Chapter 2

Poe’s writings have also
that of form.

His style is highly finished, graceful and truly classical. It
would be hard to find a living author who had displayed such
varied powers. As an example of his style we would refer to one
of his tales, “The House of Usher,” in the first volume of his
“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.” It has a singular charm
for us, and we think that no one could read it without being
strongly moved by its serene and sombre beauty. Had its author
written nothing else, it would alone have been enough to stamp
him as a man of genius, and the master of a classic style. In
this tale occurs, perhaps, the most beautiful of his poems.

The great masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the
vague and the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used
dread and horror alone, but only in combination with other
qualities, as means of subjugating the fancies of their readers.
The loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm about
her. Mr. Poe’s secret lies mainly in the skill with which he has
employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. In this
his success is so great and striking as to deserve the name of
art, not artifice. We cannot call his materials the noblest or
purest, but we must concede to him the highest merit of
construction.

As a critic, Mr. Poe was aesthetically deficient. Unerring in his
analysis of dictions, metres and plots, he seemed wanting in the
faculty of perceiving the profounder ethics of art. His
criticisms are, however, distinguished for scientific precision
and coherence of logic. They have the exactness, and at the same
time, the coldness of mathematical demonstrations. Yet they stand
in strikingly refreshing contrast with the vague generalisms and
sharp personalities of the day. If deficient in warmth, they are
also without the heat of partisanship. They are especially
valuable as illustrating the great truth, too generally
overlooked, that analytic power is a subordinate quality of the
critic.

On the whole, it may be considered certain that Mr. Poe has
attained an individual eminence in our literature which he will
keep. He has given proof of power and originality. He has done
that which could only be done once with success or safety, and
the imitation or repetition of which would produce weariness.

DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE

By N. P. Willis

The ancient fable of two antagonistic spirits imprisoned in one
body, equally powerful and having the complete mastery by
turns-of one man, that is to say, inhabited by both a devil and
an angel seems to have been realized, if all we hear is true, in
the character of the extraordinary man whose name we have written
above. Our own impression of the nature of Edgar A. Poe, differs
in some important degree, however, from that which has been
generally conveyed in the notices of his death. Let us, before
telling what we personally know of him, copy a graphic and highly
finished portraiture, from the pen of Dr. Rufus W. Griswold,
which appeared in a recent number of the “Tribune”:

“Edgar Allen Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on Sunday, October
7th. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved
by it. The poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all
this country; he had readers in England and in several of the
states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and
the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the
consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its most
brilliant but erratic stars.

“His conversation was at times almost supramortal in its
eloquence. His voice was modulated with astonishing skill, and
his large and variably expressive eyes looked repose or shot
fiery tumult into theirs who listened, while his own face glowed,
or was changeless in pallor, as his imagination quickened his
blood or drew it back frozen to his heart. His imagery was from
the worlds which no mortals can see but with the vision of
genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply
defined, in terms of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected
the forms of customary logic, and by a crystalline process of
accretion, built up his ocular demonstrations in forms of
gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of the most airy
and delicious beauty, so minutely and distinctly, yet so rapidly,
that the attention which was yielded to him was chained till it
stood among his wonderful creations, till he himself dissolved
the spell, and brought his hearers back to common and base
existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions of the ignoblest
passion.

“He was at all times a dreamer dwelling in ideal realms in heaven
or hell peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his
brain. He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips
moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate
prayer (never for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel,
that he was already damned, but) for their happiness who at the
moment were objects of his idolatry; or with his glances
introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish, and with a face
shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest storms, and all
night, with drenched garments and arms beating the winds and
rains, would speak as if the spirits that at such times only
could be evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals
his disturbed soul sought to forget the ills to which his
constitution subjected him—close by the Aidenn where were those
he loved—the Aidenn which he might never see, but in fitful
glimpses, as its gates opened to receive the less fiery and more
happy natures whose destiny to sin did not involve the doom of
death.

“He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his will
and engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some
controlling sorrow. The remarkable poem of ‘The Raven’ was
probably much more nearly than has been supposed, even by those
who were very intimate with him, a reflection and an echo of his
own history. _He_ was that bird’s

“‘Unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—never more.’

