The Portable Edgar Allan Poe (72 page)

You speak of “an estimate of my life”—and, from what I have already said, you will see that I have none to give. I have been too deeply conscious of the mutability and evanescence of temporal things, to give any continuous effort to anything—to be consistent in anything. My life has been
whim
—impulse—passion—a longing for solitude—a scorn of all things present, in an earnest desire for the future.

I am profoundly excited by music, and by some poems—those of Tennyson especially—whom, with Keats, Shelley, Coleridge (occasionally) and a few others of like thought and expression, I regard as the
sole
poets. Music is the perfection of the soul, or idea, of Poetry. The
vagueness
of exultation aroused by a sweet air (which should be strictly indefinite & never too strongly suggestive) is precisely what we should aim at in poetry. Affectation, within bounds, is thus no blemish.

I still adhere to Dickens as either author, or dictator, of the review. My reasons would convince you, could I give them to you—but I have left myself no space. I had two long interviews with Mr D. when here. Nearly every thing in the critique, I heard from him or suggested to him, personally. The poem of Emerson I read to him.

I have been so negligent as not to preserve copies of any of my volumes of poems—nor was either worthy preservation. The best passages were culled in Hirst’s article. I think my best poems, “The Sleeper”, “The Conqueror Worm”, “The Haunted Palace”, “Lenore”, “Dreamland” & “The Coliseum”—but all have been hurried & unconsidered. My best tales are “Ligeia”; The “Gold-Bug”; The “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, The “Tell-Tale Heart”, The “Black Cat”, “William Wilson”, & “The Descent into the Maelström.” “The Purloined Letter,” forthcoming in the “Gift”, is, perhaps, the best of my tales of ratiocination. I have lately written, for Godey, “The Oblong-Box”, and “Thou art the Man”—as yet unpublished. With this, I mail you “The Gold-Bug”, which is the only one of my tales I have on hand.

Graham has had, for 9 months, a review of mine on Longfellow’s “Spanish Student”, which I have “used up”, and in which I have exposed some of the grossest plagiarisms ever perpetrated. I can’t tell why he does not publish it.—I believe G. intends my Life for the September number, which will be made up by the 10th August. Your article shd be on hand as soon as convenient.

Believe me your true friend.

E A POE.

 

My Dear Mr Duyckinck,

For the first time during two months I find myself entirely myself—dreadfully sick and depressed, but still myself. I seem to have just awakened from some horrible dream, in which all was confusion, and suffering—relieved only by the constant sense of your kindness, and that of one or two other considerate friends. I really believe that I have been mad—but indeed I have had abundant reason to be so. I have made up my mind to a step which will preserve me, for the future, from at least the greater portion of the troubles which have beset me. In the meantime, I have need of the most active exertion to extricate myself from the embarrassments into which I have already fallen—and my object in writing you this note is, (once again) to beg your aid. Of course I need not say to you that my most urgent trouble is the want of ready money. I find that what I said to you about the prospects of the B. J. is strictly correct. The most trifling immediate relief would put it on an excellent footing. All that I want is time in which to look about me; and I think that it is your power to afford me this. . . .

Please send your answer to 85 Amity St. and believe me—with the most sincere friendship and ardent gratitude

Yours

EDGAR A POE.

 

My Dear Heart, My dear Virginia! our Mother will explain to you why I stay away from you this night. I trust the interview I am promised, will result in some
substantial good
for me, for your dear sake, and hers—Keep up your heart in all hopefulness, and trust yet a little longer—In my last great disappointment, I should have lost my courage
but for you
—my little darling wife you are my
greatest
and
only
stimulus now, to battle with this uncongenial, unsatisfactory and ungrateful life—I shall be with you tomorrow P.M. and be assured until I see you, I will keep in
loving remembrance
your
last words
and your fervent prayer!

Sleep well and may God grant you a peaceful summer, with your devoted

EDGAR

 

My Dear Sir,

Never think of excusing yourself (to me) for dilatoriness in answering letters—I know too well the unconquerable procrastination which besets the poet. I will place it all to the accounts of the turkeys. Were I to be seized by a rambling fit—one of my customary
passions
(nothing less) for vagabondizing through the woods for a week or a month together—I would not—in fact I
could
not be put out of my mood, were it even to answer a letter from the Grand Mogul, informing me that I had fallen heir to his possessions.

Thank you for the compliments. Were I in a serious humor just now, I would tell you, frankly, how your words of appreciation make my nerves thrill—not because you praise me (for others have praised me more lavishly) but because I feel that you comprehend and discriminate. You are right about the hair-splitting of my French friend:—that is all done for effect. These tales of ratiocination owe most of their popularity to being something in a new key. I do not mean to say that they are not ingenious—but people think them more ingenious than they are—on account of their method and
air
of method. In the “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” for instance, where is the ingenuity of unravelling a web which you yourself (the author) have woven for the express purpose of unravelling? The reader is made to confound the ingenuity of the supposititious Dupin with that of the writer of the story.

