Up, up the stairs, two steps at a time, sprang The Dreamer, one white January day, and burst in upon Mother Clemm who was preparing dinner, and Virginia who was mending his coat. He was in a great glee. He caught “Muddie” in his arms where she stood with her hands deep in a tray of dough, and kissed her, then stooped over Virginia and kissed her, and dropped into her lap a crisp ten dollar bank note. She gave a little scream of delight.
“Where did you get it?” she cried?
“From Willis. I’ve sold him ‘The Raven.’ He’s vastly taken with it and not only paid me the ten, in advance, but will give the poem an editorial puff in the Mirror of the nineteenth. He showed me a rough draft. He will say that it is ‘the most effective example of fugitive poetry ever published in this country,’ and predict that it will ‘stick in the memory of everybody who reads it!’”
“And it will! It will!” cried Virginia. “Especially that ‘Nevermore.’ I’ve done everything in time to it since the first night you read it to us.”
“I’ve done everything in time to it since I was three years old,” murmured her husband. He drew the miniature from the inside pocket of his coat where he had carried it, close against his heart, throughout his life, and gazed long upon it. In his grey eyes was the tender, brooding expression which the picture always called forth. “Ever since I heard that word for the first time from the lips of my old nurse when she took me in to see my mother robed for the grave, my feet and my thoughts have kept time to it; and generally when my steps and my face have been set toward hope and happiness it has risen before me like a wall, blocking my way.”
Virginia arose from her chair letting her work and the bank note fall unheeded from her lap, and went to him. Gently taking the miniature from his hands she restored it to its place in his pocket and then with a hand on each of his shoulders lifted her eyes to his.
“Buddie,” she said, calling him by the old pet name of their earliest days, “You frighten me sometimes. The miniature is beautiful but it makes you so sad. And when you talk that way about ‘The Raven,’ I feel as if I could hear your tears dropping on my coffin-lid!” Then, with a sudden change of mood, her laugh rang out, and she pressed her lips upon his.
“I’ll have you know,” she said, “I’m not dead yet, and you will not have to journey to any ‘distant Aidenn’ to ‘clasp’ me.”
“No, thank God!” he breathed, crushing her to him.
It was upon January 29, 1845, that “The Raven” appeared, with Willis’s introductory puff. In spite of Dr. Griswold and the staff of Graham’s Magazine, it created an instant furor. It was published and republished upon both sides of the Atlantic. To quote a contemporary writer, everybody was “raven-mad” about it, except a few “waspish foes” who would do its author “more good than harm.”
It brought to the two bright rooms up the two flights of stairs visitors by the score, eager to congratulate the poet, to make the acquaintance of his interesting wife and mother and to assure all three of their welcome to homes approached by brown-stone steps.
And it brought letters by the score — some from the other side of the Atlantic. Among these was one from Miss Elizabeth Barrett, soon to become the wife of Mr. Robert Browning.
“Your ‘Raven’ has produced a sensation here in England,” she wrote. “Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it, and some by its music. I hear of persons haunted by the ‘Nevermore,’ and one of my friends who has the misfortune of possessing a bust of Pallas never can bear to look at it in the twilight. Mr. Browning is much struck by the rhythm of the poem.
“Then there is that tale of yours, ‘The Case of M. Valdemar,’ throwing us all into a ‘most admired disorder,’ and dreadful doubts as to whether ‘it can be true,’ as children say of ghost stories. The certain thing in the tale in question is the power of the writer and the faculty he has of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar.”
Of all the letters from far and near, this was the one that gave The Dreamer most pleasure, and as for Virginia and the Mother, they read it until they knew it by heart.
When, some months later, his new book, “The Raven and Other Poems,” came out, its dedication was, “To the noblest of her sex — Miss Elizabeth Barrett, of England.”
And there was joy in the two rooms up two flights of stairs where Edgar Poe sat at his desk reeling off his narrow little strips of manuscript by the yard. His work filled The Broadway Journal and overflowed into many other periodicals.
