Part 12

On Poe’s supersensitive organization stimulants told with fearful effect. Mrs. Clem said “A single cup of coffee would intoxicate him.” N. P. Willis explained the vagaries and sins of Poe by supposing him to be possessed of two antagonistic spirits, a devil and an angel, each having complete mastery of him by turns. But, says Willis, “With a single glass of wine his whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost and, though none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane. He easily seemed personating only another phase of his natural character, and was accused accordingly of insulting arrogance and bad heartedness. It was a sad infirmity of physical constitution which puts it upon very nearly the ground of temporary and almost irresponsible insanity.”

That these lapses were infrequent, instead of almost continuous, we have plenty of testimony from those who were much with him as business associates and inmates of the same house. “I have never seen him otherwise than gentle, generous, well-bred and particularly refined,” is a certificate of one who was intimate in the family, which was confirmed by many witnesses of different periods and places. The poet Swinburne was probably right in declaring that Poe’s inebriety was “the _effect_ of a terrible evil, rather than its _cause_.” That evil lay not alone, perhaps not chiefly, in his inherited and educated predisposition to indulgence and his morbidness of mentality; but in the character and consequences of his chiefest literary work.

It is a hard enough lot, under the best circumstances and in the best times, to live by the pen. The characteristics as well of Poe’s genius as of his times made that lot a doom for him. The rewards of authorship were on an eleemosynary scale (Poe received only $10 for “The Raven,” and $10 a week as editor-in-chief of a magazine: the _North American Review_ then paid only $2 a page for matter); literary taste was unformed and, worst of all, the market was drugged and cheapened and the best public appreciation perverted by a silly school of writer who had arisen—similar to the “Della Crusca School” which a few years before had infested literature in England. Their lucubrations were both barren of ideas and bad in style. It was the lollipop stage of our literature. Now Poe possessed in high degree two parts which, when addressed to criticism, would most offend these callow writers, to-wit: The musical sense of language, and marvelous analytical powers. The most obvious quality of his poetic style is its rhythm. The musical ear led him to adopt refrains and euphonious syllables, like “Never more,” “Lenore,” “bells,” and to dwell on their cadence; it made a bad composition distract him as a discord does a sensitive musician. For him divine harmonies lay in the relation of words to each other, as if they had been notes.

Coupled with this, to him, uncomfortable sensitiveness to verbal sounds, was his almost superhuman power of dissecting thought—extremely uncomfortable to others, even to the best of writers. Thus gifted with a mental touch equally for the substance of language and the substance of thought which language struggles to give birth to; possessed of the power of an eager and a nipping sarcasm and an infernal courage, fortified with extensive reading and a retentive memory, Poe became a scourge to mediocrity, imitation, sham and pretense. There could not have been a more critical time for such a man to attempt a livelihood at letters; there could not have been a man better fitted to work havoc among the essayists and poetasters of the day, to compel literary reform and to bring misfortunes on himself. “He elected himself chief justice of the court of criticism and head hangman of dunces,” says Stoddard. “He hated a bad book as a misdemeanor.” Burton, proprietor of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, remonstrated with Poe against the severity of some of his book reviews. “You say,” said he to Poe, “that the people love havoc; I think they love justice.” One adds, “Poe thought literary justice meant havoc with such mediocrity as then flourished.” To the cause of pure literature he thus devoted his life with example, with precept and with destructive force. He was the Wendell Phillips of American literature. He did a work that was necessary to be done in behalf of American literature. He pulled down upon his own head and theirs, the sham temple which the little scribbling Philistines had erected.

So it is not to be wondered at that “he contrived to attach to himself animosities of the most enduring kind,” as the _Messenger_ declared. It became Poe against the whole literary world of America in a very short time—for he had unstinted praise for no one. It is doubtless due to the influence of this army of foes that he lost in succession all his editorial situations and was impoverished. There were other enemies as unscrupulous as Griswold. One of these put in successful circulation the theory that Poe, by cruelty, deliberately caused the death of his wife in order to get the inspiration for “The Raven,” and the story may still be met on its rounds, notwithstanding the fact that the poem was written two years before she died. (Amiable human nature delights in contemplation of human monsters.) She declared on her death-bed that her life had been shortened by anonymous letters slandering and threatening her husband. Perhaps it was to meet this story that he wrote that curious analysis (“The Philosophy of Composition”) of the mechanical and prosaic methods by which he constructed “The Raven.”

The critical instinct, coupled with an impulsive temperament, high ideals of perfect performance and a powerful pen, is a fatal gift to any man. The path of such a one will be strewn with the tombs of friendships which he has stabbed, many and many a time unconsciously; his life will be haunted with vain regrets for words gone past recall, carrying with them consequences he did not reckon upon, hurting those he loves, missing those he aimed at. His way leads steadily through bitter animosities, bitterer remorse and, bitterest of all, isolation from his fellows, who shall clothe him with a character foreign, antagonistic and repulsive to his better nature. If he be not possessed of an o’ermastering will, a thick skin and a healthy, cheerful temper it leads to morbidness, gloom and despair.

