, on this side of the +water, and Dickens, in England, were among Edgar Poe's numerous +correspondents while a dweller in the rose-embowered cottage in Spring +Garden.</p> + +<p>In addition to the stories, poems, essays and critiques which the +indefatigable Dreamer was putting out, he found time to publish a +collection of his "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," in book form. +He was also (unfortunately for him) induced to prepare a work on +sea-shells for the use of schools—"The Conchologist's First Book," it +was called. This was unmistakably a mere "pot-boiler" and confessedly a +compilation, but it set the little authors whose namby-pamby works the +self-appointed Defender of the Purity of Style in American Letters had +consigned to an early grave, like a nest of hornets buzzing about his +ears.</p> + +<p>"Plagarism!" was the burden of their hum.</p> + +<p>Even while the discordant chorus was being chanted, however, his +wonderfully original tales continued to make their appearance at +intervals—chiefly in <i>The Gentleman's Magazine</i>, whose editor, at +"Billy" Burton's invitation, he had become.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the midst of all this activity one of his old and most cherished +dreams took more definite shape than ever before—the dream of becoming +himself the founder of a magazine in which he could write as his genius +and his fancy should dictate without having to be constantly making +compromises with editors and proprietors—a periodical which would +fulfil his ideal of magazine literature, which he predicted would be the +leading literature of the future. With his prophetic eye he foresaw the +high pressure under which the American of coming years would live, and +he never lost an opportunity to express the opinion that the reader of +the future would give preference to the essay, or story, or poem which +could be read at a sitting—which would waste no time in preamble or +conclusion, but in which every word would be chosen by the literary +artist with the nicety with which the painter selects the exact tint he +needs, and in which every word would tell. And such works he conceived +it would be especially the province of the magazine to present.</p> + +<p>He went so far as to prepare a prospectus and advertise for subscribers +to <i>The Penn Monthly</i>, as he proposed naming this child of his hopes, +and his proposition to enter the field of magazine publishing not only +as an editor, but as a proprietor, bade fair to be the rock upon which +he and his friend "Billy" Burton would split. They came to an +understanding finally, however, for when Mr. Burton, a little later, +decided to abandon <i>The Gentleman's Magazine</i> and devote himself +exclusively to the theatre, he said to Mr. George R. Graham, the owner +of <i>The Gasket</i>, to whom he sold out,</p> + +<p>"By the way, Graham, there's one thing I want to ask, and that is that +you will take care of my young editor."</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe was at the moment lost in the happy dream of his own <i>Penn +Monthly</i> which he conceived would not only take care of him and his +family, but would give his genius free rein. He was resolved to put the +best of himself into it, and the best of outside contributions he could +succeed in procuring. Its criticisms should be "sternly just, guided +only by the purest rules of Art, analyzing and urging these rules as it +applied them; holding itself aloof from all personal bias, acknowledging +no fear save that of outraging the right." It would "endeavor to +support the general interests of the republic of letters—regarding the +world at large as the true audience of the author," he determined, and +he declared in his prospectus.</p> + +<p>Dear to his heart as was this dream of dreams of his intellectual life, +he was soon to realize that its fulfilment was not to be. At least—not +yet, for he comforted his own heart and Virginia's and "Muddie's" with +the assurance that it was but a case of hope deferred again.</p> + +<p>As he was bracing himself for this fresh disappointment, Mr. Graham, the +purchaser of <i>The Gentlemen's Magazine</i> which he proposed to combine +with <i>The Casket</i> in the creation of <i>Graham's Magazine</i>, sat in his +office with a paper before him which the initiated would have at once +recognized as an Edgar Poe manuscript. It was a long, narrow strip, +formed by pasting pages together endwise, and had been submitted in a +tight roll which Mr. Graham unrolled as he read. The title at the top of +the strip, in The Dreamer's neat, legible handwriting was, "The Man of +the Crowd."</p> + +<p>There was nothing gruesome about Mr. Graham. His candid brow, his +kindling blue eye, his fresh-colored cheeks, the genial curve of his lip +and his strong but amiable chin, spoke of a sunshiny nature, with +neither taste nor turn for the weird. But, as he read, the strange +"conscience-story" moved him—held him in a grip of intense +interest—wove a spell around him. He was on the lookout for original +material—undoubtedly he had it in this manuscript. He recalled "Billy" +Burton's last words to him: "Take care of my young editor."</p> + +<p>A smile lighted his pleasant face. He had his own mental +endowments—generous ones—and without the least conceit he knew it; +but he had no ambition to patronize genius.</p> + +<p>"The writer of this story is quite able to take care of himself," he +informed his inner consciousness, "And if I can only form a connection +with him it will doubtless be a case of the young editor's taking care +of me."</p> + +<p>Upon the next afternoon Mr. Graham set out on a pilgrimage to Spring +Garden. Though it was November the air was mild and the sunshine was +mellow. Was the sky always so blue in Spring Garden, he wondered? He +found the rose-embowered cottage without difficulty, for he had obtained +minute directions. The roses were all gone but the foliage was still +green and the little white-paled garden was bright with the sunset-hued +flowers of autumn. Flowers and cottage stood bathed in the light of the +golden afternoon—the picture of serenity. What marked this quaint, +small homestead?—set back from the quiet village street—tucked away +behind its garden-spot from the din of the world? What made it different +from others of its neighborhood and character? Was it just a notion of +his (Mr. Graham wondered) that made him feel that here was poetry pure +and simple?—<i>visible</i> poetry?</p> + +<p>With sensations of keen interest he lifted the knocker. Edgar Poe +himself opened the door and his captivating smile, cordial hand-clasp +and words of warm, as well as courtly, greeting raised the visitor +instantly from the ranks of the caller to the place of a friend. Mr. +Graham had met Edgar Poe before and had felt his charm, but he now told +himself that to know him one must see him under his own roof, and in the +character of host.</p> + +<p>As the door was opened a flood of music floated out. A divinely sweet +mezzo-soprano voice was singing to the accompaniment of a harp. As the +master of the house flung wide the sitting-room door and announced the +visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting +upon the gilded strings for a moment, her eyes turned in inquiry toward +the door, then rose and with the simplicity of a child came forward to +place her hand in that of Mr. Graham. Mother Clemm who sat near the +window with a piece of sewing in her lap also arose, and with gentle +dignity came forward to be introduced and to do her part in making the +guest welcome.</p> + +<p>As he took the seat proffered him and entered upon the exchange of +commonplace phrases with which a visit of a comparative stranger is apt +to begin, Mr. Graham's blue eyes gathered in the details of the +reposeful picture of which he had become a part. The open fire, the +sunshine lying on the bare but spotless floor, the vases filled with +flowers, the few simple pieces of furniture so fitly disposed that they +produced a sense of unusual completeness and satisfaction—the row of +books, the harp, the cat dosing upon the hearth,—and finally, the +people. The master of the house—distinguished, handsome, dominant, +genial, his young wife, the embodiment of soft, poetic beauty, and the +mother with her saint-like face and gentle, composed manner—her +expressive hands busy with her needle work. Was it possible that such a +home—such a household—was always there, keeping the even tenor of its +way among the unpicturesque conventions of the modern world?</p> + +<p>After the first formalities had been exchanged he had delicately +intimated that he had come on business, but he soon began to see that +whatever his business might be it was to be dispatched right there, in +the bosom of the family. This was irregular and unusual, yet, somehow, +it did not seem unnatural, and he found that the presence of the women +of the poet's household was not the least restraint upon the freedom of +their discussion.</p> + +<p>After some words of commendation of the story, "The Man of the Crowd," +which he accepted for the next number of his magazine, he came to the +real business of the afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Poe," said he, "I believe you know that with the new year <i>The +Gentleman's Magazine</i> and <i>The Casket</i> will be combined to form +<i>Graham's Magazine</i> which it is my intention to make the best monthly, +in contributed articles and editorial opinion, in this country. Mr. Poe +I want an editor capable of making it this. <i>I want you.</i> What do you +say to undertaking it?"</p> + +<p>As he sat with his eyes fixed upon The Dreamer's eyes waiting for an +answer he could not see the quick clasping of the widow's hands the +uplifting of her expressive face which plainly said "Thank God," or the +sudden illumination in the soft eyes of Virginia. But the transformation +in the beautiful face of the man before him held him spell-bound. Edgar +Poe's great eyes were glowing with sudden pleasure the curves of his +mouth grew sweet, his whole countenance softened.</p> + +<p>"This is very good of you, Mr. Graham," he said, his low, musical voice, +warm with feeling. "Your offer places me upon firm ground once more. To +be frank with you, the failure, through lack of capital, of my attempt +to establish a magazine of my own (since the severing of my connection +with Burton, which gave me my only regular income) has left me hanging +by the eyelids, as it were, and I have been wondering how long I could +hold on with only the small, irregular sums coming in from the sale of +my stories to depend upon. Your offer at this time means more to me than +I can express."</p> + +<p>His girl-wife stole to his side and with pretty grace, unembarrassed by +the presence of Mr. Graham, leaned over his chair and pressed her lips +upon his brow.</p> + +<p>"But you know, Buddie," she murmured in a voice that was like a dove's, +"I always told you something would come along!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Darkness fell and lamps were lighted, and still Mr. Graham sat on and on +as though too fascinated by the charm of the little circle to move. To +his own surprise he found himself accepting the invitation to remain to +supper. The simple table was beautiful with the dainty touch of Mother +Clemm and Virginia, and the very frugality of the meal seemed a virtue.</p> + +<p>After supper his host, not the least of whose accomplishments was the +rare one of reading aloud acceptably, was persuaded to read some of his +own poems—Mr. Graham asking for certain special pieces. Among these +were the lines "To Helen," which were recited with a fervor approaching +solemnity.</p> + +<p>"Tell him about Helen, Eddie," murmured Virginia, who sat by his side.</p> + +<p>"Yes, do tell me!" urged Mr. Graham, quickly. And with his eyes brooding +and dreamy, the poet went over, in touching and beautiful words, the +story of what he always felt and declared to be "the first pure passion +of his soul."</p> + +<p>In the silence that followed he arose and took from the wall a small +picture—a pencil-sketch of a lovely head.</p> + +<p>"This is a drawing of her made by myself," he said. "It was done from +memory, but is a good likeness. I needed no sitting to make her +likeness."</p> + +<p>When he had shown Mr. Graham the picture, he hung it back in its place +and a gentle hush fell upon the little group. Speech seemed out of place +after the moving recital and the four sat gazing into the embers, each +sunk in his or her own dreams.</p> + +<p>The poet was the first to speak.</p> + +<p>"Some music Sissy," he said turning to Virginia. "I want Mr. Graham to +hear you."</p> + +<p>She arose at once and seating herself at the harp, struck some soft, +bell-like chords while she waited for "Buddie" to decide what she should +sing.</p> + +<p>"Let it be something sweet and low," he said, "and simple. Something of +Tom Moore's, for instance. You know my theory, anything but the simplest +music to be appreciated—to reach the soul—must be heard alone."</p> + +<p>The harp accompaniment rippled forth, and in a moment more melted into +the rich, sweet passionate tones of her voice as she told in musical +numbers a heart-breaking story of love and parting.</p> + +<p>Ballad after ballad followed while the little audience sat entranced. +Finally when the singer returned to her seat by the side of her husband, +the conversation turned upon music. Mr. Graham commented upon his host's +theory that all music but the simplest should, for its best effect, be +listened to in solitude.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said The Dreamer, "It is (like the happiness felt in the +contemplation of natural scenery) much enhanced by seclusion. The man +who would behold aright the glory of God as expressed in dark valleys, +gray rocks, waters that silently smile and forests that sigh in uneasy +slumbers, and the proud, watchful mountains that look down upon all—the +man that would not only look upon these with his natural eye but feed +his soul upon them as a sacrament, must do so in solitude. And so too, I +hold, should one listen to the deep harmonies of music of the highest +class."</p> + +<p>At length the hour came when Mr. Graham felt that he must tear himself +away—bring this strange visit to an end. Before going he felt moved by +an impulse to express something of the effect it had had upon him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Poe," he said, "I wish to thank you for one of the most delightful +evenings of my life and for having taken me into the heart of your home. +I can find no words in which to express my appreciation. Tonight, at +your fireside, it seems to me that I have had for the first time in my +life a clear understanding of the word happiness."</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe smiled, dreamily.</p> + +<p>"Why should we not be happy here?" he answered. "Concerning happiness, +my dear Mr. Graham, I have a little creed of my own. If I could only +persuade others to adopt it there would be more happy people—far more +contented ones—in the world."</p> + +<p>"And the articles of your creed?" queried Mr. Graham.</p> + +<p>"Are only four. First, free exercise in the open air, and plenty of it. +This brings health—which is a kind of happiness in itself—that +attainable by any other means is scarcely worth the name. Second, love +of woman. I need not tell you that my life fulfils that condition." (As +he spoke, his eyes, with an expression of ineffable tenderness, wandered +for a moment—and it seemed involuntarily—in the direction of his +wife). "The third condition is contempt for ambition. Would that I could +tell you that I have attained to that! When I do, there will be little +in this world to be desired by me. The fourth and last is an object of +unceasing pursuit. This is the most important of all, for I believe that +the extent of one's happiness is in proportion to the spirituality of +this object. In this I am especially fortunate, for no more elevating +pursuit exists, I think, than that of systematically endeavoring to +bring to its highest perfection the art of literature."</p> + +<p>"I notice you do not mention money in your creed," remarked his guest.</p> + +<p>"No, neither do I mention air. Both the one and the other are essential +to life, and to the keeping together of body and soul. It goes without +saying that the necessities of life are necessary to happiness. But +money—meaning wealth—while it makes indulgence in pleasures possible, +has nothing to do with happiness. Indeed the very pleasure it ensures +often obscure highest happiness—the happiness of exaltation of the +soul, of exercise of the intellect. What has money to do with happiness? +It is a happiness to wonder—it is a happiness to dream. Your over-fed, +jewel-decked, pleasure-drunk rich man or woman is too deeply embedded in +flesh and sense to do either. No"—he mused, his eyes on the glowing +coals in the grate, "No—I have no desire for wealth—for more than +enough money to keep my wife and mother comfortable. They, like myself, +have learned the lesson of being poor and happy. But I <i>must</i> keep them +above want—I <i>will</i> keep them above want!" As he repeated the words the +meditative mood dropped from him. He straightened himself in his chair +with sudden energy, his voice trembled and sunk almost to a whisper, in +place of the dreamy look his eyes flamed with passion.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Graham," he exclaimed, "to see those you love better than your own +soul in want, and, in spite of working like mad, to be powerless to +raise them out of it, is hell!"</p> + +<p>A second time the exquisite child-wife slipped quickly, noiselessly, to +his side and with the same easy grace leaned over and touched his brow +with her lips, but this time instead of moving away, remained hanging +over the back of his chair, her fair hand gently toying with the +ringlets on his brow. He was calm in an instant.</p> + +<p>"I mean, of course, such a condition would be intolerable provided it +should ever exist," he added.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As the visitor stepped from the cottage door into the chill of the +bright November night, and made his way down the little path of +flagstones—irregularly shaped and clumsily laid down, so that mossy +turf which was still green, appeared between them—he felt that he was +stepping back into a flat, stale and unprofitable world from one of the +enchanted regions, "out of space, out of time," of Poe's own creation.</p> + +<p>He had indeed, had a revelation of harmonious home-life such as he had +not guessed existed in a work-a-day world—of the music, the poetry of +living. He had had a glimpse into the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + + +<p>The next morning found Mr. Graham still under the spell of the evening +with the Poes. He caught himself impatiently watching the clock, for the +man under whose charm he had come was to call at a certain hour, to +confer with him in regard to the magazine. He could hear him coming +(stepping briskly and whistling a "Moore's Melody") before the rap upon +the door announced him. He came in with the bright, alert air of a man +ready for action for which he has appetite. His rarely heard laugh rang +out, fresh and spontaneous, several times during the interview. His +manners were at all times those of a prince, but Mr. Graham had never +seen him so genial, so gay. The mantle of dreamer and poet had suddenly +dropped from him, but the new mood had a charm all its own.</p> + +<p>When business had been dispatched and they sat on to finish their +cigars, Mr. Graham reiterated his expressions of pleasure in his visit +of the evening before.</p> + +<p>"You gave me food for thought, Mr. Poe," said he. "I've been pondering +on that creed of yours for finding and keeping the secret of true +happiness. It is about the most wholesome and sane doctrine I've met +with for some time. I've determined to adopt it, and to, at least +endeavor, to practice it."</p> + +<p>His companion smiled.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said he. "I only hope you'll have better success in living up to +it than I have."</p> + +<p>Mr. Graham's eyebrows went up. "I thought that was just what you did," +was his answer.</p> + +<p>"So it is, at times; but when the blues or the imp of the perverse get +hold of me all my philosophy goes to the devil, and I realize what an +arch humbug I am."</p> + +<p>"The imp of the perverse?" questioned Mr. Graham.</p> + +<p>"That is my name for the principle that lies hidden in weak human +nature—the principle of antagonism to happiness, which, with unholy +impishness, tempts man to his own destruction. Don't you think it an apt +name?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe I follow you."</p> + +<p>"Then let me explain. Did you never, when standing upon some high point, +become conscious of an influence irresistibly urging you to cast +yourself down? As you listened—fascinated and horrified—to the voice, +did you not feel an almost overwhelming curiosity to see what the +sensations accompanying such a fall would be—to know the extremest +terror of it? Your tempter was the <i>Imp of the Perverse</i>.</p> + +<p>"Did you never feel a sense of glee to find that something you had said +or done had shocked someone whose good opinion you should have desired? +Did you never feel a desire to depart from a course you knew to be to +your interest and follow one that would bring certain harm—possible +disaster—upon you? Did you never feel like breaking loose from all the +restraints which you knew to be for your good—throwing off every +shackle of propriety, and right, and decency?—Mr. Graham, did you never +feel like throwing yourself to the devil for no reason at all other than +the desire to be perverse? Could any desire be more impish?—I will +illustrate by my own case, I am in one respect not like other men. An +exceptionally high-strung nervous temperament makes alcoholic +stimulants poison to me. It works like madness in my brain and in my +blood. The glass of wine that you can take with pleasure and perhaps +with benefit drives me wild—makes me commit all manner of reckless +deeds that in my sane moments fill me with sorrow!—and sometimes +produces physical illness followed by depression of spirits, horrible in +the extreme. More—an inherited desire for stimulation and the +exhilaration produced by wine, makes it well nigh impossible for me, +once I have yielded my will so far as to take the single glass, to +resist the second, which is more than apt to be followed by a third, and +so on. I am fully aware therefore, of the danger that lies for me in a +thing harmless to many men, and that my only safety and happiness and +the happiness of those far dearer to me than myself, lies in the +strictest, most rigid abstinence. Knowing all this, one would suppose +that I would fly from this temptation as it were the plague. I do +generally. At present, several years have passed since I yielded an +inch. But there have been times—and there may be times again—when the +Imp of the Perverse will command me to drink and, fully aware of the +risk, I <i>will</i> drink, and will go down into hell for a longer or shorter +period afterward."</p> + +<p>During this lecture upon one of his favorite hobbies, the low voice of +The Dreamer was vibrant with earnestness. He spoke out of bitter +experience and as he who bore the reputation of a reserved man, laid his +soul bare, his vivid eyes held the eyes of his companion by the very +intensity—the deep sincerity of their gaze.</p> + +<p>Mr. Graham's last conversation with his new editor had dazed him; this +one dazed him still more. What manner of man was this? (he asked +himself) with whom he had formed a league? He could not say—beyond the +fact that he was undoubtedly original—and interesting. Admirable +qualities for an editor—both!</p> + +<p>The readers of the new monthly thoroughly agreed with him. The history +of Edgar Poe's career as editor of <i>The Southern Literary Messenger</i> +promptly began to repeat itself with <i>Graham's Magazine</i>. The +announcement that he had been engaged as editor immediately drew the +attention of the reading world toward <i>Graham's</i>, and it soon became +apparent that in the new position he was going to out-do himself. The +rapidity with which his brilliant and caustic critiques and essays, and +weird stories, followed upon the heels of one another was enough to take +one's breath away. He alternately raised the hair of his readers with +master-pieces of unearthly imaginings and diverted them with playful +studies in autography and exhibitions of skill in reading secret +writing.</p> + +<p>About the time of his beginning his duties at <i>Graham's</i> he must needs +have had a visit from some fairy godmother, the touch of whose enchanted +wand left him with a new gift. This was a wonderfully developed power of +analysis which he found pleasure in exercising in every possible way. To +quote his own words, "As the strong man exults in his physical ability, +delighting in such exercises as bring his muscles into action, so +glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He +derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his +talent into play."</p> + +<p>He tried the newly discovered talent upon everything. In his papers on +"Autography" he practised it in the reading of character from +hand-writing, and in his deciphering of secret writing he carried it so +far and awakened the interest and curiosity of the public to such extent +that it bade fair to be the ruin of him; for it seemed his +correspondents would have him drop literature and devote himself and the +columns of <i>Graham's Magazine</i> for the rest of his life, to the solving +of these puzzles. Finally, having proved that it was impossible for any +of them to compose a cypher he could not read in less time than its +author had spent in inventing it, he took advantage of his only +safeguard, and positively declined to have anything more to do with +them.</p> + +<p>But he found a much more interesting way of exercising his power of +analysis. In the April number of <i>Graham's</i> he tried it upon a +story—"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"—which set all the world buzzing, +and drew the interested attention of France upon him. In the next +number, while the "Murders" were still the talk of the hour, he made an +excursion into the world of <i>pseudo</i>-science the result of which was his +thrilling "Descent into the Maelstrom;" but later in the same month he +returned to his experiments in analysis—publishing in <i>The Saturday +Evening Post</i> an <i>advance</i> review of Charles Dickens' story "Barnaby +Rudge," which was just beginning to come out in serial form. In the +review he predicted, correctly, the whole development and conclusion of +the story. It brought him a letter from Dickens, expressing +astonishment, owning that the plot was correct, and enquiring if Edgar +Poe had "dealings with the devil."</p> + +<p>Soon followed the "Colloquy of Monos and Una," in which in the exquisite +prose poetry of which The Dreamer was a consummate master, his +imagination sought to pierce the veil between this world and the +next—to lay bare the secrets of the soul's passage into the "Valley of +the Shadow."</p> + +<p>Whatever else Edgar Poe wrote, he continued to pour out through the +editorial columns of <i>Graham's Magazine</i> a steady stream of criticism of +current books. While entertaining or amusing the public as far as power +to do so in him lay, he did not for a moment permit anything to come +between him and the duties of his post as Defender of Purity of Style in +American Letters. He was unsparing in the use of his pruning hook upon +the work of his contemporaries and the height of art to which by his +fearless, candid and, at times, cruel criticism, he sought to bring +others, he exacted of himself. In spite of the amount of work he +produced, each sentence that dropped from his pen in this time of his +maturity—his ripeness—was the perfection of clear and polished +English.</p> + +<p>But the evidences of this conscientiousness in his own work did not make +the little authors one whit less sore under his lash. Privately they +writhed and they squirmed—publicly they denounced. All save one—an +ex-preacher, Dr. Rufus Griswold—himself a critic of ability, who would +like to have been, like The Dreamer, a poet as well as a critic.</p> + +<p>When Edgar Poe praised the prose writings of Dr. Griswold, but said he +was "no poet," Dr. Griswold like the other little authors writhed and +squirmed secretly—very secretly—but openly he smiled and in smooth, +easy words professed friendship for Mr. Poe—and bided his time.</p> + +<p>As for Poe himself, he had by close and devoted study of the rules which +govern poetic and prose composition—rules which he evolved for himself +by analysis of the work of the masters—so added to his own natural +gifts of imagination and power of expression, so perfected his taste, +that crude writing was disgusting to his literary palate. He had made +Literature his intellectual mistress, and from the day he had declared +his allegiance to her he had served her faithfully—passionately—and he +could brook no flagging service in others.</p> + +<p>Both his growing power of analysis and his highly developed artistic +feeling were brought into full play in this review work. Under his +guidance the writings of his contemporaries, whether they were the +little authors or the giants such as, in England, Tennyson (who was a +prime favorite with him), Macauley, Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett, or in +America, Longfellow, Lowell, Hawthorne, Irving, Emerson, stood forth +illumined—the weak spots laid bare, the strong points gleaming bright.</p> + +<p>He unfalteringly declared his admiration of Hawthorne (then almost +unknown) in which the future so fully justified him. The tales of +Hawthorne, he declared, belonged to "the highest region of Art—an Art +subservient to genius of a very lofty order."</p> + +<p>Even the work of the little authors was indebted to him for many a good +word, but the little authors hated him and returned the brilliant +sallies his pungent pen directed toward their writings with vollies of +mud aimed at his private character.</p> + +<p>No matter what his subject, however, Edgar Poe always wrote with +power—with intensity. He seemed by turns to dip his pen into fire, into +gall, into vitriol—at times into his own heart's blood.</p> + +<p>Of the last named type was the story "Eleonora," which appeared, not in +<i>Graham's</i>, but in <i>The Gift</i> for the new year, and wherein was set +forth in phrases like strung jewels the story of the "Valley of the +Many-Colored Grass." The whole fabric of this loveliest of his +conceptions is like a web wrought in some fairy loom of bright strands +of silk of every hue, and studded with fairest gems. In it is no hint of +the gruesome, or the sombre—even though the Angel of Death is there. It +is all pure beauty—a perfect flower from the fruitful tree of his +genius at the height of its power.</p> + +<p>All of Edgar Poe's work gains much by being read aloud, for the eye +alone cannot fully grasp the music that is in his prose as well as his +verse. "Eleonora" was read aloud in every city and hamlet of the United +States, and at firesides far from the beaten paths—the traveled +roads—that led to the cities; for it was written when every word from +the pen of Edgar Poe was looked for, waited for, with eager impatience, +and when <i>Graham's Magazine</i> had been made in one little year, by his +writing, and the writing of others whom he had induced to contribute to +its pages, to lead the thought of the day in America.</p> + +<p>And the success of The Dreamer made him a lion in the "City of Brotherly +Love" as it had made him a lion in Richmond. The doors of the most +exclusive—the most cultivated—homes of that fastidious city stood open +to welcome him. The loveliest women, whether the grey ladies of the +"Society of Friends" or the brightly plumaged birds of the gayer world, +smiled their sweetest upon him. As he walked along the streets +passers-by would whisper to one another,</p> + +<p>"There goes Mr. Poe. Did you notice his eyes? They say he has the most +expressive eyes in Philadelphia."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Throughout this year of almost dazzling triumph the little cottage with +its rose-hooded porch, in Spring Garden, had been a veritable snug +harbor to The Dreamer. In winter when the deep, spotless snow lay round +about it, in spring when the violets and hyacinths came back to the +garden-spot and the singing birds to the trees that overhung it, in +summer when the climbing green rose was heavy with bloom and in autumn +when the wind whistled around it, but there was a bright blaze upon the +hearth inside, his heart turned joyously many times a day, and his feet +at eventide, when his work at the office in the city was over, toward +this sacred haven.</p> + +<p>And Edgar the Dreamer was happy. He should have been rich and would have +been but for the meagre returns from literary work in his time. Men were +then supposed to write for fame, and very little money was deemed +sufficient reward for the best work. The poverty of authors was +proverbial and to starve cheerfully was supposed to be part of being +one.</p> + +<p>Still, with his post as editor of <i>Graham's</i> and the frequency with +which his signature was seen in other magazines, he was making a living. +The howl of the wolf or his sickening scratching at the door were no +more heard, and in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass the three +dreamers laughed together, and in the streets of the "City of Brotherly +Love" Edgar Goodfellow whistled a gay air, or arm in arm with some boon +companion of the "Press gang" threaded his way in and out among of the +human stream, with a smile on his lips and the light of gladness in +living in his eyes.</p> + +<p>And why should he not be happy? he asked himself. He had the snuggest +little home in the world and, in it, the loveliest little wife in the +world and the dearest mother in the world. He was upon the top of the +wave of prosperity. His fame was growing—had already reached France, +where "The Murders" were still being talked about. Why should he not be +happy? His devils had ceased to plague him this long while. The +blues—he was becoming a stranger to them. The Imp—he had not had a +single glimpse of him during the year. He was temperate—ah, therein lay +man's safety and happiness! By strict abstinence his capacity for +enjoyment was exalted—purified. He would let the cup forever +alone—upon that he was resolved!</p> + +<p>This was not always easy. Sometimes it had been exceedingly hard and +there had been a fierce battle between himself and the call that was in +his blood—the thirst, not for the stuff itself, but for its effects, +for the excitement, the exhilaration; but he had won every time and he +felt stronger for the battle and for the victory—the victory of will. +"Man doth not yield himself to the angels or to death utterly" (he +quoted) "save only through the weakness of his feeble will." Upon +continued resistence—continued victory—he was resolved, and in the +resolution he was happy.</p> + +<p>Best of all, Virginia was happy, and "Muddie"—dear, patient "Muddie!" +The two women chatted like magpies over their sewing or house-work, or +as they watered the flowers. They, like himself, had made friends. +Neighbors dropped in to chat with them or to borrow a pattern, or to +hear Virginia sing. And they had had a long visit from the violet-eyed +Eliza White. What a pleasure it had been to have the sweet, fair +creature with them! (He little guessed how tremulously happy the little +Eliza had been to bask for a time in his presence—just to be near the +great man—and meanwhile guard all the more diligently the secret that +filled her white soul and kept her, for all her beauty and charm, and +her many suitors, a spinster).</p> + +<p>Eliza had brought them a great budget of Richmond news. It had been like +a breath of spring to hear it. She talked and they listened and they all +laughed together from pure joy. How Virginia's laugh had rippled out +upon the air—it filled all the cottage with music!</p> + +<p>It was mid-January, and he sat gazing into the rose-colored heart of the +open coal fire going over it all—the whole brilliant, full year.</p> + +<p>"Sissy," he said suddenly, "Do you remember the birthday parties I used +to tell you about—that I had given me when I was a boy living with the +Allans?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed! and the cake with candles on it and all your best friends +to wish you many happy returns."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know the nineteenth will be my birthday, and I want to have a +party and a cake with candles and all our best friends here to wish you +and me many happy returns of the happiest birthday we have spent +together. I only wish old Cy were here to play for us to dance! I'd give +something pretty to have him and his fiddle here, just to see what these +sober-sided Penn folk would think of them. My, wouldn't they make a +sensation in the 'City of Brotherly Love!'" He began whistling as +clearly and correctly as a piccolo the air of a recently published +waltz. After a few bars he sprang to his feet and—still +whistling—quickly shoved the table and chairs to the wall, clearing the +middle of the floor. The tune stopped long enough for him to say,</p> + +<p>"Come, Sweetheart, you must dance this with me. My feet refuse to be +still tonight!"—then was taken up again.</p> + +<p>The beautiful girl was in his arms in an instant and while "Muddie," in +her seat by the window, lifted her deep eyes from the work in her +ever-busy hands and let them rest with a smile of indulgent bliss upon +her "children," they glided round and round the room to the time of the +fascinating new dance.</p> + +<p>At length they stopped, breathless and rosy, and the poet, with +elaborate ceremony, handed his fair partner to a chair and began fanning +her with "Muddie's" turkey-tail fan. He was in a glow of warmth and +pleasure. His wonderful eyes shone like lamps. His pale cheeks were +tinged with faint pink. While fanning Virginia with one hand he gently +mopped the pleasant moisture from his brow with the other. Virginia's +eyes shot sunshine. Her laughter bubbled up like a well-spring of pure +joy.</p> + +<p>"What would people say if they could see the great Mr. Poe—the grand, +gloomy and peculiar Mr. Poe—the author of 'Tales of the Grotesque and +Arabesque,' who's supposed to be continually 'dropping from his Condor +wings invisible woe?'" said she, as soon as she could speak. The idea +was so vastly amusing to her that she laughed until the shining eyes +were filled with dew.</p> + +<p>"If they could know half the pleasure I got out of that they wouldn't +say anything," he replied. "They would be dumb with envy. I suppose it's +my mother in me, but I just <i>must</i> dance sometimes. And this waltz! In +spite of all the prudes say against it, it is the divinest thing in the +way of motion that ever was invented. It's exercise fit for the gods!"</p> + +<p>He drew her to him and kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her lips.</p> + +<p>"It was heavenly—heavenly, Sis," said he, "And I don't suppose even the +prudes could object to a man's waltzing with his own wife. I wonder will +we ever dance to old Cy's fiddle again?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + + +<p>It was a very modest party, but a merry one. The ground was covered with +the unsullied whiteness of new-fallen snow and the coming of most of the +guests was heralded by the tintinnabulation of the little silver bells +so charming to the ear of the host.</p> + +<p>The Grahams were among the first to be welcomed out of the frosty night +into the glow of lamp and candle and firelight, by the cordial hand and +voice of Edgar Goodfellow. Mr. Graham was in tune to most heartily take +part in the commemoration of the birthday of the man who was making +<i>Graham's Magazine</i> the success of the publishing world in America. His +kindling blue eyes had never been kinder, his smile never more bland. +Mr. Alexander, founder of <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i> which so gladly +published and paid for everything that Edgar Poe would spare it from +<i>Graham's</i> was the next, and close following him, Mr. Cottrell Clarke, +first editor of the <i>Post</i>, and his charming wife. Captain and Mrs. +Mayne Reid, who were among the most admiring and affectionate friends of +the Poe trio were also there, and other congenial spirits.</p> + +<p>They came in twos and threes, their laughter as light and clear as the +tinkle of their sleigh-bells.</p> + +<p>And Rufus Griswold was there. The Dreamer with his deep reverence for +intellectual ability had a sincere admiration for Dr. Griswold—though +he did say he was "no poet." He desired the approval—the friendship—of +this brainy man and was proud and happy to have him of his party.</p> + +<p>Coming in after the rest of the company had assembled, the brainy man's +big frame, topped by his big head, with his prominent brow and piercing +eyes, his straight, thick nose, his large full-lipped close-set mouth, +his square jaw with the fringe of beard sharply outlining it, produced a +decided effect. He seemed to fill up a surprisingly large portion of the +room. Instinctively, the gentleman who had occupied the largest and +heaviest chair vacated it and invited him to be seated in it—which he +did, instinctively. He was a young man—under thirty—but looked much +older. His face was a strange one. It could not have been called ugly. +By some, indeed, it was considered handsome. It was strong, but it was +strange. There was an indefinable something unpleasant, something to +awaken distrust—fear—about it. Across the dome of the brow ran, +horizontally, a series of wavy furrows that produced, in place of the +benevolent air the lofty brow might have given, a sinister expression. +The eyes beneath the wrinkled brow were piercing and spoke of the fire +of active mentality, but they were always downcast and turned slightly +askance, so that few people caught the full force of their gleam, and +there was sternness and coldness, as well as will, in the prominent chin +and jaw.</p> + +<p>He came late, but he was a little more cordial in his expressions of +pleasure in coming than any of those before him. His bows to Virginia +and Mrs. Clemm were more profound—his estimation of Virginia's beauty +he made at once apparent in the intense, admiring gaze he bestowed upon +her. His words of congratulation and good will for his host were more +extravagant than those of any of the others and were uttered in a voice +as smooth—as fluent—as oil; while he rubbed his large, fleshy hands +together in a manner betokening cordiality. When his host spoke, he +turned his ear toward him (though his eyes glanced aside and downward) +with an air of marked attention, and agreed emphatically with his views +or laughed uproariously at his pleasantries.</p> + +<p>Yet at Rufus Griswold's heart jealousy was gnawing. Heaven had endowed +him with mind to recognize genius, yet had denied him its possession. He +that would have worn the laurel himself, was born to be but the +trumpeter of others' victories. He, like Edgar Poe, had an open eye and +ear for beauty—for harmony. He could feel the divine fire of +inspiration in the creations of master minds—yet he could not himself +create. He was a brilliant critic, but (as has been said) his ambition +was to be, like Poe, also a poet. His quick intuition had divined the +genius of Poe at their first meeting. He knew in a flash, that the neat, +slender, polished gentleman, with the cameo face, the large brow and the +luminous eyes, and with the deep-toned, vibrant voice, was one of the +few he had ever met of whom he could say with assurance, "There goes a +genius—" and of those few the topmost. Poe's writing, especially his +poetry, enthralled him. To have been able to come before the world as +the author of such work he would have sold his soul.</p> + +<p>And this man who had caught him in a net woven of mingled fascination, +and envy, and hate, had, oh, bitter!—while generously applauding him as +a critic and reviewer—as a compiler and preserver of other men's +work—had added, "But—but—he is no poet."</p> + +<p>He had received the stab without an apparent flinch. He had even laughed +and declared that Mr. Poe was right. That he himself knew he was no +poet—he did not aspire to be a real one, but only dropped into verse +now and then by way of pastime. The lie had slipped easily from his +tongue, but his eyes drooped ever so little more than usual as it did +so, their shifty gleam glanced ever so little more sidewise.</p> + +<p>And though he came late to the birthday feast, his words of friendship +were emphatic and the laugh that told of his pleasure in being there was +loud and frequent. And he smiled and rubbed his hands together—and +bided his time.</p> + +<p>And Edgar Poe was pleased—immensely pleased—on his gala night, with +the complimentary manner and the complimentary words of this welcome +guest—of this big, brainy man whose good opinion he so much desired.</p> + +<p>Alas, hapless Dreamer! Did the gleam of those eyes cast alway slightly +downward, slightly askance—give you no discomfort? Did the fang-like +teeth when the thick lips opened to pour forth birthday wishes or +streams of uproarious laughter, and the square lines of the jaw, suggest +to your ready imagination no hint of cruelty? If you could but have +known that what time he laughed and talked with your guests and feasted +at your board, with its tasty viands and its cake with lighted candles, +and bent his furtive glance upon the beauty of your guileless +Virginia—if you could but have known that in his black heart the canker +jealousy was gnawing and that, behind the smile he wore as a mask, the +brainy man was biding his time!</p> + +<p>It was a goodly little company—a coming together of bright wits and +(for the most part) of kind hearts, and the talk was crisp, and fresh, +and charming.</p> + +<p>Supper was served early.</p> + +<p>"My wife and her mother have thought that you Penn folk might like to +sit down to a Virginia supper," said the host, as he led Mrs. Graham to +the table, and stood for a moment while Virginia designated the seats to +be taken. Then still standing, said,</p> + +<p>"Every man a priest to his own household, is our Virginia rule, but as +we have with us tonight one who before he took up Letters wore the +cloth, I'm going to abdicate in his favor. Dr. Griswold will you ask a +blessing?"</p> + +<p>All heads were bowed while the time-honored little ceremonial was +performed, then seats were taken and the repast begun.</p> + +<p>Virginia presided over the "tea-things," while Mrs. Clemm occupied the +seat nearest the door opening on the kitchen, that she might slip as +unobtrusively as possible out and back again when necessary; but most of +the serving was done by the guests themselves, each of whom helped the +dish nearest his or her plate, and passed the plates from hand to hand. +All of the supper, save the dessert and fresh supplies of hot waffles +was on the table. There were oysters and turkey salad and Virginia ham. +And there were hot rolls and "batter-bread" (made of Virginia meal with +plenty of butter, eggs and milk, and a spoonful of boiled rice stirred +in) and there was a "Sally Lunn"—light, brown, and also hot, and plenty +of waffles. In the little spaces between the more important dishes there +were pickles and preserves—stuffed mangoes and preserved quinces and +currant jelly. And in the centre of the table was the beautiful birthday +cake frosted by Virginia's dainty fingers and brilliant with its +thirty-three lighted candles.</p> + +<p>There was just enough room left for the three slender cut-glass +decanters that were relics of Mother Clemm's better days.</p> + +<p>"The decanter before you, Mr. Graham, contains the Madeira; the Canary +is before you, Captain Reid, and I have here a beverage with which I am +very much in love at present—<i>apple wine</i>—" Edgar Poe said, tapping +the stopper of a decanter of cider near his plate.</p> + +<p>All understood. He had served the cider that he might join with them in +their pledges of friendship and good will without breaking through the +rule of abstemiousness in which he was finding so much benefit.</p> + +<p>The toasts were clever as well as complimentary, and the table-talk +light and sparkling. Finally both Mrs. Clemm and Virginia arose to clear +the table for the dessert.</p> + +<p>"You see, my friends, we keep no maid or butler," said the host, "but +I'm sure you will all agree with me in feeling that we would not +exchange our two Hebes for any, and they take serving you as a +privilege."</p> + +<p>The cake was cut and served with calves-foot jelly—quivering and ruby +red—and velvety <i>blanc mange</i>.</p> + +<p>After supper Virginia's harp was brought out of its corner and she sang +to them. With adorable sweetness and simplicity she gave each one's +favorite song as it was asked for—filling all the cottage with her pure +sweet tones accompanied by the bell-like, rippling notes of the harp. +The company sat entranced—all eyes upon the lovely girl from whose +throat poured the streams of melody.</p> + +<p>She seemed but a child; for all she had been married six years she had +but just passed out of her "teens" and might easily have been taken for +a girl of fifteen. Her hair, it is true, was "tucked up," but the +innocence in the upturned, velvet eyes, the soft, childish outlines of +the face, the dimpled hands and arms against the harp's glided strings, +the simple little frock of white dimity, all combined to give her a +"babyfied" look which was most appealing, and which her title of "Mrs. +Poe" seemed rather to accentuate than otherwise.</p> + +<p>Rufus Griswold's furtive eye rested balefully upon her. And this +exquisite being too, belonged to that man—as if the gods had not +already given him enough!</p> + +<p>From a far corner of the room her husband gazed upon her, and bathed his +senses in contemplation of her beauty while his soul soared with her +song. Mother Clemm noiselessly passing near him to snuff a candle on the +table upon which his elbow, propping his head, rested, paused for a +moment and laid a caressing hand upon his hair. He impulsively drew her +down to a seat beside him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Muddie, Muddie, look at her—look at her!" he whispered. "There is +no one anywhere so beautiful as my little wife! And no voice like hers +outside of Heaven!... Ah—"</p> + +<p>What was the matter? Was his Virginia ill? Even as he spoke her voice +broke upon the middle of a note—then stopped. One hand clutched the +harp, the other flew to her throat from which came only an inarticulate +sound like a struggle for utterance. Terror was in the innocent eyes +and the deathly white, baby face.</p> + +<p>For a tense moment the little company of birthday guests sat rooted to +their places with horror, then rushed in a mass toward the singer, but +her husband was there first—his face like marble. His arms were around +her but with a repetition of that inarticulate, gurgling sound she fell +limp against his breast in a swoon. From the sweet lips where so lately +only melody had been a tiny stream of blood oozed and trickled down and +stained her pretty white dress.</p> + +<p>"Back!—All of you!" commanded the low, clear voice of Edgar Poe, as +with the dear burden still in his arms he sank gently to the floor and +propping her head in his lap, disposed her limbs in comfortable, and her +dress in orderly manner. "Back—don't crowd! A doctor!"</p> + +<p>One of the guests from nearby, who knew the neighborhood, had already +slipped from the door and gone to fetch the nearest doctor. The others +sat and listened for his step in breathless stillness.</p> + +<p>Edgar Poe bent his marble face above the prostrate form of his wife, +calling to her in endearing whispers while, with his handkerchief he +wiped from her lips the oozing, crimson stream. His teeth chattered. +Once before he had seen such a stream. It was long ago—long ago, but he +remembered it well. He was back—a little boy, a mere baby—in the +small, dark room behind Mrs. Fipps' millinery shop, in Richmond, and a +stream like this came from the lips of his mother who lay so still, so +white, upon the bed. And his mother had been dying. He had seen her +thus—he would see her nevermore!... Would the doctor never come?—</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Many days the Angel of Death spread his wings over the cottage in the +Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. Their shadow cast a great stillness +upon the cottage. Outside was a white, silent world. Snow had +fallen—snow on snow—until it lay deep, deep upon the garden-spot and +deep in the streets outside. There was no wind and the ice-sheathed +trees that were as sentinels round about the cottage stood still. They +seemed to listen and to wait.</p> + +<p>Inside, in the bed-chamber upstairs, under the shelving walls of the low +Dutch roof, The Dreamer's heartsease blossom lay broken and wan upon the +white bed. It was a very white little blossom and the dark eyes seemed +darker, larger than ever before as they looked out from the pale face. +But they had never seemed so soft and a smile like an angel's played now +and again about her lips.</p> + +<p>Beside her, with his lips pressed upon the tiny white hand which he held +in both his own was the bowed figure of a man—of a poet and a lover who +like the ice-sheathed trees seemed to listen and to wait—of a man whose +countenance from being pale was become ghastly, whose eyes from being +luminous were wild with a "divine despair."</p> + +<p>At the foot of the bed sat a silver-haired woman with saintlike face +uplifted in resignation and aspiration. For once the busy hands were +idle and were clasped in her lap. She too, listened and waited, as she +had listened and waited for days. Oh Love! Oh Life! Are these the happy +trio who lived for each other only in the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass?</p> + +<p>The silence was only broken when the lips of the invalid moved to murmur +some loving words or to babble of the flowers in the Valley. She was in +no pain but she was very tired. She was not unhappy, for the two whom +she loved and who loved her were with her and though she was tired she +soon would rest—in Heaven. When she spoke of going the man's heart +stood still with terror. He held the hand closer and pressed his lips +more fiercely upon it.</p> + +<p>He would not let her go, he vowed. There was no power in Heaven or hell +to whom he would yield her.</p> + +<p>But she sweetly plead that he would not try to detain her—that he would +learn to bear the idea of her leaving him which now gave her no +unhappiness but for one thought—the thought that after a season he +might, in the love of some other maiden, forget the sweet life he had +lived with her in the Valley, and that because of his forgetting, it +would not be given to him to join her at last, in the land where she +would be waiting for him—the land of Rest.</p> + +<p>At her words, he flung himself upon his knees beside her bed and offered +up a vow to herself and to Heaven that he would never bind himself in +marriage to any other daughter of earth, or in any way prove himself +forgetful of her memory and her love, and to make the vow the stronger, +he invoked a curse upon his head if he should ever prove false to his +promise.</p> + +<p>And as she listened her soft eyes grew brighter and she, in turn, made a +vow to him that even after her departure she would watch over him in +spirit and if it were permitted her, would return to him visibly in the +watches of the night, but if that were beyond her power, would at least +give him frequent indications of her presence—sighing upon him in the +evening winds or filling the air which he breathed with perfume from the +censers of the angels.</p> + +<p>And she sighed as if a deadly burden had been lifted from her breast, +and trembled and wept and vowed that her bed of death had been made easy +by his vow.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But it was not to be the bed of death. Little by little the shadow +lifted from over the cottage—the shadow of the wings of the Angel of +Death—and sunshine fell where the shadow had been, and a soft zephyr +made music, that was like the music of the voice of "Ligeia," in the +trees which dropped their sheath of ice. And the snow disappeared from +the streets and from the garden-spot which was all green underneath, and +by the time the crocuses were up health and happiness reigned once more +in the cottage.</p> + +<p>But it was a happiness with a difference. A happiness which for all it +was so sweet, was tinctured with the bitter of remorse.</p> + +<p>During the illness of his beloved wife, Edgar Poe had lived over and +over again through the horror of her death and burial with all of the +details with which the circumstances of his life had so early made him +familiar—and had tasted the desolation for him which must follow. While +his soul had been overwhelmed with this supreme sorrow his mind had been +unusually clear and alert. He had been alive to the slightest change in +her condition. Anticipating her every whim, he had nursed her with the +tenderness the untiring devotion, of a mother with her babe. Through +all his grief he was quiet, self-possessed, efficient.</p> + +<p>But with the first glimmer of hope, his head reeled. His reason which +had stood the shock of despair, or seemed to stand it, gave way before +the return of happiness. A wild delirium possessed him. Joy drove him +mad, and already drunk with joy—mad with it—he flung prudence, +philosophy, resolutions to the wind and drank wine—and drank—and +drank. When—where—how much—he did not know; but at last merciful +illness overtook him and stopped him in his wild career.</p> + +<p>With his convalescence his right mind returned to him; but he felt as he +did when he awoke to consciousness in Mother Clemm's bed-chamber in +Baltimore—that he had been down into the grave and back again. +Only—then there was no remorse—no fiercely accusing conscience to make +him wish from his soul that he might have remained in the abyss.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In dressing-gown and slippers he sat—weak and tremulous—in an +arm-chair drawn close to the open fire in the cottage sitting-room. +About him hovered his two angels, anticipating his every need, pausing +at his side now and again to bestow a delicate caress. Virginia was more +beautiful since her illness. Her face and figure had lost their +plumpness and with it their childish curves—but a something exalted and +ethereal had taken their place. Her eyes were softer, more wistful than +ever. Through her fair, transparent skin glowed the faintest, most +exquisite bloom. Her harp was mute. Her singing voice was gone. But the +deep, low tones of her speaking voice, full of restrained feeling, could +only be compared by her husband to the melodious voice of the +dream-woman, "Ligeia." They recalled to him the impression that the +voice of the priest as he read the funeral rite over his dead mother had +made upon his infant mind—the impression of <i>spoken</i> music. His +Virginia could no longer sing, but every word that fell from her lips +was music.</p> + +<p>As she and her tall, nun-like mother quietly stepped about the rooms +ministering to his comfort, lifting the work of preparing the simple +meals, mending the fire, and keeping the rooms bright into a sacred rite +by the grace, the care, the dignity with which it was performed, no +word, no look escaped either save of tenderness, patience, and boundless +love. All the reproaches came from within his own breast—from that +inner self that boldly tearing the veil from his deeds filled him with +loathing of himself.</p> + +<p>The years, his troubles, and his illness, had wrought a great change in +him—outwardly. The dark ringlets that framed his face were still +untouched with rime, and the dark grey eyes were as vivid, as +ever-varying in expression as before, but the large brow wore a furrow +and over it and the clear-cut features and the emaciated cheeks was a +settled pallor. The face was still very beautiful, but in repose it was +melancholy and about the mouth there was a touch of bitterness. The +illumining smile still flashed out at times, and filled all his +countenance with sweetness and light—but it was rarer than formerly.</p> + +<p>He had many reasons for being happy—for being thankful. The genius with +which he was conscious he was endowed in larger measure than others of +his generation was being recognized. He had fame—growing fame—and +money enough for his needs. He had what was as necessary to his soul as +meat was to his body—the love of a woman who understood him in all his +moods and who was beautiful enough in mind and in body and pure enough +in spirit for him to worship as well as to love—to satisfy his soul as +well as his senses. And this woman, at the very moment when he thought +himself about to lose her forever, had been given back to him—given +back clothed upon with a finer a more exquisite beauty than she had +possessed before.</p> + +<p>He had indeed found the end of the rainbow, but what did it amount to? +He was dissatisfied—not with what life was giving him, but with what he +was doing with his life. At the moment when his cup was fairly +overflowing with happiness and he should have been strongest, he had +suffered himself to be led away by the Imp of the Perverse, and had +spoiled all. Nothing he had ever been made to taste he told himself, was +so unbearably bitter as this dissatisfaction—this disgust with self.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Yet when again the tiny crimson stream stained the sweet lips of his +Virginia, and again the Angel of Death spread a dread wing for a season +over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, all his knowledge of the +bitterness—the loathing—of remorse was not sufficient to make him +strong for the struggle with grief and despair.</p> + +<p>Again the reason of Edgar Poe gave way before the strain, and again he +fell.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + + +<p>A day when the porch was rose-embowered once more and the garden-spot a +riot of color and the birds singing in the trees round about, found Mr. +Graham seated at Edgar Poe's desk in the office of <i>Graham's Magazine</i>. +The door behind him opened, and he raised his head from his writing and +quickly glanced over his shoulder. The look of inquiry in his blue eyes +instantly kindled into one of welcome.</p> + +<p>"Come in! Come in! Dr. Griswold," he exclaimed. "I am more than glad to +see you! We are overwhelmed with work just now and perhaps we'll induce +you to lend a hand."</p> + +<p>The visitor came forward with outstretched hand, stooping and bowing his +huge bulk as he came in a manner that to a less artless mind than Mr. +Graham's might have suggested a touch of the obsequious. His furtive but +watchful eye had already marked the fact that it was at Mr. Poe's +desk—not his own—that Mr. Graham sat—which was as he had anticipated.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Poe laid up again?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"Yes; he seems to be having quite an obstinate attack this time."</p> + +<p>The visitor sadly shook his head. "Ah?—poor fellow, poor fellow!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think his condition serious?" asked Mr. Graham, with anxiety.</p> + +<p>Dr. Griswold cast a glance of the furtive eye over his shoulder and +around the room; then stooped nearer Mr. Graham.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you know?" he questioned, in a lowered tone.</p> + +<p>"Only that the failure of his wife's health has been a sad blow to him +and that after each of her attacks he has had a break-down. Is there +anything more?"</p> + +<p>Dr. Griswold stooped nearer still and brought his voice to a yet lower +key.</p> + +<p>"Whiskey"—he whispered.</p> + +<p>Mr. Graham drew back and the candid brows went up.</p> + +<p>"Ah—ah" he exclaimed. Then fell silent and serious.</p> + +<p>"Did you never suspect it?" asked his companion.</p> + +<p>"Never. I used to hear rumors when he was with Billy Burton, but I never +saw any indications that they were true, and didn't believe them. How +could I? Think of the work the man turns out—its quantity, its quality! +He is at once the most brilliant and the most industrious man it has +been my good fortune to meet—and withal the most perfect +gentleman—exquisite in his manners and habits, and the soul of honor. +Did you ever know a man addicted to drink to be so immaculately neat as +he always is? Or so refined in manners and speech? Or so exact in his +dealings? There is no one to whom I would more readily advance money, or +with greater assurance that it will be faithfully repaid in his best, +most painstaking work—to the last penny!"</p> + +<p>Dr. Griswold's face took on a look of deep concern.</p> + +<p>"The more's the pity—the more's the pity!" said he. "A good man gone +wrong!" Then with a hesitating, somewhat diffident air.</p> + +<p>"You say that you need help which I might, perhaps, give?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Graham was the energetic business man once more. Dr. Griswold's +visit was most opportune, he said, for while he had on hand a good deal +of "copy" for the next number of the magazine—furnished by Mr. Poe +before his illness—there were one or two important reviews that must be +written and Dr. Griswold would be the very man to write them, if he +would.</p> + +<p>As Rufus Griswold seated himself at Edgar Poe's desk a look that was +almost diabolic came into his face. The temporary substitution was but a +step, he told himself, to permanent succession. As editor of the +magazine which under Poe's management had come to dominate thought in +America, he could speak to an audience such as he had not had before. +<i>He</i> could make or mar literary reputations and he could bring the +public to recognize him as a poet!</p> + +<p>It so chanced that upon that very day the editor of <i>Graham's Magazine</i> +found himself sufficiently recovered from his illness to go out for the +first time. As he fared forth, gaunt and tremulous, the midsummer beauty +of out-of-doors effected him curiously. It seemed strange to him that +the rose on the porch should be so gay, that the sunshine should lie so +golden upon the houses and in the streets of Spring Garden—that birds +should be singing and the whole world going happily on when his heart +held such black despair. As he went on, however, the fresh sweet air +gave him a sense of physical well-being that buoyed his spirits in spite +of the bitterness of his thoughts.</p> + +<p>He was going to work again, and he was glad of it—but he made no +resolutions for the future. In the past when he had fallen and had +braced himself up again, he had sworn to himself that he would be strong +thereafter—that he would never, never yield to the temptation to touch +wine again. But he had not been strong. And now he looked the deplorable +truth straight in the face. He hoped with all his soul that he would not +fall again. He would give everything he possessed to ensure himself from +yielding to the temptation to taste the wild exhilaration—the +freedom—the forgetfulness—to say to the cup "Nevermore"—to ensure +himself from having to pay the price of his yielding in the agony of +remorse that was a descent into hell.</p> + +<p>But he would deceive himself with no lying pledges. He hoped—he longed +to be strong; but he could not swear that he would be—he did not know +whether he would be or not. The temptation was not upon him now—he +loathed the very thought of it now; but the temptation would most +certainly return sooner or later. He hoped from the bottom of his soul +that he would resist it, but he feared—nay, in his secret heart he +believed—that he would yield. And because he believed it he loathed +himself.</p> + +<p>As he drew near the office he thought of Mr. Graham,—how kind he +was—how trustful. He wondered if Mr. Graham knew the cause of his +illnesses and if not how long it would before he would know it; and if +the attacks were repeated how long he would be able to hold the place +that had shown him the end of the rainbow? How bitter it would be to +some day find, added to all the other disastrous results of his weakness +of will—to find another in the editorial chair of <i>Graham's</i>.</p> + +<p>Just at this point in his soliliquy he reached his destination. He +mounted the steps leading to the office of <i>Graham's Magazine</i> and +opened the door—quietly.</p> + +<p>For a moment the two men in the office—each deep in his own work—were +unaware of his presence, and he stood staring upon their backs as they +sat at their desks. Mr. Graham was in his accustomed seat and in +his—The Dreamer's—the giant frame of the man whose big brain he +admired—though he was "no poet,"—the frame of Rufus Griswold!</p> + +<p>Horror clutched his heart. Mr. Graham evidently knew, and knowing had +supplied his place without deeming him worth the trouble of notifying, +even. Had supplied it, moreover, with the one man who he himself +believed would fill it with credit. The readers would be satisfied. He +would not be missed. He turned and stumbled blindly down the stairs. Mr. +Graham heard him, and hurrying to the door, recognized and followed +him—trying to explain and to persuade him to return. But he was too +much excited to listen. His reason prompted him to listen, but the Imp +of the Perverse laughed reason to scorn. Seeing disaster ahead he rushed +headlong to embrace it.</p> + +<p>He understood—he understood, he reiterated. There was nothing to +explain. Mr. Graham had secured Dr. Griswold's services. Mr. Graham had +done well. No, not for any inducement would he consider returning.</p> + +<p>He was gone! He was in the street—a wanderer! A beggar, he told +himself!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He wandered aimlessly about for an hour, then foot-sore—exhausted in +mind and body—he turned his face wearily in the direction of Spring +Garden, with its rose-embowered cottage sheltering exquisite +beauty—unalterable love—unfailing forgiveness—<i>heartsease</i>. He must +go home and tell "Muddie" and "Sissy" that he was a ruined man! Oh, if +they would only give him his desert for once! If they would only punish +him as he felt he should be punished. But they would not! They could +not—for they were angels. They were more—they were loving women filled +with that to which his mind and his soul bowed down and worshipped as +reverently as they worshipped God in Heaven—woman's love, with its +tenderness, its purity, and its unwavering steadfastness. They would +suffer—that horrible fear, the fear of the Wolf at the door which they +had not known in their beloved Spring Garden and since he had been with +<i>Graham's</i> would again rob them of peace. They would bear it with meek +endurance, but they would not be able to hide it from him. He would see +it in the wistful eyes of Virginia and in the patient eyes of "Muddie." +But they would utter no reproach. They would soothe him with winning +endearments and bid him be of good cheer and would make a gallant fight +to show him that they were perfectly happy.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>During the year and a half of Edgar Poe's connection with <i>Graham's +Magazine</i> he had raised the number of subscribers from five thousand to +thirty-seven thousand. His salary, like that he had received from <i>The +Messenger</i>, had been a mere pittance for such service as he gave, but +also, like what he received from <i>The Messenger</i> it had been a regular +income—a dependence. With the addition of the little checks paid him +for brilliant work in other periodicals, it had amply served, as has +been said, to keep the Wolf from the door. In order to make as much +without a regular salary it would be necessary for him to sell a great +many articles and that they should be promptly paid for. And so he +wrote, and wrote, and wrote, while "Muddie" took the little rolls of +manuscript around and around seeking a market for them. Her stately +figure and saintlike face became familiar at the doors of all the +editors and publishers in Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>It was a weary business but her strength and courage seemed never to +flag. Sometimes she succeeded in selling a story or a poem promptly and +receiving prompt pay. Then there was joy in the rose-embowered cottage. +Sometimes after placing an article payment was put off time and time +again until hope deferred made sick the hearts of all three dwellers in +the cottage.</p> + +<p>Oftentimes they were miserably poor—sometimes they were upon the verge +of despair—yet through all there was an undercurrent of happiness that +nothing could destroy—they had each other and even at the worst they +still dreamed the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, even +though the heartsease blossom drooped and drooped.</p> + +<p>Virginia's attacks continued to come at intervals, and each time the +shadow hung more persistently and with deeper gloom over the cottage. It +would be lifted at length, but not until the husband and mother had +suffered again all the agonies of parting—not until what they believed +to be the last goodbyes had been said and the imagination, running ahead +of the actual, had gone through each separate detail of death and +burial.</p> + +<p>The Dreamer's thoughts dwelt constantly upon these scenes and details +until finally the "dirges of his hope one melancholy burden bore—of +Never—Nevermore."</p> + +<p>Under the influence of the state of mind that was thus induced, a new +poem began to take shape in his brain—a poem of the death of a young +and beautiful woman and the despair and grief of the lover left to mourn +her in loneliness. As it wrote itself in his mind the word that had +thrilled and charmed and frightened him at the bedside of his mother and +to whose time his feet had so often marched, as to a measure—the +mournful, mellifluous word, Nevermore—became its refrain.</p> + +<p>The composition of his new poem became an obsession with him. His brain +busied itself with its perfection automatically. Not only as he sat at +his desk, pen in hand; frequently it happened that at these times the +divine fire refused to kindle—though he blew and blew. But at other +times, without effort on his part, the spark was struck, the flames +flashed forth and ran through his thoughts like wild-fire. When he was +helping Virginia to water the flowers in the garden; when he walked the +streets with dreaming eyes raised skyward, studying the clouds; when he +sat with Virginia and the Mother under the evening lamp or with feet on +the fender gazed into the heart of the red embers, or when he lay in his +bed in the quiet and dark—wherever he was, whatever he did, the phrases +and the rhythm of the new poem were filtering through his +sub-consciousness, being polished and made perfect.</p> + +<p>Indeed the poem in the making cast a spell upon him and he passed his +days and his nights as though in a trance. Virginia and Mother Clemm +knew that he was in the throes of creation, and they respected his +brown-study mood—stepping softly and talking little; but often by a +silent pressure of his hand or a light kiss upon his brow, saying that +they understood. They were happy, for they knew the state of mind that +enveloped him to be one of profound happiness to him—though the +brooding look that was often in his grey eyes told them that the visions +he was seeing had to do with sorrow. They waited patiently, feeling +certain that in due course would be laid before them a work in prose or +verse, presenting in jewel-like word and phrase, scenes in some strange, +fascinating country which it would charm them to explore.</p> + +<p>At last it was done! He told them while they sat at the evening meal.</p> + +<p>"I have something to read to you two critics after supper," he said. "A +poem upon which I have been working. I don't know whether it is of any +account or not."</p> + +<p>The two gentle critics were all interest. Virginia was breathless with +enthusiasm and could hardly wait to finish her supper.</p> + +<p>"I knew you were doing something great," she exclaimed. "I <i>know</i> it is +great! Nothing you have ever done has wrapped you up so completely. +You've been in a beautiful trance for weeks and Muddie and I have been +almost afraid to breathe for fear of waking you up too soon."</p> + +<p>As soon as supper was over he brought out one of the familiar narrow +rolls of manuscript and smilingly drew it out for them to see its +length—giving Virginia one end to hold while he held the other.</p> + +<p>She read aloud, in pondering tone, the two words that appeared at the +top: "The Raven."—</p> + +<p>Then, as she let go the end she held, the manuscript coiled up as if it +had been a spring, and the poet rolled it closely in his hands and with +his eyes upon the fire, began, not to read, but slowly to recite. His +voice filled the room with deep, sonorous melody, saving which there +was no sound.</p> + +<p>When the last words,</p> + +<p>"And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shall be lifted—nevermore!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>had been said, there was a moment of tense silence. Then Virginia cast +herself into his arms in a passion of tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Eddie," she sobbed, "it is beautiful—beautiful! But so sad! I feel +as I were the 'lost Lenore' and you the poor lover; but when I leave you +you must not break your heart like that. You and Muddie will have each +other and soon you will come after me and we will all be happy together +again—in Heaven!"</p> + +<p>No word passed the lips of the mother. Her silvered head was bowed in +grief and prayer. She too saw in "Lenore" her darling child, and she +felt in anticipation the loneliness and sorrow of her own heart. She +spoke no word, but from her saintly eyes two large bright tears rolled +down her patient cheeks upon the folded hands in her lap.</p> + +<p>And thus "The Raven" was heard for the first time.</p> + +<p>Soon afterward it was recited again. Edgar Poe carried it himself to Mr. +Graham and offered it for the magazine. Mr. Graham promised to examine +it and give him an answer next day. That night he read it over several +times, but for the life of him he could not make up his mind about it. +Its weirdness, its music, its despair, affected him greatly. But Mr. +Graham was a business man and he doubted whether, from a business point +of view, the poem was of value. Would people like it? Would it <i>take</i>? +He would consult Griswold about it—Griswold was a man of safe judgment +regarding such matters.</p> + +<p>Dr. Griswold was indeed, a man of literary judgment and of taste. The +beauty of the poem startled him. It would bring to the genius of Edgar +Poe (he said to himself)—the poetic genius—acknowledgment such as it +had never had before. It was <i>too good</i> a poem to be published. He had +bided his time and the hour of his revenge was come. He would have given +his right hand to have been able to publish such a poem over his own +signature—but the world must not know that Poe could write such an one!</p> + +<p>The candid eyes of Mr. Graham as he awaited his opinion were upon his +face. His own eyes wore their most furtive look—cast down and sidelong. +His tone was depressed and full of pity as he said,</p> + +<p>"Poor Poe! It is too bad that when he must be in need he cannot, or does +not, write something saleable. Of course you could not set such stuff as +this before the readers of <i>Graham's</i>!"</p> + +<p>For once Mr. Graham was disposed to question his opinion.</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," he said. "The poem has a certain power, it +seems to me. It might repel—it might fascinate. I should like to buy it +just to give the poor fellow a little lift. The lovely eyes of that +fragile wife of his haunt me."</p> + +<p>It was finally decided to let Mr. Poe read the poem to the office force, +and take the vote upon it.</p> + +<p>They were all drawn up in a semi-circle, even the small office boy, who +sat with solemn eyes and mouth open and who felt the importance of +being called upon to sit in judgment upon a "piece of poetry." Edgar Poe +stood opposite them and for the second time recited his new poem—then +withdrew while the vote was taken.</p> + +<p>Dr. Griswold was the first to cast his vote and at once emphatically +pronounced his "No!"</p> + +<p>The rest agreed with him that the poem was "too queer," but as a solace +for the poet's disappointment some one passed around a hat and the next +day a hamper of delicacies was sent to Mrs. Poe, with the "compliments +of the staff at <i>Grahams</i>."</p> + +<p>Albeit "The Raven" was rejected by Graham's Magazine and others, enough +of Edgar Poe's work was bought and published to keep his name and fame +before the public—just enough (poorly paid as it was) to keep the souls +of himself and his wife and his "more than mother," within their bodies.</p> + +<p>And though Mr. Graham would none of "The Raven," he paid its author +fifty-two dollars for a new story—"The Gold Bug." This sum seemed a +small fortune to The Dreamer at the time, but he was to do better than +that with his story. <i>The Dollar Magazine</i> of New York offered a prize +of one hundred dollars for the best short story submitted to it. Poe had +nothing by him but some critical essays, but remembering his early +success in Baltimore with "The MS. Found in a Bottle," he was anxious to +try. So he hastened with the critiques to <i>Graham's</i> and offered them in +place of the story.</p> + +<p>Mr. Graham agreed to the exchange and "The Gold Bug" was promptly +dispatched to New York, where it was awarded the prize.</p> + +<p>When it was published in <i>The Dollar Magazine</i> it made a great noise in +the world and a red-letter day in the life of Edgar Poe.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The hundred dollars brought indeed, a season of comfort and cheer in the +midst of the hardest times the cottage in Spring Garden had known. But +the last penny was finally spent.</p> + +<p>Winter came on—the winter of 1843. It was a severe winter to the +cottage. The bow of promise that had spanned it seemed to have withdrawn +to such a vast height above it that its outlines were indistinct—its +colors well nigh faded out.</p> + +<p>The reading public still trumpeted the praise of Edgar the Dreamer—his +friends still believed in him—from many quarters their letters and the +letters of the great ones of the day fluttered to the cottage. And not +only letters came, but the <i>literati</i> of the day in person—glad to sit +at Edgar Poe's feet, their hearts glowing with the eloquence of his +speech and aching as they recognized in the lovely eyes of the girl-wife +"the light that beckons to the tomb."</p> + +<p>But there were other visitors that winter, and less welcome ones. Though +the master of the cottage wrote and wrote, filling the New York and +Philadelphia papers and magazines with a stream of translations, +sketches, stories and critiques, for which he was sometimes paid and +sometimes not, the aggregate sum he received was pitifully small and the +Wolf scratched at the door and the gaunt features of Cold and Want +became familiar to the dwellers in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.</p> + +<p>In desperation the driven poet turned this way and that in a wild effort +to provide the necessities of life for himself and those who were +dearer to him than self—occasionally appearing upon the lecture +platform, and finally attempting, but without success, to secure +government office in Washington.</p> + +<p>And oftener and oftener, and for longer each time the Shadow rested upon +the cottage—making the Valley dark and drear and dimming the colors of +the grass and the flowers—the dread shadow of the wing of the Angel of +Death.</p> + +<p>Even at such times The Dreamer made a manful struggle to coin his brains +into gold—to bring to the cottage the comforts, the conveniences, the +delicacies that the precious invalid should have had. An exceedingly +appealing little invalid, she lay upon her bed in the upper chamber +whose shelving ceiling almost touched her head; and sometimes "Muddie" +and "Eddie" fanned her and sometimes they chafed her hands and her feet +and placed her pet, "Catalina," grown now to a large, comfortable cat, +in her arms, that the warmth of the soft body and thick fur might +comfort her shuddering frame. And oftentimes as she lay there "Eddie" +sat at a table nearby and wrote upon the long strips of paper which he +rolled into the neat little rolls which he or "Muddie" took around to +the editors.</p> + +<p>And sometimes the editors were glad to have them, and to pay little +checks for them, and sometimes not.</p> + +<p>The truth was, that though the fame of Edgar Poe was well established, +there was an undercurrent of opposition to him, that kept the price of +his work down. The little authors—venomous with spite and jealousy—the +little authors, chief among whom was Rufus Griswold of the furtive eye +and deprecating voice, were sending forth little whispers defaming his +character, exaggerating his weakness and damning his work with faint +praise, or emphatic abuse.</p> + +<p>A day came when Edgar Poe realized that he must move on—that the "City +of Brotherly Love" had had enough of him—that to remain must mean +starvation. What removal would mean he did not know. That might mean +starvation too, but, as least, he did not know it.</p> + +<p>It was hard to leave the rose-embowered cottage. It was April and about +Spring Garden and the cottage the old old miracle of the renewal of life +was begun. The birds were nesting and the earliest flowers were in +bloom. It was bitter to leave it—but, there was no money for the rent. +His fame had been greatest in New York, of late. The New York papers had +been the most hospitable to his work. It was bitter to leave Spring +Garden, but perhaps somewhere about New York they would find another +rose-embowered cottage. Virginia was unusually well for the present and +the prospect of a change carried with it a possibility of prosperity. +Who could tell what good fortune they might fall upon in New York?</p> + +<p>Edgar Goodfellow had suddenly made his appearance for the first time in +many moons. <i>A change</i> was the thing they all needed, he told himself. +In change there was hope!</p> + +<p>He placed Mother Clemm and "Catalina" temporarily with some friends of +the "City of Brotherly Love" who had invited them, and accompanied by +his Virginia who was looking less wan than for long past, fared forth, +in the highest spirits, to seek, for the second time a home in New York.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + + +<p>New York once more! They went by rail to Amboy and the remaining forty +miles by steamboat.</p> + +<p>Certain cities, like certain persons, are witches; they have power to +cast a spell. New York is one of them.</p> + +<p>Edgar and Virginia Poe had known hard times in New York—the bitterness +of hard times in a city large enough for each man to mind his own +business and leave his neighbors to mind theirs. Yet as the boat slowed +down and neared the wharf, and—past the shipping—they descried the +houses and spires of town looming, ghostlike, through the enveloping +mist of the soft, grey April day, it was with a thrill that these two +standing hand in hand—like children—upon the deck, clasped each +other's fingers with closer pressure and whispered,</p> + +<p>"New York once more!"</p> + +<p>It was their first little journey in the world just together, just they +two, and much as they loved the dear mother—their kind earthly +Providence, as they laughingly called her—there was something very +sweet about it. It was almost like a wedding journey. The star of hope +which never deserted them for long, no matter what their disappointments +and griefs might be, shone bright above their horizon—their beautiful +faces reflected its light. By it the lines of care and bitterness seemed +suddenly to have been smoothed out of Edgar's face, and under its +influence Virginia's merry laugh rippled out upon the moist air, causing +the eyes of her fellow-travellers to turn admiringly her way many +times.</p> + +<p>Her husband hovered tenderly near her, drawing her shawl with solicitous +hand closer about her shoulders and standing upon the windward side of +her to protect her from the damp and keen breeze. He noted with delight +the fresh color of her cheeks—the life and color in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Sweetheart," he said, "You have not coughed once since we +left Philadelphia! The change is doing you good already."</p> + +<p>Both were blythe as birds. As the boat tied up at the wharf a gentle +shower set in, but it did not effect their spirits. He left her on board +with some ladies whose acquaintance she had made during the journey, +while he fared forth in the rain in quest of a boarding-house. As he +stepped ashore he met a man selling second-hand umbrellas. He bought +quite a substantial one for sixty-two cents and went on his way +rejoicing in the lucky meeting and the good bargain.</p> + +<p>In Greenwich Street he found what he sought—a genteel-looking house +with "Boarders wanted," upon a card in the window. Another good bargain +was made, and hailing a passing "hack" he hastened back to the boat for +Virginia and her trunk and soon they were rattling over the +cobblestones.</p> + +<p>"Why this is quite a mansion," exclaimed the little wife, as she peered +out at the house before which the carriage stopped—for while the +gentility of the establishment was of the proverbial "shabby" variety, +the brown-stone porch and pillars gave it an air of unmistakable +dignity.</p> + +<p>Not long after their arrival the supper-bell rang, and they found +themselves responding with alacrity. When they took the seats assigned +them and their hungry eyes took in the feast spread before them, they +squeezed each other's hands under the table—these romantic young lovers +and dreamers. They had been happy in spite of frugality. Many a time +while hunger gnawed they had kissed each other and vowed they wanted +nothing (high Heaven pardoning the gallant lie!) Yet now, the +traveller's appetite making their palates keen—the travellers weariness +in their limbs—they were seized upon by an unblushing joy at finding +themselves seated at an ample board with a kindly landlady at the head +pouring tea—strong and hot—whose aroma was as the breath of roses in +their nostrels, while her portly and beaming spouse, at the foot, with +blustering hospitality pressed the bounty of the table upon them. A +bounteous table indeed, this decidedly cheap and somewhat shabby +boarding-house spread, and to their eager appetites everything seemed +delicious.</p> + +<p>There were wheat bread and rye bread, butter and cheese, cold country +ham and cold spring veal—generous slices of both, piled up like little +mountains—and tea-cakes in like abundance.</p> + +<p>They feasted daintily—exquisitely, as they did everything, but they +feasted heartily for the first time in months.</p> + +<p>After supper they went to their room—a spacious and comfortably, though +plainly, furnished one, with a bright fire burning in a jolly little +stove. Their spirits knew no bounds.</p> + +<p>"What would Catalina say to this solid comfort, Sis?" queried Eddie. "I +think she would faint for joy."</p> + +<p>For answer Virginia smiled upon him through a mist of tears.</p> + +<p>"Why Virginia—my Heart—" he cried in amazement. "What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Only that it is too beautiful!" she managed to say. "And to think that +Muddie and Catalina are not here to share it with us!"</p> + +<p>"Just as soon as I can scrape together enough money to pay for Muddie's +board and travelling expenses we will have them with us," he assured +her.</p> + +<p>She dried her eyes and perched upon his knee while he went through his +pockets and bringing out all the money he had, counted it into her palm.</p> + +<p>"Four dollars and a half," he said. "Not much, but we are fortunate to +have that. And with such fine living as we get here so cheap it will go +quite a long way. Let me see—the price of board and lodging is only +three and a half a week for both of us. Seven dollars would pay our way +for a fortnight—and in a fortnight's time there's no telling what may +turn up! Some editor might buy 'The Raven,' or money due me for work +already sold might come in. If I could only contrive to raise this sum +to seven dollars we could rest easy for at least a fortnight."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you how," said Virginia. "You have acquaintances here—hunt +up some of them and borrow three dollars. Then you would have enough to +pay two weeks board ahead and fifty cents over for pocket money."</p> + +<p>"Wise little head!" exclaimed he, tapping her brow, "The very idea!"</p> + +<p>And forthwith all care as to ways and means was thrown from both their +minds, and they gave themselves up to an evening of enjoyment of the +comforts of their brown-stone mansion.</p> + +<p>While Virginia was resting her husband went out for a little shopping to +be done with part of the fifty cents they had allowed themselves for +spending money. First he exchanged a few cents for a tin pan to be +filled with water and placed on top of the stove, for the comfort of +Virginia who had been oppressed by the dry heat. Then a few cents more +went for two buttons his coat lacked, a skein of thread to sew them on +with, and a skein of silk with which Virginia would mend a rent in his +trousers made by too close contact with a nail on deck of the steamboat.</p> + +<p>Next day was a bright, beautiful, spring Sunday. The sky and budding +trees had the newly-washed aspect often seen after a season of rain. The +sound of church-bells was on the air; the streets were filled with +people in their best clothes, and the new boarders in Greenwich Street, +fortified with a breakfast of ham and eggs and coffee, jubilantly joined +that stream of humanity which flowed toward the point above which +Trinity Church spire pierced the clear sky.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On Monday, Edgar Poe was taken with what he called a "writing fit." For +several days (during which Edgar Goodfellow remained in the ascendency) +the fit remained on him, and he wrote incessantly—only pausing long +enough, now and then, to read the result to Virginia.</p> + +<p>"This will earn us the money to bring Muddie and Catalina to New York," +he said with confidence.</p> + +<p>At last the manuscript was finished and no sooner was the ink dry upon +the paper than he took it to <i>The Sun</i>, which promptly bought and paid +for it, and upon the next Sunday, April 13, printed it not as a story, +but as news.</p> + +<p>"Astounding News by Express, <i>via</i> Norfolk!" (The headlines said). "The +Atlantic crossed in Three Days." Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's +Flying Machines!!!</p> + +<p>"Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, S.C., of Mr. Mason, Mr. +Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in +the Steering Balloon, 'Victoria,' after a passage of seventy-five hours +from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the Voyage!"</p> + +<p>Strange as it may seem, the "astounding news" was received by the people +of New York for fact. There was a rush for copies of the <i>Sun</i> which +announced with truth that it was the only paper in possession of the +"news," and not until denial came from Charleston, several days later, +was it suspected that the "news" was all a hoax and that Edgar +Goodfellow was simply having a little fun at the expense of the public.</p> + +<p>The story did, indeed, earn money with which to bring "Muddie" and +"Catalina" to New York. It did more—it brought the editors to Greenwich +Street looking for manuscript. They begged for stories as clever and as +sensational as "The Balloon Hoax," but in vain. Edgar Goodfellow had +vanished and in his place was Edgar the Dreamer who only had to tell of,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A wild, weird clime that lieth sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of Space—out of Time,<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where the traveller meets aghast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sheeted Memories of the Past,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shrouded forms that start and sigh<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As they pass the wanderer by,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">White-robed forms of friends long given<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In agony to the Earth and Heaven."