“Every genuine author in a greater or less degree leaves in his
works, whatever their design, traces of his personal character:
elements of his immortal being, in which the individual survives
the person. While we read the pages of the ‘Fall of the House of
Usher,’ or of ‘Mesmeric Revelations,’ we see in the solemn and
stately gloom which invests one, and in the subtle metaphysical
analysis of both, indications of the idiosyncrasies of what was
most remarkable and peculiar in the author’s intellectual nature.
But we see here only the better phases of his nature, only the
symbols of his juster action, for his harsh experience had
deprived him of all faith in man or woman. He had made up his
mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and
the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave
a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character.
Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of
villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind
which enabled him to cope with villany, while it continually
caused him by overshots to fail of the success of honesty. He was
in many respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer’s novel of ‘The
Caxtons.’ Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst
emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not
contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak
of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing
natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness,
the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery
atmosphere—had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an
arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into
prejudices against him. Irascible, envious—bad enough, but not
the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with
a cold, repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in
sneers. There seemed to him no moral susceptibility; and, what
was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the
true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that, desire to
rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the
esteem or the love of his species; only the hard wish to
succeed—not shine, not serve—succeed, that he might have the
right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.

“We have suggested the influence of his aims and vicissitudes
upon his literature. It was more conspicuous in his later than in
his earlier writings. Nearly all that he wrote in the last two or
three years—including much of his best poetry—was in some sense
biographical; in draperies of his imagination, those who had
taken the trouble to trace his steps, could perceive, but
slightly concealed, the figure of himself.”

Apropos of the disparaging portion of the above well-written
sketch, let us truthfully say:

Some four or five years since, when editing a daily paper in this
city, Mr. Poe was employed by us, for several months, as critic
and sub-editor. This was our first personal acquaintance with
him. He resided with his wife and mother at Fordham, a few miles
out of town, but was at his desk in the office, from nine in the
morning till the evening paper went to press. With the highest
admiration for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone for
more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to
expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and
occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on,
however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. With his
pale, beautiful, and intellectual face, as a reminder of what
genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him
always with deferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request
that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would
erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against
society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented—far more
yielding than most men, we thought, on points so excusably
sensitive. With a prospect of taking the lead in another
periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his employment with
us, and, through all this considerable period, we had seen but
one presentment of the man—a quiet, patient, industrious, and
most gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good
feeling by his unvarying deportment and ability.

Residing as he did in the country, we never met Mr. Poe in hours
of leisure; but he frequently called on us afterward at our place
of business, and we met him often in the street—invariably the
same sad mannered, winning and refined gentleman, such as we had
always known him. It was by rumor only, up to the day of his
death, that we knew of any other development of manner or
character. We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be
stated in all mention of his lamentable irregularities), that,
with a single glass of wine, his whole nature was reversed, the
demon became uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of
intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane.
Possessing his reasoning faculties in excited activity, at such
times, and seeking his acquaintances with his wonted look and
memory, he easily seemed personating only another phase of his
natural character, and was accused, accordingly, of insulting
arrogance and bad-heartedness. In this reversed character, we
repeat, it was never our chance to see him. We know it from
hearsay, and we mention it in connection with this sad infirmity
of physical constitution; which puts it upon very nearly the
ground of a temporary and almost irresponsible insanity.

The arrogance, vanity, and depravity of heart, of which Mr. Poe
was generally accused, seem to us referable altogether to this
reversed phase of his character. Under that degree of
intoxication which only acted upon him by demonizing his sense of
truth and right, he doubtless said and did much that was wholly
irreconcilable with his better nature; but, when himself, and as
we knew him only, his modesty and unaffected humility, as to his
own deservings, were a constant charm to his character. His
letters, of which the constant application for autographs has
taken from us, we are sorry to confess, the greater portion,
exhibited this quality very strongly. In one of the carelessly
written notes of which we chance still to retain possession, for
instance, he speaks of “The Raven”—that extraordinary poem which
electrified the world of imaginative readers, and has become the
type of a school of poetry of its own—and, in evident earnest,
attributes its success to the few words of commendation with
which we had prefaced it in this paper. It will throw light on
his sane character to give a literal copy of the note:

“FORDHAM, _April_ 20, 1849

“MY DEAR WILLIS—The poem which I inclose, and which I am so vain
as to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just
published in a paper for which sheer necessity compels me to
write, now and then. It pays well as times go-but unquestionably
it ought to pay ten prices; for whatever I send it I feel I am
consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses accompanying
this, may I beg you to take out of the tomb, and bring them to
light in the ‘Home Journal?’ If you can oblige me so far as to
copy them, I do not think it will be necessary to say ‘From the
——,’ that would be too bad; and, perhaps, ‘From a late —— paper,’
would do.

“I have not forgotten how a ‘good word in season’ from you made
‘The Raven,’ and made ‘Ulalume’ (which by-the-way, people have
done me the honor of attributing to you), therefore, I _would_
ask you (if I dared) to say something of these lines if they
please you.

“Truly yours ever,
“EDGAR A. POE.”

In double proof of his earnest disposition to do the best for
himself, and of the trustful and grateful nature which has been
denied him, we give another of the only three of his notes which
we chance to retain:

“FORDHAM, _January_ 22, 1848.

