A day when the porch was rose-embowered once more and the garden-spot a riot of color and the birds singing in the trees round about, found Mr. Graham seated at Edgar Poe’s desk in the office of Graham’s Magazine. The door behind him opened, and he raised his head from his writing and quickly glanced over his shoulder. The look of inquiry in his blue eyes instantly kindled into one of welcome.
“Come in! Come in! Dr. Griswold,” he exclaimed. “I am more than glad to see you! We are overwhelmed with work just now and perhaps we’ll induce you to lend a hand.”
The visitor came forward with outstretched hand, stooping and bowing his huge bulk as he came in a manner that to a less artless mind than Mr. Graham’s might have suggested a touch of the obsequious. His furtive but watchful eye had already marked the fact that it was at Mr. Poe’s desk — not his own — that Mr. Graham sat — which was as he had anticipated.
“Mr. Poe laid up again?” he queried.
“Yes; he seems to be having quite an obstinate attack this time.”
The visitor sadly shook his head. “Ah? — poor fellow, poor fellow!”
“Do you think his condition serious?” asked Mr. Graham, with anxiety.
Dr. Griswold cast a glance of the furtive eye over his shoulder and around the room; then stooped nearer Mr. Graham.
“Didn’t you know?” he questioned, in a lowered tone.
“Only that the failure of his wife’s health has been a sad blow to him and that after each of her attacks he has had a break-down. Is there anything more?”
Dr. Griswold stooped nearer still and brought his voice to a yet lower key.
“Whiskey” — he whispered.
Mr. Graham drew back and the candid brows went up.
“Ah — ah” he exclaimed. Then fell silent and serious.
“Did you never suspect it?” asked his companion.
“Never. I used to hear rumors when he was with Billy Burton, but I never saw any indications that they were true, and didn’t believe them. How could I? Think of the work the man turns out — its quantity, its quality! He is at once the most brilliant and the most industrious man it has been my good fortune to meet — and withal the most perfect gentleman — exquisite in his manners and habits, and the soul of honor. Did you ever know a man addicted to drink to be so immaculately neat as he always is? Or so refined in manners and speech? Or so exact in his dealings? There is no one to whom I would more readily advance money, or with greater assurance that it will be faithfully repaid in his best, most painstaking work — to the last penny!”
Dr. Griswold’s face took on a look of deep concern.
“The more’s the pity — the more’s the pity!” said he. “A good man gone wrong!” Then with a hesitating, somewhat diffident air.
“You say that you need help which I might, perhaps, give?”
Mr. Graham was the energetic business man once more. Dr. Griswold’s visit was most opportune, he said, for while he had on hand a good deal of “copy” for the next number of the magazine — furnished by Mr. Poe before his illness — there were one or two important reviews that must be written and Dr. Griswold would be the very man to write them, if he would.
As Rufus Griswold seated himself at Edgar Poe’s desk a look that was almost diabolic came into his face. The temporary substitution was but a step, he told himself, to permanent succession. As editor of the magazine which under Poe’s management had come to dominate thought in America, he could speak to an audience such as he had not had before. He could make or mar literary reputations and he could bring the public to recognize him as a poet!
It so chanced that upon that very day the editor of Graham’s Magazine found himself sufficiently recovered from his illness to go out for the first time. As he fared forth, gaunt and tremulous, the midsummer beauty of out-of-doors effected him curiously. It seemed strange to him that the rose on the porch should be so gay, that the sunshine should lie so golden upon the houses and in the streets of Spring Garden — that birds should be singing and the whole world going happily on when his heart held such black despair. As he went on, however, the fresh sweet air gave him a sense of physical well-being that buoyed his spirits in spite of the bitterness of his thoughts.