Poe was not of that will and temper. He was affectionate, sociable and supersensitive to coolness of manner in others. A rebuff was a stab to him, hatred a calamity. It is said his early life was clouded by the stigma put on him by his parents’ theatrical associations and his own dependence on charity; and that when a lad he wept many wild nights at the grave of a lady who had spoken kindly to him and become the confidante of his boyish sorrows and hopes. So with this nature and with his devastating pen in hand he traced that descent into the living tomb. If from its gloom he sometimes sought “respite and nepenthe” in drink it is not to be wondered at; he was often tempted to suicide. He once solemnly protested: “I have no pleasure in stimulants. It [indulgence in drink] has been in the _desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories—memories of wrong, and injustice and imputed dishonor_—from a _sense of insupportable loneliness_ and a dread of some strange impending gloom.”

I fancy he tried to typify this unhappy mission that had come to blast his life in that poem in which he “wedded despair to harmony.” “The Raven” was a “grim, ghastly, ominous messenger from the night’s Plutonian shore” that settled on the bust of Pallas, goddess of wisdom, even as that critical impulse had settled upon his genius. His soul never was lifted from the shadow. He was himself, of that fell work, the

—“Unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster.”

And why did he not stop the war on the literati and pseudo-authors? Who can tell? He “wasn’t practical.” He lacked some of Falstaff’s “instinct.” He was not good and sweet. He wasn’t well-balanced; he was an Eccentric. Pity the Eccentric—the man who knows himself called and chosen to a cause, whether by the necessities of his own nature or by divine impulse—if, indeed, this and that be not the same. Whether that cause be warring upon high injustice, exposing hypocrisy in high places, reforming an art, lifting up the lowly—anything that sets a man apart to a purpose other than self-seeking, brings him ingratitude, misinterpretation, isolation and many sorrows. Hamlet called to set right the out-of-joint times would rather, if he had dared, have taken his quietus with a bare bodkin than face this life of heart-ache, oppressors’ wrongs, law’s delays to correct the wrongs, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes. The greatest of Eccentrics became a stranger unto his brethren, was despised and rejected of man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; even His chosen disciples when He tried to purify the holy places from the profanation of greed misunderstood him; “the zeal of his house hath eaten him up,” sneered they.

Edgar A. Poe’s personal appearance matched his genius. Let those who saw him tell it: “He was the best realization of a poet in features, air and manner that I have ever seen, and the unusual paleness of his face added to its aspect of melancholy interest.” “Slight but erect of figure, of middle height, his head finely modeled, with a forehead and temples large and not unlike those of Bonaparte; his hands as fair as a woman’s; even in the garb of poverty ‘with gentleman written all over him.’ The handsome, intellectual face, the dark and clustering hair, the clear and sad gray-violet eyes—large, lustrous, glowing with expression.” “A man who never smiles.” “Those awful eyes,” exclaimed one woman. “The face tells of battling, of conquering external enemies, of many a defeat when the man was at war with his meaner self.” He was both much sinned against and much sinning. But he was not a monster, nor an ogre. He was only a poet and an Eccentric.

No farther seek his merits to disclose, Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode.

[A] Davidson.

BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH.

By R. A. PROCTOR.

There are many points in which English and American speakers and writers of culture differ from each other as to the use of certain words and as to certain modes of expression.

In America the word “clever” is commonly understood to mean pleasant and of good disposition, not (as in England) ingenious and skilful. Thus, though an American may speak of a person as a clever workman, using the word as we do, yet when he speaks of another as a clever man, he means, in nine cases out of ten, that the man is good company and well-natured. Sometimes, I am told, the word is used to signify generous or liberal. I can not recall any passages from early English literature in which the word is thus used, but I should not be surprised to learn that the usage is an old one. In like manner, the words “cunning” and “cute” are often used in America for “pretty” (German _niedlich_). As I write, an American lady, who has just played a very sweet passage from one of Mozart’s symphonies, turns from the piano to ask “whether that passage is not cute,” meaning pretty.

The word “mad” in America seems nearly always to mean “angry;” at least, I have seldom heard it used in our English sense. For “mad,” as we use the word, the Americans say “crazy.” Herein they have manifestly impaired the language. The words “mad” and “crazy” are quite distinct in their significance as used in England, and both meanings require to be expressed in ordinary parlance. It is obviously a mistake to make one word do duty for both, and to use the word “mad” to imply what is already expressed by other and more appropriate words.

