Part 11

The planet enjoying the distinction of being the nearest to the center of our system is too near the “dazzling brightness” to permit our finding out much about its physical constitution. We suppose, but do not know, that it revolves on its axis. We guess that it has satellites, but no one is certain that he ever saw one of them. We used to think it must be a very warm planet; but now we think it might perhaps be a moderately comfortable place for a mortal to reside. The fact is, what we do not know about it is much more than what we do know; and what we know about it for this month is nearly as follows: On the 1st, 15th, 25th and 30th it will rise after the sun, and will not be visible to the unaided eye; but on the same dates it will set at 6:32, 7:03, 8:37 and 8:35 p. m., respectively, and can therefore be easily seen after sunset from the 20th to the end of the month by anybody who will take the pains to look for it—that is, within the latitude in which most of our readers live. It reaches its most easterly limit (20° 32′) at 9:00 p. m. on the evening of the 25th, and approaches so much nearer to us during the month as to cause its diameter to appear nearly twice as large—that is, to increase from 5″ to 9″. On the 21st at 2:00 a. m. it will be 4° 20′ north of Neptune, and on the 26th at 5:55 p. m., 5° 47′ north of the moon.

VENUS,

The most friendly of our planets, who comes so close at times as to seem to be within “hailing distance” (only twenty-five millions of miles), is still our delight. She grows brighter and more beautiful as time moves on. Her motion for the month is direct and amounts to 34° 16′ 3″. Her diameter shows an increase of 5.4″. From our present acquaintance we learn that she sometimes shines so brightly as to be visible in daylight to the naked eye, and at night, in the absence of the moon, to cast a shadow. When viewed through a telescope, she presents phases like the moon; and in some respects she is very much like our earth. For example, her size is not more than 4 per cent. less, and her density and force of gravity must be nearly the same. Her days are supposed to be a little shorter than ours, and her years are known to be equal to 224⅔ of our days. On the 1st, 15th and 30th she will rise at 7:32, 7:25 and 7:26 a. m., and set at 10:04, 10:31 and 10:48 p. m., respectively. On the 2d, at 11:00 p. m., she will be nearest the sun; on the 25th, at 11:00 p. m., 4° 13′ north of Saturn; on the 28th, at 2:41 p. m., 7° 53′ north of the moon.

MARS.

Of this planet we have little to report. He continues his direct motion, which amounts to 9° 30′ 34″. As he and the earth are getting farther apart, his diameter (apparently) diminishes from 10″ to 8″. He rises on the 1st, 15th and 30th at 12:27 p. m., 11:54 a. m., and 11:24 a. m., and sets on the 2d, 16th, and May 1st at 3:09, 2:22, and 1:38 a. m., respectively. On the 4th, at 10:26 a. m., his position is 8° 10′ north of the moon, and on the 1st a little northeast of the nebula _Præsepe_ in _Cancer_.

JUPITER

Continues to be evening star, coming to the meridian on the 1st, 15th and 30th, at 7:04, 6:13 and 5:20 p. m., and setting on the 2d, 16th, and May 1st at 2:24, 1:32 and 12:38 a. m. His motion, which is direct, amounts during the month to 4° 27′ 33″. His diameter diminishes from 37.8″ to 34.6″, an indication that our distance from him is increasing. On the 3d, at 1:52 p. m., he is 6° north of the moon; and on the 14th, at 7:00 p. m., 90° west of the sun.

SATURN

Continues his position not far from the bright star _Aldebaran_, in the constellation Taurus, on the 1st being about 2° 53′ west and 3° 32′ north, while on the 30th he will be about 30′ east and 4° 7½′ north of this star. His motion is direct and amounts to 3° 24′. Diameter diminishes from 16.2″ on the 1st to 15.8″ on the 30th. Setting at 10:47, 9:59 and 9:09 p. m. on the 1st, 15th and 30th he will be evening star throughout the month. On the 12th, at 11:00 p. m., is 4° 13′ south of Venus, and on the 27th, at 1:56 p. m., 2° 19′ north of the moon.

URANUS,

Formerly and still sometimes called Herschel, from the name of its discoverer, Dr. Herschel, has made but about one and one-fifth revolutions about the sun, since its discovery in 1781, more than a century ago. It is now near the star _Beta Virginis_, and making a retrograde motion of about 56′ 30″ in 30 days. Its diameter is 3.8″. It rises at 4:53 p. m., 3:55 p. m. and 2:54 p. m. on the 1st, 15th and 30th, and sets at 5:09 a. m., 4:13 a. m. and 3:13 a. m. on the 2d, 16th, and May 1st. On the 6th, at 6:27 a. m., it is 3° 27′ north of the moon. Is evening star during the month.