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was in vain that the editors besought him to try something else in +the vein of "The Balloon Hoax," assuring him that that was what his +readers were expecting of him, after his recent "hit"—that was what +they would be willing to pay him for—pay him well. Was it the Imp of +the Perverse that caused him to positively decline, and to persist that +"Dreamland" was all he had to offer just then?</p> + +<p>It was Mr. Graham who finally accepted this quaint and beautiful poem, +and who published it—in the June number of <i>Graham's Magazine</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In October following the return of the Poes to New York—October of the +year 1844—Mr. Nathaniel P. Willis who was then editor of <i>The Evening +Mirror</i>, and had been editor of <i>The Dollar Magazine</i>, when it awarded +the prize of a hundred dollars to "The Gold Bug," was seated at his desk +in the "Mirror" office, when in response to his "Come in," a stranger +appeared in his doorway—a woman—a lady in the best sense of a word +almost become obsolete. A <i>gentlewoman</i> describes her best of all. She +was a gentlewoman, then, past middle age, yet beautiful with the high +type of beauty that only ripe years, beautifully lived, can bring—the +beauty that compensates for the fading of the rose on cheek and lip, the +dimming of the light in the eyes, for the frost on the brow—the beauty +of patience, of tenderness, of faith unquenchable by fire or flood of +adversity. A history was written on the face—a history in which there +was plainly much of tragedy. Yet not one bitter line was there.</p> + +<p>It was a face, withal, which could only have belonged to a mother, and +might well have belonged to the mother, Niobe.</p> + +<p>In figure she was tall and stately, with a gentle dignity. Her dress was +simple to plainness, and might have been called shabby had it been less +beautifully neat. It was of unrelieved black, and she wore a +conventional widow's bonnet, with floating white strings.</p> + +<p>The reader needs no introduction to this stranger to Mr. Willis, who in +a gentle, well-bred voice, with a certain mournful cadence in it, +announced herself as "Mrs. Clemm—the mother-in-law of Mr. Poe."</p> + +<p>No connection with a famous author was needed to inspire Mr. Willis with +respect for his visitor. She seemed to him to be an "angel upon earth," +and it was with an air approaching reverence that he handed her to the +most comfortable chair the office afforded.</p> + +<p>Her errand was quickly made known. Edgar Poe was ill and not able to +come out himself. His wife was an invalid, and so it devolved upon her +to seek employment for him. In spite of his fame, she said, and of his +industry, his manuscripts brought him so little money that he was in +need of the necessities of life. Regular work with a regular income, +however small, she felt to be his only hope of being able to rise above +want.</p> + +<p>Mr. Willis was distressed and promptly offered all he could. It was not +much, but it was better than nothing—it was the place of assistant +editor of his paper.</p> + +<p>For months following, the figure of Edgar Poe was a familiar one in the +office of the <i>Evening Mirror</i>. Neither in his character of Edgar the +Dreamer nor that of Edgar Goodfellow was he especially known there, but +simply as a modest, industrious sub-editor, doing the work of a +mechanical paragraphist as quietly, as unobtrusively, as a machine. With +rarely a smile and rarely a word, he stood from morning till night at +his desk in a corner of the editorial room—pale, still and beautiful as +a statue, punctual and efficient and the embodiment of courtesy always.</p> + +<p>And quietly and unobtrusively his personality made itself felt. Mr. +Willis came to love him for his innate charm and for his faithfulness to +duty.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But the desk of a sub-editor could not long hold a genius like Edgar +Poe. He bore its drudgery without complaint, but when an opening that +seemed to invite his ambition, as well as to promise better pay came, he +hailed it with enthusiasm. In March of the next year he formed a +partnership with two New York journalists, as editors and managers of +<i>The Broadway Journal</i>. A few months later saw him sole proprietor as +well as editor, and for a short, bright period his old dream of a +magazine of his own, in which he could write as he pleased, came true. +Its realization seemed to inspire him with new energy. How many heads, +how many right hands had the man—his readers asked each other—that he +could turn out such a mass of work of such high order? His own and many +other of the magazines of the day were filled with reviews and +criticisms that made him the terror of other writers, and with stories +and poems that made him the marvel of readers everywhere.</p> + +<p>His works were translated into the tongues of France, Germany and Spain, +and his fame grew in all of those countries.</p> + +<p>Yet the most that he could afford in the way of a home was up two +flights of stairs—two rooms in the third story of a dingy old house in +East Broadway. Mother Clemm and Virginia kept them bright and spotless +and "Catalina" dosing on the hearth gave a final touch of comfort, and +they were far above the noise and dust of the streets, with windows +opening upon a goodly view of the sky. They had a front and a back room, +so that the beauties of the dawn and the noontide—of sunset and +moonrise—were all theirs.</p> + +<p>And the Wolf came not near the door, and the three whose natures were +like to the natures of the oak, the vine and the heartsease, and who +lived for each other only, dreamed again the dream of the wonderful +valley—the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + + +<p>Up, up the stairs, two steps at a time, sprang The Dreamer, one white +January day, and burst in upon Mother Clemm who was preparing dinner, +and Virginia who was mending his coat. He was in a great glee. He caught +"Muddie" in his arms where she stood with her hands deep in a tray of +dough, and kissed her, then stooped over Virginia and kissed <i>her</i>, and +dropped into her lap a crisp ten dollar bank note. She gave a little +scream of delight.</p> + +<p>"Where did you get it?" she cried?</p> + +<p>"From Willis. I've sold him 'The Raven.' He's vastly taken with it and +not only paid me the ten, in advance, but will give the poem an +editorial puff in the <i>Mirror</i> of the nineteenth. He showed me a rough +draft. He will say that it is 'the most effective example of fugitive +poetry ever published in this country,' and predict that it will 'stick +in the memory of everybody who reads it!'"</p> + +<p>"And it will! It will!" cried Virginia. "Especially that 'Nevermore.' +I've done everything in time to it since the first night you read it to +us."</p> + +<p>"I've done everything in time to it since I was three years old," +murmured her husband. He drew the miniature from the inside pocket of +his coat where he had carried it, close against his heart, throughout +his life, and gazed long upon it. In his grey eyes was the tender, +brooding expression which the picture always called forth. "Ever since I +heard that word for the first time from the lips of my old nurse when +she took me in to see my mother robed for the grave, my feet and my +thoughts have kept time to it; and generally when my steps and my face +have been set toward hope and happiness it has risen before me like a +wall, blocking my way."</p> + +<p>Virginia arose from her chair letting her work and the bank note fall +unheeded from her lap, and went to him. Gently taking the miniature from +his hands she restored it to its place in his pocket and then with a +hand on each of his shoulders lifted her eyes to his.</p> + +<p>"Buddie," she said, calling him by the old pet name of their earliest +days, "You frighten me sometimes. The miniature is beautiful but it +makes you so sad. And when you talk that way about 'The Raven,' I feel +as if I could hear your tears dropping on my coffin-lid!" Then, with a +sudden change of mood, her laugh rang out, and she pressed her lips upon +his.</p> + +<p>"I'll have you know," she said, "I'm not dead yet, and you will not have +to journey to any 'distant Aidenn' to 'clasp' me."</p> + +<p>"No, thank God!" he breathed, crushing her to him.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was upon January 29, 1845, that "The Raven" appeared, with Willis's +introductory puff. In spite of Dr. Griswold and the staff of <i>Graham's +Magazine</i>, it created an instant furor. It was published and republished +upon both sides of the Atlantic. To quote a contemporary writer, +everybody was "raven-mad" about it, except a few "waspish foes" who +would do its author "more good than harm."</p> + +<p>It brought to the two bright rooms up the two flights of stairs visitors +by the score, eager to congratulate the poet, to make the acquaintance +of his interesting wife and mother and to assure all three of their +welcome to homes approached by brown-stone steps.</p> + +<p>And it brought letters by the score—some from the other side of the +Atlantic. Among these was one from Miss Elizabeth Barrett, soon to +become the wife of Mr. Robert Browning.</p> + +<p>"Your 'Raven' has produced a sensation here in England," she wrote. +"Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it, and some by its music. +I hear of persons haunted by the 'Nevermore,' and one of my friends who +has the misfortune of possessing a bust of Pallas never can bear to look +at it in the twilight. Mr. Browning is much struck by the rhythm of the +poem.</p> + +<p>"Then there is that tale of yours, 'The Case of M. Valdemar,' throwing +us all into a 'most admired disorder,' and dreadful doubts as to whether +'it can be true,' as children say of ghost stories. The certain thing in +the tale in question is the power of the writer and the faculty he has +of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar."</p> + +<p>Of all the letters from far and near, this was the one that gave The +Dreamer most pleasure, and as for Virginia and the Mother, they read it +until they knew it by heart.</p> + +<p>When, some months later, his new book, "The Raven and Other Poems," came +out, its dedication was, "To the noblest of her sex—Miss Elizabeth +Barrett, of England."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>And there was joy in the two rooms up two flights of stairs where Edgar +Poe sat at his desk reeling off his narrow little strips of manuscript +by the yard. His work filled <i>The Broadway Journal</i> and overflowed into +many other periodicals.</p> + +<p>While he created stories and poems, he gave more attention than ever to +the duties of his cherished post as Defender of Purity of Style for +American Letters, and the fame to which he had risen giving him new +authority, he made or marred the reputation of many a literary aspirant.</p> + +<p>Exposition of plagiarism became a hobby with him, and his attacks upon +Longfellow upon this ground, brought on a controversy between him and +the gentle poet which reached such a heat that it was dubbed "The +Longfellow War." All attempts of friends and fellow journalists to make +him more moderate in his criticisms were in vain; they seemed indeed, +but to excite the Imp of the Perverse, under whose influence he became +more merciless than ever. An admirer of this virtue carried to such an +extreme that it became a serious fault, as it was assuredly a grievous +mistake, humorously characterized him in a parody upon "The Raven," +containing the following stanza:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Neither rank nor station heeding, with his foes around him bleeding,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sternly, singly and alone, his course he kept upon that floor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the countless foes attacking, neither strength nor valor lacking,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On his goodly armor hacking, wrought no change his visage o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As with high and honest aim he still his falchion proudly bore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Resisting error evermore."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Many of the "waspish foes" thus made turned their stings upon his +private character, against which there was already a secret poison +working—the poison that fell from the tongue, and the pen of Rufus +Griswold. He had the ear of numbers of Edgar Poe's friends in the +literary world, and what time The Dreamer dreamed his dreams in utter +ignorance of the unfriendliness toward him of the big man whose big +brain he admired, the big man watched for his chance to insert the +poison. It was invariably hidden in a coating of sugar. Poe was a +wonderful genius, he would declare, his imagination—his style—they +were marvellous! Marvelous! His <i>head</i> was all right, but—. The "but" +always came in a lowered tone, full of commiseration, "<i>but</i>—his +<i>heart</i>!—Allowance should, of course, be made for his innate lack of +principle—he should not be held <i>too</i> responsible. His habits—well +known to everyone of course!"</p> + +<p>No—they were not even suspected, many of his listeners replied. Might +not Dr. Griswold be mistaken? they asked. Was it possible that an +habitual drunkard could turn out such a mass of brilliant and artistic +work? And consider the exquisite neatness of his manuscript!</p> + +<p>Peradventure the listener persisted in believing his informant +mistaken—peradventure he at once accepted the damaging statements; but +in every case the poison had been administered, and was at work.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There was just one class among the writers of the day sacred from the +attacks of Edgar Poe's pen. Before almost everything else The Dreamer +was chivalrous. The "starry sisterhood of poetesses" and authoresses, +therefore, escaped his criticisms. One of his contemporaries said of +him that he sometimes mistook his vial of prussic acid for his ink-pot. +In writing of authors of the gentle sex, his ink-pot became a pot of +honey.</p> + +<p>Several of these literary ladies living in New York had their salons, +where they received, upon regular days, their brothers and sisters of +the pen, and at which The Dreamer became a familiar figure.</p> + +<p>"I meet Mr. Poe very often at the receptions," gossiped one of the fair +poetesses in a letter to a friend in the country. "He is the observed of +all observers. His stories are thought wonderful and to hear him repeat +'The Raven' is an event in one's life. People seem to think there is +something uncanny about him, and the strangest stories are told and what +is more, <i>believed</i>, about his mesmeric experiences—at the mention of +which he always smiles. His smile is captivating! Everybody wants to +know him, but only a few people seem to get well acquainted with him."</p> + +<p>Chief among the salons of New York was that of Miss Anne Charlotte +Lynch—who was afterward Mrs. Botta. An entré to her home was the +most-to-be-desired social achievement New York could offer, for it meant +not only to know the very charming lady herself, but to meet her +friends; and she had drawn around her a circle made up of the persons +and personages—men and women—best worth knowing. She became one of The +Dreamer's most intimate friends, and always made him and his wife +welcome at her "evenings." It was not long after "The Raven" had set the +town marching to the word "nevermore," that he made his first visit +there—a visit which long stood out clear in the memories of all +present.</p> + +<p>In the cavernous chimney a huge grate full of glowing coals threw a +ruddy warmth into Miss Lynch's spacious drawing-room. Waxen tapers in +silver and in crystal candelabra, and in sconces, filled the apartment +with a blaze of soft light, lit up the sparkling eyes and bright, +intellectual faces of the assembled company, and showed to advantage the +jewels and laces of the ladies and the broadcloth of the gentlemen.</p> + +<p>Miss Lynch stood at one end of the room between the richly curtained +windows and immediately in front of a narrow, gold-framed mirror which +reached from the frescoed ceiling to the floor and reflected her +gracious figure to advantage. She was listening with interested +attention to Mr. Gillespie, the noted mathematician, whose talk was +worth hearing in spite of the fact that he stammered badly. His subject +tonight happened to be the versatility of "Mr. P-P-Poe."</p> + +<p>"He might have been an eminent m-m-mathematician if he had not elected +to be an eminent p-p-poet," he was saying.</p> + +<p>To her right Mr. Willis's daughter, Imogen, was flirting with a tall, +lanky young man with sentimental eyes, a drooping moustache and thick, +straight, longish hair, whose lately published ballad, "Oh, Don't You +Remember Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?" was all the rage.</p> + +<p>To her left the Minerva-like Miss Margaret Fuller whose critical papers +in the <i>New York Tribune</i> were being widely read and discussed, was +amiably quarreling with Mr. Horace Greely, and upon a sofa not far away +Mr. William Gilmore Simms, the novelist and poet, was gently disagreeing +with Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith in her contention for Woman's Rights.</p> + +<p>At the opposite end of the room a lovely woman in a Chippendale chair +was the central figure of a group of ladies and gentlemen each of whom +hung upon her least word with an interest amounting to affection. She +was a woman who looked like a girl, for thirty years had been kind to +her. Glossy brown hair parted in the middle and brushed smoothly down in +loops that nearly covered her ears framed an oval face, with delicate, +clear-cut features, pale complexion and eyes as brown and melting as a +gazelle's.</p> + +<p>She was none other than Mrs. Frances Osgood, the author, or authoress, +as she would have styled herself, of "The Poetry of Flowers"—so much +admired by her contemporaries—whose husband, Mr. S.S. Osgood, the well +known artist, had won her heart while painting her portrait.</p> + +<p>Conspicuous in the group of literary lights surrounding her was Dr. +Griswold in whose furtive glance, had she been less free from guile, she +might have read an admiration fiercer than that of friendship or even of +platonic love, and to whose fires she had unwittingly added fuel by +expressing admiration for his poems—Mr. Poe's opinion to the contrary.</p> + +<p>Mr. Locke, author of "The Moon Hoax," was of the group; and the Reverend +Ralph Hoyt, who was a poet as well as a preacher; and Mr. Hart, the +sculptor; and James Russell Lowell, who happened to be in town for a few +days; and Mr. Willis and his new wife; and Mrs. Embury whose volume of +verse, "Love's Token Flowers," was just out and being warmly praised; +and George P. Morris, Willis's partner in the <i>Mirror</i>, whose "Woodman, +Spare that Tree!" and "We were Boys Together," had (touching a human +chord) made him popular.</p> + +<p>The beloved physician, Dr. Francis, seemed to be everywhere at once, as +he moved about from group to group with a kindly word for +everybody—the candle-light falling softly upon his flowing silver locks +and his beaming, ruddy countenance.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, there was a slight stir in the room—a cessation of talk—a +turning toward one point.</p> + +<p>"There is Mr. P-P-Poe now," said Mr. Gillespie to Miss Lynch, and +followed her as, with out-stretched hand and cordial smile, she hastened +toward the door where stood the trim, erect, black-clad figure of Edgar +Poe, with his prominent brow and his big dreamy eyes, and his wife, pale +as a snow-drop after her many illnesses, and as lovely as one, and still +looking like a child, upon his arm.</p> + +<p>Instant pleasure and welcome were written upon every face present save +one, and even that quickly assumed a smile as its owner came forward +bowing and stooping in an excess of courtesy.</p> + +<p>The pair became immediately the centre of attraction. Everybody wanted +to have a word with them. It made Virginia thoroughly happy to see +"Eddie" appreciated, and she chatted blythely and freshly with all—her +spontaneous laugh bearing testimony to her enjoyment—while The Dreamer +yielded himself with his wonted modesty and grace to the hour—answering +questions as to whether he <i>really did</i> believe in ghosts and whether +the experiments in mesmerism in his story, "The Case of M. Valdemar" had +<i>any</i> foundation in fact, with his captivating but enigmatic smile, and +a little Frenchified shrug of the shoulders.</p> + +<p>It would have seemed at first that he had diverted attention from the +fair author of "The Poetry of Flowers" to himself, but erelong—no one +knew just how it came to pass—Edgar Poe was sitting upon an ottoman +drawn close to the Chippendale chair, and the two lions were deep in +earnest and intimate conversation upon which no one else dared intrude. +The furtive eye of Rufus Griswold marked well the evident attraction +between these two beautiful and gifted beings—<i>poets</i>—and something +like murder awoke in his heart.</p> + +<p>The tete-a-tete was interrupted by Miss Lynch, who declared that she +voiced the wish of all present in requesting that Mr. Poe would recite +"The Raven."</p> + +<p>All the candles save enough to make (with the fire's glow) a dim +twilight, were put out, and the poet took his stand at one end of the +long room.</p> + +<p>A hush fell upon the company and in a quiet, clear, musical voice, he +began the familiar words.</p> + +<p>There was scarcely a gesture—just the motionless figure, the pale, +classic face, which was dim in the half-light, and the deep, rich voice.</p> + +<p>Miss Lynch was the first to break the silence following the final +"Nevermore." Moving toward him with her easy, distinguished step, she +thanked him in a few low-spoken words. Mrs. Osgood, rising gracefully +from her chair, followed her example, with Dr. Griswold at her heels, +and in a few moments more the whole room was in an awed and subdued hum.</p> + +<p>The girl-wife came in for her share of the lionizing. Her appearance was +in marked contrast to that of the richly apparelled women about her. The +simplest dress was the only kind within her reach—for which she may +have consoled herself with the thought that it was the kind that most +adorned her. She wore tonight a little frock made by her own fingers, of +some crimson woolen stuff, without a vestige of ornament save a bit of +lace, yellow with age, at the throat. Her hair was parted above the +placid brow, looped over her ears and twisted in a loose knot at the +back of her head, in the prevailing fashion for a young matron; which +with her youthful face, gave her a most quaint and charming appearance.</p> + +<p>Her husband's coat had seen long service, but it was neatly brushed and +darned, and the ability to wear threadbare clothing with distinction was +not the least of Edgar Poe's talents. Beside his worn, but cared-for +apparel, costly dress often seemed tawdry.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Out from the warmth and the light and the perfume and the luxury and the +praise of the beautiful drawing-room with its distinguished +assemblage,—out into the streets of New York—into the bleakness and +the darkness of the winter's night—stepped Edgar Poe and his wife. +Virginia was wrapped against the cold in a Paisley shawl that had been +one of Mother Clemm's bridal presents, while Edgar wore the military +cape he had at West Point and which, except in times of unusual +prosperity, had served him as a great-coat ever since.</p> + +<p>Through the dimly-lit streets, slippery with ice, and wind-swept, they +made their way to the two rooms up two flights of stairs, where the +Widow Clemm mended the fire with a few coals at a time and sewed by a +single candle, as she waited for them—the lion of the most +distinguished circle in America and his beautiful wife!</p> + +<p>Back from a world of dreams created by a company of dreamers to the +reality of an empty larder and a low fuel pile and a dun from the +landlord from whom they rented the two rooms.</p> + +<p>"The Raven" had brought its author laurels in abundance, but only ten +dollars in money. Editors were clamoring for his work and he was +supplying it as fast as one brain and one right hand could; and some of +them were sending their little checks promptly in return and some were +promising little checks some day; but <i>The Broadway Journal</i> had failed +for lack of capital. It was the old story. He had no regular income and +the irregularly appearing little checks only provided a +from-hand-to-mouth sort of living for the three.</p> + +<p>Yet they had their dreams. Landlords might turn them out of house and +home but they were powerless to deprive them of their dreams.</p> + +<p>Mother Clemm's one candle was burning low—its light and that of the +dying fire barely relieved the room from darkness and did not prevent +the rays of the newly arisen full moon from coming through the lattice +and pouring a heap of silver upon the bare floor.</p> + +<p>"Look Muddie! Look Sissy!" cried the poet. "If we lived in a blaze of +light, like your rich folk, we should have to go out of doors to see the +moon. Who says there are not compensations in this life?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + + +<p>But it was not always possible to take a hopeful view. Continued poverty +which oftentimes reached the degree of positive want, anxiety for +Virginia's health and inability to provide for her the remedies and +comforts he felt might preserve her life, were enough to arouse Edgar +Poe's blue devils, and they did.</p> + +<p>Why detail the harassments of the rest of that winter, during which The +Dreamer led a strange double life—a life in the public eye of +distinction, prosperity, popularity, but in private, a hunted life—a +life of constant dread of the wrath of a too long indulgent landlord or +grocer—a flitting from one cheap lodgement to another.</p> + +<p>One gleam of genuine sunshine brightened the dreary days. The +acquaintance with Frances Osgood begun at Miss Lynch's salon soon +ripened into close friendship. She found her way up the two flights of +stairs and Edgar and Virginia and the Mother received her with as ready +courtesy and welcome as though the two rooms that looked on the sky had +been a palace. Her intimacy became so complete—her understanding of, +and sympathy with, the three who lived for each other only so perfect +that it was almost as if she had been admitted to the Valley of the +Many-Colored Grass.</p> + +<p>Upon her The Dreamer bestowed in abundant measure that poetic love which +the normal heart is no more capable of feeling than the normal mind is +capable of producing his poetry. A love which was like his landscapes, +not of this world or of the earth earthy—a love of the mind, the +imagination, the poetic faculty. A love whose desire was not to possess, +but to kneel to. In his rhapsodies over the phantasmal women his genius +created or the real ones whose charm he felt, it was never of flesh and +blood beauty—of blooming cheek or rounded form—that he sang, but of +the expression of the eye, the tones of the voice, the graces and gifts +of the spirit and the intellect.</p> + +<p>In return for this love he asked only sympathy—sympathy such as he drew +from the sky and the forest and the rock-bound lake and the winds of +heaven—mood sympathy.</p> + +<p>It was a love quite beyond the imagination of Rufus Griswold to conceive +of, even. His furtive eye was on the watch, his jealous heart was filled +with foul surmises and he added a new poison to the old, with which he +was working, drop by drop, upon the good name of Edgar Poe.</p> + +<p>Meantime the poet, harassed by troubles of divers kinds but innocent of +the new poison as he had been of the old, welcomed the intimacy of this +congenial woman friend as balm to his tried spirit; and delved away at +his work.</p> + +<p>Upon his desk one morning, were piled a number of the small rolls of +narrow manuscript with which the reader is familiar. These were a series +of critical sketches entitled "The Literati of New York," by which he +hoped to keep the pot boiling some days. Virginia was listening for a +step on the stair, for she had written Mrs. Osgood a note that morning, +begging her to come to them, and she knew that she would respond. The +door opened and the slight, graceful figure and delicate face with the +gentle eyes, she looked for, appeared.</p> + +<p>"What are all these?" asked the visitor, when she had embraced Virginia +warmly and when the poet had, after bowing over her hand, which he +lightly touched with his lips, led her to a chair.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were fixed upon the pile of manuscripts.</p> + +<p>"One of them is yourself, Madam," replied the poet.</p> + +<p>"Myself?" she questioned, in amazement.</p> + +<p>He bowed, gravely. "Yourself—as one of the Literati of New York. In +each one of these one of you is rolled up and discussed. I will show you +by the difference in their length the varying degrees of estimation in +which I hold you literary folk. Come Virginia, and help me!"</p> + +<p>The fair visitor smiled as they drew out to the full length roll after +roll of the manuscript—letting them fly together again as if they had +been spiral springs. The largest they saved for the last. The poet +lifted it from its place and gave an end to his wife and like two merry, +laughing children they ran to opposite corners, stretching the +manuscript diagonally across the entire space between.</p> + +<p>"And whose 'linked sweetness long drawn out' is that?" asked the +visitor.</p> + +<p>"Hear her!" cried Edgar Goodfellow who was in the ascendent for the +first time in many a long day. "Hear her! Just as if her vain little +heart didn't tell her it's herself!"</p> + +<p>But the moment of playfulness was a rarity, and all the more enjoyed for +that.</p> + +<p>The papers came out in due course, serially, and created a new sensation +and brought their little reward, but they also plunged their author into +a succession of unsavory quarrels. As each one appeared, it was looked +for with eagerness and read with intense interest by the public, but +frequently with as intense anger by the subject.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most caustic of all the critiques was the one upon the work +of Mr. Thomas Dunn English, whom Poe contemptuously dubbed, "Thomas Done +Brown."</p> + +<p>Mr. English bitterly retorted with an attack upon his critic's private +character. A fierce controversy followed in which English became so +abusive that Poe sued and recovered two hundred and twenty-five dollars +damages—which goes to prove that even an ill wind can blow good.</p> + +<p>Long after the papers had been published the scene of playful idleness, +with all its holiday charm, when Edgar Poe drew out the strips of +manuscript in which were rolled up "The Literati of New York" remained +in Mrs. Osgood's memory, and in his own. To him it was indeed a gleam of +brightness amid a throng of "earnest woes," a season of calm in a +"tumultous sea."</p> + +<p>But, as been said, why dwell upon the details of that bleak, despairing +winter? Spring brought a change which makes a more pleasant picture.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Ever since they had left Philadelphia the Poes had clung, in memory, to +the rose-embowered cottage in Spring Garden. There, they told each +other, they had a home to their minds. It was the dear "Muddie," their +ever faithful earthly Providence to whom they were already so deeply +indebted, who discovered in the suburb of Fordham, a tiny cottage which +had much of the charm of which they dreamed—even to the infinitesimal +price for which it could be rented.</p> + +<p>It was only a story and a half high, but there was a commodious and +cheerful room down stairs, with four windows, and from the narrow +hallway a quaint little winding stair led to an attic which though its +roof was low and sloping contained a room large enough to serve the +double purpose of bed-chamber and study.</p> + +<p>There was a pleasant porch across the front of the cottage which would +make an ideal summer sitting-room and study, when the half-starved +rose-bush upon it should have been nursed and trained to screen it from +the sun.</p> + +<p>The cottage stood upon a green hill, half-buried in cherry trees—just +then in full bloom and filled with bird-song. Nearby was a grove of +pines and a short walk away was the Harlem River, with its picturesque, +high, stone bridge. It was an abode fit to be in Paradise, Edgar told +Virginia and the Mother, and within a few days they and their few small +possessions—including Catalina—were as well established there as if +they had never known any other home.</p> + +<p>The moving in recalled the earliest days of their life at Spring Garden. +Again "Muddie" was busy, not with soap and water only, but with the +whitewash brush. Again their hearts were blythe with the pleasing sense +of change—of the opening up of a new vista of there was no knowing what +happiness—just as children welcome any change for the change itself, +always expecting to find pleasant surprises upon a new and untried road.</p> + +<p>But there was a difference in themselves since the moving into the +Spring Garden Cottage, which had been so gradual that they were scarcely +conscious of it. The years since then lay heavily upon them. They showed +plainly in the deepened lines in Mother Clemm's face, in the deepened +anxiety in her Mater Dolorosa eyes, in the frost upon the locks that +peeped from under her immaculate widow's cap. They showed in the +fragile figure of Virginia—once so full of sweet curves;—in the +ethereal look that had come into the once rounded cheeks and full +pouting lips, in the transparency of her skin and in the sweet eyes that +when not filled with the merry laughter that had through thick and thin +filled her dwelling place with sunshine and music, had a faraway +expression in them, as if they were looking into another world.</p> + +<p>They showed most of all in The Dreamer himself. To him these years had +been years of fierce battle; battle, not for wealth, but for bread; +battle not so much for selfish ambition as for his country, and in a +high sense—for he had fought valiantly to win a place for America in +the world of letters; battle with himself—with the devils that sought +mastery over his spirit—the devil of excitement and exhilaration that +lay in the bottom of the cup, the devil of blessed forgetfulness, +accompanied by magical dreams that dwelt in the heart of the poppy, the +devil of melancholy and gloom to whom he felt a certain charm in +yielding himself, the devil of restlessness and dissatisfaction with +whatsoever lay within his grasp—a dog-and-shadow sort of desire to drop +the prize in hand in a chase after that of his vision,—the impish devil +of the perverse.</p> + +<p>At times he had been victorious, at other times there had been defeat. +But always the warfare had been fierce and the scars remained to tell +the story. They remained in the emaciation and the deep lines of his +still beautiful face; remained in the drooping curves of the mouth; +remained above all in the ineffable sadness of the large, deep, luminous +eyes.</p> + +<p>Yet that sweet spring day when the three were moving into Fordham +cottage, the years that had wrought upon them thus were as they had not +been.</p> + +<p>Their little possessions had dwindled pitifully. Virginia's golden harp +that had been the glory of the sitting-room was gone to pay a debt. One +by one others of their household gods had provided bread. But the spurt +of prosperity the damages recovered in the "Thomas Done Brown" suit +brought, made possible a new checked matting for the sitting-room floor +and so bright and clean did it look that they felt it almost furnished +the room of itself. It would mean much to them in saving the dear Mother +the most laborious feature of her labor. It was a more difficult matter +than formerly for her to get down upon her knees to scrub the floor and +it had become impossible for the frail Virginia to help her in such +work; yet as long as the floor was bare she had kept it as spotless and +nearly as white as new fallen snow. When the matting had been laid, +Eddie took her beautiful worn hands in his and kissed first one and then +the other.</p> + +<p>"No more scrubbing of the sitting-room floor, dear hands," he playfully +said.</p> + +<p>In addition to the matting there were in the way of furnishings only a +few chairs, some book-shelves, a picture or two, vases for flowers, some +sea-shells, and, of course, Edgar's desk. Above the desk hung the +pencil-sketch of "Helen" from which somehow, he was always able to draw +inspiration. Sometimes the wings of his imagination would droop, his pen +would halt. In desperation he would look up at the picture.—Could it be +(he would ask himself) that her spirit had come to dwell in this +representation of her which he had made from memory? Her eyes seemed to +look at him through the eyes in the picture—the past came back to him +as it sometimes did when the mingled scent of magnolias and roses on +the summer night air placed him back beneath her window.</p> + +<p>From this portrait of the lovely dead upon the wall, from the miniature +of the lovely dead that he carried always next his heart, and from the +lovely being who walked, in life, by his side, but toward whose bosom +death had this long time pointed a warning finger, came all his +inspiration in the new, as in each of the old homes.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, close under the sloping roof, was the bare bed-room, barer +than the one below—for there was no checked matting upon the floor, and +there were only such pieces of furniture as were an absolute necessity; +but against a small window in the end of the room leaned a great +cherry-tree. The windows were open and the faint fragrance of the +blossoms floated in with the song and gossip of the nesting birds. Edgar +and Virginia laughed together like happy children and told each other +that they would "play" that their room under the roof was a nest in the +tree—which was so much more poetical than living in an attic.</p> + +<p>And roundabout the cottage on the green hill, with its screen of +blossoming cherry trees and (hardby) its dusky grove of Heaven-kissing +pines, and its views of the river and walk leading to the stone-arched +bridge, the three who lived for each other only had erelong +reconstructed the wonderful dream-valley—the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass.</p> + +<p>And the cottage at Fordham became a Mecca to the "literati of New York," +even as the cottage at Spring Garden had been a Mecca to the literati of +Philadelphia. Among those who made pilgrimages thither were many of the +"starry sisterhood of poetesses"—chief of whom was the fair Frances +Osgood. Yet in his retirement The Dreamer enjoyed for the first time +since he had left Spring Garden long intervals of relief from company, +and in the pine-wood and on the bridge overlooking the river, he found +what his soul had long hungered for—silence and solitude. Under their +influence he conceived the idea of a new work—a more ambitious work +than anything he had hitherto attempted—a work in the form of a prose +poem upon no less subject than "The Universe," whose deep secrets it was +designed to reveal, with the title "Eureka!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Ah, Dreamer, could we but call the curtain here!—Could we but leave you +in your cottage on the hill-top, overlooking the river, with the trees +full of blossom and music about it, and the wood inviting your fancy, +where as you pace back and forth with your hands clasped behind you your +great deep eyes are filled with the mellow light that illumines them +when they are turned inward exploring the treasures of your brain—leave +you deep in the high joy of meditation upon God's Universe!</p> + +<p>But "the play is the tragedy, 'Man,'" and it is only for the dread +"Conqueror" to give the word, "Curtain down—lights out!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + + +<p>All too soon the Wolf scratched at the door of the cottage on Fordham +Hill. All too soon the shadow that had so often enveloped the +rose-embowered cottage in Spring Garden—the shadow from the wing of the +Angel of Death—fell upon the cottage among the cherry trees.</p> + +<p>The Dreamer sat before his desk under the picture of "Helen," for hours +and hours, or when Virginia was too ill to be up, at a little table +beside her bed in the chamber which was like a nest in a tree. In fair +weather and foul the stately figure and sorrowful eyes of Mother Clemm +were to be seen upon the streets of New York as she went about offering +the narrow rolls of manuscript for sale as fast as they were finished, +or trying to collect the little, over-due checks from those already sold +and published. Yet, with all they could do, had it not been for the +generous gifts of friends the three must needs have succumbed to cold +and hunger. And all the time the poison that fell from Rufus Griswold's +tongue was at work. Even the visits of the angels of mercy who +ministered to him and his invalid wife in this their darkest hour were +made, by the working of this poison, to appear as things of evil. How +was one of the furtive eye and the black heart of a Rufus Griswold to +understand love of woman of which reverence was a chief ingredient?</p> + +<p>These ministering angels—Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Gove, Mrs. Marie Louise +Shew, and others whose love for the racked and broken Dreamer and for +herself Virginia so perfectly understood—Virginia the guileless, with +her sense for spiritual things and her warm, responsive heart—brought +to the cottage not only encouragement and sympathy, but medicines and +delicacies which were offered in such manner that even one of Edgar +Poe's sensitive pride could accept them without shame.</p> + +<p>Summer passed, and autumn, and winter drew on—filling the dwellers in +Fordham cottage with fear of they knew not what miseries. There had been +ups and downs; there had been happiness and woe; there had been times of +strength and times of weakness—of weakness when The Dreamer, unable to +hold out in the desperate battle of life as he knew it; hungry, cold and +heartbroken at the sight of his wife with that faraway look in her eyes, +had fallen—had sought and found forgetfulness only to know a horrible +awakening that was despair and that was oftentimes accompanied by +illness. Now, there was added to every thing else the knowledge that +she—his wife—his heartsease flower, and the Mother, in spite of all +his striving for them, were objects of charity.</p> + +<p>When some of his friends, in the kindness of their hearts, published in +one of the papers an appeal to the admirers of Edgar Poe's work for aid +for him and his family in their distress, he came out in a proud denial +of their need for aid. The need was great enough, God knows!—but the +pitiful exposure was more painful than the pangs of cold and hunger.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At last the day drew near of whose approach all who had visited the +cottage knew but of which they had schooled themselves not to think.</p> + +<p>January 1847 was waning. For many days the ground had not been seen. The +branches of the cherry trees gleamed—not with flowers, but with +icicles—as they leaned against the windows of the bed-chamber under +the roof. Sometimes as the winter blast stirred them, they knocked +against the panes with a sound the knuckles of a skeleton might have +made. There was not the slightest suggestion of the soft-voiced "Ligeia" +in that harsh, horrible sound.</p> + +<p>Upon the bed the girl-wife lay well nigh as still and as white as the +snow outside. Now and again she coughed—a weak, ghostly sort of cough. +Over her wasted body, in addition to the thin bed-clothing, lay her +husband's old military cape. Against her breast nestled Catalina, +purring contentedly while she kept the heart of her mistress warm a +little longer. Near the foot of her bed the Mother sat—a more perfect +picture than ever of the Mater Dolorosa—chafing the tiny cold feet; at +the head her husband bent over her and chafed her hands. About the room, +but not near enough to intrude upon the sacred grief of the stricken +mother and husband, sat several of the good women whose friendship had +been the mainstay of the three. Through the window, gaining brilliance +from the ice-laden branches outside, fell the rays of the setting sun, +glorifying the room and the bed. Scarce a word was spoken, but upon the +request of the dying girl for music one of the visitors began to sing in +low, tremulous tones, the beautiful old hymn, "Jerusalem the Golden." To +the man, bowed beneath his woe as it had been a physical weight, the +words came as a knell, and a blacker despair than ever settled upon his +wild eyes and haggard face. To his dying wife they were a promise—the +smile upon her lip and the look of wonder in her eyes showed that she +was already beholding the glories of which the old hymn told.</p> + +<p>And so wandered her spirit out of the cold and the want and the gloom +that had darkened and chilled the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, into +the regions of "bliss beyond compare."</p> + +<p>But her husband, left behind, was as the man in his own story, +"Silence," who sat upon a rock—the gray and ghastly rock of +"Desolation." "With his brow lofty with thought and his eyes wild with +care and the fables of sorrow and weariness and disgust with mankind +written in furrows upon his cheek," he sat upon the lonely grey rock and +leaned his head upon his hand and looked out upon the desolation. She +was no more—no more!—the maiden who lived with no other thought than +to love and be loved by him;—his wife—in all the storm and stress of +his troubled life his true heartsease!</p> + +<p>Out of the desolation he perceived a thing that was formless, that was +invisible—but that was appalling—<i>silence</i>. Silence that made him +shrink and quake—he that had loved, had longed for silence! Silence +would crush him now. And solitude!—how often he had craved it! He had +solitude a plenty now.</p> + +<p>Like a hunted animal, he looked about for a refuge from the Silence and +the Solitude that gave him chase, but he knew that however fast he might +flee they would be hard on his heels.</p> + +<p>How white she was—and how still! Nevermore to hear the sounds of her +low sweet voice, nevermore to hear her merry laughter, nevermore her +light foot-step that—like her voice and her laugh—was music to his +ears! Nevermore!—for she was wrapped in the Silence—the last great +silence of all.</p> + +<p>Nevermore would she sit beside him as he worked, or plant flowers about +the door, or lay her hand in his and explore with him the wonderful +dream-valley; nevermore lay her sweet lips upon his or raise the +snow-white lids from her eyes and shine on him from under their long, +jetty fringes. Henceforth a Solitude as vast as the Silence would be his +portion.</p> + +<p>Their sweet friend Marie Louise Shew robed her for the tomb and over the +snow they bore her to rest in a vault in the village churchyard.</p> + +<p>Then, for many weeks Edgar Poe lay in the bed-chamber under the roof, +desperately ill—for the most part unconscious. The mother bereaved of +her child had no time to give herself over to mourning, for as she had +wrestled with death for the possession of a son when he was first given +into her keeping, even more fiercely did she wrestle now that he must be +son and daughter too. The kind friends who had made Virginia's last days +comfortable aided her in the battle, and finally the victory was +won,—pale, shaken, wraith-like, the personification of woe made +beautiful—The Dreamer came forth into the air of heaven once more, and +as spring opened was to be seen, as of old, walking among the pines or +beside the river.</p> + +<p>And ever and anon his clear-cut, chastened features and his great, +solemn eyes were turned skyward—especially at night when the heavens +were sown with stars; for from some one of those bright worlds, +peradventure, would she whose absence made the Solitude and the Silence +be looking down upon him. And as he gazed and dreamed, high thoughts +took form in his brain—thoughts of the "Material and Spiritual +Universe; its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition +and its Destiny,"—thoughts to be made into a book dedicated to "Those +who feel rather than to those who think—to the dreamers and those who +put faith in dreams as in the only realities"—thoughts for his +projected work, "Eureka!" Out of the Silence and the Solitude came the +development and completion of this strange prose poem.</p> + +<p>Like an uneasy spirit he wandered, night and day, up and down the river +bank, in the wood or in the churchyard that held the tomb of his +Virginia.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the Mother still kept the cottage bright. She asked no +questions when he went forth, night or day, or when he came in, night or +day; but her heart bled for him and sometimes when he would throw +himself into a deep chair and sit by the hour, seemingly staring at +nothing, but really (she knew by the harassed and brooding look in the +great, deep eyes) "dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream +before," she would steal gently to his side and with her long, slim, +expressive fingers stroke the large brow until natural sleep brought +respite from painful memories. Her ministrations were grateful to him, +yet he was barely conscious of her presence. Not even for her, and far +less for any other human being, did he feel kinship at this time. His +vision, when not turned within, looked far beyond human companionship to +the wonders of the universe—the stars and the mountains and the forests +and the rivers; but his only real companion was his own stricken heart. +Many times he said to his heart in the prophetic words of his fantastic +creation, "Morella,"</p> + +<p>"Thy days henceforth shall be days of sorrow—that sorrow which is the +most lasting of impressions as the cypress is the most enduring of +trees. For the hours of thy happiness are over, and joy is not gathered +twice in a lifetime as the roses of Paestum twice in a year."</p> + +<p>Yet as the back is fitted to the burden and the wind tempered to the +shorn lamb, so again, as in his early griefs, the sorrow of The Dreamer +was not all pain, there was an element of beauty—of poetry—in it that +made it possible to be endured. Out of the depths of the Solitude and +the Silence he said to his soul,</p> + +<p>"It is a happiness to wonder—it is a happiness to dream." And more than +ever before in his life his whole existence had become a dream—the +realities being mere shadows.</p> + +<p>To dream, to wonder, to work; to work, to wonder, to dream—thus were +the hours, the hours of sorrow, spent. The hours of which the poet lost +all count, for between his dreams and his work so intensely full were +the hours of vivid mental living that each day was as a lifetime in +itself.</p> + +<p>And as he wandered under the pines or along the river, wrapped in his +dreams and wondering thoughts of heaven and earth, or leaned from the +window of the chamber under the low sloping roof—the chamber that had +been the chamber of death—and looked beyond the embowering cherry trees +upon the sky; or at dead of night sat under his lamp pondering over his +books—always, everywhere, he listened—listened for the voice and the +foot-falls of Virginia as he had listened in his earlier days for the +voice and the footfalls of the mythical "Ligeia." For had she not +promised that she would watch over him in spirit and, if possible, give +him frequent indications of her presence—sighing upon him in the +evening winds or filling the air which he breathed with perfume from the +censers of the angels?</p> + +<p>And her promises were faithfully kept, for often as he listened he heard +the sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels, and streams of +a holy perfume floated about him, and when his heart beat heavily the +winds that bathed his brow came to him laden with soft sighs, and +indistinct murmurs filled the night air.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>And so the green spring and the flowery summer passed, and autumn drew +on.</p> + +<p>Then came a day of days—a soft October day when merely to exist was to +be happy and to hope. And new life, like some sweet, rejuvenating +cordial seemed to enter and course through the veins of The Dreamer and +for the first time since the Silence and the Solitude had enveloped the +cottage he laughed as he flung wide the windows of the chamber that had +been the chamber of death, to let in the day. And as he looked forth he +said, again quoting the words of his "Morella,"</p> + +<p>"The winds lie still in heaven. There is a dim moisture over all the +earth and a warm glow upon the waters, and upon the forest a rainbow—a +bow of promise—from the firmament has surely fallen. It is not a day +for sorrow but for joy, for it is a day out of Aidenn itself, and I feel +that ere it has passed I shall hold sweeter, more real communion with +her that is in Aidenn than ever before."</p> + +<p>He went forth and wandered through the radiance of that perfect day +hours on hours, and as he paced the solemn aisles of the pine wood, or +strolled along the river walk which was veiled in a golden haze and +carpeted thick with the yellow and crimson and brown leaves of October, +he heard, clearly, the sound of the swinging of the censers of the +angels, as his senses were bathed in the holy perfume, and the zephyrs +that blew about his brow were laden with audible sweet murmurs.</p> + +<p>As evening fell a pleasant languor possessed his limbs—a wholesome +weariness from his long wanderings—and he lay down upon a bank littered +with fallen leaves and slept. And as he slept in the fading light, the +spirit of Virginia approached him more nearly—more tangibly—than ever +before; and finally, when the red sun had sunk into the river, and when +the afterglow in the sky and the rainbow that lay upon the forest were +alike blotted out by the shadows of night, and the moon—a lustrous blur +through the haze—wandered uncertainly up the sky, she drew nearer and +nearer, and pressed a fluttering kiss—such a kiss as a butterfly might +bestow upon a flower—upon his lips; then, sighing, drew away.</p> + +<p>The sleeper awoke with a start—a start of heavenly bliss followed by +instant pain—for as he peered into the night he saw that he was +alone—with the Silence and the Solitude. The winds lay still in heaven +and bore him no whisper or sigh. The perfume from the censers of the +angels still filled the air, but he was conscious of a great void—a +pain unbearable. The kiss had awakened a thousand thronging memories; +the kiss had robbed of their charm the elusive perfume, and the ghostly +whisper of fluttering garments, and the shadowy foot-falls, and the +faint, faraway sighs. Henceforth these would cease to satisfy. The kiss +had made him know the want of his heart for love and companionship, such +as the living Virginia had given him.</p> + +<p>He listened and listened, but the winds lay still in heaven, and he was +alone with the Silence—the dread Silence—and the heart-hunger, and the +despair.</p> + +<p>Then he arose from his bed of withered and sere leaves and as one +distraught, wandered through the shadows of the misty, weird night. In +the wood and by the waters he wandered, while the night wore on and the +moon held its way—still a lustrous blur in the heavens.</p> + +<p>On, on he wandered, seeking peace for his soul and finding none, till +the moon was out and the stars fainted in the twilight of the +approaching day, when lo, above the end of the path through the wood, +the morning star—"Astarte's bediamonded crescent"—arose upon his +vision!</p> + +<p>And as he gazed with wonder and delight upon the beautiful star, hope +was born anew in his heart, for he said,</p> + +<p>"It is the Star of Love!"</p> + +<p>He that had always looked for signs in the skies, had he not found one? +What could it mean, this rising of the Star of Love upon the hour of his +bitterest need but a sign of hope, of peace?</p> + +<p>Vainly did his soul upbraid him and warn him not to trust the beacon—to +fly from its alluring light and cast aside its spell. All deaf to the +warning, he eagerly followed the star which promised renewal of hope and +love and relief from the Solitude and the Silence—the desolation that +the kiss had made so real and intolerable.</p> + +<p>But alas, as he wandered on and on, his eyes upon the star, his feet +following blindly, without marking the path into which they had turned, +his progress was suddenly checked. Through the misty twilight of the +approaching dawn there loomed an obstacle to his steps. It was with +horror unspeakable that he recognized the vault in which lay, in her +last sleep, his loved Virginia....</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then his heart it grew ashen and sober<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the leaves that were crispéd and sere,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the leaves that were withering and sere!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Star of Love was fading in the eastern sky and through the ghostly +dawn he turned and fled aghast to the cottage among the cherry trees.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mother Clemm who had lain waiting and watching for him all night arose +from her uneasy couch when she heard the latch of the gate lifted, and +opened the door. He came in and walked past her like a wraith. His eyes +were wild, his face was bloodless and haggard, his hair damp and +disordered. The Mother's eyes were filled with dumb pain. He suffered +her to take his hand in hers and to gaze into his eyes with pity and +even raised the hand that held his own to his lips, as though to +reassure her; but he spake no word—made no attempt at explanation—and +she asked no questions.</p> + +<p>For a moment he remained beside her, then straight to his desk he walked +and began arranging writing materials before him, while she disappeared +into the kitchen and started a blaze under a pot of coffee that stood +upon the little stove.</p> + +<p>He wrote rapidly—furiously—without pausing for thought or for the +fastidious choice of words that was apt to make him halt frequently in +the act of composition, and the words that he wrote were the wild +words—wild, but beautiful and moving as an echo from Israfel's own +lute—of the poem, "Ulalume:"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The skies they were ashen and sober;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The leaves they were crispéd and sere,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The leaves they were withering and sere,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It was night in the lonesome October<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of my most immemorial year."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>After that eventful night a change came over him that sat upon the Rock +of Desolation. The Solitude and the Silence still enfolded him, but the +Star of Love had arisen in his firmament, ushering in a new day and new +hope to his soul. And he no longer trembled as he sat upon the rock, but +with new energy he worked and with exceeding patience he waited. And as +he worked interest in life returned to him, and ambition returned.</p> + +<p>One day he copied "Ulalume" upon a long, narrow slip of paper and rolled +it into one of the tight little rolls that all the editors knew and +Mother Clemm made a pilgrimage to the city especially on account of it. +First she tried it at <i>The Union Magazine</i>, which promptly rejected it. +It was too "queer" the editor said. But <i>The American Review</i> agreed to +take it and to print it without signature—for this poem must be +published anonymously, if at all, the poet insisted. It soon afterward +appeared and Mr. Willis copied it into the next number of <i>The Home +Journal</i> with complimentary editorial comment.</p> + +<p>The result was a new sensation—the reader everywhere declared himself +to be brought under a magic spell by the words of this remarkable +poem—though he frankly owned that he did not in the least understand +them; which was as Edgar Poe intended.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Even the old dream of founding a magazine returned and possessed him as +it had so often possessed him before. It was in the interest of the +magazine, which he still proposed to name <i>The Stylus</i>, that he +determined to give his new work, "Eureka!" as a lecture, in various +places. He did give it once—in New York—coming out of his seclusion +for the first time, upon a frosty February night. The rhapsody, +delivered in his low but musical and dramatic tones, thrilled his +audience, but it was a small audience, and when soon afterward, the work +was published by the <i>Putnams</i> it was a small number of copies that was +sold.</p> + +<p>And again Edgar Poe was desperately poor. Yet he had seen the Star of +Love—"Astarte's bediamonded crescent"—usher in a new morning; and he +waited and worked in hope.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + + +<p>Autumn with its enchanted October night, and winter filled with work and +spent in deep seclusion at Fordham, and spring with its revival of plans +for <i>The Stylus</i>, and the appearance of "Eureka!" as a book, and its +author's return to the world as a lecturer, slipped by.</p> + +<p>About midsummer The Dreamer lay a night in the old town of Providence. +It was a warm night and the window of his room was open—letting in a +flood of light from the full moon. He leaned from the window which +looked upon a plot of flowers whose many odors rising, enveloped him in +incense sweet as the incense from the censers of the angels when the +spirit of his Virginia was near. But it was not of Virginia that the +fragrance told him tonight. Something about the blended odors, combined +with the sensuous warmth of the night and the light of the moon, +transported him suddenly, magically, back through the years to his +boyhood and to the little room in the Allan cottage on Clay Street, +hanging, like this room, over a space of flowers—the night following +the day when he had first seen Rob Stanard's mother.</p> + +<p>Back, back into the long dead past he wandered! The broken and jaded +Edgar Poe was dreaming again the dream of the fresh, enthusiastic boy, +Edgar Poe.</p> + +<p>How every incident of that day and night stood out in his memory! He +could feel again the wonder that he felt when he saw the beautiful +"Helen" standing against the arbor-vitæ in the garden; could see her +graceful approach to meet and greet him—the lonely orphan boy—could +hear her gracious words in praise of his mother while she held his hand +in both her own. As he lived it all over again, with the silver +moonlight enfolding him and the breath of the flowers filling his +nostrils, a clock somewhere in the house struck the night's noon hour. +He started—even so it had been that other night in the long past. He +half believed that if he should go forth into this night as he had gone +into that he should see once more the lady of his dream, with the lamp +in her hand, framed in the ivy-wreathed window, and seeing, worship as +he had worshipped then.</p> + +<p>Scarce knowing what he did, he arose and hurrying down the stair was in +the street. The streets were strange to him but there was a pleasant +sense of adventure in wandering through them—he knew not whither—and +the sweet airs of the flowers were everywhere.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he stopped. While all the town slept there was one beside +himself, who kept vigil. Clad all in white, she half reclined upon a +violet bank in an old garden where the moon fell on the upturned faces +of a thousand roses and on her own, "upturned,—alas, in sorrow!"</p> + +<p>Faint with the beauty and the poetry of the scene he leaned upon the +gate of the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"enchanted garden<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where no wind dared to stir unless on tiptoe."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He dared not speak or give any sign of his presence, but he gazed and +gazed until to his entranced eyes it seemed that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The pearly lustre of the moon went out:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mossy banks and the meandering paths—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The happy flowers and the repining trees—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were seen no more."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>All was lost to his vision—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Save only the divine light in those eyes—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save but the soul in those uplifted eyes."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He continued to gaze until the moon disappeared behind a bank of cloud +and he watched the white-robed figure glide away like "a ghost amid the +entombing trees." Yet still (it seemed to him) the eyes remained. They +lighted his lonely footsteps home that night and he told himself that +they would light him henceforth, through the years.</p> + +<p>Nearly a year had passed since that October night when the Star of Love +ushering in a new morning had prophesied to him of new hope—nearly a +year through which he had waited patiently, but not in vain. The time +had evidently come for the prophecy to be fulfilled and Fate had led him +to this town and the spot in this town where she that was to be (he was +convinced) the hope, the guide, the savior, of his "lonesome latter +years" awaited him.</p> + +<p>Who was she?—</p> + +<p>So spirit-like, so ethereal, she seemed, as robed in white and veiled in +silvery moon-beams she sat among the slumbering roses, and as she was +gathered into the shadows of the entombing trees, that she might almost +have been the "Lady Ligeia." Yet he knew that she was not. The "Lady +Ligeia" had been but the creation of his own brain. Very fair she had +been to his dreaming vision, very sweet her companionship had been to +his imagination—sufficient for all the needs of his being in his +youthful days when sorrow was but a beautiful sentiment, when "terror +was not fright, but a tremulous delight" but how was such an one as she +to bind up the broken heart of a man? It was the <i>human</i> element in the +eyes of her that sat among the roses that enchained him. +Ethereal—spirit-like—as she was, the eyes upturned in sorrow were the +eyes of no spirit, but of a woman; from them looked a human soul with +the capacity and the experience to offer sympathy meet for human +needs—the needs even, of a broken-hearted man.</p> + +<p>How dark the woe!—how sublime the hope!—how intense the pride!—how +daring the ambition!—how deep, how fathomless the capacity for +love!—that looked (as from a window) from those eyes upturned in +sorrow, in the moonlight while all the town slept!</p> + +<p>Who was she?—this lady of sorrows. And by what sweet name was she known +to the citizens of this old town?—Surely Fate that had brought her to +the bank of violets beneath the moon—Fate that had led him to her +garden gate, would in Fate's own time reveal!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As Helen Whitman flitted as noiselessly as the ghost she seemed to be up +the dark stairway to her chamber, and without closing the casement that +admitted the moonlight and the garden's odors, lay down upon her +canopied bed, she trembled. What was it that she had been aware of in +the garden?—that presence—that consciousness of communion between her +spirit and his upon whom all her thoughts had dwelt of late? Herself a +poet, from her earliest knowledge of the work of Edgar Poe she had +seemed to feel a kinship between her mind and his such as she had known +in regard to no other. She had followed his career step by step, and out +of the many sorrows of her own life had been born deep sympathy for him. +Since his last, greatest blow, she had more than ever mourned with him +in spirit, for she too was widowed—she too had sat upon the Rock of +Desolation and knew the Silence and the Solitude.</p> + +<p>She and The Dreamer had at least one mental trait in common—a tendency +toward spiritualism—a more than half belief in the communion of the +spirits of the dead with those of the living and of those of the living +with each other.</p> + +<p>What had led her into the moonlit garden when all the world slept?</p> + +<p>She knew not. She only knew that she had felt an impelling influence—a +call to her spirit—to come out among the slumbering roses. She had not +questioned nor sought to define it. She had heard it, and she had +obeyed. And then the presence!—</p> + +<p>She had never seen Edgar Poe, yet she felt that he had been there in the +spirit, if not in the flesh—she had felt his eyes upon her eyes and she +had half expected him to step from the shadows around her and to say,</p> + +<p>"I, upon whom your thoughts have dwelt—I, who am the comrade and the +complement of your inner life—I, whose spirit called to you ere you +came into the garden—I am here."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was almost immediately upon The Dreamer's return to Fordham, and when +he was still under the spell of the night at Providence, that the +identity of the lady of the garden was revealed to him, in a manner +seemingly accidental, but which he felt to be but another manifestation +of the divinity that shapes our ends. Some casual words concerning the +appearance and character of Mrs. Whitman, spoken by a casual visitor, +lifted the curtain.</p> + +<p>So the lady of the garden was Helen Whitman! whose poetry had impressed +him favorably and whose acquaintance he had desired. Helen +Whitman—<i>Helen</i>! As he repeated the name his heart stood still,—even +in her name he heard the voice of Fate. <i>Helen</i>—the name of the good +angel of his boyhood! Were his dreams of "Morella" and of "Ligeia" to +come true? Was he to know in reality the miracle he had imagined and +written of in these two phantasies?—the reincarnation of personal +identity? Was he in this second Helen, in this second garden, to find +again the worshipped Helen of his boyhood?</p> + +<p>He turned to the lines he had written so long ago, in Richmond, when he +had gone forth into the midsummer moonlight, even as he had gone forth +in Providence, and had worshipped under a window, even as he had +worshipped at a garden gate. He read the first two stanzas through.</p> + +<p>As he read he gave himself up to an overwhelming sense of fatality. +Could anything be more fitting—more descriptive? The end of the days of +miracles was not yet—this <i>was</i> his "Helen of a thousand dreams!"</p> + +<p>His impulse was to seek an introduction at once, but this seemed too +tamely conventional. Besides—he was in the hands of Fate—he dared not +stir. Fate, having so clearly manifested itself, would find a way.</p> + +<p>His correspondence was always heavy. Letters, clippings from papers and +so forth, came to him by every post from friends and from enemies, with +and without signatures. Yet from all the mass, he knew at once that the +"Valentine," unsigned as it was, was from her.</p> + +<p>By way of acknowledgment, he turned down a page of a copy of "The Raven +and Other Poems" at the lines, "To Helen," and mailed it to her. He +waited in anxious suspense for a reply, but the lady was coy. Days +passed and still no answer. The desire for communication with her became +irresistible and taking pen and paper he wrote at the top of the page, +even as long ago he had written, the words, "To Helen," and underneath +wrote a new poem especially for this new Helen in which he described the +vision of her in the garden (but placing it in the far past) and his +feelings as he gazed upon her:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I saw thee once—once only—years ago;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I must not say <i>how</i> many—but not many.<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Clad all in white, upon a violet bank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw thee half reclining; while the moon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell on the upturned faces of the roses,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on thine own, upturned,—alas in sorrow!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bade me pause before that garden-gate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!—oh, God!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save only thee and me!" ...<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The paper trembled in the hands—tiny and spirit-like—of Helen Whitman. +Her soul answered emphatically,</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> Fate!"</p> + +<p>So he had been there in the flesh—near her—in the shadows of that +mystic night! The presence was no creation of an overwrought +imagination. It was Fate.</p> + +<p>Tremulously she penned her answer to his appeal, but was it Fate again, +which caused the letter to miscarry? It reached him finally, in +Richmond—<i>Richmond</i>, of all places!—whither he had gone to deliver to +audiences of his old friends, his lecture upon "The Poetic Principle," +in the interest of the establishment of his magazine, <i>The Stylus</i>. What +could have been more fitting than that the gracious words of "Helen of a +thousand dreams" should come to him in Richmond?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Not many days later and he was under her own roof in Providence.</p> + +<p>He waited in the dimness of her curtained drawing-room, ear strained for +the first sound of her footstep. Noiselessly as a sunbeam or a shadow +she entered the room, her gauzy white draperies floating about her +slight figure as she came, while his great eyes drank in with reverent +joy each detail of her ethereal loveliness—her face, the same he had +seen in the garden, pale as a pearl and as softly radiant, and framed in +clustering dark ringlets which escaped in profusion from the confinement +of a lacy widow's cap—the tremulous mouth—the eyes, mysterious and +unearthly, from which the soul looked out.</p> + +<p>For one moment she paused in the doorway, her hand pressed upon her +wildly beating heart—then, with hesitating step advanced to meet him. +Her words of greeting were few, and so low and faltering as to be quite +unintelligible, but the tones of her voice fell on his ear like +strangely familiar music.</p> + +<p>The man spoke no word. As her eyes rested for one brief moment upon his, +then fell before the intensity of his gaze, he was conscious of +spiritual influences beyond the reach of reason. In a tremulous ecstacy +he bent and pressed his lips upon the hand that lay within his own and +it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from falling upon his +knees before her in actual worship.</p> + +<p>Three evenings of "all heavenly delight" he spent in her +companionship—sometimes in the seclusion and dusk of her quiet +drawing-room, sometimes walking among the roses in her garden, or among +the mossy tombs in the town cemetery—their sympathetic natures finding +expression in such conversation as poets delight in. Under the +intoxicating spell of her presence all other dreams passed, for the +time, into nothingness and he passionately cried,</p> + +<p>"Helen, I love now—<i>now</i>—for the first and only time!"</p> + +<p>Yet he was poor, and the weaknesses which had caused him to fall in the +past might cause him to fall in the future. How could he plead for a +return of his love?</p> + +<p>His very self-abasement made his plea more strong. Still, she did not +yield too suddenly. True, she too, was under the spell, but she resisted +it. As he found his voice, and his eloquence filled the room a +restlessness possessed her. Now she sat quite still by his side, now +rose and wandered about the apartment—now stood with her hand resting +upon the back of his chair while his nearness thrilled her.</p> + +<p>There were objections, she told him—she was older than he.</p> + +<p>"Has the soul age, Helen?" he answered her. "Can immortality regard +time? Can that which began never and shall never end consider a few +wretched years of its incarnate life? Do you not perceive that it is my +diviner nature—my spiritual being, that burns and pants to commingle +with your own?"</p> + +<p>She urged her frail health as an objection.</p> + +<p>For that he would love—worship her—the more, he said. He plead for her +pity upon his loneliness—his sorrows—and swore that he would comfort +and soothe her in hers, through life, and when death should come, +joyfully go down with her into the night of the grave.</p> + +<p>Finally he appealed to her ambition.</p> + +<p>"Was I right, Helen, in my first impression of you?—in the impression +that you are ambitious? If so, and if you will have faith in me, I can +and will satisfy your wildest desires. Would it not be glorious to +establish in America, the sole unquestionable aristocracy—that of the +intellect—to secure its supremacy—to lead and control it?"</p> + +<p>Still the <i>yes</i> that so often seemed trembling upon her lips was not +spoken. She received his almost daily letters and his frequent visits, +listened to his rapturous love-making—trembling, blushing, letting him +see that she was under the spell, that she loved him. Indeed she could +not have helped his seeing it had she wished; but when he spoke of +marriage she hesitated—tantalizing him to the point of madness, almost.</p> + +<p>What was it that held her back?—She too, believed that it was the hand +of Fate that had brought them together—that they were pre-ordained to +cheer each other's latter years, to establish that intellectual +aristocracy of which he dreamed. Yet she shrank from taking the step. +When his great solemn eyes were upon her, his beautiful face pale and +haggard with excess of feeling, turned toward her, his eloquent words of +love in her ears, she sat as one entranced—bewitched; yet she would not +give the word he longed for—the word of willingness to embark with him +upon the sea of life. <i>Fear</i> checked her. Such an uncharted sea it +seemed to her—she dared not say him yea!</p> + +<p>The truth was the poison was working—the Griswold poison. The wildest +rumors came to her ears of the worse than follies of her lover. She knew +that they were at least, overdrawn—possibly altogether false—yet they +frightened her.</p> + +<p>"Do you know Helen Whitman?" wrote one of The Dreamer's enemies to Dr. +Griswold. "Of course you have heard it rumored that she is to marry Poe. +Well, she has seemed to me a good girl and—you know what Poe is. Has +Mrs. Whitman no friend in your knowledge that can faithfully explain Poe +to her?"</p> + +<p>But Rufus Griswold had already "explained Poe" to those whom he knew +would take pains to pass the explanation on to "Helen"—had dropped the +poison where he reckoned it would work with the greatest speed and +effect. The explanation, with the usual indirectness of a Griswold, was +sugared with a compliment.</p> + +<p>"Poe has great intellectual power," he said with emphasis, "<i>great</i> +intellectual power, but," he added, with a sidelong glance of the +furtive eye and a confidential drop in the voice, "but—he has no +principle—no moral sense."</p> + +<p>The poison reached the destination for which it was intended—the ears +of Helen Whitman—in due course, and it terrified her as had none of +the rumors she had heard before. Still her lover floundered in the +dark—baffled—wondering—not able to make her out. Why did she +tantalize him—torture him, thus?—keeping him dangling between Heaven +and hell?—he asked himself, and he asked her, over and over again. He +became more and more convinced that there was a reason,—what was it?</p> + +<p>Finally she gave it to him in its baldness and its brutality, just as it +had come to her—wrote it to him in a letter. It brought him a rude +awakening from his dream of bliss. That such a charge should be brought +against him at all was bitter enough, but that it could be repeated to +him by "Helen" seemed unbelievable.</p> + +<p>"You do not love me," he sadly wrote in reply, "or you would not have +written these terrible words." Then he swore a great oath: "By the God +who reigns in Heaven, I swear to you that my soul is incapable of +dishonor—that with the exception of occasional follies and excesses +which I bitterly lament, but to which I have been driven by intolerable +sorrow, I can call to mind no act of my life which would bring a blush +to my cheek—or to yours."</p> + +<p>He followed the letter with a visit—again throwing himself at her feet +and thrilling her with his eloquence and with the magic of his +personality.</p> + +<p>She gave him a half promise and said she would write to him in Lowell, +where he had engaged to deliver a lecture.</p> + +<p>In this town was a roof-tree which was a haven of rest to The Dreamer. +Beneath it dwelt his friend and confidant, "Annie" Richmond—his soul's +sweet "sister," as he loved to call her. And there he waited with a +chastened joy, for he felt assured that the long wished for <i>yes</i> was +about to be said, yet dared not give himself over prematurely, to the +ecstacy that would soon be his. In the pleasant, friendly family circle +of the Richmonds, he sat during those chill November evenings, seeing +pictures in the glowing fire, as he held sweet "Annie's" sympathetic +hand in his, while the only sound that broke the silence was the ticking +of the grandfather's clock in a shadowy corner.</p> + +<p>Thus quietly, patiently, he waited.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But in Providence the Griswold poison was at work. All the friends and +relatives of "Helen" were possessed of full vials of it—which they +industriously poured into her ears. Against it the recollection of the +night in the garden and her belief that Fate had ordained her union with +the poet, had no avail. The letter that she sent her lover was more +non-committal—colder—than any he had received from her before, yet +there was still enough of indecision in it to keep him tantalized. In a +state of mind well nigh distraction, he bade "Annie" and her cheerful +fireside farewell and set his face toward Providence; but he went in a +dream—the demon Despair, possessing him.</p> + +<p>Unstrung, unmanned, almost bereft of reason, his old dissatisfaction +with himself and the world overtook him—a longing to be out of it all, +for forgetfulness, for peace, yea, even the peace of the grave,—why +not?</p> + +<p>A passionate longing—a homesickness—for the sure, the steadfast, the +unvariable love of his beautiful Virginia consumed him. Oh, if he could +but lie down and sleep and forget until one sweet day he should wake in +the land where she awaited him, and where they would construct anew, and +for eternity, the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass!</p> + +<p>He listened.... For the first time since the Star of Love had ushered in +a new day in his life, he heard the swinging of the censers of the +angels—he inhaled the incense—he heard the voice of Virginia in the +sighing wind. She seemed to call to him.</p> + +<p>"I am coming, Heartsease!" he whispered as he quaffed the potion that he +reckoned would bear him to her.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But it was not to be. When he awaked, weak and ill, but sane, he found +himself with friends. Calmness and strength returned and with them, +horror at the deed he had so nearly committed, and deep contrition.</p> + +<p>With all haste he again presented himself at the door of "Helen," +beseeching her to marry him at once and save him, as he believed she +only could, from himself. And the consequences of her indecision making +her more alarmed for him than she had formerly been for herself, she +agreed to an engagement, though not to immediate marriage.</p> + +<p>He returned to Fordham and to faithful Mother Clemm a wreck of his +former self, but engaged to be married!</p> + +<p>Yet he was not happy—a new horror possessed him. As in the night when +the Star of Love first rose upon his vigil it had stopped over the door +of "a legended tomb," so now again was his pathway closed. Turn which +way he would, the tomb of Virginia seemed to frown upon him. He +remembered his promise to her that upon no other daughter of earth +would he look with the eyes of love. Vainly did he seek to justify +himself to his own heart for breaking the promise. No one could ever +supplant her, or fill the void in his life her death had made, he told +himself—this new love was something different, and in no way disturbed +her memory.</p> + +<p>But the tomb still stood in his way.</p> + +<p>"I am calm and tranquil," he wrote "Helen," "and but for a strange +shadow of coming evil which haunts me I should be happy. That I am not +supremely happy, even when I feel your dear love at my heart, terrifies +me."</p> + +<p>Later he wrote,</p> + +<p>"You say that all depends on my own firmness. If this be so all is safe. +Henceforward I am strong. But all does not depend, dear Helen, upon my +firmness—all depends upon the sincerity of your love."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A month later the skies of Providence shone brightly upon him. He +returned there, was received by Mrs. Whitman as her affianced lover, +delivered his brilliant lecture upon "The Poetic Principle" to a great +throng of enthusiastic hearers, and won a promise from his lady to marry +him at once and return with him to Fordham. He scribbled a line to +Mother Clemm notifying her to be ready to receive him and his bride and +went so far as to engage the services of a clergyman, and to sign a +marriage contract, in which Mrs. Whitman's property was made over to her +mother.</p> + +<p>But—just at this point a note was slipped into the hand of "Helen," +informing her that her lover had been seen drinking wine in the hotel. +When he called at her house soon afterward she received him surrounded +by her family and though there were no signs of the wine, said "no" to +him, emphatically—for the first time.</p> + +<p>He plead, but she remained firm—receiving his passionate words of +remonstrance with sorrowful silence, while her mother, impatient at his +persistence, showed him the door. He prayed that she would at least +speak one word to him in farewell.</p> + +<p>"What can I say?" she questioned.</p> + +<p>"Say that you love me, Helen."</p> + +<p>"I love you!"</p> + +<p>With these words in his ears he was gone. As he passed out of the gate +and out of her life he saw, or fancied he saw, through the veiled +window, a white figure beckoning to him, but his steps were sternly set +toward the opposite direction—his whole being crying within him, +"Nevermore—nevermore!" She had stretched out her spiritlike hands, but +to draw them back again, in the fashion that fascinated and at the same +time maddened him, once too often. The wave of romantic feeling which +had borne him along since his vision of her in the garden suddenly +subsided, leaving him disillusioned—cold. The reaction was so violent +that instead of the magnetic attraction she had had for him he felt +himself positively repelled by the thought of her unearthly beauty—her +mysterious eyes.</p> + +<p>He went straight to the depot and took the train just leaving, which +would bear him back to the cottage among the cherry trees.</p> + +<p>Mother Clemm, expecting him to bring home a bride, had spent the day +putting an extra touch of brightness upon the simple but already +spotless, home. A cheerful fire was in the grate; branches of holly, +cedar and such other such bits of beauty as the woods afforded were +everywhere about the house, and the Mother herself, in the snowiest of +caps with the sheerest of floating strings and a gallant look of welcome +upon her sorrowful face, stood at the window and watched for the coming +of the son that Heaven had given her, and the woman who was to take the +place of the daughter that Heaven had taken away from her. Her oak-like +nature had quailed at the thought—but it had withstood many a blast, it +could weather one more, and after all, if "Eddie" were happy—.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the far distance a figure emerged out of the gathering dusk—a man. +Could it be Eddie?—Alone?</p> + +<p>Yes! It surely was he! The carriage of the head—the military cloak—the +walk—were unmistakable.</p> + +<p>But he was alone!—She grew weak in the knees.—The shock of joy more +nearly unnerved her than had the pain. She had braced herself to bear +the pain.</p> + +<p>She recovered her composure and hastened to the door just in time to be +folded into the arms of the figure in the cloak.</p> + +<p>"Helen?"—she queried.</p> + +<p>"Is dead—to me," he answered, with his arms still about her. "We will +have nothing more to say of her except this: Muddie, I have been in a +dream from which, thank God, I am now awake. In the darkness of my +loneliness—of my misery, of which you alone have the slightest +conception, I saw a light which I fancied would lead me to the love for +which my soul is starving—to the sympathy which is sweeter even than +love to the broken heart of a man. I followed it. I was deceived. It was +no real light, but a mere will o' the wisp bred in the dank tarn of +despair."</p> + +<p>He released her to hang up the cloak in the little entrance hall, then +taking her hand, which he raised to his lips, drew her into the sitting +room.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but it is good to be at home again!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>His whole manner changed; a mighty weight seemed to roll from his +shoulders as he stretched his legs before the fire. His old merry +laugh—the laugh of Edgar Goodfellow—rang out as he told "Muddie" of +the success of his lecture, in Providence,—of the great audience and +the applause.</p> + +<p>"Muddie," he cried, "my dream of <i>The Stylus</i> will come true yet! A few +more such audiences and the money will be in sight! And let me add, I am +done with literary women—henceforth literature herself shall be my sole +mistress. I am more than ever convinced that the profession of letters +is the only one fit for a man of brain. There is little money in it, of +course, but I'd rather be a poor-devil author earning a bare living than +a king. Beyond a living, what does a man of brain want with money +anyhow?—Muddie, did it ever strike you that all that is really valuable +to a man of talent—especially to a poet—is absolutely +unpurchasable?—Love, fame, the dominion of intellect, the consciousness +of power, the thrilling sense of beauty, the free air of Heaven, +exercise of body and mind with the physical and moral health that these +bring;—these, and such as these are really all a poet cares about. Then +why should he mind what the world calls poverty?"</p> + +<p>"Why indeed?" echoed happy "Muddie." It was so delightful to have her +son back at home, and in this hopeful, contented frame, she would have +agreed with him in almost any statement he chose to make.</p> + +<p>He gave her loving messages from "Annie" and told her in the bright, +humorous way which was characteristic of Edgar Goodfellow, of many +pleasant little incidents of his journey. One of the nights to look back +upon and to gloat over in memory was this night by the fireside at +Fordham cottage with the Mother—a night of calm and content under the +home-roof after tempestuous wandering.</p> + +<p>A quiet, sweet Christmas they spent together—he reading, writing or +talking over plans for new work, while she sat by with her sewing and +Catalina dozed on the hearth. Part of every day (wrapped in the old +cape) he walked in the pine wood or beside the ice-bound river, and for +the first time since the feverish dream of new love had come to him he +was able to visit the tomb of Virginia and to dwell with happiness, and +with a clear conscience, upon her memory. During these days of serenity +a ballad suggested by thoughts of her and his life with her in the +lovely Valley of the Many-Colored Grass took form in his mind. It was no +dirge-like song of the "dank tarn of Auber," but a song of a fair +"kingdom by the sea" and in contrast to the sombre "Ulalume" he gave to +the maiden in the new poem the pleasant sounding name of "Annabel Lee." +Out of these days too, came "the Bells" and the exquisite sonnet to his +"more than Mother."</p> + +<p>One flash of the false light that had lured him reached The Dreamer at +Fordham. He held a letter addressed to him in the familiar handwriting +of Helen Whitman long in his hand without opening it. This flame was +burned out, he told himself—why rake its cold ashes? Yet he felt that +nothing that she could say would have power to disturb his new peace. +Still the Mother, though she kept her own counsel, trembled for herself +and for him as she was aware (without looking up from her sewing) that +he had broken the seal. Some minutes of tense stillness passed—then,</p> + +<p>"Shall I read you her letter?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"As you will."</p> + +<p>"Then I will!—It is in verse and the place from which she dates it is,</p> + +<p>"Our Island of Dreams," which she explains in a sub-heading is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i23">"By the foam<br /></span> +<span class="i9">Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—a line which she has borrowed from Keats. This is what she writes:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Tell him I lingered alone on the shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet nevermore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The night-wind blew cold on my desolate heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But colder those wild words of doom, 'Ye must part!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O'er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a cry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save the wail of those waters there came no reply.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I longed, like a bird, o'er the billows to flee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From our lone island home and the moan of the sea:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Away,—far away—from the wild ocean shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the waves ever murmur, 'No more, nevermore,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where I wake, in the wild noon of midnight, to hear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lone song of the surges, so mournful and drear.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Where the clouds that now veil from us heaven's fair light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their soft, silver lining turn forth on the night;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He shall know if I loved him; but never how well."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Silence followed the reading of the poem-letter. Finally the mother +asked,</p> + +<p>"Will you go back?"</p> + +<p>He placed the letter upon the top of a pile in the same handwriting, +tied them together with a bit of ribbon and laid them in a small drawer +of his desk. Then, rising, he leaned over the back of "Muddie's" chair +and lightly touching her seamed forehead with his lips replied,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Quoth the raven, nevermore!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then took up a garland of evergreen which he had been making when the +Mother came in with the mail, and set out in the direction of the +churchyard with its "legended tomb."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + + +<p>Back in Richmond!