Part 29 (1/2)

And quietly and un.o.btrusively his personality made itself felt. Mr.

Willis came to love him for his innate charm and for his faithfulness to duty.

But the desk of a sub-editor could not long hold a genius like Edgar Poe. He bore its drudgery without complaint, but when an opening that seemed to invite his ambition, as well as to promise better pay came, he hailed it with enthusiasm. In March of the next year he formed a partners.h.i.+p with two New York journalists, as editors and managers of _The Broadway Journal_. A few months later saw him sole proprietor as well as editor, and for a short, bright period his old dream of a magazine of his own, in which he could write as he pleased, came true.

Its realization seemed to inspire him with new energy. How many heads, how many right hands had the man--his readers asked each other--that he could turn out such a ma.s.s of work of such high order? His own and many other of the magazines of the day were filled with reviews and criticisms that made him the terror of other writers, and with stories and poems that made him the marvel of readers everywhere.

His works were translated into the tongues of France, Germany and Spain, and his fame grew in all of those countries.

Yet the most that he could afford in the way of a home was up two flights of stairs--two rooms in the third story of a dingy old house in East Broadway. Mother Clemm and Virginia kept them bright and spotless and ”Catalina” dosing on the hearth gave a final touch of comfort, and they were far above the noise and dust of the streets, with windows opening upon a goodly view of the sky. They had a front and a back room, so that the beauties of the dawn and the noontide--of sunset and moonrise--were all theirs.

And the Wolf came not near the door, and the three whose natures were like to the natures of the oak, the vine and the heartsease, and who lived for each other only, dreamed again the dream of the wonderful valley--the Valley of the Many-Colored Gra.s.s.

CHAPTER XXIX.

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 G.o.d!” he breathed, crus.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sure 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.