He was going to work again, and he was glad of it — but he made no resolutions for the future. In the past when he had fallen and had braced himself up again, he had sworn to himself that he would be strong thereafter — that he would never, never yield to the temptation to touch wine again. But he had not been strong. And now he looked the deplorable truth straight in the face. He hoped with all his soul that he would not fall again. He would give everything he possessed to ensure himself from yielding to the temptation to taste the wild exhilaration — the freedom — the forgetfulness — to say to the cup “Nevermore” — to ensure himself from having to pay the price of his yielding in the agony of remorse that was a descent into hell.
But he would deceive himself with no lying pledges. He hoped — he longed to be strong; but he could not swear that he would be — he did not know whether he would be or not. The temptation was not upon him now — he loathed the very thought of it now; but the temptation would most certainly return sooner or later. He hoped from the bottom of his soul that he would resist it, but he feared — nay, in his secret heart he believed — that he would yield. And because he believed it he loathed himself.
As he drew near the office he thought of Mr. Graham, — how kind he was — how trustful. He wondered if Mr. Graham knew the cause of his illnesses and if not how long it would before he would know it; and if the attacks were repeated how long he would be able to hold the place that had shown him the end of the rainbow? How bitter it would be to some day find, added to all the other disastrous results of his weakness of will — to find another in the editorial chair of Graham’s.
Just at this point in his soliliquy he reached his destination. He mounted the steps leading to the office of Graham’s Magazine and opened the door — quietly.
For a moment the two men in the office — each deep in his own work — were unaware of his presence, and he stood staring upon their backs as they sat at their desks. Mr. Graham was in his accustomed seat and in his — The Dreamer’s — the giant frame of the man whose big brain he admired — though he was “no poet,” — the frame of Rufus Griswold!
Horror clutched his heart. Mr. Graham evidently knew, and knowing had supplied his place without deeming him worth the trouble of notifying, even. Had supplied it, moreover, with the one man who he himself believed would fill it with credit. The readers would be satisfied. He would not be missed. He turned and stumbled blindly down the stairs. Mr. Graham heard him, and hurrying to the door, recognized and followed him — trying to explain and to persuade him to return. But he was too much excited to listen. His reason prompted him to listen, but the Imp of the Perverse laughed reason to scorn. Seeing disaster ahead he rushed headlong to embrace it.
He understood — he understood, he reiterated. There was nothing to explain. Mr. Graham had secured Dr. Griswold’s services. Mr. Graham had done well. No, not for any inducement would he consider returning.
He was gone! He was in the street — a wanderer! A beggar, he told himself!
He wandered aimlessly about for an hour, then foot-sore — exhausted in mind and body — he turned his face wearily in the direction of Spring Garden, with its rose-embowered cottage sheltering exquisite beauty — unalterable love — unfailing forgiveness — heartsease. He must go home and tell “Muddie” and “Sissy” that he was a ruined man! Oh, if they would only give him his desert for once! If they would only punish him as he felt he should be punished. But they would not! They could not — for they were angels. They were more — they were loving women filled with that to which his mind and his soul bowed down and worshipped as reverently as they worshipped God in Heaven — woman’s love, with its tenderness, its purity, and its unwavering steadfastness. They would suffer — that horrible fear, the fear of the Wolf at the door which they had not known in their beloved Spring Garden and since he had been with Graham’s would again rob them of peace. They would bear it with meek endurance, but they would not be able to hide it from him. He would see it in the wistful eyes of Virginia and in the patient eyes of “Muddie.” But they would utter no reproach. They would soothe him with winning endearments and bid him be of good cheer and would make a gallant fight to show him that they were perfectly happy.
During the year and a half of Edgar Poe’s connection with Graham’s Magazine he had raised the number of subscribers from five thousand to thirty-seven thousand. His salary, like that he had received from The Messenger, had been a mere pittance for such service as he gave, but also, like what he received from The Messenger it had been a regular income — a dependence. With the addition of the little checks paid him for brilliant work in other periodicals, it had amply served, as has been said, to keep the Wolf from the door. In order to make as much without a regular salary it would be necessary for him to sell a great many articles and that they should be promptly paid for. And so he wrote, and wrote, and wrote, while “Muddie” took the little rolls of manuscript around and around seeking a market for them. Her stately figure and saintlike face became familiar at the doors of all the editors and publishers in Philadelphia.