—The Richmond he loved best—Richmond full of sunshine +and flowers and the sweet southern social life out of doors, in gardens +and porches; Richmond in summertime!</p> + +<p>In spite of the changes his observant eye marked as he rattled over the +cobblestones toward the "Swan Tavern," on Broad and Ninth Streets, he +almost felt that he was back in boyhood. It was just such a day, just +this time of year, that—as a lad of eleven—he had seen Richmond first +after his five years absence in England.</p> + +<p>How good it was to be back upon the sacred soil! How sweet the air was, +and how beautiful were the roses! When before, had he seen a magnolia +tree in bloom?—with its dense shade, its dark green shining foliage, +and its snow-white blossoms. Was there anything in the world so sweet as +its odor, combined with that of the roses and the other flowers that +filled the gardens? It was worth coming all the way from New York just +to see and to smell them.</p> + +<p>He caught glimpses of one or two familiar figures as he drove along. How +impatient he was to see his old friends—everybody—white and colored, +old and young, masculine and feminine. He could hardly wait to get to +the tavern, remove the dust of travel and sally forth upon the round of +visits he intended to make. His spirits went up—and up, and finally it +was Edgar Goodfellow in the flesh who stepped jauntily from the door of +"Swan Tavern," arrayed for hot-weather calling. In spite of the summer +temperature, he looked the personification of coolness and comfort. The +taste of prosperity his lectures had brought him was evident in his +modest but spruce apparel. He had discarded the habitual black cloth for +a coat and trousers of white linen (exquisitely laundered by Mother +Clemm's capable and loving hands) which he wore with a black velvet vest +for which he had also to thank the Mother and her skilled needle. A +broad-brimmed Panama hat shaded his pale features and the grey eyes, +which glowed with happiness. As with proudly carried head and quick, +easy gait, he bore westward up Broad Street, no single person passed him +that did not turn to look with admiration upon the handsome, +distinguished stranger, and to mentally ask "Who is he?"</p> + +<p>It so happened that Jack Mackenzie was the first acquaintance he met.</p> + +<p>"Edgar," he said, as their hands joined in affectionate grasp, "Do you +remember once, years ago, I met you in the street and you said you were +going to look for the end of the rainbow? Well, you look as if you had +found it!"</p> + +<p>"I have," was the reply. "An hour ago. It was here in Richmond all the +time and I didn't know it, and like a poor fool, have been wandering the +world over in a vain search for it. The trouble is, I was looking for +the wrong thing. I was looking for fame and fortune, thought of which +blinded my eyes to something far better—scenes and friendships of <i>lang +syne</i>. Jack—" he continued, as—arm in arm—the two friends made their +way up the street. "Jack, life is a great schoolmaster, but why does it +take so long to drub any sense into these blockheads of ours?"</p> + +<p>"Damned if I know," replied his companion, who was more truthful always +than either poetic or philosophic, "but if you mean that you've decided +to come back to Richmond to live, I'm mighty glad to hear it."</p> + +<p>"That's what I mean. I came only for a visit and to lecture, but made up +my mind on the way from the depot to come for good as soon as I can +arrange to do so. I think it was a magnolia tree in bloom—the first I +had seen in many a year—that decided me."</p> + +<p>"Well, all of your old friends will be glad to have you back; there's +one in particular that I might mention. Do you remember Elmira Royster? +She's a comely widow now, with a comfortable fortune, and she's always +had a lingering fondness for you. I advise you to hunt her up."</p> + +<p>The Dreamer's face clouded.</p> + +<p>"Women are angels, Jack," he said. "They are the salt that will save +this world, if it is to be saved, and for poor sinners like me there +would be simply no hope in either this world or the next but for them; +but they will have no more part in my life, save as friends. A true +friend of mine, however, I believe Myra is. I saw her during my brief +visit here last fall.—Ah, Rob! my boy! Howdy!"</p> + +<p>The two friends had turned into Sixth Street and as they drew near the +corner of Sixth and Grace, almost ran into Rob Stanard—now a prominent +lawyer and one of the leading gentlemen of the town.</p> + +<p>"Eddie Poe, as I'm alive!" he exclaimed, with a hearty hand-clasp. "My, +my, what a pleasure! I'm on my way home to dinner, boys. Come in, both +of you and take pot-luck with us. My wife will be delighted to see you!"</p> + +<p>The invitation was accepted as naturally as it was given, and the three +mounted together the steps of the beautiful house and were received in +the charmingly homelike drawing-room opening from the wide hall, by +Rob's wife, a Kentucky belle who had stepped gracefully into her place +as mistress of one of the notable homes in Virginia's capital. As she +gave her jewelled hand to Edgar Poe her handsome black eyes sparkled +with pleasure. She was not only sincerely glad to receive the friend of +her husband's boyhood, but keen appreciation of intellectual gifts made +her feel that to know him was a distinction. Some of the servants who +had known "Marse Eddie" in the old days were still of the +household—having come to Robert Stanard as part of his father's +estate—and they were to their intense gratification, pleasantly greeted +by the visitor.</p> + +<p>That evening—and many subsequent evenings—The Dreamer spent at "Duncan +Lodge" with the Mackenzies and their friends. A series of sunlit days +followed—days of lingering in Rob Sully's studio or in the familiar +office of <i>The Southern Literary Messenger</i> where the editor, Mr. John +R. Thompson—himself a poet—gave him a warm welcome always, and gladly +accepted and published in <i>The Messenger</i> anything the famous former +editor would let him have; days of wandering in the woods or by the +tumbling river he had loved as a lad; days of searching out old haunts +and making new ones.</p> + +<p>And everywhere he found welcome. Delightful little parties were given in +his honor, when in return for the courtesies paid him he charmed the +company by reciting "The Raven" as he alone could recite it. His +lectures upon "The Poetic Principle" and "The Philosophy of +Composition," and his readings in the assembly rooms of the Exchange +Hotel, drew the elite of the city, who sat spellbound while he, erect +and still and pale as a statue, filled their ears with the music of his +voice, and their souls with wonder at the brilliancy of his thought and +words. Subscriptions to <i>The Stylus</i> poured in. At last, this dream of +his life seemed an assured fact.</p> + +<p>One door—one only in all the town did not swing wide to receive him. +The closed portal of the mansion of which he had been the proud young +master, still said to him "Nevermore"—and he always had a creepy +sensation when he passed it, which even the sight of the flower-garden +he had loved, in fullest bloom, did not overcome.</p> + +<p>The golden days ran into golden weeks and the weeks into months, and +still Edgar Poe was making holiday in Richmond—the first holiday he had +had since, as a youth of seventeen he had quarrelled with John Allan and +gone forth to the battle of life. In the long, long battle since then +there had been more of joy than they knew who looking on had seen the +toil and the defeat and the despair, but from whose eyes the exaltation +he had felt in the act of creation or in the contemplation of the works +of nature, and the happiness he found in his frugal home, were hidden. +But, as has been said, there had been no holiday, until now when he had +come back to Richmond an older and a sadder and a more experienced Edgar +Poe—an Edgar Poe upon whom the Silence and the Solitude had fallen and +had left shaken—broken.</p> + +<p>Yet that personal identity upon the mystery of which he liked to +ponder—the unquenchable, immortal <i>ego</i> was there; and it was, for all +the outward and inward changes, the same Edgar Poe, with his two +natures—Dreamer and Goodfellow—alternately dominating him, who had +come back to find the real end of the rainbow in revisiting old scenes, +renewing old friendships, awakening old memories—and had paused to make +holiday.</p> + +<p>Even in these golden days there were occasional falls, for the cup of +kindness was everywhere and in his blood was the same old strain which +made madness for him in the single glass—the single drop, almost; and +in spite of all the great schoolmaster, Life, had taught him, there was +in his will the same old element of weakness. Had it been otherwise he +had not been Edgar Poe. At times, too, the blue devils raised their +heads. Had it been otherwise he had not been Edgar Poe.</p> + +<p>But on the whole the holiday was a bright dream of Paradise regained at +a time when more than ever before his feet had seemed to march only to +the cadence of the old, sad word, Nevermore.</p> + +<p>Two sacred pilgrimages he made early in this holiday—to the two shrines +of his romantic boyhood—to Shockoe Cemetery, where he not only visited +"Helen's" tomb, but laid a wreath upon the grave of Frances Allan—his +little foster mother, and to the churchyard on the hill. The white +steeple still slept serenely in the blue atmosphere above the church +and, as of yore, the bell called in deep, sweet tones to prayer. But how +the churchyard had filled since he saw it last! Graves, graves +everywhere. It was appalling! He stepped between the graves, old and +new, stooping to read the inscriptions upon the slabs. So many that he +remembered as merry boys and girls and hale men and women still in their +prime—could they really be dead?—gone forever from the scenes which +had known them and of which they seemed an integral part? Oh, mystery of +mysteries, how was it possible?—Yet here were their names plainly +written upon the marbles! The church builded by men's hands, the trees +planted by men's hands, the monuments fashioned by men's hands remained, +but the living, breathing men, where were they? Could it be that God's +highest creation was a more perishable thing than the lifeless work of +its own hand? His spirit cried out within him against such a thought. +No, it could not be! Gone from earth, or holden from mortal vision they +assuredly were—departed—but dead? No!</p> + +<p>Finally he came to the grave beside the wall. No marble tomb told the +passer-by that there lay the body of Elizabeth Poe. Yet, what +matter?—Was her sleep the less peaceful? Was her tired spirit the less +free?—If in its flight it should visit this spot where it had laid the +burden of the body down, surely it would find, for all there was no +carven stone to mark it, a most sweet spot. The greenest of grass, and +clover with blossoms white and red, waved over it—the summer breeze +rippling through them with pleasant sound,—and the tall trees hung a +green canopy between it and the midday sun.</p> + +<p>As he laid his offering of roses among the clover blooms and turned to +go away the bell in the steeple began to toll. How the past came +back!—He stood with uncovered and bowed head and counted the strokes. +Suddenly, there was a sound of horses tramping in the street below the +wall. Then through the gate and down the walk it came—the solemn +procession.</p> + +<p>He waited until the last of the mourners had passed into the church, +then followed, and as the bell stopped tolling and the organ began to +play the familiar, moving chant, he passed in and took a seat near the +door. Whose funeral service he was attending he knew not—but he was +back in childhood, and it was beautiful to him to hear once more, in +this very church, the words of spoken music and the old familiar hymns +he had heard that day when his infant heart had been filled with a +beautiful sorrow that was not pain.</p> + +<p>More than one pair of eyes turned to see the owner of the fine tenor +voice that joined in the singing of the hymns, and resting for a moment +upon the dark, uplifted eyes of Edgar Poe, caught a glimpse of something +not of this earth.</p> + +<p>As he left the church and churchyard, he noted many changes in its +immediate neighborhood but the only one upon which his eye lingered was +a smug brick house of commodious proportions and genteel aspect. A +pleasant green yard afforded space for a few trees and flowers. A +dignified and prosperous, but not in the least romantic house it was. A +house with no rambling wings giving opportunities for winding +passageways and odd nooks and corners; no unexpected closets where +skeletons might be in hiding, or dusky stairways to creak in the dead of +night, or upon which, even by day, one was almost certain he caught a +glimpse of a shadowy figure flying before him as he groped his way up or +down them. A house with no mysteries—just the house in which one might +have expected to find Elmira Royster who, as the Widow Shelton, the +prudent housewife and good manager of a prosperous estate, was simply +the frank, clear-eyed girl he had known, grown older.</p> + +<p>He would call upon Elmira sometime, but not now little son, so that she +could only use the income, was duly signed and sealed. The wedding ring +was bought.</p> + +<p>With visions of a new start in life, of which there were many happy +years in store for him (why not?—He was only forty!) The Dreamer set +out on his way back to Fordham to settle up his affairs and bring Mother +Clemm to Richmond to witness his marriage and to take up her abode with +him and his bride, in the brick house on the hill. He had been upon a +holiday, but he carried with him a goodly sum of money realized from his +lectures, and a long list of subscribers to <i>The Stylus</i>. Surely, +Fortune had never shown him a more smiling face!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Baltimore!—</p> + +<p>Why did his way lie through Baltimore? Baltimore, with its memories of +Virginia—Baltimore where he had come up out of the grave to the heaven +of her love, and where had been first constructed the most beautiful of +all his dreams—the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, in +which he and she and the Mother had lived for each other only!</p> + +<p>In Baltimore again he found his way stopped by the vision of "a legended +tomb." It was paralyzing! He could go no further upon his journey, but +lingered in Baltimore, wandering the streets like one bereft.</p> + +<p>The words—the prophetic words—of his own poem "To One in Paradise," +haunted him:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A voice from out the future cries,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'On! on!' But o'er the Past<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mute, motionless, aghast!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And again, the words of his "Bridal Ballad"—more prophetic still:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Would to God I could awaken!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For I dream I know not how;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my soul is sorely shaken<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lest an evil step be taken,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lest the dead who is forsaken<br /></span> +<span class="i2">May not be happy now."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And that merciless other self, his accusing Conscience, arose, and with +whisper louder and more terrible than ever before, upbraided +him—reminding him of the vow he had made his wife upon her bed of +death.</p> + +<p>Alas, the vow!—that solemn, sacred vow! How could he have so utterly +forgotten it? How plainly he could see her lying upon the snowy +pillow—her face not much less white—her trustful eyes on his eyes as +he knelt by her side and swore that he would never bind himself in +marriage to another—invoking from Heaven a terrible curse upon his soul +if he should ever prove traitorous to his oath.</p> + +<p>Alas, where had been his will that he had so soon forgotten his vow? How +he despised himself for his weakness—he that had boasted in the words +of old Joseph Glanvil, until he had almost made them his own words:</p> + +<p>"'Man doth not yield himself to the angels nor unto death utterly, save +only through the weakness of his will.'"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Hours on hours he wandered the streets of the city whose every paving +stone seemed to speak to him of his Virginia—the city where he had +walked with her—where he had first spoken of love to her and heard her +sweet confession—where, in the holy church, the beautiful words of the +old, old rite had made them one.</p> + +<p>All day he wandered, and all night—driven, cruelly driven—by the +upbraiding whisper in his ear, while before him still he saw her white +face with the soft eyes looking out—it seemed to him in reproach.</p> + +<p>Finally the longing which had come upon him in Providence—the longing +for the peace of the grave and reunion, in death, with Virginia, was +strong upon him again—pressed him hard—mastered him.</p> + +<p>It was sometime in the early morning that he swallowed the draught—the +draught that would free his spirit, that would enable him to lay down +the burden of his body and to fly from the steps that dogged <i>his</i> +steps—from the voice that whispered upbraidings. He would lay his body +down by the side of her body in the "legended tomb" while his spirit +would fly to join her spirit in that far Aidenn where they would be +happy together forever.</p> + +<p>As he fell asleep he murmured (again quoting himself):</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And neither the angels in heaven above,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor the demons down under the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can ever dissever my soul from the soul<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the beautiful Annabel Lee."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When he opened his wondering eyes upon the white walls of the hospital +he was feeble and weak in his limbs as an infant, but his brain was +unclouded. Gentle hands ministered to him and a woman's voice read him +spirit-soothing words from the Gospel of St. John. But the draught had +done its work. He lingered some days and then, on Sunday morning, the +seventh day of October of the year 1849, his spirit took its flight. His +last words were a prayer:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Lord, have mercy on my poor soul!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Many were the friends who rose up to comfort the stricken mother and who +hastened to bring rosemary to the poet's grave. But there was one whom +he had believed to be his friend—a big man whose big brain he had +admired—in whose furtive eye was an unholy glee, about whose thick lips +played a smile which slightly revealed his fang-like teeth. To him was +entrusted the part of literary executor—it had been The Dreamer's own +request. In his power it would lie to give to the world his own account +of this man who had said he was no poet and had distanced him in the +race for a woman's favor.</p> + +<p>The day was at hand when Rufus Griswold would have his full revenge upon +the fair fame of Edgar the Dreamer.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Out—out are the lights—out all!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, over each quivering form,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The curtain, a funeral pall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes down with the rush of a storm;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the angels, all pallid and wan,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Uprising, unveiling, affirm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the play is the tragedy, 'Man,'<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And its hero the Conqueror Worm."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p>Transcriber's note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected. +A table of contents was generated for the HTML version.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMER***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 17389-h.txt or 17389-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/3/8/17389">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/3/8/17389</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Dreamer + A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe + + +Author: Mary Newton Stanard + + + +Release Date: December 25, 2005 [eBook #17389] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMER*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci, and +the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +THE DREAMER + +A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe + +by + +MARY NEWTON STANARD +(Author of "The Story of Bacon's Rebellion") + + + + + + + + "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which + escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions + they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to + find they have been upon the verge of the great secret." + + --_Edgar Allan Poe, in "Eleanora"_ + + + + +Richmond, Virginia +The Bell Book and Stationery Company +1909 +Copyright 1909 +By Mary Newton Stanard + + + +[Illustration: THE HERMITAGE PRESS +Bindery of L.H. Jenkins +Richmond, Va.] + + + + + In the Sacred Memory + of + My Father and Mother + + + + + +TO THE READER + + +This study of Edgar Allan Poe, poet and man, is simply an attempt to +make something like a finished picture of the shadowy sketch the +biographers, hampered by the limitations of proved fact, must, at best, +give us. + +To this end I have used the story-teller's license to present the facts +in picturesque form. Yet I believe I have told a true story--true to the +spirit if not to the letter--for I think I have made Poe and the other +persons of the drama do nothing they may not have done, say nothing they +may not have said, feel nothing they may not have felt. In many +instances the opinions, and even the words I have placed in Poe's mouth +are his own--found in his published works or his letters. + +I owe much, of course, to the writers of Poe books before and up to my +time. Among these, I would make especial and grateful acknowledgment to +Mr. J.H. Ingram, Professor George E. Woodberry, Professor James A. +Harrison and Mrs. Susan Archer Weiss. + +But more than to any one of his biographers, I am indebted to Poe +himself for the revelations of his personality which appear in his own +stories and poems, the most part of which are clearly autobiographic. + +M.N.S. + + + + +THE DREAMER + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +The last roses of the year 1811 were in bloom in the Richmond gardens +and their petals would soon be scattered broadcast by the winds which +had already stripped the trees and left them standing naked against the +cold sky. + +Cold indeed, it looked, through the small, smoky window, to the eyes of +the young and beautiful woman who lay dying of hectic fever in a dark, +musty room back of the shop of Mrs. Fipps, the milliner, in lower Main +Street--cold and friendless and drear. + +She was still beautiful, though the sparkle in the great eyes fixed upon +the bleak sky had given place to deep melancholy and her face was +pinched and wan. + +She knew that she was dying. Meanwhile, her appearance as leading lady +of Mr. Placide's company of high class players was flauntingly announced +by newspaper and bill-board. + +The advertisement had put society in a flutter; for Elizabeth Arnold Poe +was a favorite with the public not only for her graces of person and +personality, her charming acting, singing and dancing, but she had that +incalculable advantage for an actress--an appealing life-story. It was +known that she had lately lost a dearly loved and loving husband whom +she had tenderly nursed through a distressing illness. It was also known +that the husband had been a descendant of a proud old family and that +the same high spirit which had led his grandfather, General Poe, +passionately denouncing British tyranny, to join the Revolutionary Army, +had, taking a different turn with the grandson, made him for the sake of +the gifted daughter of old England who had captured his heart--actress +though she was--sever home ties, abandon the career chosen for him by +his parents, and devote himself to the profession of which she was a +chief ornament. A brief five years of idylic happiness the pair had +spent together--happiness in spite of much work and some tears;--then +David Poe had succumbed to consumption, leaving a penniless widow with +three children to support. The eldest, a boy, was adopted by his +father's relatives in Baltimore. The other two--a boy of three years in +whom were blended the spirit, the beauty, the talent and the ardent +nature of both parents, and a soft-eyed, cooing baby girl--were clinging +about their mother whenever she was seen off the stage, making a picture +that was the admiration of all beholders. + +The last roses of the year would soon be gone from the gardens, but Mrs. +Fipps' windows blossomed gallantly with garlands and sprays more +wonderful than any that ever grew on tree or shrub. Not for many a long +day had the shop enjoyed such a thriving trade, for no sooner had the +news that Mr. Placide's company would open a season at the theatre been +noised abroad than the town beaux addressed themselves to the task of +penning elegant little notes inviting the town belles to accompany them +to the play, while the belles themselves, scenting an opportunity to +complete the wreck of masculine hearts that was their chief business, +addressed themselves as promptly to the quest of the most ravishing +theatre bonnets which the latest Paris fashions as interpreted by Mrs. +Fipps could produce. As that lady bustled back and forth among her +customers, her mouth full of pins and hands full of ribbons, feathers, +flowers and what not, her face wore, in spite of her prosperity, an +expression of unusual gravity. + +_She could not get the lodger in the back room off her mind._ + +Mr. Placide, who had been to see the sick woman, was confident that her +disorder was "nothing serious," and that she would be able to meet her +engagements, and charged the thrifty dealer in fashionable head-gear and +furnished rooms by no means to let the fact that the star was ill "get +out." But the fever-flush that tinged the patient's pale cheeks and the +cough that racked her wasted frame seemed very like danger signals to +good Mrs. Fipps, and though she did not realize the hopelessness of the +case, her spirits were oppressed by a heaviness that would not be shaken +off. + +Ill as Mrs. Poe, or Miss Arnold, as she was still sometimes called, was, +she had managed by a mighty effort of will and the aid of stimulants to +appear once or twice before the footlights. But her acting had been +spiritless and her voice weak and it finally became necessary for the +manager to explain that she was suffering from "chills and fevers," from +which he hoped rest and skillful treatment would relieve her and make +it possible for her to take her usual place. But she did not appear. +Gradually her true condition became generally known and in the hearts of +a kindly public disappointment gave place to sympathy. Some of the most +charitably disposed among the citizens visited her, bringing comforts +and delicacies for her and presents for the pretty, innocent babes who +all unconscious of the cloud that hung over them, played happily upon +the floor of the dark and bare room in which their mother's life was +burning out. Nurse Betty, an ample, motherly soul, with cheeks like +winter apples and eyes like blue china, and a huge ruffled cap hiding +her straggly grey locks from view--versatile Betty, who was not only +nurse for the children and lady's maid for the star, but upon occasion +appeared in small parts herself, hovered about the bed and ministered to +her dying mistress. + +As the hours and days dragged by the patient grew steadily weaker and +weaker. She seldom spoke, but lay quite silent and still save when +shaken by the torturing cough. On a Sunday morning early in December she +lay thus motionless, but wide-eyed, listening to the sounds of the +church-bells that broke the quiet air. As the voice of the last bell +died away she stirred and requested, in faint accents, that a packet +from the bottom of her trunk be brought to her. When this was done she +asked for the children, and when Nurse Betty brought them to the bedside +she gave into the hands of the wondering boy a miniature of herself, +upon the back of which was written: "For my dear little son Edgar, from +his mother," and a small bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon. She +clasped the baby fingers of the girl about an enameled jewel-case, of +artistic workmanship, but empty, for its contents had, alas, gone to pay +for food. She then motioned that the little ones be raised up and +allowed to kiss her, after which, a frail, white hand fluttered to the +sunny head of each, as she murmured a few words of blessing, then with a +gentle sigh, closed her eyes in her last, long sleep. + +The baby girl began to whimper with fright at the suddenness with which +she was snatched up and borne from the room, and the boy looked with awe +into the face of the weeping nurse who, holding his sister in one arm +dragged him away from the bedside and out of the door, by the hand. +There was much hurried tramping to and fro, opening and closing of doors +and drawing to of window-blinds. These unusual sounds filled the boy +with a vague fear. + +That night the children were put to bed upon a pallet in Mrs. Fipps' own +room and Mrs. Fipps herself rocked the baby Rosalie to sleep and gave +the little Edgar tea-cakes, in addition to his bread and milk, and told +him stories of Heaven and beautiful angels playing upon golden harps. +The next day the children were taken back to their mother's room. The +shutter to the window which let in the one patch of dim light was now +closed and the room was quite dark, save for two candles that stood upon +stands, one at the foot, the other at the head of the bed. The air was +heavy--sickening almost--with the odor of flowers. Upon the bed, all +dressed in white, and with a wreath of white roses on her dark ringlets, +lay their mother, with eyelids fast shut and a lovely smile on her +lips. She was very white and very beautiful, but when her little boy +kissed her the pale lips were cold on his rosy ones, as if the smile had +frozen there. It was very beautiful but the boy was a little frightened. + +"Mother--" he said softly, pleadingly, "Wake up! I want you to wake up." + +The weeping nurse placed her arm around him and knelt beside the bed. + +"She will never wake up again here on earth, Eddie darling. +Never--nevermore. She has gone to live with the angels where you will be +with her some day, but never--nevermore on earth." + +With that she fell to weeping bitterly, hiding her face on his little +shoulder. + +The child, marvelling, softly repeated, "Nevermore--nevermore." The +solemn, musical word, with the picture in the dim light, of the sleeping +figure--asleep to wake nevermore--and so white, so white, all save the +dusky curls, sank deep into his young mind and memory. His great grey +eyes were wistful with the beauty, and the sadness, and the mystery of +it all. + +The next day the boy rode in a carriage with Mrs. Fipps and Nurse Betty +who had left off the big white cap and was enveloped from head to foot +in black, up a long hill, to a white church in a churchyard where the +grass was still green between the tombstones. The bell in the white +steeple was tolling slowly, solemnly. Soft grey clouds hung over the +steeple and snow-flakes as big as rose-leaves began to fill the air. +Presently the bell ceased tolling and he and Nurse Betty moved up the +aisle behind a train of figures in black, with black streamers floating +from their sleeves. The figures bent beneath a heavy burden. It was long +and black and grim, but the flowers that covered it were snow-white and +filled the church with a sweet smell. A white-robed figure led the way +up the aisle, repeating, as he walked, some words so solemn and full of +melody that they sounded almost like music. The church was dim, and +quiet, and nearly empty. The organ began to play--oh, so softly! It was +very beautiful, but still the boy shuddered, for he dimly realized that +the grim box held the sleeping form that seemed to be his mother, but +was not his real mother. _Her_ kisses were not frozen, and _she_ was in +Heaven with the angels. + +The choir sang sweet music and the white-robed priest said more solemn +words that were like spoken music; then the procession moved slowly down +the aisle again and out of the door. The bell in the steeple was silent +now, and the organ was silent. Silently the procession moved--silently +the snow came down. Silently and softly, like white flowers. The green +graves were white with it now, like the flowers on the coffin lid; but +the open grave in the churchyard corner, near the wall--it was dark, and +deep and terrible! The boy's heart almost stood still as, clinging to +Nurse Betty's hand, he stared into its yawning mouth. He felt that he +would choke--would suffocate. They were lowering the box into that deep, +dark pit! What if the sleeping figure should awake, after all--awake to +the darkness and narrowness of that narrow bed! + +With a piercing shriek the child broke from his nurse's hand and thrust +himself upon the arm of one of the black figures who held the ropes, in +a wild effort to stay him; then, still shrieking, was borne from the +spot. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Since it seems you have set your heart upon this thing, I do not forbid +it; but remember, you are acting in direct opposition to my judgment and +advice, and if you ever live to regret it (as I believe you shall) you +will have no one but yourself to blame." + +John Allan's voice was harsher, more positive, than usual; his shoulders +seemed to square themselves and a frowning brow hardened an always +austere face. His whole manner was that of a man consenting against his +will. His young wife hung over his chair vainly endeavoring to smooth, +with little pats of her fair hands, the stubborn locks that _would_ +stand on end, like the bristles of a brush, whatever she did. Her soft +and vivacious beauty was in striking contrast to the strength and +severity of his rugged and at the same time distinguished countenance. +His narrow, steel-blue eyes, deep sunk under bushy brows and a high, but +narrow, forehead, were shrewd and piercing; his nose was large and like +a hawk's beak. His face too, was narrow, with cheek-bones high as an +Indian's. His mouth was large, but firmly closed, and the chin below it +was long and prominent and was carried stiffly above the high stock and +immaculate, starched shirt-ruffles. Her figure, as she leaned against +the chair's high back, was slender and girlish,--childish, almost, in +its low-necked, short-waisted, slim-skirted, "Empire" dress, of some +filmy stuff, the pale yellow of a Marshal Niel rose. Her face was a +pure oval with delicate, regular features. Her reddish-brown hair, +parted in the middle, was piled on top of her small head, and airy +little curls hung down on her brow on either side of the part. Her +eyes--the color of her hair--were gentle and sweet and her mouth was +tenderly curved and rosy. With her imploring attitude, the sweetness of +her eyes and mouth and the warmth of her plea, her fresh beauty glowed +like a flower, newly opened. All unmoved, John Allan repeated, + +"You will have no one but yourself to blame." + +Her ardor undimmed by the chariness of the consent she had gained, she +showered the lowering brow with cool, delicate little kisses until it +grew smooth in spite of itself. + +"Oh, I know I never shall regret it, John," she cooed. "He is such a +beautiful boy--so sweet and affectionate, so merry and clever! Just what +I should like our own little boy to be, John, if God had blessed us with +one." + +"I grant you he seems a bonny little lad enough, Frances. But I realize, +as it seems you do not, the risk of undertaking to rear as your own the +child of any but the most unquestionable parentage. I confess the +thought of introducing into my family the son of professional players is +extremely distasteful to me." + +"But John, dear, you know these Poes were not ordinary players. The +father was one of the Maryland Poes and I understand the mother came of +good English stock. She certainly seemed to be a lady and a good, sweet +woman, poor thing! The Mackenzies have decided to adopt the baby +Rosalie, though they have children, as you know; and with this charming +little Edgar for my very own I shall be the happiest woman alive." + +"Well, well, keep your pretty little pet, but if he turns out to be +other than a credit to you, don't forget that you were warned." + + * * * * * + +And so the little Edgar Poe--the players' child--became Edgar Allan, +with a fond and admiring young mother who became at once and forever his +slave and whose chief object in life henceforth was to stand between him +and the discipline of a not intentionally harsh or unkind, but strict +and uncompromising father; who though he too was fond of the boy, in a +way, and proud of his beauty and little accomplishments, was constantly +on the lookout for the cloven foot which his fixed prejudice against the +child's parentage made him certain would appear. + +In her delight over her acquisition, Frances Allan was like a child with +a new toy. She almost smothered him with kisses when, accepting her +bribe of a spaniel pup and his pockets full of sugar-kisses, he agreed +to call her "Mother." With her own fingers she made him the quaintest +little baggy trousers, of silk pongee, and a velvet jacket, and a tucker +of the finest linen. His cheap cotton stockings were discarded for +scarlet silk ones, and for his head, "sunny over with curls" of bright +nut-brown, she bought from Mrs. Fipps, the prettiest peaked cap of +purple velvet, with a handsome gold tassel that fell gracefully over on +one shoulder. Thus arrayed, she took him about town with her to show +him to her friends who were ecstatic in their admiration of his pensive, +clear-cut features, his big, grey eyes and his nut-brown ringlets; of +his charming smile and the frank, pretty manner in which he gave his +small hand in greeting. + +"Oh, but you should hear him recite and sing," the proud foster-mother +would say. "And he can dance, too." + +She gave a large dinner-party just to exhibit the accomplishments of her +treasure--actually standing him upon the table when it had been cleared, +to sing and recite for the guests. Even her husband unbent so far as to +applaud vigorously the modest, yet self-possessed grace with which the +mite drank the healths of the assembled company--making a neat little +speech that his new mother had taught him. + +The boy's young heart responded to the affection of the foster-mother to +a certain degree; but, mere baby though he was, his real heart lay deep +in the grave on the hill-top, where the earthly part of that other +mother was lying so still, so white, with the roses on her hair and the +frozen smile on her lips. + +The churchyard on the hill was but a short distance away from his new +home, and as spring opened, became a favorite resort of nurses and +children. The negro "mammy" who had replaced Nurse Betty used often to +take him there, and often, as she chatted with other mammies, her charge +would wander from her side to the grave against the wall, where he would +stretch his small body full length upon the turf and whisper the +thoughts of his infant mind to the dear one below; for who knew but +that, even down under ground she might be glad to hear, through her +white sleep, her little boy's words of love and remembrance--though +never, nevermore she could see him on earth. He would even imagine her +replies to him, until the conversations with her became so real that he +half believed they were true. + +At night, when bed-time came, he said his prayers at the knee of his +pretty new mother, who told him jolly stories and sang him jolly songs, +and patted him and soothed him with caresses which he found very +agreeable, and accepted graciously. But he always took the miniature +which had been his dying mother's parting gift to bed with him and he +was glad when the new mother kissed him goodnight and put out the light +and softly closed the door behind her; for it was then, with the picture +close against his breast, that the visions came to him--the visions of +angels making sweet music upon golden harps and among them his lost +mother, with her sweet face saddened but made sweeter still by that +thought of nevermore. + +Oh, that wondrous word nevermore! Its music charmed him, its +hopelessness filled and thrilled him with a strange, a holy sorrow, in +which there was no pain. + +With the lovely vision still about him, the picture still clasped to his +breast, he would sink into healthful sleep to wake on the morrow a +bright, joyous boy, alive to all the pleasures of the new +day--delighting in the beauties of blue sky and sunshine, of whispering +tree and opening flower, ready for sport with his play-fellows and his +pets, and full of all manner of merry pranks and jokes. For in the frame +of this small boy there dwelt two distinct personalities--twin +brothers--yet as utterly unlike as strangers and foreigners, thinking +different thoughts, speaking different languages, and dominating +him--spirit and body--by turns. One of these we will call Edgar +Goodfellow--Edgar the gay, the laughter-loving, the daring, the real, +live, wholesome, normal boy; keen for the society of other boys and +liking to dance, to run, to jump, to climb, even to fight. The other, +Edgar the Dreamer, fond of solitude and silence and darkness, for they +aided him to wander far away from the everyday world to one of make +believe created by himself and filled with beings to whom real people +were but as empty shadows; but a world that the death and burial of his +beautiful and adored young mother and the impression made upon him by +those scenes, had tinged with an eternal sadness which hung over it as a +veil. + +The life of Edgar the Dreamer was filled with the subtle charm of +mystery. It was a secret life. The world in which he moved was a secret +world--an invisible world, to whose invisible door he alone held the +key. Edgar the Dreamer was himself an invisible person, for the only +outward difference between him and his twin brother, Edgar Goodfellow, +lay in a certain quiet, listless air and the solemn look in his big, +dark grey eyes which his playmates--bored and intolerant--took as +indications that "Edgar was in one of his moods," and his +foster-father--eyeing him keenly and with marked displeasure--as an +equally unmistakable indication that he was "hatching mischief." + +There were times when in the midst of the liveliest company this +so-called "mood" would possess the child. He would fall silent; his +mouth would become pensive, his dark grey eyes would seem to be +impenetrably veiled; his chin would drop upon his hand; he would seem +utterly forgetful of his surroundings. The familiar Edgar--Edgar +Goodfellow--would have given place to Edgar the Dreamer, who though +apparently of the company, would really have slipped through that +invisible portal and wandered far afield with the playmates of his +fancy. + +At such times Mrs. Allan would say, "Eddie, what are you thinking +about?" And brought back to her world with a jolt, the boy would answer +quickly (somewhat guiltily it seemed to Mr. Allan--noting the startled +expression), + +"Nothing." It was his first lie, and a very little one, but one that was +often repeated; for he that would guard a secret must be used to +practice deception. + +Mr. Allan would say, "Wake up, wake up, child! Only the idle sit and +stare at nothing and think of nothing. You'll be growing up an idle, +trifling boy if you give way to such a habit." + +Between the Allans and Edgar the Dreamer a great gulf lay--for how +should a dreamer of day-dreams reveal himself to any not of his own +tribe and kind? Upon Edgar Goodfellow Mrs. Allan doted. All of her +friends agreed with her that so remarkable a child--one so precocious +and still so attractive--had never been seen, and Mr. Allan was +secretly, as proud of his wrestling, running, riding and other out-door +triumphs as his wife was of his pretty parlor accomplishments. Their +friends agreed too, that she made him the best of mothers, barring the +fact (for which weakness she was excusable--he was such a love!) that +she spoiled him, and perhaps permitted him to rule her too absolutely. +Was he grateful? Oh, well, that would come in time. Appreciation was not +a quality to be expected in children, and what more natural than that +the boy should accept as a matter of course the good things which she +made plain it was her chief pleasure in life to shower upon him? She was +indeed, as good a mother as it was possible for a mother without a +highly developed imagination to be. + +A most lovely woman was Frances Allan, justly admired and liked by all +who knew her. She was pretty and gracious and sunny-tempered and +sweet-natured; charitable--both to society and the poor--and faithful to +her religious duties. Withal, a notable house-keeper, given to +hospitality, fond of "company" and gifted in the art of making her +friends feel at home under her roof. If she was not gifted with a lively +imagination she did not know it, and so had not missed it. As Mr. +Allan's wife she had not needed it. And so she lavished upon Edgar +Goodfellow everything that heart could wish. She delighted to provide +him with pets and toys and good things to eat, and to fill his little +pockets with money for him to spend upon himself or upon treating his +friends. Fortunately, the other Edgar--Edgar the Dreamer--was not +dependent upon her for his pleasures, for the beauties of sky and river +and garden and wood which nourished his soul were within his own reach. + +If Mrs. Allan had known Edgar the Dreamer, she would have been puzzled +and alarmed. If Mr. Allan had known him he would have been angry. A man +of action was John Allan. A canny Scotchman he, who owed his success as +a tobacco merchant to energy and strict attention to business. If there +were dreams in the bowl of the pipe, there was no room for them in the +counting-house of a thrifty dealer in the weed. Meditation had no part +in his life--was left out of his composition. He believed in _doing_. +Day-dreaming was in his opinion but another name for idling, and idling +was sin. + +The son of their adoption vaguely realized the lack of kinship--the +impossibility of contact between his nature and theirs, and as time went +on drew more and more within himself. The life of Edgar the Dreamer +became more and more secret. So often however, did the warning against +his idle habit fall upon his ears that the plastic conscience of +childhood made note of it--confusing the will of a blind human guardian +with that of God. The Eden of his dreams, guarded by the flaming sword +of his foster-father's wrath, began to assume the aspect (because by +parental command denied him) of an evil place--though none the less +sweet to his soul--and it was with a consciousness of guilt that he +would steal in and wander there. + +Thus the habit that nurtured God-given genius, branded as sin, and +forbidden, might have been broken up, altogether or in part, had not the +special providence that looks after the development of this rare exotic +transplanted it to a more fertile soil--a more congenial clime. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Upon a mellow September afternoon three years after the newspapers had +announced the death, in Richmond, Virginia, of Elizabeth Arnold, the +popular English actress, generally known in the United States as Mrs. +Poe, the ancient town of Stoke-Newington, in the suburbs of London, +dozing in the shadows of its immemorial elms, was aroused to a mild +degree of activity by the appearance upon its green-arched streets of +three strangers--evidently Americans. It was not so much their +nationality as a certain distinguished air that drew attention upon the +dignified and proper gentleman in broadcloth and immaculate linen, the +pretty, gracious-seeming and fashionably dressed lady and especially the +little boy of six or seven summers with the large, wistful eyes and pale +complexion, and chestnut ringlets framing a prominent, white brow and +tumbling over a broad, snowy tucker. He wore pongee knickerbockers and +red silk stockings and on his curls jauntily rested a peaked velvet cap +from which a heavy gold tassel fell over upon his shoulder. + +The denizens of old Stoke-Newington gazed upon this prosperous trio with +frank curiosity; the reader has already recognized John Allan and his +wife, Frances, and little Edgar Poe--their adopted child. + +The sun was still hot, and the refreshing chill in the dusky street, +under its arch of interlacing boughs, was grateful to the tired little +traveller. As he moved along, clinging to Mrs. Allan's hand, his big +eyes gazing as far as they might up the long, cool aisle the trees made, +the hazy green distance invited his mystery-loving fancy. The odors of a +thousand flowering shrubberies were on the air and he felt that it was +good to be in this dreaming old town--as old, it seemed to him, as the +world; and there was born in him at that moment, though he could not +have defined it, a sense of the picturesquesness, the charm, the +fragrance, of old things--old streets, old houses, old trees, old turf +and shrubberies, even--with their haunting suggestions of bygone days +and scenes. + +They passed the ancient Gothic church, standing solemn and serene among +its mossy tombs. In the misty blue atmosphere above the elms the fretted +steeple seemed to the boy to lie imbedded and asleep, but even as he +gazed upon it the churchbell, sounding the hour, broke the stillness +with a deep, hollow roar which thrilled him with mingled awe and +delight. + +Ah, here indeed, was a place made for dreaming! + +In the midst of the town lay the Manor House School where the scholarly +Dr. Bransby, who preached in the Gothic church on Sundays, upon +week-days instructed boys in various branches of polite learning--and +also frequently flogged them. This school was the destination of the +three strangers from America, for here the foundations of young Edgar's +education were to be laid during the several years residence of his +foster-parents in London, in which city the boy himself would pass his +holidays and sometimes be permitted to spend week-ends. + +The ample grounds of the school were enclosed from the rest of the town +by a high and thick brick wall, dingy with years, which seemed to frown +like a prison wall upon the grassy and pleasantly shaded freedom +without. At one corner of this ponderous wall was set a more ponderous +gate, riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged +iron spikes. As the boy passed through it he trembled with delicious awe +which was deepened by the ominous creak of the mighty hinges. He fancied +himself entering upon a domain of mystery and adventure where all manner +of grim and unearthly monsters might cross his pathway to be wrestled +with and destroyed. The path to the house lay through a small parterre +planted with box and other shrubs, and beyond stretched the playgrounds. + +As for the house itself, that appeared to the eyes of the boy as a +veritable palace of enchantment. It was a large, grey, rambling +structure of the Elizabethan age. Within, it was like a labyrinth. Edgar +wondered if there were any end to its windings and incomprehensible +divisions and sub-divisions--to its narrow, dusky passages and its steps +down and up--up and down; to its odd and unexpected nooks and corners. +Scarce two rooms seemed to him to be upon the same level and between +continually going down or up three or four steps in a journey through +the mansion upon which Dr. Bransby guided him and his foster-parents, +the dazed little boy found it almost impossible to determine upon which +of the two main floors he happened to be. It was afterward to become a +source of secret satisfaction to him that he never finally decided upon +which floor was the dim sleeping apartment to which he was introduced +soon after supper, and which he shared with eighteen or twenty other +boys. + +The business of formally entering the pupil about whom the Allans and +Dr. Bransby had already corresponded, in the school, was soon +dispatched, and once more the iron gate swung open upon its weirdly +complaining hinges, then went to again with a bang and a clang, and the +little boy from far Virginia, with the wistful grey eyes and the sunny +curls was alone in a throng of curious school-fellows, and in the +dimness, the strangeness, the vastness of a hoary, mysterious mansion +full of echoes, and of quaint crannies and closets where shadows lurked +by day as well as by candle-light. Alone, yet not unhappy--for Edgar the +Dreamer was holding full sway. With the departure of his foster-father, +all check was removed from his fancy which could, and did, run riot in +this creepy and fascinating old place, and at night he had to comfort +him the miniature of his mother from which he had never been parted for +an hour, and which he still carried to bed with him with unfailing +regularity. + +He had always known that his mother was English-born, and somehow, in +his mind, there seemed to be some mystic connection between this ancient +town and manor house and the green graveyard in Richmond, with its +mouldy tombstones and encompassing wall. + + * * * * * + +Not until the next morning was the new pupil ushered into the +school-room--the largest room in the world it seemed to the small, +lonely stranger. It was long, narrow and low-pitched. Its ceiling was +of oak, black with age, and the daylight struggled fitfully in through +pointed, Gothic windows. Built into a remote and terror-inspiring corner +was a box-like enclosure, eight or ten feet high, of heavy oak, like the +ceiling, with a massy door of the same sombre wood. This, the newcomer +soon learned was the "sanctum" of the head-master--the Rev. Dr. +Bransby--whose sour visage, snuffy habiliments and upraised ferule +seemed so terrible to young Edgar that on the following Sunday when he +went to service in the Gothic church, it was with a spirit of deep +wonder and perplexity that he regarded from the school gallery the +reverend man with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy +and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and +so vast, who, with solemn step and slow, ascended the high pulpit. + +Interspersed about the school-room, crossing and recrossing in endless +irregularity, were benches and desks, black, ancient and time-worn, +piled desperately with much bethumbed books, and so beseamed with +initial letters, names at full length, grotesque figures and other +multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have lost what little of original +form might have been their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket +with water stood at one extremity of the room and a clock, whose +dimensions appeared to the boy to be stupendous, at the other. + +But it was not only Edgar the Dreamer who came to Manor House School, +who passed out of the great iron gate and through the elm avenues to the +Gothic church on Sundays, and who regularly, on two afternoons in the +week, made a decorous escape from the confinement of the frowning walls, +and in company with the whole school, in orderly procession, and duly +escorted by an usher, tramped past the church and into the pleasant +green fields that lay beyond the quaint houses of the village. Edgar +Goodfellow was there too--Edgar the gay, the frolicsome, the lover of +sports and hoaxes and trials of strength. + +Upon the evening of the young American's arrival, his schoolmates kept +their distance, regarding him with shy curiosity, but by the recess hour +next day this timidity had worn off, and they crowded about him with the +pointed questions and out-spoken criticisms which constitute the +breaking in of a new scholar. The boy received their sallies with such +politeness and good humor and with such an air of modest dignity, that +the wags soon ceased their gibes for very shame and the ring-leaders +began to show in their manner and speech, an air of approval in place of +the suspicion with which they had at first regarded him. + +When the questions, "What's your name?"--"How old are you?"--"Where do +you live?" "Were you sick at sea?"--"What made you come to this school?" +"How high can you jump?"--"Can you box?" "Can you fight?"--and the like, +had been promptly and amiably answered, there was a lull. The silence +was broken by young Edgar himself. Drawing himself up to the full height +of his graceful little figure and thumping his chest with his closed +fist, he said, "Any boy who wants to may hit me here, as hard as he +can." + +The boys looked at each other inquiringly for a moment--they were +uncertain, whether this was a specimen of American humor or to be taken +literally. Presently the largest and strongest among them stepped +forward. He was a stalwart fellow for his years, but his excessively +blond coloring, together with the effeminate style in which his mother +insisted upon dressing him, caused the boys to give him the name of +"Beauty," which was soon shortened into "Beaut," and had finally become +"the Beau." + +"Will you let _me_ hit you?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied Edgar. "Count three and hit. You can't hurt me." + +As "the Beau" counted, "One--two--three"--Edgar gently inflated his +lungs, expanding his chest to its fullest extent, and then, at the +moment of receiving the blow, exhaled the air. He did not stagger or +flinch, though his antagonist struck straight from the shoulder, with a +brawny, small fist. + +The rest of the boys, in turn, struck him--each time counting +three--with the same result. Finally "the Beau" said, + +"_You_ hit _me_." + +Edgar counted, "One--two--three"--and struck out with clenched fist, but +"the Beau" not knowing the trick, was promptly bowled over on the +grass--the shock making quick tears start in his forget-me-not blue +eyes. + +The boys were, one and all, open and clamorous in their admiration. + +"Pshaw," said young Edgar, indifferently. "It's nothing. All the boys in +Virginia can do that." + +"Can you play leap-frog?" asked "Freckles"--a wiry looking little +fellow, with carotty locks and a freckled nose, whose leaping had +hitherto been unrivalled. + +"I'll show you," was the reply. + +Instantly, a dozen backs were bent in readiness for the game, and over +them, one by one, vaulted Edgar, with the lightness of a bird, his brown +curls blowing out behind him, as his baggy yellow thighs and thin red +legs flew through the air. + +"Freckles" magnanimously owned himself beaten at his own game. + +"Let's race," said "Goggles"--a lean, long-legged, swathy boy, with a +hooked nose and bulging, black eyes. + +Like a flash, the whole lot of them were off down the gravel walk, under +the elms. Edgar and "Goggles"--abreast--led for a few moments, then +Edgar gradually gained and came out some twenty feet ahead of "Goggles," +and double that ahead of the foremost of the others. + +It was not only these accomplishments in themselves that made the +American boy at once take the place of hero and leader of his form in +this school of old England, but the quiet and unassuming mien with which +he bore his superiority--not seeming in the least to despise the weakest +or most backward of his competitors, and good-humoredly initiating them +all into the little secrets of his success in performing apparently +difficult feats. + +It was the same way with his lessons. Without apparent effort he +distanced all of his class-mates and instead of pluming himself upon it, +was always ready to help them with their Latin or their sums, whose +answers he seemed to find by magic, almost. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +During the winter before Edgar went to Stoke-Newington, he had attended +an "infant school," in Richmond, taught by a somewhat gaunt, but +mild-mannered spinster, with big spectacles over her amiable blue eyes, +a starchy cap and a little bunch of frosty cork-screw curls on each side +of her face. As a child, she had played with Mr. Allan's father on their +native heath, in Ayrshire, and to her, little Edgar was always her "ain +wee laddie." She had spoiled him inordinately and unblushingly. Also, as +she contentedly drew at the pipe filled with the offerings of choice +smoking-tobacco which he frequently turned out of his pockets into her +lap, she had taught him to read in her own broad Scottish accent, and to +cypher. + +She had furthermore drilled him in making "pothooks and hangers," with +which he covered his slate in neat rows, daily. But it was at the Manor +House, in Stoke-Newington, that he was initiated into the mysteries of +writing. His hands were as shapely as a girl's, with deft, taper fingers +that seemed made to hold a pen or brush, and he soon developed a neat, +small, but beautifully clear and graceful hand-writing. + +This new accomplishment became at once a delight to him, and as time +went on opened a new world to Edgar the Dreamer, who now began, when he +could snatch an opportunity to do so unobserved, to put down upon paper +the visions of his awakening soul. Sometimes these scribblings took the +form of little stories--crudely conceived and incoherently expressed, +but rich in the picturesque thought and language of an exceptionably +imaginative and precocious child. Sometimes they were in verse. For +subjects these infant effusions had generally to do with the lonely +grave in the churchyard in Richmond and the sad joy of the heart that +mourns evermore; with the beauty of flowers--the more beautiful because +doomed to a brief life; with the Gothic steeple, asleep in the still, +blue air, and the bell in whose deep iron throat dwelt a note that was +hollow and ghostly; with the great wall around the Manor House grounds +and with the mighty gate that swung upon hinges in which the voice of a +soul in torment seemed to be imprisoned, and with other things which +filled him with a terror that + + "was not fright, + But a tremulous delight." + +His learning to write bore still another fruit. + +When Mrs. Allan had first adopted him and set apart a room in her home +for him, she had placed in a little cabinet therein the packet of +letters his dying mother had given him. She had not opened the packet, +for she felt that the letters were for the actress's child's eye alone. +He, when he looked at it, did so with a feeling of mixed reverence and +fascination which was deepened by his inability to decipher the secrets +bound together by the bit of blue ribbon tied around it. How the sight +of the packet recalled to him that sad, that solemn hour in which it +had been given into his hands! When getting him ready for +boarding-school, Mrs. Allan had packed the letters with his other +belongings, for she was a woman of sentiment, and she felt the child +should not be parted from this gift of his dying mother. But at length, +when a knowledge of writing made it possible for him to read the +letters, he was possessed with a feeling of shrinking from doing so, as +one might shrink from opening a message from the grave. + +What grim, what terrible secrets, might not the little bundle of letters +reveal! + +It was not until his fifth and last year at Stoke-Newington that Edgar +decided one day to look into the packet. He was confined to his bed by +slight indisposition and so had the dormitory to himself and could risk +opening the letters without fear of interruption. He untied the blue +ribbon and the thin, yellowed papers, with fragments of their broken +seals still sticking to them, fell apart. He picked up the one bearing +the earliest date and began to read. It was from his father to his +mother immediately after their betrothal. His interest was at once +intensely aroused and in the order in which the letters came, he read, +and read, and read, with the absorption with which he might have read +his first novel. They were a revelation to him--a revelation of a world +he had not known existed, though it seemed, it lay roundabout him--these +love-letters of his parents, literally throbbing with the exalted +passion of two young, ardent, poetic spirits. The boy had not dreamed +that anything so beautiful could be as this undying love of which they +wrote and the language in which they made their sweet vows to each +other. His own heart throbbed in answer to what he read. His imagination +was violently wrought upon and exquisite feelings such as he had never +known before awakened in his breast. + +Under the spell of the letters the child-poet fell in love--not with any +creature of flesh and blood, for his entire acquaintance and association +was with boys--but with the ideal of his inner vision. From that time, +his poetic outbursts came to be filled with--more than aught else--the +surpassing beauty, the worshipful goodness, the divine love of woman. He +was a naturally reverent boy, but for these more than mortal beings, as +they appeared to his fancy, was reserved the supreme worship of his +romantic soul. Indeed, the adoration of his ideal woman--perfect in +body, in mind and in soul, became, and was to be always, a religion to +him. + +To imagine himself rescuing from a dark prison tower, hid in a deep +wood, or from a watery grave in a black and rock-bound lake, at +midnight, some lovely maiden whose every thought and heart-beat would +thenceforth be for him alone--this became the entrancing inward vision +of Edgar the Dreamer--the poet--the lover, at whom Edgar Goodfellow with +whisper as insistent as the voice of Conscience, scoffed and sneered, +seeking to make him ashamed; but all in vain. + +Of course it was to follow, as the night the day, that the boy would +find someone in whom to dress his ideal. Upon a Sunday soon after his +falling in love, he saw the very maiden of his dreams in the flesh. It +was in the Gothic church. From the remote pew in the gallery where he +sat with his school-mates, he looked down upon a wonderful vision of +white and gold in one of the principal pews of the main aisle. Clad all +in white and with a shower of golden tresses falling over her shoulders, +she was like a glorious lily or a holy angel. Her eyes, uplifted in the +rapture of worship, he divined, rather than saw, were of the hue of +heaven itself. He loved her at once, with all his soul's might. Her +name? Her home? These were mysteries--sacred mysteries--whose +unfathomableness but added to her charm. + +After that, service in the Gothic church was a much more important event +to The Dreamer than before--an event looked forward to with trembling +from Sunday to Sunday. After that too, upon his periodical week-day +walks with the school, he would look up at the quaint old homesteads +they passed, with their hedged gardens, ivied walls and sweet-scented +shrubberies, and try to guess which was the house-wonderful in which she +dwelt. Then suddenly, one sweet May afternoon, he discovered it. + +It was, as was fitting, the most antique, the most distinguished mansion +of them all. He saw her through the bars of the stately entrance gate as +she sat beside her mother, on a garden-seat, tying into nosegays the +flowers that filled her lap. Stupified by the shock of the discovery, he +stood rooted to the ground, letting his school-mates go on ahead of him. +She was much nearer him than she had been in the dusky church, and upon +closer view, she seemed even more lovely, more flower-like, more angelic +than ever before. He stared upon her face with a gaze so compelling +that she looked up and smiled at him; then, with sudden impulse, +gathered her flowers in her apron, and running forward, handed him +through the gate, a fragrant, creamy bud that she happened at the moment +to have in her hand. + +As in a dream, he stretched his fingers for it. He tried to frame an +expression of thanks, but his lips were dry and though they moved, no +sound came. She had returned at once to her seat beside her mother, and +the voice of the usher (who had just missed him) sharply calling to him +to "Come on!" was in his ears. He hurried forward, trembling in all his +limbs. Twice he stumbled and nearly fell. The bud, he had quickly hidden +within his jacket--it was too holy a thing for the profane eyes of his +school-fellows to look upon. + +When strength and reason came back to him he was like a new being. +Happiness gave wings to his feet and he walked on air. A divine song +seemed to be singing in his ears. Mechanically, he went through the +regular routine of school, with no difference that others could see. To +himself, heart and soul--detached and divorced from his body--seemed +soaring in a new and beautiful world in which lessons and teachers had +no place, no part. Whenever it was possible for him to do so unobserved, +he would snatch the rose from his bosom and kiss and caress it. He only +lived to see Sunday come round. + +But on the next Sunday and the next she was absent from her accustomed +place. Such a thing had not happened before since he had first seen her. +He was filled with the first real anxiety he had ever known. Here was a +mystery in which there was no charm! + +The Wednesday after the second Sunday upon which he had missed her was a +day dropped out of heaven. The mild, early summer air that floated +through the open windows into the gloomy, oak-ceiled schoolroom, was +ambrosial with the breathings of flowers. Young Edgar could not fix his +thoughts upon the page before him. The out-of-door world was calling to +him. He found himself listening to the birds in the trees outside and +gazing through the narrow, pointed windows at the waving branches. + +Suddenly his heart stopped. The deep, sweet, hollow, ghostlike voice of +the bell in the steeple, tolling for a funeral, was borne to his ears. +In a moment his fevered imagination associated the tolling with the +absence of his divinity from her pew, and in spite of passionately +assuring himself that it could not be, and recalling how lovely and full +of health she had been when he saw her through the gate, he was +possessed by deep melancholy. + +The days and hours until Sunday seemed an age to him--an age of +foreboding and dread--but they at last passed by. In a fever of anxiety, +he walked with the rest of the boys to church, and mounted the steps to +the school gallery. + +It was early; few of the worshippers had arrived, but in a little while +there was a stir near the door. A group of figures shrouded in the black +habiliments of woe were moving up the aisle--were entering _her_ pew, +from which alas, _she_ was again absent! + +_Then he knew_--knew that she would enter that sacred place +_nevermore_! + +After the service there were inquiries as to the cause of a commotion in +the gallery occupied by the Manor House School, and it was said in reply +that the weather being excessively hot for the season, one of the boys +had fainted. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The June following young Edgar's eleventh birthday found him in Richmond +once more. The village-like little capital was all greenery and roses +and sunshine and bird-song and light-hearted laughter, and he felt, with +a glow, that it was good to be back. + +In the five years of his absence he had grown quite tall for his age, +with a certain dignity and self-possession of bearing acquired from +becoming accustomed to depend upon himself. All that was left of the +nut-brown curls that used to flow over his shoulders were the clustering +ringlets that covered his head and framed his large brow. His absence +had also wrought in him other and more subtle changes which did not +appear to the friends who remarked upon what a great boy he had grown--a +maturity from having lived in another world--from having had his +thoughts expanded by new scenes and quickened by the suggestions of +historic association and surroundings. + +But with his return, England and Stoke-Newington sank into the +shadowy past--their spell weakened, for the time being, by the +thought-absorbing, heart-filling scenes of which he had now become a +part. The years at the Manor House School were as a dream--_this_ was +the real thing--_this_ was Home. _Home_--ah, the charm of that word and +all it implied! His heart swelled, his eyes grew misty as he said it +over and over to himself. The clatter of drays "down town" was like +music in his ears, the dusty streets of the residential section were +fair to his eyes for old time's sake. How he loved the very pavement +under his feet, rough and uneven as it was; how dearly he loved the +trees that he had climbed (and would climb again) which stretched their +friendly boughs over his head! + +In a state of happy excitement he rushed about town, visiting his old +haunts to see if they were still there, and "the same." + +"Comrade," his brown spaniel--his favorite of all his pets--had grown +old and sober and had quite forgotten him, but his love was soon +reawakened. The boys he had played with, too, had almost forgotten him, +but his return called him to mind again and put them all in a flutter. A +boy who had lived five years on the other side of the ocean and had been +to an English boarding school, was not seen in Richmond every day. Mrs. +Allan gave him a party to which all of the children in their circle were +invited. In anticipation of this, he had purchased in London, out of the +abundance of pocket-money with which his doting foster-mother always saw +to it he was provided, a number of little gifts to be distributed among +the boys at home. These, with the distinction his travels gave him, made +him the man of the hour among Richmond children. And how much he had to +tell! At Stoke-Newington it was always the boys at home that were the +heroes of the stories he spun by the yard for the entertainment of his +school-fellows--the literal among whom had come to believe that there +was no feat a Virginia boy could not perform. Now that he was in +Richmond, the Stoke-Newington boys themselves loomed up as the +wonder-workers, and his playmates listened with admiration and with such +expression as, "Caesar's ghost!"--"Jiminy!"--"Cracky!" and the like, as +he narrated his tales of "Freckles," "Goggles," "the Beau," and the +rest. + +One of his first visits after reaching home was to his old black +"Mammy," in the tiny cottage, with its prolific garden-spot, on the +outskirts of the town, in which Mr. Allan had installed her and her +husband, "Uncle Billy," before leaving Virginia. + +"Mammy" was expecting him. With one half of her attention upon the white +cotton socks she was knitting for her spouse and the other half on the +gate of her small garden through which her "chile" would come, she sat +in her doorway awaiting him. She was splendidly arrayed in her new +purple calico and a big white apron, just from under the iron. Her +gayest bandanna "hankercher" covered her tightly "wropped" locks from +view and the snowiest of "neckerchers" was crossed over her ample bosom. +Her kind, black countenance was soft with thoughts of love. + +"Uncle Billy," too, was spruced for the occasion. Indeed, he was quite +magnificent in a "biled shut," with ruffles, and an old dresscoat of +"Marster's." His top-boots were elaborately blacked, and a somewhat +battered stove-pipe hat crowned his bushy grey wool. Each of the old +folks comfortably smoked a corn-cob pipe. + +"Mammy" saw her boy coming first. She could hardly believe it was +he--he was so tall--but she was up and away, down the path, in a flash. +Half-way to the gate that opened on the little back street, she met him +and enveloped him at once in her loving arms. + +"Bless de Lord, O my soul!" she repeated over and over again in a sort +of chant, as she held him against her bosom and rocked back and forth on +her broad feet, tears of joy rolling down her face. + +"De probable am returned," announced Uncle Billy, solemnly. + +"G'long, Billy," she said, contemptuously. "He ain' no _probable_. He +jes' Mammy's own li'l' chile, if he _is_ growed so tall!" + +"I'se only 'peatin' what de Good Book say," replied Uncle Billy, with +dignity. + +Edgar was crying too, and laughing at the same time. + +"Howdy, Uncle Billy," said he, stretching a hand to the old man as soon +as he could extricate himself from Mammy's embrace. "My, my, you do look +scrumptious! How's the rheumatiz?" + +"Now jes' heah dat! Rememberin' uv de ole man's rheumatiz arter all dis +time!" exclaimed the delighted Uncle Billy. "'Twus mighty po'ly, +thankee, li'l Marster, but de sight o' you done make it better a'ready. +I 'clar 'fo' Gracious, if de sight of you wouldn' be good for so' eyes! +Socifyin' wid dem wile furren nations ain' hu't you a bit--'deed it +ain't!" + +"How did you expect them to hurt me, Uncle Billy?" asked Edgar, +laughing. + +"I was 'feard dey mought make a _Injun_, or sum'in' out'n you." + +"G'long, Billy," put in his wife, with increased contempt, "Marse Eddie +ain' been socifyin' wid no Injuns--he been socifyin' wid kings an' +queens' settin' on dey thrones, wid crowns on dey haids an' spectres in +dey han's! Come 'long in de house, Honey, an' set awhile wid Mammy." + +As they crossed the threshold of the humble abode, Edgar looked around +upon its familiar, homely snugness with satisfaction--at the huge, +four-post bed, covered with a cheerful "log cabin" quilt made of scraps +of calico of every known hue and pattern; at the white-washed walls +adorned with pictures cut from old books and magazines; at the "shelf," +as Mammy called the mantel-piece, with its lambrequin of scallopped +strips of newspaper, and its china vases filled with hundred-leaf roses +and pinks; at the spotless bare floor and homemade split-bottomed +chairs; at the small, but bright, windows, with their rows of geraniums +and verbenas, brilliantly blooming in boxes, tin-cans and broken-nosed +tea-pots. + +Almost all that Mammy could say was, + +"Lordy, Lordy, Honey, how you has growed!" Or, "Jes' to think of Mammy's +baby sech a big boy!" + +Presently a shadow crossed her face. "Honey," she said, "You gittin' to +be sech a man now, you won't have no mo' use fur po' ole Mammy. Dar +won't be a thing fur her to do fur sech a big man-chile." + +"Don't you believe that, for a minute, Mammy," was the quick reply. "I +was just wondering if you had forgotten how to make those good +ash-cakes." + +"Now, jes' listen to de chile, makin' game o' his ole Mammy!" she +exclaimed. "Livin' so high wid all dem hifalutin' kings an' queens an' +sech, an' den comin' back here an' makin' ten' he wouldn' 'spise Mammy's +ash-cakes!" + +"I'm in dead earnest, Mammy. Indeed, indeed and double deed, I am. Kings +and queens don't have anything on their tables half as good as one of +your ash-cakes, with a glass of cool butter-milk." + +"Dat so, Honey?" she queried, with wonder. "Den you sho'ly shall have +some, right away. Mammy churn dis ve'y mornin', and dars a pitcher of +buttermilk coolin' in de spring dis minute. You des' make you'se'f at +home an' I'll step in de kitchen an' cook you a ash-cake in a jiffy. +Billy, you pick me some nice, big cabbage leaves to bake it in whilst +I'm mixin' de dough, an' den go an' git de butter-milk an' a pat o' dat +butter I made dis mornin' out'n de spring." + +Edgar and Uncle Billy followed her into the kitchen where she deftly +mixed the corn-meal dough, shaped it in her hands into a thick round +cake, which she wrapped in fresh cabbage leaves and put down in the hot +ashes on the hearth to bake. Meantime the following conversation between +Edgar and the old "Uncle:" + +"Uncle Billy do you ever see ghosts now-adays?" + +"To be sho', li'l' Marster, to be sho'. Sees 'em mos' any time. Saw one +las' Sunday night." + +"What was it like, Uncle Billy?" + +"Like, Honey?--Like ole Mose, dat's what t'wus like. Does you 'member +Mose whar useter drive de hotel hack?" + +"Yes, he's dead isn't he?" + +"Yes, suh, daid as a do' nail. Dat's de cur'us part on it. He's daid an' +was buried las' Sunday ebenin'--buried deep. I know, 'ca'se I wus dar +m'se'f. But dat night when I had gone to bed an' wus gittin' off to meh +fus' nap, I was woke up on a sudden by de noise uv a gre't stompin' an' +trompin' an snortin' in de road. I jump up an' look out de winder, an' I +'clar' 'fo' Gracious if dar warn't Mose, natchel as life, horses an' +hack an' all, tearin' by at a break-neck speed. I'se seed many a ghos' +an' a ha'nt in meh time, uv _humans_, but dat wus de fus' time I uver +heard tell uv a horse or a hack risin' f'um de daid. 'Twus skeery, +sho'!" + +Before Edgar had time for comment upon this remarkable apparition, Mammy +set before him the "snack" she had prepared of smoking ash-cake and +fresh butter, on her best china plate--the one with the gilt band--and +placed at his right hand a goblet and a stone pitcher of cool +butter-milk. A luncheon, indeed, fit to be set before royalty, though it +is not likely that any of them ever had such an one offered them--poor +things! + +Edgar did full justice to the feast and was warm in his praises of it. +Then, before taking his leave, he placed in Mammy's hands a parcel +containing gifts from the other side of the water for her and Uncle +Billy. There is nothing so dear to the heart of an old-time negro as a +present, and as the aged couple opened the package and drew out its +treasures, their black faces fairly shone with delight. Mammy could not +forbear giving her "chile" a hug of gratitude and freshly springing +love, while Uncle Billy heartily declared, + +"De Lord will sho'ly bless you, li'l' Marster, fur de Good Book do +p'intedly say dat He do love one chufful giver." + + * * * * * + +To young Edgar's home-keeping playmates, he seemed to be the luckiest +boy in the world, and indeed, his brief existence had been up to this +time, as fortunate as it appeared to them. Even the beautiful sorrow of +his mother's death had filled his life with poetry and brought him +sympathy and affection in abundant measure. + +But bitterness was soon enough to enter his soul. His thoughts from the +moment of his return to Richmond, had frequently turned to the white +church and churchyard on the hill--and to the grave beside the wall. +Thither he was determined to go as soon as he possibly could, but it was +too sacred a pilgrimage to be mentioned to anyone--it must be as secret +as he could make it; and so he must await an opportunity to slip off +when he would be least apt to be missed. He chose a sultry afternoon +when Mr. and Mrs. Allan were taking a long drive into the country. He +waited until sunset--thinking there would be less probability of meeting +anyone in the churchyard after that hour than earlier--and set out, +taking with him a cluster of white roses from the summer-house in the +garden. + +It was nearly dusk when he reached the church and climbed the steps that +led to the walled graveyard, elevated above the street-level. Never had +the spot looked so fair to him. The white spire, piercing the blue sky, +seemed almost to touch the slender new moon, with the evening star +glimmering by her side. The air was sweet with the breath of roses and +honeysuckle, and the graves were deeply, intensely green. Long he lay +upon the one by the wall, near the head of which he had placed his white +roses--looking up at the silver spire and the silver star and the moon's +silver bow--so long that he forgot the passage of time, and when he +reached home and went in out of the night to the bright dining-room, +blinking his great grey eyes to accustom them to the lamp-light, supper +was over. + +The keen eyes of John Allan looked sternly upon him from under their +fierce brows. The boy saw at once that his foster-father was very angry. + +"Where have you been?" he demanded, harshly. + +"Nowhere," replied the boy. + +"What have you been doing all this time?" + +"Nothing," was the answer. + +"Nowhere? Nothing? Don't nowhere and nothing me, Sir. Those are the +replies--the lying replies--of a boy who has been in mischief. If you +had not been where you shouldn't have been, and doing as you shouldn't +have done, you would not be ashamed to tell. Now, Sir, tell me at once, +where you have been and what you have been doing?" + +The boy grew pale, but made no reply, and in the eyes fixed on Mr. +Allan's face was a provokingly stubborn look. The man's wrath waxed +warmer. His voice rose. In a tone of utter exasperation he cried, "Tell +me at once, I say, or you shall have the severest flogging you ever had +in your life!" + +The boy grew paler still, and his eyes more stubborn. A scowl settled +upon his brow and a look of dogged determination about his mouth, but +still he spoke not a word. + +Mrs. Allan looked from one to the other of these two beings--husband and +son--who made her heart's world. The evening was warm and she wore a +simple white dress with low neck and short sleeves. Anxiety clouded her +lovely face, yet never had she looked more girlishly sweet--more +appealing; but the silent plea in her beautiful, troubled eyes was lost +on John Allan, much as he loved her. + +"Tell him, Eddie dear," she implored. "Don't be afraid. Speak up like a +man!" + +Still silence. + +She walked over to the table where the boy sat before the untouched +supper that had been saved for him, and dropped upon one knee beside +him. She placed her arm around him and drew him against her gentle +bosom--he suffering her, though not returning the caress. + +"Tell _me_, Eddie, darling--tell Mother," she coaxed. + +The grey eyes softened, the brow lifted. "There's nothing to tell, +Mother," he gently replied. + +Mr. Allan rose from his chair. "I'll give you five minutes in which to +find something to tell," he exclaimed, shaking a trembling finger at the +culprit; then stalked out of the room. + +In his absence his wife fell upon the neck of the pale, frowning child, +covering his face and his curly head with kisses, and beseeching him +with honeyed endearments, to be a good boy and obey his father. But the +little figure seemed to have turned to stone in her arms. In less than +the five minutes Mr. Allan was back in the room, trimming a long switch +cut from one of the trees in the garden as he came. + +"Are you ready to tell me the truth?" he demanded. + +No answer. + +Still trimming the switch, he approached the boy. Frances Allan +trembled. Rising from the child's side, she clasped her husband's arm in +both her hands. + +"Don't, John! Don't, please, John dear. I can't stand it," she breathed. +He put her aside, firmly. + +"Don't be silly, Frances. You are interfering with my duty. Can't you +see that I must teach the boy to make you a better return for your +kindness than lying to hide his mischief?" + +"But suppose that he is telling the truth, John, and that he has been +doing nothing worse than wandering about the streets? You know the way +he has always had of roaming about by himself, at times." + +"And do you think roaming about the streets at this time of night proper +employment for a boy of eleven? Would you have him grow up into a +vagabond? A boy dependent upon the bounty of strangers can ill afford to +cultivate such idle habits!" + +The boy's already large and dark pupils dilated and darkened until his +eyes looked like black, storm-swept pools. His already white face grew +livid. He drew back as if he had been struck and fixed upon his +foster-father a gaze in which every spark of affection was, for the +moment, dead. He had been humiliated by the threat of a flogging, but +the prospect of the hardest stroke his body might receive was as nothing +to him now. His sensitive soul had been smitten a blow the smart of +which he would carry with him to his last day. "Dependent upon the +bounty of strangers,"--_of strangers!_ + +Up to this time he had been the darling little son of an over-fond +mother, and though his foster-father had been at times, stern and +unsympathetic with him, no hint had ever before dropped from him to +indicate that the child was not as much his own as the sons of other +fathers were their own--that he was not as much entitled to the good +things of life which were heaped upon him without the asking as an own +son would have been. His comforts--his pleasures had been so easily, so +plentifully bestowed that the little dreamer had never before awaked to +a realization of a difference between his relation with his parents and +the relation of other children with theirs. Brought face to face with +this hard, cold fact for the first time, and so suddenly, he was for the +moment stunned by it. He felt that a flood of deep waters in which he +was floundering helplessly was overwhelming him. + +A deep silence had followed the last words of Mr. Allan, who continued +to trim the switch, while his wife, sinking into a chair, bowed her +face in her arms, folded upon the table, and began to cry softly. The +gentle sounds of her weeping seemed but further to infuriate her +husband. + +"Come with me," he commanded, placing his hand on the shoulder of the +child, who unresistingly suffered himself to be pushed along toward his +foster-father's room. Frances Allan broke into wild sobbing and placed +her fingers against her ears that she might not hear the screams of her +pet. But there were no screams. Silently, and with an air of dignity it +was marvellous so small a figure could command, the beautiful boy +received the blows. When one's soul has been hurt, what matters mere +physical pain? When both the strength and the passion of Mr. Allan had +been somewhat spent, he ceased laying on blows and asked in a calmed +voice, + +"Are you ready to tell me the truth now?" + +In one moment of time the child lived over again the beautiful hour at +his mother's grave. He saw again the silver spire and the silver +half-moon and the silver star--smelled the blended odors of honeysuckle +and rose, made sweeter, by the gathering dews, and felt the coolness and +freshness of the long green grass that covered the grave. Who knew but +that deep down under the sweet grass she had been conscious he was +there--had felt his heart beat and heard his loving whispers as of old, +and loved him still, and understood, though she would see him nevermore? +Share the secret of that holy hour with anyone--of all people, with this +wrathful, blind, unsympathizing man who had just confessed himself a +stranger to him? Never! + +A faint smile, full of peace, settled upon his poet's face, but he +answered never a word. + +There was a stir at the door. John Allan looked toward it. His wife +stood there drying her eyes. He turned to the boy again. + +"Go with your mother and get your supper," he commanded. + +"I don't want it," was the reply. + +"Well, go to bed then, and tomorrow afternoon you are to spend in your +own room, where I hope meditation upon your idle ways may bring you to +something like repentance." + +The boy paused half-way to the door. "Tomorrow is the day I'm going +swimming with the boys. You promised that I might go." + +"Well, I take back the promise, that's all." + +"Don't you think you've punished him enough for this time, John?" +timidly asked his wife. + +"No boy is ever punished enough until he is conquered," was the reply. +"And Edgar is far from that!" + +Mrs. Allan, with her arm about the little culprit's shoulder went with +him to his room. How she wished that he would let her cuddle him in her +lap and sing to him and tell him stories and then hear him his prayers +at her knee and tuck him in bed as in the old days before he went to +boarding-school! Her heart ached for him, though she had no notion of +the bitterness, the rebellion, that were rankling in his. As she kissed +him goodnight she whispered, + +"You shall have your swim, in the river, tomorrow, Eddie darling; I'll +see that you do." + +"Don't you ask _him_ to let me do anything," he protested, passionately. +"I'm going without asking him. He disowned me for a son, I'll disown him +for a father!" + +He loved her but he was glad when the door closed behind her so that he +could think it all out for himself in the dark--the dear dark that he +had always loved so well and that was now as balm to his bruised spirit. +The worst of it was that he could not disown John Allan as a father. He +had to confess to himself with renewed bitterness that he was indeed, +and by no fault of his own--a helpless dependent upon the charity of +this man who had, in taunting him with the fact, wounded him so +grievously. His impulse was to run away--but where could he go? Though +his small purse held at that moment a generous amount of spending money +for a boy "going on twelve," it would be a mere nothing toward taking +him anywhere. It would not afford him shelter and food for a day, and he +knew it--it would not take him to the only place where he knew he had +kindred--Baltimore. And what if he could get as far as Baltimore, would +he care to go there? To assert his independence of the charity of John +Allan only to throw himself upon the charity of relatives who had never +noticed him--whom he hated because they had never forgiven his father +for marrying the angel mother around whose memory his fondest dreams +clung? + +No, he could not disown Mr. Allan--not yet; but the good things of life +received from his hands had henceforth lost their flavor and would be +like Dead Sea fruit upon his lips. Hitherto, though he knew, of course, +that he was not the Allans' own child, he had never once been made to +feel that he was any the less entitled to their bounty. They had adopted +him of their own free will to fill the empty arms of a woman with a +mother's heart who had never been a mother, and that woman had lavished +upon him almost more than a mother's love--certainly more than a prudent +mother's indulgence. He had been the most spoiled and petted child of +his circle, and the bounty had been heaped upon him in a manner that +made him feel--child though he was--the joy that the giving brought the +giver, and therefore no burden of obligation upon himself in receiving. +If Mr. Allan had been strict to a point of harshness with him, at times, +Mr. Allan was a born disciplinarian--it seemed natural for him to be +stern and unsympathetic and those who knew him best took his stiffness +and hardness with many grains of allowance, remembering his upright life +and his open-handed charities. He had administered punishment upon the +little lad when he was naughty in the years before he went away to +school, and the little lad had taken his medicine philosophically like +other naughty boys--had cried lustily, then dried his eyes and forgotten +all about it in the pleasure which the goodies and petting he always had +from his pretty, tender-hearted foster-mother at such times gave him. +But _this_ was different. He was a big lad now--very big and old, he +felt, far too big to be flogged; quite big enough to visit his mother's +grave, if he chose, without having to talk about it. And he had not only +been flogged because he would not reveal his sacred, sweet secret, but +had had his dependence upon charity thrown up at him! + +Henceforth, he felt, his life would be a lonely one, for he now knew +that he was different from other boys, all of whom (in his acquaintance) +had fathers to whose bounty they had a right--the right of sonship. Yes, +he was a very big boy (he told himself) and he had not cried when he was +flogged, but under the cover of the kindly dark, hot tears of +indignation, hurt pride and pity for his own loneliness--his +singularity--made all his pillow wet. + +Comfort came to him from an unexpected source. The door of his room had +been closed, but not latched. It was now pushed open by "Comrade," his +old spaniel, who made straight for his side, first pushing his nose +against his face and then leaping upon the bed and nestling down close +to him, with a sigh of satisfaction. The desolate boy welcomed this +dumb, affectionate companionship. The feel of the warm, soft body, and +the thought of the velvety brown eyes which he could not see in the +dark, but knew were fixed upon him with their intense, loving gaze, were +soothing to his overwrought nerves. Here was something whose love could +be counted upon--something as dependent upon him as he was upon Mr. +Allan; yet what a joy he found in the very dependence of this devoted, +soft-eyed creature! Never would he taunt Comrade with his dependence +upon charity. + +"No;" he said, his hands deep in the silky coat, "I would not insult a +dog as he has insulted me! Never mind, Comrade, old fellow, we'll have +our swim in the river tomorrow, and he may flog me again if he likes." + + * * * * * + +But he was not flogged the next day. An important business engagement +occupied Mr. Allan the whole afternoon, and when he came in late, tired +and pre-occupied, he found Edgar fresh and glowing from his exercise in +the river, the curls still damp upon his forehead, quietly eating his +supper with his mother. _She_ knew, but tender creature that she was, +she was prepared to do anything short of fibbing to shield her pet from +another out-burst. But John Allan, still absorbed in business cares, +hardly looked toward the boy, and asked not a question. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The home of the Allans was never quite the same to Edgar Poe after that +night. A wall had been raised between him and his foster-father that +would never be scaled. He was still indulged in a generous amount of +pocket money which he invariably proceeded to get rid of as fast as he +could--lavishing it upon the enjoyment of his friends as freely as it +had been lavished upon him. He had plenty of pets and toys, went to +dancing school, in which his natural love of dancing made him delight, +and was given stiff but merry little parties, at which old Cy, the black +fiddler played and called the figures, and the little host and his +friends conformed to the strict, ceremonious etiquette observed by the +children as well as the grown people of the day. + +For these indulgences Frances Allan was chiefly responsible. The one +weak spot in the armor of austerity in which John Allan clothed himself +was his love for his wife, and it was often against what he felt to be +his better judgment that he acquiesced in her system of child-spoiling. +He felt a solemn responsibility toward the boy, and he did his duty by +him, as he saw it, faithfully. It was not in the least his fault that he +did _not_ see that under the broad white brow and sunny ringlets was a +brain in which, like the sky in a dew-drop, a whole world was reflected, +with ever changing pageantry, and that the abstracted expression in the +boy's eyes that he thought could only mean that he was "hatching +mischief," really indicated that the creative faculty in budding genius +was awake and at work. + +For a child Edgar's age to be making trials at writing poetry Mr. Allan +regarded as sheer idleness, to be promptly suppressed. Indeed, when he +discovered that the boy had been guilty of such foolishness, he +emphatically ordered him not to repeat it. To counteract the effects of +his wife's spoiling of her adopted son, he felt it his duty to place all +manner of restrictions upon his liberty, which the freedom-loving boy, +with the connivance of his mother and the negro servants who adored him, +disregarded whenever it was possible. Though bathing in the river was +(except upon rare occasions) prohibited, Edgar became before summer was +over, the most expert swimmer and diver of his years in town, and many +an afternoon when Mr. Allan supposed that he was in his room, to which +he had been ordered for the purpose of disciplining his will and +character, or for punishment, he was far beyond the city's limits +roaming the woods, the fields, or the river-banks--joyously, and without +a prick of conscience (for all his disobedience) feeding his growing +soul upon the beauties of tree, and sky, and cliff, and water-fall. + +And so, in spite of the melancholy moods in which he was occasionally +plunged by the bitterness which had found lodgment in his breast, the +summer was upon the whole a happy one to the boy. He was so young and +the world was so beautiful! He could not remember always to be unhappy. +Edgar Goodfellow, as well as Edgar the Dreamer, revelled in the world of +Out-of-Door. To the one all manner of muscular sport and exercise was +as the breath of his nostrils; to the other, whose favorite stories were +ancient myths and fairy-tales, all natural phenomena possessed vivid +personality. He loved to trace pictures in the clouds. In the rustling +of corn or the stirring of leaves in the trees, or in the sound of +running waters he heard voices which spoke to him of delightsome things, +bringing to his full, grey eyes, as he hearkened, a soft, romantic look, +and touching his lips and his cheeks with a radiant spirituality. + +The cottage, on Clay Street, to which the Allans had removed soon after +their return from England, was in a quiet part of the town. The window +of Edgar's own, quaint little room in the dormer roof, with its shelving +walls, gave him a fair view of the sky, and brought him sweet airs +wafted across the garden of old-fashioned flowers below. Here, such +hours as he spent from choice or by command were not lonely, for, +sitting by the little window, many a story or poem was thought out; or +buried in some favorite book his thoughts would be borne away as if on +wings to a world where imagination was king. + + * * * * * + +In the fall he was entered at Mr. Clarke's school. The school-room, with +its white-washed walls and the sun pouring in, unrestricted, through the +commonplace, big, bare windows, was very different from the great, +gloomy Gothic room at old Stoke-Newington--so full of mystery and +suggestion--but Edgar found it a pleasant place in which to be upon that +cool fresh morning in late September, when he made its acquaintance. He +felt full of mental activity and ready to go to work with a will upon +his Latin, his French and his mathematics. Since his return from +England, in June, he had become acquainted with most of the boys who +were to be his school-fellows, and he took at once to the school-master, +Professor Clarke, of Trinity College, Dublin--a middle-aged bachelor of +Irish birth, an accomplished gentleman and a very human creature, with a +big heart, a high ideal of what boys might be and abundant tolerance of +what they generally were. If he had a quick temper, he had also a quick +wit, and a quick appreciation of talent and sympathy with timorous +aspirations. + +It had been Master Clarke's suggestion that his new pupil, who was known +as Edgar Allan, should put his own name upon the school register. Edgar, +looking questioningly up into Mr. Allan's face, was glad to read +approval there, and with a thrill of pride he wrote upon the book, in +the small, clear hand that had become characteristic of him: + +"Edgar Allan Poe." + +He was proud of his name and proud of his father, of whom he remembered +nothing, but in whose veins, he knew, had run patriot blood, and who had +had the independence to risk all for love of the beautiful mother of +worshipped memory. It was with straightened shoulders and a high head +that he took the seat assigned him at the clumsy desk, in the bare, ugly +room of the school in which he was to be known for the first time as +_Edgar Poe_. He felt that in coming into his own name he had come into a +proud heritage. + +Mr. Clarke's Irish heart warmed toward him. He divined in the +big-browed, big-eyed boy a unique and gifted personality and proceeded +with the uttermost tact to do his best toward the cultivation of his +talents. The result was that Edgar not only acquitted himself +brilliantly in his studies, but progressed well in his verse-making, +which though, since Mr. Allan's prohibition, it had been kept secret in +his home, was freely acknowledged to teacher and school-fellows. + +By his class-mates he was deemed a wonder. He was so easily first among +them in everything--in the simple athletics with which they were +familiar, as well as in studies--and his talent for rhyming and drawing +seemed to set him upon a sort of pedestal. + +In the first blush of triumph these little successes gave him, young +Edgar's head was in a fair way to be turned. He saw himself (in fancy) +the leader, the popular favorite of the whole school. Indeed, he +flattered himself he had leaped at a single bound to this position at +the moment, almost, of his entrance. But he soon began to see that he +was mistaken. While he was conscious of the unconcealed admiration of +most, and the ill-concealed envy of a few of the boys, of his mental and +physical abilities, he began, as time went on, to suspect--then to be +sure--that for some reason that baffled all his ingenuity to fathom, he +was not accorded the position in the school that was the natural reward +for superiority of endowment and performance. This place was filled +instead by Nat Howard, a boy who, he told himself, he was without the +slightest vanity bound to see was distinctly second to him in every way. + +He noticed that whatever Nat proposed was invariably done, so that he +was forced either to follow where he should have led, or be left out of +everything. Often when he joined the boys listening with interest to +Nat's heavy jokes and talk, a silence would fall upon the company, which +in a short while would break up--the boys going off in twos and threes, +leaving him to his own society or that of a small minority composed of +two or three boys for the most part younger than himself, who in spite +of the popular taste for Nat, preferred him and were captivated by his +clever accomplishments. + +That there was some reason why he was thus shut out from personal +intimacy by school-mates who acknowledged and admired his powers he felt +sure, and he was determined to ferrit it out. In the meantime his heart, +always peculiarly responsive to affection, answered with warmth to the +devotion of the small coterie who were independent enough to swear +fealty to him. He helped them with their lessons, initiated them into +the mysteries of boxing and other manly exercises, went swimming and +gunning with them, and occasionally delighted them by showing them his +poems and the little sketches with which he sometimes illustrated his +manuscript, in the making. + +It must be confessed that there was little in these compositions to set +the world afire. They would only be counted remarkable as the work of a +school-boy in his early teens, and were practice work--nothing more. +They served their purpose, then sank into the oblivion which was their +meet destiny. But to Jack Preston, Dick Ambler, Rob Stanard and Rob +Sully, and one or two others, they were master-pieces. + +These boys, as well as Edgar, were giving serious attention to their +linen, the care of their hands, and the precise parting of their hair, +just then; and a close observer might often have detected them in the +act of furtively feeling their upper lips with anxious forefinger in the +vain hope of discovering the appearance--if ever so slight--of a downy +growth thereupon. For they, as well as he, were making sheep's eyes at +those wonderful visions in golden locks and jetty locks, with brown eyes +and blue eyes, with fluttering ribbons and snowy pinafores, known as +"Miss Jane Mackenzie's girls," who were the inspiration of most of their +poet-chum's invocations of the muse. The little hymns in praise of the +charms of these girls were generally adorned with pen or pencil sketches +of the fair charmers themselves. + +Poor Miss Jane had a sad time of it. As the accomplished principal of a +choice Young Ladies Boarding and Day School, she enjoyed an enviable +position in the politest society in town. Parents of young ladies under +her care congratulated themselves alike upon her strict rule and her +learning, her refinement of manners and conversation and her +distinguished appearance. She was tall and stately and in her decorous +garb of black silk that could have "stood alone," and an elegant cap of +"real" lace with lavender ribbons softening the precise waves of her +iron-grey hair, she made a most impressive figure--one that would have +inspired with profound respect any male creature living saving that +incorrigible non-respecter of persons and personages, especially of lady +principals--the Boy. For the "forming" of young ladies, Miss Jane had a +positive forte, but the genus boy was an unknown quantity to her, and +worse--he was a positive terror. For one of them to invade the sacred +precincts of her school, or its grounds, seemed to her maiden soul rank +sacrilege; to scale her garden wall after dark for the purpose of +attaching a letter to a string let down from a window to receive it, was +nothing short of criminal. For one of her girls to receive offerings of +candy and original poetry--_love poetry_--from one of these terrible +creatures; such an offence was unspeakably shocking. + +Yet discovery of such offences happened often enough to give her +repeated shocks, and to confirm her in her belief in the total +depravity, the hopeless wickedness of all boys--especially of John +Allan's adopted son. + +In spite of her vigilance, Edgar Poe found the means to outwit her, and +to transmit his effusions, without difficulty, to her fair charges, who +with tresses primly parted and braided and meek eyes bent in evident +absorption upon their books, were the very pictures of docile obedience, +and bore in their outward looks no hint of the guilty consciences that +should, by rights, have been destroying their peace. + +Miss Jane was the sister of Mr. Mackenzie who had adopted little Rosalie +Poe. Rosalie was, at Miss Jane's invitation, a pupil in the school, but +(ungrateful girl that she was) she became, at the suggestion of her +handsome and charming brother Edgar, whom she adored, the willing +messenger of Dan Cupid, and furthered much secret and sentimental +correspondence between the innocent-seeming girls and the young scamps +who admired them. + +In these fascinating flights into the realms of flirtation, as in other +things, Edgar's friends acknowledged his superiority--his romantic +personal beauty and his gift for rhyming giving him a decided advantage +over them all; but they acknowledged it without jealousy, for there was +much of hero worship in their attitude toward him, and they were not +only perfectly contented for him to be first in every way but it would +have disappointed them for him not to be. The captivating charm of his +presence, in his gay moods, made it unalloyed happiness for them to be +with him. They were always ready to follow him as far as he led in +daring adventure--ready to fetch and carry for him and glowing with +pride at the least notice from him. + +Some boys would have taken advantage of this state of things, but not so +Edgar Goodfellow. He, for his part, was always ready to contribute to +their pleasure, and fairly sunned himself in the unstinting love and +praise of these boys who admired, while but half divining his gifts. +Their games had twice the zest when Eddie played with them--he threw +himself into the sport with such heartfelt zeal that they were inspired +to do their best. Many a ramble in the woods and fields around Richmond +he took with them, telling them the most wonderful stories as he went +along; but sometimes, quite suddenly, during these outings, Edgar +Goodfellow would give place to Edgar the Dreamer and they would +wonderingly realize that his thoughts were off to a world where none of +them could follow--none of them unless it were Rob Sully, who was +himself something of a dreamer, and could draw as well as Edgar. + +The transformation would be respected. His companions would look at him +with something akin to awe in their eyes and tell each other in low +tones not to disturb Eddie, he was "making poetry," and confine their +chatter to themselves, holding rather aloof from the young poet, who +wandered on with the abstracted gaze of one walking in sleep--with them, +but not of them. + +There were other, less frequent, times when his mood was as much +respected, when added to the awe there was somewhat of distress in their +attitude toward him. At these times he was not only abstracted, but a +deep gloom would seem to have settled upon his spirit. Without apparent +reason, melancholy claimed him, and though he was still gentle and +courteous, they had a nameless sort of fear of him--he was so unlike +other boys and it seemed such a strange thing to be unhappy about +nothing. It was positively uncanny. + +At these times they did not even try to be with him. They knew that he +could wrestle with what he called his "blue devils" more successfully +alone. A restlessness generally accompanied the mood, and he would +wander off by himself to the churchyard, the river, or the woods; or +spend whole long, golden afternoons shut up in his room, poring over +some quaint old tale, or writing furiously upon a composition of his +own. When he looked at the boys, he did not seem to see them, but would +gaze beyond them--the pupils of his full, soft, grey eyes darkening and +dilating as if they were held by some weird vision invisible to all eyes +save his own; and indeed the belief was general among his friends that +he was endowed with the power of seeing visions. This impression had +been made even upon his old "Mammy," when he was a mite of a lad. Many a +time, when he turned that abstracted gaze upon her, she had said to him, + +"What dat you lookin' at now, Honey? You is bawn to see evil sho'!" + + * * * * * + +And now a glimpse of Edgar Goodfellow--the normal Edgar, whom his chums +saw oftenest and loved best, because they knew him best and understood +him best. + +It was a late Autumn Saturday--one of the Saturdays sent from Heaven for +the delight of school-children--bracing, but not cold; and brilliant. +Little Robert Sully looked pensively out of the window thinking what a +fine day it would be for a country tramp, if only he were like other +boys and could take them. But Rob was of frail build and constitution +and could never stand much exertion. In his eyes was the expression of +settled wistfulness that frequent disappointment will bring to the eyes +of a delicate child; in the droop of his mouth there was a touch of +bitterness, for he was thinking that not only did his weak body make it +impossible for him to keep up with the boys, but that it was no doubt, a +relief to the boys to leave him behind--that when he could be with them +he was perhaps a drag on their pleasure. No doubt they would make a +long day of it, this bright, bracing Saturday, for the persimmons and +the fox-grapes were ripe and the chinquapin and chestnut burrs were +opening. Tears of self-pity sprang to his eyes, but they were quickly +dashed away as he heard his name called and saw his beloved Eddie, +flushed and glowing with anticipated pleasure, at the gate. + +"Come along, Rob," he was calling. "We are going to the Hermitage woods +for chinquapins, and you must come too. Uncle Billy is going for a load +of pine-tags, and we can ride in his wagon, so it won't tire you." + +The other boys were waiting at the corner, all at the highest pitch of +mirth, for they saw that their idol, Eddie, was in one of his happiest +moods, which would mean a morning of unbounded fun to them. And the ride +with old Uncle Billy who, with black and shiny face, beaming upon them +in an excess of kindliness, hair like a full-blown cotton-boll, and +quaint talk, was an unfailing source of delight to them! + +The Saturday freedom was in their blood. Off and away they went in the +jolly, rumbling wagon, past houses and gardens, and fields and into the +enchanting, autumn-colored woods, where "Bob Whites" were calling to +each other and nuts were dropping in the rustling leaves or waiting to +be shaken from their open burrs. + +As they jolted along, the steady stream of conversation between Edgar +and Uncle Billy was as good as a play to the rest of the boys--Edgar, +with grave, courteous manner, discoursing of "cunjurs" and "ha'nts" with +as real an air of belief as that of the old man himself. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The allegiance of his little band of boon companions was all the sweeter +to the young poet because he realized more and more fully as the years +of his school-days passed that for some reason unknown to himself he was +systematically, and plainly with intention, denied intimacy with Nat +Howard and his followers--_snubbed_. As has been said, they did not +hesitate to acknowledge his success in all sorts of mental and physical +trials of skill, but in a formal, impersonal way. There was never the +least familiarity in their intercourse with him. This, naturally, +produced in him a reserve in his manner toward them that they +unreasonably attributed to "airs." Their coldness wounded and chilled +the sensitive boy as much as the love of his devoted adherents warmed +him. + +It was not until near the end of his third session in the school that +the riddle was, quite suddenly, solved. Edgar Poe was now in his +fifteenth year. One perfect May day, when the song of birds, the odors +of flowers, the whisper of soft breezes and the languor of mellow +sunshine outside of the open school windows were wooing all poetic souls +to come out and live, and let musty, dry books go to the deuce, little +Rob Sully found it impossible to fix his mind upon his Latin. As for +Edgar's mind, it was plain from his expression that it was far afield; +but then Edgar had the power of knowing his lessons intuitively, almost. +Rob only "got" his by faithful plodding. When their respective classes +were called, Edgar recited brilliantly, while Rob seemed like one +befuddled and, making a dismal failure, was bidden to stay in and study +at recess. A look of utter woe settled upon his thin, pallid face, which +lifted as, impelled to look toward Edgar's desk, he caught his friend's +eyes fixed upon him with their charming smile. He knew well what the +eyes were saying: + +"Don't worry, Rob, I'll stay in and help you." + +And stay in the owner of the eyes did, patiently going over and over the +lesson with the confused boy until the hard parts were made easy. +Finally, when he saw that Rob had mastered it, Edgar walked out into the +yard for the few minutes left of recess. The boys were all drawn up in a +group a little way from the house and were being harangued by his rival, +Nat Howard. His chums, Rob Stanard, Dick Ambler and Jack Preston, were +standing together a few feet apart from the rest. Their faces were very +red and the haranguing seemed to be addressed directly to them. Edgar +stopped where he was, wondering what it was all about, but shy of +joining a crowd over which Nat was presiding. + +The speaker's voice rose to a higher key. + +"I'll tell you, boys," he was saying, "if you persist in intimacy with +this fellow, you needn't expect to be in with me and my crowd." + +"We don't want you and your crowd," was the response. "He's worth all of +you rolled into one." + +Edgar's heart stood still. "Was Nat Howard talking about _him_?" + +The voice went on: "I grant you the fellow's smart enough and game +enough, but he's not in our class, and I, for one, won't associate with +him intimately." + +"His family's one of the oldest and most honorable in the country," said +Robert Stanard. "I've heard my father say so." + +"Yes, but his father must have been a black sheep to run away with a +common actress--" + +The harangue was brought to an abrupt end. The enraged Edgar had sprung +forward and, with a blow in the face, struck Nat Howard down. Nat's +friends were lifting him up and wiping the blood from his face and +dusting his clothing, while Edgar's own friends gathered around him as +if to restrain him from repeating the attack. He shook them off, gazing +with contempt upon his limp and half-stunned adversary. + +"I'll not hit him again until he repeats his offence," he assured the +boys, "but I want him and all other cowardly dogs to know what's waiting +for them when they insult the memory of my father and mother. Yes! my +mother was an actress! God gave her the gifts to make her one and she +had the pluck to use them to earn bread for herself and for her +children. Yes! she was an actress! She had the lovely face and form, the +high intelligence and the poetic soul for the making of a perfect woman +or for the interpreter of genius--for the personification of a Juliet, a +Rosalind or a Cordelia. Yes! she was an actress! And I'm proud of it as +surely as I'm proud she's an angel in Heaven! And I'm proud that my +father--the son of a proud family--had the spirit, for her sweet sake, +to fly in the face of convention, to count family, fortune and all well +lost to become her husband, and to adopt her profession; to learn of +her, in order that he might be always at her side to protect her and to +live in the light of her presence. If I had choice of all the surnames +and of all the lineage in the world, I would still choose the name of +Poe, and to be the son of David and Elizabeth Poe, players!" + +The boys were silent. The school bell was ringing and Edgar Poe, still +pale and trembling with passion, turned on his heel and strode, with +head up, in the direction of the door. Rob Stanard and Rob Sully walked +one on each side of him, while Dick Ambler and Jack Preston and several +others among his adherents, followed close. A little way behind the +group came the other boys, their still half-dazed leader in their midst. +Good Mr. Burke (who had succeeded Mr. Clarke as school-master) guessed +as they came in and took their seats that there had been an altercation +of some kind, and that his two brag scholars had been prominent in it; +but he was wise in his generation and allowed the boys to settle their +own differences without asking any questions unless he were appealed to, +when his sympathy and interest were found to be theirs to count upon. + +The afternoon session was unsatisfactory, but the master was in an +indulgent mood and apparently did not notice what each boy felt--a +confusion and abstraction. There was a palpable sense of relief when the +closing hour came. + + * * * * * + +At dinner that day Edgar was silent and evidently under a cloud, and +scarcely touched his food. Frances Allan looked toward him anxiously and +her husband suspiciously. When his lack of appetite was remarked upon, +he, truthfully enough, pleaded headache. Mrs. Allan was all sympathy at +once. + +"You study too hard, dear," she said. "You may have a holiday tomorrow +if you like, and go and spend the day in the country with Rosalie and +the Mackenzies." + +"No, no," replied the boy. "I'll just stay quiet, in my room, this +evening. I'll be all right by tomorrow." + +"What have you been eating?" demanded John Allan, gruffly. + +"Nothing, since breakfast, Sir," was the reply. + +"Headaches are for nervous women. When a healthy boy complains of one, +and declines dinner, it generally means that he has been robbing +somebody's strawberry patch or up a cherry-tree, stuffing half-ripe +fruit," he said in the acid, suspicious tone that the boy knew. It was +beyond John Allan's powers to imagine any but physical causes for a +boy's ailments. + + * * * * * + +Not until the door of his own little bed-room was closed behind him did +Edgar Poe even try to collect his thoughts. Then he sat down at his +window and looked out over the fragrant garden to the quiet sky, +contemplation of which had so often soothed his spirit, and tried to +readjust the inner world he lived in, in accordance with the discovery +he had just made. A first such readjustment his world had experienced +three years before, when Mr. Allan had taunted him with his dependence +upon charity. Before that time the world, as he knew it, had held only +love and beauty--sorrow, as he had seen it, being but a solemn and +poetic form of beauty. The change in such a world made by the discovery +that his being an adopted son set him apart in a class different from +other boys--a class unlovely and loveless--had been great, had stolen +much of the joy from living; but he was very young then, and the joy of +mere living and breathing was strong in his blood, and he had gradually +become accustomed--hardened, if you will--to the idea of his dependence +upon charity. + +But here was a change far more terrible, and coming at a time when he +was old enough to feel it far more keenly. He was indeed, in a class by +himself--he was held in contempt because of what his angel mother had +been! His holy of holies had been profaned, the sacred fire that warmed +his inner life had been spat upon. It seemed he had been from the +beginning despised, though he had not dreamed it, for that which he held +most dear--of which he was most proud. The little, aristocratic, +puffed-up world he lived in would doubtless always despise him; but that +was because of its narrowness and ignorance for which he, in turn, would +despise it. With the whimsical, half-belief he had always had that the +dead remain conscious through their long sleep, he wondered if his +beautiful young mother, with the roses on her hair, down under the green +earth, was not aware of the love and loyalty of her boy and if her +spirit soaring the highest heavens, would not aid him in carrying out +the resolution which in the bitterness of his soul, he then and there +made--the resolution to bring this mean little, puffed up world to do +honor to his name--to her name, of which he was prouder in this hour +when others would trample it in the dust than he had ever been before. + +Young boy though he was, he was conscious of his God-given endowments. +He felt that the divine fire of poetic feeling in his breast was an +immortal thing. Up to this time, his singing had been as the singing of +a wood-bird--an impulse, a necessity to express the thoughts and +feelings of his heart. He had never looked far enough ahead to consider +whether he should or should not publish his work; but now ambition +awoke--full-grown at its birth--and set him afire. From those parents +whose memory had been insulted he had received (God willing it) the +precious heritage of brilliant intellect. He would put the work of this +intellect--his stories and his poems--into books. He would give them to +the wide world. He would win recognition for the name of Poe. + +He drew from within his coat the miniature of his mother--her dying +gift. He gazed upon it long and tenderly, and with it still exposed to +view brought from his desk the little packet of yellowed letters in +their faded blue ribbon. He knew them by heart, but he read them--each +one--over again, as carefully as if it had been the first time. They +were not many and those not long; but ah, they were sweet!--those +tender, quaint love-letters that had passed between his parents in their +brief courtship and married life. His father's so manly so strong--like +the letters of a soldier. His mother's so modest, so tender. They did +not stir his pulses so wildly now as they did upon his first reading of +them, when a little lad at old Stoke-Newington--but they were no less +beautiful to him now than then. The sentences made him think of the +dainty, sweet aroma of pressed roses. + +He tied the packet up again and kissed letters and picture, as if to +seal the promise he was making them, then restored them to their +hiding-places. With the bitter knowledge that had come to him, he felt +that years had passed over him--that he would never be young again--this +boy of fourteen! + +He raised his deep, pensive eyes once more to the quiet sky and his +spirit cried to Heaven to grant him power to accomplish this task he had +set himself: to lift the loved name of his parents from the dust where +it lay, and to set it high in the temple of fame, wreathed with immortal +myrtle. + +His resolution gave to his poetic face and his slender figure an air of +mastery, as though some new, high quality had been born within him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +In the days that followed, Edgar's friends found him unusually silent, +yet not morose. Serenity sat on his broad, thoughtful brow and in his +great, soft eyes. Nat Howard and his chums gave him the cold shoulder +and wore, in his presence, the air of offended dignity which the +small-minded are apt to assume when conscious of being in the wrong or +of having committed an injury which the victim has received with credit +and the offender has not forgiven. It is so much easier to grant pardon +for an injury received than for one given! + +Edgar's own friends were more emphatic in their devotion to him than +ever--racking their young brains for ways in which to show their loyalty +and frequently looking into his face with the expression of soft +adoration and trust one sees in the eyes of a faithful dog. Edgar was +touched and gratified, and his sweet, spontaneous smile often rewarded +their efforts; but his face would soon become grave again and the boys +were aware that the mind of their gifted friend was busy with thoughts +in which they had no part. This gave them an impression of distance +between them and him. He all of a sudden, seemed to have become remote, +as though a chasm, by what power they knew not, had opened between +them--making their love for him as "the desire of the moth for the +star." They knew that he was more often than ever before working upon +his poetical and other compositions, but these were seldom shown, or +even mentioned, to them. + +Each boy in his own way sought to bridge the gulf that separated them +from their idol. Robert Sully missed his Latin lesson on purpose in the +hope that Eddie would stay in and help him. And Eddie did, but wore that +same detached air in which there was no intimacy or comfort. When the +lesson was learned Edgar took a slate from the desk before them, rubbed +off the problem that was upon it, and quickly wrote down a little poem +of several stanzas. He held it out, with a smile, to Rob, telling him +that while teaching him his lesson he had been practicing "dividing his +mind," and that while one part of his brain had been putting English +into Latin the other part had composed the verses on the slate. + +The dumfounded Rob read the verses aloud, but before he could express +his amazement Edgar had taken the slate from him and, with one swipe of +the damp spunge, obliterated the rhymes. + +"Write them on paper for me, please," plead Robert. + +The brilliant smile of the boy-poet flashed upon him. "Oh, they were not +worth keeping," said he, indifferently. "They were merely an exercise." +And picking up his books and hat, he walked out of the door, whistling +in clear, high, plaintive notes one of the melodies of his favorite Tom +Moore. + +The boy left behind looked after him with a troubled heart and misty +eyes. This wonderful friend of his was as kind as ever, yet he seemed +changed. It was clear that he had "something on his mind." + +"Will you go swimming with me this evening, Eddie?" said Dick Ambler +one day when school was out. + +"With all the pleasure in life," was the hearty response. + +Dick went home to his dinner with a singing heart. If anything could +bring Edgar down from the clouds to his own level, surely it would be +bathing together. He certainly could not make poetry while diving and +swimming, naked, in the racing and tumbling falls of James River. A +merry battle with those energetic waters kept a fellow's wits as well as +his muscles fully occupied. + +But even this attempt was a failure. If Edgar made any poetry while in +the water he did not mention it; but he was absent-minded and unsociable +all the way to the river and back--sky-gazing for curious cloud-forms, +listening for bird-notes and hunting wild-flowers, and talking almost +none at all. + +In the water he seemed to wake up, and never dived with more grace, or +daring; but no sooner had they started on the way home than he was off +with his dreams again. + +Rob Stanard was more successful in his attempts to interest his friend. +In spite of their intimacy at school and on the playground Edgar had up +to this time never visited the Stanard home. Rob had enlisted his +mother's sympathy in the orphan boy and she had suggested that he should +invite Edgar home with him some day. It now occurred to Rob that this +would be a good time to do so, and knowing his friend's fondness for +dumb animals, he offered his pets as an attraction--asking him to come +and see his pigeons and rabbits. His invitation was accepted with +alacrity. + +Edgar had seen Rob's mother, but only at a distance. He knew her +reputation as one of the town beauties, but lovely women were not rare +in Richmond, and, beauty-worshipper though he was, he had never had any +especial curiosity in regard to Mrs. Stanard. He was altogether +unprepared for the vision that broke upon him. + +Instead of going through the house, Rob had piloted him by way of a side +gate, directly into the walled garden, sweet and gay with roses, lilies +and other flowers of early June. + +Mrs. Stanard, who took almost as much pleasure in her children's pets as +they did, was standing near a clump of arbor-vitae, holding in her hands +a "willow-ware" plate from which the pigeons were feeding. She was at +this time, though the mother of Edgar's twelve-year-old chum, not thirty +years of age, and her pensive beauty was in its fullest flower. Against +the sombre background the arbor-vitae made, her slight figure, clad in +soft, clinging white, seemed airy and sylphlike. Her dark, curling hair, +girlishly bound with a ribbon snood, and her large brown eyes, were in +striking contrast to her complexion, which was pale, with the radiant +and warm palor of a tea-rose or a pearl. Her features were daintily +modelled, and like slender lilies were the hands holding the deep blue +plate from which the pigeons--white, grey and bronze, fed--fluttering +about her with soft cooings. + +The picture was so much more like a poet's dream than a reality, that +the boy-poet stepped back, with an exclamation of surprise. + +"It is only my mother," explained Rob. "She'll be glad to see you." + +The next moment she had perceived the boys, and with quick impulse, set +the plate upon the ground and came forward, and before a word of +introduction could be spoken, had taken the visitor's hand between both +her own fair palms, holding it thus, with gentle, gracious pressure, in +a pretty, cordial way she had, while she greeted him. + +The soft eyes that rested on his face filled with kindness and welcome. + +"So this is my Rob's friend," she was saying, in a low, musical voice. +"Rob's mother is delighted to see you for his sake and for your own too, +Edgar, for I greatly admired _your_ gifted mother. I saw her once only, +when I was a young girl, but I can never forget her lovely face and +sweet, plaintive voice. It was one of the last times she ever acted, and +she was ill and pale, but she was exquisitely beautiful and made the +most charming Juliet. She interested me more than any actress I have +ever seen." + +Edgar Poe longed to fall down and kiss her feet--to worship her. Her +beauty, her gentleness and her gracious words so stirred his soul that +he grew faint. Power of speech almost left him, and, vastly to his +humiliation, he could with difficulty control his voice to utter a few +stumbling words of thanks--he who was usually so ready of speech! + +If she noticed his confusion she did not appear to do so. Her heart had +been touched by all she had heard from her son of the lonely boy, and +she had also been interested in accounts of his gifts that had come to +her from various sources. The beauty, the poetry, the pensiveness of his +face moved her deeply--knowing his history and divining the lack of +sympathy one of his bent would probably find in the Allan home, for all +its indulgences. + +She sat on a garden-bench and talked to him for a time, in her gentle, +understanding way, and then, not wishing to be a restraint upon the +boys, (after placing her husband's fine library at Edgar's disposal, and +urging him to come often to see Rob) withdrew into the house. + +The motherless boy looked after her until she had disappeared, and +stared at the door that had closed upon her until he was recalled from +his reverie by the voice of his friend, suggesting that they now see the +rabbits. Edgar looked at the gentle creatures with unseeing eyes, though +he appeared to be listening to the prattle of his companion concerning +them. Suddenly, in a voice filled with enthusiasm and with a touch of +awe in it, he said: + +"Rob, your mother is divinely beautiful--and _good_." + +"Bully," was the nonchalant reply. "The best thing about her is the way +she takes up for a fellow when he brings in a bad report or gets into a +scrape. Fathers always think it's their sons' fault, you know." + +Edgar flushed. "_Bully_--" he said to himself, with a shudder. The +adjective applied to her seemed blasphemy. + +Aloud, he said, "She's an angel! She's the one I've always dreamed +about." + +"You dreamed about mother when you had never seen her?" questioned the +astonished Rob. "What did you dream?" + +"Nothing, in the way you mean. I meant she is like my idea of a perfect +woman. The kind of woman a man could always be good for, or would gladly +die to serve." + +"Well, I'm not smart enough to think out things like that, Eddie, but +Mother certainly is all right. What you say about her sounds nice, and +she'd understand it, too. I just bet that you and mother'll be the best +sort of cronies when you know each other better. She likes all those +queer old books you think so fine, and she knows whole pages of poetry +by heart. When you and she get together it will be like two books +talking out loud to each other. I won't be able to join in much, but it +will be as good as a play to listen." + +The young poet bent his steps homeward with but one thought, one hope in +his heart, and that a consuming one: to look again upon the lovely face, +to hear again the voice that had enthralled him, had taken his heart by +storm and filled it with a veritable _grande passion_--the rapturous +devotion of the virgin heart of an ardent and romantic youth. First +love--yet so much more than ordinary love--a pure passion of the soul, +in which there was much of worship and nothing of desire. Surely the +most pure and holy passion the world has ever known, for in it there was +absolutely nothing of self. Like Dante after his first meeting with +Beatrice, this Virginia boy-poet had entered upon a _Vita Nuova_--a new +life--made all of beauty. + +What difference did the taunts of schoolmates, the hardness of a +foster-father make now? The wounds they made had been gratefully healed +by the balm of her beauteous words about his mother. Those old wounds +were as nothing--neither they nor anything else had power to harm him +now. In the new life that had opened so suddenly before him he would +bear a charmed existence. + +He went to his room before the usual hour that night, for he wanted to +be alone with his dreams--with his newest, most beautiful dream. To his +room, but not to bed. Life was too beautiful to be wasted in sleep. He +lighted his lamp and holding his mother's picture within its circle of +light, gazed long and devotedly upon it. Did she know of the great light +that had shone out of what seemed a sunless sky upon her boy? Had she, +looking out from high Heaven, seen the gracious greeting of the +beautiful being who was Madonna and Psyche in one? Had she heard her own +cause so sweetly championed, her own name so sweetly cleared of +opprobrium? + +He threw himself upon his lounge and lay with his hands clasped under +his curly head, still dreaming--dreaming--dreaming--until day-dreams +were merged into real dreams, for he was fast asleep. + +In his sleep he saw the lady of his dreams in a situation of peril, from +which he joyfully rescued her. He awoke with a start. His lamp had +burned itself out but a late moon flooded the room with the white light +that he loved. A breeze laden with odors caught from the many +rose-gardens and the heavier-scented magnolias, now in full bloom, it +had come across, stirred the curtain. His nostrils, always sensitive to +the odors of flowers, drank it in rapturously. So honey-sweet it was, +his senses swam. + +He arose and looked out upon the incense-breathing blossoms, like +phantoms, under the moon. A clock in a distant part of the house was +striking twelve. How much more beautiful was the world now--at night's +high noon--than at the same hour of the day. + +All the house, save himself, was asleep. How easy it would be to escape +into this lovely night--to walk through this ambrosial air to the +house-worshipful in which _she_ doubtless lay, like a closed +lily-flower, clasped in sleep. + +A mocking-bird--the Southland's nightingale--in, some tree or bush not +far away, burst into passion-shaken melody that seemed to voice, as no +words could, his own emotion. + +Down the stair he slipped, and out of the door, into the well-nigh +intoxicating beauty of the southern summer's night. Indeed, the odors of +the dew-drenched flowers--the moonlight--the bird-music, together with +his remembrance of his lady's greeting, went to his head like wine. + +As he strolled along some lines of Shelley's which had long been +favorites of his, sang in his brain: + + "I arise from dreams of thee + In the first sweet sleep of night, + When the winds are breathing low + And the stars are shining bright. + I arise from dreams of thee, + And the spirit in my feet + Has led me--who knows how?-- + To thy chamber-window, sweet! + + "The wandering airs they faint + On the dark, the silent stream; + The champak odors fail + Like sweet thoughts in a dream; + The nightingale's complaint, + It dies upon her heart, + As I must die on thine, + Oh, beloved, as thou art! + + "Oh, lift me from the grass! + I die, I faint, I fail! + Let thy love in kisses rain + On my lips and eyelids pale. + My cheek is cold and white, alas! + My heart beats loud and fast. + Oh, press it close to thine again, + Where it will break at last." + +The words of the latter half of this serenade were meaningless as +applied to his case. To have quoted them--even mentally--in any literal +sense, would have seemed to him profanation; yet the whole poem in some +way not to be analysed or defined, expressed his mood--and who so brutal +as to seek to reduce to common-sense the emotions of a poet-lover, in +the springtime of life? + +At length he was before the closed and shuttered house, standing silent +and asleep. Opposite were the grassy slopes of Capitol Square--with the +pillared, white Capitol, in its midst, looking, in the moonlight, like a +dream of old Greece. _Her_ house! He looked upon its moonlit, ivied +walls with adoration. A light still shone from one upper room. Was it +_her_ chamber? Was she, too, awake and alive to the beauty of this magic +night? + +His heart beat tumultuously at the thought. Then--Oh, wonder! His knees +trembled under him--he grew dizzy and was ready, indeed, to cry, "I die, +I faint, I fail!" She crossed the square of light the window made. In +her uplifted hand she carried the lamp from which the light shone, and +for a moment her slight figure, clad all in white as he had seen her in +the garden a few hours before, and softly illuminated, was framed in the +ivy-wreathed casement. But for a moment--then disappeared, but the +trembling boy-lover and poet seemed to see it still, and gazed and gazed +until the light was out and all the house dark. + +He stumbled back through the moonlight to his home, he crept up the +creaking stair again, to his little, dormer-windowed room; but sleep was +now, more than ever, impossible. + +Though the lamp had gone out, a candle stood upon a stand at the head +of his bed. He lighted it, and by its ray, wrote, under the spell of the +hour, the first utterance in which he, Edgar Poe, ascended from the +plane of a maker of "promising" verse, to the realm of the true poet--a +poem to the lady of his heart's dream destined (though he little guessed +it) to make her name immortal and to send the fame of his youthful +passion down the ages as one of the world's historic love-affairs. + +What was her name? he wondered. He had never heard it, but he would call +her Helen--_Helen_, the ancient synonym of womanly beauty, but the +loveliest Helen, he believed, that ever set poet-lover piping her +praise. + +And so, "To Helen," were the words he wrote at the top of his page, and +underneath the name these lines: + + "Helen, thy beauty is to me + Like those Nicean barks of yore, + That gently o'er a perfumed sea, + The weary, wayworn wanderer bore + To his own native shore. + + "On desperate seas long wont to roam, + Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, + Thy Naiad airs have brought me home + To the glory that was Greece + And the grandeur that was Rome. + + "Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche + How statue-like I see thee stand! + The agate lamp within thy hand, + Ah! Psyche, from the regions which + Are Holy Land!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +With his meeting with "Helen," a new life, indeed, seemed to have opened +for Edgar the Dreamer. Not only had her own interest and sympathy been +aroused, but her husband, a learned and accomplished judge of the +Supreme Court of Virginia, also received him cordially and became deeply +interested in him, and he found in their home what his own had lacked +for him, a thoroughly congenial atmosphere. + +"Helen" Stanard listened kindly to his boyish rhapsodies about his +favorite poets, and encouraged him to bring her his own portefolio of +verses, which he did, all but the ones addressed to herself--these he +kept secret. She read all he brought her carefully, and intelligently +criticised them in a way that was a real help to him. + +As has been said, when Mr. Allan had discovered that his adopted son was +a rhymster, he had rebuked him severely for such idle waste of time, and +in a vain attempt to clip the wings of Pegasus, threatened him with +punishment if he should hear of such folly again. Mrs. Allan, on the +contrary, though she was not a bookish woman, had protested against her +husband's command--urging that Edgar be encouraged to cultivate his +talent. The ability to compose verse seemed to her, in a boy of Edgar's +age, little short of miraculous, and, proud of her pet's accomplishment, +she heaped indiscriminate praise upon every line that she saw of his +writing. + +The boy, hardly knowing which way to escape, between these two fires +that bade fair to work the ruin of his gift, turned eagerly to his new +friend. "Helen" gently told him that she believed his talent to be a +sacred trust, and that he would be committing sin to bury it--even +though by so doing he should be fulfilling the wishes of his +foster-father to whom he owed so much. He must, however, not forget his +duty to Mr. Allan in regard to this matter, as in other things, but +treat his views with all the consideration possible. Above all things, +he was never to depart from the truth in talking to him, but to tell him +in a straightforward and respectful way that he believed it his duty +when poetical thoughts presented themselves to his mind, to set them +down, and even to encourage and invite such thoughts. + +At the same time, she earnestly warned him against being overmuch +impressed by the flattering estimates of his work of his friends, +especially of his mother, who was far too partial to him, personally, to +be a safe judge of his writings. + +A happier summer than is often given mortals to know, Edgar the Dreamer +passed at the feet of the lovely young matron who had become a sort of +mother-confessor to him. Happiness which, with a touch of the +superstition that was characteristic of him he often told himself was +too perfect to last. What was it that made him feel sometimes in looking +upon her under the serene sky of that ideal summer that a cloud no +bigger than a man's hand threw its shadow upon her? Was it that faint +hint of sadness in her dark eyes or the ethereal radiance of her pale +complexion that while thrilling him with delight in the exquisite +quality of her beauty, filled him with foreboding? + + * * * * * + +Ere the frosts of autumn had robbed her garden of its glory, blighting +sorrow had fallen upon her tender mother-heart in the death of a darling +baby girl. Beneath this blow the health of sweet "Helen," always frail, +succumbed, and her home became thenceforth as a living tomb, in which +the few who ever saw her again trod softly and spoke in hushed voices. + +When the earliest roses were in bloom in her garden two years after +Edgar Poe first saw her there, she lay in her coffin, and for him, the +world seemed to have come to an end. + +She was laid to rest in the new cemetery on Shockoe Hill, not far from +the Allan home. The bier was followed by its black procession of +mourners, and no one knew that the heart of a youth who followed too, +but at a distance, was breaking. Though husband and children and brother +and sister were bowed with grief, he told himself that there was among +them no sorrow like unto his sorrow who had not even the right of +kinship to mourn for her. Of what business of his (he fancied, out of +the bitterness of his soul, the world saying) of what business of his +was her death? What business had he to mourn? + +Again his feet kept time to the old refrain of never, nevermore, that +hammered in his brain--a refrain that to the unrealizing ear of the +child of three had been sad with a beautiful, rhythmic sadness that was +rather pleasurable than otherwise; that to the youth of sixteen was +still musical and beautiful, though filled with despair. + +As at many another time his poetical gift gave him a merciful vent for +his pent up feeling, so now it came to his aid, and upon the night of +the day when she was laid to rest he poured out his sorrow in "The +Paean"--which he was afterwards to revise and rename, "Lenore"-- + + "An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-- + A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young." + +As during his childhood, and afterwards, he had found a mournful +pleasure in visiting the grave of his mother, in the churchyard on the +hill; so now he found a blessed solace, in his terrible loneliness, in +pilgrimages to the shrine (for as such he held the grave of his saint) +in the new cemetery. These pilgrimages he usually made at night--his +grief was too sacred a thing to be flaunted in broad daylight. Many a +night during the spring and summer found him slipping down the stair, +when the house was asleep, and taking his way through the silent city +of Slumber to that even more silent city of Death. + +Oh, that those that lay there not much more still than they who lay +asleep in their beds in that other city, might arise like them with the +morrow's sun! + +Often, as he walked along, drinking in the perfumed night air that he +loved--the night breeze gratefully lifting the ringlets from his fevered +brow--often he thought of that first summer's night when with the sweet +words of Shelley's serenade: "I arise from dreams of thee," singing +themselves in his heart, he had gone with light feet to worship beneath +her window. + +Ah, the world was young then, for sweet hope was alive! + +The iron gates of the cemetery were locked, but the wall was not very +high. To scale it but added zest to his adventure. He would be a knight +unfit for his vigil if he were to let himself be so easily balked. + +Within the wall the odors of flowers were even heavier, more +oppressively sweet than without, and the silence surpassed the silence +of the outer city even as the stillness of the sleepers here surpassed +the stillness of those yonder. + +He listened and listened to the silence. Surely if she should speak, +even from down under the ground he could hear her across this silence +which was as a void--a black and terrible void. + +His first pilgrimages were by moonlight, but when the moonless nights +came he continued his vigils. He would have known the way by that time +with his eyes shut. + +Sometimes he was afraid--horribly afraid. He seemed, in the shadows, to +descry weird phantom-shapes, moving stealthily; in the silence to hear +ghostly whispers; sometimes he fancied he heard _the silence itself_! +But in the very fear that clutched his throat there was a fascination--a +lure--that made it impossible to turn back. + +His sorrow was exquisite; his terror was exquisite; his loneliness was +oh, how exquisite! Yet in courting them all, here in the dead of night, +prone on her grave, he found the only balm he knew--the only sympathy; +for to his fancy the dark and the quiet had always seemed sentient +things and he felt that they gave him a sympathy he did not--could not +ask of people. + + * * * * * + +A breathless night in July found him at the familiar tryst at an earlier +hour than was his wont. He lay upon the grass at her feet with his hands +clasped under his head and his face turned up to the stars. There was +moonlight as well as starlight, and in its silvery radiance his +features, always pale, had the frigid whiteness of marble. The wide-open +eyes that stared upward to the stars, were larger, darker than in +daylight, and more full of brooding; the white brow, with its crown of +dark ringlets was whiter and more expansive. + +In a dormer-windowed cottage overlooking a rose garden, on Clay Street, +an erect gentleman in an uncompromising stock and immaculate ruffles, +with narrow blue eyes under a beetling brow, and a somewhat hawk-like +nose, sharply questioned a fair and graceful lady, with an anxious +expression on her flower-face, as to why "that boy" did not come home to +his supper. But they were used by now, to the boy's strange, wayward +whims, and so did not marvel much. Only--they had not seen him since the +feat that had set the town ringing with his name and it seemed to them +that it would have been natural for him to come home in the flush of his +triumph and tell them about it. + +Edgar Poe had that day created the sensation of the hour by swimming +from the Richmond wharves to Warwick--a distance of six miles--in the +midsummer sun. + +Richmond was a fair and pleasant little city in those days, in spite of +the fact that our boy-poet found in it so much to make him melancholy. +"The merriest place in America," Thackeray called it some years later, +and would probably have said the same of it then had he been there. The +blight of Civil War had not touched the cheerful temper of its people; +the tenement row had not crowded out grass and flowers. It was more a +large village than a town, with gracious homes--not elbowing each other +for foundation room, but standing comfortably apart, amid their green +lawns, and with wide verandahs overhanging their many-flowered gardens. + +"After tea," on warm nights, the houses overflowed into these +verandahs, and there was much visiting from one to another--much +light-hearted talk and happy laughter; the popular theme being whatever +happened to be "the news." + +It was the day of contentment, for wants were moderate and plentifully +supplied; the day of satisfaction in wholesome domestic joys; the day of +hospitality without grudging; the day when sweetness extracted from +little pleasures did not need spicing, for palates were not jaded; the +day of the ideal simple life. + +Upon this night, as on other nights, young girls who were not yet "gone +to the springs" floated along the fashionable promenades, in airy +muslins, with their cavaliers beside them. Groups of gentlemen and +ladies sat on the porches and children played hide-and-seek, chased +fire-flies, or sat on the steps and listened to the talk of their +elders. And everywhere, in all of the groups, the chief topic was the +boy, Edgar Poe, and his wonderful swim. + +And the boy who had in an afternoon become, for the time being at least, +the foremost figure in town, knew it, but did not care. + +To lie alone on the grass by the grave of his dead divinity and gaze at +the far stars, and brood upon his young sorrows--this gave him more +satisfaction than to be the central figure of any one of the groups +singing his praise; filled him with a romantic despair that to his +high-strung soul had a more delicately sweet flavor than positive +pleasure. + +As to the erect gentleman in the high stock and the pretty lady with +the tender, anxious face--they had, for the present, no part in his +thoughts. It was wrong and ungrateful of him that they should not have, +and if he had remembered them he would have known that it was wrong and +ungrateful; but he would not have cared. And as for his food--he had +supped royally, and without compunction, upon the fruit of an inviting +orchard to which he had helped himself, unblushingly, upon his way into +town. + +A reckless mood, born of the restlessness that was in his blood, was +upon him. + +The truth was, that poignant as was his pleasure in dwelling upon his +poetical sorrow for the adored "Helen"--his "lost Lenore"--it did not +fully satisfy him. His youthful heart was hungry for response to his +out-poured sentiment, for the more robust diet of mutual love. In plain +English, Edgar Poe wanted, and wanted badly, a sweetheart, though he did +not suspect it. + + * * * * * + +When, finally, he scaled the cemetery wall and took his way homeward he +did not go directly to the dormer-windowed cottage where the erect +gentleman and the pretty lady awaited him. Just as he was approaching it +he heard Elmira Royster's guitar in the porch opposite, and he crossed +the street and entered the Royster's gate. + +The Roysters and Allans had been neighbors for years and he and Elmira +had been "brought up together." At the sound of approaching footsteps +the guitar grew suddenly silent and a slight, rather colorless girl in a +white dress, with a white flower in her fluffy blonde hair, came from +out the shadow of the microphilla rose that embowered the porch and +stood in the full light of the moon, giving him greeting. + +"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Eddie," she said. "All of the family but me +have gone to a party, and I'm so lonesome! Besides, I, like everybody +else in town, want a chance to congratulate you." + +"Congratulate?" he replied, with a shrug, as he took a seat beside her, +under the roses, "Congratulate? In their hearts they all despise me." +Then with a smile, + +"You see the blue devils have the upper hand of me tonight, Myra." + +"Well, they are fibbing devils if they tell you you are despised. Dick +Ambler was over at your house looking for you a little while ago, and he +stopped by and told me about your swim. He said he and the other boys +that followed you in the boat had never seen anything so exciting in +their lives. They were expecting you to give out any minute and so much +afraid that if you did you would go under before they could get hold of +you. When you won the wager they were so proud and happy that they were +almost beside themselves." + +"Oh, I know Dick and the rest are the best and truest friends a fellow +ever had--bless their hearts--but they are the exceptions." + +"Nonsense! There's not a boy in town tonight who would not give his +head to be in your shoes, and" (shyly) "the girls are all wild about +you." + +The hero smiled indulgently. No woman was ever thrown with Edgar Poe, +from his birth up, but in some fashion or degree, loved him, and to him +all women were angels. He never, as boy or man, entertained a thought or +wrote a line of one of them that was not reverent. He admired, in +varying degree, all types of feminine loveliness, but Myra, though he +liked her, was not the style that he most cared for. He had always +thought her too "washed out." The soul that shone through her rather +prominent, light-blue eyes was too transparent, too easily read. He +found more interesting the richer-hued brunette type, and the complex +nature that goes with it; the flashes of starlight, the softness and the +warmth, of brown eyes; the mysteries that lie in the shadow of dusky +lashes; the variety of rich, warm tones in chestnut and auburn tresses. + +But Myra was a revelation to him tonight. He had never dreamed that she +could look so pretty--_so very pretty_--as she did now in her white +dress, with the moonlight filtering through the foliage upon her fair +hair and her face (turned full of liking and undisguised admiration upon +him) and her lovely arms, bared to the elbow. She had an ethereal, +fairy-like appearance that was bewitching, and in his despondent mood, +her frank praise was more than sweet. Still his answer was as bitter as +ever, + +"Oh, well, what does it all amount to? They would say the same of any +acrobat in a circus whose joints were a bit more limber than those of +the rest of his tribe. That does not remove their contempt for me, +personally." + +"I don't feel contempt for you, Eddie," she gently replied--just +breathing it. + +(Myra was really wonderful tonight. He had not known her voice could +have so much color in it; and the white flower in her hair--a +cape-jessamine, its excessively sweet fragrance told him--gave her pale +beauty the touch of romance it had always lacked). The poetic eyes that +looked into hers mellowed, the cynical voice softened: + +"Don't you Myra? Well, you'd better cultivate it. Its the fashion, and +it's the only feeling I'm worth." + +"Eddie," she said earnestly--tenderly, "I want you to promise me that +you won't talk that way any more--at least not to _me_--it hurts me." + +Her hand, on his sleeve, was as fair as a petal from the jessamine +flower in her hair. He took it gently in his. + +"Dear little Myra, little playmate--" he said. "You are my friend, I +know, and have been since we were mere babies, in spite of knowing, as +you do, what a naughty, idle, disobedient boy I've been, deserving every +flogging and scolding I've gotten and utterly unworthy all the good +things that have come my way--including your dear friendship." + +"You are breaking your promise already," she said. "You _shall not_ run +yourself down to me. I think you are the nicest boy in town!" + +There was nothing complex about Myra. Her mind was an open book, and he +suddenly found he liked it so--liked it tremendously. Her unveiled +avowal of preference for him was most soothing to his restless, +dissatisfied mood. + +"Thank you, Myra," he said tenderly, kissing the flower-petal hand +before he laid it down. He had a strong impulse to kiss _her_, but +resisted it, with an effort, and abruptly changed the subject. + +"Did you know that we are going to move?" he asked. "And that I'm going +to the University next winter?" + +"_To move_?" she questioned, aghast. "Where?" + +"To the Gallego mansion, at Fifth and Main Streets. Mr. Allan has bought +it. The dear little mother, who, I'd say, if you'd let me, is so much +better to me than I deserve, is full of plans for furnishing it and is +going to fit up a beautiful room in it for me. It will be a delightful +home for us, and quite grand after our modest cottage, but do you know +I'm goose enough to be homesick at the thought of giving up my little +den under the roof? Myself and I have had such jolly times together in +it!" + +She had scarcely heard him, except the first words and the stunning +facts they contained. There was a minute's silence, then she spoke in a +changed, quivering voice. + +"Then that will be the end of our friendship, I suspect! When you get +out of the neighborhood, and are off most of the time at the University, +we will doubtless see little more of you." + +Her clear blue eyes were shining up at him through tears. Her mouth was +tremulous as a distressed child's. The appeal met an instant response +from the tender-hearted poet. _Both_ the flower-like hands were captured +this time, and held fast, in spite of their fluttering. The excessively +sweet fragrance of the blossom in her hair was in his nostrils. Her +quick, short breaths told him of the tempest in her tender young bosom. + +"Myra, little Myra, do you care like that?" he cried. "Then let the +friendship go, and be my dear little sweetheart, won't you? I'm dying of +loneliness and the want of somebody to love and to love me--somebody who +understands me--and you do, don't you, Myra, darling?" + +She was too happy to answer, but she suffered him to put his arms around +her and kiss her soft pale hair--and her brow--and her tremulous +mouth--the first kisses of love to him as well as to her. And ah, how +sweet! + +He laughed happily, lifted out of his gloom by this new, this +deliriously sweet dream. + +"Do you know, little sweetheart," he said, in a voice that was bubbling +with joy, "I feel that you have cast those devils out of me forever. It +was you that I wanted all the time, and did not know it. Some of these +days, when I've been through college and settled down, we will be +married, and wherever our home is, we must always have a porch like +this, with a rose on it, and" (kissing her brow) "you must always wear a +jessamine in your hair." + +And so the boy-poet and his girl play-mate, very much to their own +surprise, parted affianced lovers, and a long vista of sunlit days +seemed to beckon The Dreamer. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +The session at the University did not begin until the middle of +February, so love's young dream was not to be interrupted too soon. +Meantime, its sweetness was only enhanced by thought of the coming +separation. The affair had too, the interest of secrecy, for the +youthful lovers well knew the storm of opposition that would be raised, +in both their homes, if it should be discovered. This need of secrecy +made frequent meetings and exchange of vows impossible, but it gave to +such as occurred the flavor of stolen sweets and kept the young sinners +in a tantalized state which was excruciating and at the same time +delightful, and which still further fed the flames and convinced them of +the realness and intensity of their passion. + +When they did meet, their awed, joyous confessions of mutual love +charmed the lonely, romantic boy by their very novelty. In them his +fairest dreams were fulfilled. How sweet it was in these rare, stolen +moments, to crush the pure young creature, who would be his own some +day, against his wildly beating heart--how passing sweet to hear against +his ear her whispered, hesitating vows of deep, everlasting love! + +In his pretty new room overlooking the terraced garden of the stately +mansion which had become his home, Edgar Poe plunged headlong into +Byron, and in the mood thus induced, penned many a verse, no worse and +not much better than the rhymes of lovelorn youths the world over and +time out of mind, to be copied into Myra's album. + +Between the love-making and preparation for college, time took wings. In +what seemed an incredibly short space summer and fall were gone, +Christmas, with its festivities, was over and the new year--the year +1826--had opened. + +It was upon St. Valentine's Day that, with a feeling of solemnity worthy +of the act, the seventeen year old lover and student wrote the name +Edgar Allan Poe, and the date of his birth, upon the matriculation book +of the University of Virginia--open for its second session. Upon the day +before the beauty and the poetry--_the inspiration_--of the place had +burst upon him, and this first impression still held his soul in thrall. + +Here, in this fair Virginia vale, ringed about with the heaven-kissing +hills of the Blue Ridge, the scholastic village conjured by Jefferson's +fertile imagination lay before him in the clear, winter sunshine. Its +lawns and its gardens were just now white with an unbroken blanket of +new-fallen snow; the young trees which had been planted in avenues along +the lawns, but which were as yet hardly more than shrubs, glittered with +icicles, and above them rose the classic columns of the colonnaded +dormitories and professors' houses; while at one end of the oblong +square the majestic dome and columns of the Rotunda stood out against +the sky. As the entranced Dreamer gazed and gazed, trying to imagine +what it must be like by moonlight--what it would be in spring--what (a +few years later, when the trees should have grown large enough to arch +the walks) in summer--he told himself that surely in this garden-spot of +the Old Dominion, bricks and mortar had sprung into immortal bloom, and +he found himself quoting a line of his own: + + "The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome." + +Upon his earliest opportunity he sat down and wrote Myra a rhapsody upon +it all. Her presence, he felt, and he wrote her, was all needed to make +the place a paradise. + +Under his name upon the matriculation book he had written, with +confidence: + +"Schools of Ancient and Modern Languages." In the school of Ancient +Languages were taught (according to the announcement for the year) +"Hebrew, rhetoric, belles-lettres ancient history and geography;" in the +school of Modern Languages, "French, Spanish, Italian, German, and the +English language in its Anglo Saxon form; also modern history and modern +geography." A list, one would think, to daunt the courage of a seventeen +year old student and make him feel that he had the world on his +shoulders. + +It was quite the contrary with The Dreamer. He felt instead that he had +suddenly developed wings. Learning came easy to him. He was already a +good French and Latin scholar, and the rest did not frighten him. Not +only was he not in the least burdened by thought of the work he was +cutting out for himself, but he was elated by a sense of freedom such as +he had never known before. Always before, both at home and at school, he +had been under surveillance. But now he was to be a partaker of the +benefits of Mr. Jefferson's theories of the treatment of students as men +and gentlemen--letting their conduct be a matter of _noblesse oblige_. + +In the youth of seventeen this sudden withdrawal of oversight and +regulation produced an exhilaration that was indeed pleasurable. Among +the unfrequented hills known as the "Ragged Mountains," not far away, +was a wild and romantic region that invited him to fascinating +exploration--perhaps adventure. Instead of having to beg permission or +to steal off upon the solitary rambles which he loved, to this +enchanting country, he could, and did, go when he chose, openly, and +with no questions asked or rebukes given. + +He held up his head with a new confidence at the thought, and took his +dreams of ambition and love, whenever he could allow himself time to do +so, to the enticing new region (as unlike anything around Richmond as if +it were in a different world) adjacent to which, for the time, his lot +lay. + +He did not neglect his classes, however. They were regularly attended +and his standing was excellent; so the professors had no cause for +making inquiry into the pursuits of his private hours. The library, +too, in the beautiful Rotunda, was a new, if different, field for his +exploration and one that gave him great delight, for he found there many +volumes of quaint and curious lore whose acquaintance he had never +before made. + + * * * * * + +His imaginary wings were soon enough to be clipped--his exhilaration to +drop from him as suddenly as it had come. + +_He did not hear from Myra!_ + +He watched eagerly for the mails, and as day after day passed without +bringing him a letter, deep dejection claimed him. Finally he wrote to +her again--and then again--and again--frantically appealing to her to +write to him and assure him of her constancy if she would save his life. + +Still, no word from her. + +The truth was that Myra, at home in Richmond, was awaiting each +mail-time as feverishly as he. The faint suggestion of rose her cheeks +usually wore, had entirely disappeared and deep circles caused by lack +of sleep and lost appetite made her light blue eyes appear more +prominent than ever before. The ethereal look that had been her chief +claim to beauty had become exaggerated into a ghastliness that was not +in the least bewitching. She, like Edgar, had pocketed her pride and +followed her first letter with others more and more expressive of her +tender maiden passion; but her father, who had begun to suspect an +affair between her and the players' son a short time before Edgar left +for the University, had kept diligent watch for the passage of letters, +and had successfully intercepted them. + +And so the unhappy pair pined and sighed and gloomed, each reckoning the +other faithless and believing that life was forever robbed of joy. + +Edgar Poe had never really loved the girl. He had merely loved the dream +to which her tender words and timid caresses gave an adorable reality; +but now in his disappointment at not hearing from her he felt that her +love and loyalty to him were the only things in the world worth having +and persuaded himself that without her there as no incentive to live or +to strive. His misery was increased by an over-whelming homesickness, to +escape from which, he wandered restlessly about, vainly seeking +excitement and forgetfulness. + +In this mood, he eagerly accepted an invitation to spend the evening +from a class-mate whose room in "Rowdy Row" had a reputation for +conviviality. His own room, shared by a quiet and steady Richmond boy +with whom he had a slight acquaintance at home, was in one of the +cloister-like dormitories opening upon the main lawn. + +While Edgar Poe had been a somewhat wayward and at times a disobedient +boy, at home, he had never been a _bad_ boy except when judged by John +Allan's standards, and had never been in the least wild. Wines were used +upon the table of his foster-father, as upon the tables of other +gentlemen whose homes he had visited, and he had always been permitted +to drink a small quantity at a time, at dinner, or to sip a little +mint-julep from the goblet passed around before breakfast and supposed +to be conducive to appetite and healthful digestion; but he had never +thought of exceeding this allowance. As to cards, he knew nothing of +them save as an innocent, social pastime in which he found pleasure, as +in all other games and sports--especially such as required exercise of +ingenuity or mental skill. + +The evening in "Rowdy Row" was therefore a revelation, as well as a +diversion to him. As he approached the end of this arcaded row in which +his new friend's room was situated his interest received a spur from the +sounds of hilarity that greeted him, and his spirits began to rise. In a +few moments more he found himself in the midst of a group of exceedingly +jolly youths evidently prepared to make a night of it. Several of them +were gathered about a huge bowl in which they were mixing a variety of +punch which they called "peach-honey." Others were seated around a card +table while one of their number entertained the rest with what seemed to +be almost magical tricks. These Edgar joined. His interest was +immediately aroused and he fixed his eyes with intentness upon the +juggler. The tricks were new to him, but he soon amazed the crowd by +showing the solution of them all. + +Finally, the punch was declared to be ready; other packs of cards were +produced and the real sport of the evening began. It was Edgar's first +experience in drinking with boys and his conscience, not yet hardened +to it, kept him in check without worrying him enough to destroy his +pleasure. Somewhat of his old exhilaration returned to him at the bare +thought, for he felt himself a man, following his own will and yet not +disobeying any direct command. + +In spite of much urging, he only drank one glass of the peach-honey, but +thanks to a jovial ancestor of whom he had never heard, but of some of +whose sins (in accordance with the ancient law) he bore the marks in his +temperament, he was peculiarly susceptible to the influences of strong +drink, and as he drained the glass at a gulp, a new freedom seemed to +enter his soul. The dejection which had oppressed him dropped from him +instantly, and with his great eyes glowing like lamps with new zest in +life, he sat down at a card table to be initiated into the mysteries of +the fascinating game of _loo_, which had lately become the fashion, and +at the same time into his first experience in playing for money. + +He had beginner's luck--held good hands and won straight through the +game. His success, with the effects of the punch, developed his wittiest +vein and Edgar Goodfellow assumed complete ascendancy. + +His new acquaintances were charmed, and encouraged his mood by loud +applause and congratulated themselves upon having added to their number +such good company. + +From that night Edgar Poe's new friends, who constituted what was known +as the "fast set" at the University, became his boon companions. It was +in the card-table, much more than the punch-bowl that the charm for him +lay, for the gambling fever had entered his blood with his first +winnings, but in the combination of the two he found, for the present, a +sure cure for his "blue devils." + +Alas, Helen! Where was your sweet spirit that it did not hover, as +guardian angel, about the head of this wayward child of genius in his +hour of sore need, when temptations gathered thick around his pathway +and there was no one to steer him into safer waters; no one to restrain +his feet from their first blind steps toward that Disaster to which +ruinous companionship invited him, with syren voice? + +True, his staid room-mate, Miles George, raised his voice in warning +against the dangerous intimacies he was forming but Miles' view seemed +extreme to him. Besides, he found at the University the same caste +feeling that had cut him off from familiar intercourse with the leaders +among his Richmond schoolmates. It was but natural, therefore, that he +should have turned gratefully, to the society where his welcome was +sure. + +Finally words passed between him and Miles, ending in a formal meeting, +with seconds on both sides. Their only weapons were their fists, and +they shook hands afterward; but the idea of continuing to share the same +bed-room was out of the question. Of the vacant rooms to be had, Edgar +promptly decided upon Number 13, Rowdy Row, and the second step in a +wrong direction quickly followed the first. + +He was hailed by the rest of the "Row" with delight, and he promptly +decided to return their many hospitalities in his new room, which he +proceeded to elaborately prepare for their reception. + +The result was an early and noisy house-warming. The guests were filled +with admiration to find the walls of Number 13 decorated in honor of the +occasion with charcoal sketches representing scenes from Byron's works +done by the clever hand of the new occupant himself. They also found +Edgar Goodfellow in the character of host, presiding over his own +card-table and his own bowl--a generous one--of peach-honey, in the +highest feather and his most captivating mood. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Erelong Number 13 was the liveliest and most popular room in the Row, +but of the orgies held there the faculty rested in blissful +unconsciousness. At class-time young Poe was invariably in his place and +invariably the pale, thoughtful, student-like and faultlessly neat and +gentle-mannered youth whose intelligent attention and admirable +recitations were the joy of his masters. They heard rumors that he was +something of a poet and were not surprised, the suggestions of ideality +in the formation of his brow and the expression of his eyes hinted at +such talent, and so long as he did not let the Muse come between him and +his regular work, he should not be discouraged or restrained. + +Indeed, in spite of the sway of Edgar Goodfellow at this time, Edgar the +Dreamer was often present too, and during solitary tramps into the wild +fastenesses of the Ragged Mountains, he not only conceived many fancies +to be worked into poems, but made mentally, the first draft of a story +to win fame. + +The love of no real woman came to supplant the seemingly faithless +Elmira, and though he still carried his mother's miniature with him and +gazed often and fondly upon it, the sense of nearness between her spirit +and his and the soul satisfaction he had found in this nearness in the +past, were gone. The gambling fever that had fired his veins and the +nightly potations of peach-honey created an excitement and restlessness +that blurred the images his memory held of the angel mother who had +dominated his childhood and of the madonna-like mistress who had filled +the dreams of his early youth. These holy dreams became for the time +being, a reproach to him, for they aroused his conscience to an +unpleasant activity which required more frequent recourse to peach-honey +to quiet. + + * * * * * + +Love was, nevertheless, as necessary to this poet's soul as meat and +drink were to his body, and in the No Man's Land, "out of space, out of +time," which his fancy created and where it loved to stray, he fashioned +for himself the weirdest, strangest lady ever loved by mortal. The name +he gave her was "Ligeia." She laid upon him no exactions, chastened him +with no rebukes, demanded of him no service save that he should +dream--and dream--and dream; for was not she herself formed from "such +stuff as dreams are made of?" + +The music of nature had long possessed a sort of personality for Edgar +Poe, and now the voices, the motions, the numberless colors of the world +about him took definite shape in his fancy of a wonderous fairy-woman +whom he worshipped with an unearthly, poetic passion that was compared +to the passion of the normal man to flesh and blood woman as moonlight +to sunshine--a passion which was luminous without heat. + +Dim and elusive as is the very conception of "Ligeia" to the ordinary +mind, she was perfectly real to her creator. In the summer-night breeze +he heard the music of her voice and felt the delicious coolness of her +caress. Tall, swaying trees spoke to him of her height, her majesty and +her grace. He perceived the softness and lightness of her footfalls in +the passage of evening shadows across a lake or meadow, the perfection +of her features in the form and finish of flower petals and the delicate +tints of her beauty in the coloring of flowers; the raven hue and +sweeping length of of her tresses in the drowning shades of midnight and +the entrancing veil of her lashes in deep mysterious woods; and when, in +fancy, he looked beneath that veil into her eyes, as unfathomable as the +ocean itself, he was struck dumb with reverence and wonder, for they +held in keeping all the secrets of the moon and the stars, of dawn and +sunset, of green things growing and flowers in bloom, of the butterfly +in the crysalis and on the wing, of still waters and of running brooks. + +To the inner vision of this most unusual youth, "Ligeia"--this myth +called into being by the enchantment of his own fancy--not only became +as real as if she had been flesh and blood; his pagan soul bowed down +before her and she blotted from his mind, for the time, all thought or +consciousness of more robust womanhood. She became, in imagination, the +sharer of his studies, the wife of his bosom, and he sat at her feet and +gladly learned from her the beautiful, strange secrets of this fearfully +and wonderfully made world. + +He was sometimes haunted by another, and a far less agreeable vision. In +spite of the absence of restraint under which he lived and the fact +that between his dreams, his books and his dissipations there seemed +little opportunity left for the still, small voice to make itself heard, +there were times when his better self shook off slumber and rose before +him like a ghost that, for all his efforts, would not be laid--a ghost +like him in all regards save for the sternness of its look and of the +voice which accused him in whispers to which all others ears were deaf, +but his own intensely, horribly sensitive. + +It was generally at the very height of excitement in play, when he had +just been dealt a hand which he told himself, with exultation, would win +him all the money in the pool, or, perhaps at the moment when he raised +the glass to his lips, anticipating the delicious exhilaration of the +seductive peach-honey, that the unwelcome spectre would, with startling +suddenness, appear before his eyes. His face would blanch, his own voice +become almost as hoarse as the warning whisper that was in his ear, and +with trembling hand he would put down the cards or the cup and refuse to +have anything more to do with the evening's sport. + +His companions at first thought these attacks the result of some +physical weakness but finally became accustomed to them and attributed +them to his "queerness." + + * * * * * + +Thus the youthful poet passed his year at college--dividing his time +between his dreams, his classes and his carousals. The session closed in +December. The final examinations occupied the early part of the month +and when the faculty met upon the 14th., it was found that Edgar Poe +had not only stood well in all of his studies, but in two of them--Latin +and French--he had taken the highest honors. + +In spite of this, and of the fact that at no time during the session had +he come under the censure of the faculty, a startling revelation was +made. Edgar Poe, model student as he seemed to be, whose only fault--if +it could be called a fault--as the faculty knew him, had been a tendency +toward a romantic dreaminess that had led him upon lonely rambles among +the hills rather eccentric in a boy of seventeen; Edgar Poe, the quiet, +the gentlemanly, the immaculately neat, the scholarly, the poetic, had +been a spendthrift and a reckless gambler. His debts, for a boy of his +age, were astounding. No one was more amazed at the sum of them than +Edgar himself. He had always had the lordly indifference to money, and +the contempt for keeping account of it, that was the natural result of +being used to have what seemed to him to be an unlimited supply to draw +upon, with the earning of which he had nothing to do. As to hoarding it, +he would as soon have thought of hoarding the air he breathed which came +to him with no less effort. He was, unfortunately, as heedless of what +he owed as what he spent--lavishing it upon his companions as long as it +lasted and when his supply of cash was exhausted running up accounts +with little thought of a day of reckoning--though of course he fully +intended to pay. + +His mind was, indeed, too much engrossed with the charming creations of +his brain to leave him time for brooding upon such sordid matters as the +keeping of accounts, or the making of two ends meet. The amount of his +indebtedness was now, however, sufficient to give him a shock which +thoroughly aroused him, and he was genuinely distressed; for he had no +wish to ruthlessly pain his foster-father. The haunting better self not +only arose and confronted him, but remained with him, keeping close step +with him and upbraiding him and condemning him in the whisper audible to +his quick imagination and so terrifying. + +Still, the thought that Mr. Allan had plenty of money, and that no +severe sacrifice would be needful for the payment of his debts relieved +his penitence of much of its poignancy. That Mr. Allan would settle +these "debts of honor," as he called them, as the fathers and guardians +of boys as reckless as himself had done, he had not the slightest doubt. +But, as will be seen, he reckoned without Mr. Allan. + +He wrote Mrs. Allan a dutiful letter, confessing all and expressing his +sorrow, and begging to be permitted to repay Mr. Allan for settling his +affairs at the University with work as a clerk in the counting house. + +The letter filled the tender heart of the foster-mother with yearning. +The sum frightened her, though she, like the boy, comforted herself with +the thought that her husband could pay it without embarrassment. Still, +she trembled to think of his wrath. Her chief feeling was one of +sympathy for her erring, penitent boy. How natural it was for one of his +age to be led away by evil associates! All boys--she supposed--must sow +some wild oats, though few, she was confident, showed such a beautifully +penitent spirit, and it would be a small matter in future years when he +should have become the great and good man she knew he was going to be. + +How noble it was of him to offer to give up or postpone the completion +of the education so dear to his heart and tie himself to a desk in that +tiresome counting-house in order to pay his debts--he that was born to +shine as a poet. She exulted that he had offered to make such a +sacrifice, but he should never make it, never while _she_ had breath in +her body to protest! + +How her heart bled for him in his sorrow over his wrong-doing! How she +longed to fold his dear curly head against her breast and tell him that +he was quite, quite forgiven! She would reward him for the splendid +stand in his classes and at the same time make him forget his troubles +on account of the debts by giving him the loveliest imaginable +Christmas. Uncle Billy must search the woods for the brightest greens, +the prettiest holly; for the house must look its merriest for the +home-coming of its young master, covered with honors! There must be +mistletoe, too she told herself, her mouth dimpling and a suspicion of a +twinkle flashing out from under her dewy lashes. The fatted calf should +be killed, her boy should make merry with his friends. + +The dear letter was kissed and cried over until it took much smoothing +on her knee to make it presentable to hand over to her husband for +perusal. Her fingers were still busy stroking out the crumples, though +her tears were dried, and her thoughts were happily engaged with plans +for a Christmas party worthy to celebrate the home-coming of her +darling, when Mr. Allan came in to supper. She was brought back to +recollection of the confession in the letter and her apprehensions as to +how it would be received, with a start, and before timidly handing her +husband the open letter, she began preparing him for its contents and +excusing the writer. + +"A letter from Eddie, John, dear. He has stood splendidly in his +classes, but asks your forgiveness for having done wrong in his spare +time. He is so manly and noble in his confession, John, and in his offer +to make reparation!" + +John Allan's face clouded and hardened instantly. + +"What is this? Confession? Reparation?--Give me the letter!" + +But she held it away from him. + +"It seems he has gotten into a card-playing set who have led him away +further than he realized. Oh, don't look like that, John! He is so +young, and you know how evil association can influence the best of +boys!" + +But the storm gathered fast and faster on John Allan's face. + +"Card-playing? Do you mean the boy has been gambling? Give me the +letter." + +She could withhold it no longer, but as he sat down to read it she threw +herself upon an ottoman at his feet and clasping his knees hid her face +against them, crying, + +"Oh, John, have pity, have pity!" + +But even as she sobbed out the words, she felt their futility. She knew +that there was no pity to be expected from the owner of that face of +stone, that eye of steel. + +As he read, his rage became too great for the relief of an outburst. A +still, but icy calm settled upon him. For some minutes he spoke no word +and seemed unconscious of the tender creature so appealing in her +loveliness and in the humility of her attitude, beseeching at his knee. +The truth was, that much as he loved her, his contempt for what he +called her "weakness" for the son of her adoption, but added to his +harshness in judging the boy. + +Presently he arose, impatiently pushing her away from him as he did so, +saying; + +"Pack my bag and order an early breakfast. I'm going to take the morning +stage for the University." + +It was a difficult evening for the little foster-mother. In the stately, +octagon-shaped dining-room soft lamplight was cheerily reflected by +gleaming mahogany and bright silver and china, upon which was served the +most toothsome of suppers; but the meal was almost untouched and the +mere pretense of eating was carried through in silence and gloom. In the +drawing-room, afterward, the firelight leaped saucily against shining +andirons and fender, bringing forgetfulness of the frosty night outside, +while the carved wood-work and the great mirrors and soft-hued +paintings, in their gilded frames, on the walls, and the deep carpets on +the floors spoke of comfort. But the beautiful room was a mockery, for +the promised comfort, was not there--only futile luxury. Upon that +bright hearth was warmth for the body, but none for the spirit, for +before it sat the master and mistress--the presiding geniuses of the +house--upon whose oneness the structure of the _home_ must stand, or +without it fall into ruin; there they sat, wrapped in moods so out of +sympathy and tune that speech was as impossible between them as if they +had been of different tongues, and each unknown to the other. + +Meantime, Edgar Poe was spending his last hours at the University in the +dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No +farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking. Only one of his friends was +invited to his room that night and he no denizen of "Rowdy Row," but the +quiet, irreproachable librarian. To this gentle guest The Dreamer +confided his past sins and his penitence, while he laid upon the glowing +coals the year's accumulation of exercise books, and the like, which had +served their purpose and were finished and done with, and watched the +devouring flames leap from the little funeral pyre they made into the +chimney. + +More than anything he had ever done in his life, he told his companion, +he regretted the making of the gambling debts for which Mr. Allan would +have to advance the money to pay. But, as has been said, he reckoned +without Mr. Allan, who settled all other obligations, but utterly +ignored the so-called "debts of honor." + +"Debts of honor?" he queried with contempt. "Debts of _dishonor_, I +consider them." + +And that was his last word upon the subject. