The Home Life of Poe Part 3

This was an a.s.sertion of independence which one year previous he would not have ventured upon. But he was now no longer a schoolboy, but a University student and, as he claimed, nearly eighteen years of age.

This past year had wrought a great change in him; and he was already in his heart prepared to break away from the restraint and authority which he had found so irksome and a.s.sert his independence.

In due time Poe was installed in Mr. Allan's counting-house as clerk, but had occupied that position but a short time when it became intolerable to him. He begged Mr. Allan to give him some other employment, saying that he would rather earn his living in any other way. Mr. Allan, still angry about the University debts, told him that he was his own master, and could choose what employment he pleased, but that henceforth he was not to look to him for a.s.sistance. After an angry scene between the two, Poe packed his traveling bag and, leaving the Allan house, did not return to it for the s.p.a.ce of two years.

It will be observed that this was no runaway act on Poe's part, as a.s.serted by biographers. He took an affectionate leave of Mrs. Allan and Miss Valentine--who supplied him with money--and neither of whom believed but that he would be back in a few weeks.

He went to take leave of the Mackenzies, who, all but his friend "Jack,"

advised him to return and submit himself to Mr. Allan; but this he would not, could not, do. He claimed that Mr. Allan had spoken insultingly to him, and declared that he would no longer be dependent on him. And so he went forth, as he said, to seek his fortune.

He made his way to Boston, where the first use to which he put his money was in publishing a cheap edition of his poems. They were not of a kind to attract attention, and he never realized a dollar from them.

Ambitious to have them known, he sent a number to his friends in Richmond and other places South, and the rest turned over to his publisher, an obscure young man of the name of Thomas, in part payment of the expense of publishing.

Then followed a season of wandering in search of employment until, his money all gone, he had no resource but to enlist in the army, which he did on May 2, 1827, being then, as he claimed, eighteen (really nineteen) years of age, but representing himself as twenty-two.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN BARRACKS.

In the year 1829, my uncle, Dr. Archer, then Post Surgeon at Fortress Monroe, was one day called to the hospital to attend a private soldier known as Edgar A. Perry. Finding him a young man of superior manners and education, his interest was aroused, and his patient, won by his sympathy, finally confessed that his real name was Edgar A. Poe, and that he was the adopted son of Mr. John Allan, of Richmond; and also expressed an earnest desire to leave the army, in which he had now been for two years, the term of enlistment being five years.

Dr. Archer informed the commanding officer of these revelations, and as Perry, _alias_ Poe, had proven himself in all respects a model soldier, interest in his case was at once aroused. It was suggested that, with his education and the social position which he had enjoyed, a cadetship at West Point would be more suited to him than the place of a private at Fortress Monroe. Poe, in his anxiety to be rid of the army, was willing enough to accept this proposal, and by the advice of his new friends wrote to Mr. Allan, informing him of his wishes and asking his a.s.sistance.

For some time he received no answer; but at length there came a letter which must have caused his heart a pang of real sorrow. It was from Mr.

Allan, informing him of the death of his wife, and directing him to apply for a furlough and come on at once to Richmond, where he arrived two days after her burial.

Woodbury is mistaken in saying that in all this time Mr. Allan had not known of Edgar's whereabouts. According to Miss Valentine, Poe never at any time ceased entirely to correspond with Mrs. Allan, who never, to her dying day, lost her interest in the boy whom she had loved as a son, and neither ceased her endeavors to reconcile himself and her husband, urging Edgar to return and Mr. Allan to receive him. In antic.i.p.ation of such result, she kept his room as he had left it, ready for his occupation at any time that it might suit his wayward fancy to return.

Mr. Allan talked to Poe seriously, and, finding that his great desire was to get a discharge from the army, promised to a.s.sist him; but only upon condition of his entering West Point, by which there would be secured to him an honorable and independent position for life, and Allan himself be relieved from all responsibility concerning him. But that he had not entirely forgiven Edgar was evident from a letter to the latter's commanding officer, wherein he exposes, unnecessarily, perhaps, the youth's gambling habits at the University, declaring that "he is no relation of mine whatever, and no more to me than many others who, being in need, I have regarded as being my care." Poe must have felt this latter as a humiliation; and it was certainly not calculated to increase his regard for the writer.