NEPTUNE

Is evening star, setting at 9:24, 8:32 and 7:28 p. m. on the 1st, 15th and 30th, respectively. Its motion, 1° 2′ 37″, is direct. Diameter, 2.6″. On the 21st, at 2:00 a. m., 4° 20′ south of Mercury, and on the same day will set about fifteen minutes later than said planet. On the 26th, at 8:27 a. m., 44′ north of moon.

* * * * *

EARNESTNESS.—Without earnestness there is nothing to be done in life; yet even among the people whom we call men of culture, but little earnestness is often to be found; in labors and employments, in arts, nay, even in recreations, they plant themselves, if I may say so, in an attitude of self-defense; they live, as they read a heap of newspapers, only to be done with them. They remind one of that young Englishman at Rome, who told, with a contented air, one evening in some company, that “to-day he had despatched six churches and two galleries.” They wish to know and learn a multitude of things, and not seldom exactly those things with which they have the least concern; and they never see that hunger is not appeased by snapping at the air. When I become acquainted with a man my first inquiry is: With what does he occupy himself, and how, and with what degree of perseverance? The answer regulates the interest I take in that man for life.… I reverence the individual who understands distinctly what he wishes; who unweariedly advances, who knows the means conducive to his object, and can seize and use them. How far his object may be great or little, may merit praise or censure, is a secondary consideration with me.—_Goethe._

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

THE LITERARY ISHMAEL.

By C. E. BISHOP.

Less is known while more is written and disputed about Edgar Allan Poe, than about any other character in American literature. In the narrative of his life there are gaps of months and years in which nothing can be told of his whereabouts or acts; and as if to atone for this lack he is at other times credited with feats of ubiquity. There are also stories of a quixotic mission to fight for Greek independence, _a la_ Byron; of his escapades in St. Petersburg; of enlistment in and desertion from the United States army; of phenomenally protracted debauches, during which he threw off the most wonderful productions of his pen—most of which stories, so far as can be shown now, were evolved from the inner consciousness of those writers who, upon his death, “woke to ecstacy, the living liars,” to blacken his name.

A general reason for this paucity of particulars may be found, perhaps, in Poe’s enforced seclusion from the public by the exigencies of poverty during much of his life, and the low rank of authors in the general estimation of the times; a special reason may be that Poe’s literary executor and biographer, Dr. Griswold, to whom in his lifetime he had entrusted all the material he ever furnished any one, suppressed the facts and substituted inventions, in order to assassinate the character of the dead poet. For twenty-six years Poe’s body rested in an unmarked grave, and his character was buried under a living heap of obloquy. When at last, in 1875, a few devoted women of Baltimore sought to redeem both tombs, nearly all the contemporary witnesses to his acts were dead. It was not until twenty-six years after the event that Dr. Moran, who had attended Poe’s last illness, broke silence and put to rest the story that he died in the midst of a drunken debauch in the streets of Baltimore. “There was no smell of liquor upon his person or breath, and no delirium or tremor,” says this tardy vindicator. It was 1878 (twenty-nine years late) when Mrs. Weiss, of Richmond, told the story of his last visit to that city, and contradicted Griswold’s story of his engagement with Mrs. Stalton, and his prolonged inebriety there. It was later still, when the posthumous letter of Mrs. Whitman, of Providence, was published, silencing the long-accepted tale of Poe’s engagement to her, and his disreputable conduct and intemperance the evening before they were to have been married. Many chivalrous pens now—alas! too late—essayed his defense; but his true history has not yet been written, and it probably never will be. Dr. Johnson’s summary of Butler’s life almost literally applies to Poe’s: “The date of his birth is doubtful, the mode and place of his education unknown, the events of his life are variously related, and all that can be told with certainty is that he was poor.”

“The persistent and palpably malignant efforts to damn him with some drops of faint praise and some oceans of strong abuse,”[A] have, indeed, produced a reactionary tendency toward panegyric, since the angels rolled the stone away from his tomb. The best any one can now do is to pity the man and admire his works, and weigh probabilities. A careful view as well of his time as of his character and environment is necessary. Premising that I am not so presumptuous as to expect to add much to the general fund of misinterpretation of his acts and misunderstanding of his character, a brief summary of the less controverted features of this history is submitted.

In “that stray child of Poetry and Passion” concentered hot Celtic and Southern blood, stimulated upon his father’s side by drink, upon his mother’s by the artificial surroundings of an actress’s life, and in both intensified by a runaway marriage, followed by a joint “barn-storming” life. Himself an inter-act, his nursery was the green room, his necessary nourishment narcotics. It is a sad thing to say, but probably one of the few fortunate circumstances of his life was that his parents died in his infancy—one of his many misfortunes was to have been adopted and raised by a wealthy family (Mr. Allan’s of Baltimore). He was born in 1809, or 1811, in either Boston, Baltimore or Richmond, through all of which he, living, “begged his bread,” _a la_ Homer. The Allans assiduously spoiled the child with unlimited money, indulgence and praise. It was easy, for he was rarely beautiful, affectionate, and precocious; he recited with marvelous childish effect, spun webs of imaginative stories, and composed rhymes. “He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came,” and when he was nine or ten years old his proud foster-father seriously contemplated issuing a volume of his baby-verse, but was dissuaded by the boy’s tutor, who said he had conceit enough already, and such additional celebrity would probably ruin his prospects.