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +The late January night was bitterly cold, and clear as crystal. There +was a metallic glitter about the round moon, shining down from a +cloudless, blue sky--too bright to show a star--upon the black and bare +trees and shrubbery in the terraced garden of the Allan homestead. + +Edgar Poe looked from his casement upon the splendor of the beautiful, +but frigid and unsympathetic night. Bitterness was in his heart +contending with a fierce joy. At last it had come--the breach with Mr. +Allan--and he was going away! He knew not where, but he was going, going +into the wide world to seek fame and fortune. + +He had much to regret. He loved Richmond--loved it for the joy and pain +he had felt in it; for the dreams he had dreamed in it. He loved it +exceedingly for the two dear graves, one in the churchyard on the hill +and one in the new cemetery, that held his beloved dead. + +Yes, he was sorry to leave this _home_-city, if not of his birth, at +least of his childhood and early youth, and his soul was still shaken by +the scene with his foster-parents through which he had just passed. But +in spite of all, his heart--rejoicing in the nearness of the freedom for +which he had so fiercely longed, sang, and stilled his sorrow. + +But a few weeks had passed since his return from the University. A few +weeks? They seemed to him years, and each one had left a feeling of +increased age upon his spirit. + +The home-coming had not been altogether unhappy--humiliating as it was. +In spite of the black looks of his foster-father, the little mother +(bless her!) had welcomed him with out-stretched arms and eyes beaming +with undimmed love. Never had she been more tenderly sweet and dear. She +had given the most beautiful Christmas party, with all his best friends +invited, and everything just as she knew he would like it. Her husband +had frowningly consented to this, but her tears and entreaties were all +of no avail to win his consent for the boy's return to college. Vainly +had she plead his talents which she believed should be cultivated, and +the injustice (since they had voluntarily assumed the responsibility of +rearing him) of cutting short his education at such an early age. John +Allan was adamant. + +And so, after the holidays, he had taken his place in the counting-house +of "Ellis and Allan." + +Distasteful as the new work was to the young poet, he was determined to +stick to it, and would probably have done so, but the strict +surveillance he soon realized he was under (as if he could not be +trusted!) and the manner of Mr. Allan who rarely spoke to him except +when it was absolutely necessary, and seemed to regard him as a hopeless +criminal, would have been unbearable to a far less proud and sensitive +nature than Edgar Poe's. Both at the office and at home, Mr. Allan's +narrow, steel-colored eyes seemed to keep constant watch, under their +beetling brows, for faults or blunders; and it seemed to the driven boy +that no matter what he did or said, he should have done or said just the +reverse. He felt constantly that a storm was brewing which must sooner +or later, certainly break, and that night it had burst forth with all +the fury of the tempest which has been a long time gathering. + +He hardly knew what had brought it on, or how it had begun. Its violence +was so great as to almost stun him until at length, without being more +than half conscious of the significance of his own words he had asked if +it would not be better for him to go away and earn his own living; and +then came his foster-father's startlingly ready consent, with the +warning that if he did go he must look for no further aid from him. + +His heart ached for the pretty, tender little mother. How soft the arms +that had clung about his neck, the lips that had pressed his hot brow! +How piteous her dear tears! They had almost robbed him of his +resolution, but he had succeeded in steeling himself against this +weakness. He had folded her close in his arms and kissed her, and vowed +that, come what might, he could never forget her or cease to love her, +and that he should always think of her as his mother and himself as her +child. Then he had put her gently from him for, for all his vows, she +was inseparably bound up in the old life from which he was breaking +away--his life as John Allan's adopted son--she could have no real place +in his future. + +Yet the tie that bound him to her was the strongest in his life and +could not be severed without keen pain. In the world into which he was +going to fight the battle of life (he told himself) memory of her would +be one of his inspirations. + +But where was that battle to be fought, and with what weapons? He had +been brought up as a rich man's son, and with the expectation of being a +rich man's heir. He had been trained to no money-making work, physical +or mental; and now he was to fare forth into the great world where there +was not a familiar face, even, to earn his bread! What could he do that +would bring him the price of a loaf?-- + +Did the question appal him? Not in the least. He had youth, he had +health, he had hope, he had his beloved talent and the secret training +he had given himself toward its cultivation. His "heart-strings were a +lute"--he felt it, and with an optimism rare for him he also felt that +he had but to strike upon that lute and the world must needs stop and +listen. + +What he did not have was experience and knowledge of the world. Little +did he dream how small a part of the busy hive would turn aside to hear +his music or how little poetry had to do with the earning of daily +bread. + +His trunk was standing open, half packed, though his destination was +still undecided; and among the first things that had gone into it was a +box containing a number of small rolls of neat manuscript. As he thought +of them his heart warmed and his eyes grew soft. + +"The world's mine oyster, and with my good pen I'll open it," he +joyously paraphrased. But toward what part of the world should he turn +his face--to what market take his precious wares? That was the +all-important question! How much his fortune might depend upon his +decision! + +As he stood at the window, he stared into the brilliancy and the shadows +of the icy, unresponsive night--seeking a sign. But the cold splendor of +the cloudless sky and glittering moon and the inscrutible shadows in the +garden below where the leafless trees and bushes cast monster shapes +upon the frozen ground, alike mocked him. + +Presently there was the first hint of softness in the night. It came +like a sigh of tender pity across the stillness and he bent his head to +listen. It was the voice of the faintest of breezes blowing up from the +south and passing his window. He threw wide his arms to empty space as +if to embrace some invisible form. + +"Ligeia, Ligeia, my beautiful one," he breathed, invoking his +dream-lady, "Be my counsellor and guide! Let thy sweet voice whisper +whither I must go!" + +But the voice was silent and all the night was still again. + +He turned from the window and threw himself into his arm-chair, letting +his eyes rove about the room as though he would seek a sign from its +walls. Suddenly he sat erect, his dilated pupils fixed upon a point +above the chimney-piece--upon a small picture. It was a little +water-color sketch done by the hand of his versatile mother, and found +among her belongings after her death. Like her miniature and her +letters, the picture had followed him through his life and had always +adorned the walls of his room. Often and over he had studied it until he +knew by heart every stroke of the brush that entered into its +composition. Yet he stared at it now as if he had never seen it before. +Finally he took it down from its place on the chimney and held it in his +hands, gazing upon it in deep abstraction. + +Underneath the picture was written its title: "Boston Harbor--Morning," +and upon its back, + +"For my little boy, Edgar, who must love Boston, the place of his birth, +and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic friends." + +The picture gave him the sign! With rising excitement he decided that +it must be accepted. To Boston, of course, he would go. Boston, the +place of his birth and where his angel mother had found her "best, most +sympathetic friends." + +He would get away as early the next morning as possible, he told +himself. He would waste no time in goodbyes, for, he remembered with +some bitterness, there were few to say goodbye to. The boys were all off +at college again, now that the holidays were over, and as for Myra, she +had quickly consoled herself and was already a wife! He had addressed +some reproachful verses to her as a bride; then dismissed her from his +thoughts. + +He arose and placed the picture carefully in the trunk with the rest of +his treasures and then went to bed to fall into the easy slumber of one +whose mind is well made up. + + * * * * * + +A few days later Edgar Poe had looked with delight and ineffable emotion +upon the real Boston Harbor, with its rocky little islets and its varied +shipping and its busy wharves, and--for him--its suggestions of one in +Heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Upon his arrival in Boston, our errant knight, before setting out upon +his quest for the Fame and Fortune to whose service he was sworn, spent +some hours in wandering about the old town, with mind open to the +quickening influences of historic association and eye to the irregular, +picturesque beauty about him. + +It was one of those rare days that come sometimes in the month of +February when, though according to the callendar it should be cold, +there is a warmth in the sunshine that seems borrowed from Spring. Tired +out by his tramp, young Edgar at length sat down upon a bench in the +Common, under an elm, great of girth and wide-spreading. The sunshine +fell pleasantly upon him, through the bare branches. Roundabout were +other splendid, but now bare elms and he sat gazing upward into their +sturdy brown branches and dreamily picturing to himself the beauty of +these goodly trees clothed in the green vesture of summer. Suddenly, by +a whimsical sequence of suggestion, the pleasure he felt in the sunshine +of February as it reached him under the tree in Boston Common, vividly +called to mind the refreshing coolness of the shade of the elms, in full +leaf, as he, a little lad of six, had walked the streets of old +Stoke-Newington for the first time. + +There was little relation between that first and this present parting +with the Allans, yet in his mind they became inseparably connected. He +recalled his happiness in his first essays at composition, made at the +Manor School, and told himself that, though he did not know it at the +time, that was the first step toward his life work. He was now, here in +Boston, the city of his birth, about to take the second; for the hour +had arrived when his work would be given to the world! + +Across his knees he held the box containing his precious manuscripts. He +arose from the bench and turning toward the lower end of the Common, +walked, with brisk, hopeful step down town, in the direction of a +well-known publishing house whose location he had already ascertained. + +Edgar Poe had known sorrow, real and imaginary; he was now to have his +first meeting with Disappointment, bitter and grim. + +Of all the persons who had ever seen his work, every one had been warm +in its praise--everyone saving John Allan only. Some had been positively +glowing. True, they had not been publishers, yet among them there had +been gentlemen and ladies of taste and culture. But here was a different +matter. Here was a personage with whom he had not reckoned, but who was +the door, as it were, through which his work must pass into the world. +He was unmistakably a personage. His bearing, though modest, spoke of +power. His dress, though unobtrusive, was in the perfect taste which +only the prosperous can achieve and maintain. His features were cast in +the mold of the well-bred. He was past middle age and his naturally fine +countenance was beautiful with the ennobling lines which time leaves +upon the face of the seeker after truth. He was courteous--most +Bostonians and many publishers are. He was sympathetic. He was +undoubtedly intellectual, but the eyes that regarded through big, +gold-rimmed spectacles, the romantic beauty, the prominent brow and the +distinguished air of the sweet-voiced youth before him, wore a not only +thoughtful, but something more--a distinctly shrewd and practical +expression. In them was no awe of the bare mention of "original poetry." + +He took the little rolls of manuscript into his strong, and at the same +time smooth and well-shapen hands, and drew them out to their full +length with the manner of one who handled as good every day. He cast his +eyes rapidly down the sheets--_too_ rapidly, it seemed to the poet--with +a not unkind, yet critical air, while the sensitive youth before him +turned red and white, hot and cold, by turns, and learned something of +the horrors of the Inquisition. + +It was really but a very short space, but to the boy who seemed +suspended between a life and a death sentence, it was an age. + +Finally, he experienced something like a drowning sensation while he +heard a voice that barely penetrated the flood of deep waters that was +rolling over his head, saying words that were intended to be kind about +the work showing promise, in spite of an absence of marketable value. + +"Marketable value?" Heavens! Was he back in John Allan's counting house? +What could the man mean? It was as literature, not as merchandize that +he wanted his poetry to be judged! + +In his dismay, he stammered something of the sort, only to be told that +when his poetry was made into a book it would become merchandize and it +mattered not how good, as poetry--it might be, the publisher could do +nothing with it unless as merchandize it would probably be valuable too. + +Then--he had been politely bowed out, with his package still under his +arm! + +During the few minutes he had spent in the publisher's office the sky +had become overcast and a biting east wind had blown up from the river; +but the change in the outside world was as nothing to that within him. +He had not known how large a part of himself was his dream of becoming a +poet. It now seemed to him that it was all of him--had from the +beginning of his life been all of him. Since those old days at +Stoke-Newington, he had been building--building--building--this castle +in the air; now, at one fell blow, the whole fabric was laid in ruin! + +Weakness seized his limbs and deep dejection his spirits. His life might +as well come to an end for there was nothing left for him to live for. +How indeed, was he to live when the only work he knew how to do had "no +marketable value?" The money with which Mrs. Allan supplied him, before +he left home--"to give him a start"--would soon be exhausted. What if he +should not be able to make more? + +Though he was in the city of his birth, he found himself an absolute +stranger. If any of those who had been sympathetic friends to his mother +were left, he had no idea who or where they were. + +He went back to the lodgings he had engaged to a night of bitter, +sleepless tossing. + +But with the new day, youth and hope asserted themselves. He decided +that he would not accept as final the verdict of any one publisher, +though that one stood at the head of the list. With others, however, it +was just the same; and another night of even greater wretchedness +followed. + +Upon his third day in Boston (he felt that he had been there a year!) +he wandered aimlessly about, spirit broken, ambition gone. Finally, in +Washington Street, he discovered, upon a small door, a modest sign +bearing the legend: + +"Calvin F.S. Thomas. Printer." + +With freshly springing hope, he entered the little shop and was received +by a pale, soft-eyed, sunken-chested and somewhat threadbare youth of +about his own age, who in reply to his inquiry, announced himself as +"Mr. Thomas." + +Between these two boys, as they stood looking frankly into each other's +eyes, that mysterious thing which we call sympathy, which like the wind +"bloweth where it listeth and no man knoweth whence it cometh or whither +it goeth," sprang instantly into being. The one found himself without +his usual diffidence declaring himself a poet in search of a publisher, +and the other was at once alert with interest. + +Calvin Thomas had but just--timorously, for he was poor as well as +young--set up his little shop, hoping to build up a trade as a printer. +To be a publisher had not entered into his wildest imaginings--much less +a publisher for a poet! But he was, like his visitor, a dreamer, and +like him ambitious. Why should he not be a publisher as well as a +printer? The poet had not his manuscripts with him, but offered to +recite some extracts, which he did, with glowing voice and +gesture--explaining figures of speech and allusions as he went along. + +Edgar Poe sat easily upon a high stool in the little shop. His dress was +handsome and, as always, exquisite in its neatness and taste. His whole +appearance and bearing were marked by an "air" which deeply impressed +the young printer who had promptly fallen under the spell of his +personal charm. He had laid his hat upon the desk, baring the glossy +brown ringlets that clustered about his large, pale brow. His clear-cut +features were mobile and eager; his dark grey eyes full of life. His +voice had a wonderful musical quality, becoming passionate when, as at +present, his feeling was deeply aroused. + +His poetry, recited thus, gained much of distinction. Its crudities +would have been lost, to a great extent, even upon a critic. But Thomas +was no critic. He was simply a dreamy, half-educated youth with a mind +open to the beautiful and the romantic. The flights of the poet's fancy +did not seem to him obscure or too fantastic. They admitted him to a +magic world in which he sat spell-bound until silence brought him back +to his tiny bare shop which seemed suddenly to have been glorified. + +"It is wonderful--_wonderful_!" he breathed. + +He began to picture himself as not only sharing the wealth, but the fame +which the publication of these gems was bound to bring. But he had to +explain that he was poor, and that he could not bring out the poems +without financial aid. The money which had been given Edgar to set out +in the world with, was already dwindling, but he managed to subscribe a +sum which Thomas declared would be sufficient, with the little he +himself could add, for the printing of a modest edition, in a very +modest garb. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +In the Allan mansion, in Richmond, there was a stillness that was +oppressive. No young foot-falls sounded upon the stair; no boyish +laughter rang out in rooms or hall. There were handsome and formal +dinners occasionally, when some elderly, distinguished stranger was +entertained, but there were no more merry dancing parties, with old Cy +playing the fiddle and calling the figures. + +Frances Allan, fair and graceful still, though looking somewhat out of +health and "broken," as her friends remarked to one another, trod softly +about the stately rooms with no song on her lip, no gladness in her +step. Her husband was grown suddenly prematurely old and his speech was +less frequent and harsher than before. He was more immersed in business +than ever and was prospering mightily, but the fact seemed to bring him +no satisfaction. Even the old servants had lost much of their mirth. +Their black faces were grown solemn and their tread heavy. They looked +with awe upon their mistress when, as frequently happened, they saw her +quietly enter "Marse Eddie's" room and close the door behind her. + +In that room and there alone, the fair, gentle, woful creature gave free +reign to the grief of her stricken mother-heart. The room was kept just +as her boy had left it, for she constantly hoped against hope that he +would return. Hers was the aching, pent-up grief of a mother whose child +is dead, yet she is denied the solace of mourning. + +Here was the bed which had pillowed his dear, sunny ringlets. Here were +his favorite chair--his desk--his books. In a little trunk against the +wall were his toys with some of the pretty clothes made with her own +fingers, in which it had been her pride to dress him when he was a wee +laddie. How she loved to finger and fondle them! + +Fifteen years she had been his mother--now this was all she had! +Somewhere in the same world with her he was living, was walking about, +talking, eating, sleeping; yet he was dead to her! Oh, if she could only +know that he was happy, that he was well, that he lacked nothing in the +way of creature comfort; if she could know where he was, picture him at +work or in his leisure hours, it would not be so hard to bear. + +But she knew nothing--nothing--save that he had gone to Boston. + +One letter she had had from him there--such a dear one!--she knew it by +heart. In it he had called her "Mother" and assured her of his constant +love and thought of her. He had arrived safely, he said, and would soon +be busy making his living. Boston was a fine city and full of interest +to him. When his ship came in he was going to have her come on and pay +him a visit there. He would write again when he had anything worth +telling. + +Days had passed--weeks--and no word had come. Had he failed to obtain +employment? Had he gone further--to New York, perhaps, or Philadelphia? +She did not know. Oh, if she could but _know_! + +Was he ill? Fear clutched her heart and made her faint. The suspense was +terrible, and she had no one to go to for sympathy--no one. She dared +not mention her anxiety to her husband; it made him furious. He could +not stand the sound of Eddie's name, even--her darling, beautiful Eddie! +Her arms felt so empty they ached. + +Winter was passing. The garden that Eddie loved so dearly was coming to +life. The crocuses for which he always watched with so much interest +were come and gone. The jonquils were in bloom and the first sweet +hyacinths, blue as turquoises, she had gathered and put in his room. It +cheered her to see them there. Somehow, they made the room look more +"ready" than usual--as if he might come home that day. + +He did not come, but something else did. A letter with the Boston +post-mark she had so longed to see, and a small, flat package addressed +to her in his dear hand. She broke the seal of the letter first--she was +so hungry for the sight of the familiar, "Mother dear," and to know how +he fared. + +It was a short letter, but, ah, the blessed relief of knowing he was +well and happy! And _prospering_--prospering famously--for he told her +he was sending her the first copy off the press of his book of poems! It +was a _very little_ book, he said, but it was a beginning. He felt +within him that he would have much bigger and better things to show her +erelong. For the present, he was hard at work making ready for a revised +and enlarged edition of his book, if one should be called for. + +There was a jubilant note in the letter that delighted her and +communicated itself to her own spirits. She eagerly tore the wrappings +from the package, and pressed the contents against her lips and her +heart. It was but a slender volume, cheaply printed and bound, but it +was her boy's first published work and a wonderful thing in her eyes. +She already saw him rich and famous--saw him come home to her crowned +with honor and success--_vindicated_. + +She turned the pages of the book. He had written upon the fly-leaf some +precious words of presentation to her. She kissed them rapturously and +passed on to the title-page: + +"Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian. Boston: Calvin F.S. Thomas, +Printer." + +She was still gloating over her treasure when the brass knocker on the +front door was sounded, and a minute later Myra Royster--now Mrs. +Shelton--was announced. Taking the book with her, she tripped +downstairs, singing as she went, and burst in upon Myra as she sat in +state in the drawing-room, in all her bridal finery. + +Myra noticed as she kissed her, her glowing cheeks and shining eyes. + +"How well you are looking today, Mrs. Allan," she exclaimed. + +"It is happiness, dear. I've just had such a delightful letter from +Eddie, and this darling little book. It is his poems, Myra!" + +Myra was all interest. "To think of knowing a real live author!" she +exclaimed. "I was sure Eddie would be famous some day, but had no idea +it would come so soon." + +"Don't you wish you had waited for him?" teased Mrs. Allan, laughing +happily. + +They chatted over the wonderful news until nearly dinner-time, and after +they had parted Mrs. Allan sat at the window watching for her husband to +come home that she might impart it to him at the earliest moment +possible. But when at last he appeared she put off the great moment +until after dinner, and then when he was comfortably smoking a fragrant +cigar she approached him timidly and placed the letter and the book in +his lap without a word. + +"What's all this?" he questioned sharply. + +She made no reply, but hovered about his chair, too excited to trust +herself to speak. + +He picked up the letter and read it with a deepening frown, then opened +the book and ran his eyes hurriedly down one or two of its pages. At +length he spoke: + +"So this is the way he's wasting his time and, I dare say, his money +too. Will the boy ever amount to anything, I wonder?" + +The happiness in Frances Allan's face gave place to quick distress. + +"Oh, John," she cried, "Don't you think it amounts to anything for a boy +of eighteen to have written and published a book of poetry?" + +"Poetry? This stuff is bosh--utter bosh!" + +For the first time in her life, there was defiance in her gentle face. +Her clinging air was discarded. She raised her head and with flashing +eyes and rising color, faced him. + +"You think that, because you cannot understand or appreciate it," she +retorted, with spirit. "Neither do I understand it, but I can see that +it is wonderful poetry. If he can do this at eighteen I have no doubt he +will make himself and us famous before many years are past!" + +Her husband's only reply was an astonished and piercing stare which she +met without flinching, then turned and swept from the room, leaving him +with a feeling of surprise to see that she was so tall. + +Her self assertion was but momentary. As she ascended the stair and +entered Eddie's room, all the elasticity was gone from her step, all the +brightness from her cheeks and eyes and, still clasping her boy's letter +and book to her heart, she threw herself upon his bed and burst into a +passion of tears. + + * * * * * + +Meantime, the elms on Boston Common were clothed with tender April green +and under foot sweet, soft grass was springing. In this inspiring +cathedral walked Edgar Poe, his pale face and deep eyes, passionate with +the worship of beauty that filled his soul, lifted to the greening +arches above him, his sensitive ears entranced with the bird-music that +fluted through the cool aisles. His mind was teeming with new poems in +the making and with visions of what he should do if his book should +sell. + +But it did not sell. The leading magazines acknowledged its receipt in +their review columns, but with the merest mention, which was exceedingly +disconcerting. It was discussed (but with disappointment) for a week by +his friends at home and at the University, to whom he sent copies. Then +was forgotten. + +And now its author was, for the first time within his recollection, +beginning to feel the pinch of poverty. His money was almost gone and he +saw no immediate hope of getting more. He moved to the cheapest boarding +house he could find but he did not mind that so much as the prospect +that faced him of soon beginning to present a shabby appearance in +public. His shoes were already showing wear, and he found that to keep +his linen as immaculate as he had always been accustomed to have it cost +money and he actually had to economize in the quantity of clothing he +had laundered. This to his proud and fastidious nature was humiliating +in the extreme. + +He and Calvin Thomas held frequent colloquies as to ways and means of +giving his book wider circulation. He visited the offices of the several +newspapers of the town in the hope of getting work in the line of +journalism--reporting, reviewing, story-writing, anything in the way of +the only business or profession for which he felt that he had any +aptitude or preparation; but without success. + +At length the sign of "Calvin F.S. Thomas, Printer" had suddenly +disappeared from the little shop in Washington Street, and a dismal "To +Let," was in its place. + +At about the same time Mrs. Blanks lost the handsome, quiet young +gentleman, who had evidently seen better days, from her unpretentious +lodging house, and the walks under the elms in Boston Common were no +longer trodden by The Dreamer from Virginia. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Where was Edgar Poe?-- + +Twice since he shook the dust of Richmond joyfully from his feet, fair +Springtide had visited the terraced garden of the Allan home. Twice the +green had come forth, first like a misty veil, then like a mantle +enveloping its trees and its shrubs, its arbors and trellises; twice the +procession of flowers, led by the crocuses in their petticoats of purple +and yellow, had tripped from underground; twice the homing birds had +built in the myrtles and among the snowy pear and cherry blossoms and +filled all the place with music. Twice, too, in this garden, the pageant +of spring and summer and sunset-hued autumn had passed, the birds had +flown away again and winter snows had covered all with their whiteness +and their silence. + +And still the garden's true-lover, the poet, The Dreamer, was a +wanderer, where?-- + +Oh, beautiful "Ligeia," was it not your voice that now and again +whispered in the tree-tops and among the flowers? Could you not--did you +not, bring news of the wanderer? + +If she did, there was no human being to whom her language was +intelligible, and the trees and the flowers keep their secrets well. + +Within the homestead there was little change save a deepening of the +quietness that had fallen upon it. In the master of the house there was +no visible difference. There are some men who seen from year to year +seem as unchanging as the sphinx. It is only after a long period that +any difference in them can be detected and then they suddenly appear +broken and aged. The fair lady of the manor was as fair as ever, but +with the pale, tremulous fairness of a late star in the grey dawn of a +new day in which it will have no part. Her bloom, her roundness, her +gaiety--all these were gone. She spent more time than ever in the room +which, waiting for its roving tenant, became more and more like a death +chamber. The silence there was not now broken by her sobs even, for it +was with dry-eyed grief that she watched and waited for her boy, these +days--watched and waited and prayed. Ah, how she prayed for him, body +and soul! Prayed that wherever he might be, he might be kept from harm +and strengthened to resist temptation. + +Was it her agonized petitions that kept him to the straight and narrow +path of duty during those two years amid uncongenial surroundings and +hard conditions? + +Who knows? + +Yet the chair and the desk and the books and the vases of fresh flowers +on the mantel, and the fire-wood resting on the shining andirons ready +for a match, and the reading lamp with trimmed wick and bright chimney +on the table, and the canopied white bed still waited, in vain, his +coming. + +Many months had passed since the name of Eddie had been spoken between +husband and wife, but though she held her peace, like Mary of old, like +Mary too, she pondered many things in her heart. He, loving her well, +but having no aptitude for divining woman's ways, indulged in secret +satisfaction, for he took her silence to mean that she was coming to her +senses, and regarding the boy as he did. That she no longer importuned +him to enquire into Edgar's whereabouts with the intention of inviting +him home was a source of especial relief to him. + +Then, upon a day two years after she had triumphantly placed Eddie's +book and letter in his hands, it was his turn to bring her a letter. + +"You see the bad penny has turned up again," he remarked, dryly. + +She looked questioningly at the folded sheet. Its post-mark was Fortress +Monroe and the hand-writing was not familiar to her. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"A letter from Dr. Archer. He's surgeon at the fort, you know. Read it. +It is about Edgar." + +With shaking hands and a blanched face she spread open the sheet. A +nameless dread possessed her. A letter about Eddie--not from him--and +from a surgeon! For a moment darkness seemed to descend upon her and she +could not make out the characters before her. She pressed her hand upon +her heart. In sudden alarm, her husband rushed to a celaret nearby and +brought out a decanter of wine. Pouring a glass he pressed it to her +lips. + +"Eddie," she gasped, as soon as she could speak. "Is he well?" + +In spite of John Allan's anxiety, he was irritated, and showed it. + +"Pshaw, Frances!" he exclaimed. "I hoped you had forgotten the boy. Yes, +he's well, and, I'm glad to say, in a place where he is made to behave." + +She calmed herself with an effort and began to read the letter. The +story it told had a smack of romance. + +Dr. Archer had (he wrote) been called to the hospital in the fort to +see a private soldier by the name of Edgar A. Perry, who was down with +fever. The patient spoke but little but the Doctor was struck with his +marked refinement of look and manner, and there was something familiar +to him about the prominent brow and full grey eyes, though the name was +strange to him. His attention was aroused and he could not rid himself +of the impression that he had seen the young man before. He mentioned +the fact to some of the officers and found at once that his patient was +a subject of deep interest to them. They felt sure (they told him) that +he had a story. His polished manners and bright and cultivated +conversation seemed to them incongruous with the duties of a private +soldier, and they laughingly said that they suspected they were +entertaining an angel unawares. Yet his duties were performed with the +utmost faithfulness and efficiency. He had never been heard to speak of +himself or his past in a way which would throw any light upon his +history, and his reserve was of the kind which was bound to be +respected. Dr. Archer had grown (he wrote) more and more interested in +his patient as he became better acquainted with him, and being convinced +that the young man had for some reason, gotten out of his proper sphere, +he determined to try and help him back to it. + +By the time the young soldier was convalescent the Doctor had won his +confidence and obtained from him the confession that the name of Perry +was an assumed one, and that he was none other than Mr. Allan's adopted +son, Edgar Poe, whom Dr. Archer had not seen since he was a small boy. + +The discovery of his identity had greatly increased the good Doctor's +interest and he and the officers of the fort were of the opinion that as +young Poe had made a model soldier (having been promoted to the rank of +sergeant-major, for good conduct) the best thing that could be done for +him was to secure his discharge and get him an appointment to West +Point. This, Mr. Allan could bring about, he thought, through men of +influence whose friendship the Doctor knew he enjoyed. Edgar had +enlisted for five years. He had confessed that at the time he had been +almost upon the point of starvation and had turned to the army when +every effort to find other means of livelihood had failed. + +The Doctor and other officers thought that it would be a great sacrifice +to leave a young gentleman of Edgar's abilities to three more years of +such uncongenial life. + +He was quite recovered and in accordance with a promise made the Doctor, +was writing to Mr. Allan at that moment. + +"Did Eddie's letter come too?" Mrs. Allan asked, as she finished the one +in her hand. + +Without a word, her husband handed it over to her. In it Edgar expressed +much contrition for the trouble which his larger experience in life told +him he had cost his foster-father, and asked his forgiveness. He also +asked that Mr. Allan would follow the suggestion of Dr. Archer, and +apply for a discharge from the army for him, and an appointment to West +Point. + +He had not written his "Mother" in the past because he had unfortunately +nothing to tell which he believed could give her any pleasure, but he +sent her his undying love. + +Frances Allan looked through wet lashes into her husband's face, but her +eyes were shining through the tears. + +"Oh, John," she said breathlessly, "You will have him to come and make +us a little visit before he goes to West Point, won't you?" + +"I'll have nothing to do with him!" was the emphatic reply. "He seems to +be getting along very well where he is. Let him stick it out!" + +Feeling how vain her pleadings would be, yet not willing to give up +hope, she wept, she prayed, she hung upon John Allan's neck. She brought +every argument that starved motherhood could conceive to bear upon him. + +To think that Eddie was in Virginia--just down at Old Point! The cup of +joy was too near her lips to let it pass without a mighty effort. But +finally she gave up and shrank within herself, drooping like the palest +of lilies. + +Then came a day when a stillness such as it had never known before hung +over the Allan home. The garden was at its fairest. The halls and the +drawing-rooms, with their rich furnishings and works of art were as +beautiful as ever; but there was not even a bereaved mother, with an +expression on her face like that of Mary at the foot of the cross, to +tread the lonely floors. The luxurious rooms were quite, quite +empty--all save one--an upper chamber, where upon a stately carved and +canopied bed lay all that was mortal of Frances Allan, like a lily +indeed, when pitiless storm has laid it low! + +The learned doctors who had attended her had given long Latin names to +her malady. In their books there was mention of no such ailment as +heartbreak, and so happily, the desolate man left to preside in lonely +state, over the goodly roof-tree which her presence had filled and made +sweet and satisfying, was spared a suspicion even, of the real cause of +her untimely end. + +His one consuming desire for the present was that all things should be +done just as she would wish, and so--all minor bitternesses drowned in +the one overwhelming bitterness of his loss--he scribbled a few hurried +lines to Edgar Poe acquainting him with the sad news and telling him to +apply for a leave and come "home" at once. + +But the mails and travel were slow in those days, and when the young +soldier reached Richmond the last, sad rites were over, and for the +third time in his brief career the grave had closed over a beautiful +woman who had loved him and upon whose personality had been based in +part, that ideal of woman as goddess or angel before which his spirit +throughout his life, with all its vicissitudes, bowed down. As the +lumbering old stage crawled along the road toward Richmond, he lived +over again the years spent in the sunshine of her presence. Her death +was a profound shock to him. How strange that one so fair, so merry, so +bubbling with _life_ should cease to be! Would it always be his fate, he +wondered, to love where untimely death was lying in wait? + +Upon the night when he reached "home" and every night till, his furlough +over, he returned to his post of duty at Fortress Monroe, he lay in his +old room with his old household gods--his books in their shelves, his +pictures on the walls, his desk and deep arm-chair, and other objects +made dear by daily use in their accustomed places, and "the lamplight +gloating o'er," around him. He was touched at the sweet, familiar look +of it all and at the thoughtfulness of himself of which he saw signs +everywhere. Could it be that he had been two years an exile from these +homelike comforts or had it been only one of his dreams? In spite of the +void her absence made, it was good to be back--good after his wanderings +to come into his own again. + +In the hush and loneliness of those few days under the same roof, the +grief-stricken man and youth, their pride broken by their common sorrow, +came nearer together than they ever had been before. It seemed that the +gentle spirit of her whom each had loved hovered about them, binding +them to each other by invisible, but sacred, cords. John Allan spoke to +the players' son in tones that were almost fatherly and with quick +response, the tender-hearted youth became again the Edgar of the days +before reminders of his dependence upon charity had opened his eyes to +the difference between a real and an adopted father. + +Under this reconciling influence, the youth poured out expressions of +penitence for the past and made resolutions for the future and Mr. Allan +promised to apply for the desired appointment to West Point, but added +that thereafter, he should consider himself relieved of all +responsibility concerning Edgar. + +This blunt and ungracious assurance strained the bond between the +adopted father and son; the promised letter of application to the +Secretary of War, ruthlessly shattered it. That his indulgencies during +his year at the University of Virginia, so freely and earnestly +repented, should have been exposed in the letter seemed to the boy +unnecessary and cruel, but the man who had been fifteen years his +father, the husband of her over whom the grave had but just closed and +who had always loved him--Edgar--as an own and only son, had seen fit to +add to the declaration, + +"He left me in consequence of some gambling debts at the University," a +disclaimer of even a sentimental interest in him! + +"Frankly, Sir," the letter said, "I do declare that Edgar Poe is no +relation to me whatever; that I have many in whom I have taken an active +interest in order to promote theirs, with no other feeling than that +every man is my care, if he be in distress." + +Edgar Poe duly presented the letter, but the bitterness which during his +brief visit home had been put to sleep, raised its head and robbed him +of all pleasure in his anticipated change and of much of the incentive +to put forth his best effort in it. He felt that the result of this +ungracious letter must be to blot the new leaf which he had so ardently +desired to turn with shadows of his past which no effort of his own +could entirely obliterate. + +For the soreness of finding himself disowned as Mr. Allan's son--this +time publicly, in a manner--he found somewhat of balm in the letter of +cordial praise addressed to the Honorable Secretary of War in his +behalf, by the father of his old friend, Jack Preston. Mr. Preston +described him as a young gentleman of genius who had already gained +reputation for talents and attainments at the University of Virginia, +and added, + +"I would not write this recommendation if I did not believe he would +remunerate the Government at some future day by his services and +talents, for whatever may be done for him." + +Happily for the, at times, morbidly, sensitive youth, he had soon +forgotten the sting caused by the letter in a return to the dreams which +he regarded as not only the chief joy but the chief business of his +life; for though he was preparing himself for the profession of a +soldier, he had never for a moment, forsworn the Muse of Poetry. For a +whole year before being transferred to Fortress Monroe he had been +stationed at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. There his wonderful +dream-lady, "Ligeia," had seemed especially near to him, and often, when +the day's work was done and he recognized her voice in the music of the +waves or felt her kiss in the soft, southern air, blown across spicey +islets, he would up and away with her across the world, on the moon's +silver track; or on nights when no moon came up out of the sea, would +wander with her through the star-sown sky. + +There was one fair star that invited his fancy with peculiar insistence. +It seemed to beckon to him with the flashes of its beams. He questioned +"Ligeia" of it and she told him that it was none other than Al Aaraaf, +the great star discovered by Tycho Brahe, which after suddenly appearing +and shining for a few nights with a brilliancy surpassing that of +Jupiter, disappeared never to be seen again; never except by him--The +Dreamer--to whom it was given not only to gaze upon it from the far +earth, but, with her as his guide, to visit it and to explore its fairy +landscape where the spirits of lost sculptures enjoyed immortality. + +The result of this flight of fancy to a magical world was the poem, "Al +Aaraaf." + +He spent the interim between his honorable discharge from the army and +his entrance at West Point in a happy visit to Baltimore, where he made +the acquaintance of his father's kindred and succeeded in publishing the +new poem, with a revised edition of the old ones. + +For the first time, his work appeared under his own signature: + +"Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems. By Edgar A. Poe." + +The new poem was unintelligible to the critics--but what of that? he +asked himself. One of his optimistic moods was upon him. He despised the +critics for their lack of perception and as he held the slim volume in +his hands and gazed upon that, to him, wondrous title-page, his +countenance shone as though it had caught the reflection of the magic +star itself. What mattered all the wounds, all the woes of his past +life? He had entered into a land where dreams came true! + +For the first time, too, his work received recognition as poetry, in the +literary world. It was but a nod, yet it was a beginning; and it pleased +him to think that this first nod of greeting as a poet came to him from +Boston, where his mother had found "her best, most sympathetic friends." +Before publishing his new book he had sent some extracts from it to Mr. +John Neal, Editor of the _Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette_, who +promptly gave them a place in his paper, with some kind words commending +them to lovers of "genuine poetry." + +"He is entirely a stranger to me," wrote the Boston editor, of the +twenty-year-old poet, "but with all his faults, if the remainder of Al +Aaraaf and Tamerlane are as good as the body of the extracts here given, +he will deserve to stand high--very high--in the estimation of the +shining brotherhood." + +In a burst of gratitude the happy poet wrote to Mr. Neal his thanks for +these "very first words of encouragement," he had received. + +"I am young," he confided to this earliest friend in the charmed world +of letters, "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." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Upon a dark and drizzling November night of the year 1830, four cadets +of West Point Academy sat around a cosy open fire in Room 28, South +Barracks, spinning yarns for each other's amusement. + +One of them--the one with the always handsome and scholarly, at times +soft and romantic, but tonight, dare-devil face, was easily recognizable +as Edgar the Goodfellow, frequently appearing in the quite opposite +character of Edgar the Dreamer, and commonly known as Edgar Poe. His +fellow cadets had dubbed him, "the Bard." Two of this young man's +companions were his room-mates in Number 28, "Old P," and "Gibs," and +the third was a visitor from North Barracks. + +Taps had sounded sometime since, and the Barracks were supposed to be +wrapt in slumber, but for these young men the evening had just begun. +Several hours had elapsed since supper and it is a well-known fact that +there is never a time or a season when a college boy is not ready to +eat. Someone suggested that politeness demanded they should entertain +their guest with a fowl and a bottle of brandy from Benny Haven's shop, +and proposed that they should draw straws to determine which of the +three hosts should fetch the necessary supplies. They had no money, but +the accommodating "Bard" agreed to sacrifice his blanket in the cause of +hospitality; and armed with that and several pounds of tallow candles, +"Gibs," upon whom the lot had fallen, set forth to run the blockade to +Benny's. This was a risky business, for the vigilance of Lieutenant +Joseph Locke, one of the instructors in tactics who was also a sort of +supervisor of the morals and conduct of cadets, was hard to elude. As +one of the Bard's own effusions ran, + + "John Locke was a very great name; + Joe Locke was a greater, in short, + The former was well known to Fame, + The latter well known to Report." + +The best that Benny would give, in addition to the bottle, for the +blanket and candles, was an old gander, whose stentorian and tell-tale +voice he obligingly hushed by chopping off its head. Under cover of the +darkness and the storm, "Gibs" succeeded in safely returning to the +Barracks but not until his hands and his shirt were reeking with the +gander's gore. "The Bard," who was anxiously awaiting the result of the +foraging expedition ventured outside to meet him. When he beheld the +prize, he exclaimed, in a whisper, + +"Good for you! But you look like a murderer caught red-handed." + +His own words, almost before they left his lips, suggested to him an +idea for a mammoth hoax--the best they had tried yet, he told himself. +He hastily, and in whispers, unfolded it to "Gibs," whom he found all +sympathy, then returned alone, to his friends in Number 28, reporting +that he had seen nothing of their messenger, and expressing fear that he +had met with an accident. + +All began to watch the door with anxiety. After some minutes it burst +open and "Gibs," who had carefully laid the gander down outside, +staggered into the room, appearing to be very drunk and brandishing a +knife, which he had rubbed against the fowl's bleeding neck. "Old P." +and the visitor from North Barracks, too frightened for words, sat as +though rooted to their chairs, while "the Bard" sprang to his feet and +in a horror-stricken voice, exclaimed, + +"Heavens, Gibs! What has happened?" + +"Joe Locke--Joe Locke--" gasped "Gibs." + +"Well, what of Joe Locke? Speak man!" + +"He won't report me any more. I've killed him!" + +"Pshaw!" exclaimed "the Bard," in disgust. "This is another of your +practical jokes, and you know it." + +"I thought you would say that, so I cut off his head and brought it +along. Here it is!" + +With that he quickly opened the door and picked up the gander and, +whirling it around his head, dashed it violently at the one candle which +was thus knocked over and extinguished, leaving the room in darkness but +for a few smouldering embers on the hearth, and with the gruesome +addition to the company of what two of those present believed to be the +severed head of Lieutenant Locke. + +The visitor with one bound was out of the room through the window, and +made good his escape to his own quarters in North Barracks, where he +spread the astounding news that "Gibs" had murdered Joe Locke; it was +certainly so, for his head was then in Number 28, South Barracks. + +"Old P." nearly frozen with fright, did not move from his place, and it +was with some difficulty that "the Bard" and "Gibs" brought him back to +a normal condition and induced him to assist in preparing the fowl which +had played the part of Joe Locke's head, in the little comedy, for the +belated feast--which was merrily partaken of, but without the guest of +honor. + + * * * * * + +Edgar Poe had entered West Point in July, but hardly had its doors +closed behind him when his optimism gave place to wretchedness and he +began to feel that his appointment was a mistake. He had taken a fine +stand in his classes, but he recognized at once a state of things most +unpleasant for him for which he had not been prepared. As in his +schooldays in Richmond and at the University, a number of the boys had +withheld their intimacy from him on account of caste feeling, so now at +West Point he found history repeating itself, but with a difference. In +Richmond and at the University it had been as the child of the stage and +as a dependent upon charity, that the line was drawn against him. With +the aristocratic cadets, it was because of his promotion from the ranks. +Yet the very experience which brought their contempt upon him gave him a +sense of superiority that made their manner toward him the harder to +bear, and drilling with green boys after having been two years a +soldier, he found most irksome. + +While the snubbing to which he was subjected was general enough to make +his situation extremely unpleasant, however, it was by no means +unanimous. "Gibs" and "Old P." his convivial room-mates in Number 28, +took him to their hearts at once, and he really liked them when he was +in the mood for companions of their type, but they wore cruelly upon his +nerves when the divine fire within him was burning. So indeed would any +room-mates, for at home always, and most of the time at the University, +one of his chief comforts had been his own room where he could shut out +all the world and be alone with his dreams. + +There was, at West Point, nothing like a repetition of his course at the +University. The trouble which his attack of gambling fever had gotten +him into had proved a severe but wholesome lesson, and he had let cards +alone at once and forever. In his ignorance of his own family history, +he did not know that for one of his blood, the only safety lay in total +abstinence from the cup that cheers, but the intense and instantaneous +excitement he found a single glass of wine produced in his brain--an +excitement amounting almost to madness--was in itself a warning to him, +and kept him strictly within the bounds of moderation. + +There were times, however, when with a chicken and a bottle of brandy, +purchased secretly from old Benny, and smuggled, at great hazard, into +the room, Edgar Goodfellow could, with zest join his rolicking +room-mates in making merry, and in spite of his strict adherence to the +single glass, generally out-do them at their own games. + +But there was no place in that room for Edgar the Dreamer; and between +the spirit-dulling routine and discipline of classes and drills with +youths for the most part younger than himself and inferior in mentality +and cultivation, but who bore themselves as his superiors, and the +impossibility of an hour of solitude, the lovely "Ligeia" became unreal +and remote. He could no longer catch the sounds of her voice, or feel +her presence near. His muse, too, had become shy and difficult and when +she deigned to visit him at all, it was generally in the quite new +character of jester in cap and bells, under whose influence he dashed +off humorous and satirical squibs at the expense of the professors and +students, of which the lines on Lieutenant Locke are a specimen. These +he recited for the benefit of the little parties that gathered in Number +28, by whom they were regarded as master-pieces of wit and were +circulated through the school. + +But he took no real pleasure in this perversion of his poetical gift, +and feeling his soul cramped and cabined by the uncongeniality of his +surroundings, he soon became convinced that West Point was not the place +for him, and that he should leave it as soon as possible. He wrote Mr. +Allan of his dissatisfaction--begging his assistance in securing a +discharge. At no time would this request have been granted but it came +at the most inopportune moment imaginable. + +Some time before, certain ladies in Richmond who professed "to know the +signs," had given out the interesting news that Mr. Allan was "taking +notice." True it was that though such a thing had seemed impossible, his +stocks were higher and more precisely folded than ever, his broadcloth +was of a finer texture, his knee-buckles shone with a brighter lustre, +but the most marked change in him was a certain springiness of gait +altogether new to his silk-stockinged calves, and almost youthful, and a +pleased expression of the hitherto stern eyes and mouth which made his +usually solemn vizage look as if it might break out into smiles at any +moment. + +The signs, the ladies said, dated from the arrival of at "Powhatan," the +country seat of the Mayo family, just below Richmond, of a fair +guest--Miss Louisa Patterson, of Philadelphia. This lady was no longer +young, according to the severe standards of that time of early marriages +and correspondingly early "old-maidenhood," but so much the better, as +she was therefore of suitable age for the elderly though spruce and +prosperous widower. She was, withal, a decidedly personable woman with +the elegant manners and conversation of the inner circles of the +exclusive, stately society in which she had been nurtured--just the +woman, the fair prophetesses said, to rule over John Allan (for +everybody knew that a man who ruled his first wife was invariably ruled +by his second) and to preside with distinction and taste over his +drawing-room and his board. She was as suitable, in fact for the wife of +ripe age as the flower-like Frances had been for the wife of youth. So +Richmond gave its unqualified approval. + +Nothing could have been more out of harmony with the sound of the +"mellow wedding bells" pealing for this happy pair, than a reminder of +the first wife of the bridegroom in the shape of a letter from Edgar +Poe. + +When Poe had entered West Point his foster-father had drawn a long +breath of relief. He believed that the idle youth with whom his dead +wife had been so strangely infatuated was off his hands for good and +all. When the letter came to jar upon his new dream of love he was +irritated, and in his brief mention of the matter to his bride it was +very apparent, and left upon her mind the impression that Frances Allan +must have been a weak and silly creature indeed, to have fancied an +idle, ungrateful boy who spent his time drinking, gambling and +scribbling ridiculous poetry. _And the son of an actress!_ It would have +been impossible for such a low character and herself to have remained +under the same roof for a day, she was sure, and she told her husband +so--imparting to her tone somewhat of the pity she felt to think of his +having been yoked for years to such a morally frail specimen of +womanhood as she conceived the first Mrs. Allan to have been. + +So Mr. Allan's letter of refusal to help Edgar escape the life that was +growing more and more irksome to him was as decided as it was brief. But +Edgar was unshaken in his resolve to get away as soon as possible. In +the meantime, finding no outlet for his restless creative faculty that +would not remain inactive though there was no opportunity for its +satisfaction, he gave himself over by turns, to deepest dejection and +wildest hilarity. + +Finally, as no other relief was at hand, he decided to force his +discharge by deliberate and systematic neglect of the rules. The plan +succeeded so well that before the session was out he was expelled from +the Academy for disobedience of orders and failure to attend roll-calls, +classes and guard-duty. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Happily, the restraints of the Academy and his environment there, +instead of crushing out young Edgar's impulse to dream and to put his +dreams into writing (as a longer period of the same restraints and +conditions might have done) had but quickened and strengthened these +very impulses, and he had now but one wish, one aspiration in regard to +his newly acquired freedom, and that was to dedicate it to the art of +literature which had become more and more his passion and his mistress, +and which since he had given up all idea of the army, he was resolved to +make his sole profession. + +His first step toward this end was to arrange, before leaving New York, +for a new edition of his already published work, adding some hitherto +unpublished poems which even in the unsympathetic atmosphere of Number +28 South Barracks had been undergoing a refining process in the seething +crucible of his brain. + +The money for this venture dropped into his lap, as it were, for when +the new friends in whom he had confided passed the word around that "the +Bard" was going to get out a book of poetry, the cadets (in anticipation +of a collection of ditties cleverly hitting off the peculiarities and +characteristics of the professors) to a man, subscribed in advance--at +seventy-five cents per copy. In appreciation of their recognition of his +genius, and little guessing what manner of book they expected it to be, +"the Bard" gratefully dedicated the new volume "To the United States +Corps of Cadets." + +Happy it was for him that he was not present to hear those he had thus +honored set up their throats in unanimous expressions of disgust +when--the dedication leaf turned--they were confronted by a reprint of +"Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf," with the shorter poems, "To Helen," "A +Paean," "Israfel," "Fairy-Land," and other "rubbish," as they promptly +pronounced the entire contents of the book. + +"Listen, fellows!" said one of the disgusted lot, with the open volume +in his hand. + + "'In Heaven a spirit doth dwell + Whose heartstrings are a lute. + None sing so wildly well + As the angel, Israfel, + And the giddy stars (so legends tell) + Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell + Of his voice, all mute.'" + +As he finished this opening stanza of what posterity has ranked as one +of the most exquisite lyrics in the English tongue, but which was +received by the audience of cadets with guffaws of derision, the reader +closed the book with a snap, and dashed it across the room and into the +open fire. + +"Did you ever hear crazier rubbish?" he asked, with contempt. "Highway +robbery, I call it, to send us such stuff for our good, hard cash!" + +"The joke's on us this time, and no doubt about it," said the also +chagrinned, but more philosophically inclined "Gibs." "The Bard means +well, though, and no doubt he thinks the stuff is poetry." + +"Old P." solemnly tapped his forehead with his forefinger. + +"Something wrong here," he remarked, ominously, "I suspected it all +along." + +The business of getting his book published dispatched, the poet's +thoughts turned lovingly toward Richmond which he still called "home," +and carpet-bag in hand and a package of copies of his book which he +intended as presents to his old chums under his arm, he set out upon the +journey thither. + +The streets of New York had been cold and bleak but he told himself as +he journeyed, that April days at home were quite different. The grass +would be already green upon the hillsides, many of the trees in leaf, +and the dear spring flowers in bloom. He pictured the ample comforts of +the Allan homestead, and of his own room in it, with its familiar +furnishings. Of course he had no idea of looking to Mr. Allan for +support--his pen must give him that now--but during the visit which he +was going to make "at home" it would be pleasant to sleep once more in +that room with all of its associations, though many of these were with +the blunders of a blinded youth. + +As he thought of Mr. Allan and his last meeting with him, his heart +softened. He would try and keep their intercourse upon the friendly +basis upon which his last sad visit home had placed it; would as far as +possible, put himself in his foster-father's place and see things as he +saw them. + +How desolate the widowed man had seemed in the big, empty house during +those chill, sorrow-stricken, February days! No wonder he had sought +escape from his desolation in another marriage--his loneliness without +the lovely little mother must have been unbearable. What was the new +wife like, he wondered? Was she like the lady of the manor he +remembered? Could there be another such gentle, tender, flower-like +woman on earth? + +In his unworldly, unpractical dreamer's soul it did not occur to him for +one moment that her existence might make him any less Mr. Allan's +adopted son, or even that, with all the rooms in the big house at her +disposal, she might have taken a fancy to rearrange the one which, from +the time the house became Mr. Allan's property, had been "Eddie's room," +and which had so long stood ready for his occupancy--dedicated as it was +to his own belongings. + + * * * * * + +At last he was on the sacred soil! + +How fair and comfortable the old homestead looked in its setting of +greening lawn and flowering garden, with the pleasant sunshine of the +April afternoon over all! How cheerful--how ample--how homelike! + +He ran up the steps of the commodious front porch and was on the point +of opening the door when some impulse he could not define made him pause +and, instead of turning the knob, announce himself with a rap upon the +shining brass knocker. + +One of the old family servants whom he had known and loved from his +infancy, and with whom he had always been a pet, opened the door, and +with beaming face and eager voice greeted him with the enthusiastic +hospitality of his kind--lifting up his voice and his hands in praise to +God that he was once more in this world permitted to look upon the face +of "Marse Eddie." + +The whilom young master of the house was equally, if less picturesquely, +warm in his expressions of pleasure at seeing the old man again, and +gave him his carpet-bag with instructions to take it to his room and to +tell Mrs. Allan that he was there. + +The venerable darkey's face fell. The "new Mistis" had "changed the +house around some," he explained, apologetically, and "Marse's Eddie's" +things had been moved to one of the servants' rooms, but "Marse Eddie's" +old room was a guest chamber, and he "reckoned" that would be the place +to take the bag. + +The visitor's whole manner changed at once--_froze_. The flush of +pleasure died out of his face and left it pale, cold and stern. A fierce +and unreasonable rage possessed him. _She had dismantled the room that +his little mother had arranged for him and sent his things to a +servant's room!_ Was this insult intentional, he wondered? + +To his mind, his "little Mother" was so entirely the presiding genius of +the place--he could not realize the right of anyone, not even a "new +mistis," to come in and "change the house around." + +Cut to the quick, he directed the old butler to leave the bag where it +was and to let Mrs. Allan know that he was in the drawing-room. + +No announcement could have given that lady greater surprise. She +regarded Edgar's leaving West Point after her husband's letter, as +direct disobedience, and his presenting himself at her door as the +height of impertinence. Something of this was in the frigid dignity with +which she received him--standing, and drawn up to the full height of her +imposing figure. + +She had never been within speaking distance of anyone drunk to the point +of intoxication, but, somehow, she had received an impression that this +was pretty generally the case with the young man now before her, and +when he began somewhat incoherently (in his foolish rage) to ask her +confirmation of the old servant's statement that his room had been +dismantled, she was convinced that it was his condition at the moment. +Turning, with the grand air for which she was noted, to the hoary butler +who stood in the doorway between drawing-room and hall, respectfully +awaiting orders as to "Marse Eddie's" bag, she said, + +"Put this drunken man out of the house!" + +The aged slave stood aghast. Between the stately new mistress whom it +was his duty to serve, and the beloved young master whose home-coming +had warmed his old heart, what should he do? + +He stood in silence, his lined black face filled with sadness, his chin +in his hand, his eyes bent in sorrow and shame upon the floor. What +should he do?-- + +Fortunately, the new mistress did not see his indecision as she swept +from the room, and "Marse Eddie" quickly relieved him of the +embarrassing dilemma by picking up the carpet-bag and passing out of the +door, closing it behind him. + +It was all a mistake--a miserable mistake; but one of those mistakes in +understanding between blind, prejudiced human beings by which hearts are +broken, souls lost. + +At the foot of the steps Edgar Poe paused and looked back at the +massive closed door. _Never_--_nevermore_, it seem to say to +him.--_Never_--_nevermore_! + +While he had been inside the house one of those sudden changes in the +face of nature of which his superstitious soul always made note, had +taken place. A shower from a passing cloud had filled the depressions in +the uneven pavement, where before only sunshine lay, with little pools +of water, and had left the trees "weeping," as he fancifully described +them to himself. + +He walked along the wet streets for a few steps, by the side of the wall +that enclosed house and grounds. Then he paused again and looked over +into the dripping garden while he held consultation with himself as to +what he should do next. As he looked the breath of drenched violets +greeted his nostrels. He noticed that the lilacs were coming into +blossom. The fruit trees already stood like brides veiled in their fresh +bloom. The tulip and hyacinth and daffodil beds were gay with color. How +their newly washed faces shone in the sunshine, just then bursting +through the clouds! + +Near him, just inside the wall, was a bed of lily-of-the-valley. He was +seized with an almost irresistible desire to go down upon his knees by +it and search among the glistening green leaves to see if the lilies +were in bloom. + +But the garden-gate, like the house door, was closed upon him and seemed +to repeat the fateful word--Nevermore. + +Whither should he turn his steps? To Mr. Allan's office?--Never! + +His intention had been to submit himself to Mr. Allan as far as his +self-respect would let him. To consult him in regard to the literary +career he felt himself committed to now that (as he recalled with +satisfaction) the bridges between him and any other profession were +burnt behind him. His own plan, upon which he was resolved to ask Mr. +Allan's opinion, would be to seek a position in the line of journalism +which would give him a living while he was waiting for his more +ambitious work to find buyers. + +But since the interview with Mrs. Allan he realized the folly of this +dream. + +Then, whither should he go?--To the chums of his boyhood?--Rob Stanard, +Dick Ambler, Rob Sully, Jack Preston, where were they?--Good, dear +friends they had been, but it seemed so long since they had played +together! What should they find to say to each other now? They were busy +with their various avocations and interests--what room in their hearts +and homes could there be for a wanderer like himself? + +At the age of one and twenty, at the springtime of his life, as of the +year--he felt himself to be as friendless, as much a stranger in the +city which he called home, as Rip Van Winkle after his long sleep had +felt in his. The only spots toward which he could turn with any +confidence for sympathy were those two quiet cities within this city +where lay his loved and lovely dead--"The doubly dead in that they died +so young." + +"How different my life would be if they had lived!" he murmured to the +flowers. + +Yet how fair was this world in which he had no place--even to a mere +looker-on. How fair was this mansion, in its setting of April green and +bloom, which had once owned him as its young--its future master. Above +it Hope stretched her shining wings, but the hope was not for him. For +him the closed door and the closed gate said only, "no more--nevermore." + +But whither should he go?--whither? + +As he turned from the garden and walked slowly, aimlessly, down the +street, his great grey eyes fixed ponderingly upon the breaking clouds, +a rainbow--bright symbol of promise--spanned the heavens. His eyes +widened, his lips parted at the wonder and the beauty and the suddenness +of it. + +Whither should he go? Behold an answer meet for a poet! + +Whither?--Whither?--The dark eyes in the pale cameo face turned +skyward--the eyes of him who had declared himself to be a deep +worshipper of all beauty grew more dreamy. Whither, indeed, but to the +end of the rainbow! + +By what "path obscure and lonely," the quest would lead him he knew not, +but he would follow it to the bitter end, for there, perchance, he would +find if not the traditional pot of gold, at least a wreath of laurel. + +As he wandered down the street, his eyes still upon the bow, his dream +was suddenly interrupted by the hearty voice of one of his boyhood's +friends, and his sister Rosalie's adopted brother, Jack Mackenzie. + +"Hello, Edgar!" he cried. "Did you drop from the clouds? Evidently, for +I see your head is still in them." + +He returned the greeting with joy. How good it was to feel the +hand-clasp of friendship and welcome! He had always liked Jack--for the +moment he loved him. + +"And where are you bound--you and your bag?" asked Jack. "Not to Mr. +Allan's, for you are going in the wrong direction." + +"No," replied The Dreamer, with a whimsical smile. "I was going there, +but I found the door shut, so I changed my mind, and had just decided to +make the end of the rainbow my destination." + +Jack's spontaneous laugh rang out. "The same old Edgar!" he said. "Well +I won't interfere with your journey except to defer it a bit. You are +going home with me, to 'Duncan Lodge,' now--at least to supper and spend +the night; and to stay as much longer as pleases you. Rose and the rest +will be delighted to see you." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +Where was Edgar Poe? Again the question was being asked. In many +quarters and with varying degrees of interest it was repeated. But it +still remained unanswered. + +In Richmond it was asked by the chums of his youth as they sat under +their comfortable vines and fig-trees, or stopped each other on a corner +for a few moments' social chat, or--catching some one of the rumors that +were afloat concerning the gifted companion of their golden days--looked +up from their desks in office or counting-house to ask each other the +question. Their faces were keen with interest for their admiration and +affection for The Dreamer had been sincere; yet it was not strong enough +after the lapse of years to make any one of them lay down work and go +forth to seek a solution of the mystery. Such an errand not one of them +felt to be his business. A quixotic errand it would indeed have been +considered and one which, if half the rumors were true, might have +necessitated a journey to the ends of the earth, to prove but a fool's +errand after all. + +The oft-repeated question was one with which John Allan little concerned +himself. A robust son and heir had come in his late middle age to fill +all his thoughts with new interest and plans for the present and the +future. The patter of little feet of his own child on the stairs and +halls of his home, drowned the ghostly memories of other and less +welcome footfalls that had once echoed there. + +He too, had heard rumors of the adventures and the misadventures of +Edgar Poe, but he did not consider it his business, as it was certainly +not his pleasure, to investigate them. + +In Baltimore too, the question was asked by the kinsfolk whose +acquaintance Edgar had made during his visit there. But they had never +held themselves in the least responsible for this eccentric son of their +brother David, the actor--the black sheep of the family. Surely it was +none of _their_ business to follow him upon any chase his foolish fancy +might lead him. + +But still, when the rumors that were rife reached their ears, it was +with no small degree of curiosity that they asked each other the +question: Where was Edgar Poe?--What had become of him?--Had he, as some +believed, met death upon the high seas or in a foreign land?--Was he the +real hero of stories of adventure which floated across the ocean from +Russia--from France--from Greece? + +He had certainly contemplated going abroad--the Superintendent of West +Point Academy had had a letter from him sometime after he left there, +declaring his intention of seeking an appointment in the Polish army. +Had he gone, or was he, as some would have it, going in and out among +them, there in Baltimore, but unknown and unrecognized--his identity +hidden under assumed name and ingenious disguise? + +Who could tell? + +The wonder of it was not in the existence of the unanswered question--of +the mystery--but that the question could remain unanswered--the mystery +remain unsolved--and no attempt be made to lift the veil. That a young +man, a gentleman, of prominent connections, of handsome features and +distinguished bearing and address, of rare mental gifts and cultivation, +and of magnetic personality, could disappear from the face of the +earth--could, almost before the very eyes of his fellows, step from the +glare of the world in which he moved into the abyss of absolute +obscurity or impenetrable mystery, and create no stir--that no one +should deem it his or her business to seek or to find an answer to the +question, a reading of the riddle. + +Not until two years after Edgar Poe had turned his back upon the closed +door of the Allan mansion, in Richmond, and stepped, as it seemed from +the edge of a world in which he was not wanted into the unknown, did +such an one arise. And that one was, as an especially good friend of +Edgar Poe's was most likely to be--a woman. + +Between this woman:--Mrs. Maria Poe Clemm--a widow of middle age, and +The Dreamer, there existed the close blood-tie of aunt and nephew, for +she was the own sister of his father, David Poe. + +More than that--there existed, though they had never seen each other, a +soul kinship rare between persons of the same blood, and which (for all +they had never seen each other) she, with the woman's unerring instinct +that sometimes seems akin to inspiration, divined. She too was something +of a dreamer, with an ear for the voices of Nature and a mind open to +the influences of its beauty, but with a goodly ballast of strong common +sense. + +She was but a young girl when her handsome and idolized brother David +scandalized the family by marrying an actress and himself taking to the +stage. But she had seen the bewitching "Miss Arnold" at the theatre in +Baltimore--had, with fascinated eyes, followed her twinkling feet +through the mazy dance, had listened with charmed ears to her exquisite +voice, had sat spell-bound under her acting. To her childish mind, the +stage had become a fairy-land and Miss Arnold its presiding genius. That +brother David should love and marry her seemed like something out of a +fairy book. _She_ did not blame brother David; she secretly entirely +approved of him. + +In her later years the death of the husband of her own youth who had +been romantically, passionately loved, had left her penniless but not +disillusioned; with her own living to get and a little daughter with a +face like a Luca Della Robbia chorister, and a voice that went with the +face, but who had the requirements of other flesh and blood children, to +be provided for. This child was the sunshine of the lonely widow's life, +yet she only in part filled the great mother's heart of her. Nature had +made her to be the mother of a son as well as a daughter, then +mockingly, it would seem, denied her. + +But in her dreams she worshipped the son she had never borne, and deep +in her heart was stored, like unshed tears, the love she would have +lavished upon him had her whole mission in life been fulfilled. + +She had heard little of her brother David's son Edgar, but that little +had always interested her. She was living away from Baltimore during his +visit there just before he entered West Point, and so she did not meet +him; but upon the death of her husband, soon afterward, she had returned +to the home of her girlhood, and established herself in modest, but +respectable quarters, to earn a livelihood for the little Virginia and +herself by the use of her skillful needle. + +It was soon afterward that with a concern which no one but herself had +felt, she learned of the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of her +nephew. + +She yearned over the wanderer and longed to mother him, as, somehow, she +knew he needed to be mothered. She kept near her a copy of his last +little book of poems which she had read again and again. In the earlier +ones she saw a loose handful of jewels in the rough, yet she recognized +the sparkle which distinguishes the genuine from the false. In the later +ones she perceived gems "of purest ray serene," polished and strung and +ready to be passed on from generation to generation--priceless +heir-looms. + +She was a tall woman, and deep-bosomed, with large but clear-cut and +strong features, and handsome, deepset gray eyes which habitually wore +the expression of one who has loved much and sorrowed much. She had been +called stately before her proud spirit had bowed itself in submission to +the chastenings of grief--since when she had borne the seal of meekness. +But there was a distinction about her that neither grief nor poverty +could destroy. She was so unmistakably the gentle-woman. In the simple, +but dainty white cap, with its floating strings, which modestly covered +her dark waving hair, the plain black dress and prim collar fastened +with its mourning pin, she made a reposeful picture of the old-fashioned +conception of "a widow indeed." + +Her hands were not her least striking feature. They were large, but +perfectly modelled, and they were deft, capable, full of character and +feeling. In their touch there was a wonderfully soothing quality. In +winter they always possessed just the pleasantest degree of warmth; in +summer just the most grateful degree of coolness. No one ever received a +greeting from them without being impressed with the friendliness, the +sympathy of their clasp. + +As she bent her fine, deeply-lined face over them, and the work they +held, while the little Virginia sat nursing a doll at her feet, she +often stitched into the garments that they fashioned yearnings, +thoughts, questionings of the youth--her brother's child--whose picture, +as she had conceived him from descriptions she had heard, she carried in +her heart. She knew too well the weakness that was his inheritance and +she knew too, what perils were in waiting to ensnare the feet of untried +youth--poor, homeless and without the restraining influences of friends +and kindred--whatever their inheritance might be. + +Sometimes she felt that the yearning was almost more than she could +bear, and that she must arise and go forth and seek this straying sheep +of the fold of Poe. But alas, she was but a woman, without money and +without a clue upon which to begin to work save such as wild, improbable +and contradictory rumors afforded. That was, after all, what she most +needed--a clue. If she could only find a clue, poor as she was, she +would follow it to the ends of the earth! + +Upon a summer's day two years after Edgar's disappearance, and when she +had almost given up hope, the clue came. It was placed in her hand by +her cousin, and Edgar's, Neilson Poe, who had no faith in its value but +passed it on to her as it had come to him--"for what it was worth," as +he expressed it. + +It was a strange story that Mrs. Clemm's cousin Neilson told her, and +which had been told him, he said, by an acquaintance of his from +Richmond who had known Edgar Poe in his boyhood. + +It seems that this Richmond man had during a visit to Baltimore gone to +a brickyard to arrange for the shipment home of bricks for a new house +he was building. As he sat in the office talking to the manager of the +yard, a line of men bearing freshly molded bricks to the kiln passed the +open window. There was something about the appearance of one of the +laborers that struck the Richmond man as familiar and he turned quickly +to the manager and asked the name of the man, pointing him out. The name +given him was a strange one to him and he dismissed the matter from his +thoughts and returned to his business talk. + +Upon his way to his hotel, however, the appearance of the brick-carrier, +and the impression that somewhere, he had seen him before, returned to +his mind and it came upon him in a flash, first that the likeness was to +Edgar Poe, and then the conviction that the man was none other than Poe +himself, though emaciated and aged to a degree that, with his shabby +dress and unshaven chin, made him scarcely recognizable. Though he had +been but a casual acquaintance of Edgar's, he was deeply touched at +seeing him so evidently in distress, and returned to the brickyard early +the next morning for the purpose of speaking to him and of helping him +back into the sphere in which he belonged and from which he had so long +disappeared. But the man he sought was not there and no one knew where +his lodgings were. He was a recent employe of the yard, they said, and +so gloomy and unsociable that he had made no friends. He was capable of +a great amount of work, which he performed faithfully, but kept to +himself and had little to say to anybody. + +Upon the day before he had looked ill and had stopped work before the +day was over. He was evidently suffering from exhaustion, but had +declared that he needed nothing, and after sitting down to rest upon a +pile of bricks for a while, had gone off to his home--wherever that +might be--as usual, alone. + + * * * * * + +This story Neilson Poe set down as highly sensational. He did not +believe, he said with a laugh, that his cousin, when found, would be +doing anything half so energetic or useful as carrying bricks--he would +have more hope of him if he could believe it. The laborer's real, or +fancied, likeness to Edgar was but a case of chance resemblance, that +was all. + +But that was not enough for Maria Clemm. She folded her sewing and laid +it away with an air of finality which plainly said that she had found +other and more pressing work to do. The sewing must wait a more +convenient season. + +Then she went out into the streets sweltering in the summer heat, and +turned her face toward that obscure quarter of the town where human +beings who could not afford to rest or to dine might at least secure a +corner in which to "lodge" and the right, if not the appetite, to "eat," +for an infinitesimal sum; for it was in this quarter that strange as it +might, seem, her instinct told her her search must be made--in this +quarter that Edgar Poe, the rich merchant's pampered foster-child, Edgar +Poe, the poet, the scholar, the exquisite in dress, in taste and in +manners, would be found. + +When she did find him the mystery that had surrounded him was stripped +of the last shred of its romance. In a room compared to which the little +chamber back of the shop of Mrs. Fipps, the milliner, in which his +mother had drawn her last breath, and in which Frances Allan had found +and fallen in love with him, was luxurious, he lay upon a bed of straw +thrown into a dark corner, tossing with fever and in his delirium, +literally "babbling of green fields." + +The kind-hearted, but ignorant and uncleanly slattern who sought with +"lodgings to let" to keep the souls of herself and family in their +bodies, gave him as much attention as the demands of a numerous brood of +little slatterns and a drunken husband would permit, and sighed with +real sorrow as she admitted that the "poor gentleman" was in a very bad +way. It was her opinion he had seen better days she confided to the +three other lodgers who were just then renting the three straw beds in +the three other corners of the same dark, squalid and evil-smelling +room. He was "so soft-spoken and elegant-like, if he _was_ poor as a +church mouse. Pity he had no folks nor nobody to keer nothin' about +'im." + +It was not at once that Mrs. Clemm found him. She had sought him +diligently in what would to-day be known as the slum districts of the +city, descending the scale of respectability lower and lower until she +thought she had reached the bottom, but without success. + +Then, upon the fourth or fifth day of her search, late in the afternoon, +when the little Virginia was watching anxiously from the sitting-room +window for "Muddie's" return, a wagon stopped before her door and out of +it and into the house was borne a stretcher upon which lay an apparently +dying man--ghastly, unshaven, and muttering broken unintelligible +sentences. + +Keeping pace with the wagon as it crept along the street, might have +been seen the stately, sad-eyed Widow Clemm. When the wagon stopped, she +stopped, and directed the careful lifting of the stretcher from it. Then +she turned and opened the door of her small house and led the way to her +neat bed-chamber where, upon her own immaculate bed, the sick man was +gently laid--henceforth, as long as need be, a cot in the sitting-room +would be good enough for her. + +The little Virginia, her soft eyes filled with wonder, had followed her +mother upon tip-toe. + +"Who is it, Muddie?" she questioned in an awed whisper. + +The anxiety in the widow's face gave place to a look of exaltation which +fairly transfigured her. Her deep eyes shone with the hoarded love for +the son so long denied her. She gathered her little daughter to her +breast and kissed her tenderly. + +"It is your brother, darling," she gently said. "God has given me a +son!" + +Well she knew that he was not yet entirely her own--that she would have +to wrestle fiercely with Death for his possession. But she had made up +her mind that she would win the battle. + +"Death _shall_ not have him," she passionately told herself. + +But the next moment, overwhelmed with a realization of human +helplessness, she was upon her knees at his bedside, crying: + +"Oh, God, do not let him die! I have but just found him! Spare him to me +now, if but a little while!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +For many days the sick man lay with eyes closed in uneasy sleep or open, +but unseeing, and with body writhing and tongue loosed but incoherent, +showing that these half-waking hours, as well as the sleeping ones, were +"horror haunted." + +Finally the most terrible of dreams visited him. The circumstances of +his life had caused him from his infancy to dwell much upon the subject +of death. He had oftentimes taken a gruesome pleasure in trying to +imagine all the sensations of the grim passage into the "Valley of the +Shadow"--even to the closing of the coffin-lid and the descent into the +grave. Now, in his fever-dream, the dreadful details and sensations +imagined in health came to him, but with tenfold vividness. At the point +when in the blackness and suffocation of conscious burial horror had +reached its extremest limit and the sufferer was upon the verge of real +death from sheer terror, relief came. He seemed to feel himself freed +from the closeness, the maddening fight for breath, of the coffin, and +gently, surely, borne upward out of the abyss ... upward ... upward ... +into air--light--life! + +For a long while he lay quite still, too exhausted to move hand or +foot--to raise his eyelids even; but content--more--happy, perfectly +happy, in the glorious consciousness of being able just to lie still and +breathe the sweet air of day. + +Presently, as he began to feel rested, the great grey eyes opened. For +the first time since the conqueror, Fever, had overthrown him and bound +him to the uneasy bed of straw, they were clear as the sky after a +storm--swept clean of every cob-web cloud; but their lucid depths were +filled with surprise, for they opened upon a cool, light, homelike +chamber. The walls around him were white, but were relieved here and +there by restful prints in narrow black frames. The four-post bed upon +which he lay was canopied and the large, bright windows were curtained +with snowiest dimity, but the draperies of both were drawn and he could +look out at the trees and the sky now roseate with the hues of evening. +In a set of shelves that nearly reached the ceiling stood row on row of +friendly looking books. Upon a high mahogany chest of drawers, with its +polished brass trimmings and little swinging looking-glass, stood a +white and gold porcelain vase filled with asters--purple, white and +pink--while before it, in a deep arm-chair, a little girl of ten or +eleven years, with a face like a Luca della Robbia chorister, or like +one of the children of sunny Italy that served for old Luca's model, was +curled up, stroking a large white cat which lay purring in her lap. + +Upon the child the wondering eyes of the sick man lingered longest and +to her they returned when their survey of the rest of the room was done. +Suddenly, impelled by the steadiness of his gaze, she lifted her own +dark, soft eyes and let them rest for a moment upon his. She +started--then was up and across the floor in a flash, carrying the cat +upon her shoulder. + +"Muddie, Muddie," she cried from the door, "The new Buddie is awake!" + +Then, still carrying her pet, she walked, to his bedside and gazed +earnestly and unabashed into the "new Buddie's" face. Her eyes had the +velvety softness of pansy petals and as they looked into the eyes of the +sick man recalled to his clearing mind the expression of mixed love and +questioning in the eyes of his spaniel, "Comrade," the faithful friend +of his boyhood. + +At length he spoke. + +"Who is 'Muddie'?" + +"She's my mother, and you are my new brother that has come to live with +us always." + +A radiant smile illumined the pale and haggard face. "Thank Heaven for +that!" he said. "And who brought me up out of the grave?" + +The child was spared the necessity of puzzling over this startling +question. _Surely it was no other than she_, he thought--she who at this +moment appeared at the open door--the tall figure of a woman or angel +who in the next moment was kneeling beside him with a heaven of +protecting love in her face. _She it was, no other!