While he created stories and poems, he gave more attention than ever to the duties of his cherished post as Defender of Purity of Style for American Letters, and the fame to which he had risen giving him new authority, he made or marred the reputation of many a literary aspirant.
Exposition of plagiarism became a hobby with him, and his attacks upon Longfellow upon this ground, brought on a controversy between him and the gentle poet which reached such a heat that it was dubbed “The Longfellow War.” All attempts of friends and fellow journalists to make him more moderate in his criticisms were in vain; they seemed indeed, but to excite the Imp of the Perverse, under whose influence he became more merciless than ever. An admirer of this virtue carried to such an extreme that it became a serious fault, as it was assuredly a grievous mistake, humorously characterized him in a parody upon “The Raven,” containing the following stanza:
“Neither rank nor station heeding, with his foes around him bleeding, Sternly, singly and alone, his course he kept upon that floor; While the countless foes attacking, neither strength nor valor lacking, On his goodly armor hacking, wrought no change his visage o’er, As with high and honest aim he still his falchion proudly bore, Resisting error evermore.”
Many of the “waspish foes” thus made turned their stings upon his private character, against which there was already a secret poison working — the poison that fell from the tongue, and the pen of Rufus Griswold. He had the ear of numbers of Edgar Poe’s friends in the literary world, and what time The Dreamer dreamed his dreams in utter ignorance of the unfriendliness toward him of the big man whose big brain he admired, the big man watched for his chance to insert the poison. It was invariably hidden in a coating of sugar. Poe was a wonderful genius, he would declare, his imagination — his style — they were marvellous! Marvelous! His head was all right, but — . The “but” always came in a lowered tone, full of commiseration, “but — his heart! — Allowance should, of course, be made for his innate lack of principle — he should not be held too responsible. His habits — well known to everyone of course!”
No — they were not even suspected, many of his listeners replied. Might not Dr. Griswold be mistaken? they asked. Was it possible that an habitual drunkard could turn out such a mass of brilliant and artistic work? And consider the exquisite neatness of his manuscript!
Peradventure the listener persisted in believing his informant mistaken — peradventure he at once accepted the damaging statements; but in every case the poison had been administered, and was at work.
There was just one class among the writers of the day sacred from the attacks of Edgar Poe’s pen. Before almost everything else The Dreamer was chivalrous. The “starry sisterhood of poetesses” and authoresses, therefore, escaped his criticisms. One of his contemporaries said of him that he sometimes mistook his vial of prussic acid for his ink-pot. In writing of authors of the gentle sex, his ink-pot became a pot of honey.
Several of these literary ladies living in New York had their salons, where they received, upon regular days, their brothers and sisters of the pen, and at which The Dreamer became a familiar figure.
“I meet Mr. Poe very often at the receptions,” gossiped one of the fair poetesses in a letter to a friend in the country. “He is the observed of all observers. His stories are thought wonderful and to hear him repeat ‘The Raven’ is an event in one’s life. People seem to think there is something uncanny about him, and the strangest stories are told and what is more, believed, about his mesmeric experiences — at the mention of which he always smiles. His smile is captivating! Everybody wants to know him, but only a few people seem to get well acquainted with him.”
Chief among the salons of New York was that of Miss Anne Charlotte Lynch — who was afterward Mrs. Botta. An entré to her home was the most-to-be-desired social achievement New York could offer, for it meant not only to know the very charming lady herself, but to meet her friends; and she had drawn around her a circle made up of the persons and personages — men and women — best worth knowing. She became one of The Dreamer’s most intimate friends, and always made him and his wife welcome at her “evenings.” It was not long after “The Raven” had set the town marching to the word “nevermore,” that he made his first visit there — a visit which long stood out clear in the memories of all present.