Edgar was schooled in England, at the University of Virginia, and at West Point, but he must have picked up independently of schools and school masters the varied culture which shows in his versatile writings—especially his acquaintance with science, psychology and literature. At these schools he was distinguished alike for fast learning and fast living—his easy absorption of the branches he liked, his utter revulsion against those he did not like (mathematics, notably), for his literary and critical tastes, athletic exercises, and the lavishness with which he scattered his guardian’s money. These characteristics won him the jealousy of his plodding classmates, distinction at the university, expulsion from West Point, and quarrels with his foster-father. Over-indulgence by parents produced the usual result of disrespect and ingratitude in the youth; and the marriage of Mr. Allan to a second wife, and the birth of heirs to his estates brought about a final separation and a disinheritance of the adopted son, and so Edgar, at about his majority age, was thrown on his own resources. He chose literature as his profession, and doomed himself to poverty, anguish, professional jealousy (especially strong among authors), triumphs, defeats, ruin and insanity.

Poe’s real début in letters was in 1833, when (ætat 24) he won a prize of a hundred dollars offered by the proprietor of _The Saturday Visitor_, Baltimore, for the best story. Better than the money, the contest brought him the friendship of the judges, and about a year later the editorship of _The Southern Literary Messenger_, Richmond, at ten dollars a week. The intervening year is one of the blanks.

The Richmond editorship marks a turning point in Poe’s career. He made the fortune of the _Messenger_; married (’35) his cousin, Virginia Clem; and first began that line of work which is, in my opinion, its distinctive feature, as it certainly proved to be decisive of his destiny—to-wit: criticism. He published in some issues as much as thirty or forty pages of book reviews. They created a tempest; for, rare as is his imagery and wonderful as is his imagination, Poe’s distinguishing mental characteristic is analysis. He is more logician than poet, more metaphysician than romancer.

Poe subsequently (’37-’38) edited the _Gentlemen’s Magazine_, and then _Graham’s Magazine_, both in Philadelphia, and in ’44 we find him in New York, employed on the _Mirror_, the journal of the poets N. P. Willis and George P. Morris. In Philadelphia he did the best work of his life in romance and criticism. Here, too, he made the acquaintance of his evil genius, Dr. Griswold. Poe believed that Griswold supplanted him from the editorship of _Graham’s_; G.’s subsequent enmity, while professing friendship, was of the unforgiving nature that often comes of the consciousness of having inflicted a secret wrong on another. The only other causes of disagreement between them alleged are that Poe criticised Griswold’s book in a lecture, and that Griswold attempted to buy a favorable criticism from Poe’s pen. But they were outwardly friendly, after a reconciliation, till Poe’s voice and pen were beyond the power of response. The work of detraction had preceded Poe to New York, for Mr. Willis writes of this engagement:

“With the highest admiration for his genius, and a willingness to let it alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. To our occasional request that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented—far more yielding than most men, we thought, on points so excusably sensitive. Through all this considerable period we had seen but one presentment of the man—a quiet, patient, industrious, and most gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good feeling by his unvarying deportment and ability.”

In 1845 appeared the work on which Poe’s poetic fame most depends, that poem in which he wedded Despair to Harmony, “The Raven.” It marks the acme of his life, also; his star declined rapidly thereafter. His wife, who bore the hereditary taint of consumption, was in a decline; care and anxiety on that account, and his own ill health, took away his ability to write and he was without means of support. He was driven to ask loans from one or two friends, and by a fatality such as he sometimes made to drive his fictitious characters upon their worst expedients, he chose Dr. Griswold as one of them. “Can you not send me five dollars?” he pleaded with G.; “I am ill and Virginia is almost gone.” This and one or two other such letters Griswold published, in connection with his slanders on Poe’s character, to give his attack the cover of friendly sincerity. Something was published in New York papers regarding the distress of the Poes, and a lady friend (Mrs. Shew) visited them at Fordham. The worst was confirmed.

“There was no clothing on the bed—which was only straw—but a snow-white spread and sheets. The weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband’s great coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were the sufferer’s only means of warmth, except as her husband held her hands and her mother her feet.”