_ Through all of his +dreams he had been dimly conscious of her--saving him from death and +despair. Now for the first time, in the light of life, and in his new +consciousness he saw her plainly. + + * * * * * + +Edgar Poe's convalescence was slow but it was steady, and even in his +weakness he felt a peace and happiness such as he had rarely tasted. +This frugal but restful home in which he found himself, with the +ministrations of "Muddie" and "Sissy," as he playfully called his aunt +and the little cousin who had adopted him as her "Buddie," were to him, +after his struggle with hunger, fever and death, like a safe harbor to a +storm-tossed sailor. + +The little Virginia claimed him as her own from the beginning. As long +as he was weak enough to need to be waited upon her small feet and hands +never wearied in his service but as he grew better, it was he who served +her. There never were such stories as he could tell, such games as he +could play, and he took her cat to his heart with gratifying promptness. +When they walked out together the world seemed turned into a fairyland +as with her hand held fast in his he told her wonderful secrets about +the clouds, the trees, the flowers, the birds and even about the stones +under her feet. It was fascinating to her too, to lie and listen to him +read and talk with "Muddie." She was not wise enough to understand much +that they said, but at night, when she had been tucked into bed, he +would sit under the lamp and read aloud from one of the books in the +shelves, or from the long strips of paper upon which he wrote and wrote; +and though she did not understand the words, she delighted to listen, +for his voice made the sweetest lullaby music. + +With the return of health and strength, energy and the impulse for +life's battle began to return to Edgar Poe, and with them a new +incentive. He began to awaken to the fact that "Muddie" and "Sissy" were +poor and that his presence in their home was making them poorer--that +the struggle to support this modest establishment was a severe one, and +that he must arise and add what he could to the earnings of the deft +needle. The three little editions of his poems had brought him no +money--he had begun to despair of their ever bringing him any. He had +sometime since turned his attention to prose but the manuscripts of such +stories as he had offered the publishers had come back to him with +unflattering promptness. He began now, however, with fresh heart to +write and to arrange a number of those that seemed to him to be his +best, for a book, to which he proposed to give the title, "Tales of the +Folio Club." + +But the new tide of hope was soon at a low ebb. The editors and +publishers would have none of his work. + +When the repeated return to him of the stories, poems and essays he sent +out had begun to make him lose faith in their merit and to question his +own right to live since the world had no use for the only commodity he +was capable of producing, "Muddie" came in one evening with an unusually +bright, eager look in her eyes and a copy of _The Saturday Visitor_ (a +weekly paper published in Baltimore) in her hand. + +"Here's your chance, Eddie," she said. + +In big capitals upon the first page of the paper was an announcement to +the effect that the _Visitor_ would give two prizes--one of one hundred +dollars for the best short story, and one of fifty dollars for the best +poem submitted to it anonymously. Three well-known gentlemen of the city +would act as judges, and the names of the successful contestants would +be published upon the twelfth of October. + +With trembling hands the discouraged young applicant for place as an +author made a neat parcel of six of his "Tales of the Folio Club" and a +recently written poem, "The Coliseum," and left them, that very night, +at the door of the office of _The Saturday Visitor_. + +How eagerly he and "Muddie" and "Sissy" awaited the fateful twelfth! The +hours and the days dragged by on leaden wings. But the twelfth came at +last. It found Edgar Poe at the office of the _Visitor_ an hour before +time for the paper to be issued, but at length he held the scarcely dry +sheet in his hand and there, with his name at the end, was the story +that had taken the prize--"The MS. Found in a Bottle." + +More!--In the following wonderful--most wonderful words, it seemed to +him--the judges declared their decision: + + "Among the prose articles were many of various and + distinguished merit, but the singular force and beauty of those + sent by the author of 'Tales of the Folio Club' leave us no + room for hesitation in that department. We have awarded the + premium to a tale entitled, 'The MS. Found in a Bottle.' It + would hardly be doing justice to the writer of this collection + to say that the tale we have chosen is the best of the six + offered by him. We cannot refrain from saying that the author + owes it to his own reputation as well as to the gratification + of the community to publish the entire volume. These tales are + eminently distinguished by a wild, vigorous and poetical + imagination, a rich style, a fertile invention and varied, + curious learning. + + (Signed) + "JOHN P. KENNEDY, + J.H.B. LATROBE, + JAMES H. MILLER, + _Committee._" + +Here was the fulfilment of hope long deferred! Here was a brimming cup +of joy which the widowed aunt and little cousin who had taken him in and +made him a son and brother could share with him! It seemed almost too +good to be true, yet there it was in plain black and white with the +signatures of the three gentlemen whose opinion everyone would respect, +at the end. What wealth that hundred dollars--the first earnings of his +pen--seemed. What comforts for the modest home it would buy! This was no +mere nod of recognition from the literary world, but a cordial +hand-clasp, drawing him safely within that magic, but hitherto frowning +portal. + +He felt as if he were walking on air as he hurried home to tell "Muddie" +and "Sissy" of his and their good fortune. And how proud "Muddie" was of +her boy! How lovingly little "Sissy" hung on his neck and gave him +kisses of congratulation--though but little realizing the significance +of his success. And how he, in turn, beamed upon them! The grey eyes had +lost all of their melancholy and seemed suddenly to have become wells of +sunshine. In imagination he pictured these loved ones raised forever +from want, for he told himself that he would not only sell for a goodly +price all the rest of the "Tales of the Folio Club," but under the happy +influence of his success he would write many more and far better stories +still, to be promptly exchanged for gold. + +Bright and early Monday morning he made ready (with "Muddie's" aid) for +a round of visits to the members of the committee, to thank them for +their kind words. His clothes, hat, boots and gloves were all somewhat +worse for wear and his old coat hung loosely upon his shoulders--wasted +as they still were by the effects of his long illness; but he whistled +while he brushed and "Muddie" darned and carefully inked the worn seams, +and finally it was with a feeling that he was quite presentable that he +kissed his hands to his two good angels and ran gaily down the steps. +Hope gave him a debonair mien that belied his shabby-genteel apparel. + +A quarter of an hour later Mr. John Kennedy, prominent lawyer and the +author of that pleasant book "Swallow Barn," then newly published and +the talk of the town, answered a knock upon his office door with a +quick, "Come in!" + +At the same time he raised his eyes and confronted those of the young +author whom he had been instrumental in raising from the "verge of +despair." + +The face of the older man was one of combined strength and amiability. +Evidences of talent were there, but combined with common sense. There +was benevolence in the expansive brow and kindliness and humor as well +as character, about the lines of the nose and the wide, full-lipped +mouth, and the eyes diffused a light which was not only bright but +genial, and which robbed them of keenness as they rested upon the +pathetic and at the same time distinguished figure before him. What the +kindly eyes took in a glance was that the pale and haggard young +stranger with the big brow and eyes and the clear-cut features, the +military carriage and the shabby, but neat, frock coat buttoned to the +throat where it met the fashionable black stock, and with the modest and +exquisite manners, was a gentleman and a scholar--but poor, probably +even hungry. They kindled with added interest when the visitor +introduced himself as Edgar Poe--the author of "Tales of the Folio +Club." + +The strong, pleasant face and the cordial hand that grasped his own, +then placed a chair for him, invited the young author's confidence--a +confidence that always responded promptly to kindness--and he had soon +poured into the attentive ear of John Kennedy not only profuse thanks +for the encouraging words in the _Visitor_ but his whole history. Deeply +touched by the young man's refined and intellectual beauty--partially +obscured as it was by the unmistakable marks of illness and want--by +his frank, confiding manners, by the evidences in thought and expression +of gifts of a high order, and by the moving story he told, Mr. Kennedy's +heart went out to him and he sent him on his way to pay his respects to +the other members of the committee, rejoicing in offers of friendship +and hospitality and promises of aid in securing publishers for his +writings. + +Edgar Poe had been loved of women, he had been adored by small boys, he +had received many material benefits from his foster father, he had been +kindly treated by his teachers, but he was now for the first time taken +by the hand spiritually as well as physically, by a _man_, a man of +mental and moral force and of position in the world; a man, moreover, +who with rare divination appreciated, out of his own strength, the +weaknesses and the needs as well as the gifts and graces of his new +acquaintance, and who took his dreams and ambitions seriously. The sane, +wholesome companionship which The Dreamer found in him and at his +hospitable fireside acted like a tonic upon his spirits and improvement +in his health both of mind and body were rapid. + +Though warning him against being over much elated at his success, and an +expectation of growing suddenly either rich or famous, Mr. Kennedy was +as good as his word in regard to helping him find a market for his work. +A proud moment it was when the young author received a note from his +patron inviting him to dine with Mr. Wilmer, the editor of _The Saturday +Visitor_ which had given him the prize, and some other gentlemen of the +profession of journalism. But his pleasure was followed by quick +mortification. _What should he wear?_ Still holding the open note in +his hand, he looked down ruefully at his clothes--his only ones. For all +their brushing and darning they were unmistakably shabby--utterly unfit +to grace a dinner-party. Nearly all of the hundred dollars which had +seemed such a fortune had already been spent to pay bills incurred +during his illness and to buy provisions for the bare little home which +had sheltered him in his need and which had become so dear to his heart. +No, he could not go to the dinner, but what excuse could he make that +would seem to Mr. Kennedy sufficient to warrant him in not only +declining his hospitality but putting from him the chance of meeting the +editor of the _Visitor_ under such auspices? + +At length he decided that in this case absolute frankness was his only +course. + +"My dear Mr. Kennedy," he wrote, + +"Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come +for reasons of the most humiliating nature--my personal appearance. You +may imagine my mortification in making this disclosure to you, but it is +necessary." + +As he was about, in bitterness of soul, to add his signature a sudden +thought caused him to pause, pen poised in air. A thought?--A temptation +would perhaps be a better word. It bade him consider carefully before +throwing away his chance. Who knew, who could tell, it questioned, how +much might depend upon this meeting? His fortune might be made by it! +Almost certainly it would lead to the sale of some more of his stories +to the _Visitor_. Mr. Kennedy believed that it would have this +result--for this purpose he had arranged it. After taking so much pains +for his benefit he would undoubtedly be disappointed--seriously +disappointed--if his plan should fail. Mr. Kennedy had been so kind, so +generous--doubtless he would gladly advance him a sum sufficient to make +himself presentable for the dinner--to be paid by the first check +received as a result of the meeting. A very modest sum would do. He +might manage it, he thought, with twenty dollars. + +Finally, he drew his unfinished note before him again and added to what +he had written, + +"If you will be my friend so far as to loan me twenty dollars, I will be +with you tomorrow--otherwise it will be impossible, and I must submit to +my fate. Sincerely yours, + + "E.A. POE." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +The dinner went off charmingly. In addition to several journalists, Mr. +Latrobe and Mr. Miller who, with Mr. Kennedy, had formed the committee +that awarded the prize to Edgar Poe, were there and the meeting between +the young guest of honor and his patrons engendered a spirit of +_bon-homie_ that was palpable to all. Under its spell The Dreamer's +spirits rose. Yet he was quiet, listening with deep attention to the +conversation of his elders, but having little to say, until the repast +was half over, when he responded to the evident desire of his host to +draw him out. The conversation had turned upon a favorite theme of +his--the power of words. He threw himself into it with zest, and with +brilliant play of expression animating his splendid eyes and pale +features, and the graceful, unrestrained gestures of one thoroughly at +ease and entirely unconscious of self, he held the table spell-bound +with a flow of sparkling talk in which his own exquisite choice of words +delighted his hearers no less than the originality and beauty of his +thought. + +In the young editor of _The Saturday Visitor_ he promptly found a second +friend among men of letters. Mr. Wilmer, already prejudiced in his favor +by the success of the "MS. Found in a Bottle," and its cordial reception +by the public, and by Mr. Kennedy's warm words of recommendation, +yielded at once to the witchery of the poetic eyes, the courtly manners +and the charmed tongue, and not only befriended him by inviting and +accepting his writings for publication, but gave him, as time went on, +what proved to be a stimulant to good work as well as one of his +greatest pleasures--the intimate companionship of a man of congenial +tastes and near his own age. + + * * * * * + +The winter that followed was one of the happiest of The Dreamer's +life--a lull in a tempest, a dream of peace within a dream of storm and +stress. + +He was soon able to return the twenty dollars to Mr. Kennedy. The +newspapers kept him busy and while the returns were--so far--small, he +was hopeful. He felt that he had made a beginning, and that the future +promised well. His work was praised and he became something of a +lion--the doors of many a proud Baltimore home opening graciously to his +touch. + +He cared little for general society, however. His greatest pleasure he +found in his evenings with the Kennedys (for Mrs. Kennedy had taken him +in as promptly as her husband) or in a canter far into the country on +the saddle horse which Mr. Kennedy, noting his pallor and thinking that +out-door exercise would be of benefit to him, kindly placed at his +disposal, or in walks in the fields and lanes beyond the city with his +new chum Wilmer. Many a fine afternoon saw these two cronies, often +accompanied by the sprite, Virginia, with her airy movements and vivid +beauty, rambling in the suburbs, and beyond, with heads close in +intimate communion of thought and fancy. + +What he enjoyed most of all was the time spent at his desk, in the +shelter of the new-found haven of rest, with the happy "Muddie" and +"Sissy" nearby. + +This little family circle was unique. There was an unmistakably oak-like +element in the nature of the widow which was apparent to some degree +even in her outward appearance, in the stateliness and dignity of her +figure and carriage--an element of sturdiness and self-reliance which +made it her pleasure to be clung to, looked up to, leaned upon. The +character of her new-found son was, on the contrary, vine-like. He was +constantly reaching out tendrils of craving for love, for appreciation, +for understanding. More--for advice, for guidance. Such tendrils seeking +a foot-hold, make a strong appeal to every womanly woman. She sees in +them a call to her nobility of soul, to the mother that is a part of her +spiritual nature--a call that gives her pleasant good-angel sensations, +that soften her heart and flatter her self-esteem. To the Widow Clemm, +with her self-reliance and her highly developed maternal instinct, the +appeal was irresistible and between her and The Dreamer the ivy and oak +relation was promptly established, while in the little Virginia he found +a heartsease blossom to be loved and sheltered by both--the loveliest of +heartsease blossoms whose beauty, whose purity and innocence and the +stored sweets of whose nature were all for him. + +The three lived, indeed, for each other only, in a dream-valley apart +from and invisible to, the rest of the world, for their dreams of which +it was constructed made it theirs and theirs alone. Their dreams piled +beautiful mountains around the valley through which peace flowed as a +gentle river, while love and contentment and innocent pleasures were as +flowers besprinkling the grass and speaking to their hearts of the love +and the glory of God, and the fancies with which they beguiled the time +were as tall, fantastic trees, moved by soft zephyrs. And because of the +bright flowers ever springing in the green turf that carpeted the +valley, they named it the _Valley of the Many-Colored Grass_. And to the +three the dream-valley, with its peace and its beauty and its sweet +seclusion, was the real world, while all the wilderness outside of it, +where other men dwelt was the unreal. + + * * * * * + +One happy effect of these peaceful days upon The Dreamer was that there +was in them no temptation to excess--no restless craving for excitement. +The Bohemian--the Edgar Goodfellow--side of him found, it is true, an +outlet, but a harmless one. He found it in the genial atmosphere of the +Widow Meagher's modest eating-house where he and his new crony, Wilmer, +passed many a jolly hour. The widow, an elderly, portly dame, with a +kind Irish heart and keen Irish wit, had the power of diffusing a +wonderful cheerfulness around her. Her shop was clean, if plain, her +oysters were savory, if cheap. Like all women, she petted Edgar Poe, and +hearing from Wilmer that he was a poet, she at once gave him the name by +which the West Point boys had called him, and to all of the frequenters +of her shop he was known as "the Bard." + +Her shop had not only an oyster counter, but a bar and a room for cards +and smoking but these had little attraction for Poe at this period of +his career--much to the widow's dissatisfaction, for she wished "the +Bard" to be merry, and did not like to see him neglect what she honestly +and unblushingly believed to be the really good things of life. But +though to her pressing invitations, "Bard take a hand," "Bard take a +nip," he was generally deaf, he was more accomodating when, after +getting off an unusually clever bit of pleasantry (putting her +customers into an uproar of laughter) she would turn to him with, "Bard +put it in poethry." And put it "in poethry" he did--to the increased +hilarity of the crowd. + + * * * * * + +The month of February brought an interruption to the smooth and pleasant +course of The Dreamer's life. A long time had passed since he had heard +anything of his friends down in Virginia, and it was therefore with +quick interest that he broke the seal of a letter bearing the Richmond +post-mark and addressed to him in the unforgotten hand of his early +admirer, Rob Sully. Dear old Rob, the sight of the familiar hand-writing +alone warmed The Dreamer's heart and brought the soft, melting +expression to his eyes! + +The object of the letter was to tell him that Mr. Allan was extremely +ill--dying, some thought, though the end might not be immediate. Rob was +taking it upon himself to write because he felt that Eddie ought to +know. Mr. Allan had lately been heard to speak kindly of Eddie, he had +been told, and it had occurred to him that Eddie might like to come on +and have a word of forgiveness from him before he died. + +As "Eddie" read, the pleasure the first sight of the letter had given +him turned to sudden, sharp pain. Mr. Allan and--_death_! He had never +thought of associating the two. Under the influence of the shock his +heart became all tenderness and regret. + +He hurriedly packed his carpet-bag, kissed Mrs. Clemm and Virginia +goodbye, and set out post-haste for Richmond and the homestead on Main +and Fifth Streets. + +He did not stop to lift the brass knocker this time. The forlorn +details of his last visit, his lack of right to cross that threshold +uninvited--what mattered such considerations now? They were, indeed, +forgotten. Everything was forgotten--everything save that the man who +had stood in the position of father to him was dying--dying without a +word of pardon to him, the most wayward (he felt at that moment of +severe contrition)--_the most wayward_ of prodigal sons. Everything was +forgotten save that he was having a race with death--a race for a +father's blessing! + +He flung wide the massive front door and hastened through the spacious +hall, up the stair and into the room where the ill man sat in an +arm-chair. On the threshold he paused for a moment. Mr. Allan saw and +recognized him, and at once the misunderstanding of the actions of his +adopted son for which he seemed to have a gift, asserted itself, +construing the visit as an unpardonable liberty. The only motive Mr. +Allan could imagine which could have prompted Edgar Poe to force +himself, as it seemed to him, into his presence at this time was a +mercenary one, and burning with indignation, his eyes gleaming with +something like their old fire, he half raised himself from the chair. + +"How dare you?" he screamed in the grating tones of angry old age. Then, +grasping the cane at his side in trembling fingers and raising it with +threatening gesture, he ordered his visitor to leave the room at once. + +Edgar Poe stood aghast for a moment, then fled down the stair and out of +the door and turning his back for the last time upon the house whose +young master he had been, with the word "Nevermore" ringing like a knell +in his ears, made his way again to the abode of love and peace in +Baltimore, which held his whole heart and which had become his home. + +A few weeks later Mr. Allan died, leaving the whole of his fortune to +his second wife and her children. + + * * * * * + +It now became more important than ever for Edgar Poe to earn a living. +In spite of the fact that Mr. Allan was known to have lost all regard +for him, his friends had always believed that he would be remembered in +the will. They believed that John Allan's rigid, sometimes even +strained, idea of justice would cause him to provide for the boy for +whom he had voluntarily, albeit against his own judgment, made himself +responsible. The fact that the boy had turned out to be, in Mr. Allan's +opinion, "trifling," that he refused to engage in any "useful" work and +that at five and twenty years of age he had not established himself in +any "paying business" would, those who knew Mr. Allan best believed, be +with him but another reason for ensuring against want his first wife's +spoiled darling who was evidently incapable of taking care of himself +and therefore (so they believed he would argue) so much the more his +care. + +Possibly The Dreamer may have taken this view himself. However that may +be, the opening of the will silenced all conjecture, and as has been +said, made the need of his making his work produce money more pressing +than ever. His friend Wilmer did his best for him--publishing his +stories in _The Saturday Visitor_ from time to time and paying him as +well as he was able. But Wilmer and his paper were poor themselves. _The +Visitor_ was only a small weekly, with a modest subscription list. It +had little to pay, however good the "copy" and that little and Mother +Clemm's earnings put together barely kept the wolf from the door. + +When the frequent and welcome summons to the bountiful board of the +Kennedys came the young poet blushed for shame in the pleasure he could +not help feeling in anticipation of the chance to satisfy his chastened +appetite, and he often found himself fearing that the hunger with which +he ate the good things which these kind friends placed upon his plate +would betray the necessary frugality of the dear "Muddie's" +house-keeping, which was one of the sacred secrets of the sweet home. +Sometimes his pride would make him go so far as to decline delicious +morsels in the hope of correcting such an impression, if it should +exist. + +He racked his brain to find a means of making his work bring him more +money. Upon Mr. Kennedy's advice, he sent his "Tales of the Folio Club" +to the Philadelphia publishing house of "Carey and Lea." After several +weeks of anxious waiting he received a letter accepting the collection +for publication but frankly admitting that his receiving any profit from +the sale of the book was an exceedingly doubtful matter. They suggested, +however, that they be permitted to sell some of the tales to publishers +of the then popular "annuals," reserving the right to reprint them in +the book. To this the author gladly consented and received with a joy +that was pathetic the sum of fifteen dollars from "The Souvenir," which +had purchased one of the tales at a dollar a printed page. + +He and Wilmer put their heads together in dreams of literary work by +which a man could live. One of these dreams took form in the prospectus +of a purely literary journal of the highest class which was to be in +its criticisms and editorial opinions "fearless, independent and sternly +just." + +But the scheme required capital and never got beyond the glowing +prospectus. + +In spite of the small sums that came to him as veritable God-sends from +the sale of his stories and from odd jobs on the _Visitor_ and other +journals, Edgar Poe was poor--miserably poor. And just as he had begun +to flatter himself that he did not mind, that he would bear it with the +nonchalance of the true philosopher he believed he had become, it +assumed the shape of horror unspeakable to him. Not for himself, if +there were only himself to think of, he felt assured, he could laugh +poverty--want even--to scorn; but that his little Virginia should feel +the pinch was damnable! + +Two years had made marked changes in Virginia. She was losing the +formless plumpness of childhood and growing rapidly into a slight and +graceful maiden--a "rare and radiant maiden," with the tender light of +womanhood beginning to dawn in her velvet eyes and to sweeten the curves +of her lips. A maiden lovelier by far than the child had been but with +the same divine purity and innocence that had always been hers--that +were his, for her beauty, her purity and innocence and the stored sweets +of her nature were still for him alone and for him alone too, was her +sweet companionship--her comradeship--of which he never wearied. + +Under his guidance her mind had unfolded like a flower. She was +beginning to speak fluently in French and in Italian. How he loved the +musical southern accents on her tongue! And she was developing an +exquisite singing voice. Her voice was her crowning grace--her voice +was his delight of delights! As he gazed into the shadows that lay under +her long black lashes and listened to her voice, with its hint of hidden +springs of passion, his pulses stirred at the thought that this lovely +flower of dawning womanhood was his little Virginia, and his own heart +ached to think that any desire of hers should ever be denied. + +In his desperation he thought of teaching and applied for a position in +a school, but without success. + +But relief was at hand. + +While the Dreamer and his friend the editor of _The Saturday Visitor_ +had been building literary air-castles in Baltimore, a journal destined +to take something approaching such a stand as their ideal was actually +founded, in Richmond, under the title of _The Southern Literary +Messenger_. Its owner and publisher, Mr. Thomas W. White, was no +dreamer, but a practical printer and an enterprising man of business. +Early in this year--the year 1835--Mr. White wrote to Mr. Kennedy, +requesting a contribution from his pen for the new magazine, and, as was +to be expected, Mr. Kennedy, with his wonted thoughtfulness of his +literary protege, wrote back commending to Mr. White's notice the work +of "a remarkable young man by the name of Edgar Poe." + +At Mr. Kennedy's suggestion Edgar bundled off some of the "Tales of the +Folio Club" for Mr. White's inspection, with the result that in the +March number of the _Messenger_ the weird story "Berenice," appeared. It +and its author became at once the talk of the hour, and when the history +of "The Adventures of Hans Phaal" came out in the June number it found +the reading public ready and waiting to fall upon and devour it. + +Other stories and articles followed in quick succession and the pungent +critiques and reviews of the new pen were looked for and read with as +great interest as the tales. + +In a glow over the prosperity which the popularity of the new writer was +bringing his magazine, Mr. White wrote to him offering him the position +of assistant editor, with a salary of five hundred and twenty dollars a +year, to begin with. Of course the offer was to be accepted! The salary, +small as it was, seemed to The Dreamer in comparison to the diminutive +and irregular sums he had been accustomed to receive, almost like +wealth. But its acceptance would mean, for the present, anyhow, +separation--a break in the small home circle where had been, with all of +its deprivations, so much of joy--a dissolving of the magical Valley of +the Many-Colored Grass. Not for a moment, he vowed to Mother Clemm and +Virginia, was this separation to be looked upon as permanent. Just so +soon as he should be able to provide a home for them in Richmond he +would have them with him again, and there they would reconstruct their +dream-valley. But for the present--. + +The present, in spite of the new prosperity, was unbearable! + +In vain the Mother with the patience born of her superior years and +experience, assured them that time had wings, and that the days of +absence would be quickly past. To the youthful poet and the little maid +who lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him a +month--a week--a day apart, seemed an eternity. + +In the midst of their woe at the prospect a miracle happened--a miracle +and a discovery. + +It fell upon a serene summer's afternoon when the two children--they +were both that at heart--wandered along a sweet, shady lane leading from +the outskirts of town into the country. It was to be their last walk +together for who knew, who could tell how long? The poet's great grey +eyes wore their deepest melancholy and the little maid's soft brown ones +too, were full of trouble, for had not their love turned to pain? They +spoke little, for the love and the pain were alike too deep for words, +but the heart of each was filled with broodings and musings upon the +love it bore the other and upon the agony of parting. + +How could he leave her? the poet asked himself. His cherished comrade +whose beauty, whose purity and innocence, the stored sweets of whose +nature were for him alone? Into his life of loneliness, of lovelessness, +of despair--a life from which everyone who had really cared for him had +been snatched by untimely death and shut away from him forever in an +early grave--a life where there had been not only sorrow, but +bitterness--where there had been pain and want and homelessness and +desolate wanderings and longings for the unattainable--where there had +been misunderstanding and distrust and temptation and defeat--into such +a life this wee bit of maidenhood--this true heartsease--had crept and +blossomed, filling heart and life with beauty and hope and love--with +blessed healing. + +How could he leave her? To others she seemed wrapped in timid reserve. +He only had the key to the fair realm of her unfolding mind. How could +he bear to leave her for even a little while? How barren his life would +be without her! How shorn of all beauty and grace! + +And what would her life be without him, to whom had been offered up all +her beauty and the stored sweets of her nature? Who would guard her from +other eyes, that as her beauty and charm came to their full bloom might +look covetously upon her? + +For the first time (and the bare suggestion seemed profanation) it +occured to him that a day might come when, as this slip of maidenhood +walked forth in her surpassing beauty and her precious innocence and +purity the eyes of a man might make note of her loveliness, her +altogether desirableness--might rest upon her with hopes of +possession--and he not there to kill him upon the spot. What if in his +absence another's hand should be stretched to pluck his heartsease +blossom--that left unguarded, unprotected by him, another should snatch +it, in its beauty, its purity and innocence, to his bosom? + +The thought was hell! + +Faint and trembling, he gazed down upon her as they strolled along, +compelling her soft eyes to meet his anguished ones. His face was white +and strained with his misery. She was pale and trembling, too, and there +was dew on the sweeping lashes, and as she lifted them and looked into +his face she trembled more. He looked upon her, tenderly marvelling to +see in her at once the loveliest of children and of women--a woman with +her first grief! + +There was heart-break in his voice, for himself and for her, as he +murmured (brokenly) words of love and of comfort in her ear, and in her +voice as she, brokenly, answered him. + +The sun was setting--a pageant in which they both were wont to take +exquisite delight--but they could not look at the glowing heavens for +the heaven of love and of beautiful sorrow that each found in the eyes +of the other. + +Suddenly, they knew! + +The knowledge burst upon them like an illumining flood. How or whence it +came they could not tell, nor did they question--but they knew that the +love they bore each other was no brother and sister love, but that what +time they had been calling each other "Buddie," and "Sissy," there had +been growing--growing in their hearts the red, red rose of romance--the +love betwixt man and maid of which poets tell--knew that in that sweet, +that sad, that wondrous eventide the rose had burst into glorious +flower. + +They trembled in the presence of this sweetest miracle. The beauty and +solemnity of it well nigh deprived them of the power of speech. A divine +silence fell upon them and they slowly, softly took their way homeward +through the gathering dusk, hand in hand--but with few words--to tell +the Mother. + +To the widow their disclosure came as a shock. At first she thought the +silly pair must be joking--then that they were mad. Finally she realized +their earnestness and their happiness and saw that the situation was +serious and must be dealt with with the utmost tact. Still, she could +hardly believe what she saw and heard. Was it possible that the demure +girl talking to her so seriously of love and marriage was her little +Virginia--her baby? And that these two should have thought of such a +thing! Cousins!--Brother and sister, almost!--And with such disparity in +ages--thirteen and six-and-twenty! + +She had lived long enough, however, to know that love is governed by no +rules or regulations and besides, she had kept through all the changes +and chances of her checkered life, a belief in true love as fresh as a +girl's. This was too sacred a thing to be carelessly handled--only, it +was not what she would have chosen.... Yet--was it not? + +A new thought came to her--a revelation--inspiration--what you will, and +sunk her in deep revery. + +Why was this not what she would have chosen? Why not a union between her +children--her all? Her own days were fast running out. She could not +live and make a home for them always--then, what would become of them? +She would die happy, when her time came, if she could see them in their +own home, bound by the most sacred, the most indissoluble of ties--bound +together until death should part them! + +She fell asleep with a heart full of thankfulness to God for his +mercies. + +A quite different view of the matter was taken by other members of the +Poe connection in Baltimore--particularly the men, who positively +refused to regard the love affair as anything more than sentimental +nonsense--"moonshine"--they called it, which would be as fleeting as it +was foolish. Their cousin, Judge Neilson Poe, who had made a pet of +Virginia, was especially active in his opposition and brought every +argument he could think of to bear upon the young lovers and upon Mrs. +Clemm in his endeavor to induce them to break the engagement; but he +only succeeded in sending Virginia flying with frightened face to +"Buddie's" arms, vowing (as, much to Cousin Neilson's disgust, she hung +upon his neck) that she would never give him up, while "Buddie," holding +her close, assured her, in the story-book language that they both loved, +that "all the king's horses and all the king's men" would not be strong +enough to take her from him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +Midsummer found Edgar Poe in Richmond and regularly at work upon his new +duties in the office of _The Southern Literary Messenger_. He felt that +if he had not actually reached the end of the rainbow, it was at least +in sight and it rested upon the place of all others most gratifying to +him--the dear city of his boyhood whose esteem he so ardently desired. +Most soothing to his pride, he found it, after his several ignominious +retreats, to return in triumph, a successful author, called to a place +of acknowledged distinction, for all its meagre income. + +The playmates of his youth--now substantial citizens of the little +capital--called promptly upon him at his boarding-house. They were glad +to have him back and they showed it; glad of his success and glad and +proud to find their early faith in his powers justified, their early +astuteness proven. + +All Richmond, indeed, received him with open arms and if there were some +few persons who could not forget his wild-oats at the University and his +seeming ingratitude to Mr. Allan, who they declared had been the kindest +and most indulgent of fathers to him, and who did not invite him to +their homes or accept invitations to parties given in his honor, they +were the losers--he had friends and to spare. + +Yet he was not happy. The ivy had been torn from the oak and there was +no sweet heartsease blossom to make glad his road--to made +daily--hourly--offerings to him and him alone of the beauty, physical +and spiritual, that his soul worshipped--of beauty and of unquestioning +love and sympathy and approbation. In other words, The Dreamer was sick, +miserably sick, with the disease of longing; longing for the modest home +and the invigorating presence of the Mother; longing that was exquisite +pain for the sight, the sound, the touch, the daily companionship of the +child who without losing one whit of the purity, the innocence, the +charm of childhood, had so suddenly, so sweetly become a woman--a woman +embodying all of his dreams--a woman who lived with no other thought +than to love and be loved by him. + +Life, no matter what else it might give, life without the soft glance of +her eye, the sweet sound of her voice, the pure touch of her hand within +his hand, her lips upon his lips, was become an empty, aching void. + +After two years of the sheltered fireside in Baltimore whose seclusion +had made the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass possible, the +boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its +commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home. It was stifling. +How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house? He was even homesick +for the purr and the comfortable airs of the old white cat! + +Whenever he could he turned his back upon the boarding-house and tried +to forget it, but the clatter and the gossip seemed to follow him, their +din lingering in his ears as he paced the streets in a fever of disgust +and longing. For the first time since Edgar Poe had opened his eyes upon +the tasteful homelikeness of the widow Clemm's chamber and the tender, +dark eyes of Virginia searching his face with soft wonder, the old +restlessness and dissatisfaction with life and the whole scheme of +things were upon him--the blue devils which he believed had been +exorcised forever had him in their clutches. Whither should he fly from +their harrassments? By what road should he escape? + +At the answer--the only answer vouchsafed him--he stood aghast. + +"No, no!" he cried within him, "Not that--not that!" Seeking to deafen +his ears to a voice that at once charmed and terrified him, for it was +the voice of a demon which possessed the allurements of an angel--a +demon he reckoned he had long ago fast bound in chains from which it +would never have the strength to arise. It was the voice that dwelt in +the cup--the single cup--so innocent seeming, so really innocent for +many, yet so ruinous for him; for, with all its promises of cheer and +comfort it led--and he knew it--to disaster. + +Bitterly he fought to drown the sounds of the voice, but the more he +deafened his ears the more insistent, the clearer, the more alluring its +tones became. + +And it followed him everywhere. At every board where he was a guest the +brimming cup stood beside his plate, at every turn of the street he was +buttonholed by some friend old or new, with the invitation to join him +in the "cup of kindness." At every evening party he found himself +surrounded by bevies of charming young Hebes, who, as innocent as angels +of any intention of doing him a wrong, implored him to propose them a +toast. + +How could he refuse them? Especially when acquiescence meant escape from +this horrible, horrible soul-sickness, this weight that was bearing his +spirits down--crushing them. + +Therein lay the tempter's power. Not in appetite--he was no swine to +swill for love of the draught. When he did yield he drained the cup +scarce tasting its contents. But ah, the freedom from the sickness that +tortured him, the weight that oppressed him! And ah, the exhilaration, +physical and mental, the delightful exhilaration which put melancholy to +flight, loosed his tongue and started the machinery of his brain--which +robbed the past of regret and made the present and the future rosy! + +It was in the promise of this exhilaration that the seductiveness of the +dreaded tones lay. + +Even his kindly old physician, diagnosing the pallor of his cheeks and +melancholy in his eyes as "a touch of malaria," added a note of +insistence to the voice, as he prescribed that panacea of the day, "a +mint julep before breakfast." + +Yet he still sternly and stoutly turned a deaf ear to the voice of the +charmer, while dejection drew him deeper and deeper into its depths +until one day he found he could not write. His pen seemed suddenly to +have lost its power. He sat at his desk in the office of the _Messenger_ +with paper before him, with pens and ink at hand, but his brain refused +to produce an idea, and for such vague half-thoughts as came to him, he +could find no words to give expression. + +He was seized upon by terror. + +Had his gift of the gods deserted him? Better death than life without +his gift! Without it the very ground under his feet seemed uncertain and +unsafe! + +Then he fell. Driven to the wall, as it seemed to him, he took the only +road he saw that led, or seemed to lead, to deliverance. He yielded his +will to the voice of the tempter, he tasted the freedom, the +exhilaration, the wild joy that his imagination had pictured--drank deep +of it! + +And then he paid the price he had known all along he would have to pay, +though in the hour of his severest temptation the knowledge had not had +power to make him strong. Neither, in that hour, had he been able to +foresee how hard the price would be. That shadowy, yet very real other +self, his avenging conscience, in whose approval he had so long happily +rested, arose in its wrath and rebuked him as he had never been rebuked +before. It scourged him. It held up before him his bright prospects, his +lately acquired and enviable social position, assuring him as it held +them up, of their insecurity. It pointed with warning finger to the end +of the rainbow and the road leading to it seemed to have suddenly grown +ten times longer and rougher than before. + +Finally it held up the images of his two good angels, "Muddie," with her +heart of oak, and her tender, sorrow-stricken face, and Virginia, whose +soft eyes were a heaven of trustful love--whose beauty, whose purity and +innocence, the stored sweets of whose nature were for him alone, and to +whom he was as faultless, as supreme as the sun in heaven. + +It was too much. The dejection into which his "blue devils" had cast him +was as nothing to the remorse that overwhelmed him now. On his knees +before Heaven he confessed that his last estate was worse than his +first, and cried aloud for forgiveness for the past and strength for the +future. + +In this mood he sat down to write to Mr. Kennedy (who had been absent +upon a summer vacation when he left Baltimore) a letter of +acknowledgment for his benefactions--for whatever The Dreamer was, it is +very certain that he was _not_ ungrateful. + +The date he placed at the top of his page was "September 11, 1835." + +"I received a letter yesterday," he wrote, "which tells me you are back +in town. I hasten therefore, to write you and express by letter what I +have always found it impossible to express orally--my deep sense of +gratitude for your frequent and effectual assistance and kindness. + +"Through your influence Mr. White has been induced to employ me in +assisting him with the editorial duties of his Magazine--at a salary of +$520 per annum." + +He had not intended to mention his troubles to Mr. Kennedy, but with +each word he wrote the impulse to unburden himself which he always felt +when talking to this kind, sympathetic man, grew stronger and he found +his pen almost automatically taking an unexpected turn. It was out of +the abundance of his anguished heart that he added: + +"The situation is agreeable to me for many reasons--but alas! it appears +that nothing can now give me pleasure--or the slightest gratification. +Excuse me, my Dear Sir, if in this letter you find much incoherency. My +feelings at this moment are pitiable indeed. You will believe me when I +say that I am still miserable in spite of the great improvement in my +circumstances; for a man who is writing for effect does not write thus. +My heart is open before you--if it be worth reading, read it. I am +wretched and know not why. Console me--for you can. Convince me that it +is worth one's while to live. Persuade me to do what is right. You will +not fail to see that I am suffering from a depression of spirits which +will ruin me if it be long continued. Write me then, and quickly. Urge +me to do what is right. Your words will have more weight with me than +the words of others--for you were my friend when no one else was." + +Some men of more goodness than wisdom might have read this letter with +impatience--perhaps disgust, and tossed it into the waste basket, not +deeming it worth an answer, or pigeon-holed it to be answered in a more +convenient season--which would probably never have arrived. It is easy +to imagine the contempt with which John Allan would have perused it. Not +so John Kennedy. Busy lawyer and successful man of letters and of the +world though he was, he had gone out of his way to stretch a hand to the +gifted starveling he had discovered struggling for a foothold on the +bottommost rung of the ladder of literary fame, and had not only helped +him up the ladder but had drawn him, in his weakness and his strength, +into the circle of his friendship, and now he had no idea of letting him +go. Mr. Kennedy was a great lawyer with a great tenderness for human +nature, born of a great knowledge of it. He did not expect young +men--even talented ones--to be faultless or to be fountains of sound +sense, or even always to be strong of will. When he received Edgar Poe's +wail he had just returned to his office after a long vacation and found +himself over head and ears in work; but he responded at once. If it had +seemed to him a foolish letter he did not say so. If it had shocked or +disappointed him, he did not say so. He wrote in the kindly tolerant and +understanding tone he always took with his protege a letter wholesome +and bracing as a breath from the salt sea. + +"My dear Poe," he began, in his simple familiar way, "I am sorry to see +you in such plight as your letter shows you in. It is strange that just +at the time when everybody is praising you and when Fortune has begun to +smile upon your hitherto wretched circumstances you should be invaded by +these villainous blue devils. It belongs however, to your age and temper +to be thus buffeted--but be assured it only wants a little resolution to +master the adversary forever. Rise early, live generously, and make +cheerful acquaintances and I have no doubt you will send these +misgivings of the heart all to the Devil. You will doubtless do well +henceforth in literature and add to your comforts as well as your +reputation which it gives me great pleasure to tell you is everywhere +rising in popular esteem." + +This and more he wrote, in kind, encouraging vein, and closed his letter +with a friendly invitation: + +"Write to me frequently, and believe me very truly + + "Yours, + + "JOHN P. KENNEDY." + +The same post that brought Mr. Kennedy's letter brought The Dreamer +other mail from Baltimore--brought him letters from both Virginia and +Mother Clemm. + +They had an especial reason for writing, each said. They had news for +him--news which was most disturbing to them and they feared it would be +to him. + +Disturbing indeed, was the news the letters brought. It drove him into a +rage and aroused him into action which made him forget all of his late +troubles. + +Their Cousin Neilson and his wife, they wrote him, had not ceased to +bring every argument they could think of to bear upon Virginia to induce +her to break her engagement and had finally proposed that they should +take her into their home, treat her as an own daughter or young sister, +providing for her all things needful and desirable for a young girl of +her station, until her eighteenth birthday, after which if she and Edgar +had not changed their minds, they could be married. + +He dashed off and posted answers to the letters at once, making violent +protest against a scheme that seemed to him positively iniquitous and +pleading with "Muddie" to keep Virginia for him. But writing was not +enough. He determined to answer in person. + +A day or two later Virginia and her mother were in the act of discussing +his letters, which had just come, when the sitting-room door quietly +opened, and there stood the man who was all the world to them! + +Virginia, with a scream of delight, was in his arms in a flash and began +telling him, breathlessly, what a fright she had been in for fear +"Cousin Neilson" would take her away and she would never see him again. + +With a rising tide of tenderness for her and rage against their cousin, +he kissed the trouble from her eyes. + +"Don't be afraid, sweetheart," he murmured, "He shall never take you +from me. I have come back to marry you!" + +"To marry her?" exclaimed Mrs. Clemm. "At once, do you mean?" + +"At once! Today or tomorrow--for I must be getting back to Richmond as +soon as possible. Don't you see, Muddie, that this is just a plot of +Neilson's to separate us? He never cared for me--he loves Virginia and +is determined I shall not have her. But we'll outwit him! We'll be +married at once. We'll have to keep it secret at first--until I am able +to provide a home for my little wife and our dear mother in Richmond, +but I will go away with peace of mind and leave her in peace of mind, +for once she is mine only death can come between us. We will keep it +secret dear," he added, with his lips on the dusky hair of the little +maid who was still held fast in his arms. "We will keep it secret, but +if Neilson Poe becomes troublesome you will only have to show him your +marriage certificate." + +Virginia joyfully agreed to this plan, while the widow, finding +opposition useless, finally consented too--and the impetuous lover was +off post-haste for a license. + +It was a unique little wedding which took place next day in Christ +Church, when a beautiful, dreamy looking youth, with intellectual brow +and classic profile and a beautiful, dreamy-looking maid, half his age, +plighted their troth. The only attendant was Mother Clemm in her +habitual plain black dress and widow's cap, with floating cap-strings, +sheer and snowy white. No music, no flowers, no witnesses even, save the +widowed mother and the aged sexton who was bound over to strict secrecy. + +But in the dim, still, empty church the beautiful words of the old, old +rite seemed to this strange pair of lovers to take on new solemnity as +they fell from the lips of the white robed priest and sank deep into +their young hearts, filling and thrilling them with fresh hope and faith +and love and high resolve. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +In the following spring Edgar Poe and Virginia Clemm were, strange as it +may seem, principals in another wedding. The months intervening between +the two ceremonies had been teeming with interest to them both--filled +with work and with happiness just short of that perfect +satisfaction--that completeness--that unattainable which it is part of +being a mortal with an immortal mind and soul to be continually striving +after, and missing, and will be until the half-light of this world is +merged into the light ineffable of the one to come. + +The Dreamer had returned from his brief visit to Baltimore a new man. +The blue devils were gone. The heart and mind which they had made their +dwelling-place were swept clean of every vestige of them and were filled +to overflowing with a sweet and rare presence--the presence of her who +lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him; for he +felt that her spirit was with him at every moment of the day, though her +fair body was other whither. The consciousness of the secret he carried +in his heart flooded his nature with sunshine. Because of it he carried +his head more proudly--wore a new dignity which his friends attributed +entirely to the success of his work upon the magazine. He was filled +with peace and good will to all the world. He was happy and wanted +everybody else to be happy--it was apparent in himself and in his work. +In his dreamy moods his fancy spread a broader, a stronger wing, and +soared with new daring to heights unexplored before. When Edgar +Goodfellow was in the ascendency he threw himself with unwonted zest +into the pleasures that were "like poppies spread" in the way of the +successful author and editor--the literary lion of the town. + +He had always been an enthusiastic and graceful dancer and now nothing +else seemed to give him so natural a vent for the happiness that was +beating in his veins. His feet seemed like his pen, to be inspired. He +felt that he could dance till Doomsday and all the prettiest, most +bewitching girls let him see how pleased they were to have him for a +partner. In the brief, glowing rests between the dances he rewarded them +with charming talk, and verses in praise of their loveliness which +seemed to fall without the slightest effort from his tongue into their +pretty, delighted ears or from his pencil into their albums. + +There was at least one fair damsel--a slight, willowy creature with +violet eyes and flaxen ringlets, who treasured the graceful lines he +dedicated to her with a feeling warmer than friendship. She was pretty +Eliza White, the daughter of his employer, the owner of the _Southern +Literary Messenger_. She was herself a lover of poetry and romance, and +a dreamer of dreams, all of which had erelong merged into one sweet +dream so secret, so sacred that she scarce dared own it to her own inner +self, and its central figure was her father's handsome assistant editor, +who rested in blissful ignorance of the havoc he was making in her +maiden heart, engrossed as he was in his own secret--his own romance. + +New energy, new zest, new life seemed to have entered his blood. He had +endless capacity for work as well as for pleasure and could write all +day and dance half the night and then lie awake star-gazing the other +half and rise ready and eager for the day's work in the morning. Such a +tonic--such a stimulant did his love for his faraway bride and his +consciousness of her love for him prove. + +He was happy--very, very happy, but he desired to be happier still. The +simple, beautiful words of the old, old rite uttered in the dim, empty +church had woven an invisible bond between him and the maiden whom he +loved to call in his heart his wife though the time when he could claim +her before the world was not yet. + +The miracle that this bond wrought in him was a revelation to him. Was +the priest a wizard? Did the words of the ancient rite possess any +intrinsic power of enchantment undreamed of by the uninitiated? + +He had not believed it possible for mortal to love more wholly--more +madly than he had loved the little Virginia before that sacred ceremony, +but after it he knew there were heights of love of which he had not +hitherto had a glimpse. Just the right to say to his heart "She is my +own--my wife--" made her tenfold more precious than she had ever been +before, but it also made the separation tenfold harder to bear--made it +beyond his power to bear! + +The Valley of the Many-Colored Grass had been dissolved--the spell that +had brought it into being broken, by the separation, and he longed with +a longing that was as hunger and thirst to reconstruct this magical +world in which he and his Virginia dwelt apart with her who was mother +to them both, in Richmond. And so, poor as he was, he arranged to bring +Virginia and Mother Clemm to Richmond and establish them in a boarding +house where he could see them often and wait with better grace the still +happier day of making his marriage public. + +The day came more speedily than they had let themselves hope. The +popularity of the _Messenger_ and the fame of its assistant editor had +grown with leaps and bounds. The new year brought the welcome gift of +promotion to full editorship, with an increase of salary. With the +opening spring began plans for the divulging of the great secret--for +public acknowledgment of the marriage. But how was it to be done?--That +was the question! Edgar Poe knew too well the disapproval with which the +world regarded secret marriages--with which he himself regarded them, +ordinarily. His sense of refinement of fitness, of the sacredness of the +marriage tie, revolted from the very idea. + +In what fashion then, could he and his little bride proclaim their +secret that would not do violence to their own taste or set a buzz of +gossip going? That the horrid lips of gossip should so much as breathe +the name of his Virginia--that Mrs. Grundy should dare shrug her +decorous shoulders, if ever so slightly, at mention of that sacred +name--. The bare suggestion was intolerable! + +At last a solution offered itself to his mind. Not for an instant did he +regret the sacred ceremony in Christ Church, Baltimore. Not for worlds +would he have cut short for one moment of time the duration of the +beautiful spiritual marriage when he had been able to say to himself: +"She whose presence fills my heart and my life--whose spirit I can feel +near me at my work, in my hours of recreation and in my dreams, is my +wife." But of this exquisite, this inexpressibly dear union the world +was in utter ignorance. It was known only to the Mother, the priest and +the aged sexton. To these witnesses always, as to themselves, their +marriage would date from the moment when the blessing was invoked above +their bowed heads in Christ Church, but to the world--why not let it +date from the day in which they would claim each other before the world, +in Richmond? + +The thing was most simple! A second ceremony in the presence of a few +friends--a brief announcement in next day's paper--and their life would +be begun with the dignity, the prestige, of public marriage. + + * * * * * + +The sixteenth of May was the day chosen for the event which was more +like a wedding in Arcady than in latter-day society. As at the secret +ceremony, the customary preparations for a wedding were conspicuously +absent; yet was not the whole town gala with sunshine and verdure and +May-bloom and bird-song? + +Edgar Poe looked every inch a bridegroom as, with his girl-wife upon his +arm, he stepped forth from Mrs. Yarrington's boarding-house, opposite +the green slopes of Capitol Square. A bridegroom indeed!--plainly, but +perfectly apparelled--handsome, proud, fearless--his great eyes luminous +with solemn joy. + +The simplest of white frocks became Virginia's innocence and beauty more +than costly bridal array and the nosegay of white violets above her +chaste bosom was her only ornament. + +With this sweet pair came the happy mother and a little train of close +friends. It was late afternoon. The sunshine was mellow and the air was +filled with the delicious insense which in mid-May the majestic +paulonia tree drops from its purple bells and which is the very breath +of the warm-natured South. + +No line of carriages stood at the door. No awning shut the picture they +made from admiring eyes, but happily the little party chatted together +as they strolled under over-arching greenery to the corner of Main and +Seventh Streets, where in the prim parlor of the Presbyterian minister, +the words were pronounced which told the world that Edgar Poe and +Virginia Clemm were one. + +Upon the return of the party to Mrs. Yarrington's, a cake was cut, the +health and happiness of the bride and groom were drunk in wine of +"Muddie's" own make, and the modest festival was over. + + * * * * * + +How happy the young lovers and dreamers were in their home-making! Their +housekeeping and furnishings were the simplest, but love made everything +beautiful and sufficient. They had a garden in which they planted all +their favorite flowers and to which came the birds--the birds with whom +they had discovered a sudden kinship, for they too, were nesting--and +filled it with music. And they sang and chatted as happily as the birds +themselves as the pretty business progressed. + +How delightful it was to receive their friends, together, in their own +home and at their own board--Eddie's old friends, especially. Rob +Stanard, now a prosperous lawyer, and Rob Sully whose reputation as an +artist was growing, were the first to call and present their compliments +to the bride and groom; and how cordial they were! How affectionate to +Eddie--how warm in their expressions of friendship for the girl-wife! + +Virginia found it the greatest fun imaginable to go to market with +"Muddie," with a basket hanging from her pretty arm. The market men and +women began to daily watch for the sweet face and tripping step of the +exquisite child whom it seemed so comical to address as "_Mrs._ Poe," +and who rewarded their open admiration with the loveliest smile, the +prettiest words of greeting and interest, the merriest rippling laugh +that rang through the market place and waked echoes in many a heart that +had believed itself a stranger to joy. + +And the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass was reconstructed in even more +than its old beauty. The flowers of love and contentment and innocent +pleasure that besprinkled its green carpet had never been so many or so +gay, the dream-mountains that shut it in from the rest of the world were +as fair as sunset clouds, and the peace that flowed through it as a +river broke into singing as it flowed. + + * * * * * + +Meantime Edgar Poe worked--and worked--and worked. + +Every number of the _Messenger_ contained page after page of the +brilliantly conceived and artistically worded product of his brain and +pen. His heart--his imagination satisfied and at rest in the love and +comradeship of a woman who fulfilled his ideal of beauty, of character, +and of charm, whose mind he himself had taught and trained to appreciate +and to love the things that meant most to him, whose sympathy responded +to his every mood, whose voice soothed his tired nerves with the music +that was one of the necessities of his temperament, a woman, withal, who +lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him--his +harassing devils cast out by this true heartsease, Edgar Poe's industry +and his power of mental production were almost past belief. + +As he worked a dream that had long been half-formed in his brain took +definite shape and became the moving influence of the intellectual side +of his life. His literary conscience had always been strict--even +exacting--with him, making him push the quest for the right word in +which to express his idea--just the right word, no other--to its +farthest limit. Urged by this conscience, he could rarely ever feel that +his work was finished, but kept revising, polishing and republishing it +in improved form, even after it had been once given to the world. He had +in his youth contemplated serving his country as a soldier. He now began +to dream of serving her as a captain of literature, as it were--as a +defender of purity of style; for this dream which became the most +serious purpose of his life was of raising the standard of American +letters to the ideal perfection after which he strove in his own +writings. + +For his campaign a trusty weapon was at hand in the editorial department +of the _Southern Literary Messenger_, which he turned into a sword of +fearless, merciless criticism. + +Literary criticism (so called) in America had been hitherto mere +puffery--puffery for the most part of weak, prolix, commonplace +scribblings of little would-be authors and poets. A reformation in +criticism, therefore, Edgar Poe conceived to be the only remedy for the +prevalent mediocrity in writing that was vitiating the taste of the day, +the only hope of placing American literature upon a footing of equality +with that of England--in a word, for bringing about anything approaching +the perfection of which he dreamed. + +The new kind of criticism to which he introduced his readers created a +sensation by reason of its very novelty. His brilliant, but withering +critiques were more eagerly looked for than the most thrilling of his +stories, and though the little, namby-pamby authors whom the gleaming +sword mowed down by tens were his and the _Messenger's_ enemies for +life, the interested readers that were gathered in by hundreds were loud +in their praise of the progressiveness of the magazine and the genius of +the man who was making it. + +In the North as well as the South the name of Edgar Poe was now on many +lips and serious attention began to be paid to the opinion of the +_Southern Literary Messenger_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +Between his literary work, his home and his social life in Richmond, it +would seem that every need of The Dreamer's being was now satisfied and +the days of his life were moving in perfect harmony. But "the little +rift within the lute" all too soon made its appearance. It was caused by +the alarm of Mr. White, the owner and founder of the _Messenger_. + +"Little Tom White" was a most admirable man--within his limitations. If +he was not especially interesting, his daughter Eliza of the violet eyes +was, and he was reliable--which was better. He had a kind little heart +and a clear little business head and his advice upon all matters (within +his experience) was safe. Though he saw from the handsome increase in +the number of the _Messenger's_ subscribers that his young editor was a +valuable aid, he did not realize how valuable. Indeed, Edgar Poe and his +style of writing were entirely outside of Mr. White's experience. They +were so altogether unlike anything he had known before that in spite of +the praise of the thousands of readers which they had brought to the +magazine the dissatisfaction of the tens of little namby-pamby authors +alarmed him. Edgar Poe found him one morning in a state of positive +trepidation. He sat at his desk in the _Messenger_ office with the +morning's mail--an unusually large pile of it--before him. In it there +were a number of new subscriptions, several letters from the little +authors protesting against the manner in which their works were handled +in the review columns of the magazine and one or two from well-known +and highly respected country gentlemen expressing their disapproval of +the _strangeness_ in Edgar Poe's tales and poems. + +Mr. White appreciated the genius of his editor--within his +limitations--but he was afraid of it and these letters made him more +afraid of it. He saw that he must speak to Edgar--add his protest to the +protests of the little authors and the country gentlemen and see if he +could not persuade him to tone down the sharpness of his criticisms and +the strangeness of his stories. + +It was with a feeling of relief that he saw the trim, black-clad figure +of the young editor and author at the door, for he would like to settle +the business before him at once. His manner was grave--solemn--as he +approached the subject upon which his employe must be spoken to. + +"Edgar," he said, when good-mornings had been exchanged, "I want you to +read these letters. They are in the same line as some others we have +been receiving lately--but more so--decidedly more so." + +"Ah?" said The Dreamer, as he seated himself at the desk and began to +unfold and glance over the letters. + +"Little Tom" watched his face with a feeling of wonder at the look of +mixed scorn and amusement that appeared in the expressive eyes and mouth +as he read. Finally the anxious little man laid his hand upon the arm of +his unruly assistant, with an air of kindly patronage. + +"You have talent, Edgar," he said, with a touch of condescension, "Good +talent--especially for criticism--and will some day make your mark in +that line if you will stick to it and let these weird stories alone. We +must have fewer of the stories in future and more critiques, but milder +ones. It is the critiques that the readers want; but in both stories and +critiques you must put a restraint on that pen of yours, Edgar. In the +stories less of the weird--the strange--in the critiques, less of the +satirical. Let moderation be your watchword, my boy. Cultivate +moderation in your writing, and with your endowment you will make a name +for yourself as well as the magazine." + +Edgar Poe was all attention--respectful attention that was most +encouraging--while Mr. White was speaking, and when he had finished sat +with a contemplative look in his eyes, as if weighing the words he had +just heard. Presently he looked up and with the expression of face and +voice of one who in all seriousness seeks information, asked, + +"Is moderation really the word you are after, Mr. White, or is it +mediocrity?" + +The announcement at the very moment when the question was put, of a +visitor--a welcome one, for he brought a new subscription--precluded a +reply, and in the busy day that followed the broken thread of +conversation was never taken up again. But the unanswered question left +Mr. White with a confused sense which stayed with him during the whole +day and at intervals all through it he was asking himself what Edgar Poe +meant. Truly his talented employe was a puzzling fellow! Could it be +possible that the question asked with that serious face, that quiet +respectful air, was intended for a joke? That the impudent fellow could +have been quizzing him? No wonder his stories gave people +shivers--there was at times something about the fellow himself which was +positively uncanny! + +That he and "little Tom" would always see opposite sides of the picture +became more and more apparent to The Dreamer as time went on and along +with this difficulty another and a more serious one arose. + +Though the amount of work--of successful work, for it brought the +_Messenger_ a steadily increasing stream of new subscribers--which he +was now putting forth, should have surrounded the beloved wife and +mother with luxuries and placed him beyond the reach of financial +embarrassment, the returns he received from the entire fruitage of his +brilliant talent--his untiring pen--at this the prime-time of his +life--in the fullness of mental and physical vigour, was so small that +he was constantly harrassed by debt and frequently reduced to the +humiliating necessity of borrowing from his friends to make two ends +meet. + +The plain truth was gradually borne in upon him--the prizes of fame and +wealth that for the sake of his sweet bride he coveted more earnestly +than ever before, were not to be found, by him, in Richmond, or as an +employe of Mr. White. But the hues of the bow of promise with which hope +spanned the sky of his inward vision were still bright, and he believed +that at its end the coveted prizes would surely still be found--provided +he did not lose heart and give up the quest. Indications of the growth +of his reputation at the North had been many. In the North the +facilities for publishing were so much more abundant than in the South. +The publishing houses and the periodicals of New York, of Boston, and of +Philadelphia would create a demand for literary work--and from these +large cities his message to the world would go out with greater +authority than from a small town like Richmond. + +It was not until the year 1838 that he finally resolved to make the +break and sent in his resignation to the _Messenger_. In the three years +since his first appearance in its columns the number of names upon its +subscription list had increased from seven hundred to five thousand. + +Though Edgar Poe's connection with the magazine as editor was at an end, +Mr. White took pains to announce that he was to continue to be a regular +contributor and the appearance of his serial story, "Arthur Gordon Pym," +then running, was to be uninterrupted. + + * * * * * + +It was a far cry from the gardens and porches and open houses of +Richmond to the streets of New York--from the easy going country town +where society held but one circle, to a city, with its locked doors and +its wheels within wheels. Indeed, the single circle in Richmond, bound +together as it was by the elastic, but secure, tie of Virginia +cousinship and neighborliness then regarded as almost the same thing as +relationship, was practically one big family. Whoever was not your +cousin or your neighbor was the next best thing--either your neighbor's +cousin or your cousin's neighbor--so there you were. + +Though Edgar and Virginia Poe and the Widow Clemm had no blood kin in +Richmond they were, during those two years' residence there, taken into +the very heart of this pleasant, kindly circle, and it was with keen +homesickness that they realized that "in a whole cityful friends they +had none." + +But if this trio of dreamers felt strangely out of place in the streets +of New York, they looked more so. As they sauntered along, in their +leisurely southern fashion, their picturesque appearance arrested the +gaze of many a hurrying passer-by. In contrast to the up-to-date, alert, +keen-eyed crowd upon the busy streets, the air of distinction which +marked them everywhere was more pronounced than ever. They gave the +impression of a certain exquisite fineness of quality, combined with +quaintness, that one is sensible of in looking upon rare china. + +In and out--in and out--among the crowds of these streets where being a +stranger he felt himself peculiarly alone, Edgar the Dreamer walked many +days in his quest for work. Here, there and everywhere, his pale face +and solemn eyes with less and less of hope in them were seen. He had +been right in believing that his reputation was growing and had reached +New York--yet no one wanted his work. The supply of literature exceeded +the demand, he was told everywhere. It is true that he succeeded in +placing an occasional article, for which he would be paid the merest +pittance. Man should not expect to live by writing alone, he found to be +the general opinion--he should have a business or profession and do his +scribbling in the left-over hours. + +Still, his appearance at the door of a newspaper, magazine or book +publisher's office, accompanied by the announcement of his name, brought +him respect and a polite hearing--if that could afford any satisfaction +to a man whose darling wife was growing wan from insufficient food. + +One devoted friend he and his family made in Mr. Gowans, a Scotchman and +a book-collector of means and cultivation, whose fancy for them went so +far as to induce him to become a member of the unique little family in +the dingy wooden shanty which they had succeeded in renting for a song. +To this old gentleman, who had the reputation of being something of a +crank, The Dreamer's conversation and Virginia's beauty and exquisite +singing were never-failing wells of delight, while the generous sum that +he paid for the privilege of sharing their home was an equal benefit to +them and went a long way toward supplying the simple table. The little +checks which "little Tom" White sent for the monthly instalments of +"Arthur Gordon Pym," upon which his ex-editor industriously worked, were +also most welcome. But with all they could scrape together the income +was insufficient to keep three souls within three bodies, and three +bodies decently covered. + +Before the year in New York was out the rainbow was pale in the sky--its +colors were faded and its end was invisible--obscured by lowering +clouds. At the moment when it seemed faintest it came out clear +again--this time setting toward Philadelphia, whose name the hope that +rarely left him for long at a time whispered in The Dreamer's ear. + +Why not Philadelphia? Philadelphia--then the acknowledged seat of the +empire of Letters. Philadelphia--the city of Penn, the "City of +Brotherly Love." There was for one of The Dreamer's superstitious turn +of mind and his love of words and belief in their power, an +attraction--a significance in the very names. He said them over and over +again to himself--rolled them on his tongue, fascinated with their sound +and with their suggestiveness. + +He bade Virginia and "Muddie" keep up brave hearts, for they would turn +their backs upon this cold, inhospitable New York and set up their +household gods in the "City of Brotherly Love." The city of Penn, he +added, was the place for one of his calling--laughing as he spoke, at +the feeble pun--but there was new hope and life in the laugh. In Penn's +city, even if disappointments should come they would be able to bear +them, for how should human beings suffer in the "City of Brotherly +Love?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +The year was waning--the year 1838--when Edgar Poe removed his family +from New York. About the hour of noon, upon a pleasant day of the spring +following, he might have been seen to turn from the paved streets of the +"City of Brotherly Love," and to enter, and walk briskly along, a grassy +thoroughfare of Spring Garden--a village-like suburb. + +He was going home to Virginia and the Mother--to a new home in this +village which they had been first tempted to explore by its delightful +name and which they had found seeing was to love, for in its appearance +the name was justified. The quiet streets were lined with trees just +coming into leaf, in which birds were building, happy and unafraid, and +spring flowers were blooming in little plots before many of the +unpretentious homes. + +The place also possessed a more practical attraction in the +reasonableness of its house-rents. Delightfully low was the price asked +for a small, Dutch-roofed cottage that was just to their minds. It was +small, yet quite large enough to hold the three and their modest +possessions, and about it hung a quaint charm that might have been +wanting in a more ambitious abode. Though in excellent preservation it +had a pleasantly time-worn air and there was moss, in velvety green +patches, on its sloping roof. It was set somewhat back from the street, +with a bit of garden spot in front of it, in whose rich soil violets and +single hyacinths--blue and white--were blooming, and its square porch +supported a climbing rose, heavy with buds, that only needed training +to make it a bower of beauty. + +After having tried several more or less unsatisfactory homes during +their brief residence in Philadelphia, they felt that they had at last +found one that filled their requirements, and had promptly moved in. +There were no servants--maids would have been in the way they happily +told each other--but Virginia and her mother had positive genius for +neatness and order. At their touch things seemed to fly by magic into +the places where they would look best and at the same time be most +convenient, and it was astonishing how quickly the arrangement of their +small belongings converted the cottage into a home. + +It was with light heart and step that the master of the house took his +way homeward to the mid-day meal. The periodicals of the "City of +Brotherly Love" were keeping him busy, and there was at that moment +money in his pocket--not much, but still it was money--that day received +for his latest story. + +As he drew near a corner just around which his new roof-tree stood, he +stopped suddenly--in the attitude of one who listens. Peal after peal of +rippling laughter was filling the air with music. In his vivid eyes, as +he listened, shone the soft light of love and a smile of infinite +tenderness played about his lips. Well he knew from what lovely, girlish +throat came the merry sounds--sweet and clear as a chime of silver +bells. A quickened step brought him instantly in view of her and the +cause of her mirth. + +She stood in the rose-hooded doorway leaning upon a broom. Her cheeks +were pink with the exertion she had been making and her sleeves were +rolled up, leaving her dimpled, white arms bare to the elbow. Her soft +eyes were radiant and she was laughing for sheer delight in the picture +the stately "Muddie" made white-washing the palings that enclosed the +wee garden-spot from the street. When she saw her husband at the gate +she dropped her broom and ran into his arms like a child. + +"Oh, Buddie, Buddie," she cried, "are not our palings beautiful? Muddie +did them for a surprise for you!" + +"Buddie" was enthusiastic in admiration of the white palings and praised +the gentle white-washer to the skies. Then the three happy workers went +inside to their simple repast, which the sauce of content turned into a +banquet. + +The door had been left open to the sunshine and the result was an +unexpected guest--a handsome tortoise-shell kitten which strayed in to +ask a share of their meal. She paused, timidly, upon the threshold for a +moment, then fixing her amber eyes upon The Dreamer, made straight for +him and arching her back and waving her tail like a plume, in the air +she rubbed her glossy sides against his ankle in a manner that was truly +irresistible. All three gave her a warm welcome. Edgar regarded her +appearance as a good omen; Virginia was delighted to have a pet, and +"Catalina," as they named her, became from the moment a regular and +favorite member of the family. + + * * * * * + +The cottage contained but five rooms--three downstairs (including the +kitchen) and upstairs two, with low-pitched, shelving walls and narrow +little slits of windows on a level with the floor. But as has been said, +it was large enough--large enough to shelter love and happiness and +genius--large enough to hold the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass, with its fair river and its enchanted trees and flowers, in which +the three dreamers lived apart and for each other only. + +It was large enough for the freest expansion the world had yet seen of +the vivid-hued imagination of Edgar Poe. + +Night and day his brain was busy--"fancy unto fancy linking"--and the +periodicals teemed with his work. + +In _The American Museum_, of Baltimore appeared his fantastic +prose-poem, "Ligeia," with his theory of the power of the human will for +a text--his favorite of all of his "tales"--_his_ favorite, in the +weakness of whose own will lay the real tragedy of his life! In _The +Gift_, of Philadelphia, appeared, a little later the dramatic +"conscience-story," "William Wilson," with its clear-cut pictures of +school-life at old Stoke-Newington. _The Baltimore Book_ gave the +thrilling fable, "Silence," to the world. The weirdly beautiful "Haunted +Palace" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" followed in quick +succession--in _The American Museum_. + +"The Fall of the House of Usher," brought The Dreamer a pat-on-the back +from "little Tom" White, who in writing of the tale in _The Southern +Literary Messenger_, informed the world: "We always predicted that Mr. +Poe would reach a high grade in American literature; only we wish Mr. +Poe would stick to the department of criticism; there he is an able +professor." + +Wrote James Russell Lowell, of the same story, + + "Had its author written nothing else it would have been enough + to stamp him as a man of genius." + +The cottage in Spring Garden was large enough too, for the sweet uses +of hospitality. By the time the roses on the porch were open, friends +and admirers began to find their way to it, and all who came through the +white-washed gate and sat down in the green-hooded porch or passed +through it into the bright and tasteful rooms felt the poetic charm +which this son of genius and his exquisite bit of a wife and the stately +mother with the "Mater Dolorosa" expression, threw over their simple +surroundings. + +Among those who found their way thither was "Billy" Burton, an +Englishman, and an actor, who though a graduate of Cambridge was "better +known as a commedian than as a literary man." He had written several +books, however, and was the publisher of _The Gentleman's Magazine_, of +Philadelphia. Here too, came intimately, Mr. Alexander, one of the +founders of _The Saturday Evening Post_, to which The Dreamer was a +frequent contributor, and Mr. Clarke, first editor of _The Post_ and +others of what Edgar Poe's friend, Wilmer, would have dubbed the "press +gang" of Philadelphia. + +To be intimate with The Dreamer meant to adore the little wife with the +face of a Luca della Robbia chorister and the voice which should have +belonged to one--with the merry, irresistible ways of a perfectly happy +child,--and to revere the mother. + +The cottage was also found to be large enough (as the fame of its master +grew) to be the destination of letters from the literary stars of the +day. Longfellow and Lowell and Washington Irving, on this side of the +water, and Dickens, in England, were among Edgar Poe's numerous +correspondents while a dweller in the rose-embowered cottage in Spring +Garden. + +In addition to the stories, poems, essays and critiques which the +indefatigable Dreamer was putting out, he found time to publish a +collection of his "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," in book form. +He was also (unfortunately for him) induced to prepare a work on +sea-shells for the use of schools--"The Conchologist's First Book," it +was called. This was unmistakably a mere "pot-boiler" and confessedly a +compilation, but it set the little authors whose namby-pamby works the +self-appointed Defender of the Purity of Style in American Letters had +consigned to an early grave, like a nest of hornets buzzing about his +ears. + +"Plagarism!" was the burden of their hum. + +Even while the discordant chorus was being chanted, however, his +wonderfully original tales continued to make their appearance at +intervals--chiefly in _The Gentleman's Magazine_, whose editor, at +"Billy" Burton's invitation, he had become. + + * * * * * + +In the midst of all this activity one of his old and most cherished +dreams took more definite shape than ever before--the dream of becoming +himself the founder of a magazine in which he could write as his genius +and his fancy should dictate without having to be constantly making +compromises with editors and proprietors--a periodical which would +fulfil his ideal of magazine literature, which he predicted would be the +leading literature of the future. With his prophetic eye he foresaw the +high pressure under which the American of coming years would live, and +he never lost an opportunity to express the opinion that the reader of +the future would give preference to the essay, or story, or poem which +could be read at a sitting--which would waste no time in preamble or +conclusion, but in which every word would be chosen by the literary +artist with the nicety with which the painter selects the exact tint he +needs, and in which every word would tell. And such works he conceived +it would be especially the province of the magazine to present. + +He went so far as to prepare a prospectus and advertise for subscribers +to _The Penn Monthly_, as he proposed naming this child of his hopes, +and his proposition to enter the field of magazine publishing not only +as an editor, but as a proprietor, bade fair to be the rock upon which +he and his friend "Billy" Burton would split. They came to an +understanding finally, however, for when Mr. Burton, a little later, +decided to abandon _The Gentleman's Magazine_ and devote himself +exclusively to the theatre, he said to Mr. George R. Graham, the owner +of _The Gasket_, to whom he sold out, + +"By the way, Graham, there's one thing I want to ask, and that is that +you will take care of my young editor." + +Edgar Poe was at the moment lost in the happy dream of his own _Penn +Monthly_ which he conceived would not only take care of him and his +family, but would give his genius free rein. He was resolved to put the +best of himself into it, and the best of outside contributions he could +succeed in procuring. Its criticisms should be "sternly just, guided +only by the purest rules of Art, analyzing and urging these rules as it +applied them; holding itself aloof from all personal bias, acknowledging +no fear save that of outraging the right." It would "endeavor to +support the general interests of the republic of letters--regarding the +world at large as the true audience of the author," he determined, and +he declared in his prospectus. + +Dear to his heart as was this dream of dreams of his intellectual life, +he was soon to realize that its fulfilment was not to be. At least--not +yet, for he comforted his own heart and Virginia's and "Muddie's" with +the assurance that it was but a case of hope deferred again. + +As he was bracing himself for this fresh disappointment, Mr. Graham, the +purchaser of _The Gentlemen's Magazine_ which he proposed to combine +with _The Casket_ in the creation of _Graham's Magazine_, sat in his +office with a paper before him which the initiated would have at once +recognized as an Edgar Poe manuscript. It was a long, narrow strip, +formed by pasting pages together endwise, and had been submitted in a +tight roll which Mr. Graham unrolled as he read. The title at the top of +the strip, in The Dreamer's neat, legible handwriting was, "The Man of +the Crowd." + +There was nothing gruesome about Mr. Graham. His candid brow, his +kindling blue eye, his fresh-colored cheeks, the genial curve of his lip +and his strong but amiable chin, spoke of a sunshiny nature, with +neither taste nor turn for the weird. But, as he read, the strange +"conscience-story" moved him--held him in a grip of intense +interest--wove a spell around him. He was on the lookout for original +material--undoubtedly he had it in this manuscript. He recalled "Billy" +Burton's last words to him: "Take care of my young editor." + +A smile lighted his pleasant face. He had his own mental +endowments--generous ones--and without the least conceit he knew it; +but he had no ambition to patronize genius. + +"The writer of this story is quite able to take care of himself," he +informed his inner consciousness, "And if I can only form a connection +with him it will doubtless be a case of the young editor's taking care +of me." + +Upon the next afternoon Mr. Graham set out on a pilgrimage to Spring +Garden. Though it was November the air was mild and the sunshine was +mellow. Was the sky always so blue in Spring Garden, he wondered? He +found the rose-embowered cottage without difficulty, for he had obtained +minute directions. The roses were all gone but the foliage was still +green and the little white-paled garden was bright with the sunset-hued +flowers of autumn. Flowers and cottage stood bathed in the light of the +golden afternoon--the picture of serenity. What marked this quaint, +small homestead?--set back from the quiet village street--tucked away +behind its garden-spot from the din of the world? What made it different +from others of its neighborhood and character? Was it just a notion of +his (Mr. Graham wondered) that made him feel that here was poetry pure +and simple?