I have just used the word “ordinary” in the English sense. In America the word is commonly used to imply inferiority. An “ordinary actor,” for instance, is a bad actor; a “very ordinary man” is a man very much below par. There is no authority for this usage in any English writer of repute, and the usage is manifestly inconsistent with the derivation of the word. On the other hand, the use of the word “homely” to imply ugliness, as is usual in America, is familiar at this day in parts of England, and could be justified by passages in some of the older English writers. That the word in Shakspere’s time implied inferiority is shown by the line—

Home keeping youths have ever homely wits.

In like manner, some authority may be found for the American use of the word “ugly” to signify bad-tempered.

Words are used in America which have ceased to be commonly used in England, and are, indeed, no longer regarded as admissible. Thus, the word “unbeknown” which no educated Englishman ever uses, either in speaking or in writing, is still used in America in common speech and by writers of repute.

Occasionally, writers from whom one would expect at least correct grammar make mistakes which in England would be regarded as very bad—mistakes which are not, indeed, passed over in America, but still attract less notice there than in England. Thus, Mr. Wilkie, who is so severe on English English in “Sketches beyond the Seas,” describes himself as saying (in reply to the question whether Chicago policemen have to use their pistols much), “I don’t know _as_ they have to as a matter of law or necessity, but I know they do as a matter of fact;” and I have repeatedly heard this incorrect use of “as” for “that” in American conversation. I have also noted in works by educated Americans the use of the word “that” as an adverb, “that excitable,” “that head-strong,” and so forth. So the use of “lay” for “lie” seems to me to be much commoner in America than in England, though it is too frequently heard here also. In a well-written novelette called “The Man who was not a Colonel,” the words—“You was” and “Was you?” are repeatedly used, apparently without any idea that they are ungrammatical. They are much more frequently heard in America than in England (I refer, of course, to the conversation of the middle and better classes, not of the uneducated). In this respect it is noteworthy that the writers of the last century resemble Americans of to-day; for we often meet in their works the incorrect usage in question.

And here it may be well to consider the American expression “I guess,” which is often made the subject of ridicule by Englishmen, unaware of the fact that the expression is good old English. It is found in a few works written during the last century, and in many written during the seventeenth century. So careful a writer as Locke used the expression more than once in his treatise “On the Human Understanding.” In fact, the disuse of the expression in later times seems to have been due to a change in the meaning of the word “guess.” An Englishman who should say “I guess” now, would not mean what Locke did when he used the expression in former times, or what an American means when he uses it in our own day. We say, “I guess that riddle,” or “I guess what you mean,” signifying that we think the answer to the riddle, or the meaning of what we have heard, may be such and such. But when an American says, “I guess so,” he does not mean “I think it may be so,” but more nearly “I know it to be so.” The expression is closely akin to the old English saying, “I wis.” Indeed, the words “guess” and “wis” are simply different forms of the same word. Just as we have “guard” and “ward,” “guardian” and “warden,” “Guillaume” and “William,” “guichet” and “wicket,” etc., so we have the verbs to “guess” and to “wis.” (In the Bible we have not “I wis,” but we have “he wist.”) “I wis” means nearly the same as “I know,” and that this is the root-meaning of the word is shown by such words as “wit,” “witness,” “wisdom,” the legal phrase “to-wit,” and so forth. “Guess” was originally used in the same sense; and Americans retain that meaning, whereas in our modern English the word has changed in significance.

It may be added, that in many parts of America we find the expression “I guess” replaced by “I reckon,” and “I calculate” (the “I cal’late” of the _Biglow Papers_). In the South, “I reckon” is generally used, and in parts of New England “I calculate,” though (I am told) less commonly than of yore. It is obvious from the use of such words as “reckon” and “calculate” as equivalents for “guess,” that the expression “I guess” is not, as many seem to imagine, equivalent to the English “I suppose” and “I fancy.” An American friend of mine, in response to the question by an Englishman (an exceedingly positive and dogmatic person, as it chanced), “Why do Englishmen never say ‘I guess?’” replied (more wittily than justly), “Because they are always so positive about everything.” But it is noteworthy that whereas the American says frequently, “I guess,” meaning “I know,” the Englishman as freely lards his discourse with the expression, “You know,” which is, perhaps, more modest. Yet, on the other side, it may be noted, that the “down east” American often uses the expression “I want to know,” in the same sense as our English expression of attentive interest, “Indeed?”

Among other familiar Americanisms may be mentioned the following:—

An American who is interested in a narrative or statement will say, “Is that so?” or simply “So!” The expression “Possible!” is sometimes, but not often, heard. Dickens misunderstood this exclamation as equivalent to “It is possible, but does not concern me;” whereas, in reality, it is equivalent to the expression, “Is it possible?” I have occasionally heard the exclamation “Do tell!” but it is less frequently heard now than of yore.

