“DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.”
Edgar A. Poe.
From the Old Guard, for June, 1870
A
recent writer in a southern periodical complains of the unfair treatment of Poe
by Rufus W. Griswold, in the biographical sketch prefixed to the poems of the
former, asserting that he was dead. But,
though Griswold spoke of those pecadilloes [sic] of Poe best known, he softened
those he noticed, and omitted much he might have said. Still, had Griswold reflected, he might have put in an ingenious plea in behalf of the poet, and have
assumed that Poe’s frequent violations of the code of morals and honor, was
from the lack of a thorough appreciation of right and wrong.
Poe’s
mind was not well balanced. Certain of
the intellectual faculties were in excess, while some of the moral ones
appeared to be deficient. I doubt,
indeed, whether, with all his undoubtedly fine genius, he was not a moral
idiot. Griswold has himself reason to
know –If I may credit Poe’s statement.
The latter came to me one day, chuckling over “a neat little trick” he
had just played upon Griswold.
“I
told him that I thought he had made a capital book of his ‘Poets and Poetry of
America,’ and I’d like to write a favorable review of it; but I was hard
pressed for money and couldn’t afford the time.
He bit at the bait like a hungry pigeon, and told me to write the
notice, and, as his publishers could use it, he would pay me for them my
price. So I wrote, and handed it to him,
and he paid me.”
“Well,”
I asked, for I saw nothing in that but one of the traded tricks of the
publishing trade.
“I
knew he wouldn’t read it until he got home,” continued Poe, “but I should like
to have seen his face when he got to the middle.”
“Wasn’t
it favorable, then?”
“Favorable? Yes! to
the amateur in scalping. I abused the book
and ridiculed him, and gave him the most severe using up he ever had, or ever
will have, I fancy. I don’t think he’ll
send that to the publishers, and I’m quite sure they wouldn’t print it if he
did.”
“It
is a good joke—of its kind,” was my answer.
“You did not keep the money?”
“Keep
it? No, Indeed! I spent it at once.”
Now,
no amount of argument would convince him that he had not obtained money under
false pretenses in the matter, there was no intent of wrong itself.
Another
case occurs to me which will put the matter in an even clearer light. Poe came into my office one day, looking
especially haggard. He had evidently
just got through one of his drinking bouts and looked very much the worse for
it. I commenced to lecture him a little,
but he interrupted me with—“Oh, you needn’t say a word on that. I’ve made up my mind on that subject, and I
have given my word as a gentleman and a man of honor never to drink anything
but cold water again. But I’m in a
terrible straight. I promised the
Bostonians to read them an original poem this week, and I got on this beat, and
never wrote a line. I haven’t time now,
and what to do I don’t know.”
I
suggested that he should write, postponing the delivery two weeks; and he might
say that circumstances, over which he had no control—for he had no control over
himself in the matter of drink—had prevented him, and so on. “Better still,” I said, “plead simply that
you would explain when you come, and then tell the truth frankly to some member
of the committee.”
“Yes,”
he answered, “but they’re to pay me for it, and I want the money.”
“You
can’t expect to get it unless you earn it.”
“Can’t
I? Well, you’ll see. I’ve just thought of a way.” And off he went.
He appeared
in Boston on the night set and read a juvenile poem, written before he was of
age—he used to say when he was a child, but that was an exaggeration. He had a critical audience, who were
dissatisfied and disappointed, but they treated him with courtesy. On his return, finding his work was criticized
sharply in the Boston papers, he wrote a series of paragraphs for “The Broadway
Journal,” vehemently assailing the Bostonians, and asserted that he had planned
the thing deliberately; and that he had selected the greatest trash possible to
test their literary acumen; that they had gone into raptures over it; that they
were asses and noodles—I think he used those very words—and claimed it as a
great triumph. It never entered his head
to think there was anything wrong in this.
I
could name a dozen other instances of this same lack of appreciation. To h old such a man to a strict
responsibility for his acts is unfair.
You might as well convict a raving lunatic of murder. It was not his fault that he had no sense of
honor, and no feeling of shame. The fact
of which Griswold speaks, transcribing a copy of Captain Brown’s work on
Conchology, and selling it to a Philadelphia publisher as his own original
production, would have been a crime in another; but Poe had no idea that he was
obtaining money on false pretenses. He
thought it all fair and a clever piece of diplomacy. The unfairness of Griswold did not consist in
mentioning facts that were necessary to be known, but in not stating the one
great fact that would explain, and, in some measure, excuse them.
I
could tell some very curious anecdotes about Poe; but as they would not add
anything to his good reputation, and as what I have said will be enough to
palliate a good many of his shortcomings by showing his irresponsibility, I
refrain. But one thing should be
noted. Some fool critic, a few years
since, charged him with stealing “The Raven” from the Persian, with which
language Poe was familiar. The charge is
utterly false. Poe knew no more of the
Persian than he did of the Chocktaw, and nothing of either. In two places in “The Raven,” there is a line
taken from the “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship”—a quite unconscious borrowing; but the spirit, recurring refrain, general
idea and mode and management of the poem, are all Poe’s own. Perhaps the charge was retributive justice,
however. Poe was very fond of charging
others with plagiarism; accusing Longfellow, for instance, with having stolen
from him and others. But in either his
prose or poetry Poe was the master of his art.
Some one has compared him with a Savage.
In his private life there a few points of resemblance, and in ingenuity
and the inventive faculty, he was Savage’s infinite superior.
For those that would reject the offerings of The Old Guard on the grounds of prejudice against Poe, it should be here stated that this same periodical, in 1866, printed an article most unflattering to myself in the wretch's defense; thus charges of prejudice have no merit.