--_visible_ poetry? + +With sensations of keen interest he lifted the knocker. Edgar Poe +himself opened the door and his captivating smile, cordial hand-clasp +and words of warm, as well as courtly, greeting raised the visitor +instantly from the ranks of the caller to the place of a friend. Mr. +Graham had met Edgar Poe before and had felt his charm, but he now told +himself that to know him one must see him under his own roof, and in the +character of host. + +As the door was opened a flood of music floated out. A divinely sweet +mezzo-soprano voice was singing to the accompaniment of a harp. As the +master of the house flung wide the sitting-room door and announced the +visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting +upon the gilded strings for a moment, her eyes turned in inquiry toward +the door, then rose and with the simplicity of a child came forward to +place her hand in that of Mr. Graham. Mother Clemm who sat near the +window with a piece of sewing in her lap also arose, and with gentle +dignity came forward to be introduced and to do her part in making the +guest welcome. + +As he took the seat proffered him and entered upon the exchange of +commonplace phrases with which a visit of a comparative stranger is apt +to begin, Mr. Graham's blue eyes gathered in the details of the +reposeful picture of which he had become a part. The open fire, the +sunshine lying on the bare but spotless floor, the vases filled with +flowers, the few simple pieces of furniture so fitly disposed that they +produced a sense of unusual completeness and satisfaction--the row of +books, the harp, the cat dosing upon the hearth,--and finally, the +people. The master of the house--distinguished, handsome, dominant, +genial, his young wife, the embodiment of soft, poetic beauty, and the +mother with her saint-like face and gentle, composed manner--her +expressive hands busy with her needle work. Was it possible that such a +home--such a household--was always there, keeping the even tenor of its +way among the unpicturesque conventions of the modern world? + +After the first formalities had been exchanged he had delicately +intimated that he had come on business, but he soon began to see that +whatever his business might be it was to be dispatched right there, in +the bosom of the family. This was irregular and unusual, yet, somehow, +it did not seem unnatural, and he found that the presence of the women +of the poet's household was not the least restraint upon the freedom of +their discussion. + +After some words of commendation of the story, "The Man of the Crowd," +which he accepted for the next number of his magazine, he came to the +real business of the afternoon. + +"Mr. Poe," said he, "I believe you know that with the new year _The +Gentleman's Magazine_ and _The Casket_ will be combined to form +_Graham's Magazine_ which it is my intention to make the best monthly, +in contributed articles and editorial opinion, in this country. Mr. Poe +I want an editor capable of making it this. _I want you._ What do you +say to undertaking it?" + +As he sat with his eyes fixed upon The Dreamer's eyes waiting for an +answer he could not see the quick clasping of the widow's hands the +uplifting of her expressive face which plainly said "Thank God," or the +sudden illumination in the soft eyes of Virginia. But the transformation +in the beautiful face of the man before him held him spell-bound. Edgar +Poe's great eyes were glowing with sudden pleasure the curves of his +mouth grew sweet, his whole countenance softened. + +"This is very good of you, Mr. Graham," he said, his low, musical voice, +warm with feeling. "Your offer places me upon firm ground once more. To +be frank with you, the failure, through lack of capital, of my attempt +to establish a magazine of my own (since the severing of my connection +with Burton, which gave me my only regular income) has left me hanging +by the eyelids, as it were, and I have been wondering how long I could +hold on with only the small, irregular sums coming in from the sale of +my stories to depend upon. Your offer at this time means more to me than +I can express." + +His girl-wife stole to his side and with pretty grace, unembarrassed by +the presence of Mr. Graham, leaned over his chair and pressed her lips +upon his brow. + +"But you know, Buddie," she murmured in a voice that was like a dove's, +"I always told you something would come along!" + + * * * * * + +Darkness fell and lamps were lighted, and still Mr. Graham sat on and on +as though too fascinated by the charm of the little circle to move. To +his own surprise he found himself accepting the invitation to remain to +supper. The simple table was beautiful with the dainty touch of Mother +Clemm and Virginia, and the very frugality of the meal seemed a virtue. + +After supper his host, not the least of whose accomplishments was the +rare one of reading aloud acceptably, was persuaded to read some of his +own poems--Mr. Graham asking for certain special pieces. Among these +were the lines "To Helen," which were recited with a fervor approaching +solemnity. + +"Tell him about Helen, Eddie," murmured Virginia, who sat by his side. + +"Yes, do tell me!" urged Mr. Graham, quickly. And with his eyes brooding +and dreamy, the poet went over, in touching and beautiful words, the +story of what he always felt and declared to be "the first pure passion +of his soul." + +In the silence that followed he arose and took from the wall a small +picture--a pencil-sketch of a lovely head. + +"This is a drawing of her made by myself," he said. "It was done from +memory, but is a good likeness. I needed no sitting to make her +likeness." + +When he had shown Mr. Graham the picture, he hung it back in its place +and a gentle hush fell upon the little group. Speech seemed out of place +after the moving recital and the four sat gazing into the embers, each +sunk in his or her own dreams. + +The poet was the first to speak. + +"Some music Sissy," he said turning to Virginia. "I want Mr. Graham to +hear you." + +She arose at once and seating herself at the harp, struck some soft, +bell-like chords while she waited for "Buddie" to decide what she should +sing. + +"Let it be something sweet and low," he said, "and simple. Something of +Tom Moore's, for instance. You know my theory, anything but the simplest +music to be appreciated--to reach the soul--must be heard alone." + +The harp accompaniment rippled forth, and in a moment more melted into +the rich, sweet passionate tones of her voice as she told in musical +numbers a heart-breaking story of love and parting. + +Ballad after ballad followed while the little audience sat entranced. +Finally when the singer returned to her seat by the side of her husband, +the conversation turned upon music. Mr. Graham commented upon his host's +theory that all music but the simplest should, for its best effect, be +listened to in solitude. + +"Yes," said The Dreamer, "It is (like the happiness felt in the +contemplation of natural scenery) much enhanced by seclusion. The man +who would behold aright the glory of God as expressed in dark valleys, +gray rocks, waters that silently smile and forests that sigh in uneasy +slumbers, and the proud, watchful mountains that look down upon all--the +man that would not only look upon these with his natural eye but feed +his soul upon them as a sacrament, must do so in solitude. And so too, I +hold, should one listen to the deep harmonies of music of the highest +class." + +At length the hour came when Mr. Graham felt that he must tear himself +away--bring this strange visit to an end. Before going he felt moved by +an impulse to express something of the effect it had had upon him. + +"Mr. Poe," he said, "I wish to thank you for one of the most delightful +evenings of my life and for having taken me into the heart of your home. +I can find no words in which to express my appreciation. Tonight, at +your fireside, it seems to me that I have had for the first time in my +life a clear understanding of the word happiness." + +Edgar Poe smiled, dreamily. + +"Why should we not be happy here?" he answered. "Concerning happiness, +my dear Mr. Graham, I have a little creed of my own. If I could only +persuade others to adopt it there would be more happy people--far more +contented ones--in the world." + +"And the articles of your creed?" queried Mr. Graham. + +"Are only four. First, free exercise in the open air, and plenty of it. +This brings health--which is a kind of happiness in itself--that +attainable by any other means is scarcely worth the name. Second, love +of woman. I need not tell you that my life fulfils that condition." (As +he spoke, his eyes, with an expression of ineffable tenderness, wandered +for a moment--and it seemed involuntarily--in the direction of his +wife). "The third condition is contempt for ambition. Would that I could +tell you that I have attained to that! When I do, there will be little +in this world to be desired by me. The fourth and last is an object of +unceasing pursuit. This is the most important of all, for I believe that +the extent of one's happiness is in proportion to the spirituality of +this object. In this I am especially fortunate, for no more elevating +pursuit exists, I think, than that of systematically endeavoring to +bring to its highest perfection the art of literature." + +"I notice you do not mention money in your creed," remarked his guest. + +"No, neither do I mention air. Both the one and the other are essential +to life, and to the keeping together of body and soul. It goes without +saying that the necessities of life are necessary to happiness. But +money--meaning wealth--while it makes indulgence in pleasures possible, +has nothing to do with happiness. Indeed the very pleasure it ensures +often obscure highest happiness--the happiness of exaltation of the +soul, of exercise of the intellect. What has money to do with happiness? +It is a happiness to wonder--it is a happiness to dream. Your over-fed, +jewel-decked, pleasure-drunk rich man or woman is too deeply embedded in +flesh and sense to do either. No"--he mused, his eyes on the glowing +coals in the grate, "No--I have no desire for wealth--for more than +enough money to keep my wife and mother comfortable. They, like myself, +have learned the lesson of being poor and happy. But I _must_ keep them +above want--I _will_ keep them above want!" As he repeated the words the +meditative mood dropped from him. He straightened himself in his chair +with sudden energy, his voice trembled and sunk almost to a whisper, in +place of the dreamy look his eyes flamed with passion. + +"Mr. Graham," he exclaimed, "to see those you love better than your own +soul in want, and, in spite of working like mad, to be powerless to +raise them out of it, is hell!" + +A second time the exquisite child-wife slipped quickly, noiselessly, to +his side and with the same easy grace leaned over and touched his brow +with her lips, but this time instead of moving away, remained hanging +over the back of his chair, her fair hand gently toying with the +ringlets on his brow. He was calm in an instant. + +"I mean, of course, such a condition would be intolerable provided it +should ever exist," he added. + + * * * * * + +As the visitor stepped from the cottage door into the chill of the +bright November night, and made his way down the little path of +flagstones--irregularly shaped and clumsily laid down, so that mossy +turf which was still green, appeared between them--he felt that he was +stepping back into a flat, stale and unprofitable world from one of the +enchanted regions, "out of space, out of time," of Poe's own creation. + +He had indeed, had a revelation of harmonious home-life such as he had +not guessed existed in a work-a-day world--of the music, the poetry of +living. He had had a glimpse into the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +The next morning found Mr. Graham still under the spell of the evening +with the Poes. He caught himself impatiently watching the clock, for the +man under whose charm he had come was to call at a certain hour, to +confer with him in regard to the magazine. He could hear him coming +(stepping briskly and whistling a "Moore's Melody") before the rap upon +the door announced him. He came in with the bright, alert air of a man +ready for action for which he has appetite. His rarely heard laugh rang +out, fresh and spontaneous, several times during the interview. His +manners were at all times those of a prince, but Mr. Graham had never +seen him so genial, so gay. The mantle of dreamer and poet had suddenly +dropped from him, but the new mood had a charm all its own. + +When business had been dispatched and they sat on to finish their +cigars, Mr. Graham reiterated his expressions of pleasure in his visit +of the evening before. + +"You gave me food for thought, Mr. Poe," said he. "I've been pondering +on that creed of yours for finding and keeping the secret of true +happiness. It is about the most wholesome and sane doctrine I've met +with for some time. I've determined to adopt it, and to, at least +endeavor, to practice it." + +His companion smiled. + +"Good!" said he. "I only hope you'll have better success in living up to +it than I have." + +Mr. Graham's eyebrows went up. "I thought that was just what you did," +was his answer. + +"So it is, at times; but when the blues or the imp of the perverse get +hold of me all my philosophy goes to the devil, and I realize what an +arch humbug I am." + +"The imp of the perverse?" questioned Mr. Graham. + +"That is my name for the principle that lies hidden in weak human +nature--the principle of antagonism to happiness, which, with unholy +impishness, tempts man to his own destruction. Don't you think it an apt +name?" + +"I don't believe I follow you." + +"Then let me explain. Did you never, when standing upon some high point, +become conscious of an influence irresistibly urging you to cast +yourself down? As you listened--fascinated and horrified--to the voice, +did you not feel an almost overwhelming curiosity to see what the +sensations accompanying such a fall would be--to know the extremest +terror of it? Your tempter was the _Imp of the Perverse_. + +"Did you never feel a sense of glee to find that something you had said +or done had shocked someone whose good opinion you should have desired? +Did you never feel a desire to depart from a course you knew to be to +your interest and follow one that would bring certain harm--possible +disaster--upon you? Did you never feel like breaking loose from all the +restraints which you knew to be for your good--throwing off every +shackle of propriety, and right, and decency?--Mr. Graham, did you never +feel like throwing yourself to the devil for no reason at all other than +the desire to be perverse? Could any desire be more impish?--I will +illustrate by my own case, I am in one respect not like other men. An +exceptionally high-strung nervous temperament makes alcoholic +stimulants poison to me. It works like madness in my brain and in my +blood. The glass of wine that you can take with pleasure and perhaps +with benefit drives me wild--makes me commit all manner of reckless +deeds that in my sane moments fill me with sorrow!--and sometimes +produces physical illness followed by depression of spirits, horrible in +the extreme. More--an inherited desire for stimulation and the +exhilaration produced by wine, makes it well nigh impossible for me, +once I have yielded my will so far as to take the single glass, to +resist the second, which is more than apt to be followed by a third, and +so on. I am fully aware therefore, of the danger that lies for me in a +thing harmless to many men, and that my only safety and happiness and +the happiness of those far dearer to me than myself, lies in the +strictest, most rigid abstinence. Knowing all this, one would suppose +that I would fly from this temptation as it were the plague. I do +generally. At present, several years have passed since I yielded an +inch. But there have been times--and there may be times again--when the +Imp of the Perverse will command me to drink and, fully aware of the +risk, I _will_ drink, and will go down into hell for a longer or shorter +period afterward." + +During this lecture upon one of his favorite hobbies, the low voice of +The Dreamer was vibrant with earnestness. He spoke out of bitter +experience and as he who bore the reputation of a reserved man, laid his +soul bare, his vivid eyes held the eyes of his companion by the very +intensity--the deep sincerity of their gaze. + +Mr. Graham's last conversation with his new editor had dazed him; this +one dazed him still more. What manner of man was this? (he asked +himself) with whom he had formed a league? He could not say--beyond the +fact that he was undoubtedly original--and interesting. Admirable +qualities for an editor--both! + +The readers of the new monthly thoroughly agreed with him. The history +of Edgar Poe's career as editor of _The Southern Literary Messenger_ +promptly began to repeat itself with _Graham's Magazine_. The +announcement that he had been engaged as editor immediately drew the +attention of the reading world toward _Graham's_, and it soon became +apparent that in the new position he was going to out-do himself. The +rapidity with which his brilliant and caustic critiques and essays, and +weird stories, followed upon the heels of one another was enough to take +one's breath away. He alternately raised the hair of his readers with +master-pieces of unearthly imaginings and diverted them with playful +studies in autography and exhibitions of skill in reading secret +writing. + +About the time of his beginning his duties at _Graham's_ he must needs +have had a visit from some fairy godmother, the touch of whose enchanted +wand left him with a new gift. This was a wonderfully developed power of +analysis which he found pleasure in exercising in every possible way. To +quote his own words, "As the strong man exults in his physical ability, +delighting in such exercises as bring his muscles into action, so +glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He +derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his +talent into play." + +He tried the newly discovered talent upon everything. In his papers on +"Autography" he practised it in the reading of character from +hand-writing, and in his deciphering of secret writing he carried it so +far and awakened the interest and curiosity of the public to such extent +that it bade fair to be the ruin of him; for it seemed his +correspondents would have him drop literature and devote himself and the +columns of _Graham's Magazine_ for the rest of his life, to the solving +of these puzzles. Finally, having proved that it was impossible for any +of them to compose a cypher he could not read in less time than its +author had spent in inventing it, he took advantage of his only +safeguard, and positively declined to have anything more to do with +them. + +But he found a much more interesting way of exercising his power of +analysis. In the April number of _Graham's_ he tried it upon a +story--"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"--which set all the world buzzing, +and drew the interested attention of France upon him. In the next +number, while the "Murders" were still the talk of the hour, he made an +excursion into the world of _pseudo_-science the result of which was his +thrilling "Descent into the Maelstrom;" but later in the same month he +returned to his experiments in analysis--publishing in _The Saturday +Evening Post_ an _advance_ review of Charles Dickens' story "Barnaby +Rudge," which was just beginning to come out in serial form. In the +review he predicted, correctly, the whole development and conclusion of +the story. It brought him a letter from Dickens, expressing +astonishment, owning that the plot was correct, and enquiring if Edgar +Poe had "dealings with the devil." + +Soon followed the "Colloquy of Monos and Una," in which in the exquisite +prose poetry of which The Dreamer was a consummate master, his +imagination sought to pierce the veil between this world and the +next--to lay bare the secrets of the soul's passage into the "Valley of +the Shadow." + +Whatever else Edgar Poe wrote, he continued to pour out through the +editorial columns of _Graham's Magazine_ a steady stream of criticism of +current books. While entertaining or amusing the public as far as power +to do so in him lay, he did not for a moment permit anything to come +between him and the duties of his post as Defender of Purity of Style in +American Letters. He was unsparing in the use of his pruning hook upon +the work of his contemporaries and the height of art to which by his +fearless, candid and, at times, cruel criticism, he sought to bring +others, he exacted of himself. In spite of the amount of work he +produced, each sentence that dropped from his pen in this time of his +maturity--his ripeness--was the perfection of clear and polished +English. + +But the evidences of this conscientiousness in his own work did not make +the little authors one whit less sore under his lash. Privately they +writhed and they squirmed--publicly they denounced. All save one--an +ex-preacher, Dr. Rufus Griswold--himself a critic of ability, who would +like to have been, like The Dreamer, a poet as well as a critic. + +When Edgar Poe praised the prose writings of Dr. Griswold, but said he +was "no poet," Dr. Griswold like the other little authors writhed and +squirmed secretly--very secretly--but openly he smiled and in smooth, +easy words professed friendship for Mr. Poe--and bided his time. + +As for Poe himself, he had by close and devoted study of the rules which +govern poetic and prose composition--rules which he evolved for himself +by analysis of the work of the masters--so added to his own natural +gifts of imagination and power of expression, so perfected his taste, +that crude writing was disgusting to his literary palate. He had made +Literature his intellectual mistress, and from the day he had declared +his allegiance to her he had served her faithfully--passionately--and he +could brook no flagging service in others. + +Both his growing power of analysis and his highly developed artistic +feeling were brought into full play in this review work. Under his +guidance the writings of his contemporaries, whether they were the +little authors or the giants such as, in England, Tennyson (who was a +prime favorite with him), Macauley, Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett, or in +America, Longfellow, Lowell, Hawthorne, Irving, Emerson, stood forth +illumined--the weak spots laid bare, the strong points gleaming bright. + +He unfalteringly declared his admiration of Hawthorne (then almost +unknown) in which the future so fully justified him. The tales of +Hawthorne, he declared, belonged to "the highest region of Art--an Art +subservient to genius of a very lofty order." + +Even the work of the little authors was indebted to him for many a good +word, but the little authors hated him and returned the brilliant +sallies his pungent pen directed toward their writings with vollies of +mud aimed at his private character. + +No matter what his subject, however, Edgar Poe always wrote with +power--with intensity. He seemed by turns to dip his pen into fire, into +gall, into vitriol--at times into his own heart's blood. + +Of the last named type was the story "Eleonora," which appeared, not in +_Graham's_, but in _The Gift_ for the new year, and wherein was set +forth in phrases like strung jewels the story of the "Valley of the +Many-Colored Grass." The whole fabric of this loveliest of his +conceptions is like a web wrought in some fairy loom of bright strands +of silk of every hue, and studded with fairest gems. In it is no hint of +the gruesome, or the sombre--even though the Angel of Death is there. It +is all pure beauty--a perfect flower from the fruitful tree of his +genius at the height of its power. + +All of Edgar Poe's work gains much by being read aloud, for the eye +alone cannot fully grasp the music that is in his prose as well as his +verse. "Eleonora" was read aloud in every city and hamlet of the United +States, and at firesides far from the beaten paths--the traveled +roads--that led to the cities; for it was written when every word from +the pen of Edgar Poe was looked for, waited for, with eager impatience, +and when _Graham's Magazine_ had been made in one little year, by his +writing, and the writing of others whom he had induced to contribute to +its pages, to lead the thought of the day in America. + +And the success of The Dreamer made him a lion in the "City of Brotherly +Love" as it had made him a lion in Richmond. The doors of the most +exclusive--the most cultivated--homes of that fastidious city stood open +to welcome him. The loveliest women, whether the grey ladies of the +"Society of Friends" or the brightly plumaged birds of the gayer world, +smiled their sweetest upon him. As he walked along the streets +passers-by would whisper to one another, + +"There goes Mr. Poe. Did you notice his eyes? They say he has the most +expressive eyes in Philadelphia." + + * * * * * + +Throughout this year of almost dazzling triumph the little cottage with +its rose-hooded porch, in Spring Garden, had been a veritable snug +harbor to The Dreamer. In winter when the deep, spotless snow lay round +about it, in spring when the violets and hyacinths came back to the +garden-spot and the singing birds to the trees that overhung it, in +summer when the climbing green rose was heavy with bloom and in autumn +when the wind whistled around it, but there was a bright blaze upon the +hearth inside, his heart turned joyously many times a day, and his feet +at eventide, when his work at the office in the city was over, toward +this sacred haven. + +And Edgar the Dreamer was happy. He should have been rich and would have +been but for the meagre returns from literary work in his time. Men were +then supposed to write for fame, and very little money was deemed +sufficient reward for the best work. The poverty of authors was +proverbial and to starve cheerfully was supposed to be part of being +one. + +Still, with his post as editor of _Graham's_ and the frequency with +which his signature was seen in other magazines, he was making a living. +The howl of the wolf or his sickening scratching at the door were no +more heard, and in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass the three +dreamers laughed together, and in the streets of the "City of Brotherly +Love" Edgar Goodfellow whistled a gay air, or arm in arm with some boon +companion of the "Press gang" threaded his way in and out among of the +human stream, with a smile on his lips and the light of gladness in +living in his eyes. + +And why should he not be happy? he asked himself. He had the snuggest +little home in the world and, in it, the loveliest little wife in the +world and the dearest mother in the world. He was upon the top of the +wave of prosperity. His fame was growing--had already reached France, +where "The Murders" were still being talked about. Why should he not be +happy? His devils had ceased to plague him this long while. The +blues--he was becoming a stranger to them. The Imp--he had not had a +single glimpse of him during the year. He was temperate--ah, therein lay +man's safety and happiness! By strict abstinence his capacity for +enjoyment was exalted--purified. He would let the cup forever +alone--upon that he was resolved! + +This was not always easy. Sometimes it had been exceedingly hard and +there had been a fierce battle between himself and the call that was in +his blood--the thirst, not for the stuff itself, but for its effects, +for the excitement, the exhilaration; but he had won every time and he +felt stronger for the battle and for the victory--the victory of will. +"Man doth not yield himself to the angels or to death utterly" (he +quoted) "save only through the weakness of his feeble will." Upon +continued resistence--continued victory--he was resolved, and in the +resolution he was happy. + +Best of all, Virginia was happy, and "Muddie"--dear, patient "Muddie!" +The two women chatted like magpies over their sewing or house-work, or +as they watered the flowers. They, like himself, had made friends. +Neighbors dropped in to chat with them or to borrow a pattern, or to +hear Virginia sing. And they had had a long visit from the violet-eyed +Eliza White. What a pleasure it had been to have the sweet, fair +creature with them! (He little guessed how tremulously happy the little +Eliza had been to bask for a time in his presence--just to be near the +great man--and meanwhile guard all the more diligently the secret that +filled her white soul and kept her, for all her beauty and charm, and +her many suitors, a spinster). + +Eliza had brought them a great budget of Richmond news. It had been like +a breath of spring to hear it. She talked and they listened and they all +laughed together from pure joy. How Virginia's laugh had rippled out +upon the air--it filled all the cottage with music! + +It was mid-January, and he sat gazing into the rose-colored heart of the +open coal fire going over it all--the whole brilliant, full year. + +"Sissy," he said suddenly, "Do you remember the birthday parties I used +to tell you about--that I had given me when I was a boy living with the +Allans?" + +"Yes, indeed! and the cake with candles on it and all your best friends +to wish you many happy returns." + +"Well, you know the nineteenth will be my birthday, and I want to have a +party and a cake with candles and all our best friends here to wish you +and me many happy returns of the happiest birthday we have spent +together. I only wish old Cy were here to play for us to dance! I'd give +something pretty to have him and his fiddle here, just to see what these +sober-sided Penn folk would think of them. My, wouldn't they make a +sensation in the 'City of Brotherly Love!'" He began whistling as +clearly and correctly as a piccolo the air of a recently published +waltz. After a few bars he sprang to his feet and--still +whistling--quickly shoved the table and chairs to the wall, clearing the +middle of the floor. The tune stopped long enough for him to say, + +"Come, Sweetheart, you must dance this with me. My feet refuse to be +still tonight!"--then was taken up again. + +The beautiful girl was in his arms in an instant and while "Muddie," in +her seat by the window, lifted her deep eyes from the work in her +ever-busy hands and let them rest with a smile of indulgent bliss upon +her "children," they glided round and round the room to the time of the +fascinating new dance. + +At length they stopped, breathless and rosy, and the poet, with +elaborate ceremony, handed his fair partner to a chair and began fanning +her with "Muddie's" turkey-tail fan. He was in a glow of warmth and +pleasure. His wonderful eyes shone like lamps. His pale cheeks were +tinged with faint pink. While fanning Virginia with one hand he gently +mopped the pleasant moisture from his brow with the other. Virginia's +eyes shot sunshine. Her laughter bubbled up like a well-spring of pure +joy. + +"What would people say if they could see the great Mr. Poe--the grand, +gloomy and peculiar Mr. Poe--the author of 'Tales of the Grotesque and +Arabesque,' who's supposed to be continually 'dropping from his Condor +wings invisible woe?'" said she, as soon as she could speak. The idea +was so vastly amusing to her that she laughed until the shining eyes +were filled with dew. + +"If they could know half the pleasure I got out of that they wouldn't +say anything," he replied. "They would be dumb with envy. I suppose it's +my mother in me, but I just _must_ dance sometimes. And this waltz! In +spite of all the prudes say against it, it is the divinest thing in the +way of motion that ever was invented. It's exercise fit for the gods!" + +He drew her to him and kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her lips. + +"It was heavenly--heavenly, Sis," said he, "And I don't suppose even the +prudes could object to a man's waltzing with his own wife. I wonder will +we ever dance to old Cy's fiddle again?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +It was a very modest party, but a merry one. The ground was covered with +the unsullied whiteness of new-fallen snow and the coming of most of the +guests was heralded by the tintinnabulation of the little silver bells +so charming to the ear of the host. + +The Grahams were among the first to be welcomed out of the frosty night +into the glow of lamp and candle and firelight, by the cordial hand and +voice of Edgar Goodfellow. Mr. Graham was in tune to most heartily take +part in the commemoration of the birthday of the man who was making +_Graham's Magazine_ the success of the publishing world in America. His +kindling blue eyes had never been kinder, his smile never more bland. +Mr. Alexander, founder of _The Saturday Evening Post_ which so gladly +published and paid for everything that Edgar Poe would spare it from +_Graham's_ was the next, and close following him, Mr. Cottrell Clarke, +first editor of the _Post_, and his charming wife. Captain and Mrs. +Mayne Reid, who were among the most admiring and affectionate friends of +the Poe trio were also there, and other congenial spirits. + +They came in twos and threes, their laughter as light and clear as the +tinkle of their sleigh-bells. + +And Rufus Griswold was there. The Dreamer with his deep reverence for +intellectual ability had a sincere admiration for Dr. Griswold--though +he did say he was "no poet." He desired the approval--the friendship--of +this brainy man and was proud and happy to have him of his party. + +Coming in after the rest of the company had assembled, the brainy man's +big frame, topped by his big head, with his prominent brow and piercing +eyes, his straight, thick nose, his large full-lipped close-set mouth, +his square jaw with the fringe of beard sharply outlining it, produced a +decided effect. He seemed to fill up a surprisingly large portion of the +room. Instinctively, the gentleman who had occupied the largest and +heaviest chair vacated it and invited him to be seated in it--which he +did, instinctively. He was a young man--under thirty--but looked much +older. His face was a strange one. It could not have been called ugly. +By some, indeed, it was considered handsome. It was strong, but it was +strange. There was an indefinable something unpleasant, something to +awaken distrust--fear--about it. Across the dome of the brow ran, +horizontally, a series of wavy furrows that produced, in place of the +benevolent air the lofty brow might have given, a sinister expression. +The eyes beneath the wrinkled brow were piercing and spoke of the fire +of active mentality, but they were always downcast and turned slightly +askance, so that few people caught the full force of their gleam, and +there was sternness and coldness, as well as will, in the prominent chin +and jaw. + +He came late, but he was a little more cordial in his expressions of +pleasure in coming than any of those before him. His bows to Virginia +and Mrs. Clemm were more profound--his estimation of Virginia's beauty +he made at once apparent in the intense, admiring gaze he bestowed upon +her. His words of congratulation and good will for his host were more +extravagant than those of any of the others and were uttered in a voice +as smooth--as fluent--as oil; while he rubbed his large, fleshy hands +together in a manner betokening cordiality. When his host spoke, he +turned his ear toward him (though his eyes glanced aside and downward) +with an air of marked attention, and agreed emphatically with his views +or laughed uproariously at his pleasantries. + +Yet at Rufus Griswold's heart jealousy was gnawing. Heaven had endowed +him with mind to recognize genius, yet had denied him its possession. He +that would have worn the laurel himself, was born to be but the +trumpeter of others' victories. He, like Edgar Poe, had an open eye and +ear for beauty--for harmony. He could feel the divine fire of +inspiration in the creations of master minds--yet he could not himself +create. He was a brilliant critic, but (as has been said) his ambition +was to be, like Poe, also a poet. His quick intuition had divined the +genius of Poe at their first meeting. He knew in a flash, that the neat, +slender, polished gentleman, with the cameo face, the large brow and the +luminous eyes, and with the deep-toned, vibrant voice, was one of the +few he had ever met of whom he could say with assurance, "There goes a +genius--" and of those few the topmost. Poe's writing, especially his +poetry, enthralled him. To have been able to come before the world as +the author of such work he would have sold his soul. + +And this man who had caught him in a net woven of mingled fascination, +and envy, and hate, had, oh, bitter!--while generously applauding him as +a critic and reviewer--as a compiler and preserver of other men's +work--had added, "But--but--he is no poet." + +He had received the stab without an apparent flinch. He had even laughed +and declared that Mr. Poe was right. That he himself knew he was no +poet--he did not aspire to be a real one, but only dropped into verse +now and then by way of pastime. The lie had slipped easily from his +tongue, but his eyes drooped ever so little more than usual as it did +so, their shifty gleam glanced ever so little more sidewise. + +And though he came late to the birthday feast, his words of friendship +were emphatic and the laugh that told of his pleasure in being there was +loud and frequent. And he smiled and rubbed his hands together--and +bided his time. + +And Edgar Poe was pleased--immensely pleased--on his gala night, with +the complimentary manner and the complimentary words of this welcome +guest--of this big, brainy man whose good opinion he so much desired. + +Alas, hapless Dreamer! Did the gleam of those eyes cast alway slightly +downward, slightly askance--give you no discomfort? Did the fang-like +teeth when the thick lips opened to pour forth birthday wishes or +streams of uproarious laughter, and the square lines of the jaw, suggest +to your ready imagination no hint of cruelty? If you could but have +known that what time he laughed and talked with your guests and feasted +at your board, with its tasty viands and its cake with lighted candles, +and bent his furtive glance upon the beauty of your guileless +Virginia--if you could but have known that in his black heart the canker +jealousy was gnawing and that, behind the smile he wore as a mask, the +brainy man was biding his time! + +It was a goodly little company--a coming together of bright wits and +(for the most part) of kind hearts, and the talk was crisp, and fresh, +and charming. + +Supper was served early. + +"My wife and her mother have thought that you Penn folk might like to +sit down to a Virginia supper," said the host, as he led Mrs. Graham to +the table, and stood for a moment while Virginia designated the seats to +be taken. Then still standing, said, + +"Every man a priest to his own household, is our Virginia rule, but as +we have with us tonight one who before he took up Letters wore the +cloth, I'm going to abdicate in his favor. Dr. Griswold will you ask a +blessing?" + +All heads were bowed while the time-honored little ceremonial was +performed, then seats were taken and the repast begun. + +Virginia presided over the "tea-things," while Mrs. Clemm occupied the +seat nearest the door opening on the kitchen, that she might slip as +unobtrusively as possible out and back again when necessary; but most of +the serving was done by the guests themselves, each of whom helped the +dish nearest his or her plate, and passed the plates from hand to hand. +All of the supper, save the dessert and fresh supplies of hot waffles +was on the table. There were oysters and turkey salad and Virginia ham. +And there were hot rolls and "batter-bread" (made of Virginia meal with +plenty of butter, eggs and milk, and a spoonful of boiled rice stirred +in) and there was a "Sally Lunn"--light, brown, and also hot, and plenty +of waffles. In the little spaces between the more important dishes there +were pickles and preserves--stuffed mangoes and preserved quinces and +currant jelly. And in the centre of the table was the beautiful birthday +cake frosted by Virginia's dainty fingers and brilliant with its +thirty-three lighted candles. + +There was just enough room left for the three slender cut-glass +decanters that were relics of Mother Clemm's better days. + +"The decanter before you, Mr. Graham, contains the Madeira; the Canary +is before you, Captain Reid, and I have here a beverage with which I am +very much in love at present--_apple wine_--" Edgar Poe said, tapping +the stopper of a decanter of cider near his plate. + +All understood. He had served the cider that he might join with them in +their pledges of friendship and good will without breaking through the +rule of abstemiousness in which he was finding so much benefit. + +The toasts were clever as well as complimentary, and the table-talk +light and sparkling. Finally both Mrs. Clemm and Virginia arose to clear +the table for the dessert. + +"You see, my friends, we keep no maid or butler," said the host, "but +I'm sure you will all agree with me in feeling that we would not +exchange our two Hebes for any, and they take serving you as a +privilege." + +The cake was cut and served with calves-foot jelly--quivering and ruby +red--and velvety _blanc mange_. + +After supper Virginia's harp was brought out of its corner and she sang +to them. With adorable sweetness and simplicity she gave each one's +favorite song as it was asked for--filling all the cottage with her pure +sweet tones accompanied by the bell-like, rippling notes of the harp. +The company sat entranced--all eyes upon the lovely girl from whose +throat poured the streams of melody. + +She seemed but a child; for all she had been married six years she had +but just passed out of her "teens" and might easily have been taken for +a girl of fifteen. Her hair, it is true, was "tucked up," but the +innocence in the upturned, velvet eyes, the soft, childish outlines of +the face, the dimpled hands and arms against the harp's glided strings, +the simple little frock of white dimity, all combined to give her a +"babyfied" look which was most appealing, and which her title of "Mrs. +Poe" seemed rather to accentuate than otherwise. + +Rufus Griswold's furtive eye rested balefully upon her. And this +exquisite being too, belonged to that man--as if the gods had not +already given him enough! + +From a far corner of the room her husband gazed upon her, and bathed his +senses in contemplation of her beauty while his soul soared with her +song. Mother Clemm noiselessly passing near him to snuff a candle on the +table upon which his elbow, propping his head, rested, paused for a +moment and laid a caressing hand upon his hair. He impulsively drew her +down to a seat beside him. + +"Oh, Muddie, Muddie, look at her--look at her!" he whispered. "There is +no one anywhere so beautiful as my little wife! And no voice like hers +outside of Heaven!... Ah--" + +What was the matter? Was his Virginia ill? Even as he spoke her voice +broke upon the middle of a note--then stopped. One hand clutched the +harp, the other flew to her throat from which came only an inarticulate +sound like a struggle for utterance. Terror was in the innocent eyes +and the deathly white, baby face. + +For a tense moment the little company of birthday guests sat rooted to +their places with horror, then rushed in a mass toward the singer, but +her husband was there first--his face like marble. His arms were around +her but with a repetition of that inarticulate, gurgling sound she fell +limp against his breast in a swoon. From the sweet lips where so lately +only melody had been a tiny stream of blood oozed and trickled down and +stained her pretty white dress. + +"Back!--All of you!" commanded the low, clear voice of Edgar Poe, as +with the dear burden still in his arms he sank gently to the floor and +propping her head in his lap, disposed her limbs in comfortable, and her +dress in orderly manner. "Back--don't crowd! A doctor!" + +One of the guests from nearby, who knew the neighborhood, had already +slipped from the door and gone to fetch the nearest doctor. The others +sat and listened for his step in breathless stillness. + +Edgar Poe bent his marble face above the prostrate form of his wife, +calling to her in endearing whispers while, with his handkerchief he +wiped from her lips the oozing, crimson stream. His teeth chattered. +Once before he had seen such a stream. It was long ago--long ago, but he +remembered it well. He was back--a little boy, a mere baby--in the +small, dark room behind Mrs. Fipps' millinery shop, in Richmond, and a +stream like this came from the lips of his mother who lay so still, so +white, upon the bed. And his mother had been dying. He had seen her +thus--he would see her nevermore!... Would the doctor never come?-- + + * * * * * + +Many days the Angel of Death spread his wings over the cottage in the +Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. Their shadow cast a great stillness +upon the cottage. Outside was a white, silent world. Snow had +fallen--snow on snow--until it lay deep, deep upon the garden-spot and +deep in the streets outside. There was no wind and the ice-sheathed +trees that were as sentinels round about the cottage stood still. They +seemed to listen and to wait. + +Inside, in the bed-chamber upstairs, under the shelving walls of the low +Dutch roof, The Dreamer's heartsease blossom lay broken and wan upon the +white bed. It was a very white little blossom and the dark eyes seemed +darker, larger than ever before as they looked out from the pale face. +But they had never seemed so soft and a smile like an angel's played now +and again about her lips. + +Beside her, with his lips pressed upon the tiny white hand which he held +in both his own was the bowed figure of a man--of a poet and a lover who +like the ice-sheathed trees seemed to listen and to wait--of a man whose +countenance from being pale was become ghastly, whose eyes from being +luminous were wild with a "divine despair." + +At the foot of the bed sat a silver-haired woman with saintlike face +uplifted in resignation and aspiration. For once the busy hands were +idle and were clasped in her lap. She too, listened and waited, as she +had listened and waited for days. Oh Love! Oh Life! Are these the happy +trio who lived for each other only in the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass? + +The silence was only broken when the lips of the invalid moved to murmur +some loving words or to babble of the flowers in the Valley. She was in +no pain but she was very tired. She was not unhappy, for the two whom +she loved and who loved her were with her and though she was tired she +soon would rest--in Heaven. When she spoke of going the man's heart +stood still with terror. He held the hand closer and pressed his lips +more fiercely upon it. + +He would not let her go, he vowed. There was no power in Heaven or hell +to whom he would yield her. + +But she sweetly plead that he would not try to detain her--that he would +learn to bear the idea of her leaving him which now gave her no +unhappiness but for one thought--the thought that after a season he +might, in the love of some other maiden, forget the sweet life he had +lived with her in the Valley, and that because of his forgetting, it +would not be given to him to join her at last, in the land where she +would be waiting for him--the land of Rest. + +At her words, he flung himself upon his knees beside her bed and offered +up a vow to herself and to Heaven that he would never bind himself in +marriage to any other daughter of earth, or in any way prove himself +forgetful of her memory and her love, and to make the vow the stronger, +he invoked a curse upon his head if he should ever prove false to his +promise. + +And as she listened her soft eyes grew brighter and she, in turn, made a +vow to him that even after her departure she would watch over him in +spirit and if it were permitted her, would return to him visibly in the +watches of the night, but if that were beyond her power, would at least +give him frequent indications of her presence--sighing upon him in the +evening winds or filling the air which he breathed with perfume from the +censers of the angels. + +And she sighed as if a deadly burden had been lifted from her breast, +and trembled and wept and vowed that her bed of death had been made easy +by his vow. + + * * * * * + +But it was not to be the bed of death. Little by little the shadow +lifted from over the cottage--the shadow of the wings of the Angel of +Death--and sunshine fell where the shadow had been, and a soft zephyr +made music, that was like the music of the voice of "Ligeia," in the +trees which dropped their sheath of ice. And the snow disappeared from +the streets and from the garden-spot which was all green underneath, and +by the time the crocuses were up health and happiness reigned once more +in the cottage. + +But it was a happiness with a difference. A happiness which for all it +was so sweet, was tinctured with the bitter of remorse. + +During the illness of his beloved wife, Edgar Poe had lived over and +over again through the horror of her death and burial with all of the +details with which the circumstances of his life had so early made him +familiar--and had tasted the desolation for him which must follow. While +his soul had been overwhelmed with this supreme sorrow his mind had been +unusually clear and alert. He had been alive to the slightest change in +her condition. Anticipating her every whim, he had nursed her with the +tenderness the untiring devotion, of a mother with her babe. Through +all his grief he was quiet, self-possessed, efficient. + +But with the first glimmer of hope, his head reeled. His reason which +had stood the shock of despair, or seemed to stand it, gave way before +the return of happiness. A wild delirium possessed him. Joy drove him +mad, and already drunk with joy--mad with it--he flung prudence, +philosophy, resolutions to the wind and drank wine--and drank--and +drank. When--where--how much--he did not know; but at last merciful +illness overtook him and stopped him in his wild career. + +With his convalescence his right mind returned to him; but he felt as he +did when he awoke to consciousness in Mother Clemm's bed-chamber in +Baltimore--that he had been down into the grave and back again. +Only--then there was no remorse--no fiercely accusing conscience to make +him wish from his soul that he might have remained in the abyss. + + * * * * * + +In dressing-gown and slippers he sat--weak and tremulous--in an +arm-chair drawn close to the open fire in the cottage sitting-room. +About him hovered his two angels, anticipating his every need, pausing +at his side now and again to bestow a delicate caress. Virginia was more +beautiful since her illness. Her face and figure had lost their +plumpness and with it their childish curves--but a something exalted and +ethereal had taken their place. Her eyes were softer, more wistful than +ever. Through her fair, transparent skin glowed the faintest, most +exquisite bloom. Her harp was mute. Her singing voice was gone. But the +deep, low tones of her speaking voice, full of restrained feeling, could +only be compared by her husband to the melodious voice of the +dream-woman, "Ligeia." They recalled to him the impression that the +voice of the priest as he read the funeral rite over his dead mother had +made upon his infant mind--the impression of _spoken_ music. His +Virginia could no longer sing, but every word that fell from her lips +was music. + +As she and her tall, nun-like mother quietly stepped about the rooms +ministering to his comfort, lifting the work of preparing the simple +meals, mending the fire, and keeping the rooms bright into a sacred rite +by the grace, the care, the dignity with which it was performed, no +word, no look escaped either save of tenderness, patience, and boundless +love. All the reproaches came from within his own breast--from that +inner self that boldly tearing the veil from his deeds filled him with +loathing of himself. + +The years, his troubles, and his illness, had wrought a great change in +him--outwardly. The dark ringlets that framed his face were still +untouched with rime, and the dark grey eyes were as vivid, as +ever-varying in expression as before, but the large brow wore a furrow +and over it and the clear-cut features and the emaciated cheeks was a +settled pallor. The face was still very beautiful, but in repose it was +melancholy and about the mouth there was a touch of bitterness. The +illumining smile still flashed out at times, and filled all his +countenance with sweetness and light--but it was rarer than formerly. + +He had many reasons for being happy--for being thankful. The genius with +which he was conscious he was endowed in larger measure than others of +his generation was being recognized. He had fame--growing fame--and +money enough for his needs. He had what was as necessary to his soul as +meat was to his body--the love of a woman who understood him in all his +moods and who was beautiful enough in mind and in body and pure enough +in spirit for him to worship as well as to love--to satisfy his soul as +well as his senses. And this woman, at the very moment when he thought +himself about to lose her forever, had been given back to him--given +back clothed upon with a finer a more exquisite beauty than she had +possessed before. + +He had indeed found the end of the rainbow, but what did it amount to? +He was dissatisfied--not with what life was giving him, but with what he +was doing with his life. At the moment when his cup was fairly +overflowing with happiness and he should have been strongest, he had +suffered himself to be led away by the Imp of the Perverse, and had +spoiled all. Nothing he had ever been made to taste he told himself, was +so unbearably bitter as this dissatisfaction--this disgust with self. + + * * * * * + +Yet when again the tiny crimson stream stained the sweet lips of his +Virginia, and again the Angel of Death spread a dread wing for a season +over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, all his knowledge of the +bitterness--the loathing--of remorse was not sufficient to make him +strong for the struggle with grief and despair. + +Again the reason of Edgar Poe gave way before the strain, and again he +fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +A day when the porch was rose-embowered once more and the garden-spot a +riot of color and the birds singing in the trees round about, found Mr. +Graham seated at Edgar Poe's desk in the office of _Graham's Magazine_. +The door behind him opened, and he raised his head from his writing and +quickly glanced over his shoulder. The look of inquiry in his blue eyes +instantly kindled into one of welcome. + +"Come in! Come in! Dr. Griswold," he exclaimed. "I am more than glad to +see you! We are overwhelmed with work just now and perhaps we'll induce +you to lend a hand." + +The visitor came forward with outstretched hand, stooping and bowing his +huge bulk as he came in a manner that to a less artless mind than Mr. +Graham's might have suggested a touch of the obsequious. His furtive but +watchful eye had already marked the fact that it was at Mr. Poe's +desk--not his own--that Mr. Graham sat--which was as he had anticipated. + +"Mr. Poe laid up again?" he queried. + +"Yes; he seems to be having quite an obstinate attack this time." + +The visitor sadly shook his head. "Ah?--poor fellow, poor fellow!" + +"Do you think his condition serious?" asked Mr. Graham, with anxiety. + +Dr. Griswold cast a glance of the furtive eye over his shoulder and +around the room; then stooped nearer Mr. Graham. + +"Didn't you know?" he questioned, in a lowered tone. + +"Only that the failure of his wife's health has been a sad blow to him +and that after each of her attacks he has had a break-down. Is there +anything more?" + +Dr. Griswold stooped nearer still and brought his voice to a yet lower +key. + +"Whiskey"--he whispered. + +Mr. Graham drew back and the candid brows went up. + +"Ah--ah" he exclaimed. Then fell silent and serious. + +"Did you never suspect it?" asked his companion. + +"Never. I used to hear rumors when he was with Billy Burton, but I never +saw any indications that they were true, and didn't believe them. How +could I? Think of the work the man turns out--its quantity, its quality! +He is at once the most brilliant and the most industrious man it has +been my good fortune to meet--and withal the most perfect +gentleman--exquisite in his manners and habits, and the soul of honor. +Did you ever know a man addicted to drink to be so immaculately neat as +he always is? Or so refined in manners and speech? Or so exact in his +dealings? There is no one to whom I would more readily advance money, or +with greater assurance that it will be faithfully repaid in his best, +most painstaking work--to the last penny!" + +Dr. Griswold's face took on a look of deep concern. + +"The more's the pity--the more's the pity!" said he. "A good man gone +wrong!" Then with a hesitating, somewhat diffident air. + +"You say that you need help which I might, perhaps, give?" + +Mr. Graham was the energetic business man once more. Dr. Griswold's +visit was most opportune, he said, for while he had on hand a good deal +of "copy" for the next number of the magazine--furnished by Mr. Poe +before his illness--there were one or two important reviews that must be +written and Dr. Griswold would be the very man to write them, if he +would. + +As Rufus Griswold seated himself at Edgar Poe's desk a look that was +almost diabolic came into his face. The temporary substitution was but a +step, he told himself, to permanent succession. As editor of the +magazine which under Poe's management had come to dominate thought in +America, he could speak to an audience such as he had not had before. +_He_ could make or mar literary reputations and he could bring the +public to recognize him as a poet! + +It so chanced that upon that very day the editor of _Graham's Magazine_ +found himself sufficiently recovered from his illness to go out for the +first time. As he fared forth, gaunt and tremulous, the midsummer beauty +of out-of-doors effected him curiously. It seemed strange to him that +the rose on the porch should be so gay, that the sunshine should lie so +golden upon the houses and in the streets of Spring Garden--that birds +should be singing and the whole world going happily on when his heart +held such black despair. As he went on, however, the fresh sweet air +gave him a sense of physical well-being that buoyed his spirits in spite +of the bitterness of his thoughts. + +He was going to work again, and he was glad of it--but he made no +resolutions for the future. In the past when he had fallen and had +braced himself up again, he had sworn to himself that he would be strong +thereafter--that he would never, never yield to the temptation to touch +wine again. But he had not been strong. And now he looked the deplorable +truth straight in the face. He hoped with all his soul that he would not +fall again. He would give everything he possessed to ensure himself from +yielding to the temptation to taste the wild exhilaration--the +freedom--the forgetfulness--to say to the cup "Nevermore"--to ensure +himself from having to pay the price of his yielding in the agony of +remorse that was a descent into hell. + +But he would deceive himself with no lying pledges. He hoped--he longed +to be strong; but he could not swear that he would be--he did not know +whether he would be or not. The temptation was not upon him now--he +loathed the very thought of it now; but the temptation would most +certainly return sooner or later. He hoped from the bottom of his soul +that he would resist it, but he feared--nay, in his secret heart he +believed--that he would yield. And because he believed it he loathed +himself. + +As he drew near the office he thought of Mr. Graham,--how kind he +was--how trustful. He wondered if Mr. Graham knew the cause of his +illnesses and if not how long it would before he would know it; and if +the attacks were repeated how long he would be able to hold the place +that had shown him the end of the rainbow? How bitter it would be to +some day find, added to all the other disastrous results of his weakness +of will--to find another in the editorial chair of _Graham's_. + +Just at this point in his soliliquy he reached his destination. He +mounted the steps leading to the office of _Graham's Magazine_ and +opened the door--quietly. + +For a moment the two men in the office--each deep in his own work--were +unaware of his presence, and he stood staring upon their backs as they +sat at their desks. Mr. Graham was in his accustomed seat and in +his--The Dreamer's--the giant frame of the man whose big brain he +admired--though he was "no poet,"--the frame of Rufus Griswold! + +Horror clutched his heart. Mr. Graham evidently knew, and knowing had +supplied his place without deeming him worth the trouble of notifying, +even. Had supplied it, moreover, with the one man who he himself +believed would fill it with credit. The readers would be satisfied. He +would not be missed. He turned and stumbled blindly down the stairs. Mr. +Graham heard him, and hurrying to the door, recognized and followed +him--trying to explain and to persuade him to return. But he was too +much excited to listen. His reason prompted him to listen, but the Imp +of the Perverse laughed reason to scorn. Seeing disaster ahead he rushed +headlong to embrace it. + +He understood--he understood, he reiterated. There was nothing to +explain. Mr. Graham had secured Dr. Griswold's services. Mr. Graham had +done well. No, not for any inducement would he consider returning. + +He was gone! He was in the street--a wanderer! A beggar, he told +himself! + + * * * * * + +He wandered aimlessly about for an hour, then foot-sore--exhausted in +mind and body--he turned his face wearily in the direction of Spring +Garden, with its rose-embowered cottage sheltering exquisite +beauty--unalterable love--unfailing forgiveness--_heartsease_. He must +go home and tell "Muddie" and "Sissy" that he was a ruined man! Oh, if +they would only give him his desert for once! If they would only punish +him as he felt he should be punished. But they would not! They could +not--for they were angels. They were more--they were loving women filled +with that to which his mind and his soul bowed down and worshipped as +reverently as they worshipped God in Heaven--woman's love, with its +tenderness, its purity, and its unwavering steadfastness. They would +suffer--that horrible fear, the fear of the Wolf at the door which they +had not known in their beloved Spring Garden and since he had been with +_Graham's_ would again rob them of peace. They would bear it with meek +endurance, but they would not be able to hide it from him. He would see +it in the wistful eyes of Virginia and in the patient eyes of "Muddie." +But they would utter no reproach. They would soothe him with winning +endearments and bid him be of good cheer and would make a gallant fight +to show him that they were perfectly happy. + + * * * * * + +During the year and a half of Edgar Poe's connection with _Graham's +Magazine_ he had raised the number of subscribers from five thousand to +thirty-seven thousand. His salary, like that he had received from _The +Messenger_, had been a mere pittance for such service as he gave, but +also, like what he received from _The Messenger_ it had been a regular +income--a dependence. With the addition of the little checks paid him +for brilliant work in other periodicals, it had amply served, as has +been said, to keep the Wolf from the door. In order to make as much +without a regular salary it would be necessary for him to sell a great +many articles and that they should be promptly paid for. And so he +wrote, and wrote, and wrote, while "Muddie" took the little rolls of +manuscript around and around seeking a market for them. Her stately +figure and saintlike face became familiar at the doors of all the +editors and publishers in Philadelphia. + +It was a weary business but her strength and courage seemed never to +flag. Sometimes she succeeded in selling a story or a poem promptly and +receiving prompt pay. Then there was joy in the rose-embowered cottage. +Sometimes after placing an article payment was put off time and time +again until hope deferred made sick the hearts of all three dwellers in +the cottage. + +Oftentimes they were miserably poor--sometimes they were upon the verge +of despair--yet through all there was an undercurrent of happiness that +nothing could destroy--they had each other and even at the worst they +still dreamed the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, even +though the heartsease blossom drooped and drooped. + +Virginia's attacks continued to come at intervals, and each time the +shadow hung more persistently and with deeper gloom over the cottage. It +would be lifted at length, but not until the husband and mother had +suffered again all the agonies of parting--not until what they believed +to be the last goodbyes had been said and the imagination, running ahead +of the actual, had gone through each separate detail of death and +burial. + +The Dreamer's thoughts dwelt constantly upon these scenes and details +until finally the "dirges of his hope one melancholy burden bore--of +Never--Nevermore." + +Under the influence of the state of mind that was thus induced, a new +poem began to take shape in his brain--a poem of the death of a young +and beautiful woman and the despair and grief of the lover left to mourn +her in loneliness. As it wrote itself in his mind the word that had +thrilled and charmed and frightened him at the bedside of his mother and +to whose time his feet had so often marched, as to a measure--the +mournful, mellifluous word, Nevermore--became its refrain. + +The composition of his new poem became an obsession with him. His brain +busied itself with its perfection automatically. Not only as he sat at +his desk, pen in hand; frequently it happened that at these times the +divine fire refused to kindle--though he blew and blew. But at other +times, without effort on his part, the spark was struck, the flames +flashed forth and ran through his thoughts like wild-fire. When he was +helping Virginia to water the flowers in the garden; when he walked the +streets with dreaming eyes raised skyward, studying the clouds; when he +sat with Virginia and the Mother under the evening lamp or with feet on +the fender gazed into the heart of the red embers, or when he lay in his +bed in the quiet and dark--wherever he was, whatever he did, the phrases +and the rhythm of the new poem were filtering through his +sub-consciousness, being polished and made perfect. + +Indeed the poem in the making cast a spell upon him and he passed his +days and his nights as though in a trance. Virginia and Mother Clemm +knew that he was in the throes of creation, and they respected his +brown-study mood--stepping softly and talking little; but often by a +silent pressure of his hand or a light kiss upon his brow, saying that +they understood. They were happy, for they knew the state of mind that +enveloped him to be one of profound happiness to him--though the +brooding look that was often in his grey eyes told them that the visions +he was seeing had to do with sorrow. They waited patiently, feeling +certain that in due course would be laid before them a work in prose or +verse, presenting in jewel-like word and phrase, scenes in some strange, +fascinating country which it would charm them to explore. + +At last it was done! He told them while they sat at the evening meal. + +"I have something to read to you two critics after supper," he said. "A +poem upon which I have been working. I don't know whether it is of any +account or not." + +The two gentle critics were all interest. Virginia was breathless with +enthusiasm and could hardly wait to finish her supper. + +"I knew you were doing something great," she exclaimed. "I _know_ it is +great! Nothing you have ever done has wrapped you up so completely. +You've been in a beautiful trance for weeks and Muddie and I have been +almost afraid to breathe for fear of waking you up too soon." + +As soon as supper was over he brought out one of the familiar narrow +rolls of manuscript and smilingly drew it out for them to see its +length--giving Virginia one end to hold while he held the other. + +She read aloud, in pondering tone, the two words that appeared at the +top: "The Raven."-- + +Then, as she let go the end she held, the manuscript coiled up as if it +had been a spring, and the poet rolled it closely in his hands and with +his eyes upon the fire, began, not to read, but slowly to recite. His +voice filled the room with deep, sonorous melody, saving which there +was no sound. + +When the last words, + +"And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, + + Shall be lifted--nevermore!" + +had been said, there was a moment of tense silence. Then Virginia cast +herself into his arms in a passion of tears. + +"Oh, Eddie," she sobbed, "it is beautiful--beautiful! But so sad! I feel +as I were the 'lost Lenore' and you the poor lover; but when I leave you +you must not break your heart like that. You and Muddie will have each +other and soon you will come after me and we will all be happy together +again--in Heaven!" + +No word passed the lips of the mother. Her silvered head was bowed in +grief and prayer. She too saw in "Lenore" her darling child, and she +felt in anticipation the loneliness and sorrow of her own heart. She +spoke no word, but from her saintly eyes two large bright tears rolled +down her patient cheeks upon the folded hands in her lap. + +And thus "The Raven" was heard for the first time. + +Soon afterward it was recited again. Edgar Poe carried it himself to Mr. +Graham and offered it for the magazine. Mr. Graham promised to examine +it and give him an answer next day. That night he read it over several +times, but for the life of him he could not make up his mind about it. +Its weirdness, its music, its despair, affected him greatly. But Mr. +Graham was a business man and he doubted whether, from a business point +of view, the poem was of value. Would people like it? Would it _take_? +He would consult Griswold about it--Griswold was a man of safe judgment +regarding such matters. + +Dr. Griswold was indeed, a man of literary judgment and of taste. The +beauty of the poem startled him. It would bring to the genius of Edgar +Poe (he said to himself)--the poetic genius--acknowledgment such as it +had never had before. It was _too good_ a poem to be published. He had +bided his time and the hour of his revenge was come. He would have given +his right hand to have been able to publish such a poem over his own +signature--but the world must not know that Poe could write such an one! + +The candid eyes of Mr. Graham as he awaited his opinion were upon his +face. His own eyes wore their most furtive look--cast down and sidelong. +His tone was depressed and full of pity as he said, + +"Poor Poe! It is too bad that when he must be in need he cannot, or does +not, write something saleable. Of course you could not set such stuff as +this before the readers of _Graham's_!" + +For once Mr. Graham was disposed to question his opinion. + +"I don't know about that," he said. "The poem has a certain power, it +seems to me. It might repel--it might fascinate. I should like to buy it +just to give the poor fellow a little lift. The lovely eyes of that +fragile wife of his haunt me." + +It was finally decided to let Mr. Poe read the poem to the office force, +and take the vote upon it. + +They were all drawn up in a semi-circle, even the small office boy, who +sat with solemn eyes and mouth open and who felt the importance of +being called upon to sit in judgment upon a "piece of poetry." Edgar Poe +stood opposite them and for the second time recited his new poem--then +withdrew while the vote was taken. + +Dr. Griswold was the first to cast his vote and at once emphatically +pronounced his "No!" + +The rest agreed with him that the poem was "too queer," but as a solace +for the poet's disappointment some one passed around a hat and the next +day a hamper of delicacies was sent to Mrs. Poe, with the "compliments +of the staff at _Grahams_." + +Albeit "The Raven" was rejected by Graham's Magazine and others, enough +of Edgar Poe's work was bought and published to keep his name and fame +before the public--just enough (poorly paid as it was) to keep the souls +of himself and his wife and his "more than mother," within their bodies. + +And though Mr. Graham would none of "The Raven," he paid its author +fifty-two dollars for a new story--"The Gold Bug." This sum seemed a +small fortune to The Dreamer at the time, but he was to do better than +that with his story. _The Dollar Magazine_ of New York offered a prize +of one hundred dollars for the best short story submitted to it. Poe had +nothing by him but some critical essays, but remembering his early +success in Baltimore with "The MS. Found in a Bottle," he was anxious to +try. So he hastened with the critiques to _Graham's_ and offered them in +place of the story. + +Mr. Graham agreed to the exchange and "The Gold Bug" was promptly +dispatched to New York, where it was awarded the prize. + +When it was published in _The Dollar Magazine_ it made a great noise in +the world and a red-letter day in the life of Edgar Poe. + + * * * * * + +The hundred dollars brought indeed, a season of comfort and cheer in the +midst of the hardest times the cottage in Spring Garden had known. But +the last penny was finally spent. + +Winter came on--the winter of 1843. It was a severe winter to the +cottage. The bow of promise that had spanned it seemed to have withdrawn +to such a vast height above it that its outlines were indistinct--its +colors well nigh faded out. + +The reading public still trumpeted the praise of Edgar the Dreamer--his +friends still believed in him--from many quarters their letters and the +letters of the great ones of the day fluttered to the cottage. And not +only letters came, but the _literati_ of the day in person--glad to sit +at Edgar Poe's feet, their hearts glowing with the eloquence of his +speech and aching as they recognized in the lovely eyes of the girl-wife +"the light that beckons to the tomb." + +But there were other visitors that winter, and less welcome ones. Though +the master of the cottage wrote and wrote, filling the New York and +Philadelphia papers and magazines with a stream of translations, +sketches, stories and critiques, for which he was sometimes paid and +sometimes not, the aggregate sum he received was pitifully small and the +Wolf scratched at the door and the gaunt features of Cold and Want +became familiar to the dwellers in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. + +In desperation the driven poet turned this way and that in a wild effort +to provide the necessities of life for himself and those who were +dearer to him than self--occasionally appearing upon the lecture +platform, and finally attempting, but without success, to secure +government office in Washington. + +And oftener and oftener, and for longer each time the Shadow rested upon +the cottage--making the Valley dark and drear and dimming the colors of +the grass and the flowers--the dread shadow of the wing of the Angel of +Death. + +Even at such times The Dreamer made a manful struggle to coin his brains +into gold--to bring to the cottage the comforts, the conveniences, the +delicacies that the precious invalid should have had. An exceedingly +appealing little invalid, she lay upon her bed in the upper chamber +whose shelving ceiling almost touched her head; and sometimes "Muddie" +and "Eddie" fanned her and sometimes they chafed her hands and her feet +and placed her pet, "Catalina," grown now to a large, comfortable cat, +in her arms, that the warmth of the soft body and thick fur might +comfort her shuddering frame. And oftentimes as she lay there "Eddie" +sat at a table nearby and wrote upon the long strips of paper which he +rolled into the neat little rolls which he or "Muddie" took around to +the editors. + +And sometimes the editors were glad to have them, and to pay little +checks for them, and sometimes not. + +The truth was, that though the fame of Edgar Poe was well established, +there was an undercurrent of opposition to him, that kept the price of +his work down. The little authors--venomous with spite and jealousy--the +little authors, chief among whom was Rufus Griswold of the furtive eye +and deprecating voice, were sending forth little whispers defaming his +character, exaggerating his weakness and damning his work with faint +praise, or emphatic abuse. + +A day came when Edgar Poe realized that he must move on--that the "City +of Brotherly Love" had had enough of him--that to remain must mean +starvation. What removal would mean he did not know. That might mean +starvation too, but, as least, he did not know it. + +It was hard to leave the rose-embowered cottage. It was April and about +Spring Garden and the cottage the old old miracle of the renewal of life +was begun. The birds were nesting and the earliest flowers were in +bloom. It was bitter to leave it--but, there was no money for the rent. +His fame had been greatest in New York, of late. The New York papers had +been the most hospitable to his work. It was bitter to leave Spring +Garden, but perhaps somewhere about New York they would find another +rose-embowered cottage. Virginia was unusually well for the present and +the prospect of a change carried with it a possibility of prosperity. +Who could tell what good fortune they might fall upon in New York? + +Edgar Goodfellow had suddenly made his appearance for the first time in +many moons. _A change_ was the thing they all needed, he told himself. +In change there was hope! + +He placed Mother Clemm and "Catalina" temporarily with some friends of +the "City of Brotherly Love" who had invited them, and accompanied by +his Virginia who was looking less wan than for long past, fared forth, +in the highest spirits, to seek, for the second time a home in New York. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +New York once more! They went by rail to Amboy and the remaining forty +miles by steamboat. + +Certain cities, like certain persons, are witches; they have power to +cast a spell. New York is one of them. + +Edgar and Virginia Poe had known hard times in New York--the bitterness +of hard times in a city large enough for each man to mind his own +business and leave his neighbors to mind theirs. Yet as the boat slowed +down and neared the wharf, and--past the shipping--they descried the +houses and spires of town looming, ghostlike, through the enveloping +mist of the soft, grey April day, it was with a thrill that these two +standing hand in hand--like children--upon the deck, clasped each +other's fingers with closer pressure and whispered, + +"New York once more!" + +It was their first little journey in the world just together, just they +two, and much as they loved the dear mother--their kind earthly +Providence, as they laughingly called her--there was something very +sweet about it. It was almost like a wedding journey. The star of hope +which never deserted them for long, no matter what their disappointments +and griefs might be, shone bright above their horizon--their beautiful +faces reflected its light. By it the lines of care and bitterness seemed +suddenly to have been smoothed out of Edgar's face, and under its +influence Virginia's merry laugh rippled out upon the moist air, causing +the eyes of her fellow-travellers to turn admiringly her way many +times. + +Her husband hovered tenderly near her, drawing her shawl with solicitous +hand closer about her shoulders and standing upon the windward side of +her to protect her from the damp and keen breeze. He noted with delight +the fresh color of her cheeks--the life and color in her eyes. + +"Do you know, Sweetheart," he said, "You have not coughed once since we +left Philadelphia! The change is doing you good already." + +Both were blythe as birds. As the boat tied up at the wharf a gentle +shower set in, but it did not effect their spirits. He left her on board +with some ladies whose acquaintance she had made during the journey, +while he fared forth in the rain in quest of a boarding-house. As he +stepped ashore he met a man selling second-hand umbrellas. He bought +quite a substantial one for sixty-two cents and went on his way +rejoicing in the lucky meeting and the good bargain. + +In Greenwich Street he found what he sought--a genteel-looking house +with "Boarders wanted," upon a card in the window. Another good bargain +was made, and hailing a passing "hack" he hastened back to the boat for +Virginia and her trunk and soon they were rattling over the +cobblestones. + +"Why this is quite a mansion," exclaimed the little wife, as she peered +out at the house before which the carriage stopped--for while the +gentility of the establishment was of the proverbial "shabby" variety, +the brown-stone porch and pillars gave it an air of unmistakable +dignity. + +Not long after their arrival the supper-bell rang, and they found +themselves responding with alacrity. When they took the seats assigned +them and their hungry eyes took in the feast spread before them, they +squeezed each other's hands under the table--these romantic young lovers +and dreamers. They had been happy in spite of frugality. Many a time +while hunger gnawed they had kissed each other and vowed they wanted +nothing (high Heaven pardoning the gallant lie!) Yet now, the +traveller's appetite making their palates keen--the travellers weariness +in their limbs--they were seized upon by an unblushing joy at finding +themselves seated at an ample board with a kindly landlady at the head +pouring tea--strong and hot--whose aroma was as the breath of roses in +their nostrels, while her portly and beaming spouse, at the foot, with +blustering hospitality pressed the bounty of the table upon them. A +bounteous table indeed, this decidedly cheap and somewhat shabby +boarding-house spread, and to their eager appetites everything seemed +delicious. + +There were wheat bread and rye bread, butter and cheese, cold country +ham and cold spring veal--generous slices of both, piled up like little +mountains--and tea-cakes in like abundance. + +They feasted daintily--exquisitely, as they did everything, but they +feasted heartily for the first time in months. + +After supper they went to their room--a spacious and comfortably, though +plainly, furnished one, with a bright fire burning in a jolly little +stove. Their spirits knew no bounds. + +"What would Catalina say to this solid comfort, Sis?" queried Eddie. "I +think she would faint for joy." + +For answer Virginia smiled upon him through a mist of tears. + +"Why Virginia--my Heart--" he cried in amazement. "What is it?" + +"Only that it is too beautiful!" she managed to say. "And to think that +Muddie and Catalina are not here to share it with us!" + +"Just as soon as I can scrape together enough money to pay for Muddie's +board and travelling expenses we will have them with us," he assured +her. + +She dried her eyes and perched upon his knee while he went through his +pockets and bringing out all the money he had, counted it into her palm. + +"Four dollars and a half," he said. "Not much, but we are fortunate to +have that. And with such fine living as we get here so cheap it will go +quite a long way. Let me see--the price of board and lodging is only +three and a half a week for both of us. Seven dollars would pay our way +for a fortnight--and in a fortnight's time there's no telling what may +turn up! Some editor might buy 'The Raven,' or money due me for work +already sold might come in. If I could only contrive to raise this sum +to seven dollars we could rest easy for at least a fortnight." + +"I'll tell you how," said Virginia. "You have acquaintances here--hunt +up some of them and borrow three dollars. Then you would have enough to +pay two weeks board ahead and fifty cents over for pocket money." + +"Wise little head!" exclaimed he, tapping her brow, "The very idea!" + +And forthwith all care as to ways and means was thrown from both their +minds, and they gave themselves up to an evening of enjoyment of the +comforts of their brown-stone mansion. + +While Virginia was resting her husband went out for a little shopping to +be done with part of the fifty cents they had allowed themselves for +spending money. First he exchanged a few cents for a tin pan to be +filled with water and placed on top of the stove, for the comfort of +Virginia who had been oppressed by the dry heat. Then a few cents more +went for two buttons his coat lacked, a skein of thread to sew them on +with, and a skein of silk with which Virginia would mend a rent in his +trousers made by too close contact with a nail on deck of the steamboat. + +Next day was a bright, beautiful, spring Sunday. The sky and budding +trees had the newly-washed aspect often seen after a season of rain. The +sound of church-bells was on the air; the streets were filled with +people in their best clothes, and the new boarders in Greenwich Street, +fortified with a breakfast of ham and eggs and coffee, jubilantly joined +that stream of humanity which flowed toward the point above which +Trinity Church spire pierced the clear sky. + + * * * * * + +On Monday, Edgar Poe was taken with what he called a "writing fit." For +several days (during which Edgar Goodfellow remained in the ascendency) +the fit remained on him, and he wrote incessantly--only pausing long +enough, now and then, to read the result to Virginia. + +"This will earn us the money to bring Muddie and Catalina to New York," +he said with confidence. + +At last the manuscript was finished and no sooner was the ink dry upon +the paper than he took it to _The Sun_, which promptly bought and paid +for it, and upon the next Sunday, April 13, printed it not as a story, +but as news. + +"Astounding News by Express, _via_ Norfolk!" (The headlines said). "The +Atlantic crossed in Three Days." Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's +Flying Machines!!! + +"Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, S.C., of Mr. Mason, Mr. +Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in +the Steering Balloon, 'Victoria,' after a passage of seventy-five hours +from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the Voyage!" + +Strange as it may seem, the "astounding news" was received by the people +of New York for fact. There was a rush for copies of the _Sun_ which +announced with truth that it was the only paper in possession of the +"news," and not until denial came from Charleston, several days later, +was it suspected that the "news" was all a hoax and that Edgar +Goodfellow was simply having a little fun at the expense of the public. + +The story did, indeed, earn money with which to bring "Muddie" and +"Catalina" to New York. It did more--it brought the editors to Greenwich +Street looking for manuscript. They begged for stories as clever and as +sensational as "The Balloon Hoax," but in vain. Edgar Goodfellow had +vanished and in his place was Edgar the Dreamer who only had to tell of, + + "A wild, weird clime that lieth sublime + Out of Space--out of Time, + + * * * * * + + Where the traveller meets aghast + Sheeted Memories of the Past,-- + + Shrouded forms that start and sigh + As they pass the wanderer by,-- + White-robed forms of friends long given + In agony to the Earth and Heaven." + +It was in vain that the editors besought him to try something else in +the vein of "The Balloon Hoax," assuring him that that was what his +readers were expecting of him, after his recent "hit"--that was what +they would be willing to pay him for--pay him well. Was it the Imp of +the Perverse that caused him to positively decline, and to persist that +"Dreamland" was all he had to offer just then? + +It was Mr. Graham who finally accepted this quaint and beautiful poem, +and who published it--in the June number of _Graham's Magazine_. + + * * * * * + +In October following the return of the Poes to New York--October of the +year 1844--Mr. Nathaniel P. Willis who was then editor of _The Evening +Mirror_, and had been editor of _The Dollar Magazine_, when it awarded +the prize of a hundred dollars to "The Gold Bug," was seated at his desk +in the "Mirror" office, when in response to his "Come in," a stranger +appeared in his doorway--a woman--a lady in the best sense of a word +almost become obsolete. A _gentlewoman_ describes her best of all. She +was a gentlewoman, then, past middle age, yet beautiful with the high +type of beauty that only ripe years, beautifully lived, can bring--the +beauty that compensates for the fading of the rose on cheek and lip, the +dimming of the light in the eyes, for the frost on the brow--the beauty +of patience, of tenderness, of faith unquenchable by fire or flood of +adversity. A history was written on the face--a history in which there +was plainly much of tragedy. Yet not one bitter line was there. + +It was a face, withal, which could only have belonged to a mother, and +might well have belonged to the mother, Niobe. + +In figure she was tall and stately, with a gentle dignity. Her dress was +simple to plainness, and might have been called shabby had it been less +beautifully neat. It was of unrelieved black, and she wore a +conventional widow's bonnet, with floating white strings. + +The reader needs no introduction to this stranger to Mr. Willis, who in +a gentle, well-bred voice, with a certain mournful cadence in it, +announced herself as "Mrs. Clemm--the mother-in-law of Mr. Poe." + +No connection with a famous author was needed to inspire Mr. Willis with +respect for his visitor. She seemed to him to be an "angel upon earth," +and it was with an air approaching reverence that he handed her to the +most comfortable chair the office afforded. + +Her errand was quickly made known. Edgar Poe was ill and not able to +come out himself. His wife was an invalid, and so it devolved upon her +to seek employment for him. In spite of his fame, she said, and of his +industry, his manuscripts brought him so little money that he was in +need of the necessities of life. Regular work with a regular income, +however small, she felt to be his only hope of being able to rise above +want. + +Mr. Willis was distressed and promptly offered all he could. It was not +much, but it was better than nothing--it was the place of assistant +editor of his paper. + +For months following, the figure of Edgar Poe was a familiar one in the +office of the _Evening Mirror_. Neither in his character of Edgar the +Dreamer nor that of Edgar Goodfellow was he especially known there, but +simply as a modest, industrious sub-editor, doing the work of a +mechanical paragraphist as quietly, as unobtrusively, as a machine. With +rarely a smile and rarely a word, he stood from morning till night at +his desk in a corner of the editorial room--pale, still and beautiful as +a statue, punctual and efficient and the embodiment of courtesy always. + +And quietly and unobtrusively his personality made itself felt. Mr. +Willis came to love him for his innate charm and for his faithfulness to +duty. + + * * * * * + +But the desk of a sub-editor could not long hold a genius like Edgar +Poe. He bore its drudgery without complaint, but when an opening that +seemed to invite his ambition, as well as to promise better pay came, he +hailed it with enthusiasm. In March of the next year he formed a +partnership with two New York journalists, as editors and managers of +_The Broadway Journal_. A few months later saw him sole proprietor as +well as editor, and for a short, bright period his old dream of a +magazine of his own, in which he could write as he pleased, came true. +Its realization seemed to inspire him with new energy. How many heads, +how many right hands had the man--his readers asked each other--that he +could turn out such a mass of work of such high order? His own and many +other of the magazines of the day were filled with reviews and +criticisms that made him the terror of other writers, and with stories +and poems that made him the marvel of readers everywhere. + +His works were translated into the tongues of France, Germany and Spain, +and his fame grew in all of those countries. + +Yet the most that he could afford in the way of a home was up two +flights of stairs--two rooms in the third story of a dingy old house in +East Broadway. Mother Clemm and Virginia kept them bright and spotless +and "Catalina" dosing on the hearth gave a final touch of comfort, and +they were far above the noise and dust of the streets, with windows +opening upon a goodly view of the sky. They had a front and a back room, +so that the beauties of the dawn and the noontide--of sunset and +moonrise--were all theirs. + +And the Wolf came not near the door, and the three whose natures were +like to the natures of the oak, the vine and the heartsease, and who +lived for each other only, dreamed again the dream of the wonderful +valley--the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +Up, up the stairs, two steps at a time, sprang The Dreamer, one white +January day, and burst in upon Mother Clemm who was preparing dinner, +and Virginia who was mending his coat. He was in a great glee. He caught +"Muddie" in his arms where she stood with her hands deep in a tray of +dough, and kissed her, then stooped over Virginia and kissed _her_, and +dropped into her lap a crisp ten dollar bank note. She gave a little +scream of delight. + +"Where did you get it?" she cried? + +"From Willis. I've sold him 'The Raven.' He's vastly taken with it and +not only paid me the ten, in advance, but will give the poem an +editorial puff in the _Mirror_ of the nineteenth. He showed me a rough +draft. He will say that it is 'the most effective example of fugitive +poetry ever published in this country,' and predict that it will 'stick +in the memory of everybody who reads it!'" + +"And it will! It will!" cried Virginia. "Especially that 'Nevermore.' +I've done everything in time to it since the first night you read it to +us." + +"I've done everything in time to it since I was three years old," +murmured her husband. He drew the miniature from the inside pocket of +his coat where he had carried it, close against his heart, throughout +his life, and gazed long upon it. In his grey eyes was the tender, +brooding expression which the picture always called forth. "Ever since I +heard that word for the first time from the lips of my old nurse when +she took me in to see my mother robed for the grave, my feet and my +thoughts have kept time to it; and generally when my steps and my face +have been set toward hope and happiness it has risen before me like a +wall, blocking my way." + +Virginia arose from her chair letting her work and the bank note fall +unheeded from her lap, and went to him. Gently taking the miniature from +his hands she restored it to its place in his pocket and then with a +hand on each of his shoulders lifted her eyes to his. + +"Buddie," she said, calling him by the old pet name of their earliest +days, "You frighten me sometimes. The miniature is beautiful but it +makes you so sad. And when you talk that way about 'The Raven,' I feel +as if I could hear your tears dropping on my coffin-lid!" Then, with a +sudden change of mood, her laugh rang out, and she pressed her lips upon +his. + +"I'll have you know," she said, "I'm not dead yet, and you will not have +to journey to any 'distant Aidenn' to 'clasp' me." + +"No, thank God!" he breathed, crushing her to him. + + * * * * * + +It was upon January 29, 1845, that "The Raven" appeared, with Willis's +introductory puff. In spite of Dr. Griswold and the staff of _Graham's +Magazine_, it created an instant furor. It was published and republished +upon both sides of the Atlantic. To quote a contemporary writer, +everybody was "raven-mad" about it, except a few "waspish foes" who +would do its author "more good than harm." + +It brought to the two bright rooms up the two flights of stairs visitors +by the score, eager to congratulate the poet, to make the acquaintance +of his interesting wife and mother and to assure all three of their +welcome to homes approached by brown-stone steps. + +And it brought letters by the score--some from the other side of the +Atlantic. Among these was one from Miss Elizabeth Barrett, soon to +become the wife of Mr. Robert Browning. + +"Your 'Raven' has produced a sensation here in England," she wrote. +"Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it, and some by its music. +I hear of persons haunted by the 'Nevermore,' and one of my friends who +has the misfortune of possessing a bust of Pallas never can bear to look +at it in the twilight. Mr. Browning is much struck by the rhythm of the +poem. + +"Then there is that tale of yours, 'The Case of M. Valdemar,' throwing +us all into a 'most admired disorder,' and dreadful doubts as to whether +'it can be true,' as children say of ghost stories. The certain thing in +the tale in question is the power of the writer and the faculty he has +of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar." + +Of all the letters from far and near, this was the one that gave The +Dreamer most pleasure, and as for Virginia and the Mother, they read it +until they knew it by heart. + +When, some months later, his new book, "The Raven and Other Poems," came +out, its dedication was, "To the noblest of her sex--Miss Elizabeth +Barrett, of England." + + * * * * * + +And there was joy in the two rooms up two flights of stairs where Edgar +Poe sat at his desk reeling off his narrow little strips of manuscript +by the yard. His work filled _The Broadway Journal_ and overflowed into +many other periodicals. + +While he created stories and poems, he gave more attention than ever to +the duties of his cherished post as Defender of Purity of Style for +American Letters, and the fame to which he had risen giving him new +authority, he made or marred the reputation of many a literary aspirant. + +Exposition of plagiarism became a hobby with him, and his attacks upon +Longfellow upon this ground, brought on a controversy between him and +the gentle poet which reached such a heat that it was dubbed "The +Longfellow War." All attempts of friends and fellow journalists to make +him more moderate in his criticisms were in vain; they seemed indeed, +but to excite the Imp of the Perverse, under whose influence he became +more merciless than ever. An admirer of this virtue carried to such an +extreme that it became a serious fault, as it was assuredly a grievous +mistake, humorously characterized him in a parody upon "The Raven," +containing the following stanza: + + "Neither rank nor station heeding, with his foes around him bleeding, + Sternly, singly and alone, his course he kept upon that floor; + While the countless foes attacking, neither strength nor valor lacking, + On his goodly armor hacking, wrought no change his visage o'er, + As with high and honest aim he still his falchion proudly bore, + Resisting error evermore." + +Many of the "waspish foes" thus made turned their stings upon his +private character, against which there was already a secret poison +working--the poison that fell from the tongue, and the pen of Rufus +Griswold. He had the ear of numbers of Edgar Poe's friends in the +literary world, and what time The Dreamer dreamed his dreams in utter +ignorance of the unfriendliness toward him of the big man whose big +brain he admired, the big man watched for his chance to insert the +poison. It was invariably hidden in a coating of sugar. Poe was a +wonderful genius, he would declare, his imagination--his style--they +were marvellous! Marvelous! His _head_ was all right, but--. The "but" +always came in a lowered tone, full of commiseration, "_but_--his +_heart_!