Part 29 (2/2)

”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 n.o.blest of her s.e.x--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 ma.n.u.script 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 a.s.suredly 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 ma.s.s of brilliant and artistic work? And consider the exquisite neatness of his ma.n.u.script!

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 cla.s.s 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 auth.o.r.esses, 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 s.e.x, 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 entre 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 s.p.a.cious 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 a.s.sembled 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 auth.o.r.ess, 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.

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