Poe's career at West Point is well known. At first all went well. One of his Virginia comrades, Col. Allan Magruder, describes him as of a simple and kindly nature, but, by reason of his distance and reserve, not popular with the cadets, and that he at length confined his a.s.sociation exclusively to Virginians. But the old discontent and impatience of restraint returned upon him, and after some months he wrote to Mr. Allan that he wished to leave West Point--a step to which the latter positively refused his a.s.sistance.

Finding n.o.body inclined to help him, he resolved to force his discharge.

He purposely neglected his studies and military duties, deliberately violated the rules, engaged--it was said by some--in all sorts of disgraceful pranks; and finally was tried by court-martial and, on March 7, 1831, dismissed from the inst.i.tute.

It has been naturally inferred that Poe's object in this voluntary self-sacrifice was simply to free himself from the irksomeness of military duties which, on trial, he found so opposed to his taste and inclination. But perhaps the real motive was one which has never yet been suspected.

Some time after Poe's death I was informed by a lady that, being in company where the conversation turned upon the poet and his writings, one who did not admire the latter remarked that Edgar Poe could have been of more use to both himself and others by remaining at West Point and adopting the army as a profession. To this an old army officer, Capt. Patrick Galt, replied that he had been informed by one who had been a cla.s.smate of Poe that the latter had been driven away from West Point by the slights and snubs of the cadets on account of his parentage and his bringing up as an object of charity. West Point, this officer declared, had in Poe's time been a very hotbed of aristocratic prejudice and pretension, and, Poe's history being known, these young aristocrats held themselves aloof, while the more sn.o.bbish among them, probably by reason of his reserve and acknowledged superiority in some respects, did not hesitate to attempt to humiliate him on occasion. Poe, he said, probably knew that this odium would in a measure attach to him throughout his whole military career, and he acted wisely in declining to expose himself to it.

Hence the shyness and reserve of which some of his fellow-cadets speak, and his exclusive a.s.sociation with Virginians, who generally stand by each other.

CHAPTER IX.

POE AND MRS. ALLAN.

In the meantime Mr. Allan had contracted a second marriage, the lady being a Miss Louisa Patterson, of New Jersey. She was thirty years of age; not handsome, but of dignified and courteous manners, with large, strongly-marked features, indicative of decision of character and, as was said, of a will of her own. Nevertheless, she was amiably inclined, and as a society leader very tactful and diplomatic. One marked characteristic of hers was that she never forgave the least slight or disrespect to herself, though the offender were but a child; and of this I remember some curious instances in my own acquaintance with her, many years after the time of which I speak.

It does not appear how Poe received the news of this marriage; but one thing seems certain--that, strangely enough, the idea never occurred to him that it in any way affected his own position in Mr. Allan's house.

He had never received from the latter any word to that effect; Miss Valentine (his "Aunt Nancy"), with the old servants, who had known, and served, and loved him from his babyhood, were still there, and doubtless his room was still being kept, as ever before, ready for his occupation.

It was therefore with perfect confidence that, upon being dismissed from West Point, he proceeded to Richmond, having barely enough money to pay his way, and, sounding the brazen knocker of Mr. Allan's door, greeted the old servant pleasantly, handing him his traveling bag to be carried to his room, at the same time asking for Miss Valentine.

The answer of the servant astonished him. His old room had been taken by Mrs. Allan as a guest-chamber and his personal effects removed to "the end-room." This was the last of several small apartments opening upon a narrow corridor extending on one side of the house above the kitchen and the servants' apartments. It had at one time been occupied by Mrs.

Allan's maid.

On receiving this information, Poe was extremely indignant, and, refusing to have his carpet-bag carried to that room, requested to see Mrs. Allan.

