Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor Part 6

He was also something of an artist, and decorated his rooms with charcoal sketches. He and a cla.s.smate bought a volume of Byron with steel engravings in it. The next time his friend went to see Poe he found him copying one of these on the ceiling, and he continued this until he had covered the whole of the walls with figures that were said to be artistic and striking.

CHAPTER V

FORTUNE CHANGES

At the age of eighteen there came a change in Poe's life. Until then he had been a petted child in a wealthy family. Mr. Allan did not have that affection for him which Mrs. Allan had. He did not understand the boy's peculiar and erratic nature, and was particularly displeased when he found that Edgar had run into debt at college. There was an angry scene between the two, and Edgar was told that he must leave the university and go into the counting-room. It appears that he made some attempt to tie himself down to figures and accounts and business routine; but as he had not been brought up to this kind of life, he soon tired of it, and decided to go into the world to seek his own fortune. He went to Boston, where he published a volume of poetry.

In the preface to this volume, Poe says that the poems were written before he was fourteen. Though this may not be strictly true, there is little doubt that some of them were. While he was still at school he had collected enough of his poems to make a volume, and Mr. Allan had taken them up to the master of the English and Cla.s.sical School to get his advice about publis.h.i.+ng them. This gentleman advised against it on the ground that it would make Edgar conceited,--a fault from which he was already suffering. As soon as he was free to do as he pleased, therefore, it was natural that he should rewrite his poems and publish them.

The volume was ent.i.tled "Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian."

It was published by a young printer named Calvin Thomas, and was a thin little book, not very attractive in appearance. Several of the pieces then published are now included in Poe's collected works, but they have been greatly changed.

Naturally the poems of an obscure young man did not sell, and the volume was soon suppressed--Poe says "for private reasons." The "private reasons" were doubtless merely the fact that the book was a complete failure, and the young, proud poet was much ashamed that he could not sell even a dozen copies--possibly not even one.

The little money Poe had was now spent, and he was obliged to do something to keep from starvation. The only chance he saw was to enlist in the army. He did so under the name of Edgar A. Perry, and the record of his service may be found in the War Department of our government at Was.h.i.+ngton. He was a.s.signed to Battery H, First Artillery, and conducted himself so well that he was promoted from the ranks to be sergeant-major. From Boston the company was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, and a year later to Fortress Monroe, Virginia.

From Fortress Monroe Poe wrote to Mr. Allan for the first time. He soon afterwards learned of the illness of Mrs. Allan, who died February 28, 1829. He got leave of absence to attend her funeral, and went to Richmond.

Poe was such a bright young man that it seemed a pity for him to remain in the ranks, when he might become an officer; therefore it was suggested that he be sent to West Point. Mr. Allan agreed to help him; but it is said that, after the death of Mrs. Allan, he no longer entertained any affection for Edgar. In a letter to the Secretary of War, he said: "Frankly, sir, I do declare that he is no relation to me whatever; that I have many in whom I have taken an active interest to promote theirs; with no other feeling than that, every man is my care, if he be in distress. For myself I ask nothing, but I do request your kindness to aid this youth in the promotion of his future prospects."

Poe did not like the life at West Point in the least, though he amused his mates by writing satirical verses about the professors. After a few months he asked to be discharged; but Mr. Allan would not consent.

So Poe made up his mind that he would have himself expelled. He stayed away from parade, roll-call, and guard duty. As a court-martial was then in session, he was summoned before it. He denied the most flagrant charge against him; but this only made his case worse, and he was expelled from the academy.

CHAPTER VI

LIVING BY LITERATURE

Once more the young poet found himself cast out on the world, without home or friends. He could hope for nothing more from Mr. Allan, after his disgrace at the military academy, and he had found out that army life was not so fine a refuge from starvation as he had thought it. He was a proud, melancholy young man, and in school and college had learned many bad habits. He had no trade nor practical knowledge of any kind of work, though he was quick and ingenious. He had studied the art of writing, and this alone offered him the means of earning a livelihood. How poor and precarious a chance it was, we shall see as we go on.

While waiting for appointment to the Military Academy the preceding year, Poe had made acquaintance with his father's relatives in Baltimore. He formed some literary connections there, and had a volume of his poems published. It was ent.i.tled "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, by Edgar A. Poe." "Al Aaraaf" was a poem about a star that a great astronomer had seen blaze forth and then disappear.

When he left West Point in April, 1831, nearly two years after the publication of his Baltimore volume, Poe was short of money; and to supply his needs his fellow-students subscribed for a new edition of his poems. For this, seventy-five cents was stopped out of the pay of each, and a publisher in New York agreed to issue the book in good style. The cadets thought his volume would contain the many funny squibs he had written on the professors; but they were disappointed.