Not for the world would I have had any one else to continue Lowell’s Memoir until I had heard from you. I wish
you
to do it (if you will be so kind) and nobody else. By the time the book appears you will be famous, (or all my prophecy goes for nothing) and I shall have the éclat of your name to aid my sales. But, seriously, I do not think that any one so well enters into the poetical portion of my mind as yourself—and I deduce this idea from my intense appreciation of those points of your own poetry which seem lost upon others.

Should you undertake the work for me, there is one topic—there is one particular in which I have had wrong done me—and it may not be indecorous in me to call your attention to it. The last selection of my Tales was made from about 70, by Wiley & Putnam’s reader, Duyckinck. He has what he thinks a taste for ratiocination, and has accordingly made up the book mostly of analytic stories. But this is not
representing
my mind in its various phases—it is not giving me fair play. In writing these Tales one by one, at long intervals, I have kept the book-unity always in mind—that is, each has been composed with reference to its effect as part of
a whole.
In this view, one of my chief aims has been the widest diversity of subject, thought, & especially
tone
& manner of handling. Were all my tales now before me in a large volume and as the composition of another—the merit which would principally arrest my attention would be the wide
diversity and
variety. You will be surprised to hear me say that (omitting one or two of my first efforts) I do not consider any one of my stories
better
than another. There is a vast variety of kinds and, in degree of value, these kinds vary—but each tale is equally good
of its kind.
The loftiest kind is that of the highest imagination—and, for this reason only, “Ligeia” may be called my
best
tale. I have much improved this last since you saw it and I mail you a copy, as well as a copy of my best specimen of analysis—“The Philosophy of Composition.”

Do you ever see the British papers? Martin F. Tupper, author of “Proverbial Philosophy” has been paying me some high compliments—and indeed I have been treated more than well. There is one “British opinion”, however, which I value highly—Miss Barrett’s. She says:—“This vivid writing!—this power
which is felt!
The Raven has produced a sensation—‘a fit horror’ here in England. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it and some by the music. I hear of persons
haunted
by the ‘Nevermore’, and one acquaintance of mine who has the misfortune of possessing a ‘bust of Pallas’ never can bear to look at it in the twilight. . . . Our great poet Mr Browning, author of Paracelsus etc is enthusiastic in his admiration of the rhythm. Then there is a tale of his which I do not find in this volume, but which is going the rounds of the newspapers, about Mesmerism [The Valdemar Case] throwing us all into most admired disorder or dreadful doubts as to whether it can be true, as the children say of ghost stories. The certain thing in the tale in question is the power of the writer & the faculty he has of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar.” Would it be in bad taste to quote these words of Miss B. in your notice?

Forgive these egotisms (which are rendered in some measure necessary by the topic) and believe me that I will let slip
no
opportunity of reciprocating your kindness.

Griswold’s new edition I have not yet seen (is it out?) but I will manage to find “Rosalie Lee”. Do not forget to send me a few personal details of yourself—such as I give in “The N. Y. Literati”. When your book appears I propose to review it fully in Colton’s “American Review.” If you ever write to him, please suggest to him that I wish to do so. I hope to get your volume before mine goes to press—so that I may speak more fully.

I will forward the papers to which I refer,
in a day or two—
not by to-day’s mail.

Touching “The Stylus”:—this is the one great purpose of my literary life. Undoubtedly (unless I die) I will accomplish it—but I can afford to lose nothing by precipitancy. I cannot yet say when or how I shall get to work—but when the time comes I will write to you. I wish to establish a journal in which the men of genius may fight their battles; upon some terms of equality, with those dunces the men of talent. But, apart from this, I have
magnificent
objects in view—may I but live to accomplish them!

Most cordially Your friend

EDGAR A. POE.

 

My Dear Willis:—

The paragraph which has been put in circulation respecting my wife’s illness, my own, my poverty etc., is now lying before me; together with the beautiful lines by Mrs. Locke and those by Mrs.—, to which the paragraph has given rise, as well as your kind and manly comments in “The Home Journal.”

The motive of the paragraph I leave to the conscience of him or her who wrote it or suggested it. Since the thing is done, however, and since the concerns of my family are thus pitilessly thrust before the public, I perceive no mode of escape from a public statement of what is true and what erroneous in the report alluded to.

That my wife is ill, then, is true; and you may imagine with what feeling I add that this illness, hopeless from the first, has been heightened and precipitated by her reception, at two different periods, of anonymous letters—one enclosing the paragraph now in question; the other, those published calumnies of Messrs—, for which I yet hope to find redress in a court of justice.

Of the facts, that I myself have been long and dangerously ill, and that my illness has been a well understood thing among my brethren of the press, the best evidence is afforded by the innumerable paragraphs of personal and literary abuse with which I have been latterly assailed. This matter, however, will remedy itself. At the very first blush of my new prosperity, the gentlemen who toadied me in the old, will recollect themselves and toady me again. You, who know me, will comprehend that I speak of these things only as having served, in a measure, to lighten the gloom of unhappiness, by a gentle and not unpleasant sentiment of mingled pity, merriment and contempt.