It was a weary business but her strength and courage seemed never to flag. Sometimes she succeeded in selling a story or a poem promptly and receiving prompt pay. Then there was joy in the rose-embowered cottage. Sometimes after placing an article payment was put off time and time again until hope deferred made sick the hearts of all three dwellers in the cottage.
Oftentimes they were miserably poor — sometimes they were upon the verge of despair — yet through all there was an undercurrent of happiness that nothing could destroy — they had each other and even at the worst they still dreamed the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, even though the heartsease blossom drooped and drooped.
Virginia’s attacks continued to come at intervals, and each time the shadow hung more persistently and with deeper gloom over the cottage. It would be lifted at length, but not until the husband and mother had suffered again all the agonies of parting — not until what they believed to be the last goodbyes had been said and the imagination, running ahead of the actual, had gone through each separate detail of death and burial.
The Dreamer’s thoughts dwelt constantly upon these scenes and details until finally the “dirges of his hope one melancholy burden bore — of Never — Nevermore.”
Under the influence of the state of mind that was thus induced, a new poem began to take shape in his brain — a poem of the death of a young and beautiful woman and the despair and grief of the lover left to mourn her in loneliness. As it wrote itself in his mind the word that had thrilled and charmed and frightened him at the bedside of his mother and to whose time his feet had so often marched, as to a measure — the mournful, mellifluous word, Nevermore — became its refrain.
The composition of his new poem became an obsession with him. His brain busied itself with its perfection automatically. Not only as he sat at his desk, pen in hand; frequently it happened that at these times the divine fire refused to kindle — though he blew and blew. But at other times, without effort on his part, the spark was struck, the flames flashed forth and ran through his thoughts like wild-fire. When he was helping Virginia to water the flowers in the garden; when he walked the streets with dreaming eyes raised skyward, studying the clouds; when he sat with Virginia and the Mother under the evening lamp or with feet on the fender gazed into the heart of the red embers, or when he lay in his bed in the quiet and dark — wherever he was, whatever he did, the phrases and the rhythm of the new poem were filtering through his sub-consciousness, being polished and made perfect.
Indeed the poem in the making cast a spell upon him and he passed his days and his nights as though in a trance. Virginia and Mother Clemm knew that he was in the throes of creation, and they respected his brown-study mood — stepping softly and talking little; but often by a silent pressure of his hand or a light kiss upon his brow, saying that they understood. They were happy, for they knew the state of mind that enveloped him to be one of profound happiness to him — though the brooding look that was often in his grey eyes told them that the visions he was seeing had to do with sorrow. They waited patiently, feeling certain that in due course would be laid before them a work in prose or verse, presenting in jewel-like word and phrase, scenes in some strange, fascinating country which it would charm them to explore.
At last it was done! He told them while they sat at the evening meal.
“I have something to read to you two critics after supper,” he said. “A poem upon which I have been working. I don’t know whether it is of any account or not.”
The two gentle critics were all interest. Virginia was breathless with enthusiasm and could hardly wait to finish her supper.
“I knew you were doing something great,” she exclaimed. “I know it is great! Nothing you have ever done has wrapped you up so completely. You’ve been in a beautiful trance for weeks and Muddie and I have been almost afraid to breathe for fear of waking you up too soon.”
As soon as supper was over he brought out one of the familiar narrow rolls of manuscript and smilingly drew it out for them to see its length — giving Virginia one end to hold while he held the other.
She read aloud, in pondering tone, the two words that appeared at the top: “The Raven.” —
Then, as she let go the end she held, the manuscript coiled up as if it had been a spring, and the poet rolled it closely in his hands and with his eyes upon the fire, began, not to read, but slowly to recite. His voice filled the room with deep, sonorous melody, saving which there was no sound.
