Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, page 380
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?”