“MY DEAR MR. WILLIS—I am about to make an effort at
re-establishing myself in the literary world, and _feel_ that I
may depend upon your aid.

“My general aim is to start a Magazine, to be called ‘The
Stylus,’ but it would be useless to me, even when established, if
not entirely out of the control of a publisher. I mean,
therefore, to get up a journal which shall be _my own_ at all
points. With this end in view, I must get a list of at least five
hundred subscribers to begin with; nearly two hundred I have
already. I propose, however, to go South and West, among my
personal and literary friends—old college and West Point
acquaintances—and see what I can do. In order to get the means of
taking the first step, I propose to lecture at the Society
Library, on Thursday, the 3d of February, and, that there may be
no cause of _squabbling_, my subject shall _not be literary_ at
all. I have chosen a broad text: ‘The Universe.’

“Having thus given you _the facts_ of the case, I leave all the
rest to the suggestions of your own tact and generosity.
Gratefully, _most gratefully,_

“Your friend always,
“EDGAR A. POE.”

Brief and chance-taken as these letters are, we think they
sufficiently prove the existence of the very qualities denied to
Mr. Poe-humility, willingness to persevere, belief in another’s
friendship, and capability of cordial and grateful friendship!
Such he assuredly was when sane. Such only he has invariably
seemed to us, in all we have happened personally to know of him,
through a friendship of five or six years. And so much easier is
it to believe what we have seen and known, than what we hear of
only, that we remember him but with admiration and respect; these
descriptions of him, when morally insane, seeming to us like
portraits, painted in sickness, of a man we have only known in
health.

But there is another, more touching, and far more forcible
evidence that there was _goodness_ in Edgar A. Poe. To reveal it
we are obliged to venture upon the lifting of the veil which
sacredly covers grief and refinement in poverty; but we think it
may be excused, if so we can brighten the memory of the poet,
even were there not a more needed and immediate service which it
may render to the nearest link broken by his death.

Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe’s removal to this city was by a
call which we received from a lady who introduced herself to us
as the mother of his wife. She was in search of employment for
him, and she excused her errand by mentioning that he was ill,
that her daughter was a confirmed invalid, and that their
circumstances were such as compelled her taking it upon herself.
The countenance of this lady, made beautiful and saintly with an
evidently complete giving up of her life to privation and
sorrowful tenderness, her gentle and mournful voice urging its
plea, her long-forgotten but habitually and unconsciously refined
manners, and her appealing and yet appreciative mention of the
claims and abilities of her son, disclosed at once the presence
of one of those angels upon earth that women in adversity can be.
It was a hard fate that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with
fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular
level to be well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty,
and, with his sick wife, frequently in want of the merest
necessaries of life. Winter after winter, for years, the most
touching sight to us, in this whole city, has been that tireless
minister to genius, thinly and insufficiently clad, going from
office to office with a poem, or an article on some literary
subject, to sell, sometimes simply pleading in a broken voice
that he was ill, and begging for him, mentioning nothing but that
“he was ill,” whatever might be the reason for his writing
nothing, and never, amid all her tears and recitals of distress,
suffering one syllable to escape her lips that could convey a
doubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of pride in his
genius and good intentions. Her daughter died a year and a half
since, but she did not desert him. She continued his ministering
angel—living with him, caring for him, guarding him against
exposure, and when he was carried away by temptation, amid grief
and the loneliness of feelings unreplied to, and awoke from his
self abandonment prostrated in destitution and suffering,
_begging_ for him still. If woman’s devotion, born with a first
love, and fed with human passion, hallow its object, as it is
allowed to do, what does not a devotion like this—pure,
disinterested and holy as the watch of an invisible spirit—say
for him who inspired it?

We have a letter before us, written by this lady, Mrs. Clemm, on
the morning in which she heard of the death of this object of her
untiring care. It is merely a request that we would call upon
her, but we will copy a few of its words—sacred as its privacy
is—to warrant the truth of the picture we have drawn above, and
add force to the appeal we wish to make for her:

“I have this morning heard of the death of my darling Eddie....
Can you give me any circumstances or particulars?... Oh! do not
desert your poor friend in his bitter affliction!... Ask Mr. ——
to come, as I must deliver a message to him from my poor
Eddie.... I need not ask you to notice his death and to speak
well of him. I know you will. But say what an affectionate son he
was to me, his poor desolate mother...”