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

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

It happened at last that a weekly paper called the _Sat.u.r.day Visiter_ was started in Baltimore. To give the paper popularity, two prizes were offered, one of a hundred dollars for the best short story, and the other of fifty for the best poem. Poe tried for both. He had six short stories, which he copied in a neat little ma.n.u.script volume ent.i.tled "Tales of the Folio Club." The poem he sent was "The Coliseum."

The judges were well-known gentlemen of the city of Baltimore, one of whom, John P. Kennedy, afterward became Poe's intimate friend. When they met they looked over several stories, which did not interest them very much. They then came to the "Tales of the Folio Club." One was read aloud, and the three gentlemen were so much interested that they kept on till they had read all, and at once decided to give the prize to one of these. They chose Poe's famous story "A MS. Found in a Bottle." Afterward they decided that his poem was the best submitted; but noticing that it was in the same handwriting as the stories, they thought it best to give the prize to another. When they made their report they greatly complimented the stories Poe had sent in, and said they should be published in a volume.

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

To show how very poor Poe was, I copy this pa.s.sage from Mr. Kennedy's diary: "It was many years ago that I found Poe in Baltimore in a state of starvation. I gave him clothing, free access to my table, and the use of a horse for exercise whenever he chose; in fact, I brought him up from the very verge of despair."

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

"Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come for reasons of the most humiliating nature--my personal appearance.

You may imagine my mortification in making this disclosure to you, but it is necessary."

Mr. Kennedy did all that a friend could do for the future poet and story-writer. Says Poe: "He has been at all times a true friend to me--he was the first true friend I ever had--I am indebted to him for _life itself_."

Poe now contributed regularly to the _Sat.u.r.day Visiter,_ its young editor, Lambert A. Wilmer, becoming his friend and constant companion.

It is said that at this time he dressed very neatly, though inexpensively, "wore Byron collars and a black stock, and looked the poet all over."

CHAPTER VII

POE'S EARLY POETRY

We have seen how persistently Poe clung to his poetry. Three times he published the little volume of his verses, revising, enlarging, and strengthening. In those days there was no market for poetic writing, and as Poe wrote in a strange, weird style, it is not remarkable that no one took any notice of the contents of his little volumes. It was his own opinion, however, that these early poems contained more real poetic imagination than his later successes, and it is perhaps as well that we should begin our study of Poe with some of the first fruits of his genius.

First let us read that most pathetic of autobiographical poems, "Alone." With strange sincerity and directness the poet tells us how his spirit grew and learned the burden of its melancholy, yet scintillating song:

From childhood's hour I have not been As others were,--I have not seen As others saw,--I could not bring My pa.s.sions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then--in my childhood--in the dawn Of a most stormy life was drawn

From every depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still: From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain, From the sun that round me rolled In its autumn tint of gold,-- From the lightning in the sky As it pa.s.sed me flying by,-- From the thunder and the storm, And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.

As a poem written in early youth we should not expect this to be as perfect as "The Raven," for instance. Let us see if we can find some of its faults, as well as some of its beauties:

First, we notice that it ends rather abruptly, as if it were unfinished. In his essay on "The Poetic Principle" Poe pointed out that many a poem fails of its effect by being too short. It must not be so long that one is wearied out before it can be read through; at the same time it must be long enough to convey the whole of the idea.

This poem of his own is an example of the fault he himself pointed out. It is too short to give us clear ideas of all he evidently had in his mind. We notice, also, that it is rhymed in couplets, that is, every two lines are rhymed together. Now the couplets in the last half of the poem seem to strike the ear with more satisfaction than those in the first part. For instance, we are pleased with the sound of these lines:

From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain.

But in some of the lines the pauses of punctuation do not come at the right points to make smooth reading:

From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, _I_ loved alone.

The semicolon after "sorrow" should have come at the end of the line instead of in the middle. Poe had not yet learned the secret of the rhythmic flow which we find in such perfection in "The Bells," for instance.

But in the last part of the poem we find a beauty of image and comparison that thrills us, and something of that strange, weird suggestiveness which was characteristic of all of Poe's poetry, the thing he has in common with no other poet.

This weird suggestiveness is found in still greater vividness in another poem ent.i.tled "The Lake." In this, besides, we see how Poe had a sort of fascination for the horrible. Notice how he says:

Yet that terror was not fright, But a tremulous delight.

Here is the complete poem. The young student of poetry may study it for himself, and discover, if he can, its shortcomings, as we have pointed out the faults in the poem "Alone."