When the last words,
“And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor,
Shall be lifted — nevermore!”
had been said, there was a moment of tense silence. Then Virginia cast herself into his arms in a passion of tears.
“Oh, Eddie,” she sobbed, “it is beautiful — beautiful! But so sad! I feel as I were the ‘lost Lenore’ and you the poor lover; but when I leave you you must not break your heart like that. You and Muddie will have each other and soon you will come after me and we will all be happy together again — in Heaven!”
No word passed the lips of the mother. Her silvered head was bowed in grief and prayer. She too saw in “Lenore” her darling child, and she felt in anticipation the loneliness and sorrow of her own heart. She spoke no word, but from her saintly eyes two large bright tears rolled down her patient cheeks upon the folded hands in her lap.
And thus “The Raven” was heard for the first time.
Soon afterward it was recited again. Edgar Poe carried it himself to Mr. Graham and offered it for the magazine. Mr. Graham promised to examine it and give him an answer next day. That night he read it over several times, but for the life of him he could not make up his mind about it. Its weirdness, its music, its despair, affected him greatly. But Mr. Graham was a business man and he doubted whether, from a business point of view, the poem was of value. Would people like it? Would it take? He would consult Griswold about it — Griswold was a man of safe judgment regarding such matters.
Dr. Griswold was indeed, a man of literary judgment and of taste. The beauty of the poem startled him. It would bring to the genius of Edgar Poe (he said to himself) — the poetic genius — acknowledgment such as it had never had before. It was too good a poem to be published. He had bided his time and the hour of his revenge was come. He would have given his right hand to have been able to publish such a poem over his own signature — but the world must not know that Poe could write such an one!
The candid eyes of Mr. Graham as he awaited his opinion were upon his face. His own eyes wore their most furtive look — cast down and sidelong. His tone was depressed and full of pity as he said,
“Poor Poe! It is too bad that when he must be in need he cannot, or does not, write something saleable. Of course you could not set such stuff as this before the readers of Graham’s!”
For once Mr. Graham was disposed to question his opinion.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “The poem has a certain power, it seems to me. It might repel — it might fascinate. I should like to buy it just to give the poor fellow a little lift. The lovely eyes of that fragile wife of his haunt me.”
It was finally decided to let Mr. Poe read the poem to the office force, and take the vote upon it.
They were all drawn up in a semi-circle, even the small office boy, who sat with solemn eyes and mouth open and who felt the importance of being called upon to sit in judgment upon a “piece of poetry.” Edgar Poe stood opposite them and for the second time recited his new poem — then withdrew while the vote was taken.
Dr. Griswold was the first to cast his vote and at once emphatically pronounced his “No!”
The rest agreed with him that the poem was “too queer,” but as a solace for the poet’s disappointment some one passed around a hat and the next day a hamper of delicacies was sent to Mrs. Poe, with the “compliments of the staff at Grahams.”
Albeit “The Raven” was rejected by Graham’s Magazine and others, enough of Edgar Poe’s work was bought and published to keep his name and fame before the public — just enough (poorly paid as it was) to keep the souls of himself and his wife and his “more than mother,” within their bodies.
And though Mr. Graham would none of “The Raven,” he paid its author fifty-two dollars for a new story — “The Gold Bug.” This sum seemed a small fortune to The Dreamer at the time, but he was to do better than that with his story. The Dollar Magazine of New York offered a prize of one hundred dollars for the best short story submitted to it. Poe had nothing by him but some critical essays, but remembering his early success in Baltimore with “The MS. Found in a Bottle,” he was anxious to try. So he hastened with the critiques to Graham’s and offered them in place of the story.
Mr. Graham agreed to the exchange and “The Gold Bug” was promptly dispatched to New York, where it was awarded the prize.