The word “right” is more frequently used than in England, and is used also in senses different from those understood in our English usage of the word. Thus, the American will say “right here” and “right there,” where an Englishman would say “just here” or “just there,” or simply, “here” or “there.” Americans say “right away,” where we say “directly.” On the other hand, I am inclined to think that the English expression “right well,” for “very well,” is not commonly used in America.

Americans say “yes, sir,” and “no, sir,” with a sense different from that with which the words are used in England; but they mark the difference of sense by a difference of intonation. Thus, if a question is asked to which the reply in England would be simply “yes” or “no” (or, according to the rank or station of the querist, “yes, sir,” or “no, sir,”), the American reply would be “yes, sir,” or “no, sir,” intonated as with us in England. But if the reply is intended to be emphatic, then the intonation is such as to throw the emphasis on the word “sir”—the reply is “yes, _sir_” or “no, _sir_.” In passing, I may note that I have never heard an American waiter reply “yessir,” as our English waiters often do.

The American use of the word “quit” is peculiar. They do not limit the word, as we do, to the signification “take leave”—in fact, I have never heard an American use the word in that sense. They generally use it as equivalent to “leave off” or “stop.” (In passing, one may notice as rather strange the circumstance that the word “quit,” which properly means “to go away from,” and the word “stop,” which means to “stay,” should both have come to be used as signifying to “leave off.”) Thus, Americans say “quit fooling” for “leave off playing the fool,” “quit singing,” “quit laughing,” and so forth.

To English ears an American use of the word “some” sounds strange—viz., as an adverb. An American will say, “I think some of buying a new house,” or the like, for “I have some idea of buying,” etc. I have indeed heard the usage defended as perfectly correct, though assuredly there is not an instance in all the wide range of English literature which will justify it.

So also, many Americans defend as good English the use of the word “good” in such phrases as the following:—“I have written that note good,” for “well;” “it will make you feel good,” for “it will do you good;” and in other ways, all equally incorrect. Of course, there are instances in which adjectives are allowed by custom to be used as adverbs, as, for instance, “right” for “rightly,” etc.; but there can be no reason for substituting the adjective “good” in place of the adverb “well,” which is as short a word, and at least equally euphonious. The use of “real” for “really,” as “real angry,” “real nice,” is, of course, grammatically indefensible.

The word “sure” is often used for “surely” in a somewhat singular way, as in the following sentence from “Sketches beyond the Sea,” in which Mr. Wilkie is supposed to be quoting a remark made by an English policeman: “If policemen went to shooting in this country, there would be some hanging, sure; and not wholly among the classes that would be shot at, either.” (In passing, note that the word “either” is never pronounced _eyether_ in America, but always _eether_, whereas in England we seem to use either pronunciation indifferently.)

An American seldom uses the word “stout” to signify “fat,” saying generally “fleshy.” Again, for our English word “hearty,” signifying “in very good health,” an American will sometimes employ the singularly inappropriate word “rugged.” (It corresponds pretty nearly with our word “rude”—equally inappropriate—in the expression “rude health.”)

The use of the word “elegant” for “fine” strikes English ears as strange. For instance, if you say to an American, “This is a fine morning,” he is likely to reply, “It _is_; an elegant morning,” or perhaps oftener by using simply the word “elegant.” It is not a pleasing use of the word.

There are some Americanisms which seem more than defensible—in fact, grammatically more correct than our English usage. Thus, we seldom hear in America the redundant word “got” in such expressions as “I have got,” etc., etc. Where the word would not be redundant, it is generally replaced by the more euphonious word “gotten,” now scarcely ever heard in England. Yet again, we often hear in America such expressions as “I shall get me a new book,” “I have gotten me a dress,” “I must buy me that,” and the like. This use of “me” for “myself” is good old English, at any rate.

I have been struck by the circumstance that neither the conventional, but generally very absurd, American of our English novelists, nor the conventional, but at least equally absurd, Englishman of American novelists, is made to employ the more delicate Americanisms or Anglicisms. We generally find the American “guessing” or “calculating,” if not even more coarsely Yankee, like Reade’s Joshua Fullalove; while the Englishman of American novels is almost always very coarsely British, even if he is not represented as using what Americans persist in regarding as the true “Henglish haccent.” Where an American is less coarsely drawn, as Trollope’s “American Senator,” he uses expressions which no American ever uses, and none of those Americanisms which, while more delicate, are in reality more characteristic, because they are common, all Americans using them. And in like manner, when an American writer introduces an Englishman of the more natural sort, he never makes him speak as an Englishman would speak; before half a dozen sentences have been uttered, he uses some expression which is purely American. Thus, no Englishman ever uses, and an American may be recognized at once by using, such expressions as “I know it,” or “That’s so,” for “It is true;” by saying “Why, certainly,” for “Certainly;” and so forth. There are many of these slight but characteristic peculiarities of American and English English.—_“Knowledge” Library._

STILL YOUNG.

By ELLEN O. PECK.