The lady came down to the parlor in all her dignity, and answered to his inquiry that she had arranged her house to suit herself; that she had not been informed that Mr. Poe had any present claim to that room or that he was expected again to occupy it. Warm words ensued, and she reminded him that he was a pensioner on her husband's charity, which provoked him to more than hint that she had married Mr. Allan from mercenary motives. This was enough for the lady. She sent for her husband, who was at his place of business, and who, upon hearing her account of the interview, coupled with the a.s.sertion that "Edgar Poe and herself could not remain a day under the same roof," without seeing Poe, sent to him an imperative order to leave the house at once, which he immediately did. It was told by himself that as he crossed the hall Mr.

Allan hastily entered it from a side-door and called harshly to him, at the same time drawing out his purse, but that he, without pause or notice, continued on his way.

This account of the rupture between Poe and the Allans I heard from the Mackenzies and Mrs. Julia Mayo Cabell, wife of Poe's schoolboy friend, Dr. Robert G. Cabell, to whom Poe himself related it. The friends of the Allens gave a much more sensational account of the affair, which was much discussed, and went the rounds of the city, with such additions and exaggerations as gossip could invent, until it culminated at length in the dark picture with which Griswold horrified the world.

It was to this incident that Poe alluded when he told Mrs. Whitman that "his pride had led him to deliberately throw away a large fortune rather than submit to a trivial wrong."

CHAPTER X.

THE CLOSING OF THE GATE.

When Poe, after leaving Mr. Allan's door, crossed the lawn and pa.s.sed out of the gate, can any one realize how momentous was the instant of time in which the gate closed after him, or what a woeful human tragedy was in that instant inaugurated? The closing of the gate meant the shutting out forever of his past life; the clang of the iron latch was the knell of all that had been bright and pleasant and prosperous in that life, now lost to him forever. There he stood, homeless, penniless, friendless, utterly alone in the world, with a pathless future before him, shadowy, dim, no hand to point him onward and no star to guiden.

From this moment commences the true history of Edgar A. Poe.

On leaving the Allan house, Poe went directly to the Mackenzies, the only place to which he could turn, and spent several days with these kind friends, discussing what would be best for him to do, now that he had his own way to make in the world. They advised him to begin by teaching, until he could see his way more clearly; but Richmond was at present no place for him, and he decided to go to Baltimore, where his relatives, knowing the city so well, might be able to a.s.sist him. The Mackenzies gave him what money they could spare, and Miss Valentine, on hearing where he was, sent more.

But in Baltimore Poe found himself coldly received by his relatives.

Since his miserable failure at West Point, when his prospects had seemed so bright and all conspiring for his good, they had lost all faith in him, and did not propose to trouble themselves on his account. On his last visit, Neilson Poe, at whose house he was staying, had obtained for him a place in an editor's office, which after a brief trial Poe threw up. He now again applied for that place, but failed; as also in his application for the position of a.s.sistant teacher in some academy. And now commenced that wretched life of wandering, and penury, and, according to Mr. Kennedy, of actual starvation, which is as sad as any other such history in literature, with the exception of that of poor Chatterton. His days were pa.s.sed in roaming about the streets in search of employment--anything by which he could obtain food and at night a miserable place where to rest his weary limbs. He wrote a few stories which he endeavored to dispose of to editors, but met with no success.

Many stories have been told in regard to this unhappy period of Poe's life. One, related by a Richmond man, stated that, being in Baltimore about the time in question, he one day had occasion to visit a brick-yard, when there pa.s.sed him by a line of men bearing the freshly moulded bricks to the kiln. Glancing at them casually, he was amazed to recognize among them Edgar Poe. He could not be mistaken, having been for years familiar with his appearance. Whether Poe recognized him, he could not say; but when he returned next day he was not there, nor did any one know of the name of Poe among the laborers. It was the opinion of this man that he had merely picked up a day's job for a day's need.

He was said to have been recognized in other equally uncongenial occupations, but relief was at hand in the time of his sorest need.

CHAPTER XI.