In the cavernous chimney a huge grate full of glowing coals threw a ruddy warmth into Miss Lynch’s spacious drawing-room. Waxen tapers in silver and in crystal candelabra, and in sconces, filled the apartment with a blaze of soft light, lit up the sparkling eyes and bright, intellectual faces of the assembled company, and showed to advantage the jewels and laces of the ladies and the broadcloth of the gentlemen.
Miss Lynch stood at one end of the room between the richly curtained windows and immediately in front of a narrow, gold-framed mirror which reached from the frescoed ceiling to the floor and reflected her gracious figure to advantage. She was listening with interested attention to Mr. Gillespie, the noted mathematician, whose talk was worth hearing in spite of the fact that he stammered badly. His subject tonight happened to be the versatility of “Mr. P-P-Poe.”
“He might have been an eminent m-m-mathematician if he had not elected to be an eminent p-p-poet,” he was saying.
To her right Mr. Willis’s daughter, Imogen, was flirting with a tall, lanky young man with sentimental eyes, a drooping moustache and thick, straight, longish hair, whose lately published ballad, “Oh, Don’t You Remember Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?” was all the rage.
To her left the Minerva-like Miss Margaret Fuller whose critical papers in the New York Tribune were being widely read and discussed, was amiably quarreling with Mr. Horace Greely, and upon a sofa not far away Mr. William Gilmore Simms, the novelist and poet, was gently disagreeing with Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith in her contention for Woman’s Rights.
At the opposite end of the room a lovely woman in a Chippendale chair was the central figure of a group of ladies and gentlemen each of whom hung upon her least word with an interest amounting to affection. She was a woman who looked like a girl, for thirty years had been kind to her. Glossy brown hair parted in the middle and brushed smoothly down in loops that nearly covered her ears framed an oval face, with delicate, clear-cut features, pale complexion and eyes as brown and melting as a gazelle’s.
She was none other than Mrs. Frances Osgood, the author, or authoress, as she would have styled herself, of “The Poetry of Flowers” — so much admired by her contemporaries — whose husband, Mr. S.S. Osgood, the well known artist, had won her heart while painting her portrait.
Conspicuous in the group of literary lights surrounding her was Dr. Griswold in whose furtive glance, had she been less free from guile, she might have read an admiration fiercer than that of friendship or even of platonic love, and to whose fires she had unwittingly added fuel by expressing admiration for his poems — Mr. Poe’s opinion to the contrary.
Mr. Locke, author of “The Moon Hoax,” was of the group; and the Reverend Ralph Hoyt, who was a poet as well as a preacher; and Mr. Hart, the sculptor; and James Russell Lowell, who happened to be in town for a few days; and Mr. Willis and his new wife; and Mrs. Embury whose volume of verse, “Love’s Token Flowers,” was just out and being warmly praised; and George P. Morris, Willis’s partner in the Mirror, whose “Woodman, Spare that Tree!” and “We were Boys Together,” had (touching a human chord) made him popular.
The beloved physician, Dr. Francis, seemed to be everywhere at once, as he moved about from group to group with a kindly word for everybody — the candle-light falling softly upon his flowing silver locks and his beaming, ruddy countenance.
Suddenly, there was a slight stir in the room — a cessation of talk — a turning toward one point.
“There is Mr. P-P-Poe now,” said Mr. Gillespie to Miss Lynch, and followed her as, with out-stretched hand and cordial smile, she hastened toward the door where stood the trim, erect, black-clad figure of Edgar Poe, with his prominent brow and his big dreamy eyes, and his wife, pale as a snow-drop after her many illnesses, and as lovely as one, and still looking like a child, upon his arm.
Instant pleasure and welcome were written upon every face present save one, and even that quickly assumed a smile as its owner came forward bowing and stooping in an excess of courtesy.
The pair became immediately the centre of attraction. Everybody wanted to have a word with them. It made Virginia thoroughly happy to see “Eddie” appreciated, and she chatted blythely and freshly with all — her spontaneous laugh bearing testimony to her enjoyment — while The Dreamer yielded himself with his wonted modesty and grace to the hour — answering questions as to whether he really did believe in ghosts and whether the experiments in mesmerism in his story, “The Case of M. Valdemar” had any foundation in fact, with his captivating but enigmatic smile, and a little Frenchified shrug of the shoulders.