Mrs. Poe died January 30, 1847. Captain Mayne Reid, the novelist, who visited often at her house, thus describes her:

“No one who remembers that dark-eyed, dark-haired daughter of the South; her face so exquisitely lovely; her gentle, graceful demeanor; no one who has ever spent an hour in her society but will endorse what I have said of this lady, who was the most delicate realization of the poet’s ideal.”

Another said: “She had large, black eyes, and a pearly whiteness of complexion which was a perfect pallor. Her pale face, her brilliant eyes, and her raven hair gave her an unearthly look. One felt that she was almost a disrobed spirit.”

After this Poe’s decline was rapid. He was ill for a long time, and never quite recovered his mental balance. In the autumn of this year he visited Mrs. Shew, his benefactress. She says that at this time, under the combined influence of her gentle urgency, a cup of tea and the sound of neighboring church bells, he wrote the first draft of “The Bells.” She adds:

“My brother took Poe to his own room, where he slept twelve hours and could hardly recall the evening’s work. This showed his mind was injured—nearly gone out for want of food and from disappointment. He had not been drinking and had only been a few hours from home. Evidently his vitality was low, and he was nearly insane. I called in Dr. Francis (the old man was odd but very skilful), who was one of our neighbors. His words were, ‘He has heart disease and will die early in life.’ We did not waken him, but let him sleep.”

Since I began writing this paper I have heard recited in a company of literary people an account of Poe’s staggering into a stranger’s house at midnight, calling for a pen and dashing off “The Bells;” then falling into a drunken stupor on the library table. It was evidently believed by the narrator, despite Mrs. Shew’s circumstantial and more rational account.

During these dark days, as indeed during all Poe’s adult life, Mrs. Clem was his guardian angel. The poet Willis touchingly draws this picture of devotion:

“It was a hard fate that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular level to be well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty and, with his sick wife, frequently in want of the merest necessaries of life. Winter after winter, for years, the most touching sight to us in this whole city has been that tireless minister to genius, thinly and insufficiently clad, going from office to office with a poem or an article on some literary subject to sell—sometimes simply pleading in a broken voice that ‘he was ill,’ whatever might be the reason for his writing nothing—and never, amid all her tears and recitals of distress, suffering one syllable to escape her lips that would convey a doubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of pride in his genius and good intentions. Her daughter died a year and a half since, but she did not desert him. She continued his ministering angel, living with him, caring for him, guarding him against exposure, and when he was carried away by temptation, amid grief and the loneliness of feeling unreplied to, and awoke from his self-abandonment prostrated in destitution and suffering, begging for him still. If woman’s devotion, born with a first love and fed with human passion, hallows its object, as it is allowed to do, what does not a devotion like this—pure, disinterested and holy as the watch of an invisible spirit—say for him who inspired it.”

By this test, Poe’s was always a pure nature, for he inspired respect, pity and regard in every woman he came in contact with. It was a reflex sentiment, for Poe revered woman, and there is not in all his writings an impure suggestion or an indelicate word.

The rest of the history is one of occasional indulgence in intoxicants and rarely intermitting mental aberration. It is to him during these last months of his unhappy career that the least charity has been extended. He conducted a courtship of three ladies at once, making to each like frantic protestations of love, the same despairing appeals to each to become his savior from some dreadful impending fate. In June, ’49, he departed for Richmond, for what purpose is unknown. In Philadelphia he appeared the subject of a hallucination that he was pursued by conspirators, and had his mustache taken off for the sake of disguise. In Richmond he remained until the latter part of September, writing some and renewing old acquaintances. During these three or four months he was twice known to be overcome and in danger of his life from drink; he was credited with having been almost continuously “in a state of beastly intoxication” during the whole time. Mrs. Weiss thinks that this was one of the brightest and happiest seasons of his life; if so, it was light at its eventide. The return voyage is shrouded—that is the fit word—shrouded in mystery and controversy.

This seems to be true—that he was taken up unconscious in Baltimore at daybreak, taken to a hospital, and died there at midnight of the same day (October 7, 1849). It is also known that he left Richmond by boat on the evening of the 4th, he then being sober and cheerful. In proper course he must have arrived in Baltimore the night of the 5th or morning of the 6th; he was himself then, for he removed his trunk to a hotel. There was thus left less than twenty-four hours in which for him to travel to Havre de Grace and back, miss the New York connection, vote eleven times in the Baltimore city election, go through the “prolonged debauch,” fall into the delirium, and lapse into the comatose state in which he was found—as described in most of his biographies; and he immediately thereafter is found to have no smell of liquor about him, no tremor, and is conversing rationally when roused to consciousness.

The event was announced by Griswold in the _Tribune_ with this brutal bluntness:

“Edgar Allan Poe is dead. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. He had few or no friends.” But the _Southern Literary Messenger_ said: “Now that he is gone, the vast multitude of blockheads may breathe again.” Griswold simply elected himself mouthpiece of that host.