--Allowance should, of course, be made for his innate lack of +principle--he should not be held _too_ responsible. His habits--well +known to everyone of course!" + +No--they were not even suspected, many of his listeners replied. Might +not Dr. Griswold be mistaken? they asked. Was it possible that an +habitual drunkard could turn out such a mass of brilliant and artistic +work? And consider the exquisite neatness of his manuscript! + +Peradventure the listener persisted in believing his informant +mistaken--peradventure he at once accepted the damaging statements; but +in every case the poison had been administered, and was at work. + + * * * * * + +There was just one class among the writers of the day sacred from the +attacks of Edgar Poe's pen. Before almost everything else The Dreamer +was chivalrous. The "starry sisterhood of poetesses" and authoresses, +therefore, escaped his criticisms. One of his contemporaries said of +him that he sometimes mistook his vial of prussic acid for his ink-pot. +In writing of authors of the gentle sex, his ink-pot became a pot of +honey. + +Several of these literary ladies living in New York had their salons, +where they received, upon regular days, their brothers and sisters of +the pen, and at which The Dreamer became a familiar figure. + +"I meet Mr. Poe very often at the receptions," gossiped one of the fair +poetesses in a letter to a friend in the country. "He is the observed of +all observers. His stories are thought wonderful and to hear him repeat +'The Raven' is an event in one's life. People seem to think there is +something uncanny about him, and the strangest stories are told and what +is more, _believed_, about his mesmeric experiences--at the mention of +which he always smiles. His smile is captivating! Everybody wants to +know him, but only a few people seem to get well acquainted with him." + +Chief among the salons of New York was that of Miss Anne Charlotte +Lynch--who was afterward Mrs. Botta. An entre to her home was the +most-to-be-desired social achievement New York could offer, for it meant +not only to know the very charming lady herself, but to meet her +friends; and she had drawn around her a circle made up of the persons +and personages--men and women--best worth knowing. She became one of The +Dreamer's most intimate friends, and always made him and his wife +welcome at her "evenings." It was not long after "The Raven" had set the +town marching to the word "nevermore," that he made his first visit +there--a visit which long stood out clear in the memories of all +present. + +In the cavernous chimney a huge grate full of glowing coals threw a +ruddy warmth into Miss Lynch's spacious drawing-room. Waxen tapers in +silver and in crystal candelabra, and in sconces, filled the apartment +with a blaze of soft light, lit up the sparkling eyes and bright, +intellectual faces of the assembled company, and showed to advantage the +jewels and laces of the ladies and the broadcloth of the gentlemen. + +Miss Lynch stood at one end of the room between the richly curtained +windows and immediately in front of a narrow, gold-framed mirror which +reached from the frescoed ceiling to the floor and reflected her +gracious figure to advantage. She was listening with interested +attention to Mr. Gillespie, the noted mathematician, whose talk was +worth hearing in spite of the fact that he stammered badly. His subject +tonight happened to be the versatility of "Mr. P-P-Poe." + +"He might have been an eminent m-m-mathematician if he had not elected +to be an eminent p-p-poet," he was saying. + +To her right Mr. Willis's daughter, Imogen, was flirting with a tall, +lanky young man with sentimental eyes, a drooping moustache and thick, +straight, longish hair, whose lately published ballad, "Oh, Don't You +Remember Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?" was all the rage. + +To her left the Minerva-like Miss Margaret Fuller whose critical papers +in the _New York Tribune_ were being widely read and discussed, was +amiably quarreling with Mr. Horace Greely, and upon a sofa not far away +Mr. William Gilmore Simms, the novelist and poet, was gently disagreeing +with Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith in her contention for Woman's Rights. + +At the opposite end of the room a lovely woman in a Chippendale chair +was the central figure of a group of ladies and gentlemen each of whom +hung upon her least word with an interest amounting to affection. She +was a woman who looked like a girl, for thirty years had been kind to +her. Glossy brown hair parted in the middle and brushed smoothly down in +loops that nearly covered her ears framed an oval face, with delicate, +clear-cut features, pale complexion and eyes as brown and melting as a +gazelle's. + +She was none other than Mrs. Frances Osgood, the author, or authoress, +as she would have styled herself, of "The Poetry of Flowers"--so much +admired by her contemporaries--whose husband, Mr. S.S. Osgood, the well +known artist, had won her heart while painting her portrait. + +Conspicuous in the group of literary lights surrounding her was Dr. +Griswold in whose furtive glance, had she been less free from guile, she +might have read an admiration fiercer than that of friendship or even of +platonic love, and to whose fires she had unwittingly added fuel by +expressing admiration for his poems--Mr. Poe's opinion to the contrary. + +Mr. Locke, author of "The Moon Hoax," was of the group; and the Reverend +Ralph Hoyt, who was a poet as well as a preacher; and Mr. Hart, the +sculptor; and James Russell Lowell, who happened to be in town for a few +days; and Mr. Willis and his new wife; and Mrs. Embury whose volume of +verse, "Love's Token Flowers," was just out and being warmly praised; +and George P. Morris, Willis's partner in the _Mirror_, whose "Woodman, +Spare that Tree!" and "We were Boys Together," had (touching a human +chord) made him popular. + +The beloved physician, Dr. Francis, seemed to be everywhere at once, as +he moved about from group to group with a kindly word for +everybody--the candle-light falling softly upon his flowing silver locks +and his beaming, ruddy countenance. + +Suddenly, there was a slight stir in the room--a cessation of talk--a +turning toward one point. + +"There is Mr. P-P-Poe now," said Mr. Gillespie to Miss Lynch, and +followed her as, with out-stretched hand and cordial smile, she hastened +toward the door where stood the trim, erect, black-clad figure of Edgar +Poe, with his prominent brow and his big dreamy eyes, and his wife, pale +as a snow-drop after her many illnesses, and as lovely as one, and still +looking like a child, upon his arm. + +Instant pleasure and welcome were written upon every face present save +one, and even that quickly assumed a smile as its owner came forward +bowing and stooping in an excess of courtesy. + +The pair became immediately the centre of attraction. Everybody wanted +to have a word with them. It made Virginia thoroughly happy to see +"Eddie" appreciated, and she chatted blythely and freshly with all--her +spontaneous laugh bearing testimony to her enjoyment--while The Dreamer +yielded himself with his wonted modesty and grace to the hour--answering +questions as to whether he _really did_ believe in ghosts and whether +the experiments in mesmerism in his story, "The Case of M. Valdemar" had +_any_ foundation in fact, with his captivating but enigmatic smile, and +a little Frenchified shrug of the shoulders. + +It would have seemed at first that he had diverted attention from the +fair author of "The Poetry of Flowers" to himself, but erelong--no one +knew just how it came to pass--Edgar Poe was sitting upon an ottoman +drawn close to the Chippendale chair, and the two lions were deep in +earnest and intimate conversation upon which no one else dared intrude. +The furtive eye of Rufus Griswold marked well the evident attraction +between these two beautiful and gifted beings--_poets_--and something +like murder awoke in his heart. + +The tete-a-tete was interrupted by Miss Lynch, who declared that she +voiced the wish of all present in requesting that Mr. Poe would recite +"The Raven." + +All the candles save enough to make (with the fire's glow) a dim +twilight, were put out, and the poet took his stand at one end of the +long room. + +A hush fell upon the company and in a quiet, clear, musical voice, he +began the familiar words. + +There was scarcely a gesture--just the motionless figure, the pale, +classic face, which was dim in the half-light, and the deep, rich voice. + +Miss Lynch was the first to break the silence following the final +"Nevermore." Moving toward him with her easy, distinguished step, she +thanked him in a few low-spoken words. Mrs. Osgood, rising gracefully +from her chair, followed her example, with Dr. Griswold at her heels, +and in a few moments more the whole room was in an awed and subdued hum. + +The girl-wife came in for her share of the lionizing. Her appearance was +in marked contrast to that of the richly apparelled women about her. The +simplest dress was the only kind within her reach--for which she may +have consoled herself with the thought that it was the kind that most +adorned her. She wore tonight a little frock made by her own fingers, of +some crimson woolen stuff, without a vestige of ornament save a bit of +lace, yellow with age, at the throat. Her hair was parted above the +placid brow, looped over her ears and twisted in a loose knot at the +back of her head, in the prevailing fashion for a young matron; which +with her youthful face, gave her a most quaint and charming appearance. + +Her husband's coat had seen long service, but it was neatly brushed and +darned, and the ability to wear threadbare clothing with distinction was +not the least of Edgar Poe's talents. Beside his worn, but cared-for +apparel, costly dress often seemed tawdry. + + * * * * * + +Out from the warmth and the light and the perfume and the luxury and the +praise of the beautiful drawing-room with its distinguished +assemblage,--out into the streets of New York--into the bleakness and +the darkness of the winter's night--stepped Edgar Poe and his wife. +Virginia was wrapped against the cold in a Paisley shawl that had been +one of Mother Clemm's bridal presents, while Edgar wore the military +cape he had at West Point and which, except in times of unusual +prosperity, had served him as a great-coat ever since. + +Through the dimly-lit streets, slippery with ice, and wind-swept, they +made their way to the two rooms up two flights of stairs, where the +Widow Clemm mended the fire with a few coals at a time and sewed by a +single candle, as she waited for them--the lion of the most +distinguished circle in America and his beautiful wife! + +Back from a world of dreams created by a company of dreamers to the +reality of an empty larder and a low fuel pile and a dun from the +landlord from whom they rented the two rooms. + +"The Raven" had brought its author laurels in abundance, but only ten +dollars in money. Editors were clamoring for his work and he was +supplying it as fast as one brain and one right hand could; and some of +them were sending their little checks promptly in return and some were +promising little checks some day; but _The Broadway Journal_ had failed +for lack of capital. It was the old story. He had no regular income and +the irregularly appearing little checks only provided a +from-hand-to-mouth sort of living for the three. + +Yet they had their dreams. Landlords might turn them out of house and +home but they were powerless to deprive them of their dreams. + +Mother Clemm's one candle was burning low--its light and that of the +dying fire barely relieved the room from darkness and did not prevent +the rays of the newly arisen full moon from coming through the lattice +and pouring a heap of silver upon the bare floor. + +"Look Muddie! Look Sissy!" cried the poet. "If we lived in a blaze of +light, like your rich folk, we should have to go out of doors to see the +moon. Who says there are not compensations in this life?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +But it was not always possible to take a hopeful view. Continued poverty +which oftentimes reached the degree of positive want, anxiety for +Virginia's health and inability to provide for her the remedies and +comforts he felt might preserve her life, were enough to arouse Edgar +Poe's blue devils, and they did. + +Why detail the harassments of the rest of that winter, during which The +Dreamer led a strange double life--a life in the public eye of +distinction, prosperity, popularity, but in private, a hunted life--a +life of constant dread of the wrath of a too long indulgent landlord or +grocer--a flitting from one cheap lodgement to another. + +One gleam of genuine sunshine brightened the dreary days. The +acquaintance with Frances Osgood begun at Miss Lynch's salon soon +ripened into close friendship. She found her way up the two flights of +stairs and Edgar and Virginia and the Mother received her with as ready +courtesy and welcome as though the two rooms that looked on the sky had +been a palace. Her intimacy became so complete--her understanding of, +and sympathy with, the three who lived for each other only so perfect +that it was almost as if she had been admitted to the Valley of the +Many-Colored Grass. + +Upon her The Dreamer bestowed in abundant measure that poetic love which +the normal heart is no more capable of feeling than the normal mind is +capable of producing his poetry. A love which was like his landscapes, +not of this world or of the earth earthy--a love of the mind, the +imagination, the poetic faculty. A love whose desire was not to possess, +but to kneel to. In his rhapsodies over the phantasmal women his genius +created or the real ones whose charm he felt, it was never of flesh and +blood beauty--of blooming cheek or rounded form--that he sang, but of +the expression of the eye, the tones of the voice, the graces and gifts +of the spirit and the intellect. + +In return for this love he asked only sympathy--sympathy such as he drew +from the sky and the forest and the rock-bound lake and the winds of +heaven--mood sympathy. + +It was a love quite beyond the imagination of Rufus Griswold to conceive +of, even. His furtive eye was on the watch, his jealous heart was filled +with foul surmises and he added a new poison to the old, with which he +was working, drop by drop, upon the good name of Edgar Poe. + +Meantime the poet, harassed by troubles of divers kinds but innocent of +the new poison as he had been of the old, welcomed the intimacy of this +congenial woman friend as balm to his tried spirit; and delved away at +his work. + +Upon his desk one morning, were piled a number of the small rolls of +narrow manuscript with which the reader is familiar. These were a series +of critical sketches entitled "The Literati of New York," by which he +hoped to keep the pot boiling some days. Virginia was listening for a +step on the stair, for she had written Mrs. Osgood a note that morning, +begging her to come to them, and she knew that she would respond. The +door opened and the slight, graceful figure and delicate face with the +gentle eyes, she looked for, appeared. + +"What are all these?" asked the visitor, when she had embraced Virginia +warmly and when the poet had, after bowing over her hand, which he +lightly touched with his lips, led her to a chair. + +Her eyes were fixed upon the pile of manuscripts. + +"One of them is yourself, Madam," replied the poet. + +"Myself?" she questioned, in amazement. + +He bowed, gravely. "Yourself--as one of the Literati of New York. In +each one of these one of you is rolled up and discussed. I will show you +by the difference in their length the varying degrees of estimation in +which I hold you literary folk. Come Virginia, and help me!" + +The fair visitor smiled as they drew out to the full length roll after +roll of the manuscript--letting them fly together again as if they had +been spiral springs. The largest they saved for the last. The poet +lifted it from its place and gave an end to his wife and like two merry, +laughing children they ran to opposite corners, stretching the +manuscript diagonally across the entire space between. + +"And whose 'linked sweetness long drawn out' is that?" asked the +visitor. + +"Hear her!" cried Edgar Goodfellow who was in the ascendent for the +first time in many a long day. "Hear her! Just as if her vain little +heart didn't tell her it's herself!" + +But the moment of playfulness was a rarity, and all the more enjoyed for +that. + +The papers came out in due course, serially, and created a new sensation +and brought their little reward, but they also plunged their author into +a succession of unsavory quarrels. As each one appeared, it was looked +for with eagerness and read with intense interest by the public, but +frequently with as intense anger by the subject. + +Perhaps the most caustic of all the critiques was the one upon the work +of Mr. Thomas Dunn English, whom Poe contemptuously dubbed, "Thomas Done +Brown." + +Mr. English bitterly retorted with an attack upon his critic's private +character. A fierce controversy followed in which English became so +abusive that Poe sued and recovered two hundred and twenty-five dollars +damages--which goes to prove that even an ill wind can blow good. + +Long after the papers had been published the scene of playful idleness, +with all its holiday charm, when Edgar Poe drew out the strips of +manuscript in which were rolled up "The Literati of New York" remained +in Mrs. Osgood's memory, and in his own. To him it was indeed a gleam of +brightness amid a throng of "earnest woes," a season of calm in a +"tumultous sea." + +But, as been said, why dwell upon the details of that bleak, despairing +winter? Spring brought a change which makes a more pleasant picture. + + * * * * * + +Ever since they had left Philadelphia the Poes had clung, in memory, to +the rose-embowered cottage in Spring Garden. There, they told each +other, they had a home to their minds. It was the dear "Muddie," their +ever faithful earthly Providence to whom they were already so deeply +indebted, who discovered in the suburb of Fordham, a tiny cottage which +had much of the charm of which they dreamed--even to the infinitesimal +price for which it could be rented. + +It was only a story and a half high, but there was a commodious and +cheerful room down stairs, with four windows, and from the narrow +hallway a quaint little winding stair led to an attic which though its +roof was low and sloping contained a room large enough to serve the +double purpose of bed-chamber and study. + +There was a pleasant porch across the front of the cottage which would +make an ideal summer sitting-room and study, when the half-starved +rose-bush upon it should have been nursed and trained to screen it from +the sun. + +The cottage stood upon a green hill, half-buried in cherry trees--just +then in full bloom and filled with bird-song. Nearby was a grove of +pines and a short walk away was the Harlem River, with its picturesque, +high, stone bridge. It was an abode fit to be in Paradise, Edgar told +Virginia and the Mother, and within a few days they and their few small +possessions--including Catalina--were as well established there as if +they had never known any other home. + +The moving in recalled the earliest days of their life at Spring Garden. +Again "Muddie" was busy, not with soap and water only, but with the +whitewash brush. Again their hearts were blythe with the pleasing sense +of change--of the opening up of a new vista of there was no knowing what +happiness--just as children welcome any change for the change itself, +always expecting to find pleasant surprises upon a new and untried road. + +But there was a difference in themselves since the moving into the +Spring Garden Cottage, which had been so gradual that they were scarcely +conscious of it. The years since then lay heavily upon them. They showed +plainly in the deepened lines in Mother Clemm's face, in the deepened +anxiety in her Mater Dolorosa eyes, in the frost upon the locks that +peeped from under her immaculate widow's cap. They showed in the +fragile figure of Virginia--once so full of sweet curves;--in the +ethereal look that had come into the once rounded cheeks and full +pouting lips, in the transparency of her skin and in the sweet eyes that +when not filled with the merry laughter that had through thick and thin +filled her dwelling place with sunshine and music, had a faraway +expression in them, as if they were looking into another world. + +They showed most of all in The Dreamer himself. To him these years had +been years of fierce battle; battle, not for wealth, but for bread; +battle not so much for selfish ambition as for his country, and in a +high sense--for he had fought valiantly to win a place for America in +the world of letters; battle with himself--with the devils that sought +mastery over his spirit--the devil of excitement and exhilaration that +lay in the bottom of the cup, the devil of blessed forgetfulness, +accompanied by magical dreams that dwelt in the heart of the poppy, the +devil of melancholy and gloom to whom he felt a certain charm in +yielding himself, the devil of restlessness and dissatisfaction with +whatsoever lay within his grasp--a dog-and-shadow sort of desire to drop +the prize in hand in a chase after that of his vision,--the impish devil +of the perverse. + +At times he had been victorious, at other times there had been defeat. +But always the warfare had been fierce and the scars remained to tell +the story. They remained in the emaciation and the deep lines of his +still beautiful face; remained in the drooping curves of the mouth; +remained above all in the ineffable sadness of the large, deep, luminous +eyes. + +Yet that sweet spring day when the three were moving into Fordham +cottage, the years that had wrought upon them thus were as they had not +been. + +Their little possessions had dwindled pitifully. Virginia's golden harp +that had been the glory of the sitting-room was gone to pay a debt. One +by one others of their household gods had provided bread. But the spurt +of prosperity the damages recovered in the "Thomas Done Brown" suit +brought, made possible a new checked matting for the sitting-room floor +and so bright and clean did it look that they felt it almost furnished +the room of itself. It would mean much to them in saving the dear Mother +the most laborious feature of her labor. It was a more difficult matter +than formerly for her to get down upon her knees to scrub the floor and +it had become impossible for the frail Virginia to help her in such +work; yet as long as the floor was bare she had kept it as spotless and +nearly as white as new fallen snow. When the matting had been laid, +Eddie took her beautiful worn hands in his and kissed first one and then +the other. + +"No more scrubbing of the sitting-room floor, dear hands," he playfully +said. + +In addition to the matting there were in the way of furnishings only a +few chairs, some book-shelves, a picture or two, vases for flowers, some +sea-shells, and, of course, Edgar's desk. Above the desk hung the +pencil-sketch of "Helen" from which somehow, he was always able to draw +inspiration. Sometimes the wings of his imagination would droop, his pen +would halt. In desperation he would look up at the picture.--Could it be +(he would ask himself) that her spirit had come to dwell in this +representation of her which he had made from memory? Her eyes seemed to +look at him through the eyes in the picture--the past came back to him +as it sometimes did when the mingled scent of magnolias and roses on +the summer night air placed him back beneath her window. + +From this portrait of the lovely dead upon the wall, from the miniature +of the lovely dead that he carried always next his heart, and from the +lovely being who walked, in life, by his side, but toward whose bosom +death had this long time pointed a warning finger, came all his +inspiration in the new, as in each of the old homes. + +Upstairs, close under the sloping roof, was the bare bed-room, barer +than the one below--for there was no checked matting upon the floor, and +there were only such pieces of furniture as were an absolute necessity; +but against a small window in the end of the room leaned a great +cherry-tree. The windows were open and the faint fragrance of the +blossoms floated in with the song and gossip of the nesting birds. Edgar +and Virginia laughed together like happy children and told each other +that they would "play" that their room under the roof was a nest in the +tree--which was so much more poetical than living in an attic. + +And roundabout the cottage on the green hill, with its screen of +blossoming cherry trees and (hardby) its dusky grove of Heaven-kissing +pines, and its views of the river and walk leading to the stone-arched +bridge, the three who lived for each other only had erelong +reconstructed the wonderful dream-valley--the Valley of the Many-Colored +Grass. + +And the cottage at Fordham became a Mecca to the "literati of New York," +even as the cottage at Spring Garden had been a Mecca to the literati of +Philadelphia. Among those who made pilgrimages thither were many of the +"starry sisterhood of poetesses"--chief of whom was the fair Frances +Osgood. Yet in his retirement The Dreamer enjoyed for the first time +since he had left Spring Garden long intervals of relief from company, +and in the pine-wood and on the bridge overlooking the river, he found +what his soul had long hungered for--silence and solitude. Under their +influence he conceived the idea of a new work--a more ambitious work +than anything he had hitherto attempted--a work in the form of a prose +poem upon no less subject than "The Universe," whose deep secrets it was +designed to reveal, with the title "Eureka!" + + * * * * * + +Ah, Dreamer, could we but call the curtain here!--Could we but leave you +in your cottage on the hill-top, overlooking the river, with the trees +full of blossom and music about it, and the wood inviting your fancy, +where as you pace back and forth with your hands clasped behind you your +great deep eyes are filled with the mellow light that illumines them +when they are turned inward exploring the treasures of your brain--leave +you deep in the high joy of meditation upon God's Universe! + +But "the play is the tragedy, 'Man,'" and it is only for the dread +"Conqueror" to give the word, "Curtain down--lights out!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +All too soon the Wolf scratched at the door of the cottage on Fordham +Hill. All too soon the shadow that had so often enveloped the +rose-embowered cottage in Spring Garden--the shadow from the wing of the +Angel of Death--fell upon the cottage among the cherry trees. + +The Dreamer sat before his desk under the picture of "Helen," for hours +and hours, or when Virginia was too ill to be up, at a little table +beside her bed in the chamber which was like a nest in a tree. In fair +weather and foul the stately figure and sorrowful eyes of Mother Clemm +were to be seen upon the streets of New York as she went about offering +the narrow rolls of manuscript for sale as fast as they were finished, +or trying to collect the little, over-due checks from those already sold +and published. Yet, with all they could do, had it not been for the +generous gifts of friends the three must needs have succumbed to cold +and hunger. And all the time the poison that fell from Rufus Griswold's +tongue was at work. Even the visits of the angels of mercy who +ministered to him and his invalid wife in this their darkest hour were +made, by the working of this poison, to appear as things of evil. How +was one of the furtive eye and the black heart of a Rufus Griswold to +understand love of woman of which reverence was a chief ingredient? + +These ministering angels--Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Gove, Mrs. Marie Louise +Shew, and others whose love for the racked and broken Dreamer and for +herself Virginia so perfectly understood--Virginia the guileless, with +her sense for spiritual things and her warm, responsive heart--brought +to the cottage not only encouragement and sympathy, but medicines and +delicacies which were offered in such manner that even one of Edgar +Poe's sensitive pride could accept them without shame. + +Summer passed, and autumn, and winter drew on--filling the dwellers in +Fordham cottage with fear of they knew not what miseries. There had been +ups and downs; there had been happiness and woe; there had been times of +strength and times of weakness--of weakness when The Dreamer, unable to +hold out in the desperate battle of life as he knew it; hungry, cold and +heartbroken at the sight of his wife with that faraway look in her eyes, +had fallen--had sought and found forgetfulness only to know a horrible +awakening that was despair and that was oftentimes accompanied by +illness. Now, there was added to every thing else the knowledge that +she--his wife--his heartsease flower, and the Mother, in spite of all +his striving for them, were objects of charity. + +When some of his friends, in the kindness of their hearts, published in +one of the papers an appeal to the admirers of Edgar Poe's work for aid +for him and his family in their distress, he came out in a proud denial +of their need for aid. The need was great enough, God knows!--but the +pitiful exposure was more painful than the pangs of cold and hunger. + + * * * * * + +At last the day drew near of whose approach all who had visited the +cottage knew but of which they had schooled themselves not to think. + +January 1847 was waning. For many days the ground had not been seen. The +branches of the cherry trees gleamed--not with flowers, but with +icicles--as they leaned against the windows of the bed-chamber under +the roof. Sometimes as the winter blast stirred them, they knocked +against the panes with a sound the knuckles of a skeleton might have +made. There was not the slightest suggestion of the soft-voiced "Ligeia" +in that harsh, horrible sound. + +Upon the bed the girl-wife lay well nigh as still and as white as the +snow outside. Now and again she coughed--a weak, ghostly sort of cough. +Over her wasted body, in addition to the thin bed-clothing, lay her +husband's old military cape. Against her breast nestled Catalina, +purring contentedly while she kept the heart of her mistress warm a +little longer. Near the foot of her bed the Mother sat--a more perfect +picture than ever of the Mater Dolorosa--chafing the tiny cold feet; at +the head her husband bent over her and chafed her hands. About the room, +but not near enough to intrude upon the sacred grief of the stricken +mother and husband, sat several of the good women whose friendship had +been the mainstay of the three. Through the window, gaining brilliance +from the ice-laden branches outside, fell the rays of the setting sun, +glorifying the room and the bed. Scarce a word was spoken, but upon the +request of the dying girl for music one of the visitors began to sing in +low, tremulous tones, the beautiful old hymn, "Jerusalem the Golden." To +the man, bowed beneath his woe as it had been a physical weight, the +words came as a knell, and a blacker despair than ever settled upon his +wild eyes and haggard face. To his dying wife they were a promise--the +smile upon her lip and the look of wonder in her eyes showed that she +was already beholding the glories of which the old hymn told. + +And so wandered her spirit out of the cold and the want and the gloom +that had darkened and chilled the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, into +the regions of "bliss beyond compare." + +But her husband, left behind, was as the man in his own story, +"Silence," who sat upon a rock--the gray and ghastly rock of +"Desolation." "With his brow lofty with thought and his eyes wild with +care and the fables of sorrow and weariness and disgust with mankind +written in furrows upon his cheek," he sat upon the lonely grey rock and +leaned his head upon his hand and looked out upon the desolation. She +was no more--no more!--the maiden who lived with no other thought than +to love and be loved by him;--his wife--in all the storm and stress of +his troubled life his true heartsease! + +Out of the desolation he perceived a thing that was formless, that was +invisible--but that was appalling--_silence_. Silence that made him +shrink and quake--he that had loved, had longed for silence! Silence +would crush him now. And solitude!--how often he had craved it! He had +solitude a plenty now. + +Like a hunted animal, he looked about for a refuge from the Silence and +the Solitude that gave him chase, but he knew that however fast he might +flee they would be hard on his heels. + +How white she was--and how still! Nevermore to hear the sounds of her +low sweet voice, nevermore to hear her merry laughter, nevermore her +light foot-step that--like her voice and her laugh--was music to his +ears! Nevermore!--for she was wrapped in the Silence--the last great +silence of all. + +Nevermore would she sit beside him as he worked, or plant flowers about +the door, or lay her hand in his and explore with him the wonderful +dream-valley; nevermore lay her sweet lips upon his or raise the +snow-white lids from her eyes and shine on him from under their long, +jetty fringes. Henceforth a Solitude as vast as the Silence would be his +portion. + +Their sweet friend Marie Louise Shew robed her for the tomb and over the +snow they bore her to rest in a vault in the village churchyard. + +Then, for many weeks Edgar Poe lay in the bed-chamber under the roof, +desperately ill--for the most part unconscious. The mother bereaved of +her child had no time to give herself over to mourning, for as she had +wrestled with death for the possession of a son when he was first given +into her keeping, even more fiercely did she wrestle now that he must be +son and daughter too. The kind friends who had made Virginia's last days +comfortable aided her in the battle, and finally the victory was +won,--pale, shaken, wraith-like, the personification of woe made +beautiful--The Dreamer came forth into the air of heaven once more, and +as spring opened was to be seen, as of old, walking among the pines or +beside the river. + +And ever and anon his clear-cut, chastened features and his great, +solemn eyes were turned skyward--especially at night when the heavens +were sown with stars; for from some one of those bright worlds, +peradventure, would she whose absence made the Solitude and the Silence +be looking down upon him. And as he gazed and dreamed, high thoughts +took form in his brain--thoughts of the "Material and Spiritual +Universe; its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition +and its Destiny,"--thoughts to be made into a book dedicated to "Those +who feel rather than to those who think--to the dreamers and those who +put faith in dreams as in the only realities"--thoughts for his +projected work, "Eureka!" Out of the Silence and the Solitude came the +development and completion of this strange prose poem. + +Like an uneasy spirit he wandered, night and day, up and down the river +bank, in the wood or in the churchyard that held the tomb of his +Virginia. + +Meanwhile the Mother still kept the cottage bright. She asked no +questions when he went forth, night or day, or when he came in, night or +day; but her heart bled for him and sometimes when he would throw +himself into a deep chair and sit by the hour, seemingly staring at +nothing, but really (she knew by the harassed and brooding look in the +great, deep eyes) "dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream +before," she would steal gently to his side and with her long, slim, +expressive fingers stroke the large brow until natural sleep brought +respite from painful memories. Her ministrations were grateful to him, +yet he was barely conscious of her presence. Not even for her, and far +less for any other human being, did he feel kinship at this time. His +vision, when not turned within, looked far beyond human companionship to +the wonders of the universe--the stars and the mountains and the forests +and the rivers; but his only real companion was his own stricken heart. +Many times he said to his heart in the prophetic words of his fantastic +creation, "Morella," + +"Thy days henceforth shall be days of sorrow--that sorrow which is the +most lasting of impressions as the cypress is the most enduring of +trees. For the hours of thy happiness are over, and joy is not gathered +twice in a lifetime as the roses of Paestum twice in a year." + +Yet as the back is fitted to the burden and the wind tempered to the +shorn lamb, so again, as in his early griefs, the sorrow of The Dreamer +was not all pain, there was an element of beauty--of poetry--in it that +made it possible to be endured. Out of the depths of the Solitude and +the Silence he said to his soul, + +"It is a happiness to wonder--it is a happiness to dream." And more than +ever before in his life his whole existence had become a dream--the +realities being mere shadows. + +To dream, to wonder, to work; to work, to wonder, to dream--thus were +the hours, the hours of sorrow, spent. The hours of which the poet lost +all count, for between his dreams and his work so intensely full were +the hours of vivid mental living that each day was as a lifetime in +itself. + +And as he wandered under the pines or along the river, wrapped in his +dreams and wondering thoughts of heaven and earth, or leaned from the +window of the chamber under the low sloping roof--the chamber that had +been the chamber of death--and looked beyond the embowering cherry trees +upon the sky; or at dead of night sat under his lamp pondering over his +books--always, everywhere, he listened--listened for the voice and the +foot-falls of Virginia as he had listened in his earlier days for the +voice and the footfalls of the mythical "Ligeia." For had she not +promised that she would watch over him in spirit and, if possible, give +him frequent indications of her presence--sighing upon him in the +evening winds or filling the air which he breathed with perfume from the +censers of the angels? + +And her promises were faithfully kept, for often as he listened he heard +the sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels, and streams of +a holy perfume floated about him, and when his heart beat heavily the +winds that bathed his brow came to him laden with soft sighs, and +indistinct murmurs filled the night air. + + * * * * * + +And so the green spring and the flowery summer passed, and autumn drew +on. + +Then came a day of days--a soft October day when merely to exist was to +be happy and to hope. And new life, like some sweet, rejuvenating +cordial seemed to enter and course through the veins of The Dreamer and +for the first time since the Silence and the Solitude had enveloped the +cottage he laughed as he flung wide the windows of the chamber that had +been the chamber of death, to let in the day. And as he looked forth he +said, again quoting the words of his "Morella," + +"The winds lie still in heaven. There is a dim moisture over all the +earth and a warm glow upon the waters, and upon the forest a rainbow--a +bow of promise--from the firmament has surely fallen. It is not a day +for sorrow but for joy, for it is a day out of Aidenn itself, and I feel +that ere it has passed I shall hold sweeter, more real communion with +her that is in Aidenn than ever before." + +He went forth and wandered through the radiance of that perfect day +hours on hours, and as he paced the solemn aisles of the pine wood, or +strolled along the river walk which was veiled in a golden haze and +carpeted thick with the yellow and crimson and brown leaves of October, +he heard, clearly, the sound of the swinging of the censers of the +angels, as his senses were bathed in the holy perfume, and the zephyrs +that blew about his brow were laden with audible sweet murmurs. + +As evening fell a pleasant languor possessed his limbs--a wholesome +weariness from his long wanderings--and he lay down upon a bank littered +with fallen leaves and slept. And as he slept in the fading light, the +spirit of Virginia approached him more nearly--more tangibly--than ever +before; and finally, when the red sun had sunk into the river, and when +the afterglow in the sky and the rainbow that lay upon the forest were +alike blotted out by the shadows of night, and the moon--a lustrous blur +through the haze--wandered uncertainly up the sky, she drew nearer and +nearer, and pressed a fluttering kiss--such a kiss as a butterfly might +bestow upon a flower--upon his lips; then, sighing, drew away. + +The sleeper awoke with a start--a start of heavenly bliss followed by +instant pain--for as he peered into the night he saw that he was +alone--with the Silence and the Solitude. The winds lay still in heaven +and bore him no whisper or sigh. The perfume from the censers of the +angels still filled the air, but he was conscious of a great void--a +pain unbearable. The kiss had awakened a thousand thronging memories; +the kiss had robbed of their charm the elusive perfume, and the ghostly +whisper of fluttering garments, and the shadowy foot-falls, and the +faint, faraway sighs. Henceforth these would cease to satisfy. The kiss +had made him know the want of his heart for love and companionship, such +as the living Virginia had given him. + +He listened and listened, but the winds lay still in heaven, and he was +alone with the Silence--the dread Silence--and the heart-hunger, and the +despair. + +Then he arose from his bed of withered and sere leaves and as one +distraught, wandered through the shadows of the misty, weird night. In +the wood and by the waters he wandered, while the night wore on and the +moon held its way--still a lustrous blur in the heavens. + +On, on he wandered, seeking peace for his soul and finding none, till +the moon was out and the stars fainted in the twilight of the +approaching day, when lo, above the end of the path through the wood, +the morning star--"Astarte's bediamonded crescent"--arose upon his +vision! + +And as he gazed with wonder and delight upon the beautiful star, hope +was born anew in his heart, for he said, + +"It is the Star of Love!" + +He that had always looked for signs in the skies, had he not found one? +What could it mean, this rising of the Star of Love upon the hour of his +bitterest need but a sign of hope, of peace? + +Vainly did his soul upbraid him and warn him not to trust the beacon--to +fly from its alluring light and cast aside its spell. All deaf to the +warning, he eagerly followed the star which promised renewal of hope and +love and relief from the Solitude and the Silence--the desolation that +the kiss had made so real and intolerable. + +But alas, as he wandered on and on, his eyes upon the star, his feet +following blindly, without marking the path into which they had turned, +his progress was suddenly checked. Through the misty twilight of the +approaching dawn there loomed an obstacle to his steps. It was with +horror unspeakable that he recognized the vault in which lay, in her +last sleep, his loved Virginia.... + + "Then his heart it grew ashen and sober + As the leaves that were crisped and sere,-- + As the leaves that were withering and sere!" + +The Star of Love was fading in the eastern sky and through the ghostly +dawn he turned and fled aghast to the cottage among the cherry trees. + + * * * * * + +Mother Clemm who had lain waiting and watching for him all night arose +from her uneasy couch when she heard the latch of the gate lifted, and +opened the door. He came in and walked past her like a wraith. His eyes +were wild, his face was bloodless and haggard, his hair damp and +disordered. The Mother's eyes were filled with dumb pain. He suffered +her to take his hand in hers and to gaze into his eyes with pity and +even raised the hand that held his own to his lips, as though to +reassure her; but he spake no word--made no attempt at explanation--and +she asked no questions. + +For a moment he remained beside her, then straight to his desk he walked +and began arranging writing materials before him, while she disappeared +into the kitchen and started a blaze under a pot of coffee that stood +upon the little stove. + +He wrote rapidly--furiously--without pausing for thought or for the +fastidious choice of words that was apt to make him halt frequently in +the act of composition, and the words that he wrote were the wild +words--wild, but beautiful and moving as an echo from Israfel's own +lute--of the poem, "Ulalume:" + + "The skies they were ashen and sober; + The leaves they were crisped and sere,-- + The leaves they were withering and sere,-- + It was night in the lonesome October + Of my most immemorial year." + + * * * * * + +After that eventful night a change came over him that sat upon the Rock +of Desolation. The Solitude and the Silence still enfolded him, but the +Star of Love had arisen in his firmament, ushering in a new day and new +hope to his soul. And he no longer trembled as he sat upon the rock, but +with new energy he worked and with exceeding patience he waited. And as +he worked interest in life returned to him, and ambition returned. + +One day he copied "Ulalume" upon a long, narrow slip of paper and rolled +it into one of the tight little rolls that all the editors knew and +Mother Clemm made a pilgrimage to the city especially on account of it. +First she tried it at _The Union Magazine_, which promptly rejected it. +It was too "queer" the editor said. But _The American Review_ agreed to +take it and to print it without signature--for this poem must be +published anonymously, if at all, the poet insisted. It soon afterward +appeared and Mr. Willis copied it into the next number of _The Home +Journal_ with complimentary editorial comment. + +The result was a new sensation--the reader everywhere declared himself +to be brought under a magic spell by the words of this remarkable +poem--though he frankly owned that he did not in the least understand +them; which was as Edgar Poe intended. + + * * * * * + +Even the old dream of founding a magazine returned and possessed him as +it had so often possessed him before. It was in the interest of the +magazine, which he still proposed to name _The Stylus_, that he +determined to give his new work, "Eureka!" as a lecture, in various +places. He did give it once--in New York--coming out of his seclusion +for the first time, upon a frosty February night. The rhapsody, +delivered in his low but musical and dramatic tones, thrilled his +audience, but it was a small audience, and when soon afterward, the work +was published by the _Putnams_ it was a small number of copies that was +sold. + +And again Edgar Poe was desperately poor. Yet he had seen the Star of +Love--"Astarte's bediamonded crescent"--usher in a new morning; and he +waited and worked in hope. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +Autumn with its enchanted October night, and winter filled with work and +spent in deep seclusion at Fordham, and spring with its revival of plans +for _The Stylus_, and the appearance of "Eureka!" as a book, and its +author's return to the world as a lecturer, slipped by. + +About midsummer The Dreamer lay a night in the old town of Providence. +It was a warm night and the window of his room was open--letting in a +flood of light from the full moon. He leaned from the window which +looked upon a plot of flowers whose many odors rising, enveloped him in +incense sweet as the incense from the censers of the angels when the +spirit of his Virginia was near. But it was not of Virginia that the +fragrance told him tonight. Something about the blended odors, combined +with the sensuous warmth of the night and the light of the moon, +transported him suddenly, magically, back through the years to his +boyhood and to the little room in the Allan cottage on Clay Street, +hanging, like this room, over a space of flowers--the night following +the day when he had first seen Rob Stanard's mother. + +Back, back into the long dead past he wandered! The broken and jaded +Edgar Poe was dreaming again the dream of the fresh, enthusiastic boy, +Edgar Poe. + +How every incident of that day and night stood out in his memory! He +could feel again the wonder that he felt when he saw the beautiful +"Helen" standing against the arbor-vitae in the garden; could see her +graceful approach to meet and greet him--the lonely orphan boy--could +hear her gracious words in praise of his mother while she held his hand +in both her own. As he lived it all over again, with the silver +moonlight enfolding him and the breath of the flowers filling his +nostrils, a clock somewhere in the house struck the night's noon hour. +He started--even so it had been that other night in the long past. He +half believed that if he should go forth into this night as he had gone +into that he should see once more the lady of his dream, with the lamp +in her hand, framed in the ivy-wreathed window, and seeing, worship as +he had worshipped then. + +Scarce knowing what he did, he arose and hurrying down the stair was in +the street. The streets were strange to him but there was a pleasant +sense of adventure in wandering through them--he knew not whither--and +the sweet airs of the flowers were everywhere. + +Suddenly he stopped. While all the town slept there was one beside +himself, who kept vigil. Clad all in white, she half reclined upon a +violet bank in an old garden where the moon fell on the upturned faces +of a thousand roses and on her own, "upturned,--alas, in sorrow!" + +Faint with the beauty and the poetry of the scene he leaned upon the +gate of the + + "enchanted garden + Where no wind dared to stir unless on tiptoe." + +He dared not speak or give any sign of his presence, but he gazed and +gazed until to his entranced eyes it seemed that + + "The pearly lustre of the moon went out: + The mossy banks and the meandering paths-- + The happy flowers and the repining trees-- + Were seen no more." + +All was lost to his vision-- + + "Save only the divine light in those eyes-- + Save but the soul in those uplifted eyes." + + * * * * * + +He continued to gaze until the moon disappeared behind a bank of cloud +and he watched the white-robed figure glide away like "a ghost amid the +entombing trees." Yet still (it seemed to him) the eyes remained. They +lighted his lonely footsteps home that night and he told himself that +they would light him henceforth, through the years. + +Nearly a year had passed since that October night when the Star of Love +ushering in a new morning had prophesied to him of new hope--nearly a +year through which he had waited patiently, but not in vain. The time +had evidently come for the prophecy to be fulfilled and Fate had led him +to this town and the spot in this town where she that was to be (he was +convinced) the hope, the guide, the savior, of his "lonesome latter +years" awaited him. + +Who was she?-- + +So spirit-like, so ethereal, she seemed, as robed in white and veiled in +silvery moon-beams she sat among the slumbering roses, and as she was +gathered into the shadows of the entombing trees, that she might almost +have been the "Lady Ligeia." Yet he knew that she was not. The "Lady +Ligeia" had been but the creation of his own brain. Very fair she had +been to his dreaming vision, very sweet her companionship had been to +his imagination--sufficient for all the needs of his being in his +youthful days when sorrow was but a beautiful sentiment, when "terror +was not fright, but a tremulous delight" but how was such an one as she +to bind up the broken heart of a man? It was the _human_ element in the +eyes of her that sat among the roses that enchained him. +Ethereal--spirit-like--as she was, the eyes upturned in sorrow were the +eyes of no spirit, but of a woman; from them looked a human soul with +the capacity and the experience to offer sympathy meet for human +needs--the needs even, of a broken-hearted man. + +How dark the woe!--how sublime the hope!--how intense the pride!--how +daring the ambition!--how deep, how fathomless the capacity for +love!--that looked (as from a window) from those eyes upturned in +sorrow, in the moonlight while all the town slept! + +Who was she?--this lady of sorrows. And by what sweet name was she known +to the citizens of this old town?--Surely Fate that had brought her to +the bank of violets beneath the moon--Fate that had led him to her +garden gate, would in Fate's own time reveal! + + * * * * * + +As Helen Whitman flitted as noiselessly as the ghost she seemed to be up +the dark stairway to her chamber, and without closing the casement that +admitted the moonlight and the garden's odors, lay down upon her +canopied bed, she trembled. What was it that she had been aware of in +the garden?--that presence--that consciousness of communion between her +spirit and his upon whom all her thoughts had dwelt of late? Herself a +poet, from her earliest knowledge of the work of Edgar Poe she had +seemed to feel a kinship between her mind and his such as she had known +in regard to no other. She had followed his career step by step, and out +of the many sorrows of her own life had been born deep sympathy for him. +Since his last, greatest blow, she had more than ever mourned with him +in spirit, for she too was widowed--she too had sat upon the Rock of +Desolation and knew the Silence and the Solitude. + +She and The Dreamer had at least one mental trait in common--a tendency +toward spiritualism--a more than half belief in the communion of the +spirits of the dead with those of the living and of those of the living +with each other. + +What had led her into the moonlit garden when all the world slept? + +She knew not. She only knew that she had felt an impelling influence--a +call to her spirit--to come out among the slumbering roses. She had not +questioned nor sought to define it. She had heard it, and she had +obeyed. And then the presence!-- + +She had never seen Edgar Poe, yet she felt that he had been there in the +spirit, if not in the flesh--she had felt his eyes upon her eyes and she +had half expected him to step from the shadows around her and to say, + +"I, upon whom your thoughts have dwelt--I, who am the comrade and the +complement of your inner life--I, whose spirit called to you ere you +came into the garden--I am here." + + * * * * * + +It was almost immediately upon The Dreamer's return to Fordham, and when +he was still under the spell of the night at Providence, that the +identity of the lady of the garden was revealed to him, in a manner +seemingly accidental, but which he felt to be but another manifestation +of the divinity that shapes our ends. Some casual words concerning the +appearance and character of Mrs. Whitman, spoken by a casual visitor, +lifted the curtain. + +So the lady of the garden was Helen Whitman! whose poetry had impressed +him favorably and whose acquaintance he had desired. Helen +Whitman--_Helen_! As he repeated the name his heart stood still,--even +in her name he heard the voice of Fate. _Helen_--the name of the good +angel of his boyhood! Were his dreams of "Morella" and of "Ligeia" to +come true? Was he to know in reality the miracle he had imagined and +written of in these two phantasies?--the reincarnation of personal +identity? Was he in this second Helen, in this second garden, to find +again the worshipped Helen of his boyhood? + +He turned to the lines he had written so long ago, in Richmond, when he +had gone forth into the midsummer moonlight, even as he had gone forth +in Providence, and had worshipped under a window, even as he had +worshipped at a garden gate. He read the first two stanzas through. + +As he read he gave himself up to an overwhelming sense of fatality. +Could anything be more fitting--more descriptive? The end of the days of +miracles was not yet--this _was_ his "Helen of a thousand dreams!" + +His impulse was to seek an introduction at once, but this seemed too +tamely conventional. Besides--he was in the hands of Fate--he dared not +stir. Fate, having so clearly manifested itself, would find a way. + +His correspondence was always heavy. Letters, clippings from papers and +so forth, came to him by every post from friends and from enemies, with +and without signatures. Yet from all the mass, he knew at once that the +"Valentine," unsigned as it was, was from her. + +By way of acknowledgment, he turned down a page of a copy of "The Raven +and Other Poems" at the lines, "To Helen," and mailed it to her. He +waited in anxious suspense for a reply, but the lady was coy. Days +passed and still no answer. The desire for communication with her became +irresistible and taking pen and paper he wrote at the top of the page, +even as long ago he had written, the words, "To Helen," and underneath +wrote a new poem especially for this new Helen in which he described the +vision of her in the garden (but placing it in the far past) and his +feelings as he gazed upon her: + + "I saw thee once--once only--years ago; + I must not say _how_ many--but not many. + + * * * * * + + Clad all in white, upon a violet bank + I saw thee half reclining; while the moon + Fell on the upturned faces of the roses, + And on thine own, upturned,--alas in sorrow! + Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-- + Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow) + That bade me pause before that garden-gate + To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? + No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept, + Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!--oh, God! + How my heart beats in coupling those two words!) + Save only thee and me!" ... + +The paper trembled in the hands--tiny and spirit-like--of Helen Whitman. +Her soul answered emphatically, + +"It _is_ Fate!" + +So he had been there in the flesh--near her--in the shadows of that +mystic night! The presence was no creation of an overwrought +imagination. It was Fate. + +Tremulously she penned her answer to his appeal, but was it Fate again, +which caused the letter to miscarry? It reached him finally, in +Richmond--_Richmond_, of all places!--whither he had gone to deliver to +audiences of his old friends, his lecture upon "The Poetic Principle," +in the interest of the establishment of his magazine, _The Stylus_. What +could have been more fitting than that the gracious words of "Helen of a +thousand dreams" should come to him in Richmond? + + * * * * * + +Not many days later and he was under her own roof in Providence. + +He waited in the dimness of her curtained drawing-room, ear strained for +the first sound of her footstep. Noiselessly as a sunbeam or a shadow +she entered the room, her gauzy white draperies floating about her +slight figure as she came, while his great eyes drank in with reverent +joy each detail of her ethereal loveliness--her face, the same he had +seen in the garden, pale as a pearl and as softly radiant, and framed in +clustering dark ringlets which escaped in profusion from the confinement +of a lacy widow's cap--the tremulous mouth--the eyes, mysterious and +unearthly, from which the soul looked out. + +For one moment she paused in the doorway, her hand pressed upon her +wildly beating heart--then, with hesitating step advanced to meet him. +Her words of greeting were few, and so low and faltering as to be quite +unintelligible, but the tones of her voice fell on his ear like +strangely familiar music. + +The man spoke no word. As her eyes rested for one brief moment upon his, +then fell before the intensity of his gaze, he was conscious of +spiritual influences beyond the reach of reason. In a tremulous ecstacy +he bent and pressed his lips upon the hand that lay within his own and +it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from falling upon his +knees before her in actual worship. + +Three evenings of "all heavenly delight" he spent in her +companionship--sometimes in the seclusion and dusk of her quiet +drawing-room, sometimes walking among the roses in her garden, or among +the mossy tombs in the town cemetery--their sympathetic natures finding +expression in such conversation as poets delight in. Under the +intoxicating spell of her presence all other dreams passed, for the +time, into nothingness and he passionately cried, + +"Helen, I love now--_now_--for the first and only time!" + +Yet he was poor, and the weaknesses which had caused him to fall in the +past might cause him to fall in the future. How could he plead for a +return of his love? + +His very self-abasement made his plea more strong. Still, she did not +yield too suddenly. True, she too, was under the spell, but she resisted +it. As he found his voice, and his eloquence filled the room a +restlessness possessed her. Now she sat quite still by his side, now +rose and wandered about the apartment--now stood with her hand resting +upon the back of his chair while his nearness thrilled her. + +There were objections, she told him--she was older than he. + +"Has the soul age, Helen?" he answered her. "Can immortality regard +time? Can that which began never and shall never end consider a few +wretched years of its incarnate life? Do you not perceive that it is my +diviner nature--my spiritual being, that burns and pants to commingle +with your own?" + +She urged her frail health as an objection. + +For that he would love--worship her--the more, he said. He plead for her +pity upon his loneliness--his sorrows--and swore that he would comfort +and soothe her in hers, through life, and when death should come, +joyfully go down with her into the night of the grave. + +Finally he appealed to her ambition. + +"Was I right, Helen, in my first impression of you?--in the impression +that you are ambitious? If so, and if you will have faith in me, I can +and will satisfy your wildest desires. Would it not be glorious to +establish in America, the sole unquestionable aristocracy--that of the +intellect--to secure its supremacy--to lead and control it?" + +Still the _yes_ that so often seemed trembling upon her lips was not +spoken. She received his almost daily letters and his frequent visits, +listened to his rapturous love-making--trembling, blushing, letting him +see that she was under the spell, that she loved him. Indeed she could +not have helped his seeing it had she wished; but when he spoke of +marriage she hesitated--tantalizing him to the point of madness, almost. + +What was it that held her back?--She too, believed that it was the hand +of Fate that had brought them together--that they were pre-ordained to +cheer each other's latter years, to establish that intellectual +aristocracy of which he dreamed. Yet she shrank from taking the step. +When his great solemn eyes were upon her, his beautiful face pale and +haggard with excess of feeling, turned toward her, his eloquent words of +love in her ears, she sat as one entranced--bewitched; yet she would not +give the word he longed for--the word of willingness to embark with him +upon the sea of life. _Fear_ checked her. Such an uncharted sea it +seemed to her--she dared not say him yea! + +The truth was the poison was working--the Griswold poison. The wildest +rumors came to her ears of the worse than follies of her lover. She knew +that they were at least, overdrawn--possibly altogether false--yet they +frightened her. + +"Do you know Helen Whitman?" wrote one of The Dreamer's enemies to Dr. +Griswold. "Of course you have heard it rumored that she is to marry Poe. +Well, she has seemed to me a good girl and--you know what Poe is. Has +Mrs. Whitman no friend in your knowledge that can faithfully explain Poe +to her?" + +But Rufus Griswold had already "explained Poe" to those whom he knew +would take pains to pass the explanation on to "Helen"--had dropped the +poison where he reckoned it would work with the greatest speed and +effect. The explanation, with the usual indirectness of a Griswold, was +sugared with a compliment. + +"Poe has great intellectual power," he said with emphasis, "_great_ +intellectual power, but," he added, with a sidelong glance of the +furtive eye and a confidential drop in the voice, "but--he has no +principle--no moral sense." + +The poison reached the destination for which it was intended--the ears +of Helen Whitman--in due course, and it terrified her as had none of +the rumors she had heard before. Still her lover floundered in the +dark--baffled--wondering--not able to make her out. Why did she +tantalize him--torture him, thus?--keeping him dangling between Heaven +and hell?--he asked himself, and he asked her, over and over again. He +became more and more convinced that there was a reason,--what was it? + +Finally she gave it to him in its baldness and its brutality, just as it +had come to her--wrote it to him in a letter. It brought him a rude +awakening from his dream of bliss. That such a charge should be brought +against him at all was bitter enough, but that it could be repeated to +him by "Helen" seemed unbelievable. + +"You do not love me," he sadly wrote in reply, "or you would not have +written these terrible words." Then he swore a great oath: "By the God +who reigns in Heaven, I swear to you that my soul is incapable of +dishonor--that with the exception of occasional follies and excesses +which I bitterly lament, but to which I have been driven by intolerable +sorrow, I can call to mind no act of my life which would bring a blush +to my cheek--or to yours." + +He followed the letter with a visit--again throwing himself at her feet +and thrilling her with his eloquence and with the magic of his +personality. + +She gave him a half promise and said she would write to him in Lowell, +where he had engaged to deliver a lecture. + +In this town was a roof-tree which was a haven of rest to The Dreamer. +Beneath it dwelt his friend and confidant, "Annie" Richmond--his soul's +sweet "sister," as he loved to call her. And there he waited with a +chastened joy, for he felt assured that the long wished for _yes_ was +about to be said, yet dared not give himself over prematurely, to the +ecstacy that would soon be his. In the pleasant, friendly family circle +of the Richmonds, he sat during those chill November evenings, seeing +pictures in the glowing fire, as he held sweet "Annie's" sympathetic +hand in his, while the only sound that broke the silence was the ticking +of the grandfather's clock in a shadowy corner. + +Thus quietly, patiently, he waited. + + * * * * * + +But in Providence the Griswold poison was at work. All the friends and +relatives of "Helen" were possessed of full vials of it--which they +industriously poured into her ears. Against it the recollection of the +night in the garden and her belief that Fate had ordained her union with +the poet, had no avail. The letter that she sent her lover was more +non-committal--colder--than any he had received from her before, yet +there was still enough of indecision in it to keep him tantalized. In a +state of mind well nigh distraction, he bade "Annie" and her cheerful +fireside farewell and set his face toward Providence; but he went in a +dream--the demon Despair, possessing him. + +Unstrung, unmanned, almost bereft of reason, his old dissatisfaction +with himself and the world overtook him--a longing to be out of it all, +for forgetfulness, for peace, yea, even the peace of the grave,--why +not? + +A passionate longing--a homesickness--for the sure, the steadfast, the +unvariable love of his beautiful Virginia consumed him. Oh, if he could +but lie down and sleep and forget until one sweet day he should wake in +the land where she awaited him, and where they would construct anew, and +for eternity, the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass! + +He listened.... For the first time since the Star of Love had ushered in +a new day in his life, he heard the swinging of the censers of the +angels--he inhaled the incense--he heard the voice of Virginia in the +sighing wind. She seemed to call to him. + +"I am coming, Heartsease!" he whispered as he quaffed the potion that he +reckoned would bear him to her. + + * * * * * + +But it was not to be. When he awaked, weak and ill, but sane, he found +himself with friends. Calmness and strength returned and with them, +horror at the deed he had so nearly committed, and deep contrition. + +With all haste he again presented himself at the door of "Helen," +beseeching her to marry him at once and save him, as he believed she +only could, from himself. And the consequences of her indecision making +her more alarmed for him than she had formerly been for herself, she +agreed to an engagement, though not to immediate marriage. + +He returned to Fordham and to faithful Mother Clemm a wreck of his +former self, but engaged to be married! + +Yet he was not happy--a new horror possessed him. As in the night when +the Star of Love first rose upon his vigil it had stopped over the door +of "a legended tomb," so now again was his pathway closed. Turn which +way he would, the tomb of Virginia seemed to frown upon him. He +remembered his promise to her that upon no other daughter of earth +would he look with the eyes of love. Vainly did he seek to justify +himself to his own heart for breaking the promise. No one could ever +supplant her, or fill the void in his life her death had made, he told +himself--this new love was something different, and in no way disturbed +her memory. + +But the tomb still stood in his way. + +"I am calm and tranquil," he wrote "Helen," "and but for a strange +shadow of coming evil which haunts me I should be happy. That I am not +supremely happy, even when I feel your dear love at my heart, terrifies +me." + +Later he wrote, + +"You say that all depends on my own firmness. If this be so all is safe. +Henceforward I am strong. But all does not depend, dear Helen, upon my +firmness--all depends upon the sincerity of your love." + + * * * * * + +A month later the skies of Providence shone brightly upon him. He +returned there, was received by Mrs. Whitman as her affianced lover, +delivered his brilliant lecture upon "The Poetic Principle" to a great +throng of enthusiastic hearers, and won a promise from his lady to marry +him at once and return with him to Fordham. He scribbled a line to +Mother Clemm notifying her to be ready to receive him and his bride and +went so far as to engage the services of a clergyman, and to sign a +marriage contract, in which Mrs. Whitman's property was made over to her +mother. + +But--just at this point a note was slipped into the hand of "Helen," +informing her that her lover had been seen drinking wine in the hotel. +When he called at her house soon afterward she received him surrounded +by her family and though there were no signs of the wine, said "no" to +him, emphatically--for the first time. + +He plead, but she remained firm--receiving his passionate words of +remonstrance with sorrowful silence, while her mother, impatient at his +persistence, showed him the door. He prayed that she would at least +speak one word to him in farewell. + +"What can I say?" she questioned. + +"Say that you love me, Helen." + +"I love you!" + +With these words in his ears he was gone. As he passed out of the gate +and out of her life he saw, or fancied he saw, through the veiled +window, a white figure beckoning to him, but his steps were sternly set +toward the opposite direction--his whole being crying within him, +"Nevermore--nevermore!" She had stretched out her spiritlike hands, but +to draw them back again, in the fashion that fascinated and at the same +time maddened him, once too often. The wave of romantic feeling which +had borne him along since his vision of her in the garden suddenly +subsided, leaving him disillusioned--cold. The reaction was so violent +that instead of the magnetic attraction she had had for him he felt +himself positively repelled by the thought of her unearthly beauty--her +mysterious eyes. + +He went straight to the depot and took the train just leaving, which +would bear him back to the cottage among the cherry trees. + +Mother Clemm, expecting him to bring home a bride, had spent the day +putting an extra touch of brightness upon the simple but already +spotless, home. A cheerful fire was in the grate; branches of holly, +cedar and such other such bits of beauty as the woods afforded were +everywhere about the house, and the Mother herself, in the snowiest of +caps with the sheerest of floating strings and a gallant look of welcome +upon her sorrowful face, stood at the window and watched for the coming +of the son that Heaven had given her, and the woman who was to take the +place of the daughter that Heaven had taken away from her. Her oak-like +nature had quailed at the thought--but it had withstood many a blast, it +could weather one more, and after all, if "Eddie" were happy--. + + * * * * * + +In the far distance a figure emerged out of the gathering dusk--a man. +Could it be Eddie?--Alone? + +Yes! It surely was he! The carriage of the head--the military cloak--the +walk--were unmistakable. + +But he was alone!--She grew weak in the knees.--The shock of joy more +nearly unnerved her than had the pain. She had braced herself to bear +the pain. + +She recovered her composure and hastened to the door just in time to be +folded into the arms of the figure in the cloak. + +"Helen?"--she queried. + +"Is dead--to me," he answered, with his arms still about her. "We will +have nothing more to say of her except this: Muddie, I have been in a +dream from which, thank God, I am now awake. In the darkness of my +loneliness--of my misery, of which you alone have the slightest +conception, I saw a light which I fancied would lead me to the love for +which my soul is starving--to the sympathy which is sweeter even than +love to the broken heart of a man. I followed it. I was deceived. It was +no real light, but a mere will o' the wisp bred in the dank tarn of +despair." + +He released her to hang up the cloak in the little entrance hall, then +taking her hand, which he raised to his lips, drew her into the sitting +room. + +"Ah, but it is good to be at home again!" he exclaimed. + +His whole manner changed; a mighty weight seemed to roll from his +shoulders as he stretched his legs before the fire. His old merry +laugh--the laugh of Edgar Goodfellow--rang out as he told "Muddie" of +the success of his lecture, in Providence,--of the great audience and +the applause. + +"Muddie," he cried, "my dream of _The Stylus_ will come true yet! A few +more such audiences and the money will be in sight! And let me add, I am +done with literary women--henceforth literature herself shall be my sole +mistress. I am more than ever convinced that the profession of letters +is the only one fit for a man of brain. There is little money in it, of +course, but I'd rather be a poor-devil author earning a bare living than +a king. Beyond a living, what does a man of brain want with money +anyhow?--Muddie, did it ever strike you that all that is really valuable +to a man of talent--especially to a poet--is absolutely +unpurchasable?--Love, fame, the dominion of intellect, the consciousness +of power, the thrilling sense of beauty, the free air of Heaven, +exercise of body and mind with the physical and moral health that these +bring;--these, and such as these are really all a poet cares about. Then +why should he mind what the world calls poverty?" + +"Why indeed?" echoed happy "Muddie." It was so delightful to have her +son back at home, and in this hopeful, contented frame, she would have +agreed with him in almost any statement he chose to make. + +He gave her loving messages from "Annie" and told her in the bright, +humorous way which was characteristic of Edgar Goodfellow, of many +pleasant little incidents of his journey. One of the nights to look back +upon and to gloat over in memory was this night by the fireside at +Fordham cottage with the Mother--a night of calm and content under the +home-roof after tempestuous wandering. + +A quiet, sweet Christmas they spent together--he reading, writing or +talking over plans for new work, while she sat by with her sewing and +Catalina dozed on the hearth. Part of every day (wrapped in the old +cape) he walked in the pine wood or beside the ice-bound river, and for +the first time since the feverish dream of new love had come to him he +was able to visit the tomb of Virginia and to dwell with happiness, and +with a clear conscience, upon her memory. During these days of serenity +a ballad suggested by thoughts of her and his life with her in the +lovely Valley of the Many-Colored Grass took form in his mind. It was no +dirge-like song of the "dank tarn of Auber," but a song of a fair +"kingdom by the sea" and in contrast to the sombre "Ulalume" he gave to +the maiden in the new poem the pleasant sounding name of "Annabel Lee." +Out of these days too, came "the Bells" and the exquisite sonnet to his +"more than Mother." + +One flash of the false light that had lured him reached The Dreamer at +Fordham. He held a letter addressed to him in the familiar handwriting +of Helen Whitman long in his hand without opening it. This flame was +burned out, he told himself--why rake its cold ashes? Yet he felt that +nothing that she could say would have power to disturb his new peace. +Still the Mother, though she kept her own counsel, trembled for herself +and for him as she was aware (without looking up from her sewing) that +he had broken the seal. Some minutes of tense stillness passed--then, + +"Shall I read you her letter?" he asked. + +"As you will." + +"Then I will!--It is in verse and the place from which she dates it is, + +"Our Island of Dreams," which she explains in a sub-heading is + + "By the foam + Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn" + +--a line which she has borrowed from Keats. This is what she writes: + + "Tell him I lingered alone on the shore, + Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet nevermore; + The night-wind blew cold on my desolate heart + But colder those wild words of doom, 'Ye must part!' + + "O'er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a cry; + Save the wail of those waters there came no reply. + I longed, like a bird, o'er the billows to flee, + From our lone island home and the moan of the sea: + + "Away,--far away--from the wild ocean shore, + Where the waves ever murmur, 'No more, nevermore,' + Where I wake, in the wild noon of midnight, to hear + The lone song of the surges, so mournful and drear. + + "Where the clouds that now veil from us heaven's fair light, + Their soft, silver lining turn forth on the night; + When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel + He shall know if I loved him; but never how well." + +Silence followed the reading of the poem-letter. Finally the mother +asked, + +"Will you go back?" + +He placed the letter upon the top of a pile in the same handwriting, +tied them together with a bit of ribbon and laid them in a small drawer +of his desk. Then, rising, he leaned over the back of "Muddie's" chair +and lightly touching her seamed forehead with his lips replied, + + "Quoth the raven, nevermore!" + +Then took up a garland of evergreen which he had been making when the +Mother came in with the mail, and set out in the direction of the +churchyard with its "legended tomb." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +Back in Richmond!--The Richmond he loved best--Richmond full of sunshine +and flowers and the sweet southern social life out of doors, in gardens +and porches; Richmond in summertime! + +In spite of the changes his observant eye marked as he rattled over the +cobblestones toward the "Swan Tavern," on Broad and Ninth Streets, he +almost felt that he was back in boyhood. It was just such a day, just +this time of year, that--as a lad of eleven--he had seen Richmond first +after his five years absence in England. + +How good it was to be back upon the sacred soil! How sweet the air was, +and how beautiful were the roses! When before, had he seen a magnolia +tree in bloom?--with its dense shade, its dark green shining foliage, +and its snow-white blossoms. Was there anything in the world so sweet as +its odor, combined with that of the roses and the other flowers that +filled the gardens? It was worth coming all the way from New York just +to see and to smell them. + +He caught glimpses of one or two familiar figures as he drove along. How +impatient he was to see his old friends--everybody--white and colored, +old and young, masculine and feminine. He could hardly wait to get to +the tavern, remove the dust of travel and sally forth upon the round of +visits he intended to make. His spirits went up--and up, and finally it +was Edgar Goodfellow in the flesh who stepped jauntily from the door of +"Swan Tavern," arrayed for hot-weather calling. In spite of the summer +temperature, he looked the personification of coolness and comfort. The +taste of prosperity his lectures had brought him was evident in his +modest but spruce apparel. He had discarded the habitual black cloth for +a coat and trousers of white linen (exquisitely laundered by Mother +Clemm's capable and loving hands) which he wore with a black velvet vest +for which he had also to thank the Mother and her skilled needle. A +broad-brimmed Panama hat shaded his pale features and the grey eyes, +which glowed with happiness. As with proudly carried head and quick, +easy gait, he bore westward up Broad Street, no single person passed him +that did not turn to look with admiration upon the handsome, +distinguished stranger, and to mentally ask "Who is he?" + +It so happened that Jack Mackenzie was the first acquaintance he met. + +"Edgar," he said, as their hands joined in affectionate grasp, "Do you +remember once, years ago, I met you in the street and you said you were +going to look for the end of the rainbow? Well, you look as if you had +found it!" + +"I have," was the reply. "An hour ago. It was here in Richmond all the +time and I didn't know it, and like a poor fool, have been wandering the +world over in a vain search for it. The trouble is, I was looking for +the wrong thing. I was looking for fame and fortune, thought of which +blinded my eyes to something far better--scenes and friendships of _lang +syne_. Jack--" he continued, as--arm in arm--the two friends made their +way up the street. "Jack, life is a great schoolmaster, but why does it +take so long to drub any sense into these blockheads of ours?" + +"Damned if I know," replied his companion, who was more truthful always +than either poetic or philosophic, "but if you mean that you've decided +to come back to Richmond to live, I'm mighty glad to hear it." + +"That's what I mean. I came only for a visit and to lecture, but made up +my mind on the way from the depot to come for good as soon as I can +arrange to do so. I think it was a magnolia tree in bloom--the first I +had seen in many a year--that decided me." + +"Well, all of your old friends will be glad to have you back; there's +one in particular that I might mention. Do you remember Elmira Royster? +She's a comely widow now, with a comfortable fortune, and she's always +had a lingering fondness for you. I advise you to hunt her up." + +The Dreamer's face clouded. + +"Women are angels, Jack," he said. "They are the salt that will save +this world, if it is to be saved, and for poor sinners like me there +would be simply no hope in either this world or the next but for them; +but they will have no more part in my life, save as friends. A true +friend of mine, however, I believe Myra is. I saw her during my brief +visit here last fall.--Ah, Rob! my boy! Howdy!" + +The two friends had turned into Sixth Street and as they drew near the +corner of Sixth and Grace, almost ran into Rob Stanard--now a prominent +lawyer and one of the leading gentlemen of the town. + +"Eddie Poe, as I'm alive!" he exclaimed, with a hearty hand-clasp. "My, +my, what a pleasure! I'm on my way home to dinner, boys. Come in, both +of you and take pot-luck with us. My wife will be delighted to see you!" + +The invitation was accepted as naturally as it was given, and the three +mounted together the steps of the beautiful house and were received in +the charmingly homelike drawing-room opening from the wide hall, by +Rob's wife, a Kentucky belle who had stepped gracefully into her place +as mistress of one of the notable homes in Virginia's capital. As she +gave her jewelled hand to Edgar Poe her handsome black eyes sparkled +with pleasure. She was not only sincerely glad to receive the friend of +her husband's boyhood, but keen appreciation of intellectual gifts made +her feel that to know him was a distinction. Some of the servants who +had known "Marse Eddie" in the old days were still of the +household--having come to Robert Stanard as part of his father's +estate--and they were to their intense gratification, pleasantly greeted +by the visitor. + +That evening--and many subsequent evenings--The Dreamer spent at "Duncan +Lodge" with the Mackenzies and their friends. A series of sunlit days +followed--days of lingering in Rob Sully's studio or in the familiar +office of _The Southern Literary Messenger_ where the editor, Mr. John +R. Thompson--himself a poet--gave him a warm welcome always, and gladly +accepted and published in _The Messenger_ anything the famous former +editor would let him have; days of wandering in the woods or by the +tumbling river he had loved as a lad; days of searching out old haunts +and making new ones. + +And everywhere he found welcome. Delightful little parties were given in +his honor, when in return for the courtesies paid him he charmed the +company by reciting "The Raven" as he alone could recite it. His +lectures upon "The Poetic Principle" and "The Philosophy of +Composition," and his readings in the assembly rooms of the Exchange +Hotel, drew the elite of the city, who sat spellbound while he, erect +and still and pale as a statue, filled their ears with the music of his +voice, and their souls with wonder at the brilliancy of his thought and +words. Subscriptions to _The Stylus_ poured in. At last, this dream of +his life seemed an assured fact. + +One door--one only in all the town did not swing wide to receive him. +The closed portal of the mansion of which he had been the proud young +master, still said to him "Nevermore"--and he always had a creepy +sensation when he passed it, which even the sight of the flower-garden +he had loved, in fullest bloom, did not overcome. + +The golden days ran into golden weeks and the weeks into months, and +still Edgar Poe was making holiday in Richmond--the first holiday he had +had since, as a youth of seventeen he had quarrelled with John Allan and +gone forth to the battle of life. In the long, long battle since then +there had been more of joy than they knew who looking on had seen the +toil and the defeat and the despair, but from whose eyes the exaltation +he had felt in the act of creation or in the contemplation of the works +of nature, and the happiness he found in his frugal home, were hidden. +But, as has been said, there had been no holiday, until now when he had +come back to Richmond an older and a sadder and a more experienced Edgar +Poe--an Edgar Poe upon whom the Silence and the Solitude had fallen and +had left shaken--broken. + +Yet that personal identity upon the mystery of which he liked to +ponder--the unquenchable, immortal _ego_ was there; and it was, for all +the outward and inward changes, the same Edgar Poe, with his two +natures--Dreamer and Goodfellow--alternately dominating him, who had +come back to find the real end of the rainbow in revisiting old scenes, +renewing old friendships, awakening old memories--and had paused to make +holiday. + +Even in these golden days there were occasional falls, for the cup of +kindness was everywhere and in his blood was the same old strain which +made madness for him in the single glass--the single drop, almost; and +in spite of all the great schoolmaster, Life, had taught him, there was +in his will the same old element of weakness. Had it been otherwise he +had not been Edgar Poe. At times, too, the blue devils raised their +heads. Had it been otherwise he had not been Edgar Poe. + +But on the whole the holiday was a bright dream of Paradise regained at +a time when more than ever before his feet had seemed to march only to +the cadence of the old, sad word, Nevermore. + +Two sacred pilgrimages he made early in this holiday--to the two shrines +of his romantic boyhood--to Shockoe Cemetery, where he not only visited +"Helen's" tomb, but laid a wreath upon the grave of Frances Allan--his +little foster mother, and to the churchyard on the hill. The white +steeple still slept serenely in the blue atmosphere above the church +and, as of yore, the bell called in deep, sweet tones to prayer. But how +the churchyard had filled since he saw it last! Graves, graves +everywhere. It was appalling! He stepped between the graves, old and +new, stooping to read the inscriptions upon the slabs. So many that he +remembered as merry boys and girls and hale men and women still in their +prime--could they really be dead?--gone forever from the scenes which +had known them and of which they seemed an integral part? Oh, mystery of +mysteries, how was it possible?--Yet here were their names plainly +written upon the marbles! The church builded by men's hands, the trees +planted by men's hands, the monuments fashioned by men's hands remained, +but the living, breathing men, where were they? Could it be that God's +highest creation was a more perishable thing than the lifeless work of +its own hand? His spirit cried out within him against such a thought. +No, it could not be! Gone from earth, or holden from mortal vision they +assuredly were--departed--but dead? No! + +Finally he came to the grave beside the wall. No marble tomb told the +passer-by that there lay the body of Elizabeth Poe. Yet, what +matter?--Was her sleep the less peaceful? Was her tired spirit the less +free?--If in its flight it should visit this spot where it had laid the +burden of the body down, surely it would find, for all there was no +carven stone to mark it, a most sweet spot. The greenest of grass, and +clover with blossoms white and red, waved over it--the summer breeze +rippling through them with pleasant sound,--and the tall trees hung a +green canopy between it and the midday sun. + +As he laid his offering of roses among the clover blooms and turned to +go away the bell in the steeple began to toll. How the past came +back!--He stood with uncovered and bowed head and counted the strokes. +Suddenly, there was a sound of horses tramping in the street below the +wall. Then through the gate and down the walk it came--the solemn +procession. + +He waited until the last of the mourners had passed into the church, +then followed, and as the bell stopped tolling and the organ began to +play the familiar, moving chant, he passed in and took a seat near the +door. Whose funeral service he was attending he knew not--but he was +back in childhood, and it was beautiful to him to hear once more, in +this very church, the words of spoken music and the old familiar hymns +he had heard that day when his infant heart had been filled with a +beautiful sorrow that was not pain. + +More than one pair of eyes turned to see the owner of the fine tenor +voice that joined in the singing of the hymns, and resting for a moment +upon the dark, uplifted eyes of Edgar Poe, caught a glimpse of something +not of this earth. + +As he left the church and churchyard, he noted many changes in its +immediate neighborhood but the only one upon which his eye lingered was +a smug brick house of commodious proportions and genteel aspect. A +pleasant green yard afforded space for a few trees and flowers. A +dignified and prosperous, but not in the least romantic house it was. A +house with no rambling wings giving opportunities for winding +passageways and odd nooks and corners; no unexpected closets where +skeletons might be in hiding, or dusky stairways to creak in the dead of +night, or upon which, even by day, one was almost certain he caught a +glimpse of a shadowy figure flying before him as he groped his way up or +down them. A house with no mysteries--just the house in which one might +have expected to find Elmira Royster who, as the Widow Shelton, the +prudent housewife and good manager of a prosperous estate, was simply +the frank, clear-eyed girl he had known, grown older. + +He would call upon Elmira sometime, but not now little son, so that she +could only use the income, was duly signed and sealed. The wedding ring +was bought. + +With visions of a new start in life, of which there were many happy +years in store for him (why not?--He was only forty!) The Dreamer set +out on his way back to Fordham to settle up his affairs and bring Mother +Clemm to Richmond to witness his marriage and to take up her abode with +him and his bride, in the brick house on the hill. He had been upon a +holiday, but he carried with him a goodly sum of money realized from his +lectures, and a long list of subscribers to _The Stylus_. Surely, +Fortune had never shown him a more smiling face! + + * * * * * + +Baltimore!-- + +Why did his way lie through Baltimore? Baltimore, with its memories of +Virginia--Baltimore where he had come up out of the grave to the heaven +of her love, and where had been first constructed the most beautiful of +all his dreams--the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, in +which he and she and the Mother had lived for each other only! + +In Baltimore again he found his way stopped by the vision of "a legended +tomb." It was paralyzing! He could go no further upon his journey, but +lingered in Baltimore, wandering the streets like one bereft. + +The words--the prophetic words--of his own poem "To One in Paradise," +haunted him: + + "A voice from out the future cries, + 'On! on!' But o'er the Past + (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies + Mute, motionless, aghast!" + +And again, the words of his "Bridal Ballad"--more prophetic still: + + "Would to God I could awaken! + For I dream I know not how; + And my soul is sorely shaken + Lest an evil step be taken,-- + Lest the dead who is forsaken + May not be happy now." + +And that merciless other self, his accusing Conscience, arose, and with +whisper louder and more terrible than ever before, upbraided +him--reminding him of the vow he had made his wife upon her bed of +death. + +Alas, the vow!--that solemn, sacred vow! How could he have so utterly +forgotten it? How plainly he could see her lying upon the snowy +pillow--her face not much less white--her trustful eyes on his eyes as +he knelt by her side and swore that he would never bind himself in +marriage to another--invoking from Heaven a terrible curse upon his soul +if he should ever prove traitorous to his oath. + +Alas, where had been his will that he had so soon forgotten his vow? How +he despised himself for his weakness--he that had boasted in the words +of old Joseph Glanvil, until he had almost made them his own words: + +"'Man doth not yield himself to the angels nor unto death utterly, save +only through the weakness of his will.'" + + * * * * * + +Hours on hours he wandered the streets of the city whose every paving +stone seemed to speak to him of his Virginia--the city where he had +walked with her--where he had first spoken of love to her and heard her +sweet confession--where, in the holy church, the beautiful words of the +old, old rite had made them one. + +All day he wandered, and all night--driven, cruelly driven--by the +upbraiding whisper in his ear, while before him still he saw her white +face with the soft eyes looking out--it seemed to him in reproach. + +Finally the longing which had come upon him in Providence--the longing +for the peace of the grave and reunion, in death, with Virginia, was +strong upon him again--pressed him hard--mastered him. + +It was sometime in the early morning that he swallowed the draught--the +draught that would free his spirit, that would enable him to lay down +the burden of his body and to fly from the steps that dogged _his_ +steps--from the voice that whispered upbraidings. He would lay his body +down by the side of her body in the "legended tomb" while his spirit +would fly to join her spirit in that far Aidenn where they would be +happy together forever. + +As he fell asleep he murmured (again quoting himself): + + "And neither the angels in heaven above, + Nor the demons down under the sea, + Can ever dissever my soul from the soul + Of the beautiful Annabel Lee." + +When he opened his wondering eyes upon the white walls of the hospital +he was feeble and weak in his limbs as an infant, but his brain was +unclouded. Gentle hands ministered to him and a woman's voice read him +spirit-soothing words from the Gospel of St. John. But the draught had +done its work. He lingered some days and then, on Sunday morning, the +seventh day of October of the year 1849, his spirit took its flight. His +last words were a prayer: + + "Lord, have mercy on my poor soul!" + +Many were the friends who rose up to comfort the stricken mother and who +hastened to bring rosemary to the poet's grave. But there was one whom +he had believed to be his friend--a big man whose big brain he had +admired--in whose furtive eye was an unholy glee, about whose thick lips +played a smile which slightly revealed his fang-like teeth. To him was +entrusted the part of literary executor--it had been The Dreamer's own +request. In his power it would lie to give to the world his own account +of this man who had said he was no poet and had distanced him in the +race for a woman's favor. + +The day was at hand when Rufus Griswold would have his full revenge upon +the fair fame of Edgar the Dreamer. + + * * * * * + + "Out--out are the lights--out all! + And, over each quivering form, + The curtain, a funeral pall, + Comes down with the rush of a storm; + And the angels, all pallid and wan, + Uprising, unveiling, affirm + That the play is the tragedy, 'Man,' + And its hero the Conqueror Worm." + + + * * * * * + + +Transcriber's note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMER*** + + +******* This file should be named 17389.txt or 17389.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/3/8/17389 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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