When it was published in The Dollar Magazine it made a great noise in the world and a red-letter day in the life of Edgar Poe.
The hundred dollars brought indeed, a season of comfort and cheer in the midst of the hardest times the cottage in Spring Garden had known. But the last penny was finally spent.
Winter came on — the winter of 1843. It was a severe winter to the cottage. The bow of promise that had spanned it seemed to have withdrawn to such a vast height above it that its outlines were indistinct — its colors well nigh faded out.
The reading public still trumpeted the praise of Edgar the Dreamer — his friends still believed in him — from many quarters their letters and the letters of the great ones of the day fluttered to the cottage. And not only letters came, but the literati of the day in person — glad to sit at Edgar Poe’s feet, their hearts glowing with the eloquence of his speech and aching as they recognized in the lovely eyes of the girl-wife “the light that beckons to the tomb.”
But there were other visitors that winter, and less welcome ones. Though the master of the cottage wrote and wrote, filling the New York and Philadelphia papers and magazines with a stream of translations, sketches, stories and critiques, for which he was sometimes paid and sometimes not, the aggregate sum he received was pitifully small and the Wolf scratched at the door and the gaunt features of Cold and Want became familiar to the dwellers in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.
In desperation the driven poet turned this way and that in a wild effort to provide the necessities of life for himself and those who were dearer to him than self — occasionally appearing upon the lecture platform, and finally attempting, but without success, to secure government office in Washington.
And oftener and oftener, and for longer each time the Shadow rested upon the cottage — making the Valley dark and drear and dimming the colors of the grass and the flowers — the dread shadow of the wing of the Angel of Death.
Even at such times The Dreamer made a manful struggle to coin his brains into gold — to bring to the cottage the comforts, the conveniences, the delicacies that the precious invalid should have had. An exceedingly appealing little invalid, she lay upon her bed in the upper chamber whose shelving ceiling almost touched her head; and sometimes “Muddie” and “Eddie” fanned her and sometimes they chafed her hands and her feet and placed her pet, “Catalina,” grown now to a large, comfortable cat, in her arms, that the warmth of the soft body and thick fur might comfort her shuddering frame. And oftentimes as she lay there “Eddie” sat at a table nearby and wrote upon the long strips of paper which he rolled into the neat little rolls which he or “Muddie” took around to the editors.
And sometimes the editors were glad to have them, and to pay little checks for them, and sometimes not.
The truth was, that though the fame of Edgar Poe was well established, there was an undercurrent of opposition to him, that kept the price of his work down. The little authors — venomous with spite and jealousy — the little authors, chief among whom was Rufus Griswold of the furtive eye and deprecating voice, were sending forth little whispers defaming his character, exaggerating his weakness and damning his work with faint praise, or emphatic abuse.
A day came when Edgar Poe realized that he must move on — that the “City of Brotherly Love” had had enough of him — that to remain must mean starvation. What removal would mean he did not know. That might mean starvation too, but, as least, he did not know it.
It was hard to leave the rose-embowered cottage. It was April and about Spring Garden and the cottage the old old miracle of the renewal of life was begun. The birds were nesting and the earliest flowers were in bloom. It was bitter to leave it — but, there was no money for the rent. His fame had been greatest in New York, of late. The New York papers had been the most hospitable to his work. It was bitter to leave Spring Garden, but perhaps somewhere about New York they would find another rose-embowered cottage. Virginia was unusually well for the present and the prospect of a change carried with it a possibility of prosperity. Who could tell what good fortune they might fall upon in New York?
Edgar Goodfellow had suddenly made his appearance for the first time in many moons. A change was the thing they all needed, he told himself. In change there was hope!
He placed Mother Clemm and “Catalina” temporarily with some friends of the “City of Brotherly Love” who had invited them, and accompanied by his Virginia who was looking less wan than for long past, fared forth, in the highest spirits, to seek, for the second time a home in New York.