It would have seemed at first that he had diverted attention from the fair author of “The Poetry of Flowers” to himself, but erelong — no one knew just how it came to pass — Edgar Poe was sitting upon an ottoman drawn close to the Chippendale chair, and the two lions were deep in earnest and intimate conversation upon which no one else dared intrude. The furtive eye of Rufus Griswold marked well the evident attraction between these two beautiful and gifted beings — poets — and something like murder awoke in his heart.
The tete-a-tete was interrupted by Miss Lynch, who declared that she voiced the wish of all present in requesting that Mr. Poe would recite “The Raven.”
All the candles save enough to make (with the fire’s glow) a dim twilight, were put out, and the poet took his stand at one end of the long room.
A hush fell upon the company and in a quiet, clear, musical voice, he began the familiar words.
There was scarcely a gesture — just the motionless figure, the pale, classic face, which was dim in the half-light, and the deep, rich voice.
Miss Lynch was the first to break the silence following the final “Nevermore.” Moving toward him with her easy, distinguished step, she thanked him in a few low-spoken words. Mrs. Osgood, rising gracefully from her chair, followed her example, with Dr. Griswold at her heels, and in a few moments more the whole room was in an awed and subdued hum.
The girl-wife came in for her share of the lionizing. Her appearance was in marked contrast to that of the richly apparelled women about her. The simplest dress was the only kind within her reach — for which she may have consoled herself with the thought that it was the kind that most adorned her. She wore tonight a little frock made by her own fingers, of some crimson woolen stuff, without a vestige of ornament save a bit of lace, yellow with age, at the throat. Her hair was parted above the placid brow, looped over her ears and twisted in a loose knot at the back of her head, in the prevailing fashion for a young matron; which with her youthful face, gave her a most quaint and charming appearance.
Her husband’s coat had seen long service, but it was neatly brushed and darned, and the ability to wear threadbare clothing with distinction was not the least of Edgar Poe’s talents. Beside his worn, but cared-for apparel, costly dress often seemed tawdry.
Out from the warmth and the light and the perfume and the luxury and the praise of the beautiful drawing-room with its distinguished assemblage, — out into the streets of New York — into the bleakness and the darkness of the winter’s night — stepped Edgar Poe and his wife. Virginia was wrapped against the cold in a Paisley shawl that had been one of Mother Clemm’s bridal presents, while Edgar wore the military cape he had at West Point and which, except in times of unusual prosperity, had served him as a great-coat ever since.
Through the dimly-lit streets, slippery with ice, and wind-swept, they made their way to the two rooms up two flights of stairs, where the Widow Clemm mended the fire with a few coals at a time and sewed by a single candle, as she waited for them — the lion of the most distinguished circle in America and his beautiful wife!
Back from a world of dreams created by a company of dreamers to the reality of an empty larder and a low fuel pile and a dun from the landlord from whom they rented the two rooms.
“The Raven” had brought its author laurels in abundance, but only ten dollars in money. Editors were clamoring for his work and he was supplying it as fast as one brain and one right hand could; and some of them were sending their little checks promptly in return and some were promising little checks some day; but The Broadway Journal had failed for lack of capital. It was the old story. He had no regular income and the irregularly appearing little checks only provided a from-hand-to-mouth sort of living for the three.
Yet they had their dreams. Landlords might turn them out of house and home but they were powerless to deprive them of their dreams.
Mother Clemm’s one candle was burning low — its light and that of the dying fire barely relieved the room from darkness and did not prevent the rays of the newly arisen full moon from coming through the lattice and pouring a heap of silver upon the bare floor.
“Look Muddie! Look Sissy!” cried the poet. “If we lived in a blaze of light, like your rich folk, we should have to go out of doors to see the moon. Who says there are not compensations in this life?”