To hedge round a grave with respect, what choice is there,
between the relinquished wealth and honors of the world, and the
story of such a woman’s unrewarded devotion! Risking what we do,
in delicacy, by making it public, we feel—other reasons
aside—that it betters the world to make known that there are such
ministrations to its erring and gifted. What we have said will
speak to some hearts. There are those who will be glad to know
how the lamp, whose light of poetry has beamed on their far-away
recognition, was watched over with care and pain, that they may
send to her, who is more darkened than they by its extinction,
some token of their sympathy. She is destitute and alone. If any,
far or near, will send to us what may aid and cheer her through
the remainder of her life, we will joyfully place it in her
hands.

THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAAL (*1)

By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high
state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there
occurred of a nature so completely unexpected—so entirely
novel—so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions—as to
leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an
uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy
together by the ears.

It appears that on the—— day of—— (I am not positive about the
date), a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically
mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in
the well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was
warm—unusually so for the season—there was hardly a breath of air
stirring; and the multitude were in no bad humor at being now and
then besprinkled with friendly showers of momentary duration,
that fell from large white masses of cloud which chequered in a
fitful manner the blue vault of the firmament. Nevertheless,
about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in
the assembly: the clattering of ten thousand tongues succeeded;
and, in an instant afterward, ten thousand faces were upturned
toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously
from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a shout, which could
be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded
long, loudly, and furiously, through all the environs of
Rotterdam.

The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From
behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of
cloud already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open
area of blue space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid
substance, so oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not
to be in any manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently
admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed
below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows and devils
in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew, no one
could imagine; no one—not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus
Von Underduk—had the slightest clew by which to unravel the
mystery; so, as nothing more reasonable could be done, every one
to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth,
and cocking up his right eye towards the phenomenon, puffed,
paused, waddled about, and grunted significantly—then waddled
back, grunted, paused, and finally—puffed again.

In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly
city, came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so
much smoke. In a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be
accurately discerned. It appeared to be—yes! it was undoubtedly a
species of balloon; but surely no such balloon had ever been seen
in Rotterdam before. For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon
manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland
certainly; yet here, under the very noses of the people, or
rather at some distance above their noses was the identical thing
in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of
the precise material which no one had ever before known to be
used for a similar purpose. It was an egregious insult to the
good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the
phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible. Being little or
nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside down. And this
similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when, upon nearer
inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending from its
apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the cone, a circle of
little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a
continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse.
Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine,
there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver hat, with a
brim superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black
band and a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable
that many citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat
repeatedly before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard
it with eyes of familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon
sight of it, uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and
declared it to be the identical hat of her good man himself. Now
this was a circumstance the more to be observed, as Pfaall, with
three companions, had actually disappeared from Rotterdam about
five years before, in a very sudden and unaccountable manner, and
up to the date of this narrative all attempts had failed of
obtaining any intelligence concerning them whatsoever. To be
sure, some bones which were thought to be human, mixed up with a
quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately discovered in a
retired situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some people went
so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been
committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans
Pfaall and his associates. But to return.

The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to
within a hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a
sufficiently distinct view of the person of its occupant. This
was in truth a very droll little somebody. He could not have been
more than two feet in height; but this altitude, little as it
was, would have been sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and
tilt him over the edge of his tiny car, but for the intervention
of a circular rim reaching as high as the breast, and rigged on
to the cords of the balloon. The body of the little man was more
than proportionately broad, giving to his entire figure a
rotundity highly absurd. His feet, of course, could not be seen
at all, although a horny substance of suspicious nature was
occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of the car,
or to speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands were
enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected into
a queue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and
inflammatory; his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and
cheeks, although wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and
double; but of ears of any kind or character there was not a
semblance to be discovered upon any portion of his head. This odd
little gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout of sky-blue
satin, with tight breeches to match, fastened with silver buckles
at the knees. His vest was of some bright yellow material; a
white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his head; and,
to complete his equipment, a blood-red silk handkerchief
enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon his
bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent dimensions.

Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet
from the surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was
suddenly seized with a fit of trepidation, and appeared
disinclined to make any nearer approach to terra firma. Throwing
out, therefore, a quantity of sand from a canvas bag, which, he
lifted with great difficulty, he became stationary in an instant.
He then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated manner, to extract
from a side-pocket in his surtout a large morocco pocket-book.
This he poised suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it with an air
of extreme surprise, and was evidently astonished at its weight.
He at length opened it, and drawing there from a huge letter
sealed with red sealing-wax and tied carefully with red tape, let
it fall precisely at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von
Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut,
still greatly discomposed, and having apparently no farther
business to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make
busy preparations for departure; and it being necessary to
discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend, the
half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another, without
taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every one of
them, most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and
rolled him over and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in
the face of every man in Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed,
however, that the great Underduk suffered this impertinence on
the part of the little old man to pass off with impunity.