The Dreamer Part 27

"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 ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sed 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 p.r.o.nounced his "No!"

The rest agreed with him that the poem was "too queer," but as a solace for the poet's disappointment some one pa.s.sed 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 Gra.s.s.

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 gra.s.s 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 d.a.m.ning 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.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

New York once more! They went by rail to Amboy and the remaining forty miles by steamboat.